Preparing for the LiturgyAscot races, beloved by Her Majesty, is over for another year; but another race is still running — The Ordinariate Stakes. It seems an eternity since those Ordinations of the three recently retired Provincial Episcopal Visitors. Now the ordinations to the priesthood of the first wave of Anglican clergy is almost at an end. There is a temptation to compare and contrast, when you have been to a few of these. Does the Masonic Temple look of Brentwood Cathedral make for more intimate liturgy than the Byzantine Splendour of Westminster? Is the reordering of Gothic Revival more successful in Portsmouth or Plymouth? If one dares, one might even comment on the style of the consecrating Bishops… but that would be worth more than my non-job is worth.
All the Ordinations I've attended (and Msgr. Keith has been to far more than I have) have been lovely, and each has been very different from the others. There was the splendid choral singing (very Anglican Patrimony!) in Westminster, and the great warmth with which the Archbishop greeted the newly ordained. Most moving of all, his kneeling to ask each of them a blessing at the end of the Mass. The Bishop of Brentwood was especially generous in the way he included Msgr. Keith throughout, and shared the Blessing with him. Our own Bishop of Portsmouth spoke "from heart to heart" most movingly, very appreciative of our previous ministry as Anglicans.
Last night, Bishop Christopher Budd was the Ordaining Bishop in his Cathedral Church of SS Mary and Boniface in Plymouth. He emphasised how we are all Catholics, not in separate compartments, and it was good to have him ordain a diocesan priest along with the seven for the Ordinariate. The occasion was very special for me, since I spent most of my youth — from 8 to 18 — in that City, and I began to learn the faith from a redoubtable Anglo-Catholic priest, Fr. Dan Wood in the Parish of St. Thomas' Keyham.
There was a very impressive turnout of diocesan priests. I knew many of them some years ago — one had been a student during my time at St Stephen's House. About half a dozen of them I recognised as former Anglicans, and I believe there were more. We Candidates have all come to know one another very well during our time of intensive preparation at Allen Hall, though again some of us were friends already. This term continues on Tuesday with our Faculty Examinations (it will be difficult for me: I lost most of my faculties some years ago), and ends the following week with a party to which our wives are also invited.
Each of the Ordinations seems to have had elements of Anglican Patrimony, but that was especially true last night in Plymouth where we were able to sing virtually every hymn without reference to the service sheet. "All My Hope On God Is Founded" led us in; the Gregory Murray Kyrie and Gloria were very familiar. Bishop Cosin's masterly translation of "Veni, Creator Spiritus" was sung during the anointing, and at the Offertory "Alleluia, Sing To Jesus" to the great Welsh tune Hyfrydol. "All For Jesus" preceded the Blessing, and we left the Cathedral singing "Ye Who Own The Faith Of Jesus". Lovely.
Robbie & Peter (the Ordinary rather blurred in the background)It was good for me to be able to introduce old friends from different phases of my life. Peter Glazebrook, who has taught Law first in Exeter and then for many years in Jesus College, Cambridge, was an undergraduate at Pembroke Oxford with one of the Candidates, Robin Ellis. I was an exact contemporary of Peter's at Pembroke, reading Theology while he got to grips with the Law. He chatted animatedly with Robbie Low, who'd been Vicar of Bushey Heath when I was the Richborough PEV. Now he is himself awaiting preparation for ordination in Plymouth diocese.
Next Saturday, three more for the Ordinariate in this Diocese of Portsmouth. Very soon this first series of Ordinations will be at an end — then we begin to prepare for the next wave; and the next, and the next. Roll on these 'waves that beat on heaven's door'. Some of those in the congregation last night will surely be carried along on those waves. Maybe — to keep the racing analogy going — they are white horses, off-shore just now but soon to roll in?
Related posts:
The Silk RoadThis One's Close To Home!Keeping Certain Facts Straight"Thou art a priest forever…"What a Day!
Bishop Barnes read theology for three years at Oxford before finishing his studies at Cuddesdon College (at the time a theological college with a rather monastic character). He subsequently served two urban curacies in Portsmouth and Woking. During his first curacy, and after the statutory three years of celibacy, he married his wife Jane (with whom he has two children, Nicola and Matthew). In 1967, Bishop Barnes received his first incumbency as Rector of Farncombe in the Diocese of Guildford. After eleven years, the family moved to Hessle, in the Diocese of York, for another nine years as vicar. In 1987, he became Principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford. In 1995, he was asked by then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, to become the second PEV for the Province. He was based in St. Alban’s and charged with ministering to faithful Anglo-Catholics spread over the length of Southern England, from the Humber Estuary to the Channel Islands. After six years of service as a PEV, Bishop Barnes retired to Lymington on the south coast where he holds the Bishop of Winchester’s license as an honorary assistant bishop. On the retirement of the late and much lamented Bishop Eric Kemp, he was honored to be asked to succeed him as President of the Church Union, which office he still holds. 
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