THE P RTAL


March 2011


The Ordinary Writes LENT 2011


LENT BEGINS ON Ash Wednesday 9th March


this year and for those who are going to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church before Easter, through the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, it will be a particularly significant one. Many of you reading this letter will be leaving the Church of England in order to prepare through the Lenten season, with you pastor, for reception during Holy Week.


It is a time of uncertainty


and perhaps even anxiety as you leave behind a church building and perhaps a community with which you a r e familiar and comfortable to move forward into something quite new moving forward in faith, not seeing but simply learning to trust in the your support and encouragement need to take to heart the words of


‘Let us run with perseverance the


race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith’


Te season of Lent is not a


conscious recalling of our Lord’s 40 days in the wilderness but a period of preparation of candidates


for


baptism. Although those of you being enrolled for catechesis and preparing to be received into full communion are not catechumens, Lent is nevertheless an ideal time to prepare for such a momentous event in your spiritual lives.


One particular


aspect of your preparation is the fact that you will be unable to receive Holy Communion from Ash Wednesday until Holy Week. I know some of you will find it difficult to sit quietly in your seat as others go the altar to receive the sacrament. Tis is something that Fr Burnham, Father Broadhurst and I did during the Advent season last year and we can vouch that it was an important part of our spiritual preparation for 1st


January when we were received. It


engendered a longing for the sacrament and a desire for the moment we would be in ecclesial as well as Eucharistic communion with the Catholic Church. We need to regain the practice, which many have lost, of making a spiritual communion in our heart when we are unable to receive the sacrament for a particular


and unfamiliar. Tis really is about the future as clearly as we would like Lord. Our clergy in particular need as they make this step of faith. We the Epistle to the Hebrews:


reason. Remember the obligation is to be present at Mass not to receive Holy Communion on every occasion.


WALSINGHAM’S 950th ANNIVERSARY


the 950th


Tis year Walsingham celebrates Anniversary of the


vision of the Lady Richeldis and


the founding of the Shrine in 1061. Te Archbishop of Westminster will preside at Mass in Westminster Cathedral to mark the beginning of six months of celebrations ending on the Feast of our Lady of Walsingham on Saturday 24th


September.


Members of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are warmly invited to take part in


these festivities and particularly to be in


Westminster for the opening Mass on Saturday 26th March at 2.00pm. Te image from the Slipper Chapel will be carried into the Cathedral at the beginning of Mass followed by our three ‘Walsingham Sisters’ and the Guardians of the Anglican Shrine. Tis will be an excellent example of Anglicans and Catholics honouring Our Lady together and I hope that those of you who can make it will be there.


With my prayers as you begin this important Lenten journey, Father Keith Newton


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