The Philadelphia Ordinariate Post

A Newsletter of the of St Michael the Archangel and the Blessed John Henry Newman Catholic Community

www.ordinariatephiladelphia.org 6611 Ardleigh Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19119 215-247-1092

February, 2015 Dear Parishioners and Friends, begins on February 18th this year: the services will be at 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. (sic) in Mount Airy at St Thérèse, and 5 p.m. in Strafford at Our Lady of the Assumption. While not a Holy Day of Obligation, Ash Wednesday is a day when we will all wish to assist in the offering of the Mass, and of course to receive the ashes. Kindly return your palms from last year's Palm Sunday by Quinquagesima so that they can burned to make the ashes. St Michael's will again join with Holy Cross for the night Stations of the Cross and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The services are at St Madeleine Sophie (6440 Greene Street; parking off Clivedon Street), at 7 p.m., beginning February 20th. Fr Grogan and I will share the preaching and officiating. As last year,we will also alternate between “our” rite of Stations, and the one Holy Cross uses. The Newman Community has historically had their Lenten devotions on Wednesdays rather than Fridays, and will continue the custom this year. Stations and Benediction will be at 7 at Our Lady of the Assumption, on February 25th, and March 4th, 11th and 18th. (Since March 25th is the Annunciation, there will be no Stations that night.) A precedes Stations at 6 in the Sacred Heart Chapel downstairs. Rita Moyer is coordinating the suppers, so if you would like to volunteer, please speak with her. Lent is the season of penitence and self-denial. I encourage you to make a sacramental confession at the beginning of Lent as well as before Easter. Penitence is not confined to Lent – perhaps if we sinned only in Lent we could restrict our penitence to Lent. But being a Christian is to be a redeemed sinner. To have the joy of being redeemed, we must always be aware that we are sinners. Lent helps us remember this, even as we join with our Lord in the wilderness, where He fasted and was tempted forty days. In this, He is the new Israel, reflecting the old Israel on the way to the Promised Land from slavery in Egypt. They were fed with manna, the bread from heaven, and water from the Rock which was Christ. They were led day by day by the pillar of cloud and fire, under the immediate direction of God. It was the time for them to learn to trust and obey God implicitly. Christian life is likewise a journey from the slavery of sin to the Promised Land of heaven. It is often a wilderness, full of dryness and temptation – it was such for Jesus as well as for Israel. But there are vital lessons to be learned there, lessons about needing God's sustenance and guidance. Lessons about trusting Him rather than ourselves. Lessons about preferring manna (in our case, the Bread and Wine of the ever-recurring Eucharist)to the leeks and the garlic and fleshpots of Egypt. These are lessons which the self-denial and fasting of Lent will help teach us. The Precepts of the tell us that we must make a sacramental confession whenever we are aware of mortal sin, and in any case once a year at Easter. Because the Church tells us to is a good reason for making our confession. A better reason is that we love Jesus, and regret that we have offended Him and want to make things right. The same is true for fasting. The Church's requirements are very modest. In the United States, those between the ages of 14 and 59 are required to fast on Ash Wednesday and (eating one full meal; two smaller meals are permitted, not to equal one full meal), and all who are 14 or older are required to abstain from meat on the Fridays in Lent. It is good for us to follow the rule because the Church has set it for us. But far better to approach the Lenten fast not in terms of how little we can get away with and still be okay, but in terms of what we can do which will manifest and foster the love of God within us. In other words, what kind of fast is expressive of the love we have and want to have for Jesus, who fasted forty days in the wilderness for our sake? With this in mind, those of us past our fifty-ninth birthday will still want to fast, even if health concerns prevent a strict fast every weekday of Lent. Traditionally, all the weekdays of Lent are fast days; in addition the Wednesdays and Fridays are days of abstinence from flesh meat. The point of the fast is to eat less, as in the rule noted above for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. If the “one full meal and two smaller meals” gets too complicated (as in, How much is “smaller”?), consider eliminating snacks, seconds, desserts, and alcohol. The Sundays of Lent are not days of fasting. I would note that our Ordinary also encourages abstinence on all the Fridays of the year apart from Christmastide and Paschaltide. And the Ash Wednesday/Good is kept by many as a strict fast from all solid food until 3 p.m. In addition to fasting, Lent is a good time to take on some additional Christian devotion: daily spiritual reading, Friday Stations of the Cross, an additional weekday Mass, Morning or Evening Prayer, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, meditation or lectio divina. We prepare for the events of Holy Week, in which Christ redeemed us from sin and death, by serious penitence and devotion. That there are forty days for this reflects Jesus' forty days in the wilderness after His baptism, as He prepared for His public ministry, and in His temptations, prepared for the temptations He endured on the Cross. Many people also take on some special service of the poor or those in need during Lent. This can help keep your Lenten discipline from becoming self-centered. If you would like to discuss what might be a good Lenten rule in your particular situation, just ask. The annual Lenten Quiet Day is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, March 14th, at St Thérèse. Details next month. Home School Outreach With fortuitous coincidence, a couple of home-schooling families found there way to St Michael's in January. We got to talking, and it appears that there is no Catholic Church in the area which has taken on the mission of supporting home-schooling families. So I offered to do what we can. The first need they identified was for a group for high school age youth, aimed at helping them to be Catholic in a world which is not sympathetic (to say the least) to a Catholic life. Renee McCullough and Claire Thomas were willing to do the organizational work, and (wonder of wonders) we are launching the group on February 20th. Matt Hummel (who teaches religion to high school girls at Gwynedd Mercy) has agreed to help me lead the group. We welcome teens from our parishes, even if they are attending a high school rather than home-schooling. If you know any who might be interested, please let me know, and I'll see that they (and their parents) get complete information and an invitation. On the 20th, we'll meet for pizza and some discussion at the rectory, and then go over to St Madeleine Sophie for the Lenten Stations of the Cross. This is an exciting development. I look forward to working with the kids, and to hearing from them what we can do to help them along as Christians. I also have great respect for parents who decide to home school. We are talking about other ways we might be able to support their efforts. I am glad Renee and Claire found their way to St Michael's! Extraordinary Ordinary Visit This just in. Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, whom you all know as our Ordinary in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, will be visiting us on Passion Sunday, March 22nd. He will be visiting St Michael's in the morning and the Newman Community in the evening, at our usual service times. In addition to preaching, he will be spending time with each congregation after the Masses. I will have further details in next month's POP. Meanwhile, please mark your calendars, and begin to spread the word. Fr Bergman's Visit It was a treat to have a visit from our Ordinariate neighbor to the north, the Pastor of St Thomas More in Scranton, in January. Hearing of their journey after they came into the communion of the Catholic Church ten years ago was encouraging to those of us – St Michael's and Newman – who are not as far down the road. His advice of being clear about our mission and sticking to it is well taken. If we are faithful to what God has given us to do, both in terms of practicing the Anglican Patrimony, and in bringing folk into the fulness of the Catholic Church, then we are bound to be blessed. The particular growth points in St Thomas More's history – the beginning of a youth outreach, the hiring of administrative help and acquiring their own buildings – may or may not translate to our situations. But their experience invites us to reflect on our needs and opportunities, and to see how we can best use the resources we have. This is an on-going conversation and discernment. We have had follow-up discussions in both congregations, and I am always happy to hear from any of you with ideas about how to foster the growth of our congregations. Missions While St Michael's is of limited means, we continue to contribute to several mission and service works outside the parish. These include Mercy Vocational High School, the only Catholic vocational high school in the country, and our neighbor on Hunting Park Avenue when we were at St James the Less; the Whosoever Gospel Mission in Germantown, which works with the homeless, and especially with homeless men struggling with addiction; Harvest USA, a Christian ministry which helps individuals and families affected by sexual struggles (an increasing problem these days); the National Catholic Bioethics Center, which provides educational resources, research and consultation on bio-ethical questions (run by our old friend from Ivy Hall, John Haas); and St Anna's Home, the Philadelphia branch house of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor. Pancakes? With the approach of Lent, we recall that in the last couple years we have had a pancake breakfast on Quinquagesima – February 15th this year. If there is interest (including interest in volunteering to help!) we'll do it again. If you would like to volunteer, please speak with my wife as soon as possible. I want to extend a special word of thanks to all those who have agreed to help out with St Michael's coffee hour. We are trying to divide up the responsibilities and spread around the tasks, so that it is less of a burden on anyone. Coffee hour is important for us, especially since we are geographically spread, and it is a key time for everyone to keep up with everyone else. Since our numbers are small, we need the contributions – of time and talent as well as treasure – from everyone. We still need a few more people to help out – to clean up once a month, and to bring fruit or veggies. Many thanks to Janis Wilson and Leslie Altena who have so ably handled these things, but needed to pass the torch at this time. In the Archdiocese The John Cardinal Krol Chair of Moral Theology at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary is sponsoring a lecture series beginning in March. "Continuing the Search for Religious Freedom: 50 Years After Vatican II's Digitatis Humanae" features four separate speakers throughout March and April. Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. begins the series on March 17 as he discusses "Present Trials and Future Challenges." Additional speakers include Mr. William Mumma, Dr. Robert P. George and Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore. All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, call (610) 785- 6500 or visit www.scs.edu. Yours faithfully, Fr David Ousley