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of Our Lady of the Southern Cross MELBOURNE INFORMATION DAY

14th July 2012

Firstly I would like to say how happy I am to share this day with you. The programme you have devised is designed to be informative, educative and encouraging and it is good to see so many of you here. When I was asked to provide a title for this talk I quickly thought of, “The chicken has hatched.” Then of course I had to think why I had called it that. In nature, when chickens hatch, they follow the first moving object they see after they have emerged from the shell. In the wild that is the mother hen, but in laboratory experiments they have been found to follow flashing lights or any other moving object. The Ordinariate has been erected, and as the Ordinary I must avoid slavishly following the first models of the UK or USA Ordinariates, as I must avoid the demands and requirements of those bloggers on sites who are experts in all matters religious even though their grasp of the facts is somewhat limited. We can learn from the experience of the British and American Ordinariates, but we must put flesh on the skeleton of the Anglicanorum Coetibus document that reflects our Australian circumstances. Contrary to most things in Australia, the Ordinariate has begun in the West and will spread East! The spread will not be at the speed some people expect, and now we have hit the northern hemisphere summer when the Vatican is on an emergency only footing, combined with the appointment of a new Prefect of the CDF, further progress in processing new application dossiers will be delayed. That doesn’t mean nothing can happen, but please be patient.

On June 15th I was ordained in Perth and appointed as Ordinary. I have no other to help me run my , no office or admin assistance until Monday July 16, yet by the next morning questions were asked by the bloggers about the non existence of an Ordinariate website. One even asked the question whether there are only 50 in the Australian Ordinariate – well as there is only one parish at the moment, what more can be expected? I am conscious of how important it is for the foundations of the Ordinariate to be solid; otherwise we will only lay up problems for ourselves in the future. We will grow, but it must be sure and certain.

It is highly likely that Melbourne will be the next cab off the rank, so it is within divine providence that this information day is being held today. As your Ordinary appointed by the Holy Father, I do not see myself as many other Christian leaders see themselves, that is as a CEO, an enabler, a facilitator or co-ordinator. Rather I have been appointed to be your leader but as always, I must try to be a servant leader. I am very aware that I am responsible to my own Ordinary who is the Holy Father himself, and so the decisions I make must be first and foremost for the good of souls, the growth of the Kingdom and the benefit of the whole . Like the abbot of a , the Ordinary must listen to differing views that are sincerely held within the Ordinariate, but in the end he makes the decisions that must become the policy and practice of the Ordinariate. The Ordinary will please some of the people some of the time, but none of the people all of the time. When a governing council, a finance council and pastoral councils are formed, they also will be important components in the decision making process. One of the big changes Anglicans will face on entering the Ordinariate is the difference in culture between the two churches in certain matters. Because Anglicans have lived in a Church with both Protestant and Catholic threads for 500 years, we tend to have absorbed some Protestant understandings of our relationship with God and how the Church should be governed. We tend to be individualistic both within our own spiritual lives and as a parish where too often we think that if something isn’t happening in my parish, it isn’t happening. Anglo-Catholic clergy have lived with a siege mentality for so long that they tend to be liturgically and organisationally independent and pathologically incapable of exercising any kind of obedience to . I know because I have been there! Catholic culture is much more community orientated. Catholics do have their personal relationship with God, but that is within the faith of the whole Church. Individuals may have their own views on certain matters, but accept that the view of the Church must prevail. Their advantage over Anglicans is that Catholics know what the view of the Church is; Anglicans do not because the Church does not have an articulated view on most things. Hence in Catholic culture there is much less tolerance of mavericks, be they liturgical, theological or spiritual. This emphasis on community is why the Holy Father intended that groups of Anglicans together with their pastor enter the Ordinariate. You come as a group, but within that group, each individual must make his or her own decision about whether they wish to enter into full communion with the . Forty of my parish did so a couple of hours before my , so all were able to receive communion at the Ordination mass. I am in the process of receiving another 20 who for various reasons could not be there on the night.

The Holy Father wants us to bring the treasures of our Anglican heritage with us, and offer them as a gift to the Church. I think we need to rediscover what those gifts really are. We talk of singing proper hymns, of preaching, of good music and pastoral care, but I have come to believe that these are consequences of something deeper. What we must rediscover and bring, is our English Spiritual Tradition, which claims continuity with the desert fathers and mothers, with the Celtic Church, St Augustine of Canterbury, SS Benedict, Anselm, Bernard, Aelred, the English mystics of the 14th century such as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Margery Kempe, Henry Rolle, Walter Hilton, and later, the Reformers, the Caroline Divines of the 17th century and the Tractarians, in particular Blessed John Henry Newman.

The English School of is a middle way, a via media. Not so much as a half way position between Catholicism and , but as holding in balance theological and spiritual study, or head knowledge, and how we express that knowledge in our worship and live the Christian life in the world. It is a balance between piety and living in the world, not a little of each, but giving both equal weight. Being only a head knowledge Christian or a charismatic feeling Christian concerned only with justice matters is not the way of English Spirituality. In our tradition, there is equality in the Church. Clergy may like to be on a pedestal, and some laity put them there, but the Church militant here on earth is made up of equal partners who each have their own ministry. This is why the daily prayers of the Church are that of the whole. Laity is expected to recite or hear matins and . The is not only for the clergy. This is something we should revive but remember Mgr Burnham’s new book may be a place to start but is not an authorised text. The Ordinariate is not an Anglican Preservation Society, living in some imagined golden age. It is a non-geographical within the Western Catholic Church, committed to proclaim the gospel and be evangelistic. We will have our that reflects our English tradition, but it is not an end in itself. It reflects what we believe and pray, and its language will be of our tradition. The first sign of our call to evangelise is to gather groups of people who wish to explore the Catholic faith and how it will be lived in an Ordinariate. In time, these groups will hopefully become if there is a who is ordained. In regional areas, groups may gather and identify themselves as an Ordinariate group. If there is no priest they may need to enter into full Catholic communion as a potential Ordinariate group in order to receive the and meet together for non-Eucharistic worship, prayer and study. When possible an Ordinariate priest from a larger centre can travel and celebrate mass in a Catholic church with the agreement of the Ordinary and the local . This is a model based on the Celtic Church. The Ordinariate will grow and become financially self-supporting if we keep our eyes on the Lord, if we are faithful in prayer, scripture reading, study, reception of the sacraments, are evangelistic and live the Christian life wherever we are and whatever we do. In our instant world where things have to happen yesterday, we forget that the biblical image is that of agricultural growth which is much slower. Instant growth, such as Jonah’s gourd is often short lived.

Be patient, work together for the good of each other’s soul, seek the Kingdom of God first, invite others to come, know and love the Lord, then and only then, will God will provide what we need.

Fr Harry Entwistle

Ordinary OLSC

July 14th 2012