together THE VOICE OF CATHOLIC ANGLICANS EASTER 2018 Once a UR AL C AT N ES O S I O T I C D I E D T A Y p a s s i o d n o o at h e a st Priest... bout prie On 23rd February this year I will have been a bishop for fifteen years. However, ACS Moving on Page 14 for only two of those years was I serving as a diocesan bishop in the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea after which I was constrained to return home to The Church Union England because of a heart condition which, I was advised, would have limited and challenged the episcopal ministry the people of my diocese had every right to expect of their chief pastor. Since 2005, then, I have done what I have always done as a priest: I have been a pastor in the parochial ministry. At the beginning of this piece of writing, Communications & Growth perhaps I might be allowed to engage in a Page 12 little bit of reflecting on what this has meant for me? For all those years since I returned to a parish-based ministry, I have rejoiced in the privilege and calling of priesthood and of serving people in the everyday life of a parish. Only very occasionally do I stand amongst the faithful clothed as a bishop even though, of course, I share fully in the episcopal order and, I realize, every sacramental action I perform I do as a bishop. I am grateful to my episcopal colleagues who value my ministry (sadly, there are one or two who do not welcome this) and who allow me to share in consultation and decision-making on, say, the Council of Bishops. So any ministry I offer, Page 13 THIS IS HOLY WEEK Making the Most of Holy Week Page 3 pages 6-11 Holy Week Explained pages 4-5 2 Together EASTER 2018 visit our website: www.glastonburypilgrimage.co.uk Once a Priest.. Continued from front page whatever the circumstances, comes largely Weeks what has been celebrated and Then we listened to that part of the gospel from the perspective of the incumbent and enacted on Palm Sunday – a sharing in the which describes the passion and death of parish priest. I hope that this means that I Kingship of Christ through the mystery of his our Lord. This week, then, we are to set out can offer a suggestion or a view from the crucifixion, burial, and rising again. It is an to meet Christ in his passion, in those last bottom up, as it were, from the level of the uphill task so often, reflecting the Lord’s own days of his suffering. We go out to meet him parish and the parochial clergy to that of carrying of his cross, because it opens each first, in order to follow him. He said to us: ‘If episcope. Sometimes bishops forget what it one of us up to experiencing the pain, the you want to be my disciple, you must deny means to be one of the presbytery; and, yourself, take up your cross and follow me.’ sometimes, those in the presbytery lose So in what we read in the gospel story and sight of how it must be for one who has the from our own experience of life and what is care of all the churches. So sometimes, going on in the world around us, the perhaps, I can offer an insight to each that experience of the world’s suffering is taken may be of value. Since 2012 I have also It is during Holy Week, of by Christ in order to sanctify it, to give it been Superior-General of the Confraternity of meaning and significance. This week, the Blessed Sacrament, the oldest of our course, that the work of almost hour by hour, we can follow Christ in devotional societies for both laity and priest and people combine those moments of his passion. It is good, priests, and it has been this particular “most” wonderfully to bring then, to decide now that this is indeed going ministry which has brought me most into to be a Holy Week, a different week, a week contact with people and clergy and allowed about that full and proper when we meet Christ in his passion, in order me to enter into their shared pastoral life. remembrance of the Lord’s that when the resurrection is celebrated we This has been immensely enriching and can, after Easter Sunday, follow him more encouraging to my ministry as a bishop (as Passion and Death. closely and witness to him – Christ who has been that which has flowed from the suffered, died and rose from the dead” (from Glastonbury Pilgrimage Association), and I Cardinal Hume: a Spiritual Companion – must offer my thanks to so many for their Reflections Through the Year Lion Books welcome and affection. 2000). wormwood and the gall, of the last days of It is during Holy Week, of course, that the the life of Jesus. There is enough pain and Bishop Roger Jupp work of priest and people combine most bitterness in everyday life – priests who wonderfully to bring about that full and know their communities and their people proper remembrance of the Lord’s Passion know that very well – so why should we add and Death. During it, too, the bishop plays to that by going with Christ to the cross? College of Readers his part both as apostle and as priest, and Such reticence, such an anxiety, is very Patron. The Rt. Revd Norman Banks this is particularly emphasized at the Chrism understandable, of course. But if, Sunday by Bishop of Richborough Mass where people, prebyterate and bishop Sunday, people’s hearts are properly gather together in celebration of Jesus Christ touched by what is unfolded in the Eucharist, Co-patron. The Rt. Revd Martyn JarreÌt who is the Messiah, the Anointed One, and they already have a point of entry into the who, as our Eternal High Priest, intensity and the beauty of what is gradually Are you a licensed Reader “incorporates us into his living Body, the opened up through the liturgies of Maundy (Licensed Lay Minister)? Church, giving us a share in his Priesthood in Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. It The College of Readers is an organisation different ways” (Ceremonies of the Liturgical is my perception that what we teach which aims to provide support, study opportunities Year, p.81). regularly about the mystery of the Eucharist and spiritual development for Readers who accept actually prepares our people for a full the traditional understanding of the apostolic One of the most difficult tasks of the priest participation in what Holy Week means for in the parish is attempting to get as many of each one of us. It is in that soil that our best ministry of bishops, priests and deacons. his people as possible to participate fully in planting is done if we want to grow and Annual membership is £15.00: the round of liturgical observance during nurture a full and deep understanding of Chairman : Barry Barnes Holy Week. How many people say to us celebrating the passion of Jesus Christ Further information may be obtained from clergy in the run-up to Christmas, “This is which is the call of Holy Week. Mary Snape (Treasurer/Registrar) your busy time, vicar!”? Carol services make 01782 332606 Christmas is the popular belief. My answer Looking forward to Holy Week, these words [email protected] to this is always the same: “Why not try out of Cardinal Basil Hume have helped me in www.college-of-readers.org.uk Holy Week? That’s when you will see us all my encouragement of others to properly busy!” And this isn’t just from those share more fully in the liturgies who are largely ignorant about religious which, year on year, are given to us. matters. Often we will find that those who They come from a Palm Sunday would see themselves as “church-going homily preached in 1997. You may Christians” in the fullest sense are those like to ponder them as you think who appear on Palm Sunday but yet do not about how you intend to keep Holy appear again until Easter Sunday. St Paul Week. reminds us that, in order to be glorified with Christ, we must be prepared to suffer with “Today, Palm Sunday, we remember him (Romans 8:17). It is our role as pastors how the crowds went out to meet to encourage all our people to do their Christ calling out: ‘Blessed is he who utmost to continue throughout this Week of comes in the name of the Lord.’ Making the most of Holy Week By now we are well advanced into the Lent and its culmination will arrive shortly in the shape of Holy Week. This is the most important time of the Christian Year and it will take on a greater significance for us individually as well as corporately if we think ahead and prepare ourselves for this great celebration. Holy Week, which we shall celebrate shortly, has a shape, this participation, we each of us enter more deeply into the rhythm and flavour all of its own and coming to a fuller mystery of God’s love. Holy Week is not a dramatic understanding of what these are will help us to get the most reconstruction of those events two thousand years ago.