21st Sunday of the Year

'You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church' - Matthew 16:18

Sistine chapel Fresco, Pietro Perugino

The ‘power of the Church derives from this moment in the Gospels where Jesus gives the authority and power to Peter and the disciples. Today we celebrate the gift of the church and especially the Sacraments which Christ gave to the Church so that people like us could be first accepted and then retained within the Church despite our unworthiness.

Items in this week's newsletter:

CONSIDERING YOUR VOCATION AS A DEACON? :Oscott Seminary have introduced a preparatory year for men discerning a call to the Permanent Diaconate. This Propaedeutic year consists of three sessions (Friday-Saturday) and commences on 10th/11th November. The other dates for this academic year are 26th/27th January and 16/17th March.  Its aim is to help candidates better understand the reality of a vocation to Holy Orders and to discern whether this is what God is calling them to. There will be Parish based pastoral elements, spiritual formation and intellectual input given through teaching, seminars and discussions.   Wives of prospective candidates will also be supported during these days and are encouraged to attend. Attendance at these days does not commit an individual to beginning the formation program, but is part of the overall selection process.For further information, please e-mail Fr Peter Hart as soon as possible, or complete the Preliminary enquiry form. Application deadline is 1st November.

ORDINATIONS TO THE PRIESTHOOD. Deacon Ian Westby will be raised to the Sacred Priesthood on Tuesday 24th October in Stockton-on-Tees. Please keep him in your prayers. The Ordination of Deacons at Spanish Place in June was a great occasion and plans are already being made regarding priestly Ordinations next year. It is likely that our two Scottish deacons will be ordained in Scotland and I hope that we will have one Ordination Mass for the other candidates at a central location.

ORDINARIATE LAY CONFERENCE 2018. The Pastoral Council of the Ordinariate is arranging a Lay Conference to be held at Worth Abbey form 7th-9th August 2018. The theme of the conference is Being Ordinariate and it is envisaged that each Group will send 2 to 5 delegates who will return to their groups feeling ‘enthused, motivated, informed, and empowered’. Full board accommodation at Worth Abbey will cost £60 per person per night and for any wishing to go this will be covered by the Reading Mission. Full details will follow, but please let Fr Elliott know if you would like to be one of the delegates.

Kevin McNamara RIP. Jesu mercy, Mary pray.

Feast of the Epiphany

The Epiphany is always very heavily loaded with imagery and this is for two principal reasons. Firstly there are many traditions and these additional traditions means that Mass on the day of the Epiphany itself always becomes very crowded with the rich variety – with Magi water, the blessing of chalk, the presentation of incense, procession to the crib, and the proclamation of the date of Easter. For this reason we will use the shorter Eucharistic prayer today and also move from the creed straight to the offertory. Please as you offer your incense to the priest offer it for some cause or person by way of an intercession.

The second reason Epiphany can be crowded is that we mark not one but three events: the coming of the Magi, the Baptism of Christ, and the first miracle at the Wedding at Cana in Galilee. Some years each of these gets a dedicated Sunday (in year C – such as last year). Other years we only get two and occasionally only one Sunday. This is one such year where we get one Sunday, with the Baptism falling in the week. So there is far too much for us to celebrate in one Mass. I encourage you all to ponder on the mysteries of the Epiphany over the next few days so that the great richness that is offered does not go unheeded.

Reading Ordinariate group calendar

Our calendar for the year's events can now be found online by clicking here. This calendar will be updated throughout the year, a link to the most up-to-date calendar will appear in the sidebar (non-mobile version only).

Happy New Year ... again

Although Mary is the Mother of God, she is not his mother in the sense that she is older than God or the source of her Son's divinity, for she is neither. Rather, we say that she is the Mother of God in the sense that she carried in her womb a divine person - Jesus Christ, God 'In the flesh' (2 John 7, c.f. John 1:14) - and in the sense that she contributed the genetic matter to the human form God took in Jesus Christ.

To avoid this conclusion, Fundamentalists often assert that Mary did not carry God in her womb but only carried Christ's human nature. This assertion reinvents a heresy from the fifth century known as Nestorianism, which runs aground on the fact that a mother does not merely carry the nature of her child in her womb. Rather, she carries the person of her child. Women do not give birth to human natures; they give birth to persons. Mary thus carried and gave birth to the person of Jesus Christ, and the person she gave birth to was God.

The Nestorian claim that Mary did not give birth to the unified person of Jesus Christ attempts to separate Christ's human nature from his divine nature, creating two separate and distinct persons - one divine and one human - united in a loose affiliation. It is therefore a Christological heresy, which even the Protestant Reformers recognized. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin insisted on Mary's divine maternity. In fact, it even appears that Nestorius himself may not have believed the heresy named after him. Futher, the 'Nestorian' church has now signed a joint declaration on Christology with the Catholic Church and recognizes Mary's divine maternity, just as other Christians do.