The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is one year old this Sunday!
Greetings to all members of the Ordinariate and all our supporters on this milestone in our development. Let us also thank God for the Holy Father, Pope Benedict's discernment of the will of God in erecting the Ordinariate in the Church of our day.
We thank God for Monsignor Keith Newton, our Ordinary, and continue to pray for him.
We thank God also for the erection of the second Ordinariate, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, in the USA, under the patronage of Our Lady of Walsingham, and their Ordinary, Fr Jeffrey Steenson (see website), and we pray for our American brothers and sisters that the rich blessings we have enjoyed may be their's too, and much more besides.
I personally wish to thank God also for the bonds of brotherly love that have developed over the last year with my fellow priests in the ordinariate. I also thank God for the members of the laity who took the risk of entering the Catholic Church as part of the Buckfast branch of the Ordinariate - you may not realise how much your friendship in the journey has supported me over this last year. Lastly I thank God for my wife, children and extended family and friends who have supported and made possible my entry into the Catholic Church.
I pray for God's blessing on you all, and look forward to the next year under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and with the prayers of Our Lady of Walsingham and Blessed John Henry Newman.
Fr Ian Hellyer.
Pastor of the Buckfast Ordinariate Group
P.S. I am sorry there have been no postings over Christmas and Epiphany but alas our broadband provider let us down. We are back on now.
