Fr. Jeff Woolnough Ordinariate Mission Priest

With thanks to the Redbridge & Havering Ordinariate Blog! PRAYERS FOR THE ORDINARIATE Eternal Father, we place before you the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham under the Patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman, for Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church. We thank you for this initiative of Pope Benedict XVI., and we ask that, through the Holy Spirit, as other Ordinariates are formed, around the world, that together we may become: families of charity, peace and the service of the poor, centres for Christian unity and reconciliation, communities that welcome and evangelize, teaching the Faith in all its fullness, celebrating the liturgy and sacraments with prayerful reverence and maintaining a distinctive patrimony of Christian faith and culture. Drawing on that heritage we pray: Go before us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued and ended in thee, w

This past week the Vicarage phone has been ringing more than usual! I have felt a little bit like the girl in the Harmony hairspray ads... do you remember them: "Is she or isn't she"? How do we respond when there appears to be  such media interest in who will join the Ordinariate? "NO COMMENT"!  (yawn). Or: "I'm off... left last week, actually...spending some gardening leave on my yacht in Bermuda"? The truth is plain and simple: Parish groups up and down the land are exploring and through the God given process of discernment, contemplating just what all this might mean...there is a published timetable and as Ainger's hymn goes: 'Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be...' The Southend Echo reported that parishes in The Chelmsford Diocese, along with their clergy and 300 folk are going. The report also named some of the parishes, one according to their tried and tested methods of research being Billeri

We have enjoyed a very fruitful relationship with the local RC parish since my arrival at Hockley 5 1/2 years ago, everything from shared Lent study, May devotions, pilgrimages to Lourdes, Aylseford Priory (to venerate S. Teresa's Relics), preaching and yes, even...wait for it... (cue) lightening strike & clap of thunder-a church sharing agreement! Thank you Fr Gerry!  We have socialised, ( hic) and both parish priests have celebrated their 50th birthdays (hic)  these past two years... our people have raised church funds by arranging joint Summer fetes... I could go on and on as I did at the FIF National assembly in 2008, but I won't. Instead I am  going to invite the RC priest, Fr Gerry Drummond, to post something from his perspective, of our shared journey  , so do look out for his post! The most important point : We have grown together in faith, hope and love ...The Ordinariate comes suddenly like the rushing wind at Pentecost and Hockley's Upper Room is

                                                                                     The journey has well and truly begun my friends! Fr Keith Newton , our former Bishop and now Ordinary of The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England & Wales , is along with The Rt Rev Thomas McMahon, Bishop of Brentwood, very excited about the prospect of our shared mission to proclaim the faith once delivered to the Saints  to the people of Essex as part of the Ordinariate! Our Ordinariate group is a lively mix of explorers from churches in the Southend area, Hockley and South Benfleet... it's not a secret!!! We meet on Tuesday evenings 7.30pm at Kilnfield House, Foundry Business Park, Station Approach, Hockley, SS5 4TW where the Parish Priest of the RC parish of Rochford & Hockley is presenting the 'Evangelium,' RCIA course. Great fun, terrific teaching, wonderful fellowship, along side our RC brothers and sisters who join us each week to support and encour