


OH DEAR!
May God the Father bless you, God the Son heal you, God the Holy Spirit give you strength. May God the holy and undivided Trinity guard your body, save your soul, and bring you safely to his heavenly country; where he lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen.
O merciful Father, look with compassion upon your servant, Carol, for whom our prayers are offered. Remember her, O Lord, in mercy, nourish her soul with patience, comfort her with a sense of your goodness, lift up your countenance upon her, and give her peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.




ER-D also hires local workers and buys supplies locally whenever possible - building the economy while helping with recovery.Thanks, Ann.
Priests and worshippers from to 20 Church of England parishes are to convert to Catholicism under a new scheme that allows Anglican opponents of women bishops to defect to Rome.
The founding members of the new Anglican Ordinariate, who include three former Church of England bishops, two of their wives and three Anglican nuns, will today be received into the Catholic Church in a low-key ceremony at midday Mass at Westminster Cathedral. The bishops are due to be ordained as Catholic priests in two weeks.
....
John Broadhurst, former Bishop of Fulham - whose resignation from the Church of England took effect at midnight last night and who is among those being received - told The Times: "This could herald a real transformation of the religious scene and be an aid to the conversion of England." (My emphasis)
Besides Father Broadhurst, the others being recieved today are Andrew Burnham, former Bishop of Ebbsfleet and Keith Newton, former Bishop of Matabeleland who retired to England in 2005, Edwin Barnes, former Bishop of Richborough and David Silk, former Bishop of Ballarat in Australia.
The 1230 Mass today at London's Westminster Cathedral looked like any other. But for the hint in the booklet for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, that after the homily would be a "Rite of reception and confirmation", there was nothing at all to indicate the significance of what was to happen. The celebrant, an auxiliary bishop of Westminster, Alan Hopes, said nothing at the start of Mass, and it wasn't until the end of a lengthy homily on Mary as Theotokos, or God-bearer, and the controversies of the fourth-century Council of Nicea which led to this Feast, that Bishop Hopes mentioned that they would be receiving some former members of the Church of England into full communion.
They included, he said, three former bishops and their relatives, as well as three Anglican nuns.
It would have been hard, if you had just dropped into the Cathedral for Mass, to understand the significance of what was happening.There was nobody around to explain that these are the founding members of the world's first Ordinariate, the scheme created by Pope Benedict to allow for the corporate reception of Anglicans.
On New Year's Eve, Marilyn stood up in the local pub and said that it was time to get ready. At the stroke of midnight, she wanted every husband to be standing next to the one person who made his life worth living.
Well, it was kind of embarrassing.
As the clock struck twelve, the bartender was almost crushed to death.
Cheers (and Happy New Year!),
Paul (A.)
O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of sufferers: Mercifully accept our prayers, and grant to your servant Tracy the help of your power, that her sickness may be turned into health, and our sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Mrs MP suffers from migraines. Of course, being Mrs MP she is not content to just have headaches, flashing lights and nausea she has to have the type of migraine that causes sinus pain. This (which sometimes happens twice a month) is an agony which she can only compare to acute toothache.... Please pray for Mrs MP. She is so miserable at the moment as her Christmas holiday has been pretty much ruined by it. And migraines and depression go together like pouring water onto a chip pan fire.
When he retired in 2004, Michael Peers (who confirmed and ordained me) was the senior primate of the Anglican Communion. Here is what he had to say in 2000, four years before this Covenant silliness ever raised its head.[W]orldwide Anglicanism is a communion, not a church. The Anglican Church of Canada is a church. The Church in the Province of the West Indies is a church. The Episcopal Church of Sudan is a church. The Anglican Communion is a 'koinonia' of churches.
We have become that for many reasons, among which are the struggles of the sixteenth century and an intuition about the value of inculturation, rooted in the Incarnation, which has led us to locate final authority within local churches.
We are not a papal church and we are not a confessional church. We are autonomous churches held together in a fellowship of common faith dating from the creeds and councils, recognizing the presidency of a primus inter pares (the Archbishop of Canterbury), often struggling with inter-church and intra-church tension, but accepting that as the price of the liberty and autonomy that we cherish.
As I said to the members of the Council of General Synod last month, the price of this includes a certain measure of messiness.'
Malcolm, this is gold, pure gold. I think I never saw a better description of the Anglican Communion - what it was, what it is, and what it will not be if the daft Anglican Covenant is put in place.