The language of the Anglican tradition’s rite of matrimony is, perhaps, the most well-known and cherished portion of all the texts in the Book of Common Prayer through all the English-speaking world, after the Lord’s Prayer itself.

EXCERPT: My guest on this episode of Holy Smoke was an Anglican bishop for 37 years – one of the Church of England's foremost scholars and its leading witness for persecuted Christians. He was also an evangelical who, as bishop of the ancient see of Rochester, ordained women priests. But, as of this month, his title is Monsignor. I am, of course, talking about the Pakistani-born Michael Nazir-Ali, whose decision to join the Ordinariate has come as an enormous, if surprising, boost to the fortunes of that small but dynamic organisation for ex-Anglicans set up by Pope Benedict XVI.

The newly formed Ordinariate Members of East Tennessee is building toward meeting the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter’s requirements to petition for canonical recognition as a community-in-formation.

Enjoy the latest issue of the ACS magazine, the St. Peter's Rambler. When you read this issue, you can see new life emerging like the humble crocuses rising from the ground in Spring. The Holy Spirit is working in the world, and we see the Holy Spirit working through the Catholic Church’s Ordinariates for the Anglican tradition.

EXCERPT: Bringing Protestants and the unchurched into Catholicism is part of the [Ordinariate] community’s mission. So is reigniting the faith of former Catholics. {Father] Hummel called the Lehigh Valley a “target-rich environment” in that regard, with scandal and secularization driving many faithful away over the decades. Come home, he urges these straying sheep. To those who have never experienced the faith, he echoes Jesus’ words in gathering apostles: “Come and see.”

CTS has run 1,000 new copies of the Ordinariate daily office after enthusiastic demand from Ordinariate and diocesan Catholics, and even from Anglicans outside the Catholic Church.

Bishop Steven J. Lopes is the bishop of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, one of three dioceses with Anglican tradition in the Catholic Church established under the pope since 2009.

Msgr. Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican bishop of Rochester who came into the Catholic Church via the Ordinariate, said, "It is very generous of the Holy Father to confer this honour on me which I hardly deserve. Please pray that I will be worthy of it."

Jane Brock is a former Episcopal priest. She received the sacrament of Confirmation in 2008, and is now the Funeral and Bereavement Coordinator at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Charlotte, NC.

EXCERPT: “Our parish life is small and intimate, modeled after the English rural church where everyone knows the people in the pews next to them,” said Father Gregory Tipton, pastor of St. Aelred Church. “We are a small, humble group of personalists in the vein of St. (John) Newman tending to our own little share of God’s vineyard, trying to save some souls of those around us.” St. Aelred Church is a parish of The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter (POCSP), which was created by the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI on Jan. 1, 2012.

EXCERPT: Any Catholic, even a regular Diocesan Catholic, can start and English Patrimony Group. The best way to do this is to get acquainted with the English Patrimony, and that is best done through the liturgical books found at the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society website. Then, if it is something you love (and that’s important), then you should have a chat with your local bishop, or his vicar general, as soon as you’re able. Let him know you want to attempt an ecumenical outreach in your area using these Vatican approved books of the English Patrimony.

EXCERPT: The Personal Ordinariates responded to a movement that has haunted Anglicanism since its conception five centuries ago, namely the movement to conserve the religious character of the nation and her institutions, an aspect of which was reforming Church establishment and strengthening the nation’s ties with the Church Universal. This movement was once simply known as ‘Toryism.’

EXCERPT: My family is not English nor has anyone in my lineage, to my knowledge, ever been an Anglican. Our attending was the result of our sadness at the lack of beauty at the Masses in Texas and that our family had just moved from Rome. If the Ordinariate does one thing right, it’s liturgical beauty

The March 27 event is spearheaded by Jeffrey and Karen Adams, both Catholics and former Anglicans who had served as missionaries at Uganda Christian University, and is generating high levels of interest in the Ordinariate.

A group of Portland-area families is working to become Catholic while retaining much of their Anglican spiritual and liturgical heritage.

The Ordinariate's Catholic faithful are encouraged to pray the rosary for peace and the conversion of sinners. Also, in the United Kingdom, Msgr. Keith Newton is also mobilizing the Ordinariate communities to join an emergency appeal to provide material support to Ukrainian charities supporting the people shattered by Russia’s war.  

Within a year, four Church of England bishops became Catholic — a decision rooted both in discipleship of Jesus Christ and a realization that corporate unity between Catholicism and Anglicanism was becoming impossible.

THE CHALLENGE for all of us is to encourage each other to come together for this conference and let God speak to us as we seek to serve. ‘Risen, Ascended, Glorified’ will give us time to strengthen both our local and national bonds as this conference is open to all who journey in The Ordinariate both members and those who encourage us. It is very much hoped that pastors will encourage their respective communities to participate and to share with them in what is hoped will be very special days. Particularly welcome to these days are members of The Ordinariate who are far from any group. THE INVITATION is for you to come.

EXCERPT: The General Confession is a gem of a prayer from the Anglican Patrimony received into the Catholic Church. Every time we pray it, we ask God to help us shake loose the grime of sin. The General Confession in the Penitential Rite points us in the direction of the Sacrament of Penance (Confession), “that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”

EXCEPRT: For some who knew of my work in the ecumenical world, the decision may have seemed puzzling. For others, it may have seemed a logical progression. I spent many years as a member of the ­Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission...ARCIC produced a series of remarkable agreements on matters that had been seen as Church-dividing: Eucharist, ministry, authority, salvation, moral teaching, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I would not wish to downplay ARCIC’s achievement. And yet it was compromised again and again by unilateral and unprincipled action in various parts of the Anglican Communion. Over time, I came to observe weaknesses in the Anglican Communion; and as I reflected on these I began to realize, more and more, that what I was looking for was to be found in the Catholic Church.