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A granddaughter’s first Palm Sunday

I took my granddaughter to her first Palm Sunday service yesterday.  She seemed to have a good time, but Nana needed a nap afterwards.

Palm Sunday is a good time to bring children because there is a procession and palm crosses.

My granddaughter did not have to stay upstairs for the whole service.  We have closed circuit TV so those watching the small children can listen to the Liturgy of the Word while the children play.

And of course, my granddaughter enjoyed an ample lunch!

And some time socializing.

Mothering Sunday at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary–Ottawa

Today, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, we celebrated  Mothering Sunday.

Mass began with a blessing of flowers and the simnel cake.

Our priest Fr. Doug Hayman wore rose vestments, and many of us wore pink, or magenta, or salmon in solidarity!

We had an even more lavish spread than usual because of Mothering Sunday.

Our Mother-of-the-Year this year is Carolyn Hayman, who did the honors pouring tea and coffee from our fancy silver tea service, and cut (and probably baked?) the simnel cake.

A wonderful occasion and a time of great joy and thanksgiving in our parish.

Shrove Tuesday pancake supper

One of our annual traditions at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is our annual Shrove Tuesday pancake supper.  Both our priests are available for confession all afternoon so we can be “shriven” of our sins before Lent begins, while others are busy downstairs arranging the seating, and preparing the feast.

This year we had so many extra people show up we had to add a couple of extra tables!  We had more than enough food.  In fact, we had so much that we will be having another pancake feast for the breakfast following a Sung Mass for Annunciation.

We are hoping for some special guests to join us.

Some of us are gluten sensitive so, just as I made up some almond flour pancakes for those who are, I will be making them for Saturday, too.

Hmmmm,  can we eat bacon on Annunciation?

 

 

The Baptism of Anna Christina

On Feb. 2, as we were celebrating Candlemas at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we did so without our cantor and organist Michael Trolly.

That’s because he was with his wife Rebecca as their baby daughter Anna Christina was being delivered.

Several Sundays ago, we celebrated her Baptism.   A joyous occasion as we welcomed our newest member of our parish family.

Here are some more pictures, not necessarily in order.  Fr. Doug Hayman is the priest officiating and the Godparents are Alice and Bennett Candy, parents of our next youngest member Thomas.

 

Great interview on Salt and Light TV with Bishop Steven Lopes

Pour yourself a hot beverage and prepare yourself to watch a great interview by Fr. Thomas Rosica of Canada’s Salt and Light TV of Bishop Steven Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.  Proud to say he is my bishop!

Baptism at Annunciation!

Bishop Lopes visits Ottawa

Why I am called to the Anglican Ordinariate

Elizabeth Scalia invited me to write a personal account for a series Aleteia is doing on differing liturgical expressions in the Catholic Church.  Above is a picture of me taken by Jake Wright on the day our parish was received into the Catholic Church.

You can find it here.

What a joy to be invited to write on our beautiful Divine Worship: the Missal!

Of course, what I submitted was too long and had to be substantially trimmed.  However, since I have a more specialized audience here that might be interested in more details, I will post my original here.

Why I feel called to the Anglican Ordinariate

By Deborah Gyapong

I am called to the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, one of three Ordinariates set up for former Anglicans who believe the Catholic faith, and out of a passionate desire for Christian unity wished to be in communion with the Pope. At the same time, I am grateful Pope Benedict XVI made provisions for us to retain distinctive elements of our Anglican patrimony—including our liturgical traditions.  We are fully Roman Catholics with an Anglican accent and ethos.

Our liturgy is called Divine Worship. It’s a Catholic Mass in the language of Shakespeare. We pray using sacral language such as the formal “thee” and “thou” when addressing God.   Though fully approved by the relevant Vatican congregations, our Mass is touched by the Reformation through the use of some of Archbishop Cranmer’s gorgeous English translations of Latin collects, the inclusion of the Comfortable Words of Scripture following our Penitential Rite and the beautiful Prayer of Humble Access before Holy Communion. Our liturgy also incorporates elements of pre-Reformation English Catholicism in its use of Sarum collects and chants.

 

The rubrics are similar to those of the Traditional Latin Mass—it is a ballet of genuflection usually prayed ad orientem — facing God, not the people—but it has many of the hallmarks of the reform of the liturgy called for in the Second Vatican Council: it’s in the vernacular; our people actively participate in the Mass; and in addition to traditional chanted introits and graduals we sing hymns, and it is Anglican patrimony to sing robustly often in four-part harmony!  Of course someday we hope to have the grand choirs to bring the treasures of our musical heritage to life in the Catholic Church—and some of our larger parishes already do– in the meantime, our congregations are the choir.

 

Many people might ask ‘Why not become a normal Roman Catholic? Why cling to these old-fashioned forms of worship that even most Anglicans of the Canterbury Common don’t celebrate anymore?’ It’s a long story.

This was my experience, too

A most interesting post by a Catholic convert who first experienced beauty and reverence in the liturgy through attending Anglo-Catholic services.  It’s entitled Masculinity and the Liturgy by Sam Guzman over at The Catholic Gentleman:

On the final stages of my road to Rome, I spent a good deal of time with high church Anglo-Catholics, regularly attending liturgies at a seminary and church near my home. These Anglicans took the liturgy seriously, and their services were conducted reverently and beautifully.

In fact, their services looked so Catholic that experiencing them led me to study further exactly why Anglicans weren’t Catholic anymore. The rest of the story is beyond the scope of this post, but the point is, I came into Catholicism with an experience of very reverent and dignified liturgy, kneeling to receive communion, and an atmosphere of sacredness.

Eventually, after months of studying Catholic teaching, I worked up the courage to attend a Catholic mass. I had no idea what a mass looked like, but at the very least, I expected it to be more beautiful and reverent than the Anglican liturgy. After all, the Catholics had the body, blood, soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, while Anglicans did not have the real thing.

Interestingly, the other day I picked up our Canadian 1962 Book of Common Prayer (which largely are no longer in use in Anglican Church of Canada parishes which embrace the Book of Alternative Services) and looked at the Communion rite.  So interesting to see how much the Mass is a sacrifice in the BCP, not a meal.

That said, I am delighted with Divine Worship: The Missal.  It is everything we could have hoped for in a Mass that is fully Catholic yet respects the beauty of our Anglican patrimony.