A Treasure To Be Shared

The care cloth is regularly seen at Saint John Henry Newman Church, in Victoria, BC, a community of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter. Young couples entering into Holy Matrimony at the Church appreciate the significance of such beautiful rituals that help them acknowledge the profound mystery into which they are entering. In time, perhaps, as more guests witness its use, the care cloth might seen in matrimonial celebrations of the Novus Ordo Mass. Hint, hint.  The nuptial veil, also known as the care cloth or wedding canopy, is an ancient Christian wedding tradition where a cloth is held over the bride and groom during the Nuptial Blessing. Representing the “marriage yoke” that unites them, it’s a rectangular linen or silk sheet, smaller than the Jewish Chuppah, usually white with a red pattern or cord. According to St. Isidore of Seville, the white stands for the purity of Christian and marital love, while the red symbolizes the continuation of the family bloodline. Bene...

St John Henry Newman, Victoria, BC | Betrothal Rite The Ordinariate is blessed with a patrimonial treasure of tremendous beauty and goodness. The Solemn Rite of Betrothal might be familiar to more than a few Anglicans. It is a beautiful gift that helps couples enter more fully into their emerging communion in Christ and provides an acknowledgement of the path ahead, ornamented with avenues through which a couple may dispose themselves to God's grace. Betrothal betroth  (v.) | Online Etymology Dictionary c. 1300, betrouthen , "to promise to marry (a woman)," from be- , here probably with a sense of "thoroughly," + Middle English treowðe "truth," from Old English treowðe "truth, a pledge". It is attested from 1560s as "contract to give (a woman) in marriage to another, affiance." Middle English also had a verb truth ( treuthen ) "become betrothed" (c. 1300). -al suffix forming nouns of action from verbs, mostly from Latin an...

The completely untenable proposal to allow non-Catholic spouses to receive (in certain circumstances) the Holy Eucharist has been quashed by Papa Francis himself. Thanks be to God for Cardinal-elect Ladaria, for being the swift arrow that brought down the wild boar of heterodoxy. https://www.catholicregister.org/home/international/item/27487-pope-francis-rejects-german-proposal-for-inter-communion Pope Francis rejects German proposal for inter-communion by Catholic News Agency VATICAN – One month after Vatican and German delegates met in Rome to discuss a proposal put forward by German bishops to allow Protestant spouses in inter-denominational marriages to receive the Eucharist in certain circumstances, Pope Francis has rejected it. In a letter dated May 25 and addressed to Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and president of the German bishops conference, Cardinal-elect Luis Ladaria SJ, the Vatican’s top authority on matters of doctrine, said the text of the...

The current kerfuffle involving the German bishops who are pro-communion for non-Catholic spouses is an unfortunate distraction, and a serious one at that. Yours truly, once upon a time a non-Catholic enamoured of a lovely Catholic woman, did on a couple of occasions receive Holy Communion before being received into full communion with the Catholic Church. Said woman, my girlfriend at the time—who would also become my sponsor... a bad idea, I might add—asked me to stop receiving Communion. There was no argument from yours truly. I was given good reasons not to receive, among them the obvious—I was not (yet) Catholic. Though my baptism (in a protestant community that held to the Apostolic practice and theology of Trinitiarian Baptism) was valid, and I believed in the Real Presence, I had not yet been received into the Catholic Church. I was receiving Communion out of the genuine but poorly timed and incomplete notion that to so do would bring me closer to my then girlfriend. I w...

(B)ut I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren —St. Luke 22:32 In light of Holy Scripture, consider the Catholic World News report . May 04, 2018 Pope Francis has declined to rule on the validity of a policy approved by the German bishops’ conference , which would allow non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive Communion. The policy was approved by a majority of the German bishops, but a substantial minority objected , and seven German bishops wrote to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) asking for clarification on whether the policy was in line with Church teaching. At a May 3 meeting at the Vatican, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, the prefect of the CDF, told a delegation of the German hierarchy that the Holy Father wished them to continue discussion of the issue among themselves, hoping for “a possibly unanimous arrangement.” During their visit to Rome, the German bishops ...

The Wedding Feast at Cana (1563), by Paolo Veronese If you have not already dined on the cuisine that is Bishop Lope's statement on Amoris Laetitia , and you are not fed up with the whole issue, make the time to engage His Excellency's thoroughly refreshing commentary. https://ordinariate.net/letters-and-statements His Excellency's statement is clear, precise, deep and charitable. It goes without saying that it is orthodox. It is beautiful. A treasure to be shared. + + + An excerpt: The Experience of the Ordinariate Lex orandi, lex credendi — as we worship, so we believe. Those formed in the traditions and rich spiritual heritage of English Christianity well know that liturgy functions as a guide for belief. In the “Divine Worship: Order of Solemnization of Holy Matrimony,” marriage is understood covenantally, as evidenced by the “Nuptial Blessing”: “Send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in thy Name: that...