The Portal January 2016 | Page 22

THE P RTAL January 2016 Page 22 Called to be Catholic bathed in the merciful indulgence of the Father Part One: Fr Christopher Lindlar maps out the Year of Mercy events for the Ordinariate of OLW O n the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, our Holy Father Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and so inaugurated the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy.   Our own Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, is inviting all the faithful of our Ordinariate to take part in the Year of Mercy by joining in events during 2016, under the banner of Called to be Catholic  -  bathed in the merciful indulgence of the Father (cf. Misericordiae Vultus 22). The Holy Father teaches us that we cannot propose God’s mercy to a needy world, until we know God’s mercy for ourselves;  ‘it is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy’ (MV 12).   For this reason, ‘the season of Lent during this Jubilee Year should also be lived more intensely as a privileged moment to celebrate and experience God’s mercy.   [ . . . ]   The initiative of “24 Hours for the Lord,” to be celebrated on the Friday and Saturday preceding the Fourth Sunday of Lent [i.e. 4th-5th March 2016], should be implemented in every diocese.   Let us place the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the centre once more in such a way that it will enable people to touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with their own hands’ (MV 17). As we strive to hold open the door of mercy across our country on that first Friday and Saturday of March, we could well open our own hearts to the Father’s mercy, in the words of the Prayer of Humble Access from Divine Worship - the Missal with its deep reflection on God the Father’s divine property of mercy.    Whenever we meet the Lord, in prayer and adoration, at the Table of the Word, at the Table of the Sacraments, we are assured of the washing away of our 24 Hours for the Lord sins and union with the Godhead  -  through no merits The Ordinariate has members spread across our of our own but simply His great mercies. country and so we are well placed in a very special way to participate in this initiative. Our Ordinary We do not presume to come to this thy Table, encourages pastors and their people to keep 24 Hours O merciful Lord, for the Lord, with 24 hours of continuous Adoration of trusting in our own righteousness, the Blessed Sacrament and ample opportunity for the but in thy manifold and great mercies. Sacrament of Reconciliation.   We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. This is an evangelistic opportunity to propose a But thou art the same Lord renewed and deeper devotion to Christ, the face of whose property is always to have mercy. the Father’s mercy, present in the sacramental species Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, and in the mystery of sacramental mercy. Those so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, of us called into the fullness of communion in the and to drink his blood, Catholic Church perhaps have a particular vocation to that our sinful bodies experience and to advocate the merciful indulgence of may be made clean by his body, the Father, both in the Sacrament of Confession and and our souls also in fervent devotion to the sacramental presence of washed through his most precious blood, his only-begotten Son, who became Man for us men and that we may evermore dwell in him, and for our salvation. and he in us.   Amen. contents page