THE P RTAL
November 2014
Page 6
This Holy Desire
In the first part of a new series of articles Antonia Lynn
takes a closer look at Anglicanorum Cœtibus
T
he Jesuit
Anthony de Mello wrote that sometimes ‘it is good to follow the advice of the Risen
Lord to his dejected apostles: “return to Galilee”. Return to the joyful days spent in the company of the
Lord. Return and you will find him again. And probably find him in a new way as the Apostles did.’
I hope, particularly after our positive experiences of
‘Called To be One’ and the Festival, that we are not
feeling too dejected in the Lord’s service at this time.
But it is still good to return to our own Galilee: in this
case, the document which started it all, Pope Benedict’s
Apostolic Constitution given on 4 November 2009.
Perhaps this really is what started it all for you, if your
response was to seek to be received into the Catholic
Church as part of an Ordinariate group; perhaps,
like me, you have come later to the Ordinariate after
becoming a Catholic. Or maybe you have yet to find
that this invitation is what Newman called ‘heart
speaking to heart’, and is addressed to you.
you will lose friends
made with mixed motives,
and no doubt there will be a grain of truth (won’t
there?) in accusations that those who joined the
In recent times, the Holy Spirit
Ordinariate did so out of disillusionment, or
has moved groups of Anglicans…
worse. But God can bring good out of that. We are
The title (the opening words in Latin) itself says here because the Holy Spirit has moved our hearts
something very significant. Anglicanorum Cœtibus is to come, and that is what matters.
translated as ‘groups of Anglicans’, but cœtus can mean
‘gang’ or ‘crowd’ - even an illegal assembly! We have Spirit and light
followed our consciences to be here, often at great cost,
The Latin text puts this beautifully. It says that the
but we cannot claim to come from any higher moral Holy Spirit lumen conciliavit, literally ‘brought light’ to
ground than those who have, in conscience, chosen those who were asking to be received. Spirit and light…
differently.
surely we are reminded of creation, about which Pope
Benedict has written elsewhere[1]: ‘in the face of any
If you are thinking of joining us, be warned that you fear… we are told that God alone, who is the eternal
will lose friends, be accused of some shabby behaviour Reason that is eternal Love, created the world, and that
and be called many uncomplimentary names. You it rests in his hands…
will be in good company, though: the whole of sacred
history is the story of God’s invitation extended to a
Here we see the audacity and the temperateness of
motley crowd of dubious reputation, who had done the faith that, in confronting the pagan myths, made
nothing to deserve such love. And the word ‘Christian’ the light of truth appear by showing that the world
started life as an insult.
was not a demonic contest but that it arose from God’s
Reason and reposes on God’s Word.’
Let’s consider the first few words:
the Holy Spirit
But let us not spend too much time looking at
ourselves. Look instead at the subject of that first
sentence: ‘the Holy Spirit has moved...’ This is God’s
work! However painful or confusing the process of
discernment might have been, it was the movement
of the ‘Spirit of truth’, who will ‘guide you into all
truth’ (John 16:12). Even the best decisions are
contents page
‘Not a contest’: the unity of the Body of Christ has been
hard-wired into creation from the very beginning, and
every Christian is called to be a co-creator through the
‘audacity’ of our faith. Anglicanorum Cœtibus offers a
way for us to respond, as we shall see.
[1]
In The Beginning (Eerdmans Publishing),
collection of his homilies on Genesis