Canada and little acorns

The website of The Ordinariate Group of Our Lady and St John - Calgary is worth browsing.  The Group was created following the decision of St John's Anglican parish in Calgary to respond to Anglicanorum Coetibus.  The site explains the background to the Group:

The Ordinariate Group of Our Lady and St John is made up of those who are currently Anglicans, as well as Catholics who were formerly Anglican, and a number of Catholics who are married to Anglicans. With the loving care of our appointed Priest Mentor, the Catholic parish priest of Brooks, Alberta, Fr Michael Storey, we are together praying for, and looking forward to, the establishment of a Personal Ordinariate in Canada.

The majority of us belong to the Parish of St John the Evangelist, Calgary, a parish founded in 1905 as part of what was then the Church of England in Canada (since 1955, the Anglican Church of Canada). Our Group meets at different locations on a monthly basis for fellowship, prayer and study, but we also gather on Sundays and throughout the week as part of the regular worshipping life of St John’s, under the pastoral care and leadership of its Priest-in-Charge, Fr Lee Kenyon, who was a priest of the Church of England until he came to St John’s in April 2009.

Similarly, the pilgrimage of the Toronto Ordinariate Group can be explored here:

We are a group of Anglicans and Roman Catholics in Toronto, who welcome with joy the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, and express our gratitude for the Holy Father’s generosity in providing a means for some Anglicans to be received into full communion with the See of Rome, while acknowledging and retaining the aspects of Anglican patrimony that conform to the Catholic faith and have inspired this desire for communion with the Successor of Peter.

We are convinced of the importance of being in communion with the See of Peter and the essential fullness of Catholic doctrine as interpreted through the Petrine Ministry for the organic unity and health of Body of Christ.

We are exploring the possibility of forming a Catholic parish in Toronto under the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution.

Of some significance for those of us in Ireland is the view expressed by the mentor priest to the Toronto Group:

Fr Foote stated that very few are needed to constitute a viable worshipping community. Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18.20). The 14 people we had gathered to hear Fr Foote on Sunday would be enough to provide the basis for building a parish.  (With reference to numbers, Fr Phillips has provided a reflection on little acorns.) Accordingly, an Ordinariate parish in Toronto will be established.