On the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi, thoughts from The Anglo-Catholic blog on those among the cloud of witnesses praying for the Ordinariates:
On this week when we recognize the feast of Corpus Christi, it is quite fitting for us to think of those with whom we have communion in Heaven. It is important to remember that everything we are doing in entering the Ordinariates is for the sake of communion. The preservation of our Anglican heritage is not for our sake alone, but for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Why are we going through these struggles? It is for the sake of that most blessed of gifts; the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. It is for the glory of Christ and for the conversion of the lost that they too make partake of His very body and blood. This is what the "witnesses in Heaven" are praying for and it is what we should be praying for also ...
Whether it be Blessed John Henry Newman, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, or Our Lady of the Atonement, they are members of that very same cloud of witnesses. They long to see the growth of the Anglican heritage within the Catholic Church, and it is their voices that are being lifted up onto the altar of God along with ours as a sweet incense. They are the "spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb 12:23) whose presence we enter during every liturgy. Let us take heart in knowing that whatever challenges lie in our path, whatever delays may occur, and whatever confusion we may have, that there is an innumerable company of the "souls of the faithful departed" who continually behold the face of our Lord Jesus Christ and are petitioning Him for our good, both today and forever.
To which this Irish Anglican prayerfully reflecting on Anglicanorum Coetibus adds, St Augustine of Hippo and St Augustine of Canterbury ora pro nobis.
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