A splendid video of Ash Wednesday Mass at the Atonement Academy in San Antonio, Texas. It must be just about the most remarkable success story of Anglicanism in Full Communion with Peter: Fr Phillips' large church, huge congregations and vast academy ... oversubscribed ... I've only watched the first ten minutes so far, but how it brought back happy memories of days spent there in the summer of 2011; the sound of that marvellous thurible with the bells making its way up the church ... Don't fail to notice the instinctive and natural piety of the young people; we were never so successful in inculcating that at Lancing ... the natural arrogance, do you think, of the English middle classes?
What is it about Texas that makes it such natural soil for transplanting - and giving a new Catholic vigour to - Anglicanism? Viva the Lone Star State! If only poor Dr Cranmer, as they hustled him up the Turl towards the city ditch and the waiting stake, could have known where his liturgical compositions would end up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc3EXZVn3MI
Indeed the estimable Fr. Phillips has been very graced in his ministry. From a very humble state with just a few souls in 1983 and from the moment Fr. P found and obtained the property for the church (by fervent prayer and divine intervention - Fr. P will tell the story) it has seen nothing but growth.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed the most remarkable story of success and the blessing of the Anglican patrimony for so many and now established for future generations in the schools of Our Lady -- this must be the very best fruit of the Atonement.
May God continue to bless the parish and its remarkable ministry.
Once, I drove down to San Antonio from nearby Austin to visit my father while he was in town for a reunion with his brother and sister. While there I went by Our Lady of the Atonement and had the privilege of experiencing my first Anglican Use Mass there. It was a truly extraordinary experience and I cannot wait to go back this summer.
ReplyDeleteOur Lady of Walsingham, just a short 4 hour drive east of Atonement is on the same level with our own OLW Shrine (replica of the original in England) and a new Ordinariate Chancery under construction!
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