THE
P RTAL
August 2012
of rejection and he knew he had to leave.
He also knew exactly where to go. The
Question was “when” and “how?”
a dream he had
He told us about a dream he had. He
was upstairs in a house. The room he
was in had two windows, one to the left
and one to the right. To the right he saw
sand-dunes. There was a strong wind
that caused the landscape to change.
This altered the landmarks one would Cherry Foster
use to plot a journey.
It was complicated
by quicksands where
there was no foothold.
“Dare I go there” he
thought, “Let alone lead
anyone else there?” The
landmarks that kept
changing were things
like the creeds, the Bible
and the foundation
documents
of
the
Church. They were fast
disappearing.
Page 5
often twenty eight or thirty on a Sunday.
issues to be resolved
There are issues that need to be resolved.
The Diocese of Clifton has a pastoral
plan for Salisbury. This involves joining
the three independent Parishes and the
two chapelriess together. They would be
served by two priests instead of three.
Into this comes the Ordinariate. What to
do with us? It is a problem.
We get on extremely
so well with the Catholic
clergy, and the local
CofE Archdeacon could
not have been kinder to
us.
or own Easter
Triduum
One
great
step
forward was when we
decided to have our own
Easter Triduum. It was a
daunting prospect, with
our reduced resources,
Jeremy and Annette Vinall with daughter Alex Lloyd
but it was worth it.
From
the
other
Our Sunday Mass is at 1100 and we
window he looked out upon a rough
have Evensong once a month and a
sea. Fr Keith does not swim although
Wednesday evening Mass.
there was a rock a long way off He
knew he needed to be on that rock. But
“Posh Catholics”
he dare not attempt to swim and the
Our welcome in the Catholic Church
sea was very rough.
has been wonderful, We have been told
final Sunday
that the Catholics admire us, although
Shortly before his final Sunday in
they do not really know what the
the CofE, two things happened. He
Ordinariate is. One person called us
realised that the house in the dream
“Posh Catholics”!
must, by definition, have been built
on a sandy shore, and that S. Peter had
As things are, the Group can afford
sent his fishing boat in the form of the
to pay its own way because I am retired
Ordinariate, to that shore and held out
and on a pension. Whether they could
Patrick Houston
his hand to take all those who would
keep a priest who needed a full stipend,
respond across the sea to the Rock.
is another matter. As to supporting an Ordinariate Day
event, it would depend where and what it was. It could
That final Sunday in the Cof E was full of emotion. be a long way from us and that would be difficult.
“What does one say to the people one has loved and
nurtured for sixteen years. This was a false divisions
In ten years’ time we shall be in one of two places.
that ought never to have happened. It was so painful Either significantly larger and possibly in our own
to leave. I looked a t the readings for that day and it was church building: or subsumed into the general Catholic
the parable of the wise and foolish builders! So: I told Church. If it is the latter, then we shall have failed the
the congregation my dream”.
Holy Father.”
“There were twenty who made that journey. Two
We thanked Fr Keith, and asked him to thank the
have become Diocesan Catholics, yet we are more Group for our welcome.