Twenty five years ago Fr Christopher Phillips responded to a call. A handful of Episcopalians in San Antonio, Texas had the dream of becoming Catholics while retaining their Anglican heritage. As a young Episcopal priest with a wife and three children, Fr. Christopher moved to San Antonio. The people got together and promised him all they could manage: $1,000.00 a month. On this he had to support his family and build a church.
Today the Church of the Atonement has a beautiful church, a school with over 500 students on a growing campus. Their liturgy is the Anglican Use Catholic liturgy. It was a delight to join them for Mass on Thursday evening, concelebrated with their bishop. On Friday evening we enjoyed Solemn Evensong. It was amazing how all the old Anglican prayers came back to me after all these years.
Church of the Atonement is truly and amazing and unique accomplishment. The great sadness is to see what great things have been done by one faithful, creative and hard working priest with his people. Here were a group of Anglicans who took the Catholic Church at her word.
The Vatican said, "You can have your own liturgy. You can have your own church buildings. You can have married priests." While the vast majority of Anglicans have turned up their nose at the offer or complained that they still were not 'being valued enough', Fr. Christopher and his people have created a beautiful and truly amazing parish.
Enjoy the pictures and visit their website and Fr. Phillips' blog.
4 comments:
My husband and I were ready to pick up and move to San Antonio when we discovered Anglican Use and Our Lady of Atonement. Now that we are Catholic, we can never be anything else. However, we often yearn for the beauty of the prayers in the Book of Common Prayer. We always got up early for services, because Rite One was only used at the 8am... We have felt lost in our present parish and we only remain for the love of Christ's true presence and a lack of a more traditional parish within 70miles of our home. Thanks for making me homesick...
After the misery that was South Florida recent, this is truly the cure. Very inspiring and hope-filled.
Did you see this: http://frjeffreysteel.blogspot.com/2009/06/journey-home-to-catholic-church-i-have.html
Father,
I have had the great joy of attending Sunday Mass, Good Friday and Holy Easter at Our Lady of the Atonement. There are no words to describe transcendental joy of attending Mass at this church. Father Christopher and his Deacons are so devout and obviously serving Our Lord that everyone is drawn in. Magnificent church facility, beautiful and resplendent vestments, holy silence, superb chanting by priest and deacon, glorious choir and organ, clouds of incense, solid preaching by priest and deacon, properly dressed congregation, exceptionally well behaved children and lots of them, and worthy dignified language in the liturgies and I am sure I am forgetting much. Compared to what I suffer through weekly, Our Lady of the Atonement during Mass is truly Heaven come down to earth.
I am seriously considering yearly Holy Week pilgrimages to San Antonio to attend Holy Week at this magnificent parish.
The Anglican Usuage Mass is more reminiscent of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom than the Ordinary Rite and thus is more about worshiping the Holy Trinity than worshiping ourselves which frequently the feel I get in my home parish.
My wife, who is no fan of the ad orientum posture was completely moved by Mass here and would join this parish if we lived in the area.
Anyone who has the opportunity to attend this church is making a serious error if they do not do so. The only problem is that Mass here makes it impossible to turn off your critical faculties when you have to return to the mediocrity (at best most places) of our Ordinary Catholic worship.
It is really too bad that the Anglican Usage couldn't become the
norm for Mass in English. It would be a huge improvement.
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