An interview with Fr. Steenson

Via the Ordinariate Portal, a most interesting interview by The Living Church Foundation's  Douglas LeBlanc of Fr. Jeffrey Steenson. Here are a few excerpts:

If the Ordinariate in the United States is a Vatican effort to poach disgruntled Anglicans, Sunday-golfing ex-Anglicans or never-were Anglicans, its newly appointed leader has not received that memo.

In fact, says the Rev. Jeffrey N. Steenson, Anglican does not appear in the new body’s formal name, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, because members will make no pretense of remaining Anglicans.

And anyone who wants to enter the Ordinariate because of anger toward Anglicanism rather than a desire for deeper communion with the Roman Catholic Church probably ought to wait.

Steenson, who was bishop of the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of the Rio Grande from 2004 to 2007, will be invested as the first Ordinary of the Ordinariate during a Mass at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Houston, Feb. 12.

“It is spiritually so critical that they leave all that anger behind. We want people who are happy with their spiritual lives and are not fighting old battles,” Father Steenson told The Living Church.

snip

Steenson expressed a similar wonderment about being asked to lead the Ordinariate. He planned to continue teaching patristics for a few more years at Houston’s University of St. Thomas and then possibly to return to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, whose archbishop, Michael J. Sheehan, helped Steenson work through his questions about joining the Roman Catholic Church.

“No one in their right mind would accept this,” he said of his new duties, in which he will continue working full-time for the university but will serve the Ordinariate in his free hours, without salary. “It is the challenge of creating a diocese from scratch, overnight. … When the Holy See asks for something, the answer is ‘Yes, sir.’”

Fr. Jeffrey Steenson is in my prayers and I am extremely touched that he would reach out to me.  I hope and pray that God will give him the strength---supernatural strength to gather us all in. But wow.  No pretense of remaining Anglicans.  Er, what about our patrimony that we're supposed to be bringing in as a gift to be cherished in the wider Church?

And Fr. Steenson's job as Ordinary is in his spare time without a salary?  He is still teaching full time? So is the only one working full time with a salary for the American Ordinariate is Fr.  Scott Hurd, who is stick handling this for Cardinal Wuerl?

Look, I'm just a lay woman who has only my precious community to loose and our beautiful way of worshipping.   I speak for no one but myself and obviously I don't ask permission of anyone before I blog here, but this is astonishing.

We had no anger towards the Anglican Communion because all the issues the Canterbury Communion has been facing were none of ours. We were a tranquil, peaceful little oasis in the wilderness, bursting at the seams so that we were desperately in need of a new building.  We were growing ever deeper in our catholic faith and experiencing great joy.  How exciting it was in the fall of 2009 when we thought, really, Anglicanorum coetibus was an answer to our request for corporate reunion while keeping our Anglican identity.   Then, oh boy!  The Refiner's Fire!

It's a beautiful, sunny day, where beautiful fresh snow glistens on the Spruce branches outside my window, and there is so much to praise God for and be thankful for, so I will focus on that. I choose to laugh because I'm done.

This ain't Anglican, but hey, I may soon be singing this in a Roman Catholic parish where I go to the Adoration Chapel a lot, a Companions of the Cross, charismatic parish where they Catholic faith is alive.  Because there will come a point where I will have to say, enough is enough. I give up.  Have it your way as in the  Burger King song. I'm tired of fighting a losing battle.

As our dear Companions priest, Fr. Francis Donnelly, who accompanied us on our catechesis, reminded me during one of my complaint sessions,  with a sense of humor: "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing."

The main thing is Jesus.   If He wants this Anglicanorum coetibus thing to work, it will work.  And maybe He's stacking the odds up against it so high so as to show His mighty power.  I hope so.