All Souls, 1st Thursday, Year for Priests: A PROJECT

A wonderful idea from Fr. Z!

Copied from Fr. Z's blog:

Pray for the souls of priests.

First, remember that you can gain indulgences on All Souls and the days following.

Second, 5 November is a first Thursday. You can gain a plenary indulgence during this year for Priests.

Third, would it not be a good idea in this Year for Priests, during the week after All Souls, for this 1st Thursday, to pray in a special way for the souls of deceased priests?

May I recommend that you bring this up with your parish priests, who might make pulpit announcements this Sunday?

If you are a blogger, would you post something on this?

Would you recommend this to your prayer groups, friends and family?

+ John Chichester Ready to Convert

John Hind, Anglican Bishop of Chichester has made it rather clear that he is ready to convert under the provisions of the new Apostolic Constitutions. I quote below from Fr. Dwight Longnecker's blog his insights as a former Anglican priest of the Chichester diocese:

I thought that it was only going to be traditionalists who already split from the Anglican Church who were going to be quick to respond to the offer of Personal Ordinariate, and that Anglo Catholics within the Church of England would continue to splutter and make excuses.

This amazing bit of news just breaking is truly momentous. A sitting Church of England Diocesan bishop has announced that he is ready to convert to Rome and be re-ordained. John Hind is the bishop of Chichester on the South Coast of England. His diocese is centered in the ancient city of Chichester (cathedral pictured above) Chichester is well known as an Anglo Catholic diocese. (It is the diocese into which I was ordained as an Anglican priest) If the bishop goes you can be sure that many of his clergy and people will follow.

The remainder of Fr. Longnecker's post may be found HERE. If the bishop, his clergy and the Anglican laity of Chichester all convert, I will pray that an arrangement could be made via Parliament for those church and cathedral buildings to go with them into the new personal ordinariate. Admittedly a long shot, nonetheless, with events transpiring this last week that I could not have imagined, I am emboldened to dream big and ask the Lord for more graces for all those involved.


Our Lady of Walsingham, pray that your Anglican children about the world will now come home to you.

Brother Stephen, O.Cist.

Be sure to read Brother Stephen's blog regarding developments among Anglo-Catholics in England as well as the whole matter of Personal Ordinariates granted in the new Apostolic Constitution:

http://subtuum.blogspot.com/2009/10/reflections-on-forward-in-faith.html

As a former Anglo-Catholic from S. Clement's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, he has an important perspective on all of these matters.

Twenty-five Years in the Making: Welcome Home, Ecclesia Anglicana

TE DEUM laudamus!

Like all other Catholic members of Anglican Use parishes in the USA, I have been so ecstatically happy over the announcement from the Holy See that my feet have yet to touch the ground. I had expected a generous response to the petition by Archbishop Hepworth and the TAC, but what we are receiving in this Apostolic Constitution is so much more than any of us have allowed ourselves to imagine that it seems the stuff of dreams.

But Praise be to God! this is reality, and the Holy Father, who knows us well, has heard our cries for a simple structure in which our Anglican Heritage as part of the Catholic patrimony may continue to grow and flower within the garden of Holy Mother Church. Already today I have had two friends ask if the announcements in Rome and London really took place yesterday. Yes, they most certainly did. We live in an unimagined period of Church history where the Pope has acted prophetically as the good father who runs to welcome home the prodigal son! Hallelujah!

I am moved to think especially of my dear friend Fr. James T. Moore, PhD, who twenty-five years ago was ordained a Catholic priest under the Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul the Great. Fr. Moore poured his life into the establishment of Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Church in Houston, Texas. I pray that this announcement from the Holy See will be to Father Moore a confirmation of the value, validity, and surpassing worth of all of his efforts over the 25 years since his ordination in the Catholic Church.

I shall say it very simply: I and my parents would not have been reconciled to the Church but that Fr. Moore was the very ambassador of Christ for us. I know many, many former Anglicans and Lutherans who feel the same way about Father Moore: he led us Home to safety in Christ's Church.

After I entered the Church and my health collapsed, Fr. Moore continued to support and encourage me. And in his retirement, as my health has rather more precipitously declined, Fr. Moore has offered Masses for me and continues to pray for my healing. I have never known a priest to be as kind and generous as Fr. Moore, and while I have met many marvellous priests in the Catholic Church I shall always carry in my heart the firm conviction that Fr. Moore is one of those rare priests like St. John Vianney who inspire you to strive for the holiness of Christ and who lead you into the loving arms of the Holy Virgin.

So with all of the celebrations afoot I pause to give God hearty thanks for Fr. Moore who with Fr. Ramsey (our current pastor of Our Lady of Walsingham) started our Anglican Use parish 25 years ago. I am convinced that the Anglican Use parishes in Texas -- Fr. Christopher Phillips, Our Lady of the Atonement, San Antonio; Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston; and, Fr. Allan Hawkins, St. Mary the Virgin, Arlington -- provided the proof of the pudding, so to speak, when the Holy See looked at the Pastoral Provision experiment in the States and decided to expand those provisions and apply them worldwide through the new Apostolic Constitution (the highest form of law that can be decreed in the Catholic Church).

I invite you, gentle reader, to give God thanks for Fr. Moore whether you know him or not because through him so many have been reconciled to the Catholic Church. And if you are rejoicing over the new Apostolic Constitution and the ordinariates, remember with joy Fr. Moore and the faithful priests, deacons, and laity who set down the foundations for this Apostolic Consitution through hard work and untold sacrifices over the last twenty-five years in the parishes, mission, and congregations of the Pastoral Provision in the USA.

+Laus Deo.

'O Jesus, Living in Mary'

O Jesus, living in Mary,
come and live in thy servants,
in the spirit of thy holiness,
in the fullness of thy might,
in the truth of thy virtues,
in the perfection of thy ways,
in the communion of thy mysteries.
Subdue every hostile power
in thy spirit,
for the glory of the Father.
Amen.

St. Damien of Moloka'i

Above, the very beautiful banner that appears on the Transalpine Redemptorists blog today.

Aloha! Today is a great day for Catholics in Hawaii and Polynesia. I am greatly heartened by the way all Hawaiians seem to be taking this canonisation to heart and giving thanks for St. Damien's example. At a time where the news is filled scandal regarding a Canadian bishop, it is just like God to redirect us to the Truth of the Church revealed by the complete self-giving of St. Damien of Moloka'i to the care and evangelisation of the poorest of the poor, the outcasts called lepers.

In the faithfulness of St. Damien we see the priesthood of Christ in all of its blazing glory towering over time bringing mercy and hope where the Gospel is most needed.

I invite us all to set scandals aside for the moment and rejoice in the Blessed Trinity who this day shines His Light upon His true priest St. Damien of Moloka'i. Mahalo!

Laus Deo.+

Hymns by Vincent Uher with New Tunes by Noel Jones

Through the CMAA I have been very blest to enter into a collaboration with Noel Jones, a most talented composer. The CMAA is undertaking a project -- now in its alpha state, gathering in resources -- that will result in part in a printed "Parish Book of English Hymns". I am very enthusiastic about this important work, and by way of offering my support I am making available any of my texts that would be useful, licensing them under Creative Commons 3.0 so that they may be reproduced without alteration and without charge.

Noel Jones has such a gift for writing hymn tunes, and working with hymn on this project has been a genuine joy. He has written a lovely new tune for the Hymn of the Year of Priestly Jubilee (Annus Sacerdotalis) which I wrote at the request of Father Mark Daniel Kirby, O.S.B. and dedicated to Bishop Slattery of Tulsa, Father Mark, and the new community Father Mark is gathering together in Tulsa. [If you do not already read Father Mark's blog Vultus Christi, I suggest making it regular reading. Your soul will thank you.] Noel Jones has honoured me greatly by naming the tune after my family name "UHER".

• Click HERE for the text and new tune for my Hymn for the Year of Priestly Jubilee (Annus Sacerdotalis) "Friends of Christ, O Royal Priesthood".

Noel Jones has also written a number of other marvellous tunes for my hymn texts. Very dear to me is the text I wrote in honour of Irma More' the Foundress of Our Lady of Walsingham Institutes of Catholic Culture Studies in Houston Texas. Noel's new tune "WALSINGHAM" is simply perfect for illuminating the text.

• Click HERE for the new "WALSINGHAM" tune with my text "Christ Is Our Hope Whom We Have Seen".

Also, on the CMAA website the following hymns of mine are paired with excellent Tunes by Noel Jones:

• "Christ My God, My Faith Discerning" to the tune "ENGLEWOOD": Click HERE. I wrote this text in honour of Mother M. Angelica of the Annunciation on the occasion of her birthday some years ago.
  
• "Behold, How Like A Monarch" to the tune "GLASTONBURY TOR": Click HERE.

My prayer is that these texts and tunes will be useful blessings to the Church in the worship of the Blessed Trinity.

My thanks to Jeffrey Tucker, Jonathan Eason, and especially Noel Jones for their encouragement and collaboration.

Laus Deo. +

A week of wonder

This last week has been one of wonder. On every side the love of the Blessed Trinity has come to me, and many prayers I have prayed for a long time for others have been answered.

God has given me the most tremendous blessings after Hurricane Ike that I stand amazed and overwhelmed how He has directly come to us and helped us and moved through friend and stranger to assist us in incredible ways. I do thank Him especially that my parents are still living and that we are all once again living together in this sunset of our lives. My mother is convinced that I will receive a divine healing and have many more years to serve God. At this point I have come to a place of peace where I only want what His will is for me.

My mother has had a number of serious health challenges during this last year. Please pray for God to send her healing at this present time in which she has been very ill. I pray God send St. Raphael with healing balm from heaven for the restoration of my mother's health. May God bless her doctors and nurse practitioners.

Creative Commons and Copyright Issues

I have been slow to recognise the potential in changes in the copyright laws in the USA and the UK. The copyright option known as Creative Commons Attribution - Non-commercial is really what I have been looking for.

I have never asked for a license fee or use fee for my hymn texts. I felt the Living God wanted me to use His gift to make these texts gifts available for the entire Church and for all people.

With that in mind I will be reposting my hymns to this blog with the updated copyright information.

Some friends and family would like me to post more frequently to this blog. It is a good way to let the ones I love know that I am still alive and kicking.

God bless the Church, and God save the nations. Amen.

This Sunday at Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston, Texas

WHAT: Choral Evensong sung by Chorus Angelorum

Traditional Anglican sung Daily Office based on the Book of Common Prayer, 1662,
and the Book of Divine Worship for Roman Catholics of the Anglican Use

WHEN: Sunday September 20, 2009 at 4:00 p.m.

WHERE: Our Lady of Walsingham Roman Catholic Church ( Anglican Use)

7809 Shadyvilla Lane (1 mile North of I-10 on Wirt Road)

Choral Evensong, Votive of Our Lady of Walsingham

Introit: “O viridissima virga” Abbess Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Preces and Responses Plainsong

Magnificat & Nunc dimittis: Evening Canticles with faux bourdon, Tone II.2 Healey Willan (1880-1968)

Anthem: “Ave Virgo sanctissima” Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599)

In 1061, Mary appeared in a vision to a noble woman, Lady Richeldis de Faverches in a small village in Norfolk, England, called Little Walsingham. In this vision, Richeldis was instructed to build a chapel, a Holy House said to be the exact dimensions of Mary’s home in Nazareth. Over time, various miracles and healings were associated with this private chapel of devotion, and it became an important pilgrimage destination, visited annually by countless pilgrims, including English monarchs, including Henry VIII, until he had it dissolved in 1538. Four hundred years later, in 1921, the Catholic Revival in England reached Walsingham once again, and today, there is an active spiritual pilgrimage life in that historic Shrine to Our Lady in England. The music and the language of this Evensong were chosen to pay homage to Our Lady, honoring the Shrine at Walsingham in Houston, Texas.

Laus Deo +

Examining the conscience ...

From John and Charles Wesley:

Depth of mercy! can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear -
Me, the chief of sinners, spare?

I have long withstood His grace,
Long provoked Him to His face,
Would not hearken to His calls,
Grieved Him by a thousand falls.

Now inlcine me to repent;
Let me now my sins lament;
Now my foul revolt deplore,
Weep, believe, and sin no more.

There for me the Saviour stands,
Holding forth His wounded hands;
God is love! I know, I feel,
Jesus weeps and loves me still.

Laus Deo. +

From the Gallican Sacramentary

With minds bowed down and bodies prostrate in devotion, let us pray the Almighty Lord that the Triune God may keep guard over all his worshippers, and over the one Body of the Church, his people. May he be pleased to grant to his priests peace and concord, to all the clergy the grace of a continuing ministry, protection to the learners, comfort to the bereaved, purity to monks, to workers their due, to the hungry food, clothing to the naked, health to the sick, release to the prisoner, to the wanderer home, to the seafarer his harbour. May he show to the proud humility, to the slanderer a decent tongue, to the penitent an end of his fault, to the sinner pardon, and to the straying heretic the way of truth.