Mass in Thanksgiving for the Tenth Anniversary of Anglicanorum Coetibus

December 7, 2019
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Sirach 5:8-12
Hebrews 10:12-23
Luke 22:14-20

Ten years ago, on November 4, 2009, the Feast of Saint Charles Borromeo, the sainted doctor of the Church and bishop of Milan, Anglicanorum Coetibus was promulgated to provide a “general normative structure for regulating the institution and like of Personal Ordinariates for those Anglican faithful who desire to enter into full communion of the Catholic Church in a corporate manner.”

It is not an understatement for me to say that the experiences of the Anglican faithful and that of the full local Church in Fort Worth served as an instrumental catalyst for the movement of the Holy Spirit prompting the Holy See to establish the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in order to further bring about full communion and the healing of painful division. The city of Houston may have the head and the body of the Ordinariate, but Fort Worth has the soul. In my office as the Bishop of Fort Worth, I am grateful to Bishop Lopes for the opportunity to preach on the occasion of this tenth anniversary during the ongoing celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese of Fort Worth.

Today as the Catholic Church we celebrate the feast of a different doctor and sainted bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose. I would like to offer a story from the life and conversion of Saint Ambrose as a point of departure for our meditation on what we celebrate and for what we offer God thanks today.

In the late fourth century there was a deep conflict within the diocese of Milan between the Catholics who were faithful to the Nicene Creed and the heretical Arians who rejected Nicea. In 374, Auxentius, the bishop of Milan and an Arian, died as bishops inevitably do. The Arians fought hard to prevent the succession of a Catholic to the chair of Milan. A riot ensued and the civil authorities were called to respond to the mayhem. Ambrose, a respected civic official, went to the church where the election was to take place in order to restore order and to prevent the riot over this controversy from becoming something even more violent — like a lawsuit.
Ambrose addressed the assembly as an outsider but with the authority of right reason moderated diplomatically by kindness; both qualities of character that God used to catch the attention of all the baptized. Soon, as the traditional hagiography tells us, the voice of a small child exclaimed, “Ambrose for bishop!” This cry was soon taken up by the entire assembly, Catholics and Arians alike.

Ambrose was known to be sympathetic to the ordered and reasoned system of Catholic doctrine, so he was acceptable to the Catholics. He was also acceptable to Arians due to the politeness he showed in discussing doctrine as a matter of rhetorical discourse. When confronted with his sudden election as bishop, Ambrose, a man of sound reason and sanity, energetically refused the office, for which he knew himself to be in no way prepared. Ambrose was neither baptized nor formally trained in theology. Upon his selection, Ambrose demonstrated his right reason and sanity by fleeing to the home of a friend in order to hide. Upon receiving a letter from the Emperor’s court in Rome that praised the appropriateness of appointing a man like Ambrose so evidently worthy of such a holy and important position, Ambrose’s friend, being a true friend and man of faith, turned Ambrose over to the authorities. Within a week, Ambrose was baptized, ordained, and duly consecrated the bishop of Milan.

The local church to which Ambrose was given as bishop had suffered much because of the doctrinal controversies between the Catholics and the Arians. Attempts were made to bring about peace through political compromise in Church leadership as well through the enforcement of laws by the civil government. Each of these attempts had failed to bring peace and unity. In fact, the call for Ambrose’s election as bishop was motivated by the “business as usual” approach to find a compromise — a compromise so radically incredible as to call into question the necessity of baptism for a candidate to be considered to be qualified for the episcopacy. “Compromise” was the word of the day. Ambrose knew the sound arguments of Catholic doctrine and came down on the right side of the issue in question, but he was also nice and polite about it with respect to those who were wrong. What a perfect compromise candidate!

Ambrose was yet very much aware that what was required of him was not being right or nice or polite or polished; what was needed of him was bona fide conversion in the Truth of the Gospel with the authentic charity that can only come about with God’s grace through Baptism and full communion with the Catholic Church. Ambrose converted from thinking about the Church to thinking in communion with the Church.

Ambrose converted from a career of rhetoric born of reason to a life of witness born of faith. Ambrose converted from the practice of stoic forbearance born of will power to a life of fortitude born of hope. Ambrose converted from polite deportment born of etiquette to a life of meekness born of charity. Such has been and continues to be the journey of Catholics who have come into full communion corporately through the establishment and formation of the Ordinariate. This conversion has enabled us today to celebrate this Eucharist in the Communion of the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Christ by the shedding of His blood. The Eternal Covenant has been forged by Christ and has fulfilled the old and provisional covenant offered in anticipation of His coming in the fullness of the Father’s love.

It is the blood of Christ alone that transforms and heals the bloody wounds of our past, both our individual history and our corporate history. The healing of our bloody wounds of division and discord comes through the outpouring of the blood of Christ accomplished and made present in the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass, once for all. The healing and division of Milan did not come about through politeness or diplomacy, nor through rational debate and indirect discourse. The healing of division and discord in Milan came through the blood of Christ alone. The healing of division and discord of the Church today, universal and local, both the Ordinariate and the Diocese of Fort Worth, comes about as a healing grace offered to us by Christ in our communion with Him and paid for by His blood. Communion is not the result of a cure imposed upon the body from outside of it, like a balm. Rather, communion is the fruit of a healing grace engendered from within the body but as nurtured by the blood of Christ.

It is this shared and corporate experience of authentic faith and communion that enables us to review our histories and to examine our consciences, corporate and personal, neither with bitter resentment nor with saccharine nostalgia. This grace that we celebrate today enables us to understand ever more deeply now than how we understood either ten or fifty years ago the truth expressed by Saint Ambrose when he wrote, “No one heals himself by wounding another. Let your door stand open to receive Christ, unlock your soul to Him, offer Him a welcome in your mind, and then you will see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, and the joy of grace.”