Tuesday 16 August 2011

Ordinariate in Limbo

Its been a while since my last blog regarding the Ordinariate and that has been for several reasons. The main one being that it is the holiday season.
A few people have noticed that I have not been at church lately and have asked me why, so I thought a short explanation would be helpful.
When the idea of joining the Ordinariate was first put to me it was suggested that we would be joining the Catholic Church but taking some of our Anglican patrimony with us and that we may be able to stay at our present church. In either case we would have our own service. There were other reasons as well like becoming one with Rome and beginning to make one church.
It soon became apparent that we would not be able to stay at our present church and we were eventually told of our new location, which was the main Catholic Church in Sevenoaks.
I was told at the time by people staying and not joining the Ordinariate that St. Thomas’ although a Catholic Church was not a high Church like St. Johns. I thought well that’s ok as we will be having our own services with our own servers etc.
Unfortunately, since we became Catholic I think we have only had 4 or 5 Ordinariate services, we don’t have our own service, we are attending the usual 11:15 mass and the services are taken by the priests on a rota basis. We have been informed about changes that may or may not happen but we have been asked not to say anything until things are sorted!!!
I still feel that the Sevenoaks Ordinariate is and most probably will be absorbed into the local Catholic Church. This is not a bad thing but it is not what I thought the Ordinariate was supposed to do.
 I feel that several people have used the Ordinariate to become Catholic the easy way rather than going through the usual channels, which if that’s what they want fair play to them but I still want to as they say  have all the ‘Bells and Smells’. As I said before I cannot say too much because we have been asked not to say anything until things have been sorted, but I do feel as if I have joined the Ordinariate on a cloud of euphoria and have been left on that same cloud just floating around.
It’s for this reason that I have not been attending church. I have decided to wait until things are sorted and to see if I get a sign in answer to my prayers. I know that nothing can be done on a local level at the moment because of holidays but hopefully things will start to sort themselves out during September.
Maybe the Sevenoaks Ordinariate will have to move to another location to be able to have their own service.

One other note, I am noticing more and more that Mgr Keith Newton and the Ordinariate are appealing for donations to help support the clergy and other requirements of the Ordinariate.
I know that the Ordinariate should be self financing but surely if the Pope wanted this to happen couldn’t he have made more provision then was originally made? And don’t start me on the CBS affair!!!

Saturday 6 August 2011

some Pictures of Palma holiday

More pictures of my Palma holiday can be found here; 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hedgehogspotter/
If this link doesn't work it can be accesed through facebook

Aircraft Spotters Delight

The main reasons we chose C’an Pastilla for our holiday were we had been there approx 14 years ago and back then it was a nice quiet resort, it had a nice long sandy beach, you could go out into the water a long way and the waves would only come up to your chest, we also wanted to be able to get into Palma by bus to revisit the Cathedral and we wanted to be near to the airport because when the wind is in the right direction the planes approach over the coast and are nice and low.
We had a nice afternoon flight; however once we had boarded the Monarch aircraft we were flying on we had an hour delay before take off, but once we were moving the flight went really well.
When we landed we had to find a particular travel desk in the terminal because as usual I had arranged the holiday myself so we didn’t have a tour guide to help us. We found the desk no trouble at all and the nice lady gave us our ticket and directed us to our coach for the onward journey. 30 minutes later we were in our hotel room.
Our room was on the 3rd floor with a balcony, we had views of the sea to our left and to our right was a view of the airport, I could not have planed it any better.
We had booked a 10 day half board holiday, the hotel food was good and over the 10 days not one menu was repeated. There was always a fish dish, two meat dishes, a choice of pasta and a good salad bar along with a good choice of desserts including fresh fruits and ice cream. Breakfast did become a bit monotonous but again there was a good selection of cheese and meats and as much coffee, tea chocolate and juice as you wanted.
Our first full day was spent on the beach and in the sea, we had a great time trying to catch the fish as they swam between us. The only down side to being on the beach is the amount of people trying to sell you things, you’re always being asked if you would like a massage, fresh fruit or sunglasses but once you said no they went on their way it was just unfortunate that 10 mins later another person would come along and then another and then another.
2nd day we set off to walk the coastal path to Palma with the intention of walking to the cathedral and as the aircraft were approaching over the sea we thought we would get some numbers as well. We couldn’t believe our luck not only were the aircraft approaching the airport from the sea, the footpath we were on went right to the edge of the runway, you could read the registration numbers without binoculars. We decided to explore and we found away from the path a nice secluded bay where we could swim, sunbathe and note down all the aircraft we were in heaven.
An hour and a half later we decided to continue our walk to Palma, when we were about ½ mile from Palma Cathedral and as it was now the hottest part of the day we decided to turn back and have a beer and a pizza at a beach hut restaurant that we had walked past and afterwards trudge slowly back to our secluded bay.
Over the course of our holiday we collected nearly 600 aircraft registrations 

We also saw some air force aircraft but amonst our favourite aircraft were the Yellow Tui, we even saw an orange Easy Jet which was painted in special colours to celebrate the fact that it was Easy Jets 200th Airbus.

Health and Safety Warning

I've been home from Mallorca 6 days now.
I had a brilliant time but unfortunately I managed to severely sunburn both feet.
My left foot was worse, swelling up to nearly 3 times normal size and a water blister over the complete foot.
The swelling has all gone but I still have blisters on my feet and I have just started to walk properly.
That’s what comes of going on holiday to Wales for 10 years; you forget that the sun can burn through the water!!!
So a reminder to everyone out there, don’t forget to apply lots of sun cream even if you are going into the water.