The most interesting so far, as I've worked my way through them, is one by Fr Phillips of the Our Lady of the Atonement parish, specifically entitled Anglican Patrimony. He says in part,
Imagine a family living in a comfortable home, surrounded by all that's been accumulated over the years. . . . If those things were to be destroyed in a fire, would the family's values be destroyed? Would they change their sense of what is beautiful? No. Those sensibilities are within the people themselves, not within the things. The articles simply serve as a means of expression. What can be replaced will be replaced. Other things that express the family's sense of beauty and comfort will be accumulated over time. But that which is being expressed comes from within the members of the family.But of course, Fr Phillips's use of the word "family" here is figurative, and it's a little harder to transfer the analogy to something like the Anglican Ordinariates. On one hand, depending on our loyalties, we may see ourselves as Trojans, Spartans, Bruins, Cornhuskers, or Longhorns and definitely feel that makes us a family, but other than the occasional tailgate event or fundraising appeal, it doesn't hold us together much. Or we may eagerly anticipate the Schmidlap family reunion, this year in Pittsburgh, but find it's been dominated by the Connecticut Schmidlaps, who are vegan and not much fun, and are surprised to find the Pennsylvania Schmidlaps, with whom we played as children, stayed away.
So in practice, even the family that reveres the things that come from within can be a disappointment. But Fr Phillips continues,
Anglicanorum coetibus has plenty of naysayers, people who are certain that the numbers will be few. Maybe they're right, but so what? I hope hundreds of thousands will flock to the Ordinariates, but if they don't, that doesn't mean it hasn't worked. Let's face it, our Lord's little band of apostles didn't look exactly overwhelming at first.This characterization of the Apostles as a "little band" has concerned me before, in the context of "continuing Anglicanism", a related question. If we think about the constant reference to crowds in Mark's Gospel, the feedings of the four thousand and the five thousand, the five thousand who create a situation beyond the Sanhedrin's control in Acts 4, or even the implication in Luke 24, verses 17 and 18, in the exchange between our Lord and Cleopas on the road to Emmaus,
And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?clearly implying that the events of Holy Week were widely known among a large group of people, it's harder to think of early Christians as a "little band". If numbers are large in the Gospels, it means something. But let's look at a modern example, the Knights of Columbus:And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?
Michael J. McGivney, an Irish-American Catholic priest, founded the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Connecticut. He gathered a group of men from St. Mary's Parish for an organizational meeting on October 2, 1881, and the Order was incorporated under the laws of the state of Connecticut on March 29, 1882. Although the first councils were all in that state, the Order spread throughout New England and the United States in subsequent years. By 1889, there were 300 councils comprising 40,000 knights. Twenty years later, in 1909, there were 230,000 knights in 1,300 councils.So far, the Ordinariates haven't taken off at that rate. And for whatever, reason, Fr Phillips and his parish, whatever his original optimism, have chosen themselves to stay out of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.
