It has been announced that Dr Colin Podmore, Director of Forward in Faith from 2013 to 2020, is to be awarded an MBE. Bishop Tony Robinson, Chairman of Forward in Faith and Chairman of The Society's Council of Bishops, commented:

"I am delighted that Colin has been recognised in this way. He has served the Church of England and particularly its Catholic tradition with great distinction over many years. We wish Colin well in his retirement and are overjoyed that his faithful service to the Church has been marked by an honour."

Ordinations to the Diaconate, 2020

Ordinations to the Priesthood by Bishops of The Society, 2020

Due to the variable nature of the public health regulations currently in place, please note that the arrangements set out for any of the ordinations listed are liable to change at short notice. At all ordinations, the numbers able to be physically present are strictly limited and so attendance in person is by invitation only.

On behalf of The Society's Council of Bishops, I am delighted to welcome Bishop Will Hazlewood to our number. On this the joyful day of his consecration, we pray for Bishop Will, his family and his ministry in the Diocese of Chichester.

+TONY WAKEFIELD

The Rt Revd Tony Robinson, Bishop of Wakefield

Chairman of The Society's Council of Bishops

A selection of photographs from the joyful day.

We are grateful that the Government has heard the increasing dissatisfaction of Christians, and people of other religious traditions, and announced their intention to allow places of worship to open for individual prayer and worship from 15 June. We hope that basic principles of religious freedom, and indeed equity with other groups in society, will continue to be borne in mind in the coming stages of easing the lockdown. We are also grateful to all those in the Church of England, in other churches and in other faith communities, for their continuing work on the Government’s Places of Worship Taskforce to find a safe way of enabling congregational worship to resume as soon as possible.  

We are acutely aware of the painful experience borne by the vast majority of lay people and some clergy in recent months, deprived of corporate worship and the sacraments, and many others who have been unable either to marry or pray for their deceased family and friends in church. We hope that all who wish to - and are able to do so - will make use of the restored freedom to enter Christian churches, where it is feasible for those churches to open safely, and will continue to make use of widely available resources and opportunities to support their faith as we await a further easing of the lockdown.

The influential Anglican priest and theologian Richard Hooker wrote these words in the sixteenth century, "Churches receive as everything else their chief perfection from the end whereunto they serve. Which end being the public worship of God, they are in this consideration houses of greater dignity than any provided for meaner purposes.” While our use of language has changed slightly in the intervening centuries, the essential truth of Hooker's statement remains: the worship of God through gathered, corporate worship, as well as private prayer, is intrinsic to that dignity in worship we seek as Christians. Hooker's writings go on to re-iterate the words of the Psalmist, "O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

On this Eve of the Feast of Corpus Christi, we look forward to people being able to return to churches next week to offer their prayers before the Blessed Sacrament of the Lord. We also look forward to the time, over the coming months, when the Eucharist can be celebrated and shared among God's people. The Eucharist is not an optional liturgical extra or a contemporary lifestyle choice; it is the source and summit of the Church’s identity and forms an essential part of our Christian witness, as the historic formulae, the canons and the liturgies of the Church of England rightly recognise.

In this short devotional video on the theme of Corpus Christi (below), the Bishop of Fulham speaks powerfully of the vital role the Blessed Sacrament has in our spiritual lives. The film is a joint initiative between The Society and the Church Union and was made in accordance with the Government guidelines in place during the pandemic. It is the final film in a series of eight such films, covering the themes of Holy Week, Easter, Our Lady, Pentecost, praying for the dead and, now, Corpus Christi. The films are offered, with our prayers, as a resource to all those looking to reflect on these important Christian themes at home in this time of pandemic.

Following on from the success of their Holy Week and Easter devotional videos, The Society and the Church Union have worked together on four new devotional videos on the following themes: 

1. Our Lady to be released at 7pm on Sunday 24 May to mark Mary's month of May and to complement the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham's National Pilgrimage at Home initiative, whose live streaming commences at 11.45am on Monday 25 May.

2. Pentecost to be released at 8am on Sunday 31 May to mark the feast of that name and to renew our lives with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

3. Praying for the Dead to be released at 8pm on Thursday 4 June to support all those mourning the death of loved ones, including those grieving at this time of the coronavirus pandemic.

4. Corpus Christi to be released at 7pm on Wednesday 10 June to mark the eve of the feast of that name and to deepen our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

The videos aim, in part, to fill a spiritual gap left by the closure of churches for public worship and, for most of the faithful, private prayer. In making the videos, the lockdown rules in place at the time of filming were followed in full. The lockdown rules, and their associated health guidance, prevented most of the bishops of The Society from contributing to the two sets of videos. The bishops of The Society are therefore grateful to the Bishop of Fulham for taking a lead role. The Society and the Church Union would like to record their thanks to the Priest Administrator of the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham for the use of the Shrine Church for filming and to the Vicar and the Churchwardens of St Benet Fink, Tottenham, for the use of that church building for filming.

The videos will be made available at the times listed above via The Society Facebook Page.  Those who use Facebook are encouraged to watch them there and to share them so that they reach as many people as possible. However, it is also intended to subsequently post the videos here, for those who don't use that platform.

This liturgical music is used in the video.

Photo Credit: George Reynolds