Confirmations in Ottawa

Bishop Reid asks the candidates for confirmation to stand

Today in Ottawa, another joyous day in the life of our parish as Bishop Carl Reid confirmed four people this morning--three from our parish and one from our daughter parish in Spencerville, Ontario.

For a while I have been laboring under an idea that I am casting off as false. It is this: that until we are received into the Catholic Church, we are stalled, we cannot grow, we are in a holding pattern.

I have been thinking that while we're not Catholic we lack a certain legitimacy or something. But not being actual physical members of the Catholic Church has not stopped evangelicals and charismatics from preaching the Gospel and making converts of the unchurched or the under-churched. We can and should do that too.

So while we wait, we can and will continue to preach the Gospel, to baptize and confirm, to anoint the sick, to teach and to disciple new Christians. It feels so much better being unstuck! Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!

True, the many people who are already in the Catholic Church who would like to join us cannot do so now. So we can't grow in numbers through an infusion of Anglicans who have already converted to Rome.

But we can and will continue to preach the Gospel, to baptize and confirm, to anoint the sick, to teach and to disciple those who might then want to continue on with us into the Catholic Church. It feels so much better being unstuck! Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!

Our small building was packed. We had visitors, too. Lutherans, evangelicals, and a Catholic convert from Anglicanism.

For some it was also their first Holy Communion

The laying on of hands

First gifts, then cake in the parish hall