The triennial forum of Churches Together in England, of which ESBVM is a body in association, took place at the Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick from September 7th – 9th 2009, taking the theme Changing World: Changing Church? The moderator of the forum was Bishop Declan Lang, Catholic Diocese of Clifton, and the deputy moderator was Val Potter, County Ecumenical Officer of Dorset. Nearly three hundred delegates were present at the forum from the thirty one churches that are members of the CTE.

Like any big ecumenical gathering of this kind being in the company of Christians with a common purpose and hearing about positive stories of churches working together gave one encouragement to continue with the ecumenical effort. At the same time, one heard and shared constructive criticism of how the structures and instruments needed to change to be fit for purpose in the altered circumstances of both contemporary society and the churches. This particularly applies to the intermediate or county bodies.

The idea of thirty or forty years ago of achieving ecclesial institutional unity within a generation or so has now receded, the emphasis is now on churches working together on practical initiatives addressing the needs of society often in partnership with secular or statutory agencies. Additionally, the exchange of gifts that the different Christian traditions can offer to each other to enrich the spiritual lives of all Christians has become a greater priority. This is referred to as receptive ecumenism. There still remains the challenge of engaging the great majority of faithful across all the mainstream churches in the ecumenical dimension of Christian life. A more positive development is the increasing participation of the black-majority churches in the ecumenical structures. However, Christian communities of an evangelical complexion, often vibrant in themselves, remain, with some exceptions, outside the ecumenical structures.

There was also a feeling that the church leadership should also have a higher profile by being seen responding and addressing together issues raised by society as well as local clerical leadership across the board, as opposed to enthusiastic and committed individuals, encouraging their congregations to engage in ecumenical activity. Last, but not least, is the issue of funding of the ecumenical instruments and endeavours particularly in the current economic climate. The level of financial support will surely be at least one measure of the ecumenical commitment of all the churches engaged in this movement.

N.B. Access to the full text of David Cornick’s and Timothy Radcliffe’s address, the audio files of the biblical study by the archbishops and the four stories are available through the link:

http://www.churches-together.net/Articles/163221/Churches_Together_in/CTE/Forum_2009/Texts_Sound_Recordings.aspx .

Paul Paniccia
Inter-Church Relations Secretary

This past summer, Dr. Frank Romance and Dr. Virginia Kimball took part in an interview (in two parts) on Midwestern radio broadcast RADIOMARIA. They spoke of the role of ecumenical Mariology. See www.radiomaria.us.

ESBVM USA is working on the development of a model for an “Ecumenical Day with Mary.” For two years, in the Fall of 2007 and 2008, members of the ESBVM conducted a “Mary Day” at the First Congregational Church, UCC, of Walton, with the thought in mind of developing an ESBVM prototype for such a program for other churches. Recently, parish members of the Walton Congregational Church who had taken part in the “Mary Day” programs joined a panel with ESBVM members to discuss the viability of developing a model for use in other churches. An audio recording was made of the panel discussion which is accessed directly by clicking on the following link:

http://www.patgohn.com/patgohn/ESBVM_Mary_Day.html

[Pat Gohn is an ESBVM member and audio engineer who volunteered to record this discussion.]

Please listen and then register your replies on this blog. We will keep track of all replies.

Greetings from the ESBVM in the USA! This is to announce our October 2009 meeting which will be held at Zion Lutheran Church, 2215 Brandywine Lane,  in York, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, 10 October, 2009! (Registration, presentations and lunch, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm / business meeting 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm.)  Rev. Janyce Jorgensen, pastor at Zion Church, will  host the meeting.

Our schedule will include presentations by Dr. Carl Winderl, Professor of Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, California, who will recount his spiritual journey and share his Marian poetry; Dr. Frank Romance, Vice-President of the ESBVM-USA, who will speak on ”Mary and the Knights of Columbus”;  and a presentation by Sr. Regina Vieyra MGSpS of Immaculate Conception Church / Old St. Mary’s in York, Pennsylvania, on “Blessed Virgin Mary in the Latino tradition.”

The meeting is open to the public and there is no entry fee. Lunceon will be served. A business meeting will follow and all are welcome to attend.

Please contact ESBVM-USA Chapter President Virginia M. Kimball at vkimball@assumption.edu for further information.

The meeting is reached via Harrisburg Internationall Airport (25 minutes away  by car) or Baltimore Washington International Airport (one hour and 15 minutes away by car.) Lodging will be available at Comfort Inn Corporate Gateway (PA 257), 2250 North George Street, York, Pennsylvania 17406 ( Phone 717-699-1919 / Fax 717-864-7209) or Homewood Suites by Hilton, 200 Masonic Drive, York, Pennsylvania, United States 17406 (Tel: 1-717-434-1800   Fax: 1-717-434-1848.)

Our sincere apologies to Mr Bernard V. A. Woods of Co Dublin, Republic of Ireland and current Chairman of the Dublin Branch for the erroneous report of his demise in the August ESBVM Newsletter which seems to have arisen as a confusion of information.

The report is premature as he is still happily with us. His dear wife Anita’s death had been recorded earlier by the Society RIP. We deeply regret any distress caused to friends in this misreporting. Our only hope is that Bernard will see himself ranked now with the famous Mark Twain who said ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’

In the February edition of the Newsletter, I reported that the North-West branch had visited Waddington, near Clitheroe to hear a talk on Fr Arthur Wagner, the apostle of Anglo-Catholicism in Brighton. Since the report appeared, I have had several stories about Fr Wagner, including the one about his father, also a clergyman, who became so distressed at the amount of the family fortune Fr Arthur was spending on building churches that he preached a sermon with the text “Lord have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic.”! As Colin Stephenson points out in his “Merrily On High” texts were much used in this way, so that when Fr Arthur fired two of his curates after some trouble, the older one preached on the text “Stay ye here with the ass, while the lad and I go yonder.”

For our Spring meeting the North-West branch indeed “went yonder” to Carnforth in the north of Lancashire and which just sneaks into the Southern Lakes. It is a beautiful part of the country, even in the depths of winter. We had gone for a Lenten Day of Mediation to the monastery of Our Lady of Hyning. We began with coffee and a talk by Sister Mary Stella on icons. Every Wednesday Sister Mary Stella runs an icon painting class and we saw many examples of her work and that of her students before she took one icon to explain to us. It was the Icon of the Nativity after Rublev, an icon painter of the early 15th Century. Our tutor patiently explained the composition of the painting: the mountain is a favourite image as a place where God converses with Man; the symbolism of the Cave, the Old Testament echoes with the ox and the ass, the rays coming down from Heaven onto the Christ-Child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. She then explained the various groups of figures – angels, shepherds, and midwives washing the newborn Child, St Joseph in conversation with the Tempter, the Magi galloping towards Bethlehem. As the end of her short talk, we had gained a fuller, better idea of what the icon was meant to signify.

We joined the nuns for their Midday Office in the simple chapel before having our packed lunch in one of the sitting rooms they provide for guests. They also have an extensive bookshop and piety stall for visitors. It is possible to book in for a stay and enjoy good food but the Sisters are an enclosed Order and so don’t join guests for meals.

After lunch and some recreational time, Canon Brenda Harding led us on a meditation. She argues that if Lent is about our journey towards God, we could consider four of the journeys Mary made and see what they tell us. The first was the Annunciation and from this we learn to echo Mary as she cries out, Be it done unto me according to Thy word. The second event was losing Jesus in Jerusalem and then finding Him three days later in the Temple. The thing we learn here is that like Mary and Joseph, we too must go on searching for the Lord until we find Him. The third episode was the wedding at Cana and Mary’s instructions to the servants should be our watchword, Do whatever He tells you. Finally Brenda took us to the Foot of the Cross where we could do no better than echo Jesus’ words, Behold your mother! After saying the Evening Office, we set off home after a productive day at Hyning.

Our Summer outing took place on Saturday 30th May when we teamed up with the Walsingham cells of St Peter’s Oughtrington and St Chrysostom’s Manchester to visit Ladyewell for the day. All in the area were urged to join us.

Our step to promote awareness of the work of the society among young people initiated last year with the first annual prize by the ESBVM Council to students who have made an outstanding contribution to Ecumenism made its 2nd award in July.

The award in the form of a tasteful glass trophy within which is embedded the engraved logo of the society was once again presented at Prior Park College in Bath and the 2nd recipient was Tegan Lloyd-Williams who joined Prior Park College in the 6th form after an exemplary school career at St Gregory’s Catholic College in Bath.

She was Head Girl at St Gregory’s and outstanding in support of the religious life of her Catholic schools where she has been a committed Christian in the Church of England. (Her father is the vicar of St Michael’s in Bath.) At Prior Park, as at St Gregory’s, her support for the Catholic life of the colleges in all kinds of ways has been matched by her personal Christian commitment to the Anglican tradition and demonstrated how much can and should be achieved by Christians working together in an educational community. Once again the winner is an Anglican student.

Tegan had shown significant ecumenical efforts during her 6th Form years at the College and has received a certificate, a copy of the ESBVM Constitution and a book token prize and will be allowed to retain the award trophy. Awards have been considered in other schools and it is hoped this might be another way of involving young people in the work of the society. If this could develop nationally and internationally it might be very valuable. This is a much needed effort of promotion of the ESBVM.

The new international web site of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been launched and is in the process of being built and populated with information from the previously existing ESBVM separate sites before the URLs are transferred. The content and URLs of the previous sites – run from the UK and the USA – are in the process of being transferred to this new site hosted on WordPress, and WordPress being a blog platform, the new content will be more timely and will allow interaction between all those who are devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Unity of the Church, one flock and one shepherd, resonating with our aim to show that, in the Blessed Virgin Mary, Christians of many traditions may find a focus in their search for unity.

This step was taken after the discussions between the Hon Gen Secretary and the USA Branch [traditionally referred to in the ESBVM as a Chapter] at the PAMI Congress in Lourdes in August 2008, which managed to clarify and resolve a number of misunderstandings that had arisen and which had perhaps inadvertently suggested the existence of two parallel societies on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. The ESBVM Council is very pleased that this united website is now being put in place and deeply grateful to Revd Giles Pinnock our ESBVM Website Master and Dr.Virginia Kimball Chair of the USA Chapter who have devoted much time to the resolution of this matter. We are sure that it will serve the promotion and work of the ESBVM internationally in a most helpful and fresh way.

The May 2009 ESBVM USA meeting was held in Walton, New York, a small mountain village in the Catskill mountains. We met at a lovely, historic UCC church. The topic of the day was a discussion on the merits of developing a model for a “Day of reflection and prayer on Mary” in any church who would be interested including Protestant churches. Such days were held at this church in Walton the Fall 2007 and 2008.

At the May ESBVM USA meeting, a panel discussion was held with representatives of the church and ESBVM USA board members. The discussion was taped. It is included here in an audio podcast, with many thanks to audio engineer Pat Gohn who volunteered her time and efforts to make this possible. We invite anyone who listens to provide a comment. Would this be a worthy endeavor for ESBVM USA to do – to develop a model for a day of prayer and reflection for churches to use?

An audio podcast of this forum can be accessed here.

BE PATIENT … it may take five to ten minutes on some computers to load this audiopod.

Member Pat Gohn, who now coordinates a Catholic radio program for women, Among Women graciously volunteered to record and produce this audio podcast. [Be sure to click on image.] We thank her for her many efforts.

ESBVM USA members who participated were Rev. Jennifer Juliano (pastor of the Walton UCC church), Rev. Donald Lacy (Methodist minister and author), Dr. Maura Hearden (Roman Catholic mariologist at DeSales University), Dr. Janyce Jorgensen (Lutheran pastor and professor of ecumenical theology at St. Mary’s Catholic Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland), and Dr. Virginia M. Kimball (Eastern Orthodox.)

If you listen to the audiopod, please comment on the ideas presented. We are most interested in what ESBVM members have to say.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols took part in a Service of Solemn Vespers at Westminster Cathedral on the evening before his Installation as the 11th Archbishop of Westminster. Members of the ESBVM were invited and attended including Mr Pat O’Sullivan and the Hon Gen Secretary. It was a beautiful occasion and prayerful.

The following day saw the installation of the new Archbishop wearing a mitre depicting the Annunciation, the central truth of our shared Christian faith that God was made Man. Once again members of the ESBVM were invited and attended including the Sr.Teresa Burke, Bishop Christopher Hill, Mr Pat O’Sullivan and our Hon Gen Secretary. As a new co-President of Churches Together in England, the new Archbishop of Westminster was greeted by other co-Presidents of CTE including The Archbishop of Canterbury and The Free Churches Moderator. The installation took place in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor along with many other Bishops of England and Wales and ecumenical guests. Four of our ESBVM patrons were present among the invited guests.