Good afternoon! I hope you are enjoying this beautiful Texas autumn as much as I am. I would also like to salute the veterans among us ahead of Veterans Day on Monday.
This week we celebrated the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum Coetibus, the papal constitution that paved the way for the creation of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in which Our Lady of the Atonement has its ecclesiastical home. Though the anniversary fell on Monday (the feast day of St. Charles Borromeo), our own celebration took place today.
As with all good birthday celebrations, there was a speech, and there was cake. At a morning assembly, Father Moore recounted the history of the document as well as its personal significance to him and to Our Lady of the Atonement parish (which includes the school). Meanwhile, Mrs. Pro and the PTC graciously supplied and served cake during student lunches.
In the course of his remarks, Father Moore explained the unique charism of Ordinariate parishes as consisting of special care for: an integrated faith that does not separate the “things of God” from the rest of life; missionary zeal for evangelization; vivid, orthodox preaching; active cultivation of beauty, especially in the Mass.
Though not all Academy families are parishioners, it is helpful for us to understand the overarching charism that animates the life of both church and school at Our Lady of the Atonement. When you send your children to The Atonement, they are a part of a work of renewal that has come to fruition over the course of at least two centuries and by God’s use of a cast of characters that includes Saint John Henry Newman, Pope Saint John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI.
How wonderful and humbling that now, here in San Antonio, this is our work—as teachers, staff, scholars, parents, and clergy! So, let us continue to pray for one another.