LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The
Catholic Community of Our Lady and St. John celebrated its first Mass on Sunday, March 5, at 4 p.m. at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Louisville.
Our Lady and St. John is a community of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter: a special diocese for Roman Catholics who were nurtured in the Anglican tradition or whose faith has been renewed by the liturgy and evangelizing mission of the Ordinariate.
Any Roman Catholic may participate in Mass at an Ordinariate Parish or community.
Jonathan Erdman, a former Episcopal priest for 12 years, serves as the leader of Our Lady and St. John. He is in formation for the Roman Catholic priesthood and will be ordained a transitional deacon during a 7 p.m. Mass on April 25 at St. Martin of Tours. The Most Rev. Steven J. Lopes, Bishop of the Ordinariate, will ordain Erdman to the transitional diaconate.
“We have been warmly welcomed into the Catholic faith by so many,” Erdman said. “Fr. Paul Beach, the people of St. Martin’s, the Archdiocese of Louisville, and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz and his staff have all been a blessing to us as we have come into the Church. We are especially grateful to Fr. Paul Beach and Fr. John Johnson for saying Mass for our community.”
In 2012, Pope Benedict established the Ordinariate for former Anglicans who had become (or wished to become) Roman Catholic, yet felt a strong bond to the liturgical and spiritual traditions which nourished them (and which are in concert with the Catholic faith).
Ordinariate Parishes celebrate Mass according to
Divine Worship: The Missal, a book of liturgical texts for the Ordinariate approved and promulgated by the Vatican in Nov. 2015. The Ordinariate Form of the Mass is fully Catholic – conforming to Catholic liturgical standards – while featuring Prayer Book English and other elements of Anglican heritage.
“Catholics would recognize an Ordinariate liturgy as largely familiar, with some distinctive elements,” Erdman said. “It incorporates language similar to the older Anglican Books of Common Prayer, but it does so in the fullness of the Roman Rite.”
Mass is celebrated for the community of Our Lady and St. John every Sunday at 4 p.m. at St. Martin of Tours, 639 S. Shelby St. in Louisville. For more information, visit
www.ourladyandstjohn.org.
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The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is a diocese for Roman Catholics who were nurtured in the Anglican tradition or whose faith has been renewed by the Ordinariate’s liturgy and evangelizing mission. With headquarters in Houston, Texas, the Ordinariate has 43 Roman Catholic parishes and parochial communities across the United States and Canada and is served by more than 70 ordained Roman Catholic priests and deacons.