Bishop Wantland's Thirtieth Anniversary
The Rt. Rev. William Wantland, retired bishop of Eau Claire and our assisting bishop in the diocese of Fort Worth, celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of his consecration as a bishop with us at St. Vincent's Cathedral today. He preached a spirited homily and celebrated the 9AM Eucharist.
Bishop Wantland was honored with a reception at which he was presented with many gifts and cards from around the diocese. The people of St. Vincent's also presented the good bishop with a framed picture of the Venerable Bede dictating one of his masterworks during his senior years. It was a fitting gift for a man who, like Bede, is a scholar and defender of the faith and a very capable apologist for the Anglican expression of the catholic Faith.
Thank you for your many years of service to the Kingdom, your grace!
posted by Texanglican (R.W. Foster+) | 3:05 PM
2 Comments:
How great to see a Bishop "facing the East" as is right, good and proper in this day of the "bartender position". Well done, your Excellency!
Actually, the bishop celebrated versus populum. The photo is of him censing the altar during the offertory by circumambulating it. Sorry to disappoint you. The dean feels that we would have to remove the sedilia step behind the altar in order to move the altar back closer to the wall (which everyone seems to think is necessary to effectively celebrate ad orientum). As major reconstruction of the sanctuary is not in the budget right now, it has to wait. Sorry!
As a minor side note: our normal practice on Sundays at St. Vincent's is actually to celebrate east-facing! Like St Peter's Basilica in Rome our altar is on the west end of the building rather than the customary east end. So the celebrant actually IS facing east when he celebrates versus populum. To face the same way as the congregation would actually be west-facing! (A technicality in the eyes of some, I am sure. But it gives me some comfort!)
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