Keeping Up to Date with the Ordinariate in Kansas City

The Catholic Key has this story about the new Ordinariate community in the KC-St. Joe, MO diocese: Our Lady of Hope Society and its new home at Our Lady of Sorrows near Crown Center:

KANSAS CITY — It was a stunning question to open a homily, and one that had more than one answer.

“What in the world are we doing here?” Father Ernie Davis asked his congregation of Catholics who in 2008 came into full communion with Rome as one former Anglican community.

Yes, they were celebrating Mass for the first time in their new home, Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, adjacent to Crown Center.

Yes, though still small in number, they still dream big and of one day becoming a full parish in the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, an organizational structure established by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI for united Catholics from the Anglican, Episcopalian and Methodist traditions to celebrate unity while retaining their adapted prayers and liturgy.

In January this year the new society was approved by the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, according to this story.

My husband I attended Mass according to the Anglican Use at St. Therese the Little Flower several years ago, from which Our Lady of Hope is moving to Our Lady of Sorrows:

But make no mistake about it. They still love their first spiritual home at St. Therese Little Flower Church, 58th and Euclid, and they still intend to participate in the work that the small parish does for hundreds of poor and elderly in its parish boundaries.

“We think we can grow and keep connected to St. Therese, especially in the things they do for the people,” said Ann Straulman.

But Straulman said it was difficult for the community to grow at St. Therese Little Flower because the parish is not easy to find, nor its location easy to describe.

“Nobody knew where it was. We would invite people and say ‘58th and Euclid,’ and people would go blank,” she said.

Straulman is one of the more senior members of the Our Lady of Hope community, now officially a “mission” of the ordinariate, but still fully connected to the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The pastor of their new church makes a nice point at the end of the article:

Then he remarked how appropriate that the Our Lady of Sorrows community and the Our Lady of Hope community unite in one church building, as he recalled Mary at the foot of the cross.

“Even in that sorrow, she had hope,” Father Pileggi said. “The two titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary are now joined together in one house.”