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RSV Bible Online
Daily Scripture Reading
Divine Office (Universalis)
Divine Office (BCP)
Catechism
Running Away from Jesus
Can we Trust the New Testament?
C.S. Lewis Megasite
Who is Jesus?
Faith & Reason (JPII)
Bible Study Course
Christendom Awake
Collection of Prayers
God's Love Letter to You
Augustine Club
Walsingham Shrine
The Messenger Journal
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WHY "PATMOS"?
OUR BEGINNINGS
We came into being as a regrouping of Anglicans (sometimes called "Continuing Anglicans") concerned to proclaim the Gospel, maintain the faith once delivered to the saints, and keep alive catholic worship in the Anglican tradition. The first Patmos House Mass was on 28th August, 2005. For nearly twelve months we met in a tavern. Then we moved to a larger facility on the second floor of Shafston College, just near Brisbane's landmark Story Bridge.
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PATMOS is the island off the coast of Turkey, to which St John the Divine was exiled, and where, most likely in 68AD, he wrote “Revelation”, the last book of the Bible. In the midst of turmoil and persecution, he saw his vision of Jesus reigning in glory; he received the Word of Jesus for the churches; he gazed through an open door into the heavenly worship, and he taught that through the triumph of the Cross would come a new heaven and a new earth.
PATMOS HOUSE is the name we have given to the property on the corner of Heath St and Heidelberg St East Brisbane from which the life of our community is co-ordinated. We seek to be Christ-centred, Bible believing, Gospel-driven Catholic Christians, bearing effective witness to our Lord and Saviour in a secular world. |
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JESUS IS CENTRAL
As for St John on the island of Patmos, so for us, Jesus is the centre of our worship – and, indeed, the centre of our lives - for he is God in human flesh, who came to us as a baby born of Mary at Bethlehem. He shared the life that we live; he reached out to us with love and healing, and taught us about the kingdom of God. He died in agony on the Cross to free us from our sins, and then rose from the grave, demonstrating his wonderful victory over sin and death. When we surrender to Jesus we discover “life in all its fulness” (John 10:10). He is “the same, yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). He loves us with an everlasting love; he forgives us; he binds up our wounds; he heals our broken hearts and sets us free to serve him all our days, in the sorrows as well as in the joys of life. |
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JESUS AT MASS
When we come to Mass – the main church service Jesus told us to have - we gather before God the Father, a forgiven people, cleansed from our sins by the Precious Blood of Jesus shed upon the Cross, a pilgrim people who are being healed deep within as we journey to heaven.
At Mass the Holy Spirit gathers us into a precious unity and fills us with his love and power, renewing our lives. At Mass Jesus speaks to us through his Word (the Bible) and sweeps us into to the movement of his self-offering to the Father, joining us to the worship continually taking place in heaven. At Mass Jesus gives himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament, deepening our union with him, and strengthening us for our lives in this world.
WE ARE ANGLICAN CATHOLICS
We celebrate the life-changing Good News of Jesus; we proclaim the full Catholic Faith, we express that Faith in the kind of worship most Christians who have ever lived would regard as thoroughly mainstream and, with all in the “Traditional Anglican Communion” - and, indeed, other groups of Anglicans, too - we pray and work for the day when we will once again be in full communion with the Holy See of Rome. |
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At the same time we treasure our Anglican heritage. The ethos of our liturgy, the music we use, and the traditional poetic English in which we have prayed for 450 years help us to focus on God and reach out to others. We are a people whose eucharistic worship in the fullness of Catholic tradition embodies that blend of dignity and homeliness for which historic English spirituality is noted.
An inspiring and welcoming atmosphere, Gospel preaching, traditional Anglican Catholic worship, and the kind of hymns everyone can sing. That just about sums up our services.
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On Sundays there is a natural exhuberance in the singing, the fellowship, the prayers and the ancient ceremonies of the Mass. In the words of the old hymn, we are “lost in wonder, love and praise.”
Each weekday, however, small clusters of the same people quietly offer the Mass in the little Chapel at PATMOS HOUSE. They do this on behalf of the whole Community, whose daily lives are sanctified by that offering. In this way we enter into the intercessory work of Jesus, joining to his perfect Sacrifice our prayers for all who are in need.
Whether we are at Mass on Sundays at SHAFSTON COLLEGE or on weekdays in the PATMOS HOUSE CHAPEL we know that our worship is merged with that of the angels and the saints (“the great company that no man can number”), the heavenly gathering around the Throne of God. We also know that, having been nourished by the proclamation of God's Word and by receiving the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion, we are sent out into the world to be channels of the love and healing of Jesus.
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One day we will have a church building of our own. But holding our Sunday Mass in borrowed facilities helps us to remember something really important, that . . .
CHURCH IS THE PEOPLE GATHERED AROUND JESUS who comes to us in his Word (the Bible) and in the Sacraments (especially Baptism and Holy Communion). It's the GATHERING and not the BUILDING that makes the Church. Many have remarked on the depth of friendship and sharing they discover when they visit our Mass or one of our other activities.
WHY NOT CHECK US OUT! If you don't belong to a church, we invite you to join us for Mass at Shafston College. Come and see for yourself at 9.30 a.m. one Sunday - even if you're just curious.
It might turn out to be the most important life-enriching decision you have ever made! Click HERE for a map to help you find Shafston College.
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