"They came to Philip...and asked him,
'Sir, we would like to see Jesus.'"
John 12:21
'Sir, we would like to see Jesus.'"
John 12:21
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Weekend Ministryfrallanhawkinsgmail.comFr. Hawkins is a retired priest of the Diocese of Fort Worth. Formerly an Episcopalian clergyman, Fr. Hawkins converted to Catholicism with his parishioners (St. Mary the Virgin in Arlington) in the 1990s, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest.
"I am the son of a Canadian who was a parish priest in the Church of England (Anglican) – and old enough to remember being in the cellar of a house in Salford that was badly damaged by bombing on Christmas Eve 1940. After a typically English boarding school education I served as an officer in the British Army. That was followed by three years at Cambridge University, studying theology; and then seminary in Oxford. I was ordained an Anglican clergyman at Michaelmas 1961 in Peterborough Cathedral. I served consecutively in three parishes. The second of these – St George’s, Stevenage – was and is the largest parish church built in England since WWII. It was also the setting of some significant experiments in pastoral care and urban evangelism (some of which captured the attention of BBC TV). Thereafter I became pastor of the Anglican parish of St Mark, Swindon. Contacts made at an international conference organized by the Church Union at Easter 1978 led to an invitation to be pastor of a small Episcopalian parish of St. Mary the Virgin in Arlington, Texas. I began my ministry there in March 1980. Soon thereafter Pope St. John Paul II announced what was called the Pastoral Provision – an arrangement by which groups of Anglicans, with their clergy (even if, as in my case, married and with two children), could enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, while retaining elements of their spiritual, cultural, and liturgical heritage. After much careful teaching, discussion, and prayer, the Parish made the decision in 1991 – virtually unanimously – to leave the Episcopal Church and to seek incorporation into the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth. Eventually, with approval from Rome, this was brought about with my ordination as a Catholic priest by Bishop Delaney on June 29, 1994, and the formal erection of the parish – of which I continued as pastor until my retirement at the end of 2012. Since 2019, I have been a knight of the Habsburg dynastic Order of St. George, and I serve on its Spiritual Council."
