"A signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ"

There is much to deeply regret and utterly disown in the text of the Black Rubric.  Admittedly the 1662 version was something of an improvement on that of 1552:


It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood (1662);


We do declare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood (1552).


1552 was an explicit denunciation of the catholic understanding of Christ's presence in the Eucharist.  The deletion of the text in 1559 and its re-wording in 1662 were attempts to moderate this and reconcile Anglicanism to the patristic affirmations of the change in the bread and wine effected by the Eucharist.


Even then, it falls far short of St Irenaeus' teaching:


the mixed cup and the manufactured bread receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, that is to say, the Body and Blood of Christ ... For just as the bread which comes from the earth, having received the invocation of God, is no longer ordinary bread, but the Eucharist.


Perhaps nothing so clearly illustrates Anglicanism's need of the teaching of the great Latin Church in order to be authentically catholic.  There is, however, one aspect of the Black Rubric that demonstrates how the Anglican patrimony can contribute to the renewal of the Catholic tradition:


Whereas it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers ...).


Rejecting the practice of the Reformed tradition in sitting to receive the Holy Eucharist, even at the height of Reformation controversy Anglicanism affirmed the catholic practice of kneeling to receive.  Benedict XVI has, of course, encouraged the Latin Church to re-embrace the practice.  Now the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship has also urged a return to kneeling:


Spanish Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera recently recommended that Catholics receive Communion on the tongue, while kneeling.


“It is to simply know that we are before God himself and that He came to us and that we are undeserving,” the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said in an interview with CNA during his visit to Lima, Peru.


The cardinal’s remarks came in response to a question on whether Catholics should receive Communion in the hand or on the tongue.


He recommended that Catholics “receive Communion on the tongue and while kneeling.”


Receiving Communion in this way, the cardinal continued, “is the sign of adoration that needs to be recovered. I think the entire Church needs to receive Communion while kneeling.”


While Anglican worship has mirrored many of the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms, kneeling to receive the Eucharist has remained the norm within Anglicanism.  The Ordinariates will almost certainly continue this practice and thereby aid the 'reform of the reform'.  It is, perhaps, a sign of the workings of grace that even the Black Rubric can contribute to a recovery of the Church's sense of mystery and adoration before Holy Eucharist.

To heal, not accuse

Amidst the ongoing, emotive debate in Ireland on aspects of the confessional, a reminder from Blessed John Paul II on the healing nature of the Sacrament of Reconciliation - words that will reflect the pastoral experience of those Anglicans who benefit from this Sacrament:

As it reflects on the function of this sacrament, the church's consciousness discerns in it, over and above the character of judgment in the sense just mentioned, a healing of a medicinal character. And this is linked to the fact that the Gospel frequently presents Christ as healer, while his redemptive work is often called, from Christian antiquity, medicina salutis. "I wish to heal, not accuse," St. Augustine said, referring to the exercise of the pastoral activity regarding penance, and it is thanks to the medicine of confession that the experience of sin does not degenerate into despair.

"The greatest Father of the Latin Church"

With many thanks to SPCK, a book which should be required reading for those reflecting on Anglicanorum Coetibus - Great Christian Thinkers: From the Early Church through the Middle Ages.  It is a collection of addresses by the Holy Father on key figures from the Tradition. 

Considering that this blog is under the patronage of St Augustine, perhaps I can be forgiven for quoting from addresses included in the collection on the bishop of Hippo:

We speak now of the greatest Father of the Latin Church, St Augustine ... I wanted to ideally conclude my pilgrimage to Pavia by consigning to the Church and to the world, before the tomb of this great lover of God, my first encyclical, titled Deus Caritas Est.  I owe much, in fact, especially in the first part, to Augustine's thought ... I wished to devote my second encyclical to hope, Spe Salvi, and it is also largely indebted to Augustine and his encounter with God.

Anglicanism's experience of the Reformation was in many ways a rediscovery of Augustine.  Such rediscovery, however, was incomplete, marred as it was by both the political circumstances of the era and a failure to give due attention to Augustine's belief in the catholicity of the Church.  It is fitting, therefore, that an explicitly Augustinian successor to Peter has provided the means for the reconciliation of the Anglican tradition to the See of Peter.

"The form of the Church ... is the form of the Cross"

From a lecture given by Archbishop Chaput in Slovakia last year, addressing the challenges facing the Church in an age of de-christianisation:

So what does this mean for us as individual disciples? Let me offer a few suggestions by way of a conclusion.

My first suggestion comes again from the great witness against the paganism of the Third Reich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “The renewal of the Western world lies solely in the divine renewal of the Church, which leads her to the fellowship of the risen and living Jesus Christ.”

The world urgently needs a re-awakening of the Church in our actions and in our public and private witness.  The world needs each of us to come to a deeper experience of our Risen Lord in the company of our fellow believers. The renewal of the West depends overwhelmingly on our faithfulness to Jesus Christ and his Church.

We need to really believe what we say we believe. Then we need to prove it by the witness of our lives. We need to be so convinced of the truths of the Creed that we are on fire to live by these truths, to love by these truths, and to defend these truths, even to the point of our own discomfort and suffering.

We are ambassadors of the living God to a world that is on the verge of forgetting him. Our work is to make God real; to be the face of his love; to propose once more to the men and women of our day, the dialogue of salvation.

The lesson of the 20th century is that there is no cheap grace. This God whom we believe in, this God who loved the world so much that he sent his only Son to suffer and die for it, demands that we live the same bold, sacrificial pattern of life shown to us by Jesus Christ.

The form of the Church, and the form of every Christian life, is the form of the cross. Our lives must become a liturgy, a self-offering that embodies the love of God and the renewal of the world.

Chaput's words address the context in which the Ordinariates are coming into being.  Beyond all the institutional challenges facing the Ordinariates (see Damian Thompson on this), the defining challenge will be how the Ordinariates respond to the call to share in the new evangelisation.  What does it mean for the form of the Ordinariates to be the form of the Cross?  What does it mean for the Ordinariates to lead people in our secularised societies to what Archbishop Chaput termed "a deeper experience of our Risen Lord" in the communion of the Catholic Church?  What can the Ordinariates contribute to the Church's public witness?  Such questions, it is to be hoped, will be at the heart of the life of the Ordinariates.

Scotland and the Ordinariate

Last Wednesday, Fr. Len Black - formerly a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church and Regional Dean of Forward in Faith - was ordained a Catholic priest by Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley.  Bishop Tartaglia's words on the Ordinariate's contribution to the ecumenism are worth noting:

Although the group in Scotland is very small, when taken along with considerably more groups and clergy in England and Wales and with ordinariate arrangements coming into place soon in the US and possibly in Australia later, this begins to look like a new and visionary way of re-creating Christian unity after years of ecumenical stalemate, and it is marked by the striking originality, simplicity, and generosity of a Pope Benedict XVI initiative.

Members of the Ordinariate in Scotland were previously received into the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil.

The mystery of primacy in a time of crisis

Even in the best of times, it would not be easy for an Irish Anglican to consider Anglicanorum Coetibus.  The cultural and historical divisions on this island are such that the theological rationale for any Anglican seeking to enter communion with the Catholic Church will face suspicion from both traditions.

In the dramatic circumstances created by the response to the Cloyne Report, however, those Irish Anglicans prayerfully reflecting on Anglicanorum Coetibus face an even more difficult situation.  It is, therefore, appropriate to consider some words from the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement's work You are Peter:

I don't care much for Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome ... The true Saint Peter's is underground, and to grasp this is to understand how, during the first centuries, the church of Rome was venerated as the church of the martyr-apostles Peter and Paul, then as that of the martyr-bishops, and that its true role could only be one of martyria - in the special double sense of witness and martyrdom.

Here, then, is the mystery of the primacy of the church at Rome, the primacy which the ARCIC process urged Anglicans to re-receive and which Anglicanorum Coetibus makes possible for those from the Anglican tradition.  Beyond the shame of the child abuse crisis, beyond the actions of the Curia, a prayerful reflection of Anglicanorum Coetibus will reaffirm the mystery of this primacy - the mystery of the gift of the church of the martyrs Peter and Paul.

Beyond the old paradigm: Chaput and the Evangelical Catholics

George Weigel has a fascinating interpretation of the much commented on move of Chaput to be Archbishop of Philadelphia:

Archbishop Chaput put it best himself in an exclusive interview with Catholic News Agency: “The biggest challenge, not just in Philadelphia but everywhere, is to preach the Gospel. . . . We need to have confidence in the Gospel, we have to live it faithfully, and to live it without compromise and with great joy.”

That formulation — the Gospel without compromise, joyfully lived — captures the essence of the Evangelical Catholicism that is slowly but steadily replacing Counter-Reformation Catholicism in the United States. The usual suspects are living in an old Catholic paradigm: They’re stuck in the Counter-Reformation Church of institutional maintenance; they simply want an institution they can run with looser rules, closely aligned with the Democratic party on the political left — which is precisely why they’re of interest to their media megaphones. Archbishop Chaput, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, and other rising leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States are operating out of a very different paradigm — and in doing so, they’re the true heirs of both the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II ...

The old warhorses of the post–Vatican II debates, on either end of the Catholic spectrum, don’t get this; they’re still mud-wrestling within the old paradigm. But Archbishop Charles Chaput gets it, big time. That, and the effective work of his predecessor, Cardinal James Francis Stafford, is what has made the archdiocese of Denver what is arguably the model Evangelical Catholic diocese in the country: a Church brimming with excitement over the adventure of the Gospel, a Church attracting some of the sharpest young Catholics in America to its services, a Church fully engaged in public life while making genuinely public arguments about the first principles of democracy.

The Ordinariate and rediscovery of the Mystery in Europe

Continuing the theme of the place of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the new evangelisation in Europe, more words from Blessed John Paul II's Ecclesia in Europa:

The task that awaits the Church in Europe is both demanding and exciting.  It consists in rediscovering the sense of "mystery"; in renewing liturgical celebrations so that they can be more eloquent signs of the presence of Christ the Lord; in ensuring greater silence in prayer and in contemplation; in returning to Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Penance, as wellsprings of freedom and new hope (69).

The Ordinariate and metropolitan mission

Archbishop Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council Promoting New Evangelization, recently outlined an initiative to take place in European cities in Lent 2012.  Recognising that "the largest European cities that have been particularly affected by secularization", the Archbishop - following a summit of bishops from Barcelona, Budapest, Brussels, Cologne, Dublin, Lisbon, Liverpool, Paris, Turin, Warsaw and Vienna - proposed that dioceses in Europe's cities should undertake the following next Lent:

The cathedral will be the place of these activities. Firstly, through a continual reading of the Gospels, to place the Word of God at the center. Then, three catechisms of the bishop dedicated to young people, to families and to catechumens on the themes of faith; then, a celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation to draw attention to confession and for its high anthropological value. An activity of charity will complete the experience to demonstrate that faith that is professed and prayed is also witnessed. Finally, a sign of spirituality of a cultural character will be given by the reading of various significant texts, such as excerpts from the Confessions of St. Augustine.

There is an opportunity for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham to consider how the Anglican patrimony, reconciled to the See of Peter, could contribute to this exciting project.  While the Ordinariate communities are presently quite small, this can be an advantage in the context of the new evangelisation in secularised, de-Christianised urban contexts, allowing for a more intentional approach to community, formation and pastoral relationships.  The Anglican patrimony has also traditionally placed a high premium on celebrating the culturally enriching character of expressions of the Christian faith, both in terms of liturgy and apologetics.  There is also the possibility that aspects of the Anglican patrimony's approach to the Sacrament of Confession - usually practiced in a pastoral relationship and intimately related to spiritual direction - may have much to commend this Sacrament in the context of de-Christianised cultures.

Finding its place in the new evangelisation is, perhaps, the chief calling of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.  This is, after all, a very significant part of what it means for the Anglican tradition to be reconciled to the great tradition of the Latin West and Europe's ancient Apostolic See: to share in the mission of once again bringing bringing the Good News of the Incarnate Word to the peoples of Europe.

"The drama of Newman's life"

In his sermon at the Anglican Use Conference, Bishop Kevin quoted from words spoken by the Holy Father during his visit to the UK:

The drama of Newman’s life invites us to examine our lives, to see them against the vast horizon of God’s plan, and to grow in communion with the Church of every time and place: the Church of the apostles, the Church of the Martyrs, the Church of the saints, the Church which Newman loved and to whose mission he devoted his entire life.

In communion with Blessed John Henry Newman, the Ordinariates find their place in this drama.

Ordinariates, MacIntyre and Blessed John Paul II

Continuing the theme of St Benedict, and mindful of MacIntyre's conclusion to his After Virtue, words from Blessed John Paul II's post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Europa:

In a context where a temptation to activism is also attractive at the pastoral level, Christians in Europe must continue to be a transparent image of the Risen Christ, living in close communion with him.  There is a need for communities which, by contemplating and imitating the Virgin Mary, the figure and model of the Church in faith and holiness, cultivate the sense of liturgical life and of interior life.  Before all and above all, they should praise the Lord, worship him and hear his Word.  Only in this way will they be able to partake of his mystery and live totally in relation to him as members of his faithful Bride.

It is difficult to think of a better description of the vocation of Ordinariate and Anglican-Use communities in the context of the new evangelisation.

St Benedict and the European soul

Benedict XVI on his patron and Europe's patron, St Benedict of Nursia.  The Holy Father begins with a quotation from St Gregory the Great on the father of western monasticism:

Straddling the fifth and sixth centuries, "the world was overturned by a tremendous crisis of values and institutions caused by the collapse of the Roman Empire, the invasion of new peoples and the decay of morals". But in this terrible situation, here, in this very city of Rome, Gregory presented St Benedict as a "luminous star" in order to point the way out of the "black night of history" (cf. John Paul II, 18 May 1979). In fact, the Saint's work and particularly his Rule were to prove heralds of an authentic spiritual leaven which, in the course of the centuries, far beyond the boundaries of his country and time, changed the face of Europe following the fall of the political unity created by the Roman Empire, inspiring a new spiritual and cultural unity, that of the Christian faith shared by the peoples of the Continent. This is how the reality we call "Europe" came into being ...

By proclaiming St Benedict Patron of Europe on 24 October 1964, Paul VI intended to recognize the marvellous work the Saint achieved with his Rule for the formation of the civilization and culture of Europe. Having recently emerged from a century that was deeply wounded by two World Wars and the collapse of the great ideologies, now revealed as tragic utopias, Europe today is in search of its own identity. Of course, in order to create new and lasting unity, political, economic and juridical instruments are important, but it is also necessary to awaken an ethical and spiritual renewal which draws on the Christian roots of the Continent, otherwise a new Europe cannot be built. Without this vital sap, man is exposed to the danger of succumbing to the ancient temptation of seeking to redeem himself by himself - a utopia which in different ways, in 20th-century Europe, as Pope John Paul II pointed out, has caused "a regression without precedent in the tormented history of humanity" (Address to the Pontifical Council for Culture, 12 January 1990). Today, in seeking true progress, let us also listen to the Rule of St Benedict as a guiding light on our journey.

St Luke's journey to communion with Peter

The date has been set for St Luke's, Bladensburg, Maryland, to be received into the Catholic Church - October 9th, the feast of Blessed John Henry Newman.

The Rector of St Luke's reminds us of the call of Anglicanorum Coetibus - for Anglicanism to be reordered around the apostolic authority of the See of Peter:

We put so much value in Scripture, but in our discernment we came to understand that there has to be apostolic authority in the sense of ‘the buck stops here.’ Who interprets Scripture? It can’t be different interpretations in different dioceses. This led us to Rome.”

We entrust St Luke's on its pilgrimage to communion with Peter to the intercession of Blessed John Henry Newman.

Papal summer break

From the Vatican news service, confirmation that as the Holy Father begins his summer break at the ancient papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, he will be working on the final volume of his much appreciated 'Jesus of Nazareth' series:

We can also say that the Pope has a project in the pipeline that we all know about: the completion of his great work on Jesus of Nazareth. He told us he wanted to complete it with a third volume, though smaller, perhaps a bit different in nature and approach, which is about His childhood, about the infancy Gospels. He has already started working on it in his free periods of the past months, but probably this is the right time to bring the work to a conclusion or at least to forge ahead on it.

The series has immense spiritual riches, encouraging the Church to confess the Jesus of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and sharing with contemporary culture the depth of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word.  It would, therefore, be appropriate for us to pray for Pope Benedict as he undertakes this work.

Ordinariate liturgy and the renewal of tradition

William Oddie in his Catholic Herald column welcomes the likely shape and content of the forthcoming liturgy of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham as having significance for the entire Latin Rite:

It is, says Fr Nichols, “a testimony to what might have been, had the English Reformation proceeded on Catholic lines, as did the Catholic Reformation in much of continental Europe”. What the Ordinariate will be practising will be a true and authentically English Catholicism, untainted by the reductionism of the “spirit of Vatican II”. And I suspect that in the future its influence over the rest of us may well be considerable.

He points back to an earlier column containing the full text of Miles Coverdale's translation of the Roman Canon, the ancient eucharistic prayer used in the churches of these islands for the millennium before the Reformation - the eucharistic prayer of Patrick and Augustine of Canterbury.  As Oddie states, "this too is part of the patrimony":

Wherefore, O Lord, we thy servants, and thy holy people also, remembering the blessed passion of the same Christ thy Son our Lord, as also his resurrection from the dead, and his glorious ascension into heaven; do offer unto thine excellent majesty of thine own gifts and bounty, the pure victim, the holy victim, the immaculate victim, the holy Bread of eternal life, and the Chalice of everlasting salvation.

Vouchsafe to look upon them with a merciful and pleasant countenance; and to accept them, even as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the gifts of thy servant Abel the Righteous, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham; and the holy sacrifice, the immaculate victim, which thy high priest Melchisedech offered unto thee.

We humbly beseech thee, almighty God, command these offerings to be brought by the hands of thy holy Angel to thine altar on high, in sight of thy divine majesty; that all we who at this partaking of the altar shall receive the most sacred Body and Blood of thy Son, may be fulfilled with all heavenly benediction and grace ...

To us sinners also, thy servants, who hope in the multitude of thy mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with thy holy Apostles and Martyrs; with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia and with all thy Saints, within whose fellowship, we beseech thee, admit us, not weighing our merit, but granting us forgiveness.

Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer did, of course, have faint echoes of the Roman Canon.  This is testimony to Anglicanism's Latin Catholic heritage despite the painful rupture of the Reformation.  In praying these ancient words, in a rich liturgical language, the Ordinariate can demonstrate what it means for the Anglican tradition to be reconciled to the See of Peter - re-embracing a catholicity with deep roots in the cultures of these islands and contributing to the new evangelisation of a de-Christianised Europe.

St Thomas More, witness to the call to communion with Peter

While the universal Roman calendar commemorates St Thomas More on 22nd June, alongside St John Fisher who was martyred on that date in 1535, it was on 6th July in the same year that St Thomas was martyred.

The collect for his commemoration in the Anglican calendar prays that God "inspired Thomas to put conscience about earthly honour, so that he died the king's good servant, but yours first".

St Thomas More's rejection of Henry VIII's overthrow of the primacy of the See of Peter and Henry's arrogation to himself of the title 'Supreme Head of the Church in England', speaks into the present crisis within Anglicanism.  Apart from the See of Peter, a church's unity and communion is greviously undermined as other sources of authority challenge the apostolic tradition. 

The witness of St Thomas More points to the call to the ecclesia anglicana to live in communion with Peter.

St Thomas More, ora pro nobis.

Words from Reading

Words for reflection from Fr. David Elliott, the newly-ordained priest in charge of the Reading Ordinariate group:

I am sure there are many people who are thinking of joining, but whether the growth is quick or slow it needs to be genuine. People need to want to do it and it’s about quality rather than quantity.

Anglican Use Society 2011 conference

Live streaming of the Anglican Use Society 2011 conference, 7th-9th July, can be viewed here.  The sessions will also be archived for later viewing.

The conference is being held at St Mary the Virgin Anglican Use parish, Arlington, Texas.  The picture is of Mass being celebrated in the parish.

Fort Worth, apostolic tradition and communion with Peter

Reports are emerging from the United States that 6 Episcopal parishes (almost certainly in the Diocese of Fort Worth) are preparing to join the soon-to-be established US Ordinariate.

The Vatican Insider quotes Monsignor Mark Langham, head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity:

For at least ten years these communities have expressed a desire for full communion with Rome. Now they too will become part of the Ordinariate foreseen by the  Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus to accommodate former Anglican pastors and faithful ... The reason is to be found in the faithfulness of the communities to apostolic tradition.

This reflects a process that began in 2008, when a group of Forth Worth Episcopal priests approached the local Roman Catholic diocesan to explore entering into communion with the See of Peter.  In their presentation, the Fort Worth priests commenced with the following statement:

We believe the See of Peter is essential not optional.  Unity with the Holy See is esse that is, essential for Catholic Christians (not bene esse, merely beneficial.)

The presentation continued with a recognition of the source of the present Anglican crisis:

Anglican "comprehensiveness" has no boundaries and no real center ... If there is a future, particularly for Catholic minded Anglicans, it is clear that a magisterium is absolutely essential ... We know what happens in a church which lacks a magisterium and whose polity makes the continuing of a Catholic witness impossible.

It appears as if this process of discernment will now find its culmination in these parishes entering the Ordinariate.  The conclusion of the process of discernment should be prayerfully considered by Anglicans who seek to be faithful to apostolic tradition - such fidelity requires the teaching office of Peter.

(The picture is of Bishop Iker, Fort Worth diocesan, celebrating the Holy Eucharist in a Fort Worth parish at Pentecost.)

DC Ordinariate community

The St Thomas of Canterbury Society is an Ordinariate-bound community establishing itself in Washington DC.  In a Virginia Catholic parish it recently held Evensong and Benediction attended by 140 people and has regularly celebrated Evensong in St Anslem's Abbey, a Benedictine institution.  According to the Society's website it has now also been invited by Holy Spirit Catholic parish in Virginia to hold regular Anglican-Use services.  (One member of the community runs a blog, Seward's Folly - Reflections of an Episcopalian reconciled to Rome.)

It provides another example of how a community of lay Anglicans can gather in response to Anglicanorum Coetibus, pray within the Anglican patrimony and prepare to be received into communion with Peter. 

Word's from Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral spring to mind:

We thank Thee for Thy mercies of blood, for Thy redemp-
tion by blood.  For the blood of Thy marytrs and saints
Shall enrich the earth, shall create the holy places ...
Blessed Thomas, pray for us.

Liturgy, patrimony and ecclesia anglicana

From the Ordinariate Portal, Fr. Aidan Nichols' lecture on Anglicanorum Coetibus and the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.  Fr. Nichols explains the context of the proposed Anglican-Use liturgy for the Ordinariate, including this interesting reference to the Daily Office:

There was one unusual feature of the Office of Mattins.  Following contemporary Church of England precedent, the second reading at Mattins could be drawn from post-biblical sources.  In the context of the Latin church, the Roman rite Office of Readings is an obvious source for these, but the book drafted for the English Ordinariate contains an alternative cycle for Sundays and feasts taken from insular sources.  A number of these are taken from patristic writers (Bede, Aldhelm), mediaeval sources (John of Ford, Mother Julian, Nicholas Love), and English Catholic martyrs (Fisher, More, Campion), but the larger number derive from the Anglican patrimony (the Caroline divines and their Restoration successors, the Tractarians with particular reference to Newman, and a selection of later Anglo-Catholic writers).

This provides a significant insight into the respect for the Anglican patrimony fundamental to Anglicanorum Coetibus.  The Anglican cycle of the Daily Office is retained, a cycle which has nurtured generations of Anglicans and which recalls the older English tradition of praying according the Books of Hours (wonderfully explored by Eamon Duffy).  It enriches this Anglican experience with the Latin custom of reflecting on Scripture in the light of the Church's tradition through readings from the Fathers, pontiffs and doctors.  And it here embraces the Anglican patrimony by providing readings from those theologians, scholars and pastors within the Anglican tradition who sought to proclaim the vision glorious of a catholic ecclesia anglicana.

For those of us in Ireland considering Anglicanorum Coetibus, any future Anglican-Use presence on this island in communion with the See of Peter is going to find regular expression through the Anglican-Use Daily Office.  We have, therefore, much to gain from the richness of the proposal outlined by Fr. Nichols - praying Mattins and Evensong, surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, and in communion with Peter.

"The greatest, most ancient Church"

Anglicanism's debt to the See of Rome is profound.  Cranmer's majestic collects are, for the most part, translations and revisions of those from ancient Roman sacramentaries.  The Apostles' Creed used at Matins and Evensong is the Roman church's ancient baptismal profession of faith.  And, despite the controversy over Anglican orders and the Holy See's definitive judgment, The Preface to the Ordinal accepted the need to preserve the orders received from the Latin church - "that these Orders may be continued". 

The 1662 revision of the Book of Common Prayer implicitly acknowledged this debt when, for the first time since the Reformation, it restored the commemoration of Pope Gregory the Great to the liturgical calendar.  St Gregory, of course, initiated the missionary effort that resulted in the creation of the See of Canterbury.

Imperfectly, hesitatingly, the Anglican tradition - despite the rupture of the Reformation - has been shaped by the faith and tradition of the ancient and apostolic Roman church.  It is this historical reality which allowed the Holy See to proclaim Anglicanorum Coetibus, providing a means for Anglicans to be reconciled to the See of Peter and to thereby recover the fullness of our heritage as Latin Catholics.

Which brings us to today's commemoration of the Holy Proto-martyrs of the Roman Church.  This commemoration reminds the Universal Church that the primacy of the Roman church is built on the witness of its martyrs.  In his Epistle to the Corinthians, Clement I points to the witness of the proto-martyrs alongside the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul:

To these men who spent their lives in the practice of holiness, there is to be added a great multitude of the elect, who, having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us with a most excellent example.

To acknowledge the primacy of the Roman church is to accept the witness of Peter, Paul and the holy proto-martyrs.  It is to share in the confession of St Irenaeus - "the greatest, most ancient Church, the Church known to all, the Church founded and established in Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul ... With this Church, because of its more excellent origin, every Church must agree" (Adversus Haereses III 3, 1-3).  Anglicanorum Coetibus is a gift which allows Anglicans to share this confession.

"He stood for the Church's universality and unity"

St Augustine's sermon on the feast of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul reminds us that the Petrine ministry is one which serves communion and unity.  Peter, Augustine proclaims, "stood for the Church's universality and unity":

Before his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, "To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." After all, it is not just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter’s acknowledged pre-eminence, that he stood for the Church’s universality and unity, when he was told, "To you I am entrusting," what has in fact been entrusted to all. To show you that it is the Church which has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, listen to what the Lord says in another place to all his apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit; and immediately afterwards, Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they will be retained" (John 20:22-23).

Quite rightly, too, did the Lord after his resurrection entrust his sheep to Peter to be fed (Jn. 21: 15-19). It is not, you see, that he alone among the disciples was fit to feed the Lord’s sheep; but when Christ speaks to one man, unity is being commended to us. And he first speaks to Peter, because Peter is the first among the apostles.

Augustine's understanding of the Petrine ministry provides an insight into the crisis of contemporary Anglicanism.  Without the Petrine ministry, Anglicanism vocation to universality and unity is fundamentally flawed.  The ARCIC agreements on 'Authority in the Church' have at least implicitly recognised this, urging Anglicanism to undergo a "recovery and re-reception" of the "universal primacy by the Bishop of Rome" (The Gift of Authority III, 62).

It is in this context that the authentically ecumenical promise of Anglicanorum Coetibus can be seen.  To quote from Fr Aidan Nichols' homily at the first Mass of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham:

It is nothing less than the reconfiguring of Anglicanism by union with the Petrine centre and its criteria of orthodoxy. 

For universality and unity, we need Peter.  This is what Anglicanorum Coetibus offers the Anglican tradition.  For Anglican pilgrims on the path of reconciliation with the See of Peter, this is what we can celebrate on today's feast.

Peter - "bearing witness to the truth, he serves unity"

In the week in which we celebrate the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, it is appropriate to reflect on words from Blessed John Paul II's encyclical Ut unum sint on the Petrine primacy:

The Bishop of Rome is the Bishop of the Church which preserves the mark of the martyrdom of Peter and of Paul: "By a mysterious design of Providence it is at Rome that [Peter] concludes his journey in following Jesus, and it is at Rome that he gives his greatest proof of love and fidelity. Likewise Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, gives his supreme witness at Rome. In this way the Church of Rome became the Church of Peter and of Paul" (90) ...

With the power and the authority without which such an office would be illusory, the Bishop of Rome must ensure the communion of all the Churches. For this reason, he is the first servant of unity. This primacy is exercised on various levels, including vigilance over the handing down of the Word, the celebration of the Liturgy and the Sacraments, the Church's mission, discipline and the Christian life. It is the responsibility of the Successor of Peter to recall the requirements of the common good of the Church, should anyone be tempted to overlook it in the pursuit of personal interests. He has the duty to admonish, to caution and to declare at times that this or that opinion being circulated is irreconcilable with the unity of faith. When circumstances require it, he speaks in the name of all the Pastors in communion with him. He can also—under very specific conditions clearly laid down by the First Vatican Council— declare ex cathedra that a certain doctrine belongs to the deposit of faith. By thus bearing witness to the truth, he serves unity (94).

Mindful of the crisis of orthodoxy and orthopraxis within contemporary Anglicanism, we can see with a renewed vision the evangelical vocation of the Petrine ministry to build up the Church's unity and communion.  It is precisely the absence of this Petrine ministry within Anglicanism which has created the circumstances which have given rise to a succession of ecclesiological crises, led to impaired communion and resulted in significant divisions (Continuing, AMiA, CANA, GAFCON, and now AMiE). We have cut ourselves off from Peter and his vocation to build up the Church's unity and communion.

Those Anglicans prayerfully reflecting on Anglicanorum Coetibus can then re-receive the truth that, as Ut unum sint proclaims, the Petrine primacy has its foundation in the Gospel:

In the New Testament, the person of Peter has an eminent place. In the first part of the Acts of the Apostles, he appears as the leader and spokesman of the Apostolic College described as "Peter ... and the Eleven" (2:14; cf. 2:37, 5:29). The place assigned to Peter is based on the words of Christ himself, as they are recorded in the Gospel traditions.

This Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, I continue my journey towards reconciliation with the See of Peter, mindful of the commission given to Peter and his successors by the Incarnate Word, the Crucified and Risen Lord.

The Ordinariates and the Psalter

In the catechesis at his general audience on Wednesday of this week, the Holy Father spoke of the Psalms as "the book of prayer par excellence".  His comments emphasise the significance of the Psalter to the daily office:

The Psalms teach us to pray ... In them, the Word of God becomes the word of prayer. ... People who pray the Psalms speak to God with the words of God, addressing Him with the words He Himself taught us. ... Through these words it is also possible to know and accept the criteria of His actions, to approach the mystery of His thoughts and His ways, so as to grow and develop in faith and love.

And it is in the Paschal Mystery that the Psalms are provided with their "ultimate interpretation" - it is in light of the Cross and Resurrection that the Church prays the psalms in its daily prayer:

Equally important and significant are the manner and frequency in which the words of the Psalms appear in the New Testament, where they assume and underline that prophetic significance suggested by the link of the Book of Psalms with the messianic figure of David. In His earthly life the Lord Jesus prayed with the Psalms, and in Him they reach definitive fulfilment and reveal their fullest and deepest meaning. The prayers of the Book of Psalms, with which we speak to God, speak to us of Him, they speak of the Son, image of the invisible God Who fully reveals the Father's face to us. Thus Christians, by praying the Psalms, pray to the Father in Christ and with Christ, seeing those songs in a new perspective which has its ultimate interpretation in the Paschal Mystery.

Benedict's words should recall us to pray the Psalms in Christ and with the Church in the daily office.  Restoring such a patristic use of the Psalter was the intention of Cranmer in his reform of the daily office.  In his preface to the Book of Common Prayer, "Concerning the Service of the Church", he noted of the Psalms, "now of late time a few of them have been daily said, and the rest utterly omitted".  Perhaps the Ordinariates and Anglican-Use communities in the Catholic Church, reflecting the Anglican tradition of  Evensong and of the whole people of God joining in the Office, have a vocation to exemplify such a praying of the Psalms outside of a monastic context.

The voice and the Word

I live close to a major town in Northern Ireland with numerous Anglican parishes (at least 8 between my home and the far end of the town).  Not one will be celebrating the Holy Eucharist on this Feast of the birth of St John the Baptist.  Thankfully a small handful of Anglican parishes in Belfast have a Eucharist on this day.  It is another, however, illustration of the failure of the Church of Ireland to live out key patristic, catholic practices - it is clear from St Augustine that the Church celebrated this feast in his day. 

Today we celebrate the Forerunner, the voice who pointed to the Word.

The Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially. We celebrate John’s, as we celebrate Christ’s. This point cannot be passed over in silence, and if I may not perhaps be able to explain it in the way that such an important matter deserves, it is still worth thinking about it a little more deeply and fruitfully than usual.

John is born of an old woman who is barren; Christ is born of a young woman who is a virgin. That John will be born is not believed, and his father is struck dumb; that Christ will be born is believed, and he is conceived by faith ...

Zachary is struck dumb and loses his voice, until John, the Lord’s forerunner, is born and releases his voice for him. What does Zachary’s silence mean, but that prophecy was obscure and, before the proclamation of Christ, somehow concealed and shut up? It is released and opened up by his arrival, it becomes clear when the one who was being prophesied is about to come ... The tongue is released because a voice is being born ...

John is the voice, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word. John is a voice for a time, but Christ is the eternal Word from the beginning.

From St Augustine's sermon on the Feast of the birth of St John the Baptist.

Corpus Christi - 'be what you see and receive what you are'

Only a small handful of Irish Anglican parishes will be celebrating Corpus Christi - a sobering reminder of the reality of Irish Anglicanism and its distance from an authentically catholic understanding of the Holy Eucharist.  For those of us who value the richness of the Anglican tradition but who also seek its completion and fullness in catholic communion with the See of Peter, today's feast can be another step on our pilgrimage.

May the words of St Augustine of Hippo encourage us on our journey:

You see on God's altar bread and a cup.  That is what the evidence of your eyes tells you but your faith requires you to believe that the bread is the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ ...

It is the sacrament of yourselves that is placed on the Lord's Table, and it is the sacrament of yourselves that you are receiving.  You reply 'Amen' to what you are, and thereby agree that such you are.  You hear the words 'The body of Christ' and you reply 'Amen'.  Be, then, a member of Christ's body, so that your 'Amen' may accord with the truth ...

Be, then, what you see, and receive what you are.

The Ordinariates and the Body of Christ

On the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi, thoughts from The Anglo-Catholic blog on those among the cloud of witnesses praying for the Ordinariates:

On this week when we recognize the feast of Corpus Christi, it is quite fitting for us to think of those with whom we have communion in Heaven. It is important to remember that everything we are doing in entering the Ordinariates is for the sake of communion. The preservation of our Anglican heritage is not for our sake alone, but for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Why are we going through these struggles? It is for the sake of that most blessed of gifts; the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. It is for the glory of Christ and for the conversion of the lost that they too make partake of His very body and blood. This is what the "witnesses in Heaven" are praying for and it is what we should be praying for also ...

Whether it be Blessed John Henry Newman, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, or Our Lady of the Atonement, they are members of that very same cloud of witnesses. They long to see the growth of the Anglican heritage within the Catholic Church, and it is their voices that are being lifted up onto the altar of God along with ours as a sweet incense. They are the "spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb 12:23) whose presence we enter during every liturgy. Let us take heart in knowing that whatever challenges lie in our path, whatever delays may occur, and whatever confusion we may have, that there is an innumerable company of the "souls of the faithful departed" who continually behold the face of our Lord Jesus Christ and are petitioning Him for our good, both today and forever.

To which this Irish Anglican prayerfully reflecting on Anglicanorum Coetibus adds, St Augustine of Hippo and St Augustine of Canterbury ora pro nobis.

Canada and little acorns

The website of The Ordinariate Group of Our Lady and St John - Calgary is worth browsing.  The Group was created following the decision of St John's Anglican parish in Calgary to respond to Anglicanorum Coetibus.  The site explains the background to the Group:

The Ordinariate Group of Our Lady and St John is made up of those who are currently Anglicans, as well as Catholics who were formerly Anglican, and a number of Catholics who are married to Anglicans. With the loving care of our appointed Priest Mentor, the Catholic parish priest of Brooks, Alberta, Fr Michael Storey, we are together praying for, and looking forward to, the establishment of a Personal Ordinariate in Canada.

The majority of us belong to the Parish of St John the Evangelist, Calgary, a parish founded in 1905 as part of what was then the Church of England in Canada (since 1955, the Anglican Church of Canada). Our Group meets at different locations on a monthly basis for fellowship, prayer and study, but we also gather on Sundays and throughout the week as part of the regular worshipping life of St John’s, under the pastoral care and leadership of its Priest-in-Charge, Fr Lee Kenyon, who was a priest of the Church of England until he came to St John’s in April 2009.

Similarly, the pilgrimage of the Toronto Ordinariate Group can be explored here:

We are a group of Anglicans and Roman Catholics in Toronto, who welcome with joy the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, and express our gratitude for the Holy Father’s generosity in providing a means for some Anglicans to be received into full communion with the See of Rome, while acknowledging and retaining the aspects of Anglican patrimony that conform to the Catholic faith and have inspired this desire for communion with the Successor of Peter.

We are convinced of the importance of being in communion with the See of Peter and the essential fullness of Catholic doctrine as interpreted through the Petrine Ministry for the organic unity and health of Body of Christ.

We are exploring the possibility of forming a Catholic parish in Toronto under the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution.

Of some significance for those of us in Ireland is the view expressed by the mentor priest to the Toronto Group:

Fr Foote stated that very few are needed to constitute a viable worshipping community. Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18.20). The 14 people we had gathered to hear Fr Foote on Sunday would be enough to provide the basis for building a parish.  (With reference to numbers, Fr Phillips has provided a reflection on little acorns.) Accordingly, an Ordinariate parish in Toronto will be established.

Irish Anglicans and the mission of the Ordinariate: a Community of St Augustine of Canterbury?

One of the newly-ordained priests in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham - Fr. Ian Hellyer - celebrated his first mass as a Catholic priest on Sunday past, the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity.  In his homily he emphasised the vocation of the Ordinariate to participate in the new evangelisation:

I am not alone amongst the clergy of the ordinariate to think that I did not give up my position in the C of E to form some sort of catholic holy club ; a place to feel comfortable in, within the Catholic church. I believe a very significant part of the establishment of the ordinariate is missionary. We have work to do in the new evangelisation of the people of England. And as clergy we have been struggling to make sure we have time to go out there, to meet people, to field their questions, to allay their fears, to teach… Our time could very easily have been taken up with diocesan work, very easily. But we haven’t joined the ordinariate for that. We are very happy to help the parishes of the diocese but that is not our main work. The ordinariate has been set up to reconcile the English people with the Catholic Faith, the Catholic Church. We have a mission.

Our situation in Ireland - both Northern Ireland and the Republic - is very different.  There will be no Church of Ireland parishes petitioning to become part of an Ordinariate, as has happened in England and the United States.  There are, I am sure, no Irish Anglican clergy seeking to serve in the Ordinariate.  And because of the absence of a St Stephen's House, Oxford or a Nashotah House, there has been no tradition of Irish Anglican clergy receiving a catholic formation for ordination.  This being so, the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus would not apply in Ireland as they have done in England and will do in the United States.

But this does not mean that a small grouping of Irish Anglicans could not respond to the call of Anglicanorum Coetibus, form a Community of (let us say) St Augustine of Canterbury, be catechised according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, be received into the Catholic Church, and as a community assemble on a regular basis for the Anglican-Use Daily Office and for extra-liturgical devotions.  Perhaps a priest from the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham could act as an occasional chaplain, to celebrate Mass according to the Anglican-Use, or a priest from a Catholic diocese in Ireland could be authorised to celebrate Mass according to the Anglican-Use. 

Such a Community of St Augustine of Canterbury would indeed be small and, in the eyes of the world, rather insignificant.  But is would be a sign of the hope and promise of Anglicanorum Coetibus on an island in which the legacy of the Reformation has left bitter divisions.  What is more, it could also contribute to the new evangelisation, ensuring that what Anglicanorum Coetibus described as "the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion" find their place in the mission of the Catholic Church "as a precious gift ... and as a treasure to be shared".

Tracey Rowland on Benedict and the Anglican Patrimony

Tracey Rowland - Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage & Family in Melbourne, Australia - sought to give definition to the 'Anglican patrimony' in an Australian conference on the Ordinariate.  (The full text of the address can be found at the Ordinariate Portal.)  Two particular aspects of the Anglican tradition emphasised by Rowland indicate why Benedict XVI has offered Anglicanorum Coetibus as a means of both enriching the Universal Church and healing Anglicanism's rupture with the See of Peter.

Firstly, there is liturgical theology and practice:

Although the Pope has not made any public statements about what he thinks might be the ‘gifts’ Anglicans could bring to their full membership of the Catholic Church, many commentators have observed an affinity between the Anglo-Catholic approaches to liturgy and Pope Benedict’s own liturgical theology ...

I think that Anglicans do have an appreciation of the importance of beauty and an understanding of ritual and that those who join the Ordinariate can bring with them a great liturgical tradition which many Roman-Rite Catholics will find attractive.  Aidan Nichols OP calls this particular gift of the Anglican communion ‘a high sacral register of liturgical language’.  The Evensong liturgy is perhaps the best example of this particular gift, but there are many others.

Secondly, under the influence of the Caroline Divines Anglicanism re-received the Christological and Trinitarian theologies of patristic catholicism:

I would suggest that there is much treasure to be retrieved from the works of the Caroline Divines ... The Anglo-Catholic theologians retained a strong interest in Patristic theology and thus avoided the extremes of baroque-era scholasticism, while their aversion to Calvinism inoculated them against anything like Jansenism.  Blessed John Henry Newman was the heir to this heritage and is perhaps the paradigm example of someone who has appropriated its better elements ... in the works of the Caroline Divines one finds some of the most beautiful reflections upon Patristic thought to be found in the English language.

Rowland goes as far as to suggest that Benedict "would have felt more at home with Lancelot Andrewes" than he would with the Neo-Scholasticism which the young Ratzinger strongly critiqued.

What unites these two aspects of the Anglican patrimony - liturgical theology and the Caroline's re-reception of patristic theologies - is what Rowland terms "the transcendental of beauty", the very transcendental which Benedict XVI regards as primary:

I therefore believe that now is a time in the life of the Church when we have a pope who is temperamentally suited to appropriating the Anglican patrimony which in so many ways is strongest on the transcendental of beauty.

Rowland's address provides a theological and historical context in which to understand the significance of Anglicanorum Coetibus and the dignity of the vocation it gives to those Anglicans who take the step of faith and re-enter communion with the See of Peter.  The Ordinariates and Anglican-Use communities in the Catholic Church are called to contribute to the new evangelisation their rich heritage of liturgical and theological beauty in the flattened and disenchanted world of postmodernity.

"A sense of continuity and change"

In his homily at the ordination of priests for the Ordinariate in Birmingham earlier this week, Mgr Keith Newton addressed the issue of Anglican orders and the calling of the Ordinariate to bring to wholeness and completion the Anglican tradition:

This afternoon the eight of you will be ordained to the priesthood in the Catholic Church.  You have been called by Christ – a truth you must never forget – and that calling has been ratified by the Church. There is for you all both a sense of continuity and of change. There is continuity because that call to Christian ministry first came to you some years ago, in some cases many years ago.  You have many years of faithful service and experience to bring with you but you will also be aware that your ministry in the future will be set in a totally new context as priest of the Catholic Church.  Your ordination today will be a fulfillment and completion of all that has gone before but it will also be radically different as you will exercise that ministry of word and sacrament from the heart of the Church in communion with the successor of Peter, whom Pope Benedict reminded us in his homily at Westminster Abbey ‘is charged with a particular care for the Unity of Christ’s flock’.

More US Ordinariate developments

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington - responsible for the implementation of Anglicanorum Coetibus in the United States - has reported to the US Catholic bishops on progress towards an Ordinariate in the US.  According to one report, Cardinal Wuerl has stated that "as many as 100 U.S. Anglican priests and 2,000 laypeople could be the first members of a U.S. personal ordinariate".  This includes, of course, the Episcopal parishes of St. Luke's in Bladensburg and Mount Calvary in Baltimore.

In his report (which can be read here), Cardinal Wuerl noted that "the Holy See has indicated its wish to establish an Ordinariate in the United States this Fall".

(The picture is of Mass at Mount Cavalry Episcopal parish.)

Healing the rupture and enriching continuity

From Monsignor Andrew Burnham's sermon at the Solemn Evensong and Benediction at Oxford yesterday:

Those of us who have already become Catholics, under the ægis of Anglicanorum cœtibus,  have recognised, and are attempting to be agents of healing of, the undoubted rupture and discontinuity to be found in the history of the theological idea of ‘a kingdom of priests’ ...

A proper understanding of ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ is possible only within the particular Israelite Covenant context or, within the New Covenant, in the Catholic doctrine of the Church.  Only in the Catholic doctrine of the Church is the Holy Eucharist, the Eucharist offered within the Sacrifice of the Mass, and as worshipped in Benediction, inevitably and indubitably the focus of our devotion.  Only within the Catholic doctrine of the Church is a eucharistic people fully and indubitably empowered to embark on living out the Covenant as handed down on Sinai and expounded at the Sermon on the Mount.  The kingdom of priests is not a bunch of priests, still less a bunch of lay folk who have no need of a ministerial priesthood, but a holy people, chosen to ‘declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light’.  This holy people, as prophetically recognised by Anglicanorum cœtibus, is enriched – ever so slightly, for there are not many of us and may never be many of us – by the liturgical forms and musical expressions that have developed their own life within Anglicanism and which, whenever they speak of continuity and not rupture, are now usefully and beautifully restored to their ancient roots.  

The Catholic Church and the Anglican patrimony

More from Bishop Elliott's recent address on the Ordinariate, pointing to the gifts the Anglican tradition brings to the Catholic Church:

We also see what the Ordinariate brings to the wider Church. The liturgical use in the Ordinariates will contribute to the deeper and more spiritual renewal of liturgy that has quietly emerged in recent years, the fruit of the Eucharistic project of Blessed John Paul II and the liturgical wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI.

(The picture is of Mass being celebrated in an Anglican Use parish in the United States.)

Benediction in Oxford

Tomorrow, 15th June, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham will be celebrating Solemn Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the Blackfriars Priory Church, Oxford. 

The location is, of course, of immense significance.  Anglicanism's 19th century Catholic Revival started in Oxford.  Now the hopes of the Oxford Movement are finding their fruition.

Let us pray that the members of the Ordinariate will be renewed in their mission through adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

A positive journey towards unity

As noted yesterday, last week St Luke's Episcopal Church in Bladenburg, Maryland announced that it would seek entry into the Catholic Church as part of the Ordinariate in the United States.  The Episcopal Bishop of Washington, John Bryson Chane, has supported St Luke's in its pilgrimage and has generously allowed the parish to retain use of the parish church. 

St Luke's Rector, Fr Mark Lewis, has emphasised that the move is not merely a reaction to recent innovations in the Episcopal Church.  It is, rather, a positive journey towards unity:

Prayer and study, not any controversies, led the congregation toward unity with the Catholic Church, Rev. Lewis said, when asked whether Episcopal doctrine on the priesthood or sexual issues had precipitated the move.

Over the past several years, the Episcopal Church, the U.S. member of the Anglican Communion, has approved ordaining women priests and bishops, ordaining homosexuals and blessing same-sex unions."Those issues on the priesthood and sexuality have been around. The real issue that drove us was our study of the Catholic faith," he said. "The more we looked at it and compared it to Anglicanism, we were drawn to the Church of Rome. It was a natural progression."

Pilgrims to unity and communion

Bishop Peter Elliott, a former Anglican and now Auxiliary  Bishop in the Catholic Diocese of Melbourne, spoke an at Ordinariate Information Day in Victoria, Melbourne on 11th June.  The full text of his speech can read at the Ordinariate Portal.  He ended by encouraging all of us on the pilgrimage to unity and communion to emulate the Apostles by joining our Lady in prayer:

On the pilgrimage of the Ordinariate, whether we are walking the pilgrim way ourselves or joining others as companions or sponsors, we all pray as the apostles did in the upper room at Pentecost “with Mary the Mother of Jesus”. With her we ask the Holy Spirit the Paraclete to achieve through our lives the unity that is so dear the Heart of Christ our Lord.

Ordinariate developments in the United States

Welcome

The recognition of the riches of the Anglican tradition by Pope Benedict XVI in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus has offered the hope of the reconciliation of the Anglican tradition to the See of Peter after centuries of separation.

The creation of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and preparations for Ordinariates in the United States, Canada and Australia demonstrate how many Anglicans across the globe are responding to the promise of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

The burden of a painful and divisive past has meant that there is little, if any, expectation of an Ordinariate in Ireland. This, however, does not have to be case. The ARCIC process, initiated by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1967, has shown the significant agreement between Anglicans and Roman Catholics with regard to the Eucharist, Ministry, Authority, the Church, Justification and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

For those Anglicans in Ireland who believe that Anglicanorum Coetibus should be prayerfully explored, this blog is offered as an arena for discussion.