"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.