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.