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.