One of the great strengths of Anglo-Catholicism is the emphasis it places on worship.  This is seen in the commitment to daily mass, the use of daily offices, the recitation of the angelus, rosary and daily ejaculatory prayers, devotions before shrines and the passion for ensuring liturgy is performed well.  All combine to ensure that our faith is practised regularly so that it is quite common for newcomers to Saint Barnabas’ church to comment positively on our practice.  As one parishioner put it: "my last church was nice but it only really encouraged Sunday only worship but I really love the way S. Barnabas’ encourages ‘every day worship’.  It has really helped me to understand the need for commitment in faith."

It is not unusual for our liturgical passion and dedication to public devotion to be misunderstood.  Some assume we are too churchy and, where Anglo-Catholicism is unhealthy, they have a point!  For when a dedication to devotion does not come from the heart, and is not leading people to a genuine relationship with Jesus, Anglo-Catholicism fosters religion, even religiosity, at the cost of living faith.  A strange ‘church-moth’ is created in the place of a disciple; one who loves mass but rarely sees beyond the externals to the life changing message of the Gospel.  This danger being real, the Anglo-Catholic must guard against closing hearts when falling on knees.

Another criticism of our dedication to public devotion is that we are too inward looking and precious.  Again this warning might have substance in places where a worshipping community have become completely out of touch with the people that they serve.  I have certainly met one or two horrific examples of clergy who genuinely seem more concerned with the correct length of lace on their albs than in evangelism, mission and fostering faith in others.  Such people need to remember that worship exists to ‘send us out in the power of the Spirit’.  They should also reflect on the fact that Corpus Christi processions once involved taking Jesus through every street in the parish!  Looking inward is healthy and important but only if it leads to us looking outwards as well as inwards.

So two criticisms exist which Anglo-Catholics must take on the chin, for where we have become disconnected from the living Gospel they hold water.  Daily mass, daily offices, the angelus, rosary, ejaculatory prayers and all else are of no use whatsoever if they do not lead us to Jesus.  But where this does happen then devotion to daily worship becomes a wonderful, life-giving and life-affirming thing.  Indeed I would argue that devotion to worship set alongside living faith is the catalyst for discovering a true life of fruitful prayer.  And it is certainly worth noting that most religious communities within the Anglican fold are the product of this type of living Anglo-Catholicism.

Perhaps our dedication to injecting passion into daily liturgy, that we may be sent out into the world, is a part of the ‘Anglican patrimony’ we Ordinariate seekers are pondering at this time.  Certainly daily devotion and good liturgy exists in Catholicism as a whole, but our unique struggle in upholding a Catholic spirituality within a largely protestant and hostile institution has led us to be particularly vigilant and faithful.  We have had to be passionate and dedicated in order to form a meaningful Catholic identity and this ‘vigilance’ must be bottled lest it be lost!  For it would be a terrible irony that in finding a true Catholic home we lost our true Catholic passion…

Related posts:

1. Eric Lionel Mascall As Anglican Patrimony
2. Anglican Patrimony from the Perspective of an Orthodox Priest
3. More Patrimony
4. A Papist Strives to Understand Patrimony
5. The Anglican Patrimony: The Love of the Liturgy and the Love of the Least of These