Posts tagged Book of Common Prayer
Thoughts on an Anglican Use Mass
Mar 8th
I would like to advance here a few disordered reflections about the form which an Anglican Use of the Roman Rite might take. These are nothing but my own ill-informed speculations interwoven with my own uninformed notions and prejudices, and should be taken as worth no more than such productions normally are, or perhaps, for those more charitably disposed, as written ruminations.
“The Anglican Use of the Roman Rite:” this phrase indicates that whatever form of liturgy this will be, it will take the form of a subset of the Roman Rite, and not a separate “Anglican Rite.” There has been a good deal of terminological and historical confusion in these areas. One often sees in the context of the Latin Church references to the “Ambrosian Rite,” the “Braga Rite,” the “Carthusian Rite,” the “Cistercian Rite,” the “Dominican Rite,” the “Lyonnaise Rite,” the “Mozarabic Rite,” the “Sarum Rite” and the like, but this seems to be a confusion of the past four centuries (or a little more), reflecting the dominance of the 1570 codification and reform of the “Roman Rite of Rome” as the “Tridentine Rite,” which was to replace all other variants save those that could document 200 years of history. All of these “rites,” save the Ambrosian Rite and the Mozarabic Rite, are or were, variants of the Roman Rite, and so more properly termed “uses” (as, in England, with the “Use of Sarum,” the “Use of Bangor,” the “Use of Hereford,” the “Use of Lincoln” and the “Use of York” before the 1540s); only the Carthusian and the Braga (that of the Portuguese diocese of that name) uses survive today in their integrity (the Carthusian “unreformed,” the Braga “reformed”) although occasionally one encounters celebration of the old Cistercian and Dominican Mass “rites.” The Ambrosian Rite of Milan (and neighboring areas) is either a very ancient variation of the Roman Rite, which since at least the Fourth Century has been subject to both Gallican and Eastern influences, or an originally distinct rite that has undergone waves of “romanization” from a very early date, while the Mozarabic Rite, which until recent decades, when it was revived (and “restored,” that is, “reformed”) in the Spanish monastery of San Juan de Silos and in several parishes in Toledo that were Mozarabic until the 1490s, was celebrated only in a side chapel in Toledo Cathedral, is an entirely distinct rite from the Roman.
One strong implication of “Anglican Use” is that it will have no other Eucharistic Prayers (EPs) or “Prayers of Consecration” than those found in the Roman Rite. The Mozarabic Rite aside, none of these other “uses” or “rites” — call them what you will — had any other than the Roman Canon; this was so even of the Ambrosian Rite, although for Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday only it had versions of the Roman Canon into which substantial proper prayers for those festivals were inserted, a practice unique to Milan. (The 1970s “reform” of the Ambrosian Rite introduced two new EPs, additional to the three new EPs introduced into the Roman Rite in 1969.) I have to say that I agree with the distinguished English Anglican liturgist and historian of the Early Roman Rite, Geoffrey Grimshaw Willis (1914-1982), regarding his dislike of these banal and (as he thought) un-Roman disfigurements of the Roman Rite (see his outspoken “The New Eucharistic Prayers: Some Comments,” The Heythrop Journal, XII:1 [January 1971], pp. 5-28), and if the reports are right that in whatever reconfigured Anglican Use Mass is eventually promulgated by Rome the “contemporary English” Rite II will wholly disappear, and with it these EPs, I would judge it no loss.
And well it should disappear, along with the 1979 Psalter. An Anglican Use based on, and following the pattern of, the 1979 Episcopalian Prayer Book makes no sense on a world-wide basis. Moreover, since the lame and dreary ICEL translation of the Roman Rite liturgical books is soon to be replaced by one occupying a distinctly higher linguistic “register,” it makes little sense to use any other “contemporary English” than that in use in the Roman Rite itself. However, if one of the advantages of the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite is, from a “Benedictine” vantage, to inspire and in its distinctive way exemplify a “reform of the 1960s ‘reform‘” of the Roman Rite in the direction of resacralization and a recovery of lost ground, then it makes much more sense that it should be one distinctive and consistently traditional thing, in style as well as substance, than an attempt to be all things to all Anglicans. Those Anglicans whose liturgical sensibilities are “contemporary” may well prefer to seek out the more elevated version of the Roman Rite which I hope will soon make its appearance. This is leading us fairly clearly towards the “Missal tradition” of Anglo-Catholicism in the last century, the effort that produced the English Missal, the American Missal and the Anglican Missal. To adopt or adapt one of these — my own tastes incline me more towards the English Missal — would produce a coherent and dignified rite, and would eliminate once and for all the bizarre phenomenon of the 1970 Roman Rite Offertory in ICEL English thrust into the midst of the “Cranmerian English” Rite I.
Still, and despite what I wrote above, I have speculated at times about the possibility of alternative “Anglican-like” EPs, perhaps for weekday celebrations or for certain set days on which the length of the Roman Canon, especially if said or chanted aloud, might be an inconvenience. I am going to avoid (with one partial exception) Twentieth-Century Anglican EPs, and likewise the “mainline” 1552, 1559, 1662 English rite, and its derivatives, as inadequate for Catholic purposes — by which I mean, impossible for the Catholic Church to accept the use of which as a valid EP [1]. The leaves the 1549 English rite, and the Scottish Episcopalian tradition from 1637 onwards down through 1764 to 1929, with the American Episcopalian tradition from 1789 to 1928 as a side-branch of this.
As to the 1549 rite’s EP I have never been able to understand its attraction for some Anglo-Catholics. I accept the reading of Cranmer’s theology underlying that prayer as fundamentally Reformed (in the Swiss sense) that has been advanced by Anglican scholars such as Dom Gregory Dix (1901-1952) and Professor Edward Craddock Ratcliff (1896-1967) — the former a well-known Anglican Benedictine monk and Anglo-Papalist, the latter the holder of various academic posts in Cambridge, Oxford and London, culminating as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and who was on the verge of entering the Orthodox Church at the time of his death — even if expressed in the most ambiguous of ways and in very “traditional,” that is, “Western-Catholic-looking” — forms. An EP of such an ambivalent, if not heretical, nature would certainly not be suitable for Catholic use. The 1549 EP is also, very clearly, an attempt at “reforming” the Roman Canon, the traditional and unique EP of the whole Western Church for centuries before the Sixteenth Century, save in the Mozarabic Rite, as well as (until the time of the post-Vatican II “reforms”) the unique EP of the Roman Church, and it seems to be that an EP conceived with the presumption of setting to right the presumed errors of the Church of Rome, the prima sedes and mater et magistra of all churches, is to act very much as Ham did towards his father, Noah, and with even less occasion to do so. Like Geoffrey Grimshaw Willis, I admire the Roman Canon for its unfathomable antiquity, as perhaps the oldest EP in continual use in Christendom, alongside that of Addai and Mari in the Semitic Christianity of the Catholic Chaldeans and the “Nestorian” Assyrians, the roots of which probably extend back into the Third Century or earlier. Of course, as a Ukrainian Catholic I cherish as well the marvelous, and typically Hellenistic, integration of form and content in those EPs such as those of St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, St. James of Jerusalem (possibly the work of St. Cyril of Jerusalem), and many others (most of them preserved in Syriac versions) which form one of the great glories of Christendom, and which were possibly the gift of the Church of Antioch, on the crossroads of the Hellenistic and Semitic worlds, to the Christian world — and which had so beneficent an impact on Anglican high-churchmen in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, to whose work we must now turn.
The ill-fated Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, which occasioned the overthrow of episcopacy in Scotland in 1638 and began the process which culminated in the outbreak of civil war in England in 1642 and the temporary downfall of the monarchy there and the execution of King Charles I, rearranged the sequence of prayers around the eucharistic consecration in the 1559 English Prayer Book (the mild revisions of 1604 did not touch the Communion Service) to give a fuller, and more traditional looking, EP, although their wording was not altered. When episcopacy was restored in Scotland in 1661, the Prayer Book was not, and it was only after the reabolition of episcopacy in 1689 that, in the years immediately after 1700 the remaining Scottish Episcopalians began to adopt set liturgical forms, some of them the 1661 English Prayer Book service, others the 1637 service, and still others their own rearrangements or revisions of the 1637 service. In this they were influenced to a considerable degree by the liturgical revisions of the English Nonjurors, although the never went so far as the main body of the English Nonjurors, who in 1718 substituted for the 1661 Prayer book EP a translation of the long anaphora found in the Liturgy of St. James of Jerusalem. In 1764 a group of Scottish Episcopalian bishops produced a revised “Communion Office” whose use subsequently became general among Scottish Episcopalians. There were, however, a number of “English Chapels” in Scotland which were under the authority of the Church of England and followed the 1661 Prayer Book, and after these were transferred to the Scottish Episcopal Church from the 1840s onward a determined attempt was made to replace the 1764 Communion Office with that of the 1661 English liturgy as the normative one. The 1764 service was never abolished, but various canons enacted in 1863 and in force until 1912 effectively marginalized its use — but then the tide turned, and in 1929 the SEC adopted a Prayer Book, the EP of which was a moderate revision of that of 1764. This remains the official Prayer Book of the SEC, although since the 1970s it has effectively been replaced by a more anodyne set of “contemporary Anglican” style of services, issued in 1970 and 1982. Meanwhile, however, and as a result of the consecration of Samuel Seabury on November 14, 1784 by bishops of the SEC and of Seabury’s promise to attempt to secure the adoption of the 1764 Scottish Communion office as that of the the newly-formed Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, in 1789 the Episcopal Church adopted a modified version of that 1764 service — “modified,” it has to be said, in a more Protestant and “Cranmerian” direction — which, as modified in 1892 and 1928 (neither of these modifications affected the wording of the EP, although that of 1928 removed the “Prayer of Humble Access” from its position between the Sanctus and the Prayer of Consecration, where, following its position in the English 1661 rite, it had been placed in 1789 to a position after that Prayer and the immediately ensuing Lord’s Prayer; in the 1637 and 1764 Scottish rites, as in the English 1549 rite that Prayer also was positioned subsequently to the EP and Lord’s Prayer) remained the official rite of the Episcopal Church until 1979.
The texts of these three EPs can be found here:
for those who wish to consult or compare them at this point. What I will now do is to present excerpts from these three prayers, make a few comparative remarks, and then, as one rushing in as a fool where angels fear to tread, to produce a melded version of the 1764 and 1929 EPs which may seem to some suitable, and almost ideal for use in any Anglican Use liturgy. I will thereafter, in a subsequent post, go on to consider the EP of the “Liturgy of St. Tikhon” which has been used in the 1970s in some “Western Rite” parishes of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in North America, which affords a striking example, as I see it, of how not to do this sort of thing.
Patrimonial
Mar 4th
A few words in an earlier blog about the language of worship, and a great trail of comments followed. Now I know that many Anglicans (of every colour) in the USA are very concerned about Prayer Books, and the more Catholic they are, the more they want to hold on to ancient forms of prayer. I do understand. It has become for them the touchstone of orthodoxy, especially since many bishops refused to permit its use. Conversely in England the 1662 Prayer Book is defended by law, so it has been less important to us – a symbol of the Erastian State Church, even. Yet it is what I grew up with. Before Vatican II affected us all we were obliged in England to use the Book of Common Prayer – or something related to it. At any rate, whether English Missal or Interim Rite or 1927 (often referred to as 1928) or a compilation of the Vicar’s devising, the language was sort-of Cranmerian. After Vatican II, liturgy went in diverse directions in the Church of England. There were series 1, 2, and 3 and once parishes had been equipped with all those books they were rapidly declared illegal and instead we had what is naughtily referred to as Comic Worship (more properly ‘Common Worship’). But it was not Common, in the sense that the Book of Common Prayer intended the word. Common Prayer meant something shared by all. Common Worship had so many variants that you could not find it celebrated in the same manner in any two churches. So Catholics in the CofE increasingly turned to the Roman Catholic books. Whereas in an earlier generation it was only the extreme ultra-montanes who dared use the Missal, it became more and more THE touchstone of Catholicisim in the latter part of the 20th Century. When I toured my patch as a ‘Flying Bishop’ it was generally the Roman Missal that the Priest opened for me on the Altar. Sometimes he would apologise and say that for the Canon we had to use something from Common Worship because the Diocesan required it, but that was not generally the case. And just now and again, more in country parishes than in town ones, I would be asked to use one of the older Prayer Book variants.
Since the announcement of the Ordinariate, one of the more frequent questions I have had to answer is “Will we have to use Prayer Book Language?” – generally with the rider that if we did, you could forget it so far as THAT priest was concerned. So I have tried to explain that the Apostolic Constitution makes it clear that any of the Masses of the Roman Rite may be used, as well as whatever is provided in “Anglican” form – which we suppose will be something like the Book of Divine Worship of the Anglican Use Catholics in the USA.
Then if we do not cling to the Prayer Book, what do we have to bring to the party? Some suppose that the BCP and the King James Bible are all that we have, and without these we might as well simply become Roman Catholic Converts without the Ordinariate.
I believe that is a profound misunderstanding both of what the Holy Father wants from us and what we have to offer. In England, at least, our Pastoral Rule is more important than the words we use in public worship. It derives from fifteen centuries during which the parish clergy have known that they have a responsibility for the entire Community, whether or not they declare themselves ‘Church of England’. At an induction the priest is given the cure of souls by the Bishop. That attitude pervades the whole of our pastoral ministry. We visit the sick when we know about them, though they may never darken the doors of our church. We pray for them, we call on newcomers to the parish, and we train our lay people to do the same. We seek out candidates for Baptism and Confirmation. We marry all comers, and we bury all goers. Although our parishes are vastly bigger than his, and the knowledge of our people will be far less thorough, many of us still believe that the sort of model that George Herbert set before us is one worth striving for. It also describes the sort of care that people expect from us – and it comes not just from the Caroline Divines or the Tractarians, but from as far back as the Pastoral Rule of St Gregory, taught by St Augustine of Canterbury and reinforced by King Alfred.
More, too, than the mere WORDS of worship, there is the style of worship which matters. Visiting diverse parishes on Sundays, it is usually the Roman Missal put before me. I still celebrate a version of the Prayer Book Rite from time to time. I did this morning, and so I do most Thursdays in my local Parish Church. Not everyone will find it easy to do. For us older ones the words are in our very being, we scarcely need a book at all. For those more recently ordained, they may have scarcely ever heard the words of the Prayer Book. Unless they were in a Cathedral Choir, they are unlikely to have met solemn high Mattins. Most of the Ordinands who came to St Stephen’s House in my time simply did not know the Prayer Book forms of the Holy Communion, nor of Benedictus or Te Deum. They may have to become familiar with some of these things in the Ordinariate. What matters though, whichever Rite we use and in whichever direction we face when celebrating, is that we have our focus on God, and that our personal idiosyncrasies are replaced with a stillness and focus which help a congregation to worship. But I am sure this applies to every priest, Anglican or Roman Catholic.
I think there is a difference of style which means that we stay after Mass to meet people and socialise. It is a luxury which in this country most Priests of the Roman Communion do not have, since they must rush off to another Mass. But whether this really is part of our Patrimony, or simply our good fortune, remains to be seen. Similarly I think that we spend more time with penitents – because we have fewer of them; but that also might be a myth to be dispelled by experience. I fancy we take preaching more seriously than others – but I might be wrong about this. I believe our hymn-singing is more varied and full throated – but that might simply be a prejudice on my part.
Above all, we cannot know what our Patrimony comprises except when others experience it. If it includes pomposity and a sense of superiority, then these must go. But the Holy Father, who knows Anglicans well, seems to think we DO have gifts to bring into the greater Church. I am very excited at the prospect: and even more at the prospect of exercising a priesthood which is rooted and grounded in the faith of the Apostles.
More Patrimony
Mar 3rd
A Trustees’ meeting at Pusey House today meant I was visiting Oxford for the first time since the opening of the restored Ashmolean Museum. For me, the prize of their collection is the Alfred Jewel. It is a marvellous piece of craftsmanship, but its historial connection is even more important than its beauty. Alfred the Great reigned over a kingdom which had its centre in Winchester, our local Cathedral City. When he sought to restore the monastic life after the depradations of the Danes, he equipped a number of monasteries with the Scriptures, and a copy of St Augustine’s ‘Pastoral Care’ which he had translated into English. He also sent them an aestel, a pointer to be used in public reading. The Alfred Jewel is thought to be part of just such an aestel, and it was found buried in a Somerset field. It too has an Old English inscription, saying “Alfred had me made”.
So I sought it out. Once it was displayed, isolated, in a little display case among various Byzantine objects. Now it is in its proper context, and even shares its case with a smaller but similar object, found nearer to Oxford, at Nuneham Courtney. Alfred was greatly concerned with the recovery of learning among the clergy, both secular and religious, of his kingdom. He was also the founder of the Royal Navy. Both these very English concerns predate the invasion by the Norman French in 1066, who made us speak their language for nearly four hundred years. The English of Shakespeare and of Cranmer would have been very different without the efforts of Alfred and his monks – and later of Geoffrey Chaucer. Language matters, and the language of worship matters exceedingly. How shall we achieve, in the Ordinariate, English which is “understanded of the People” yet has the rhythm and dignity appropriate to worship? No good simply relying on history to provide our models. The ‘Pastoral Rule’ is not easy to understand in the Early English of Alfred; and the Canterbury Tales take some fathoming. Much as we may regret it, the same is increasingly true of Shakespeare and Cranmer. We must do better than the Book of Divine Worhip of the Anglican Use. But where are our liturgist-poets for today?
Can the Thirty-Nine Articles Function As a Confessional Standard for Anglicans Today?
Feb 20th
During the Reformation, and for centuries afterward, Protestant bodies defined their theological stances, towards Catholicism and one another, by means of “Confessions of Faith.” Such Confessions were issued by the Lutherans, the Reformed and the Radicals alike, and some Protestant bodies (such as the Mennonites, an offshoot of the Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation) have continued to do so to the present day. Perhaps the first such Confession issued by a group, as opposed to a statement of an individual Reformer, was the Anabaptist Schleitheim Confession of 1527, but others soon followed. Three such Confessions were presented to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 at the command of the Emperor Charles V, a Catholic, who had demanded a clear account of the position of the Reformers and their supporters. On behalf of the Lutherans, and with Luther’s agreement, Philipp Melanchthon presented the Augsburg Confession, which remains to this day the primary — and for some Lutheran churches the only — binding statement of their belief; on behalf of the Swiss Reformed churches (which had reached an impasse with the Lutherans over Eucharistic doctrine in the preceding year), Huldrych Zwingli’s Reckoning of the Faith; and on behalf of four south German cities the Tetrapolitan Confession, composed by Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Capito and Caspar Hedio, which sought to mediate between the Lutherans and the Reformed. Lutherans, Reformed and Radicals alike continued to produce further confessions, in the case of the Radicals as often as not to differentiate various groups from one another, but in the case of the Lutherans and the Reformed to amplify their original statements, respond to further controversies and to differentiate their views from one another, and from Catholicism. In the case of the Lutherans, such key Confessions as the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles (1537), the Formula of Concord (1577), among others (ten in all), were gathered together in 1580 in the Book of Concord, which itself became normative for most Lutheran churches, but in the case of the Reformed, by contrast, there were many confessions of faith, similar but far from identical with one another, promulgated by various national or regional churches. These included the First Helvetic Confession (1536), the Scots Confession (1560), the Belgic Confession (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), the Second Scots Confession (1581), the Irish Articles of Religion (1615), the Westminster Confession (1647) and the Confession of the Waldenses (1655). Most Reformed churches, but by no means all, accepted the Canons of the Synod of Dort (1618-1619) which defined the “five points” of Calvinism, namely, namely, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. In almost all such “confessional churches” subscription to the confessions was a prerequisite for ordination, promotion or teaching in a Theology Faculty; and in some Protestant countries subscription was a requirement for those holding public office.
In England, of course, Henry VIII’s breach with Rome (1532-34) had nothing to do with Protestant doctrinal ideas of any sort, although to be sure it is doubtful that if the continental Reformation had not happened Henry would have had the willingness or the ability to break with Rome and to have himself declared to be “only Supreme Head under Christ of the Church of England” in 1534. Although Henry came to see himself as a “reformer” as well as a “godly prince” his idea of “reform” extended only so far beyond despoiling the Church as to attack “superstitious devotion” to saints and images, as well as, half-heartedly, the existence of Purgatory. (Henry allowed the existence of Purgatory to be denied, but believed in prayer for the dead; towards the end of his reign he signed a law allowing him to dissolve chantries, endowed foundations that provided for Masses for the dead, but in his own will he endowed thousands of Masses for the repose of his own soul.) For political reasons Henry engaged in sustained negotiations for an alliance with the Lutheran princes of Germany in the 1530s, and since these princes insisted that a religious/confessional agreement had to accompany a political alliance he allowed reform-minded English theologians, among them Archbishop Cranmer, to strive to come to a theological agreement with the Lutherans. Among the results of these negotiations were the Wittenberg Articles of 1536, the Ten Articles later in the same year and Cranmer’s own Thirteen Articles of 1538. These all showed a good deal of practical reform-mindedness, but although they all employed to a greater or lesser extent Lutheran-sounding terms and phrases, they were never promulgated or ratified: Henry had an abiding, if uncomprehending, hostility to the Lutheran doctrine of “Justification by Faith Alone” and an equally abiding devotion to clerical celibacy, and once it became clear by mid 1539 that he had no need for a Lutheran alliance, he cast them aside and upheld a strongly Catholic view on all controverted theological issues for the remainder of his reign.
England had a Protestant Reformation imposed on it in the course of Edward VI’s reign (1547-1553), although the rapidity and spontaneity of the restoration of Catholic practice and rites after Edward’s death in July 1553 and the succession of his catholic half-sister Mary, even before the law was altered to legalize and restore Catholicism, shows how superficial was its effect. Under Edward, changes in practice — the replacement of the Latin Mass by successive Books of Common Prayer in 1549 and 1552, the implementation of communion in both species in 1548, the allowance of clerical marriage in 1549, the removal of altars in 1550 and their replacement by wooden tables, to name the most notable — preceded changes in doctrine, and it was only in June 1553, less than a month before the king’s death, that 42 “Articles of Religion” drafted by Archbishop Cranmer were promulgated by the authority of the Privy Council (no ecclesiastical body or assembly ever debated or approved of them), and they died with the king. Nevertheless, as they formed the basis for the later 39 Articles, it is only right to glance at a few of their distinguishing features. Taken as a whole, they are Protestant, they are Reformed and they are unCatholic (and certainly not in any sense “Anglo-Catholic”). As they were formulated in the 1550s they do not dwell upon matters such as predestination, election, perseverance in grace and assurance of salvation which were to agitate the Reformed world generally and English Protestants particularly from the 1580s onwards, but on matters such as the Eucharist, on which a great chasm had opened between the Lutheran and Reformed camps in the 1520s and which was rapidly becoming more embittered in the 1550s, the 42 Articles took a decidedly Reformed stance. For example, Article 29 (which corresponds to Article 28 in the 39 Articles) “Of the Lord’s Supper” contains a passage, subsequently omitted, which runs “For as much as the truth of man’s nature requireth, that the body of one and the selfsame man cannot be at one time in diverse places, but must needs be in one certain place; therefore the body of Christ cannot be present at one time in many and diverse places. And because, as Holy Scripture doth teach, Christ was taken up into heaven, and there shall continue until the end of the world, a faithful man ought not either to believe or openly to confess the real and bodily presence, as they term it, of Christ’s flesh and blood, in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.” Taken together with the “Black Rubric” (which rejected “anye reall and essencial presence there beeyng of Christ’s naturall fleshe and bloude” in the eucharistic elements) of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer their fully Reformed stance is clear enough. The 42 Articles also contained condemnations of universalism, millenarianism, and the “sleep of souls” until the general resurrection which were omitted from the later 39, as well as the clear statement that “the decrees of predestination are unknown to us” to which many later Calvinists would have objected (if it was interpreted to mean that the elect could not be aware of their own election).
Making Merbecke Catholic Again
Feb 17th
For most Anglicans, when they hear the name John Merbecke, they think immediately of the very simple and plain setting used for “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion.” Each year in our parish we use this setting for the Sung Mass on Lenten weekdays, and it’s the perfect complement to the veiled cross and closed triptych. Musically it’s not terribly exciting, but that’s the point of using it during this season. It’s tuneful but not overwhelming, and when it’s sung by the pure voices of children, it affords an interesting change in these penitential days.
The roots of this little setting couldn’t be more Anglican. In 1550, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had asked Merbecke to provide service music “containing so much of the Order of Common Prayer as is to be sung in Churches.” It was to be simple and able to be sung by everyone, and the requirement was “for every syllable a note.”
We don’t know anything about Merbecke’s musical education, but apparently he was an accomplished singer and organist. Born in c.1505, by 1531 his name heads the list of choristers at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. He was appointed Organist of St. George’s in 1541. The virulent protestantism creeping through Europe was making its way into England at that time, and Merbecke was drawn into it, even though he was serving at the King’s Royal Chapel. That was a strange time – King Henry had broken with Rome, but in many ways he remained conservative in his religion, and in those circumstances, Merbecke’s protestant sympathies forced him into a double life. Of course, it couldn’t last forever, and by 1543 his protestantism was revealed. He was accused of owning and writing heretical documents – something that was, in fact, true. Along with two other colleagues at St. George’s, Merbecke was arrested. Charged with being a heretic, he was condemned to death. Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, pleaded Merbecke’s case before the King, and he was given a reprieve. Released from his imprisonment, Merbecke returned to his post of Organist at St. George’s, where he stayed until his death in c.1585.
Although John Merbecke is probably best remembered for his 1550 work on the Booke of Common Praier Noted, before the English Reformation he was a somewhat talented composer of liturgical music for the Catholic Church, although not many of his compositions survive. His Missa Per arma iustitie is still available, as well as the Marian anthem Ave Dei patris filia. The antiphon Domine Ihesu Christe is probably one of his better works, although it’s more sturdy than beautiful.
John Merbecke became a convinced Calvinist, and he expressed great regret for his Catholic compositions. In fact, in 1550 he wrote, “…in the study of music and playing on organs, I consumed vainly the greatest part of My life.” It’s really his Booke of Common Praier Noted, with its simple Communion setting, which has made Merbecke best known, and that wasn’t actually a work of composition; rather, it was a fitting of the words of the English liturgy to modified plainsong melodies.
I’ve wondered, as I hear his Communion setting being sung at a Catholic Mass, what he would think. I’m quite sure that if he had witnessed such a thing during his earthly life, he would have been appalled – but now that he has the knowledge that comes with eternity (and I do hope he’s spending it in heaven), I would imagine he appreciates the unexpected turn of events which has brought his music back to the Church in which he was baptized.
A Short Office for Expiation of a Desecrated Church
Feb 16th
This short office is to be found in the Directorium Anglicanum.
XI.—A Short Office for Expiation and Illustration of a Church desecrated or prophaned.
¶ If a Church hath been desecrated by Murther and Bloodshed, by Uncleanness, or any other sort of Prophanation, the Bishop attended by two Priests at least, and one Deacon, shall enter into the Church, which shall be first prepared by cleansings and washings, &c.
¶ The Bishop and his Clergy being vested, shall go in Procession about the Church on the inside, saying alternately the Seventh Psalm and the Ninth Psalm.
¶ After which the Bishop, with his Clergy, shall go to the Holy Table and there kneeling down shall pray.
O Almighty God, Who art of pure eyes and canst not behold impurity, behold the Angels are not pure in thy sight, and thou hast found folly in thy saints; have mercy upon thy servants, who with repentance and contrition of heart, return unto thee, humbling ourselves before thee in thy holy place. We acknowledge ourselves unworthy to appear in thy glorious presence, because we are polluted in thy sight, and it is just in thee to reject our prayers, and to answer us no more from the place of thy Sanctuary; for wickedness hath reached unto the Courts where thy holy feet have trod, and have defiled thy dwelling-place, even unto the ground, and we by our sins have deserved this calamity. But be thou graciously pleased to return to us as in the days of old, and remember us according to thy former lovingkindnesses in the days of our Fathers. Cast out all iniquity from within us, remove the guilt of that horrible prophanation that hath been committed here, that abomination of desolation in the holy place, standing where it ought not; and grant that we may present unto thee pure Oblations; and may be accepted by the gracious interpellation of our High Priest, the most glorious Jesus. Let no prophane thing enter any more into the lot of thine inheritance; and be pleased again to accept the prayers which thy servants shall make unto thee in this place. And because holiness becometh thine house for ever, grant to us thy grace to walk before thee in all holiness of conversation; that we becoming a royal Priesthood, a chosen Generation, a people zealous of good works, thou mayest accept us according to thine own loving-kindness, and the desires of our hearts. O look upon thy most holy Son, and regard the cry of his blood, and let it on our behalf speak better things than the blood of Abel.
O let that sprinkling of the blood of the holy Lamb, who was slain from the beginning of the world, make this place holy and accepted, and purifie our hands and hearts, and sanctifie our prayers and praises, and hallow all our Oblations, and preserve this house, and all the places where thy Name is invocated from all impurity and prophanation for ever; and keep our bodies, and souls, and spirits, unblameable to the coming of our Lord Jesus. Thus, O blessed Father, grant that we being presented unto thee without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, may be cloathed with the righteousness of Saints, and walk in white with the Lamb in the Kingdom of our God for ever and ever. Grant this, O Almighty God, our most gracious Father, for Jesus Christ his sake, to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit, be all worship, and love, and honour, and glory, from generation to generation for ever. Amen.
¶ Then the Bishop and Clergy arising from their knees shall say the Anathematism [1] unto the Εὐφημισμός, or Acclamation [2], as in the Form of Consecration: After which, kneeling down, shall be said the Third Prayer placed in that Office a little before the Anathematism [3]. And next to that the Second Prayer which is immediately before that [4]; and then the Prayer of S. Clement [5].
¶ After which, arising from his knees, the Bishop shall say,
Seeing now, dearly beloved in the Lord, we have by humble prayer implored the mercy of God and his holy Spirit, to take from this place, and from our hearts, all impurity and prophanation, and that we hope by the mercies of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, he hath heard our prayers, and will grant our desires, let us give hearty thanks for these mercies, and say,
¶ Then shall be said the Εὐφημισμός, or Acclamation, as at the end of the Office of Consecration of Churches, &c.
¶ Then shall the Priest, whom the Bishop shall appoint, begin Morning Prayer.
¶ The Psalms for the day are Psalm 18 and Psalm 30.
¶ The first Lesson is, Zechariah i.
¶ The second Lesson, Mark xi. unto verse 26 inclusively.
¶ The Collect is the same with that at Morning Prayer in the Consecration of Churches.
¶ If any Chalice, Paten, Font, Pulpit, or any other Oblation or Utensil for the Church, be at any time newly to be presented, the Bishop is to use the Forms of Dedication of those respective Gifts which are particularly used in the Dedication; and this is to be done immediately after the Nicene Creed, at the time of the Communion; ever adding the Anathematism and Acclamation.
Te decet Hymnus.
Ash Wednesday Service from the Use of Sarum
Feb 15th
If you wish to use this service order, you can copy and paste it into the publishing application of your choice. This service order is reproduced from the Warren translation (1911) of the Sarum Missal.
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After Sext, first shall the sermon, if there be one, be addressed to the people. Then shall the clerks prostrate themselves in the quire, and say the seven penitential Psalms, with Glory be to the Father etc., and As it was etc., and with the Anthem Remember not etc. The superior priest, having put on his priestly vestments, being in a red silk cope, with the deacon on his right hand, and the subdeacon on his left, and with the rest of the ministers of the altar vested in albs and amices, in prostration before the altar, shall say by themselves the seven penitential Psalms with the anthem Remember not etc.
Pss. vi., xxxii., xxxviii., li., cii., cxxx., cxliii (as in the Prayer Book Commination Service).
On the Music of the English Church
Feb 13th
The following extract on church music is taken from the Directorium Anglicanum, one of the earliest references on Catholic ceremonial for Anglicans.
One of the gravest defects of the offices of Mattins and Evensong in the Book of Common Prayer is the absence of the Office Hymns which are an integral part of the Divine Office in the Western Church.
The difficulty of translating the ancient hymns into English verse, and the substitution of metrical translations of the Psalms after the example of Clement Marot, cir. 1540, in Paris, and of Beza in Strasburg (1545) frustrated the wishes of Archbishop Cranmer that these most Catholic compositions should be adopted to vernacular use in the Reformed Church of England: Sternhold and Hopkins in Edward VIth’s reign, and Tate and Brady in that of William and Mary furnished the songs of most general adoption in this country, to the utter confusion of men’s views and feelings. The Psalter pointed for singing came too generally to be used as, and called the reading Psalms, while the metrical versions had transferred to them both the phraseology and the interest which attached of old to the chanted Psalms, and thus the evangelical Hymns of S. Hilary, S. Ambrose, Prudentius, Sedulius, S. Eunodius, and S. Gregory, and those of the subsequent era of Venantius Fortunatus, Venerable Bede, Adam of S. Victor, and still later of Santolius Victorinus, were entirely lost to the people. And if the natural craving of the renewed nature in any case insisted upon a more direct tribute of Christian praise and thanksgiving in the songs of the Church, it came to be fed with a pasture not wholesome nor satisfying, in a modern hymnody too often of doubtful orthodoxy and of undoubted sickliness.
According to the Rev’d Dr. John Mason Neale, that this treasury of ancient hymns might not be lost forever, “Cranmer, indeed, expressed some casual hope that men fit for the office [of translating the Office Hymns into English] might be induced to come forward.” Ultimately, it would be Dr. Neale himself who would be fit for that office, though, by then, the Office Hymns had long since fallen into desuetude.
Fortunately, the omission of the Office Hymns from the Prayer-book is an easy fix. The Right Rev’d Peter D. Wilkinson, OSG, of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (TAC) has compiled the wonderful book Ancient Office Hymns with Versicles, Responses, and Antiphons for all Propers and Commons at Mattins and Evensong according to Anglican Use. The appropriate hymn, with its corresponding versicle and response, need only be inserted into the Office in its traditional place immediately before the Benedictus or Magnificat. Bishop Wilkinson’s book also supplies the appointed antiphons on these Gospel canticles. These restorations do much to restore the traditional integrity of the Prayer-book Offices.
Ancient Office Hymns may be had by contacting the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Evangelist.
Deanery & Parish Office
980 Falmouth Road
Victoria, BC V8X 3A3
(250) 920-9990
FAX (250) 920-5723
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VIII.—ON THE MUSIC OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.
The authoritative directions of the English Church since the Reformation touching Church Music are few and vague.
The allusion to the singing of the “Psalter or Psalms of David” borne on the title page of our present Prayer Book “Pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches;” certain rubrics in the body of the work;—the XLIXth of Queen Elizabeth’s Injunctions; and the XIVth Canon of 1603—4, which begins thus,—” The Common Prayer shall be said or sung distinctly and reverently,” are perhaps all the directions we can adduce as bearing the authority of written law upon this subject.
But the written law has all along been consonant with and explainable by certain musical traditions and customs, continued to a great extent in the actual uses of choirs, and noted in musical directions and collections of written or printed music.
The text-book prepared at the same time with Edward the Sixth’s first Prayer Book by Marbeck, and printed the following year, 1550, bears evidence of the adoption by Archbishop Cranmer, and those who acted with him in settling the uses of the remodelled Services, of that species of music called Plain Song, which had been used in the Church Catholic from time immemorial, but had, it would seem, too generally given way, at least in the ordinary Services, attended by the people, to an “operose” and intricate style of harmonized music in which the people could neither take part, nor (even if they knew Latin) perceive the “sentence,” or meaning of the words. In music, therefore, as in doctrine, the appeal was from modern innovations and corruptions of Catholic antiquity, to the uses of an earlier and purer age. Plain Song had been the music of the Church from the beginning; it was restored to more general use in the Reformed Church of England. What that Plain Song was,—what were its rules, how copious, how diversified, may be learnt from the ancient books in use both before and at the time of the Reformation which have escaped the fanatical destruction of things sacred during the Great Rebellion, and the subsequent Usurpation. The Antiphonarium gave the Plain Song music for the ordinary daily Offices; the Gradual that for the Service of the Mass. The former included the chants for the Psalms, the Antiphons for all the year, as also the hymns, which (as is well known to ritualists) were as definitely appointed in their several places as the Canticles, Psalms, or Collects. The Gradual contained Introits, Sequences, Glorias, Credos, and all” the musical portions of the Liturgy properly so called.
Thus (as has been satisfactorily shown by Mr. Dyce in the Preface to his Book of Common Prayer with plain-tune, after the model of Marbeck) Plain Song was “not an indeterminate kind of melody, but a mode of intonating chanting and singing in the Church, which implies an adherence to certain rules, and to a great extent the use of certain well-known melodies, that are severally appropriated to particular parts of the Service.”
Queen Elizabeth’s XLIXth Injunction is entirely confirmatory of this view, enjoining “a modest and distinct song” to be “so used in all parts of the common prayers, that the same may be as plainly understanded as if it were read without singing,” while at the same time permission is given for “the singing in the beginning or in the end of the Morning and Evening Prayer, of a hymn or such-like song to the praise of Almighty god in the best sort of melody and music that may be conveniently devised, having respect that the sentence of the hymn may be understanded and perceived.” This permission was doubtless confirmatory of the use previously established and subsequently retained of singing under the title of Anthems more elaborate music by trained choirs in addition to the Plain Song of more wide and general application.
The difficulty of translating the ancient hymns into English verse, and the substitution of metrical translations of the Psalms after the example of Clement Marot, cir. 1540, in Paris, and of Beza in Strasburg (1545) frustrated the wishes of Archbishop Cranmer that these most Catholic compositions should be adopted to vernacular use in the Reformed Church of England: Sternhold and Hopkins in Edward VIth’s reign, and Tate and Brady in that of William and Mary furnished the songs of most general adoption in this country, to the utter confusion of men’s views and feelings. The Psalter pointed for singing came too generally to be used as, and called the reading Psalms, while the metrical versions had transferred to them both the phraseology and the interest which attached of old to the chanted Psalms, and thus the evangelical Hymns of S. Hilary, S. Ambrose, Prudentius, Sedulius, S. Eunodius, and S. Gregory, and those of the subsequent era of Venantius Fortunatus, Venerable Bede, Adam of S. Victor, and still later of Santolius Victorinus, were entirely lost to the people. And if the natural craving of the renewed nature in any case insisted upon a more direct tribute of Christian praise and thanksgiving in the songs of the Church, it came to be fed with a pasture not wholesome nor satisfying, in a modern hymnody too often of doubtful orthodoxy and of undoubted sickliness. The music of these metrical Psalms and Hymns (with the exception of those melodies which have come down to our times from more Catholic sources, and a few which have been composed in a similar tone of masculine grandeur) has grown from year to year more and more secular and effeminate; while, from the neglect of vocal music, as an element in clerical and general education, the actual singing of them has ceased to be what it was originally, a national accomplishment in which all the people could and did join. So that the very means taken in an uncatholic spirit to secure the greatest amount of congregational singing has been one of the chief causes of the entire loss, speaking generally, of this essential feature of Catholic worship. Looking at the history and present condition of music in the Church of England, it would seem that what is required whenever it may be attained is a full Choral Service of the Plain Song order.[1]
Easy Anthems or Hymns should be sung in the appointed places in Matins and Evensong, and also immediately before them, (see Par. 122, note *) and Hymns may also be added at the close of one Service when followed immediately by another or by a Sermon.[2]
It is to be observed that there is not the least warrant in the Prayer Book for the too common distinction drawn between the cathedral and parochial Service. The rubrics are alike for both. Nor is the difference of congregations such as to warrant any material difference. What is edifying in the country cathedral is equally so in most large towns; nor is it at all true that the poor in villages and hamlets are less susceptible of the hallowed influence of sacred music properly introduced in the Service of the Church than their more wealthy and urbane fellow countrymen. In large manufacturing districts the taste for Choral harmony is generally very strong, and ought not to be deprived of its due gratification in the highest of all human employments.
The rule to be followed is, that “all things should be done to edification;” and this involves the proper use of all available means, and lawful appliances—the only bar to the use of the highest style of Choral Service properly regulated in every Church is the inability to perform it. In proportion as zeal for the honour and glory of god’s worship inspires the ministers and people of any particular Church, so will their worship rise in the scale of musical grandeur and choral dignity.
All the instrumental aid which can be made subservient to general devotion and that of the performers themselves, ought by inference to be considered lawful, though perhaps a good organ and a competent organist are all that will be found in general desirable.
1 Full directions for which are given in the Rev. Thomas Helmore’s Manual of Plain Song, and the Accompanying Harmonies, founded upon Marbeck’s Book before mentioned.
2 For Anthems, see Boyce’s Cathedral Music, “Anthems and Services,” (printed originally by J. Burns; sold by R. Cox and Co.) The Parish Choir (Ollivier: Pall Mall,) and the Motett Society’s Collection of Ancient Music. For Translations of the Ancient Catholic Hymns in like metre set to their original tunes as preserved in the Sarum Breviary, Hymnal and Gradual. See Hymnal Noted under the sanction of the Ecclesiological Society with Accompanying Harmonies (J. A. Novello.)
Remember to Keep Such a Fast as God Has Chosen
Feb 12th
With the season of Lent fast approaching, I commend to the readership of The Anglo-Catholic this excellent pastoral letter of Thomas Ken, at the time, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and later, the most eminent of the English Nonjurors. Ken prescribes for his clergy a Lenten discipline that might serve as a model for our own.
- daily recitation of Psalm 51, Miserere mei, Deus, and the Commination / A Penitential Office
- lectio divina based on the Lamentations of Jeremiah
- daily recitation of Mattins and Evensong
- praying of The Litany each morning
To this, Bishop Ken would recommend that clergy meditate on their ordination vows and the prayers of that office and to pray to God for the grace to conscientiously perform the promises made therein. And Ken reminds us all that it is not enough to attend to our own souls — we must be prepared to relieve our brethren through almsgiving.
To our Anglican readership, I would humbly propose that we make this Lenten season a time of solemn preparation for that moment — now perhaps not far distant — when we shall, at long last, reassume our place in the the full communion of the Catholic Church while maintaining the precious gift of those liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral traditions that have nourished us in our Exile.
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A Pastoral Letter from the Bishop of Bath and Wells to his Clergy, concerning their Behaviour during Lent.
All Glory be to God.
Reverend Brother,
THE time of Lent now approaching, which has been anciently and very Christianly set apart, for penitential humiliation of Soul and Body, for Fasting and Weeping and Praying, all which you know are very frequently inculcated in Holy Scripture, as the most effectual means we can use, to avert those Judgments our sins have deserv’d; I thought it most agreeable to that Character which, unworthy as I am, I sustain, to call you and all my Brethren of the Clergy to mourning; to mourning for your own sins, and to mourning for the sins of the Nation.
In making such an address to you as this, I follow the example of St. Cyprian, that blessed Bishop and Martyr, who from his retirement wrote an excellent Epistle to his Clergy, most worthy of your serious perusal, exhorting them, by publick Prayers and Tears to appease the Anger of God, which they then actually felt, and which we may justly fear.
Remember that to keep such a Fast as God has chosen, it is not enough for you to afflict your own soul, but you must also according to your ability, deal your bread to the Hungry: and the rather, because we have not onely Usual objects of Charity to relieve, but many poor Protestant Strangers are now fled hither for Sanctuary, whom as Brethren, as members of Christ, we should take in and Cherish.
That you may perform the office of publick Intercessour the more assiduously, I beg of you to say daily in your Closet, or in your Family, or rather in both, all this time of Abstinence, the 51st Psalm, and the other Prayers which follow it in the Commination. I could wish also that you would frequently read and meditate on the Lamentations of Jeremy, which Holy Gregory Nazianzen was wont to doe, and the reading of which melted him into the like Lamentations, as affected the Prophet himself when he Pen’d them.
But your greatest Zeal must be spent for the Public Prayers, in the constant devout use of which, the Publick Safety both of Church and State is highly concern’d: be sure then to offer up to God every day the Morning and Evening Prayer; offer it up in your Family at least, or rather as far as your circumstances may possibly permit, offer it up in the Church, especially if you live in a great Town, and say over the Litany every Morning during the whole Lent. This I might enjoyn you to doe, on your Canonical Obedience, but for Love’s sake I rather beseech you, and I cannot recommend to you a more devout and comprehensive Form, of penitent and publick Intercession than that, or more proper for the Season.
Be not discourag’d if but few come to the Solemn Assemblies, but go to the House of Prayer, where God is well known for a sure Refuge: Go, though you go alone, or but with one besides your self; and there as you are God’s Remembrancer, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, till He establish, till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
The first sacred Council of Nice, for which the Christian world has always had a great and just veneration, ordains a Provincial Synod to be held before Lent, that all Dissensions being taken away a pure oblation might be offer’d up to God, namely of Prayers and Fasting and Alms, and Tears, which might produce a comfortable Communion at the following Easter: and that in this Diocese, we may in some degree imitate so Primitive a practice, I exhort you to endeavour all you can, to reconcile differences, to reduce those that go astray, to promote universal Charity towards all that dissent from you, and to put on as the Elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another, even as Christ forgave you.
I passionately beseech you to reade over daily your Ordination Vows, to examine yourself how you observe them; and in the Prayers that are in that Office, fervently to importune God for the assistance of His good Spirit, that you may conscientiously perform them. Teach publickly, and from house to house, and warn every one night and day with Tears; warn them to repent, to fast and to pray, and to give Alms, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance, warn them to continue stedfast in that faith once delivered to the Saints, in which they were baptiz’d, to keep the word of God’s Patience, that God may keep them in the hour of Temptation; warn them against the sins and errours of the age; warn them to deprecate publick judgments, and to mourn for publick provocations.
No one can reade God’s holy Word but he will see, that the greatest Saints have been the greatest Mourners: David wept whole Rivers; Jeremy wept sore, and his Eyes ran down in secret places day and night like a Fountain; Daniel mourned three full weeks, and did eat no pleasant bread, and sought God by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth and ashes; St. Paul was humbled and bewailed and wept for the sins of others; and our Lord himself when He beheld the City wept over it. Learn then of these great Saints, learn of our most compassionate Saviour, to weep for the publick, and weeping to pray, that we may know in this our day, the things that belong to our peace, lest they be hid from our eyes.
To mourn for National Guilt, in which all share, is a duty incumbent upon all, but especially on Priests, who are particularly commanded to weep and to say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine Heritage to reproach, that God may repent of the evil, and become jealous for His Land, and pity His people.
Be assur’d that none are more tenderly regarded by God than such Mourners as these; there is a mark set by Him on all that sigh and cry for the abominations of the Land, the destroying Angel is forbid to hurt any of them, they are all God’s peculiar care, and shall all have either present deliverance, or such supports and consolations, as shall abundantly endear their Calamity.
Now the God of all Grace, who hath called you unto His eternal Glory by Christ Jesus, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you in the true Catholic and Apostolick Faith profess’d in the Church of England, and enable you to adorn that Apostolick Faith with an Apostolick Example and Zeal, and give all our whole Church that timely repentance, those broken and contrite hearts, that both Priests and People may all plentifully sow in Tears, and in God’s good time may all plentifully reap in Joy.
From the Palace in Wells,
Febr. 17. 1687.
Your affectionate
Friend and Brother,
Tho. Bath and Wells.
Henry Purcell: Funeral Sentences
Feb 5th
Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.
In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?
Yet, O Lord most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears unto our prayers; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, though most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall away from thee.
– Sentences sung at the Grave from the Book of Common Prayer (as revised by Henry Purcell)
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Here is the March from H. Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary.
Full Homely Divinity
Jan 29th
I am quite surprised that this site – Full Homely Divinity – hasn’t been mentioned here.
It concentrates on the old folk traditions of English parish religion and spirituality, both in medieval English Catholicism and its survival in post-Reformation Anglicanism. I have often found this site useful for matters like Sarum Lenten Array (which I use) and things like hot cross buns on Good Friday and the Easter Sepulcre. Thus, liturgical rites fit in and harmonise with popular traditions.
This site (I don’t know who is running it) is entirely non-polemical and irenic in its tone. It seems to be independent of “party interests”. It supports the use of the Book of Common Prayer, but I see no sectarian objections to the use of the English, Anglican or Sarum missals.
Take a look at this site, and comments would be welcome.
King Charles the Martyr
Jan 29th
“I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.”
Tomorrow, the thirtieth day of January, is the anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles I. In all editions of the Book of Common Prayer from A.D. 1662 to A.D. 1859, opposite January 30 in the Kalendar stands the entry, K. Charles Martyr.
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It is easy enough, no doubt, for any one who is so inclined, to neutralize all that the Church can say, by a dexterous use of party-feeling: easy, to call it a device of the State for upholding a particular set of opinions. But the matter may be brought to a short issue. If attachment to the cause of our injured King, and sympathy with his high-minded patience, were not in entire harmony with the principles inculcated in all other parts of the Prayer-Book: if Sanderson, Hammond, and Taylor, those Restorers of our fallen Church, spoke otherwise on the duty of subjects, than as former generations of true Churchmen had spoken: then we might perhaps have cause to fear, that Feeling had got the better of Reason, in this one portion of our yearly solemnities. But if they “all speak the same thing, and there be no division among them;” and (what is infinitely more) if what they speak be altogether scriptural: if the doctrine of submission and loyal obedience be only one inseparable branch of the universal doctrine of resignation and contentment—an ingredient of that unreserved Faith, without which it is impossible to please God—then let us bless our Preserver, for not leaving us without special witness to a part of our duty, where all experience has proved us so likely to go wrong. Let us trust our civil welfare to the Gospel rule of non-resistance, as fearlessly as we trust our domestic happiness to the kindred rule of filial obedience. Such conduct, if universal, would be a perfect security to liberty: inasmuch as the same principle which forbids illegal resistance, would equally forbid being agents in illegal oppression. And they who abide by it, be they many or few, have for their warrant the general tenor and express word of Revelation, the example of our Blessed Lord, His Apostles, and His suffering Church. In every case, the burthen of proof lies wholly on those who plead for resistance.
And what if young men—the high-born especially—instead of that degrading ambition of commencing, early, “men of the world,” would consent to shape their own conduct by the noble simplicity and downright goodness of him, whom we this day commemorate? the secret of whose excellence lay, chiefly, in two qualities, by them most imitable: consistent purity of heart and demeanour, and strict constancy in devotional duties, under the guidance of his and our Church? Does any one believe that such a change would leave society at all a loser, in point of true generosity and courtesy, or whatever else makes life engaging?
But if all this must still be unheard—if the instruction of the day be quite drowned, in men’s eager cry for what is called Freedom: at least the service answers the purpose of a solemn appeal from human prejudice, to Him, before whom king and subject must ere long appear together. To whose final and unerring decision, not, it is hoped, with presumptuous confidence, nor yet with any uncharitable thought, but in cheerful assurance that resignation and loyalty can “in no wise lose their reward,” we desire, now and always, to “commit our cause.”
(Sermon V. Danger of Sympathizing With Rebellion. Preached by John Keble before the University of Oxford, January 30, 1831.)
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O Lord, our heavenly Father, who didst not punish us as our sins have deserved, but hast in the midst of judgement remembered mercy; We acknowledge it thine especial favour, that, though, for our many and great provocations, thou didst suffer thine anointed blessed King Charles the First (as on this day) to fall into the hands of violent and blood-thirsty men, and barbarously to be murdered by them, yet thou didst not leave us for ever, as sheep without a shepherd; but by thy gracious providence didst miraculously preserve the undoubted Heir of his Crowns, our then gracious Sovereign King Charles the Second, from his bloody enemies, hiding him under the shadow of thy wings, until their tyranny was overpast; and didst bring him back, in thy good appointed time, to sit upon the throne of his Father; and together with the Royal Family didst restore to us our ancient Government in Church and state. For these thy great and unspeakable mercies we render to thee our most humble and unfeigned thanks; beseeching thee, still to continue thy gracious protection over the whole Royal Family, and to grant to our gracious Sovereign Queen Elizabeth, a long and happy Reign over us: So we that are thy people will give thee thanks for ever, and will alway be shewing forth thy praise from generation to generation; through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
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O Lord we offer unto thee all praise and thanks for the glory of Thy grace that shined forth in Thine anointed servant Charles; and we beseech Thee to give us all grace that by a careful studious imitation of this Thy blessed Saint and Martyr, that we may be made worthy to receive benefit by his prayers, which he, in communion with the Church Catholic, offers up unto Thee for that part of it here Militant, through thy Son, our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. (source “Private Forms of Prayer” 1660, Brian Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury and Winchester.)
O Most mighty God, terrible in thy judgements, and wonderful in thy doings toward the children of men; who in thy heavy displeasure didst suffer the life of our gracious Sovereign King Charles the First, to be (as on this day) taken away by the hands of cruel and bloody men: We thy sinful creatures here assembled before thee, do, in the behalf of all this Nation, which brought down this heavy judgement upon us. But, O gracious, when thou makest inquisition for blood, lay not the guilt of this innocent blood, (the shedding whereof nothing but the blood of thy Son can expiate,) lay it not to the charge of the people of this land; not let it ever be required of us, or our posterity. Be merciful, O Lord, be merciful unto thy people, whom thou hast redeemed; and be not angry with us for ever: But pardon us for thy mercy’s sake. through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Blessed Lord, in whose sight the death of thy saints is precious; We magnify thy Name for thine abundant grace bestowed upon our martyred Sovereign; by which he was enabled so cheerfully to follow the steps of his blessed Master and Saviour, in a constant meek suffering of all barbarous indignities, and at the last resisting unto blood; and even then according to the same pattern, praying for his murderers. Let his memory, O Lord, be ever blessed among us; that we may follow the example of his courage and constancy, his meekness and patience, and great charity. And grant, that this our land may be freed from the vengeance of his righteous blood, and thy mercy glorified in the forgiveness of our sins; and all for Jesus Christ his sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.
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Blessed God, just and powerful, who didst permit thy dear Servant, our dread Sovereign King Charles the First, to be (as upon this day) given up to the violent outrages of wicked men, to be despitefully used, and at the last murdered by them: Though we cannot reflect upon so foul an act, but with horror and astonishment; yet do we most gratefully commemorate the glories of the grace, which then sinned forth in thine Anointed; whom thou wast pleased, even at the hour of death, to endue with an eminent measure of exemplary patience, meekness, and charity, before the face of his cruel enemies. And albeit thou didst suffer them to proceed to such an height of violence, as to kill him, and to take possession of his Throne; yet didst thou in great mercy preserve his Son, whose right it was, and at length by a wonderful providence bring him back, and set him thereon, to restore thy true Religion, and to settle peace amongst us: For these thy great mercies we glorify thy Name, through Jesus Christ our blessed Saviour. Amen.
God, a Book, and a Boy
Jan 27th
I grew up on a farm in Connecticut. It wasn’t like one of those high-class places in the movies. No pristine white rail fences, just plain old barbed wire to keep the livestock off the road. The house had sections which pre-dated the American Revolution, but it couldn’t have passed as elegant. It was just comfortable, as well-used farm houses are comfortable.
We shared it with my grandparents. Families used to do that sort of thing. They lived in one part, and we had ours. Visiting them was as easy as walking through a door from our front room into their kitchen, and it was a route I knew well as a child.
In my grandparents’ part of the house there was what was known as the back room, which had been a bedroom when my father was growing up. The reason for its demotion from bedroom to back room was evident: its location in the northeast corner of the house gave it little protection from howling winter winds, and since insulation was nearly unknown when the house was built, it was pretty darned cold in there. Certainly no place someone would want for a bedroom, if it could be helped.
Its changed status meant that it became a repository for everything that had no other place to be put. It became my treasure-trove. Old pictures, Nana’s unwanted knick-knacks, boxes with forgotten contents, all of it found its final resting place in there.
There were two things in the back room that I came close to coveting. One was an oval-shaped bas-relief carving of the Descent of Christ from the Cross. How such a thing found its way into the possession of a protestant family, I’ll never know. But I loved it, and when I asked my grandmother if I could have it, for some reason she told me that if I was ever ordained I could claim it. I was, and I did, and it hangs in my rectory to this day. The second thing was a book, a very particular book which had belonged to my English great-grandmother, who had been staunchly Anglican. It was a combined Book of Common Prayer (1662 edition) and the Holy Bible (King James Version), and although my family subsequently wandered off into Methodism, they had kept this book because it had been Nana’s. Its leather binding was cracked, but not badly. There was an ornate brass cross attached to its front cover. I wanted it very much, and it was given to me. So began my love affair with the formality of Anglican prayers and with the Holy Scriptures.
It seems odd that a ten year old boy would be able to find something of God within cracked leather and yellowed pages, but I did. It was as close as I had to a Real Presence, and my inability to understand all the words emphasized the Mystery I was seeking. There would seem to be little use for “A Table to Find Easter-Day; From the Present Time till the Year 2199 Inclusive,” or for “Forms of Prayer for the Anniversary of the day of the Accession of the Reigning Sovereign,” or even for “A Table of Kindred and Affinity,” although it was fascinating to learn that one’s mother’s father’s wife may not marry her mother’s mother’s husband. But for the rest of it, these were my first faltering steps towards Catholic beauty, Catholic order, Catholic truth.
The prayers did it for me. And the words of the Scriptures. I would speak them sotto voce in my room, just because the words sounded so beautiful, even to my ignorant ears. I suppose, by most external points of reference, it was an odd thing for a child to do. Certainly, I had plenty of friends, activities at school, involvement in the local church, duties at home. But my soul had a hungry corner that would not stop its demands until it was satisfied. I had never heard Augustine’s words about the restless heart, but I surely knew what he meant.
One of the wonders of the Catholic faith is that it reaches into such unexpected places and in such extraordinary ways to draw the unsuspecting to itself. Indeed, this is its catholicity. It feeds both farm boy and pope.
An Anglican Patrimony
Jan 27th
This article was submitted to The Anglo-Catholic by Fr. Michael Gray of The Traditional Anglican Church, the English province of the TAC.
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We are called to be positive about our Anglican patrimony. So we will do well to consider what it is (or was) and how easily we can make it available to the wider church.
I do not think the specialist culture of cathedral music and spectacular buildings is important here, since we can generally bring neither. Nor are the great Anglican theological works (because anybody who can appreciate them can read them without our help). We should be looking at simpler aspects of recent Anglican practice. My own thoughts are of the England of my youth; others may have something else to contribute.
We should perhaps start from Sunday congregational morning and evening prayer. These are somewhat accidental developments – it was only with the Shortened Services Act that it was established that Morning Prayer could be a separate act of worship with its own sermon. We shall meet many of the components again, so I will at this stage merely mention the relatively long scripture readings, the psalms sung to Anglican chant, the hymns, the prayers which became familiar to the congregation by repetition, and the substantial sermon. Evensong lasted better because it was not in competition with the Eucharist for the main morning “slot”, but it has been in decline as a congregational act. We in the Continuing church have not generally been able to maintain it.
I have already mentioned hymns. These are quite recent in Anglicanism – the publishing of hymn books to companion the Book of Common Prayer only begins in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The main books are fairly easily found – not just English Hymnal (1933 revision), but also Ancient and Modern Standard Edition (1922) and (with reservations) Ancient and Modern Revised. All of them are largely built on the Prayer Book – contrast the way the Wesleys organised their hymn book around the stages of conversion. No hymn book is perfect; all contain dead wood and a few hymns best avoided because of dubious doctrine; none has all the hymns we want to use, or all the tunes. Most spoil the authors’ words. The point is less the preserving of the books than the congregational participation, which means that words and music enter into memory. We in the Continuing church have persisted with the hymns, but probably our practice has only used a third as many hymns a Sunday as the serious Christian of my youth might have experienced.
I have already mentioned sermons. In my youth one could still expect a twenty minute sermon at Evensong, with all the church in darkness except for the pulpit light. While the sermon never dominated the service as it did in nonconformity, it was a serious, well-prepared part of worship. This is a long-standing Anglican tradition – consult the internet site “Lectionary Central” for a selection of older Anglican sermons. It may be hard to restore; it requires trained hearers as well as competent clergy with time to prepare sermons (or indeed to make wise selections from published material).
There are many familiar prayers in Anglicanism. Curiously, the Prayer Book should mostly be recited to a passive congregation rather than spoken by them, but as in so many other matters the rubrics were increasingly ignored. One way or other, many prayers became part of lay experience – so that they could be recited from memory. This includes the better contributions to the “after the third collect” slot (Milner White, Colquhoun) which were one of the few generally adopted results of 1928. Again, our inability to sustain Evensong has not helped to preserve this as an active part of the patrimony.
Anglicanism had poetry long before it had hymns. Officially, there were the metrical psalms. But many writers wrote poems (not hymns) to assist meditative prayer. One can instance Herbert, Traherne and Keble. The books will not be lost; the task is to restore the lay as well as clerical practice of using them for the purpose.
Anglicanism never had a large Catechism. Instead, it had a tradition of what one might call “discipline manuals” if the term had not been reserved to puritanism. I mention Holy Living and Holy Dying, The Whole Duty of Man, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, The Way of Blessedness (less familiar than the others – Traherne). If these are from the classic period, there are also more recent works like The King’s Highway (Carleton). Our Canadian brethren benefit from His Worthy Praise (Palmer). The difficulty is that most of these works have to be used with intellectual adjustment for different conditions; we will have to pray that we be given somebody with the genius to write afresh.
Anglicanism had a strong tradition of popular theology. Major theologians sometimes wrote simple books (Gore, Farrer), as well as those who did not claim to be theologians such as C. S. Lewis and Dorothy Sayers. These books were printed and sold in large numbers; they were read. Of course, the confidence has gone, and part of the problem is that modern theological writing is generally highly technical. Also, many of us probably assume that any modern book is heretical; both SPCK and the main Evangelical chain of Christian bookshops have recently failed, which must be partly due to lack of demand for new books, partly due to loss of trust. We have all the rebuilding to do. It is no criticism of the simple books that they “date”. They were never expected to serve for long. Some may still be useful for a time, but we do need to recover the confidence to write – and read. Fortunately, we will probably be able to use electronic distribution rather than the printed book.
Some Anglican laity were given to disciplined Bible study. There is every reason to recover this. Indeed, the tradition of writing practical commentaries was important (Gore on Romans, Ephesians, Sermon on the Mount; Temple on John). There is no reason why this practice should be surrendered to fundamentalists. Indeed, we badly a need to recover an informed use of scripture (which does not deny modern knowledge).
Anglicanism had its own spiritual tradition. It is related to the great medieval tradition, of course, but did have a life of its own. Most of us know Underhill. One of the blessings of theological college was to be introduced also to Bede Frost, Martin Thornton, Hubert Northcott and others. Again, the straitened circumstances of Continuing Anglicanism have not helped us to maintain more than basic spirituality; we have to rebuild.
There was Anglican social concern (Temple is the most obvious figure, but even the papal response to Saepius Officio commends this aspect of the Church of England!) It has been lost; probably Christians have so little influence on English secular society that it is not a major priority to recover it.
There was Anglican humour and satire. Our defence of our origins has not advanced much beyond the Tale of a Tub (Swift) which we should probably all study. We are too tempted to use satire against each other (the Screwtape tradition should be abandoned). For fresh work, the time has passed.
I have said little about Eucharistic life. One reason is because this is not in our gift, as the content of the liturgy will be determined elsewhere and much of the detail will be constrained by practicality. Another is that others have already written much. Perhaps I agree with Dean Inge that the best of Anglican spirituality has not been centred on the Eucharist. Anglo-Catholicism is a special case, but I think it is important to realise that the Anglican patrimony (even with respect to the Eucharist) is much wider than a rather brief phase of a particular group within Anglicanism.
There is a patrimony; but it has already largely been lost in the last fifty years. Preservation will not be easy; restoring to life will be hard, in some cases impossible or unwise. But it was, at best, good. If the Pope wants us to make that our specific vocation within the general life of the Church, it is time to realise what has been lost and begin the task of recovery.
Pastorally and Progressively
Jan 25th
It is tempting to look at the situation in the Catholic Church, and wonder why plans for improving the abysmal post-conciliar liturgical situation seem to be going so slowly. In Rome, the Holy Father has given the example, and we learn that many of the urban churches have followed the lead. Some are using the old liturgy, others celebrate Mass on the old altars or still others have the “Benedictine” symmetrical arrangement of candlesticks on the altar with a central crucifix facing the celebrant.
People are naturally conservative about liturgical matters, and not only when it is a matter of the old Latin Roman liturgy or our Anglican Prayer Books. I have seen people who have the same reflex with the Novus Ordo, which has been used in nearly all Catholic parish churches for forty years. Some people even call the new rite the “traditional rite”. Incredible as it may seem, this is the reality. This means that every Catholic below the age of 50 years grew up with the Bugnini / Paul VI rite. They have not known anything else.
This conservatism sometimes extends even to the horribly banal ICEL “lame duck” translations that are about to be changed for better ones. Many people still want to respond to The Lord be with you with And also with you. We would be tempted to say that those people need to see a psychiatrist, but they are not mentally ill – simply conservative.
Now, I am sure Pope Benedict XVI would love to begin a radical programme of liturgical reform in the direction of a restoration. Get rid of the “chopping block” altars facing the people. Burn the polyester chasuble-albs and trash all the books with the goofy songs people have been singing since the 1970’s? Will that teach people to sing Gregorian chant, to love Latin, to go back to the 1950’s? No it won’t. It will leave nothing but a vacuum. This is why the pastoral way is slow and progressive.
For those who want to go quicker, Summorum Pontificum of 2007 removed all the legal or pseudo-legal restrictions from the “extraordinary” use of the Roman rite, and the 1962 Missal is used in an increasing number of churches of the Latin rite. This is wonderful and much to be encouraged. But, only a minority of Catholics is interested.
So, for the incoming Anglicans from the three main groups I have mentioned (TAC, Forward in Faith, Anglican Use Catholics), I don’t see Rome making sudden changes and radical demands, any more than for ordinary Catholics in the parishes. The “odd man out” group in question is the TAC, because FiF for the most part uses the modern Roman rite and the AU uses the Book of Divine Worship formally approved by Rome in 1980. Rome has two options: bringing the TAC into line with the Novus Ordo and the Anglican Use, which some fear could lead to a broken deal, and the other option is either approving a new book and officially promulgating it up front, or simply allowing the present status quo for a length of time.
Certainly, in time, Rome would like a uniform liturgy for the Anglican-Catholic Ordinariates. Some will be asking for the 1928 American Prayer Book, others the 1921 British Anglican Missal, the 1912 English Missal, the American Anglican Missal, the Use of Sarum in the Pearson or Warren translations, the Scottish Prayer Book and many others. Whichever it will be, of a combination thereof, no believer of any rite is going to react well to abrupt change. How is a BCP congregation going to react when they’re told they have to ditch the Prayer Book for some new-fangled missal? It will be just like Latin rite Catholics accustomed to a happy-clappy get-together around the table with the girl altar servers tripping over the microphone wires. Progress can only be made slowly, by example and not by constraint.
We should, in The Anglo-Catholic, continue this dialogue in the hope of influencing the process in favour of the old Anglican Missal (which can incorporate just about all the variations of Anglo-Catholic worship). It looks unlikely that a uniform rite will be imposed up front, or even published by mid 2010, about the time the first Ordinariates may be canonically erected. A definitive Missal would take several years of work, and I would expect the Congregation of Divine Worship to ask several of us Anglicans to consult with them and not do all the work themselves.
Frankly, I don’t see why we can’t have liturgical diversity. It is already the de facto situation of parishes in the Latin Rite, where priests do what they want (perhaps less so now than in the brutalist 1970’s). Some say diversity confuses the faithful, but are the faithful little babies or children, unable to vote with their feet? Is diversity un-Catholic? There are many rites in the Catholic Church, oriental and western, and a certain diversity in the Latin rite. Many local rites were unfortunately swept away in the nineteenth century under the influence of Dom Guéranger and Ultramontanism. Some survived, even in France.
I really do find it ironic that some Catholic traditionalists [I’m not pointing a finger at PKTP because it is not his attitude] (their comments on other blogs) seem to want the old iron-rigid uniformity. I would be tempted to say – OK. You can have uniformity – the Novus Ordo. You asked for it!
Will Rome tolerate liturgical diversity in the Ordinariates formed from TAC groups? Speculation is usually presumptuous, but going by the pastoral attitudes already shown by the Holy See in regard to other disciplinary issues, this could be likely for a time, the time it takes to codify an official Anglican-Catholic rite. After all, Catholics using the 1928 American Prayer Book can hardly cause more scandal – less so – than some ways of celebrating the modern Roman rite?
Defining a Liturgical Patrimony: Cistercian Lessons for Anglican Ordinariates
Jan 22nd
Brother Stephen of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank blogs at Sub Tuum and has authored this piece on potential liturgical developments in the Anglican personal ordinariates. It is reproduced here with his kind permission.
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The discussion of what sort of liturgy will and should be used in the new Anglican ordinariates is emerging in earnest in various fora. This morning I was struck by the parallels between the evolution of the Cistercian Rite over the last 500 years and the liturgical situation among Anglo-Catholics interested in the ordinariates. I think the Cistercian experience may hold both salutary caution and a constructive example for those who are looking for a liturgical way forward in the new world of Anglicanorum Coetibus. This is an off-the-cuff thought piece that I offer for what it’s worth.
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To Sarum or Not to Sarum: Is That the Question?
If you were to attend Mass at a Cistercian Abbey you would be likely to find servers in albs, the chalice being mixed at the credence, and, in a place or two, a hanging pyx over the altar. Does this represent some fondness for Sarum? No, it is simply what is or was done in the Cistercian Rite, which has its roots in the Rite of Lyon. Much of what one often thinks of as distinctly Sarum was actually quite common to many of the other European rites and uses.
On the Continent, many customs shared with the Sarum Use either died on their own as fashions changed or were finally wiped away by the influence of the Tridentine reforms and 19th Century ultramontanism through the work of men like Dom Gueranger. It seems likely that Sarum and the other English uses would have suffered the same fate. Bit by bit, we Cistercians lost communion under both species, the great pall, and a number of other pieces of hardware and their attendant customs over the centuries.
One also has to look at the broader cultural factors in these changes. As Cistercians became more prosperous—and a quick rundown of the holdings of the English abbeys alone tells that story nicely—it was hard to fight a certain amount of embellishment and modernization. Stained glass, sculptural ornamentation, silk vestments, and organs, all made their impact on Cistercian simplicity as they became ubiquitous in the wider Church. What similar developments would have taken place in England that remained unreformed? It’s hard to imagine that the Baroque—always an anathema to a certain type of Anglo-Catholic—would not have had an even stronger influence in a still Roman Catholic England than it did on a Reformed one as seen in the works of Wren. The Ambrosian Rite certainly looks as comfortable in the Baroque as it must have in the Romanesque.
Simply “going back” to a Sarum Use lifted from 500 years in the mothballs and translated into traditional English is as fraught with perils and potential eccentricities as more recent attempts to create modern liturgies with uncertain roots in the past. Both the Roman and Anglican liturgies have continued to evolve since the 16th Century. Issues of interrupted organic development, whether the development was broken in the distant or recent past, require careful consideration.
Unity in Diversity: Defining a Patrimony
The evolution of the Cistercian Rite after both the Council of Trent and the reforms that followed Vatican II may hold some useful insights for those attempting to define the liturgical boundaries of the Anglican Patrimony and to create liturgical documents that allow for a legitimate and workable diversity within the proposed Anglican ordinariates.
In the Cistercian case, one might well compare Trent to the trauma of the Reformation since, even though we were allowed to keep our own rite, Roman influence steadily crept into our books and uses under the influence of the new standardized product being used by so much of the rest of the Church.
Following Trent, there were those houses that adopted the new Roman Books and those who held tenaciously to the old Cistercian books. The liturgical battle raged for nearly a century and, in the end, a compromise was reached maintaining much of the old and incorporating a good bit of the new. This “1662 Prayer Book” of the Cistercian Order lasted for more than three centuries, but the tension between sensitivity to the wider Church and fidelity to the Cistercian patrimony remained unresolved and was exacerbated by international politics and political factions within the Order. The older uses obtained in some congregations’ and houses while others became increasingly Romanized, particularly in adopting a more elaborate aesthetic in their churches, vestments, and sacred objects. With time, the Order known for its transitional Gothic, woolen vestments, and simple chant gave admittance to the Rococo, cloth-of-gold, and the sounds of the occasional orchestra, yet even in these houses recognizable Cistercian practices survived side-by-side with innovation.
Following Vatican II, there were those within the Order who favored a wholesale adoption of the new Roman Rite, those who saw this as an opportunity to restore the ancient Cistercian Rite free of Roman influence, those who wanted to make no changes in present practice, and those who hoped for some middle course. These groupings probably sound familiar to Anglo-Catholics. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the Order of Cistercians (“Common Cistercians” like my own house) and the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (the Trappists) share a joint Liturgical Commission.
The draft Missal of 1969 attempted to bridge these various parties. It restored several practices from the pre-Tridentine Cistercian liturgy, made some concessions to modern use, and preserved a number of distinctly Cistercian texts and practices. In the end, and partially as a consequence of the years of liturgical reform that preceded it, a single new Missal agreeable to all could not be created and, in 1971, the two orders adopted a brief statement of points allowing for liturgical unity in diversity—something else familiar to Anglo-Catholics.
The 1971 statement allowed for the possibility of the use of the new Roman Missal (note the grammar) provided that the Cistercian Calendar, distinct Cistercian texts, and a minimum of distinctly Cistercian customs were maintained. Nearly 40 years on this has means that across the two orders you will find a range of practice from houses with an ultra-modern Roman ceremonial and contemporary English texts to places like Spring Bank where it’s mostly Latin with much bowing and prostrating and on to Mariawald, which has returned to the pre-Vatican II books.
The Calendar became another place for diversity. In the 2010 Ordo for January 22, there are six options for how the day is to be kept depending on the congregation and house, ranging from a feria to a solemnity with six different saints who might be feted, depending on whether you’re in Vienna or rural Wisconsin. For better or worse, this arrangement can hold its own with the bedlam of Anglican calendars currently in use from the various Prayer Books and Missals.
Is this ideal? No. Does it uphold the early Cistercian belief in common texts and similar customs? No. Did it allow the two orders to stay together and protect the minority of houses who wished to keep a more traditional rite? Yes. And, perhaps most importantly for its ramifications for Anglo-Catholics, it forced the two orders to define the minimum threshold of the Cistercian Patrimony.
In the end, here’s the minimum of what the Order’s patrimony was understood to include (more or less):
- The Cistercian calendar with its distinctive saints and rankings of feasts.
- The Cistercian collects, epistles, and gospels where they differed from the Roman ones.
- Cistercian chant tones and melodies and distinctive pieces of music in the graduale and breviary.
- These distinct liturgical practices:
a. A profound bow instead of the genuflection prescribed in the Roman rite;
b. The custom of making a large sign of the cross at the Gospel;
c. The practice of carrying out certain rites in silence such as kissing the Gospel book and the washing of hands;
d. The ancient practice of preparing the wine and water in the chalice before bringing them to the altar.
Did this please everyone? No. There are those who would like to see even these practices go and those who believe that these are not enough of a guaranteed minimum, but it has proven a workable compromise. I suspect any final distillation of the liturgical portion of the Anglican Patrimony will have similar elements and tensions.
A Pragmatic Approach
My years as an Anglo-Catholic lead me to believe that liturgical life in the ordinariates will require a similarly pragmatic solution. If Anglicanorum Coetibus had been issued 15 years ago, I would have fought valiantly for Percy Dearmer and the Prayer Book. If it had come five years ago, I would have sided with the English Missal and Fortescue. I was undeniably an Anglo-Catholic at both periods.
My master’s thesis was a study of the social politics of the 19th Century Anglo-Catholic customaries as a nascent Anglo-Catholicism fought an inconclusive but highly polemical intramural battle over what it meant liturgically to be an Anglo-Catholic. A decisive outcome enforcing liturgical uniformity that is agreeable to both a large majority of Anglo-Catholics and to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seems equally unlikely today and, as then, would probably waste precious energy that could be better used putting congregations on a solid footing.
A most-Anglican, tolerant pragmatism guiding a conversation about the principles defining the minimum parameters of the Anglican Patrimony may well prove the way forward rather than beginning with concrete proposals of texts. Perhaps such an approach would at last allow the cotta to lie down with the surplice and the cappa and chimere to be friends.
Questions about the Three-Year Lectionary
Jan 16th
I touch upon a sensitive subject here, because I know that some of our TAC bishops and priests favour (without obliging their clergy in the matter) following the three-year lectionary used in the modern Roman rite, the current Anglican Use and most Anglican liturgies in use since the 1970’s.
I find it pointless to go into reasons for my reserves about the three-year lectionary when things are expressed that much better in the New Liturgical Movement – Doubts About the Three-Year Cycle. The article and the comments are food for thought.
There are a couple more considerations. I don’t think the lectionary for Mass should compensate for the absence of faithful from the Offices. More importantly, the lectionary of the Roman rite (or that of the Prayer Book) could have been improved along the lines of the early eighteenth-century Parisian missal or the medieval Norman uses including Sarum. Ferial Wednesdays and Fridays have their proper Old Testament lessons, Epistles and Gospels.
My other main reserve is the change made to the temporal cycle made in 1969 by the late Archbishop Bugnini: particularly the Sundays after Epiphany and Sundays after Trinity (Pentecost) becoming “ordinary” Sundays per annum, the abolition of Septuagesima and the Ember Days, the suppression of all the Octaves other than Easter. One positive aspect of the Pauline reform is the wealth of propers for ferias when no saint’s feast is appointed, and another is the wealth of prefaces.
I hope, in a future reform of the reform, that the old temporal cycle will be restored. I am much less bothered about saint’s feasts being displaced. Those of us who follow the Sarum Use find feasts celebrated on different days to what is prescribed in the classical Roman rite. For example, we celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus on August 7th instead of January 2nd.
I would also hope for a return to a single-year liturgical cycle, not only for the Scripture Readings, but also for the Gradual psalms, Alleluia verses and so forth.
A Few Thoughts on The Journey Home
Jan 11th
UPDATE 01/12/2010 7:00 PM: Please see my comment on this article below. Perhaps I was a bit too frustrated when I wrote this post and I am sorry that it seems so brusque.
This evening, the second installment of a two-part discussion on Anglicanorum Coetibus aired on EWTN’s The Journey Home with host Marcus Grodi. Having been deeply disappointed with last week’s episode, I was hoping to see a more thorough and respectful treatment of the issues in the second part of the program. Unfortunately, tonight’s installment only compounded the mistakes of last week’s show.
For a ministry and television program that portrays itself as “welcoming home” separated brethren as they journey into the fullness of the Catholic Faith, the whole tone of the presentation was dismissive and triumphalistic. Marcus Grodi could not even be troubled to learn how to pronounce the name of the Apostolic Constitution, but he seemed quite certain that all Anglican orders are “utterly null and void” (which point he made certain to mention several times during the course of the program)! And according to Grodi, “The Church isn’t going to be hoodwinked.” Evidently he presumes that Anglicans will only accept Catholic doctrine with mental reservations and that there will be attempts to skirt Church discipline with respect to irregular marriage situations. And of course, no one can really understand and confess the Catholic Faith until they have “converted” from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church! Anglo-Catholics who claim to confess the Faith are false pretenders who must be broken and remedially catechized before they can truly understand. The tone of the presentation was arrogant and disrespectful in the extreme and will do nothing to further the cause of reunion!
It was wearisome just to sit through the program and I have no intention of responding to each and every inaccuracy in the presentation, but I feel that it is important to reply to several of the most grievous errors which do nothing but scandalize Anglicans of goodwill who are striving to enter the full communion of the Catholic Church.
Firstly, Fr. Longenecker insisted that Anglican orders could not be valid — even with the influx of an unquestionably valid Catholic succession — because Anglicans subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles and reject the doctrine of Transubstantiation. This is just flat out wrong. It has been many years since Church of England clergy were required to subscribe to the Articles of Religion (though I believe they must still acknowledge them in some way) — which many did with mental reservations on this and a good many other points — and the Thirty-Nine Articles have never been imposed on clergy in the American Church. In the Affirmation of St. Louis and the Constitution and Canons of the ACA, the Articles are not even mentioned! The groups that are seeking to avail themselves of the Holy Father’s offer in Anglicanorum Coetibus certainly reject an anti-Catholic interpretation of them — and some reject the formulary outright. Aside from the specific questions of sacramental intent and the validity of Holy Orders, the suggestion that Catholic Anglicans derive their doctrine from (an anti-Catholic interpretation of) the Thirty-Nine Articles is a gross misrepresentation of their faith.
Both Fr. Longenecker and Fr. Bergman seemed dismissive of the notion that valid orders could exist beyond the visible bounds of the Catholic Church, that a valid apostolic succession was dependent entirely on submission to, and communion with, the Pope. No doubt this will come as a surprise to the Orthodox — and, I daresay, to the Pope himself as such a view of Holy Orders has never been taught by the Catholic Church! Fr. Longenecker even went so far as to compare some Anglicans’ defense of their orders to the registration of a pedigreed dog (a remark which, in fairness, he obviously immediately regretted making)! ”It’s not simply a matter of paperwork,” we are told.
No, of course apostolic succession is not a matter of a pedigree, paperwork, or elaborate charts of succession. But it is possible that groups outside of full communion with the Successor of St. Peter are possessed of valid orders. We in the Traditional Anglican Communion believe that we generally possess Catholic orders — and, at least privately, we have been assured by officials of the CDF that this is the case. This reality may yet be manifested in the ordination of our clergy sub conditione, but even if our ministers submit to ordination in forma absoluta for the sake of expediency, we have been made certain that the intention of the Church will be conditional.
But the question remains: why is it necessary to go out of the way to quote — or draw sophomoric conclusions from — Apostolicae Curae? How does this make Catholic Anglicans feel welcome? Our clergy have expressed a willingness not to press the issues treated in this controversial document, to move beyond the disputes and misunderstandings of the past, and, without renouncing our past or denying the reality of our sacramental life as Anglicans, to submit to ordination in the Catholic Church. Why are some of our Roman Catholic brothers, those who claim to “welcome” us, unwilling to do the same?
Finally, I must correct Fr. Bergman on the validity of the form of the Anglican eucharistic liturgy. He contended that the Canon of the Book of Common Prayer “which was written by Cranmer” — it is unclear to which version of the BCP he was referring but presumably he meant the American Prayer-book Canon — “did not confect the Eucharist” (being an invalid rite) and this is why it was “thrown out” of the Book of Divine Worship. While condemning the Edwardine Ordinal for supposed defects, the Catholic Church has never declared the Anglican service of Holy Communion — in any edition — to be invalid. In fact, staunch traditionalists such as Michael Davies have noted the essential validity of the Prayer-book rite. With a strengthened epiklesis — a peculiarly Eastern concern — the 1928 BCP rite is even approved for use in the Orthodox Church. And while we might hope for several ambiguous phrases to be amended or for certain elements to be restored from former uses, we may be certain that the 1928 BCP service is unquestionably valid. Indeed there is no question of the validity of the “truncated” eucharistic rite of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. I am astonished that Fr, Bergman would question this!
Again, even excusing the ignorance, I am appalled by the insensitivity. It is well known — indeed it was acknowledged during the program — that American traditionalist Anglicans are attached to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. First we are told that all Anglican orders must be invalid; then we are informed that, even were they not, the Prayer-book Communion Service is itself a false rite and stands condemned. This is hardly helpful to the cause of mutual understanding and a corporate reunion respectful of the Anglican patrimony!
I can only pray that these television programs were the product of Mr Grodi’s lack of organization and an unfamiliarity with the material. I, for one, did not feel the least bit “welcomed” and I would imagine that other Anglo-Catholics who watched The Journey Home felt the same way.
Expressing Our Goodly Heritage
Jan 11th
In one form or another, the traditional Book of Common Prayer has nourished the souls of more than twenty generations of Anglicans. It provides the template for magnificent public worship, yet it can bring the solitary man into the presence of God. It really is beautiful. I don’t think very many people would disagree. But let’s take a few minutes, and think about why it’s beautiful.
What is it about the soaring phrases and time-proven sentences that make them so memorable and pleasing to the ear? It isn’t accidental that such prayers as “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open…” and “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord…” get into our hearts and minds and stay there. Of course, part of what makes them memorable is that our prayers are saying significant things. But there’s more to it than that. There are definite and objective reasons having to do with the rhythm of the words, the cadence of the phrases. It’s much the same as why we consider a piece of music to be beautiful. Irregular rhythms and too much dissonance are disconcerting. I’m sure this marks me as being pedestrian, but I think music that’s most memorable is music that can be hummed. And it’s the same with our prayers. A prayer which says, “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night…” is memorable, not only because of what is said, but because of the way in which it is said.
There’s an excellent essay titled “The Prayer Book as Literature,” which was written by Dr. W. K. Lowther Clarke in 1932. It’s included in his larger work, Liturgy and Worship. In this essay he discusses some possible reasons for the beauty of the phrases we use in our worship. In part, he says, “A particular theory has recently been propounded to account for the literary qualities of the sixteenth-century Prayer Book, namely, the survival of the cursus, or flow of the cadence in prose. The beauty of Latin prose depended on the arrangement of long and short syllables, especially at the end of the sentence… The cursus had three main forms: planus, with the accent on the second and fifth syllable from the end; tardus, on the third and sixth; and velox, on the second and seventh.”
When I first read that, it seemed pretty dry. But when I thought about it, I began to realize the important point he was making. Just as music follows certain rules to achieve a beautiful end, so it is with literature. Excellent writing consists of more than stringing words together. It involves a rhythm. It shows a sensitivity to the zenith of a phrase. It allows for a cadence. In the liturgy, when we think of a prayer as being beautiful, it describes not only the theological truth it contains, but also the way in which the thought is expressed. This is why so many contemporary prayers fall flat. The ancient principle of cursus has been put aside; there is little or no thought about the beauty of the language, because of the mistaken notion that ignoring all that would somehow make prayers clearer.
Anglicanorum coetibus invites us to put our whole Prayer Book tradition at the service of the Church. What was achieved with the Book of Divine Worship went part of the way. As I’ve said more than once, its shortcomings reflect the difficult political realities present in the Church thirty years ago. But through it, many of our most beautiful Anglican prayers already have found a place in full communion with the Catholic Church, and I believe there’s room for more.
Celebrating the Epiphany on January 6th
Jan 6th
I noticed the article on Atonement Online showing a little anxiety as to whether the Ordinariates will be allowed to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6th or be obliged to move the Feast to the nearest Sunday. I think there is little to worry about.
Despite what what Episcopal Conferences have decided, the Feast remains on the 6th January in all calendars of all western rites of the Church. However, in some countries, the Epiphany is a public holiday, and people can attend Mass on the day itself. In other countries, working people might find difficulty in assisting at the Epiphany Mass because of work and the practical problem of getting to church. Here in France, the practice of celebrating the propers of major feasts on the nearest Sunday is nothing new. It is a pastoral provision for parish churches.
The other pastoral solution is to dispense from the obligation of attending the Epiphany Mass, since (in the older forms) there is an Octave after the Epiphany and a Sunday within the Octave of the Epiphany. One of the anomalies of the 1960’s liturgical reform was to remove all the octaves, including the old Pentecost Octave, leaving only the Easter Octave. One of the advantages of keeping or bringing back the Octaves, pastoral in this context, is to allow the faithful to attend the Mass of a major feast, or its commemoration, on the following Sunday (or on one of the weekdays if people have to work on Sunday).
If the Bishops’ Conferences in some countries oblige priests to move major feasts to the nearest Sunday (because there is no longer an Octave), this is not so in countries where the Feast is a public holiday. The Ordinariates will be following different liturgical and pastoral norms, and I am sure this obligation of moving major feasts won’t affect us.
I celebrated the Epiphany today, and next Sunday, it will be Sunday in the Octave of the Epiphany with the commemoration of the Feast (proper prayers and proper Communicantes). Therefore, for us following Sarum, the Prayer Book or the older form of the Roman rite (or translations thereof), Epiphany will be celebrated on Sunday 10th January by virtue of the Octave.
