Tag Archives: Sarum Use

Croziers, Keys and the Archdeacon’s Tassels: A Heraldic System for the Anglican Ordinariates

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Author’s note: I wrote the first draft of this article in June 2010, before the organization of the first ordinariates.  Since then, an ordinary has been appointed in England and Wales and the canonical structures that will sustain him and his flock have begun to fall into place.  Nonetheless, there is comparatively little in my original text in terms of commentary, prescriptions and predictions that I would alter.  My few changes have been added in bracketed italics.  The illustrations accompanying this article are taken or digitally adapted from the late Michael Francis McCarthy’s excellent Manual of Ecclesiastical Heraldry (Thylacine, 2005) unless otherwise noted.

Of all the elements that will constitute the cultural patrimony of the new ordinariates, one of the most colorful and intriguing may be the rich heraldic tradition of Anglicanism.  It also may prove to be the most under-appreciated, given the continuing neglect of this ancient science in the Catholic Church and in the wider world.  In spite of this unfortunate disinterest in the shorthand of history, the dogged pursuit of heraldic scholarship and good armorial design in a few lucky corners of the Catholic world gives us much reason to hope.[1]

While the Anglican patrimony, as Pope Benedict conceives it, is more than simple Englishness, it is significant that Britain maintains one of the purest and most beautiful armorial systems in the world.  After a period of decadence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has become a model to heraldists everywhere in its preservation of precedent, its emphasis on clarity, and its ability to adapt and invent where necessary.  This tradition has flowered spectacularly in some of Britain’s former colonies, with the heraldic authorities of Canada and South Africa particularly known for their handsome, distinctive designs.[2]

Such work amply illustrates that the science of arms is by no means a forgotten or forgettable art, and deeply relevant today in our own relentlessly democratic age.  American readers will note that as unimpeachable an authority as George Washington thought a system of “coat-armor,” as he called it, was a fitting ornament on a newly republican society, and his own ancestral arms became the direct inspiration for the flag of his nation’s eponymous capital.  They may well have even influenced, in a more roundabout fashion, the American stars and stripes.[3]

This rich armorial tapestry that so characterizes Britain and her cultural diaspora is also in evidence in the constituent members of the Anglican Communion.  From the red cross of St. George that flies atop the square Norman tower of many a village church to the diocesan arms picked out in embroidery on the kneeling-cushions of a communion rail, there is a noble, distinctive and systematic tradition worthy of preservation and further development.  However, how it will be integrated into the larger system of the heraldry of the Catholic Church, while retaining its distinct identity, is a question far more difficult to answer.

This complex issue is compounded by the unprecedented juridical composition of the ordinariates themselves.  It is still unclear how many ordinariates will be erected in each country, and whether they will be composed of both former Continuing Anglican clergy and members of the local Episcopal church, or whether separate ordinariates will be established for both based on differing liturgical and cultural practices.  It is possible that Australia may see two separate ordinariates for Traditional Anglican Communion members, while in the United States, the Roman Catholic parishes of the Anglican Use have already begun a close working relationship with the Ordinariate-bound parishes of the Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family.

Each of these organizations, as well as international institutions such as the Traditional Anglican Communion, have their own arms, or sort of emblem.  The various member churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Episcopal Church in the United States, and their constituent dioceses, also have their own distinctive ensigns, as do the dioceses of some T.A.C. member churches.   [Particularly noteworthy is the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, which has had arms granted it by the Canadian Heraldic Authority; any successor body ought to continue their use if it is legally entitled to those arms.] The Roman Catholic Anglican Use itself has also adopted a variety of semi-official badges and insignia of their own.

illustration 1 249x300 Croziers, Keys and the Archdeacon’s Tassels: A Heraldic System for the Anglican Ordinariates Arms of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, as granted by the Canadian Heraldic Authority, from their website

All of these ought to be considered in the actual design of any arms that are devised in the future for the ordinariates.  While often handsome in and of themselves, many of the arms of various Continuing Anglican groups bear a strong familial resemblance whose similarity may become more of a liability in the future.  In devising arms for the new ordinariates, it is important to ensure the results are sufficiently distinct from both one another and from Anglican bodies outside the Catholic Church.  Arms are, after all, first and foremost, intended to clearly identify their bearers.

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Sarum What?

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Hatchet jobs abound in the blogs, the Anglican Patrimony blog being no exception. There is an article under the title Sarum What? written by a Deacon Andrew Bartus, a member of the clergy of a distinguished TAC-ACA parish in California.

The title, almost the reaction of the average English lay person exclaiming – You what? – when encountering something as unfamiliar as the back of the moon.

If anyone has missed the train this one has! I discussed the Use of Sarum and the possibility of its being at least some kind of extraordinary form in the Ordinariates some months ago. The question was discussed to and fro in the comments, and as far as I am concerned, there is no more to discuss. The subject has run its course. I take the same attitude as most of the clergy in our various Anglican groups of one kind or another – the authority of the Church will promulgate an official Anglican Use liturgy to replace or supplement the present Anglican Use. I made my suggestions, and I know they will be adopted, not adopted or may inspire a compromise when the question is taken up by the proper authorities.

The author of the Anglican Patrimony article made a somewhat loaded description of me:

I've run into other liturgical academicians here and there who argue for the same thing.  There's one of them running amok on [T]he Anglo-Catholic blog, who ironically enough is an expat English priest running a small Anglican mission in France!  He and three other parishes in the world use the Sarum liturgy.

We “liturgical academicians” are being likened to dreamers, people like Bugnini and some Eastern Orthodox priests trying to resurrect something completely dead. I even find the insinuation that I could be compared with the Affirming Catholic tendency in the Church of England quite impertinent. An apology would be appreciated. The fact I do not comment on blogs other than this one does not mean that I do not read Anglican Patrimony.

It is true that the Use of Sarum as printed as recently as 1868 in Latin and 1911 in English has not been the official liturgy in England since 1549. However, it is not as foreign as all that. It is strikingly similar to the Dominican Rite. The latter was replaced by the modern Roman rite in the Dominican Order and it was totally discontinued, other than possibly a few furtive private Masses in such places as the Albertinum in Fribourg or the Angelicum in Rome. Now, a few years later, it has been revived in several religious orders of recent foundation and also in the Dominican Order itself. Here is a link to the Dominican Liturgy blog. The timescale is different, but I see no reason why a particular liturgy should not be available – unless the authority of the Church has a very good reason to forbid it, giving the exact reasons.

In all the heated controversies that followed my series of articles, the subject has run its course as far as I am concerned. In the early days of the Ordinariates, we are likely to see just about the same degree of liturgical diversity between the English Missal (used in less than ten or so parishes in the Church of England), the two forms of the Roman rite, the present Anglican Use, the Prayer Book more or less fleshed out with bits and pieces from the Roman rite and Sarum. After a time, Rome will surely promulgate a printed book and expect all Ordinariate clergy to use it unless they use the Roman rite. That is the way it’s going to be unless the canonical erection of the first Ordinariate is more than ten years away…

I am alone for most of the Masses I say, so I use the Use of Sarum as it was edited in 1868 in Latin by Dickinson. In these circumstances, it does not matter what I use. I often call myself into question, but I am personally loath to use a semi-Prayer Book hybrid rite – but I have no objections to others using what is most appropriate in their particular ministries. We in the TAC have no more liturgical uniformity than in the Church of England.

I am not in a position to recommend what should be the universal norm for all, because that is the responsibility for the Holy See and the future Ordinaries.

Deacon Bartus, your argument of continuity can also be used against the English Missal. The extraordinary use of the Roman Rite (John XXIII, 1962) is not the English Missal. The English Missal is as marginal in the Church of England as the Dearmerites using this or that inspiration from medieval liturgical culture. However, I concede that it is in more current use in the Traditional Anglican Communion. In your hermeneutic of continuity, perhaps the English Missal might hold its places in groups originating in the Anglican continuing Churches. In groups coming from the Church of England, it’s going to be the modern Roman rite. That is what they are using now, and they show no sign of intending to change. The Apostolic Constitution confirms their right to use the Roman rite (implicitly but not spelled out, ordinary or extraordinary).

I have given considerable thought to these questions, and here in France, were I to have any public ministry, I would almost certainly adopt the 1962 Roman liturgy in Latin and use the English Missal for the occasional English-speaking people coming along and expecting an English-language liturgy. There is also the Novus Ordo in French, if that is required. I would have to admit that unless the authority of the Church decides to use Sarum as a primary source for a future Anglican Use, using Sarum would obviously be an eccentricity without any future or pastoral utility.

Personally, I want no further controversy about this subject, and I reiterate my intention to be subordinate to the authority of the Church in these liturgical matters and others.

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The Future in the UK

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I do hope most of you have taken the trouble to get and read Bishop Andrew Burnham’s truly excellent book, Heaven and Earth in Little Space. I took it with me on holiday, and devoured it very quickly. In my view, it does something quite important; it shows very clearly the broad picture of the Western tradition flowing into Anglicanism and also out again back into Catholicism. In that sense, it is a very ecumenical book; it is also eirenical, and shows a quite astonishing grasp of modern-day Roman Catholic belief, practice and ‘ethos’ (an over-used word, but it fits here). I have not seen this so clearly before in an Anglican writer. I think, too, that his book is quite important for the way that we have visualized the history of our respective communions. In the Catholic Church we have thought of Anglicanism as developing out of the Reformation and thenceforward entirely independently, though not going as far as, say the Calvinists. Hence its history, culture, liturgy and so forth hasn’t, to be honest, been very interesting to most of us, simply because we have thought of it as being, well, foreign, and irrelevant to our needs or situation, much as one might think of the operation of the postal service in, say, Belgium. And we have assumed that the same was true in reverse.

Of course it has not been true of Anglo-Catholics, and, indeed, there has always been an awareness of the Catholic Church throughout Anglicanism, even if only to define oneself against it; in some senses, the Catholic Church has given the Anglican Church much of its identity in both a positive and negative (reacting against, I mean) sense. That hasn’t been true this side of the Tiber. But all is now changed. For the first time Anglicanism itself is going to set up on this bank, it is going to become part of our heritage, and Bishop Burnham’s book demonstrates very clearly just how intense the gaze of Papalist Anglicanism in Britain has been and continues to be on the Church of Rome, her customs, her liturgy, her ethos. If you compare the quantity of material devoted to the Anglican tradition to the quantity concerning the Roman tradition in this book you will see for yourself the relative importance to him of each.

This gives me a certain cause for concern, however. It is, of course, flattering; one always loves to see what one loves being loved by another. Nevertheless, if the gaze is so intently focussed on the Roman ethos—on the Roman patrimony, if you like—do we not run the risk of losing the Anglican element altogether? And then what will the Ordinariate be for? Catholic worship for the upper middle classes?

What I am trying to say is that there needs to be a recognizable liturgical and cultural difference that is more than just good taste or its lack. An occasional Evensong (as some have suggested) will not be enough; this is what I mean by there needing to be more, not less, Anglicanism in the Ordinariate, and certainly a great deal more than there is currently within British Anglo-Catholicism.

This isn’t going to be a problem outside the UK, I imagine. Where there is a love of the Book of Common Prayer in its various forms, the differences are obvious from the Roman Use, and there should be few problems between the churches.

In the UK, though, the BCP will not do; I suspect that Anglo-Catholics want a Eucharist that says ‘Mass’ rather than ‘Service of Holy Communion’, which is what the BCP suggests to many. For these people, the Roman Missal (in both forms) has provided everything needed in this department, and has been, until now, the obvious solution.

This is because the Eucharistic Liturgy is the most important defining thing of any group that identifies itself as in some sense Catholic; it presents Calvary to us, not only the Last Supper.

Now let’s get to the nitty gritty. If the Anglican Ordinariate in the UK does not use Anglican rites, then it will not be Anglican and I confidently predict that in forty years it will be no more. Young families will go where there are other young families and integrate with them. In most cases, that will mean St Bernadette’s, not St Botolph’s. Neither will St Botolph's continue to be fed by members of the general population suddenly noticing the approach of death and deciding to get a bit religious; it must survive on its own present parishioners and their descendents, plus the occasional addition from St Bernadette’s who likes the music. There are Anglo-Catholic churches with flourishing families (like St Barnabas, Tunbridge Wells, I imagine), but not many, so what will happen in the future?

In the British Catholic Church we have been here before; many Polish airmen remained in Britain after the Second World War, and Polish chaplaincies, even churches, were set up for them and their families. However, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, these chaplaincies had almost died, because the next generation did not see any point in belonging to their parents’ peculiar church; they thought of themselves as ordinary Catholics and simply integrated into their local St Bernadette’s instead of travelling forty miles to St Casimir’s to be berated by Fr Unpronounceableski. The chaplaincies have, of course, been rescued and expanded now, but this is not going to happen to the Ordinariates unless hordes of devout young people should suddenly decide to immigrate from the Ordinariates in the States or Canada.

The British Ordinariate needs to set out its own stall and make it distinctive, with clear blue water between it and the Roman Use. It needs to be proud of its own tradition, and I accept that, if the BCP is not to be used, something is going to have to be cobbled together. For some time, Fr Chadwick has been urging that the Sarum Use be looked at again, and I am starting to come around to thinking that he may have a point. Sarum would suggest ‘Mass’, not ‘Communion Service’. Might not a group of people put together an ‘Ordinary Form’ of the Sarum Use?

I do hope that you don’t feel that I have been negative here. In a sense, I think that maybe it needs a Roman Catholic to tell Anglo-Catholics that it’s okay to love your own tradition. You’re going to be in communion with us very soon, please God, and then you won’t need to assert your attachment to the See of Peter by using the Roman Use.

If what you want is Roman Catholicism tout court, then it would be better simply to join your local diocese; you can, after all, bring your Missus these days, and there are lots of priests in each diocese with similar backgrounds to your own, so you won’t be lonely. However if you think that Anglicanism has something worth saving in these lands (and I really think it has) then we will need to work to save it.

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The Other Anglican Patrimony: Anglo-Papalism and the Ecclesiae Anglicanae that Remained Within the Catholic Church

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True Cross Fr Andrew White 300x211 The Other Anglican Patrimony: Anglo Papalism and the Ecclesiae Anglicanae that Remained Within the Catholic Church

Relic of the True Cross brought to Maryland in 1634 by English Catholics fleeing persecution.

As we attempt to take in the implications of Anglicanorum Coetibus, it is important to remember that the Anglican Patrimony also continued to live and develop among those in the UK who remained loyal to the Holy See after the Reformation.  When we set out to ascertain the shape of the authentic Anglican Patrimony that the Holy Father has said is a gift to be cherished, we will do well to keep in mind the history of what we must recognize as the elder branch of Ecclesiae Anglicanae.  This is particularly important to remember for those of us in the U.S., where Prayer Book Catholicism and the Branch Theory held sway and formed an Anglo-Catholic self-understanding that is quite different from the Anglo-Papalist perspective found in other countries.

Eamon Duffy in his books The Stripping of the Altars and Marking the Hours has been at the forefront of those scholars who have put the English Reformation in a more accurate historical context.  From his work and that of others, we now have a picture of a lively devotional culture where people loved their prayer books long before Cranmer’s Prayer Book.  We see the English devotion to the Universal Church that sustained recusants and martyrs through persecution and legal disability.  We receive a context for the English Benedictines and Jesuits who gave their life in the mission, knowing how many spiritual lives depended upon their bravery.  In short, we are reminded that what was sometimes later dismissed as the “Italian Mission,” was in fact the survival of a church as English as Anglicanism.

All too often, those of us formed within Anglicanism see post-Reformation history as a story of night falling on religious life in England with only occasional flickers of light until the dawn of the Oxford Movement, followed by the high noon of the Anglo-Catholic Congresses, and then the slow-falling dusk of the last 50 years.  From an English Catholic perspective, the story might look more like the stories of those Christian communities in the Middle East who have kept the faith since the Muslim conquest.  Though deprived of many rights, paying special taxes, and enduring periodic bouts of outright persecution, the Catholic Church in the UK held firm and eventually made great gains.  When we write of the Apostolic Constitution, we must always remember the sensibilities and feelings of these older brothers and sisters.

On that theme, we too often forget how differently particular events and people within history may look from these two vantage points.  How are we to see Thomas Cranmer, even if we are content to have his prose, when the shadow of St. John Fisher falls over his biography?  How do we reconcile that Charles Stuart is celebrated by some Anglo-Catholics as a martyr for the idea of the episcopate and yet was willing to sign the death warrants of living breathing Catholics?  On this side of the Atlantic, how are we to view a figure like Bishop Grafton, who was both a great leader of the Anglo-Catholic party in the Episcopal Church and also a bigoted enemy of the Catholic Church?  When we speak of the Anglican Patrimony, charity and humility require us to be mindful of the complicated and contradictory parts of our history as well as the shining moments and notable accomplishments.

On the positive side of the ledger, how might we claim and integrate not just the legacy of the 40 Martyrs, but the other pieces of the tradition that lie outside the history of the Anglican Communion?  Where do we make room for the histories of the religious communities that lived on abroad and fed the fires of faith?  How do we own the 19th and 20th Century converts, whom we now see as forerunners of Anglicanorum Coetibus, but who, in their own day, were often treated as pariahs and traitors?  How do we appreciate the fanciful novels of Robert Hugh Benson, which, as others have said, could only have been written by an Anglo-Catholic convert and, on a bit higher literary level, what of Knox, Waugh, and Tolkien, whom we have always unofficially claimed?  And what are we to make of Cardinal Vaughan and others who were in no way friends to our forebears?

Travers Sanctus 241x300 The Other Anglican Patrimony: Anglo Papalism and the Ecclesiae Anglicanae that Remained Within the Catholic Church

The Sanctus by Martin Travers. From Pictures of the English Liturgy, published in 1916 by the Anglo-Papalist Society of Ss. Peter and Paul

On a seemingly more controversial front, how do we reconcile these two diverging liturgical histories? While many American Anglo-Catholics long for some version of the Sarum Use, English Catholics after Trent put it aside and declined to revive it when the English hierarchy was reestablished.  The history of Prayer Book Anglicanism clearly belongs to the communities of Anglicanorum Coetibus, but to what extent can we revisit the decisions made by those who remained within the Latin Rite?

What are we to make of those parishes that have continued to practice the older liturgical forms of Anglo-Papalism that were once a sign of their loyalty to the Holy See?  A number still use the Holy Week rites as they were before the reforms of Pius XII.  Is it too much of a stretch to say that these Missal parishes have secured a lasting place in the Anglican Patrimony for rites outside the 1962 mandate of Summorum Pontificum?  Recent articles on both Anglican and Roman Catholic sites have shown that many would be happy to see the folded chasuble and the triple reed re-cross the Tiber with an Anglican passport.  Can we safely assume that Fortescue, beloved of the English Missal tradition, is as much a part of the patrimony as Ritual Notes?  And to what extent should those charged with creating liturgical texts consider the evolution of calendar and customs in the Archdiocese of Westminster, which were followed by many Anglo-Catholics?

In short, is the Anglican Patrimony to be understood in its Parson’s Handbook form only or is there an honored place for Dr. Mascall’s Ultra-Catholic and his more modern descendants?  Is the permission granted for the communities formed by Anglicanorum Coetibus to use the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite a solely pragmatic measure or is it instead a tacit recognition that the Anglo-Papalism of the Society of Ss. Peter and Paul, which sought to follow the use of the contemporary Catholic Church in England and Wales, has, over the course of a century, become something authentically Anglican almost in spite of itself?

I propose definitive answers to none of the questions above, but I believe that this perspective cannot be omitted from future discussions.  Obviously, the Church in England and Wales is the primary custodian of many of these pieces of what we might think of as The Other Anglican Patrimony, but periodically stepping outside of our own history and trying to see events, artifacts, and individuals from the viewpoint of the Ecclesiae Anglicanae that never broke communion with the See of Peter and its Anglo-Papalist fellow travelers may provide fresh thinking and an occasional boundary post in the discussions that will be happening in the years to come.  It may even spark a little reminiscing and rethinking on the part of our elder sister.

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Our Lady's Saturday According to the Sarum Missal

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The liturgical dedication of Saturday to Our Lady appears to have originated with Blessed Alcuin of York (735-804), an educator, scholar, theologian, and official at the court of Charlemagne, who composed unique votive masses for the several days of the week; he assigned two formularies in honor of the BVM to Saturday.  The Sarum Missal has the following explanatory preface before the Votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The reasons assigned at the beginning of this Mass for the origin of the Saturday in commemoration of our Lady, are — 1st. That at Constantinople the veil before her image was drawn aside every Friday evening at Vespers, and replaced at the same hour the following night; 2nd. That when all the disciples forsook our Lord and fled, she only who had borne him without pain, and knew that He was God, remained; 3rdly. Because the Sabbath is a day of rest, and she is the door of Heaven; 4thly. Because the Feast of the Mother should follow that of the Son (i.e. Friday); 5thly. For that on the day our Lord rested from labour the Service should be more joyous.

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The Cranmer Conference

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Andrew Dunning, a student at the University of Toronto and a reader of The Anglo-Catholic, has written asking us to advertise an upcoming conference dedicated to the exploration of the Anglican Patrimony and targeted at young adults between the ages of 19 and 30.  This year's Cranmer Conference, to be held in Dunnville, Ontario, from June 25, 2010 – June 27, 2010, will explore the meaning of Christian orthodoxy through discussion of the Lambeth Quadrilateral in a series of sessions led by Fr. Gordon Maitland, part-time incumbent of St George’s Church, Windsor and the Director of Christian Studies at Canterbury College at the University of Windsor.  Dr. William Renwick, of McMaster University and the Gregorian Institute of Canada, will also lead a workshop on the music of the pre-Reformation Sarum Use of the Roman Rite.  Fr. Robert Mitchell, of St. Thomas’s Church in Toronto, is the conference chaplain.

Though, judging by the event web site, the conference may admit of a broader definition of Anglican orthodoxy than many in our audience would acknowledge, the conference would seem to have much to commend it.

Date:

From: Jun 25, 2010 – 6:00 PM
To: Jun 27, 2010 – 1:00 PM

Venue:

St Paul's Anglican Church
233 Lock Street West
Dunnville, ON
Canada

Click here to download the event flyer.

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A Few Words about My Place Here

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Of late, I have been quite dismayed about the quantities of polemical comments to my postings, and wondered if I were not doing the wrong thing or frightening people away by being too forceful. One issue we face is that of people being frightened by words with emotional meanings. They understand words emotionally. No amount of rational explanation seems to dislodge a prejudice or the instinct to cling onto the familiar through fear of the unknown. And, this instinct is often proven to be right when ordinary people are abused by narcissistic and over-authoritarian clergy who think they know what is best for us.

It is difficult for me to gauge what Sarum means to some people! As someone trained in philosophy and theology, with ten years experience as a professional translator, I have acquired a certain ability to understand and interpret words with intellectual precision, going from their etymology to their conventional use and the context of a text. A technical translator cannot afford to understand words emotionally; otherwise someone might get killed or maimed by using a machine according to erroneous instructions!

I would like readers to be assured that I do have pastoral sense as a priest, and would never advocate depriving people of their patrimony or the things they love, even the Prayer of Humble Access, which I myself find very beautiful and devotional as a preparation for receiving Holy Communion. The general consensus here is that the Prayer Book is the basis of the Anglican Patrimony. OK, it rains in England! Birds have wings! There’s no surprise here. The question is how the Prayer Book can be supplemented with Sarum material to restore its inner coherence and harmonise this tradition with the liturgical life of the Catholic Church. I remain convinced that this is the way to go without picking up bits and pieces from sappy and sentimental nineteenth century Catholicism which is foreign to Anglicanism.

I softened my stand when commenting Fr Phillips' posting on the Prayer Book basis of the BDW, and was overjoyed when he saw the wisdom of using Sarum material to flesh out the parsimonious Prayer Book material, so that the result would be something Anglicans are familiar with. Fr Hunwicke's approach is much more difficult. Other than a minority of Anglicans using the English Missal, there would seem to be no point in replicating the Latin rite Roman Catholic liturgical status quo having linguistic style as the only distinguishing point. But, perhaps that can be left as an option. Who knows? I’m not the Roman Curia who has to decide what is to be allowed and what not allowed!

I agree that Sarum could only be an "extraordinary" use and not something that could be imposed in an ordinary parish. Similarly, impose the Tridentine rite on ordinary parishes and people will vote with their feet! I find Fr Phillips' position the most realistic, which is not surprising. He is a highly experienced parish pastor. Get the 1979 and the Paul VI rite out (I am not denigrating the modern Roman rite in its proper ecclesial context), and produce a more "international" BDW based on 1549 (or English 1928) and Sarum, with some optional modern improvements like expanded lectionaries and selections of prefaces. Things are on the right track, and will be refined in time.

The big question is that famous liturgical commission, knowing whether it exists and is working, it no longer exists and its work is done and the books are waiting for "Christmas Day", or whether it is a project for the future.

OK, I’ll pick myself up and carry on working and contributing to the future of the Ordinariates. I think we will get things right, but let us do everything on a good intellectual and historically-conscious basis, otherwise we will go on making mistakes because of runaway emotions. I’m not accusing anyone any more than myself. We have a big responsibility, and we can’t afford to screw it up.

I also address a word to zealous Catholic folk who have been wounded by the way the Roman liturgical reform was imposed in the 1970’s. I won’t teach any lessons here, but we do have to learn to be less anxious about everything and less intense.

Above all, I ask your prayers and the strength of the Holy Spirit…

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A Proposed Revision of the Anglican Use Mass

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This rite of Mass is based on the existing order in the Book of Divine Worship. The methodology is simple: the parts introduced from the modern Roman rite are removed and replaced with the equivalent parts of the Sarum ordinary. The proper can be the Sarum Missal with the Sequences made optional. The Orate Fratres at the Offertory has been left because it is familiar to the laity.

Note: This is an initial proposition to stimulate reflection and work on the liturgy. It does not have the approval of any Church authority and should therefore not be used for actual liturgical celebrations.

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The priest enters the sanctuary, reverences the altar and prepares the chalice. As he adds the water, he says:

From this be + blessing, for from his side came forth blood and water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

He kisses the altar with the formula:

Take away from us, O Lord, all our iniquities, that we may be found worthy to enter the holy of holies with pure minds ; Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

He then goes to the sedelia or stands in front of the altar.

The people standing, the Celebrant may say,

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

R. And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.

In place of the above, from Easter Day through Pentecost,

Alleluia. Christ is Risen.

R. The Lord is ris'n indeed. Alleluia.

In Lent and on other penitential occasions,

Bless the Lord who forgiveth all our sins.

R. His mercy endureth for ever.

The Celebrant says,

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.

The Summary of the Law may be said, or the Decalogue.

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Unity from Diversity

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Once in a while, a comment comes in that really causes progress to be made in our thought and a healthy basis for our future Ordinariates. The comment in question is that of Michael LaRue on Gimme That Ol’ Time Religion. Until now, I have been pushing for the simple revival of the Use of Sarum and its being the Anglican Use. I have exaggerated to the same extent as those Catholics who would like to see the extraordinary use made the official Roman rite and the modern rite abolished – and millions of Catholics being told to get used to it as they were in 1969 as the new missal was imposed.

Pope Benedict XVI does not work that way, but has on numerous occasions, even as Pope, decried the ostracism against those who prefer the traditional rite. Truth be told, this Pope obviously wishes the two uses of the Roman rite (as he described them in Summorum Pontificum) to coexist and influence each other. Having lived in continental Europe and having known something of the old French and Belgian liturgical movements, I appreciate the need for a more balanced spirit in the liturgy, between the extremes of counter-Reformation rigid rubricism and the “heresy” of formlessness which all too often prevails in the celebration of the modern liturgy.

One example of liturgy we have overlooked is the European monastic patrimony, carefully restored and nurtured since the days of Dom Guéranger and the foundation of Solesmes. The Benedictine movement did more than anything else to get people to learn to sing Gregorian mass settings and begin to participate in the sacred action with some intelligence. The monastic liturgical movement simplified vestments and introduced flowing chasubles, copes, albs and surplices. In the 1990’s, I spent six months as a working guest at the Abbey of Triors in France, a daughter house of Fongombault, grand daughter of Solesmes. I was able to live the liturgy (1965 Roman rite and Monastic Office) in its plenitude and solemnity. The processions in the cloister were very “pre-Reformation” rather than rigid counter-Reformation. Those monasteries kept a different spirit from the dioceses or the various religious congregations of priests founded since the sixteenth century.

The monastic movement was often applied in French and Belgian parishes after World War II and often before. One shining example was the parish of Mesnil-Saint-Loup under Father Emmanuel in the nineteenth century. Anglicans would do well to study the Liturgical Movement in the Catholic Church and be aware that only one tendency within it was in favour of a liturgical vision reflecting modern deconstructionism and secularism. Many other strands within this movement were noble and inspiring in their vision.

As the Holy Father seeks to create a situation in which there would be free interchange between the two forms of the Roman rite to influence each other for the better via a long process of organic development, the same could be possible with the Anglican Ordinariates. We could have Sarum in either Latin or English, or a combination of the two languages, alongside an improved version of the Anglican Use containing more familiar material from the post-Reformation Prayer Book tradition.

It is true that the Prayer Book was the “novus ordo” of its time in Anglicanism, and was imposed by brute force – on pain of a highly unpleasant death. As the centuries passed, it became the patrimony of “parish Catholics”, people who continued to frequent their parishes as in pre-Reformation times without too much of a thought for church politics or the concerns of the clergy. In this way, a Catholic spirit did survive in spite of the radically Protestant regime in the English Church.

Concretely, I would see the Anglican Use Order of Mass as something very positive. I would proceed by removing the parts borrowed from the modern Roman rite which were in 1980 a sine qua non, but much more relative now. In their place, I would substitute the relevant parts of the Sarum ordinary. For example, the preparation of the chalice, the offertory prayers, the Roman Canon, the prayers after the Lord’s Prayer for the Fraction (including Christ our Passover). I have a copy of the Book of Divine Worhip and David Burt’s beautifully edited Anglican Use Gradual. I like the wealth of prefaces and prayers of the faithful, and this all comes in with the Pope’s ideas of opening up the wealth of liturgical diversity, bringing both old and new from the treasure-house.

The Proper can be that of Sarum minus the sequences. In such a way, the Anglican Use and the Sarum Use could be perfectly harmonised, and would function according to the same calendar, temporal cycle and lectionary. I would certainly like to help Fr Phillips contribute to the future work of a liturgical commission – as he would be likely to be on it.

Like Michael LaRue, I am not in favour of borrowing to any great extent from the counter-Reformation Roman tradition any more than the rite of Paul VI. We should not refuse the Roman rite (either form) when pastoral ministry calls on us to do so, but within our own usage, we should be Anglican and English – or English-inspired.

Such a liturgical vision of an eventually converging dual rite would incorporate the treasures of post-Reformation times: the hymns of Charles Wesley and many other inspired Christian poets, the musical tradition of nineteenth and twentieth century Anglican cathedral choirs, Anglican chant for the psalms, settings for the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, the Versicles and Responses, the hundreds of choral anthems and much more.

I have every reason to believe that a “Sarum-ised” Book of Divine Worship alongside an optional use of the Sarum Use itself and the already explicit possibly of using the Roman Rite (either form) would not leave a single Anglican unsatisfied. The diversity is limited, but made very flexible by the use of a Book of Divine vastly improved by the removal of the “lame duck” Novus Ordo material.

I have read and considered Fr Hunwicke’s arguments for the “Roman” Anglicanism of the Society of St Peter and St Paul, the Big Six on the high altar, churches like St Mary’s, Bourne Street and a counter-Reformation ethos, though very different in spirit from the Society of St Pius X or pre-Vatican II continental Catholicism. Many do feel alienated by the “Roman” and baroque tradition in Anglicanism: baroque altars, baroque vestments (yes, I use them too), lace albs, cottas, birettas – all the things they have at Gricigliano! The only thing is that at Gricigliano, they are continental Roman Catholics.

I can understand the visceral attachment many have to the Prayer Book, and what in the Prayer Book needs to be kept and reused in a Catholic context. There is the Collect for Purity, the Summary of the Law, the magnificent prayer of confession, the absolution, the Comfortable Words, the Prayer of Humble Access, the Thanksgiving. All these prayers figure in the Book of Divine Worship, and would presumably be kept in a revised and improved version. Despite the wide use in England of the modern Roman rite, I think there is still a bedrock of Parish Catholics who would be attracted by a rite containing these prayers from the Prayer Book, and the whole rite being in the same style of English language.

I have said many things and I try to be positive, not to please the greatest number, but to find a way forward by comparing the issues in Anglicanism with the wider crisis in the Catholic Church over issues of identity and patrimony. We can tease out what is most characteristic of our liturgical tradition in a hermeneutic of continuity bridging the pre-Reformation and post-Reformation traditions. I’m sure the Holy Father is looking to us for inspiration, as we are certainly going to prove to become a laboratory for the regeneration of the entire Church. I see wider issues than the number of candles on the altar or buttons on the Vicar’s cassock.

Let’s give this new slant some thought, now that I see Fr Phillips and I (learning from each other) are pushing in such similar directions…

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