Tag Archives: The New Liturgical Movement

Using What We Have Already…

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Canon Missae Using What We Have Already...

Shawn Tribe over on The New Liturgical Movement voices what many of us have advocated for some time; namely, looking no further than one of the missals already in existence to be used as the Ordinariate rite of the Mass. Some Anglo-Catholics used the English Missal, others of us used the Anglican Missal or the American Missal (my personal preference is for there to be as much incorporation of the BCP material as possible), but the general idea is the same. The heavy lifting has been done, and there would need to be only minimal adjustments.

Of course, there are those who will protest, "But these were never approved!" Frankly, who cares? It is simply the case that most Anglo-Catholics used one of the versions of the missal. That is a fact of history in Anglicanism, and it should be recognized that it was that very brand of Anglicanism which has led us home to the Catholic Church. Many of us who have used The Book of Divine Worship for a generation have done our best to interpret the rubrics in such a way as to conform it as closely as possible to what we knew in the missals. Why go through all that? Why not just have the real thing?

I think the train may have left the station on this, but I do wish it would be given serious consideration before the final word is spoken.

Have a look at Shawn's article:

Some recent events put my mind once again to the matter of the English Missal.

The English Missal, as many of you know, is essentially a hieratic English translation of the pre-conciliar Missale Romanum. It was a missal which had been used by various Anglican Catholics, or Anglo-Catholics, in the 20th century.

Fr. John Hunwicke, who himself described the English Missal as "the finest vernacular liturgical book ever produced," summarizes its contents and its use accordingly:

For most of the 20th Century, Anglican Catholic worship meant a volume called "The English Missal". It contained the whole Missale Romanum translated into English; into an English based on the style of Thomas Cranmer's liturgical dialect in the Book of Common Prayer. The "EM" took everything biblical from the translation known as the King James Bible or Authorised Version.

I have often commented on my own hope — one which I know is shared by many others — that we would see the English Missal (or something closely akin to it) form one of the liturgical options made available within the context of the Ordinariate. Now it will no doubt be quickly pointed out that the use of the English Missal was by no means universal even amongst Anglo-Catholics and would be generally unfamiliar to many other Anglicans; from what I have gathered from others far more familiar with the situation within Anglicanism, this is certainly true. In light of that, it perhaps would not be the right choice to make it the sole liturgical book of the Ordinariate (which should presumably include a liturgical book which is much closer to something like the Book of Common Prayer) but it surely could be made available as an additional option, a kind of "Extraordinary Form" if you will — the analogy here is imperfect but I think it gets the basic idea across.

Read the whole article here.

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The Ordinariates and the Reform

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Shawn Tribe has posted a fine article over on The New Liturgical Movement, in which he looks at the place of the Ordinariates in the important work of the "reform of the reform." He discusses such things as hieratic language, music, architecture — all the expected things. Of course, the most important aspect of the Ordinariates will be the Catholics who populate them. The members of the various Ordinariates, the people who worship in Ordinariate parishes, the children who grow up praying the Ordinariate liturgy… they are (and will be) the most important ingredient. Liturgies can be read in books. Great Anglican music can be heard on recordings. Architectural gems can be illustrated in coffee table books. But the actual people who make up the Ordinariates — clergy and laity — they will hold the key in determining the place all this will have in the reform of the reform. This article brings that point out, when speaking of our "lived experience, history and 'culture'…"

The Anglican Ordinariate and the Reform of the Reform
by Shawn Tribe

How and to what extent the Anglican Ordinariate will become manifest in the life of the Church is a question which will only be able to be answered with the passage of some time. However, it strikes me that the Ordinariate, with its corresponding intent to retain certain aspects of the Anglican liturgical patrimony, brings with it some interesting potentialities; potentialities not simply for the Ordinariate itself but also for the reform of the reform — most particularly within English-speaking regions.

What I am suggesting is that I believe the potential exists for it to contribute to the broader conversation going on within the Church about the sacred liturgy, particularly in the light of certain, oft-discussed points of Sacrosanctum Concilium. To be clear, it is not that I believe these potentialities and aspects are absent from the conversation without the Ordinariate, but rather that the Ordinariate, bringing with it its own lived experience, history and "culture", brings another and additional dimension to the conversation; a dimension that, importantly, will be a lived one and will be able to be referred to and consulted equally by Catholics within and without the Ordinariate.

Let us then briefly consider some of these aspects.

Read the whole article.

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Anglican Liturgy in the Personal Ordinariates

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As Shawn Tribe has announced over at The New Liturgical Movement, contributors from The Anglo-Catholic will be participating in a cross-site discussion of the future of Anglican liturgy in the personal ordinariates to be erected under the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.  There is a significant overlap between the audiences of TLM and The Anglo-Catholic, but the two blogs have different areas of focus — and hopefully our joint discussion will broaden the horizon of this crucial topic.  In addition to the concerns of Anglican Use liturgy in particular, we will strive to explore the broader issue of vernacular liturgy in general and the place of an invigorated and widely-available Anglican Use in the so-called 'reform of the Reform'.

As we contemplate this collaborative effort, I am interested in getting the feedback of our readers.  What would you like to see from the proposed discussion?  To this point, much of the debate about future Anglican liturgy has been conducted in the comboxes of The Anglo-Catholic and other interested blogs — and not all of it has been particularly edifying.  As Mr. Tribe suggested when he first approached me with the idea of a cross-site study, we will endeavor to pursue the conversation in an ordered, well-reasoned, and dispassionate manner, drawing on the expertise of our several contributors, approaching the question from their varied backgrounds and interests.  Feel free to share your thoughts on this post, but please, no manifestos or laundry lists of required "features" for your perfect Anglican liturgy!  Help us to make this discussion as profitable as possible for all by identifying specific topics worthy of exploration.

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In his post, Mr. Tribe also quotes from Bishop Peter Elliott's paper What is this "Personal Ordinariate"? which he delivered to the meeting of Forward in Faith Australia and which we published on February 14, 2010.  I have reproduced the same section on liturgy below, with my emphases and comments in blue.

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A Postcript: The Future Liturgy of the Ordinariates

Anglianorum coetibus authorizes the Ordinariates to use books that carry the Anglican liturgical heritage: “so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.” Note those last words. What the distinctive “Anglican rite” liturgy of the Ordinariate will be is yet to be worked out. When that project is completed it will need the recognition of the Holy See. But some speculation at this stage may be of interest.

Considering its history and strong influence in the first editions of the Book of Common Prayer, the Sarum Rite might well be a major source. Queen Mary I published a national edition of the Sarum Missal to replace all those missals for the diocesan uses that went into the fire when the first Book of Common Prayer appeared in 1549. Therefore the Sarum Use was the last version of the Roman Rite in England before the universal Missale Romanum, Roman Missal, was authorised by St Pius V in 1570. At the end of the nineteenth century when Westminster cathedral was being built, it was proposed that the Sarum Rite be revived as the use proper to the cathedral. Nothing came of this project, lost I suspect in the cross-currents of liturgical controversies and an Ultramontane trend to standardise liturgy along Counter-Reformation lines, even down to the shape of chasubles.

In 1541 (eight years before the publication of the Book of Common Prayer), Henry VIII ordered Convocation to suppress the uses of York, Bangor, and Hereford and ordered the universal adoption of the use of the diocese of Salisbury (the "Sarum Use"). This Use was the sacred liturgy of the Mass elaborated by St. Osmund around the year 1085. St. Osmund had come over to England with William the Conqueror in 1066 and was consecrated bishop of Salisbury in 1079.

The various editions of the Book of Common Prayer will obviously influence the preparation of this use for the Ordinariates. Yet a note of caution is necessary. Cranmer’s prose is majestic, but all his doctrine is not sound. Some editing will be needed to deal with expressions which are not in harmony with Catholic Faith, particularly those that come down from his severely Protestant 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. In Anglo Catholic circles you have tried to manage these matters, as may be seen in the English Missal and the Anglican Missal.

It should be noted that the American 1928 Book of Common Prayer was accepted for use in the Western "rites" of several Orthodox jurisdictions with only very minor emendations and additions. For any traditional edition of the Book of Common Prayer, the edits required should be minor; I believe that this concern gets blown out of proportion. The rites of the Prayer-book should be judged by the text alone — not by the questionable private theological opinions of her editors.

I give one example that concerns me as a sacramental theologian. “Do this in remembrance of me” should never appear in a Catholic rite. “Do this in memory of me” is a more accurate rendering of the original languages and takes us away from “memorialism”. The meaning of the Eucharist as the great sacrificial Memorial is set out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1362-1367.

I would counter that "remembrance," "memorial," and "in memory" are all interchangeable in this context; they certainly are in the Prayer-book and in the Authorized Version of the Bible. Any confusion should be resolved — as it has been amongst Catholic Anglicans for centuries — through catechesis rather than the mutilation of the text.

From The Catholic Religion by Vernon Staley (pp. 247-249):

The Holy Eucharist is a feast upon a sacrifice. The Body and the Blood of Christ are first offered to the Eternal Father, and then partaken of by the communicants. This offering is termed by St. Paul "the shewing the Lord's death.""

In saying "This do in remembrance of Me," our Lord used words which here really mean,—

"OFFER THIS AS MY MEMORIAL BEFORE GOD."

It has often been shewn that the word translated "do," is very frequently used in the Greek Version of the Old Testament for "offer." It is so used in the following passages to which the reader may refer for himself: Ex. xxix. 36, 38, 39, 41; Lev. ix. 7, 16, 22 : xiv. 19: etc. In each of these places, the word translated "offer," is the same as that used by our Lord when He said, "Do this."

The Greek word for "remembrance" has likewise a distinctly sacrificial meaning. It is used but twice in the Old Testament, and but four times in the New. Three times in the New Testament the reference is to the Holy Eucharist. Let us briefly examine the three remaining passages, where the Greek word 1 I Cor. xi. 23, etc. * Ibid. 26.

In Heb. x. 3, we read,—"But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year." The allusion is to the sacrifices offered yearly on the Day of Atonement. These sacrifices were offered to God, to procure pardon of the sins of the priesthood and of the nation. The high priest entered the Holy of Holies, where, unseen by man, he made "a remembrance of sins" before God. The same word is again used.

We have now examined the only three passages in the Bible in which the Greek word for "remembrance" is found, apart from the accounts of the institution of the Holy Eucharist. In each case it is used of A REMEMBRANCE BEFORE GOD, AND NOT BEFORE MAN; and it is only reasonable therefore to suppose that in those instances in which it is used of the Holy Eucharist, it is intended to express the same meaning which it has elsewhere in Holy Scripture, viz.; that of A MEMORIAL BEFORE GOD. That this is the true idea is confirmed by St. Paul's words spoken of the Holy Eucharist,— "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He come." (I Cor. ix. 26.) In connection with this important subject the reader is asked to refer to what was said on pages 195, 196, concerning the relation which exists between the Eucharistic Sacrifice and our Lord's pleading in heaven.

Next year a new ICEL translation of the Mass of the Roman Rite will come into effect. More gracious poetic English will mean that the beauty of the language used in the Ordinariates will not clash with the banal and inaccurate old ICEL “translation” we currently endure.

Deo gratias!

Let me add that an “Anglican use” will add to the diversity of uses that already exists within the Roman Rite, starting with the two forms. “ordinary” (Novus Ordo) and “extraordinary” (Usus antiquior, traditional Latin liturgy), and including efforts to revive the uses of religious orders and regional uses. In Milan there are now two forms of the venerable Ambrosian Rite, ordinary and extraordinary. This variety is reported from time to time in the New Liturgical Movement website, also an indicator of Pope Benedict’s liturgical project and vision.

One dream of mine is that the churches of the Ordinariate will resound with fine music – from Stanford to Palestrina, from Vaughan Williams to Bruckner. We need the kind of music that gives greater glory to God and also “a treasure to be shared” by all Catholics.

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Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!