The Order of Mass for the Ordinariates

Coming soon: “The Order of Mass For Use by the Ordinariates Established under the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus,” approved by the Holy See, will make its debut on October 10. It incorporates language from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England into the Roman Rite.

Here are some samples of the style: the Gloria and the Credo.

After the Prayers of the People and the Penitential Rite there are the “Comfortable Words” (I’ve always liked that title, but I’m pretty sure they don’t mean that the sacred liturgy should be more “comfortable”!): The Comfortable Words

This is interesting: Form I of the Offertory. (The revised Roman Rite doesn’t refer to this part of the liturgy as the “offertory,” but does refer to the musical piece as the “offertory chant.”)  Compare this Form I to the Tridentine Mass: The Offertory (Form I). Form II of the Offertory is the 1969 Mass of Paul VI preparation prayers, but in retro language. I’m sure there’s a real beauty and dignity to this text, but I admit I’d find it difficult to say this with a straight face! – The Offertory (Form II)

Here is the beginning of Eucharistic Prayer. And here is a taste of Roman Canon in antique language. The Memorial Acclamation is 1969 Paul VI but in old language: The Mystery of Faith.

And then it gets interesting. Appendix 1 gives an alternative Eucharistic Prayer, which is our EP2 retrofitted. And Appendix 2 gives you the old “Prayers at the Foot of the Altar” in English: Prayers of Preparation. And you can do the old Last Gospel too, from Appendix 7: The Last Gospel.

awr

Anthony Ruff, OSB

Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, is a monk of St. John’s Abbey. He teaches liturgy, liturgical music, and Gregorian chant at St. John’s University School of Theology-Seminary. He is the founder of the National Catholic Youth choir. He is widely published and frequently presents across the country on liturgy and music. He is the author of Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations, and of Responsorial Psalms for Weekday Mass: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. He does priestly ministry at the local county jail and the neighboring community of Benedictine sisters in St. Joseph.

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84 responses to “The Order of Mass for the Ordinariates”

  1. Graham Wilson

    Yuck! Is this a joke? Who could possibly keep from laughing out loud hearing that pompous poopery in public? What a turn-off to authentic prayer – forsooth!

    Reply
    1. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
      Anthony Ruff, OSB

      @Graham Wilson – comment #1:
      Graham,

      My response was similar, but let’s all be a bit careful here: I’m sure this is highly treasured by Ordinariate worshipers, and some of them might be sensitive to criticism.

      I recall that the entire history of the High Church / Anglo-Catholic / Tractarian / Oxford Movement was marked by strong opinions such as yours, and heated tempers pro and con. Then it was mostly a discussion between English Anglicans high church and low church. So our strong opinions, and your and my negative reactions, are nothing new.

      awr

      Reply
      1. Graham Wilson

        @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #3:
        Thanks for caution, Anthony. I’m just so irritated that the Roman authorities are being so nice and accommodating to a tiny, tiny minority while giving the rest of the English-speaking Catholic world the finger.

    2. Bill Covington

      Considering the objections to the flowery Tudor English as “pompous poopery” and a bar to true evangelism, and the strong implication that such Anglicanisms are not “real” Catholicism, but, rather, the products of a collusion of a distrusted ecclesiastical hierarchy and a favored minority, I suspect that some of you, had you been living, would have objected to the Union of Brest.

      Indeed, one might infer from these objections that the initial reaction of many Catholics (of a certain type) to AC – that it was a naked sheep rustling expedition on the part of BXVI – was not so much a defense of our (Anglican) identity as (nominal, structural, historical) Protestants, but, rather, an objection to us abandoning that remnant of Protestantism. And why, if this is the case, would Catholics (of a certain type) object? Perhaps because they want the Church to be more like what we once were, rather than us become more like what the Church is? Perhaps a fear that we (former Protestants) will learn and have to courage of conscience to act, as the Ukrainians discovered in the 16th C., that the center of gravity ever shifts toward Roman unity rather than toward radical autonomy, chaos, and autocephaly? And yet ever within the context of correct tradition, culture, and a “unity in diversity”?

      I dunno.

      Reply
  2. Paul Inwood

    I, too, thought this must be a joke. Many of the Ordinariate folk were using the 1973 Missal or modern-language Anglican services before they joined us. I can’t see them going back to this cod-16th century style unless they were using BCP (as some were).

    It’s also clear that this is not (at least I hope it is is not) a final text. The Gloria omits tu solus Altissimus altogether — clearly an editorial oversight — and I suspect that closer examination of the entire text would reveal other errors too. Such, alas, is the way of texts emanating from Rome.

    For example, still with the Gloria, is the missing “thou” before the first “that takest away the sins of the world” a mistake or intentional? It could be either (but the other two instances have the “thou”).

    A big blow will be the removal of the acclamation “Christ has died” which is certainly a part of the “Anglican patrimony” which they are supposed to be bringing with them. Anglicans had been using this text for years before it ever appeared in the 1969 Order of Mass, and they are both bewildered as to why Roman Catholics have stopped using it and amused.

    All in all, my expectation is that a significant proportion of Ordinariate people will either ignore or adapt what is proposed here. After all, they have had several years of doing whatever they wanted since they joined us, and many generations of doing whatever they wanted before that. This text is very late arriving on the scene.

    Reply
    1. Joshua Vas

      @Paul Inwood – comment #2:

      I understand that at least some of the people are from the ‘Missal’ tradition that did not do a switchover to the newer Roman rites – doubtless, the ‘Tridentinizing’ of the liturgy will appeal to them (and others as well).

      My guess is that the Gloria wording is intentional: it matches exactly the style of the versions used traditionally in 1662 BCP (and also in several of the Anglican hybrid ‘missals’). The tu solus Altissimus is not omitted, but again, in the style of the BCP and missals appears in the last line “art most high in the glory…”.

      As for ‘Christ has died’ being part of the ‘Anglican Patrimony’: certainly this calls for the idea of what constitutes Anglican Patrimony to be explored in greater detail. My guess is that a significant number of people in the Ordinariates would disagree that this mid-60s text belongs to the Anglican tradition (even though it did originate with Series 1….or was it Series 2?) because they hold positions similar to those who object to all the reformed Anglican rites (such as the 1928 BCP folk in the USA).

      Of course, this applies in equal measure to the unrevised Roman texts, and the extent to which they can be claimed as part of an “Anglican Patrimony”.

      With greatest respect, I think your bias colours your opinion on what the Ordinate folk will do. If anything, it seems that a number of them (the type who have entered) would have innovated, had they wanted to do so, in the direction of the unrevised Roman liturgy.

      Re: Graham on language. The only this that I find slightly jarring is when the faux-English kicks in with some ‘updates’ and the consistency of the text is ruined. But I have attended a number of BCP services (presided over by ministers of all stripes) which use that language, and it isn’t as ridiculous as one might think reading it. I’m not entirely sure why it seemed to ‘fit’….perhaps it was the context.

      Reply
  3. Michael Alexenko

    Yuck is your reply to reverence and respect for the Blessed Sacrament? Amazing how many people on this blog find anything sacred offensive and anything that strips reverence from the Mass as acceptable. Looks like we could learn a few things from our Anglican brothers. Good for them!

    Reply
    1. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
      Anthony Ruff, OSB

      @Michael Alexenko – comment #4:
      Dear Michael,

      Here’s the problem with your response, when you write “Yuck is your reply to reverence and respect for the Blessed Sacrament?” You’re pretty much missing entirely what he likely meant, and you’re impugning to him objection to reverence. I would think you’d know that that’s not what he meant – otherwise we can’t have a good conversation when you derail it like this.

      It seems clear to me that “Yuck” is the response to language that appears unreal, exotic, escapist, pretend world, etc. You don’t feel that way and that’s fine, but I hope you can hear what the critique really is from those who think differently. There are strong convictions that worship be real, that it speak to people today, that it take the ordinary things of life and elevate them to true dignity and beauty, and that the liturgy not be a museum or aesthetic escape that maybe attracts a few souls but overall impairs the image of the church. I realize you don’t feel that way, but I would hope you could get right what is behind the critique of others who disagree with you.

      Pax,
      Fr. Anthony

      Reply
      1. Michael Alexenko

        @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #9:
        Dear Father Anthony,
        I’m the one who is impugning? I think you need to reread the first post. Graham Wilson considers the language to be a joke and to be laughable. Those are insulting words especially when you consider the subject matter and I’m not sure how you conclude anything else. You can consider my words a joke or laughable but, approved text for Holy Mass? I experience enough of ordinary language six days a week. When I go to church and to Mass I desire something that is different, something reverent, I desire a connection to the supernatural. I never considered Mass to be an ordinary event. Do you have some examples of what ordinary things we can take and elevate them at Mass.? I prefer to spend my time focusing on the worship of God rather than the common practices of man. I like to see the Host elevated at Mass and many times I don’t even get to see that. Seems like we need to get the basics down again. I happen to like museums as many people do. It offers a link to the past. Isn’t that what the Communion of Saints implies? I don’t think we need to worry too much about our modern churches resembling religious museums rather the problem today is whether our modern churches resemble anything that comes close to looking like a church. I have no problem with respectful disagreement, but I’ve read many things on your site that do not meet that standard. I don’t regard my comment to be one of them. I’m sorry that you did.

      2. Bill deHaas

        @Michael Alexenko – comment #11:
        Not to pour gasoline on this fire but may I quietly respond to your statement:
        “Do you have some examples of what ordinary things we can take and elevate them at Mass.?”

        Examples from Jesus himself and the early church:
        – common meal
        – bread/wine
        – blessing (berakah)
        – cup
        – community of created human beings (created good)
        – music that is the creation of people
        – human languages
        – water
        – candles
        – table
        – scripture (written by people)
        – sign of peace
        – simple gestures such as taking, breaking, sharing, processing, singing, proclaiming

        Would suggest that your division between the natural (six days a week) and the supernatural (Sunday) is a form of Manichaeism. (btw- communion of saints speaks just as much to those of us who are still living; that is why they are significant)

      3. Michael Alexenko

        @Bill deHaas – comment #13:
        That’s a great list. Maybe you should have thrown in bricks and mortar. I would suggest that those items are used as a means to elevate God. Those items are not “elevated” in and of themselves. Correct? That is where I think you might be going wrong and Father Anthony. We aren’t going to church to praise one another or inanimate objects, but to praise God. When it becomes about entertaining ourselves then we end up with an endless variety of misguided antics. BTW we don’t actually elevate wine, we elevate the Blood of Christ? Regarding my desire to experience a divine worship that focuses on reverence to God , rather than listening to tasteless folk music or a polka Mass, it seems a stretch to attribute my preferences to an archaic semi-pagan belief. Your suggestion is an example of low blows I cited previously. In regards to your list: How about clowns, dancers, puppets, acting, and bongo drums just to name a few more? Did you forget those?

      4. Fritz Bauerschmidt

        @Michael Alexenko – comment #17:
        Michael, it occurs to me that perhaps people here aren’t using “elevate” in quite the same way. I think Bill’s point is that in all the sacraments there is a sense in which the ordinary is “elevated” to the extraordinary: the act of physical washing is elevated to spiritual washing, ordinary eating of bread and wine is elevated to spiritual feeding on Christ, etc. Even on a non-sacramental level, ordinary human activities like singing or wearing clothes or building shelters get elevated to be reminders of God’s saving presence.

        I’m getting the impression that you are saying something different, since Bill’s point seems to me entirely unobjectionable from even the most traditional viewpoint.

      5. Michael Alexenko

        @Fritz Bauerschmidt – comment #18:
        Fritz, I understand your comment and agree. My suggestion is that we need to be careful with diverting focus from Christ. It’s clear that we use our ordinary items as instruments to praise God. No one can object to your exampels. When the other items I mentioned creep in is when things go south.

      6. Todd Flowerday

        @Michael Alexenko – comment #17:
        My sense is that you’re bringing a particular experience into a conversation where it has no history. Your question was this: Do you have some examples of what ordinary things we can take and elevate them at Mass.?

        Then you answered with a list of mostly human roles or actions that are far less common than the “ordinary things” we use to celebrate liturgy. I might, in turn, suggest another list-with-an-agenda: men not dressed in trousers, but in lace and long superman capes, chant taken at deathly dull tempo, things like that. But what would be the point? That everyone has matters of personal taste that raise varying levels of like and dislike?

        To Bill’s list, I would ad: oil, resin, wool, wood (for musical instruments and floors), gold, silver, iron, and other metals, stone, and even bricks. And particular human body parts: palms, fingers, knees, feet, eyes, ears, lips and tongue, nose, vocal cords, and even brain cells.

        The Lord Jesus emptied himself and used those body parts, probably even to dance, to drum, to engage in popular entertainments. Even clowns can praise God within or near their three rings.

      7. Michael Alexenko

        @Todd Flowerday – comment #22:
        I agree with you that clowns belong in the three ring circus and they can glorify God through their work at their place of work; just as an accountant can do. However should we ask an accountant to put on her green eye shade and add numbers on her adding machine at the altar during the Consecration of the bread and wine? Elevating ordinary objects and incorporating things from our lives into he Mass is a slippery slope we’ve already experienced and continue to do despite BXVI’s best efforts. Obviously we are far apart on what is considered to be devout and reverent and what isn’t. My original comment was based on surprise that anyone can read respectful language toward God and considered it to be a joke or pompous. Pomposity seems to be more in line with those who come up with “creative ways” to distort liturgy and expect people to appreciate it.

      8. Todd Flowerday

        @Michael Alexenko – comment #27:
        Actually, Michael, I suspect we are in total agreement on the focus of our reverence, which is the most important thing of all. When I focus too much on what I do, it’s narcissism. And when I focus too much on what you do, it’s being a busybody.

        I appreciate Chuck’s comment, especially aligning me with very honorable Benedictine traditions. The first monastic community I got to know was Trappist, and I suppose I’m sympathetic to the spare and minimal approach in many liturgical things, including when it comes to language.

        I mean: I love Shakespeare and I appreciate Cramner. However, in a liturgical setting I’m concerned that too much elevation in language is too much of a barrier for too many: for a culture that has lost an emphasis on literature literacy and an appreciation for speaking and writing accurately. (Note how often people misunderstand posts, and how often people write things they really do not mean.)

        And the issue of English as a second language for many folks is significant, though perhaps less so in the US for British-Americans.

        The language of the ordinariate is perhaps too precious, especially when we are accustomed to hearing it trip off the tongues of Kenneth Branagh and actors, rather than in church. Maybe it’s time has come and gone? Who knows? It’s not my call.

      9. Michael Alexenko

        @Todd Flowerday – comment #29:
        Todd,
        From what I’ve noticed in my local churches and on secular blogs, it doesn’t appear to me that successful evangelization is being hampered by conservative liturgical practices. It’s hard to conclude that since little of it is available. And I’m not referring to the EF. The attacks on the Church are more doctrinal. If people are unable to appreciate/understand a different style of language or a more formal atmosphere in church then how can we possibly expect them to answer attacks/questions like: You worship Mary, You don’t know if you’re saved?, You don’t need to confess your sins to a priest, Communion is just a symbol etc. These are the issues I see in the USA popping up all the time. In other parts of the world we know that the issue is hardly related to the appeal of fundamentalist churches (with the possible exception in Latin America), nor is it outdated liturgy. How could it be, the OF is only 50 years old and it’s been tinkered with and tweaked in too many ways to count. Ostensibly to make it relevant. It’s instruction that is needed and how to effectively do that is a more difficult problem.

      10. Todd Flowerday

        @Michael Alexenko – comment #41:
        Thanks for responding, Michael. I’m offering the question. Not answers, necessarily. I don’t see much successful evangelization anywhere in Christianity on the scale of an ordinariate. In local communities that emphasize music, preaching, and welcome, yes there are isolated successes.

        Attacks on the Church? That’s another topic entirely. My own approach is that trying to argue with one’s opponents is fruitless. The Church teaches that the primary faith witness is the Christian life lived with virtue and sincerity. I think Catholicism has too many internal problems to be concerned too much with what our critics say.

        Instruction? I’m not sure that works. When we treat Christianity as an apprenticeship instead of a classroom–then I think we’ll make progress.

      11. Paul Inwood

        @Michael Alexenko – comment #27:

        My original comment was based on surprise that anyone can read respectful language toward God and considered it to be a joke or pompous.

        Michael,

        I think you’re missing the point.

        Flowery, archaic language today comes across as artificial, not as respectful. We are used to hearing it in many period pieces on TV, where the flunky uses excessively obsequious and archaic language when addressing his lord and master in order to attain his desires, and we do not take it seriously because we know he doesn’t really mean it. When we encounter the same language used when addressing God in liturgy, the instinctive same reaction happens: we don’t take it seriously because we subconsciously feel that we don’t really mean it either. And we are reminded of Matthew 6:7 — “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words” — recalling Isaiah’s similar comments.

        That is why so many people are looking for a leaner, tauter style which puts things concisely in the language of today’s worshipper and which comes across as genuine and sincere.

      12. Matthew Hazell

        @Paul Inwood (#33): That is why so many people are looking for a leaner, tauter style which puts things concisely in the language of today’s worshipper and which comes across as genuine and sincere.

        Yet other people are clearly looking for that which you variously describe as “artificial”, “cod-16th century style” and “a joke”. Is the Ordinariate really that much of a threat that you (and others) find it necessary to ridicule and belittle them? (It is also questionable whether any use of language specifically designed to “come across” as genuine and sincere can really do that!)

        I have to say, I find some of the reactions here regrettable yet sadly predictable.

      13. Gerard Flynn

        @Matthew Hazell – comment #34:
        You’ve turned Paul’s critique into an argumentum ad hominem – and a straw man at that.
        In relation to your comment about whether language not designed to do so ‘can really do that!’ it’s necessary to take more than the intention of the designer(s) into consideration. It’s also important to ask how language will be received by the hearers/readers.
        Regrettable yet sadly predictable!

      14. Paul Inwood

        @Matthew Hazell – comment #34:

        Is the Ordinariate really that much of a threat that you (and others) find it necessary to ridicule and belittle them?

        Matthew,

        You, too, miss the point. I know a considerable number of Ordinariate people, and far from feeling threatened by them we get on extremely well.

        If there’s any ridiculing and belittling going on, it’s at aimed at the folks in Rome who apparently have seen fit to foist this text on a group of people of which they have little or no knowledge, many of whom will find it alien to their way of praying and worshipping. Some will have no problem, I am sure, and some will even love every word of it, but for others this text will be a shock, even an insult.

        Scott (#35):

        My comments have nothing to do with my subjective preferences but are based on knowledge of those who are going to have to live with the book. Please be slower in imputing base motives to those whose views you do not share.

      15. Fritz Bauerschmidt

        @Paul Inwood – comment #45:
        Paul, since members of the Ordinariate are free to celebrate the Ordinary Form of the Missal, I don’t see how this is being “foisted” on them by Rome.

        Maybe this is a bit of a pond difference. I know that Catholic-leaning Anglicans in England have, for the most part, abandoned Cranmer’s language decades ago in favor of the reformed Roman Rite, but in the US the Anglo-Catholics have a strong contingent who remain wedded to 16th-century language. But, like I said, if English members of the Ordinariate don’t want to use this rite, they are under no obligation to do so. Of course, given the current translation of the reformed Roman Rite, they might find Cranmer’s language more appealing than they have in the past.

      16. Matthew Hazell

        @Paul Inwood (#45): If there’s any ridiculing and belittling going on, it’s at aimed at the folks in Rome…

        Oh, right, well, I suppose that makes it all okay then…?!

        Because, you know, it’s not as if Ordinariate clergy and laity have had any input on these texts – no, it’s big bad Rome forcing everything on everyone; after all, everyone wants the “leaner, tauter… genuine and sincere” style so beloved of authentic Christians involved in the “complete evangelization” Mr Flowerday speaks of!

        Boo, Rome! Yay, “ordinary” people! Etc etc blah blah blah ad nauseam.

        @Jared Ostermann (#46): +1. Thanks for saving me a reply to Todd. 🙂

      17. Scott Smith

        @Paul Inwood – comment #45:

        Paul,

        The good Deacon at 47 has outlined my thoughts – No one “has” to live with this book.

        As an aside, how are subjective preferences base motives? I am not trying to imply you have any ignoble intent, just saying there might be better ways of looking at it.

      18. Scott Smith

        @Paul Inwood – comment #33:

        Paul,

        The Anglican Use is an optional missal, for those whom are attracted to it. The subjective preferences of those who it not aimed at are completely irrelevant.

        The comments from yourself and others on this blog are equivalent to an English speaker like myself complaining about the stylistic choices adopted in the language of a Swahili missal. It is not aimed at me – My preference does not matter.

      19. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
        Anthony Ruff, OSB

        @Michael Alexenko – comment #11:
        Michael,
        Yes, to be exacting, you did impugn to him an objection to reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, when what he objected to was not that but something else.
        For the rest, you’re raising a whole bundle of issues, none of them touching the substance of my last post to you.
        awr

      20. Michael Alexenko

        @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #16:
        I believe the comments I made were in direct response to the subjects you raised. I did not introduce new topics into the discussion. We’ll have to agree to disagree on the other item.

  4. Jordan Zarembo

    I think it’s awesome that the Anglican Ordinariate liturgy includes the Tridentine offertory as an option. Traditionalists have long asked for the option to use the old Offertory instead of the Pauline version. I don’t care for the faux-Tudor translation, but I’m very glad that the Tridentine offertory is now an option again in at least one modern Roman form.

    The 1928 proposed but rejected revisions to the CofE 1662 BCP included the prayers at the foot of the altar in an appendix (and possibly also the Last Gospel; I don’t remember.) This move is merely a continuation of Anglo-Catholic trends in the Church of England of the early 20th century.

    Hopefully Rome will let non-Ordinariate priests celebrate this Mass. This Mass could be a bridge between the extraordinary form and the ordinary form for Roman Catholics who are alienated by certain celebrations of the OF, but are open to the idea of attending an tridentinized (Elizabethanized?) OF. I do not at all think that this order of Mass is appropriate for the vast majority of Roman Catholic parishes.

    Reply
    1. Joshua Vas

      @Jordan Zarembo – comment #6:

      Jordan, I appreciate the idea of the insertion of the Tridentine offertory from the perspective of a reconciliation of different factions. But another part of me asks:why? Why do people want such a strongly proleptic text at this point in the liturgy? (I am aware that in prolepsis has crept into the Eucharistic liturgies of all the rites but still). Also, what is the theology that underlines this “offering” and is it consonant with what the text is saying? How do we explain what seems to be a “double offering”? If one has to explain a proleptic text by anticipation, I think a disconnect emerges between the text and the action in the overall shape of the liturgy.

      It seems to me that people want the texts – I’m speaking chiefly of the texts over the bread and wine, and the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas prayer – because they reinforce the notions of sacrifice and sanctoral intercession that many feel (quite rightly, in my own opinion) have been reduced in the modern rites. But I would think that there are other and better places where such an emphasis could be made.

      Reply
      1. Jordan Zarembo

        @Joshua Vas – comment #10:

        Joshua, you’re right that prolepsis is a huge question which the Tridentine offertory cannot escape. It’s understandable why many liturgical reformers sought, and eventually succeeded, in radically reshaping the Roman offertory to create a very strong distinction between gift-presentation and anaphora. Even so, the very ancient Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, for example, mentions the “unbloody sacrifice” before the anaphora. One must ask: are the liturgical distinctions which liturgists and theologians have assigned to the Mass in the post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment period, applicable to offertory prayers and an anaphora (the Canon missae) that gelled into their mature forms during the early to high Middle Ages?

        The apparent contradictions of the Tridentine offertory are emphatically one of the reasons why I am an unreformed Roman Catholic. The maturity of the ancient Roman liturgy before an age of liturgical science, and in an age just before scholasticism, suggests that the well-defined categorization of actions as displayed in the Ordinary Form, were either not known, not relevant, or categorized differently in the formative periods of the ancient Roman liturgies. Therefore, the reformation of the offertory in the Pauline missal is the re-sculpturing of an ancient action to fit modern and relatively young expectations of liturgy.

        This unreformed Catholic views the ostensible liturgical linguistic and semiotic jumble that is Tridentine liturgy not as a mess to be tidied, but rather as continuous action greater than the sum of academic metrics. In this way, a proleptic offertory is irrelevant: the Mass consumes us; we are never consumers of the Mass.

    2. Jeremy Hummerstone

      “Faux Tudor”. This Prayer-Book language has been established as the proper form of English for liturgical use since the 16th century, in the C of E and at civic and national occasions. For many Anglicans and ex-Anglicans it is the natural language of worship. Just because it is unfamiliar to you you should not condemn it.

      Reply
  5. Fr. Allan. McDonald

    Perhaps the reform of the reform isn’t dead after all. What an exquisite way to allow elements of the EF Mass to be allowed as an option in the “reformed” Mass as a “revision!” Obviously if the Ordinariate has these options, one can see the EF elements in the vernacular no less extended to where they actually belong, to Ordinary Form Latin Rite Catholics! Isn’t this part of what Pope Benedict foresaw with the liberalization of the EF so that it would have a gravitational pull upon the OF? And best of all under the papacy of Pope Francis, the pope of endless surprises who earlier expanded who could belong to the Ordinariate, baptized Latin Rite Catholics who desire it. One thing is clear, numerous rites as of old are here to stay in the Latin Rite and now with the addition of the Anglican rite!

    Reply
  6. Brian Duffy

    I really don’t see how the magnificent language of the Prayer Book will impair the image of the (Roman) church. The current translation seems to be doing that already.

    Reply
  7. Carl R. Opat

    Does anyone know what publishers will be publishing this? Or where on line may I find the whole edition for my library. Please let me know if anyone finds out. Peace Carl

    Reply
  8. Fritz Bauerschmidt

    In light of the earlier discussion about regular recourse to communion from the tabernacle, I note that in the “traditional” form (Form I) of the offertory prayers the rubric reads Having prepared sufficient bread for communion, the Priest takes the paten with the bread and holds it slightly raised above the altar with both hands, saying in a low voice:…

    This seems to require the priest to prepare enough bread for the people to receive from what is consecrated at the Mass.

    I also note that “holy” is added as one of the marks of the Church in the creed, something that inexplicably got omitted in Cranmer’s translation. So Cranmer is not simply being preserved, but also corrected.

    In general, I think those who find this language laughable or bizarre are simply showing a typical reaction to something unfamiliar. Cranmer’s translations are one of the monuments of the English language, and inasmuch as there is an ongoing tradition of their use among Anglicans (which has been the case, at least in America) then it seems to me perfectly meet and right that this should continue among Anglicans who have been received into full communion with Rome.

    As for me, I’m happy to stick with the ordinary form of the Roman rite, though I wouldn’t mind borrowing Cranmer’s “being of one substance with the Father” to replace “consubstantial with the Father” in the Creed.

    Reply
    1. Elisabeth Ahn

      @Graham Wilson – comment #1:

      “Who could possibly keep from laughing out loud hearing that pompous poopery in public?”

      As an ordinary (heh) Catholic who is not at all well-versed in anything liturgical, I would probably giggle (ever so subtly) upon hearing those words.

      Also speaking of “pompous poopery,” — and apologies if this is considered off-topic — during today’s papal mass, when the pope in his homily talked about “the rich man in the Gospel, who dressed in fine garments and daily indulged in sumptuous banquets,” the camera zoomed in on Abp. Gänswein in his lacy-lacy attire (choir dress?), and Msgr. Xuereb in his not-as-lacy attire (surplice?), sitting side by side.

      It was probably a coincidence (or the cameraman must have some wicked sense of humor), but I still found it hilarious.

      Reply
  9. Dennis Smolarski SJ

    From quickly comparing the texts with similar texts available on-line, it seems to me that the Gloria and Creed are identical to “Anglican Use” texts that have been used before the establishment of the Ordinariates and published several years ago in “The Book of Divine Worship.” The text of the Roman Canon seems only slightly updated from the earlier text.

    Reply
  10. Chuck Middendorf

    And may I add to the Alexenko/Flowerday/de Haas conversation, and Father Anthony, OSB, can correct me, but it’s definitely a Benedictine view of liturgy and the goods of the monastery, that anything worldly is elevated by their use/usage. Be it the tools you use in the field, the textbook you use when studying, or the plate & cup you use in at Mass. (RB 31-32)

    I suspect most people reading this blog have a very Benedictine understanding of how the profane become sacred. Including the words we speak. Thus not needing flowery, Cranmer language.

    Reply
  11. Fr. Jack Feehily

    Re Michael’s Comments on reverential language. Let’s suppose that one of the features of living forever in heaven is the ability to engage God in conversation (as in the words of the familiar hymn “he walks with me and he talks with me”). Is it even conceivable that we might address him in words like Thine kingdom, Almighty Father, is resplendent with glory; I bowest down before thy great majesty. Its far more likely that we will stammer something like, “Oh, my God, I am not worthy to be living under your roof. Thank you for forgiving me all my sins and for giving me a share in your kingdom.” I just don’t get the notion that Elizabethan, Cranmerian, or Shakespearean English is more reverent than contemporary English. If anything, it simply places an artificial divide between the language of worship and the language of daily living. God is spirit and he seeks worshipers in spirit and truth, worship that goes on 24/7/365.

    Reply
    1. Michael Alexenko

      @Fr. Jack Feehily – comment #26:
      Father,
      Is the Lord’s Prayer an appropriate way to address God or not? If so then I think the language used in the text cited seems to pass muster.

      Reply
  12. Jim Blue

    Was this post intended for the First of April by any chance?

    Reply
  13. Jim McKay

    In assessing the reverence of the language, we need to remember the language has changed since the days of Cranmer. In particular, thee was then the informal, intimate way of addressing someone, while today it is a formal term.

    If we wanted to pray to God as Cranmer provided, we would use less formal, more intimate speech. If we use Cranmer’s own words, we do it in a formal way that runs counter to it.

    Reply
    1. Jack Wayne

      @Jim McKay – comment #31:
      Actually, “thee” is meant to be singular while “you” is plural in liturgical and biblical translation. “Thee” was used to show intimacy in plays, writing, and daily speech, but liturgical translations retained what was by then the more archaic use of the term (to indicate one person rather than several). “You” developed formal connotations when royalty started referring to themselves in the plural.

      This is why the priest says “The Lord be with you” to the whole assembly and they respond “And with thy spirit” back to only him.

      Reply
      1. George Hayhoe

        @Jack Wayne – comment #55:
        Actually, “thee” was singular familiar, while “you” was both singular formal and plural. compare tu/vous in French and du/Sie in German.

  14. Timothy O’Brien

    Why is the offertory II so difficult to say with a straight face? I find teh translation appealing precisely because of its reference to the common grace before meals still said in many families. On the subject of the first post on this thread – I find it incredible that language such as pompous poopery is considered acceptable and seemingly defended. Consider what the second word actually means. It certainly wouldn’t have been accepted if it had been aimed at anything the editors held dear.

    Reply
  15. Todd Flowerday

    Comments 34 and 35, which I take seriously, and whose perspective I accept as a human reality, lead me to two places. First, as Scott suggests, my preference indeed does not matter. So in the personal sense, I find it hard to muster a strong opinion.

    However, the ordinariate, as Catholics, are not exempt from Christ’s call to evangelize. The targets of evangelization are not only the low hanging fruit of Anglicans who might need only a nudge to cross the Tiber, but also non-believers, skeptics, and agnostics. Have the Catholics of the ordinariate been exempted from the hard work of a complete evangelization? And if so, does that jive with the Gospel mandate of Matthew 28:19-20? Additionally, what does that say about the church’s mission if individual groups can pick and choose to whom they will address the Gospel?

    With respect to my Anglican sisters and brothers who are accustomed to a certain style of worship, does archaic language really serve the mission of Christianity? Or is it a comfortable, possibly narcissistic approach to the faith? I ask these questions not to be insulting, but out of a real concern over the place of any specialized group of believers. The question goes beyond liturgy, and to the very heart of what it means to be a disciple.

    Reply
    1. Fritz Bauerschmidt

      @Todd Flowerday – comment #37:
      does archaic language really serve the mission of Christianity?

      It certainly doesn’t seem to me to be beyond the realm of possibility that in some cases it might. For some people, their point of entry into Christianity is their desire to be part of an ancient tradition of faith, and for some of these people, language from the past (whether Latin or 16th century English) might speak to that desire.

      To this I would add, however, two caveats. First, a desire to be part of an ancient tradition is only an entry point; the end point is to embrace the fullness and richness of the Catholic tradition, including its authentic contemporary expressions. Second, I would reject entirely those who would claim that 16th century English is somehow more inherently fitting as a means to address God. But bearing those two caveats in mind, I really see no problem in principle with this sort of liturgy. I find the snarkiness of some of the comments here far more troubling.

      Reply
    2. Matthew Hazell

      @Todd Flowerday (#37): [D]oes archaic language really serve the mission of Christianity? Or is it a comfortable, possibly narcissistic approach to the faith?

      Did the dumbed down language of the 1973 translation of the Missal really serve the mission of Christianity? Or was it a comfortable, possibly narcissistic approach to the faith? Your question cuts both ways, Mr Flowerday!

      I fail to see how the use of archaic language can be a barrier to Christian discipleship, or necessarily mean that, through its use, one can be “exempted from the hard work of a complete evangelization”. As if somehow a “complete evangelization” (whatever one means by that) and archaic language are somehow mutually exclusive! If I made the same claim about the 1973 (or, for that matter, 1998) English translation of the Missal, I would be rightly pilloried – yet it’s acceptable to imply that those with more traditional linguistic preferences are “narcissistic”?!

      You’re going to have to explain your line of questioning a bit more, as from where I stand, it’s borderline offensive, and I struggle to believe that’s what you intended.

      Reply
      1. Todd Flowerday

        @Matthew Hazell – comment #39:
        Actually, Matthew, it doesn’t. I was not in favor of retaining the temporary translation of 1970/75. Nice try, but swing and a miss.

        Archaic language is a barrier in the sense that for nearly all non-believers it is an obstacle. It presents worship in a way that invites incredulity, incomprehensibility, ridicule, easy dismissal, and perhaps offers too much in the way of spiritual creature comforts to a rather select minority.

        The Gospel mandate is primary. Paul understood it. As did the early Christians. They set aside a fine and honorable religious tradition in order to open up the Gospel in the most broad way they saw possible (Cf. Acts 15). It was a decision not without wrenching controversy and serious soul searching.

        If you want a fuller explanation, you’ll have to go to my web site. Comboxes are not the place for a full elaboration of evangelization.

        I have no doubt that you and some Anglicans find my questions offensive. I’m asking if the ordinariate furthers the prime mission of the Church. It’s a question I ask repeatedly of myself in my ministry and in my ordinary life as a Christian. It’s not a form of spiritual flagellation. It’s a basic attitude of reform and renewal. I don’t think any Christian is exempt from it. None of us are finished products, at least not while in the mortal realm. And it’s not intended to be primarily insulting to you. Most of the world is non-Christian. Does the language of Anglican Use address that? Or does it aim at the easy targets: already Christian, already embittered believers looking for an alternative?

        The Biblical witness would seem to suggest that archaic English and Latin be set aside. Unless we’re just looking at a Church that preaches to its own select group of already-saved.

      2. Fritz Bauerschmidt

        @Todd Flowerday – comment #42:
        Archaic language is a barrier in the sense that for nearly all non-believers it is an obstacle.

        This appears to be an empirical claim. Is there evidence to support it? It might appear simple common sense to you, for which no evidence need be offered, but clearly that is not the case for others, so some empirical support might be helpful.

      3. Todd Flowerday

        @Fritz Bauerschmidt – comment #44:
        It’s more of a question than a claim. When we evangelize, do we speak in such a way to be understood, or do we speak the way we want to speak. I’m not sure there’s a way to “study” this, in the sense of solving the problem rationally.

        Scott’s question at #50 is well taken. I suspect (though I lack empirical evidence) that feminists outnumber traditionalists and Anglican Catholics combined. Clearly, numbers are not the issue. What is … ?

    3. Scott Smith

      @Todd Flowerday – comment #37:

      Todd,

      It is a good question, but I believe better asked in the context of formal / approved litugical diversity more generally, rather than specifically of the Anglican Use.

      After all, the key practical reason for any litugical diversity, would seem to be the evangelization of certain subsets of the population.

      Further, in that broader context, the embrace of litugical diversity at Vatican II likely gives a conclusive answer to your question.

      Reply
  16. Gerry Davila

    I’d love to see the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the Little Canon, Last Gospel in the Ordinary Form. Quite excellent!

    Reply
    1. Matthew Morelli

      Gerry Davila : I’d love to see the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the Little Canon, Last Gospel in the Ordinary Form. Quite excellent!

      Agreed. In a Missal that provides so many options, I think these would be desirable options to add to the OF Missal as a means of providing greater continuity between the two forms. To your list I would add the Offertory as well. As others have hinted in the thread already, these are not as much “Anglican patrimony” as they are patrimony that is common to the entirety of the Roman Rite.

      In the meantime, I think I may print out a copy of the Prayers of Preparation for use in the Sacristy… they are good private preparatory prayers even if they cannot currently be used at the foot of the Altar in the OF.

      Reply
  17. Jared Ostermann

    My 5-year-old daughter knows and prays three prayers with us on a daily basis:

    Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts…

    Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…

    Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name…

    Thee and thy would only be a barrier to authentic prayer for her if I raised her on a hermeneutic of suspicion to all things ‘archaic’ and inherited. As it is, as she enters the age of reason, these ‘archaic’ words will be as natural as breathing to her in prayer.

    Now, some of the language in the Ordinariate texts quoted above does strike me as stilted (I am especially skeptical of retro-translations of post-V2 prayers). But if I was part of a community that used the BCP, which is who these texts are intended for, the texts would not be jarring. What I find objectionable in Graham’s original comment is the dual assumption:

    1 – these texts are pompous poopery artificial, etc. Actually, with the exception of retro-translations, the texts stand in a lived prayer tradition that is active today.

    2 – these texts are a barrier to ‘authentic’ prayer. Which is a spiritual judgment about our Christian brothers and sisters who use such texts from day to day. Apparently, their prayer is categorically unauthentic. Unlike (presumably) the categorically authentic prayer of enlightened people who use modern idioms in their prayer. That’s an extremely offensive claim to make. The texts might be a barrier to YOUR prayer, but what gives you the right to judge the authenticity of others’ spiritual lives? Similarly offensive is the claim (Flowerday) that people who pray with such language are not interested in ‘genuine’ evangelization. Perhaps they evangelize in their daily life, with modern down-to-earth language, and don’t expect the liturgy to be the primary tool of evangelization.

    All of this rant from someone who has never attended or had any attachment to Anglican or Ordinariate worship. I’m objecting on principle.

    Reply
    1. Jeremy Hummerstone

      @Jared Ostermann:
      I remember a child skipping down the churchyard path after mass, singing, “Consubstantial, co-eternal, while unending ages run”.

      Reply
  18. Jonathan Day

    The question of archaic language is far from obvious, to me at least – I can see cases for and against it. Let me set that aside, then, and raise a different question.

    The new Ordinariate ‘use’ (is that the right term for it?) incorporates elements that are neither in the normative order for a Catholic Mass nor in any officially promulgated Anglican liturgy that I know – the prayers at the foot of the altar and the last Gospel. On what basis have these been added? Do they form part of the ‘Anglican patrimony’, the Anglican liturgical tradition (AC, III)? Even the archaicised EP2 has recognisable counterparts in C of E worship books.

    You could argue, I guess, that Anglo-Catholics have been using these Tridentine elements all along, e.g. in the Anglican Missal. Was this Missal ever recognised by any church in the Anglican Communion? Or even by the major splinter groups?

    I have Anglican friends who are great devotees of Orthodox liturgy. Some are members of the Fellowship of St Alban & St Sergius. One regularly skips the filioque when he says the Creed.

    Can we thus incorporate the Cherubikon, the Litany of Fervent Supplication and the warm water into an Anglo-Orthodox liturgy? Can we skip the filioque?

    Alan Watts, once an Anglican priest, wrote this about his church:

    For within the charitable embrace of this Communion you can be a Rococo Catholic, a stately High Churchman, a virtual Presbyterian, a Marxist, and even a Theosophist – just so long as you keep loosely to the Book of Common Prayer in the conduct of services, and take care not to play around openly with any of the ladies on the altar guild. (In My Own Way, 1972)

    Is this the new mode for the Roman Catholic Church?

    Reply
    1. Joshua Vas

      @Jonathan Day – comment #48:

      Jonathan, I share your overall point on the question of why these particular elements constitute Anglican Patrimony (and whether their use in the missals can be given an independent value, considering that they were copying the contemporary Roman usage).

      But (leaving aside those Anglican canonical arguments on alternative worship) elements have been officially approved and incorporated in Prayer Books in various parts of the Anglican Communion in Africa and Asia in the mid 20th century because of the strong Anglo-Catholic influence in those places. Some have rubrics allowing for the “ancient Canon” to be used, and others have translated material from the Missale Romanum including the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, Offertory, etc.

      This does raise an interesting question if the official status of these is used as justification for the insertion of these elements in the Ordinate, because there have also been officially approved fusions with Eastern liturgical forms (e.g. the ‘Bombay Liturgy’).

      Reply
  19. Scott Pluff

    Since Holy Mother Church is now offering alternate and optional rites which appeal to the sensibilities of various peoples, perhaps she could also offer a rite using contemporary English and inclusive language? With a revised lectionary that highlights stories of women in the scriptures? Just for those with a particular attachment to that form of worship, of course.

    Reply
  20. Rhiannon Mueller

    I’m 36. Anglican practice/liturgy for 16 years and still Reformed sort before that. I’ve never prayed as an adult without any other language but this, I pray at home like this, my 10 year old prays like this. I cry for my Anglican brothers and sisters who are torn over the actions of their individual parishes/denominations. I am making the trip over the Tiber–others like me are coming. We are eternally grateful for this gift to worship with worldwide Catholics, the way we know how. This speaks to thousands upon thousands who never took the ’79 prayerbook. Personally, I trip over myself in RCC daily mass and am embarrassed. Sorry that some think it pompous.

    Reply
  21. Jim McKay

    Jack,

    You may be right that Cranmer was following the literal use as a singular in early translations of the bible. Even so, thou was known as a familiar, intimate form rather than as a formal and respectful term, the opposite of how it is known today.

    Look at Jared’s example in comment #46. His daughter knows thou as used in formal, religious situations, but I doubt that she uses it with her parents, or anyone other than God. A 4 year old in the 16th century would know thou as a common everyday term, not to be used in formal settings. A priest, noble, probably any adult other than family, would be addressed with a singular you.

    This difference in usage makes this language seem more respectful, reverential to some while it seems affected and inauthentic to others.

    Reply
  22. Ann Olivier

    About Americans’ interest in museums. Here are some figure from the American Alliance of Museums:

    “There are approximately 850 million visits each year to American museums, more than the attendance for all major league sporting events and theme parks combined (483 million in 2011). By 2006, museums already received an additional 524 million online visits a year just from adults, a number that continues to grow.”

    http://www.aam-us.org/about-museums/museum-facts

    Moral: don’t underestimate people’s interest in the time-honored.

    Moral: don’t underestimate people’s interest in the time-honored.

    Reply
    1. Michael Alexenko

      @Ann Olivier – comment #60:
      Excellent information. Your reference to sporting events reminded me of what is found to be permissible when you make things “less pompous” Terms like “Touchdown Jesus” become cute little phrases that the media then like to cling to and popularize. The other example of what happens when language becomes casual is have a Jesuit priest referring to almighty God as an SOB,. Granted it wasn’t part of liturgy but its was a reference made during a spiritual exercise talk I attended. These are examples of the unintended consequence of making things less formal.

      Reply
    2. Paul Inwood

      @Ann Olivier – comment #60:

      There’s a difference between visiting a museum and trying to celebrate liturgy in one.

      Reply
  23. Ann Olivier

    Jonathan Day —

    Surely you don’t take Watts for an unbiased critic of the Anglican Church!

    Reply
    1. Jonathan Day

      @Ann Olivier – comment #61:
      Not at all, Ann. He died many years ago, had a tempestuous relationship with Anglicanism and was far from unbiased. He could turn a phrase though!

      Reply
  24. Ann Olivier

    “After all, the key practical reason for any litugical diversity, would seem to be the evangelization of certain subsets of the population.”

    No, no, no — there is already enormous diversity in *old* subsets of the population, i.e., in the subsets of the aesthetic conservatives and the aesthetic liberals. Neither subset needs evangelization (theoretically, at least). Individual temperament is, I suspect, the clue to the differences.

    I have no idea what the solution is except that we must begin by respecting the needs of those who differ from ourselves.

    Reply
    1. Scott Smith

      @Ann Olivier – comment #62:

      Ann,

      Perhaps you could expand your comment – I am a bit lost what you are objecting to.

      Reply
  25. Roger Evans

    I am one of what I imagine is a steeply decreasing minority who were raised in the warm bosom of Common Prayer and Authorized Version (aka “King James”) language. My later education has led me to realize that we were bilingual, able to switch easily back and forth between 15th/16th-century English and modern. This was partly because, from our earliest years, we had learned to recite great swaths of Scripture in that style. Even our extempore prayers were in the language pilloried here as “pompous poopery.” I beg to say that such talk displays ignorance of most of Protestant piety before the late ’60s, which is the first time a small minority began to talk about worship in contemporary language (first in THE LITURGY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER of the Episcopal Church, which was mostly just reviled at the time).

    As time went on and I became a Catholic, I left behind most of that (although the allusive language sticks to me in many ways) in a effort to join Christian movements that I considered more important and more in accord with what I had come to believe. But the giggling over that language here really misses the point of communities sticking with the prayer-language of their forebears. Does anyone here jest in the same way about, say, Church Slavonic—which is surely far more distant from the language of street and TV?

    Having asked that, I imagine that the easy use of what linguists call language-switching probably ended, in this context, with my generation—except for a minority who are presumably being appealed to by the liturgical book in question. But I may be wrong.

    I don’t think anyone has pointed out that the Book of Common Prayer and the “Tridentine” Mass are approximately coeval and that the BCP was the first widely uniform liturgy in history (highly dependent on the invention of printing) and that the Mass of Pius V was largely an inheritor of its strategy of a uniformity hitherto unknown in history.

    Reply
  26. Mark O’Meara

    ‘Remember, O Lord, thy servants and handmaids [N. and N.]’.
    Servants and handmaids? Is that what we are?
    I am not a liturgical expert, and so I do not know whether this sort of archaic language is genuinely the ‘Anglican patrimony’, or whether someone has chosen to invent parts of the new Mass (in the last few months) in order to consolidate their group’s uniqueness within the wider RC Church?
    But either way, I cannot see how such archaisms will bring many people into the Church? The Ordinariate has talked of wanting to ‘re-convert England’. But is this really what England has been waiting for? (I have no knowledge of the position in the United States.)
    I write as someone who knew (some months ago) that this was coming – at which point I left my parish (into which an Ordinariate priest had been placed) for another parish in the same town. Many other fellow-parishioners have also switched parishes.
    It seems to me, then, that one point which is overlooked in all these (your) discussions, is that (in England at least) Ordinariate priests and their flocks have been placed into what had previously been ‘normal’, diocesan parishes. Consequently, therefore, this new Mass is going to be used in parishes where the majority of parishioners will never have seen anything like it. I do understand that its use is described as optional, but in a small parish of mixed diocesan/Ordinariate folk, there is likely to be just one Mass on a Sunday morning, and therefore it will be the Ordinariate Mass.

    Reply
  27. Andrew Jordan

    I am coming late to this party, but I find I must say something.

    I am greatly shocked by the comments some ‘rank and file’ Catholics – even clergy! – have made above about the Ordinariate use. While I am fine with colloquial and informal language in private prayer, the liturgy is so much more than that. It should be intentionally set apart from street language to emphasize its otherness. This was so of the original Latin texts. There are many other examples – Church Slavonic was mentioned above. Tudor English is ideally suited for vernacular English liturgy, and not just for the elite and educated. To mock this only illustrates how far our culture has fallen.

    Truely the Philistines are strong in number; the barbarians have overrun the temple.

    Reply
  28. Mark O’Meara

    To #69:- “Truely”?
    Your affection for Tudor English is impressive. But I think you will find that it puts you (where I expect you are happy to be) firmly in the ‘mynoryte’.
    For myself, I am happy to be a Philistine or a barbarian in your eyes.

    Reply
  29. Rupert Brennan Brown

    I was received into the Church in 1993.

    In 2012 I enrolled in the Ordinariate. This was specifically so that I could embrace in my Catholic liturgical practice elements of my Anglican Patrimony.

    My young family and I attend our local Diocesan parish which celebrates the Ordinary Form Mass.

    However, I use the Customary of Our Lady for the Offices, the common parts of which I know almost by heart. I also use the Breviary.

    I find both spiritually rewarding.

    I look forward to attending Mass according to the Ordinariate Use. Its sacral language talks to me, and allows me to talk to God, in a way that I used to experience and love when I attended an Anglo-Catholic church in London that brought me to the faith.

    However, because of my location in the UK I will continue to attend my local parish church on a regular basis.

    I am perhaps a little surprised that those who might claim that the full fruits of Vatican II have not been achieved, appear most vociferous in their desire to ridicule Pope Benedict’s and now Pope Francis’ encouragement of a diversity of liturgical forms.

    Is there perhaps in certain quarters, and in the words of the BCP preface, ‘too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it’?

    Might I suggest that if you don’t like the Ordinariate Use – don’t attend one of their celebrations of Mass.

    Simples!

    Reply
  30. Shaughn Casey

    Mark O’Meara writes,

    “‘Remember, O Lord, thy servants and handmaids [N. and N.]‘.
    Servants and handmaids? Is that what we are?
    I am not a liturgical expert, and so I do not know whether this sort of archaic language is genuinely the ‘Anglican patrimony’, or whether someone has chosen to invent parts of the new Mass (in the last few months) in order to consolidate their group’s uniqueness within the wider RC Church?”

    It’s a perfectly appropriate translation of the Latin prayer, which is, “Memento etiam, Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum…” It also sounds much better than the painfully literal “male household slaves and female household slaves,” don’t you think? Forgive me for replying so late, but I felt obligated as a Latin teacher to defend accurate translations.

    Reply
    1. Karl Liam Saur

      @Shaughn Casey – comment #72:
      Enslaved valets and lady’s maids might work better. Let’s cross Downtown Abbey with the Palatine Hill….

      Then again, plain old servants would suffice.

      Reply
      1. Shaughn Casey

        @Karl Liam Saur – comment #73:

        Sure, you could. But then you lose the differentiation of masculine and feminine in the Latin. De gustibus, I know, but I prefer to preserve that when possible since the text so rarely does it.

      2. Karl Liam Saur

        @Shaughn Casey – comment #74:
        But “servants” is not masculine as a counterpoint to “handmaidens”

  31. Jim McKay

    Handmaids injects class differences, suggesting a servant in an upper class setting instead of the familiar setting of the famulus. Maybe ‘nannies’ is the best we could do when there are no real equivalents to social structures of ancient Rome or Tudor England.

    Reply
    1. Shaughn Casey

      @Jim McKay – comment #76:

      Class differences are hardly new and in a way a highly appropriate metaphor in this instance. God, for whom we are but servants and handmaidens, is of a higher, more transcendent class, as it were, than we are. Paul uses similar language in regard to himself. Mary herself refers to herself as an ancilla, which, again, is a handmaiden. (Here’s hoping the Ordinariate preserves the Anglican translation of the Magnificat. It’s lovely.) The issue here is one of taste, not one of theology. As I alluded earlier, “De gustibus non est disputandum.”

      Reply
  32. Jim McKay

    The issue here is meaning, not taste. There were an array of maids, with the handmaid being the one closest to the mistress of the house generally. A personal assistant and not an employee of one of the household divisions. “Servants and handmaids” suggests a difference, the faceless menial workers and the part-of-the-family helpers. The difference is class, not gender.

    If the passage used ancilla instead of famula, handmaid would be right. But it uses famulus and famula, male and female servants. English, like most other languages, has a custom of using the masculine plural for male and female. “famulorum famularumque” Is not the same as “famulorum ancillarumque” so the best solution is “servants” IMO.

    Reply
  33. John B. Waring

    Quick history. Before joining the ordinariate I took refuge at a modern Roman Catholic Church. I was raised in a 1928 Prayer Book Low Episcopal Church. In my formative years I was very use to the Tudor English and the Anglican Traditions. The liturgy became lost in time to me. For many years I was used to the knew Mass but never crossed the Tiber until the Anglican Ordinariate. Once going back to Anglican Style of my use the prayers became harder to say. But hearing the Humble Access, Collect for Purity and other Anglican style prayers again it took some use to getting used to it again but I have the best of both worlds fully Catholic that honors my Anglican DNA.

    Reply
  34. Arturo Mondello

    @Graham Wilson

    “Pompous poopery,” you say? Look to your OWN words, good sir.

    I doubt any logical appeal will work with someone who allows such visceral reactions to govern their judgment on sacred matters, but I’ll give it a shot anyway:

    1) You imply by your words that, if everything is not absolutely au courant, no genuine prayer will take place. If that be so, why are there still traditional Anglicans who use the 1928 BCP or Eastern Christians who still use Aramaic or Slavonic in their liturgies? Last time I checked, those weren’t exactly modern, and yet, I get the sense that plenty of genuine prayer takes place within their walls (unless we have totally different definitions of what constitutes “genuine prayer,” which may very well be the case).

    2) You explicitly state that, because Rome is being accommodating to a small community, they’re “giving the rest of the Catholic world the finger.” Would you say the same of Pius V, who allowed the tiny contingent of Ambrosian Rite Catholics (whose rite had existed since the 400s AD at least) to retain their unique patrimony following the introduction of the first Tridentine Missal?

    If yes, then you’re a far more uncharitable and holier-than-thou person than I thought. If no, how is the situation of the Anglican Use (retaining elements of a rite created over 400 years before the Mass of Bl. Paul VI) any different?

    3) Your statement seems to view of unity as “sameness,” as in, when everyone joins the Church, they all have to comport themselves the same way or everything goes wrong. THINK for a moment how this attitude would impact an Arab Christian or Eastern Orthodox Christian who becomes a Catholic. Do you honestly believe they should immediately feel at home with Haugen/Haas music and a clunky, awkward translation of Latin instead of a service in Aramaic or Church Slavonic with elements that are familiar to their culture?

    CONTINUED…

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  35. Arturo Mondello

    @Graham Wilson

    Well, guess what? The Anglicans may be a lot closer to home, and their numbers may be much smaller, but the same logic applies to them.

    I admit that I may not be treating you fairly, since your reaction was clearly heat-of-the-moment, but it betrays a very dangerous – dare I say it – pomposity towards those who are transitioning into a new faith and wish not to be subjected to a massive (and frankly, not very pleasant) culture shock; the same sort of pomposity that knocked the Eastern Catholics of the Twin Cities for a loop during the reign of John Ireland.

    Perhaps it’s just my youthful passion – I turned 21 this May – or the over-zealous attitude of a convert – four years and counting – but I can surely say, if accusations of “pompous poopery” and “giving the rest of us the finger” are all that this treasury of devout souls are going to meet with when they finally cross the Tiber, I WEEP for the future of the Pilgrim Church.

    Reply

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