Newman and the Prayer Book

In his 1848 novel Loss and Gain, the soon-to-be-beatified John Henry Newman mercilessly satirises all non-conformity, Evangelicalism, and vacuous ritualism. He does not criticise solid old-style Anglicanism (although one can easily discern a hermeneutic of its inadequacy).

In Chapter 8, the Misses Bolton, "very Catholic girls", have just been discussing the religious vocation with two rather handsome young ritualists; the discussion has manifestly been little other than a cover for flirtation. When they get home, their mother bursts out "Catholic, Catholic? give me good old George the Third and the Protestant religion. Those were the times! ... I value the Prayer Book as you cannot do, for I have known what it is to one in deep affliction. May it be long, dearest girls, before you know it in a similar way; but if affliction comes on you, depend on it, all these new fancies and fashions will vanish from you like the wind, and the good old Prayer Book alone will stand you in any stead. Come my dears; I have spoken too seriously. Go and take your things off, and come and let us have some quiet work before luncheon time".

One old Anglican custom was to learn the week's collect each week. Since nearly all of these are, of course, translated from the ancient Roman sacramentaries, this was a way of tapping into and being fed by an ancient and deeply orthodox euchological tradition.

No sane Roman Catholic would have learned the ICEL translations of these collects off by heart. But, with the new translation imminent (assuming the ineffable Trautmann does not succeed in spinning the authorisation process out into the next pontificate but one), Catholics will have a set of texts which could indeed be so treated. Indeed, Liturgiam authenticam sees the provision of sound translations, and a period of stability, as being an important cultural opportunity for liturgical formulae to become a nutrient part of the spirituality of the Catholic worshipper.

(I think the obvious place for the beatification is the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. The proceedings more or less write themselves: the Holy Father could be given by diploma an honorary degree; the Proctors could take the suffrages of the Regent Masters; and then the new beatus could be proclaimed. Chancellor and Pontiff could then be led by the bedells either to Newman's church of our Lady, or to the Chapel of Cardinal College, where another great Servant of God, Newman's friend Pusey, is buried, for the Mass. S Stephen's House could provide the servers. S Thomas's could provide the vestments.)

More Daft Rituals

Anointing; or, as the people who typeset services often spell it, Annointing. We have a new fashion - or do I mean fad - what is the difference? - of anointing a cleric whenever he or she changes jobs. Priests going to a new parish; bishops committing the spiritual adultery of swapping bishoprics (do you remember the conversation between Bertie Stanhope and Bishop Proudie: Bishop: "Translations from see to see happen rather less frequently nowadays"; Bertie: "Yes, they've cut them all down to more or less the same income now, haven't they?").

When I was licensed at S Thomas's, I had to make a stand against being anointed; Ordination is the only Unction a priest needs. And I gather that the installation of new diocesans is now generally accompanied by lavish unctuosity.

Is there a connexion between the fact that the C of E has definitively set out on a path of ecumenical divergence from Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy, and the new appetite for misusing (and thus cheapening) traditional Catholic usages? And does anyone know when all this nonsense started? Is it another of B*****'s inspirations?

Last Gospels

I think it's probably the idea of "Bubbles" Stancliff, Bishop of Salisbury, a resolute enemy of our Integrity but a very High Church lover of exotic ritual novelty: the Ritualists' ritualist. The idea? "Resurrect the Last Gospel"! It's suggested in a recent semi-official book of Fancy Rituals which I won't give you the details of because I disapprove of that sort of thing and I wouldn't want anyone to go out and buy a copy (I haven't. Give me the sober dignity which characterises both traditional Roman Liturgy and the old ethos of the C of E, any day of the week.)

The idea? To bring back the last Gospel. No; not the traditional Johannine prologue. This new idea is perhaps inspired more by the (rather late) Roman Rubric providing for a variety of different Last Gospels (usually from important Masses which have been reduced to a commemoration in the Mass which one has just said).

The new "Bubbles" style Last Gospels would conclude Mass on Festivals with a brief Reading which would summarise the theme and meaning of the festival, and be ringing in the ears of the faithful as they left church.

Moving chairs on the Titanic, do I hear you say? Well, yes, but the Bubbleses of this world do not believe in icebergs.

Post scriptum

(1) "Was Bishop Andrew's Jubilee an ecumenical event?"
Definitely. There was a very nice gentleman there called Bishop Colin representing the Church of England.
(2) "Anglican Catholics have no sense of humour".
Untrue and unfair. Inside the cover of last evening's service book is a sentence "Common Worship ... material from which is included in this service, is copyright C The Archbishops' Council".

Dies triplex

Yesterday, up the road to the Oxford Oratory for the Requiem and Funeral ceremonies of a Roman Catholic parishioner, Mr Paul Mellins. Paul had stipulated (liturgical orthopraxy is in the very air of West Oxford) that his exsequies should be according to the old rite; and how decently it was done. Low Mass with a cantor; the Roman liturgical tradition at its very finest - so dignified, restrained, objective; nothing but the certainty of death and judgement and the fact of Man's sin, Man's need, God's mercy.

The rite ended with a champagne reception, which I sadly had to miss to hurry back to S Thomas's for the Wednesday 12.30 Mass. Fort the first time since the 1960s I observed the Feast of the Most Precious Blood - and what a fine way that is to start July. What glories Bugnini robbed us of; this celebration of the shed blood of the suffering Redeemer which for ever speaks for us before the Father's throne. Incidentally, the Lauds Office hymn is a beautiful expression of the spirituality of the devotion to the Five Wounds, which so animated our Anglican Catholic forefathers in their rebellions against the Tudor tyrannies. Three cheers for Pio Nono, one of my favourite pontiffs.

Viva viva Gesu; S Alfonso's lovely hymn to the Precious Blood (Caswall translation) began another manifestation of West Oxford liturgical orthopraxy, the celebration by our Apostolic Administrator of the Silver Jubilee of his Sacerdotal Ordination. S Barnabas' was packed with clergy and faithful laity who were edified by a homily preached by Bishop Keith, of the Richborough Apostolic District, naturally very relevant to the Year of the Priest proclaimed by our Holy Father, and by a Solemn Pontifical Mass which represented the very best of all that is meant by the Reform of the Reform. It concluded with Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Solemn Pontifical Benediction, and the presentation of flowers at the feet of our Lady while the choir sang Ave Maria.

Since Bishop Andrew is a distiguished musiclogist, our aural appetites were not starved. I felt the welcome presence of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the contribution to it of early recusant England; two hymns by S Alfonso; music by Byrd and Tallis and de Victoria (long a favourite of Bishop Andrew). And the Avignon origins of so much that we love in the Counter-Reformation was represented by the Anima Christi attributed to Pope John XXII "arr. AB".

Bishop Andrew observes "A polyphonic Sanctus is designed to be sung over a silent canon and a polyphonic Benedictus is intrinsically a meditation on the eucharistic presence while the canon proceeds". And that is what we had. Memories of days as an Anglo-Catholic undergraduate were revived by hearing the propers sung according to the psalm tones.

For liturgical pundits, a rarely observed ritual was the rite described in the Appendix 77 of some editions of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, the one headed De floribus ad uxorem Pontificis deferendis in Iubilaeo celebrando.

Ordo Ordo Ordo

My ORDO is printed by the Additional Curates Society at Gordon Browning House, 8 Spitfire [Yes!] Road, Birmingham B24 9PB Telephone 0121 382 5533 ; and is a product of Tufton Books, The Church Union 2A the Cloisters, Gordon Square, London WC 1H 0AG and Faith House, 7 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3QN Telephone 0207 222 6952. The ISBN number is 9-780851-913278.

"The purpose of this ORDO is to serve worship needs of Anglicans and Roman Catholics. For the former it provides for the recitation of Morning and Evening Prayer and the celebration of Holy Communion in accordance with modern forms autorised or encouraged in the Provinces of Canterbury and York. These forms are selected, arranged, and interpreted in the the spirit of what has become generally customary in Western Christendom since the Second Vatican Council; but notes draw attention to Orthodox insights.

"It also provides a full Calendar according to the modern Roman Rite, together with explanatory and catechetical notes ...

"Anglicans who prefer forms of Liturgy based on the Book of Common Prayer will find a lectionary designed for use with the BCP ... "

Fidei Defensatrix

Moved by Duffy's new book, I went to look at some medals in the B Mus; not least the one Duffy reproduces showing Anglia supplex being raised up by a beneficent Roman Pontiff.

There is another medal nearby, presumably dating from before the Spanish Marriage since Good Queen Mary is shown alone and without any Hapsburg titles. But she does have the title Fidei Defensatrix.

Was the statute by which Henry Tudor secured Fidei Defensor to himself after the breach with Rome still on the statute books? Did Mary continue too use it? Was Elizabeth ever Defensatrix, or did she go for the unisex Defensor?

That's just the sort of information Professor Tighe would have at his fingertips.

A Swiss PEV

I've just listened to the interview Bishop Fellay did with a Canadian priest-journalist; I was struck by the resemblance between his manner and that of our English "PEVs", the 'emergency' bishops who look after traditionalist Anglicans. There is the same unpompous kindly humility and sense that only a crisis in orthodoxy has propelled him into a less than normative structure of episcopal service to an orthodox remnant.

I wonder whether there would be the present revirescence of Traditionalism in our Western churches (Motu proprio; Reform of the Reform) if Marcel Lefebvre had not done what he did.

On this anniversary of Bishop Fellay's consecration, I think we should pray for him and the flock he guides. And for the English PEVs and the flocks they guide.

Palliate Concelebrants

I think I observed, on the video of the Mass at which the Sovereign Pontiff delivered the Pallia to new archbishops, that when they came up to the altar to make their communions each first took a half of a 'priest's host' out of a low lying vessel, intincted it in a Chalice, and then received it.

This seems a lot neater than having deacons running round with ciboria, an artificial pause while the celebrants waits for this to be completed so that he and the concelebrants can then receive the Host simultaneously, and then the journey of the concelebrants up to the chalice.

Assuming, of course, that the Concelebration fashion is to continue anyway. How much neater still for each priest to have said his own Mass ealier and to sit in choir. I shall see whether Bishop Andrew, at his Jubilee Mass tomorrow, is neat, neater, or neatest.

(For the record: I am not a supporter of the current pseudo-traditionalist fad - or do I mean fashion - of sneering at Concelebration where it is deeply suitable and sanctified by the tradition of the Latin Church: at Ordinations and Chrism Masses and ...)

July festivals

I've been mad and wild. It started off when I realised that, this year, the Visitation on May 31 would be expunged by Pentecost. I resolved to observe, here at S Thomas's, the Visitation on its original date of July 2. Then ... you know how one thing leads to another ... I succumbed to the temptation to start July in a fully EF way. So the Precious Blood went onto the S Thomas's Calendar for July 1: the day from which Bugnini removed it on the specious ground that it duplicated Corpus Christi (which he accordingly and cumbrously renamed Corpus et Sanguis Christi). Nonsense. The Festival of July 1 concentrated on the redemptive power of the Precious Blood, Corpus Christi on the Eucharist. Of course they are connected, but they are not a duplication. Bugnini also claimed that Holy Cross day was duplicated by the Precious Blood ... you see the daft logic. The reductio ad absurdum would be to reduce the calendar to Christmas, Easter Day, and All Saints. Though, come to think of it All Saints really duplicatesEaster ...

Actually, we have a splendid start to July here in the Ebbsfleet Apostolic District. The Apostolic Administrator decided to celebrate his Jubilee on July 1, in S Barnies.It should be a good event.

Ordo, Ordo

I hope everybody is diligently buying my 2010 ORDO. But there are, of course, other ORDOs.

Not many people will be able to follow to the letter the calendar and rites prescribed by the ORDO published by The Saint Lawrence Press. But, if one can read highly abbreviated Latin, it will prove a treasury of information about a past (?) age; the age of the Roman Rite as it existed before Pius XII, before 1939. Follow this thread ...
... on the first Sunday in July, all Masses are permitted of the Precious Blood. This is explained in the introduction, page 3: "Where an external solemnity of feasts, which before the last reform of the Roman Breviary were permanently fixed to some Sunday with the rank of double of the first or second class, is celebrated on that Sunday to which the feast was formerly attached, all masses are permitted ...".
For example: The feast of Precious Blood, made universal by Pius IX to celebrate the end of the Roman Revolution in 1849, was by him put onto the first Sunday in July. But the early Liturgical Movement objected to the large number of Sundays in the year on which the ancient Sunday Mass was superseded by a sexier and more fashionale pious celebration. The great Adrian Fortescue wrote: "We obey the authority of the Church, of course, always. But it is not forbidden to hope for such a pope again as Benedict XIV who will give us back more of our old Roman Calendar. Footnote Since this was written the hope has been already in great part fulfilled. The decree Divino afflatu of November. 1, 1911 does give us back much of the old Proprium temporis for office and Mass." In this reform of S Pius X, a lot of the festivals attached to particular Sundays were transferred to fixed days, so that only infrequently would they displace a Sunday Mass . The Precious Blood was moved to July 1. There, it preceded the Visitation. This meant that that it didn't get a proper Second Vespers, since both were of the same rank (double of the second class) and the Visitation was entitled to a first Vespers . Accordingly, in 1934, Pius XI raised the precious Blood to a double of the first class so that it outranked the Visitation.

Incidentally, nothing much changes. How many Sundays nowadays are cluttered up with the currently fashioble Themes:Environment Sunday, Education Sunday, Vocation Sunday ... There is a law of liturgical history: clutter clutter clutter prune, clutter clutter ...

Brichtelmestunensis dixit ...

Some time ago, a blogger whom I read and admire wrote : "the centre of communion is the person of the bishop of Rome". I wonder if this is quite accurately focussed.

A long time ago the well-know Anglican Catholic theologian Eric Mascall, described by Fr Aidan Nichols as a separated Magister fidei Catholicae, pointed out that there are papal vacancies, and this must have a significance. History provides us with examples as long as some three years, but even if the longest papal interregnum were only three minutes the logical problem would remain. During that three minutes, would we have to say that the Church Universal had no visible and earthly centre of unity?

I feel we are on safer ground in asserting that the centre of communion is the Roman Church, which at the beginning of the second century S Ignatius decribed as presiding over the Agape. The Roman Church, unlike the Roman Pontiff, never for a moment ceases to exist. And the Roman Pontiff himself is not a conceptually isolated individual, an episcopus vagans. His existence and meaning and ministry and significance are rooted in and inseparable from the fact that he is Bishop of Rome, Peter's Church, where Peter still speaks with authority.

My proposal in no way disturbs the definitions of Vatican I about papal Primacy and Infallibility. The bishop of any church is that church's authorised Spirit-endowed teacher, equipped with what S Irenaeus described as his charisma certum veritatis [reliable gift of truth]. So the bishop of Rome is the one who authoritatively articulates the teaching which the Roman Church authentically preserves and expresses.