Solemnity

Wednesday is, of course, in the Ebbsfleet Apostolic District, the Solemnity of our Patron S Gregory. So on Tuesday we have our First Vespers and on the Day full solemnity usage: three readings at Mass, Gloria and Creed, and the Divine office in Solemnity mode.

What do readers think about S Gregory the Liturgist? Wasn't he a bit of a Bugnini? He had to face criticisms that he had Byzantinised the Roman Rite after picking up nasty Eastern habits during his years as apocrisiarius (Nuncio) in Byzantium: and, indeed, it seems likely that he did move the Fraction to after the Pater Noster. And then there was his advice to S Augustine to put together a conflate rite of whatever suitable bits and pieces he found in places other than Rome! What a good thing it is that S Augustine ignored this idea and gave the Church of England the Roman Rite pretty pure and simple! But his tampering with the Canon Romanus was minimal, so perhaps he can squeeze inside Alcuin Reid's definition of 'organic' development. I recall Dudley Symon's 1959 thesis that the ethos of the Church of England is more 'Roman' than that of any other Church in Christendom. Except that it isn't now. Nostalgia, nostalgia.