(1) New Liturgical Movement has a very good illustrated piece about a reprint of Enid Chadwick's (1902-1987) sparkling illustrated exposition of the Church's Year, My Book of the Church's Year. NLM says (I couldn't possibly comment) how much better it is than any similar ostensibly 'Catholic' book for children.
Walsingham pilgrims will know that Enid Chadwick was largely responsible for the decorative scheme of the splendidly numinous (Anglican) shrine at Walsingham ... murals, reliquaries, heraldry .... Her style is by now, delightfully, old enough to have a retro charm!
(2) My Eugepae!! piece elicited a comment from Mgr Edwin, Bishop emeritus of Richborough, that Patrimony isn't only Liturgy. He's absolutely dead right. Whenever I get an opportunity to preach, lecture, or read a paper, I ensure that it is dotted with the Anglican writings and insights of Newman, Pusey, Keble, Jalland, Dix, Knox, Mascall, Farrer, Lewis, Sayers ... you fill in the aposiopesis! Much healthier stuff than ... er ...
And not least, I use the satirical writings of that famous Protonotary Apostolic Ronald Knox; to whom I myself turn to be cheered up when I am a trifle depressed ... as I seem to be now ... I wonder why .... Yesterday, I came across this:
"Facts are only steam which obscures the mirror of Truth."
It is attributed to a prelate Knox mentions from time to time, not, I think, always with much approbation, the Bishop of Much Wenlock.
Personally, I don't feel I ought to spend my Old Age Pension (or even Pam's) on Crockfords or the Catholic Yearbook, so I can't check whether this Pontiff is Anglican or Catholic (somehow I don't think he's Orthodox). Readers may be able to provide me with an appropriate hermeneutic of discernment.
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6 comments:
Good question.
Given his choice of language, the Bishop of Much Wenlock must be from the same stable as the fat ghost bishop in The Great Divorce: "I should object very strongly to describing God as a 'fact'. The Supreme Value would surely be a less inadequate description." You'll recall that he chooses not to stay in Heaven because he has to "be back next Friday to read a paper. We have a little Theological Society down there. Oh yes! there is plenty of intellectual life. Not of a very high quality, perhaps. One notices a certain lack of grip - a certain confusion of mind."
This in itself doesn't help us in deciding whether ++Much Wenlock is Anglican or Catholic. However, the fat ghost bishop not only wears gaiters (a sartorial custom which our Catholic fathers in God, as far as I know, never adopted) but also finally turns away "humming softly to itself 'City of God, how broad and far'. This hymn is in the various Anglican hymnals in my possession, but in none of the Catholic ones. The fat ghost is clearly an Anglican. Ergo, the Bishop of Much Wenlock is also an Anglican.
Oh, Father, as fond as I am of physical books, one need not make an investment to inquire as to whether or not a see has been properly erected, or fallen in partibus infidelium, or what have you. You just need to browse over to http://catholic-hierarchy.org: the layout and color scheme are dreadful, but the information is vast.
Kind of you, dear Father, to mention my little comment on your previous entry; but my contention is that the Patrimony is not PRINCIPALLY about liturgy. I trust both you and Mgr Lopes would concur. Liturgy is only a tiny and not very important part of the Patrimony, at least so far as English (and Welsh and Scots) Anglicans are concerned. I fancy it might be otherwise in the old colonies.
If such a prelate existed, he would, I think, be a suffragan of the diocese of Hereford. Shropshire has no Anglican cathedral, but is divided between the dioceses of Lichfield (with a suffragan Bishop of Shrewsbury) and Hereford (with suffragan see of Ludlow). Given its importance in the Marches, it's a bit odd that Shrewsbury had to wait for Blessed Pius IX to get a cathedral!
Sad to disagree with 'Edwin' but for me liturgy is an enormous part of the patrimony. I am profoundly grateful that the source and summit of our Christian lives in the Ordinariates, and the worship of the Occasional and Daily Offices, has been enshrined by our holy Mother the Church of Rome in the most moving, dignified and distinguished register of which our language has so far proved itself capable.
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