30 May 2021

Ordination Season

Trinity Sunday, according to the tradition of the Latin Church, used to be the main day for Ordinations in the West: prepared for by the Pentecost Ember Week. Or, to be pedantic, ordinations happened at the Mass of the Ember Saturday, when the various orders were conferred after each of the lections.

Before both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion fiddled with their respective rites, the same words appeared in both the Roman Pontifical and the Prayer Book Ordinal as the Bishop laid hands upon the ordinandi: the Lord's own paschal and pentecostal words Accipe Spiritum Sanctum to his disciples, pointing to the Gift of the Spirit in a New Creation of a New Man, transcending even that of Genesis 2:7. Fittingly; because the priesthood we are given to share is at the heart of the Paschal Mystery. And the First Reading at Mattins, in both ecclesial traditions, used to be that unforgettable passage from Isaias (6) about the Divine Glory: Et audivi vocem Domini dicentis: Quem mittam? Et dixi: Ecce ego. Mitte me. "And I said: here am I; send me". Gratias tibi, Deus, gratias tibi, vera et una Trinitas, una et summa Deitas, sancta et una Unitas.

Sacrosanctum Concilium (23) decreed that "innovations should not happen unless a true and certain usefulness for the Church demands it". I still wonder why the Liturgia Horarum rejected that chapter from Isaias about the Glory of God in the Temple of God ... I wonder what true and certain usefulness it was that (so the Experts decided) demanded its elimination. Strangely, the Church of England revisers have remained unaware of the doubtless profound reasons which compelled the post-Conciliar 'Catholic' "reformers" to make this unhappy deletion: Isaiah 6 retains its place in Anglican lectionaries, and in the Ordinariate lectionary for Trinity Sunday. 

What a wonderful feast, how full of joy, today's solemnity is. I find it difficult to to feel sympatheia with PF when he grudgingly utters sour words about "the rigidity of abstract doctrine", as if dogma, which by definition must imply an abstractio from particularity and materiality, lacks the ability to thrill and to enchant and to be entered into and to be lived and to be shared with others. Poor chap ... what an impoverished life he must lead. Perhaps that's why he always looks so miserable (oops: the other day I saw on the Internet a picture of him laughing ... it was dated 2014 ... so perhaps I ought to have written 'often' rather than 'always').

A particular pleasure is praying in the Divine Office that great paean of praise, the Quicumque vult. Our Patron Saint John Henry Newman had described it as "The most simple and sublime, the most devotional formulary, to which Christianity has given birth". I wonder what he would have said could he have known that, in a century, the Latin Church to all intents and purposes would have eliminated it from her worship!

Its loss among both priests and people in the Catholic Church is probably one of the reasons for the doctrinal collapses in the Latin Church. The poor robbed clergy are no longer shaped by its pin-point orthodoxy as well as its beautiful cadences. A shame, too, that in the OF the profoundly beautiful Preface of the Most Holy Trinity is no longer heard Sunday by Sunday during the 'green' season. It is no wonder that, deep down and instinctively, so few people now really believe in the Holy Trinity. You hear both homilists and laity talking about "God and Jesus". I sometimes have a naughty feeling that only Byzantine Christians really believe in the Trinity. But, to give credit where credit is due, I've read several things by Vincent Nichols teaching the Godhead of the Son with great clarity.

On June 9 1968, which is when Trinity Sunday fell that year, Harry Carpenter laid his hands on me, on exactly the same spot as a previous Bishop of Oxford did the same thing on a Trinity Sunday to Saint John Henry Newman ... just a few yards from the bones of Oxford's Saxon Patron S Frideswide and those of Dr Pusey and the tomb of the last Abbot of Oseney, first Bishop of Oxford and the only one to have been in full communion with the See of S Peter.

My warmest good wishes to all brother priests who were ordained on a Trinity Sunday.

19 comments:

PDLeck said...

Father, I apologise for going off on a tangent as this comment relates not to your current post. I am hoping you are going to soon write a post on how our Dear Leader Boris Johnson was able to "marry" in Westminster Cathedral despite being married to Mrs. Allegra Johnson (née Mostyn-Owen), and having lived in open adultery with Miss Marina Claire Wheeler and Miss Carrie Symonds.

Scribe said...

Whenever I see mention of Bishop Carpenter, I recall the notice displayed in the vestry of St Paul's Walton Street: 'Nomen episcopi: Harricus.' That was in the heady days of Fr Patrick Horton and his curate Fr A.E. Wood, who succeeded him as vicar. Alas! both long dead and gone, and St Paul's is a milk bar, or warehouse, or something equally profane. How sad, and how faithless to abandon that gem of a church, which seemed to have been transposed miraculously from Paris!

frjustin said...

I am happy to note that this monastery does not recite Quicumque vult on Trinity Sunday. We SING it in full, in the vernacular, and conclude with a doxology, towards the end of the Office of Vigils. Once a year, on Trinity Sunday.

Shaun Davies said...

Was your ordination "stage managed" by Couratin's Circus ? Did they incorporate non-BCP feastures into the service ? I wonder how it compared to +Robert Exon in Exeter Cathedral. There is a short film online called Exeter which shows short glimpses of an ordination in the Cathedral with Canon Frank Rice and Prebendary Michael Moreton as Deacon ans Subdeacon. You have to watch the whole film because they show bits and pieces interspersed with archeological detail. The University Service also shows the late Prof. Canon Roy Porter and Dr Margaret Hewitt.

Peter said...

You could look at the Canon law blog by Ed Peters

frjustin said...

Dear PDLeck: there is a clear explanation of Boris Johnson's marriage in Westminster Cathedral at https://twitter.com/garydench/status/1398951088104132608

E sapelion said...

Moving further down that tangent: in English law you can call yourself anything you like. The lady in question calls herself "Allegra Dilshad Farha Raji Sheikha Jaan Khan Kali Gori" when teaching at the East London Mosque, or as a professional artist "Allegra Mostyn-Owen". One source describes her marriage to Boris as "anulled".

William Tighe said...

For PD Leck:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9635051/How-twice-wed-Boris-Johnson-able-marry-Catholic-church.html

PDLeck said...

Thank you to frjustin and William Tighe for the information you have supplied.

If his fourth marriage is to a Catholic he will need an annulment prior to being able to enter yet another marriage.

I shall eat someone's biretta (if they do not mind) if this marriage lasts until death they do part.

Josephus Muris Saliensis said...

Dear, dear me, O PDLeck! Do people on this blog never read our Host's words? Only two Posts past.

"Them do part." had you omitted the "death" then "they" would have worked, but you did not.

Nominative, O Nominative, why do you cling so?

Robin said...

Can Shauan Davies please tell us how to find this film. I knew Roy Porter and Margt Hewitt and by reputation Michael Moreton and would dearly love to see it.

PDLeck said...

Dear Josephus Muris Saliensis, I shall be happily corrected of two things. First, thhose were not my original choice of words. I believe I cited what is said in the marriage service. If my memory serves me correctly, and sadly these days it all too often does not, those are the correct words. In which case your argument is not with me. I admit I should have put those words in quotation marks. Secondly, if I have misquoted and thus your argument is with me, please cite me a reference from an established work on English grammar that shows my choice of pronoun case to be wrong.

Matthew said...

Robin: I knew then all, and was ordained in Exeter (though after Bp Mortimer's retirement). Here is a link to the film:
https://www.nfb.ca/film/exeter/?fbclid=IwAR286Le_KTYfv6h2lMLkR8IVSJHiAzZ5YsRzNVgGDhXUvU8O5I2zdXiC1rM

Josephus Muris Saliensis said...

Dear PDLeck, I reply only because you invite me to.

You do not specify which Marriage Service. The Catholic Marriage Service has the phrase "To love and to cherish, till death do you part" (exchange of Consent). The Book of Common Prayer says "To love and to cherish, till death us do part" (vows of the parties). Both grammatically correct, obviously.

While accepting the falling away of memory, to which I too am all too prone, this is NOT what you wrote. You wrote: "until death they do part."

"You" (to be fair) does not outwardly decline, but 'We" - "us" does; you need the accusative here. That is what I said before, and that is what I repeat now. "Them", not "they". Accusative.

Had you, of course, added a preposition "in", as: "in death they do part", then it would have been correct. But you did not.

As to the Exeter footage - it was on YouTube a couple of years ago, now gone. It was lovely, how very sad. Now only smiling lady deacons to maintain the tradition of learned anglicanism. "Sic ..."

William Tighe said...

A Question: "What would be worse, that BJ faked an insincere confession, or that the Church authorities waived (or ignored) the requirement in his case?"

One response: "I suppose the former for his soul but the latter for the Church. The more one thinks about this the more absurd it becomes. The Church cannot have it both ways. Either Boris is a Catholic (in which case he should have had to repent of his apostasy and return to the Church before being allowed to marry) or he is not (which seems to me the better view) in which case he should not have been granted 2 annulments."

Victor said...

I see no need to assume either. Until proven otherwise, I believe that both parties were properly informed and made a sincere confession.

Robin said...

Regarding the film 'Exeter' thanks to Shaun Davies for the sugggestion and to Matthew for the link. How wonderful to see great names before the Church of England really changed. And what a journey to the past to see all those women in hats at the University Service. Bishop Mortimer reminded me of something a clergy wife whose husband had been induced to go to his diocese once told me. 'Bishop Mortimer said he wanted scholarly men in his diocese-alas his successor boasted that he never read a book and the next bishop gave books to other people to read for him.' Still as I often say to myself thinking of the past: 'But that was all a long time ago.' Or 'autre temps, autre moeurs'.

Shaun Davies said...

Bishop Mortimer looked like a real medieval bishop with long features and with "The Look".I wish that the photographs of him in THE BISHOP IN CHURCH were larger and clearer.
The late Canon John Thurmer, formerly Chancellor of the cathedral and expert on Dorothy Sayers can be seen at the university service among the Profs., he was then University Chaplain.He and Canon Frank Rice were the last, I suppose, of the old style High Church Canons of the Cathedral. They kept the very fine Sung Eucharist, done as an eastward facing High Mass until well into the 1970s/early 80s.

Josephus Muris Saliensis said...

Thanks indeed to Michael for the Exeter link. What a joy. Such language, such accents, such England!

So lovely to see a very young Roy Porter. He was a good friend, indeed came to my reception into Holy Mother Church, and we saw each other regularly thereafter, as we lived nearby. Few Anglican friends kept in touch, apart occasionally for Christmas cards. Converts are such a threat to their comfortable status quo, you see. But not to great men. RIP.