Sunday in the Chair of Unity Octave ... a Commemoration at Mass for S Nicolas Owen, the recusant carpenter who made so many of the 'priests' holes' in which Elizabethan Romanist clergy hid? An Oxford man born and bred, racked until he ruptured, and a great saint. It set me wondering whether, in this age of Apologies (I've lost count of how many groups the almost Blessed John Paul II was induced ... I hope non-infallibly ... to apologise to), our General Synod has yet apologised to English Roman Catholics for our long and bloody persecution of them, or to the Unitarians for so cheerfully burning them. Next ... has our House of Bishops yet apologised to the Catholic Movement for the persecution of the Ritualists by Victorian bishops? Have the successors of Archbishop Fisher apologised for his treatment of Catholic Anglicans in London during his episcopate there? Or has his successor updated Fisher's anti-Catholic bigotry by taking the lead in ferociously declining to consider church-sharing with the Ordinariate?
For, of course, the great favourite to be sneered at now is the Ordinariate. Witness that disgraceful 'Sunday' programme by Ed Stourton, about which I posted. How long shall we have to wait for Apologies ...
Then I hit upon a brilliant idea. Why can't the persecuting classes scythe through this important historical process by apologising at precisely the same time as they perpetrate their aggression? Thus, every time an Establishment bishop or archdeacon gets nasty with priests or people heading for the Ordinariate, or the Bishop of Barchester and his RC opposite number the Bishop of Silverbridge cosy up together and issue a joint declaration on the undesirability of the Ordinariate having any churches of its own, or "Spirit of Vatican II" papists and Grauniad journalists wax eloquently and Oh-so-amusingly about the dodgy characters entering the Ordinariate and the colour of their wives' hats: the computers of all these significant people could be programmed to issue simultaneously a sincere, 'historic', heart-felt, movingly-expressed, manly, open-and-honest, covering-all-the-details, gives-us-the-moral-high-ground, apology (copy to all the Press Agencies) for doing so.
You know it makes sense.
23 January 2011
22 January 2011
POST scriptum
I've had my attention drawn to an interesting post in the blog Eastern Christian Books; which rather bears upon my last post ... and also upon a point I've made several times about the lack of an epiclesis (Byzantine style) in the Roman Canon being a sign of its immense antiquity - and about how questionable it is when "Western Rite Orthodox" (follow Bugnini and) tamper with this august monument to early Christianity.
Christian Unity Week
I think one of the most sensible things said in the realm of Ecumenism for quite a long time was the welcome given by the late Patriarch Alexis of Moskow to Benedict XVI's liberation of the Old Roman Ordo Missae."The recovery and valuing of the ancient liturgical tradition is a fact that we welcome positively".
I always feel uneasy about Western Christians who adopt a few of the sexier externals of Byzantine devotion and feel very pleased with themselves about it (Byzantine customs with regard to fasting are not commonly among the elements they appear to borrow). Likewise, I get no pleasure at all from the thought of footloose Byzantine Christians believing that their Christianity is incomplete until they have gone shopping in my tradition. Each lawful tradition is in itself a wholesome and holistic entire way of living the Christian life.
The real Ecumenism is: that each of us should drink ever more deeply in the pure fountains of our own tradition. As we come to know our own way to Christ better and better, we shall discover surprising things about our oneness in Christ*.
As Patriarch Alexis went on to say, it was purely through its rootedness in the Byzantine tradition of lived worship that the Russian Church was enabled to survive the twentieth century atheist persecutions. It is in commitment to the life of each tradition that the Lord, and the strength he gives, are found.
__________________________________________________________________
*To take as an example a small matter of detail: when recently, after carefully investigating the Roman tradition, I wrote about the Diaconate as a cultic, not philanthropic, Order, some Western comments did not grasp my point: ".... it's surely both .......", they cried, perhaps a trifle condescendingly, as if such an obvious thought could never have occurred to me.
But Russian Village Priest instantly knew what I was talking about.
I always feel uneasy about Western Christians who adopt a few of the sexier externals of Byzantine devotion and feel very pleased with themselves about it (Byzantine customs with regard to fasting are not commonly among the elements they appear to borrow). Likewise, I get no pleasure at all from the thought of footloose Byzantine Christians believing that their Christianity is incomplete until they have gone shopping in my tradition. Each lawful tradition is in itself a wholesome and holistic entire way of living the Christian life.
The real Ecumenism is: that each of us should drink ever more deeply in the pure fountains of our own tradition. As we come to know our own way to Christ better and better, we shall discover surprising things about our oneness in Christ*.
As Patriarch Alexis went on to say, it was purely through its rootedness in the Byzantine tradition of lived worship that the Russian Church was enabled to survive the twentieth century atheist persecutions. It is in commitment to the life of each tradition that the Lord, and the strength he gives, are found.
__________________________________________________________________
*To take as an example a small matter of detail: when recently, after carefully investigating the Roman tradition, I wrote about the Diaconate as a cultic, not philanthropic, Order, some Western comments did not grasp my point: ".... it's surely both .......", they cried, perhaps a trifle condescendingly, as if such an obvious thought could never have occurred to me.
But Russian Village Priest instantly knew what I was talking about.
19 January 2011
ORDINARIATE millinery
Am I right in thinking that the clerus almae Urbis historically wear birettas without those French bobbles? and that, as clergy directly subject to the Roman Pontiff, clergy of the Ordinariate fall into that category (together with Redemptorists, Oratorians .... anybody else?)
Will such clergy need to borrow their wives' scissors on the morning of incardination?
And how about those sixteenth century Roman collars worn by Redemptorists and Oratorians?
I shall delete comments which make nasty insinuations about the priorities of Anglican Catholics.
Will such clergy need to borrow their wives' scissors on the morning of incardination?
And how about those sixteenth century Roman collars worn by Redemptorists and Oratorians?
I shall delete comments which make nasty insinuations about the priorities of Anglican Catholics.
18 January 2011
Calendar matters: the ORDINARIATE
Do I take it that, automatically, the Commemorations of our Lady of Walsingham (September 21) and of Bl John Henry Newman (October 9) are, in the Ordinariate, Solemnities (or, depending on the language you speak, Doubles of the First Class)?
We ORDO Compilers need to know these things.
We ORDO Compilers need to know these things.
A model of Christian tact ...
... is found in the wording of the Vatican Information Service announcement of the appointment of the Ordinary (I wonder if "Reverend" rather than "Fr" means it was signed or prepared for signature between Thursday evening and Saturday noon). Anything which, as this announcement does, emphasises continuities rather than discontinuities is to be welcomed.
I wonder, too, how one names a non-episcopal ordinary in the new Eucharistic Prayers. "Ordinario"? In Te igitur, I rather think that Antistite, which does not actually mean Bishop, could be vague enough to stand. Does anybody know what happened, ex.gr., in Abbeys nullius, in the pre-Vatican II days?
I wonder, too, how one names a non-episcopal ordinary in the new Eucharistic Prayers. "Ordinario"? In Te igitur, I rather think that Antistite, which does not actually mean Bishop, could be vague enough to stand. Does anybody know what happened, ex.gr., in Abbeys nullius, in the pre-Vatican II days?
16 January 2011
ORDNARIATE: Common Sense and Mutual Enrichment
Just back from Bishop Andrew's First RC Mass in the Oratory ...
Well, it must still be All Right to refer to him as "Bishop Andrew" because Fr Aidan Nichols did so in his brilliantly characteristic homily. Fr Aidan has been House Theologian to the Ordinariate during all those many long years before The Project actually turned into The Ordinariate; he first sketched the theological meaning of an Anglicanism united but not absorbed in his The Panther and the Hind. Since then, there have been meetings of the FIF theological group with him in the cellars at Gordon Square; Fr Aidan always so gracious, so sympathetic, so helpful, so erudite, so generous. The first time I read a paper - a very poor one - in his presence, I remember how nervous I felt; but there was no need to.
Fr Aidan returned, today, to the great enterprise of gathering up the fragments that none be lost; of appropriating, for the good of all the church, the Anglican inheritance discerned through the purifying prism of Catholic Orthodoxy. He mentioned that Bishop Andrew is engaged in the liturgical side of that - but made clear, referring especially to Blessed John Henry and the Tractarian Fathers, that there is much more to it than Liturgy. His homily, I think, counts as the Programmatic Statement of the Ordinariate as far as theology is concerned. I hope he stays involved.
If Fr Aidan's homily was characteristic, so was Bishop Andrew's liturgy. Fine music (Byrd; Morales); Latin from the Sursum corda until the Communion. We had examples of what the American blogosphere now calls Common Sense and Mutual Enrichment. Sanctus covered the (silent) first half of the Canon Romanus and Benedictus the second half; we were spared those horrid 'Acclamations' after the Consecration. At the Invitation to Communion, Bishop Andrew continued his custom of using the New ICEL translation of Ecce Agnus Dei.
I arrived home to hear the end of the celebratory peal rung on the S Thomas's (ten) very fine bells. That's Patrimony, too.
Well, it must still be All Right to refer to him as "Bishop Andrew" because Fr Aidan Nichols did so in his brilliantly characteristic homily. Fr Aidan has been House Theologian to the Ordinariate during all those many long years before The Project actually turned into The Ordinariate; he first sketched the theological meaning of an Anglicanism united but not absorbed in his The Panther and the Hind. Since then, there have been meetings of the FIF theological group with him in the cellars at Gordon Square; Fr Aidan always so gracious, so sympathetic, so helpful, so erudite, so generous. The first time I read a paper - a very poor one - in his presence, I remember how nervous I felt; but there was no need to.
Fr Aidan returned, today, to the great enterprise of gathering up the fragments that none be lost; of appropriating, for the good of all the church, the Anglican inheritance discerned through the purifying prism of Catholic Orthodoxy. He mentioned that Bishop Andrew is engaged in the liturgical side of that - but made clear, referring especially to Blessed John Henry and the Tractarian Fathers, that there is much more to it than Liturgy. His homily, I think, counts as the Programmatic Statement of the Ordinariate as far as theology is concerned. I hope he stays involved.
If Fr Aidan's homily was characteristic, so was Bishop Andrew's liturgy. Fine music (Byrd; Morales); Latin from the Sursum corda until the Communion. We had examples of what the American blogosphere now calls Common Sense and Mutual Enrichment. Sanctus covered the (silent) first half of the Canon Romanus and Benedictus the second half; we were spared those horrid 'Acclamations' after the Consecration. At the Invitation to Communion, Bishop Andrew continued his custom of using the New ICEL translation of Ecce Agnus Dei.
I arrived home to hear the end of the celebratory peal rung on the S Thomas's (ten) very fine bells. That's Patrimony, too.
15 January 2011
Westminster Cathedral and the Ordinariate
No. I wasn't in "WC" this morning. I had a prior engagement.
I went to the Oratory Church in Oxford for the Reception of Mr James Turner, former Head Sacristan of Pusey House (of which I am privileged to be a Senior Research Fellow).
This splendid event represented all that is most attractive about the 'current religious scene'. James is young and intelligent, as are so may of those taking this stage in their own pilgrimages. It was good to meet again, at this event, Mr Andrew Wagstaffe, a valued friend since the time I taught him at Lancing College. He, also, was a Head Sacristan at Pusey before he entered into full communion six years ago; he is one of the half-dozen most brilliant people whom I had the fun of teaching (I think he may be known to that distinguished priest and blogger Fr Ray Blake).
Other friends were there; Mr John Whitehead, of Oriel College, a former Churchwarden of S Thomas's and now a member of the Oratory congregation; together with one of my present Churchwardens ... and ... and ... and apologies for not naming all of you. Others hovered invisibly present ... Martin, I thought of you, immured in your Norwegian seminary, during the Mass. Remember us in your prayers.
The rite of reception, and the Mass which followed , were in the pre-Conciliar rite; a final joyful evidence of the vivid reappropriation of the Catholic Latin tradition and of the Hermeneutic of Continuity which are integral to the Benedictine Renaissance in the Western Church. Sancte Pater, ad multos annos.
May the Immaculate Mother of God, our Lady of Walsingham, and Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us all; and especially for Keith, Ordinary of our Lady of Walsingham.
I went to the Oratory Church in Oxford for the Reception of Mr James Turner, former Head Sacristan of Pusey House (of which I am privileged to be a Senior Research Fellow).
This splendid event represented all that is most attractive about the 'current religious scene'. James is young and intelligent, as are so may of those taking this stage in their own pilgrimages. It was good to meet again, at this event, Mr Andrew Wagstaffe, a valued friend since the time I taught him at Lancing College. He, also, was a Head Sacristan at Pusey before he entered into full communion six years ago; he is one of the half-dozen most brilliant people whom I had the fun of teaching (I think he may be known to that distinguished priest and blogger Fr Ray Blake).
Other friends were there; Mr John Whitehead, of Oriel College, a former Churchwarden of S Thomas's and now a member of the Oratory congregation; together with one of my present Churchwardens ... and ... and ... and apologies for not naming all of you. Others hovered invisibly present ... Martin, I thought of you, immured in your Norwegian seminary, during the Mass. Remember us in your prayers.
The rite of reception, and the Mass which followed , were in the pre-Conciliar rite; a final joyful evidence of the vivid reappropriation of the Catholic Latin tradition and of the Hermeneutic of Continuity which are integral to the Benedictine Renaissance in the Western Church. Sancte Pater, ad multos annos.
May the Immaculate Mother of God, our Lady of Walsingham, and Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us all; and especially for Keith, Ordinary of our Lady of Walsingham.
14 January 2011
Best wishes ...
... for a very happy New Year - I'm sorry that this is a bit belated for those living adjacent to the Greenwich meridian - all my readers who follow that Calendar which is actually to be found in the liturgical books dating from the Pontificate of that great pontiff, S Pius V, and in the liturgical books from the reign of our late Sovereign Lord King Charles II of most blessed memory.
May I take the opportunity of again recommending The Tridentine Rite Blog. Not only can one look at its Sunday-by-Sunday explanations of the Real and Organic Calendar; you can of course look back to last year and see what it says about an up-coming day.
I believe it is the decently humble custom of the Roman Catholic Church, in countries where the predominant Christian Calendar is Julian, to require even Latins to observe the Julian Easter. Two queries: does this principle extend to the fixed festivals; and: do Anglican chaplaincies in these countries follow the same humane and courteous principle? Or do we behave in accordance with our instinctive English and Anglican cultural arrogance?
May I take the opportunity of again recommending The Tridentine Rite Blog. Not only can one look at its Sunday-by-Sunday explanations of the Real and Organic Calendar; you can of course look back to last year and see what it says about an up-coming day.
I believe it is the decently humble custom of the Roman Catholic Church, in countries where the predominant Christian Calendar is Julian, to require even Latins to observe the Julian Easter. Two queries: does this principle extend to the fixed festivals; and: do Anglican chaplaincies in these countries follow the same humane and courteous principle? Or do we behave in accordance with our instinctive English and Anglican cultural arrogance?
... and so much for the King's Road.
Among those with whom I talked in Chelsea yesterday was a very agreeable chap called Fr Hemer, who teaches Old Testament. Perhaps I was over-mellowed by the excellence of the food and wine, but I found myself thinking that there would be worse things to do than listening to a Refresher Course from him. Though why I say "Refresher" I can't think. At least in my time, we Anglican seminarians were quite appallingly taught about the Bible; a load of improbable bilge about source criticism and pseudonymity and God only knows what. I never believed a word of it. Dogmatic Theology and Moral Theology and Church History, it would be a waste of time to revisit. But the Bible ... and, I have to admit, Canon Law ... well, that would fill some gaps.
To summarise, then: the prospect of free food at Allen Hall, combined with some intellectual stimulation ... would be very tempting.
To summarise, then: the prospect of free food at Allen Hall, combined with some intellectual stimulation ... would be very tempting.
As I was saying ...
... when I suddenly remembered my Home Communions, the food was strikingly good at the liturgical event upon which I stumbled in Chelsea last night. I entirely agreed with Bishop Andrew when, in a little speech at the end "on behalf of the Three Bishops", he said this very emphatically.
The liturgy, whatever it was, was clearly both episcopal and ecumenical in way that combined both of these things very cunningly. For example, the Three Bishops were dressed , like Byzantine bishops, in dalmatics, and very impressive they looked, especially Bishop Andrew with his beard. The Church Universal truly must breathe with both lungs.
Fortunately, there will be a photographic record of this splendid event. As well as Fr Bradley, there were some blokes present who looked ... from the Important way they bobbed around ... like Professional Photographers. But these latter rather puzzled me. They seemed to be taking many more pictures of Bishop Keith than of the other two.
I'm no judge of male good looks, burdened as I am with the curse of having to live my life with an incurable heterosexual condition. But it seemed to me that Bishop Keith is the least handsome of the three of them.
Ah, well, it takes all sorts.
The liturgy, whatever it was, was clearly both episcopal and ecumenical in way that combined both of these things very cunningly. For example, the Three Bishops were dressed , like Byzantine bishops, in dalmatics, and very impressive they looked, especially Bishop Andrew with his beard. The Church Universal truly must breathe with both lungs.
Fortunately, there will be a photographic record of this splendid event. As well as Fr Bradley, there were some blokes present who looked ... from the Important way they bobbed around ... like Professional Photographers. But these latter rather puzzled me. They seemed to be taking many more pictures of Bishop Keith than of the other two.
I'm no judge of male good looks, burdened as I am with the curse of having to live my life with an incurable heterosexual condition. But it seemed to me that Bishop Keith is the least handsome of the three of them.
Ah, well, it takes all sorts.
Ordinariate Up in Arms
According to Papworth and Burke, the Arms of the old Augustinian Priory of our Lady at Walsingham were Argent on a cross sable five billets of the first: i.e. a silver shield with a black cross and on the black cross five silver rectangles. In use at the newly restored Shrine for donkey's years - I suspect Fr Fynes Clinton may have had a hand in all this; Heraldry was the sort of thing he was into - were the arms Silver; black cross; on the cross five lilies ... or so I think; I am going by memory. Also, in the first quarter was a golden representation of the Holy House: a breach of the usual convention that something gold cannot heraldically sit on something silver. However, this convention was very occasionally breached for overwhelmingly compelling reasons - such as in the Arms of Jerusalem. My theory is that HP or FC thought that the dignity of our Lady's shrine provided another overwhelmingly compelling reason! Incidentally, I have no knowledge whether the College of Heralds granted these arms; my hunch is that they were adopted without anybody troubling Queen Victoria Street.
None of us is supposed to use the arms of somebody else (not even if they have the same surname as ourselves!). If you have genuine connexion with some person, place or institution you may have arms which are like theirs but with some change to show the 'difference'. Thus the Holy See granted the see of Westminster arms indistinguishable from those of Canterbury except that they were 'differenced' by having the shield red rather than blue. The Holy See does not, I think, nowadays grant arms; although it does apparently expect bishops and those who in law are equivalent to bishops to have arms. The English heralds do still grant arms, but there are said to be legal reasons why they cannot grant arms to RC dioceses.
If anyone were ever to want arms - I can't think why they would - which were related to those of the Priory and/or shrine at Walsingham, the silver shield with a black cross and the lilies on the cross would be a good start; you could then 'difference' it by changing the colour of the cross.
None of us is supposed to use the arms of somebody else (not even if they have the same surname as ourselves!). If you have genuine connexion with some person, place or institution you may have arms which are like theirs but with some change to show the 'difference'. Thus the Holy See granted the see of Westminster arms indistinguishable from those of Canterbury except that they were 'differenced' by having the shield red rather than blue. The Holy See does not, I think, nowadays grant arms; although it does apparently expect bishops and those who in law are equivalent to bishops to have arms. The English heralds do still grant arms, but there are said to be legal reasons why they cannot grant arms to RC dioceses.
If anyone were ever to want arms - I can't think why they would - which were related to those of the Priory and/or shrine at Walsingham, the silver shield with a black cross and the lilies on the cross would be a good start; you could then 'difference' it by changing the colour of the cross.
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