21 November 2015

Ordinariate Use (4)

The Ordinariate Missal explains that our "normative"  Eucharistic Prayer in the Ordinariate is the Roman Canon; although it does allow the Dewfall Trattoria Prayer on Weekdays and for Children, it is insistent that it may never be used in Masses for Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. All the other EPs are forbidden. This 'normative' status is logical; the Roman Canon was used from the time of S Augustine until the Reformation, and its restoration, in thousands of churches up and down England, was one of the great fruits of the Catholic Revival, the twentieth century shape of which was determined by the English Missal of 1912. How could anything else possibly be 'Patrimony'?

The Roman Canon can even be seen as more within the tradition of the 1662 Prayer Book's Eucharistic Prayer, despite the Zwinglianism of the latter, since neither Prayer is byzantinised by having had an unRoman Epiclesis of the Holy Spirit shoved into it.

1 comment:

Murray said...

Thanks, Father. That answers my question: EPII is optional, even for weekday Masses. I guess my only remaining question would be to ask why EPII was selected as the sole alternative to the Roman Canon, given its well-established problems. They did have two other Eucharistic prayers to chooses from, after all.