Light On Dark Water

A Couple of Anglican-Related Things

I guess I should say "Ordinariate-related." "Anglican" is both more and less accurate, as it isn't in the name of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, on the face of which designation you would not know that its purpose is the preservation of the Anglican patrimony in union with the Catholic Church. 

Anyway: here is William Oddie in the Catholic Herald UK on the subject of our new liturgy, which has been described as "the Extraordinary Form [i.e. the old Latin Mass] in Cranmerian English." Last Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, was the date of its inaugural use across the Ordinariate.

"The ordinariate, that is, isn’t now just for ex-Anglicans; it’s for us all. This isn’t an ex-Anglican ghetto."

I certainly hope so.

And here is our priest, Fr. Matthew Venuti, interviewed on our local Catholic radio station. This is better than listening to it on the radio, because you can see the participants. This is an hour long and I've only listened to about three-fourths of it, but that's enough for me to say I think you'll enjoy it.

 

Maclin Horton

14 responses to “A Couple of Anglican-Related Things”

  1. Craig

    Very interesting. I’ve yet to attend an Ordinariate Mass, but I have nothing but good will toward it.
    There is just one Ordinariate Mass in my city — a city of almost 5 million people! — but its about 25 miles from home and in the middle of the afternoon, when the kids nap. So it’s not very convenient for us to attend. If I were still a student at the university it would be a different story…
    Just reading those short passages from Cranmer is quite dispiriting.

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  2. Mac

    I feel pretty safe in supposing that you would like it very much. As far as texts are concerned, almost more than the Mass itself I love morning and evening prayer.
    I knew I would be very happy to have those translations, of course, but one thing that’s really surprised me is how much difference the ad orientem celebration of the Mass makes. It’s hard to separate that from other aspects of the liturgy, of course, but it seems to me to be more significant than I had supposed. I haven’t tried to analyze it but I think one important aspect is the de-emphasis of the priest’s personality.

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  3. Fr. Matthew Venuti

    Exactly! It’s not about me, but Christ, the Priest and Victim.

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  4. Mac

    Not of course that there’s anything objectionable about our priest’s personality.:-) But priests aren’t supposed to be, and shouldn’t feel that they need to be, entertainers.

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  5. Bill

    American Orthodox Christians also have their version of the ordinariate. It’s called the Western-rite vicariate and is sponsored by the Antiochian Archdiocese (no other jurisdiction, save ROCOR, has a structure for congregations who want to celebrate in a Western liturgical manner.) In any event, they employ a “corrected” BCP, among other resources, which I’d be interested in seeing as I’m rather fond of the Eucharistic prayer of the ’28 prayerbook in addition to the order for morning and evening prayer.

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  6. Mac

    Gosh, I’d never heard of that. It’s almost head-spinning–one thinks of Eastern Christians in union with Rome as being distinctive above all in their liturgy, and wanting nothing to do with Western liturgical practices.

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  7. Louise

    Well, now I really am going to have to get down to the ordinariate Mass soon. 🙂

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  8. Bill

    Mac,
    What you noted about Eastern Catholics is more true about some than others. The Melkite parish in McLean, VA is essentially indistinguishable from an Antiochian Orthodox parish. The Ukrainian parish in DC, by contrast,is clearly Latinized. I’m talking not only about the comparative absence of icons but the presence of a confessional as well.

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  9. Bill

    Also, re: western orthodoxy, cf. http://www.westernorthodox.com.

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  10. Mac

    What remains to distinguigh an Eastern rite if it doesn’t continue its ancient liturgy? I understand the theology need not be perfectly uniform, but in basic substance it must harmonize with Rome’s. A Western Orthodox rite is more understandable–that at least some Westerners converting to Orthodoxy would want a liturgy in English.

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  11. Bill

    Mac-
    It’s about more than liturgy in English, which, after all, is the language of a good number of Eastern Orthodox parishes. The Western rite of Orthodoxy addresses the preferences of mostly, though not exclusively, Episcopalian converts who want to continue to worship as they have.
    As for your first question,if I understand it correctly, very little. Many Eastern-rite Catholics consider themselves Orthodox Xns who are also in communion with Rome. In the case of the McLean parish, there is mention of “Franics, pope of Rome” in the eucharistic canon but not in the litanies.

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  12. Fr. Matthew venuti

    I know members of the Western Rite Orthodox. Many of them use reconstructed Sarum or Gallican rite, while others essentially use the Anglican or English Missal that many of us used as Anglo-Catholics. In fact, my American Missal reprint was made for the Western Rite Orthodox. I have read that ROCOR is having problems with it’s Western Rite and many of the Antiochan parishes have switched to the Eatern liturgies.

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  13. Fr. Matthew Venuti

    *Eastern…

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  14. Mac

    Behold the unity of Christians….:-/
    Right, Bill, I get the Western Rite Orthodox idea, it was just the idea of Orthodox Christians in union with Rome switching to a Western rite that was sort of making me scratch my head.

    Reply

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