I can't remember how I happened across this piece, but it describes very well what I consider most important and most appealing about the Ordinariate Mass, and also what I had hoped might come of it: that it would have broad appeal outside the Ordinariate, and perhaps in time be part of the liturgical renewal that…well, I don't want to beat that horse, but suffice to say it fell short of its promise.
Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening. The writer thinks the Ordinariate liturgy could "draw thousands of Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, and provide a haven for Catholics desiring more traditional liturgy."
That sounds very plausible, but it doesn't look that way. The Ordinariate is not exactly thriving, though it is surviving. Conversions from Anglicanism are few; as someone said, "That pond seems to be fished out." And the number of Catholics who are interested doesn't seem to be very great. I think the Ordinariate came thirty years too late. If, instead of the very limited Pastoral Provision of 1980, there had been something like the Ordinariate, it might have been more successful.
My own little group is barely surviving. That's partly due to external circumstances, but in any case we are actually fewer now than we were in the first year. But the article I linked to makes me want to carry on. As long as it's alive, there is the possibility that it will bear more fruit in time.
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