{"id":21906,"date":"2013-10-10T07:36:39","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T12:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=21906"},"modified":"2013-10-10T19:18:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T00:18:00","slug":"patrimony-the-order-of-mass-for-the-anglican-ordinariates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/10\/patrimony-the-order-of-mass-for-the-anglican-ordinariates\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrimony: The Order of Mass for the Anglican Ordinariates"},"content":{"rendered":"

The apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus<\/em>, which set up the structure known as the Anglican Ordinariates, says this regarding liturgy:<\/p>\n

Without excluding liturgical celebrations according to the Roman Rite, the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anglicanorum coetibus<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the months since the apostolic constitution <\/span>Anglicanorum coetibus <\/em>was issued the shorthand term for this preservation of the tradition of those Anglicans entering full communion with Rome is \u201cAnglican patrimony\u201d (which AC employs in a passing reference). The first manifestations of this patrimony were rites for weddings<\/a> and funerals<\/a> issued in July 2012. Now, officially debuting today<\/a>, we have the Order of Mass for the Ordinariates. [NB:\u00a0<\/strong>the rite is not yet available online; when it becomes available I will post a link in the comments.]<\/span><\/p>\n

This rite replaces the Eucharistic liturgies found in the <\/span>Book of Divine Worship<\/a><\/em>, which was a version of The Episcopal Church\u2019s 1979 <\/span>Book of Common Prayer<\/em> adapted for the use of parishes of the Pastoral Provision. The Pastoral Provision was something of a predecessor to the Anglican Ordinatiates (I think mainly in the U.S.) that allowed for parishes to maintain an Anglican identity while being integrated into the local Latin Rite diocese; the Ordinariates, by contrast, are alternative, non-geographical quasi-dioceses for former Anglicans headed by ordinaries who are former Anglicans (but not bishops). The <\/span>Book of Divine Worship<\/em> basically took the two forms of the Eucharist found in the 1979 BCP (Rite I, in lightly modernized 16th<\/span> century English, and Rite II, in modern English that utilizes the ecumenical translations also found in the 1973 Sacramentary) and inserted into them the section of the Roman Rite extending from the preparation of the gifts to the end of the Eucharistic prayer, replacing the Rite I and II Eucharistic prayers. Despite this Roman intrusion, the rite remained largely that of the American Province of the Anglican Communion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new Eucharistic Rite for the Ordinariate is a different beast entirely, and this for several reasons. First, the <\/span>Book of Divine Worship<\/em> was intended for former Episcopalians, and thus it seemed that the current Episcopal version of the BCP was the logical starting point. Over the centuries, however, Anglican liturgies had developed in different ways, so that the American 1979 BCP was notably different from the current Anglicans rites in, say, England or Australia, not to mention from the 1662 BCP, which is the Ur<\/em>-text for all Anglican Prayer Books. So it no longer made sense to impose the U.S. BCP on the Ordinariate as a whole; something other than the <\/span>Book of Divine Worship<\/em> was called for.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, many Catholic-leaning Anglicans in England didn\u2019t use the Anglican liturgy at all, having embraced the Roman Rite as reformed after the Council. Moreover, almost all U.S. Ordinariate communities had used Rite I exclusively. So the decision was made that there was no need to provide a modern language version of the Eucharist distinctive to the Ordinariates; those wanting modern English could simply use the current translation of the Roman Rite. The <\/span>Order of Mass<\/em> would be the \u201cCranmerian\u201d option for the Ordinariates, and thus the principle way in which the Anglican patrimony of Eucharistic praying would be preserved.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, as becomes clear from even a quick look at the new <\/span>Order of Mass<\/em>, those who formulated this liturgy were not taking an existing Anglican liturgy and making the minimal changes necessary for it to conform to Catholic Eucharistic theology and practice (which was the approach of the <\/span>Book of Divine Worship<\/em>), nor were they taking the current order of Mass of the Roman Rite and inserting into it particularly valued elements from the <\/span>Book of Common Prayer<\/em>. Rather, it appears that the framers of this liturgy were out to craft what I would describe as an Anglo-Catholic Dream Liturgy \u2013 an Order of Mass that combined the best bits of Cranmer with some other bits from later revisions of the <\/span>Book of Common Prayer<\/em> with numerous elements of the Tridentine Mass as well as elements of the Roman Rite as reformed after the Second Vatican Council. The resulting liturgical stew will no doubt delight some and disgust others.<\/span><\/p>\n

To illustrate what I mean, let\u2019s take a quick look at the Entrance Rite, color coding it according to whether the item is from <\/span>Cranmer, later BCPs<\/span><\/strong>, the Tridentine Rite<\/span><\/strong> or the Modern Roman Rite<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n