Resolving Unnecessary Liturgical Dichotomies

The Ordinariate experience offers an authentic via media bridging the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form.

Divine Worship: the Missal, the Ordinariate Form of the Mass, captures the Second Vatican Council's "stated ideal of the Tridentine Mass reformed – not replaced – 'with new vigour to meet the circumstances and needs of modern times'" (Sacrosanctum Concilium 4). See also, Dr. Stephen Bullivant's article (CH): At an Ordinariate Mass, I witnessed the real spirit of Vatican II.

The Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo Missæ), which developed in the wake of the Council, is to many informed minds a mutated form of the Mass—some would say mutilated form of the Mass—which goes far beyond the modest adjustments called for by the Council. Sadly, given the pure facts of history since the documents of the Council were promulgated, this blogger must acknowledge certain deviations from the Council's express intent which cannot be justified. For one, the retention of Latin in the Liturgy.

When one looks at and experiences Divine Worship, one can see exactly that for which the Council called. There may be an argument for the inclusion of more Latin (and Greek) in the Ordinariate Liturgy, but let us bear in mind, too, that Divine Worship is a unique missal in the history of the Church. Unlike the Ordinary Form which is now routinely translated from the (Latin typical edition) Roman Missal into various vernacular languages, Divine Worship: the Missal is an English missal for which there is no Latin typical edition. For its text, Divine Worship: the Missal draws on centuries of excellent hieratic English translations of Latin liturgical texts. The Cranmerian reforms, at least those reforms which respected the Apostolic Tradition, anticipated many of the reforms called for by the Second Vatican Council. Of course, the compiling of Divine Worship, the Ordinariate Missal, required careful work to ensure its content is wholly orthodox and a true expression of the Roman Rite.

Divine Worship: the Missal represents an authentic development that honours Tradition, traditional custom, and introduces Catholics to a vernacular version of the Mass which captures elements of the Catholic Faith preserved in Anglicanism. That treasure which Ordinariate Catholics refer to as the Patrimony, is one that can unite Ordinary Form Catholics (who have lost an immediate connection to Tradition) and Extraordinary Form Catholics (who may be clinging too tightly to elements in the Old Mass in a way that ignores the trajectory of legitimate renewal acknowledged by an ecumenical council of the Church).

Divine Worship: the Missal is neither a fossilized museum piece nor is it a playground for weekly liturgical innovation. That is not to say the Ordinary Form cannot be celebrated reverently (in Latin) nor should the reader conclude the Extraordinary Form is a mere museum piece. Divine Worship captures authentic liturgical variation while maintaining a clear connection to Tradition. Words such as stability, continuity and reverence come to mind to describe the architecture, content and celebration of the Ordinariate Mass.

Those who have been forged in the crucible of the Anglican Patrimony now received into the Catholic Church have living traditional custom welded to their skin, so-to-speak. The Patrimony is that Apostolic liturgical spirituality and practice which has been faithfully preserved in the Anglican experience.

Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place.—Unitatis Redintegratio

The Council of Trent acknowledged that there were living liturgical traditions, legitimate variations of the Roman Rite, that were worthy of preservation. The Sarum Rite, for one, which inhabited the British lands, preserved elements of ancient Christian liturgical custom, east and west, that have been returned to the Church in and through the Ordinariate Liturgy.