The Beauty of the Ordinariate Liturgy: beyond dichotomy

Mystery, accessibility, joy, hope, Presence. In the Ordinariate Form of the Mass, one finds the best intentions of the Second Vatican Council realized: renewal and Tradition (yep... that's a capital 'T'). Both the 'now' and the 'then'. The 'now' - where the Holy Ghost is presently leading us - and the 'then' - where the Holy Ghost has led the Church and gifted Her with an abundance of blessings. When we know where the Church has been, noting the details of faithful witness, we may then better discern where the Spirit is leading us in the present moment. Cut off from our roots, we risk falling for cheap imitations.

The Ordinariate Mass offers worshippers a Liturgy unmistakably oriented to God. Papa Benedict XVI reminds us in his letter to the Bishops on the Occasion of the publication of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum:

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. 

John 3:8 - The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Pope Benedict was speaking about the Extraordinary Form, but he could have easily been speaking to the Church about any of the traditional rites, Western and Eastern. His identification of "the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer" helps us to acknowledge the riches found in the Anglican Patrimony, riches preserved in a separated community, now received into harmony with Holy Mother Church.

Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.

The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation.

It follows that the separated Churches(23) and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church. - Unitatis Redintegratio, 3.

Unless one is a rabid sedevacantist with little or no sense of history nor appreciation for authority in the Church, or for that matter an anarchic progressivist possessed by the same spirit of rebellion, the Council was and remains for the Church a legitimate ecumenical council. It is far too easy to lay blame upon the Council for the Church's problems, problems initiated by men lacking a necessary range or depth of vision, and for imposing upon the Church skewed interpretations of the Council which has led to a weakening of the Faith among Catholics. We may legitimately criticize developments made in the wake of the Council and even attribute to the Council itself deficiencies which have developed due to interpretations made more likely due to the language used in certain documents that was/is prone to distortion. But! - let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We are Catholics, not Lutherans prone to nailing our myopic biases to the door of Holy Mother Church. We can and must reclaim the narrative from extremists in order to proceed through the middle to where the Truth - catholicity, unity, apostolicity and holiness - makes its home.

Prior to the publication of the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969, the "interim" Liturgy (1965 Missal) celebrated in the immediate wake of the Council maintained a more obvious continuity with the older Missal. Unfortunately, as history itself shows us, stewardship of the liturgical renewal was entrusted to men who lacked a deep enough appreciation of what Papa Benedict described above. Those giddy reformers, perhaps well-intentioned men, somehow forgot to "preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place." Tradition-minded Catholics know, for example, that Latin and plainchant were never meant to be purged from the Church's Roman Liturgy. Thank goodness for groups such as the FSSP and ICKSP that have arisen to give the Church back her heritage!

Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites - (§ 1) 36 Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Enter the Ordinariate

Former Anglicans, Methodists and others, outsiders if you will, are helping the Church recover Her rich legacy, a legacy that includes the venerable Catholic English tradition preserved in Anglicanism. Former Anglicans in communion with Rome, the Church's "sons of thunder", are helping the Church invite separated brethren back into the fold.

The primary mission of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is evangelization. The Ordinariate exists for those who are and who will be coming into full communion with the Catholic Church. Through the reverence and beauty of our worship, study of sacred Scripture and charity for those in need, we desire to share the joy of being Roman Catholic! With respect and gratitude for the Anglican heritage that nourished us, we seek to build bridges with all our brothers and sisters who are drawn to the Church, so that we might build up the one Body of Christ. Our mission is particularly experienced in our celebration of liturgy, which features Anglican traditions of worship while conforming to Catholic doctrinal, sacramental and liturgical standards. Through Divine Worship: The Missal — the liturgy that unites the Ordinariates throughout the English-speaking world — we share our distinctive commitment to praising God in the eloquence of the Anglican liturgical patrimony and Prayer Book English. In addition, the founding documents of the Personal Ordinariate make clear that it is intended to be an instrument of Catholic unity: an opportunity to model what the future reconciliation of separated Christian communities could be. We wish to fulfill the Holy Father’s vision for Christian unity, in which diverse expressions of one faith are joined together in the Church. - Ordinariate Mission

Music, especially, has been developed to iconic standards in Anglicanism to a point that the Catholic Church must acknowledge that rich heritage as worthy of inclusion - and so She has! The Anglican Patrimony, a spiritual culture of sacred music, liturgy, of communal devotions (the Office!), of hospitality and evangelization, has been received back into Holy Mother Church in and through the Personal Ordinariates. The Ordinariate Mass - called Divine Worship - is a synthesis of truth, goodness and beauty. It is a marvelous vehicle to attract those in and outside the Church to approach a deeper communion with Christ and His Church.

Perhaps you are thinking - "This blogger is a triumphalist!" Yes, in at least one sense, that statement is accurate. This blog heralds the triumph of the Holy Spirit in uniting Christians through the Personal Ordinariates. That reunion made visible is Divine Worship.

How often do we read at various websites the well intentioned enthusiasm of proponents of one form of the Mass or the other, as if there are only two, that tends to limit the conversation to a choice between the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form? Is it fair to say that most Catholics, even those regular readers of many tradition-minded or traditionalist websites, do not realize there is for Roman Catholics a third option, a true via media between, as the polemically minded might define it, two opposites? What readers might be missing at those good websites is that Divine Worship overcomes the false dichotomy of either new or old. Sure, those same sites have an agenda, and they are right to stay focused on promoting the true, the good and the beautiful from their particular perspective. Too often, however, enthusiasm blinds, and a rather obvious sin of omission is committed. That is, mention of how the Ordinariate Liturgy can inform the debate is missing.

Perhaps we need additional Ordinariate voices to be invited to join the conversations at well known Catholic blogs. We have many erudite Ordinariate Catholics who could supply such sites with a vital sense of direction and balance. Many are familiar with the Rev. Fr. John Hunwicke. Readers should also acquaint themselves with Professor (Dr.) Sir Clinton A. Brand, KSG, for one; and, the Rev. Fr. James Bradley, J.C.D., and the Reverend Monsignor Peter D. Wilkinson, a consultor to the Anglicanae Traditiones Commission.

The Ordinariate Mass is both ancient and captures the needs of the present. It forms a bridge between experiences, between liturgical forms and cultures. The Ordinariate Liturgy reminds Catholics of the beauty of tradition and how the Ordinary Form of the Mass might be celebrated with great dignity, and how the EF Latin Mass may adapt and incorporate the changes legitimately called for by the Second Vatican Council.

Accessibility: language, gesture, prayer, posture. Actual participation (participatio actuosa) is greatly aided by the content, structure and the manner in which Divine Worship is celebrated. The congregation routinely participates in the responses, minor propers and, as noted, because of the rich legacy of hymnody imported by former-Anglican migrants, the people sing great hymns! In this blogger's experience, the best communicators of the Patrimony have been those stalwart souls who bravely preserved the Anglican Patrimony by their constant dedication to the truth in prayer, in speech and song. When Anglicanism began to founder upon the shoals of heterodoxy, escalating downward as it has for the past forty years, that faithful remnant retained their orientation to catholicity, an orientation that has impelled them to seek corporate union with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Of course, properly understood, participatio actuoso is not a mere busy-ness. It is serving the Mass, an actual or intentional participation of the heart and mind and body, of one's entire being, disposing oneself to the Presence and action of God. Divine Worship is more like the Extraordinary Form in terms of the kind and number of physical gestures congregants engage in that are expressions of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication, and it has the flexibility that allows the Mass to meet specific circumstances with integrity. Those engagements are embodiments of intentions, opportunities for us to dispose ourselves to God, windows through which God grafts our intentions to His.

Anglicanism, despite its deficiencies, has long preserved with great dignity the communal celebrations of the Office as Mattins and Evensong. Communal devotionalism helps parishioners retain a vital sense of communal intercessory prayer, a love of chanting the psalms, a vibrant piety that finds its completion in the Holy Eucharist. The smallest Anglican parishes, for hundreds of years, have insisted upon doing things with great love and beauty. Ordinariate communities maintain that commitment. Diocesan Catholics would do well by dropping in on a celebration of Evensong and, if diocesan communities are unwilling to provide opportunities for solemn and sincere prayer, they should know that the Ordinariate door is always open. Well... that door will be open again soon enough once the covid plague is defeated.