Resemblance: liturgical vitality and continuity in the Week of Christian Unity

Resemblance

resemble (v.)

"be like, have likeness or similarity to," mid-14c., from Old French resembler "be like" (12c., Modern French ressemble), from re-, here perhaps an intensive prefix, + sembler "to appear, to seem, be like," from Latin simulare "to make like, imitate, copy, represent," from stem of similis "like, resembling, of the same kind" 

None were more confused or puzzled than our Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic brethren when the Latin Church decided to set aside her venerable rites in favour of a novel eucharistic liturgy.

The reforms enacted after the Council, many ideas dislocated from the intentions of the Council Fathers expressed in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, for example, seared the sensibilities of tradition-minded Catholics. Many competent authorities have acknowledged the changes designed by the Consilium have resulted in an impoverishment of the human spirit in the Latin Church, a deadening of spiritual sensitivity and, because Catholics have lost much of their liturgical identity, a corresponding loss of confidence and sense of mission.

Is more evidence needed than the fruit already delivered?

• untold religious houses and seminaries shuttered due to few vocations
• countless churches awkwardly renovated and/or closed
• many major episcopal sees marred by serious defections from the Apostolic Faith
• vast regions of Central and South America now apostate and in the hands of heterodox groups
• a trickle of vocations to the priesthood
• Catholic universities that are hardly Catholic
• a host of Catholics, lay and ordained, behaving like an alter-magisterium that promotes dissent from the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church
• circus-like liturgies more priest-centred than God-centred

Obstacles & Convergence

The liturgical gap between Catholic and Orthodox worship of God, once imagined a gaping wound, is not as distracted by questions of validity or apostolicity as in former times. Or is it? Ecumenical partners are now informed by a history less encumbered by useless polemics, bigotry and other hostilities. Various rites of the once united Catholic Church - Greek, Latin, etc. - seem more able and willing to acknowledge diverse and complementary languages (theological prose and poetry, symbol systems, gestures, spoken languages) for worshipping God. That said, liturgical confusion in the Latin Church is a serious problem.

Even though our Eastern non-catholic brethren are increasingly divided from each other, making the prospect of a corporate return to communion with Rome less likely than can be hoped for if left up to the workings of men, there are signs of an emerging authentic ecumenism, a realized ecumenism, that is not waiting for men to get their ducks in a row.

The new via media is truly a middle way in the sense that 'middle' refers to a centre, a centre of thought and praxis characterized by: 

1. obedience to Christ and His Church; 
2. orientation to Apostolic Tradition; 
3. liturgical integrity and the embodiment of truth, goodness and beauty, the transcendentals.

The "new" via is really the one and same via of Jesus, Who is Himself the Way.

The (true) via media has been identified or realized by those unity-minded Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church through one of the Personal Ordinariates (cf Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus). The Personal Ordinariates are a way for non-Catholics to find their way home to Rome, and a way for all Catholics to embrace the authentic renewal taught by the Second Vatican Council. The via of a personal ordinariate is a way of service to unity in Christ. The Personal Ordinariates reunite the Catholic liturgical heritage retained in Anglicanism with the Catholic Church. - ATTBS

The Personal Ordinariates established by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus are proof that other distinct liturgical spiritualities can exist and thrive in the Catholic communion. If the fact of our Eastern Catholic brethren existing in harmony with the Apostolic See doesn't already allay fears, the existence of the Ordinariates should provide an extra reminder for our non-Catholic Eastern brethren who, from time to time, express a worry they will be absorbed and lose their identity should they travel Rome-ward. Homeward. Yes, there have been times when overly Rome-centric entities have inhibited other liturgical communities. The legacy of zealous Portuguese missionaries colliding with the ancient Saint Thomas Christian communities of India comes to mind.

Liturgical Resemblance

Latin liturgical iconography and Greek liturgical iconography are complements, not competitors. Iconography in its liturgical sense, i.e., liturgy as window to heaven, and the resemblance of the Mass, Divine Worship, the Divine Liturgy, to the person and action of Jesus Christ.

Departure

When Anglicans introduced the novelty of women clergy, both Rome, Constantinople and others expressed concern about the widening gap between the Anglican Communion and the Church founded by Jesus Christ. Ecclesial bodies that have adopted heterodox practices, to put it charitably, have departed from Apostolic discipline. That is, our separated brethren have separated themselves further from the orthodox and apostolic Faith.

Rescue

The importance of the Ordinariate Liturgy, i.e., Divine Worship, is that it preserves the liturgical patrimony of a united Church, the Catholic Church: lavish litanies and public processions that draw hearts and minds into the mission to save souls; "sacred vestments (that) are a reminder of the wedding garment of sanctifying grace with which the worthy ministers of Christ should be clothed in celebrating the divine functions, (and that) remind particularly the priest of the Christlike character with which he is clothed as with a garment"; the celebration of beauty that points to the eternal beauty of God; the promotion of chant that immerses the soul in prayer; the reinforcement of communion through robust symbolism and repetition in prayer, and many other venerable practices.

Divine Worship of the Personal Ordinariates embodies the trajectory set by the Holy Spirit in the Second Vatican Council and the years following, remaining true to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as articulated, for example, by Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Benedict's teaching concerning a hermeneutic of continuity has done much to assert a necessary alignment between contemporary openness to the Holy Spirit and historical insight and witness that acknowledged and aligned with the movement of the Holy Spirit since apostolic times.

"In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. 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." - Summorum Pontificum, Letter of Pope Benedict XVI (2007)

The experience of our separated Anglican brethren, brought to the heart of the Church in the Personal Ordinariates, is the Church's own liturgical patrimony flavoured, so-to-speak, with a complementary English experience of it that is well-formed in the Benedictine tradition of spirituality, that artful balance of the active and contemplative (ora et labora).

“I have no doubt that if you read the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) that actually the ordinariate is the first occasion where that vision of that document has been fulfilled,” Msgr (Keith) Newton said.

“When people are looking for what ecumenism really is, here it is, in a living form.” - Catholic Leader (1 April 2021)

Outsiders-become-insiders

Former Anglicans have reintroduced a vital Catholic liturgical heritage (the Sarum legacy, for example) and returned to Holy Mother Church a spiritual sensibility guiding the worship of God that is wholly oriented to the beauty of holiness, reverence, and a deep liturgical aesthetic. Not that the entire contemporary Latin Church is devoid of beauty, truth and goodness in her worship of Almighty God. Some sectors, however, in the Latin Church, have taken a vacation of sorts, an extended excursion to a land of banality and circus-like activity far away from the solemnity, richness and beauty of the vast Latin liturgical legacy shaped by the Holy Ghost. We can only hope that certain prodigal communities occupying shaded corners of the world will find it within themselves to embrace again the liturgical spirituality and theological dignity bequeathed to us by the Lord and His apostles and their successors.

For 60 years now, I have accompanied the path of theology, especially biblical studies, and have seen seemingly unshakeable theses collapse with the changing generations, which turned out to be mere hypotheses: the liberal generation (Harnack, Jülicher, etc.), the existentialist generation (Bultmann, etc.), the Marxist generation. I have seen, and see, how, out of the tangle of hypotheses, the reasonableness of faith has emerged and is emerging anew. Jesus Christ is truly the Way, the Truth, and the Life — and the Church, in all her shortcomings, is truly His Body. - Pope Benedict, My Spiritual Testament

The Personal Ordinariates are vital to a renewed ecumenism. Vital, that is, to those who seek communion with the Church that Jesus Christ founded. Our Eastern non-Catholic brethren are beginning to realize the necessity of union with Rome because everything in their various ecclesial bodies points them toward the Apostolic See, the Holy See, the First See, the See of Peter, acknowledged universally as such by the Eastern and Western Fathers of the Church.

Rome may be buffeted by various storms from time to time, but she has never embraced heresy nor will she ever embrace heresy. No one may discard her magisterial teachings promulgated ex-cathedra by the Bishop of Rome, lest they find themselves rejecting the voice of Jesus Christ wed to the voice of His Vicar.

Why assert the Roman Primacy? This week wherein we ponder pathways to - and pray for - visible unity, a restored unity, requires humility from all who desire shared communion in the truth. The scandal of division is a wound in the Body of Christ.

In the 1970s Rome made generous provisions toward unity by opening the doors to liturgical reform that provided a means for our separated brethren of the Protestant Reformation a way back into communion. The former rite, commonly called the Usus Antiquior, needed modest reform. Alas, the 1970s rite of Pope Saint Paul VI constructed by the Bugnini Consilium gave (threw?) too much away, but not so much that many continue to find in the celebration of the Novus Ordo Missae a way to apprehend a spiritual language that draws them closer to the Lord in His Church.

Renewal of liturgical worship was given momentum by Pope Benedict - may he rest in peace - and has coalesced in a most enticing form in Divine Worship, the Mass of the Personal Ordinariates.

Divine Worship is a perfect bridge for Protestants into the apostolic Faith, and engages those who are eager for continuity, stability and orthodoxy, and those who trust the Holy Spirit to lead them home to God and His Church through the true, the good and the beautiful celebration of the sacred Liturgy.

Loving Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Thy mercy grant to Thy children, we most humbly beseech Thee, all the graces needed by men to purify Thy Church of every stain, every obstacle to Thy truth. Help us to reject sinful pride, and to embrace Thy Will, so that the Holy Gospel may increase for the salvation of souls. We ask this through the same Christ, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.