The Great Commission Ordinariate Style

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power (exousia) is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. - St Matthew 28:18-20

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A brief reminder. This blogger does not speak for the Personal Ordinariates. His "take on things" is merely meant to complement the many official statements and wisdom awaiting celebration in the wider Church. If any part of this or any post found herein contradicts the mind of Holy Mother Church, please leave a comment in the combox to clarify any concerns. - ATTBS

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READ TIME: 13 minutes

Jesus shares his power (exousia) with us to enable us to act with his power, the power of God, for the salvation of souls.

And when (Jesus) had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power (exousia) against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. - St Matthew 10:1

Who merits the power God offers? Is there anything we can do to merit Jesus giving us his power? Merit is a loaded word. God shares His power with those Who abide by His will. He offers His power and authority to those Who love Him by keeping His commandments (St. John 14:15-24). Those ordained by God - bishops, priests and deacons - are given a share in Jesus' authority, His power, to shepherd the flock of Christ. If only more clerics would correctly exercise the authority given them!

God's will triumphs even when badly behaved clergy and laymen badly muck things up. God can bring good out of the evil workings of men. Such is the love and power of God.

Jesus suffered at the hands of evil men, men who accused Him falsely, men who tried and convicted Him, then killed Him. Man's arrogance is astonishing. The Son of God was tried and convicted by mere creatures! Jesus understands the human experience more than we can imagine.

How do we cooperate with the Lord for the glory of the Kingdom? We keep the commandments. We pray. We enter into the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus that is made present and celebrated in every Mass.

Gloria Dei est vivens homo! - St. Irenaeus 

The glory of God gives life; those who see God receive life. For this reason God, who cannot be grasped, comprehended or seen, allows himself to be seen, comprehended and grasped by men, that he may give life to those who see and receive him. It is impossible to live without life, and the actualization of life comes from participation in God, while participation in God is to see God and enjoy his goodness.

The glory of God is the living man, and the life of man is the vision of God.

The spirituality of the English saints offers contemporary believers balance, a golden mean.

Divine Worship is a 'yes' to renewal and a 'yes' to tradition. The Mass of the Ordinariate is beyond the divisive polemics that possess and distract many of our best trained thinkers and those well-intentioned enthusiasts fighting for the supremacy of either the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo) Mass or the Extraordinary Form Mass.

A life worth living - be faithful and honest, be real, be beautiful.

Because the Personal Ordinariates were conceived after a rapport of considerable length of time had been cultivated, culminating in the beneficent act of Pope Benedict XVI and the publication of the Apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Ordinariate experience embodies what sincere seekers of communion with Christ and His Church seek. People seek what is

1. faithful and honest: forthright living configured to the commandments of Christ.
2. real: no fantasies about the human condition; no attempts to accommodate fallen culture; no attempts to gloss over the reality of sin; exercise true friendship to enable people to find their noble selves in Jesus.
3. beautiful: human potential realized through reliance upon the grace of God; embrace divine spirituality in Christ as taught and lived by the saints.

Furthermore, sincere seekers - eager to know and to experience belonging in the truth, goodness and beauty of God - find that which Jesus gifts to those who love Him by keeping His commandments. Those commandments are embodied in the charism of the Ordinariate.

KEY ELEMENTS OF THE ORDINARIATE CATHOLIC CHARISM

Hospitality

• invitation: being an icon of Jesus to mediate His life to others for the salvation of souls
• friendship: the realness of life together in Christ
• being present to Jesus in the stranger

Fellowship

• connection: community formed by the Holy Spirit
• liturgical fellowship: the Divine Office and the Eucharistic Liturgy feeding souls and drawing them into communion with the Holy Trinity
• resonance: the formation of shared spiritual bonds

Truth

• acknowledging man created in the image of God
• authenticity: sharing what has been handed on by the Apostles to form disciples, icons of Christ's love
• faith and reason inform and guide the soul to God

Goodness & Mercy

• challenging each other to practice the Faith without compromise
• helping souls find mercy and acceptance through conversion to Jesus and His Church
• supporting each other to live well, as real friends do

Beauty

• art reaches into the heart to help dispose it to the Truth
• openness to the grace of God in order to be informed, formed and transformed into icons of Christ
• instead of bleakness, blandness and banality, the Ordinariate proposes beauty that points to the glory of God and the dignity of man

The Ordinariate is a model of ‘realised ecumenism’ which is ever more important both as a prophetic sign and a commitment to faithfulness. One common response to the difficulties of the contemporary ecumenical situation is to say that we have gone as far as we can go. That, given the impossibility of coming together, we should live with our differences. This seems realistic - while there may be a way of expressing authentic Eucharistic theology that does justice to different opinions, there is no halfway point between ordaining women and not ordaining them. You have them or you don’t. We have reached an impasse, the end of the road. This is only one example of the way in which all ecumenical dialogue seems doomed to failure; the differences are too great, the intransigence of other Christians too deeply rooted. - Msgr. Langham, February 16, 2015

Loving one another as Christ loves us is the hallmark of the Catholic believer (St John 13:34). That love requires a sense of priority that Christ repeatedly challenged his hearers to embrace. Monsignor Langham's comments, though citing one issue among many, cut to the core of that priority. That is, there can be no unity with and in Christ (with and in the truth, goodness and beauty of God) if we substitute our worldly sensibilities - and therefore false sense(s) of priority - for that which Jesus established for His Church and for the salvation of souls.

The Charism in Action

[ Adapted from an anonymous article originating at a site of the Ordinariate of the Southern Cross. Edited for this post. ]

Vital aspects of Catholic Christianity through the lens of the Ordinariate: a summary

1. Call to community faith and devotion
2. Evangelical charity
3. Sacral English
4. Reverence and beauty in worship
5. Music and congregational hymn singing
6. Gospel preaching
7. English theological tradition

I. Call to community faith and devotion

1. In the English tradition, faith and devotion are not seen just as individual pursuits, but are practised at the level of the community. One example is study groups that serve to develop faith.
2. The communal practise of the Office - Matins and Evensong - is a hallmark of English devotional practice.
• alignment: build a spiritual and theological literacy among the laity, providing them a vocabulary to give reason for the hope that is within them/us.

II. Evangelical charity

1. We commit ourselves to helping those who need help through various outreach activities.
2. We draw our inspiration from those such as the great Anglo-Catholic slum priests, who built their churches where no-one else would go because of the terrible poverty present.
• alignment: disciples are equipped for selflessly serving Christ in the spiritually and materially poor.

III. Sacral English

1. The Book of Common Prayer as written by Thomas Cranmer remains a literary masterpiece. It developed a beautiful poetic way of conversing with God in the vernacular at a time when the western Church spoke only Latin. Yet Cranmer’s English was never vulgar or banal. 
2. We continue this tradition in the Ordinariate in the language we use in our liturgies. Since the liturgy is an encounter with God, the language we use should be appropriate to this encounter. We know from our own personal experience that we speak differently for different situations. The way we speak to our friends at a BBQ is different to how we would speak if we were giving a speech at a wedding. Put simply – when we speak to God we do not use day-to-day language, we use sacred language.
• alignment: the liturgies which have been approved for use in the Ordinariate are informed by the language of the Book of Common Prayer, either drawing directly from it, or using language in the style of it. We do this not for the sake of being old-fashioned, but as a reminder of the divine encounter we experience in the Liturgy.
• alignment: disciples are reminded that to speak to and with God requires an appropriate humility, even while the Lord calls us his friends.

IV. Reverence and beauty in Worship

1. Further to this idea is the way we celebrate the liturgy. We appreciate reverence and beauty as devices that draw us to the divine. Our worship here on earth is such that we too may be caught up in the heavenly worship.
2. We pay attention to our posture, to our manner of speaking, to the way that we carry out the actions – never in a stuffy way – but in a dignified manner. Likewise we bring beauty to our worship, by the way our churches are decorated, by the vestments the priest wears, to the worship items we use – never to the point of ostentatiousness or flamboyance – but elegant noble dignity which reminds us of the purpose of the Liturgy.
• alignment: disciples are immersed in the transcendentals - i.e., truth, goodness and beauty - which point us to God and dispose us to His will for us.

V. Music and congregational hymn singing

1. Music and hymn singing are integral to the English tradition. The English tradition considers music and singing to be an act of worship in its own right. This differs from the Roman tradition, which sees music as an accompaniment to the liturgical action.
2. In the English tradition, while the liturgical action remains equally important, we also offer glory to God by music and singing. 

Indeed, much of the great liturgical music of the western tradition has come from English composers. 

1. The English Hymnal and Hymns Ancient and Modern are two compilations that are spoken well of among Ordinariate Catholics.
2. plainchant, Anglican Chant, sacred polyphony
3. modes of communication
• alignment: to speak and sing and to act beautifully is appropriate for the disciple of Christ.
• alignment: a disciple keeps the commandments of Jesus for love of Jesus.
• alignment: the disciple of Jesus is an icon of Jesus.

VI. Gospel preaching

1. Ordinariate priests are already gaining a reputation in the Catholic Church as preachers. 
2. We believe that the homily should draw the congregation into the Scripture readings of the day, show them an aspect of what God is saying through those readings, and challenge and empower them to apply that in their own lives. 
3. We do not believe in patronising or “warm and fuzzy” two minute homilies. 
• alignment: priests have a divine calling to feed the flock of Christ, and this means in preaching as well as in the sacraments. For most Catholics today, the only time they will hear anything of the teaching of the Church is in the homily. This is a grave responsibility placed on the clergy of the Church.

VII. English Theological Tradition

1. The English theological tradition is that which began with the Celts and was heavily influenced by others such as Augustine of Canterbury, the English Mystics, (e.g., Julian of Norwich), the Caroline Divines and the Oxford Movement Fathers (Keble, Pusey and Newman), especially Saint John Henry Newman, whose profound theological and pastoral insights helped pave the way for the Second Vatican Council. Newman's thought and example provides a foundation for the Council's mission and faithful interpretation.
2. The English tradition has had a tremendous influence on the Catholic Church, yet it has done so without any vehicle within the Catholic Church to foster its growth and development. With the advent of the Ordinariates, there now exists a home within the Church for the English tradition.
• alignment: to be formed for right action requires a commitment to right understanding. The commission to which we are called requires adequate formation in theology, the experience of faith in Christ. The lex credendi, lex orandi, lex vivendi is a lens and ruler that measures and distinguishes between a true orientation to Jesus and the Apostolic Tradition and manmade constructs or deviations.
• alignment: theology matters. Right understanding matters. Do we know Jesus or are we fixated upon a societal or political projection of Jesus, an image of our own making in an attempt to loan credibility to a cause?
• alignment: the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, provides the counsel and grace that Christians need to be faithful disciples. We show our love for Jesus by keeping keeping Jesus' commandments. By keeping the commandments, we dispose our wills and minds to the action of Christ.

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/newman-and-the-english-theologians-10902

The mission to save souls is given renewed emphasis and energy in and through the Ordinariates.

Ordinariate communities are relatively small for a reason. The pastoral intimacy one finds in Ordinariate parishes is a sign and realization of the hope and joy that Christ offers, and this same pastoral accessibility assists people to discover and be empowered by an intimate communion with the Holy Trinity.

The Eucharistic fellowship of Ordinariate communities blossoms for the entire Church. In an era of megachurches - where people happily disappear into the throng of anonymity - and of dying parishes controlled by anarchists - eager to worship themselves while Rome burns - and heterodox cafeteria (c)atholics, communities of the Personal Ordinariates are on a unique track characterized by intentionality and unity with Jesus Christ under His Vicar the Bishop of Rome. The Ordinariate experience embodies the English Patrimonial heritage, and enlivens and focuses disciples for mission. The Personal Ordinariates are a family among families united in and with the Catholic family, the family of God.

Eucharistic fellowship, i.e., living the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in daily life, is a natural extension of the Mass. Ordinariate Catholics habitually organize for spiritual fellowship after Mass. From that fellowship grows strong bonds of friendship and faith which find expanding expression in individuals' lives - e.g., through encounters with those seeking healing and wholeness, those needing art to actualize goodness and trust and joy and hope and... .

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Born out of the experience of former-Anglicans and former-Methodists eager to be faithful and united with and in Christ and His Church, the Personal Ordinariates are populated with people who have launched out into the deep. The anxiety of leaving one's former home to be received into the Catholic Church can be considerable. Allied to the Holy Ghost and empowered by the grace of God, fear turns into joy, hope and confidence. The act of leaping out from the comfort of one's familiar surroundings tends to strip away unnecessary distractions. Because there is a strong sense of Catholic identity in the Ordinariates, born of conformity to the will of God, a certain freedom is grown and expressed with a confidence that allows believers to find their place in the mission of Jesus and to avidly share with others the blessings of living the Catholic Faith.