Anglican Use and Personal Ordinariates

  • Thread starter Thread starter twf
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

twf

Guest
The first Personal Ordinariate for Anglicans who have entered into full communion with Rome was established this year in the UK - the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. My question is, why missal, lectionary, and liturgical calendar are the priests of this new Ordinariate currently using? How does it compare with the Book of Divine Worship employed by the already established Anglican-Use parishes in the USA? Is it the same? Also, were the priests ordained according to the OF of the Roman Rite or according to the Anglican Use?
 
I’ve been following this with some interest. I think with the establishment of the ordinates, they are using a final version based on the provisional versions in use in the United States. The ordinate would then likely establish its own calendar based on local customs (such as local saints, etc).

As for the ordinations, that I don’t know for sure, but it would have been thoroughly vetted to avoid the defects that undermined the original Anglican Church 😉
 
I think it’s still in a state of flux while the new texts are being worked on. I’m fairly sure the ordinations have all taken place according to the OF Roman Rite, and that’s also what’s being used for masses, although with some Anglican-inspired touches as far as how its celebrated (i.e., with more formality, and English music).

The only particularly ‘Anglican’ service I’m aware of that’s happened here was a solemn evensong and benediction, which is described and discussed here:
newliturgicalmovement.org/2011/06/solemn-evensong-benediction-in-oxford.html
I believe some video of it is also online somewhere.

That said there may be more going on than I am aware of, the only service I have been able to attend so far was Mgr Burnham’s first mass (OF, Latin, Eucharistic Prayer I), which of course was right after the founding of the ordinariate, so things may have progressed since then. Whether or not any of it has made it into public worship yet, though, I know that Mgr Burnham is currently working on liturgical texts for the ordinariate.
 
I am speaking of Anglican churches here: I am also curious about this. Generally speaking, high church Anglican (Church of England) churches have been using Novus Ordo. Similar high church Anglican churches in the US, whether part of the Episcopal Church or some splinter group, have been using the Book of Common Prayer with some additions, either in its 1928 or 1979 incarnation.

For many outside the highest church of these parishes, it has been our impression that they are going far to look “catholic”. Examples are the use of button front cassocks and birettas, that for all the world look rather Roman, and antiquated Roman at that. Even the present Archbishop of Canterbury wears a button front cassock, given his own high-church inclinations. Similarly, many high church clerics wear the shorter surplices in choir office, following the Roman practice of not wearing preaching scarf and hood.

One thing to remember about the Book of Divine Worship is that it is based on the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church (it also, delightfully, provides the 1928 Prayer Book’s service of Holy Matrimony). Therefore, it would not necessarily resonate with UK Anglican Use churches. One interesting historical reason is that the Episcopal Church got its first episcopal ordination from the Scottish Episcopal Church, not from the Church of England, and as a result, the US Book of Common Prayer has been based on the Scottish prayerbook, not the English one.

It appears to me, from examining photos of **Ordinariate **activites in the UK, that there is very little “Anglican” about the “Anglican ordinariate”. The obvious question becomes “what is Anglican anyway?”.

This is, to me, an important question. I am an Episcopalian who is keenly interested in the Ordinariate when one is established in the US. Quite frankly, I am not ready to just become Roman Catholic. When the Ordinariate presents itself as a viable “home”, I would probably be willing to accept the Marian doctrines and Papal infallibility (I already accept, on an historical basis, the primacy of the Pope.) Being a viable home, to me, means being Anglican in practice and Roman Catholic in doctrine. I want to see Anglican attitudes toward worship, not the kind of watered down Roman Catholic style worship I have seen in high church parishes in the US. This authenticity is important, I suspect, to many fence sitters like me.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top