2011 Anglican Use Conference held in July

Back in July the Anglican Use Society held its annual conference.  This annual conference is always well attended by many of the key leaders in "the Anglican Use movement", if you will, and this year was no exception. Many of the key movers and shakers were there.  These are the leaders that will shape the future of Anglican Use, the Anglican Ordinariate, and even the Catholic Church as a whole.

Videos of many of the talks and services are online at Anglicanorum Channel on UStream.  Included there are videos of the Mass and Evening Prayer according to Anglican Use and of the address by Msgr. Keith Newton, the ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the Anglican Ordinariate of England and Wales.

For a schedule of the conference go to the Anglican Use Society's website.

The conference was hosted by Saint Mary the Virgin, an Anglican Use parish in Arlington, Texas.

Our Lady of Walsingham, an AU parish in Houston, Texas, has posted photos.

The Anglican Use Society was founded in 2003.  From its website:

On February 23, 2003 a group of people met at St. Luke’s Church in Whitestone, New York, under the leadership of Father Joseph Wilson, a Catholic priest who is a long-time devotee of the Anglican Use.  The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the formation of an Anglican Use Congregation in New York City.  Out of those discussions came the sense that there might be many people in various other parts of the country wishing to do the same thing, and that they needed a vehicle by which to do it.  Father Joseph Wilson celebrated Mass, and the participants signed a document forming the Anglican Use Confraternity.  Joseph Blake was elected President pro tempore.  Since that time the name has been changed to Anglican Use Society, and has been incorporated in the State of Pennsylvania. 

I have had the pleasure of only attending one conference, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was a memorable experience, simply one of the best conferences that I have ever attended.  I urge you to go and watch the videos.

Miles Coverdale's translation of the Roman Canon of the Mass

Note: Miles Coverdale, Anglican Bishop of Exeter who had Protestant leanings translated the Bible into English for the first time. His translation of the Roman Canon is noted for its accuracy and majesty and is authorized for use by the Roman Catholic Church for the Anglican Use. 

The Roman Canon

Most merciful Father, we humbly pray thee, through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord.

[He joins his hands and, making the sign of the cross once over both bread and chalice, says]:

and we ask, that thou accept and bless + these gifts, these presents, these holy and unspoiled sacrifices.

[With hands extended, he continues]

We offer them unto thee, first, for thy holy Catholic Church: that thou vouchsafe to keep it in peace, to guard, unite, and govern it throughout the whole world; together with thy servant N., our Pope and N., our Bishop and all the faithful guardians of the Catholic and apostolic faith.

Commemoration of the Living

Remember, O Lord, thy servants and handmaids [N. and N.]

[He prays for them briefly with hands joined. Then, with hands extended, he continues]

and all who here around us stand, whose faith is known unto thee and their steadfastness manifest, on whose behalf we offer unto thee, or who themselves offer unto thee, this sacrifice of praise; for themselves, and for all who are theirs; for the redemption of their souls, for the hope of their salvation and safety; and who offer their prayers unto thee, the eternal God, the living and the true.

United in one communion, we venerate the memory, first of the glorious ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ; of Joseph her spouse; as also of the blessed Apostles and Martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Thaddaeus; Linus, Cletus, Clement, Xystus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian and of all thy Saints: grant that by their merits and prayers we may in all things be defended with the help of thy protection.

[Through Christ Our Lord. Amen]

[With hands extended, he continues]

We beseech thee then, O Lord, graciously to accept this oblation from us thy servants, and from thy whole family: order thou our days in thy peace, and bid us to be delivered from eternal damnation, and to be numbered in the fold of thine elect. [Through Christ our Lord.]

Vouchsafe, O God, we beseech thee, in all things to make this oblation blessed, approved and accepted, a perfect and worthy offering: that it may become for us the Body and Blood of thy dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[He joins his hands].

Who the day before he suffered, [On Maundy Thursday he says:

Who the day before he suffered to save us and all men, that is today],

[He takes the bread and, raising it a little above the altar, continues]:

took bread into his holy and venerable hands,

[He looks upward]

and with eyes lifted up to heaven, unto thee, God, his almighty Father, giving thanks to thee, he blessed, broke and gave it to his disciples, saying:

[He bows slightly.]

Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you.

[He genuflects, shows the consecrated Host to the People, places it on the paten, and again genuflects in adoration. Then he continues]:

Likewise, after supper,

[He takes the chalice, and, raising it a little above the altar, continues]:

taking also this goodly chalice into his holy and venerable hands, again giving thanks to thee, he blessed, and gave it to his disciples, saying:

[He bows slightly.]

Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.

[He genuflects, shows the Chalice to the People, places it on the corporal, and again genuflects in adoration].

[Then with hands extended, the Priest says]:

Wherefore, O Lord, we thy servants, and thy holy people also, remembering the blessed passion of the same Christ thy Son our Lord, as also his resurrection from the dead, and his glorious ascension into heaven; do offer unto thine excellent majesty of thine own gifts and bounty, the pure victim, the holy victim, the immaculate victim, the holy Bread of eternal life, and the Chalice of everlasting salvation.

Vouchsafe to look upon them with a merciful and pleasant countenance; and to accept them, even as thou didst vouchsafe to accept the gifts of thy servant Abel the Righteous, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham; and the holy sacrifice, the immaculate victim, which thy high priest Melchisedech offered unto thee.

[Bowing, with hands joined, he continues]

We humbly beseech thee, almighty God, command these offerings to be brought by the hands of thy holy Angel to thine altar on high, in sight of thy divine majesty; that all we who at this partaking of the altar shall receive the most sacred Body and Blood of thy Son,

[He stands up straight and makes the sign of the cross, saying]

may be fulfilled with all heavenly benediction and grace. [Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.]

Commemoration of the Dead

[With hands extended, he says]

Remember also, O Lord, thy servants and handmaids, [N. and N.], who have gone before us sealed with the seal of faith, and who sleep the sleep of peace.

[The Priest prays for them briefly with joined hands. Then, with hands extended, he continues]

To them, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, we beseech thee to grant the abode of refreshing, of light, and of peace.

[Through the same Christ our Lord.]

[The Priest strikes his breast with the right hand, saying]

To us sinners also, thy servants, who hope in the multitude of thy mercies,

[With hands extended, he continues]

vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with thy holy Apostles and Martyrs; with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia and with all thy Saints, within whose fellowship, we beseech thee, admit us, not weighing our merit, but granting us forgiveness;

[He joins his hands and continues]

through Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom, O Lord, thou dost ever create all these good things; dost sanctify, quicken, bless, and bestow them upon us;

[He takes the Chalice and the paten with the Host and, lifting them up, sings or says]

By whom, and with whom, and in whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

The People respond: Amen.

Monsignor Andrew Burnham on what the Anglican patrimony is all about

Msgr Andrew Burnham of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and former Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet writes about what the Ordinariate liturgy would look like here. My comments on what he wrote  will be in a later post. His essay was distributed to attendees of the 2011 Anglican Use conference in Texas, USA.

Hip, hip hooray to the newly weds!

Now that Kate and Wills have tied the knot, we wish them all the best and may they live and love happily ever after! Now I could not help but remark about these by Damian Thompson

This is what the Church of England is for

and

that cartwheeling verger!

Damian Thompson is right that the wedding liturgy shows what the CoE is best at doing. The Anglican choral tradition is best. Compare this with what is dished out at Papal ceremonials at St Peter's!

But there is something about weddings that lift up the jaded still. Perhaps because it celebrates life. The Anglican wedding liturgy is replete with traditional Catholic teaching on marriage. Protestant restraint is wedded with Catholic pagentry This is what the CoE is best at. The sermon of the Bishop of London is magnificent and this smudges out ill will on his statement about the Ordinariate Catholics sharing Anglican churches.

And Rowan cannot be questioned about his authority as Archbishop of Canterbury. It shoots down wags' prediction that he would do a Rowan Atkinson!

As for the verger, I think he can be forgiven. Is being happy that the whole shebang happened with nary a  hitch a sin?

Now the CoE will have to deal with female bishops now! If no provisions  are given for traditional bishops to care for Anglicans who oppose female bishops, expect these Anglicans to cartwheel out of the CoE and into evangelical and Anglo-Catholic continuing jurisdictions or to the Ordinariate.

And while the old question was for Catholics "Whom do you wish were all Catholic?" Answer: All Anglicans/Episcopalians!

For once we have the question in reverse: Whom do you wish were all Anglicans? Answer: All Roman Catholics!

Daily Office and a Review of BookofHours.org

Today is the sixth day of Christmas. I hope and pray that your Christmas season has and will continue to be merry.

As we approach New Years I would like to offer up an idea for your New Year's resolution: Say daily at least one part of the Daily Office.

There is a great website that can help you say the Daily Office according to Anglican Use called the Book of the Hours. Full disclosure: it is run by a friend of mine, and fellow convert from Anglicanism, David Trumbull. See additional webpages from him here.

The Daily Office is a collection of prayers said at certain hours of the day and is one of the treasures of Anglicanism. The two best known are Morning Prayer (or Mattins) and Evening Prayer (or Evensong), whose times are self-explanatory, but the Book of Divine Worship (download here) includes also the Noonday prayer and Compline, which is said as one heads to bed. "Vespers" is also sometimes used to refer to either Evening Prayer or Compline.

The Daily Office, also known as the Divine Office among other names, was not invented by Anglicanism. It has a long history prior to the Reformation and many parts of Christendom say it still, including in the Catholic Church, especially among the religious and the clergy. When monks pray several times a day, they are usually saying some version of the Office.

Rather Anglicanism did two things. It translated the office into Shakespearean English and made it into a lay practice. Indeed, in Anglicanism the regular Sunday service is often a longer version of Morning Prayer.

The Daily Office is not mass. It is not communion and does not involve bread and wine. Rather it is, well, a prayer service and includes many of the non-communion elements of the mass that you may be familiar with, such as bible readings, psalms and prayers of the faithful. Just like in a mass, there are parts that are the same from day to day and there are parts that are specific to that day, perhaps relating to a particular saint. This can make it difficult if you are just starting out or do not have all the right books.

That is where the Book of the Hours website comes in useful. The website will give you all the information and readings that you need for that particular day and prayer with a couple of easy clicks

When you visit the website, first you will need to choose the liturgical season, which is easy to do since the dates are given. Currently we are in the Christmas Season. Second you will need to choose the prayer that you want to say – Morning, Noonday, Evening or Compline. The prayers for tomorrow are here. You will then see a webpage with a frame on the left showing each of the parts of the service with links, and when you click on a link, in the right-hand frame will appear the words for that day for that part of the prayer service.

The Daily Office can be said in a group in a church but that is not necessary. Nor is it necessary for a clergyman to be present. A group can say any of the prayers together, or an individual could say it, sitting in front of the computer with the Book of the Hours website open. When the service is said in a group, one person should be nominated to be the "officiant" of the service, whose part is sometimes indicated with a "V.". The other part, the "people's" part, is sometimes indicated with an "R." and is in bold. The red lettering are the instructions or rubrics.

Regardless of how you say it, integrating the Daily Office into your prayer life is one way to strengthen your relationship with God and to systematically read the Bible, especially the psalms. Anglican Use of the Philippines hopes to sponsor regular public Evening Prayer services according to Anglican Use soon. Stay tuned.

The image is from Our Lady of Walsingham parish, an Anglican Use Catholic parish in Houston, Texas. It is from an Evening Prayer service featuring the semi-professional Chorus Angelorum, which is in residence at the parish. To see the chorus's schedule go here. Their next scheduled Evensong is on February 27, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. at Our Lady of Walsingham. I "borrowed" the photo from the chorus's website. I hope they won't mind. If you are in Houston, consider attending one of the parish's services.

Festival of Lessons and Carols

Merry Christmas.

One of the treasures of Anglicanism is the Christmas season service called "A Festival of Lessons and Carols", "lessons" being the very-Anglican term for bible readings. It is a service simple in concept but powerful in execution especially when attention is given to the music and the congregation joins in fully. There are usually nine bible readings, beginning with Genesis, where we are reminded of our original sin, the reason why Christ came. It continues through the Old Testament prophecies that tell of the coming of Christ and ends with the Gospel readings we are all most familiar with. (Wikipedia article here.)

From its modest beginnings in a temporary wooden cathedral in Truro, England in the late 19th Century, it has expanded throughout the globe, first to other Anglican churches and then to other denominations. Many of the Anglican Use parishes continue the tradition. My "home" AU parish in Boston, the Congregation of Saint Athanasius, has their annual Lessons and Carols service this Sunday, December 26, at 5:00 P.M. One of the most famous such services comes from King's College in Cambridge, England, which the BBC broadcasts live and then makes available on their website for online listening here. More information about the service is available from the King's College's website including an order of service and a history. One example of a Catholic version can be found here on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, though I would have chosen more traditional carols and ones that go together better. The styles seem to clash. "Ave Maria" and "Go Tell It on the Mountain" are in my mind both too dissimilar styles to go together in a single piece and not Christmas carols.

Living in the Philippines, I miss Anglican Christmas Eve services, including Lessons and Carols. They speak to my soul in a way that other services do not. I am not sure what it is exactly. It is hard to put a non-verbal experience like spirituality into words. But I do know that it has something to do with the music and the conmunal experience of singing familiar, generations-old songs together. Lessons and Carols take the Christmas music we all love, and are bombarded by for months, and creates a communal singing experience, and then intersperses the music with lessons about the meaning of Christmas, all with an Anglican sensibility and attention to detail. The carols are not just mood music to get through the boring bits but integral to the service, to the teaching involved. Without the carols, the lessons have less punch, and without the lessons, the carols are merely tunes that I heard at the mall. Together in this simple service, they remind us body and soul of the reason for the season.

Wither "the Branch Theory"?

Over the years as the Industrial Revolution took hold and the world's population traveled and communicated more and more across boundaries, the world and the Catholic Church have become much more aware of its diversity.

Intellectually awareness hasn't changed. Intellectually people have always understood diversity. But seeing it is a different matter. Now diversity is a personal experience thanks to jumbo jets whizzing people and television and computer screens beaming images.

The Catholic Church as a group -- its bishops, priests and laymen in all the far-flung dioceses -- have also become much more aware of its diversity. Pope John Paul II was the first jet-setting Pope, visiting countries, meeting with strangely vested Catholics from other countries, all live on CNN. And at his funeral, 24-hour cable channels showed worldwide those same differently dressed Catholics worshiping and grieving next to their white Western European co-religionists.

This recognition of diversity has led the Church's bishops and priests to be much more aware of approved liturgies. Satellites, telephones, and now the internet has made it much easier for these grassroots Catholics to learn about and allow all the different diverse approved liturgies.

These changes have helped make Anglicanorum Coetibus possible. Catholics far away from Rome are much more aware of who is and who is not in communion with Peter.

I thought of all this when reading the post about the Branch Theory on Anglican Patrimony. The Branch Theory was developed back when grassroots Anglicans and Catholics were far less aware of the diversity of the Catholic Church, and therefore Catholics in particular were much less willing to accept deviation from their local norm. How could they be sure that this strange practice was licit? With technology, came more knowledge and acceptance of diversity, and a better understanding of what the Catholic Church teaches in all parts of the Church.

I suspect that as the diversity of the Catholic Church becomes even better known by those in the pews in Anglican and Catholic parishes, the attractiveness of the Branch Theory will lessen. The intellectual, theological arguments have not changed and will still be debated among intellectuals and theologians, but the meaning of those arguments, the images in one's brain that those words elicit, has changed for those in the pews. Fewer and fewer in Western countries when hearing the words "the Catholic Church" today think only of white European bishops dressed in European vestments.

Addendum

The particular passage that led to these thoughts is this one:

This is strikingly evident in the two prevailing interpretations of the Portsmouth Statement (from which Bp Strawn quotes selections) and Anglicanorum Coetibus and its Complementary Norms. Those who still hold to some form of Branch Theory interpret it as Bishop Strawn did. Those who have rejected the Branch Theory interpret these documents understanding that there is no separating submission to the See of Peter from being in communion with the See of Peter. Thus key words and phrases like "absorption," "in communion," "Catholic," "Roman Catholic," etc., mean different things to the two parties.

Words have meanings at a deeper level than the intellectual. When words are used, images are associated. The two sides, as discussed in this post, have competing images. When they close their eyes and mediate on "the Catholic Church" and "the Roman Catholic Church", competing visions are seen. This is not just an intellectual disagreement that can be solved by appeals to scripture, tradition or reason. Technology has changed those visions and has changed, and will change, the debate and the outcome.

When Overseas Filipinos bring Catholic diversity into staid England...

Dear Readers of this Blog

Filipinos are found on every part of the warming planet. They come from different  religious traditions and the Christians among them are spreading the "Pinoy Christian virus". In think English traddies like Damian Thompson should get over it AND MOVE ON and consign to the rubbish bin that condescending opening line in his post! It won't be Europeans who will re-evangelize Britain and the rest of Europe but "Third World" Christians like Filipinos and the Africans! The Anglican Ordinariates and a new Anglican Communion will flourish in these countries.

I think the late Father Hontiveros SJ  and his folksy Mass music has really conquered the world!


Not in the comment threat that many Brits have not shed their colonial and imperial church mentality and are ignorant on why the Philippines has the 3rd biggest number English speakers. These Brits should read my earlier blog post!