The introduction to Holy Week in my 1962 Roman Missal (Suumorum Pontificum edition, published 2012 by Baronius Press) gives a splendid account and justification for the sweeping reforms to the celebration of the Holy Week rites, authorised by Pope Pius XII from 1951 onwards.
“Originally those (Holy Week rites) were performed at the hour of day at which had occurred the scenes liturgically represented. Thus Mass on the Thursday was celebrated, as the Last Supper had been, in the evening; the liturgical action on the Friday took place, as had taken place the climax of Our Lord’s Passion, in the afternoon; and late on the Saturday evening began the solemn vigil that ended early the first day of the week with the Resurrection.
“In the Middle Ages various causes conspired to bring them forward earlier and earlier into the day, so that eventually they became morning functions, impairing the earlier harmony with the accounts given in the Gospel narratives. This disharmony was most glaring on the Saturday, which became liturgically the day of the Resurrection instead of that day’s eve, and, liturgically again, mourning became a day of light and gladness.
In 1642 the Sacred Triduum was removed from the days of obligation… the beautiful solemn liturgy of Holy Week had by this time become unknown to and unappreciated by all save the clergy and a handful of the faithful. A partial remedy was sought by introducing extra-liturgical devotions each evening (Holy Hour, Three Hours, Mater Dolorosa sermon, Stations of the Cross); but these lack much of the great dignity and sacramental power and efficacy of liturgical celebrations.
“To bring an end to this serious loss liturgists, parish clergy and Bishops in every part of the world have for long begged the Holy See to restore the liturgical actions of the Sacred Triduum to their proper hours in the evening. This was a serious undertaking, calling for much thought and consultation.
“In 1951 the Easter Vigil liturgy was restored to late evening by way of experiment, and in 1953 the Apostolic Constitution Christus Dominus permitted Mass to be said and Communion to be received on certain days in the year. From every country to Holy See received reports of greatly increased attendance and fervour. A Commission was appointed to investigate further and propose definite action, and the Sacred Congregation of Rites concurred with the action proposed. The Restored Ordo for Holy Week was published in November 1955. …
Not only have the times been radically altered, but the ceremonies themselves have been modified. This is mainly by way of shortening and simplification: and the intention is to make the main ideas of each function stand out more clearly. For the most part these changes are not innovations. They are mainly a return to an older form, more in line with what was known in the days of St Wilfrid and St Bede.
The desire of the Holy See in all this is that the Holy Week Liturgy should be celebrated everywhere with the greatest solemnity possible, and that the people should in some way take an active share. ” (pp 477 – 479)
In the age we live in the combination of two words ‘Orphanage’ and ‘Catholic’ is enough to conjure up a dark vision of cruelty and abuse. So it was refreshing to read Bill Bryson’s account of one such orphanage in his book ‘One Summer – America 1927.’ Bryson is writing about ‘Babe’ Ruth, a baseball phenomenon of the twentieth century. In 1902 Ruth was placed by his father in the St Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore.
The school was run by the Xaverian Brothers, a ‘large, dark forbidding edifice’ with 850 boys. It was, writes Bryson, ‘not at all a bad place as these places go. The children were treated with dignity and even a kind of gruff affection, and they were rewarded for good behaviour with 25 cents of weekly pocket money. Boys at St Mary’s received a sound basic education and were taught a vocation. Ruth trained to be a tailor and shirtmaker, and delighted years later is showing team-mates how skilfully he could turn a cuff or collar.’
‘All the student had a history of behavioural problems; but the brothers attributed that to inadequacies of upbringing rather than any deficiency of character – a decidedly enlightened view for the time. They believed that any boy treated with decency, encouragement and respect would grow into a model citizen, and they were nearly always right. Ninety-five percent of Xaverian boys went on to live normal, stable lives.’
‘The brothers at St Mary’s were exceedingly devoted to baseball…. It was through baseball that Ruth “met and learned to love the greatest man I’ve even known” – Brother Matthias Boutilier. Of French stock from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Matthias was a gentle, kindly giant. He stood six feet six inches tall and weighed 250 pounds, but always spoke softly/ He was a wonderful baseball player, too, as well as a gifted coach – and in Babe Ruth he had a youngster who was both more talented and more hard-working than anyone else at the school. ‘
While clearing out in preparation for my move back to the UK later this year, I came across an article in the Catholic Herald, written in August 2016 by Damian Thompson entitled ‘The Ordinariate Mk II.’ It seems to me to be worth reflecting on what he wrote eight years ago – and what has changed.
He begins by pointing out the the Ordinariate ‘has not been a runaway success’. He goes on to criticise the English hierarchy for their failure to encourage the new experiment which allows, as he puts it, ‘Catholic-minded Anglicans to cross over without sacrificing the cadences of Cranmer and Choral Evensong.’ But the small numbers of Anglican laity in proportion to the number of priests has convinced him that the Ordinariate in its present form will ‘wither away’.
Two columns into the article I was getting nervous about the praise being heaped on the Divine Worship Missal. In his opinion ‘Ordinariate priests and laity who never liked their unique Missal, Divine Worship, should slip quietly into the Catholic mainstream.’ Ouch! Is he talking about me – and others? It’s important to remember straightaway that the Missal was produced some time after the creation of the Ordinariate. Most of the clergy who became Catholics via the Ordinariate (in the UK) had been contentedly using the current Roman Missal – and indeed Pope Benedict drew attention to this, remarking with approval that this showed their acceptance of Catholic belief in the Eucharist. This is hardly the ‘playing at being “Roman” ‘ which Thompson says characterises converts. The words of the Prayer Book are, he says, ‘beloved by traditional Anglicans – but not by hardline Anglo-Catholics.’ In which case, surely the Divine Worship Missal has signally failed, for it did not and has not brought ‘traditional Anglicans’ into the Catholic Church. It may have delighted American Anglicans, but as I have pointed out so often, there is a very different understanding of the Book of Common Prayer, and a very different history of its use, on the other side of the Atlantic.
Thompson’s proposal is that the Ordinariate should be allowed to take over failing churches – to which I say, ‘hear, hear!’ Many of us hoped that our small but enthusiastic and committed groups of laity with an energetic priest could be inserted into diocesan parish structures – much like Religious Orders who run parishes – and breathe new life into the embers. And this has been done with considerable success. But the article then goes on to draw a parallel with the Oratorians who ‘have surprised everyone by exporting their worship – once considered impossibly exotic – to failing churches that mysteriously stop failing once they arrive.’ Now I do not want for one moment to denigrate the work of the Oratorians in renewing parishes in their charge, but I do want to point out two things. The first is that, if you install High Mass in what we used to call in 2016 the Extraordinary Form, some Catholics will travel miles to take part! The second observation is that this might be the ‘Brighton Syndrome’ identified by Fr Colin Stephenson. He noted that the Anglo-Catholic Churches of that town in the 1930’s often reported growth especially when a new vicar arrived and changed the tradition. But no-one had been converted to Christianity for years; as one church grew another declined on a sort of merry-go-round principle of people leaving and arriving. What I am questioning is the notion that the Cranmer/Prayer Book liturgy is the only – or even the principal – element in the Anglican Patrimony which Pope Benedict XVI believed might help to enrich the Catholic Church.
More and more, as I read and re-read this article, I become convinced that Damian Thompson puts too much emphasis on the Divine Worship missal, at the expense of other key elements in the Anglican Patrimony. Clearly he envisages the presentation of the liturgy of the Ordinariate as being close to that of the pre-Council Missal. Indeed he quotes one priest as saying that the Ordinariate Mass ‘has prayers at the foot of the altar (and) the option for a last Gospel’. Yet it is precisely these two elements (and others as well) that were excised from the Book of Common Prayer Communion service, and from the 1970 Missal, as being part of the ‘silting up’ at either end of the Rite as the years passed. The liturgical studies of the past 100 years show this clearly. Why then, one must ask, have they re-appeared (even as options) in the Ordinariate rite? They were introduced by Anglo-Catholics in the 19th century as they sought to make the BCP Communion Service more like the Catholic Mass. And since the reforms instituted by the Council, they have disappeared.
The way of worship for some young people
In spite of the clear guidance from on high, and the presence in the Divine Worship Missal of the Instruction, there persists the notion that our rite is the 1962 Missal in English. With minor alterations to the rubrics it is clear that this rite is to be celebrated as the current liturgy of the Catholic Church. Altars loaded with candlesticks, altar cards, reliquaries and the like, are just not appropriate. The removal of the altar to the east wall and the placing of the tabernacle thereon is not in accord with the rubrics, and I find it difficult to see why clergy should want to adopt skimpy chasubles, lace albs, maniples, and the biretta: all features (and not terribly attractive ones) of pre-Council liturgy, both Roman and Anglo.
There is another important point, eight years on from Thompson’s article, the Church’s attitude to the continuing use of the 1962 Missal has changed. The concessions made by Pope Benedict XVI were increasingly abused by extremists. The old rite, given the essentially untrue appellation of the ‘Mass of the Ages’, became a rallying point for those who opposed change in the Church. Some went as far as saying publicly that Pope Francis was leading the Church astray. The Holy Father was patient, but finally acted to curb this disunity. Thus we priests lost the right to offer this form of the Mass. Perhaps not many of us wanted to exercise this choice, but it is a choice we have lost as a direct result of the behaviour of a small minority. The Ordinariate needs to be careful. There are those who will encourage Catholics attached to the old Missal to go to the Divine Worship Mass as a sort of second-best to the 1962 Missal. But it is nothing of the sort, and we should resist pressure to make it so! In earlier posts I called for the development of appropriate ceremonial presentation along genuinely English and Anglican lines. This sort of ceremonial requires both practical common-sense and a real appreciation of what is beautiful, gracious and dignified. If the Ordinariate has a real contribution to make to current and future liturgy in the Catholic Church it lies here, and not in some tired and half-understood copying of 1950’s Anglo-Catholicism.
If you must wear the biretta in church, then at least learn when it is proper to carry it and when to wear it on your head.
I am indebted to Anne Malins who e-mailed me the article from the Church Times by Bishop Christopher Morgan on Kelham – which closed as a Theological College of the Church of England fifty years ago. I have sometimes claimed to be the last student! This I must qualify before there are protests: I was in the last class (68C) to complete its training in the Monastery and College buildings, and since I was the class junior, the last student to be carried out of the Great Chapel after our Missionary Benediction.
The irony, I feel sure, is not lost on Bishop Christopher, the author of the reminiscence in the Church Times, that he was one of the very few bishops Kelham ever produced. There were a number of overseas bishops, but English diocesans: Richard Rutt (Leicester) and a Bishop of Exeter whose name escapes me. My readers will correct me if I err. In the early days of the 20th century there was a marvellous cartoon of the founder Fr Kelly, sitting astride a greasy pole and battering a bishop with a pillow! The cause was Fr Kelly’s opposition to the Bishops’ proposal to restrict ordination to university graduates. Kelly was certain that good priests were to be found among men of all classes and levels of academic achievement. But he rejected the notion that ‘mugging up’ a few basic texts and ready-made answers was sufficient training for non-graduates. Teaching future priests to think and argue was not something to be feared; orthodox belief did not need protecting. No truth could lead away from God – Truth Himself – and the Christian and Catholic Faith was quite capable of holding its own against the attacks of a hostile world.
The rigorous formation developed by Fr Kelly was in contrast to the rather comfortable training offered elsewhere. Spiritual formation included the Daily Office, nightly silence, the Mass, regular confession and direction – seven days a week. Manual work every day involved cleaning the house and chapel, maintaining the grounds, preparing meals and washing up – and shovelling coal for the furnaces! (I was told years later that the delivery company had been quite prepared to put the coal directly into the cellars, but were turned down, presumably on the grounds that coal shovelling was good for us students.) Sport was obligatory: I had hated sport at school (except sailing) but just about came to enjoy tennis, and even winter football.
The relationship with the establishment of the C of E was always a tense one, rather like the relationship of Anglo-Catholicism in general. Kelham men were ready to go into some of the most difficult parishes in the land, and could do since they were single – and many remained so. It’s worth pausing for a moment to consider the remarkable change which has come about in the C of E with regard to single and celibate priesthood over the last 50 years. When I was accepted for training in 1968 I received a letter from the two Archbishops reminding us of the important and advantageous ministry of the single/celibate priest. This was a particular feature of the Catholic Revival in the C of E which made Evangelicals and Liberals nervous. For some the presence of the Vicar’s wife seemed to make for a more comfortable relationship with their pastor. (And anyway, she was an extra pair of unpaid hands in the parish.) I remember once in the 1980’s being present at an Induction Service where the Bishop sought to emphasise this dual ministry by inviting the wife to join her husband in the clergy stall. He had miscalculated its width – or the size of vicar and wife – which was clearly highly uncomfortable for the pair of them.) For some, let’s be honest, it was also a deep but unacknowledged fear that ‘homosexuality’ might be lurking. Certainly, this uneasy relationship with the Establishment lasted while Kelham maintained its independence – and this included accepting for training some rejected by the official selectors when the diocesan bishops ceded to them their responsibility for discernment of vocations. In the end central bodies (initials changed, I remember ABBM becoming ACCM) asserted control. This became easier as several crises hit the Community, (the Society of the Sacred Mission) leading to a loss of assurance which much of the Religious Life experienced in the 60’s and 70’s.
Bishop Christopher in his article states that such a formation would not be possible today; and that ‘towers and temples do inevitably fall to dust, even as God’s creative purposes continue.’ Hm. I’m not so sure. Before leaving the C of E I was increasingly troubled by the quality of theological education and in particular the ever-increasing reliance on courses, rather than on residential formation. Today, there are even Bishops who have no experience of community life in theological college. The increasing age of seminarians and the fact that they are married with children all adds to the difficulties of formation. I observed too, the recent conversion to Christianity, or entry in to the Church, of many theological students and young clergy. Enthusiasm is no substitute for the years of experience. St Paul wisely observed that the presiding elder ought not to be a recent convert. One of my most disturbing experiences was to meet a young priest of the Diocese of Southwark. At our first meeting he had been a fundamentalist Pentecostal evangelist. At our second meeting, only a few years later, there was a liberal Anglican cleric, critical of me for my hesitations about the ordination of women. We fell out!
But what right have I who left the C of E to criticise? Have I nothing to say of the education and formation of priests in the Catholic Church? If I have doubted the seriousness of a short non-residential training for the clergy of the C of E, I must ask if seven years of formation which is felt appropriate for Catholic clergy, is not too long in these days of priest-shortage. Maybe it is these long years which, in my experience, seems to make Catholic clergy ‘distant’ in their relationships. Is it the obligation of celibacy which causes this? Or a greater dependency on the diocese for everything that pertains to daily living? A preference for the company of fellow-priests, lack of ease with lay people? The Catholic laity do more in terms of administration in our days, but are they truly at the heart of parish life and witness? Maybe the priest is still seen as the only serious (i.e. professional Christian) Last but not least: can we have some serious attention paid to clergy preaching. The importance of the homily as a means of teaching is emphasised in the Catholic Church by the restriction of this ministry to priests and deacons. Yet too often, in my experience, the homily lacks both substance and simplicity: it does not touch the lives of its hearers. Weekday homilies become a long ramble because nothing has been prepared; Sunday homilies contain too many lengthy passages from the Holy Father (splendid and wise, for reflection though these may be) and too little insight into the Scriptures.
The recent announcement of the death, at the age of 95, of Fr Peter Peterken brought back memories of those remarkable years for Anglo-Catholics between 1992 and our reconciliation with the Catholic Church. I came to know Fr Peter through association with the Anglo-Catholic Charismatic group, meeting annually at Ditchingham and then at Walsingham. He was one of a small number of Anglican priests who combined absolute Catholic ‘soundness’ with commitment to renewal in the Holy Spirit.
I recall being next to him at a concelebrated Mass at which he was the principal Celebrant. During the Intercessions (always a lengthy business at these Masses) someone spoke in tongues. Fr Peter immediately announced that we would wait for an interpretation: if none was received then we were to take it as personal to the person concerned, and not a public word for the congregation. I remarked afterwards to another priest that I had felt myself at Corinth and next to the Apostle Paul as he ordered their Eucharistic worship!
Fr Peter was ordained before the Council and had delightful tales of his days on the Isle of Dogs in London’s East End with thriving parish life sustained by a staff of clergy. Like most Anglo-Catholic clergy of his generation he accepted and thrived in the new climate of renewal and hope for the future which came with Vatican 2. And when society and its attitude to the Faith changed in ways we could not have imagined, he remained full of hope and trust that the Spirit would inflame us to meet all challenges.
The liturgical changes which followed in the wake of the Council came as quite a shock to the Anglo-Catholics. Increasingly since the 1920’s they had modelled their liturgy in ‘strict conformity’ with the decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (often stricter and certainly more elegantly than their RC confrères) Now they were faced with a dramatic simplification of the rites. They were required to celebrate with a new understanding of liturgical principle and history, and not just follow the minutiae as set out in Fortescue and O’Connell. Most of them rose to the challenge; those who did not (who clung to High Mass and the Last Gospel because ‘we like them’) were – at least behind their backs – deemed to be ‘not proper Catholics’. As the late Bishop Brian Masters reminded us, ” ‘like’ is a Protestant word.” Therein lies a lesson for the ‘traditionalists’ who have become rather too noisy in recent years.
One final question which has troubled me over the years: would the future of Anglo-Catholicism (and therefore of the whole Church of England) been rather different if the movement had been more open to Renewal in the Holy Spirit? Indeed what happened to ‘Catholic Renewal’ and its red dove?
Catholics of the Ordinariate (i.e. former Anglicans) may be forgiven for their nervousness about the process of Synodality which is being encouraged by Pope Francis. The actions of the General Synod of the Church of England in the 1990’s and subsequently, in which the C of E debated and voted by majority to overturn the 2,000 year practice of the Church to ordain men to the priesthood, remains a painful part of their history. It needs always to be remembered that the General Synod had voted several times not to ordain women to the priesthood – and that this decision was simply not accepted. However, once the decision was made, it became irreversible, in spite of promises to the contrary. And in the case of the ordination of women to the episcopate, the intervention of the Prime Minister and his threat to disestablish the National Church, was needed to reverse the vote not to proceed. Painful as it is to write of these events, it seems necessary to remind both Anglicans and Catholics of what impelled the departure to the Catholic Church of some of the Church of England’s best clergy and laity.
I am indebted to my friend Antonia Lynn for the observation that Synodality in a Church with a Magisterium is rather different from doctrine being decided by majority vote after a debate in General Synod! That contrast may seem a little harsh – even ‘unecumenical’, yet it is the experience of many former Anglicans that their ‘cradle-Catholic’ brothers and sisters really believe that, if only the Catholic Church were a more like the C of E, life would be much easier. On issues like abortion, divorce and remarriage, and women priests, they look towards the C of E, while contrasting the confident behaviour of its leaders with the scandal of child abuse in their own Communion. Indeed, may I also thank Ronald Crane for sending out the article in the Tablet which seems to me to make this equivalence between the Catholic notion of Synodality and the Synods of the Anglican Provinces: an equivalence which I reject.
Nor is this simply a case of the grass being greener on the other side. There is a suspicion among some Catholics – not entirely unjustified – that the Ordinariate is too closely identified with traditionalists who are unhappy with the development of the Church after the Second Vatican Council. In matters of liturgy, spirituality and doctrine – indeed, the whole place and mission of the Church in the modern world – such people would like to turn the clock back to a pre-Council world. In this argument they would wish to enlist the support of the Ordinariates, but this they cannot do. And why not? Because the figure of Saint John Henry Newman, who himself made the journey into full communion, and is the patron of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the UK, will not let them.
Ordinariate Catholics will embrace the Synodality which the Holy Father proposes because this feature of the Catholic Church is already part of their Patrimony. Having realised this simple fact they will then be in a position to speak respectfully to the whole Church of the risk of the distortion of this process which they themselves suffered as Anglicans.
In 1867 a controversy broke out in the Catholic Church in England over the place of the laity in the governance of the Church. Newman entered into this debate with an article in the Rambler, a Catholic periodical. Mgr Roderick Strange, an authority on Newman asserts that Newman’s purpose was certainly not to support some loose exercise in democracy. (A reading of the saint’s own Apologia for its account of his submission to Catholic authority would make nonsense of such a claim.) Rather, he sought to point to a vital process for the health of the Church, encouraging the lay faithful and their pastors to work together. Newman believed that the maturity of the Church depended on an educated and vigorous laity – “a conspiracy of pastors and faithful” (and what a delicious phrase that is!) He supported this assertion with massive historical evidence, showing that at crucial moments in the Church’s history it was the laity and not the bishops who had remained faithful in resisting innovations.
Newman’s standpoint provoked outrage. Monsignor George Talbot, a Papal Chamberlain to Pope Pius IX, wrote from Rome to Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster. (Manning was himself an ex-Anglican but of a rather different sort from Newman. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the definition of Papal Infallibility, about which Newman had expressed some reservations, though of course accepting it once it had been promulgated at the First Vatican Council) In his letter Talbot wrote:
If a check is not placed on the laity of England they will be the rulers of the Catholic Church in England instead of the Holy See and the episcopate … the laity are beginning to show the cloven hoof. They are only putting into practice the doctrine taught by Dr Newman in his article in the Rambler. What is the province of the laity? To hunt, to shoot, to entertain. These matters they understand, but to meddle with ecclesiastical matters they have no right at all, and this affair of Newman is a matter purely ecclesiastical. Dr Newman is the most dangerous man in England and you will see that he will make use of the laity against your Grace.
Mercifully, Talbot’s assessment of Newman was not that of Pio Nono’s successor, Leo XIII who created him Cardinal, nor of Benedict XVI who beatified our Patron and Pope Francis who canonised him.
Just after writing my last post I came across this ‘Translator’s note’ at the beginning of a 1954 edition of ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’ by St François de Sales. Fr Michael Day, an Oratorian, writes:
The present translation into simple, straightforward, contemporary English is an attempt to make this work of living devotion more widely accessible. A translation into seventeenth-century English, or in an archaic style, would give it an air of unreality; too literal a translation would be no true translation and do no service to the original: on the other hand a certain freedom in translation might be mistaken for a paraphrase. The translator is concerned primarily with the thought of the original writer and with the problem of expressing that thought as clearly as possible; not only the words and phrases, but the very thought itself must be expressed in valid terminology; he is dealing with words as signs, and must use valid signs, signs which are valid here and now; he must abandon signs which were once valid but are so no longer. In the following work every effort has been made to use such valid terminology in a faithful and clear translation of an original which is indeed “a treasure of devotion”.
It was decided early on that the Ordinariates, created to receive Anglicans wishing to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church, should have liturgical books which expressed their Anglican patrimony. Divine Worship Daily Office (Commonwealth Edition) expresses it thus: Divine Worship preserves such features and elements that are representative of the English prayer book tradition, in conformity with Catholic doctrinal and liturgical norms. (p20 n45) Moreover, it was decided that the liturgies created for the Ordinariate should maintain the language of the Prayer Books of 1549, 1552 and 1662 and their subsequent revisions, up until the decision of the various Provinces of the Anglican Communion to move to current English. (This is sometimes simply expressed as the move from thee/thou language to you/your forms.) I have pointed out several times that this was much more difficult for American Anglicans, who had come to equate ‘modern’ English with the galloping liberalism of their Province. In the UK this connection was not made, and many Anglo-Catholics embraced the modern language forms which were appearing in the C of E and in the Catholic Church.
It is worth noting the different approach to liturgical revision and promulgation of texts. In the C of E various experimental liturgies were produced – ‘Series 1, Series 2, Series 3 etc’ – used, revised by committee, and then subject to tedious line-by-line alteration in General Synod debates. The Catholic Church produced its new liturgies in a Latin original, each language group producing a vernacular translation which was then checked and agreed centrally before being published just before the agreed date upon which the new liturgy entered into use. The Catholic Church has the tidier and less exhausting process, but it may seem more closed to creative participation in the liturgy. (I am told that the French Bishops, having received the ‘doctrinally corrected’ version of our much more recent new translation, put it through a further stage to ensure that it was expressed in good French – but then the French have always been more particular about their language as a thing of beauty that English speakers.)
In this way the various liturgies were created for the Ordinariates. It would appear that the American understanding of the Prayer Book tradition prevailed, though Cranmer’s Prayer of Consecration, (even with the Prayer of Oblation as its second half) was replaced by a thee/thou form of the Roman Canon and a similarly retranslated version of Eucharistic Prayer 2 from the current Roman Missal.
Writing liturgical forms in current English is not easy. The language is fluid and we are living at a time where Received Pronunciation, once the standard of BBC broadcasting, is being rejected as ‘elitist’ in favour of local accents and the many Americanisms which have entered English speech in recent years. Translation from a Latin original into the vernacular is complicated. The Missal of 1970 was much criticised as being flat and prosaic in its language; the current translation is criticised as being too close to the form and vocabulary of Latin.
The Ordinariate liturgies have used existing texts from the various Anglican Prayer Books and the unofficial Missals of the 19th century. The quality of writing varies. Cranmer was at his best (interestingly) when re-casting the Latin Collects, and at his worst when seeking to impose, through liturgical prayer, his doctrinal obsessions – as in his Confessions at both the Office and Communion Service. But he created some masterpieces, and after him the quality dips. The services written to commemorate the Gunpowder Plot and the execution of King Charles I are not good, and the rites composed by the non-Jurors towards the end of the 17th century are lengthy and verbose. The Oxford Movement in the 19th century saw a great out-pouring of translation from Latin originals as Anglicans sought to break out and move beyond a Prayer Book seen as doctrinally and liturgically restrictive. Great in quantity, but not always great in quality, were the hymns and prayers borrowed (and translated) from mediaeval and contemporary (Roman) sources. “… Those who looked on e’en faithless yet / With mad infuriate rage beset / to mock Christ’s followers combine / As drunken all with new made wine.’ (Office Hymn for Pentecost) Indeed one might ask whether ‘Mercifully hear us, O God, that, like as we do rejoice … ” might not be more simply and elegantly rendered as “Mercifully hear us, O God, that as we rejoice … “
In selecting these texts we must seriously consider changes in meaning of words over the centuries. An obvious example is the Collect which begins, ” PREVENT us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour …” As a note appended on the internet explains, ‘ Prevent as used in King James/Book of Common Prayer era English means go before or lead. Are we justified in retaining this text unaltered, expending considerable time explaining to those who ask and which is puzzling those who do not!
I moved to a new Parish in 1981. A member of the congregation who was a competent poet had written some years previously a hymn for the May Devotion to Our Lady. The second verse began, “Maid Mary’s Son was brave and gay.” The author herself said to me that, although she objected to the appropriation of a word by a particular group, it had happened and to avoid misunderstanding she had re-written that line. We sang the hymn in its revised form.
More serious is the understanding of God and his actions which may be expressed. “O Almighty Lord God who for the sin of man did’st once drown all the world except eight persons ….”. I simply ask if we believe that God behaves like this? If we don’t then we can’t and shouldn’t pray like this.
So far we have seen that there are considerable difficulties to be overcome in composing a liturgy in language which is not current. We need to be aware of what someone once described as the ‘giggle factor’ – that is, opening our public prayer to ridicule because of the use of certain words and phrases. No doubt one can find many examples: I was struck by the line in a Canticle from the prophet Habakkuk: “my belly trembled / rottenness entered into my bones,” and, oh dear, images of the physical condition of some of my colleagues entered my mind. But rather more serious is the use of language to hide the meaning or to divert attention. We have become used to this in our generation with phrases like ‘friendly fire’ (meaning shot at by your own side) and ‘collateral damage’ (meaning the number of innocent bystanders killed and injured) but I was deeply perturbed in reading an ‘Examination of Conscience for Priests’. I read, ‘Do I wear in a dignified fashion all of the sacred vestments prescribed by the Church?’ (which presumably means that wearing the maniple must be confessed) yet I looked in vain for any real questions directed at my sexuality, which remains, even at my age, an area of concern! ‘Have I allowed myself to be in the proximate occasion of sin against chastity … have I been prudent in my dealings with the various categories of persons?’ A Church which has had serious problems with paedophile clergy needs to be rather more direct than this – both for its own reputation and in helping its clergy to know themselves. Might I suggest something like, ‘Have I been honest with myself about my sexual feelings and not behaved in an inappropriate manner with men, women or children. ‘ I think it is decent English, too.
The English Prayer Book of 1549 introduced to the people of England a new daily Office. The monastic Breviary with its eight-fold daily Office (upon which pattern the Breviary recited, at least since the 11th century, by the secular clergy had been based) was no longer needed as a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. But Cranmer’s two-fold Office was by no means a complete innovation. Indeed, it went back to the pattern of daily worship in the first centuries of the Faith, when the Eucharist was celebrated on Sundays, and the people gathered for daily Morning and Evening Prayer – a non-Eucharistic celebration of psalms and Scripture reading.
It was this pattern of the Sunday Communion Service and daily Morning and Evening Prayer which Cranmer intended. (The later practise of celebrating the Communion Service on only four Sundays in the year, common right into the 19th century, is a lazy misunderstanding of Cranmer’s insistence that there always be lay people to receive Holy Communion with the priest – and the stubborn continuation of the laity of their pre-Reformation habit of receiving very infrequently!) The Prayer Book services are based on the earlier Offices of Lauds and Vespers, and their recitation was obligatory for all priests and deacons. But participation by the laity was encouraged by the rubric requiring that the parish priest recite the Office in church and ring the bell beforehand. The widespread neglect of the public daily Office by a section of the clergy of the Church of England from the 1950’s onwards and the substitution of a personal ‘Quiet Time’ certainly cannot be justified by any appeal to the Reformation liturgy of the C of E.
Richard Hooker 1554-1600
In the next century, in 1688, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft, wrote to the Bishops of his Province urging the public performance of the daily office ‘in all market and other great towns’. In 1714 a large proportion of London churches had daily Morning and Evening Prayer, with the morning Office sometimes as early as 6am. The departure of the Non-Jurors, the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’, and the arrival of the Hanoverians, combined to rob the Church of England of a disciplined spiritual life, and the Evangelical Revival concentrated principally on personal devotion.
The Oxford Movement sought to restore obedience to the Prayer Book together with renewed emphasis on the spiritual life of the clergy. The recitation of the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer in the Parish Church was high on their list of priorities.
Religious sisters in the Ordinariate – formerly at Wantage
But the restoration of the Religious Life, first for women and then later for men, led to difficulties concerning the Office. In the contemporary (Roman) Catholic communities there was a strict division between those orders, monks and nuns, who recited the whole monastic Daily Office from Matins to Compline, in choir, and Religious, active in the world, who recited a much shorter and limited daily round of prayer. For Anglican Communities English translations of the Office with plainchant adapted so that the Offices could be sung, soon appeared. These translations were often based on English mediaeval uses (Sarum in particular) so as to appear rather more loyal! The number of communities using the Roman Office in Latin was always small, the Benedictines of Nashdom being perhaps the best-known.
Equally small was the number of Anglican clergy who recited the Latin Breviary in place of the Prayer Book Offices, although more would have supplemented with the minor Offices taken from the ‘Day Hours’. The appearance of the Liturgy of the Hours in 1971, in Latin and then in an authorised English translation (as is usual in Catholic liturgical books) brought about a remarkable change in the liturgical life of the clergy of the Church of England. Almost unanimously (among the Anglo-Catholics) they switched to this new five-fold Office.
It is important to remember at this point the different attitude to the Book of Common Prayer and the use of modern English, a difference in understanding and approach between ‘traditionalists’ in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the USA. It was a difference which was to be fundamental, I believe, in the creation of the various Ordinariate liturgies. For most ‘traditionalist’ Anglo-Catholics the Book of Common Prayer was a Protestant manual which had been imposed upon the English Church by the monarch and Parliament. They may have retained an affection for ‘Choral Evensong, but by and large were glad to see the Prayer Book eclipsed by the modern language services – though disappointed by the concessions made over evangelical shibboleths like the word “offer” in the Eucharist and prayer for the dead in the Funeral Services. The Americans traditionalists came to believe that the Prayer Book (in thee/thou language) represented catholic orthodoxy, and they associated modern language with the liberalism which was then sweeping through the Episcopal Church. (Ironically, there was even a sense among English Anglo-Catholics that those who clung to the ‘old services’ presented with ceremonies abolished after Vatican 2 were ‘High Church’ rather than ‘Catholic’!)
And now brief diversion into the changes in the Office which were being piloted in the Religious Communities of the Church of England int he 1970’s – it was, after all, they who had deeply influenced liturgical development in the 19th century. Two examples will have to suffice …
Kelham Hall with the 1930’s chapel on the left
The reforms to the (Roman) Catholic Mass had introduced a new lectionary of scripture readings. Over the course of 3 years on Sundays, and 2 years on weekdays, all of the New Testament, and much of the Old Testament was to be read in course. But this left a problem for Anglicans who already had a Daily Office lectionary giving them four readings a day. The Kelham Fathers (the Society of the Sacred Mission – SSM) in their new liturgy of 1970 composed a daily lectionary of six readings – Old Testament, New Testament and Gospel – to be read, three in the morning and three in the evening. The morning liturgy combined Morning Prayer with the Liturgy of the Word, with the psalms and canticles recited between the readings. This pattern could also be observed when the Mass was celebrated in the evening as on Maundy Thursday. It worked less well on Feast Days with a Midday Mass – when the form of Midday Prayer was recited first thing in the morning! The ceremonial was pushed to a curious – though logical, I suppose – conclusion at Solemn Evensong on Sunday. No longer was the altar censed at Magnificat but a procession formed to the lectern for the reading by the Officiant of the Gospel.
A rather different pattern was evolved by the Franciscans (the Society of St Francis – SSF) whose Office I personally used in the 1980’s. (I had stopped using the Roman Divine Office when I became an incumbent and welcomed a curate from St John’s College, Nottingham! The little brown book provided a four-fold office with Morning and Evening Prayer based on the Prayer Book form. There was a lectionary, psalter (the Revised Psalter, I think) antiphons for Benedictus and Magnificat, full provision for Solemnities like the Assumption – but one needed a Bible for the readings. (Exactly the right size was the Good News Bible TEV – a terrible translation but I liked it for its freshness and vigour.) The Franciscans went on to develop a form which eventually found its way into Common Worship though in a form, if I remember correctly, which was disowned by the Franciscan liturgists. Correct me, someone, if I have got it wrong.
The developments in the history of the Anglican Office have found their way into the Catholic Church with the publication of the Divine Worship Daily Office. Interestingly, this is the “Commonwealth Edition” meaning, one imagines, for the use of the UK and Australian Ordinariates. What then of the United States, which had so much influence on the Divine Worship Missal?
But the question of modern or traditional la nguage hardly seems important to me, though I am aware that for some the language of Cranmer, and the 19th century attempts to write in it in the various Missals, are a part of the Patrimony. More interesting, it seems to me is (1) whether the public recitation of the Office can exist alongside the Catholic tradition of the Daily Mass. (This was not an issue for Cranmer, and the Oxford revival of frequent celebration of the Eucharist would seem to suggest that it cannot) and (2) can Cranmer’s vision of the laity responding to the bell of their parish church and joining their parish priest in reciting the Daily Office be realised in the very different conditions of the 21st century?
On the other hand, the shortage of priests and electronic ways of group meeting, like SKYPE, have suggested to one of my friends, a rather different way of developing the daily Prayer of the Church. Hmm.
The campaign to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister of the devolved Scottish Parliament provoked storms of ‘Christianophobia’. (I know the word doesn’t exist because the media et al. do not want to recognise it. ‘Islamophobia’ – ‘Homophobia’ – ‘Transphobia’ – but dislike or even hatred directed against Christians, no, that doesn’t happen. )
Of course, we know it does, and with increasing frequency. The gentle mocking of the Christian Faith which was common among the intelligentsia in the last century has been replaced by much more direct and bitter attacks. That these are usually misinformed and prejudiced, and often involve scandalous rewriting of history, seems not to matter. Catholics in particular know it. The UK has a long history of anti-Catholic prejudice and it certainly hasn’t gone away. But it was Kate Forbes, one of the candidates, and a member of the Free Church of Scotland, who came in for a lot if stick in the run-up to the election. A few seconds into a search of the internet, and I found expressions like “the hard-line Free Church of Scotland”, ‘bigoted beliefs’, her intention to ‘roll back rights’, “conscience exceptions that allow them to discriminate against those they other (sic) especially members of the LGBTIQ+ community, at the expense of equal accommodation in the public square” …
What interested me was the very different treatment that Humza Yousaf received as regards his religion. Again from the internet, “(supporters of Kate Forbes ) often raise the issue of rival Humza Yousaf’s Muslim faith even though Yousaf has a solid record of supporting and defending LGBTIQ rights while Forbes plainly does not.” Yet Humza Yousaf is in exactly the same position as Kate Forbes is in the relation to the religious body to which he belongs. Islamic teaching is that sex outside marriage is sinful – thus making homosexual practise unacceptable. Mr Yousaf may have this ‘solid record’, but in doing so he stands against Muslim teaching. Ms Forbes argued that, as a politician, she would not to seek to undo legislation which allows same sex couples to contract a form of civil marriage, although she is a member of the Christian Church which holds that such practice is sinful. In just the same way, a Christian member of Parliament is unlikely to seek to abolish the divorce laws, even though Jesus clearly taught that divorce and remarriage is bad for individuals and society. I would have thought that this sort of distinction would be more difficult for a Muslim, who tries to integrate politics and religion in a way that Christians held to in the ‘Christendom’ era but have since abandoned. But maybe I have misunderstood Muslim teaching and will stand corrected.
On her last day in the Scottish Parliament, Ms Sturgeon gave her good wishes to Muslims in Scotland at the beginning of their fasting month of Ramadan. She was followed in this expression of good wishes by two other MSP’s. No similar gesture was made at the beginning of Lent when Christians begin a six week period of preparation, including fasting and abstinence, for the great Festival of Easter. This would seem to be completely at odds with the assertion, again from the internet that “in Western countries, where Muslims constitute an often mistreated religious minority, Christianity is clearly privileged in a way that simply ‘being religious’ is not.” Again, on the Radio 4 Sunday Programme Palm Sunday it was said by one of the interviewees that ethnic minorities in Scotland were still handicapped by discrimination against them which prevented their rising in status. Simply not true said the other interviewee: a recent survey indicates that immigrants from south Asia have shown the fastest upward mobility in any social group over the last fifty years.
So what is going on, and where do we find the truth? Some years ago a newspaper article wondered whether an answer might lie in the background of the people whom we describe as the ‘liberal élite’ among politicians at all levels, the media and broadcasters. Many of the older people in this group will have been educated in the British Public School system where they will have experienced ‘public school religion’, liberal Christianity, Confirmation by year group, etc . They have rebelled again their parents”Church of Englandism’ – marriage in the village church, christening ceremonies, memorial services – maybe even a Christmas Carol Service. Nonetheless, they are rebelling against something essentially ‘theirs’. The Establishment of the Church of England as part of ‘our’ nation gives us, as British people, the right to criticise ‘our’ Church – even though we no longer go or support it in any way. (If you don’t believe me, think back to Prime Minister David Cameron’s intervention in Parliament when the General Synod voted not to proceed to the ordination of women as Bishops.) Now if this is right, then their attitude of respect, their failure to engage, especially with Islam, is because they see it as essentially ‘other’ – even ‘foreign’. They would be horrified at the suggestion, but it is, at root, a form of unconscious racism.
By contrast, the convinced Christian wishes to engage with the his Muslim brother or sister. With profound respect for the dignity of another human being and for his freedom – given by God to all his creation (rather than the somewhat dodgy notion of human rights inherent just because human beings exist) he wishes to listen, speak, reflect, challenge, on fundamental issues of faith and morality. What is at stake here is the truth – or even the Truth. The notion that out there are a group of Muslims (or Hindus or Sikhs or Jews) who are just longing to be liberated from outdated ‘religious’ strictures so that they can embrace Western ‘freedoms’, seems to me both demeaning and dangerous.
Ordinariate Pilgrim 