New Ordinariate Missal - A Spiritual Force for Unity

Thanks to a gift from Bishop Lopes, the clergy of OCSP are currently reading and contemplating the latest edition of ANTIPHON, the Journal of the Society for Catholic Liturgy.

Bishop Steven Lopes at the Ordinariate Chancery in Houston, TX

The entire edition ( Vol 19 No. 2015) is dedicated to exploring the history, theology and liturgical principles with which Divine Worship: The Missal (DW) was assembled for worldwide use by the Ordinariates -- Anglicans and others received into full communion with Rome since 2009.

Dominican Archbishop Di Noia (left)

Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offers a very useful introduction to the volume as he recounts from his experience as co-chairman of Anglicanae Traditiones, the inter-dicasterial commission which developed Divine Worship, the patrimonial liturgy of the Ordinariates.

Archbishop Di Noia concludes with a quotation from the 2010 address by Cardinal Levada at Queens University, Kingston, ON. Canada in which he said that Divine Worship is a gift to the whole Church: 

Abp Di Noia (left) with Cardinal Levada 

"When their particular [Anglican] expression of faith adds harmony to ours, and ours add harmony to theirs, the logical step is to pass from talking longingly about unity to living in unity."

Bishop Lopes offers authors the first article in which he recounts the ratio by which Anglicanae Traditiones,  the commission set up to compose the Ordinariate Missal, worked. The principles that were set forth for the work of the commission include:

+  Preserving Anglican patrimony in communion with Rome

+  Including doctrinally sound elements of the Books of Common Prayer and the Anglican and English Missals

+  Harmonizing distinctly Anglican ritual with the shape of the Roman Rite

These principles culminate in the final principle which links of all aspects of Anglican Patrimony with the central mission of the Church expressed in evangelization and the ministry of calling to unity  with the Chair of Peter all those baptized into the Body of Christ. 


Dr. Clinton Brand, in his essay, Very Members Incorporate: Reflections on the Sacral Language of Divine Worship, offers insightful background on the importance of the sacral language selected for use in Divine Worship; language that embodies, in the words of Pope Benedict, "the precious gift of nourishing faith." Anglicanorum Coetibus (AC) Art. 2.Reflecting on liturgical language as used in the Ordinariates through the use of DW, Dr. Brand holds that good liturgical language acts as a "focussed, concentrated instrument of mediation to effect, to incarnate, our participation in the saving mysteries of our faith . . . "

Dr. Brand (centre) with Bishop Lopes

Dr. Brand emphasizes that liturgical language cannot serve its purpose in a vacuum or be preserved in timeworn isolation under constant threat of the zeitgeist.  Sacral language is not simply for those who appreciate a traditional idiom as a cultural icon.  As he puts it:

" . . . it needs emphasizing that liturgical speech by itself, even at its best and richest, cannot achieve these ends without the necessary structures of authority, authentic unity of intention and manifest bonds of communion that are more than notional or aspirational, something more than wishful thinking."

The language of liturgy cannot flourish apart from the crucial structural, symbolic and evangelical elements which must all be present in order to further the spread of the Gospel and the mission of unity in the Church. 


In his essay "Unum Baptisma" Fr. Edward Maxfield Jr. builds upon the theme of unity at the core of the Ordinariates' mandate. He examines the parallels and the differences between the The Order of Holy Baptism in  Divine Worship: Occasional Services (OS) and the English version of the Baptism rite in the Rituale Romanum.

Recently ordained Fr. Maxfield (centre) 
as a seminarian

By highlighting the English sources from Sarum to the various iterations of the Book of Common Prayer, Fr. Maxfield brings into focus the absolute centrality of unity in the mission, ministry and catechesis of the Catholic Church as it relates to other Christian bodies and to the secular world.

Fr. Maxfield emphasizes the catechetical genius of the baptismal rite and of a sacramentality which takes seriously the path of faith.

As he says:
"The whole logic of initiation, and indeed the whole Christian life, is adapted to the senses of man who learns things gradually. The  Church as a good mother does, explains the meanings of all her actions gradually and repeatedly."


Dom John-Bede Pauley, OSB is the final contributor to this number of Antiphon.

Dom John-Bede Pauley, OSB

His essay, entitled, "The Anglican Choral Heritage and Lectio Divina" gives us a monastic insight into the Benedictine shape of  Anglican patrimony.

With a brief summary of the various influences within Anglican patrimony including the high, low and latitudinarian groupings, Dom Pauley focuses upon the elements of text and music which have persisted in being truly consonant with Catholic faith and teaching.

Emphasizing the "listening" component in worship, the author notes that the audible art form: music, plays a crucial role in the Ordinariate as a critical part of the Anglican patrimony that is being brought home to the wider Catholic Church. In fact, he notes that if the Extraordinary Form can be said to focus the eye on the visual elements of the Mass and the Ordinary Form emphasizes the Word then we could reasonable say that Anglican patrimony and Divine Worship can be noted for attention to listening. Listening to the cadences of traditional English in the Coverdale Psalms, listening to Anglican Chant and to the English Choral tradition generally.

Of course many of us "Benedictine sympathizers" are ready to cheer. This is not because Fr. Pauley is trying to set up a definite opposition between the Scholastic approach to Scripture and the Benedictine.  Rather, he is pointing out that the two may be distinct and at the same time complementary. 

What would an Ordinariate essay be without a reference to the inimitable Fr. Hunwicke?  In this instance he directs Fr. Pauley to a quote from Cardinal Manning bemoaning Newman's efforts to bring an "old Anglican, Patristic" tone into the Catholic Church. 

After some very pertinent reflections upon Lectio Divina in relation to Anglican spirituality, liturgy and the daily office, the author then takes us on a brief guided tour of the history of music in the Anglican and English world from the pre-Renaissance era to the Tudor/Renaissance, the Early Baroque, Early Gregorian/Late Baroque to the Late Georgian/ Classical period.  

Fr. Pauley concludes his masterful summary with this statement:

"This spirituality has been humming along - - with its own developments, its own fits and starts for five centuries in the Anglican Communion. "Patristic, literary" liturgical music was and, thanks to Anglicanorum Coetibus, unquestionably is Catholic."