(Some of) The Newer Rite is Here

Yesterday, it was announced on the Ordinariate's website that on the 22 June, the Feast of St John Fisher and St Thomas More (to which we referred here), the Vatican had approved an Order for the Celebration of Holy Matrimony and an Order for Funerals for use in the various Ordinariates established under the terms of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

For more information on the new texts, you can watch these interviews given by Monsignor Andrew Burnham to Fr James Bradley at the Church of the Holy Rood in Oxford. 


Order for Marriage from UKOrdinariate on Vimeo.


Order for Funerals from UKOrdinariate on Vimeo.

The texts most definitely constitute a vernacular rite of great beauty.  Those who labour in the error that Anglican Patrimony is a fiction will see their misunderstanding corrected (some of you might have read this post, in which we took these liturgy-obsessed critics to task).  Now we are all able to see more and more of the liturgical contribution that Anglican Patrimony can bring, as part of a wider set of gifts that our Anglican heritage carries into the rich context of the Catholic Church.

This is concrete proof that the Ordinariate, fully part of the Catholic Church, fully in communion with the Successor of St Peter, helps to bring about in most clear way possible the advancement of the Catholic Faith in the very best of the Anglican tradition.

The language of both rites is very familiar, drawn largely from the Book of Common Prayer, and from the Church of England's "Series 1", which can perhaps be described as traditional language with some helpful amendments and with some catholicisation of the original texts, filling in the gaps (eg prayers for the dead) left by the Reformation and mainstream protestant theology.

The texts are definitely not protestant texts simply cut and pasted into a Catholic setting.  They have been thoroughly reviewed, and where necessary corrected and upgraded, in order to ensure total consistency with Catholic teaching.  This is not the wholesale, unthinking introduction of the Book of Common Prayer or of Anglican liturgy in general, but rather, these new texts are perfectly in line with the words of the Anglicanorum Coetibus itself :

III      Without excluding liturgical celebrations according to the Roman Rite, the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.

We have these texts for marriage and burial now, we already have some other texts (notably the rite used for Evensong and Benediction as at St James's back in January for the Ordinariate's anniversary), and very soon we shall have the Customary.  The "Ordinariate Mass" might take a little longer, but once it is ready, we can be assured that it will be totally and unquestionably consistent with Catholic teaching on the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and that it will be presented in a vernacular text and in a manner worthy of the finest Anglican traditions.

You can find these new texts, along with some explanation of the context, on the website of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, the Ordinariate formed for Anglicans joining the Catholic Church in the USA and Canada.  The texts will be used there, in the UK (the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham), and in Australia (the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross).  As and when other Ordinariates spring up (eg in South Africa), we can expect that they will be able to use the same texts.

As recent former Anglicans, we can probably be forgiven for wondering whether any of those in the Church of England will find themselves tempted to use these texts, the Customary or even the form of the Ordinariate Mass when it is available.  No doubt their diocesan bishops would not be keen on the idea, as Dr Chartres of London has already made clear.  However, in that same blogpost, More than Words, we noted, in a quotation from the St Peter's London Docks blog, a phenomenon that means that we cannot exclude the possibility that Anglican clergy will seek to use these rather good new Catholic texts.:

There seems much jumping of the gun in the use of the new Missal, in the pre-fab form which is authorised from this Sunday. One cleric told me that the Ordinariate were already allowed to use it and he thought of himself as the Church of England wing of the Ordinariate and thus permitted. It's hard to think what to say to that.

Who can say what will happen.  Although some Anglican parishes have abandoned the Roman Rite altogether since the new translation was introduced late last year, replacing it with more clearly Anglican liturgy, others have ignored Dr Chartres's views, and have pressed ahead with the new translation of the Roman Rite regardless (for the simple reason that they like it better than the 1970 version).  Moreover, as noted in our post Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt, one can only imagine what Dr Chartres thinks of the use of pre-1955 Holy Week rites in his diocese, forms of liturgy authorised nowhere in a translation never officially recognised anywhere.

We give thanks for the promulgation of the texts of these new rites, and rejoice that they add to the Anglican Patrimony that we have been able to bring with us into the Catholic Church.  These new texts are indeed, in the words of Anglicanorum Coetibus, a treasure to be shared. 

Reforming Perceptions

On Tuesday, London’s tourists were flocking to the Mall to watch the Queen make her way to the Palace of Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament.  This is, of course, a familiar sight to those of us who live or work in the city; a sight as banal as the language of the speech our unfortunate monarch is required to deliver on behalf of her ministers.

Yet but a short distance away, in the even older ceremonial thoroughfare of Pall Mall, a more remarkable site was to be seen, that of fifty or so Catholic priests making their way not to the more familiar ecclesiastical territory of the Athenaeum or the Travellers, but to that less godly institution, the Reform Club.

The occasion was a meeting hosted by the Friends of the Ordinariate at which Mgr Keith Newton and Mgr Andrew Burnham discussed the role of the Ordinariate in the Catholic life of Great Britain and how that work might be supported by the priests and parishes of the Church.  The meeting itself was private but the goodwill demonstrated towards the Ordinariate was both heartfelt and heartening.

When we were received into the Church it was at first a little disappointing, if entirely understandable, to find a widespread lack of awareness of the Ordinariate among Catholics, of what it is about and why Pope Benedict brought it into being.  We are very familiar with the question “but why did you not just become a Catholic” and are well experienced in the art of explaining that we are indeed full members of the Catholic Church, rejoicing in a unity we so long denied ourselves.

In the Marylebone Ordinariate Group, we have been particularly fortunate not only in the support we have received from the clergy in the parish that our group attends, but also in having the opportunity at occasional Ordinariate services to demonstrate some of those rich traditions we bring with us as part of our Anglican patrimony.  We know that when we have the opportunity to explain, and better still to show, the role of the Ordinariate, understanding and support invariably follows quickly from those hitherto perplexed.  The initiative of the Friends in arranging the meeting, and there will be more to follow in other parts of the country, is greatly to be welcomed.  Quite rightly, the obligation is on us to explain ourselves, and this we are more than happy to do.

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith has already reported very positively on the meeting in the Catholic Herald, including reference to a service of evensong he attended in Chichester, a name that is to feature in an upcoming blogpost here.  

How appropriate it was that the meeting should end with the singing of the Regina Caeli, surely the first time it had ever been heard in the Reform Club.  As the words echoed from the Library, through the Gallery and the Saloon and into every corner of Charles Barry’s magnificent building, they enveloped the portrait of Daniel O’Connell, the bust of Henry Brougham and many another who had fought for Catholic Emancipation and who, in their triumph, paved the way for the passing of the great Reform Act itself.  O’Connell’s Catholic Association had profound and lasting consequences for the British constitution, far beyond those imagined by its founders.  Perhaps in their choice of the Reform Club the Friends of the Ordinariate were wiser than they knew.

Another First Mass in the Ordinariate

We reported earlier this week from the Ordinations of Fr James Bradley and Fr Daniel Lloyd at St Patrick's Soho Square, and from the First Mass of Fr Bradley at Holy Ghost Balham.  After the offering of Fr Bradley on Sunday morning, members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group journeyed north to Oxford, the City of Dreaming Spires, to assist at Fr Daniel Lloyd’s first celebration of the Sacrifice of Calvary.

The setting could hardly have been more different. The Church of the Holy Rood, a title so appropriate for the First Mass of an Ordinariate Priest, is in many ways a product of the great iconoclasm of the last century, yet at a second glance retains and rejoices in many of the traditional marks of the Catholic Faith. As such, Mass was celebrated towards the East, as is to be favoured according to the Ordinariate’s liturgical patrimony: priest and people together in awful anticipation of Christ the High Priest’s return.

In recognition of the universality of the Catholic Church, into which Fr Lloyd has now been ordained as priest forever, the Newman Consort sang the Introit and other Propers in Latin plainsong, the language of generations before. The setting of the Mass, Missa Euge Bone, composed by Christopher Tye, echoed that fateful era of the Henrician Schism when, as the Assistant Priest Mgr Andrew Burnham pointed out, the musical jewel of English Catholicism was buried, divorced from centuries of tradition. How moving it was, then, to witness this humble new priest offering the same sacrifice using a “set of texts which has not changed by more than a few syllables since Augustine used those very words at Canterbury on the Third Sunday of Easter in the summer after he landed”.

Fr John Saward of Ss. Gregory and Augustine in Oxford, himself a former minister in the Church of England, preached the homily. He drew our attention to the life of Bl Karl Leisner, a holy priest held in Dachau concentration camp, who died of tuberculosis shortly after being liberated by the Allied Forces. He was captured a deacon, and whilst imprisoned was ordained to the priesthood by a bishop and fellow inmate. Due to his illness he had only the strength to offer the Mass but once.

Fr Saward noted the natural response of the secular world to such a situation; how great a waste of a life and futile an exercise to ordain a priest who had no opportunity to help the sick or console the dying. We were put in mind of the words of the Blessed Apostle Paul, of the crucified Christ Himself, “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Fr Lloyd was exhorted to remain faithful to the celebration of the Mass, and reminded of the infinite grace outpoured at a single offering in union with Christ and His Church.

The Prayers of the Faithful echoed words which remain imprinted on the hearts of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group, those of the Prayer for the Church Militant here in Earth, amended to intercede on behalf of our Holy Father the Pope, along with the Ordinary, before also beseeching God’s protection of His servant Elizabeth our Queen and her Government. Patrimony received, purified, and proclaimed by the Church in the fullness of truth.

The joyful beauty of the Mass reached a crescendo at the Benedictus and culminated in the Agnus Dei, the Newman Consort truly excelling and raising hearts on high in the sight of the Divine Majesty. Such unspeakable wickedness to silence the song of Christ’s Faithful in the name of reformation.

An altogether different song of gladness concluded the Mass. A resounding ‘We praise thee, O God’ from our new priest gave way to the exuberance of Haydn’s Te Deum, echoing the great joy of the Church Militant and Triumphant at this first offering of the Holy Sacrifice. Those present could not but cast their minds back to the Beatification Mass of Blessed John Henry Newman, when our Holy Father concluded his offering with that same great expression of praise. Not confounded by this monolith of Austrian faith, English devotion to the Ordinariate’s heavenly mother could not but assert its place, with all in typically enthusiastic chorus singing ‘Joy to thee, O Queen of Heaven…’.

The celebration of a priest’s First Mass is one which draws together the Body of Christ in love for the new priest. Yet such an occasion is inevitably deeply personal and intimate for the man conformed to Christ Himself. In grateful thanksgiving, Fr Lloyd offered his mother and wife posies of flowers which had previously adorned the altar, before imparting his first blessing on them and all present.

How can we not, on such occasions, pray all the more earnestly for vocations, for mothers and fathers to offer their sons to the Lord who is ever-faithful? Lovingly reverencing the anointed hands of the new priest, by whose words and actions the grace of Christ is made present to his flock, we pray that His grace may extend to wanderers from the fold so that they might be one with the saints in one unbroken peace, one unbounded love.

Praise we Him, Whose love divine
Gives the guests His blood for wine,
Gives His body for the feast,
Love the victim, Love the priest.

Thanks be to God for sending His Church these two new priests.

Spread the Word

A Happy New Year to all of our readers. 

January is often a slow month, painfully so.  However, the first January of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group's existence is far from slow.  Preparations for the Solemn Evensong and Benediction being held at St James's to mark the first "birthday" of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are well underway, and as you might expect the workload will increase day by day until we finally reach the fifteenth.   Music, clergy, serving, wine/food, orders of service, publicity etc.  The largest challenge of course is estimating numbers, much of the rest flows from that. 

The enthusiasm of Fr Christopher Pearson and the extraordinarily helpful welcome, patience and accommodativeness of Fr Christopher Colven make life much easier in putting things together.  To both of them we say thank you. 

We have been very pleased to read of the plans being made by other Ordinariate groups around the country to join this great celebration.  Fr Edwin Barnes's excellent blog Ancient Richborough (to which we provide a permanent link on the right hand sidebar of this blog) has talked of people planning to travel to London from Bournemouth and Salisbury.  Fr Ed Tomlinson's Tunbridge Wells Ordinariate Group blog (to which we also provide a permanent link) mentions that he hopes that a group will travel in from Kent.

No-one can be sure of course until we see the numbers in church on the day, but the impression we have, from emails received and internet postings spotted, is that Ordinariate members seems to be very keen on there being an opportunity to get together to celebrate one year of the Ordinariate.  For many, there will of course be the extraordinarily happy memory of a visit to Westminster Cathedral on 15 January 2011, where we witnessed the ordination as Catholic priests of our three Monsignori, and were gather together in large numbers at the birth of something really quite extraordinary.  The atmosphere of hope, joy, welcome and indeed thanksgiving that day was astonishing.

One part of that will be the music.  There will be a selection of very rousing and mostly very well known treasures of Anglican cathedral evensong repertoire.  No doubt the ever-impressive St James's Spanish Place choir will turn in a excellent performance.   What a joy it will be to hear this music in our new Catholic setting. 

You can see what music has been chosen on the Facebook Event page for our celebrations.  You do not have to be signed up to Facebook to view this, but if you are and if you intend to come along, please do sign up to attend, and from there you will have the option to invite your own Facebook friends.  This is a fantastically easy and efficient way to spread the word about the 15th, so please do invite people you know through the Facebook system: if they have already been invited by someone else, Facebook will stop you inviting them a second time, so there is no need to worry about deluging your friends.

Indeed, more generally, do please tell all your friends about this event, and if you run a blog of your own, please do mention it there too.  This could be a great occasion, when we will have the chance to come together and express our joy at where the last year has brought us, and along with Catholics and Anglicans present, give thanks for this wonderful gift of the Holy Father to the cause of Christian Unity. 

You may wish to display a poster on your church noticeboard.  If so, you can find the very attractive poster designed by Deacon Daniel Lloyd of the Oxford Ordinariate Group below.  Decent A4 prints will result even from saving and printing this image.

Finally, you might find the article in this link interesting.  There, William Oddie talks about how some of the linguistic treasures of the Book of Common Prayer are being brought into the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate, particularly the newly Catholic service of Evensong and Benediction.  His article talks of earlier evensongs run by the Oxford Ordinariate Group, following Monsignor Burnham's pioneering work in sorting out a form of evensong approved for use in the Ordinariate. 

Don't forget : tell all your friends about the 15th.

Annuntio Vobis Gaudium Magnum

It seems that almost every time I have attended Mass at Westminster Cathedral over the past year, something newsworthy happens in connection with the Ordinariate.  Yesterday seems to have been no exception.  Before announcing what the news of great joy is (in the unlikely event that you don't already know), here is yet another of my grainy pictures, this time showing the procession leaving after the 5.30 Mass yesterday evening.

There were several things that struck me about yesterday's Mass.  The fact that the animatrice not only had an excellent voice, but that she was extremely useful (my experience of witnessing people perform this role before has not always been as happy).  The powerful intercessions, asking God's blessing on and guidance for those preparing to make their Advent confession, and equally for the priests preparing to hear Advent confessions.  The singing of O Come O Come Emmanuel by the congregation, which seemed to fill over 80% of the seating, impressive on a bitingly cold December evening. 

One thing, more than anything else, stood out yesterday.  It wasn't particularly seasonal at all, and indeed I have witnessed it before (including precisely one week ago), but it really spoke to me yesterday.  Canon Christopher Tuckwell was the Celebrant : at the censing, as he stood alone under that magnificent baldacchino, facing the Cross on the altar, it really was the clearest vision imaginable of the priest going into the holy of holies, preparing for something truly momentous, going alone to the altar in persona Christi to offer that most perfect sacrifice.  Somehow the simple sight of a solitary figure standing before and then moving around that massive and splendid altar generated a clarity of vision that I had rarely experienced before. 

Back to the great news.  You may have noticed on the Ordinariate website, or in their newsletter, or even on the Facebook site of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group (if you haven't yet signed up to "like" our Facebook page, please do so), that there is a special anniversary coming up.  On January 15, it will be exactly one year since that momentous day in Westminster Cathedral when Monsignor Newton, Monsignor Broadhurst and Monsignor Burnham were ordained as Catholic priests by Archbishop Vincent Nichols.  That day was the day on which the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was formally erected.

That day was also of huge importance in the progress of the members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group towards becoming Catholics.  The huge and joyous congregation, the sense of warmth and welcome and that this was precisely the right thing to be doing, the dignified liturgy, the excellent music, the feeling of there being a shared purpose and a shared set of beliefs, the goal of Christian Unity coming nearer: these were all factors that combined to become a significant influence on us and no doubt on many others. 

Therefore, it is only right that this day should be marked in some way. 

At 5pm on Sunday 15 January, by kind permission of the Rector, Fr Christopher Colven, there will be a service of Solemn Evensong and Benediction (in the rite approved for use in the Ordinariate) at St James's, Spanish Place.  Monsignor Newton will preside.  As St James's is the parish church in which the Marylebone Ordinariate Group meets, we are of course particularly delighted about this event.

(Those of you who have not yet read William Oddie's excellent book The Roman Option, written in 1997, which sets out with astonishing prescience a vision of what is only now beginning to come to fruition, will not have seen the excellent letter included as an appendix to the book : it was a letter written in 1995 by Fr Colven when he was the Vicar of the Anglican parish of St Stephen's Gloucester Road, talking to his parishioners about his decision to join the Catholic Church, and the possibilities for some of them to do the same.  It is most definitely worth reading.)

Much is in the planning still for this service of Solemn Evensong & Benediction, and so cannot yet be revealed, but this promises to be a very exciting day.  We have much to give thanks for, and much on which to ask for guidance.  Marking this occasion in the form of a Solemn Evensong & Benediction, perhaps one of the "trademark" services of Anglo-Catholicism and yet perfectly adaptable to Catholic worship, in such a beautiful church seems exactly the right thing to do. 

We ask you all to publicise this event as widely as you can, perhaps by sending this blog article to your friends, sharing the Facebook link to this post, and/or by increasing awareness of the event in any way you can find.  We want Ordinariate members, all Catholics, any interested Anglicans, and indeed all wellwishers to be there to express their support by their presence and through their prayers.  The Ordinariate is the Holy Father's personal project, and certainly all Catholics will most surely want to do everything they can to advance it. 

Even as we watch and wait in the last days of Advent, in preparation for the great Solemnity ahead of us this Sunday, let us give thanks and praise to Almighty God for the existence of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, for the nascent Ordinariates in the USA, Australia and Canada, and indeed for Pope Benedict XVI's marvellous initiative of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Anglican Patrimony and the Ordinariate

If you ever feel like raising your blood pressure, a good tactic is often to read the comments that appear underneath online news articles.   Even if the article itself is thought provoking, and invites consideration and debate, before long in the series of comments the discussion has gone off at a tangent, and extreme views begin to be expressed on topics of limited relevance to the original article.

This is not something restricted to any one topic or to any one sort of politics.  The comments on an online article in the Daily Mail and in the Guardian are as bizarre as each other.

The world of blogs on religion is no exception.  The most famous example is probably Damian Thompson's blog in the Daily Telegraph,  which although it does not solely focus on topics connected to religion, has an army of people ready to comment on each and every post.  There, you have the whole spectrum of views, from hardline atheists, to hardline liberal Anglicans (if that sounds like an oxymoron, believe me it isn't), to hardline traditionalist Catholics, to hardline Protestants.  Comments usually run in to the hundreds, and there is no hope, after the first few, that the topic commented upon will be the same as the comment written upon by Damian Thompson.  This is all rather a shame, as the blog itself is fascinating, always well informed, and highly supportive of the Holy Father and of the Ordinariate. 

On the Ordinariate itself, comments on the well-established blogs have often been colourful.  Fr Ed Tomlinson's blog for the Tunbridge Wells Ordinariate Group has always been very fair at allowing sometimes rather heated debate, as long as it was "on topic", in the comments.  This was even more the case for Fr Tomlinson while he was still an Anglican, his old St Barnabas Tunbridge Wells blog was blessed with many a commenter who wished to provide forthright advice.  Open debate is good, especially if well informed, considered, and polite.  Sadly, it isn't always like that. 

One of the topics most often used in a failed attempt to knock the Ordinariate is the well known concept contained in Anglicanorum Coetibus of "Anglican Patrimony".  There are some who like to say that there is nothing that can be shown to be Anglican Patrimony that Ordinariate members will take with them, and therefore the Ordinariate is a waste of time.  Yes, there really are people who think like that, and who believe that that is some kind of persuasive argument.  (I wonder if I could submit this as evidence of failings in the British education system?)

Anglicanorum Coetibus, first of all, is not an attempt by the Holy Father to go out and grab some nice bits of Cranmerian text and a few jolly hymns that can be used in the Catholic Church.  It is a response to requests made by Anglicans in various parts of the world, whereby they can find a way to come into the full communion of the Catholic Church as groups, and while retaining such aspects of their Anglican Patrimony as are consistent with Catholic teaching.  Therefore, very clearly, neither the priority nor the litmus test of the Ordinariate revolves around what little treats people could bring with them: no, the priority is following Our Lord's will that all might be one, "Ut unum sint".  If we want to be "Anglican Patrimony" about it, we could say that we are following the prayer contained in the hymn O Thou who at the Eucharist didst pray that all Thy Church might be for ever one.

Critics like to say that many of the new Ordinariate priests, in their Anglican days, never used the Book of Common Prayer or Common Worship, and were already using the Roman Rite.  Therefore, so goes the glib argument, they have no Anglican Patrimony to bring, ergo, so they say, the Ordinariate is a waste of time.  The flimsiness of that argument is laughable, and displays an unhealthy obsession with liturgy as the sole measure of the Christian life. 

Other comments I have seen on blogs argue that all Anglican Patrimony means is that an Ordinariate mass includes a few hymns, and that this is a terribly minor difference, and that (yes, you guessed it) therefore the Ordinariate is a waste of time. 

No, it seems to me very obvious that Anglican Patrimony is a more complicated subject than a short comment, or even a long blog post, can cover.  It is about far more than hymns and Cranmerian language. 

One also has to remember that for the kind of Anglo-Catholic most likely to take up the offer contained in Anglicanorum Coetibus, the differences between the catholic practices found in the Catholic Church and those found in the Church of England are often not to be found in obvious places such as the great set pieces of public liturgy.  We shouldn't for one second expect that an Ordinariate Mass should look anything like Holy Communion at Westminster Abbey: it should, and does, look much more like Westminster Cathedral or, dare I say it, St James's, Spanish Place.  I would strongly urge you to read an excellent piece by William Oddie  in The Catholic Herald on this very topic.  An extract from his article is as follows :

.....it has to be said that in the case of mainstream broad church Anglicanism I really don’t think that our communities do understand each other better: what has happened is that Roman Catholics have begun to understand Catholic-minded Anglicans a lot better (it isn’t just that Anglo-Catholics have realised that any kind of understanding with Anglicanism as it has developed is now impossible for them): and the “Anglican patrimony” they bring with them is of a kind entirely compatible with the Roman patrimony of the mainstream English Catholic Church.  Largely that is because, over the decades, beginning with the Oxford movement in which John Henry Newman was such a major formative influence, Anglo-Catholics made themselve  relatively comfortable within Anglicanism by constructing a liturgical culture and an ecclesiology (which has now entirely collapsed) according to which the Anglican Church had never really left the mainstream of Western Christendom. That explains why the Tractarians and post-Tractarians (or “Anglo-Catholics”) were culturally so entirely happy with – and showed, many of them, such wonderful comprehension of – the Catholic spiritual tradition...

So perhaps we need to look for Anglican Patrimony not just in the liturgy, but elsewhere.  Fr Christopher Colven has suggested that one thing it might mean is a greater awareness of community, both within parishes and in relation to the civil community around us.  We covered this very thoughtful idea in a blogpost last month.  In another blogpost last month, on the Solemnity of Our Lady of Walsingham, we reflected on whether one form of Anglican Patrimony was allowing the Catholic Church to regain some of the devotions and practices that it had forgotten.

By focussing on areas other than the liturgy, I do not, of course, mean to exclude the liturgy, and the many undoubted treasures of the Anglican tradition, from the discussion.  Monsignor Andrew Burnham has played a large part in discussing, describing and developing what Anglican Patrimony means in this context.  For example, last weekend he gave a fascinating lecture to the Association for Latin Liturgy, part of which gave a detailed insight into how the Ordinariate Liturgy is taking shape, and into what Anglican Patrimony might bring in this context. 

There are many things that ex-Anglicans can bring to the Catholic Church, just as there are innumerable things that we ex-Anglicans delight in discovering in the Catholic Church. 

Professional detractors of the Ordinariate would do well to think a little more deeply before trying to claim, in substance, that the Ordinariate is pointless if it doesn't mean wholesale copying and pasting of the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship.  Our Anglican Patrimony is worth far more than that.  The Holy Father sees that, and offers us the opportunity to bring our gifts with us.  How could anyone say no?