APART FROM SPECIFIC ANGLICAN LITURGICAL PATRIMONY, THIS MASS IS WHAT SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM REQUESTED FOR THE REVISION OF THE 1962 MISSAL: NOBLE SIMPLICITY, ALLOWANCE OF VERNACULAR BUT PRESERVATION OF LATIN AND EXPANDED LECTIONARY FOR MORE LAVISH USE OF SCRIPTURE!
This is Mass for February 7, 2016's Quinquagesima Sunday at Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church in Texas with Msgr. Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales He is a former Anglican Bishop, but because he is married he could not be ordained a bishop. But he is the highest form of a Monsignor and as Apostolic Administrator and Ordinary he is allowed to used zuchetto and miter and staff. It does appear to me that the lectionary readings are not the EF's for Quinquagesima, but rather the readings of the Ordinary Form for the 5th Sunday.
Please note too that the Celebrant and Deacon use the maniple! Wonderful, just wonderful. No aversions to tradition here or Anglican or Catholic liturgical patrimony!
Anglicans have an affinity for censors with bells attached as in the East. I find it gets on my nerves.
While it appears that the lectionary readings are from the Ordinary Form's 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, this new missal does have propers and collect, Prayer over Offerings and Post Communion from the EF's Quinquagesima Sunday to include the Gradual and Tract.
Also please note there is not an aversion to chanting the propers in Latin! This missal has the traditional Anglican Introductory Rite which is used in the video for yesterday's Mass. However there is the option of the EF's PATFOTA instead.
The Psalm for Sunday is chanted and I think it is the Psalm for Ordinary Time but not chanted responsorially but straight through, but the Tract is used for the Gospel Acclamation and it is chanted from the nave of the church.
Great homily and Credo is chanted as it should be in a sung Mass.
After wonderfully chanted Bidding Prayers, the Anglican custom of the Anglican Confession of Sins occurs prior to the Offertory with a non sacramental absolution and the Words of Comfort.
The Offertory Prayers are the EF's which is the first choice in the Missal.
Unfortunately there is an additional Offertory hymn sung by the congregation at the incensation! This is too much, get rid of it, but I think it is very Anglican! It delays the Prayer over the Offering and adds to the wordiness of this Mass as does the "Confession of Sin and Words of Comfort" after the Bidding Prayers.
The Preface Dialogue is said facing the congregation, an Anglican custom when the Mass is ad orientem and it makes sense since it is spoken to the congregation.
Beautiful setting of the Latin Sanctus!
The marvelous Elizabethan English is growing on me especially for the Roman Canon which includes some elements of the EF Roman Canon's rubrics. Listen to the Canon in Elizabethan English, just marvelous! Double genuflections and genuflection after Per Ipsum! Wonderful, just wonderful!
Christ our Passover sacrificed for us with its response I kind of like which is chanted prior to the Agnus Dei and is typical of the Anglican patrimony. Wonderful polyphonic Agnus Dei!
Then there is a communal preparation for Holy Communion said aloud by both priest and congregation, which is similar to the Confiteor in the EF Mass prior to the 1962 Missal. I find it another example of making the Mass too wordy!
The response to the Ecce Agnus Dei is threefold and wonderful, just wonderful and is said with bells! It compliments the three-fold Agnus Dei.
Holy Communion with the most reverent posture possible, kneeling!
There is a Common Prayer after Holy Communion by all but it isn't the Prayer after Holy Communion. It is beautiful but adds to the wordiness of this Liturgy! Then follows the Prayer after Holy at the Epistle Side of the Altar.
Please note how the pontifical blessing is given. Oddly there is a chanted Angelus after the Dismissal but no Last Gospel. Does anyone know anything about this. The chanting of it is lovely, just lovely. It is done at the altar dead center.
Overall, this Mass is far superior in reverence and seriousness, but not stilted or stodgy formality, than the typical parish Mass in the typical Catholic parish. Perhaps the Ordinariate will help the Ordinary Form recover its liturgical patrimony to include solemn reverence and seriousness!
3 comments:
Take away the Anglican accretions and it's probably what the Council Fathers thought they were voting for back in 1963. Unfortunately the Ordinariate was made to sign up for the 1970 Lectionary; the Epistle and Gospel for Quinquagesima in Cranmer's BCP, following Sarum, are the same as those in the EF.
Without the PATFOTA and the celebrant reading the Introit, the sung Introit which followed an opening hymn had the celebrant standing at the altar with nothing to do for an inordinate amount of time. Contrary to popular belief, hymns are part of the nonconformist and not the Anglican patrimony - the Church of England did not allow them until the second half of the 19th century. Anglo-Catholics usually begin their Sunday Mass with the Asperges.
The next step must be to restore the Sarum Lectionary which even Cranmer left largely unaltered.
We hear from Louis Bouyer in his Memoirs about that despicable Bugnini(as he called him) who had as much honesty when dealing with the pope and the Consillium as he had learning which was very little of each. But Bouyer also noted the fanaticism of those responsible for the new lectionary, and he knew each one of them. It makes no sense to have the new lectionary used for the gesima Sundays since the whole idea of sin, the raison d'etre for the later, is greatly suppressed in the new lectionary. Modern man does not sin anymore, at least not as much as before Vatican II.
Like going to an Orthodox service, you don't get the feeling of being rushed through an Anglican one, or a Catholic Mass with Anglican trappings. If it takes an hour and a half, so be it. SO many of the Catholic Masses seem "rushed", as if to make way for the next of so many on a given Sunday.
Nice vestments too!
Post a Comment