A new text for the Catholic Mass which integrates centuries old Anglican prayers into the Roman Rite was officially introduced in a London church on Thursday.
The new liturgy, known as the Ordinariate Use, has been devised for the personal ordinariates ”“ the structures set up by Benedict XVI to allow Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Pope, while preserving elements of their distinctive Anglican liturgical and pastoral traditions.
The Mass, at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, was celebrated by the leader ”“ or Ordinary ”“ of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton. It was offered in honour of the patron of the Ordinariate, Blessed John Henry Newman, whose feast was on October 9.
Join the Anglican church and you can get the real deal instead of some cobbled together mumbo jumbo.
[blockquote] Mgr Burnham said: “… we have found a way of joining together Cranmer’s linguistic brilliance, and feel for translation, with the ancient Canon of the Mass, prayed everywhere in England from the time of St Augustine until the Reformation, that is, a thousand years” [/blockquote]
This statement is inaccurate on a number of levels. There was great variety in rites throughout the Middle Ages. Cranmer’s preface to the Book of Common Prayer communion service gives an idea of the lack of uniformity in medieval times.
And the idea that St Augustine had any sort of uniform liturgical effect on England must also be classified as fantasy. When Augustine arrived in Kent at the end of the 6th century, Christianity had already been established in Britain for at least 400 years. There were numerous bishops and abbots overseeing Christians in many areas across the country (sometimes inaccurately referred to as “the Celtic Church”). It is unlikely that any of them were using the rites then in use in areas of the church influenced by Rome.
Furthermore, St Augustine’s mission initially had minimal effect on Britain – his missions to York and Rochester failed within a generation. England was eventually evangelised mainly through the efforts of Anglo-Saxon and Irish missionaries operating from the north, many of them trained or inspired by the Irish monk St Aedan based at Lindisfarne. Rome’s influence was present but took centuries to suffuse. The use of a latinised rite, that of Rouen which later developed into the “Sarum rite” (itself more a collection than a single rite) would come later.