Reflections on Worship [what Anglicans can bring (back) to Rome]

TexAnglican ^ | 6/30/2005 | Randall Foster

[sionnsar]

One of the interesting aspects of attending the Chant Institute during the last week and a half was attending eight daily Roman Catholic Masses at St. Joseph’s College. Most of them were in the Gaspar Center (named for the founder of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood), which is essentially a classroom for choral music that happens to have an altar right in the middle of it, but one Mass was in what once was the college’s beautiful 1905-built chapel. While it was delightful to be in the presence of the precious Body and Blood of the Lord every day during my time away, these Masses also served as a sad reminder of the divisions in Christendom. I had to be satisfied with a blessing while my RC friends there (90 % of the Institutes students) received the Sacrament. As a result, my longing for a healing of the breach between Rome and orthodox Anglicanism is stronger now than ever.

But based upon my observation of these RC Masses, there is an area where I now feel Anglo-Catholicism has been positively served by our separation from Rome—liturgical ceremony and devotional piety. Please don’t misunderstand me. The overwhelming majority of the RC participants in the Institute struck me as devout and serious-minded about their faith, and by choosing to participate in an intensive course on Gregorian chant they had already shown themselves to have an above-average interest in traditional worship practices. And I have no reason to doubt that the priests who celebrated these Masses were godly men. (I never detected even the faintest whiff of heresy during the eleven days I was at St. Joe’s—can you imagine that if they were ECUSA priests?!) I have a high personal regard for all these fine folks. Rather, despite the fact that these classmates of mine were among the best informed and personally devout of RC laymen in the United States, I cannot help but conclude that the beauty of the Mass that the Roman Catholic Church inherited from the Middle Ages has largely been squandered in this country.

It was as if beauty had been systematically stripped from their worship (except for the chanting we were doing, which seemed almost an alien intrusion into the contemporary setting—I gather that it is rare to hear Latin Gregorian chant in American RC Masses at the parish level today). The vestments worn by the priests looked as if they had been made from polyester curtains and were tailored by the costumer for a sixties era Sci-Fi show (though I believe one of the priests celebrated in only a white cassock-alb and stole, which at least had a classical simplicity in its favor). The chalice most commonly used also looked like something out of the original Star Trek, while on other days they used a glass one that was a bit more attractive. Only a minority of the congregation kneeled at the prayer of consecration (and they were predominantly conservative college students from the Univ. of Chicago), and only a few of the RC’s present specially reverenced the elements at the elevation. During the course of the entire Mass most of the congregation crossed themselves only once or twice, typically at the very beginning and end of the liturgy. It seems clear to me that bodily displays of reverence, which are all but universal among Anglo-Catholics, have essentially disappeared among contemporary Roman Catholics in the U.S.

And it is rare to find an Anglican church building that has as little concern for beauty as the worship spaces we used last week. Most of our Masses were celebrated on an altar in the middle of a sixties-era classroom (there was a fire alarm where the crucifix should have been), which hardly assisted me in lifting up my heart to the Lord. But it is down right heart breaking to see what was done to the formerly lovely, century-old chapel at St. Joseph’s. At one time it had a dozen altars, but in the seventies they ripped them all out, leaving only vacant space in place of the high altar. Above the side area where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in a simple wooden tabernacle there is now a green and yellow mural of an abstract chalice and stalk of wheat. One can only imagine the majestic environment in which worshippers there once praised the Living God.

As one former Anglo-Catholic who has recently decided to swim the Tiber told me recently, on aesthetic grounds today’s RC worship is “a vast waste land.” Based upon my experiences last week, I understand where he is coming from. So while I fervently pray for a reconciliation of the separated portions of the Western Church (and look forward to a day in the not too distant future when Rome and the East are reunited), I also pray that we Anglo-Catholics are able to retain the beautiful, prayerful traditions of worship God has entrusted to us. It looks like the Roman Catholic Church may need us around as faithful stewards of the Tradition when they finally wake up and discover what they have done to their worship practices and spaces.

[Agrarian]

LOL!

Yes, you and certainly others on FR would think differently, but this is a very select group of people -- knowledgable and generally theologically conservative.

I was speaking of the local situation where I live, where neither of those words would apply. There are no Eastern Catholic parishes, although a number of formerly Eastern Catholic parishioners have become Orthodox at our parish.

I don't have a sense of how many former Eastern Catholics attend the local Roman parishes.

[RKBA Democrat]

"If you get a chance attend the Divine Liturgy at a Byzantine Catholic Church. I did and was quite awed."

Dittoes on that. I liked it so much I switched parishes.

"I will remain Catholic of Latin Rite but sometimes I do yearn for more reverence in our liturgy."

I'm still latin rite as well, at least in the official sense. That's the nice thing about the full communion concept. We're free to take communion and attend Mass/Divine Liturgy at the Catholic church that calls to us. It might be a parish of the RCC, or it might be one of the Anglican churches that crossed the Tiber, or it might be a parish of any of the 21 eastern Catholic churches.

[RKBA Democrat]

"Yes, you and certainly others on FR would think differently, but this is a very select group of people -- knowledgable and generally theologically conservative."

Thanks for the kind words. Ironically, in my own personal case it wasn't the theological conservatism that called me to the Byzantine Church, but I'm certainly not complaining about it.

"There are no Eastern Catholic parishes, although a number of formerly Eastern Catholic parishioners have become Orthodox at our parish."

I'm sorry that there are no eastern Catholic parishes in the area. We can learn a lot from the Orthodox, and I personally think it's a good idea for Christians to attend churches outside their tradition every now and then.

[lastchance]

I have a special affection for the Church I attend. It is a small parish and has been blessed with good priests. It is also the only local parish which still has Sisters associated with it. They are in charge of the RE program and they are !!!! orthodox!!!!. We even have, finally, a wonderful music director. Now if we could just jettison the music missal. However all that being said, I do find the Byzantine liturgy to have more awareness of the Mystery. I hope with Benedict XVI as Pope liturgical reforms in the Latin Rite will come back to reflect that same Mystery.

[nanetteclaret]

There is an Anglican rite which has been approved by the Vatican! It is specifically for former Anglicans and was approved by Pope John Paul II in the eighties, I believe. (I just found out about it last month!) Please see this website for Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, Texas:
http://www.atonementonline.com
for an example of an Anglican Rite Roman Catholic Parish. It is one of four in Texas (none near me, unfortunately). Three of the parishes have just jointly published the "Book of Divine Worship," which is 99% from the Book of Common Prayer (1928 and 1979) and has the official imprimatur, etc. It is available from Our Lady of the Atonement. In addition, they have made a DVD of one of their masses and it is just beautiful - English music, loads of incense, mass celebrated toward the altar, a beautiful church with gorgeous Lady Chapel, and dignified Rite I language! For those who love the Anglican liturgy and music, but want to be Roman Catholic, it will give you hope and make you cry from the beauty of it! I highly recommend visiting the websites of both Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio or Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston.

[nanetteclaret]

Please see post above about the Anglican Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. I forgot to ping you when I posted, but think you might be interested.

[Campion]

I don't have a sense of how many former Eastern Catholics attend the local Roman parishes.

Probably almost no former Eastern Catholics -- Catholics can attend Mass/Divine Liturgy outside their Rite for any reason, but formally changing from one ritual Church to another requires approval from Rome, and both bishops involved. It's not often done except for someone who wishes to be ordained in a different ritual Church from the one in which he was baptized/chrismated.

[BelegStrongbow]

Well, perhaps I qualify as an orthodox Anglican? According to the post immediately succeeding yours, I would actually wonder because I left the RC over the IC, the infallibility ex cathedra of the Pope and the Treasury of the Saints, three doctrinal issues I still contend against.

I see no compelling reason not to venerate Mary and the Saints (not least because I would like them interceding for me and mine as we go through this very dark valley of life), nor do I reject a seat of final authority, such as the Pope constitutes. I think a great number of Anglican and Episcopalian problems would never have arisen were there a Magisterium constituted by a college of Bishops acting in Ecumenical (at least across the Anglican spectrum) Council and with reference to the Orthodox and Romans. We have an Archbishop and our Province is constituted this way (though we reject the competence to make Canon Law and/or doctrinal pronouncement).

I conduct my parish's services in what is a relatively low High Church format. We intone the Venite, the Gloria in excelsis and the Kyrie. We pray the Agnus dei (not in the Eucharist service in the BCP, it is in the service for the sick), our altars face east and when we can, they are elevated three steps from the level of the church. We wear vestments, including cope on High Holy Days, have seven effective sacraments though we do emphasize Baptism and Eucharist above the other five and observe saints' days and commemoratives, such as today's (The Most Precious Blood of Our Lord). We recognize Octaves, walk the stations of the cross, have prayer candles, use icons and statues, make sure that every item to be used at the altar is blessed and so forth.

All of this does stretch the precise meaning of the 39 Articles but nothing here contravenes any of them. We believe that they were intended to be eirenic, not exclusionary.

All this said, I am interested in autocephalous association, perhaps as a Uniate church or a Metropolis associated with Rome, but no closer. I have reservations about the doctrinal and particularly liturgical changes Rome has taken. The BCP rite, especially as amplified by the Anglican and American Missals, is IMHO, far superior to the Latin Vulgate missals currently in use and it very much interests me to have used the Latin missal at a Congregation of St. Pope Pius X Masses. The language is precisely that which our own English translates most effectively. It also is joyful to hear and speak the Latin as well.

In Christ,
Deacon Paul+

[wagglebee]

I am curious, you said that you left the Roman Catholic Church for Anglicanism primarily because of the Immaculate Conception, veneration of saints and papal infallibility. However, you then say you see no compelling reasons against these.

I realize that I am a Roman Catholic on an Anglican thread and the last thing I wish to do is appear critical of your Communion (I often wish that many of the non-Catholics would extend the same consideration on Catholic threads), I am simply trying to understand why you left.

God Bless

[BnBlFlag]

"The origen of the Anglican Church is not in any significant theological debate".......The reform was ready. The divorce thing was merely the spark and Henry VIII prevented the Reformers from going even further than they did. Please read "The Theology of the English Reformers" by Philip E. Hughes. The original Anglican Theology was Protestant. The form of worship remained Liturgical and the structure was Episcopal. The State Church was a fixture of that time and has remained far too long IMHO.

[Huber]

For instance, I go to Mass occasionally at a lovely post-V2 Church that has Gregorian chant, an organ, bells, no Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers, wonderful sermons, and beautiful, Eastern icon-style murals of Christ, Michael the ARchangel, and several saints on the wall.

That's great! Let's hope that we can encourage more parishes to move toward more reverant worship!

[BelegStrongbow]

I suppose the distinction is subtle, so I'll try to restate it:

1. I cannot support the doctrine that the Blessed Virgin, unique as she is in agreeing to bear the Son of God, was also conceived Immaculately. I believe this is not borne out in Scripture is violates both Tradition and theological sense.

That said, the BVM is the Theotokos, and as such is a great Saint in the Church Triumphant.

So, the two doctrines are separable: she who is the Theotokos is Venerable, but she is not also Immaculately Conceived.

2. The prior doctrine of Papal authority (pre-Vatican I) was that he was to be consulted on any proclamation of faith by any faith community. This meant he could object to any pronouncement of doctrinal authority. Hence, his Imprimitur was required to formally accept the doctrine of, for instance, hypostatic union of the Natures of Christ or to proscribe the doctrine of Monothelitism (one Will and Operation shared by the Natures of Christ).

Now, he may proclaim doctrines when speaking ex cathedra. This clearly adds to his authority. What would happen if a particular Pope proclaimed a doctrine a majority of faithful and informed Catholics instantly rejected is the concern here. It hasn't happened, but it could. Now it is true that even before Vatican I, councils could only be convened by the Pope, but this didn't matter as no one could assert doctrine without one. So we were doubly protected against the whim of innovation either by committee or in propria persona. Now, we have lost one of those protections.

Surely, stated thus, the difference between the two formulations must be clear.

3. The Treasury of the Saints underlay the practice of indulgences, which continues (I have in hand, for instance, a card which tells me that if I repeat the prayer every day for a month I will be granted 3 years indulgence). This implies that there could be a surplus of grace afforded by the prayers of the saints which could then be applied to the punishment justly due of other saints, hence indulgence. This was, if memory serve, the theological underpinning of the English Reformation, alongside the more mundane issue of Henry VIII's domestic problems and the certainly more important issue of ecclesiastical control in England.

Rather a longish discussion there, and for which my apologies, but the point is that I reject that there is a surplus of grace that one saint can have transferred to another. I emphatically support the concept of intercessional prayer, however, where one saint pleads for God to pour his grace on someone else. However, the effect is to intend to intensify the person's response to the grace afforded, not apply credits against whatever penal or purgative judgment he/she may have incurred. The best that can be gained is that the person interceded for has now more spiritual strength, fortitude and virtue to walk the pilgrimage, including whatever durance in Purgatory is required. No durance is remitted, however.

Does this help? And I should also note that I did not go straight from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism. I went out of the Church at about the age of 13. When I came back 12 years later it was to an Episcopal Church. I arrived just in time to experience the bust-up.

In Christ,
Deacon Paul+

[wagglebee]

What you say makes sense (I don't agree with most of it obviously, but I understand where you are coming from).

There was a time when I considered becoming Anglican (it was mainly rebellion against my parents); however, I am now glad that I didn't. I am very interested in Anglicanism, because I believe that the leftist attack on your Communion is basically a "dress rehearsal" for a total assault on Catholicism. The left knows that to destroy the Judeo-Christian tradition, they must destroy the Catholic Church because of it's sheer size and history. It saddens me that, at least in America and Canada, the Anglicans have folded so quickly and blindly been duped by the left the way they have.

In Christ,
Rob

[BelegStrongbow]

Dear Rob:

It was failure to teach the young, who eventually grew up and became the 'elders', now unable and eventually unwilling to defend their Faith. Also, we had no centrifugal force, but only centripetal ones, thus bits fly off in all directions under the rubric of tolerance. As has been said elsewhere, when orthodoxy is optional it quickly becomes proscribed.

In Christ,
Deacon Paul+

[wagglebee]

I agree. And the left has accomplished much of the same within Roman Catholicism. The generation I grew up in (I'm 38) has generally either never learned or has rejected much of Catholic tradition. What today passes for a "church" looks more like a community rec. center, and often times that's what they once were.

With the onset of secularism, I think that Catholicism's greatest strength may be in absolute papal authority. Were it left to the individual members to decide, most everything would become "optional" because people have become convinced that Biblical morality and tradition is somehow outdated and unnecessary.

God Bless
Rob

[BelegStrongbow]

I hear your concerns. My concern is in vesting any one human, however pious, with absolute authority. I do agree that we need absolute authority, but having it vested in a body of men who could discipline themselves as much as anyone else would be a more prudential solution to the difficulty.

Clearly however, the ability of Anglicans to convince themselves as a group and stray is evidence that even this is no panacea.

I suspect that were we to join our conciliar position with your Papal one, that might be what we're all looking for.

In Christ,
Deacon Paul+

[Siobhan]

Your parish sounds lovely. I now live in a diocese that is the kind of Catholic wasteland this Anglican author describes. If it weren't for a Byzantine Catholic parish, I don't know what my wife and I would do. There are parts of the country where there is liturgical variety allowing for at least one reverent and beautiful Mass a guy can get to. But there are great stretches across the fruited plain that are pure liturgical and devotional Wasteland.

Finn, Siobhan's son

[sockmonkey]

Regarding the Anglican Use within the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church: It is specifically for former Anglicans and was approved by Pope John Paul II in the eighties.

The Anglican Use is open to any Roman Catholic, whether they are former Anglicans or not. I attend Our Lady of the Atonement, and many of the congregation are cradle Catholics. It is a personal, rather than a geographical parish.

Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, was on the Vatican commission that approved the Anglican Use Liturgy which allowed those entering the RC Church under the Pastoral Provision to retain their Anglican ethos, yet become wholly Roman Catholic.

If you are ever in San Antonio, I hope you will pay us a visit. Besides the awesome Masses, we are within blocks of the best Mexican food, and Barbeque in San Antonio. My Priest used to joke with me that he wasn't sure if I drove sixty miles for the Mass or for the barbeque.

[RKBA Democrat]

"I hear your concerns. My concern is in vesting any one human, however pious, with absolute authority. I do agree that we need absolute authority, but having it vested in a body of men who could discipline themselves as much as anyone else would be a more prudential solution to the difficulty."

Interesting point. One of the reasons why I selected the Catholic church in the first place (I'm a convert) was the fact that there was an absolute authority. Much as I agree with democratic institutions in the secular sense, I think they're a notso hotso idea when it comes to theology. I think democracy tends toward consensus building around a common denominator. Theology should challenge you to do better, not seek a low water point that everyone can agree on.

I think something to keep in mind is that "absolute authority" in the real world is not so absolute, much the same as "democracy" is not completely democratic. The Pope does not operate in a vacuum.

If I might take some license here and put words in your mouth, it would seem that your concern is about the potential for an Antipope sometime in the future. It's certainly a possibility, but I don't think all that likely, at least in the sense that we've seen Antipopes in the past.

With 1.1 billion Catholics spread across a couple hundred countries, any one individual's influence, whether they have absolute authority or not, just isn't going to be so profound that they can drastically change the course of the church without the tacit acceptance of a large portion of that 1.1 billion.

The Catholic church is a voluntary organization. Schisms have happened in the past and will probably happen in the future. Those schisms and the threat of schism are a very effective check on the abuse of authority.

Again, putting words in your mouth, it would appear that what you're hoping for WRT portions of the Anglican church is something similar to the current relationship between the eastern Catholic churches and the Roman Catholic church.

Something you might find interesting and relevant then is to study the relations between the Roman Catholics and the eastern Catholics during the last century or so, warts and all. I think a good way to judge what to expect in the near future is to look at what has happened in the near past and extrapolate from there. Looking at the history of Vatican II and how it affected the eastern Catholic churches might also prove illuminating.

[RKBA Democrat]

"I have a special affection for the Church I attend. It is a small parish and has been blessed with good priests. It is also the only local parish which still has Sisters associated with it. They are in charge of the RE program and they are !!!! orthodox!!!!."

You have a treasure there. Be sure to protect it and hold it close.

"However all that being said, I do find the Byzantine liturgy to have more awareness of the Mystery. I hope with Benedict XVI as Pope liturgical reforms in the Latin Rite will come back to reflect that same Mystery."

I hope so as well. While what goes on in the Roman Catholic church is becoming less relevant and less "my business" over time, I do sincerely hope for renewal and the best possible outcomes, and I do pray for the church as a whole.