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.

[FatherofFive]

“Please read "The Theology of the English Reformers" by Philip E. Hughes”

I’ve read Hughes, the three volume “History of the Church” and his “A Popular History of The Reformation” where much of the theological differences are discussed. I will get the one you recommended.

But here is my main point - Jesus wanted us to be one.

“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?” 1 Cor 1:10-13 We cannot be one if everyone brings his own version of the Truth. Substitute Luther for Appollos, or Calvin for Paul, or King Henry for Cephas, and you see that the “new” religions that sprang from the reformation are anti-scriptural.

Christ was not stupid, and He knew He had to establish a visible Church with authority to keep men from twisting His words. He did just that.

The Catholic Church has existed for nearly 2,000 years, for a reason. “Jesus said to him in reply, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’” (Matt. 16:17-19)

Here Christ himself:
1. shows the divine origin of his visible Church;
2. promised that Peter’s decisions as leader of the Church would be binding in heaven;
3. tells us that His Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from Him.

No church established in the Reformation can claim to be the Church Jesus established.

This is what Newman discovered – that despite the fallibility and corruption of men, the gates of Hades will not prevail against His Church. This is why Newman came home to the Catholic Church.

[BelegStrongbow]

I see what you're saying but I don't think it addresses my concern, which was less of a concern before Vatican I. I agree that God's Word is not democratically determined. This is why our Province is monarchical. However, we do not grant our Primate the authority to proclaim ex cathedra and despite being the Chief Pastor for 1.1 billion Catholics I can't see how the Pope is any more qualified in se to set doctrinal policy than is the Archbishop of the APCK.

I suppose the ideal circumstance was at Chalcedon when Leo's Tome was ratified by the Council. There's the Papal and Consiliar mechanisms working together seamlessly and showing the agreement of the many with the insight of the one. Neither was democratic, it bears recalling. I'm with Xenophon in regarding democracy as usually mob rule and rarely the considered polity of an educated populace, engaged and unselfishly pursuing the greater good. And I think this debility rises in theological concerns even more often than in political.

In Christ,
Deacon Paul+

[BnBlFlag]

Re: "Newman went home...." As the old saying goes, to each his own. In the spirit of FRiendship, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I do believe that all of us who believe in Christ as their Saviour who died on the Cross for our sins and on the third day rose and ascended into Heaven, etc. (Nicene Creed) and who are Baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are members of the Invisible Body of Christ regardless of Denomination or Church organiztion, so in that sense, we're already united.

[nanetteclaret]

You have Freepmail.