November Heatwave and Bushfires

So it begins... on the Mainland, first South Australia, then inland New South Wales has been sweltering in temperatures touching forty degrees, and high winds combined with dry lightning have brought about dangerous bushfires already threatening homes. Even Melbourne recorded 38°C the other day, and it's still spring, not summer yet. Never before has the fire season come so soon... yesterday, bushfires broke out here in Tasmania, and burnt down several homes on the East Coast in a sudden fury. Pray!

Pro Orantibus

To-day, the feast of the Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple, is kept as Pro Orantibus Day - when we ought remember with all thankfulness before the Lord those who devote themselves to prayer as cloistered contemplatives, and pray for those who ever do pray God. In particular, I think of the Carmelite nuns I know here and elsewhere (in Melbourne, in Bunbury, in Lismore), who live enclosed lives of sacrifice and supplication, filled with a holy joy by the Holy Ghost.

Their sterling example ought move us to recall in Whose Presence we live our short passing lives so thoughtlessly, heading for Who knows what fate! It is right for us to re-orient ourselves to face Christ, our true East, and our End.

St Alfonso declared that "He who prays is saved, he who prays not is lost". If we persevere in prayer by God's gift of grace, we shall not die sundered from Him at the last, and so go to pray and worship Him in fellowship with all His saints evermore. But if we fall away from the habit of serious converse with Almighty God through Christ in the Holy Ghost, then - if unconverted, and not returned to union with the Lord through faith and prayer - we shall indubitably be damned and separated from Him, thrown into the abyss with the reprobate men and devils without any release.

We should earnestly and soberly keep in mind and practice now what we hope shall be our everlasting occupation in heaven, not rush like the Gadarene swine down the slippery slope to perdition.

We cannot turn from Christ: whether we will or nill, we shall meet Him as our dread Judge upon our departure from this world, which ineluctably approaches: soon, soon we shall appear before His great Assize. Will He recognize us as His friends, or His hardhearted foes? Come, ye blessed... or, Depart from me, ye accursed!

(A very necessary part of our prayer and worship now in mortal life is in the Sacrament of Penance, for in confession we first of all confess God's mercy and holiness, before confessing our sins and need of forgiveness; now is the hour to turn to the Lord, else at our judgement He turn from us.)

Contemplatives put eschatological truth in the first place, and therefore give the first place in their lives to divine worship: to Mass, to the Hours of the Divine Office (the Work of God, the Opus Dei), to lectio divina, to contemplation - for prayer is a dialogue, even if wordless, initiated and sustained by Him Who loves us, and so in worship we read the Revelation of God, praise Him with His own words, and thus pay worthy homage.

Nihil opus Dei præponatur, says wise St Benedict: Let nothing be put ahead of the Work of God. All other necessary occupations are pursued only insofar as they subserve this central concern: his Rule even specifies that, should a monk become overly engrossed in his appointed trade or work, the Abbot ought straightway take it from him, lest it be a snare and a distraction from his primary and proper devotion to the Lord! We who live in the world ought likewise order our lives, fulfilling our duties, but making sure God and sacred communication with Him always comes first.

Holy Church proposes this Collect for to-day's feast, that, just as Our Lady was made the habitation of the Holy Ghost ever since her Immaculate Conception in preparation for her becoming Mother of God (and, as the outward sign of this, pious meditation represents her as presented as a child in the Temple to serve the coming Lord ahead of time, giving concrete form to her espousal to Him as a perpetual Virgin, of undivided heart, ever intent upon the Lord's service), so at her all-prevailing intercession - she who is Mediatrix of grace - may we deserve now and forevermore to be presented in the true temple of God in heaven, now in hope, and one day in all reality :

Deus, qui beatam Mariam semper Virginem, Spiritus Sancti, habitaculum, hodierna die in templo præsentari voluisti: præsta, quæsumus; ut, ejus intercessione, in templo gloriæ tuæ præsentari mereamur. Per... in unitate ejusdem Spiritus...

Epicleses Good and Bad

In the Anglican tradition, the prayer for calling down the Holy Ghost upon the elements to hallow and bless them is termed "the Invocation", very sensibly, since this is the more immediately comprehensible Latinate term for the Epiclesis (its exact Greek equivalent and antecedent term).

A good consecratory Invocation properly prays for the transsubstantiation of the bread and wine, that they may "become" (fiant) the Body and Blood of Christ. Since this is for our sake, that this Sacrament and Sacrifice impart to us life and all the unspeakable, ineffable benefits of His Passion, the liturgy - as in the Roman Canon - prays that the bread and wine "become for us" (fiant nobis) His Body, His Blood. But all subjective, nominalist interpretation must be excluded: it is not that they "become" Christ's Flesh and Blood only in sign or figure or from our perspective; no, they truly change in their very natural substances, objectively ceasing to be bread and wine, in such manner that in every sense they are made the Body and the Blood of the Lord, only their outward perceptible appearances of bread and wine remaining unchanged.

Therefore, a petition that "this bread and wine may be for us the Body and Blood of Christ" is gravely suspect - it seems to imply that no objective change takes place, but that they simply serve to represent His Flesh, His Blood. This would be the error of transsignification or transfinalization: as if the bread and wine now signify His Body and Blood, or that they no longer have the natural purpose of feeding us, but are empowered with a new final causality, to impart to us Christ's life. This is insufficient, and the Holy Catholic Church in her solemn teaching reprobates and rejects such heresies.

Worse still would be an epicletic or invocatory prayer that prays "that we, receiving this bread and wine, may partake of Christ's Body and Blood" - for that would be an expression of the damnable falsity that is receptionism, Hooker's new heresy, according to which the bread and wine change not at all, but that, at the moment of partaking of them, their eaters and drinkers mystically and sacramentally eat and drink Christ. This is not far from Cranmer's Zwinglian madness.

Unfortunately, the Anglican Books of Common Prayer largely contain heterodox Epicleses.

It was the glory of the Scottish Episcopalians (whom I'm told have in past decades utterly gone to the dogs, their High Church doctrine having been vitiated by the acceptance of moral turpitude) that their eighteenth century Divines, following the English Nonjurors with whom they were in communion, and accepting the Patristic era testimony of the documents known as the Apostolic Constitutions, improved the text of the Invocation in their liturgies.

From them descend the U.S. Episcopalians - nowadays also turned liberal modernist heretics of the worst odour - but their liturgies reverted to the older Anglican type, by almost immediately abandoning the full-blooded Scottish epicletic prayer in favour of the receptionist English form. Only their very first provisional liturgy, that of Bp Seabury, had a proper epiclesis - for he had obtained Anglican episcopal consecration from the Scottish Episcopalians on condition that he adopt and promote their form of worship in the nascent United States' Episcopal Church; he succeeded only partly, and lost out on the matter of this prayer.

Here is Seabury's, and then that of the 1928 U.S. B.C.P.:

Bp Seabury's Communion Office (1786)

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father to hear us, and of thy almighty goodness vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with thy word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may become the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son.

U.S. 1928 B.C.P.

And we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us; and, of thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine; that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.

An Anglican Canon?

The current Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship includes all the major B.C.P. prayers for the Holy Communion, except the Prayer of Consecration and the Prayer of Oblation. With a second edition, suitably based on older B.C.P.'s and the English Missal, apparently in preparation at the Vatican, it is interesting to speculate on whether an Anglican Canon will be included, or whether, as in the B.D.W., only the Roman Canon (and the other three post-conciliar Eucharistic Prayers) will be included. I exclude discussion of the enormous number of modern Eucharistic Prayers throughout the Anglican Communion - their name is legion - since most of them are frankly too low in their doctrine, and hardly any have much intercession included. I have previously blogged on this, and have just left the following comments on Fr Hunwicke's blog:

...for any Anglican Canon to be inserted in the upcoming Roman Rite Anglican Use Missal (B.D.W. 2.0) - so far as I can see, the only way to do so would be to follow the Scottish 1764 Communion Office, and have the Prayer of Consecration immediately followed by the Prayer of Memorial and Oblation, with the Prayer for the Church tacked on at the end, rather than read at or before the Offertory. (Rome would also require, as it has for all new Eucharistic Prayers, that the Epiclesis be put back before the Consecration, as in other Anglican traditions than the Scottish and its daughter the American.) But would not having these three prayers in sequence make for a very long Canon?

...the Scottish rearrangement (which derives from the 1718 Nonjurors' liturgy) is... :

1. Prayer of Consecration;
2. Prayer of Memorial and Oblation;
3. Prayer for the Church.

By putting the Prayer for the Church last, and including the words "accept our Oblation", it makes it clear that the Eucharist is an impetratory sacrifice, not merely one of praise and thanksgiving: it is offered up for determinate ends.

As St Cyril of Jerusalem says,

"Then when the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless act of worship is complete, we beseech God, on the ground of that sacrifice of propitiation, for the common peace of the churches; for the stability of the world; for kings; for our soldiers and allies; for the sick and afflicted; in fact, we pray for all who need help, and for them we offer this sacrifice. Next, we remember those who have fallen asleep before us; first the Patriarchs, Apostles, Martyrs; that by their prayers and intercessions God may receive our supplication. After that we pray for the holy Fathers and bishops who have already fallen asleep; and, in short, for all the departed, believing that it will be the greatest advantage for the souls of those for whom this supplication is offered when the holy and awful sacrifice is set before God. We offer up Christ, sacrificed for our sins, propitiating our compassionate God on their behalf, and on our own."

[Mystagogical Catecheses 5, 7-10]

The Prayer for the Church, in its more catholic recensions (1549, as returned to and reworked by the Nonjurors and the Scots, praying for the dead and fulsomely commemorating the Saints), fits this description admirably. As Bishop Thomas Brett (1667-1744) wrote:

"The Reason of the Thing also pleads for putting the Prayer for all estates and Conditions of Men after the Consecration, for as it is one general End of Sacrifice, and of this Eucharistick Sacrifice in particular, to render our Prayers more effectual...it is certainly most proper, that the Sacrifice or Oblation should first be offered, and that Prayer should be made whilst it lies upon the altar, and is already dedicated to God."

It will be observed that this order is in fact the common pattern of the post-Conciliar Roman Eucharistic Prayers:

• Proemium;
• Epiclesis;
• Consecration;
• Anamnesis/Memorial;
• Oblation;
• Prayer for Communicants;
• Intercesssion for the Living and the Dead with Commemoration of the Saints;
• Doxology.

Note that, in regard to the Epiclesis, Rome has been clear that in the Roman Rite, for the avoidance of all confusion, it must be placed before the Consecration, so 1549 must be followed, not the Nonjurors, the Scots and the Americans.

So much for what I've written already; here is an example of the text of such an "Anglican Canon" - this is from the Scottish B.C.P. of 1929, with the Epiclesis moved to before the Consecration (back to its 1549 and 1662 position), and the petition for the Queen and Government moved to after that for the Church and clergy, to avoid Erastianism (I have also restored the words "to accept our Oblations" from the 1764, and inserted the Pope to signify Catholic communion):

ALL glory and thanksgiving be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that thou of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; who, by his own oblation of himself once offered, made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memorial of that his precious death and sacrifice until his coming again.

And we thine unworthy servants beseech thee, most merciful Father, to hear us, and to send thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that, being blessed and hallowed by his life-giving power, they may become the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved Son, to the end that all who shall receive the same may be sanctified both in body and soul, and preserved unto everlasting life.
For, in the night that he was betrayed, he took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my Body, which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise after supper he took the cup; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this, for this is my Blood of the new testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins: Do this as oft as ye shall drink it in remembrance of me.
Wherefore, O Lord, and heavenly Father, according to the institution of thy dearly beloved Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, we thy humble servants do celebrate and make here before thy Divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance his blessed passion, and precious death, his mighty resurrection, and glorious ascension; rendering unto thee most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same, and looking for his coming again with power and great glory.
And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness, mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, most humbly beseeching thee to grant, that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion.
And here we humbly offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee, beseeching thee that all we who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, and be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him.
And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice; yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end. Amen.

Let us pray for the whole state of Christ's Church.

ALMIGHTY and Everliving God, who by thy holy Apostle hast taught us to make intercessions and to give thanks for all men: We humbly pray thee most mercifully to accept our Oblations, and to receive these our supplications which we offer unto thy Divine Majesty; beseeching thee to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord; and grant that all they that do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy word, and live in unity and godly love.
Give grace, O heavenly Father, to all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, [and especially to thy servants N. our Pope and N. our Bishop,] that they may both by their life and doctrine set forth thy true and living word, and rightly and duly administer thy holy Sacraments: and to all thy people give thy heavenly grace, and especially to this Congregation here present, that they may hear and receive thy holy word, truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life.

We beseech thee also to save and defend all Kings, Princes, and Governors, and especially thy servant Elizabeth our Queen, and all who are put in authority under her, that we may be godly and quietly governed.
We most humbly beseech thee of thy goodness, O Lord, to comfort and succour all those who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.
We commend to thy gracious keeping, O Lord, all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear, beseeching thee to grant them everlasting light and peace.
And we yield unto thee most high praise and hearty thanks, for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thy Saints, who have been the choice vessels of thy grace, and the lights of the world in their several generations: and chiefly in the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord and God, and in the Holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs, beseeching thee to give us grace to follow the example of their stedfastness in thy faith, and obedience to thy holy commandments, that at the day of the general resurrection, we, and all they who are of the mystical body of thy Son, may be set on his right hand, and hear his most joyful voice, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

Does this appear a sufficiently orthodox Catholic Eucharistic Prayer, or not?

A Converted Prayer

The forerunner of Anglicanorum cœtibus, and its upcoming parallel document specifically for the T.A.C., was the Pastoral Provision of 1980. To obtain quick approval of some elements of Anglican liturgy for the incoming American groups back then, selections from the 1979 U.S. B.C.P. were hastily assembled, and somehow got past the elder Marini et al. Much has changed since then, and we may hope for something more like the English Missal, with the nice bits of the various older and more classical B.C.P.'s inserted therein, to be made available as the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite.

In the meanwhile, here is one of these converted (I was going to say rebaptized) prayers now declared a part of official Catholic worship by reason of its placement at the end of the Anglicna Use Burial Service, Rite I - it is an abbreviation of a prayer of about twice the length by Jeremy Taylor, seventeenth century Anglican Divine, in his Holy Dying - which I think expresses well the urgency of all moves toward full corporate unity:

O God, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we beseech thee, deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of life; and let thy Holy Spirit lead us “in holiness and righteousness all our days” (St Luke i, 75); that, when we shall have served thee in our generation, we may be gathered unto our fathers, having the testimony of a good conscience; in the communion of the Catholic Church; in the confidence of a certain faith; in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope; in favour with thee our God; and in perfect charity with the world. All which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Half-way There

Half-way to heaven or...?

At this hour, exactly thirty-five years ago, I was born into this world. God bless my parents!

On all my sins, God, have mercy; for all the uncountable graces I've been given, glory to God in the highest! Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I give particular thanks for His gifts to me of a mind, and of supernatural faith to enlighten it: of granting me strength through faith and knowledge. I ask particularly for forgiveness for making so little use of these gifts, and of wasting them on follies and worse.

Being grounded in faith, having a constant hope, I beg to be granted charity fruitful in meritorious works, lest I fritter away my blessings in anger and selfishness.

I give thanks for the great sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation that have brought me to fight as a Christian, and of the ever-new sacraments of the Blessed Eucharist and of Penance, ever giving life to me and restoring life to me, lifting me up. I give thanks for Holy Church, in whose Communion I find saints and angels to aid me; in whom I find the truths of Holy Faith and the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy to bless me, mediated to me by priests Catholic and good.

"Pray, hope, don't worry": excellent advice I hope to keep.

Of your charity, as the best possible birthday present, pray for me.

The 19th of November

I arose right early this morning (at 5.30!), to go for a brisk three-quarter hour walk around the Cataract Gorge before Mass and work - what a joyful beautiful morning!

I'd already sung in the shower (!) one of my favourite hymns: "Come down, O Love Divine"...

To my further delight, having had the blessings of Nature, the supernatural mysteries of the 7.30 Mass were celebrated at Carmel by Fr Allan, our local Franciscan priest, who is a good devout celebrant and preacher, and to-day turned out to be a feast of a Carmelite: St Raphael Kalinowski, O.C.D., the first male Discalced Carmelite to be canonized since St John of the Cross himself.

It's been such a long time since I went to a weekday OF Mass, I was surprised that there was no Gloria for this saint's day memorial! Fr made use of the second Preface for Saints, and the third Eucharistic Prayer, which I quite like, liberal that I am.

The Propers were greatly affecting, I thought, especially the Collect and Epistle, in my present frame of mind; unfortunately the translation of the orations is particularly bad, and I cannot find the Latin at present, but no matter:

St Raphael Kalinowski of St Joseph, Priest, O.C.D.

19th November

O.C.D. Memorial

Raphael Kalinowski was born to Polish parents in the city of Vilnius in 1835. Following military service, he was condemned in 1864 to ten years of forced labour in Siberia. In 1877 he became a Carmelite and was ordained a priest in 1882. He contributed greatly to the restoration of the Discalced Carmelites in Poland. His life was distinguished by zeal for Church unity and by his unflagging devotion to his ministry as confessor and spiritual director. He died in Wadowice in 1907.

Entrance Antiphon (St Luke 4:18a)

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor; to proclaim liberty to captives.

Opening Prayer

God, you made your Priest Saint Raphael strong in adversity and filled him with a great love in promoting Church unity. Through his prayers make us strong in faith and in love for one another, that we too may generously work together for the unity of all believers in Christ. (We ask this) through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

1st Reading (Philippians 3:8-14)

A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Philippians

I am racing towards the finishing-point to win the prize of God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him. I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. That is the way I can hope to take my place in the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me. I can assure you, my brothers, I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.

Responsorial Psalm (Ps 15: 1-2a, 5. 7-8. 11 R/. cf. v5)

R/. You are my inheritance, O Lord.

Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.

I say to the Lord: 'You are my God'.

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup;

it is you yourself who are my prize. R/.

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,

who even at night directs my heart.

I keep the Lord ever in my sight:

since he is at my [right] side I shall stand firm. R/.

You will show me the path of life,

the fullness of joy in your presence,

at your right hand happiness for ever. R/.

Gospel Acclamation (St John 15:15b)

Alleluia, Alleluia.

V/. I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father.

Alleluia.

Gospel (St John 15:9-17)

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father.

Jesus said to his disciples:

'As the Father has loved me,

so I have loved you.

Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments

you will remain in my love,

I have told you this

so that my own joy may be in you

and your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment:

love one another,

as I have loved you.

A man can have no greater love

than to lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends,

if you do what I command you.

I shall not call you servants any more,

because a servant does not know

his master's business;

I call you friends,

becae I have made known to you

everything I have learnt from my Father.

You did not choose me,

no, I chose you;

and I commissioned you

to go out and to bear fruit,

fruit that will last;

and then the Father will give you

anything you ask him in my name.

What I command you

is to love one another'.

Prayer over the Gifts

God of mercy, we offer you this memory [sic; lege memorial sacrifice] of our salvation, to celebrate the feast of Saint Raphael, your Priest. May it be for all of us, a sign of unity, and strengthen your love within us. (Grant this) through Christ our Lord.

Communion Antiphon (St Matthew 20: 28)

The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Prayer after Communion

Lord, our God, may the sacrament we have received strengthen your faithful to be united in their belief. For this Saint Raphael worked untiringly until the moment of death. (We ask this) through Christ our Lord.

Special Provision for the T.A.C.

Why on earth has Cardinal Kasper said that Anglicanorum cœtibus was not drawn up for the Traditional Anglican Communion? At first blush this seems ridiculous: for everyone knows that their bishops have signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church in acknowledgement of their adhesion to the Faith, and have petitioned Rome to bring them and their people into unity. Yet other remarks have indicated that the Pope's Apostolic Constitution was drafted in response to approaches from other Anglicans, those still in the mainstream of that unhappy Communion, such as groups of Forward in Faith International, centred in England.

Another little hint from a commenter (the mysterious but apparently well-informed P.K.T.P.) over at Rorate cæli:

Kasper is preparing us for the document set to appear a fortnight from now. It will deal specifically wtih the TAC. Notice, however, that he does not exclude the TAC from the recently-published apostolic constitution. The truth is that because the TAC boarded the train BEFORE all the others did, and before that train ran down Kasper and cut his career to shreds, it is getting MORE than just the apostolic constitution. It is getting special provisions and exemptions to enable all of its ministers to come across and become Catholic priests (except those who are 'remarried'). The truth is that the Pope now needs the TAC or he'll be left standing there with no reliable Anglicans to welcome into his new provisions.

This seems to explain the divergences between what Anglicanorum cœtibus promises, and what Abp Hepworth, Primate of the T.A.C., has claimed that corporate reunion will involve: for he of all people, having been in the forefront of negotiations, with everything at stake and his credibility on the line, could hardly be guilty of exaggeration and wishful thinking.

It explains what I've heard: that the T.A.C. bishops will come over as a body, a continuing body; that having themselves been received and their orders sorted out, they will reordain their clergy en masse; and that their clergy, once regularized, will receive their people into the Church, that every one will be rescued and given refuge, please God, leaving none behind but those who in conscience are not yet able to come (and for whom the T.A.C. will strive to make provision, lest they be abandoned and lost for good).

What must we do?

We may ruminate on these rumours, but most of all we must indubitably pray that many souls will find rest and peace in Holy Church united, for their salvation, to the Triune glory of Almighty God, His Christ, and Their Holy Spirit of unity.

******

UPDATE: I have independent confirmation of this, but cannot say more.

Old, New, True Ecumenism

The Popes have ever proclaimed that all conversation with non-Catholics is rightly ordered to securing for them in true charity the ineffable blessings of Catholic unity, that they may attain salvation. (It would be tedious to repeat centuries of quotations from their writings to this effect.)

In more recent decades, ecumenical dialogue has been undertaken, not to forswear what the latest Council proclaimed - that all who, grasping that the Church is necessary for salvation, must needs enter her communion to be safe and saved - but to help smooth the way for the unity of all Christ's scattered flock, by eliminating scandals, misconceptions, age-old prejudices and misunderstandings.

(To interject some levity, it reminds one of a Catholic Frenchman in the days before the Revocation of the Edict of Nante, who, to help motivate Huguenots to convert, set up a Bank of Conversions that offered cheap loans to such persons! He claimed "It prepared the heart for the operation of grace!")

Unfortunately, Catholics have sometimes deluded themselves and others, in their anxiety to be irenic, or even in their hankering after profane novelties, by vainly papering over or falsely belittling real differences of importance between our Holy Faith and the heterodox opinions of others, thinking to salve consciences and compose disputes in an insincere manner. This tendency the Roman Pontiffs have naturally opposed. But they have been abused for doing so...

Equally unfortunately, those not of our faith have been lured by this vacillation of Catholics between the conserving acts of the Magisterium and the confusing, provoking acts of ill or well-meaning persons, into surmising that Rome, too, will bend to the winds of time and change, smoothly adapting herself to the world in practising expediency. This may all too be true at an accidental level, but not at a substantial one. The promise of infallibility and indefectability is given to the whole Church at large, as well as guaranteed in the person of Christ's Vicar, as Servant of the servants of God, the successor of St Paul as well as of St Peter, consumed with the care for all the churches, to keep them in one.

How appropriate to think of this on the very feast of the dedication of the great Basilicas of St Peter and St Paul!

Alas, far from Rome in the true sense, impertinent persons in particular have played a malign part in this deviation of ecumenism from its natural role of fostering unity, to an improper purpose of maintaining (let us be candid) elaborate talkfests to occupy and waste time, without scarcely forwarding the mission of the Church. Even non-Catholics have remarked at the scandal their Catholic dialogue partners engender: for all too often, it is the Catholics who wink at Church doctrine and say as much, being all matey and conspiratorial about it! This rightly repulses many, but confirms all outsiders in the opinion that much is dirty and unpleasant within the Ark that is the Church.

Grace, the grace of the Holy Spirit Who convicts the world of sin, justice and judgement, Who inspires the will and enlightens the intellect to chance great things and belief hard truths, must be allowed to work: but its sweet secret work may be frustrated and brought to nought by hard, proud hearts, rich only in their own conceit and doubledealing, delighting not in the truth but in dreams.

What I have written of - the deliberate change in Papal policies for the last forty-odd years to indulge in Realpolitik toward non-Catholic bodies, by accentuating immediate goals (greater mutual charity, lessening of vile bigotry) relative to discreetly advertising the ultimate intent (reception of converts into full unity) - is by many unwise persons called the "old" ecumenism, when really it is newfangled.

What is now called by its enthusiasts the "new" ecumenism, and decried by its detractors (profiteers of the "old") as totally opposed to ecumenism - exemplified by the energetic steps taken by His Holiness to embrace incoming Anglicans, according them many sweet privileges, in response it must be underlined to their heartfelt pleas for corporate reunion, having been at last revolted by the unchristian antics of their original denomination - is in fact the original, settled ecumenical policy of Rome, no different in substance to the efforts, lasting or not, made since mediæval times and before, to offer rest and peace to those willing to return to the Father of Christendom.

Both the new "old" ecumenism, and the old "new" ecumenism, are true insofar as they are rightly ordered, implicitly or explicitly, to the true goal: to unite all Christians in one faith under one shepherd, for which happy cause Our Lord Himself deigned to pray directly before His saving Passion: Ut unum sint, ad salvandas animas, ad gloriam Patris.

There is an old blessing, sometimes termed Mozarabic but cropping up in the Benedictine Office and I suspect of mainstream mediæval Latin Rite origin, given its rough rhyme:

In unitate Sancti Spiritus,

benedicat vos Pater et Filius.

This is best interpreted in the deeper sense: May we, united in the one Holy Spirit, Who is the Principium Unitatis as the Quickener of our souls and bodies, as the Lifegiver to our fellowship in the Holy Catholic, that is, rightbelieving worldwide, Church, be therefore blessed by the Father and the Son - for these Three are One. Amen.

Anglicanorum Cœtibus - II

I find the terribly uncharitable comments posted on the Rorate Cæli blogsite really quite scandalous - surely the mean and extreme remarks found there will frighten off many potential converts? - but I found the following comment, from one P.K.T.P., very interesting:

"...the TAC choirmaster here [where?] tells me that it was announced publicly today by the dean of his cathedral.

"The news is this: the apostolic constitution was not Rome's response to the TAC's petition of October, 2007; rather, it is a general response to all the requests of differing Anglican groups to reunite with the See of St. Peter. There will now be a SECOND document issued from the C.D.F., this one to address the situation of the TAC specifically. This is coming soon, very soon, well before Christmas.

"I have no idea what is in this new document to come, but we can have some fun speculating about it. I imagine that it will grant some general dispensations for TAC priests and it might make arrangements for ordinariates, especially for the less populous TAC national churches."

Recall that other sources indicate that the Vatican will also approve before Christmas a form of liturgy for the incoming Anglicans, upgraded from the present Anglican Use of the Roman Rite given in the Book of Divine Worship, and most probably drawing upon the English Missal (that is, the Roman Missal done over into Cranmerian prose, with the nice bits of the Book of Common Prayer interwoven).

It seems Father Christmas, otherwise known as Papa Benny, has been busy at work preparing gifts for good boys and girls... I wonder what else he has hidden under the camauro?

Saints' Days

Happy birthday to Fr Greg Bourke, a Melbourne priest who was born on this day and was named for St Gregory the Wonderworker, whose feast it then was. St Gregory it was who actually did move a mountain (hence his name), who received revelation from St John the Evangelist of a very Catholic creed, and who, upon his deathbed, gave thanks to God that through his ministry, the Christians in his city had so multiplied in number that, where there had been but ten when he arrived, by his departure there remained but ten pagans.

To-day the Anglican Use keeps the memory of St Elizabeth of Hungary; and, yesterday, of St Gertrude the Great (who crops up one day earlier in the Traditional Calendar) and of St Margaret of Scotland - the latter always reminds me of a nice old lady who told me that she was a Scottish Episcopalian (once quite a decent High lot, who've gone to the dogs), and that "Our church was founded by St Margaret of Scotland". (Yeah, right.) I forbore to tell her that my Church was founded by Jesus Christ.

Anglican Use Thought for the Day

Give ear to me, you that follow that which is just, and you that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you are dug out.

– Isaias li, 1

It wasn't Lambeth Palace that lost a tile...