Bp Jarrett on Welcoming Anglicans Home

The Record is running an article that is in large part an interview with my former parish priest, now Bishop of Lismore, Geoffrey Jarrett, about his own conversion from Anglican to Catholic, and how, especially given ongoing negotiations about the corporate reunion of the T.A.C. with Rome, we ought welcome Anglicans into the Church, and have understanding and compassion for their trials and struggles in what can be a painful process.

Kudos to His Lordship!

The English Missal

Readers will have noticed that, like Toad of Toad Hall, I have passing enthusiasms for particular interests.  At present, I'm revisiting what over the years I've learnt about Anglicanism and its liturgical heritage, for various reasons, such as making contact with the Traditional Anglican Communion in the hopes of their coming into communion with Rome.

While putting the finishing touches to my previous posting, I found this site giving the Ordinary of the extremely High, or rather Ritualist Anglo-Catholic, English Missal (thoughtfully paired with the Roman Mass).  A quick survey of its contents shews that it is nearly all taken from the Roman Missal, with various tidbits from the Book of Common Prayer included as "options" only!  

For example, after the prayers at the foot of the altar, if the celebrant wishes he can read the prefatory Our Father and Collect for Purity (the collect Deus cui omne cor patet), which are in fact survivals from the Sarum Rite.  Likewise, the English Missal gives the Collect, Epistle and Gospel from the B.C.P. for all occasions when such are supplied therein, and provides any variation from these in an appendix (from what I've noted, the readings are either the same as the Roman or vary slightly, perhaps being assigned to a different Sunday, and if so generally stem from the Sarum Rite with some exceptions; and ditto for the Collects, though especially those for feast days were new compositions).  

Rather clumsily, the Anglican Prayer for the Church Militant, together with the Invitation, General Confession, Absolution and Comfortable Words, was inserted between the Orate fratres and the Secret (since in the B.C.P. these parts come directly before the Preface, though liturgically speaking, as they resemble mediæval vernacular prayers after the sermon at Mass, they would fit better before rather than after the offertory rites).  

The most important option in the English Missal is that one may use either Frere's Interim Rite (noting that, as per the B.C.P, the Prayer of Humble Access is inserted before the Prayers of Consecration and Oblation, and after the Sanctus and Benedictus), or the Roman Canon!  After communion is adminstered - in both kinds - the Anglican prayer of thanksgiving after communion may be read, either in addition to or in the stead of the (Roman) Postcommunion Collect; and either the Roman form of the blessing (Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus) or the Anglican ("The peace of God...") may be used - amusingly, the Novus Ordo now includes the latter formula as one of the optional solemn blessings at the end of Mass in Latin and English.

Parts of the service of Holy Communion in the B.C.P. are not included in the English Missal, at least in its Ordinary as given online.  No provision is made for reciting the Ten Commandments (with responses) after the Our Father and Collect for Purity at the start of the service, as this was considered by Anglo-Catholics a very shoddy Proddy idea best neglected (not so much because they neglected the Commandments, one trusts, as because it seemed very dark, puritan and ominous an opening to the liturgy), and likewise the Collect for the Queen - always to be used first, before the Collect of the day, even on Good Friday or Easter Sunday! - was left out (presumably relegated to the Votive Orations) as being a bit much even for devoted monarchists.  Similarly, the Exhortations to be read at the Holy Communion, being long and very largely omitted by just about all Anglicans for centuries now, have no provision made for their use.  The sentences of Scripture to be used at the Offertory, being more or less all about giving money for the collection, have also been retired as rather grasping and uncouth.  Finally, the words of administration of the elements hae been given only in their Roman form, as the Anglican, a combination of 1549 and 1552, were overlong.

What of all these Anglican inserts are acceptable as Catholic prayers, that is, for use at a Catholic Mass?  I have on my lap as I type my copy of The Book of Divine Worship, which is the liturgical book approved for use in Anglican Use parishes in the United States.  Its form of Mass is basically the Novus Ordo supplemented with elements from the U.S. 1979 B.C.P (and it must be noted that this stems from a combination of the English and the Scottish B.C.P.'s of the late eighteenth century, the latter having a rather higher and more catholic form of Eucharistic rite), which being granted it does shew what of the above would be usable to a first approximation if, and only if, the "Interim Rite with English Missal additions" as used locally by the T.A.C. might continue if they do come into corporate union with Rome.

• The Collect for Purity (in its American version, having one word different - "are" not "be");
  
• Many of the Collects are retained in the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite, but these are from the 1979 U.S. B.C.P., which redistributed them among the Sundays and feasts of the year, so a case by case examination would be needed to see which were used when - and likewise, the U.S. B.C.P. tradition had over time varied and changed elements of the wording of the collects, or had introduced new ones;
  
• The Book of Divine Worship states that the Anglican Use is to use the Novus Ordo lectionary - but, seeing that the Holy Father has since freed up access to the Traditional Latin Mass with its own lectionary, and as the English Missal is basically the Traditional Latin Mass in English, perhaps the use of the older Traditional lectionary would be conceded (but as to what to do about the vestiges of the Sarum order of readings, or about those lessons specific to the Anglican tradition, who knows?);
  
• The Prayer for the Church (again, in its American recension shewing more than verbal differences to the English one - with the Pope and local Bishop to be included by name, as a sign of Catholic unity, and with phrasing indicating prayer for the dead, commemoration of the Blessed Virgin and saints, and the petition for governments and rulers moved after the petition for the clergy, to cut down on Erastianism);
  
• The Invitation, that is, the admonition to kneel down and repent of sin (with verbal differences "who" instead of "that", "devoutly" instead of "meekly", and omitting "upon your knees" as tautologous, and "and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort" as perhaps implying that all who kneel to confess will receive, or that it might confuse the penitential rite following with sacramental absolution);
  
• The General Confession, analogous to the Confiteor;
  
• The Absolution (reading "those who" for "them that", and "on" for "upon" - and, notably, following the Novus Ordo by changing all mentions of "you" or "your" to "us" and "our", again to avoid giving the appearance that this prayer for forgiveness is a formula of sacramental absolution);
  
• The Comfortable Words (being quotations of St Matthew xi, 28, St John iii, 16, I Timothy i, 15 and I John ii, 1-2, in slightly modernized language, and significantly adding to the last passage "and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world", implying the universal efficacy of the oblation of Christ);
  
• The Prayer of Humble Access (omitting, as was done according to the U.S. B.C.P., the phrase "that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and", which had since the beginning been questioned as seeming to imply the Blood more efficacious than the Body!);
  
• The Prayer of Thanksgiving, or fixed prayer after Communion (omitting for stylistic reasons only "vouchsafe to" and "which is", but also reading "in these holy mysteries" - the 1549 version - not "who have duly received these holy mysteries", which might possibly bear some savour of receptionism or somesuch, and omitting "by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son", which again could carry the impression that sharing in the company of the saints as members of the Mystical Body is strengthened not by Communion but by the Cross alone: but I think that it's most probable these phrases were omitted from The Book of Divine Worship because U.S. Anglicans, I mean Episcopalians, had already omitted them as making the prayer overwordy);
  
• The Peace (which is the Anglican form of blessing, now even included in the Novus Ordo as noted above).

(The Book of Divine Worship even includes for optional use a version of the Ten Commandments, and of the Exhortation.)

What one does not find in the Anglican Use is the Anglican Canon of the Interim Rite: only the Roman Canon is provided (and, in "Rite Two", the contemporary language version, the other modern Eucharistic Prayers).  It seems that Rome judged Frere's effort wanting.

The Interim Rite

angBe alert, not alarmed - my contacts with the T.A.C. here in Launceston have issued in an invitation to attend their Sunday service.  Well, I had thought this to be Morning Prayer, which according to their website was what they had on the second Sunday of the month - but a recent email informed me that instead it is "the Interim Rite [of Mass] with English Missal additions"... which puts me in a quandary, since I seem to have invited myself to it: I asked the advice of a knowledgeable priest, who gave me some wise advice about what would be appropriate; and his advice concorded with what I had thought acceptable in conscience.

It seems to me, as advised, that if I come along to their service, take a back seat and pray for the happy day to come when all are gathered into the one fold of the Redeemer, while out of courtesy standing, sitting and kneeling as the others do, but avoiding making any responses which would imply agreement with anything that I wouldn't honestly believe, it would be acceptable to attend - for the purpose of learning how the T.A.C. in its local instantiation worships, and, afterward, to meet with their people.

Now, many years back my then parish priest, now Bishop of Lismore, Geoffrey Jarrett, shewed me as a curiosity his old copy of the English Missal, which is basically the Roman Missal in a Cranmeresque English translation, with a few bits and pieces of the Book of Common Prayer interspersed, but so that frankly most bits of it were immersed in a Papal sea; most amusingly, it provides three Eucharistic Prayers - the latter two being the Roman Canon itself, in English and in Latin - and also a proper service for the feast of a certain "King Charles the Martyr", with a Latin Sequence!  This was the text he had used as an Anglican minister prior to his conversion in 1965.

The "Interim Rite" is a clever rearrangement of two prayers in the 1662 B.C.P., following a suggestion made by the Anglican liturgical scholar Walter Howard Frere back in 1911.  First, some background: the 1549 editio princeps of the Book of Common Prayer had a Canon, partly new, partly a cunning recompilation of parts of the Roman Canon, which was sufficiently ambiguous as to admit of both a Catholic and a (very conservative and "high") Protestant acceptation, in simple terms - the devil being most definitely in the details! - but this Canon was broken up in the 1552 and all subsequent B.C.P.'s into three prayers, redistributed throughout the Anglican Eucharistic rite: as Dix cogently argued, this reflects all too accurately Cranmer's further descent into heresy toward a Zwinglian view of the Sacrament.  

• The first part of the Canon, being a long intercession, was stripped of its list of saints and intercession for the dead, these elements being reduced to a mere thankful remembrance of the faithful departed (so much for the communio sanctorum), and placed earlier on in the rite, becoming the "Prayer for the Church Militant", so as to dissociate the Eucharist from any idea of being offered up for determinate ends as a sacrifice of impetration.
  
• The second part, being an epiclesis and the words of institution, had its epiclesis rephrased from "with thy Holy Spirit and word, vouchsafe to bl+ess and sanc+tify these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ" to "grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine... may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood", and directly after it the distribution of the elements so prayed over was ordained, so that no time elapse during which the elements might be the object of oblation or adoration.
  
• The third part, being an anamnesis with oblation, a petition for fruitful reception, a self-oblation, mention of angelic intercession and doxology, was stript of its anamnesis and oblation, as of the mention of angelic intercession, and, with its petition for fruitful reception watered down, was moved until after the distribution of the elements for communion, and likewise prefixed by the Lord's Prayer (also moved, lest the petition "Give us this day our daily bread" be applied to the Eucharist - very Zwinglian, in its utter denial that the bread had aught to do with the Body) and made the alternative "Prayer of Oblation" to a postcommunion prayer - in Dix's damning words, substituting the oblation of the sons of men for the Oblation of the Son of Man.

Frere's suggestion for an "Interim Rite" was intended as a move back from this nightmare Zwinglian ordo - which somehow had acquired a range of higher interpretations among Anglicans, ranging from receptionism (Hooker's new heresy) up through dynamic virtualism (the spiritual presence of the Lord in the elements in some manner extraordinarily difficult to understand) toward, after the Oxford movement, approaches to the real presence that amounted to transsubstantiation in all but name - by rearranging prayers so as to approach what High Anglicans have always regarded as their liturgical utopia of 1549 (utopia, "no-place", indeed!).  He proposed a simple transposition, to return the Prayer of Oblation to its former place after the Prayer of Consecration, and then to have the Lord's Prayer prayed before the distribution of the elements for communion.

In the absence of any larger liturgical reform (under discussion in 1911, but frustrated by Parliamentary opposition in 1928 and 1929, and not restarted until the 1960's - when as all know all hell broke loose), Frere thought this would move liturgical matters in a more catholic direction.  That said, since the later nineteenth century the more advanced, daring, or just plain crazy Ritualists among the High Church had been adopting just about every Roman custom, prayer and rubric they could lay their hands on, with the result that in Anglo-Catholic parishes the Eucharistic service was basically the Tridentine Mass in English: hence the English Missal and many slightly less brave alternatives thereto.  So "the Interim Rite with English Missal additions" is a representative form of Anglican advanced catholicizing and Romanizing liturgical practice as of the period immediately before Vatican II - in an odd way, the closest thing to the 1962 Missal!

Here is the Interim Rite as Frere proposed it, with the 1549 anamnesis in square brackets:

The Interim Rite (Frere, 1911)

Prayer of Consecration (1662 BCP)

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one* oblation of himself once offered) 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 memory of that his precious death, until his coming again; Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, 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: who, in the same night that he was betrayed, 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. Amen. 

Prayer of Oblation (BCP 1662)

[1549 includes: Wherefore,] O LORD and heavenly Father, [1549 includes: according to the institution of thy dearly beloved Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ,] we thy humble servants [1549 includes: do celebrate, and make here before thy divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, the memorial which thy Son hath willed us to make, having in remembrance his blessed passion, mighty resurrection, and glorious ascension, rendering unto thee most hearty thans, for the innumerable benefits procured unto us by the same,] entirely desire [1549: desiring] 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 offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee, that all we, who are partakers of this holy Communion, may be fulfilled with thy grace and heavenly benediction. 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.

[* Some printings of the 1549 B.C.P. read "own" instead of "one" - the difference is significant.]

And this is my critique of it, using Bishop Elliott's categories of real presence, sacrifice and communion - considering these in the abstract, without thereby wishing to declare the prayers sufficient to express Catholic doctrine, and leaving aside the issue of Anglican orders:

1. the Cranmerian revised epiclesis as quoted above still stands, and its words "that we receiving these... creatures of bread and wine... may be partakers of [Christ's] Body and Blood", are incompatible with Catholic doctrine unless interpreted in a manner that does violence to its words, since it states that when the elements are received, they are still in their proper natural substances - perhaps the T.A.C. version either changes these words back to their 1549 version, or so modifies and surrounds them in its rite with fuller expressions, that they can be made to express the correct belief;
   
2. as to the Eucharist as a sacrifice, certainly the Eucharist is a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" - but while a Catholic would read "this our sacrifice" as referring to the Eucharist, a Protestant could instead read "this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" as being merely our verbal sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, which we offer up at the Lord's Supper as merely our own unworthy self-oblation; similarly, the Catholic doctrine is that the Mass is also a sacrifice of propitiation and impetration, offered up in expiation of the outrage of sin and to obtain all blessings spiritual and temporal - which could be what is shortly expressed in the words "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"; or these words could be interpreted in the Protestant sense of looking to the Cross, not as manifested in power in the Eucharist, but as a once only offering at Calvary in no way made present in the Eucharist (what masterful ambiguity!) - so again, it will depend on whatever ancillary prayers are added in from the English Missal to determine the doctrine being expressed;
   
3. the communion aspect is probably the most acceptable - since it prays that all who partake of "this holy Communion" may share in Christ's Body and Blood, and thereby be filled with all grace and blessing (and of course, if the additional parts from the English Missal used to supplement these two Prayers include translations of the relevant prayers preparatory to communion, so much the better).

I shall be interested to observe whether these preliminary surveys of the Interim Rite with added prayers is what I shall witness on Sunday.

Feast of St Titus

The Church celebrates St Titus, first bishop of Crete, this day; so it seems appropriate to sit down and read the Epistle of St Paul to Titus; from which I draw a few important points:

• first, i, 15: "to the clean all things are clean" (referring probably to the Gospel abrogation of the Mosaic distinction of meats into clean and unclean), which by accommodation is taken to mean that a pure mind may without being stained discuss for proportionate reasons even sources of temptation, as for instance is done when studying moral theology and considering in what matters men sin, though being careful to avoid proximate occasions of mortal sin;

• second, the repeated injunction to "excel in good works" (iii, 8 & 14), for Titus as a bishop to be "an example of good works" (ii, 7), and to reject the heretical example of those who are "worthless for any good work" (i, 16);

• third, what I would consider the central doctrinal import of the epistle (ii, 11-14 and iii, 3-7), which I now quote in extenso:

For the grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men; instructing us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and might cleanse to Himself a people acceptable, a pursuer of good works.

For we ourselves also were some time unwise, incredulous, erring, slaves to divers desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.  But when the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared: not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost; Whom He hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour: that, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of life everlasting.

Pray for us, St Titus: that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Prayers Please

Of your charity, please pray for me - the Lord's Prayer, an Ave, or as the Spirit moves you.

St Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, pray for us all.

Ferial Matins

I left Matins to-day till the afternoon, when I paid a visit to the Church of the Apostles after work to pray.  The Lessons were from Colossians i, 1-18 - which put me in mind of the use in the modern Office of Colossians i, 12-20 (with the opening gratias agentes changed to gratias agamus, so as to provide a principal verb) as a New Testament Canticle at Vespers on Wednesdays:

[Let us give] thanks to God the Father, 

Who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: 

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, 

and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 

In Whom we have redemption *through his blood*', 

the remission of sins; 

Who is the image of the invisible God, 

the firstborn of every creature:

For in Him were all things created 

in heaven and on earth, 

visible and invisible, 

†whether thrones, or dominations, 

or principalities, or powers:†' 

all things were created by Him and in Him, 

and He is before all, 

and by Him all things consist. 

And He is the Head of the body, the Church, 

Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; 

that in all things He may hold the primacy: 

because in Him, it hath well pleased the Father, that all fullness should dwell; 

and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, 

making peace through the Blood of His Cross, 

both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven.

(I have given here the Douay version, as closely faithful to the Vulgate; the Neo-Vulgate of the modern Office is not notably different, excepting only that the section *-*' above, in Latin per sanguinem ejus, is not in the Neo-Vulgate.  Stupidly, the English version of the modern Divine Office is bowdlerized for the tender sensibilities of liberals and modernists, by omitting from verse 16 the words marked †-†', in the modern Latin sive throni sive dominationes sive principatus sive potestates, lest they suggest to the skeptical and misbelieving some of the names of the choirs of the Angels!)

Again, as I've noted previously, the use of canticles from the Old Testament is immemorial at Lauds (and at Vigils in the Monastic Rite), and of course the three Gospel canticles are the highlights of Lauds, Vespers and Compline; if St Pius X added extra canticles to Lauds, as he did, then it seems reasonable to allow Paul VI to add New Testament canticles to Vespers.  I certainly used the modern Office with profit and devotion for well over a decade, and do miss a number of its refinements even though I've gone over to the 1962 Breviary.  It would be a good thing to dwell on these words of St Paul in the passage given above, and often to recite and pray them.

Ave Regina Cælorum - II

I have previously posted on the Marian anthem Ave Regina cælorum, which is the Church's song after Compline each day from yesterday, Candlemas, until Wednesday in Holy Week inclusive - that is, from the 2nd of February until the 8th of April, or for 66 days this year.  To-day I was again thinking on it, and on the meaning of its words.  

At first glance, the anthem itself  - originally sung on the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven, body and soul, hence its penultimate line Vale, O valde decora (Goodbye, O Thou so beautiful) - is not so obviously connected to its versicle and collect: but this is not so.  In the collect, we refer to ourselves, we who keep the memory of the Holy Mother of God (qui sanctæ Dei Genetricis memoriam agimus), which we have just done if we have sung the versicle Dignare me laudare te Virgo sacrata (Vouchsafe me to praise thee, sacred Virgin), and before it have praised her as the Mother of God, the gate whence dawned the true Light, as the Virgin all glorious and above all others beautiful, because Immaculate and never stained with sin, as the assumpted Queen and Lady of heaven and of the angels.  

And after thus saluting her, hailing her, congratulating her on her joy, we beg that she pray Christ her Son for us; in the response to the versicle, we one and ask that she give us strength against her foes (Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos); most of all, in the Collect we ask that by the help of her intercession (intercessionis ejus auxilio) we may rise again from our iniquities (a nostris iniquitatibus resurgamus)  - and this we ask of our merciful God (misericors Deus), Who predestinated the Blessed Virgin from all eternity to be the Mother of His Son, with all that entails for our happy estate, and all this we ask through that same Christ our Lord, Who is our Mediator with the Father.

******

I have decided to pray the Angelus with a special added intention - that of corporate reunion of the Traditional Anglican Communion with the Holy See, that is, with Christ's Vicar and all Catholic Christendom.  To this end, at its end I add, "Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us, ut unum sint."

The Presentation as an Eschatological Feast

The Eucharist is of Itself the pledge of future glory (pignus futuræ gloriæ), as Aquinas sings in his O sacrum convivium; and especially so on this feast of Candlemas - the Traditional Postcommunion begging through Mary's prayers that God "make the most holy mysteries... both a present and a future remedy" (sacrosancta mysteria... et præsens nobis remedium esse facias et futurum), since the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, the meeting of God with God, is the figure of our own high calling to be brought, pure and spotless, purged of all rust and dross, into the hall of heaven, to be forever with the Lord.  This is, after all, the import of the Collect, summary of the healthful doctrine set before us this whole day through at Office and Mass:

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, Majestatem tuam suppliciter exoramus: ut, sicut Unigenitus Filius tuus hodierna die cum nostræ carnis substantia in templo est præsentatus; ita nos facias purificatis tibi mentibus præsentari.  Per...

(Almighty everlasting God, bowing low we humbly pray Thy Majesty: that, as Thine Onlybegotten Son this day in the substance of our flesh in the temple was presented, so may Thou make us with purified minds to be presented unto Thee.  Through...)

The Traditional prayers of blessing over the candles corroborate this: "being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, may we deserve to be presented in the holy temple of Thy glory" (2nd prayer), "that after the dark perils of this world, we may deserve to arrive at the never-failing light" (3rd prayer).

What else, after all, is the import of our carrying lighted candles, other than that, our lamps held high, we may come nigh unto God, both now in ritual and in deed, and one day body and soul?  What else the import of our being given a candle at our very Baptism, and adjured to keep alight the flame of faith all our lives, whatever darkening blasts threaten?

Our passage to heaven and our God is a purgatory: God grant it be speedy, that we may gaze upon His beauty, not as now in a glass darkly, even though it be in sacred mysteries, but face to Face.

Candlemas at Carmel

The day dawned cloudy and drizzly, thanks be - and has been cool and wet and clouded over all day long, amen!  Goodbye hot weather.

It was still early when I headed up to Carmel, remembering to bring candles to be blessed, and after some prayer went down to the large parlour, with about twenty other congregants, who were handed little candles which were then lit.  Next, how splendid, what a privilege to see what so few do: the screen drawn back, and the joyful nuns arranged in two rows ready to process, attired in choir capes over their habits, all wimpled and veiled (but for the postulant sister, next to the white-veiled novice in the front), and all carrying tall lighted candles in one hand, and the music they were to sing in the other.  Fr Kene came in, the sisters sang a hymn, then he began the rite, blessed the candles (forgetting to asperse them, the holy water bucket being behind him - I dabbed mine with holy water later), and had us form our two processions - the nuns within the enclosure, and we without, but both singing "Hail to the Lord Who comes"...

Hail to the Lord who comes,

Comes to his temple gate,

Not with his angel hosts,

Not in his kingly state;

But borne upon the throne

Of Mary's gentle breast;

Thus to his Father's house

He comes a humble guest.

The world's true light draws near

All darkness to dispel,

The flame of faith is lit

And dies the power of hell.

Our bodies and our souls

Are temples now for him,

For we are born of grace-

God lights our souls within.

O Light of all the earth!

We light our lives with thee;

The chains of darkness gone

All sons of God are free.

Oddly, after both processions reached their destination in the chapel, Mass continued as per the Novus Ordo rubrics with the Gloria - but which was not sung as Fr expected, but said!  Yet the good sisters did later sing the Sanctus and Agnus Dei in plainchant, together with chanting in English the psalm, the Memorial Acclamation, the Amen, the Lord's Prayer, its Doxology, the Communion verse and a final hymn; they seem to have set strict rules for progressive solemnity (such as which days exactly on which to sing the Gloria) that have curious consequences: in this case, bathos.

Fr Kene, again proving himself much superior to the local Tasmanian clergy, preached a good sermon, amongst other things reminding us that Candlemas is called Hypapante or Encounter by the Greeks, and praying in conclusion that one day, at the hour of our death, Our Lady may receive us in her arms, and present us to the eternal Father.

Just before the procession, I had been introduced by the nice lady I'd met on Sunday to her husband (apparently one of the adherents of the Traditional Anglican Communion - since it's already online, here's a link to his story) and to the local T.A.C. bishop, dressed soberly with a large pectoral cross, who came with them to Mass!  I noticed later that both men crossed themselves at the conclusion of the Creed and Sanctus, and at the Elevation, and of course abstained from communion.  After the liturgy, I had a short conversation with "the Rt Rev David Robarts, Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Australia and Bishop of the Southern Apostolic District" - he seemed a fine fellow and I hope to see more of him.

Of course, he was unable to give me any details of the T.A.C.'s ongoing negotiations with Rome regarding their return to Catholic unity, but seemed most positive, despite observing that these are difficult times for Christians in the West, and that whether among the generality of Catholics after Vatican II, or among the Anglicans he served as a priest for many years prior to his withdrawal from them into the T.A.C. and his subsequent elevation, the great lack is that of an awareness of transcendence, of the idea of the Holy.  (Certainly at Carmel one feels some awareness of the mystery of the Divine, and finds a well-ordered liturgy: from a slightly different I wonder what were his feelings as he attended the Mass being celebrated by a Nigerian priest, on loan to this dying Archdiocese.)

Later on, at work, I reflected how strange it was to have had a window into Carmel this morning, to have processed with candles, to have offered and received the Mystic Sacrifice - who of my colleagues would comprehend it? - and moreover to have met the local T.A.C. bishop and discussed varied matters with him.  Upon arriving home I found that another friend - Fraser Pearce - had sent me two books: the Carmelite Proper for the modern Divine Office, and a Carmelite Ritual of 1952.  An interesting day.

Afternoon Benediction at Carmel

This Sunday being the first of the month, there was Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel of the Carmelite monastery here in Launceston from after the 7.30 am Mass until Benediction after 3 pm.  I haven't previously gone, always being otherwise engaged, but I did drive back up there this afternoon - it takes less than 10 minutes by car, after all - especially as they have begun advertising it as "One Hour with Jesus", there being None at 2 pm, silent prayer from 2.15 pm, and Benediction supposedly starting at 3 o'clock.  

I arrived just on 3 o'clock, and read None to myself while I knelt coram Sanctissimo, before I spent a little time in quiet prayer; at ten past three, the sound of a car was heard outside, and soon enough a rather tardy priest, hurriedly vested in cope, came out into the sanctuary to give Benediction.  It was simple but reverent, with an opening hymn, the usual prayer for Christian Unity (said) followed by Tantum ergo (during which incense was offered in adoration of Christ in the Eucharistic species) with versicle and collect (all sung), the Benediction itself with Fr taking up the monstrance with the humeral veil and blessing all while a bell was rung, then the Divine Praises said in unison, and the reposition hymn "O Bread of heaven".  The whole was done in English, and concluded at twenty past three.  I'd say there were a dozen laity in attendance - and of course all the nuns were there, audible but invisible...

O Bread of Heaven, beneath this veil

Thou dost my very God conceal:

My Jesus, dearest treasure, hail!

I love Thee and, adoring, kneel;

Each loving soul by Thee is fed

With Thine own Self in form of Bread...

Candlemas Eve

Before Mass this Sunday morning, a nice old lady came up, said "Are you Joshua?" and then - well, luckily she's not a blog reader stalking me, it turns out her husband is the fellow I've emailed regarding getting information about the local T.A.C. parish or whatnot here in Launceston.  Apparently, he will be at Mass with his wife to-morrow morning, and will talk with me then.

I'm pleased that, given the early hour of Mass at Carmel, and the fact that work begins late to-morrow, I'll be able to attend Candlemas: according to the notice outside the chapel, the blessing of candles will be held in the large parlour, with procession to follow (i.e. the nuns will process from their side of the parlour, behind the grille, and through their secret halls up into their screened-off choir in the chapel, while the priest and laity will walk back out the parlour door, and through the passageway into the open wing of said chapel...

I must again plan to get away to Mass by 7am, and remember to bring the candles I bought to be blessed.  (Maybe I'll even say Matins of the feast to-night, by anticipation: in fact, I must, since with the pressures of work upon me I won't have the luxury of saying Matins in the morning.  It must be Lauds and Prime before work.)

4th Sunday after Epiphany

Well, that's good - the weather has blessedly cooled down (only 16°C when I got up, good and windy, and little warmer at all now, thank Christ); I got away to church at 7am; Matins & (most of) Lauds before Mass, a fairly acceptable Novus Ordo at the Carmel (with Exposition afterward until 3pm); Prime after Mass (having finished off Lauds after Communion); a very acceptable breakfast at a café down at the First Basin in the Gorge (which was my promise to myself to make me get up so early on a Sunday); and now Terce done, and it's not even 10 am.  Wonderful - when I do get up early I do profit by it.

Mass was alright, but I just don't really like the Novus Ordo, and wish for something better: to think I had Missa Cantata each Sunday (or failing that my choice of three Low Masses), and now am reduced to this.  Nasty old Bugnini, and weak-willed Paul VI: I hope they have a hot purgatory for all the mischief they caused.  Just to make me really fume, I saw the local Dean referring to dratted Pat Power as if to an oracle in the parish newsletter - some people are so ignorant.

Breakfast at least was civilized and befitting a gentleman: some good coffee, the newspaper, and pancakes with strawberries and maple syrup - during my Melbourne holiday, I started each morning with much the same, excepting it was French toast with maple syrup.  As I ate, I mused on how odd it is to be consuming all this maple syrup, which must have been imported from North America (hopefully Canada - no offence to Yanks, but at least Canada is a realm of the Crown).  Unfortunately the only native sweet comestible I can think of is the honey ant, and I don't relish the idea of downing insects, however bloated with sweet syrup.  While honeybees aren't native, however, they do great things with the native flora: leatherwood honey (which people either love or hate) is the local Tasmanian variety that springs to mind.

But to return to to-day's Office: the noble Collect I have blogged on earlier, since it was used toward the end of last year.  Indeed of ourselves we are but weak flesh, but by God's grace we can stand firm against all the outrages of the world, which are justly due us on account of our sins: for in this manner we do fitting penance and are trained in virtue.  God grant it!