The Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology

At the outset, it must be confessed the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology is no compedium of pure Catholic doctrine agreeable to that of the whole Church: too much opposition to Roman claims is present, scattered here and there within the works of those twenty divines collected within the LACT (to say nothing of those complete treatises directly opposing the Papacy and so forth).

However, this great nineteenth-century collection, by republishing the writings of so many Caroline Divines (though including also some who flourished earlier, and others later), played an important part in the wider Anglican ressourcement that transpired at the time of the Oxford Movement, even though the theology expressed within is not wholly in accord with more modern Anglo-Catholicism, let alone Anglo-Papalism.

Given these caveats, it is understandable that, of the 158 post-biblical readings contained in the new Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham, only 16 are drawn from Anglicans included in the LACT: Andrewes (6), Beveridge (2), Frank (3), Laud (1), Pearson (3) and Wilson (1).  These six authors alone are utilised; the other fourteen are not (Bramhall, Bull, Cosin, Crakanthorp, Forbes, Gunning, Hammond, Hickes, Johnson, L’Estrange, Marshall, Nicholson, Overall and Thorndike).  It would be interesting to look further into the criteria whereby passages have been chosen from some, but not others, for use in the Customary.

Grafton Anglican Cathedral

Amongst other methods of wasting time, I decided to visit cathedrals while driving through Victoria and New South Wales: if a city has a Catholic one, I'll go there of course, but if – as in Wangaratta or Grafton there is only an Anglican one, I'll go see what those folks have.  

Crossing the mighty Clarence River, I drove into Grafton on Friday afternoon, and took these snaps in "Christ Church Cathedral", which appears to be reasonably high, but not so much as at Wangaratta.  To my signal displeasure, I noted that the local Anglican newspaper was crowing about their bishop ordaining the first Aboriginal woman to be a deacon.

On the columns flanking the nave are modernistic paintings of the Stations of the Cross, something I've not previously seen in Anglican churches.

The chancel: note the reversion to a Cranmer table, after the initial building of an altar in imitation of Catholic practice.

This notice (apologies for the bad reproduction, but it was very dark inside) I found concealed on a small bookcase for hymnals as one passes from the choir into the side chapel, where there was an aumbry flanked by a light, presumably for reservation.  This notice appears to teach the doctrine of the real presence, of adoration of Christ in the reserved sacrament, and of prayer for the dead.  Next to it were cards giving the texts for the Angelus and Regina cæli.

This attractive image of Christ the Priest (note maniple) reigning from the Cross was above the pulpit.

I found Our Lady making an appearance... and also St Cecilia, in naive style, playing on the organ:

The Only Thing Wrong with Anglicanism...

"The only thing wrong with Anglicanism," observed Rob, "is that it's not true."

Well, that brought the house down some years ago now, when he, Justin and I were having a conspiratorial beer together one Friday night... those two have each made the journey from Anglican to Orthodox and now to Catholic, and of all people should know.

In an amazingly unexpected manner, Pope Benedict, most daringly exercising his Petrine power to bind and loose on earth as in heaven, has waved a wand and declared what was nice-yet-but-a-dream to be (potentially) true, once duly vetted for doctrinal accuracy.

Anglo-Catholicism reminds me of the opening lines of that classic film Picnic at Hanging Rock, misquoting Poe: "What we are and what we seem is but a dream, a dream within a dream."  (For its heady opening sequence and air of hopeless yearning for things lost, it - albeit in so feminine a way - conjures up something of the tragedy of Anglicanism, the desire for what is unattainable.)  Bp Anthony Fisher (just moved to Parramatta) once joked that the C. of E. believed in "Salvation by good taste alone" – well, now A-C's can have not just the form, but the substance as well.

For those awakening from a dream turned nightmare, as the much-vaunted Anglican patrimony of sober rectitude has dissolved into vile doctrinal and moral deviation combined with an intolerant, nay, doctrinaire, Robespierre liberalism, there is now, not the suburban light of a drear reality, but a hope of living in all truth what they had hoped and believed to be true.  Man's creative powers have now been blessed with supernatural life.

People Look East?

For some Anglicans, whether still in the Anglican Communion or somewhere in the Continuing spectrum of ecclesial bodies, the prospect of submission to the Pope is unpleasant; some instead look East.

The Nonjurors, unsurprisingly, entered into correspondence with the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs back in the early 18th century; equally unsurprisingly, the Orthodox indicated that the Nonjurors, who represented themselves as the remnant of the ancient Catholic and Orthodox British Church (O Anglicanism! how Janus-faced thou art, shewing whatever visage will appear fairest to whomsoever thou courtest!), must nonetheless accept every single unchanged doctrine of the Holy Orthodox Church, including belief in the change in the bread and wine into the very Body and Blood of Christ with no bread and wine remaining save but in outward appearance (the Greek term used answers to the Latin transsubstantio), invocation of the saints, and veneration of images. These doctrines, plus the suggestion that they should give up their liturgy and use that of St John Chrysostom, the Nonjurors persisted in rejecting, and had the nerve to ask might be considered optional, "second order" issues (cf. Rowan!), which they could leave aside, and yet nonetheless be admitted to "inter-communion". Anglicans of such stiff-necked sorts don't change: all they really want is everyone else to acknowledge them right.

At the time, these negotiations came to nothing, for neither side would give way, and moreover the Patriarchs found out from the then Archbishop of Canterbury that these Nonjurors were an insignificant group of dissenters.

In the late 19th century, some American Episcopalians approached the Russian Orthodox Bishop Tikhon (later glorified by the Russian Church as a saint), asking to become Orthodox but - as usual - keep their Prayer Book. The Russian Church theologians compiled some very valuable notes on the American B.C.P., very perceptively noting its deficiencies and points wherein its Protestantism would have to be corrected. In the event, no one was reconciled at the time...

In past decades, groups of Western Orthodox have been at length finally established, typically using either a version of the Roman Mass Byzantinized with an inserted Epiclesis after the words of consecration, or a mixture of Anglican and some Roman prayers styled the Liturgy of St Tikhon. The latter in particular is a strange hybrid, a real dog's breakfast; I think it an example of how not to compose or correct a rite (e.g. in the amended Prayer of Consecration and Oblation taken from Anglican books, several clauses of the Roman Canon are slotted in, alongside an Epiclesis from Chrysostom's Divine Liturgy).

From what I can make out, these Uniates - for that is what they are, and the Orthodox should not be ashamed to acknowledge this word, for all that they condemn Rome for having Eastern Catholic jurisdictions - are fairly small in number, and some practise faintly ridiculous pastimes, such as composing Offices for obscure English saints, whose cultus is revived precisely because they luckily died ante 1054: for after that date, all were but Western heretics in their eyes.

Rome or the Bush

There was an Australian tract written some decade or two ago, entitled Rome or the Bush - signifying by this the choice of Catholics here to either adhere to Rome, or "be bushed", that is, lost in the wild, there to wander lone and witless ere they perish at the last.

This title well sums up the ineluctable choice facing Continuing Anglicans, and their sympathizers within the Anglican Communion - to either come to Rome (it must be admitted, some have gone East instead, but I leave them aside for the moment), or, having broken from the Church of England and all her pomps and empty promises, on the grounds of her detestable enormities, and deviation from Gospel truth into the ways of heterodoxy and error, to gradually fade away...

For this is the fate of the one great historical schism of Anglicanism: that of the Nonjurors, those High Churchmen who could not in conscience break their oaths to King James II, nor swear allegiance to the intruded monarchs who replaced him in 1689 and thereafter. Their history I have been rereading, and it is most instructive, as showing how schism begets schism, and eventually the movement dies out completely.

J. H. Overton's The Nonjurors (1902) provides, on page 346, the following sadly damning opening to his eighth chapter:

That the Nonjurors, with their strong convictions on the unity of the Church, should have had so many internal divisions is a painful illustration of the fact that when the process of dividing once begins it has a fatal tendency to go on making subdivisions and subdivisions, till there is scarcely anything left to divide.

Mark well these words.

They had begun with such saintly men as Thomas Ken, who could not in conscience take the oath of allegiance to the new King and Queen, William and Mary; but soon, as in their private conventicles their ministers conducted divine service, the question arose - for they were High Churchmen all, very zealous for primitive doctrines of the Fathers - of returning to a more perfect form of liturgy than that provided in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (from which Book they only now omitted the name of the monarch!).

Meanwhile, some of the deprived bishops ordained new bishops, in opposition to the State Church's hierarchy...

Many accepted as desideranda the so-called four Usages: the mixed chalice, prayer for the dead, a prayer of oblation, and an invocatory prayer for the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the elements. These were available, as one of their number, Bp Hickes, took them in his worship, in the very first, and arguably most Catholic, 1549 BCP.

In 1718, the Usagers broke communion with the Non-Usagers, and drew up a most startling Communion Office or Liturgy, with several Eastern Rite prayers included. This schism endured for more than a decade, before the two groups were reconciled, and all took to this new form; but in 1734, a still more exotic and frankly un-Anglican liturgy was promulgated, taken almost wholly out of the ancient and pseudonymous Apostolic Constitutions: yet to this liturgy adhered only a small party of the Nonjurors, styled the Separatists, and fated to linger the longest.

The regular line of Nonjuring bishops - who stuck to the 1718 Communion Office - died out in 1779, with the demise of Robert Gordon, who commended what remained of his flock to the Scottish Episcopalians; by this time, the Young and the Old Pretender having both failed to retake the throne of their fathers, the political motivations for the Nonjuring cause seemed antiquated. (From these links between the Nonjurors and the Scots come several highly significant liturgical pecularities of the latter, as evidenced by their 1764 Communion Office, which, still more or less unchanged in the 1929 Scottish BCP, is the most truly Catholic of official Anglican rites.)

Meanwhile, among the offshoot Separatists, there was a continued line of bishops in an irregular, but still (by Anglican standards) acceptable succession, until it came down to Bp William Cartwright (d. 1799), the last of whom any biographical details survive. He was a workman, an apothecary, in Manchester, who gathered a tiny congregation, eventually reduced to the members of his own family; nonetheless, he consecrated a successor, Thomas Garnett, in 1795, who gave up his office; but first who consecrated another, Charles Booth (d. 1805), said some time earlier, while still as a priest of the sect, to have had an attendance of thirty worshippers at his services. There are rumours of their being some last Nonjuring congregations as late as 1815.

For a taste of the curiosity that the last of the Nonjurors manifested, consider one of the last of their known ministers, a deacon (and wigmaker): Thomas Podmore (d.1785) – he wrote a lengthy book in 1745 asserting, against the errors of the Greeks, Romans, C. of E., and all “Anti-Episcopalians”, that “if the pious Reader would know where such a pure, perfect Church as I am reccommending is to be found, I will tell him in one word, at MANCHESTER.”

One refrains from laughter out of pity.

They all died, and their exotic liturgies and distinctive doctrines with them.

The Nonjurors are now a footnote in ecclesiastical history - the challenge for to-day's Continuing Anglicans is not to end as they did.

I would propose that the Traditional Anglican Communion, and their fellow-travellers still within mainstream Anglicanism (such as those groups joined under the name of Forward in Faith), most probably have heeded this warning, and see that, lest they simply die out, their only course is to seek adhesion to a larger body more evidently designed to last: the Catholic Church in communion with the Holy See.

Those in the so-called Continuum (of non-Papalist Anglicans) I see as the modern counterparts of the Nonjurors, just as others call them (by reason of their rejection of Rome) "Anglo-Jansenists". Everyone knows that their numbers are exceeding small, and not composed of many young persons. Yet look up a blog of that name, and find men speaking of "we will not convert, but come into communion with Rome, once she abjures her errors"!

As with the learned Nonjuring deacon above who proclaimed that in all the world, the true Church was to found at Manchester, gathered in their bishop's dining room, consisting of his family plus an elderly wigmaker in deacon's orders, one refrains from laughter out of pity.

What Patrimony of Anglicans?

Fr John Saward, in an excellent article, discusses what is meant by the legitimate patrimony that Anglicans coming into full communion with the Church bring with them.

Read it: it is very rewarding.

Joy or Suspicion?

Catholic reactions - and indeed Anglican reactions - to Pope Benedict's fostering of corporate reunion may be said to fall into two types: transports of joy or murmurings of suspicion.

On the Anglican side, amongst Anglo-Catholics, especially within the Traditional Anglican Communion (which has already broken with Canterbury, and has been edging toward Rome for years), there has been rejoicing at this unprecedented invitation - but also, even amongst such people, there have been expressions of confusion and alarm: will we have to give up all we hold dear? will we perforce be driven from our churches and vicarages? will we really be welcome, or regarded with suspicion by Catholic liberals of the sort that still dominate in many if not most places? will our clergy be vetted and purged in an unfriendly way, and only maybe eventually will some be re-ordained? will these proposed Ordinariates be real dioceses, or just some sort of sop to placate those otherwise to be under firm control of some Latin rite bishop?

And amongst Catholics, while many are glad to hear of this call to unity, both Traditionalists and liberals are not entirely happy. Liberals, of course, are horrified at the idea of letting into their Church such out-and-out right-wing extremists, and are furious at the Pope (whom they loathe) upsetting their ongoing plans for taking over and dominating diocese by diocese, parish by parish. Of course, they, especially those amongst them who are bishops and priests, are precisely the reason Benedict has sought to provide a special, protected place for incoming Anglicans - because every man knows how the liberal English Roman Catholic establishment so shabbily treated many converts and would-be converts, especially Anglican clergymen, back in 1992 when the C. of E. permitted so-called women priests.

But Traditionalists - and I speak as one myself, albeit not of the wild-eyed Jansenist conspiracy theorist sort - have their own fears and suspicions. Will these Anglicans really convert? Will they embrace all Roman doctrine, or maintain black Protestant hearts? Will their Anglican-style doctrinal fuzziness end up subserving the liberal cause of watering down doctrine? Will their liturgies, too-hastily permitted to be maintained by an oversympathetic Vatican, prove to be a horde of unwelcome half-brothers and half-sisters to the dreadful Novus Ordo, full of ambiguity and even Protestant heresy? Will their married priests by their very presence be a standing insult to our celibate clergy - as Cardinal Humbert once said to the Greeks, will they run hot from bed to altar? Will these Anglican Ordinariates provide a congenial oasis for both converts and likeminded traditionalist Catholics, or will they prove a beguiling mirage, as barren and wasted as Novus Ordo Land?

Over at Sub Tuum, the Br Stephen (now a Cistercian, once an Anglican) offers sage and sane advice about these and many related issues.

He speaks of how the Anglicans are in the position of the Israelites, who, having groaned under Pharoah's bitter yoke, now rather unexpectedly have Moses tell them they can depart Egypt for some mysterious Promised Land, about which they know little. But as the Israelites long ago complained, Egypt wasn't that bad a place to live - what of its fleshpots, its garlic, onion and leeks? Traipsing forever through the desert sounds pretty dreary...

Br Stephen notes that, despite the fabulous Cecil B. de Mille moment of God's irruption into human events, the parting of the Red Sea and all that, most of the journey of the people called and chosen was marked by grumbling and nostalgia for Egypt - and, of the 600,000 on foot, only two, Joshua and Caleb, reached the Promised Land. What a glum parallel! - but to save even two souls alive is very great. While of course one wishes these new Ordinariates-to-be swell to bursting with incomers, they may not have many members.

Anglicans must needs seriously ask themselves, are they acting as the Rich Young Man, who heard the Call of Christ, Who looked at him and loved him, but instead refused and went away sad, "for he had great possessions" that he was unwilling to sacrifice even for the chance to come nigh unto the Lord as His disciple. Rather than suffer so tragic a fate, they ought, as Blind Bartimaeus, rejoice, and run after the Lord in the person of His Vicar: If to-day ye hear His Voice, harden not your hearts.

This wise monk also speaks of how staunch Catholics and converts (himself included) can have sour grapes about to-day's heretics and schismatics being given a Get-out-of-jail-free card, and access to the platinum club for superior persons, with privileges not accorded poor dumb ordinary Catholics. Some of us would far prefer to see such fastidious types, who've been hanging around the Church doors since Newman's day, forced to lick the dust and do cruel penance for their obstinacy, made to weep bitter tears and plead for mercy...

But of course this is a most repellent and unchristian revenge fantasy. Just because Anglicans historically have persecuted Catholics, and still can condescend to them, doesn't mean we should not welcome those persuaded of Anglican falsity and the fulness of Catholic truth with open arms.

Again, I was moved by what this monastic blogger wrote: we must not be as the elder brother of the Prodigal Son, affronted and miserably uncharitable, out of pure jealousy at the slaying of the fatted calf: for, after all, his wayward sibling had returned to life from the dead. Nor should we snipe like the labourers in the vineyard, angered that the johnny-come-lately's get the same coin for which we've toiled. Rather, we should remember the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep - and, I would add, recall that the angels in heaven rejoice at the conversion of anyone.

Anglican and Lutheran Catholics?

I have been listening to podcasts of speeches at the recent Forward in Faith National Assembly in England - an assembly of Anglo-Catholic Anglicans who hold to what were but yesterday the unquestioned beliefs of mainstream orthodox Christianity, not too far from the Catholic Faith - and have been interested in the attitudes of the speakers to the recent announcement of an Apostolic Constitution to facilitate the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See.

As one remarked, this amazing invitation from Pope Benedict XVI is the holy grail of Catholic-minded Anglicans, something prayed for and hoped for since the Oxford Movement - but something that many thought would never come in their time (a bit like the Parousia!); hence, now it's here, many who hoped and prayed for this are as it were struck dumb, unsure if their hopes and prayers haven't been answered rather disconcertingly too soon...

The "Flying Bishops" (Church of England prelates who minister to such Anglican clergy and congregations that won't have "women priests"), and more particularly Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, had much to say worth pondering. Hepworth clearly has inside knowledge, since his pronouncements about what the impending Papal Bull will permit go far beyond what little information has so far been made public.

But I was also very interested in the presence of a Swedish Lutheran, Bishop Göran Beijer, who belongs to an analogous offshoot of the official Lutheran body in Sweden, the so-called "Mission Province" (note that, since the Porvoo Declaration, the C. of E. and the mainstream Scandinavian Lutheran denominations are in some sort of communion): he talked of how nowhere else in the world have more tradition-minded churchmen had to put up with female pastors for fifty years, female "bishops" as well, and soon an openly lesbian person as Lutheran Archbishop of Stockholm, while clergymen of the Established Church in Sweden are now to officiate at "blessings" of homosexual contracts (I cannot bear to call them marriages) - pretended rites that sacrilegiously simulate God's hallowing of what is accursed.

Beijer then opined, Is this decree of the Holy See something open to catholic-minded Lutherans, also? Now, of course revolting against liberal tyranny, a modern intolerance simulating broadmindedness but in fact inflicting corruption on faith and morals, is one thing, and praiseworthy in itself; but to come home to Rome requires not just such a negative judgement that the sad shenanigans of official Swedish Lutheranism prove it to be no part of the Christian church, (one that Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and just about every Protestant down to our own dark age would have made), but also the positive conviction, moved by the Holy Ghost, that therefore Lutheranism is radically defective, containing the seeds of its own downfall, and that the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church is in fact found in fulness in the Church of Rome, built on solid rock, on the faith of Peter which Christ has promised shall not fail, and which alone has stood firm where all other merely manmade structures have fallen, having been proven to have been founded on shifting sand.

Perhaps, having been driven from Swedish Lutheranism, some like Beijer may find that the answer to their dilemma lies in accepting Roman doctrine, which is to-day the only remaining Christian bulwark against accepting as moral what is complete moral turpitude: for it is obvious to thinking persons that all sins of the flesh are being proclaimed as good by so many for reasons of expediency, to satisfy their lusts, and this turning away from God, blaspheming His Name by daring as false prophets to call evil good, while pretending to be a Christian minister, as a ravening wolf drest as a sheep, can only lead to total apostasy and immorality.

Could this provision for Anglicans also fit some High Church Lutherans? If they will embrace the truth of the Catholic Faith, yes.

A Pertinent Prayer

To-day is the feast of the Holy Apostles Simon and Jude; the Anglicans have a most pertinent prayer for this day (based on Eph. ii, 20-21 & iv, 3; I Pet. ii, 5 & iii, 8), which I suggest should be prayed for the coming reception of their faithful remnant into communion with the Apostolic See:

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone ; Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(This is the official Collect of the Prayer Book Society.)

In the Catholic Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship, this Collect is appointed for use on the Sunday closest to the 29th of June - for obvious reasons...

Te Deum for the Pope's Anglican Outreach

"Let us give thanks unto our Lord God. It is meet and right so to do." As you have no doubt read elsewhere (thanks, Rob, for alerting me to the news!), His Holiness the Pope, ever solicitous for the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and seeking to gather all Christians into the one fold of the Redeemer (Whose Vicar he is), will shortly issue an Apostolic Constitution providing for the corporate reunion of Anglicans seeking to swim the Tiber and come home to Rome, setting up personal ordinariates for them, and allowing them concessions such as married priests and special liturgical arrangements...

(Fr Rutler offers concise and penetrating commentary on all this.)

While it is as yet early days, well we may pray that, at the intercession of soon-to-be Blessed John Henry Newman (whose petitions before the Most Highest may well have obtained this blessing from heaven), many Anglicans may find the consummation of all their hopes in the embrace of Holy Mother Church, for the salvation of their souls and the greater glory of God. Non nobis, Domine, non nobis: sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Let us therefore sing Te Deum. I append the Anglican version thereof, with suitable prayers from their books; the Order is modelled on the service of thanksgiving for the Anniversary of Her Majesty's happy reign, but with rather different collects - the first, addressed to God who works such wonders, for "the Pope [my own inclusion!], our Bishops, and Curates, and the congregations committed to their charge" (which may be read as referring to Catholics and those-soon-to-be such); then one for the Anglican Use (as already present in the approved Book of Divine Worship); one for those to be ordained (since the Church will have to be careful in her choice of suitable candidates), one, the General Thanksgiving (with its proper insert referring to those who give thanks for benefits received); second-last, the famous and beautiful Prayer for Unity; and finally the all-purpose Actiones nostras (reminding us that without God's grace sustaining us, all is in vain):

AN ORDER FOR

A SERVICE OF THANKSGIVING

TE DEUM LAUDAMUS

WE praise thee, O God : we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee : the Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud : the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubin, and Seraphin : continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy : Lord God of Sabaoth ;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty : of thy Glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world : doth acknowledge thee ;
The Father : of an infinite Majesty ;
Thine honourable, true : and only Son ;
Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter.

THOU art the King of glory : O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son : of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man : thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death : thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the Glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come : to be our judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants : whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints : in glory everlasting.

O LORD, save thy people : and bless thine heritage.
Govern them : and lift them up for ever.
Day by day : we magnify thee ;
And we worship thy Name : ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord : to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us : have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us : as our trust is in thee.
O Lord, in thee have I trusted : let me never be confounded.

THE LORD'S PRAYER AND SUFFRAGES

[The Lord be with you.
[And with thy spirit.]

Let us pray.

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen.

O Lord, save thy servants ;
That put their trust in thee.
Send unto them help from thy holy place.
And evermore mightily defend them.
Let the enemy have no advantage of them ;
Nor the wicked approach to hurt them.
O Lord, hear our prayer.
And let our cry come unto thee.

Let us pray.

A PRAYER FOR THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who alone workest great marvels ; Send down upon the Pope, our Bishops, and Curates, and all Congregations committed to their charge, the healthful Spirit of thy grace ; and that they may truly please thee, pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing. Grant this, O Lord, for the honour of our Advocate and Mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen.

THE COLLECT FOR THE ANGLICAN USE

O HOLY Ghost the Lord, who on Pentecost gavest the Church the gift of tongues that Christ might be known, loved and served by peoples of divers nations and customs : watch over the Anglican heritage within thy Church, we pray thee, that, led by thy guidance and strengthened by thy grace, that Use may find such favour in thy sight that its people may increase both in holiness and number, and so shew forth thy glory ; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Son, one God world without end. Amen.

FOR THOSE THAT ARE TO BE ADMITTED INTO HOLY ORDERS

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, who hast purchased to thyself an universal Church by the precious blood of thy dear Son ; Mercifully look upon the same, and at this time so guide and govern the minds of thy servants the Bishops and Pastors of thy flock, that they may lay hands suddenly on no man, but faithfully and wisely make choice of fit persons to serve in the sacred Ministry of thy Church. And to those which shall be ordained to any holy function give thy grace and heavenly benediction ; that both by their life and doctrine they may set forth thy glory, and set forward the salvation of all men ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A GENERAL THANKSGIVING

ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men ; particularly to those who desire now to offer up their praises and thanksgivings for thy late mercies vouchsafed unto them. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life ; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives ; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days ; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

A PRAYER FOR UNITY

O GOD, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace ; Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly Union and Concord: that, as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one Hope of our Calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of Truth and Peace, of Faith and Charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A COLLECT

PREVENT us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help ; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE GRACE (2 Corinthians 13:14)

THE grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen.

From St Gregory on the Caelian

A tablet in the forecourt of San Gregorio al Celio records the following saints and worthies who came from this place in the days of its first flowering, after St Gregory turned his family home into a monastery (originally dedicated to St Andrew, to whom St Gregory had a great devotion - hence the naming of St Andrew in the Embolism at Mass):

• St Gregory himself, founder and father of the monastery;
• St Eleutherius, abbot;
• Hilarion, abbot;
• St Augustine, Apostle of the English;
• St Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury;
• St Mellitus, Bishop of London and soon afterward Archbishop of Canterbury;
• St Justus, Bishop of Rochester (Roffensis);
• St Paulinus, Archbishop of York;
• St Maximianus, Bishop of Syracuse;
• SS Antonius, Merulus and John, monks;
• St Peter, Abbot of Canterbury;
• Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury;
• Merinianus, Archbishop of Ravenna;
• Probus, custodian of the house of pilgrims (curator xenodochii) at Jerusalem, chosen by St Gregory;
• Sabinus, Bishop of Callipolis;
• Felix, Bishop of Messina;
• Gregory, Cardinal Deacon of St Eustachius.

• Here also lived for a long time the mother of St Gregory, St Silvia.

Most of these men were sent on the English Mission - or should we call it, as the Anglicans mocked at English Catholics in recent centuries, the Italian Mission?

St Augustine of Canterbury and his monks preach the Gospel to King Ethelbert of Kent.

So the Church in England, which converted the pagan Angles, Jutes and Saxons, was Roman as Rome itself... none of these men forswore the Faith, broke with the Pope, reviled the Roman Mass, rejected the Saints, married against the canons of the Western Church, nor chose Caesar over God. Let Anglicans attend to this lesson: the witness of the first millennium of Christianity in England is against them.

Three Notes

I value going for a coffee on Saturday mornings after Confession; I sit and read the papers.

Two articles in this morning's The Weekend Australian were of interest, especially given their juxtaposition above and below each other: an article about Oscar Wilde as a struggling believer, plus one about the imminent breakdown of relations between the Anglican 'Communion' and the Episcopalians in the U.S. - the same issue of (im)morality bedevilled that playwright then as bedevils that ecclesial body now.

Wilde was received into the Church on his deathbed (and many other fin de siècle decadents became Catholics too), while too many Anglicans, lured by mirages, wander ever further into the desert of infidelity: "we are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars". How wickedly true for the newspaper to quote another bon mot of Wilde, so applicable to the woes of the C. of E. and its revolting offspring: "the Catholic Church is for saints and sinners only - for respectable people, the Anglican church will do." ROTFL!

On a slightly different note, I was struck by a line in Our Lady's Hours at Sext: Benefac, Domine, bonis et rectis corde (Ps 124:4) - "Do good, Lord, to the good and the upright of heart". This, I now recall, is the response the Paris Breviary used in place of the Roman Retribuere dignare, Domine, omnibus nobis bona facientibus, propter nomen tuum, vitam æternam. Amen. As the matching versicle in both editions suggests, Oremus pro benefactoribus nostris.

St Augustine of Canterbury

By my schedule, I will be driving to Queenstown soon...

The Church bids us celebrate the feast of St Augustine (but not that wonderful Father and Doctor, that loving and lovable saint, beloved of the Middle Ages, by too many to-day rejected as cold) - the feast of St Augustine of Canterbury, sent to Kent by Pope St Gregory the Great, the Apostle of the English, and there received with joy by King Ethelbert and Queen Bertha; as the Pope commanded him, he converted the pagan Angles and Saxons (among them my ancestors) to Christianity, and established bishoprics to care for them, among them the metropolitical see of Canterbury, the capital of the Kingdom of Kent, of which he was the first shepherd.

As is too well known, some thousand years passed, and wicked kings and queens (all too likely, it is feared, thus to have perished in hell) dragged England away from true Christian belief into a perverted Erastian cult, whose chief marks are confusion in doctrine and practice, love of pretence (with purported priests, priestesses and even an Archdruid of Canterbury) and a misguided pride in itself - whereas, as St Edmund Campion made plain to the raw Anglicans of his day, all their fathers, bishops, saints and men of old do testify against them that they were loyal sons of Rome, rejoicing in the truth, and no Protestant mob, deceived and deceiving.

Pray for illumination of the intellect and inspiration of the will by the Holy Ghost, at the intercession of St Augustine of Canterbury, of all Saints of England, and of Our Lady of Walsingham, ut unum sint.

(I would blog on the Collect of to-day, but have not time now: it too recalls God's making use of St Augustine to bring the pagan English the light of true faith, and prays that all who wander in error may be reunited in one Church.)

Since I'm in N.Z., and here Anglicanism was brought also, pray likewise for these folk who strive to follow the Gospel such as they know it - I saw in the newspaper a few days ago some foolish man describing himself as a "Christian agnostic" - and he was a retired Anglican cleric of some standing! He had been speaking at the graduation ceremony of the University of Otago, telling the graduands to query all, and accept no Bible, Koran or Pope as sure judge of truth: what a vile liberal madness, complete with anti-Catholic jibe. Pray for him!

And after the example of his great namesake, Augustine of Hippo, let us pray Christ to stir up love and true charity in our hearts, that we be rekindled, and rekindle the flame of fire in others.

The T.A.C. at Prayer

Pursuant to my ecumenical endeavours (!), after attending my usual Sunday Novus Ordo Mass at Carmel (Fr Kene again the celebrant), there joining in singing the chant for the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, plus hymns, and making my communion, Deo gratias, I went along and took a back seat at the liturgy of the T.A.C.'s parish of the Annunciation here in Launceston.  I must say I felt sorry for them and the sacrifices they have made in setting up a place of refuge away from the reigning illiberal and unchristian liberalism in the Anglican mainstream: they perforce have Sunday worship in a room at the Harry Abbot Scout Centre, and apparently otherwise (on Wednesdays, that sacred day to Anglicans) their rites are performed at their minister's home.  

Their pastor is their local bishop also, David Robarts, with whom I had a very long and interesting conversation afterward.  It's a small world: he knows many of the people I do (Bps Jarrett and Elliott, Dr Tracey Rowland, my mate Justin et al.), and was able to fill me in about the miserable way that liberal or rather modernist Anglicans, in their quest to depart from faith and ramroad through the pretended ordination of women, made use of all manner of underhanded tactics: as usual, "scratch a liberal, find a fascist".  I hadn't realized, but for most of the eighties Robarts had been Dean of the Anglican cathedral in Perth, and more recently was in charge at Christ Church, Brunswick; he retired at 70 but was prevailed upon by Hepworth, the T.A.C.'s primate, to be made as it were one of his auxiliaries - though, courtesy of being still licensed as a clergyman by the Anglican Bishop of the Murray (!), he remains technically a minister in good standing as an Australian Anglican, yet at the same time, to the chagrin of the powers-that-be, is a T.A.C. prelate.  

I must say I find Anglican ideas of ecclesiology rather peculiar.

As to the worship I attended: I arrived about five minutes before the start of the service, "Mass" as they term it, to find one reasonably-sized room at the scout centre (its walls hung with ancient photographs of scouts, and a portrait of Baden Powell) set up with three rows of chairs (with cushions) facing a table up against the wall, dressed as an altar with a green frontal and white altar cloth.  Behind it hung a curtain, which I later discovered was only temporary, and employed to conceal a blackboard.  On this makeshift altar were two candles burning in silver candlesticks, a wooden crucifix with a corpus depicting Christ the High Priest in vestments, a missal on a stand on the epistle side, sundry sheets of paper (answering to altar cards), another book (a hymnal?), and a veiled chalice and paten in the middle.  There was a chair facing forward either side of this altar.  Over on the gospel side up the front there was a lectern facing the people (in the corner behind it was a vase with a few flowers in it, an icon of the Trinity and a little bluish light burning), while far over near the door on the epistle side was a credence with cruets, lavabo bowl and finger towel.  As I had come in, I'd taken a copy of the order of service (originally used at Christ Church, Brunswick), and a New English Hymnal (of which I have a copy at home on the third-nearest bookshelf).

The congregation consisted of eleven worshippers (including, as it turned out, Robarts' wife and stepson), plus yours truly.  Robarts, in green Roman vestments (but without maniple), with a pectoral cross under his chasuble, and a purple zucchetto on his head, came in and began the liturgy, first briefly welcoming us, and especially "our visitor, Joshua..."!  Then he said "The Lord be with you" (to which they replied, "And with thy spirit"), and thereupon turned to face the altar: being without a server, he then recited, all in English of course, the traditional Roman prayers at the foot of the altar: "In the name of the Father...", Psalm 42(43) with antiphon and Glory be (we joined in the "As it was"), "Our help is in the Name of the Lord...", the Confiteor (complete with all its saints), then straightaway the Indulgentiam (presumably not having servers to respond with the Misereatur, nor to say their Confiteor - none of this part was in the order of service), and the versicles following exclusive of "The Lord be with you" (as already said?) - then he said what was the start of the B.C.P. service: an Our Father, which he said softly; and the Collect for Purity, in which all joined.  (In passing, I observe that he recited these prayers, as nearly all the rite - even the Gospel! - with hands extended in the oriens position, which struck me as curious.)

Next, he had us sing the first hymn, "All my hope on God is founded" (N.E.H. no. 333, by Robert Bridges based on the German of Neander, to the tune "Michael" by Howells) - all five verses.  I was unfamiliar with both the hymn and tune; being Anglicans, the twelve of them sang up very well!

Robarts then read the Introit (again, all saying the "As it was..."), but I was confused - the Introit was not that of Septuagesima (I had wondered why the vestments were green).  Next, the Kyrie (in Greek, the only time English wasn't used), then the Gloria in the traditional Anglican version,  "The Lord be with you", "Let us pray" and the Collect - which was that of Septuagesima!  (How this works I don't know.)

Odder still - having all stood since the entrance of their minister, all sat - for the Collect!

One of the laymen then got up, made a tiny reverence when passing the middle of the altar (as the celebrant had done earlier), and read the lessons: which turned out to be, not the traditional ones, but the same I'd heard at Mass earlier, for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.  (By this point I was quite bemused.)  It must be said, though, that the version of Scripture used (I'm guessing it was the King James) was much more pleasant to the ear. There was no psalm read, so the reader proceeded from Job vii, 1-4 & 6-7 direct to I Corinthians ix, 16-19 & 22-23.  During these readings, the celebrant had sat at the chair on the epistle side; now he got up, and read the Gradual and Alleluia (unidentifiable as to provenance) from the Missal or whatnot, before carrying the Missal on its stand over to the gospel side, saying some private prayer, and going himself to the lectern, where he read the Gospel (all standing): St Mark i, 29-39.

After the Gospel (all making the Anglican responses thereto - there had been no responses given for the earlier readings), Robarts returned to the middle of the altar and then he and all recited the Creed (he genuflected at the Incarnatus est; as I much prefer to do so, and am used to it from the Trad. Mass, I did too).  Only then did he return to the lectern and preached the sermon, while of course we all sat.

He began by referring to a Roman Catholic friend, who had been bemoaning the current lack of priestly and religious vocations while meanwhile all sorts of busybodies run to and fro engaging in pseudo-ministry; and took the topic of vocation, what it really is for each and every Christian, as his concern to expound.  Of course, vocation is God's call to us to come nigh to Himself, solemnly made in the sacrament of Baptism and lived throughout life; he observed that those who seek to serve anything other than God, even the church or other people, are missing the basic fact of what vocation is.  He quoted from Cardinal Newman's famous prayer about God's call to us, both at the start of his sermon and, at length, at its end, and referred also to Leo Trese: so all his references were Catholic.  Next, Job: Job's cry shows us that very often our calling is to endure suffering; St Paul in the epistle spoke also of being all things to all men, but not in the sense of being smoothly changeable nor a Christian doormat!  Our Lord by His life of self-giving sacrificial love shews us what vocation is, and what its food - prayer, persevering prayer to the heavenly Father. And so, he quoted Newman ("Meditations on Christian Doctrine", I. Hope in God - Creator, (2) 3.):

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

...

I ask not to see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.

The sermon ended, the celebrant returned to the altar, with "The Lord be with you" and "Let us pray", then they sang the next hymn, very Eucharistic, "We hail thy presence glorious" (N.E.H. no. 310, by Richard Parsons), while we all stood; during this, the collection was taken up - I may have committed a faux pas by being rather Catholic and putting coins, not notes into the basin, which was passed to the celebrant at the altar for him to solemnly elevate (how very Anglican) before returning it to the collector.  Otherwise, during this time, he appeared to be saying prayers at the altar and readying the chalice and paten - I assume he was saying the Roman Offertory prayers.  (One of the laymen had gone over to the credence and brought him the cruets, I think, and when I looked over had the lavabo towel ready for him when he came over to wash his hands, saying some private prayer.)  He was bowed low to do at least some of this, so I suspect he did say the Suscipe sancta Trinitas as this is the rubricly prescribed posture for so doing.  However, the hymn ended, all sat down again, and he then said several of the Novus Ordo offertory prayers aloud, but followed them with the Veni sanctificator from the old rite!  (If as I suspect he had read the Traditional Roman offertory prayers secretly, presumably he felt the need to read a second set aloud that the congregation might join in.  And in the prayers to come the elements would be offered at least twice more!)  

At about this point, Bruce (one of the parishioners, and my contact) went to the lectern and read out a series of biddings to pray for those suffering bushfire or flood (there are floods in Queensland), for various parts of the T.A.C. worldwide and Australiawide (including the Church of the Torres Strait), for the sick, and lastly for the dead - for whom we prayed "Eternal rest".  Next, Robarts read the Prayer for the Church Militant, but I think in its 1928 recension (it included mention of Hepworth as primate and himself as an unworthy servant), then he turned to say the Invitation facing the congregation: all said the general Confession (he knelt), and he pronounced over his people the Absolution to which they responded Amen.  The Comfortable Words were not used - a pity.  Instead, at this point, he went Roman again, saying the Orate fratres (response and all) - next, he and they recited together the Prayer of Humble Access.  (I think he also read the Secret, but I forget exactly when: probably directly after the Orate fratres.)

"The Lord be with you... Lift up your hearts... Let us give thanks..." and the Common Preface with Sanctus and Benedictus followed.  (The Anglicans had split off from the Church over two hundred years before Pope Clement XIII in 1759 enjoined that the Trinity Preface be said at Mass on ordinary Sundays.)  As I had surmised, the Canon following was precisely Frere's Interim Rite, but including (as in my post below) the anamnesis from the 1549 B.C.P.  Each species was elevated, with genuflexions before and after - but during all this, all remained seated!   It was strange watching all this.  I noticed various rubrics from the Roman Canon somehow wandered into the Anglican, such as the bowing low and signing oneself at the Supplices te, and the making crosses with the wafer over the chalice at the end.  Nonetheless, I distinctly heard him break the wafer at the words "he brake" just before the words of institution, as the B.C.P. prescribes.  (Lutherans regard so doing as a dreadfully Reformed thing to do, I don't know why.)

"Let us pray.  As our Saviour Christ hath commanded..." followed, then all said the Lord's Prayer with doxology - to which the celebrant appended the Novus Ordo form of the embolism "Deliver us, Lord, from every evil..." but without its doxology!  Next, the Novus Ordo prayer before the sign of peace, "The peace of the Lord be alway with you", no sign of peace itself (all were still sitting), sotto voce the prayer at the commingling, and then the Agnus Dei, done responsorially.  While bowing low, the celebrant appeared to read to himself the Roman private prayers before communion, and those at reception thereof; he turned, holding a ciborium, and said, holding up a wafer, "Behold the Lamb of God..." to which his people replied "Lord, I am not worthy..." (once only).  They all then lined up, standing, in a semicircle around the altar as he gave them first communion under the form of bread, then from the chalice - he seemed to vary the words of administration, using the first half of the rather long Anglican 1662 B.C.P. forms for all, but quoting the whole thereof for some or at least at the end of administering each species.  (It seemed rude to watch too closely, so I prayed for spiritual communion, and for corporate reunion).

So far as I can see, this was how the Anglican forms of administration were used:

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee,...

was said to each communicant; every so often to this was added (completing the 1549 portion thereof, in turn based upon the former mediæval Catholic rite):

...preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. ...

And at the end was said the rest of the it (originally from Edward VI's second book of 1552):

Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee,

and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

Likewise to each was said when delivering the chalice:

The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee,...

while sometimes was added: 

....preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. ...

And at the end of the distribution, all were admonished to:

Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee,

and be thankful.

I didn't observe the ablutions; after all had sat back down, Robarts read the communion verse back at the epistle side, "The Lord be with you..." and the postcommunion (which was definitely that of Septuagesima), followed at once by the long Anglican 1662 Thanksgiving Prayer.  Only then did we all stand and sing the last hymn, "O thou who camest from above" (N.E.H. no. 432, by Charles Wesley, to "Hereford" by Samuel Sebastian Wesley); neither did I know the tune of this, so I just listened in to its beautiful words.  It seemed odd to me that this wasn't sung earlier.

The T.A.C. Mass ended with "The Lord be with you...", the dismissal, and Robarts as their bishop first - rather anticlimatically - giving the parish notices ad populum, then (first ad orientem, then turning round to all) singing the B.C.P. blessing (more pontificio, with three crosses) "The peace of God...".  That was it: apparently the Last Gospel is not done (nor the Placeat, though I couldn't be sure).  I wonder why there was no recessional hymn?

The whole rite had been a curious amalgam of Traditional Latin Mass, Novus Ordo, and Anglican B.C.P.: it had a rather do-it-yourself feel, if I may say so.

Very quickly afterward (Robarts going off to remove his chasuble and stole before returning), all was packed away: the seats stacked, the cushions stowed, the altar table stripped, the hanging behind taken down, and all popped away in a cupboard toward the back on the side of the room.  I was most amused to see that, where during the liturgy an icon of the Virgin and Child had hung above the altar table, now a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II was returned to its usual place!

Pray against Bushfires

I invite all to pray against the bushfires now raging especially in Victoria, where high winds and roasting temperatures (Melbourne's just broken its all-time record, having reached 46.4°C) have lead to many houses being lost to fire in sundry country towns - as of late to-night, at least 14 are confirmed killed (God rest their souls), and a hundred homes lost.  [For updates, see this link.]

******

What to do when helpless to help? Pray.  For what it's worth, I've been saying Ave's in honour of Our Lady of Good Counsel - a sacred image of Our Lady under this title (itself a copy of the miraculous original venerated at Gennazzano) was given to Bishop Salvado, founder of New Norcia in Western Australia, by St Vincent Pallotti; when the nascent monastery was threatened by destruction by a bushfire, the monks brought out this painting and prayed for aid before the impending flames, which were averted, it is piously believed, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.  

(During my trips to New Norcia, I've always been careful to go to the Abbey Church and there kneel before the her image above and behind her altar, to commend myself and my cares to her care: the Mother of God does not make manifest her maternal mediation with her Son in such wondrous wise for nothing.) 

If I had my way (watch out, world!), I'd appoint the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel (26th April) to be kept throughout Australia, and a Votive Mass of the same to be prescribed to be said against bushfires.  At the very least, a new set of Votive Prayers need to be inserted in the Missal: for there are already prayers for rain, for fine weather, against storms, even for use in time of earthquakes - and Australia is plagued by bushfires each long hot summer.  Really, how long have we Catholics been in this country, and there isn't even some official prayer for this?

Recordare, Virgo Mater, in conspectu Dei, ut loquaris pro nobis bona, et ut avertat indignationem suam a nobis (alleluia).

(Remember, Virgin Mother, in the sight of God, that thou ask for us good things, and that he turn away His indignation from us (alleluia).)

– Offertory, Mass of Our Lady of Good Counsel.

To-day I learnt that the brother of David Schütz is a seasoned firefighter, who has been awarded for his sterling work; thinking of the fireys battling bushfire in hot and dangerous conditions makes one think of the difference between purgatory (in this life or the next) and hell - the former is hot and unpleasant, the latter far worse and far hotter, being the second death which is eternal.

******

The Anglicans in Australia pray in their Litany "From earthquake and tempest, from drought, fire, and flood... Good Lord, deliver us", and have:

A Prayer in Time of Drought, Flood, or Bushfire

All things look to you, O Lord, to give them their food in due season: look in mercy on your people, and hear our prayer for those whose lives and livelihood are threatened by drought (or flood, or fire).  In your mercy save both man and beast.  Guide and bless the labours of your people, that we may enjoy the fruits of the earth and give you thanks with grateful hearts.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

– n. 5, "Prayers for Various Occasions", 

An Australian Prayer Book (1978).

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.