UK ordinariate adapts Anglican prayers for Catholic use

By Benjamin Mann

Msgr Jeffrey Steenson saying Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey,
with deacons Oliver Vietor and James Barnett on June 11, 2010. (Photo by Steve Cavanaugh)

London, England, Jun 6, 2012 / 01:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is preparing to publish its daily liturgical prayer book, as part of its mission to incorporate Anglican traditions within the Catholic Church.

Father James Bradley, communications officer for the jurisdiction, told CNA on June 5 that the “Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham,” which contains the order of daily prayer and readings, “shows a deep respect for the Anglican tradition, and gives it space to flourish” in the Catholic Church.

Announced in the ordinariate's “Portal” publication on June 1, the book is due out “in a month or two” according to Monsignor Andrew Burnham, Assistant to the Ordinary.

The new prayer book draws heavily from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer for its services of Morning and Evening Prayer. It also contains the traditional litany of intercession, along with the “minor hours” of the daily prayer cycle and the traditional night service of Compline.

In keeping with a decision of the Holy See, the text generally maintains the traditional language of Anglican worship – an older, more poetic English dialect that is widely regarded as both aesthetically rich, and spiritually valuable...

Read the rest of this story at the web site of the Catholic News Agency.

Hat tip to Fr. Stephen Smuts.

P.S. Previously we noted that the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham is available for pre-order from amazon.co.uk. It is also available from the US site of Amazon.com.

Healey Willan Society Established by Canons Regular of St. John Cantius

BY SHAWN TRIBE

NLM readers will know that I have mentioned before the great work of the composer Healey Willan, particularly within the context of the potential for English chant and polyphony. Accordingly, I was delighted to hear that the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius have established the Healey Willan Society "in consultation with Mrs. Mary Willan Mason [daughter of Healey Willan], for the purpose of fostering the musical works of Healey Willan."

Not only this however, the Canons Regular share the good news that this past June, Mary Willan Mason legally entrusted the musical legacy and estate of her father to them...

Read the rest at The New Liturgical Movement

Benedict XVI after five years: time is running out for a great reforming Pope

Damian Thompson writes on his blog Holy Smoke:

How to sum up the particular vision of Benedict? In an article for Catholic World Report, the Ratzinger scholar Tracey Rowland quotes a line from the 1963 Hollywood film, The Cardinal: “The Church … thinks in centuries, not decades.” Fr Ratzinger is reported to have been a consultant for the film; he would certainly endorse that particular line. As Dr Rowland argues, Benedict wishes above all to lay the groundwork for healing the schisms that have torn limbs from Catholic Christianity, by purifying the worship of the Church in a way that enables Christians who are Catholics at heart to return into communion with Peter.

Read the rest of his thoughts at his blog at the Telegraph.

Yet more on Sex

Fr. Hunwicke has posted a thoughtful essay on what should be a "non-problem" for Anglicans and other Christians considering entering full communion with the Catholic Church, and that is the Catholic teachings on the moral use of one's sexual powers.

I. Homophobia

I write with apprehension; because Sex is always embarassing to write about. What does the writer reveal about himself? What does this piece he's written say about me? Is he getting directly at my sexuality here? Do I applaud him or condemn him?

But there is no getting away from the fact that Sex is one of the big new dividing points opening up between Christians (and by no means always solely between denominations). And between Christianity and the World. Not the least of the tragedy is that it is less easy to talk joyfully and affirmatively about God's gift of sexuality than one would like it to be.

I wrote a little while ago about Masturbation And All That. May I recall here the main point I was getting at: the fact that the World and its Spirit, Zeitgeist, have decided that this little practice is a matter of indifference and that people who carry on about it must have some very strange hang-ups. But it is 'Tradition' that the practice is "disordered". And that's not the only thing that is, according to the Tradition, disordered. The same split has opened up with regard to Fornication ... particularly in that form of it which is called Living Together Without Being Married. The two-millennia old Tradition of the Church unambiguously condemns it. But ... And what about the 'Marriage' of divorcees? It is condemned by the most explicit words of Christ, and yet has become mainstream among non-RCs - so much so that when I went to a New Incumbents' Lunch with the Archdeacon soon after I arrived in Oxford, I was interested to find that much of the conversation, between a couple of women 'priests', was about how embarassing and intrusive it is when the Bishop tries to check up on the circumstances of the break-up of one marriage before consenting to a clergygirl's next prospective coupling (lovely word from the 1549 Marriage Service, yes?).

And what about Humanae Vitae? As I point out below in Part II, this Encyclical proclaimed, in effect, that the sort of sexual culture lived by a great proportion of First World married people is disordered and unnatural...

Read the rest of Fr. Hunwicke's essay at his blog Liturgical Notes.

Pope lifts excommunication on SSPX Bishops

January 24, 2009
by Damian Thompson

The Pope has lifted the excommunication of the four bishops of the SSPX consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Here is the Vatican document:

CONGREGATIO PRO EPISCOPIS

By way of a letter of December 15, 2008 addressed to His Eminence Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Mons. Bernard Fellay, also in the name of the other three Bishops consecrated on June 30, 1988, requested anew the removal of the latae sententiae excommunication formally declared with the Decree of the Prefect of this Congregation on July 1, 1988.
Read in full at the Holy Smoke blog.

Anglican Rumblings: A Pastoral Provision in England's Green and Pleasant Land?

by Matthew Alderman
July 10, 2008

There has been much discussion, both heated or hopeful, since Benedict XVI's election about a future influx of conservative Anglicans into the Catholic Church as a result of the recent controversies over homosexuality and women's ordination, what shape this ingrafting might take, and what impact (if any) this might have on the Roman liturgy. The already-thin ties that bind the Anglican Communion have been stretched to the breaking point by Monday's vote in the House of Bishops paving the way to the episcopal ordination of women. Debate was contentious, lasting six hours, and moving at least one Anglican bishop to weep with shame. Structural proposals for men-only dioceses and "super-bishops" that might have helped the evangelical and Anglo-Catholic wings save face were rejected. Traditional Anglicans must now face they are no longer welcome in the Church of England...
Read in full at the blog of The New Liturgical Movement

A Ban on Kneeling? Some Catholics Won't Stand for It

By David Haldane
May 28, 2006

At a small Catholic church in Huntington Beach, the pressing moral question comes to this: Does kneeling at the wrong time during worship make you a sinner?
Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea, told his flock in a recent church bulletin. The Diocese of Orange backs Tran's anti-kneeling edict...
from the Los Angeles Times. Read in full on the Anglican Use Society web site.