Tonight is Going to be a Long Night…

Tonight is the longest night of the year for us here in South Africa… This of course means it’s been the shortest day of the year (!) and it wasn’t half bad… Got plenty done:

• Pastoral work
• Study (M.A.)
• Got a new book 
• Washed the car 
• Blogged…

Now I’ve just finished me Compline:

The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end…

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace. Amen.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, it also means we’re now officially halfway to summer (yippe!), and for all you guys up north: halfway to winter!

Now to make the most it all:

Good night!

Sleep tight. And God bless…

Anglicanorum Coetibus in Action

A Traditional Catholic in Iowa:

I received the following correspondence from Deacon Chori Seraiah yesterday.  I have been given permission to pass this along.  I have my own thoughts to follow! Please check his blog at:  The Maccabean

Andy,

I wanted to let you know that both Bp. Pates and Msgr. Steenson have encouraged me to begin working to form an Ordinariate community here in the Des Moines area. If St. Aidan’s eventually chooses to join, we will just merge the two together, but for the time being, we can begin meeting as soon as we have just a few people who are interested. Feel free to get the word out to whomever you wish.
Also, I will be saying my first couple of Masses (Anglican Use) at St. Anthony’s on Monday, July 9th at 10:00am, and Tuesday, July 10th at 6:00pm. All are invited to this as well (and it may be a good introduction for folks who are curious about an Ordinariate community).

In Christ,Chori Jonathin Seraiah

I cannot express to you how many prayers are being answered.  I know that God works in his own time, but this is providential.  Des Moines is in need of a Traditional outlet, and this very well could be it.

Fr. Seraiah and I have talked extensively and he will be starting a mission for the Ordinariate in Des Moines area. This means a couple of things. 1. He’d like to invite as many Catholics to assist at his Mass and see what the Ordinariate is all about. 2. There will be another option for receptions of the Sacraments, albeit in a different, but more traditional way. 3. Think of this as something akin to an Eastern Catholic Church for the time being. It has it’s own traditions, it has it’s own heritage, but it is 100% Catholic and it is 100% within the scope of Holy Mother Church. 4. For those who are curious as to how the Mass is celebrated, the best way to describe it is that it is like the Tridentine Mass, only in English, but the English is High English…a lot of thee’s and thou’s. It isn’t like going to your typical Novus Ordo parish…

HT:  The Anglican Use of the Roman Rite

 

King James Version and the Ordinariate

Cum Lazaro:

The Ordinariate (the body existing within the Catholic Church which retains elements of Anglican liturgical uses and generally serves as an attempt to bring Anglican traditions into full Communion with the Church) is introducing its Customary (a sort of truncated Book of Common Prayer) shortly (see news item 1 June here).

Excellent -and mine’s already on order! But I do worry about the apparent use of the Revised Standard Version translation of the Bible in the Customary rather than the King James Version. At least, I take it from the following (link as above) that the daily readings of scripture will be from the RSV rather than the KJV:

Thus, whenever the Customary quotes extensively from the Bible, it is the RSV that it uses.

Certainly, it is the RSV rather than the KJV that is authorized for use by the Vatican:

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has published a Decree permitting the use of the Revised Standard Version(Second Catholic Edition) for liturgical use in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

This edition of the Holy Bible allows those Catholics originally from the Anglican tradition, to worship using a version of scripture which is familiar to them. It also promotes the English Bible tradition and recent efforts to renew Catholic liturgy with more accurate translations.

Now, in many ways, I can quite understand this decision. Anyone attending Anglican services such as Evensong will recognize that whilst the liturgy may be in the Tudor English of the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible readings are usually from the RSV. So inasmuch as the Ordinariate exists to Catholicize present day Anglicanism, it makes sense to reproduce this pattern. Moreover, there is no doubt that the RSV is a more accurate translation than the KJV. So, on grounds of accuracy and current use, going for the RSV seems to make sense. But…

One of the things that fascinates me about the Ordinariate is its historical and cultural importance. There is something quite striking about the fact that there now exists within the Roman Catholic Church a body that has emerged from the Reformation and now returned. And given the way that the English Reformation created that cultural juggernaut that is the English language and English literature, the embracing of the sources of that juggernaut in the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible would be of huge symbolic importance.

Quite apart from the symbolism involved, there is something utterly seductive in the language of the KJV. I feel it which is why, normally, I use the Daily Office from the Book of Hours website which uses the Office from the Book of Divine Worship (an existing Catholic version of the Book of Common Prayer) with readings from the KJV. Others feel it including Richard Dawkins. This sense of the beauty of language and of the importance of that beauty in liturgy is surely very much in line with Benedict’s understanding of the Church. I certainly wouldn’t argue that the KJV should be the only version available for use in the Ordinariate, but to miss the chance to bring it into the Catholic fold and, in essence, to rebaptize it as fully part of our Catholic heritage strikes me as a lost opportunity.

I’m not involved in any way with the thinking behind the scenes in the Ordinariate, so I don’t know to what extent any thought has been given to the place of the KJV in its life. Reading the article by Monsignor Burnham in June’s Portal (the magazine of the Ordinariate), I suspect that there has been some discussion which explains the (to my mind, rather defensive) following:

Why the RSV and not the King James Bible? The answer lies in the subtle development of the English Bible tradition. For accuracy’s sake, twentieth century students began to rely on the Revised Version of 1881-1894. Meanwhile the Revised Standard Version of 1946-1957 was becoming established and, in 1966, was accepted by Catholics and Protestants as a ‘Common Bible’. It was the first truly ecumenical Bible and brought together the two traditions – the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible and the Protestant Authorised Version. Thus, whenever the Customary quotes extensively from the Bible, it is the RSV that it uses. The Catholic Church in the 1970s in Britain opted (mistakenly as it now seems) for the ‘dynamic equivalent’ Jerusalem Bible translation. That version greatly helped public understanding of the Scriptures, but, like the Mass translation of the same period, was based on a theory of translation that is of great value in paraphrasing and communicating the meaning of, for example, modern literature written in other languages, but no longer thought appropriate for representing sacred texts written in ancient languages.

Although this does explain why not the Jerusalem Bible (and I quite agree with this decision), it doesn’t really explain why not the KJV. Reading the Anglo-Catholic website on this issue of language, there’s clearly a desire among other former Anglicans for a Catholic reception of the KJV.

So, come on! Let’s grab back the King James Bible and get King Jamie burling in his grave…

 

On Naming Ordinariates

Vincent Uher - still not happy – writes:

Does “Personal Ordinariate of…” mean anything to anyone?  It tells us nothing.  I have suggested to many that each Ordinariate should place under its name — rather like a motto or saying used in business  — “Roman Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony”.  Wouldn’t that make sense?  If not that, something needs to be done, because “Personal Ordinariate” communicates nothing of who we are to those we hope to Evangelise nor does it help our Latin Rite brothers and sisters to place who we are and why we exist.  My friend Elspeth thinks that it should be as follows:

The Personal Ordinariate of …

Roman Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony

By Decree of Pope Benedict XVI

NAME OF THE U.S. ORDINARIATE

It has been suggested by the excellent Steven Cavanaugh of the Anglican Embers magazine that the name for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter came from the Octave for Christian Unity begun by Father Paul Wattson.  Of course, his guess could be precisely correct, and that would be absolutely wonderful.  But is it written anywhere that such is the reason?  Was anyone consulted in choosing the name?  When I ask, I get a different answer from each person.  When asked “Why were you named that?” do you know the authoritative answer to give?

A simple explanation on the Ordinariate website would clear that up.  Probably on his blog Steven Cavanaugh has already best explained the most positive rationale for such a name.  But please could someone explain the process by which the name was chosen and who collaborated in it?  I gather from some email I have received that I should go to the back of the bus, sit down, and shut up.

I will flatly say that for me Our Lady is far more resonant than the Chair of St. Peter.  Since Anglicans rise up from those who destroyed Mary’s Shrines, it seems a fitting act of reparation to name each Ordinariate after her in some fashion.  She is our Mother, and she is the Mother turned out of her own house in England.

So with Australia having the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross and the UK having the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, I suggest (firmly) that Our Lady of the Atonement (with the origin of devotion to Our Lady under that title coming from within the Episcopal Church and then entering the Catholic Church) is the most potent and powerful symbolical name we could have had in North America.  Such a name would have had the salutary effect of strengthening family ties with the Franciscans of the Atonement.  Would Canadians (not granted their own Ordinariate) have objected?  I think that highly unlikely.

Honestly, I could have been excited over the Personal Ordinariate of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and it would have been manifestly evident why the name was chosen.  It is self-evident why the name was chosen for England and for Australia… but for the U.S.?  Nonetheless, the main question remains  about “collaboration”… who is invited to the dance…

By way of example, you could name an Ordinariate after the Holy Cross, and if there was some particularaly resonant connexion to the Holy Cross that had a national character and reason for being employed, then hurrah!  Isn’t it a missed opportunity to make a clear national connexion with each name for each new Ordinariate?

NAMES OF CONGREGATIONS

I would also like to see new Ordinariate congregations be given names that draw from the great ancient saints of Britain and Ireland, from the Catholic Martyrs of the British Isles.  Is there anything wrong in naming a church after St. Ursula, St. Margaret Mary… No.  There is nothing wrong at all.  But isn’t the point of Anglicanorum coetibus to bring back into the Church something distinctive of the Anglican experience and the British Church context out of which it arose?

For me if I were naming an Ordinariate congregation it would be Catholic Church of the Ugandan Martyrs.  With such a name you include St. Charles Lwanga and Archbishop Janani Luwum, the Catholic Martyrs and the Anglican Martyrs which Pope Paul VI commemorated at the canonisation mass for St. Charles Lwanga and Companions.  There is no other name like it that makes it possible to recall Anglican martrys along with the canonised Catholic martyrs.

These are my final thoughts on naming things and collaboration with the laity.  In Texas they say when you are riding a dead horse … dismount.  And so I turn to other matters.

+++

See? You’ll never be able to please everyone… But may I suggest that Mr Uher would do well to revisit Msgr Jeffrey Steenson’s Installation Homily, which begins by addressing the very issue of the name [emphasis mine]:

Behold how good and joyful a thing it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Ps. 133:1).  With all our hearts, let us thank Pope Benedict XVI for this beautiful gift, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and let us pray that it may further the goal of Catholic unity.  When Cardinal Wuerl told me that the Holy Father would establish the Ordinariate under this name, I truly rejoiced, for it goes to the heart of what our mission should be.  And it helps us to understand why our Lord entrusted His Church to St. Peter in the first place.

So much ink has been spilled over the interpretation of these words of our Gospel, which Jesus spoke to Peter in Caesarea Philippi – “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church” (Mt. 16:18).  Of course, for Catholics, the authoritative interpretation was provided at the First Vatican Council.  But we must honestly acknowledge that Christians have read this text in different ways.  Even amongst the church fathers there was not unanimity over what “On this Rock” means precisely.  The great Augustine himself said that the reader must choose – Does this Rock signify Christ or Peter?  (Retract. 1.20).  But Augustine quite properly would not have thought this a matter of either/or.  For Peter brings everything to Christ.  The trajectory is clear.  We are Christ’s and Christ is God’s (I Cor. 3:23).  I am grateful that, over the course of my ministry, the teachings of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have been so clear on this point – the Church exists to bring souls to Christ.  But, as our text plainly affirms, Jesus has invested Peter with a ministry of fundamental importance.  And he does so by employing three verbs in the future tense – I will build my church … the gates of hell will not prevail against it … I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.  When Jesus speaks in the future tense, he draws all things to himself; we know then that this commission does not end with the historical Peter.  The whole life of the Church on earth until the end of time is anticipated in this moment.

In this context, listen to St. Anselm, the 37th Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps the greatest theologian ever to grace England’s green and pleasant land:  “This power was committed specially to Peter, that we might therefore be invited to unity. Christ therefore appointed him the head of the Apostles, that the Church might have one principal Vicar of Christ, to whom the different members of the Church should have recourse, if ever they should have dissentions among them.  But if there were many heads in the Church, the bond of unity would be broken” (Cat. Aur. Mt. 16:19).

The first time we find Matthew 16:18 specifically applied to Peter’s successors, the Bishops of Rome, came amidst a controversy between Pope Stephen and Cyprian of Carthage in the middle of the third century.  At the risk of sounding pedantic, I hope that you will permit me to speak briefly to this, because it is very relevant to the Ordinariate.  In the Anglican tradition, the church fathers are held in high esteem; here is where we were taught to find our bearings on theological questions.

The third century popes are heroes to me, because they were courageous pastors who sought to restore those brethren who had broken or fallen away to the full communion of the Catholic Church.  At a time when many bishops were very severe and uncompromising about the purity of the Church, God gave us popes who understood that welcoming back the wandering and the fallen is of the very essence of the ministry that Jesus gave to the Apostles.  In the letters of St. Cyprian there is a remarkable and revealing correspondence from St. Firmilian of Caesarea about Pope Stephen (Ep. 75, ca. 255) – Can you believe it, Cyprian?  Stephen actually thinks that he sits on the chair of Peter as he orders us to accept the baptism of these separated groups!  He actually wants us to regard these people as Christians!

I think this is the important context in which to understand what Pope Benedict is saying to us in Anglicanorum coetibus…

The first principle of the Ordinariate is then about Christian unity…

I can’t think of a better illustration for this homily than Bernini’s great sculpture of the Chair of St. Peter in the apse of St. Peter’s Basilica:  Peter’s chair is upheld by the great fathers of the Church; and, hovering over it all, the luminous alabaster dove, the Holy Spirit, bathing everything in the radiance of God’s love…

And the last words:

We begin with a strong faith that God has given us Peter, his hand firmly on the tiller, returning us to Jesus, “the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls” (I Pet. 2:25).

Not very difficult to see the etymology and strong imagery, now is it? So names are important. Oh, and it is ‘personal’ simply because the members form a network of individuals and groups there where the ordinariate has been authorised to function (outside geographic boundaries) under an Ordinary, rather than the norm which would be your territorial diocese.

And don’t forget the badge in the search for ‘meaning’ here either. The Coat of Arms:

The Ordinariate’s coat of arms contains the keys given to St. Peter by Christ, the lily held by Our Lady of Walsingham, and the mitre that signifies its canonical status. These elements indicate the distinctive heritage and status of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

Let me end here, however, with another quick quote attributed to Msgr Steenson. It’s quite telling.

In fact, says the Rev. Jeffrey N. Steenson, Anglican does not appear in the new body’s formal name, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, because members will make no pretense of remaining Anglicans.

 

New American Bible to be Revised into Single Translation

CNA:

The U.S. bishops have announced a plan to revise the New Testament of the New American Bible so a single version can be used for individual prayer, catechesis and liturgy.

“The goal is to produce a single translation,” said Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C. on June 14.

As he addressed his brother bishops at the spring meeting of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Cardinal Wuerl pointed to the central role of Sacred Scripture in the life of the Church.

He explained that the bishops’ committees on Divine Worship and Doctrine have both expressed a desire for a single translation, suitable for all pastoral applications, including individual prayer, study and devotional use, along with liturgical proclamation.

The new translation would “provide us one source of language when we speak the Word of God,” he said.

The process of creating the new translation will take “a long time” and will consist of numerous lengthy steps, Cardinal Wuerl acknowledged.

The New Testament translation was last revised in 1986. By way of comparison, the translation portion of revising the New American Bible’s Old Testament began in 1994 and was finished in 2001.

The Confraternity of Christian Doctrine will work with the Subcommittee on the Translation of Scripture Texts, to undertake the revision, he said. The group will “look at those texts to see that they are going to be able to be used for proclamation as well as for ordinary use.”

This work will utilize the same principles that guided the recent revision of the Old Testament in the New American Bible, as well as translation norms for Sacred Scripture, he added. “The Biblical scholars responsible for the revision will be sensitive then to the pastoral, the doctrinal, the liturgical considerations” as they work to produce a draft, which will then be presented “for review and preliminary approval” by the the Scripture translation subcommittee, the cardinal said.

The committees on worship and doctrine will then have an opportunity to review the texts.

Ultimately, the body of bishops “will be asked to approve the completed Biblical text for liturgical use,” so that it can then be submitted to Rome for the Vatican’s “recognitio,” after which the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference can grant it the “imprimatur.”

At that point, Cardinal Wuerl said, the revised translation of the New American Bible “will be able to be used in the lectionary at Mass.”

“So the end product will be one translation that we will all be using,” he explained, and all of the faithful will be “hearing the same words when we refer to specific texts.”

“That translation will be used in the liturgy, it will be used in study, it will be used in personal devotion, it will be used when we’re simply reading the text,” the cardinal said.

He emphasized that although the process will take a long time, it is currently an ideal time to begin, now that “we have all the pieces in place.”

I still think the RSV-CE is a far better version. But I believe it’s only approved for official use liturgically in the Ordinariates. As Timothy  (HT) puts it:

Of course, this is the death nail to any possibility of the RSV-2CE being used in the American Liturgy.