Catholic Sarum Candlemas

Happy Feast...

The Reconciliation of Penitents

How familiar this all seems...

Rites of the Ordinariates

Some observations about the liturgical question associated with the upcoming Ordinariates from a traditionalist RC perspective.

AngloCatholic High Mass



Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I can see there seem to be a number of different rites, uses and practices which will contend for a place under the banner of the much discussed Anglican Patrimony.

The issue of the liturgical use of the Ordinariates will, no doubt, very soon be the subject of heated debate among our Ordinariate bound brethren.

For those traditional Catholics who welcome and embrace the traditional liturgical heritage of the Church there is a hope that the dominant variation of the Roman Rite known in England before the Reformation the "Use of Sarum" or the Sarum Rite will be restored as the Extraordinary Form of the Ordinariate.

Anglo Papalists who prefer the Counter Reformation Rites of the Latin Church require no legislation or special permission to use either the Usus Antiquior or the Usus Recentior what remains to be done:

1. Approved English Translation of the Usus Antiquior for liturgical use- The English Missal seems to be the obvious choice.

2.  An Ordinariate Calendar with local variations.

Dearmerites will be aware that the Pre-Reformation Rites however require some positive work to permit their resusitation - Cramner Godly Order alone will not do; rather the Usus Salisburiensis whole and entire -what needed:

1. A Latin typical Edition

2. Current liturgical Calendar

3. A Sarum Ritus Servandus

4. An approved English translation of the Sarum Rite.

5. The restoration of the Sarum Divine Office at very least for religious and collegiat churches

Fr Christopher Phillips in the USA, developed the Anglican Use - Which is a hybrid Anglican/Cramnarian version of the current Roman Rite.  From what I gather it is not a work that he regards as complete or rather finalised indeed Anglorum Ceotibus opens the door for its further development and adaptation.

Sarum - Salisbury

These photos (was it from the Parsons Handbook by Percy Dearmer) have always captured my liturgical imagination - such style, such order, such symitary - Is this what pre-reformation liturgy looked like in England?

I was dissappointed to learn that the Cramnerian/Protestant text was ornamented and (if you like Catholisiced by super imposition of Sarum Coreography (a bit like theHigh Mass at the Brompton Oratory - Novus Ordo Libretto with Tridentine Coreography).

Do we have an historic opportunity to restore this order and beauty as part of the Anglican Ordinariates - I think so.  It strikes me that if there was a contribution that Traditionalist Catholics could make is to promote the Idea of an Extraordinary Form for the Ordinarate being the the full Sarum Rite (typical edition in Latin of course) the hermaneutic of continuity in action.