Thank God for Continental Priests!

I seem to have become part of something larger in my discussion on the Book of Common Prayer. Two brother priests have also reflected on their relationship with the BCP, both Anglican Catholic, but both immersed in different cultures, living on the Continent.

Fr Wassen, with his Eastern Orthodox origins has not had the need to use the Prayer Book itself but rejoices in what the Prayer Book draws out in Missal and Breviary. He disagrees with me about the Benedictine nature of the BCP. Being a Benedictine Oblate myself, I personally find much within the BCP that is Benedictine.

There is the intention and desire for all Psalms to be read as part of our duty to song to God. It seems we can now only manage to do in a month that which our fathers did in a week - I think St Benedict would smile at that. That the Cathedral Offices seem to be a product of Monastic Offices (owing to the close association between cathedral and cloister) seems to be for me, the obvious place where Archbishop Cranmer obtained the material to make this combination of offices. It seems to me to be precisely the same spirituality that we find with St Bede the Venerable.

However, I must confess to having none of the learning that either Fr Wassen nor Fr Chadwick have. I read for my orders and only have the theological training of a CofE Reader, not the great seminary education of many of my brothers. Perhaps I am wrong to see the Benedictine influence in the Book of Common Prayer practically and experientially. But then, I am not the only one to see this influence - it does seem to be widely attested to. This is why I find such happy disagreement so fulfilling. I do learn much, especially since we know that we're all on the same side and have nothing to prove to each other.

Fr Chadwick agrees with me about the need to conform to the Book of Common Prayer without being forced to use it. Again, my ignorance is shocking, especially when it comes to the use of the Sarum Practice. I am of course aware of how the BCP is rooted in Sarum usage: many of the collects are therefrom as well as various liturgical forms. I ought therefore to look more closely at it as, I think its fair to say, I do agree that the Sarum Rite ought to be examined in more detail and adopted more widespread rather than fall into disuse. In many ways, Fr Anthony's description of me being "Roman" is very correct - the old Anglican Papalist is not dead yet - also, my ancestry probably owes more to Normandy than Saxony. However, the Sarum Rite does somewhat uniquely represent a continuity along the fault line of the Reformation. The Gregorian Rite does too and, for me, seems to be present before developing into the Salisbury Usage. Given that my Monastic Community are in extremis in Salisbury, there is another reason for me to check it out with a view to its preservation.

Fr Anthony responds to a comment by Presiding Bishop Robinson of the UECNA, an Old-High Church Protestant who says,

One of the problems one encounters as a Continuing Anglican is that if one actually takes the English Reformation at its word one gets slammed from both directions. The advanced (you could also refer to them as revisionist) sort of Anglo-Catholic generally wants nothing to do with the Articles of Religion or the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which, by the way, is rather at odds with the “Prayer Book Catholic” tradition with which I grew up. On the other hand, the Anglo-Calvinists often try to hammer the 16th century English Reformation into a seventeenth century mould. Neither endeavour is particular successful.

I disagree strongly that, as an Anglican Catholic, I am in any way being "revisionist". History is history, and it seems obvious that the Reformation wasn't a completely Protestant one, but rather the term acquired its meaning even with those whose views were Henrician Catholic so as to distance themselves from Roman Catholicism. One has to ask oneself, "where did the Anglo-Catholics come from?" Yes, there are those who have sought to capitulate to Rome, thereby denying the fullness of their Anglican Catholicism, but that has not been the point. The BCP began somewhere and does not mark the beginning of Anglicanism, so restricting oneself to that view produces a narrow vision of what Anglicanism is.

I certainly do not understand what Bishop Robinson means by "Neither endeavour is particularly successful." The Anglican Catholic Church still exists, is not Roman, and certainly not Protestant in the Continental sense of the word. We are as Protestant as the Eastern Orthodox Churches are, not that many of them would be prepared to admit that! I do agree with a certain Roman Catholic who said that we are called to be faithful rather than successful. I do not see starting with the BCP and using it as a foundation as being an instrument of unity, given that it has not been unifying in its theology, but rather holding different theologies together. I find the Affirmation of St Louis far more of a place to start one's enquiry of "What is Orthodox Anglicanism?" because that narrows the scope to take out the extremes of Roman Catholicism and Calvinism. Once you take the Affirmation of St Louis out of the Continuing Anglican movement, then you become more revisionist than any Anglo-Catholic might be said to be.

It is my hope that I might become a good student of my confraternity in our quest for God, His Righteousness, His Mercy and His Love.