THE
P RTAL
June 2012
Page 9
The Ordinary’s Page
Monsignor Andrew Burnham writes:
The Customary Of Our Lady Of Walsingham is to
be published very soon now by Canterbury Press. In a month or two we shall have
access to this very handsome publication. It will contain the Ordinariate’s own
form of Morning and Evening Prayer, drawn from the Book of Common Prayer,
together with the Litany, minor offices for use during the day, and a traditional
order for Compline.
The Coverdale Psalter will be included, as will
lectionary tables which closely follow the not as
yet well-known, but superb, two-year sequence of
Scripture readings devised for the daily Office of the
Roman Breviary. There will also be the Ordinariate
Calendar and, most notably, a rich anthology of post-
biblical readings drawn from the riches of the British
spiritual tradition. This anthology complement the
Roman Divine Office as well as the Ordinariate Office,
for it will be possible to use many of the post-biblical
readings for the Office of Readings.
Evensong and Benediction
Some will find themselves using the different Office
books for different purpo ses – one for individual
prayer and devotion, the other for public worship.
Those who want to use the Roman Office books
in the morning and the Customary in the evening
– or the other way round – will be able to do so
without too much difficulty. The particular value of
the Customary is that it makes available one of the
acknowledged treasures of the Anglican tradition –
the public celebration of the Office, and in particular of
Evensong. The reform of the Roman Office following
the Second Vatican Council sought the development
of the public celebration of the Office and, truth to
tell, that is a reform yet to be realised. In these early
days of the Ordinariates, there have been already
many celebrations of Evensong and Benediction and
it is intriguing to know not only that this has been
in accordance with the Holy Father, Pope Benedict’s
wish, but also that it has been his great pleasure, that
this should have been so.
the Prayer Book. Members
of the Ordinariates in North
America and Australia are
great devotees of Prayer Book
English. Moreover, the
400 th anniversary of
the 1611 Authorised
Version of the Bible
(AV) – and the immense popularity still of cathedral
Evensong – shows that the British public too are aware
of the beauty and importance of a traditional sacred
dialect. It is that dialect which the Customary and the
Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible preserve
and make available.
‘Common Bible’
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
traditional language
paraphrasing and communicating the meaning of, for
It is hoped that the Customary will be ecumenically example, modern literature written in other languages,
helpful too. There has been a deliberate decision by the but no longer thought appropriate for representing
Holy See that the Ordinariate’s distinct Use should be sacred texts written in ancient languages.
predominantly in traditional language. This is not to
criticise in any way the modern language translations
Our prayer is that the Customary will be a treasury
and compositions of recent Anglican revisions. Rather not only for the Ordinariates but for the whole English-
it is a recognition of the value of the sacral language of speaking world.