THE P RTAL
November 2013
Page 20
Official Introduction
of Ordinariate Use
by Arnold Herron
Anew text
for the Catholic Mass which
integrates centuries old Anglican prayers into
the Roman Rite was officially introduced at The
Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street
London on Thursday, 10 October.
distinctive Anglican liturgical
and pastoral traditions
special working party
The homily was given by Mgr Andrew Burnham,
Assistant to the Ordinary and a member of the special
working party set up by Rome which devised the new
Use.
a hermeneutic of continuity
In his homily Mgr Burnham said: “...Have we, in the
Ordinariate, dreamed up our very own ‘hermeneutic
of rupture’? Certainly, we have broken away from the
Church of England, in which most of us had spent
most of our lives. We have broken away too from the
trajectory of modern Anglican liturgical revision... But
... we have most truly discovered in place of rupture
‘a hermeneutic of continuity’, that is we have found a
way of joining together Cranmer’s linguistic brilliance,
and feel for translation, with the ancient Canon of the
Blessed John Henry Newman
Mass, prayed everywhere in England from the time of
St Augustine until the Reformation, that is, a thousand
The Mass, was celebrated by the Ordinary Mgr Keith years. And that Canon continues to be prayed
Newton. It was offered in honour of the patron of the throughout the Universal Church. There’s continuity
Ordinariate, Blessed John Henry Newman, whose for you.”
feast was on 9 October.
The historic new liturgy, known as The Ordinariate
Use, has been specially devised for the three personal
ordinariates – that of Our Lady of Walsingham, The
Chair of Saint Peter and Our Lady of the Southern
Cross. These structures were set up by Pope Benedict
XVI to allow Anglicans to enter into full communion
with the Pope, whilst preserving elements of their
distinctive Anglican liturgical and pas