THE
P RTAL
November 2015
Page 7
The Divine Worship Missal
Monsignor Andrew Burnham
introduces the Divine Worship Missal
T
he New Missal for the Ordinariates will enkindle much interest. Liturgical
scholars will find it a fascinating new addition to the Roman Rite. Fans of the old
English Missal – mainly elderly Anglo-Catholic clergy – will recognise something very
similar to what they know. Enthusiasts for the Latin Mass as celebrated in 1962 – before the
full impact of Vatican II on the liturgy – will see much that they value restored.
many texts recovered
Critics of the 2010 edition of the Roman Missal will
seize on some of the more felicitous translations of
ancient Latin prayers. Former Anglicans who loved the
Prayer Book Communion Service will be delighted to
find many of the texts recovered; the Collect for Purity;
the bits that were sung to Merbecke; the Confession;
the Comfortable Words; the Prayer of Humble Access;
the Prayer of Thanksgiving.
less informality. Bastions of
the English Missal remained,
but they were few and far between.
This recollection is perhaps necessary, not least
for those who are under 55 and unlikely to have
experienced the old way of doing things. It is quite
possible to have been a cradle Anglican and to have
grown up without encountering either the ‘old Mass’ or
even the Book of Common Prayer Order. In Anglican
People who used to turn to the texts at the end of theological colleges they have to have special Prayer
the English Hymnal (‘Introits and Other Anthems’, Book celebrations of Holy Communion to ensure
numbers 657-733) will find many of these texts that newly-ordained clergy are not bewildered and
(‘Propers’) in the new Missal and, if we are sensible, incompetent when they have to minister to certain
sung once more to the simple tones we used to use, congregations at certain times.
week-by-week. (They are now on-line as The Anglican
Similarly, some of our younger Ordinariate clergy
Use Gradual).
and lay faithful will be approaching the Divine
the English Gradual
Worship Missal without having known anything
Much of what is being recalled is from a very long like it before. Yet it is one of the strange features of
time ago. It was the 1960s when we last used to hear our culture that the young are instinctively more
the ‘Propers’ of the English Gradual sung in this enthusiastic about the old way of doing things – a way
fashion. By the 1970s, most Anglo-Catholics who that they never personally experienced – than are the
looked to Rome for liturgical guidance had moved on old. It is the older clergy, and older lay faithful, who
to the Missal of Pope Paul VI in one or other dilution. may find recovering the conventions of half a century
Some used the Anglican liturgy – Series III (1970) ago harder to adjust to.
and then Alternative Service Book Rite A (1980) – for
the Customary
everything except the Eucharistic Prayers.
Others used the new Roman Missal and Lectionary
for everything except the Eucharistic Prayers. (The
Beckwith-Brindley concoction – the Third Eucharistic
Prayer of Rite A – had quite a few Roman phrases in
it, making it sound a bit like Roman Eucharistic Prayer
2). Broadly speaking, Anglo-Catholic churches until
1970 seemed rather like Roman Catholic churches, but
with the liturgy in English.
More hymns, fewer worship songs;
more ceremonial, less informality
of Our Lady of Walsingham
Some of these conventions are about text. Those
prayers again, including the collects, which have
regained familiarity through the Customary of Our
Lady of Walsingham and that hardy perennial of
Ordinariate worship, Evensong and Benediction.
Other conventions are about how things are done. It
is perfectly possible to celebrate the Ordinariate Missal
with the priest facing the people, over the counter, and
in quite a simple way.
There are traditional language versions of the Jewish
Anglo-Catholic Churches after 1970 seemed rather
like Roman Catholic churches but less folksy and stark. table prayers - ‘Blessed art thou, Lord God of all
More hymns, fewer worship songs; more ceremonial, creation...’ (of which more later), and of the Second
contents page