A Book for the Journey
In these days before the Anglican ordinariates are formed within the Catholic Church, there are a number of books that are "must reads". First among them is the Anglican Bishop Andrew Burnham's Heaven & Earth in a Little Space: The Re-Enchantment of Liturgy which I have linked in the wee box to the left, and it can easily be purchased from Amazon.com or from your local bookseller.
So why start there? Simply because the good bishop outlines precisely what is at stake for the Anglican patrimony and the Latin rite of the Catholic Church. This is not for Anglicans or ex-Anglicans only, but it should prove a salutary reading for all Catholics.
I believe the critique offered is the most cogent available at this time, so I commend it to you, gentle Reader, as a book worth its price in any currency.
Those of us who spent most of our years on the fringe edge of the British Empire are sometimes more fiercely or perhaps more intentionally English than the English themselves. I remember what enormous pride I felt carrying the British flag in procession when I was a boy acolyte. How I enjoyed as a child celebrations led by the Daughters of the British Empire (Long Live Lemon Curd!) And finally I was so very proud that our Anglican Church was headed by the Queen of England, whom we all admired, And then there was Dr. Michael Ramsey as Archbishop of Canterbury and a genuine Saint we were certain. Other Archbishops of the 20th century also occasioned great admiration from William Temple to Lord Runcie. And then there was the martyrdom of His Grace the Archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum whose passion is recorded powerfully in Booty's The Church in History.
I shall always love the Anglican Communion for the education I received in the Catholic faith and within which I was able to minister as a layman, then deacon, and finally priest. My parting from the Anglican Communion was filled with many tears, but to be honest I had to be certain that I was not moving toward another Church out of anger (because after my first stroke there was enough to drive one to rage). I prayed over and poured over these matters, & with a final meeting with my Confessor (before his untimely death) he joyfully threw open the gateway to this new path in the Church
Then it was clear that I was being called by Jesus to express through my person the visible unity of His Church : the most honest way to do that was to be reconciled to the Catholic Church. There by God's grace I was able to be a part of an Anglican Use parish in the Catholic Church in the USA. Now among the numbers of the Roman Catholics of the Anglican Use I stand and I stand in awe of the witness to Jesus Christ and the apostolates engaged in for love of Him and for sharing the gift of our Anglican patrimony ... the chief among them Our Lady of Walsingham Institutes of Catholic Culture Studies, RADIO WALSINGHAM ONLINE, the Anglican Use Society and the liturgical apostolate of C. David Burt.
Disabling illness has led me to discover my ministry as a hermit and am blessed to be connected to a new Benedictine monastery in Tulsa, Oklahoma founded by Fr.Mark Daniel Kirby for the adoration of the Eucharistic Face of Our Lord. What an enormous blessing for me! While I make new friends and connexions, I continue to enjoy my many friendships in the Anglican Church, and I pray for all Protestants to find a way in Christ to unite together. Then may they be given the graces of humility and perseverance and find their way to the one Church of Jesus Christ. So many people I love remain in various parts of the fractured Anglican world, I can only hope and pray that their ultimate trajectory will take them deep within the Heart of Jesus to enjoy eternity with Him and the entire Body of Christ.
With my eyes functioning well, I am able to read all those books I have wanted to read in more depth, and with new medicine to fight against the mutilating psoriatic arthritis I have moments where I am able to type or write free from much of the pain that besets me. I do not know entirely what this blog shall become in the future; for now, I am grateful for the help of the Holy Ghost in taking up the blog more regularly and entering into so many exhilirating areas of thought, prayer, and Catholic Action.
As a closing thought, I would like to commend a CD to you I found a complete revelation. I only knew of Nicholas Ludford as a footnote in English music history, but this fairly recent recording by the choir of New College, Oxford brings together Ludford's genius of composition in the Missa Benedicta together with Edward Higginbottom marvellous conducting. This sort of recording represents the kind of mining of the patrimony of the Church in England that also cries out for attention and inclusion in the development of the liturgical and musical forms to be brought into the Catholic Church through the Anglican ordinariates per Pope Benedict's Anglicanorum coetibus.
+Laus Deo!
