Presentation at Conception Seminary, Christmas

            I have been asked to make a presentation about the Anglican Use Mass to the students at Conception Seminary College.  It will be a challenge to make it interesting and cover the important details in about an hour.  I’d like to give them an introduction to what Cranmer accomplished – a dignified vernacular liturgy with lay participation in prayer, worship and communion; restoration of the Prayers of the Faithful; a serial reading of much of the Bible in the language of the people.  I’d also like show how his liturgy included didactic elements opposed to the Catholic understanding of Eucharistic sacrifice.  Then I’d ask the question – If a church and its theology become anti-Catholic, is it possible that its Catholicism can be restored?  We will look at how a few of the radical Protestant ideas were toned down and some Catholic ones reintroduced.  I’ll ask whether these stylistic changes were enough to make the Anglican liturgy fully Catholic. We’ll look at how the Oxford Movement awakened a hunger for Catholicism from Patristic and Medieval English sources as well as from their Catholic contemporaries.  That would allow us to consider the possibility that some Anglo-Catholic liturgy could be an example of how a vernacular liturgy with lay participation could avoid the over-zealous introduction of 1970s and 1980s popular culture into the Catholic Mass.  Then we could look at the Anglican Use Mass as a theologically Catholic Mass that preserves much that is good from many historical periods.

            This is going to be a challenge for me.  I’m not a scholar and I often over-reach.  I’d be open to advice.

            Our Sunday morning Anglican Use Mass has progressed to the point that it is now a sung mass with incense.  As we develop and grow it will be possible that the Solemn High Mass will be the standard, but we are not there yet.  And we may have to take a step backwards.  Our gifted organist, Tyler Henderson, has decided to move on to other things.  This is a difficult challenge for Catholic organists and Tyler was up to it, but not for the long-haul.

            Our Christmas Gospel Mass on Christmas Eve was well-attended, as was the Anglican Use Mass on Christmas Day.  For several parishioners it was their first experience with the Anglican Use and they seemed appreciative.  For more than a decade St. Therese was yoked with another local parish and we did not have Christmas Day or Easter Day Masses.  Now we are able to add Masses on these and other holy days.  Soon I hope to be able to add a daily Mass.  There is almost no support for a daily Mass from the local community, but we could certainly support a Mass that would meet the needs of a special community such as the Anglican Use community.  Let me know if you are able to assist either early morning, at noon, or late afternoon.