Dr. Ben Vallejo of
Anglican Use Chapter in the Philippines is requesting our prayers as their group would meet with "the local Catholic ordinary to work out the details of organizational, pastoral, ecumenical and liturgical matters." I guess this is the Diocese of Cubao. With liturgical matters, ugh! I can think of some names who would show up but I think the good bishop of Cubao would keep talks among a select few.
Please pray for our Anglo-Catholic brethren.
Ask the intercession of our Mother and of and all the saints who are the "crowning glory" of the English and Filipino churches for the intentions of the Anglican Use Chapter in the Philippines.
And after praying...
Say this out loud: ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS!
Feels good, eh?
Let's be positive. :-) Our Lady won't like bad liturgy and so do we!
ReplyDeleteI hope we won't get questions on why we insist on "ad orientem" like what a Latin Mass group got from a liturgist!
The Anglican liturgy is always "ad orientem" (before Vatican II trends came in!). We kneel for the benediction during Evensong towards the altar, facing the east "ad orientem"! The priest censes the altar towards the East "ad orientem"! The Mass is said "ad orientem". The sung prayers are chanted in the Anglican way towards the East. It would be "trendy" if it were not!
The reason is that in the Western Church, it was the Ecclesia Anglicana or the English Church (then in communion with Rome) that first set rules that church altars should be oriented on a geographical east-west axis. This was right after England was evangelized by St Augustine of Canterbury more than a thousand years ago.
In the parish church where we plan to celebrate the liturgy, the free standing altar faces liturgical east and the rising of the Easter Sunday Sun (What a perfect metaphor for the Risen Lord and Saviour! Also very ecumenical. The altar faces the Protestant Church of the Risen Lord!). Even if the Novus Ordo is celebrated it will always be versus populum and ad orientem at the same time. We avoid a big "controversy" this way!
But we are sure that we will have to explain to the rest of the congregation the old tradition of "ad orientem" liturgical celebration and why the altar is sited to face the rising of the Sun on Easter Sunday. We will definitely catechize here emphasizing liturgical symbols which the New Mass have somewhat downplayed. We were told by priests that our generation of Pinoy Novus Ordo Mass goers are somewhat scandalized when they see a priest say Mass with his back on them!
This was the main complaint by Mass goers about the Latin Mass celebration at another parish. The unfortunate thing is that the Latin Mass group did not do an effective job of explaining why this is so outside their group.
Please don't take us wrong. We love the Novus Ordo as long as people know why the Novus Ordo liturgy is like what it is now. We are very sure that the Novus Ordo indeed has nurtured authentic Catholic spirituality especially with the Benedictine reforms, like the Latin Mass does to people inclined to it, now we have Summorum Pontificum.
The Anglican Use Liturgies we believe will nurture the same spirituality which is not superior or inferior to spirituality nurtured by the Novus Ordo, Latin Mass or the Eastern Rites. We eagerly await its first celebration!
These are some of the difficult tasks that lay ahead of us and we really need your prayers! The other tasks seem to be peanuts compared to these!