Anglican Customs, etc.
The Patristic Anglican has called our attention to a fine blog that relates English traditions of liturgy and devotion. It is Full Homely Divinity. I find it particularly helpful in that it contrasts Tridentine customs practiced by some Anglo-Catholics with Sarum customs used by other Anglican Catholics. (Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that I typically favor the Sarum practice.) If I had known about this blog last month I would have performed better on my canonical exam on liturgy, that's for sure!
posted by Texanglican (R.W. Foster+) | 5:39 PM
6 Comments:
Lots of questions! Would love to discuss over PMs if that's more convenient.
What parts strike you the most? It's a bit hard to navigate and the intro is really pretty effusive. :-)
Also, why do you tend to prefer the Sarum usages? Is it simply aesthetic, or based on a perception of its flavor of spirituality, or perhaps because you feel kinship with the West/England?
Will Anglicans *ever* get over the urge to ape Rome and the attraction to all things English? Having no connection to either of them, I would welcome a resource that would document and compare liturgical traditions from a number of representative rites, letting the reader compare them side-by-side. Often, both Rome and Salisbury feel very, very far away. You know I think more traditional liturgy in my hometown would be a great thing. But I can't figure out how I would balance between arbitrarily adopting some rite that isn't even from the same continent, and sticking to generalities and letting an indigenous rite grow itself. I'm curious to know how relevant you think a resource like this much-blogged site would be to someone who was building liturgy where I come from.
Is the Consortium of Country Churches a worldwide thing, or American, or what?
Greatings, Julian!
Indeed, I knew you would have some of these questions. I am not, of course, saying that all Anglicans everywhere should adopt the Sarum usage. For those who are Trent leaning, that is OK with me. And a cermemonial customary in Asian parishes that incorporated the rhythms of Chinese or Japanese ritual life sounds like a fine idea to me. I think part of the appeal for Sarum to me is that it reminds us that not all things Catholic need to flow down the Tiber! (And knowing my Anglophilic and antiquarian bent, you surely are not surprised by my fondness for the Sarum rite, are you?:-) ) Thanks for stopping by!
I am definitely more "Trent" leaning than Randall in aestics and liturgy (not theologically), but I am defintely in agreement that it's nice to demonstrate something "authentically Catholic" that does not flow from the Tiber.
I suppose what my "ideal" liturgical preferences would be would be to use the 1549 (I'd settle with a 1662) BCP, English Missal, or Anglican Service Book, with Anglo-fied "Tridentine" aestics and liturgical practices. Maybe what I envision is a nice blend of the Sarum Rite with birettas, tons of lace, and thurifers, sans the over-flowing gothic chasaubles, dalmatics and tunicles. They are not what I'd call practical nor is the beauty of (most of) them comparable with a woven "Roman" chasable.
If you look at how I re-designed my blog, you can get a glimpse of the liturgical "fashion-sense" that I prefer.
- Andy
Hello Andy,
I'm afraid I'm not a regular at your blog - what do you mean by a "woven" chasuble? Do you mean the thick embroidery? And you are saying that you like fiddlebacks more than gothics? I am afraid I find them quite unappealing, but then I never had a taste for the Baroque in the visual arts.
Sure, most gothic chasubles today are awful, but given that they're so many of them, what can we expect? If the altar party's going to wear *upholstery*, it might as well be in a cut that *drapes*! (My dictum for the liturgical tailor: Always make vestments out of better cloth than your curtains.) By the way, I've been reading up on examples of medieval vestments, and it's surprising how many of them being used at major cathedrals were pieced together out of some nobleman's hand-me-down outfit even if they attached a masterpiece of needlework to it. Ugly/cheap vestments are nothing new!
In a way I guess you're lucky that people aren't butchering your favorite chasuble shape in every other parish. :-) In any case, I have the honor of working on some pieces for Texanglican - hopefully by the end of the year, a chasuble to restore the honor of the "gothic" cut.
Speaking of practical, just be glad most parishes don't use that ancient standard, the bell chasuble :-)
Will Anglicans *ever* get over the urge to ape Rome and the attraction to all things English?
Probably not which is fine with me. Why? Because America has no indigenous Catholic tradition, having been founded by Protestant dissenters?
That said...
Of course a native use or rite can develop eventually.
Like it or not the default conservative Anglican way in America is the high-churchified way circa 1960, that is, modified Tridentine with libretto by Cranmer.
Which is fine.
As is Sarum - a nice literal reading of the Ornaments Rubric! But is it a living tradition?
And of course Tridentine, the way of Catholic Europe. I love fiddlebacks for what they stand for and they look great as long as they're not cut too narrowly like a caricature - an apron!
(This is a living tradition, remembered by many and in continuous use in some places all these years.)
Andy, I like your blog redesign (though I miss the link to my AC page). Marvellous picture of St Magnus the Martyr, London: a baroque Wren church refitted for Catholic worship by old-time Anglo-Papalists decades ago. I don't recognise the ceremonial and assume it's Novus Ordo - many London churches are.
Don't worry Randall -- remember we passed you in Liturgy!!
Always,
Fr. Stainbrook
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