"Lord, teach us to pray."

For the last six years I have been one of those individuals who pray daily the "Divine Office" in one of its several forms. At first it was of my own volition and completely voluntary, later it became obligatory.

I started out with using the 1928 BCP, because it was what I had. I used this for about a year, until I became a member of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada which uses the 1962 BCP. The switch was simple. Later on, as my knowledge of the Book increased I began adding in the proper Office Hymns before the Benedictus and Magnificat with proper Antiphons for each and prefacing the Office with the Angelus and ending Evening prayer with the appointed Marian Antiphon. During this time I began chanting some parts of the Offices and eventually  was chanting the entire thing to the plain chant settings in the 1962 Plainsong Psalter edited by Dr. Healey Willan. Later on I would add the recitation of the Catechism of Trent after the Suffrages, and insert the Divine Praises before the Prayer of St. Chrysostom. For the Lesser Hours of Prime, Terce, Sect, None, and Compline I used the small pocket Breviary published by my Church which used Psalm 119 (118) and divided it up so as to be said thrice a week.

The issues which plague me, and which likely plague a lot of people who recite the Divine Office on their own, is the motivation to overcome the repetitiveness of it. It is like a lot of things we know are good for us, but still find trying at times. My main issue is the complexity of BCP Morning and Evening Prayer and the length of time it takes. As it stands right now I require an armload of books and at least 45 minutes. To say Morning prayer requires a Bible, a pointed Psalter, the Ordo (which tells you what to read), an Office Hymnal, and the Prayer Book. This does not travel well. Nor is it a quick devotion. Really, it makes for a substantial investment in time and space, which is fine for the unemployed or the monastic. The reality for the worker is that it tends to get dropped entirely, with perhaps the Rosary substituted whilst one drives... not a good situation.

After several years of following this routine, it comes to me automatically, and while complex, it is not hard or unnatural. I really wish I could simplify it. Morning Prayer on its own forms the Principal Sunday Service at a lot of Anglican parishes of the Low Church persuasion, and makes a nice hour long event if you tack on a decent sermon of 15 minutes and a couple of congregational hymns. It is too much for a lone soul to keep up apart from a communal structure.

Of late I have been reciting the Officium Divinum of the Roman Rite as found at www.officiumdivinum.org except for Matins (for some reason the link they have is not yet functioning). I find reciting the Latin an interesting exercise, at least a respite from the same English over and over and over... I cannot afford a hard copy of the Breviarum Romanum, and so seem destined to remain an online user for the foreseeable future.  The big advantage I see with the Roman Office is the convenience of having everything bound up in one volume at hand. You can take it with you and not have to lug a library around. The Lesser Hours - for so we Anglicans refer to them - are there given proper treatment and not merely a chopped down repetition of one long psalm. Add into this the Martyrology and you get a nice devotional package... (The bad thing about our little breviary is the insane repetitiveness of it, one psalm which after a few years becomes gagging, no matter how devoutly one recites it - it never varies)

I have no funds to buy a lot of breviaries, diurnals, prayer books, etc on spec simply to sample them. So remain somewhat bound to what lies at hand, namely the BCP and the website I provided the link to. I love chanting Latin, but cannot afford the Liber Usualis to know the notation. So I simply read the Latin, although I do sing the Office Hymns to a simple chant (the same chant I sing with the English translations I normally use).

The matter remains unresolved... In the end, my personal desire is to live in a community which prays the Divine Office in choir together, whether English or Latin is open. I am very interested in what sort of arrangement is arrived at with regard to the new Ordinariates to be established under the guidance of Anglicanorum Coetibus . It would seem only right that the Offices of Mattins and Evensong be retained, with a few modifications to be sure. Except, that they naturally replace the rightful Roman Offices whcih formerly occupied those time slots prior to Cranmer's redactions in the middle of the 16th C. How this will resolve itself remains to be seen. In my heart I have no strong convictions either way. I respect the Traditional Latin Rite in all its venerableness and antiquity, as I also appreciate the positive fruits of the English reforms. Perhaps we could just settle the matter with a thorough and faithful translation of the entire Tridentine Library of official Liturgicalia - Missal, Breviary, etc - into Classical English. The Tridentine reforms were happening at the same time that England was firming up its own ideas of liturgical expression (whether we agree with them or no is moot) and so share much more than is sometimes allowed. A High Prayer Book Anglo Catholic spirituality and a Tridentine spirituality are very, very, close cousins...and although when visiting at one another's house the distinct curiosities of the other may jump out at you, the liturgical atmosphere is "just like home".

So it remains to be seen. At present, I remain somewhat caught in the Wood Between the Worlds...a no-man's land of uncertainty and hesitancy. It does tend to cool one's zeal... sadly. My heart is more and more leaning to an utter Latinisation, clerical celibacy, Communion in one kind, racking and burning hereticks...the whole nine yards ( I jest). Anglican liturgical expression is a mile broad but mere inches deep, you have every colour of the rainbow represented, but none of which has the undoubted weight of antiquity on its side. The Tridentine Rite is fixed, certain, correct, and while not "broad" or wide in its expression, it has a great depth, which may at first seem opaque, but which in time is much more stable and is something to build one's Faith upon with certainty and confidence. The fact of its abandonment in the 1960's and 70's in favour of other forms - themselves now horribly dated and tacky - and the slow reversal now underway, proves the intrinsic worth and lasting value of the older forms of prayer and sacrifice. The fact that it is a younger generation - itself finding these Forms anew on their own - speaks volumes. Truth will out...

"How can I, except some man should guide me"?

One of the most profound realisations I made in my journey out of Protestantism was the need of an authoritative teacher. It is sad that even the holy scriptures tell us this, yet my pastors denied this, asserting the "scripture interprets scripture" and our own private judgement under the guiding of the Holy Ghost is sufficient. I stand, like the Ethiopian eunuch, in constant need of assistance. Thank God the Church has ordained men to preach and teach the holy scriptures, to make plain what they say. I suggest the following link as one great tool in understanding the rich treasury of the Bible: http://www.scripturecatholic.com/ 

Happy studying!

Fr. Z features a podcast with special guest Pope Paul VI.

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/11/podcazt-93-40-years-ago-paul-vi-on-the-eve-of-the-novus-ordo/

Reflecting on my exchange with Fr. Robert Hart re: Anglican Difficulties, and on his assertions that the changes in England's liturgy beginning in 1549 were only to reform what had become encumbered with Mediaeval heresies and bring to light the primitive Patristic Faith. I think that if you compare the suppression of the old Latin Rites (there were several) with the Prayer Book in 1549, and even more so 1552, with the suppression of the Tridentine Rites with the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969, the excuses offered by Fr. Hart, and the excuses offered by Paul VI run along much the same lines. "This will make the theology of the Mass much clearer, it will help the common people participate in the Liturgy more fully, it will enable those who don't know Latin to become involved, it will do any number of glorious things..."

Quite honestly, the quotes I dug up from contemporary observers in the late 1590's/early 1600's (you can scroll down through the Anglican Difficulties comments) point out that, in fact, attendance at Holy Communion had been falling instead of rising, and that it was normal practice to frequent Holy Communion two to three times a year at most, and often only once at Easter. And this state of affairs is documented as existing, not counting the Interregnum, for some 300 years! Newman, writing after his conversion and reflecting back could state matter factly of the country parish where "the Sacrament was administered at the three great feasts" - period. This was in the first quarter of the 19th Century, and so we see an almost total stagnation of spiritual life on the part of the common people for some 300 years.

And Fr. Hart can boldly claim that this reformed religion of purity and truth, with its fresh and untainted rites in the vernacular, was God's gift to the world as the answer to the English Church's problems?  in 300 years it failed to even raise the people a tiny bit closer to any sort of eucharistic devotion or piety. The people were ignorant in 1590, and they were just as ignorant in 1825. Can anyone fail to see the utter hypocrisy of the reformers?

I really feel that every "reform", whether the Protestant in the 16th C or the reform of the Catholic Church at Vatican II, has been nothing more than egotistical elites imposing their new-found notions on people who don't care at all for religious change. One of the contemporary observers I quoted on Anglican Difficulties I will quote again here: "Pemble claimed that people had to be `compelled by law' to come to communion, `or else the Lords Table is likely to stand unfurnished of guests'." The reformation in England would have been a manifest non-starter had not it had the weight and brute force of governmental authority to impose it on the population. So the romantics looking back from a comfortable vantage point, entirely free from the draconian laws which this State Religion imposed, are free to give whatever interpretive spin on the matter they wish.

A tree is known by its fruits. 300 years of absolute barrenness and stagnation is nothing to brag about. The present morass which is Anglicanism, be it Low or High, Canterbury or Continuing, is just more desolation and make-believe. Ever changing, ever seeking, never achieving, never finding... wandering in the desert. But what do they care about the big picture of the whole Church? Not much, as long as I have my tidy little parish, my stipend, my nice parsonage, a wife, a degree or two after my name, a reputation in the neighbourhood, and the right of ecclesiastical snobbery which a Roman collar automatically confers. Hell no. Anglicanism may be a failed, dysfunctional and fruitless system, but hey, it works for me!

We can look at any of the original Protestant "Isms" that resulted from the schisms of the 16th C today and see much the same sort of sick, deflated, and washed out shell. Almost without exception they have embraced Homosexuality, female clergy, they condone abortion, euthanasia, contraception, they deny the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and are dying off like flies in January. The legacies of every "reform" are what? Ruined and crumbling churches, derelict and collapsing abbeys, empty churches sold off for flats and boutiques or galleries, millions of people who give up the practice of their religion altogether rather than go along with the reforms, future generations to whom the "pre-reform" era is forever lost, priceless documents allowed to disappear as they fall into disuse. The legacy is sad.  How anyone can think that violent reformation is a positive thing is beyond me.

The reform we are to embrace is the inner conversion that comes through a dedicated imitating of Jesus Christ. It is this inner conforming, this moulding and shaping over a lifetime of penance and sacrifice and suffering that will truly make the Mystical Body healthy, vibrant, and flourishing.  This pottering about with papers and drawing up newfangled liturgies is nonsense that intellectuals indulge in when they have nothing better to engage their time and energy. We are saved by grace, not newfangleness. Newfangleness failed in England, it failed Rome after Vatican II, it will always fail. The Body is not a machine to which we can simply bolt on new accessories or turbo chargers; it is described in Holy Scripture as a body, as one body, that slowly grows and develops just as a body should, organically and steadily. There can be no tearing away, no tearing apart, no rupture, no inserting foreign elements; to do so would violate the very nature of the body. The reformers in England sought to tear away, and cast off their past, in search of elusive golden Patristic age... CANNOT BE DONE. Rome sought to do the same in the 60's and 70's...CANNOT BE DONE. You cannot do that and expect the body to grow. It will go into shock, it will be in pain, it will begin to hemorrhage, it will enter convulsions, become weak, and DIE.

"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." St. Luke 2:52. Now the reformer would no doubt make the argument that incremental growth and development in doctrine is false. Thus the analogy of the earthly life and  human body of our Lord and  His Visible Body on earth which is the Church is worth discussing in order to correct him.  Jesus, no one would seriously say, failed to possess the fullness of His Divinity at any point after the Incarnation; He was always fully God as well as fully man. So how can the Gospel teach us that He "increased in wisdom" in the natural sense that all boys do? I think Jesus teaches us here a lesson, and sets forth the pattern which was to characterise His Body in the ages to come after His Ascension. Wisdom is not simple knowledge; a man may know a great amount about a given topic, yet remain clueless as to how to apply this same knowledge. The problem is not that his knowledge is incomplete, it is that as yet he lacks the ability to apply this knowledge in a practical and positive way. Nor is wisdom simple human prudence, tact, or cunning; examples of which Church history is littered. The Catholic would never accept that any new or novel dogma has been added to the Deposit of Faith since the death of the last Apostle, this has been restated over and over. So what do we mean by the development of doctrine? Take the Parable of the Mustard Seed as one example: a small seed becomes over time a great and mighty tree. The Faith was entirely present in the teaching of the Apostles, some already committed to paper, some held as authoritative oral teaching and later codified and written down to answer heretics and reafffirm the true doctrine against those who would wrest it according to their liking. The process of a growing child is an excellent analogy to use in the growth of the Church through the centuries. What started out as a tiny embryo in the person of Our Lord, soon multiplied into the small band of faithful in the Upper Room, and from thence emerged to spread and grow through all Judea and finally throughout the entire Meditteranean and into Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Far East, eventually crossing the oceans and into the Americas. Through all this varied growth amongst differing cultures, languages, climates and people of both primitive and refined manners, the Church had to struggle to meet these challenges, to present the Message it had been given in a suitable way, and to carry out the Work of Baptism, Preaching, and teaching of souls. It is for this reason that Jesus did not drop a pre-packaged Church from the sky at Pentecost, but rather gave us the Holy Ghost to help and strengthen us for this enormous task. The reformer, in pointing out the mistakes the Church has made (and there are some all along), takes the simplistic approac of rejecting ALL the Church has done - throwing the baby out with the wash water - and starts anew and fashions a church according to his own fancy as he sees it in the Bible...of course cutting out those bits of the Bible that do not suit his fancy. The use of logic and reason, as applied to the truths of scripture, to glean new truth and insight and to illuminate and expand what is but kernel size into a full ear of doctrine, is the prerogative and duty of the Church in order to fulfill its mandate. This is not "making up" new doctrines, but simply through diligent and sanctified study bringing out of the treasury things ever old yet ever new, and presenting them afresh for the instruction and nourishment of the peoples to whom she is sent that their souls may be saved.

"I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy ... A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God ... In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them, like Mary Magdalene weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, ‘Where have they taken Him?’" Pope Pius XII recalling the Message of Fatima.