THE P RTAL
April 2014
Page 11
Letters to the Editor
From Dr Richard Lawes
I confess to some dismay and sadness on reading
the articles by Geoffrey Kirk and Mgr Edwin Barnes
in the January and March editions of The Portal,
both of which seemed to be attacking the approved
Ordinariate Use, which I would see as not only
extremely beautiful but an important part of our
spiritual identity.
I have not had Mgr Barnes’ experience of being
‘bludgeoned’ by the Prayer Book - rather I have
remained enchanted by its beauty and its central
place in English spirituality for generations. I find the
Prayer of Humble Access an excellent preparation for
Holy Communion and its emphasis on our sin and
God’s mercy entirely appropriate at this point in the
liturgy.
Whilst entirely respecting those who adhere to
the ordinary Roman Rite, I hope that The Portal
will continue to do more to support our Ordinariate
Use, launched by the Ordinary with so much joy and
enthusiasm and in keeping with the vision of Pope
Benedict.
Dr Richard Lawes
Oxford Ordinariate Group
Lecturer in English, Regent’s Park Coll Oxford
Consultant Psychiatrist OUCS
From Timothy Graham
Recent editions of The Portal have carried
unfavourable criticism of the Ordinariate Use liturgy
from Mgr Edwin Barnes and Mr Geoffrey Kirk.
Picking on the Ordinariate rite’s old-fashioned
language obscures the necessity of a sacral and
liturgical language, which I fear not even the welcome
revision of the Roman Missal has realised. To throw
over its diction as antiquarian affectation will both
jettison a significant part of Anglican heritage, and
cut us off from the sacral and liturgical English which
is instantly recognised as such by any Engli ͠