THE P RTAL
March 2014
Page 10
Anglican Patrimony: Part 1
by Monsignor Edwin Barnes
Asong from
so long ago that even Google can’t find it went:
“It’s not what you do but the way that you do it
It’s not what you say but the way that you say it.”
And that, dear friends, is Anglican Patrimony in a nutshell.
There are so many opinions about what IS our Anglican
patrimony, though.
“Even where the standard liturgy is not the
Ordinariate Use but rather the Ordinary Form of
the Roman Mass …Catholic parishioners seem quite
clear about the many things the Ordinariate brings,
and they like them.” So said “Ordinariate Pilgrim” in a
recent blog, and I agree; not what you say but the way
that you say it.
worship – like the publican who would not lift up his
eyes to heaven. But said by everyone week by week
Yet others (especially those outside our Groups in after the ‘Lamb of God’ it becomes unbearable – for
England) seem to think that the Ordinariate Use, with it directs our eyes away from heaven and towards our
its ‘thees’ and ’thous’ ‘willest’ and ‘wouldst’ is the most sinful selves. What’s more, that prayer was chosen by
important thing for any Ordinariate group. So Mgr Cranmer to insist on the necessity of receiving both
Lopes in December’s PORTAL wrote. “It’s an irony consecrated Bread and Wine – against the Catholic
that many Anglo-Catholic communities in the Church Doctrine that Christ is the same in either Sacred
of England chose to use the Roman Rite”. He is keen Element.
for us to be distinctive; and he sees Liturgy as the heart
value in our tradition?
of our Patrimony.
So what is there to value in our tradition? In liturgy,
the Book of Common Prayer
surely, the Daily Offices – just two of them – said
Liturgy, maybe. But Prayer Book, NO! He thinks publicly by the priest on behalf of the people (which
it ‘ironic’ that Anglo-Catholics have so little love for is why he rings the church bell): and joined, wherever
what he thinks is our greatest gift. For my first thirty possible, by some of the faithful. Besides that, our
years, I heard in church ONLY the BCP. For the next tradition of Preaching: the Catholic Church has only
thirty, variants from it.
recently rediscovered what the Prayer Book