He talked about the tent that protects the faithful, which he summarized as basically, go to mass. Go to mass every week. Show up on time. Stay through the recessional. Go to adoration. Go to confession. I wasn't raised Catholic, but I'd say I wish I'd had that sort of advice when I was a lot younger. I hope I would have followed it. I'm grateful, though, for the work my guardian angel did do to get me there eventually. This is the sort of good advice our priests consistently give us.
Then I asked myself if ordinariate priests give good advice like that. Maybe some do. A visitor, though, sent an e-mail reflecting concern about the self-satisfied tone she sees on the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog:
I was surprised that with only a little scrolling down I was able to discover what seems to constitute Anglican Patrimony, at least for the author of the page. Here it is from the page titled Three or Four Queries a Week, "and we find that spiritual ethos now expressed in our Catholic Divine Worship Missal, our offices, our hymnody, our spiritually meaty sermons, and community life."I went to that map and looked at some random entries. The Tampa Bay ordinariate group seems to have attempted a restart in late 2017, but its last Facebook entry is more than a year ago, in February 2018. The Denver group is more up to date, with an evensong listed for this past February 26, but nothing scheduled for March, it appears. What do these folks do for mass, though? A monthly evensong isn't the sort of tent that protects the faithful. If they aren't Catholic, are they doing anything else to come into the Church? Being maybe received as a group at some indefinite future date hardly seems like a plan. Why not find an RCIA program at a real parish and stick with it?My first thought was what tradition exactly? The Divine Worship Missal is less than 10 years old; “our offices” are nothing more than the ages old Catholic Liturgy of the Hours. Hymnody? Well, if you only like singing songs from a very limited timeframe of history, OK, I’ll give you that. Spiritually meaty sermons? Really? Implying Latin Catholic sermons are not “meaty”? Here’s a little tip for ACS, Catholic Churches do not have sermons, they have homilies. There is a difference and they should look that up. And last but not least, that great community life, mostly made possible by a few angel donors or the generosity of diocesan parishes lending their facilities (you know, those folks with the spiritually vegan sermons) seems to be pretty sparse compared to your average run of the mill diocesan parish.
A little further down, it lists the criteria for becoming a member group of ACS, “If one is a clergyman or a lay person eligible for membership in the Ordinariate, the Society hopes you will consider forming a patrimonial group. It is as simple as holding a monthly Evensong at a fixed time and location and letting us know so we can put you on the map at our website.
If they're Catholic, do they go to mass in a diocesan parish? What's wrong with that parish? There are 42 parishes in Denver. It seems like ordinary good advice would be to find one where you can go to mass, go to adoration, go to confession, go to Bible study. Why on earth would you want to go to an evensong, where in fact you won't get a meaty sermon? I went to the links at the Denver group's site and found only two entries. One is to the Ottawa group (not a parish, of course), which says, "Fr. Doug Hayman offers in-depth sermons, with a particular emphasis on Holy Scripture." Well, there you have it! His sermons have a particular emphasis on Holy Scripture! Betcha won't find that anywhere near Denver, huh?
There's a strange disconnect here, people who seem to be looking for something distant in an Anglican patrimony that seems to be watery gruel indeed, when Catholicism is actually close at hand. Go to mass. Go to mass every week. Show up on time. Stay through the recessional. Go to adoration. Go to confession.
Seems like some of these people want to do everything but take ordinary good advice.
