Ordinariate Evensong this Wednesday

The Oxford Ordinariate Mission will hold their termly service of Solemn Evensong and Benediction at Blackfriars on St Giles this coming Wednesday, March 12th at 7.30pm. The preacher will be Msgr. Andrew Burnham, and the music provided by the Newman Consort.

 

Merbecke's The Book of Common Prayer Noted - 1550

Image;justus.anglican.org

This is an opportunity to experience the Ordinariate Office in the prayerful setting of the church at Blackfriars, and to see how the Ordinariate has blended the BCP with the Roman Office. A way of introducing Anglican friends who might be thinking about the possibilities the Ordinariate offers to see what it does, and perhaps to think more deeply about joining.

Ordinariate Evensong on May 29th

Next week, on Wednesday May 29th, the Oxford Ordinariate Group will again celebrate Solemn Evensong and Benediction according to their approved books in the church at Blackfriars in the city. The service will be at 7.30, and the office will be a votive of the Blessed Sacrament, to coincide with the traditional eve of Corpus Christi.

The music will be provided again  by the Newman Consort, who have developed a formidable repertoire of early modern music in the service of the Ordinariate's liturgies.

If you are free to attend please do so, and if you have not attended beforehand at on eof these services you are assured of a warm welcome.

Ordinariate Evensong

Here, thanks to the Ordinariate on line mailing, is a picture of Fr Daniel Seward Cong. Orat., the Provost of the Oxford Oratory,preaching at the  Solemn Evensong and Benediction in St James', Spanish Place on Sunday. The text of his excellent sermon can be read here.

Ordinariate evensong at Spanish Place

Yesterday afternoon I travelled up to London to attend the Ordinariate Solemn Evensong and Benediction to mark the external feast of Bl. John Henry Newman at St James Spanish Place. As with previous Ordinariate liturgies at the church this was a fine occasion.

The interior of St James Spanish Place

Image:simon_white on Flickr

St James' is a very fine church indeed - I got the feeling that this what the great churches of the English middle ages would still have been like if it had not been for the disasters on the mid-sixteenth century. So, despite its origins as the Spanish Embassy chapel and the hadsome nreminders of that inheritance, this felt like patrimony.

The choir sang beautifully and the ceremonial was dignified - although, as I have written before, I have come to genuinely prefer the traditional Catholic structure of Vespers and Compline rather than the Anglican combination of the two.

The sermon was preached by Fr Daniel Seward, Provost of the Oxford Oratory as the advertised preacher, Fr Paul Chavasse from the Birmingham Oratory, was unable to attend due to illness. This was a fine homily, linking Newman's theological contribution and personal search for holiness with the forthcoming Year of Faith and its application to daily Christian living.

Following prayers for the work of the Ordinariate to the exposed Blessed Sacrament and Benediction the service concluded.

Afterwards there was areception in the Social centre under the church and an opportunity to catch up with old friends from Oxford  who are now based in Londobn and to hear their news  and learn how other Ordinariate groups are faring. I received some compliments on this blog from readers - which I appreciated. I also had some banter with Mgr Newton, the Ordinary, about which faction of the Oxford Newman Society my tie represented (this is a highly technical and complicated matter which insiders will appreciate, and others would, probably rightly, think pointless...) and also a conversation with Mgr Robert Mercer.

When photographs of the service are available I will post a link to them.

As always on these large Ordinariate occasions I came away with a confidence in what has been achieved and the promise it holds for the future.

Then, in best Oxford tradition, I moved on from the drinks reception to meet another Oxford friend who lives nearby and to have a drink with him in a nearby pub... ah, the pleasures of church going and friendship!

Ordinariate Evensong at Blackfriars

Last night I attended the Ordinariate Solemn Evensong for Whitsuntide at Blackfriars here in Oxford which I publicised the other week.

The Newman Consort were once again in good voice, and sang the early sixteenth century Magnificat Regale by Robert Fayrfax; Msgr Burnham said in his words of thanks that this was rather rarely performed - I think its length may inhibit its use on other than grand festal occasions - and as something wrtten for the Court had been chosen to mark the Jubilee. The Monseigneur also made the point that such music is part of that patrimony the Ordinariate is seeking to recover and share with other Catholics. The Anglican choral tradition is indeed well suited to use such splendid pre-Reformation music which is very much part of a common patrimony for Catholics and Anglicans.

The church at Blackfriars is a very dignified setting for such services, and it was good to see the very handsome red cope and stole, together with the matching humeral veil, all decorated with fine gold embroidery, which belongs to the Priory being used.
 

Solemn Evensong with the Ordinariate

Yesterday evening I attended the second of the Solemn Evensongs held at Blackfriars by the Oxford Ordinariate group. As last time this was well attended, the congregation including Ordinariate members, other relatively recent converts like myself, cradle Catholics and some who are still within the Church of England.

The service was to celebrate the feast of St Fridewide, and the form of service now has the Vatican recognitio, rather than using the version from the US Book of Common Order - thus the suffrage for The Queen was in its proper place.

The music was provided by The Newman Consort, the officiant was Mgr. Andrew Burnham and the preacher Dom Aidan Bellenger OSB, Abbot of Downside.

The collect was translated from the Sarum Missal as published in Antwerp in 1527, just before all the trouble began, and a worthy reminder of patrimony:

Almighty and eternal God, source of truth and lover of virginity, grant us, we beseech thee, that the merits of St Frideswide, thy virgin so pleasing to thee, may be as a commendation of us to thess whose life by its chastity gave to thee such satisfaction. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and regneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Afterwards there was Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and with those two superb twelfth century hymns indicative of thec Benedictine, indeed Cluniac, spirituality of the age - Peter Abelard's O what their joy and their glory must be and Bernard of Cluny's Jerusalem the golden - and both translated by the incomparable, and Anglican, J.M.Neale.

This was an opportunity for the Anglican patrimony in the use of traditional language and choral music to be made available to the wider Catholic Church.

I have to say that I genuinely prefer the structure of Vespers to Evensong, which of course merges Vespers and Compline, and miss the antiphons to the psalms and canticles, but the combined effect of words, music and ceremonial was very conducive to prayerful reflection.

I am in such matters inclined to the view that patrimony is more about the way things are done rather than the specific forms of Anglican liturgy - that has, after all, been debatable territory since very early in the Oxford Movement - but that is in no way to fault what was offered last night.

Afterwards there was a reception in the Aula at Blackfriars and an opportunity to catch up with friends old and new, and the prospect of another such Evensong next term.