Rorate Caeli

A sign of things to come for the Ordinariate?


Fr. Andrew Burnham celebrating his first Mass (Novus Ordo). Take note of the Assistant Priest in Cope.

The still-Anglican Fr. John Hunwicke has a short but interesting report of Fr. Andrew Burnham's First Mass, in which Fr. Aidan Nichols OP was the homilist. Here's most of that post, with my emphases:

Fr Aidan returned, today, to the great enterprise of gathering up the fragments that none be lost; of appropriating, for the good of all the church, the Anglican inheritance discerned through the purifying prism of Catholic Orthodoxy. He mentioned that Bishop Andrew is engaged in the liturgical side of that - but made clear, referring especially to Blessed John Henry and the Tractarian Fathers, that there is much more to it than Liturgy. His homily, I think, counts as the Programmatic Statement of the Ordinariate as far as theology is concerned. I hope he stays involved.

If Fr Aidan's homily was characteristic, so was Bishop Andrew's liturgy. Fine music (Byrd; Morales); Latin from the Sursum corda until the Communion. We had examples of what the American blogosphere now calls Common Sense and Mutual Enrichment. Sanctus covered the (silent) first half of the Canon Romanus and Benedictus the second half; we were spared those horrid 'Acclamations' after the Consecration. At the Invitation to Communion, Bishop Andrew continued his custom of using the New ICEL translation of Ecce Agnus Dei.


The Ordinariate Portal blog has more pictures of (and stories about) the First Mass.