Anglican Use for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

I've written about my only experience with Anglican Use before. And yes, "Anglican Use" may not be the correct term to use anymore but it's what I'm using since it's more descriptive. Anyway, so I originally intended to back to that Anglican Use parish more often but it never happened for various reasons.

However, I found myself in kind of a mess in the lead up to the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God in that I was planning to take a road trip on Friday, January 1, which would prevent me from attending Mass. My priest seemed reluctant to grant me a dispensation but the only parish I knew about that was offering Mass on Thursday, December 31 was a Novus Ordo parish that I've mixed experiences with.

But then I remembered the Anglican Use parish. Father seemed perfectly okay with my suggestion to attend Mass there.

As I've said, I really do miss the Anglican liturgy even now. I enjoy the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, don't get me wrong, but deep down I think my heart will always belong to the Book of Common Prayer Rite I.

I should add that what this all really drives home for me is the distaste I have for the New Mass. Again, I want to emphasize that I don't question the validity of the New Mass. I'm no radtrad. I just think other forms are more reverential.

The formality was amazing. The priest faced ad orientem, which I wouldn't have insisted upon but was still happy to have. This never happened at my old ACNA parish. I don't know why but for some reason facing ad orientem gives me that extra degree of solemnity. I'm not trying to nitpick; I'm just saying I appreciated this part of the deal.

Then there's how beautiful the whole enterprise is:

Prayer of Humble Access: We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

Also, several parts were sung and chanted (which also never happened at my old ACNA parish) and it was beautiful! Angelic! If I hear chants at all, they're probably in Latin so the English was a nice change of pace.

Bells and smells. Copious amounts of incense. There's no such thing as too much incense in my book.

As to communion, I prefer receiving from a priest or deacon while kneeling at an altar rail, and somebody at that Anglican Use parish apparently agrees with me because that's their setup. Definitely the way to go. Communion is done by intinction, incidentally, and then placed directly into the communicant's mouth. All fine by me.

Another nice touch is the architecture. The style is sort of Gothic or neo-Gothic or some such. It basically looks like the stereotype I always had of a traditional Anglican parish.

Anyway. I'll never regret joining the Catholic Church. But I do cherish Anglican liturgy and this place does it right.

Easter Vigil

So. Easter Vigil. I realize that what happened on Easter Vigil is arguably more pertinent for me to write about than was the sacrament of marriage. But that was a late addition to My Catholic Year, which, as much as anything, was supposed to be a time for absorbing as much of what the Church has to offer as possible. And so it felt wrong somehow to not mention that before getting into Easter Vigil.

As I've said before, I joined the Catholic Church by way of a Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter parish. So although I thought I knew what the process of being welcomed into the Church would be like, I was very mistaken.

First, there was the small matter of my baptism to get straightened out. I was baptized back when I was 16 by my grandfather. He was an elder at his local Church of Christ church. But there are some difficulties there. For starters, that was half a lifetime ago for me. I truly have no idea if he baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It stands to reason that he would have. But I couldn't swear to it.

Second, even if he had and even if I remembered it, I don't have a certificate of baptism. For one thing, that's not really a Church of Christ thing to do. But even if it was, it still wouldn't matter because I was baptized at a church but not by that church. My grandfather baptized me at the church I attended at the time. It was my church; not his. Someone from the church came down, unlocked the building for us and my grandfather baptized me. But it wasn't done by the church proper.

Third, that church technically no longer exists anymore. Or if it does, not in the form it was in back when I was 16. And certainly not at the same building.

The combination of all these things made me a very good candidate for a conditional baptism. If that's an unfamiliar term, a conditional baptism should be self-explanatory. But if it isn't, it's basically the priest offering words to the effect of "If you weren't baptized already, you are baptized now". It doesn't "rebaptize" you as such because that's impossible. You can only baptized once. But in cases where one's baptism is up for grabs, a conditional baptism is a good way to settle the matter once and for all.

However, since that potentially leaves half a lifetime of unconfessed sins on the table, there's really no way to do it during the proper Easter Vigil because the priest can't very well stop the Mass to hear confessions from people who may have already been licitly baptized before. So that part had to be done earlier in the day on Saturday.

And I must say that confessing my sins to Father was a pretty unusual experience. I expect it'll get easier in the future but it was hard to think of very many major sins I've committed. But some very important mortal sins I've committed came to mind and needed to get straightened out. It'd be stupid to mention them here but by any standard this is definitely stuff to mention in confession.

What I discovered though was simply talking about them and getting them off my chest helped a bunch. I'm really sorry for some of the things I've done in life. I did them with my eyes wide open, in spite of everything my own conscience, Sacred Scripture and probably even the Spirit could say to dissuade me. But I did them and then I confessed. Father absolved me and prescribed my penance.

Earlier today I took care of my penance. And you know what? Danged if I don't feel like a burden I was never even aware of has been lifted.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I've never been one of those fuzzy-wuzzy spiritual feeeeeeeeeeeelings types. It's just not my thing. Subjective experience is fine in its place but there is such a thing as an objective reality and experiential nonsense usually isn't what motivates me. But at the same time, I can't pretend something important didn't change, first, by confessing and, second, by doing my penance.

Once the baptismal rite and then confession had ended, it was off to get dinner just before Easter Vigil started.

Now, I come from a decidedly Protestant family. My friends are either Protestant or not religious. Because of that, I wasn't expecting much of anything in terms of recognition from anyone for joining the Church. So imagine my surprise when my girlfriend presented with me rosary beads, a Catholic Bible, 'Heretics' by GK Chesterton and a few other things!

After that, it was back to church for Easter Vigil. Now, I knew this was going to be a major lu-lu. I'd heard that this was the single longest Mass the Catholic Church has to offer. Apparently it's second to none in terms of length. And I found that to be quite true.

Even so, the sights, sounds, prayers and chanting, incense and everything else... I mean, THIS is how you worship God. So I didn't mind the length of the Mass.

This is probably a typical experience for a lot of people but I was not expecting total strangers to want to take pictures of and with me just because I was joining. But that's what happened. My fellow candidates and I were almost treated like celebrities or something with everybody, of whom not least was the parish's photographer, wanting to take pictures of us standing with our sponsors in front of the altar, standing with Father in front of the altar, standing otherwise alone as a group in front of the altar, standing as individuals in front of the altar, etc. It was nuts!

But then they just saw all of us get welcomed into the Church. As converts. Whatever our lives would've become before we joined the Church, that's all changed now. We have a new destiny. A better destiny. And they witnessed us take our first clumsy steps in that right direction. And as adults in such a traditionalist church, you can well figure that we're probably doing it for all the right reasons. And so perhaps that is what those people wanted to commemorate.

Either way, it was hard to not get a little emotional about the whole thing. I've been trying to join the Catholic Church ever since October 2013. My fellow candidates only started in July 2014. If, shall we say, "time served" is a factor, I don't think the experience meant as much to them as it did to me. This took a long time to finally get sorted out. It was worth the wait, to be sure, but joining the Church has been uppermost in my mind for a very long time now.

And now that I'm officially a member, I don't quite know what the next step is. But I'll figure something out.

The Coming Evangelical Collapse (Six Years Later)

"We're all Catholics now."
Mike Huckabee

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

You know, I've never been much of one to read the tea leaves. Generally speaking, I'm often the last one to get the memo about pretty much anything. I generally tend to believe in my own point of view until that awkward moment when reality rudely wakes me up.

But my record isn't all bad. Or even mostly bad. When I was teaching a small group at Southern Baptist Church #1, I saw first hand that modern Christianity was up against a lot of problems.

For one thing, it blew my mind how many of my supposed peers were absolutely ignorant of even the fundamentals of the faith. In the evangelical world, you are free to believe whatever you like about raptures and End Times and things like that but what's non-negotiable are big ticket doctrines such as the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection and other things. I wasn't asking the group members to know the order in which David, Moses, Elijah and Abraham lived (although it wouldn't hurt). I merely sought to give them the core essentials of the faith.

The Catholic Church would say I was trying to catechize them.

However, my efforts were largely for naught. Many of them were incapable of explaining even the basics of what they believe or, heaven help them, why they believe it. The point came where I stopped wondering why they were even bothering to come to church at all and started wondering how long my (then) beloved evangelical Christianity could survive in the face of such alarming ignorance and apathy.

I needn't have worried, of course, because in short order it stopped being my problem. Getting fired publicly has that effect. People so ignorant of their faith and so eager to embrace (rather than engage) the culture couldn't long be counted upon to stand up for evangelicalism. Thus it would be fair to say that by the start of 2010, I was very scared of what evangelicalism might look in ten years' time.

Oddly enough, I ended up helping fulfill that myself what with my journey to the Catholic Church, but I digress.

Apart from not reading the tea leaves, I've also never been one to get swept away with hyperbole and doom-saying. Any fool can predict catastrophe because havoc and mayhem are the natural states of the world. Indeed, the market is strong for predicting future calamities.

Still, when the source article I linked to up top first caused a stir, it was completely off my radar. But I tripped over it not long after I joined the RCIA program about a year ago. And even though the late author freely admits to being no prophet, he outlines an oddly prophetic vision of the problems that have engulfed evangelicalism. It's easy to buy into because I glommed onto it relatively late in the game. Comparing this man's predictions to what has already come to pass, indeed, it is chilling how accurate his vision has been. At least up to now.

To wit: Twenty and thirty years ago, the Southern Baptist Convention pretty much ran the board on all or most social issues. Politicians crossed prominent evangelical pastors and leaders at their own peril. It would be fair to say that evangelicalism enjoyed a cultural and political hegemony that the first century Church could only dream of. And the SBC was not ignorant of this. On the contrary, they rather enjoyed their positions of influence.

Today though, your average sub-35 year old evangelical can easily explain the supposed merits and importance of gay marriage but fails miserably when the subject turns even to simple, no-brainer questions like the names of the four gospel writers found in sacred Scripture. I could end up being proved wrong but I suspect that's no recipe for building a future.

My point is that my generation was raised on dc Talk and told to vote Republican; our parents hoped that just about covered it. Meanwhile, secular (and I daresay more hostile) sources have used mass media to propagandize the youth on the entire liberal agenda and, in so doing, explained WHY those causes are to be protected, justified and legalized.

A good example of what I mean is Rachel Held Evans. She's part of the breed of hipster Christians ("I'm a Christian but not the George W. Bush kind of Christian,") who abandoned evangelicalism in favor of greener, more LGBT-friendly pastures. And what she ended up finding is the Episcopal church, naturally.

As aggravating and Christian-chic as Evans might be, she's hardly unique. Her parents' generation worried about winning that next midterm election while little Rachel and everyone else her age tuned in to the Daily Show. And now that her generation has grown up, what did anybody expect was going to happen?

Now, I confess that I still carry a certain amount of anger and resentment toward evangelicalism because of my negative experiences from 2010. To deny that would be a transparent lie. And in just a few weeks, I'd become obligated to confess that lie. So I'll instead freely admit that part of me can't help feeling (A) partially vindicated for all the fears and concerns I had for the movement's future back in 2009 and 2010 and (B) a little happy that so many of these puffed-up evangelicals are being humbled.

They fell in love with the world. This is what they deserve.

What might that mean for the Catholic Church though? Honestly, I have no idea because, frankly, I've always found it a bit hard to believe that the young people really enjoy liturgy and more traditional expressions of Christianity. Or if they do, it's primarily a superficial fad. What will they do and where will they go when the novelty fades?

Well, the deceased blogger speculated that evangelicalism's inevitable collapse has at least short term benefits for the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. And he may even be right; I wouldn't know. But I could sooner envision the Liberal True-Believers dropping out of Christianity entirely rather than attending churches who have staked their credibility on the sinfulness of homosexual relations, the impossibility of female ordination and other liberal hot buttons.

No matter the outcome, all that's really happening in my view is that Christianity isn't "shrinking" as such so much as the Nominals and In-Name-Only's are abandoning a religion they never truly believed in anyway.

Assuming that process completely or mostly wipes evangelicalism out, the only real player on the table will be two choices- Catholicism and, to whatever degree of viability, Eastern Orthodoxy.

I must admit that it's quite possible that there'd some penitent evangelicals who might come home to the Mother Church in Rome. However, that process would involve a lot of thoughtful consideration and no small amount of pride-swallowing.

Since both of those things are abjectly foreign to most evangelicals, I suspect the immediate beneficiary could be Orthodoxy. And part of me would be okay with that. I don't know what the Church's official position regarding Eastern Orthodoxy is but the Orthodox seem to have valid Orders and valid Sacraments. Is Orthodoxy the full expression of Christian truth? Perhaps not. But it's a lot closer to the mark than the Southern Baptist Convention was on their best day.

Assuming evangelicalism truly does collapse and that it happens in the relatively near future (and, at risk of saying "me too", that appears to be something of an inevitability), I see it as a good thing, ultimately. Christianity in the United States is shrinking, as I said, but what we're losing are those who were never truly invested in the faith to begin with. And they're leaving behind a more obedient and committed Body. And this would likely be a body more unified in faith, purpose and Sacrament than any time in America's history.

Whatever growing (or more aptly shrinking) pains could lie in store, in the end, isn't that a basically positive thing?

Evangelicals Love the Catholic Church

Man, am I nailing multiple updates this week or what?

Anyway, so something that's captured my interest ever since I first started the process of joining the Catholic Church is the concept of Protestants making the switch. I think this is rather natural inasmuch as I was a Protestant. And I was making the switch.

Incidentally, I'm not a big fan of the term "convert" because I'm not switching from one brand name to another. In my mind, I've embraced the fullness of the Christian faith as expressed in and revealed through the Catholic Church. I'm filling in gaps that were always present in my religious acumen. Such an act isn't a "conversion"; it's a "completion".

What I've noticed though is a tendency to assume that "young people" joining the Church do so for the liturgy. I have no particular expertise on that subject. First, these are the same "young people" who support same-sex marriage in numbers approaching the ridiculous. So clearly they can't be too overly concerned with the Church's teachings. Second, I can't quite shake the suspicion of their fixation for liturgy as strictly novelty.

To wit: to whatever extent they're churched, they're predominantly familiar with worship services that are similar to U2 concerts. Any type of liturgy might be interesting to them because of the novelty factor. That doesn't necessarily make for an enduring conversion

In any case though, I came across an article less about the all-important Millennials and more about joining the Church point blank, particularly as it concerns older people in leadership positions within evangelicalism.

We dare not underplay the importance of that.

Do clergy leave the Church? Sure. Happens fairly regularly, I'm sure. But what's interesting to me is the concept of married evangelical pastors switching to Catholicism. In most cases, Catholic priests cannot be married. It's already costly for an evangelical to "convert" to Catholicism because implicit in that is the acknowledge that his previous affiliation was in error.

But the deeper issue is that many evangelical leaders and pastors and teachers who convert do so in the full knowledge that they'll have to find a new career, different ways to service in the Church and very probably live in a higher level of poverty than they might be accustomed to as relatively well to do evangelical ministers.

The importance of this is not to be underestimated. True, it may not be as flashy and impressive as refusing to recant the faith on pain of martyrdom. But I think we should bear in mind the prospects of a loss professional prestige, reduced income, unemployment and possible harassment when we consider what some evangelical leaders face in joining with the Church.

The other thing the article makes a special point of mentioning though is the intellectual reasons many converts to the faith have. I'd be the last one to deplore liturgy since I've written about it on many occasions. But at the end of the day, my reasons for joining the Church are because of history, reason and logic.

This is the Church founded by Christ. You can trace today's bishops in an unbroken line back to Our Lord Himself. The Church Fathers were CLEARLY Catholic. Catholicism offers the only intellectually coherent and logical case for salvation. Numerous other reasons too.

However, the same is not true in the inverse. Sure, evangelicals may join the Church for intellectual reasons. But Catholics leave the Church for evangelicalism for emotional reasons. It has nothing to do with the Protestants making a better case or presenting a stronger argument. In fact, you could reasonably guess that perhaps Protestantism itself isn't even the issue. Many Catholics leaving has more to do with the Church itself than it does evangelicalism.

So, to put it another way, evangelicals join the Catholic Church because of the Catholic Church. Catholics leave the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church.

I find this very fascinating.

More to follow.

Reconsidering Novus Ordo

As I near the end of my journey through RCIA and begin to ramp up toward Easter, I've tried harder to make it to Mass at least Sunday (or Saturday). Soon this will be a requirement for me. So I'm trying to make it more of a priority now.

In pursuit of that goal, I went to Mass at a Novus Ordo parish near my apartment. Up to now, I've somewhat looked down my nose at the Novus Order because I wasn't overly impressed with it at a different parish at which I attempted RCIA.

Not to question the validity of Novus Ordo, you understand, but I didn't think the language of it was as poetic as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer Rite I or as beautiful as the Latin Mass. And to a degree, that remains the case now.

However, the Low Masses I attended at the other Novus Ordo parish were blown out of the water by tonight's High Mass Novus Ordo. What I've come to understand is that I can overlook the mediocre English of Novus Ordo so long as the Mass itself is sufficiently High.

In the case of this past Sunday, the Celebrant chanted parts and the incense spread through the entire sanctuary. The only thing missing was a ringing bell, really.

Now, my inner evangelical (what's left of him) is cringing at all of this because it's supposed to be ALL ABOUT YOUR HEART. The specifics of worship don't (or at least shouldn't) make a difference.

Fact is though they do. It's only natural. We're sensory-based creatures. We see, smell, touch, taste and hear. It's how we as people engage the world. So to me it's appropriate then that Mass should encompass all those things. And the issue is that Low Mass doesn't. In my opinion, it just lacks the more solemn atmosphere of High Mass. It's not a matter of substance; it's completely style.

I guess the point is that I don't think that's a shallow difference anymore.

This is a break with how I used to think though in that when I was an evangelical, I generally held people who church-hopped over matters related to music styles or the like in almost open contempt. And in my defense, from Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide standpoints, those ARE vapid reasons for switching churches.

But in a more holistic faith like Catholicism, I think people should attend whatever style of Mass lines up best with their sensibilities.

I just don't have much use for Low Mass Novus Ordo, that's all.

My Catholic Year Update

Man, has it really been over two months since I've updated this thing? Why, yes it has.

Not to worry though, I've got a few things to talk about this time around. You know, rather than the usual "things are going along as normal".

First off, things with RCIA are going along as normal. Father and the rest of us in our tiny little group have been working our way through a book called This is the Faith. Apart from being very instructive as an introduction to Catholicism, it's also sort of a commentary on what evangelicals call "the peculiarities of Catholic faith"... which would probably seem less "peculiar" if they just read the stuff. But I guess that's not happening.

I expect we'll be going on hiatus for stuff related to Advent and Christmas. My guess is Father is going to become really busy really soon. In fact, the Friday, 12.12.2014 meeting may be our last for a while. But I have no idea.

To move on to other things, part of my mission for My Catholic Year has been to take in different Catholic liturgies. At best I've had mixed success with that. Sure, there's the regular Novus Ordo Mass. And I've gone on the record saying I'm not a big fan of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who question the validity of it. I mean, is that really my concern? But at the same time I'm not a huge fan of it either.

I've also written about the Latin Mass. And I LOVE the Latin Mass! It's hard to really get the Latin Mass until you actually attend one. And once you do, odds are you'll see what the fuss is all about.

But that was about it for quite a while there. There simply aren't very many licit liturgies available in my area besides those two... except for an Anglican Use parish near my work.

Now, I've tried to avoid getting too personal in this Blogspot because I don't want to get too personal in this Blogspot. But this time it's a little unavoidable. Basically my work schedule uses up my time from 7am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. I'm off every Thursday and Friday (which made time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year totally a piece of cake). But the down side is that it's an incredible pain in the neck to come home from work, change clothes (because I work in a very come as you are casual work place), turn right back around and go to Mass. Something about coming home from work usually requires me to stay home for a while.

Except that doesn't work so well with my weekend obligation, now does it?

But I realized that my work place is right by an Anglican Use parish! Why, I bet I could go there directly after work! And this past Saturday, that's exactly what I did. And man, talk about high church! Bells, smells and everything else I always loved about Anglicanism. It looked and sounded to me like they were working off Rite I. It was beautiful, majestic and moving.

The other thing though was that it showed me just how much I've come to miss Anglican liturgy. I spent all of 2013 in the Anglican church. And I'd be there still but I came to realize that separation from Canterbury bothers me less than separation from Rome. But, man, I really MISSED that beautiful Anglican liturgy and worship style.

Because of all that, it was really comforting to go to the Anglican Use parish, secure in my communion with Rome while still enjoying everything I'd come to love and adore about Anglicanism. Best of both worlds!

Sooner or later, my work schedule's going to change again and I'll have to figure out something else. Hopefully I'll have weekends off again and can resume attending the Latin Mass. But if I don't, it's comforting to know the Anglican Use parish is so near my work that I can go there on the way home.

I would like to find some other liturgies and Rites in my local area before the end of the year but that may be impossible, especially at this point.

To move on to more other things, another part of my mission for My Catholic Year has been to pray very Catholic prayers and be diligent about it. And this has been more successful than finding other rites. I started off simply enough. I printed a couple of Catholic prayers off Wikipedia and just prayed those.

Then I realized having a printout of them is kind of stupid so I created a PDF file of them and put it on the ol' iPad. And I've largely stuck with that for a while now.

But then I purchased an iPhone 6 a while back and realized I can probably find at least a few apps to use for my daily prayers. And boy oh boy did I find some really good ones! Some of them even have little commentaries and stuff about the prayer, how far back it dates to and other trivia.

Another app will walk you through the Liturgy of the Hours. Rather than having to carry a zillion books with you, you just pop the app open and it'll show you the appropriate prayer based on the date and time.

The other app will walk you through a Rosary, which I've never done by myself before because I don't really know how to do it by myself. So this app will come to my rescue!

Anyway, this stuff was only today though so I haven't had a chance to do much with any of the apps yet. But at the same time, it's nice to know that I've now got my choice of different prayers and don't necessarily have to stick to the same ones every day. That'll be a nice change of pace, mmmkay?

Looking back on it, I originally designed My Catholic Year to begin immersing myself in the Catholic Church's teachings, prayers and worship. The idea was that when I was welcomed into the Church, I'd have at least a starting point for my disciplines, I'd have some kind of perspective on the various Rites out there and I'd be pretty much ready to go.

Very bluntly, we can argue how well most of that stuff has turned out. As I say, the prayer stuff seems like it's under control but I haven't tried all that hard to soak in other Rites. Crap, I've been pretty lackadaisical about attending Mass like I should. So there's definitely room to improve here.

But then I remember that I haven't been officially welcomed into the Church yet. Technically I'm not expected to have all this stuff mastered by now. And even when I am a member of the Church, should I goof on any of this stuff, there are ways of fixing it. It's not the end of the world.

I guess my point in all this is that I've made some pretty dumb decisions in life. It's not hard to think up a few really good examples. But joining up with the Mother Church... this could be the best decision I've ever made.

What does that mean for the future of this Blogspot? Don't really know. Technically it was only supposed to last for 2014. I'd expected to be welcomed into the Church by now. But I think we all know how that turned out.

So I guess I'll keep updating (however sporadically) until I am welcomed into the Church. After that... well, who knows?

Considering Anglican Use

RCIA with the priest from the FSSP parish has been going along nicely. Still, he raised a few good points on Friday night that I've tried to ignore.

The fact is my Mass attendance sucks. There's no nice way to say it so there it is. I've been to the low Mass in Latin a few times but basically my attendance has really dropped off, especially in the past several weeks.

Now, to be fair I DO work on weekends. And that makes it kind of challenging to go to Mass and fulfill my obligation. Difficult. But not impossible. If I'd really wanted to go, I could've.

But there is no Mass in Latin at a realistic time and location to make going on Saturday or Sunday feasible. And obviously I'd rather not go to the Novus Ordo Mass.

Now, that's not to be taken as anti-Novus Ordo or anything. I'm just saying I prefer Mass in Latin, and, apparently, would rather not go if it's not in Latin.

A conundrum.

But then I had a realization a few days ago. As far as I could remember, my office HAS to be fairly close to this one Anglican Use parish I know about so I decided to check it out. And sure enough, it's ridiculously close to my office. So I could go there after work on Saturdays and fulfill my obligation. And it wouldn't even be all that hard to get there either.

Now, as I've said, I did indeed leave the Anglican church. And the reason for that is because it's not the church Our Lord founded. It's not that I don't like it. Quite the opposite! I love it. I believe that Anglican liturgy is one of the finest around. But you're either in communion with the Pope or you're not. And if you're not, why should I bother?

That's what makes the Anglican Use parish so cool. Best of both worlds! So my plan is to get an idea of their dress code. See, my office has one of the most lax dress codes you've ever heard of. The thing is that after a while, "casual" becomes the dress code. So if you show up to work dressed like you're about to go to church... well, that's not a good thing, now is it?

So what I'll probably have to do is bring a change of clothes with me to work so that I can fit in at both places. People have to make sacrifices greater than that to go to church all the time so I shouldn't complain.

I'm actually really excited about this. I've always believed the Anglicans have a lot to contribute to Catholicism. My only regret is that I can't attend an Anglican Use parish nearer to my home. But at least I've got the FSSP parish nearby.

It's hard not to feel really blessed right now.

Second Thoughts About the Church?

Back when I was attending RCIA, I was confronted approached by one of the other Inquirers about Anglicanism. When RCIA first began, we all gave a quick summary of our spiritual lives and what had drawn us to the Catholic Church. I mentioned making a pit stop in Anglicanism after leaving the evangelical world before deciding to make the full transition to the Mother Church.

I surmise my comments drew his attention because he approached me later on and asked if I ever had second thoughts about leaving Anglicanism.

I told him that I was positive I was doing the right thing from a religious standpoint. But I must say that it's a question that I've always had a difficult time articulating an answer for because there are several considerations at work.

For one thing, I really enjoy the liturgy of the ACNA parish I attended for most of 2013. It felt sober and reverential. It was a relatively broad church Anglo-Catholic parish. So we got the bells every service, the smells of incense occasionally and a very Catholic view of the Real Presence.

What I ultimately had to understand was that I would rather be an Anglo-Catholic in the Catholic Church than a papist in the Anglican Church. In spite of my new (and recent) fondness for the Traditional Latin Mass, it must be said that a lot of that comes from my distaste for the Novus Ordo... and that comes from my affection for the Rite I Anglican liturgy, with its beauty and eloquence.

Had I gone straight from Southern Baptist Church #2 straight to a Novus Ordo Catholic parish, I might not care as much about the specifics of liturgy. But that year in the ACNA parish said that liturgy is good; eloquent and beautiful liturgy is better.

But that isn't what happened, now is it? I did spend that year in the ACNA parish, I was exposed to a lot of Anglo-Catholic theology and language does matter to me.

That's what attracts me to Anglicanism on the superficial level. But it's also the same thing that repulses me about it on the spiritual level. Anglicanism isn't just from England; it is of England. You cannot separate Anglicanism from some sense of British nationalism.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem with people from other countries being patriotic. Or even nationalistic, for that matter. Go right ahead.

Where I have to draw the line though is comingling national sovereignty with religious expression. It's well and good to be proud of your country. But the fact is that Anglicanism classically is the mix of Englishness on the one hand and Christianity in the other hand combined in the center in prayer. So closely associating my faith with my earthly citizenship just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

But come to that, Anglicanism is defined by England every bit as much as Lutheranism is by Germany, Presbyterianism is by Scotland and the SBC is by America. None of these are truly universal in the way the Church is intended to be. The Church is supposed to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Anglicanism at large fails the "one" part with its myriad splinter groups. The decidedly English flavor trips up the "catholic" attributes of the Church. It's fidelity to the "apostolic" element is debated to this day by people a lot smarter than me. And surely you don't need me to tell you how far out of whack several components of Anglicanism are when it comes to the "holy" part of the equation.

The Catholic Church has none of those problems. Pope Francis is the vicar of Christ and is the leader around whom the rest of the Church can unite. The Church suffers slings and arrows specifically because of her holiness. It is catholic in that all people in all places feel at home in the Church; so much so that there's probably a Mass going at all times somewhere in the World. And Pope Francis is the latest in a succession of bishops who can be traced in an unbroken line all the way back to St. Peter.

She is therefore one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

So whatever affection I may have for aspects or elements of Anglicanism to this day, no, I don't have second thoughts about my decision to come home to the Mother Church.

My Catholic Year- The Traditional Latin Mass, The Ancient Way

How about a REAL update on My Catholic Year?

I said in my last post that I'm not terribly interested in bickering over liturgy. What I'm convinced of is that evangelical liturgy (and yes, they DO have a liturgy; their refusal to put it in writing doesn't change the facts) is weak sauce and often hypocritical. Beyond that, your liturgy of preference is between you and your God.

That having been said, I went to the Traditional Latin Mass this morning at that FSSP parish this morning and HOLY CRAP!!!

When I was slumming it with the Anglicans, I REALLY enjoyed the High Church services they did. It wasn't as High as it might've been but I figured it was still pretty good. But if you've ever been to the TLM before, you know that it blows the doors off the Anglican liturgy, duct tapes them back on and blows the doors off again.

Anglicanism ruined me for evangelical Christian worship. The Traditional Latin Mass has ruined me for every other liturgy. THIS is what I want from my worship. It all feels so ancient and reverential and, most of all, AUTHENTIC.

With all due respect to Pope Paul VI, I have no idea how or why the Church could ever go from the TLM to the Novus Ordo. Having now been to both, I can understand why people are so partisan about it these days. I don't think it's worth the grief and bloodletting it's caused over the years, you understand; I'm just saying I understand why people can get so fired about it.

From the standpoint of communion, part of why the TLM works for me is because it's primarily in a dead language. Yes, the homily and related matters are in whatever language they're in. But by and large, the Mass is in Latin. Apart from the mystery aspect of it, there is (or would be) solidarity in knowing that basically all of us are having basically the exact same Mass in basically the exact same way. It'd be as mysterious to me as it is everywhere else in the world.

Obviously that isn't how things are right now. I'm just saying it'd be nice.

I've never questioned my decision to join the Church. But at the same time, I've also never been more positive of where I'm supposed to be.

Apart from that, I made plans with Father Charles to meet later this week. My work schedule has changed so I probably won't be able to make it to Mass on Sunday for a long while (which I'm not happy about, especially now, but it's the hand I've been dealt) but he said he's willing to meet with me one-on-one and go through the Catechism with me so that I can pick up basically where I left off in RCIA.

Besides all that, I have every Thursday and Friday off from work now so I can still go to Mass on those days. Being as Father Charles is hopefully going to be my mentor through this whole process, I'm thinking my lack of attendance on Sunday won't be a major problem for him. My guess is that it'll be a fairly Low Mass on those days (although I'd love to be wrong!).

Just heard a major rumble of thunder outside so I guess I'd better call it a night.

Another Thing About Liturgy

By the by, feels like I should mention that I'm not militantly opposed to the Novus Ordo Mass. You might get that impression, especially judging from my last post. But it's simply not true.

What is true though is that I've talked at length about liturgy. And the reason for that is because I've been working through how lied to and betrayed I feel by my evangelical upbringing. In that world, they have a "liturgy" of sorts but they refuse to put it in writing. So there is a sense of ritual about evangelical worship. But at the same time, there's a strange, neurotic compulsion to deny that a liturgy exists.

On top of that, style takes a backseat to substance. It doesn't matter how or when you worship. What matters is that, by golly, your HEART is in it.

And honestly, I wouldn't have a problem with that line of thinking if it had any basis in fact. But it just doesn't. The early Church clearly believed that liturgy matters. Yes, your heart's conviction is important. It's not to be underestimated. But if the Lord has appointed a manner He finds acceptable to be worshiped, isn't it dangerously stupid to worship Him in any other way?

Also, evangelicals have this aggravating tendency to create a false dichotomy between liturgy and meaningful worship. When it comes to the Almighty, I've always had a reverential sense of soberness. He isn't my co-pilot, my best drinking buddy, my n***a or any of that stupidity. He's the sovereign God Almighty and there is none like Him.

Because of that, I was morally offended at times by how chummy a lot of evangelicals tend to be with Him. And whatever, He'll judge or not judge that for Himself. But this is a crucial part of evangelical worship and it took being painfully separated from all that for me to realize just how repugnant I find most of that stuff.

But anyway, my point here is that a lot of my discussion about liturgy is coming from the angle of a disgruntled evangelical who's forcibly woken up and smelled the coffee. Liturgy is a big subject for me because it's only been pretty recently that I've developed an awareness of and appreciation for it.

But among Catholics, it can be a contentious subject. This is illicit and that is not. I refuse to get involved with that. At least for right now. When I criticized the Novus Ordo, I did so on the basis that I don't think the sixth grade-level English of that Mass stacks up against the best of what the Anglicans have to offer. But I'm certainly not criticizing that Mass insofar as legitimacy is concerned. The Anglicans may have a more eloquent liturgy but what's it worth if half (or more) of their priests aren't validly ordained?

Because I want sober, reverential worship of the Lord, the only logical place for me to go is the Latin Mass. If the Solemn Masses I've seen on YouTube are indicative of what the Latin Mass is all about, this is about as High a Mass as the Catholic Church can offer (maybe the Orthodox have a Higher service but that takes you right back to the validity of their ordination in some cases).

But if others prefer the Novus Ordo, what difference does it make to me?

Work Training, RCIA and The Kids Today

As I said before, I've started training for a new job. Also as I said before, that's eaten up most of my free time lately. When I get home from work, all I feel like doing is eating and then going to bed. This won't last forever but it's how things are right now.

Still, there have been a few interesting developments lately.

First off, in my last post, I mentioned I'm not sure what my future is with RCIA because it will conflict with my work schedule once training ends. Unfortunately, I don't know any more now than I did when I first posted it because the outreach director at my local parish has been kind of incommunicado lately. No idea what will happen here.

Frankly, it irritates me because how hard can this possibly be to deal with? Surely they have issues like this pop up all the time. You'd think I'd have more to show for myself after an entire week of waiting for answers. But you'd be wrong.

Every once in a while, articles like this one pop up that make it sounds like The Kids Today are starting to embrace liturgical worship, this is the way of the future, evangelicalism is dead, etc.

Now, more and more it's hard for me to take evangelicalism as a form of church worship seriously. I can't deny that. At the same time though, you can't really underplay evangelicalism as a cultural force. I don't dispute that either.

What bothers me about articles like this is (A) the superficiality of them and (B) the abject lack of distinction between short term trends and long term cultural transformation.

Yeah, sure, The Kids Today might find liturgy interesting... today. But that doesn't say anything about what they've preferred over the past several years or where they're likely to stay in the years to come. It's simply right now that they dig going to Catholic Churches or high Lutheran places.

As interesting as that may be, it says nothing about what's happened in the past, what's likely to occur in the future and possible causes for this sea change in worship style.

It's just kind of there. And that's about it.

More to follow.

The Evolution of Belief and Theology

I've not talked a whole lot about the evolution of my beliefs over the years. Now, that's not to say I haven't blabbered on at length about my path to the Church. Because I have. At great length.

When I started getting serious about faith at the tender age of 24, I knew the most important thing obviously was theology. If you don't know the how and the why, it's hard to accept the way and then believe in the Whom. Makes sense.

So in short order I started off on the basis that the Catholic Church is full of wackadoo teachings that aren't worth listening to, they're off the reservation about basically everything and I should just move on.

As I've written before (again, here), I'd long been interested in Anglicanism. It's kind of like Catholicism, but less so; all the ritual, half the guilt, none of the Popes. What's not to like?

The issue there is that the Episcopal Church USA was a mess. Now, to be fair, there's never been a moment in my life when TEC wasn't facing some crisis or another. I was born only a couple of years after the Anglican Communion decided, oops, you know what? Women can serve in the priesthood after all! It really has been downhill for them ever since.

By 2006, when I began casting about for a denomination to call home, I was faced with the choice of entrusting my soul to a group of weirdo Episcopalians who didn't even seem to have a basic understanding of the clear teachings of Scripture. Female presiding archbishops, gay priests, transgendered bishops; what a mess!

So, with regrets, I ventured into Southern Baptist Land and didn't come up for air until about five or six years later. Still, I had a spark of interest in liturgy and formal worship. A liturgy that's been refined over the centuries just seemed more trustworthy to me than some dude who graduated from "Bible college" up there extemporizing.

Besides, on a practical level, I never appreciated the emotional and/or responsive manipulation of a lot of Southern Baptist worship. A good example of what I mean is Jonathan Stockstill's song "Let the Church Rise". The lights go down, the "worship team" (can't call them a choir, no no, that'd be BAD!) begin the song softly and right as they build to a rousing crescendo with the chorus, the lights come back up, which is your cue to rise (heh, get it?) to your feet.

And whatever, there are people out there who get off on manipulative nonsense like that. Far be it from me to judge. I'm just saying I found it shallow and almost offensive.

But, and here's the odd part, Southern Baptists are not at all averse to more atmospheric things like darkened rooms and candles. They simply always remember to plug in their electric guitars. So it felt, at once, kinda sorta formalized but with just enough informality to appeal to... actually, I'm not sure who's supposed to be interested in that neurotic presentation. But their churches are packed every Sunday so what do I know?

All I can say is that I tolerated that stuff because I had responsibilities at SB Church #1 by that point. Originally it was editing, mixing and then uploading the podcast of the pastor's sermon each week. Then it was taking attendance for my small group of 20 and 30-something singles. And ultimately it was teaching that small group.

So as I say, the worship "praise section" didn't interest me much but I didn't feel right about turning my back on people who needed me.

Oh, if I knew then what I know...

But I didn't, that's the point. Anyway, but becoming a small group teacher requires you to learn and study a lot, which is how I became more deeply entrenched in "reformed" theology. And as I did so, I reached the conclusion that there was no unity here. None.

Now, in today's post-evangelical world, that word needs some definition. What I mean is that no two Protestants agree on the meaning of any given verse in the Bible. The joke I always heard (and never found funny) was that if you get five Southern Baptist pastors into one room, there'll be nine opinions. Apparently we're supposed to find the lack of unity amusing.

It may seem like a small thing but think about it for just a minute. To a man, they all believe in Sola Scriptura. Which is to say that the Bible is the first, last and only infallible source of authority man has access to. I've poked holes in that before so need to do it again. But teaching this small group was my first real look at how little Protestants have in common even with each other.

I think it can fairly be said that there's no single doctrine or interpretation of Scripture that all Protestants would agree about, up to and including the Messiah's identity and relationship to the Father.

That alone suggests that there's something very severely wrong with the Sola Scriptura doctrine as the Bible is made up of God's Word, God's Word is made up of individual testaments, those individual testaments are made up of individual books, those individual books are made up of words and words have meaning. "X" cannot be "X" and "the opposite of X" at the same time and in the same context. Words have meaning because the Author wants to convey an idea. It's crazy to think that He'd long tolerate such wasteful disarray among His own (supposed) followers.

That bothered me but I never made a big deal out of it because, like I said, I had responsibilities at SB Church #1. People were depending on me, after all. But eventually I was pretty much shown the door at SB Church #1 and my reputation was smithereens as a result.

The issue here is that it was easy for my enemies at SB Church #1 to take me out because I'm not ordained. Moreover, I barely knew any of the higher-ups at SB Church #1. I was teaching a group in their Singles Ministry but I'd never even met the lead pastor of SB Church #1 face to face. None of them knew me. There was no relationship there. But my enemies had friends in very high places. At least one or two were deacons, in fact.

And like I said, things didn't work out so well at SB Church #2 because some familiar faces from #1 started showing up there since our former group was such a mess.

So by the time I started casting about for a new denomination, I'd learned some hard lessons. Some of them were:

Sola Scriptura is a weak, illogical, self-refuting doctrine

Women need a warm glass of STFU when it comes to church leadership

Laity have no business teaching or holding positions of authority unless they're closely monitored by someone with a true, genuine calling

So when I began searching for a new home, I not only knew that the Southern Baptist Convention was out of the question, but whether I liked it or not, I had doctrinal issues to work out. I made this decision in 2012, by which time the Anglican Church in North America had come into an existence as an alternative to TEC.

It felt like this was the continuation of something I'd started back in 2006 but had to abandon because TEC was such a mess. Now, Anglicanism's roots in Catholicism mean it isn't a Sola Scriptura denomination. They relied upon other authorities, not least of which is tradition.

Tradition plays a major role in their beliefs, practices, liturgy and theology. Makes sense. History is (or should be) a guide both in terms of what to do and what not to do. So by way of demonstration, the Anglicans helped knock down my belief in Sola Scriptura. Not that there was much belief left in it by that point.

The transition to Anglicanism was easier than I first thought. Sure, making the Sign of the Cross was a new idea for me. But you adjust. I eventually veered over to Anglo-Catholicism, which required a bit more effort because... well, it's in the name. Catholic.

Eucharistic theology is a good example of what I'm talking about. I'd been raised to view the Lord's Supper as a strictly commemorative act. I think I was 26 or so before I even realized there were differing opinions on the matter. But the ACNA parish I attended was decidedly Anglo-Catholic and about as high church as they could be given the parameters in which they had to work. And they made it clear that they believe in the Real Presence.

I rationalized it at the time. "Well, just because they think of the Eucharist as the Lord's body and blood doesn't mean I have to. It can be a strictly symbolic memorial for me." But I soon stumbled across the letter written by St. Ignatius to the Smyrneans wherein St. Ignatius identified as a heretic anybody believed the Eucharist wasn't the Body and the Blood. Historians differ on whether Ignatius was taught by St. Peter, St. Paul or St. John, but what seems sure is that he was trained by at least one of the apostles.

Considering how far back in history that was, wouldn't St. Ignatius know what he was talking about?

His view of the Eucharist as the Body and the Blood of Our Lord was a game-changer. It was also the first time I'd given Catholic theology real consideration. No "reformed" nonsense, no Anglican middle step, pure, straight-up Catholic doctrine. And for the first time I realized Catholic teachings held up to scrutiny.

Most people have common objections to Catholic theology. My objections were no different. And what I found was the Catholics had a good justification for everything, no matter how small. Take a crucifix, for example. I had the usual evangelical reservations about them, and found easy answers for why Catholics tend toward crucifixes rather than empty crosses.

My point is that they had a logical, coherent answer for everything. Everything! Now, yes, it offended the anti-Catholic sensibilities in which I'd been raised. No doubt about it. But do you turn your back on the truth because people won't like the fact that you found it?

Another thing was that creeds are only divisive when heretics listen to them. The entire point of a creed is to identify the key elements of our faith and distill them down to a quick summary. If you can't recite a creed in good conscience, you don't belong. Simple as that.

Ditto formalized prayers. They're only as robotic and lifeless as the person praying lets them be. If one's heart isn't in it, it's their fault; not the formalized prayer's.

Similar things can be said of other uniquely Catholic practices. My point, however, is that the Church can defend and justify all her beliefs and practices when someone with an open mind gives her the chance.

And ultimately that was probably the greatest revelation of all.

More to follow.

Considering Liturgical Prayer

Back when I first began considering membership with the Catholic Church, if you'd told me that formalized prayer would come naturally, I'd have said you were crazy. I would've assumed that, of all decidedly Catholic practices, that would be the hardest thing to get into.

The above is what you might call "leading the witness" in a court of law. It's a standard practice in a lot of writing. The goal is to produce an unexpected dramatic reversal of what went previously in order to entice the reader to continue reading.

But oddly enough, I've gathered a few formalized that interest me and have begun praying those most mornings with surprising ease.

In terms of unexpected dramatic reversals, how am I doing so far?

Specifically these prayers are the Our Father, Act of Contrition, Hail Mary, Alma Redemptoris Mater and the Apostles' Creed. I chose them either for their frequent appearances in the liturgy or else because they're devotionals that are new and mostly unfamiliar to me but which I still feel I should make a priority.

The results have been as amazing as they have been immediate. These prayers first thing in the morning have so far really changed how I go about my days. I feel a noticeably stronger sense of peace at most times during the day. Now, it feels inappropriate to me to discuss feeeeeeeeelings because they can't be weighed, measured, quantified or even reliably reproduced. What I feel to be a sense of peace relative to my usual state could be a heightened sense of anxiety for some people or a horse tranquilizer for others.

Still, I have to acknowledge that there is room for an individual's personal experience in this. I'm usually reluctant to discuss these things in public though because my fear is being lumped in with those Emerging Church types. Still, I can't really discuss the efficacy of formalized prayer as practiced by the Catholic Church without mentioning my own personal experience with it. So please don't take this as the Emergent brand of oohey-gooey "spirituality" I so detest.

Now, I can't speak for anybody else but I at least don't get to make decisions on my own. Nope. Invariably I have to deal with a committee of rubes, pretenders and pseudo-intellectuals telling me why I'm wrong, hopeless, misguided, heretical or whatever else about anything I choose to do. Be it choices made in my professional life, love life, schooling, hobbies, choice of friends or anything else, there'll always be some jackass who just can't wait to tell me why I'm wrong.

In the case of Catholicism, it's an evangelical with some severely goofed up theology. We'll call him "Donald Bell". On the one hand, "Donald Bell" is a member in exceedingly good standing of a Southern Baptist church. On the other hand, his views and theology owe far more to the aforementioned Emerging Church brand of spiritual pap.

A great many of our conversations regarding religion that don't involve anti-Catholic myths and canards tend to revolve around the false dichotomy of formalized prayer vs. the pure heart and soul of (supposedly) non-liturgical forms of Christianity.

In the first place, I've come to realize that every brand of Christianity has some kind of liturgy. In a sense, what really separates the Catholics from the Baptists is that the Church is willing to put their liturgy in writing while the Southern Baptist Convention is not.

In the second place though, as I said, it's a false dichotomy. The mere fact that some Catholics "go through the motions" of formalized prayer tells me they don't understand the formalization or the prayer. That can't accurately be said of the Church at large though:

2700 Through his Word, God speaks to man. By words, mental or vocal, our prayer takes flesh. Yet it is most important that the heart should be present to him to whom we are speaking in prayer: "Whether or not our prayer is heard depends not on the number of words, but on the fervor of our souls."
-- Catechism of the Catholic Church

Mind you, that doesn't keep "Donald Bell" from leveling the accusation. But it simply isn't true. Further, it assumes that there's no room for extemporaneous prayer, which is just ignorant.

The other thing though, and again this relies on my personal experience, there's simply no comparison between my prayer life now and my prayer life as a Southern Baptist. To be fair, I've only committed to morning prayers over the last week or thereabouts so it's a pretty lopsided comparison. Still, the formal prayer schedule has been easy to abide by and spiritually beneficial for me. "Donald Bell" has frequently said (in approved Emerging Church fashion, I'm certain) that "nobody can argue with personal experience".

I'm very well aware of how anemic my prayer life was before I joined the Catholic Church. As much as I came to admire the Anglican church during 2013, all they really did was change how I viewed my worship. It was a radical change, to be sure, but it wasn't the complete spiritual tune-up I've gotten from the Catholic Church. As a Southern Baptist, prayer was usually what I did during moments of stress and crisis, or else it was done as I was falling asleep each night. Now it's become a vital and indispensable part of my spiritual life.

That's MY personal experience so by his own logic, which should be checkmate with "Donald Bell".

But I doubt it will be.

More to follow.

Liturgy

One thing I've come to realize is that I'm not quite as fond of the Catholic liturgy my parish uses as I am of the Anglican liturgy. The Anglican worship service, in my opinion, is second to none in terms of beauty and elegance. I'm told that ONLY an Eastern Orthodox ultra-High Mass is higher and more elegant than even the best of what the Anglicans do but I can't speak from firsthand experience there as I've never been interested in going to an EO service.

Still, keep in mind the Catholic Masses I've experienced so far are all in English. But I've seen Latin Mass videos on YouTube and those look amazing. So one thing I was considering was checking out the Latin Mass once I've been officially welcomed into the Church because it is available in my area. The one closest to me is FFSP. Actually, there's one closer but that one's SSPX and I don't think I want to go there.

I'll be honest though, in a perfect world there'd be an Anglican-Use parish nearby. The closest one though is WAY uptown. I've traded messages with the rector of my ex-church home, a small ACNA parish, but he (politely) made it very clear that he doesn't want to reunite with Rome even though instruments exist to facilitate that very thing. So those are all out of the question.

But I'd LOVE to attend an Anglican-Use church. Really, it's the language of the Anglican Rite that does the trick. It's King Jamesy enough for me; it's intelligent, articulate and beautiful. As much as I'm coming to love the Catholic Church, the language thereof is just pedestrian.

Don't take my word for it though. See for yourself:

Prayer of Humble Access:
We do not presume to come to this Thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in Thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy Table. But Thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us. Amen.

-- Book of Common Prayer, 1662

If anything, it's a reminder to us that as the Church has many things to offer the Anglicans, the Anglicans also have something to offer the Church. They bring something to the table. It's a pretty clear demonstration of how important reunification is.

But wow, I've strayed from my original point. I guess what I'm saying is that lacking an Anglican-Use alternative, I'll give the Latin Mass a shot.