For the first time, today I attended the Catholic Mass of St Thomas More Parish in Toronto, which is part of the “Anglican Patrimony within the Communion of the Catholic Church” (as it says on their website). The Anglican Ordinariate, as it’s commonly called, was established by Pope Benedict XVI in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus and is juridically equivalent to a diocese, although parishes may be established within the territory of another diocese. They have their own calendar, holy days of obligation, their own breviary, and their own bishops. But most intriguingly—and the very reason I bussed one hour each way to visit this parish in the first place—they have their own liturgy that preserves elements of the Anglican patrimony that is brought in line with Catholic teaching.

How would I describe the liturgy? I’ve heard some people say that it’s kind of like the Old Latin Mass but in English. To be sure, there is some truth to this claim. The Mass was sung, celebrated ad orientem (i.e., with the priest facing the altar rather than the congregation), there was plenty of incense, we used altar rails, and communion was received on the tongue. It was a far cry from the modern “guitar masses” that one sometimes finds, and bore a certain similarity to the Mass of the Old Latin Rite.

At the same time, it was very unlike the Tridentine Mass. For one, I could understand what the priest was saying, and there was a lot more singing and responses from the congregation. The solemn silences common to the Old Rite were not to be found here. In this respect, I would compare it to the Novus Ordo, except that it didn’t feel much like the Mass of Paul VI. There were parts of the Mass that were practically the same as in the Book of Common Prayer. It brought me back to my days as an Anglican, and by the time we said the penitential rite, I remembered when I first said these words, and realised the full weight of my sins:

We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.

An extract of the Penitential Rite from Divine Worship: The Missal

I forgotten how beautifully worded the Book of Common Prayer could be, though I must confess that one more than one occasion I was confused by the Cranmerian English I was once so used to.

If I were to describe the Mass more briefly, what would I say? I would say that as a convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism, the Mass felt almost like a homogenous mixture of my entire Christian experience. I felt like I was seeing three different and distinct Masses all at once, yet it was only one Mass that I witnessed. It wasn’t quite what I expected, and I suspect this is a good thing. Yet the movement is still small and growing, so I would encourage anyone with any interest at all to visit the closest Ordinariate Parish if you are able to, and see what it’s all about. What it is is not an escape from the “guitar masses”, nor is it something that is old and decrepit and stuck in the past. It is something entirely new that in fact is not new at all.