The Missal

The language of the Divine Worship series is more akin to that of the Book of Common Prayer, the King James Bible, and the works of William Shakespeare. It is a register of English that is set apart from common speech and its timeless beauty makes it fitting for use in worship.

The late Anglican theologians Peter Toon and Louis Tarsitano wrote a short book explaining and defending the usage of this register of English for the liturgy which is called Neither Archaic Nor Obsolete: The Language of Common Prayer and Public Worship.

Divine Worship: The Missal permits the usage of many traditional elements that were removed from the liturgy during the reforms after Vatican II yet continued to be used in many Anglo-Catholic communities, such as:

• the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar,

• the Traditional Roman Offertory, and

• the Last Gospel.

Likewise, many communities within the Anglican Ordinariates continue to practice various other liturgical traditions that have become less common in the ordinary Roman Rite:

• Ad Orientem,

• the Roman Canon, and

• the Reception of Holy Communion upon the Tongue.

Many of the texts we use in the liturgy are derived from Anglican tradition, such as:

• the Collect for Purity,

• the Summary of the Law,

• our Penitential Rite,

• our Bidding Prayers (or Prayers of the People),

• the Prayer of Humble Access,

• and the “Fraction Anthem.”

To see some of these texts, please visit our Patrimonial Prayers page.

Divine Worship: The Missal restores the propers to their pride of place. For example, the traditional Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion verses are given in the Missal itself and are normative; whereas in the ordinary Roman Rite they must be looked up in the Graduale Romanum.

However, as the Divine Worship series makes use of the modern three-year lectionary, the Responsorial Psalm and Alleluia verses found in that same lectionary may replaced the Missal’s propers.