Will the New Anglo Catholic Liturgy End the Reformation?

Well I think not but I will have some further thoughts after this wonderful article that just appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

Here is the start of it:

On a recent evening, about 60 people—ex-Episcopalians, curious Catholics and a smattering of earnest Episcopal priests in clerical collars—gathered downtown for an unusual liturgy: It was Evensong and Benediction, sung according to the Book of Divine Worship, an Anglican Use liturgical book still being prepared in Rome.

Beautiful evensongs are a signature of Protestant Episcopal worship. Benediction, which consists of hymns, canticles or litanies before the consecrated host on the altar, is a Catholic devotion. We were getting a blend of both at St. Mary Mother of God Church, lent for the occasion.

One former Episcopalian present confessed to having to choke back tears as the first plainsong strains of "Humbly I Adore Thee," the Anglican version of a hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas, floated down from the organ in the balcony. A convert to Catholicism, she could not believe she was sitting in a Catholic Church, hearing the words of her Anglican girlhood—and as part of an authorized, Roman Catholic liturgy.

And that was not the only miracle. Although the texts had been carefully vetted in Rome for theological points, the words being sung were written by Thomas Cranmer, King Henry VIII's architect of the English Reformation. "He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel," the congregation chanted, "as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever."

The language of this translation of the Magnificat, one of Christianity's two great evening canticles, is unfamiliar to many Episcopalians today, as it comes from earlier versions of their Book of Common Prayer. Yet a number of former Anglicans are eager to carry some of this liturgy with them when they swim the Tiber, as Episcopalians becoming Catholic often call the conversion. "I wonder why the phrase 'and there is no health in us' was omitted from the penitential rite" by the Vatican vetters of the newly approved rite for converts, one nostalgic ex-Episcopalian mused aloud. "Must be too Calvinist," suggested another. ...

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I really think that this will be big and will effect all Catholic Liturgy to a vast degree. For many of Catholic Converts before we crossed the Tiber we took a look at the Episcopal Church. It was with some regret that we could not have a CATHOLIC APPROVED version of that Liturgy. To be blunt the English Mass was a let down. The language a tad ordinary.

Further I guess many people my age were exposed just to the 1979 Prayerbook and one wonders (this article gives us a hint) of the wonders we shall see here.

How many cradle Catholics are going to see this and go WOW!! How many Evangelicals and others that perhaps will find this Liturgy appealing.

I have a feeling that many more Catholics that might not be into the Latin Mass might find a spiritual liturgical home here.