I stumbled across a great blog, Sub Tuum, by Brother Stephen, a once Anglo-Catholic Anglican who has become Roman Catholic and a Cistercian monk.
He gives an amazingly insightful view of what it will be like for disquieted Anglicans who swim into Roman waters and the new 'Anglican Ordinariate'. If they think their journey will be a walk in the park, they are likely in for a BIG and jolting surprise.
I have made such a journey of conversion of culture and heart. It is a major shift and not to be take lightly. It is a matter of deep discernment, to move from one Christian world to another... So be prepared for the jet lag, and the time that will be needed to adjust your ecclesial clock.
Any such pilgrimage should be undertaken with much prayer, some fear and trembling and with an open heart that is full of love rather than spite, and excitement rather than escape, and a willingness to jump in with both feet across a wide gap and with deep sense of reverence 'mid-air,' as you look over the horizon and scan the new and different landscape and ethos of faith that you are covenanting to make yours.
Read the quote below from the larger post 'One Last Evensong'
' ...
An Anglican entering the Roman Catholic Church today has to make peace
with living in a world where there are others whose Masses are higher
than his and where an entire television network and a legion of
periodicals and blogs flank him to the theological right. The reasons
for the pride that may have sustained him in recent years are greatly
diminished on this side of the water, even if we have our own extensive
muddy patches. He must lay down his claim to being his own Holy Office
and play sheep to its former head. He must give up politicking global
alliances and reconcile himself to being a small if colorful fish in a
very large pond where his customs are only one set among many. He must
live in a world where, should his experiment fail, external factors
will be harder to blame than they are today. Though undoubtedly the
members of the ordinariates will suffer their share of unwarranted
indignities, those who have often felt them.. selves to be the victim are
now being offered the opportunity to show their skill at being the
vinekeeper.
It
is a fearful task that requires ongoing striving for a fundamental
transformation of the self. The ordinariates will be judged a success
not to the degree that their members show they embrace the Catechism,
that's rather easy, but to the extent they show they have converted
their hearts, that fundamental thing that the Father asks of us all.
Converting the heart is a hard business, but it is in this internal
struggle rather than the battlefields of the culture wars where saints
are most likely to be made and it is in showing success at this where
the Anglican ordinariates will give a greater gift to the wider Church
than any text or tune by offering many of us who are a bit too pleased
with ourselves a necessary corrective and good example.
