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Sarum

The Low Churchman’s guide to Solemn High Mass

Sarum

Since last month there is a wonderful new site: The Low Churchman’s guide to Solemn High Mass “Keeping loyal Anglicans safe from supersticion since 2013”. Here is a sample of what it offers:

THE SARUM USE
If two Ritualists happen to meet in the street, before long their conversation will turn to something called the “Sarum Use.” As far as our agents have been able to determine, this term refers to a long-dead tradition of idolatrous liturgical customs practiced by dyspeptic monks and scrofulous abbots during the darkest years of the Middle Ages. As its name suggests, the Sarum use is named after the evil wizard Saruman in the medieval epic The Lord of the Rings, which gives some idea of the contempt in which these corrupt traditions were held by the common people of England.

With the advent of Ritualism, a movement to recover the Sarum liturgical tradition was launched. Dyspeptic medievalists and scrofulous paleographers descended into the deepest recesses of our cathedral libraries and emerged with moth-eaten tomes detailing the customs of their medieval forebears. Long-forgotten details of the Sarum liturgical tradition were unearthed from their deserved obscurity and brought into use in ritualist parishes, where even the immortal words of Archbishop Cranmer are yoked to the most hateful practices of the Sarum ceremonial that it was his life’s work to destroy.

Among ritualists it is a matter of some controversy whether their ceremonial should follow the corrupt idolatry of medieval Sarum or the corrupt idolatry of Baroque Romanism. The loyal churchman will resist both with equal fervour, because even after long study he is unable to tell the difference.

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5 thoughts on “The Low Churchman’s guide to Solemn High Mass”

  1. These guides are very useful to ignorant low churchmen.

    Not least because they confirm our worst fears …

    🙂

  2. William Ireland

    Well it would seem that the author is thoroughly evangelical and has done no research and has no or very limited understanding of History of the church and Liturgies of the church in the UK.
    the Sarum Usage was the common liturgy in the British Isles from well before the great schism of the Eastern and Western church until the reformation due to the negative ways of King Henry 8th.
    I feel sorry that the richness of the Liturgy has been thoroughly destroyed and disposed of in the modern Anglican and Roman churches.

  3. Jordan Greatbatch

    Ummm William, you do know it is satire….. Came across this page the other day in my travels, very funny!

  4. Is it April Fool’s Day again already Bosco?!

    I never felt entirely comfortable in Anglican High Churches, it always felt a little like playing at Catholicism or Orthodoxy…so satire might be entirely appropriate 🙂

    Percy Dearmer who wished to reinvigorate the church of England with non-Catholic medieval rites and rituals ( he was a socialist, quite an eclectic character! ) instead contributed substantially to church music with the re-arrangement, collecting and reintroduction of traditional English and Gaelic songs, most notably carols.

    As children we sang in assembly every morning his hymn:
    God is love ~ his the care,
    tending each, everywhere;
    God is love ~ all is there!
    Jesus came to show him,
    that we all might know him …

    set to the 16th century tune ‘Personent Hodie’ arranged by Gustav Holst.

    Little side-trip down memory lane for me there!

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