Given that this book was published while Andrew Burnham was still Bishop of Ebbsfleet in the Church of England and that in the next year he became a monsignor within the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Anglican readers might be forgiven for wondering whether this book needs to come with a health warning. No one is likely to read it looking for reasons to remain Anglican. At the same time, it provides valuable insights into the new Anglican phenomenon that is the Ordinariate and into the ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ that is having a growing impact on the contemporary expression of the Western liturgical tradition that Anglicans and Roman Catholics share.

The weakest part of the book is the first chapter, ‘Catholic or Reformed’, which reaches the regretful conclusion that the Church of England is reformed rather than catholic. Even without hindsight, it reads like an apologia for a change of allegiance. The very fact that Burnham frames an either/or argument begs the question whether a church cannot be both catholic and reformed, indeed whether the Roman Catholic Church itself, particularly since Vatican II, is not both. Before Pope Benedict settled on the phrase ‘hermeneutic of continuity’, he advocated a hermeneutic of ‘reform’ (as opposed to ‘rupture’) in response to the Council.

For Burnham, the barque of Peter is a refuge of safety. He is impatient and unprepared to countenance any uncertainty. He confesses that he finds ‘a maddening ambiguity at the heart of Anglican eucharistic theology’ which for him now extends to the whole Anglican project. He offers a tendentious historical account of Anglicanism with little room for diversity or nuance. Thus the relationship between church and state in England is Erastian, pure and simple, without discussion or reference to Hooker. Cranmer's own theology is definitive for the Church of England, not because there is no evidence to the contrary but because that is a convenient box into which to relegate an Anglicanism that is reformed and not catholic. The ARCIC agreed statements might just as well never have been written. This rigidity leads to some amusing inconsistencies. Burnham argues that because Cranmer translated the Sarum collects into an Augustinian mode, he made them reformed rather than catholic prayers (p. 12). Later, he commends the same Prayer Book collects as essential to the Anglican patrimony of the ordinariate (p. 38) and he commends the Augustinian theology of Pope Benedict (p. 73).

Sometimes Anglo-papalists are accused of a pick-and-mix approach to liturgy, freely combining elements of Anglican and Roman rites to suit their purpose. Having always wondered how Anglican priests could use the Roman rite in their parishes having promised to ‘use only the forms of service which are authorized or allowed by Canon’, it was a revelation to me to realise that this promise need not be taken to mean exclusively the Canons of the Church of England (p. 31)! Burnham's own prescriptions for an ideal liturgical provision do have a grab-bag quality, a collection of favourite bits: a silent canon here, a Gallican offertory prayer there, a combination of plainsong propers and congregational hymns from the reformed tradition, a preference for archaic language, an Ambrosian psalm cycle alongside the restoration of some features of the pre-conciliar breviary and the Gallican psalter, a plea for the restoration of the Pentecost octave. They are the sorts of things that a priest in an Anglo-catholic parish could freely play with, but it will be fascinating to see whether the Roman authorities have any patience with it.

The reason, however, that these and other elements of the liturgy matter to Burnham is that he sees them as intrinsic to the recovery of an ‘enchanted’ liturgy that conveys the presence of a transcendent God, a presence that has been squeezed out by the prevalence of sloppy liturgy, trivial music, academic fashion, and an unexamined modernism. He offers an accessible introduction to the ‘reform of the reform’, the movement within the Roman Catholic Church that looks to combine pre-conciliar traditions with the modern mass. Even if he is looking for the revival of traditions that many others argue should remain dead and buried, he is doing so for the best of Vatican II reasons: because, he argues, the modern liturgy has failed to transform the Church into the image and likeness of Christ. He believes that a rediscovery of the depths of the tradition would renew the sense of the Church as the Body of Christ embracing past, present and future. ‘The liturgy is not only the shop window but the place of serious engagement: here is revealed the authenticity or otherwise of Christian communities, the life and lives they lead, and the worship and prayer they offer’ (p. 85).

Despite the diffuse character of his enthusiasms, Burnham is a convincing apologist for this movement and for the need to celebrate the liturgy and live the Christian life in depth. When he calls for the rediscovery of the discipline of fasting, he rightly ventures this principle: ‘that if less and less is asked of those who practise the faith, fewer and fewer people will practise it, and the faith that they practise will also gradually diminish’ (p. 80). Asking more of ourselves and our faith through engaging with the disciplines of the common life, understanding the calendar, singing the office and the Eucharist, recovering our communion with the saints are all means of knowing ever more deeply Christ's presence with us and living his risen life in our world.

There is every reason why Anglicans should take a careful interest in the development of the Ordinariate and its liturgical provisions, more than simply that Anglicans and Romans share a common liturgical tradition. Pope Benedict, by his formation of the Ordinariate, is clearly saying that the Anglican tradition and its liturgical expression have important gifts to offer the Roman Church. He would like to see that Anglican tradition fertilizing the contemporary life of the Roman Church alongside the renewed Tridentine rite. The Ordinariate may feel to many Anglicans like a back-handed tribute, but tribute it is nevertheless.