The recent document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has given the Church fresh language for something long known instinctively within the life of the Ordinariate: that the Anglican patrimony is “a precious gift […] and a treasure to be shared.” It speaks of beauty as evangelising, of a pastoral culture in which divine worship and daily life are intimately joined, and of a tradition that is not antiquarian but alive - received, lived, and handed on.

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Nowhere is that more immediately apparent than in the realm of music and liturgy.

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To encounter the Ordinariate at prayer is to encounter a tradition in which worship is not reduced to functionality, nor music treated as an accessory. Here, music belongs to the liturgy because it belongs to prayer. It is part of the offering. As Fr David Lashbrooke -  Vicar General of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham - put it in our conversation on liturgy and music: “liturgy expresses our relationship with God.” And just as importantly: “it’s not a show.”

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That distinction matters. In an age that instinctively turns almost everything into performance, the Ordinariate preserves a more demanding and more beautiful instinct: that sacred music exists not to entertain an audience, but to draw souls into the mystery of God. Fr David put it bluntly in speaking of carol services: “If someone leaves thinking they’ve been to a carol concert, we’ve manifestly failed.” The aim, rather, “is to draw people into the great mystery of the Incarnation.”

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This is precisely the kind of insight the Roman document now helps illuminate. What the Ordinariate offers the wider Church is not merely a repertoire, nor a preferred aesthetic, but a whole sacramental imagination: a way of understanding that beauty can dispose the heart to truth, that music can carry doctrine, and that worship forms Christians not only by what is said, but by what is sung, repeated, remembered, and loved.

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Fr David’s most suggestive point is that much of what people casually label “Anglican” in this context is, in fact, something older and deeper: part of the spiritual inheritance of these islands themselves. “It’s not a very Anglican thing. It’s a very English thing,” he said, speaking of traditions such as sung offices, carol services, and the scriptural, musical shaping of devotion. That is an important distinction. It places the Ordinariate’s liturgical life not simply in relation to the modern history of Anglicanism, but within the longer history of English Christianity: a history of plainsong and psalmody, of antiphons and processions, of cathedral foundations, parish choirs, mystery plays, vernacular devotion, and the enduring desire to let the faith be not only taught, but heard.

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That wider cultural inheritance has been receiving renewed public attention. In January, The Telegraph described Evensong as “the very sound of English history,” arguing that choral worship still has a remarkable power to speak into a time of national uncertainty and cultural amnesia. At the same time, Cathedral Music Trust has been involved in a campaign to have “English Sacred Choral Music” recognised in the UK’s new inventory of intangible cultural heritage, describing it as a “living practice” with “a long, continuous history” from the medieval period to the present, expressed across denominations in liturgical worship as well as wider cultural life.

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The Ordinariate stands in a particularly interesting relation to that conversation. It is not the sole guardian of this tradition, of course. But it is one of the places where it can still be seen whole: liturgy, music, scripture, doctrine, and devotion held together, not fragmented into concert culture on the one hand and utilitarian parish practice on the other. In the Ordinariate, the tradition is not admired from a distance. It is inhabited.

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That is why hymnody matters so much. Fr David observed that “English spirituality” is often found most vividly “in our hymnody.” He is right. English sacred song has long done more than ornament devotion; it has taught the faith, lodged scripture in the memory, and cultivated reverence through poetry. George Herbert, metrical psalmody, ancient Latin hymns reborn in English dress, the great Victorian and Edwardian corpus, the carol tradition: all of these belong to a world in which doctrine was not merely explained, but sung until it became part of the inner life.

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That instinct is missionary, not nostalgic. Fr David spoke movingly about the danger of allowing words like “English” to be emptied of spiritual meaning and claimed by narrower ideological projects. “We stop talking about spirituality,” he said. “We stop talking about English spirituality.” The Ordinariate’s musical and liturgical life quietly resists that impoverishment. It says that the faith of this land has a sound: reverent, scriptural, contemplative, incarnational. Not strident, not tribal, not self-enclosed, but ordered to the glory of God.

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One sees this especially in the liturgical shape of Advent and Christmas, though the principle is evergreen. Fr David described the Advent carol service as a procession through scripture: from darkness to light, from prophecy to promise, from Isaiah to the Magnificat, ending not in cosy sentiment but in eschatological longing, even with Benediction and the great Advent cry of “Lo! he comes with clouds descending.” “It takes you from hope to realization,” he said. 

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This is not seasonal decoration. It is theology enacted through music, light, text, and silence.

And that, perhaps, is the heart of it. The Ordinariate’s liturgical music is not important merely because it is beautiful, though it often is. It is important because it embodies a way of receiving the faith. It assumes that people can be led gently and deeply into mystery; that scripture should be given its full resonance; that worship should take time; that beauty and truth belong together; that music offered “simply for the glory of God” changes those who offer it.

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The Roman document has now named this reality with unusual clarity. The Anglican patrimony, lived in Catholic communion, is a gift to the Church’s mission today. In music and liturgy, that gift becomes audible. It is heard in the seriousness with which hymnody is chosen, in the conviction that liturgy is offering rather than performance, in the confidence that beauty still evangelises, and in the old but ever-new belief that what is sung with the lips may indeed be believed in the heart.

Our band of 12 hearty Ordinariate souls, half lay and half clerical, began our expedition in the medieval city of Sienna, to complete the Via Francigena to Rome. With a batch of blisters, backpacks and breviaries, we walked the 177 miles through luscious countryside and occasional bleak urban sprawl, in a bid for jubilee indulgences at St Peter’s tomb. Our pilgrims were made up of those from the Ordinariate parishes of Pembury, Manchester, Southend, Coventry, Torquay and London (Warwick Street, Soho). Father David Lashbrook valiantly drove from Torquay (Cornwall) to Siena, to be our provisions vehicle and knight in shining armour should anything result in the need for a pickup. Some of us used the vehicle for luggage, and some of us carried everything on the walk.

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The Via Francigena starts in Canterbury, England and ends in Rome. However, for our ten-day version, we commenced our pilgrimage 177 miles out of Rome, in Siena, Tuscany, Italy. Our days started at 6am with morning mass or prayer, followed by a breakfast of coffee and an Italian sweet or pastry. We would then start walking shortly after sunrise. Many of us stopped at the shrines along the paths to say a prayer and visit each church that we walked past, as well as praying The Angelus. After arriving at our accommodation, we would say evening mass or pray the office before dinner. 

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The first half of our walk was through the Tuscan countryside and vineyards. One of our group very accurately described the views as “like walking through a painting”… Entering Lazio brought changes in the scenery and the terrain, where villages became cities and there was distinct change from rural to sub-urban life. We were blessed with temperate weather throughout our walk, sunny and dry but mild through the day and cool evenings. The days brought pleasures and challenges, pleasures including vineyards (some with tasting rooms), volcanic lakes, natural hot baths and waterfalls to swim in. Challenges involving steep inclines and long distances peppered with road-side walking, all of which played havoc on all our feet. We stayed in pilgrim’s hostels and Convents/Monasteries, the former of which being varying degrees of penitential… We were very well looked after by the Passionists of Viterbo and we are very grateful for their warm welcome and hospitality as well as the opportunity to celebrate Mass in the former house of Dominic Barberi.

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As always with these walking pilgrimages, some of the most wonderful memories are the other pilgrims that you meet. On our second day, we met a young Brazilian couple, who were walking from Luca to Rome, for their wedding! Though we were all invited, three of our group were even able to make it to the wedding itself! On the hardest day of walking, we were accompanied by a dog for the last 10km of the walk, who escorted us from a rural farm along the road into the local town. This creature, who we named ‘Angelo’ for his long white fur and angelic nature, is known in the town for escorting weary pilgrims for the last section of the longest and steepest day of walking. We met an Australian couple, who were Baptists and attended our mass in Bolsena Basilica, which moved them to tears! We met an English couple, who were not practicing in their faith, but also attended our masses and were fascinated by the Ordinariate. So much so, they generously bought us all a round of drinks as a token of their admiration. Hetty and Matthew, we thank you for your generosity and if you ever see this, please get in touch!

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Arriving into Rome in 30-degree heat was the moment we all had been waiting for. The view of St Peter’s Basilica peaking at us from the horizon was thrilling, and as we drew closer, the mixed emotions of keenness to reach our destination versus the sadness of the end of a monumental pilgrimage, accompanied us through the last few miles. We arrived to St Peter’s and then made our way to The Venerable English College for Evensong (sung beautifully by Fr Lashbrook), with Bishop Waller and other Ordinariate Parishioners who had not been able to join us for the walking. Some superb memories that we will cherish forever. Thank you Fr Starkie, Fr Leviseur and Deacon Richard for organising and running the trip.