Monday, March 18, 2024

The Cutting Edge: Priest Posts 1966 Video as Response to “Mass of the Ages”

Episode 3 of The Mass of the Ages, “Guardians of Tradition,” was premiered at the Pickwick Theater in Chicago on March 9, to immense acclaim. (You can read my initial thoughts about it here.) It is one of the finest films yet produced about the traditionalist movement, showing the diverse international appeal of the traditional rites across races, classes, cultures, countries. The film, professional to the nth degree, is catholic in the best sense: we hear from, and see footage of, communities on many continents. Every stereotype on which the opposition to the traditional rite relies has been exploded by this new film.

It is not my intention here to offer a full review of the episode, which will be released on YouTube tomorrow, March 19 (link), even as it continues to be shown on the big screen in select movie theaters. Rather, I simply wish to point out the poverty of the response to the Mass of the Ages episodes.

To my knowledge, there has not been a single film in recent years, even for the 50th anniversary of the Novus Ordo, intended to showcase its wonders, glories, conquests, and triumphs. Some Dominicans attempted a very sad critique of the Mass of the Ages Episode 2; NLM’s editor Gregory DiPippo capably eviscerated it (part 1; part 2). Otherwise... crickets.

A certain priest of the Vatican II generation did, however, share on YouTube a digitally remastered film on The History of The Catholic Mass produced in 1966 by Fr. Theodore Stone of the archdiocese of Chicago, to aid in the education of clergy and laity following Vatican ll. This video “traces the Mass from its beginning with the Passover meal and Jesus transforming it into the Eucharist followed by the 1st through the 3rd centuries, and from the 4th century to the present.”

All who watch the film will find it painfully amusing: a true “period piece,” with as much present-day relevance an eight-track cassette. A priest of the same generation as the pope stands at his unattractive Volksaltar and simply says, straight up, that the Mass was radically changed. Thank you!

This would appear to be, so far, the only quasi-official response to the Mass of the Ages: digging up a filmstrip originally released in 1966 (but digitally remastered!) To think that a priest today can believe that a video from the Sixties of such cringeworthy quality would somehow help educate (or “reeducate”) Catholics into the grandeurs of liturgical reform shows just what a radical generational disconnect there is, and how utterly empty is the defense of the reform. No counterarguments—only assertions from the Age of Aquarius.

This is why the turning of the tides will come, later than we might wish, but sooner than we may dare to believe possible.

The cutting edge... it’s what all the kids are into these days... (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Rich Harris, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Passiontide in Other Western Rites

Two years ago, I wrote an article about the Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent, the last day before Passiontide begins, in which I noted that the custom of joining the last two weeks of Lent as a liturgical period distinct from the rest of the season is unique to the Roman Rite, and that “the specific … character of this period is older than its formal nomenclature.” Even though Passion Sunday is called “the Fifth Sunday of Lent” in the very oldest Roman liturgical books, there is a nevertheless a significant shift in the tenor of the liturgy that begins on that day, and it was this shift in tenor that led to the change of name before the end of the 9th century. Where the Scriptural lessons at Mass during the first four weeks focus very much on Lenten penance and preparation for baptism at the Easter vigil, those of the last two weeks are centered much more on the Lord’s Passion. The very first reading of Passiontide, Hebrews 9, 11-15, speaks of the blood of Christ that “cleanse(s our) conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” The Gradual that follows it is one of many texts that speak in the person of the Lord in the midst of His sufferings, “Deliver me, o Lord, from my enemies.”
In the Divine Office, the hymns of the Passion, Vexilla Regis at Vespers and Pange lingua in two parts, one at Matins and one at Lauds, are said until the Triduum, in which no hymns are used. In the first part of Lent, the Scriptural readings of Matins continue from the Pentateuch, which had begun on Septuagesima, and the responsories of that period are taken from the same books. On Passion Sunday, they switch to the prophet Jeremiah, whose tribulations are taken as a prefiguration of the Lord’s. The responsories of Passiontide, however, are mostly taken from the Psalms, and also speak in the person of the suffering Lord.
There is one very notable exception to this, the very first responsory in the series, which is based on Leviticus 23, 5-6.
R. Isti sunt dies, quos observáre debétis tempóribus suis: * Quartadécima die ad vésperum Pascha Dómini est: et in quintadécima solemnitátem celebrábitis altíssimo Dómino. V. Locútus est Dóminus ad Móysen, dicens: Lóquere filiis Israël, et dices ad eos. Quartadécima die…
R. These are the days which ye must observe in their seasons: * on the fourteenth day at evening is the Passover of the Lord, and on the fifteenth day ye shall celebrate a solemnity unto the Lord Most High. V. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them. On the fourteenth day…
Normally, the responsories of Sunday are repeated in order during the week, but this one is, for obvious reasons related to the text, said only on Passion Sunday itself.
As I have noted elsewhere, the Mass of the Easter vigil is NOT a first Mass of the solemnity of Easter, but rather a keeping watch for the Resurrection, which is marked by its incomplete character; it has no Introit, no Offertory, no Agnus Dei, the Creed is not said, and the Peace is not given. This is the rite of the “fourteenth day at evening”, the proper time for the Easter vigil, the beginning, but not the fulfillment, of “the Passover of the Lord.” It is on the fifteenth day, Easter Sunday, that the Resurrection is celebrated with the fullness of “a solemnity.”
This same division between Lent and Passiontide is also found in the Ambrosian Rite, and although it is in some respects less pronounced, it is nevertheless very real. The Ambrosian Rite never adopted the term “Passiontide”, and continued to call this Sunday “the Fifth Sunday of Lent.” In the Divine Office, the Lenten hymns Audi, benigne Conditor and Ex more docti mystico are sung at Lauds and Vespers respectively during the week. (The hymn of Matins is invariable.)
However, the very long Offertory chant on Sunday, which is also used in a shorter form on the following four days, contains the same text from Leviticus 23 as the Roman responsory cited above.
Offertorium Haec dicit Dóminus: Erit vobis sábbatum venerábile, et vocábitur sanctum; et offerétis ad vésperum holocaustómata vestra: quia in die illa propitiábitur vobis Salvátor vester.
V. I Locútus est Móyses filiis Israel, dicens: Quartodécimo die ad vésperum Pascha Dómini est, et in quintodécimo sollemnitátem celebrábitis altíssimo Deo: quia in die illa propitiábitur vobis Salvator vester.
V. II In die octávo ventúro súmite vobis ramos palmárum, et secundum legem, quam praecépi vobis, sollemnitátem celebrábitis altíssimo Deo: quia in die illa propitiábitur vobis Salvator vester.
Offertory Thus saith the Lord, “The Sabbath shall be venerable unto you, and will be called holy, and ye shall offer in the evening your holocausts: for on that day your Savior shall be merciful to you.”
V. I Moses spoke to the children of Israel, saying, “On the fourteenth day at evening is the Passover of the Lord, and on the fifteenth day ye shall celebrate a solemnity unto God Most High. For on that day your Savior shall be merciful to you.
V. II “On the eighth day to come, take ye up branches of palms, and according to the law which I have commanded you, ye shall celebrate a solemnity unto God Most High. For on that day your Savior shall be merciful to you.”
The words “the Sabbath shall be venerable unto you” refer to a very ancient custom which has been preserved in the Ambrosian Rite to this very day. As my colleague Nicola de’ Grandi has explained, the Saturdays of Lent are all dedicated to the rites by which the catechumens are prepared to receive Baptism at the Easter vigil. The last of these, the day before Palm Sunday, is called “in traditione symboli – at the handing-over of the Creed”, when the catechumens were taught the Creed which they would have to recite at the Easter vigil. The words of the second verse (paraphrased from select verses of the same chapter of Leviticus), refer of course to Palm Sunday, and are omitted during the week.
At the ferial Masses of the first four weeks of Lent, the Ambrosian Rite reads the Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5-7 of the Gospel of St Matthew, as instruction to the catechumens. On the ferias after the fifth Sunday, however, the focus of the Gospel readings shifts just as it does in the Roman Rite, and looks forward to the Passion.
Monday: Mark 8, 27-33: “And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the ancients and by the high priests, and the scribes, and be killed: and after three days rise again.”
Tuesday: John 6, 64-72: “Have not I chosen you twelve; and one of you is a devil? Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray him.”
Wednesday: Luc. 18, 31-34: “all things shall be accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of man. For he shall be delivered to the gentiles, and shall be mocked, and scourged, and spit upon: And … they will put him to death; and the third day he shall rise again.”
Thursday: John 7, 43-53: “There arose a dissension among the people because of Jesus. And some of them would have apprehended him: but no man laid hands on him.” (The Fridays of Lent are aliturgical in the Ambrosian Rite, and therefore have no Gospels.)
These readings belong to the very oldest layer of the Ambrosian tradition, before the extensive Romanization of the rite which took place in the Carolingian era. We may therefore fairly say that the Ambrosian “Passiontide” is just as ancient as the Roman one, despite the lack of a formal terminology marking it as such.
The same custom is also found in the Mozarabic Rite; on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, the Sacrificium (the equivalent of the Roman Offertory) is in part very similar to the Roman responsory cited above, and in part to the Ambrosian Offertory.
Sacrificium Isti sunt dies, quos debétis custodíre tempóribus suis: * Quartadécima die ad vésperum Pascha Dómini est: et in quintadécima solemnitátem celebrábitis altíssimo Deo vestro. V. Locútus est Móyses filiis Israel, dicens: In die octávo ventúro súmite vobis ramos palmárum, et exsultáte in conspectu Dómini, et secundum legem, quod (sic) vobis praecépi, sollemnitátem celebrábitis altíssimo altíssimo Deo vestro.
Sacrificium These are the days which ye must keep in their seasons: * on the fourteenth day at evening is the Passover of the Lord, and on the fifteenth day ye shall celebrate a solemnity unto your God, the Most High. V. Moses spoke to the children of Israel, saying, “On the eighth day to come, take ye up branches of palms, exult in the sight of the Lord, and according to the law which I have commanded you, ye shall celebrate a solemnity unto unto your God, the Most High.”
Moses with the Tablets of the Law, ca. 1408-10, by the Florentine painter Lorenzo Monaco (1370-1425 ca.). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.
This is followed by a prayer called a Missa, which explains the symbolism of this chant very beautifully.
“Deus, qui mýstico olim praesagio fámulo tuo Móysi, inter alias praeceptórum tuórum ceremonias, etiam horum diérum solemnia in monte Sinai propitius ostendisti, ut octávo die ventúro súmerent diversárum árborum fructus, ramos quoque palmárum, et exultárent in conspectu Dómini Dei sui cum hymnis: concéde nobis fámulis tuis, ut innocentiae et fídei veritáte sincéri, tuis semper coram altáribus assistámus, sicque tibi parsimoniam córporum offerámus, ut actuum plenitúdinem perfectis apud nos móribus retentémus. – O God, who of old, by a mystical prophecy, didst upon Mount Sinai mercifully show to Thy servant Moses, amid the other ceremonies of Thy precepts, also the solemnities of these days, that they (i.e. Israelites) might on the eighth day take up the fruit of various trees, and branches of palms, and rejoice in the sight of the Lord, their God, with hymns: grant to us Thy servants, that with purity in the truth of innocence and faith, we may also stand before Thine altars, and so offer to Thee our bodily fasting, that we may retain the fullness of these deeds with perfect conduct.”

Finally, we may note that according in older lectionaries of the Mozarabic Rite, the same passage that provides this chants is also the first reading of the Mass (Leviticus 23, 5-8; 23-28; 39-41), but this custom is no longer followed.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Photopost Request: Passiontide Veils 2024

Our next photopost series will be of your churches with the Crosses, statues and paintings veiled for Passiontide. Please send your pictures to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org for inclusion; remember to give us the name and location of the church, and always feel free to add any other information you think important. It’s not a bad idea to include a shot or two of the church before the veils are put up. We will also be glad to include any pictures of rose-colored vestments on Laetare Sunday, or the upcoming feasts of St Patrick (transferred to Passion Monday this year) or the feast of St Joseph. Keep up the good work of evangelizing through beauty!

From our first Passiontide photopost of last year: the church of St Ann in Vilnius, Lithuania. 
From the second post: another church dedicated to St Anne, this one in the town of Noord on the island of Aruba.

Roman Pilgrims at the Station Churches 2024 (Part 3)

In the eleven years we have run this series, we have had a number of interruptions, when, for one reason or another, our Roman pilgrim friends were unable to make it to the stational churches. So this year we lost the second half of the second week of Lent, and the beginning of the third, to Agnese having a serious cold, work commitments, and the ever-popular Roman public transport strike. (Maybe two strikes... who can tell?) Things should be back on track now to the end of Passion week, so it’s time to do some catching up. We also have some videos from Jacob Stein’s YouTube channel Crux Stationalis, and a some photos from our newest Roman pilgrim, Fr Joseph Koczera SJ. Our thanks to them all for sharing with us these testimonies of the Faith in the Eternal City!

Monday of the Second Week of Lent – St Clement
This basilica is famously built on top of two earlier levels; the 12th-century church sits on top of a church of the 4th century, which in turn sits on top of two ancient Roman buildings, one of the later 1st and another of the mid-2nd century. (All three of these levels are accessible to the public.) The procession begins in the ruins of the ancient basilica (1st picture), makes its way upstairs and through the large portico, before entering the main church for the Mass. Also notice in the 6th photo the custom of strewing greenery on the floors of churches during the station Masses; nobody seems to really know where this comes from or why it is done.
Agnese has a real knack for catching photos of the station processions from one side of the portico or cloister as they make their way through the opposite side.

The church’s liturgical choir, and the three ambos which form part of it, date to a mid-6th century restoration of the old basilica; they were removed from the ruins of it and set in place in the new basilica when it was built at the beginning of the 12th century.

Friday, March 15, 2024

The Raising of Lazarus in the Liturgy of Lent

Until the first part of the eighth century, the Thursdays of Lent were “aliturgical” days in the Roman Rite, days on which no ferial Mass was celebrated. A similar custom prevails to this day in the Ambrosian and Byzantine Rites, the former abstaining from the Eucharistic Sacrifice on all the Fridays in Lent, the latter on all the weekdays. I have described in another article why Pope St Gregory II (715-31) changed this custom, and instituted Masses for the six Thursdays between Ash Wednesday and Holy Week. The Epistle and Gospel for the Thursday in the fourth week of Lent were clearly chosen as a prelude to those of the following day, which are a much older part of the lectionary tradition. In the Epistle of both days, one of the prophets raises not just a man, but a son, at the behest of his mother, anticipating the Resurrection of the Son of God; on Thursday, Elisha raises the Sunamite’s son (4 Kings 4, 25-38), and on Friday Elijah raises the dead son of the widow of Sarephta (3 Kings 17, 17-24). Likewise, on Thursday, Christ raises the widow of Naim’s son (Luke 7, 11-16) as he is borne out to burial, and on Friday, Lazarus, on the fourth day after his death (John 11, 1-45).

In his Treatises on the Gospel of St John, St Augustine notes à propos of this latter Gospel, and the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world, “(Christ) raised one that stank, but nevertheless in the stinking cadaver there was yet the form of its members; on the last day, with one word He will restore ashes to the flesh. But it was necessary that He should then do some (miracles), so that, when these were put forth as signs of His might, we might believe in Him, and be prepared for that resurrection which will be unto life, and not unto judgement. For He sayeth thus, ‘The hour cometh, when all that are in the graves shall hear His voice. And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.’ ” (Tract 49, citing John 5, 28-29)

The Raising Of Lazarus, painted by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, 1304-06
When St Paul spoke at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17, 19-34), many of the pagan philosophers who had gathered to hear him scoffed at the mention of the resurrection of the dead. The Church Fathers bear witness to the repulsion which many pagans felt at the Christian belief that the body might share the immortality which they saw as proper only to the soul, and many early heresies rejected both the Incarnation and the resurrection of the flesh professed in the Creed. On the day when the Raising of Lazarus is read, therefore, the Lenten station is kept at the church of St Eusebius on the Esquiline hill, which stood very close to a large and very ancient necropolis, a “city of the dead”, one which dated back even before the founding of Rome itself. In this way, the Church, led by the bishop of Rome, proclaimed to the ancient pagan world Her belief in the resurrection of the body, made possible by the death and resurrection of the Savior.

On the ferias of Lent, the Communion antiphons are taken each one from a different Psalm in sequential order, starting on Ash Wednesday with Psalm 1. The days which were formerly aliturgical do not form part of this series, namely, the six Thursdays, and also the first and last Saturday; the ferias of Holy Week are also not included. (See the table below; click for larger view.)
The series is also interrupted on six days when particularly important passages of the Gospels are read, and the Communion is taken from them instead, the last such being the Raising of Lazarus.

Communio Videns Dominus flentes sorores Lazari ad monumentum, lacrimatus est coram Judaeis, et exclamavit: Lazare, veni foras: et prodiit ligatis manibus et pedibus, qui fuerat quatriduanus mortuus.
Seeing the sisters of Lazarus weeping at the tomb, the Lord wept before the Jews, and cried out: Lazarus, come forth: and he who had been dead four days came forth, bound by his hands and feet.
The Roman Mass of the day makes no other reference to the Gospel; in this sense, the Ambrosian Rite gives Lazarus much greater prominence. The second to sixth Sundays are each named for their Gospels, all taken from St John: the Samaritan Woman (4, 5-42), Abraham (8, 31-59), the Man Born Blind (9, 1-38), Lazarus (11, 1-45), and Palm Sunday (11, 55 - 12, 11). On the Fifth Sunday, four of the seven Mass chants cite the day’s Gospel, and the Preface speaks at length about the Raising of Lazarus. The Ingressa (Introit) of the Mass is similar to the Roman Communion cited above.
Ingressa Videns Dominus sororem Lazari ad monumentum, lacrimatus coram Judaeis, et exclamavit: Lazare, veni foras. Et prodiit ligatis manibus et pedibus, stetit ante eum, qui fuerat quatriduanus mortuus.
Seeing the sister of Lazarus at the tomb, the Lord wept before the Jews, and cried out: Lazarus, come forth: and he who had been dead four days, coming forth, stood before him, bound by his hands and feet.
The first reading of the Mass is Exodus 14, 15-31, the Crossing of the Red Sea, a passage which most rites have at the Easter Vigil. St Paul teaches in First Corinthians that this is a prefiguration of baptism: “Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: And did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.)” (chap. 10, 1-4) St Ambrose, in his Commentary on the Song of Songs, says that just as the children of “after the crossing of the Red Sea … were cleansed … by the flow of the rock that poured forth spiritual water, for the rock was Christ; and therefore they ate the manna; so that, as often as they were washed clean, they might eat the bread of angels… now also, in the mysteries of the Gospel, you recognize that being baptized … you are cleansed by spiritual food and drink.” (IV, 5; PL XV, 1905A)

The Crossing of the Red Sea, depicted in a paleo-Christian sarcophagus, a reasonably common motif in early Christian funerary art. The front of the sarcophagus has been sawed off and used as the front of an altar in the cathedral of Arles in France.
The Ambrosian Rite uses this passage not at the Easter vigil, but as an introduction to the story of Lazarus, whose death and resurrection foretell those of Christ Himself, and in Him, our own; first spiritually in the waters of baptism, and second in the body, at the end of the world. The chant which follows the first reading is called the Psalmellus; as the name suggests, it is almost always taken from one of the Psalms, like its Roman equivalent, the Gradual. Here we might expect that it be taken from the canticle of Moses in chapter 15, which follows the same passage at the Easter Vigil of the Roman and Byzantine Rites; instead, it is taken from the Gospel.
Psalmellus Occurrerunt Maria et Martha ad Jesum, dicentes: Domine, Domine, si fuisses hic, Lazarus non esset mortuus. Respondit Jesus: Martha, si credideris, videbis gloriam Dei. V. Videns Jesus turbam flentem, infremuit spiritu, lacrimatus; et veniens ad locum, clamavit voce magna: Lazare veni foras. Et revixit qui erat mortuus, et vidit gloriam Dei.
Mary and Martha came to meet Jesus, saying: Lord, Lord, if Thou had been here, Lazarus would not have died. Jesus answered: Martha, if thou shalt believe, thou shalt see the glory of God. V. Seeing the crowd weeping, Jesus groaned in spirit, weeping, and coming to the place, He cried out in a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth. And he that had died came back to life, and saw the glory of God.
The only other day on which the Psalmellus is taken from the Gospel is Holy Thursday, which in the Ambrosian Rite is much more focused on the Passion than on the Institution of the Eucharist. The first reading at the Ambrosian Mass of the Lord’s Supper is the entire book of Jonah, whose story Christ Himself explains as a prophecy of His death and resurrection; the Psalmellus which follows it is taken from the first part of the Passion of St Matthew, chapter 26, 17-75. The Ambrosian liturgy then makes explicit in the Preface this link between the death of Lazarus and that of Christ, in which our redemption is effected. (I here cite only the end of this beautiful text, which can only be spoiled in translation.)
Praefatio O quam magnum et salutare mysterium, quod per resurrectionem Lazari figuraliter designatur! Ille tabo corporis dissolutus, per superni regis imperium continuo surrexit ad vitam. Nos quidem primi hominis facinore consepultos, divina Christi gratia ex inferis liberavit, et redivivos gaudiis reddidit sempiternis.
O how great and profitable to salvation is this mystery, which is represented in a figure through the resurrection of Lazarus! He, being loosed from the corruption of the body, by the command of the Almighty King rose at once to life. Christ’s divine grace delivered us from hell, who indeed were buried by the crime of the first man, and restored us to eternal joy, when we had returned to life.
The preface of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, sung during the Capitular Mass at the Basilica of St Ambrose in Milan in 2012. The part of the preface which I have cited above begins at 1:23.

In the Byzantine Rite, the connection is made even more explicit; the Gospel of the Raising of Lazarus is read on the day before Palm Sunday, which is therefore called Lazarus Saturday. Bright vestments are used at the Divine Liturgy, instead of the dark vestments used at most services of Lent and Holy Week. The troparion sung at the Little Entrance declares the meaning of the Raising of Lazarus, and is also sung the following day, which is one of the Twelve Great feasts of the Byzantine liturgical year.
Troparion Τὴν κοινὴν Ἀνάστασιν πρὸ τοῦ σοῦ Πάθους πιστούμενος, ἐκ νεκρῶν ἤγειρας τὸν Λάζαρον, Χριστὲ ὁ Θεός, ὅθεν καὶ ἡμεῖς ὡς οἱ Παῖδες τὰ τῆς νίκης σύμβολα φέροντες, σοὶ τῷ Νικητῇ τοῦ θανάτου βοῶμεν· Ὡσαννὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις, εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου!
Confirming the general resurrection before Thy passion, Thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God! Whence we also, like the children, bearing the symbols of victory, cry out to Thee, the Vanquisher of death: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!
The troparion of Lazarus Saturday sung in variety of languages; see original post on Youtube for the list, and the text of the troparion in several of them.

The Paschal character of the day expressed by the use of bright vestments also informs the kontakion which follows the troparion.
Kontakion Ἡ πάντων χαρά, Χριστός, ἡ ἀλήθεια, τὸ φῶς, ἡ ζωή, τοῦ κόσμου ἡ ἀνάστασις, τοῖς ἐν γῇ πεφανέρωται τῇ αὐτοῦ ἀγαθότητι, καὶ γέγονε τύπος τῆς ἀναστάσεως, τοῖς πᾶσι παρέχων θείαν ἄφεσιν.
The joy of all, Christ, the Truth, and the Light, the Life, the Resurrection of the world, has appeared in His goodness to those on earth. He has become the image of our Resurrection, granting divine forgiveness to all.
While the troparia and kontakia are sung by the choir, the priest silently reads a prayer called the Prayer of the Trisagion, but sings the doxology out loud. It is followed at once by the hymn “Holy God, Holy mighty one, holy immortal one, have mercy on us.” On a very small number of days, however, the Trisagion, as it is called, is replaced by another chant, the words of Galatians 3, 27, “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ, alleluia.” Among these days are certain feasts of Lord such as Christmas, Epiphany (i.e. the Baptism of the Lord), Easter and Pentecost, and also Lazarus Saturday.

The traditional Church Slavonic version of “As many of you ...” begins at 0:52
As the Church prepares to accompany the Savior to His passion and death, and celebrate His glorious Resurrection, the Orthros (Matins) of Lazarus Saturday declares in several texts of surpassing beauty our salvation in Christ, who in His humanity wept for the death of Lazarus, the death He himself would shortly suffer, and in His divinity raised both Lazarus and Himself, as he will raise the whole of our fallen race on the last day.

Knowing beforehand all thing as their Maker, in Bethany didst Thou foretell to Thy disciples, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep today’; and knowing, Thou asked, ‘Where have ye laid him?” And to the Father Thou prayed, weeping as a man; whence also crying out, Thou raised from Hades Lazarus, whom Thou loved, on the fourth day. Therefore we cry to Thee: Accept, Christ and God, the praise of those that make bold to bring it, and deem all worthy of Thy glory.

O Christ, Thou raised Lazarus that was dead for four days from Hades, before Thy own death, confounding the power of death, and for the sake of one beloved to Thee, proclaiming beforehand the liberation of all men from corruption. Wherefore adoring Thy omnipotence, we cry out, ‘Blessed art Thou, o Savior; have mercy on us!’

Providing to Thy disciples the proofs of Thy divinity, among the crowds Thou didst humble Thyself, taking counsel to hide It; wherefore, as one that knoweth beforehand and as God, to Thy disciples Thou foretold the death of Lazarus. And in Bethany, among the peoples, perceiving not the grave of Thy friend, as a man Thou asked to learn of it. But he that through Thee rose on the fourth day made manifest Thy divine power; Almighty Lord, glory to Thee!

Thursday, March 14, 2024

“Let My Prayer Rise as Incense” by Dmitry Bortniansky - Byzantine Music for Lent

In the Byzantine Rite, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated on the weekdays of Lent, but only on Saturdays and Sundays; an exception is made for the feast of the Annunciation. Therefore, at the Divine Liturgy on Sundays, extra loaves of bread are consecrated, and reserved for the rest of the week. On Wednesdays and Fridays, a service known as the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is held, in which Vespers is mixed with a Communion Rite. (It is also held on the first three days of Holy Week, and may be done on other occasions, but twice a week is the standard practice.)

The first part of this ceremony follows the regular order of Vespers fairly closely, and the second part imitates the Great Entrance and the Communion rite of the Divine Liturgy. After the opening Psalm (103) and the Litany of Peace, the Gradual Psalms are chanted by a reader in three blocks, while a portion of the Presanctified Gifts is removed from the tabernacle, incensed, and carried from the altar to the table of the preparation. This is followed by a general incensation of the church, as the hymns of the day are sung with the daily Psalms of Vespers (140, 141, 129 and 116), the entrance procession with the thurible, and the hymn Phos Hilaron. Two readings are given from the Old Testament (Genesis and Proverbs in Lent, Exodus and Job in Holy Week), after which, the priest stands in front of the altar and incenses it continually, while the choir sings verses of Psalm 140, with the refrain “Let my prayer rise before Thee like incense, the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.” (The first part of this refrain is also NLM’s motto.)


This particular setting is by one of the greatest Slav composers of music for the Byzantine Liturgy, Dmitry Bortniansky, who was born in 1751 in the city of Hlukhiv in modern Ukraine. At the age of seven, he went to St Petersburg to sing with the Imperial Court Chapel, whose Italian master, Baldassare Galuppi, was so impressed with his talents that he brought him back to Italy in 1769. After ten years of training and work as a composer, Bortniansky returned to St Petersburg, and eventually became himself master of the same choir. His enormous oeuvre includes operas, instrumental compositions, songs in a variety of languages, 45 sacred concertos, and of course a very large number of liturgical compositions in Church Slavonic, like the one given above.

The Votive Office of St Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican Rite

Lost in Translation #98

Before Pope St. Pius X’s reform of the breviary, enacted by his 1911 apostolic constitution Divino Afflatu, the Dominicans enjoyed the privilege of celebrating all their canonized Saints with an octave. Today is the old octave day of St Thomas Aquinas (March 14), but because the octave Mass and Office are not that different from the festal Mass and Office (here and here), we honor the occasion by examining another peculiarity of the Dominican Rite; a Wednesday Votive Office to St. Thomas Aquinas.

In addition to its canonical Office and a daily Office to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Dominican Rite had a Votive Office for each day of the week.
Monday or Friday, St. Vincent Ferrer
Tuesday, St. Dominic
Wednesday, St. Thomas Aquinas
Thursday, The Body of Christ
Saturday, The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Wednesday Office of St Thomas could be used throughout the year. The Oratio is the Collect from the Mass for his feast day, (see here), and the Matin readings are from the Bull of Pope John XXII (1316-34) by which Thomas was canonized in 1323.
The antiphons for Vespers and Lauds are noteworthy. The Magnificat Antiphon for the former is:
O Thoma, laus et gloria Prædicatórum Ordinis, nos transfer ad cælestia, professor sacri Numinis.
Before I provide a translation, I wish to point out three linguistic curiosities. First, the choice of the main verb is distinctive. Transferre, which means to bring, carry, or transport, is usually used in ecclesiastical Latin to denote the translation of a saint’s relics from one location to another. In liturgical prayer, verbs like ducere or perducere are more likely to be used to convey the notion of bringing.
Second, there is an ambiguity with the word professor. In an ecclesiastical context, it can refer to one who professes the Faith, which St. Thomas certainly did and with great clarity. In an academic context, it can refer to a high-ranking teacher. The ambiguity therefore works well for St. Thomas, who was both a great Confessor and a great professor at the University of Paris.
Third, the phrase professor sacri Numinis presents challenges. The most obvious translation is “professor of sacred divinity,” where sacri functions as the adjective of the noun Numen. A perusal of the Dominican office, however, shows that Numen, which in classical Latin refers to divine will or divinity, is used for God, perhaps especially God the Son. In the Matins hymn for the Immaculate Conception, for example, Mary is hailed as Intacta mater Numinis. It is still possible that sacri is an adjective and that the phrase should therefore be translated as “professor of the sacred Holy One.” The other possibility is that sacri is a noun and hence the correct translation would be “professor of the sacred [things] of the Holy One.” In my opinion, this is the more likely intention, for the Dominican Breviary’s hymn to St. Thomas praises the saint for illuminating the Scriptúræ sacræ Núminis or the “Sacred Scriptures of the Holy One.”
Therefore, I believe the correct translation of the Magnificat Antiphon is:
O Thomas, praise and glory of the Order of Preachers, transport us to heavenly things, O professor of the sacred things of the Holy One.
The Antiphon for the Benedictus during Lauds is:
Collaudétur Christus Rex gloriae, qui per Thomam lumen Ecclesiæ mundum replet doctrína gratiae.
Which I translate as:
May Christ the King of glory be praised, Who fills the world with a doctrine of grace through Thomas, a lamp of the Church.
Replet (fills) is in the present tense. Thomas’ teachings on grace did not simply have a good effect in the thirteenth century; they continue to enrich the world today.
Collaudetur (be praised) is from the verb co+laudo. The prefix co modifies the verb “to praise” to mean “to praise together” or as an intensifier to mean “to praise highly.” In this antiphon, I suspect that it means both.
Finally, the antiphon draws attention to Thomas’ doctrine of grace. St. Augustine may be nicknamed the Doctor of Grace for his groundbreaking work on the subject, but it is St. Thomas’ appropriation of Aristotle’s understanding of nature that ironically sets into sharper relief the beauty and necessity of the grace bought so dearly for us on the cross by Jesus Christ. Thomas’ other distinctions are equally valuable, such as acquired vs. infused virtue and operative vs. cooperative grace, to say nothing of his delicate balancing of free will and predestination. The Angelic Doctor’s teachings on grace do indeed fill the world.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

The Root of the “Liturgical War”: Guest Essay by Mr Kevin Tierney

We are extremely grateful to Mr Kevin Tierney for his permission to republish this very insightful essay, which appeared yesterday on his Substack. He is also on Twitter at https://twitter.com/CatholicSmark

Back when he was the head for the Congregation of Divine Worship, Cardinal Robert Sarah thought long and hard about the role the liturgy played in forming Catholics. He spent time not only reflecting on the fruits of a proper liturgical formation, but how the liturgy, when approached wrongly, could form Catholics in an unintended way. At a 2017 liturgical conference in Cologne, the prefect warned of a liturgy that was

“an occasion for hateful divisions, for ideological confrontations, and for public humiliations of the weak by those who claim to hold authority, instead of being a place of our unity and our communion in the Lord.”

In this, Cardinal Sarah was discussing the dreaded “liturgical war” that has been going on, with differing degrees of intensity, in the Roman Rite since the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae by Paul VI in 1969. Among some of the most fervent Catholics, the liturgy became not a tool of worship of God, but a battle line in a larger battle over how the Church approaches the sacred. Like so much trench warfare, very little is accomplished by it other than casualties. Nobody likes the liturgical war. Yet despite this unending hatred of it, the liturgical war is as nasty in 2024 as it was in the 1990s and 2000s. Why?
In laying out such a theory, I am going to adopt a position that might annoy some traditionalists. I am going to take the position that most of the individuals involved in the creation of the Novus Ordo (with some exceptions) were well-meaning but misguided individuals. I am going to hold (with some exceptions) that actions by the Popes since the Council were sincere, but since they relied upon a flawed gamble, sincerely wrong. That might not be for you. So be it.
My theory of the liturgical war is based not on “which one is superior” but on something decidedly non-liturgical. Paul VI and others around him believed that the fruits of the new liturgy would be self-authenticating. The reform would be an obvious good that everyone would love, even if it took a few years. As part of encouraging that love, Paul VI ordered priests to burn their ships when they set foot on the new world. He functionally barred every priest in the Roman Rite (with some exceptions) from celebrating with the old missal. There would be no turning back, no introspection, no review of whether the reforms worked or didn’t. To even suggest that such reforms should be measured was to call into question the Pope’s ability to guide the Church on worship. The Pope did not formally suppress the Latin Mass. Why is anyone’s guess. I am of the position that it is a dicey canonical proposition to suppress, for everyone, something lawful and celebrated by the Church for centuries. To enter into that discussion stands the purpose of church law, and church discipline, on its head. So he tried other matters to obtain acceptance. To be clear, acceptance is what he got.
Pope Paul VI celebrates the first ever Papal Mass partly in the vernacular on Mar. 7, 1965, at the church of All Saints on the via Tiburtina in Rome.
The overwhelming majority of Catholics accepted the new mass. They understood it was now the Mass they would attend every Sunday. What they never did was embrace the New Mass. The liturgical reforms did not lead to a Catholic faithful participating in the Mass more deeply. It did not lead to a deeper understanding. It did not lead to greater fervency. In short, the things it claimed would be improved over the Latin Mass did not happen in substance. What was left was personal preference. The reforms became great not because of what they delivered, but because of what they allowed: greater personal expression, a crafting of a Mass towards the desires of the faithful. By “desires of the faithful”, I mean the desires of a liturgical bureaucracy who believed they were the holiest generation of Catholics ever, and the world must experience their brilliance. Whether they wanted to or not.
The New Mass survived solely based on papal fiat. To the revolutionary who wanted more change, such fiats meant little. For many Catholics who just wanted to find a moment of peace and solitude to encounter God on Sundays, that papal fiat didn’t mean much either. The New Mass existed. It wasn’t going away. Yet it was never loved. Since it was never loved, that also meant the Latin Mass was never going away either.
Faced with this reality (and it was a reality they encountered within a decade of 1969), the Church had struggled to deal with the fact that a prediction of the papal office, with the full might of canonical authority, didn’t happen. At this point, the Church played for time. They granted indults to a few in England and Wales. Individual arrangements were made. Priests in ambiguous canonical situations were frowned upon, but many times left alone. In 1984, Rome issued rules for indults, grounded in the firm belief that within a generation, those wanting the Latin Mass would be dead. By 1988 with the excommunication of Marcel Lefebvre, this situation became impossible. By this point, the status of the Latin Mass was no longer under the control of the Church and her bishops. Yet the Church also couldn’t admit that her gamble was wrong. If it was wrong, then the liturgical reform itself could be questioned in a fundamental manner.
They then tried addressing the aesthetical criticisms by advocating a “reform of the reform”, which tried to add back many of the things that for decades the pope, bishops and liturgical advisors had demonized as belonging in a museum or a graveyard. All reform of the reform did was bring up the fundamental question: if we can have Latin, ad orientem, and communion while kneeling at the rail, why can’t we just have the Traditional Latin Mass?
By the time Benedict XVI ascended the throne, he understood that the Church could not answer these questions, the Latin Mass wasn’t going away, and the number of faithful who turned to it was growing. Meanwhile with equal intensity the desire to ban the Latin Mass was evaporating. How to do this without admitting a mistake? Here the brilliant theologian stumbled upon a great loophole. Since Paul VI simply set aside the Traditional Latin Mass, he would unset it aside. It would exist alongside the Ordinary Form, and the faithful and priests could decide for themselves. He wanted to solve the discussion by walking away from it entirely. He declared victory, not for one form or the other, but for liturgical diversity, and then subsequently went home.
If I sound insincere, I do not intend it. It takes a remarkable man to admit that previous attempts by the papacy to solve this question have only made it worse, so I’m not going to do it. Joseph Ratzinger was easily the most gifted theologian of the 20th century, and that knowledge made him aware of the limitations of the Church, and of his person. While it was not a perfect decision, it was a ceasefire in the liturgical war, with a temporary peace negotiated. Let the world catch its breath, and then we’ll negotiate a further peace.
The problem with this approach is that there was a school of individuals in the Church who wanted to continue the offensive. All this talk of peace was misguided. If you make peace with the past, the past will return. If you allow the past as an acceptable option, it will always be there, waiting to be adapted to modern times, as an alternative to whatever it is the present is doing. While we do not know if he was always of this school, by 2019, it was clear that Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was converted to this worldview. His generation was dying. He himself was dying. Their star was on the decline. What happens when they die, and that past which Paul VI tried to force people away from still exists? When Francis asked the bishops of the world if they understood the threat the Latin Mass presented to the unity of the Church, the majority shrugged. So he issued Traditionis Custodes, to try to force them to see the threat. When they still didn’t, he tried increasingly coercive measures to make bishops and the faithful see it. Yet the fundamental problem remained: nobody loves the alternative. They accept it. They build their lives around it. The New Mass is part of the 9-5 Catholic experience. Yet they don’t love it.
This is the real root of the liturgical wars. A generation of leaders (from the pope on down) operated on a gamble. They continued to raise the stakes, finally going all in. They lost, and now must come home and explain to the family why they no longer have a car or a house, and how they will just have to adapt to the family losing their shirt. Don’t worry, you’ll learn to like it. (Or as one popular Catholic author once said, we sinners deserve an ugly liturgy.)
Are you inspired?

The Anniversary of the Founding of the Church in Milan

According to an old Ambrosian tradition, March 13 of the year 51 was the date on which the church was founded in Milan, when the Apostle St Barnabas baptized the first Christians of the city anciently called Mediolanum. The story tells that as a challenge to the local Druids, who were still active in the areas outside the city, he planted a cross in the middle of a magic circle which they used in their rites. (Celtic pagan priests did in fact use magic circles, into which they would fix a curved rod to take auspices from the position of the stars.) This stone, preserved as a relic, is now in the church of Santa Maria al Paradiso, in the center of the city on Corso di Porta Vigentina. By immemorial custom, on this day a cross is inserted into it, in remembrance of the first wooden cross so fixed by the Apostolic founder of the church of Milan. (Thanks to Nicola de’ Grandi for the pictures and description.)
The stone where St Barnabas fixed the cross, as seen today in S Maria in Paradiso. The inscription reads “On March 13 in year of the Lord 51, St Barnabas the Apostle, as he was preaching the Gospel of Christ to the people of Milan, in a place near the walls at the via Maria by the eastern gate fixed the banner of the Cross in this round stone.”

“On the thirteenth day of March, in the year of the Lord 51, the Apostle St Barnabas in this round stone set up the sign of the Cross in order to preach the Gospel of Christ to the people of Milan, in a place near the walls of the eastern gate of the via Marina, the memory of which, (previously) translated to the church of St Dionysius, was (translated again) to this church of St Mary ‘in Paradise’ in the year 1783. by the brothers of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary (i.e. the Servite order). Each year this day is celebrated with a plenary indulgence.”

An historical photo of the wooden Cross fixed into the stone on “el tredesin de Marz”, as it is called in the Milanese dialect.

St Barnabas baptizing the first Christians of Milan.
A graphic showing the relative positions of certain stars and constellations as marked on the magic stone.


The Man Born Blind in the Liturgy of Lent

From very ancient times, the Church has read the Gospel of the Man Born Blind, John 9, 1-38, as a symbol of the rituals of baptism. Christ anointed the blind man’s eyes with mud made of His saliva, and then told him to wash in the pool of Siloam; this was naturally associated with the ritual by which the catechumens were anointed before the washing of their sins in the baptismal font. St Augustine makes this comparison in the Breviary sermon on this Gospel, from his Treatises on the Gospel of John:
He was anointed, and he did not yet see. (Christ) sent him to the Pool, which is called Siloam. It was the Evangelist’s duty to commend to us the name of this pool, and he said ‘which means Sent.’ … (The blind man) therefore washed his eyes in that pool, whose name means Sent; he was baptized in Christ. If therefore, (Christ) illuminated him, when in some way He baptized him in Himself, when He anointed him, He made him perhaps a catechumen.
The Healing of the Blind Man, represented on a Christian sarcophagus known as the Sarcophagus of the Two Brothers, ca. 335; Vatican Museums, Pio-Christian Collection.
In the Roman Rite, this Gospel is traditionally read on the Wednesday after the Fourth Sunday of Lent, the day on which the catechumens were once prepared for baptism by various rituals, such as the sign of the cross made upon their foreheads, the placing of blessed salt on their tongues, and various prayers said with the imposition of the clergy’s hands upon their heads. The whole of the Mass, one of the most beautiful of the Lenten season, refers to this baptismal preparation.

The Introit is taken from the first of the two prophetic readings, Ezechiel 36, 23-28: “When I shall be sanctified in you, I will gather you together out of all the lands, and I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness, and I will give you a new spirit.” The last part of this, “I will give you a new spirit”, refers to the conferral of Confirmation along with Baptism, according to the ancient custom. (This same Introit was later added the private Masses of the Vigil of Pentecost, a reminder of the true, baptismal character of the day.)

The first gradual, “Come, children, hearken to me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Come ye to him and be enlightened…”, the second prophetic reading, Isaiah 1, 16-19, “Wash yourselves, be clean, … if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow”, and the second gradual, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord: the people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance”, all continue this baptismal theme.

The station church for this Mass is the basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, where the tomb of the Apostle of the Gentiles rests under the main altar; this was chosen as the place to read this Gospel, of course, because Paul was blinded by the vision on the road to Damascus, and healed at the time of his baptism, by an imposition of hands. In ancient times, Rome was a city populated by every nation of the Empire; the neighborhood closest to the basilica of St Paul, now called “Trastevere” in Italian, “the region across the Tiber”, was the foreigners’ quarter in antiquity. From the very beginning, the Church had always been concerned to assert that Christ came to the Jewish people, to whom the promises of mankind’s redemption were made, but as the Saviour and Redeemer of all nations; St Paul’s tomb was therefore the ideal place to prepare the catechumens for baptism, in which He gathers His people from all nations, as the prophets foretold.

The Paschal candlestick of Saint Paul’s Outside-the-Walls, carved in the 13th century, and still used today. Image from Wikimedia Commons
The Church Fathers also understood the blind man more generally as a figure who represents the condition of Man before the coming of Christ. The same passage of the Breviary from St Augustine cited above says earlier on, “If therefore we consider the meaning of what was done, this blind man is the human race. For this blindness happened in the first man through sin, from which we all draw the origin not only of death, but also of iniquity.” Likewise, in Sermon 135 against the Arians, Augustine says, “… the whole world is blind. Therefore Christ came to illuminate, since the devil had blinded us. He who deceived the first man caused all men to be born blind.”

This broader interpretation is implied in the Roman Rite’s association of the story with the Sacrament of Baptism, which the Fathers often refer to as “illumination”. It is made more explicit, however, in the Ambrosian Rite, in which the Fourth Sunday of Lent is “the Sunday of the Man Born Blind.” The Ingressa of this Mass has the same text as the Introit of Septuagesima in the Roman Rite: “The groans of death have surrounded me, the pains of death have surrounded me, and in my tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice from His holy temple.” The groans and pains of death here represent the condition of the fallen human race, whose condition is that of the blind man, but the prayers of man longing for redemption are heard by God “from His holy temple”, referring to the very last words of the preceding chapter, “But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.” The second half of this chapter, John 8, 31-59, is read on the previous Sunday, called the Sunday of Abraham; the Mozarabic liturgy reads this Gospel on the Second Sunday of Lent, with the opening words “At that time, when our Lord Jesus Christ went out from the temple, He saw a man that was blind from birth.”

The two readings before the Gospel (Exodus 34, 23 – 35, 1, and 1 Thessalonians 4, 1-11) have no obvious connection to it, but the Psalmellus and Cantus (Gradual and Tract) certainly do. The first is taken from Psalm 40, “I said: O Lord, be Thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee,” the second from Psalm 120, “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me. My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” The Antiphon after the Gospel declares the mission of the Messiah in the words of the Prophet Isaiah (61, 1), words of which Christ declared Himself the fulfilment at the synagogue of Capharnaum (Luke 4, 14-22): “I was sent to heal the contrite of heart, to preach release to the captives, and restore light to the blind”. These two ideas are then admirably summed up by the preface of this Mass.
Truly it is fitting and just, right and profitable to salvation, that we should render Thee thanks, o Lord, that abidest in the height of Heaven, and confess Thee with all our senses. For through Thee, the blindness of the world being wiped away, hath shined upon the feeble the true light; which, among the miracles of Thy many wondrous deeds, Thou didst command one blind from birth to see. In him the human race, stained by original darkness, was represented by the form of what would come thereafter. For that pool of Siloam, to which the blind man was sent, was marked as none other than the sacred font; where not only the lights of the body, but the whole man was saved. Through Christ our Lord.
In this video, the preface is sung in Latin according to the traditional melody, but with the text modified for the new rite.

In the Ambrosian Rite, on each Saturday of Lent the Gospel refers to a part of the ritual preparation of the catechumens for baptism. The Gospel of the Saturday preceding the blind man is Mark 6, 6-13, which ends with the words “And they (the Apostles) cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.” The following Saturday, the Gospel is Matthew 19, 13-15, which refers to the impositions of hands upon the catechumens, “Then were little children presented to Him, that He should impose hands upon them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said to them: Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such. And when He had imposed hands upon them, he departed from thence.” The seventh Ordo Romanus describes the ritual in detail as it was done in the sixth-century, including the preparation of infants for baptism, a practice to which the liturgical tradition of both the Roman and Ambrosian Rites bear witness.

The Mozarabic Liturgy, on the other hand, reads this Gospel on the Second Sunday of Lent, but eliminates the references to baptism and baptismal preparation almost completely; blindness and illumination are presented much more as symbols of sin and repentance. So for example, one of the prayers of the Mass reads:
Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, restorer of eternal light, grant to us Thy servants, that just as we were washed from original sin in the waters of baptism, which was signified by that pool which gave light to blind eyes, so also may Thou purify us from (our) sins in the second baptism of tears. And so may we merit to become heralds of Thy praise, as that blind man became one that announced Thy grace. And just as he was filled with faith to confess Thee as true God, so also may we be filled with the confession of good works.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Following the Roman Station Churches in Chicago

The Canons Regular of St John Cantius, based in Chicago, Illinois, have a well-deserved reputation for cultivating excellence in the liturgy, and we have gladly featured them many times here on NLM. They were recently kind enough to share with us some information about their way of keeping the Roman tradition of the Lenten station churches, more than 4,800 miles away from the Eternal City.

The stational shrine set up for the First Monday of Lent, at the basilica of St Peter’s Chains.  
At the parishes which they staff, a shrine is set up on a side altar during Lent. Each day, and a sign posted in it with the name of the stational church for that day, along with either a relic of church’s titular Saint, or a piece of the church itself. At the conventual Mass each day, and at each sung Mass on Sundays, the clergy and servers process to the stational shrine and reverence the relic with incense, before the deacon sings Procedamus in pace; the procession then goes to the high altar as an abbreviated Litany of the Saints is sung, in imitation of the ancient stational processions. While it’s not quite the same as joining the stational liturgies in Rome, this brief ritual each day of Lent, along with preaching which incorporates the stational churches and their connection to the daily liturgies of Lent, the Canons Regular are reviving this ancient custom on the local level, giving a sense of the universality of the Church, and the Romanitas of the liturgy.

The station shrine in the church of St Peter in Volo, Illinois, also staffed by the CRSJC, set up for the Second Sunday of Lent, station at Santa Maria in Domnica.
Back in Chicago, the basilica of St Mark on Monday of the Third Week, with a statue of the Evangelist.
Laetare Sunday, a jeweled Cross for the basilica of the Holy Cross, nicknamed “in Jerusalem”.

A Proper Hymn for St Gregory the Great

The revised breviary issued by St Pius V in 1568 derives from the tradition which the Papal curia followed in the high Middle Ages, formally codified at the beginning of the 13th century in a document known as the Ordinal of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216). As I have noted several times, this tradition was in many ways very conservative, much more so than most other Uses of the Roman Rite, and especially in regard to its repertoire of hymns. Thus we find that many real gems of medieval hymnody are missing from the Roman breviary, and even the feasts of very important Saints, such as those of the first four Latin Doctors of the Church, take their hymns from the commons. This even includes the Saint after whom the chant proper to the Roman Rite is named, and whose feast we keep today.

An inlaid stone panel in the chapel of Ss Gregory the Great and Augustine of Canterbury in Westminster Cathedral, London, depicting the famous story of Gregory’s first encounter with English people in a slave market in Rome, as told by St Bede the Venerable in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, book 2, chapter 1.
The Benedictines have always held Saint Gregory the Great in particular honor, not only because he was a monk himself, and the first great promotor of monasticism among the Popes, but also as the biographer of their founder. His feast is therefore kept as a double of the second class, on a par with the Apostles, and has a mostly proper Office. (“Mostly”, because it has no proper antiphons for the Psalms of Matins, and borrows one responsory from the Common of Doctors.) It also includes this hymn composed by St Peter Damian (1007 ca. - 1072), which is split into two parts, one to be sung at both Vespers and Matins, and the other at Lauds. The translation below is by Kathleen Pluth, except for the stanzas given in italics on the English side (explanation below). The recording is by the monks of Downside Abbey in England, the main church of which is dedicated to St Gregory. (It is accompanied by several pictures of St Pius X, and two of Pope Benedict XVI; it was posted a few month after the Apostolic Visit of the latter to England in fall of 2010, so I presume as a tribute to the latter.)

At Vespers and Matins

Anglorum jam Apostolus,
nunc Angelorum socius,
ut tunc, Gregori, gentibus,
succurre iam credentibus.
Apostle to the English lands
Now with the angel hosts he stands.
Make haste, St. Gregory, relieve
And help the people who believe.
Tu largas opum copias

omnemque mundi gloriam
spernis, ut inops inopem
Jesum sequaris principem.
From riches and from wealth you
   turned.
The glory of the world you spurned,
That you might follow, being poor,
Prince Jesus, who was poor before.
Videtur egens naufragus,
Dum stipem petit Angelus,
Tu munus jam post geminum
Praebes et vas argenteum.
An angel asks for alms, who seems a
poor, shipwrecked man; after giving
him a double gift, you present also a
silver vessel.
Te celsus Christus pontifex
(originally ex hoc te Christus
   tempore)
suæ præfert Ecclesiæ;

sic Petri gradum percipis,
cuius et normam sequeris.
This Christ, High Pontifex, decreed
(orig. from this time, Christ made
   thee head of His Church)
That you would take His Church’s
   lead,
And learn St. Peter’s steps to tread:
The rule of all called in his stead.
O pontifex egregie,
lux et decus Ecclesiæ,
non sinas in periculis

quos tot mandatis instruis.
O Pontifex, our leader bright,
The Church’s honor and its light,
Through dangers let them all be
   brought,
The ones you carefully have taught.
Sit Patri laus ingenito,
sit decus Unigenito,
sit utriusque parili
maiestas summa Flamini.
   Amen.
The unborn Father let us praise,
And to His Son like glory raise,
And to their Equal, majesty.
All glory to the Trinity. Amen.

At Lauds

Mella cor obdulcantia
Tua distillant labia,
Fragrantum vim arómatum
Tuum vincit eloquium.
Thy lips drip honey that sweeteneth
hearts, thy speech surpasseth the
power of fragrant spices.
Scriptúræ sacræ mýstica
Mire solvis ænígmata:
Theórica mysteria
Te docet ipsa Véritas.
You wondrously solved riddles deep:
The mystic secrets Scriptures keep,
For Truth Himself has taught you these:
The lofty sacred mysteries.
Tu nactus Apostólicam
Vicem simul et gloriam:
Nos solve culpæ néxibus,
Redde polórum sedibus.
Having obtained the apostolic office
and glory, release us from the bonds of
sin, and bring us back to heaven.
Repeat stanzas
O pontifex egregie and
Sit Patri laus from Matins.

The translation by Ms Pluth and the recording both follow the edited version of this hymn done for the Liturgy of the Hours by Dom Anselmo Lentini OSB, which omits three of St Peter Damian’s stanzas, the ones which are accompanied by my own less-than-inspired prose translations. Not all of Dom Lentini’s emendations or ideas for new hymns were bad, and some that were bad I have noted as such only in passing, but his changes here call for something sharper than my preferred description of his work, “cack-handed.”
The first omitted stanza, which begins with the words “Videtur egens naufragus”, refers to the story that when St Gregory was still a monk, one day an angel came to his monastery in the guise of a man who had been shipwrecked, begging for alms. Gregory gave him six silver coins, but the angel returned the next day, saying that he had lost them, at which the Saint gave him six more. The same thing happened on the third day, and the procurator of the monastery informed Gregory that there was nothing left in the house but the silver platter by which his mother, St Silvia, used to regularly send him vegetables to eat. Gregory immediately ordered that it be given to the beggar.
The central section of Paolo Veronese’s Supper of St Gregory (1572), which depicts the appearance of the thirteen man at his table, as explained below. In the refectory of the shrine of the Virgin Mary on Mt Berico outside Vicenza, about 43 miles west of Venice. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0)
As Pope, Gregory was wont to welcome twelve pilgrims or poor people to dine with him every day, but one day, he beheld a thirteenth in their midst, who was visible only to himself. After the supper, he approached the man and asked him who he was, to which the fellow replied, “Why do you ask about my name, which is wondrous? And yet, know that I am the shipwrecked man to whom you gave the silver dish... and from that day... the Lord destined you to become the head of his Church, and the successor of the Apostle Peter.” He then revealed himself to be not just an angel, but Gregory’s guardian, and told him that he would obtain all that he asked through himself.
The lesson here is not at all hard to grasp, namely, that Gregory was deemed worthy of the papacy above all else because of his charity. This is a lesson which St Peter Damian clearly chose to emphasize out of his great concerned with the reform of the Church, in an age when the Church was very much in need of reform, precisely because it suffered from so many thoroughly worldly prelates, and no few Popes among them.
Dom Lentini, however, decided that this reference had to be removed because it is “difficult for many who do not know the particulars of the Saint’s life”, as he writes in his account of the reforms of the hymns. This offers us a very neat summary of one of the worst problems with the entire project of the post-Conciliar reform: its operating assumption (a deeply clericalist one) that the faithful are not just completely untaught, but completely unteachable. It was therefore deemed impossible that the original text might offer a good opportunity to teach them something about St Gregory’s life, much less to explain what it was about this particular episode (among so many others that might have been chosen) that another Doctor of the Church thought it worth our attention. And of course, in an age of unbridled (and, as it turned out, totally unwarranted optimism) about the general condition of the Church, this lesson brings with it an implicit warning to worldly prelates who choose not to follow the example Saints like Gregory, one which we forget to our tremendous peril.

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