Once again, I am very grateful to a friend for sharing with us photos taken during his travels, this time from the medieval collection at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. This museum, which is housed in a building that was once the Parisian residence of the abbot of Cluny, is best known as the home of a famous set of six tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn, but also possesses a large number of very beautiful liturgical objects. In 2019, I visited the museum, and posted some of my own photos, but a large part of it was closed for renovations, and so there isn’t any overlap between these and my own set.
The museum is currently hosting an exhibition titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, which displays medieval works next to modern ones inspired by them, and some forgeries as well. E.g., here we see a medieval thurible on the right, and a modern one which copies it on the left.
A reliquary in the form of an angel, made in France ca. 1470-80.
A modern reliquary inspired by it, made in 1913, containing a rib of the Dominican Saint Gerard of Brogne.
The smaller reliquary at the lower right of this photo was made towards the end of the 19th century to contain a small fragment of the True Cross; another container was added to it later to contain a relic of Julie Billiart, the founder of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, shortly after her beatification in 1906. (She has since been canonized.)
An embroidered panel inspired by the same type of design, made in England in the mid-19th century.
A medieval chalice and paten, and a modern copy (upper right.)
On the right, a ciborium made in France in about 1200, and on the left, a 19th-century copy.
Truly it is worthy ... through Christ our Lord. Through whom the triumphant, most noble, and outstanding martyr, the virgin Catherine, instructed in the teachings of the prophets, apostles and philosophers, and taught in all languages by the grace of the Holy Spirit, by her wonderful wisdom overcame the emperor with the orators, and the world with all its vices. She converted to Christ the august empress with the aforementioned orators, and Porphyry (her jailer) with all his companions, by her magnificent teachings and examples; and when they had all received the faith together with the sign of Christ from the virgin Catherine, and been crowned with martyrdom, she sent them before her to the kingdom of the heavens. She is the one illuminated by that wisdom which conquers malice, and mightily reaches from end to end (of the word), and sweetly disposes all things. She is that most glorious virgin who with a hundredfold fruits, by her great martyrdom presented herself as an offering to Jesus Christ. And therefore being confirmed by the word of Christ and the visitation of angels she overcame with wondrous constancy nails and wheels, blades most sharp, the tyrant’s sword and threats. She asked from the Lord for all those who devoutly honor her passion health of mind and body, firmness of faith, and abundance of all things. She also, having been beheaded for the name of Christ poured forth milk instead of blood, so that for us who venerate her with pure mind, her teaching and passion might be spiritual drink and food, and the forgiveness of sins. Through the same Christ our Lord, through whom the Angels praise, the Archangels venerate, the Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Principalities and Powers adore Thy majesty; whom the Cherubim and Seraphim celebrate joined in exultation; and we ask that Thou order our voices also be brought in among theirs, saying with humble confession, ‘Holy…’ (The preface of the Ambrosian Mass of St Catherine of Alexandria, used before the post-Tridentine reform of the Ambrosian Missal.)
St Catherine of Alexandria explaining the truth of Christianity to the philosophers sent by the emperor Maximin to convince her of its falsehood. Through the window on the right, we see the same philosophers, encouraged by Catherine, accepting martyrdom. This fresco was painted in the chapel dedicated to both her and St Ambrose in the Roman basilica of St Clement by Masolino da Panicale, 1425-31.
VD... per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Per quem triumphatrix nobilissima et egregia martyr virgo Catherina, Prophetarum et Apostolorum atque philosophorum doctrinis imbuta, omnibusque linguis charismate Sancti Spiritus erudita, imperatorem cum rhetoribus, mundum cum vitiis omnibus mirabilia sapientia superavit. Imperatricem augustam cum praefatis rhetoribus, Porphyrium cum sociis omnibus suis, exemplis et doctrinis magnificis convertit ad Christum, omnesque accepta fide cum signo Christi a virgine Catherina, martyrio coronatos, praemisit ad regna polorum. Haec fuit illa sapientia illustrata, quae vincit malitiam, attingit a fine usque ad finem fortiter, et disponit omnia suaviter. Haec est illa gloriosissima virgo, quae cum centenis fructibus seipsam libando, magnoque purpurata martyrio, representavit Jesu Christo. Ideoque famine Christi et angelorum visitatione confirmata, clavos et rotas, seras acutissimas, tyranni gladium atque minas mirabili constantia superavit. Haec pro cunctis ejus passionem devote colentibus, sanitatem mentis et corporis, fideique firmitatem et rerum abundantiam a Domino postulavit. Haec etiam decollata pro Christi nomine lac fudit pro sanguine, ut sua doctrina et passio nobis eam pura mente venerantibus, esset potus spiritualis et cibus, atque peccatorum remissio. Per eundem Christum, Dominum nostrum. Per quem maiestatem tuam laudant Angeli, venerantur Archangeli, Throni, Dominationes, Virtutes, Principates, et Potestates adorant. Quem Cherubim et Seraphim socia exsultatione concelebrant. Cum quibus et nostras voces, ut admitti iubeas, deprecamur, supplici confessione dicentes: Sanctus…
A particularly good turn of phrase from Fr Hunwicke, said à propos of St Nicholas, applies just as well St Catherine of Alexandria; she was “a saint with as large a portfolio of patronages as a Renaissance cardinal.” Devotion to her was very strong in Milan in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, no less than anywhere else, as evidenced by the fact that in some of the early printed editions of the Ambrosian Missal, her name was even added to the list of Saints in the Nobis quoque of the Canon. In addition to this lengthy proper preface (which from a literary point of view is not quite as polished as it could be), her Mass had almost all proper chants, mostly taken from her legendum, and all proper prayers.
A page of an Ambrosian Missal printed in 1499, with the name of St Catherine in the Nobis quoque.
At the same time, it cannot be denied that many reasonable doubts have been raised about the historicity of the written accounts of her life, not by modern skeptics, but by serious and devout scholars such as St Robert Bellarmine and Cardinal Baronius. On the basis of these doubts, the Ambrosian Missal of 1594, the first revised edition after the Tridentine reform of the Roman Rite, removed all the proper chants, and this preface, replacing them with those of the Common Mass of a Virgin Martyr.
November is an especially busy month for our good friends of the Schola Sainte-Cécile in Paris, since both of their patronal feasts fall within it. Their home church was built in 1854, in the reign of the last French Emperor, Napoleon III, and named for St Eugenius, a 7th-century bishop of Toledo, Spain, partly to honor the emperor’s Spanish-born wife, Eugénie. His feast day is November 15th; one week later is the feast of St Cecilia, patron of musicians, who was added as a second patron of the church in 1952 because of its proximity to the Paris Conservatory. As has been the general custom in Francis for over two centuries, both of these feasts are usually celebrated on the Sunday following as external solemnities.
All of the ceremonies in the church are broadcast live on their YouTube channel, and then permanently reposted. Below, I have also included links to their website, which gives the complete musical program (in French) for each ceremony. (Those pages include links to pdfs with the musical scores as well.) The Mass of St Eugenius begins with a rousing Christus vincit, as a relic of the Saint is carried though the church in procession – Feliciter! Feliciter!
It is no secret that the post-Conciliar liturgical reform, finding the original purpose of the feast of Christ the King, and the doctrine of Christ’s social kingship, rather an embarrassment in Modern Man™’s brave new world, completely denuded it of that purpose and transformed it into a celebration of Christ’s eschatological kingship, a kind of Septuagesima of Christmas. Following the lead of the wise Fr Hunwicke, I here share some considerations on this subject from N.T. Wright, one of the best Biblical scholars of our times, from his book “For All the Saints: Remembering the Christian Departed.” Prof. Wright is an Anglican, and formerly served as the bishop of Durham; he is therefore speaking here principally about the adoption of the new version of the feast of Christ the King into the Anglican liturgy, but his observations are just as pertinent to the post-Conciliar Catholic rite.
“The Sunday next before Advent had an old popular name: ‘Stir-up Sunday’. This derived from the old prayer, the Collect set for the day, which began, ‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people… ’, (traditionally also the date when people began preparing cakes and puddings for Christmas.) Its readings gave just a hint of things to come in Advent itself…
The prayers of the last Sunday of the year in the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780 AD. (Bibliothèque National de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048)
This new festival concludes the implicit storyline at the wrong point and with the wrong point, thereby throwing out of kilter the narrative grammar of the whole story. It implies that Jesus Christ becomes King at the end of the sequence, the end of the story, as the result of a long process.
This is radically misleading … we already have a ‘Feast of Christ the King’. It is called Ascension Day, and occurs forty days after Easter. It celebrates the time when the disciples recognized that the risen Lord Jesus was now the true King of the world. The way Luke tells the story of the Ascension (24, 50-53) invites us to compare Jesus with the Roman emperors who were believed to have ascended to heaven and thereby to have become divine: Jesus, not Caesar, is now the world’s true Lord. His Kingdom has already begun. He has defeated death – and, since death is the final weapon of the tyrant and the bully, he has brought to birth a new sort of kingdom, a kingdom not from this world but emphatically for this world. Easter and Ascension, taken together, constitute Jesus as Messiah and King, as Lord of the world.
(Editor’s note: one of the contributors to Annibale Bugnini’s report on how to “fix” the liturgical year, which we published here on NLM in 2022, grasped this point better than did the Consilium ad exsequendam when he proposed to move Christ the King to the Sunday within the octave of the Ascension. See part 2 of the series, the paragraph beginning “Other proposals of lesser importance...”)
The mission of the church presupposes this. Going into the world to declare that Jesus is Lord only makes sense if he is already reigning, not if the church is merely suggesting that he might perhaps reign at some point in the distant future (our emphasis), at the end of the long years of church history (represented, in the church’s year, by the Trinity season). But when we place ‘Christ the King’ on the last Sunday before Advent, this is what we imply. Christ is not fully King, it seems, until the end. …
‘Ah, but,’ people say (as they have from Christianity’s earliest days), ‘look out of the window. Read the newspapers. It’s obvious that Christ is not yet reigning fully. Evil is still rampant. The kingdom has not yet come.’ Well, yes and no. St Paul knew as well as we do how powerful evil still was: half his letters were written from prison; but he doesn’t for a moment modify his claim that Jesus is already the true King, the world’s true Lord. St John, too, knew all this as well as we do: when he described that marvellous scene of Jesus before Pilate – or perhaps we should say of Pilate before Jesus – he was well aware that Caesar, Pilate’s boss, had persecuted the church and would continue to do so. Yet he has Jesus appear as the King of the Jews, the rightful King of the whole world (John 18.33—19.16)
(Editor’s note: the original Gospel of Christ the King is John 18, 33-37. In the lectionary of the post-Conciliar rite, it is read in year B; in year A, the Gospel is Matthew 25, 31-46, the separation of the just from the unjust, and in year C, the mocking of Christ on the Cross and the confession of the Good Thief, Luke 23, 35-43.)
The belief that Jesus was already reigning was, then, woven into Christianity from the first. We have come to think that the difficulty about Christianity is believing in God in the teeth of the scientific evidence, but this misses the point. The real problem is giving allegiance to Jesus as Lord in the teeth of the claims of earthly rulers, systems and philosophies. Kyrios Iesous, Jesus is Lord, was the earliest confession of Christian faith, the thing you had to say before you got baptized. Confessing that Jesus was Lord – meaning, among other things, that Caesar wasn’t – was basic, bottom-line Christianity right from the start. … It wasn’t something you had to wait for until the end of time. Being a Christian was always about living by faith in Jesus’ sovereign Lordship in a world which didn’t much look as if he was in charge.
… At Jesus’ final appearing, his second coming, he will put into operation for the entire cosmos that Lordship which is already his by right. … It will be a fresh act of grace, of new creation, completing what was done in the cross, the resurrection and the ascension, but also going way beyond them in the remaking of the entire cosmos. And the church’s year, which remained unaltered in this respect from at least the sixth century until 1970 in Rome and the late 1990s in the Church of England, kept Advent itself … as the preparation not only for Christmas but also for the second coming, the final reappearing, of Jesus. … If the ‘Feast of Christ the King’ refers to the final kingship of Christ, it makes no sense to celebrate it on the Sunday before Advent and then spend the next four weeks preparing for it. That’s like trying to eat the Christmas pudding and stir it afterwards.”
The kingship of Christ and the renewal of creation was a prominent theme in an absolutely magnificent series of lectures which Prof. Wright delivered at the Univ. of Aberdeen in Scotland in February 2018, his contribution to the annual Gifford Lectures, which have been running since 1888. Here is the first of eight; links to the others will be found easily on YouTube. Prof. Wright later published them as a book titled “History and Eschatology: Jesus and the promise of natural theology.”
Earlier this week, I published an article which described the Inter-hours of the Byzantine Divine Office, a second Prime, Terce, Sext and None which are said after the main ones on certain penitential days. There are also days on which two Vespers are appointed to be celebrated, which are distinguished from each other by the terms “Little Vespers” and “Great Vespers.” As with the Inter-hours, this practice is for the most part only observed in the more liturgically energetic monasteries, and indeed, it emerged specifically because of the monastic discipline of fasting.
There is a perception in some quarters that nothing has ever changed in the Byzantine Rite, a perception which is sometimes played up for propagandistic purposes, as a way of unfavorably contrasting the drastic liturgical rupture in the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II with the continuity of worship in the Orthodox churches. There is, of course, a very considerable degree of continuity in the history of the Byzantine liturgy, as there is in the Roman, but there have also been some very significant changes, and especially in the Divine Office. And it was one of these changes that led to the institution of Little Vespers, which became a standard part of the rite in the later 14th century.
The rubrics for Little Vespers, and the first part of Great Vespers, in a Greek typikon printed in Venice in 1603.
The liturgical book that regulates the various services of the Byzantine Rite is called the typikon. During the iconoclast controversy, which wracked the Byzantine world for much of the eighth century, and broke out again for three decades in the first half of the ninth, one of the major centers of opposition to the heresy was a monastery in Constantinople called the Studion, and among the most important leaders of the opposition was one of its abbots, St Theodore the Studite (759–826). Because of its role in defeating iconoclasm, the prestige of this monastery became very great, and so its typikon came to be adopted as the standard in Byzantium. This was also the version which was first translated into Church Slavonic, and diffused among the Slavs who used the Byzantine Rite in Kyivan Rus’ and elsewhere.
However, in the Holy Land there was another very prestigious monastery, the Lavra of St Sabbas, located about eight miles from Jerusalem, which had its own version of the typikon, and its own traditions which differed from those of Constantinople in several ways. In the twelfth century, this Sabaite typikon, as it is called, was adopted by one of the monasteries on Mt Athos, and from there, came to have a strong influence on that of a very important monastery in Constantinople known as the Evergetis. In the later part of the 14th century, it was spread throughout the Byzantine world by a patriarch of Constantinople named Philotheos I, who reigned in two periods, from Aug. 1353 – Dec. 1354, and again from Oct. 1364 – Aug. 1376. He was also the author of a book called the “diataxis” (arrangement) of the holy services, and it was these two books together which made various customs of the Sabaite tradition standard in the Byzantine Rite, supplanting those of the Studite tradition.
This historical summary is taken from a very useful modern book called “The Typikon Decoded” by Archimandrite Job Getcha (pp. 42-46; St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012). He goes on to cite an author of the 15th century, Symeon of Thessalonica (1381 ca. – 1429), who says that by his time the use of the Sabaite typikon had spread almost everywhere.
One of the customs thus introduced into general use in the Byzantine Rite was that of the “All-night Vigil” [1], the celebration of Vespers, Orthros (which has features similar to those of both Matins and Lauds in the Roman Rite), and the First Hour, one after another as if they were a single service. (This is not done every day, but on Saturday evenings, as part of the liturgy of Sunday, and on the vigils of many important feasts.) Depending on the church or monastery, the “all” in “all-night” is something of a rhetorical exaggeration, but in great houses like those on Mt Athos, not by much. As I recently noted, a friend of mine attended part of the All-night Vigil at Iviron Monastery on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, which began at 8pm and ended at 2am, with services resuming in the morning at 6. In cathedrals and large parishes, it is normally shortened in various ways, and typically lasts for 2-2½ hours.
The All-night Vigil for the feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, celebrated this past Thursday evening at the monastery of St Michael in Kyiv, Ukraine.
From time immemorial, it has been the custom of monks to take their only meal of the day after Vespers, and indeed, it is still the standard arrangement of the pertinent Byzantine liturgical books that the prayers said before that meal are placed between Vespers and Compline. But this poses a significant practical problem for the celebration of the All-night Vigil. Byzantine Vespers is not a short service to begin with, and on major feast days, it is usually lengthened by the addition of Scriptural readings, and a rite called the Litia, at which various hymns are sung, followed by some very lengthy prayers, and a blessing of bread, wine and oil. Orthros is by far the longest part of the Office as a whole. If they are to be said one after another, leaving no break for a meal after Vespers, that makes for a lot to do on an empty stomach and rather less sleep than usual.
The Sabaite tradition’s answer to this problem was to create the service of Little Vespers, in which Great Vespers is abbreviated by the complete omission of some elements, and the shortening of others. This is celebrated in the later afternoon or early evening, usually preceded by the Ninth Hour, and followed by a meal, so that the monks can maintain the tradition of fasting until Vespers, but not faint away from hunger and exhaustion during the vigil. Of course, the meal after Little Vespers is a simple one, since it is not taken on the feast day or Sunday itself. Compline is then said (often in the church’s narthex), with a pause for some rest before the All-night vigil begins.
This table outlines the major differences between Great and Little Vespers. [2]
On Sundays, the hymns for Little Vespers are partly repeated from Great Vespers, and partly proper; on feast days, they are generally all proper, except for the final one, known as the tropar or apolytikion (dismissal hymn), which closes the service. Here are just two examples from this week.
From Little Vespers of Saturday evening, tone 7, which would be said this evening:
From Thee, all-holy Mother of God and Virgin, Christ our God ineffably was born, being truly God before the ages, and of late a man, being the one eternally, become the other for our sake; for He preserveth in Himself the property of both natures, the one, shining out in miracles, the other, believed in His sufferings, whence one and the same both dieth as a man, and riseth as God; whom do Thou beseech, o Holy One who knewest not wedlock, that our souls may be saved.
An icon of the Virgin of the Passion, by the Cretan icon painter Emmanuel Lampardos (1567-1631), so called because Mary is holding Jesus as He looks forward to His passion, represented by the Cross which the angel in the upper right hand corner is showing to him. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
From Little Vespers of the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple:
David proclaimed in prophecy to Thee o Immaculate one, foreseeing the sanctification of Thine entry into the Temple, at which the ends of the earth today keep festival and glorify Thee, o all-hymned one. For the virgin before childbirth, remaining incorrupt after childbirth, o Mother of the Word of life, today as she comes into the Temple Zechariah receiveth with gladness, o Lady; and the Holy of Holies rejoiceth, taking Thee in, the nourishment of our life. Wherefore we also cry out in songs to thee: Beseech thy Son and our God for us, that great mercy be granted to us.
I add the following because it is relevant to what one might experience in a Byzantine parish today on a Saturday or the eve of a major feast. In 1838, a chief cantor of the Orthodox church in Constantinople named Constantine issued a reformed typikon for parish use, which was revised in two subsequent editions, and then corrected by another issued in 1888, and known from the last name of its author as the Violakis typikon. Among the many changes which these new editions introduced “for pastoral reasons” (ahem…) was the suppression of the vigils of the Sabaite tradition, thus making Little Vespers obsolete. This reform is now standard in Greek parishes, and spread into the Balkans, but is not generally accepted among the Eastern Slavs.
[1] In Greek, the All-night Vigil is either called “παννυχίς (pannykhis)” or “ἀγρυπνία (agrypnia)”, which means “watchfulness”; the Slavonic term is, “Всенощное бдѣнїе (vsenoschnoye bdyeniye).”
[2] There are no Little Vespers for Christmas, Theophany, Easter or Pentecost, due to the specific character of Vespers on each of these days. The rest of the Twelve Great Feasts have it, as do a number of major feasts of the Saints, such as the Nativity of St John the Baptist on June 24, and Ss Peter and Paul on June 29.
On this feast of St Cecilia, patroness of musicians, we are very pleased to share another update from the church of the Sacred Heart in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is marking the 5th centenary of the birth of Palestrina this year with a special series of musical events, one every month.
On August 15, the feast of the Assumption, Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Grand Rapids, Michigan, welcomed His Majesty’s Men to sing a choral meditation and Mass for the parish’s year-long Palestrina500 festival.
Highlights from the choral meditation include:
Ave Maris Stella by duFay (1397-1474)
Salve Regina by Byrd (1540-1623)
Sicut Cervus by Palestrina (1525-94)
Duo Seraphim by Vittoria (1548-1611)
And new works from composers Mark Nowakowski, Philip Moore, Nathaniel Adams, and Chad McCoy.
The Mass featured Palestrina’s Missa Regina caeli a 5, one his settings of the Alma Redemptoris and his Assumpta est Maria.
A month later on September 15th, Sacred Heart’s ensemble-in-residence Gaudete, under the direction of Jonathan Bading, sang the choral meditation and Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.
The choral meditation consisted of:
In monte oliveti by Palestrina
Ave verum corpus by Josquin des Prez (1455-1521)
Ave verum corpus by Andrew Bolden (b. 1977)
Ave maris stella by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Crux Fidelis by Adrian Pool (b. 2000), a world premiere
Stabant autem iuxta crucem by Michael Finnissy (b. 1946)
Vexilla regis by Palestrina
O sacrum convivium by Olivier Messiaen (1908-92)
Lamentations of Jeremiah (Book 3, Set 2, no. 1) by Palestrina
Totus tuus by Henryk Gorecki (1933-2010)
The Mass featured Palestrina’s Missa de Beata Virgine a 4, his setting of the sequence “Stabat Mater,” as well as his motets Panis angelicus and Pange lingua.
On October 7, Sacred Heart welcomed the Trinity Choir, a subset of the Theatre of Early Music under the direction of Daniel Taylor, from Toronto to sing a choral meditation and Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
The choral meditation was heavily English in character, featuring music by Gibbons, Walton, Purcell, Byrd, Harris, Joubert, Poston, and Tavener, as well as two selections by Arvo Pärt to celebrate his 90th birthday: “The Deer’s Cry” and “O Weisheit.”
For Mass, they sang Palestrina’s Missa O Rex gloriae as well his 6-voice “O bone Jesu” and his “Exsultate Deo.”
For the full schedule of Palestrina500 events, go to palestrina500.org
In the revised edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints by Fr Herbert Thurston SJ and Donald Attwater (1956), each main entry is followed by a series of notes of a more scholarly and technical nature. The notes on the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary include the following statement: “In the Henry Bradshaw Society’s reprint of the Missale Romanum of 1474 (vol. ii, pp. 251-253) is an interesting note which, while pointing out that the Presentation feast does not occur in the calendar or text of the 1474 edition, prints a Mass for the feast from a Roman missal of 1505. This includes a long sequence so barbarously worded that one can readily believe that St Pius V thought it better to suppress the feast altogether – as he did – rather than tolerate the continued recitation of such doggerel.”
The fact that this could find its way into print in a serious publication demonstrates what an atrocious state liturgical scholarship was when Thurston wrote these notes in the 1930s, and still was when Attwater put his hand to revising them in the 1950s. And indeed, the entire entry on the feast is grossly lacking. It states that it is “not very ancient”, while simultaneously asserting that it probably originated with the dedication of a church to the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem in 543, making it older than a great many other feasts on the calendar in both East and West. [1] But it fails to mention that it is counted among the Twelve Great Feasts of the Byzantine Rite, which celebrates it with a fore-feast and an after-feast, the equivalent of the Roman Rite’s vigil and octave.
An icon of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, as the feast is called in the Byzantine Rite. Note that the Virgin is represented as a small adult, rather than as a child; the reason for this is give below. (Cretan, 15th century; public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
It is certainly true that the feast did not become common in the West until the later part of the 15th century, and that Pope St Pius V removed it from the first editions of the Breviary and Missal issued after the Council of Trent. But the idea that he did so because of its sequence is absurd on two grounds. The first is that the sequence, and the proper Mass of the Presentation to which it belongs, only appear in two of the early printed editions of the Roman Missal. [2] Most editions simply have a rubric which says that on November 21st, the Mass of September 8th is repeated, changing the word “Nativity” to “Presentation.” (The Ambrosian Rite still follows this custom to this day, excepting only the first reading and the Alleluja.) There was therefore already an established custom of celebrating the feast in a manner fully in keeping with the Roman liturgical tradition, and which would not give offense to anybody’s literary sensibilities.
A page of a Roman Missal printed at Venice in 1521, in which the Mass of the Presentation consists solely of the aforementioned rubric in the upper part of the right column.
The second is simply that the sequence in question, while hardly a great masterpiece of its genre, is not bad, and it is difficult to see why Thurston and Attwater refer to it as “barbarously worded” and “doggerel.” It is in fact very typical of its genre and period. The true reason for the suppression of the feast in 1568, and along with it, those of the Virgin Mary’s parents, obviously lies in the fact that the episode comes from an apocryphal Gospel known as the Protoevangelium of James. We may take this as an object lesson, that even the Church’s formal recognition of a Pope’s sanctity is no guarantee that his interventions in the liturgy are all done for the best. And likewise, we may thank St Pius’ successor, Gregory XIII, for restoring the feast of St Anne in 1584, Sixtus V for restoring the Presentation the following year, and Gregory XV for restoring St Joachim in 1622: worthy men all, but none of them a Saint.
Here then is the text of the sequence; the first letters of each stanza form an acrostic: “Ave Maria; benedico te. Amen.” As told in the Protoevangelium, when she entered the temple at the age of three, the Virgin already walked as if she were fully mature; this is the reason why in icons of the Presentation, she is represented not as a toddler, but as a small adult. The sequence also refers to the tradition that when it came time for the maidens who served in the temple to marry, St Joseph was chosen as her spouse because a flower bloomed on his walking staff, as did the rod of Aaron in Numbers 17. The translation is taken from the English edition of the apposite volume of Dom Gueranger’s Liturgical Year, with several modifications. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, there is no recording available on YouTube.
The Marriage of the Virgin, ca. 1475-95, by an anonymous Netherlandish painter known as the Master of the Tiburtine Sybil. In the background are various other episodes from the Protoevangelium of James: in the upper middle, Joachim walks away from the temple, as his offering is rejected, since he is believed to be disfavored by God because of his failure to beget a child; he then goes out into the desert, and in the far background, an angel comes and tells him to return to his wife, and that they will conceive a child; Joachim and Anne are reunited at the gate of Jerusalem. At the left, the birth of the Virgin, and opposite, Her entry into the temple, with Joachim and Anne looking on behind her. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
Altissima providente, Cuncta recte disponente, Dei sapientia:
As the Wisdom of God, foreseeing the greatest mysteries, disposeth all things rightly:
Uno nexu coniugatis Ioachim et Anna gratis Iuga sunt sterilia.
Joachim and Anne are united in wedlock, but their union is sterile.
Ex cordis affectu toto Domino fideli voto Se strinxerunt pariter:
With all the heart’s affection they together bind themselves by faithful vow to the Lord:
Mox si prolem illis dare Dignetur, hanc dedicare In templo perenniter.
that if He deign to give them a child, they soon will consecrate it for ever in the temple.
Angelus apparuit Lucidus, qui docuit Exaudita vota,
A bright Angel appears, and tells them their prayers are heard
Regis summi gratia Ut detur his filia Gratiosa tota.
By the most high King’s grace, a daughter shall be given them, full of grace.
In utero consecrata, Miro modo generata, Gignet mirabilius
Consecrated in the womb born in a wondrous manner, more wondrously will she give birth
Altissimi Patris natum, Virgo manens, qui reatum Mundi tollet gratius.
to the Son of the Father most high, remaining a virgin; and He shall freely take away the world’s guilt.
Benedicta virgo nata, Templo trina præsentata, Ter quinis gradibus
Blessed is the Virgin born, at three years presented in the temple; by the fifteen steps
Erecta velox ascendit, Et uterque parens tendit, Ornando se vestibus.
Swift and erect, she ascends adorned with her beautiful robe, as her parents’ watch.
Nova fulsit gloria Templo, dum eximia Virgo præsentatur.
The temple shines with a new glory, when the august Virgin is presented;
for her parents have devoted her to God, and she herself has vowed to remain a virgin.
Consultus Deus responsum Dat ut virgo sumat sponsum, Quem pandet flos editus.
God, being consulted, answers that the Virgin shall take that spouse whom the blooming flower shows;
Ostensus Ioseph puellam Ad parentum duxit cellam, Nuptiis sollicitus.
Joseph thus chosen weds the maiden, and leads her to his parents’ home, careful of the marriage.
Tunc Gabriel ad virginem Ferens conceptus ordinem, Delegatur.
Then Gabriel is sent to the Virgin, bearing (God’s) command of her conception;
Erudita stat tacita, Verba quam sint insolita Meditatur.
the prudent Virgin stands silent, pondering over the strangeness of the message.
At cum ille tradidit Modum, virgo credidit, Sicque sacro Flamine
But when he explains how this shall be, she believes him; and thus by the Holy Spirit
Mox Verbum concipitur, Et quod nusquam clauditur, Conditur in virgine.
Soon the Word is conceived, and He whom no space can contain is concealed within the Virgin.
Ecce virgo singularis, Quanta laude sublimaris, Quanta fulges gloria.
Behold, peerless maiden, with what great praise thou are exalted, with what great glory thou shinest.
Nos ergo sic tuearis, Ut fructu quo gloriaris Fruamur in patria. Amen.
Therefore, do so protect us, that in our fatherland we may enjoy the fruit, whereby thou art so honored. Amen.
[1] This church, known as the “nea ekklesia – the new church”, or simply the Nea, was a project of the emperor Justinian, and was located very close to the site of the temple of Solomon into which the Virgin entered, the event celebrated by today’s feast. Its dedication was celebrated on November 20, 543; it seems likely, therefore, that the Presentation came into existence as a concomitant feast for the anniversary of this dedication, as the Exaltation of the Cross did for the dedication of the Holy Sepulcher. Thurston and Attwater inexplicably given no indication of any of this. (The Nea no longer exists; another church of the same name was built in Constantinople in the later 9th century, and has also disappeared.)
Jerusalem in a mosaic map in the floor of the church of St George in Madaba, Jordan, ca. 570 A.D., discovered in 1884. The main street is clearly visible running through the middle of it; the Nea Ekklesia is the building which fronts on it at the end of the street on the right. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
[2] The Bradshaw Society’s critical edition cited above notes that they were both printed in Venice. This means that the printers, not as yet constrained by any law of the Church as to what they might or might not add to the Missal, added the proper Mass of the Presentation to their edition from other sources. Thurston and Attwater should not have even surmised that Pius V suppressed the Mass because of its sequence without demonstrating first that the sequence was known and used at Rome itself.
The Sacrifice of Abraham, 1631/35, by the Flemish painter Cornelis de Vos (1585-1651)
The current effort to return to liturgical tradition takes, and must take, several forms. There are fraternities of priests who actively run parishes and shepherd souls, and there are contemplative nuns who pray without ceasing from behind cloister walls. There are polemicists on the front lines engaged in apologetics, like the late Michael Davies, and there are artists in music, painting, stained glass, and architecture trying to make churches once again centers of beauty.
And then there are the scholars, researchers who approach their subject in a more detached manner, but with the hope of changing the learned consensus about something. One may be tempted to dismiss this erudite division of the so-called traditionalist movement as so much ivory-tower theorizing, but it must be remembered that we never would have known how much bad scholarship led to the worst of the liturgical reforms had good scholarship not exposed it. And just as bad scholarship helped get us into this mess, good scholarship will help get us out.
One of the most eminent conferences promoting sound scholarship on the traditional liturgy is sponsored by the St. Colman’s Society for Catholic Liturgy in County Cork, Ireland. Named “Fota” after the inland island where the conferences were originally held, the conferences are centered around a different theme each time. The proceedings of the most recent, the Fourteenth Fota International Liturgical Conference in 2023, were edited and published last year under the title The Sacrifice of the Mass (Smenos Publications, 2024).
The volume, which is dedicated to the memory of Cardinal Pell (1941-2023), contains the kind of diversity one would hope to find in such a collection. There are two articles on sacrifice in the Bible, two on Eucharistic sacrifice in the theology of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, one on the Canon of the Mass, one on the Offertory Rite (which proved invaluable for my own article on the subject in this issue of TLM magazine), one on atonement, one on why the physical presence of the faithful at Mass is required, one on the radical changes the Novus Ordo made to the orationes super oblata or former Secrets, and one on liturgy and ritual process.
Collections of proceedings usually suffer from an uneven quality since it is rare that all contributors are of the same caliber. This volume is a happy exception to this rule. In fact, I found each one to be a page-turner, unfolding a riveting history or theology that was new to me. Two examples will suffice.
In the chapter “Sacrificium Patriarchae nostri Abrahae: The Aqedah in the Bible and the Canon of the Mass,” Fr. Dieter Böhler, S.J. examines the Supra quae propitio:
Upon these [the consecrated Host and Chalice] deign to look with a favorable and serene countenance, and to accept them, as Thou wert graciously pleased to accept the gifts of Thy just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and that which Thy high priest Melchizedek offered to Thee, a holy Sacrifice, an unspotted Victim.
Böhler first notices that even though Abel made a genuine sacrifice by immolating a lamb, his offering is called munera (gifts) and not sacrificium. “Abel,” Böhler observes, “is not an Israelite, but a representative of all humanity…. Thus, his sacrifice is an act of natural religion” (25). The Lord accepts Abel’s offerings, even though Abel has acted only in response to a natural impulse rather than any divine revelation.
Melchizedek is not an Israelite either, but even as a pagan he somehow worships the true “God Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth” (Gen. 14, 19). Moreover, he is designated as both a king and a priest, and his offering of bread and wine clearly foreshadows the Eucharist. Hence, even though unbloody offerings in the Old Testament (such as grains and vegetables) are not called sacrifices or victims, the Supra quae propitio elaborately refers to Melchizedek’s offering as “that which he offered to You… a holy sacrifice, an unspotted victim.”
Together, the sacrifices of Abel and Melchizedek point to the Eucharist:
Abraham and Melchizedek, anonymous Italo-flemish, late 16th century
Israel’s liturgy and the aspirations of all human reverence towards the divine are thus taken up and fulfilled in the Eucharistic sacrifice. The sacrificial matter of Abel (the lamb) and of Melchizedek (bread and wine) lend themselves to this interpretation, since the Eucharistic sacrifice of bread and wine makes present the sacrificed Lamb (see Rev. 5, 6) (26).
But the real mystery is the sacrifice of Abraham. Böhler first establishes that the sacrifice of Isaac was designed by God to be a test not of Abraham’s obedience, but of his faith. Specifically, Abraham had to have faith that God would fulfill His promise to make Abraham’s descendants a great nation through Isaac even though Isaac was to be killed before he could sire any offspring. This meant only one thing: Abraham had to believe in the resurrection of the dead, in this case, the resurrection of his ostensibly-soon-to-be dead son Isaac. That is why Abraham remains our Patriarch, even if we do not share his bloodline; he is a towering figure of great faith in the key doctrine of Christianity.
And his sacrifice? It was not Isaac, who was spared. And for Böhler, it was not really the ram that Abraham substituted for Isaac. Böhler notes that rams had only one meaning in the Levitical sacrifices: “they were the classic sacrificial animal of cult inauguration” (34), such as initiating priestly ordination. The cult inauguration here on Mount Moriah is an anticipation of the cult that David and Solomon would inaugurate centuries later in the same location (later renamed Mount Zion) and the new cultus that Our Lord would inaugurate again in the same location in the Upper Room on Holy Thursday. Rather, for Böhler, “The sacrifice of Abraham was a sacrifice of himself by himself. He surrendered himself will all his hopes, his love, his faith, into the dark night of God’s will. It was a self-offering” (32). It is indeed fitting that this knight of Faith be remembered in the Canon.
In the chapter “Why does the Participation of the Faithful in the Eucharist Require Their Physical Presence (during Mass)?” Michael Stickelbroeck responds to the public lockdowns during Covidtide and the eager collaboration of some bishops to suppress Mass attendance and encourage livestreaming of the Mass instead. To analyze this decision, Stickelbroeck draws from other scholars to contrast two encounters with the world. The first is one built upon social media and digital communication. This “virtual world” abstracts from place and time; indeed, it “rejoices in a bodyless corporality” (108) that enables anyone to enjoy anything anywhere, and to rewind or fast forward at will. Instead of being grounded in the real, the virtual world is grounded in a simulation of the real. “What is real,” Stickelbroeck concludes, “has been converted to a satellite that moves around its own image, the simulacrum” (106).
The danger of this worldview is that it weakens our ties to the world that is. “The more people immerse themselves in the virtual worlds of technology, the more the empirical and substantial reality of things dissolves” (107). Unlike the limitlessness of virtual worlds, “the substantial real is always at a determinate place and temporal nunc, which marks—in the flow of time—a limit between prior and posterior.”
One of Stickelbroeck’s more interesting sources is the German essayist and playwright Botho Strauss, who argues that thanks to our cyberlives, we are no longer attuned to real, physical presences, and this loss affects everything from our social interactions to our understanding of the sacramental order. Strauss’s solution is the liberation of art and symbol from what he calls the “dictatorship of secondary discourses” and a rediscovery of art’s “theophanic glory, its transcendental proximity” (108). Although Strauss does not say so explicitly, there is obviously no better way for this liberation to occur than through sacred art, and no better place for it to happen than in a church. And given that young people are especially beholden to this “dictatorship,” they more than any other generation are in a need of churches that reintroduce them to the wonder of low-tech, real presences that prepares them for the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
It is not difficult to see upon which worldview the Catholic Church depends. As an incarnational religion that worships a God who became flesh and dwelt among us and who is really present in the Eucharist, Christianity does not and cannot abstract from space and time, at least not in the administration of its sacraments, which are material conduits of spiritual grace. Hence, just as one cannot abstract from space and go to confession via telephone, one cannot abstract from space and be physically absent from Mass. Stickelbroeck modestly concludes that any arrangements that suggest the contrary “must be vigorously challenged” (115).
The other eight chapters in Sacrifice of the Mass are just as thought-provoking as the two I have surveyed. Editor Matthew Hazell is to be commended for producing an outstanding contribution to our study of the sacred liturgy.
Many thanks to the editors of The Latin Mass magazine 34:3 for allowing this publication to appear here (Fall 2025, 76-77).
We are glad to share this notice from the abbey of St Michael in Farnborough, England, about their new republication of the Monastic Breviary. It may be purchased at a special pre-order price at this link: https://www.theabbeyshop.com/product/breviarium-monasticum. Orders will ship in February of next year.
Many readers of the NLM will be familiar with the extremely popular Monastic Diurnal in Latin & English. The St Michael’s Abbey Press has been publishing that title for about 20 years now, and it is now in its 8th edition. We are therefore delighted to announce that, after some years of preparation, we are publishing a full Breviarium Monasticum - the 1962 Monastic Breviary in two volumes in Latin only. These volumes contain everything necessary to follow the entire Monastic Office including the Office of Matins, which is not given in the diurnal.
The St Michael’s Monastic Breviary is a reprint of the Marietti edition of 1962. Marietti were a very high quality Italian liturgical publishers founded in 1820. They were known both for the quality of their bindings, and also the beauty of the text itself. The 1962 Breviarium Monasticum is an excellent example of the quality of their work: the text is clear and readable, including “Liturgical Movement” style titles, arguably the breviary’s most distinctive feature.
As well as its beauty, another feature of this edition is its practicality: it reduces flipping backwards and forwards to a minimum- each office in the psalter gives all the texts necessary. For example, the daily psalms 66, 50, and 148-150, together with the Benedictus are printed in full for Lauds each day. Other editions would constantly (and sometimes frustratingly) refer you to different pages. It also includes several appendices, such as preparation & thanksgiving for Mass, various useful blessings, litanies, brief formulas for the sacraments, the last rites, &c.
Printed on bible paper, in black and red throughout and with gilt edges and six marker ribbons, our edition builds on the original Marietti beauty with several touches: custom endpapers unique to our publications, raised bands on the spine, the arms of the Abbey together with the title and volume number stamped in gold, and covers embossed with the medal of St Benedict. It is of a size that sits comfortably in the hand, sits open easily, not too heavy, and a generally pleasant book to handle and use.
The Breviary is available in two versions: with a zip case closing, or a traditional binding with a hard slipcase included. Both editions are leather bound, and extremely robust. A monk would traditionally spend several hours of his day praying the breviary, and so these volumes are intended to stand up to that level of daily wear and tear.
In buying the Breviarium Monasticum (and other titles) from the St. Michael’s Abbey Press you are also supporting a flourishing 140-year-old contemplative Benedictine Community of ten monks, in full Communion with the Church, celebrating the monastic liturgy in Latin, with a proud tradition of Gregorian chant. Buying our produce enables us to continue our life of prayer and work within the monastic enclosure. Thank you.
St Elizabeth of Hungary was canonized on Pentecost of the year 1235, May 25th, just over three-and-a-half years after her death, the third Franciscan Saint, and first woman among them, since at the time St Clare of Assisi was still alive in this world. She was one of the very earliest prominent members of the Third Order, and has long been honored as its chief patron alongside St Louis IX, king of France. (St Francis himself and St Anthony of Padua were canonized before her, and even more rapidly, by the same pope, Gregory IX.)
The Polyptych of St Anthony, 1460-70, made by Piero della Francesca (1412-92) for the Franciscan church of St Anthony in Perugia. At top, the Annunciation; in the middle (left to right), Ss Anthony and John the Baptist, the Madonna and Child, and Ss Francis and Elizabeth of Hungary; in the band below them, St Clare on the left, and St Agatha on the right. In the predella are shown three miracles: St Anthony raising a dead girl to life, St Francis receiving the stigmata, and St Elizabeth saving a child that had fallen into a well. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
There seems to have been some confusion over the precise date of St Elizabeth’s death right from the beginning. Before and after the Tridentine reform, her feast was kept by almost all the places that observed it on November 19th, and this is the day she was given when she was added to the Roman general calendar in 1670. However, it is now understood that she died on the 17th, and the 19th was the day of her burial. On the post-Conciliar general calendar, the 17th was opened up by the suppression of St Gregory the Wonderworker (one of the reformers’ least intelligent decisions), and she has been moved to that day. But ironically, in Germany, where her cultus was most fervent and important, the 17th belongs to St Gertrude the Great, and Elizabeth is therefore still on the 19th.
She is called “of Hungary” because she was the daughter of Andrew II, king of that nation, but she was married at quite a young age to a German nobleman, Louis, the landgrave of Thuringia. Her maternal aunt, Hedwig, duchess of Silesia, is also a canonized Saint, celebrated on October 16th. After her death and canonization, her shrine in the city of Marburg, where she died (about 54 miles north of Frankfurt), became a very important pilgrimage center.
Unsurprisingly, given her various royal connections, several very impressive reliquaries were made for her. The most notable of these is a reliquary in the form of a large chalice which formerly contained her skull. The cup inside is an agate bowl made sometime between the fourth and seventh centuries. It is decorated with a large number of jewels, including some carved in very ancient times, and the lid is decorated with parts of two royal crowns of the 13th century. During the Thirty Years’ War, it was looted by Swedish troops from a fortress in Würzburg, and now resides in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm. There are a huge number of photographs showing its details at the relevant page of Wikimedia Commons. (First four images by Ola Myrin, SHM, CC BY 4.0)
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