The Antipope Venerated as a Saint

The feast of St Martha is kept today with a commemoration of four Roman martyrs named Felix, Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrix. This commemoration originated as two separate observances, which seem to have been united because St Felix was buried in a catacomb named for him along the via Portuensis, the great ancient road which led to the port of Rome, while the other three were buried further down the same road in the Catacomb of Generosa. In earlier liturgical books, however, Felix is called “Pope Felix II”; this is true even in editions printed in the early 1950s, despite the fact that ever since the 1947 revision of the Annuario Pontificio, he has been officially listed as an antipope.

The Mass of Ss Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrix, and the Mass of St Felix, who is named only as a Martyr, in the Gellone Sacramentary (folio 97v), ca. 780 AD. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 12048)

Felix was the archdeacon of Rome in the mid-4th century, when the Church, so recently freed by the Emperor Constantine from pagan persecution, was subjected to its first “Christian” persecution by his son Constantius, an ardent supporter of the Arian heresy. In 355, the latter banished Pope Liberius to Greece for his opposition to Arianism, and Felix was consecrated by three Arian bishops to take his place. Although the majority of the Roman clergy apparently did recognize him as their bishop, the laity would have nothing to do with him. Two years later, when Liberius was permitted to return from exile, Felix and his supporters tried but failed to occupy the basilica of Pope Julius I (now known as Santa Maria in Trastevere); he was then banished from Rome by the Senate, never to return. After living for eight years near Porto in quiet retirement, he died in 365.

However, his entry in the Roman Martyrology before 1960 told the story differently. “At Rome, on the Via Aurelia, (the death of) St Felix the Second, Pope and Martyr, who, having been cast out of his see by the Arian Emperor Constantius because of his defense of the Catholic faith, died gloriously at Cera in Tuscany, being secretly slain by the sword.” According to the revised version of Butler’s Lives of the Saints by Herbert Thurston SJ and Donald Attwater, Felix was confused with two persons: first with his rival Liberius, which is difficult to explain, and secondly, with a martyr named Felix who was buried along the Via Aurelia, on which this Felix had built a small church. (Felix was an extremely common name in ancient Rome.) They also note that this confusion is already evidenced in documents of the 6th century. Therefore, the revised liturgical books of 1960, conforming to the updated Annuario Pontificio, eliminate the title “Pope” and the number “II” from his name, and delete his separate entry from the Martyrology altogether, while adding his name to that of the other three martyrs named above.

An engraved portrait of Cardinal Baronius, the frontispiece of a 1624 edition of his Annals. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Jeffdelonge, CC BY-SA 3.0)

What I think is particularly interesting about this is not the hagiographical confusion per se, but rather the way this confusion is treated in the revised Butler’s Lives, which calls it “a sad memorial to the still backward state of critical scholarship at the time when Cardinal Baronius was editing (the Martyrology).” After noting that “(t)he insertion of Felix as Pope and Martyr was not any oversight, for Baronius in his annotated edition of the martyrology refers his readers for an elucidation of the matter to the volume of his great work, the Annales, which was on the point of appearing,” it goes on to ascribe all of the confusion to the Liber Pontificalis, a famous collection of Papal biographies, famously unreliable as an historical document.

It turns out, however, that Baronius’ treatment of the problem is far more detailed and interesting than the brief entry in Butler’s would lead one to believe.

First of all, Baronius did not “insert” Felix into the Martyrology; he was already in the Roman liturgical books (Missal, Breviary and Martyrology) before the Tridentine reform. Moreover, Baronius was perfectly well aware of the historical problem posed by his cultus. In the pre-Tridentine Roman breviary, (which he, as a member of the Roman Oratory, would certainly have used), the first lesson of Matins on July 29th tells the story of Felix II in terms similar to those of the Martyrology entry noted above. It is followed, however, by another lesson which gives the history of Pope St Felix III, who reigned from 483-92, and also staunchly opposed a heresy supported by the Roman Emperor, although he was not martyred for this. The prayer of this Office, however, names only one Felix; this strongly suggests that the compilers of this earlier edition of the Breviary hedged their bets, so to speak, as to which Pope named Felix was actually honored by the feast.

Two columns of a Roman Breviary printed at Venice in 1481, with the lessons for July 29th. On the lower left (“lectio prima”) is the historical lesson for the Felix II, and at the upper right (“lectio secunda”) the lesson for Felix III. Notice that in the title of the feast and in the Collect, only one Felix is mentioned.

In the Tridentine Breviary, both of these historical lessons were completely expunged, along with those of the other three martyrs, and their collective feast reduced to just a commemoration on the feast of St Martha. This change is a clear sign that that the editors, Baronius among them, were aware that the statements contained in the older lessons could not to be regarded as historically reliable.

Turning to the relevant entry in Baronius’ Annals (Liberii ann. 4, 56-58) mentioned in Butler’s Lives, we discover the real reason why the notice of Felix as “Pope” was retained. He points out that Felix was (to borrow an odious turn of phrase from modern politics) personally faithful to the Nicene confession of faith, although he did not therefore separate himself from communion with the Arians or refuse ordination at their hands; this, according to the testimony of two ancient Church historians, Sozomen and Theodoret of Cyrus. Since he was deacon under Liberius, who also held fast to the Nicene faith, Baronius thought it unlikely that the latter would promote a convinced heretic to the important position of archdeacon, or keep him in that role. Furthermore, he explains, Felix must have known that he could not legitimately be Pope if Liberius was unlawfully deposed by a heretical Emperor. It was therefore Baronius’ opinion that Felix had accepted episcopal ordination not as the unlawful replacement of Liberius, but rather as a “chorepiscopus”, the title of a bishop who took care of rural areas without a fixed see in a city; effectively, what we would nowadays call an auxiliary bishop. He would have accepted this role so as to not leave the Church of Rome without governance during the exile of its rightful pastor.

Baronius goes on to explicitly state that “what is said about Felix’s ordination in the book about the Roman Popes falsely attributed to the name of Pope Damasus (i.e. the Liber Pontificalis), does not seem to be at all true”, an important recognition of that book’s value (or lack thereof) as an historical source. Further on (Liberii ann. 6, 58), he also notes that the ancient sources were not in agreement as to Felix’s ultimate fate, whether he died in peace near Porto, as is now believed, or was condemned by Constantius and killed at Caere in Tuscany, as formerly stated in the Martyrology.

Baronius then gives an account (ibid. 62) of something which happened in his own time, which vindicates him from Thurston and Attwater’s charge of being a backward scholar. He writes that scholars had long accepted that Felix was an intruder in the papal office, and that the ancient sources did not agree on the circumstances of his death. Under Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85), several learned men had gathered in Rome to work on the revision of the Martyrology, and there had been a great deal of intense discussion among them specifically about the case of Felix. Baronius himself leaned strongly towards removing him altogether, and wrote a lengthy treatise in defense of this position, which found much support and agreement among his colleagues.

Mass for the Lenten Station at Ss Cosmas and Damian in 2017, photographed by our Roman pilgrim friend Agnese.

It happened, however, that in the year 1582, a side-altar of the very ancient church of Ss Cosmas and Damian in the Forum was moved, revealing a marble box that was divided into two parts by a stone slab. On the one side were the relics of three Martyrs, Ss Mark, Marcellian, and Tranquillinus; on the other, bones, and the following inscription on a small stone plaque: “The body of St Felix, Pope and Martyr, who condemned Constantius.” This discovery happened to take place on the day before his feast. “To the wonder of all, Felix himself seemed to appear as one come back to life, as if to personally take up his own cause, since he had been greatly overwhelmed by the pens of those who wrote against him. I myself, struck by no small wonder at an event of such greatness… with the moderation of a Christian, then curbed my pen, which I had sharpened in zeal for the truth, and deemed that it had most happily (felicissime) befallen me to be beaten by Felix.”

Now none of this is to say that Baronius’ assessment of the historical question was necessarily correct, or that the revisers of the liturgical books were wrong to do as they did in 1960 by joining Felix to the other martyrs. It is however, very much to say that whether he was ultimately right or wrong, Cardinal Baronius was not careless; he acted in good faith, and in the belief that divine providence had intervened to prevent the suppression of the long-standing veneration of a Saint.

Contrast this with the disdainful attitude of the supposedly far more sophisticated modern scholars, who speak of his work as the product of a “backward” state of affairs, but do not mention the discovery of the relics in connection with him, nor the reason why he changed his mind about St Felix. This cavalier and unjustified attitude of superiority has been all too common for far too long, and we have lived with the damage it has done to the Church’s tradition for far too long.

Reader Appeal: Origins of the Terminology “Liturgy of the Catechumens” and “Liturgy of the Faithful”?

If one looks at an old Roman hand missal, one will find the Mass divided into two parts, “the Mass of the Catechumens” and “the Mass of the Faithful.” Like most people, I had supposed this was an ancient division. However, Lynne C. Boughton, in her fascinating article “An Imagined Past: Initiation, Liturgical Secrecy, and ‘Mass of the Catechumens’” (Antiphon 25.2 [2021]: 161–210), believes that this terminology was invented rather later.

Boughton quotes a Catholic Encyclopedia article of 1908 in which the author, Thomas Scannell, writes: “Catechumens when present at Mass were not dismissed with the inquirers, but were detained while a special prayer was recited over them. They then also withdrew before the Mass of the Faithful began.” She suggests that the language became popularized through Dom Fernand Cabrol in the 1920s, based on Cabrol’s interpretation of the disciplina arcani:

Hand-missals provided for congregations into the early part of the twentieth century corresponded to altar missals in not indicating a “Mass of the Catechumens / Mass of the Faithful” distinction. But in 1921, a hand-missal edited by the liturgical movement specialist Fernand Cabrol contained labels that divided the Ordo missae into a “Mass of the Catechumens” and a “Mass of the Faithful.” Cabrol’s introduction to the hand-missal explains that the labels indicate that catechumens were “only allowed to assist at this first part of the Mass and were obliged to withdraw after the Gospel.” Although some hand-missals that were produced as late as 1950 did not insert labels that implied a division in the Ordo missae, the presence of such became standard in these books for the laity—but not in books for altar use—in the decade preceding the Second Vatican Council.

The remainder of her article then questions the historical assumptions on which the division was made. But my question is: When and where did this division originate? What are its origins?

A 1941 publication

Picking up volume 10 of Dom Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year, the English version of which was first published in 1879, I see he writes on page 39:

The Priest and the people should now have their hearts ready: it is time to prepare the offering itself. And it is here that we come to the second part of the holy Mass; it is called the Oblation, and immediately follows that which was named the Mass of the Catechumens, on account of its being formerly the only part at which the candidates for Baptism had a right to be present.

Dom Guéranger speaks as if it’s a well-known fact, not something he’s daringly introducing. And this is over forty years earlier than Cabrol’s 1921 missal cited by Broughton.

So, my first question is: What is the earliest evidence any reader has come across for the Mass being divided explicitly into these two parts?

The plot thickens: I have noticed that Byzantine publications also divide the Divine Liturgy into “Liturgy of the Catechumens” and “Liturgy of the Faithful,” and I am trying to figure out how far back that goes. One hypothesis would be that it was picked up from Western writers and applied to the Eastern rite, but it could also work the other way around.

I asked a biritual priest for his opinion and he replied:

“In Greek liturgical books, one distinction is ancient: ‘Pre-anaphora.’ But the evidence I can see points to the formal division of Byzantine service books under those exact headings being a later, imposed editorial convention, not a Byzantine manuscript habit. In the Greek tradition, older witnesses seem to prefer categories like proanaphora rather than ‘Liturgy of the Catechumens.’ In the Slavonic printed tradition (not my area of expertise) but discussed by Taft et al., explicit headings such as ‘Литургия оглашенных’ (Liturgy of the Catechumens) are attested at least by the 1617 Sluzhebnik, and continue in later editions (the interesting question here is whether or not Cabrol had access to French/Slavic versions of these books—from Russian emigres in post-Revolutionary France?). The formal division of Byzantine liturgical texts into “Liturgy of the Catechumens” and “Liturgy of the Faithful” appears to be modern editorial imposition. That is to say: the rite historically had a ritual seam at the anaphora, but the titles themselves may be largely a modern scholarly fiction when projected backward.”

Now, if a book in Russian in 1617 has “Liturgy of the Catechumens,” then could Guéranger have gotten this term from the Slavic tradition and imposed it on the Roman Rite? Perhaps “Liturgy/Mass of the Faithful” was a later imposition, something invented for the sake of parallelism and a clear division?

As a provisional hypothesis, one might say that the source of calling the first part of the liturgy “catechumenal” is due to the litany of the catechumens terminating before they are thrown out of “the doors” by the subdeacons at Hagia Sophia, and thus, the second part becomes, by default, the liturgy “of the faithful.” St. Augustine complains at one point that there are too many catechumens to bless individually so he will bless them all at once, which indicates the origin of the oratio super populum. The litany of the catechumens ended in a common dismissal prior to the anaphora, as likely attested in North Africa, Rome, and Constantinople.

In any case, I would very much welcome input from readers on these questions.

Introducing Aidan Hart’s Consultancy: KALOS Liturgical Design.

Serving Roman Catholic, Byzantine Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches and communities

I want to recommend a new venture founded by my friend and former teacher, Aidan Hart, who is one of the foremost iconographers in the UK. KALOS is a design consultancy and team of highly skilled practitioners which offers churches a way to rethink the design of their sacred spaces and commission liturgical art. This means that the art is not an afterthought, but central to the project. His detailed mission statement is posted below. You can contact him at aidanharticons.com/consultancy/. KALOS takes commissions on both sides of the Atlantic.

KALOS offers design, consultancy, implementation, and project management for church interiors worldwide, working on both refurbishments and new builds. It specializes in the reintroduction of figurative iconography into bespoke schemas that harmonize with the architecture and the liturgy of the client’s church. Drawing on both the Eastern Orthodox and early Western traditions and working across denominations, its mission is to preserve and advance the tradition of sacred art so that liturgical spaces encourage participation in heavenly worship.

Drawing on the wisdom of both the Orthodox East and the early Christian Western traditions, KALOS serves Orthodox, Byzantine Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches. The aim throughout is to help “re-face” church interiors, making them, as Aidan puts it, “living icons of heavenly worship.”

Aidan brings more than just the knowledge and experience of a working liturgical artist, extensive as that is. He is a published author and a serious scholar of liturgical history and theology, specializing in the role of iconography, architecture, and interior design within that theology. Such a combination of practical skill and learning is rare, and it means that a parish working with Aidan is guided by someone who understands deeply how all aspects of the design impact those who worship within.

KALOS can manage a project from first consultation through concept, design, planning approval, and creation, whatever the budget and whatever the setting, from a small chapel to a cathedral. For any church considering how to make its interior more truly conducive to prayer, I cannot think of better hands to be in.

The KALOS mission statement is as follows:

“We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on earth...for on earth there is no such splendor or beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that God dwells there among men.” So spoke the emissaries of Prince Vladimir of Kyiv, reporting back on their experience of the Holy Liturgy at Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, in the tenth century.

KALOS, meaning beautiful and good in Greek, is an integrated consultancy and production house specializing in the design and creation of high-quality liturgical spaces for churches in the UK and across the world. KALOS is the vision of Aidan Hart, who, as well as being one of the most prominent iconographers and liturgical artists in the UK today, also enjoys a considerable international reputation. His work is in high demand across Christian denominations, with works in many cathedrals and over twenty-five countries worldwide.

KALOS specializes in reintroducing figurative iconography to places of worship and creating interiors conducive to prayer. Worship on earth is participation in heavenly worship, and so a major part of KALOS's work is to help communities to 're-face' their church interiors with iconography that helps make this a reality for worshippers. Liturgical art and church interior design are therefore a specialist field, requiring intimate knowledge of liturgy, theology, architecture, tradition, and materials. Detail and context are paramount in our process. From initial consultation and concept development to design, gaining planning approval, creation and project management, we can guide and manage every step of the process with care, clarity, and deep respect for sacred context.

The KALOS team draws especially on the wisdom of the Eastern Orthodox and early Western traditions, seeking innovative and intelligent ways to integrate these into contemporary ritual spaces. While favoring traditional methods and natural materials, we sometimes also use contemporary materials where these best suit requirements.

We source, curate, and manage teams of leading artists, architects, craftspeople, technicians, and other professionals. We select these for their expertise, theological sensitivity, and technical excellence. Our core team members have worked for many decades in the realm of liturgical art and architecture. This experience enables us to tailor to the needs of worship spaces whatever their context, whether parishes, cathedrals, monasteries and convents, pilgrimage sites, landscaping, chapels of faith schools or sites of Christian heritage. Whether the projects involve fresco, mosaic, panel icons, church furnishings, sculpture, interior design, lighting or large-scale liturgical environments, we bring together the right people to deliver enduring works that enhance the beauty and function of worship spaces.

With a mind to meeting the growing demand for church refurbishments and new builds, we also apprentice promising new students of liturgical art as well as employing past students from The King's Foundation School of Traditional Art, where Aidan Hart has taught an icon-painting program since 2009. We plan to sponsor and promote research to glean practical wisdom from academic and scientific studies of past church masterpieces. We are also developing modules for seminaries, to inspire future priests concerning the importance of beauty and liturgical art, and to equip them with practical skills such as how to brief architects and other professionals for renovations.

Past commissions range from intimate prayer spaces and chapels to large churches and cathedrals with frescos and mosaics, always seeking to honor the sacred purposes of the spaces and churches that we serve, whatever the budget.

We are committed to a warm and generous spirit of collaboration with churches of all denominations. Our mission is not only to preserve but also to advance the tradition of sacred art in our time. Liturgical arts should reflect and participate in heavenly worship, drawing hearts and minds to an encounter with Christ and the saints. “On Earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6, 10) is our inspiration.

Here are some before and after photographs of Aidan’s work with churches:

Second:

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Calendar Wheel in Lyon Cathedral

A friend of mine recently sent me this picture of a calendar wheel, which is part of an astronomical clock in the cathedral of St John the Baptist in Lyon, France. (The clock was built in 1661 to replace earlier one destroyed by the Huguenots in 1562; it has been restored several times.) The outer part is the current liturgical calendar, printed on a card that is supposed to rotate a little bit clockwise every day; on the left side of the frame, there is a metal hand hand with a finger that points to the current date (not shown here). On the inner part, within the metal grill, are indicated the calendar year, the number of Sundays after Epiphany, the dates of Septuagesima (still useful even in the post-Conciliar Rite for the dating of Carnival), Ash Wednesday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Corpus Christi, then the number of Sundays after Pentecost, the date of the First Sunday of Advent, the dominical letter, the golden number, the epact, the indiction, and the letter of the martyrology. The rotatable card currently in place is good until 2089.

Above it is this astrolabe, which indicates the position of the Earth, sun and moon, and various stars.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Chris 73, CC BY-SA 3.0 

The complete structure; the calendar wheel is on the lower part of the front. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Jean-Christophe BENOIST, CC BY 4.0

A Richer Table

That a richer table of the word of God may be provided for the faithful, let the treasures of the Bible be opened up more plentifully. - Sacrosanctum Concilium 51 (my own, corrected translation)

The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water. I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on. A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus: Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Parath (the name of a river); there hide it in a cleft of the rock. Obedient to the LORD’s command, I went to the Parath and buried the loincloth. After a long interval, the LORD said to me: Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth which I told you to hide there. Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth from the place where I had hid it. But it was rotted, good for nothing!

courtesy of a friend of a friend

Then the message came to me from the LORD: Thus says the LORD: So also I will allow the pride of Judah to rot, the great pride of Jerusalem. This wicked people who refuse to obey my words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts, and follow strange gods to serve and adore them, shall be like this loincloth which is good for nothing. For, as close as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so had I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD; to be my people, my renown, my praise, my beauty. But they did not listen. (Jeremiah 13, 1-11, in the colorless, odorless, gaseous paraphrase known as the New American Bible, the reading for today, Monday of week 17 of Ordinary Time in the post-Conciliar Rite.)

Announcing a New Initiative: CMAA Groups

The Church Music Association of America, the owner and publisher of the New Liturgical Movement, has started a new initiative called CMAA Groups.  Goups@musicasacra.com. We want to extend the spirit of our annual Colloquium throughout the year. It is important, however, that you know who we are, where we come from, and why we do what we do. We also want to build our membership. We have many resources that people use for their own benefit and for the benefit of their choirs. Using what we offer is awesome, but we want to build up the number of citizens who share in our vocation to spread our love for the Sacred Music of the Church, which is at the service Our Lord Himself. We also want to build collegiality among CMAA Members in local groups spread throughout the country.

I would like to start with a brief history of the Church Music Association of America. From the late 1800’s to just before Vatican II, which convened in 1962, the Liturgical movement was striving to teach lay people Gregorian Chant and sing more at Mass. There were many groups fostering this renewal were: the Pius X Liturgical School, the Catholic Choirmasters Guild, the Caecilian movement from the Midwest, Boys’ Town in Nebraska and the St Gregory Society in the East.

Liturgical changes started to happen during the reign of Pope Pius XII. In 1955, Holy Week was completely changed as well as many feast days. The Council opened in 1962; its first document was on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. Next, the Consilium was established to begin the changes to the Liturgy called for in SC. Three well-known priest musicians decided to start planning the proper implementation of Sacred Music: Msgr. Angles from Spain, Msgr. Overath from Germany, and Msgr. Schuler from the church of Saint Agnes in the archdiocese of Minneapolis-Saint Paul.

In 1963, Pope Paul VI issued Nobile Subsidium Liturgiae, which established the Consociatio Internationalis Musicae Sacrae or CIMS - the international Association for Sacred Music. The Sacred Music groups in the US mentioned above hosted CIMS at the Fifth International Church Music Congress, held in 1966 in Milwaukee and Chicago. From this meeting the CMAA was born. The Caecilian movement in the Midwest and the St Gregory Society in the East merged to form the CMAA. The journals of both societies were merged into “Sacred Music.” This makes our journal, Sacred Music, the oldest continuous publication on all the issues that concern musica sacra in the Church in the United States. The CMAA was established as the official representative of CIMS in the USA.

Not too long after the founding of the CMAA, Universa Laus was founded in opposition to CIMS. They desired a complete vernacularization of the Liturgy: official texts were hard to come by, and the hootenanny Mass was launched – “Michael row your boat ashore,” with an avalanche of horrible sacro-pop entering the sacred liturgy. By the time of the promulgation of the New Mass in 1969, Latin was unofficially almost forbidden, and the treasury of Sacred Music had basically disappeared.

The CMAA went into survival mode. Msgr. Schuler and his secretary, Virginia Schubert, kept the journal Sacred Music going against all odds. Twenty-two years after the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae, the first Colloquium was held at Christendom College. For these twenty-two years, except in a few places, the treasury of sacred music was basically dead. The Colloquium was the beginning of the revival of the CMAA. It eventually started to move around the country and began to attract more attendees. In 2005/2006 the CMAA published a huge number of materials in the public domain on our website, making us the “go to” place to learn about sacred music. And we have been expanding ever since.

Why do we do what we do?

We believe, in accordance with the teachings of the Church, that the presence of Christ is most fully revealed in the Sacred Liturgy when it is celebrated solemnly; that is, with the sacred music that the Church sees as its own. In this experience, each individual worships God most fully, and each musician can use their talent and training to worship God and be of service to their brothers and sisters. Sacred music must be holy, true art, and universal.

How do we accomplish this?

We invite the clergy and the faithful to discover the Church’s treasury of sacred music – Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony, organ music, and worthy new compositions. We equip them through education, our journal Sacred Music, and with various online and in-person conferences. We build friendships and collegiality. This “friendship in Sacred Music” will enable musicians to flourish through a life of service to God and His Holy Church.

Finally, what are we about?

We are a community of people in love with the Sacred Music Treasury of the Catholic Church. We are committed to teaching and restoring this treasury to its proper place in all the Liturgies of the Roman Rite. All the officers of the board, including the President, pay dues every year. Except for the general manager, who is not paid enough, we are all unpaid volunteers.

We have made a commitment to this organization because it is of the utmost importance, in obedience to the teaching of the Church.

By launching “CMAA Groups,” we want to build up personal commitment to the CMAA and sacred music. We want more citizens who will join the CMAA and with us, in real collegiality, share this joyful work. Groups@musicasacra.com.

We will provide a program for nine months each year. The program will begin with sung Compline and eventually move to Vespers. There will be an assigned reading with discussion questions. There will then be a social so that people can get to know each other for support, encouragement and friendship. On three of the occasions there will be an added music reading session that will explore different works that are relevant to the up-coming liturgical season. We are in the process of finding competent people who can host a local group. We have already spoken with people in different parts of the country. We plan to have our beta test in September with the group from the Minneapolis/St Paul area.

We will also encourage people who wish to continue in the group to join the CMAA. People always ask, what do I get for my $72.00 annual membership fee. The very first perk and the most important is that you are now a citizen of the CMAA who is helping us continue our mission. Of course you will receive our journal, Sacred Music, continue to get certain discounts, have access to online programs, be remembered at one of the Masses during the Colloquium, and receive news and updates.

I like to call these groups local Gregorian chant cells that are organically and locally attracting more people. I am asking everyone who is reading this to join the CMAA, if you have not already done so, and if you are a member, to try to get one or more people to join. An increase in membership is so important.

In conclusion, we are looking for enthusiastic, energetic, committed, happy, spiritual citizens that will not only take what they receive, but with us, continue to give it. Please become part of why we do what we do, how we accomplish this, and what we are all about. If you are interested email us at Groups@musicasacra.com.

The Incarnation, the Passion, and the Eucharist as Keys to Rightly Interpreting the Song of Songs

If you’ve ever read the Song of Songs (also called the Canticle of Canticles) in the Old Testament, you probably had more than a few questions about it! What is this very sensuous book about a lover and a beloved doing in the canon of Scripture? Are the modern biblical exegetes right when they say it’s just a loose collection of ancient Near Eastern erotic poetry that accidentally found its way into the Hebrew scriptures? Were the Jewish rabbis closer to the truth when they said it depicts the tender and tempestuous relationship between YHWH and Israel?

In his new book Wounded I Sing: The Song of Songs and the Incarnation of the Son of God, Dr. Timothy Kelly, a professor of theology at the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria, argues that Christians are uniquely positioned to unlock the mysteries of this book, which opens its secrets more and more as we read it in and through the Heart of Christ.

When the Word became flesh, the transcendent God of love reached down into our mortal, passible nature to join it as a man joins his betrothed, and upon the Cross He accomplished a bodily-spiritual nuptial covenant with the Church and every baptized soul that He renews, day after day, in fleshly-and-spiritual Eucharistic communion.

What the Hebrews longed for as yet-to-be-attained in the Messianic age, the Christian receives as now accomplished in the sacrifice and sacrament of the Lord's Passion—yet this, in turn, is the foretaste and pledge of something far greater: the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb. The dynamism of eros that characterizes the Song reveals both the fiery love of the Divine Lover and the yearning of His beloved to be inseparably one, but in a manner that is incarnate, ecstatic, total, irrevocable, blissful beyond what mind can conceive or imagine.

This is the essence of the Christian life and no book in the entire Bible conveys it better. No wonder the Fathers and Doctors wrote more commentaries on the Song of Songs than on any other book. No wonder it entices and baffles us: it speaks to our deepest desire, and yet does so with all the enigmas of salvation history and of our pilgrimage under the invisible hand of Providence.

And we can be thankful to Dr. Kelly for synthesizing all of this—drawing especially on St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Matthas Scheeben—into a readable guide that opens one magnificent vista after another. An exemplary work of Thomistic synthesis, with the clarity of Garrigou-Lagrange and the eloquence of Pieper.

Readers of NLM will be particularly interested in Kelly's extensive discussion of the Passion narratives (pp. 63-96), which play so pivotal a part in the ancient Roman Rite's celebration of Holy Week (with all four being read between Palm Sunday and Good Friday); how Christ's spousal office is necessarily priestly, sacrificial, and nutritive of His bride, the Church and the Christian soul; and how baptism and the Holy Eucharist, in particular, are nuptial sacraments with analogous aspects of unity and fecundity (pp. 97-149).

Without necessarily intending to be an apologetics work for the Catholic Faith, in fact Kelly's argument shows that both the Old Testament as a whole and the Passion of Christ make no salvific sense if there is not an immediate physical-spiritual communion possible with the Son of God, and in that sense proves that the Protestant account of personal salvation (through faith, by Scripture, by grace alone, etc.) is in tension with the entire trend of salvation history and of the life of Christ.

The early readers of this manuscript—including some of the greatest living Catholic biblical scholars—loved it.

Scott Hahn, editor of the Ignatius Bible’s commentary on the Song of Songs, wrote: “Rarely will you see a book that brings biblical, dogmatic, and mystical theology together so artfully and lucidly as this remarkable and readable synthesis does. Timothy Kelly refreshingly resets the entire question of the Song’s literal and spiritual meanings.”

John S. Bergsma, who co-authored A Catholic Introduction to the Bible with Brant Pitre, and wrote a book called The Bible and Marriage, had this to say: “An exquisite contemporary reading of the book, which I hope will contribute to returning the Song to its rightful and central place within Catholic biblical theology.”

Stephen K. Ray, author of commentaries on Genesis and the Gospel of John, summed it up as “an illuminating guide to a sublime and mysterious book.”

Fr. John Saward, author of some of the finest theological works of recent decades, declared: “Writing with a poet’s sensitivity to language, Dr. Kelly shows us how the Nuptial Mystery of Christ and His Church, of which the Song of Songs speaks with the authority of divine and prophetic inspiration, stands at the very centre of the Catholic faith.”

To find out more or “look inside,” visit the publisher’s site or any Amazon site.

Here’s a short video introduction, including a reading of part of the text:

Two Recent Articles on Sacred Music

Readers may find interesting two recent articles by Trent Beattie concerning the ever-fresh subject of sacred music.

A fun look at what is and is not allowed in Mass... 

Is it possible for the love of sacred music to go too far? Comparing the Church’s directives with practical parish realities can often reveal a gap...

It is the duty of the priest to pray the Mass, but it does not follow that he is required to fill “empty spaces” therein with a multiplication of required prayers or the addition of prayers not even called for – no matter how beautiful they might be in themselves.

As silence accompanies the Consecration of the bread and wine, it is fitting to have silence at the consecration of ourselves – that is, when receiving Holy Communion.

Even if a parish choir does not sing vernacular hymns, it can still fall prey to the notion that wall-to-wall singing of some sort must accompany reception of Holy Communion.

Read more in “The Wills Are Alive with a Mound of Music.”

Extensive Q&A with Christopher Jasper of the Gregorian Chant Academy

Although someone may agree in principle that we should become more skilled in the Church’s music, there can be real hurdles to overcome in achieving the desired proficiency. Christopher Jasper has created highly popular online courses for success in that realm…

The singers may be very holy and operate with the best of intentions, but if they lack the musical abilities to do the music justice, well, that can be detrimental to those who hear it. It can be distracting or sometimes outright painful to listen to.

On the other hand, when most people, regardless of religion, do hear chant or polyphony sung very well – especially if they hear it live and in a beautiful church – are typically very moved by it and immediately sense the sacrality and transcendence of this kind of music.

Read more in “Enchanted by the Music of the Church.”

The Fraction and Commingling

Lost in Translation #166

As the priest says the adjuration to the Embolism (per eumdem Dominum nostrum…), he breaks the Host in two and then breaks off a small particle. Laying down the two large halves on the paten, he holds the particle over the chalice, makes the sign of the cross three times with it, and says Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum, that is, “May the peace of the Lord be with you always.” The servers, congregation, or choir reply: Et cum spiritu tuo. The priest then drops the particle into the chalice as he says:

Haec commixtio et consecratio Corporis et Sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, fiat accipientibus nobis in vitam aeternam. Amen.

Which I translate as:

May this mingling and consecrating of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be, for us who are receiving it, for life everlasting. Amen.

Since the Middle Ages, the actions accompanying this prayer have been interpreted allegorically. As we noted in an earlier post, the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ is mystically represented at the Canon’s closing doxology by five signs of the cross, the first three hearkening to His three hours on the Cross and the last two signifying the separation of Christ’s soul from His body. And according to William Durandus, the three prayers that follow the Canon – the Praeceptis salutaribus, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Embolism – remind us of the three days that Our Lord’s body lay lifeless in the Sepulcher. [1]

Following this line of thought, the separation of the two halves of the Host represents the cleaving of Christ’s flesh when the soldier pierced His side with a lance (John 19, 34), while the placement of the particle in the chalice represents the Resurrection, the reunion of Christ’s body, blood, and soul. On Good Friday, Christ’s blood was separated from His body (tradition holds that He was all but exsanguinated) and His soul from His body, His soul descending to limbo and His body placed in the Sepulcher. (His divinity, on the other hand, remained present to all three). On that first Easter Sunday, all that had been sundered on Good Friday was reunited and glorified, never to be separated again.

The 1970 Missal lacks this symbolism, in part because the fraction rite was moved to a different location (which we will discuss in a later post). A.W.J. Keyzer writes of this part of the Novus Ordo:

The meaning of the fractio panis is ambiguous. It is a sign of unity. We participate in the one bread, we are part of it. This sign of unity concerns the community itself. It is also a sign of unity with Christ. A second meaning of the fractio panis lies in the breaking itself. The breaking, taken literally, is a condition for participation. The first Christians recognized the Lord in this ritual; it is even the name for Missa. In number 130, no prescriptions are included regarding the proper manner in which the host should be broken. The host is broken into a number of pieces, one of which is placed in the chalice. [2]

Peter J. Elliott concurs:

The third moment in the fourfold action of Jesus Christ is the “Breaking of the Bread”, or fraction. This practical action signifies that, in Communion, the many faithful are made one body in Christ, the one Bread (cf. 1 Corinthians 10, 17)….The breaking of the Host(s) is carried out over the paten(s), not over the chalice(s). [3]

All rites, Eastern and Western, have a fraction rite in which a particle from a newly consecrated Host is placed into the newly consecrated Precious Blood, but the city of Rome had two additional practices. First, in the titular churches, a particle of a Host consecrated at a papal Mass called the fermentum was dropped into the chalice to signify the presbyterate’s unity with their bishop. (Fortescue speculates that the Latin fermentum was chosen for this particle in part to convey the idea that it unites the bishop to his priests as leaven unites bread.) [4] Second, there was another custom of dropping a particle of a Host consecrated at a previous Mass (this one called the sancta) to express “the continuous unity of the eucharistic sacrifice” from one Mass to the next. [5]

No custom, however, quite explains the appearance of consecratio in the prayer, which gives the impression that the Host and Precious Blood have not yet been consecrated – and if they have been consecrated (and of course they have), it seems pointless to consecrate now what was maximally consecrated at the Words of Institution. Finally, there is something mildly ironic about using “consecration,” which means to set apart, in a prayer that is recited when putting two things together. The word choice was so perplexing that it was a topic of conversation at the Council of Trent. [6] Jungmann’s interpretation is:

The word consecratio, which stayed in the text in spite of the objections brought against it, and in spite of the fact that it was missing in some medieval texts here and there, must be rendered by “hallowing” in the sense that through the commingling a sacred token or symbol is effected in the sacramental species and mediately in the Body and Blood of Christ. [7]

I also believe that the word can be translated in light of the symbolic action that it accompanies. If we keep in mind that the chalice containing the particle represents the Risen Lord, I suggest the following: “May this coming together and setting apart of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ…” The “coming together” alludes to the Resurrection, and the “setting apart” can refer to Christ’s glorified Body, which is set apart insofar as it is different from our current bodies and certainly more special. The Ambrosian Rite uses the formula: Haec commixtio consecrati corporis et sanguinis, “This mingling of the consecrated body and blood of Christ.” No doubt, “consecrated” refers to the sacramental action that has just taken place, but it too can be construed in a wider sense as Christ’s glorified Body.

“Hard sayings” are not the Novus Ordo’s forte, and so the offending word was removed in the 1970 Missal. The current prayer is:

Hac commixtio Corporis et Sanguinis Domini nostri Iesu Christi fiat accipientibus nobis in vitam aternam. No. 129

Which both the 1985 and 2011 ICEL versions translate as:

May this mingling of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ bring eternal life to us who receive it.

Most other translations follow suit, although oddly, the Mexican, Italian, and French versions add the line “united in this chalice” after “Lord Jesus Christ.” [8] If anyone knows the back story to this interpolation (or any other modern vernacular translations, I am all ears (in the Commm box).

Notes

[1] William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officionorum IV.47.3.

[2] A.W.J. Keyzer, Om voor Gods gelaat te staan. Een expositio missae (Baarn: Gooi & Sticht, 1999), 193.

[3] Peter J. Elliott, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, 2nd ed. (Ignatius Press, 2005), nos. 324 and 325.

[4] Fortescue, 24.

[5] Jungmann, vol. 2, 312.

[6] See Jungmann, 311-313.

[7] Jungmann, 316.

[8] The Mexican Missal has El Cuerpo y la Sangre de nuestro Señor Jesucristo, unidos en este cáliz, sean para nosotros alimento de vida eterna. The third edition of the Italian Missal has Il Corpo e il Sangue del Signore nostro Gesù Cristo, uniti in questo calice, siano per noi cibo di vita eterna (p. 447). And the French has Que le Corps et le Sang de notre Seigneur Jésus Christ, réunis dans cette coupe, nourrissent en nous la vie éternelle.

Notes on the Slavonic Feast of Saint Elias

Many thanks to Mr Danijel Uremović for sharing with us this article about the feast of the Prophet Elijah, which was celebrated on Monday, and figures prominently in the tradition of the Glagolitic Missal used in his native Croatia, and in some other regions of the Balkan peninsula. We recently published his account of a Glagolitic Mass celebrated in Sydney, Australia, for the local Croatian community, on the feast of the Precious Blood. 

While the veneration of Old Testament figures is largely associated with the liturgy of the Eastern Churches, commemorations of the saints who lived prior to Christ’s Incarnation are not entirely foreign to the Western tradition. Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with the Carmelite order, enjoys the patronage of the holy prophet Elijah, celebrating his feast on the twentieth of July. Though differing slightly at certain points from the texts traditionally used by the Carmelites, the liturgy given in the 1927 Rimski Misal (that is, the traditional Roman missal translated into Church Slavonic) is particularly beautiful, focusing on the prophet’s flaming zeal, constant intercession, and heavenly-mindedness, as well as the virtue of true worship. In the Introit of the Mass (English texts adapted from the 1953 Carmelite Daily Missal and Douay Rheims Bible) for instance, we hear:

Introit 3 Kings 19:10, Ps. 29, 2 I am all jealousy for the honor of the Lord God of hosts, replied Elias to the Lord; see how the sons of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and put thy prophets to the sword. Of these, only I am left, and now my life too is forfeit. Praise to thee, Lord: thou hast taken me under thy protection and baulked my enemies of their will.

The beginning of the Mass of St Elijah in the 1927 edition of the Glagolitic Missal, which uses the Latin alphabet...

and in the 1893 edition, which uses the ancient Glagolitic script.

Such “jealousy” for the Lord, according to certain versions of the story, plays into the very establishment of this feast among the faithful of Bosnia and Herzegovina. When Bishop Pavao Dragičević sought from the Vatican a new patron for his people, Rome’s response was supposedly, “a wild saint for a wild people.” Another explanation, however, is that the common veneration of Elijah by Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims (the three major religions of Bosnia and Herzegovina) made him a suitable choice. Another interesting feature of the Introit comes with its use of the word “vrag.” While its basic sense in Slavonic is indeed that of an “enemy,” speakers of modern Croatian would immediately make the connection with the true enemy, the “devil,” against whom the zeal exemplified by the prophet is most fittingly directed.

The next three propers, along with the readings from Sirach 48, 1-10 and Matthew 17,1-9 turn upon the imagery of Elijah taken up into heavenly glory.

Collect Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God: that we, who believe thy Prophet the blessed Elias to have been wondrously taken up in a fiery chariot, may, through his intercession, be lifted up to the things of heaven, and rejoice with him in the company of your saints.

Gradual 4 Kings 2, 1; 11 And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elias into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elias and Eliseus were going from Galgal. V. And as they went on, walking and talking together, behold a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder: and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Alleluia, alleluia. 1 Macc. 2, 58; Sir. 48, 9 Elias, while he was full of zeal for the law, was taken up into heaven. Alleluia.

While the well-known episode of Elijah being taken up in a flaming chariot suggests an obvious destination, it is only during the Transfiguration that we see, with Peter, James, and John, the true Christological shape of the divine life to which the prophet was called. This celestial motif, notably, impressed itself upon the popular imagination of the Slavs and provides one of many examples of the Christian transfiguration of pagan religion: No longer Perun, god of thunder and lighting, but “Ilija Gromovnik – Elijah the Thunderer”.

While the Offertory prayer certainly brings to mind these connections of the prophet with meteorological events, more importantly, it speaks of the faith-filled intercession characterised by the Old Testament prophets. By bearing God’s word to the people and interceding for them, their prophetic office likewise bore a priestly character, perfected now in the offering made upon the altar. And insofar as Elijah’s prayer for rain follows on his encounter with the prophets of Baal, this offering is further shown forth as the expression of true worship.

Offertory Jas. 5, 17-18 Elias was a man passible like unto us: and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again: and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

Secret We offer to thee, Lord, the sacrifice of praise in honour of Saint Elias, thy prophet: and even as thou accepted his burnt-offering, so vouchsafe to be present at our sacrifice, that we may thereby attain everlasting gladness. Through our Lord.

In the Postcommunio we encounter a classic image of spiritual nourishment borrowing from the life of the prophet:

Postcommunion O God, who by thy holy Angel gave food and drink to blessed Elijah, thy prophet, grant by his intercession, that what we have received from this heavenly table we may with pure minds keep undefiled. Through our Lord.

The preceding Communio, however, is somewhat untypical, and perhaps less transparent in its meaning:

Communion Mal. 4, 5-6 Behold I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.

With every Mass, however, comes that “great and dreadful day of the Lord,” given as the foretaste of the future glory to which the faithful are called. More than that, the witness of the saints, like that of the prophet Elijah, are not mere superadditions to an otherwise more pristinely Christo-centric worship, but the very means of suitable spiritual preparation for receiving the eucharistic Lord. Throughout the texts of this unique feast, we see the prophet Elijah not only pointing us toward the Lord, from a distance. We see him actively interceding on the behalf of God’s people; providing, through the example of his zeal and right worship, a model of holiness; and awaiting us at the ultimate heavenly destination. On this account, the words of Rome (in another version of the story), “As the people, so the saint,” might perhaps give way to a further possibility: “As the saint, so the people.”

The Feast of St Mary Magdalene 2026

To Him that in the excess of His compassion did willingly live in my poverty, even Christ our God, o Mary Magdalene, thou didst faithfully minister as a disciple, and having beheld Him stretched out upon the Tree, and enclosed within the tomb, thou didst cry out while shedding many tears, “What strange sight is this? How is He that giveth life to the dead reckoned among the dead? What perfumes shall I bring to Him who removed from me the foul smell of the demons? What tears shall I shed for Him who wiped away the tears of my foremother?” (i.e. of Eve.) But the Lord of all appeared like the guardian of Paradise, and with the dew of His words took away the burning heat, saying to her, “Go to My brethren, and cry out to them the good tidings of joy! I shall ascend to my Father and yours, and my God and yours, that I may bestow upon the world great mercy!” (A hymn for Vespers of St Mary Magdalene in the Byzantine Rite.)

A 16th-century Cretan icon of the meeting of the Risen Christ and Mary Magdalene at the tomb. (Public domain image from Wikmedia Commons.)

Τῷ ἑκουσίως πτωχεύσαντι τὴν πτωχείαν τὴν ἐμὴν ὑπερβολῇ εὐσπλαγχνίας, Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ, ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ Μαρία, ὡς μαθήτρια πιστῶς διακονήσασα, ἐπὶ ξύλου ταθέντα, καὶ τάφῳ συγκλεισθέντα κατιδοῦσα, ἐβόα δακρυρροοῦσα· Τί τὸ ξένον θέαμα; ὁ νεκροὺς ζωοποιῶν, πῶς νεκρὸς λογίζεται; Ποῖα μύρα κομίσω τῷ ἀπαλλάξαντί με δυσωδίας τῶν δαιμόνων; Ποῖα δάκρυα χέω, τῷ δακρύων τὴν ἐμὴν μεταμφιάσαντι προμήτορα; Ἀλλ’ ὁ τοῦ σύμπαντος Ἄναξ, ὡς Παραδείσου φύλαξ φανείς, δροσισμῷ τῶν αὐτοῦ ῥημάτων τὸν καύσωνα ἀφανίζει, λέξας πρὸς αὐτήν· Τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς μου πορευθεῖσα, εὐαγγέλια χαρᾶς ἀναβόησον· Ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν Πατέρα μου καὶ Πατέρα ὑμῶν, καὶ Θεόν μου καὶ Θεὸν ὑμῶν, ὅπως παράσχω τῷ κόσμῳ τὸ μέγα ἔλεος.

This hymn, attributed to an 8th-century hymnographer named Byzas of whom apparently very little is known, meditates on salvation in Christ by a beautifully constructed series of contrasts, broadly arranged in a “chiasmus”, a rhetorical structure in which the elements of the first part are repeated in reverse order in the second part. Christ takes on our “poverty”, (not our material poverty, but the poverty of our human existence, as opposed to His divine life), in order to “bestow” the largess of His great mercy on humanity. Mary Magdalene ministers to Christ “as a disciple”, and is therefore sent to proclaim the Resurrection to His brethren, for which she is traditionally called “Apostle of the Apostles.” The word “Tree” is used instead of “Cross” to remind us that the garden of Eden, lost by the transgression of our first parents, is restored to us in the garden (note the tree and the greenery in the icon) where the Lord’s tomb is situated, and where the tears of both Mary Magdalene and of her and our foremother Eve are wiped away. An angel was set to block the entrance to Eden with a fiery sword; its heat is now quenched by the dew of Christ’s words. At the center of the hymn, “He that giveth life to the dead is reckoned among the dead”, and the “perfumes” which Mary brings to Him are contrasted with the foul smell that He drove away from her when He “expelled from her seven demons,” as stated in the Byzantine Gospel for her feast day, St Luke, 8, 1-3.

Interesting Liturgical Sights on a Recent Trip to Europe (2): Venice

Concluding the gallery I began last week, today I have a small number of photos to share from Venice (and one that was taken elsewhere, as will be noted in due course).

In the Franciscan church Santa Maria Gloriosa “dei Frari - of the Friars”, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the altar in the Blessed Sacrament chapel had been fitted out with a new and rather handsome icon of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

In a side chapel, a Preparatio ad Missam next to a kneeler; rather oddly situated, I thought, and it made me wonder if it was the original location for it.

Also in the Frari: the chapel where Claudio Monteverdi is buried in a remarkably humble tomb compared to every other one in the same church.

It had been 27 years or so since my last visit to the Basilica of San Marco, and I had forgotten just how exquisite the mosaics are. Absolutely stunning! Here are depicted the six days of creation and the fall.

Continue Reading this Article. . .