O Lord, I have heard Thy report and was afraid: I have considered Thy works and trembled. V. In the midst of two living beings Thou shalt be made known: when the years shall draw nigh Thou shalt be known: when the time shall come, Thou shalt be manifested. V. When my soul shall be in trouble, Thou wilt remember mercy, even in Thy wrath. V. God will come from Libanus, and the Holy One from the shady and thickly covered mountain. V. His majesty covered the heavens: and the earth is full of His praise. (The first Tract of the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday.)
Christ on the Cross between the two Thieves, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1619
Dómine, audívi audítum tuum, et timui: considerávi ópera tua, et expávi. V. In medio duórum animalium innotescéris: dum appropinquáverint anni, cognoscéris: dum advénerit tempus, ostendéris. V. In eo, dum conturbáta fúerit ánima mea, in ira, misericordiae memor eris. V. Deus a Líbano veniet, et Sanctus de monte umbróso et condenso. V. Opéruit caelos majestas ejus, et laudis ejus plena est terra.
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is compared to several animals: He is the Lamb of God (John 1, 29), the Lion of Judah (Rev. 5, 5), a mother hen (Mt 23, 37), and so forth. Although it is understandable to focus on Our Lord’s relation to the Passover Lamb during the Triduum and Easter, Christians over the centuries have also understood the Pascal Mystery in piscatorial terms – that is, in terms of fish and fishing.
The Mysterious ICHTHUS
In the early Church, the greatest artistic symbol of Christ was a drawing of a fish (or sometimes a dolphin, one of man’s best friends in the sea). Specifically, the first generations of Christians saw the fish as a symbol of Jesus present in the sacraments of the Eucharist and Baptism. Already in the Book of Tobias, early Christians saw a foreshadowing of the Messiah. Like Christ in the Eucharist, the fish that Raphael caught is food for the pilgrim, a repellent of demons, and enlightenment for the blind. In the New Testament, Jesus multiplies fishes along with loaves of bread, miracles that anticipates the miracle of bread and wine turning into Christ’s Body and Blood. And after the Resurrection, the Risen Lord provides fish and bread, the fish symbolizing His humanity and bread His divinity. It is Christ’s humanity that enabled Him to be raked across the coals, so to speak, during His passion and death; or as the Church Fathers more eloquently put it, the Messiah is the Fish taken from living water and immolated on the altar of the Cross by the fire of His love, who feeds His own with His own substance. [1] And Jesus Christ is also fully divine, or as He describes Himself, “the Living Bread descended from Heaven” (John 6, 51). “He who was able, as a man, to be grilled like a fish,” proclaims Pope Gregory the Great, “restores us with bread as God.” An epitaph written in the second century on the tomb of a Christian named Abercius uses similar imagery for Holy Communion. Describing his travels from one end of Christendom to the other, he writes:
Faith everywhere led me forward, and everywhere provided as my food a fish of exceeding great size, and perfect, which a holy Virgin drew with her hands from a Fount and this it [Faith] ever gives to its friends to eat, it having wine of great virtue, and giving it mingled with bread. [2]
No wonder that the early Church interpreted the Greek word for fish, ichthus, as an acrostic for Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter: Jesus (I), Christ (Ch), God’s (Th) Son (U), Savior (S). Christians used drawings of a fish as a secret code during the Roman persecutions, enabling them to recognize Christian safe places and centers of worship (they are all over the catacombs). In fact, it is said that after the Cross the fish is the second most popular symbol of Christianity.
Jesus as Bait
Jesus Christ is our Ichthus or Fish, but He is also the bait. According to St. Rufinus of Aquileia (d. 411), when the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, it was as if God were fishing for the Devil. Christ’s divinity was the sharp hook, cleverly concealed by His humanity, the bait. Christ offered His flesh as a bait, Rufinus explains, so that “His divinity underneath might catch [the Devil] and hold him fast with its hook, through the shedding of His immaculate Blood.” And sure enough, the Devil took the bait, conspiring in all sorts of ways to have Jesus of Nazareth persecuted and rejoicing when He was crucified. But the Devil did not know that this holy man was also the Second Person of the Trinity, and that only the Precious Blood of this God-man could pay the price of our redemption. As Rufinus puts it:
If a fish seizes a baited hook, not only does it not take the bait off the hook, but it is drawn out of the water to be itself food for others. So too, he who had the power of death seized the Body of Jesus in death, not being aware of the hook of divinity enclosed within it; and having swallowed it, he was caught immediately, and the bars of Hell was burst asunder, and he was drawn forth, as it were, from the abyss to become food for others.[3]
It may sound strange to think of the Devil as food for others, but this is not the rich nourishment that Our Lord the Ichthus provides in Word and Eucharist. Rather, the Devil is a nasty river dragon whose flesh becomes a kind of fodder for beasts and carrion. Rufinus cites Ezechiel 29:3-5 in support of his interpretation, when God is speaking to Egypt and calling it a “great dragon”:
I will put a bridle in thy jaws… and I will draw thee out of the midst of thy rivers… And I will cast thee forth into the desert…I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the air.
The so-called Fish Hook Theory can also be found in other Church Fathers, such as St. Gregory Nazianzen:
[I]t was not in the nature of the opposing power to come in contact with the undiluted presence of God, and to undergo His unclouded manifestation. Therefore, in order to secure that the ransom on our behalf might be easily accepted by him who required it, the Deity was hidden under the veil of our nature, that so, as with ravenous fish, the hook of the Deity might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh, and thus, life being introduced into the house of death, and light shining in darkness, that which is diametrically opposed to light and life might vanish; for it is not in the nature of darkness to remain when light is present, or of death to exist when life is active.[4]
St. Maximus the Confessor makes a clever connection between this atonement model and Psalm 21,7:
“I am a worm and not a man.” (Ps. 21:7, LXX) He truly became, and was thus called, a worm because He assumed the flesh without being conceived by human seed. For, just as the worm is not born through copulation or sexual procreation, so too our Lord was not born in the flesh through sexual procreation. Moreover, the Lord mounted His flesh on the fish-hook of His divinity as bait for the devil’s deceit, so that, as the insatiable serpent, the devil would take His flesh into his mouth (since its nature is easily overcome) and quiver convulsively on the hook of the Lord’s divinity, and, by virtue of the sacred flesh of the Logos, completely vomit the Lord’s human nature once he swallowed it. As a result, just as the devil formerly baited man with the hope of divinity, and swallowed him, so too the devil himself would be baited precisely with humanity’s fleshly garb; and afterward he would vomit man, who had been deceived by the expectation of becoming divine, the devil himself having been deceived by the expectation of becoming human. The transcendence of God’s power would then manifest itself through the weakness of our inferior human nature, which would vanquish the strength of its conqueror. As well, it would be shown that it is God Who, by using the flesh as bait, conquers the devil, rather than the devil conquering man by promising him a divine nature.[5]
And finally, St. John Damascene:
Since our Lord Jesus Christ was without sin (for He committed no sin, He Who took away the sin of the world, nor was there any deceit found in His mouth). He was not subject to death, since death came into the world through sin. (Rom. 5:12) He dies, therefore, because He took on Himself death on our behalf, and He makes Himself an offering to the Father for our sakes. For we had sinned against Him, and it was meet that He should receive the ransom for us, and that we should thus be delivered from the condemnation. God forbid that the blood of the Lord should have been offered to the tyrant. Wherefore death approaches, and swallowing up the body as a bait is transfixed on the hook of divinity, and after tasting of a sinless and life-giving body, perishes, and brings up again all whom of old he swallowed up. For just as darkness disappears on the introduction of light, so is death repulsed before the assault of life, and brings life to all, but death to the destroyer.[6]
No wonder that in places such as Costa Rica, Holy Saturday is a time for bromas or practical jokes, like stealing your neighbors’ furniture and rearranging it in the town plaza. The association of Holy Saturday with practical jokes makes sense, since it was during the Paschal Mystery that the biggest joke of all was played on the Enemy.
Notes
[1] St. Paulinus of Nola, Epistle 13; St. Augustine, Confessions 13.23.34; St. Ambrose, the hymn Ad coenam Agni providi.
[2] See H. Leclerq, “Inscription of Abercius,” Catholic Encyclopedia, (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1914).
[3] Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed 16, trans. W.H. Fremantle, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 3, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1892).
[4] Great Catechism 24.
[5] Ad Thalassium 64: On the Prophet Jonah and the Economy of Salvation.
[6] An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 3.27.
Looking upon our thoughts and offenses, we sacrifice to Thee, o Lord, no bloody victims, but with humble prayers we offer Thee the Body of the eternal Priest. Remember therefore, o Lord, what He underwent for us Who bore our sins, and do Thou put on us the stole of justice, that none may take his place at Thy supper without the wedding garment, and the banquet of the New Covenant may flourish with the joys of heaven. Far from it be the guile whereby the evil disciple was deceived. May all have true faith, certain hope, and pure charity, that our conscience may not be condemned by these spiritual sacraments, but rather, cleaned of all vices through the sweetness of Thy peace and charity, we may call out to Thee from this earth: Our Father... (The introduction to the Lord’s Prayer at the Mozarabic Mass of Holy Thursday.)
A fresco of the Last Supper painted ca. 1245-55 in a chapel of the cathedral of St Mary in La Seu d’Urgell, Catalonia, Spain. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Ángel M. Felicísimo, CC BY 2.0.
Ad Orationem Dominicam Cogitatiónes et delicta nostra cernentes, non cruentas tibi, Dómine, víctimas immolámus, et simplícibus votis tibi sempiterni Sacerdótis corpus offérimus. Memoráre ítaque, Dómine, quid pro nobis pertúlerit, qui peccáta nostra portávit. Indue ergo nos justitiae stola, ut in coena tua sine veste nuptiáli nullus accumbat, gaudiisque caeléstibus novi testamenti convivium flóreat. Procul absit dolus, quo deceptus est malus ille discípulus. Sit ómnibus fides vera, spes certa et cáritas pura, ut spiritálibus sacramentis non damnétur conscientia, sed per pacis caritatisque tuae dulcédinem ab ómnibus emundáti vitiis, ad te proclamémus e terris: Pater noster...
The icon of the Virgin Mary, known as the “Salus Populi Romani”, in the reredos of the Borghese chapel of the basilica of St Mary Major. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Fallaner, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The station of Spy Wednesday is held at St. Mary Major, also the station church of the four Ember Wednesdays; as in the Embertides, and the Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent, there are two readings before the Gospel. The first of these is Isaiah 63, 1-7, preceded by a part of verse 62, 11. [1]
Thus sayeth the Lord God: Tell the daughter of Sion: Behold thy Savior cometh: behold his reward is with him. Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength? I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save. Why then is your apparel red, and your garments like theirs that tread in the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the gentiles there is not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation, and have trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my apparel. etc.
The Fathers of the Church understood this passage as a prophecy of the Passion of Christ, starting in the West with Tertullian.
The prophetic Spirit contemplates the Lord as if He were already on His way to His passion, clad in His fleshly nature; and as He was to suffer therein, He represents the bleeding condition of His flesh under the metaphor of garments dyed in red, as if reddened in the treading and crushing process of the wine-press, from which the laborers descend reddened with the wine-juice, like men stained in blood. (adv. Marcionem 4, 40 ad fin.)
This connection of these words with the Lord’s Passion is repeated in very similar terms by St. Cyprian (Ep. ad Caecilium 62), who always referred to Tertullian as “the Master”, despite his lapse into the Montanist heresy; and likewise, by Saints Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 13, 27) and Gregory of Nazianzus (Oration 45, 25.)
The necessary premise of the Passion is, of course, the Incarnation, for Christ could not suffer without a human body. Indeed, ancient heretics who denied the Incarnation often did so in rejection of the idea that God Himself can suffer, which they held to be incompatible with the perfect and incorruptible nature of the divine. St. Ambrose was elected bishop of Milan in the year 374, after the see had been held by one such heretic, the Arian Auxentius, for twenty years. We therefore find him referring this same prophecy to the whole economy of salvation, culminating in the Ascension of Christ’s body into heaven, thus, in the treatise on the Mysteries (7, 36):
The angels, too, were in doubt when Christ arose; the powers of heaven were in doubt when they saw that flesh was ascending into heaven. Then they said: “Who is this King of glory?” And while some said “Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.” In Isaiah, too, we find that the powers of heaven doubted and said: “Who is this that comes up from Edom, the redness of His garments is from Bosor, He who is glorious in white apparel?”
In the next generation, St. Eucherius of Lyon (ca. 380-450) is even more explicit: “The garment of the Son of God is sometimes understood to be His flesh, which is assumed by the divinity; of which garment of the flesh Isaiah prophesying says, “Who is this etc.” (Formulas of Spiritual Understanding, chapter 1) Therefore, like the Mass of Ember Wednesday, this Mass begins with a prophecy of the Incarnation as the church of Rome visits its principal sanctuary of the Mother of God, in whose sacred womb began the salvation of man.
The Risen Christ and the Mystical Winepress, by Marco dal Pino, often
called Marco da Siena, 1525-1588 ca. Both of the figures of Christ in
this painting show very markedly the influence of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.
This is also the day on which the church reads the Passion according to St Luke, who has a special association with the Virgin Mary. Most of what the New Testament tell us about Her was recorded in his writings, including almost all of the words actually spoken by the Her; this fact lies behind the tradition that St. Luke painted a picture of the Virgin, which is figuratively true even if it were not literally so. It is his account of the Passion that tells of the meeting between Christ and a group of women on the way to Mount Calvary, (chapter 23, 27-30); although he does not say that Mary was among them, art and piety have long accepted that it was so. The special devotion of the Servite Order to the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin has both a proper rosary (as the Franciscans have a rosary of the Seven Joys) and a special form of the Via Crucis, called by them the Via Matris; in both, the fourth sorrow is the encounter between Christ and His Mother as He bears the Cross.
The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, by Albrecht Durer, ca. 1496. The lower middle panel show the Virgin fainting as Her Son passes by Her on the street on the way to Mount Calvary.
For the ceremonies of Holy Thursday, the station was of course kept at the cathedral of Rome. On this day, in addition to celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Pope would preside over the reconciliation of the public penitents, and bless the holy oils, both rituals proper to the office of a bishop. Likewise, the washing of the feet (known as the Mandatum from the first antiphon sung during the rite) is done on this day, a ritual not exclusive to bishops, but traditionally performed by religious superiors upon their subjects, as Christ Himself did. The gospel sung at both the Mass and the Mandatum is taken from St. John (chapter 13, 1-15), since the three Synoptic accounts of the Lord’s Supper have been read earlier in the week. In a later period, the church came to be dedicated also to him along with St. John the Baptist, and it is he whose account of the Passion will also be read on the following day, on which the Church refrains from the celebration of Mass in mourning for the death of the Savior.
Finally, the station of Good Friday is kept at the basilica of the Holy Cross ‘in Jerusalem.’ This denomination comes from the tradition that when St. Helena, Constantine’s mother, built the church to house the relics of the True Cross discovered by herself in the Holy Land, the ground first was covered with earth brought from the city of the Lord’s Passion. As the Bl. Ildefonse Schuster writes in his book on the liturgical traditions of Rome, The Sacramentary, the choice of station fulfills the words of Christ Himself, “it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.”
A reliquary with pieces of the True Cross from the relic chapel of Holy Cross in Jerusalem.
Holy Saturday will be included in an article to be published next week on the stations of the Easter Octave.
[1] As noted by my colleague, the indefatigable Matthew Hazell, the Consilium removed this reading completely from the post-Conciliar lectionary, since, as they said, “it smacks of anger and revenge.” (Apparently, they were too tired to read it all the way to the end, “I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the praise of the Lord for all the things that the Lord our God hath bestowed upon us.”) Because we can only restore the liturgy to the vigor which it had in the days of the Holy Fathers by abolishing their teachings...
At the end of February, I published an article about the use of the Penitential Psalms in Lent, in which I mentioned that they were generally said at the beginning of the season, at the ceremony by which the public penitents were symbolically expelled from the church, and again on Holy Thursday, when they were brought back in. These ceremonies were particularly elaborate in the Use of Sarum, but similar rites were observed in a great many other places. Here then is the promised description of the rite of the reconciliation of the public penitents, taken from WG Henderson’s 1882 edition of the Sarum Processional.
An illustration from a Sarum Processional of the Ash Wednesday procession; the captions reads “The station on the day of ashes, when the bishop expels the penitents.” The ash-colored banner is seen up top. Reproduced from Henderson’s edition.
After None of Holy Thursday, the bishop or his substitute goes to the west door of the church, wearing a red silk cope, and accompanied by two deacons, led by the same “ash-colored” banner used in the procession of Ash Wednesday. The penitents await them in the narthex. If the bishop himself performs the ritual, the archdeacon, also in silk cope, stands near the penitents and delivers a rather lengthy address to the bishop, of which I give here only the beginning.
“The time is present, venerable bishop, prayed for by the afflicted, meet for the penitent, desired by those in tribulation. Your sons are present, father, whom their true Mother the Church bore unto God with joy; but again, She mourns with new grief every day that at the devil’s suasion, they became corrupt, and wretched, and exiled. For these, all who have happily remained in Her bosom do humbly pray, and who have remained strong in their faith under the protection of divine clemency. Spare them today, father, and with all the force of thy goodness, let that fountain of David be open to us (Zach. 13, 1), and flow forth unto the cleansing of the woman with the issue of blood, reproving none, rejecting none, excluding none. For although no season lacketh the riches of divine mercy, still, now is the forgiveness of sins more abundant through indulgence, and more copious the acceptance of those reborn through grace. …”
The bishop then intones three times the first word of an antiphon, “Venite, Venite, Venite! – Come! Come! Come!”, beckoning to the penitents with his hand as he does, as if to invite them into the church. One of the two deacons, standing near the penitents, says “Let us kneel”; the other, standing near the bishop, says “Rise.” This is all done a second time, then the bishop repeats “Venite” a third time, at which the choir finishes the antiphon “(Come) ye sons, hear ye me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” The whole of Psalm 33 from which it is taken is sung, with the antiphon repeated after each verse. In the meanwhile, priests conduct the penitents by hand to the archdeacon, who brings them to the bishop, who then brings them into the church.
An illustration from a 1595 edition of the Roman Pontifical, showing the reception of the public penitents on Holy Thursday. (Courtesy of the Pitts Theological Library, Candler School of Theology at Emory University.)
When all have entered the church, and the clergy have processed into the choir, they kneel, and say the seven Penitential Psalms; these are accompanied as usual by the antiphon Ne reminiscaris, Kyrie eleison, the Lord’s prayer, and a series of versicles, followed by three prayers. Here is the third one.
“O Lord, Holy Father, almighty and eternal God, who deigned to heal our wounds, we Thy lowly servants and priests humbly beseech and ask of Thee, that Thou may deign to incline the ears of Thy compassion to our prayers, and be moved by confession at (this) penance; and forgive all crimes, and remit every sin; and grant these Thy servants, o Lord, forgiveness in accord with their humble prayers, rejoicing in place of grief, life in place of death; so that those who have come to so great a hope of the height of heaven, trusting in Thy mercy, may merit to come to the goods of Thy peaceable promise and the gifts of heaven.”
He then turns to the penitents, and makes the sign of the Cross over them, saying: “We absolve you by the authority of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, to whom was given by the Lord power to bind and loose; and in so far as any accusation falleth to you, and forgiveness thereof to us, may God almighty be unto you life and salvation, and the merciful forgiver of all your sins.” He gives the usual blessing “May almighty God bless you…”, and the Mass of the Lord’s Supper begins.
The following excerpts are taken from book VI, chapter 70 of William Durandus’ commentary on the liturgy, the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum. Greatly as we reverence his work, our friend is, like many medieval authors, an incorrigible digresser; furthermore, some of the features of the Mass of Spy Wednesday, one of the most beautiful of the entire year, were arranged a bit differently in the missal he knew. I have therefore reordered and paraphrased the text in various places, to make the train of his thought clearer, and to correspond to the Missal of St Pius V. The reader may also find useful this article from two years ago which explains the text of this Mass in detail, especially in regard to the reading from Isaiah 62 and 63 as a prophecy of the Incarnation.
Wednesday is the day on which the Lord was sold by Judas, because He willed not only to suffer for us, but also to be sold, so that He might deliver us from the selling by which our first parent sold us to the devil through the eating of the forbidden fruit, whence Isaiah says (52, 3), “You were sold for free, and you shall be redeemed without money.” Likewise, many sell themselves to the devil for momentary pleasure, just as Adam sold himself for the eating of the forbidden fruit. Therefore, the Sun of justice was sold for our salvation on Wednesday, the day on which the visible sun was formed for the light of the world. (Gen. 1, 14-19)
The Betrayal of Judas, as depicted by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, 1304-06.
Now the Lord prayed kneeling, as is said in today’s Gospel (the Passion according to St Luke, 22, 1 – 23, 53). Therefore, in the introit, the Church invites that “in the name of Jesus every knee be bent, of those in heaven”, because He repaired their ruin, “of those on earth”, because He delivered them, “and of those below the earth”, because He led them from the pit in which there was no water, as Zachariah says (9, 11). It is sung in the third tone because of the three things which are invited to bend the knee.
There follows, “and let every tongue confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.” This is taken from the Apostle (Phil. 2, 11) …
Introitus In nómine Jesu omne genu flectátur, caelestium, terrestrium et infernórum: quia Dóminus factus est oboediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis: ideo Dóminus Jesus Christus in gloria est Dei Patris. Psalmus Dómine, exaudi oratiónem meam: et clamor meus ad te veniat. In nómine Jesu…
Introit (Phil. 2, 10; 8 and 11) In the name of Jesus let every knee bend, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: because the Lord hath become obedient unto death, but the death of the Cross. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. Psalm 101, 2 O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to thee. In the name of Jesus…
It can also be said that two things are necessary for us, namely, prayer and patience, according to that which the Lord says, “Pray for those who persecute and slander you.” (Matt. 5, 44) We are invited to these two things in the introit: to prayer, when it says, “in the name of Jesus let every knee be bent”; and to patience, by the Savior’s example, regarding whom it is added, “Christ has become for us obedient unto death,” etc. For one is not obedient in tribulation if he does not willingly tolerate it.
Two lessons are read, because on this day the Lord was betrayed for two peoples and by two peoples; and in some churches, they kneel at both of them, because He is adored by both people … and because the first Man incurred two deaths, namely of the flesh and of the soul, and Christ has delivered us from both.
In the first reading (Isa. 62, 11; 63, 1-7), “Say to the daughter of Zion: Behold, thy savior cometh,” … The Angels said (for the incarnation remained hidden from some of them), “Who is this who cometh from Edom?”, that is, from the earth, “with stained garments”, that is, with the members of the body, which are the garments of divinity, “stained purple with blood from Bosra.”
Bosra is a city in Moab, whose name means “strong” or “fortified”, … but its name is transferred to Jerusalem, which once the Lord strengthened by His help, but the inhabitants having become Moabites… they tainted the garments of the king with the purple of blood. He answered, “I who speak justice, and fight forth unto salvation.” And they said, “Why then is thy garment red?”, as if to say, Why have you been bloodied by the pressing of the Cross, if you speak justice? But he answers, “I have trodden the wine press alone”, that is, for all, so that all may be delivered, “and from the nations there is no other man with me.”
The Risen Christ and the Mystical Winepress, by Marco dal Pino, often called Marco da Siena, 1525-1588 ca. Both of the figures of Christ in this painting show very markedly the influence of Michelangelo’sLast Judgment.
And just as the Savior laid down His soul for the redemption of our souls, so also He subjected his body (to death) for the redemption of our bodies; for which reason the first lesson treats of His body, reddened by his own blood, where it says, “Who is this who comes from Edom?”, etc. And because solely from His mercy the Lord suffered for us, therefore the prophet in the person of the Church concludes that reading by saying, “I will remember the mercies of the Lord, the praise of the Lord for all things which the Lord hath rendered unto us.”
After the reading is sung the gradual, “Turn not thy face”, in which He himself prays that through the passion He may come to glory. But because He prayed for a long time in agony, as is said in the Gospel (22, 43), therefore the Offertory and the Communio are taken from the Psalm (101) which is entitled “the prayer of the poor man while he was in anguish”…
Graduale Ne avertas faciem tuam a púero tuo, quoniam tríbulor: velóciter exaudi me. V. Salvum me fac, Deus, quoniam intravérunt aquae usque ad ánimam meam: infixus sum in limo profundi, et non est substantia.
Gradual, Ps 68, 18; 2-3 Turn not thy face away from thy servant: for I am in trouble, swiftly hear me. V. Save me, o God, for the waters have come in even unto my soul. I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing.
The epistle is also from Isaiah (53, 1-12), “O Lord, who hath believed”, in which He is described in the same fashion in which He is represented by the evangelist in the passion…
After the epistle there follows the tract, and in an unusual way (i.e. without a gradual preceding it), because the Church mourns and weeps more deeply than usual… the tract signifies weeping, and therefore on Good Friday only tracts are said. The gradual signifies penance, and because the Lord was not crucified on this day, but only sold, therefore a gradual is also said (i.e. after the first reading).
This tract is sung according to an Old Latin text which reads uses the word “frixorium – a frier”, where St Jerome’s version has “cremium – brushwood.” Below, Durandus interprets the image of bones in a frier to signify the refinement of man’s interior strengths.
Tractus Dómine, exaudi oratiónem meam, et clamor meus ad te veniat. ℣. Ne avertas faciem tuam a me: in quacumque die tríbulor, inclína ad me aurem tuam. ℣. In quacumque die invocávero te, velóciter exaudi me. ℣. Quia defecérunt sicut fumus dies mei, et ossa mea sicut in frixorio confrixa sunt. ℣. Percussus sum sicut faenum, et aruit cor meum, quia oblítus sum manducáre panem meum. ℣. Tu exsurgens, Dómine, miseréberis Sion, quia venit tempus miserendi eius.
Ps. 101, 2-5; 14 O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to thee. ℣. Turn not away thy face from me: in the day when I am troubled, incline thine ear to me. ℣. In whatsoever day I call upon thee, hear me speedily. ℣. For my days are vanished like smoke, and my bones have been fried as in a frier.
℣. I am smitten as grass, and my heart is withered, because I forgot to eat my bread. ℣. Thou shalt arise, o Lord, and have mercy on Sion: for the time hath come to have mercy on it.
Since we have sinned according to the five senses of the body, the tract has five verses, because of the five wounds of Christ, or because He shed His blood five times: first, in the circumcision; second, at the prayer (in the garden); third, at the scourging; fourth, in the crucifixion; fifth, when He was pierced by the spear. In the same tract, the human race asks for help and confesses the failing which it incurred from the sin of the first parent, saying, “because my days have failed like smoke.” For the life of man is but a day, and the night thereof is death, but this life is cut short and fails because of the pride of the first parent, which is symbolized by the smoke. There follow the words, “My bones were fried in a fryer.” Bones are the interior strengths… and the frier is threefold, namely, the recalling of sins, compassion for one’s neighbor, and meditation on the future judgment; in these the good man is fried. The tract closes, like the lesson, with the mercy of the Lord; whence the last verse is, “Thou arising, o Lord, shall have mercy.”
The Communion is “I was mixing my drink with weeping,” which is to say, the drink of the passion, when His sweat became like drops of blood running down onto the earth. (Luke 22, 44; this is also taken from an Old Latin text of the Psalms.)
Communio, Ps 101 Potum meum cum fletu temperábam, quia élevans allisisti me: et ego sicut foenum arui: tu autem, Dómine, in aeternum pérmanes: tu exsurgens miseréberis Sion, quia venit tempus miseréndi eius. (I tempered my drink with weeping, for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down, and I am withered like grass. But thou, O Lord, remainest forever; thou shalt arise, and have mercy on Sion, for the time is come to have mercy on it.
Clear Creek Abbey in northwest Oklahoma (diocese of Tulsa: located at 5804 W Monastery Road in Hulbert) will once again be hosting a week-long instruction in Gregorian chant, based on the course called Laus in Ecclesia, from Monday, July 13, to Friday, July 17. The course will be offered at three different levels of instruction:
1) Laus in Ecclesia, level 1, for beginners: Gregorian initiation, covering the basics of Gregorian chant, that is, reading the neums, rhythm, modality, Latin pronunciation and verbal rhythm. This level targets the beginner or simply amateur in Gregorian. The student must know how to hold a tune. ~ Instructor: Kathy Reinheimer.
2) Laus in Ecclesia, level 2, for cantors: covering Gregorian Psalmody and the Divine Office, this level builds on and sharpens the skills learned in the first degree. Prequisites to join level 2: Level 1 or equivalent. Instructor: Mark Donnelly.
3) Laus in Ecclesia, level 3, for directors of scholae: the concentration is on chironomy and the interpretation of bigger Gregorian pieces. Instructor: Br. Mark Bachmann, OSB.
Opportunities to sing the chant: two Masses sung in Gregorian chant by the sessionists; daily Prime in the morning, Compline at night. In the evening, attendance at monastic Vespers at the abbey is recommended.
Lodging is available on site.
More information and the link for registration can be found at the Clear Creek Abbey website: https://clearcreekmonks.org/learnchant/.
https://clearcreekmonks.org/learnchant/.
This is the first in a four-part series in which I explore what art is, what makes it beautiful, and why beauty matters – not merely aesthetically, but also theologically and even economically.
Over these four posts, I hope to lay out a coherent Christian philosophy of art and beauty, drawing on classical thought, the insights of St Thomas Aquinas, and the living tradition of the Church. This week, I begin at the beginning: with the question of what art actually is. It sounds almost too simple to ask, and yet we live in an age that has quietly abandoned any agreed answer – with consequences that surround us on every side. I will also consider what distinguishes good art from bad, and what makes art distinctively Christian, arguing that a work need not carry an explicitly religious subject matter to be genuinely Christian in spirit.
The Million Dollar Banana, conceptual art, by Maurizio Cattelan, Italian, 2024
We live in an age that has largely lost confidence in its own artistic tradition – an age that fills galleries with objects whose claim to be “art” rests not on beauty, skill, or purpose, but on the artist’s assertion alone. To recover a culture of beauty, we must begin at the beginning: with a clear understanding of what art actually is, what makes it good, and what makes it distinctively Christian. This long article sets out to do precisely that. Drawing on the ancient traditions of both Greece and Rome, on the philosophical insights of St. Thomas Aquinas, and on the living wisdom preserved in the Church’s artistic heritage, we will explore art not as an arbitrary exercise in self-expression, but as a purposeful act of making – one rooted in skill, ordered toward beauty, and capable, at its highest reaches, of drawing the human soul toward God. Along the way, we will consider how beauty is known and judged, why tradition is a more reliable guide to it than individual taste or critical fashion, and why the creation of beautiful things is not a luxury to be weighed against other needs, but a form of participation in God’s own creative work that pays for itself.
What is Art?
The word ‘art’ can have a variety of meanings today, and it might be impossible to come up with a definition that all will accept, but here we will focus on ideas of art that are likely to appeal to the traditionally minded Christian and for which we might find a consensus amongst non-Christians also.
Looking to traditional understandings in Western culture, we find that the ancient Greek techne and Latin ars both denoted “skill,” “craft,” or “technique” – a learned proficiency in creating or producing, encompassing all practical trades, such as carpentry, as well as what today we might call the fine arts, such as poetry or painting. An “artefact” is the product of techne in action, and the artisan is the one who creates an artifact. When we speak of an “artist” today, we typically have in mind someone who creates works of fine art.
But how precisely would we define fine art today? How does the mainstream art world define it? We want to answer this question, if only to be sure that when we discuss art with others, we at least know what they believe it to be.
One might think that the major art galleries would provide a definition, given that their whole raison d’être is the exhibition of art. However, a review of the websites of major art galleries such as MoMA, Tate, and the National Galleries of England and America doesn’t provide much help. In fact, I couldn’t find any definitions. Perhaps they assume we all know what art is and that a definition is unnecessary; or perhaps they hesitate to put anything in words because they struggle to find a definition that applies to all the artifacts they show in their galleries.
The British Museum, which is more traditional in its outlook, provides (albeit buried in a training program newsletter) a good working definition of what we would call fine art, closer to the ancient idea of art as the product of techne, as described above. This can be a good working definition for us. It says:
“The definition of art can vary depending on the context and the cultural, social, and historical background in which it is created. However, art in general can be defined as a creative expression of human skill and imagination that aims to communicate an idea, emotion, or message to an audience. This can include a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, music, literature, film, and other forms of artistic expression.” 1
Good Art and Christian Art
For Christians, adopting this working definition from the British Museum and building on it, we might then ask: what constitutes good art? And, what constitutes Christian art?
In response, I would say that good art is art (as defined above – “a creative expression of human skill and imagination”) that fulfills a good purpose well. We define a good purpose as one consistent with a Christian worldview. This means that art can be Christian even if it does not explicitly express a religious theme or message. For example, a beautiful landscape that communicates the beauty of Creation is a work of Christian art, even if the artist had no explicitly religious intention in painting it and was not a Christian himself.
We would further say that all art is a manifestation of an idea (which might also be an emotion or a message) or an image that first exists in the artist’s imagination before being fashioned into material form. This picture in the artist’s imagination is, in traditional Christian anthropology, taken directly or assembled as a composite from information gained through sensual experience.
The creation of art, from the Christian perspective, is bound up with the creation of something beautiful. Art requires beauty to fulfill its purpose – if a work is not beautiful, it is not good; this might seem a strange proposition given that there is a place for the representation of ugliness, evil, and suffering in art. However, if the art is to portray a Christian understanding of these things, it must also communicate the purpose of these evils within the economy of grace. God must permit evil in the world for good reason, and it is the responsibility of the Christian artist to communicate that message, too. Otherwise, he is not communicating the full truth
For the Christian, even in the face of evil, suffering, and ugliness, there is hope. When infused with hope, the portrayal of these otherwise ugly realities becomes beautiful. This is exemplified by depictions of the Crucifixion. A well-executed Crucifixion is a beautiful work of art. This beauty is created through the artist's treatment of the image – through skillful choices in line, tone, contrast, and composition, for example. In this way, a good artist presents the greatest crime ever committed without diminishing the profound evil it signifies, but rather by infusing the work with Christian hope – a hope that surpasses all the evil and suffering depicted.
Crucifixion, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, French, 19th century. Using the baroque style, the artist intentionally contrasts the light on Christ with darkness to symbolize the Light overcoming evil and suffering. This stylistic choice is meant to communicate a sense of hope.
To depict suffering or evil without simultaneously offering hope is, for a Christian, not the full truth. It presents an incomplete picture that can lead to despair. It is through beauty that Christ’s hope is communicated to us, for beauty naturally speaks of God's love (more on beauty later).
Sacred art is the highest form of art, characterized by an explicitly sacred or religious purpose. Liturgical art—created to help us worship God – is the noblest form of sacred art, since worship of God is the highest expression of love for Him and the greatest human activity.
For Christians, the creation of art is intertwined with the pursuit of beauty and divine inspiration. When we recognize the goodness of a work of art, we call it beautiful. As such, good art serves as a sign of the divine – beauty in good art is a visible sign of the work of the unseen God, either as Creator, as seen in the beauty of the universe, or as the God who inspired its creation, through human effort. Therefore, beauty tends to awaken in us a desire for something greater than what we see – the source of that beauty, who is God Himself.
As the Church reaches the culmination of the liturgical year in the ceremonies of Holy Week and Easter, the tenor of the lectionary shifts; where the first four weeks of Lent focus on lessons for the catechumens who will be baptized at Easter, Passiontide, and especially Holy Week, closely follows the events of the Lord’s death and Resurrection. As in the earlier part of Lent, and indeed the other seasons when stations are kept, the choice of Roman stational churches in Holy Week is closely tied to the Scriptural readings of the Masses. A notable difference is that where the earlier part of Lent took the Pope and his court to every corner of the city’s historical center, the stations of Holy Week are all quite close to the ancient papal residence at the Lateran. The furthest away is Santa Prisca, just a little over a mile distant, with the rest being much closer; the Pope and his court would thus keep their travel to a minimum in a period of lengthy and taxing ceremonies.
On Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry of the Savior into Jerusalem is quite rightly celebrated at the cathedral of Rome dedicated in His name. In the early Middle Ages, a large number of chapels and oratories were constructed by various Popes around the Lateran basilica; one of these was dedicated to Pope St. Sylvester I, and large enough that at least one medieval source refers to it as a basilica. The palms for the procession were blessed there by the cardinal archpriest of St. Lawrence outside-the-Walls, and then brought to the large dining hall known as the triclinium of St. Leo III; there, the Pope distributed them to the clergy and faithful, before the procession made its way through the complex into the cathedral itself. In the later Middle Ages, the Popes often preferred to reside at the Vatican, and so Palm Sunday also has a station informally assigned at St. Peter’s; on these occasions, the palms were blessed in an oratory known as S. Maria in Turri (St. Mary in-the-Tower), directly underneath the bell-tower within the large courtyard that stood before the ancient basilica. During the extensive renovations of the Lateran and Vatican complexes in the 16th and 17th centuries, S. Sylvester in Laterano and S. Maria in Turri were both demolished; and nowadays, the Pope routinely celebrates Palm Sunday at St. Peter’s.
The Basilica of St. Peter as it stood ca. 1450, by H.W. Brewer.
Ss. Sylvester I and Leo III both sat upon the chair of St. Peter during events of the greatest importance for the history of relations between Church and State. Sylvester was the first Pope to be elected under the peace granted by the Emperor Constantine, and received the property of the Lateran as a gift from him; he was later held to be the recipient of the temporal state of the Church as part of the so-called Donation of Constantine. While this document has long been known to be a fiction, it did not create the Papal State, but rather a legal sanction for the long-standing de facto possession of central Italy by the Papacy after the collapse of the Roman Empire. St. Leo III was the Pope who crowned Charlemagne as the first Holy Roman Emperor, after his predecessor had effectively made the Papal State a protectorate of the Frankish empire. The blessing and distribution of the palms in parts of the Lateran complex associated with these Popes is probably behind the text of the preface which forms part of the blessing of the palms in the Missal of St. Pius V; as many liturgical writers have noted, it is unusual as a preface in that it makes no specific reference to the occasion on which it is used.
Truly it is worthy and just etc. … Who gloriest in the counsel of Thy Saints. For Thy creatures serve Thee, because they know Thee to be their only author and God, and all Thou hast made praiseth Thee, and Thy saints bless Thee. Because with free voice they confess the great name of Thy Only-Begotten Son before the kings and powers of this age. Before Whom stand the Angels and Archangels, Thrones and Dominations, and with all the army of the heavenly host, they sing the hymn of Thy glory, saying without end. Holy, Holy, Holy etc.
On Monday of Holy Week, the station was originally kept at the church known as the “titulus fasciolae – the title of the bandage,” to the south of the Caelian Hill near the Baths of Carcalla. Several explanations have been proposed for this odd name; an ancient tradition states that when St. Peter had been released from prison by his jailers, and was fleeing Rome, he stopped on the site of this church to change the binding on the wound where his fetters had been. The church was also associated with two of the most venerated Roman martyrs of the early centuries, Ss. Nereus and Achilleus; nothing is now known of them for certain beyond their martyrdom and that they were soldiers who renounced their military service to follow Christ. Their unreliable legend states that they were baptized by St. Peter himself, and in the years after the Apostle’s death, made many converts among the Roman nobility, among them, Flavia Domitilla, a relative of the Emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Being close by the Lateran, their church (now much smaller after extensive restorations in the mid-15th and late 16th centuries) would have made a convenient station after the lengthy ceremony of the previous day.
The interior of Ss. Nereus and Achilleus. Photograph by Fr. Lawrence Lew O.P.
By the High Middle Ages, it had fallen into ruins, and the station was transferred to the church of St. Praxedes on the Esquiline hill, a few steps away from the basilica of St. Mary Major. Her legend says that during the persecutions, she and her sister Pudentiana expended their patrimony in tending to the saints, providing for their material needs, sheltering them, visiting them in prison, and burying them after they had received the crown of martyrdom. After many years spent in helping the Christians, she prayed God to release her from the sight of such cruelties as were inflicted upon them, and so died a peaceful death. Her feast day is kept on July 21, the day before that of St. Mary Magdalene, who appears in the Gospel of Holy Monday (John 12, 1-9) anointing the feet of Christ. Just as Praxedes and her sister tended to the needs of the martyrs before and after their suffering and death, Mary and her sister Martha tended to Christ before and after His Passion. Today He is received as a guest in their home, and His feet are anointed by Mary Magdalene, who will later come with several other women to His tomb to anoint His body.
Ss. Praxedes and Pudentiana, together with the Virgin Mary, from the mausoleum of Theodora, (portrayed on the left) the mother of Pope St. Paschal I, (817-24). Paschal rebuilt the church and added this funeral chapel on the north side of it; it is also called the Chapel of St. Zeno, but in the Middle Ages was often referred to as the Garden of Paradise. Theodora was still alive when the image was made, hence the square blue halo.
On Tuesday, the station is kept at the church of St. Prisca on the Aventine Hill. This church is built on the site of a very ancient title and house-church, long believed on good evidence to be one of the places where St. Peter stayed during his years in Rome. The titular saint shares the day of her martyrdom, January 18, with the feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Rome, and the anniversary of the church’s dedication is kept on the feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Antioch. It has been proposed that her association with St. Peter derives from presence of the relic venerated as the Apostle’s chair at the place of her burial, and perhaps later at her church, before it was moved to its present location at the Vatican.
The Gospel read at this Mass was originally John 13, 1-32, a longer version of the gospel of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. In this first chapter of the five which St. John devotes to the events of the Last Supper, St. Peter himself figures very prominently, first as the only disciple to speak when Christ washes the feet of the Twelve, and then as he asks John to ask the Lord which of the disciples is the traitor among them. Later on, it was replaced by the Passion according to St. Mark, the longest of the four Passions in proportion to its Gospel as a whole. St. Jerome, who lived for a time in Rome on the Aventine hill, records the tradition (also attested in much earlier sources) that Mark was the disciple and interpreter of Peter, who calls him “my son” in his first epistle, (5, 13) and composed his gospel in Rome before going to evangelize Egypt. It is therefore possible that St. Prisca stands on the very place where Mark wrote the Gospel, having learned of the life of Christ from one of the most important eyewitnesses.
On the first three days of Holy Week, the first troparion of the Byzantine service of Orthros (the equivalent of Roman Matins and Lauds) is this very beautiful text, which has given its name to the service, Bridegroom Matins. This English version is sung with the same music as the traditional Church Slavonic version, an edifying example of how to celebrate a rite in the vernacular without destroying its musical patrimony. Before the tropar, a threefold Alleluia is sung with four verses of Isaiah 26.
“Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, oh my soul, do not be weighed down sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom; but rouse yourself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou, o our God. * Through the Mother of God, have mercy on us!”
Matins are often anticipated to the evening of the day before, so that the first of the Bridegroom Matins, that of Holy Monday, is celebrated on the evening of Palm Sunday, the second, that of Holy Tuesday, on the evening of Holy Monday, and the third, that of Holy Wednesday, on the evening of Holy Tuesday. The troparion is sung three times, with the two parts of the doxology between them. According to a Greek Holy Week book which I have, the final words “through the Mother of God, have mercy on us!” as given above are only sung the third time. On Holy Monday, the first two times end with the words “by the protection of the Bodiless Ones”, on Holy Tuesday, “by the prayers of the Forerunner”, and on Holy Wednesday, “by the power of the Cross.” However, in the Slavic usage, the end is always “through the Mother of God...”
A similar melody, sung in Ukrainian by seminarians of the Basilian Order at their chapel outside of L’viv.
Another very beautiful version, in Arabic.
The original Greek text, sung by monks of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mt Athos.
Ingrediente Dómino in sanctam civitátem, Hebraeórum púeri, resurrectiónem vitae pronuntiantes, * cum ramis palmárum Hosanna clamábant in excelsis. V. Cum audisset pópulus, quod Jesus veníret Jerosólymam, exiérunt obviam ei. Cum ramis palmárum Hosanna clamábant in excelsis. (The responsory sung as the Palm Sunday procession enters the church.)
The Triumphal Entry of Christ in Jerusalem, depicted in the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry by the Limbourg brothers, ca. 1411-16. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
As the Lord entered the holy city, the children of the Hebrews, declaring the resurrection of life, * with palm branches, cried out, Hosanna in the highest. V. When the people heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they went forth to meet Him; * with palm branches, they cried out: Hosanna in the highest.
My heartfelt thanks to Mr Gerhard Eger of Canticum Salomonis for his help in researching this article.
The Saturday before Palm Sunday was originally one of the so-called aliturgical days of the Roman Lent, on which no Mass was celebrated, the others being the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, and the six Thursdays between Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday. When this custom was changed for the Thursdays by Pope St Gregory II (715-31), the respect for the musical tradition codified by his sainted predecessor and namesake was such that it was deemed better not to add new pieces to the established repertoire. This is why the Masses of these days have no proper chant parts, borrowing their introits, graduals, offertories and communions from other masses. (There is one exception, on the Thursday of Passion week.)
However, the two formerly aliturgical Saturdays already have Masses in the Old Gelasian Sacramentary, the oldest of its kind for the Roman Rite, the contents of which predate Gregory II. Evidently this change was made before his time, but we do not know by whom. This is also why the missing chant parts for these Masses were supplied in a different fashion, by simply repeating those of the previous day.
The Communio of both Passion Friday and Saturday (Ps. 26, 12): “Ne tradíderis me, Dómine, in ánimas persequentium me, quoniam insurrexérunt in me testes iníqui, et mentíta est iníquitas sibi. (Give me not up, o Lord, to the souls of them that persecute me, for unjust witnesses have risen up against me, and iniquity hath lied for itself.)”
A number of lectionaries of the mid-8th century, and the earliest versions of the Gregorian Sacramentary about 30 years later, mark this day with the rubric “elemosina datur – alms are given.” Within the first half of the 9th century, the liturgical writer Amalarius of Metz reports (De eccl. offic. I, 9) that in both the sacramentary and antiphonary, (his term for the book we now call the gradual), the rubric reads “Dominus papa elemosinam dat. – The lord pope gives alms.”
Later medieval commentators on the liturgy took it for granted that this meant that the pope personally distributed alms to the poor, and in this they are followed by modern writers such as Dom Guéranger and the Bl. Ildephonse Schuster. The former writes in The Liturgical Year that “(t)he Pope presided at this distribution, which was no doubt made ample enough to last the whole of the coming week, when, on account of the long ceremonies, it would scarcely be possible to attend to individual cases of poverty. The liturgists of the Middle Ages allude to the beautiful appropriateness of the Roman Pontiff’s distributing alms with his own hand to the poor, on this day, the same on which Mary Magdalene embalmed with her perfumes the feet of Jesus.” Schuster, on the other hand, says that it was done “in imitation of the Saviour who, on the occasion of the Pasch, was wont to entrust Judas with the duty of giving alms to the poor.” (The Sacramentary, vol. 2, p. 168, citing John 13, 29)
The Mass of Passion Saturday, with the rubric “Sabbato ad Sanctum Petrum, quando elemosina datur – Saturday at St Peter’s, when the alms are given”; in the Echternach Sacramentary, ca. 895 A.D.
However, none of the ancient Ordines Romani, the documents which explain how the liturgy was celebrated in Rome, give any details about how this was done, or why, or at what scale. (A fortiori, we cannot say what connection, if any, the custom may have had to the formerly aliturgical quality of the day.) I make bold, therefore, to offer an alternative explanation.
The oldest text of the Gregorian Sacramentary notes the station for this day “at St Peter’s, when alms are given,” but there is another tradition, attested in various lectionaries, which marks the day as follows: “Sabbato datur fermentum in consistorio Lateranensi – On Saturday, the fermentum is given in the hall (lit. ‘place of assembly’) at the Lateran.” (As noted by Theodor Klauser (1894-1984) Das römische Capitulare evangeliorum, p. 69; 1935) This refers to the custom by which hosts (or pieces of them) consecrated by the pope were sent to the main churches in Rome, and used when the priest performed the fraction rite at Mass, as a symbol of communion between the bishop and his clergy. There do not, however, appear to be any liturgical sources that note both the distribution of the fermentum to the clergy, and of alms to the poor, even though they took place on the same day.
A reconstruction of the Lateran complex as it stood in the Middle Ages; the hall where five of the ecumenical councils were held is in the structure in the middle with five small apses sticking out the side. The complex was rebuilt many times over the centuries, and it is difficult to say where exactly the “consistorium” mentioned above was. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
Guéranger and Schuster simply take it for granted that the popes did both, but offer no explanation as to how they fit them both into the day, even as Schuster explicitly says that it was supposed to be a day of rest before the lengthy ceremonies of Holy Week. Much less do they explain how the pope and his court fit in the trip from the Lateran to St Peter’s on the opposite side of Rome, and back again. Well before them, the scholars of the Congregation of St Maur, in their commentary on the first Ordo Romanus, admit their perplexity over this discrepancy (PL 78, 887A), while perhaps offering the clue that explains it.
As they note, the famous collection of papal biographies known as the Liber Pontificalis says that Pope Zachary (741-52) “established that on many days, expenses for food, which even now are called ‘elymosina’, be brought from the venerable residence of the patriarch (‘de … patriarchio’, i.e. the Lateran) by the (papal) cellarers to the poor and pilgrims who stayed at St Peter’s, and given out to them, and further established that the same distribution of ‘elymosina’ of food be made to all the needy and infirm throughout all the regions of the city of Rome.” (The author makes a particular note of the word “elymosina”, which has many variant spellings, because it comes from Greek; it is the origin of the English word “alms” and its derivatives.)
While this passage says that the pope distributed alms to all the poor, it singles out St Peter’s basilica as a particularly important center of this work. And indeed, there were several pilgrim hospices in the neighborhood of the Vatican. Many such institutions, not just those in Rome, also took care of the needy in their cities, especially in the winter, when fewer pilgrims traveled, leaving more space within the buildings, and the poor were liable to suffer more. (This is why the Latin word “hospitium – a place to welcome guests” evolved into the English word “hospital.”)
The church of the Holy Spirit “in Sassia”, in the Borgo region near St Peter’s basilica. The nickname “in Sassia” derives from a hospice for Saxon pilgrims established here by the English king Ine of Wessex in 727, one of many such institutions in the area. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by gaspa, CC BY 2.0; incorrectly labeled as a photo of the nearby church of Santa Maria in Traspontina.)
More importantly, it says that the pope frequently sent alms from the Lateran to St Peter’s, not that he personally brought them there or distributed them. So perhaps we should understand that the special Paschal distribution of alms on the Saturday before Palm Sunday was likewise made “by the pope” in the moral sense, but not in the sense that he personally handed them out.
This would explain several things. The distribution would have been made at St Peter’s because it was already an important center of the Roman Church’s charitable activities. This would also be a sign that the alms came from the pope acting as the vicar of the Apostle, much as we still refer to the charitable collection taken each year around the feast of Ss Peter and Paul as “Peter’s pence”, not “Leo’s pence” or “Benedict’s pence.” And perhaps the later form of the rubric, which uses the term “dominus papa – the lord pope”, refers to the pope’s position as the civil ruler of Rome, first de facto, later de jure, a position which was consolidated precisely in the era when the rubric appears, in the days of Pope St Adrian and Charlemagne.
More importantly, if the pope did not personally distribute alms to the poor, but only did so in a figurative sense, it would explain how he could personally distribute the fermentum to the clergy, a much less taxing activity on a day that was supposed to be an opportunity for rest. And it would also perhaps explain why the aliturgical quality of the day was abolished so soon, if it was felt to be more convenient (and safer) to have a Mass at the Lateran, rather than to consecrate hosts for the fermentum at the station Mass of Passion Friday, and then carry them back to the Lateran.
As texts were supplied for the Masses of the formerly aliturgical days, there are inevitably found some variants from one place to another. The most common epistle for the new Mass of Passion Saturday is the one found in the Missal of St Pius V and its late medieval predecessors, Jeremiah 18, 18-23, the appropriateness of which is obvious. This is already attested in the lectionary of Murbach ca. 750 A.D.
“Come, and let us invent devices against the just man, … let us strike him with the tongue, and let us give no heed to all his words. Give heed to me, o Lord, and hear the voice of my adversaries. … Remember that I have stood in thy sight, to speak good for them, and to turn away thy indignation from them. … thou, O Lord, knowest all their counsel against me unto death.”
Christ the Man of Sorrows between the prophets David and Jeremiah, ca. 1495-1500, by the Spanish painter Diego de la Cruz.
By the 9th century, the so-called lectionary of Alcuin gives the passage from the prophet Zachariah (9, 9-16) which St Matthew cites (21, 5) in the Gospel which is read at the blessing of the palms. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; shout for joy, o daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy King will come to thee, the just and savior: he is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” This carries on through the Middle Ages in a small number of places, sometimes cut down to just the first three or four verses, but in some places, it was read at the blessing of the Palms instead of the more common reading from Exodus.
The Gospel of Holy Monday was originally John 12, 1-36. In Rome, this reading was later divided into two, with the first ending at verse 9. The second part, verses 10-36, was then used to supply the Gospel reading for Passion Saturday, which includes the plotting of the priests to kill Lazarus (10-11), the events of Palm Sunday (12-19), and Philip and Andrew bringing some gentiles to Christ (20-23). It therefore sets the tone of the day as a kind of vigil of Palm Sunday, while the Apostles’ introduction of the gentiles to Christ is read one week before the baptismal ceremonies of Holy Saturday, at which the successors of the Apostles fulfill the great Commission, to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28, 19)
This was, however, very much a minority tradition in the Middle Ages; the Usuarium catalog of medieval liturgical books shows it in only 5% of documented Uses. The most common reading, attested in just under 55% of cases, is John 6, 54-72 (alias 53-71).
“Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.” This first verse and those that come immediately after it, from the passage known as the Eucharistic Discourse, would perhaps have been chosen to encourage acceptance of the once-novel practice of celebrating Mass on this formally aliturgical day. Then, when many of the disciples abandon the Lord, “Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Will you also go away?’ And Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.’ … Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve; and one of you is a devil?’ Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray him…” This of course foreshadows Christ’s betrayal by Judas, and abandonment by the disciples, which are read at the Mass of Palm Sunday in the Passion of St Matthew.
The readings of Passion Saturday, Jeremiah 18, 18-23, and John 6, 54-72, in a Sarum Missal printed ca, 1500.
There is yet another Gospel for this day, which was read in about one-third of the medieval Uses of the Roman Rite, the whole of John chapter 17. This is the last part of Our Lord’s discourse at the Last Supper, the prayer which He makes to the Father before undergoing His Passion; in the liturgy, it serves as a prelude to the first reading of the Passion the next day.
This passage supplies the antiphons for the Benedictus (verse 5) and Magnificat (verse 25) for this day in the Divine Office, even though the Roman Missal does not read this Gospel. However it came about, this custom is very ancient, and indeed, these antiphons are consistently found also in Uses that read the Gospel from John 6 at Mass.
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