The Vigil of the Nativity of the Virgin

The origin of the feast of the Virgin Mary’s Nativity is a matter of speculation, and the reason for the choice of date is unknown. It was celebrated at Constantinople by the 530s, when St Romanus the Melodist composed a hymn for it; by the seventh century, it had passed to the West, and Pope St Sergius I (687-701) decreed that it be should celebrated with a procession from the church of St Adrian (who shares his feast day with the Birth of the Virgin) to St Mary Major. It would seem, however, that it was rather slower to be accepted than the other early Marian feasts, the Purification, Annunciation and Assumption, since it is not mentioned in some important early liturgical books. Thus we find it included in the oldest manuscript of the Gelasian Sacramentary in roughly 750 A.D., but missing from the calendar in some later books. The liturgical commentators of the High Middle Ages such as Sicard of Cremona and William Durandus were aware that it was of later institution.

The Nativity of the Virgin, by Pietro Lorenzetti, 1335-42; originally painted for one of the side-altars of the Cathedral of Siena, now in the Cathedral Museum.

By the time the feast was universally accepted, the Roman Rite had mostly ceased to institute vigils for “new” celebrations; this holds true even for the medieval feast par excellence, Corpus Christi. Thus, the Nativity of the Virgin was only kept with a vigil in a limited number of places, and never at Rome itself. This vigil would have consisted of a fast on the day before the feast, accompanied by a Mass in violet after None, and without the Gloria in excelsis, Alleluia or Creed. As it generally the case with later additions, there is not a complete uniformity in the liturgical texts of these Masses from one church to another, but in most places, they were taken from the daily votive Mass of the Virgin or the vigil of the Assumption.

In the Ambrosian Rite, however, the feast is kept with such a vigil, as a feast of particular importance, the titular feast of the cathedral of Milan. On the façade over the central door is a large plaque with the two words “Mariae Nascenti - To Mary as She is born.”

On both the vigil and feast, the Ambrosian Mass reads a lesson which very cleverly links two Biblical passages traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary, the sixth chapter of the Song of Songs, and the twenty-fourth of Ecclesiasticus.

“Thus sayeth Wisdom: Song 6, 8-9 She is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed: the queens and concubines, and they praised her. Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? Sir. 24, 24-28 I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations.”

At the Mass of the vigil, the following Confractorium is sung; this is the antiphon that accompanies the Fraction rite, which is done immediately after the Canon, before the Lord’s Prayer.

Beatus ille venter qui te portavit, Christe, et beata ubera quæ te lactaverunt Dominum, et Salvatorem mundi, qui pro salute generis humani carnem assumere dignatus es. ~ Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, o Christ, and blessed are the breasts that nursed Thee, the Lord and Savior of the world, Who for the salvation of the human race deign to take on the flesh. (In the video below, this is the third piece, beginning at 1:10.)

In the same Mass, the Transitorium (the equivalent of the Roman Communio) was borrowed from the repertoire of processional chants used on the feast of the Purification, the first Marian feast to be accepted by the Ambrosian Rite in the post-Carolingian period. In this video, we hear it sung as part of that procession in the cathedral itself, starting at 1:22.

Magnificamus te, Dei Genitrix; quia ex te natus est Christus salvans omnes, qui te glorificant. Sancta Domina, Dei Genitrix, sanctificationes tuas transmitte nobis. ~ We magnify Thee, Mother of God, because from Thee was born Christ, who saveth all that glory Thee. Holy Lady, Mother of God, impart Thy sanctity to us.

The Byzantine tradition distinguishes twelve feasts, eight of Our Lord and four of Our Lady, as “Great Feasts”, with Easter in a category of its own as the Feast of Feasts. Whether by design or coincidence, the first of these in the liturgical year, which begins on September 1st, is the Birth of the Virgin, which is also the first historically. The Twelve Feasts also each have a Fore-feast, the Roman equivalent of a vigil, and an Afterfeast; the latter are like the octaves of the Roman Rite, but vary in length, and that of the Virgin’s Nativity is only 4 days long, ending on September 12th. A Fore-feast is a full liturgical day, and so unlike Roman vigils, which run from Matins to None, it begins at Vespers of the day which precedes it, in this case, on the evening of September 6th. Here is a selection of some of the hymns sung at that Vespers, followed by the proper hymns of the Divine Liturgy of the Forefeast on September 7th.

An icon of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, painted by Adrianoupolitis Konstantinos in the middle of the 18th century, now in the Benaki Museum in Athens. (Public domain image from Wikipedia.)

In Thy nativity, o Immaculate one, rays of joy dawned upon the minds of the whole world, foretelling to all the sun of Glory, Christ our God; for Thou were shown to be the mediatrix of true gladness and grace.

The glory of this Thy forefeast, o Immaculate one, foretells to all peoples the good deeds wrought by Thy favor; for Thou art the source of their present gladness, and the cause of the joy that shall come to us, the delight of divine happiness.

The maiden in whom God dwelt and pure Mother of God, the glory of prophets, the daughter of David, today is born of Joachim and the prudent Anne, and in Her birth, overthrows the curse of Adam that was against us.

Theotokion The multitudes of the Angels in heaven and the race of men upon the earth bless Thy all-venerable Nativity, a all-holy and pure Virgin, since Thou became the Mother of the Creator of all things, Christ our God. Ceasa Thou not, we pray, to supplicate Him for us, who after God, place our hopes in Thee, all-praised and undefiled Mother of God.

At the Divine Liturgy, the Troparion From the root of Jesse and from the loins of David, the godly child Mary is born to us today. Therefore, all creation rejoices and is renewed, together with heaven and earth rejoice. Praise Her, ye families of the nations; Joachim is gladdened, and Anna cries out in celebration: The barren woman gives birth to the Mother of God and the Sustainer of our Life.

The Kontakion Today, the Virgin and Mother of God Mary, the inviolate bridal chamber of the heavenly bridegroom, is born from a barren woman according to the divine plan to be made ready as the chariot of God’s Word; even for this was she predestined, the gateway of God, and truly the Mother of Life.

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Incline Thy ear, o Lord, and hear me; save Thy servant, O my God, who hopeth in Thee; have mercy on me, o Lord, for to Thee have I cried to Thee all the day. Ps. 85 Give joy to the soul of thy servant, for to Thee, o Lord, I have lifted up my soul. Glory be... Incline Thy ear... (The Introit of the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. This very nice recording omits the doxology, following the custom of the post-Conciliar rite, which is more Trinitarian, and therefore refers to the Trinity much less often.)

Introitus Inclína, Dómine, aurem tuam ad me, et exaudi me: salvum fac servum tuum, Deus meus, sperantem in te: miserére mihi, Dómine, quoniam ad te clamávi tota die. Ps 85 Laetífica ánimam servi tui: quia ad te, Dómine, ánimam meam levávi. Glória Patri ... Inclína, Dómine...

From the Breviarium in Psalmos, a commentary on the psalms often attributed (erroneously) to either St Jerome or St Augustine, which was very influential on the composers of the Roman chants: “ ‘Incline Thy ear, o Lord, and hear me, for I am holy.’ According to the frailty of the body which He had taken on, pours forth a prayer to the Father. But according to the godhead, He calls Himself holy, as once He had said to Moses, ‘Be ye holy, for I am holy.’ (Lev. 19 passim)

‘Save Thy servant, that hopeth in Thee. Have mercy on me, o Lord, for I have cried to Thee all the day.’ He took on the form of a servant, which he prays may be saved in every time of the present life; for He knows that even if the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. ‘Give joy to the soul of Thy servant,’ which is saddedn by the present tribulations, ‘for to Thee, o Lord, have I lifted up my soul’, to Thee, believing that it will be raised.”

The Gospel, Luke 7, 11-16: At that time, Jesus went into a city that is called Naim, and there went with him his disciples, and a great multitude. And when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a great multitude of the city was with her. And when the Lord had seen her, being moved with mercy towards her, he said to her, “Weep not.” And he came near and touched the bier, and they that carried it, stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to thee, arise.” And he that was dead sat up and began to speak, and he gave him to his mother. And there came a fear on them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet is risen up among us, and God hath visited his people.”

An ivory plaque carved between 1025 and 1060 in the area of the Meuse valley, known as the Ivory of the Three Resurrections, which depicts in the upper register the raising of the daughter of Jairus, in the middle, of the widow of Naim’s son, and at the lower register, of Lazarus. The plaque is kept at the Treasury Museum of the cathedral of St Paul in Liège. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Okapi071, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

Videos of Reenacted Medieval English Liturgies

A friend of mine brought to my attention some interesting videos recently posted on the YouTube channel of a man named Sebastian Nelson. In September of 2011, the School of Music at Bangor University in Wales staged the reenactment of three liturgies as they would have been celebrated in England in the early decades of the 16th century, two Masses and a Vespers. The church where these were done is called St Teilo’s, located in Llandeilo Tal-y-Bont in southern Wales; after being partly demolished in 1984, remains of medieval paintings were discovered under the whitewash, and the building was then restored to its current appearance, broadly as it would have looked around 1530. There are also people dressed in costume as ordinary laymen and women attending the ceremonies, including, e.g., a female pilgrim carrying a staff with a seashell on it, as a sign that she had been to or was going to the great shrine of St James in Compostella. Of course, not every detail is accurate, particularly in the third video, in which we see women singing in the choir dressed in cassock and surplice; their singing is particularly nice. The resolution of the videos is low, but still watchable.

The Saturday Votive Mass of the Virgin Mary, the text of which is very similar to that of the Missal of St Pius V, celebrated solemnly with a deacon and subdeacon. In the Middle Ages it was normal for the Ladymass, as it was often called in English, to be said every day in major churches, and in order to alleviate the tedium of singing the same thing every day, variants were introduced. At Sarum, a different sequence was added after the Alleluja on each day of the week; the one sung here is called Hodiernae lux diei.

A votive Mass of the Most Sweet Name of Jesus, as the devotion was called in medieval England, where it became very popular in the later 15th and early 16th centuries. This is celebrated as a typical chancel Mass, a Missa cantata with the priest and servers.

In the third video, a group of nuns (presented in the reenactment as pilgrims to the shrine of St David in Pembrokeshire, the westernmost part of Wales), sing Vespers of the Virgin Mary, which was also said daily, concomitantly with the Ladymass.

The Agnus Dei

Lost in Translation #167

To resume “Our Lost in Translation” series on the Ordinary of the Mass, we turn to the Agnus Dei. After the Commingling, the priest recites (while the choir chants) the following:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona nobis pacem.

Which is typically translated:

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

The title for Christ and the clause about Him are taken from St. John the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world” (Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi. ~ John 1, 29). Mystically speaking, since the Fraction and Commingling represent the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, respectively, then the Agnus Dei can be seen as the voice of John the Baptist shouting from Limbo that the Messiah has risen from the dead. Even on the other side of the grave, John remains the Precursor of the Lord.

John the Baptist, to the left of Jesus Christ, proclaiming Him in Limbo

Addressing Christ as the Lamb of God is also appropriate at this point of the Mass, since the Lamb has just been sacramentally immolated on the altar, and since the congregation is about to receive this Paschal Lamb in Holy Communion.

The Agnus Dei twice petitions the Lamb for mercy and once for peace. Pleading for mercy from Jesus is common in both the New Testament and in the Mass; what makes this plea distinctive is that it moves on to a plea for peace. Peace is a salient them of this part of the Mass, beginning with the priest adapting the words of the Risen Christ, “Peace be with you,” and continuing in a moment with the Kiss of Peace.

The priest accents the petitions of the Agnus Dei by striking his breast at each petition, a ritual acknowledgement that his need for mercy and his lack of peace are tied to his sinfulness.

In Requiem Masses, the Agnus Dei is changed to the following:

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona eis requiem.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona eis requiem.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: dona eis requiem sempiternam.

Which is typically translated:

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant unto them rest.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant unto them rest.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant unto them everlasting rest.

The petition has shifted from us the living to all the souls in Purgatory, even if it is a Requiem Mass for a single deceased person. That is why the priest does not strike his breast when reciting this version of the prayer, for it is no longer about him and the rest of the Church Militant.

The request for rest (requies) rather than peace (pax) is inspired by 4 Esdras 2, 34-35, the same apocryphal text that inspired the standard Catholic prayer for the dead: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord…”:

Wait for your shepherd; he will give you everlasting rest, because he who will come at the end of the age is close at hand. Be ready for the rewards of the kingdom, because perpetual light will shine on you forevermore.

But peace is still in the background. The final petition, which adds sempiternam to requiem, may be inspired by the Vulgate translation of 2 Thessalonians 3, 16:

Ipse autem Dominus pacis det vobis pacem sempiternam in omni loco.

Which the Douay Rheims translates as :

Now the Lord of peace himself give you everlasting peace in every place.

The Vulgate, incidentally, is rather loose with its choice of sempiternam, which is meant to translate the Greek dia pantos, or “through all.” The Greek text thus reads: “May the Lord of peace give you peace through all in every way.”

Praying for rest and praying for peace are ultimately praying for the same thing (beatific happiness), but the connotations are different. The Church Militant seeks peace in the midst of spiritual strife and war; the Church Suffering seeks rest after a lifetime of laboring in the Lord’s vineyard. For the souls in Purgatory, the war is over, the battle done, the victory won; all that remains is paying the debt owed God through pain. And since that pain is intense, the Church Militant prays and offers sacrifice that it be over soon.

Music from the Book of Job

When Job heard the words of the messengers, he suffered it patiently, and said: If we have received good from the hand of the Lord, why should we not receive evil? In all these things, Job did not sin with his lips, nor spake he foolishly aught against God.

Aña Cum audisset Job * nuntiórum verba, sustínuit patienter, et ait: Si bona suscépimus de manu Dómini, mala autem quare non sustineámus? In ómnibus his non peccávit Job labiis suis, neque stultum áliquid contra Deum locútus est. (The antiphon at the Magnificat on the Saturday before the first week of September.)

As a follow-up to Monday’s post about the readings of the book of Job which are done in the traditional Divine Office in the first two weeks of September, the famous recording ensemble Schola Hungarica, founded by the late Prof. László Dobsay, has a large playlist (28 items) on their Youtube channel of Gregorian pieces of all sorts, antiphons, readings and responsories, taken from this “history” of Job, as the medievals called it. Here is another example, the first Matins responsory.

R. If we have received good from the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? * The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. As it hath pleased the Lord, so hath it befallen. Blessed be the Name of the Lord. V. Naked came I from my mother’s womb, and naked shall thither I return. R. The Lord gave...

R. Si bona suscépimus de manu Dei, mala autem quare non sustineámus? * Dóminus dedit, Dóminus ábstulit: sicut Dómino plácuit, ita factum est: sit nomen Dómini benedictum. V. Nudus egressus sum de útero matris meae, et nudus revertar illuc. R. Dóminus dedit ...

The Feast of Pope St Pius X

From a discourse of His Holiness Pope Pius XII, on the canonization of Pope St Pius X.

Sanctity, which was the guide and inspiration of the undertakings of Pius X, shines forth even more clearly in the daily acts of his personal life. Before applying it to others, he put into practice in himself his program of returning all things to unity in Christ. As a humble parish priest, as bishop, as the Supreme Pontiff, he believed that the sanctity to which God called destined him was that of a priest. What sanctity is more pleasing to God in a priest of the New Law than that which belongs to a representative of the Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, Who left to His Church in the holy Mass the perennial memorial, the perpetual renovation of the Sacrifice of the Cross, until He shall come for the last judgment; and Who with this Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist has given Himself as the food of our souls: “He that eateth this bread shall live forever.”

A priest above all in the Eucharistic ministry: this is the most faithful portrait of St. Pius X. To serve the mystery of the Blessed Eucharist as a priest, and to fulfill the command of Our Savior “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19), was his way. From the day of his sacred ordination until his death as Pope, he knew no other possible way to reach such an heroic love of God, and to make a such generous return to that Redeemer of the world, Who by means of the Eucharist “poured out the riches of His divine Love for men” (Council of Trent, Session 13, chapter 2). One of the most significant proofs of his priestly sensibility was his ardent concern for the renewal of the dignity of worship, and his concern to overcome the prejudices of an erroneous practice, by resolutely promoting the frequent, and even daily, Communion of the faithful at the table of the Lord, without hesitation, leading children thereto, lifting them up, as it were, in his own arms, and offering them to the embrace of God hidden on the altars. From this, sprang up a new springtime of the Eucharistic life of the Bride of Christ.

In the profound vision which he had of the Church as a society, Pius X recognized in the Eucharist the power to nourish substantially its interior life, and to raise it high above all other human associations. Only the Eucharist, in which God gives Himself to man, can lay the foundations of a social life worthy of its members, cemented by love more than by authority, rich in its works and aimed at the perfection of individuals: a life, that is, “hidden with Christ in God.”

A providential example for today’s world, where earthly society is becoming more and more a mystery to itself, and anxiously searches for a way give itself a soul! Let it look, then, for its model at the Church, gathered around its altars. There in the sacrament of the Eucharist mankind truly discovers and recognizes its past, present, and future as a unity in Christ. Conscious of, and strong in his solidarity with Christ and his fellow men, each member of either Society, the earthly and the supernatural one, will be able to draw from the altar an interior life of personal dignity and personal worth, such as today is almost lost through insistence on technology and by excessive organization of the whole of existence, of work and even leisure. Only in the Church, the holy Pontiff seems to repeat, and though Her, in the Eucharist which is ‘‘life hidden with Christ in God,” is to be found the secret and source of the renewal of society’s life.

Hence follows the grave responsibility of those who, as ministers of the altar, have the duty of it is to open up to souls the saving treasure of the Eucharist. There are indeed many forms of activity which a priest can exercise for the salvation of the modern world; but only one of them is without a doubt the most worthy, the most efficacious, and the most lasting in its effects: to act as dispenser of the Holy Eucharist, after first nourishing himself thereof abundantly. His work would not be that of a priest, if, even through zeal for souls, he were to put his Eucharistic vocation in second place. Let priests conform their outlook to the inspired wisdom of Pius X, and orient every activity of their life and apostolate by the sun of the Eucharist.

The canonization ceremony of St Pius X, May 29, 1954. The urn with his relics can be seen in front of the altar of St Peter’s in the lower left; it now rests in the altar of the Presentation in the left aisle of the church.

TLM Pilgrimages in France and the Holy Land with Dr. Kwasniewski

Over the years, I’ve noticed a happy development, and it seems to me to confirm the general trend pointed out by countless observers, namely, that where Catholicism still remains, it is becoming more traditional, or at least more tradition-friendly. Thus, it used to be the case that it was nearly impossible to find a group pilgrimage to the famous religious sites, be it Lourdes or Fatima, Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela, or what have you, that also featured the daily celebration of the traditional Roman Rite. But today, if you look at companies like St. Charles Catholic Pilgrimages or Syversen Touring, you will quickly find several options with chaplains who will offer only the old rite.
Without prejudice to any of the other wonderful trips taking place, I wanted to alert NLM readers to a couple of unique opportunities coming up in 2027, because of their unusual combination of traditional liturgy, theology, and sacred music.

O Beauty Ever Ancient, Ever New: French Gothic Cathedrals with Sacred Music From September 29 to October 9, 2027, I will be co-leading a pilgrimage to sacred sites in France that offers a rare immersion in the Church’s tradition. We will contemplate the theological vision embodied in Gothic architecture (including the cathedrals of Paris, Chartres, Beauvais, Amiens, and Rouen), and venerate relics and holy sites (Mont St. Michel, St. Denis, Sainte Chapelle, Miraculous Medal chapel, the Carmel of Lisieux and Les Buissonnets, the site of St. Joan of Arc’s martyrdom). I will be offering commentary as the trip proceeds, in addition to casual conversations with each of the participants. Daily High Mass will be offered by our chaplain, Canon Jean-Baptiste Commins, ICKSP, with a choir singing Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony that I will direct for every Mass. The kind of music we’ll be singing:

Formed by the Church’s liturgy and the legacy of French Catholic culture, we will seek to draw closer to Christ in His mysteries. Ends with a Seine River cruise.

***N.B.: there’s a $300 per person Early Booking Discount for deposits received before 9/29/2026 and a $200 per person Check Discount for those paying the remaining balance by check after the initial deposit. For more information, visit the pilgrimage page.

The Holy Land: An 11-Day REGINA Insider’s Pilgrimage

Those who are looking for a traditional Catholic pilgrimage to the Holy Land, look no further. On this Regina/St. Charles trip, taking place November 29 to December 9, 2027, we will have daily Latin Mass with a wonderful priest, Fr. Pablo Santa Maria—and we will sing whenever we can, whether inside or outside of churches, utilizing special Masses and chants for the Holy Land. Our tour manager will be the incomparable John Paul Sonnen of Liturgical Arts Journal, one of the most widely-traveled and culturally knowledgeable Catholics you will ever meet in your life. Our local guide will be Amer Shehadeh, revered for his experience, lore, and connections. And I will be offering theological and liturgical commentary, as well as being available for conversations over meals or on walks. A rare opportunity and still a few spots open. For details, see this page.

Fr. Santa Maria and I on an earlier pilgrimage

Giving a short talk on the bus

Fr. Santa Maria offering Holy Mass

The Legend of St Giles

On the Roman calendar, today is the feast of the abbot Aegidius, known as Giles in English, one of the most popular Saints of the Middle Ages. All hagiographical scholars recognize that the traditional account of his life is full of incongruities, and cannot be treated as historically reliable. For example, it begins by saying that he was an Athenian of royal descent; Athens had had no king for over a millennium by the time Our Lord was born. Having been raised as a Christian, he performed several miracles in his youth, curing a sick beggar by giving him his cloak, and healing one man of snakebite and another of demonic possession. Fearing the consequences of his growing fame, he fled westward, settling in southern France, and after spending two years with St Caesarius, the bishop of Arles (470 ca. – 542), went to live as a hermit in a remote spot near the mouth of the Rhône.

St Giles and the Hind, by an anonymous Franco-Flemish painter active around the turn of the 16th century, known as the Master of St Giles. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

He is usually depicted in the company of a hind, which often came to him in his solitude to feed him with her milk. His legend tells that a king of the Goths named Flavius (otherwise unknown to history) fell upon the hind during a hunt, but when she fled into Giles’ cave, the king’s hunting dogs simply gave up the chase. This happened three days in a row, but on the third day, one of the huntsman shot an arrow into the cave, which wounded the hermit. The king and his retinue then entered the cave and found him with the hind sitting at his feet, and after learning who he was and what he was doing, withdrew from any further pursuit. The king offered the services of a physician and a very large monetary donation; Giles refused the former, and told the king to use the latter to found a monastery. This he did, and eventually prevailed upon the Saint to become the abbot.

The Mass of St Giles, by the same painter. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0. 

At this point, another king enters the story, named Charles. (The first king of the Franks to bear this name was Charlemagne, who was born a bit more than 200 years after the death of Caesarius of Arles.) Moved by tales of Giles’ sanctity and miracles, he summoned him to court, and told him that he had committed some great sin, unspecified, but so terrible that he dared not confess it. On the following Sunday, as Giles celebrated Mass in the royal presence, an angel appeared and laid on the altar a scroll on which the king’s sin was written down, along with an assurance that by Giles’ prayers and intercession he was forgiven, IF he sincerely repented and made a firm purpose of amendment of his life. After the Mass, the abbot gave the scroll to the king to read, and the latter did indeed confess and repent.

Not long before his death, Giles paid a visit to Rome, and received as a present from the Pope two doors made of cypress wood, carved with images of the twelve Apostles. These he threw into the Tiber, trusting in divine providence to get them back to Provence, and on returning home, found them at the local port, and was thus able to bring them back to his monastery. When he died not long thereafter, his soul was seen carried into heaven by the choirs of angels.

St Giles is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, the only one of them who was not a martyr. The legends of these Saints all have in common that they received a promise from God that their intercession would be particularly effective on behalf of those who honor them. This promise was made to the other thirteen at the hour of their martyrdom, but in Giles’ case, it was added to the scroll mentioned above, that “whoever should call upon St Giles, for whatever he had committed, provided that he desist from that sin, he should not doubt that it was forgiven him by the Saint’s merits.”

A statue of St Giles on the high altar of the basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Bad Staffelstein, Bavaria, and beneath it, a view of the whole altar. Both images from Wikimedia Commons by Holger Uwe Schmitt, CC BY-SA 4.0. 

The two panels shown above by the Master of St Giles were originally part of the same altarpiece, which has long since been dismantled, and the pieces scattered. They are both in the National Gallery in London; two others are in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. One of the Washington panels show the Baptism of Clovis, the first Christian king of the Franks.

The other shows an unidentified bishop on the steps of his cathedral, blessing a crowd of the poor as an exorcism takes place in the background.

The place where the altarpiece was originally displayed is also unknown, but the presence of kings in three of the surviving scenes suggests that the commission was made for a church connected with the French royal family. The Mass of St Giles is set in the royal abbey of Saint-Denis, and The Baptism of Clovis in the Sainte-Chapelle. The unidentified bishop is standing outside Saint-Jean-le-Rond, a small church attached to the north side of the façade of Notre-Dame de Paris which was used as a baptistry. In the background is the old Hôtel-Dieu, a large pilgrim hospice which formerly stood right next to Notre-Dame. These images are precious records of these buildings as they looked before the devastation of the Revolution.

On Sacred Art, part 2: What Governs the Style of the Traditions

How the anthropology of the Theology of the Body accounts for the iconographic, Gothic, and Baroque styles, and why the art of Leonardo and Michelangelo is not among them.

This is the second of two related articles on the three authentic liturgical traditions of the Church, as described by Benedict XVI. In the first, I asked what sacred art is for and introduced the three traditions Benedict XVI identifies: the iconographic, the Gothic, and the Baroque. Here I turn to what accounts for the differences between them – the understanding of the human person that each embodies – and explain why the High Renaissance, so often considered the summit of Catholic art, is not among them.

What governs the style of these traditions?

The most important factor governing the style of figurative art is its understanding of the human person, that is, anthropology. Those familiar with John Paul II’s Theology of the Body will know that he distinguishes different states of human existence; it is helpful to draw on his categories here.

First, there is Original Man: Adam and Eve before the Fall, ‘naked without shame’, marked by innocence and complete reliance on God.

Second, there is Historical Man: mankind after the Fall, bearing the consequences of a broken relationship with God, with others, and with himself. Though corrupted by sin, Historical Man is not utterly depraved; he retains the capacity for sanctity through cooperation with grace. This is the condition we all share in this life.

Third, there is Eschatological Man: man as he will be in heaven – immortal, partaking of the divine nature, adopted as a son or daughter of God, and united to Christ in a perfect exchange of love.

These second two of these states, as I see it, correspond broadly to the three liturgical traditions in different ways. (There is no tradition directly relating to Original Man, to my knowledge).

The iconographic tradition reveals Eschatological Man. One important inspiration for this style is the account of the glorified Christ in the Transfiguration; all the saints share in that glory through baptism, as members of the Church, the mystical body of Christ. The stylistic features of icons are shaped by the desire to communicate the reality of man in heaven. The gold disc – the halo – represents the uncreated light radiating from the glorified body. There are no cast shadows, since each figure is its own light source rather than being illuminated from outside. And because heaven lies outside space and time, the icon deliberately reduces the illusion of depth through devices such as reverse perspective, ensuring that the figures inhabit the plane of the painting as much as possible. This is also why oil paint is generally avoided in iconography: it creates too strong an illusion of depth and a quality of sensory richness that works against the image’s purpose. Egg tempera, mosaic, and fresco are better suited to the iconographic style.

Christ Enthroned, in the iconographic style

The Baroque tradition reveals Historical Man, and its distinctive style follows from that different subject. Where iconographic art flattens space and eliminates shadow, Baroque painting deliberately creates an illusion of depth through perspective and portrays deep cast shadows from external light sources. Shadow has been a symbol of evil and suffering throughout Christian tradition – the ancient Office of Tenebrae (named for the Latin word for darkness or shadows) uses precisely this symbolism within the Triduum, in the final days of Holy Week. In Baroque painting, those shadowy depths are deliberately exaggerated, but the Christian message is not one of despair. Just as Easter follows Good Friday, the darkness in a Baroque painting is always contrasted with light, representing the Light that is Christ, that overcomes darkness.

The Baroque style is far more naturalistic than the iconographic, but it is not a simple reproduction of appearances. The artist varies color, edge sharpness, and tonal contrast to direct the viewer’s eye toward what matters and to ensure that the figure is depicted with dignity worthy of a creature made in God’s image. While Baroque art is always the art of fallen, Historical Man, it insists on man’s capacity for sanctity and his need for God’s grace. It is the art of suffering and hope, a Christian hope that transcends suffering.

Image: St Jerome and the Angel of Judgment, by Jose Ribera, 

Spanish/Italian, 1626, in the Baroque style

Baroque art should be clearly distinguished from the academic painting of the 19th century, with figures such as Ingres or Bouguereau in France, and from the Pre-Raphaelites in England in the same period. While there were some good examples within each grouping, in my opinion, we can detect that, as a whole, there is a subtle drift away from the Christian balance of idealization and naturalism toward one extreme or the other, becoming either cold and sterile or sentimental to the point of being saccharine. Much of what became 20th-century modernism was an overreaction to this 19th-century academic art. Although the modernists believed they were reacting against Christian tradition, they were, aesthetically at least, reacting against an inferior distortion of it.

The Gothic tradition occupies the ground between the other two, which is fitting given its historical position as a transitional form derived from the Romanesque and anticipating the Baroque. In stylistic terms, it oscillates between the visual language of Eschatological Man, characterized by a highly abstracted iconographic style, and that of Historical Man, characterized by a highly naturalistic Baroque style. It might be called the art of pilgrimage: its imagery points simultaneously toward heaven and the fallen world, reflecting that although we cannot complete the transformation into Eschatological Man in this life, we can begin it. The sacramental life of the Church is precisely the means by which that transformation starts. Like the spires of Gothic churches, Gothic art reaches upward to the heavens while remaining rooted in the earth.

Image: The tympanum of the South portal of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg , ca 1230, The Dormition of the Virgin Mary, sandstone; in the Gothic style. CC BY-SA 2.0 Frédéric Châteaux

The late-Gothic painter Fra Angelico illustrates the point well. He uses elements of the increasing naturalism developing around him, such as single-point perspective and cast shadows, alongside the iconographic visual vocabulary of uncreated light and pictorial flatness. His depictions of the Annunciation (there are several) are examples of paintings that employ perspective and cast shadow; his heavenly scenes, such as the Coronation of the Virgin, revert to the iconographic prototype of flattened space and radiant light. His works are not inconsistent with each other: they reflect a coherent theological understanding of the difference between scenes set in this world and those set in the next.

Image: The Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico, painted around 1434.

A reasonable question arises here. If each tradition rests on a different understanding of man — fallen, glorified, or on pilgrimage between the two — how is it that within a single tradition we find figures in all three states? Baroque art reveals Historical Man, yet it gives us scenes set in heaven, such as the Coronation of the Virgin. The answer, I would argue, is that while a tradition may occasionally admit some slight variation – Fra Angelico is a rare and notable case – in general, once a style of representing the human figure is established within a tradition, it is applied across all situations. To ask an artist to be fluent in several styles and traditions at once, switching between them according to the subject, would be asking too much of him and would likely confuse those who see it; working consistently within one style is what gives a body of work its coherence. And in any case, there are other means of indicating heaven while remaining within the Baroque idiom – the presence of angels, the absence of any earthly setting, and so on.

Why not the High Renaissance?

Many Catholics will be surprised to find that Benedict XVI’s list of authentic liturgical artistic traditions does not include the High Renaissance – the period of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo, c. 1480–1530, which is often considered the summit of Catholic artistic achievement. I follow Pope Benedict’s lead here, and it is worth explaining why.

All traditional art training involves, in varying degrees, copying the works of great masters and the direct observation of nature. The style in which an artist ultimately paints is shaped above all by the art with which he is most familiar, which in turn shapes his response to the nature he observes. Gothic artists looked to Romanesque models and to one another; for this reason, there was no sharp break between the Romanesque and the Gothic, and Gothic art can be understood as a progressively “naturalized” version of the iconographic style, the level of naturalism increasing gradually and without any clear dislocation from its roots.

The High Renaissance represents a different kind of transition: a clear break from that inherited tradition. Artists of this period no longer looked primarily to Romanesque or Gothic masters for inspiration, but to the ancient Greek and Roman sculptures that surrounded them in Italy and were being excavated at the time. The sharp change in style between the Gothic and the Italian High Renaissance is not a reflection of increased naturalism – as we have explained, that process had already been going on for centuries. Rather, it is due to the incorporation into artists’ training of copying ancient Greek and Roman statues and plaster casts of them, which radically altered the form of the art. The main impetus for this was not theological or philosophical; rather, it was simply that the period was enamored of the magnificence of this ancient form and wished to emulate it.

The implications of this shift were far-reaching. Benedict XVI described what followed:

“The Renaissance did something quite new...its art speaks of the grandeur of man almost as if it were surprised by it; it needs no other beauty to seek...The tragic burden of antiquity is forgotten; only its divine beauty is seen. A nostalgia for the gods emerges, for myth, for a world without the fear of sin...True, Christian subjects are still being depicted, but ‘religious art’ is no longer sacred in the proper sense. It does not enter into the humility of the other sacraments and their time-transcending dynamism.”

The Spirit of the Liturgy, p129

The phrase “without fear of sin” is worth dwelling on. It was the art theorist Alberti who first proposed, in his influential treatise On Painting (1435), that the observation of the nude should also form part of every artist’s training, along with the copying of ancient statues. In doing so, he was knowingly departing from the practice of Christian tradition up to that point – attaching excessive importance to direct observation of the unclothed figure without sufficient regard, in my opinion, for human dignity or for concupiscence, the natural inclination of fallen man toward sin.

The 16th century, shaped by Alberti’s ideas, is characterized less by a coherent tradition than by a series of dominant, individualistic, and brilliantly gifted figures: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. While there were undoubted individual high points, the period as a whole represented a departure from the sacred character of what preceded it, for the reasons Benedict identifies. The Baroque style was a deliberate response to this, inspired by the Council of Trent (which closed in 1563) and the spiritual energy of the Counter-Reformation. Gradually, the contributions of these and other artists were assessed and integrated, and by the end of the 16th century a coherent Christian tradition, properly grounded in theology, had developed from their work.

This, then, is why the High Renaissance, for all its brilliance, does not appear among the three authentic traditions. It is not a judgment on the gifts of its artists, but a recognition that the sacred character of an artistic tradition depends on the end it serves and the understanding of the human person it embodies. The iconographic, the Gothic, and the Baroque each, in their different ways, keep that end in view; and it is to a fuller account of each that I hope to turn in the articles that follow.

Michelangelo, the Creation of Adam, fresco in the Sistine Chapel.

Roman Discus Thrower, from the 1st century AD, Villa Arianna, Italy