I posted this video nine years ago on the feast of St Theresa of Avila, but the YouTube channel which originally hosted it has since been deleted, which seems like a good reason to update and repost. It is a recording of a Mass celebrated according to the Use of the Old Observance Carmelites, essentially the Use which St Theresa herself would have known. The Discalced Reform of the Order which she and St John of the Cross founded adopted the liturgical Use of Rome (as represented by the Missal and Breviary of St Pius V), but only after St Theresa’s death, and by some reports, very much against her intentions.
This recording was made at Aylesford Priory in England, where St Simon Stock was elected head of the Carmelite Order in 1245. The priory was suppressed at the Reformation, but the property was bought back by the Old Observance branch of the Order in 1949, and the house re-established. The video begins with some account of the works for the rebuilding of the compound, still ongoing at the time it was made; the Mass itself begins at the 4:00 mark.
The Mass which is celebrated here, filmed on a Sunday in September according to the narration, is a Votive Mass of the Resurrection, a custom which originated in the Use of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem during the Crusades, when that church was occupied by canons of the Latin Rite. The early Carmelites adopted that Use as their own, and maintained this custom; where the main Mass on a Sunday was normally said after Terce, the Votive Mass of the Resurrection was celebrated right after Prime, the hour of the Resurrection itself. The text of the Mass is the same as that of Easter Sunday; however, the words “hodierna die - on this day” are omitted from the Collect, and the Sequence is not sung. The Scriptural readings are given in English by the narration, unfortunately in the Knox translation; we may also note that, in keeping with a common use which is sadly still not dead, the Gradual and Alleluia are done in Psalm tone. Despite these small flaws, this remains an incredibly precious document of one of the Church’s most venerable liturgical rites.
In a significant move that signals both recognition of talent and a new chapter for a renowned architectural firm, Geoffrey Yovanovic, AIA, has been named the first partner at Norman Davenport Askins Architects. The name of the firm will shortly be amended to reflect the inclusion of its first partner. I am particularly pleased to see his progress as it bears witness to my assertion that beauty has a premium on the open market and is an investment of time and effort that pays rich dividends.
Geoff graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor’s degree in architecture, and earned his Master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame. I met him nearly 15 years ago at a Way of Beauty summer program I offered at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts shortly after he graduated from Miami. We’ve stayed in touch ever since, and it’s been a pleasure to watch him flourish and establish himself in the field, while always wishing to follow the Via Pulchritudinis - the Way of Beauty - in his professional work. I was delighted when he told me that he had submitted a church design with a cloister for his successful application to Notre Dame's School of Architecture.
His expertise extends beyond his professional practice. When I was looking for a teacher who could create a course on the principles of Christian architecture for Pontifex University’s Master of Sacred Arts program, Geoff’s was the first name that occurred to me, and we are delighted to have him on our faculty. He created a course on the principle of beauty in architecture, sharing his knowledge and passion with the next generation of designers. He is also actively involved in the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, for whom he also teaches.
Geoff told me: “I had begun to follow (David’s) blog thewayofbeauty.org shortly after graduation. A passing reference to beauty’s importance in architecture school spurred more interest in the Way of Beauty blog. Architectural fundamentals such as proportioning, order, historic precedence had been introduced to me in school, but these were all atomized at the university. The Way of Beauty course helped unite these scattered, seemingly disunited design principles, prioritize them, and direct them towards their proper end. The two-week naturalistic drawing course was enriched through the practice and explanation of the Liturgy of the Hours, along with David’s engaging lectures. This early foundation in beauty has proven a blessing for me. Without it, the busyness and business of architecture could cloud the objective of art and architecture, which is always ordered to our ultimate end. Teaching for Pontifex has provided me the great opportunity to share these lessons and lay that all important foundation for my students.”
Since joining Norman Davenport Askins Architects in 2015, Geoff has contributed to the growing reputation of an already highly respected firm. The firm is known for its meticulous attention to historical detail and collaboration with skilled craftsmen. It has won numerous design awards, and his work has played a significant role in earning these accolades.
Principles of harmonious proportion inform Geoff’s designs. A recently completed home showcases this approach, with carefully staggered window sizes and frame proportions creating a naturally pleasing aesthetic. This attention to classical principles, combined with an understanding of modern living requirements, has become a hallmark of his work. This adaptation of traditional design principles to contemporary living is necessary for a living tradition that participates in the universal principles of beauty, but in a way that connects with people today. In order to be able to do this, the architect must have an understanding of the tradition, and of how these principles are manifested in all buildings from the most magnificent cathedrals and grand civic buildings to humble (and some not so humble) beautiful homes. The designs should not be identical in each case, but the embedded principle of cosmic beauty appropriately expressed in each case, will direct the souls of all to the Creator of the cosmos, who is God.
It is important, if we want a culture of beauty that today’s architects understand, as Geoff does in common with architects of the past, that all human activity can be ordered, through the beauty of the environment, to our heavenly end.
It is heartening to see a firm like Norman Davenport Askins Architects with Geoff Yovanovic as its newest partner, perpetuating timeless, beautifully crafted homes that honor the past while embracing the future.
The following guest essay was written by Garrett Meyer. For many years, defenders of Gregorian chant have leaned heavily into Sacrosanctum Concilium, and there can be no doubt that the drafters of its chapter on sacred music were indeed committed to the primacy of chant. However, Meyer challenges us to rethink the implications of the phrase “ceteris paribus” and to ask whether this was not, in fact, a gentle kiss of death.—PAK
While discussing the liturgical reform with me in the Letters of New Polity Winter 2022 Issue, Dr. Marc Barnes held a mirror in front of traditional Catholics to reveal the liberals. They seem “to stomach the Holy Church insofar as it can be baked into the basic hero of North American liberalism: a hidden authenticity smothered by an oppressive, institutional body.” [1] This might be a fair critique of the cranky Catholics who just want to be left alone to their liturgical preferences, but it misses a contingent of traditionalists (likely overlapping with New Polity readers) who grumble against the hierarchs for not restricting their “authenticity” enough.
Rebels Because They Are Without a Cause
Catholics have become liberals, as it were, all the way up. We have all been “oppressed” with freedom (of the liberal sort) since at least Vatican II, if not the Fall. Religious freedom gets all the headlines, but sacred music suffers as well from what we might call inverted smothering. While a superficial reading of Sacrosanctum Concilium §116 [2] suggests otherwise, Catholics are indeed forced to refuse Gregorian chant true pride of place [3] in liturgical services. Let us carefully read every word of this disputed article:
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.
When deploying Vatican II to boost Gregorian chant, conservative Catholics almost always omit the phrase, “other things being equal.” Barnes, to his credit, defends this clause with full-throated gravitas. For him, it belongs to “the nature of the Church, the people of God at liberty, by Grace, to determine whether or not other things are, indeed, equal.” [4] This is not the only instance of Barnes identifying the Church’s mission as something unusual—I’m looking at you, “Hats Off” [5]—but at least the act of hatting admits of many metaphorical meanings. The same cannot be said for determining-the-equality-of-other-things. Try finding a single synonym.
This phrase, ceteris paribus in Latin, is neither scholastic nor patristic nor biblical, but comes from liberal economic theory. [6] It is strange for Vatican II to slip in the expression, and stranger still for Barnes to double down on it. From John Stuart Mill [7] to Investopedia.com [8] to even the farmers Beth and Shawn Dougherty [9], it is applied to an economic law as a qualifier. It means that the pertinent rule only perfectly holds in a model, for it requires conditions to be so static that it would be unusual if the rule simply held true in relentlessly-dynamic reality. Even if “other things are equal” now, they never stay that way. The use of ceteris paribus thus reveals not just a simplification, but an oversimplification.
To show this, suppose that you are on a field trip for your economics class. You go out to a local farmer’s market, or car dealership, or megacorp boardroom. You see friends disregarding the sticker price and enemies insisting upon it. You return to your instructor and shout, “The law of supply and demand is no law at all!” He condescends to comfort you, saying, “My dear, dear child. The principle only applies ‘other things being equal’—and they were not.”
When it comes to Vatican II and SC §116, some Catholic commentators inflect the phrase differently, saying that the liturgical law holds even if other things are equal, not only if. In their minds, ceteris paribus is an insufficient disqualification, not a necessary precondition. Gregorian chant should thus always (or at least normally) hold pride of place.[10] Barnes’s co-authored “Manifesto of the New Traditionalism” seems to interpret things just this way: “According to the very constitution initiating these reforms, the Sacred Liturgy should emphasize … Gregorian chant.” [11] The Manifesto then laments, “How rarely this is accomplished!” and calls the liturgical reform “betrayed” (by whom it does not say). [12]
But in his New Polity letter, Barnes changes tack. He stresses that one should not be offended if “the people of God at liberty” determine that Gregorian chant deserves demotion, precisely because of ceteris paribus. The reason that he appears a conservative in one instance, and a progressive the next, is not that he is flip-flopping. Indeed, he is one of the most radically consistent men which I have had the pleasure to meet. His honesty is indeed why I do not quite believe his gracious excuse for my own rash misreading—namely, that he co-wrote a document which misrepresented his own views, a slipup made possible because he “is not, say, a bishop in council.” [13] He would not sign something he did not believe, and he would retract it if he did. With great trepidation, therefore, I accuse Barnes of dancing around on the stage of liberalism, instead of his happier pastime (and greatly needed service) of ripping it up plank-by-plank.
Here is my evidence: If you grant that ceteris paribus in SC §116 means anything at all, then you are already a liberal. For you have made the deserved place of Gregorian chant not a consequence of its inner nature, but an imposition (however benevolent) from without. Progressives maintain that the environments which afford Gregorian chant pride of place are rare, conservatives complain that they are common, and Barnes is content so long as the Church determines them. But no group questions that ontologically violent presupposition which says that the honor due to a thing flows not from what it is, but only from what the context makes it. Should Gregorian chant be given pride of place in liturgical services of the Roman Rite? The postliberal says, “yes,” while the liberal says, “it depends.”
From Sensus Fidelium to Magisterium
This is the more believable interpretation of SC §116, not just because of the aforementioned etymology and my testimony (as well as my once-corrected-but-still-surely-incomplete interpretation of Barnes). [14] It just makes more sense of the historical data. What did Catholics by-and-large do from 1969 to this day? A few one-off parishes continue to plainchant [15], but the rest promptly and completely forgot all of it—that is to say, a liberal prescription was applied liberally in a liberal world. I was delighted that a simple tone Salve Regina broke out one night of the inaugural New Polity conference. Barnes and I seem to agree that this was an oddity among collections of Catholic men because of SC §116, not despite it. [16]
Our common ground, however, quickly gives way to questions which neither Barnes nor I can answer. What are these “other things” which must be equal for Gregorian chant to deserve pride of place? “Equal” to what? How close is close enough to constitute equality? How frequently must we check? Who decides? Thankfully, we lay Catholics are not on our own in interpreting the passage. The most extensive exegesis from the Magisterium comes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2007:
73. The “pride of place” given to Gregorian chant by the Second Vatican Council is modified by the important phrase “other things being equal.” These “other things” are the important liturgical and pastoral concerns facing every bishop, pastor, and liturgical musician. In considering the use of the treasures of chant, pastors and liturgical musicians should take care that the congregation is able to participate in the Liturgy with song. They should be sensitive to the cultural and spiritual milieu of their communities, in order to build up the Church in unity and peace. [17]
This may feel more solid, but, intentionally or not, the ambiguity remains. The bishops could be implying that only Gregorian chant allows a congregation to participate with song in the Roman Rite; that it alone responds sensitively to the depraved cultural and parched spiritual milieu of our communities; and that it is uniquely capable of building up Church unity. However “based” the kids might find this interpretation, it is a strained one. If it were true, the “pride of place” given to Gregorian chant would not need to be “modified” in the first place. [18] Rather, our bishops most likely anticipated Gregorian chant as an obstacle to the full participation of the faithful, an insensitivity to modern needs, and a disturbance of the peace, and so duly qualified it to impotence.
We cannot blame the USCCB if, in their equivocal statements, they allow Gregorian chant to be considered a stumbling block. Certainly, they needed to accommodate the unequivocal statements of Pope Saint Paul VI. In 1969, six years after Sacrosanctum Concilium and just prior to the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, Paul VI gave a frank address to the pious people disturbed most by the impending changes:
8. It is here that the greatest newness is going to be noticed, the newness of language. No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant.
9. We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church's values?
10. The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human, because it is apostolic.
11. Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more—particularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech. [19]
Notice what Paul VI is and is not asserting here. He did not want Gregorian chant to simply stop being sung. Indeed, in 1974, he sent a booklet with some of the easiest chants to every bishop in the world for the edification of the faithful. [20] His sacrifice was much more subtle. Paul VI redefined Gregorian chant to be an impediment to modern man, in lieu of precisely what modern man, once converted, was to sing. The ancient custom was no longer a tradition, to be faithfully received and passed down, but a left-handed tool that no longer suited the understanding or participation of a right-handed world. Gregorian chant could still be sung within the Roman Rite, but no longer as the Roman Rite.
Paul VI rhetorically asked, “If the divine Latin language kept us apart from the children, from youth, from the world of labor and of affairs, if it were a dark screen, not a clear window, would it be right for us fishers of souls to maintain it as the exclusive language of prayer and religious intercourse?” [21] This question assumes the worldview of the world, wherein “divine” things can bar bishops from helping the rest of men. In granting this anti-Incarnational premise, Paul VI trusted not in the philosophy of Aristotelian-Thomism, but of Coca-Cola.
Seeing Our Nakedness
Within fourteen months of Paul VI’s self-professed “grave change” [22], Coca-Cola and ad agency executives hatched one of the most famous television advertisements of all time. [23] They wrote: “On a hilltop in Italy, we assembled young people from all over the world…” to sing these lilting words:
I’d like to buy the world a home And furnish it with love Grow apple trees and honey bees And snow white turtle doves I’d like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony I'd like to buy the world a Coke And keep it company.
It’s the real thing. Coke is…what the world wants today. [24]
The advertisement presents attractive youth of all sexes, races, and dress united in Italy (of all places!) by one creed, actively participating in a perfectly intelligible English song about a soft drink. This is the diabolical inversion of the vision of Isaiah:
And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. (Isaiah 2, 2)
From its fleeting molehill of monetary profit, the world mercilessly mocked the Church as failing to accompany the young, failing to unite the common man, and failing to understand “the real thing.” And Paul VI in some sense agreed.
With the blame squarely cast upon Latin, Paul VI’s solution was not to replace Gregorian chant with any one genre. The sacrificial victim becomes holy by the very law of God, and no other goat can be substituted for the scapegoat. [25] Rather, he presumed that dethroning Gregorian chant as the chief musical expression of Roman Catholicism would clear the way for a democratic invigoration of the entire religion. In the same 1974 booklet advocating for a “minimum repertoire of plain chant,” the Vatican encouraged bishops to encourage the musically-inclined to pick up the slack:
When vernacular singing is concerned, the liturgical reform offers “a challenge to the creativity and the pastoral zeal of every local church.” Poets and musicians are therefore to be encouraged to put their talents at the service of such a cause, so that a popular chant may emerge which is truly artistic, is worthy of the praise of God, of the liturgical action of which it forms part and of the faith which it expresses. [26]
After 50 years, I compare the glory of Gregorian chant, just now being rediscovered, with the “popular chant” that Paul VI attempted to summon into existence, and wonder if a mistake was made. Paul VI sacrificed a real thing to first allow, then “challenge,” then require his flock to invent a new thing. Thus, he could not praise the tradition as such, but only insofar as it historically served the private goals of understanding and participation—goals which, in his mind, were far better served today by the chosen genres of “every local parish.”
The immediate successor to Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, came tantalizingly close in 2003 to reinstating Gregorian chant as the template for sacred music. He said:
12. With regard to compositions of liturgical music, I make my own the “general rule” that St Pius X formulated in these words: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savour the Gregorian melodic form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple”. [27]
Though this rule is made “general” (scare quotes per the Vatican website), it remains shockingly illiberal. Gregorian chant itself—down to its simple, monophonic, free-rhythm “melodic form”—is held up as the exemplary cause of all sacred music. If John Paul II had extended his quotation of Pope Saint Pius X, he would have effectively abrogated SC §116: “The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship.” [28]
But John Paul II did not say this. Instead, he continued:
It is not, of course, a question of imitating Gregorian chant but rather of ensuring that new compositions are imbued with the same spirit that inspired and little by little came to shape it. [29]
Anyone seeking a return to Gregorian chant as such is thus rebuffed by a fiery sword. We can even imagine John Paul II as lamenting this exile, but he admits no power to end it. In this new world, “of course” the plain meaning of Pius X’s rule cannot hold. The “spirit” of Gregorian chant remains to be imitated, but its sharply distinguished letter has been relegated to out of the question.
Lament for paradise lost can easily give way to anger at the intransigence of “restorers.” How dare someone today compose a new free rhythm Gradual? Who lacks the pastoral heart or musical skill to go beyond merely “imitating Gregorian chant”? A man can press on and still sing a plain old Sanctus XVIII, but no longer is he doing so in humble obedience to Rome. Instead, it is borderline selfishness, filling the air with a dead language that few—perhaps not even he!—understands. If Gregorian chant itself is opposed to modern man’s active participation, then how much more so a lofted Latin schola which includes only the diligent or the talented?
The Fate of Tradition After 1776
The victory of liberalism over Roman sacred music comes into view. Gregorian chant appears no longer good for the whole body of Christ. Instead, it is of varying degrees of usefulness to individual Christians in each’s musical quest to understand and participate. It is hard for me, American that I am, not to see this as the outworkings of the American Revolution.
In The Politics of the Real, D.C. Schindler proposes that the Declaration of Independence installed “ ‘Nature’s God’ as the sovereign principle of the new political order. This is a God defined specifically abstracted from any particular, i.e., actual, tradition so as to be potentially available to any and all of them.” [30] What Schindler says of the American Revolution and traditions broadly construed seems to apply, with only slight tailoring, to Vatican II and sacred music:
It represents the liberation of all possibilities, the inclusiveness of all possible traditions and cultures—within certain minimal constraints (the tradition one chooses for oneself cannot disrupt the public order, it cannot threaten public safety, it cannot harm others or exclude their own cultural expressions.) The point is that all of the contents of tradition can be affirmed, but now only in a new form, as not traditional, no longer representing something that precedes me as an authority and entails a claim on me prior to any choice I might make. All traditions are welcome—indeed, the greater diversity of traditions the better, since a single tradition would inexorably tend to take on a traditional form. But they are welcome only as “neutralized,” as various species of “tradition” in general that present themselves now as objects of choice, submitted to the only actual authority in play—reason as exercised by the private individual. [31]
It may be the case that Schindler’s argument can only hold because Roman Catholicism and liberalism are each totalizing forms, while Gregorian chant is not. Pope Boniface VIII declared, stated, and defined that “it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff,” [32] not “that every human creature sing Tantum Ergo.” But we should expect that if liberalism is, in fact, a societal form, it is re-presented fractally within every subdomain of human activity, and analogies from subworld to world can hold water.
In the analogy, the SC §116 places Gregorian chant in the same liberal domain as the Declaration places the true God. A pastor cannot settle the liturgy wars—as a true authority could—because he himself is recast as just one more private individual taking a side. These wars have resulted in statistically less Gregorian chant, instead of more, because Gregorian chant fails to meet Paul VI’s new “minimal constraints”: music cannot disrupt public participation (analogous to order) nor threaten public understanding (analogous to safety).
Each citizen within a parish’s boundaries (not just the fraction that attend Mass) has similar veto power over traditional music in the sanctuary as he does over religious direction in the neutral public square. In both cases, this veto is made stronger by his absence, since a music minister or state representative can more easily indict custom by pointing to an empty chair than to a man. Once living, breathing people are involved, piety sometimes wins.
Coming to the present day, it seems that Pope Francis has reaffirmed the private ability to negate tradition and neglected the corporate strength required to live it. In revoking Summorum Pontificum, Francis indicated that bishops should “discontinue the erection of new personal parishes tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the ‘holy People of God.’ ” [33] Francis frames the Traditional Latin Mass, so intimately bound to Gregorian chant, as nothing more than a hobby of individual priests that today competes with the unity of the Church. Anyone who maintains love for it is thereby suspected of schism. Barnes himself makes no excuses for the “dissent, disobedience, and sedevacantist playacting that characterizes the traditionalist movement today” (emphasis mine). [34] In his letter, Barnes does not praise Gregorian chant above the liberty to refuse it. Within liberalism, no one can.
Clinging to “the One Blessing Not Forfeited by Original Sin”
In the place of allegiance to actual traditions, liberalism ushers in all traditions in potentia. Likewise, after SC §116 supposedly elevates Gregorian chant, it states the following:
But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.
This neutralizes the (already hopelessly hypothetical) “pride of place” due to Gregorian chant should it somehow spill over from potency to actuality, from bridesmaid to bride, and root itself in that highest of liturgical celebrations, the Mass. [35] Just how married are you to a particular woman if you “by no means” forsake any other? When you appear to compliment your lawfully-wedded wife, do you take pains to reassure other women of your continued favor? Even the holiest saint on Earth cannot sing both the Introit and the St. Louis Jesuit’s “Let us build the City of God” [36] at the same time. One genre must be excluded, and only one option (by its membership in the set of “kinds of sacred music” other than Gregorian chant) merits Vatican II’s protection from exclusion.
To clarify the marriage metaphor, it is not every soul on earth that should be wed to Gregorian chant. Rather, it is the Roman Rite which was historically, culturally, and theologically wedded to Gregorian chant till death. And who has checked in on the widower since his house fell silent? Liturgists of both conservative and progressive persuasions concur that the traditional Roman Rite was “destroyed” in the making of the new, [37] but this will nonetheless seem exaggerated to those unfamiliar with all that changed in 1969. I include Dr. Barnes in this category because of the attempt in his letter to backhandedly compliment traditionalists. He wrote that traditionalists’ local parish “could probably use their knowledge of the propers,” [38] but I can assure him that devotees of the 20th-century Tridentine Mass do not know the Novus Ordo propers in the first place. Only 13% of the 1,273 rotating orations of the traditional Roman Missal were preserved intact in the “flood,” [39] and precious few readings were left in their original place in the impossible-to-memorize triennial lectionary.
I know that reform-of-the-reformers such as Barnes earnestly wish to hear Gregorian chant again fill the sanctuaries of the Roman Church. But the Council Fathers gave and Paul VI confirmed an infinitely wide cop-out which we laity cannot rescind. What is worse is that we liberals, more than anything, love “keeping our options option.” We felt privileged rather than slighted to honor Gregorian chant with our fingers crossed behind our back. Where before there was a gold standard of sacred music, now there is a free market, with every individual as the arbiter of value.
It takes considerable virtue to deny such license. Suppose that a father of a bride makes a solemn request to his soon-to-be son-in-law: “Take care of my baby girl.” The groom starts to promise, “I will”, but the father continues, “other things being equal, of course.” Would not the righteous man, in a fit of offended chivalry, reject this interposed condition, saying “no, sir, other things being damned!”
It is with this degree of fervor that I wish for the Roman Catholic Church to un-sacrifice Gregorian chant, relinquishing in totality the potential to conjure up something better. Restoring Gregorian chant to true pride of place would in fact exclude other worthy genres such as polyphony, motets, and hymns from occupying the exact same honor. However, I grant D.C. Schindler’s point that “there is no going back” to simply reproducing the old pre-liberal forms. [40] Recommending that every smartphone-wielding Catholic download the free app Chant Tools [41] will not fix things to God’s satisfaction, but I suspect that seeing again the good of Gregorian chant might do the trick.
I myself cannot teach the depths of this good, but I can defend chant as not evil. Gregorian chant is a wonderful gift of “priceless worth” [42] (as Paul VI affirmed) because by its nature it fosters actual participation and understanding of prayer (as Paul VI denied). If it did not so augment the faith of all, it would not have “priceless worth” in the first place, nor would Pope St. Pius X have described active participation by the laity as preciselycontingent upon it in his 1903 command: “Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times.” [43]
A mere sixty years later, Vatican II required the Church to forever look this gift horse in the mouth, rather than ride it roughshod over Her spiritual enemies. SC §116 may at first seem to level the sacred music playing field for the benefit of all men, but it only succeeds in erecting the prison of human opinion. Within it, Satan holds our musical dowry from the ancient fathers, our patrimony from St. Gregory the Great, the crown of the crown of all sacred art, behind illusory gates constructed of our own pride. No one should prize the “freedom” to respect the liberal mirage.
[3] I believe that “chief place” is a better rendering of the original Latin, principem locum, but the translation on the Vatican website, when read charitably, conveys the same sentiment.
[6] I am sure that there is a better story here than I can tell. Can it be a coincidence that, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the words ceteris paribus were scarcely used between Cicero and Luis de Molina, those two bookends of Christendom?
[7] “John Stuart Mill used the explicit phrase ‘ceteris paribus’ only occasionally but it had an important impact because he characterized economy by its way of coping with disturbing factors: ‘Political economy considers mankind as solely occupied in acquiring and consuming wealth […] not that any political economist was ever so absurd as to suppose that mankind is really thus constituted […] when a concurrence of causes produces an effect, these causes have to be studied one at a time, and their laws separately investigated […] since the law of the effect is compounded of the laws of all the causes which determine it.’” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ceteris-paribus/index.html#ref-7
[8] “The difficulty with ceteris paribus is the challenge of holding all other variables constant in an effort to isolate what is driving change. In reality, one can never assume ‘all other things being equal.’” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/ceterisparibus.asp
[9] “Now, food independence is a great goal, and all things being equal we’d love to reach for it, but given all the demands already made on our time, is it realistic to imagine that we can keep a dairy cow?” Considering the Family Cow: Why you want one and what it takes, page 8, Beth and Shawn Dougherty, 2021.
[12] Nor does the Manifesto say why, in its words, “the liturgy was unable to develop organically in this [the modern] era, all while Christian culture endured centuries of militant secularism and industrialization.” This sounds much like the liturgy was “smothered by an oppressive, institutional body,” since it would be hard to argue that the Church was not in control of Her own liturgy for hundreds of years. The New Traditionalists may be as guilty of liberalism as the Old.
[14] We are joined by other interpreters of various philosophical stances:
Summing up Joseph Gelineau’s position, Anthony Ruff states that “in effect chant has priority only when other factors do not overweigh, such as ‘functional value, or pastoral concern regarding the language employed, and also regarding the adaptation of the melodies to the capabilities of the assembly, etc’.” Ruff, Anthony. Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations (Chicago, IL: Liturgy Training Publications, 2007), 321-332
Joseph Swain states “The famous qualifier ceteris paribus (other things being equal) makes its appearance here to accommodate local conditions that might obstruct the use of plainchant or warrant its replacement by something more suitable for the sacred liturgy. In the light of both the theoretical nature of plainchant and the experience since the council, it is difficult to imagine what these conditions might be in any general case. The American Gospel Mass, sung where the local people have grown up with an alternative musical language owning a true sacred semantic, might be judged a situation where ‘other things’ outweigh the Gregorian advantages of biblical Mass propers specific for each Sunday: a universal and neutral language and a musical means to connect with the rest of the world.” Swain, Joseph P. Sacred Treasure: Understanding Catholic Liturgical Music (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 321.
[15] “A few” is very likely less than 1 in 20, based on a straw poll of ReverentCatholicMass.com and some back-of-the-envelope calculations on the number of parishes listed versus the total parishes in the United States..
[16] Conservatives may be right when they assert that Msgr. Johannes Overath and the Council Fathers did not intend this outcome. I, however, cannot read the hearts of the Council Fathers, but only their words. Nor can I change what those words mean. If their words misrepresent their will, I require another word from them (or their successors) to know this.
[18] The bishops’ intent to qualify any deference to be paid to chant, rather than boldly promote it, is also seen in their footnote citing the Vatican’s 1967 Instruction on Music in the Liturgy Musicam Sacram, which they write “further specifies that chant has pride of place ‘in sung liturgical services celebrated in Latin.’”
[23] The executives were quite explicit in their desire to fill the “niche” of uniting the world: “So that was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be — a liquid refresher — but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few minutes… Davis slowly revealed his problem. ‘Well, if I could do something for everybody in the world, it would not be to buy them a Coke.’ Backer responded, ‘What would you do?’ ‘I’d buy everyone a home first and share with them in peace and love,’ Davis said. Backer said, ‘Okay, that sounds good. Let’s write that and I’ll show you how Coke fits right into the concept.’” “Creating ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.’”
[25] To this day, Catholics are associated only with Gregorian chant despite its disuse and disfavor among them. Steve Martin, a comedian and agnostic, sings in a 2019 song “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs”: “Catholics dress up for Mass and listen to Gregorian chants. Atheists just take a pass, watch football in their underpants.” Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers, Rare Bird Alert, 2019, Universal Music Group,
[28] Nov 22, 1903 Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini, Pope Pius X, n. 3. Pius X’s word choice of “restored” dispels any false history of a pre-Vatican II “golden age” for Gregorian chant. We can grant Mike Lewis’s point in his article “Gregorian chant and the post-Vatican II liturgy” that chanters today may be more competent, or even more in love with chant, than before. However, consistent with my argument, Pius X also said the word “must” without qualification, insisting on a moral obligation which was turned inside out post-Vatican II.
[29] Chirograph of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II For the Centenary of the Motu Proprio “Tra Le Sollecitudini” on Sacred Music.
[30] Page xvii, The Politics of the Real: The Church Between Liberalism and Integralism. D.C. Schindler, New Polity Press, Steubenville, OH, 2021
[32] Bull Unam Sanctamof Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302.
[33]Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the whole world, that accompanies the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Data “Traditionis Custodes” 16 July 2021
[37] “At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old, has been destroyed.”
Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, K. Gamber ( Harrison, N.Y.,1993), p. 99. “Let those who like myself have known and sung a Latin-Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed.” [Gelineau, Demain la liturgie: essai sur l’évolution des assemblées chrétiennes, Éditions du Cerf , Paris, 1976 pp. 9-10.]
[39] Rotating orations defined as “collects, secrets/super oblata, postcommunions and super populum,” excluding prefaces, hymns, and sequences. (October 01, 2021, “All the Elements of the Roman Rite”? Mythbusting, Part II, Matthew Hazell, New Liturgical Movement)
On Thursday, the feast day of a Saint called Gereon, I posted pictures of the Romanesque basilica dedicated to him in Cologne, Germany. This is one of the city’s twelve major Romanesque churches, and since seven of them have their titular feasts in October or November, it seems like a good occasion to do a series covering them all. The largest and the smallest of the twelve are both dedicated to Our Lady, and are distinguished from each other by the epithets ‘im Kapitol’ and ‘in Lyskirchen’. Since today we celebrate the Saturday Office of the Virgin Mary, we will continue the series with the latter. (All images from this page of Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.)
The founding of the church is legendarily attributed to a bishop of Cologne named Maternus, who lived in the early fourth century, but is first attested in a document of the year 948, as a small and privately owned church. The name “Lyskirchen” is believed to derive from the owner’s name, Lisolvus in Latin, or Lysolfus in German. The church is on the bank of the Rhine, and was often frequented by fisherman and dockworkers, whence its lovely Gothic statue of the Virgin (shown above, ca. 1420) is called “the Madonna of the Sailors” (Schiffermadonna). The earlier form of the church was repeatedly damaged by flooding; the current structure was begun in the very last years of the 12th century, and on a higher level than the previous one.
As is almost always the case with older churches in Europe, the building underwent numerous additions and changes, and aspects of each of these changes remain in various ways. Cologne was bombed repeatedly during the Second World War, and although the church was badly damaged, the vaults of the nave and transept were left unscathed. Subsequent restoration led to the uncovering of the vault’s original frescoes; this is the only one of the twelve in which the medieval paintings on the ceiling survive. The exterior was likewise restored to something like its original appearance.
Two of the vaults of the nave; the iconographic program is extremely complex, and depicts episodes from the Bible ranging from the Sacrifice of Isaac to Pentecost, along with various Saints and symbolic figures of the Virtues.
Image by CEphoto Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Unfortunately, many historical churches in Germany were badly damaged during WW2; “restorers” of a modernizing bent were then able to take advantage of the situation to create unattractively bare sanctuaries on the specious pretext that by doing so, they were returning to a putative earlier simplicity.
A side-altar in the left nave, with a copy (1816) of a triptych of the Lamentation of Christ by the Dutch painter Joos van Cleve (1485-1540). The original was donated to the church in 1524, but was sold in 1812, and is now in a museum in Frankfurt.
Whereas there are introductory settings for the Epistle, there is only one for the Gospel: In illo tempore or “At that time.” There is an Epistle setting, In diebus illis or “In those days,” that is similar but more vague. “In those days” can suggest something like “In olden times”—the events in question happened a long time ago, but we are not exactly certain when, or perhaps it is not that important. It does suggest, however, that the events did happen, unlike the ubiquitous introduction to fairy tales. “Once upon a time,” of course, is code for “Never did this happen in time.”
In illo tempore also attests to the historical reality of the story that is to follow it, but it has a specific and unique epoch in mind: the thirty-three years when the Son of God walked (or as an infant, crawled) upon the face of the earth. Each word is significant. The Christ-event happened in time: the Word who is the Beginning (Principium) entered into the middle of the human story and dwelt among us. The historicity of Jesus Church is essential to the Christian faith; if the Gospels are stories about a mythical figure, our faith is a fraud. Consequently, the Gospels emphasize their own historical reality. Consider Luke 3, 1-2:
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea, and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina, under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert.
The pains that Luke takes to date the moment when St. John the Baptist was called by God to preach the coming of the Kingdom is a far cry from “Once upon a time.”
Bartolomeo Veneto, St. John the Baptist, 16th century
The adjective ille is also important. Jesus Christ entered into our historical condition, but there is a difference between living during Jesus’ public ministry and living after, just as there is a difference between “B.C.” and “A.D.” As both the Bible and Church Fathers attest, there are several distinct periods of sacred history. These periods arise, are given their own set of dispensations, and then come to an end. The age before the Law was replaced by the age under it, and that age, in turn, was closed when Jesus Christ established the New Covenant. Likewise, the age of divine revelation (which ended at the death of the last Apostle) gave way to a different era, the era immediately preceding the Second Coming. It is that era in which we now find ourselves. Despite the expanse of two thousand years and the plethora of cultural and technological changes that separate us from the Christians who outlived the Beloved Disciple, we are still living in the same age as they, the last age of mankind before the Parousia.
To say, then, that certain events happened “at that time” is to acknowledge that they did not happen “at this time,” in this current age.
As we mentioned two weeks ago, In illo tempore was retained in the new Roman Missal and appears in the official translations of several languages except English. The decree announcing the new lectionary states that the new rite will be keeping the customary verba introductoria, but individual languages, pending permission from the competent authority, can change them or omit them altogether. [1] One wonders why these venerable settings were made optional, and why ICEL took advantage of that option. The Novus Ordo has been accused of being influenced by Gnosticism; [2] removing these affirmations of historical concreteness does not help the case of those wishing to refute this accusation.
From the 2015 Lectionary for Spain
Notes
[1] Pro singulis linguis popularibus, tales formulae mutari vel omitti possunt ex decreto Auctoritatum competentium. From the Instructio de editionibus apparandis et de usu novi ordinis lectionum missae, 20 (Prot. N. 838/69) in Notitiae 47 (July-August 1969), 254.
[2] See Peter Kwasniewski, “Gnosticism, Liturgical Change, and Catholic Life,” in Tradition and Sanity (Angelico Press, 2018).
The German city of Cologne boasts one of the most famous cathedrals in the world, a building which is often regarded as the Gothic church par excellence. When its twin spires, which reach a height of over 516 feet, were finally completed in 1880, more than 600 years after the building was begun, it became the tallest building in the world, although it was surpassed just four years later by the Washington Monument, and again by the completion of the Ulm Minster in 1890. It is still the third tallest church of any kind.
It has thus metaphorically overshadowed, and in some cases physically overshadows, the twelve Romanesque basilicas which also grace the city; the furthest from it, Sankt Severin, is less then 2 miles away, while the closest, Sankt Andreas, is literally across the street.
Today is the feast of a Saint called Gereon, to whom one of these twelve is dedicated. The Martyrology states that he was martyred “at Cologne … with three hundred and eighteen others, who patiently suffered beheading for true godliness’ sake in the persecution under the Emperor Maximian.” In a famous case of hagiographical confusion, St Gregory of Tour (538-94) enrolled a company of martyrs at Cologne in the Theban Legion, but he does not mention the name Gereon. The martyrology does not mention the Legion (of which Maximian was indeed the persecutor) in connection with Gereon, and there is no detail of any of the legends associated with him which can be regarded as historically reliable. In 1121, a very large burial ground was discovered at Cologne, and many of the “relics” therein came to be regarded as those of Gereon and his fellows. (St Ursula and her companions were also part of this find.) His feast became extremely popular, and in the later Middle Ages, was celebrated throughout Germany and the regions of eastern Europe that use the Roman Rite, as well as in Scandinavia, northern France, and England.
Ss Christopher, Gereon, Peter, the Virgin Mary, and Anne holding the Christ Child, ca. 1480, by an anonymous German painter known as the Master of the Glorification of the Virgin Mary, (fl. 1460-90.) Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.
The basilica which is now dedicated to him includes parts of an oval paleo-Christian structure that dates to the later part of the 4th century. It was remodeled more than once; Gregory of Tours calls it “ad Sanctos Aureos – at the golden Saints”, which is believed to be a reference to its mosaics, but Gereon’s name is first attested in association with it in the Carolingian period, and it is not known how this came about.
The church owes its current appearance to a project which began in 1151, when the archbishop of Cologne, Arnold von Wied, built a large extension on its east side, and expanded the church’s crypt to match it. From 1219-27, the paleo-Christian oval was transformed into a decagon, and raised by the addition of three floors of galleries and a clerestory, followed by a dome in the then-new Gothic style. This dome was the largest structure of its kind built between that of Hagia Sophia, which was completed in 563, and that of the cathedral of Florence, the last part of which, the lantern, was completed just shy of 900 years later. A baptistery was added to the church in the early 1240s, and a sacristy in 1315.
This photograph taken in 1896 from one of the galleries under the dome give a good sense of the layout of the church, which has undergone a number of unfortunate “restorations” more recent times. As in many Romanesque churches, the nave, which is effectively all under the dome, is at a lower floor level than the sanctuary and choir, but higher than the crypt.
Several weeks ago, in an article entitled “‘An Art Which Leads the Soul by Words’: Sacred Rhetoric in the Roman Liturgy,” I discussed the nature and significance of rhetoric in Western culture and in Christian spirituality. I encourage you to read that article if you haven’t already, but to ensure that all readers will have at least a bare minimum of theoretical foundation before we continue, I’ll provide some key excerpts by way of summary:
“Rhetoric is, quite simply, the art of language. If my students remember only one definition—or even only one vague definitional idea—of rhetoric, I want it to be this one. Though it requires a bit of elaboration and qualification, it is accurate and pleasing to the ear, and it counteracts the ruinous tendency to equate rhetoric with the deliberate misuse or even abuse of language.”
“The Church’s ancient liturgies [as well as Sacred Scripture] employed highly rhetorical texts. Indeed, rhetoric is so central to salvation history and the Christian experience that a new definition is called for, one that pertains specifically to Christian education and foregrounds the role of rhetoric in the spiritual and liturgical life of the Church. I will propose one: rhetoric is the sublimation of language.”
“When we speak of persuasion in the Christian and rhetorical sense, we must look far beyond the impoverished modern sense.... Rhetorical persuasion is language in the service and pursuit of truth.”
“There is one domain of Christian life” in which we find “a harmonious public ceremony that is persuasive in the fullest, most transcendent, most sanctifying and transformative sense that this word could ever hope to have. The domain of which I speak is the sacred liturgy, which glorifies the eternal God while marshalling every imaginable rhetorical resource to persuade fallen man that this God exists, and that His words are supremely true, and that His works are wondrously good.”
In the present article, we will examine the rhetorical qualities of one short prayer found in the Roman Mass. Our objectives are three: First, to appreciate the poetic excellence that informs our traditional liturgical texts, which emerged from an intellectual culture that, in its ability to craft language and achieve eloquence, far surpasses our own. Second, to explore a serious yet often overlooked difficulty surrounding the issue of vernacular liturgy. Third, to more fervently bemoan and bewail the fact that the Latin Church has lost the will to teach her children the Latin language.
The analysis below involves obscure rhetorical terminology. I understand that most people have not studied this terminology and do not find it enjoyable. If you have no interest in it, feel free to ignore it, but I have an important reason for including it: I want to demonstrate that the expressive techniques found in our inherited liturgical texts are part of a venerable and well-documented tradition of rhetorical education that extends through medieval culture and the Patristic era all the way back to Greco-Roman antiquity. These techniques have names because they were studied and taught and employed for centuries by societies that believed in the power of language to change hearts and reshape the world.
As Christians, we can understand this as the power of language to achieve “divine persuasion”—in other words, to achieve conversion, in the broad sense of the word. The good God wants us to convert to Him, that is, to continually turn back to Him with greater fidelity and obedience and affection. He does not compel us to do this, for we are intelligent beings with free will, but He does persuade us, and one of His most persuasive texts is the traditional Eucharistic liturgy of western Christendom, also known as the Latin Mass.
Today we will examine the Súscipe sancte Pater, which is currently the first fixed oration in the Mass of the Faithful. This lovely prayer signals a sacred crescendo in the liturgical drama, as we move from preparatory prayers and scripture readings to the sacrificial action of the Offertory and Canon. This is the text as it appears in the 1962 Missal:
Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam, quam ego indignus fámulus tuus óffero tibi Deo meo vivo et vero, pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis, et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam.
And this is the English translation given in my hand missal:
Receive, O holy Father, almighty, eternal God, this spotless host which I, thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my own countless sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present; as also for all faithful Christians, living or dead; that it may avail for my own and for their salvation unto life eternal.
This prayer is, by the standards of traditional liturgy, quite new. Along with other Offertory prayers and the prayers at the foot of the altar, it was introduced during the Middle Ages, and it was in limited use until the Roman Rite, whence it originated, spread far and wide with the liturgical standardization decreed by St. Pius V. Let there be no mistake, though: this prayer existed long before the Counter-Reformation. The following example is taken from a French manuscript produced sometime before the middle of the thirteenth century:
And here is another, from the early fourteenth century:
This is how the prayer appears in a printed Missale Romanum published in 1607, thirty-seven years after the promulgation of Quo primum.
One thing we should observe about liturgical texts such as this one is that punctuation cannot be considered part of the original composition. Though the punctuation in the 1607 text is similar to that of the modern text, the punctuation—or “pointing,” to use a more medieval term—in the older manuscripts is sparse and not consistent with modern practices.
As you’re reading through the analysis, keep the following question—which we’ll discuss further in a future article—in mind: How successfully could all this rhetorical excellence be translated into another language, especially if that language is not closely related to Latin? (And let us remember also that from a stylistic perspective, the Romance languages are closer to one another than to Latin.)
Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam: The prayer begins with a sense of grandeur and upward movement through auxesis (or in Latin, amplificatio), which is a general rhetorical strategy for achieving eloquence and richness of thought through expansive language. Various specific rhetorical figures can contribute to auxesis. In this case we have antonomasia, because the descriptive phrase “holy Father” initially replaces the appellation “God”; appositio, where the descriptive phrase “almighty eternal God” builds upon the initial address to “holy Father”; and pleonasm, which is eloquent redundancy—the title “God” implies “holy,” “almighty,” and “eternal,” and therefore it is not strictly necessary to include these adjectives. Finally, note the overall structure of this clause: imperative verb → elaborate identification of the subject of the verb → object of the verb. This creates interest and emotion, since we must wait a few moments to learn what is to be received, and a sense of urgency in calling upon God the Father, whose grace and goodness make the offering of this “immaculate victim” possible.
quam ego indignus fámulus tuusóffero tibi Deo meovivo et vero: Let’s focus here on rhetorical figures of sound, which I have indicated with underlining and which are remarkably abundant in this passage. We have assonance (general repetition of vowel sounds), with the particularly melodic phrases indígnus fámulus tuus and Deo meovivo et vero; we also have dramatically rhythmical alliteration (repetition of initial consonant sounds) in vivo et vero and pleasing consonance (repetition of final consonant sounds) in indígnus fámulus tuus. The result is a sonorous and memorable phrase whose beautiful music contrasts, in paradoxical and therefore thought-provoking fashion, with the righteous self-abasement expressed on the semantic level (i.e., the level of direct meanings that the words convey).
pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis: The evils for which the Victim is offered—sins, offenses, negligences—are listed in order of decreasing severity. This is called catacosmesis, and here it creates a sense of alleviation and hope, as though our various moral failings in the service of God are diminishing as we approach the consummation of the expiatory sacrifice. We also see hyperbole (eloquent exaggeration), a favorite rhetorical figure in biblical and devotional literature. Many saintly priests have said these words day after day, year and year, and it would not be reasonable to repeatedly accuse them of “countless” misdeeds. And yet, the prayer reminds us that there is a certain immensity, a transgression that is somehow immeasurable, in every act that violates the laws of an infinitely loving God.
et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: Elegance and emphasis are achieved through anaphora (repetition of initial words in nearby phrases), with the addition of sed in the second phrase imparting rhythmical intensity that I find highly effective. That one extra syllable, considered only on the level of sound, creates a sense of urgency that harmonizes with the words: the vast multitude of Christians everywhere, even those who have died and now languish in Purgatory, are in desperate need—the Victim must be offered; the sacrifice must be performed.
ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam: Note the number of monosyllabic connecting words—ut, et, ad, in—placed between longer words. This resembles polysyndeton, which is defined as the use of many conjunctions between clauses; here we have two conjunctions and two prepositions, and they mostly join nouns or pronouns rather than clauses, but the effect is similar: pauses multiply, the reading tempo changes, and our thoughts slow down as we meditate upon this concluding idea with its crucial and resounding significance.
Let us recall that this is but one short prayer selected from the vast collection of writings in the Roman Missal. The traditional Latin liturgy is a rhetorical masterpiece of epic proportions, and the persuasive objectives of all this finely crafted language are the noblest imaginable: God’s glory, and man’s salvation.
For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.
.JPG)
