Update for RSS Feed Users

Some readers who follow NLM through its RSS feed have been reporting a lack of article updates since September 22, so here is a technical update for them.

On that day, Google disabled its old “feedburner” services, one of which was that RSS feed.  But the feed is still also available under this link: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/feeds/posts/default, so if you use that URL instead, you should be able to get the latest articles as usual.

Users who are already on this newer RSS link probably did not have any interruption in service, and don’t need to make any changes.

I’m adding an RSS icon with the same link in the right-hand column:  

Music from a Mass of St Hildegard

Our friend Mr James Griffin of The Durandus Institute for Sacred Liturgy and Music is preparing a full write-up the Institute’s most recent event, a Mass celebrated on the feast of St Hildegard of Bingen this past September 17. In the meantime, we are happy to share these four videos of the Mass, which highlight the splendor of the music.

The Introit, Kyrie and Gloria.

Offertory and Motet

Communio, Interlude and Motets

Salve Regina, Recessional and Postlude

St Robert Bellarmine’s Hymn for the Guardian Angels

St Robert Bellarmine was born in 1542, and in his youth, received a classical education typical of his era, showing himself to be a particular bright pupil at a very early age. It was an essential part of education in those days that people were trained not only to read and comment intelligently upon the Latin classics, but also to write their own Latin in both prose and verse, and Robert was already skilled at this as a boy. In his early years in the Society of Jesus, which he entered at age 18, he taught the classics in the order’s school in Florence. When he was transferred to Mondovi in Piedmont, he discovered that he was supposed to teach Cicero and Demosthenes, although he knew hardly any Greek at all; he therefore taught himself in one night the grammar lesson he was supposed to deliver the next day. In the midst of his vast output of theological writings, for which he was named a Doctor of the Church in 1931, and his many other scholarly achievements, he also continued to write poetry in both Latin and Italian throughout his life.

St Robert Bellarmine (Public domain image from Wikipedia.) 

Formal liturgical devotion to the Guardian Angels is found sporadically in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but really began to establish itself in the Counter-Reformation period, of which St Robert was such an important protagonist. Pope Paul V (1605-21), who kept him as one of his most valued counselors, was also the first post-Tridentine Pope to formally approve a feast of the Guardian Angels, which he granted to the Holy Roman Empire at the request of Ferdinand II of Austria. When the feast was extended to the universal church by Pope Clement X in 1670, it was given a proper Office, which includes two hymns composed by St Robert: Custodes hominum, which is sung at Matins and both Vespers, and Aeterne rector siderum for Lauds.

Ancient Greek and Latin poetry was not based on rhyme, which was considered a blemish on verse in antiquity, but on alternations of long and short syllables, according to various established patterns. The oldest Christian hymns, such as those of St Ambrose or Venantius Fortunatus, were similarly constructed, although often rather more loosely than in the classical period. In the Middle Ages, when Latin vowel quantities were mostly not heard or pronounced, rhyme established itself as the norm for new liturgical composition, and even extended itself beyond the various types of hymns into non-metrical forms like responsories. The Renaissance, however, which sought to imitate the classical world in all the arts, rejected rhyme and returned to metrical composition based on vowel quantity; this classicizing spirit in the use of Latin lasted much longer than the Renaissance itself did, and is found in new liturgical compositions of every period, up to and including the most recent texts of the post-Conciliar rite. In the same spirit, Pope Urban VIII (1623-44) had the whole corpus of hymns in the Roman Breviary revised and classicized, giving rise to the famous remark “Accessit Latinitas, recessit pietas - Latinity came in, piety went out.”

To judge by St Robert’s compositions for the Guardian Angels, it is a pity that he did not live to contribute to Pope Urban’s project, which might have been more successful with his input. His vocabulary is almost entirely within the established usage of Christian Latinity. The metrical form is one used by Horace in his odes, called the Third Asclepiadean, but he mostly avoids the contorted word order which the classical poets and their later imitators often employed. Here is a splendid recording by the Ensemble Venance Fortunat, in alternating chant and polyphony; a pure Gregorian version sung by the Gloriae Dei Cantores, alternating women’s and men’s voices, is given below. The English translation is that of Alan Gordon McDougall (1896-1965).

Custodes hominum, psallimus Angelos, Naturae fragili quos Pater addi- dit, Caelestis comites, insidianti- bus, Ne succumberet hostibus.	Angel guardians of men, spirits and powers we sing, Whom our Father hath sent, aids to our weakly frame, Heavenly friends and guides, help from on high to bring, Lest we fail through the foeman’s wile.
Nam, quod corruerit proditor angelus, Concessis merito pulsus hono- ribus Ardens invidia pellere nititur Quos caelo Deus advocat.	He, the spoiler of souls, angel-traitor of old, Cast in merited wrath out of his honoured place, Burns with envy and hate, seeking their souls to gain Whom God’s mercy invites to heaven.
Huc, custos, igitur pervigil ad- vola, Avertens patria de tibi credita Tam morbis animi quam requi- scere Quidquid non sinit incolas.	Therefore come to our help, watchful ward of our lives: Turn aside from the land, God to thy care confides Sickness and woe of soul, yea, and what else of ill Peace of heart to its folk denies.
Sanctae sit Triadi laus pia jugi- ter Cujus perpetuo numine machi- na Triplex haec regitur, cujus in omnia Regnat gloria saecula. Amen.	Now to the Holy Three praise evermore resound: Under whose hand divine resteth the triple world Governed in wondrous wise: glory be theirs and might While the ages unending run.

A different and somewhat looser English version, by Fr Edward Caswall. (Fr Caswall, born in 1814, was an Anglican clergyman who converted to Catholicism in 1847. After the sudden death of his wife in 1849, he entered the Birmingham Oratory in 1850; he was ordained priest two years later, and died in 1878. He was a talented poet, and many of his English translations of the traditional Latin hymns were incorporated by John Crighton-Stuart, the Third Marquess of Bute, into his monumental English version of the Roman Breviary, including this one.)

Praise we those ministers celestial
Whom the dread Father chose
To be defenders of our nature frail,
Against our scheming foes.

For, since that from his glory in the skies
Th’ Apostate Angel fell,
Burning with envy, evermore he tries
To drown our souls in Hell.

Then hither, watchful Spirit, bend thy wing,
Our country’s Guardian blest!
Avert her threatening ills; expel each thing
That hindereth her rest.

Praise to the trinal Majesty, whose strength
This mighty fabric sways;
Whose glory reigns beyond the utmost length
Of everlasting days. Amen.

The Cathedral of St Bavo in Ghent

On the general calendar, today is the feast of St Remigius, the bishop of Reims who baptized the Frankish king Clovis in 508, a major event for the Christianization of the Franks and the establishment of the French nation. Since he died on January 13, the octave day of the Epiphany, his feast is kept on October 1st, the date of a translation of his relics which took place in 852 A.D. In the Middle Ages, many places kept this feast jointly with various other confessors, one of whom is St Bavo, the patron of the Belgian city of Ghent, where he died ca. 655. (He is also known as Allowin; the Dutch form of his name is Baaf.)

The Conversion of St Bavo, 1624, by Peter Paul Rubens.

Bavo was a nobleman and a soldier, a native of the eastern region of modern Belgium called Hesbaye in French, Haspengouw in Dutch, and Hasbania in Latin; the principality of Liège, formerly a very important ecclesiastical center and state, borders it to the east. He led a very irregular life, but after being left a widower while still young, he was converted by the preaching of a Saint called Amand, and after giving away all his money, entered a monastery. Amand was a great missionary, and Bavo accompanied him on several of his trips in Flanders and northern France, but after a time, his spiritual father let him go to live as a hermit. A well-known story is told that after his conversion, he met a man whom he had sold into serfdom, and did penance for this by having the man publicly lead him in chains to a prison. Eventually, he returned to the monastery at Ghent and ended his life there.

Ghent ca. 1540. The church in the middle is the abbey of St Bavo, which was destroyed by the Emperor Charles V. The tower of the other St Bavo, not yet a cathedral, is the one on the left among the three right behind it. 

Today, his name is certainly best known in reference to the cathedral of Ghent, which is titled to him, since that church is the home of one of the most famous pieces of art ever made, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, (1425 ca. -32) by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, often more simply called the Ghent Altarpiece. The current Gothic structure was begun in 1274, but not completed until the 1569; it was originally a secular canonical church, and only made a cathedral when Ghent became a diocese ten years before its completion. Part of the reason why the Ghent Altarpiece is The Ghent Altarpiece is that the church was raided in 1566 by Calvinists, who, acting as they believed, (which is to say, more like Mohammedans than Christians), smashed up many of its artworks. Of the works later commissioned to replace them, perhaps only the Rubens shown above is really noteworthy, and certainly the only one at all to the taste of our own times.

Ghent is a port city, even though it is 23 miles inland, since it sits at the confluence of two rivers. In 2015, a ship coming into the port collided with and killed a young finback whale nearly 40 feet long, which remained stuck on its bow. The body was brought to the University of Ghent for study, and afterwards, the skeleton was hung up in St Bavo within the ambulatory of the choir as a kind of ex voto, and a reminder of the story of the prophet Jonah; it has been given the name Leo.

A broad view of the nave. (It appears that the modern altar seen here has subsequently been replaced with something much nicer, as seen in the next photograph.) 

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Conference on Bl. Karl of Austria, & Premiere of Mass by Paul Jernberg - Washington DC, October 18 - 20

Here is a reminder and more information on what promises to be a fantastic occasion in DC later this month.

Paul Jernberg, who founded the Magnificat Institute, is the composer of the music for the Mass for Blessed Karl that will premiere at this conference. He told me: 

The idea for this new composition, and for this conference, began with my “coincidental” meeting with the great-grandson of Blessed Karl (aka Charles 1 of Austria - the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) a couple of years ago. The more I read about him and his wife, Zita, the more I was inspired by their radiant model of great leadership - characterized not by the desire for power but by the pursuit of wisdom and a faithful, self-sacrificial love for his people.

For lots more information and registration, visit magnificatinstitute.org/dc-conference.

Defending So-Called Doublets by Understanding Parallelism

Symmetry like that of these towers in Paris is common to all works of art, musical, poetic, rhetorical, dance, etc. What is strange is not to have parallelism. Photo by Priscilla Fraire (source)

One of the pet peeves of the modern liturgists was what they liked to call “doublets,” namely, elements that seemed to them to be redundant or uselessly repetitious. Adhering to the odd belief of Romano Guardini that devotion is characterized by repetition but liturgy by linear singularity (see this lecture of mine for the relevant texts), they claimed after the Council that the Offertory rite needlessly and confusingly anticipated the Canon and therefore needed to be radically modified. As we all know, their solution was to jettison nearly all of the existing Offertory and replace it with a faux-Jewish workerist blessing of bread and wine.

It is hard to evade the impression that such reformers were like the Enlightenment and Victorian critics who complained of obscurities, infelicities, and improprieties in Shakespeare’s plays, and therefore felt themselves justified in diligently “correcting” them for modern readers. Looking back today, we can only marvel that otherwise literate and competent people should be so blind to the extraordinary perfection of the Bard’s works, as he achieved his goals with full mastery of materials.

In his superb book Forest of Symbols, Fr. Claude Barthe guides us to see the hardly accidental or incidental parallelism that exists between the Offertory of the Roman Rite and the Roman Canon. So far from this being an example of useless repetition or incoherent anticipation, it is a glowing example of how the liturgy proceeds by way of preparation, reinforcement, parallelism, building a system of cross-references that allow the fullest meaning to be grasped—much as men have two eyes and two ears in order to see and to hear a single reality better, or as a train rides on two parallel tracks in order to remain stable and not veer to the left or right. Indeed, just about every cognitive process involves multiple sources that are compared with and complete one another. What would be strange is reducing the approach to truth to a single line, unaccompanied and unrelational. Nor is it at all surprising that no divino-apostolic liturgical rite exhibits this rationalist flaw.

Let us consider the parallels in detail, quoting from Barthe, pp. 84–88.

Parallel #1

The Suscipe, sancte Pater,
hanc immaculatam hostiam…

(Receive, O holy Father, almighty, eternal God, this spotless host, which I, thine unworthy servant, do offer unto thee, my living and true God, for mine own countless sins, offences, and negligences, and for all here present; as also for all faithful Christians, living and dead, that it may avail for my own and for their salvation unto life eternal)

…corresponds to the Hanc igitur

(We therefore beseech thee, O Lord, to be appeased, and to receive this offering of our bounden duty, as also of thy whole household; order our days in thy peace; grant that we may be rescued from eternal damnation, and counted within the fold of thine elect) of the Canon and to the consecration of the Host (This is my Body). This Suscipe is particularly important for the development of the ultimate propitiatory purpose of the Mass: an oblation for the sins of the living and the dead with a view to their salvation.

Parallel #2

The Deus qui humanae and
the Offerimus, tibi, Domine, calicem salutaris…

(O God, who in creating human nature didst marvelously ennoble it, and hast still more marvelously reformed it; grant that, by the mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of his divinity who vouchsafed to become partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord… We offer unto thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, beseeching thy clemency, that it may rise up in the sight of thy divine majesty, as a savor of sweetness, for our salvation, and for that of the whole world)

…correspond to the consecration of the wine
(This is the chalice of my blood).

Deus, qui Humanae substantiae…is, as we have seen, an ancient prayer assigned by the sacramentaries to the feast of Christmas. It refers to the representation, by the admixture of the water to the wine, of the union of the faithful with Christ. It does no more than take up an allegory of the patristic period to which reference has already been made (“When the wine in the chalice is mixed with the water, the people is being united with Christ,” says St Cyprian), which in its turn depends for its authority at least on scriptural symbolism: “The waters that you saw. . . are peoples, and nations, and tongues” (Apoc. 17, 15). Attention is thus focused on the humanity of Christ and of the faithful united with him.

The text has not given an a posteriori allegorical explanation to the action, the admixture: on the contrary, it is a clear example of the allegorical meaning of the action explaining the choice of accompanying texts. In fact, the admixture is of immense theological importance. The decree of the Council of Florence (1438–1445) relating to the Armenians, who only acknowledged the one divine nature in Christ and who consecrated only wine, without the water that symbolizes Christ’s humanity, refers to the extreme appropriateness of the admixture, citing Apoc.17, 15.

To tell the truth, the allegory is double: in the Milanese and Carthusian rites the prayer also alludes to the water that issued from Christ’s side. In fact it is a triple allegory, if we take account of St Thomas Aquinas, who in addition to a historical reason gives three mystical reasons for the mixing of wine and water in the chalice, of which the first two have just been mentioned: as a representation of the Passion, with the water and the Blood flowing from Christ’s open side (in the Carthusian Offertory, the priest says, “From the side of Our Lord Jesus Christ flowed Blood and water for the redemption of the world”); as a symbol of the union of the people with Christ; but also, as a demonstration of the effect of the sacrament, namely entry into eternal life, represented by the water that quenches every thirst (John 4, 13-14).

Parallel #3

The prayer using the royal “we,” and the invocation, which derive from Gallican missals:

In spiritu humilitatis…
Veni, sanctificator…

(In a humble spirit, and a contrite heart, may we be received by thee, O Lord; and may our sacrifice so be offered up in thy sight this day that it may be pleasing to thee, O Lord God… Come, O thou who makest holy, almighty, eternal God and bless this sacrifice, prepared for thy holy name)

correspond to the epiklesis,
Supplices te rogamus…

(We most humbly beseech thee, Almighty God, to command that these things be borne by the hands of thy holy angel to thine altar on high, in the sight of thy divine majesty, that as many of us as, at this altar, shall partake of and receive the most holy Body and Blood of thy Son, may be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace)

For all that, it does not seem that the sanctificator invoked here is specifically intended as the Person of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, contrary to the usual opinion, the notion of an epiklesis (a request, accompanied by a deep bow, that the power of God may descend or that the sacrifice may be raised up to him) does not necessarily imply an entreaty to the Holy Spirit.

Parallel #4

Psalm 25, 6-12,

Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas…

(I wash my hands among the innocent . . . Destroy not my soul with the wicked, O God: nor my life with men of blood. In whose hands are iniquities: their right hand is filled with gifts. But I have walked in mine innocence . . . My foot hath stood in the straight way: in the churches I will bless thee, O Lord), which accompanies the washing of his hands by the celebrant, and has given its name to the action,

prepares us for the
Nobis quoque peccatoribus…

(To us sinners, also, thy servants, hoping in the multitude of thy mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with the holy apostles and martyrs…into whose company we pray thee admit us, not considering our merit, but of thine own free pardon).

“Wash yourselves, be clean,” says Isaiah (1, 16). According to liturgical historians, this washing of hands may have been mystical from the very beginning. If not, it could be more plausibly linked to the solemn censing than to the ancient oblation of the people: St Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315–386) had already noted that those who had to wash their hands did not have a share in the receiving of the oblations.

This washing of the hands, it seems, was already present in the pontifical Mass of the fifth and sixth centuries, and was at the same point in the Mass as it is today. The priest who is going to offer the sacrifice washes his hands, symbolizing his deeds, to indicate that he must wash and purify his conscience of evil deeds with the tears of penitence and compunction, according to the verse, “Every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with my tears” (Ps. 6, 7).

Parallel #5

The last great prayer of the Offertory,

Suscipe, sancta Trinitas,…
ob memoriam passionis, resurrectionis, et ascensionis…

(Receive, O Holy Trinity, this offering, which we make to thee, in remembrance of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of blessed Mary ever virgin, of blessed John the Baptist, of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, of these and of all the saints: that it may avail to their honor and our salvation: and may they vouchsafe to intercede for us in heaven, whose memory we celebrate on earth)

highlights the finality of the sacrifice. It is an anamnesis (remembrance, recollection), like that in the Canon,

Unde et memores…

(Wherefore, O Lord, we thy servants, as also thy holy people, calling to mind the blessed passion of the same Christ thy Son our Lord, and also his rising up from hell, and his glorious ascension into heaven, do offer unto thy most excellent majesty, of thine own gifts bestowed upon us…).

But the prayer also recalls the

Communicantes
with its roll call of the saints

(Communicating, and reverencing the memory, first, of the glorious Mary, ever a Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; likewise of thy blessed apostles and martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James…and of all thy saints; by whose merits and prayers grant that in all things we may be guarded by thy protecting help).

It is a prayer addressed to the Holy Trinity, even though the Canon, like every Eucharistic prayer, is addressed to the Father. Latinists will note that in the oldest missals the more classical form in honore with the ablative was used (beatae Mariae semper Virginis et…) rather than in honorem with the accusative, an effect heightened by the fact that an ad honorem (ut illis proficiat ad honorem) follows. In honore is equivalent to in veneratione, in honore sanctorum, and makes us think of the “in honore deorum,” the feast day of the gods in old Latin. We may also note that the progression illis ad honorem…nobis ad salutem…; intercedere in caelis…quorum memoriam agimus in terris is an interesting imitation in the Latin of the High Middle Ages of the measured parallelisms of the Latin of Late Antiquity.

Parallel #6

Orate, fratres…

(Brethren, pray that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Father Almighty. May the Lord receive the sacrifice at thy hands, to the praise and glory of his name, to our benefit, and to that of all his holy church)

…recalls the prayer
Quam oblationem of the Canon

(Which offering do thou, O God, vouchsafe in all things, to bless, consecrate, approve, make reasonable and acceptable)

Fiat acceptabile— facere acceptabilem, that the sacrifice that is offered may be judged acceptable by God himself so that he can receive it. The theology is admirable, and again reveals the rigorous precision of Rome’s lex orandi.

But this Orate, fratres is above all a greeting, like Dominus vobiscum: the priest kisses the altar and extends his hands as a sign of peace. It can thus be a sort of blessing by the priest who is going to offer the sacrifice: we will note, in fact, that the double idea of an acceptable sacrifice and of an offering by the celebrant on behalf of those in whose name he is making the offering reappears in Placeat tibi, sancta Trinitas… (May the homage of my service be pleasing to thee, O holy Trinity; and grant that the sacrifice which I, though unworthy, have offered in the sight of thy majesty, may be acceptable to thee: and through thy mercy win forgiveness for me and for all those for whom I have offered it), the other apologia that precedes the final blessing.

Now, for the Orate, fratres the celebrant turns round in a complete circle, in a movement that is identical to that of the final blessing. Finally, we must remember that at the end of the silent prayer of the Offertory (representing the silent prayer of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane), the priest’s invitation to the ministers to pray before entering on the sacrifice echoes that of Christ to his disciples at Gethsemane: “Pray, lest ye enter into temptation” (Luke 22, 40).

*   *   *

Fr. Barthe proceeds to show that the many other “doublets” of the Roman Rite are equally carefully contrived to bring out the fullest depth of theological meaning, even as the equivalent doublets in the Byzantine rite are. Barthe helps us to see, from new perspectives, the profound analogies between East and West that the liturgical reform almost obliterated and that the Roman Rite in its classical integrity preserves as a witness to catholicity.

Did not all these rites take their cue from the very Word of God, in which repetition and parallelism are key features? Hebrew poetry cannot be understood at all unless one grasps its use of parallel phrases that echo one another in a sort of conceptual rhyme. And who could forget the thunderous verse of the prophet Jeremiah: “Trust not in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, it is the temple of the Lord” (Jer. 7, 4). It’s not enough to have a consecrated building; one must live as a consecrated people, receiving humbly and gratefully all that the Lord wishes to give. It’s not enough to have a “valid rite”; one must have the fullness of tradition, which is the fullness of validity: valid from and for a people the Lord has made His own, in a love announced, anticipated, achieved, fulfilled, and renewed.

Photo by Jan Canty (source)

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

Saint Michael, Sacred Liturgy, and the Restoration of Beauty

I have the good fortune of being obligated, for professional reasons, to regularly spend quality time with a wide variety of (digitized) medieval manuscripts. One result of this enlightening research is an appreciation for the diversity of artistic styles in pre-Renaissance Western culture. Sometimes we may find ourselves thinking in terms of an oversimplified dichotomy between highly iconographic modes in the East and a mildly symbolic proto-naturalism in the West. In reality, pre-modern religious paintings in East and West form a diverse continuum of artistic techniques, and a few outstanding artifacts can help us to reflect upon this.

One would be the Lindisfarne Gospels, with its enigmatic fusion of styles and astonishing decorations:

Another is the book of biblical scenes painted by William de Brailes, an English illuminator active during the thirteenth century. The example below, which depicts the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, has strongly iconographic features.

The Codex Calixtinus, dating to the mid-twelfth century and associated with both western France and northern Spain, is highly stylized and difficult to categorize:

Also from Spain, perhaps Segovia or Burgos, is the Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile. The foliate ornamentation and grisaille-with-gold tonality in this book are deeply pleasing to me; there is an intriguing sense of mysticism in the serene faces and expressionistic scenes, along with a strong note of surreality in the surrounding details.

However, when it comes to reimagining artistic dichotomies, nothing quite compares to a twelfth-century masterpiece known as the Stammheim Missal. The illuminations in this manuscript—almost sui generis in style, and apparently the work of one extraordinarily talented monk—combine vibrant colors, curvilinear forms, strong geometries, simplified human figures, fascinating visual poetry, and profound visual theology into yet more compelling evidence that traditional Christian liturgy was the heart of Europe’s artistic genius.

The personification of Wisdom beneath God the Creator.

---

The Stammheim Missal emerged from that fundamental engine of medieval learning and creativity: the Benedictine scriptorium. It was made in the twelfth century at Hildesheim Abbey, in north-central Germany, and eventually found its way to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles; reproductions can be found on the Getty’s website. Despite the fact that it was produced over eight hundred years ago, all the pages are intact, the colors haven’t faded, and the precious metals still shine. Rarely do I see such vivid proof that skilled craftsmen working with authentic, natural materials can produce artifacts of astounding quality and longevity, even in the total absence of advanced technology.

David with companion musicians.

The Michaeliskirche—the abbey church of Hildesheim—is a superb Romanesque structure. It was dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel on his feast day, September 29th, in the year 1022, and rededicated to him on the same day nine years later, when construction was complete. When I reflect on the life expectancy of modern buildings and institutions, the longevity is almost breathtaking. The church you see below was built one thousand years ago.

St. Michael’s Church in Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Heinz-Josef Lücking.

In the culture that produced the monastery that produced the Stammheim Missal, the feast of St. Michael the Archangel was a high holy day and a rich folkloric celebration. It was also, of course, a very special day for the monks of Hildesheim, who were careful to colorfully accentuate the celebration of their patron in the missal’s September calendar page:

And the historiated initial that introduces St. Michael’s feast day is a captivating and mysterious interplay of stolid rectangles, absorbing curves, bold colors, mischievous beasts, and diversely occupied humans.

As Gregory DiPippo explained in an NLM article published on this same day two years ago, this feast is of venerable antiquity and is not restricted exclusively to St. Michael:

The traditional title of today’s feast is “The Dedication of St Michael the Archangel,” a term already found ca. 650 A.D. in the lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite that survives, and in the ancient sacramentaries....
Despite the fact that the feast’s title refers specifically only to St Michael, September 29th is really the feast of all the Angels, as stated repeatedly in the texts of both the Office and Mass.

That Michael shares his feast with other angels subtracts nothing from the honor that we give to him on this day. Rather, it reinforces his exalted role in salvation history and Christian spirituality, for his celestial renown was gained not as a champion in single combat but as the victorious commander of the angelic host. And indeed, this is precisely how the Stammheim illuminator portrayed him in the portrait that precedes the prayers for his feast:

You can further explore the historical context and theological resonance of this remarkable image in an article that I co-authored with my Substack colleague Amelia Sims McKee. It includes vibrant, wonderfully detailed images of the painting, and I hope that it might serve as an enjoyable and profitable meditation for this great feast, nowadays sadly understated, of the prince of the heavenly armies.

---

Dr. Ena Giurescu Heller, former professor of art history and specialist in medieval art, makes a crucial observation about artwork produced in the Middle Ages. She suggests that the modern “understanding of and response to medieval religious art is completely different (antithetical, really) to the response of its contemporaries.” Medieval Christians were surrounded by church buildings, stained-glass narratives, frescoes, statues, vessels, vestments, and illuminations that, despite their aesthetic magnificence,

were neither objects of any veneration (least of all aesthetic), nor ends unto themselves. They were tools—tools for the liturgy, and ... tools for transporting their beholders to the divine realm they symbolize and serve.

Furthermore, these tools for the liturgy were also inspired by the liturgy, which preceded them and which even in the absence of sumptuous visual or musical artwork was artistic in the most fundamental and transcendent sense of the word.

I say again: traditional Christian liturgy was the heart of Europe’s artistic genius. The artistic consciousness of Western civilization has suffered from long, dismal years of cardiac arrest. And yet, as the psalmist says, in the sight of God all these years are “as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” For three days and three nights the heart of Our Lord was still. The resurrection will come, and in the meantime, let us pray that St. Michael press onward in his campaign against the Church’s ancient Enemy. We know, as Milton did, who the victor will be:

Now Night her course began and over Heaven
Inducing darkness grateful truce imposed
And silence on the odious din of war.
Under her cloudy covert both retired,
Victor and vanquished: On the foughten field
Michaël and his angels prevalent
Encamping, placed in guard their watches round,
Cherubic waving fires. On th’ other part,
Satan with his rebellious disappeared.

Another Sarum Vespers Described, by James Griffin

Better very late than never, we thank our friend Mr James Griffin of The Durandus Institute for Sacred Liturgy and Music for sharing with us these pictures of a Vesper ceremony in the Sarum Rite celebrated back in March, and for providing the written description of the ceremony.

Faithful readers of this site may recall my photo-essay from February 2020, following the Sarum Vespers for Candlemas Eve in Philadelphia, which was attended by 700 or more persons. For many of the faithful in this part of the country, that event is etched in their memories as a last hurrah before the Covid-related shutdowns brought an end to public worship.

It took four years for the right circumstances to allow my associates and me to put together a second celebration of the Sarum Use, which finally took place on Friday, March 1 at the chapel of Princeton University, New Jersey. Some estimates have the headcount at 800 this time! An excellent reflection was written shortly after the event by NLM contributor David Clayton, who also gave an academic presentation before the Vespers began. But I hadn’t found the time, or the right inspiration, to put my own words to paper until now. As with the essay in 2020, photos here are thanks to the efforts of Allison Girone and her associates. A digital version of the congregational booklet may be downloaded here, and below is a professional video recording.

The clergy and servers are led to the chancel by the verger (as the Sarum Customary puts it, “the sacristan with the rod”). At the beginning of Vespers, the candle-bearers enter in surplices, which are exchanged for full albs partway into the ceremony.

We welcomed many priests from far and wide to attend in-choir. Many wore the black cappa, as did the canons of Salisbury Cathedral, a practical measure for any cavernous stone church in a northern climate. The officiant was Fr. Armando G. Alejandro, Jr., a priest of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and chaplain for the Durandus Institute.

Just before the officiating priest, the rectores chori — rulers of the choir — make their entrance. Each ruler carries a stave, sometimes called a baculus cantoralis, as a sign of his office. It should be said that the practice of cantors with staves is hardly unique to the Sarum Use, having been practiced in various monastic houses and cathedrals in Europe, and even in some places in Latin America until the 20th century.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Epistle Settings

Lost in Translation #105

A standard feature of all Apostolic liturgies is the use of Scriptural readings to illuminate the liturgical occasion, rather than to deepen Biblical literacy per se. Readings from the Old and New Testament were generally chosen because of their thematic relevance to the season or day. Occasionally, readings were composed of specific verses selected from a Biblical passage for appropriateness to the liturgical day, with other less appropriate verses omitted, in order to further hone the message. There also exist readings of a type called a “cento”, from a Latin word meaning “patchwork”, which are assembled from verses of different books of the Bible. (These are extremely rare in the Roman and Ambrosian Rites, but common in the Byzantine.) To paraphrase Fr. Joseph Jungmann, the Church did not hesitate to break the bread of God’s word in order to prepare the faithful for a particular Eucharist breaking of the bread. [1]

One curious component of this verbal bread-breaking is the addition of settings to the sacred texts. Before reading a passage from the Bible, the reader (a lector, subdeacon, or priest) announces the name of the book from which it is taken and then adds an introductory word of address or explanation. Words of address typically go with New Testament readings while words of explanation typically go with Old Testament readings. When an Old Testament reading is used, for example, it is common to see it prefaced with “In diebus illis – In those days”, or “Haec dicit Dominus – Thus saith the Lord”. Both introductions are designed to heighten the audience’s attention.

So too are the words of address that preface a New Testament reading. Most of the readings from the Acts of the Apostles begin with In diebus illis, and the same is true of Revelation, for even though much of this apocalyptic book is a vision of the future, the revelations were given to St. John “in those days.” We will say more about In diebus illis when we discuss the Gospel setting In illo tempore in the next essay.

As for the Epistles: “Fratres – Brethren”) begins readings from St. Paul’s congregational letters [2], “Carissime – Dearly beloved” (singular) begins those from his pastoral letters [3], and “Carissimi –Dearly beloved” (plural) begins the so-called Catholic Epistles. [4] And because the Roman Missal ascribes the Epistle to the Hebrews to Saint Paul and treats it as a congregational letter, passages from Hebrews begin with Fratres as well.

St. Paul does not begin his own epistles with these greetings, although at some point he does address the churches in most of his congregational letters with Fratres. In his pastoral letters, Paul refers to Timothy and to Titus as his beloved son (dilectus filius), and once he refers to Timothy as his dearly beloved son (carissimus filius – Titus 1, 2) As for the Catholic Epistles, Saints Peter, John, and Jude all address their audiences with Carissimi (1 Pet. 2, 11; 1 John 2,7; Jude 3) while Saint James does not.

The greetings therefore serve as rough but reliable signposts, reminding the listener of the passage’s literary or ecclesiastical context. And thanks to their ordering in the Missal, they form illuminating clusters on the calendar.

The beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians in a medieval Bible.

Fratres, used for Paul’s congregational epistles, is the most common address and can be found throughout the year in both the Temporal and Sanctoral Cycles.

The single-number Carissime, used for Paul’s epistles to Timothy and Titus, appears in the Temporal Cycle only during Christmastide: the Midnight Mass, the Christmas Dawn Mass, on days within the Octave of the Nativity, on the Christmas Octave, and on the Saturday Mass for the Blessed Virgin Mary from Christmas to Candlemas. It is more common in the Sanctoral Cycle, where it is used on a variety of Saints’ feast days. The use of Carissime during the Christmas season is apt, a warm reminder of how God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son.

The plural-number Carissimi, used for the Catholic epistles, appears in the Temporal Cycle only during Eastertide and the initial Sundays after Pentecost: Easter Friday, Easter Saturday, all the Sundays after Easter, the Lesser Rogation Days, the Sunday after the Ascension, the First through Third Sundays after Pentecost, and the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. It appears less often in the Sanctoral Cycle. The use of Carissimi during the Easter season is apt, a warm reminder of how God has exalted His Son who was obedient unto death on a cross, and made us heirs of His grace. And insofar as more people are greater (in number) than one person, it is fitting that the plural Carissimi be used for the greatest season of the liturgy year.

Liturgical settings appear in the 1970 Roman Missal and are faithfully reproduced in the lectionaries of several modern languages. For reasons unknown to me, however, they do not appear in any of the official English translations. This omission, in my opinion, is especially regrettable with the Gospel settings, to which we shall turn in the next essay.

From the 2015 Lectionary of Spain

Notes

[1] Joseph A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite (Christian Classics, 1974), 265.

[2] Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians.

[3] 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus.

[4] James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude.

“Key to the Missal: Finding Your Way in the Traditional Mass” - Reprinted by Arouca Press

We are pleased to share this item from Arouca Press about their new reprint of a classic resource for learning about the traditional Latin Mass, Key to the Missal, by Cornelius A. Bouman and Mary Perkins Ryan, originally published in 1960.

Few books do so much in so little as this one. In sixteen short chapters the authors manage not only to present a key to the Traditional Missal, but also a key to the entire Church Year, as well as a key to the Sacred Liturgy. In addition to the chapters on the seasons of the Church Year, the book gives in two initial chapters of authentic information on the history of the Missal and its use, concluding with three chapters on the feasts of Our Lord, of the Mother of God, and of the Saints. May this book give the reader a greater appreciation for such a treasure as the Traditional Roman Missal!

“Key to the Missal is a concise but richly informative commentary on the Roman Missal, the liturgical book containing the liturgy of the Mass of the Roman Rite for every day in the year. In plain and simple language, its coauthors—Cornelius Adrianus Bouman (1911-88), a Dutch liturgical historian and Byzantine Rite deacon, and Mary Perkins Ryan (1912-93), an American religious educator—open to readers the riches of the Mass, and they do so within the broader framework of the Church’s calendar. After two introductory chapters on the history and use of the Missal, the rest of this little volume takes us through the Liturgical Year, highlighting key insights drawn from the texts of the Mass. With the Missal as our optic on the Church’s cycle of seasons and feasts, we can be certain that we are thinking as the Church thinks about the mysteries of salvation: lex orandi, lex credendi...” — from the Foreword of the new edition, by Fr Thomas Kocik

“Long out of print, Cornelius A. Bouman and Mary Perkins Ryan’s 1960 Key to the Missal has been resurrected from the ash heap of oblivion to provide a new generation of traditional worshippers guidance in how to get the most out of the traditional Latin Mass. Key to the Missal artfully combines scholarly erudition with practical advice, much of which I had not heard before but which, once presented, makes perfect sense. This is a delightful and digestible book.” — Dr. Michael P. Foley, author of Lost in Translation: Meditating on the Orations of the Traditional Roman Rite and Dining with the Saints

“People who attend the traditional Latin Mass often wonder how they can better understand and relate to the liturgy. Key to the Missal answers this very practical question by offering an accessible, insightful guide to making the best use of one's daily missal. It offers points of meditation for each season of the liturgical year and for various classes of feasts, drawing the reader's attention to themes, texts, and connections. It's like a hand-missal masterclass. The strength of its content permits one to forgive, as naive, certain vintage 1960 footnotes.“” — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, author of The Once and Future Roman Rite

The Abbey of Grottaferrata

Today is the feast of St Nilus, who founded the important Byzantine Rite monastery of Grottaferrata, about 13 miles to the southeast of Rome, fairly close to the famous Papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. He was originally from a town called Rossano in the southern Italian region of Calabria, and lived an ordinary life until he was about 30 years old, when his wife and daughter both died within a short time of each other, and then he fell serious ill. These events set him on the path to a religious conversion, and the embracing of monastic life in one of the many Byzantine communities in southern Italy, in which state he earned a great reputation for sanctity and learning. The political vicissitudes of the era brought him north to Rome; in 1004, while passing through the Alban hills, he had a vision of Our Lady, from which it was made known to him that he was to found a community in that place. Nilus is reckoned the first abbot and founder of the monastery because he obtained from a local nobleman the grant of land in Grottaferrata on which it was built, and established the community, but he did not live to the see building of it even begun. This was accomplished by his successor Bartholomew, who is also a Saint.

A painting in the abbey of Saints Nilus and Bartholomew, by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609); public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

I stumbled across the following documentary about the abbey, which tells some of its history and shows many of the church’s interesting artistic and architectural features. (It was posted on YouTube about four years ago by the Italian Basilian monks, but it seems to have been made rather longer ago, and is pretty grainy.)

The 20th Anniversary of the Death of Michael Davies

Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Michael Davies, who is, I trust, well known to our readers, and especially in the English-speaking world, as one of the great defenders of the traditional Roman liturgy in the mad years immediately after the most recent ecumenical council. It is no exaggeration to describe as heroic the efforts which he made, both by writing and frequent lecturing, to expose how the liturgical reform betrayed that council. His most thorough and effective works in this regard are the three volumes published under the umbrella title The Liturgical Revolution: Cranmer’s Godly Order, Pope John’s Council and Pope Paul’s New Mass.

After 60 years of scholarly research and publication, it is now generally understood that most of the scholarly premises which underpin the reform were simply flat-out wrong. Indeed, this has become such a commonplace, at least among the more honest, that we have perhaps forgotten, (or perhaps the younger among us have never known), that in those mad years, men like Davies and Fr Bouyer who spoke against such errors were almost universally dismissed as cranks. (Fr Bouyer’s 20th anniversary, by the way, is less than a month away, on October 22.)

It may be instructive, and hopefully a worthy tribute to Mr Davies, to look back at this fascinating episode of the program Firing Line, broadcast on April 22, 1980. The occasion for this discussion between the host, William F. Buckley, Davies, and Fr (later Monsignor) Joseph Champlin, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, was Pope St John Paul II’s “disciplinary” action against Fr Hans Küng; the previous December, the Pope had decreed that the University of Tübingen, where Küng was then teaching, could no longer refer to him as a “Catholic” theologian. The conversation quickly turns to a general discussion of the state of things in the Church, with much said about the liturgical reform.

Especially noteworthy is the exchange which begins at 18:30, in which Mr Davies refutes the canard, stated by Fr Champlin, that anciently the Church celebrated Mass “facing the people,” citing Fr Bouyer among others. Faced with the evidence, Fr Champlin has no response to make at all, and none has been found in the subsequent quarter of century either.

At the time, of course, the Novus Ordo was only 11 years old; in the United States, as in many other countries, the more outlandish sorts of liturgical experimentation and abuse were still very common, and the almost total prohibition on any celebration of the traditional Mass still very much in effect. De facto, if not de jure, this unjust prohibition was very often extended to any attempt to celebrate the reformed liturgy according to something resembling the mind of the Council. Buckley’s magazine National Review republished electronically an article which he wrote about the Latin Mass in 1967; almost two-and-a-half years before the Novus Ordo was promulgated, a priest dared not celebrate in Latin the wedding Mass for a member of his family, for fear that the bishop find out. Whatever difficulties we face today in the quest to improve the Church’s liturgical life, we must never allow ourselves to forget that enormous strides have been made since those days, a fact which should be an encouragement to all, and a cause for tremendous gratitude. These labors have not been in vain.

A couple of other points of interest.

1. Buckley rightly points out in his introduction, “the practical effect (of the Pope’s actions) on Fr Küng is barely noticeable; he continues to teach theology...” Nevertheless, as Davies says later (12:27), the reaction among Küng’s supporters was ferocious, with the Anglican Church Times calling the Pope the “ayatollah of the West.” The viciousness of this language may perhaps be difficult for some of our younger readers to appreciate; at the time of this broadcast, 52 Americans were being held hostage in the American embassy in Tehran, under the Ayatollah Khomeini’s government. (Archbishop Bugnini, then in his second career as nuncio in Iran, had just celebrated Easter Mass for them in the embassy two weeks before.) In his second memoir, published in 2008, Küng himself refers to this act of defamation in an approving quote from the American novelist and sociologist Fr Andrew Greeley; his chapter is titled Roma locuta, causa non finita, in a booked called, with no sense that the irony is deliberate, Disputed Truths. I will of course not be the first to note that pleas for civility and deference to Papal authority are a relatively new phenomenon among the more (can we say?) daring voices in the Church.

2. Davies also speaks (starting at 28:10) of a specific aspect of his work which affords a perfect example of the kind of dishonesty actively present in the reform which led Fr Bouyer to call Abp Bugnini (with classic French restraint) a man “as devoid of learning as he was of honesty.” It is a well-known fact that a group of six Protestant ministers were “consulted” by the Consilium ad exsequendam in the process of reforming the Mass. Bugnini would later claim in Notitiae that they only intervened once, and were merely observers; this led Davies to write to one of the six and ask to what degree they were involved, “and he said ‘Oh no, we played a very active part, and we were given all the documents same as the Catholic observers, every morning there was a discussion, a great free-for-all in which we put forward our opinions.’ That sort of thing has happened again and again.”

Blessed Hermann the Cripple

Blessed Hermannus, whose feast day is kept in some Benedictine houses on September 25, is usually called “Hermann the Cripple” or “the Lame” in English, but his Latin appellation “Contractus - the deformed” (literally ‘the contracted one’) is really more accurate, as is so often the case with Latin. The combination of congenital defects from which he suffered made him “not simply a cripple, but ... practically helpless”, writes Alban Butler. Born in 1013 to a noble family in Swabia, modern southern Germany, he survived childhood by some miracle of God’s providence, and was entrusted at the age of seven to the Benedictine abbey on Reichenau Island on the lake of Constance. He was professed at the age of twenty, and lived as a monk for twenty years more.

Although he was barely able to move without assistance, he was a polymath and a genius, well-versed in theology, music, astronomy, mathematics, Latin, Greek and Arabic. Students came to learn from him from many parts of Europe, and his intellectual achievements were such that he was known as the wonder of his age. Among his works are the earliest surviving medieval chronicle of the whole of human history, and a treatise on mathematics and astronomy; he was also able somehow to build both musical and astronomical instruments. Above all, however, his name will live in blessed remembrance as that of the composer of the Marian antiphons Alma Redemptoris Mater and Salve Regina. His cultus was officially approved by the Holy See in 1863. Beate Hermanne, ora pro nobis!

A manuscript illustration of one of Bl. Herman’s treatises on astronomy.