The Samaritan Woman in the Liturgy of Lent

In the lectionaries of the various Latin rites, one of the most prominent Gospels of the Lenten season is that of the Samaritan woman who spoke to Christ at the well of Jacob (St John 4, 5-42). Although the Roman, Ambrosian and Byzantine Rites each read this Gospel on a different day, it appears in all three as a lesson of particular importance for the preparation of those who will be baptized at Easter or Pentecost.

In the Roman Rite, it is read on the Friday of the third week, joined with one of the most important epistles of Lent, Numbers 20, 1-13, in which Moses makes water run from the rock in the desert. This story was understood by the early Christians as a prefiguration of the sacrament of baptism, starting with St Paul himself, who tells us that “our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10, 1-4) Moses striking the rock to make the water run from it is one of the most frequently depicted Biblical scenes in early Christian art; just in the paintings of the Roman catacombs, it appears over 70 times, along with numerous other representations on ancient sarcophagi.

Moses making the water run from the rock in a fourth-century fresco in the Catacomb of St Callixtus.

On the previous Sunday, the Lenten station is kept at the church of St Lawrence Outside-the-Walls, where anciently the catechumens underwent a formal examination of their Christian faith, the ritual known as the scrutiny. The Gelasian Sacramentary contains a beautiful prayer for them to be said on that day, “that they may worthily and wisely come to the confession of Thy praise; so that through Thy glory they may be reformed to the former dignity which they had lost in the original transgression.” At the same Mass, the Memento of the living has an interpolation to pray for their future godparents, and during the Hanc igitur, the names of the catechumens were read out loud. On the following Friday, the station is kept at another church of Rome’s most venerated martyr, St Lawrence ‘in Lucina’, nicknamed, like so many sacred places in the city, for the woman upon whose property it was originally built. Here, they would hear Christ speaking to the Samaritan woman of the “living water … springing up unto life everlasting”, and understand His words as a clear reference to baptism.

A piece of the gridiron of St Lawrence’s martyrdom, preserved in a reliquary in a side-altar of San Lorenzo in Lucina. Photo courtesy of Orbis Catholicus.

In his treatise on the Gospel of St John (Tract 15, 10), St Augustine explains the woman as a type of the Church, “not yet justified, but waiting to be justified”, like the catechumens themselves. He also reminds us that the Samaritans were not part of the Jewish people; indeed, the Bible itself says that they were a mixed nation of Jews and pagans, observing the customs of both. (4 Kings 17, 24-41) So too, the early Church was a mixture of Jews and pagans, now united in Christ in whom “there is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3, 28) Augustine continues by saying, “Therefore, in her, let us hear ourselves (spoken of), and in her, let us recognize ourselves, and in her, let us give thanks to God for ourselves.” (i.e. for what He has done for us.)

The dedicatory inscription on the counter-façade of Santa Sabina in Rome, the only part of the church’s original mosaic decoration which survives, ca. 425 A.D. The two figures on the sides are “the church from the circumcision” on the left, and “the church from the gentiles” on the right. Photo courtesy of Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

In the Ambrosian Rite, the first Sunday of Lent is called “in capite jejunii – at the beginning of the fast”, a title also used for Ash Wednesday in medieval liturgical books of the Roman Rite. The remaining Sundays are named for their Gospels, all taken from St John, the second Sunday being that of the Samaritan woman, the third ‘of Abraham’ (chap. 8, 31-59), the fourth ‘of the man born blind,’ (9, 1-38), the fifth of Lazarus (11, 1-45) and the sixth ‘of the Palms’ (11, 55 – 12, 11). On the second Sunday, the following antiphon is sung after the Gospel, while the deacon spreads the corporal on the altar in preparation for the Offertory. (As in the Roman Rite, most of the Mass propers use the Old Latin version of the Scriptures.)

For I will take you from among the gentiles, and I will pour upon you clean water; you shall be cleansed from all your iniquities. I will give you a new heart, and renew a righteous spirit within you. (Ezechiel 36, 24, 25 and 26.)

In the Roman Rite, the same prophecy of Ezechiel (though not exactly the same words) provides both the introit and the first epistle of the Mass of the Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent, on which day the catechumens were exorcized and blessed at the tomb of St Paul, the great Apostle of the gentiles.

The Ambrosian Missal contains proper prefaces for nearly every Mass of the temporal cycle, generally rather longer than those of the Roman Rite. The Lenten prefaces of the Sundays are each based on the Gospel of the day, and that of the Samaritan woman reads as follows:

Truly it is worthy and just…through Christ our Lord. Who, to instill (in us) the mystery of His humility, being tired, sat at the well, and * asked of the Samaritan woman that a drink of water be given Him, even He that had created the gift of faith in her; and so He deigned to thirst for her faith, so that, as He asked water of her, He might enkindle in her the fire of divine love. * We therefore beseech Thy boundless compassion, that defying the dark depths of vice, and leaving behind the vessel of harmful desires, we may ever thirst for Thee, that art the fountain of life, and source of all goodness, and may please Thee by the observance of our fast. Through the same etc.

The words here noted between the stars form the basis of a Preface used in the post-Conciliar Rite in the first year of the three-year lectionary cycle, when the story of the Samaritan woman is read on the third Sunday of Lent. Since this crucial passage is not included among the readings of the second and third years, a rubric provides that it may be read on Sunday in place of the Gospels assigned to those years, or it may displace one of the ferial Gospels; a similar provision is made for the blind man and Lazarus.

The Orthodox church of Jacob’s Well, also known as St Photini’s, in the city of Nablus on the West Bank. The current church is the fifth structure to stand over the site, which has been venerated by Christians as the Well of Jacob since the fourth century.

In the Byzantine tradition, the story of the Samaritan woman is read in Eastertide rather than Lent, as is that of the man born blind; however, the association of it with the sacrament of baptism is just as clear as in the Latin rites. On the fifth Sunday of Easter, the following three exapostilaria are sung at the end of Matins; the first is that of the Easter season, the second relates to the Gospel of the day’s Divine Liturgy, and the third to the feast of Mid-Pentecost.

Exapostilarion of Easter  Having fallen asleep in the flesh as a mortal, O King and Lord, You rose again on the third day, raising up Adam from corruption, and abolishing death. O Pascha of incorruption, O salvation of the world!
of the Samaritan Woman  You reached Samaria, and talking with a woman, sought water to drink, my all-powerful Savior, who poured out water for the Hebrews from a sharp rock, and led her to belief in you: and now she enjoys life eternally in heaven.
of Mid-Pentecost  At the mid-point of the feast, Lover of mankind, you came to the temple and said: You who are full of thirst, come to me and draw living water welling up, through which you will all revel in delight and grace and immortal life.

Note how the exapostilarion of the Samaritan woman makes the same association between the Lord’s revelations to her and the episode of the water running from the rock that is made in the Roman Rite by the readings of the Mass. This reference to the waters of baptism continues in the third text, which quotes Christ’s second reference to the “living waters” in the Gospel of John, when He speaks in the temple during the feast of Tabernacles. (chapter 7, 37-39.)

The text of this second Gospel of the “living waters” is deferred by the Byzantine Rite to Pentecost itself, a custom which it shares with the Ambrosian and Roman Rites in different ways. The church of Milan preserves to this very day an ancient custom of celebrating two Masses on both Easter and Pentecost, the traditional days for the administration of baptism; one is the Mass “of the solemnity” itself, and another “for the (newly) baptized.” On Easter Sunday, the Gospel at the Mass for the baptized is John 7, 37-39, with the second part of the last verse omitted.

On great day of the festivity, the Lord Jesus stood and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive, who believed in him.

At the Mass for the baptized on Pentecost, this Gospel is repeated, adding the final words of verse 39 which are not said on Easter, “for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” In the Roman Rite, the same text provides the Communion antiphon for the Mass of the vigil of Pentecost, although the Gospel itself is read on the Monday of Passion Week.

The Byzantine Rite has traditionally honored the Samaritan woman as a Saint, and she was often called both an Apostle and Evangelist. Her legend states that she, her five sisters and two sons were among those baptized by St Peter and the other Apostles on the first Pentecost, and afterwards traveled to preach in many places; after evangelizing Carthage, they came to Rome, where they were martyred under Nero. Her given name is Photeine (or “Photini” in the modern pronunciation), the Greek word for “bright”; the cognate “photistes – illuminator” is used in the Byzantine tradition as a title for the saint who first evangelizes a people, the best-known example of this being perhaps St Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia. With the latinized form of her name, Photina, she was added to the Tridentine edition of the Roman Martyrology by Cardinal Baronius, along with her family members, on March 20th, the day of her feast in the Byzantine Rite. Her troparion makes the same association between the waters of baptism and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost indicated by the placement of her Gospel on the Sunday after Mid-Pentecost.

Wholly illuminated by the divine Spirit, and sated of your thirst by the springs, you drank deeply of the water of salvation from Christ the Savior, all praiseworthy one, and shared it abundantly with them that thirst; o Great Martyr and Equal to the Apostles, Photini, entreat Christ our God to save our souls.

The Feast of St Fina of San Gimignano

The photographs in this post were all taken by Nicola de’ Grandi.

The Tuscan town of San Gimignano is named for St Geminianus, a bishop of Modena in the Italian region of the Emilia-Romagna, who died in 397. But it also has another patron Saint, one its own citizens, a girl named Fina (short for Serafina). Although her noble family had fallen into poverty, from a very young age, she would give half of her own food to those even less fortunate than herself, until she was struck by a disease of some sort that left her almost totally paralyzed. At the same time, her father died, leaving her and her mother in even more dire straights; her mother often had to leave her alone to look for work or beg. In the midst of severe suffering, Fina was never heard to complain, but prayed with her eyes always on a crucifix, “It is not my wounds but Thine, o Christ, that hurt me.” Finally, her mother died and she was left completely destitute, cared for only by two friends named Beldia and Bonaventura. Since she had heard that Pope St Gregory the Great also suffered terribly from various diseases, Fina would often pray to him that he would help her bear her sufferings. Eight days before her death, St Gregory appeared to her and told her that God would give her rest on his feast day, the day on which she died at the age of only 15, in the year 1253.

In 1468, the architects Benedetto and Giuliano da Maiano were brought to the Collegiate Church of the Assumption in San Gimignano to build a chapel dedicated to St Fina. Seven years later, Benedetto completed the altar which houses her relics, while the most successful artist in Florence at the time, Domenico Ghirlandaio (the future painting teacher of Michelangelo) was hired to fresco the walls and ceilings, which include two scenes from her life. The relics now repose underneath the altar...

but were formerly in this urn mounted on the wall above it. The poetic Latin inscription says, “The bones of a virgin lie hidden in the tomb which you see, friend; she is glory, model and defense for her own (i.e., for her fellow-citizens). Her name was Fina, this was her native place. Do you seek miracles? Read what the walls (i.e. the paintings on them) and the living signs have to teach.” (There is a spelling error in the 3rd line of the inscription, EVIT instead of FVIT.)

St Fina is not incorruptible (quite the contrary); her bones are now covered over with a wax effigy and a structure that supports the clothing. This new urn is designed so that her body can be carried in procession on her feast day.

During the years of her paralysis, Fina would often have to lie for long periods on this plank, to which (there is no polite way to explain this) she eventually became at least partly attached. Within the last couple of years, it has been placed in this new modern case with a sealed nitrogen atmosphere to preserve it, and is now displayed within the chapel.

On the right wall of the chapel, Ghirlandaio painted this image of the appearance of St Gregory to St Fina shortly before her death. (Renaissance artists in general, and particularly the Florentines, do not dwell on things that are ugly and distressing, and the artist does not show us Fina’s horrifying condition at the time of her death.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Cardinal Eijk to Celebrate Pontifical Mass in the Netherlands

On March 15, Laetare Sunday, His Eminence Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, Archbishop of Utrecht, will celebrate for the first time in his episcopal ministry a Pontifical High Mass according to the traditional Roman Rite. The Mass will take place in the historic church of the Immaculate Conception (Grote Kerk) in Oss, Netherlands. For many faithful attached to the ancient Roman liturgy, this occasion represents a historic moment in the contemporary Catholic life of the Netherlands, the first celebration of a pontifical Mass by a cardinal since the post-Conciliar liturgical reform. The Mass will begin at 12:30pm; the church is located at Kerkstraat 15, Oss.

Byzantine Hymns for Mid-Lent

The Fast that bringeth good things hath now reached its middle point, having pleased God well in the days gone past, and bringing help in the days to come; for the increase of good things maketh greater the good work. Wherefore let us cry to Christ, the Giver of all good things, pleasing Him well, “O Thou who for our sake did fast and endure the Cross, deem us worthy to partake also of Thy divine Pasch uncondemned, living our lives in peace, and rightly glorifying Thee with the Father and the Spirit.

Since the Byzantine liturgical week runs from Monday to Sunday [note], Lent starts two days before the Roman Ash Wednesday; therefore, today is Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent in the Byzantine Rite, but “Wednesday of the Third Week” in the Roman. This day is sometimes referred to informally as Mid-Lent, although this is an approximation, where the analogous half-way point of the Paschal season, a special feast called “Mid-Pentecost”, is exactly half-way (25 days) between Easter and Pentecost. The sticheron given above is one of several placed between the verses of a group of four Psalms which are sung at Vespers every day (140, 141, 129 and 116), while the deacon incenses the altar and sanctuary, the iconostasis, the church, the clergy and the faithful. The first of these Psalms is chosen for the words “Let my prayer raise before Thee like incense, the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice,” which are prominent in most historical Christian rites. (A sticheron is technically referred to as kind of “hymn”, but in construction is really more analogous to the antiphons of the Roman Rite; the number of them varies from day to day.)

The last of a group of stichera is almost always a Theotokion, a hymn to the Virgin Mary, and that of Mid-Lent is particularly beautiful. The references to the Crucifixion look back to the preceding Sunday, that of the Veneration of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross, and forward to Good Friday and the end of Lent.

“Today, He that is by nature unapproachable becometh approachable to me, and undergoeth His sufferings to deliver me from sufferings; He that giveth light to the blind is spit upon by impious lips, and giveth His cheek unto blows, for the sake of those held captive. The holy Virgin and Mother, seeing Him upon the Cross, cried out, ‘Alas, my Child! What is this Thou hast done? Beautiful beyond the sons of men, dost Thou appear without life or spirit, having no beauty or comeliness? Alas, my Light! I cannot look upon Thee sleeping, I am wounded to the core, and a terrible sword passeth through my heart. I sing of Thy sufferings, I adore Thy compassion; long-suffering Lord, glory to Thee!’ ” (In the video below, the Church Slavonic version.)

A 16th-century icon of the Holy Mandylion, the cloth with Christ’s face impressed upon it, and below, the Lamentation over the Dead Christ.

[note] As with most things Byzantine, this is a case where a little bit of inaccuracy saves a ton of explanation. In the liturgical book called the Triodion, which contains the Office propers of Fore-Lent, Lent and Holy Week, the liturgical week begins on Monday, so the First Monday of Lent is followed by the First Tuesday, Wednesday etc., then the First Sunday. The next day after that is “the Second Monday of Lent”, then Tuesday, Wednesday etc., and then the Second Sunday, the Third Monday, and so on. The same system is used in the lectionary for the period after Pentecost. However, in the Pentecostarion, which covers the Easter season, the weeks are arranged from Sunday to Saturday; there are also features of the Divine Office which run on a weekly cycle that begins with Vespers on Saturday evening.

St. Thomas Aquinas on St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews and the Theology of Salvation

Os Justi Press has released two major Thomistic publications that will no doubt be of interest to many readers of NLM, given their extensive engagement with liturgical matters.

In Lent and Paschaltide, we reflect on Jesus as the lion who has conquered (Rev. 5, 5). But what has Jesus conquered? And how has he done so? The Bible also repeatedly refers to Jesus as our “savior.” But what does Jesus save us from, and how does he do so?

Daniel Robert Waldow’s The Lion Has Conquered is an unsurpassed introduction to soteriology – the branch of theology that seeks to answer these questions – as expressed in Scripture and Tradition. It guides the reader through the fundamental principles, issues, and questions, such as:

• the nature of and relationship between sin, death, hell, the devil, and punishment

• the purpose of ritual and moral sacrifices in the Old Testament

• the salvific function of the Incarnation, public ministry, and Paschal Mystery of Christ

• the objective work of Christ and our subjective participation in that work

• cooperation between grace and good works

• the salvific function of Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist

• the relation between the sacrifice of the Cross and the sacrifice of the Mass.

Dr. Matthew Levering: “Aquinas scholar Daniel Waldow offers a theology of Christ and salvation that readers will treasure for its insight and clarity. The first part is a biblical tour-de-force, while the second part systematizes these insights with the aid of magisterial documents. A marvelous final chapter leads us through Catholic soteriology as inscribed in Western and Eastern Eucharistic rites, calling us to live liturgically the salvific path revealed by God.”

 

Complementing Waldow is The Transcendent Christ: St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews. This fine collection of essays includes, among others:

• Dr. Nathan Schmiedicke’s brilliant defense of the Pauline authorship of Hebrews (as testified by the unanimous liturgical tradition, East and West – but discarded in the Novus Ordo)

• Rev. Cassian Folsom OSB on the letter’s biblical and liturgical typology

• Rev. Thomas Crean OP on how the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice

• Dr. John P. Joy on the theology of atonement

• Dr. Daniel Lendman on the headship of Christ

I contribute a chapter on liturgy as “the sacrifice of praise” (sacrificium laudis, in the words of the Roman Canon). The transcript of a live scholastic debate with Fr. Thomas Crean as magister is included, focusing on the relationship between the Old Law and the New Law. The book concludes with the divisio textus of Hebrews provided by St. Thomas.

Scott Hahn: “This series of essays offers rich theological reflections prompted by the Book of Hebrews. Each essayist shows how the argument of Hebrews is illumined by St. Thomas’ commentary and the light that living Tradition sheds, especially on the Sacrifice of the Mass and our celestial High Priest.”

Karl Keating: “The contributors offer unexpected insights, with ramifications well beyond the Mass. Despite my familiarity with the Epistle, I found myself repeatedly surprised—and delighted. That will be the reaction of any reader.”

Steve Ray: “The book of Hebrews is rich with complex imagery, liturgy, and theology from the Old Covenant. It can be daunting. The Transcendent Christ delves into these treasures, illuminating Christ’s fulfillment of every expectation.”

Shane Kapler: “Reading these essays is akin to eavesdropping on the great universities of the past.”

 

Both are available in paperback, hardcover, or ebook. To “look inside” either one and to see more endorsements, visit their product pages at the Os Justi Press shop (The Lion Has Conquered, The Transcendent Christ).

The books are also available from Amazon sites around the world.

May Christ, our Eternal High Priest, interceding for us at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us and save us, for He is gracious and loves mankind. And may St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, intercede for us at the throne of God.

Elisha and the Widow are Christ and the Church

William Durandus’ commentary on today’s Mass, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum VI, 48

The Mass of this day speaks of prayer and of mercy, through which also does the Lord save us. The epistle (4 Kings, 4, 1-7) is about a widow, whose sons a creditor is seeking to take as slaves, so Elisha fills her vessels with oil, telling her to pay the debt which she owes from selling part of the oil, and that she and her sons should live from the rest.

A Dutch engraving of Elisha and the widow, 1616-36.

This widow is the Church, whose spouse Christ is not present bodily or visibly. The creditors are the demons, for which reason, the devil is called a tax-collector (exactor), because he demands money from us, meaning, uncleanness, with interest. This is why Isaiah says (14, 4), “How hath the tax-collector ceased, and the tribute gone silent?”

But Christ has delievered us from this sort of tax-collector through the works of mercy, the liberation which is asked for in the Gradual.

Graduale, Ps 18 Ab occultis meis munda me, Dómine: et ab aliénis parce servo tuo. ℣. Si mei non fúerint domináti, tunc immaculátus ero: et emundábor a delicto máximo. (From my hidden sins cleanse me, o and from those of others spare Thy servant. ℣. If they rule not over me, then shall I be blameless, and cleanse of a very great sin.)

But the Gospel from St Matthew (18, 15-22) is about mercy, to wit, “If thy brother sin against thee, go and reprove him.” If he ignores you, teach him; if he repents, forgive him, “not, I say, as many as seven times, but unto seventy times seventy”, that is, as often as he sins, forgive him.

Again, the widow as she prays to Elisha for her sons says in the introit, “I have cried out”, and in the gradual, “From my hidden sins cleanse me.”

Introitus, Ps. 16 Ego clamávi, quoniam exaudisti me, Deus: inclína aurem tuam, et exaudi verba mea: custódi me, Dómine, ut pupillam óculi: sub umbra alárum tuárum prótege me. Ps. Exaudi, Dómine, justitiam meam: intende deprecatiónem meam. Glória Patri... Ego clamávi.. (I cried out, because Thou didst hear me, o God; incline Thine ear, and hear my words; keep, o Lord, as the apple of Thine eye, beneath the shadow of Thy wings protect me. Ps. Hear, o Lord, my just cause, intende unto my supplication.)

At last, when she has been heard in her prayers, she gives thanks in the offertory, “The right hand of the Lord,” and in the communio, she teaches us how those who want the oil of mercy should present themselves, which is to say, let those who wish to rest upon the mountain go walk without blemish, and work justice.

Communio, Ps. 14 Dómine, quis habitábit in tabernáculo tuo? aut quis requiescet in monte sancto tuo? Qui ingréditur sine mácula, et operátur justitiam. (Lord, who shall dwell Thy tent? Or who shall rest upon Thy holy mountain? He who walks without blameless, and doeth justice.)

On the Loss of Early Liturgical Documents

Last year, I read a fascinating book called Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age, by Dr Ada Palmer, who teaches history at the University of Chicago. I have subsequently recommended it to a number of friends, and all those who have read it have thanked me for the suggestion. Dr Palmer gives a unique take on the history of the Renaissance, and on the history of the idea of the Renaissance, that is, not just what it was, but what it meant, and does so with a truly engaging writing style. I knew I was going to enjoy the book when I laughed out loud at its opening sentence “The Renaissance was like the Wizard of Oz: great and terrible, and desperate for us not to look behind the curtain.” She also debunks many of the popular myths about the period, including some of the myths that were invented specifically to discredit the Church.

She recently gave a full-length interview to the podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, which is very much worth your time, but I wanted to share this clip from it in particular because it is something very pertinent to NLM’s subject matter. I am sure that many of our readers are familiar with the historical falsehood, popular with a certain kind of professional atheist, that the Christians deliberately burnt down the great library in Alexandria, and by doing so, destroyed an unfathomably large amount of literature and scientific knowledge. Here Dr Palmer explains that the real reason for the loss of so much of the classical world’s literary production is a much simpler and more practical one, namely, that it was written on papyrus. Once papyrus ceased to be easily available in Western Europe (after about 600 AD), the region simply could not produce enough writing materials to save everything from the ancient world, as the papyri aged and began to fall apart. And of course, this also explains why we have such a dearth of liturgical texts from the early centuries of the Church. As I have noted various times before, the oldest surviving collection of liturgical material of the Roman Rite, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, dates to roughly 550-75, and exists in exactly one very incomplete manuscript. Had it been lost, our next record of Roman liturgical texts would be from about a century later, the list of readings in the Wurzburg capitulary.
 

St Frances of Rome and the Counter-Reformation

This Thursday, the feast of Pope St Gregory the Great, is the anniversary of one of the most important events of the Counter-Reformation. On that day in the year 1622, Pope Gregory XV canonized four Saints who had played particularly important roles in the reformation of the Church after the terrible shock of the Protestant rebellion: Philip Neri, Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Theresa of Avila. This was not, however, the first canonization of Counter-Reformation Saints; that honor fell to Gregory XV’s predecessor, Paul V, when he canonized Charles Borromeo in 1610. (St Charles’ was the first fast-track canonization of the modern era, with his process completed only 26 years after his death.) The ceremony was held on All Saints’ day of 1610, the closest major solemnity to the day of Charles’ death, November 3rd; a statement, in response to the Reformation, that sanctity still thrived within the Church, and that its hierarchy, the source of so much scandal and corruption in the years leading up to Luther’s revolt, had truly been reformed.

St Frances of Rome, by the Italian painter Fabrizio Boschi (1572-1642). She is traditionally depicted in the company of her guardian angel, whom she could regular see and converse with. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Francesco Bini, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

About a year-and-a-half earlier, Pope Paul had canonized the Saint whose feast we keep today, Frances of Rome (1384-1440). This was also in a very important sense a canonization of the Counter-Reformation, even though Frances died well before the Reformation itself began. The protestants rejected the idea of marriage as a sacrament, and completely abolished religious life for both men and women. Taken together, these two things mean that women could no longer choose a life in community dedicated wholly and solely to the service of God, while the only way of life left open to them, marriage, was reduced to an arrangement which brought with it many duties, but no sense that the fulfillment of those duties is a means of sanctification. In response, the Church presented Frances as a woman who became a Saint both as a wife and mother, and as the foundress of a community of Benedictine oblates.

St Charles’ life was a sign that the Church had successfully effected necessary reforms of the abuses and corruption that had helped to spark the Reformation. During much of St Frances’ life, the Church labored under the Great Western Schism (1378-1417), an event which brought much difficulty and suffering directly upon her and her family, precisely because they were faithful to the true popes, despite their great unworthiness. But she also lived to see the healing of the schism, and therefore serves as a sign of fidelity to the Church, even when it was at its worst, and of sanctity flourishing in the church of Rome specifically, when its head was not the holy father that our Holy Mother deserves.

An engraving of the early 17th century, showing the temporary sanctuary constructed around the altar of St Peter’s basilica for the canonization of St Charles in 1610. At that point, the basilica’s exterior walls had been finished, but the project to build the great baldachin over the high altar would not begin for another 13 years.

Not long after his election in 1605, Paul V commissioned an architect named Flaminio Ponzio (1560 – 1618) to design and build the great chapel attached to the basilica of St Maria Maggiore which now bears his family name, Borghese. Its most important feature is one of the most famous icons in the world, the Madonna ‘Salus Populi Romani’ (salvation of the people of Rome), which is kept in the reredos of the main altar. Many of the finest artists of the era were brought in to execute the decorations, among them, Pietro Bernini, the father of the famous sculptor Gian Lorenzo. The latter was discovered by the cardinal supervising the project, Paul V’s nephew Scipione, and it was the pope himself who rightly predicted that he would become the Michelangelo of his times.

This chapel became one of the most important models for architectural decoration in the Counter-Reformation period. The lower part is made with darker materials, which represent the world; the upper is dominated by gold, white, and light-filled windows, representing heaven. The gold, a symbol of God’s grace, comes down into the lower part in the reredos, surrounding the icon. This serves as a response to the protestant idea that grace merely covers over the corrupt nature of sinful man, but does not truly change it for the better; as Luther described it, with his typical crudity, it is like snow covering over a dungheap. The Borghese chapels shows us God’s grace coming into and enlightening the world, effecting the true sanctification, the “making holy”, of man, a process which began with the Incarnation in the womb of the holy Virgin.

The Borghese chapel seen from outside, and about as good an illustration of what the lighting coming in from the dome is supposed to convey as one could hope for. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons by Karelj.)

The main altar of the chapel, which houses the icon of the Virgin Mary, honored with the title Salus Populi Romani. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Fallaner, CC BY-SA 4.0.

It is therefore a deliberate part of the program that as soon as one enters the space, there are placed to either side small chapels dedicated to St Frances of Rome (on the left), and St Charles Borromeo (on the right). These chapels remind us that God came into the world through the Virgin, and, as He promised (John 14, 18), did not leave us orphans, as the protestants would have it. In the life of a great cardinal and bishop, and no less in the life of a wife, mother and religious, we see His grace always working for the authentic reformation of our own lives, and of the life of the Church.

Photos of the two chapels, just inside the Borghese, courtesy of Mr Jacob Stein, author of the blog Crux Stationalis: the chapel of St Francis...

and of St Charles.

A Hymn for Lent, Lost and Restored

The Roman tradition has always been very conservative about the use of hymns in the Divine Office. In most liturgical seasons, there are three proper hymns, one each for Matins, Lauds and Vespers, but many feasts, including some of the greatest solemnities (Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension etc.), have only two. In the Ordinal of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), the ancestor text of the breviary of St Pius V, Lent is an exception, since it has four hymns, one each for Matins and Lauds, but two for Vespers. Audi, benigne Conditor is said from Monday to Saturday, but Sunday Vespers has its own hymn, Aures ad nostras, an anonymous work first attested in a 10th century manuscript from the abbey of St Benedict on Monte Cassino.

The hymn Aures ad nostras in a breviary according to the Use of Esztergom, the primatial see of Hungary, 1523-24. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 8879)

St Pius V’s reform of the Roman breviary made very few alterations to the established repertoire of musical propers for the Office in all their genres (antiphons, responsories etc.) This hymn was therefore left in its place, with a small correction of the awkwardly arranged opening words (“Ad preces nostras Deitatis aures”), but otherwise unchanged.

In early 1588, Pope Sixtus V established the Sacred Congregation for Rites, and appointed as its first prefect Alfonso Gesualdo, archbishop of Conza in southern Campania, and uncle of the famous composer Carlo Gesualdo. As part of the preparatory work for new editions of the breviary and missal of St Pius, the cardinal wrote to various nuncios in Europe, asking them to canvas the learned men of their respective nations for suggestions as to what might be due for revision. The reports of two different nuncios (Prague and Madrid) contained the suggestion that Aures ad nostras be removed from the Office completely; another (Venice) suggested it be corrected, since its numerous metrical flaws made the Catholic Church look foolish to the Protestant heretics. [1]

This information comes from an article by a chant scholar and canon of the cathedral of Chartres, Fr Yves Delaporte, published in 1907. In the second part, he gives the following information from the notes of the commission that prepared the revised breviary which Pope Clement VIII promulgated in 1602. “The hymn Ad preces nostras... has been removed; it seemed inept in both its choice of words and phrasing, was put together with no account of (metrical) feet or syllables, and further, was superfluous, since in all offices, the same hymn is said at both Vespers, and no other solemn observance... has more then three hymns.” [2]

In the post-Conciliar Rite, however, it has been restored to use, but not in Lent. The first three stanzas serve as the hymn for the Office of Readings on Tuesday of weeks 2 and 4 of the Psalter, and the fifth, sixth and eighth on Wednesday; on both days, it concludes with the same, original doxology. In accordance with the usual censorship of any negative thoughts that might disturb the complacency of Modern Man™ in his splendor, the fourth stanza, which says that “we are submerged beneath the wave of sin” is suppressed, as is the seventh, which refers to the newly unfashionable practice of fasting, and the “thousand vices of the flesh.” Both of these stanzas also contain significant blemishes in their Latinity. Surprisingly, the reference to Satan in the eighth stanza remains in place, and only a few other alterations were made.

This first recording, from the always wonderful Schola Hungarica, begins with the antiphon Media vita, which was commonly sung with the Nunc dimittis at Compline in Lent. The first stanza of the hymn begins at 2:20, in a Gregorian melody, followed by a polyphonic version of the second, and only these two are sung.

The first stanza of the hymn in a musical collection of the 15th century. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Musique, RES-1750)

This English translation is from the collection Pange Lingua by Alan G. McDougall (Burns and Oates, London, 1916.) [3]

Ad preces nostras Deitátis aures, [4] Deus, inclína pietáte sola: Súpplicum vota súscipe, precámur    Fámuli tui.	God, of thy pity,    unto us thy children Bend down thine ear in    thine own loving kindness, And all thy people’s    prayers and vows ascending Hear, we beseech thee.
Réspice clemens solio de sancto, Vultu seréno lámpades illustra: Lúmine tuo ténebras depelle    Péctore nostro.	Look down in mercy    from thy seat of glory. Pour on our souls the    radiance of thy presence, Drive from our weary    hearts the shades of darkness, Lightening our footsteps.
Crímina laxa pietáte multa, Ablue sordes, víncula disrumpe: Parce peccátis, réleva jacentes    Déxtera tua.	Free us from sin by    might of thy great loving, Cleanse thou the sordid,    loose the fettered spirit, Spare every sinner,    raise with thine own right hand All who have fallen.
Te sine tetro mérgimur profundo: Lábimur alta scéleris sub unda: Brachio tuo tráhimur ad clara    Sídera caeli.	Reft of thy guiding    we are lost in darkness, Drowned in the great wide    sea of sin we perish, But we are led by    thy strong hand to climb the Ascents of Heaven
Christe, lux vera, bónitas et vita, Gaudium mundi, píetas immensa, Qui nos a morte róseo salvasti    Sánguine tuo:	Christ, very light and    goodness, life of all things, Joy of the whole world,    infinite in kindness, Who by the crimson    flowing of thy life-blood From death hast saved us,
Insere tuum, pétimus, amórem Méntibus nostris, fídei refunde Lumen aeternum, charitátis auge    Dilectiónem.	Plant, sweetest Jesu,    at our supplication Deep in our hearts thy    charity: upon us Faith’s everlasting    light be poured, and increase Grant us of loving.
Tu nobis dona fontem lacrimárum, Jejuniórum fortia ministra; Vitia carnis millia retunde    Frámea tua.	Grant to our souls a    holy fount of weeping, Grant to us strength to    aid us in our fasting, And all the thousand    hosts of evil banish Far from thy people.
Procul a nobis pérfidus absistat Satan, a tuis víribus confractus: Sanctus assistat Spíritus, a tua    Sede demissus	Bruised by thine heel may    Satan and his legions Far from our minds be    driven, that are guided By the indwelling    of the Holy Spirit Sent from Heaven
Gloria Deo sit aeterno Patri: Sit tibi semper, Genitóris Nate, Cum quo aequális Spíritus       per cuncta,    Sáecula regnat. Amen.	Glory to God the    Father everlasting, Glory for ever    to the Sole-begotten, With whom the Holy    Spirit through the ages Reigneth coequal.

This splendid polyphonic version by the Flemish composer Adrian Willaert (1490 ca. - 1562) has only the odd-numbered stanzas, since it was written to be sung in alternation with the Gregorian melody. (Willaert spent the last 35 years of his life as the Master of the Chapel at the basilica of St Mark in Venice, and is regarded as the founder of the Venetian school of polyphony, which makes great use of multiple choirs.)

[1] Of the hymn’s thirty-six lines, twenty-eight contain mistakes according to the rules of classical Latin prosody.

[2] Les Hymnes du Bréviaire Romain de Pie V à Urbain VIII, 1568-1632; Rassegna Gregoriana, Nov.-Dec. 1907, col. 495-512; cited by Dom Anselmo Lentini OSB in Te decet hymnus, p. 49, with incorrect citation of the first column number (489 instead of 495). Second part, May-June 1908, col. 231-250. (My thanks to Fr Brian Austin, FSSP, for providing me with a copy of the second part.)

[3] This meter is known as the Sapphic stanza, after its inventor, the Greek poetess Sappho (ca. 630-570 B.C.) Each stanza has three lines that run as follows, ⎼⏑│⎼⏒│⎼⏑⏑│⎼⏑│⎼⏒, and then one shorter line, ⎼⏑⏑│⎼⏒, with the primary accents on the long syllables (⎼) at the beginning of each foot. English, however, lends itself more naturally to meters that place the primary accent at the end of a foot, such as the iambic pentameter (⏑⎼ x5); this accounts for the awkwardness of McDougall’s translation in many places, since he retained the meter of the Latin version.

[4] The original wording, “Aures ad nostras Deitatis preces, / Deus, inclina”, abuses the flexibility of Latin word order, and sounds at first blush like it means “O God, incline the prayers of the Divinity to our ears”; hence, the correction to the much clearer (and theologically sounder) “Ad preces nostras Deitatis aures, / Deus, inclina. – O God, incline the ears of the Divinity to our prayers.”

The Third Sunday of Lent 2026

Oculi mei semper ad Dóminum, quia ipse evellet de láqueo pedes meos: réspice in me, et miserére mei, quoniam únicus et pauper sum ego. Ps 24 Ad te, Dómine, levávi ánimam meam: Deus meus, in te confído, non erubescam. Gloria Patri... Oculi mei... (The Introit of the Third Sunday of Lent.)

Introit My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the snare; look Thou upon me, and have mercy on me, for I am alone and poor. Ps 24 To Thee, o Lord, have I lifted up my soul; my God, in Thee do I trust; let me not be put to shame. Glory be... My eyes...

“The third Sunday (of Lent) belongs to confession... which a man must have in two senses, the confession of sin and of praise. For it is by the humility of confession that a man awaits all that he awaits from God, to wit, liberation, and the gift of grace, and all good things, whence the Introit ‘My eyes are ever towards the Lord.’ And it is in the seventh tone, because by the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit, a man shall be plucked from the snare of the devil. For through confession, evil deeds are examined, and for this reason, the station is at the church of St Lawrence (in Lucina), who was delivered through confession. ...

the Apostle shows how confession ought to be in the Epistle (Ephesians 5, 1-9) For it must first be in humility, that is, so that we may humble ourselves before God, and thus walk in newness of life. Second, in perseverance, so that a man may not return to his own vomit (2 Peter 2, 22), and that the infamy of sin may be removed, whence it says ‘But let fornication, and all uncleanness not so much as be named among you.’ This happens through perseverance in a good life.” (Durandus, Rat. Div. Off. 6, 47)

Saints Perpetua and Felicity

For over a millennium before the birth of St Thomas Aquinas, March 7th was the feast day of Ss Perpetua and Felicity, two young women who were martyred in the stadium at Carthage on this day in the year 203. Their feast is already noted on the Philocalian Calendar in the mid-4th century, and they are first among the women named in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon, since they predate the other five. They have a Mass in the Gelasian Sacramentary (750 AD) and the Gellone (780 AD), although they are missing from many other liturgical books of the same era, perhaps because March 7 almost always falls in Lent, when the Roman tradition discourages the keeping of too many feasts. They are included in the ordinal of Innocent III (1198-1216), the ancestor of the Tridentine liturgical books.

Ss Perpetua and Felicity (in the middle, directly above the medallion portrait of a bishop), depicted in the company of many other holy women in a 6th century mosaic in the basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0)

St Thomas died on their feast day in 1274, and was canonized in 1323. Between then and the Tridentine reform, some places moved the martyrs to either the day before or after for his sake, while others moved Thomas for theirs. However, on the calendar of St Pius V’s liturgical books, they are reduced to only a commemoration on Thomas’ day, and so they remained until 1908, when St Pius X restored their full feast, and assigned it to March 6.

The primary source for our knowledge of them is their original passion, which the revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints rightly describes as “one of the greatest hagiological treasures that have come down to us.” This is not only because it gives us an eye-witness account of their martyrdom, one which is universally acknowledged to be authentic, but also because it incorporates a diary which Perpetua kept while she was in prison awaiting execution.

Both women were still catechumens at the time of their arrest alongside three others, Saturninus, Secundulus, and Revocatus, the last a slave like Felicity. (The Roman liturgical tradition, however, celebrates only Perpetua and Felicity by name.) Their catechist, a man named Saturus, soon joined the group voluntarily. Perpetua was only twenty-two, a woman of a noble family, recently married to a prominent man, and a new mother. In her diary, she describes how her father came to visit her, and grew very angry with her when she refused to abandon the Faith; later on, he would return to her and plead with her to take pity on him for the sake of his old age, and likewise on her infant son, whom she was still nursing.

Felicity was in her eighth month of pregnancy, and anxious that she might be deprived of the chance to die as a martyr, since Roman law forbade that a pregnant woman be put to death. The soon-to-be martyrs prayed for her, and after much travail, she was safely delivered of a baby girl, who would then be raised by her sister. While she was in her birth-pangs, one of the prison-guards asked her how she could hope to face the pain of being attacked by wild beasts. To this she replied, “I myself now suffer that which I suffer, but there (i.e. in the stadium) Another shall be in me who shall suffer for me, because I am to suffer for Him.”

The diary also includes extensive accounts of the visions which were vouchsafed to Perpetua during her imprisonment. In one of these, she beheld a ladder of bronze reaching to heaven, fitted out along its rungs with various dangerous weapons, and a serpent at its base, representing the combat she was about to undertake.

A Dutch engraving of St Perpetua’s vision, 1740.

In another, she beheld her brother Dinocrates, who had died very painfully of some kind of ulcer or cancer on his face when he was only seven. In the first vision, he appeared still disfigured, in a dark place, hot and thirsty, but unable to drink from a fountain which was too tall for him to reach, and separated from her “by a great gulf”, (certainly a reference to the story of Lazarus and Dives). From this vision, she knew that she was supposed to pray for him, which she did assiduously, and after several days, she beheld him again, now healed, and able to drink from the fountain, “And being satisfied he departed away from the water and began to play as children will, joyfully.” This is, of course, an incredibly important testimony to the early Christians’ belief in the efficacy of their prayers for the dead.

This was followed by another vision of herself, as if she were a male gladiator in combat, triumphing as the leader of a troop over a large Egyptian and his supporters. Saturus also had a vision of their company in the presence of God and some other martyrs who had recently been burnt alive or died in prison.

The account of the martyrdom itself that follows these visions was written by an anonymous eyewitness. (Some scholars have posited that the author may have been the apologist Tertullian, but this is far from widely accepted.) On their last night, they were given a final meal, which they kept as a Christian agape feast. This was held in a place where people were able to come and gawk at them, but many were deeply moved by their words and behavior, and wound up converting to the Faith.

The Martyrdom of Ss Perpetua, Felicity and Companions, depicted in the Menologion of Basil II (ca 1000 A.D.)

When they were brought to the stadium, the soldiers in charge wished to dress them in the clothing of pagan priests, but backed off from this at Perpetua’s forceful remonstration. Because of their general attitude of rejoicing and bold acceptance of their face, the crowd grew enraged against them, and when they spoke of God’s judgment against the man in charge of the games, the governor Hilarian, he had them scourged, but this only brought them to give thanks at the opportunity to share in one of the sufferings that the Lord Himself had endured.

The men were set upon by wild beasts, a leopard, a bear and a wild boar, but the latter turned upon its keeper and fatally wounded him, while the bear refused to come out of the pen where it was kept, even when Saturus was tied up to a pole in front of it. He was then killed by the leopard. The women were trampled on and tossed about by a savage cow, and after being badly injured, given the coup-de-grace by gladiators. But the soldier assigned to kill Perpetua was inexperienced, and she had to guide his sword to her own throat. The account of their death ends with these poignant words: “Perhaps so great a woman, one who was feared by the unclean spirit, could not otherwise have been slain, had she not herself so willed it.”

Four sermons which St Augustine preached on their feast day have been preserved. In the first of these, he begins by making a play on the martyr’s names, speaking of their joy in heaven, and also refers to the custom which prevailed in many places by which the acts of the martyrs were read during the Mass.

“This day, as an annual recurrence, reminds us, and in a certain way, sets before us the day on which the holy servants of God, Perpetua and Felicity, adorned with the crowns of martyrdom, flourished unto perpetual felicity, holding onto the name of Christ in their combat, and at the same, time, finding also their own names (i.e. “perpetual felicity”.) as a reward. As the account was being read, we heard how they were encouraged by divine revelations, and the triumphs of their passion; we have listened, we have beheld in our minds, we have honored with devotion, we have praised with charity all of their words, as explained and clarified for us.”