Could the Introduction of Microphones Have Caused the Reform of the Mass?

We are very pleased to share the following thought-provoking essay by Paweł Jarnicki, which was first published in Polish at Christianitas. The text has been translated into English with the support of machine translation and will be published at NLM in three installments, this week and next. It is one of the most insightful treatments of the question I have ever seen, and deserves a careful read. – PAK

“Let’s Throw the Microphone Out of the Church!”

Paweł Jarnicki

Part 1

I narrated battles
bastilles and ships…
and forgot about tamarisk. [1]

Eleven years ago, shortly after my conversion, as I listened to a priest muttering a bland sermon, a postulate arose in my mind that has returned to me regularly ever since: Take the microphones away from the priests! After all, if this priest spoke without a microphone, he couldn’t mutter like that. He would have to know what he wanted to say. He would have to speak loudly and clearly. He would have to exert his body... Since when have there been microphones in churches anyway?... I looked around. There were definitely no microphones when this church was built. How did everything work before microphones came along? At that time, I knew nothing about the reform of the Mass.

I talked to several people about my postulate from time to time, and even started taking some notes, but it was only a year ago that I checked if anyone had already written anything on the subject. I searched exclusively on the Internet. I found literally a few valuable texts in English and a few paragraphs in Polish. I am trying to put my own thoughts and what I have read into a coherent whole here. This is by no means an academic text or a complete study of the subject, but rather a text written by a believer in the hope that it will spark discussion and provoke more competent people to conduct in-depth research and take action.

Let’s start with what is certain. It is certain that microphones are found in almost every Catholic church today — at organs, pulpits, ambo, and altars. Sometimes portable microphones are also used. They are accompanied, of course, by an amplifier (usually in the sacristy or near the organist) and loudspeakers — at least a few — even in the smallest churches and chapels.

It is also certain that for the vast majority of time, there were no microphones in churches. Although the carbon microphone was invented in the 1870s, and the first sound systems (microphone + amplifier + loudspeaker) were developed in the mid-1910s, they were not installed in churches until the 1920s and 1930s.

Available publications indicate that there were no serious discussions about the use of microphones in churches. And yet, at that time, there were disputes about broadcasting Mass on the radio or introducing projectors and players... But microphones? It seems that they were treated as something natural and fundamentally good. Just as glasses allow us to see more clearly, microphones allow us to hear more clearly. What could be wrong with hearing better?

In official church documents, the first mention of the amplification system can be found in the 1958 instruction On Music. It prohibits the use of automatic organ, phonograph, radio, tape or wire recorders, and other similar machines (71), and projectors (73), but “loudspeakers may be used even during liturgical functions, and private devotions for the purpose of amplifying the living voice of the priest-celebrant or the commentator” (72). [2] The microphone was therefore treated as something that merely “amplifies the living voice,” as an object as neutral, in fact, as a pair of glasses. Later documents that I have been able to find treat the “altar microphone” as something so obvious that they only require a second, separate microphone to be placed on the pulpit. [3]

Today, practically no one is surprised by microphones in churches, because they are ubiquitous in the world, transparent, and we swim like fish in water in amplified sounds, both in public and private spaces. Since microphones and loudspeakers are everywhere, it seems normal that they are also in churches. However, reading texts about microphones by other authors led me to the surprising thesis that the microphone caused the reform of the Holy Mass. I have read a lot about the reform over the last nine years, but that it was caused by the microphone?

NOM, Łukęcin (Poland), Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland. In newly built churches, the cross is usually placed next to the altar, and the microphone becomes the axis of the celebration.

Two narratives about the reform of the Mass

In order to reconstruct the impact of the microphone on the 1969 reform of the Mass, it is good to familiarize ourselves with the current narratives about this reform. Especially since many contemporary Catholics know nothing about it, even though many “epics” have already been written about the controversy surrounding it... There are basically two narratives. Those enthusiastic about the reform and its critics. The enthusiastic narrative says: The reform of the Mass is the work of the Council, so it is good. The critical narrative says: The reform of the Mass is a consequence of the invasion of modernism, so it is bad. Although today (after Benedict XVI) the enthusiasts of the reform more often speak of continuity, and its critics of a break, there are also reverse variants. There were and are enthusiasts of the reform who speak of a break, and there are also critics of the reform who acknowledge continuity.

Critics of the reform argue that the world and people have not changed in essence, so there was no need to change the Mass, yet it was changed significantly. Enthusiasts of the reform say that as a result of increased well-being and technological development, “times” have changed, so the reform of the Mass was necessary to adapt it to contemporary pastoral needs, and only the envelope has changed, not the essence of the Mass.

The most radical critical narrative can be found among sedevacantists (those who believe that there is currently no legitimate pope) — recognizing the new Mass as invalid must also undermine recent pontificates, because several popes have already celebrated the new Mass. Therefore, the greatest concern of humble critics of the reform is how to criticize the reform without denying the validity of the new Mass and the continuity of the Church as an institution headed by the pope, and how not to cast the Second Vatican Council as the “villain.” The latter term allows reform enthusiasts to easily place critics outside the Church, because the Holy Spirit is at work during the council, and it is clear on whose side those who fight against the Divine Person are.

More moderate critics of the reform point out that the conciliar constitution on the liturgy neither recommended that the priest turn towards the people (versus populum) nor recommended a complete transition to vernacular languages. This was only done by the Consilium led by Annibale Bugnini — the reform is therefore a “distortion” of the Council’s decisions. Enthusiasts say that the Consilium implemented the “spirit” of the Council, while critics say that there is no such thing — that its “letter” has been violated. More radical critics point out that the errors of modernism (the omission of some ideas and the vague formulation of others) were already present in the conciliar documents and that the last council was not dogmatic, but only pastoral.

In any case, the common denominator of both narratives is the awareness of a crisis in the Church, the most striking manifestation of which is the decline in the number of priestly vocations. And no one has any idea how to break out of the trenches of their own convictions. Those on one side of the dispute see aggressive madmen, while those on the other see thoughtless blind men. This inability to reach an agreement confirms that some kind of break has indeed occurred. After all, it is easy to see that the new Mass is unlike the old one and that Catholics behave differently during the new and old Masses. Catholics raised on the new Mass who are unaware of the reform, when they encounter the old Mass, even have the impression that it is some kind of “different faith.” In the critical narrative, it is pointed out that since the way we pray has changed, our faith has changed (lex orandi lex credendi), but enthusiasts treat these critics as a threat to the unity of the Church, which today prays mostly according to the new Mass. These “accomplished facts” are the final argument of new Mass enthusiasts, but critics who emphasize continuity consider them dishonest because they imply a profound break — can the Mass on which the saints from before the last council were raised be so bad that it is forbidden to celebrate it in all parish churches? There seems to be no possibility of agreement.

The weaker, critical side feels — not without reason — that it is a victim of institutional violence (which to some extent explains, but does not excuse, the “aggressive” behavior of “traditionalist” circles). The problem, or perhaps its solution, is that here the “perpetrators” may also turn out to be victims of deception... For both narratives, both radical and moderate, forget about the microphone... which, like a Trojan horse, we ourselves introduced into the Church without considering the possible consequences.

NOM, Wrocław (Poland), St. Faustina Church. The object between the altar and the cross is not a Paschal candle but a portable loudspeaker.

Could the microphone have caused the reform of the Mass?

Although the hierarchs did not debate the issue of microphones, there was one layman who, in 1974, five years after the reform of the Mass, wrote:

“Many people will lament the disappearance of the Latin Mass from the Catholic Church without realizing that it was a victim of the microphone on the altar.” [4] And he repeated this thought three years later: “Latin wasn’t the victim of Vatican II; it was done in by introducing the microphone. A lot of people, the Church hierarchy included, have been lamenting the disappearance of Latin without understanding that it was the result of introducing a piece of technology that they accepted so enthusiastically.” [5]

The statements of Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) have gone almost completely unnoticed, even in today’s so-called “traditionalist” circles. [6] Why? I think that the rest of his text is too “dense.” It is a challenging text, difficult to understand even for readers educated in the humanities. Although McLuhan was a Catholic, he was neither a historian nor a theologian; his voice was the voice of a representative of what was then a new discipline of knowledge — media theory. What McLuhan says in this text also contradicts the (enthusiastic) intellectual mood that prevailed after the Council and for decades thereafter — McLuhan points to church architecture as a second victim of the microphone, alongside the Latin Mass, and predicts that the publication of the Holy Scriptures in vernacular languages by official committees will be counterproductive to the spread of the Good News. In a situation where literature adapts subsequent variations of the living colloquial national language, the Church rigidifies the vernacular in its official and archaic translation. And yet every vernacular continues to evolve, so rigidifying it detaches faith from the living language of national communities and significantly hinders the transmission of faith.

McLuhan says all this in a deliberately vague way, wanting to force readers to make a cognitive effort. In addition, it seems that in the following years, the prevailing belief was that the widespread use of microphones in churches was a consequence of the reform of the Mass (chronologically, microphones were first introduced in more important churches, and only after the reform in all churches).

It was only Nico Fassino’s article three years ago that showed that McLuhan may be right, that the opposite may be true [7] – that there would be no new Mass if it weren’t for the microphone. Not only because during the Council it could had been turned off and Cardinal Ottaviani silenced, [8] but above all because the microphone was placed on the altar.

Fassino’s article is, so far, the only one that begins to describe the process of introducing microphones into churches from a historical perspective. Thanks to him, we know that in the 1920s, microphones began to be used in pulpits and the first Masses were broadcast on the radio. However, the first radio broadcasts did not necessarily involve sound systems in the church itself. It was probably Pius XII, who had been in office since 1939 and still celebrated the old Mass, who was the first pope to place microphones on the altar. [9] We do not yet know the exact date when this happened, but it was most likely between 1939 and 1945. And since microphones were placed on the papal altar, this must have gradually become more common practice in the post-war years.

But could such a seemingly neutral object have brought about a reform of the Mass? How? In the following reconstruction, I draw heavily on McLuhan’s text:

1. The microphone on the altar made the Latin texts audible, which until then had largely reached the faithful only as incomprehensible whispers and murmurs (especially during quiet Masses celebrated on weekdays, but also during the quiet parts of solemn Masses on holidays).

2. The amplification of the words spoken in Latin created a need to hear them clearly — if someone amplifies sound, it means that they want to be heard, that there is something that needs to be heard). [10]

3. And since the faithful began to hear words rather than murmurs, the need to hear clearly was followed by the need to understand what was being heard [11], and thus

4. the need to speak during Mass in the languages used in everyday life, in languages known to the faithful — in their vernacular languages.

5. And since the faithful began to hear and needed to understand every word, the impression arose that it was they who were being addressed.

6. This led to an inconsistency in the communication situation — when someone speaks to us and we speak to someone, it is natural to expect that we will have our faces turned towards each other.

The priest’s reversal was therefore a consequence of placing a microphone on the altar. But at the same time, it also reinforced the needs created by the use of the microphone – hearing and understanding – and thus speaking in an understandable vernacular language. This is why reversing the Mass reform seems impossible today – the faithful must now see and hear everything. In any case, it was the microphone that set off the avalanche of the reform. If anyone doubts this, let them imagine the new Mass at the sanctuary in Łagiewniki, Krakow – without a sound system. [12]

Wait a minute, someone will say, microphones are now used even in “Latin rite ministries”. I think that microphones at traditional Masses are only acceptable in “ghettos” where rebellious believers are sent, who are not only resigned to hearing Latin, but actually consciously want to hear it (which is often the basis of their sense of superiority, and for “new Catholics” this “exaltation” is an unacceptable barrier). Moreover, microphones have become so ubiquitous in the world today that almost no one – even the most ardent “traditionalists” — would dream of questioning their use. Why should we give up the achievements of science and technology?

This question will be taken up in Part 2.

NOM, Jarnice (Poland), St. James Church. Today, sound systems are installed even in the smallest churches (both inside and often outside).

NOTES

[1] Zbigniew Herbert, Tamarisk, 1961.

^[2]Instruction on Sacred Music and Sacred Liturgy of the Sacred Congregation for Rites according to the guidelines of Pope Pius XII’s encyclicals Musicae Sacrae Disciplina and Mediator Dei of September 3, 1958. The role of the commentator may seem peculiar today, but it was someone who translated what the priest was doing and saying (in Latin) into the vernacular.

^[3] See, for example, the Polish Episcopate’s Instruction in connection with the publication of the new altar missal of March 11, 1987.

^[4] Marshall McLuhan, Liturgy and the Microphone. First published in: “The Critic” 1974, vol. 33, no. 1, October-December, pp. 12–17; reprinted in: Eric McLuhan and Jacek Szklarek (eds.), The medium and the light: Reflections on Religion, Toronto: Stoddart 1999, pp. 107-116, quote from p. 112.

^[5] Pierre Babin, (Marshall McLuhan’s) Third Conversation with Pierre Babin, in: Eric McLuhan and Jacek Szklarek (eds.), The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion, Toronto: Stoddart 1999, pp. 141-149, quote from p. 143.

^[6] It seems that the issues surrounding the microphone escaped even Marcel Lefebvre, the most vocal critic of the Mass reform, and even the Society of St. Pius X uses microphones in its chapels and churches.

^[7] Nico Fassino, Lift up thy voice with strength, handmissalhistory, October 10, 2022, https://handmissalhistory.com/feature-microphones/, September 25, 2025.

^[8] As an aside, let us ask ourselves how earlier councils were possible without microphones? If there had been no microphones, would the “progressive” faction have been audible enough to significantly change the preliminary documents?

^[9] “By 1945, Pope Pius XII regularly celebrated mass with four microphones installed on the high altar in St. Peter’s Basilica and even had two microphones on the altar in his private chapel.” [Nico Fassino, Lift up thy voice with strength, handmissalhistory, October 10, 2022, https://handmissalhistory.com/feature-microphones/, September 25, 2025]

^[10] Nico Fassino notes that, paradoxically, the microphone has led to the creation of “cry rooms” for children in American churches. If the words spoken by the priest are to be heard, other sounds, especially noisy children, must not interfere.

^[11] To understand what this is all about, it is enough to experience at least once a new Mass in a country where the language is so foreign that we are unable to distinguish individual words from the stream of speech (for me, these were Latvian and Finnish). During such a Mass, it is difficult not to ask yourself the question: “What am I doing here?”

^[12] The Basilica of Divine Mercy in Łagiewniki (Kraków, Poland), consecrated in 2002, elliptical in shape, the interior — covering approximately 5,000 square meters and accommodating around 5,000 worshippers.

The Minor Litanies in the Ambrosian Rite

This post comes entirely from notes written by our Ambrosian expert, Nicola de’ Grandi. The photos were taken yesterday at the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Milan, where the traditional rite is celebrated, and which observed the Minor Litanies with a procession and a station within the church. (In previous years it has been held outside, but yesterday it was raining.) Last month, I posted the liturgical texts of the Ambrosian form of the Major Litanies. Special thanks to Mr Andrea Riva for providing the video of the Litany of the Saints given below. 

In the Ambrosian Rite, the Minor Litanies are celebrated on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after the Ascension, not before as in the Roman Rite. This custom is attested in the very oldest Ambrosian liturgical books, and was observed from very ancient times throughout the north of Italy, not just at Milan, as seen in a liturgical manuscript at Friuli, in the Veneto region, already in the 6th century. They were originally known as the “Major Litanies”, since they were instituted before the observance on April 25th that now bears that name, but which is not attested in the Ambrosian Rite before the 11th century.

An Ambrosian liturgical manuscript of the 13th century.

Although St Ambrose himself writes that it was not the custom of the Church to fast during the Easter season (Exposition of the Gospel of St Luke 25), a fact which was adduced in criticism of the Milanese custom in the Middle Ages, it was defended in the later 11th century by a cleric of the city named Landolfo, who refers to what Christ says when asked why His disciples did not fast. “The days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast.” (Matthew 9, 15) The three day fast after the Ascension, the departure of the Bridegroom, therefore imitates what the Apostles did while waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. A contemporary of St Ambrose, St Philastrius of Brescia, attests to exactly this same custom, and for exactly the same reasons, already in the mid-5th century. The Mozarabic liturgy also traditionally observes a fast of three days in the week after the Ascension, on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before the vigil of Pentecost.

From the most ancient times, the Church administered baptism on Pentecost with the same rites as on Easter; this is attested in a letter of Pope St Siricius (384-99) to Himerius, bishop of Tarragon in Spain (cap. 2), and one of Pope St Leo the Great (440-461), in which he exhorts the bishops of Sicily to follow the Church’s custom and the example of the Apostle Peter, who baptized three thousand persons on Pentecost day. (Epist. 16)

In accordance with this universal custom, the traditional Ambrosian celebration of the Minor Litanies, as they are now called, has many elements in common with Lent, the season par excellence for baptismal preparation. During the processions, there are stations at various churches; at each station, lessons are read as part of the catechumenal preparation for baptism, exactly as was done in Lent. Black vestments are used as on the ferias of Lent, and in the Office, all of the characteristic features of the Easter season (the Paschal hymns, antiphons consisting of just the word “Alleluia”, etc.) are replaced with those of the season per annum. The Ambrosian Rite has no Ash Wednesday, and only much later did it adopt the imposition of ashes on the first Monday of Lent; the blessing and imposition of ashes is in fact historically done on the first day of the Minor Litanies.

In the Middle Ages, when the Minor Litanies were still kept with great solemnity, on each of the three days, the archbishop, the cathedral chapter and the entire clergy of the city participated in a procession which departed from the cathedral, and stopped at twelve different stational churches along the way, each group within the clergy walking behind its own processional cross. An enormous number of processional antiphons were sung, interspersed between the verses of the longest Psalm in the Psalter, Beati immaculati (118). At each station, a synaxis was held in a form which is common to various penitential functions in the Ambrosian Rite such as vigils and the ferias of Lent: twelve Kyrie eleisons, followed by a prayer, a reading of the Old Testament, a responsory, and a Gospel. In 1767, the diary of the master of ceremonies of the Duomo records that the full ceremony lasted for just under 5 hours!

The procession

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Catholic Art School Incorporates Benedictine Spirituality into its Daily Routine

Chanting the Psalms daily and refectory reading are part of the artistic community’s own Way of Beauty

For those looking to train as artists in a Catholic environment, I recommend the Stabat Mater Atelier (see A Catholic Art School with Full Four-Year Training in Classical Naturalism), which teaches the traditional, rigorous drawing and painting known as the ‘Academic’ method. I was privileged to visit them in Tyler, Texas, last Fall and to address the students and faculty.

Recently, the director, artist Robert Puschautz, asked if I would publish a short article by him about the implementation of what I had discussed, as he was pleased with its impact on the students and faculty. Of course, I was happy to do so. It is posted below. He describes how the students taught themselves, based on my original instructions, to chant the psalms. I recommended they do this as part of their spiritual life as Christians, of course, but also as a way to stimulate their creative imaginations as artists and open their hearts to inspiration from God, should He choose to offer it. The musical method is described in my upcoming book, Musica Domestica, a two-volume book of music for the domestic church, co-authored with Andrew Goldstein of the Vigil Project, and to be published by Word on Fire in fall of this year.

Robert wrote:

“At the beginning of the 2025 academic year, David Clayton, Scala Foundation Artist in Residence, Provost of Pontifax, iconographer, and writer, visited the Stabat Mater Studio to offer a series of talks highlighting the essentials of training in visual Sacred Art. He discussed using technical mastery of drawing and painting to serve a Christian worldview, one that points beyond the natural world. He also spent a good deal of time championing the use of chant and a simplified version of the liturgy of the hours. David emphasized that an artist creating work for the Catholic Church’s liturgy ought to be immersed in it daily. After hearing David, a number of students and teachers decided to spend additional time learning his simple method for chanting the psalms in the Gregorian modes.

“I was skeptical that we could implement much of what David taught us, despite his generous sharing of the psalms and materials. Furthermore, lacking musical training, I didn’t feel confident leading the charge to incorporate the practice. I was surprised, however, to find that some students were eager to take the lead and start our days with a version of Morning Prayer. We started very simply with one tone and one leader, and the remaining students mimicked the same tone on the following verse. It took some time for us to develop the habit of praying consistently and beautifully, but each trimester we improve and have introduced an additional mode for singing. Slowly but surely, it has become an essential part of how we start the morning at our studio.

“Inspired by the monastic tradition of table reading, we, in addition to our morning prayer routine, read aloud to the students during their lunch hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays from texts relevant to their artistic and Catholic development. Recently, we have been reading through David’s The Way of Beauty. This has led to great discussions afterward about the importance of idealization for sacred artists, the study of geometry, and the necessity of beauty in all aspects of life. Although most of our time is spent developing technical mastery in drawing and painting, we believe that these simple practices of chanting and prayer in community will deeply form students into artists imbued with a sense of the sacred and as part of the Body of Christ.”

For more information on Stabat Mater Atelier and to see Robert’s work, go to stabatmater.org.

Robert Puschautz in the studio, with a student beyond him

The Good Samaritan After Morot by Rachel Perry, 35 x 47 oil on canvas, 2025. This was her ‘masterpiece’, the detailed imitation of a great work of the past, done as part of her training.

Vestments from the Archdiocesan Museum of Warsaw (Part 2)

This is the second set of photos taken by a friend, Mr Anatole Upart, at the museum of the archdiocese of Warsaw, Poland, during a recent visit. In the first part, which I posted on Saturday, most of the vestments were liturgical white, here we have a wide variety of colors, including blue. Among the Slavs who use the Byzantine Rite, blue has become de facto the standard color for feasts of the Virgin Mary, and I have been told by a very knowledgeable scholar that they picked this custom up from their Polish neighbors. The dates range from the mid-17th to mid-19th century.

This chasuble detailed with the coat of arms of Poland was donated to the cathedral by Cecilia Renata, the Austrian queen of King Władysław IV Vasa (1611-44).

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The Sunday after the Ascension

Hear, o Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to thee.” After the first anointing, which they had received in the death of Christ, as He breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”, the Apostles awaited the second anointing which the Lord had promised, saying, “If I shall go; I shall send the Paraclete to you.” Therefore, as they await, they sing in the Introit, “Hear.”

Introitus Ps 26 Exaudi, Dómine, vocem meam, qua clamávi ad te, allelúia: tibi dixit cor meum, quaesívi vultum tuum, vultum tuum, Dómine, requíram: ne avertas faciem tuam a me, allelúia, allelúia. V. Dóminus illuminatio mea et salus mea: quem timébo? Glória Patri... Exáudi, Dómine...

Introit Ps. 26 Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to Thee, alleluia: my heart hath said to Thee, I have sought Thy face; Thy face, o Lord, will I still seek turn not Thy face from me, alleluia, alleluia. V. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? Glory be... Hear, o Lord...

This is taken from the twenty-sixth Psalm, “The Lord is my light”, the title of which is “Unto the end, a Psalm of David, before he was anointed”; for therein is treated of the anointing of David, which was three-fold. For indeed, first he was anointed as a sign that he would be the king, second, as king over the tribe of Judah, and third over all of Israel.

Folio 14r of the breviary of René of Anjou (1409-80). This image is placed before the ferial Office of Monday, on which the nocturn begins with Psalm 26, “a psalm of David, before he was anointed.” At the lower left, is the election of David as king, and at the right, his anointing and coronation (2 Samuel 5).

We also sing the same, because we await a third anointing. For the first anointing is in baptism, the second in confirmation, or in the penance of confession, the third will be in the resurrection. In another sense, the first anointing was among the Apostles, the second among the Jews, the third among the gentiles. For “the ointment which ran down upon the beard of Aaron ... ran down upon the hem of his garment” (Ps. 132, 2), that is, upon the chosen Jews who were close to the Apostles... and “ran down like dew the dew of Hermon upon Mount Sion”, that is, the grace of Him that was exalted (in the Ascension) imbued the nations that watched for God.

And since the Apostles as they waited... were in the temple, praying, and praising, and blessing God (Luke 24, 53), therefore, as we wait, we are invited to prayer by the Epistle, “Be ye prudent (and keep watch in prayers.” (1 Peter 4, 7-11)

– from the Mitrale of Sicard, bishop of Cremona, Italy, (1155 ca. - 1215), book 7, chapter 9. This work was one of the major sources for William Durandus’ Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, the Summa of medieval liturgical commentaries, and in the parallel chapter, Durandus cites Sicard by name (or rather, almost by name, since he called him “Richard.”) However, in this case, Sicard’s commentary is much clearer than Durandus’.

Vestments from the Archdiocesan Museum of Warsaw (Part 1)

This post is something of a follow-up to one I made last week about a chasuble decorated with images of the events surrounding the martyrdom of St Stanislaus, bishop of Krakow, Poland. These pictures come from a friend, Mr Anatole Upart, who recently visited the museum of the archdiocese of Warsaw, and very kindly shared with us these pictures of its very impressive collection of liturgical vestments. A number of these are decorated with the same kind of thickly embroidered images of saints and angels, albeit not at the same level of detail as the Stanislaus vestment. (And it has to be said that one of them is rather cartoonish in appearance.) There aren’t many didactic panels, so I will leave most of them without comment, but from what I know of the style, I believe the majority of these come from the 17th and 18th centuries. Most of these are white; a second post will have more of the other liturgical colors. 

A chalice veil decorated with an image of Casimir, prince of the kingdom of Poland and grand duchy of Lithuania (1458-84), and is venerated a patron Saint of both nations.

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A Legend of St Brendan the Navigator

In Ireland, today is the feast of a sainted monk named Brendan, who is traditionally said to have been born in Clonfert in the year 484, and to have died in 577 at the age of 94. He is sometimes called “the Younger” to distinguish him from another Brendan, of Birr, or “the Elder.” They were both disciples of St Finnian, the founder of one of the first abbeys in the country, Clonard, and belong to the group known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland for their labors in the evangelizing the Emerald Isle. As with many of the early Irish Saints, the traditional stories of his life are regarded as historically unreliable. The most famous of these is that he and a group of companions sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean searched for “the Promised Land of the Saints,” or the Garden of Eden, and has given him the nickname by which he is more generally known, “the Navigator.” The account of the ensuing adventures, known as “The Voyage of St Brendan”, was very popular, and over 100 manuscripts of it survive.

The Voyage of St Brendan, 1908, by the British painter Edward Reginald Frampton (1870-1923). This depicts another rather improbable episode in the story of St Brendan’s travels, in which he encounters Judas Iscariot on a deserted island, and the latter explains to him that on Sundays and major feast days, he is granted a temporary reprieve from the torments of hell. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

One of the stories in this account (chapter 10 and 11) involves a stop on an island which turns out to be a very unusual place indeed.

“… Now that island was rocky, and without any grass; there was a thin forest there, and no sand on the shore. But as the brothers passed the night in prayers and vigils off the ship, the man of God (i.e. Brendan) remained within it.

… In the morning, he commanded the priests that they should each sing Mass, and so they did. Therefore, when Saint Brendan himself had sung Mass in the ship, the brothers began to bring raw meat out of the ship to cure it with salt, and also the fish which they had brought with them from the other island. When they had done these things, they set a pot upon a fire, and when they had added wood to the fire and the pot began to grow hot, the island began to move itself like a wave. But the brothers began to run to the ship praying for the holy father’s protection. But he drew each one of them in by the hand, and leaving behind all of the things which they had brought onto that island, they began to sail.

Now the island was being carried out into the ocean … and Saint Brendan explained to the brothers what this was, saying, “Brothers, are you astonished at what this island did?” They said, “We are very much astonished, and the greatest fear has taken hold of us.” And he said to them, “My sons, do not be afraid, for God has revealed to me this night through a vision the mystery of this matter. It was not an island where we were, but a fish. Greater than all the things that swim in the ocean, it is always looking for its own tail so that it may join it to its head, and it cannot because it is so long, and its name is Jasconius.”

St Brendan watches from the boat as one of the priests in his group of travel companions says Mass on the back of the sea monster. (Engraving by Honorius Philoponus, 1621)

The Folklore of Ascension Day

Having praised the writings of Fr. Francis X. Weiser in two previous posts (here and here), I thought it meet to share the following excerpt from his magnum opus, the Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1958), pp. 243-45.

Ascension Plays

During the tenth century some dramatic details were added to the liturgical procession on Ascension Day in the countries of central and western Europe.

In Germany it became a custom for priests to lift a cross aloft when the words Assumptus est in caelum (He was taken up into Heaven) were sung at the Gospel.

From the eleventh century on, the procession was gradually dropped in most countries and in its place a pageant was performed in church. These “Ascension plays” have never been accorded official approval or liturgical status by the Roman authorities.

By the thirteenth century it had become a fairly general custom to enact the Ascension by hoisting a statue of the Risen Christ aloft until it disappeared through an opening in the ceiling of the church. While the image, suspended on a rope, moved slowly upward, the people rose in their pews and stretched out their arms toward the figure of the Saviour, acclaiming the Lord in prayer or by hymn singing. Hundreds of reports in old books from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries contain vivid descriptions of this ancient custom.

One of the most charming examples is the Ascension play of the Bavarian monastery in Moosburg, recorded by the priest and poet Johann von Berghausen (1362). In the center of the church, directly underneath an opening in the ceiling, a platform decorated with colored cloths and flowers was erected. On this platform stood a little tent, open at the top, which represented the Mount of Olivet. Inside the tent was placed a statue of the Risen Christ, holding high the banner of victory. A strong rope that hung down from the ceiling was fastened to a ring on top of the wooden image. After Vespers (in the afternoon), a solemn procession moved from the sacristy to the platform. It was led by two boys in white dresses. They impersonated angels; on their shoulders they wore wings and on their heads little wreaths of flowers. They were followed by a young cleric who represented the Blessed Virgin, “dressed in the robes of holy and honorable widowhood.” To his right and left walked clerics enacting Saint Peter and Saint John. Behind them came ten other clerics in Oriental gowns; they were barefoot, and on their foreheads they carried diadems inscribed with the names of the Apostles. The altar boys and priests, vested in festive garb, concluded the group. In front of the platform, the deacon sang the Gospel of Ascension Day, and the choir intoned the antiphon, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20, 17).

The priests then venerated the image of Christ with inclinations and incense. Finally, while the choir sang Ascendit Deus in altum, alleluia (God rose on high), the statue was slowly pulled aloft. As it rose higher and higher, a few figures of angels holding burning candles came down from “Heaven” to meet the Lord and to accompany him on his journey. From a large metal ring that was suspended below the opening, there hung cloths of silk representing clouds. Between these “clouds” the image of the Saviour slowly and solemnly disappeared. A few moments later, a shower of roses, lilies, and other flowers dropped from the opening; then followed wafers in the shape of large hosts. The schoolchildren were allowed to collect these flowers and wafers, to take them home as cherished souvenirs. Father Berghausen explains this custom as follows: “The little ones collect the flowers which symbolize the various gifts of the Holy Spirit. The wafers indicate the presence of Christ in His eucharistic Body, which remains with us, under the species of bread, to the end of time.” While the congregation stood with eyes raised to the ceiling, the two “angels” intoned the final message of Ascension Day, which predicts the triumphant coming of the Lord on the clouds of Heaven, for the great judgment at the end of the world: “Why do you stand looking up to heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall come in the same way as you have seen him going up to heaven.” (Acts 1, 11) The celebration was concluded with solemn Benediction.

The Lutheran reformers violently attacked not only occasional abuses in these plays, but the whole institution. However, Luther himself seems to have later regretted the hasty condemnations of earlier years, for in a message to his preachers he wrote in 1530: “If such customs had remained as pageants for the sake of youth and school children, to furnish them with a presentation of Christian doctrine and Christian life, then it could well be allowed that Palm donkeys, Ascension plays, and many similar traditions might be admitted and tolerated; for by such things conscience is not led into confusion.”

Other Customs

It was a widespread custom in many parts of Europe during the Middle Ages to eat a bird on Ascension Day, because Christ “flew” to Heaven. Pigeons, pheasants, partridges, and even crows, graced the dinner tables. In western Germany bakers and innkeepers gave their customers pieces of pastry made in the shapes of various birds. In England the feast was celebrated with games, dancing, and horse races. In central Europe, Ascension Day is a traditional day of mountain climbing and picnics on hilltops and high places.

Popular superstitions threaten dire punishments to anyone who works on Ascension Day in field and garden, but especially to women who do their sewing on the feast. Any piece of garment that has been touched by a needle on the Ascension will attract lightning before long, and many stories are told of how people were killed that way. In some sections of Europe it is said that weddings should not be held on Ascension Day because one of the partners would die soon. Those who go bathing in rivers and lakes are exposed to the danger of drowning more than on other days. It seems that all these superstitions are relics of the pre-Christian lore of the demons of death who were said to roam the earth and kill people around this time of the year.

A Monument of Constantine the Great in New Rome

Three days ago, we marked the anniversary of the dedication of Constantinople in 330 AD as the “New Rome.” In the nearly 17 centuries that have passed since then, the city has undergone countless vicissitudes which have done tremendous damage to its monuments, and very little now remains from the days of Constantine himself. The most prominent and oldest surviving monument of his era is a large column which was built a few years before the dedication ceremony.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Dmitry A. Mottl, CC BY-SA 4.0

This was set up in a circular forum also named for him, which was part of the “Mese hodos – the middle way”, a great thoroughfare that ran through the new city from the imperial palace directly to a gate in the city walls. In the latter part of the 4th century, the emperor Theodosius would build another forum along the Mese, likewise decorated with a column dedicated to himself, but even taller; this was demolished at the end of the 15th century.

The column of Constantine is made of several drums of porphyry, an Egyptian stone which is extremely heavy and hard, difficult to work with and to transport, but much prized by the Romans, since its color was the color of royalty. It stands on a large pedestal which is now buried beneath the level of the surrounding piazza, to a depth of about 8 feet. When it was first constructed, it supported a statue of the emperor; this remained in place for almost eight centuries, until it was knocked over in 1106 by a storm, which also brought down the top three drums of the column itself. The total original height is estimated at about 50 meters or 164 feet, which would make it taller than either of the similar columns in Rome, those of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.

The monument was also damaged by two of the great fires that broke out in Constantinople in antiquity, one in 475, and another in 532, during the famous episode known as the Nika riots, in the wake of which much of the city had to be rebuilt. In 1779, it was blackened by another fire so notably that it came to be known as “the Burnt Pillar.” But well before then, the Ottomans had it reinforced by a cage of iron hoops to prevent it from collapsing, and the piazza in which it stands is now known as “Çemberlitaş”, Turkish for “hooped stone.”

Sometime after the original statue was brought down, the emperor Manuel Comnenos (1143-80) had it replaced with a Cross, which was removed by the Turks after the taking of the city in 1453. Later Byzantine sources report that the statue itself had held an orb in its hand with a piece of the True Cross in it, and that several other relics were kept in a shrine at the base, including the crosses of the two thieves crucified with Christ, which St Helena had found along with that of the Lord, and (rather more improbably) the baskets used at the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, Mary Magdalene’s alabaster jar, plus (more improbably still) the ax of Noah and the staff of Moses. Likewise, it was also said to include the Palladium, a statute which the Romans believed had been brought from Troy to Italy by Aeneas himself. This was kept in the temple of Vesta in the Forum, and served as a protective talisman for the city. Although it is perfectly possible that Constantine could have moved such an object from the old Rome to the new, it is not known if he actually did so.

A reconstruction of the column’s original appearance, from Die Baukunst Konstantinopels, by Cormelius Gurlitt, 1912: Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

The Ascension of the Lord 2026

Truly it is fitting… though Christ our Lord. Who after the Resurrection, which is glorious unto all ages, appeared openly to His disciples, visible to their sight and palpable to the touch, unto the fortieth day, and was raised up unto heaven as they watched; from which time they did so profit, that what they believed might become more certain, and that they might learn more fully what to teach. Through the same Christ our Lord. (The Ambrosian Preface of the Ascension)

The Ascension of Christ, from an antiphonary decorated by Lorenzo Monaco, ca 1410

Vere quia dignum et justum est...per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Qui post resurrectionem sæculis omnibus gloriosam, discipulis suis visu conspicuus, tactuque palpabilis, usque in quadragesimum diem manifestus apparuit, ipsisque cernentibus, est elevatus in cælum: in id proficientibus intra has moras primitivas, ut et certius fìeret quod credidissent, et plenius dìscerent quod docérent. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Per quem majestatem tuam...