Blessed Rabanus Maurus

The proper calendar for the Catholic dioceses of Germany marks February 4th as the feast of one of the most interesting figures of the Carolingian era, the Bl. Rabanus Maurus, who died on this day in the 856. (His first name is also written as Hrabanus or Rhabanus.)

Bl Rabanus, together with Alcuin, presents his poem “On the praises of the Holy Cross” to Otgar, archbishop of Mainz. (Alcuin’s presence here is symbolic, since he was dead by the time Rabanus finished the work. Image from a manuscript of the 9th century copied out at Fulda, now in the National Library of Vienna.)

He was born around the year 780 to a noble family in Mainz, where St Boniface, the Apostle of the Germans, had been archbishop. As a child, he was sent to the monastery of Fulda, which Boniface had established as one of the centers of his mission. Fulda was already an important seat of learning, but would become widely renowned for this only later, under Rabanus’ own leadership. When his education was completed, he went to the court of Charlemagne at Aachen, and came under the tutelage of the famous Englishman Alcuin of York, who gave him his second name “Maurus” in remembrance of one of St Benedict’s favorite disciples. Rabanus followed Alcuin to the abbey of St Martin of Tours, where he studied the Bible, liturgy and canon law. In 801, he was ordained a deacon, and sometime before his teacher’s death in 804, returned to Fulda to become a master in his own right at the monastery’s school.

In 814, the year of Charlemagne’s death, he was ordained a priest, and four years later, the head of the school at Fulda. Many of the men who would perpetuate the legacy of learning encouraged by Charlemagne through the rest of the 9th century were students of Rabanus.

During his life as a scholar, he wrote an astonishing amount on a very wide variety of topics: commentaries on nearly every book of the Bible; treatises on theological topics and the liturgy, including an important revision of the Roman Sacramentary and a martyrology; works on canon law, clerical life and discipline, history, grammar; an encyclopedia based on the earlier work of St Ididore of Seville, as well as hymns and sermons. The Pentecost hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus, is traditionally attributed to him (this is now disputed by many), as is the original version of the common hymn for the feast of St Michael and All Angels, Christe, sanctorum decus Angelorum. The sermon read for the feast of All Saints in almost every version of the Divine Office before the Tridentine reform is also attributed to him, with great uncertainty. All this was done while maintaining frequent correspondences; he was on close terms and a valued counselor to both Charlemagne’s son, the emperor Louis the Pious, and his grandson Lothair, and with their wives.

In June of 822, he was elected abbot of Fulda, a position which he would hold for 20 years. Already at the time of his election, Fulda had several dependent monasteries, with a total population of around 600 monks. Rabanus worked tirelessly to expand the monastery’s library and its collection of relics, organized the administration of its considerable property holding, and built several churches and chapels for the benefit of the peasants who worked its many farms. In his later years, he was often called away from the abbey on imperial business, but as Louis the Pious became involved in a series of political disputes with his sons, Rabanus chose to withdraw by resigning as abbot, and returning to the life of a scholar.

Despite this, in 847, Louis’ son, known as Louis the German, whose lands included the territory of Fulda, had him elevated to the archbishopric of Mainz. He took office exactly 25 years and one day after his abbatial election, and proved himself to be as effective and energetic in his new position as he had been as abbot, despite his (for that era) advanced age. He ruled until his death less than nine years later, and was originally buried at the monastery of St Alban outside Mainz, another one of the most important centers of monastic life in western Germany. In 1515, his relics were transferred by the archbishop of Mainz, but they seem to have to have been lost during the disturbances of early protestant reformation, and so he has no known grave or relics. He has never been formally canonized, and is still known as the Blessed Rabanus.

One of his most famous writings is a cycle of poems, “De laudibus sanctae Crucis – On the Praises of the Holy Cross’, completed in 814. Six copies of this almost unfathomably complex work produced directly under his supervision still survive, including one with notes in his own hand, which is now in the Vatican library. (Vat. lat. reginensis 124). Each poem is written out in a grid, and within each grid, several letters are highlighted by their inclusion within various geometric shapes, larger letters, or drawings. The highlighted letters form their own independent verses; some of these verses form dedication poems to various people, including St Martin of Tours and Pope Gregory IV, while the most elaborate is a portrait of the emperor Louis the Pious. Here is a selection of some of the more complex images, beginning with one of the Lord.

The Lamb of God with the symbols of the Evangelists. 

Rabanus himself, kneeing in front of a cross.

Various angels.

The Latin word Crux (cross) crossed with Salus (salvation). It would be fair to note that this is a little clumsy (crlux), and Rabanus is extremely free with his use of meter, but nevertheless, one can only admire the mind that was able to plan such a thing at all. 

The portrait of the emperor Louis the Pious.

A Recorded Version of My Recent Articles in Response to Dr Brant Pitre

For the benefit of those who might prefer to listen to such a thing all at one go, Dr Kwasniewski has made a recording of my recent articles in response to Dr Brant Pitre’s video about active participation in the liturgy. (Links below.) There are just a few small editorial changes to turn them into a single presentation, and a few comments at the beginning and end. We hope you find this useful.

part 1: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2024/12/historical-falsehoods-about-active.html

part 2: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2025/01/historical-falsehoods-about-active.html

part 3: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2025/01/historical-falsehoods-about-active_18.html

part 4: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2025/01/historical-falsehoods-about-active_25.html

part 5: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2025/01/historical-falsehoods-about-active_30.html

Ave Regina Caelorum

In the Breviary of St Pius V, the four Marian antiphons for the end of Compline are each assigned to a specific part of the year; Alma Redemptoris Mater is said in Advent and the Christmas season, Ave, Regina caelorum from the evening of February 2nd until Spy Wednesday, Regina caeli in Eastertide, and Salve Regina from Trinity Sunday to the end of the liturgical year. Before the Tridentine reform, however, there was a lot of variation in their use. In a Roman Breviary printed for the Franciscans in 1529, the Regina caeli is assigned to the Easter season, but there are no rubrics about when to sing the others, and there is also a fifth antiphon, Quam pulchra; the same arrangement is found in the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours, with Sub tuum praesidium added to the traditional group of four.

There were also variations in the text of the Ave Regina Caelorum, which originally had a less regular rhyme; the more regular version currently used dates from the revision of the Breviary promulgated by Pope Clement VIII (1592-1605) in 1602. Prior to that, the Roman version read as follows:

Ave, Regina caelorum,
Ave, Domina Angelorum,
Salve, radix et porta (or ‘Salve, radix sancta’)
Ex qua mundo lux est orta.
Gaude, gloriosa,
Super omnes speciosa;
Vale, valde decora
Et pro nobis semper Christum exora.

From a Roman Breviary printed in Venice in 1582

With an occasional variation, this is the version known to composers working before the 1602 revision, such as Gaspar van Weerbeke, a contemporary of Josquin des Prez, and representative of the same Franco-Flemish school of polyphony (ca. 1445-1516).

and Tomás Luis de Victoria (ca. 1548-1611).

Here is the newer text, in a polyphonic setting with instruments by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla, a Spanish composer born around 1590, who served as master of the chapel at the cathedral of Puebla, Mexico, from 1628 until his death in 1664.

Liturgical Notes on the Purification of the Virgin Mary

The medieval liturgical commentator William Durandus, writing at the end of the 13th century, describes the Purification as a “double feast.”

In regard to Him that is born, the feast is called “Hypapante”, that is “the meeting” (in Greek), because in that solemnity Anna the prophetess and Simeon met the blessed Mary as She came into the temple to offer Her Son, Christ. … The Lord’s coming into the temple signifies His coming into the Church, and into the mind of each faithful soul, which is a spiritual temple. The Lord foretold this coming through the prophet Malachi, “Behold, I send my Angel before thy face etc.” (chap. 3, 1-4, the epistle of the feast.) Secondly, in regard to Her that gave birth, it is also called the feast of the Purification, because the Blessed Virgin, although She had no need of purification, and was not held liable to the law of purification, … wished nevertheless to fulfill the precept of the Law (in Leviticus 12, 1-8). – Rationale Divinorum Officiorum 7.7

This precept states that 40 days after giving birth, a woman “shall bring to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, a lamb of a year old for a holocaust, and a young pigeon or a turtle for sin, and shall deliver them to the priest, who shall offer them before the Lord.” For this reason, the Purification serves as the formal end of the Christmas season, being celebrated exactly forty days after it.

The Presentation in the Temple, by Pieter Jozef Verhaghen, 1767; Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, Belgium

Its connection with Christmas is expressed most clearly at First Vespers, at which the antiphons are repeated from the Octave of Christmas. Each of them speaks of the Virgin specifically in reference to the Savior’s birth, as for example the second, “When Thou wast born ineffably of a Virgin, then were the Scriptures fulfilled; Thou camest down like the dew upon the fleece of wool, to save the human race; we praise thee, our God!” In the Breviary of St Pius V, these are sung with the Vesper psalms for feasts of the Virgin, but in other places, the psalms of Christmas Vespers were used instead. At Liège and elsewhere, the Lauds hymn from the Office of Christmas, A solis ortus cardine, was sung at these Vespers in place of the Marian hymn Ave Maris Stella. In many churches, the liturgical color of the Christmas season, white, was used in the Masses of the season for the period between the octave of Epiphany and the Purification, and the use of green began only after February 2nd. (At Paris, this custom continued until 1870.)

The liturgy also formally marks the Purification as the end of the whole cycle of celebrations that form the first part of the Church’s year. On the first Sunday of Advent, the Postcommunion begins with the words, “May we receive (suscipiamus) Thy mercy, Lord, in the midst of Thy temple”, while the Introit of the Purification, citing Psalm 47 more exactly, begins with the verb in the indicative: “We have received (suscepimus), o God, Thy mercy, in the midst of Thy temple.” This change indicates that what we asked for and awaited in Advent has been fully received in the Birth of Christ.

It should also be noted that the earliest possible date for Ash Wednesday is February 4th. (This has not occurred since 1818, and will not occur again until 2285.) The Christmas cycle, including the preparatory season of Advent, will therefore always be separated from the Easter cycle, including the preparatory season of Lent, by an interval of at least one day.

In the later 4th century, the pilgrim Egeria wrote, in her famous account of her visit to the Holy Land, that the Meeting of the Lord with Simeon in the Temple was celebrated there with particular solemnity, “just as at Easter”, forty days after Epiphany. In her time, the Epiphany commemorated all the events of the Lord’s birth, and the Meeting was therefore originally kept on February 14th; this arrangement is still observed to this day in the Armenian Rite. When the feast of Christmas was adopted in the East shortly after (and in some places, even before), the eastern Epiphany was made to focus on the Lord’s Baptism; the Meeting, as an event of His infancy, was then moved back to February 2nd, counting the forty days from December 25th.

A 14th century miniature of the Presentation in the Menologion of Demetrios I Palaiologos, despot of Thessalonike.

It is often stated that when it was introduced to the West in the mid-to-late 7th-century, the Meeting became a Marian feast, whereas the East continued to observe it as a feast of the Lord. (See, for example, the relevant entries in the old Catholic Encyclopedia, the 1956 revisions of Butler’s Lives, vol. 1, p. 235 and Bl. Schuster’s The Sacramentary, vol. 3, p. 397; the last refers quite incorrectly to its “predominantly Marian character.”) This arises from a rather superficial analysis of its liturgical title and texts. It is true that its Latin name appears very early as “the Purification of the Virgin Mary”, as, for example, in the Gelasian Sacramentary and the Murbach lectionary, both of the mid-8th century. It is also true that it was considered a Marian feast in the Middle Ages. But its character as a “double feast”, and one of Greek origin, was never forgotten; about a century before Durandus, Sicard of Cremona wrote, “Today’s is therefore a double solemnity, of Her that gives birth, and of Him that is born, that is of the Mother and the Son; in regards to the Mother, it is called ‘the Purification’, in regard to the Son, ‘Hypapante’, which is interpreted ‘the Meeting.’ ” (Mitrale 5.11)

The traditional Roman Mass of the Purification refers to the Virgin only where She is mentioned in the Gospel, and almost parenthetically in the Postcommunion. Likewise, the rites that precede the Mass refer to Her once in the first prayer for the blessing of candles, again, almost parenthetically, and twice in the processional antiphons. The double character of the feast noted by Sicard and Durandus is more clearly expressed in the Office, many parts of which are taken from the common for feasts of the Virgin. However, even here, the invitatory, lessons and responsories of Matins, and the Lauds antiphons, (also used at the following Hours), all refer to the Meeting of Christ with Simeon.

According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St Sergius I (687-701) established a procession from the church of St Adrian in the Roman Forum to Saint Mary Major, to be held on the Annunciation, the Dormition and Nativity of the Virgin, and the “feast of St Simeon”. Born in Sicily, but of Syrian origin, this Pope was certainly familiar from his youth with the liturgies of both the Byzantine and Latin tradition. There is good evidence that a procession with candles was associated with the feast from an early date, as Butler’s Lives also notes, but it died out entirely in the East; where it is done today in a few Eastern churches, it is a fairly recent Latinization. There is no mention of candles in the Liber Pontificalis’ words about Pope Sergius, nor in the early Roman liturgical books; the first reference to a blessing of candles on February 2nd is found in the late 10th century.

The church of Saint Adrian in the Roman Forum, shown here on the right in a 16th century print. The church was built in the 7th century inside the long-abandoned Roman senate house known as the Curia Julia, but almost every trace of the building’s history as a church was removed in a restoration from 1935-38. 

The Roman blessing is characteristically simple, following a pattern similar to that of the blessing of palms. Five prayers are said over the candles, after which they are sprinkled with holy water and incensed, and then distributed, as the canticle of Simeon Nunc dimittis is sung with the antiphon after every verse, “A light to the revelation of the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” After a second antiphon and a brief collect comes a procession, accompanied by the singing of two long antiphons. The first of these is borrowed from the Byzantine Liturgy; the second is from the day’s Gospel.

Aña Adorn thy bridal chamber, o Sion, and receive Christ the King. Embrace Mary, who is the gate of heaven, for she bears the glorious King of the new light. She remains a virgin, as she brings forth in Her hands the Son, begotten before the day-star; whom Simeon taking into his arms, proclaimed to peoples to be is the Lord of life and death and the Savior of the world.
Aña Simeon had received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he would not see death, before he had seen the Anointed of the Lord; and when they were bringing the Child into the temple, he received Him in his arms, and blessed God, saying, “Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, in peace. V. When His parents were bringing Jesus, to do according to the custom of the Law for Him, he took Him in his arms.

As the procession enters the church, one of the responsories of Matins is sung; note the clever way the repetition of the verse completes the doxology at the end.

R. They offered for Him unto the Lord a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons * As it is written in the law of the Lord. V. And after the days of Mary’s purification were fulfilled, according to the law of Moses, they brought Him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord. As it is written. Glory be. As it is written.

The historical Roman tradition was to use violet vestments for the procession, and white for the Mass which follows on returning to the church. Lit candles are held by the clergy and faithful (as much as may be practically allowed) during the procession, at the singing of the Gospel, and from the Canon to communion.

Many improbable attempts have been made to connect the Candlemas blessing and procession with the ancient Roman purification rite of the Lupercalia. The Venerable Bede, writing in roughly the year 720, says that the Roman King Numa dedicated February to the god Februus, another name for Pluto, “who was believed to have power over rites of purification,” and established it as a month of various rites to religiously purify the city. (The name of both the month and the god derive from “februare – to purify.”) Bede then says that the Christian religion changed “this custom” for the better, without mentioning the Lupercalia specifically, by instituting a procession with candles in its place “in the same month, on the day of St Mary.” (De temporum ratione XII; P.L. XC, col. 351)

The Lupercalia are mentioned repeatedly by other Church Fathers, and even at the end of the fifth century, Pope St Gelasius I felt the need to combat some vestiges of its celebration. A race though the city that formed part of the festival was still being run, and the Pope sarcastically suggests in a letter to a Roman senator who defended the practice that the runners should return to the more ancient practice, and go naked. Bede’s idea becomes more tempting as an explanation for the procession’s origins when one considers that the Lupercalia were celebrated from February 13th to the 15th, coinciding with the Purification’s original Eastern date; and further, that the name of the Christian feast that begins the ancient Roman month of purification was changed to “the Purification” in Rome.

For all this, however, it is extremely unlikely that any vestiges of the pagan rite remained in the time of Pope Sergius, who instituted the procession almost two centuries after Gelasius, and not for the Purification alone, but for all the Marian feasts. Rome had suffered in the meantime a significant depopulation during the plagues and wars of the sixth century, which dealt a massive blow to the city’s ancient customs and institutions. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that the feast was ever kept in the West on any date other than February 2nd.

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, mosaic by Jacopo Torriti, 1296, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome

Lecture by Thomas Neal on February 7 in Faringdon, England

This coming Friday, February 7th, the church of Blessed Hugh of Faringdon in Faringdon, England, will host a lecture by our friend Thomas Neal, titled “The History and Future of Gregorian Chant in the Roman Liturgy.” The first part of this lecture will outline the history of Western liturgical chant from the Jewish temple worship of the Old Testament, through to the early church and the manuscripts of the 9th and 10th centuries. In the second part, Mr Neal will offer reflections on the nature and purpose of liturgical chant, and suggest reasons why it has always been considered the highest form of liturgical music. At the end of the lecture, there will be an opportunity for Q&A. The lecture will begin at 7:45pm; the church is located on Marlborough Street.

Thomas Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK). He read music to postgraduate level at Clare College, University of Cambridge, where he was the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholar in Sacred Music. His research focuses on the sources of sacred music in sixteenth-century Rome, with a particular focus on the life and works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Thomas has over fifteen years of experience directing music for the traditional Latin liturgy, in addition to conducting numerous choirs and period instrument ensembles in repertoire from Josquin to Haydn. Since 2018 he has been the Director of Music at New College School, Oxford.

The first page of the Laon Gradual, the oldest extant manuscript of liturgical chant.

Gothic and Baroque Sculptures in a Swiss Abbey

Following up on three recent posts from earlier this month, this is the final set of Nicola’s photos of the abbey of St John in Müstair, Switzerland. The first part showed frescos from the Carolingian era, the second those of the Romanesque period, and the third, various Romanesque sculptures. I have titled this post Gothic and Baroque Sculptures for the sake of simplicity, but they are mixed in with some other things, including the abbess’ crook and pectoral cross, and some pictures of the nuns’ living quarters.

A wooden altar of Our Lady of the Rosary, with small panels of the fifteen mysteries arranged around the central image of the Virgin and Child, as Mary hands a rosary and a scapular to the faithful beneath Her.

Two late Gothic (1520s) sculptural panels, originally part of a triptych, of the Annunciation and Visitation.

The pectoral cross, ring and crook of the last abbess, Rev. Mother Augustina Wolf, who held the title from 1806-10. (When the area was invaded by the kingdom of Bavaria in 1810, the abbey was not suppressed, but degraded to a priory.)

Rings with the letters IHS or some other symbol on them, which signify that the nuns’ are brides of Christ.

The refectory was built in a large within the complex by the abbess Angelina Planta ca. 1500; these decoration were added to it by another abbess in the 1760s.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

An Important New Online Resources: Dom Lentini’s Te Decet Hymnus

My colleague Matthew Hazell has uploaded to archive.org a scan of an important resource for the study of the reform of the Divine Office, Dom Anselmo Lentini’s book Te decet hymnus: L’innario della “Liturgia Horarum”. Dom Lentini (1901-89), a monk of the abbey of Montecassino, was the head of the coetus (subcommittee) that reformed the Office hymns, and this book is the official account of their work.

The bulk of the book is taken up with the hymns themselves, with information on the author and date of each one, if known, or if not, an estimate at least of the period in which it was composed. In the cases where hymns are excerpts from longer ones, it indicates which strophes of the original text are used. (This is not by any means an innovation of the reform.) It also indicates where relevant, some of the other which breviaries had the hymn in their repertoire, i.e. Dominican, Premonstratensian etc. Prior to the internet age, the tools for researching other medieval breviaries were very limited, and so this information is certainly useful, but far from comprehensive. There are also many bibliographical references to scholarly collections of hymnography in which the original texts have been collected, such as the Analecta hymnica.

There is also detailed information about the changes which were made to the hymns for various reasons. I have often referred to these changes in articles that I have written here, and my favorite adjective to describe them is “cack-handed”. As with the rest of the liturgy, the hymns were subjected to an aggressive campaign of ideological censorship, based on the Bright Ideas of the members of the each coetus as to what Modern Man™ could bear to hear in his prayers. So for example, all references to fasting in Lent are replaced by “abstinence” or something similar.

There is a common notion that the Liturgy of the Hours undid Pope Urban VIII’s classicizing reform of the Latinity of the hymns, and reverted to the original texts. This is largely true, but not entirely so. In addition to imposing the aforementioned ideological censorship, Dom Lentini also “corrected” many metrical irregularities, and changed unusual words. Many of these changes are well made, but many of them were unnecessary, and together, they have the unfortunate effect of homogenizing the hymns.

Lastly, I note that the non-Latin text (all the notes, the prenotanda etc.) is in Italian, but I hazard to guess that at least the more basic notes are simple enough as to be intelligible to those who know some Latin, or one of the other Romance languages.

Historical Falsehoods about Active Participation: A Response to Dr Brant Pitre (Part 5)

This is the fifth and final part of my series in response to a video by Dr Brant Pitre of the Augustine Institute about active participation in the liturgy. The previous installments may be read at the following links. (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4)

Having substantially and systematically mispresented the history of the liturgy, and of the laity’s participation in it, for almost 38 minutes, the remainder of his presentation is devoted to extolling the virtues of the post-Conciliar reform specifically vis-à-vis active participation.

It hardly needs saying that he builds his case by repeating some of his earlier errors. He twice repeats (38:10 and 46:22) the erroneous English translation of Sacrosanctum Concilium which he had cited earlier, “In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else.” (my emphasis). As I noted in the first part of this series, what it really says is that “active participation … is to be given the greatest attention.” And of course, no hint is given of the myriad ways in which, by hook and by crook, the inventors of the post-Conciliar Rite trampled on the letter of Sacrosanctum Concilium in executing the reform.

He also repeatedly claims that this goal has been achieved by “restoring” to the faithful things which were never really taken away from them. He does, however, deserve credit for acknowledging that this has also been done by giving them things to do which were never previously theirs. The assertion that this is a perfectly fine and reasonable procedure, in no way problematic despite the ghastly results, falls neatly under the rubric, “Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.”

As I noted in the first part of this series, Dr Pitre does not fall into the fatuous excesses that so many others have fallen into when writing or speaking about this topic, by claiming that “active participation”, however defined, is incompatible with the historical Roman Rite. He acknowledges that active participation of the lay faithful was part of the traditional rite in its earlier history, although he grossly misrepresents that earlier history. Indeed, he builds his historical case, such as it is, on this very claim.

Likewise, he fully acknowledges (45:50, “I have no doubt in my mind”) that active participation was certainly to be found among many of the faithful interiorly (in silent prayer and adoration, etc.) even after the changes which took place “in the second millennium”, changes which he describes incorrectly and incompletely, and to which he wrongly attributes the subsequent lack of such participation, both real and imagined. This essential distinction between exterior and interior participation, introduced so late in his presentation, is required by the many historical falsehoods which he has previously brought forth, which amount to the claim that the faithful were deprived of all exterior participation, i.e., that they did not make any of the responses, did not sing any of the chants, heard no sermons, read no hand missal, etc.

This is why, as he says (46:15), “an ecumenical council of the Church … called for the missal to be revised precisely on this point (i.e. active participation) above all (his emphasis)”. Although, as noted above, he is wrong on this point about Sacrosanctum Concilium, he is right about the liturgy of Paul VI. The men who invented it were indeed guided in their work by the principle that they must give the people more to do exteriorly, and that this consideration must trump all others. From this principle, they arrogated to themselves carte blanche to do anything to the Roman Rite: to mutilate or suppress any text; to change or remove any custom, no matter how ancient or widespread, no matter why it was instituted in the first place; to violate any dictum of the very constitution on which they claimed to base their work, as long as doing so created exterior participation.

The past fifty-six years and counting have made it painfully clear that this principle is a foundation of sand. In theory, it was supposed to be applied to redress an imbalance between the role of the priest in the liturgy and that of the laity. In practice, it has been applied in such a way that it lays all the emphasis on “active” and none on “participation”, and by so doing, mistakes activity for achievement. In practice, the reformed liturgy takes it for granted that as long as the laity are doing something, they are actively participating, and it doesn’t really matter what exactly they are doing or how they are doing it. Indeed, it does not even consider whether what they are doing might adversely affect interior participation, even though it is the sine qua non of actual participation.

On the left, a page full of mute spectatorship; on the right, a page full of active participation. 

In the previous article of this series, I noted that several of Dr Pitre’s historical mistakes seem to derive from the inexplicably naïve and totally erroneous assumption that if something wasn’t officially mentioned in a liturgical book, it didn’t exist. He bases his claim that there was no full, conscious and active exterior participation of the laity in the liturgy in the Tridentine period precisely on this fact, that there is barely any mention of the laity at all in the rubrics of the Missal of St Pius V.

Conversely, in his telling, it is a great achievement of the Missal of Paul VI that it has a great many explicit rubrical directives as to what the faithful are supposed to do during the liturgy, because this has supposedly “restored” the full conscious and active participation desired by Vatican II. This is no less naïve and erroneous an assumption. Active participation was not created in the ancient world by non-existent directives in liturgical books, it was not ended by their supposed disappearance, and it has not been restored by their putative return.

Participation literally means “taking a part” in something. It hardly needs saying that Dr Pitre does not give the slightest hint of the catastrophic pastoral failure of the post-Conciliar reform. I repeat that I most certainly do not attribute to him any conscious dishonesty. Nevertheless, anyone who claims that the reform restored full, conscious and active participation in the liturgy will at some point have to ask himself WHY in its wake countless millions simply stopped exercising the baptismal priesthood of the faithful altogether, because they stopped taking part in Mass altogether.

I therefore conclude with some of the final words of an article that he should have read and studied on the topic of participation, “The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700”, by the British historian John Bossy. (Past and Present; Aug. 1983, no. 100) They were written about the early protestant reformers, but mutatis mutandis, they apply just as well to Paul VI, to the members of the Consilium ad exsequendam, and to the rite they invented.

“Without disparaging their ambitions, one may feel that the object they had in view was more remote when they had finished their work than it had been in the fifteenth [read ‘nineteenth’] century. Speaking for the more traditional Reformers, Hooker put his finger on one flaw in the more advanced (i.e. reformed) eucharistic rites, a lack of otherness: ‘No nation under heaven either doth or ever did suffer public actions which are of weight … to pass without some visible solemnity, the very strangeness whereof and difference from that which is common, doth cause popular eyes to observe and to mark the same.’

A sense of fatality, of results achieved which were the opposite of those intended, hangs over their efforts: as if the current of social and cultural evolution which was carrying them forward was at the same time pushing them aside into shallow waters. … At least one success may be set against them. In the practice of the vernacular hymn [read ‘vernacular liturgy’] the Reformers did surely achieve something of the immediate and unproblematic unity at which they aimed: a congregational homophony which for Luther himself, and for European civilization in general, did not entirely exorcize nostalgia for the polyphonic mysteries of the Mass.”

The Feast of St Martina

January 30th is the feast day of the Roman virgin and martyr St Martina. The Martyrology notes the day of her death as January 1st, and that it took place in the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus (222-235). Although far less well-known than her fellow Romans Agnes and Cecilia, by the 7th century there was a church built in her honor at the base of the Capitoline Hill, close to the Mamertine prison and the Julian Senate-house. In 1588, Pope Sixtus V gave it to a confraternity of artists named for St Luke the Evangelist, and it has ever since been known as ‘San Luca e Martina’. Starting in 1634, a complete reconstruction of the church was guided by one of the great artists of the Italian Baroque, Pietro da Cortona, and after his death in 1669, brought to completion by his students.

At the very beginning of the works to clear away the previous structure, the relics of St Martina were rediscovered within the ruins; Pope Urban VIII then added her feast to the general calendar, giving her two proper hymns of his own composition. (With all due respect to both the Saint and the Pope, they may easily be counted among the worst Latin hymns ever written.) Since the acts of St Martina are considered at best highly unreliable, her feast was removed from the general calendar in the reform of 1969. The confraternity of San Luca also keeps her feast day each year with a solemn Mass.

A reliquary of St. Martina, who was beheaded after undergoing many torments, placed on the main altar of the church on the feast day.

Directly above the main altar is a statue of the saint by Luca Berrettini, nephew and student of Pietro da Cortona, made in 1635-9.

The main altarpiece of the church is a copy by Anteveduto Grammatica of a painting by Raphael, “St Luke Painting an Image of the Virgin Mary.”

The cupola

The counter-façade, with the dedicatory inscription and the crest of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Urban VIII, who took great personal interest in Pietro da Cortona’s work, and was one of the principal sponsors of the rebuilding project.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A New Clarification on Transferred Holy Days of Obligation

I am sure our readers remember that last year, the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation, was transferred off the Second Sunday of Advent in the post-Conciliar Rite. The USCCB had previously instituted a rule that when this happens, the obligation did not transfer with it, but more recently, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts had issued a general ruling that the obligation does transfer along with the feast. Of course, bishops are still free to dispense from the previsions of such a ruling, and I heard of some that did so. To make matters a little more complicated, in the current rubrics of the Roman Rite, the Immaculate Conception takes precedence over the Sunday, which means that some faithful who regularly attend a Sunday TLM were ad litteram required to attend Mass on Monday to fulfill an obligation for a feast which they had already fulfilled. I also heard of at least one bishop who officially ruled that the faithful in his diocese who attended the Mass of the Immaculate Conception in the traditional rite on Sunday, Dec. 8, did not have any obligation to attend it again on Monday, Dec. 9.

Last week, the Dicastery for Divine Worship issued a new ruling on the subject, which should in theory clarify the matter; it establishes as a universal liturgical law that when a holy day of obligation is transferred, the obligation does not transfer with it. I say “in theory”, however, because I have seen at least one canonist claim that DDW cannot override a decree from DLT. I am (Deo gratias) not a canonist myself, so I have no further comment to make on the topic, but I suspect that further comments will not be lacking. (Click image to enlarge. The Pillar published an article about the matter yesterday.)

On Music and the Beautiful - Guest Article for the Feast of St. Francis de Sales

In honor of today’s feast, that of St. Francis de Sales, NLM is grateful to Alan Hicks for offering us this de Sales-infused reflection on the objectivity of the beautiful and the manner in which habituation in what is beautiful shapes the human character. This is a key lesson to bear in mind when considering the beauty of the liturgy in its ceremonies, music, vestments, furnishings, and architectural setting: not only is giving glory to God by the best we can offer at stake, but also the formation of Christians in right instincts, appetites, and responses. The moral and the aesthetic touch at every border. It is also clear that true beauty takes time to get used to, and that we do no service to anyone by making “instant relevance” or “easy accessibility” the sole or primary criterion. - PAK

On Music and the Beautiful

Alan Hicks 

It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and on the surface, at least, this seems to be the case. A beautiful object is always a source of delight—what we call aesthetic pleasure—and for different people different things will please. Clearly pleasure has an obvious subjective element, in so far as it resides in a human subject with unique dispositions and inclinations.

Yet there are serious difficulties in denying any objectivity to beauty or to the pleasure it engenders; not least is the recognition that while people may sometimes differ in their judgments of what is beautiful, there is also remarkable agreement, which would not be so if beauty was purely subjective. That is why there are lines of tourists at the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, or St. Peter’s Basilica; for such objects, both natural and man-made, have always possessed a universal aptitude to please. It is only because of this objective element, even allowing room for subjective taste, that it is possible to educate and form in the young a sense of beauty and an aesthetic sensitivity.   

According to the ancient tradition, subsumed and elaborated upon throughout the Christian centuries, the objectivity of beauty rested upon its essential connection to what is true and good. Thus, the sense in saying that a moral person has a beautiful soul or even that a human act is beautiful. Accordingly, when the woman in the Gospel anointed Christ’s head with precious oil and was scolded for wasting wealth that could have been used for the poor, Christ replied that her act was kalos, literally translated as “beautiful.” [1] It would seem to follow, then, that one of the pathways to the good is through the beautiful, which in addition to its affective power to please, can contribute to the shaping of a virtuous and moral soul. Only with this understanding can we make any sense of the oft-cited line from Dostoevsky that “beauty will save the world.” [2] 

The connection between goodness, truth and beauty is grounded in their nature as “transcendentals,” a term signifying attributes or properties transcending any division or category of being—all of which is to say that they are coextensive with being itself, accompanying existence in all its forms. As coextensive with being, they are convertible with one another, such that we may say that a thing is both true and good to the extent that it exists, and to the extent that it exists, it is both true and good. Hence their identity.

Their differences, on the other hand, are understood in their relation to us. Goodness, for example, is a transcendental aspect of being understood as desirable. As for truth, while we might say that it exists primarily in the intellect, in the intellect’s conformity to what is, it can also be said to exist as a property of being itself insofar as what exists is capable of being known. [3] Though beauty is not identified by Aristotle as a transcendental property, Plato sees the good as always beautiful, and therefore always pleasing to the perceptive powers of intellect and sense. This is essentially the position of St. Thomas as well. [4] 

St. Francis de Sales, in the opening of his incomparable Treatise on the Love of God, describes this relationship of goodness and beauty:

As the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, following the great St. Dionysius, well puts it, although beauty and goodness agree to a certain extent, they are not one and the same thing. The good is that which pleases appetite and will; the beautiful is that which pleases sense and understanding. To put it otherwise, the good is that whose possession delights us, while the beautiful is that whose apprehension pleases us. For this reason, we attribute corporal beauty in the strict sense only to the object of the two senses that have the greatest capacity for knowledge and best serve the intellect, namely, sight and hearing. We do not say, ‘These are beautiful odors or beautiful tastes,’ but we rightly say, ‘These are beautiful voices or beautiful colors.’ [5]

Of course we desire to possess beautiful objects, for those objects are also good, and there is a corresponding pleasure in the possession. But the beauty of the object itself cannot be possessed and enjoyed except through apprehension, and this apprehension and its resulting aesthetic pleasure can be, and often is, of those things we do not possess in any material sense. I can get as much pleasure looking at a beautiful picture that is owned by my friend as my friend, I just don’t get it as often. 

Now one of the most widespread of human pleasures is the delight found in music, and in regards to this beauty which pleases the understanding through the medium of sound, we may ask: what it is in music that gives it its beauty and appeal? St. Francis de Sales is again a rich source of insight:

Unity established within a variety of different things produces order. Order produces harmony and proportion, and in things that are whole and complete harmony produces beauty. We speak of a fine army if all the parts making it up are so arranged that their differences are reduced to the relative proportions needed to constitute a single army. For music to be beautiful it is necessary not only that the voices be pure, clear, and quite distinct from one another, but also that they be blended in such fashion that a right consonance and harmony result by means of both union in the midst of variety and variety within that union of voices. Not incorrectly, then, is music called a discordant harmony, or a harmonious discord.[6]

St. Francis continues in elaboration on the added elements of the beautiful object—splendor and clarity.
 

Painting of St. Francis de Sales by Valentin Metzinger

But as significant and profound as his brief discourse on beauty is, it does not help us to understand why one person might enjoy a specific piece or form of music but not another, or why two people may have contrary responses to the same piece, which variance contributes to the perception that beauty is subjective and merely “in the eye of the beholder.” To account for this variety of taste would require an exploration of individual habits and acquired dispositions, in a similar manner by which we might explain why what appears good and hence desirable to one person might not to another, even assuming the objective nature of the good.

Years ago, while living in Northeastern Pennsylvania, my wife and I began attending the opera in New York City. We would dress and then drive in early, sometimes to shop and then to dine. After coffee and dessert, we would walk the streets in the fading daylight, enjoying the variety of people and sights, arriving at the opera house shortly before the performance. These are treasured memories, which even yet provide some pleasure in the memory, mixed with a note of sadness for days that are no more. They were times of togetherness, away from the many cares which beset our lives, sharing a beautiful and uplifting form of human expression. The theater was grand, the staging and sets elaborate, and the performances were of the highest order. But it was the music itself that touched the soul with a poignant beauty expressive of the most elevated emotions and longings of the human heart.

Now it is true that most people enjoy music, and children of all nations respond cheerfully to simple songs and melodies; for music is consonant with human nature. Yet complex musical expressions are not universally appreciated and only come to be so after experience over time. Earlier in my life I didn’t enjoy opera and in fact was quite put off by my wife’s attempts to introduce me to its pleasures. In time, however, it became one of my greatest delights.  I won’t elaborate here the progression of experiences that led me to change in my perceptions of the operatic art, but only to say that while the art remained the same, there was, over time, a clear change in me, in my perception and appreciation. 

All of which goes to show that there is a difference between the objective good or the beauty of an object and the value that we may attach to it or our appreciation; for “good” and “beautiful” denote something objective, while “value” and “appreciation” allude to our subjective response. The pleasure that we receive is no doubt connected to the good and the beautiful, but only through the value; that is to say, a good or beautiful object will please only if we see it as such. And there are many personal factors which influence how we see a thing. While I didn’t like opera in my initial exposure, we have all had the experience of having something “grow on us” as we come to know it better and thereby come to see the good that is there. My wife liked opera and I enjoyed spending time with my wife, and it was for this reason that I first submitted myself to the experience. Over time I grew to appreciate the art in itself.
 

People enjoying an opera in Romania (source)

And so it is with many of the things that we eventually come to value. In our limited understanding and perception, we often don’t see the full reality of an object or its goodness at first sight. When a young man meets a young woman fair of form and appearance, he is naturally attracted and drawn to her. Such an attraction may be superficial, but there is nothing wrong with that—that is simply the way of nature. Another woman may not be so attractive on initial meeting; yet if given the opportunity to spend time with her the man begins to see her for what she truly is. He comes to appreciate the charm of her personality, her feminine ways of thinking and looking at the world, her tender feelings and responses to things around her. Her very look begins to alter as she becomes more familiar and he sees her in a different light. Given time, the man is able to recognize a deeper and more lasting beauty, a beauty from which a greater satisfaction and pleasure is drawn.

This human progress in appreciation is multiplied repeatedly in the course of a human life. Some likes are fairly universal and immediate, while others are only what we call “an acquired taste.” No one, for example, has to be taught to enjoy food or drink. That is instinctual and innate. We exit the womb hungry for our mother’s milk. Yet eating soon becomes a more complex activity as its object becomes more diverse and differentiated. The ability to appreciate certain kinds of food or drink is not innate, but is a cultivated taste that develops over time, with culinary tastes formed according to environmental factors of culture and family joined to one’s own personal habits and experience. That being said, there are unquestionably better and worse ways to eat from an objective point of view regarding human health.

Now if pleasure immediately followed the objective good, then the best foods would always engender the most pleasure. Yet for a child, what is perceived as “best” may differ markedly from the judgment of an adult. If a child is allowed to develop bad eating habits, he will have an inclination to what is unhealthy and will generally be repulsed by what is not. The trick is thus to form the habit, thereby matching the value to the objective good. If a child is raised in an environment where the kitchen is ruled by reason as opposed to mere desire, he will have no choice but to eat what is healthy. Accordingly, he will develop in time a taste for healthy foods, after which he will eat better because that is what he likes.

For whatever agrees with a thing according to its nature is pleasurable, and as habit exists as a sort of nature—what we call “second nature”—those acts consonant with a developed habit are naturally agreeable. [7] This is true not only in regards to culinary tastes or ones taste in music and art, but in the moral realm as well, for virtue is an acquired disposition no less than one’s aesthetic sense. Thus it is that Aristotle sees the pleasure or sorrow experienced by a man in his moral activity as an indication of his true character. In his words: “every virtuous person rejoices in virtuous acts, for no one will call a man just who does not enjoy doing just deeds; no one will call a man generous who does not enjoy giving generously.” [8] For this reason, moral education was understood by Aristotle to be necessarily concerned with pleasure and pain and consists in training one to feel joy and sorrow in the proper object and at the proper time. [9]

Alan Hicks was a student of the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas under John Senior and received his degrees in Philosophy at Kansas following his conversion to the Catholic Church. He was the founding Headmaster of St. Gregory’s Academy in Pennsylvania and was subsequently the principal of Catholic schools in both St. Louis and Southern California. He has since returned to his first love—teaching—and is currently a professor of Humanities at St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Lincoln, Nebraska.

NOTES

[1] Mark 14, 6.

[2] The Idiot.

[3] See St. Thomas Aquinas, The Disputed Questions on Truth (Henry Regnery, 1952), Q. 1, art. 2.

[4] St. Thomas, On Truth, I, 5, 4.

[5] St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God (TAN Books and Publishers, 1975), 53.

[6] Ibid., 53.

[7] See St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Ethics (Henry Regnery, 1964), 124.

[8] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 1, ch. 8, 1099a 15-20.

[9] Ibid., bk. 2, ch. 3, 1104b10.

The Second Feast of St Agnes: A Liturgical Oddity

January 28th is traditionally the day of the “Second Feast of St Agnes”, although this very ancient observance was reduced to a commemoration in 1931, and abolished in the post-Conciliar reform. It is still kept in some churches dedicated to St Agnes, most prominent among them, the basilica built over the site of her burial, less than a mile and a half from the gates of Rome.

The church of St Agnes Outside-the-Walls on the via Nomentana. (Image from Wikimedi Commonsa. by the parish of St Agnes Outside-the-Walls; CC BY-SA 2.0)

In liturgical books, the formal name of the feast is “Sanctae Agnetis secundo”, which literally means “(the feast) of St Agnes for the second time.” This title is found on the calendar of the Tridentine Missal and Breviary, as also seven centuries earlier in the Gregorian Sacramentary. The single Matins lesson in the Breviary of St Pius V tells us that after her death, Agnes appeared first to her parents to console them, and then to the Emperor Constantine’s daughter Constantia, who suffered from an incurable sore, while she was praying at her grave, exhorting Constantia to trust in Christ and receive baptism. Having done this and been healed, Constantia later built a basilica in the Saint’s honor.

The original purpose of the second feast, however, is not at all clear; theories abound, but evidence is lacking. In the Wurzburg lectionary, the oldest of the Roman Rite, January 21 is “natale S. Agnae de passione – the birth (into heaven) of Agnes, of her passion,”, while January 28 is simply “de natali.” One theory is that the actual day of her death was the 28th, and the 21st originally commemorated the beginning of her sufferings, starting with her trial and condemnation. However, we would then expect something similar for other prominent martyrs, particularly St Lawrence, whose passion also extended over a variety of days and events. The next oldest lectionary, Codex Murbach, doesn’t mention the second feast at all, nor does the Lectionary of Alcuin. In the Gregorian Sacramentary, the titles are simply “natale” and “natale...secundo.”

The prayers of the old Gelasian Sacramentary, the contents of which date to the early 8th century, and uses titles for the two feasts similar to those in the Wurzburg lectionary, may refer to the idea that St Agnes’ passion began on the 21st, and her death occurred on the 28th. One of the two collects for the former refers to the day “of her passion”, and asks that “we may follow the constancy of her faith,” while the Secret of the latter says that “she was glorious from the beginning of her blessed contest unto the end.” On the other hand, the Collect that goes with it says that we are “repeating” her feast, while the Secret on the 21st speaks of her “heavenly victory”, certainly a more appropriate expression for the actual day of death. In the revised Gelasian sacramentaries, the preface of January 21st speaks of “the day consecrated by the martyrdom of the blessed Agnes” and of her “receiving a precious death ... for the confession of Christ”, while that of January 28th speaks of “doubling (her heavenly) birthday”, but also says that she “went forth so that she might come to share in divinity.” In short, the earliest evidence in inconclusive.

A leaf of the Gellone Sacramentary, a sacramentary of the revised Gelasian type written in 780-800. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048; folio 17r); the feast of St Agnes “de nativitate” begins with the rubric in the sixth line. There are two Collects, the first of which is also said in the Missal and Breviary of St Pius V; the second is the one which refers to “repeating” her feast. The preface is the third element from the bottom.

The most common theory, and the most influential, is that the second feast represents a primitive form of octave. I find this theory unconvincing, but it does have one notable point in its favor. In the old Gelasian Sacramentary, some of the octaves (those of Christmas, St Lawrence and St Andrew) are referred to in terms similar to those of the “repeated” feast of St Agnes: “festivitas” or “solemnia” paired with the word “repetita” or “iterata.” However, by the end of the 8th century, the Gregorian Sacramentary had not only simplified the title of the feast as noted above, but also removed this kind of expression from its prayers, while retaining similar expressions (though not in all of the manuscripts) on some of the other octaves. This strongly indicates that the Second Feast of St Agnes was understood to be something different from the other octaves.

Moreover, St Agnes was the single most prominent female martyr of ancient Rome, very much on a par with other great Roman martyrs like Ss Peter and Paul and St Lawrence. Pope Honorius I built her current church in the 7th century to replace an earlier one that had fallen into ruin. (It has subsequently undergone numerous restorations.) The original, however, was one of the basilicas built by the Emperor Constantine in the very early years of the Peace of the Church, along with those of the two Apostles, Lawrence, and the cathedral of Rome at the Lateran. The early manuscripts mentioned above all refer to the “octaves” of Ss Peter and Paul and St Lawrence; it seems very odd that the octave of such a prominent Saint as Agnes, and hers alone, should instead be called a “feast … for the second time.”

Nevertheless, Dom Suitbert Bäumer (1845-96), in his History of the Breviary refers to it as an example of an octave that has only a commemoration on the eighth day, with no mention made of the feast on the days in between. (pp. 31-32 of the French edition, vol. 2, 1905) In support of this theory, he cites a text of the year 1085 called the “Micrologus de Ecclesiasticis Observantiis – Summary of Church Services”; it was Dom Bäumer himself who identified the author as one Bernold of Constance, a supporter of the great reformer Popes of that era. In chapter 44, Bernold writes that “according to the authority of Rome, … we make no daily mention of those whose octaves we celebrate on the intervening days, … except for those of St Mary (i.e., the Assumption), and of St Peter.”

What he says in this regard, however, is hardly conclusive. Fifty years later, a canon of St Peter’s Basilica named Benedict, in a treatise now known as the 11th Ordo Romanus, describes the manner of celebrating the days within octaves, specifically mentioning those of Saints John the Baptist, Peter, Lawrence, and the Assumption alongside those of Christmas and Epiphany. (chapter 68) A similar custom is attested in the Ordinal of Pope Innocent III at the beginning of the 13th century. Bäumer radically overstates his case when he attributes the celebration of the days within octaves to the influence of the Franciscans; St Francis was born fifty years after Canon Benedict wrote, and received verbal approval for his order from Innocent III only a few years before the latter’s Ordinal was compiled circa 1213-16. Simply put, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Bäumer fell into the trap that the liturgical scholars of his era routinely fell into, extrapolating too much from too little evidence.

I write above that Bäumer’s was “the most influential” explanation for the Second Feast of St Agnes, because it seems to have been the model for part of the Breviary reform of Pope St Pius X. Prior to this reform, octaves were celebrated with varying degrees of precedence, but not formally divided into classes as feasts were. The reform of 1911 created three classes of octaves, “privileged, common and simple,” the first of which was subdivided into three orders. The simple octaves are those attached to feasts of the second rank (among six), called Doubles of the Second Class; such octaves are celebrated as a Simple feast (the lowest of the six grades) on the eighth day, with no mention of them on the intermediary days.

St Agnes on the Pyre, by Ercole Ferrata, 1660-64, in the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone, built at the site of her martyrdom in the Piazza Navona in Rome.

A Prayer Novena for the Fraternity of St Peter

We are glad to share this prayer request from the Fraternity of St Peter, which will renew this year the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Of course, I am certain that all our readers are praying continually for the good preservation of the institutes and churches that celebrate the traditional Roman Mass, but the upcoming Marian feasts are a good time to bring this intention to the fore.    

Three years ago, at a moment of deep incertitude, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter called out to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, mindful that never was it known that anyone who fled to her protection has been left unaided. Following a novena, the Fraternity consecrated itself to her Immaculate Heart on the very day that the Holy Father providentially published the decree reaffirming the practice and charism that the Fraternity has had from its foundation.

Three years later, in order to render thanks once again and implore her continual help, all the members of the Fraternity will solemnly renew this consecration. To represent them all, the members of the Plenary Council and I will recite the act of consecration at the Grotto of Lourdes on her feast day, February 11.

We ask all the faithful who are close to us to join in this novena of preparation February 2-10, 2025 and to renew the consecration on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11, 2025.

Fribourg, January 18, 2025
Rev. John Berg
Superior General FSSP