Quantcast
Channel: New Liturgical Movement
Viewing all 8535 articles
Browse latest View live

Opus Sectile work in the Holy Land - Does anyone have any information about these patterns?

0
0
I was contacted by an archeologist who is on site in Jerusalem, who wondered if I knew anything of the origins of two opus sectile floor patterns that appear in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They were laid down during the 11th/12th century Crusader renovations of the church. The architect, Frankie Snyder, tells me that the first one shown below appears in 4 places:

1. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of the Apparition (just north of the Rotunda) -- late 11th century (with 20th century repairs to the starburst patterns)

2. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Chapel of the Franks -- 12th century

3. St. John the Baptist Church in Ein Kerem, under central dome -- 12th century

4. St. John the Baptish Church in Ein Kerem, grotto, birthplace of John the Baptist, home of Zachariah -- 12th century

5. Remnants of these tiles have been found on the Temple Mount, so there was evidently another chapel with this same floor built by the Crusaders on the Temple Mount during the 12th century.

Click for larger view
The second appears in 2 places:

1. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Latin (Franciscan) Chapel of Calvary -- 12th C (20th C replica of original)

2. Inside the Dome of the Rock -- used by Crusaders as a church during the 12th C

Click for larger view
All are made of local black bituminous limestone and hard red limestone, and imported white marble. All tile sizes seem to be based on the inch.

If anyone has any information please let us know. You can email Frankie at: frankie.snyder@gmail.com




The Feast of St Peter Martyr - Guest Article by Dr Donald Prudlo

0
0
We are very grateful to Dr Donald Prudlo, Associate Professor of Ancient and Medieval History at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, for sharing with us this account of the festivities held in Milan in honor of St Peter Martyr a few days ago. Today, April 29th, is the traditional day of the feast, but at the Basilica of Saint Eustorgius, where the Saint’s relics are kept, it is usually transferred to the nearest Sunday. Dr Prudlo is a specialist in the study of the cult of the Saints, and has often provided commentary for Vatican Radio during canonization ceremonies.
Peter of Verona was an early Dominican inquisitor, brutally murdered in 1252 by Cathar heretics. He had been active in public ministry for nearly 30 years in northern and central Italy, and was one of the most powerful preachers of the age; after his martyrdom, he became the fastest canonized saint in history (less than 11 months after his death). His relics are kept in the Romanesque basilica of Sant’ Eustorgio in Milan, formerly also home to the relics of the Magi, which were later looted by Barbarossa and taken to Cologne. St Peter is co-patron of the quarter and the parish, and each year, on the Sunday closest to his feast, the local church celebrates in his honor.

The Basilica of Saint Eustorgius
I was privileged this year to be present for the festivities, which demonstrated the close connection between liturgy and the Saints: an excellent example of liturgical and extra-liturgical devotion, and a witness to an ancient cult still alive and well in the Church. Saints, even those canonized with a universal cult like St. Peter Martyr, are testaments to the intersection of catholicity and particularity. When one attends the feast of a Saint, one sees evidence of the organic growth of liturgy as it took place over the centuries, all the while embedded in the continuous traditions of the broader Church. Saints are the liturgical signposts of the year, marking in their lives the radical following of Christ, in the case of martyrs, even to death. They are the lived Anamneses of the Church. The celebration of their feasts is a present reminder of the unity of their sacrifice with that of Christ, made manifest in the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass over and near their tombs.

Yet even while recalling the universal nature of the Church, each local saint is an incarnational presence in a particular place. Each patron saint comes with interesting local customs, that one can usually only see in a certain location, usually only once a year. Peter’s feast is no different. It is still celebrated near its date on the traditional Calendar, April 29, something which is quite common, at least in Italy. This further increases the special nature of the feast, for it is like according an extra celebration to the patronal saint, one for the locality, and one for the Universal Church. (Peter’s was removed from the universal calendar in the post-Concilar reform, but he retains a commemoration in the Dominican order on June 4, the date of one of his relic translations).

The parish had two Masses on Sunday in Peter’s honor, each with its own particular characteristics. Both were in the revised Ambrosian rite which -- while much simplified -- retains certain carryovers from the old Ambrosian Rite that Peter would have been familiar with in his lifetime. (One particularly medieval moment was when a dog started barking in the back of church during the sermon, particularly apposite for Peter when one recalls the old nursery rhyme “Hark, hark the dogs do bark, the Beggars are coming to town.”) A common point between the two forms is the burning of a paper globe high above the Gospel side of the altar in a special wrought-iron carrier borne by two angels. On the globe was the word “Credo,” which to reminds us that Peter’s was a life lived for the Creed. His story begins with him defending the Creed against his angry heretical uncle as a seven-year-old, and ends as he begins to recite “Credo in unum Deum” when he was struck dead. Peter’s life was dedicated to a radical living out of the doctrine of the Church in all his endeavors: his preaching, his pursuit of heretics, and his warm relations with religious and laity. At Sant’ Eustorgio, the globe is set afire by a triple candle. This represents the fire of Charity which, when added to doctrine, sets afire the whole of the earth; the triple candle also stands for the faith in the Trinity, which is the principle of evangelization to light the world ablaze.

The paper globe which Dr Prudlo describes above, called a “faro” in Italian, is filled with oil soaked cotton, and set alight at the beginning of the liturgy, before the Mass proper begins. This is done only for feasts of Martyrs in their own churches in the Ambrosian Rite.

The first Mass concluded with a procession into the Portinari chapel, usually behind an annoyingly expensive paywall, but open to the faithful for prayer this one day of the year. As the procession entered, the skull of Peter of Verona was displayed in a marvelous reliquary. Discovered to be incorrupt at the translation of his relics in 1253, and again in 1340, his head was removed for the veneration of the faithful. Indeed, one can still see the beard and tonsure of the Dominican, as well as the brutal head wounds that caused his death. So many of the relics one sees in Europe are such remote and sometimes unknown figures it is difficult to associate their bones with their stories. With Peter we have powerful eyewitness accounts, and a clear record of cultic preservation, a fact that brings home the actions of that fateful Sabbato in Albis over 750 years ago and recorded in famous paintings from Fra Angelico to Titian.



Once past the skull, the glorious Portinari chapel was completely opened, a masterpiece of Christian architecture, with perfect renaissance proportions and frescoes painted by Vincenzo Foppa. (One of the more interesting is the rare image of a Virgin Mary with devil horns, an apparition sent by the devil, which Peter dispels by showing it the Blessed Sacrament).

Peter Martyr Routs an Apparition of the Devil, by Vincenzo Foppa, 1462-68. According to this story, when the devil had appeared to a group of heretics, disguised as the Virgin Mary, St Peter unmasked him by showing the consecrated Host and saying “If you are truly hte Mother of GOd, kneel before your Son and worship Him!”
But the crowning glory is Giovanni da Balduccio’s glorious freestanding ark tomb, raised aloft by female statues representing the Cardinal and Theological virtues (with Obedience added, to make a total of eight). Around the ark are masterful bas reliefs of Peter’s life, interspersed with the Doctors of the Church, and all surmounted by Mary and Jesus, who are flank by Peter and Dominic. The high point was that for this one day, the Saint’s ark was returned to its original purpose: people could freely pass right through the master work, underneath the tomb, and press their heads and hands to it, just as was done in the Middle Ages.



After that, deacons were present all day to present a relic of Peter for veneration, including a prayer against headaches very popular with the Milanese. (Peter’s patronage against headaches should be evident from his iconography; he is usually pictured with a giant knife sticking out of his head). This ritual included a prayer composed by Blessed Ildefonse Schuster.
O God, who did grant to your Blessed Priest and Martyr Peter the grace to write with his blood that Symbol of the Faith which, after he had diligently learned it as a child, and then become a Preacher of your Gospel, he preached undaunted to the people against the errors of the heretics; through his prayers grant that Your Church might preach the Faith and confirm it in good works. Through Christ our Lord.
Hundreds of the faithful came through the day to venerate the head and tomb, and to kiss the relic. Such lived devotion to the Saints, so rare in majority Protestant countries, one can find alive and well in the historically Catholic areas of the world. These are the deep roots of the much maligned “cultural Catholics,” whose appreciation of the faith is often far deeper than many realize (even if greatly restricted in scope). Indeed this residual devotion is certainly a foothold in the re-evangelization of the unchurched in these areas.

In the second Mass, we were privileged to see an assembly of various representatives of the Misericordia confraternities. Many ambulance services in Italy are run privately, by volunteers of the Misericordia. These were originally founded by Peter of Verona, and have been in existence for nearly 800 years, helping the sick and wounded. Another aspect of robustly Catholic culture, these fraternities were and, to a certain extent still are, religious in nature; it was Peter’s genius to see it as effective ways for the laity not only to have improved religious observance and to do good works, but to sanctify the world, and to firm up the ranks against heresy. Representatives of the Confraternities had the honor of processing in with the relic of the skull and enthroning it for Mass.


After the Gospel, the priest blessed the short black penitential robes, the symbols of lay piety, bound by a rosary, and including a black mask, originally to preserve the anonymity of the members, who also and promise to take no pay save for a glass of water. Peter knew that doctrine and works go together, and that Mercy has been at the heart of the Church’s mission from the very beginning. The postulants, dressed in their colorful emergency attire, then made their promises to observe the constitutions, and then were helped to vest by their sponsors.

Mass concluded with a solemn blessing in the name of St. Peter, and then the faithful came up for a chance to venerate the skull relic, guided by the new members of the confraternity.

The living veneration of the saints is one of the oldest manifestations of orthodox Christianity in the world, dating from the first years of the Church. It is something we hold in common with our Eastern brothers, a genuinely traditional ecumenical principle. The Saints are like divine strikes of lightning, creations of grace scattered throughout every region and time of the Church, models of the holiness and of the possibilities of graced human nature. The revival and cultivation of their cults, pilgrimages, veneration, and prayers for their intercession, must be a vital part of any genuine renewal.

Catholic Artists Society Mass for Artists - May 10, NYC

0
0
The Catholic Artists Society will host its annual Mass for Artists at 3.30pm, Sunday, May 10, 2015 at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in SoHo. 
Artists, patrons and friends of the arts are invited to attend. His Excellency Bishop John O’Hara will preside at Solemn Mass in the ordinary form. The Schola Cantorum of St. Agnes will sing the Missa Congratulamini mihi by Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594). There will be a reception following the Mass in the basilica’s courtyard. For more information, contact catholicartistssociety@gmail.com.


Registration Deadline Tomorrow - Sacra Liturgia USA

A Missa Cantata in Morgantown, West Virginia

0
0
A Missa Cantata that will be celebrated this Friday on the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker in Morgantown, West Virginia, home of West Virginia University, at St. John University Parish, 1481 University Ave, at 7 p.m. The celebrant is Fr. Boniface Hicks, O.S.B. of the Monastery of St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, known for his work with WAOB Catholic Radio in Latrobe. A choir of students from West Virginia University will sing H.L. Hassler’s Missa super Ecce quam bonum and Gregorian chant.


Introducing Matthew Hazell, A New Contributor to NLM

0
0
Last week, Dr Kwasniewski sent me a link to Matthew Hazell’s latest piece on his blog Lectionary Study Aids. It is, as always, both useful and interesting: a brief summary of Fr Cipriano Vagaggini’s book The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform, and a link to a scanned copy of the book, now long out of print. (Fr Vagaggini was a major contributor to the post-Conciliar reform of the Ordo Missae.) I was going to write about the post with links to Matthew’s blog, but it occurred to both Peter and myself that since we think our readers should know about all of his excellent projects, it was easier just to ask him to join the writing staff at NLM. I am very pleased to say that he has accepted our invitation. Matthew will continue to post his work and research on Liturgical Study Aids, but also give notices and links here on NLM about what he’s been doing. Welcome aboard, we’re delighted to have you with us!

A biographical notes from the man himself: Hailing from the United Kingdom, Matthew is a convert to the Catholic faith from evangelical Protestantism, and was received into the Church in 2008. He has a B.A. (Hons.) in Biblical and Applied Theology from the University of Wales (Bangor) and an M.A. in Biblical Studies from the University of Sheffield. While studying for his M.A., he met his wife, Lucy, and the two of them currently still live in the glorious city of Sheffield.

Since discovering and becoming attached to the usus antiquior, Matthew has developed a keen interest in the liturgical reforms carried out during and after the Second Vatican Council, as well as the history of the Council itself. Recently, his research has concentrated on the Postcommunion prayers of the usus recentior and their sources, but he has also done work on the post-Conciliar reform of the Roman Lectionary, and the various interim and experimental lectionaries used in various countries during the 1960s. He is also working on a study of the long and short forms of readings on Sundays and solemnities in the usus recentior, from the viewpoints of both biblical theology and liturgical theology, which he hopes to discuss on NLM.

When not working or studying, Matthew likes to play board games and retro video games, preferably with a nice pint of real ale or a bottle of Trappist beer to hand!

“Beauty and Tradition in the ‘Church of the Poor’ ” - An Interesting Article on Catholic World Report

0
0
Abbot Nicholas Zachariadis and Benjamin Mann, who are both members of an Eastern Catholic monastery, Holy Resurrection in Saint Nazianz, Wisconsin, have recently published an article on the website of Catholic World Report, on beauty in the liturgy and the truly Christian sense of humility. (Mr Mann, who is soon to receive his monastic tonsure, is also the author of a regular column at Catholic Exchange.) The article contains a number of valuable insights and observations, of which I will give just a few selections here; click the link above for the rest. Especially interesting is the middle section, which is under the subheading “Poor Church, Yes – Iconoclastic Church, No!”

(I am very much in favor of always keeping the combox open, and I try to keep a very light hand on moderating the discussions in it. A gentle reminder, which I know is not necessary for the vast majority of our readers: keep the comments charitable, especially in regards to the Holy Father, and germane to the topic at hand.)
While it has lost much of its momentum since the heyday of the 1970s and 1980s, the iconoclastic approach to liturgy and religious art has not gone away: indeed, it remains deeply ingrained, at the parish level, in much of the Western world. Today, there is a danger that this de-sacralizing attitude will be revived – and Benedict XVI’s efforts toward authentic liturgical renewal rolled back – by a misreading of Pope Francis’ words and ideals: an interpretation that casts Christian humility and liturgical beauty as opposites in tension, or even outright contradiction, rather than as potentially harmonious counterparts.
Notably, this assertion would have been repugnant to Pope Francis’ namesake St. Francis of Assisi – who wrote in his Testament that he wanted “above all” for Christ’s Eucharistic presence “to be honored and venerated and reserved in places which are richly ornamented.” This is in keeping with the saint’s entire view of nature and creation as showing forth the glory of God: for Il Poverello, there is no question of demonstrating our own humility through minimalistic worship. Rather, we show our ultimate poverty before God precisely by offering all created beauty – symbolically present in the Christian temple – back to its Creator. ...
Examples could be marshaled and multiplied, to show that Christian humility and poverty do not require the abandonment of classical beauty and traditional liturgical forms. And such examples would by no means be confined to history. Across the globe even today, many of the world’s humblest and poorest Christian populations – those of the Middle East, or India, for instance – are among those most intent on maintaining their long-established forms of liturgy, art, and architecture, in all their outward splendor.
Ironically, far from expressing a sense of global or social solidarity, the insistence on a minimalistic and exaggeratedly “humble” religious aesthetic actually seems to be a form of modern Western parochialism among an educated elite. The movement toward a contrived informality and secularity in liturgy and art did not come from the poor or the ordinary faithful, but from a class of trained professionals who saw themselves as the most qualified readers of the signs of the times.
Their basic aspiration – to engage and evangelize the modern world more effectively – was good, and remains essential. Yet the result of their iconoclastic experiments can be seen in the “devastated vineyard” of closed seminaries, barren sanctuaries, and dwindling religious orders. The Western Church has already tried the reductive, desacralizing approach to humility and poverty, which claims that the Church must put off her outward signs of holiness and simply meet modern man on his own terms – and garb – in the secular city. Whatever its intentions may have been, this project has proved to be a dismal failure.

Dominican Rite Sung Mass for First Saturday Devotion, SF Bay Area

0
0
First Saturday Mass
A Dominican Rite Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be sung by the student friars of the Western Dominican Province as part of First Saturday Devotions this Saturday, May 2.

 The Mass will be at St. Albert the Great Priory Chapel, 6172 Chabot Road, Oakland CA, 94618, at 10:00 a.m.  Confessions will be heard in the chapel from 9:30 to 9:50 before Mass, and recitation of the Marian Rosary will follow immediately. Visitors and guests are welcome; pew booklets with the text of Mass in Latin and English will be provided.  There is ample parking on the street and in the priory lot.

Sacred Sculptures on Display at the Vatican (Final Post)

0
0
Speaking of beauty and humility in the liturgy, here is a final set of images from the new show at St Peter’s Basilica, a display of reliquaries and other liturgical objects from many different parts of central Italian province of Lazio.

Reliquary of St Rosalia in silver and agate, 17th century, from the cathedral of St Lawrence in Tivoli.
Silver reliquary bust of St Blaise, attributed to Nicola Treglia (died in 1721); from the church of St John the Baptist in Monte San Biagio, in archdiocese of Gaeta.
Reliquary statue of St Dolcissima, Virgin and Martyr in the persecution of Diocletian (303-6), Patron Saint of Sutri; mid-18th century, gilded wood, with head, hands and feet in silver.
Reliquary bust of Pope St Soter (ca. 167-174), silver , first half of the 17th century; from the church of St Peter in Fondi, (famous also as the place where the Great Western Schism began in 1378). 
Pax brede in silver and copper, with gemstones, second half of the 15th century; from the Diocesan Museum of Tarquinia.
Reliquary bust of St Margaret, mid-15th century, possibly Sienese in silver, copper and colored stones; from the cathedral of St Margaret in Montefiascone.
Reliquary bust of St Agapitus, a deacon martyred along with Pope St Sixtus II in 258; silver and copper, second half of the 15th century, with a base of the early 16th, from the church of St Francis in Tarquinia.
Processional Cross, silve, 14th-century; from the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Cittaducale 
Left: a late 13th century reliquary bust in silver and copper of St Folco (or ‘Fulk’), a pilgrim from England who died while travelling through Italy, venerated as the patron Saint of the city of Santopadre, in silver and copper. Right: reliquary of St Matthew in silver and colored stones, end 13th-century, from the museum of the Duomo of Veroli.
Door for a reliquary, in copper and enamel on wood, made in Limoges, France, first quarter of the 13th century. From the Museum of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. 

The Gospel of Nicodemus in the Liturgy of Eastertide

0
0
By “the Gospel of Nicodemus”, I mean not the apocryphal gospel of that title, but the passage of St John’s Gospel in which Christ speaks to Nicodemus, chapter 3, verses 1-21. This passage has a interesting and complex history among the readings of the Easter season. For liturgical use, the Roman Rite divides it into two parts, the second of which begins at one of the most famous verses in all the Gospels, John 3, 16, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son …”; the first part anciently included verse 16, but was later cut back to end at 15.

Christ and Nicodemus, by Fritz van Uhde ca. 1886
The oldest surviving Roman lectionary, the “Comes Romanus” of Wurzburg, was written around 700 A.D, and represents the liturgy of approximately 50-100 years earlier, the period just after St Gregory the Great; in it, John 3, 1-16 is assigned to be read twice in Eastertide. The first occasion is on the Pascha annotinum, the anniversary of the previous year’s Easter and baptism of the catechumens. The second is the Octave Day of Pentecost, the observance of which is, of course, much older than the feast of the Holy Trinity which we now keep on that Sunday.

In his Treatises on the Gospel of St John (11.3), St Augustine say that “this Nicodemus was from among those who had believed in (Christ’s) name, seeing the signs and wonders which He did” at the end of the previous chapter. (2, 23) “Now in this Nicodemus, let us consider why Jesus did not yet entrust Himself to them. ‘Jesus answered, and said to him: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ (John 3, 3) Therefore, Jesus entrusts Himself to those who have been born again. … Such are all the catechumens: they already believe in the name of Christ, but Jesus does not entrust himself to them. If we shall say to the catechumen, ‘Do you believe in Christ?’ he answers, ‘I believe’, and signs himself; he already bears the Cross of Christ on his forehead.”

These words refer to the very ancient custom, still a part of the rites of Baptism to this very day, by which the catechumens were signed on their foreheads with the Cross. Augustine here follows his teacher St Ambrose, who says in his book On the mysteries, “The catechumen also believes in the Cross of the Lord Jesus, by which he is also signed: but unless he shall be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive forgiveness of sins, nor take in the gift of spiritual grace.” (chapter 4)

Augustine then says (11.4), “Let us ask (the catechumen), ‘Do you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink (His) blood?’ He does not know what we are saying, because Jesus has not entrusted Himself to him.” The fact that Nicodemus first came to Christ at night (John 3, 2) also refers to his status as a catechumen. “Those who are born from water and the Spirit (John 3, 5), what do they hear from the Apostle? ‘For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk then as children of the light.’ (Eph. 5, 8) and again, ‘Let us who are of the day be sober.’ (1 Thess. 5, 8) Those then who have been reborn, were of the night, and are of the day; they were darkness, and are light. Jesus already entrusts Himself to them, and they do not come to Jesus at night as Nicodemus did…”.

Following this interpretation, the Gospel is perfectly suited for the celebration of the Pascha annotinum, in which the catechumens commemorated the day when Christ first entrusted Himself to them in both Baptism and the Eucharist.

Two leaves of a 1491 Missal according to the Use of Passau (Germany). The Mass for the Octave Day of Pentecost begins towards the bottom of the first column on the left, with the rubric “everything as on the feast, except the Epistle and Gospel.” 
On the Octave Day of Pentecost, this Gospel is repeated, although the Wurzburg manuscript here attests to a custom of the Roman Rite observed in northern Europe, but not in Rome itself. Already in very ancient times, baptisms were done on Pentecost as on Easter; this is attested in a letter of Pope St Siricius (384-399) 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) The Gospel of the vigil of Pentecost, John 14, 15-21, is continued on the feast itself with verses 23-31, both passages referring to the sending of the Holy Spirit. Since Baptism was traditionally administered on Pentecost, the reading of the Nicodemus Gospel on the Octave, a foundational text for the Church’s understanding of that Sacrament, expresses what an important aspect of the feast this really was.

This point is made even more clearly by the Ambrosian rite. The Church of Milan assigns two Masses to the Easter vigil and each day of Easter week, one “of the solemnity”, and a second “for the (newly) baptized”; the latter form a final set of lessons for the catechumens who have just been received into the Church. At the Easter vigil Mass “for the baptized”, the Nicodemus Gospel is read, ending at verse 13. The first prayer of this Mass begins with a citation of it: “O God, who lay open the entrance of the heavenly kingdom to those reborn from water and the Holy Spirit, increase upon Thy servants the grace which Thou hast given; so that those who have been cleaned from all sins, may not be deprived of the promises.” The Epistle, Acts 2, 29-38, is taken from St Peter’s speech on the first Pentecost, ending with the words, “and you will receive the Holy Spirit.”

On Easter itself, the Gospel of the Mass “for the baptized” is John 7, 37-39.
On the great day of the festivity, the Lord Jesus stood and cried out, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive, who believed in him: [for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.]
However, the words noted here in brackets are omitted at this Mass. Pentecost also has two Masses, and at its Mass “for the baptized”, this Gospel is repeated, but including the final words, further emphasizing the connection between the two great baptismal feasts.

The remains of the Baptistery of Saint John at the Founts (San Giovanni alle Fonti), the paleo-Christian baptistery of Milan, discovered under the modern Duomo in 1889.
In the second-oldest Roman lectionary, the Comes of Murbach, roughly a century later than the Wurzburg manuscript, the Nicodemus Gospel was added to a third Mass, that of the Finding of the Cross on May 3rd. The origin and gradual diffusion of this feast are not the subject of this article; suffice it to note two points. The Wurzburg lectionary has neither the Finding of the Cross nor the Exaltation, but both are in Murbach, and are well-established by the end of the Carolingian period. The latest possible date for Easter, (occurring only once per century since the Gregorian Calendar was promulgated in 1582), is April 25, making May 2nd the latest date for Low Sunday. It is probably not a coincidence that the Finding of the Cross was fixed to May 3rd, the first date at which it must occur in Easteride, but cannot fall within the Easter Octave itself.

The choice of Gospel was certainly determined by the final words, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting.” St Augustine explains, “As those who looked upon the serpent did not perish from the bites of the serpents; so those who with faith look upon the death of Christ are healed from the bites of sins. But they were healed from death to temporal life: here, however, He says “that they may have eternal life.” (Tract. in Joannem, 12, 11)

The Deposition of Christ, by Michelangelo, 1547-53, also known as the “Nicodemus Pietà” from the generally accepted tradition that the hooded figure at the top of the group is Nicodemus, and a self-portrait of the artist. From the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo di Firenze.
It may also have been motivated by the fact that the Pascha annotinum was by this time falling into disuse; Bl. Ildephonse Schuster notes in The Sacramentary (vol. 2, p. 260) that it is only rarely mentioned in Rome after the 8th century. (The Murbach lectionary omits its Epistle.) This is probably due both to the disappearance of the adult catechumenate, and to the fact that it was supposed to be celebrated with the same rites as Easter itself, but will often occur in Lent; it would then have to be transferred, rather obviating the point of it. Assigning John 3, 1-16 to May 3rd may therefore have been intended to maintain its importance by finding it a more prominent position in the liturgy. And indeed, it is as the Gospel of the Finding of the Cross that it will serve as part of the liturgy of Eastertide past the Middle Ages and through the Tridentine period.

Although the Octave of Pentecost is very ancient, Rome and the Papal court never kept the first Sunday after Pentecost as part of it. (This forms another parallel with Easter, since the liturgy of Low Sunday differs in many respects from that of Easter itself.) In northern Europe, as noted above, the Octave Day was a proper octave, repeating the Mass of the feast, but with different readings: Apocalypse 4, 1-10 as the Epistle, and John 3, 1-16 as the Gospel. Both of these traditions were slowly but steadily displaced by the feast of the Trinity, first kept at Liège in the early 10th century; but there was a divergence of customs here as well. When Pope John XXII (1316-34) ordered that Holy Trinity be celebrated throughout the Western Church, he placed it on the Sunday after Pentecost, a custom which became universal after Trent. But even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries and several major dioceses in Germany still kept the older Octave Day of Pentecost, and put the feast of the Trinity on the Monday after.

Others compromised between the older custom and the new by keeping the readings from the Octave of Pentecost, but inserting them into the Mass of the Trinity; this was observed at Sarum, and by the medieval Dominicans and Premonstratensians. After the Tridentine reform, however, as part of the general tendency to Romanize liturgical books, this compromise was retained only by the Old Observance Carmelites, leaving the first part of the Nicodemus Gospel only on the Finding of the Cross for all the rest of the Roman Rite.

In 1960, the feast was suppressed from the general Calendar, and relegated to the Missal’s appendix “for some places”, causing the effective disappearance of the crucial Gospel passage from the liturgy of Easteride. This defect been partially remedied in the Novus Ordo; the reading is broken into two pieces, assigned to the Monday and Tuesday after Low Sunday, but not to any major feast of the season.

A second (and shorter) part of this article will consider the second part of the Gospel of Nicodemus, John 3, 16-21, on Pentecost Monday, May 25th.

“Backwards vs. Forwards”—What Does It Mean?

0
0
When I returned to America in 2006 after living abroad for almost eight years, the transition was initially a challenging one. Although the Lord fairly soon led me to Wyoming Catholic College (which had just been founded), for a certain time it wasn’t at all clear what my next step should be. At this juncture my family and I spent a little time visiting friends in California and visiting some of the Missions along the way. At one of these missions, I picked up a holy card of Bd. Junipero Serra that carried in bold letters the great missionary’s motto: “Always forward, never look back.” This motto was strangely comforting to me at the time and helped me look forward to the future with trust in divine Providence.

Recently, Pope Francis used similar language, but in a quite different context and for a very different purpose. By now we are all no doubt acquainted with the impassioned utterance of Pope Francis at the conclusion of the Italian Mass at Ognissanti, celebrated on the 50th anniversary of the first Italian Mass in history:
Let us thank the Lord for what he has done in his Church in these 50 years of liturgical reform. It was truly a courageous gesture for the Church to draw near to the people of God so that they are able to understand well what they are doing. This is important for us, to follow the Mass in this way. It is not possible to go backwards. We must always go forward. Always forward (applause)! And those who go backward are mistaken.
This isn’t the first time the Holy Father has made this kind of remark. Fr. James V. Schall, in a recent article for Catholic World Report, writes, with subtle criticism:
On March 3rd, Pope Francis wrote a short letter to the Theological Faculty at the Catholic University of Argentina, an institution with which he is no doubt most familiar. Pope Francis is not a speculatively-orientated man. He sees theology in practical terms. Vatican II, he tells the Argentine Faculty, is a “re-reading of the Gospel from the perspective of contemporary culture.” He does not say that it is a “re-reading” of contemporary culture from the perspective of the Gospel. The Council produced an “irreversible movement of renewal which comes from the Gospel. And now we must go forward.”What, one wonders, does “forward” imply? The notion of “progress” for the sake of “progress” avoids the question of “progress to what?” or “forward to where?” To go “forward”, we must first look backward to the Gospel. Chesterton said progress can only be made by looking backwards. The future is blank, but history contains real people, real choices for good or bad.
Indeed, it is the Pope’s frequent endorsement of creativity, innovation, and spontaneity, along with “making a mess,” that might well cause any lover of tradition or proponent of the new liturgical movement to wince with embarrassment and regret. Unlike Pope Benedict, Pope Francis does not seem to have progressed in his way of thinking beyond the extremely limited vision of the movers and shakers of the Second Vatican Council period.

Groovy, man.
Let’s give this Ognissanti rhetoric some careful thought. “Backwards” and “forwards” are inherently ambiguous metaphors. If we decide to stick with polyester vestments, guitars, wide fat candles, and banners, are we not looking backwards into the 1960s/1970s? If we sing Gregorian chant, are we trapped in the Middle Ages—or are we singing a timeless music that is always and everywhere simply Catholic, as the Popes have taught? Is Latin a “dead language of the past” or is it the sacred language of eternal Rome, through which we signify the apostolic truth and constancy of what we celebrate? And so on and so forth. Those who love traditional things are interested in neither“going backwards” nor“going forwards.” We are interested in worshiping God worthily in the present, in continuity with the past, and for the future health of the Church and the conversion of the world.

Metaphysically, it is impossible to “go backwards.” The past is unchangeable. It is not really possible to “go forward,” either, since the future is in God’s hands alone. All that we have is the present, the “now,” and we must use this now wisely for the glory of God and the sanctification of our souls. The only standard for us is not a distant past or a dreamy future, but what is right, good, appropriate, beautiful, here and now. And this is something that cannot be determined by any age or chronology, any ideology or -ism; it must be determined by sound principles that we receive from the Church and from her Tradition, which is living and active, like the Word of God of which it forms a part (cf. Dei Verbum 10).

In our liturgical and sacramental worship, Christ is signified as having come in the past, as being present to us now, and as yet to come in glory. He is Lord of all time, the Alpha and the Omega.

(1) Our Eucharistic worship signifies Christ as a past reality, since He has already come into the world as the Word-made-flesh and has accomplished plentiful redemption. This may be called the principle of tradition, or the handing down of that which is already given: hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

Jesuits in China
(2) The Mass signifies Christ as a present reality, the One who irrupts into our time and space in the miracle of transubstantiation, taking the gifts we give Him here and now and changing them into Himself. This we might call the principle of inculturation, the way in which the Word made flesh enters into every time, place, people, society, culture—not, however, to be conformed to it but to conform it to Him, so that it may be healed and elevated. (This, I take it, is why Pope John Paul II said that liturgy must be not only inculturated but also counter-cultural.)

(3) The Mass signifies Christ as one who, having come, and being in our midst, is nevertheless awaited in His glorious coming to judge the living and the dead and to bring to completion the whole of history and the entire cosmos, from prime matter to the loftiest seraphim. The very fact that we receive Him as waybread, as our strength and stay under the appearances of bread and wine, tells us we are waiting and longing for an indissoluble communion, the face to face vision of God. This tension towards the future may be called the principle of transcendence, by which the liturgy reminds us that we are destined for an act of worship that is not inherited from the past or re-lived in present symbols but given immediately and eternally by the Lord Himself, when He manifests His glory to our purified gaze.

The past component makes us adhere to hallowed forms of commemoration, so that we would sooner die than have our inheritance violently taken from us, abused, reduced, or modified past recognition. The present component makes us attentive to the needs of the flock around us—including, of course, the need to be thoroughly connected to tradition and thus to be catholic. The future perfection, which shows up the relativity of our earthly endeavors, makes us absolutists about heavenly glory alone. We would not, therefore, try to argue that this or that particular liturgical tradition is indispensable for the Christian life, although it is true that some authentically-lived tradition is indispensable.

All three of these principles imply missionary outreach, although they are not ordered to outreach as their end; rather, evangelization flows from them when they are rightly believed and practiced. If we know and love tradition, it is an immense gift we will want to share. If we know and love people, we will share this gift with them in a way that draws upon their identity and also challenges it to conversion. And if we know and love God, we will do all of this for His glory.

“Brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8). This is our work right now. If we do it well, as Catholics, we will find that what we are doing is, not surprisingly, very much akin to what our ancestors and forefathers in the Faith have done, and we will not worry about progress or the future. We will neither go backwards nor forwards. “I will go unto the altar of God, to God who giveth joy to my youth.”

The way of the future, ad majorem Dei gloriam.


St. Hugh of Cluny Society hosts Mass, talks by Mosebach and Perin

0
0
Two important voices in the liturgical movement are visiting a landmark venue in the movement for Mass and two presentations on Tuesday, May 12. The St. Hugh of Cluny Society is sponsoring a Solemn Mass for the feast of Ss. Nereus, Achilleus, Domitilla & Pancras  at the Church of the Holy Innocents, 128 W. 37th St., New York City. The 6 p.m. Mass will be followed by talks from author Martin Mosebach and Prof. Luc Perrin (7:30) in the church hall.
Professor Luc Perrin
Martin Mosebach
Mosebach, author of The Heresy of Formlessness, makes his second visit to New York under the auspices of the St. Hugh of Cluny Society. His topic is, Paradise on Earth: the Liturgy as a Window of the Hereafter. Prof. Perrin will present, From Benedict to Francis, the Church in Europe at a New Crossroads. 
Admission is free.
For updates, or information on the Society, see www.sthughofcluny.org.

Weekend Course on Sacred Art and the New Evangelization with Dr Caroline Farey, June 12-14 in Kansas City, Kansas

0
0
Dr Caroline Farey of the School of the Annunciation in Devon and myself will be teaching a weekend course, Sacred Art and the New Evangelization in Kansas City, Kansas, on the weekend of June 12 -14. It will include talks from both of us and the praying of the liturgy of the hours through the weekend. Register here.

Pope Benedict said that he believes that the Domestic Church will be the driving force for the New Evangelization. With this in mind and as part of this course, we will be praying the Liturgy of the Hours. The intention is that this will do more than simply bring the community of students and teachers together (which it will do); we hope to see those who attend take this away with them and introduce the practice to their families and parishes. The material we use is simple enough that people can sing it easily, and beautiful, so that they will want to. Anyone who can hold a pitch when they sing and is not afraid to sing in front of their friends can and will be able to continue on their own, or pass it on to others for use in their own homes and parishes afterwards, and build communities in faith around them. So why not start thinking out of the box...or out of the cell? Take a beautiful, simple Vespers into hospitals or prisons in a form that patients and prisoners and will want to sing with you? We can take Christ from the monk’s cell to the prisoner’s cell, so that the two become synonymous.

In conjunction with this, students will be taught how to pray with sacred art, so that their icon corner really does become the focus of prayer and the heart of the home. We will learn, for example, how the traditional layout of the icon corner reflects in both content and form the themes that Benedict brought out in his essay on the New Evangelization. This adds to the power of the prayer in the home to transform us supernaturally, so that, despite ourselves and through God’s grace, people see Christ in us, and they believe that He can give them what they want most in life.

The price for the weekend which includes room and board is just $250, which is extraordinarily good value.

For  more details click link here or go to www.archkck.org/evangelization

Solemn High Mass in NYC for the Feast of St Mark

0
0
The tireless Mr Arrys Ortanez was kind enough to send us a link to his very large photoset of a Solemn High Mass celebrated on the feast of St Mark at the Church of Our Lady of Esperanza, the second Spanish church in the city. The Mass was sponsored by the Society of St Hugh of Cluny, and accompanied by music of classical Spanish artists; afterwards, there was a visit to the museum of the Hispanic Society of America. I just don’t have room to include all of Arrys’ excellent photographs, but here is a small selection; you can check out the rest at the link given above. The Museum has a fine collection of Spanish art, including a number of liturgical objects.
















Catholic World Report Interview with Dom Alcuin Reid on Sacra Liturgia 2015

0
0
Catholic World Report has posted an interview with Dom Alcuin Reid about the Sacra Liturgia Conference to be held from June 1-4 in New York City. Here are a few excerpts; you can read the complete interview at their website, in which Dom Alcuin also gives the list of speakers and liturgical events. (Also previously announced here on NLM.)

CWR: What do you hope to achieve through this conference?

Dom Alcuin: I think the reason people wanted a Sacra Liturgia conference in the USA was because they saw that what we did in Rome was to further peoples’ formation in what the Sacred Liturgy is, in how to celebrate and pray it, and in appreciating its utterly fundamental role in living the Christian life of witness and mission in the world of the twenty-first century. We did this at various levels—practically by the full and beautiful celebration of the older and the newer rites, academically through the presentations of many expert scholars and pastors which have done a lot already to move liturgical scholarship forward, and informally through the contacts and networks built up throughout the conference.

If our New York conference can continue that work of liturgical formation and sound scholarship and put people in contact with one another we shall be very pleased.

CWR: What place does this conference have in what has become known as the “new liturgical movement”?

Dom Alcuin: Certainly Sacra Liturgia wishes to be seen as something standing at the centre of the new liturgical movement. That is a phrase that comes from Pope Benedict XVI’s book The Spirit of the Liturgy, written as Cardinal Ratzinger before his election to the papacy.

We look to support all that is good and true in the liturgical life of the Church: we promote an authentic interpretation of the Second Vatican Council’s mandate for liturgical reform and an assessment of the implementation of its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy that is faithful to the Council. We are open to an ongoing consideration of the value of a possible reform of the reform. Most certainly we work for the integral celebration of the usus recentior (the modern liturgy) with an optimal ars celebrandi—that way of celebrating the liturgy fully, beautifully and in harmony with its received tradition—as well as an openness to the value and riches of the usus antiquior (the older rites) in the Church today.

All of these are elements of the new liturgical movement. If we can move forward on these fronts Catholics will be able to draw ever more deeply from the source and summit of Christian life—which is what the Sacred Liturgy is—and our mission in the world will be stronger, more effective.

Benedicta - Marian Chants from Norcia

0
0
NLM first shared news of a new CD from the Benedictines of Norcia here

De Montfort Music has just produced a lovely video to accompany the upcoming release of the CD.


From De Montfort, here's a bit more about the project in light of its monastic setting:
On June 2, De Montfort Music together with Decca Classics/Universal Music Classics will release BENEDICTA: Marian Chant from Norcia, the major label debut from The Monks of Norcia. Based in Norcia, Italy, the community of the Benedictine Monks of Norcia is comprised of 18 men, half American citizens and the other half a diverse group of men from all over the world representing a variety of cultural backgrounds. Monks and their devotional singing were not heard in Norcia for nearly 200 years, until 1998 when Fr. Cassian Folsom, Prior, settled with his community in the monastery located on the ancient ruins of the birth-home of St. Benedict and his sister St. Scholastica, thus also becoming the site where The Monks of Norcia were born. An American who was admitted to and studied at the highly competitive world-renowned voice program at Indiana University before joining the monastery, Fr. Cassian explains, "Music is essential to the monastic life… chant is part of the air we breathe."

For The Monks of Norcia, music is woven into a daily life of liturgy and industry. With their daily monastic chant of the Divine Office, sung Mass and singing the prayers at table for mealtimes, the monks sing nine times per day. As a young and ethnically diverse monastic community – the average age being 33 -- there is a youthful vitality to their adherence to the rule of St. Benedict which is summarized by the motto "ora et labora," that is, by the alternation of work and prayer throughout the day, along with the togetherness of a community of brothers.

BENEDICTA consists of songs dedicated to the life of Mary, Our Lady, including previously unrecorded chant versions of responsories and an original piece composed by the monks, "Nos Qui Christi Iugum," ("We Who Have Taken Up Christ's Yoke"). Some pieces on the album are sung by the entire group, some by smaller ensembles of monks and others by soloists, lending a vast range of sound and color to BENEDICTA.

Choirmaster Fr. Basil Nixen serves as the music director for the project. Describing the repertoire for the album Fr. Basil says, "The selections try to look at Our Lady's life by focusing on 7 mysteries, or defining moments, of her life and include pieces that many people would be familiar with and could connect with as well as some pieces that are a little less known and more musically challenging and complex but also very beautiful. Many of these chants are familiar prayers that we sing often and that are very, very dear to us."

Along with their offices of daily prayer, the monks work for their self-sufficiency – as Fr. Cassian says, "We are not angels, we are men – so we have to eat." To that end, they operate a craft brewery at the monastery, Birra Nursia, where they produce a beer "pleasing to the taste and satisfying to the spirit." These blond and dark brews have gained devotees from distant countries, bringing new visitors to Norcia. "A lot of people have perhaps a romantic idea that monks sort of float around in the cloister all day long," says Fr. Cassian. "But in fact, the monastic life is quite ordinary. Music is important to us, especially for the sake of the prayer. Even someone who listens to this without any background will be drawn to it, I think, by its pure beauty and its mystical quality. This music has been sung over centuries and centuries."

Since 2007 when Aim Higher Entertainment was launched -- the umbrella company for De Montfort Music -- the label has wanted to provide and share a state of the art recording of the hidden Gregorian Chant of these humble yet talented monks. Finally in late 2014, The Monks agreed to be professionally recorded on location at their monastery. The culmination of these efforts is BENEDICTA, a labor of love years in the making. The album was produced and engineered by the multiple Grammy Award-winning team of Christopher Alder and Jonathan Stokes respectively, who describe The Monks' music as "timeless and beautiful."

BENEDICTA follows other successful recordings from De Montfort Music and AimHigher Recordings, who together accounted for three of Billboard's Top 5 Classical Traditional Album Imprints of 2014.

www.osbnorcia.org
www.DeMontfortMusic.com 

News of the FFI Apostolic Commissioner

0
0
The Italian blog Messa in Latino posted a report at 10 pm Italian time (4 pm East Coast United States), today, May 6th, which states as follows.

“This morning news was circulated of the presumed death of Fr (Fidenzio) Volpi, reported to have happened yesterday after a stroke. It has been confirmed that Fr Fidenzio did suffer a stroke a few days ago, but the report of his death has been denied. Messa in Latino’s sources, persons close to the Capuchin, and very reliable, have confirmed to our editors that Fr Volpi is still alive, but in extremely serious condition. Let us pray for him.”

This report will be updated as events warrant.

EF Vigil of Pentecost in Jersey City, New Jersey

0
0
We received the following announcement concerning a celebration of the Vigil of Pentecost which will take place at the church of St Anthony in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Mark your calendars for a truly “Extraordinary” event...on the occasion of the 13th anniversary of the return of the Traditional Latin Mass to Hudson County, New Jersey, a Solemn Mass will be sung on Saturday, May 23rd at 7:00 p.m. for the Vigil of Pentecost, at downtown Jersey City’s historic St. Anthony’s Church. (Located on Monmouth Street between 6th and 7th Streets). Diocesan clergy from throughout New Jersey, as well as priests of both the Institute of Christ the King and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter will participate as ministers at the altar. The renowned Cantantes in Cordibus choir, under the direction of Maestro Simone Ferraresi, will perform Haydn’s acclaimed Missa Brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo. The organizers of this truly special event are the many young parishioners who have recently joined the growing parish in a quickly gentrifyng city. They hope that this will be an opportunity for young faithful Catholics to worship, meet and network.

Maestro Ferraresi studied at the Conservatory of Music in Ferrara, Italy, where he earned his degree with highest honors; at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna he studied with world renowned pianist and musicologist Paul Badura-Skoda. Maestro Ferraresi specialized in interpretation of classical composers; at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he was awarded the Diploma of the Royal Academy of Music – the highest examinable award given by the Royal Academy. He was also awarded three special prizes for best performance in the final recital. He is the founder and artistic director of the Ferrara International Piano Festival.

St. Anthony’s Church is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Sites. The church, built in the Victorian Gothic Style, is a pristine example of a church untouched by modern elements and remains a true example of Roman Catholic aesthetic rarely seen today. (See http://stanthonyjc.com/#/photo-gallery/4537929714.) The church parking lot is located on 6th Street between Coles and Monmouth Street and is easily accessible from the Grove Street PATH, the Newport PATH and Light Rail stop. There will be a celebratory coffee served after Mass as well as a visit to a local establishment for the young people in attendance.


The Theology of the Offertory - Part 7.9 - The Uses of Cologne, Utrecht and Liège

0
0
Having finished with Spain, we move on to Germany in our consideration of the Offertory Rites of the medieval Uses. I have grouped Utrecht and Liège with Cologne, even though they are now in different countries, because they were formerly its suffragans, along with Cambrai, Münster and Osnabruck. Both before and after the Counter-Reformation period, the bishops of Cologne and Liège were also secular princes, the latter being furthermore ex-officio among the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire. The desire to maintain their identity as separate political entities may have had something to do with the fact that, unlike the majority of sees and canonical chapters, neither availed themselves of Pope St Pius V’s permission to adopt the Roman liturgical books promulgated after the Council of Trent. The See of Cologne, however, reformed its books on the neo-Gallican pattern in the later 18th century, while the Use of Liège disappeared when the prince-bishopric was overrun by France during the revolution; both adopted the Roman Use in the 19th century.

The Use of Cologne

Like most medieval Missals, the Missal of Cologne, printed in 1494, has no Ritus servandus, the long rubric describing in detail the celebration of Mass. The texts of the Offertory are printed with very simple rubrics, and no mention is made of incense; this must not be taken of course, to mean that it was not used. The now apparently defunct Bund für Liturgie und Gregorianik published the Ordo Missae from a 1525 edition of the Cologne Missal, which gives some material not included in the 1494 edition available at the website of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.

On the left, a photograph of Cologne Cathedral taken from the opposite side of the Rhine in 1856, before the church’s famous bell-towers were completed. Work on the towers was broken off in 1473 and not resumed until 1842; the bells were finally installed in the 1870s. The crane on one of the towers, visible in the upper left of the photograph, can also be seen in Hans Memling’s 1489 painting of  “The Arrival of St Ursula in Cologne” on the right. (click to enlarge)
As was commonly done in the medieval Uses, the chalice was prepared during the singing of the Epistle. The rubrics simply says “In preparing the chalice let (the priest) say. ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Blood came forth from the side of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.’ ” This would be for the pouring in of the wine; at the water he says “And water, for the forgiveness of sins. May this mixing of wine and water together be done in the name of the Father etc.” This is followed by the prayer Deus qui humanae substantiae, as in the Roman Offertory. None of this is printed in the 1494 edition of the Cologne Missal.

After reading the Offertory chant, the priest washed his fingers, saying only one verse of Psalm 25, “I will wash my hands among the innocent; and will compass thy altar, O Lord.” Then looking to heaven, and striking his breast, he says the words of the Prodigal Son, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son.” (This appears to be a unique feature of the Use of Cologne.)

Making the sign of the Cross over the chalice, he says “In the name of the Father +, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. What shall I render to the Lord, for all the things he hath rendered unto me”, from Psalm 115. As he lifts the chalice and paten together, standing at the middle of the altar, he continues the Psalm, “I will take the chalice of salvation; and I will call upon the name of the Lord.” There follows the prayer In spiritu humilitatis, with a slightly different wording than the Roman Rite, but almost exactly like the Dominican version. “In a spirit of humility, and contrite heart, may we be received by Thee, o Lord; and so may our sacrifice take place in Thy sight this day, that it may be received by Thee, and please Thee, o Lord.”

The priest makes the sign of the Cross with the chalice and paten, which he then separates, covering the chalice with the pall, (called a ‘custodia’ in the rubrics of the 1494 edition). he says “Acceptabile fiat tibi, omnipotenti Deo istud sacrificium altari tuo suppositum in odorem suavitatis. - May this sacrifice laid upon become acceptable to Thee, almighty God, unto the odor of sweetness.” Making the sign of the Cross with the paten, he places the host near the chalice, saying once again “In the name of the Father etc.”

Bowing reverently, and with joined hands, he says the Cologne version of Suscipe Sancta Trinitas.
Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem, quam tibi offerimus in memoriam passionis, resurrectionis et ascensionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi: et in honorem Sanctissimae Dei Genitricis Virginis Mariae, et N., atque omnium sanctorum tuorum, qui tibi placuerunt ab initio mundi; ut proficiat illis ad honorem, nobis autem et omnibus fidelibus, vivis et defunctis, ad salutem, et ad remissionem omnium peccatorum; et ut illi omnes pro nobis intercedere dignentur in caelis, quorum memoriam agimus in terris. Per eundem Christum, Dominum nostrum.
Receive, o holy Trinity, this offering, which we offer to Thee in commemoration of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and unto the honor of the most holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, and N. (presumably the Saint of the day) of all Thy Saints who have pleased Thee from the beginning of the world; that it may profit unto their honor, and to us, and all the faithful, living and deceased, unto salvation, and the forgiveness of sins; and that all those, whose memory we keep on earth, may deign to intercede for us in heaven. Through the same Christ, our Lord.
The conclusion is noted with a rubric that whenever it is said in the Mass, the priest should join his hands and genuflect. He then blesses the host and chalice together, with the words “Veni, invisibilis Sanctificator, omnipotens, aeterne Deus; benedic + et sanctifica hoc sacrificium tuo sancto nomini praeparatum. - Come, invisible Sanctifier, almighty and eternal God; bless and sanctify this sacrifice prepared unto Thy holy name.” (In the 1525 edition, this is placed before the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas.)

Turning to the people, he says, “Orate pro me peccatore, fratres et sorores, ut meum pariter et vestrum sacrificium acceptum sit omnipotenti Deo. - Pray for me a sinner, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be accepted of almighty God.” As in many other medieval Uses, no response is made.

The Use of Utrecht

The See of Utecht in the modern Netherlands is fairly ancient, founded by St Willibrord at the end of the 7th century, and was a major center for the evangelization of the Low Countries. Nevertheless, it remained a suffragan of Cologne until 1559. In the Missal according to the Use of Utecht printed at Antwerp in 1540, the Offertory differs only very slightly from that of the Use of Cologne. The rubrics are very slight, and say almost nothing about the ritual actions that accompany them; as at Cologne, there is no mention of incense. We may safely presume that the chalice was prepared during the Epistle as at Cologne and elsewhere.

The Cathedral of St Martin in Utrecht, begun in 1254, was converted to protestant rites in 1580. On the left the church is seen in a drawing from 1660. In 1674, its nave collapsed during a storm, leaving the 14th-century bell-tower isolated from the rest of the structure, as seen in the print on the right from 1697; it was never rebuilt. (click to enlarge
The Offertory begins at the words “In the name of the Father... What shall I render...” noted above; none of the material noted above before that point is printed in the Missal. The one unique feature of this Use is that the elements are blessed at the prayer In spiritu humilitatis, again, following a text almost like that of the Dominican Use. “In a spirit of humility, and contrite heart, may we be received by Thee, o Lord; so that + our sacrifice may take place in Thy sight this day, in such wise that it be received by Thee, and please Thee, o Lord.” The prayer Veni, invisibilis Sanctificator is said before the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas, as in the 1525 edition of the Cologne Missal.

The Suscipe Sancta Trinitas is longer than at Cologne, but the variants are common to other Uses.
Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem, quam tibi offerimus in memoriam passionis, resurrectionis et ascensionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi: et in honore Sanctissimae Dei Genitricis Virginis Mariae, et sanctorum, quorum hodie festivitas celebratur, et quorum hic nomina et reliquiae habentur, necnon et omnium sanctorum tuorum, qui tibi placuerunt ab initio mundi; ut proveniat illis ad honorem, nobis autem et omnibus fidelibus, vivis et defunctis, ad salutem, et ad remissionem omnium peccatorum. Et ut illi omnes pro nobis intercedere dignentur in caelis, quorum memoriam facimus in terris.
Receive, o holy Trinity, this offering, which we offer to Thee in memory of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honor of the most holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, of the Saints whose festivity is celebrated today, and whose names and relics are kept here, and also of all the Saints who have pleased Thee from the beginning of the world, that it may profit unto their honor, and to us, and all the faithful, living and deceased, unto salvation, and unto the forgiveness of all sins; and that all those, whose memory we keep on earth, may deign to intercede for us in heaven. Through the same Christ, our Lord.
The Use of Liège

An episcopal see in 344 A.D. was founded at the city of Tongres in what is now the north-east of Belgium, but translated a few decades later to Maastricht, now in the Netherlands. At the very beginning of the 8th century, the bishop of Maastricht, St Lambert, was martyred; the reason is not agreed upon in his different biographies, but devotion to him was very great throughout northern Europe. His successor, St Hubert, brought his body to Liège, and built a basilica to house his relics, and the See of Maastricht-Tongres was then transferred there. As mentioned above, it retained its proper Use until the very end of the 18th century, although its liturgical books were revised in some respects on the model of the Roman Tridentine books. The Missal I follow here was printed at Speier in Germany in 1502. As in Cologne and Utrecht, the rubrics are fairly sparse, saying nothing about the preparation of the chalice; however, the prayers accompanying the incensation are given.

The Cathedral of Saint Lambert in Liège, from an engraving of 1735. The building was begun after a fire destroyed an earlier structure in 1185, and completed in 1433. It was destroyed over the course of several years, beginning in 1794, in the wake of the French Revolution and invasion; the collegiate church of St Paul has served as the city’s cathedral since 1812.
The Offertory begins with the priest at the middle of the altar, saying with hands joined “Veni, quaeso, sanctificator, omnipotens aeterne Deus - come, I ask, o sanctifier, almighty eternal God”, and then making the sign of the Cross over the chalice as he says “Et bene+dic hoc sacrificium tuo tibi praeparatum. - And bless + this sacrifice prepared unto Thee.” He joins his hands again and says, “What shall I render...” as above, then takes the chalice with the paten on it in his hands and says, “I will take the chalice of salvation...”, again as above.

He then lifts up the chalice and paten together, and says the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas;
Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem, quam tibi offerimus in memoriam incarnationis, nativitatis, passionis, resurrectionis et ascensionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi: adventusque Spiritus Sancti: et in honore sanctae Mariae Virginis, et omnium sanctorum, ut illis proficiat ad honorem, nobis autem ad salutem, et omnibus fidelibus, vivis et defunctis; illique pro nobis intercedere dignentur in caelis, quorum memoriam facimus in terris. Per eundum Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Receive, o holy Trinity, this offering, which we offer to Thee in memory of the Incarnation, Birth, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and in holy Mary the Virgin, and of all the Saints that it may profit unto their honor, and to us, and all the faithful, living and deceased, unto salvation; and may those, whose memory we keep on earth, deign to intercede for us in heaven. Through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Making the sign of the Cross with chalice and paten, he places it on the corporal, saying,“In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, sit sacrificium istud immaculatum - In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, may this sacrifice be without blemish” Taking the paten with both hands, he places the host before the chalice, and then signs himself with the paten, saying (continuing the previous sentence) “et a te solo Deo vivo et vero adunatum - and by Thee alone, God living and true, united”; he then makes the sign of the Cross over the offering, saying “et benedic+tum. - and + blessed.”

The prayer for the incense is very simple: “Incensum istud a te sit, Domine, bene+dictum. - May this incense be + blessed by Thee, o Lord.” By analogy with other Uses, it seems that the words that follow from Psalm 140 were said at the incensation: “Let my prayer ascend to Thee, O lord, as incense in thy sight; the lifting up of my hands, as an evening sacrifice.”

Bowing before the altar, he says the prayer In spiritu humilitatis as at Cologne. The Orate fratres is slightly different from the Cologne version.  “Orate pro me fratres et sorores, indigno famulo Dei, ut meum pariter et vestrum sacrificium acceptum sit omnipotenti Deo. - Pray for me, brothers and sisters, the unworthy servant of God, that my sacrifice and yours may be accepted of almighty God.” No response is made.

2015 Sacred Music Colloquium

0
0

     The 25th Sacred Music Colloquium will be held from June 29th through July 4, 2015 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. Every Colloquium is a joyful, spiritual, musical, social, and liturgical celebration of our Holy Faith and the Sacred Music that has first place in that faith - Gregorian Chant. New friendships are created, old friendships are rekindled, and professional relationships are renewed, all for the greater glory of God. It has become a life changing experience for many.
     My good friends, if you have been undecided about attending, stop hesitating and decide to attend now. You will not regret it. As a matter of fact you will thank the Lord for the wonderful experience.
The battle, and it is a battle, to reclaim "the sacred" in the Liturgy is intimately connected with Gregorian Chant, and the singing of the Propers at Mass. We are supposed to sing the Mass, not sing at Mass. Come and learn and come and do that which the Church wants.
     Early registration ends on Friday May 15. You have one week to register before the price goes up. Please do yourself, your parish and the whole Church a favor, GET  COLLOQUIALIZED, and you will never be the same. God Bless You.  http://musicasacra.com/events/colloquium2015/
Viewing all 8535 articles
Browse latest View live


Latest Images