St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun: Conclusion and Concluding Thoughts

Jusepe de Ribera, Saint Francis of Assisi

Lost in Translation #158

Saint Francis ends his Canticle of the Sun with this one-verse stanza:

Laudate et benedicete mi Signore et rengratiate

e seruiteli cum grande humilitate.

Which I translate as:

Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks

And serve Him with great humility.

The verse is an apt summary of the canticle, which is not, as is often thought, a praise of nature. In fact, as the Dutch Franciscan Jan van den Eijnden points out, it is not about nature at all, but about creation, the difference being that you can think about nature without thinking about God, but you cannot think about creation without thinking about the Creator. Francis is not a lover of nature but of creation, and he loves it not for its own sake but because it is the product of his loving Father.

And so, the point of the Canticle of the Sun is to praise and bless God the Creator, and to encourage its reader to serve God with humility. In this respect, the Canticle is identical to several Psalms (148 comes to mind) and the Canticle of the Three Youths in Daniel 3, 56-88. What is distinctive about Francis’ canticle is that it never addresses creation directly but repeatedly tells God that He should be praised through this or that creature. The Old Testament canticles, by contrast, command a list of creatures to praise and bless the Lord, to join together in a cosmic act of worship.

Nor is the content of the canticle so much a radical departure from the Christian worldview as a particularly vivid expression of it. Catholic thought initially sounds like a contradiction, for it combines a contempt for the world with a care for creation. What is meant by “the world,” however, are the man-made values that give us false promises of happiness, promises that often lead to an exploitation of nature. Contempt for the world, then, actually fosters care for creation, which is seen as a duty of stewardship. And creation is valued because it is a divine sign that eloquently points to God.

Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume

Modernity, on the other hand, is the photographic negative of this Christian formula, encouraging a contempt for creation and a care for worldly success. Beginning in the sixteenth century, philosophers like Machiavelli and Hobbes portrayed nature as something that needed to be beaten into submission through technological domination. It was only a matter of time before the technology caught up with this ideology, leaving us the world in which we live today.

It was in response to this situation that Pope Francis wrote his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’. The title is taken from a recurring phrase in Francis’ Canticle of the Sun (laudato si’ means “praised be”), and since Saint Francis wrote in the Umbrian dialect of Italian, the encyclical holds the distinction of being the only one that does not have a Latin title. But comparing the two compositions is a game of apples and oranges, for the goals of each are different. Pope Francis’ encyclical is diatribic in tone and consists largely of socio-political criticisms, such as a condemnation of “disposable culture” and the use of air conditioning. The Canticle of the Sun, on the other hand, is laudatory in tone and was intended by Saint Francis to praise God, console himself, and edify his neighbor about his eternal destiny. And the Saint succeeded. For centuries, the Canticle of the Sun has inspired the Franciscan community of friars and sisters and Third-Order members to be good stewards of creation as an act of divine praise, and it has helped them serve the Lord with great humility and die in a state of grace.

This article originally appeared as “Call to Humility” in the Messenger of St. Anthony 127:12, international edition (December 2025), p. 15. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its publication here.

Two Ambrosian Saints

On the Ambrosian calendar, today is the feast of a martyr of the early 11th century called Aquilinus, who was born to a noble family in Würzburg, Bavaria, and ordained a priest after studying in the cathedral school of Cologne. Shortly thereafter, his parents both died, and he returned home to distribute his inheritance to the poor; when he returned to Cologne, the bishop died, and Aquilinus was unanimously elected to replace him by the cathedral chapter, an honor which he refused (like so many saintly bishops) by fleeing, in this case, to Paris. There he was also elected bishop on account of his evident holiness, and so he fled again, this time to northern Italy, and after passing through Pavia, came to Milan to venerate the relics of St Ambrose, to whom he was greatly devoted.

Aquilinus distinguished himself, in one of the more decadent periods of the Church’s life, in his defense of the Catholic Faith against both the Cathars, and some local form of renascent Arianism. In the year 1015 or 1018, he was attacked by heretics while making his way to the basilica of St Ambrose, stabbed in the throat, and his body thrown into a canal. An old tradition has it that a group of workmen who transported merchandise along the Ticino river between Pavia and Milan found the body, and brought it to the nearby basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore, one of the oldest churches in the city. They were placed in the chapel of St Genesius, which was henceforth named for Aquilinus.

The first attestation of the life of St Aquilinus dates to 1465, when a confraternity named for him was established; his cultus was formally approved by the Holy See in 1469, and his feast appears in the Ambrosian Missal of 1475 on January 29. In 1581, St Charles Borromeo declared him co-patron of the city of Milan, especially to be invoked against the plague. He is traditionally shown dressed as a priest, with a dagger at his throat and the palm of martyrdom in his hand. His remains are now in an urn of silver and rock crystal on top of the altar in which they were formerly buried. Until the 19th century, it was the custom in Milan for movers and transporters to hold a procession in his honor every year on the feast day, in which they would offer candles and a flask of oil for the votive lamp before his relics.

Tomorrow is the feast of a matron called St Savina. She was born in Milan to the noble family of the Valerii in the 260s, and as an adult, married to a patrician from the nearby town of Laus Pompeia, now called Lodi. She was soon left a widow, and dedicated herself to the works of religion and charity, especially on behalf of the victims of the Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of the Christians. In her own house, she secretly buried the martyrs Ss Nabor and Felix, two soldiers of the Theban Legion who were decapitated at Lodi around 300-304. Once the persecution had ceased, in the year 310, she brought their relics to Milan, where they were laid to rest in the chapel of the Valerii. Some years later, after spending her life in vigils and prayers, Savina herself died, and was buried next to the martyrs. In 1798, the relics of all three Saints were translated to the basilica of St Ambrose in Milan; since 1868, they have been kept on the altar of a chapel dedicated to them within the basilica.

A reliquary of St Savina, together with St Bassianus, the first bishop of Lodi.

According to a traditional story, when Savina brought the relics of the martyrs to Milan, she hid them in a barrel. While passing through a place between Lodi and Milan, some soldiers who were guarding the city gates asked what was in it, she told them it was full of honey. The guards insisted on checking inside, and when they opened the barrel, did indeed see nothing but honey, and she was allowed to continue on her way. This place, just over ten miles southeast of Milan, is now called Melegnano, from the Latin word for honey, “mel.”

This post is the work of Nicola de’ Grandi, translated by myself.

St Ambrose’s Hymn for St Agnes

In honor of the Second Feast of St Agnes, which is kept today in the Roman Rite, here is one of the very first Western hymns ever written in her honor, a work of St Ambrose (♰397). The Ambrosian Rite does not keep the Second Feast, but uses this hymn at both Vespers and Lauds of St Agnes on January 21st. It was never previously adopted at Rome itself, but in the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours, it is assigned to Lauds.

Most of the translation given here is by Kathleen Pluth. Hers was done for the Liturgy of the Hours, which omits the half or whole of several of Ambrose’s original stanzas. These omitted parts are printed in italics, as is the accompanying prose translation, my own, very much inferior work. The recording has the whole of the original text.

Agnes, beatae virginis, natalis est, quo spiritum caelo refudit debitum, pio sacrata sanguine	The blessed virgin Agnes flies back to her home above the skies. With love she gave her blood on earth to gain a new celestial birth.
Matura martyrio fuit, matura nondum nuptiis; nutabat in viris fides, cedebat et fessus senex.	Mature enough to give her life, though still too young to be a wife, the faith wavered in the men, and the tired old man yielded.
Metu parentes territi claustrum pudoris auxerant; solvit fores custodia fides teneri nescia.	Her parents struck with fear, had increased guards of her virtue; the guardians open the doors, knowing not how to keep to their duty.
Prodire quis nuptum putet; sic laeta vultu ducitur, novas viro ferens opes, dotata censu sanguinis.	what joy she shows when death appears that one would think: her bridegroom nears! bringing new riches to her Husband endowed with the price of blood.
Aras nefandi numinis adolere taedis cogitur, respondet: Haud tales faces sumpsere Christi virgines;	Her captors lead her to the fire but she refuses their desire, “For it is not such smold’ring brands Christ’s virgins take into their hands.”
Hic ignis extinguit fidem, haec flamma lumen eripit: hic, hic ferite, ut profluo cruore restinguam focos.	“This flaming fire of pagan rite extinguishes all faith and light. Then stab me here, so that the flood may overcome this hearth in blood.”
Percussa quam pompam tulit! Nam veste se totam tegens, curam pudoris praestitit, ne quis retectam cerneret.	Courageous underneath the blows, her death a further witness shows, she took care of her modesty lest anyone see her uncovered.
In morte vivebat pudor, vultumque texerat manu; terram genu flexo petit, lapsu verecundo cadens.	In death, her modesty lived, and she covered her face with her hand, for as she falls she bends her knee and wraps her robes in modesty.
Gloria tibi, Domine, gloria Unigenito, una cum sancto Spiritu in sempiterna sæcula. Amen.	O Virgin-born, all praises be to You throughout eternity, and unto everlasting days to Father and the Spirit, praise. Amen.

The meter which St Ambrose uses here, the iambic dimeter, has eight syllables per line. The very first word of this hymn, “Agnes”, should be in the genitive (possessive) form “Agnetis”, but that would make for nine syllables. He therefore treats “Agnes” as if it were a Greek genitive ending in -es, from “Agne”, which means “holy, pure”, and is very frequently used in the Byzantine liturgy to refer to the Virgin Mary. The Ambrosian Breviary changed the line to the more Latin “Agnetis almae virginis.”

Kathleen Pluth has done over 150 versions of Latin hymns into English poetry, for the Adoremus Bulletin, Magnificat, and Word on Fire’s Liturgy of the Hours; this one was originally published in a collection of the lives of young Saints: Radiate: More Stories of Daring Teen Saints. (It was also published on one of our sister sites, the Chant Café.) She has a license in Sacred Theology, and was formerly director of sacred music in a large parish and separately in a classical school. Our thanks to her for sharing her work on NLM.

The Question of the Traditional Mass in Pope Leo XIV’s Pontificate

A guest article by the Canon of Shaftesbury, who serves as a canonist in a major archdiocese.

We find ourselves in the early days of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, and there are reasons for cautious optimism. Several signs suggest that the Holy Father wishes to address some of the more pressing challenges inherited from his predecessor.

Among these is the thorny question of access to the Traditional Latin Mass (what was once called the Extraordinary Form or Tridentine Mass) and the restrictions imposed by Traditiones Custodes.

I approach this question with the disposition we ought to have toward any successor of Peter: giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming good faith, and trusting in his pastoral intentions. Thus far, I do not detect in Pope Leo XIV any ill will toward those attached to the Traditional Mass. Yet good intentions alone do not guarantee wise policy, and two proposals currently being discussed as potential ‘solutions’ to the current impasse give me serious pause. Both, I would argue, fail to address the underlying problems and may even compound them.

The Ordinariate Proposal: A Gilded Cage

The first proposal involves creating some form of personal ordinariate to oversee communities attached to the Traditional Mass. This has a certain administrative logic to it: provide a dedicated structure, remove these communities from the direct oversight of potentially hostile diocesan bishops, and create a stable canonical framework for their existence.

But this apparent solution conceals a fundamental problem: it would create a liturgical ghetto. The genius of Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum was precisely that it refused this ghettoization. Pope Benedict recognized the Traditional Mass not as some exotic rite requiring special permissions and separate hierarchical structures, but as part of the Roman Rite itself: never abrogated, always legitimate, and available as a right to the faithful and to priests. The ordinary-extraordinary form distinction was meant to emphasize continuity, not division. It acknowledged that the Church prays in two forms of the same rite, both equally Roman, both equally Catholic.

An ordinariate structure, by contrast, would effectively declare: ‘This Mass is so problematic, so divisive, so other, that it cannot exist within normal diocesan structures.’ It would enshrine in canon law the very separation that Pope Benedict sought to overcome. Worse still, it would do nothing to address the problem of hostile bishops. In fact, it might embolden them. A bishop who has shown himself ungenerous—or outright antagonistic—toward the faithful attached to the Traditional Mass would simply have his prejudices validated: ‘See, these people and their liturgy are so different they need their own separate structure. They don’t really belong here.’

The faithful would be protected, perhaps, but at the cost of being formally marginalized. This is not a solution; it is an institutionalized retreat.

The “Reform of the Reform”: Necessary but Insufficient

The second proposal focuses on improving celebrations of the Novus Ordo; what is often called the ‘reform of the reform.’ Proponents argue that if the Ordinary Form were celebrated with greater reverence, solemnity, and attention to the sacred, many of the concerns driving people toward the Traditional Mass would dissipate.

This is not entirely wrong. Much of what ails Catholic liturgy today stems not from the Novus Ordo itself in its official form, but from the liberties, innovations, and abuses that have become routine in its celebration. A more reverent Novus Ordo: celebrated ad orientem, with Gregorian chant, in Latin where appropriate, with careful attention to rubrics, etc. This would undoubtedly be a vast improvement over what many Catholics experience on a typical Sunday.

But this approach, while laudable, does not go far enough. It treats the problem as primarily one of implementation when there are also questions of structure and theology embedded in the rite itself.

The Novus Ordo was not the product of organic liturgical development but of committee design. This is not a polemical claim but a historical fact. The post-Vatican II liturgical reform, whatever its intentions, created a rite that was substantially different from what preceded it; not through the gradual, Spirit-guided evolution that characterized liturgical development for centuries, but through deliberate committee construction in a remarkably short period of time.

Pope Benedict XVI himself was deeply aware of this problem. In his writings both as Cardinal Ratzinger and as Pope, he expressed concerns about the rupture in liturgical continuity and the dangers of treating the liturgy as something we construct rather than something we receive. His whole project in Summorum Pontificum was, in part, to restore that sense of organic continuity.

More troubling still is the way the Novus Ordo, in its typical celebration, places the priest at the center of the liturgical action. The structure of the rite, particularly when celebrated versus populum, tends to make the priest’s personality, choices, and even charisma central to the experience. The priest becomes, whether he wishes it or not, a kind of performer. The liturgy becomes, to a troubling degree, his creation.

This is not to say that priests celebrating the Novus Ordo are acting in bad faith or that Christ cannot be encountered there; of course He can and is. But the structure of the rite makes the centrality of Christ dependent on the priest’s willingness and ability to efface himself, to suppress his own personality, to resist the temptation to innovate or ‘personalize’ the liturgy.

In the Traditional Mass, by contrast, the priest’s personality is structurally suppressed. Facing the same direction as the people, following a more fixed and detailed rubrical structure, praying large portions of the Mass quietly, the priest becomes almost anonymous; a mediator rather than a protagonist. Christ is at the center not because the priest is particularly holy or particularly skilled, but because the structure of the rite itself directs all attention away from the priest and toward the altar, toward the sacrifice, toward the Lord.

It is no accident that so many churches built or renovated in the Novus Ordo era look like stadiums or auditoriums rather than sacred spaces. If the liturgy is fundamentally about what the priest does, about the community’s celebration, about active participation understood primarily as external activity, then the architectural logic follows: create a space where everyone can see the action, where the priest is visible and audible to all, where the focus is on the human gathering rather than on the divine presence.

A more reverent celebration of the Novus Ordo can mitigate some of these problems, but it cannot fully overcome them without structural changes so substantial that we would be, in effect, creating a different rite.

The Pastoral Ends

The real solution is not complicated, though it requires courage and perhaps a willingness to disappoint certain constituencies who have grown attached to the restrictions of Traditiones Custodes. The solution is to return to the dispensation of Summorum Pontificum. Pope Benedict’s motu proprio was wise precisely because it addressed all the problems that the current proposals fail to solve:

1. It dealt with hostile bishops. By establishing that priests have a right to celebrate the Traditional Mass without needing episcopal permission, and that faithful have a right to request it, Pope Benedict removed the question from the realm of episcopal whim and placed it on firmer canonical ground. A bishop could not simply forbid what the universal law of the Church permitted.

2. It refused ghettoization. By insisting on the ordinary-extraordinary form distinction, Pope Benedict kept the Traditional Mass within the normal life of dioceses and parishes. It was not an exotic import requiring special structures, but part of the Church’s living tradition.

3. It respected the freedom of the faithful. Pope Benedict understood that the faithful have a right (not merely a privilege) to access the Church’s liturgical heritage. The liturgy is not the property of bishops or popes to manipulate at will, but a sacred trust handed down through generations.

4. It created space for mutual enrichment. Pope Benedict hoped that the two forms of the Roman Rite would enrich each other: that the reverence and sacral character of the old would influence the new, while the new rite would encourage Catholics to engage actively with the liturgy, to better understand the texts, and to participate vocally in their appointed parts. These devotional habits, once cultivated, naturally enhance one’s experience of the traditional rite as well. But for this enrichment to work, it requires proximity, not separation.

Conclusion

Pope Leo XIV faces a difficult situation, and I do not envy him the task of navigating these troubled liturgical waters. But the path forward should not require novel structures or half-measures. Pope Benedict XVI, in his wisdom, already showed us the way. Summorum Pontificum was not perfect (no merely human legislation ever is) but it was fundamentally sound in its principles and generous in its pastoral vision.

What is needed now is not innovation but restoration: restoration of the freedom Pope Benedict granted, restoration of trust in the faithful, restoration of confidence that the Church is big enough to hold both forms of her Roman liturgical tradition without one threatening the other.

The Traditional Mass is not a problem to be managed or a crisis to be solved. It is a gift to be received, a treasure to be preserved, and a heritage to be passed on. The sooner we return to treating it as such, the sooner we can move past these exhausting controversies and return to the real work of the Church: the sanctification of souls and the worship of Almighty God.

Solemn Pontifical Mass Celebrated by Archbishop Cordileone - Friday, Feb. 20th, in San Francisco

Start the jubilee year of St Francis with a pilgrimage to his city! All are cordially invited to attend a Solemn Pontifical Mass in the usus antiquior which will be celebrated by His Excellency Salvatore J. Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco, on Friday, February 20th, the Friday after Ash Wednesday, at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in San Francisco. The Mass will begin at 6:30 p.m.; the shrine is located at 610 Vallejo Street.&

The Archbishop’s Schola will be there to sing the Byrd Mass for Four Voices, Byrd’s Emendemus in Melius, and Frank La Rocca’s Miserere, alongside all the proper chants. Join us for a reception following the Mass, where you’ll have the opportunity to gain a plenary indulgence for visiting the Shrine as a group (details on the indulgence here).

St. Francis, pray for us!

What is Culture, And How Do We Transform It? Part 2

This is the second of three articles exploring the Catholic understanding of culture. Last week, in the first instalment, I defined culture as the emergent pattern of activity in a society that manifests and sustains its core beliefs and values, showing how it both reflects and shapes worldviews – making it a vital battleground for Christians to transform toward beauty, love, and faith, especially in issues like the fight against abortion. This time, I will examine how freedom, as the capacity to act in accordance with the common good, underpins a truly beautiful Christian culture, allowing nations to express love in their unique ways while drawing from shared eternal principles.

Princeton University Graduate College, designed by Ralph Adams Cram (American), 1913; image from Wikimedia Commons by Zeete, CC BY-SA 4.0

Freedom, love, and the culture of nations

Love is by nature freely given (the moment we are compelled to love, it is no longer love!). Therefore, freedom - the freedom to love God and neighbor - is a necessary condition for a beautiful culture.

What is freedom? Many feel that freedom is simply the absence of constraint and compulsion. That is part of it, but the traditional approach has a deeper understanding. In the traditional understanding, freedom is best understood as the capacity to choose the practicable best. ‘Practicable’ here means what can be put into practice.

Therefore, three components must be present for us to be fully free and to choose the best course.

The first component is the absence of constraint or compulsion; the second is a full knowledge of what is best for us; and the third is the power to act in accordance with what is best.

The good that is best for each of us in the context of a society is known as the ‘common good’. When we act in accordance with the common good, we also do what is best for ourselves. In the proper order of things, the personal and common good are never in conflict. The most obvious guides to seeking the common good are the moral law and the principles of justice prescribed by Christ’s Church. All authentic and beautiful Christian cultures emerge from the freely taken actions of the members of society toward the common good.

It is in the interest of a Christian society, therefore, to promote freedom by a system of laws that are just, and so give security to the individual to act in accordance with the freedom to be moral and good. Such a system of laws would, in part, be designed to prevent interference with others' freedom. The state also encourages the formation of its citizens or subjects through an education that will help them to know the common good. The state fulfils its role by enabling effective teachers, especially parents, to teach well. If these conditions are satisfied, a culture of beauty will emerge naturally and organically from the bottom up.

Analogously, and regarding supporting the fine arts, I believe it is better to strive to create the conditions that promote the freedom to pursue art as a career than to impose the elitist vision of what art ought to look like onto people from the top down. In this context, the freedom afforded to an artist is understood as imparting knowledge of what forms of art might benefit society, as well as the skills, means, and inclination to create it. As a general rule, a top-down rigid imposition of artistic standards almost always restricts freedom and undermines the chance of creating an authentically beautiful culture. 

Willard Straight Hall, Cornell Univeristy, designed by William Adams Delano,1925

A society’s pattern of positive law (those laws created by human government) will inevitably be different from one nation to another, even for nations seeking to create laws for all the right reasons. The truths of the natural law, which inform positive law, are eternal and universal principles. Still, this universality of the principles does not mean that human society immediately and uniformly comes to know and apply them in exactly the same way everywhere. Human knowledge must progress slowly, in stages, step by step, and organically, or else it is not a true “human society” at all. It does so through trial and error, gradually seeing what works best. Therefore, until the end times, each society will take a different path towards this knowledge.

The good Christian society recognizes the difficulty of knowing fully and applying well the universal principles of the natural law, and thus, the good Christian society seeks the aid of revealed truth, which is Tradition (that is, Christian Revelation), and the experience of past laws to help guide reason. God revealed truths for two reasons, St Thomas Aquinas tells us, first because some truths are beyond the grasp of reason (for example, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the resurrection of the body); and second, God also revealed moral truths that, although part of the natural law and accessible to natural reason, would “only be discovered by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of errors” (ST Ia Q1,1 co.). Arising from this, there are two important reasons why the pattern of exercising freedom will differ from one Christian nation to another. First, principles that are well understood can still be applied in different ways across societies without contravening them; second, knowledge or understanding of a principle is unlikely to be perfect or complete and will vary from nation to nation, each believing it knows best.

Accordingly, different Christian nations are free to observe the experience of other nations, imitate what is best in them, and adopt what is beautiful and good from them. This way, in the proper order of things, each nation is part of a family of distinct and autonomous nations, each helping the other to find what is best.

Keble College, Oxford, England, designed by William Butterfield, 1870. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Diliff, CC BY 2.5

As already stated, a culture is a sign of the society’s core values that produce it, and is beautiful to the degree that it is Christian. We should be aware that this is true even in societies or countries that would not think of themselves as Christian. An Islamic nation, for example, has a beautiful culture to the degree that its culture is consistent with an expression of Christian truths, even when those truths are communicated to them by the Koran or through the discernment of natural law.

Furthermore, the Christian characteristics of different cultures connect them to one another, and the national expressions of that Christian faith, manifested in characteristic patterns of loving interaction and free behavior, distinguish these cultures.

So, for example, the United States began as a nation that adopted and then adapted a system of law from the English constitutional tradition. The English constitutional tradition is a system of laws, rooted in Christian values yet expressed in a characteristically English way that is quite different from that of its neighbor, France. Over time, the American legal system developed its own national characteristics, while still owing much to its English origins, but now expressed in a characteristically American way. If American culture is to be transformed so that it may be once more one of beauty, it will assert the importance of America as a distinct nation with characteristic values that are simultaneously Christian and of a particular American-English expression. As such, one would expect similarities between English and American cultures, and a natural tendency for developments in one nation to inform those in the other. We see, for example, that in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, American churches and universities were modelled on the English Neo-Gothic style. They even hired English architects to build them, but an American character quickly emerged in their neo-Gothic architecture. While Princeton and Oxford share similarities, they also differ. One reflects America, while the other reflects England.

In citing the above example, I should clarify that I am referring to the Princeton and Oxford buildings constructed before the widespread rejection of Christian values in American and British culture, which took hold strongly after the Second World War. In both nations, many institutions, especially universities, lost a sense of the importance of the Christian faith and rejected traditional forms and Christian culture generally. Many of the newer buildings on the campuses, reflecting this anti-Christian worldview, are ugly in my opinion.

Mitchell Tower (1901-8), University of Chicago, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, architects. Modeled after the Magdalen Tower (1492–1508), Oxford University. Image from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Oh dear… here is the Princeton University Art Museum, which opened in November 2025.

Princeton University Art Museum, 2025, already known locally as ‘the concrete air conditioning unit’; Image from Wikimedia Commons by Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY 4.0

An Apse Mosaic of the Early 9th Century

Here is an interesting thing I happened to stumble across today, a little oratory in the town of Germigny-des-Prés, about 76 miles directly south of Paris. It was built in 806 as part of a large palace complex by Theodulf (750/60 - 821), a Spaniard who served as bishop of the nearby city of Orléans for about 20 years, (798 ca. - 818), and was one of the leading literary figures of the Carolingian Renaissance. No other part of the palace survives; the oratory is of particular interest because it still preserves the original apsidal mosaic, the only example of a mosaic from its period still preserved in situ. It depicts two angels hovering over the Ark of the Covenant. There was a lot of cultural exchange between the court of Charlemagne and that of Byzantium, and the influence of Byzantine art is very evident here.

Unfortunately, very little remains of the mosaic work in the arches underneath the apse. 

The oratory was originally built on a Greek-cross plan, but a nave was added to it on the west side in the later 15th or early 16th century, and then extended in the 19th, with the further addition of the bell-tower over the façade.

The floorplan and various cutaway views.

None of the decoration in the nave has been preserved either.

The baptismal font from the Romanesque period.

St Paula of Rome

The Roman Martyrology notes today as the anniversary of the death of a Saint named Paula in the year 404. She was a disciple of St Jerome, and the principal source of information about her is one of the longest among his many letters (108), written to console her daughter Eustochium. It recounts a great deal of information which the daughter certainly already knew, but of course, Jerome wrote with the expectation that his letters would be widely copied and read. He therefore takes the opportunity to present Paula as a model Christian, and describes his work with the opening words of one of Horace’s odes (3.30): “Exegi monumentum aere perennius – I have raised up a memorial more lasting than bronze.”

The Madonna and Child with Ss Paula of Rome and Agatha, ca. 1500, by the Italian painter Michele Ciampanti (from Lucca in Tuscany), formerly known as the Stratonice Master. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Paula was born in 347, a descendent of some of the wealthiest and most ancient families in Rome; at 16, she was married to a nobleman of similarly ancient lineage called Toxotius. They had four daughters, Blaesilla, Paulina, Eustochium, and Rufina, and a son named for his father. When she was thirty-two, her husband died, and after a period of extreme grief, she was encouraged by another widow, St Marcella, to devote herself to a kind of monastic life. This was not a formal enclosure in a religious house, solemnized by vows, a custom which barely existed in her time, but a life of great austerity, study and prayer, commonly shared with other women of similar station, and charitable works, for which the resources at her disposal were vast.

In 382, she was introduced to Jerome, who came from Bethlehem to the Eternal City in the company of two other Saints, Paulinus, the bishop of Antioch who had ordained him a priest, and Epiphanius of Salamis, the author of a well-known (but rather careless) treatise against heresies. Jerome became the spiritual director of the circle of devout women to which Paula belonged, a fact which invited a good deal of unpleasant and jealous gossip. This was also the period in which he undertook the first of his Biblical projects, at the behest of Pope St Damasus I, the revision of the Latin text of the Gospels.

Damasus died in 384, and Jerome, finding the atmosphere of Rome uncongenial (to say the least), returned to the Holy Land. Shortly thereafter, Blaesilla died, and Paula decided to leave Rome and join her spiritual father. Her second daughter Paulina was well married to another wealthy nobleman, Pammachius, also a friend of Jerome, and the builder of the Roman basilica of Ss John and Paul. Eustochium had always been much more inclined towards her mother’s way of life, and would be her constant companion for the rest of her life, but at the time of her departure, Rufina and Toxotius were still very young. Jerome describes in the aforementioned letter how she overcame her motherly affection to go where she knew Christ to be calling her. After visiting Epiphanius in his see on the island of Cyprus, they met Jerome at Antioch; from there, they proceeded to a pilgrimage of the major sites of the Holy Land, and visited the emergent monastic communities of Egypt and the Sinai desert.

St Paula Embarking on Her Journey at Ostia; after 1642, by the French painter Claude Lorrain (1604-82). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

After this pilgrimage, Paulina and Eustochium settled in Bethlehem, where Jerome had long been previously established, and lived as they had in Rome, with him as their spiritual director. She used her fortune to build two monasteries, one for men and one for women, governing the latter herself, as well as a hospice for pilgrims. Her financial support was also essential to Jerome in his great work of translating the Hebrew parts of the Old Testament, and she and her daughter helped him on a scholarly level as well, since they knew both Greek and Hebrew. Jerome’s prefaces to Esther, Isaiah, Daniel and the Twelve Prophets, and that of his second revision of the Psalms (the so-called Gallican Psalter, used in the Roman Breviary) are all addressed to Paula and Eustochium, as are his commentaries on some of the Pauline Epistles. The preface to Joshua, Judges and Ruth was written to Eustochium “after the death of St Paula.” An author of the ninth-century, St Paschasius Radbertus, successfully passed off a treatise of his own on the Assumption, known from its opening words as “Cogitis me”, as the work of St Jerome by pretending to address it to the same two women. A passage of it is still read to this day in the Divine Office on the feast of the Immaculate Conception under Jerome’s name, and indeed, it has proved to be far more influential than any of Paschasius’ works published under his own name.

The younger Toxotius married a woman called Laeta, the Christian daughter of a pagan priest, and from this union was born a girl named for her paternal grandmother. One of St Jerome’s most influential treatises is a letter addressed to Laeta concerning her daughter’s education, which is placed in his epistolarium right before the letter to Eustochium. It concludes with the advice that Rome may prove a less-than-ideal place for the child’s rearing, in which case, she should send her to her grandmother and aunt in Bethlehem once she was old enough, which did in fact happen.

After Paula’s death, Eustochium took over the administration of the monastery until her own death 15 years later, at which it passed to the younger Paula. She was buried with her mother, and when Jerome passed away a year and two days later, he was buried next to them.

The Holy Trinity, with Ss Jerome, Paula and Eustochium, ca. 1453, by Andrea del Castagno, in the Montauti chapel of the basilica of the Annunciation in Florence. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Around the same time, a Greek named Palladius wrote a book about the lives of the early desert fathers known as the Lausiac History, which contains this very funny story about Paula and Jerome. “A certain Jerome, a priest, distinguished Latin writer and cultivated scholar as he was, showed qualities of temper so disastrous that they threw into the shade his splendid achievements. Posidonius, who had lived with him many days, said in my hearing, ‘The noble Paula, who looks after him, will die first and be freed from his bad temper…’ ”

The Gospels of the Epiphany (Part 3)

The introit of the Third Sunday after Epiphany begins with the same words as another antiphon from the Matins of that feast, “Adore God, all ye His Angels.” The reference to Epiphany is even more explicit in the Gradual, taken from the one-hundred-and-first psalm, “The nations will fear thy name, o Lord, and all the kings of the earth Thy glory.”

On the previous Sunday, the Church reads of the first miracle occurring in the Gospel of St John; on this Sunday are read the first two miracles in the Gospel of St Matthew (8, 1-13), namely, the healing of a leper, and of the servant of the centurion of Capharnaum. The Roman centurion, when asking for the cure of his gravely ill and beloved servant, declares himself the inferior of a provincial carpenter, unworthy to receive Him into his home. This Gospel is therefore not simply the story of a miracle, but also of the nations’ confession of the divinity of Christ; even the might of the Roman Empire humbles itself before Him, as the Magi did at His birth. The story of the centurion is one of the very few that is used more than once in the temporal cycle of readings, being also the Gospel of the Thursday after Ash Wednesday. In the liturgical rite which originated in Rome, and is now celebrated in every corner of the world, his confession of faith in Christ has been part of the rite of Holy Communion for many centuries.

Christ and the Centurion, by Paolo Veronese, ca. 1571

The remaining Sundays of the season after Epiphany have their own prayers and Scriptural readings, but their Gregorian antiphons are repeated from this third Sunday. On the fourth Sunday, the last which can occur before the Christmas season ends on the Purification, the Gospel recounts yet another manifestation of Christ, the calming of the waters of the Sea of Galilee. (Matt. 8, 23-27) Up to this point in St Matthew’s Gospel, the miracles he recounts have all been healings; this is the first miracle of dominion over inanimate creation. This Gospel was perhaps also chosen as a vague reminiscence of the Office of the Epiphany, in which the antiphon of the Benedicite reads, “Seas and rivers, bless the Lord, sing to the Lord a hymn, o fountains, alleluja.” The last two Sundays after Epiphany always fall after the Christmas season ends on February 2nd, and the Gospels chosen for them are no longer manifestations of Christ, but parables.

At most of the Masses associated with the Epiphany, (the vigil, the feast, the two Sundays after the feast), the text of the Communion antiphon is taken from the Gospel. On the third Sunday, however, it is taken from a Gospel text that is not read at all in the Missal of St Pius V. In the Tridentine missal, the ferial days of most seasons have no proper Scriptural readings, but simply repeat those of the previous Sunday, a custom well-established in Rome long before Trent. Many medieval missals, on the other hand, including those of Sarum, Liège and most of the churches of the German Empire, preserve an older custom of the Roman Rite, whereby proper readings were assigned to the Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. The story from St Luke’s Gospel of Christ in the synagogue at Capharnaum, (4, 14-22), is assigned by the very oldest surviving Roman lectionary, the seventh-century Wurzburg manuscript, to an unspecified day after the Sunday of the wedding at Cana. After Christ reads a passage from the book of Isaiah, He declares the words of the prophet to be fulfilled in by His coming to Israel; it is the Lord Himself who manifests to the world the true meaning of the words of sacred Scripture. This Gospel’s former presence in the corpus of Mass-lessons is the origin of the Communion antiphon which is sung until Septuagesima Sunday arrives; “All wondered at these things which proceeded from the mouth of God.”

The ancient lectionaries and medieval missals add a number of other Gospel episodes to the season, such as the arrival of Christ in Galilee (Matt. 4, 12-17), and several of the early healings performed by Him. The miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and the feeding of the five-thousand is also occasionally counted as part of the Epiphany story. The Ambrosian liturgy’s Epiphany hymn Illuminans altissime devotes three strophes to this event, more than it gives to the coming of the Magi, the Baptism of Christ or the Wedding at Cana; then, curiously no further reference to it is made until the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, when it is read from the Gospel of St Luke (9, 10-17). The same hymn is sung in the Mozarabic Rite, whose preface of the feast also dwells at length upon the event, but the Gospel itself is never read in the Epiphany season. The Wurzburg lectionary assigns the story to be read twice in the seventh week after Epiphany, first from St Mark and then from St Matthew, but these readings are not in the eighth-century Murbach lectionary, or the medieval missals.

The Crucifixion, by Ottaviano Nelli (1421-24), from the chapel of the Palazzo Trinci in Foligno, Italy; Blessed James of Voragine, who was archbishop of Genoa, Italy from 1292 until his death in 1298 or 99, is the bishop on the left. (Photograph by Georges Jansoone from Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0)

Blessed James of Voragine, the author of the much maligned (and unjustly so) Golden Legend, says that the feast commemorates four miracles, and, citing the authority of the Venerable Bede and of the aforementioned hymn, notes that the feast was also called Phagiphania, from the Greek word for eating. He also notes, with some of the critical spirit he is habitually attacked for lacking, “but concerning this fourth miracle, it is doubted whether it happened on this day, both because this is not read in the original text of Bede, and because it is said in the sixth chapter of John, where this miracle is dealt with, ‘Easter was nigh.’ ” (Legenda aurea cap. 14)

Sicard of Cremona agrees in rejecting this tradition as “not authentic”, and it is very likely that the prominent position of the story on Laetare Sunday is the reason why it was early on removed from the Epiphany season. As the church of Milan sings in an antiphon of Epiphany Matins, “Thou alone hast wrought many wonders, o Lord God,” and some must be saved for the rest of the Church’s year.

Deus in Adjutorium Meum Intende: Online Conference on the Divine Office, February 6 & 7

Discover the beauty of the sung Divine Office at this enriching online conference!

The Church Music Association of America is proud to serve as a co-host with the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music for an upcoming conference on the sung Divine Office, which will be held online on February 6-7.

Beginning with the ancient invocation “Deus in adjutorium meum intende ~ O God, come to my assistance”), this event explores how the Divine Office, the Church’s official daily prayer, is sung and lived across diverse spiritual traditions and charisms, from Benedictine monasteries, Dominican friaries, and Norbertine abbeys to diocesan rectories, cathedrals, and in the lives of the laity.

Sessions include:

• Theological reflections on biblical texts and the hymns of the Office
• Practical workshops on chanting psalmody and employing the organ at the Divine Office
• Insights into adapting the Divine Office in parish settings, religious communities, and private prayer
• Presentations on historical and contemporary approaches to sung prayer in various rites and orders

Whether you are a cleric, religious, choir director, or lay faithful seeking to deepen your prayer life through sacred music, this conference will inspire you to make the Church’s universal prayer a vibrant part of your daily rhythm. Register now and join Catholics from around the world in praising God through the timeless treasure of the Divine Office!

Learn More and Register

Speakers and Topics

• The Spirituality of the Divine Office – Fr. Mark Bachmann, OSB, Choirmaster of Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey
• The Spirituality and Place of the Divine Office in the Lives of the Laity – Dr. Anthony Lilles, St. Patrick’s Seminary, Avila Institute
• The Spirituality of the Sung Office for the Diocesan Priest – Fr. Robert Pasley, Church Music Association of America (CMAA)
• Accompaniment & Accentuation: The Role of the Organ in the Divine Office – Prof. Christopher Berry, CMAA and Catholic Institute of Sacred Music
• The Hymns of the Divine Office – Sr. Maria Kiely, OSB, Dominican House of Studies, ICEL
• Vocal Technique for Singing the Office – Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, CMAA and Catholic Institute of Sacred Music
• Officium Divinum: The Role of Latin in the Celebration of the Divine Office – Gregory DiPippo, Editor of New Liturgical Movement
• Progressive Solemnity in the Dominican Office – Fr. Innocent Smith, OP, University of Notre Dame
• The Old Testament Canticles of Lauds: Songs of the New Creation – Dr. Nina Heereman, St. Patrick’s Seminary
• Nihil operi Dei præponatur: The Centrality of the Divine Office in Monastic Life – Abbot Marc Crilly, OSB, St. Benedict’s Abbey
• The Divine Office for the Canons Regular of Prémontré: A Changing Expression of a Perennial Vocation – Fr. Chrysostom Baer, O.Praem., St. Michael’s Abbey, Silverado, California
• Challenges in Preparing Editions for and Singing the Liturgy of the Hours in Parish Life – Dr. Richard Skirpan, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
• Psalmody Workshop: Pointing, Pacing, and Developing a Community Sound – Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka, CMAA and Catholic Institute of Sacred Music