St Elizabeth of Hungary was canonized on Pentecost of the year 1235, May 25th, just over three-and-a-half years after her death, the third Franciscan Saint, and first woman among them, since at the time St Clare of Assisi was still alive in this world. She was one of the very earliest prominent members of the Third Order, and has long been honored as its chief patron alongside St Louis IX, king of France. (St Francis himself and St Anthony of Padua were canonized before her, and even more rapidly, by the same pope, Gregory IX.)
The Polyptych of St Anthony, 1460-70, made by Piero della Francesca (1412-92) for the Franciscan church of St Anthony in Perugia. At top, the Annunciation; in the middle (left to right), Ss Anthony and John the Baptist, the Madonna and Child, and Ss Francis and Elizabeth of Hungary; in the band below them, St Clare on the left, and St Agatha on the right. In the predella are shown three miracles: St Anthony raising a dead girl to life, St Francis receiving the stigmata, and St Elizabeth saving a child that had fallen into a well. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
There appears to have been some confusion over the precise date of St Elizabeth’s death right from the beginning. Before and after the Tridentine reform, her feast was kept by almost all the places that observed it on November 19th, and this is the day she was given when she was added to the Roman general calendar in 1670. However, it is now generally accepted that she died on the 17th, and the 19th was the day of her burial. On the post-Conciliar general calendar, the 17th was opened up by the suppression of St Gregory the Wonderworker (one of the reformers’ least intelligent decisions), and she has been moved to that day. But ironically, in Germany, where her cultus was most fervent and important, the 17th belongs to St Gertrude the Great, and Elizabeth is still on the 19th.
She is called “of Hungary” because she was the daughter of Andrew II, king of that nation, but she was married very young to a German nobleman, Louis, the landgrave of Thuringia. Her maternal aunt, Hedwig, duchess of Silesia, is also a canonized Saint, celebrated on October 16th. After her death and canonization, her shrine in the city of Marburg, where she died (about 54 miles north of Frankfurt), became a very important pilgrimage center.
Unsurprisingly, given her various royal connections, several very impressive reliquaries were made for her. The most notable of these is a reliquary in the form of a large chalice which formerly contained her skull. The cup inside is an agate bowl made sometime between the fourth and seventh centuries; it is decorated with a large number of jewels, including some carved in very ancient times. The lid is decorated with parts of two royal crowns of the 13th century. During the Thirty Years’ War, it was looted by Swedish troops from a fortress in Würzburg, and now resides in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm. There are a huge number of photographs showing its details at the relevant page of Wikimedia Commons. (First four images by Ola Myrin SHM, CC BY 4.0)
The basilicas which house the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul are among the six which the Emperor Constantine built in Rome in the first years of the peace of the Church. Already by the later 4th century, a hymn of St Ambrose speaks of a procession to visit them both on the Apostles’ feast day, June 29th. However, the most ancient liturgical books of the Roman Rite do not attest to a celebration of the anniversary of their dedication, nor indeed of any such anniversary; the annual commemoration of the dedication of a church is one of the many happy inventions by which the Carolingians enriched the Roman Rite. It is reasonable to assume that once this custom had taken root, the joint celebration of the dedication of the two basilicas was inspired by the joint celebration of the two Apostles to whom they are dedicated, which is one of the universal and most ancient customs of all Christian liturgy. As far as I have been able to ascertain, this is the only pre-Tridentine example of the dedication of two separate churches being kept as a single feast.
Pope Urban VIII draws the letters of the Latin alphabet in ashes spread over the floor, during the consecration of St. Peter’s Basilica on November 18, 1626, the 1300th anniversary of the original church’s consecration by Pope St Sylvester I. (Roman tapestry, ca. 1660)
Prior to the Tridentine reform, however, this feast and the dedication of the Lateran basilica on November 9th were kept almost nowhere outside of Rome itself. Even the Franciscans, who adopted the liturgy of the Roman Curia from their very beginning, did not keep either one. Most of Europe celebrated November 9th as the feast of the martyr Theodore, who is still commemorated on that day, and the 18th as the octave of St Martin.
The breviary of St Pius V, issued in 1568, and the missal which followed it in 1570, were the first liturgical books of their kind deliberately designed to be used outside their place of origin, since they came with the Pope’s permission (not requirement) to adopt them anywhere the Roman Rite was used, in place of the local liturgical use which had hitherto prevailed. However, the liturgy of November 18th contains an interesting anomaly which is found on no other occasion; although the feast commemorates the dedication of two different churches, the Collect of the Mass, which is also said six times in the Office, remains in the singular.
“Deus, qui nobis per síngulos annos hujus sancti templi tui consecratiónis réparas diem … præsta, ut quisquis hoc templum beneficia petitúrus ingréditur, cuncta se impetrasse laetétur.
O God, who each year renewest for us the day of the consecration of this Thy holy temple … grant that whoever entereth this temple to ask for (Thy) favors, may rejoice in having obtained all (that he sought).”
The prayers for the Mass of the anniversary of the dedication of a church in the Echternach Sacramentary, 895 A.D. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 9433)
Likewise, none of the other references to “church” in the singular are changed in either the Office or the Mass. Since most places in Europe only began to keep these feasts when (and if) they adopted the Roman liturgical books, they would have encountered this anomaly for the first time in the celebration of this feast.
Some might find it tempting to dismiss this as no more than an example of the habitual, and some might say lazy, liturgical conservatism of the Roman church. I do not believe this to be the case, since the Tridentine books are in so many ways a carefully thought-out response to the novelties of the Protestant reformation.
It is well known that the Reformation, starting with Luther himself, pretended to find justification for its novelties in some of St Paul’s letters, which became for them “the canon within the canon”, the yardstick against which everything else in Scripture, tradition and history was to be measured. This includes not just everything taught by the papacy and the Church in communion with it, but the papacy itself, and thus would the so-called reformers pit Peter and Paul against each other. The Roman liturgy (more precisely, the specifically Roman iteration of it then spreading out to other parts of the world), therefore treats the two churches and the two tombs of the two Apostles as if they were one, to lay emphasis on their real and ancient unity, always faithfully maintained and fostered by the Roman church.
The chancel arch, apse and high altar of the basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls, seen from the nave. Each image of St Paul is accompanied by one of St Peter, on the chancel arch, in the apsidal mosaic, and with the two statues seen here at the lower corners. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Fallaner, CC BY-SA 4.0)
As noted above, the joint feast of Ss Peter and Paul is extremely ancient, while that of the dedication of their basilicas is a product of the early Middle Ages. The Protestant reformers believed that they could restore the original ancient Christian faith by liberating it from the supposed accretions of the medieval period, although they often disagreed amongst themselves, and often quite violently, as to what exactly those accretions were. The Tridentine reform was essentially the Catholic Church’s answer to the question of what to do with all that it had inherited from the Middle Ages, in response to the Protestant repudiation of that inheritance. The Tridentine liturgy therefore reasserts the unity between Peter and Paul with two feasts, one ancient and one medieval, in which they are jointly commemorated, as an assertion of continuity between Christian antiquity and the Middle Ages. [1]
Furthermore, the Protestants often accused the Catholic Church of emphasizing the Saints so much as to eclipse Christ Himself. Many of them believed, and still believe, that devotion to the Saints was no more than a shallow Christianization of ancient polytheism. But this idea is refuted specifically by St Augustine, the same author to whom they turned for proof of their doctrine of grace. In The City of God, 8, 27, he writes, “But who ever heard a priest of the faithful, standing at an altar built for the honor and worship of God over the holy body of some martyr, say in the prayers, ‘I offer to you a sacrifice, Peter, or Paul, or Cyprian?’ For it is to God that sacrifices are offered at their tombs – the God who made them both men and martyrs, and associated them with holy angels in celestial honor; and the reason why we pay such honors to their memory is that by so doing, we may both give thanks to the true God for their victories, and, by recalling them afresh to remembrance, may stir ourselves up to imitate them by seeking to obtain like crowns and palms, calling to our help that same God on whom they called. Therefore, whatever honors the religious may pay in the places of the martyrs, they are but honors rendered to their memory, not sacred rites or sacrifices offered to dead men as to gods.” [2]
(The Communio of the Mass of a church dedication: “My house shall be called a house of prayer, sayeth the Lord; in it, everyone who asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and it is open to him that knocketh.” Matthew 21, 13)
The choice of Matins readings for a dedication and its octave reinforces this. On the feast itself and the following five days, those of the second nocturn are taken from Augustine. On the seventh day, St John Chrysostom is brought in as a witness that the Eastern churches have always held the same ancient Faith as the West; on the octave itself, the reading is from an early medieval Pope, St Felix IV, as quoted in a medieval collection of canon law. (Canon law was especially hated by the early Protestants as one of the worst medieval “corruptions.”) Likewise, in the third nocturn, the readings begin with St Ambrose, then pass to St Gregory the Great, and finally to the Venerable Bede, a symbol of the faithful transmission of the Church’s teaching from one generation to another. [3]
The very first such reading (on the second day of the feast) shows how carefully this was all thought out, a passage from St Augustine’s Treatise on Psalm 121, which quotes both Peter and Paul.
“ ‘Jerusalem that is being built as a city.’ Brethren, when David was saying these things, that city had been finished; it was not still being built. He speaks therefore of some city, I know not which, that is now being built, unto which living stones run in faith, of whom Peter says, ‘And you are built up together as living stones into a spiritual house’ (1 Pet. 2, 5) that is, as the holy temple of God. What does it mean, ‘You are built up together as living stones?’ You live, if you believe, but if you believe, you will be made a temple of God; for the Apostle Paul says, ‘For the temple of God is holy, which temple are you.’ ” (1 Cor. 3, 17)
NOTES: [1] The creators of St Pius V’s reformed books may not have understood when exactly the feast of a church dedication came into existence, but they would certainly have noted its absence from the ancient sacramentaries kept in the Vatican library.
[2] Likewise, in his treatise against Faustus the Manichaean (20, 21): “For which of the bishops, while officiating at the altar in the places where the saints’ bodies lie, has ever said ‘We bring thee an offering, Peter, or Paul, or Cyprian’? But what is offered is offered to God, who crowned the martyrs, in the places of memorial of those whom He crowned, so that great affection might arise from the association with those very places, and charity kindled towards those whom we can imitate, and to Him by whose help we can imitate them.”
[3] The reading attributed to Pope Felix is not authentically his, but this fact was unknown in the 16th century. The breviary of St Pius V reads the homily of St Gregory that begins with the words “Si veraciter sapientes” on the 4th day within the octave; in the reform of St Pius X, it was moved to the octave day.
Recently, I was reading some of the hymns from the Midnight Office of the Byzantine Rite, and the following one from the third tone of the Sunday octoechos particularly caught my attention:
In days of old, Elijah ordered that water be poured three times over the wood and the sacrifice; thus, he manifested a symbol of the Three Hypostases of the one and divine Lordship.
This is a commentary on a passage from 1 Kings 18, in which the prophet Elijah challenges 450 prophets of the pagan God Baal to a contest on Mount Carmel. Each side prepares a bull on an altar without lighting a fire: Then Elias bade the people come near; and when they were standing close to him, he began repairing the altar of the Lord, which was broken down. Twelve stones he took, one for each tribe that sprang from the sons of Jacob, to whom the divine voice gave the surname of Israel; and with these stones he built up the altar again, calling on the Lord's name as he did it. Then he made a trench around the altar of some two furrows breadth; piled the wood high, cut the bull into joints, and laid these on the wood. Now, he said, fill four buckets with water, and pour it over victim and wood alike. And again he bade them do it, and when they had finished a third time. The water was running all around the altar, and the trench he had dug for it was full. (1 Kings 18, 30-35)
He then calls on their god to send flames from heaven to consume the sacrifice. Elijah, needless to say, prevails, calling upon God who consumes altar, bull and water with fire.
Here are examples of artistic depictions of this scene that I found. There weren’t many to choose from, so this is pretty much all of them!
3rd Century Fresco, Dura Europos, in modern Syria.
The Sacrifice of Elijah, by Aert Jansz. Marienhof (1626-54) Credit: The Bowes Museum
Albert Joseph Moore: Elijah’ Sacrifice, 1863. (Bury Art Museum)
Rembrandt, pen and ink, 17th century Dutch
Domenico Fetti (Rome c. 1588-Venice 1623) - The Sacrifice of Elijah Before the Priests of Baal
Looking at these, I realised that, as far as I could see, none of the artists attempted to draw out the simple Trinitarian symbolism referred to in the Byzantine liturgy. This, therefore, provides an opportunity for contemporary artists to enrich the tradition. It is important to draw out these parallels, just as Rublev reflected the Trinitarian imagery in his depiction of the Hospitality of Abraham. By connecting the texts of the Old and New Testaments through prototypes, artists and hymnographers help to reinforce the unity of Scripture and establish the sense of a single arc of time in Salvation History.
I was reflecting on this and thinking about how I would do it if I were to paint it. What follows is purely speculative.
I suggest incorporating a clear triangular geometry and a representation of the triple action of pouring water, showing each of the three instances as a triple image.
The Eucharistic parallels are in the sacrifice, while the baptismal arises from the purifying action of the water.
It is the pentecostal that is most interesting to me. First, the action of fire that consumes evil but leaves the pure untouched echoes that of the three children in the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel. The hymns of the liturgy describe this scene from Daniel very often, and refer to the action of God in the fire of the furnace, and of the young men who were protected by the presence of a cooling dew. Both dew and fire are connected symbolically to the Holy Spirit. The other place where this parallel with dew and the Spirit is made in the commentaries of Church Fathers is in the description of the fleece of Gideon. So how might I bring all of this together?
I suggest creating a painting of Pentecost in which the New Testament scene is the primary image, with subsidiary images in the same painting of Gideon, Elijah, and the prophets of Baal, and the three young men in the fiery furnace. Just a thought!
13th century Armenian illumination: The Fiery furnace by Toros Roslin.
In England and in the Carthusian Order, today is the feast of a Saint called Hugh (1140 ca. – 1200), a French Carthusian who in 1186 became bishop of Lincoln, which was at the time the largest diocese in that country. (Image below: part of an altarpiece from the Carthusian monastery of Saint-Honoré in Thuison-les-Abbeville, France, ca. 1490/1500. Like his contemporary St Francis, Hugh was known for his love of animals; he is often depicted with a wild swan which would follow him around like a pet and eat from his hand, not at all typical behavior for those ill-tempered creatures.)
St Hugh was born to a noble family in a village called Avalon in the kingdom of Burgundy, roughly 80 miles to the south-southeast of Lyon. When he was eight, at the death of his mother, his father sent him to be educated by a local community of Augustinian Canons Regular, which he decided to enter in his mid-teens. He was ordained a deacon, and sent to assist an aged parish priest whose church was a dependency of the canonry; he soon had a reputation for being a very good preacher. But he had already begun to long for a more contemplative life when he paid a visit to the Grande Chartreuse, which is roughly a long day’s walk (around a mountain) from Avalon. The monastery was then relatively new, founded by St Bruno in 1084 on property donated by another St Hugh, bishop of nearby Grenoble (1053 – 1132). He entered the community in 1163, and was ordained a priest; after about ten years, he was chosen for the office of procurator, the administrator of all the monastery’s temporal possessions. He would hold this position until he left the monastery seven years later.
Normally, the life of a Carthusian would pass unnoticed by the wider world, but Hugh was a man of noble birth who held an office of high importance in a much-admired monastery, a leading institution of reform in an age of reformers, and was destined not to remain in the obscurity of his cell.
As part of his penance for his role in the murder of St Thomas Becket, King Henry II of England had agreed to establish the first Carthusian house in his country, at a place called Witham in Somerset in the west country, but the project was going forward at a snail’s pace. Henry had heard about Hugh from a French nobleman who had lands near the Grande Chartreuse, and therefore sent a deputation to formally request that he be sent to take over as prior. Against his great reluctance, Hugh was constrained to accept the position by the Carthusian chapter, and thus departed for England, where he would spend nearly all the rest of his life.
The Grande Chartreuse. St Hugh’s native place is on the other side of the mountains seen here behind it.
On arriving at Witham, he found the monastery barely begun, and the local peasants, many of whom had been displaced from the king’s land to make room for it, understandably quite hostile. Hugh was able with great tact to persuade the king not only to fulfill his promise to provide all that was necessary to complete the building project, but also to properly and fully compensate the peasants. The monastery began to flourish, and was often visited by the king, whose favorite hunting grounds were nearby.
King Henry held Hugh in very high regard, as illustrated by the story that once when he and his army were caught in a terrible storm at sea, he called upon God to save them “though the merits and intercession” not of St Nicholas or St Elmo, but by those “of the prior of Witham”, and the storm died down immediately. However, although he had been chastened in the aftermath of St Thomas’ murder, Henry had not really renounced any of the importunities which had for too long characterized relations between the monarchy and the Church. Among other things, it had become a common custom to leave episcopal sees vacant, so that the revenues attached to the bishop’s office would default to the royal coffers. The see of Lincoln had thus been left vacant for all but 18 months of the previous 18 years. St Hugh prevailed upon the king to redress the matter, at which Henry pressured the chapter of Lincoln to elect Hugh himself as their bishop. Once again, this was done very much against his will, and once again, he was obliged to accept the office by the authority of his order.
The Martyrdom of St Thomas Beckett, depicted ca. 1220, the year of St Hugh’s canonization, in an illuminated psalter.
Not at all surprisingly, his tenure as bishop demonstrated the truth of the axiom that power is best given to those who do not want it. After so long without a shepherd, the diocese of Lincoln was very much in need of reform, and Hugh proved to be an exemplary reformer, assiduous in his administration of the sacraments, in his preaching, and in his visitation of his very large diocese, diligent in his leadership of his clergy, and in his care of the poor and the sick. Each year he would make a retreat to Witham Priory, and live for a time as an ordinary monk within the community.
He was known for his good cheer and sense of humor, which is illustrated by an anecdote regarding yet another of King Henry’s intrusions into the life of the Church. It was a common abuse in that era for the nobility to reward their courtiers with lucrative ecclesiastical jobs under their patronage. (Very often, the salary would go to a man with no interest in actually doing the job, who would then use part of it to pay a man of much lower social class to act as his vicar, and do all the work in his stead.) St Hugh refused to seat a proposed nominee to one of the prebends of his cathedral, saying that “the king does not lack (other) means to reward his servants.” Henry summoned him to court, but ordered everyone in the castle to simply ignore him when he arrived. Hugh came upon the king sewing a bandage on his cut finger, and after a few minutes of icy silence from his majesty, remarked, “Now you look like your kinsman at Falaise,” a reference to Henry’s great-grandmother, Herleva of Falaise, who had been the daughter of a glove-maker. The king is said to have laughed out loud at this, and once again, been reconciled with the holy bishop.
In 1189, Henry died, and was succeeded by his son Richard I, known as the Lionhearted; that same year saw the beginning of the Third Crusade, and several outbreaks of mob violence against the Jews in England. On three different occasions, one of them at his own cathedral, St Hugh single-handedly faced down the mobs, and solely by the force of his own authority and personality, cowed them into leaving their would-be victims alone. In 1197, Richard attempted to force the bishops of England to help finance a war with the king of France; Hugh successfully resisted this importunity as well.
A year before his election to Lincoln, the city’s original cathedral had been badly damaged by an earthquake, an extremely rare event in England. St Hugh began an ambitious rebuilding project, and lived to see the completion of the choir, which is traditionally named after him. (From the time of its completion in 1311 until 1549, Lincoln Cathedral was the tallest man-made structure in the world. It lost its rank as such not because it was outbuilt, but because its central spire collapsed.)
St Hugh’s Choir within the cathedral, as it appears today.
When King Richard died in 1199, his brother and successor, John, sent Hugh as an ambassador to France. On this trip, he visited the three great mother-houses of the major monastic congregations, his old home, the Grand Chartreuse, Cluny and Citeaux, and was received with great honor. But his health was now failing; he was taken badly ill while attending a council in London, and died after lingering for two months. His body was taken back to Lincoln and buried in the cathedral, and he was canonized by Pope Honorius III only 20 years after his death. His shrine became an important pilgrimage site, and his feast was kept on this day throughout England until the reformation, when the shrine was destroyed.
In the 16th century, the importunity of the English monarchs against the Church finally reached its zenith, the greed and impiety of another eighth Henry was brought down on all the monasteries of England, and the charterhouse at Witham was suppressed, along with the nine other Carthusian houses that had subsequently been founded. When the order was reestablished in England in 1873, in the southern town of Parkminster, the new house was named for St Hugh.
In addition to Great Lent, the Byzantine tradition has three other fasts connected with major feasts. The liturgical year begins on September 1st, so the first of these is the fast of the Lord’s Nativity, which is often called “St Philip’s fast”, since it begins on November 15th, the day after the feast of the Apostle St Philip. This is very similar to the custom of the Ambrosian and Mozarabic Rites, which begin Advent on the Sunday after the feast of St Martin. Another fast is kept from the Monday after the feast of All Saints (which is celebrated on the Sunday after Pentecost, the Western day for the feast of the Holy Trinity) to the feast of Ss Peter and Paul; because of the variable date of Pentecost, this can run as long as 42 days, or as short as 8. The fast of the Dormition is kept from August 1-14, and is the strictest of the three.
One of the liturgical customs associated with these fasts is the celebration of the “Inter-Hours”, as they are called (in Greek Μεσώριον sing., -ια plur., in Church Slavonic Междочасїе sing., -їѧ plur.), a second Prime, Terce, Sext and None, which are said after the main Prime etc. Most Greek liturgical books appoint them to be said during the Nativity and Apostle fasts; some sources say that they are also done during that of the Dormition. They are not said during Great Lent, since the Hours from Prime to None are lengthened by various other additions in that season. In point of fact, the Inter-Hours are now something of an archaism, in that they are associated with the practice of keeping some weekdays within the fasting periods as “aliturgical” days, i.e., days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated. This practice is still strictly observed for all the weekdays of Lent, but has apparently mostly fallen out of use for the other three fasts. Some sources indicate that the Inter-Hours are in practice celebrated in monasteries only on the first weekday of each minor fast (this year, that would be today), so effectively, twice or three times a year. (See this article on Academia for more details.)
The beginning of Psalm 45, the first Psalm of the Inter-Hour of Prime, in a Byzantine Psalter of the mid-10th century known as the Paris Psalter. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Grec 139; folio 119v, image cropped.)
Their structure is similar to that of the main Hours to which they correspond, but not identical. They begin with the same series of prayers said at the beginning of the other Hours, conveniently known as “The Usual Beginning.” However, when an Hour is said immediately after another, it starts with the very last part of the Usual Beginning, “Come let us worship…” Three invariable Psalms are then said: at Prime, 45, 91 and 92 (according to the numbering of the Septuagint); at Terce, 29, 31 and 60; at Sext, 55, 56 and 69; at None, 112, 137 and 139. A group of prayers called the Trisagion prayers are then said, which are repeated from the Usual Beginning (omitting the first two parts and the last part), and then a series of three chants called tropars, with the two parts of the doxology between them. These do not vary according to the day or season, as they do at the corresponding main Hour; the final tropar in any such group is almost always dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
At Prime:
Have mercy upon us, o Lord, have mercy upon us; for lacking all apology, we sinners bring to Thee this supplication, as to our Master: have mercy on us. Glory be…
Lord, have mercy us, for in Thee we have placed our trust, be not exceedingly wroth with us, and remember not our iniquities, but look (upon us) even now, as one merciful, and ransom us from our enemies; for Thou art our God, and we are Thy people, all of us the works of Thy hands, and we have all called upon Thy name. Both now and forever…
Open to us the gate of mercy, blessed Mother of God; as we hope in Thee, let us not err; may we be delivered through Thy urgent prayers, for Thou art the salvation of the nation of Christians.
At Terce:
God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to Thy goodness, put not Thy mercy away from us, but by their prayers, govern our life in peace. Glory be…
Thy Martyrs, o Lord, in their contests bore away the crowns of incorruption from Thee, our God; for having gained Thy strength, they threw down tyrants, and shattered the weak insolence of demons; by their prayers, o Christ our God, save our souls! Both now and forever…
Virgin Mother of God, Thou art the unconquerable fortress of Christians; for as we flee to Thee, we remain unwounded, and when we sin again, we cry out to Thee, “Hail, that art full of grace; the Lord is with Thee!”
At Sext:
Save, o Lord, Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance, granting victory to (our) kings over the barbarians, and preserving Thy citizenry (i.e., the members of the Church) through Thy Cross. Glory be… (This is also the tropar of the Exaltation of the Cross, and of the commemoration of the Cross celebrated on the Third Sunday of Lent; the traditional music of the Church Slavonic version is particularly nice.)
Be Thou prevailed upon, o Lord, by the pains of the Saints which they suffered for Thee, and heal all our ailments, we beseech Thee, that lovest mankind. Both now and forever…
By the prayer of all the Saints, o Lord, and of the Mother of God, give us Thy peace, and have mercy on us, as the only merciful one.
At None:
Thou who didst enlighten the things of the world through Thy Cross, and call sinners unto repentance, separate me not from Thy flock, o Good Shepherd, but seek me, Master of those who wander, and number me together with Thy holy flock, who alone art good and love mankind. Glory be…
Like the thief, I confess and cry out to Thee, o Good one: remember me o Lord, in Thy kingdom, and number me within it, who didst willingly accept sufferings for our sake. Both now and forever…
Come, let us all sing hymns to Him who was crucified for us, for Mary beheld Him upon the Cross and said, “Although Thou abidest the Cross, Thou are My Son and God.
There follows a series of elements also said at the other Hours except for Vespers and Orthros: Kyrie, eleison 40 times, the Prayer of the Hours, Kyrie, eleison 3 times, Glory be, a brief prayer to the Virgin (“Higher than the Cherubim…”) a conclusion said by the priestly celebrant, and then a very well-known prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian, accompanied by three prostrations. (In Lent this is added to all of the Hours.)
At the end of Prime, two longer prayers are said by the reader, at the others, just one. The prayers of the Inter-Hours of Prime and Terce are proper to them, but those of Sext and None are taken from the main Hour that precedes them. (When the Inter-Hours are said, the prayer of the main Terce, which is quite short, is repeated at the main Sext and None.) Like almost all prayers of the Byzantine Rite, these are not changed from one day or season to another. They are traditionally attributed to St Basil the Great. These office conclude with the same brief dismissal as at the other day Hours.
Eternal God, light without beginning and everlasting, maker of all creation, fount of mercy, sea of goodness, unsearchable abyss of love for mankind, shine the light of Thy countenance upon us, o Lord. Shine in our hearts, o spiritual Sun of justice, and fill our souls with Thy rejoicing, and teach us ever to take thought of Thy matters, and speak forth judgments, and confess Thee without ceasing, our Master and benefactor. Guide the works of our hands towards Thy will, and help us on the way to do what is pleasing and welcome to Thee, that even through us, Thy unworthy servants, Thy all-holy name may be glorified, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of one divinity and kingdom to which beseem all glory, honor and worship, unto the ages. Amen.
Thou who sendest forth the light, and it goeth, who makest the sun to rise upon the just and the unjust, the wicked and the good, who makest the morn, and enlighten all the world; enlighten also our hearts, Master of all. Grant us to please Thee in the present day, preserving us from every sin and from every wicked deed, delivering us from every arrow that flieth in the day, and every opposing power, by the prayers of our all-immaculate Lady, the Mother of God, of Thy immaterial ministering heavenly powers, and all the Saints that have been pleasing to Thee from the beginning of the world. For it is Thine to have mercy on us and save us, our God, and to Thee do we give glory, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and every, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
At Terce:
O Lord our God, who hath given Thy peace to men, and sent the gift of Thy All-holy Spirit to Thy Disciples and Apostles, and by Thy power opened their lips with tongues of fire, open Thou also the lips of us sinners, and teach us how we must pray and for what things. Govern our life, calm haven of those tossed by storms, and make known to us the way in which we shall go. Renew a righteous spirit within us, and by (Thy) governing Spirit, give support to what is liable to err in our thoughts, so that each day, being led on the way by Thy good spirit to that which is beneficial, we may be deemed worthy to obey Thy commandments and ever to remember Thy return in glory, that shall search through the deeds of men, and not be deceived by the corruptible delights of this world, but strengthen us to reach out for the enjoyment of the treasures that are to come, for Thou art blessed and praiseworthy in all Thy Saints, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
In his great liturgical commentary, the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, William Durandus follows the missal used in his episcopal see, the city of Mende in south central France. In this missal, the arrangement of the Masses for the Sundays after Pentecost differed in some ways from the tradition of the papal curia which became the Missal of St Pius V. Therefore, the following excerpts from book VI, chapters 140 and 141, are in part a paraphrase of the original text, in order to correspond to the tha latter missal, which we use today.
On the last Sundays of the year, the Mass chants are the same; on these days, the Church shows that She has the nuptial garment that is charity (Matt. 22, 1-14, the Gospel of the 19th Sunday after Pentecost), because She prays for the Jews, that they may be converted. This will happen at the end of the world, when they come to our faith, and this is signified in the Patriarch Joseph, who for a long time would not make himself known to his brothers, but did so at the end (Gen. 45), and they asked forgiveness from him and he said to them, “ ‘Fear not, I will feed you’, and they made merry with him.” (Gen. 50, 21; 43, 34) This merriment signifies the rejoicing of all at the conversion of the Jews; but this will be at the end of our earthly pilgrimage, and therefore this conversion is dealt with at the end of the time of pilgrimage.
Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers, 1657, by the Dutch painter Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-74).
Therefore, on the 23rd Sunday, the introit is about the conversion of the Jews and the promise of the Lord, for he said through Jeremiah, “I think thoughts of peace, and not of affliction,” for the evils which I will bring upon you lead to this, that I may reconcile you to me.
Introitus, Jer. 29 Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito cogitatiónes pacis, et non afflictiónis: invocábitis me, et ego exaudiam vos, et redúcam captivitátem vestram de cunctis locis. Ps. 84 Benedixisti, Dómine, terram tuam: avertisti captivitátem Jacob. Glória Patri... Dicit Dóminus: Ego cógito...
Introit The Lord saith: “I think thoughts of peace, and not of affliction. Ye shall call upon Me, and I will hear you; and I will bring back your captivity from all places.” Ps. 84 Thou hast blessed Thy land, o Lord, Thou hast turned back the captivity of Jacob. Glory be... The Lord saith...
In the gradual, David gives thanks for his liberation from captivity, both spiritual and corporal, saying, “Thou hast delivered us from those who afflict us”, and in the verse, he promises the praise of good works saying, “In God shall we be praised all the day.”
Graduale, Ps. 43 Liberasti nos, Dómine, ex affligéntibus nos: et eos, qui nos odérunt, confudisti. ℣. In Deo laudábimur tota die, et in nómine tuo confitébimur in saecula. (Thou hast saved us, o Lord, from our foes, and Thou hast put to shame those who hated us. ℣. In God we shall be praised all the day, and in Thy name we will give praise forever.)
In the offertory, he asks for forgiveness, as did the brothers of Joseph, saying, “Out of the depths I cried to Thee, o Lord.” And since Joseph, who represents Christ, answers, “Fear not, I will feed you”, for this very reason, that the Lord is generous and quick to forgive, there follows the communion, “Amen I say to you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will receive it, and it shall be done unto you.”
Offertorium, Ps. 129 De profundis clamávi ad te, Dómine: Dómine, exaudi oratiónem meam: de profundis clamávi ad te, Dómine. (Out of the depths I have cried to thee, o Lord: o Lord, hear my voice. Out of the depths I have cried to thee, o Lord.)
The gospel from St Matthew (9, 18-26) begins, “As Jesus spoke to the crowds, behold a ruler came to Him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died; but come, lay Thy hand upon her, and she shall live.’ ” And while He was following him, behold a woman with an issue of blood said, “If I but touch his garment I shall be saved,” and she was healed by the Lord; then afterwards the Lord healed the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue.
Allegorically, this ruler of the synagogue signifies Moses, or one of the prophets, or even one of the apostles, who asked the Lord on behalf of the synagogue, and the Lord goes to heal it, because He does not cease to offer correction, that He might heal the Jews through various tribulations and servitudes, but their healing will happen at the end of the world. The woman who suffers the issue of blood represents the gentiles, and says, “If I but touch his garment,” that is, if I keep the least precepts, “I will be saved.” In the issue of blood is understood sin.
The healing of the woman with an issue of blood, and the raising of the daughter of Jairus, depicted in a 10th century fresco in the church of St George in Oberzell, on the German island of Reichenau in the lake of Constance. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Wolgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 4.0.)
The synagogue will be saved later, which is signified by the daughter of Jairus, who is raised up later. Again, in the figure of Jairus, which means “enlightening” or “enlightened”, are understood the prelates. For a prelate, having been enlightened by the Lord, enlightens others, and as such must pray for his subjects, as this man prays for his daughter…
We are glad to share this report from Dr Emily Meixner on the Schola Cantorum Program for young people which she directs at the Shrine of St Martin of Tours in Louisville, Kentucky.
The Shrine of St. Martin of Tours in downtown Louisville, Kentucky is known for its historic architecture, 24-hour perpetual adoration chapel, and for the two early Christian martyrs enshrined beneath its side altars. It is also known for its dedication to beautiful liturgy and sacred music. Mindful of the teachings of Sacrosanctum Concilium (Paragraphs 112-115), the Shrine founded the Schola Cantorum program in the fall of 2016 as a means of preserving and fostering the Church’s vast treasury of sacred music in the local Catholic community. In its first year the Schola program was small but mighty, comprising 7 students; since that time, it has thrived and grown, filling the choir loft, and currently boasting 27 students ranging in age from 7 to 15.
The Schola program primarily assists the liturgical needs of the Shrine, meeting weekly on Wednesday afternoons during the school year to learn healthy singing techniques and a variety of forms of sacred music, ranging from Gregorian Chant to Anglican Chant, as well as traditional hymnody and polyphonic motets. The Schola primarily sings for Sunday Mass and Vespers at the Shrine multiple times a year (roughly three events in the fall and three in the spring), as well as occasional events outside of the Shrine, including a recital of organ music and Gregorian chant co-sponsored by the Louisville Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in October 2024, and a fall concert for the residents at the Wesley Manor Retirement Home in 2019. The Schola also has an annual tradition of chanting Compline at the historic Cave Hill Cemetery during the month of November, a time when the Church encourages the faithful to pray for the souls in Purgatory.
In 2022, the program was expanded to include an advanced Schola, which meets for rehearsals on Saturdays in addition to Wednesdays. The advanced students are those within the broader Schola program who have progressed in their singing and reading abilities to be able to sing more complex Gregorian chants and polyphonic motets, with the expectation that this will better prepare them to eventually join the ranks of the Choir of St. Martin’s. The advanced students prepare and sing for additional liturgical events at the Shrine, particularly monthly Vespers. Recent accomplishments include singing Maurice Duruflé’s Ubi Caritas, Elizabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Magnificat from The Short Service in C.
Fall of 2026 will mark the 10 year anniversary of the Schola Program’s founding. In the past nine years, the program has served 70 children and 32 families in the Louisville area. Upcoming events include singing for the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve, Vespers for the Feast of the Annunciation, and their debut singing a Missa Cantata at the Sunday celebration of the Extraordinary Form Mass.
Nobis quoque peccatóribus fámulis tuis, de multitúdine miseratiónum tuárum sperántibus, partem áliquam et societátem donáre dignéris, cum tuis sanctis Apóstolis et Martýribus: cum Joanne, Stéphano, Matthía, Bárnaba, Ignatio, Alexandro, Marcellíno, Petro, Felicitáte, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucia, Agnéte, Caecilia, Anastasia, et ómnibus Sanctis tuis: intra quorum nos consortium, non aestimátor mériti, sed veniae, quaesumus, largítor admitte. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum.
Which I translate as:
To us sinners as well, Thy servants hoping in the multitude of Thy mercies, deign to grant some part and fellowship with Thy holy Apostles and Martyrs: with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and with all Thy Saints, into whose company, we beseech, admit us, not as an Assessor of merit but as a generous Bestower of pardon. Through Christ our Lord.
Having prayed for all other members of the Church Militant and the Church Suffering, the priest prays lastly for himself and for the other liturgical ministers, the servants of God’s house (famuli). [1] The 2011 ICEL translation renders the opening words “To us, also, your servants, who, though sinners…” but the Latin places the primary emphasis on their status as sinners: “To us sinners also, your servants…” The only time that the priest breaks the silence of the Canon besides the ending per omnia saecula saeculorum is to utter aloud the words nobis quoque peccatoribus as he strikes his breast. The historical reason for this anomaly is that the subdeacon formerly remained bowed down during the Canon; at the words nobis quoque peccatoribus, he straightened up and prepared for the fraction rite. When the Canon came to be recited silently, these three words needed to remain audible so that subdeacon could hear his prompt. [2]
But as with so many other elements of the Roman Rite, the historical or literal cause of a thing providentially yields a rich symbolic or allegorical meaning. In this case, the elevated volume and contrite gesture amplify and elucidate the prayer’s meaning. As with his Confiteor at the beginning of Mass, the priest leads his flock, in part, by public contrition. The medieval liturgist William Durandus sees even more. The elevated voice, he opines, calls to mind the confession of the centurion at the foot of the Cross (“Truly this was the Son of God”) as well as the contrition and confession of the Good Thief who was crucified at the same time as Our Lord. [3]
The Nobis quoque peccatoribus marks the second time in the Canon that a group of Saints is listed. In the Communicantes (which is also preceded by a Memento prayer), the Saints are organized in such a way as to stress the hierarchical nature of the Church, beginning with the Blessed Virgin Mary and descending from there according to ecclesiastical rank. In the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, the Saints are organized in such a way as to stress the charismatic nature of the Church, beginning with St. John the Baptist, who never held an ecclesiastical position but certainly had a charism as the prophet of the Most High, and continuing with seven male and seven female martyrs. [4]
The numbering is also significant. The Communicantes begins with the Blessed Virgin Mary and, before the insertion of St. Joseph’s name in 1962, continues with twelve Apostles and twelve martyrs, i.e., 1 + 12 + 12. The Nobis quoque peccatoribus begins with St. John the Baptist, followed by seven male martyrs and seven female, i.e., 1 + 7 + 7. [5] And, as Fr. Neil Roy observes, the placement of the Theotokos and the Precursor of the Lord at the head of each list (and on either side of the Consecration) creates a literary “deesis,” a triptych that depicts Christ flanked by His mother and His cousin. [6]
Deesis, Hagia Sophia
There are other differences as well. In the Communicantes, the priest describes “all here present” (omnes circumstantes) as communicating with (communicantes) the Saints before asking that their merits and prayers bring the help of God’s protection. In the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, the priest asks for communion with the Saints: first he asks for “some part and fellowship” with them, and then for their “company.” Some translations render communicantes in the first prayer as “in union with,” but if we are already in union with the Saints, why do we ask for fellowship with them here? (Unless, perhaps, it is another example of the liturgical stammer). I suspect, however, that the first prayer merely states that we are in touch with the Saints through our prayers, and that the second asks that we may enjoy their company for all eternity. But a note of humility and unworthiness pervades the petition. As Fr. Pius Parsch notes, in asking for “some part” of their company, the prayer essentially asks for “some obscure place in the realm of glory.” [7] The scene is redolent of the Publican who strikes his breast saying, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” (Luke 18, 9-14)
As for the order of the Saints, the male martyrs are organized according to rank while the women are organized according to vocation and region. For the men, the Apostles Stephen, Matthias, and Barnabas are followed by Ignatius the bishop, Alexander (who was a bishop or priest), Marcellinus the priest, and Peter the exorcist.
For the women, there are two possibilities for Felicity and Perpetua. The first is that they are the famous Carthaginian martyrs Perpetua and Felicity, the former a well-educated noblewoman and mother of an infant son, the latter her slave who was pregnant when they were both fed to the beasts in A.D. 203. The only problem with this option is that it is more common to list the nobleman before the slave, whereas in the Nobis quoque peccatoribus Felicity comes first. The second possibility is that Felicity is a Roman matron and possible mother of the Seven Holy Brothers (July 10) who was martyred in A.D. 165 and who is here followed in the list by the Carthaginian martyr Perpetua. [8]
The next five are virgin martyrs (the same number as the five wise virgins in the Parable, Matthew 25, 1-13). Agatha and Lucy are from Sicily, Agnes and Cecilia are from Rome, and Anastasia of Sirmium, who has a station church in Rome once used for the Christmas dawn Mass and on Pentecost Tuesday, is from modern-day Serbia. The Roman Rite, as we have seen before, is steeped in the history of the Eternal City, but it is not insular, and so it honors Saints outside its borders.
In preconciliar hand Missals, as in the 2011 ICEL translation, the clause non aestimator meriti, sed veniae, quaesumus, largitor is usually translated with verbs, e.g., “not weighing our merits but granting us your pardon.” The Latin, however, uses two nouns, aestimator and largitor (a liberal giver). The difference is between doing and being. In this prayer, the priest goes further than petitioning God to do or not do something; he asks Him not to be the kind of Person who measures our value (which we know is wanting) and instead to be the kind of Person who is generous to a fault. And we already know that God is a Liberal Giver of Pardon because elsewhere we address Him with that title [9] along with “Liberal Giver of all goods” (omnium largitor bonorum) [10] and “Liberal Giver of indulgences” (largitor indulgentiae) [11]
Notes
[1] As Fr. Josef Jungmann explains, it was common for the clergy to designate themselves as sinners. They even signed their signatures in this manner. See The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2 (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1951), pp. 249-50.
[2] See Jungmann, vol. 1, p. 72.
[3] See William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officionorum IV.35.11, IV.46.1, resp.
[4] See Rev. Neil J. Roy, “The Roman Canon: deëis in euchological form,” in Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgy, eds. Neil J. Roy and Janet E. Rutherford (Four Courts Press, 2008), pp. 181-199.
[5] Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of the Mass, trans. Frederic C. Eckhoff (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1940), p. 187.
[6] See Roy. pp. 191-92.
[7] See Parsch, pp. 249-50.
[8] See Roy.
[9] The Collect Deus, veniae largitor et humanae salutis amator for All Souls’ Day, Office of Prime, and in the Office for the Dead.
[10] See the Collects for St. Bibiana (December 2) and St. Rose of Lima (August 30).
[11] The Lauds hymn Rex gloriose Martyrum for Several Martyrs.
Our long-time friend and contributor, and photographer extraordinaire Fr Lawrence Lew, is currently with a group of pilgrims in Italy, and was able to say the Dominican Mass yesterday at the tomb of St Dominic in the Order’s church in Bologna. (This is an important liturgical week for the Dominicans: November 12th is the traditional date for the feast of All Dominican Saints, although in the post-Conciliar Rite, it has been moved to November 7th. Today is the feast which honors St Thomas Aquinas as the patronage of all Catholic schools, and on Saturday is the feast of St Albert the Great.) The arc of St Dominic was original commissioned from the sculptor Nicola Pisano in 1264, 30 years after Dominic’s canonization, and completed in 3 years, but new sculptures were added to on more than one occasion, including three by the young Michelangelo in the later 1490s. It has stood in its current location since 1411, but the decorations of the chapel have been reworked very considerably since then. The basilica is currently undergoing a major renovation, but worked halted long enough for Fr Lew and his group to have Mass and venerate the relic of St Dominic in the very beautiful Gothic reliquary, which is accessed from behind the altar, as seen below. It’s very nice to see the red drapes on the columns, a custom which was once very popular in Italy and is making something of a comeback.
The fresco in the apse of the chapel of St Dominic in the glory of heaven was painted by a native of Bologna, and one of the greats of the Italian Baroque, Guido Reni (1575-1642).
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