Monday, November 04, 2024

From the Complete Psalter to the Easier Psalter: An Insight into the Dynamics of Liturgical Reform in the 20th Century (Part 2)

Today we publish the second and concluding part of Dr. Paweł Milcarek’s study of the history of the psalter in the Roman divine office. Part 1 may be found here. —PAK 

A commemorative medallion for the second session of Vatican II (source), at the end of which, the document on the liturgy was promulgated.
The Psalter according to the Second Vatican Council: less is better

On the eve of the Second Vatican Council, the planned reform of the breviary – and hence also the introduction of a new arrangement of the Psalter – was one of the most widely discussed issues. In 1957, Pius XII had appointed a commission that surveyed a number of bishops on this matter. The Roman liturgical congregation had already had some concrete projects in its closets, waiting to make use of them.

The Council’s constitution Sacrosanctum concilium, promulgated on 4th December 1963, in its fourth chapter, devoted to the Roman Breviary, states that the restoration of this liturgical book, “so happily begun by the Apostolic See”, is introduced “in order that the Divine Office may be better and more perfectly prayed in existing circumstances, whether by priests or by other members of the Church”, which – in turn – is meant “to sanctify the day”. The Council Fathers were clearly motivated by the wish formulated by the commission appointed by Pius XII: “the traditional sequence of the hours is to be restored so that once again they may be genuinely related to the time of the day when they are prayed”, taking the pastoral conditions into account.

As far as the above mentioned “traditional sequence of the hours” is concerned, the Council decided to accept a compromise: the emphasis was put on Lauds and Vespers, while Compline and Matins were preserved, the latter losing its nocturnal character, with the exception of cases when celebrated in choir. In the case of daytime prayers, double standards were accepted - one for for celebration in choir, and another for celebration outside choir - and the hour of Prime was suppressed. 

Having defined the Hours, the constitution moves on to the directives meant to enable the faithful to celebrate the Office “better and more perfectly”, though afterwards it happened out that the Council described this celebration also with two other adjectives: “more extensively and easily”.

Here we come to the regulation that is directly related to the issue analyzed in this lecture. Article 91 of Sacrosanctum concilium says:

Ut cursus Horarum, in art. 89 propositus, reapse observari possit, psalmi non amplius per unam hebdomadam, sed per longius temporis spatium distribuantur.
     Opus recognitionis Psalterii, feliciter inchoatum, quamprimum perducatur ad finem, respectu habito latinitatis christianae, usus liturgici etiam in cantu, necnon totius traditionis latinae Ecclesiae.
     [So that it may really be possible in practice to observe the course of the hours proposed in Art. 89, the psalms are no longer to be distributed throughout one week, but through some longer period of time.
     The work of revising the psalter, already happily begun, is to be finished as soon as possible, and is to take into account the style of Christian Latin, the liturgical use of psalms, also when sung, and the entire tradition of the Latin Church.]

Those two statements – concerning the change of distribution of Psalms and the revision of the text – further defined the frame of reference for the reform of the breviary Psalter.


Ordo ex machina: the Psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours of 1971

Although during the 20th century, the reform of the breviary had been the engine for the reform of other liturgical books, the post-Vatican reform of this very book took rather long, and was completed only after the reform of the Missal and many rites from the Pontifical and Ritual. The decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship, promulgating the typical edition of the Liturgy of the Hours according to the Roman Rite [1], was issued on 11th April 1971. Together with Liturgy of the Hours, which was the new book of the Office, also newly arranged Psalter was introduced.

It is worth noting that already before, in 1969, the Pontifical Commission for the New Vulgate, headed by Card. Augustin Bea S.J., had published a revised Latin translation of the Book of Psalms, destined for the new Office book. Without here going into the comparative analysis of the three Latin versions of Psalms (that of Vulgate, that of the Pian Commission, and that of Neo-Vulgate), we can simply say that the Neo-Vulgate translation turned out to be in a way conciliatory toward the ancient tradition – much more so than the translation issued by the Pian Commission.

Let us now move on to discuss the new order of the Psalter.

Due to changes in the arrangement of the Hours [2], it was a specific wish of the Council to distribute Psalms not “throughout one week, but through some longer period of time” [3]. Behind this statement there was a recurring thought of the Psalter distributed over two weeks, as, for example, in the Ambrosian rite. But in the end the Psalter, was arranged into a four-week cycle, [4] on the model of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer [5], which means that in practice, that the majority of the Psalms is used in prayer once a month – while previously, each of them had recurred once a week.

The Liturgy of the Hours retained the custom of dividing some of the longer Psalms introduced by the Roman Breviary of 1911, and to a similar extent, but in many cases the Psalms have been divided differently.

The New Psalter, however, not complete. A few Psalms were eliminated entirely (57, 82 and 108), along with parts of nineteen other Psalms that due to their “imprecatory nature” could have created a “certain psychological difficulty” [6]. Such a move had had no precedent in the history of the Roman Breviary, though it is known among the reformed communities.

Each Psalm in the Liturgy of the Hours has been given a caption, explaining “its meaning and its import for the personal life of the believer”, accompanied also by a quotation from the New Testament or the Fathers of the Church, “to foster prayer in the light of Christ’s new revelation” [7]. Though the latter addition was some novelty, it had been deeply rooted in Christian tradition of understanding the Psalms [8].

The number of the canticles from the Old Testament has been significantly increased, from 17 to 26. Many of those already used at Lauds have been modified – their texts have been shortened or elaborately cut up. As a novelty, canticles from the New Testament have been introduced to Vespers.

Of course, the fundamentally new arrangement of the Psalter has caused new distribution of Psalms among particular offices.

As in case of the Roman Breviary of 1911, Matins – renamed now to the Office of Readings – underwent the biggest changes. The number of Psalms within each celebration has been reduced from 9 to 3. The arrangement of Psalms has been completely changed. The same may be said of Lauds, that from now have comprised not 5, but 3 Psalms, selected on a completely different basis.

The structure of the Minor Hours has remained the same, consisting of three Psalms. But the selection of Psalms is brand new.

While the reform of 1911 changed an earlier arrangement of the Vespers Psalms only to a very limited extent, in the Liturgy of the Hours of 1971, a true revolution has been made. The number of Psalms in each Vespers has been diminished from 5 to 2 (or to 3, if we count also the canticle from the New Testament). They have been distributed among the days of the week in a way that was unfamiliar both to the earlier tradition, and to the reform of 1911.

In short, the Psalter of the Liturgy of the Hours has little in common with earlier tradition of the prayer of the Church, both in terms of distribution of Psalms over the time, in relation to the number of Psalms within particular offices, and in regards to its completeness.
 

Attempted summary: Modifications of psalmody throughout the centuries

Let us now attempt to summarize briefly the historical evolution of the Psalter used in the Office of the Roman rite[9].

From the earliest times, the Roman rite preserved the principle of reciting the entire Psalter within one week – meaning that each Psalm was to be recited principally once a week, with many exceptiond for those recited more often, even daily (4, 50, 53, 62, 66, 90, 94, 118, 133, 148, 149, 150). A one-week cycle of the Psalter was retained in the RB 1911, though in such a way that actually excluded the possibility of saying some Psalms more often than once a week. Meanwhile, in case of the LH 1971, due to the distribution of the Psalter over the course of four weeks, the majority of the Psalms is recited once a month, with the exception of a few that recur weekly in Compline.

From the earliest times there were 8 Canonical Hours within the Psalter of the Office of the Roman rite: Matin, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. This was changed only in LH 1971, when Prime has been suppressed and the rest of the Minor Hours can be – if recited outside choir – substituted with one prayer, so called Middle Hour. Hence, in practice, the Office may be narrowed down to five Canonical Hours.

From the earliest times each and every Psalm had had its place within the Office, including those texts that had been the most likely to raise some reluctance or evoke questions.

From the earliest times there was no practice of dividing the Psalms in the Roman rite, with the exception of Psalm 118 – in all other cases they were recited in their entirety. Meanwhile, since RB 1911 division of Psalms has become a frequent solution, leading to situations where one Psalm, divided into three parts, may fill out the whole Hour.

Psalmody of Matins

From the earliest times, the number of Psalms on weekdays was never lower than 12, while on Sundays it was even higher: in the beginning it was twice as much (24), while from the 6th century to 1911 there were 18 Psalms in this office. Only RB 1911 equalized the number of Psalms on Sundays and ferias, , diminishing it to 9. Such an equality has been sustained in LH 1971, however the number of Psalms in Matins was further lowered to 3 Psalms (or to 3 units).

From the earliest times, up to RB 1911, nothing had changed in selection of Psalms assigned to particular days of the week. But in the 20th century this selection was changed practically completely twice (in RB 1911 and LH 1971). (Click on any image to enlarge.)


Psalmody of Lauds

From the earliest times the psalmody of Lauds always comprised 5 Psalms, but in practice there were 7 Psalms and canticles, divided into five groups: 1, 1, 2, C, 3). BR 1911 lowers this number to the actual 5, while LH 1971 to .

From the earliest times the psalmody of Lauds was daily concluded with the three last Psalms from the Book of Psalms – but this custom was abolished in BR 1911. It was also then that the earlier way of distributing the Psalms among particular days of the week was severely changed – though it was not until LH 1971 when it was completely shattered.

One can note that the exceptional significance of Psalm 50 (acquired by it in the 6th century) has been preserved also in the 20th century, though the frequency of its use is constantly changing.
 

Psalmody of Prime

The long tradition standing behind Prime does not change the fact that its psalmody was subjected to numerous modifications throughout the centuries. Nevertheless, some of its characteristic features (concerning the selection of Psalms) had been generally preserved either until BR 1911, or even until the reform of 1971. But elimination of Prime, ordered by the Second Vatican Council, has ended its career within Liturgia Horarum.
 

Psalmody of the Minor Hours

Up until 1911, Terce, Sext and None consisted in daily recitation of subsequent parts of Psalm 118. In BR 1911 this particular Psalm was preserved only in case of Sunday office, while on weekdays other Psalms (previously used in Matins) were introduced. Meanwhile, in LH 1971 both so called “additional psalmody” and the current psalmody for particular hora media are based on such a selection of Psalms that was utterly unfamiliar to the tradition of the Roman rite[10].
 

Psalmody of Vespers

Throughout the centuries – from the oldest sources to BR 1568 – there was some kind of admirable changelessness in the structure and selection of the psalmody of Vespers. Also BR 1911 to a larger extent preserved this tradition. But LH 1971 has introduced a sudden and multidimensional change: number of the elements of the psalmody has been lowered down from 5 to 3; one of Psalms has been substituted with a canticle from the New Testament; selection of Psalms has ceased to show any continuity with previous, outstandingly long tradition – exceptional is the case of Sunday, where – among others – the primacy of Messianic Psalm 109 has been preserved.
 

Psalmody of Compline

The structure and selection of psalmody of Compline remained the same for a good many centuries and was interrupted only in the 20th century; but while in BR 1911 traditional selection of Psalms was preserved at least for Sunday, it has been finally disintegrated in LH 1971, and only traces of it can be traced in the offices after the First and Second Vespers of Sundays and Feasts.
  

NOTES

[1] Officium divinum ex decreto Ss. Oecumenici Concilii Vatricani II instauratum auctoritate Pauli Pp. VI promulgatum: Liturgia horarum iuxta ritum romanum

[2] Cf. SC, 89.

[3] Cf. SC, 91: „psalmi non amplius per unam hebdomadam, sed per longius temporis spatium distribuantur”.

[4] Cf. Institutio generalis de Liturgia Horarum (IGLH), 126.

[5] Cf. Bugnini, 1990, p. 499.

[6] Cf. IGLH, 131: „Tres vero psalmi 57, 82 et 108, in quibus præponderat indoles imprecatoria, omittuntur in Psalterio currente. Item aliqui versus nonnullorum psalmorum prætermissi sunt… Quorum textuum omissio fit ob quandam difficultatem psychologicam, etsi psalmi ipsi imprecatorii in pietate Novi Testamenti occurrunt, exempli gratia Ap 6, 10, nulloque modo intendunt ad maledicendum inducere”.

[7] Cf. IGLH, 111.

[8] Cf. IGLH, 109.

[9] In relation to the Psalmody of the Roman rite of the 5th and the 6th centuries, I refer here to the works by Joseph Pascher, as cited in: Robert F. Taft SJ, Liturgy of the hours in East and West, Collegeville 1993, p. 136.

[10] However, so called additional psalmody is almost completely consistent with so called Gradual Psalms.

Sunday, November 03, 2024

The Feast of All Saints 2024: the Virgin Mary, Model of the Saints

From the Roman Breviary of 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the feast of All Saints.

We must certainly believe that the blessed Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, the temple of God, the shrine of the Holy Spirit, Virgin before, during and after the birth (of Her son), has a part in the present solemnity, along with the (other) virgins. By her actions she admonished the people of God to disdain the luxuries of the world that passeth away, to turn aside from the allurements of our mortal nature, to preserve within the heart the purity of the body with the honor of virginity; and by her examples she affirms that she is the queen of all virtues, the delight of perpetual salvation, and the companion of the Angels. And thus an innumerable multitude of both sexes has followed in Her footsteps, and abandoning the union of matrimony and the begetting of children, have chosen to be joined to the eternal Spouse in Heaven in mind and action, habit and deed, devoting themselves to prayers, keeping fasts, loving the sacred vigils, offering alms, refreshing the poor, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, rejoicing in tribulation, suffering from words of calumny and insult, humble in the increase of their (religious) profession, giving thanks to God in the loss of temporal things. For the desire of the kingdom of Heaven, and because of the hope of eternal reward, with most fervent love they pursue these and like things, unfailingly and willingly. And thus, persevering in the love of God and of their neighbors, they rejoice to end their life for God alone.

Virgo inter Virgines, by Gerard David, ca. 1509; Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen. From left to right: St Dorothy with a basket of roses and the painter behind her; St Catherine of Alexandria, with her wheel worked into her crown as a decoration; St Agnes, with a lamb, and her foster-sister St Emerentiana behind her; St Fausta with a saw, (the instrument of her martyrdom); St Apollonia with the tongs used to pull out her teeth; St Godelina with the scarf her husband used to have her strangled; St Cecilia beside an organ; St Barbara, with her tower worked into her hat as a decoration; Cornelia Cnoop, the painter’s wife; St Lucy holding her eyes. (A high resolution image with close-up is available here on the museum’s website.)

The “Prophecies” of St Malachy

In Ireland, today is the feast of St Malachy, one of the great ecclesiastical reformers of the 12th century. He served for a time as Primate of Ireland in the very ancient See of Armagh, established by St Patrick himself, but later resigned that office, and ended his life as bishop of Down. The revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints sums up his career by likening him to St Theodore of Canterbury, who lived half a millennium before him, and gave a permanent form to the organization of the Church in England. His feast is also kept by various congregations of canons regular, since the reform movement of which he was such an important figure was very much concerned with restoring discipline to the lives of such congregations, and cathedral canons as well. He was a close personal friend of St Bernard, and actually died in his arms after a brief illness while visiting Clairvaux Abbey, on All Souls’ Day of 1148. Bernard was so convinced of Malachy’s sanctity that when celebrating his funeral, he sang the Post-Communion prayer of a Confessor Bishop instead of that of the Requiem Mass; he later wrote his biography, and for these reasons, the Cistercians also have Malachy on their calendar. Bernard’s judgment was formally confirmed by Pope Clement III in 1190; Ireland had, of course, a great many Saints before then, but Malachy was the very first to be formally recognized as such by a Pope.

A statue of St Malachy on the outside of Armagh Cathedral. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0)
It is a pity that a man who fully deserves to be honored alongside his contemporaries like Ss Bernard and Norbert as a great Church reformer is now known principally as the putative author of a manifestly fraudulent series of “prophecies” about the Popes. In a happier world, the fact that Bernard says nothing about them would suffice to discredit them utterly. They consist of brief phrases in Latin which purportedly tell something about the men who will be elected Pope, from the Saint’s contemporary Celestine II (who reigned for less than 5½ months in 1143-44) to “Peter the Roman,” 111 Popes later. They were first brought to the attention of the world in 1595 by a Benedictine monk named Arnold de Wion, who attributed them to St Malachy without saying on what grounds, and indeed, without saying where they came from. It was not until 1871 that a French priest named Cucherat claimed, on the basis of no known evidence, that Malachy had delivered them to Celestine II’s predecessor, Innocent II, while visiting Rome to fetch the pallia of the two Irish metropolitans. They were then deposited in the Papal archives, and somehow completely forgotten for about 450 years. 

The general opinion of those who have studied the matter is that they were concocted to sway the conclave held in late 1590 after the sudden death of Urban VII, who was Pope for only 13 days, the shortest reign in Papal history. From Celestine II to Urban VII, they are extremely and obviously accurate, usually referring to the Popes’ family names. For example, before his election to the Papacy, Celestine II was called Guido de Castello, since he was from a town in Umbria called Città di Castello, which is on the Tiber river; the first “prophecy” is “de castello Tiberis - from the castle of the Tiber.” Starting in 1590, however, they become as vague as the so-called prophecies of another 16th century luminary in the field, Nostradamus. Pius VIII (1829-30), for example, corresponds to “vir religiosus - a religious man” (we should hope so!), and Pius XII to “pastor angelicus - an angelic shepherd.” Others are manifestly incorrect, such as Clement XIII (1758-69), a Venetian nobleman who corresponds to “Rose of Umbria.” This has given rise to some very embarrassing and convoluted explanations of how the “prophecies” fit their respective Popes. Clement XIII canonized one Franciscan, Joseph of Cupertino, and beatified two others, and the Franciscan Order was founded by an Umbrian...
It is certainly true that some of the purported prophecies do correspond plausibly in one way or another to their respective Popes, as they inevitably must, given their vagueness. Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) corresponds to “lumen in caelo - a light in heaven”, which may be seen as a reference to the comet in his coat-of-arms, and six Popes later, “flos florum - flower of flowers” may be seen as a reference to the fleurs-de-lys (an extremely common heraldic device) in the arms of Paul VI.
The Papal coat-of-arms of Pope Leo XIII
The tradition of taking a different name on election to the Papacy is sometimes said to have begun with John II in 533, who was previously called Mercury, and changed his name because he felt it was unseemly for a Pope to have the name of a pagan god. In point of fact, this was an anomaly, and would not happen again for almost half a millennium, when one “Peter Pig-mouth” (Pietro Bocca di Porco) was elected in 1009, and, deeming it inappropriate to be called “Peter II”, changed his name to Sergius IV.
What really established the tradition was the great reform movement that began in the mid-11th century, in which St Malachy would be so prominent. Starting in 1046, the Popes began reviving the names of their ancient and sainted predecessors such as Clement, Damasus, and Victor, as a sign that after the long decadence of the later-9th to mid-11th centuries, the Papacy was now returning to the glorious ages of the past. From 1046 to 1145, thirteen of the eighteen Popes were “second of that name”, followed by eight “thirds” out of eleven from 1145 to 1227. (The last Pope to keep his baptismal name, Marcellus II, died in 1555 on the 22nd day of his reign, sealing the custom with just a little bit of superstitious fear.) But of course, no Pope has ever chosen the name of St Peter, and there is a rather superstitious tradition that the last Pope will be the Anti-Christ, and call himself Peter.
The Preaching of the Anti-Christ, 1499-1502, by Luca Signorelli (1441 ca. - 1523); in the chapel of St Brice in the cathedral of Orvieto, Italy (1499-1502). The Anti-Christ is the figure on the podium slightly to the right of the lower middle, with the devil whispering in his ear; working in an era that hung less on every word and whim of the Pope than our own, Signorelli shows him with facial features like those of Christ, but distorted, since he is the anti-Christ, not the anti-Pope.
This is also reflected in (and perhaps arises from) the supposed “prophecies” of St Malachy, the last of which is “Peter the Roman”, qualified as follows: “In the last persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations; and these being finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people.” However, the so-called prophecy does not say that there will be no Popes between “Peter the Roman”, which corresponds to Pope Francis (whose baptismal name is George, and whose family is from the north of Italy, not Rome), and the penultimate entry on the list. Therefore, when the current Papacy ends, if the world does not end as well, and Francis’ successor is elected, we will be left in the dark for the future... or rather, just as much in the dark as we have been all along.

Saturday, November 02, 2024

The Feast of All Saints 2024: God the Creator

From the Roman Breviary of 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the feast of All Saints.

Now therefore, dearest brethren, at the origin of all the Saints, we must name, praise and glorify Him who made them, through whom all things were made, through whom all parts of the world subsist, whose majesty beginneth not nor endeth forever, that He may rightly be named as the beginning and end of every creature. Whence it was said by a wise man, “All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been always with Him, and is before all time. Who hath measured the height of heaven, and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss? Who hath numbered the sand of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of the world?” (Sirach 1, 1-2) He alone can search out and measure and number all these things, who in His wisdom encompasseth the circuit of heaven, and in His might reacheth unto the depth of the abyss.

A famous poet considereth that the wisdom of God can do and know all things, saying “Who numberest the stars, whose names dost Thou alone know, their signs, powers, courses, places and times.” (Sedulius, Carmen Paschale I, 66-67) And the Apostle, led by the Holy Spirit, reminds us that it is beyond the measure of man to search out His beginning and power, saying “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen.” (Romans 11, 33-36, the Epistle of Trinity Sunday.)

The Holy Trinity, from a French book of Hours ca. 1415. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Dominican Libera me, Domine

One of the most beautiful and beloved pieces of the Gregorian chant repertoire is the last responsory of Matins of the Dead, Libera me, Domine, which is also sung during the Absolution at the catafalque. The Roman version, certainly the best known, is one of the rare examples of a responsory with more than one verse; another very prominent example is the very first responsory of the liturgical year, Aspiciens a longe on the First Sunday of Advent. Many medieval Uses expanded Libera me by adding more verses, and dozens of variants are attested. Here is the text of the Dominican version as sung on All Souls’ Day, which has three additional verses; the last and longest of these is particularly beautiful. Note that the verses Tremens factus sum and Dies illa are in the opposite order from the Roman version, and the Dominicans do not sing the words Requiem aeternam ... luceat eis with any of the responsories in their Office of the Dead. The verses Quid ego miserrimus and Nunc Christe are sung only on November 2.

R. Líbera me, Dómine, de morte aeterna in die illa tremenda, * Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra, * Dum véneris judicáre sáeculum per ignem.
V. j  Dies illa, dies irae, calamitátis et miseriæ, dies magna et amára valde. Quando.
V. ij  Tremens factus sum ego et tímeo, dum discussio vénerit atque ventúra ira. Dum.
V. iij  Quid ego misérrimus, quid dicam, vel quid faciam, cum nil boni pérferam ante tantum júdicem? Quando.
V. iv  Nunc, Christe, te pétimus, miserére, quæsumus; qui venisti redímere pérditos, noli damnáre redemptos. Dum.
V. v  Creátor omnium rerum Deus, qui me de limo terrae formasti, et mirabíliter proprio sánguine redemisti, corpusque meum, licet modo putrescat, de sepulchro facies in die judicii resuscitári: exaudi, exaudi me, ut ánimam meam in sinu Abrahae, Patriarchae tui, júbeas collocári.
Repetitur R. Líbera me.


R. Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death on that awful day * when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken, * when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
V. j  That day shall be a day of wrath, of calamity and misery, a great day, and exceeding bitter. When the heavens...
V. ij  Trembling do I become, and fearful, when the trial and wrath shall come. When Thou shalt come...
V. iij  What shall I say or do, most wretched man that I am, since I have no good to bring before so great a judge? When the heavens...
V. iv  Now, o Christ, we ask Thee, have mercy, we beseech Thee; Thou who came to redeem the lost, condemn not the redeemed. When Thou shalt come....
V. v  Creator of all things, o God, Who formed me from the slime of the earth, and wondrously redeemed me with Thy own Blood, and, although it now rot, will cause my body to be raised up from the grave on the day of judgment: hear, o hear me, that Thou may command my soul to be placed in the bosom of Abraham, Thy Patriarch. Deliver me, o Lord...

Friday, November 01, 2024

‘O Quam Gloriosum’: The Propers of All Saints in Plainchant & Polyphony (Part 1): Guest Article by Mr Thomas Neal

We are very grateful to Mr Thomas Neal for sharing with us this excellent article on the chants of today’s feast. Mr Neal is a teacher, musicologist, and church musician based in Oxford (UK). He read music to postgraduate level at Clare College, University of Cambridge, where he was the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholar in Sacred Music. His research focuses on the sources of sacred music in sixteenth-century Rome, with a particular focus on the life and works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Thomas has over fifteen years of experience directing music for the traditional Latin liturgy, in addition to conducting numerous choirs and period instrument ensembles in repertoire from Josquin to Haydn. Since 2018 he has been the Director of Music at New College School, Oxford; he lives in Oxford with his wife, Catherine, and their three children.

The origins of the feast of All Saints have traditionally been traced to the most ancient custom of marking the anniversary of a martyr’s death. By the fourth century, adjacent dioceses would commemorate the feasts of each other’s martyr-saints, divide and transfer their relics, and coordinate common feasts. However, the persecutions under Diocletian (r.284-305) created so many martyrs that commemorations began to be grouped together. Eventually, a common day for all saints was appointed: the first trace of this feast is at Antioch, when it was observed on the Sunday after Pentecost. Reference to this or a similar feast appears in the writings of St. Ephrem the Syrian (d.373) and St. John Chrystostom (c.347-407).

In an article published here in 2017, Gregory DiPippo proposed an attractive theory that the feast of All Saints on 1 November has its origins in the iconoclast heresies of the eighth and ninth centuries. [1]  Pope St. Gregory II (r.715-31) was quick to condemn the perpetrators of the iconoclasm that broke out in 726, and publicly reprimanded emperor Leo III for his role the destruction. His immediate successor, Pope St. Gregory III (r.731-41), convoked a synod at Rome on 1 November 731, during which he decreed the excommunication of all who committed iconoclasm against images of Our Lord, the Mother of God, the Apostles and all the saints. He dedicated a chapel in Old St. Peter’s basilica to All Saints and designated 1 November as its feast day. Recent research has demonstrated that this chapel was situated in front of the martyrium of St. Peter, on the south side of the nave and within the pars virorum. One of the texts inscribed in stone at the time of Gregory III can be seen in the crypt of the new basilica, left of the tomb of Emperor Otto II. The pope planned for a Mass to be offered in the chapel daily, commemorating not only the saints in the calendar or whose relics were kept in the chapel, but for all saints, including those known only to God. [2]
A cross-section drawing of the old basilica of St Peter as it was at the end of the 15th century.
In a follow-up to his first article, DiPippo further proposed that the construction of the oratory of St. Lawrence in the Lateran Palace (known as the Sancta Sanctorum), with its unique collection of relics and the icon of the Saviour, may have been constructed partly in response to the iconoclast heresies. (Vittorio Lanzani, Le grotte vaticane: memorie storiche, devozioni, tombe dei papi (Rome: De Rosa, 2010), p.242) The chapel is first mentioned in the life of Pope Stephen III (r.768-72) in the Liber Pontificalis, while the icon is known to have been in Rome by 753 when Pope Stephen II (r.752-57) carried it through the streets to implore Divine assistance against the threat of the Lombard invasion.
Nearly a century after the synod at Rome, during another wave of iconoclasm, Pope Gregory IV (r.827-844) extended this feast to the universal church. In so doing, DiPippo suggests, he upheld both the cult of the Saints and the Church’s true teaching on sacred images.
As the feast was introduced into the universal calendar only in the mid-ninth century, it does not feature in the more ancient manuscripts of liturgical chant. Some of the chants were borrowed and adapted from older feasts, while others appear for the first time in connection with the feast of All Saints.
Introit
Gaudeámus omnes in Dómino, diem festum celebrántes sub honóre Sanctórum ómnium: de quorum sollemnitáte gaudent Angeli et colláudant Fílium Dei. Exsultáte, iusti, in Dómino: rectos decet collaudátio. Glória Patri… Gaudeámus omnes…
Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a feast day in honour of all the Saints, on whose solemnity the angels rejoice, and join in praising the Son of God. Exult, you just, in the Lord; praise from the upright is fitting. Glory be to the Father… Let us all rejoice…
The Introit comprises a general text calling on the assembly to rejoice in the feast, with the verse(s) taken from Psalm 32. To my knowledge, no other Introit has been recorded in connection with this feast. The melody is of such ancient origins that several of the oldest surviving chant manuscripts do not even provide notation. [3] According to Dom. Johner, it was originally composed for a Greek text for the feast of St. Agatha; it gained popularity and was gradually assigned to a range of other feasts, including (until the 1951 reforms) the Assumption. The earliest surviving source for this chant in relation to the feast of All Saints is the manuscript Missal copied by the Benedictine monks of Andechs Abbey between 900 and 930.
The text’s lively call to rejoice is wonderfully reflected in William Byrd’s setting, found in his monumental collection Gradualia (1605):
Gradual
Timéte Dóminum, omnes Sancti eius: quóniam nihil deest timéntibus eum. Inquiréntes autem Dóminum, non defícient omni bono.
Fear the Lord, you His holy ones, for nought is lacking to those who fear Him. But those who seek the Lord want for no good thing.
The text of the Gradual is taken from Psalm 33, verses 10-11. One of the earliest surviving musical sources for this chant is the late tenth-century manuscript copied between 960 and 970 at the abbey of Einsiedeln (Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 121), in which it is notated in adiastematic neumes. According to the Graduale Triplex, the chant also survives in the ninth-century Gradual of Compiègne (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat.17436, f.128). In that source and other ancient manuscripts, it is assigned to the feast of St. Cyriacus and his companions (8 August). The twelfth-century Gradual from Bellelay Abbey (Porrentruy, Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne, MS 18) provides perhaps the earliest version in diastematic neumes, and is notated so clearly that an experienced schola might easily sing from its pages today.
In 1777, Michael Haydn (brother of Joseph) composed this glorious setting, which ingeniously plays on the contours of the plainchant melody:
NOTES
[1] Traditionally, the feast has been somewhat loosely connected with the consecration of the basilica Santa Maria ad Martyres (the Pantheon) at Rome by Pope Boniface IV (r.608-615) on 13 May 609 (the same date mentioned by St. Ephrem). Such an interpretation requires an equation of the martyrs with all saints—a point that DiPippo convincingly refutes by looking at the practice of the stational churches at Rome in the Octave of Easter.
[2] See the literature cited in: Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ‘Interactions between liturgy and politics in Old Saint Peter’s, 670-741. John the Archcantor, Sergius I amd Gregory III,’ Old Saint Peter’s, Rome, eds. Rosamond McKitterick, John Osborne, Carol M. Richardson, and Joanna Story. British School at Rome Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp.177-189: at 188-189. See also: Charles B. McClendon, ‘Old Saint Peter’s and the Iconoclastic Controversy,’ pp.214-228.
[3] The twelfth-century Premonstratensian Gradual from Bellelay Abbey (Porrentruy, Bibliothèque cantonale jurassienne, MS 18), for example, assigns this Introit melody to five separate feasts (The Assumption, St. Mary Magdalen, The Nativity of Our Lady, All Saints, and the Common of Many Virgins), but gives only the text incipit for each. At this point, I would like to acknowledge the incredible work of Dominique Gatté, Jan Koláček, and all the team involved in producing and maintaining the Medieval Music Manuscripts Online Database (https://musmed.eu/), without which much of the basic research for this article would have been impossible

The Feast of All Saints 2024

From the Roman Breviary of 1529, the beginning of the sermon for the feast of All Saints.

We read in the histories of the Church that Saint Boniface, who was the fourth bishop of Rome after the blessed Gregory, by his entreaties obtained from the Caesar Phocas that the temple of Rome which was called the Pantheon by the ancients should be given to the Church of Christ, since it seemed to be be as it were the image of all of the gods. In this temple, having cleaned away all the filth, he made a church in honor of the holy Mother of God and of all the holy Martyrs of Christ, so that, the multitude of demons being shut out, the multitude of Saints might be held in memory there by the faithful, and the whole people on the first of November might come together to the church consecrated in honor of all the Saints…therefore, from this custom of the Roman church, as the Christian religion grew, it was decreed that in the church of God built through the length and breadth of the world, the honor and memory of the Saints should be kept in the day we have mentioned, so that whatever human frailty by ignorance or negligence or occupation with the affairs of this world did less fully on the solemnities of the Saints, might be completed by this holy observance, and so that, protected by their patronage, we may be able to come to the joys of Heaven.

Mass celebrated in the Pantheon on May 13, 2009, the fourteenth centenary of the building's dedication as a Christian church. Photo courtesy of John Sonnen.
In the Middle Ages, the sermon read at Matins on the feast of All Saints was the same in almost every Use of the Roman Rite, called from its first words “Legimus in ecclesiasticis historiis”; the real author is unknown, although it was frequently attributed to St Rabanus Maurus. The first lesson refers to the institution of the feast of All Saints, and the dedication of the Pantheon as a church. The second lesson is about God, while the six lessons that follow descend through the hierarchy of the Saints: the Virgin Mary, the Angels, the Patriarchs and Prophets, the Apostles, the Martyrs, and the various types of Confessors. The holy Virgins and other female Saints are mentioned in the same lesson as the Virgin Mary, the model of consecrated life; the ninth lesson is taken from a homily of St. Augustine on the Sermon on the Mount, the beginning of which is the Gospel of the feast. As has now been our custom for fifteen years, we will celebrate the feast of All Saints and its octave by going each section of this beautiful sermon day by day.

O quam gloriósum est regnum in quo cum Christo gaudent omnes Sancti, amicti stolis albis sequuntur Agnum quocumque íerit! - O how glorious is the kingdom where all the Saints rejoice with Christ; clothed in white robes, they follow the Lamb wherever he goeth! (The antiphon of the Magnificat at Second Vespers of All Saints, setting by Tomás Luis de Victoria.)

Thursday, October 31, 2024

The Extra Stormy Orations of the Reconfigured Fourth Sunday after Epiphany


Lost in Translation #110

We call the “leftover” Sundays at the end of the Time after Pentecost reconfigured rather than resumed, because they are not identical to the Sundays after Epiphany, but have been altered both by a different set of Mass propers, (Graduale/Alleluia, Offertory verse, and Communion verse) and by context.

The different context is the apocalyptic note that is sounded near and at the end of the liturgical year, a note that changes our approach to the propers of the day. For example, the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany is of a ship in a storm. For the Church Fathers, if the ship is the Church, the raging wind is a type for the devils whose pride stirs up waves of persecutions against God’s people, and the sea becomes troubled by the passions and malice of men which, as Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB, puts it, is “the great source of disobedience to authority and of fraternal strife.”
It is a frightening image in every age, but especially during the End Times. When Jesus chides the Apostles for screaming out “Lord, save us, we perish!” he asks them, “Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?” The phrasing is redolent of another question that Our Lord asks about the end of days: “But yet the Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18, 8).
A lack of faith characterizes the End Times; once great Christian civilizations will likely go awash in apostasy and infidelity. The storm that the Gospel reading describes is the storm that characterizes the final conflict; it is the storm described in the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany but now ratcheted up to a new level of terror. And it is tempting, with such mighty winds and waves about us, to wonder about the sleeping Christ. Why is He not waking up and helping us while the devil roams about, seeking whom he may devour, more, it seems, than he has ever done before? Yet just as we despair, we hear the voice of the Christ: “Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?” It is time to buck up, and like good and faithful sailors weather the storm.
And the Orations give us the naval manuals for good seamanship, even during an aquatic Armageddon.
The Collect fits the violent image of a storm hand-in-glove:
Deus, qui nos in tantis perículis constitútos, pro humána scis fragilitáte non posse subsístere: da nobis salútem mentis et córporis; ut ea quæ pro peccátis nostris pátimur, te adjuvante vincámus. Per Dóminum.
Which I translate as:
O God, who knowest us to be placed in dangers so great that, on account of human frailty, we cannot withstand them; grant to us health of mind and body: that those things which we suffer on account of our sins we may conquer with Thy help. Through Our Lord.
In the prelude (the protasis), we are surrounded by dangers that we are incapable of withstanding because of our frailty or fragility. “Of all the things that breathe and move upon it,” Odysseus laments in the Odyssey, “Earth nurtures nothing feebler than man.” [1] “Man’s days are as grass, as the flower of the field so shall he flourish,” chants the psalmist. “For the spirit shall pass in him, and he shall not be: and he shall know his place no more” (Ps. 102, 15-16). “Man is nothing but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature.” Pascal adds. “…It is not necessary for the whole universe to arm itself in order to crush him; a vapor, a drop of water, is enough to kill him.” [2]
The solution to weakness is strength, and so we pray for health or vitality in both body and soul. It is good to have both: when the spirit is strong but the flesh is weak, we are at a disadvantage. The image of being weak in both body and soul on a ship during a storm calls to my mind the beginning of the Aeneid. Caught in a terrible storm designed by the gods to capsize the Trojan fleet, Aeneas loses heart and buckles. Vergil describes the pious hero’s limbs growing slack as he wishes in prayer, Job-like, that he had been killed at Troy with his fallen comrades. [3] 
Aeneas in the storm
The verb “- subsistere - withstand” is an interesting choice. Again with the Gospel story in mind, the verb can take on two other meanings. Subsistere literally means to “remain standing,” which is difficult to do when a ship is pitching and rolling. But it also means to “stop,” as in Jesus immediately stopping the storm in order to bring a “great calm.” Man in his frailty cannot do that.
The petition (apodosis) adds another consideration: our frailty is caused or at least compounded by our sins. And yet despite our feeble, sinful condition, we dare to think that we can prevail with God’s help. The strong verb used for “overcome” (vincere) makes me hear the cry of “Vincerò!” (I will conquer) in the aria “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s opera Turandot.
The Secret also speaks of frailty:
Concéde, quǽsumus, omnípotens Deus: ut hujus sacrifícii munus oblatum, fragilitátem nostram ab omni malo purget semper, et múniat. Per Dóminum nostrum.
Which I translate as:
Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that the oblation of this sacrifice may ever purify and protect our frailty from all evil. Through Our Lord.
Finally, in the Postcommunion we pray:
Múnera tua nos, Deus, a dilectiónibus terrénis expédiant: et cæléstibus semper instáurent aliméntis. Per Dóminum.
Which I translate as:
May Thy gifts, O God, set us free us from earthly delights, and ever restore us with heavenly nourishments. Through Our Lord.
Munus (gift, offering) connects us to the Secret, and the prayer for restoration (instaurare) connects us to the Collect. We need to be restored in order to be strengthened, and the means of our restoration is the heavenly nourishment of the Eucharist.
Expedio (set us free) literally refers to the foot being set free from a snare, and that brings us back to standing straight despite the ship’s destabilizing movements. But it also reminds us what the snares in this life are. Earthly delights are not evil per se, but the Evil One can use them to ensnare us and make us beholden to what is lowest in us rather than what is highest in us. May Christ the Skipper bring calm to the Barque of Peter and help us stand straight and free as His dignified disciples.
Notes
[1] Homer, Odyssey 18, 138-39, trans. Stanley Lombardo (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000), 280. 
[2] Blaise Pascal, Pensées (Paris: Georges Crès et Cie, 1919), 147, translation mine. 
[3] See Vergil, Aeneid I.91ff.

The Vigil of All Saints 2024

In those days, behold I, John, saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes: which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne. And when he had opened the book, the four living creatures, and the four and twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

The representation of this scene in an illustrated manuscript of the Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liébana. The Lamb is represented on a medallion on Christ’s chest and another on top of his staff, although they are barely visible as such. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

And they sung a new canticle, saying: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; because thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, in thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. And hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living creatures, and the ancients; and the number of them was thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction.’ ” (Apocalypse 5, 6-12, the Epistle for the vigil of All Saints.)

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

The Relic of St Peter’s Chair Exposed in the Vatican Basilica

In preparation for the upcoming Jubilee, a lot of work is being done inside St Peter’s basilica in the Vatican to clean up and restore some of its major features. One of these is the great sculpture in the apse by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which is simply known as the Cathedra. I took this photograph of it decorated for the feast of St Peter’s Chair more than 13½ years ago.

It is often forgotten that this feast is not only the commemoration of St Peter’s ministry as chief of the Apostles, but also the feast of a relic long reputed to be his actual throne. Although it never attained to the popularity of the Veil of St. Veronica, the Vatican Basilica’s relic par excellence in the High Middle Ages, it was regularly seen and venerated by the faithful, being first explicitly named “the Chair of St. Peter” in 1237. Before the long period of the Popes’ residence in Avignon (during which many medieval customs of the Papal liturgy disappeared), the Pope was enthroned on the relic for part of his coronation ceremony, and used it as his liturgical throne in the basilica on the feast of February 22. Since 1666, it has been kept within Bernini’s Cathedra, and very rarely brought out. The magnificence of the sculpture, and its presence as the visual culmination of the church, has overwhelmed its purpose as a reliquary; all the more so since the relic itself cannot be seen within it, and has so rarely been removed from it for viewing. It was last exposed in 1867, at the behest of Blessed Pope Pius IX, during the celebrations of the eighteenth centennial of the martyrdoms of Ss. Peter and Paul. A copy is displayed in the treasury of St. Peter’s, but with little to indicate the prominence which the original formerly held.

This week, however, as the cleaning up of the Cathedra comes to a close, the relic has once again, for the first time since 1867, been put on display for the faithful to venerate, and a friend was kind enough to share his pictures of it with us. It should be pointed out that, as scholars have long acknowledged, the chair was actually made in the time of the Emperor Charles the Bald as a gift for Pope John VIII, who crowned him as the Holy Roman Emperor in the old basilica in 875. However, the ivory panels on the front of it are much older, dating from sometime in the 2nd century B.C. They originally belonged to some other object, possibly also a chair, and showed the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the twelve labors of Hercules: nine of each survive.
 
The great baldachin over the high altar and the tomb of St Peter has also just been unveiled after a good cleaning.
On the right side of the central aisle sits this bronze statue of St Peter made by Arnolfo di Cambio to be displayed in the old basilica for the Jubilee of 1300. The extended right foot of St Peter has been worn away by pilgrims rubbing and kissing it for well over 700 years.

Introducing the Newest Jubilee Mascot: Tenebro

I am sure that by now, all of our readers have met Luce, the official mascot of the upcoming Jubilee, who was introduced to the world on Monday as an expression of the Church’s desire “to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth.” However, as many have noted, the style of the new mascot seems geared to appeal to those who are so young that they are just as likely to fall asleep under a pew as to sit in one, leaving the unfortunate impression that the Faith is something to be grown out of. Rightly might one suspect that she holds little interest for groups within the Church whose numbers are growing, such as young men, and those who love traditional forms of worship

To meet this problem, the wise men of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith have decided that the Jubilee of 2025 will have a whole range of mascots, designed to appeal to a variety of demographics. New Liturgical Movement is very proud to have been chosen as the outlet for introducing the world to the first new character in the Luce expanded universe, her putative (n.b.!) nemesis Tenebro.

The official backstory of Tenebro is that he is one of the Rigidicons, a group who are reputed to have the dark power to gradually extinguish all the lights of progress that have been lit within the Church over the last 60 years. (This power is suggested by the fact that they dress primarily in black.) In early episodes of the upcoming animated series, it will appear to many that Tenebro is trying to hinder Luce from completing her pilgrimage to Rome.

But, as is so often the case, the real story is a lot more complicated. (Spoiler alert!) It will be gradually revealed that another character, the Pontiff Supreme Benedicto, transformed the power of the Rigidicons, such that the lights which they extinguish come blazing back to life and illuminate the whole Church. Tenebro is one of a growing faction among the Rigidicons who have embraced this transformation of their power for good, which is conveyed through the diadem on his chest. (It will also be Tenebro who teaches the young Luce that a rosary is not a necklace...)
New Liturgical Movement will be the first to let you know as each of a whole spate of new Jubilee mascot characters is brought out to an eagerly waiting Church and world.

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

The Relics of St John Southworth: Guest Article by Mr Sean Pilcher

In England, today is the collective feast of all the martyrs of the English College, a seminary located in the town of Douay in France, which trained men to for the priesthood, and sent them to minister to the few remaining Catholics in their native land. Our friend Mr Sean Pilcher has very kindly shared with us this article he wrote about one of this holy company, numbering one-hundred and fifty-eight, St John Southworth, who was martyred at Tyburn in 1654. It was previously published in a slightly different version at The Lamp, and is here reproduced by the kind permission of the editors. Mr Pilcher is the director of Sacra: Relics of the Saints (sacrarelics.org), an apostolate that promotes education about relics, and works to repair, research, and document relics for religious houses and dioceses.

The relics of the saints have a kind of long-sightedness, a way of hanging on in times of difficulty, and of resurfacing when they are needed again. There are, unfortunately, horror stories of the mistreatment or disposal of relics in the last century, but here is one of triumph, the kind of humble, unassuming victory of the saints, worked out in centuries of grace-filled struggle.

The crystal urn which contains the relics of St John Southworth, now regularly kept in one of the side chapels of Westminster Cathedral. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Gryffindor, CC BY-SA 3.0
The Long Parliament of 1640-60 afforded the clandestine Catholic clergy of England an unexpected breath of fresh air, more than it had known in recent memory. The previous century saw Edmund Campion brought to the scaffold and the fortunes of noble Catholic families drained by heavy recusancy fines. Even a generation earlier, hysteria from the Gunpowder Plot drew the knot tighter on England’s Catholics. Hurried trials made honest protestant juries blush. Every family was required by law to attend and commune at the Protestant service. England had no bishops. Priests made due, saying Mass and hearing confessions. Simply being a priest was an act of high treason, and harbouring or aiding clergy was also a criminal offence.

The political tensions provoked by the reign of Charles I saw a nation in civil war, and favourable public opinion of Catholics waned. Charles married a Catholic and was rumoured to be sympathetic to the Roman Church. Parliament pressed harder for mandatory oaths that would exclude Catholics from political offices, impose restrictions on travel, and Catholics could not even own a horse valued above £5 – all while Charles secretly sought French aid against his own opposing ministers. The yet nascent Established Church had spent much time fighting against an increasing Puritan minority with even more force.
Men who enter at Douay, the English seminary established in France to educate priests to be sent back to England, knew that they were being prepared for a lonely ministry, and one very often fraught with difficulties, whose only real reprieve would be martyrdom. One such man was John Southworth, a Lancashireman who had been instructed in the Faith at home in secret. Being from the north, a kind of heartland of recusancy, he would have felt very keenly the greater restrictions on Catholics, and valued the faith of the Apostles more than anything. He knew that labourers were needed in the vineyard; resolving to enter Douay, he left home for France at age twenty-one.
The English College was one of several colleges within the university which King Philip II founded in 1559 at Douay, then part of the Spanish Netherlands. In 1886, it was merged with two other universities to form the University of Lille. This image made between 1590 and 1611 shows three of the colleges; the Royal College, the Jesuit, and the college of the nearby town of Marchiennes.
After at least one return to England because of poor health, he was ordained priest six years later by the Archbishop of Cambrai and sent back to England. The Diary at Douay read: ‘John Southworth (here known as Lee), alumnus and priest of this College, with the usual faculties for the winning of souls, was chosen for the vineyard of England.’ Southworth operated in London for a time and later in his native Lancashire. There is record of his being arrested and imprisoned, and being narrowly rescued from a death-sentence at the insistence of Queen Henrietta Maria, who arranged for him and others to be deported to France.
Southworth made little of this upset and returned to his work in England. He was arrested another four times, spending three years in the London prison auspiciously named The Clink. On three occasions his release was negotiated by the Secretary of State, Windebank, at the Queen’s direction. At his fourth arrest, he managed his own escape. Here was a man undaunted by the threat of imprisonment, whose resolve was little disturbed by discomforts and failures which his work necessarily included. His mission was to attend to souls, and this he did wherever he found himself. When there was an outbreak of plague in London, he visited those who had lapsed from the Faith out of convenience or fear of the new regime. He was by all accounts a likeable and agreeable man, even among those who did not share his religion or cause. It was during this time also that he earned the nickname ‘Parish Priest of Westminster.
A portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria of England (1609-69), the Catholic wife of King Charles I of England; 1636-68, by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), or his workshop. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
By the end of 1640, King Charles had lost the governance of the country in all but name. Sympathy with the rising Puritan faction had grown immensely. Secretary Windebank was summoned to Parliament to be reprimanded for his friendly actions toward Catholics, and he was forced to flee to France where he was received into the Church. There too went the Queen, who feared for her safety, leaving Catholics without allies in any position of great authority. The regicide of Charles I and the seizure of power by Cromwell in 1649 put Catholics definitively on the losing side of the Civil War. Parliament directed the expulsion of all recusant families, but these directives could hardly occupy the attention of anyone with executive authority. The country was everywhere divided. England did not yet have a standing army, and Parliament found it difficult to enforce its laws; the legitimacy of the Established Church was questioned because of its popish trappings and monarchical support, while Cromwell’s officers lived in domineering, if irreproachable, austerity. Nevertheless, house priests enjoyed relative freedom to continue their work for souls, if they kept out of sight. Southworth carried on, but was caught while lodging in Westminster. He was found with ‘all the requisites for the celebration of Mass,’ and taken prisoner. The arresting officer was one of Cromwell’s more zealous followers, which led to harsh treatment and an unusually fast indictment.
Despite this, Southworth’s good nature won the pity of his judges. He openly confessed that he was a priest, but the judge cut him off, and his testimony was delayed. The judges wanted Southworth to plead ‘not guilty,’ since his only crime was being a priest, and for this there was no proof. He had only been found near the Mass kit, but was not caught administering the sacraments. This suggestion, it seems, was even made in court while the magistrate implored him to deny his charges. Southworth was unmoved, and the magistrate was ‘so drowned in tears,’ that he could barely pass the sentence.
John Southworth was dragged on a hurdle to Tyburn, beheaded, and quartered on 28 June 1654. The other men executed with him were charged with forging currency; Southworth’s only crime was being a priest. He was the last to face the executioner, and after a brief address to the crowd there gathered, he prayed in silence and went to his reward. An onlooking royalist found his vocation, and entered the Society of Jesus in Rome the same year. As was the custom of the house when it was graced with a new martyrdom, the English College at Douay sang the Te Deum and a Mass of thanksgiving when they received the news of his death.
This marker in a traffic island in central London, at one of the corners of Hyde Park, marks the site of the Tyburn Tree, as it was called, the public gallows on which many of the Catholic martyrs of England met their deaths. Photo by the author.
Now we pick up the story of Southworth’s relics, one no less full of false starts, and no less unrelenting. The sentence prescribed that the four quarters of the body be placed at the four corners of London, but the Spanish Ambassador, Alonzo de Cardenas, bribed the gaoler with forty shillings, and took the body to be embalmed. The man ‘who embalmed ye body,’ was ‘Chirugeon James Clark,’ who removed a bone from the spine to be kept as a relic by the English clergy. The body was kept by the Ambassador until it could be safely returned to France in 1655. Bishop Challoner records in 1741 that it was interred at Douay in the church near St Augustine’s altar. The faithful gathered there to pray and venerate the body of the martyr, and the miraculous healing of a boy was recorded. A fever deemed incurable subsided after the sufferer’s family lay his head upon the cushion that supported Southworth’s head.
The French Revolution brought with it the destruction of countless sacred relics, precious works of precious art and church plate. The English clergy who had long had refuge and acceptance at Douay were now viewed with double suspicion. King Louis XVI was killed on 21 January 1793, and war declared on England. The Catholics of France had sided with the king, and the clergy who refused to swear the so-called Constitutional Oath were seen as enemies of the State. Fearing imprisonment, the residents of the College buried their plate and relics, carefully hidden and noted. Fr Thomas Stout, one of the priests involved in the burial, made a rough diagram, noting that Southworth was buried exactly six feet deep. Soon after, their fears were confirmed, and the clergy were taken prisoners by the National Guard. They were held in captivity in France until their return to Dover was negotiated in 1795.
Readers will be aware that France and England have long behaved like feuding siblings, now making war upon one another, now peace, here rallying together against a greater enemy. Some more crazed English minds saw potential in the French Revolution, but most saw another way forward. French nobility fled the country and devout commoners were forced into much the same conditions under which the English Catholic faithful had long suffered: Mass was offered in secret and the authorities rounded up priests for the guillotines. The fathers of Douay earnestly desired to return to their home of more than two hundred years, but the circumstances of neither country allowed for this a possibility.
Catholic Emancipation came to England in 1829, but the popular view of Catholics was little affected by these reforms. Clerics were no longer treated as capital offenders, but England’s Catholic hierarchy was not restored until 1850. Immigration from Ireland and an increasingly Catholicising wing of the Church of England gradually pushed the trappings of the Roman Church further into the public eye. Slowly the new hierarchy began to take stock of what could be done. Cardinal Manning acquired land for a cathedral in the City of Westminster (also the newly-created seat of the primate of England), where the first Catholic cathedral since the English Reformation would be built. This project would not see its beginning until Manning’s successor, Cardinal Vaughan, broke ground in 1895, but as soon as the land was bought in 1856, permissions were obtained to go and make a search of the grounds at Douay, in the hope of recovering what had been buried there for safe-keeping.
Westminster Cathedral. Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Frank Kovalchek, CC BY 2.0
The buildings of the College at Douay had been made into barracks, and their layout significantly altered, so that when the search party arrived, the sketch they had to follow made very little sense. Some of the church plate was found, but no Southworth; it was thought that after some seventy-five years, the coffin and its contents were likely to have disintegrated. The diocese of Westminster continued its recovery of hidden church furnishings which had survived the Reformation, but her martyred parish priest lay yet hidden in France.
In 1923, plans were made for the demolition of the barracks where the buildings of the College had stood, in order to level the ground for a new road. In 1927, as workmen were digging a cellar for a new building in the area, they uncovered a lead coffin, which was brought first to the local morgue for inspection, and then to the Institut Médico-Légal in Lille for detailed examination of the remains.
The investigation found a body whose form had been mostly preserved, though some water had entered through a hole in the coffin, presumably made by digging of the earlier search party, which had come painfully close to finding it. The physical description of the man fit that of Southworth, and x-rays of the body confirmed his identity by his sentence: beheading and quartering. After the body was recovered, the precise location could be again compared to Fr Stout’s sketch made in the eighteenth century, and now that the barracks were gone, other landmarks could be used to show that the location of the body corresponded exactly to the sketch.
On 1 May 1930 Westminster’s parish priest was brought in triumphant procession to the great cathedral. His return brought with it the whole weight of the restoration of England’s hierarchy, and was a turning point for the English faithful. Led by a papal legate, religious from the entire country turned up to greet their saint, flanked by a multitude of faithful carrying candles, banners, and singing hymns. Girls wearing their Easter best strew flowers in front of the ornate feretory which bore Southworth’s restored relics, vested in his priestly vestments and Canterbury cap behind the crystal.
Footage of the event (without soundtrack) from the archives of the newsreel company British Pathé.
He now keeps watch over the English Church from her capitol. Every year when the chosen men of Westminster lay on the pavement of the cathedral to receive priestly ordination, St John’s feretory is moved to the main aisle to lay next to them as they hear his name sung in the Litany.
The story of St John Southworth’s relics is a story of the triumph of the English martyrs, and of the unconquerable resolve of England’s Catholics, which continues to this day. It also reflects our sensibility toward the relics of the saints, one little shaken by chaos of these centuries past: to guard them with everything in us, to protect them in times of distress and to lean on their intercession, and to bring them out with all the pomp we can muster when a better day comes. “May their bones spring up out of their place: for they strengthened Jacob, and redeemed themselves by strong faith.” (Ecclesiasticus 49, 12).

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