Consubstantial with the Father

Lost in Translation #111

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells His listeners:

Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matt. 5, 17-18)

A jot is an iota, the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet, and a tittle is a tiny mark used in Hebrew to differentiate one letter from another. Christ’s point is that He will fulfill the Mosaic Law down to the smallest detail.

But the iota resurfaced during the first ecumenical Council three centuries later. The Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 A.D. to determine what Christians really believed about Jesus Christ: was He truly God, or was He merely godlike? The entire debate hinged on the Greek iota (comparable to our letter i): Christ was either of the same substance as God (homoousios), or he was of a similar but distinct substance (homoiousios). After much deliberation, the Council professed Christ to be of the same substance (homoousios) as God the Father, enshrining their definition in the Nicene Creed that is now recited at Mass every Sunday.

First Council of Nicaea

Thus, there is literally one iota of difference between orthodoxy and heresy, a fact which illustrates how the smallest deviation from the truth can lead to the greatest error (incidentally, from this comes our phrase of not budging one iota). And it is also a testimony to Christianity’s unique obsession with the truth. Whereas the other two great monotheistic religions of the West are more concerned with orthopraxy (right practices), Christianity shows a pronounced interest in orthodoxy (which means both right belief and right worship). For Chesterton, this preoccupation with orthodoxy involves a combination of “two almost insane positions” that somehow still amount “to sanity”:

Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. (Orthodoxy, chapter 6)

What is so dangerous about the Son being of the same substance as the Father? For starters, it is an inexhaustible (and hence untamable) mystery. It is easy for the mind to grasp the concept of someone who is half-god and half-man, like Hercules; it is impossible for the mind to grasp the concept of someone who is fully God and fully man, like Jesus of Nazareth. It is easy for the mind to see how someone can be extremely similar to someone else, as when an earthly son is the spitting image of his earthly father; it is impossible for the mind to grasp how someone is of the exact same stuff as someone else, as God the Son is consubstantial to God the Father while also having a human intellect, will, body, etc.

Jesus Christ, Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

Given the storied history of homoousios and what it tells us about Christianity’s priorities, it is scandalous to see how it has been translated. The Latin Credo faithfully renders the word as consubstantialis, consubstantial or of the same substance. But the 1970 ICEL translation had “one in being with the Father.” Aside from the equally lamentable German eines Wesens (which means the same thing), no other official translation has been so ontologically sloppy or indifferent to the truth. The French Missal has consubstantiel, for example, and the Italian stessa sostanza (same substance).

Worse, when in 2006 the Vatican wanted the USCCB to use “consubstantial” in their new English translation, the American bishops protested on the grounds that this was a word that “required theological explanation”—as if the very job of a bishop was not to provide theological explanation. Happily, the Vatican did not budge one iota and Chesterton’s lion tamer returned to the ring with “consubstantial”—a scandal to the Jew, folly to the Greek, and a pain in the neck to lazy prelates.

Sacred Art of Spanish America - An Exhibition at Cornell University

I recently visited a very interesting exhibition at the Johnson Museum of Art on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, titled “Colonial Crossings: Art, Identity, and Belief in the Spanish Americas.” The works on display are primarily from the 18th century, with a few earlier pieces anda few later, from several different parts of the former Spanish colonies of the New World. The exhibition is scheduled to end on December 15th; if you are in the area, it is very much worth your time. Here are pictures of all the major works, and most of the minor ones. Very few of the artists are known by name.

We start, of course, with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This was painted in 1779 by a Mexican artist named Sebastián Salcedo, a prestige commission done in a difficult and expensive medium, oil on copper; difficult, because it requires a lot of layering, and takes forever to dry. (The very first image of the Sacred Heart to be exposed in a church in Rome, the famous work of Pompeo Batoni, was done in the same medium only 12 years earlier.) It has to be said that the didactic panels in the show give far too little information about basic art historical facts, such as who commissioned this, whether it was for a church, a private chapel, a public space etc.

A painting of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as Our Lady of Miracles, from Cuzco, Perú, 18th century, made for the local Franciscan house. This is a very much toned down version of the allegorical representation of the Immaculate Conception, by this period long out of fashion in Europe.

Madonna and Child, 1592-1605, by an anonymous follower of the Italian painter Bernardo Bitti, a Jesuit priest from Camerino, Italy, who worked in many different places in the Viceroyalty of Perú.

Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá (modern Columbia), with Ss Francis and Andrew, late 17th or early 18th century. The anonymous donor at the right clearly seems to have been added to the painting by a different hand, but no further information about this was provided by the show.

An image of Our Lady of Remedies, from La Paz (in modern Bolivia), 1770. The story depicted here is that a local miscreant stabbed an image of the Virgin Mary, but was converted instantly when it began to bleed.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Stained-Glass Windows of the Basilica of St Cunibert in Cologne

Following up on yesterday’s post about the basilica of St Cunibert in Cologne, Germany, here is a detailed examination of its stained-glass windows, which have managed to survive all the many vicissitudes of the church’s history, most notably, the frequent bombardment of the city during the Second World War. (Cologne, a major industrial and transport center, was bombed so many times that the list of aerial attacks has its own separate Wikipedia page.)

The apse is dominated by three large windows: in the center, the life of Christ; to the left, the life of Pope St Clement I, to whom the church was originally dedicated; to the right, the life of St Kunibert, the bishop of Cologne (ca. 623-63) who founded the church, and to whom it is now also dedicated. These date from the time of the current building’s first construction, 1220-30.

The central window is a Jesse tree; Jesse appears at the bottom, with the ancestors of Christ to either side of a series of episodes of His life that run up the middle, while the prophets are depicted in the marginal panels. In ascending order, we see Jesse, the Annunciation, the birth of Christ, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, Christ in majesty.

Jesse (at bottom) and the Annunciation

The birth of Christ.

The Resurrection.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Feast of St Brice, St Martin’s Bad Disciple

St Martin, whose feast we kept two days ago, was succeeded in the see of Tours, as he had predicted, by a monk named Brice, a singularly unpromising candidate to come after such a holy bishop. Martin spent as much time as his episcopal duties permitted among a monastic community at Marmoutier near Tours, into which he himself had taken the orphaned Brice. St Gregory of Tours describes Brice as “proud and vain”, and Martin’s biographer Sulpicius Severus tells the story in his Dialogues (3.15) that Brice was led by devils to “vomit up a thousand reproaches against Martin,” even daring to assert that he himself was much holier for being raised from childhood in a monastery, while Martin was raised in a military camp. Although Brice repented of this (as Sulpicius believed, because of Martin’s prayers), and asked for the Saint’s forgiveness, he continued to be a very difficult character. Martin refused to remove him from the priesthood, lest he seem to do so as an act of vengeance, but expressed his tolerance in less-than-complimentary terms: “If Christ could put up with Judas, why should I not put up with Brice?”

Ss Martin and Brice

Martin had predicted not only that Brice would succeed him as bishop, but that he would suffer much in the episcopacy, words which Brice dismissed as “ravings.” Both predictions were fulfilled in the following manner. Although Brice was vain and proud, he was “chaste in body”, and yet he was accused of fathering a child. The revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints says, with characteristic (and characteristically irritating) reticence, that he vindicated himself by “a very astonishing miracle”, without saying what the miracle was. Gregory of Tours tells us that Brice called together the people, and before them ordered the month-old infant to say whether or not he was the father, at which the child did indeed say, “You are not my father.” The people ask Brice to make the infant say who its father was, but Brice replied (pride still unconquered), “That is not my job. I have taken care of the part of this business that pertains to me; if you can, ask for yourselves.”

St Brice with the Infant, from the church of St Médard in Boersch in eastern France. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Ralph Hammann) 

This was attributed, perhaps understandably, to the use of magic, rather than holiness, and so Brice attempted to vindicate himself by carrying hot coals in his cloak to the tomb of St Martin; when he arrived his cloak was not burnt. But this sign was also not accepted, and so he was driven from his see, “that the words of the Saint might be fulfilled, ‘Know that in the episcopate, you will suffer many adversities.’ … Then Brice sought out the Pope of Rome, weeping and mourning, and saying ‘Rightly do I suffer these things, because I sinned against God’s Saint, and often called him crazy and deluded; and seeing his virtues, I did not believe.’ ” After staying in Rome for seven years, and purging his sins by the celebration of many Masses, he was restored to his see, which he governed for seven years further as a man “of magnificent sanctity,” according to Gregory, very much changed for the better by the experience. His popularity in the medieval period was very great, and his feast is found on most calendars, although not that of Rome. This is due in part to his association with St Martin, but perhaps more as an example of something that the medievals understood very well and loved to dwell on, that it is never too late for God’s grace to bring us away from sin to sanctity.

The see of Tours also celebrates within the octave of St Martin another of its holy bishops, the historian and hagiographer St Gregory, whom we have cited above, whose feast is kept on November 17. A very charming story is told that he was unusually small, which must have been very small indeed to be noted in an age when people were generally much shorter than we are today. When he came into the presence of Pope St Gregory the Great during a visit to Rome, the Pope’s expression clearly evinced surprise at his stature, at which he quoted the words of Psalm 99, “He (i.e. God) made us, and not we ourselves.”

The Basilica of St Cunibert in Cologne

Today is the feast of Saint Cunibert, who served as bishop of Cologne in Germany for roughly four decades in the 7th century. Very little is known for certain of his life; he is said to have been educated at Metz in the court of the Frankish king Chlothar II (584-629), and to have been archdeacon of Trier before he was raised to the episcopacy in about 623. During his time as bishop of Cologne, he founded a church dedicated to Pope St Clement I, and was buried there when he died ca. 663; this church is now named for him, but still honors St Clement as a copatron. It was completely rebuilt in the 13th century, the last of the twelve great Romanesque basilicas which grace the city. We continue our ongoing series on these churches with the seventh post. (All images from this page of Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.)

Kudos to FAfromK for this particularly beautiful photograph of the Paschal moon of 2020 hanging over the basilica!

The choir was completed in 1226, one year before construction of the city’s great cathedral began; the church was consecrated in 1247. Like all the major churches of Cologne, Sankt Kunibert was badly damaged during the Second World War; it was not completely restored until 1993, and much of the earlier interior decoration was lost in the process. Miraculously, a good part of the original stained-glass windows in the apse have managed to survived the church’s many vicissitudes, enough to merit a post of their own later on; these are some of the most important examples of that medium in all of the Rhineland.

The apse on the east side...

Photo by © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0

and the façade on the west side.

by Cmcmcm1

The central nave.

Photo by © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0

A closer view of the apse and main sanctuary.

Photo by © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0

Behind the main altar stands a triptych by the anonymous Master of the Legend of St George (1465-80), with the Transfiguration, Crucifixion and Resurrection. To either side of it are two 19th-century portable reliquary shrines. The one on the right contains the relics of St Cunibert, and the other, those of two British priests, both named Ewald, who were martyred at a place now called Aplerbeck, roughly 50 miles to the northeast of Cologne, while serving as missionaries to the Saxons in Westphalia. Their bodies were brought to the original church of St Clement shortly after their death in 692 AD. Their feast was kept on October 3rd in several parts of Europe, and is still to this day on the Premonstratensian calendar, since St Norbert obtained some of their relics from the church in 1121, and brought them either to Prémontré itself, or Floreffe, the second house of his order to be founded.

Photo by © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0

Continue Reading this Article. . .

An Art School For Catholics - Showcasing Work by Apprentices of Stabat Mater Studios

Students Getting an Authentic Traditional On-the-Job Apprentice Training

The excellent Stabat Mater Studio—an art school I recommend for a soup-to-nuts training in naturalistic art styles—opened its doors this September, and a mixture of full-time core students and part-timers began their intensive instruction in the fundamentals of drawing with executive director Robert Puschautz, and art fellow AnneMarie Johnson.

One key factor distinguishing the Stabat Mater Studio from other classical art programs is that it is a working studio with an openly Catholic ethos, which offers students on-the-job training by participating in actual commissions given to master artists.

A recent project was for St. Joseph’s church in Mason, Texas. Stabat Mater Foundation was in charge of the stenciling portion of this historic church's renovation under the guidance of Studio Io. After the stenciling was finished on-site, the whole studio, teachers and students, came together to complete the Tree of Life mural behind the crucifix, which was then attached to a board behind the altar.

“One of our goals is to share an integrated approach to art with students. We are not just making pretty pictures for walls but trying to create work that reflects the cosmological order of the universe. That means creating a harmony between the architecture, the artwork and objects that go into the church and the mission and function of that liturgical space.” - Robert Puschautz.

You can read about their intensive integrated training program here. It is a uniquely well-rounded program rooted in rigorous academic method training but certainly not limited to it. 

A couple of features particularly caught my eye: 

First, they include training in sacred geometry, harmony, and proportion, which is unique to this school. 

Second, they shepherd the students from being able to draw and paint accurately what they see - which is hard enough - to creating original paintings that draw on the imagination of the artists, and the memory of what they have observed in the past. This final stage is so often missing in the ateliers that have sprung up around the country, leaving artists at a disadvantage, because they can only reproduce scenes they create in the studio. This is why so many naturalistic paintings being commissioned look like static Victorian tableaus in which the girl next door is dressed up as the Virgin Mary. 

Also, Pontifex University is proud to partner with Stabat Mater atelier. Through our online courses in art theory, created for the Master of Sacred Arts program, we offer intellectual formation and deep inculturation that accompanies the training in artistic skills that the Stabat Mater atelier offers. 

Contact Studio Io for church renovation commissions and Stabat Mater Foundation for artistic and decorative commissions.

The Basilica of St Martin in Cologne

For the feast of St Martin, we continue our series on the twelve Romanesque basilicas of Cologne, Germany, with the church dedicated to him. It is traditionally known as “Great St Martin” to distinguish it from a smaller church also under his patronage, of which there now remains only the belltower. The part of Cologne where it stands, less than 300 feet from the Rhine, was originally an island, separated from the city by a narrow channel which silted up around 200 AD. Modern excavations under the church have brought to light some remains of very ancient Roman buildings, which are thought to have been some kind of exercise facility, or possibly a swimming pool. (All images from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.)

The great central tower over the crossing, with two of the three apses that project from it. (by W. Bulach) 

The façade. (by Raimond Spekking) 

The apse on the north side, and the exterior of the nave. (by Photo.s, CC BY-SA 3.0 de.) 

The oldest attestation of a church on the site dates to around the year 960, when it was founded as a house of secular canons. Within a few decades, an archbishop named Everger (985-99) turned it over to a congregation of Irish Benedictines, one of the many such houses on the continent, but over the course of the following century, it was gradually taken over by locals. After a fire destroyed the neighborhood around the church in 1150, a complete rebuilding was begun, and completed roughly a century later. It remained a Benedictine monastery until the “secularization” of 1802, as it is called, the state-organized general suppression of religious houses, and the theft of their properties, throughout the former Holy Roman Empire. At this point, it became a parish, which led to the neglect of the former abbatial buildings, and their eventual demolition.

This photograph gives a good sense of the building as a whole; note that the nave is quite short in proportion to the central tower. (By Raimond Spekking)

Great St Martin is the third tallest historical building in Cologne, but is dwarfed in both length and height by the cathedral; its central tower reaches 246 feet, while those of the cathedral reach 516. (This photo was taken from a hot air balloon. Photo: Eckhard Henkel / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 DE”)

In the 1840s, as the great project to finally complete the long-neglected cathedral of Cologne was getting up and running, Great St Martin was also given a major renovation, including the addition of a new sacristy in the Romanesque style, and the reconstruction of one of its towers. An ambitious new pictorial program for the decoration of the interior was planned, which would illustrate the whole of salvation history, from the terrestrial paradise of Genesis in the narthex to the heavenly Jerusalem of the Apocalypse in the apse. Most of this program was in fact realized by 1868, the work of a local painter named Alexius Kleinertz.

Two photos of the church’s interior taken at the very end of the 19th century. (Public domain.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Feast of St Martin

In the Missal used at Tours before the Tridentine reform, the Sequence of the feast of St Martin begins as follows.

Gaude Sion, quae diem recolis / Qua Martinus, compar Apostolis, / Mundum vincens, junctus caelicolis / Coronatur.
   Rejoice, o Sion, who recall the day when Martin, equal to the Apostles, overcoming the world, is crowned among those that dwell in heaven.

The full text of the sequence, here called “Prosa”, is given from the Paris Missal of 1602. (Click to enlarge)

The first Responsory of his Office also compares Martin to the Apostles, although somewhat more obliquely.

R. Hic est Martínus, electus Dei Póntifex, cui Dóminus post Apóstolos tantam gratiam conferre dignátus est, * Ut in virtúte Trinitátis Deíficae mererétur fíeri trium mortuórum suscitátor magníficus. V. Sanctae Trinitátis fidem Martinus confessus est. Ut.

R. This is Martin, God’s chosen Priest, upon whom, after the Apostles, the Lord deigned to bestow such great grace, * that in the power of the divine Trinity, three times he merited gloriously to raise the dead to life. V. Martin confessed the faith of the Holy Trinity. That.

The medieval liturgical commentator William Durandus explains why the liturgy refers to him in this fashion.

He is called “equal to the Apostles” not, as some people think, because he raised people from the dead, since many other martyrs and confessors have done the same; nor because of the multitude of his miracles, but especially because of one particular miracle... (while he was celebrating Mass) a globe of fire appeared over his head, by which it was shown that the Holy Spirit had descended upon him… as He came upon the Apostles at Pentecost. Whence he is rightly called “equal to the Apostles,” and is indeed equal to them in the liturgy. (VII, 37)

Durandus also notes that among the feasts of Confessors, only Martin’s was considered important enough to be kept with an octave, as was the general custom in the Middle Ages, and in many places well beyond that. It was also the only feast of a Confessor kept with a proper Office in the medieval use of the Papal chapel at Rome, which formed the basis of the Tridentine liturgical books; not even the four great Doctors or Saint Benedict have their own Offices in the Roman Use.

The hymns of this Office, however, are taken from the Common of Confessor Bishops, in part because the Church has always been very conservative about new hymns, but also because the Vesper hymn Iste confessor was originally composed for St Martin. The original version of the third stanza (later changed under Pope Urban VIII) reads as follows:

  Ad sacrum cujus túmulum frequenter / Membra languentum modo sanitáti, / Quólibet morbo fúerint graváti, / Restituuntur.
   At whose sacred tomb the members of the sick are now often restored to health from whatsoever ailment weighed them down.

The basilica of St Martin at Tours was one of the most important pilgrimage shrines of the Middle Ages, and as the hymn notes, particularly renowned for miracles of healing. Not by coincidence does the Mass of St Martin share some of its parts with that of another famous wonder-worker, St Nicholas, who is named right after him in the Litany of the Saints. A great many medieval Uses also kept a second feast of the Saint on July 4, which commemorated two events: his episcopal ordination in 371, and the translation of his relics on the same day about a century later, roughly 70 years after his death, from his original burial place to a large basilica built over it. This church was rebuilt twice, in 1014, and again in 1230 after a fire, each time on a larger scale.

It was not, however, the cathedral of Tours, which is dedicated to St Gatian, Martin’s predecessor-but-one as bishop; his own church, while very important, was at first a monastery, and later a collegiate church. For much of the Middle Ages, the area around it was known as “Martinopolis,” later “Chateauneuf” (New Castle), and legally a separate city from Tours. An indication of its importance is the fact that the abbey had the right to mint its own coinage, known as the “livre tournois” (the “pound of Tours”, like the English pound-sterling), which became the coin of the realm in France, and remained so until the Revolution. Sadly, both the tomb and the relics of St Martin were mostly destroyed when the church was sacked by Protestants in 1562; the basilica itself was then razed during the French Revolution. A modern church was built to replace it in the later 19th-century; of the original there remains only the towers built on either side of it.

Engraving showing the basilica of St Martin above. and the ruins of it after the first wave of destruction in the Revolution.

A huge number of other churches throughout the world are dedicated to St Martin; Dom Guéranger states that there were 3660 in France alone. He shares a basilica in Rome with Pope St Sylvester I, traditionally said to be the first Pope who did not die as a martyr; they are the first Saints to be honored as “Confessors” in the traditional sense of the term, and their church was the first in Rome not titled to a Biblical personage or a martyr. The feast of Pope St Martin I, the last Pope to be martyred, is kept the day after Martin of Tours, even though he died on September 16, because his relics were placed in the church of his holy namesake. St Bede states that a church dedicated to St Martin of Tours in Canterbury was the very first ever built in England, dating back to Roman times (and of course, if this is so, originally under a different dedication.) It was from there that St Augustine of Canterbury began the evangelization of that country.

Although St Martin lived to be about eighty, and was famous for many miracles both in life and after death, he is most commonly represented in an episode that took place when he was a young soldier, even before he was baptized, the famous story of the cloak. As told by his biographer Sulpicius Severus,

Once, when he had nothing but his weapons and the simple cloak of a soldier, in the midst of a colder-than-usual winter, such that many had already died, he met at the gates of Amiens a naked beggar. And since this man prayed the passers-by to have mercy on him, and they all just passed him by, the man of God understood that that man was reserved for him, since others showed him no mercy. But what could he do? He had nothing but the cloak with which he was clothed. … Therefore, taking his sword, … he cut it in half, gave part to the beggar, and clothed himself with the rest. … On the following night, when he had gone to sleep, he saw Christ clothed with the part of his cloak in which he had clothed the beggar. … Then he heard Jesus clearly say to the multitude of Angels that stood about Him: Martin, though yet a catechumen, covered me with this garment. (Vita Beati Martini, cap. 3. These words spoken by Christ are sung as the first antiphon of Matins of St Martin: “Martinus adhuc catechumenus hac me veste contexit.”)

St Martin Divides His Cloak with a Beggar, by Simone Martini, in the lower basilica of St Francis of Assisi, 1320-25.

Although it may seem like a folk-etymology, it is actually true that the word “chapel” derives from the Latin word for cloak, “cappa”, in reference to the relic of St Martin’s cloak. As explained by the Catholic Encyclopedia, “This cape, or its representative, was afterwards preserved as a relic and accompanied the Frankish kings in their wars, and the tent which sheltered it became known also as cappella or capella. In this tent Mass was celebrated by the military chaplains (capellani). When at rest in the palace the relic likewise gave its name to the oratory where it was kept, and subsequently any oratory where Mass and Divine service were celebrated was called capella (in Latin), chapelle (in French), chapel.”

The liturgical calendar also served the Middle Ages as an almanac for weather and agriculture, with many rules, customs and proverbs bound to certain feasts. One French tradition says that if there is a full moon on St Martin’s day, the winter will be very snowy. In Italy, his feast is connected with the opening of the “vino novello – the young wine”, which is to say, wine made earlier in the same year, generally very light in alcohol content. An Indian summer may also be called “St Martin’s summer” in England, and this is the standard term in Portugal and Italy. In Milan and Toledo, his feast is the key to the beginning of the liturgical year, since the six-week long Advent of the Ambrosian and Mozarabic liturgies starts on the Sunday after his feast.

A Troped Epistle for the Dedication of a Church

In the Middle Ages, it was a very common custom to embellish the original texts of the liturgy with additions known as tropes. The most popular of these were the ones added to the Kyrie; the Mass Ordinaries in the Liber Usualis are still to this day named after them, as for example Kyrie fons bonitatis. When the tropes were used, the choir would sing the first Kyrie as follows: “Kyrie, fons bonitatis, Pater ingenite, a quo bona cuncta procedunt, eleison.” (Lord, fount of goodness, Father unbegotten, from whom all good things proceed, have mercy.) There was a troped Gloria which was written specifically for feasts and votive Masses of the Virgin Mary, which is found in a very large number of medieval Missals, and many others for the rest of the Ordinary.

A page of the Missal according to the Use of Cologne printed in 1494, with the troped Gloria for Masses of the Virgin in the left column, introduced by the rubric “Another (version of the) angelic hymn, of Our Lady on Saturdays and her feasts.”

One also occasionally finds tropes added to the Scriptural readings of the Mass; the Sarum Missal, for example, has a reading from Isaiah at the Midnight Mass of Christmas before the Epistle, which is actually more trope than scripture. In honor of today’s feast, the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, here is a particularly splendid example, the epistle for the Dedication of a Church, Apocalypse 21, 2-5. This comes from a very important late-medieval chant manuscript known as Codex Engelberg 314, which was copied out by several hands at the Abbey of Engelberg in Canton Obwalden, Switzerland. Below is the text in Latin and English, with the tropes in italics. Note that the tropes are sung by one voice, and the Biblical text by another, but they sing the conclusion together. (The German pronunciation of Latin is used, so that C sounds like TS.)

Ad decus ecclesiae recitatur hodie lectio libri Apocalypsis Johannis Apostoli, cui revelata sunt secreta caelestia. In diebus illis: talis divinitus ostensa est visio: Vidi civitatem sanctam Jerusalem novam, quae constituitur in caelis, honos ex lapidibus, descendentem de caelo nuptiali thalamo a Deo, paratam sicut sponsam ornatam viro suo super solem splendidum. Et audivi vocem magnam nuntiantem nova gaudia de throno dicentem: Veni, ostendam tibi, ecce tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus, et ad eum venient omnes gentes et dicent: Gloria tibi, Domine, et habitabit cum eis, nunc et in aevum. Et ipsi populus eius erunt, omnes Dei gratia, quos a morte redemit perpetua, et ipse Deus cum eis erit eorum Deus, qui moderatur cuncta creata: et absterget Deus omnem lacrimam ab oculis eorum, quorum non sol, luna, sed Christus vera est lucerna: et mors ultra non erit, sed caeli praemia perpetua, neque luctus, neque clamor, ubi cum beatis gloriantur, nova canunt Deo carmina, neque dolor erit ultra, gaudia permanent sempiterna, quia prima abierunt, justi florebunt. Et dixit, qui sedebat in throno in supernae majestatis arce: Ecce nova facio omnia.
Sancti Spiritus gratia,
Divina Providentia,
Per sacra mysteria
Renovatur ecclesia.

For the glory of the Church is recited today a reading from the book of the Revelation of the Apostle John, to whom heavenly secrets were revealed. [1] In those days, a vision of this sort was divinely shown: I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, which is built in the heavens, honor from the stones, [2] coming down out of heaven, the bridal chamber, by God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, more splendid than the sun. And I heard a great voice, proclaiming new joys, saying from the throne: Come, I will show thee: [3] Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and all the nations will come to it, and say, “Glory to Thee, o Lord.” [4] And he will dwell with them now and forever. And they shall be his people, all by God’s grace, those whom He hath redeemed from everlasting death; and God himself with them shall be their God, who ruleth over all created things. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, whose true light is not the sun or moon, but Christ [5]: and death shall be no more, but the rewards of heaven, everlasting, nor mourning, nor crying, where they glory with the blessed, and sing new songs to God, nor sorrow shall be any more, everlasting joys abide, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat on the throne in the height of supreme majesty, said: Behold, I make all things new.
By divine Providence,
And the Holy Spirit’s grace
Through the holy mysteries
The Church is renewed.

The right wing of the St John Altarpiece, by Hans Memling, 1474-79.

[1] A quote from the antiphon at the Benedictus in the Office of St John the Evangelist. “Iste est Joannes, qui supra pectus Domini in coena recubuit; beatus Apostolus, cui revelata sunt secreta caelestia. - This is John, who rested upon the breast of the Lord at the supper; blessed is the Apostle, to who heavenly secrets were revealed.”

[2] A citation of the Vesper hymn for the Dedication of a Church, Urbs Jerusalem Beata.

[3] Apocalypse 21, 19

[4] A citation of the second responsory in the Office of a Dedication. “Fundáta est domus Dómini supra vérticem móntium, et exaltáta est super omnes colles: Et venient ad eam omnes gentes, et dicent: Gloria tibi, Dómine. - The house of the Lord is founded upon the height of the mountains, and exalted above all the hills, and all the nations will come to it, and say, ‘Glory to Thee, o Lord.’ ”

[5] Apocalypse 21, 23

The Octave of All Saints 2024

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

We believe that this day’s festivity is also made renowned by the priests, doctors, and confessors of Christ, who spiritually nourish the hearts of the faithful, like heavenly waters, so that they may be able to bring forth in abundance the incorruptible fruit of good works. They have taken care not only to give back the talents entrusted to them, but also to increase them with interest, … ; for the good which they learned and understood through the grace of the Holy Spirit, they strove to impart not only to themselves, but to the minds of those subject to them. … Celebrating the sacred and holy mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ upon the altar, in the depths of their heart they cease not to offer a living sacrifice, and pleasing to God, that is, themselves, without blemish or admixture of any evil deed. And although they did not feel the sword of the persecutors, yet through the merit of their lives, they are worthy of God and not deprived of martyrdom. For martyrdom is accomplished not only by the shedding of blood, but also by abstaining from sins, and the practice of God’s commandments. … Very many have shone forth with signs and wonders, restoring sight to the blind, strengthening the steps of the lame, giving hearing to the deaf, conquering demons, and raising the dead.

All Saints in Glory, by Giovanni da San Giovanni, 1630, in the apse of the church of the Four Crowned Martyrs in Rome.

Therefore, dearest brethren, with the full intention of our minds let us ask for the protection of the mighty intercessors of whom we have spoken, so that through the temporal feast which we keep, by their merits interceding, we may be able to come to eternal joy. All things pass away that are celebrated in time. Take care, all that take part in these solemnities, lest you be cut off from the eternal solemnity. For what profiteth it to take part in the feasts of men, if it befall you to miss the feasts of the Angels? (The words from “All things pass away...” to the end are added from a homily of Saint Gregory of Great for the Octave Day of Easter.)

From the Breviary of St. Pius V, 1568, the end of the treatise on mortality by St. Cyprian of Carthage, bishop and martyr, read on the Octave Day of All Saints.

We must consider, most beloved brethren, and continually reflect upon the fact that we have renounced the world, and in the meanwhile live here as guests and pilgrims. Let us embrace the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which restores us to paradise and the heavenly kingdom, delivered hence and freed from the snares of the world. What man that has been placed in foreign lands would not hasten to return to his own country? What man that is hastening to sail back to his friends desireth not the more eagerly a prosperous wind, that he might the sooner be able to embrace those dear to him?

We regard paradise as our country, already we begin to deem the patriarchs as our parents: why do we not hasten and run, that we may see our country, that we may greet our parents? There a great number of our dear ones awaits us, and a dense crowd of parents, brothers, children, longs for us, already assured of their own immortality, and still solicitous for our salvation. To attain to their sight and their embrace, what gladness both for them and for us in common! What delight there is in the heavenly kingdom, without fear of death; and how lofty and perpetual the happiness with eternity of living!

There the glorious choir of the apostles, there the host of the prophets rejoicing, there the innumerable multitude of the martyrs, crowned for the victory of their struggle and passion; there the triumphant virgins, who subdued the desire of the flesh and of the body by the strength of their continency. There are the merciful rewarded, who by feeding and helping the poor have done the works of justice, they who, in keeping precepts of the Lord, have transformed their earthly patrimonies into the heavenly treasures. To these, beloved brethren, let us hasten with eager desire; let us long quickly to be with them, that quickly we may come to Christ.

November 8th is also the feast of the Four Crowned Martyrs, the titular Saints of a very ancient but much-rebuilt church on the Caelian Hill in Rome. Every year on the feast, the altar is covered with a very beautiful frontal, and silver reliquary busts of the martyrs are displayed in the sanctuary.

Among the many inscriptions preserved in the church, this one records that Pope Leo IV (847-55) placed under the church’s altar the relics of the Four Crowned Martyrs, and a great many others; in addition to those listed by name here, he placed “many other bodies of Saints whose names are known to God.”

My Interview with Dr Jan Bentz of The European Conservative

Earlier this year, on the feast of the Assumption, I had the great pleasure of giving an interview to an old friend, Dr Jan Bentz, who studied in Rome for many years. He is now teaching at Oxford University, and hosting an interview series called Reality Check on the YouTube channel of The European Conservative magazine. Our conversation ranged over a wide variety of topics related to the liturgy: a little bit about the station Masses; the current status of the traditional Roman Rite; the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, and how it applies to the whole life of the Church; the non-reception of Vatican II; the lectionary; continuity and rupture in the post-Conciliar reform; prospects for future liturgical reform, etc. I hope you find it interesting.