Liturgical Notes on Ash Wednesday

It is a universal custom of all historical Christian rites not to fast on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection, even in Lent and Holy Week. The original Roman Lent of six weeks therefore comprised forty-two days, but only thirty-six days of fasting, which St Gregory the Great describes as “the tithe of the year.” (Hom. XVI in Evang.) The Roman Missal preserves a reminder of this in the Secret for the Mass of the first Sunday of Lent, which speaks of the “sacrifice of the beginning of Lent.”

Not long afterwards, however, perhaps by Gregory himself, the four days preceding the first Sunday were added to the fast to bring the number of days to exactly forty, the length of the fast kept by the Lord Himself, as well as by the prophets Moses and Elijah. This extension of Lent back to Ash Wednesday, which was once commonly known as “in capite jejunii – at the beginning of the fast”, is a proper custom of the Roman Rite, attested in the earliest Roman liturgical books of the century after St Gregory. It was copied by the Mozarabic liturgy, but never by the Ambrosian, and indeed, the Milanese traditionally make a point of eating meat on this day. In the Eastern rites, Great Lent begins on the Monday of the First Week, two days before the Roman Ash Wednesday.

A Greek icon of the Transfiguration from the second half of the 15th century. The Gospel of the Transfiguration, Matthew 17, 1-9, is read on the Ember Saturday of Lent in reference to the forty-day fast of Christ, which is mentioned on the previous Sunday (Matthew 4, 1-11) and of the two Prophets who appeared alongside Him at the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah, both of whom appear in the readings of Ember Wednesday.(Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Breviary of St Pius V and its medieval predecessors also preserve a memory of the fact that Ash Wednesday is a later addition. Although the fast begins on that day, the proper features of the Lenten Office (the hymns, chapters, versicles etc.) only begin to be sung at Vespers of Saturday before the First Sunday. This is also reflected in the traditional nomenclature of the three days after “Ash Wednesday (Feria IV Cinerum)”, which are called “post cineres – after the ashes,” rather than the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Lent. In the titles printed in liturgical books, and in the prayers of the Mass, the use of the Latin word for Lent, “Quadragesima,” only begins on the first Sunday. (An apparent exception is the Secret of the Friday “post cineres”, which contains the words “observantiae quadragesimalis”, but this is a revision of the Tridentine editors; the original reading was “observantiae paschalis.”)

The blessing and imposition of ashes was originally a rite for those who were assigned to do penance publicly during Lent for grave or notorious sins, an extremely ancient discipline and practice of the Church. The extension of this custom to all the faithful began in the later part of the 10th century, and was solidified by the end of the 11th, when Pope Urban II prescribed it at the Council of Benevento in 1091. The rite of “expelling” the public penitents from the church on Ash Wednesday, and receiving them back on Maundy Thursday, remained in the Pontifical for centuries after it had faded from use; another trace is the prayer “for the penitents” among the Preces said at Lauds and Vespers in penitential seasons. Many medieval uses also added a special commemoration of the public penitents to the suffrages of the Saints; in the Sarum Use, it was said as follows at Lauds:

Aña Convertímini ad me in toto corde vestro, in jejunio et fletu, et in planctu, dicit Dóminus.
V. Peccávimus cum pátribus nostris. R. Injuste égimus, iniquitátem fécimus.
Oratio Exaudi, quaesumus, Dómine, súpplicum preces, et confitentium tibi parce peccátis: ut páriter nobis indulgentiam tríbuas benignus, et pacem.

Aña Be ye turned to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning, sayeth the Lord.
V. We have sinned with our fathers. R. We have acted unjustly, we have wrought iniquity.
Prayer Graciously hear, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the prayers of Thy supplicants, and pardon the sins of those who confess to Thee: that Thou may kindly grant us both pardon and peace.

The expulsion of the public penitents, in an illustration from a 1595 edition of the Roman Pontifical. (Reproduced by permission of the Pitts Theological Library, Candler School of Theology at Emory University)

In the Missal of St Pius V, the blessing of the ashes is introduced by a chant which is called an antiphon in the rubrics, but is structured like an introit. The blessing itself consists of four prayers, the sprinkling of the ashes with holy water, and their incensation, after which they are imposed on all present, while two antiphons and a responsory are sung. The rite concludes with a brief prayer, and then the Mass begins.

In the Middle Ages, the Ash Wednesday ceremony generally included a procession as well. Historically, processions are regarded as penitential acts by nature; this is the reason why even those of Candlemas and the Rogations were traditionally done in penitential violet, although the Mass of the former and the season of the latter require white vestments. (See note below.)

In the year 1143, a canon of St Peter’s named Benedict wrote the following brief description of the Ash Wednesday ceremony in his treatise on the rituals of Rome and the Papal court, now known as the Ordo Romanus XI. “The ‘Collect’ (i.e. gathering is held) at St Anastasia, where the Pope comes with the whole curia; and there is he dressed, and all the other orders go up to the altar. There the Pope gives the ashes, and the primicerius sings with the schola the Antiphon Exaudi nos, Domine. When the (ritual at the Collect church) is finished, the Pope and all the others go bare-footed in a procession to Santa Sabina, followed by the primicerius with the schola, as they sing (the antiphon) Immutemur habitu. When they reach the church, the subdeacon lays aside the (processional) cross, and goes to the altar during the litany (of the Saints)… the Pope sings the Mass without the Kyrie, because of the Litany”, (i.e., it has already been sung at the end of the Litany.)

Later descriptions of this ceremony, such as the various recensions of the Ordinal of Innocent III (1198-1216), mention that the ashes were made at the church of St Anastasia by burning the palms left over from the previous year’s Palm Sunday, a common custom to this very day. During the Papal residence in Avignon, however, many long-standing traditions of the Papal court dropped out of use and were never revived; thus, the procession is not included in the pre-Tridentine Missal of the Roman Curia, the antecedent of the Missal of St Pius V.

A penitential procession led by St Gregory the Great, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc du Berry, by the Limbourg brothers, 1412-16.

Note: The ancient processions of the Roman Rite, all of which were once regarded as obligatory at major churches, were those of Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday and the Rogation Days. Corpus Christi was added last, as the culmination of the liturgical year; the white vestments used at the procession indicate its purely celebratory character, wholly appropriate to the nature of the feast. However, it should be noted that the procession is not even mentioned in the Missal, nor is any particular music prescribed for it; of course, the Litany of the Saints, the penitential prayer par excellence, is not sung, and the procession is done after the Mass, rather than before it.

A Letter Exchange on the Last Council and the Liturgical Reform

The following letter exchange took place between me and a gentleman whose personal details have been edited out.

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

I am a high school theology teacher and also lead Bible studies. The life of the Church, the Scriptures, and Holy Mass are all integral to my daily life. I find all issues related to liturgy to be terribly confusing. There are so many different narratives out there that one could lose one’s mind trying to figure out which one is correct, or if any is correct. There is the fine work done by many of you at New Liturgical Movement, among others. One could also find a different view point from rad trads, or a liberal view from people at the Pray Tell blog. So, lots of passionate views by highly educated people who feel they are interpreting Vatican II in the right way. (Unless they reject the council altogether, which is another story.)

My question, then, is: Where to begin, and whom do I trust? Having read Vatican II and Sacrosanctum Concilium on a number of occasions, as well as in class work, it seems that some reform was certainly called for. How, then, can some people completely dismiss the council and the directives that were given? I have friends who do that quite often, while referring to the council as simply “pastoral.” Yet, I am sympathetic with these people because of some of the unfortunate innovations that occurred after the council. So, for me at least, while I like the reverence and use of Latin in the TLM, I still prefer the Novus Ordo. It seems to me that there must be some place of meeting between the two, while being faithful to both the received liturgical tradition of the Church and the reforms called for by SC. What do you think?

Sincerely yours,
A Curious Catholic

***

Dear Sir:

I completely understand your predicament, as it parallels how I felt at a certain juncture. We are living in a confusing age, and a certain diversity of opinions is not only to be expected but should be tolerated, even (at times) welcomed, as we try to work things out as best we can, in the absence of strong and able leadership at the higher levels of the clergy.

This much seems beyond any doubt: the reforms to the liturgy from 1964 to 1970 went far beyond anything that the Council Fathers ever had in mind or anything that Sacrosanctum Concilium could possibly justify. This has been so thoroughly documented and demonstrated that it’s no longer an open question.

Those who defend Bugnini and the Consilium are forced, then, simply to say, “Well, that’s true, but they did the bold thing – the thing that had to be done – and the Pope recognized it and approved it.” On the other hand, those who question Bugnini’s and the Consilium’s principles will say, “We’re not surprised at the disaster that has befallen the Church, since you cannot break with the organic tradition of the liturgy and not expect to introduce massive amounts of chaos and malaise.”

None of this touches on the question of sacramental validity, which is to be presumed and can be readily defended on theological grounds; but certainly the question of the prudence of the changes and their defensibility is fair game. The attempt to shut down that conversation has failed, particularly when it became apparent that Joseph Ratzinger, one of the greatest theological luminaries of the twentieth century, and truly “the pope of the liturgical question,” was more than willing to participate in it himself.

Moreover, it really is the case that both John XXIII and Paul VI spoke of the Council as pastoral in nature and as an attempt to interpret and respond to modern man. In 1988, Cardinal Ratzinger said the following in an address to the bishops of Chile:

“The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of “super-dogma” which takes away the importance of all the rest.”

Consequently, it was possible for the Council to get some things right and others not so right, since we are not dealing with unalterable dogmas that must be believed, or anathematized errors that must be shunned. The simple fact that the Council says “we should do X” doesn’t mean that, some decades later, we can’t legitimately argue that X wasn’t the best response, or that it wouldn’t make more sense to do Y or Z today. Indeed, this kind of situation has occurred many times in the history of the Church, which gives us other examples of councils (think of the Lateran councils) whose reforms didn’t always work or, in some cases, weren’t even attempted.

It seems to me that the Pray Tell perspective is generally untenable because it exalts progressivism at the expense of tradition, which is a fundamentally uncatholic way of thinking and judging. Rorate Caeli represents a consistent traditionalism that considers safe, sound, and sacred that which has always (or nearly always) been done by everyone (or nearly everyone) everywhere (or nearly everywhere). New Liturgical Movement is a meeting ground for various interests, announcements, and hypotheses, but always within a general commitment to the normativity of tradition. One will not stray far from the truth if one endeavors to remain faithful to the Magisterium while seeing tradition as a non-negotiable good that should always be privileged.

You raise an interesting question about Vatican II’s request for a reform of the liturgy. As you know, the Council insisted that no change be made unless the good of the Church certainly required it (SC 23). Far more changes were made than were ever certainly required, and the floodgates were opened for abuses. Even from a sociological-anthropological point of view, everyone knows that a gigantic and tradition-bound body can only absorb change slowly and stepwise, unless one wants to provoke rupture and confusion – which is exactly what happened. It could have been, and was, predicted ahead of time.

It seems clear that Benedict XVI’s intention was that the two “forms” would peacefully coexist for a long enough time to allow a restart of organic development, but I will admit that it’s difficult in practice to see how this would have actually taken place, and I am not aware of many traditionalists who want to see the old rite modified, for reasons explained in one of my recent books, Close the Workshop. In any case, it seems that “full, conscious, and active participation” was the primary reason given for reform, and I think it is not difficult to argue that the TLM in fact allows for a superior fulfillment of this desideratum.

Yours in Him,
Peter Kwasniewski

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

About four years ago I emailed you, out of the blue, with some questions about Vatican II, the old Mass and the new Mass. I have spent the past four years reading as much as I can while also observing and praying over my own experiences attending Mass. I have devoted considerable time reading authors that would typically be published on Pray Tell, and while I agree with some of what they argue, mainly the need of some reform, I simply cannot understand their unwillingness to see that a number of the experiments that occurred after the Council did not benefit the People of God. Examples would be the loss of chant, the abandonment of ad orientem, and the complete neglect of Latin.

When I attend the old rite, I fully appreciate the elements in it that are clearly lacking in the new rite. For me, there is a real attraction to it. However, here’s my one concern. I don’t want to be involved with any part of the Church that rejects the Second Vatican Council. While I think there is plenty of healthy dialogue that can go on concerning the implementation of Sacrosanctum Concillium, I am wary of those who reject elements of the Council. I firmly support the teachings on religious liberty, Nostra Aetate, Unitatis Redintegratio, and Lumen Gentium. My question to you is, can I embrace the pre-Conciliar Missal while also embracing the Vatican II in full?

God bless you,
A Curious Catholic

***

Dear Sir:

It’s very good to hear from you again. I no longer read Pray Tell, as I found that the perspective of Fr. Ruff in particular was exceedingly irresponsible. He speaks as if Vatican II amounted to a carte-blanche to overturn anything and everything in order to retool the Church for modern evangelization. Even if one might admire the apostolic motivation of this view, we can see that it has failed in so many ways.

Where there is flourishing new life in the Church, it has tended to align itself with so-called conservative or traditional constituencies. We can see this most obviously in the clergy, religious life, and marriages: young clergy tend, on the whole, to be interested in recovering traditions that were lost; religious orders that are growing or maintaining their numbers are the ones unembarrassed or even eager about Catholic tradition; and the marriages that are bringing new life into the Church and the world are those that are faithful to the indissoluble unitive and procreative finalities of marriage as a life-giving and life-sacrificing covenant.

You raise a difficult and challenging question – namely, about the doctrinal content and subsequent reception of the Second Vatican Council. Unavoidably, the Council is controversial, because, on the topics you mentioned (and others), it staked out positions that are not always obviously in harmony with preceding magisterial teaching. For example, there are clear tensions (which is not yet to say absolute contradictions) between Leo XIII’s encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum and Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae, or between Pius XI’s encyclical Mortalium Animos and Vatican II’s Unitatis Redintegratio, or between Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis and Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium.

Because the Council was intended as a pastoral response to modern times, as both John XXIII and Paul VI repeatedly said, it did not engage the highest level of magisterial authority – that is, it did not issue de fide pronouncements or anathemas on errors, which are considered infallible exercises of the Magisterium. At most, as the Nota praevia indicates, it intended to restate teachings already known to be true from their presence in the doctrinal heritage of the Church.

The conciliar documents were presented as a restatement of the Catholic Faith in modern language, and to that extent, they may be responsibly criticized, although the Council’s validity as an ecclesiastical gathering cannot be disputed, nor can the documents be dismissed out of hand. They must not be placed on an untouchable pedestal. Indeed, there is a great irony (as again Ratzinger pointed out) in the fact that the so-called “progressives” feel free to dispute and dismiss the more obviously authoritative canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, where we find the words de fide and anathema on practically every page, while they pillory anyone who so much as questions the prudence or adequacy of any formulation in Vatican II. Surely there is here a strange inversion and confusion.

Thus, everything depends on what is meant by “embracing Vatican II in full.” Whatever is clearly in line with the perennial Magisterium we should embrace; anything that seems in tension with it we may accept on condition that it be in harmony (which we may or may not be able to see ourselves); and we may suspend assent to false interpretations or extrapolations that have caused great harm to the Mystical Body of Christ. What I have just summarized is the view of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, such as can be found in his book Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age, which I highly recommend for its clarity and serene common sense.

We must also be prepared to acknowledge that the state of the world today, sixty years after the close of the Council, is vastly different than it was back then, and that the burning issues that animated the prelates of the 1960s are no longer ours; moreover, that certain solutions, such as the recovery of tradition, are proving to be more effective in reaching, converting, and nourishing postmodern man than any of the programs aimed at “modern man” as conceived circa 1970. Thus, it may also simply be the case that Vatican II, whatever its status might be, has already simply ceased to be of much relevance, and therefore is no longer worth all the anguish and laborious exegesis it once occasioned.

It seems to me that the sooner bishops and cardinals recognize this dramatic shift, the sooner they can respond to the actual needs and desires of the People of God, and hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches today.

Yours in Christ,

Dr. Kwasniewski

Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 3): Reliquaries

For this third set of Nicola photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, the focus is on medieval reliquaries, and modern ones inspired by them. The first piece, which is the result of work done in four different periods, exemplifies how the influence of medieval art endured in later times. 

A reliquary cross made at the end of the 12th century (1180-1200), mounted on a base made in the 14th, with a corpus of the 16th, assembled into its current form in the 19th. 

A reliquary plaque made in the German city of Hildesheim, copper in champlevé and enamel, 1160-70.

A reliquary of the column of the Flagellation, made in Venice in the mid 15th-century.

A reliquary statue of St Anne, made in Germany in 1472. Anne is shown holding a small coffer, smell figures of Jesus and Mary to either side. This motif, known as a “selbdritte – she herself (i.e. Anne) is the third” was very popular in late medieval Germany.

Two reliquaries of a rather unusual design, with a small tower resting on top of a box, were both made in the area of Basel, Switzerland, in the later 15th or early 16th century, and later partly reworked.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Composer Andrew Dittman Releases New Collection of Sacred Music

Noble and Accessible, Ever Ancient, Ever New

I am delighted to announce the release of new sacred music by American composer Andrew Dittman called The Kyrial. The settings are generally familiar melodies from Latin chants of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Pater noster etc), adapted to the English language, and given an Anglican flavour through four-part harmonies that are evocative of traditional Anglican chant.

Andrew has been choirmaster at The Chapel of the Cross Reformed Episcopal Church since 2013, and composes sacred music for weekly liturgical performance. His work is rooted in traditional forms and sung in English and Latin. He draws on a range of influences, including plainchant, Renaissance and Baroque counterpoint, creating compositions that are both timeless and approachable. Like Paul Jernberg, who composes for the Roman Rite and Roman Hurko, who composes for the Byzantine Rite, Dittman represents a new generation restoring sacred music to its proper place.

Historically, high culture and popular culture were not divided – composers like Mozart and Beethoven drew from a shared cultural font rooted in the sacred, resonating with both aristocracy and ordinary people. To restore this unity, we need fresh creativity in traditional forms of music that is both timeless and speaks to the current age, with sacred music within the liturgy reclaiming its role as the pinnacle of artistic expression. Andrew exemplifies a return to this ideal.

The collection is called The Kyrial and is available on Spotify, Amazon or Pandora. You can also listen to his work on YouTube at youtube.com/@aldittman

A New Resource for Lent from Paraclete Press

Christ in Our Midst: Daily Lenten Reflections Through Scripture and Gregorian Chant

Paraclete Press has recently released a new devotional resource for Lent and Easter called Christ in Our Midst: Daily Lenten Reflections Through Scripture & Gregorian Chant. Each day from Ash Wednesday to Low Saturday, the book provides a reflection based on readings from the Scripture and a piece of Gregorian chant used in the liturgy (following the post-Conciliar Rite; some of the chants are repeated through the whole week, others are specific to the day). The chant is given in Latin with its musical notation, and an English translation; for each piece, a QR code is printed in the book which gives access to a recording of it by the Gloria Dei Cantores Schola. There also space given to write down one’s personal reflections in response to questions that based on the reflection. One can access an excerpt of the book, the pages for Palm Sunday, here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/supadu-imgix/paracletepress-us/pdfs/excerpts/9798893480283.pdf

Quinquagesima Sunday 2026

Truly it is worthy and just, right and profitable to salvation, that we give Thee thanks always and in every place, Lord, Holy Father, almighty and eternal God, and bowing down, beseech Thy majesty with devotion, that looking upon the small measure of our earthly fragility, Thou may not reprove us in Thine anger for our wickedness, but in Thy boundless clemency purify, instruct and console us. For since without Thee we can do nothing that may please Thee, Thy grace alone shall grant to us, that we live in a salutary manner. Through Christ our Lord, through whom the angels praise Thy majesty... (An ancient preface for Quinquagesima Sunday)

The Virgin Mary suckling the Baby Jesus, surrounded by the Cardinal Virtues (to either side) and the Theological Virtues (above.) Fresco made in 1393 by the Florentine painter Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni, in the city hall of the town of San Miniato. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0.)

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutáre, nobis tibi semper et ubíque gratias ágere, Dómine, sancte Pater, omnípotens aeterne Deus, et majestátem tuam cernua devotióne exoráre, ut módulum terrénae fragilitátis aspiciens, non in ira tua pro nostra pravitáte nos arguas, sed immensa clementia purífices, erudias, consoléris. Quia, cum sine te nihil póssumus fácere, quod tibi sit plácitum, tua nobis gratia sola praestábit, ut salúbri conversatióne vivámus. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Per quem majestatem tuam laudant Angeli...

Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 2)

This is the second post in our series of Nicola’s photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, a display of medieval works next to modern ones inspired by them, and some forgeries as well. Here we have an interesting mix of vestments, textiles, reliquaries, and vessels, but we begin with two paintings which include medieval liturgical objects in them. 

A still-life by the French painter Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe (1830 – 1901), ca. 1890, titled “Still Life with a Reliquary of St Henry and various medieval artworks.” Desgoffes was a highly regarded specialist in the still-life genre, and very interested in medieval art: the objects represented here are all in the medieval collection of the Louvre.

“Ornaments from the Musée de Cluny”, by Joseph Bail, 1886

A chalice originally made perhaps in Catalonia, sometime from roughly 1325-50, restored in the 19th century in Paris.

A reliquary with part of the arm bone of the Apostle St James the Less, made for the church dedicated to him in Liège, Belgium, in 1889. The firm that produced this, Joseph and Georges Wilmotte, working on a design by the architect Jean-Baptiste Bethune, won a silver medal for it at the Paris Exposition that same year.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

“Those Who Shone Forth in the Ascetic Life”

Rejoice, faithful Egypt; rejoice, holy Libya; rejoice, o chosen Thebaid; rejoice, every place, and city, and land that nourished the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and raised them in self-discipline and toil, and showed them forth to God as men perfect in their desires. They were revealed as those who give light to our souls; these very same, by the glory of their miracles, and the wonders of their deeds, shone forth to our minds, unto every corner of the world. Let us cry out to them, “All-blessed fathers, pray that we may be saved!”

Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers, or “Thebaid”, by Blessed Fra Angelico, 1420; now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

Χαῖρε Αἴγυπτε πιστή, χαῖρε Λιβύη ὁσία, χαῖρε Θηβαῒς ἐκλεκτή, χαῖρε πᾶς τόπος, καὶ πόλις, καὶ χώρα, ἡ τοὺς πολίτας θρέψασα τῆς Βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ τούτους ἐν ἐγκρατείᾳ καὶ πόνοις αὐξήσασα, καὶ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν τελείους ἄνδρας τῷ Θεῷ ἀναδείξασα. οὗτοι φωστῆρες τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν ἀνεφάνησαν, οἱ αὐτοὶ τῶν θαυμάτων τῇ αἴγλῃ, καὶ τῶν ἔργων τοῖς τέρασιν, ἐξέλαμψαν νοητῶς, εἰς τὰ πέρατα ἅπαντα. Αὐτοῖς βοήσωμεν· Πατέρες παμμακάριστοι, πρεσβεύσατε τοῦ σωθῆναι ἡμᾶς.

On the Saturday before Great Lent begins, the Byzantine Rite commemorates “All of the God-bearing Fathers and Mothers Who Shone Forth in the Ascetic Life.” This text, from Vespers of the preceding day, beautifully recalls the origins of monasticism and the ascetic life in the deserts of Egypt and north Africa. The “Thebaid” to which it refers is one of the provinces into which Egypt was divided by the reforms of the Emperor Diocletian in the later 3rd century; this province had its capital at Thebes, the impressive ruins of which are now within the city of Luxor, including some of the most famous ancient temples. Likewise, the first Ode of Matins for this day begins with the words “Let us all sing together in spiritual songs, of those who shone forth in asceticism, our godly Fathers, whom Egypt, Libya and the Thebaid bore, and every place and city and land.”

One of the most influential writings on Western monasticism is John Cassian’s Institutes, which refer very frequently to the Egyptians as the models of monastic life, as, for example, at the beginning of the third book, in which he speaks of “the perfection and inimitable rigor of the discipline of the Egyptians.” Likewise, when St Benedict’s Rule commands that the entire Psalter should be said in the Office within a week, since “we read that our holy forefathers promptly fulfilled (this recitation) in one day,” he is referring to the common practice of the early ascetics. As the Fra Angelico painting above, and various others like it show, the Western Church never forgot the origin of the ascetic and monastic life; and the motif of the “Thebaid” serves to recall all religious of whatever sort to the ideal expressed by the words of Christ, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.”

Pope St Leo the Great writes in his fourth sermon on Lent that very few have the strength to remain continually in a spiritual condition such as the feast of Easter ought to find them in, and with the relaxation of the more strict observance of Lent, and the general cares of this life, “even religious hearts must grow dirty with the dust of this world.” Therefore, the forty days exercise of Lent was instituted by Divine Providence, so that the devotions and fasts of Lent might purify us of the sins which we have committed in the rest of the year. The Byzantine Rite therefore concludes its Fore-Lent with a commemoration of those Saints who did have such strength, and by embracing the ascetic life, lived as it were a continual Lent, invoking their intercession on behalf of the whole Church on the eve of the Great Fast.

A New Webpage about Cardinal Dante, with Pictures of Papal Ceremonies

Back in 2014, we shared notice of an e-book about the famous Enrico Cardinal Dante, who served as papal master of ceremonies from 1947 until his death in 1967. The book was originally put together by a Polish scholar, and contained a large number of original documents concerning Dante’s career, and photographs of many of the ceremonies he organized. Today I received notice that the book is no longer available in its original form, but that the material it contained is being made available through the Polish website Caeremoniale Romanum, at the following URL:

https://caeremonialeromanum.com/en/project-information-enrico-dante/

Images reproduced courtesy of Caeremoniale Romanum: two rare color photographs of a papal Mass celebrated by Pope St John XXIII, with Dante as the master of ceremonies.

Mons. Dante (far left) at his episcopal consecration, with Pope John 

The Per ipsum

Lost in Translation #160

After the Per quem haec omnia, the priest concludes the Canon with:

Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria… per omnia saecula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

Which I translate as:

Through His very self and with His very self and in His very self, all honor and glory belongs to You, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, through all ages of ages. ℟. Amen.

The phrasing of the Per ipsum is inspired by Romans 11, 36:

Quis enim cognovit sensum Domini? aut quis consiliarius ejus fuit?

aut quis prior dedit illi, et retribuetur ei?

Quoniam ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia: ipsi gloria in saecula. Amen. (Rom. 11, 34-36)

Which the Douay-Rheims translates as:

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.

In this passage, St. Paul is concluding a theologically dense reflection on salvation history and the cryptic role that Israel plays in it. He ends by stating that since God is the Creator of all (and we cannot say the same about ourselves), we should resign ourselves to the fact that He knows what He is doing even though we cannot fully understand His plan, and that we should glorify him. The triple expression – ;“of Him,” etc. – is primarily in reference to the Father (with a possible Trinitarian echo) and to the beginning, middle, and end of creation. All things have their origin in God; all things continue to exist by virtue of God; and all things have God as their end (the original Greek eis auton or “unto Him” more clearly expresses this idea than the Vulgate’s in ipso).

Although the Per ipsum also has creation in mind (because of the way that it follows the Per quem), it is different in a number of respects, not least of which is that the triple expression is in reference to the Son rather than the Father. We may therefore consider the prayer an example of spiritual eructation; but in this case it is not so much the content that is the object of rumination but a kind of grammar of ascent, a mode of thinking about the transcendent mysteries. [1]

Let us now turn to the different parts of the prayer. (We shall leave the very end and the Minor Elevation for another day.)

Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso

The prayer refers to the Son of God with the demonstrative pronoun ipse rather than is. Whereas the latter simply means “he,” the former is more emphatic and can be translated as “he himself,” “he the very one,” “he in person,” etc. And by making the sign of the cross each time he says ipse with the Host over the Precious Blood (as the rubrics instruct him to do), the priest adds an actual demonstration to a demonstrative word, almost literally pointing to the Person about whom he is speaking.

The prepositions are also telling. For Fr. Pius Parsch, the three expressions are not “mere amplifications but serve to reveal our most intimate relationship with Christ.” “Through” reminds us that He is our Mediator; “with” that He is the Person to whom we must unite as His mystical body; and “in” that we unite with Him “by the living union of grace.” [2] Fr. Jacques Olier has a beautiful reflection on the theme of unity in this prayer. “It is not enough,” he writes,

to pray with Jesus Christ and in His company…. it is necessary actually to be in unity with Jesus Christ, and to act before God in the power and in the grace of His Spirit, which cannot exist in us separately from His love. It is necessary, as Our Lord says, that we should be in Him, as He is in His Father. [3]

While Parsch and Olier think of the prepositions in relation to us, Fr. Nicholas Gihr stays closer to the original meaning of the text and views the prepositions in relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit. The First and Third Divine persons are honored through the Second “inasmuch as the God-man offers Himself on the altar.” The Father and the Holy Spirit also receive all honor and glory along with the Son, and they also receive it in the Son, for “all three Divine Persons by reason of the unity of their essence are eternally in each other, and, consequently, the veneration of one is not to be separated from the veneration of the other two.” [4]

Est tibi Deo Patri…glória

In Latin, there are three ways to indicate possession: a possessive pronoun (“It is His honor”), a genitive of possession (“The honor of God”), and a dative of possession (“To God is the honor”). The first two emphasize the possessor while the third emphasizes the fact of possession. If I say “it is His honor” or if I am speaking about “the honor of God,” I am saying that the honor is God’s and no one else’s. But if I say “To God is the honor,” I am saying that it is His and that He has other things as well.

Another difference between the genitive of possession and the dative of possession is that the former can sometimes indicate mere legal possession while the latter is more robust, implying a more personal relationship with or enjoyment of the thing possessed. Subsequently, it is sometimes called the “sympathetic dative.”

With these considerations in mind, we speculate that the Per ipsum suggests that all honor and glory belong to God the Father in a special way insofar as He has a unique relationship with them, and that He possesses many other things besides.

Pius Parsch views this ending as fraught with eschatology, and given that every Mass is a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, it is difficult to disagree:

This doxology is a presage of a scene that may take place at the end of time….Christ our Lord comes into the presence of His heavenly Father to announce that the work of the redemption has been accomplished: “My Father, the redemption of the human race has been consummated. The breach between Thee and mankind has been closed. Through Me, and with Me, and in Me, is unto Thee, Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory”…. It will be one of those magnificent liturgical moments, such as St. John pictures in the Apocalypse ; it will be the closing scene in the drama of salvation. [5]

But there is one problem. As we have seen with the Greater Doxology (the Gloria in excelsis), and as one can see with the Minor Doxology (the Gloria Patri), most doxologies are in the subjunctive mood: that is, they proclaim that glory should be given to God, not assert that glory already belongs to God. The Per ipsum, on the other hand, is in the indicative rather than the subjunctive: All honor and glory belongs to God right now and not just at the end of time. In the words of Fr. Josef Jungmann:

It is not by chance that this encomium… has the indicative form (est) instead of the subjunctive or “wishing” form. Here, where the Church is gathered, right in front of the altar on which the Sacrament reposes, gathered indeed to offer the Body and Blood of Christ in reverence – here God does actually receive all honor and glory. [6]

Perhaps the best way to reconcile these differing viewpoints is to recall the New Testament distinction between chronos (regular, sequential time) and Kairos, the time when God acts. Like all liturgy, the Eucharistic action is a moment not within chronos but Kairos, and as such there is no past or future but only present. In Kairos, the end is not nigh; the end is now.

Notes

[1] “Ascent” is not a typo. Although I am alluding to Newman’s grammar of assent, I am referring to a way of thinking by which we more easily ascend from quotidian realities up to the divine mysteries.

[2] Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of the Mass, trans. Frederic C. Eckhoff (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1940), 254.

[3] Jean-Jacques Olier, The Mystical Meaning of the Ceremonies of the Mass, trans. David J. Critchley (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2024), 108.

[4] Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained, 5th ed., (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1918), 692.

[5] Parsch, 254.

[6] Josef Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2 (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1951), 266.

Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 1)

Our Ambrosian Rite expert Nicola de’ Grandi recently visited the Musée de Cluny in Paris, so called because it is housed in a building that was once the Parisian residence of the abbot of Cluny. This museum has an extremely important collection of medieval art, and probably is best known as the home of a famous set of six tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn; there are, of course, a huge number of very beautiful liturgical objects in the collection as well. The museum recently hosted an exhibition titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, a display of medieval works next to modern ones inspired by them, and some forgeries as well. I previously posted some pictures of this exhibition taken by another friend, but Nicola managed to photograph pretty much the entire thing, so this will extend over several posts.

We begin with a 19th-century reproduction of the one of the most famous objects in the Louvre’s medieval collection. The nucleus of the original is a vase made in the 2nd century of a kind of stone called porphyry, from the Greek word for “purple.” This material was high prized by the ancient Romans, partly because purple was the color of royalty, partly because it is very rare, found in only one place in Egypt; it is also extremely hard and heavy, making it difficult and expensive to work with and transport. The vessel had been at the abbey of St Denis outside Paris for many years, lying disused in a chest, when it was discovered by the abbot Suger (1080 ca. - 1151), better known to the world as the inventor of Gothic architecture. The abbot had the vessel mounted with metal pieces, made partly of silver and gold, in the form of an eagle, so it could be used as a vessel for the washing of hands during solemn Mass.

A clock made in 1835, modelled on the façade of Notre-Dame de Paris as it was before the restorations of Eugène Viollet le Duc began in 1844.

A pyx for the Blessed Sacrament made in 1887...

modelled on this original made in Limoges ca. 1200.

A jeweled chalice and paten set made between 1868 and 1890...

copied from this set made before the year 962 at the abbey of St Maximin in Trier, commissioned by a bishop of Toul named Gauzelin, for the abbey of Bouxières-aux-Dames.
  

Continue Reading this Article. . .