Following up on a post from last week, here are some photographs of the Mass celebrated by His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on Saturday, October 25th, in St Peter’s basilica in Rome, as part of the annual Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage. The Mass was attended by more than 3,000 people from all over the world. Dr Joseph Shaw, President of Una Voce International and Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, stated “As part of the organising coalition, we are delighted not only with the numbers, but with the welcome from the officials and staff at the Basilica, who went to great trouble to accommodate numbers which exceeded everyone’s expectations. Pope Leo has shown a truly pastoral heart in giving permission for this Mass, and Catholics attached to the ancient Mass have responded with great enthusiasm to this opportunity to show their unity with the Holy Father.”
These pictures were taken by Don Elvir Tabaković, a former professional photographer from Croatia who is now in religious life, and putting his skills to excellent use in the service of the Church. This set includes some very impressive shots taken from up in the cupola of the basilica. Our thanks to Cardinal Burke for his paternal solicitude for the faithful who love the traditional liturgy - ad multos annos!
The pilgrims pass through the piazza to enter the basilica.
Cardinal Burke reads the vesting prayers in the sacristy.
From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the second day in the Octave of All Saints.
Since the fall of the holy Angels was to be made good by their dealings with men, and for this reason they rejoice in the conversion of sinners, longing for the salvation of men, and willingly submit themselves to the will (of men), we must likewise raise our prayers up to them. Oh! if someone had his eyes open, as the prophet by praying opened up those of his servant (4 Kings 6, 17-20), he would see how princes go forth joined with singers (Psalm 67, 26), he would see with what care and solemnity they dance among them, are present to their prayers, are in the midst of their meditations, surround them as they rest, guide those that rule and serve. Therefore, since we know that they so graciously visit those who lie in dung and mud, and joyfully gather them into the heavenly fatherland, it is worthy that we strive to invite them to the joy of our solemnity.
The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, with Music-making Angels, 1340, by the Sienese painter Lippo Memmi (1291 ca. - 1365)
This somewhat opaque passage seems to require a brief translator’s note, since the very clever rhetoric of the Latin original does not translate well into English. The words of Psalm 67, “Praevenerunt principes conjuncti psallentibus – Princes went before joined with singers ” are understood to mean Angels joined to the choirs of men as the latter sing God’s praises. In Latin, each of the verbs that follows, describing the actions of the Angels (“they dance… guide them”) is a compound of the verb “esse – to be”: “intersint cantantibus, adsint orationibus, insint meditantibus, supersint quiescentibus, ordinantibus et procurantibus praesint.” This beautifully expresses the idea that in every aspect of our religious life, we accompanied by the presence of the Holy Angels.
I was recently asked about resources for learning about the symbolism traditionally used in Christian sacred art. These are the books I recommended my inquirer read, which might also be of interest to some of you. I would be happy to hear about any other good sources you can recommend.
If you are after books on the symbolism in Christian art, I would go for the following, starting with foundational references and progressing to more specialized liturgical and narrative sources:
First, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art by George Ferguson, which lists individual symbols, e.g., the lily represents purity. Next, the Getty Museum has published a series of excellent books, which are particularly valuable because they focus on particular images and explain the content—for example, paintings of particular saints or feasts of the Roman liturgy.
Another resource is the Golden Legend, or Legenda Aurea, which is a medieval compilation of 153 hagiographies of saints, written around 1298 by Jacobus de Voragine, a Dominican friar and later Archbishop of Genoa. (A modern publication of this by Princeton University Press has an introduction by Eamon Duffy). Intended to edify and encourage devotion, it combines historical accounts, legends, and moral lessons, becoming one of the most influential and widely disseminated books of the Late Middle Ages in Europe, and a huge influence on popular piety. Some of the details from the lives of the saints are contested by contemporary historians, but if, like me, you are not concerned about contradicting the judgements of those who doubt tradition and promote the historical-critical method, then there is much of value here.
Finally, I often pray the Canons (or at least sections of them), which are hymns sung at Orthros (Morning Prayer), in the Byzantine Rite. You can start by looking at these books, called the Festal Menaion and the Sunday Octoechos. The Canons are poetic commentaries on the Old Testament canticles that relate to the feast being celebrated. They were written mostly in the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, and reflect earlier commentaries and homilies of the Church Fathers. Contained within them are many Old Testament prototypes for Mary and Christ, which reflect the basis of much traditional imagery across all Christian churches, Roman and Orthodox. For example, I wrote an article on the Marian imagery embedded within the icon of the Hospitality of Abraham, and Mary as the Tree of Life, which Bears the Sweet Fruit, which were derived from my praying of these canons.
I find allegories and symbols described in these hymns for which, as far as I am aware, there are no images currently, but which could become images in the future. For example, I wrote an article on one, Mary, as the Untilled Field That Bears the ‘Wheat Divine’.
From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the second day in the Octave of All Saints.
Since the most blessed Virgin Mary, by a miracle beyond our understanding, became the handmaid of man through the divinity, and the mother of the Word through the flesh, and since She is accordingly our most sure refuge, and also has made ready for us our eternal reward, She merits the constant and everlasting love of our devotion. Taught by Her example, holy virgins strive with great zeal to conform themselves to Her in their actions. Not only in regards to the purity of virginity, but also in the richness of their progeny have they sought to follow Mary, as by the seed of the Divine Word, which is watered by sacred discourse, and by fervent and fruitful prayer, they bear spiritual children, and thus have they gathered a fruitful harvest into the granary of the Lord.
The Virgin and Child with Ss Catherine and Barbara, early 1480s, by Hans Memling (1433 ca. - 1494)
It is generally the case that minority liturgical traditions to various degrees adopt the customs of the majority traditions with which they live in close proximity, and the Ambrosian Rite is no exception. One of the places where it has been most evidently Romanized is in its liturgy for the dead; both the Mass and Office have incorporated several features of the Roman Rite, and in some cases, have retained the specifically Roman form of those features, even where it might just as easily been conformed to the normal pattern of the Ambrosian Rite. Here we will sum up the proper texts of the Ambrosian Requiem Mass; the ritual features (e.g. the use of black vestments, omission of the Peace, etc.) are not sufficiently different to call for much comment. The two photos here were provided by Nicola; a follow-up post will describe the Ambrosian form of the Absolution at the catafalque.
Mass for all the faithful departed celebrated in the Ambrosian Rite on November 2, 2022, in the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Milan.
The Ambrosian equivalent of the Introit is called the Ingressa, and is sung without a Psalm verse, Gloria Patri, or repetition. At the Requiem Mass, however, it is identical to the Roman form, with the addition of the single word “Domine” to the Psalm verse. (In the Missal, the Psalm verse is called “Psalmellus”, which is also the name of the Ambrosian equivalent of the Gradual.)
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Dómine: et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Psalmellus (Ps. 64, 2-3) Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddétur votum in Jerúsalem: exaudi oratiónem meam, Dómine, ad te omnis caro veniet. Réquiem… – Eternal rest grant to them, o Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. Ps. A hymn becometh thee, o God in Sion: and to Thee shall a vow shall be paid in Jerusalem. Hear Thou my prayer, o Lord: all flesh shall come to thee. Eternal rest…
The Ambrosian Mass has no Kyrie, so the first prayer, called the “super populum”, follows immediately. (The prayers are always introduced by “Dominus vobiscum” and “Et cum spiritu tuo”, but “Oremus” is not said.) The prayers of the first two Masses on November 2nd are the same as in the Roman Rite; at the third it is as follows. “Praesta, quaesumus, Domine, animabus famulorum famularumque tuarum misericordiam sempiternam; ut mortalibus nexibus expeditas, lux eas aeterna possideat. – Grant, we ask, o Lord, eternal mercy to the souls of Thy servants and handmaids; that, being set free from mortal bonds, the eternal light may keep them.”
At the first and second Masses, there are three Scriptural readings, at the third only two. The Old Testament readings of the first two Masses are 2 Maccabees 12, 43-46 (the Epistle of the Roman second Mass and anniversary Mass), and Job 14, 13-16 (the sixth reading of Roman Matins of the Dead).
The Psalmellus which follows is uniquely Ambrosian, and one of the very few not taken from the Psalms; it is also sung as a responsory in the Office of the Dead in Lent.
Psalmellus Qui suscitasti Lazarum quatriduanum foetidum, tu dona eis requiem, et locum indulgentiae. V. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Dómine: et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Tu dona eis requiem, et locum indulgentiae. – Thou who raised Lazarus that stank on the fourth day, grant to them rest, and a place of indulgence. Eternal rest grant to them, o Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. Grant to them rest, and a place of indulgence.
The Epistle readings of the three Masses are as follows:
– 1 Corinthians 15, 51-57 (the Epistle of the Roman first Mass, and the burial Mass of priests)
– 1 Thessalonians 4, 13-18 (the Epistle of the Roman burial Mass for non-priests)
– Apocalypse 14, 13 (the Epistle of the Roman third Mass, also said at the daily Requiem)
The Ambrosian equivalent of the Tract is called a Cantus; the repertoire of these chants for ferial days is very small, and they are all very short. The one used at the Requiem Masses is also sung on the Thursdays of Lent, and consists of only the first four words of Psalm 101, “Domine exaudi orationem meam. – Lord, hear my prayer.” (Coincidentally, I suppose, in chant it is exactly 101 notes long.)
The Ambrosian Rite never adopted the Sequence, and so the Gospel follows immediately after the Cantus. The Gospels of the first Mass is John 5, 25-29, the same as at the Roman first Mass; those of the second and third Masses, John 6, 44-47 and 5, 21-24, are specifically Ambrosian.
Following the Gospel, the Ambrosian Mass has a series of features which have no true analog in the Roman Mass. The priest says “Dominus vobiscum”, to which the choir replies “Et cum spiritu tuo. Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison,” and then sings an antiphon called “post Evangelium – after the Gospel.” At a Requiem, however, the three Kyrie eleisons are omitted, and the antiphon is quite short. “Requiem sanctam dona eis, Dómine: et lux misericordiae lúceat eis. – Holy rest grant to them, o Lord; and let the light of mercy shine upon them.”
During the antiphon, the deacon spreads the corporal in its place on the altar; he then turns to the people and says “Pacem habete”, to which the choir answers “Ad te, Domine”, but this is also omitted at a Requiem. The priest then says “Dominus vobiscum” again, followed by a prayer called “super sindonem – over the shroud.” The form of this prayer is the same as that of the Roman Collect, and there are many Ambrosian Masses in which it is the same as the Roman Collect of the same day. The “super sindonem” of the Third Mass, however, is used in the Roman Rite as a Post-Communion prayer for several deceased. “Deus, cui soli cómpetit medicínam praestáre post mortem: praesta, quáesumus; ut ánimae famulórum famularumque tuárum, terrenis exútae contagiis, in tuae redemptiónis parte aggregentur: Qui vivis. – O God, to Whom alone it belongeth to grant healing after death; grant, we ask, that the souls of Thy servants and handmaids, being rid of earthly contagion, may be joined unto the portion of Thy redemption. Who livest.”
The Offertory chant of the first Mass is the same as the Roman one, with one very small variant that hardly changes the sense (“laci” instead of “lacu”), and the music has many similarities. At the second and third Masses, however, an entirely different chant is used, which is also said at the daily and anniversary Requiems.
Libera me, Domine Deus, in die illa tremenda judicii: quando Angeli offerent tibi chirógrapha peccatorum hominum. V. Miserere mei, Deus, miserere mei; quoniam in te confidit anima: quando Angeli… – Deliver me, Lord God, on that fearful day of judgment, when the Angels shall offer Thee the writing-down of the sins of men. V. Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me: for my soul trusteth in thee. When the Angels …
The incensation at the Offertory during a traditional Ambrosian Requiem Mass; note that the deacon wears his stole on top of the dalmatic. The Ambrosian custom is to hold the chasuble very high during the incensations, parallel to the floor.
The Ambrosian equivalent of the Secret is introduced by “Dominus vobiscum” like the other prayers, and is said outloud. Those of the first and second Masses are the same as in the Roman Rite; that of the third is taken from the Ambrosian daily Requiem for several deceased. “Hostias tibi, Domine, humili supplicatione deferimus: ut animae famulorum famularumque tuarum per haec piae placationis officia tuam misericordiam consequantur. Per. – We bring Thee offerings o Lord, with humble supplication, that the souls of Thy servants and handmaids, by this holy office of propitiation, may obtain Thy mercy. Through…”
The Preface for the Dead is attested in many ancient Roman sacramentaries, and inspired the neo-Gallican preface of the 1738 Parisian Missal, which Pope Benedict XV later added to the Roman Missal.
Qui es assumptor animarum sanctarum. Quamvis enim mortis humano generi illata conditio pectora humana mentesque contristet: tamen clementiae tuae dono spe futurae immortalitatis erigimur, et memores salutis aeternae, non timemus lucis huius subire dispendium. Quia misericordiae tuae munere fidelibus vita mutatur, non tollitur: et in timoris tui observatione defunctis domicilium perpetuae felicitatis acquiritur. Tibi igitur, clementissime Pater, preces supplices fundimus, et maiestatem tuam devotis mentibus exoramus, ut animae famulorum famularumque tuarum, quorum diem Commemorationis celebramus, mortis vinculis absolutae transitum mereantur ad vitam: et in ovium tibi placitarum benedictione, aeternum numerentur ad regnum. Per Christum.
Truly it is worthy… Who receivest the holy souls. For although the condition of death brought upon the human race saddeneth human hearts and minds, nevertheless by the gift of Thy clemency, we are raised up in the hope of future immortality; and mindful of eternal salvation, we do not fear to undergo the loss of the light of this world; fecause by the gift of Thy mercy, life is changed for the faithful, not taken away, and in keeping the fear of Thee, a place of everlasting happiness is obtained for the dead. To Thee, therefore, most clement Father, we humbly pour forth our prayers, and beseech Thy majesty with devout hearts, that the souls of Thy servants and handmaids, whose day of commemoration we celebrate, may be set free from the bonds of death, and merit to pass over to life, and in the blessing of the sheep that have pleased Thee, be numbered unto the eternal kingdom.
The Fraction is done immediately after the Canon, while the choir sings an antiphon called the Confractorium; the text at the Requiem Mass is based on the reading of the Apocalypse listed above, and is also said as the versicle of Roman Vespers and Lauds of the Dead. “Audivi vocem de caelo dicentem: Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur. – I heard a voice from heaven, saying: Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord.”
As in the Roman Rite, the Peace is not given in a Requiem Mass. The Ambrosian Rite does not normally have the Agnus Dei, but in a Requiem, it is said, with a longer addition to the third invocation. “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccáta mundi: dona eis requiem * sempiternam, et locum indulgentiae cum Sanctis tuis in gloria. – Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant them rest * everlasting, and a place of forgiveness with Thy Saints in glory.”
The final proper chant of the Mass, the equivalent of the Roman Communio, is called the Transitorium. The text from John 11, 25-26 is said in the Roman Rite as the Benedictus antiphon at Lauds of the Dead. “Ego sum resurrectio et vita : qui credit in me, etiam si mortuus fuerit, vivet: et omnis qui vivit et credit in me, non morietur in aeternum: dicit Dominus. – I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that believeth in Me, although he be dead, shall live: and every one that liveth, and believeth in Me, shall not die for ever, saith the Lord.”
The prayer “after Communion” is identical in form and function to the Roman prayer. That of the second Mass is not found in the Roman Missal. “Inclina, quaesumus, Domine, precibus nostris aures tuae pietatis, et animabus famulorum famularumque tuarum remissionem tribue omnium peccatorum: ut his sacrificiis purificati, consortio mereantur perfrui Beatorum. – Incline the ears of Thy mercy, we ask, o Lord, unto our prayers, and grant to the souls of Thy servants and handmaids forgiveness of all their sins; that, being purified by these sacrifices, they may merit to enjoy the company of the blessed.”
From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the second day in the Octave of All Saints.
As we venerate the Saints with this special festivity, it is worthy that we begin our praise with Him Who adorned the heavens with the Angels, and the earth with His other creatures, that He might be praised by all. Indeed, because He is in Himself the fount of goodness, needing not our goods, (Psalm 15, 2) excluding no one from a share in His light, in order that He might be known, He made the rational creation to understand Him as the greatest good, and so understanding to love Him, so loving Him to possess Him, so possessing Him to delight in Him; and in this course, it not God Himself, but the creature that benefits. Therefore as we praise Him, though we cannot yet reach what we long for in joy, and know not how to do what we ought, let us offer our prayers with confidence, since the Lord God, giving greater thought to our desires than to our deeds, looks kindly upon the strength of our good intentions as He receives our service.
The Holy Trinity Crowns the Virgin, with Ss Luke, Dominic and John the Evangelist, ca. 1580, by the Bolognese painter Bartolomeo Passerotti (1529-92)
Here is a very beautiful setting of Christe, Redemptor omnium, the hymn for Matins and both Vespers of the feast of All Saints, by the mighty Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), in alternating chant and polyphony. The text is the original version, traditionally attributed to the great Benedictine scholar Bl Rabanus Maurus (780 ca. - 856), since Victoria’s work predates the revision of the Office hymnal promulgated by Pope Urban VIII in 1629. (Both hymns for All Saints were so drastically altered by this revision as to effectively be completely new.) The text can be read in Latin and English at the following link: https://www.liturgies.net/saints/allsaints/eveningprayeri.htm.
The original version was restored in the Liturgy of the Hours, but with one notable exception. The sixth stanza of the original reads as follows:
Gentem auferte perfidam Credentium de finibus, Ut Christo laudes debitas Persolvamus alacriter.
“Remove the unbelieving nation / from the lands of the believers, / that readily we may offer / due praises to Christ.” With that sad naivety by which so many people in the later 1960s deceived themselves into believing that the peaceable settlement of post-WW2 western Europe would last forever, the first two lines of this stanza were suppressed, and the other two moved to the end as part of a new doxology.
Sit Trinitati gloria, Vestrasque voces jungite, Ut Christo laudes debitas Persolvamus alacriter.
“To the Trinity be glory / and join your voices, / that readily we may offer / due praises to Christ.”
The Magnificat antiphon for Second Vespers.
AñaO quam gloriósum est regnum*in quo cum Christo gaudent omnes Sancti, amicti stolis albis sequuntur Agnum quocumque íerit! (O how glorious is the kingdom in which all the Saints rejoice with Christ; clothed in white robes, they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.)
A very impressive setting of this text as a motet by William Byrd.
This same text is one of Victoria’s most famous motets, and the basis of one of his best “parody” Masses, the Missa O quam gloriosum. (The term “parody” does not of course mean mockery, but that the motet is used as the thematic basis of the Mass.)
From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the beginning of the sermon for the second day in the Octave of All Saints.
Worthily we recall this day that the place once called the Pantheon, a place full of filth, was consecrated to God and to all the Saints, so that where sin abounded, there grace might also abound. (Romans 5, 20) So one that was mighty, and cruelly held possession of nearly all things in miserable peace, was overwhelmed and conquered by One mightier still; who, rifling his goods, (Matthew 12, 29) dedicated to His own worship the other’s temples. By this fact, perceptible to our senses, we are taught spiritually that Man, who in Adam had become by original sin the dwelling place and possession of the devil, the servant of sin, the son of death, by baptism becomes the temple of God, and is brought over to the liberty of the sons of God, and through grace reborn as a son of adoption. Worthily therefore do we celebrate the dedication of the temple, by which we recall to mind these benefits conferred upon us, and are advised to consecrate our hearts as a temple to the Lord, casting out all the idols of the demons, that is, our sins.
The interior of the Pantheon, by Giovanni Paolo Panini (1692-1765) Over the architrave are quotations from Psalm 149, “His praise is in the church of the Saints”, and Psalm 150, “Praise the Lord in His Saints”, words that were formerly sung every single day in the psalmody of Lauds. This inscription has been removed by modern restorations.
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. When All Saints was granted an octave by Pope Sixtus IV in the early 1480s, each day of the octave was assigned a different sermon with the same structure, covering the first eight of the nine lessons at Matins. Last year, we commemorated All Saints with the sermon for the feast day itself; this year, we will follow the Matins lessons from the very beautiful sermon assigned to be read on November 2nd.
Súpplices te rogámus, omnípotens Deus, jube hæc perférri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublíme altáre tuum, in conspéctu divínæ majestátis tuæ: ut quotquot ex hac altáris participatióne sacrosánctum Fílii tui Corpus et Sánguinem sumpsérimus, omni benedictióne cælésti et grátia repleámur. Per eúndem Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen.
Which I translate as:
Suppliant we ask Thee, almighty God: command these to be borne all the way up by the hands of Thy holy angel to Thine altar borne on high, in the sight of Thy divine Majesty, so that as many of us as shall have consumed the sacrosanct Body and Blood of Thy Son by this partaking of the altar may be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Most translations have “humbly” or “in humble prayer” (2011 ICEL) for supplices. Supplex does indeed betoken humility, but it also connotes prostration: sub-plico means to fold down or under. I suspect that this word was chosen over others like it because this connotation helps increase the distance in the prayer, so to speak, between us and God’s altar in Heaven. Folded over, we ask an Angel to go all the way up to Heaven on our behalf. This image is reinforced by the comportment of the celebrant, who is bowing down as he says these words, literally suppliant.
Two other words emphasize the distance between us and the heavenly altar. I have translated perferri as “to be borne all the way up” to reflect the fact that perfero, with its muscular prefix per, is more intense than fero, the verb to bear or carry. And I suspect that there is a subtle pairing of perfero and sublimis, the adjective used to describe God’s altar, for sublimis does not simply refer to being lofty or on high but especially has the meaning of being “borne aloft, uplifted, elevated, raised” (the word possibly comes from sub-limen, “up to the lintel”). [1] The sacrificial offerings must travel afar, being borne all the way up to something that is borne on high.
And the prayer asks that the carrier of these offerings be the hands of God’s Holy Angel. The inspiration for this petition may be Revelation 8, 3-4, which describes an angel offering with his hand the prayers of the saints to God on His altar:
And another angel came, and stood before the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God from the hand of the angel.
A second possibility is that the Holy Angel is Christ Himself, whom St. Paul calls the Messenger of God (angelos Theou) in Galatians 4, 14. Although it is true that every Mass is offered to the Father through the Son (and with the Holy Spirit), I am of the opinion that the Angel referenced here is a celestial spirit and not the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, for the Son of God is mentioned in the second half of the prayer as being here on the altar and not journeying away from it to Heaven. The imagery would be confusing if we were asking Christ to be in two different places at the same time, even though He is, of course, present to all places at all times. Another consideration is that in the Book of Tobias the Archangel Raphael tells the elder Tobias that he himself offered all of Tobias’ prayers and good works to the Lord (see 12, 12). If that is true of all prayer, namely, that angels play a role in communicating our prayers to God, and if the Mass is the greatest prayer that can be offered to God, it stands to reason that a Holy Angel plays a role in that offering.
The first half of the Supplices te rogamus, as we have argued, increases the distance between us and God’s altar, but only so that the second half may close it. The main petition of the prayer is for every communicant at this Mass to be filled with every heavenly grace and blessing. Heavenly graces and blessings are not just in the Heaven borne on high; they are present here through a participation in this Mass. And the lynchpin is the sacro-sanct Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, now present on the altar. The adjective is significant: the Eucharist is both holy (sanctus) and sacred (sacer): holy because it is the living Christ, who is holy; and sacred because it is forever set apart from profane use. Just as the holy and sacred unite in the sacramental Body and Blood of Our Lord, so too Heaven and earth unite at this altar during this sacrifice.
Yet despite our reflections, we must in the end agree with the medieval deacon Florus of Lyons (d. 860) about the Supplices te rogamus: “These words of mystery are so profound, so wonderful and stupendous, who is able to comprehend them? Who would say anything worthy? They are more to be revered and feared than discussed.”
Note
[1] Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary, “Sublimis,” I.B.
In the Roman Rite, the term “vigilia – vigil” traditionally means a penitential day of preparation for one of the more important feasts. The Mass of a Saint’s vigil is celebrated after None, as are the Masses of the ferias of Lent or the Ember Days, and in violet vestments; however, the deacon and subdeacon do not wear folded chasubles, as they do in Lent, but the dalmatic and tunicle. The Mass has neither the Gloria nor the Creed, the Alleluja is omitted before the Gospel, and not replaced with a Tract, and Benedicamus Domino is said at the end in place of Ite, missa est.
A folio of the Echternach Sacramentary, 895 AD, with the Mass of the vigil of All Saints, and the collect of the feast. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 9433)
Before the Tridentine reform, the vigil of a Saint consisted solely of the Mass, and had no presence in either the Roman version of the Divine Office, or in that of most other Uses. A minority custom, which seems to have been predominantly German, gave an Office to the vigils of Saints, which consisted of a homily at Matins, and the use of the collect of the vigil as the principal collect of the day; the rest of the Office was that of the feria. The Breviary of St Pius V adopted this latter custom for the vigils of Saints, a rare example of change in an otherwise extremely conservative reform; but even for the Roman Rite, this was not an absolute novelty. Historically, the vigils of the major feasts of the Lord (Christmas, Epiphany etc.) did include the Office, and the change in 1568 simply extended the scope of a well-established custom.
The feast of All Saints was not definitively established as a major solemnity of the Roman Rite until the mid- to late 9th century, but in every book in which it is attested, it is accompanied by such a vigil. It seems reasonable to assume, therefore, that they were instituted at the same time. Because of the preeminent position of the martyrs in Christian devotion as the first and most widely venerated Saints after those who appear in the New Testament, the liturgical texts of All Saints are often borrowed or imitated from those of the feasts of martyrs, and the same is true of its vigil.
The Introit of the vigil is taken from the third chapter of the book of Wisdom, the source of many liturgical texts of all kinds for the feasts of martyrs. “Júdicant Sancti gentes et dominantur pópulis: et regnábit Dóminus, Deus illórum, in perpétuum. Ps. 32 Exsultáte, justi, in Dómino: rectos decet collaudatio. Gloria Patri. Judicant. – The Saints judge nations, and rule over peoples, and the Lord their God shall reign for ever. Ps. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye just: praise becometh the righteous. Glory be. The Saints.”
The Epistle is taken from the Apocalypse, chapter 5, 6-12; this part of the book, St John’s vision of God on His throne with the heavenly court and the Saints standing before Him, has long been a favorite source for artistic depictions of Heaven. This specific passage contains the first mention of Christ as “the Lamb that was slain”, and the book’s first occurrence of the word “Saints”.
“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: 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.’ ”
As I described in an article eight years ago, the feast of All Saints was instituted in part as a response to the iconoclast heresy which the Byzantine Emperors invented, and enforced with a brutal persecution. Roughly a generation before iconoclasm began in 726, the Emperor Justinian II had called a synod now known as either “the Synod in Trullo” or “the Quinisext Council”, which among other things forbade any representation of Christ as an animal. In response, Pope St Sergius I (687-701) added the Agnus Dei to the Mass, and the church of Rome began regularly depicting Christ as a lamb in art. This Epistle, in which the Bible itself calls Him a lamb, was most likely chosen in reference to this; likewise the Epistle of the feast itself, chapter 7, 2-12, in which John sees “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb.’ ” In the same vein, the Magnificat antiphon for Second Vespers of the feast says “O how glorious is the kingdom where all the Saints rejoice with Christ; clothed in white robes, they follow the Lamb wheresoever he goeth!”
In the church of Ss Cosmas and Damian in Rome, Pope Sergius added the gold-background mosaic on the proscenium arch, filled with images from the book of the Apocalypse, including the Lamb of God on His throne. (Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew.)
The Gradual is taken from Psalm 149, “Exsultabunt sancti in gloria; laetabuntur in cubilibus suis. V. Cantate Domino canticum novum; laus ejus in ecclesia sanctorum. – The Saints shall rejoice in glory: they shall be joyful in their resting places. V. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: let his praise be in the church of the Saints.” The first part of this is frequently said in the Office of Several Martyrs, and was chosen in reference to the fact that the original focus of devotion to the Saints was always at the place of their burial. (There is no recording of it available on YouTube, but it is very similar to the Gradual Tecum principium of the First Mass of Christmas.)
The Gospel, Luke 6, 17-23, is taken from the beginning of the Sermon on the Plain; this is St Luke’s shorter version of the Beatitudes with which St Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount begins (chap. 5, 1-12), the latter being the Gospel of the feast. As St Ambrose explains in the breviary sermon on this Gospel, “Saint Luke sets out only four of the Lord’s Beatitudes, while Saint Matthew gives eight; but in those eight are contained these four, and in these four those eight. For the former in these four embraced the cardinal virtues, and the letter in those eight set forth a number full of mystery. … For as the eighth beatitude names the perfection of what we hope for (i.e., the kingdom of Heaven), so it is also the sum of the virtues.”
The Offertory is taken from the same Psalm as the Gradual, and includes a small variant from the Old Latin version, rather than the Vulgate version of St Jerome. “Exsultabunt sancti in gloria; lætabuntur in cubilibus suis. Exaltationes Dei in faucibus (“gutture” in the Vulgate) eorum. – The Saints shall rejoice in glory: they shall be joyful in their resting places. The high praises of God shall be in their mouth.”
Finally, the Communion also comes from Wisdom 3, and in fact has the same text as the Offertory of the feast, without the Alleluja at the end; the music, however, is completely different.
“Justórum ánimae in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum malitiae: visi sunt óculis insipientium mori: illi autem sunt in pace. – The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of malice shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: but they are in peace.”
In the Middle Ages, October 31 was also celebrated in England, France and the Low Countries as the feast of St Quintinus (“Quentin” in English), a Roman who came to Gaul, preached in the area of Amiens, and was martyred at a town which is now named for him. In many parts of Germany, it was the feast of St Wolfgang, bishop of Regensburg in Bavaria. Where one of these or some other feast was kept, two Masses would be celebrated on the day, one of the Saint after Terce, and the other of the vigil after None, with First Vespers of the feast normally following immediately after the second Mass. The vigil of All Saints receives little attention from medieval liturgical commentators such as Sicard of Cremona or William Durandus, but they do note that it was supposed to be kept with a fast, which was not to be broken until after None and Mass, and was not to be dispensed with because of the occurring feast.
The centenary of the institution of the feast of Christ the King by Pope Pius XI in his 1925 encyclical Quas Primas – a feast that therefore saw its one hundredth celebration in the Roman Rite last Sunday – is the happy occasion of the release of two new books whose content hinges on the kingship of Christ over peoples and nations.
Published in multiple bestselling Spanish editions and now at last in English, Fr. Javier Olivera Ravasi tells the harrowing tale of the Cristeros War as seen through the eyes of its immediate protagonists on both sides – a story of unbelievable wickedness, corruption, and brutality, opposed by unprecedented Catholic action, bravery, and sacrifice. A tale of simple men, women, and children who fought for their country, their faith, and their heavenly King. A tale of brilliant young intellectuals who debated just war theory with bishops and the pope. A tale of martyrs from all walks of life who died with “Long live Christ the King and the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe!” on their lips.
Quite apart from its value as a detail-rich account of an important but still too-little-known civil war, the parallels to our present situation are numerous and seem to be increasing day by day. The Cristero Counterrevolution thus possesses more than mere historical interest; it is a case study in political action, organized resistance, and Catholic reconquest, as well as a case study of the limits of political and ecclesiastical authority. Fr. Ravasi’s book is widely considered the finest one-volume treatment of the subject ever written.
Of particular interests to readers of NLM will be the discussions of the persecution of Catholic priests, the attempt to outlaw the Mass, and the many underground Masses that sprang up around the country, several photographs of which are included in the book. Some of the eyewitness accounts of what devotional and liturgical life was like between 1926 and 1929 (and at various other points too) make for simultaneously sobering and inspiring reading in our times.
The second is my latest book, His Reign Shall Have No End: Catholic Social Teaching for the Lionhearted. In recent decades, Catholic Social Teaching has often been reduced to a grab-bag of catechetical truisms and welfare policies driven by modern secular, egalitarian, and pluralist assumptions. His Reign Shall Have No End repristinates this noble branch of moral theology by tracing it back to the world-changing mystery of the Incarnation, whereby the Son of God became Head and Ruler of mankind in regard to natural and supernatural goods alike. The kingship of Jesus Christ – a revealed truth given consummate formulation by Pius XI in Quas Primas but expounded at length across the remarkable encyclicals of Leo XIII – is nothing less than the master key to Catholic Social Teaching’s coherence; it is, more to the point, the essential condition for the flourishing of nations no less than the beatitude of individuals. Where this kingship is ignored or denied, individuals, families, whole societies decompose like a body deprived of a soul; wherever it is welcomed in faith, Christian life revives and Christendom stirs from slumber.
The reaction of reviewers has been enthusiastic. For example, Dr. C.C. Pecknold, Associate Professor of Theology at The Catholic University of America, writes: “This is the best book on Catholic Social Teaching I have ever read! Not only does Dr. Kwasniewski give a true account of the Church’s perennial teaching on a range of central questions, he helps readers identify and skewer counterfeit versions of the Faith.” Similar are the words of Dr. Sebastian Morello, Wolfgang Smith Chair in Philosophy, St Mary’s University, London: “Whether it is the issue of property rights, or freedom of speech, or democratic processes and the rule of law, or any other issue that plagues contemporary political discourse, Kwasniewski demonstrates that the Lord’s Kingship is the ultimate answer, and that outside His Kingdom there is only chaos and confusion.”
Again, the book contains chapters of special interest for NLM readers, particularly chapters 17 and 18, which concern the theology behind the feast of Christ the King and look closely at its liturgical celebration and the way this changed from Pius XI to Paul VI (a topic both Michael Foley and I have discussed here), and chapter 19, which examines the lex orandi of the old and new liturgies to assess the extent to which each one contains and presents a coherent doctrine of man’s life of self-conquest and world-conquest for Christ. The Cristero Counterrevolution and the Battle for the Soul of Mexico (6” x 9”, 316 pp.) is available in paperback, hardcover, or ebook directly from the publisher, Os Justi Press, or from Amazon sites around the world. His Reign Shall Have No End (5.5” x 8.5”, 348 pp.) is available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook from its publisher, Arouca Press, from Os Justi Press by special agreement with the publisher, or from Amazon sites around the world.
You can “look inside” either publication at its Os Justi or Amazon page.
May these books help deepen the faith of Catholics in the divinely-revealed mystery of the kingship of the God-Man Jesus Christ—a truth much neglected and even outright denied, yet one that stands at the foundation of the Church as Kingdom of God, about which we are told to pray every day: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
In the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, the entry on Relics states that “It has long been customary especially in churches which possessed large collections of relics, to keep one general feast in commemoration of all the saints whose memorials are there preserved. (As will be explained below, this is something of an overstatement.)
An Office and Mass for this purpose will be found in the Roman Missal and Breviary, and though they occur only in the supplement Pro aliquibus locis and are not obligatory upon the Church at large, still this celebration is now kept almost universally. The office is generally assigned to the fourth Sunday in October.” The author, Fr Herbert Thurston SJ, wrote “generally” because there was a variety of uses in regard to the date. I have seen the feast on October 26 in a 19th century breviary printed at Naples, while the Dominicans kept it on the 30th, and the Premonstratensians on November 14th. The Catholic Encyclopedia article was published just prior to the reform of St Pius X, which abolished the custom of fixing feasts to particular Sundays; after that reform, the most common date was November 5th.
The Divine Office for the feast is that of the common of Several Martyrs, with lessons in the second nocturn taken from St John Damascene’s Treatise on the Orthodox Faith, which perfectly summarize the Church’s theology of relics.
“Christ the Lord granted us the relics of the Saints as fonts of salvation, from which very many benefits come to us. … In the (old) law, whosoever touched a dead person was deemed unclean, but these (i.e. the Saints) are not to be reckoned among the dead. For from that time when He who is life itself, and the Author of life, was reckoned among the dead, we do not call them dead who have fallen asleep in Him with the hope and faith of the resurrection.”
This mid-11th century fresco in the lower basilica of St Clement in Rome shows the translation of the relics of St Clement, which Ss Cyril and Methodius discovered while they were evangelizing the Slavs in the region to which Clement had been deported, and where he had been martyred in the early 2nd century. The two Saints are depicted at left with Pope St Nicholas I, to whom they gave the relics; in the middle, St Clement is depicted as a living person, lying on a bier and covered with a red blanket, holding up his head, to indicate that the relics are his living presence among us. At the right, the Pope is celebrating Mass, with the Missal open to the “Per omnia saecula” and “Pax Domini” before Communion. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
He goes on to note various kinds of miracles that are worked by relics: “demons are expelled, illnesses driven away, the sick are healed, the blind regain sight, the leprous are cleansed, temptations and sorrows are scattered, and every best gift descendeth through them from the Father of lights (James 1, 17), unto those who ask with unwavering faith.”
As a theologian and Doctor of the Church, St John is best known for his defense of sacred images against the iconoclast heresy. “Iconoclasm” literally means “the breaking of images”, but in its Byzantine form, it also attacked the Church’s devotion to relics, just as the Protestant form would eight centuries later. Shortly after the Synod of the Hieria, which took place in the Emperor’s palace in Chalcedon in 753, and made iconoclasm the official policy of the Byzantine Empire, the altar of the nearby basilica of St Euphemia was dismantled, and her relics removed from it and cast into the sea. This was the first in a twenty-year long campaign of similar desecrations, and persecution of the iconodules. When the Second Council of Nicea was convoked in 787 to reestablish the orthodox faith, several accounts of miracles worked by both images and relics were adduced in their favor, and incorporated into the Council’s official acts, following the line set out by St John.
The Mass of the Holy Relics found in the supplement to the Missal is a fairly recent composition; its three prayers are all proper to the feast, but the Gregorian propers and Scriptural readings are selected from other Masses. The Introit is taken from the feast of Ss John and Paul, the first martyrs whose relics were buried inside a church within the city of Rome. “Many are the afflictions of the just; and out of them all will the Lord deliver them. The Lord keepeth all their bones, not one of them shall be broken.” The Epistle, Sirach 44, 10-15, is that of the octave day of Ss Peter and Paul, over whose tombs and relics the Emperor Constantine built two of Rome’s earliest public churches; it is here selected for the verse “Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name liveth unto generation and generation.” The Gradual Exsultabunt Sancti and the Gospel, Luke 6, 17-23, the beginning of the Sermon on the Plain, are both taken from the vigil of All Saints, since the feast of the Holy Relics is effectively celebrated as a part of All Saints’ Day. The remaining chants are taken from the Masses of various Martyrs.
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of relics in the devotional life of the medieval Church, and a general commemoration “of the relics” is often found in medieval breviaries among the series of votive commemorations known as “suffrages.” However, a general feast of relics per se is actually quite rare in the Middle Ages; one of the few notable examples is found in the Use of Sarum, which kept such a feast on the Sunday after July 7th. This date was chosen because July 7th was the feast of the translation of perhaps the most important relics in pre-Reformation England, those of St Thomas of Canterbury. Translation feasts were also celebrated for St Martin of Tours and St Benedict, and indeed, all three were kept within a single week, with the former on the 4th and the latter on the 11th.
In point of fact, it was a much more common practice to celebrate the translation or reception of a specific relic or group of relics, rather than a feast of relics in general. In 1194, a feast of this kind was established at Paris, celebrated on December 4th under the title “Susceptio Reliquarum – The Receiving of the Relics.” The objects in question were believed to be several of the Virgin Mary’s hairs, three of St John the Baptist’s teeth, the arm of St Andrew the Apostle, some of the stones with which St Stephen was killed, and a large portion of the skull of St Denis. The pre-Tridentine Breviary of Paris has a special Office for the day, which mixes together parts of the Offices of these Saints with others from that of All Saints’ Day, and the hymns of Several Martyrs. Particular emphasis is laid on the Virgin, to whom the cathedral of Paris, where these relics were kept, is dedicated, and on local hero St Denis. This Office remained in use in the post-Tridentine period, with modifications that did not change its basic tenor.
(Many of the relics kept at Notre Dame de Paris were destroyed during the Revolution, one of the most famous ones that survived was the Crown of Thorns, which had its own feast on the Parisian calendar on August 11th. It was rescued from destruction when the church was severely damaged by a fire on April 15, 2019; the following video shows it being formally brought back to the restored cathedral at the end of last year, and installed in an absolutely hideous modern display... thing...)
I am sure that some of those who read this article will smile (or perhaps smirk) at the idea of relics of the Virgin Mary’s hair or the stones used to kill St Stephen. In this, they will not be alone. In the early decades of the 18th century, the church of Paris turned to a general and radical revision of its liturgical books, the reform which we now call “neo-Gallican.” This reform embraced many of the rationalist critiques brought against some of the Church’s traditional stories and legends; in the 19th century, Dom Prosper Guéranger, the great enemy of the neo-Gallicans, complained bitterly of their splitting up of both St Mary Magdalene and St Denis into different personages according to the various parts of their legends.
Likewise, suspicious (to say the least) of the authenticity of these relics, the neo-Gallican reform completely erased the original character of the “Susceptio Reliquiarum”, transforming it into a general feast of relics. Renamed as “the Veneration of the Holy Relics”, and transferred to November 8th, the octave day of All Saints, it was then given a completely new Office, which contains no references at all to the specific relics for which it was originally instituted, or the Saints whose relics they were.
The neo-Gallican liturgical reforms contain a great many lapses in taste and judgment which almost beggar belief; however, the new Office of the Holy Relics, whatever its history may be, is from a literary point of view one of the better efforts of its kind. Like most people who put their hand to changing historical liturgies, the Neo-Gallican revisers were painfully obsessed with making everything “more Scriptural,” and the new antiphons and responsories consist almost entirely of direct citations from the Bible. But they are very well chosen from a wide selection of books, and do demonstrate effectively that the Church’s veneration of relics is a tradition thoroughly grounded in Scripture. Just to give one example, the following responsory cites an Old Testament episode which was later used by Cardinal Newman in his Apologia to justify the veneration of relics.
R. They cast the body into the sepulcher of Elisha, and when it had touched the bones of Elisha, the man came back to life, and stood upon his feet. (4 Kings 13, 21) V. By faith they received their dead raised to life again. (Hebr. 11, 35) And when…
It is also, I believe, the only example of a neo-Gallican Office that was adopted for use outside France, and continued to be used, at least in part, even after the neo-Gallican liturgies were definitively suppressed in the 19th century. The Neapolitan breviary which I mentioned above contains it in almost exactly the same form as it appears in the 1714 edition of the Parisian Breviary. The one feature of the Office which the neo-Gallican reforms could not make into a chain of Scriptural citations is the corpus of hymns, to which a great many new compositions were added. The new Parisian Office of the Holy Relics includes a hymn written by a cleric of the diocese of Paris named Claude Santeul (1624-84) which was adopted by the Benedictines for their version of the feast, and is thus still part of the Antiphonale Monasticum for the Office to this very day. The meter is one used by the classical poet Horace called the Third Asclepiadean, not previously part of the traditional repertoire of Christian hymns. Some of Santeul’s odd vocabulary (e.g. “Christiadum” instead of “Christianorum”) is determined by the need to find words that fit the meter, but his complicated word order is a deliberate imitation of Horace’s style.
Reverence their poor and sadly dear remains!
Folded in peace their earthly vesture lies,
Dear pledges, left below, but thence to rise,
Pledges of heavenly bodies, free from pains!
And here ye may lift up your thankful strains,
Ye Christian companies. The spirit flies,
And hath its recompense in quiet skies,
And leaves with you below its broken chains:
Yet for their bones meek Piety shall plead,
Blest Piety, which honoureth the dead!
Though scatter’d far and wide, yet God’s own eye
Doth keep them that they perish not; and when
The promised hour shall come, their God again
Shall gather them, and as He builds on high
His habitation, each there, moulded by His grace,
Shall live and find a sure abiding place.
To us the places where your ashes be
Shall be as altars, whence shall steadier rise
Our prayers to Heav’n; and that blest Sacrifice,
Where God the Victim cometh down from high,
Shall consecrate to holier mystery;
He here accepts your deaths as join’d with His,
Here builds all in one body, and supplies
Our dying frames with immortality.
And hence your graves become a tower of aid,
A refuge from bad thoughts, a sacred shade;
Until, fresh clad with new and wondrous dowers,
Our flesh shall join the angelic choirs, and be
A living temple crowned with heavenly towers;
Where evermore the praises shall ascend
Of the great undivided One and Three,
And God be all in all, world without end. Amen.
(English translation by Isaac Williams from Hymns translated from the Parisian Breviary, Rivington, London, 1839)
The neo-Gallican use also has a different Gospel from the one named above for the feast of the Holy Relics, Luke 20, 27-38, in which Christ disputes with the Sadducees about the nature of the final Resurrection. The conclusion of this passage is particularly important as the foundation of what St John Damascene says, that the Saints are not truly dead. “Now that the dead rise again, Moses also showed, at the bush, when he called the Lord, The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; for he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live to him.” In the Parisian Breviary, the homily that accompanies it is taken from a treatise written by St Jerome against a priest from Gaul named Vigilantius, who had denied the value of praying to the Saints and venerating relics, a work in which we see the Saint at his wittiest and most acerbic.
“Vigilantius is vexed to see the relics of the martyrs covered with a costly veil, and not bound up with rags or hair-cloth, or thrown down the midden, so that Vigilantius alone in his drunken slumber may be worshipped. Are we, therefore guilty of sacrilege when we enter the basilicas of the Apostles? Was the Emperor Constantius guilty of sacrilege when he transferred the sacred relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople? In their presence the demons cry out, and those who dwell in Vigilantius (i.e. the devils) confess that they feel their influence. And at the present day, is the Emperor Arcadius guilty of sacrilege, who after so long a time has conveyed the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea to Thrace? Are all the bishops to be considered not only sacrilegious, but fools as well, because they carried that most worthless thing, dust and ashes, wrapped in silk in golden vessel? Are the people of all the churches fools, because they went to meet the sacred relics, and welcomed them with as much joy as if they beheld a living prophet in their midst, so that there was one great swarm of people from Palestine to Chalcedon with one voice re-echoing the praises of Christ? They were forsooth adoring Samuel and not Christ, whose Levite and prophet Samuel was. You imagine he is dead, and therefore you blaspheme. Read the Gospel: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
St Jerome the Penitent, by Titian, 1575; when depicted in this fashion, he is traditionally shown holding a rock with which he is said to have beaten his breast as an act of penance. Given the ferocity of Jerome’s polemical writings, and a general apprehension of his character (he quarreled violently with several of his friends), Pope Benedict XIV is supposed to have remarked on seeing such a representation of the Saint, “If it is true, that would be the only way you got into heaven.”
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