We gratefully resume our series on the Latin of the Ordinary of the traditional Mass. In our last essay on the subject, we examined the language of the concluding doxology of the Roman Canon, the Per ipsum. Here, we examine the rubrics accompanying the prayer.
After saying the Per quem, the priest takes the Host with his right hand, and with his left he holds the knob of the chalice. He makes the sign of the cross with the Host over the chalice three times, saying: Per ipsum ✠, et cum ipso ✠, et in ipso ✠; then, still holding the chalice in the same manner, he makes the sign of the cross with the Host between himself and the chalice as he says est tibi Deo Patri ✠ omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus ✠ Sancti. He then holds the Host over the chalice upright and elevates the Host and chalice together a few inches above the altar as he says omnis honor et gloria.
Although the story of how these rubrics came to be is a long and complicated one, [1] the end result is an example of what Rudolf Otto calls a mysterium fascinans – a fascinating mystery that piques our interest and draws us into a reality greater than ourselves. What do all these gestures mean?
According to Fr. Nicholas Gihr, “The accompanying rite harmonizes magnificently with the text of the prayer.” [2] The first three signs of the cross are about Jesus Christ, and hence it is appropriate that the Host is placed over the Precious Blood. The next two signs of the cross are made in reference to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and hence it is appropriate that they be made outside the chalice, for it was Christ and Christ alone who suffered and shed His Blood for us. [3] Finally, the elevation of the Host and chalice are made appropriately at the words “all honor and glory,” for honor and glory are elevated things, so to speak: as we saw in an earlier post, glory is especially linked to Heaven.
The actions are also ripe for allegorical interpretation. St. Thomas Aquinas contends that while the three signs of the cross made at the Per quem signify the three prayers that Christ made on the Cross, [4] the three signs of the cross here signify His three hours on the Cross while the two signs of the Cross made over the corporal represent the separation of Christ’s soul from His body. [5] William Durandus sees an additional meaning in making these signs of the Cross from the edges of the chalice to the edge of the altar, as an allusion to Christ extending His arms on the Cross. [6] Durandus also construes the uncovering of the chalice at the beginning of the rite as a type for the Temple veil rending in two when Our Lord gave up the ghost; [7] while St. Peter Damien interprets the covering of the chalice at the end of the rite as a symbol of the great stone that covered the entrance to the tomb.
Progressive liturgists were not pleased with the rubrics of the Per ipsum. For Father H.A. Reinhold, author of Bringing the Mass to the People, the introduction of the Major Elevation after the consecration of the Host and Precious Blood had the unfortunate effect of dwarfing the Minor Elevation. According to him, the Major Elevation is the product of a debate among scholastics at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century as to whether the bread becomes the Body of Christ after the words “This is My Body” or whether it becomes so only after both species have been consecrated. The double elevation, he alleges, was instituted to show that each species is transubstantiated immediately after the relevant words are said over it. “The twofold elevation,” Reinhold concludes,
is therefore a remnant of a controversy long settled [read: and no longer necessary]. Its retention is an illustration of a French proverb: Ce n’est que le provisoire qui reste (“What is of temporary value stubbornly stays on”). [8]
Reinhold also does not like that the twofold elevation encourages devotion among the congregants. Eucharistic devotion, he opines, is better confined to the feast of Corpus Christi, Exposition, Adoration, and in processions, but not during the Canon. [9]
Reinhold recommends omitting the Major Elevation altogether “or, if retained, ring[ing] [the] bell only once, at the actual elevations.” [10] As for the Minor Elevation, it should be restored to “the ancient and more traditional Great Doxology,” namely, raising both species so they can “be seen by the ministers and the congregation.” [11] This claim about an “ancient” elevation that was meant to be seen by the faithful was a common assumption at the time Reinhold was writing, but as we shall see shortly, it is dubious.
Among the liturgists who agreed with Fr. Reinhold was Fr. Pius Parsch, who called the Minor Elevation “much more appropriate” than the Major and who even urged “his fellow-priests not to let this elevation remain the mere suggestion, which it now is, but to make it higher and slower, and thus also more impressive,” even though the rubrics at the time stated that the Host and chalice should only be elevated “a little bit” (aliquantulum). [12]
The more eminent liturgical scholar Josef Jungmann, on the hand, has a different assessment. For Jungmann, it is only natural that the faithful should adore their Lord the moment after He becomes sacramentally present on the altar. In the East, this adoration takes the form of a profession of Faith (like the “Memorial Acclamations” inserted into all the Eucharistic Prayers of the Novus Ordo). In comparison with the Eastern Rites, Jungmann states, “we must confess that the Roman liturgy of the first millenary lacked the impulse to direct the attention at once to the completion of the sacramental process, or to draw ritual deductions from it.” [13]
But beginning in the eleventh century, “an increased care for everything connected with the Sacrament” began to emerge; at the Abbey of Cluny, for example, the priests began observing the custom of canonical digits. And in the twelfth century, “the people entered to dominate the scene,” seeking “to look at the sacred species with their bodily eyes” as soon as possible. [14] In 1210, the Bishop of Paris ordered that the priest should lift the consecrated Host high enough to be seen by all, the first known rubric of its kind. The custom then spread rapidly across Europe.
The elevation of the chalice took longer to develop. There was concern that the Precious Blood might be spilled, and it was logistically more difficult, for in the Middle Ages, “the chalice used to be covered with the back part of the corporal folded up over it.” [15] Most of all, it was objected that one does not actually see the Precious Blood but only the chalice that contains it. Consequently, not even the Roman Missals of 1500, 1507, and 1526 mention it. Nevertheless, the 1570 Missal of Pope St. Pius V includes this second elevation.
Josef Andres Jungmann, S.J.
As for the Minor or “Little” Elevation, Jungmann rejects the idea that it is “the remnant of a larger one,” for the intention was never to show the holy gifts to the people but to offer them to God as an oblation. [16] Father Adrian Fortescue also notes that the wording of the prayer, est tibi . . . omnis honor et gloria, “suggests lifting the holy things to God rather than showing them to the people.” [17] And in his recent study of the Mass, Michael Fiedrowicz concludes that “the consecrated offerings… are not shown here for the veneration of the people but are rather raised up for the glorification of God.” [18]
Perhaps the modern temptation to read the Minor Elevation as a “showing to the people” comes from a comparison with Eastern Rites, which do have an elevation that shows the sacred species to the people at the words, “The holy things for the holy.” But the purpose of the Eastern elevation is to prepare the faithful for Holy Communion, which happens almost immediately after. Thus, the Roman equivalent of the Eastern elevation is not the Minor Elevation at the end of the Canon but the presentation of the Host at the Domine non sum dignus.
Despite being a consultor for the Consilium that created the Novus Ordo, Jungmann’s view was eclipsed, at least partially, by those of Reinhold and company.
Annibale Bugnini reports that in 1967, when the Consilium was creating new Eucharistic Prayers, it also wanted to introduce “the Alexandrian anaphora of St. Basil into the Roman liturgy.” [19] One way to do that was to replace the Minor Elevation with the Major Elevation. The study group was asked to vote on the following resolution:
2. Where is the elevation to be placed?Response: It would be best to locate the showing and adoring of the sacred species at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, because in the anaphoras of this Eastern tradition the full expression of the Church’s intention in using the words of Christ is not complete until that point…. The location of the elevation at the end would make it clearer that the intention of the Church in using Christ’s words (the same words it uses in the Roman Canon) is expressed in the total prayer of which the words of consecration are an inseparable part. [20]
Because the resolution barely failed to garner the necessary votes, the decision was left to the Holy Father. Apparently, Pope St. Paul VI decided on a compromise: the Major Elevation would stay, and the Minor Elevation would become, for lack of a better formulation, less minor. But the details regarding the latter’s promotion are surprisingly thin. The 2002 GIRM merely states:
At the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest takes the paten with the host and the chalice and elevates them both while alone singing or saying the doxology, Per ipsum (Through him). No. 151.
Note that the height of the elevation is not stipulated, nor the position of the Host and chalice, that is, whether the Host should be above the chalice as before or held at the same altitude. Possibly because of this paucity of instruction, “many priests,” observes Fr. Dennis Smolarski, “are still under the impression the height formerly prescribed in the Tridentine Missal (a few inches) should be continued now.” But, Smolarski is quick to add, “the contrary is true,” for “evidence suggests that the doxology is the time for the grand gesture of lifting high the gifts towards heaven for all to see.” [21] Unfortunately, the author does not tell us what evidence he has in mind.
In his monumental Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, then-Monsignor Peter J. Elliott offers the following advice:
The celebrant raises the chalice in his right hand, the paten in his left hand. He does not rest a Host upright on the paten, as this gesture is meant to signify sacrificial offering rather than “showing” to the assembly. It seems preferable to hold the vessels out directly over the corporal rather than separating them widely. They should be raised high, at least above eye-level, so that the gesture is strong and significant. [22]
Yi Wang, “Bishop Elliott and Lady Jacqueline”
In making these recommendations, Elliott is teasing out the implications of the changes to the rite and possibly drawing from the pre-conciliar arguments of figures like Reinhold and Parsch. Still, it bears mention that this “showing to the assembly” and this rejection of “sacrificial offering” is a novelty in the Roman liturgical tradition, as Jungmann had already demonstrated in 1948. In that tradition, the Minor Elevation beautifully completes the holy oblation, when the priest offers to God what is already His. Regardless of whether the congregation can see it or not, this gesture to me seems to be the stronger and more significant.
Michael Foley is the author of Lost in Translation: Meditating on the Orations of the Traditional Roman Rite (Angelico Press, 2023).
Notes
[1] Josef Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2 (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1951), 266-270.
[2] Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained, 5th ed., (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1918), 692.
[3] Pope Benedict XIV, De Sacrosancta Missae Sacrificio (Mainz: Franz Kirkheim, 1879), L.ii.c.xviii.n. 15.
[4] They are: “Father, forgive them”; “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
[5] Summa Theologiae III.83.5.ad 3.
[6] William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officionorum IV.46.15.
[7] Ibid., IV.46.10.
[8] H.A. Reinhold, Bringing the Mass to the People (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1950), 67.
[9] Ibid., 69.
[10] Ibid., 65.
[11] Ibid., 70-71.
[12] Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of the Mass, trans. Frederic C. Eckhoff (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1940), 255.
[13] Jungmann, 205. In other words, according to this logic, the Major Elevation has the same function as a Memorial Acclamation, and therefore a Memorial Acclamation in the Roman Rite is redundant.
[14] Ibid., 206.
[15] Ibid., 208.
[16] Ibid., 266.
[17] Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), 360.
[18] Michael Fiedrowicz, The Traditional Mass: History, Form, & Theology of the Classical Roman Rite, trans. Rose Pfeifer (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2020), 106.
[19] Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: 1948-1975, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), 458.
[20] Ibid., 460.
[21] Dennis C. Smolarski, SJ, How Not to Say Mass: A Guidebook on Liturgical Principles and the Roman Missal, Revised Edition (Paulist Press, 2003), 87-88.
[22] Peter J. Elliott, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), no. 318.
