Prayers for Pope Leo

As I am sure all of our readers have heard by now, during the Angelus in St Peter’s yesterday, Pope Leo stated that his doctors had discovered a nodule in one of his lungs “localized, and detected at a very early stage”, and that he will shortly undergo a surgical procedure to remove it. 

We encourage everyone to pray for the success of this operation, and a swift recovery for the Holy Father. Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Carlo Acutis, who was one of the first two Saints canonized by Pope Leo at his first (and thus far only) canonization, the other being Pier Giorgio Frassati. St Carlo died of cancer, and St Pier Giorgio of polio, which frequently afflicts the lungs; it would be especially appropriate to invoke their intercession on his behalf.

And once again, we share this image from Pax inter Spinas, the printing house of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Brignole, France, which contains the traditional prayers for the Pope said at Benediction and other occasions, including the invocation, “May the Lord preserve him and grant him long life.”

The Feast of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council

In the Byzantine tradition, today is the commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the second held in the city of Nicaea, at which the Iconoclast heresy was condemned, and the sacred images restored to their rightful places for the veneration of the Christian faithful. The definitive decree on the veneration of images was promulgated at the seventh session of Second Nicaea, on October 13, 787; the commemoration is fixed according to various traditions to a Sunday close to that date. Some years ago, I heard a sermon at a Byzantine liturgy on this day which recalled an important truth about this council, namely, that it did not decree that sacred images are merely good and useful, but that they are necessary!

The rejection of the sacred images, particularly those of Christ, is ultimately a denial of the Incarnation. The very choice of location for the council expressed this idea; at the time it was called, the two previous ecumenical councils and the important synod ‘in Trullo’ had all been held in Constantinople. The Empress Irene, who as regent of her young son Constantine VI, arranged for a council to condemn iconoclasm, had tried to hold it in the imperial capital, but it was broken up by soldiers friendly to the heresy. It was therefore moved to Nicaea, where the first ecumenical council had gathered 462 years earlier to condemn the Arian heresy that denied the true divinity of Christ. (To put this in chronological perspective, this is a greater distance in time than that between Trent and Vatican II.)

The refusal to depict Christ is a rejection of the fullness of His humanity, which is real, solid, and “circumscribed”, i.e., subject to limitations, and therefore capable of being expressed in an image. His humanity is the means of our redemption and salvation, as we confess in the Creed every Sunday, “For us men and for our salvation He came down from Heaven, etc.” In the eighth and final session, the Council therefore also anathematized all who do not confess that “Christ our God is circumscribed according to His humanity.” The Greek word used here, “perigrapton – circumscribed”, is related to the verb “graphein – to write”, the term which is often used in Greek to refer to the painting of icons. None of this is accidental.

The famous icon of Christ the Pantocrator from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mt Sinai, 6th century. The collection of icon at St. Catherine’s is particularly important, since it contains a large number of pieces that predate the iconoclast persecutions.

The liturgical texts proper to this commemoration make the point in a very interesting way. At Second Nicaea, the Patriarchs of Constantinople who had supported the iconoclast heresy were all condemned by name. However, they are not referred to in the liturgy, nor are the iconoclast emperors Leo the Isaurian, the real inventor and motivator of the heresy, and his two successors, Constantine V and Leo IV. (The traditional nickname of the second of these, “Copronymus”, means “dung-named” in Greek, a reference to what would now be called a diaper accident that occurred at his baptism; this was taken by those who honored the sacred images as a presage of his impiety. It occurs repeatedly in the Roman Martyrology, in reference to the many Saints killed or otherwise persecuted by him for the sake of the sacred images.)

It would be easy, but unjust, to see in this omission nothing more than an unwillingness to offend the offices of the Emperor and Patriarch. The greater truth taught by the Council, and by the Byzantine liturgy, is that the refusal of sacred images is a refusal of the Incarnation. To this point, therefore, the earlier Christological heretics are named repeatedly in the liturgy of the day, as in these texts from Vespers (bold texts are my emphases).

As true shepherds you bravely drove away those who are like Macedonius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Apollinaris, Sabellius and Severus (of Antioch), exposed as dangerous wolves in sheepskins, far from the Savior’s flock, stripped of their fleeces, making them thrice-wretched; therefore we call you blessed.

Let us praise today the mystical trumpets of the Spirit, the God-bearing Fathers, who sang a harmonious melody of theology in the midst of the Church, to the one Trinity, unchanging Essence and Godhead; the overthrowers of Arius, the champions of the Orthodox, who intercede with the Lord that He may have mercy on our souls.

Holy Fathers, you have become sure guardians of the Apostolic traditions; for by teaching the orthodox doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity, you overthrew in council the blasphemy of Arius. With him you refuted Macedonius, the opponent of the Spirit, and condemned Nestorius, Eutyches and Dioscorus, Sabellius and Severus the Leaderless. We implore you: beg that we who have been delivered from their error may preserve our life spotless in the faith.

The following text, sung between the first and second parts of the doxology at the Aposticha, is particularly noteworthy. One might easily assume it was a part of the commemoration of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council on the Sunday after the Ascension, rather than that of today, again underlining the intrinsic connection between iconoclasm and Arianism, and between veneration of the images and the Incarnation. (A friend of mine who is a great scholar of the Byzantine liturgy tells me that this hymn may very well have been composed for the commemoration of the Fathers of First Nicaea, and later added to this feast.)

Let us with faith celebrate today the yearly commemoration of the God-bearing Fathers, who were assembled from the whole world in the radiant city of Nicaea, as we reverence the gatherings of the orthodox; for they, their minds attuned to true religion, overthrew the godless teaching of Arius, and in council banished him from the Catholic Church; and in the symbol of faith, which they precisely and devoutly laid down, they taught all to confess clearly the Son of God as consubstantial and co-eternal, and existing before the ages. And so we too, following their divine teachings and firm in our belief, worship the Son and the all-holy Spirit with the Father, in one Godhead, a consubstantial Trinity.

A 19th-century icon of the Fathers of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils. The Byzantine liturgy contains several such commemorations: of the fathers at First Nicaea, at Ephesus, at Second Nicaea, at the Seven Councils collectively.

Although Iconoclasm was definitively condemned at Second Nicaea, it was revived in the early 9th century for almost thirty years under the emperors Leo V (813-20), Michael II (820-29) and Theophilus (829-42). Shortly after Theophilus’ son Michael III, (the bearer of another unfortunate nickname, “the Drunkard”), came to the throne as a child of two, his mother and regent Theodora arranged for the definitive restoration of the icons at a synod in Constantinople. (Theodora is venerated as a saint in the Byzantine Rite.)

St. Theodora, Empress of Byzantium, in a 19th-century Greek icon.

The liturgical expression of this final victory is the celebration of the first Sunday of Lent as the “Feast of Orthodoxy.” On that day, the Byzantine liturgy reads a text known as the “Synodikon of Orthodoxy”, a collection of the anathemas of the first seven ecumenical councils. The text has been much altered and added to over the years, but the first rubric in one of the oldest manuscripts describes it thus: “A yearly thanksgiving is due to God on account of that day when we recovered the Church of God, with the demonstration of the dogmas of true religion and the overthrowing of the blasphemies of wickedness.”

The final eight anathemas are dedicated to the iconoclasts, (and the iconoclast patriarchs are named explicitly.) The first one says,

On those who accept with their reason the incarnate economy of God the Word, but will not allow that this can be beheld through images, and therefore affect to receive our salvation in words, but deny it in reality: Anathema!

And the second:

On those who wickedly make play with the word ‘uncircumscribed’ and therefore refuse to depict in images Christ, our true God, who likewise shared our flesh and blood, and therefore show themselves to be fantasiasts: Anathema!

Dr. Kwasniewski’s Lectures in Netherlands, Belgium, and England, Oct. 24-31

I will be giving the following four lectures in Europe between Oct. 24 and Oct. 31, and hope to meet NLM readers at the events. Please come up and introduce yourself!

“The Thomistic Virtue of Religion: From Sacred Order to Mystical Union”
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Nijmegen, Netherlands

Filosofie & Geloof (Philosophy & Faith) Study Day, 9:30am to 7pm
Symposium on Ethics and the Human Relationship with God
Location: Pelgrimshuis Casa Nova
Pastoor Rabouplein 5
6564 BP Heilig Landstichting

(Please register here by October 18; Holy Mass in the Vetus Ordo will be offered at the start of the day)

“Living the Liturgy as the Font and Apex of Catholic Life”
Sunday, October 25 (Feast of Christ the King)
Brussels, Belgium

Location: Het Oude Klooster Maleizen (Servi Jesu et Mariae)
Terhulpensesteenweg 708
3090 Overijse
Time: 3pm

(Free and open to the public; will be followed by Q&A and booksigning)

“Why Christ Is King of Family and Society – and How We Embrace His Reign”
Tuesday, October 27
Brussels

Location: Het Oude Klooster Maleizen
Terhulpensesteenweg 708
3090 Overijse, BE
Time: 7:30pm*

(*N.B.: Free, but open to men only, as it is being sponsored by and for a men’s group; register by contacting W.jambon@gmail.com)

“The Heavenly Model of the Earthly City”
Saturday, October 31
London, UK

Symposium on Catholic Social Teaching:
The Church’s Remedy for Modernity
Location: Cabrini Community Campus,
Honor Oak, London, SE23 3LE
Time: 2pm to 6pm

Featuring a second lecture by Dr. Sebastian Morello, a panel discussion with Os Justi Press authors, and a public Q&A followed by multi-author booksigning.

Free and open to the public, but the organizers ask you to RSVP here.

St John Henry Newman’s Church in Oxford

To celebrate the feast day of St John Henry Newman, here are some pictures I took of the famous university church of Oxford, St Mary’s, while I was there in August of 2019. St John Henry was appointed vicar of this church in 1828, and became very popular as a preacher; it was also here that John Keeble, on July 14, 1833, preached the famous sermon titled “National Apostasy”, an event which Newman himself considered to be the formal beginning of the Oxford Movement. There was a church on this site before the Norman Conquest, which became the university’s very first building, used for lectures, for the meeting of senior members known as “congregation”, and for the awarding of degrees; however, only one part of the building as we see it today dates from the 13th century, its very beautiful spire, constructed in 1270, with pinnacles added ca. 1320.

The side of the church on High Street has a Baroque porch added in 1637 by Nicholas Stone, the master-mason of King Charles I; the twisted columns to either side of the door were clearly designed in reference to the ancient columns of similar design at St Peter’s in Rome. Four years earlier, Gian Lorenzo Bernini had just finished the magnificent bronze canopy over the main altar of St Peter’s, which copies the same ancient model. During the trial of William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1641, which would lead to his execution under the Puritans, this portico with its statue of the Virgin Mary was adduced as evidence of his “Popish” leanings; bullet holes made by Cromwell’s soldiers can still be seen in the statue.

The nave of the church, seen here from the loft at the back of the building, was completely rebuilt in 1510. There was a rood screen that separated the chancel from the nave, which was taken out at the Reformation; the current one, which is much smaller, was installed in 1827. The organ mounted on it is modern, from 1986.

The chancel was completely remodeled in 1453, and is obviously now much less decorated than it would have been originally. The stalls, however, are originals of the late 15th century; the altarpiece of the Virgin and Child is by the Venetian painter Francesco Bassano the Younger.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Priest’s Final Prayers before Holy Communion, Part 3

Lost in Translation #171

After finishing the Perceptio Corporis tui, the priest prays:

Panem caelestem accipiam, et nomen Domini invocabo.

Which I translate as:

I will take the heavenly Bread, and I will call upon the name of the Lord.

This declaration is an adaptation of Psalm 115, 13 (see below), with “heavenly Bread” replacing “the Chalice of salvation.” And “heavenly bread” (panis caelestis) is an adaptation of two biblical expressions for manna, “bread from heaven” (panis de caelo) [1] and “bread of heaven” (panis caeli). [2] In John 6, 23, our Lord calls Himself Panis de caelo. There is an affirmation of the doctrine of the Real Presence implied here.

Each time he receives the Eucharist under a different species, the priest calls upon the name of the Lord, which is a powerful biblical practice. The first person who explicitly “began to call upon the name of the Lord” is Seth’s son Enos. (Gen. 4, 26) God, we know, is more pleased with Seth and his line than with Cain and his, for God chooses a descendent of Seth to live (Noah), while all of Cain’s descendants are destroyed by the Flood. Calling upon the name of the Lord is a mark of genuine devotion: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 19, 8) The prophet Joel predicts: “And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (2, 32), a prophecy that Saint Peter cites in his first sermon. (Acts 2, 21) The priest (and so we do we the faithful) align ourselves, albeit with fear and trembling, with the good guys rather than the spawn of Cain.

As in other parts of the Mass, the priest’s words and actions reflect each other. The priest has just said that he will take the Heavenly Bread, and now he takes the Host in his left hand as he looks at it devoutly and says three times:

Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.

Which I translate as:

Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.

The prayer is almost verbatim that of the Roman centurion who asks Jesus to cure His servant. When Jesus offers to go and heal the servant, the centurion – knowing that according to the Mosaic Law entering a gentile’s house would render Jesus ritually unclean – declares his faith in Jesus’ authority over sickness and health even from a safe and clean distance. But before that, the centurion confesses his own unworthiness:

And the centurion making answer, said: “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof: but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.” (Matt. 8, 8)

The use of this prayer before Holy Communion is ingenious, for by placing the prayer here, the “roof” (tectum) changes meaning from the top of one’s house to the top of one’s mouth. Such is an example of what we have been calling “spiritual eructation.”

The prayer balances personal unworthiness and trust in God. No one, not even a priest, is worthy to put the living God beneath one’s palate, but we are also commanded to do this in memory of Him. The prayer thus continues the delicate and paradoxical dance in the Mass about our unworthiness to participate in it and yet our persistence in doing so.

The priest says each “Lord, I am not worthy” aloud, as if to emphasize the point with a public confession. He also strikes his breast with his right hand each time he says these words, the same gesture that the Publican makes in the Parable, at the words: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” (Lk. 18, 13). The Domine non sum dignus can therefore be characterized as a combination of two important Gospel passages.

And a sidenote: While the Roman Rite thinks of the Roman centurion before communing with the Eucharistic Lord, the Byzantine Rite thinks of the Good Thief crucified along with Our Lord. Its Prayer before Holy Communion is:

Remember me, O Lord, when You shall come into Your kingdom. Remember me, O Master, when You shall come into Your kingdom. Remember me, O Holy One, when You shall come into Your kingdom.

It is meet and just that the faithful approach the consumption of the living God with fear and trembling, and it is appropriate that they do so by following a particular model of spirituality. The Roman Rite chooses one model, the Byzantine Rite another. Glory be to God for both.

Returning to the Roman Rite, immediately before consuming the Host, the priest says:

Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam aeternam. Amen.

Which I translate as:

May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ watch over my soul unto life everlasting. Amen.

The most common translation of custodiat in preconciliar hand Missals is “preserve,” which is also accurate. My only hesitation about this choice is that it may give the impression that the soul is being preserved in a static way, like jam in a hermetically sealed jar. Custodio means to guard or protect. Instead of wanting us to be like a preservative that has a “long life” because it does not develop or decay, the prayer asks for God to protect us from the bad so that we may grow in the good and live more fully. The 2011 ICEL translation, it seems to me, plays it safe and falls somewhere in between a static and a dynamic interpretation:

May the Body of Christ

keep me safe for eternal life.

The priest prepares to receive the Precious Blood by reciting Psalm 115, 12-13 and Psalm 17, 4:

Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quæ retribuit mihi? Calicem salutaris accipiam, et nomen Domini invocabo.

Laudans invocabo Dominum, et ab inimicis meis salvus ero.

Which the Douay Rheims translates as:

What shall I render to the Lord, for all the things he hath rendered unto me? I will take the Chalice of salvation; and I will call upon the name of the Lord.

Praising I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies.

It is possible that author is making a morning drink-offering in the Temple (see Numbers 28, 7) and that the author is therefore offering thanks for having been delivered from something. Hence Jungmann writes:

In the Psalm the singer speaks out his resolve to make a thank-offering for his delivery from a great peril and in so doing (as was probably part of the ritual of a thank-offering) to raise the cup to praise God. [3]

But since the present circumstances are quite different, we see in this repurposing of these Psalm verses another act of spiritual eructation:

Here, the cup which we intend to pick up itself contains the Welfare and therefore the reason for thanksgiving, and next to the cup lies the Bread from Heaven. At this moment both of them are not so much gifts we offer up to God but instead that sacred repast to which we are now invited. And since we eat of this meal, it behooves us, as it behooved the psalmist, to praise the Lord because, as His guests at table, we are delivered from every earthly peril. [4]

The Vulgate (and the Missal) use the Latin retribuo for the Hebrew (shub: to return, turn back, restore, repent) over other Latin options such as reddo or redeo. Retribuo can mean to hand back money duly owed or to recompense someone. It is not without reason that our term “retributive justice” comes from it, and it is not in vain that we consider this term here. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, retributive justice involves those who have committed wrongful acts who deserve a proportionate punishment. Retribution is especially necessary in the case of the Fall, for as St. Anselm argues, “nothing in the order of things is more intolerable than that a creature should take away honor owed to the Creator and not give back what he has taken away.” [5] And yet for postlapsarian man, retribution is impossible, since our crime outstrips our ability to offer recompense. Left in this impossible situation, it behooved the God-man to atone for our sins. The question that this prayer poses is thus: How can we ever pay back Our Lord Jesus Christ for all that He has done for us, He who bought us back (the literal meaning of re-deemed) from the auction block of death and damnation?

The Roman Rite subtly provides an answer to this question. Both in the Altar Missal and in preconciliar hand Missals, Psalm 115, 12-13 and Psalm 17, 4 are presented as a single uninterrupted block, as I have done here. But according to the rubrics, the priest pauses after he asks the question “What shall I render…?” and then spends several moments devotedly collecting the Particles of the Host from the paten and the corporal. Only after then does he say: “I will take…” The priest’s action is his answer. As Fr. Nicholas Gihr writes:

To the question, whether or how he might suitably thank the Lord for His boundless goodness, the priest remains for some moments in holy silence, whilst collecting the particles on the corporal, and then taking the chalice in his right hand, he breaks out into words which betoken his elevated sentiments of gratitude: “I will take the chalice of salvation and I will call upon the name of the Lord. Praising I will call upon the Lord and I shall be saved from my enemies.” Whilst considering what we may give to the Lord, we find nothing else than what He had previously given us. Thus, in the first place, the priest affirms his gratitude, in as much as he takes hold of the chalice with its infinitely precious and inestimable contents, to offer it for the glorification of the divine name and to drink it while gratefully magnifying the Lord. [6]

To Gihr’s insight we may add one more, namely, that the priest’s resolve to drink Christ’s Blood is an implicit promise to drink from whatever chalice God gives him, even if contains much that is bitter. What return can we ever make to Christ Jesus for all that He has done for us? We can start by being willing to suffer and die for Him as martyrs, or at the very least to accept gladly the dolors of daily life. “My Father,” cries Our Lord from the Garden of Gethsemane, “if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matt. 26, 39) It was Jesus Christ who took the first “chalice of salvation” (our salvation) by embracing the Cross, and as Christians we are called to do the same; for “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matt. 16, 24) What’s in your chalice? Whatever the answer, we will drink it, and gratefully.

And finally, immediately before consuming the Precious Blood, the priest says:

Sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam meam in vitam aeternam. Amen.

Which I translate as:

May the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ watch over my soul unto life everlasting. Amen.

By asking for protection of the soul, the priest also continues a theme from the Domine non sum dignus, where he asked for his soul to be healed. By asking now for his soul to be watched over, there is a hint that his soul has to some extent been healed enough to receive Holy Communion worthily.

The thematic continuity between the Domine non sum dignus, Corporis Domini nostri, and Sanguis Domini nostri was removed from the 1970 Missal. Annibale Bugnini explains why:

At his own communion the priest says: “May the body of Christ preserve me…” The Pope asked: “Would it not be better to retain the old formula, ‘May the body of Christ preserve my soul . . . ’?” In response, it was said that the suggested formula, which is already used in the Mass of ordination, seems more complete and accurate—not the soul alone but the entire human person is destined for eternal life. The new formula was kept.[7]

It is true that the entire human person receives eternal life (or eternal death), but in the Roman liturgical tradition, the way to draw attention to both body and soul is, wait for it, to mention both the body and the soul. By using “me” for the entire human person, the new prayer potentially feeds into the modern obsession with the self rather than corrects it. And as Chesterton quipped, “One can hardly think too little of one's self. One can hardly think too much of one's soul.” [8]

The new Missal, incidentally, also eliminates the prayers that call upon the name of the Lord and the Quid retribuam.

Notes

[1] Wis. 6, 20; 2 Esdras (Nehemiah) 9:15.

[2] Ps. 77, 24; 104, 40.

[3] Jungmann, vol. 2, 353.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Cur Deus Homo 1.13.

[6] Gihr, 740.

[7] Reform of the Liturgy, 380.

[8] GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Ignatius Press, 2005), 101.

“The Myth of Post-Conciliar Decentralization” - A New Video from Unam Sanctam Catholicam

Our friend Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, has just put up a new video on his YouTube channel, titled “The Myth of Post-Conciliar Decentralization,” which is very much worth your time. His point is that the common telling that the Church was decentralized by the reforms enacted after the most recent ecumenical council is just that, a myth - not in the sense made famous by JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, but in the more vulgar sense of a flat-out falsehood. The reality is that the Church has never been more centralized and authoritarian. And, as he rightly notes, one of the most significant areas in which we see this is the liturgy and the post-Conciliar reform. What could be more thoroughly authoritarian than to impose a rapidly created and pastorally untested new rite on the whole of the Latin Church, while (in the words of Pope Benedict XVI) “simultaneously declar(ing) that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden, and mak(ing) the longing for it seem downright indecent” ?

In this sense, the only pope who actually decentralized anything in the Church in recent decades was the very same Pope Benedict, who wisely allowed both the laity and the clergy to choose which form of the liturgy they wanted, without requiring any special permission from authority. And it is, frankly, not a coincidence that the same pope who tried to take that choice away from them also invented a new way of pretending to further decentralize the Church, while doing the opposite. As the Church now tries to figure out what to do with that legacy, the results will certainly have an impact not just on the future liberty of the traditional Roman Rite, but efforts to reform the post-Conciliar Rite as well, and it is important to have a clear-headed assessment of this before trying to move forward. Our thanks to Mr Campbell for another worthy contribution to that assessment; do our man a favor and subscribe to his channel!

The Festival of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, October 13-15th, Eastbourne, England

David Clayton and Andrew Goldstein will speak on the theme: Beauty, Truth and Goodness

I look forward to attending and speaking at the annual festival of the Anglican Ordinariate of England, Wales, and Scotland. The three-day program is shown here.

I will give three presentations on art in the liturgy, with particular reference to what forms might be appropriate for this Use of the Roman Rite; how artists today can adopt this style as their own and, perhaps, even establish it as the Ordinariate’s characteristic tradition. I have in mind here something in the realm of visual art that is akin to the powerful example of A. W. Pugin, who re-established a Catholic Christian tradition of architecture in the early 19th century. In the wake of the reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England, he looked to pre-Reformation churches for inspiration. His analysis of the essential features of England’s great Gothic cathedrals, published in books such as The True Principles of Pointed Architecture and A Treatise On Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts: Their Antiquity, Use, and Symbolic Signification, became the template for a revival of the English Gothic style as a living and vibrant tradition, and influenced the design of religious and civic buildings across the English-speaking world and beyond from then until the mid-20th century. These texts are still available today.

The liturgy over the three days will include three celebrations of Mass, two of Matins, and two of Evensong. After the first Evensong, Andrew Goldstein, my co-author of the book Musica Domestica (to be published by Word on Fire Publications in February, 2027) of the Vigil Project, will give a presentation on the book and how this might enrich the liturgical life of the families and parishes of the Personal Ordinariate in the British Isles. The music for the liturgy will draw heavily on Musica Domestica, especially Volume 2, which includes the psalms and canticles of the Old and New Testaments, pointing for chanting at home or in parish, along with Gregorian tones that can be applied to the text.

I am especially pleased that we will present, for the first time, examples of settings of those Musica Domestica Gregorian tones by the American composer Paul Jernberg (Composer in Residence and Music Director of Wyoming Catholic College). My wife, Margarita Clayton, and I commissioned these arrangements from Paul through our non-profit, the Scala Foundation. The Scala Foundation's mission is to transform American and Western culture through beauty in liturgy and education. We hope - always aiming high - that our efforts to commission art and music from prominent artists and composers will inspire others to consider patronizing the liturgical arts themselves and so contribute to a new creativity in the Church. We have also commissioned a motet from Sir James MacMillan, the world-renowned Scottish Catholic composer and conductor, setting a text adapted from Augustine's famous hymn to beauty from his Confessions (more about that in the next few months).

We hope to see some of you there!

Pope Pius XI on the Holy Rosary

For many years, it has been our custom to mark today’s feast with an excerpt from one of Pope Leo XIII’s eleven encyclicals on the Holy Rosary, but this year, I happened to come across the only one on the same subject by Pope Pius XI (1922-39). Ingravescentibus malis was issued on the feast of St Michael the Archangel in 1937, and would be Pius’ very last encyclical, even though he lived for almost a year and a half longer after it was issued. The opening words, “As evils grow heavy”, unmistakably reflect the darkness then gathering in Europe; the outbreak of World War II was then less than two years away. I hope that our readers will not be discouraged by how much of this is still extremely pertinent, but find in it encouragement to entrust the difficulties of our own times to the prayers and intercession of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, as the wise supreme pontiff urges herein.

“More than once have We asserted … that there is no remedy for the ever-growing evils of our times except a return to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to His most holy precepts. Truly, only He “hath the words of eternal life”, and individuals and society can only fall into immediate and miserable ruin if they ignore the majesty of God and repudiate His Law. However, anyone who studies with diligence the records of the Catholic Church will easily recognize that the true patronage of the Virgin Mother of God is linked with all the annals of the Christian name. When, in fact, errors everywhere diffused were bent upon rending the seamless robe of the Church and upon throwing the Catholic world into confusion, our fathers turned with a spirit of confidence soul to her “who alone who destroys all heresies throughout the world” (Roman Breviary), and the victory won through her brought the return of happier times.

The Battle of Lepanto, by Paolo Veronese, ca. 1572, now in the Academy Gallery in Venice

When the impiety of Mohammedanism, trusting in its powerful fleet and great armies, threatened the peoples of Europe with ruin and slavery, at the urging of the Supreme, the protection of the heavenly Mother was fervently implored and the enemy was defeated and his ships sunk. Thus the faithful of every age, both in public misfortune and in private need, turn in humble supplication to Mary, so that she may mostly kindly come to their aid, and grant help and remedy against sorrows of body and soul. And never was her most powerful aid hoped for in vain by those who besought it with pious and trustful prayer.

But also in our day, dangers no less grave than in the past beset civil and religious society. In fact, because the supreme and eternal authority of God, which commands and forbids, is neglected, or even completely repudiated by many, the result is that the consciousness of Christian duty is weakened, and that faith becomes tepid in souls or entirely extinguished, and at last, the very foundations of human society are shaken and fall to ruin.

Thus on the one hand are seen citizens intent on an atrocious struggle among themselves because some are provided with abundant riches and others must gain bread for themselves and their families by the sweat of their brows. And in some regions, as all know, the evil has reached such a pitch that all private right of property is destroyed, and all things are reduced to common property. On the other hand, there are not lacking men who declare that they honor and exalt the power of the State above all, and say they must use every means to assure civil order and enforce authority, and pretend that only thus are they able totally to repulse the execrable ideas of the Communists. However, they despise the light of Gospel’s wisdom, and endeavor to revive the errors of the pagans and their way of life.

Religious liberty in the workers’ paradise: agents of the Soviet state steal one of the bells of the cathedral of St Volodomyr in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 5, 1930, the day before Christmas Eve on the Julian Calendar. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

To this is added the most cunning and lamentable sect of those who, denying and hating God, declare themselves the enemies of the Eternal, and who insinuate themselves everywhere, who discredit and uproot all religious belief from souls, and finally, trample on every human and divine right. And while they cast scorn on the hope of heavenly reward, they incite men to seek, even by illicit means, false earthly happiness, and therefore drive them with brazen temerity to the dissolution of the social order, causing disorder, cruel rebellions and even the conflagration of civil war.

Nevertheless, Venerable Brethren, though such great and numerous evils hang over us, and others still greater are to be feared for the future, we must not lose heart nor let the confident hope that rests solely on God become fainter. He who “made the nations of the earth for health” (Wis. 1, 14) without doubt will not let those perish whom He has redeemed with His Precious Blood, nor will He abandon His Church. But rather, as We said in the beginning, shall We beseech God through the prayers and patronage of the Blessed Virgin, so acceptable to Him, since, to use the words of St. Bernard: “Such is the will of God, who has wished that we should have all things through Mary.” (Sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.)

Among the various supplications with which we successfully appeal to the Virgin Mother of God, the Holy Rosary without doubt occupies a special and distinct place. This prayer, which some call the Psalter of the Virgin or Breviary of the Gospel and of Christian life, was described and recommended by Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, with these vigorous passages: “Very admirable is this crown interwoven with the angelic salutation, which is interposed with the Lord’s prayer, and unites with it the obligation of interior meditation. It is an excellent manner of prayer . . . and very useful for the attainment of immortal life.” ...

Therefore why should We not hope for all things, if We supplicate Our Heavenly Mother in this manner with due disposition and holiness? We desire very earnestly, Venerable Brethren, that the Holy Rosary should be recited in a special manner in the month of October and with increased devotion both in the churches and in homes. And so much the more must it be done since the enemies of the Divine Name - that is, those who have rebelled against and denied and scorned the Eternal God - spread snares for the Catholic Faith and the liberty due to the Church, and finally rebel with insane efforts against divine and human rights, to send mankind to ruin and perdition. Through efficacious recourse to the Virgin Mother of God, they may be finally humbled and led to penance and return to the straight path, trusting to the care and protection of Mary.

The Holy Virgin who once victoriously drove the terrible sect of the Albigensians from Christian countries, now humbly invoked by us, will turn aside the new errors, especially those of the Communists, who in more than one way remind us of those crimes and errors of the past. And as in the times of the Crusades, in all Europe there was raised one voice of the people, one supplication; so today, in all the world, in the cities, and even the smallest villages, united with courage and strength, with filial and constant insistence, the people seek to obtain from the great Mother of God the defeat of the enemies of Christian and human civilization, to the end that true peace may shine again over tired and erring men.

If, then, all will do this with due disposition, with great faith and with fervent piety, it is to be hoped that as in the past, so in our day, the Blessed Virgin will obtain from her divine Son that the waves of the present tempests be calmed, and that a brilliant victory crown this striving of the Christian faithful in prayer.”

A Cardinal’s Liturgical Ordo from 1681

Of the three books I examined in Milwaukee, in many ways this was the most fascinating: a liturgical ordo for the year 1681 (MDCLXXXI), owned by a cardinal, as the beautifully gold-stamped white leather cover indicates, and as a hand-written message on the inside cover confirms: the book belonged to “Cardinal Altieri (Paluzzo Degli Albertoni), cardinal in 1664, bishop of Porto... died 29 June 1698,” all of which matches this record.

The title page notes that this ordo contains special information on cardinalitial vesting.

A posthumous inscription indicating which cardinal owned this book (if you didn’t happen to know his coat of arms by heart).

Looking here at January: note the octave day of the Holy Innocents on the 4th; the Epiphany on the 6th; the Sunday within the Octave on the 12th; etc.

When we reach Ash Wednesday, we see the notice, “Weddings are closed”, i.e., no more weddings now that Lent has begun.

From April into May; one sees that May 1 is SS. Philip and James.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Charterhouse of Pavia

For the feast of Saint Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian Order, here are some pictures from Nicola of one of the most beautiful of the order’s monasteries, that of Pavia in Lombardy, about 8 kilometers north of the city. It was founded by the Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconi, in 1396, partly to fulfill a vow made by his wife for a safe childbirth, partly as an expression of the artistic patronage which was so important to powerful Italian courts of Italy in that era, and partly because the Carthusians were regarded as the best kind of monks to have praying for you. The monks were more than once expelled from the complex and replaced by other religious orders, until they definitively left in 1947; since 1968, it has been home to a Cistercian community. Notwithstanding the theft of its land endowment by the Emperor Joseph II, and damage to the complex itself from the troops of Napoleon, it is an almost indescribably rich collection of artworks, of which we can only give a small idea here. (Although the Carthusians were so widely esteemed for their extreme austerity of life, it is interesting how many of the Italian charterhouses were founded by royalty who welcomed them, apparently, on condition that their austerity would not be expressed in the design or decoration of the church itself.)

The main entrance to the complex, which was originally with the park of a fortress of the Visconti; the fortress itself no longer exists.

The rising sun in the middle of the ceiling, the symbol of the Visconti, is also present in several places in the Duomo of Milan, another project of Gian Galeazzo.

The façade was constructed in the early decades of the 16th century, but never completed, and is missing its upper part, as will be seen from a design shown in another photograph below. It is incredibly rich in decoration, including not just Saints, but a series of medallion portraits of famous figures from classical history.

Although the central nave and side aisles are relatively simply, each of the side chapels in the latter is fully decorated.

This metal screen separates the nave from the transepts and the main choir. The cross seen above it stand over a marble portal at the entrance to the choir, which is shown in another photo below.

The cupola seen from behind the metal screen.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

On Gothic Art, Part 1

The art of pilgrimage

In this and another post next week, I want to look at the Gothic style of Christian art: where it came from, what makes it theologically and artistically distinctive, and how to recognize it in practice through a series of examples. Part 2, next week, turns to the later Gothic masters, the point at which the style begins its transition toward the Renaissance, and the development of secular art that the Gothic spirit made possible.

An example of the late Gothic style, the “Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon” by Enguerrand Quarton, mid 15th century.

As many NLM readers will already know, Pope Benedict XVI, in The Spirit of the Liturgy, identified three authentic traditions of Christian liturgical art: the iconographic, the Gothic, and the Baroque. Each is a legitimate expression of the Christian understanding of the human person and our relationship to God, and each communicates that understanding through a distinct visual language, thereby promoting prayer and worship among the faithful. The iconographic tradition, which dominated Christian art in both East and West until the 12th century, portrays man as he will be in heaven: transfigured, luminous, outside ordinary space and time. The Baroque, which developed in the 17th century, portrays fallen historical man in this life, in the full drama of suffering and grace. The Gothic stands between them, and it is the art most characteristic of the high medieval period in the West.

What Is the Gothic?

The Gothic is an authentic and distinct style of liturgical art that developed organically in the West from the iconographic prototype. As the change was gradual, any attempt to date its beginning involves some arbitrary choice. Most commentators settle on the mid-12th century, coinciding broadly with the completion of what is generally considered the first Gothic church, the Abbey of St Denis in Paris, in 1144. The name ‘Gothic’ was coined by High Renaissance commentators as a term of contempt. They held it to be a barbaric style belonging to the period of cultural decline that they believed had begun when the Goths overran the Roman Empire in the West a thousand years earlier. Historians today do not generally share that view of cultural decline, but the name stuck. Even those of us who admire Gothic culture and art continue to use it!

The impetus for the departure from the iconographic prototype stemmed from an increased emphasis on the reliability of human experience and the value of information received through the senses. This led to a greater curiosity about and appreciation of the natural world. Such appreciation was not new: Christians had always relied on sensory information and valued the beauty of the cosmos. What was different was the degree of weight now placed upon them.

Tied to this was the conviction that our world, though fallen and imperfect, is nevertheless good, ordered, and beautiful. There may be evil and suffering in the world, and it may not be as good and beautiful as it ought to be, but it remains God’s creation. This appreciation of the natural world and confidence in our ability to know it through the senses sparked curiosity and a desire to observe it more closely. One effect was the rise of scientific inquiry; another, the one that concerns us here, was an increased naturalism in art, a greater correspondence to natural appearances. The devotion to rational inquiry bound up with this cultural movement also led to a new approach to learning, and to the establishment of the great universities, among them those of Paris and Oxford.

Several factors combined to produce this cultural shift. Around 1000 AD, the Latin West increased its contact with the Greek East and the Islamic world through trade and warfare, including the Crusades and the Reconquista, the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. This gave Western Europe, for the first time since the decline of the Roman Empire in the West, access to many lost works of classical writers, particularly in the form of Arabic transcriptions of Aristotle. Over the following century, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars collaborated to translate and interpret these texts. It was the friars, the new mendicant orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, who achieved much of the synthesis of the new learning with the tradition inherited from St Augustine and the Church Fathers. The most significant of these figures is the Dominican St Thomas Aquinas.

This age was characterized by the creation of new ideas and a drive to popularize them. The preaching of the Dominicans and the broad appeal of St Francis of Assisi’s spirituality, which included a love of the beauty of the natural world, led in particular to a wider appreciation of the natural world as part of God’s creation. This shifting worldview, while still firmly Christian, gave rise to cultural movements driven as much by holiness and great artists as by great thinkers.

The New Naturalism

The greater emphasis on direct observation led to an enhanced naturalism fused to an iconographic substrate. What began in the Romanesque period, up to the mid-12th century, as a more naturalistic variant of the iconographic style eventually became so naturalistic that it broke the limits of what had constituted an icon, for example through the introduction of cast shadows and the depiction of figures in profile. Nevertheless, Gothic art always owes something stylistically to the iconographic. It retains, for example, the emotional distance maintained in the portrayal of figures, so that the observer always feels slightly detached from the scene depicted. Even in late Gothic styles, such as those of the Flemish artists Van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch, we can see how much they owe to the iconographic tradition.

If one were to characterize this style theologically, it is too naturalistic to be considered a portrayal of man as he will be in heaven, which is what the iconographic style portrays, and not naturalistic enough to be a portrayal of fallen humanity as we experience it in this life, which is the subject of the Baroque. It straddles the divide between the two, much like the Christian life within the Church.

When a man is baptized, confirmed, and living the sacramental life, he is transfigured partially by grace even in this life. We may not see it ourselves, but that transformation is real. We are, to use St Peter’s phrase, ‘partakers of the divine nature.’ But we are only setting out on the journey, and we can suffer setbacks and reversals as well as progress. This transformation is only complete and permanent when we are in full union with God in heaven, but while we are on this pilgrimage to heaven, as part of the mystical body of Christ, practicing Catholics are in this respect Gothic men and women.

It is worth noting that the Gothic age is characterized historically as an age of pilgrimages. Many of the great cathedrals were pilgrimage destinations, and it is fitting to describe Gothic art as the art of pilgrimage for that reason also.

If we wanted a single symbol of this age, it might be the spire of the great Gothic cathedral. The Gothic cathedrals of France and England, perhaps more than any other aspect of the culture, characterize this period. The new learning led not only to a new approach to design, developing gradually from the Romanesque styles that preceded it, but also to advances in structural engineering that enabled the creation of higher, more complex structures with larger windows. These stained-glass windows became works of art manifesting the same stylistic elements as the paintings, but now in the medium of colored glass. The Gothic spire that so often sat atop the magnificent new churches and cathedrals born of an outpouring of faith symbolizes this age of pilgrimage in that, more than any other architectural feature, it seems to span the divide between heaven and earth.

Early Gothic: Duccio’s Transfiguration

We can now look at some examples to illustrate the style’s general characteristics. Consider this painting of the Transfiguration by Duccio di Buoninsegna, ca. 1308-11.

This painting has many characteristics of iconographic art. Christ, the most important figure, is the largest; the mountain, which in nature would dwarf any of those present, is significantly smaller. Through these differing relative sizes, the hierarchy of being is communicated: Christ is the highest, and inanimate mountains the lowest. There is no scenery beyond what is necessary to the narrative; anything superfluous to the spiritual message is omitted. All the figures have halos, and Christ has gold-leaf lines on his garment, indicating that even his clothes shine with the heavenly, uncreated light. All of this is strongly iconographic.

However, here is the departure: the figure of John in the center is shown in profile. Duccio has done this to visually connect John with Christ. He wants to show John looking at Christ; given that John is closer to us than Jesus, to look at him John would have to turn away, and we would see only the back of his head. Duccio does not want that, so he uses the pictorial device of portraying John looking directly upward, as though Christ were physically above him and both were in the plane of the painting, which forces him into profile. A conventional iconographic portrayal of the Transfiguration would show the central figure, John, looking towards us, and away from Christ in shock, to avoid depicting him in profile.

Lorenzetti’s Deposition

The Deposition from the Cross by Pietro Lorenzetti, an artist from Siena, was painted in 1320 in the basilica of St Francis of Assisi, and is a good illustration of the distinction between the iconographic and Gothic.

As with Duccio’s Transfiguration, this painting has many figures in profile. This allows Lorenzetti to place them in close proximity to one another, so that each can participate in a beautiful, rhythmical, and flowing design as a harmonious expression of love. While intimacy between two figures can be conveyed in the iconographic style (the Mother of God and Christ are often portrayed cheek to cheek), it is very difficult to show so many figures connected in such an intimate way, each acknowledging the others’ presence, without showing them in profile. This enhanced emotional register is characteristic of Gothic painting generally. The emotion of the figures should be distinguished from the modern concept of ‘self-expression’ or from the artist’s passion. Lorenzetti’s goal is not to tell us what he feels; it is to portray what the figures depicted felt.

Matthew Paris and the English School

Matthew Paris was an English monk who lived at St Albans, in southern England, in the 13th century. We have many examples of his pen-and-ink sketches, which include direct observations of the natural world around him. He also illuminated psalters, including the Westminster Psalter. The image below is taken from a manuscript, the Life of St Alban, depicting Heraclitus taking down St Alban’s head.

His style is characteristic of English art of the period, in which form is described by line almost to the exclusion of tonal description. He controls the quill pen with great assurance, creating smooth, rhythmically flowing lines and varying its darkness and width to draw the viewer’s eye to the most important parts of the composition. The coloration and shading are restrained, which gives his images a symbolic quality appropriate to sacred art. Many wall paintings of this period can still be found in English churches, including St Albans Cathedral itself, that follow this basic structure. Because it is reminiscent of modern illustration and animation art, familiar to and popular with so many people today, this is a form that 21st-century artists could take to easily. It is powerful yet accessible. I teach classes in this style, which I call the School of St Albans, myself.

Next week, in Part 2, I turn to the later Gothic masters: Van der Weyden and Fra Angelico, and the point at which the style begins its transition to the High Renaissance as seen in Ghirlandaio. I also look at how the Gothic’s new appreciation of the natural world gave rise, for the first time, to sculpture as a fully three-dimensional art form, and to portraiture and landscape as distinct genres in their own right.