A Missal for the Use of Braga, 1558

Recently when visiting Milwaukee, I met a friend for coffee, who after we sat down pulled out from a box three marvelous treasures: a 1558 missal for the Use of Braga ; a 1616 Missale Romanum printed in Antwerp; and a liturgical Ordo from 1681, owned by a cardinal. Not usually a shutterbug, I could not resist taking some photos of these lovely liturgical books to share with NLM readers (in three separate posts).

I will offer simple commentary here. Those who wish to read more about the Use of Braga should visit this dedicated website and search on NLM for “Braga.” Enjoy the show-and-tell! (As always, click the photos to enlarge them.)

The frontispiece

The liturgical calendar for January

The liturgical calendar for September

A diagram for calculating the liturgical cycle

Introit for the First Sunday of Advent

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Iconographic Style, #2: Images Not Made with Human Hands

Does an icon truly resemble our heavenly destiny, or only symbolize it — and what does Our Lady of Guadalupe tell us about the answer?

This is the second of two related articles on the iconographic tradition. In the first, I set out the history of the style, the modern myths surrounding it, and the theology that accounts for its visual language. Here I turn to a question that the tradition raises but cannot settle from within: does an icon actually resemble our heavenly destiny, or is it only a consistent system of symbols? The strongest evidence, I will argue, comes from the images said to be “not made by human hands”, and above all from that of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

As I described the various elements of the visual vocabulary of icons in the previous article, a question naturally arises: does what we see in these images correspond to what Christ and the saints actually appear to be in heaven? Or might it be an internally consistent system of visual symbolism that successfully communicates an idea of the eschaton without actually resembling our heavenly destiny? We cannot know that for certain until we arrive there.

However, the strongest argument for a genuine visual correspondence comes from the existence of icons “not made by human hands.” In the East, we have the Mandylion, whose legendary origin involves a cloth that received the image of Christ’s face through direct contact with him during his public ministry. In the West, the Veronica cloth serves as its parallel: a separate tradition holds that Saint Veronica offered her veil to wipe the sweat and blood from Jesus’ face as he carried the cross, miraculously imprinting his features upon it. Both relics are said to be acheiropoieta (images not made by human hands), and although their originals are now lost, numerous later icons and copies based on these prototypes survive. What is striking is how closely each corresponds to the same iconographic type. The name Veronica, incidentally, derives from the Latin vera icon, meaning “true image.”

Among these revealed images is another Western example: the famous Our Lady of Guadalupe. It contains details clearly derived from Aztec culture, others from traditional Christian culture, and some not normally associated with the Spanish Christian culture of the time. What is remarkable is how these disparate elements are combined to form a unified image that has retained its power of appeal across centuries. The image, given to St Juan Diego, a poor Aztec man in 16th-century Mexico, caused millions to convert. It persuaded both the Aztecs and the occupying Spaniards, and continues to draw devotion from Christians around the world.

The elements related to Aztec culture are as follows. Our Lady’s hairstyle, with the central parting, was the sign of a maiden and a virgin. The ribbon and bow around her waist signified pregnancy. The quatrefoil roses articulated in sepia lines on the pale brown-ochre shawl signified royalty. Aztecs looking at this image would have recognized the meaning of these features immediately.

But the image spoke to the Aztecs about more than their own culture, because it also contained elements drawn from traditional Christian iconography, elements that are universal, speaking to all people of Christ. These were noticed by the 16th-century Spaniards and have connected with Christians from all over the world ever since.

The blue shawl, for example, is a common color for Mary’s outer robe, said to denote royalty; Marian chapels have traditionally had their walls painted blue. The eight-pointed stars represent her connection with the ‘eighth day’ of Creation, her Son, Jesus Christ, who rose on the eighth day of the week. Stars are not the only heavenly bodies represented; the moon appears as well, in accordance with the description of the woman of the Apocalypse, who stands upon an upturned crescent moon.

Another feature of particular interest is the nimbus of light surrounding her whole person. The account of the woman in the Book of Revelation describes her as ‘clothed in the sun,’ and the golden nimbus might correspond to this. But I would suggest that its presence here indicates more specifically Christ’s presence within her womb: it is there not so much for the God-bearer as for God himself, whom she bears. This is the visual means of indicating that Our Lady is with child, the divine child, and it complements the Aztec symbolism of pregnancy, the bow and ribbon. Had this image not also spoken to the Spanish occupiers, no one would have taken St Juan Diego seriously.

Look closely at the gold field that surrounds her. This is not, as one might first suppose, a series of bright gold rays emanating from Our Lady. Rather, it is a series of dark rays on a gold background, the outer limits describing the mandorla shape, a smooth almond. This mandorla darkens as we move toward its center, exactly as the mandorla around Christ in the Transfiguration icon does. It is worth noting that some later copies of this icon get this detail wrong, inverting the shading direction. Here, for comparison, is one painted around 1700; note the inversion of the shading of the mandorla, compared with the original.

The Transfigured Christ, fresco by Aidan Hart, Lancaster, England, 21st century

All the constituent elements of the image – including aspects not described here, particular to time and place as well as universal in their appeal – are combined to create a composition of remarkable persuasive power. Their presence together creates a paradox: if the artist is not divine, then we have indeed a mortal artist of extraordinary gifts, one simultaneously conversant with Aztec culture, Scripture, and the traditional Christian iconographic tradition that was not then fashionable in 16th-century Spain. Someone with this particular profile would have been very difficult to find in Mexico in 1531.

Considering the style of the image: although it could never be mistaken for a Byzantine icon, it is nevertheless broadly in accordance with the iconographic prototype. This makes theological sense, since the iconographic style is the style of eschatological man, and Our Lady is portrayed in glory in heaven; it would be a most appropriate style for her apparition. In accordance with the iconographic tradition, there is no strong cast shadow; the image is defined predominantly by line rather than tone. If this were not a revealed image, our hypothetical artist would be not only a painter and a theologian of considerable insight, in addition to everything else already noted, but one who understood that the iconographic tradition was the most fitting for her representation, and who had sufficient mastery of its principles to apply them with legitimate modifications suited to the Spanish and Aztec context. His familiarity with the iconographic prototype in the case of the mandorla was, it seems, greater than that of at least some of his contemporaries, judging from the errors made in later copies.

If, on the other hand, we accept the tradition that this is an authentic icon not made by human hands, painted in a manner of speaking by the hand of God, then its remarkable degree of conformity to the iconographic tradition is itself evidence of how authentic and true a reflection of reality that tradition is. This, together with the other acheiropoieta, is among the strongest arguments for the authenticity of the iconographic style. The tradition was developed by faithful Christians in the first centuries of the Church, and we have every reason to believe they were divinely guided in that work.

Symbols of the Four Evangelists

In Jewish tradition, the vision which the Prophet Ezekiel has in the first chapter of his book is called by the Hebrew word “merkabah – a chariot”, even though this word does not occur in the text itself. The ancient rabbis placed the study and interpretation of this chapter, which is difficult to understand in any language, under a special restriction; St Jerome knew of this, as he writes in the prologue of his commentary on Ezekiel:

I shall undertake (a commentary on) the prophet Ezekiel, whose difficulty the Hebrew tradition proves. For among them, unless one has completed the age of priestly ministry, that is, his thirtieth year, he is not permitted to read the beginning of Genesis, nor the Song of Songs, nor the beginning or end of this book…

The Talmud therefore mentions that when one rabbi once offered to explain the passage to another, the latter replied “I am not old enough.”

The Vision of Ezekiel, by Raphael, 1518

The Christian tradition that the four animals which Ezekiel sees in the midst of the “chariot” are prophetic symbols of the four Evangelists is first recorded in the writings of St Irenaeus of Lyon towards the end of the second century. The order in which he explains them, however, is different from that which is now commonly received. In his treatise “Against the Heresies” (3.11.8), he is concerned to prove that there are only four Gospels which authentically witness to the life of Christ, as opposed to the many Gospels of the Gnostics whom he seeks to refute; and moreover, that these four were prophesied in the Old Testament. He therefore explains the four-faced cherubim which Ezekiel sees in his tenth chapter by the words of Psalm 79, “Thou that sittest upon the Cherubim, be made manifest.” “…the Word, the maker of all, He that sitteth upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.”

He then takes the lion as the symbol of St John, representing the power of the Word in the creation and ruling of the world; the ox, an animal of priestly sacrifice, as the symbol of Luke, who begins his Gospel with the priest Zachariah; the man as the symbol of St Matthew, who begins with Christ’s human genealogy; and the eagle as the symbol of Mark, who begins “with the prophetical spirit coming down from on high to men, saying, ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet,’ … and on this account he made a compendious and cursory narrative, for such is the prophetical character.”

St Augustine accepted this symbolic explanation of these animals, but proposes what he calls “a more reasonable application of the figures” than that made by St Irenaeus and others, without critiquing anyone by name. In his book On the Harmony of the Gospels (1.6.9), he refers the lion, the king of the beasts, to Matthew, who speaks about Christ’s royal descent from King David, and tells us that the Magi called Him “the King of the Jews.” The man is referred to Mark, “who handles the things which the man Christ did”, and the ox to Luke for the same reason as Irenaeus. Since the first three animals “have their course upon this earth, (i.e., they walk and do not fly) … in like manner, those three evangelists occupy themselves chiefly with the things which Christ did in the flesh … Whereas John … soars like an eagle above the clouds of human infirmity, and gazes upon the light of the unchangeable truth (i.e. the divinity of Christ) with those keenest and steadiest eyes of the heart.” This last part refers to a common belief in the ancient world that eagles could look directly at the sun.

Folio 27v of the Books of Kells, ca. 800, showing the Symbols of the Four Evangelists.

It is to St Jerome that we owe the formation of this tradition as we now hold it, in which the man, lion, ox and eagle, are the symbols respectively of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In the prologue of his commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew, he writes that

The book of Ezekiel also proves that these four Gospels were foretold long before, in which the first vision is formed thus: “And in the midst thereof the likeness of four living creatures: and the countenance thereof, the face of a man, and the face of a lion, and the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle.” The first face of the man signifies Matthew, who began to write as of a man, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” The second is Mark, in which the voice of a lion roaring in the desert is heard, “A voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” The third is that of the ox, who prefigures the Evangelist Luke, who took his beginning from the priest Zachariah. The fourth is the Evangelist John, who taking the wings of an eagle, and hastening to higher matters, treats of the Word of God.

This order is repeated exactly, and for the same reasons, by St Gregory the Great at the beginning of his fourth homily on Ezekiel. Jerome then confirms the prophetic meaning of the vision by reference to the appearance of the same four animals in the fourth chapter of the Apocalypse, that “are full of eyes, and rested not day and night, saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.’ ” The animals in the chariot in Ezekiel 1, and the cherubim in chapter ten are both described as “full of eyes.” He goes to make the same point first made by Irenaeus: “By all these things, it is clearly shown that only the four Gospels ought to be received, and all the ditties of the apocrypha ought to be sung by the heretics, who are dead, rather than by the living men of the Church.”

Detail of the St John Altarpiece by Hans Memling, 1474-79, showing the vision of St John in Apocalypse 4.

Part of Ezekiel’s vision, 1, 10-14, is read as the Epistle at the Masses of Ss Matthew and Mark, but not those of Ss Luke or John. (It has been removed from the lectionary of the post-Conciliar rite.) In the Tridentine Breviary, Ezekiel, 1, 1-12 is read at Matins of Ss Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the whole of Apocalypse 4 is read on the Octave of St John. This is the limit of the liturgical use of these passages on the feasts of the Evangelists. In its habitual conservatism, the Roman Breviary has proper readings for the Evangelists at Matins, but uses the common office of Apostles for everything else; St John has a mostly proper Office, but the other three do not. None of the proper musical texts (antiphons, hymns, responsories) of St John’s office or the common of Apostles cites either of these passages.

There does exist, however, a more complete proper office of the Evangelists, which is found in the Breviaries of the Dominican, Carmelite and Premonstratensian Orders, and most medieval Uses. It has nine responsories, all of which quote the visions of Ezekiel, although these were not received by the Dominicans. It also includes these three major antiphons, for the Magnificat of both Vespers and for the Benedictus at Lauds, which refer explicitly to the tradition of the four animals as symbols of the Evangelists.

Ad Magn. Aña Ecce ego Joannes vidi ostium apertum in caelo; et ecce sedes posita erat in eo, et in medio sedis et in circuitu ejus quattuor animalia plena oculis ante et retro: et dabant gloriam et honorem et benedictionem sedenti super thronum, viventi in saecula saeculorum.
At the Magnificat of First Vespers Behold, I, John, saw a door was opened in heaven, and behold there was a throne set in heaven, and in the midst of the throne, and round about it were four living creatures, full of eyes before and behind; and they gave glory, and honor, and blessing to him that sitteth on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever.

Ad Bened. Aña In medio et in circuitu sedis Dei quattuor animalia senas alas habentia, oculis undique plena, non cessant nocte ac die dicere: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus omnipotens, qui erat et qui est, et qui venturus est.
At the Benedictus In the midst and round about the throne of God, four living creatures, having wings, full of eyes on all sides, rest not day and night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.

Ad Magn. Aña Tua sunt haec, Christe, opera, qui sanctos tuos ita glorificas, ut etiam dignitatis gratiam in eis futuram praeire miraculis facias: tu insignes Evangelii praedicatores animalium caelestium admirabili figura praesignasti: his namque caeleste munus collatum gloriosis indiciis es dignatus ostendere: hinc laus, hinc gloria tibi resonet in saecula.
At the Magnificat of Second Vespers These are Thy works, o Christ, who so glorify Thy Saints, that Thou also cause the grace of dignity that will be in them to be first preceded by miracles. Thou marked beforehand the wondrous preachers of the Gospel by the marvelous figure of the heavenly animals; for by these glorious signs, Thou deigned to show the heavenly gift given to them; hence let praise, hence glory resound to Thee forever.

Dr. Kwasniewski’s Midwest Lecture Tour, Sept. 30 - Oct. 4

I am pleased to announce here at NLM my upcoming Midwest Lecture Tour (taking Midwest in a rather broad sense). Click on the images to see the details.

September 30 • Burr Ridge, Illinois (Chicago area): “Why Divine Woship Needs the Power of Non-Verbal Language”

October 1 • Ambridge, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh area): “Exploring the Common Riches of the Byzantine Rite and the Roman Rite”

October 2 • Catholic Identity Conference (Pittsburgh)*: “The Traditional Latin Mass: What Truly Unites All the Clans”

(To register for the CIC, visit this link.)

October 4 • Carmel, Indiana (Indianapolis area)*: “Not Peacenik and Bambi-Lover, but Mystic of the Mass and Defender of the Eucharist: Discovering the True St. Francis of Assisi” (N.B. This will be the 800th anniversary of the death of the great saint!)

(To register for this event, which includes dinner, go to this link.)

Each event will feature a talk followed by a Q&A and booksigning.

All details are found on the attached posters. Looking forward to meeting old friends and new.

(*CIC and Carmel events require registration; the other two are free & open to the public.)

Durandus on the Book of Judith

As the book of Judith is read, we sing of how victory was given by the hand of a woman, and by this, the Church exhorts us to holiness, that is, to continence, by the example of Judith. For just as she killed Holofernes, a name which means, “he who weakens the fatted calf,” so does the Church advise us to kill Holofernes, that is, the devil, who weakens and kills the lustful in this world; and this will be done through holiness, by cutting off his head. For the head of the devil is lustfulness, because it is, as it were, the first way he begins to tempt men. Therefore does the Lord say, “Let your loins be girded” (Luke 12, 35), that is, gird yourselves against the first vice, according to that which is said in Exodus concerning the eating of the Paschal lamb (12, 11), “Ye shall gird your loins.” But in another sense, pride is the beginning of every sin. (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, VI, 128, 1)

Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1612-13, by the Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654)

Our friend Durandus is here working on an exegetical tradition by which the general Holofernes in his drunkenness symbolizes the various ways in which the carnal vices weaken the spirit, and is therefore defeated by Judith, the virtuous widow who “fasted all the days of her life, apart from sabbaths and new moons and the feasts of the house of Israel.” This is the common tradition of the Fathers, as exemplified by the readings from St Ambrose’s book “On Elijah and fasting” which follow the opening of the book in the breviary: “For (Judith), girt with fasting, went forth into the camps of the foreigners; (Holofernes) lay buried with wine, such that he could not even feel the blow of the wound (that killed him). Therefore, the fasting of a single woman laid low countless armies of the Assyrians.”

Durandus also alludes briefly to a later development by which Holofernes and the king whose ambition he serves, Nebuchadnezzar, become principally symbols of pride, and hence of the devil. This is exemplified in the first Latin commentary on the book of Judith, written by the Blessed Rabanus Maurus in the first half of the 9th century. “Why is it that Nebuchadnezzar, filled with wrath, and lifted up by the pride of arrogance, promises that he will avenge himself upon those who resist him, and boasts that he wishes to subject all the earth to his rule, if not that the devil, stirred up by his own pride, promises to himself the rule of all the world, and strives with all his might to draw men away from the due worship (of God), and make them share in his wickedness?” Judith therefore represents the contrary virtue of humility: “...the divine power, through the humility and simplicity of its faithful, overcomes the throng of the enemy, beats it down and scatters it; for the beauty and brightness of all the virtues, which shone forth in the speech of this Judith, and likewise in her works, was the cause of the greatest ruin to the enemies.”

Judith Presents the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1660, by the Italian painter Mattia Preti (1613-99)

The Hymn of the Ember Saturday Masses

At all four of the Ember Saturday Masses, the fifth Old Testament reading is the same, taken from the third chapter of Daniel, in which the three young men, Ananiah, Azariah and Misael, are thrown into a furnace as punishment for refusing to worship the statue of the Babylonian Emperor. This is the single most frequently represented Biblical story in pre-Constantinian Christian art, since it reflects exactly the situation of the Christians in the Roman Empire, who were persecuted for refusing to worship the statue of the Roman Emperor. (Already in the New Testament, Babylon, the persecutor of the Jews, is twice taken as a symbol of Rome, the persecutor of the Christians: in 1 Peter 5, 13, and six times in the Apocalypse.) The universal custom of singing the canticle which the children sing in the furnace, the Benedicite, as part of the Divine Office, also attests to its great significance for the ancient Church.

Detail of a Christian sarcophagus of the Constantinian period (ca. 305-335), known as the Sarcophagus of Adelphia, discovered in the church of St John in Syracuse, Sicily, in 1872. On the far left, the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar points to a bust of himself set on a column, the gesture by which he commands the three children to worship it. Even though the Biblical text states quite unmistakably that the Emperor made an enormous “statue”, in early Christian art, it is usually represented as a bust on a column, since that it what the Romans used. (On the right side are represented the Miracle at Cana and one of the three Magi.Image from Wikimedia Commons by Davide Mauro; CC BY-SA 4.0)

The reading consists of only five verses, Daniel 3, 47-51, which are presented in a slightly different order from that of the Biblical text, as noted below; the words in italics are paraphrased from verse 46. (We may note in passing that no historical Christian lectionary presents all of its readings according to the strict letter of the Bible itself.)

Lectio Daniélis Prophétae. In diébus illis: 49 Angelus Dómini descendit cum Azaría et sociis ejus in fornácem: et excussit flammam ignis de fornáce, 50a et fecit medium fornácis quasi ventum roris flantem. 47 Flamma autem effundebátur super fornácem cúbitis quadraginta novem: 48 et erúpit, et incendit, quos répperit juxta fornácem de Chaldáeis, ministros regis, qui eam incendébant. 50b Et non tétigit eos omníno ignis, neque contristávit, nec quidquam molestiae íntulit. 51 Tunc hi tres quasi ex uno ore laudábant, e glorificábant, et benedicébant Deum in fornáce, dicentes:

A reading of the Prophet Daniel. In those days, 49 the angel of the Lord went down with Azarias and his companions into the furnace: and he drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, 50a And made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew. 47 And the flame mounted up above the furnace nine and forty cubits: 48 and it broke forth, and burnt such of the Chaldeans as it found near the furnace, the ministers of the king who were heating it. 50b And the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm. 51 Then these three as with one mouth praised, and glorified, and blessed God in the furnace, saying:

It ends abruptly (and should always be chanted without the notes that indicate the conclusion) to segue into the following hymn, the only case where a reading is followed by a hymn instead of a gradual, tract, or alleluia. The text is closer to that of the Septuagint version, and the Old Latin version which depended upon it, rather than the Vulgate. The words “and praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages” are very cleverly incorporated into the doxology.

Benedictus es, Dómine, Deus patrum nostrórum. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.	Blessed art Thou, o Lord, God of our fathers, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Et benedictum nomen glo- riae tuae, quod est sanctum. Et laudábile et gloriósum in sáecula.	And blessed is the name of Thy glory, which is holy, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Benedictus es in templo sancto gloriae tuae. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.	Blessed art Thou in the holy temple of Thy glory, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Benedictus es super thronum sanctum regni tui. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.	Blessed art Thou upon the holy throne of Thy kingdom, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Benedictus es super sceptrum divinitátis tuae. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.	Blessed art Thou upon the scepter of Thy divinity, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Benedictus es, qui sedes super Chérubim, íntuens abyssos. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.	Blessed art Thou who sittest upon the Cherubim, looking upon the depths, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Benedictus es, qui ámbulas su- per pennas ventórum et super undas maris. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.	Blessed art Thou who walkest upon the wings of the winds, and upon the waves of the sea, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Benedícant te omnes Angeli et Sancti tui. Et laudent te et gloríficent in sáecula.	Let all Thy Angels and Saints bless Thee, And praise Thee, and glorfy Thee unto the ages.
Benedícant te caeli, terra, mare, et omnia quae in eis sunt. Et laudent te et gloríficent in sáecula.	Let the heavens, the earth, the sea and all things that are in them bless Thee, And praise Thee, and glorify Thee unto the ages.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spirítui Sancto. Et laudábili et glorióso in sáecula.	Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sáecula saecu- lórum. Amen. Et laudábili et glorióso in sáecula.	As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. And praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Benedictus es, Dómine, Deus patrum nostrórum. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.	Blessed art Thou, o Lord, God of our fathers, and praiseworthy and glorious unto the ages.

On the Ember Saturday of Pentecost, the reading is the same, but the hymn is replaced with an Alleluia, which is then repeated the following day on the feast of the Holy Trinity. “Alleluia. Benedictus es, Dómine, Deus patrum nostrórum. Et laudábilis et gloriósus in sáecula.”

An Old Documentary about Chartres Cathedral

Here’s another win for the YouTube suggestion algorithm, which showed up after the post which I made on September 10th that included a recent documentary about the cathedral of Chartres: namely, a documentary about the cathedral of Chartres from 63 years ago. The approach is, of course, quite different from that of the modern documentary, but very respectful even where it assumes some of the nostra of the modern age about its own progress and achievements.

This film was made as part of an educational series by the Encyclopedia Britannica, of the kind that used to be shown quite often in schools. The on-sight narrator who appears in the town of Chartres in the first minutes, John Canaday, worked for 1959 until 1976 as an art critic for the New York Times, and shall live in blessed memory for beginning his career there by writing that Abstract Expressionism as an artistic movement allows for “exceptional tolerance for incompetence and deception.”

The Priest’s First Prayer before Holy Communion

Lost in Translation #169

After the Kiss of Peace, the priest prepares for his Holy Communion with two prayers in the Orations style. Both are “shoots that grew from the still living roots of the abandoned Gallican liturgy,” in Jungmann’s colorful formulation. (vol. 2, 344) The first prayer may be found in the ninth-century Sacramentary of Amiens. It is:

Domine Jesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi, qui ex voluntate Patris, cooperante Spiritu Sancto, per mortem tuam mundum vivificasti: líbera me per hoc sacrosanctum Corpus et Sanguinem tuum ab omnibus iniquitatibus meis et universis malis: et fac me tuis semper inhaerere mandatis, et a te numquam separari permittas: Qui cum eodem Deo Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivis et regnas, Deus, in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Which I translate as:

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who, according to the will of the Father, with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, has given life to the world by Thy death; deliver me by this, Thy sacrosanct Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from all evils; and make me always cleave to Thy commandments, and permit me never to be separated from Thee, Who live and reign with the same God the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.

To quote Nicholas Gihr, “This prayer [is] as solid and comprehensive as it is brief and simple.” (p. 726) The opening address to the Son of God is a marvelous compendium of New Testament theology. Jesus is, as St. Peter confesses, “the Son of the living God,” (Matt. 16, 19) who does the will of His Father (Luke 22, 42), and He does so with the help of the Holy Spirit. Cooperante Spiritu Sancto is a faint echo of a verse about Jesus after He ascended into Heaven:

But [the Apostles] going forth preached everywhere: the Lord working withal (Domino cooperante) and confirming the word with signs that followed. (Mark 16, 20)

Cooperante Spiritu Sancto is an ablative absolute, which in this case involves a present active participle in the ablative case. In English it is common to translate an ablative absolute with a noun, as I do here with “cooperation of the Holy Spirit.” The original Latin, however, is livelier since it leaves open the possibility that the Holy Spirit’s cooperation with the Father and the Son is ongoing. I am not fond of the 2011 ICEL translation “and the work of the Holy Spirit” because it loses this sense of collaboration between all three Divine Persons.

The petition of the prayer is threefold:

First, deliver me from all my iniquities and all evils. The use of libera ties the prayer back to the final petition of the Lord’s Prayer and the Embolism, which is why I believe that it should be translated as “deliver me” rather than ICEL’s “free me.” And the prayer seeks deliverance from all my iniquities as well as all evils in general, that is, the evil persons, things, and events outside of me. It is a comprehensive request.

And the prayer asks for deliverance through Christ’s sacrosanct Body and Blood. Sacrosanctus refers to something that is both sacred (sacer) and holy (sanctus), and the Eucharist is one of the few things that fits within this Venn diagram: as the really present living Christ, the Eucharist is eminently holy; and it also extremely sacred, that is, set apart for divine use and handled with great reverence. And yet Anglophone translators have developed a bad habit of picking only one of these attributes and then putting it into the superlative (which is absent from the Latin). ICEL and several preconciliar hand Missals have “your most holy Body and Blood” while other preconciliar Missals have “your most sacred Body and Blood.” Referring to Christ’s Body and Blood as sacrosanct, incidentally, also occurs in the prayer Supplies te rogamus.

Second and third, the priest asks to cleave (inhaerere) to Christ’s commandments and never to be separated from Him. There is a pleasing contrast between cleaving/clinging/sticking and separating. The diction may be an echo of Joshua 22, 5:

Love the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, and keep all his commandments, and cleave to him (adhaereatisque ei), and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

And there is something almost spiritually romantic about the image of cleaving, thanks to Genesis 2, 24:

Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.

Robert Bowyer (1758-1834), Creation of Eve

The Vulgate uses adhaerere here and elsewhere to translate the Hebrew dabaq or “cleave.” Technically, inhaerere is stronger (“ad-here” is to stick to while “in-here” is to stick into), but they tend to be used interchangeably. In a way, the priest is asking for the same thing to happen to him as is about to happen to Christ. Just as the Eucharist is about to stick to the priest’s flesh (as we will learn from a later prayer) and become one with it, so too does the priest ask to be utterly absorbed into Christ’s commandments and become one with them and with Him. It is a striking statement of self-surrender and communion.

These nuances, in my opinion, are lost in the 2011 ICEL translation:

keep me always faithful to your commandments,

and never let me be parted from you.

The Rite of the Transitus of Saint Francis: Restoring True Devotion to One of the Church’s Most Beloved Saints

On this feast of the Stigmata of St Francis, we are very glad to share this announcement sent to us by Fr Johannes Smith, about the rite of the Transitus of St Francis, a commemoration of the Saint’s death celebrated on the evening before his feast day. It includes links to a free booklet of music traditionally sung at this rite.

This year marks the eighth centenary of the “Transitus” (i.e. “Passing”) of one of the most familiar and yet least understood saints of the Church. In one sense, Francis of Assisi is a figure who requires little introduction. Countless churches and shrines are dedicated to him, and hundreds of canonized saints, blessed, and venerable of the Church have worn his habit, professed his Rule, and followed in his footsteps. In recent times, however, Saint Francis has often been misrepresented, not only by those outside the Order he founded, but even – tragically! – by those who outwardly profess to be the heirs to his spiritual legacy.

A fresco in the basilica of St Francis in Assisi, ca. 1320, by Pietro Lorenzetti, known as “the Sunset Madonna” because the rays of the setting sun illuminate it for about an hour at the end of each day. The traditional story about the arrangement of the figures is that the Christ Child is asking his Mother, “Which of My Saints loves Me the most?”, to which the Madonna answers by pointing at St Francis, as if to say “He does.”

Saint Francis was described by Julian von Speyer, the Franciscan friar who composed the proper Divine Office of his feast day, as “Vir Catholicus et totus apostolicus – a Catholic and wholly apostolic man,” Charged by Christ with the sacred mission of rebuilding the Church, “which, as you can see, is falling into ruins,” the real Saint Francis speaks to us of the unchanging truths of the Gospel and invites men in every age to live that Gospel to the hilt.

Like his Lord and Master, Saint Francis was a “sign of contradiction” whose life of heroic poverty and apostolic zeal shook the consciences of the men of his time. Though never ordained to the priesthood, for he regarded himself unworthy of so sublime a calling, his earliest devotees referred to Saint Francis as an “Alter Christus,” another Christ, who revealed the Lord’s Face once again to a prosperous and bustling new world that was in grave danger of forgetting its Redeemer. During the saint’s own lifetime, the Order he founded spread to the far corners of the known world, with missions throughout Europe and in the Holy Land, a group of protomartyrs who shed their blood in an attempt to convert the Saracens of Morocco, and with a constellation of beloved saints, including Clare of Assisi and Anthony of Padua. In the centuries that followed, the spiritual sons and daughters of Saint Francis carried on his mission, with its Christocentric and intensely Marian spirituality, leaving an indelible imprint on the piety, history, liturgy, and theology of the Church.

I would like to propose one small contribution that your parish or oratory can make to the work of rebuilding authentic devotion to this wondrous saint. Saint Mary of the Angels Press has prepared a free, downloadable new edition of the Rite of the Transitus, taken from the Romano-Seraphic Ritual, which can be celebrated on the evening of October 3rd. Among the rites that have developed in the saint’s honor through the centuries, this is one of the most beautiful and evocative. The traditional rite, which has fallen into disuse in many Franciscan communities, begins with a candle-lit procession to the altar or chapel of the saint, the veneration of his relic (or a sacred image if no relic is present), and then a series of chants and prayers. These include the Psalm that Saint Francis asked the friars to recite at his deathbed (Psalm 141 in the Vulgate numbering), together with the antiphon O Sanctissima anima and the hymn Salve, Sancte Pater. This free edition is formatted for easy printing and distribution on a regular photocopier. It includes all the original chants and prayers, newly type-set, together with English translations to aid the reader who is not proficient in Latin.

The Appendices include a series of readings from the early biographies of the saint, together with another scriptural passage which Saint Francis had the friars read to him shortly before his death: the Gospel account of Our Lord washing the Apostles’ feet during the Last Supper, John 13, 1-17. These readings are useful for meditation, and selections could even be inserted at various points during the Rite.

You can download the PDF file from the ‘Free Downloads’ page at the publisher’s website: https://www.smapress.org/

If your budding Chant Schola needs a little help learning the chants, you can find free audio recordings on the ‘Music’ page of the same website, courtesy of the Chant Schola at Saint Mary’s Church in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania: https://www.smapress.org/music-1

May the eighth centenary of the passing of Saint Francis help us to rediscover the true face of this man who, in turn, will help us to rediscover the true Face of Christ.

The Desert Great-Great Grandfathers

One stumbles across the most remarkable things on the internet. Today I learned that September 17 is the feast day of an Orthodox Saint named Joachim, a Chalcedonian Patriarch of Alexandria, (previously a monk of the famous monastery of St Catherine on Mt Sinai,) who is said to have been elected in 1486 at the age of about 38, and died on this day in 1567 at the age of 119, after serving for 80 years. And while this is the record for the longest tenure in the Orthodox See of Alexandria by a huge margin (and possibly in any bishopric in history, but see comments below), nine others have reigned for more than 30 years.

His Holiness Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria from 1971 to 2012. At 40 years and 4 months, his reign is the 4th or 5th longest among the Coptic Popes. (The uncertainty depends on the poorly documented tenure of John XIII, who reigned from 1484-1524, also 40 years.) This photograph was taken during the consecration of the Coptic church of Ss Mary and George on Staten Island, New York, on Aug. 12, 2007. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Mark Sleman of Hope Pictures LLC, CC BY 3.0)

Among the Patriarchs of Alexandria who lived before the post-Chalcedonian schism, two passed the 30-year mark: St Demetrius I, known as ‘the Vinedresser’, whose reign began in 189 and lasted for somewhere between 35 and 43 years, and St Athanasius the Great, at 45 years (328-73). Theodosius I, the last Patriarch to be acknowledged as such by both the Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians, reigned for 31 years, 535-66. Since then, ten Coptic Popes have ruled for more than 30 years; the record holder among them, Cyril V, sat on the throne of St Mark from 1874-1927, a span 52 years and 9 months. By contrast, among the Popes of Rome, there have only been two whose reign was longer than 30 years: St Peter himself (32 years, according to one version of the traditional reckoning), and Bl. Pius IX (1846-78), at 31 years and 7 months. The current Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, is the only one to have passed the 30-year mark; he will celebrate his 35th anniversary on October 22. (This is, incidentally, the feast day of St John Paul II, who was crowned on that day in 1978, 6 days after his election.)

In St Joachim’s time, both the Orthodox Church in Egypt and the much larger Coptic Church had been reduced to a pitiable state by relentless persecution on the part of the Muslim Arabs who ruled the country. And in fact, one of the most notable things about his reign is the fact that during it, in 1517, Egypt was conquered by the Turks. The persecution of Egyptian Christians was then mostly ended by a decree of the Ottoman Sultan which gave them a much greater degree of liberty and protection than they had had under the Mamluk Sultanate.

But these persecutions especially affected the kinds of institutions that would have preserved some verifiable record of Joachim’s age, such as parishes and monasteries. As a result, the tradition about his age and the length of his reign has not been proved or disproved, and mostly likely cannot be. No one will be surprised at this. Sed contra, there doesn’t seem to be much doubt or dispute about the dates of either his predecessor or successor, and the 15th century is very late to be losing a whole patriarch or two.

In any case, my very random discovery of this story got me thinking about some things. All these remarkably long-reigning patriarchs were monks, since, of course, bishops are only elected from among the monastic clergy in the East. And this reminded me of a story told to me by a relative about visiting a Trappist monastery. One of the monks was a friend of a friend, and she had heard that he was quite elderly; seeing him approach them from a distance, she was very surprised that his walk seemed to be that of a very much younger man.

The Isenheim Altarpiece, by Matthias Grünewald (ca. 1470-1528), ca. 1515. Left panel, the Visit of St Anthony to St Paul; right panel, the Temptation of St Anthony, based on chapters 8 and 9 of St Athanasius’ Life of St Anthony, which give vivid descriptions of the demonic attacks which St Anthony suffered, and have inspired many rather wild artistic depictions. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Then I remembered that hagiographical skeptics have sometimes alleged that the life of a particular Saint is unreliable because it claims that he lived to an extreme old age. For example, St Jerome reports that St Paul the First Hermit, one of the first great Egyptian ascetics, died at 113. (St Anthony, whom he met at the very end of his life, reached a mere 105.) But again, even if we grant that the reported lifespan of Joachim of Alexandria is an exaggeration, we see how the tremendous austerity of the monastic discipline practiced by the Copts definitely seems to make very long livers of them. So perhaps it really does behoove scholars to be less skeptical on that front.

And this in turn reminded me that one of the “proofs” adduced against the historicity of the Gospels is the significant discrepancies between the genealogies of Our Lord given by St Matthew in his first chapter, and St Luke in his third. But the Church Fathers argued that this could be explained (at least in part) by the differences in the lengths of men’s lives, and this is exactly what we see in the lists of the Roman and Coptic Popes. Clement XIV of Rome (famous as the suppressor of the Jesuits) was elected on May 19, 1769, one day after the death of the Coptic Pope Mark VII. Since then, there have been 19 Roman Popes, but only 12 Coptic ones.

St Satyrus, the Brother of St Ambrose

On the calendar of the Ambrosian Rite, today is the feast of St Satyrus, the brother of St Ambrose. Our only sources for his life are two orations delivered by his brother, one on the day of his death, and the other a week later. We know that he was the second of their parents’ three children, born after a sister named Marcellina (who is also a Saint); this puts his birth somewhere around 335, before his brother’s in about 340, at either Trier, where their father sat as governor of a Roman province, or at Rome. Being of the senatorial aristocracy, both brothers followed in the path of their father’s career and served as governors of Roman provinces, but that assigned to Satyrus is unknown. In 374, when Ambrose was made bishop of Milan, his brother left public office in order to help him with the administration of the diocese, as well as to care for their sister and the family patrimony. St Ambrose praises him for his chastity in terms that clearly indicate that he was not married.

The altar of St Satyrus in the basilica of St Ambrose in Milan.

More than once, these duties required Satyrus to travel to Africa. Like many men of his class and period, whose public responsibilities were difficult to reconcile with the discipline of a Christian life, he long remained a catechumen. (St Ambrose himself was a catechumen at the time of his election as bishop by popular acclamation; the Ambrosian Rite adds a commemoration of his baptism to the Mass of St Andrew the Apostle on November 30, and keeps his principal feast only a week later, on the day of his episcopal ordination.) Ambrose, however, notes the following episode in proof of his strong faith.

On Satyrus’ return from the last of his African trips, his ship was wrecked on shoals just off the coast of either Sicily or Sardinia. Before jumping off the boat, one of his fellow passengers gave him, at his request, a small piece of the Blessed Sacrament, which he then wrapped up in a small cloth, and fastened around his neck. St Ambrose attributes his safe deliverance from the sea to this, noting that Satyrus’ faith in God was so strong that he did not even bother to grab onto one of the planks of the broken vessel. After safely reaching land, he decided to be baptized; he had, however, evidently already contracted the unknown disease which would take his life shortly thereafter. Having returned to Milan, he died in either 378 or 379 in the arms of his siblings.

The Shipwreck of St Satyrus, by Giambattista Tiepolo, 1737; in the chapel entitled to him where his relics were formerly kept, also within the basilica of St Ambrose. 

Ambrose had his brother’s mortal remains placed by those of the martyr St Victor, in a chapel attached to the basilica now named for Ambrose himself, but then called “the Basilica of the Martyrs.” Both Satyrus and Victor were later removed from this chapel, known as “St Victor in the golden heaven”, into a reused pagan sarcophagus. (Victor was later moved again to the basilica named for him with the appellation ‘ad corpus’.) In 1941, an examination of the relics ordered by the Blessed Card. Schuster showed that they are those of a man about 40 years old, quite similar in body type to Ambrose. Since 1980, they have been kept in a crystal urn in the first chapel on the right side of the basilica.

The original location of Satyrus’ burial within the chapel of St Victor.

An inscription which notes the site as the place of his burial, alongside several early martyrs of the church of Milan.

A closer view of the relics as they are today.

Devotion to St Satyrus is first attested in the ninth century, when Anspert, archbishop of Milan, built a small church dedicated to him, his brother, and St Silvester. This was later absorbed into a church constructed by the architect Donatello Bramante in 1476-82, which is still to this known as “St Mary near St Satyrus.” His name first appears in liturgical books of the Ambrosian Rite in the 10th century. In view of his role as his brother’s assistant in the administration of the diocese, he is traditionally honored in Milan as the patron Saint of sacristans.

The story told above about the shipwreck forms a large part of the Ambrosian preface for the Mass of St Satyrus.

Vere quia dignum … aeterne Deus: Tuam incessanter gloriam collaudantes, tuamque in tuis Sanctis magnificentiam prædicantes. Qui talem beato Confessori tuo Satyro virtutum copiam tribuisti, ut germani sui gloriosi Pontificis Ambrosii, Doctoris et magistri Ecclesiarum praecipui, in multis exercitiis consors effectus, fidelissimus et probatissimus athleta Christi Filii tui ipsius industria censeretur. Nam in ipso tirocinio fidei ita clarus enituit, ut inter undas pelagi, cum dissoluta compage navis durum fuisset perpessus excidium, quamvis adhuc nondum Baptismate sancto perfusus, de tuo tamen non esset diffisus auxilio. Sacramentum denique Corporis Dominici sudario inditum collo circumdedit, et se tali remigio fultum spumante aequori committere non dubitavit. Sed tua potentissima dextera, quæ Apostolorum Principem Petrum in fluctibus ne mergeretur erexit, hunc quoque non dissimili potentia illæsum atque incolumem perduxit ad litus. Haec tua est, Domine, totius virtutis operatio. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Per quem majestatem tuam laudant Angeli…

Truly it is worthy… eternal God: unceasingly praising Thy glory, and proclaiming Thy greatness in Thy Saints. Who didst grant Thy blessed confessor Satyrus such an abundance of virtues, that he, having become in many affairs the colleague of his brother, the glorious bishop Ambrose, the foremost doctor and teacher of the churches, was for his diligence deemed a most faithful and excellent champion of Christ, Thy Son. For while yet in the first service of the Faith, he so distinguished himself that amid the waves of the sea, when he would have perished miserably by the wreck of his ship, although he was not yet washed by holy Baptism, he still did not lack for trust in Thy help. Therefore, he placed the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body, enclosed in a cloth, around his neck, and did not hesitate to entrust himself to the frothing sea, supported by such an oar. And Thy most mighty right hand, which in the waves lifted up Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, lest he drown, with like power also brought this man safe and unharmed to the shore. This, o Lord, is the working of the fullness of Thy might. Through the same Christ our Lord. Through whom the angels praise Thy majesty…