Yesterday, the feast of the Most Precious Blood, saw an historic occasion for the preservation of the traditional Roman liturgy. Following a number of sung Slavonic Masses of the Melbourne Croatian chaplaincy in recent years, the Croatian Catholic community of Sydney was blessed with its first ever High Mass according to the traditional Slavonic Missal (i.e., the “Vajs” Missal of 1927). It is believed that this is the first of its kind for the Croatian diaspora of Australia since a High Mass celebrated in Adelaide prior to the Council. (The current owner of the Missal used, Fr Velimir Maglica, was present for this Mass as a child).
For readers unfamiliar with the Glagolitic (or more correctly, Slavonic) Mass, this liturgy traces its origins to the missionary work of Ss Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs. Following much controversy, the Slavic people were eventually afforded the peculiar privilege of celebrating a Western liturgy not in Latin, as was the norm throughout the West, but an adapted form of Slavonic, the historical ancestor of modern Slavic languages such as Croatian, Czech, Polish, and Bulgarian. This liturgy differs not only in language, but all in many aspects of its chant. Despite its origins in the work of the Moravian Mission, it would ultimately be on Croatian lands that this unique use would (until relatively recently) be best preserved.
Australia, though far from this liturgy’s native soil, is home to a sizeable Croatian diaspora, among whom the unique case of the “Glagolitic” Mass, its associated script, and musical heritage are well known and celebrated, though seldom experienced - even despite the fact that its regular celebration still remains a part of living memory (one parishioner, for instance, was able to recall serving Slavonic Masses in one parish and Latin Masses in another). Aside from the local Croatian-Australian contingency, the packed church for yesterday’s celebration included a handful of faithful from overseas, including those who had travelled from as far as Czechia, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Italy.
The Mass was celebrated by Fr Mateusz Markiewicz IBP, who is no stranger to the traditional Slavonic liturgy, having previously offered it for the faithful of Zagreb; the deacon and subdeacon came in from Adelaide and Perth respectively to assist. The Mass featured an Ordinary and Propers fitted to Gregorian melodies and accompanied by organ. More characteristically “Glagolitic” melodies could be heard, for instance, in the Epistle, which was sung according to a traditional tone from the island of Hvar. Altar cards used previously in Melbourne returned to Sydney for the occasion. As for the missal, it was discovered in Zagreb before making its way to Melbourne, and eventually Sydney, where it will remain on loan for future Masses.
Where “nostalgia” remains among the most common charges against the Church’s traditional liturgy, this Mass for the Most Precious Blood testifies to the fact that the traditional rites touch the hearts of the faithful for far deeper reasons. Many if not most present at the liturgy were regulars not of traditional communities, but regular Croatian chaplaincies, and so experienced the traditional rite of Mass for the first time. While the (relative) familiarity of language surely facilitated, it is apparently that the beauty of the rites were a part of the overwhelmingly positive reception, for which reason future celebrations are already being planned. We are very grateful to New Ark Films for sharing these photographs with us.
Dost thou see Elizabeth discussing with Mary, the Mother of God: Why hast Thou come to me, o mother of my Lord? For if I had known, I would have come to meet Thee. For thou bearest Him that reigneth, and I the prophet; Thou the Giver of the Law, and I him that receiveth it; Thou the Word, and I the voice of him that proclaimeth the coming of the Savior. (The ingressa of the Mass of the Visitation in the Ambrosian Rite, also sung at one of the two Masses on the Sixth Sunday of Advent, which has the same Gospel.)
Videsne Elisabeth cum Dei Genitrice Maria disputantem: Quid ad me venisti, mater Domini mei? Si enim scirem, in tuum venirem occursum. Tu enim Regnatorem portas, et ego prophetam: tu legem dantem, et ego legem accipientem: tu Verbum, et ego vocem proclamantis adventum Salvatoris.
The Visitation, 1306, by Giotto, in the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy.
In the Roman liturgy, a corporal is the name given to the square cloth placed on the altar cloth during Holy Mass to lie under the chalice and the host. However, this cloth is not unique to the Roman liturgical tradition; it is found in many ancient traditions, and its purpose is the same everywhere: to prevent even a single crumb or drop of the Holy Body and Blood from dropping to an unworthy place.
The size, colour, and shape of the cloths used in the liturgy – whether rectangular or square – vary greatly, but they share one common feature: they are folded in the same way, always inward from two directions into three sections, to prevent any crumbs of the Eucharist that may be on them from scattering. This is how they are folded according to the Roman tradition and likewise the Copts fold them the same way (they do this with every cloth used on the altar, since they have several), and this is also how the antimension is folded according to the Byzantine tradition.
Byzantine antimensia
The use of a cloth — present in all major liturgical traditions, used on the altar, and in direct contact with the sacred species — and the manner of its folding may suggest that this is an ancient common apostolic practice.
Speculative Origins
But where might the use of the corporal and its characteristic folding method in liturgical traditions originate?
Below, I outline a speculative explanation of origin that is a source of joy for those who live in the faith of the Resurrection, for I propose that the use of the corporal might be traced back to Christ, and might have become an ancient practice of the Church through Saint John.
Saint John’s role is unique among the apostles. He was the only apostle whose distinguishing mark was that he was “whom the Lord loved.” However, the divine love manifested toward him was not an expression of our Lord Christ’s human sympathy, but sprang from God’s justice, for it was a just response to the apostle’s greater love. This is why Saint John was entrusted with the task and honour of caring for the Virgin Mary, and this greater love was also evident in the fact that he was the only apostle present at the crucifixion.
His greater love is also evident in the events following the Resurrection. We see in him with an attitude of respect born of love, for although he ran faster than Peter and thus reached the tomb sooner, he still waited for the older apostle to enter the tomb first. “Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen cloths lying.” We see in him the sensitivity of love, which is why he speaks of the empty tomb from Saint Peter’s perspective, as if he knew it only from Peter’s account: “And the napkin that had been about his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place…”
But the hidden yet most obvious sign of his love is his famous statement: “Then that other disciple also went in, who came first to the sepulchre: and he saw, and believed.”
The reason the Apostle John came to faith more quickly was his greater love. There was something in the empty tomb that St. John describes just as St. Peter saw it, but which Peter did not actually notice, since it was not he who “saw and believed,” but the youngest apostle, whom the Lord loved. And this something was not merely the empty tomb, nor merely the empty linen cloths and the face cloth, but the way the face cloth was laid: separately, folded up. Therefore, it was likely the way it was folded that led Saint John to recognize that Jesus had risen, and he immediately came to faith, the first among the apostles.
Only Jesus could have folded the cloth the way the cloth he saw in the tomb was folded, and only someone who, out of his burning love for the Lord, had observed and cherished in his heart every tiny detail, event, and gesture related to him could have recognized this. This is why Saint John came to faith from such a sign sooner than anyone else.
The Shroud That Led to Faith and the Memories
Without taking into account, refuting, or confirming the various studies and convictions regarding the different cloths, we can state with a clear conscience that when the apostles entered the tomb, they saw, among other things, what we now call the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo.According to my interpretation, St. John may have come to faith upon seeing the Sudarium of Oviedo, which is less well-known today than the Shroud of Turin. A whole series of St. John’s memories might have been connected to this cloth and the way it was folded.
The most immediate memory, of course, was the events following the removal from the cross.Although the Gospels make no mention of Joseph of Arimathea — who purchased the shroud — being present at the execution, he may have been among those watching from a distance, since he was quickly informed of Christ’s death. But if he only saw it from a distance, he might not have known exactly how much Christ’s face had been disfigured by the blows, or that blood was flowing from his nose and mouth; therefore, he might not have prepared a cloth capable of absorbing such a large amount of blood. Therefore, for this purpose, they may have used an everyday piece of clothing that was at hand, that is, a sudarium. This may also explain why this cloth was not made of the same quality of material as the expensive Shroud of Turin purchased by Joseph of Arimathea.
And perhaps this sudarium was precisely the Sudarium of Oviedo, an 84 x 53 cm cloth similar to those commonly used in that era as an accessory to cover the head or neck, which protected against the heat of the sun or, when pulled over the nose, against dust — as can be traced back to the name sudarion, the Middle Eastern scarf known as the sudra.
Whose sudarium might have been at hand beneath the cross? Could it have belonged to Saint John? It may have been his scarf that was placed over the head of the dead Christ to catch the blood flowing from his nose and mouth, perhaps even before he was taken down from the cross.
Perhaps still earlier memories of Christ could have been tied to this sudarium. For example, at an earlier Easter, when the multiplication of the loaves — also described by Saint John — took place, whose “liturgy” was a precursor to the Holy Mass, is it not highly likely that Christ spread out a cloth on the grass, performed the motions of breaking the bread over it, and then called for the collection of the leftovers so that he himself might fold up the cloth after the miracle? And if the apostles had not prepared food for the event (as seems evident from the narrative), the cloth was likely a makeshift solution; perhaps it was even St. John’s sudarium. And if this is what happened, it is no coincidence that the sudarium of the apostle who most deeply contemplated and understood the Eucharist served as the “corporal” during the multiplication of the loaves.
But whether the cloth at hand was his sudarium or another’s, the beloved disciple saw Jesus folding the cloth, and the manner in which He folded it. And who else would have been situated by Providence to observe how Christ folded the sudarium after breaking the bread, if not the most beloved disciple? Moreover, he saw that the way it was folded was not ordinary, since in everyday life one generally does not need to fold a cloth in such a way that nothing falls out of it, not a single crumb.
If St. John truly saw all this and truly remembered it, wouldn’t he have recognized, upon entering the tomb, that his own bloodstained sudarium was not where it had been left, but was set aside separately and folded just as Christ had done after the multiplication of the loaves? And wouldn’t he have known immediately that only Jesus could have folded it that way? And if He folded it, then He lives!
And if the folded sudarium was indeed significant in St. John’s conversion, and reminded him of the way Jesus Himself folded the “corporal” in the foreshadowing of the Holy Mass, isn’t it logical that, based on this sign, he would interpret the way the cloth was folded in the tomb as a call to “do as I have done”? And if he interpreted it this way, wouldn’t he have passed it on to the other disciples? Thus, it would be no surprise that all liturgical traditions fold the corporal in this manner.
Folding the corporal in the Latin Rite (for the benefit of both amateur and professional sacristans, along with the method of cleaning and starching, so that this knowledge may become widespread — accompanied by a sister’s lively commentary):
An introduction to the Byzantine antimension and how it is folded:
Here is another treasure from the website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, a musical collection produced for the abbey of St Martial in Limoges in the first quarter of the 11th century. (Département des Manuscrits, Latin 1121. As explained below, today is the patronal feast of the evangelizer of the Aquitaine region in south-western France for whom the abbey is named.) Different parts of the manuscript was copied and illustrated by various hands; almost all of the illustrations are found within the first 42 folios (out of 247), and there are none after the 90th. It contains a wide variety of the classic medieval liturgical elaborations: tropes, proses, sequences, processional chants etc. While it was produced, Guido of Arezzo, who popularized the use of diastemic notation (i.e. written on a staff) was still alive, but his innovation did not take off everywhere at once, and so here we see the notes written adiastemically. I here include all of the illustrations, and have highlighted them by cropping the pages.
The abbey of St Martial was an extremely important center of musical production, and played an important role in the early development of polyphony; see this article from Wikipedia for more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martial_school
A prose for Christmas, which begins with the words “Quem quaeritis in praesepio – Whom do ye seek in the manger”, a play on the words of the angel at the Lord’s tomb, “Whom do ye seek in the tomb?”
The verso of the same folio.
The feast of St Stephen
An eagle for St John the Evangelist
The Holy Innocents; as is common in medieval liturgical manuscripts, many of the illustrations have no relationship to the feast to which they are attached.
This is the first of two posts on the visual vocabulary of painting – the fundamental elements every artist works with, and how the way those elements are handled is what gives a painting its style, connects it to (or separates it from) a tradition, and marks it as the work of a particular individual. Next week’s post will take up line, tone, and color. This week, we begin with something that underlies all of those: the choice of medium.
Magistrate of Brussels, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish, 17th century, oil on canvas.
The Visual Vocabulary
Vincent van Gogh, oil on canvas, 19th century. Van Gogh uses oil in thick, doughy, opaque layers of paint, a technique called impasto. This is different from the way Rembrandt or Van Dyck used the medium, with thin layers of translucent paint.
Medium
Early in the process, the artist must decide on a medium. Very often, he will have spent years mastering one particular medium and will favor it throughout his career, based on a choice made early in training. The recommendation for an artist seeking mastery is to focus primarily on one medium, then, once it is thoroughly understood, adapt what has been learned to other media. The artist who masters egg tempera first will find it easier to incorporate mosaic, fresco, and even carving into his skill set. The very best artists are capable across many media, but some stay focused on their one favored medium throughout their lives.
For the painter – the example I will use throughout this discussion to illustrate points that apply more generally – oil, watercolor, mosaic, fresco, and so on look very different and have distinct qualities that make them appropriate for some works but not for others.
In nearly every type of paint, the source of color is the same. Yellow ochre, for example, is an iron oxide formed naturally and dug out of the ground. To use it, the artist must find a way to get it to adhere to his chosen surface. He does this by placing the pigment in a binding medium that is sticky enough to hold the particles of color and fix them to the surface, and transparent enough for the pigment to remain visible once dry. Placing the pigment into a medium in this way is called tempering. If the medium is egg yolk, the paint is called egg tempera. Oil paint results from tempering pigment with linseed oil. Acrylic paint uses a chemically derived plastic as its binder. For watercolor, the binder is gum arabic. Encaustic suspends pigment in warm liquid wax, which solidifies as it cools. In mosaic, pigment is held within small solid lumps of ceramic or glass — called tesserae — which are embedded in wet plaster to create a pixelated image. In fresco, pigment is suspended in water and applied directly to wet plaster; as the plaster dries, it bonds chemically with the pigment, making the painting part of the wall’s structure. In every case, regardless of medium, the color yellow ochre is produced by finely ground particles of yellow iron oxide. These are some of the more traditional media; new ones are constantly being developed.
Portrait of the Boy Euteches, likely 2nd century AD, painted in encaustic.
Each has distinct practical properties related to the binding medium, and those properties determine what a given medium is suited for. To begin with, each medium interacts with and reflects incident light differently, profoundly affecting how it looks. We can easily distinguish yellow ochre watercolor paint from yellow ochre oil paint, for example, because their optical properties differ: one looks pale and colors subtly, letting the paper substrate show through, while the other looks rich and deeply colored.
These optical differences also determine how far a given medium allows the artist to create the illusion of depth – and this also has a direct and powerful bearing on style. When Rembrandt layers multiple thin, transparent glazes of dark-colored oil paint over a surface, he creates the illusion of a deep, rich shadow into which we almost feel we could walk. The same technique applied in egg tempera produces nothing comparable – the result tends to look more like soot on the surface. Rembrandt almost certainly did not understand the physics that explain this difference, but he could see it, and that is what mattered to him. The icon painter, by contrast, wants his image to remain resolutely two-dimensional. He does not choose oil but opts instead for egg tempera, mosaic, or fresco, because the flat, stylized quality of those media serves the symbolic purpose of his image.
Samson and Delilah, by Rembrandt, 17th century, oil on canvas.
Alongside these optical properties, the purely physical characteristics of a medium also shape the choice. Mosaic and fresco are durable and permanent, but are fixed to the building’s structure, so they cannot be moved. Egg tempera is equally permanent and, because it can be applied to wooden panels, is well suited to portable images, such as icons carried in procession. Encaustic is more delicate because the melting point of wax is low, but, like tempera, it does not lose its color over time and can also be used for portable works. Oil paint is durable and, unlike the other media mentioned, flexible, so it can be applied to canvas, making paintings comparatively light and easy to transport; however, it is less permanent than other media because the binding medium tends to brown over time. When a 300-year-old oil painting looks dark and dingy, it is usually not dirty – it appears so because the linseed oil is no longer transparent.
All of this raises an interesting historical question. It is often said that the invention of oil paint in the 15th century enabled the development of naturalistic painting. I doubt this is quite right. Both eggs and linseed oil had always been readily available to artists who, until the 19th century, made their own paint (linseed oil, made from flax, is thought to have been in use for around 8,000 years). There is no particular technical difficulty in tempering pigment with either. Artists in any working studio would likely experiment with available materials and soon discover their different properties. As long as the intention is to paint in a highly abstracted style that minimizes the illusion of depth – as in iconographic and early Gothic art – there is no advantage in using oil. Only when an artist wants to paint more naturalistically does oil become the obviously superior choice. But I suggest the desire to paint naturalistically preceded the change in medium. It was the era’s philosophical developments – a changing worldview that sought a new kind of image – that prompted artists to reach for oil and set aside egg tempera. Technique follows philosophy, not the other way around.
A good artist chooses his medium to suit the kind of image he intends to make.
Christ the Gardener, by Martin Earle, contemporary English, in egg tempera
10th century mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, the flat look of the images arises from the medium
Imaginary landscape by David Clayton. Oil on canvas. I used multiple thin layers of paint placing translucent thin lighter layers above darker ones to create a misty effect. This is the inverse of a glaze, and is called a scumble.
Winter Sun on Pavey Ark, watercolor by William Heaton Cooper, English, 20th century
Truly it is fitting and just, right and profitable to salvation to give Thee thanks always, here and everywhere, in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Whom Thy election did so deign to consecrate, that it might change blessed Peter’s worldly trade as a fisherman into divine teaching; so that he might deliver the human race from the depths of hell with the nets of Thy precepts. And then Thou didst change the mind of his fellow Apostle Paul, along with his name; and whom the Church at first feared as a persecutor, She now rejoices to hold as the teacher of divine commandments. Paul was blinded that he might see; Peter denied, that he might believe. To the one Thou gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to the other, knowledge of the divine law, that he might call the nations; for the latter brought them in, as the other opened (the door of heaven). Therefore both received the rewards of eternal virtue. Thy right hand did raise up the one, lest he sink as he walked upon the water, and rescued the other from the dangers of the deep when he was shipwrecked for the third time.
The Stefaneschi Triptych, painted by Giotto and assistants for the high altar of St Peter’s Basilica, ca. 1330. On the left, the Crucifixion of St Peter; in the middle, Card. Giacomo Stefaneschi kneels before Christ in majesty; on the right, the beheading of St Paul. In the upper part of the right panel, Angels bring St Paul’s blindfold to one of the women of the Roman church after his death, as Paul promised her would happen. (Public domain image from Wikipedia; click to enlarge.)
The one did conquer the gates of the hell, and the other the sting of death; and Paul was beheaded, for he was shown to be the head of the Gentiles’ faith, while Peter, followed in the footsteps of Christ, the head of us all. Whom together with Thee, almighty Father, and the Holy Spirit, the Angels praise, the Archangels venerate, the Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Principalities and Powers adore; whom the Cherubim and Seraphim with shared rejoicing praise. And we pray that Thou may command our voices to be brought in among them, saying with humble confession: Holy, Holy, Holy… (The Preface of Ss Peter and Paul in the Ambrosian Missal.)
Vere quia dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper hic et ubique in honore Apostolorum Petri et Pauli gratias agere. Quos ita electio tua consecrare dignata est, ut beati Petri secularem piscandi artem in divinum dogma converteret; quatenus humanum genus de profundo inferni praeceptorum tuorum retibus liberaret. Nam Coapostoli ejus Pauli mentem cum nomine mutasti, et quem prius persecutorem metuebat Ecclesia, nunc caelestium mandatorum laetatur se habere doctorem. Paulus caecatus est, ut videret; Petrus negavit, ut crederet. Huic claves caelestis imperii, illi ad evocandas gentes divinae legis scientiam contulisti. Nam ille introducit, hic aperit. Ambo igitur virtutis aeternae praemia sunt adepti. Hunc dextera tua gradientem in elemento liquido, dum mergeretur, erexit; illum autem tertio naufragantem, profunda pelagi fecit vitare discrimina. Hic portas inferni, ille mortis vicit aculeum: et Paulus capite plectitur, quia gentium caput fidei probatur: Petrus autem praemissis vestigiis caput omnium secutus est Christum. Quem una tecum, omnipotens Pater, et cum Spiritu Sancto laudant Angeli, venerantur Archangeli; Throni, Dominationes, Virtutes, Principatus et Potestates adorant. Quem Cherubim et Seraphim socia exsultatione concelebrant. Cum quibus et nostras voces, ut admitti jubeas, deprecamur, supplici confessione dicentes: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus…
Mountains of Gilboa, let neither dew nor rain come upon you, for on thee has the shield of the mighty been cast away, the shield of Saul, as if he had not been anointed with oil. How are the mighty fallen in battle! Jonathan hath been slain upon the high places; Saul and Jonathan were lovely and very comely in their lives, in their death also they have not been not divided. (The antiphon at the Magnificat for the Saturday before the 5th Sunday after Pentecost.)
Aña Montes Gélboë, nec ros nec pluvia veniant super vos: quia in te abjectus est clípeus fortium, clipeus Saul, quasi non esset unctus óleo. Quómodo cecidérunt fortes in bello? Jónathas in excelsis interfectus est: Saul et Jónathas, amábiles et decóri valde in vita sua, in morte quoque non sunt divísi.
The defeat of Saul and his sons by the Philistines on Mt Gilboa, depicted in a Bible made in Paris in the 1240s, now at the Morgan Library in New York City. (folio 34v, image cropped.)
The text of this unusually long antiphon is taken from the first chapter of the Second Book of Samuel (Second Kings in the Vulgate), which is read at Matins the following morning; David, not yet recognized as king in Israel, mourns for Saul and his son Jonathan after they had been killed by the Philistines in battle. The same passage (verses 17-27) was also made into a series of four motets which sticks much more closely to the original Biblical wording. These were formerly attributed to Josquin des Prez (1450/5-1521), but this is now considered very doubtful; nothing is known about the circumstances for which they were written.
The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Saints John and Paul, as recounted in the pre-Tridentine Breviary according to the Use of the Roman Curia.
At Rome, (the passion) of John and Paul, brothers… when the Caesar Julian was taken by sacrilegious lust for money, he sought to color his greed by the witness of the Gospel. For as he took from the Christians their goods and properties, he would say, “Your Christ says in the Gospel, ‘Who renounceth not all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple.’ ” Now it came to his notice that Paul and John were helping the crowds of Christians by means of the riches which the virgin Constantia (the daughter of Constantine, whom John and Paul had formerly served) had left to them. And he sent a man to see them, and say that they must adhere to him. But they answered … “Because of your iniquity we have desisted from greeting you, and withdrawn ourselves entirely from all association with your rule. For we are not false, but true Christians. … We do not do you this injury, that we prefer any sort of human person before you. We prefer to you the Lord, who made the heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them.” (The saints also declare their refusal to return to the court, where they had formerly served Constantine, and greet the emperor.) Julian said to them, “I give you a pause of ten days. When they have passed, if you come to me willingly, I will hold you as my friends; if you do not come, I will punish you as public enemies.”
Despite the great antiquity of the cultus of Ss John and Paul, and the presence of their names in the Roman Canon, they are rarely represented in art. These paintings decorate the place within their house where they were originally buried; other martyrs whose connection to them is not altogether clear, Ss Crispus, Crispinian and Benedicta, are represented alongside them. The relics have long since been moved into the altar of the church dedicated to them, which was built on top of the house.
Then the holy men John and Paul, calling the Christians to themselves, gave orders concerning all the things which they could leave behind, and for the whole of the ten days busied themselves with almsgiving day and night. But on the eleventh day they were confined within their house. (A military officer named Terentian is then sent to their house and says to them) “Our lord Julian has sent a little golden statue of Jove to you, that you may adore it and burn incense. But if you do not do this, you will both be struck with my sword. … ” John and Paul said, “If Julian is your lord, have peace with him. We have no other Lord, but the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, whom he (i.e. Julian the Apostate) did not fear to deny. And because he was once cast away from the face of God, he wishes others to come down with him to destruction.” (Terentian has them decapitated and buried in their house.)
The exterior of the church of Ss John and Paul, which was completely rebuilt in the 12th century.
Julian was at once slain in the war with Persia, and when Jovinian had become the most Christian emperor, the churches were opened, and the Christian religion began to rejoice. (Following this, many possessed persons are healed in the house of Saints John and Paul, including the son of Terentian, who himself converts to Christianity, and writes the passion of the Holy Martyrs.)
A later and apocryphal tradition says that Julian the Apostate was killed by a Christian soldier in his army named Mercurius, (who is honored in the East as a Saint), as depicted here in a Coptic icon. (image from wikipedia.) The true historical date of Julian’s death is the same as the feast of Ss John and Paul, June 26th.
R. Hæc est vera fratérnitas, quæ numquam pótuit violári certámine: qui effúso sánguine secúti sunt Dóminum: * Contemnentes aulam regiam, pervenérunt ad regna caelestia. V. Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitáre fratres in unum. Contemnentes. Gloria Patri. Contemnentes.
R. This is the true brotherhood, which could never be injured in the struggle; who by shedding their blood, followed the Lord. * Disdaining the palace of the king, they came to the heavenly kingdom. V. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity. Disdaining. Glory be to the Father. Disdaining.
In the Breviary of St Pius V and its predecessors, this responsory is said on the feasts of Several Martyrs who are also brothers. The devotion to John and Paul is one of the oldest in the city of Rome, and the responsory was almost certainly originally written for their feast day.
After finishing the Canon, the priest introduces the Lord’s Prayer. He calls the assembly to pray with the familiar Oremus and then says or intones:
Praeceptis salutaribus moniti,
Et divina institutione formati,
Audemus dicere.
Which I translate as:
Taught by salutary precepts,
And formed by divine instruction,
We dare to say:
Transformative Teachings
The exhortation’s structure is redolent of the synonymous parallelisms found in the Psalms, whereby the second line reinstates or reiterates the first. For example, in Psalm 2, 1, the Psalmist cries out:
Why have the Gentiles raged,
And why have the people devised vain things?
The diction of the exhortation goes back to the third century. In his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer (appropriately enough), St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) writes:
Qui inter cetera salutaria sua monita et praecepta divina, quibus populo suo consulit ad salutem, etiam orandi ipse formam dedit: ipse quid precaremur monuit et instruxit. [1]
Which I translate as:
Among His other salutary teachings and divine precepts with which He counsels His people for their salvation, He Himself also gave a form of prayer: He Himself taught and instructed what we should pray for.
Jungmann surmises that the Praeceptis salutaribus has the same fourth-century editor or author as the Roman Canon, whoever he may be. [2]
And the wording is somewhat distinctive. Instead of more obvious choices for the verb “to teach” such as docere or erudire or praecipere, the text has monere. Derived from mens, the Latin word for mind, it means “to call to mind,” but it is often used to admonish or warn. That fits well with Our Lord’s precepts, for as with the Ten Commandments, not choosing to embrace them is ominously choosing curse and death. (see Deut. 30, 19) Fittingly as well, these precepts are called “salutary,” for they bring health and salvation to all who follow them.
The second line also uses a distinctive word for teaching. The word institutio poses a challenge to translators, for it is not an “institution” in the sense of a corporate or legal establishment, but an education or induction into a higher mode.
And the effect of this induction is transformative, for we are formed (formati) by it. In our previous study of the Roman orations, we noted on several occasions how the prayers constitute what Pope Benedict XVI calls a “school of love” that reshapes and reorients our desires (see here and here). Now, in the Ordinary of the Mass, we see the same powerful claim being said about Christ’s teachings in general, and about the Lord’s Prayer in particular. Oddly, not a single pre-conciliar hand Missal that I consulted translates the past particle formati correctly, opting instead for “following” – as if the emphasis were on obedience rather than formation. [3] Happily, the 2011 English translation of the new Mass has “And formed by divine teaching.”
The Novus Ordo
There are two curious aspects to the Praeceptis salutaribus in the 1970 Missal. The first is the omission of Oremus at the beginning. When Pope Paul VI saw the first draft of the new Mass, he asked: “Why omit the ‘Let us pray’ before the Our Father?” Bugnini writes that the Consilium rejected the Holy Father’s “implied suggestion” on the grounds that “ ‘Let us pray’ is an invitation to prayer, but such an invitation is already contained in the exhortation that precedes the Our Father.” [4]
Second, although the original wording of the exhortation remains unchanged, there appears to be a strange international collusion against translating it accurately. Specifically, no official “vernacular” translation that I consulted keeps the text’s synonymous parallelism (with a past participle as the backbone of each clause) or makes an effort to convey its unusual diction; and every official translation that I consulted changes the adjective “saving” or “salutary” to the noun “Savior” or even, as in the German, “Lord and Redeemer” (see the Appendix of Modern Translations below). I do not know the origin of the latter preference, except to note that a Fr. Bonifatius Fischer wrote an obscure article in 1950 arguing that praeceptis salutaribus can also mean praeceptis Salvatoris (“precepts of the Savior”) [5], and that in his 1960 proposed “sample Mass,” Fr. H.A. Reinhold recommends the following:
Let us pray:
Obeying our Saviour’s command
And taught by his divine institution,
We dare to say: [6]
There is no mention of the issue by the Second Vatican Council, in the documents of the Magisterium, or in Annibale Bugnini’s memoir. Whatever the reason, the new formulation is accurate but unfortunate: accurate because our Savior did indeed command us to say the Lord’s prayer; unfortunate because it erases a verbal link between the Our Father and the Preface, which uses the same word (salutare). And as we will see in a later essay, the two prayers stand in a complementary relationship with each other.
Moreover, the replacement flattens the very Christian concept of a salutary, root-and-branch, transformative observance of a precept into a mere act of obedience. In the words of Fr. Ernest Fortin,
The truth which the Christian is persuaded to accept is not a truth in any ordinary sense of the word but… a beatifying or saving truth, which is fully appropriated only when it issues in those deeds to which it points as its fulfillment. [7]
All the new translations that I reviewed follow this turn in other ways as well, choosing words like “obedience” and “following” instead of words that more robustly point to teaching and formation. The problem with this shift is that in moving away from a transformative view of justification, it creates a vacuum for the Lutheran forensic view of justification, the so-called doctrine of imputed righteous.
One translation is egregious for a different reason. The Spanish in the Missal for Mexico is:
Fieles a la recomendación del Salvador,
y siguiendo su divina enseñanza,
nos atrevemos a decir: [8]
Which I translate as:
Faithful to the Savior’s recommendation,
And following his divine teaching,
We dare to say:
As we have seen, moniti can mean “advise” insofar as it connotes rebuking or admonishing, but the Biblical context rules out this possibility. Introducing the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says to His disciples, “When you pray, say…” with “say” in the imperative voice. (Luke 11, 2) For that matter, how many times in the Gospels does Jesus Christ “recommend”? Conversely, how many times does He say: “Amen, Amen, I say unto you” or “Others have said, ‘Do this,’ but I say unto you, “Do that’”?
Giusto di Menabuoi, The Creation of the World; detail of the dome fresco in the Baptistery of Padua, 1378. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Yukio Sanjo, CC BY-SA 3.0.)
The Audacity
Thankfully, every one of the consulted translations faithfully renders the final line, audemus dicere or “we dare to say.” The notion that praying the Our Father is a daring act comes from the Patristic era.
“Daily we dare to say (audemus quotidie dicere),” Augustine says in a sermon: “‘Thy kingdom come.’” [9] And Jerome writes:
[Our Lord] so instructed His Apostles that, daily at the sacrifice of His body, believers may be bold enough to say [audeant loqui], “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” [10]
The audacity of reciting the Lord’s Prayer lies chiefly in its first two words. As Blessed Columba Marmion explains, out of sheer love and generosity the First Person of the Holy Trinity has willed for all eternity to extend to us His Paternity, to recognize us as His adopted sons so that we can be filled with holiness and share in His eternal happiness. But although it is in accordance with our nature to call God our Creator, it is not natural for a creature to call his Creator “Father.” That privilege is the result of a purely supernatural act of adoption. “By nature God has only one Son,” Marmion observes; “by love He wills to have an innumerable multitude.” [11]
Thus, in calling God “our Father,” we accept the calling of divine adoption and the obligations that it entails. And hence, we should approach this divine intimacy with a healthy sense of fear and trembling. In the words of the Apostolic Constitutions (ca. 400):
Pray [the Lord’s Prayer] thrice in a day, preparing yourselves beforehand, that you may be worthy of the adoption of the Father; lest, when you call Him Father unworthily, you be reproached by Him, as Israel once His first-born son was told: “If I be a Father, where is my glory? And if I be a Lord, where is my fear?” (Malachi 1, 6) For the glory of fathers is the holiness of their children, and the honour of masters is the fear of their servants, as the contrary is dishonour and confusion. For says He: “Through you my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.” (Is. 52, 5) [12]
“The glory of fathers is the holiness of their children.” If we wish to call God our Father, then we need to resemble Him like a son who is the spitting image of his dad. And the more we resemble Him, the worthier we are to receive His Son in Holy Communion.
[3] That includes the Father Lasance Missal, the St. Andrew’s Daily Missal, the Abbot Cabrol Missal, the Saint Joseph Daily Missal, the Baronius Press Missal, and the Marian Missal.
[4] Bugnini, 380.
[5] Bonifatius Fischer, O.S.B., “Praeceptis salutaribus moniti,” Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 1 (1950), 124-127.
[6] Reinhold, 96.
[7] Ernest L. Fortin, “Augustine and the Problem of Christian Rhetoric,” in Collected Essays, vol. 1 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1996), 85.
[8] Misal Romano (2017), 118.
[9] Augustine, Sermon 110.5.
[10 Jerome, Against the Pelagians III.15.
[11] Bl. Columba Marmion, Christ the Life of the Soul (Tacoma, WA: Angelico Press, 2012), 24, emphases added.
In the Martyrology, the next-to-last entry for today reads, “At Turin, the birth into heaven of St Maximus, bishop and confessor, most celebrated (or ‘renowned’ (celeberrimi)) for his learning and holiness.” With all due respect to the great Cardinal Caesare Baronio (1538-1607), who wrote this entry for his revision of the Martyrology in 1568, it is something of a rhetorical exaggeration to say that Maximus was “most celebrated.” There is almost no trace of devotion to him as a Saint outside his native city. The Usuarium catalog of liturgical books does not record that his feast was kept anywhere in the Middle Ages, and indeed, the previous editions of the Martyrology which Baronius used as the basis of his text do not mention him. The oldest known biography of him was not written until about 600 years after his death, and is not regarded as historically trustworthy.
In one of his sermons, Maximus describes himself as an eyewitness to the martyrdom of Saints Sisinnius, Martyrius and Alexander, which happened in a place called Anaunia, in the valley of Trent in northern Italy, in the year 397. It is guessed that he was in his mid- to late teens at the time, and thus born around the year 380. He is named among the bishops who attended a synod in Milan in 451; the last notice we have of him is from the year 465, when he attended another synod in Rome. His name appears on the list of bishops who subscribed to the acts of the latter immediately after that of the pope, indicating that he was senior bishop present. He is the first bishop of Turin whose name is known to us, but it is not known when or how he came to that office. And these are the only details of his life which we can say are known for certain. There seem to be very few artistic representations of him, judging not only from the dearth of images on Wikipedia, but from the fact Nicola de’ Grandi, who has visited and photographed a huge number of churches in northern Italy, doesn’t have any.
No modern edition of his works was published until 1784, when the task was undertaken by an editor called Bruno Bruni, issued by the press of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, and then reproduced in Migne’s Patrologia Latina. Bruni divided these writings (rather arbitrary, in the estimation of the patrologist Fulbert Cayré; vol. 2, 13.2) into 118 homilies and 116 sermons, with both blocks subdivided according to subject: the seasons of the liturgical year and the feasts of the Lord; feasts of the Saints; various theological topics. But more modern research considers that a great many of these, more than half, are not authentic; in his series of Wednesday audience talks on the Church Fathers, Pope Benedict XVI stated that “we have inherited a collection of about 90 of (Maximus’) sermons.” (Oct. 31, 2007)
Since his feast falls between two of the greatest and most ancient among the Church’s feast days, the Nativity of St John the Baptist yesterday, and the feast of Ss Peter and Paul on the 29th, here are excerpts from one of his sermons for both of these days.
“In praise of the holy and most blessed John the Baptist, whose birth we celebrate today, I do not know what is the most important thing we should preach on – that he was wonderfully born or more wonderfully slain. For he was born in prophecy, and murdered for truth; by his birth he announced the coming of the Savior, and by his death he condemned the incest of Herod. For this holy and just man, who was begotten apart from the common way of men as the result of a promise, merited from God that he should not depart this world by a common death, but that he should lay aside his body, which he had received as a gift from the Lord, by confessing the Lord. Therefore John did everything by the will of God, since he was born and died for the sake of God’s work.” – Sermon 5
St Peter Enthroned, with Ss John the Baptist and Paul the Apostle, 1516, by Cima da Conegliano (ca. 1459-1517.
Though all the blessed apostles receive an equal share of grace from the Lord of holiness, nonetheless in some way Peter and Paul are seen to stand out from the others, and to excel by reason of a certain special virtue of faith in the Savior. Indeed, we can prove this by referring to the judgment of the Lord Himself; for to Peter, as to a good steward, He gave the key of the heavenly kingdom, and upon Paul, as one skilled in instruction, He enjoined the teaching office in the establishment of the Church. Thus, those whom the latter would educate to salvation, the former would receive into peace, and while Paul would enlighten their hearts with the teaching of his words, Peter would open to their souls the kingdom of heaven. Therefore Paul also received, so to speak, a key from Christ, that of knowledge; for whatever opens up the hard places of hearts to faith, lays bare the secrets of minds, and brings what is kept closed within out into the open by a reasonable manifestation ought to be called a key. That is a key, I say, which both opens the conscience to the confession of sin, and inserts grace for the eternal saving mystery. Both, therefore received keys from the Lord: the one of knowledge, and the other of power. The one dispenses the riches of immortality, the other distributes the treasures of knowledge. For there are in fact treasures of knowledge, as it is written, “In whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden (Col. 2, 3). Therefore do the blessed Peter and Paul stand out among all the Apostles and excel by a certain special prerogative. – Sermon 1
We are happy to share this announcement from Mr Christopher Jasper and the Gregorian Chant Academy, about an upcoming presentation on the birth of liturgical polyphony.
Whether we look to the classical mastery of Palestrina and Bach, or the structures of modern secular music, the DNA of Western music can ultimately be traced back to the sacred repository of Gregorian chant. Right at the center of this historical lineage stands one man, perhaps the singular, most influential musician of all time: the eleventh-century Benedictine monk Guido d’Arezzo, the inventor of the diatonic scale. This year marks the 1000th anniversary of the publication of one his most widely-diffused and influential works, the Micrologus.
But Guido’s revolutionary developments did not emerge from a historical vacuum. Before his time, a critical foundation was laid by two anonymous ninth-century musical treatises: the Musica Enchiriadis and the Scolica Enchiriadis (“The Music and School Handbook”). These little-known texts provide our earliest surviving written description of how to sing in harmony, a practice historically known as diaphony or organum.
To mark the anniversary of Guido’s Micrologus, the Gregorian Chant Academy is launching a new video mini-series exploring how these ancient roots shaped Western harmony. Episode 1: The Birth of Written Harmony in the West premieres this coming Monday on YouTube. The full episode can be viewed here on YouTube next Monday: https://youtu.be/KdZzvviz4-g
LITURGICAL UNITY AND THE SCIENCE OF NUMBER
For the medieval intellectual, music was not primarily a vehicle for personal self-expression, but rather a rigorous branch of the curriculum of studies known as the quadrivium, alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. It was a science of number, proportion, and divine order.
The upcoming episode steps directly into the Carolingian soundscape to unpack how these mathematical principles directly addressed an important pastoral crisis:
The Carolingian Context: In the ninth century, Frankish rulers demanded strict political and liturgical unity, requiring the supplanting of local Gallican rites in favor of the Roman rite.
The Crisis of Memory: Entire dioceses were suddenly forced to learn an immense new repertoire of Roman melodies without the aid of precise, pitch-specific notation, relying entirely on voices and memory.
The Monochord as Theological Proof: Using the Pythagorean monochord, medieval theorists demonstrated that the primary consonances – the Octave, the Fifth, and the Fourth – were audible icons of the cosmic and theological order established by God.
THE MECHANICS OF EARLY ORGANUM: BENDING THE THEORY
How did ninth-century cantors actually harmonize sacred chant without falling into chaotic dissonance? While early forms of organum (singing in parallel intervals) seemed straightforward on paper, applying rigid mathematical scale systems to real human voices immediately exposed major vulnerabilities – including forbidden clashing intervals and completely broken octaves.
In the first episode, we look at the fascinating, hands-on boundaries the Musica Enchiriadis introduced to solve these practical problems. We will explore the structural origins of independent voice leading through the birth of “oblique motio”", unpack how phrases elegantly converged back into unison at cadences (the occursus), and discover the astonishing exceptions where ancient singers were explicitly allowed to use “wondrous changes” and ”deliberate errors” to protect the organic beauty of a liturgical melody when the rigid math of the scale wouldn’t allow it.
A PASTORAL RESOURCE FOR MODERN SCHOLAS
This exploration is not merely an academic exercise in codicology. Understanding the transition from a purely oral tradition to the earliest written rules of polyphony provides profound practical tools for today’s parish choir loft. It reminds us that our sacred music tradition is a living lineage. When a modern schola experiments with simple organum, using boundary tones and drones to navigate tricky vocal intervals, they are participating in the exact same search for ordered beauty that occupied our ninth-century ancestors.
Please join us this Monday, June 29, for the premiere of Episode 1, and consider subscribing to the channel as we continue this journey through the medieval treatises toard the great synthesis of Guido d’Arezzo.
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