The Vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist 2026

Do not be afraid, Zachary, thy prayer hath been heard, and Elizabeth thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John; and he shall be great before the Lord, and shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb; and many will rejoice at his birth. V. O Lord, in Thy strength the king shall be glad; and in Thy salvation shall he rejoice exceedingly. Glory be. Do not be afraid (The introit for the vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist.)

Introitus Ne tímeas, Zacharía, exaudíta est oratio tua: et Elísabeth uxor tua pariet tibi filium, et vocábis nomen ejus Joannem: et erit magnus coram Dómino: et Spíritu Sancto replébitur adhuc ex útero matris suae: et multi in nativitáte eius gaudébunt. V. Dómine, in virtúte tua laetábitur rex: et super salutáre tuum exsultábit vehementer. Gloria Patri. Ne tímeas.

When Mary Calls, It Is Surprising Who Hears

A new book by Margarita Mooney Clayton on Mary, the Mother of God, and what it might mean that a prominent UK philosopher, mother, and critic of feminism read it and reviewed it

Earlier this month, Mary Harrington devoted her popular newsletter to a book she says she did not expect to land on her doorstep. The book was When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God by Margarita Mooney Clayton, a Roman Catholic professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Harrington’s review carried the title “The Icons Are Coming Alive Again,”. It is worth reflecting, I think, not only on what she wrote, which is a thoughtful and positive response to the book, but also on the fact that she wrote it at all.

In When Mary Calls, Margarita Mooney Clayton (who is, I should disclose, my wife) gathers seven personal accounts of encounters with the Mother of God, drawn from Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and secular lives, including her own perilous work among religious dissidents in her mother’s native Cuba.

She leads with these testimonies, hooking readers through the often unseen and untold drama of finding and deepening faith. Theology is not missing but rather embedded within the narrative of each story. In unique ways, each story emphasizes that the Christian faith is not about a dry grasp of dogma but about dogma in service of a deep personal relationship with Christ, with Mary, and with the saints, whose mission is to lead us to Him. The stories show Mary drawing seekers into deeper relationship with her son and into the living community of faith, which they need to journey from questioning to belief, where unique and extraordinary encounters with Mary are transformed into the sustained practices of a life of faith shared in community.

Mary Harrington is not, on the face of it, the sort of reader one would expect to be moved by a book of Marian testimony. She is an academic by formation, secular in background, a feminist who came to public attention, especially in Britain, where she comes from, through a critique of progressive feminism rather than through any religious commitment. Published in 2023, her book Feminism Against Progress argued that feminism has done little to help most women.

Five years ago, one suspects, the idea that she, or anyone in the world she occupied, would write a warm and deeply considered review of a book about the Virgin Mary would have seemed improbable to me. And yet here she is, not merely tolerating the subject but finding in it something culturally significant, even personally affecting.

Harrington has been sharing her journey with her followers, in which her critiques of progressivism and secularism are leading her not just to critique feminism but also to attend an Anglican church.

When a thoughtful female philosopher, one who, at least in the past, was resolutely secular, turns to a book on Marian devotion and finds those deeply personal encounters with Mary not embarrassing but compelling, one wonders whether something has shifted in the wider culture.

Harrington herself seems to sense this. The stories Margarita has gathered, Harrington observes, are not confined to Catholics. They include people who were once seekers, not people raised with faith, who are now Greek Orthodox believers, mainline Protestants, and Catholics, each of whom was drawn to Mary’s presence and, through it, to healing, transformation, or inspiration.

A young Protestant man was healed at a holy well in Ireland. Our Lady of Guadalupe speaks to a frightened pregnant woman and saves her life. Tammy Peterson, wife of Jordan Peterson, who had rejected Christianity as a teenager, makes her way through cancer in her 50s and begins praying again, eventually converting to Catholicism. These are not the testimonies of cradle Catholics confirming what they already believed. They are accounts of surprise.

The mother-shaped blind spot

Harrington reads When Mary Calls through the prism of a theme she has written and spoken about elsewhere: what she calls the cultural erasure of motherhood, the way the modern world quietly eliminated the maternal role and instincts from its understanding of what it means to be a woman.

The marginalization of Mary in the Anglophone world, she suggests in response to reading this book, was not incidental to the Reformation but close to its center. The purging of icons, relics, and pilgrimages, set in motion in England by Thomas Cromwell in 1538, meant, in practice, the radical setting aside of Marian theology in favor of something more verbal, less visual, less sensory and more abstract.

Harrington does not spell out the insight by which she connects the rejection of icons and devotional practices to the eventual decline in devotion to Mary herself and the theological truths bound up with her role in the Incarnation, but I think she is correct. A lack of appreciation for Mary, she suggests, led, in time, to the situation in which the visible, embodied, mother-centered spirituality of the medieval world gave way to something cooler and more cerebral, what one person profiled in the book called a “rational, disenchanted worldview” that had made its way into Christianity.

Was it a coincidence, Harrington wonders, that this spiritual marginalization of Mary was followed, albeit slowly over centuries, by the material and technological marginalization of women in the modern project? She draws on Ivan Illich, who argued that modernity had the displacement of women (at least women as women, not the same as men, and women as mothers) baked into its worldview.

One need not endorse every link in her argument to say that it is significant that a scholar formed by feminist philosophy is suggesting that the loss of Mary and the loss of the valuing of motherhood may be outward signs of the same error. An error, I would add, that only leads to misery for all if lived out. On this point, Harrington has won many followers precisely for admitting that the modern world never prepared her for the most incredible part of her life: becoming a mother. Motherhood changed her, setting her on a journey toward more than progressivism and feminism had given her.

What the Protestants forgot

Here I want to add something that Harrington’s account seems to invite, though she does not quite say it. We are accustomed to speaking of the Reformation as a rejection of Mary. But it may be closer to the truth to say that in many cases Protestantism forgot Mary rather than rejected her. Woven throughout When Mary Calls, and explained in the books’ appendix, is something I didn’t know: the Reformers themselves did not reject fundamental Marian doctrines such as the Virgin Birth or the Mother of God (Theotokos).

Rather, the apparent hostility to the Mother of God comes from questions about improper forms of devotion to Mary. Luther and Calvin were concerned about medieval devotional practices that had grown up around Mary, which they feared had displaced the honor due to Christ alone. Over time, this in turn led to the neglect of Mary herself.

The icons coming alive

Harrington’s title is well chosen. “The icons are coming alive again,” she wrote, and not because anyone has mounted a campaign to revive them, but because people who had no particular reason to look for Mary are finding, it seems, that she calls them by their name, she lets them know in their hearts, as she told Saint Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill five centuries ago “I am your mother.”

Two chapters of When Mary Calls I would particularly commend to artists and to anyone who thinks about the making of beautiful things. The first, specifically referred to by Harrington, features the composer Sir James MacMillan, whose words about Mary as a model for creatives Margarita puts into dialogue with a Promethean model, where the artist is defiant and human-centered, in which the artist seizes the fire and turns away from God to assert his own sovereign making.

And there is the Marian model, drawn from the Annunciation, which MacMillan describes, in which the artist receives rather than seizes, saying fiat to an inspiration that comes from beyond himself and extending the incarnational moment into the work of his hands. This is not a sentimental contrast. As an artist myself, I find that MacMillan offers a genuine account of where creative work comes from. Drawing our attention to Mary’s cooperation with God as an inspiration for creatives, it reframes the whole question of artistic vocation in a way that a secular age, perhaps exhausted by its own self-assertion, may be more ready to hear than it was a generation ago.

The other chapter from When Mary Calls that I recommend for artists is the story of the conversion of my own icon-painting teacher, Aidan Hart, and his journey from a young seeker to a mature man of faith and master iconographer. He speaks of devotion to Mary not as a doctrine held at arm’s length but as something that has guided his personal journey, both as a Christian and as a maker of sacred images.

The icon painter does not invent his subject. He receives a tradition and submits to it, and in that submission finds, one might say, not constraint but greater freedom. There seems to be a direct line between the fiat of the Annunciation and the discipline of the practicing iconographer, and Hart’s own path, from a secular beginning through testing a monastic vocation to a life as married man a working artist, could in many ways be considered a living illustration, one might even say icon, of the very pattern MacMillan describes of openness to inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

The clever title of Harrington’s article refers as much to images of Mary as to Mary as an icon in the more modern sense of the word, a figure who has become emblematic of an idea or a movement, someone the culture recognizes and reaches for. That the two senses, the painted image and the cultural emblem, should converge on the same word is itself a small instance of what Margarita’s book on Mary is about. The icon on a chapel wall and the icon in the imagination of a secular readership may be nearer to one another than many are aware.

What it means to venerate again

Harrington closes by wondering what it might mean, culturally and spiritually, if people were once again to regain the desire and capacity for veneration — the willingness to kneel before a figure like Mary and ask for her help. She rightly describes Margarita Mooney Clayton’s book as a gentle, careful work of ecumenical restoration.

I am inclined to put the point more strongly. The capacity for veneration is part of what it means to be fully human. The widespread loss of this capacity to venerate Mary, outside the Catholic and Orthodox churches and perhaps some Protestant churches, has cost us dearly. To venerate the Mother of God is to acknowledge, at the deepest level, our need for a model of love and self-giving, and for Christ Himself as the ultimate source of all that is good. In her fiat, Mary herself recognized this truth: “Ecce ancilla Domini: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” (“Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word”). As a pastor recently observed in a homily I heard, these may be the most important words ever spoken by any human being aside from those of Christ Himself.

That a secular feminist scholar can see Mary as an icon in the religious and cultural sense of the word, and write about it with such elegance and care, is astounding. When Mary Calls is a book for Catholics, certainly. But its deeper interest perhaps lies in the people it reaches who are not Catholic or Orthodox, but Protestants and seekers, who seem to be discovering that the figure their culture set aside was waiting for them all along.

The icons are indeed coming alive again. We would do well to pay attention to who is noticing.

When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters With the Mother of God by Margarita Mooney Clayton is published by Odysseus Books

Below is a YouTube presentation by Margarita Mooney Clayton about her book, delivered at the Catholic Information Center in downtown Washington, DC.

https://www.youtube.com/live/XgeSi_B2vVk

David Clayton is Dean of the Faculty of Sacred Arts at www.Pontifex.University and Artist in Residence of www.ScalaFoundation.org

The Year of the Four Popes

The Church has on several occasions seen “a year of three Popes”, when a Pope died shortly after his election, and another was then chosen. The most recent such year was 1978, when John Paul I died on the 33rd day of his papacy, making him the twelfth shortest-reigning Pope in history. There has also been one “year of four Popes”, 1276, when two Popes died after very brief reigns, the first of them on June 22.

Gregory X was elected on September 1, 1271, at the end of the longest papal conclave in history, which lasted for 33 months. His reign was brief, though not unusually so for his era, less than four and half years, but highly important. In 1272, he convened the Fourteenth Ecumenical Council, the second to be held in the French city of Lyon, which took place in six sessions in the summer of 1274. This council brought about a reunion of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches, although sadly, this only lasted for a short time. Plans were also put forth for a renewal of the Crusades, and, in the wake of the absurdly long recent conclave, a new set of rules for the Papal elections was promulgated. These rules were made definitive in 1298; the constitutions that govern Papal elections have been modified in many ways since then, but the basic principles given in Gregory X’s bull Ubi periculum are still essentially in force to this day.

The tomb of Pope Bl. Gregory X, in the cathedral of Arezzo, Italy. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

His relics are now kept in a chapel dedicated to Pope St Silvester I. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

Following his death on January 10, 1276, a cardinal who had been one of his close collaborators, Peter of Tarantaise, was unanimously elected to succeed him on the first ballot, taking the name Innocent V. Born ca. 1225, he joined the Dominican Order as a teenager, and became one of its most prominent members. (He is the first of four Dominican Popes.) Together with Ss Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great, he helped to establish the Dominican “ratio studiorum – program of study”, which would build the Order’s well-deserved reputation for learning. He also held one of the two chairs of theology that were reserved for Dominicans at the University of Paris, the most important center for theological study in the later Middle Ages. Gregory X appointed him archbishop of Lyon and made him a cardinal; as such, he became the host of the ecumenical council. When St Bonaventure, the first Franciscan cardinal and also a well-respected theologian, died during the council, it was Peter who celebrated his funeral.

St Bonaventure Lying in State at the Second Council of Lyon, 1629, by the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664). Bl. Gregory X is speaking to King James I of Aragon; Peter of Tarantaise is standing behind him. 

By the time of Innocent’s election, Gregory X had been so taken up with the affairs of the council that he had not been to Rome for 3½ years. Innocent therefore decided to be crowned there; after a month’s travel from France, the ceremony took place on February 22, the feast of St Peter’s Chair, in the Lateran basilica. However, he died almost exactly 5 months into his reign. The Church now honors both him and Gregory X as Blesseds.

A fresco of Bl Pope Innocent V, painted ca. 1350 by Tommaso da Modena in the chapter room of the former Dominican convent of St Nicholas in Treviso, Italy. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Risorto Celebrano, CC BY 3.0.

Three weeks later, the Cardinals elected Ottobuono de’ Fieschi, who was roughly seventy years old, a member of an old noble Genovese family. His uncle, Pope Innocent IV (1243-54), had made him cardinal deacon of the Roman church of St Adrian in 1251; in that role, he had done several important jobs for the Church, and participated in five previous conclaves. In the 1260s, he served as Papal legate to England, and had great success in bringing peace between King Henry III and his rebellious barons. On his election, he chose the name Adrian in honor of Adrian IV, the only English Pope (1154-59), and in honor of the Saint of his cardinalitial church.

This conclave took place with much duress inflicted upon the cardinals by its “guardian”, the powerful king of Naples, Charles of Anjou, who was trying to force the election of a Pope favorable to his interests. (Many of the later changes to the papal election rules were designed to exclude this kind of undue external influence.) Adrian was deliberately chosen as a transitional Pope, so that the cardinals could leave the conclave and escape from both Charles’ control and the Roman summer heat. It is not clear if they understood just how transitional he would prove to be; after moving the court to the city of Viterbo, about 50 miles north of Rome, he died on the 39th day of his papacy, August 18th, without being crowned, or even ordained a priest.

The third conclave of the year was held three weeks later, and elected the one and only Portuguese Pope. By a strange error, Cardinal Pedro Julião Rebolo chose the name “John XXI”, even though there was never a John XX. Like many of his recent predecessors, he spent most of his reign in Viterbo. He added a large studio and bedroom to the papal palace in that city. Eight months after his election, the ceiling of this room collapsed in the middle of the night, severely injuring him; he died ten days later.

The cathedral of St Lawrence in Viterbo, seen from the loggia of the former Papal palace. Four Popes of the 13th century are buried in the city, two in the cathedral (Alexander IV (1254-61) and John XXI), and two in the basilica of St Francis, (Clement IV (1265-68) and Adrian V). Image from Wikimedia Commons by Jean-Pierra Dalbéra, CC BY 2.0.)

The Sacramentary of St Henry II

Here are pictures of a particularly beautiful sacramentary made at the behest of St Henry II (973-1024) for the cathedral of Bamberg in Bavaria, a see which he founded in the year 1007. (At the time, he was Duke of Bavaria, and held the titles of King of Germany and Italy, but had not yet been elected Holy Roman Emperor.) It was produced in the city of Ratisbon, and some of the images are modelled on those of a Gospel book of the Carolingian era, known as the Golden Codex of the local monastery of St Emmeram. The decorations are all found within the first 20 or so folios, which include a calendar and the Canon of the Mass; the liturgical texts have many decorated initials, but no illustrations.

The ivory plaque mounted into the front cover depicts the Crucifixion, with figures representing the sun and moon to either side of the Cross, and at the solders’ feet, the dead rising from their graves; a serpent, representing the devil in his defeat, is wrapped around the base. In the lower part are shown the woman coming to the tomb. The gold sheet around it is not original, but part of a restoration done in the 18th century.

The title page of the calendar.

The calendar page for June; the other eleven months are very similar to it. Even though there is an entry for every day, many of the Saints noted here were not actually celebrated, and have no corresponding Mass among the liturgical texts.

An image which represents the coronation of St Henry; as Christ places the crown on his head, he receives a lance (topped with a cross) and a sword from the angels at the upper left and right. To either side of the king stand Ss Ulrich of Augsburg and Emmeram of Regensburg, two important Bavarian Saints, both wearing pontifical vestments.

A representation of St Henry enthroned, with crown, orb and scepter. To either side stand his squires, holding his sword and shield, and around them, female figures holding cornucopias, representing the prosperity of his reign. Within the canopy above the king’s head, the hand of God is directly above his crown, blessing him.

A portrait of Pope St Gregory I; by this point, the attribution to him of the Roman Sacramentary in its commonly used form was a well-established tradition.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Monastery Church of the Assumption in Bominaco, Italy

Following up on yesterday’s post about the Oratory of St Pellegrino in Bominaco, Italy, here are some pictures of the main church of the monastery to which the oratory was attached, which is dedicated to Our Lady’s Assumption. The church was built sometime around 1200 in the Romanesque style; subsequent interventions have not modified is basic character very much at all. (All images from this page of Wikimedia Commons, by Pietro, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The façade is a classically Romanesque nearly solid wall.  

As in many Romanesque churches, the windows are quite small, making for a very dark interior.

The clerestory windows are also small and few. Originally, all of the white stone work seen here would have been frescoed over.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Oratory of San Pellegrino in Bominaco, Italy

Here is something marvelous I stumbled across on Wikipedia, a frescoed medieval oratory in the village of Bominaco in the Abruzzo region of Italy, about 64 miles to the east-northeast of Rome. It was built in 1263 as part of a Benedictine monastic complex originally founded in the Carolingian era. Although the exterior is about as plain as it gets, the interior is covered with fresco work which is in remarkably good condition, especially considering its age. The Saint to whom it is dedicated is a local martyr of whom very little is known.

Here are general two views of the frescoes; detailed images with descriptions are given below. (All images from this page of Wikimedia Commons, by Pietro, CC BY-SA 3.0, except the last two.)

The front of the oratory...

and the back.

The date of the oratory’s foundation and the name of the reigning abbot, Teodino, are given in this inscription over the window.

The left side of the counterfaçade is dominated by a picture of St Christopher. In accordance with the popular belief that if one saw an image of him, one would suffer no sudden misfortune that day, images of him were often made very large, which in turn created the tradition that he was a giant. Around, going clockwise from under the window, are the prophet Zachariah, holding a banderole on which is written, “Behold thy king shall come unto thee” (9, 9), in reference to the picture next to it of the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem; the prophet Isaiah, holding a banderole on which is written, “Be washed be ye clean”, in reference to the picture next to it of the Lord washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper; St Onuphrius, and the Saint Francis of Assisi. At the top of the right side, as part of a cycle of episodes of Our Lord’s infancy, the Massacre of the Innocents. 

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Per omnia saecula saeculorum and The Great Amen

Lost in Translation #162

Five words remain in the Roman Canon for us to examine.

Per omnia saecula saeculorum

The priest concludes the Canon’s doxology (the Per ipsum) by saying or intoning aloud, per omnia saecula saeculorum, or “unto ages of ages.” This Latin expression has an impressive biblical pedigree. It appears in various forms nineteen times in the Vulgate translation of the New Testament as a translation of the Greek eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn. In most of these instances, the phrase is followed by the word “Amen,” suggesting that it already had a place in the worship of the early Church even before it was committed to writing by the authors of the New Testament.

The phrase requires some explanation, as it might conjure up an image of God passing through an infinite succession of temporal moments. And yet we know that eternity is not time ad infinitum but rather all of time (past, present, and future) as present in one single and complete “Now.” In the words of Boethius: “The flowing now makes time, the abiding now makes eternity.” For Boethius (and Aquinas), eternity is thus “the simultaneously whole and perfect possession of unending life.” [1] The talk of God living forever and ever or unto endless ages is therefore metaphorical, just like the corporeal descriptions of God in the Old Testament as having an arm or a hand. [2]

The Roman Missal uses the plural “ages of ages” (saecula saeculorum), but some passages in the New Testament (and other Christian prayers) instead have “age of ages” (saeculum saeculorum). According to St. Anselm, both point to God’s eternity but have different connotations: the singular “age of ages” bespeaks an indivisible unit (eternity as a single now?) while “ages of ages” in the plural conures up the notion of an unending immensity. [3] One can see why the latter is used in doxologies, which focus on God’s greatness.

The utterance of per omnia saecula saeculorum breaks a silence that has lasted the entire Canon (the priest’s audible Nobis quoque peccatoribus barely counts as an exception). It is common in apostolic liturgies to end silent prayers in this manner. This device, called an ecphonesis, [4] serves several purposes. First, it reconnects the priest with the congregation. In silent prayer, the priest prays to God one-to-one, as if he had entered into a cloud, “remaining hidden from them.” With the ecphonesis, he reunites “himself with the faithful in prayer,” [5] like Moses come down from the mountain. Second, the ecphonesis alerts the faithful that a new part of the Mass is about to begin. Third, it invites the faithful to affirm the priest’s petitions or activities with a response—in this case, with “The Great Amen.” As Nicholas Gihr writes:

By this majestic and overpowering conclusion, recited aloud or sung, the mystic and solemn silence of the Canon is broken, in order that the people, by answering Amen, may make known their assent to and approval of all that the priest alone with God praying and offering in the holy cloud has performed. [6]

And if the Canon makes present the Sacrifice of the Cross, it is not unreasonable to think of the end of the Canon as the end of Christ’s life on the Cross. We have already seen how the rubrics of the Per ipsum were interpreted as signs of Christ’s death. Similarly, the ecphonesis of per omnia saecula saeculorum was taken to signify Our Lord’s crying out in a loud voice before He gave up the ghost (Matt. 27, 50) while the “Amen” signified the centurion’s declaration “Indeed this was the Son of God” (Matt. 27, 54) as well as the lamentations of the women at the tomb. [7]

The Great Amen

The Great Amen, as we have seen, broadcasts the assent of the faithful to the Sacrifice that has just been made. Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 264-265) lists it as one of the three privileges granted to the laity at Mass, the other two being listening to the Eucharistic Prayer and receiving the sacred food. [8] The privilege was not taken lightly. The practice, at least as old as St. Justin Marty (ca. 150), was once observed with gusto. St. Jerome describes the Christians in Rome shouting the response:

Where else does “Amen” reverberate like thunderclaps in the sky, and where else are the empty shrines of false gods shaken to the core? [9]

The response is simple but powerful. “Amen” is one of the few Hebrew loanwords in Christian life and liturgy. Although it is often translated as “so be it” (as with the French ainsi-soit-il), it is an adverb that means “truly” or “verily.” Erasmus’ expansive definition is:

Asserting in a manner of having believed in and continuing with utter trust to believe in the truthfulness and certainty of what has just been disclosed. [10]

And yet the Church deigns to leave “Amen” untranslated, perhaps for the sake of keeping a connection with the first Jewish converts to the Faith or perhaps out of fear that something might be lost in translation. Jerome cites Origen on the subject:

Owing to the native peculiarity of each language, [loanwords] cannot be expressed in the same way in another country as they have been uttered in their own country, and it is much better to cite them untranslated rather than to enfeeble their force by translation. [11]

What is enfeebled in this case, as Craig Toth writes, may be that sense of “a movingly heartfelt, confidently emphatic confirmation of what had just been prayed.” [12]

In any event, since the Great Amen is “the most important Amen in the entire Mass” [13] as well as “the people’s signature,” [14] we sympathize with those liturgists who advise the laity not to delegate this response to the ministers or the choir alone. It is an honor and a privilege to say to the newly confected Sacrament on the altar “Truly this is the Son of God” in the language of the Gospel’s first recipients.

Michael Foley is the author of Lost in Translation: Meditating on the Orations of the Traditional Roman Rite (Angelico Press, 2023).

Notes

[1] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.10.1.

[2] Ibid., I.10.1.ad 4.

[3] St. Anselm, Proslogion 21.

[4] Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), 360.

[5] Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of the Mass, trans. Frederic C. Eckhoff (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1940), 255.

[6] Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained, 6th ed. (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1902), 694.

[7] William Durandus, Rationale Divinorum Officionorum IV.46.21.

[8] Quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VII.9 (PG 20, 656).

[9] St. Jerome, Commentary on Galatians, trans. Andrew Cain (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 131-32.

[10] Quoted in Craig Toth and Louis Tofari, The Roman Canon: An Interlinear Translation (Romanitas Press, 2023), 232.

[11] Ibid., 232.

[12] Ibid., 232.

[13] John M. Cunningham, O.P., It is Right and Just: Responses of the Roman Missal (Pine Beach, NJ: Newman House Press, 2016), 45.

[14] Josef Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2, trans. Rev. Francis A. Brunner, C. SS. R. (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1951), 273.

A Reconstruction of an Archaic Rite of Holy Communion (Part 3): Further Evidence

We are very pleased to share the final part of this essay by Zsolt Orbán: part one was published last week, and part two yesterday.

Elements supporting the above, which survive to this day in various liturgical traditions

1. The right palm held in the left hand

Naturally, on this point I do not assume that the hand position used in today’s ecclesiastical practice of communion in the hand is identical to that of antiquity, since the modern sacramental hand position – more precisely, the reception of the Eucharist by hand – differs substantially from the ancient sacrifice, despite the physical similarity of the hand positions.

The right palm, held in the left hand and turned upwards, is the traditional hand posture still found in today’s Orthodox tradition; however, this is naturally not used during the distribution of communion, but rather during blessings: for this is the hand posture for requesting a blessing – the gesture of the person asking for it.

2. The paten on the table

Among the textual sources, I mentioned above the letter of Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria, in which the sacrificial rite is alluded to; I believe this rite can be reconstructed in this paper based on the evidence provided by the images. To support this, I cite as an example the liturgy of the Copts, the modern heirs of the Alexandrian liturgical tradition, in which several elements can be identified that refer to what is depicted in the material artefacts and can be traced back to the practice depicted.

In the Codex Rossanensis, at the moment after the delivery of the Holy Body, Christ does not hold the paten in His hand, but rather takes the particle from the paten resting on the altar. Just as the Copts do in the video clip above.

3. The left palm of the celebrant

Christ places the piece taken with His right hand into the apostle’s mouth, whilst, as seen in the scene from the Codex Rossanensis, he holds his left palm protectively beneath it. After the communion, he continues to hold his left palm upwards, with his fingers slightly bent – so that no crumbs would be lost. Just as Coptic priests do: the video shows the way the priest holds his left palm. This seems very reminiscent of Christ, as seen in the enlarged image from the Rossano Codex above.

4. The communion cloth alluding to the ancient use of the himation

The small cloth worn by the communicant in the Coptic video also seems to evoke the himation seen in the images above. I believe that the changes in dress over the past one and a half thousand years may in themselves explain the replacement of the himation – that is, the ancient outer garment – during the Eucharist: the need to use a cloth, arising from reverence for the Eucharist, may have been stronger than the absence resulting from the disappearance of the himation due to changes in dress. However, the natural process of classifying items associated with the liturgy as sacred may also have led to the emergence of a cloth specifically intended for this purpose in liturgical use.

A communion shawl with a similar function is also used in the Byzantine liturgy, as can be clearly seen in the last video.

Among Ethiopian Christians (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), the himation – which has become entirely liturgical in purpose – has also been preserved under the name netela: both men and women wear it in church. This short video discusses how this shawl is worn and its spiritual significance:

5. The holy kiss

I have not found any trace of the kissing of the priest’s hand after communion in the various liturgical traditions, but in the Orthodox tradition there is another form of holy kiss that follows directly after Communion: after receiving the sacred species, the faithful kiss the base of the chalice. The holy kiss given to the base of the chalice, reminiscent of the himation, together with the use of a cloth identical to it in terms of its liturgical function:

Although this kiss differs from the presumed practice described in this text, in which a kiss might have been given to the right hand of the ministering priest, this may be explained by the change in the manner of communion under the two species compared to ancient practice. The distribution of the Body, placed in the Precious Blood, using a spoon – directly into the communicant’s mouth – eliminated the possibility of kissing the priest’s hand, as this could have endangered the contents of the chalice.

But the need to express the spiritual significance embodied in the kiss sought and found a place.

Concluding Remarks

The famous quote from Saint Basil (Letter 93) demonstrates that communion on the tongue was the normative mode of receiving the Eucharist in the Church from the beginning. Ecclesiastical practice deviated from this only under extraordinary circumstances, such as during times of persecution or a shortage of priests, and even then only temporarily (at the time the letter was written, around 372 AD, the practice of the lay faithful taking the Eucharist home was customary only in Alexandria). Despite this, the narrative of "communion in the hand" became dominant in the second half of the twentieth century, inextricably linked to the liturgical reform. The architects of the latter were enthusiastic proponents of this narrative (see, e.g., this article by Annibale Bugnini), which explains why today almost every scholarly textbook and popular publication treats it as a self-evident fact that communion on the tongue was unknown until the 8th or 9th century. Consequently, every written source is interpreted through the lens of this narrative. This, however, distorts the accurate understanding of historical reality and, by extension, hinders the return to correct ecclesiastical practice.

Therefore, it is crucial for researchers to finally re-examine the ancient sources allegedly proving the exclusivity or primacy of communion in the hand. They must thoroughly undertake the work that has been neglected for sixty years, researching actual ecclesiastical practice supported by the analysis of other available historical remains. Anyone who has examined in detail the ‘justifying’ textual interpretations and citations of Bugnini or the frequently cited Dom Ambrois Verheul OSB (La communion dans la main, in: Les questions liturgiques et paroissiales 50 (1969), pp. 115–122) can see their tendentious nature; thus, one can be confident that this narrative can be successfully refuted if the necessary time is dedicated to it.

In the preceding sections, I have addressed textual witnesses only partially; instead, I have attempted to reconstruct a probable ancient rite of communion based on the earliest surviving depictions of authentic liturgical scenes. Far from being contradicted, this reconstruction is rendered more plausible by even the most frequently cited textual sources of the ‘communion in the hand’ narrative, while elements preserved in various liturgical traditions support it in detail. I have done this in the hope of providing inspiration and insights to researchers, whose efforts are essential if a history of the concrete liturgical forms of receiving Holy Communion is to be compiled in accordance with historical reality.

The Canonization of St Gregory Barbarigo

Today is the anniversary of the death of St Gregory Barbarigo, cardinal and Patriarch of Venice, in 1697. When he was canonized in 1960, June 18th was occupied by the feast of St Ephraem the Syrian, and so he was assigned to the previous day. His cause had stalled for over a century and a half after his beatification in 1751; it was revived and brought to a successful conclusion by Pope St John XXIII, who was a native of St Gregory’s first diocese, Bergamo, and also patriarch of Venice.

Here is some footage of the canonization ceremony (unfortunately rather grainy, and without soundtrack), which was held in the Lateran basilica in Rome on May 26, 1960. This comes from the always interesting YouTube channel of the website Caerimoniale Romanum, which is dedicated to preserving historical records of this sort - feliciter!

A Reconstruction of an Archaic Rite of Holy Communion (Part 2): Insight into St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s Famous Text

The following essay is by Zsolt Orbán. Read Part 1 here.

The Testimony of Written Records

One might naturally ask: If Communion truly occurred in the way we described at the end of our first part, based on the Rossano Codex, the Riha paten, and the Stuma paten, why is there no written confirmation of such a practice?

In fact, such confirmation may well exist. To be sure, we lack a direct and unambiguous primary source that explicitly states – alongside other elements of the reconstructed rite – that “the priest places the Holy Body upon the believer’s tongue.” Nowhere is this ritual described in every minute detail; indeed, this very silence justifies the reconstruction attempted here.

At first glance, the available written records seem to confirm this rite only indirectly, insofar as they do not exclude, but rather permit, the interpretation I have presented. However, upon closer inspection, looking beyond popular translations that often embed their own interpretations, we find confirmation for this rite in the most unexpected places.

In the next section, while listing elements of the rite that survive to this day, I will demonstrate that most components of this reconstructed ritual have been preserved in the Coptic Liturgy. Since Christian liturgical traditions prior to the Novus Ordo did not develop ex nihilo, it is likely that the Coptic tradition did not emerge ex nihilo either, but was characterized by a continuity faithful to its origins. Consequently, elements of today’s practice may well have ancient roots.

If this is the case, the few remaining textual witnesses may indeed validate the reconstruction. Therefore, as witnesses to the reconstructed rite, I cite a frequently invoked Alexandrian example from Eusebius, and one from Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, along with a Syriac text often mentioned as another ancient precedent for the practice.

In his Historia ecclesiastica, Eusebius quotes a letter from Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria to the pope (book VII, chapter 9) regarding a believer who came from a heretical sect. Upon witnessing a true baptism for the first time, the man realized his own baptism had borne no resemblance to the real one and began to doubt its validity. From this letter, the following passage is often cited: “...and stretching forth his hands to receive the holy sustinence, and receiving it, and partaking of the Body and Blood of our Lord.” (“καὶ χεῖρας εἰς ὑποδοχὴν τῆς ἁγίας τροφῆς καὶ ταύτην καταδεξάμενον καὶ τοῦ σώματος καὶ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν μετασχόντα.”)

Popular interpretation holds that “hands stretched forth to receive” clearly indicates communion in the hand. In reality, however, in nearly every Greek text cited as evidence for this practice, the word used for receiving Communion is the same one found here, yet its meaning is not what many assume. Among ancient Christians, the Greek word term hypodoché (ὑποδοχή) did not signify taking something into one’s palm. Originally, it was a Scriptural term for welcoming a guest (cf. Luke 10, 38 or 19, 6), and from there, it became a terminus technicus for Communion. This evolution is easily understood by anyone who recognizes that in Communion, we welcome the most Precious Guest. Furthermore, the text describes these hands as proteinanta (προτείναντα), meaning “stretched forward.” Thus, the actual meaning of the full expression used for Communion is: hands stretched forward for the welcoming / receiving of the Guest. This is correctly understood only when viewed through the lens of the practical ritual shown by the physical artifacts analysed earlier.

The second text is from the 17th Homily of Narsai of Edessa. This, too, is often presented as proof of communion in the hand; indeed, it cannot be ruled out that Alphonse Mingana, who discovered the text and was not above occasional forgery, sought to ensure it was read that way. In Dom R. H. Connolly’s translation, it reads:

“He who approaches to receive the Body stretches forth his hands, lifting up his right hand and placing it over its fellow. In the form of a cross the receiver joins his hands; and thus he receives the Body of our Lord upon a cross... And the priest who gives says unto him: ‘The Body of our Lord’... He receives in his hands the adorable Body of the Lord of all; and he embraces it and kisses it with love and affection.” (The liturgical homilies of Narsai online; see p. 108; in the original, p. 28)

Yet, in Mingana’s “original” Syriac text, the expression used for receiving the Host – just as in Eusebius – does not denote taking it with the hands. Instead, we find the same Scriptural term for “welcoming / receiving” as in the Greek. This term stems from the root Q-B-L, which in this context refers to the internal, spiritual, or faithful reception of the Sacrifice, much like in the Peshitta version of John 1, 12: “as many as received Him” (d-qabbelūhy).

Beyond the spiritual interpretation, the part of the expression referring to the hands allows for two grammatical readings. The preposition b- (b-īdayhī) can be either locative (‘in’) or instrumental (‘with/by means of’). In the latter case, Narsai’s text may not imply the Body being placed into the hands, but rather approaching the reception of the Body with hands outstretched in a gesture of welcome. The Syriac expression clearly supports this possibility precisely because of the aforementioned primary meaning of the terminus for communion. If, however, one still wishes to interpret the preposition as a locative, they may view it as a spiritual ‘place,’ much like the Father’s hands in Luke 23, 46, which feature the same preposition (b’idayk).

While the grammatical reading would ideally be determined by the subsequent parts of the text, the interpretation of the entire passage ultimately depends on what one considers a conceivable or plausible practice; thus, even the grammatical reading is decided primarily along extra-textual presuppositions. For example, it depends on whether one can imagine that the embracing and kissing of the Eucharist was not spiritual in sense, but an actual physical practice. Since I find this difficult to imagine, I more readily assume that the preposition has an instrumental meaning grammatically, involving a kind of spiritual instrumentality. Outstretched hands are symbols representing and signaling a readiness for reception, which practically served only to prevent crumbs from falling; thus, they are primarily spiritual instruments of a clearly spiritual reception. Therefore, in this text, the Body is perhaps not placed into the hands, but rather the communicant approaches for reception with outstretched hands, bowing.

The final example is the Fifth Mystagogical Catechesis of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem – often considered the “ultimate weapon” for proponents of communion in the hand. The passage in English reads:

“When, therefore, you approach, do not draw near with your wrists extended, nor with your fingers spread; but making your left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is about to receive the King, and hollowing your palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying, ‘Amen’.”

Migne’s edition: “Προσιὼν οὖν, μὴ τεταμένoις ταῖς τῶν χειρῶν καρποῖς προσέρχου, μηδὲ διῃρημένοις τοῖς δακτύλοις· ἀλλὰ τὴν ἀριστερὰν θρόνον ποιήσας τῇ δεξιᾷ, ὡς μελλούσῃ Βασιλέα ὑποδέχεσθαι· καὶ κοίλανας τὴν παλάμην, δέχου τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἐπιλέγων τὸ, Ἀμήν.” (PG 33, 1124-25, pdf pp. 562-3.)

Here again, we see the author using the technical term hypodechomai (ὑποδέχομαι) for the act of receiving. Even more interestingly: if we can momentarily set aside the ‘communion in the hand’ narrative, we discover that the scene described here is entirely compatible with the reconstructed rite, without the Holy Body ever touching the palm. Because the text does not forbid approaching with hands extended; rather, it forbids approaching with wrists separated, with the right palm not resting in the left, with the right palm not facing upward, or with fingers spread and arms flung wide. The purpose of closing the fingers and slightly hollowing the palms is obvious: to prevent any fragments of the holy Body from falling, an issue the text explicitly addresses with its analogy of gold dust.

Essentially, the text forbids the very hand gesture before reception that the images above depict as the posture of thanksgiving – after communion. If we recall the educational intent mentioned earlier, the Apostle on the Stuma paten – standing with arms wide and fingers spread – shows that the posture St. Cyril forbade before communion was actually the correct posture after communion, during the time of thanksgiving. This was a point of such significance that it demanded the instruction of the faithful; hence, its representation was deliberately sought, even while navigating the inherent constraints of pictorial composition.

It is also worth taking a closer look at the following passage:

“So then after having carefully hallowed thine eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, partake of it; giving heed lest thou lose any portion thereof; for whatever thou losest, is evidently a loss to thee as it were from one of thine own members. For tell me, if any one gave thee grains of gold, wouldest thou not hold them with all carefulness, being on thy guard against losing any of them, and suffering loss? Wilt thou not then much more carefully keep watch, that not a crumb fall from thee of what is more precious than gold and precious stones?” (Μετ’ ἀσφαλείας οὖν ἁγιάσας τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῇ ἐπαφῇ τοῦ ἁγίου σώματος μεταλάμβανε, προσέχων μὴ παραπολέσῃς τι ἐκ τούτου: ὅπερ γὰρ ἐὰν ἀπολέσῃς, τοῦτο ὡς ἀπὸ οἰκείου ἐζημιώθης μέλους. Εἰπὲ γάρ μοι, εἴ τίς σοι ἔδωκε ψήγματα χρυσίου, οὐκ ἂν μετὰ πάσης ἀσφαλείας ἐκράτεις, φυλαττόμενος μή τι αὐτῶν παραπολέσῃς καὶ ζημίαν ὑποστῇς; Οὐ πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον ἀσφαλέστερον τοῦ χρυσίου καὶ λίθων τιμίων τιμιωτέρον διασκοπήσεις ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ ψῖχα ἐκπεσεῖν.)

Those who view the above quote as irrefutable evidence for Communion in the hand generally fail to address what exactly was to be done after receiving the Most Holy Body. If this text were meant in a literal sense, then the Eucharist would have had to be touched to the eyes, just as later the remaining drops of the Holy Blood on the lips would have been smeared onto the sensory organs. Yet, it is highly contradictory that the author argues against dropping Eucharistic fragments using the gold dust metaphor, while simultaneously prescribing that it be kissed and touched to the eyes, acts that would obviously increase the risk of crumbs falling.

Furthermore, smearing droplets of the Holy Blood would almost inevitably result in dripping. Such a practice is highly improbable because – as proponents of Communion in the hand often overlook – those who possess an “excessive fear” of losing a single particle, likening it to the loss of their own limbs, do not typically handle the Blessed Sacrament in their hands, much less touch or smear it onto various parts of their body. Therefore, a sober interpretation suggests that the quote refers to actions in a spiritual sense; thus, the eyes are sanctified by gazing upon the Eucharist rather than by physical contact.

This is further supported by grammatical analysis, specifically the presence of the instrumental dative (dativus instrumenti) in the phrase τῇ ἐπαφῇ. This term, denoting contact or touch, can be rightly interpreted here as a kind of dativus instrumenti spiritualis.

Thus, this text serves as a vital supplement to the reconstructed ritual of the faithful’s Communion. With this detail, the action immediately preceding the reception of the Holy Body can be visualized: the communicant, approaching with hands extended and covered by the himation, raised his gaze to the Holy Body before receiving it, saying “Amen,” and then receiving it from the priest’s hand directly into his mouth.

Beyond its spiritual significance, the act of raising the eyes may have served a practical purpose. The phrase “carefully” (Μετ’ ἀσφαλείας) emphasizes the mindfulness with which the eyes are raised to gaze upon the Holy Body. This suggests a practical role for the gesture: by looking up at the Host, the face and mouth of the communicant, who approaches bowing with hands extended and covered, are placed in the optimal position for receiving Communion, thereby ensuring the safety of the metadosis (the priest’s handing over of the Holy Body). This aspect of safety is paramount, underscored by the Greek word for great care, “ἀσφάλεια”, a constant liturgical technical term in the Byzantine tradition. This very care is traditionally prescribed in Byzantine rubrics for priests administering the Eucharist. An example of this consistency is found in the Great Horologion (Horologion to Mega, p. 70), published in Venice in 1856, where the rubric for the priests’ communion prescribes: “And thus he takes what is in his hand with fear and great care.” (Καὶ οὕτω μεταλαμβάνει τοῦ ἐν χερσὶ μετὰ φόβου, καὶ πάσης ἀσφαλείας.)

In summary, it can be asserted with confidence that the texts presented here do not exclude the possibility of the reconstructed Communion rite. On the contrary, if we understand the spiritual state of the faithful – approaching bowed, with covered and extended hands as a humble sign of readiness to receive – we discover a posture identical to the traditional gesture of requesting a blessing preserved in Eastern traditions to this day, as we shall see in the final part of this essay.