A Model Schema for Liturgical Art for All Catholic Churches

The Exciting and Beautiful Re-Ordering of St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, Scotland

All Roman Catholics should take note of what is happening at St Mary’s Cathedral in Aberdeen: the creation of a sacred space where art and architecture work together with a deep understanding of how both support worship. Drawing on both the Roman and Byzantine traditions, the reordering integrates imagery, materials, and form into a single Eucharistic vision – one rooted in the Church’s heritage, yet particular to its place. When complete, the harmony achieved here will, I believe, make St Mary’s a destination of pilgrimage for generations, and a model that churches of the Roman Rite elsewhere would do well to study closely.

Above: mock-ups of the proposed re-ordering; below: the cathedral as it is now.

This major project builds on Martin Earle’s award-winning Crucifixion, and establishes a well-conceived template for the layout of sacred art that could serve for churches of the Roman Rite elsewhere. The result is a proposal that is a harmony of imagery, form, and materials, rooted in the Church’s ancient traditions, yet particular to its place.

Read more about this project, and see images of the proposed art and reordering, at www.beautyforgod.org. The images of the proposed reordering come from this website. The key elements are:

• A redesigned altar, ambo (lectern), and bishop’s chair crafted from Scottish elm and stone

• A new tabernacle in wood, metal, and stone as the devotional focal point behind the altar

• A new painted mural on the East Wall by award-winning artist Martin Earle

• A new sanctuary floor with colored granite from across North-East Scotland

• Conservation of the Rose Window

I came to know Bishop Hugh of Aberdeen, who commissioned this work, during his years as abbot of Pluscarden, a community of Catholic Benedictine monks which is in the diocese of Aberdeen, and of which I am an oblate. (The abbey has a daughter house in Petersham, Massachusetts, also named St Mary’s.) Abbot Hugh was called to the episcopate by Pope Benedict in 2011. I am delighted to see what he has planned here. Many years ago, he commissioned a double-sided San Damiano crucifixion from me, which still hangs in the abbey. More recently, when he asked me to repeat the commission for St Mary’s in Aberdeen, I told him I was unable to take it on, but recommended Martin Earle as the best artist I know for such a commission. And what a spectacular job he did!

Many of you will already know Martin’s work (martinearle.com). He is an English Catholic iconographer who works in fresco, egg tempera, gilding, wood and stone carving, and mosaic. The nine-foot hanging Crucifix he completed for St Mary’s – the first phase of this grand vision – was awarded the Grand Prize in the Catholic Art Institute’s international sacred art competition in Chicago in 2023. Phase 2 now builds upon that foundation.

When I talked to Martin about it, he was at pains to emphasize how a team is working together on this project. First of all, he spoke of Bishop Hugh’s vision and initiative in bringing it about. Then Martin worked with fellow UK artist Jim Blackstone (dunstanicons.com, another old friend of the Scala Foundation), on the design of the wall painting. He also told me how important it was to work closely with the architect, David Chouman (dcarchitect.co.uk), who leads and coordinates all the moving parts in the project, and even the stone masons who worked hard to comb the diocese for suitable and interesting stone to create the inlaid pattern work on the floor, altar, and ambo.

Emphasizing the team is important. In a project like this, all these people contribute creatively to the final outcome. The lesson here is that such a commission is rarely simply the vision of one person.

At the heart of the new composition on the east wall behind the altar will be a large-scale wall painting of Pentecost. The design creates a single vertical axis that visually connects Christ on the cross, Our Lady, the tabernacle, and the altar, which represents the Body of Christ and bears the Agnus Dei on its front face. High up on the wall, the Trinitarian symbolism of the design at the center of the rose window crowns the whole. Notice how the arc of the arrangement of the Apostles echoes that of the lower curve of the rose window, creating a resonance between the artistic and architectural forms. The tabernacle doors bear the image of the Annunciation, echoing, albeit on a smaller scale, the typical imagery of the Royal Doors of the iconostasis in the Byzantine tradition, which are opened during the Divine Liturgy to reveal the altar. A procession of sheep moves toward the tabernacle, recalling the famous mosaic program at San Clemente in Rome, and integrating naturally with the Agnus Dei below it on the front of the altar.

Considering the composition in more detail (and drawing heavily here on the write up on the website, beautyforgod.org), we begin to see how it mirrors the Liturgy itself – making visible what happens invisibly when the Word is proclaimed, and the Eucharist is celebrated. We begin with the Church on earth, gathered at Pentecost: Mary at the center, the Apostles around her, the descent of the Spirit visually linked to the Crucifix above the altar, and Christ’s final giving up of his Spirit. Moving upward, we see the heavenly liturgy: the Lamb of God standing on the mountain from which flow the four rivers of Paradise, angels ministering around him, and the hand of the Father blessing from above. The depiction of the Lamb on the heavenly mountain is reminiscent of the Ghent Altarpiece, where the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb unites the heavenly and earthly realms in a single act of worship. By such visual devices, the point is made By such visual devices, the point is made that the earthly liturgy does not stand alone – it is the Church’s participation in the ideal and unceasing worship of her heavenly worship, so that what is offered at the altar below and what is offered before the Throne above are not two acts of worship but one: the single, unbroken sacrifice of the whole Church, in heaven and on earth..

The Prophets and Apostles frame this mystery. Isaiah receives the burning coal; Ezekiel eats the scroll – each prefiguring the Eucharist and the proclaimed Word. Paul and John carry the mission forward after Pentecost, and one could say that rivers of grace flow through their books, nourishing the faithful as the lambs below process toward the tabernacle.

A word about the images: do not be misled by the light, pastel tones of the watercolor mockup. Martin’s finished palette will be rich and vibrant. However, the description of form will be by color rather than by tonal contrast. The Crucifixion, which is intended to be at the heart of the schema, uses both color and tonal contrast. To explain, imagine a grayscale photo of the final color image. The grayscale image of the painting that uses tonal contrast as well as color contrast will be discernible as a black-and-white photo; whereas the greyscale image of the painting that relies on color contrast alone will not, so red and blue, for example, will be barely distinguishable in the black-and-white version. In this context, as Martin told me, the image on the east wall will rely “more towards a Castelseprio style, where forms are gently described and modeled using contrasting cool and warm colors (rather than leaning into tone). And not all forms will be outlined with dark lines. The idea is that the east wall will set off, rather than overwhelm, the cross, which will remain the central image of the sanctuary, with the altar the true axis mundi that connects heaven and earth. All other images in the sanctuary are derived from and direct us to the meaning of the cross and altar.”

An Italo-Byzantine fresco of Christ from perhaps the 9th century. AD) Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

What emerges, taken as a whole, is a layout that is distinctly Roman and Eucharistic in its logic, yet one that will be familiar to anyone who has prayed before the image program of a Byzantine Catholic or Orthodox church, in which we see angels, prophets, apostles, Our Lady and Our Lord (both in glory and suffering), ordered to the same theological and liturgical principles. This makes the design not merely an image appropriate for Aberdeen, but also genuinely Catholic in the fullest sense.

The reordering also addresses the architecture itself. The bishop’s cathedra will be moved from its current position in the center. The floor will be laid in different colors of Aberdeen granite, a fitting material for a city known as the Granite City, and one that speaks also of the permanence of the Rock upon which the Church itself is built.

When complete, the harmony of art and architecture at St Mary’s will, I believe, make the cathedral a worthy site of artistic pilgrimage for generations.

As a postscript, for those who think that the strong visual emphasis on Christ suffering on the cross is much more a Roman than a Byzantine presentation: it is true that the traditional schema of the Eastern iconostasis plays down emphasis of Christ on the cross visually is the sense that it is of a small size compared to what we seen in Roman Rite churches. However, the cross is typically placed centrally and at the apex of the iconostasis, thereby ordering the whole schema in the mystery of redemption. Further, the emphasis in the liturgy on the importance of the cross in our redemption is stressed very strongly in other ways: by playing down the size of the cross visually, the impact of the sacrifice, the passion, death, and resurrection as re-presented on the altar becomes stronger; and through the repetition of troparia (liturgical hymns that emphasize the Holy Cross. Both approaches are sound, differing in emphasis in the means by which the same end is achieved.

I am also reminded of the brilliant book by the Chair of Theology at Notre Dame University, Khaled Anatolious, who is Melkite Catholic (one of the Byzantine Catholic churches), called Deification Through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation.

A Special Mass for a Miracle of St Philip Neri

Among the many miracles worked by St Philip Neri in his lifetime was the raising to life of Paolo Massimo, the 14-year old son of his friend Prince Fabrizio Massimo, on March 16, 1583. St Philip had tended the boy spiritually during his long illness, and was sent for when it became clear that he was about to die. He was then living fairly close by at the church of San Girolamo della Carità, but he was celebrating Mass when the messenger arrived, and the boy died before he could finish and be informed. Coming to the Palazzo Massimo, he prayed at the boy’s bedside, sprinkled holy water on his face, and, like the Prophet Elijah, breathed upon his face. He then called his name loudly twice, and Paolo Massimo returned to life.

On seeing his spiritual father at his bedside, the boy asked to confess a sin that he had forgotten; St Philip heard his confession and absolved him of his sins. His family were then allowed back into the room, and witnessed the boy conversing with St Philip for a half an hour, as if he were in perfect health. Paolo’s mother and sister had died a few years earlier, and so St Philip asked him if he were now willing to die, at which the boy replied that he wished to see his mother and sister in Paradise. St Philip then said to him, “Go, and be blessed, and pray to God for me,” at which Paolo Massimo died peacefully in his arms.

In commemoration of this miracle, a special feast is normally celebrated each year on March 16 in the chapel of the Palazzo Massimo, which is still owned and lived in by the same family, and opened to the public on this one day of the year. (This year, however, the building is undergoing a major renovation, and the whole event had to be canceled.) Priests celebrate Mass all morning long at one of the chapel’s three altars, and a main Mass is said later in the morning at the main altar, usually by a cardinal. A proper Mass for the feast was granted by Bl. Pope Pius IX at the behest of Francesco Cardinal Massimo, a member of the family. Here are photographs of the Missal supplement with the proper Mass of the day, taken several years ago by a friend of mine, Mr John Egan.

Introit (Ps. 129) Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my prayer. Let thy ears be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant. V. Because with the Lord there is mercy: and with him plentiful redemption. Glory be. Out of the depths.

The Prayer O God, who give us to rejoice by the merits and intercession of Blessed Philip, Thy confessor, grant in Thy mercy that we who through him ask Thy benefits, may obtain the gift of Thy grace. Through our Lord etc.

The Epistle is taken from Mass of Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent, 4 Kings 4, 25-38, in which the Prophet Elisha raises from the dead the son of the Sunamite woman.

The Gradual (Ps. 70) O Lord, I will be mindful of thy justice alone. Thou hast taught me, O God, from my youth: and unto old age and grey hairs, O God, forsake me not. V. By thee have I been confirmed from the womb: from my mother' s womb thou art my protector. Of thee shall I continually sing.

The Tract (also from Ps. 70, but here incorrectly not labelled separately from the Gradual.) I am become unto many as a wonder, and Thou a strong helper; let my mouth be filled with Thy praise, that I may sing thy glory. V. But I will always hope; and will add to all thy praise. V. Thou hast taught me, O God, from my youth: and till now I will declare Thy wonderful works, until I show forth Thy arm to all the generation that is to come.

The Gospel is Luke 7, 11-16, the raising of the widow of Naim’s son, taken from the same Mass as the Epistle.

The Offertory (Luke 20) Now that the dead rise again, even Moses showeth, at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him.

The Secret God, who establish and rule Thy people, though these offerings take away the sins by which it is assailed; that ever pleasing unto Thee by the prayers of Blessed Philip, it may also secure under Thy defense. Through our Lord etc.

The Preface (as stated in the decree below, this proper preface for St Philip was first granted to the Congregation of the Oratory in the Kingdom of Spain in 1803.) Truly it is worthy and just ... eternal God, who by the gifts of Thy grace, made the Blessed Philip to burn with the fire of love. And he, inflamed with this ineffable charity, established a new congregation for the profit of souls, and fulfilled in his works the saving counsels which he gave to others. We therefore beseech Thy clemency, that Thou give us joy in his festivity, drive us on by the example of his holy life, teach us by word of his preaching, and protect us by his pleasing supplication. And therefore with the Angels etc.

The Communion (Ps. 40) But do thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up again: and I will requite them. By this I know, that thou hast had a good will for me: because my enemy shall not rejoice over me.

The Postcommunion May the ears of Thy mercy be open, o Lord, to the prayers of Thy supplicants; and that Thou may grant what they desire to those who ask, at the intercession of Blessed Philip Thy Confessor, cause them to ask for those thing that please Thee. Through our Lord etc.

The decree by which permission was given in 1846 to celebrate the Mass commemorating the miracle.

Abp Cordileone Celebrates a Pontifical High Mass in Croatia

During a recent visit to Croatia, His Excellency Salvatore Cordileone, archbishop of San Francisco, celebrated a Pontifical High Mass in the traditional rite at the church of St Blaise in Zagreb, for the feast of St Thomas Aquinas. This was the first such Mass celebrated in Croatia since the post-Conciliar liturgical reform. His Excellency also celebrated two prelatitial Masses, one at the same church on the following day, and another the previous day at the church of the Holy Trinity in Krašić. He also attended a liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in the Greek-Catholic co-cathedral of Ss Cyril and Methodius. Our thanks to the organizers, the Benedictus Society (FIUV Croatia), for sharing these photos with us.

Anyone who has ever served this rite of Mass knows that it requires a fair amount of organizing and rehearsal to do properly; the reward is, of course, a ceremony which truly impresses upon one, forcibly and unmistakably, the power and majesty of what the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass really is. We can all take encouragement once again from the fact that none of the people who are making the effort and commitment to put this together are old enough to be doing so from any sense of “nostalgia”; what we see here is a true and sincere love for the richness of our Catholic liturgical tradition. Feliciter!

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The Feast of St Longinus

On March 15th, the Roman Martyrology commemorates St Longinus, who is traditionally said to be the soldier who pierced the Lord’s side with a lance on the Cross (John 19, 34), as well as the centurion who said “Truly, this man was the Son of God.” (Matthew 27, 54) His legend states that he suffered from a malady of the eyes, which was healed when the some of the blood that came forth from the Savior’s side touched him. The apocryphal “Letters between Pilate and Herod” also claim that he was one of the guards at Christ’s tomb, and not only witnessed the Resurrection, but spoke with the Lord Himself shortly afterwards. After preaching the Gospel and living a monastic life near Caesarea of Cappadocia (later the see of St Basil the Great), he was martyred by beheading.

An illustration from a Syriac Gospel book now kept at the Laurentian Library in Florence, known from the name of the scribe as the Rabula Gospels, dated 586 A.D. The name “Longinos” is written in Greek over the soldier on the left with the lance, but this may be an addition by a later hand. 

There are a great many variants to the story, which cannot be regarded as a reliable hagiography. The city of Lanciano in the Italian region of the Abruzzi claims him as a native son, and that his martyrdom took place there instead. The city of Mantua in Lombardy, birthplace of the poet Virgil, claims that he preached in that region, and was martyred there, and furthermore, that he brought to that city relics of the Lord’s Precious Blood, and the sponge which was used to give Him vinegar during the Passion. These are now kept in the crypt of the basilica of St Andrew, which was begun by the famous Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti in 1472, but only completed in 1732. Here are some photos of the church from Nicola de’ Grandi.

The chapel of St Longinus. The tomb on the left contains his relics, that on the right, some of the relics of St Gregory Nazianzen, given to Mantua by Matilda of Canossa. (Detailed photos below)

The story is told that the relics of Christ’s Blood brought to Mantua by St Longinus were hidden for safekeeping by Longinus himself, and discovered in 804 when St Andrew the Apostle appeared to someone to reveal their location. (Similar stories are told about many of the famous and more improbable relics of the Middle Ages.) The rediscovery of the relics is here depicted by Giulio Romano, a disciple of Raphael who did an enormous amount of work in Mantua under the Gonzaga dukes; the Crucifixion scene below is also his.

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Laetare Sunday 2026

Qui confídunt in Dómino, sicut mons Sion: non commovébitur in aeternum, qui hábitat in Jerúsalem. V. Montes in circúitu ejus, et Dóminus in circúitu pópuli sui, ex hoc nunc et usque in sáeculum. (The Tract of Laetare Sunday, Psalm 124, 1-2)

Tract They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Sion: he shall not be moved for ever that dwelleth in Jerusalem. V. Mountains are round about it: so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth now and for ever. (There is a particularly good word-painting effect in this tract, in the way the notes are arranged to rise and fall on the word “mountains”.)

The same text set as a very nice motet by the Slovene composer Jacob Handl (1550-91), also known as Jacobus Gallus.

The Woman Caught in Adultery in the Liturgy of Lent

In the Roman Rite, the Gospel of the woman caught in adultery, John 8, 1-11, is joined at today’s Mass with the story of Susanna, who is rescued from an accusation of adultery by the prophet Daniel. Whether by coincidence or design, these two stories are united not just by a textual theme, but also by a text-critical one; both stories were known in antiquity to be later additions to their respective books, but nevertheless accepted as authentic and canonical by the Church.

Christ and the Adulteress, 1620s, by the French painter Valentin de Boulogne (1591-1632), an unabashed plagiarist of Caravaggio. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. 

Susanna is one of two Greek additions to the book of the prophet Daniel, the other being the episode known as Bel and the Dragon. In the Septuagint, it is placed at the beginning of the book, since it describes Daniel as a youth, and Bel and the Dragon at the end. St Jerome placed them both at the end of his Latin translation of Daniel, and they therefore appear in the Vulgate as chapters 13 and 14 respectively. Since the time of the Protestant reformation, they have been included in many non-Catholic English Bibles with the group of books improperly known as the Apocrypha.

But as with the other so-called Apocrypha, the early Church had no serious doubts about the canonicity of either episode. The earliest Patristic commentary on Daniel, written by Hippolytus of Rome in the first half of the 3rd century, accepts Susanna as a part of the book without distinction, and the hugely influential Biblical scholar Origen, his contemporary, explicitly defended its canonicity. It was frequently depicted in art in the Roman catacombs, and both episodes form part of the Roman Mass lectionary.

Susanna as a lamb between two wolves, from the Arcosolium of Celerina in the Catacomb of Praetextatus, mid-4th century.

The pericope of the adulteress, on the other hand, was a bit slower to find acceptance. It is missing completely from a considerable number of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, including several of the earliest and most important ones, such as the Codexes Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus. Other early manuscripts have it marked in such a way that indicates doubt as to its authenticity, and a few place it at the end of Luke 21, which is why it is sometimes known as “the wandering pericope.” It is not mentioned in some important early commentaries on the Gospel of John, such as those by Ss John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria. To this day, the Byzantine Rite’s Gospel for the Divine Liturgy of Pentecost goes from the last verse of John 7 directly to verse 8, 12, and the passage is not included in the semi-continuous reading of St John that runs from Easter to Pentecost. (It is included in the lectionary for the feasts of female penitents.)

In the West, the question of its authority was settled by its acceptance on the part of three of the first four Doctors of the Church. St Jerome included it in the correction of the Latin text of the Gospels which he made at the behest of Pope St Damasus I. St Ambrose refers to it as part of the liturgy in his Second Apology for David, and it is still used to this day in the Ambrosian Rite in the same place in which he attests it. St Augustine includes it in his commentary on the Gospel of John, which is by far the most important and widely read such commentary in the West. In his book “On Adulterous Marriages”, he also gives the following explanation of the passage’s absence from some manuscripts, words which have become, alas, all too relevant to our own age.

“But now, after Christ said to the adulteress, ‘Neither shall I condemn thee; go, sin no more henceforth,’ who could not understand that the husband must forgive since he sees that the Lord of them both has forgiven (her)? Nor should she any longer call herself an adulteress, whose crime was wiped away by God’s mercy when she repented.

But clearly the sense of the faithless abhors this, such that some of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, I believe, fearing that free license to sin was being given to their wives, took out of their copies (of the Gospel) that which the Lord did regarding the forgiveness of the adulteress, as if He granted permission to sin when He said, ‘Now sin no longer …’ (De conjugiis adulterinis II, 7.)

The Four Doctors of the Church, by Pier Francesco Sacchi, ca. 1516.

For Hippolytus, Susanna is a figure of the Church beset by her persecutors, but vindicated and saved by the just judgment of God in the person of the prophet Daniel, whose name means “God is my judge.” For St Ambrose, the adulteress is also a figure of the Church, in the broader sense of God’s people, in both the Old and New Testaments, that seeks the Word of God in many places until she finds it in Christ, and is absolved and purified by Him. “And therefore she was waiting about, and everywhere sought the Word of God, because she was wounded, because she was naked, because she was an adulteress in all things, although without blemish in Christ, as she sought a redeemer in her wretched body. Christ joined her to Himself, in order to make her immaculate; He united Himself to her, in order to take away her adultery.” Where Susanna is the symbol of the Church in her fidelity to Christ, and the adulteress is the Church redeemed by Christ when she has been unfaithful to him.

Roughly nine centuries later, William Durandus neatly sums up this union of the two readings as follows: “On Saturday (of the third week of Lent) it is shown that the Lord saves by justice and mercy, whence the Epistle speaks of Susanna, who was saved by justice. The Gospel is that of the woman caught in adultery, whom the Lord delivered through mercy. Therefore, because (she) is saved through mercy, the Church, seeing the weakness of her children, asks to be delivered through mercy in the Introit, saying, ‘Give ear, O Lord, to my words, understand my cry. Hearken to the voice of my prayer, (my king and my God.)’ ” (Rat. Div. Off. 7, 52, 1)

Three further things we may note about this Introit. Psalm 5, from which it is taken, is titled in Greek and Latin “for her that obtaineth the inheritance”, which the Church Fathers naturally took as a reference to the Church. A 4th-century commentary on the Psalms called “Breviarium in Psalmos”, which was long mistakenly attributed to St Jerome, says, “This Psalm is written about the Church, which at the end of the world will obtain the inheritance in all the nations that believe in Christ.” (PL XXVI, 828D-829A)

Secondly, the same commentary explains the words “my king and my God” as follows. “He truly dared to say ‘my king and my God’, even he over whom sin does not reign in his mortal body. ‘My king and my God’, because Thou reignest in me, and sin reigneth not, wherefore Thou art my God. Thou art my God, because my belly is not my God (Phil. 3, 19), because money is not my God, because lust is not my God.” This represents the condition of the Church as symbolized by the adulteress, whose adultery is taken away, and thus lust is no longer her god.

Third, the verse of the Introit continues in the fourth verse of the Psalm, “For to thee will I pray, o Lord; in the morning thou shalt hear my voice.” The story of the adulteress begins when “early in the morning (Jesus) came again into the temple.” This is also a symbol of the adulteress’ conversion, as the Breviarium says: “As long as I am in the darkness of error, He does not hear me, but when the sun of justice (i.e. Christ) shall come into my heart, then He heareth me.”

The Gradual of this Mass is taken from Psalm 22: “If I shall walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils; since Thou art with me, o Lord.” This refers to the fact that both Susanna and the adulteress faced the possibility of being killed, but were saved by the Lord. In many medieval Uses of the Roman Rite, this same gradual was used at the Requiem Mass.

The Offertory is from Psalm 118, verse 133: “Direct my steps according to thy word, that no injustice may have dominion over me, o Lord.” Of this, the Breviarium says simply “and not according to bodily desires, because I am given over to Thy service.” St Hilary of Poitiers comments in a similar vein, “…not according to the ways of the world, not according to the glory of men, not according to the pleasures of the body.” (Tractatus super Psalmos; PL IX, 617D-618A) Thus the Church, freed from the dominion of sin like the adulteress, is able to proceed to the offering of the Holy Sacrifice. And since this Psalm was sung daily for centuries at the hours from Prime to None, those who heard and sang this Offertory would certainly have thought of the first part of the following verse, “Redeem me from the calumnies of men” as a reference to the calumnies made against Susanna, and the second part, “that I may keep thy commandments,” as a reference to the Lord’s command to the adulteress, “Go and sin no more.”

On the ferias of Lent, the Communion antiphons are taken each one from a different Psalm in sequential order, starting on Ash Wednesday with Psalm 1. The days which were formerly aliturgical do not form part of this series, namely, the six Thursdays, and also the first and last Saturday; the ferias of Holy Week are also not included. (See the table below; click for larger view.)

The series is also interrupted on six days when particularly important passages of the Gospels are read, and the Communion is taken from them instead. Here is a magnificent polyphonic setting of the one for today, by the Portuguese composer Frei Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650), a Carmelite friar who worked principally at his order’s house in Lisbon.

A New Edition of The Tripartite Life of St Patrick

Just in time for the feast of St Patrick next Tuesday, we are very glad to share this announcement from Mr Phillip Campbell and Cruachan Hill Press.

Some of the most popular publishing projects I’ve been involved with over the last several years have been my reprints of the lives of St. Brigid of Kildare and St. Columba of Iona, two of the best-known saints of Ireland’s golden age. I have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic reception these works have elicited, which testifies to the growing interest among Catholics in rediscovering the vast heritage of Catholic Ireland. I am therefore very happy to announce, after two years of labor, the addition of a third title to the collection: The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick and Other Works (Cruachan Hill Press, 2026).

Composed between the 8th and 11th centuries, The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick is the most popular biography of the great founder of the Irish church. Originally written in both Gaelic and Latin, it was meant to be read in three parts over the three successive days of Patrick’s festival. It is from this text that we get many of the most notable stories of his life: his contest with the druids of King Laoghaire at Tara, the establishment of his church at Armagh, his miraculous escape from his persecutors under the guise of a deer, and his famed Lent on Cruachan-Aighle, where he won the extraordinary grace of judging the Irish himself on the Judgment Day. Whatever Patrick story you’re thinking of, chances are it can be found in the Tripartite Life. This is, therefore, an indispensable resource for anyone who loves the great patron saint of Eíre.

But that’s not all! I have also included both of Patrick’s known works, his Confession and Epistle to Coroticus in their entirety, along with the earliest hagiography on the saint, The Metrical Life of St Patrick by St. Fiacc. You may not be familiar with Fiacc, but he is one of the most important eyewitnesses to Patrick’s life and ministry. As the son of the Chief Bard of Ireland and himself a druid in the service of King Laoghaire, Fiacc witnessed Patrick’s showdown with the druids firsthand and became one of the saint’s earliest converts. Written in old Irish, the Metrical Life is arranged in quatrains of thirty-four stanzas. A good deal of the poem reiterates material from the Confession, but we also see the introduction of other episodes that would go on to become integral to Patrick’s hagiographical tradition, like Brittany as the place where Patrick fled to after escaping slavery, and his schooling with St. Germanus of Auxerre.

The Confession and Epistle to Coroticus are the versions found in The Most Ancient Lives of St. Patrick, edited by Fr. James O’Leary and published in New York in 1904. St. Fiacc’s Metrical Life is an original translation from the Old Irish made by Fr. O’Leary. The Tripartite Life is given in the translation by Whitley Stokes (1830–1909), a renowned Victorian-era Irish lawyer, scholar and antiquarian. The whole book is 176 pages, 6 x 9 paperback.

Now perhaps the reader is thinking, “A quick Amazon search reveals several other editions of The Tripartite Life, as well as these other works. Why should I choose this one?”

For one thing, this work is not a cheap OCR reprint like most of the schlocky editions floating around on Amazon. This is a completely original edition, lovingly worked through line by line, chapter by chapter, with the help of a whole team of people. Phrases left in Latin by Whitley Stokes have been translated, and some of the Victorian grammar has been cleaned up for ease of reading. So you’re getting a lot better product for your money than you would with some crummy OCR scan.

Furthermore, there is substantial original content in this edition you won’t find anywhere else, most notably a 26-page introductory essay covering Patrick’s life and legacy, with a discussion of the various source texts and historical background. In addition, the text has been enriched with a generous number of explanatory endnotes, elaborating on the history, geography, and etymology of the names and places mentioned in the text.

Finally, another reason to consider this edition is because there are two different ways you can save when you do! From now through the end of Easter week, you can get 15% off if you purchase from the Cruachan Hill webpage using the promo code PATRICK15 at checkout. Alternately, if you want to bundle The Tripartite Life with the lives of Brigid and Columba, you can choose the Irish Saints Collection and get all three books at a generously discounted price.

We also have two other texts that readers with an interest in Catholic Ireland may want to take note of: The St. John Ogilvie Prayer Book, a prayer book in the Gaelic tradition with an original introduction by His Excellency Athanasius Schneider, and The Saga of Ireland: A Concise History of the Emerald Isle by Phillip Campbell (me), a 480-page history of Ireland peppered with historical fiction vignettes, laid out beautifully by Michael Schrauzer and illustrated by the lovely artwork of Chris Lewis of Baritus, which you can see below.

I have always been deeply moved by the story of St. Patrick. That one man can accomplish so much in God’s service is truly an enduring testament to the mighty works that grace is capable of affecting in a willing soul. I am sure that you, too, will be both edified and educated by this new edition of Patrick’s best-known and beloved vitae. May St. Patrick bless this humble work, and may all the saints of Erin remember us before the throne of God.

The Samaritan Woman in the Liturgy of Lent

In the lectionaries of the various Latin rites, one of the most prominent Gospels of the Lenten season is that of the Samaritan woman who spoke to Christ at the well of Jacob (St John 4, 5-42). Although the Roman, Ambrosian and Byzantine Rites each read this Gospel on a different day, it appears in all three as a lesson of particular importance for the preparation of those who will be baptized at Easter or Pentecost.

In the Roman Rite, it is read on the Friday of the third week, joined with one of the most important epistles of Lent, Numbers 20, 1-13, in which Moses makes water run from the rock in the desert. This story was understood by the early Christians as a prefiguration of the sacrament of baptism, starting with St Paul himself, who tells us that “our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10, 1-4) Moses striking the rock to make the water run from it is one of the most frequently depicted Biblical scenes in early Christian art; just in the paintings of the Roman catacombs, it appears over 70 times, along with numerous other representations on ancient sarcophagi.

Moses making the water run from the rock in a fourth-century fresco in the Catacomb of St Callixtus.

On the previous Sunday, the Lenten station is kept at the church of St Lawrence Outside-the-Walls, where anciently the catechumens underwent a formal examination of their Christian faith, the ritual known as the scrutiny. The Gelasian Sacramentary contains a beautiful prayer for them to be said on that day, “that they may worthily and wisely come to the confession of Thy praise; so that through Thy glory they may be reformed to the former dignity which they had lost in the original transgression.” At the same Mass, the Memento of the living has an interpolation to pray for their future godparents, and during the Hanc igitur, the names of the catechumens were read out loud. On the following Friday, the station is kept at another church of Rome’s most venerated martyr, St Lawrence ‘in Lucina’, nicknamed, like so many sacred places in the city, for the woman upon whose property it was originally built. Here, they would hear Christ speaking to the Samaritan woman of the “living water … springing up unto life everlasting”, and understand His words as a clear reference to baptism.

A piece of the gridiron of St Lawrence’s martyrdom, preserved in a reliquary in a side-altar of San Lorenzo in Lucina. Photo courtesy of Orbis Catholicus.

In his treatise on the Gospel of St John (Tract 15, 10), St Augustine explains the woman as a type of the Church, “not yet justified, but waiting to be justified”, like the catechumens themselves. He also reminds us that the Samaritans were not part of the Jewish people; indeed, the Bible itself says that they were a mixed nation of Jews and pagans, observing the customs of both. (4 Kings 17, 24-41) So too, the early Church was a mixture of Jews and pagans, now united in Christ in whom “there is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3, 28) Augustine continues by saying, “Therefore, in her, let us hear ourselves (spoken of), and in her, let us recognize ourselves, and in her, let us give thanks to God for ourselves.” (i.e. for what He has done for us.)

The dedicatory inscription on the counter-façade of Santa Sabina in Rome, the only part of the church’s original mosaic decoration which survives, ca. 425 A.D. The two figures on the sides are “the church from the circumcision” on the left, and “the church from the gentiles” on the right. Photo courtesy of Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

In the Ambrosian Rite, the first Sunday of Lent is called “in capite jejunii – at the beginning of the fast”, a title also used for Ash Wednesday in medieval liturgical books of the Roman Rite. The remaining Sundays are named for their Gospels, all taken from St John, the second Sunday being that of the Samaritan woman, the third ‘of Abraham’ (chap. 8, 31-59), the fourth ‘of the man born blind,’ (9, 1-38), the fifth of Lazarus (11, 1-45) and the sixth ‘of the Palms’ (11, 55 – 12, 11). On the second Sunday, the following antiphon is sung after the Gospel, while the deacon spreads the corporal on the altar in preparation for the Offertory. (As in the Roman Rite, most of the Mass propers use the Old Latin version of the Scriptures.)

For I will take you from among the gentiles, and I will pour upon you clean water; you shall be cleansed from all your iniquities. I will give you a new heart, and renew a righteous spirit within you. (Ezechiel 36, 24, 25 and 26.)

In the Roman Rite, the same prophecy of Ezechiel (though not exactly the same words) provides both the introit and the first epistle of the Mass of the Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent, on which day the catechumens were exorcized and blessed at the tomb of St Paul, the great Apostle of the gentiles.

The Ambrosian Missal contains proper prefaces for nearly every Mass of the temporal cycle, generally rather longer than those of the Roman Rite. The Lenten prefaces of the Sundays are each based on the Gospel of the day, and that of the Samaritan woman reads as follows:

Truly it is worthy and just…through Christ our Lord. Who, to instill (in us) the mystery of His humility, being tired, sat at the well, and * asked of the Samaritan woman that a drink of water be given Him, even He that had created the gift of faith in her; and so He deigned to thirst for her faith, so that, as He asked water of her, He might enkindle in her the fire of divine love. * We therefore beseech Thy boundless compassion, that defying the dark depths of vice, and leaving behind the vessel of harmful desires, we may ever thirst for Thee, that art the fountain of life, and source of all goodness, and may please Thee by the observance of our fast. Through the same etc.

The words here noted between the stars form the basis of a Preface used in the post-Conciliar Rite in the first year of the three-year lectionary cycle, when the story of the Samaritan woman is read on the third Sunday of Lent. Since this crucial passage is not included among the readings of the second and third years, a rubric provides that it may be read on Sunday in place of the Gospels assigned to those years, or it may displace one of the ferial Gospels; a similar provision is made for the blind man and Lazarus.

The Orthodox church of Jacob’s Well, also known as St Photini’s, in the city of Nablus on the West Bank. The current church is the fifth structure to stand over the site, which has been venerated by Christians as the Well of Jacob since the fourth century.

In the Byzantine tradition, the story of the Samaritan woman is read in Eastertide rather than Lent, as is that of the man born blind; however, the association of it with the sacrament of baptism is just as clear as in the Latin rites. On the fifth Sunday of Easter, the following three exapostilaria are sung at the end of Matins; the first is that of the Easter season, the second relates to the Gospel of the day’s Divine Liturgy, and the third to the feast of Mid-Pentecost.

Exapostilarion of Easter  Having fallen asleep in the flesh as a mortal, O King and Lord, You rose again on the third day, raising up Adam from corruption, and abolishing death. O Pascha of incorruption, O salvation of the world!
of the Samaritan Woman  You reached Samaria, and talking with a woman, sought water to drink, my all-powerful Savior, who poured out water for the Hebrews from a sharp rock, and led her to belief in you: and now she enjoys life eternally in heaven.
of Mid-Pentecost  At the mid-point of the feast, Lover of mankind, you came to the temple and said: You who are full of thirst, come to me and draw living water welling up, through which you will all revel in delight and grace and immortal life.

Note how the exapostilarion of the Samaritan woman makes the same association between the Lord’s revelations to her and the episode of the water running from the rock that is made in the Roman Rite by the readings of the Mass. This reference to the waters of baptism continues in the third text, which quotes Christ’s second reference to the “living waters” in the Gospel of John, when He speaks in the temple during the feast of Tabernacles. (chapter 7, 37-39.)

The text of this second Gospel of the “living waters” is deferred by the Byzantine Rite to Pentecost itself, a custom which it shares with the Ambrosian and Roman Rites in different ways. The church of Milan preserves to this very day an ancient custom of celebrating two Masses on both Easter and Pentecost, the traditional days for the administration of baptism; one is the Mass “of the solemnity” itself, and another “for the (newly) baptized.” On Easter Sunday, the Gospel at the Mass for the baptized is John 7, 37-39, with the second part of the last verse omitted.

On great day of the festivity, the Lord Jesus stood and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive, who believed in him.

At the Mass for the baptized on Pentecost, this Gospel is repeated, adding the final words of verse 39 which are not said on Easter, “for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” In the Roman Rite, the same text provides the Communion antiphon for the Mass of the vigil of Pentecost, although the Gospel itself is read on the Monday of Passion Week.

The Byzantine Rite has traditionally honored the Samaritan woman as a Saint, and she was often called both an Apostle and Evangelist. Her legend states that she, her five sisters and two sons were among those baptized by St Peter and the other Apostles on the first Pentecost, and afterwards traveled to preach in many places; after evangelizing Carthage, they came to Rome, where they were martyred under Nero. Her given name is Photeine (or “Photini” in the modern pronunciation), the Greek word for “bright”; the cognate “photistes – illuminator” is used in the Byzantine tradition as a title for the saint who first evangelizes a people, the best-known example of this being perhaps St Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia. With the latinized form of her name, Photina, she was added to the Tridentine edition of the Roman Martyrology by Cardinal Baronius, along with her family members, on March 20th, the day of her feast in the Byzantine Rite. Her troparion makes the same association between the waters of baptism and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost indicated by the placement of her Gospel on the Sunday after Mid-Pentecost.

Wholly illuminated by the divine Spirit, and sated of your thirst by the springs, you drank deeply of the water of salvation from Christ the Savior, all praiseworthy one, and shared it abundantly with them that thirst; o Great Martyr and Equal to the Apostles, Photini, entreat Christ our God to save our souls.

The Feast of St Fina of San Gimignano

The photographs in this post were all taken by Nicola de’ Grandi.

The Tuscan town of San Gimignano is named for St Geminianus, a bishop of Modena in the Italian region of the Emilia-Romagna, who died in 397. But it also has another patron Saint, one its own citizens, a girl named Fina (short for Serafina). Although her noble family had fallen into poverty, from a very young age, she would give half of her own food to those even less fortunate than herself, until she was struck by a disease of some sort that left her almost totally paralyzed. At the same time, her father died, leaving her and her mother in even more dire straights; her mother often had to leave her alone to look for work or beg. In the midst of severe suffering, Fina was never heard to complain, but prayed with her eyes always on a crucifix, “It is not my wounds but Thine, o Christ, that hurt me.” Finally, her mother died and she was left completely destitute, cared for only by two friends named Beldia and Bonaventura. Since she had heard that Pope St Gregory the Great also suffered terribly from various diseases, Fina would often pray to him that he would help her bear her sufferings. Eight days before her death, St Gregory appeared to her and told her that God would give her rest on his feast day, the day on which she died at the age of only 15, in the year 1253.

In 1468, the architects Benedetto and Giuliano da Maiano were brought to the Collegiate Church of the Assumption in San Gimignano to build a chapel dedicated to St Fina. Seven years later, Benedetto completed the altar which houses her relics, while the most successful artist in Florence at the time, Domenico Ghirlandaio (the future painting teacher of Michelangelo) was hired to fresco the walls and ceilings, which include two scenes from her life. The relics now repose underneath the altar...

but were formerly in this urn mounted on the wall above it. The poetic Latin inscription says, “The bones of a virgin lie hidden in the tomb which you see, friend; she is glory, model and defense for her own (i.e., for her fellow-citizens). Her name was Fina, this was her native place. Do you seek miracles? Read what the walls (i.e. the paintings on them) and the living signs have to teach.” (There is a spelling error in the 3rd line of the inscription, EVIT instead of FVIT.)

St Fina is not incorruptible (quite the contrary); her bones are now covered over with a wax effigy and a structure that supports the clothing. This new urn is designed so that her body can be carried in procession on her feast day.

During the years of her paralysis, Fina would often have to lie for long periods on this plank, to which (there is no polite way to explain this) she eventually became at least partly attached. Within the last couple of years, it has been placed in this new modern case with a sealed nitrogen atmosphere to preserve it, and is now displayed within the chapel.

On the right wall of the chapel, Ghirlandaio painted this image of the appearance of St Gregory to St Fina shortly before her death. (Renaissance artists in general, and particularly the Florentines, do not dwell on things that are ugly and distressing, and the artist does not show us Fina’s horrifying condition at the time of her death.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Cardinal Eijk to Celebrate Pontifical Mass in the Netherlands

On March 15, Laetare Sunday, His Eminence Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, Archbishop of Utrecht, will celebrate for the first time in his episcopal ministry a Pontifical High Mass according to the traditional Roman Rite. The Mass will take place in the historic church of the Immaculate Conception (Grote Kerk) in Oss, Netherlands. For many faithful attached to the ancient Roman liturgy, this occasion represents a historic moment in the contemporary Catholic life of the Netherlands, the first celebration of a pontifical Mass by a cardinal since the post-Conciliar liturgical reform. The Mass will begin at 12:30pm; the church is located at Kerkstraat 15, Oss.