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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We hope to see some of you there!

Pope Pius XI on the Holy Rosary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Cardinal’s Liturgical Ordo from 1681

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Charterhouse of Pavia

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cupola seen from behind the metal screen.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

On Gothic Art, Part 1

The art of pilgrimage

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

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

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

What Is the Gothic?

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

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

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

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

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

The New Naturalism

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

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

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

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

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

Early Gothic: Duccio’s Transfiguration

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

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

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

Lorenzetti’s Deposition

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

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

Matthew Paris and the English School

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

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

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

Why Translation Matters

In the post-Conciliar Rite, yesterday was the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and in the current year of the three-year cycle of Sunday readings (A), the Gospel was Matthew 21, 33-43, the parable of the vineyard owner. In the Roman Rite, a slightly longer version of this Gospel, going to verse 46, is read on the 2nd Friday of Lent. This is retained in the same place in the post-Conciliar Rite, but verse 44 is omitted, the words of Our Lord being deemed insufficiently irenic for the delicate ears of Modern Man™: “And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.”

The Risen Christ and the Mystical Winepress, by Marco dal Pino, often called Marco da Siena, (1525-1588 ca.), an artistic expression of the very ancient exegetic tradition by which the wine-press is a symbol of Christ’s Passion.

The Old Testament reading, Isaiah 5, 1-7, is paired with this Gospel because the parable is unmistakably a citation of it; in both, the owner of the vineyard makes a hedge (or ‘fence’) around the vineyard, digs a wine-press, and builds a tower in it. In the prophecy, despite the care of the vineyard owner, it produces not “grapes”, but “wild grapes.” The latter is the term used in many English translations, including the Douay, the KJV, and the NAB, and does not sound very bad, but in Hebrew, the word is “be’ushim”, derived from a verb root that means “to stink.” The translators of the Septuagint made the contrast between good plant and bad plant more explicit by writing “thorns.”

For the Church, this passage refers to the Jews’ rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, which is why it is paired with this Gospel, in which the workers in the vineyard end up killing the owner’s son. St Jerome in his commentary on Isaiah connects the Septuagint reading with Our Lord’s crown of thorns, but rejects this as a breaking of the comparison in the original metaphor, and instead chooses for his own translation the rare Latin word “labrusca”, the name of a kind of wild grape vine.

This is something to which probably no English translation can do justice, but there is a much more serious error in this reading in the dreadful NAB, which the wise Dr Anthony Esolen rightly has described as a “colorless, odorless, gaseous paraphrase.” The first verse should read, “Let me sing of my well-beloved, a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard.” The Hebrew words for “my well-beloved” and “my beloved” derive from the same root from which comes the name of King David. Our readers will hardly need to be reminded that Christ’s claim to be the Messiah is derived in part from His descent from David, and that he is repeatedly acclaimed as the son of David in the Gospels. In the Septuagint version, they are both translated with forms of the Greek verb “agapao”, the same verb which is used in the Synoptic Gospels when God the Father speaks from heaven at Christ’s baptism and calls him “my beloved Son”. In Hebrew, however the two words are slightly different, “dīdī” and “dōdī”. (The suffix -ī at the end of these words is the “my”.) This seems to have inspired St Jerome (following the lead of a different Greek version of the Scriptures) to translate the latter with an alternate meaning, “patruelis mei - my cousin.” And he goes on to explain this as follows in the same commentary:

“The title of the 44th psalm, ‘A song for the beloved one’, teaches us ... that Christ is called ‘beloved’ and ‘most dear.’ Likewise the voice of God the Father in the Gospel, ‘This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.’ And in the 67th psalm we read, ‘The Lord will give the word to them that preach the glad tidings with great might: the king of hosts, of the beloved.’ ... Thus, it should certainly be understood to mean, ‘I will sing to the almighty God the Father the song of Christ, who is my cousin, that is, begotten of the same people as myself.’ ”

The Baptism of Christ, ca. 1387, by Lorenzo Monaco 

This is the very exegetical tradition which justifies pairing this reading with this Gospel, but the NAB, which can always be relied on to make the blandest choice among possible readings, stupidly eliminates it by rendering “dīdī” and “dōdī” as “my friend”.

The time is long past for the Church to insist on the truth of the most recent ecumenical council’s constitution Dei Verbum, which states that “by her authority and with maternal concern, (She) sees to it that suitable and correct translations (of the Scriptures) are made into different languages.” For the English-speaking world, this means permanently abolishing the New American Bible.

A Proper Hymn of St Francis of Assisi

This year the Church marks the 8th centenary of the death of St Francis of Assisi, which took place later on the evening of October 3rd, 1226. Following the ancient (and indeed pre-Christian) principle that feasts begin on the preceding evening, his feast is assigned to today, October 4th. Here is a very nice recording of the hymn for 2nd Vespers of the proper Office composed for him shortly after his canonization, and used ever since then by the Franciscan Order.

Decus morum, dux Minorum, Franciscus tenens bravium, In te vite datur vitae, Christe, redemptor omnium.	The glory of our way, the leader of the Friars Minor, / Francis, holding his prize, is given to life in Thee, the Vine, O Christ, Redeemer of all.
Plaudat frater, regnat pater Concivis caeli civibus; Cedat fletus, psallat coetus, Exsultet caelum laudibus.	Our brother hails, our father reigns a fellow with heaven’s citizens; Let weeping end, let the chorus sing, Let heaven exult in praise.
Demptum solo, datum polo Signorum probant opera; Ergo vivit, nam adivit Aeterna Christi munera.	His works of wonder prove that he is Taken from earth, given to heaven; Therefore he lives, for he entered The eternal gifts of Christ.
Pro terrenis votis plenis Reportat dona gloriae; Quem decoras, quem honoras, Summae Deus clementiae.	For the fullness of his prayers on earth He receives the gifts of glory, Whom Thou grace and honor, O God greatest mercy.
Hunc sequantur, huic iungantur Qui ex Aegypto exeunt, In quo duce, clara luce, Vexilla Regis prodeunt.	Let them follow him, and be joined to him / Who march out of Egypt; With him as leader, in bright light The standards of the King go forth.
Regis signum ducem dignum Insignit manu, latere; Lux accedit, nox recedit, Iam lucis orto sidere.	The sign of the king marks him on his Side and hand as a worthy guide; The light comes, the night departs, When the star of day has risen.
Est dux fidus, clarum sidus, Ducit, relucet, devia Devitando, demonstrando Beata nobis gaudia.	He is a trusty guide, a bright star He leads, he shines, avoiding The wrong path, showing Blessed joys to us.
Mina gregem dux ad regem Collisor hostis callidi, Nos conducas et inducas, Ad cœnam Agni providi. Amen.	Bring the flock to the king, our leader, Who dash down the clever enemy; May thou lead and bring us To the banquet of the Lamb. Amen.

The Franciscan Office of their Holy Founder was composed by a German member of the order, Julian of Speyer, roughly ten years after the Saint’s death, and is one of the best known examples of a later type of Office known as a “rhymed office.” This particular hymn, however, was apparently added to it by Cardinal Thomas of Capua (1185-1239), Archbishop of Naples and a notary in the Papal court at the time St Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX. (The highly compressed rhyme scheme puts an accurate and poetic translation far beyond my literary skills.)

Rhyme itself was not used by the ancient Greeks or Romans, and where it occurred it was considered a blemish on poetry. Verse was formed by the alternation of long and short syllables in regular patterns; the iambic pentameter used so much by Shakespeare is broadly similar. (His type of English poetry is however much freer than Latin verse.) An example of this type of poetry in the liturgy is an antiphon found in the Office of St Peter in Chains on August 1st.

Aña Solve, jubente Deo, terrarum, Petre, catenas,
Qui facis ut pateant caelestia regna beatis.

Release at God’s order, o Peter, the earthly chains
Who make the kingdom of heaven open to the blessed.

These two lines are written in dactylic hexameters, the same metrical form used in the epic poetry of Homer and Virgil; they were composed by Pope St Leo I, (440-61) and inscribed on a wall of the ancient church of St Peter.

As the Latin language evolved into the modern Romance languages, the vowel quantities on which ancient poetry was based came to be less and less perceptible, leading over the centuries to the emergence of rhyme as we understand it today. (The older forms, on the hand, never ceased to be used.) By the High Middle Ages, this new type of poetry had become extremely popular in the liturgy. Four of the five sequences in the Roman Missal (Lauda Sion on Corpus Christi, Veni Sancte Spiritus on Pentecost, Stabat Mater on the feast of the Seven Sorrows, and the Dies irae of the Requiem Mass) are in rhyme. Likewise, whole Offices were routinely composed in which all of the proper musical parts, (antiphons, hymns and responsories), are rhymed.

Julian of Speyer is considered one of the great masters of this type of liturgical composition, and the rhymed offices which he wrote for St Francis and St Anthony of Padua were widely imitated from his own time (he died in about 1250) until the Tridentine liturgical reform, when rhymed offices fell out of favor. Many continued to be used by the older religious orders, and churches which maintained their own proper Offices, but the newer orders, in the spirit of the Tridentine reform, preferred to base their proper Offices on Scriptural quotations. Thus, for example, the five antiphons used by the Oratorians at Lauds of St Philip Neri are all quotations from the Bible, while the proper hymns are all written in thoroughly classical meter. (The Jesuits, unsurprisingly, do not even have a proper Office for St Ignatius.)

The disfavor into which rhymed offices fell is also a by-product of the increasingly common habit in the Tridentine period of reciting the Office in choir recto tono, i.e. singing everything on a single note, rather than with its longer, proper notation. This manner of saying the Office makes the sing-song quality of the medieval rhyme schemes far more obvious; most people would agree that the Dies irae, for example, sounds much better when sung then when read. The recording of the hymn above shows very nicely how the proper musical notation transcends the rhyme scheme.

Medieval hymnographers also loved the trick used in this hymn, in which the last line of each stanza is the title (i.e. first line) of another hymn. (A similarly constructed piece is sung in the Cistercian Office of St Bernard.) The hymns thus quoted are all from the repertoire generally found in all medieval Uses of the Office.

Christe redemptor omnium - from Vespers of Christmas, pre-Urban VIII
Exultet caelum laudibus - from the Common of Apostles
Aeterna Christi munera - from the Common of Apostles
Summae Deus clementiae - from ferial Matins of Saturday, pre-Urban VIII
Vexilla Regis - from Vespers of Passiontide
Iam lucis orto sidere - the hymn of Prime
Beata nobis gaudia - from Lauds of Pentecost
Ad cœnam Agni providi - from Vespers of Eastertide, pre-Urban VIII

The difficulty of this trick is to integrate the titles into the words of a new composition in a new sense, and the results here are quite good. Some of the expressions in the vocative case, such as “Lucis creator optime,” could be interchanged with any of the others, but I do not say this as a critique of the author; medievals valued originality far less than we do. “Aeterna Christi munera,” however, works very cleverly with the third stanza, as do “Vexilla Regis prodeunt” with the fifth and “Beata nobis gaudia” with the seventh.

The citation of the Easter hymn in its original text, “Ad coenam Agni providi,” is the only real flaw, since in the original, the word “providi” does not modify “Agni”, but the main subject of the stanza, which appears in the fourth line. (“Ad coenam Agni providi, et stolis albis candidi, post transitum maris Rubri Christo canamus principi. - Looking forward to the banquet of the Lamb, and shining in white stoles, after the passing of the Red Sea, let us sing to Christ the prince.”) Here, “providi” is left marooned to modify “the Lamb”, who is now “looking forward” to no stated object; I have left it untranslated above. The exact same flaw occurs in a hymn to St Anthony the Abbot constructed in the same way, which I have written about previously.

The Book of Hours of Marguerite of Orléans (Part 2)

This is the second set of images from one of the finest Books of Hours in the vast collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Département des Manuscrits, Latin 1156B), made around 1430 for a noblewoman named Marguerite of Orleans (1406-66).  The first set was published on Thursday, and contained an example of the calendar pages, the images accompanying the Little Office of the Virgin Mary, and the Hours of the Cross. Here we resume with the Hours of the Holy Spirit, a devotional office in which each Hour consists solely of a brief hymn, an antiphon, a versicle and a prayer. This particular group of images is especially beautiful; the one before Matins and Lauds is lost, and so it starts with Prime, with an image of the Lord’s Ascension.

At Terce, most appropriately, the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

At Sext, St Peter preaching on the first Pentecost, as described in Acts 2.

At None, the baptism of 3,000 people, also from Acts 2.

Before Vespers, the general resurrection at the end of the world.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Vespers Hymn for the Feast of the Guardian Angels

A very nice alternation of chant and polyphony, by the Ensemble Venance Fortunat. The English translation is that of Alan Gordon McDougall (1896-1965).

1. Custodes hominum psallimus angelos,
Naturae fragili quos Pater addidit
Coelestis comites, insidiantibus
Ne succumberet hostibus.

Angel-guardians of men, spirits and powers we sing,
Whom our Father hath sent, aids to our weakly frame,
Heavenly friends and guides, help from on high to bring,
Lest we fail through the foeman's wile.

2. Nam quod corruerit proditor angelus,
Concessis merito pulsus honoribus,
Ardens invidia pellere nititur
Quos coelo Deus advocat.

He, the spoiler of souls, angel-traitor of old,
Cast in merited wrath out of his honoured place,
Burns with envy and hate, seeking their souls to gain
Whom God's mercy invites to heaven.

3. Huc custos igitur pervigil advola,
Avertens patria de tibi credita
Tam morbos animi, quam requiescere
Quidquid non sinit incolas.

Therefore come to our help, watchful ward of our lives:
Turn aside from the land God to thy care confides
Sickness and woe of soul, yea, and what else of ill
Peace of heart to its folk denies.

4. Sanctae sit Triadi laus pia jugiter,
Cujus perpetuo numine machina
Triplex haec regitur, cujus in omnia
Regnat gloria saecula. Amen.

Now to the Holy Three praise evermore resound:
Under whose hand divine resteth the triple world
Governed in wondrous wise: glory be theirs and might
While the ages unending run. Amen.

The Priest’s Second Prayer for Holy Communion

Lost in Translation #170

After praying the Domine Jesu Christe, the priest prays:

Perceptio Corporis tui, Domine Jesu Christe, quod ego indignus sumere praesumo, non mihi proveniat in judicium et condemnationem: sed pro tua pietate prosit mihi ad tutamentum mentis et corporis, et ad medelam percipiendam: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Which I translate as:

May the reception of Thy Body, O Lord, Jesus Christ, which I, who am unworthy, presume to consume, turn out not to be a judgement and condemnation of me; but on account of Thy mercy may it be profitable to me as a protection for soul and body and as a cure to be applied; Who with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, livest and reignest, God forever and ever. Amen.

Like the prayer that precedes it, the Perceptio Corporis is a product of the Carolingian renaissance but a century later (tenth). Its structure is almost chiastic and its wordplay virtually untranslatable. The first and last words (prior to the adjuration Qui vivis) are both from percipio (perceptio and percipiendam); the verbs proveniat and prosit (translated here as “turn out” and “be profitable,” respectively) are similar insofar as both can also mean “to prosper”; and the two frightful things in the first half of the petition, judgment and condemnation, are juxtaposed with the two desirable things in the second half, protection and cure. Just as judgment can lead to condemnation, protection leads to healing.

As for the wordplay: Perceptio (per+capio) simply means “reception,” but it has a strong etymology. Capio already means “to take wholly, to seize entirely,” and per as a prefix makes it even more intense. It is difficult to imagine a more thorough way of receiving something than by consuming it entirely. The priest’s physical consumption of the Eucharist is expanded upon with its intended spiritual effect, as a cure to be taken in (ad medelam percipiendam). I do not blame the 2011 ICEL translation for rendering this phrase “healing remedy,” since it is so strange.

There is also a word-play with sumere praesumo, which I have translated as “presume to consume.”

Prosit, to be beneficial or useful, is a fine choice since it is often used with respect to medicines. The prayer, which is inspired by St. Paul’s dire warning about receiving the Eucharist unworthily, (1 Cor. 11, 29) recognizes that the Sacrament is like the Greek pharmakon, which can mean both poison and cure (much depends on the condition of the recipient). The use of this word also recalls the custom of the priest saying to the servers in the sacristy after Mass: Prosit or “May [the sacrifice of the Mass] be beneficial.” To which they reply: Pro omnibus et singulis or “In each and every way.”

Pietas is a concept that figures greatly in Latin literature. For Vergil at least, it is the signature virtue of the Romans (as we see in his hero pius Aeneas), where pietas signifies loyalty to one’s gods, one’s family, and one’s country. Similarly in some Christian Latin, pietas is a proper respect or attitude that the believer has towards God; it is both a moral virtue and one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

But Christianity also added a new and revolutionary meaning to the word by turning the tables and applying it to God’s attitude to man, namely, an attitude of lovingkindness or mercy. Whereas most Christian literature favors the “human” meaning over the “divine” (the sermons of Pope St. Leo the Great, pietas is used fifty-three times as a human attitude or habit and only seven times as a divine quality), in liturgical Latin it is the opposite; in the Orations of the Mass, pietas is used twenty-seven times in reference to God and three times in reference to man. [Ellebracht, 53] The use of pietas here follows the conventions of liturgical Latin.

As for the concluding adjuration (which both this prayer and the one that comes before it has in common), the most remarkable thing about it is that it is there at all. Even though Christ the living God is present on the altar inches away, the priest is focused on Christ’s living and reigning in Heaven with the Father and the Holy Spirit. As Jungmann astutely notes,

The idea of the heavenly Christ and his heavenly existence is so strong that it is not eclipsed even by the sacramental nearness… The mood which prevails in the popular devotion since the late Middle Ages—that mood here was stopped short and not permitted to turn the reception of Communion into a meditative visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Instead, a complete view of the Christian world of faith is maintained and not even in the moment of reception is it forsaken in favor of a partial view. [Jungmann, vol. 2, 349]

The 1970/2002 Missal, incidentally, allows the celebrant to choose between the prayers Domine Jesu Christe and the Perceptio Corporis tui or to say them both. The closing adjurations have been removed from both prayers. Two additional changes were made to the Perceptio Corporis tui: 1) et Sanguinis tui (“and of Thy blood”) was inserted after Perceptio Corporis; and 2) the penitential line quod ego indignus sumere praesumo was removed. The 2011 ICEL translation is :

May the receiving of your Body and Blood,

Lord Jesus Christ,

not bring me to judgment and condemnation,

but through your loving mercy

be for me protection in mind and body

and a healing remedy.