Wednesday, March 27, 2024

The Mass of Spy Wednesday

As I noted in articles published yesterday and the day before, the Gospel of Holy Monday was originally John 12, 1-36, and that of Holy Tuesday was originally John 13, 1-32. This meant that the Passion of St Luke, which has always been the Gospel of Spy Wednesday, would originally have been the first retelling of the Passion during the Roman Holy Week, after the Mass of Palm Sunday. (As I have also noted on various occasions, this anticipation of the events of the Passion before the liturgical days on which they actually happened is a custom almost unique to the Roman Rite.)

This connection between the Masses of Palm Sunday and Spy Wednesday is highlighted by the introit of the latter, which is taken from the epistle of former, Philippians 2, 5-11.

Introitus In nómine Jesu omne genu flectátur, caelestium, terrestrium et infernórum: quia Dóminus factus est oboediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis: ideo Dóminus Jesus Christus in gloria est Dei Patris. Psalmus Dómine, exaudi oratiónem meam: et clamor meus ad te veniat. In nómine Jesu…
Introit (Phil. 2, 10; 8 and 11) In the name of Jesus let every knee bend, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: because the Lord hath become obedient unto death, but the death of the Cross. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. Psalm 101, 2 O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to thee. In the name of Jesus…
The psalm with which it is sung, the hundred-and-first, dominates this Mass as Psalm 34 does that of Holy Monday, providing the text of the tract, offertory, and communio. It is also the fifth of the penitential psalms; in his Exposition of the Penitential Psalms, St Gregory the Great makes the connection between it and the epistle of Palm Sunday that surely inspired the creation of this introit. He begins with psalm’s biblical title.
“ ‘The prayer of the poor man, when he shall be anxious, and pour out his supplication before the Lord.’ Who is this poor man whose prayer is noted in this psalm, if not he of whom the apostle said, ‘who when he was rich became poor for our sakes’? (1 Cor. 8, 9) For He, that He might make us participants in His riches, took on the necessities of our poverty; for ‘He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross.’ (Phil, 2, 7-8) And just as He became poor for us, so also was He made anxious for us, and at last was handed over to death for us, and for us hung upon the Cross. For He died, as the Apostle, says for our sins (1 Cor. 15, 3) and rose for our justification. (Rom. 4, 25) Now He was able to be anxious from His human nature, from which also He was able to die. Therefore, our (mystical) Head prays in this psalm that through grace we may be led back thither, whence we fell through the fault of our first parent.”
The Risen Christ and the Mystical Winepress, by Marco dal Pino, often called Marco da Siena, 1525-1588 ca. Both of the figures of Christ in this painting show very markedly the influence of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.
The Roman station church for this day is St Mary Major, as also on the Ember Wednesdays. As on those days, and on the Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent, there are two readings before the Gospel. The first is Isaiah 63, 1-7, preceded by a part of verse 62, 11.
Thus sayeth the Lord God: Tell the daughter of Sion: Behold thy Savior cometh: behold his reward is with him. 63, 1 Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength? I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save. Why then is your apparel red, and your garments like theirs that tread in the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the gentiles there is not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation, and have trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my apparel. etc.
The Church Fathers understood this passage as a prophecy of the Passion of Christ, starting in the West with Tertullian. (Adv. Marcionem 4, 40 ad fin.)
The prophetic Spirit contemplates the Lord as if He were already on His way to His passion, clad in His fleshly nature; and as He was to suffer therein, He represents the bleeding condition of His flesh under the metaphor of garments dyed in red, as if reddened in the treading and crushing process of the wine-press, from which the laborers descend reddened with the wine-juice, like men stained in blood.
This idea is repeated in very similar terms by St Cyprian (Ep. ad Caecilium 62), who always referred to Tertullian as “the Master”, despite his lapse into the Montanist heresy; and likewise, by Saints Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 13, 27) and Gregory of Nazianzus (Oration 45, 25.)
The necessary premise of the Passion is, of course, the Incarnation, for Christ could not suffer without a human body. Indeed, ancient heretics who denied the Incarnation often did so in rejection of the idea that God can suffer, which they held to be incompatible with the perfect and incorruptible nature of the divine. St Ambrose became bishop of Milan in 374, after the see had been held for by one such heretic, the Arian Auxentius, for twenty years. We therefore find him referring this same prophecy to the whole economy of salvation, culminating in the Ascension of Christ’s body into heaven, in his treatise On the Mysteries (7, 36):
The angels, too, were in doubt when Christ arose; the powers of heaven were in doubt when they saw that flesh was ascending into heaven. Then they said: “Who is this King of glory?” And while some said “Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.” In Isaiah, too, we find that the powers of heaven doubted and said: “Who is this that comes up from Edom, the redness of His garments is from Bosor, He who is glorious in white apparel?”
In the next generation, St Eucherius of Lyon (ca. 380-450) is even more explicit: “The garment of the Son of God is sometimes understood to be His flesh, which is assumed by the divinity; of which garment of the flesh Isaiah prophesying says, “Who is this etc.” (Formulas of Spiritual Understanding, chapter 1) Therefore, like the Mass of Ember Wednesday in Lent, this Mass begins with a prophecy of the Incarnation, as the church of Rome visits its principal sanctuary of the Mother of God, in whose sacred womb began the salvation of man.
The icon of the Virgin Mary, known as the “Salus Populi Romani”, in the reredos of the Borghese chapel of the basilica of St Mary Major. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Fallaner, CC BY-SA 4.0)
This is particularly appropriate for the day on which the Church reads the Passion of St Luke, who has a special association with the Virgin Mary. Most of what the New Testament tell us about Her is recorded in his writings, including almost all of the words actually spoken by the Her; this fact lies behind the tradition that he painted a picture of the Virgin, which is figuratively true if not literally. It is his account of the Passion that tells of the meeting between Christ and a group of women on the way to Mount Calvary, (chapter 23, 27-30); although he does not say that Mary was among them, art and piety have long accepted that it was so.
The gradual is taken from Psalm 68, which, as I noted yesterday, figures very prominently in the liturgy of Holy Week, and not just in the Roman Rite.

Graduale Ne avertas faciem tuam a púero tuo, quoniam tríbulor: velóciter exaudi me. V. Salvum me fac, Deus, quoniam intravérunt aquae usque ad ánimam meam: infixus sum in limo profundi, et non est substantia.
Gradual, Ps 68, 18; 2-3 Turn not thy face away from thy servant: for I am in trouble, swiftly hear me. V. Save me, o God, for the waters have come in even unto my soul. I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing.
The Breviarium in Psalmos, (an exegetical treatise traditionally but erroneous ascribed to St Jerome) beautifully explains the application of the first part to the Passion. “(This is) the voice of Christ, who took on the form of a servant, speaking to the Father… ‘swiftly hear me’ that I make take up my spirit again, which I commended into Thy hands.” The Passion of St Luke which is read at this Mass is the only one that records Jesus saying these words of Psalm 30, 6, “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit”, right before His death.
The prayer which follows it is the first to explicitly mention the Resurrection on the ferial days of Holy Week, another reminder of the unity of the Paschal mystery. For this reason, the Church also uses it for the suffrage of the Cross in Eastertide.
“O God, who willed that for us, thy Son should suffer the gibbet of the Cross, that Thou might drive far from us the power of the enemy; grant us thy servants, that we may obtain the grace of the resurrection.”
(Attributed to the Spanish painter Alonso Cano, 1601-67. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 
The second reading, Isaiah 53, 1-12, is the fourth and last of the passages of his book known as the Songs of the Suffering Servant. It is cited as a prophecy of Our Lord several times in the New Testament, and figures very prominently in the Holy Week liturgy of most ancient rites, so fully does it describe and conform to the events of the Passion.
If space permitted, St Jerome’s commentary on this chapter would be worth quoting in full, but here I must limit myself to this part, which is particularly relevant to this Mass, explaining the common theme of the two prophecies.
“He was despised and ignoble (verse 3) when He hung upon the Cross, and having become a curse for us (Gal. 3, 13), bore our sins. … But He was glorious and comely of appearance when at His Passion the earth trembled, and the rocks were broken, and as the sun fled, the elements feared that eternal might had come. Of him the bride says in the Song of Songs (5, 10), ‘My beloved is bright and ruddy’: bright in the fullness and purity of the virtues, ruddy in the passion, of which we shall afterwards read, ‘Who is this that cometh up from Edom, from Bosra with garments ruddy?” (Isa. 63, 1), chosen from among the thousands for the resurrection, that He who was the first-born of all creation might become the first-born of the dead.”

A New Setting of the Stabat Mater by Peter Kwasniewski

Just in time for Holy Week, Peter has posted to his YouTube channel a recording of his setting of the Stabat Mater, which was premiered by the ensemble His Majesty’s Men on Saturday, August 12, 2023 at St John Cantius Church, Chicago. Although the Stabat Mater hymn is not officially a part of the liturgy of Holy Week, it has long been customary to sing it as an offertory or communion motet; at St Peter’s basilica, for example, Palestrina’s version was sung at the principal Mass of Palm Sunday.



A note from Peter:

“In this work, I set ten of the verses (1–3, 5, 9–11, 16–17, and 20) for five-part men’s choir, interspersing them with the Gregorian chant for the remaining ten verses (4, 6–8, 12–15, and 18–19); the latter verses are sometimes sung plainly and sometimes with an ison and contrary organum. The purity and simplicity of the chant lines contrast well with the intricate texture and dense harmonies of the polyphony parts.

“This is, moreover, a very live recording — complete with car brakes, city buses, and honking horns, courtesy of the busy neighborhood of St John Cantius! John Cage, Edgard Varèse, and Henry Cowell would no doubt be pleased.”

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

The Mass of Holy Tuesday

In the oldest lectionary of the Roman Rite, ca. 650 AD [1], the Gospel of Holy Tuesday is not the Passion of St Mark, as it is today, but John 13, 1-32: Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet (1-11), His words to them immediately afterwards (12-20), the revelation of Judas as the betrayer (21-30), and Christ’s declaration that “Now the Son of man is glorified, etc.” The Divine Office preserves a relic of this in today’s antiphon for the Benedictus, which is the first verse of this Gospel: “Before the feast day of Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come, having loved His own, He loved them unto the end.”

The Washing of the Disciples’ Feet, ca. 1305, by Giotto, in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
This may seem a very counter-intuitive choice, since the Gospel begins with the words “Before the day of Passover,” which began on the evening of Good Friday when Our Lord died; and indeed, the first part of this Gospel, verses 1-15, is now read on Holy Thursday. The key to understanding this is the Roman Rite’s unique arrangement of Holy Week: it is the only rite which reads an account of the Passion on Palm Sunday, anticipating the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday. This arrangement celebrates Holy Week as a unit, with all the parts fully and equally related to the same Paschal mystery. Likewise, the Epistle read before the blessing of the palms refers to the Good Friday rite of the Presanctified, and one of the prayers of the blessing refers to Noah’s dove, a story which is told among the prophecies of the Easter vigil.

Therefore, the original Gospels of Holy Monday (John 12, 1-36) and Tuesday (13, 1-32) supplemented the Passion narrative of Palm Sunday with material which is not included in any of the synoptic Gospels. This includes the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, since the ancient lectionaries do not indicate any use of the Gospel which is now read at the blessing of the Palms, Matthew 21, 1-9, or its parallels in Mark and Luke. (The evidence for how Palm Sunday was celebrated in Rome in the early centuries is very scant; we cannot dismiss the possibility that such a reading was part of a blessing of palms, but we have no proof one way or the other.)
The first part of the old Gospel of Holy Tuesday, John 13, 1-32, in a Roman lectionary of the later 8th century known as the Purple Lectionary of Verona. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9451, folio 69r)
This would also explain two other curious features of the Roman Holy Week. One is that the Passion of St Mark was not read at any of the Masses [2], since it differs very little from Matthew’s, whereas St Luke’s, which does include several things not in Matthew or Mark, is read on Spy Wednesday. The other is the custom attested in the same lectionary mentioned above, and in the oldest Roman sacramentary, that the Mass of the Lord’s Supper began with the Secret, and hence, had no Scriptural readings. This could be done, since all that needed to be read of the Last Supper had already been read earlier in the week.
As I have noted several times, when Masses were assigned to the formerly aliturgical Thursdays of Lent, almost all of their chant parts were taken from other Masses, since the liturgical repertoire was regarded as a closed canon. In a similar way, when the Mass of the Lord’s Supper was supplied with a foremass (by the later decades of the 8th century), every element of it was taken from somewhere else in the liturgy: the introit from Holy Tuesday, the collect from Good Friday, the epistle and gradual from Tenebrae, the Gospel (reduced to the first 15 verses) also from Holy Tuesday, and the offertory from the Sundays after Epiphany.
Introitus Nos autem gloriári oportet in Cruce Dómini nostri Jesu Christi: in quo est salus, vita et resurrectio nostra: per quem salváti et liberáti sumus. Ps. 66 Deus misereátur nostri, et benedícat nobis: illúminet vultum suum super nos, et misereátur nostri. Nos autem…
Introit But we must glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection, through who we are saved and delivered. Ps. 66 May God have mercy on us, and bless us: may he cause the light of his countenance to shine upon us, and may he have mercy on us. But we must glory…
In the Tridentine Missal, this introit is cited to Galatians 6, but it is really an ecclesiastical composition, and hardly even a paraphrase of any verse of Scripture. Here again, the unity of the Paschal mystery as celebrated in the Roman Holy Week is expressed by “glorying in the Cross” three days before the day of the Crucifixion, and by speaking of it as the source of our “salvation, life and resurrection” five days before Easter.
The use of the epistle from Jeremiah, chapter 11, 18-20, is beautifully explained by St Jerome in his commentary on the prophet. “The consensus of all the churches is this, that in the person of Jeremiah they understand these things to be said by Christ, because the Father showed him how he ought to speak… and He Himself, like a lamb led to the slaughter, did not open His mouth and did not know, which is to say, did not know sin, according to what is said by the Apostle, ‘Who when he had not known sin, became sin for us.’ (2 Cor. 5, 21)
St Jerome in His Study, by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (1587-1625). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.
‘And they said, Let us cast wood into his bread’, which means, the Cross upon the body of the Savior, for He Himself is the one who said, ‘I am the bread which came down from heaven’ (Jo. 6, 41)… but on the other hand, according to the mystery of the body which He assumed, the Son speaks to the Father, and calls upon His judgment… that He might render to the people what they merit. And He says, ‘May I see my vengeance upon them’, that is, upon those who persevere in their crime, and not on those who are turned to penance, of whom He said upon the Cross, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ (Luke 23, 34) He reveals to the Father and lays open His cause, because He was crucified, not because He in any way deserved this, but for the crime of the people, saying, ‘Behold the prince of this world comes, and he finds nothing in me.’ ” (Jo. 14, 30)
Regarding “the consensus of all the churches”, the same passage is read as the beginning of a longer lesson (Jeremiah 11, 18-23; 12, 1-5a; 9-11a; 14-15) which the Byzantine Rite reads at Prime of Holy Thursday and None of Good Friday. The Gallican and Armenian Rites both have these verses on Good Friday, while the Ambrosian copied it from the Roman.
The gradual is taken from Psalm 34, which dominates the Mass of Holy Monday.
Graduale, Ps 34, 13 et 1-2 Ego autem, dum mihi molesti essent, induébam me cilicio, et humiliábam in jejunio ánimam meam: et oratio mea in sinu meo convertétur. V. Júdica, Dómine, nocentes me, expugna impugnantes me: apprehende arma et scutum, et exsurge in adjutorium mihi.
Gradual But as for me, when they were troublesome to me, I was clothed with haircloth, and I humbled my soul in fasting; and my prayer shall be turned into my bosom. V. Judge thou, O Lord, them that wrong me: overthrow them that fight against me. Take hold of arms and shield: and rise up to help me.
A treatise known as the Breviarium in Psalmos, traditionally but incorrectly attributed to St Jerome, says that the opening words of this psalm (the verse of this gradual), are “the voice of Christ in His Passion, and of the Church in tribulation.” It then explains verse 13, the beginning of the gradual, as follows: “For the Lord put on the roughness (asperitatem, i.e. the roughness of a hairshirt) of the Passion. … He celebrated a fast unto the evening, when in the evening of the world, He was offered for its salvation. … Christ fasted not carnally but spiritually. … He hungered for the salvation of the human race, He thirsted for the faith of the church. He hungered in the passion when all, and especially the Apostles, denied Him, except the thief, who confessed Him on the cross.” (PL 26, 923D; 926B)
The offertory of Holy Monday is a verse of Psalm 142, which is said at Lauds of Friday, the day of the Passion; while the offertory of today is from Psalm 139, which is said at Friday Vespers. This psalm is also said at Vespers of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, with an antiphon taken from the same verse as this offertory.
Offertorium, Ps. 139, 5 Custódi me, Dómine, de manu peccatóris: et ab homínibus iníquis éripe me. (Keep me, O Lord, from the hand of the sinner: and from unjust men deliver me.)
The communio is from Psalm 68, which figures prominently in the Holy Week liturgy of various rites because of its general tenor, and specifically because of verse 22, “they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink”, a prophecy of one of the events of the Lord’s Passion. (Matt. 27, 34). As St Augustine writes (Enarr.), “Christ speaks here; we are not permitted to doubt this, for here are the express words which are fulfilled in His passion.” It also provides the offertory of Palm Sunday and the gradual of Spy Wednesday, and is sung as the first psalm of the first Tenebrae service. The Ambrosian Rite does not have Tenebrae, but also sings it as the first psalm of Holy Thursday Matins, repeating it on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. In the Byzantine Rite, it is said at None of the Royal Hours of Good Friday.
A statue of an angel holding the sponge and reed by which the Lord was given vinegar to drink while he was on the Cross, by Antonio Giorgetti (1635-69), working as an assistant of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. This is one of ten statues of angels holding instruments of the Passion which Pope Clement IX commissioned from the elderly Bernini in 1669, to decorate the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, the main bridge by which pilgrims crossed the Tiber to get to St Peter’s basilica. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Jean-Pol Grandmont, CC BY-SA 3.0
Communio, Ps. 68, 13-14 Adversum me exercebantur, qui sedébant in porta: et in me psallébant, qui bibébant vinum: ego vero oratiónem meam ad te, Dómine: tempus benepláciti, Deus, in multitúdine misericordiae tuae. (They that sat in the gate were stirred up against me: and they that drank wine sang against me. But as for me, my prayer is to thee, o Lord; the time of thy good pleasure, o God, in the multitude of thy mercy (hear me.))
The Breviarium in Psalmos begins its commentary on Psalm 68 by saying, “This psalm resounds with Christ’s Passion”, and offers this very good explanation of the final words of the communio. “ ‘The time of (Thy) good pleasure, o God.’ The time of good pleasure is the time of the Passion, in which the Father said, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ ‘The time of good pleasure, in the multitude if Thy mercy.’ For all Thy times are well-pleasing, but especially this time, in which by Thy Passion Thou redeemest the human race…”
[1] The Comes Wurzburgensis is not, properly speaking, a lectionary, but a list of liturgical days, the Scriptural pericopes assigned to them, indicated by the title of the book, and the incipit and explicit, and the Roman station church, where applicable. The Latin words “cŏmĕs – a companion” (the origin of the noble title “count – one who accompanies a king”) was used to designate a lectionary, a book which accompanies the celebration of the Mass.
[2] The Passion of St Mark (14, 1 – 15, 46) was read in some Uses of the Roman Rite as the ninth lesson of Matins on Palm Sunday. This custom is attested in the Liber Politicus (a.k.a. Ordo Romanus XI) of a canon of St Peter’s basilica named Benedict, ca. 1140, and was still observed at the end of the 17th century in the Use of Lyon, which also maintained the original Gospels of Holy Monday and Tuesday.

Workshops in June for Composers, Conductors and Choristers, with Sir James MacMillan

This June, the Catholic Sacred Music Project, run by Peter Carter, offers three separate residential workshops on the beautiful campus of Princeton University in New Jersey. They will be led by a stellar team of composers, conductors and composers: Sir James MacMillan, Gabriel Crouch, Paul Jernberg, Dr James Jordan and Dr Timothy McDonnell.

In the week of June 9-15, the CSMP Composition Institute and CSMP Choral Institute will occur simultaneously, culminating in the choristers singing the new works by the composers. The following week, the CSMP Conductors’ Institute will take place, June 16-21.

Details are given in the three posters below, one for each workshop; also see the Catholic Sacred Music Project website: sacredmusicproject.org.
The Catholic Sacred Music Project was founded in 2021 to provide spiritual and musical formation for Catholic musicians in order to effect a widespread renewal of sacred music in the Church. 

I will be present through my association (as Artist-in-Residence) with one of the co-sponsors, the Scala Foundation. Other co-sponsors are Paul Jernberg’s Magnificat Institute, the Benedict XVI Institute and the Aquinas Institute, which is the Catholic campus ministry for Princeton University.

Monday, March 25, 2024

The Mass of Holy Monday

At the Mass of Holy Monday, three of the four chant propers, the introit, gradual and communion, are taken from the same Psalm, the thirty-fourth. (The tract, Domine, non secundum, is not proper to this Mass, since it is sung on most of the Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, and for the last time on this day.) Like most of the texts from the Psalms which speak in the person of a man suffering or in distress (“Judge them that harm me, o God,” etc.), this Psalm was taken by the Church Fathers as a representation of Our Lord in the midst of His Passion. For example, a treatise known as the Breviarium in Psalmos, traditionally but incorrectly attributed to St Jerome, says that the opening words are “the voice of Christ in His Passion, and of the Church in tribulation”, and explains verse 13, “I was clothed with haircloth, I humbled my soul with fasting” as follows: “For the Lord put on the roughness (asperitatem) of the Passion. … He celebrated a fast unto the evening, when in the evening of the world, He was offered for its salvation.” (PL 26, 923D; 926D) Cassiodorus (ca. 485 – 585) begins his commentary on the same Psalm by saying, “Through this whole hymn, the words are those of Christ the Lord, spoken from the dispensation by which He suffered.” (In Psalt. Expos.; PL 70, 241B)

Introitus, Ps. 34 Júdica, Dómine, nocentes me, expugna impugnantes me: apprehende arma et scutum, et exsurge in adjutorium meum, Dómine, virtus salútis meae. ℣. Effunde frámeam, et conclúde adversus eos, qui persequuntur me: dic ánimae meae: Salus tua ego sum. Júdica, Dómine...
Introit Judge thou, O Lord, them that harm: overthrow them that fight against me. Take hold of arms and shield, and rise up to help me, o Lord, my salvation. ℣. Bring out the sword, and shut up the way against them that persecute me: say to my soul: I am thy salvation. Judge thou...
In his Enarrationes in Psalmos, St Augustine discusses this psalm as a prophecy of Christ’s Passion in a particularly beautiful way, in reference to the sufferings of the Church. “Here we understand the voice of Christ; the voice, of course, of both the head and body of Christ. When you hear of Christ, do not separate the groom from the bride, but understand that great mystery, ‘and the two shall be in one flesh.’ … the Lord suffered by His will, we by necessity; He in His compassion, we in our condition. Therefore, His voluntary passion is our necessary consolation… however much the enemy raged, he was able to come only so far as the death of the body; and yet, was not able to destroy it in the case of the Lord, because He rose on the third day. That which came to pass in Him on the third day, the same shall happen to our body at the end of the age. The hope of our resurrection is put off: is it therefore taken away? Let us therefore recognize herein the words of Christ…”
The Man of Sorrows, with the instruments of the Passion, ca. 1345-50; part of an altar in the cathedral of Cologne, Germany.   
Following this same understanding, the Ambrosian Rite gives this Psalm a particularly prominent place in the liturgy of Holy Week. It provides the text of both the psalmellus and cantus (the equivalents of the gradual and tract) at the Mass of Palm Sunday, plus the psalmelli of the special synaxis of readings after Terce of both Holy Thursday and Saturday, and is sung four times in the Divine Office. In the Byzantine Rite, at the special form of the day Hours of Good Friday known as the Royal Hours, it is said at Terce.
A page of an Ambrosian Missal of 1594, showing the end of the prophetic reading (Isaiah 53, 1-2), the psalmellus, the epistle (2 Thess. 2, 14  3, 5), the cantus and the Gospel (John 11, 55 12, 11).
The Epistle is the third of four passages of the prophet Isaiah known as the songs of the Suffering Servant (42, 1-4; 49, 1-6; 50, 4-11; and 52, 13 – 53 12), but does not include its first or last verse. This choice is of course made especially because of verse 6, which prophesies some of the injuries done to the Lord during the Passion: “I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spat upon me.”
The fourth song (starting with the first verse of chapter 53) is read at the Mass of Holy Wednesday. Here too we note a parallel with the Byzantine Rite, which places the song from chapter 50 at the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Holy Thursday, and the latter at Vespers of Good Friday, the principal commemoration of the Our Lord’s Crucifixion and Death. (Both passages are also read at the Royal Hours of Good Friday.)
In his commentary on the prophet Isaiah (PL 24, 478D-479D), St Jerome notes that the Jews of his time (understandably, from their point of view) tried to refer this prophecy to Isaiah himself, and “by every reasoning, turn the prophecies away from Christ.” To this he responds that “These things also are to be referred to the person of the Lord… and He who kept silent in His passion now speaketh in all the world through the Apostles and their followers. … This discipline and learning opened His ears (verse 5), that He might bring to us the knowledge of the Father; and He did not contradict (or ‘resist’) Him (i.e. the Father), but became obedient even unto death, the death of the Cross.” And likewise, he explains the words of verse 8, “who will contend with me?”, to mean, “If anyone thinks that I am rightly condemned to the Cross, and have committed some sin, let him resist me.”
The Mocking of Christ, ca. 1617, by the Dutch painter Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.
In the oldest lectionaries of the Roman Rite, the Gospel of Holy Monday is John 12, 1-36. This includes the anointing of the Lord’s feet by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (verses 1-3); Judas’ complaint about the expense of the ointment, St John’s “inside explanation” thereof, and the Lord’s response (4-8); the plotting of the priests to kill Lazarus (9-11); the events of Palm Sunday (12-19); Philip and Andrew bringing some gentiles to Christ (20-23); and Jesus’ speech (23-36), which is interrupted by the voice of the Father (28-30).
This passage was clearly chosen because of its opening words, “Six days before the Pasch” (i.e. Passover), since Holy Monday is six days before Easter, and “Pascha”, the Greek form of the Hebrew “Pesach – Passover”, is the Latin word for Easter. This places St John’s account of Palm Sunday on the day after it. It would be foolish to think that the first compilers of the Roman lectionary, men of extremely fine literary sensibilities, did not understand this. Their purpose seems to have been rather to reset the stage, as it were, for the commemoration of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection in the rites of the sacred Triduum and Easter.
The Anointing of Christ’s Feet at Bethany, depicted in the Vaux Passional ca. 1503-4. Mary and Martha are shown serving at the table; the Lord has stuck one of His feet out from under it, looking forward to the anointing. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
Later, however, the Gospel was split into two parts, with the second one (verses 10 to 36) assigned to the formerly aliturgical Passion Saturday, forming a kind of vigil of Palm Sunday. The Apostles’ introduction of the gentiles to Christ is thereby now read one week before the baptismal ceremonies of Holy Saturday, at which the successors of the Apostles fulfill the great Commission, to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28, 19) This leaves today with the washing of the Lord’s feet as its focus.
The offertory is taken from Psalm 142, the last of the Penitential Psalms, and the second of Lauds on Friday, the day of the Passion. Of it, St Hilary of Poitiers writes, “David now prophecies by his own sufferings those of the Lord, not complaining about Absalom, but about those who urged him on (literally “ignirent – kindled him”) to the crime of impiety. For according to the Apostle (Eph. 6, 16), the darts of the devil are fiery, which stuck themselves in the heart of Judas, that the Lord might be betrayed.” (Tract. super Psalmos; PL 9, 838B)
Offertorium, Ps 142 Eripe me de inimícis meis, Dómine: ad te confúgi, doce me fácere voluntátem tuam: quia Deus meus es tu. (Deliver me from my enemies, o Lord, to thee have I fled: teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God.)
In the Gospel, “Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said, ‘Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?’ ”, and as St John explains, “he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things that were put therein.”
St Augustine (Enarr. ibid.) agrees with Hilary that the Psalm it about the Passion, and comments in it in general: “Therefore the Lord shall preach about His own Passion in this Psalm.” Then, commenting on the specific verses used in the offertory, he writes: “ ‘Deliver me from my enemies, o Lord, for I have fled to Thee.’ (This means) not Judas, but he who filled Judas. … For Judas accepted the morsel, and Satan entered into him, so that this David (i.e. Christ) might suffer persecution from his own son. How many Judases does Satan fill, who unworthily receive the morsel unto their own judgment? For ‘he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself. (1 Cor. 11, 27).” It seems likely, therefore, that this offertory was deliberately created as a reference to the interpretation of Ss Hilary and Augustine.

New Printing of “The Liturgical Rosary”

I wish that I could wish my readers a blessed feast of the Annunciation, but this year, as happens often enough, the feast is catapulted to the Monday after the Easter Octave, so, April 8. Nevertheless, our Byzantine brethren continue to observe it, and a Marian post does not seem unfitting.

Back in October 2023, I announced at NLM the publication of Arouca Press’ unique devotional book The Liturgical Rosary. (You can read about its contents there.) The popularity of the book was such that within weeks the first printing had been sold out.

Happily, Arouca has done a second printing of the book, but this time, with an imitation leather cover, thin Bible paper, and gold edges. It is more compact than the first edition. Here are some photos.

Order exclusively here from Arouca Press. Shipped from the USA. International shipping available. Bulk discount prices are calculated automatically during checkout.

God bless Arouca Press and the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary!

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Passiontide 2024 Photopost (Part 2)

As always, we are very grateful to all everyone who has shared their photographs of their churches veiled for Passtiontide, and two very nice sets of rose-colored Laetare vestments. We are looking forward to see pictures of your Palm Sunday liturgies. Please send them in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, and remember to include the name and location of the church, and any other information you think important. Keep up the good work of evangelizing through beauty!

Christ the King – Sarasota, Florida (FSSP)
Chapel of the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot – Parris Island, South Carolina
Before veils...
and after.
Oratory of St Stanislaus – Milwaukee, Wisconsin (ICRSP)

Palm Sunday 2024

A blessed Palm Sunday to all our readers - don’t forget to send your photos to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org!

When the people had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches, and went forth to meet Him; and the children cried out, saying: This is He that is come for the salvation of the people. He is our salvation, and the redemption of Israel. How great is He whom the Thrones and Dominions go forth to meet! Fear not, O daughter of Sion; behold thy King cometh to thee sitting upon the colt of an ass, as it is written. Hail, O King, Creator of the world, who art come to redeem us! (The second processional antiphon of Palm Sunday.)

The Triumphal Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, ca. 1530, by the Flemish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-50), or workshop. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)
Aña Cum audisset pópulus, quia Jesus venit Jerosólymam, accepérunt ramos palmárum: et exiérunt ei obviam, et clamábant púeri, dicentes: Hic est, qui ventúrus est in salútem pópuli. Hic est salus nostra et redemptio Israël. Quantus est iste, cui Throni et Dominatiónes occurrunt! Noli timére, filia Sion: ecce, Rex tuus venit tibi, sedens super pullum ásinae, sicut scriptum est, Salve, Rex, fabricátor mundi, qui venisti redímere nos.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Palm Sunday 2024 Photopost Request

Holy Week is upon us, so please send photos of your Palm Sunday services, whether in the OF or EF, Ordinariate or any Eastern Rite, etc., to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org; don’t forget to include the name and location of the church, and any other information you think important. I would also ask people as much as possible to send the pictures as zipped files, which are a lot easier to process, and to size them down so that the smaller dimension is around 1500 pixels. Reminders will be posted for the rest of Holy Week and Easter fairly soon. Evangelize through beauty!

Last year, we had over 200 photos from 25 churches, located in 12 American states and 7 other countries (with several duplicates) - let’s see if we can’t beat that this year!

From the first Palm Sunday photopost of last year: the procession at Prince of Peace in Taylors, South Carolina - tradition will always be for the young!

From the second post: the procession from the Oratory of St Wilfrid in York, England, passes in front of the York Minster.

From the third post: the station outside the church of Notre Dame de Lourdes, home of the ICRSP apostolate in Libreville, Gabon.

From the fourth post: the Mass of Palm Sunday at the Oratory of Ss Gregory and Augustine in St Louis, Missouri.

Passiontide 2024 Photopost (Part 1)

Here is our first photopost of your churches with the crosses and statues veiled for Passiontide. There will definitely be at one more in this series before we move on to Holy Week, and there is always room for more, so feel free to send yours in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, and remember to include the name and location of the church, and anything other information you think important. We will also be glad to include photos of other recent celebrations such as St Patrick, St Joseph, and rose colored vestments on Laetare Sunday. Thanks to the contributors, and to everyone who is doing so much good work to restore and preserve the great inheritance of our Catholic liturgical tradition - evangelize through beauty!

Chavagnes International College – Chavagnes-en-Paillers, France 
Before
Immaculate Conception – Krakow, Poland

Friday, March 22, 2024

The Mass of Passion Friday

As I noted earlier this week, the fifth Sunday of Lent marks an important shift in emphasis in the Roman liturgy. The first part of the season is largely concerned with penance, and lessons for the catechumens as they prepare to be baptized at the Easter vigil. The liturgy of the fifth week focuses much more on the Lord’s Passion, which is why by the end of the ninth century, the term “Fifth Sunday of Lent” was abandoned in favor of “Passion Sunday.” This shift is particularly evident in the Mass chants, many of which speak in the person of the Lord in the midst of His sufferings, as for example the Introit of Monday, “Have mercy on me, O God, for man hath trodden me under foot; all the day long he hath afflicted me fighting against me. My enemies have trodden on me all the day long; for they are many that make war against me.” (Psalm 55, 2-3)
Folio 48r of the Echternach Sacramentary, 895AD, with the Mass “of the Sunday of the Lord’s Passion”; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9433
Today’s Mass marks another shift, and one which originally stood in especially high relief, since the days before and after were “aliturgical” days, on which no Mass was said; this was therefore the last Mass celebrated before Holy Week. Each of the Gospels of this week from Sunday to Wednesday (all from St John) refers in one way or another to the Passion, but they are read out of order, and in that sense, do not form a narrative. Today’s Gospel, on the other hand, John 11, 47-54, serves as a bridge between that of the previous Friday, on which raising of Lazarus is read (verses 1-45), and Holy Week, beginning the account of the Passion with the conspiracy of the priests and Pharisees against Christ. And indeed, this same reading also provides the text for one of the two chants which may sung between the Epistle and the Gospel at the blessing of the Palms.
The Epistle, Jeremiah 17, 13-18, also has a different tenor from those read earlier in the week. The Epistle of Passion Sunday, Hebrews 9, 11-15, speaks of the redemption wrought by the shedding of Christ’s blood. On Monday, the third chapter of Jonah is read as a final exhortation to penance; on Tuesday, Daniel appears in the lion’s den as a figure of Christ in His Passion and Resurrection; on Wednesday, a final catechumenal lesson is taken from Leviticus. Today’s Epistle, on the other hand, is the first of Passiontide in which words of a prophet are read which are spoken in the first person, as a representation of Christ in His sufferings.
“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved, for thou art my praise. … Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction, destroy them.”
The prophetic readings of the following day (Jer. 18, 18-23), those of Holy Monday (Isa. 50, 5-10) and Holy Tuesday (Jer. 11, 18-20), and the first of the two readings on Spy Wednesday (Isa. 62, 11; 63, 1-7), are similarly spoken in the first person.
The Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, depicted on the outsides of the two wings of a closable altarpiece of the Entombment of Christ, by the Dutch painter Maerten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), ca. 1560. Isaiah is holding a saw, in reference to the tradition that he was sawn in half by the wicked King Manasseh; Jeremiah has at his feet the rocks with which he was traditionally said to have been stoned to death.
In the Gospel, the high priest Caiphas proposes that Jesus should die lest all believe in Him, and the Romans “come and take away our place and nation.” This did of course eventually come to pass anyway, as Christ Himself predicted both before (Luke 19, 44) and during (Luke 23, 28-31) His Passion; Jerusalem was destroyed because it knew not the time of its visitation, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah that those who persecuted Him would be confounded, and a day of affliction brought upon them. The emphasis on prophecy is also highlighted by the words of St John that Caiphas “spoke not of himself, but being the high priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not only for the nation, but to gather together in one the children of God that were dispersed.” (verses 51-52)
This same stress on the Passion is also found in the chants of this Mass, no less than in those sung earlier in the week: the Introit, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am afflicted: free me, and deliver me out of the hands of my enemies; and from them that persecute me. O Lord, let me not be confounded, for I have called upon thee.” (Psalm 30); the Gradual, “Peaceably did my enemies speak to me” (i.e. feigning peaceful intentions; Psalm 34); and the Offertory, “and do not hand me over to the proud that calumniate me.” (Psalm 118)
The Communion is the final chant in a series taken from the Psalms in order, starting with Psalm 1 on Ash Wednesday, but interrupted several times. “Deliver me not, o Lord, over to the will of them that persecute me; for unjust witnesses have risen up against me, and iniquity hath lied to itself.” A shorter version of this text is sung one week later as the third antiphon of Matins of Good Friday, together with Psalm 26, from which it is taken.
The Roman station on the first Friday of Lent is kept at the church of Ss John and Paul, who were among the most popular of the early Roman martyrs. Today, the same church serves as the collect, where the people would gather over the course of the day, and from which they would process to the station, which is kept about a third of a mile away at the first Roman church to be dedicated to the first martyr, St Stephen. This is not just a matter of coincidence or convenience. John and Paul were the first martyrs to be buried within the walls of the city itself, rather than in a cemetery outside the city. This fact is noted as something unusual and significant in the very first surviving collection of Roman liturgical texts, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary. The church of St Stephen also has a burial which was, by the standards of ancient Roman custom, unusual and significant. In the reign of Pope St Theodore I (642-49), the relics of two martyrs named Primus and Felician, who were brothers like John and Paul, were translated from their original burial place at the 14th milestone of the Via Nomentana to this church; this is said to be the very first such translation of the relics of the Saints.
The apsidal mosaic of the chapel within the basilica of St Stephen where the relics of Ss Primus and Felician are kept. Although it has been frequently restored, a large part is the original material from the 7th century.
Thus, as the Church turns the focus of the liturgy even more intently to the events of Our Lord’s Passion, one week before His death on Good Friday, she celebrates the memorial of His death and resurrection at the church of the martyr who, as she sings in his Office, “first rendered back to the Savior that death which He deigned to suffer for our sake.” (8th responsory of Matins of St Stephen.)

Thursday, March 21, 2024

If You Gild It, They Will Come — A Restoration Project of the Canons Regular of St John Cantius

Fr Joshua Caswell is the superior general of the Chicago-based Canons Regular of St John Cantius, who are, I am sure, well known to our readers for their work in the promotion of beauty in the liturgy. We are very grateful to him for his kind permission to reprint this article about this outstanding restoration project at the church of St Peter in Volo, Illinois, about 50 miles northwest of their home church, which is also under their pastoral care. It was previously published on the website of the CRSJC.

The Canons Regular of St. John Cantius are typically only associated with St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago. After all, it is where the community, now numbering almost 30 members, was founded and calls home. Both the canons and the parish have gained international notoriety for a number of reasons. Fr. C. Frank Philips, CR, beloved pastor emeritus, not only founded the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, he also facilitated a great revival in the the parish. Under his leadership the parish grew from 50 parishioners on a Sunday to 3,000 registered families. Fr. Phillips restored the church spiritually and physically to the gem that many today are fortunate to call their spiritual home.

Only a portion of the community serves at St. John Cantius at any given time. The other canons staff two additional parishes, St. Katharine Drexel in Springfield, Illinois, and St. Peter’s in Volo, Illinois.

The Canons Regular at St Peter’s in Volo, Illinois
In 2007 the canons were asked to assume the pastoral care of St. Peter’s in Volo, Illinois, a parish situated in Lake County, on the very edge of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The assignment came from Francis Cardinal George, OMI, who was instrumental in the founding of the Canons Regular. When the request came, the community had just hit its first milestone of 10 members. Interestingly, their arrival at St. Peter’s relieved the retiring Fr. Don Dietz, OMI who was Cardinal George’s novice master when he joined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
Divine Providence had its hand in the timing. Following their community’s charism of Restoring the Sacred, the canons have labored to renew St. Peter’s parish both spiritually and physically.
Restoration of the Sacred 
The restoration of the sacred begins first with one’s own personal call to holiness. That personal restoration of the sacred in each canon affects the parishes they serve. The spirituality of the canons is evident in their pastoral zeal and careful execution of the Church’s liturgy and sacraments in all their fullness.
Since their arrival, the canons have increased the number of registered parishioners at St. Peter’s from 300 to 1100 families. The spiritual renewal of the parish brings together a growing community of souls that fill six parish Masses each weekend in a church designed to seat only 190.
It is important that the Restoration of the Sacred also be expressed physically in the art that adorns church buildings. As humans, we require tangible signs and symbols to understand the infinite majesty of the God whom we worship.
Structurally, this is what St. Peter’s has done for 100 years. Now it is important to continue and strengthen that same tradition so that it can be passed on to future generations. This renewal of the parish can be particularly noticed in the recent and ongoing physical restoration of the church. St. Peter’s is in its final stages of completing renovations, well ahead of the church’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2025. Fr. Nathan Caswell, SJC, parish pastor since 2020, enthusiastically notes, “We’re ready and excited for the next 100 years!”
His Excellency Joseph Perry, auxiliary bishop emeritus of Chicago, blessing a bell for the church. 
Renovation of the Bell Tower
The initial phase of the church renovation began with the restoration of the bell tower in 2018 by then-pastor, Fr. Anthony Rice, SJC. Damaged by lightning in the 1950s the tower became too unstable to hold the heavy brass bell, so it was removed and placed on display at the entrance to the church. After the structural reinforcement of the tower was completed, the bell was returned to its rightful place where it now calls new generations of worshipers to St. Peter’s.
Repairs to the Church Exterior
As with any century-old building, leaks began to develop in the roof and exterior walls of the church. The accumulation of moisture led to extensive water damage of the plaster walls in the interior of the church. Not only was the plaster discolored, and developing cracks, chunks of plaster actually began to fall from the ceiling, requiring urgent attention. Water leakage had also compromised the stability of the stained glass windows when the wooden bases and frames began to rot.
The first step to repair the aging building was to fix the roof so that it no longer leaked. This involved replacing all the flashing and damaged roof tiles. Then the entire church exterior was tuck-pointed to ensure that condensation could no longer seep through the brick facade. After that skilled craftsmen were enlisted to repair, and replace the plaster in the affected areas.
Once the building was sealed up properly, and the plaster was repaired, the parish needed to make decisions about what to do with the interior walls and ceiling. While many churches had made considerable changes in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, the integrity of the original layout and ornamentation remained intact at St. Peter’s. The sanctuary, transepts, and nave contained orphrey and scroll work stenciling that dated back to its beginnings. With new plaster replacing the damaged areas, the parish had to decide whether to replicate the original ornamentation, or take the opportunity to transform the interior with new artwork.
The families of many of the current St. Peter’s parishioners go back generations, even to those who first built the church in 1926. Their sacrifices and hard work needed to be honored and respected as part of the rich patrimony of the parish. At the same time, the current generation of parishioners wanted to make their contribution and become a part of its living history.
After much discussion It was agreed that this was an opportunity to enhance what was already a beautiful church. As Father Nathan put it, “We saw this opportunity not so much as a renovation, but a renewal.” The plan for the repainting of the church was not to restore the church interior exactly as it once was, but to bring its existing beauty to greater prominence. After all, tradition isn’t stale antiquarianism. Nor is it living in the past, or longing for a bygone era. Traditio means bringing the past forward; or handing on the past to future generations. Tradition invites the past to be a dynamic participant in the present. It’s what theologians call a hermeneutic of continuity.

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