Durandus on the Minor Litanies

The following excerpts are taken from book VI, chapter 102 of William Durandus’ treatise on the Divine Offices.

On the three days before the feast of the Lord’s Ascension, the Rogations, which are also called the Litanies: the Greek word “litania” in Latin is “supplication”, or “rogation” (from ‘rogare – to ask’), on which the Holy Church asks God… to destroy the counsel of those who wish to live outside Her peace. At the same time, we also beseech God that He may defend us from a sudden death, and from every infirmity, and we ask the Saints, that they may intercede for us before God. …

The Procession of St Gregory the Great, by an anonymous Sienese painter of the mid-16th century. The traditional story recounts that when the procession described below reached the Mausoleum of Hadrian, which is fairly close to St Peter’s Basilica, an angel appeared over it with a drawn sword in his hand, which he then sheathed, symbolizing the end of the plague as in 2 Samuel 24.

Now the Litanies are two, the Greater and the Lesser. The Greater is on the feast of the blessed Mark, and was created by the blessed Gregory (the Great), because of a plague, which caused a swelling of the groin. Paul, a monk of Monte Cassino, the author of “The History of the Lombards”, wrote the story of its institution, saying that in the time of Pope Pelagius (II, 579-90) there was so great a flood in Italy, that the waters rose as high as the upper windows of the temple of Nero in Rome … Then there came forth up the Tiber a multitude of serpents, and one very large dragon among them, whose breath corrupted the air; from this came the plague in the groin, from which men died suddenly all over the place. When nearly the whole population of Rome had been destroyed, Pelagius declared a fast and procession for all, but during it, he himself died, along with seventy others. Gregory I, who is also called the Great, took his place, and commanded that this Litany be observed throughout the world; it is therefore called the Gregorian or Roman Litany. It is also called “Black Crosses”, since, as a sign of mourning for the death of so many men, and as a sign of penance, people wear black clothing, and the crosses and altars are veiled in black.

A folio of the Echternach Sacramentary, 895AD, with the stational prayers for the Greater Litanies as they were done in Rome; the stations are at the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, St Valentine (very far up the Tiber), “ad Pontem Olbi”, a corruption of “ad Pontem Milvium – at the Milvian bridge”, “at the Cross”, which was a station set up along the way, and two “in the atrium” of St Peter’s Basilica. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 9433; folio 76r.)

The Lesser Litanies, which are also called Rogations and processions, take place on the three days before the Ascension, … they were created in Vienne by the blessed Mamertus, bishop of that city. Because of a plague of wolves and other wild beasts, who were ferociously killing men in Gaul, and because of the dangerous earthquakes which were frequently taking place there, he enjoined a fast of three days on the people, and instituted the Litanies. But when the danger had passed, the fast became a custom of annual observance … This latter is called the Lesser Litany, because it was instituted by a lesser person, that is, by a simple bishop, and in a less important place, Vienne, while the Greater (Litany) is so called because it was instituted in a more important place, namely, Rome, and by a greater person, namely, Gregory the Great, and because of a great and very serious plague. However, the Lesser Litany is older, since it was instituted when Zeno was Emperor (ca. 470 AD), and the Greater in the time of the Emperor Maurice (582-602)

Litanies are also held for many other reasons, wherefore Pope Liberius established that a litany should be held for war, famine, pestilence, and other imminent adversities of this sort, so that we may escape from them by supplications, prayers and fasts. Therefore, because in this time of the year especially wars are wont to break out, and the fruits of the earth, which are still in bud or flower, can easily be corrupted in many different ways, the litanies are held, so that we may ask God to turn these things away from us, and to defend and deliver us from bad weather, and war, and the enemies of the Christian religion, as we also implore the patronage of the Saints …

… we beseech the Saints, because of our poverty, and their glory, and reverence for God. And when we celebrate the Litany because of imminent dangers, in penitential and mournful garb, we represent that last procession of the women who wept after the Lord when He was being led to the Cross, weeping, according to the Lord’s command, for ourselves and our children.

The imposition of ashes before the Rogation procession celebrated in 2017 in Milan; in the Ambrosian Rite, the penitential character of the Rogation days is far more marked than in the Roman Rite.

The Litanies also take place in this time, since the Church now asks more confidently, because Christ ascends, Who said, “Ask and ye shall receive.” (In the Gospel of the Sunday before the Ascension, John 16, 23-30.) She fasts at this time and prays, that through the mortification of the flesh, She may have little to do with it, and gain wings for herself through prayer, which is the wing by which the soul flies up to heaven. Thus is She is able to freely follow Christ as He ascends, and opens the way for us, and flies upon the wings of the wind. This is the reason why we join the last litany, the last fast, to the Ascension, so that through prayers and fasts, we may be able to lay aside the weight of the flesh, and follow Christ as He ascends.

Therefore, during the Litanies, there is a procession, and in some churches, (the antiphon) Exsurge, Domine is sung at the beginning. The Gospel canticle “Holy God, holy mighty one, holy immortal one, have mercy on us,” is also to be sung repeatedly by the boys’ choir, for John of Damascus tells the story … that in Constantinople, litanies were held because of some trouble, and a boy was taken up to heaven from the midst of the people, and there taught this chant; and returning to the people, sang it before everyone, and at once the trouble ceased. This chant was approved by the Council of Chalcedon, and therefore it is considered praiseworthy and authoritative …

… in the procession itself, the Cross goes first, and the reliquaries of the Saints, so that by the banner of the Cross, and the prayers of the Saints, demons may be repelled…

A banner is also carried to represent the victory of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, since He went up to heaven with great spoils … just as the multitude of the faithful follow the banner in the procession, so also a great gathering of the Saints accompanies Christ as He ascends. Banners are also carried in imitation of that which is said by Isaiah (11, 12), “And he shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall assemble the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Juda from the four quarters of the earth.” The Church took the carrying of banners and crosses from Constantine, who, when in a dream he saw the sign of the Cross, and heard the words ‘By this sign thou shalt conquer’, ordered the Cross to be marked on his war banners. The fact that in the Litanies the cross-bearer takes his cross from the altar reminds us that Simon of Cyrene took it from Christ’s shoulders.

A Rogation procession held in the village of Balatonderics, Hungary in 2017.

In some places, the litany is done in the fields, so that demons may be expelled from the crops, or rather, so that the crops may be preserved by the Lord. … It has also become the custom that a dragon with a long tail, upright and inflated, should go before the Cross and banners on the first two days, but on the last day, looking back, with its tail deflated and lowered, it follows behind. For this dragon symbolizes the devil, who in three periods, that is, before the law, and under the law, and in the time of grace, which these three days symbolize, has deceived men, and even now seeks to deceive them. In the first two periods, he reigned, and as if he were the lord of the world, had a long tail, which shows his power, and inflated, which symbolizes his pride. For this reason, Christ calls him the prince of this world (John 12, 31) and John says in the Apocalypse (12, 4) that the dragon, falling from heaven, drew with him the third part of the stars, which symbolize people. And the Lord says in the Gospel, “I saw Satan falling like a lightning bolt from heaven” (Luke 10, 18), as a figure of which, on two days he goes at the head … But in the time of grace, he is beaten by Christ, and power is given to the Apostles to cast out unclean spirits; therefore, on the third day he follows after the Cross, to show that his power is lost through the spread of the Faith, and his tail is deflated, and hangs down, and is not long, because he does not dare to reign as mightily as he formerly did, but rather seduces men through suggestion, and in a hidden way, those whom he sees to be lazy and remiss in good works, and who follow not the way of life, as if he were looking back like a thief, to see if someone may wander and fall away from the righteousness of the Faith, so that he can draw that person to himself …

A page from an 1882 scholarly edition of the Sarum Processional, by W.G. Henderson, showing the order of the Rogation procession. The rubric above the image mentions both a dragon and a lion carried in the procession, the latter presumably in reference to the words of Apocalypse 5, 5, “Behold the lion from the tribe of Judah hath conquered.”

On the Litanies, all must abstain from servile labor, … and be present for the procession until the end, so that, just as all have sinned, so all may ask for forgiveness, and all raise their hearts to God, with their hands, that is, raise up their zeal for prayer.

But since on the preceding days, a double Alleluia, is sung, why on these days is only one sung? And again, since Alleluia is not said on other fast days, why is it said on this one? To the first question, we answer that ... a double Alleluia is sung on the preceding days because of the double stole which will be given in the general resurrection, namely, that of the soul and of the body. But the liturgy of Easter, which this signifies, is now finished, and therefore, the cause being taken removed, the effect is also removed . To the second, we answer that on the other fast days, Alleluia is not sung because it is a song of joy, and those fasts are held because of sins, wherefore they are called fasts of mourning; but this fast, and that of Pentecost, are matters of rejoicing, because they are not held for sins, but so that the power of the devil, and the plague, may be removed; and therefore, Alleluia is sung on them.

Durandus on the Minor Litanies

The following excerpts are taken from book VI, chapter 102 of William Durandus’ treatise on the Divine Offices.

On the three days before the feast of the Lord’s Ascension, the Rogations, which are also called the Litanies: the Greek word “litania” in Latin is “supplication”, or “rogation” (from ‘rogare – to ask’), on which the Holy Church asks God… to destroy the counsel of those who wish to live outside Her peace. At the same time, we also beseech God that He may defend us from a sudden death, and from every infirmity, and we ask the Saints, that they may intercede for us before God. …

The Procession of St Gregory the Great, by an anonymous Sienese painter of the mid-16th century. The traditional story recounts that when the procession described below reached the Mausoleum of Hadrian, which is fairly close to St Peter’s Basilica, an angel appeared over it with a drawn sword in his hand, which he then sheathed, symbolizing the end of the plague as in 2 Samuel 24.

Now the Litanies are two, the Greater and the Lesser. The Greater is on the feast of the blessed Mark, and was created by the blessed Gregory (the Great), because of a plague, which caused a swelling of the groin. Paul, a monk of Monte Cassino, the author of “The History of the Lombards”, wrote the story of its institution, saying that in the time of Pope Pelagius (II, 579-90) there was so great a flood in Italy, that the waters rose as high as the upper windows of the temple of Nero in Rome … Then there came forth up the Tiber a multitude of serpents, and one very large dragon among them, whose breath corrupted the air; from this came the plague in the groin, from which men died suddenly all over the place. When nearly the whole population of Rome had been destroyed, Pelagius declared a fast and procession for all, but during it, he himself died, along with seventy others. Gregory I, who is also called the Great, took his place, and commanded that this Litany be observed throughout the world; it is therefore called the Gregorian or Roman Litany. It is also called “Black Crosses”, since, as a sign of mourning for the death of so many men, and as a sign of penance, people wear black clothing, and the crosses and altars are veiled in black.

A folio of the Echternach Sacramentary, 895AD, with the stational prayers for the Greater Litanies as they were done in Rome; the stations are at the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, St Valentine (very far up the Tiber), “ad Pontem Olbi”, a corruption of “ad Pontem Milvium – at the Milvian bridge”, “at the Cross”, which was a station set up along the way, and two “in the atrium” of St Peter’s Basilica. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 9433; folio 76r.)

The Lesser Litanies, which are also called Rogations and processions, take place on the three days before the Ascension, … they were created in Vienne by the blessed Mamertus, bishop of that city. Because of a plague of wolves and other wild beasts, who were ferociously killing men in Gaul, and because of the dangerous earthquakes which were frequently taking place there, he enjoined a fast of three days on the people, and instituted the Litanies. But when the danger had passed, the fast became a custom of annual observance … This latter is called the Lesser Litany, because it was instituted by a lesser person, that is, by a simple bishop, and in a less important place, Vienne, while the Greater (Litany) is so called because it was instituted in a more important place, namely, Rome, and by a greater person, namely, Gregory the Great, and because of a great and very serious plague. However, the Lesser Litany is older, since it was instituted when Zeno was Emperor (ca. 470 AD), and the Greater in the time of the Emperor Maurice (582-602)

Litanies are also held for many other reasons, wherefore Pope Liberius established that a litany should be held for war, famine, pestilence, and other imminent adversities of this sort, so that we may escape from them by supplications, prayers and fasts. Therefore, because in this time of the year especially wars are wont to break out, and the fruits of the earth, which are still in bud or flower, can easily be corrupted in many different ways, the litanies are held, so that we may ask God to turn these things away from us, and to defend and deliver us from bad weather, and war, and the enemies of the Christian religion, as we also implore the patronage of the Saints …

… we beseech the Saints, because of our poverty, and their glory, and reverence for God. And when we celebrate the Litany because of imminent dangers, in penitential and mournful garb, we represent that last procession of the women who wept after the Lord when He was being led to the Cross, weeping, according to the Lord’s command, for ourselves and our children.

The imposition of ashes before the Rogation procession celebrated in 2017 in Milan; in the Ambrosian Rite, the penitential character of the Rogation days is far more marked than in the Roman Rite.

The Litanies also take place in this time, since the Church now asks more confidently, because Christ ascends, Who said, “Ask and ye shall receive.” (In the Gospel of the Sunday before the Ascension, John 16, 23-30.) She fasts at this time and prays, that through the mortification of the flesh, She may have little to do with it, and gain wings for herself through prayer, which is the wing by which the soul flies up to heaven. Thus is She is able to freely follow Christ as He ascends, and opens the way for us, and flies upon the wings of the wind. This is the reason why we join the last litany, the last fast, to the Ascension, so that through prayers and fasts, we may be able to lay aside the weight of the flesh, and follow Christ as He ascends.

Therefore, during the Litanies, there is a procession, and in some churches, (the antiphon) Exsurge, Domine is sung at the beginning. The Gospel canticle “Holy God, holy mighty one, holy immortal one, have mercy on us,” is also to be sung repeatedly by the boys’ choir, for John of Damascus tells the story … that in Constantinople, litanies were held because of some trouble, and a boy was taken up to heaven from the midst of the people, and there taught this chant; and returning to the people, sang it before everyone, and at once the trouble ceased. This chant was approved by the Council of Chalcedon, and therefore it is considered praiseworthy and authoritative …

… in the procession itself, the Cross goes first, and the reliquaries of the Saints, so that by the banner of the Cross, and the prayers of the Saints, demons may be repelled…

A banner is also carried to represent the victory of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension, since He went up to heaven with great spoils … just as the multitude of the faithful follow the banner in the procession, so also a great gathering of the Saints accompanies Christ as He ascends. Banners are also carried in imitation of that which is said by Isaiah (11, 12), “And he shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall assemble the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Juda from the four quarters of the earth.” The Church took the carrying of banners and crosses from Constantine, who, when in a dream he saw the sign of the Cross, and heard the words ‘By this sign thou shalt conquer’, ordered the Cross to be marked on his war banners. The fact that in the Litanies the cross-bearer takes his cross from the altar reminds us that Simon of Cyrene took it from Christ’s shoulders.

A Rogation procession held in the village of Balatonderics, Hungary in 2017.

In some places, the litany is done in the fields, so that demons may be expelled from the crops, or rather, so that the crops may be preserved by the Lord. … It has also become the custom that a dragon with a long tail, upright and inflated, should go before the Cross and banners on the first two days, but on the last day, looking back, with its tail deflated and lowered, it follows behind. For this dragon symbolizes the devil, who in three periods, that is, before the law, and under the law, and in the time of grace, which these three days symbolize, has deceived men, and even now seeks to deceive them. In the first two periods, he reigned, and as if he were the lord of the world, had a long tail, which shows his power, and inflated, which symbolizes his pride. For this reason, Christ calls him the prince of this world (John 12, 31) and John says in the Apocalypse (12, 4) that the dragon, falling from heaven, drew with him the third part of the stars, which symbolize people. And the Lord says in the Gospel, “I saw Satan falling like a lightning bolt from heaven” (Luke 10, 18), as a figure of which, on two days he goes at the head … But in the time of grace, he is beaten by Christ, and power is given to the Apostles to cast out unclean spirits; therefore, on the third day he follows after the Cross, to show that his power is lost through the spread of the Faith, and his tail is deflated, and hangs down, and is not long, because he does not dare to reign as mightily as he formerly did, but rather seduces men through suggestion, and in a hidden way, those whom he sees to be lazy and remiss in good works, and who follow not the way of life, as if he were looking back like a thief, to see if someone may wander and fall away from the righteousness of the Faith, so that he can draw that person to himself …

A page from an 1882 scholarly edition of the Sarum Processional, by W.G. Henderson, showing the order of the Rogation procession. The rubric above the image mentions both a dragon and a lion carried in the procession, the latter presumably in reference to the words of Apocalypse 5, 5, “Behold the lion from the tribe of Judah hath conquered.”

On the Litanies, all must abstain from servile labor, … and be present for the procession until the end, so that, just as all have sinned, so all may ask for forgiveness, and all raise their hearts to God, with their hands, that is, raise up their zeal for prayer.

But since on the preceding days, a double Alleluia, is sung, why on these days is only one sung? And again, since Alleluia is not said on other fast days, why is it said on this one? To the first question, we answer that ... a double Alleluia is sung on the preceding days because of the double stole which will be given in the general resurrection, namely, that of the soul and of the body. But the liturgy of Easter, which this signifies, is now finished, and therefore, the cause being taken removed, the effect is also removed . To the second, we answer that on the other fast days, Alleluia is not sung because it is a song of joy, and those fasts are held because of sins, wherefore they are called fasts of mourning; but this fast, and that of Pentecost, are matters of rejoicing, because they are not held for sins, but so that the power of the devil, and the plague, may be removed; and therefore, Alleluia is sung on them.

“The New American Catholic”: A Documentary from 1968

Following up on Peter’s post on Monday, “An American Layman Reminisces about Liturgical Upheaval”, here is a fascinating documentary broadcast on NBC in mid-1968 about “The New American Catholic”, which proves the truth of the adage that nothing goes out of fashion so quickly as modernity.

As someone raised in the Church in the 1970s, I found all the talk here about “renewal” (et similia) simultaneously funny and saddening. Funny, because in 1968, people did evidently still think, quite sincerely, and despite many warning signs to the contrary (signs that Vatican II had told Catholics to look for and read) that conforming the Church to the modern secularized world, embracing its culture and its concerns, was somehow going to be a roaring success; saddening, because the failure of it all could not have been more complete, and all the more so because, even today, so many people in the Church refuse to recognize this singularly unmistakable fact.

There are quite a few things here which I thought were noteworthy, although not, alas, as signs of the once-promised New Pentecost™. The young bishop who appears several times, James Shannon, auxiliary of St Paul-Minneapolis, resigned from that office later that year in protest against Humanae Vitae, which (using some of the cant of his era which has of late become fashionable again) he called a “rigid teaching”, declaring God’s law “impossible to observe.” The following year, he would marry civilly without lawful dispensation, for which he was suspended a divinis. This is particularly ironic because the Second Vatican Council, to which the soon-to-be-Mister Shannon refers several times as the source and cause of all the “renewal” that was going on, had also reiterated the Church’s perennial teaching on the use of artificial contraception. (Gaudium et Spes 51)

From about 16:00 forward, we see several scenes of what was for that era a very modern (i.e. broadly desacralized) Mass: an ugly poncho vestment, guitar players processing in with people waving posters, lots of clapping, people calling out their prayer intentions; but perhaps the most absurd part of all is the setting, as people seem to be sitting around the tables of the school cafeteria. (The scenes of the Mass are interspersed with other signs of “renewal”, including a young woman teaching children from a poor neighborhood how to sing Kumbaya... as if their lives weren’t difficult enough...) The celebrant, Fr William Nerin, a priest of the diocese of Oklahoma, left the priesthood in 1975.

In regard to the Mass, I make bold to repeat here a superb observation made by one of our regular commenters, Mr Glenn Ricketts, on Monday’s post. “... any ‘effectiveness’ in the garish scenes depicted here ... depended on being familiar with the old liturgy that was abruptly discarded. The new rites were ‘effective’ because of the striking, often shocking, contrast they posed against the traditional way of celebrating Mass, an in-your-face gesture apropos of the 1960’s countercultural upheavals. But after the initial shock to those raised in the old rite, the reforms proved to have no lasting symbolic substance or aesthetic power of their own. Now they are simply boring and bland beyond imagination.”

so groovy...

At 30:38, we meet Fr James Groppi of the archdiocese of Milwaukee, a well-known civil rights activist. This is perhaps the saddest case of all, a priest who seems to have completely forgotten the things of heaven for the sake of concerns which, however worthy and laudable in themselves, are concerns of this world which passeth away. “Now you ask me, what do I think about the Catholic Church? To tell you the truth, I don’t even think about it.” In 1976, Fr Groppi left the priesthood.

Of course, no documentary on American Catholicism in the 1960s would be complete without an appearance of the National Catholic Reporter, and at 2:55, we briefly meet the publisher, Donald Thorman. Later that year, Bishop Charles Helmsing of Kansas City forcefully (and altogether rightly) condemned the paper “for its disregard and denial of the most sacred values of our Catholic faith”, asking the editors, as a matter of honesty, to remove the word “Catholic” from its masthead. This request has, of course, gone unheeded, even as the NCRep has effectively repudiated the Catholic Faith more and more thoroughly with each passing year.

At about 35:45, then-still-Bishop Shannon introduces us to Vatican II’s Decree on Religious Life Perfectae Caritatis, and the general review and rethinking of how religious orders lived. This brings us to Sister Anita Caspari, the Mother General of the Immaculate Heart Sisters, who famously steered her order to almost complete dissolution with the “help” of psychologist Carl Rogers. In an interview with Dr William Marra, titled “The Story of a Repentant Psychologist”, one of Rogers’ collaborators, Dr William Coulson, gave an agonizing account of how the IHM community in Los Angeles was destroyed.

The penultimate section (42:24 to 48:20) is dedicated to women religious who had left the traditional forms of community life and broken up into small groups, the better (so they thought) to dedicate themselves to the service of the poor. In the midst of this part, Bishop Victor Reed of Oklahoma addresses this phenomenon, and concludes by saying that “as long as the persons involved are persons of good reputation, and their expressed intentions are good, those in authority should permit them... to experiment, and perhaps find a new and better way in which to serve the Lord than that to which they have been accustomed, and in which they have found some personal difficulties.” Bishop Reed died in September of 1971. By the time his successor, John Quinn, was moved to San Francisco in February of 1977, the number of women religious in the diocese had dropped from 630 to 268, a decrease of well over half. As of two years ago, there were 69, a decrease of almost 90% from their height just after the end of Vatican II. (Statistics from Catholic-Hierarchy.org: http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dokla.html)

An American Layman Reminisces about Liturgical Upheaval

New Liturgical Movement is grateful to James Ignatius McAuley, Esq., for sending us the following write-up of some of his memories of the period of major liturgical change. Today he is a member of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and is preparing to receive the subdiaconate. The photos are classic shots from the period about which he is writing.

As a child growing up, I noted changes in the Mass. When I asked why they were done, if the answer was not (ad nauseam) “Vatican II,” it was that we laity had asked for the changes. Then I read The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform by Cipriano Vagaggini, O.S.B. (Alba House, 1967). In Father Frederic McManus’s introduction, he claims that we laity wanted the reform. I had to ask my mom, dad, grandmother, and every older person I knew who was Catholic whether this was true. The answer was invariably the same: “We never asked for these changes. Once they started, they never stopped.” “I was not consulted.” “I was told that it was part of Kennedy’s 'New Frontier' and the space program and that modern man needed a modern liturgy.” Maybe that last comment from my Uncle Dan was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I could never figure out what poor Kennedy, God rest his soul, had to do with it.

I talked with a priest, the late Father Allan Webber, O.F.M., about McManus’s introduction to Vagaggini’s book in 2009. My fair recollection of what Fr. Allan told me: “McManus was a liar.  The laity, outside of those few involved in the liturgical conferences, had nothing to do with the liturgical reform. The reform belonged to a certain clique of priests—Reinhold, McManus, Diekmann, and some others.  These were the individuals who set up the agenda of the reform here in the United States. Certain priests and laity from the liturgical conferences were assigned to effectuate the agenda. Some were useful idiots like [Robert] Hovda, who was better for a committee than for a parish. Jim, you should take into account that honesty was not their policy. [J.D.] Crichton told me once at a conference that the liturgical goal justified the liturgical means.”

Father Allan’s story is backed up by Alcuin Reid’s The Organic Development of the Liturgy (Ignatius, 2005), especially in Reid’s interview with Crichton. Father Allen was a progressive priest who was somewhat conservative in his liturgical approach. Father Allen supported the so-called agenda but was very reverential of the Real Presence. When I was a undergraduate student at St. Bonaventure (1987–1991), Father Allen was supportive of my use of the St. John’s Abbey 1940 Short Breviary as opposed to the Liturgy of the Hours.
 

In 1987, when I was a student a St. Bonaventure, I observed that all of the liturgical banners were gone from the University Chapel that were just there a few years before. I asked about this and was told they were out of style. I thought that was strange as I remember being told that banners were part of the Vatican II renewal. As part of vocation group in late 1990, we were asked by Father O.F.M. #1 [name withheld because he is still alive], as to what we could do to bring diversity to the Mass. I suggested we make arrangements to allow with the local Maronite Catholic priest or Byzantine Catholic priest and we could have such liturgies in the university parish chapel. Father Dan looked at me, and spoke most patronizingly: “Now, Jimmy, that is not what we mean by diversity. We do not want any of that Byzantine stuff here. We want diversity. Diversity means you bring non-Catholic people, especially people of color, to our Masses and have them add their spirituality to the Mass.”  Father went on to speak of the need for enculturation of the mass from minorities. Whatever Father O.F.M. #1’s intentions were, what I took away from the conversation was that certain Latin priests did not believe in true liturgical diversity, but were willing to suborn the Roman liturgy for their private agendas. This was very upsetting to me. And it was the first time I had heard the word “diversity” used in regard to racial matters.
 

In 1992 I was a parishioner at St. Bonaventure’s Church in Allegany, New York.  Our parish priest, Father O.F.M. #2, said we needed to “bring people back to the Church.” “Why were they leaving?,” one might ask. I noted that the high altar was gone and the tabernacle was no longer at the center of the Church, but now on the side, and that people no longer genuflected. I suggested to Father O.F.M. #2 after Mass one day that the tabernacle should be moved back to the center of the Church. Father’s angry reaction shocked me as he blew up at me and said: “This change was called for by Vatican II!” I found my voice and asked where, in what document. His response: “You wouldn’t understand. The Council called for this and we must listen to the Council.” I did not appreciate being talked down to as if I were still a child; after all I had gone to college.

So I looked carefully in Flannery’s book of Vatican II documents and found nothing of the sort. No wonder people left—they were being treated as children, berated for asking obvious questions. If we were now supposed to be (as many were saying) “adults” after Vatican II, we were not treated like adults, but rather as children, and as bad children at that.

In the early years of my life I was disturbed by what seemed to be perpetual changes in the Mass. As a young child, I remember the introduction of lay lectors. Then, I remember the change in language and my parents being irritated over it. Then there was the advent of the folk band with songs like “Day by Day,” Sister Margaret Meade’s rock-and-roll Our Father, and “Let It Be.” Simultaneous with this development was the departure of the Church organist and the end of any Latin in the Mass. Statues disappeared and were replaced by liturgical banners. Confessions were replaced with reconciliation rooms, which involved scary face-to-face confession. We were told to think of the priest as our friend and counselor and discouraged from thinking of the priest as in persona Christi. I remember as a child being told that the youth folk band was for the youth and that the youth wanted it. It was patently obvious to me, even as a child, that this was something a certain clique of adults, not youth, wanted. Funny thing: the hymns changed, “Day by Day” went away and was replaced by garbage like “On Eagles Wings.” When I was a student at Bonaventure, we used to make mocking parodies of these songs.  “The King of Glory” was modified by my girlfriend (now wife) to “The King of Glory comes delivering pizzas, open the doors before Him, give Him a good tip.”

We had the introduction of albs as altar boys and the discouragement of the use of the cassock and surplice beginning in the mid 1970s. Then the introduction of communion with the cup and then “Eucharistic ministers.” Then altar girls began to show up and, as a consequence of that, boys disappeared from the altar. As a young boy, I did not want to be around girls, and when I was older, the altar girl movement seemed to attract “weird chicks” that creeped you right off the altar.

You went from having two Eucharistic ministers, usually a husband and wife team, to a plethora (the “sacristy rats” as a friend called them), all women, who seem to evolve from sacristans to liturgical planners. First standing for Communion came, then Communion in the hand, then Eucharistic ministers. The altar rail went and the tabernacle was moved from the center of the church, behind the altar, off to the side. Then the kneelers were pulled out. In that order. By the time it was all said and done, reverence for the Real Presence had disappeared. And things such as genuflecting vanished and immodest dress appeared in Church.

Holy water fonts begin to be filled with sand to remind us of the spiritual desert. I thought: “I am trying to get out of the desert into the garden of life!” Incense went out and so did the censers, but then it reappeared in the form of big bowls in which the incense was burned, the bowls looking like something out of Conan the Barbarian. Amices were dropped and no one had to wear them in the 1970s (“Jim, the amices are no longer necessary, like the maniple,” to quote Father Allan Webber). Then suddenly, built-in amices as part of the chasuble began to appear everywhere in the 1990s and I was told that this was a (another) change required by Vatican II.  I remember thinking in 1995, “the Council ended 30 years ago, why is this being implemented now?”  As a child, many of the older priests had beautiful Gothic chasubles from the pre-Vatican II liturgical movement, but if you went to mass in a different parish, you might see a priest in a burlap chasuble with strange designs on it. Pope Benedict once wore a tie-dyed chasuble. I could not but help think that this the sort of vestment you wear when you do Mass at a Grateful Dead show.

Speaking of the Grateful Dead, I remember when a well-intentioned priest, trying to encourage reverence, handed out incense sticks to be used when one said the rosary.  Now, anyone who works with the pleasant uplifting Byzantine style incense knows that incense sticks give off an atrocious sickly sweet smell and that these incense sticks are what is used by potheads to cover up their pot smoking. Poor Father!  He meant well, but handing out what some guys used to call “pot sticks” did not create an atmosphere of reverence.

The entrance antiphon, if said, was forever banished for the new “Good morning” ritual. When are they going to do a “Good-bye ritual”? What I found funny is that they justified many of the changes in the mass as a way of eliminating “useless repetitions” such as the second Confiteor, but now we have a double handshake ceremony – one at the “Good morning” greeting and another at the Sign of Peace!

Funerals: out with the black, in came the white. Sometimes the white had the sparkly sheen of a Michael Jackson glove! Wakes with Vespers services from the Office of the Dead or Rosary for the dead disappeared. I remember saying: “What will go next, the funeral mass?” A rhetorical question then, but today most people do not have Masses said for their souls or even a Catholic funeral, but the old shake-and-bake cremation and their ashes get dumped in their backyard by their fallen-away adult children.

Anecdotal evidence, but nonetheless, primary source evidence: experience. Nothing stayed the same. It was a perfect fulfillment of the Marxist theory of perpetual revolution as espoused by Leon Trotsky. In effect, the church liturgical planners, lead by that doofus Bugnini, had developed a Trotskyite liturgy—the mass was never the same but in perpetual flux. However, where Trotsky imagined that the proletariat and peasant would work together to seize power, here we have a cabal of liturgists and their priest allies who have seized power and dictate everything. I guess that is called “empowerment.”

From the 1965 Catholic Encyclopedia

Consider what Fr. Lucien Deiss, C.S.S.p., says in his book The Mass (The Liturgical Press, 1992): “We know that no reform is perfect and that the liturgy, like the Church itself, remains subject to the law that the Council with boldness and magnificence called perennis reformatio, permanent reform” (10). And: “It is here that we can ask the question of what is called the ‘Ministerial Function,’ the fundamental question that concerns all the songs and even all the rites of the liturgy…. The question of the Ministerial Function—‘What do we use that for?’—strikes at the root of the rite or the song. It is clear that if something does not serve any purpose, or if it is at cross-purposes, the rite or the song must be cut at its root” (14-15).

Pure utilitarianism. Everything measured by our own mental capacity at this very moment, our own ability to see and to understand “utility.” What if we are not good at doing that? What if there are more subtle uses we have forgotten about and will eventually rediscover, if only we are patient?
 

In Defense of Multiple Orations

This and other photos: Missale Romanum editio VI juxta typicam Vaticanam, New York, 1947

In each Mass, there are three very important prayers familiarly grouped as the “orations”: the Collect, which comes near the beginning; the Secret, said silently just before the Preface to the Canon; and the Postcommunion, said after the ablutions. For centuries, it was the custom for priests to say or to sing more than one set of orations at Mass. (This carried over into Lauds and Vespers as well.) The rubrics often told the priest which additional prayers to use. For example, in Advent, from the first Sunday, the pre-1956 Missal prescribes the addition of a second collect of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a third collect for either the Church or for the Pope, although if there are saints to be commemorated, their prayers would be used instead. On Sundays, too, saints would be commemorated instead of simply ignored.

To give a sense of how this would work in practice, let’s take Sunday, June 30, 2019. I choose this day because it is a typical Roman “constellation”: the Third Sunday after Pentecost, in the Octave of the Sacred Heart and of the birth of St. John the Baptist, but also the commemoration of St. Paul, who is always accompanied by his fellow Apostle St. Peter. So the priest at Mass would say or sing five Collects: Sunday’s, followed by St. Paul, St. Peter, the Sacred Heart, and St. John the Baptist.

Paul Cavendish, master of the 1939 rubrics, offers a primer for adding votive collects beyond those required for the day. The commemorations of occurring saints are almost always done with the exception on Doubles of the First Class. Other than of occurring saints, the general principle is that the seasonal and ad libitum commemorations are done only on days of Semidouble and Simple rank. There are some exceptions, but on any day of these two lowest ranks, there have to be at least three orations at Mass. For most of the year, the third is specified by the season, either for the church or the pope (for about 2/3 of the year) or the prayer for the living and the dead (in Lent: the third prayer is ad libitum after February 2, but is for the church or pope before the Purification, during the time after Epiphany and in Septuagesimatide). If it were a feria per annum, for example, a priest could not choose simply to omit the second and third orations, even when the last was an open choice — he still had to choose some set of third orations to add. Doubles of any grade are the most festive and do not add these extra orations.

Essentially, these are the principles that had been in place since Trent up to 1955, with tweaks here and there (and not taking into account the orationes imperatae, which have their own requirements). The rules for the “seasonal collects” are described in chapter IX of the pre-1960 Rubricæ generales of the Missal, a translation of which is found at the end of this article. They remained unchanged from 1570 until 1960 — a period of almost four centuries.

Prior to 1955, the maximum number of Orations at a low Mass on simple days was five or seven (depending on circumstances).[1] In 1955, this number was reduced to three, and mandatory prayers of the season were abolished. In 1960, the possibility of additional orations was reduced still further, and done away with altogether for most Sundays of the year. All this was done in pursuit of streamlined rational simplicity. The end game was the Novus Ordo, which never has more than one set of orations per Mass.

But should we not ask why the custom of praying several orations arose to begin with? What role did it play? What we have lost by its unceremonious abolition?

It seems to me evident that this custom was the way in which the Roman rite expanded the urgency and comprehensiveness of its petitions, making room for the needs of the priest and of the community, for special occasions or seasons or devotions. For example, at the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, a town that was devastated by earthquakes a few years ago, the monks will still at times add the orations against earthquakes at their private Masses. Other priests may pray for the gift of charity, the gift of continence, or the gift of tears. Sometimes a celebrant will add a Collect for his parents, for a friend in need, for peace in time of war, or for the unity of the Church; for people in authority and those under their charge, for those in temptation or tribulation, or for help against persecutors and evildoers; for rain or fine weather, to avert storms, to beg for a good harvest or to beg the lifting of a plague. Thus, a wise and controlled liberty, solely drawing on fully-formed prayers hallowed by centuries of use, allowed for responses to personal and local needs.

These Collects, moreover, expressed and inculcated devotion to Our Lady and the saints, including the patron saint of the church in which the people are gathered for prayer. I remember my first introduction to the riches of the additional Collects in a visit to Norcia, when I assisted at an early morning Low Mass. The celebrant added the orations “To implore the intercession of the saints” (appointed for after the Purification until Ash Wednesday and during the Time after Pentecost — translation from the St. Andrew Daily Missal, 1945 edition, p. 1712):

Collect. Defend us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all dangers of mind and body; that through the intercession of the blessed and glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, together with blessed Joseph, Thy blessed apostles Peter and Paul, blessed N. [titular saint of the church], and all the saints, mercifully grant us safety and peace, that all adversities and errors being overcome, Thy Church may serve Thee in security and freedom. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son…

Secret. Graciously hear us, O God our Savior, and by the virtue of this sacrament protect us from all enemies of soul and body, bestowing on us both grace in this life and glory hereafter. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…

Postcommunion. May the oblation of this divine Sacrament both cleanse and defend us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, through the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with blessed Joseph, Thy blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, blessed N. [titular saint of the church], and all the saints, render us at once purified from all perversities and freed from all adversities. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…

The prayers translated below are found on the left page

To give another example, here is a translation of the second set of orations appointed to be said from Ash Wednesday to Passion Sunday (ibid., p. 1713):

Collect. O almighty and eternal God, Who hast dominion over the living and the dead, and art merciful to all whom Thou foreknowest will be Thine by faith and good works: we humbly beseech Thee that they for whom we have purposed to pour forth our prayers, whether this present world still detains them in the flesh or the next world hath already received them divested of their bodies, may, by the intercession of Thy saints and the clemency of Thy goodness, obtain pardon and full remission of all their sins. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son… 

Secret. O God, Who alone knowest the number of the elect to be admitted to the supreme felicity of Heaven, grant, we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of all Thy saints, the names of all who have been recommended to our prayers and of all the faithful, may be inscribed in the book of blessed predestination. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…

Postcommunion. Let us pray. May the sacraments which we have received purify us, we beseech Thee, O almighty and merciful Lord; and through the intercession of all Thy saints, grant that this Thy sacrament may not be unto us a condemnation, but a salutary intercession for pardon; may it be the washing away of sin, the strength of the weak, a protection against all dangers of the world, and a remission of all the sins of the faithful, whether living or dead. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God For ever and ever. R. Amen.

Quite apart from the obvious value of praying for intentions like these on a regular basis, one cannot fail to note the extraordinary beauty and profound theology of these additional orations, where the lex orandi expresses with incomparable luminosity the lex credendi on the predestination and intercession of the saints.

This practice of multiple collects was the daily liturgical equivalent — on a smaller scale, of course — of the Good Friday intercessions, which, let us recall, are not in the form of a Byzantine litany, much less in the form of the Novus Ordo “prayers of the faithful” or General Intercessions, but rather take the form of a series of petitions announced and then prayed for with Collects. The intercessory element survived in the orationes ad libitum and the orationes imperatae, obviating the need for an artificially constructed “prayer of the faithful” or “general intercessions.” Once again, we see that the Roman tradition in its Tridentine maturity already contained within itself the resources it needed for bringing before God the needs of the celebrant, the local community, the larger world, or certain categories of people. It was already all there. It was only after those resources had been hacked out under Pius XII and John XXIII that the Consilium discovered a “lack” that had to be filled with a pseudo-antiquarian modern invention.

A significant benefit of leaving room for multiple orations is the way in which it permits the temporal and sanctoral cycles to interpenetrate and harmonize as it were effortlessly, without great loss suffered on either level. Sundays may be privileged, but they do not exclude the saints; the saints, too, receive our devotion, but not at the expense of the ferial prayers of Advent and Lent.[2] When the Novus Ordo brutally reduced orations to a single set per Mass across the board, it introduced for the first time an outright opposition between the temporal and sanctoral cycles, an either/or that is highly uncharacteristic of the Catholic both/and. Rather than a great conjunction where two planets draw near in our vision without being in danger of actual collision, the insistence on a single set of orations bespeaks a tunnel-vision incapable of taking in the breadth of revelation, Church history, and the ebb and flow of seasons.

Far too many treasured orations of the Roman rite effectively disappeared from the prayer of the Church due to the shortsighted postwar reforms, particularly those contained in the 1960 code of rubrics, which, let us be candid, marks a significant rupture with the Tridentine inheritance — a sort of dry run for principles that would be applied with still further ruthlessness in the 1969 missal and its code, the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani. The recovery of multiple Collects — initially three, but eventually a larger number, of which five may be a good ceiling — will therefore certainly become a more familiar feature in our churches, as priests rediscover the once and future Roman Rite.

I express my thanks to several Facebook friends (you know who you are) for your help with navigating rubrical details and understanding when and how the rubrics changed in the twentieth century.

An illustration from Bussard-Kirsch, The Meaning of the Mass (CUA, 1942)

APPENDIX

(Translation of Chapter IX of the pre-1960 Rubricæ generales of the Missale Romanum, by Gerhard Eger, originally published on Canticum Salomonis.)

IX. On Collects

1. On double Feasts only one Collect is said, unless another Commemoration is to be made, as said above.

2. On semidouble feasts occurring from the Octave of Pentecost until Advent, and from the Candlemas until Lent, the second Collect is A cunctis, and the third ad libitum.

3. On semidouble Feasts occurring from the Octave of Epiphany until Candlemas, the second Collect is Deus, qui salútis, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or Deus, ómnium fidélium for the Pope.

4. On semidouble Feasts from Ash Wednesday until Passion Sunday, the second Collect is of the Feria, and the third A cunctis.

5. On Semidoubles from Passion Sunday until Palm Sunday, the second Collect is of the Feria, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

6. On semidouble Feasts from the Octave of Easter until Ascension, the second Collect is Concéde nos of Our Lady, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

7. On semidouble feasts occurring within Octaves, the second collect is of the Octave, and the third the one placed in second place within the Octave.

8. During the Octaves of Easter and Pentecost, on Masses of the Octave only two Collects are said, one of the day, and the second Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

9. During other Octaves, and on fasting Vigils (except the Vigil of Christmas and of Pentecost), three Collects are said, one of the day, the second of Our Lady, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope. But during Octaves of Our Lady, and on the Vigil and during the Octave of All Saints, the second Collect is Deus, qui corda of the Holy Ghost, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

10. On Sundays occurring within Octaves two Collects are said, one of the Sunday, and the second of the Octave. On the Octave day, only one Collect is said, unless another Commemoration is to be made.

11. On Sundays three Collects are said, as assigned in the Ordinary, except on the Sundays otherwise noted.

12. On simple Feasts and Ferias per annum, unless otherwise noted three Collects are said, as on Semidoubles, or five, or even up to seven ad libitum.

13. On Ember days and when several Lessons are read, these several Collects are said after the last Collect before the Epistle, as is noted in the Proper de Tempore of the Missal.

14. In votive Masses said solemnly for a grave matter or for a public cause of the Church, only one Collect is said. On a Mass for Thanksgiving, however another Collect is added, as noted in the proper place. In other votive Masses, however, several Collects are always said, as on simple Feasts.

15. On votive Masses of Our Lady the second Collect is of the Office of the day, and the third of the Holy Ghost. But when the Office of Our Lady is said on Saturday, the second Collect is of the Holy Ghost, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope. On votive Masses of the Apostles, the Collect of Our Lady Concéde nos is said in place of the Collect A cunctis.

16. If, when several Collects are said, there should occur a Commemoration of some Saint, the Commemoration is said in second place, and the third Collect is the one that was otherwise in second place.

17. Let the following arrangement be observed for the conclusion of Collects. If the Collect is directed to the Father, it concludes Per Dóminum nostrum, etc. If to the Son, Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, etc. If the Son is mentioned at the beginning of the Collect, it concludes Per eúndem Dóminum nostrum, etc. If the Son is mentioned at the end of the Collect, it concludes Qui tecum vivit, etc. If the Holy Ghost is mentioned, at the conclusion one says: In unitáte ejúsdem Spíritus Sancti, etc. Let the other things be also followed in the saying of Collects that are said above in the Rubric on Commemorations.

NOTES

[1] Denis the Carthusian comments on why the tradition specified an odd number of Collects: “When the counter-greeting of the people is done, Et cum spiritu tuo, the priest pours forth prayers for the people and for himself [the Collects]. And it is said in the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum [of Durandus] that the numbers of prayers is always odd in number, that is, one, because of the unity of the divine nature; or three, because of the mystery of the Trinity; or five, because of the five wounds of Christ; or seven, because that is the total number of petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. Nor ought there be more than this [seven], without a very special and serious reason, because Christ did not exceed this number of petitions.”

[2] In like manner, the custom of multiple orations for Sundays kept fresh the memory of older liturgical strata. For example, when Trinity Sunday was imposed on the First Sunday after Pentecost, or the Holy Family on the First Sunday after Epiphany, the dominical orations would still be said, instead of being shuffled off to the nearest available feria (as occurs with the 1962 missal). “No Collect left behind” was the wise policy of our forefathers. It hardly needs to be added that all of the considerations in this article apply, perhaps even moreso, to the Divine Office. In the old office of Lauds and Vespers, there would always be a commemoration of the lesser occurring feast or season, with its Benedictus or Magnificat antiphon, versicle, and Collect. In the new Liturgy of the Hours, the intertwining between temporal and sanctoral has been eliminated with barbaric totality.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel. 

“What One Good Teacher Can Do: A Musical Reminiscence” by Fr Anthony Cekada†

Gregory DiPippo informed readers last Friday, September 11, of the death of Fr. Anthony Cekada. Although I never met Fr. Cekada in person, he and I would exchange emails from time to time on musical matters. Readers are no doubt aware that he was a great lover of sacred music in all its varieties. At one point, when we were discussing easy choral Masses in Latin with organ accompaniment, he offered to send me copies of a number of Masses for two- and three-voices, which I gladly accepted. He ended up sending me a considerable number of them, which I still have on my bookshelf.

On June 15, 2016, Fr. Cekada sent the following article, with illustrations, to his email list. I knew that Father was a composer of modest and useful sacred music, but I had not realized the extent of his musical training until this charming article and its illustrations. I thought it would be a fitting way to remember him, in spite of the fact that we obviously had profound disagreements in matters of ecclesiology. The article was prefaced with a note.

"Dear Fathers, Seminarians, Church Musicians, Teachers and Friends,

"During the past week or so, I’ve had a lot of correspondence with musicians, including some professionals who live by this glorious art. In one exchange, I told the unusual story of my own musical education in my early and mid-teens. It took place over two intense years, exactly a half century ago. The education took me from being an untrained but eager musical ignoramus at 14 to being the accomplished and technically adept orchestral composer of a major work at 16. The credit for my transformation belongs to one amazing man: Michael P. Hammond. The story of what he did and its final outcome is a testament to the lasting and profound change that one good teacher can make in the life of a willing student.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Hammond soon departed for another teaching post. His successors spurned the traditional principles he had taught me and insisted we composed noisy, irrational junk. I quit composition in disgust, turned to the organ, put all my works away, and, for a half century, gave little thought to my teenage composing days. But very recently, you’ll see, I went back for a look at the music I had composed. It was only with fifty years perspective that I could see in it the miracle that Michael Hammond worked on the teenage Anthony Cekada. I thank God for Michael Hammond — and all great teachers like him!"

“What One Good Teacher Can Do: A Musical Reminiscence”

Fr. Anthony Cekada†

Michael Hammond was not a composer, but he was an amazing man and musician. When I met him, he was about 30, and had just been appointed director of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and of the Milwaukee Civic Orchestra.

I studied with him for a mere two years, 1966-1968, when I was 15–17. To me, Mr. Hammond was a spectacular speeding comet, shedding bright light on all corners of the musical universe and leading me on an exhilarating, non-stop journey towards excellence in the composer’s craft.

By that time, Mr. Hammond was already the complete Renaissance man — a polymath in classics, philosophy, sociology and medicine; Rhodes scholar; student at Oriel College; expert in medieval polyphony; instructor in physiology and anatomy at the University of Wisconsin; researcher in neuroanatomy; student of Indian music and the sitar under Ravi Shankar, and, incredibly, a speaker of the Menominee American Indian language! After he left the Conservatory, he would go on to become founding dean of the music department at SUNY-Purchase; Assistant Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Norman Dessoff Choirs; dean of music at Rice University; president of Rice University, and in 2001, be appointed by President Bush as the eighth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

When I began studying with Mr. Hammond, my only previous musical training consisted of Catholic grade school music classes, singing the daily High Mass with the rest of the children and going to concerts, courtesy of the wealthy lady who employed my father as her chauffeur. In grade school, I desperately wanted to play the piano, but it was physically impossible to get one into our tiny apartment.

Fortunately, when I started high school in 1965 at age 14, I finally got access to pianos, and better yet, to practice organs. I found a nun to teach me organ.

I promptly composed my first piece, an organ march to be played after Mass. (Ex. 1).

At the same time, I began trying to compose sacred choral music by studying scores of the old masters and trying to imitate them. The post-Vatican II liturgical changes has just been introduced, and the new music that came with it revolted me. Everyone else might produce insipid musical junk for Mass, but not the teenage Anthony Cekada! He would learn how to be a composer and then write real sacred music!

My father’s employer, Paula Uihlein, was a great patroness of the arts in Milwaukee, and when she got wind of this, she arranged for me to meet Mr. Hammond, who had just taken up his post as the conservatory director.

I brought Mr. Hammond all my compositions, and told him what I aspired to do: compose good, traditional sacred music. He said that what I’d shown him was very promising and showed that I had a real ear for the older styles, but that I needed to learn all the correct rules of technique.

The program Mr. Hammond laid out for me was this. Two years of piano training, then organ. He would personally tutor me in counterpoint, in those those principles of composition and theory where he thought I needed the most help, and in introductory orchestration. These lessons, he said, I could immediately apply to my own compositions — a point that he probably figured would keep my interest fired up.

When I graduated from high school, Mr. Hammond added, I should then coordinate taking the formal composition curriculum at the Conservatory with my theology courses at the diocesan seminary. This would ensure that in the long run there would be no gaps in my formal training.

So each week, I spent a very intense hour or so in Michael Hammond’s office, correcting exercises, learning principles and making practical applications to my compositions-in-progress. He was an astoundingly lucid teacher and an exemplary mentor.

To begin our sessions, Mr. Hammond had me select any score from the library or his office that interested me, and pick a page or two in it. We’d then go through my selection to understand what was going on musically and why. At first, I picked Bach cantatas or Mozart symphonies, and I was amazed at his ability to do on-the-spot piano reductions of the dozen instrumental staves [stacked lines of music showing the note for each individual instrument], often in different keys. Little stinker that I was, I later started to test him by picking monster scores from Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. None of it fazed him in the least — instant reduction, then ”Here’s the musical context... Now look at this, this and this…”

After two years of this, alas, Mr. Hammond was off to Purchase and to Stokowski. But what practical effect, if any, did his tutoring have on the musical compositions of Anthony Cekada, 16-year-old aspiring composer?

Up until a few days ago, I couldn’t have given you a clear answer. Sure, Mr. Hammond’s tutoring had undoubtedly improved my composing, but I couldn’t have told you much about how or why. In 1970, I sealed up my completed scores in two envelopes, and never looked at them again.

But my discussion with a young musician on Monday piqued my curiosity, so I opened the envelopes and pulled out the scores. What I found after 45 years absolutely astounded me. I had come to Michael Hammond as a musical ignoramus with grade-school music training, but full of teenage eagerness to get things right. After just two years with him, here is some of what he got me to produce:

A homophonic Ave Maria imitating Palestrina. (Dec. 1966, age 15) With few exceptions, it followed correct voice leading and harmonization rules, but with little touches of the modern or the unexpected here and there. It showed a nice attention to subtle dynamics. A parish choir performed it. (Ex. 2)

A Renaissance-style Kyrie. (Prob Fall 1966, age 15). Scored for SSTB a cappella in mode I. The two soprano parts were an exercise in how to handle voice lines that overlap.

Motet Acclamationes Sanctae Virgini. (May 1968, age 16). A cappella with two choruses alternating (SSAA, TTBB), possibly imitating Cristobal Morales. Observes all the correct Renaissance rules. Treats successive sections of the text (Tota Pulchra es Maria) in a variety of textures. Eighty bars long! Alas, it was never performed. (Ex. 3)

A baroque pastiche on Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland (March 1969, age 17). Scored for four-part chorus, continuo and a challenging violin obliggato. (Ex. 4)

“Mass of Praise and Glory” (begun early 1967, age 15; completed January 1968, age 16) (Ex 5)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Glimpse into Catholic Life in Ireland in the Early Sixties

Some weeks ago, a priest friend alerted me to the online archives of Radharc, “one of Ireland’s most important independent documentary production companies,” founded in 1959 and the producer of “over 400 documentaries which were screened on RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, between 1961 and 1996.” My correspondent was particularly interested in the short films made from 1961 to 1966, with two priests, Fr Peter Dunn and Fr Desmond Forristal, as the hosts. It should be noted—and this is a matter of surprise especially for Americans—that it did  not seem strange in any way for a public film project to be run by priests and to center so closely on religious and cultural matters (which were often the same).

Several of these films would be fascinating to NLM readers, so I shall comment on my favorites. There are many more worth exploring at the Irish Film Institute Radharc archive. (As the videos are not on YouTube, only still shots can be inserted here.)

The New Ritual

For an absolutely fascinating glimpse into Catholic life at the time of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, watch the seven-minute film from 1962 about “The New Ritual.” “New,” at this time, refers to the Tridentine sacramental rites done partly in Latin and partly in English. The film speaks as if this modest step is a sufficient response to modern needs.

As regular readers will know, I’m opposed to having so much vernacular in the traditional rites of the Church of Rome, but no one can deny that if what the video shows had been the only step taken towards liturgical reform, the faithful wouldn’t have been thrown into disarray and there would be a great deal more peace and unity in the Church today. The traditional movement as we know it would not exist were it not for the flagrant overreaching of the Consilium and the accompanying absolutism of Paul VI.

Most interesting to me is the interview at the end with an Irish liturgist who says: “Some people want the Foremass [Mass of Catechumens] in English, but the rest of the Mass—especially the Canon, the heart of the Mass—will remain in Latin.” He seems quite sincere in his assertion. How many, at this time, could have imagined what would be happening only a few short years later? (On this point, I recommend William Riccio’s fine article “Back to the Future? No Thanks, I’ve Been There,” in which he recounts, inter alia: “We were told the Canon, that most untranslatable prayer, would never be in the vernacular because it is too steeped in meaning. In 1967, it was put in the vernacular.”)

Sick Calls

This four-minute video was made in 1962, when the traditional rite of the sacrament of extreme unction was still being used by everyone. Today it is used by communities like the FSSP and the ICRSS, and, I would suppose, by individual diocesan priests who are familiar with it.

What a remarkable glimpse into how sick calls used to be done — and, please God, how they can and should still be done today!

Blessing the Airplane Fleet

Made in 1962, this film tells the viewer about Aer Lingus, Ireland’s national airline. Each plane is named after an Irish saint—and after showing us lots of examples, the film gives a quick history of Irish missionaries of old. (As far as I know, the Aer Lingus airplanes have retained their saint names to the present.) We get a tour of the primitive instrumentation panel of a Boeing. We see a priest blessing the fleet with holy water, and a Sunday Mass conducted in the hangar. We get to see the prayer card (I’m not kidding) that used to be included in every seat of an Aer Lingus plane, and a view of nuns wearing habits one would never see today.

In general, the people flying on the planes as well as those seeing them off are dressed impeccably. One would not have dreamed of going out in public any other way.

The Village with the Most Vocations

Another remarkable film concerns a village in rural Ireland that had a long history of high numbers of priestly and religious vocations. A fascinating glimpse into Irish village life in 1962: there’s not even a hint of the collapse that would come later.

All the explanations given about why this village’s vocations flourished are quite similar to the reasons we might give today for the greater number of vocations among traditional Catholics: hard-working family life, the family Rosary, the cheerfulness of the sisters, and a relatively simple life. The sisters don’t put pressure on the girls; certainly no “vocations office,” “discernment retreats,” or baby-faced agents.

The sisters depicted in this 1962 film left for good in 2016, after 151 years. Seduced by the “spirit of the Council,” they had become “Eucharistic ministers” and Lord only knows what else. Corruptio optimi pessima.

People often say to traditionalists: “If Catholicism was so great before the Council, why did it fall apart so quickly?” And I reply: “How well do you know yourself? There but for the grace of God go I…” We don't have to pretend that there were no problems before the Council (and Ireland surely had its problems too) to know that things were a far sight better than they were afterwards, when the spirit of rebellion had taken hold and churchmen couldn't throw off the shackles of commandments, customs, and cultural heritage quickly enough. Things can fall apart rapidly when we let fallen human nature take the driver’s seat. Look at the history of Israel, God’s chosen people. Look at the Church in various periods of her checkered history. It’s not as if we should be shocked. Greatness is a daily moral and spiritual conquest, and it can fall to pieces in a matter of years, months, even days. These objectors might as well pose their question to Our Lord: “If you are the Son of God, why did one of your Apostles betray you, and the others run away?” It was not the fault of Our Lord; and neither was the (post)conciliar apostasy the fault of the Catholic tradition built up over the ages by the Holy Spirit, sent to the God-loving disciples in the one and only Pentecost of the Church, which lasts until the end of the ages.