Eucharistic Prayer II and the Anaphora of Hippolytus: A Critical Analysis (Part 2)

Bernard Botte and Louis Bouyer, authors of EP II; Annibale Bugnini, who admitted EP II did not follow the "Canon of Hippolytus"

We continue the publication of Ignacio Gallardo Tampe’s guest article on the history of the so-called Anaphora of Hippolytus and its relationship to the Second Eucharistic Prayer. Part 1 was published on Wednesday.

1. The Text Attributed to Hippolytus

It should be noted that the anaphora contained in the Apostolic Tradition is proposed (not imposed) in the context of an episcopal consecration; so the question arises (assuming this liturgy was indeed ever used) as to whether a similar one would have been used in the ordinary Mass of priests, or even bishops outside of the rite of an episcopal consecration. Whatever the answer may be, there is all the more reason to believe that Eucharistic Prayer II has a problem of origin. [1]

Next, and before proceeding to the specific analysis, the text of the anaphora from “Hippolytus” is presented, based on the Latin translation [2] (the instructions are in italics):

“All should give the kiss of peace [3] to whoever has become a bishop, honouring the dignity [4] he has received. The deacons should give him the offering, and as he and all the priests extend their hands over it, he offers thanks, saying:

[I] The Lord be with you.
All reply: And with your spirit.
Lift up your hearts.
We have raised them up to the Lord. [5]
Let us give thanks to the Lord. [6]
It is right and fitting. [7]

He continues:

[II] We give you thanks, O God, through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, whom in these days you have sent to save and redeem us, and to be an angel of your will. [8] He is your Word, inseparable from you, through whom everything was made. In your goodness, you sent him from heaven to be a virgin’s son. Conceived in her womb, he took flesh and was revealed as your Son, born of the virgin and the Holy Spirit.

[III] In carrying out your will, and forming for you a holy people, he stretched out his hands as he suffered, to free from suffering those who had faith in you. When he allowed himself to be given up to suffer, so that he could conquer death and break the bonds of sin in crushing the power of hell, and so lead the just to the light, establish a limit [9] and manifest the resurrection, he took bread, and giving thanks to you, said: “Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you.” [10] He did the same with the cup, saying: “This is my blood which is poured out for you. When you do this, do it in memory of me.” [11]

[IV] Remembering therefore his death and resurrection, we offer you this bread and cup, thanking you for holding us worthy to stand in your presence and to serve you as priests.

[V] We ask you to send your Holy Spirit down upon the offerings of your holy Church. Gathering together all those who receive these mysteries, grant that they may be filled with the Holy Spirit, and their faith may thus be strengthened in your truth.

[VI] So may we praise and glorify you, through your Son Jesus Christ. Through him be the honour and glory to you, the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit, in the holy Church, now and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”

2. The Text of the Second Eucharistic Prayer

Now, we provide the text of Eucharistic Prayer II according to the translation of it given in the version of the Missal used in England [12]:

“Although it is provided with its own Preface, this Eucharistic Prayer may also be used with other Prefaces, especially those that present an overall view of the mystery of salvation, such as the common Prefaces.

[I] The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right and just.

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Father most holy, through your beloved son, Jesus Christ, your Word through whom you made all things, whom you sent as our saviour and redeemer, incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin. Fulfilling your will and gaining for you a holy people, he stretched out his hands as he endured his Passion, so as to break the bonds of death and manifest the resurrection. And so, with the angels and all the saints we declare your glory, as with one voice we acclaim: [13]

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts. [14] Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. [15] Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

[II] You are indeed holy, O Lord, the fount of all holiness. Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your spirit upon them like the dewfall so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[III] At the time he was betrayed and entered willingly into his Passion, he took bread and, giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.

In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took the chalice and, once more giving thanks, he gave it to his disciples, saying:

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT, FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.

The mystery of Faith.

R/. We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.
Or: [16] When we eat this Bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your Death, O Lord, until you come again.
Or: Save us, Saviour of the world, for by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free.

[IV] Therefore, as we celebrate the memorial of his Death and resurrection, we offer you, Lord, the Bread of life and the chalice of salvation, giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you.

[V] Humbly we pray that, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit. Remember, Lord, your Church, spread throughout the world, and bring her to the fullness of charity, together with N. our Pope and N. our Bishop and all the clergy. Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection, and all who have died in your mercy: welcome them into the light of your face. have mercy on us all, we pray, that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with the blessed apostles, and all the saints who have pleased you throughout the ages, we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life, and may praise and glorify you through your son, Jesus Christ.

[VI] Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the holy spirit, all glory and honour is yours, for ever and ever. R. Amen.”

Comparative Analysis of the Texts

As can be clearly seen, the two are by no means identical. What accounts for this difference? It is because Eucharistic Prayer II is not a simple translation of the anaphora of “Hippolytus,” as is commonly believed, but rather a new creation of the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia. [17] The de facto head of the Consilium, Fr. Annibale Bugnini, who served as Secretarium and whose authority extended even beyond that of Cardinal Lercaro, the president of the Consilium, wrote the following:

The aim was to produce an anaphora that is short and very simple in its ideas. The anaphora of Hippolytus was therefore taken as a model. But, although many thoughts and expressions are derived from Hippolytus, Eucharistic Prayer II is not, as it were, a new edition of his prayer. It was not possible to retain the structure of his anaphora because it does not have a Sanctus or a consecratory epiclesis before the account of institution or a commemoration of the saints or intercessions. All these developed after Hippolytus and could not now be omitted in a Roman anaphora. In addition, various ideas and expressions in the anaphora of Hippolytus are archaic or difficult to understand and could not be taken over into a contemporary anaphora. [18]

For its part, we know that Eucharistic Prayer II was drafted by two scholars, Dom Bernard Botte and Louis Bouyer, with the latter stating (with the unfiltered honesty that so characterized him) the following regarding the composition of that prayer:

Some idea will be given of the deplorable conditions in which this hasty reform was dispatched when I describe how the second Eucharistic Prayer was strung together. Between the indiscriminately archeologizing fanatics who wanted to banish the Sanctus and the intercessions from the Eucharistic Prayer by taking Hippolytus’ Eucharist as it is and others who did not care at all about his alleged Apostolic Tradition but who wanted only some slipshod Mass, Dom Botte and I were to take charge of piecing together its text so as to work in those elements that were certainly more ancient – for the next day! By chance I discovered in a text, if not by Hippolytus himself then assuredly in his style, a felicitous phrase on the Holy Spirit that could from a transition of the Vere Sanctus type to the brief epiclesis. Botte, for his part, made up an intercession more worthy of Paul Reboux and his “in the manner of” than of his own knowledge. But I cannot reread that improbable composition without thinking again of the terrace of the Trastevere café where we put the finishing touches on our chore in order to be able to present ourselves with it at the Bronze Gate at the hour appointed by our schoolmasters! [19]

Father Bouyer then adds:

After all that, it should not be too surprising if, by its incredible weaknesses, the distorted specimen we produced was to incite ridicule or indignation... to the point of making one forget a number of excellent elements that are nonetheless scattered about in it and that it would be a shame not to salvage like lost pearls in the revision that will sooner or later be inevitable… [20]

From the aforementioned texts, we can infer not only the lack of seriousness with which the Consilium worked (something that Bouyer himself criticizes in his memoir), but also the profound differences between the two texts mentioned by Bugnini, which we will not explain in great detail so as not to lengthen this brief essay even further.

Among these, the inclusion of the Sanctus stands out, a prayer not included in Hippolytus’s anaphora, since the introduction of the Sanctus into the liturgy dates to the early fifth century. [21]

Additionally, there are the commemorations of the saints and intercessions, which clearly imitate the Roman Canon in a simple and poor manner, departing from the Hippolytan model.

Even more striking is the omission of references to themes such as to “conquer death and break the bonds of sin in crushing the power of hell”, because, as Bugnini mentioned, they are apparently “archaic or difficult to understand”, that is, in his view, the Church’s traditional theology is obsolete. But this should come as no surprise to anyone, since he himself had previously stated, referring to the Holy Week reforms, that “it was deemed necessary to undertake this work so that no one would experience spiritual discomfort in the prayer of the Church.” [22] It is precisely this condemnation of traditional theology as being uncomfortable for modern man one of the reasons why the reformed liturgy is facing increasing criticism from scholars.

For example, see the removal of three complete psalms from the Liturgy of the Hours compared to the Breviarium Romanum [23], as well as the removal of verses from another 19 psalms [24], on the grounds that they are “imprecatory” [25], for not “conforming to the spirit of evangelical charity” [26] and for presenting “certain psychological difficulties” [27], or, in the words of Annibale Bugnini, for containing “expressions that are extremely harsh and offensive to modern sensibilities.” [28]

All of this is nonsensical when we consider that one of the purposes of the Liturgy of the Hours is to pray the psalms and become familiar with them; moreover, it is we who must adapt to the liturgy, not the liturgy to us. Something similar occurs in the Lectionary, where the new Lectionary omits numerous versicles contained in the traditional Lectionary For example, on the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A), the expression “Many are called, but few are chosen” is omitted, whereas it is present in the lectionary of the 1962 Missale Romanum.

APPENDIX

Latin text of the Anaphora of Hippolytus

Quicumque factus fuerit episcopus, omnes ei os offerant pacis, salutantes eum quia dignus effectus est. Ei vero offerant diaconi oblationem, et ipse, imponens manus in eam cum omni presbyterio, dicat gratias agens:

[I] Dominus vobiscum.
Et omnes dicant: Et cum spiritu tuo.
Sursum corda.
Habemus ad Dominum.
Gratias agamus Domino.
Dignum et iustum est.

Et sic iam prosequatur:

[II] Gratias tibi referimus, Deus, per dilectum puerum tuum Iesum Christum, quem in ultimis temporibus misisti nobis salvatorem et redemptorem et angelum voluntatis tuae, qui est Verbum tuum inseparabile, per quem omnia fecisti et quem, in beneplacito tuo, misisti de caelo in matricem virginis, quique in utero conceptus incamatus est et filius tuus ostensus est, ex Spiritu Sancto et virgine natus.

[III] Qui voluntatem tuam complens et populum sanctum tibi adquirens extendit manus cum pateretur ut a passione liberaret eos qui in te crediderunt. Qui cum traderetur voluntariae passioni, ut mortem solveret et vincula diaboli dirumperet et infernum calcaret et iustos ad lucem duceret et terminum figeret et resurrectionem manifestaret, accipiens panem gratias tibi agens dixit: Accipite, manducate, hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis confringitur. Similiter et calicem dicens: Hic est sanguis meus qui pro vobis effunditur. Quando hoc facitis, in meam commemorationem hoc facite.

[IV] Memores igitur mortis et resurrectionis eius, offerimus tibi hunc panem et calicem, gratias tibi agentes quia nos dignos habuisti adstare coram te et tibi ut sacerdotes ministrare.

[V] Et petimus ut mittas Spiritum Sanctum tuum in oblationem Sanctae Ecclesiae. In unum eos congregans des omnibus qui percipiunt ex sanctis (ita ex eis percipere) ut repleantur Spiritu Sancto ad confirmationem eorum fidei in veritate

[VI] ut te laudemus et glorificemus per puerum tuum Iesum Christum, per quem tibi gloria et honor Patri et Filio cum Sancto Spiritu in sancta Ecclesia et nunc et in saecula saeculorum.

NOTES 

[1] In any case, the Apostolic Tradition states that “Let the bishop give thanks, as we said above. It is not at all necessary that he should pronounce the same words as we have given, as if he were making an effort to say them by heart while giving thanks to God; but rather let each one pray according to his ability. If someone is able to pray at solemn length and to say a solemn prayer, it is in order. But if someone, when he is praying, limits the length of his prayer, he should not be prevented, providing his prayer conforms to the faith.”

Continue Reading this Article. . .

“Messe Dialoguée en Français”: A Glimpse into the Devolution of Liturgy in the 1940s

It is understandable that many would see liturgical disaster as a unique product of the last Council, and particularly of the implementary body headed by Annibale Bugnini, the Consilium ad exsequendam. Others who have read more widely will understand that it is linked to the gradual radicalization of the Liturgical Movement, as it went from the restorationist and educational model of Dom Guéranger to the pastoral utilitarianism of the postwar period. Relatively few, it seems to me, recognize that the roots of this disaster go far back to (in varying ways) the Protestant Revolt, the Enlightenment, and the age of industrialization.

Lately, a number of fine studies have been published that help us to see these more remote pretexts and premises of the liturgical reform of the 1960s, when the program of the Synod of Pistoia finally entered every suburban parish.

Nico Fassino’s recent article in the The Pillar, “The surprising history of the Children’s Mass” tells us:

It is commonly believed that Children’s Masses are a unique development of the modern liturgical reforms, a direct outgrowth of the Second Vatican Council. In reality, however, special Masses for children – including what might now appear to be shocking liturgical innovations – stretch back more than a century before the Second Vatican Council.
     These Masses began as a 19th century attempt to grapple with dramatic social changes and challenges wrought by the modern world. They gained widespread popularity and even gave rise to the creation of vernacular participatory Mass methods for adults years before Vatican II.
     In total, hundreds of editions of these methods for children and adults were published, running to millions of cumulative copies, between 1861 and 1961. They were published with approval, printed for decades, and used with permission around the world.
     This is the story of the surprising origins of “Children’s Masses” in the early 1800s, their widespread popularity around the world, their sudden fall from favor immediately before the Second Vatican Council, and their rebirth during the initial years of the revised Roman Missal of Paul VI.

While Fassino shows us how deeply the rot of bad liturgical ideas had already set in well before the Council, it also happily shows how men of principle strongly resisted this literally juvenile mentality. One does not have to question the good will of these would-be reformers in order to see that such efforts at promoting “participation” are bought at the expense of “dumbing down”—a superficialization that subtly implies that liturgy is a thing for children to grow out of, not a thing to which we are apprenticed in a lifelong process of assimilation.

Similarly, John Paul Sonnen relates the story of “The First Permanent Altar Facing the People in the United States,” which, as it happens, was installed as early as 1938, at a time when it would have been officially forbidden!

Archbishop John Gregory Murray (1877-1956), a native of Connecticut, became the Archbishop of St. Paul (Minnesota) in 1931. During his 24-year tenure he became a frequent visitor to the monks of St. John's Abbey in nearby Collegeville, Minnesota. In those years St. John’s was the largest Benedictine Abbey in the world and they had made a name for themselves as the American epicenter of the Liturgical Movement and what came to be called the liturgical apostolate, coming into fashion after the First World War. 

       In 1938 Archbishop Murray laid the cornerstone of the new English Gothic Revival church of the Nativity, under construction in a beautiful new residential neighborhood in St. Paul’s Groveland neighborhood. The architect of the church was a non-Catholic by the name of James B. Hills. It was during this time that Archbishop Murray approved a plan that was heretofore unheard of: the altar in the basement crypt chapel was to be set permanently facing the people.

       In those days this represented a forbidden stratum of liturgical experimentation that was not yet conceived by most, or sanctioned with approval by the Holy See. An innovation in its day, such a thing had not been tried anywhere in the country. Proponents of the Liturgical Movement in northern Europe had been slowly promoting the idea of Mass facing the people, but it was still a novelty concept in the rest of the world. 

Here is the altar John is talking about, in the only photo that has survived of it (today the room is a recreational space):

We can see this sort of thing in a 1930 photo from the Abbey of Maria Laach in Germany, a hotbed of progressive liturgism. Note that here, there is a more deliberate effort to make the altar look like a meal table:

Returning now to Fassino’s statement that “vernacular participatory Mass methods for adults” were being promoted “years before Vatican II,” I thought readers of NLM would appreciate seeing the photos of a section contained in a Missel-Vespéral Romain edited by the redoubtable Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB, and published in 1946. The reader who kindly shared these photos noted that she also has another edition of the same missal from 1942, which contains the same section.

The photos were sent page by page; I cropped them and combined them for ease of viewing, which explains the mismatches from left to right. (As always, click to enlarge.)

Title page and copyright page

What is most striking about this entire method, which, as Yves Chiron describes, was also practiced by (indeed, pioneered by) Bugnini in Italy, is how much blathering is going on. Throughout the Mass there is “Une Voix,” presumably a layman, who acts as the reader or “commentator” in some cases; and there are many short texts and some long texts that “Toutes” (All) are supposed to say.

The priest, meanwhile, is doing his part at the altar in Latin, so there is a parallel Mass: his in Latin and everyone else’s in French.

A rather heavy-handed attempt is made to bring out the Trinitarian structure of everything: the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo... Yes, of course, it’s there and it’s important, but whatever happened to not hitting people over the head with a didactic shovel?

There is a lot of chatter DURING the Roman Canon, as Une Voix laboriously explains to Toutes that now we are praying for the Church militant, now we are offering the Victim, now we are praying for the dead... What strikes me the most is how the pious paraphrase being spoken throughout by the people is so much akin to the “methods of hearing the Mass” that the same Liturgical Movement held in such disdain! It’s as if they simply transferred private devotion into a public mode. This was surely a far cry from Pius X’s “don’t merely pray at Mass, pray the Mass!”

It is actually refreshing to see the act of Spiritual Communion placed right where it is, as a gentle reminder that not everyone should go up to Communion, but only those properly disposed to do so. And thankfully, this act is left... unannounced and unrecited by Toutes. Sadly, even the Last Gospel has to be paraphrased and simplified.

Even the thanksgiving after Mass is corporate and vocal.

It is very difficult to read a method like this and not to wonder, “What in the world were they thinking?” Just because you recite a lot of pious phrases about the Mass all along does not mean you are participating in the holy oblation, the ultimate sacrifice. In fact, you might just miss it altogether by skating on the surface and having no opportunity for recollection, assimilation, and self-offering from the depths of one’s soul.

In his 1975 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii, Pope Paul VI—who only six years earlier had unleashed on the world a Mass that was patterned after this kind of “Messe Dialoguée en Français”—lamented: “Modern man is sated by talk; he is obviously tired of listening, and what is worse, impervious to words.”

Physician, heal thyself.

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The Excision of the Institution Narratives from Pius XII’s Holy Week

This past Holy Week I was once again able to assist at the Roman Rite in its ancient-medieval-baroque plenitude, or, to put it more simply, “pre-55.” I have now attended for several years, and the contrast between it and the rite of Eugenio Pacelli is nothing less than astonishing: I would say it is of the same kind of contrast as one finds between the old and new missals in general, if the new be done in the most conservative way possible. Indeed, the ultimate irony is that there are features in the Novus Ordo Triduum that restore what Pacelli had removed—one of the few times in the year when Tridentine and Montinian rub shoulders, so to speak.

Each year I assist at the pre-55 ceremonies, my love and appreciation for them grow. If I had to use a single word, I would say they are sublime. The texts and actions are coherent in a way that those of the Pius XII remix aren’t. These rites move with a majestic, unhurried inevitability, dense with interlocking symbolism. Something about their sheer massiveness, and their utter indifference to pragmatic considerations, makes it easier to lose the sense of time; one surrenders to something so great that it can just as well exist without you, but you are humbly glad to be a part of it. It is not always the case that shortening and simplifying a rite in fact makes it feel easier and shorter. The flow of a rite, and the sacral atmosphere it creates, is far more important for pulling a man out of himself than anything a clock can measure.

The problems with Pius XII’s “restored” Holy Week—which was officially in force from 1955 to 1969, only fourteen years, not long enough to constitute any kind of custom worthy of preservation, as compared with the many centuries of the traditional Holy Week—begin on Palm Sunday and continue throughout nearly every Mass and office till Easter. I provide an overview of some of these points in chapter 12 of The Once and Future Roman Rite, though of course Gregory’s series here at NLM is already a classic, as is Stefano Carusi’s article, and the critique of Pius XII’s master of ceremonies Msgr. Léon Gromier. A simple comparison may be found here.

This year I was more struck than usual by the jarring absence of the Last Supper from the Passion accounts as read in the ’62 missal (the TLM reads all four Passions in Holy Week every year, unlike the NOM which cycles through the Synoptics on Palm Sunday). Everyone who knows about the Roman Tradition (pre-55) vs. Pius XII’s neo-Holy Week talks about this, but I think it has more of an impact if you can see it visually.

Here is what happened to the Passion according to St. Matthew, from Palm Sunday. The images are taken from my 1948 St. Andrew's Daily Missal.

Here is what Pius XII did to the Passion according to St. Mark, read on Tuesday of Holy Week. The ending is intact, but not the beginning: once again, the institution of the Holy Eucharist is completely removed.

Here are the verses chopped out of St. Luke’s Passion on the Wednesday of Pius XII’s Holy Week. 

The upshot of these cuts is that nowhere in the 1962 missal, except for a rarely-used votive Mass, are any of the institution narratives read.

But were the readings too long?

One objection that has been made to the Roman tradition of reading the Passion narratives in their entirety—a practice done for many centuries prior to 1955, and which was to a large extent resumed with the Novus Ordo (!), albeit with a rotation cycle for the Synoptics—is that these accounts are just too long.

Well, yes, they are very long. However, that hardly seems like a serious objection during Holy Week. Do we have anything better to do during Holy Week than read Scripture and pray? If one is going to read the Passion, then one ought to read about the “Sacrament of the Passion” (as St Thomas calls the Eucharist), in order to underline, as Our Lord Himself did at the Last Supper, the intimate connection between the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrifice of Calvary, and the perfect charity of which the former is a sign and the latter is the principal act. It is hard to defend the theological coherence of skipping out on the sign Jesus gave us of His loving atonement and atoning love. As my esteemed colleague Gregory wrote on social media: “The whole aim of the 1955 Holy Week reform is to divorce the Mass from the Passion and the Cross.”

Regarding length of readings, Gregory added:

Objecting to the length of the Roman Passion accounts is just foolish; the Roman arrangement is the simplest and shortest of all the historical liturgies. In the Ambrosian Rite, the narrative of all the principal services from Spy Wednesday to the Easter vigil inclusive is carried entirely by St Matthew, so the Passions of Mark, Luke, and John are all read at one ceremony: the Matins of Good Friday. The Byzantine Rite does something similar with St Matthew, starting at the beginning of chapter 21 at Matins of Palm Sunday, and getting to the end of the Gospel (chapter 28) at Vespers of Holy Saturday. On Good Friday, there are twelve Gospels of the Passion at Matins, the first of which is more than four full chapters of John (!), then large parts of all four Passions are repeated at the Royal Hours. And this, in the midst of a huge number of other readings, endless canons and other kinds of hymns, etc., with almost none of the typical features of the Divine Office omitted.

A deacon commented:

I remember attending the Paschal Divine Liturgy at an Orthodox monastery one year, which begins with the chanting of the entire book of Acts. The liturgy was about four hours, and since there was no electricity at this monastery (and no pews), two of the monks threaded their way through the church replacing peoples’ candles as they burned down. Nobody complained about the length of the service. When it was over, the people went to their cars or tents to get a few hours sleep while two monks took turns tolling the bells all night long. Early in the morning, we were all up again for Divine Liturgy, followed by a meal. Let’s face it: we’ve become sissies. 

The question is forced: What in the world was going on with Pius XII that he allowed such liturgical tomfoolery under his watch?

The first thing we have to rule out—sorry, conspiracy theorists—is that Bugnini was the “author” of the Pacellian Holy Week. He was no such thing. At the time, he was a lowly secretary to the secret committee for proposing liturgical reforms, but the major players, older than he and more influential, steered the entire project. It was other Vatican officials, not Bugnini, who pushed through the new Holy Week. The secretary, for his part, watched open-eyed, learned the tricks of the trade, acquired the insider rolodex, and prepared for his day in the sun under Paul VI.

Here is how historian Yves Chiron puts it in his biography of Bugnini:

On May 28, 1948, Pius XII set up a Pontifical Commission for the Reform of the Liturgy that was eventually to be termed Commissio Piana. It was created within the Congregation of Rites, with Cardinal Micara, the new prefect of the same Congregation, as its president. Its creation was not made public; for a long time it worked in secrecy. Only when the first of the reforms it had prepared was promulgated was its existence revealed to the greater number, including most liturgists. It numbered few members and, unlike the commissions that later pontificates were to establish, it relied on few liturgy experts.
            With Cardinal Micara as president, the Pontifical Commission for the Reform of the Liturgy originally numbered only six members: Archbishop Alfonso Carinci, undersecretary of the Congregation of Rites; Fr Ferdinando Antonelli, OFM, relator general of the historical section of the Congregation of Rites; Fr Josef Löw, CSSR, vice-relator general of the same historical section; Fr Anselmo Albareda, OSB, prefect of the Vatican Library; Fr Augustin Bea, SJ, rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute; and Fr Bugnini who, in his capacity as director of Ephemerides Liturgicae, was named secretary of this commission.
            Later on Bugnini would exercise the same function of secretary in the conciliar preparatory commission on the liturgy as well as in the postconciliar Consilium for liturgical reform. Yet whereas he played a decisive role in the preparatory commission and in the Consilium, he did not have a leading role on the Commissio Piana. He was an invaluable worker11 and rarely intervened in the discussions. He learned and observed much, probably became aware of certain problems, but never exerted a decisive influence. 

As to what might have been going on with Pius XII, readers may consult two articles of mine:

• “Coincidences during the reign of Pius XII? Political background to Vatican II and liturgical changes”
• “Lights and Shadows in the Pontificate of Pius XII”

Quite simply: it is time to let go of the postwar experiments and return, humbly and gratefully, to the Roman tradition embodied in the 1570 missal and its line of continuous successors.
 

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The Giant Christ-Carrier

July 25 is the great feast of the Saint James the Apostle, but the traditional liturgy also commemorates on the same day a Saint who is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, the most famous patron Saint of travelers, and the plastic king of dashboards. Christopher started out life as Offerus or Reprobus (accounts differ), a proud and—at seven and a half feet tall—imposing man who was born in Canaan in the third century under the reign of the Roman Emperor Decius. Nothing but the best would do for the mighty Reprobus, and so he vowed to serve the greatest king in the world. He began in the service of a Christian monarch, but after seeing the king make the sign of the cross every time the Devil was mentioned, he realized that the king feared the Devil. Reprobus then went off to serve the Devil in the desert, but when he noticed that his new master avoided a roadside cross and asked for an explanation, the Devil admitted, “There was a man called Christ which was hanged on the cross, and when I see his sign I am sore afraid, and flee from it wheresoever I see it.” [1]

St Christopher Carrying the Infant Christ, ca. 1615, by Orazio Borgianni

That did it for Reprobus: he was to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. After seeking the counsel of a wise hermit, he was told that Christians must fast often. Unable to do so, Reprobus asked for something else. The hermit then told him to offer many prayers. Ignorant of how to pray, Reprobus again asked for something else. Finally, the hermit suggested that he put his large stature to good use and ferry people across a dangerous river on his shoulders.

Reprobus agreed and carried out this task for many days until one night he was awakened by a small child asking for passage. As they crossed the river, Reprobus almost collapsed and drowned under the enormous weight of the child. When the exhausted giant complained after they reached the other side, the child replied, “Be not astonished: thou bearest him who bears the world.” [2] As proof of His statement, the Child commanded Reprobus to plant his staff in the ground, at which it blossomed into a palm tree with leaves and dates. Our Lord also baptized Reprobus personally, changing his name from Reprobus (Latin for “rejected” or “counterfeit”) to Christopher (Greek for “Christ-bearer”). As Jacobus de Voragine explains, the name is appropriate in four ways: “He bare him on his shoulders by conveying and leading, in his body by making it lean [apparently he got over his aversion to fasting], in mind by devotion, and in his mouth by confession and predication.” [3]

St Christopher, by Konrad Witz, 1435

Christopher became a fearless defender of the faith, exhorting condemned Christians to die as martyrs and converting thousands in the city of Lycia before he was arrested on the king’s orders. The king tried a variety of carrots and sticks to convince him to sacrifice to the gods, but when he held firm, the king ordered him to be executed by archers. The arrows, however, stopped in midair as they approached the Saint, and one even turned around and poked the king in the eye. Furious, the king ordered Christopher to be beheaded. Before his execution, Christopher advised the king to use the blood from his severed head to heal his eye. The king did so and was miraculously cured, exclaiming: “In the name of God and of Saint Christopher!” He then decreed that if anyone blamed God or Saint Christopher, “he should anon be slain with the sword.” [4]

This account of Christopher’s life, the bulk of which is taken from the thirteenth-century Golden Legend, is the product of a poetic license that mushroomed considerably over the centuries. Yet tales of the Saint are even stranger in the Byzantine tradition of iconography, in which Christopher has the head of a dog, most likely because Eastern Christians misinterpreted the Latin Cananeus (Canaanite) for canineus (canine). The Byzantine blunder then found its way into medieval Irish and German biographies which include such memorable lines as: “This Christopher was one of the Dog-heads, a race that had the heads of dogs and ate human flesh.” [5]

Saint Christopher Cynocephalus, Kermira, Cappadocia

Our earliest evidence (and latest theories) indicate that Christopher was a conscripted Christian soldier from a north African military unit stationed in Syria who was martyred by the governor of Antioch around A.D. 308. Some further speculate that his cult may have been confused with that of the Egyptian martyr Saint Menas. [6]

Patronage and Customs

Saint Christopher is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of Saints popular during the Middle Ages for their specific powers of intercession. He was invoked as a patron against sudden death, especially the plague. As Father Francis X. Weiser explains, at a time “when people never knew in the morning whether they would still be alive that evening,” they looked at Christopher’s picture and said a prayer in the morning in the hopes that “they would be safe from death on that day.” [7] In the words of the Golden Legend: the power “to put away sickness and sores” is given to those who remember Saint Christopher’s “passion and figure.” [8]

As a result of this belief, images of Saint Christopher were painted or hung near the doors of houses or churches, sometimes on the inside and—for the benefit of passerby—sometimes on the outside. According to one tally, there are more images of him on the walls of old English churches than of any other Saint except the Blessed Virgin Mary. [9]

A St. Christopher Wayside Shrine in Slovenia

Christopher’s job on the river also made him an obvious candidate for patron of ferrymen and their passengers, freight ships and their crews, surfers, sailors, skiers, pilgrims, and travelers. (And because his staff burst into bloom, he was also designated a patron Saint of gardeners.) His patronage was extended to motorists in the early twentieth century and caught on quickly, especially since traffic accidents are in some sense the modern plague, taking as many lives as epidemics of old and in even more sudden a manner. Blessing automobiles on Saint Christopher’s Day used to be a common Catholic custom: although a car, truck, etc. can be blessed any day of the year and although the Roman Ritual’s blessing of an automobile mentions Saint Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8, 26-40) instead of Saint Christopher, [10] it still felt natural to turn to him on his feast day for a vehicular blessing. The shrine of Saint Christophe le Jajolet near the little Norman village of Argentan, for example, hosted its first blessing in 1910, and by 1927 it was receiving thousands of French motorists on his feast day. [11]

Protecting your investment: A Fiat Topolino (1936-55) is blessed at St.-Christophe-le-Jajolet

He is also well-known for his medals. Many Catholics place a blessed Saint Christopher medal in their vehicle or affix a blessed statuette of him to their dashboards. This devotion nicely combines his patronage of travelers with the custom of keeping his image, but it is good to remember the reason why his image became popular in the first place. It is not simply by owning his picture but by looking at it and contemplating his passion that the faithful are said to receive blessings. The Christopher medals common in France still make this connection explicit, for on them is inscribed: Regarde Saint Christophe et va-t-en rassuré—“Look at Saint Christopher and go on reassured.” Similarly, some English medals have, "Behold St. Christopher, and go your way in safety."

Ideas for Today

Observing customs in honor of both Saint James and Saint Christopher is not difficult. Families can attend morning Mass along with some fruits of the orchard (walnuts, apples, etc.) and have them and their car blessed afterwards. Father Weiser recommends that even with a private blessing of an automobile, parents “should try to make this ceremony somewhat impressive and have all their children witness it.” [12] I would also advise from personal experience that the priest circle the entire vehicle when bestowing his benediction. Once, before an interstate trip, our pastor blessed our family car and sprinkled the hood with holy water. The next day on the road, another car clipped us in the rear.

Finally, you can take your newly blessed car and snacks on a day trip and enjoy a picnic.

Christopher’s Postconciliar Cult

The Church did not suppress the cult of Saint Christopher after Vatican II or “de-canonize” him, but it removed his commemoration from the General Calendar. The official reason is stated in the 1969 decree Calendarium Romanum:

The commemoration of Saint Christopher, which was added to the [general] Roman calendar around 1550, is relegated to the particular calendars [of some Church, region, or religious family]. Although the Acts of Saint Christopher are fabulous, ancient testimonies to his veneration have been found. Nevertheless, the cult of this Saint does not pertain to the Roman tradition. [13]

It is curious that Christopher’s lack of Romanitas was used as a mark against him, since other reforms of the Mass treated the presence of Romanitas as a demerit. Archbishop Bugnini, for example, sought to suppress or make optional quintessentially Roman features of the Roman rite such as Ash Wednesday and the Roman Canon. And all of the Eucharistic Prayers in the Novus Ordo have an Epiclesis of the Holy Spirit because the reformers were uncomfortable with the Roman tradition of not having one.

Similarly curious is the fact that one of the stated principles guiding the reform of the calendar was the “universalization” of the General Calendar so that it would no longer reflect the cult of Rome but include Saints from all four corners of the globe. [14] A laudable goal, but why does a Middle Eastern Saint such as Christopher not count as multicultural, especially when the same document states that Christopher is not originally from the Roman tradition?

Annibale Bugnini

Annibale Bugnini provides part of the answer in his book The Reform of the Liturgy: “One of the principles governing the revision of the calendar was that no Saint’s cult could be made obligatory if there was not historical evidence of his or her name, place, and date of celebration.” [15] In other words, the historical reconstructions of modern scholarship were considered more important in shaping how millions of Catholics worship than the Church’s own ancient and unbroken traditions.

Yet this criterion alone is not sufficient to remove Christopher from the general calendar, for his cult could have been kept as an “optional memorial,” as in the case of Saint Nicholas on December 6.

I suspect that there is an additional reason for Christopher’s demotion which is not to be found in any official document or memoir, and it is this. Because the architects of the Novus Ordo calendar were renowned experts with extensive resumes or advanced degrees (and little pastoral experience), they may have had an elitist’s disdain for a particular kind of lowbrow folk belief. My guess is that when Archbishop Bugnini and his peers looked at the cult of Saint Christopher, they did not see a well-trod channel to God’s blessings hallowed by generations of faithful Catholics the world over, but an embarrassing array of tacky sacramentals and kitschy art and ludicrous stories.

Chesterton once remarked that when faced with the choice of “old wives’ tales” and “old maids’ facts,” he would choose the former. Time and again, the designers of the new calendar sided with the latter. Not surprisingly, when different voices within the Church protested the loss of Saint Christopher on the General Calendar, the committee stood by their decision. [16]

None of this should discourage us from honoring Saint Christopher, on whose giant shoulders there never was a chip. Just as the mighty Saint forgave his persecutor by posthumously giving him back his sight, so too should we forgive the blindness of those who have wounded Catholic worship and devotion and pray for healing through the Blood of the Lamb and His martyrs. Look at Saint Christopher and go on reassured.

Portions of this article first appeared in “July 25: The Feast of the Thunderous Heel-Grabber and the Giant Christ-Carrier,” The Latin Mass magazine 27:2 (Summer 2018), pp. 30-34. Many thanks to the editors of TLM for allowing its publication here.

Notes

[1] Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, vol. 4, trans. William Caxton (Temple Classics, 1900), 68.

[2] Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, vol. 13, trans. Laurence Shepherd (St. Bonaventure, 2000), 186.

[3] Golden Legend, 67.

[4] Golden Legend, 70.

[5] “The Passion of Saint Christopher,” trans. J. Fraser, Revue Celtique 34 (1913), 307-25.

[6] David Woods, “Saint Christopher, Bishop Peter of Attalia, and the Cohors Marmaritarum: A Fresh Examination”, Vigiliae Christianae 48:2 (June 1994), 170-86.

[7] Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1952), 335.

[8] Golden Legend, 71.

[9] Mrs. Collier, “Saint Christopher and Some Representations of Him in English Churches,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association (1904), 130–45.

[10] The blessing and a translation may be found in The Roman Ritual, vol. 3, trans. and ed. Philip T. Weller (Bruce Publishing, 1946), 384-87.

[11] “1,000 French Motorists Honor Saint Christopher At Shrine of Automobilists’ Patron Saint,” The New York Times (July 25, 1927), 4.

[12] Weiser, Religious Customs in the Family (TAN, 1998), 102.

[13] Calendarium Romanum (Vatican: 1969), 131, trans. mine.

[14] Calendarium, 74-75.

[15] Annibale Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Liturgical Press, 1990), 317.

[16] Bugnini, 318.

“What if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles?”: Msgr. Celada on the 1960s

Last October 24, I published here a translation of a remarkable open letter written by Msgr. Domenico Celada in 1969. What follows is an article he published late in February 1969 in the periodical Il Tempo. Enjoy the clarity of this distinguished musicologist and — we must surely say looking back — prophet of the Lord. —PAK

A “beat” Mass in Italy, from a book by Msgr. Celada

I remember having written, in the April-June 1966 issue of a music magazine, a note on the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council. Those were the months in which the destructive plan of certain “liturgists” was taking shape, in all its tragic significance, and they had come to propose those so-called “youth masses,” accompanied by dance-hall orchestras, which represent—even leaving aside any consideration of a religious nature—the triumph of ignorance and stupidity.

I wrote at the time: “The sacred liturgy is going through a period of great crisis, perhaps the most painful in its history. Never has there been so much decadence and confusion: it was truly reaching rock bottom.”

On that occasion I received messages of consent and praise, I can well say, from every part of the Catholic world: letters from simple faithful, from many priests and parish priests, even from bishops and cardinals. However, to be honest, I must say that I also received a strong “reprimand” from the ecclesiastical office in charge of the so-called liturgical reform, an office known by the name of “Consilium,” about which there is already a vast literature that is certainly not benevolent.

The emitter of the “reprimand,” written on official letterhead, with a coat of arms and a protocol number, began by expressing his shock at my diagnosis of a “crisis” in the liturgy, and maintained, on the contrary, that “the liturgy is going through one of its most flourishing and promising periods”; after which he declared that my remarks were of a “supine falsity,” and that the entire text represented an “offensive insinuation” and a “subjective and erroneous evaluation.” My prose was, moreover, “disconcerting, brazen, offensive, and audacious.”

I barely emerged, though completely unharmed, from that landslide of adjectives, grouped in foursomes, under which I could have been suffocated. Not even three years have passed since then.

About twenty days ago, I opened L’Osservatore Romano and found a seven-column article (an entire page of the daily newspaper of the Holy See!) entitled “History of the Church and Crisis of the Church.” [1] In it, the distinguished historiographer Hubert Jedin writes verbatim: “There is first of all, visible to all, the liturgical crisis, not to speak of chaos. When today, on a Sunday morning, one goes around the parish churches of a city, one finds in each one a divine service differently ‘organized’; one encounters omissions; one sometimes hears readings different from those provided for by the liturgical ordo; if one then comes to another country whose language one happens not to know, one feels quite a stranger.”

It seems important to note that Hubert Jedin, in his clear diagnosis of the current situation of the Church, mentions “first and foremost”—even before the crisis of faith—precisely the liturgical crisis, now “visible to all.” Considering the authority of the writer and that of the Vatican newspaper, which never hosts an article except after the most rigorous control, one must conclude that today the crisis of the liturgy is an indisputable fact, and that it is licit to speak and write about it without fear of receiving missives full of unflattering adjectives. [2]

On the other hand, many things have happened in three years. The Congregation of Rites was forced to intervene against the many arbitrary experiments with a “declaration” of December 29, 1966 (which, moreover, remained a dead letter), and the pope himself, in the famous allocution of April 19, 1967, expressed his pain and apprehension about what is happening in the liturgical field, emphasizing the “disturbance of the faithful” and denouncing a certain mentality aimed at the “demolition of authentic Catholic worship,” also implying “doctrinal and disciplinary subversions.”

But of particular interest is the comparison that the scholar makes between the crisis experienced by the Church in the sixteenth century and that of the present time. How did the Church overcome this earlier crisis? Jedin answers: “Not by renouncing her authority, nor by accepting equivocal formulas of compromise, nor by welcoming the liturgical chaos created [at that time] by arbitrary innovations in the divine service.”
 

Trent: a model of what to do in a time of crisis

This is very true. If the Tridentine decrees re-established the security of faith, the Missal and Breviary issued by St. Pius V further unified the liturgy. In fact, we must not forget that the “lex orandi,” according to the ancient saying, is also the “lex credendi”: the law of faith. It therefore seems logical that today’s “licentia orandi” corresponds to a “licentia credendi.”

Hubert Jedin writes: “I fear that before long, in some places, one will no longer find a Latin missal...” And yet (the scholar recalls), “the Liturgical Constitution itself (art. 36) maintains the Latin liturgy as a rule, the same way as it was before. Would it not be nonsense for the Catholic Church in our century—in the century of the unification of the world—to completely renounce such a precious bond of unity, as is the Latin liturgical language? Would this not amount to a very belated slide into a nationalism already considered outdated?”

These are purely rhetorical questions, since the inexplicable renunciation of Latin has already practically taken place “in fraudem legis”: against the obligatory nature of a conciliar law that clearly prescribes the preservation of the use of Latin, and against the right of the Catholic faithful to the enjoyment of a common good.

Now, having broken the unity of the language and destroyed the identity of the rites, the chaos has extended from the liturgical field to the doctrinal one. Already in April 1967, Paul VI began to lament “something very strange and painful,” the “alteration of the sense of the one and only genuine faith.” But this was the consequence, with a perfect and inexorable logic, of tampering with the grandiose edifice of the Liturgy—that is, of having translated, mutilated, and replaced texts and formulas that in themselves represented a “summa” of piety and doctrine. One understands today more than ever the truth of Pius XII’s teaching in the encyclical Mediator Dei: “The use of the Latin language is a clear and noble sign of unity, and an effective antidote to any corruption of pure doctrine.”

The crisis of the liturgy is now indeed “visible to all.” Many deceptions have been discovered. In spite of this, the innovators continue to work with the zeal of those who are not quite sure of themselves, they continue to tamper with, distort, and demolish what little remains. A recent conference of liturgists was held to discuss “new Eucharistic prayers” and a new “ordo Missae”... [3]

With regard to these obstinate reformers who are disrupting the liturgy, the famous Catholic novelist François Mauriac wrote not long ago: “I ask myself, in a sudden panic: what if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles? Then there would be no more escape: for it has happened that the deaf regain their hearing, that the blind see again; it has even happened that the dead are resurrected; but there is no proof, no document, about an idiot who has ceased to be an idiot.”

It seems to me that the French academician is a bit too pessimistic. He seems to have forgotten that any idiot, even if he cannot cease to be an idiot, can simply be put in a condition not to do harm.
 

Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), “Eviscerator of the Council of Trent”: a nickname better suited to Annibale Bugnini?

NOTES

[1] This article appeared in the January 15, 1969 issue of L’Osservatore Romano.

[2] Angered by this article of Hubert Jedin, Annibale Bugnini wrote a private letter of protest to the author—and was later careful to quote it at length in his tome The Reform of the Liturgy (p. 283). This impassioned attack on the Church’s liturgical practice for most of her history must surely be one of the most remarkable passages ever written by a Catholic (if its author may be considered such):

As a good historian who knows how to weigh both sides and reach a balanced judgment, why did you not mention the millions and hundreds of millions of the faithful who have at last achieved worship in spirit and in truth? Who can at last pray to God in their own languages and not in meaningless sounds, and are happy that henceforth they know what they are saying? Are they not “the Church”? As for [Latin as] the “bond of unity”: Do you believe the Church has no other ways of securing unity? Do you believe there is a deep and heartfelt unity amid lack of understanding, ignorance, and the “dark of night” of a worship that lacks a face and light, at least for those out in the nave? Do you not think that a priestly pastor must seek and foster the unity of his flock—and thereby of the universal flock—through a living faith that is fed by the rites and finds expression in song, in communion of minds, in love that animates the Eucharist, in conscious participation, and in entrance into the mystery? Unity of language is superficial and fictitious; the other kind of unity is vital and profound… Here in the Consilium we are not working for museums and archives, but for the spiritual life of the people of God.

[3] This article was published in late February 1969, only about six weeks before Paul VI issued his apostolic constitution Missale Romanum promulgating the Novus Ordo Missae.

“For a General Liturgical Reform” by Annibale Bugnini (Part 5: Conclusion)

With this final installment we complete our publication of the first-ever English translation of Bugnini’s programmatic 1949 article in Ephemerides Liturgicae outlining the plan for a total overhaul of the Church’s liturgical worship. (See Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4. The entire document may be downloaded as a single PDF.)

12. OBSERVATIONS ON CERTAIN PARTS OF THE OFFICE

We have made a few remarks on the different parts of the Divine Office, discussing the matter systematically. Let us now complete this with a few specific annotations.

Some would like to give each Hour an explanatory title: a “theme,” an “idea” as a guide, and also assign for each day and for the individual Hours an official “prayer intention” of the Church. Furthermore, according to the same proponents, each feria could have its own, more explicit particular meaning. For example: Sunday: the Trinity; Monday: thanksgiving; Tuesday: high praise to God; Wednesday: universal prayer; Thursday: glorification of the God-Man; Friday: general Satisfaction to Christ who is sacrificed for us; Saturday: Mary and the saints.

Some would ask for the faculty to say ad libitum, in Lent, the Office de tempore, instead of that of the day’s saint, as is already done for the Mass.

Let us just mention the proposal that “parish priests be authorised to anticipate at noon, at least on Sundays and Feasts, the Matins of the following day.” The proposal denotes the good spirit and the piety of those who advanced it, but betrays an erroneous conception of the Divine Office, which by its very nature is an “hourly” prayer, to be distributed in the various proper times to sanctify all the hours of the day.

To compensate for the loss of the hagiographic lessons, it is asked for the introduction at Prime of the reading of the Martyrology (either in full, or reduced to some eulogies more important to the universal and local Church). This would also resolve, according to the contributors, the issue of commemorations, which would be abolished per se, as the memory done at Prime with the Martyrology should suffice.

As for the Minor Hours, a pastoral suggestion is that at least on Sundays and feast days, parish priests and others with care of souls should be dispensed from them.

Some would like greater protection of the standing of First and Second Vespers on Sunday, particularly during Lent and Advent, even when First and Second Class feasts clash against it.

For Compline there are those who would want every day, except Sunday, Psalm 50 (“Miserere”). Others would prefer to return to the old invariable arrangement, that is, the current Sunday scheme, as it was before Pius X. Some think that for Compline too, parish priests and clergy who sing Vespers with the people could be exempted.

For a fair solution it is necessary to bear in mind the proper character of each Hour and particularly of Compline, to which Psalms 90 and 133 are really well suited, and therefore a return to the status quo ante would please anyone. All the more so since the ever more frequent use, among certain groups of faithful, of Prime and Compline as morning and evening prayers, compels the clergy to say these Hours with them, and a simplification of the arrangements for practical use would be desirable.

13. THE OCTAVES

These have taken on enormous development, “exaggerated,” says one of the contributors. And for the octaves too, the “unanimous consensus” is that they should be simplified. Some would like them all to be abolished, with the exception of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension and Corpus Christi, raising the office infra octavam to the rank of duplex. Others argue as follows: “The octaves of Easter and Pentecost should undoubtedly be retained because of their antiquity, and also that of Christmas because of its entirely special character: it is in fact an integral part of Christmastide, and endows the week from 25th to 31st December with singularly attractive features.

The octave of the Ascension, of recent institution, could certainly disappear, and the same goes for that of the Sacred Heart and all the non-privileged octaves. Besides, they could all be reduced to the rank of simple octaves, with a proper office only on the eighth day and with a special privilege enabling this to be preferred to feasts of double or inferior rite. One could also give the Sundays “infra octavam” an office inspired by the feast: this would seem almost indispensable for the majority of countries where these feasts are no longer celebrated by the people on the assigned day, but postponed to the following Sunday.

For Epiphany and Corpus Christi, the octave might be retained, but reducing all the days infra octavam to the simple rite, with ferial psalter. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go a step further and rearrange all the festive offices, if not by reducing them to the simple rite, at least by referring them to the principle of a three-lesson office? In that case, the responsories that were suppressed could be used at Vespers, Lauds, and the Minor Hours after the chapter, so as not to deplete the liturgical prayer of these items, which are often magnificent.”

To recap, the octave system, in the opinion of a contributor, could be modified as follows:

1. Easter, Pentecost, Christmas: no change.

2. Octaves of the Temporal:

• Epiphany: on the days infra octavam, 3-lessons office with ferial psalter, commemoration only on the feasts of St Joseph and the Holy Family; on the eighth day, double office as on the feast day, but with proper texts, referring to the Baptism of Jesus.
• Ascension: octave suppressed, but maintaining the “Ascensiontide.”
• Corpus Christi: on the days infra octavam, 3-lessons office, yielding only before a double with simple commemoration; on the eighth day, feast of Christ the High Priest.
• Sacred Heart: simple octave, to be merged with the feast of the Precious Blood of Our Lord.

3. Octaves of the Sanctoral:

• Immaculate Conception, simple octave.
• Joseph (to be celebrated at Christmastide), simple octave.
• John the Baptist, simple octave.
• Ss. Peter and Paul, simple octave (on 4th July, feast of all the Holy Popes).
• Lawrence, simple octave.
• Assumption, simple octave, to be merged with the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
• Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, simple octave, to be merged with the feast of the Name of Mary, which would take the office of the Nativity with proper parts from the current office.
• All Saints’ Day, simple octave, to be merged with the feast of the Holy Relics.
• Patron and Titular Saint, Dedication of a church, simple octave.

4. Office of the Sundays infra octavam:

Preserve intact the current offices for the Sundays within the octaves of Christmas, Ascension, Corpus Christi and Sacred Heart. Restore the Sunday within the Octave of the Epiphany and set the Feast of the Holy Family on another day infra octavam.

For Sundays infra octavam of the feasts of the Assumption and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, Saints Peter and Paul, All Saints, the Dedication, the Feast of the Patron and of the Titular, the office could be composed as follows: Psalms and antiphons, chapter and hymn, short responsories and verses, from the Feast; Matins lessons and oration, from the occurring Sunday. At Mass, commemoration (the first one) and preface of the octave.

14. COMMEMORATIONS

It is said that by inserting the Martyrology at Prime, all the commemorations may as well be suppressed. This is, frankly, a somewhat simplistic way of solving the problem. Others call for its suppression at Matins, Lauds and Vespers, but not at Mass. All the commemorations should be reduced to two and all the rest be omitted, some propose. And again: the saints of the simple or double rite, when occurring on a Sunday, should only be commemorated at Lauds. We will not linger over other proposals as the simplified system for the octaves would also bring about this simplification, which ultimately is a logical consequence of the foregoing.

15. THE RUBRICS

Among the various proposals, here are the main ones:

1. Brief notes, both historical and exegetical, should be provided before the various rites and their parts, or else be merged with the general rubrics of both the Breviary and the Missal. Naturally the current “Rubricae generales” should be combined with the “Additiones et Variationes.” These should be numbered progressively, emulating in brevity and clarity the canons of the C.I.C. The new prolegomena of the liturgical books should also serve as the school text (or as a substantial part of the text) of practical liturgy in seminaries.

2. The rubric or rubrics referring to the canonical Hours in relation to the Conventual Mass should be revised or deleted. Thus the rule prescribing the recitation of Vespers before midday (i.e. before lunch) in Lent is a patent error of interpretation, which should be corrected.

3. A few specific notes: in order to dispel any doubt as to whether one should genuflect with one or both knees, the rubric at the Invitatory: “In sequenti Psalmi versu, ad verba: venite, adoremus, et procidamus, genuflectitur,” should be changed to: “In sequenti Psalmi versu verba: venite, adoremus, et procidamus dicuntur flexis genibus.”

On the feast of the Holy Angels, at each Hour and at the end of First Vespers on 24 March, 8 May, 29 September, 2 October, 24 October, the following rubric should be added: “Conclusio hymnorum ad omnes Horas”:

         Deo Patri sit gloria, - Qui, quos redemit Filius
         Et Sanctus unxit Spiritus, - Per Angelos custodiat. Amen.

The first stanza of the Iste Confessor should always say: “Hac die laetus meruit supremos - Laudis honores.” Thus many particular rubrics on the feasts of the saints would drop by themselves.

4. “There is urgent need,” says a collaborator, “for a methodical compilation, for the use of the whole Church, not of a detailed guide to the slightest gestures of choir or officiants, but of a collection of the general principles, a true Codex iuris liturgici, enunciating in clear and systematic terms what individuals and the different categories are to do, according to the times, places and circumstances of the celebration of liturgical feasts and ceremonies.

The order should be parallel to that of the Code of Canon Law, and the subject matter should be provided by the methodical sifting of the rubrics -- those that have not fallen into disuse or become obsolete -- of the Missal, the Breviary, the Pontificale and the Ceremoniale, together with the appendix for minor churches, and the Rituale. The selection should be made not on the basis of the uses that are legally in force, but on that of the abundant and serious studies that have shed light on the origin, meaning and historical evolution of each rite or ceremony.

Such work should later serve as a starting point for synodal and diocesan commissions for liturgy to adjust, according to the spiritual needs of the different places, the celebrations required of each priest in his parish and to put an end to the arbitrary practices that are occurring more and more every day.”

CONCLUSION

We have sifted here and there through an abundant harvest. Proposals and projects, in their manifold variety, reflect one identical light: the intimate desire for renewal and adaptation of the “laus perennis” to the current spiritual needs of the clergy and the “plebs Dei.” We have wanted to report with absolute fidelity, often in their own words, the thoughts of our collaborators, so that their voice may reach our readers without distortion or misrepresentation, but in its genuine integrity. While we warmly thank all those who have joined us in this common endeavour, which we hope will bear fruit “tempore opportuno,” we also confirm that the pages of the Review will remain open to any other collaboration that, both in intention and in formulation, adheres to a wise balance between “nova et vetera.”

Rome, March 1949.

A. BUGNINI, C. M.

Msgr. Bugnini 18 years later, celebrating the Missa Normativa at the 1967 Synod of Bishops