Station Churches of the Christmas Season (Part 3)

The liturgy of New Year’s Day, in both the Mass and the Divine Office, is one of the richest and most complex of the Church’s year, joining together elements of several different traditions. It is traditionally known as the feast of the Circumcision; the Gospel, St Luke 2, 21, recounts that the infant Jesus, in fulfillment of the ancient covenant given to Abraham, was circumcised on the eighth day after His birth. Likewise, following the custom of the Jewish people, He was named on the same day, with the holy name given to Him by the Angel before He was conceived. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, following the tradition of the Fathers, refers to the Circumcision as the first shedding of Christ’s blood for our salvation: “Worthily indeed is He called ‘Savior’ when He is circumcised, this Child who was born unto us, because already from this moment He began to work our salvation, pouring forth that immaculate blood for us.” This Gospel is repeated on the feast of the Holy Name, the Sunday after the Circumcision, and the homily quoted above is read at Matins of that day.

The Circumcision of Christ, depicted in a stained-glass window by A.W.N. Pugin, Bolton Priory, 1853. Photograph by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

The first of January is, of course, the octave day of Christmas, and the circumcision and naming of Christ are set by the Mass as the consummation of the feast of His Nativity. The chant propers are repeated from the third Mass of Christmas Day, with the exception of a special Alleluja; the epistle, however, is repeated from the first Mass. In many uses of the Roman Rite, such as those of Sarum and of the Dominican Order, the three prayers of the Mass are an ancient set which refers explicitly to the octave of the Nativity. However, many ancient sacramentaries also have the prayers which are used in the Missal of the St Pius V, the first of which refers neither to the Circumcision, nor to the octave of Christmas, but to the role of the Virgin Mary in bringing the “author of life” to the human race. The Office of the Circumcision, one of the most beautiful of the entire year, brings together all three of these aspects of the day’s feast.

There is, however, a fourth element to the day’s observance, which was formerly of the greatest importance. In the ancient Roman world, as in our own, New Year’s was generally celebrated with a great deal of raucous behavior, dancing and drinking of a sort not in keeping with Christian morals. In many places, therefore the liturgy of the day was celebrated as a day of fasting and penance, against the excesses of the pagan world. A few traces of this survive in various places; for example, the Mass of the Circumcision repeats the epistle of the first Mass of Christmas because of the words “…instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly, and godly in this world.”

The station of New Year’s Day was originally assigned to the Pantheon, a building understood by medieval Christians to have originally been a “temple of all the gods”, which was dedicated as a church in honor of the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs in the year 609 by Pope Boniface IV. The choice was clearly made so that the commemoration of the Mother of God could be celebrated in a place which also symbolizes the victory of the Christian faith and the one God over all of the many gods of the pagan world.

Mass celebrated in the Pantheon on May 13, 2009, the 1400th anniversary of the building's dedication as a church. Photo courtesy of Orbis Catholicus.

The station for this day was later transferred to another Marian church, Saint Mary’s in Trastevere, the foreigners’ quarter of ancient Rome. We do not know why or when the change was made, but we do know why this particular church was chosen. The pagan historian Cassius Dio records that in the year 38 B.C., a fountain of oil sprang from the ground in Trastevere, near a tavern frequented by retired solders, (called a 'taberna meritoria' in Latin). This event is understood by Saint Jerome, in his continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, as a prophecy of the grace of Christ flowing forth to all of the nations; later on, the miraculous flow of oil was believed to have happened on the night of Christ’s birth. In the late thirteenth century, the Roman artist Pietro Cavallini added to the apse of Santa Maria in Trastevere a beautiful series of mosaics of the life of the Virgin; the third of these shows the birth of Christ, and the fountain of oil flowing forth from the taberna meritoria. (pictured right) The place believed to be the site of the fountain is now within the church, very close to the main altar; the motto of the church itself and of its chapter is still to this day “Fons olei.”

There are no stations assigned to the days between the Circumcision and Epiphany. The second, third and fourth of January were traditionally kept as the octave days of St Stephen, St John and the Holy Innocents respectively, and octave days very rarely have their own station. The feast of the Holy Name was only added to the universal Calendar in 1721, although the devotion is, of course, much older; it was not assigned to its current place, the Sunday after the Circumcision, until the reign of Pope Saint Pius X.

The very ancient vigil of the Epiphany on the fifth of January also does not have a station. It is possible that just as the vigil of Christmas was kept in the same church as the first Mass of Christmas, so the vigil of Epiphany was kept in the same church as the feast. The station for the feast is assigned to the basilica of St Peter, for the same reason that the third Mass of Christmas was originally celebrated there as well; a very large church was necessary to accommodate the large congregation on one of the greatest solemnities of the year.

Interior view of Saint Peter ’s Basilica, by the workshop of Raphael, ca. 1520

One of the most beautiful antiphons of the office of the Epiphany, sung at the Magnificat of Second Vespers, reads: “We celebrate a holy day adorned with three miracles; today a star led the Wise Men to the manger; today water became wine at the wedding feast; today in the Jordan, Christ did will to be baptized by John that he might save us.” All three of these aspects of the feast are mentioned daily in the office of the Epiphany and its octave; the Mass, however, has always been principally focused on the coming of the Magi. In the Byzantine rite, on the other hand, the Gospel of the Magi is read on Christmas, and the Epiphany is more markedly the feast of the Lord’s Baptism. The Latin church has reserved its principal commemoration of the Lord’s Baptism to the octave day of the Epiphany; despite the great antiquity of this custom, it does not have a stational observance.

As mentioned above, the Roman Rite has preserved a few traces of the early Christian reaction to the pagan celebration of the New Year; in the traditional Ambrosian Rite, this aspect of the day is far more pronounced. At Vespers, psalm 95 is sung with the antiphon “All the gods of the nations are demons; but our God made the heavens”, and psalm 96 with the antiphon “Let all those who worship the idols be confounded, and those who glory in their statues.” The first prayer of Vespers and of the Mass reads, “Almighty and everlasting God, who commandest that those who share in thy table abstain from the banquets of the devil, grant, we ask, to thy people, that, casting away the taste of death-bearing profanity, we may come with pure minds to the feast of eternal salvation.” All seven of the antiphons of Matins, and most of those of Lauds, refer to the rejection of idol worship. In the Ambrosian rite, there are two readings before the Gospel; on the Circumcision, the first of these is the opening of the “letter of Jeremiah”, (Baruch 6, 1-6 in the Vulgate), in which the prophet exhorts the people not to bow before the idols of the Babylonians.

The Basilica of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan. The previous church on this site was destroyed in 1164, and the relics of the Three Kings removed to the Cathedral of Cologne by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Durandus on the Divine Office of the Circumcision

The octave of the Nativity expresses a two-fold matter: one part is the Circumcision of the Lord, which is narrated in the Gospel (Luke 2, 21), the other is the coming of man to God. For there is a two-fold coming, namely, of Christ to men, which is celebrated in the Nativity, and of men to Christ, which is celebrated on its octave, as noted by the antiphons of Lauds, e.g. “O wondrous commerce!”

The Circumcision of the Lord, and the beginning of the Mass for the feast, from the Salzburg Missal.

For commerce is when something is received and something given., and the Lord received our humanity, that He might give us His divinity, as is noted in the words that follow, “taking on a living body from the Virgin.” This tells us what the Lord received, and the words “bestowed us His divinity”, tell us what He gave. The second and fourth antiphons end with the words, “We praise Thee, o our God!”, as if to say, “We shall come to Thee by praising Thee.” The third ends with, “Mother of God, intercede for us,” as if to say, “Intercede, that thy Son may receive us.” In the fifth are said the words of the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God”, as if to say, “We must come to Him”, whence Andrew and John’s other disciple on hearing this followed the Lord. (John 1, 35-37) But in the antiphon at the Benedictus is said, “Natures are renewed,” for our nature was made old by departing from God, and renewed by returning to Him. (Rat. Div. Off. VI, 15, 14-15)

Aña A wonderful mystery is declared today: natures are renewed, God hath become man: He has remained what He was, and taken on what He was not, suffering neither mixture nor division.

Aña Mirábile mysterium declarátur hodie: innovantur natúrae, Deus homo factus est: id quod fuit permansit, et quod non erat assumpsit, non commixtiónem passus, neque divisiónem.

A polyphonic setting of this text by the Slovene composer Jacob Handl (1550-91), also known as Jacobus Gallus.

December 30: Mere Christmas Day

Adoration of the Shepherds, the theme of today’s Gospel

One might think that the best way to honor the great mystery of the birth of the God-man is to devote eight days exclusively to its celebration. And yet in their inspired wisdom, all of the historic and apostolic liturgies mix the Octave of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ with the cult of some saints. In the Roman Rite, these are Stephen on December 26, John the Evangelist on December 27, the Holy Innocents on December 28, Thomas Beckett on December 29, and Sylvester I on December 31. William Durandus calls these saints the Comites Christi. A comes is a companion, but the word also connotes aristocracy (the title “Count” comes from it).

Christ’s noble companions are honored liturgically in two different ways. They either have a proper Mass of their own on their feast day (Stephen, John, and the Holy Innocents) with a commemoration of Christmas; or, a Christmas Octave Mass is celebrated on their feast day, and they are acknowledged with a commemoration.

There is only one day within the Christmas Octave on the General Calendar that is not also a saint’s day and is therefore exclusively about Christmas. On December 30, the Church celebrates the Mass for the days within the Octave of Christmas (Diebus infra Octavam Nativitatis Domini) without any commemorations. The Mass that is used is identical to the third Mass of Christmas Day except that it has a different Epistle and Gospel.

The twentieth-century liturgist Father Pius Parsch wishes there were more days like December 30:

It would be ideal if we could devote several days of the Christmas octave to quiet contemplation, entering ever more deeply into the sweet and profound mystery of the incarnation; yet most of the time is devoted to the saints. All the more precious, therefore, is this day, an unencumbered Christmas-day. [1]

I do not know the wording of the original German, but the choice of “unencumbered” and the broader sentiment behind it are, in my opinion, unfortunate. Does, for example, the celebration of Childermas encumber my celebration of Christmas or enrich it? Behind Parsch’s lament is an either/or mentality that led to the 1969 calendar, with its vast reduction of sanctoral feast days and its allergy to commemorations, as if the heart cannot sing polyphonically and the mind cannot hold two positive thoughts in its head at the same time. The traditional Christmas Octave is a reminder that the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not alone in magnifying the Lord. Every saint’s life magnifies the Lord, acting like a magnifying glass that allows us to enter more deeply into the sweet and profound mystery of the Incarnation.

Reverend Pius Parsch (1884-1954)

Dom Gueranger has a more satisfactory and, I daresay, more Catholic approach to this issue than Parsch:

This is the only day within the Christmas Octave which is not a Saint’s Feast. During the Octaves of the Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost, the Church is so absorbed in the respective mysteries that she puts off everything that could share her attention; whereas during this of Christmas, there is only one day which does not celebrate the memory of some glorious Saint, and our Infant Jesus is surrounded by a choir of heroes who loved and served him. Thus the Church, or, more correctly, God—for God is the first author of the cycle of the year—shows us how the Incarnate Word, who came to save mankind, desires to give mankind confidence by this his adorable familiarity. [2]

Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805-75)

And so, let us not call this Sixth Day within the Octave of the Nativity of the Lord (December 30) an “unencumbered Christmas day” but a “mere Christmas day.” “Mere” is derived from merum, the Latin word for unmixed wine. (With his concept of mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis draws from the word’s original meaning to great effect). Wine was mixed with water in antiquity because it was so sweet, and the assumption was that anyone who drank unmixed wine was not interested in the taste but only in getting drunk. A drunkard could thus be called a meribibulus or “drinker of merum,” as was a young Saint Monica when she was caught taking sips of the stuff from the family cellar. [3] I am not suggesting that the Christmas days that are mixed with the cult of saints are in any way “diluted,” but I am suggesting that we can savor this mere Christmas day and get a little spiritually drunk on it, and without needing to subscribe to Parsch’s flat binary.

Notes

[1] Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace: Advent to Candlemas, volume 1, trans. William G. Heidt (Liturgical Press, 1957), 236.

[2] Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, volume 2, trans. Laurence Shepherd (St. Bonaventure Publications, 2000), 340.

[3] Augustine, Confessions 9.8.18.

The Station Churches of the Christmas Season (Part 2)

By the end of the fifth century, there were a number of Roman churches dedicated to St Stephen the First Martyr, including a monastery behind St Peter’s in the Vatican, and a large basilica on the via Latina. That which was chosen as the station church of his feast day, St Stephen’s on the Caelian Hill, is the one closest to the ancient Papal residence at the Lateran. It is now often referred to in Italian as “Santo Stefano Rotondo – Round St Stephen’s”, and is the only round church built in ancient times in the Eternal City. (The Pantheon was often called “Santa Maria Rotonda”, but was not, of course, built as a church.)

The Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo; watercolor by Ettore Roseler Franz, 1880

The station remained at Santo Stefano Rotondo, even after a portion of the Saint’s relics were brought to Rome and placed within the tomb of St Lawrence, in the basilica of St Lawrence outside the Walls. There are two reasons for this, the first being that, after the long trip around the city for the stations of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the papal court would probably prefer to stay close to home on the day following. More importantly, the round shape of Santo Stefano was chosen in imitation of the ancient church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the city of both the Lord’s Passion and the martyrdom of Stephen. The ancient custom of keeping the feast of St Stephen immediately after the birth of Christ serves as a powerful reminder of the mission of the Christ Child, who came into this world to die for our redemption. The eighth responsory of St Stephen’s office expresses this most beautifully when it says that “…he first rendered back to the Savior the death which he, Our Savior, deigned to suffer for us.”

The station on December 27th, the feast of St John the Apostle, is not kept at the basilica of St John in the Lateran, which is officially named the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior. The dedication of this church to the two Saints John, Baptist and Evangelist, postdates the fixing of the traditional stations; so does the church of St John at the Latin Gate, where the Apostle was traditionally said to have been thrown into a vat of boiling oil, and miraculously preserved from death. Instead, the Papal court returned to the basilica of Mary Major. The reason for this is first of all the traditional association of St John with the Virgin Mary, whom the Lord entrusted to His beloved disciple, shortly before He died on the Cross. The office of St John refers to this twice: “At last, when He was to about to die upon the Cross, he commended His Virgin Mother to this virgin, (i.e. Saint John.)

The rood screen of the church of Saint Giles in Cheadle, England, by A.W.N. Pugin, showing the Virgin Mary and Saint John at the Cross; 1841-46. (Photograph by Fr. Lawrence Lew. O.P.)

As mentioned previously, the third Ecumenical Council was convened in the year 431 to refute the heresy of Nestorius, who claimed that it was improper to call the Virgin Mary “Mother of God”. The city chosen for this council, Ephesus in Asia Minor, was also the place where St John is traditionally said to have died and been buried; the site venerated as his tomb was enclosed within a basilica by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century. The station for his feast day is therefore also a reminder of the traditional association of both St John and the Virgin Mary with the city of Ephesus, the ancient church of which was also, of course, the recipient of a letter from St Paul and a divine message in the Apocalypse of John (2, 1-7).

On the following day, the station for the feast of the Holy Innocents is kept at the Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls, the site of the Apostle’s tomb, along the road to the ancient Roman port of Ostia. It may be that this church was chosen because of the relics of the Innocents which were placed there at an uncertain date; on the other hand, the relics may have been placed there because it was already the station church for the feast. (Major relics of the Innocents are also kept at Mary Major in Rome, the Basilica of St Justina in Padua, and the cathedrals of Milan and Lisbon.)

Detail of the Cross in the apsidal mosaic of St Paul’s outside the Walls, with five of the Holy Innocents underneath it. (Photograph by Fr Lawrence Lew O.P.)

The Blessed Ildephonse Schuster notes in The Sacramentary that nearly all of the major solemnities and seasons of the liturgical year include a stational visit to the churches of both St Peter and St Paul; it may be that St Paul’s was chosen with regard to this custom, after the station at St Peter’s on Christmas Day. He also points out that St Paul is the most illustrious son of the tribe of Benjamin, and of Benjamin’s mother, Rachel. When she died in giving birth to Benjamin, Rachel “was buried on the way that leadeth to Ephrata, which is Beth-lehem”; she represents the mothers who wept over the slaughter of their children, as foretold by the prophet Jeremiah. (Genesis 35, 19 and Matthew 2, 18, the conclusion of the Gospel of the Holy Innocents, citing Jeremiah 31, 15.)

There is no station assigned for the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury, who was martyred on December 29, 1170, and whose feast was accepted throughout the Latin church almost immediately after his canonization. By the twelfth century, the church of Rome had long ceased to institute stations for new feasts; even Corpus Christi does not have one. Likewise, the common Sundays and ferias within octaves rarely have stations, with the notable exceptions of Easter and Pentecost. Pope St Sylvester I, who died on December 31, 335, is one of the very first confessors, (i.e., non-martyrs) to be honored by the Church with a liturgical feast. His feast was originally kept with a station at the place of his burial, a basilica which Sylvester himself had built above the Catacomb of Priscilla, in honor of the martyrs Ss Felix and Philip. Prior to the eleventh century, it was the common custom for the Pope to go the principal church of each major Roman Saint on their feast day; in fact, the oldest Roman liturgical calendar is partly a list of such papal celebrations. We may imagine that the popes of that era welcomed the two days’ rest between the station of the Holy Innocents at St Paul’s outside the Walls, and that of St Sylvester, a few miles in the opposite direction, up the Salarian way. In the year 761, however, his relics were translated to a church dedicated to him in the center of Rome; this church is now much more famous as the resting place of the head of St John the Baptist, for which it is named “San Silvestro in Capite, i.e. where the head is.” His feast, like that of St Thomas, is kept only as a commemoration in the Roman Missals of 1962 and 1970; a memory of its former prominence remains in the custom of calling New Year’s Eve “Sylvester’s night” in German and other languages.

(Pictured above; The Donation of Constantine, from the Chapel of Saint Sylvester at the Basilica of the Four Crowned Martyrs in Rome; roughly 1250.)

The third part of this article will discuss the stations of the Circumcision and the Epiphany.

The Station Churches of the Christmas Season (Part 1)

The Station Churches of Rome are nowadays perhaps thought of as a particular feature of Lent, since that season is the only one that has a station for every day, and the Lenten stations are the only ones which are still kept in Rome itself. However, the Missal of St Pius V, preserving the ancient traditions of the Roman Church, lists stations for several other periods of the liturgical year, such as the Sundays and Ember days of Advent, the pre-Lenten Sundays, and the octaves of both Easter and Pentecost. Prior to the 70-year long removal of the Papacy to Avignon, it was still the custom for the Pope to personally celebrate the principal liturgies at the stations, although one safely assume that this was kept more assiduously by some and less so by others. The following article in three parts will examine the station churches of the Christmas season, from the vigil of Christmas to the feast of the Epiphany.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
According to a very ancient custom of the Church of Rome, Christmas Day is celebrated with three Masses: one at midnight, preceded by Matins and followed by Lauds; one at dawn, after the hour of Prime; and a third during the day, to be celebrated, as on all major feasts, after Terce. In the Roman Breviary, we still read a homily of St Gregory the Great (590-604) at Christmas Matins, which begins with the words “Because, by the Lord’s bounty, we are to celebrate Mass three times today…” Like most of the great solemnities, Christmas is also preceded by a vigil day, particularly dedicated to fasting and penance in preparation for the feast. Thus, there are in fact four Masses on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of December.

Of these four Masses, three currently have the same station listed, the great Basilica of Saint Mary Major. This is, of course, the oldest church in the world dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and the most important of the many Marian churches in Rome. It was built by Pope St Sixtus III (432-440) to honor Her after the third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus had rejected the heresy of Nestorius, and formally defined Her title “Mother of God.” It is the traditional home of the famous icon known as the “Salus Populi Romani – Salvation of the Roman people”, one of the oldest icons in existence. Almost directly above the main altar of the church, the great arch still preserves the original mosaics of Pope Sixtus’ time, depicting events from the life of the Virgin. The Nativity of Christ, however, is not shown among them; it seems that the Annunciation and Epiphany, prominently depicted one above the other on the left side, were felt to contain between them the whole of the Nativity story.

Santa Maria Maggiore in an 18th century engraving by Giuseppe Vasi.

It is almost certain that already in St Gregory’s time, on the twenty-fourth of December, the canonical hour of None and the vigil Mass of the Nativity were both celebrated by the Pope and his court in the main basilica of Mary Major, to be followed by solemn First Vespers of Christmas. After a rest of some hours, the Pope and clergy would arise in the early part of the night for Matins, the first Mass of Christmas, and Lauds; thus, the Church kept watch for the Nativity of the Lord alongside the Virgin Mary in the stable at Bethlehem. By the middle of the seventh century, however, a small oratory had been built on the right side of the basilica, called “Sancta Maria ad Praesepe”, that is, Saint Mary at the Crib. This chapel was for many centuries the home of the relics reputed to be those of the Lord’s Crib, first attested in Rome in the reign of Pope Theodore (640-49). From roughly that time, the station of the Midnight Mass was kept in the chapel, while the services properly belonging to the Vigil of Christmas remained in the main basilica.

The second Mass is kept at the church of St Anastasia, located at the base of the Palatine hill, very close to the site of the great chariot racing stadium of Rome, the Circus Maximus. The standard opinion among liturgical scholars has long been that this was originally not part of the celebration of Christmas at all, but a Mass in honor of the church’s titular Saint, who was martyred during the persecution of Diocletian in the city of Sirmium, the modern Mitrovica in Serbia. (See the article on St Anastasia by J.P. Kirsch in the Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. 1.2, col. 1923, and Bl. Ildephonse Schuster’s The Sacramentary, vol. 1, p. 368.) This strikes me as extremely improbable, since her feast is not included in the oldest liturgical books of the Roman Rite. The so-called Leonine Sacramentary gives her name last among a group of seven martyrs whose feast is on December 25th, but there is no mention of her (or any of the others) in any of the nine different Mass formulae for Christmas that follow; she is completely absent from the Gelasian Sacramentary. The lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite (ca. 650 AD) lists the Gospel for the second Mass as Luke 2, 15-20, the account of the shepherds coming to Bethlehem, which continues the Gospel of the first Mass, Luke 2, 1-14. This does not exclude the possibility that the station was chosen because the day was also St Anastasia’s feast; in the later Gregorian Sacramentary, her Mass and that of Christmas are given together, with the proper texts of the martyr first. In the Missal of St Pius V and its late medieval predecessors, she is kept as a commemoration at this second Mass.

The third Mass of Christmas was originally celebrated not at Mary Major, but at Saint Peter’s in the Vatican. This would certainly be because the sheer size of the church, just over 100 meters long, would allow for a greater crowd to attend the most solemn of the three Nativity Masses, that which commemorates the eternal birth of God the Son from God the Eternal Father. St Ambrose tells us in the De Virginibus that his sister Marcellina was veiled as a nun by Pope Liberius in St Peter’s on Christmas Day; it is also known that Pope St Celestine I (422-32) read the decisions of the Council of Ephesus to the faithful on the same occasion. One of the most important events in the history Christendom is also connected with this stational observance; on Christmas Day, 800 A.D., Charlemagne was crowned as the Emperor of Rome by Pope St Leo III, before the celebration of the Mass.

The Coronation of Charlemagne, from the Grand Chronique de France, ca. 1455

In about 1140, a canon of St Peter’s Basilica named Benedict records in his account of the ceremonies held in his church, now known as the eleventh Ordo Romanus, that the station of this third Mass was still kept there, but a half a century later, the twelfth Ordo tells us that it is at Mary Major. For most of the Middle Ages, the population of Rome was roughly 20,000 people, living in a city built for a million and a half, and a large church was no longer necessary for the papal Mass of Christmas. Furthermore, for much of the period, the city was ruled by military strongmen, and the Pope, though nominally temporal sovereign of the city, had little or no control over it. For these practical reasons, the station was sometimes kept in the 12th century at Mary Major, which is very much closer than St Peter’s to the Pope’s residence at the Lateran Basilica, and would have been easier and safer for the Papal court to reach. There were in fact several such “double stations” at various periods, and the definitive transfer of this one was probably not made until the later 14th century. The liturgical writer Sicard of Cremona still speaks of the station at St Peter’s in roughly 1200, and explains that “in the Communion of this Mass… ‘All the ends of the earth (have seen the salvation of our God.’); and because the blessed Peter saw this, and confessed it more than the others, as the Father that is in Heaven revealed it to him, therefore the station is at St Peter.”

On the mosaic arch over the altar of Mary Major, the lowest part of the right side depicts the city of Bethlehem, and the left side the city of Jerusalem; this pairing of the two holy cities is a common motif in early Christian art. It is interesting to note that the oratory of the Crib was also frequently called “Sancta Maria in Bethlehem”, and represented, as it were, the city of Christ’s Birth within the Eternal City. For this reason, when the relics of Saint Jerome were moved to Rome from the real Bethlehem, where he died, they were placed once again “in Bethlehem.” In like manner, the church which housed the relics of the True Cross was called “Holy Cross in Jerusalem.” The union of the two holy cities was further shown by the fact that the relics of the Crib of Christ, who was born in this world so that He might die for our sakes, were formerly arranged in the shape of a cross.

(Pictured right: the relics of the Lord's Crib in a reliquary of 1830.)

This chapel also has a special connection with two of the great Saints of the Counter-reformation. St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Company of Jesus, celebrated his first Mass on the principal altar of the Crib chapel; so great was his devotion to the Mass that he deemed a full year necessary to prepare himself properly to celebrate it. In the same place, St Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the first order of Clerks Regular, was graced on Christmas Eve with a vision, in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and handed him the Infant Jesus to hold. Both of these events are still commemorated by marble plaques near the altar of the now rebuilt Sancta Maria ad Praesepe.

The chapel was severely damaged during the sack of Rome in 1527, and almost entirely rebuilt in the later 16th-century; it is now often called “the other Sistine Chapel” in honor of the Franciscan Pope Sixtus V (1585-90), under whose auspices the rebuilding was carried out. Like many of the Popes of this era, he was not buried at St Peter’s, which was still under construction during his pontificate. The place which he chose for his monument, therefore, was the great chapel of the Crib, placing opposite himself the monument of his now sainted predecessor, Pius V. To this day, their spiritual brothers are still present in the Virgin Mary’s most ancient church; Dominican friars hear confessions in several languages through most of the day, and Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate serve as sacristans and chaplains. The relics of the Crib have long since been moved to the main altar, so that they may be seen more easily by the many pilgrims who come to church each day.

The second part of this article will discuss the Station churches of the feast days within the Christmas Octave.

St Ambrose’s Christmas Hymn Veni, Redemptor Gentium

The Roman Breviary traditionally has only two proper hymns for Christmas, Jesu Redemptor omnium, which is said at Vespers and Matins, and A solis ortus cardine at Lauds. The church of Rome took a long time to accept the use of hymns in the Office at all, and in its habitual liturgical conservatism, adopted fewer of them than other medieval Uses did; although the major liturgical seasons have three proper hymns, one for Matins, one for Lauds and one for Vespers, most feasts have only two, that of either Vespers or Lauds being sung also at Matins.

One of the gems which is therefore not found in the historical Roman Use is the Christmas hymn Veni, Redemptor gentium, which is attributed on strong evidence to St Ambrose himself. It is quoted by Ss Augustine and Pope Celestine I (422-32), both of whom knew Ambrose personally, the latter attributing it to him explicitly, as does Cassiodorus in the following century. It was sung at Vespers of Christmas in the Ambrosian Rite, of course, in the Sarum Use, and by the religious orders which retained their proper liturgical Uses after Trent, the Dominicans, Carmelites, and Premonstratensians.

In many parts of Germany, it was sung in Advent, rather than Christmas; the last stanza before the doxology “Praesepe jam fulget tuum – Thy cradle here shall glitter bright” was omitted, however, until it was sung for the last time at First Vespers of Christmas. In the post-Conciliar Office, it is sung in Advent without the German variant, and without the stanza “Egressus ejus a Patre.”

Here are two versions, one in plainchant, and a second in alternating chant and polyphony. The English translation by John Mason Neale (1851) is one of his finest such efforts, both for its literary merit as English and its exactitude as a translation.

Veni, Redemptor gentium,         Come, Thou Redeemer of the earth,
Ostende partum Vírginis:           And manifest Thy virgin birth:
Mirétur omne saeculum:            Let every age adoring fall;
Talis decet partus Deum.           Such birth befits the God of all.

Non ex viríli sémine,                   Begotten of no human will,
Sed mýstico spirámine               But of the Spirit, Thou art still
Verbum Dei factum caro,           The Word of God in flesh arrayed
Fructusque ventris flóruit.        The promised Fruit to man displayed.

Alvus tumescit Vírginis,             The virgin womb that burden gained
Claustra pudóris pérmanent,    With virgin honor all unstained;
Vexilla virtútum micant,            The banners there of virtue glow;
Versátur in templo Deus.           God in His temple dwells below.

Procédens de thálamo suo,       Forth from His chamber goeth He,
Pudóris aulo regia,                     That royal home of purity,
Géminae gigans substantiae     A giant in twofold substance one,
Alácris ut currat viam.               Rejoicing now His course to run.

Egressus ejus a Patre,                From God the Father He proceeds,
Regressus ejus ad Patrem:        To God the Father back He speeds;
Excursus usque ad ínferos        His course He runs to death and hell,
Recursus ad sedem Dei.            Returning on God’s throne to dwell.

Aequális aeterno Patri,              O equal to the Father, Thou!
Carnis trophaeo accíngere:      Gird on Thy fleshly mantle now;
Infirma nostri córporis             The weakness of our mortal state
Virtúte firmans pérpeti.            With deathless might invigorate.

Praesépe jam fulget tuum,        Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
Lumenque nox spirat novum,   And darkness breathe a newer light,
Quod nulla nox intérpolet,        Where endless faith shall shine serene,
Fidéque jugi lúceat.                    And twilight never intervene.

Gloria tibi, Dómine,                   O Jesu, Virgin-born, to thee
Qui natus es de Vírgine,            Eternal praise and glory be,
Cum Patre et sancto Spíritu,    Whom with the Father we adore
In sempiterna sæcula. Amen.    And Holy Spirit, evermore.

Merry Christmas!

Beáta víscera Maríae Vírginis, quae portavérunt aeterni Patris Filium: et beáta úbera, quae lactavérunt Christum Dóminum: * Qui hodie pro salúte mundi de Vírgine nasci dignátus est. V. Dies sanctificátus illuxit nobis: veníte, gentes, et adoráte Dóminum. Qui hódie... (The seventh responsory of Christmas Matins.)

The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1483-5, from the Sassetti Chapel at the church of the Holy Trinity in Florence. The artist portrayed himself as the shepherd closest to the Christ Child, pointing Him out to the others; his hand is also right next to the garland sculpted on the sarcophagus being used as a manger, since his name derives from the Italian word for ‘garland.’ The Latin inscription on the sarcophagus refers to a legend that when the Romans captured Jerusalem in 63BC, an augur named Fulvius, who was killed in the siege, had prophesied the coming of Christ: “As he fell by Pompey’s sword in Jerusalem, the augur Fulvius said ‘The urn that covereth me shall bring forth a god.’ ”

R. Blessed be the womb of the Virgin Mary, which bore the Son of the Eternal Father, and blessed be the breasts which give milk to Christ the Lord, * Who on this day hath deigned to be born of a Virgin for the salvation of the world. V. A hallowed day hath dawned upon us; o come, ye nations, and worship the Lord. Who on this day...

A recording in Gregorian chant by the seminarians of the Fraternity of St Peter’s European seminary, from their album of the whole of Christmas Matins, Sancta Nox.

A polyphonic setting by the Portuguese composter João Rodrigues Esteves (ca. 1700-51).

On behalf of the publisher and writers of New Liturgical Movement, I wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas, and every blessing from the Child that is born unto us! By the prayers of the Holy Mother of God and all the Saints, may God grant peace and healing to the Church and to the world in the coming year.

Musings on the Origins of Christmas

The Gospels according to Matthew and Luke provide the only canonical accounts that we have of the birth of Jesus Christ. According to these narratives, the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph completed the first stage of a first-century Jewish wedding (the signing of the marriage contract) but not the second (the introduction of the bride to her husband’s home, which could be months and sometimes more than a year later). During that waiting period, Mary conceived the Christ Child through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and then left town for three months to help her aged cousin Saint Elizabeth give birth to Saint John the Baptist. When she returned, Saint Joseph noticed that she was with child. After being told by an angel in a dream to take Mary to wife (that is, to complete the second stage of the wedding) and to adopt Jesus as his own, he did so.

As the time drew near for Mary to bear her Son, the Holy Couple traveled from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to be enrolled in a Roman census. Because there was no room for them in any inn (that is, a room for their special needs), Mary delivered her Child in a stable, which according to oral tradition was a sheltered cave (upon which Bethlehem’s Basilica of the Nativity now stands). Angels announced to nearby shepherds the good news, who came to adore Him, and Magi from the East who had been following a star did so as well, but only after they paid a visit to King Herod and inquired into the whereabouts of the newborn King. The question unsettled the paranoid and nefarious Herod, and so he ordered the death of all baby boys in Bethlehem in an attempt to eliminate the competition. Joseph, however, was warned of Herod’s plot in a dream and fled with the Holy Family to Egypt. After Herod died, another dream told Joseph that it was safe to return to Nazareth.

The Flight into Egypt, by Giambattista Tiepolo, 1764-70

Critics of the infancy narratives claim that the facts do not add up: Herod the Great was not king when the census of Quirinus was taken but died four years prior to the birth of Christ; the census would not have been taken during the winter and would not have required bringing one’s expectant wife; there were no astronomical anomalies (no “Christmas star”) that we know of in 1 B.C.-1 A.D., and so forth. Biblical critics also claim that because the story of Jesus’ birth resembles that of Moses in some respects (both, for example, involve the slaughter of innocent boys), it must be fictitious.

Defendants, however, point to other considerations: the Christmas star need not have been an astronomical event (it could have been a miraculous apparition limited to the Magi); one should not be hasty in drawing conclusions about dating because it is difficult to align three different ancient calendars (the Jewish lunar calendar, the Roman solar calendar, and a different Greek solar calendar); the conclusion that Herod died in 4 B.C. (four years prior to the birth of Christ) is based on a miscalculation of a passage in the writings of Flavius Josephus; and if you posit that the Magi met the Holy Family after their return to Nazareth rather than, as is popularly imagined, in the stable at Bethlehem, the chronology lines up. As for the belief that the story of Christ’s birth must be false because it resembles Moses’, there is no logical necessity to think so. The resemblance could be coincidental or better yet, part of God’s master plan, in which case the parallels are proof of the story’s veracity rather than its falsity. What is one man’s fiction is another’s divine providence.

Dates

As for when to observe Jesus Christ’s birthday, we know that in the late second or early third century Christians in Egypt celebrated Christ’s birth and His baptism as an adult in the River Jordan on January 6, and that other Eastern-rite Christians eventually followed suit. In Rome, on the other hand, there is evidence that Christmas was celebrated on December 25 as early as A.D. 336. Eventually (from the fourth century on), the East adopted December 25 as the date of Christ’s birth and January 6 as the date of His baptism while the West kept its Christmas date of December 25 and adopted January 6 as the visit of the Magi (though it also commemorated Christ’s baptism on January 6). To this day, there is a difference in emphasis between the calendars of Western Christians and Eastern. In the West, there is a build-up to Christmas as the big day and then a plateauing or denouement that lasts until Epiphany (January 6). In the East, Christmas Day is important but “Theophany” (January 6) is the grand high point of the season and second only to Easter in the entire year.

How these dates were chosen remains a hotly debated topic. There are three main theories.

The first, the “History of Religion” theory, is that Christians in Rome chose December 25 to supplant a Roman pagan festival called the Birth of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus), and that Christians in Egypt chose January 6 to supplant an Egyptian festival to the god Aion, who was born of a virgin. Although this theory has enjoyed the most scholarly support over the years, it has been criticized for overlooking one important detail. It is true that Christmas may not have been celebrated on December 25 until 336, but Christians were nonetheless talking about December 25 as the date of Jesus’ birthday as early as 240. The Roman feast of the Unconquered Sun, on the other hand, was not instituted until 274. Did Christians try to coopt a pagan feast, or did pagans try to coopt a Christian date? Most likely, the Roman Emperor Aurelian, who instituted the Unconquered Sun, was more concerned about the winter solstice (which at the time fell on December 25) than about stealing thunder from a small religious minority. Either way, Christians were not thinking of pagan customs when they first arrived at a date for their Savior’s birth.

Sol Invictus

Which brings us to the second hypothesis called the “Calculation” theory. According to this view, early Christians were influenced by the Jewish notion of an “integral age,” the belief that the prophets died on the same date as their birth. Some early Christians calculated that April 6 was the date of Christ’s crucifixion while others thought that it was March 25. March 25 became the date of Christ’s conception in the womb (the feast of the Annunciation), and nine months after March 25 is December 25. Similarly, if you add nine months to April 6, you get January 6. The theory is intriguing, but unfortunately there is no evidence that the early Church knew about the rabbinical belief in an integral age, nor does the theory explain why Christians allegedly modified the belief from a two-pronged focus on birth and death to the three prongs of conception, birth, and death.

Finally, some authors hold that Jesus Christ was indeed born on or around December 25. King David had divided the Levitical priesthood into twenty-four “courses” (1 Chron. 24, 7-18). The Gospel according to Saint Luke records that Zechariah, who was burning incense in the Temple when he had a vision of St. Gabriel the Archangel, was in the course of Abijah (1, 5). Drawing from Talmudic sources, we can conclude that Zechariah’s turn to serve in the Temple as a member of his course most likely happened a year before Christ’s birth during the week of September 5-11. John the Baptist was conceived shortly after (Luke 1, 23-24), which would place his birth somewhere between June 20 and 26. Jesus was six months’ younger than His cousin (Luke 1, 36), which means that He would have been born between December 21 and 27. This thesis, however, has yet to gain widespread acceptance.

Alexandr Ivanov, Annunciation of the Birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah, 1824

So who is right? Here is what we know:

First, in former ages and even in some places today, the date of someone’s birth was not of great concern either because it was difficult to determine or because there were more important factors to take into consideration. In ancient Greece, Plato’s birthday was celebrated on the Feast of Apollo: the great philosopher either forgot to tell his disciples when his birthday was, or his disciples thought it more fitting to associate him with the god of light, beauty, and poetry. And in some contemporary Christian cultures, one’s name day (the feast day of the saint after whom one is named) remains a greater celebration than one’s birthday. In Japan, where the group is traditionally more important than the individual, there were no personal birthday celebrations prior to the influence of American culture in the 1950s: all girls celebrated their birthday on March 3 and all boys on May 5.

The May 5 birthday for boys is associated with koi fish kites, which are symbols of determination and energy, strength and bravery.

Second, I personally don’t think that early Christians tried to coopt a pagan holiday, but even if they did, they clearly understood the difference between their religion and what they were supplanting. Church leaders sternly rebuked converts who retained even the external symbols of the old festivals, as the writings of Tertullian, Saint Augustine, and Pope Saint Leo the Great attest. And the doctrine of the Incarnation, which teaches that Jesus Christ is 100% human and 100% divine, is not the same as talk about demigods being 50% human and 50% divine.

Understanding the pedigree of demigods requires no more imagination than following a family tree chart on ancestry.com, but understanding how the Divine Person Jesus Christ is both consubstantial with the Father and the Son of Man demands a whole new metaphysical skillset. As far as the Christian believer is concerned, there is not a pagan yearning for the gods that Christianity tries to replace; there is a human yearning for the divine that paganism responds to imperfectly and tragically, and that Christianity purifies and fulfills joyfully.

Third, say what you will, the symbolism works. The Bible describes Jesus Christ as the Light or the Sun or the Dawn, and so it is appropriate that His birthday is celebrated on or soon after the winter solstice. A Jewish boy is circumcised eight days after his birth, and so if Jesus’ birthday is celebrated on December 25, it is appropriate to commemorate His circumcision on January 1 (Lk. 2, 21). In accordance with the Mosaic Law, Jesus was presented in the Temple and His mother ritually purified forty days after His birth (Lk. 2, 22-24), and so it is appropriate to celebrate this event on February 2, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary (aka the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord). The Bible states that John the Baptist is six months’ older than the Messiah (Lk. 1, 24-26), and so it is appropriate that his birthday is said to fall six months later (June 24). St. John the Baptist famously says of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3, 30), and so it is appropriate that John’s birthday be celebrated on or after the summer solstice, when the days start to grow longer. The Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived of the Holy Spirit nine months’ prior to giving birth to Jesus, and so it is appropriate that the feast of the Annunciation is celebrated on March 25, a date that follows the Spring equinox and marks the end of the dead, dark winter and the beginning of a new era of life and rebirth.

Christmas 2023 Photopost (Part 3)

This is our final photopost for liturgies celebrated within the calendar year 2023, so I want to reiterate to all our contributors past and present how grateful we are to you for sharing these beautiful images with us. We will start in on the Epiphany next week, so there is still plenty of time to send your pictures in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.com. As always, we are glad to include both the EF and OF, as well as the Ordinariate or Eastern liturgies, and ceremonies such as the blessing of water or chalk. Keep up the good work of evangelizing though beauty!

Oratory of Ss Gregory and Augustine – St Louis, Missouri

Photos by Kiera Petrick

Of course, tradition will always be for the young!

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Christmas 2023 Photopost (Part 2)

We continue with photos of your Christmas liturgies; these are posted mostly in the order received, and it just worked out that a lot of particularly nice images show up in this set. In the meantime, get your cameras ready for celebrations of Epiphany this weekend - we will post a reminder tomorrow, along with the last images from Christmas. As always, thanks to all those who contributed; Christus natus est nobis: venite; adoremus!  

Church of St Mary – Providence, Rhode Island (FSSP)

The Magi wait their turn at the back of the church.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Christmas 2023 Photopost (Part 1)

I am pleased to say that the response to our photopost request for Christmas has been very good, and there will be at least two more in this series before we move on to Epiphany. There is always room for more, so if you have pictures of Christmas liturgies which you would like to share, please send them in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org. This includes, of course, any Masses celebrated during the vigil and octave, parts of the Divine Office, and, as we see below here, Requiem Masses for Pope Benedict. Remember to include the name and location of the church, and any other information which you think important, and keep up the good work of evangelizing through beauty!     

Church of the Assumption – Nashville, Tennessee

First Vespers of Christmas

Chapel of the Queen of Hungary – Trnava, Slovakia

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Merry Christmas!

Hodie nobis caelorum Rex de Virgine nasci dignatus est, ut hominem perditum ad caelestia regna revocaret: * Gaudet exercitus Angelorum: quia salus aeterna humano generi apparuit. V. Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. R. Gaudet exercitus Angelorum: quia salus aeterna humano generi apparuit. V. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. R. Hodie nobis caelorum Rex ... (The first responsory of Christmas Matins.)

Illustration for Christmas Day from a Missal printed by the Desclée publishing house, late 19th century.

R. Today the King of heaven deigned to be born of a Virgin for us, that He might bring back to the kingdom of heaven man who was lost. * The host of Angels rejoiceth, because eternal salvation hath appeared to the human race. V. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth. peace to men of goodwill. The host of Angels... Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Today...

On behalf of the publisher and writers of New Liturgical Movement, I wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas, and every blessing from the Child that is born unto us! By the prayers of the Holy Mother of God and all the Saints, may God grant the Church and the world peace in the coming year.

Christmas 2023 Photopost Request

Our next photopost series will be for the liturgies of Christmas, whether in the Ordinary or Extraordinary Form, or any of the Eastern Rites, Ordinariate Use, etc.; as always, we will also be very glad to include other liturgical ceremonies, such as Prime on Christmas Eve, Vespers, the vigil Masses, and any liturgies celebrated during the Octave. Please send your pictures to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, and don’t forget to include the name of the church and its location, and any other information which you think worth noting. Evangelize through beauty!

In the meantime, we still haven’t finished with photos of your Rorate Masses, a beautiful sign of the slow-but-steady recovery of our authentic liturgical traditions. We will definitely at least match last year’s record-breaking six posts, but there is always room for more, so feel free to send yours in to the email address given above as well. Today you will know that the Lord shall come, and in the morning, you shall see his glory!

From our first Christmas photopost of last year: the Gospel of the day Mass of Christmas at St Mary’s Oratory, the ICRSP church in Wausau, Wisconsin.

From the second post: St Michael’s Abbey in Farnborough, England, right before the Midnight Mass.

Christmas 2022 Photopost (Part 2)

This is our final photopost for liturgies celebrated within the calendar year 2022, so I want to reiterate to all our contributors past and present how grateful we are to you for sharing these beautiful images with us. We will start in on the Epiphany next week, so there is still plenty of time to send your pictures in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.com. As always, we are glad to include both the EF and OF, as well as the Ordinariate or Eastern liturgies, and ceremonies such as the blessing of water or chalk. Keep up the good work of evangelizing though beauty!

St Joseph – Hammond, Indiana (ICRSP)

Midnight Mass

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Marian Character of the Feast of the Circumcision

It is a well-known fact that there are several different themes to be found in the Mass and Office of January 1st, which is simultaneously the feast of the Circumcision, the octave of Christmas, and a celebration of the divine maternity of the Virgin Mary. Another element is one of protest against the excesses of the pagan celebration of the New Year; anciently, this was expressed in the Roman Rite by a special Mass “ad prohibendum ab idolis – to prohibit from idols”, also to be sung on that day.

The flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, with an idol falling from its pillar in the background, a traditional representation inspired by the words of Isaiah 19, 1, “Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud, and will enter into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence.” (From the Hours of Chrétienne de France, 1470-75; Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Ms-562 réserve)  

As I noted in an article earlier this week, liturgical scholars in the pre-Conciliar period mistakenly believed that the commemoration of the Circumcision was adopted into the Roman Rite from the Gallican. This leaves the question of how the Roman Rite celebrated January 1st before this took place. In 1933, Dom Bernard Botte OSB proposed, on the evidence of some ancient antiphonaries, that in the first half of the 7th century, the day was celebrated in Rome as a feast of the Virgin Mary. According to his theory, it was then transformed a few decades later into the “octave of the Lord”, the title which it has in the oldest manuscripts, and still later, renamed as the Circumcision. Although his deduction was not universally accepted at the time, it was of course the theory behind the invention of the Solemnity of Mary, which replaced the ancient celebration in the post-Conciliar reform.

In a 1994 article in the journal Ecclesia Orans, which is published by the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of St Anselm in Rome, Dom Jacques-Marie Guilmard OSB, a monk of Solesmes Abbey, demonstrated that in point of fact, the exact opposite is the truth. (Une antique fête mariale au 1 janvier dans la ville de Rome? Ecclesia Orans 1-1, 1994) “For Rome at the beginning of the 7th century, January 1st is not a religious festival, nor a Mass for the entire city, nor truly a Marian celebration, nor a preparation for the great Marian feasts. … The laudable novelty which consists of celebrating Our Lady eight days after Christmas was inspired by a liturgical mistake. The initiative came from Gaul at the end of the 8th century.”

In a Gelasian Sacramentary of the early 8th century (ms. Vatican Reginensis 316), the Mass of the “Octave of the Lord” is that described in my previous article on this subject; the only references to the Virgin Mary are those contained in the preface. Immediately after it is the Mass “ad prohibendum ab idolis.” In the Gellone Sacramentary, another of the Gelasian type written within the last two decades of the same century, the same two Masses appear, with all the same prayers; however, “another Mass of the Octave of the Lord”, as it is labelled, has been inserted between them. The Collect of this latter, Deus qui salutis, is that said on the Circumcision in the Missal of St Pius V: “O God, Who by the fruitful virginity of blessed Mary, have bestowed upon the human race the rewards of eternal salvation: grant, we beseech Thee, that we may experience Her intercession for us, through whom we have been made worthy to receive author of life.”

Folio 9r of the Gellone Sacramentary, with the second Mass for the Octave of the Lord, beginning with the prayer Deus qui salutis. The Mass “ad prohibendum ab idolis” begins next to the fellow with the handlebar mustache; there is very often no discernible connection between the liturgical text and the marginal illustration, as is the case here.

This second Mass has a second collect, two secrets (but no preface of its own), and a post-communion, none of which mention the Virgin Mary. It also has a prayer “ad populum”, like those said in the Roman Missal on the ferial days of Lent, which refers to “Simeon the Just”; this relates to the longer Gospel from Luke 2 (verses 21-40 or 21-33) attested in the ancient lectionaries for this day. The first Secret (Muneribus nostris) and the Postcommunion (Haec nos communio) of this Mass are also those found in the Missal of St Pius V, but without the words “intercedente beata Virgine Dei Genitrice Maria” in the latter, which are a later interpolation.

Most of the Gregorian Sacramentaries of the post-Carolingian period (mid-9th – 10th centuries) reproduce this same group of prayers, taken as a unit from the Gelasian. In all of them, however, the Mass is entitled “the Octave of the Lord,” and none of them uses the title found in those antiphonaries which give a Mass of the Virgin, known from its Introit as Vultum tuum. Those among them which retain the proper preface for the day also change its beginning, from “as we celebrate today the octave of His Birth” to “as we celebrate the day of His Circumcision, and the octave of His Birth.” In this period, we also find a solemn blessing added to Pontifical Mass after “Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum”; this is still noted in the last editions of the Sarum Missal, and was the inspiration for the optional solemn blessings in the post-conciliar reform. In the Sacramentary of Drogo, bishop of Metz (845-55), the three proper invocations of this blessing for January 1st all refer solely to the Circumcision, and not at all to the Virgin Mary.

Folios 32v and 33r of the Sacramentary of Drogo, Bishop of Metz, 845-55 (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 9428) showing the first two pages (out of three) of the Mass of the Octave of the Lord: the Collect, Secret (called Super oblata), the Preface, and the solemn Pontifical blessing.

The later medieval Uses adapted these varying traditions of the early sacramentaries in many different ways. The Collect of January 1st may be either Deus, qui nobis nati from the older Mass of the octave, or the newer Marian Collect Deus qui salutis, with their accompanying Secrets and Post-Communions. However, there is almost absolute uniformity that the Gregorian chant parts are repeated from the third Mass of Christmas day (Puer natus est), with the exception of the proper Alleluia Multifarie. The words “intercedente beata Dei Genitrice Maria” are often found interpolated into the Secret and Post-Communion of the later set, but not always; as late as 1578, they are absent from the Premonstratensian Missal. These same prayers are almost invariably found in medieval Missals in the Votive Mass of the Virgin Mary for the season between Christmas and the Purification, very often with the Introit Vultum tuum, but also with Salve, Sancta Parens. (This latter is appointed for the Solemnity of Mary in the post-Conciliar Missal.)

In short, then, the Marian elements in the Mass of January 1st consist of a single Collect, one which was certainly very widely diffused through the many Uses of the Roman Rite, and a later, parenthetical interpolation in the accompanying Post-Communion, and occasionally also in the Secret.

The Virgin Mary is certainly more prominent in the texts of the Office than of the Mass, and this is often adduced as evidence of the day’s original Marian character. The Catholic Encyclopedia exaggerates when it says, in its article on the feast of the Circumcision, “in the Office, the responses and antiphons set forth her privileges and extol her wonderful prerogatives. The psalms for Vespers are those appointed for her feasts, and the antiphons and hymn of Lauds keep her constantly in view.” In the Roman Breviary, the antiphons of Matins all refer solely to Christ; it is tempting to speculate that the antiphon of Psalm 23, “Be lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in” refers to the ancient custom by which the account of Christ’s Presentation was also read at the Mass. The first three responsories in the Roman Breviary also refer only to Christ, and five to both Him and His Mother, but in the Monastic Breviary, the proportion is 7 and 5. Among the antiphons for the Psalms of Lauds, the Virgin is mentioned in passing in the first two, and the subject of one clause in each of the last two; only the middle one, “Rubum quem viderat” is principally about Her. The hymns are simply repeated from Christmas. Of the three antiphons for the Gospel canticles, that of Second Vespers, Magnum hereditatis mysterium, mentions Her prominently, but the other two not at all.

As stated above, it is a common feature of the Western liturgies of January 1st to have some element by which the Church responds to the riotous pagan celebrations of the New Year. This theme is very prominent in the Ambrosian Rite; most of the antiphons of its Office for the day refer to it, and not to the Birth or Circumcision of Christ, nor to the Virgin Mary. Even here, however, the prayers of the Mass and Office are all taken from the old Gelasian Masses of the Octave of the Lord, and not from that “to prohibit from idols.” The only one that mentions the Virgin Mary is the Collect Deus qui salutis; in the rest of the Mass and Office, She hardly figures at all.

In the Roman Rite, there remains only one small reference to the ancient Mass against the idols. Although the Gregorian parts of the Circumcision are mostly repeated from the third Mass of Christmas, the Epistle, Titus 2, 11-15, is repeated from the first, because of the following words: “the grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men; Instructing us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world,”