Fiddling with the Collects of Ss Henry II and Louis IX: Wokeness Avant la Lettre

Stained glass window from St Dominic’s in London (Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew OP)

On July 15 in the old calendar, we celebrate the feast of the Holy Roman Emperor St. Henry II. His Collect in the Roman Rite reads as follows (the rationale behind the italics and underlining will become apparent in just a moment):

Deus, qui hodierna die beatum Henricum confessorem tuum e terreni culmine imperii ad regnum aeternum transtulisti: te supplices exoramus; ut, sicut illum, gratiae tuae ubertate praeventum, illecebras saeculi superare fecisti, ita nos facias eius imitatione, mundi huius blandimenta vitare, et ad te puris mentibus pervenire.
       O God, who on this day brought blessed Henry, your confessor, from the summit of earthly sovereignty into the eternal kingdom, humbly we implore you, that, as you, going before him with the abundance of your grace, granted him to overcome the enticements of the age, so may you grant us, through imitation of him, to shun the allurements of this world and attain unto you with pure minds.

The modern rite of Paul VI replaces this Collect with the following, loosely based on it:

Deus, qui beatum Henricum, gratiae tuae ubertate praeventum, e terreni cura regiminis ad superna mirabiliter erexisti, eius nobis intercessione largire, ut inter mundanas varietates puris ad te mentibus festinemus.
       O God, who having gone before blessed Henry with the abundance of your grace wondrously raised him from care of earthly government unto things caelestial, grant, through his intercession, that amid the diverse things of this world we may hasten toward/unto you with pure minds.

A similar set of changes may be observed in the Collect for St. Louis IX, King of France, whose feast we celebrate next month on August 25. The original Collect:

Deus, qui beatum Ludovicum confessorem tuum de terreno regno ad caelestis regni gloriam transtulisti: eius, quaesumus, meritis et intercessione, Regis regum Iesu Christi Filii tui facias nos esse consortes.
       O God, who brought blessed Louis, your confessor, from an earthly kingdom into the glory of the heavenly kingdom, we beseech you through his merits and intercession, grant us to be partakers of Jesus Christ, your Son, the King of kings.

The modern rite replaces it with this:

Deus, qui beatum Ludovicum, e terreni regiminis cura ad caelestis regni gloriam transtulisti, eius, quaesumus, intercessione concede, ut, per munera temporalia quae gerimus, regnum tuum quaeramus aeternum.
       O God, who brought blessed Louis from care of earthly government into the glory of the heavenly kingdom, we beseech you, grant through his intercession, that, through the earthly responsibilities that we bear, we may seek your eternal kingdom.

Fr. Antoine Dumas, who worked on the Consilium’s coetus for “prayers and prefaces,” wrote a famous article explaining why such a large number of Collects were revised, which Dr. Lauren Pristas, an expert on the subject of Collects, translated and commented on in her important article “Theological Principles That Guided the Redaction of the Roman Missal (1970),” in The Thomist, vol. 67 (2003): 157–95. She first quotes what Fr. Dumas says about the above prayers:

It is easy to understand why, in certain collects for Christian leaders, the expression: culmine imperii was changed to cura regiminis (Saint Henry), while terreno regno gave way to terreni regiminis cura (Saint Louis): a simple change of perspective for the same reality.

However, as Lauren Pristas points out:

The actual revisions to the two collects were far more extensive than Dumas reports. The revisions as a whole are underscored; those of the kind that Dumas mentions are also italicized. We will begin with the small change in each prayer that Dumas names.

She then continues (and I shall now quote at length from her article):

Window in St Sulpice in Paris (Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew OP) 

« Henry, a German king who became Holy Roman Emperor, died in 1024; Louis, king of France, died in 1297. The original collect for Henry describes his rule as it was understood in his own day. The revised version describes it in terms that reflect modern democratic sensibilities. It is anachronistic. The original collect for Louis does not explicitly mention his rule as king. This is supplied in the revision—but, again, in terms more reflective of our historical circumstances than his own. The revision may have been designed to accommodate a modern mentality. Its effect, however, is to obscure the truth that holiness is found in persons of every age and social rank. Henry and Louis were not simply entrusted with the care of earthly government; they were Christian rulers who became holy as they ruled because of the Christian way in which they ruled.
       In order to appreciate the nature of the other changes made to the collect for Henry, we need to know what the editors sought to achieve in their revision of the sanctoral orations. Dumas tells us: “In the sanctoral prayers we . . . put greater emphasis on the personality of the saint, his mission in the Church, the practical lesson that his example gives to men of today. All the corrections or new compositions in the new missal proceed in this direction.”
       When the editors excised mention of Henry “overcoming the enticements of his age” by the grace of God, they created a prayer that tells us nothing about Henry’s personality or his way of holiness. The failure of the corrections to this prayer to proceed in the direction established for all the sanctoral orations suggests that the editors of the new missal did not view Henry’s example of freedom from worldly enticements as something suitable for imitation by modern Christians, or that they thought the original collect posits too great an opposition between heaven and earth, or possibly both. Since these themes recur and become more explicit in later examples, we shall consider them as they reappear below.
       There are three other differences that a more extensive treatment would examine that can only be identified here. The new text (1) omits the reverential formula “humbly we implore you,” (2) asks that Henry intercede for us rather than that we imitate him (a change that flows directly from the decision to omit reference to Henry’s particular virtue), and (3) severs the connection between purity of mind and freedom from the attractions of this world established by the original prayer.
       The change in the petition of the revised collect for Louis is striking and shares common features with the new oration for Henry. The 1962 prayer for Louis begs that we may have partnership with Christ who is the King of kings—here, particularly, the King of King Louis—whereas the revised text asks that we may seek, but does not specify that we also find, “your eternal kingdom.” The petition of the revised text, therefore, is stunningly effete in comparison to that of the original collect which seeks nothing less than full incorporation into Christ. Similarly, the old collect for Henry begs that God make us attain unto, or reach (pervenire), himself, whereas the new version asks only that we hasten (festinemus) unto him. The verb pervenire stipulates arrival, festinare does not.
       A second feature common to both revised collects is a new emphasis on the things of this world which, in addition, are presented in a wholly positive light. In the revised prayer for Henry, we hasten “amid the diverse things of this world,” instead of asking, as in the original version, to be able to shun its allurements. In the somewhat convoluted revised collect for Louis, we ask God to grant, through the intercession of the saint, that we may seek his eternal kingdom “through the earthly responsibilities that we bear.” In the source text we ask to be granted partnership with Christ “through the merits and intercession”of the saint. »

By way of summary, Dr. Pristas concludes this section of her article with a warning:

The changes to these prayers, which are much more extensive than Dumas indicates, highlight the methodological importance of returning to the sources. Those who desire to gain a full and accurate understanding of the work of the Consilium must examine all the pertinent primary texts, and not rely exclusively upon even those articles, like Dumas’s own, that were written by the reformers themselves for the express purpose of describing and explaining their work. The number of changes is too great, and their nature too substantial, for even the most thorough summary to be adequate.

She is too kind to say it expressly, but authors like Dumas are not actually telling you the whole story. And it very doubtful that they are doing so because they are unaware of it or have just forgotten to do it. These men were über-experts in their subdisciplines, conversant with many languages, and compelled by committee work to share and explain themselves frequently. If, when they address a broader audience, they leave a lot out, it’s probably because they are aware that their audience will trust them to tell the truth and not bother to do the heavy lifting of consulting all the sources. Indeed, that is why certain defects in the new liturgy have taken decades to emerge into the light of day.

Turning our attention to the saint of today, Henry II, I would simply point out that the authentic Collect of his feast exhibits to perfection several aspects of the Catholic worldview:

• The subordination of the temporal to the eternal
• The need for self-denial and mortification
• The legitimacy and fittingness of earthly monarchs reflecting the divine kingdom

Thus, we can confidently say this figure would be hated by modernists and liberals for several reasons:

• They would despise his vow of virginity; even “conservatives” would likely mock it as contrary to the demands of the “theology of the body” popularly understood (aka, The Joy of Ethical Sex);
• They despise monarchy because they hold the ideological view—essentially indemonstrable and contrary to available evidence—that democracy is the best and perhaps the only legitimate form of government;
• They do not see political authority as being inherently from God and therefore given with a view to worshiping God and building up His kingdom on earth through the construction of churches, the endowment of monasteries, and the like.

That is, Henry II manages to wrap up in one package celibacy, monarchy, and integralism—a few of the least favorite things of the self-consciously modern and modernizing Christian. It’s actually rather surprising he was kept in the general calendar, where he manages to hang on to the status of Optional Memorial on July 13. I wonder how many choose the option… Meanwhile, at my parish, we will celebrate today the obligatory feast of the only Western Christian emperor-saint.

Window by Capronnier in St Stephen’s Catholic Church, Skipton (Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew OP)

The feast prompts a few melancholy reflections. The old Mass was sustained by a love of chivalry and ceremonial, noblemen and kings; indeed, these men were its principal benefactors who led Catholic culture to unequaled heights of magnificence. But that whole world was swept away by the Revolution: and the Mass has been in decline since then: the cathedral chapters were eradicated, noble patronage of art and religious orders ceased; and ideologically, nothing in that world will appeal to our latter-day Marxists (whether they proudly claim the label or merely correspond to its content).

We can see a strange change that comes over liturgical commentary in the later modern period. Commentators in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have an instinctive love for ceremony and splendor. Their ideal is the imperial Rome of the Ordo Romanus I, with its high station liturgy. Later, after the Revolution… all of a sudden, everyone is tired of those things. The rich ceremonial life of pre-Napoleonic Europe gave figures like Benedict XIV, Bona, and Cancellieri a native understanding of and taste for liturgical ceremony that nineteenth and twentieth century writers generally sorely lack. The ceremonialists knew that their own experience was in direct continuity with St. Gregory’s seventh-century stational liturgy. Even if not moved by a particular ideology, a twentieth-century bourgeois has little to nothing in his experience of life that can relate to the ritual of the pontifical liturgy. So, he likes the simpler pseudo-apostolic “domus ecclesiae” house liturgy better.

The old Mass presupposes a whole culture that is vanished; and yet it hangs on, like St. Henry’s optional feast, by a thread: it is the option chosen, as a matter of principle, by a resolute minority who are as displaced as it is possible to be in a social body, enjoying neither official support nor ample resources. If John Senior is right to say that Christendom grew up around the Mass, will we discover over time if the old Mass still retains its inherent power to rebuild the world around it, as some creatures can rebuild their damaged bodies?

The liturgy cannot stand for long without a surrounding culture. That culture, in the West, was already teetering in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wavering between sentimentalism and nihilism, and then came the coup de grâce of the Council and the reform. The revival of the traditional Mass is a risky experiment because it is like a floating city without a determinate “place” yet.

Reading the history of the Latin rite, I’m more and more convinced that communities of clergy are vital for liturgical life. The cathedral chapters and the monasteries are the only organizations that can do the full liturgy, from Matins to Compline, from the silent devotional Mass to the Solemn High Mass and pontifical ceremonies. They are the ones chiefly responsible for the health of the liturgical culture that they receive, foster, and hand down. When chapters and monasteries are strong, they set the tone for an entire territory. When they are weak or non-existent…

And yet, is it not strange, and hopeful, that so many young people today respond, at some level, even if incoherently and postmodernistically, to lavish displays of liturgical ceremony? That political conservatism is growing stronger again among the youth? I cannot imagine (in a sort of Freudian reductionism) that it is all about an emotional frisson or a fetishism for color and spectacle in a world of gray fashion and greenbacks. If depth calls to depth, then the depth of tradition calls to the depth of denuded, alienated postmodern man, and summons him to the heights of liturgy, fine art, political order, in the company of Henry II and Louis IX.

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

The Name Game of the Orations

Mosaic of St John Chrysostom in Hagia Sophia, ca. 1000.

In a previous post, I speculated on why the Orations in the Mass and Office are addressed mostly to the Father, sometimes to the Son, and never to the Holy Spirit. Father Nicholas Gihr comments on this convention in his magisterial 1902 tome The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as well, and he also includes a footnote on the use of Saints’ names:

As the prayers are addressed to the omniscient God, in them only the simple or also the double proper names may be employed (for example, Joanna Francisca, Petrus Coelestinus) and similar designations of saints, as express their dignity (for example, Apostolus, Martyr, Confessor, Virgo but never Vidua, because this is not a title of honor). To them may also be added the names Joannes Chrysostomus and Petrus Chrysologus; for nomina Chrysostomi et Chrysologi adjectiva potius sunt et vel facundiam vel vim et efficaciam divini sermonis recensitis Sanctis quasi supernaturali inditam virtute designant.[2] (S. R. C. 8. Mart. 1825. 7. Dec. 1844 ad 9.) All other surnames, of what nature soever (cognomina, for example, de Matha, a Cruce, Benitius, Nonnatus, Quintu—and patria, for instance, de Cortona, de Paula, Nepomucenus, with the exception of Maria Magdalena), must be omitted, as they are necessary only for us to distinguish the saints one from another. The name rex and regina may be added, but not of the kingdom over which the saints have reigned (for example, Danorum, Scotiae). (S. R. C. 22. Dec. 1629; 23. Jun. 1736. Cfr. Guyet. Heortol. 1. 3, c. 2, q. 5. Cavalieri, Oper. liturg. t. II, c. 38. Beleth, Ration, c. 54). [1]

It is true that Vidua or Widow is not a title of honor, since literally it only means that a wife has outlasted her husband, and there is no special honor in that—unlike being a martyr, a confessor, or a virgin, which is more intentional. Nevertheless, the Divine Office for a Widow attributes many of the same virtues to a widow as to a virgin, and it makes sense to honor widowhood even if, paradoxically, it is not a title of honor. St. Paul writes:

Honour widows, that are widows indeed. But if any widow have children, or grandchildren, let her learn first to govern her own house, and to make a return of duty to her parents: for this is acceptable before God. But she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, let her trust in God, and continue in supplications and prayers night and day. (1 Tim. 5,3-5)

Needless to say, many holy women used their desolation in widowhood as an opportunity for sanctification, women such as Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, who was betrayed by her husband’s family after his death and cast into poverty.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

But it is the eschewal of surnames that caught my eye and the reasons for it.

Collects are addressed to God, and although we are allowed to eavesdrop on the conversation, they do not primarily have us in mind as the audience. Therefore, no concession is made to distinguish saints of the same name for our sake. We would like to distinguish between Thomas the Apostle, Thomas a Becket, Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas More, but God needs no such reminders. Whence they came  matters little; whither they are going matters a great deal.

Gihr also distinguishes between cognomina and patria—surnames and names designating a person’s place of origin. Saint Thomas Aquinas’ last name is not Aquinas: he is Thomas de Aquino, the son of a count from the Aquino region of Italy. Either way, it is irrelevant sub specie aeternitatis.

St Thomas Aquinas, 1512/16, by Giovanni Battista Bertucci

And so too are the realms over which saintly kings and queens presided. It is striking that rex and regina appear in the hagiographical taxonomy of the liturgy at all, for no other non-clerical offices or occupations are so allowed, unless one counts Saint Joseph the Worker. No doubt the usage is an acknowledgment of the anointed status of Catholic monarchs, which gives them a quasi-sacred rank. But perhaps it is also a mild declaration of surprise that heads of state, who must often make ugly and muddily moral decisions (like King David), can still become holy. And yet, the kingdoms over which they reigned is of little consequence. We do not care that they advanced the welfare of this or that earthly realm (sometimes, no doubt, to the detriment of other Catholic nations), but that they advanced the Kingdom of God as best they could within the circumstances with which they were given. Let others praise the worldly advancement of their secular accomplishments; we, the mystical Body of Christ, only remember their heavenly assets. And to the lesser goods in this case, we say, nec nominetur.

St. Louis IX, King of...It doesn’t matter

Notes

[1] Rev. Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained (Herder, 1902), footnote 3, p. 423.

[2] Which I translate as: “The names Chrysostom [‘Golden Mouth’] et Chrysologus [‘Golden-Worded’] are really adjectives, and they designate either the eloquence or the power and effectiveness of Divine speech communicated by the Saints as if it were grafted on by a supernatural power.”

A Tale of Two Collects: Different Worldviews in Old and New Prayers

Every year, as we come to the feast of St. Albert the Great on November 15, I am struck again by the enormous difference in theology between the traditional Collect for his feast (as found in MR 1962) and the rewritten Collect published in the Missal of Paul VI. One can see this particular pair as emblematic of a shift from one understanding of Christianity to another.

The old collect, translated literally, reads thus:

O God, who didst make blessed Albert, Thy bishop and Doctor, great by his bringing human wisdom into captivity to divine faith: grant us, we beseech Thee, so to adhere to the footsteps of his magisterium, that we may enjoy perfect light in heaven.[1]

The new collect, as given in the current edition of the modern Roman Rite, reads:

O God, who made the Bishop Saint Albert great by his joining of human wisdom to divine faith, grant, we pray, that we may so adhere to the truths he taught, that through progress in learning, we may come to a deeper knowledge and love of you.[2]

In the former prayer, God makes Albert great because he brought human wisdom into captivity to divine faith (in humana sapientia divinae fidei subjicienda). The prayer echoes St. Paul writing to the Corinthians about the destruction of worldly wisdom: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels, and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:4–5). It is also reminiscent of the verse from the Psalms: “Thou didst ascend the high mount, leading captives in thy train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there” (Psa 67:19 [68:18]).

The perspective is not that human wisdom is bad, but that it is likely to be rebellious if not subordinated to divine faith, and that it will “come into its own” when the pride with which it is pursued is crushed and the knowledge is made, to so speak, obedient unto death, as was Christ in His humanity. There has to be a certain mortification and re-alignment of human wisdom if it is to be in harmony with the ineffable mysteries of God and a tool of sanctification. This is why the collect concludes on a note of ascension, with the enjoyment of perfect light in heaven: that is where the very font of truth and all wisdom is perfectly found, and it must be the measure of all we do in this earthly pilgrimage. We ask to be guided by Albert’s teaching because “our conversation is in heaven” (Phil 3:20). We cannot seek earthly knowledge for its own sake: “If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Col 3:1). In this collect, the notes of asceticism and mysticism are strongly sounded.

In the latter prayer, however, all of these elements have been deliberately muted. Here, God is said to have made Albert great because he joined human wisdom to divine faith (componenda). The two are placed parallel to each other, as if two links in a chain, or two peas in a pod, or two doughty comrades in arms. No hierarchy, no dependency, no subordination is expressed; no mistrust of wayward human thought, no necessity of bringing the worldly into subjection to the heavenly, no implicit asceticism. Here, reason is not governed by faith and destined to a goal beyond itself, but the two are like Church and State according to modern liberalism.

Not surprisingly, what we are said to gain through adhering to the truths he taught is not the ascetical-mystical ascent to heavenly light which casts all earthly knowledge into the right (finite) perspective, but “a deeper knowledge and love of you”—the kind of inspiring sentiment one will find on the higher-priced Hallmark cards. Shifting the focus away from Albertus Magnus as a great philosopher and theologian of the conquest of knowledge for celestial beatitude, the prayer turns platitudinous by invoking “love” in the pairing “knowledge and love.” No one would doubt that a canonized saint lived a life of heroic charity; but that is generic and beside the point when commemorating this particular saint. What he exemplifies in the Mystical Body is exactly what the old prayer conveyed and the new one nearly contradicts.

To underline the this-worldliness of the paradigm at play, we note that the means suggested to us for arriving at this deeper knowledge and love is none other than — you guessed it! — “progress in learning” (scientiarum progressus). Homage is thus paid to the modern ideal par excellence, that of Progress, which we might interpret as evolution, the leitmotif of all modern thought. Might this be the progress by which we modern Christians have learned to set aside the sixth commandment, which we now understand to be more than ordinary people can reasonably bear? Or the progress by which we have become so superior to our bloodthirsty ancestors that we must give an utterly novel interpretation to the fifth commandment?

The contrast between the two collects is extremely telling. It tells of a deliberate shift from a hierarchical worldview rooted in faith and aspiring to the beatific vision, to a humanistic worldview of scientific progress through diverse “sources” of knowledge that is meant, in an unspecified way, to deepen our knowledge and love of God.

As Lauren Pristas and others have shown, this shift in attitude towards or evaluation of worldly realities is programmatically present in the heavily-redacted Collects of the Missal of Paul VI when compared with their predecessors in the Missal of the usus antiquior. The number of examples is vast; in order to limit myself, I have chosen to look at a one-month (!) period of the liturgical year, namely, September 18 to October 19. The biblical, patristic, and medieval Christian assessment of terrena or earthly things as we find it in the old collect of St. Albert appears again and again.

For the traditional feast of St. Joseph of Cupertino on September 18 — suppressed in the Novus Ordo calendar — the Church prays, with a lovely reference to the saint’s famous levitations:

O God, who hast ordained that Thine only-begotten Son when lifted up from the earth should draw all things to Himself: mercifully grant through the merits and example of Thy seraphic Confessor Joseph, that we may be lifted up above all earthly desires and be found worth to come unto Him: Who liveth and reigneth…

Or, for St. Francis of Assisi on October 4:

O God, who, through the merits of blessed Francis, didst give increase to Thy Church by enriching her with new offspring: grant us that following his example we may despise earthly goods and ever be glad to partake of Thy heavenly gifts.[3]

(Here, for comparison’s sake, is how the new Collect for Francis reads: “O God, by whose gift Saint Francis was conformed to Christ in poverty and humility, grant that, by walking in Francis’ footsteps, we may follow your Son, and, through joyful charity, come to be united with you.”)

Or, for the commemoration on October 9 of the martyrs SS. Denis, Rusticus, and Eleutherius — likewise suppressed on the new calendar:

O God, who this day didst strengthen blessed Denis Thy martyr and Bishop with fortitude in suffering, and didst associate Rusticus and Eleutherius with him in preaching Thy glory to the heathen: grant, we beseech Thee, that following their example we may for love of Thee despise worldly success and may not fear worldly misfortune [pro amore tuo prospera mundi despicere, et nulla ejus adversa formidare].

On October 10, the feast of St. Francis Borgia, also suppressed in the Novus Ordo, the traditional liturgy prays:

O Lord Jesus Christ, who art the model of true humility and its reward: we beseech Thee, that as blessed Francis took Thee as model in contemning worldly honors and Thou hast glorified him, so Thou wouldst associate us with him both in the contempt and in the glory: Who livest and reignest…

On October 16, the feast of St. Hedwig — a saint who miraculously stayed on the modern calendar — we find this potent Collect in the usus antiquior:

O God, who didst teach blessed Hedwig to renounce the pomps of this world, that, with her whole heart, she might follow the humble way of Thy cross: grant that, through her merits and example, we may learn to trample under foot the perishable delights of this world, and by cleaving to Thy cross, surmount all obstacles: Who livest and reignest…

(The new missal’s collect for St. Hedwig is thin gruel: “Grant, we pray, almighty God, that the revered intercession of Saint Hedwig may bring us heavenly aid, just as her wonderful life is an example of humility for all.”)

The special postcommunion for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s feast in the usus antiquior (October 17) includes the petition: “make us renounce the proud vanities of the world.” Nothing like this is found in the new Missal. (In fact, the word “vanity” or “vanities” never appears in the current altar missal.)

The old collect for St. Luke (October 18) focuses on mortification:

Let holy Luke, Thine Evangelist, we beseech Thee, O Lord, intercede for us, who for the glory of Thy name ever bore in his body the mortification of the Cross.

The new collect, although more customized to St. Luke,[3] drops all reference to asceticism, in keeping with the prevailing bias Pristas and others have documented.

Lastly, on October 19, in celebrating the triumph of St. Peter of Alcantara (also removed from the new calendar), the Church in her traditional liturgy prays:

O God, who didst vouchsafe to ennoble blessed Peter, Thy Confessor, by gifts of marvellous penance and highest contemplation: grant, we beseech Thee, that by his merits pleading for us, we may so mortify the flesh as the more easily to take hold of the things of heaven.

All of the above, mind you, are Collects from a one-month period, namely, September 18 to October 19. Do we detect a pattern? Yes, without a doubt. The dogmatic and disciplinary freight of the lex orandi is unmistakable. The liturgy is asking the Lord for a specific attitude of contemptus mundi, which St. Albert all the more impressively illustrates precisely because he is a scholar, author, scientist, naturalist, and man of affairs who has nevertheless held firm to the primacy of the kingdom of heaven. Century after century, collect after collect, the liturgy lucidly expressed and tirelessly inculcated this lofty vision of man’s vocation, the finality of the celestial fatherland, and the relativity of earthly affairs — until the 1960s, when Progress built a home for itself in a Church that had once anathematized the statement: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”[4]

“How’s that dangerous liaison with Progress been working out for you?,” asks Historical Consciousness.

St. Albert the Great — great because you subordinated the human to the divine, the temporal to the eternal, the natural to the supernatural, the secular to the sacred, the earthly to the heavenly — pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

NOTES

[1] Deus, qui beatum Albertum Pontificem tuum atque Doctorem, in humana sapientia divinae fidei subjicienda magnum effecisti: da nobis, quaesumus, ita ejus magisterii inhaerere vestigiis, ut luce perfecta fruamur in coelis.
[2] Deus, qui beátum Albértum epíscopum in humána sapiéntia cum divína fide componénda magnum effecísti, da nobis, quǽsumus, ita eius magistérii inhærére doctrínis, ut per scientiárum progréssus ad profundiórem tui cognitiónem et amórem perveniámus.
[3] Lord God, who chose Saint Luke to reveal by his preaching and writings the mystery of your love for the poor, grant that those who already glory in your name may persevere as one heart and one soul and that all nations may merit to see your salvation.
[4] Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, n. 80, promulgated with the encyclical Quanta Cura on December 8, 1864.

Photos courtesy of Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

The Collects of Advent: Who is Being Addressed, and What Difference Does It Make?

Some time ago, when my duties with two different choirs had me attending both the traditional and post-Conciliar rites, I noticed a striking difference in content and tone in the Advent Collects of the two rites, so I decided to look into the contrast between the totality of their Advent Collects. [1]

In the traditional rite, the Collects of the first, third, and fourth Sundays of Advent address the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity:

Stir up Thy power, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come: that from the threatening dangers of our sins we may deserve to be rescued by Thy protection, and to be saved by Thy deliverance: Who livest and reignest with God the Father… (Collect, Sunday I, MR 1962)

Incline Thine ear, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to our petitions: and, by the grace of Thy visitation, enlighten the darkness of our minds: Who livest and reignest with God the Father… (Collect, Sunday III, MR 1962)

Stir up Thy power, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come, and with great might succour us: that by the help of Thy grace that which is hindered by our sins may be hastened by Thy merciful forgiveness: Who livest and reignest with God the Father… (Collect, Sunday IV, MR 1962)

On the Second Sunday, the Father is addressed:

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of Thine only-begotten Son: that through His coming we may deserve to serve Thee with purified minds: Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost… (Collect, Sunday II, MR 1962)

If we look at the Ember days, the picture is more complex. Ember Wednesday’s first Collect addresses the Father (“Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God … through our Lord”) while its second Collect addresses the Son (“Hasten, we beseech Thee, O Lord, tarry not”). Ember Saturday’s six different Collects address the Father four times — namely, the second through the fifth Collects — but the first and last are to the Son:

O God, who seest that we are afflicted because of our iniquity, mercifully grant that we may be comforted by Thy visitation. Who livest and reignest with God the Father… (Ember Saturday, first Collect, MR 1962)

Mercifully hear, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the prayers of Thy people: that we who are justly afflicted for our sins may be comforted by the visitation of Thy loving kindness: Who livest and reignest with God the Father… (Ember Saturday, last [sixth] Collect, MR 1962)

The Collect on Ember Friday likewise addresses the Son:

Stir up Thy might, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come: that they who trust in Thy loving kindness may be the more speedily freed from all adversity: Who livest and reignest with God the Father… (Ember Friday, MR 1962)

Apart from special Collects for certain feast days (e.g., the Immaculate Conception), these are the only Collects found in the traditional Roman Missal for the Advent season as such (and, importantly, they are never omitted, because even on feasts, the Advent feria is always commemorated). Therefore the missal furnishes a total of 7 distinct collects addressed to the Son, and 6 to the Father, in the following pattern:

          First Sunday – SON
          Second Sunday – FATHER
          Third Sunday – SON
          Ember Wednesday – FATHER, SON
          Ember Friday – SON
          Ember Saturday – SON, FATHER, FATHER, FATHER, FATHER, SON
          Fourth Sunday – SON

Going out on an allegorical limb with my betters, such as William Durandus, I would note that, according to the Fathers of the Church, the number 6 represents creation, because of the 6 days in Genesis, and because 6 is one of those rare numbers whose component parts, 1, 2, and 3, are equal whether they are added (1+2+3) or multipled (1x2x3), suggesting the relative integrity and solidity of the created order: “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” At the same time, six falls one short of the number seven, the number of perfection and of rest, indicating that creation, particularly the rational creature, is incomplete until it rests in God — and that, after the fall of Adam, it is groaning for redemption from sin. Jesus Christ, in other words, is the One who, “added” to creation, brings it to its perfection and ultimate rest in the beatific vision. Thus, a group of six Collects for the Father, to whom is appropriated the power of creating the universe, and a group of seven collects for the Son, to whom is appropriated the wisdom and mercy of redemption, appears beautifully fitting.

In the post-Conciliar redaction, on the other hand, many of the ancient Advent Collects were scrapped or reconfigured, and nearly all of the Collects were forced into the Patricentric mold so favored by reformers in the grip of archaeologism or antiquarianism, who removed prayers directed to the Son whenever and wherever possible. [2] We have this new series of Sunday Collects, none of which addresses the Son:

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ… (Sunday I, Collect, MR 1970/2002)

Almighty and merciful God, may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste to meet your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to his company. Who lives and reigns with you… (Sunday II, Collect, MR 1970/2002)

O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so great a salvation and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing. Through our Lord Jesus Christ… (Sunday III, Collect, MR 1970/2002)

Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection. Who lives and reigns with you… (Sunday IV, Collect, MR 1970/2002) [3]

The ferial Collects added to the new missal also follow the same subordinating pattern, with only two exceptions addressed to the Second Person: Friday of the first week uses the same prayer as the first Sunday of Advent in MR 1962, and the Collect of the morning Mass on December 24 uses a version of the second collect for Ember Wednesday in MR 1962. Because there is a different Collect every day in the MR 1970/2002, while the MR 1962 uses certain prayers again and again, a little math will give us telling results. Of all the Advent Collects in the usus recentior, 27 are addressed to the Father, and only 2 to the Son. During the same season, the usus antiquior will have prayed Collects addressed to the Son as God 21 times, and to the Father 12 times.

What do we make of this difference?

These Christocentric Collects of the usus antiquior, both in their addressee and in their repetition, emphasize the urgency of the Church’s cry during the Advent season, the cry of all mankind and of all creation longing for its very Lord to come, by an ineffable miracle, into its bosom, to heal it and elevate it from within: VENI, DOMINE — Come, Lord Jesus, do not delay. Maranatha. Rise up and save a fallen race. Come to rescue us from our misery and sin. We are calling out to the Messiah, the Christ of Israel, who has already come to earth, whom we wish to invite again into our hearts, and who will return to judge the living and the dead. Advent is the season of expecting the long-awaited Redeemer and Savior, and we, in our holy impatience, cannot resist calling out to Him. EXCITA, we boldly say, over and over: Stir up Thy power and come, do not delay, do not be silent, do not be invisible, do not leave us to our wretchedness. O Word, eternal Life, take on flesh and touch us with Thy flesh. Only Holy Mother Church, filled with the Spirit of God, could dare to pray thus, placing these words on the lips of our ancestors and of so many saints who worshiped with the traditional Roman Rite.

In short, the usus antiquior missal presents us with a spirituality of Advent that is distinctive and fitting to it, whereas the usus recentior missal conforms its prayers to a generic rule prescribed by academic liturgists. The old Collects are highly expressive, emotionally charged, as of the longing of the bride for her Bridegroom, to whom she sings and whispers directly. In her passionate love she is more caught up in beseeching Him whose face she longs to see than in politely asking His Father to send Him when the time is right (though, of course, with her gentle courtesy, she also speaks humbly to His Father, since the two are inseparable in their Godhead). It is the fervor of the Song of Songs carried over into liturgical prayer. [4]

Modern liturgists approach liturgy as if it were an a priori science: you start with principles and deduce consequences. Therefore you have to change around the Collects (for instance) if they don’t conform to your particular set of principles. In reality, liturgy is thoroughly a posteriori: it is an historical testament to which countless individuals contributed, a massive organic complexus of particulars that could have been otherwise but are the way they are, a river running down the ages into which innumerable streams have flowed. Thus, we must look to the liturgy as it is and seek to understand why it unfolded in this manner, rather than doing violence to it by forcing it to embody one’s mental presuppositions.

The change to the Advent Collects is a good example of the cold rationalism of the reformers. It would be one thing if a liturgical rite had always addressed prayers to the Father on a certain feast or in a certain season. No one, obviously, is saying there is anything wrong with doing that, for it is the customary mode of address in all historic missals. But it is quite another thing if one’s actual liturgy for many centuries, perhaps for as long as we have records (and, moreover, the liturgy that one had prayed oneself!) always prayed to the Son on certain days, marking them out as special and deserving of a special devotion to the Lamb of God. To care little or nothing about the fact that, by a series of committee decisions, one would be cutting out and ceasing to utter those hallowed prayers to Our Lord in the weeks running up to His Nativity shows the extent to which the liturgy, for these men, must have already ceased to be something deeply felt and lived. It had become, instead, the prey and sport of their theories of improvement, and in this sense, something believed to be inferior to their wills and intellects. This is perhaps the worst indictment of their entire modus operandi: that prayers for which Catholics would in former ages have been prepared to lay down their lives were treated as so many raw ingredients to be chopped and mixed in an industrial kitchen.

Indeed, it is more than a little ironic that the Epistle for the Fourth Sunday of Advent in the traditional Roman Rite is 1 Corinthians 4, 1-5, wherein St. Paul says, in words that are repeated four times in the Divine Office:

Brethren: Let a man so account us, as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Now here it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful/trustworthy.

St. Paul is telling us that the minister of Christ, the steward of His mysteries, is required to be faithful to that which he is dispensing or administering, namely, the sacraments, the liturgy, the heritage he receives from another, in regard to which he is not a master but a servant. Of course, this reading, too, disappeared from Advent in the sack of the Roman Rite, no doubt because it was deemed seasonally inappropriate.

These final days of Advent, when we address the Son of God in the great “O Antiphons” at Vespers, let us cherish the many subtle and obvious blessings He has given to us through the traditional liturgy. Let us thank Him for the countless ways it forms and nourishes our souls in the school of the Lord’s service. And let us seek its return on the widest possible scale to churches everywhere. For this intention, too, we pray to our Sovereign King and Eternal High Priest: Excita, quaesumus, Domine, potentiam tuam, et veni.

NOTES

[1] Lauren Pristas is naturally the preeminent scholar on all such questions. See chapter 3 of her The Collects of the Roman Missals.

[2] I discuss the many instances of this subordinating tendency and their implications in chapter 6 of my book Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis.

[3] I am aware that much of the language in these prayers is drawn from historical sources, but their placement and arrangement here, and the corresponding displacement of the customary prayers, is, for the Roman Rite, an innovation pure and simple.

[4] Readings and antiphons from the Song of Songs are found much more often in the traditional Missal and Divine Office than in the Novus Ordo books, but to explore the reasons behind that anti-medieval shift would require a separate article.

In Defense of Multiple Orations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The prayers translated below are found on the left page

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

APPENDIX

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

IX. On Collects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NOTES

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

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

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The Prayers of the Season after Pentecost

Since Dr Foley has been walking us through the collects of the season after Pentecost in his Lost in Translation series, I thought I would share some research which I have been doing on them. This is similar to what I did last year with the Sunday Gospels and Epistles of the same season, and with similar results. The earliest sources show a system which is very disorganized, but unmistakably the ancestor of the traditional Roman Rite as we know it today; the material they contain is very quickly organized into something which is almost identical to what we find in the Missal of St Pius V.

Folio 106v of the Gellone Sacramentary. ca 780-800 AD, with the Mass prayers of the current liturgical week assigned to the “14th Sunday after Pentecost”, where the Missal of St Pius V has them on the 13th Sunday. In sacramentaries of the Gelasian type, most Masses, but not all, have two collects; the precise reason for this, and for the fact that many Masses have one, and some have three, is a subject of debate. In the Gregorian Sacramentary, they are reduced to one, and it is almost always the first one that is kept. The Mass also has its own Preface, as was generally the case in the Roman Rite until the end of the 11th century.

The very earliest collection of Roman Mass prayers is the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, a document preserved in a single mutilated manuscript in the library of the cathedral chapter of Verona. The terms “Leonine” and “Sacramentary” are both misnomers. It is not actually a sacramentary, the ancient predecessor of the missal which contains only the priest’s parts of the Mass, namely, the prayers, prefaces and Canon. It is rather a collection of the texts of a large number of “libelli missarum”, small booklets which contained the prayers and prefaces of Masses for specific occasions; it was privately complied in Rome itself around the mid-6th century. Its traditional name “Leonine”, in reference to Pope St Leo I, is no more than a fancy of its discoverer, Fr Giuseppe Bianchini (1704-64), a canon of Verona who later joined the Roman Oratory, and in his time, a well-respected scholar of Christian antiquity.

Four of the Collects of the Sundays after Pentecost in the Roman Missal are found within the Leonine Sacramentary, those of 4th, 8th, 12th and 13th Sundays. It should be noted that the Leonine does not contain any Masses specifically assigned to Sundays, apart from Pentecost itself.

The oldest proper sacramentary, known as the Old Gelasian Sacramentary, is preserved in a single manuscript now in the Vatican Library (Reginensis 316); the book itself dates to about 750AD, but its contents are to be dated about 50 years earlier. The attribution of the type of liturgical book it represents to Pope St Gelasius I (492-6) apparently dates to the 9th century, but rests on no known basis in fact. It is divided into three books, the first of which covers the liturgical year from Christmas Eve to the Octave of Pentecost, with various baptismal rites, blessings and ordinations, and the second the feasts of the Saints. The third book begins with 16 Masses for Sundays, followed by the Canon, daily Masses, votive Masses, and various blessings.

The 16 Sundays Masses at the beginning of the third book are not labelled “after Pentecost”, but their placement and the subsequent use of the material which they contain leave no room for doubt that they were in fact said in that period. (The time after Pentecost ranges from 23 to 28 Sundays in length, but there is nothing in the book itself that explains how the material was arranged relative to this difference.) Of the twenty-four Collects for the Sundays after Pentecost in the Missal of St Pius V, fifteen are found in this group, and two others in Old Gelasian Masses of Eastertide. Relative to each other, the fifteen are said in the same sequential order as in the Missal of St Pius V, and in most cases, they are said with the same Secret and Post-Communion as in the Missal of St Pius V.

By the later part of the 8th century, the gaps in the liturgical year in the Old Gelasian had been filled in, as we find in the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780-800, which has 26 Sundays after Pentecost. All twenty-four of the Collects for the Sundays after Pentecost in the Missal of St Pius V appear within it, and in every case, with the same Secret and Post-Communion as in the Missal of St Pius V. The order in which these Masses are arranged is also mostly the same, but not exactly so, and two of the Gellone Masses do not appear in the Missal of St Pius V. This same material then passes into the Gregorian Sacramentary, the redaction of the Roman Mass which carries over through the Middle Ages and into modern times, with almost complete unformity. [note]

The 2002 edition of the post-Conciliar Missal includes all twenty-four of the traditional Collects for the Sundays after Pentecost, although two of them appear in an edited form, and some others with minor variations. (As I have noted before, at least one of these was not in the original edition, but subsequently restored.) Fourteen have been retained on the Sundays which are now called “per annum” or “ of ordinary time.” Six have been moved into Lent, one of which is no longer said as a Collect, but rather as the optional “prayer over the people” at the end of Mass. One is used for a votive Mass, one as a concluding prayer for the Prayers of the Faithful, and two others as optional “prayers over the people.” Not one of them is any longer said with the Secret and Post-Communion that are joined to it in the Gellone and Gregorian Sacramentaries; although many of these latters prayers are retained in the new Missal, not a single one of the Masses after Pentecost remains intact.

[note] The most common variation in the Middle Ages was as follows. In the tradition represented by the Missal of St Pius V, there was originally no Trinity Sunday or octave day of Pentecost. The sequence of Sundays “after Pentecost” therefore began right away on the first Sunday after Pentecost, starting with the Mass whose Collect begins “Deus in te sperantium fortitudo.” In the north of Europe, however, Pentecost had a proper octave day, and the sequence of Sundays “after Pentecost” therefore began a week later; every Mass formula was therefore bumped forward a week, but the group of Mass formulae for these Sundays continued to be said in the same sequential order.

The Minor Options of the Old Rite and How They Avoid “Optionitis”

The most frequently repeated criticism of the new CDF decrees that allow priests ad libitum use (albeit under clear conditions) of new prefaces and the feasts of saints canonized after 1960 has been that the decrees introduce or risk introducing into the celebration of the usus antiquior an unwelcome and indeed uncharacteristic spirit of “optionitis.” Critics will say that the classical Roman rite is known and loved for its objectivity, stability, and fixity — these being the qualities of any perfected liturgical tradition — and that the clergy should not have options at their disposal.

While I agree that the classical rite has these desirable qualities, I think we should be careful not to exaggerate our case by speaking as if options do not have a longstanding place within it — a highly circumscribed place, to be sure, and one that does not threaten the integrity and “predictability” of the rite, but still, at the end of the day, options.

I will look at several examples: alternative readings; votive Masses and Masses pro aliquibus locis; multiple orations; some minor matters; and, paraliturgically, the style of vestments.

Alternative Readings

Unlike the new lectionary, the old lectionary, built into the missal, almost never gives an option as to what reading is to be used on any given day or for any given Mass formulary. However, there are a few instances in the Commons of “alternative readings.” For example:

• in the Mass Me exspectaverunt for Virgin Martyrs, the Gospel is Mt 13:44–52 or Mt 19:3–12;
• in the Mass In medio ecclesiae for Doctors, the Epistle is 2 Tm 4:1–8 or Ecc 39:6–14;
• in the Mass Salus autem for several martyrs, the Gospel is Lk 12:1–8 or Mt 24:3–13.

It gets really interesting with the Mass Laetabitur justus for a martyr not a bishop, where three epistles are listed: 2 Tim 2:8–10 and 3:10–12; Jas 1:2–12; and 1 Pet 4:13–19, as well as two Gospels: Mt 10:26–32 and Jn 12:24–26.

There is a rubric in the Commons section of the Missal — first appearing, I think, in the 1920 edition — that states that the Epistles and Gospels printed within one of the Commons can be used ad libitum for the Mass of a Saint, unless the Mass formulary directs otherwise. In the Sanctorale, there is either the minimal instruction to follow the Common or, more rarely, additional directions to use a specific Gospel. A rubrical expert I consulted had never seen diocesan ordines specifying these in any way; he has a collection of about 50 which, though differing greatly in style and content, make no reference to the choice of pericopes where several are given. We should see this as a small example of liberty within the otherwise (blessedly) monolithic old missal.

In my admittedly limited experience over the past few decades, priests rarely avail themselves of these alternative readings. It seems they follow the principle articulated by a friend of mine: “Whatever text will be the least trouble to read is the one that is likely to be read.” (He initially came up with this principle to explain why, with the new lectionary, priests so rarely break out of the mold of the lectio continua that plods along from day to day, even though for almost any of the saints they could choose a more appropriate reading if they wished.) Yet hand missals always print these alternative readings right alongside the other readings for the Common, so it is hard to see why they should not be used, at least occasionally. This is a case where admirable Scripture readings already given in the old missal are being neglected.

Votive Masses and Missae pro aliquibus locis

We take it for granted that any time there is a feria, when the Mass of the preceding Sunday could be said again, a priest is also free to make a choice of any of the Votive Masses contained in the Missal. There is a longstanding custom to use the Mass of the Most Holy Trinity on Monday; that of the Holy Angels on Tuesday; that of St. Joseph, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, or All Holy Apostles on Wednesday; that of the Holy Ghost, the Blessed Sacrament, or Jesus Christ Eternal High Priest on Thursday; that of the Holy Cross or of the Passion of Our Lord on Friday; and that of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday — but this is merely a custom and does not have any obliging force.

Beyond these popular Votive Masses are a host of others that some priests use quite regularly and others seem strangely unfamiliar with or uninterested in: Mass for the Sick (I have never actually been present when this formulary has been used!); Mass for the Propagation of the Faith (interestingly, this one has an alternative Epistle, 1 Tim 2:1–7; the Epistle listed first is Ecclus 36:1–10, 17–19); Mass Against the Heathen; Mass for the Removal of Schism; Mass in Time of War; Mass for Peace; Mass for Deliverance from Mortality or in Time of Pestilence; Mass of Thanksgiving; Mass for the Forgiveness of Sins; Mass for Pilgrims and Travellers; Mass for Any Necessity; Mass for a Happy Death. (I would add that when a priest is going to celebrate with one of these formularies, he should somehow announce it to the people, either in the bulletin if he has decided it in advance, or on a sheet posted near the inside church door, or in a brief mention after emerging from the sacristy and before starting the prayers at the foot of the altar.)

Moreover, altar missals usually feature a section towards the back called Missae pro aliquibus locis, Masses for certain places. Like Votive Masses, these too may be chosen under certain conditions. My 1947 Benziger altar missal, with a commendatory letter signed by Cardinal Spellman, has quite a substantive “M.P.A.L.” section: page (131) to page (196). It includes such worthy feasts as The Translation of the Holy House of the Blessed Virgin Mary on December 10, the Expectation of Our Lady on December 18, the Espousal of the Blessed Virgin and St Joseph on January 23, the Flight of Our Lord Jesus Christ into Egypt on February 17, the Feast of the Prayer of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Tuesday after Septuagesima, and many others.

All of these feasts share in common the trait that they are not normally prescribed but allowed to be used when there is no other impediment. Therefore, they must be chosen; they are, in that sense, options.

Multiple Orations

One of the worst casualties of the 1960 rubrical revisions was the loss of multiple orations (collects, secrets, and postcommunions) at Mass and the Divine Office. This runs contrary to the Roman tradition in the second millennium, when multiple orations were a universal feature.

The history of the question of how many orations were allowed is quite complex and I intend to write more about it another time. Here it suffices to speak of the period after 1570, when it was normal for the priest to say the oration of the day, followed sometimes by a commemoration of a saint, other times by a required seasonal oration or required prayer (oratio imperata), and concluding with a third oration at his choice (ad libitum eligenda). There is a magnificent corpus of orations printed in the Tridentine Missal for precisely this reason, so few of which have remained in use after the draconian limitations imposed by the Roncallian rubrical reform.

We can see here, once again, that Holy Mother Church recognized a certain “ordered liberty” on the part of the celebrant, who was thus able to pray liturgically for his own needs, for those of the local community, or for those of the larger world.

Minor Matters

Five other areas in which a choice is required are:

1. Whether to precede the Sunday High Mass with the Asperges, or to start with the entrance procession accompanied by the Introit antiphon;

2. Whether to remain standing or to sit down during the Kyrie, the Gloria, and the Credo;

3. Which tone to use for the orations, readings, and Preface;

4. Whether or not to use incense at a Missa cantata;

5. Whether to observe an “external solemnity” for Corpus Christi and/or the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to enable the maximum number of faithful to participate in the Procession for the one, and devotions for the other. It is important to recognize that here we are looking not as an obligatory transferral, where the feast is simply packed up and moved — an aberration possible only in the Novus Ordo — but at a separate additional celebration of some feast, which has already been celebrated on the correct day.

It is true that the foregoing choices are limited and the things being chosen are entirely defined (no room for creativity or extemporization). Nevertheless, they constitute options.

Gothic vestments

“Roman” vestments

Style of Vestments

While this final example does not concern something in the liturgical rite as such but only something associated with it, it is (oddly) one of the most controversial among traditionalists: I refer to the simple fact that the celebrant has, in theory, the option of wearing either Gothic vestments or Roman vestments. (I say “in theory” because not every sacristy is equipped with both kinds.)

As far as I know, while Eastern Christian vestments vary a great deal in quality of material and ornamentation, they do not vary as regards the fundamental design: there are not radically different “styles.” In the Western tradition, on the other hand, the original vestments received their aesthetic perfection in the so-called Gothic period, but, over the course of the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation, a strikingly different style emerged, known (more or less accurately) as the Roman style. The difference between a Gothic conical chasuble and a Roman “fiddleback” chasuble could not be more pronounced.

Some, especially in the Liturgical Movement which first sipped the chalice of medieval romanticism before drowning in the cup of modern rationalism, insisted that the Roman style was an outrageous corruption; for others of a reactionary bent, it has become a shibboleth of Tridentine identity. One still occasionally hears enthusiasts explaining to their neighbors at the coffee hour (at least back when such things existed) that “at the Novus Ordo the priest wears this full draping kind of chasuble, but at the Latin Mass he wears the old-fashioned Roman fiddleback.” If I overhear something like that, I share with them photographs of glorious traditional Masses from Australia, where Gothic is practically the only thing in existence, whether architecturally or vesturally.

Personally I think there is room for both styles. Noble vestments have been created along the entire spectrum; aesthetic preferences are not only allowed but inevitable. Again, to my knowledge, the Church has never specified that one or another style of vestments must be used, as long as every essential piece is present (including the amice and maniple); she allows an ordered liberty of choice.

St Thomas Aquinas: fittingly honored on March 7, even in Lent

Concluding Thoughts

The decree Cum Sanctissima permits, among other things, the observance of saints during Lent whose feasts were always impeded and reduced to commemorations by the 1960 code of rubrics’ insistence on privileging every feria of Lent. No one disputes that the Lenten ferias are absolutely wonderful, and they deserve their prominence. But it was poor thinking that allowed for no flexibility with regard to celebrating, even during Lent, feasts of saints who enjoy a particular prominence in this or that community. Surely for Catholic schools, St. Thomas Aquinas may get his full due on March 7; surely for seminaries and religious communities, St. Gregory the Great on March 12; surely for the Irish, St. Patrick on March 17. The CDF decree restores a reasonable flexibility, with the feria always commemorated. (The Novus Ordo runs into intractable difficulties because it has abandoned the wisdom of commemorations: when two things conflict, both should somehow be liturgically present, rather than one of them simply being dumped. The same problem, it must be admitted, already affects the 1962 missal to some extent — yet another reason to return to the 1920 editio typica.)

In regard to the foregoing examples, I would say that clergy and laity are so accustomed to the choices involved that perhaps they do not even notice that a choice is involved. What I mean is that we expect a priest to have the freedom to choose a Votive Mass on a feria, and everything else about the Mass is so predictable that it all seems inevitable, but a major choice was made beforehand to do the Votive instead of repeating the prior Sunday.

Not every choice need be construed as, or need have the psychological and pastoral effect of, the deservedly decried optionitis of the Novus Ordo. In the Tridentine rite, all options are safely folded within the dominating unity of its architecture and the exacting prescriptions of its rubrics, and therefore acquire the same rituality. In the Novus Ordo, in stark contrast, the options are so numerous, and concern such basic elements of the liturgy — its opening rite and penitential rite, the readings of the day vs. those of the Commons, whether the offertory is said aloud or silently, which Eucharistic prayer to use (!), what and when to sing, etc. etc. — that the rite itself can barely hold on to its rituality and becomes, in a sense, a giant Worship Option. This, it seems to me, is the fundamental difference between the usus antiquior, even with the new options placed at its disposal, and the usus recentior.

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