Why at a Nuptial Mass the Couple May, and Should, Kneel Inside the Sanctuary

Now that we are on the threshold of peak wedding season, it is opportune to publish the following letter, which makes a case for the restoration of a longstanding traditional practice that, in the confusion of recent decades, has fallen by the wayside but deserves to be recovered. We publish it here with minor edits to make it more universal than its original epistolary form. – PAK

Dear Reverend Fathers,

Allow me to present a case to allow spouses at their wedding to make their vows and hear Mass in the sanctuary, in keeping with the immemorial English Catholic custom. This practice, rooted in the Sarum and Gallican traditions, was preserved in English-speaking lands long after Trent and was in continuous use until recently. In just a couple of decades it has disappeared from our churches. It’s restoration would not only honour legitimate tradition but also instruct the faithful in the sacred symbolism of Christian marriage.

I. Personal and Pastoral Context

As the father of 13 children, with one engaged to be married next year, and also a goddaughter scheduled to marry around the same time, this has become a prescient matter. In recent years it has become the practice in our churches for the vows to be exchanged at the communion rail and for the bride and groom to remain outside the communion rail to hear the Nuptial Mass. While this may be normal for the Roman Rite in other parts of the world, it has never been the norm in English speaking countries.

The tradition in Britain, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other English speaking countries was for the bride and groom to make their vows at the altar itself and then to remain in the sanctuary for the whole nuptial Mass, returning to the altar for the nuptial blessing and to receive Communion. These practices derive from the Sarum Rite, and prior to that, from ancient Gallican (French) practices. Thus, we are dealing with a tradition that is centuries old.

When I was a boy in the late 70s and 80s, my mother, a simple lady, with a solid, convent school faith, taught my brothers and me catechism herself before school every morning. When teaching about the sacrament of marriage she made a point of explaining that this unique honour, the only time lay people are the ordinary ministers of a sacrament, rightly takes place at the altar from which all graces flow.

When my wife and I were married in 1998, we continued this unbroken practice as our parents and forebears had done for untold generations.

Vows at the Altar, 1998

Nuptial Mass begins; note the prie-dieus for the bride and groom

Another example at our church, this time from 1999:

This custom wasn’t isolated to the antipodes. Below is a picture of Bishop Fulton Sheen witnessing a marriage in 1962. Note the communion rail behind the couple:

Continue Reading this Article. . .

“Hold Fast to the Traditions” - Guest Article by Mr Jay Rattino

Our thanks to Mr Jay Rattino for sharing with us this interesting article about the folk customs of Italian Catholics, and the efforts being made to preserve and revive them.

The Italian Catholic communities throughout New Jersey and the surrounding areas are filled with long-standing traditions, and there are renewed efforts going on to revive the devotional customs brought to this country by their ancestors. For those unfamiliar with these practices, witnessing them can evoke both awe and confusion, often prompting the question, “What exactly is this?” Many of these traditions fall under the umbrella of Catholic folk piety, which Gregory DiPippo defines as “devotional customs and practices which have arisen spontaneously among the people, and not from the Church’s official rites.” Phillip Campbell, in a video for Unam Sanctam Catholicam, further reflects on how these simple acts express profound theological truths.

A great example—recently highlighted in an article on New Liturgical Movement—comes from Dr. Peter Kwasniewski’s pilgrimage to Catania, Sicily. The patroness of the town is St. Agatha, who endured multiple tortures, including the cutting off of her breasts. During her feast, which spans three days, Dr. Kwasniewski witnessed “countless individual candles,” “hundreds of devotees wearing white garments and medallions,” a “giant silver reliquary,” depictions of St. Agatha in prison, and more. The picture of an entire city embracing its patroness with such dramatic public devotion is striking. This is a vivid and moving example of Catholic folk piety in action.

The Italian immigrants who came to the United States brought with them many of these folk devotions, and while they may not be on quite so grand a scale in New Jersey — or in the United States as a whole — one can still see traces of them, which we can perhaps also think of as seeds read to sprout again.

During March, you can see a plethora of tables presented to St. Joseph at churches like St. Joseph’s in Lodi, St. Mary’s in Nutley, Our Lady of Mount Virgin in Garfield, and more. As the blog Il Regno explains, the St. Joseph table is a popular tradition throughout Sicily, which dates back to medieval times, when the saint interceded during a severe drought and famine. It is customary for these tables to include a serving of Pasta con le Sarde (Pasta with Sardines); the pasta is topped with toasted breadcrumbs (a muddica), symbolizing the sawdust of a carpenter’s workshop—a tribute to St. Joseph the Worker.

The St. Rocco Society of Fort Lee carries their saint in a traditional procession, but at one point, they begin to run—a joyful tradition known as the Running of the Saint, which traces its origins back to their hometown in Italy.

At St. Lucy’s in Newark, you’ll find St. Gerard’s statue on full display before the novena begins. Shortly after, you’ll consistently see blankets of cash wrapped around the statue—an expression of gratitude by devotees for favors received.

The St. Joseph Society of Lodi celebrates their patron on (or around) March 19 and May 1—but also during Labor Day Weekend. According to society leaders, the founders chose this weekend without work to honor St. Joseph the Worker, dedicating it as a time of rest in his name.

These traditions (and many more) are alive—some thriving more than others, comparable to a pilot light: steady and quietly burning. But recently, that pilot light has been turned up to full blast, thanks to a fresh wave of energy from young people involved in the Italian Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Newark.

Under the direction of Eric Lavin, the Apostolate has been actively supporting these traditions across the archdiocese through promotion and participation. In addition to preserving the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of Italian communities, the group has organized pilgrimages (including to the Padre Pio Shrine and Mother Cabrini Shrine) and continues to support both an Italian-language RCIA program and Italian-language Masses throughout the archdiocese. Most notably, the Italian Apostolate is also helping to revive and bolster forgotten or fading Italian Catholic traditions—and even to bring to light devotions previously unknown to many.

In southern Italian tradition, sepolcri are donated to churches and presented at the Altar of Repose on Holy Thursday. As Il Regno explains, these are potted wheat or lentil sprouts that lack color because they are grown in darkness during the days leading up to Holy Week. The pale, yellow plants represent death, rebirth, and the Resurrection. Over the past two years, the Italian Apostolate has revived this custom by growing the plants and providing them to parishes across the archdiocese.

Courtesy of the blog Il Regno

In much of Italy, including the south, it is more common to distribute olive branches on Palm Sunday instead of palms. The branches are typically decorated with ribbons, paper flowers, and sometimes even caciocavallo cheese—a unique offering of beauty and abundance to begin Holy Week. The Italian Apostolate has embraced this tradition, organizing the distribution of these decorated olive branches to both Italian and non-Italian parishes throughout the archdiocese, continuing the legacy of southern Italian Catholic customs with renewed devotion.

Other examples of interesting devotions include two distinguished feasts—Madonna del Sacro Monte and the feast of Maria Santissima Incoronata—where young girls may dress as the Blessed Virgin Mary or an angel, and young boys as Saint Anthony of Padua or Saint Pio of Pietrelcina. The processions and reenactments are expressions of deep devotion, allowing children to embody the saints as part of the community’s act of worship and celebration.

Some other feasts have gone defunct, such as those of St. Rocco (Church of the Assumption in Emerson), St. Michael (St. Lucy’s in Newark), Our Lady of the Snows (same), and Maria SS. della Lavina (St. Aloysius in Caldwell). But this last has recently seen a promising revival, featuring a Solemn High Latin Mass, with the celebration resuming and growing steadily. Perhaps, with a little zeal, the others too may experience a revival.

Locally, the Italian Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Newark is working hard to bring people back to Mass, preserve long-held traditions, and revive those that were once lost. Beyond New Jersey, this trend is gaining traction among young Italian Catholics across America.

The Italian Mass Project of New York promotes Catholic initiatives for the Italian-American community throughout the New York area. In Denver, Colorado, La Società Maria SS. dei Sette Dolori seeks to restore religious and cultural traditions at their local parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Madonna del Lume Associazione is instituting an annual procession in Tampa, Florida—featuring a 24-man processional vara (platform) to carry their statue of Our Lady of Light. Under the patronage of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Italian Feasts promotes Italian celebrations and traditions nationwide, offering a current calendar of events that connects communities across the country.

“So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” 2 Thessalonians 2, 15

True pious devotions and traditions need to be preserved. Lost ones need to be revived.

At Newark Italian Apostolate events and meetings, you'll find the familiar group of dedicated members working hard to preserve, revive, and support Italian Catholic traditions.

But perhaps the greater victory is this: the curious secular soul who observes one of these traditions and asks, “What is this?” They drop into a meeting or event, drawn by something they saw in person or on social media. There, they encounter Catholic folk piety—and then say to themselves, “I’d like to be a part of this.”

That’s because these traditions can be the hook a soul needs to draw close to Jesus. Many people are not yet ready for direct catechesis—but the taste of a St. Joseph pastry or a plate of pasta con le sarde can be the first door to a life of grace in Christ and His Church.

Rendiamo grazie a Dio!

A Very Unusual Popular Festival in Italy

The little town of Cocullo in the Abruzzi region of Italy, with a population of less than 250, has a very particular way of celebrating the feast of its Patron Saint, Dominic of Sora. Dominic was one of the great monastic reformers of the later 10th and early 11th century, as active in central and southern Italy (Lazio, Abruzzi and Campagna) as his contemporaries Ss Romuald and Peter Damian were in the north. He lived in Cocullo for seven years, and the main church there has two relics of him, one of his teeth, and a shoe of his mule. As part of the celebration of his feast on May 1st, people use their teeth to pull the bell-rope of a chapel dedicated to him, a gesture which is believed to protect them from disease.

He is also honored as a Patron Saint against snake-bites and rabid animals, the aspect of his cultus which makes it especially noteworthy. Towards the end of March, the inhabitants of the region begin collecting snakes from the countryside (non-poisonous, of course), and keeping them in boxes at home. On the feast day, they bring them to the church, and drape them over a statue of the Saint, which is then carried through the town in procession. The snakes are then returned to their natural habitat.

(A friend of mine who has attended the festival at Cocullo informs me that poisonous snakes were used until the 1950s, when this practice was forbidden by the civil authorities.)

It would be easy to dismiss this custom and others like it as nothing more than holdovers from paganism, and it is true that this one in particular seems to have some antecedents in the ancient pagan cults of the region (of which, however, very little is known for certain.) I dare say that this is a feature, not a bug. In the modern world, it is very difficult for us to appreciate what a very serious problem a rotten tooth or a rabid animal could be for peasants living a hard-scrabble life in these mountainous regions, even as little as a century ago. A religion which does not afford some sense that the spiritual powers, whatever they may be, are genuinely concerned with the human race’s welfare, spiritual and physical, and can help us through such problems, is simply not worth its salt. It was precisely the death of this idea, the transition from the ancient gods of hearth and field to the distant One of Plato or the even-more-distant Prime Mover of Aristotle, that drove people towards the many mystery cults that flourished in the early centuries of the Roman Empire. In Christianity, they found the mystery of a God who is not merely concerned with the human race’s welfare, but so concerned that He joined it, and then entrusted the care and cure of its many problems to His beloved friends, the Saints.

Restoring Lost Customs of Christendom “Brick by Brick”

On December 12, Our Lady of Victory Press published Matthew Plese’s latest book “Restoring Lost Customs of Christendom,” a serialization of his articles published on OnePeterFive over the past few years on customs related to both the temporal and sanctoral cycles. Plese mentions the following in the preface to the book:

The Church’s Liturgical Year is a harmonious interplay of feasts and fasts interwoven in both the temporal and sanctoral cycles that define the rhythm and rhyme of Catholic life. While there are many customs associated with the seasons of the liturgical year and high-ranking feast days, the entire year is replete with opportunities to live out our Catholic heritage through the customs our forefathers instituted.
          The Church’s annual liturgical calendar is comprised of two different, concurrent annual cycles. First, the Proper of the Seasons, or Temporal Cycle, traces the earthly life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Roman Catholic Church, it consists mainly of Sundays related to the various liturgical seasons – that is, the seven liturgical seasons contained in two cycles of its own: the Christmas Cycle and the Easter Cycle. It starts with Advent then goes through Christmas, Epiphany, Septuagesima, Lent, Easter, and Time after Pentecost. The determination of the date of Easter dictates nearly all the other dates in this cycle. But there is a second cycle: the Proper of the Saints, called the Sanctoral Cycle, which is the annual cycle of feast days not necessarily connected with the seasons.

Father John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary defines what is meant by a custom:

A long-standing practice that takes on the force of law. No custom is ever valid that contradicts a divine law, whether natural or positive, nor does a custom abrogate ecclesiastical law unless it is reasonable and has been legitimately in practice over a period of forty full years. Where the ecclesiastical law explicitly forbids contrary customs, the latter can be valid only if they are reasonable and in legitimate existence for at least a century or from time immemorial.

Customs Have the Force of Law

Customs are not simply part a discardable part of our heritage as Roman Catholics. Customs have a deep and permanent place in the lives of Catholics of all Rites. St. Jerome in Letter 71 states, “The best advice that I can give you is this: Church traditions - especially when they do not run counter to the faith - are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down...the traditions which have been handed down should be regarded as apostolic laws.” St. Thomas Aquinas likewise asserts: “Custom has the force of law, abrogates law, and interprets law.” This is why, for instance, Saturday fasting became law in the West but not in the East by way of custom. (I discuss this traditional understanding of custom as law in further detail here.) 
 

Customs Illustrate True Liturgical Diversity

Plese reminds us that our customs, which are aligned with the Traditional Latin Mass and the culture around it, are our birthright, which no one, no matter his office, can legitimately take from us:

It’s also important to realize that each rite in the Catholic Church (e.g., Roman, Maronite, Chaldean, etc.) has its own liturgical calendar, and some have multiple uses or forms of the calendar. Even within the same use or form, there are variations according to local customs. For instance, the patron saint of a church or of the cathedral would be ranked higher in the liturgical calendar of that local jurisdiction. Even in the Roman Rite itself, different dioceses, countries, and religious orders would keep some different feastdays. These were listed in the Mass in Some Places (pro aliquibus locis) supplement to the Missal. Beyond the Roman Rite, the Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Lyon, and Bragan Rites are also all part of the Western liturgical tradition. So too are the various Rites for religious orders (e.g., the Carmelite Rite, the Carthusian Rite, the Dominican Rite). These are also part of the Roman Catholic Church. No one has ever doubted the legitimacy of this liturgical diversity.
          Those who try to discredit the Traditional Latin Mass may try to falsely claim that all Catholics must observe the same calendar of saints. But this is not the case as seen in the liturgical calendar diversity in the different Rites of the Church and in the Roman Rite itself. Even Summorum Pontificium affirmed that the continued use of the older Roman calendar in the traditional Mass and Breviary is permissible.

Customs Help Us Live Deeper Liturgical Lives

Initially when people are new to the Traditional Latin Mass, they are in awe of its mystery, splendor, and reverence. But as time goes on, they should go deeper and deeper into the mind of the Church and breathe in and live out catholicity to its core. And one important way of doing just that is to learn and live out Catholic customs. Plese mentions further as to the rationale for the book:

Beyond assisting at Mass and praying the Divine Office, we can and should observe the forgotten customs that further underscored authentic Catholic culture. Catholic culture is more than just going to Mass – much more. Catholic culture is built on fasting periods, assisting at Processions, having various items blessed at different parts of the year (e.g. herbs on August 15th, grapes on September 8th, wine on December 27th). It features days of festivity like during Martinmas and promotes family time and charitable works like visits to grandparents on Easter Monday. It is replete with food customs to celebrate the end of fasting periods and filled with special devotions during periods of penance. It is our heritage. These traditions are our birthright. They are ours as much as they were our ancestors. We must reclaim them. We must spread them. We must love them and observe them. And this book will show today’s Catholic how.

The outline of the book shows the depth covered which goes beyond the “major” seasons of the liturgical year. Customs surrounding the Nativity of our Lady, St. Clement’s Day, St. Anthony’s Day, and many others illustrate the tremendous extent to which customs would permeate Catholic culture. It is no exaggeration to say that they are the substance of a daily life under the sign of the crucified and risen Savior and of His friends, the saints and angels.

Notice that Corpus Christi does not only present the characteristic Procession but also mentions how the day is known as the “Day of Wreaths” in France. This is then followed by indulgences for Corpus Christi as well as some for Thursdays year-round. As such the book is not only concerned with relating former European traditions but giving readers the ability to act on them and pick up the gauntlet in keeping them alive in practice.

Customs Show Diversity in the Midst of Catholicity

Plese draws upon Father Weiser, Dom Guéranger, Cardinal Shuster, the Roman Ritual, and many other sources to present a comprehensive listing of Catholic customs. The book is available in PDF and in Kindle in addition to paperback, and the Kindle and PDF versions also include links to relevant devotions and articles for those wanting even more.

The book also goes beyond mere customs and mentions former laws of precepts in the form of both former Holy Days of Obligation and former obligatory fasting days. Plese shares detail on these so that we can keep devotionally what our forefathers kept under obligation.

I encourage everyone to pick up a copy of this book and live out the customs contained in its pages throughout the new year. Catholic customs are truly part of our patrimony as Father Scott Haynes, a fellow endorser of the book, reminds us:

Catholics who want to integrate the Catholic customs of ages past will deeply appreciate Restoring Lost Customs of Christendom. Beginning with Advent and continuing through the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year, this complete compendium of Catholic traditions by Matthew Plese will help integrate the ancient traditions of our faith in our families and homes. This treasured volume presents the fasts and feasts, the indulgences and blessings which are the patrimony of our Catholic people.

Byzantine New Year

Although the First Sunday of Advent is generally considered the start of the liturgical year in the Roman Rite, this is purely a matter of logic and convention, and is in no way formally indicated in the liturgy itself. In point of fact, many ancient liturgical books of the Roman Rite, such as the early sacramentaries and lectionaries, began with Christmas Eve, and placed Advent at the end of the temporal cycle. The liturgical texts for the feast of the Circumcision on January 1st do not refer explicitly to the civil New Year, although there are some oblique references to the riotous pagan celebrations thereof. Many places in the Middle Ages kept the feast of the Annunciation as New Year’s Day, a custom which lasted in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until 1749, but this is also not mentioned in the liturgical texts of the feast.

This inscription records the abolition of the “Tuscan New Year”, as it was often called, by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco II. (This is displayed in the famous Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, one of the many Italian monuments that seems to be eternally under restoration, so I had to take this photo from an odd angle.)

In the Byzantine Rite, on the other hand, the liturgical year has a formally designated beginning on September 1st, a custom which has its origin partly in an ancient Roman cycle of taxation known as the Indiction. I say “partly” for the following reason. The Byzantine tradition distinguishes twelve feasts, eight of Our Lord and four of Our Lady, as “Great Feasts”, with Easter in a category of its own as the Feast of Feasts. The first of these twelve to occur after the Indiction, and the first to occur in history, is the Nativity of the Virgin Mary on September 8th; the last to occur before the Indiction, and the last to occur in history, is the Assumption. It seems very unlikely that this arrangement is merely coincidental.

Medieval liturgical calendars from the West often note a variety of different historical events in March, with the beginning of the Creation frequently marked on March 18. Theologically, this indicates that the old Creation was completed on the same day that its renewal began in the Incarnation, and for the same reason, many calendars mark the Passion of Christ on that day, with the Resurrection on the 27th, even though the liturgical celebration of these events is movable. (2016 was the last time that any man now alive will see the coincidence of Good Friday and the Annunciation on the Gregorian Calendar, but on the Julian, it will next take place in 2034.)

The calendar of the Sarum Missal for March, from the 1882 critical edition of Francis Proctor and Christopher Wordsworth. Note the “Entrance of Noah in the Ark” on March 17, (one day before the anniversary of the beginning of Creation), the creation of Adam on the 23rd, and the Resurrection on the 27th.

In the Byzantine tradition, however, the Creation of the world is considered to have taken place on the Indiction, a fact to which the liturgical texts of the day refer repeatedly. For example, the tropar at the Divine Liturgy reads as follows.

Maker of all creation, Who settest times and seasons in Thy power, bless the crown of the year of Thy goodness, o Lord, keeping in peace Thy kings and Thy city, by the prayers of the Mother of God, and save us.

And likewise these two kontakia:

Maker and Master of the ages, God of all things, and truly greater than all, bless this year, saving in Thy boundless mercy, o Compassionate One, all that serve Thee, the only Master, and cry out in reverence: o Redeemer, grant a bountiful year to all.
O Thou that created all things in unspoken wisdom, and settest the seasons in Thy power, grant victory to Thy people that loveth Christ, blessing the going and coming of the year, and guiding our works towards Thy will.

The connection between the Indiction and the Virgin Mary is highlighted by the addition of a second troparion to Her, with some common themes and vocabulary.

Rejoice, o full of grace, Mother of God and Virgin, safe harbor and defense of the race of men. For from Thee the Redeemer of the world was incarnate. For Thou alone art Mother and Virgin, ever blessed and glorified. Pray to Christ God to grant peace to all the world.

An 18th century icon of the Creation of the World.

Many early Christians attempted to calculate the age of the world, as the Jews had before them, working from the relevant statements of the Bible, and, not surprisingly, coming up with varying results. According to the reckoning most commonly accepted in the Byzantine world, the creation began in 5509 B.C, making this Annus Mundi 7532. (The traditional Roman reckoning as stated in the Martyrology on Christmas Eve puts the Birth of Christ in the 5199st year from the creation of the world, making this year only 7222.) This reckoning is still used by some Orthodox Christians in conjunction with the Anno Domini system for things like ecclesiastical calendars and the inscription of dates on the cornerstone of a church. September 1st was celebrated as the civil New Year in the Byzantine Empire until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and in the Russian Empire until in 1699, when it was changed by Peter the Great as part of his Westernizing reforms.

The Violence of Lent

Statue of a Franciscan Friar Hitting a Piñata, Alcolman, Mexico

Thanks be to God, there is a renewed interest in keeping the Great Fast of Lent more than half a century after it was all but forgotten by most Catholics when a papal decision made it optional. Done properly, fasting increases energy and the ability to focus, and when it is sanctified by prayer, it curbs vices, elevates the mind, and confers virtue and rewards. (See the traditional Preface for Lent)

But note the qualifier: when done properly. As some of us know from bitter experience, fasting can also lead to less energy, a greater obsession with the food we are not getting, and above all, irritability. To use the popular portmanteau of late, fasting can make us hangry.

I suspect that it is this side of fasting that led to some rather violent customs, including the following.

Carnival Fisticuffs

Apparently, even the thought of being hungry for forty days is enough to make some folks punchy. In certain parts of central Europe, the faithful used to bury “Carnival” – a straw figure decorated with herrings – in the predawn hours of Ash Wednesday. The effigy would be carried to the forest in a mock funeral procession and buried in the snow. Regional variations abounded. Tubingen, Germany had a Shrovetide Bear (an effigy in old trousers with fake blood in its neck) that they would put on trial, condemn, behead, and bury in the churchyard.

Spain, France, and Italy also had their versions of burying Carnival. The custom is still alive and well in Frosinone, Italy, where it is called the Radica after the large “roots” or leaves that the participants wield. On Mardi Gras, a nine-foot stucco Carnival is elaborately dressed and processed through the streets. Activities include participants swatting each other on the head with their leaves, copious wine-drinking, and an equally copious “discharge of yells, blows, and blasphemy.” The event concludes with Carnival being stripped of his finery and burned on a funeral pyre; the crowd, in the meantime, throw their leaves onto the fire “and give themselves up without restraint to the pleasures of the dance,” particularly the Saltarello.

“Carnevale” in Frosinone, Italy 

On Mardi Gras, Lithuanians used to enjoy a stage play depicting a fat man (Lasinisis) and a thin man (Kanapinis). The two wrestled and fought until the thin man (Lent) eventually threw the fat man (Carnival) to the ground and triumphantly placed his foot on him. Shrovetide is over.

Jack o’Lent

The Jack o’Lent or Jack-a-Lent is a straw effigy from fifteenth- through seventeenth-century England that is mentioned twice in William Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. On Ash Wednesday, the Jack o’Lent was abused and stoned as it was dragged around the parish. The effigy was eventually burned on Palm Sunday, though we suspect that frustrated fasters took potshots at it before then as well.

Piñata

What we currently associate as meaningless birthday-party fun from Mexico began as good old- fashioned Italian sin-bashing during the holy season of Lent. The idea of a piñata may have come from China via Marco Polo, but Italians in the fourteenth century applied the pignatta, or “fragile pot,” to their observance of the first Sunday of Lent.

The Spanish soon picked up the custom and took it with them to the New World. The “Dance of the Piñata,” again on the first Sunday of Lent, was rich in theological meaning. The traditional gaily colored, seven-coned piñata was said to represent the Seven Deadly Sins, all of which appear attractive and beguiling. Since sin is difficult to overcome, the piñata danced on a rope in order to elude being hit, and since sin is difficult to recognize for what it is, the piñata hitter would be blindfolded. Evil, however, can be defeated by good, and so the hitter had several aids at his disposal. The first was Virtue, symbolized by his stick or bat. The hitter also had the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Faith helped him trust the directions shouted out by the crowd, Hope kept him persevering and directed his actions heavenward, while Charity materialized once he broke the piñata and the treats, representing divine gifts and blessings, cascaded out. The piñata also migrated to the other end of Lent, when likenesses of Judas Iscariot would be beaten on Good Friday.

Mid-Lent

Mid-Lent, a brief period that surrounds Laetare Sunday, is a time for slightly relaxing the fast and having a more joyful spirit, and it is also a time to vent one's spleen against the passing season. Variously called the “Burial of Winter,” the “Carrying out of Death,” or the “Driving Out of Death,” an effigy or puppet representing Death would be paraded through the streets and either burned or drowned. Although these customs did not always fall around the Fourth Sunday of Lent (due to regional variations or the weather), they were fixed enough in some parts of Germany to give Laetare Sunday the nickname Dead Sunday.

Zur in a Bread Bowl

Herring and Zur

Finally, at the end of the Great Fast, boys in Polish villages would bury their Lenten fare, which typically consisted of herring and zur, a mush consisting of water and fermented rye meal. On Holy Saturday afternoon, after the conclusion of the Easter Vigil Mass (then held in the morning), the lads would take either a real herring or a wooden facsimile and execute it by hanging. Then, they would smash a pot of zur against a rock or tree. Finally, the fish and pot shards were interred with unbridled glee. No longer would the hungry youth have to eat these tiresome dishes--at least not until next Lent.

For more information on most of these customs, see Francis X. Weiser, S.J., The Easter Book (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1954) and The Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs: The Year of the Lord in Liturgy and Folklore (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958)

Another Sighting of the “Care Cloth” at a Recent Solemn High Nuptial Mass

Back in September, I published here an article called “The Return of the ‘Care Cloth’ at the Traditional Nuptial Mass.” It turned out to be one of our most popular articles in 2021, with off-the-charts views and shares. It occasioned some sad remarks: “My fiancee and I were hoping to have a TLM wedding, but now it seems we can’t because of Traditionis Custodes and how it’s being implemented locally.” But there have also been heartening signs that TLM weddings are here to stay, as photos continue to be posted here and there of such events taking place in every month since the motu proprio. The time that has passed since July 16 has been a time of gradual awakening on the part of priests to the necessity of “just saying no” to unjust restrictions and policies, even if it means doing things like TLM weddings with more circumspection—and perhaps without sharing photos on social media!

That being said, we are grateful to the wonderful photographer Alison Girone for sharing once again a magnificent batch of photos of a recent Solemn High Latin Mass wedding. While there are very many gorgeous pictures we could share (see here for the full album), here I would like to draw special attention to the appearance once more of the “care cloth” or velatio nuptialis, a custom that is making a return as young people reach ever deeper into the treasury of the Faith. Our congratulations to the newlyweds!

Epistle

Gospel

Elevation

Care cloth during nuptial blessing

Ukrainian Christmas Customs: A Documentary From 1942

For those who follow the Julian Calendar, today is the feast of the Theophany in the Byzantine Rite. This is as good an occasion as any to share this delightful documentary made in 1942 about the various customs of what many still call “Ukrainian Christmas,” customs brought to the New World by immigrants to Canada, both Catholic and Orthodox. Although it doesn’t show much of the liturgy, it covers a lot of religious and folk traditions associated with the liturgical season. (My thanks to an old and dear friend, Fr Athanasius McVay, a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic priest of the Eparchy of Edmonton, Canada, for bringing this to my attention.)

There is also a second film in the same vein, from a year later, which covers many different aspects of the life of these communities. The first half is about pioneer life and farming, but starting from about 6:50, it talks about the various religious institutions founded by the Ukrainians in Canada.

The Return of the “Care Cloth” at the Traditional Nuptial Mass

On May 1, 2021, I had the great privilege of leading the choir and schola for the wedding of a dear friend and former student of mine, who used to sing in my college choir. The liturgy was a Solemn High Nuptial Mass—the kind of thing one could barely imagine back when I first got involved in the movement for the restoration of the Roman Rite. (My own Nuptial Missa Cantata was difficult enough to pull off back in 1998!) The church where the Mass was held, St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Fennimore, Wisconsin, was a perfect home for this grand event.

The bride and bridegroom took great care in planning their wedding—so much so, in fact, that they chose to incorporate into the ceremony an old custom called the “care cloth.”

The velatio nuptialis is an ancient tradition of the Catholic Church, well established since at least the fourth century. During the nuptial blessing, which is said between the Canon and Communion, a white cloth (pallium) is held over the couple. St. Ambrose, fourth-century bishop of Milan, writes, “It is fitting that the marriage be sanctified by the imposition of the veil and the blessing of the priest.” The white cloth signifies the bright cloud, which is at once a sign of God’s protection accompanying the chosen people wandering in the desert (Ex. 13:20–22), the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary (Lk. 1:35), and the bright cloud of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Lk. 9:28-36; 2 Pt. 1:17–18). It also signifies that the couple becomes one flesh through marriage. In France, the poêle, which is another word for the veil, is also used to honor the Blessed Sacrament on the feast of Corpus Christi, which appropriately connects the wedding of the couple to the wedding feast of Christ and the Church, represented and effected by the Blessed Sacrament. While the velatio nuptialis experienced widespread use in the Middle Ages in the Roman Rite, it fell out of use almost everywhere outside of France, although the tradition is seeing a slow revival.

As for where the name “care cloth” comes from, we read in Michael Foley's book Wedding Rites:

The couple’s wedding veil, or carecloth, was once so important in the Western imagination that it literally gave the wedding event its name. When a woman in ancient Rome was married, she put on a fiery red veil as a sign of the new obligations and dignity she was taking on as a matron. In Latin this act of covering oneself with a veil was known as nubere, from which comes our word “nuptial.” Latin Christians adopts the veil in the 300s (or perhaps earlier) but put the man under it as well, to stress the fact that both bride and groom were expected to live up to their marital obligations. This explains why it came to be called a carecloth in English, as “to care” once meant “to lay a burden on.” After the Renaissance, the carecloth was itself overshadowed by the bridal veil in most parts of Europe (a pale substitute, in our humble opinion), though it continues to be used in several areas of the world today. (p. 77)

After the Lord's Prayer, the bride and bridegroom ascend the steps into the sanctuary and kneel; the priest stands at the corner of the altar to say the nuptial blessing, during which the cloth is held above the couple by two altar servers:

Let us pray. Be gracious, O Lord, to our humble supplications: and graciously assist this Thine institution, which Thou hast established for the increase of mankind: that what is joined together by Thine authority, may be preserved by Thine aid. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. 

Let us pray. O God, who by Thine own mighty power, didst make all things out of nothing: who having set in order the beginnings of the world, didst appoint Woman to be an inseparable helpmate to Man, made like unto God, so that Thou didst give to woman’s body its beginnings in man’s flesh, thereby teaching that what it pleased Thee to form from one substance, might never be lawfully separated: O God, who, by so excellent a mystery hast consecrated the union of man and wife, as to foreshadow in this nuptial bond the union of Christ with His Church: O God, by whom Woman is joined to Man, and the partnership, ordained from the beginning, is endowed with such blessing, that it alone was not withdrawn either by the punishment of original sin, or by the sentence of the flood: graciously look upon this Thy handmaid, who, about to be joined in wedlock, seeks Thy defense and protection. May it be to her a yoke of love and peace: faithful and chaste, may she be wedded in Christ, and let her ever be the imitator of holy women: let her be dear to her husband, like Rachel: wise, like Rebecca: long-lived and faithful, like Sara. Let not the author of deceit work any of his evil deeds in her. May she continue, clinging to the faith and to the commandments. Bound in one union, let her shun all unlawful contact. Let her protect her weakness by the strength of discipline; let her be grave in behavior, respected for modesty, well-instructed in heavenly doctrine. Let her be fruitful in offspring; be approved and innocent; and come to the repose of the blessed and the kingdom of heaven. May they both see their children’s children to the third and fourth generation, and may they reach the old age which they desire. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth God.

The couple return to their kneelers and the priest continues into the embolism.

The care cloth used in this nuptial Mass, which was sewn and embroided by a close friend, is fittingly made from linen, the same material used for altar cloths. Pope John Paul II describes the family as the ecclesia domestica (the domestic church), so the cloth symbolizes that the family coming into being is a participation in the fruitful union Christ and His Church. The veil is, as it were, the altar cloth of the new family. The Marian auspice is embroided on the cloth in blue; the design includes symbols from Mary, Star of the Sea, who “makes our way secure till we find in Jesus joy forevermore,” as the ancient prayer says. The auspice is flanked by lace, which belonged to the bridegroom’s grandmother.
 

The "auspice"

For more information on the care cloth, see M. Henri de Villiers, “The Velatio Nuptialis: An Ancient (and Forgotten) Part of the Latin Marriage Rite.”

Although it was not in itself the most important moment in the ceremony (there are surely several others that would, theologically, lay superior claim to that honor), it was for me the most strikingly beautiful; the photos will, I think, suggest just how special a custom it is. I hope others who are planning their Latin Mass weddings will take it up, as well. To my mind, in this period of new incomprehension and persecution directed at our patrimony as Latin rite Catholics, young people must bend the stick in the opposite direction and go for uncompromising maximalism: a Solemn High Nuptial Mass with polyphony and pipe organ—and a care cloth. That is a beautiful and decisive way of saying: I choose the old ways, and I am content with them, in fact, they lift my soul. Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.

(All photos by Mattson Photography LLC.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Parallel between Cassava Domestication and Liturgical Development

Cassava (manioc) root

A friend of mine was reading a book and sent me a passage from it, with the cryptic note: “Relevant to things you’re interested in.” The book is Joseph Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, published by Princeton University Press in 2017. Another blog, The Scholar’s Stage, summarizes his approach as follows. (I assure you that this post will eventually arrive at a liturgical application!)

“Henrich advances the argument that brain-power alone is not enough to explain why humans are such a successful species. Humans, he argues, are not nearly as intelligent as we think they are. Remove them from the culture and environment they have learned to operate in and they fail quickly. His favorite example of this are European explorers who die in the middle of deserts, jungles, or arctic wastes even though thousands of generations of hunter-gatherers were able to survive and thrive in these same environments. If human success was due to our ability to problem solve, analyze, and rationally develop novel solutions to novel challenges, the explorers should have been fine. Their ghastly fates suggest that rationality may not be the key to human survival.

“If rational thought is not the key to our success, what is?

“To answer that, Henrich says, we should look at the cassava plant. Cassava, or manioc, is one of the most popular staple foods in the world. But there is a catch: if not prepared correctly, cassava will slowly poison you. Yet some populations eat it without a problem. How does this work?”

Now we turn to the words of Henrich himself:

“In the Americas, where manioc was first domesticated, societies who have relied on bitter varieties for thousands of years show no evidence of chronic cyanide poisoning. In the Colombian Amazon, for example, indigenous Tukanoans use a multistep, multiday processing technique that involves scraping, grating, and finally washing the roots in order to separate the fiber, starch, and liquid. Once separated, the liquid is boiled into a beverage, but the fiber and starch must then sit for two more days, when they can then be baked and eaten….

“Such processing techniques are crucial for living in many parts of Amazonia, where other crops are difficult to cultivate and often unproductive. However, despite their utility, one person would have a difficult time figuring out the detoxification technique. Consider the situation from the point of view of the children and adolescents who are learning the techniques. They would have rarely, if ever, seen anyone get cyanide poisoning, because the techniques work. And even if the processing was ineffective, such that cases of goiter (swollen necks) or neurological problems were common, it would still be hard to recognize the link between these chronic health issues and eating manioc. Most people would have eaten manioc for years with no apparent effects. Low cyanogenic varieties are typically boiled, but boiling alone is insufficient to prevent the chronic conditions for bitter varieties. Boiling does, however, remove or reduce the bitter taste and prevent the acute symptoms (e.g., diarrhea, stomach troubles, and vomiting).

“So, if one did the common-sense thing and just boiled the high-cyanogenic manioc, everything would seem fine. Since the multistep task of processing manioc is long, arduous, and boring, sticking with it is certainly non-intuitive. Tukanoan women spend about a quarter of their day detoxifying manioc, so this is a costly technique in the short term. Now consider what might result if a self-reliant Tukanoan mother decided to drop any seemingly unnecessary steps from the processing of her bitter manioc. She might critically examine the procedure handed down to her from earlier generations and conclude that the goal of the procedure is to remove the bitter taste. She might then experiment with alternative procedures by dropping some of the more labor-intensive or time-consuming steps. She’d find that with a shorter and much less labor-intensive process, she could remove the bitter taste. Adopting this easier protocol, she would have more time for other activities, like caring for her children. Of course, years or decades later her family would begin to develop the symptoms of chronic cyanide poisoning.

“Thus, the unwillingness of this mother to take on faith the practices handed down to her from earlier generations would result in sickness and early death for members of her family. Individual learning does not pay here, and intuitions are misleading. The problem is that the steps in this procedure are causally opaque—an individual cannot readily infer their functions, interrelationships, or importance. The causal opacity of many cultural adaptations had a big impact on our psychology.

Traditional cassava preparation

“Wait. Maybe I’m wrong about manioc processing. Perhaps it’s actually rather easy to individually figure out the detoxification steps for manioc? Fortunately, history has provided a test case. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese transported manioc from South America to West Africa for the first time. They did not, however, transport the age-old indigenous processing protocols or the underlying commitment to using those techniques. Because it is easy to plant and provides high yields in infertile or drought-prone areas, manioc spread rapidly across Africa and became a staple food for many populations. The processing techniques, however, were not readily or consistently regenerated. Even after hundreds of years, chronic cyanide poisoning remains a serious health problem in Africa. Detailed studies of local preparation techniques show that high levels of cyanide often remain and that many individuals carry low levels of cyanide in their blood or urine, which haven’t yet manifested in symptoms. In some places, there’s no processing at all, or sometimes the processing actually increases the cyanogenic content. On the positive side, some African groups have in fact culturally evolved effective processing techniques, but these techniques are spreading only slowly.

“The point here is that cultural evolution is often much smarter than we are. Operating over generations as individuals unconsciously attend to and learn from more successful, prestigious, and healthier members of their communities, this evolutionary process generates cultural adaptations. Though these complex repertoires appear well designed to meet local challenges, they are not primarily the products of individuals applying causal models, rational thinking, or cost-benefit analyses. Often, most or all of the people skilled in deploying such adaptive practices do not understand how or why they work, or even that they ‘do’ anything at all. Such complex adaptations can emerge precisely because natural selection has favored individuals who often place their faith in cultural inheritance—in the accumulated wisdom implicit in the practices and beliefs derived from their forbearers—over their own intuitions and personal experiences.”

Thus Henrich. It is difficult to read something like that and not think (mutatis mutandis) about the experience of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century. The application to the cultural inheritance of the traditional Latin liturgy is obvious, as well as the limitations of the application of pure reason to culture and ritual, which it cannot fully account for, and yet cannot do without. Consider a creative rewriting of Henrich:

“In the Catholic Church, where the Mass was first practiced, believers who have relied on the traditional inheritance for centuries show no evidence of heretical or irreligious poisoning. The Solemn High Mass, for example, is a complex, multistep process that takes many hours to complete. Despite their beauty and doctrinal content, however, one person would have a difficult time figuring out why everything is done this way, and certainly no person himself, or no committee of persons by themselves, could come up with it (or something better). The children who grow up with this inheritance simply learn it by attending, observing, praying, and, in many cases, serving, or singing, or joining in a procession, with reinforcing customs practiced at home. They would have rarely, if ever, seen anyone get heretical or irreligious poisoning, because the practices work. Although at times practices might be inferior, serious poisoning would have been rare, since the form of prayer removed or reduced the evils and prevented acute symptoms.

“So, if one did the common-sense thing and just followed the customs handed down, everything would seem fine. Since the multistep task of traditional Catholic liturgy is long, arduous, and at times repetitious, sticking with it might seem non-intuitive. Clergy spend about a quarter of their day praying the Mass and the breviary, so this is a costly technique in the short term. Now consider what might result if a self-reliant priest, or bishop, or pope, decided to drop any seemingly unnecessary steps from the daily round of prayer. He might critically examine the practices handed down to him from earlier generations and conclude that the goal of the procedure is to get everyone actively involved in a communal event. He might then experiment with alternative practices by dropping some of the more labor-intensive or time-consuming steps. He’d find that with a shorter and much less labor-intensive process, a similar appearance of religious activity could be maintained. Adopting this easier protocol, he would have more time for other activities, like counseling, social justice, cultural excursions, and golfing. Of course, years and decades later, his flock would develop the symptoms of chronic heretical and irreligious poisoning.

“Thus, the unwillingness of this father to take on faith the practices handed down to him from earlier generations would result in sickness and early death for members of his flock. Individual learning does not pay here, and personal intuitions are misleading. The problem is that the elements of traditional practices are causally opaque—an individual cannot readily infer their functions, interrelationships, or importance.

“Wait. Could I be wrong about the need to accept the practices handed down? Perhaps it’s actually easy to figure out the correct steps for liturgical prayer and any community can rediscover them on its own? Fortunately, history has provided a test case. After the complex form of liturgy was abandoned by the pope, the new form was spread around the world. What was not transported, however, were the age-old rubrics or the underlying commitment to following the Roman tradition. Because the new liturgy was easy to practice, it spread rapidly and became a staple for many communities. The spiritual yields, however, were not plentiful, and even after many decades, chronic heretical and irreligious poisoning remains a serious spiritual health problem in the Catholic Church on all continents. Detailed studies of particular churches (such as those in India) show that high levels of religious syncretism, eclecticism, and indifferentism remain and that many individuals carry them in their brains. On the positive side, some few groups have in fact developed effective prayer techniques (called “reform of the reform”), but they are spreading only slowly.

“The point here is that liturgical development is often much smarter than we are as isolated individuals or committees. Operating over generations as believers attend to and learn from more successful, prestigious, and healthier local churches, especially the Church of Rome, this process generates cultural adaptations and expectations (such as the connection between reverence and kneeling to receive the Eucharist on the tongue). Though these complex repertoires appear, upon close inspection, well designed to meet local challenges, they are not primarily the products of individuals applying causal models, rational thinking, or cost-benefit analyses. Often, the people who value and deploy such adaptive practices do not understand how or why they work. These complex adaptations emerge precisely because divine Providence guides individuals who place their faith in the cultural inheritance of the Church—in the accumulated wisdom implicit in the practices and beliefs derived from their forbears—over their own ideas and personal experiences.”

Byzantine New Year

Although the First Sunday of Advent is generally considered the start of the liturgical year in the Roman Rite, this is purely a matter of logic and convention, and is in no way formally indicated in the liturgy itself. In point of fact, many ancient liturgical books of the Roman Rite, such as the early sacramentaries and lectionaries, began with Christmas Eve, and placed Advent at the end of the temporal cycle. The liturgical texts for the feast of the Circumcision on January 1st do not refer explicitly to the civil New Year, although there are some oblique references to the riotous pagan celebrations thereof. Many places in the Middle Ages kept the feast of the Annunciation as New Year’s Day, a custom which lasted in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until 1749, but this is also not mentioned in the liturgical texts of the feast.

This inscription records the abolition of the “Tuscan New Year”, as it was often called, by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Francesco II. (This is displayed in the famous Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, one of the many Italian monuments that seems to be eternally under restoration, so I had to take this photo from an odd angle.)

In the Byzantine Rite, on the other hand, the liturgical year has a formally designated beginning on September 1st, a custom which has its origin partly in an ancient Roman cycle of taxation known as the Indiction. I say “partly” for the following reason. The Byzantine tradition distinguishes twelve feasts, eight of Our Lord and four of Our Lady, as “Great Feasts”, with Easter in a category of its own as the Feast of Feasts. The first of these twelve to occur after the Indiction, and the first to occur in history, is the Nativity of the Virgin Mary on September 8th; the last to occur before the Indiction, and the last to occur in history, is the Assumption. It seems very unlikely that this arrangement is merely coincidental.

Medieval liturgical calendars from the West often note a variety of different historical events in March, with the beginning of the Creation frequently marked on March 18. Theologically, this indicates that the old Creation was completed on the same day that its renewal began in the Incarnation, and for the same reason, many calendars mark the Passion of Christ on that day, with the Resurrection on the 27th, even though the liturgical celebration of these events is movable. (2016 was the last time that any man now alive will see the coincidence of Good Friday and the Annunciation on the Gregorian Calendar, but on the Julian, it will next take place in 2034.)

The calendar of the Sarum Missal for March, from the 1882 critical edition of Francis Proctor and Christopher Wordsworth. Note the “Entrance of Noah in the Ark” on March 17, (one day before the anniversary of the beginning of Creation), the creation of Adam on the 23rd, and the Resurrection on the 27th.

In the Byzantine tradition, however, the Creation of the world is considered to have taken place on the Indiction, a fact to which the liturgical texts of the day refer repeatedly. For example, the tropar at the Divine Liturgy reads as follows.

Maker of all creation, Who settest times and seasons in Thy power, bless the crown of the year of Thy goodness, o Lord, keeping in peace Thy kings and Thy city, by the prayers of the Mother of God, and save us.

And likewise these two kontakia:

Maker and Master of the ages, God of all things, and truly greater than all, bless this year, saving in Thy boundless mercy, o Compassionate One, all that serve Thee, the only Master, and cry out in reverence: o Redeemer, grant a bountiful year to all.
O Thou that created all things in unspoken wisdom, and settest the seasons in Thy power, grant victory to Thy people that loveth Christ, blessing the going and coming of the year, and guiding our works towards Thy will.

The connection between the Indiction and the Virgin Mary is highlighted by the addition of a second troparion to Her, with some common themes and vocabulary.

Rejoice, o full of grace, Mother of God and Virgin, safe harbor and defense of the race of men. For from Thee the Redeemer of the world was incarnate. For Thou alone art Mother and Virgin, ever blessed and glorified. Pray to Christ God to grant peace to all the world.

An 18th century Russian icon of the Creation of the World.

Many early Christians attempted to calculate the age of the world, as the Jews had before them, working from the relevant statements of the Bible, and, not surprisingly, coming up with varying results. According to the reckoning most commonly accepted in the Byzantine world, the creation began in 5509 B.C, making this Annus Mundi 7529. (The traditional Roman reckoning as stated in the Martyrology on Christmas Eve puts the Birth of Christ in the 5199st year from the creation of the world, making this year only 7219.) This reckoning is still used by some Orthodox Christians in conjunction with the Anno Domini system for things like ecclesiastical calendars and the inscription of dates on the cornerstone of a church. September 1st was celebrated as the civil New Year in the Byzantine Empire until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and in Russia until in 1699, when it was changed by Peter the Great as part of his Westernizing reforms.

A Liturgical Rite of Betrothal

Our thanks to Mr Anthony Carona for sharing with us this brief explanation of the liturgical Rite of Betrothal, a subject we have never covered before, which he recently celebrated with his fiancée, and our congratulations to them both!

This summer, my fiancée and I hiked approximately 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago; at the conclusion of our pilgrimage, in the town of Finisterre – the “end of the earth” – I asked her to marry me. Upon returning home, we had the engagement solemnized by a ritual found in Weller’s popular translation of the Rituale Romanum; the Rite of Betrothal appears in the appendix. Canon 1017 of the old Code of Canon Law exhorts priests witnessing the engagement contract to give the couple a “liturgical blessing” in accord with ancient and praiseworthy ecclesiastical custom. Despite this injunction, no such form for a blessing was universally prescribed. This should be no surprise: the Latin Church, even with the reforms of Trent, has always given great license and even deference to local custom when it comes to matrimony – a recognition that the purpose of the liturgy is to sanction and bless the marital bond between spouses, not to effect it. The text and rubrics for this blessing, therefore, are merely a suggestion, but as given in this book, they are beautiful.

Contemporary culture being totally inept to celebrate anything as important as courtship, betrothal, or marriage, we saw the blessing as an opportunity to live out our Catholic ethos that life’s most important events should be punctuated and celebrated by ritual. It also marked the beginning of our sacramental preparation for matrimony, in a way perhaps analogous to the rite of tonsure for holy orders. The ceremony is brief, but composed of several elements: the rite was celebrated at the Church of the Annunciation in Houston, Texas, by the pastor, Rev. Paul Felix.

1. The couple approach the altar with two witnesses as Psalm 126 is chanted. The psalm reminds us to make God the primary author of all our plans.

2. The priest delivers an allocution, reminding the couple to commit themselves to virtuous courtship as the sure foundation for both earthly prosperity and eternal blessedness.

3. The couple join their right hands and promise to one day take each other as husband and wife. Many of us seem to have forgotten that engagement itself is a promise. Nevertheless, commentators are clear that this promise cannot be grounds for compelling marriage.

4. The priest places the ends of his stole over the couple’s hands in the form of a cross, bears witness to the proposal, and blesses the couple with holy water.

5. The priest blesses the engagement ring.

6. The man places the ring on the finger of his fiancée.

7. The priest presents the missal, opened to the picture of the crucifix opposite the canon for the couple to kiss.

8. The priest prays a final blessing over the couple, bidding them to go in peace.