Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Dominic

Saint Dominic died on the evening of August 6, 1221, and was canonized in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) who had known him personally and declared that he no more doubted his sanctity than he did that of Saints Peter and Paul. At the time of his canonization, the feast of the Transfiguration had not yet been adopted in the West. August 6th, however, had long been kept as the feast of Pope St Sixtus II, who was martyred in 258 after a reign of less than a year. He is named in the Canon of the Mass, and was the Pope under whom St Lawrence served as deacon; his feast is part of a two-week long series of feasts associated with the great Roman martyr. One of the very first churches given to the Order (still the home of Dominican nuns to this day), was the ancient church of St Sixtus in Rome; for these reasons, the feast of St Dominic was assigned by Pope Gregory to August 5th, and kept on that day for over three centuries by the Dominicans and others.

In 1558, however, Pope Paul IV ordered the general observance on August 5th of the titular feast of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, and the transfer of St Dominic’s feast back one day to August 4th. This change was at first rejected by a general chapter of the Order held at Avignon in 1561, but was slowly accepted and eventually adopted formally in a revision of their liturgical books promulgated in 1603. St Jean-Marie Vianney, who is still often referred to simply as “the Curé d’Ars”, died on the feast of St Dominic in the year 1859, and was canonized by Pius XI in 1925. His feast was added to the General Calendar three years later, originally on August 9th, but later moved back to August 8th.

The Madonna and Child with St Catherine, and St Dominic Presenting the Donor, by Titian, 1512-16.

In the Calendar of the Novus Ordo, St Dominic and the Curé d’Ars were made to switch places; the idea being, apparently, that since Dominic’s feast could hardly be kept on the actual day of his death, which would involved bumping the Transfiguration out of the way, at least St Jean-Marie could. This seems a case where a basically good principle was applied with more zeal than wisdom, since no account was taken of the fact that the Curé d’Ars himself had celebrated that day as the feast of St Dominic, like centuries of priests before him.

As is also the case with the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, many Dominican houses keep the feast of St Dominic on the more traditional feast day, including the basilica in Bologna where he is buried, and which is now named for him. It was originally known as San Niccolò nelle Vigne, (St Nicholas in the Vineyards), and at the time it was given to the still very new Order of Friars Preachers in 1219, was on the outskirts of the city. The friars were able to expand it rapidly into a large complex to serve one of their most important communities, near one of the oldest and most important centers of learning in Europe. It was here that St Dominic died and was buried, originally laid in the floor of the church’s choir.

Upon his canonization in 1234, a proper Office and Mass were composed for his feast; this was sung for the first time in the choir of San Niccolò on August 5, 1234. At the time of St Dominic’s death, the prior of the Dominican house of Brescia, Guala Romanoni, beheld a vision, which he later described thus to Blessed Jordan of Saxony, Dominic’s successor as master general. Jordan writes:

He saw an opening, in heaven, by which two bright ladders descended. The top of one was held by Christ, the other by His Mother; on either one, angels ascended and descended. At the bottom of the two ladders, in the middle, was placed a seat, and on it sat one who seemed to be a brother of the order, with his face covered by his hood, as we are wont to bury our dead. Christ the Lord and His Mother pulled the ladders up little by little, until the one who was sitting at the bottom reached the top. He was then received into heaven, in a cloud of light, with angels singing, and that bright opening in heaven was closed. … That brother who had the vision, who was very weak and sick, realized that he had recovered his strength, and set out for Bologna in all haste, where he heard that on that same day and same hour, the servant of Christ Dominic had died. I know this fact because he told it to me in person. (Libellus de Principiis Ordinis Praedicatrum)

In the Office of St Dominic, the third antiphon of Lauds refers to this event: “Scala caelo prominens fratri revelatur, per quam Pater transiens sursum ferebatur. – A ladder stretching forth from Heaven is revealed to a brother, by which the Father passing was borne on high.” The very first time this Office was sung, it was Guala himself who intoned this antiphon. (He is now a blessed, and his feast is kept by the Order on September 4th.)

The Vision of Blessed Guala, depicted on the tomb of St Dominic in his church in Bologna.

Most of the propers for the Mass of St Dominic in the Dominican Use (the Introit, Epistle, Gradual, Gospel and Communio) are taken from the common of Doctors of the Church. Some of these parts are found in more than one Mass, but here the choice is a deliberate one, to express that St Dominic in his teaching and his life stands in the same position to the Order specifically as a Doctor does to the Church as a whole. (The Cistercians observe a similar custom on the feast of St Bernard.) The Alleluia verse is proper to the Dominicans, and like many medieval composition for both the Office and Mass, is in rhyme.

Alleluia, Pie Pater Dominice, / tuorum memor operum, / Sta corum summo judice / Pro tuo coetu pauperum. ~ Holy Father Dominic, / mindful of thy works / stand before the great Judge / for thy gathering of the poor.

A leaf of a Missal decorated by the Blessed Fra Angelico, the famous Dominican painter, from the museum of the Dominican church of San Marco in Florence, ca. 1430.

This is followed by a lengthy sequence, In caelesti hierarchia, which can be read at this link in Latin and English.

In 1921, a newly composed proper preface for the feast of St Dominic was added to the Missal.

Vere dignum … Qui in tuae sanctae Ecclesiae decorem ac tutamen apostolicam vivendi formam per beatissimum patriarcham Dominicum, renovare voluisti. Ipse enim, Genitricis Filii tui semper ope suffultus, praedicatione sua compescuit haereses, fidei pugiles gentium in salutem instituit, et innumeras animas Christo lucrifecit. Sapientiam ejus narrant populi, ejusque laudes nuntiat Ecclesia. Et ideo cum angelis et archangelis etc.
Truly it is meet … Who for the glory and defence of Thy Holy Church did will to revive the apostolic manner of life through the most blessed patriarch Dominic. For he, supported always by the help of Thy Son’s mother, put down heresies by his preaching, established champions of the faith for the salvation of the nations, and won innumerable souls for Christ. The nations speak of his wisdom, and the Church declares his praise. And therefore with the angels and archangels etc.

In the Tridentine period, the Dominicans instituted a special feast for all the saints of their order, as did several other religious orders. Ironically, this feast was also bumped from its original location by the dedication feast of a Roman basilica; initially kept on November 9th, the day after the octave of All Saints, it was later moved to the 12th to make way for the Dedication of Saint John in the Lateran. The preface of St Dominic noted above was appointed to be said also on this feast, a fine liturgical expression of the holy Founder’s position as the model for all the sons of his Order.

Fr Thompson has written previously about the procession that accompanies the singing of the Salve Regina at the end of Compline in the Dominican Use. In many houses, it was also customary to add after it the antiphon of the Magnificat for Second Vespers of the feast of Saint Dominic; it is here sung by the Dominican students at Blackfriars, Oxford.

O lumen Ecclesiae, doctor veritatis, rosa patientiae, ebur castitatis, aquam sapientiae propinasti gratis; praedicator gratiae, nos junge beatis. ~ O light of the Church, teacher of truth, rose of patience, ivory statue of chastity, freely you gave the water of wisdom to drink; preacher of grace, join us to the blessed.

St Antoninus of Florence

The Dominican Order celebrates quite a few of its own Saints within a very short period in late April and early May. On the traditional calendar, St Agnes of Montepulciano is kept on April 20th, Peter Martyr on the 29th, Catherine of Siena on the 30th, Pope Pius V on May 5th, and St Antoninus of Florence on the 10th. In the post-Conciliar Rite, Peter Martyr has been moved to June 4th, the day of the translation of his relics; Catherine is on his old day, and Pius on hers, leaving the 5th vacant for St Vincent Ferrer. Antoninus, who was canonized in 1523, remains on his traditional day; he was added to the Roman general calendar in 1683, but removed from the post-Conciliar reform in 1969.

The St Dominic Altarpiece, by Girolamo Romanino, 1545-8. The Saints standing in the lower part of the painting are the Apostle Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Peter Martyr, Dominic, Antoninus, Vincent Ferrer and the Apostle Peter; the two kneeling are Ss Faustinus and Jovita, the patron Saints of Brescia, where the painting was originally commissioned for the Dominican church, now destroyed. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

He was born in Florence in 1389, and christened “Antonio”, but because of his small stature, was always known by the diminutive form “Antonino”, even in the liturgical books. A famous story is told of how he was admitted into the Order. The prior of Santa Maria Novella, the Dominican house in Florence, was the Blessed John Dominici, one of the leading churchmen of his age, and particularly active in reviving the original spirit of austerity within the order’s Italian houses, which had very much fallen into laxity. Thinking to dissuade the fifteen-year old Antoninus, whom he deemed too frail for the rigors of religious life, he ordered him to wait, and come back when he had memorized the Decretals of Gratian, the canon law text book of the Middle Ages. A year later, the boy returned, having duly memorized the massive tome, and after answering several questions about it, was received with no further hesitation.

St Antoninus and Bl. John Dominici, by an anonymous Florentine artist, ca. 1600-30, from the Dominican convent at Fiesole. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

In accordance with Bl. John’s plans, Antoninus was destined for the future founding of a reformed house at Fiesole; when the project was eventually realized, it would also count the Blessed Fra Angelico, who was a great friend of his, among its first members. He also knew at least three other Dominican Blesseds, Lawrence of Ripafratta, Constantius of Fabriano, and Peter Capucci.

The young friar was not only a brilliant scholar, as demonstrated by this episode, but also a natural leader, and within a short time of his priestly ordination, began to occupy one position of governance after another. He served as prior of several houses, including three of the largest, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, and San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, bringing the reforming spirit to each of them. In 1436, he helped to found the second Dominican house in his native city, San Marco, together with Fra Angelico, many of whose works are still housed there to this day.

In addition to his work as a preacher and religious reformer, Antoninus was a great scholar of canon law, in an age which valued canonical process within the Church very highly indeed. As such, he was frequently consulted by the Popes; he is believed to have served on the Roman Rota, and by order of Pope Eugenius IV, attended the various sessions of the Ecumenical Council of Florence. In 1446, when the archbishop of his native city died, he was appointed to the office, very much against his will; like so many other saintly bishops (Gregory the Great, for example) he first attempted to hide, in his case, by fleeing to the island of Sardinia. Having been discovered, he pleaded to the Pope that he was too physically weak for the job, but Eugenius would not be put off, and finally forced him to accept episcopal consecration by threatening to excommunicate him for disobedience if he did not.

Proving the truth of the common maxim that power is best given to those who don’t want it, Antoninus was an exemplary bishop in every way, a father to the poor, and so well regarded for his prudence and wise judgment that he was popularly known as “Antoninus of Counsels.” The year after his appointment, he was summoned to Rome to administer the last Sacraments to the Pope, who died in his arms. Eugenius’ successor, Nicholas V, forbade any appeal to be made to Rome against his decisions; Pius II appointed him to a commission for the reform of the Roman courts, and the Florentine Republic made him one of its ambassadors on various occasions. (Pictured right - a statue of St Antoninus on the façade of Florence cathedral; image from Wikipedia by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Despite the endless cares which fall upon a man in his position, he was also assiduous in his prayer life, frequently celebrating Mass and preaching, reciting the full Divine Office (in an age when dispensations were easily granted to busy prelates), and often attending it in choir at the cathedral. He also found time to write an important treatise on moral theology, a widely-circulated manual for confessors, a chronicle of world history, and the biography of John Dominici. It was a common thing for prelates of wealthy sees (and Florence was very wealthy indeed) to keep a large stable for the travels of their retinues, but Antoninus had only one mule, which he sold several times to raise money for the poor; just as often, benefactors would buy it back and return it to him.

In the later part of his time as archbishop, Florence suffered from a series of disasters – a year-long outbreak of plague, followed by famine, and then, in 1453-55, a series of earthquakes. Through all of this, Antoninus was boundless in his charitable expenditures and his personal efforts to care for the victims, leading many others to do the same by his example. Cosimo de’ Medici, who had contributed a good deal of the money to found San Marco, said of him “Our city has experienced all sorts of misfortunes: fire, earthquake, drought, plague, seditions, plots. I believe it would today be nothing but a mass of ruins without the prayers of our holy archbishop.”

The Alms of St Antoninus, by Lorenzo Lotto, 1542; from the Dominican church in Venice, Ss John and Paul. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Antoninus died on May 2 of 1455, and his funeral was attended by Pope Pius II in person. He was canonized by Pope Adrian VI (1522-23) as a model reformer in an age very much in need of reform, a fact which Adrian was the first Pope to really grasp. (He might well have achieved on a larger scale within the Church some of what Antoninus achieved within his order and city, had he not died less than two years into his reign, the last non-Italian Pope before John Paul II). In 1559, his body was discovered to be incorrupt, and translated to the chapel where it still rests in the church of San Marco in Florence.

The Feast of St Vincent Ferrer

The feast of St Vincent Ferrer was traditionally assigned to the day of his death, April 5th, but I say “assigned to” instead of “kept on” advisedly; that date falls within either Holy Week or Easter week so often that its was either translated or omitted more than it was celebrated on its proper day. [1] For this reason, in 2001 the Dominicans moved him to today; on the general calendar of the Roman Rite, and in the Dominican Rite, he remains on his traditional day.

St Vincent Ferrer and his namesake, St Vincent the Martyr, by Miquel Joan Porta (1544–1616), formerly in the Jesuit house at Valencia, now in the Museu de Belles Arts de València. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons, by Quinok.) The banderole behind St Vincent Ferrer contains the words of Apocalypse 14, 7, “Fear the Lord, and give him honour, because the hour of his judgment is come”, for reasons that are explained below.

St Vincent was born in the Spanish city of Valencia in 1350, the descendent of an Englishman or Scot who was knighted after fighting for the reconquest of that city in 1238. After completing his philosophical training at the age of 14, he entered the Dominicans at 17, and was sent to one of the order’s most important houses of studies at Barcelona. After a brief period teaching at Lerida, and the writing of two well-regarded philosophical treatises, he returned to Barcelona for further studies, and was allowed to preach, although still only a deacon. It was here that he performed one of his earliest miracles; the city was then suffering from a famine, but Vincent predicted in the course of a sermon that food would arrive by ship that very day to relieve it. His prediction came true, but also earned him a year-long transfer by his nervous superiors to the order’s house at Toulouse.

Upon his return, he began the association with Cardinal Pedro de Luna which would mark the rest of his extraordinary life almost as much as his teaching and preaching, or his countless miracles and conversions. The year that he went to France, 1377, was the same year the Pope permanently left it, after almost 70 years of Papal residence in the city of Avignon. Gregory XI was finally persuaded to end the scandal of the Pope himself being the most prominent absentee bishop in Christendom, and return to Rome, largely through the influence of another Dominican, St Catherine of Siena. However, he died only fourteen months later.

St Catherine Escorts Pope Gregory XI in his Return to Rome, by Giorgio Vasari, 1573

During the following conclave, a crowd of Romans surrounded the building where the cardinals had gathered, loudly chanting “We want a Roman, or at least an Italian.” In the midst of this and various other disorders, and a conclave split between French and Italian factions, it was Cardinal de Luna, a Spaniard, who proposed as a candidate the archbishop of Bari, Bartolomeo Prignano, known to all as a saintly and learned man. He was thus elected as Pope Urban VI on April 8, 1378, the last Pope to be chosen from outside the College of Cardinals.

Almost immediately upon his election, however, the new Pope underwent a change in behavior so violent, and marked by such an astonishing lack of prudence and charity, that many believed his election had somehow driven him mad. St Catherine herself wrote to him, urging him to behave in a manner more becoming the Father of Christendom. To give a very simple example, he would (not without reason, to be sure) violently upbraid the cardinals for their venality and the luxury of their lives and retinues, yet he elevated four of his own nephews to the cardinalate. [2]

Within a few short months, he had so thoroughly alienated the majority of the cardinals that they withdrew to the town of Fondi, 60 miles southeast of Rome, having persuaded themselves that they had elected Urban not merely in the midst of the unruly Roman crowd, but in fear of it, thus rendering the election invalid. Having declared the election null, they proceeded to choose one of their own number, Robert of Geneva, to replace him, the beginning of the Great Schism of the West. After a failed attempt to seize control of Rome militarily, the new Pope, calling himself Clement VII, withdrew to France, taking up residence in the palace in Avignon recently vacated by Gregory XI. Before long, the entire Western Church was divided in its allegiance; not only were there two blocks of the major states, but within individual religious orders (including the Dominicans), and indeed, within many individual houses, there was one party that backed the claim of Urban, and another that of Clement.

The cosmatesque throne of the church of St Peter in Fondi, on which Clement VII was crowned.

It is tempting to imagine that a person of such sanctity and stature as St Catherine, renowned inter alia as a peacemaker amid the endless factional strife of the Italian cities, might have been able to bring about a reconciliation of this awful state of things; unfortunately, she died only a year and half into the schism. On the Roman side, Urban VI was succeeded in 1389 by a cardinal of his own creation, who took the name Boniface IX; the latter was consecrated by one of Urban’s cardinal-nephews, and was such a flagrant simoniac that his Papal name has never been used again. Boniface was followed in due time by Innocent VII and Gregory XII, while on the Avignon side, Clement VII died in 1394, and was succeeded by none other than Cardinal Pedro de Luna, who called himself Benedict XIII.

It is difficult to make the case that the cardinals gathered at Fondi were acting entirely in good faith, especially considering that in the earlier conclave, both Robert of Geneva and Pedro de Luna had withdrawn themselves from consideration in favor of Cardinal Prignano. Buyer’s remorse is simply not a principle in canon law. But there can be no doubt that in the years that followed, many partisans of both sides did act in the sincere conviction that their Pope was the true one. And the Avignon side could boast that one of its staunchest supporters was none other than the great preacher and miracle-worker Vincent Ferrer. [3]

Even as a member of Cardinal de Luna’s household, St Vincent continued his work as a preacher and teacher; he was confessor to the Queen of Aragon, and numbered among his converts a prominent rabbi named Solomon ha-Levi, who took the baptismal name Paul (for obvious reasons), and eventually became archbishop of Burgos. On the election of his patron as Pope in the Avignon line, he was called to the court, where he continued as he had before, refusing many offers of bishoprics and the cardinalate, but all the while steadfastly defending Benedict’s cause.

The Preaching of St Vincent Ferrer, predella of the polyptych by Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1430-1516) dedicated to the Saint in the Dominican church of Ss John and Paul in Venice. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In 1399, St Vincent obtained permission to leave the court, and thus began a twenty-year long career of itinerant preaching throughout Western Europe. In an era when many religious orders were relaxing their discipline in the hope of filling houses half-emptied or more by the Black Death, he lived very much in the spirit of the original Dominicans whose austerity had made such an impression in the 13th century. Travelling on foot, he visited many different parts of Spain, southern France, northern Italy and Switzerland, and everywhere he went, vast crowds would gather to hear him. The same miracles are attested of him that were later done by the patron Saint of missionaries, Francis Xavier, namely, that when he preached, his voice would carry to enormous distances, and he was understood simultaneously by groups of people who spoke several different languages. A company sprang up who followed him from place to place, at times numbering in the thousands, including several priests who assisted him in hearing confessions, and in forming the choir with which he sang the Mass and Divine Office every day. When he moved on, some of “Master Vincent’s Penitents”, as they were called, would often remain behind to consolidate the good work achieved by his mission.

The Roman Breviary states of him that “when the seamless garment of the Church was rent by a terrible schism, he labored greatly that it should be united again, and stay so,” delicately not mentioning that he never ceased from his conviction that the Popes of the Avignon line were in the right. In the meantime, the climate of opinion had shifted throughout the Church towards what was then called the “via cessionis – the way of yielding”, meaning that the only way to resolve the schism was for both claimants to resign. The Roman Pope, Gregory XII, was willing to do so, and did in fact abdicate the Papacy in 1415, the last such event until 2013.

Benedict XIII, however, remained obdurate, and would not yield even at the entreaties of his old and honored friend Vincent. On Epiphany of 1416, in the presence of King Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon, the Saint therefore preached that although Benedict was indeed the rightful Pope, his obstinacy had made the healing of the schism impossible, and that the faithful might therefore justly withdraw their allegiance to him; this proved the death blow to Benedict’s cause. St Vincent did not go to the Council of Constance, which finally settled the matter once and for all, but when it was over, Jean Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris (an institution which had played a leading role in the controversy), wrote to him that “But for you, the reunion could never have been achieved.”

The castle of Peñiscola, 80 miles to the north of Valencia on the Spanish coast. This castle had been the property of Pedro de Luna’s family, and it was here that he withdrew after being chased out of Avignon, deposed by the Council of Constance, and disavowed by all but a handful of supporters. He maintained to the end that he was always the legitimate Pope, and compared his castle to Noah’s Ark, which only had 8 people in it. In Spanish, he is often called “El Papa Luna” from his last name, a word which is also the origin of “lunatic.” (CC BY 3.0 image from Wikimedia Commons by ホセ・マヌエル)

Having thus seen the end of the great crisis of the schism, St Vincent spent the last years of his life continuing his apostolic labors in northern France. He died on the Wednesday of Passion Week, 1419, at Vannes in Brittany, where his relics are still kept in the cathedral. Pope Callixtus III Borgia, also a native of Valencia, whose election as Pope he had prophesied, canonized him in 1455, the fourth Dominican to be declared a Saint. (St Catherine followed very shortly thereafter, canonized by Callixtus’ successor Pius II, the former bishop of her native city, in 1461.)

In his Office in the Dominican Rite, one stanza of the hymn for Vespers says “You were indeed that other angel who flew through the midst of heaven, proclaiming to all peoples and tongues the hour of the Judge.” This refers to a famous episode in his career that took place at Salamanca in Spain, when he declared himself to be the angel of whom St John speaks in Apocalypse 14, 6: “And I saw another angel flying through the midst of heaven, having the eternal Gospel, to preach unto them that sit upon the earth, and over every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people.”

As told in Butler’s Lives of the Saints, “As some of his hearers began to protest, he summoned the bearers who were carrying a dead woman to her burial and adjured the corpse to testify to the truth of his words. The body was seen to revive for a moment to give the confirmation required, and then to close its eyes once more in death. It is almost unnecessary to add that the Saint laid no claim to the nature of a celestial being, but only to the angelic office of a messenger or herald—believing, as he did, that he was the instrument chosen by God to announce the impending end of the world.” The impending end of the world was indeed a favorite topic of St Vincent in his preaching, and this was perfectly reasonable, given the state of things in the Church in his time, but we would do well to remember that that was over six hundred years ago.

A statue of St Vincent as the Angel of the Apocalypse, in the Dominican convent in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

[1] In the 376 years between the institution of the Gregorian Calendar (1582) and the liturgical reform of 1960, while the feast of St Vincent still enjoyed the right of transference on the Dominican calendar, it was moved 201 times because of its concurrence with Passion Sunday, Holy Week or Easter week. After the right of transference was withdrawn from his rank of feast, in the forty-one years from 1960-2000 inclusive, it was omitted 24 times, outside of those places where he is honored as a principal patron.

[2] By comparison, the first two Medici Popes, whose family name has (rather unfairly) become a by-word for the corruption and venality of their era, during their combined reign of nearly 20 years, each made only one member of the family a cardinal.

[3] The Popes of the Avignon line were also recognized by St Colette, who was able to effect an important and long-lasting reform of the Poor Clares with the constant support of Benedict XIII, and by Bl. Peter of Luxemburg, who was made bishop of Metz in France and a cardinal by Clement VII.

“Through My Lens”: A New Series on British EWTN with Fr Lawrence Lew

Our long-time contributor Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., has another interesting project going on, in addition to his new book, which Peter wrote about last week. This is a series on British EWTN called “Through My Lens”, in which Father Lew shares his traveling experiences, and shows many of the wonderful photographs he takes of the places he visits. The first episode is about the Italian town of Orvieto, a place which is especially important for Dominicans. From 1261-4, St Thomas Aquinas lived and lectured in the Dominican house there, while Pope Urban IV and his court were sojourning in the city. This was the period when Thomas completed the Summa contra gentiles, and wrote the Catena Aurea, the Office and Mass of Corpus Christi, and the Contra errores graecorum. 

In 1447, another famous Dominican, the painter Fra Angelico (1395 ca. - 1455), was commissioned to decorate a large chapel attached to the cathedral of Orvieto, along with his assistant Benozzo Gozzoli. This commission was interrupted when the artists were called away to Rome by Pope Nicholas V, and the project was not finished until about 50 years later, but Angelico and Gozzoli did leave behind two completed sections of the ceiling vault. Here is one of them, of Christ in Majesty at the Last Judgment, photographed by Fr Lew. Fra Angelico was beatified by Pope St John Paul II in 1982; today is the anniversary of his death in 1455, and his feast day.

Revisiting a Dominican Theologian’s Appeal for Mutual Understanding in the Era of Summorum Pontificum

I am grateful to my colleague Gregory for pointing out to me this interesting article by a French Dominican, published by E.S.M. on December 16, 2007—thus, reacting to the initial fallout from the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum—and yet, as far as I can tell, never published online in English, a regrettable lacuna we have now sought to fill. While naturally one may not agree with all his points, the good father’s reflections indicate an amicable ‘catholic’ mentality that might have prevailed, had not Benedict’s peace given way to Francis’s war. —PAK

Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Is Significant: Planets Suddenly Meet

Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, OP

The debates surrounding the Motu Proprio seem to be symptomatic: planets that haven’t met for a long time are suddenly facing each other, astonished by each other’s existence, since the galaxy of the Church in France seems to be so full of empty spaces.

These planets are those of the “traddies” and those who are not—the majority of the French clergy and a large proportion of the parishioners. There are other planets which only partly overlap the previous configuration: young Catholics versus the so-called “Council generation” (the over-60s), or charismatics and other new communities versus Catholic Action, etc. It’s a beautiful diversity, demonstrating Christian plurality and everyone’s right to exist. How does this encounter take place?

Culture shock

We could discuss the theological differences that seem to separate these currents, usually crystallized around the reception or rejection of the Second Vatican Council. All of this is true, or rather should be, because unfortunately this formulation gives too much weight to theology. More than theologies, cultures and social milieus are suddenly colliding. For example, the mass of the clergy corresponding to the above-mentioned sexagenarian generation is rather left-wing, social and popular (or wants to be), including some of the higher clergy. The younger generations of Catholics, on the other hand, seem to belong to a more right-wing culture (albeit a pluralistic one), a more bourgeois and urban culture, not only because of the pendulum swinging back and forth, as our lazy intelligence too often lets us believe, but because of the numerical collapse of the middle classes, which should occupy the center and diversify the whole.

While remaining a minority, the traditionalist world is proving to be proportionally important for the present and, above all, for the future of the French Catholic community. In fact, it is the whole of the younger generation—from the right of the “traddies” to the left of the charismatics, including the new communities and certain dioceses—which at this time takes on a certain relief perceived as unitary, beyond their mutual yet considerable differences.

This is not without concern for the older generations. They don’t find in their younger siblings the ideals that thrilled them forty years ago. They realize the numerical and dynamic importance of these new currents, which they have nevertheless worked so hard to minimize for years. Young people want spiritual and liturgical life, fidelity to Rome, intellectual training, new reference-points, and explicit apostolic figures. It is not rare for the older generation to feel judged by the young. The latter most often aren’t giving it any thought, but the way they live [their faith] is perceived as an indictment.

The “traddy” crisis was therefore one of the occasions (like the World Youth Days, in fact) to reveal the non-marginal existence of several Catholic currents that the collective conscience had been willing to overlook.

Symptoms of cracks

The risk for all would be to defend themselves by excluding others. The Church is broad and maternal enough to contain them all. On the contrary, a propensity towards communitarianism would be a sign of the Christian community’s ill health.

The cracks in French Catholic culture have been caused by a number of ideologies, and sometimes make it difficult to amalgamate different ages and affiliations. The parish should play this role, but it is only succeeding in certain places that have taken the measure of the relevant phenomena in time. It’s the leaders of Catholic Action who are cracking—too late, unfortunately. Drifts have taken place and it will take time to reconcile generations, sensitivities, and, even more, ideas. All the more so, as we have left Christendom behind. Unity should focus more on theological substance than on pastoral options, which paradoxically combine pedagogical rigidity and doctrinal fragmentation.

The liturgical pluralism of the two states of the Roman rite may be damaging, but it is the consequence of a violent liturgical splintering [éclatement liturgique sauvage], even more damaging, on which official light is still too timidly shed.

Moving forward together

Only a spiritual, liturgical, and catechetical renewal of the whole French ecclesial community will enable the harmonious integration of the “traddies.” The latter, for their part, need to exert an effort to make themselves presentable. They also need to brush up on their theology, their pastoral care, and even their sense of liturgical dress.

A mutual effort of understanding is needed if these planets are to revolve in the same galaxy. Each is called to seek the truth rather than to be right. We need to find a common language, based on the Church’s present and perennial teaching, which is the point of reference for all debates.

A minimum of dialogue needs to be cultivated, through friendly encounters and an attempt to understand other people’s value systems, far from any jealously cultivated paranoia. No single Christian current holds the ideal cultural determinations of the Gospel message. Mutual approaches are gradually taking shape, and we must not delay in establishing them.

In the final analysis, the necessities of dogma, morality, liturgy, and the spiritual life of the Christian people, on the one hand, and the cultural conditioning of groups and individuals, on the other, are intertwined, sometimes in a disturbing way. Not everything is equally important.

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

Fra Angelico’s Altarpiece of St Nicolas

The Dominican Order has always had a strong devotion to St Nicholas, partly because in the high Middle Ages, everybody had a strong devotion to St Nicholas; as the late Fr Hunwicke put it so well, his portfolio of patronages was like that of a Renaissance cardinal. But the Dominicans also have a special attachment to him because one of their very first churches, in the city of Bologna, was originally dedicated to him, although it is now named for their founder, who died there, and whose tomb is in one of the side-chapels.

Around the year 1438, the Dominican friar and painter Fra Angelico (1395 ca. - 1455) was commissioned by his order to make an altarpiece of St Nicholas for a chapel dedicated to him within their church in the Umbrian city of Perugia. Like countless other works of that era, it was dismantled, and the pieces dispersed, at the beginning of the 19th century, entailing also the loss of the original frame. In 1915, however, the panels were reassembled in a modern recreation of an appropriately Gothic frame, with copies of the first two sections of the predella, the originals of which are in the Vatican Museums. The altarpiece is now in the National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia, one of the best museums in all of Italy.

In the central section, a classic Angelico Madonna and Child with Angels. The Virgin is dressed in a blue garment over a red one, to symbolize the royal dignity which is added to her human nature by becoming the Mother of God. The angels surrounding them are holding red and white flowers, which are also seen in the vases at Her feet, white to symbolize purity, and red the Passion.

On the left, Saints Dominic and Nicholas; the three bags of money from the story of the dowries which made Nicholas into Santa Claus are at his feet on the right, but not very noticeable. Note the apparel on his alb, which was pretty much standard in that era; the border of his cope is decorated with very finely detailed faces of angels. 

To the right of the central panel, Ss John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria; the latter, as a patron Saint of scholars and philosophers, is also a major patron of the scholarly Dominican Order. Her traditional legend says that she was of noble lineage, so, in contrast to the Virgin Mary, her blue garment is covered by a red one, to symbolize that her martyrdom is more important.  

The first predella panel shows three episodes from the life of St Nicholas: his birth; his conversion at hearing the preaching of a bishop; the episode of the dowries. (This panel and the following one are the two that belong to the Vatican Museums. In the picture of the complete altarpiece given above, you can see that they have been replaced with copies, which were deliberately made darker so that they would be recognized as such.)

In the second panel, St Nicholas multiplies a shipment of grain which had just come in to Myra in a period of scarcity; on the right, he saves a ship in danger of being wrecked in the middle of a storm. Both of these miracles, and the first episode of the next panel, are referred to in the antiphons of the proper Office of St Nicholas which is used by the Dominicans (and many others).

In the third panel, on the left, Nicholas saves three men from being unjustly executed; on the right is shown his death and the ascent of his soul to heaven.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Tomb of St Albert in Cologne

One of the twelve Romanesque basilicas of Cologne, Germany, is dedicated to the Apostle St Andrew, and I will add this church to the ongoing series which I have been doing about them on his feast day, which is two weeks from tomorrow. Today I am doing just the crypt, since it contains the tomb of St Albert the Great, whose feast it is.

St Albert Preaching, by the German painter Friedrich Walter (1440-93) 

Cologne was the very first city where the Dominicans established a presence in Germany, not long after St Dominic’s death in August of 1221, and they were first received there by the secular canons who had charge of the basilica of St Andrew. In 1248, St Albert was sent to this house by a general chapter of the order to establish a “studium generale”, which under his leadership became one of the Dominicans’ chief centers of learning in all fields. Albert’s remarkable career, including a brief stint (1260-62) as bishop of Regensburg, took him to a great many places in Germany, France and Italy, but he spent much of his time at Cologne, and died there in the Dominican house in 1280, at the age of about 80.

This chasuble, which now is kept in the sacristy of the church of St Andrew in Cologne, was found in the tomb of St Albert on one of the occasions when it was opened, and was still used until fairly recently. Our thanks to Fr Innocent Smith OP for sharing this photo with us. 

In 1802, when the left bank of the Rhine was under the rule of France and God’s enemy Napoleon, Cologne suffered the effects of the “secularization”, as it is called, by which religious orders were suppressed, and their property stolen by the government. The Dominicans’ church was first confiscated and used as a military barracks, then later destroyed. St Albert was therefore moved across the street to the crypt of the church of St Andrew, and his remains placed in an unfinished Roman sarcophagus of the 3rd century, where they remain to this day. Well has it been said that the wheels of God’s justice grind slowly, but to powder, for the powers of this world that once expelled the Dominicans from Cologne are no more. The friars, on the other hand, returned to the city in 1947, and were given custody of the church of St Andrew, and of their brother and teacher St Albert. (The following images are from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; first by Raimond Spekking, the rest by © 1971markus.)

An inscription in the crypt: “Here lies Saint Albert the Great, doctor of the Church, born ca. 1200 AD in Lauingen (in the southern German region of Swabia); entered the Order of Preacher in 1223; Professor of Theology at Paris and Cologne, 1248; bishop of Regensburg, 1260-62; on November 15, 1280, he passed to heaven; on December 16, 1931, he was canonized by Pope Pius XI. Rejoice, o happy and holy Cologne, who alone above all others hast merited to possess the splendor and glory of all Germany.”

Another which commemorates the visit of Pope St John Paul II to Cologne in 1980, for the 700th anniversary of St Albert’s death.

Two Artistic Treasures in Florence

I recently visited the older of the two Dominican churches in Florence, Santa Maria Novella, and got to see a couple of its many artistic treasures in a very unusual way. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the walls of many churches, but especially those of the mendicants, were decorated with frescoes which were commissioned to decorate chancery altars, or as votive offerings. Since they were not designed as a unit, but painted one by one as the commissions happened to be made, the result was often a patchwork of different styles from different periods, and sometimes, the same Saint or sacred event might be shown more than once within a relatively small space. We have previously shown an example of this phenomenon in the baptistery of the cathedral of Parma.

This kind of disorganization came to be greatly disliked in the Counter-Reformation period, in no small part also because the styles of the paintings were considered extremely old-fashioned. (As I pointed out repeatedly to the students with whom I visited this church and several others, the barbarians who vandalized so many of our churches in 1960s and ’70s were not the first of the their kind.) In 1565, therefore, the painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari was brought in to clear the old frescoes off the walls of the church’s nave, and replace them with new side-altars, each graced with a large altarpiece. He also dismantled the choir, which was removed behind the main altar, and of course the rood screen, over which hung one of the most famous works of the early Renaissance, the great Crucifix of Giotto (1290-95).

However, Vasari could not bring himself to destroy one of the church’s other most famous works, the Trinity of Masaccio, commissioned for a chancery altar in the left side-aisle in the later 1420s, and a watershed moment in the use of mathematical perspective in painting. Finding no way to move it or otherwise preserve it, he built one of the new altars in front of it. In 1860, when Vasari’s altars were partly redesigned in the neo-Gothic style, this altar was taken down, and Masaccio’s Trinity was thus rediscovered. The painting is currently undergoing restoration, and during our recent visit, my group and I were able to go up on the scaffolding and stand right in front of it.

Many chancery altars were made primarily for the celebration of Masses for the Dead for the family of the people who commissioned them. As I noted above, such altars were especially common in the churches of the mendicants, because they provided a steady source of income to communities which had no land-endowment to provide revenue to live on. The identity of the people who commissioned this altar is unknown, but the skeleton seen here indicates its primary purpose. Over it is written a memento mori, a rhyming couplet in late medieval Tuscan: “Io fu’ g(i)à quel che voi sete, e quel ch’i’ son, voi anco sarete. – I was what you are, and what I am, you also will be.”

Mirabile dictu, in 2018, another painting was discovered on the wall behind another of Vasari’s altars, this one a fresco by an unknown artist, which shows St Thomas Aquinas teaching a group of students. It was painted right around the time of Thomas’ canonization in 1323, and is believed by many to be the oldest image of him as a Saint in existence. (According to a friend of mine who is extremely knowledgeable about the early history of the Dominicans, this distinction may belong to a picture in their church in Bologna instead.)

The altar with the Vasari painting pushed back into its place.

The Dominican Church of the Holy Trinity in Krakow

Today is the feast of Saint Hyacinth, (the Latinized form of the Polish name Jacek), the founder of the Order of Friars Preachers in Poland. Born into the noble Odrowaz family in the year 1185, he was made a prebendary canon at Sandomir after completing his studies in both canon law and theology. While accompanying his uncle, the bishop of Krakow, to Rome in 1218, he met St Dominic; on seeing the latter raise a man from the dead by his prayers, he and his brother, Bl Ceslaus, were both received into the Order, and sent back home to establish it in their native land. St Hyacinth’s missionary works are said to have taken him through Prussia and Lithuania, into Scandinavia, and parts even further east; his brother Ceslaus went to Bohemia, and many other regions of Eastern Europe, eventually succeeding Hyacinth as Polish provincial superior. St Hyacinth himself, after returning to Krakow, died in the house of his order in 1257, on the feast of the Assumption; he was canonized by Pope Clement VIII in 1594.

St. Hyacinth crossing the Vistula river on his cloak, from the cloister of the church of the Holy Trinity, Krakow. A similar miracle is attributed to another early Dominican Saint, Raymond of Penyafort.

The church of the Holy Trinity in Krakow is the home of one of the largest Dominican communities in the world, and maintains a studium generale where friars from other Polish houses come to study. Much of the Divine Office is still sung in Latin, using the Order’s proper chants, in the main choir of the church. Like most of the large churches in Krakow, it is always busy, but especially on Sunday; when I visited it many years ago, I came in towards the end of the late-sleepers’ Mass, which starts at 1:00, and it was absolutely packed.

The 14th century façade, in the local style known as “Vistula Gothic”, after the name of the largest river in Poland, which runs through Krakow.

The nave of the church, seen from near the main doors.

The high altar contains a portion of the relics of St Emygdius, the patron saint of Ascoli Piceno in the Marches region of Italy. His feast day, August 5th, was also the feast of Saint Dominic within the Dominican Order until the later part of the sixteenth century.

The reredos of the high altar. After a massive fire destroyed most of the church in 1850, the entire interior was redone in the neo-Gothic style. The wooden carvings throughout the building, (the reredos, the confessionals and the choir stalls) are all the work of a single lay brother.

On the left side of the church, a large staircase leads up to the chapel of St. Hyacinth. This is the view from the platform in front of the chapel, looking out into the front part of the choir.

A view of the part of the nave from above.

The altar of the chapel of St. Hyacinth, containing his relics.

.The altar of the chapel of St. Dominic.

Part of the cloister, which is full of funerary monuments and pictures. Since the fall of communism, the Dominican Friars have regained control of most of the conventual buildings attached to the church.

This 15th century tomb of a Polish noblewoman shows her praying the rosary; it is the oldest image of a Rosary in Poland.

The back of the church, seen from Dominikanska Street, which runs alongside it. Some of the Baroque chapels added onto the building survived the fire of 1850.

The towers of St Mary’s Basilica on the main square of Krakow, seen from the gardens of the Holy Trinity complex.

The Seventh Centenary of St Thomas Aquinas’ Canonization

The Church today celebrates the seventh centenary of the canonization of St Thomas Aquinas. Although popular devotion to him began as soon as he died, the Dominicans did not begin officially collecting testimonies to his sanctity until 1317, over 40 years after his death. Representatives of the Order presented their evidence to Pope John XXII (1316-34, the second Avignon Pope) in an audience the following year, at which the process received formal approval to continue. One of the most famous stories about Thomas is that a cardinal objected to his cause because he had performed no miracles, to which the postulator answered, “Quot articuli, tot miracula - there are as many miracles as there are articles (in the Summa.)” The cause was concluded in five years, and the same Pope issued the bull of canonization on July 18, 1323; as was then the custom, it includes an appendix of some of the Saint’s more notable posthumous miracles. His feast day is traditionally kept on March 7th, the date of his death, but the Neo-Gallican uses of Paris and various other French sees moved it to this date to keep it out of Lent.

This altarpiece by the Sienese painter Lippo Memmi (1291 ca. – 1356) is one of the earliest to be made after the canonization. It is housed in a church in Pisa, Italy, dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria, patron Saint of philosophers, which formerly belonged to the Dominican Order. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Above St Thomas, the Lord sits on a throne of angels, and around his head are Moses, St Paul and the Four Evangelists, figures representing his mastery of all the sources of Divine Revelation.

On the book in Thomas’ hands are written the words of Proverbs 8, 7, “Veritatem meditabitur guttur meum, et labia mea detestabuntur impium. – My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness”, the first words of the Summa Contra Gentiles. Of the four books lying flat under it, the one on the left is the Bible, with the first words of Genesis 1, 1, while the other shows the beginning of Thomas’ commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. (In medieval universities, the final step to obtain a doctorate in theology was the writing and defending of such a commentary; St Robert Bellarmine was the first person to be granted a doctorate in theology by writing one on Thomas’ Summa Theologica.) The two books under them are written with a purely ornamental form of letter called pseudo-kufic script, used by medieval artists to represent languages that they did not know such as Greek and Arabic; this would signify the superiority of Christian philosophy and theology over those of the pagans and Muslims.

Continue Reading this Article. . .