“Behold the Bridegroom Cometh”: A Beautiful Byzantine Chant for Holy Week

On the first three days of Holy Week, the first troparion of the Byzantine service of Orthros (the equivalent of Roman Matins and Lauds) is this very beautiful text, which has given its name to the service, Bridegroom Matins. This English version is sung with the same music as the traditional Church Slavonic version, an edifying example of how to celebrate a rite in the vernacular without destroying its musical patrimony. Before the tropar, a threefold Alleluia is sung with four verses of Isaiah 26.

“Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, oh my soul, do not be weighed down sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the kingdom; but rouse yourself, crying, Holy, Holy, Holy are Thou, o our God. * Through the Mother of God, have mercy on us!”

Matins are often anticipated to the evening of the day before, so that the first of the Bridegroom Matins, that of Holy Monday, is celebrated on the evening of Palm Sunday, the second, that of Holy Tuesday, on the evening of Holy Monday, and the third, that of Holy Wednesday, on the evening of Holy Tuesday. The troparion is sung three times, with the two parts of the doxology between them. According to a Greek Holy Week book which I have, the final words “through the Mother of God, have mercy on us!” as given above are only sung the third time. On Holy Monday, the first two times end with the words “by the protection of the Bodiless Ones”, on Holy Tuesday, “by the prayers of the Forerunner”, and on Holy Wednesday, “by the power of the Cross.” However, in the Slavic usage, the end is always “through the Mother of God...”

A similar melody, sung in Ukrainian by seminarians of the Basilian Order at their chapel outside of L’viv.

Another very beautiful version, in Arabic.

The original Greek text, sung by monks of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mt Athos.

A New Holy Week Resource: Latin-English Tenebrae Booklets

A friend of mine, Mr Matthew Roth, has made some very nice new booklets for Tenebrae which include all the Gregorian chants, and a full translation in English. The text follows the Divino Afflatu reform (1911), with the music found in the Solesmes editions. They are on letter paper, and Matthew informs me that they don’t look good saddle-stitched (which tends to be too small anyway), so if the are printed out, they need to be need to be scaled for A4 if you are using A4 paper. Printer software should be able to do this easily. The files for each day may be found at these links: Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Typographical or other errors may be reported via the comments here on NLM, or this thread on the Musica Sacra forum; the PDFs will be promptly replaced, and this does not break the relevant Dropbox links.

Photo by Allison Girone

Implementing the Traditional (Pre-55) Roman Holy Week, Part 3 — Tenebrae, Divine Office, Times

( Part 1 | Part 2 )

If one is so blessed as to have Sunday Vespers, then those should be sung in the usual way on Palm Sunday. It is a long day, but it is not worth subordinating the liturgy to our frailty in this case. There are no changes to be made to this office that pertain just to Palm Sunday, other than one might celebrate without ceremonies (due to a lack of personnel sometimes out of our control), although Benediction may follow in the usual way regardless. It helps to have sung the Vexilla Regis twice already before Good Friday, even with the organ taken away for the Triduum.

The lecterns do not have falls in violet or black at Tenebrae. The funerary candles of Good Friday may come out already on Wednesday, even if they are replaced again on Thursday morning with brass candlesticks and bleached candles.

I find it best to omit choir ceremonies (including a bow to the celebrant) on Wednesday, lest they be repeated on Thursday night out of habit. Further, one genuflects to the cross and even to the empty altar, when entering and exiting and during the office, but not otherwise before or after on Thursday (canons bow in that case, but we have hardly any who might qualify…).

I would not expect much if any congregational singing at Tenebrae, particularly if one does not chant psalmody regularly, but a parish which does faithfully follow the conciliar directive to sing Vespers on Sundays and the chief feasts may find itself in for a surprise (a treat, even). It goes without saying that one should probably not attempt the responsories without practice, especially since we find rare instances of tritones (going from F to B, that is, in more Gregorian terms, Fa to Si/Ti) avoided in most of the repertoire for its harsh sound, that is also hard to anticipate when coming back to the incipit from the verse sung by a soloist or by cantors. But this is fine. The faithful need not sing everything, and Holy Week may well be overwhelming as it is. Let Christ enter their hearts via the chant sung on their behalf in a more profound way than usual, but please, give them booklets or books throughout Holy Week.

But for Vespers sung recto tono (I include the Stripping of the Altars here, since it follows Vespers immediately on Thursday), it may be a different story. Some people have a booklet with some instructions on how to sing the last syllable of an antiphon, at the mediant, and at the end of a verse, i.e. to lengthen it slightly, pausing at the mediant and singing the subsequent verse immediately. You could put these syllables in boldface type too. There is always some disagreement about colons in the antiphons, which is manageable in the end, but I personally ignore the flex when singing recto tono. There is an excellent example from Fontgombault, albeit from the funeral rites instead.

Vespers is also a better way to move from one thing to the next than “silence as the mere absence of sound” as the faithful, whether workers or families with tired small children, exit after the main service ends. With Tenebrae, this is not a problem. The faithful leave quietly in the dark, the strepitus having shocked them, the content and the length of the office having overwhelmed them.

As to the ceremonies of Vespers of the Triduum, since there is no incense, I prefer to stand after the last antiphon of the psalmody and before the antiphon of the Magnificat, then kneel after the repetition of the Magnificat antiphon, whereas one sits when incense is used or at least when the office is sung in chant (and Compline never has incense!); if one takes advantage of the permission to sing the antiphons in the full Gregorian chant, do that. I should note that for dicitur, one must understand it as cantatur, either recto tono where no chant is given (the collect, the repeated Miserere, or, at the other hours, the Christus factus est) or where it is clearly only ad libitum, such as at Vespers. It is not legitur or recitatur, as in a speaking voice.

I leave the timing to another part of this essay, but I should mention the ceremonies of Tenebrae which must be done in darkness: if the sacristy is inaccessible from the sanctuary, or if the altar structure does not allow for the acolyte to hide with the candle behind it, then he should simply turn around facing the apse wall or walk to the back— with a lighter in hand in case of an accident.

On Thursday, if the parochial church is too small to place the altar of repose at a temporary altar towards the vestibule or at least on the side of the nave away from the main altar, then the candles must be extinguished during the Benedictus, lest the ceremony’s effect be diminished, even if adoration will continue until midnight; the candles must be lit again in this case.

The candle from the hearse should be extinguished in a timely manner after the psalm, preferably at the end of the antiphon. The cantor should look up to see that the candle is extinguished, which also keeps him grounded in prayer and not lost in his head.

Customarily, the dominant is the same pitch for each psalm tone, in each mode.

Keeping Do as the same pitch, or changing the pitch of the dominant, is too confusing and leads to problems with the range of the chant. In the traditionalist sphere, and in places that retained the chanted Latin office in its postconciliar arrangement, A flat to B flat is the usual choice of notes for the psalmody (in other words, the dominant is chosen from A flat, A natural, or B flat); for anything penitential sung  recto tono, a whole step down (the repeated Miserere when not sung polyphonically, the final collect…) is usually sufficient. The responsories should be sung conveniently for the voices in question, just as with the Mass propers.

A pitch pipe is the best way to sound the pitches, as most of us do not have perfect pitch and require some sort of audio cue. Smartphone piano apps are OK in the choir loft, if one must give intervals, but they are not conducive to singing the office in cassock and surplice in the front of the church.

In the longer psalms such as Friday’s Lauds canticle, one should not be afraid to restore the pitch. At Vespers, give the pitch before each antiphon to keep it centered even if the pitch dropped in the preceding psalm.

The Timing and Other Considerations

What time should you celebrate, and how should you accommodate the lengthy (lengthier) rites? This is perhaps the most contentious question. First, obviously the rite of Palm Sunday occurs at the usual hour in the morning (preferably…). With the long reading or hopefully chant of the Passion according to Matthew, in addition to the palm blessing and procession, I would expect up to an additional two hours to be added to the Mass, depending on the number of people receiving palms and the length of the procession, even if the tract is shortened by singing it with a psalm tone. The Passion lasts around forty-five minutes when sung in full. So if at all possible, I would anticipate the start and reduce the number of Masses, or at least bless palms at only the sung (solemn) Mass. This also insists on the importance of the sung (solemn) Mass as the main Mass, what the French call, even in the most reduced, banal celebrations of the Novus Ordo, the grand’messe.

It is superfluous to preach following the Gospel on this day. The same is true of Holy Saturday, even without baptisms. But on Thursday and Friday, the liturgy is not so long as to make a short sermon overly burdensome on the faithful. Nevertheless, one could revive the custom of an evening sermon on these days as was often the case at Westminster Cathedral and in other major churches before the reforms of the last century.

We must briefly go over again the historical development of the timing of the celebrations that occur during the Triduum in order to address the pastoral questions raised by celebrating the classical Holy Week.

The major rites of each day are to occur after the hour of None, which is ordinarily celebrated in the mid-to-late afternoon. Holy Thursday was already anticipated to the morning in Rome itself no later than the middle of the eighth century, and the celebration of Holy Saturday was anticipated such that it was moved fully to the morning in the missal of Saint Pius V. Indeed, such anticipation remains normative in the Byzantine rite, barring a reduction to the most essential aspects, all celebrated in the evening in Western countries to accommodate workers (mirroring in part the modern practice of the Roman rite), and in the Roman rite, the link between the hour of None is not the time of day, as those few references are suppressed for the Triduum at the minor hours, but the custom of celebrating penitential Masses after this hour.

But in no case were the major liturgies, particularly on Thursday and Saturday, evening or nighttime rites, while the approximate timing of the major liturgy of Good Friday is the same in the classical Holy Week and in that of Pius XII, this rite stands out as being inconsistent with the historical literalism applied to Thursday and Saturday.

It is true that the PCED asked those who had the formal indult to observe the modern evening or at least afternoon times. The problem with this request is that Good Friday is rarely a public holiday in our time, much less so Holy Thursday, and then the longest rite of the liturgical year is celebrated late in the day. It is not seemly to sing Vespers exhausted in the dark. Much has been said about the apparent incongruity of the paschal vigil celebrated in the morning, but the 1955 reform transfers the problem to the other end of the day, such that Vespers is omitted – and since Vespers is not a nighttime office, it does some violence when moving the vigil so late in the day that one finishes towards nine or ten at night. (Adopting the 1955 Lauds with the rest of the pre-1955 vigil does yet more violence to; do not do that.) It also leaves the day completely empty of any liturgical celebration, and even private recitation of the shortened Matins (which must follow Compline) becomes a challenge for the clergy, in particular those who must celebrate Mass on the most important Sunday of the year. A late afternoon or evening celebration of the vigil realistically excludes the celebration of Matins (together with Lauds) even for choirs otherwise capable of the additional singing.

These three most holy days have not been holy days of obligation for centuries. They perhaps ought to be, and it made sense that they were before early modernity. But they are not obligatory in our own time. Pastors should therefore exhort the faithful to take time from work anyway, regardless of the missal ultimately placed on the altar. The benefit for those using the traditional Roman rite of Holy Week is that the ceremonies can be advanced including to the morning so that they may be done as solemnly as possible, in the most dignified way. It is not dignified to lose one’s voice having gone from one liturgy to Tenebrae without sufficient rest, and given the character of this office, which requires the passage to darkness amplified by the extinguishing of candles, transferring it to the morning as is the case of the 1955 reforms (with one exception, that of the cathedral in which the chrism Mass is celebrated), destroys the ceremony just as much as using another form of the breviary would.

Those who cannot take a day off from work should come to Tenebrae and, on Thursday, the Mandatum, if it is celebrated in the late afternoon around five or just after, in order to finish before Tenebrae.

Starting the major Mass (“Mass”) around nine or ten o’clock each day brings you to Vespers sometime by noon or just after. Clergy bound to the office have sufficient time to say Prime to None before and then Compline after, before returning for Tenebrae. For some of us, starting around six in the evening ensures that most of the ceremony is in darkness, or at least as darkness noticeably falls in the church, even if Easter falls relatively early and during Daylight Saving Time. (It does not always fall in DST in countries where this still begins in April or never does where DST is not observed at all.) But by Saturday, I can dispense with a light well into the second nocturn, even with the artificial, electric lights off since the fading natural light from outside suffices with the shorter liturgy of Holy Saturday’s office.

And you will need a light, preferably a book light to clip to your book (or binder or folder containing a printed booklet) that has settings to increase warmth. You want the warmest settings, not white light. These can be found easily and cheaply on the internet. The light is needed by all singing until the last verse of the Miserere sung by your side (either gospel or epistle side, or extinguishing it at the last odd or even verse depending on how you alternate the psalmody), by the officiant who sings the final collect recto tono, on his knees, per the rubrics. (Of course, he may have it memorized and the others the Miserere; more power to these men if that is the case!)

Prepare copies of the readings, the whole office of Tenebrae, etc. in advance. Ideally everyone sings from the same source, or everything is then copied from one source. Having different sources for Tenebrae in particular can cause issues in the psalmody (the flex is not always in the same place). You can print books with a spiral bound (letter, A4, etc.) at a decent price so that it looks a little less thrown together; otherwise, a black binder at Tenebrae will be fine (it may be a bit more noticeable during the daylight at the other services, but we must do our best with what we have). It goes without saying that one should practice the Lamentations, the Passion, and the first and/or twelfth prophecy (for which special tones exist) in particular. Keep things from year to year, if you have space. It makes your life much, much easier.

I have this to say as a sort of conclusion:

This series is long. One might consider that it’s missing the forest for the trees, and I do not take for granted that you can just do this with anyone; there is also a pastoral sensitivity: the decision to celebrate the classical Holy Week comes from the priest in charge (the pastor, chaplain, and so on), and it should not be up for argument, but he must do his best (his maximum effort, even) to prepare the faithful. Nevertheless, I suggest that this series is for those who intend to celebrate the classical Holy Week in due course and that there is something to take away from it, whatever stage of the process you are at.

Implementing the Traditional (Pre-55) Roman Holy Week, Part 2 — Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday

(Continuing from Part 1.)

Holy Thursday

You probably have most of the materials needed for Thursday even if you have never done the 1955 Holy Week, only that of Paul VI; if you do not have an ombrellino, silk can be placed over a more ordinary umbrella… the veil for the second chalice really ought to be plain white, and you need wide ribbon, but a white chalice veil turned inside-out does in a pinch. Practice tying a bow beforehand, and make sure that the ribbon is suitably wide, lest your two left thumbs get in the way.

The Pange lingua gloriosi ought to be sung in alternation (cantors-all or men-women); this becomes particularly acute when the people are used to intoning themselves only part of it and not really knowing the melody as well as they think, having learned it orally. But hopefully no one insists on going on to Tantum ergo when either one must wait briefly or return to the second verse… Some instruction may be needed; otherwise, more musically advanced parishes may choose a polyphonic setting of the text to conclude the hymn.

Remember that it is not especially Roman for the thurifers to ever walk backwards. It is also easier to walk the normal way. When arranging the altar of repose, think of your future selves; flowers do not belong right in front of the altar. While the ideal altar of repose is temporary, as splendid as it ought to be, and does not use a tabernacle, but rather a sort of urn, it must lock, and the altar of repose needs to be reasonably out of the way. A side altar must do for many of us, and it can be quite splendid as shown in another example from the Institute of Christ the King. 

If the Mandatum is sung, I personally do not feel scrupulous about singing any particular antiphons and especially all of them. The music is meant to cover the time of the washing, nothing more or less, but Holy Thursday presents a special case. Choral enthusiasts have heard or even performed the Maurice Duruflé harmonization outside of the liturgy. The chant (harmonized or otherwise) is popular, well-known, beloved. It is fairly easy for experienced congregations to join at least the response portion, with the schola taking the verses. This makes it hard to insist on singing another antiphon first; one certainly will not have time after.

But should the Mandatum be done at all? It depends. Some pastors in the West (Europe and North America) are sensitive to not only not having ecclesiastical subordinates as does a bishop or religious superior, or at least the dean of a cathedral chapter, but that the otherwise natural replacement are children, not the men of the parish, and so they do not wish to touch the feet of the altar servers, at least the minors. Since most servers are boys, or at least will be some part of the contingent necessary for the Mandatum rite, then it is easy to justify omitting the rite. It is also optional. Now, most of this is optional as it is, but if one had to cut one thing from this week, it would be the Mandatum, if it meant preserving everything else including Vespers of Thursday and Friday.

Moving on to the stripping of the altars: my reading is that ps. 21 and its antiphon are sung recto tono, not with the chant from Good Friday’s Matins. The psalm need not be repeated, nor the repetition of antiphon delayed, if the carpet, some of the candlesticks, etc. are not removed promptly, so long as the ministers have finished removing the altar cloths and the major part of the work is completed.

More considerations on the Divine Office will follow, but I would strongly encourage you to sing, even recto tono, Vespers after the main liturgy on Thursday and Friday; on all three days of the Triduum, one could celebrate None beforehand, although this is not strictly required.

Good Friday

One does not need black falls for the legilia or covers for the missal. Everything is “naked” on this day. But what applies to purple folded chasubles applies to the black worn on this sacred day. The Good Friday celebrant’s chasuble should be even more splendid than usual if possible.

If you have adoration lasting into the night of Thursday, ending at midnight per the rubrics common to all variations of the Roman rite, then you will likely wish to change the candles and followers at the altar of repose before beginning the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified.

The choirmaster must work with the celebrant to give the right pitches for the unveiling of the cross. Try to roll with what he sings, not what you planned to sing.

Just as on Sunday and on Thursday, the music for the adoration covers the adoration itself. It need not extend beyond this, and should not, only to the extent that a chant should finish logically and polyphony should finish in its entirety, omitting subsequent chants or polyphonic settings. For example, one may end the Reproaches with one final “Popule meus,” one should repeat the antiphon Crucem tuam, and one should sing the (entire) Crux fidelis, but one need not sing all of the chants just to sing them, if adoration has concluded.

The books are clear: the people adore by genuflecting on both knees three times as they approach the single large crucifix placed on a cushion. Permission was given, admittedly, to pass down the communion rail a crucifix which essentially eliminates this creeping to the cross. But it happens once a year. It replaces communion on this day. This rite was broken in bits first in 1955, and in 1970, doing what Thomas Cranmer and his ilk wished to do but as it turns out from the inside. Unless there is an unusually large congregation (not realistic in most churches attached to the traditional rite and to the traditional Holy Week ceremonies), I would not recommend skipping the creeping of the cross in favor of the permission to move down the altar rail with a crucifix to be kissed by the faithful, but this requires coordination with ushers.

Should the people remove their shoes? I am in favor of this, and it may happen anyway, as they copy the clergy.

The rest of the rite is quite straightforward, so long as the Vexilla Regis begins only when the procession departs to return to the main altar. I hardly wish to touch the prayer for the Jews, but most clerics will probably use the 2007 prayer preceded by the genuflection as with the other prayers (keep in mind that this is the original pre-Carolingian practice).

Make sure you know that the tool used to light and extinguish candles is brought to the altar of repose for the actual Mass of the Presanctified when candles are lit at the same time that the cross is adored and, importantly, that it is returned to the sacristy before Tenebrae.

Holy Saturday

The triple candle is not easy to make. I do not make it myself. Various ways of heating the wax to twist three candles together including a sous-vide machine and using a weight system may work. I find that it is most in the spirit of things to have three candles in one, as opposed to three candles in a candelabra attached to a pole.

If possible, I encourage using a different dalmatic than the one for the Mass as seen here in photos from Saint Mary’s Oratory in Wausau, Wisconsin. A nice lampas could work too. The priest’s chasuble for the vigil itself is also especially striking.

Prepare the list of readers in advance. Some readings can be done by a chanter from the schola, but others are followed by tracts or are preceded by one. I do not think that forcing at most a handful of clerics to sing twelve readings is an ideal to which we should aspire. Laymen who can sing should be pressed into service.

For the procession and the blessing of the font, it may be necessary to begin the tract as the celebrant prepares and the candle is removed. Otherwise, the tract will be so long with the ministers left waiting at the font. If the Palestrina setting is sung, there is a second part in polyphony, or one may sing the chant.

The Litany is tricky. First, it seems that it may be started as the celebrant begins to process from the baptistry; he need not be prostrating at this point, if he blessed the font. Otherwise, it makes sense to wait, when the font is not blessed.

All of the invocations are doubled, that is, from “Pater de caelis…miserere nobis” to “Santa Maria, ora pro nobis” all the way to the end of the Litany, with the invocations “Ut…te rogamus audi nos” (possibly — probably — excluding the Agnus Dei; see below). This is entirely foreign to anyone used to the 1960 or 1970 rubrics. I find it best for cantors to sing and to reply to themselves, that is, they sing all of the first “Santa Maria, ora pro nobis” by themselves, and so on and so forth. Then the people only reply to the second invocation. Why? In part, to not mess up and to stay together. The chant books have breath marks omitted from missals in the last set, and then the people clearly hear the plural invocations of the saints (some pairs of saints invoked together, the “All ye…” concluding each section…).

Further, the cantors alone should restart at “Agnus Dei…” and in my ideal world, they sing until “Parce nobis, Domine” etc. The last invocation is not sung with the same melody as in Mass XVIII, so it needs to be taught to the congregation ahead of Holy Week. (One can send links via email newsletters and the various apps for parish communications; it might be helpful to do a series with recordings. A handful of parishioners in the pews who are prepared can make a difference.)  I cannot tell from the rubrics or from the ceremonials if the Agnus Dei strophes or the “Christe, audi nos”/“Christe, exaudi nos” are also doubled. To me, I think that they logically are not, but everything else is, so it feels inconsistent. In any case, some instruction on the chant of the Litany is needed.

The pitch will almost inevitably drop when doubling. I recommend starting on B flat or at least A and to correct the falling pitch at each new set (certainly by “Peccatores”…).

For the solemn Alleluia, the choirmaster must work with the celebrant to give the right pitches. Try to roll with what he sings, not what you planned to sing. In this case, feel free to intone for the repetition if the celebrant takes you too high such that the next two, or even the current one, are out of range. With this in mind, ideally, the bulk of tracts are sung in one key, but the verse and final tract follow the last pitch of the final Alleluia, and so they may be in a different key if you choose a more comfortable key for the others.

I personally prefer to omit the Marian antiphon, even if on Saturday there is not much congregational singing to do. In a way, Christ is not yet risen! Also, recessing to organ music is much easier after singing for three to four hours, and besides, the antiphon comes back after Compline, not Vespers, and we should respect this even outside of obligatory prayer of the office in choir.

We will conclude the series with Tenebrae and the Divine Office.

Implementing the Traditional (Pre-55) Roman Holy Week, Part 1 — Introduction and Palm Sunday

This essay (which will be divided into three posts) is by the same anonymous author who contributed the series on the implementation of the pre-1939 (mostly the same as pre-1955) liturgy on every single day of the liturgical year. In that series, Holy Week is mentioned in broad strokes: which days to do first, and why.

Now let us consider the details of that rite. We shall not examine the “what to do” in detail, except where there is possible confusion, but rather the little things that have come up over years of celebrating the ancient Holy Week. This series transmits the lessons learned and what would have been nice to know years and years ago when first approaching the introduction of the classical Holy Week in a parochial setting. Some of what follows is in the realm of opinion, well-informed by books and by practice as it may be; but the goal is to give clergy, sacristans, MCs, and directors of sacred music food for thought.

In the end, I want to be clear: you can, and you should, celebrate the traditional Holy Week in parish churches even on a skeleton crew. 2020 and 2021 proved that this was possible. Plenty of evidence can be found on YouTube and on social-media platforms. But one cannot do this on a whim. It requires some planning, and that is the ultimate point of this series.

Why the traditional Holy Week of the Roman rite?

Why, indeed? A priest whom this author knows well puts it: the faithful like the Triduum, in the Novus Ordo that is, because it is the most Catholic part of the entire Novus Ordo, though they will not say this in so many words, without yet considering the degree to which it is more Catholic than the reformed rite of Pius XII and to which it has more in common with the classical Holy Week, or conversely the degree to which it retains elements of the Pian reform, and this even excluding the degree to which it declines towards or away from the ideal.

The Catholic nature is obvious, yet is somewhat obscured all the same when looking back to the 1955 rite, for one sees the catholicity even with no knowledge of the rites celebrated immediately “anterior” to the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council and is troubled in the same thought by the changes, even when one does not know explicitly that they are changes or that we should be bothered at all. For example, without getting too far ahead or off-track, one can immediately sense that the Litany of the Saints ought to be sung during the paschal vigil as one unified chant, not divided in two in order to do something else in between the two sections.

One is likely to be deeply moved by the character of the 1955 rites displaying in its way a deeper catholicity from even the best of the Novus Ordo, to say nothing of the typical celebration.  I recall my first brush with the Pius XII rites in my adolescence. The rite was celebrated in the afternoon of Good Friday. The black recalled a funeral, even though I had not yet been to a traditional Requiem Mass on any occasion (I had only read about it online), and the sober community mingling after the liturgy also called to mind the funeral customs of our own times.

Later, in my adolescence and into adulthood, when experiencing even the best of the Novus Ordo (ad orientem, Gregorian chant and especially sacred polyphony, three deacons reading the Passion without congregational participation, a second priest assisting in choir dress instead of Mass vestments, etc.), the wider flexibility in times permitted (a later hour may be chosen, per the rubrics, for “a pastoral reason”), actually worked against us: to celebrate the modern form of the presanctified liturgy of Good Friday in the evening (let us say at or after the customary dinner hour in most Western nations except for Spain), after a day jam packed with devotions, including the Stations of the Cross and confessions at noon celebrated for hundreds of people, instead of structuring those around the major liturgical office celebrated at a more dignified hour, meant that the liturgy became an afterthought, the loss of the funerary character even more apparent, already so from the get-go with the use of red instead of black vestments. Gregory DiPippo has expressed why this is so important and how it is indeed diminished in the changes made to the liturgy in 1970.

All of this is resolved when one finally attends the unreformed Holy Week. It is unambiguously Catholic. It is all tied to the Mass, the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary united to the offering of the Last Supper, in the expectation of the Resurrection and Ascension to come, all undergone by Christ that we too may share in new heavenly life. The rites are ordered and well-constructed even to the least knowledgeable observer. I would not say that I am jealous of those whose first and only experience of this sacred week is in the classical rite (some converts or children for example know only this rite, as unbelievable as that sounds), but there is something remarkable about this: they get to see possibly the most obviously Catholic rite that there is, in its depth, in its intensity. They have, up to this point, received nothing but the best, handed down as it ought to be.

Ceremonials and Other Books

The Brignoles community produces a handy volume taken from the 1951 edition of Fortescue (O’Connell), The Ceremonies of the Roman Rites Described, apparently, per the monks, with emendations conforming to the 2017 indult from the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei pertaining to the use of the ancient ceremonies.

Otherwise, the full Fortescue is available on the Internet Archive.

Francophones or those willing to grit their teeth should remember that Stercky’s Manuel de liturgie, volume 2, is the place to find the ceremonies of the various seasons and important occasions.

There are of course other volumes; Lawrence O’Connell’s The Book of Ceremonies is available from Corpus Christi Watershed; while relatively little in this volume pertains to Holy Week, as one must imagine that it was hardly celebrated solemnly with deacon and subdeacon even in American seminaries, the portion on the Forty Hours’ Devotion will clarify how to celebrate Mass on Holy Thursday after the consecration.

Other books are out there to complement these. Finally, one ought to follow Holy Week as provided for in the Memoriale Rituum designed for smaller churches with fewer resources and especially without the choral obligation of the Divine Office and conventual Mass, but the collective wisdom nowadays is to follow the ceremonies as prescribed for larger churches, cathedrals and those with a chapter of canons, making amendments as necessary to the shape of the building and to the personnel available, not omitting the rite or doing it radically differently as the preconciliar legislation envisions, wherein the Memoriale Rituum is obligatory in smaller churches. However, I believe that it is better to follow the full rite and to adapt a sung or solemn Mass to the circumstances of the available, qualified people and to the church building itself.

The Requisite Personnel

You might ask what I consider a skeleton crew: you need the priest. In the best of circumstances, you can find a priest or deacon and even a second minister to serve as subdeacon. He need not be in holy orders, although having two deacons or at least a second priest and a deacon lessens the burden on the principal priest.  (I am not going to address here whether laymen not in seminary or in holy orders can or should serve as subdeacon; that’s up to the priest in charge in the end). In any case, you obviously need at least one priest.

As to the servers:  you need four for the main functions of master of ceremonies, thurifer; and acolyte; a crucifer for Thursday, and  if one does not have a subdeacon, also for Sunday and Friday — this server can and will need to have other roles during the week — and then one or two capable of fetching and taking away things when they are needed or no longer needed. This could be the crucifer when he is not occupied, and one of these servers needs to carry the paschal candle during Saturday’s vigil.

Ideally, you have a second thurifer for Thursday, someone to carry the ombrellino, and torchbearers at the solemn Masses, at least two, up to eight. For Tenebrae, you need the minimum number of people who can sing the office competently including the readings; the same applies to the twelve prophecies of Holy Saturday, insofar as you will have not just a large number of readings but some which are quite long, and making just one person, or a few men plus the subdeacon if one is lucky to have one, sing everything tends to not work out very well in my experience. At least four men excluding the subdeacon is my preference, but you need to work with what you have and work up to what you prefer (all according to providence…)

Palm Sunday

First, the vestments. You need, in addition to the usual celebrant’s violet cope and chasuble, etc., two additional chasubles, then the ordinary deacon’s stole, plus two maniples.

If you are so lucky, you need three more deacons’ stoles and maniples for the Passion.

As to the shape and ornamentation of the chasubles, they can be whatever you prefer, all things being equal. However, the Roman or French forms cut short are the easiest to manage in my opinion, even though they are not truly folded. In these cases, you must have fabric for the broad stole worn by the deacon for the palm Gospel and then from the Gospel until the end of communion.

There are also fuller medieval or at least neo-Gothic forms, such as the forms preferred by English Benedictines and by the Solesmes congregation, of which I have given an example for another liturgical season; now, these are more elaborate, and the low Mass chasubles are not so elaborate, allowing for the possibility of rolling up a chasuble for the portions of the Mass where the deacon does so. Indeed, the truly folded chasuble is described in an earlier NLM article. This means that the separate piece of fabric is not necessary, although it may remain more convenient. 

The Saint Philip Neri and Spanish cuts are the least well-adapted to this context since the joints of the shoulders are blocked in the same way that a French chasuble pinned up, and not made short in the first place, gets in the way. Having worn a folded chasuble in the French style pinned up  as a straw subdeacon, it would be very difficult to wear such a vestment (that is, any form where the “folded” element is stiff and in the way of the shoulder joint) in my opinion. One needs to keep the arms pinned to the body when the hands are kept folded, but such a design impedes this; the arms are kept out at ninety degrees, closer to a yoga pose than to Christian worship. I hesitate to show an example of a Neri chasuble intended for contemporary liturgical celebrations of the ancient Roman liturgy, since the one which I have seen  is a commissioned piece from a relatively new studio (in other words, in both cases, I have a practical opinion to give, but also it is a matter of taste: de gustibus etc., and I do not wish to seem like I’m picking on someone).

Pins attached temporarily or snaps sewn onto the chasuble would be convenient if one chooses instead the Borromean form, which is softer like the Gothic chasuble; the soft fabric would not get in the way of the ministers’ arms. The vestment could be made with some skillful tailoring such that one can roll the deacon’s chasuble instead of purchasing a separate piece of material to serve as the broad stole.

The Ceremonies

For the first antiphon Hosanna Filio David and then for the distribution of palms, I strongly advocate making sure that the people have at least the antiphons as they do in the Ordinary Form. Giving the people the music, not just the text and translations, keeps them centered on the rite, even if they don’t sing, as this ceremony alone can last upwards of twenty minutes. It is easy to make the scores via some form of Gregorio (via an online editor or by using LaTeX in full, which is what I recommend) and to distribute them printed on copy paper; the chants are quite easy for the people to sing with the numerous repetitions.

Using the psalms given in the 1955 reform can work very well; you are still repeating the antiphons several times allowing for the popular participation described above. To me, there is a gap: should there be a doxology in these psalms? The office retains it, the Mass does not, and the 1955 reform treats it like the office. I leave it to each one’s judgement. You can use psalms, or you can make a repetition polyphonic. Between Palestrina, Victoria, and others, there are several approachable settings of one or both antiphons beginning “Pueri hebraeorum.” The important part is that Catholics in the choir (hopefully most members…) are able to receive palms without having to start the music only after the clergy, servers, and musicians do so; this depends on the size of the choir, its musical capabilities, and the arrangement of your church building.

I would also include the ferial tone of the dialogue of the palm-blessing preface in the material given to the congregation, as people tend to sing the usual solemn tone.

The choir should be in place to follow the clergy as they exit; there is time for this at the end of the prayers if the choir is singing in a gallery instead of from the chancel (sanctuary). For the procession, I personally do not feel scrupulous about singing any particular antiphons and especially all of them. Choose a selection of three or four and repeat; the people will probably not be able to follow very easily, so providing the text may be wise, but the music is probably unnecessary. However, you should give the faithful the chorus (in square notation, with translation)  of the Gloria, laus et honor, and you should give instructions for every musical element sung this week.

As an aside: henceforth, you should assume that I believe that the faithful should always be given some form of bilingual missals or books with square notation for the easier musical elements; Good Friday may be the only day where there is no congregational singing despite the ease of doing so, and Saturday presents little opportunities for it in the first place but on the other days, there is usually something to sing. The people are not an afterthought, and taking care of their participation through reading and singing fosters their prayerful participation. These ceremonies are too long to not do so.

The schola should walk ahead towards the end, in order to prepare for the door ceremony and the responsory, for which one may need to sacrifice a stronger singer to lead the clergy and people, positioned to do so while able to hear the end of the first chorus and the verses. Ideally, that singer can make it back for the Ingrediente, which lasts long enough for the clergy to change. In any case, the ministers should wait for the chant to end and for the introit to begin before they (the ministers, that is) start the prayers at the foot of the altar. The choir should start the responsory immediately after the subdeacon (crucifer) knocks on the door, returning to their usual place before the introit. By the way, finding a way to let sound out without cracking the door may be necessary. (There may be a window to open or some other interesting way to create a hole that doesn’t totally ruin the ceremony’s effect.)

The Passion should be sung by competent persons or omitted. Do not force a priest or deacon who cannot carry a tune to sing. Ideally, A or B flat is the reciting tone. The fewer sharps or flats, the easier it is to lose the key and then drop in pitch. By using A or B flat, or at least G, you also pitch this such that you do not need a true countertenor to sing the Synagoga and a true bass to sing the Christus. Those parts are simply noticeably higher and lower respectively than the Chronista’s.

If you do not already have one (or three), consider acquiring a legile, or rather three. This article is the folding wooden lectern especially used for the celebrant at Lauds or Vespers and for the ministers singing the Passion, so as to be both more Roman and to use something neater (in the sense of clean, not just fascinating or interesting) than a black metal music stand. These can be repurposed for the choirmaster and for the readings at Tenebrae; as noted above, one is customarily used by the celebrant of Lauds or Vespers in the true Roman fashion, as seen in the photo from the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. For Sunday, you will want three falls, either in the simple fabric without trim used to cover the images; or in the same fabric as the vestments, the frontal, and the tabernacle veil; or otherwise in an appropriate fabric. It need not be “churchy”; too often, fabrics with ecclesiastical patterns look cheap despite being expensive.

Do not pay for such a lectern in an ecclesiastical-goods shop. Find a woodworker. Three can be had for less than the price of one from a catalog if done right. Consider that clergy somehow seem to always fall on the extremes of height, below or above average. My resting elbow drop, from the top of the elbow to the floor, is 48 inches (around 122 cm). This is a bit taller than the shortest examples available to purchase from a manufacturer of such goods off the rack; the surface is plenty big enough for the Passion books, a missal (for the Exsultet or the readings of the Paschal Vigil), etc.

Now, if you can’t do it yourself, and you can’t have someone do it locally in their home shop, then commission a quality woodworking company to make this article. There are several who could produce an excellent product if you give them photos and work patiently through the design process, although giving a recommendation is impossible without revealing too much about my own situation. Naturally, the stain should match or at least complement the other wooden pieces in the church, but otherwise the question of ornamentation such as knobs is up to you.

There are several ways of keeping the legs together (chains or hinges both work) which can be gleaned from internet searches; as to the fall: either its weight plus that of a book will keep it in place, or you can consider a clip that goes the width of the leather. In my opinion (only that), the fall should come to just above the floor in the front and in the back, without a break. It’s not a pair of trousers. In other words, the example from Gricigliano is perfect, except that the fall could be a bit shorter for my liking, but no harm is done otherwise. Plus, if you use the same fabric as the vestments, or at least something that complements those well, a fourth fall can be purchased so as to serve as the broad stole; in fact, it is somewhat easier to just have a separate piece of fabric than to take off, tie up, and put back on the fuller “Gothic” or even conical chasuble even if it could (should) be done.

In the next installment we will continue with Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.

Good Friday 2025

The table of the Epitaphios at the end of Vespers today at St Anthony the Abbot, the Russian Greek-Catholic church in Rome.

For how shall we be able to know, I and thy people, that we have found grace in thy sight, unless thou walk with us, that we may be glorified by all people that dwell upon the earth? And the Lord said to Moses: This word also, which thou hast spoken, will I do: for thou hast found grace before me, and thee I have known by name. And he said: shew me thy glory. He answered: I will shew thee all good, and I will proclaim in the name of the Lord before thee: and I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it shall please me. And again he said: Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me and live. (Exodus 33, 16-20 - from the first prophecy of Vespers on Great and Holy Friday in the Byzantine Rite.)

A Liturgical Oddity of Holy Monday

In the Missal of St Pius V, there is a very small number of days on which two Scriptural lessons are read before the Gospel: the Wednesdays of the Embertides, of the fourth week of Lent and Holy Week, and Good Friday. As I have described elsewhere, these readings are actually part of a block which is inserted into the Mass between the Kyrie and the collect, consisting of three elements: 1. a collect, introduced by “Oremus. Flectamus genua. Levate.”; 2. a Scriptural reading; 3. a gradual (but at some Masses, a tract. On the Ember Saturdays, the same block is inserted into the order of Mass five times.) Some changes are made to this order for specific days: on Good Friday, the collect is omitted, and on the Pentecost Ember days, there are no genuflections, since they are part of Eastertide. This is an extremely ancient tradition of the Roman Rite, attested very consistently in the oldest lectionaries.

There also exists a different version of this custom which is not in the Missal of St Pius V or its medieval antecedents, but which is likewise very ancient, and survived in many Uses of the Roman up to time of the Tridentine reform. This consists of just an extra reading, without a prayer before it or a chant after it. The Dominican Missal has maintained this custom for Christmas Eve and all three Masses of Christmas day; it can also be found in various medieval Uses on the Saturdays after Laetare and Passion Sunday, and on the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week.

The first page of the Mass of Holy Monday in a Missal according to the Use of Augsburg, Germany, printed in 1510, with the second reading from Zachariah immediately after the reading of Isaiah 50.

The extra lesson for Holy Monday is particularly interesting because it is one of the rare examples in the Roman Rite of a reading which is not a continuous Biblical passage, but a selection of verses, in this case, taken from chapters 11 to 13 of the prophet Zachariah. Of course, this is not a matter of censoring the Scriptures, lest its content offend the delicate sensibilities of Modern Man™, but rather, of choosing verses which are appropriate to the liturgical context. Some verses are incomplete, so I have italicized the omitted parts.

Thus sayeth the Lord: chapter 11, 12 If it be good in your eyes, bring hither my wages: and if not, be quiet. And they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. 13 And the Lord said to me: Cast it to the statuary, a handsome price, that I was prized at by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them into the house of the Lord to the statuary. 14 And I cut off my second rod that was called a Cord, that I might break the brotherhood between Juda and Israel. 15 And the Lord said to me: Take to thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. chapter 12, 2 Behold I will make Jerusalem a lintel of surfeiting to all the people round about: and Juda also shall be in the siege against Jerusalem, 6 In that day I will make the governors of Juda like a furnace of fire amongst wood, and as a firebrand amongst hay: and they shall devour all the people round about, to the right hand, and to the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place in Jerusalem. 7 And the Lord shall save the tabernacles of Juda, as in the beginning. that the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, may not boast and magnify themselves against Juda. 9 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem, 10 And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace, and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son, and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn. *** 11 In that day there shall be a great lamentation in Jerusalem [like the lamentation of Adadremmon in the plain of Mageddon.] chapter 13, 6-9 And they shall say to him: What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands? And he shall say: With these I was wounded in the house of them that loved me. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that cleaveth to me, saith the Lord of hosts: strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn my hand to the little ones. And there shall be in all the earth, saith the Lord, two parts in it shall be scattered, and shall perish: but the third part shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined: and I will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say: Thou art my people: and they shall say: The Lord is my God.

The Prophet Zachariah, by Michelangelo, depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-12).

Even though this reading is not in the Missal, two of the antiphons for the psalms of Lauds on Holy Monday, the second and third, are taken from this same set of verses, which is probably not a coincidence. At the Friday votive Mass of the Passion of the Lord, which was promulgated by Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303), the Epistle is the last part of this, beginning with the red *** stars, and minus [the words in brackets], a selection which was evidently copied from this older tradition.  

Lessons of this kind, made of selected verses rather than continuous passages, are found much more frequently in other liturgical traditions. The Byzantine Rite contains many such lessons from the Old Testament for Vespers on major feasts, and it is fairly common for the verses to be not just selected, but reordered. There are also a few which are “centonized”, which is to say, compiled from more than one Biblical book; for example, at the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Holy Thursday, and again at Vespers of Good Friday, the Gospel readings from St Matthew have passages from Luke and John interpolated into them. Likewise, at the synaxis of readings which is done at the end of Holy Saturday Matins, the Epistle is 1 Corinthians 5, 6-8 and Galatians 3, 13-14, done as a single reading, and titled to the former.

The beginning of a centonized Passion reading in the Mozarabic Rite, described below, with the title, “The Passion of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ according to the flesh”; n.b., not according to one of the evangelists, since the reading is compiled from all four of them. (BnF NAL 2171).

The Holy Week champion in this regard, however, is the Mozarabic Rite. In an eleventh-century Mozarabic lectionary from the abbey of San Domingo de Silos (edited by Dom German Morin OSB in 1893), we find the following centonized lessons: the first reading of Palm Sunday, from Exodus 19, and seven different chapters of Deuteronomy; on Spy Wednesday, a composite Gospel from Matthew 26 and Mark 14; at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the first reading, a selection of verses from chapters 2, 3, 11 and 13 of Zachariah, and the Gospel, a composite of John 13 and Matthew 26; on Good Friday, the Epistle is centonized from 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Hebrews and 1 Peter, while the Passion is mixed from all four Gospels.

A Choirmaster’s Reflections on the Twelve Passion Gospels: Guest Article by Fr. Herman Majkrzak

One of the most powerful services of the extremely rich Byzantine Holy Week is Matins of Great and Holy Friday, known as the Matins of the Twelve Gospels. This consists of the (mostly) regular order of Matins as it is celebrated in Lent, into which Twelve Gospel readings of the Lord’s Passion are added at various points. I am very grateful to my friend Fr. Herman Majkrzak for agreeing to share with NLM this beautiful reflection which he wrote about it a few days ago. I believe that our readers will find much of what it written here very useful as a consideration of what we experience in the days of the Lord’s Passion, even if they are not familiar with this service per se. Fr Herman is a priest in the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church, currently serving in the Archeparchy of Philadelphia as well as in the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. Raised in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, he spent many years in the Orthodox Church before coming into full communion with the Catholic Church. He writes on liturgy and the spiritual life at sonsofsirach.substack.com. The complete text of service may be read at this link: https://st-sergius.org/services/triod/75.pdf.

A Choirmaster’s Reflections on the Twelve Passion Gospels

The Office of the Twelve Passion Gospels is a high point of Holy Week in the Byzantine liturgical tradition. Many love it, but some do not. I love it deeply, and the (I think) eight times I’ve directed the choir for it are among my most cherished memories of service in the Church thus far. The service is a masterpiece of liturgical genius.

The Matins of the Twelve Gospels at the church of St Elias in Brampton, Ontario, in 2023.

The Triodion and Typicon direct that the service is to begin at 8 PM on Holy Thursday evening. (In practice, it may begin an hour or two earlier.) It should be sung in a darkened church, with minimal illumination beyond candlelight and oil lamps. Even though it employs the framework of daily Matins, it’s not a morning service and should not be celebrated on Friday morning—that time slot is for Royal Hours instead. It is rather a vigil in character, as Matins in the Byzantine Rite often is.

That is to say, the point of the service is not prayers upon waking, for the start of a new day, but keeping watch with the Lord as he progresses through all the events that take him to Golgotha and death. Thus (after the usual Six Psalms and Great Litany) the service opens with the troparion of Maundy Thursday (“When the glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of the feet…”) and the first, very long Gospel reading (John 13, 31 – 18, 1), which takes place at the Last Supper. Much of the earlier part of the service is taken up with events that happened throughout that night: the agony in the garden, the betrayal, the trial before the Sanhedrin, Peter’s denial. But like many of the rites of Holy Week, this is a transitional service: in the span of three hours or so, it carries you from Thursday evening all the way through to Friday evening. Later, on the afternoon of Holy Friday, we reread the Passion narrative (in composite form), much closer to the actual time of those later events. But this service begins instead at the time of these earlier events.

(Many Greek Catholic communities over recent decades have been influenced, I reckon, by Pope Pius XII’s 1955 Roman Rite Holy Week reform in adjusting the traditional times for services so that Matins is always in the morning and Vespers in the evening. I believe that this adjustment makes some sense for the Roman Rite [e.g., with its Easter vigil beginning with the new fire and lucernarium] but less sense for the Byzantine Rite. I may write more about that some other time.)

The twelve selections from the passion narratives of the four Gospels’ overlap and repeat different episodes in the Savior’s advance towards death. Thus the way each Gospel reading interacts with the previous and succeeding readings, and also with the hymnography sung in between them is very much two-steps-forward-one-step-back: a solemn, ceremonial dance. And this is key. Because this is how we work through grief. Our minds, hearts, and bodies must revisit, reinterpret, and reintegrate the traumatic and fatal events of those twenty-four hours, and we are part of those events, even if not the central figure. They affect us. Deeply.

A recording of the complete service, also from St Elias in Brampton, 2013.

Many are troubled and disturbed by the eruption of anger and finger-pointing that characterizes the hymnography in the first part of the service, throughout many of the fifteen antiphons and sessional hymns. Judas, Caiaphas and the Jews, even the sleeping disciples in Gethsemane: the atmosphere in this earlier part of the service is one of agitation and frenzy. Everything is falling apart, all my hopes are crumbling, and THIS IS SOMEONE’S FAULT. One of the early stages of grief (in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s famous schema) is anger. And Peter himself gives voice to the first stage of grief—denial: “This shall never happen to thee, Lord.” It is necessary for us to experience and go through this anxious, confused, pot-stirring, boiling-over terror and rage. We don’t like it—we may find the rhetoric unfair, unjust—and yet, this is the reality of grief. And in the modality of poetry and lyric we can say things that we ought not say in prose.

Interspersed among these verses of outrage, each of the fifteen antiphons concludes with a theotokion, a brief hymn to the Theotokos, the Mother of God. Notice: they are theotokia, not (as we might expect) staurotheotokia (except for the 15th). That is, they do not focus on the Passion, on our Lady’s suffering beside the Cross. Rather, with these short hymns, we periodically turn to our Lady, not to console her, but for her to console us. We see her not in the midst of all this panic and turmoil, but as already having passed beyond death and resurrection—both her Son’s and her own—and already reigning with Him in heaven. We run to her and bury our face in her lap as our emotions overwhelm us. And she consoles us. These theotokia are small oases. They must never be omitted, and the choir or chanters should try to sing them in a calmer and more serene manner than the surrounding hymns. (The staurotheotokion at the end of the 15th antiphon is sometimes forgotten inadvertently. This too must not happen. It is the first Stavrotheotokion of the service. Several more will follow. Our Lady has come to join us in this moment.)

At the famous fifteenth antiphon, “Today, he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross…” our finger-pointing ceases. For in the next Gospel reading, we see the Lord finally lifted up upon the Cross. It cannot be prevented now. It’s too late. And we are stunned. A certain kind of acceptance briefly comes over us—acceptance being the last stage of grief in Kubler-Ross’s schema. (The stages of grief are perhaps better thought of as elements of grief: they, like these Gospel narratives, overlap with each other.) We look at the majesty of the Cross now set up in the midst of the church, and we weep.

The fifteen antiphons concluded, our next bit of hymnography is a set of troparia interspersed with the Beatitudes. We see that the Crucified Lord of Glory is perfectly fulfilling the Beatitudes he preached at the beginning of his ministry. Intercalated with these verses are troparia in which we make our own the prayer of the wise thief: “Remember me, O Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom.” We have stopped blaming others and begin to look inward. It now occurs to me that I am to blame, and that this Crucifixion is in fact necessary to restore me to my place in the Father’s kingdom.

With the three-ode canon by St. Cosmas (the final three-ode canon of the season), we return to an earlier stage of the events, focusing again on the washing of the feet, the garden, and Peter’s denial. We revisit these events with new eyes, eyes now filled not with the fear and foreboding but with the tears of sorrow.

In the midst of the canon, we come to St. Romanus’ kontakion, the staurotheotokion par excellence, where we see our Lady watching her Lamb bear his Cross towards Calvary and asking him where he’s rushing off to. Is there another wedding in Cana? Is he going again to turn water into wine? No matter: he remains her Son and her God! The hirmos and catabasia of the ninth ode complements this kontakion. It is the theotokion par excellence: “More honorable than the cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim!” Here there is no hint of sorrow and incomprehension in the Mother of God, only her unsurpassable glory. This catabasia should be sung with stately, confident majesty. Our Lady, in her unconquerable faith, intercedes for us.

After the canon, we revisit the theme of the wise thief that was introduced in the Beatitudes before the canon. This famous Exapostilarion is, for many Slavs, the high-point of the service:

The wise thief didst thou make worthy of Paradise

in a single moment, O Lord.

By the wood of the Cross, illumine me as well,

and save me.

I now realize that my only hope is this Cross and the One hanging on it, this Cross the threat of which had earlier thrown me into frenzy and panic.

As we come to the stichera on the Praises (Psalms 148, 149 and 150) and the aposticha stichera, especially when sung to Kastalsky’s very poignant Holy Week harmonizations of Kyivan Chant, our grief arrives at the stage of deep, deep sorrow. Earlier our focus had shifted from blaming others to awareness of our own sins. Now our focus finally settles on Christ himself. We gaze on each of the members of his Body: each has suffered in its own way. And our awareness of Christ leads us to become more aware of how others too are grieving. All creation, the sun, the moon, the earth, shudders as it beholds its Creator hanging naked on the tree. Our Lady is now weeping and tearing out her hair with agony. Even the angels shudder in bafflement: “O incomprehensible Lord, glory be to thee!”

Yet in the midst of this deep sorrow, anger flares out once more, when we remember how those soldiers dared to mock their Savior and their King:

They stripped me of my garments

and clothed me in a scarlet robe;

they set a crown of thorns upon my head

and placed a reed in my right hand,

THAT I MIGHT DASH THEM IN PIECES LIKE A POTTER’S VESSEL.

(The choir director must lean into this for all its dramatic contrast from the surrounding text.) We put this hot wave of apparent vengefulness into the mouth of Christ himself, quoting Psalm 2. (Again, poetry is not prose.) And yet, a moment later we think further of the matter and arrive at a deeper awareness of the truth, still in the voice of Christ:

I gave my back to scourging;

I did not turn away my face from spitting;

I stood before the judgement-seat of Pilate,

and endured the Cross—

for the salvation of the world.

These last words must be sung with great emphasis, but pianissimo. They reinterpret the previous sticheron. If Christ must dash a vessel to pieces, it is in order that he can refashion it again according to his likeness.

And, so, after the twelfth (and shortest) of the Passion Gospels—which recounts Pilate setting a guard at the tomb so that no one could fake a resurrection—we sing one final, short hymn. And it is a hymn of gratitude.

By thy precious Blood,

thou hast redeemed us from the curse of the Law.

By being nailed to the Cross and pierced with the spear,

thou hast poured immortality upon men.

O our Savior, glory be to thee!

Like Psalm 21, the quintessential Passion Psalm, our long vigil concludes in triumph. We recognize that the suffering, crucified Servant is indeed the Lord of Glory. In some traditions, this hymn is preceded by a short, festal peal on all the bells. This peal marks the conclusion of the final Gospel reading, but also prepares our hearts for a brief and quiet “Thank you, Jesus,” which we express through this concluding tone four troparion.

I have said little about the Gospels themselves. They speak for themselves more readily than do the hymns, it seems to me. I have also said little about what I called above the “framework” of this vigil: daily Matins. All the ordinary bits, the psalms, the litanies, etc., which those in, say, monastic communities hear and pray every day. These parts are important as well, because they help provide contour—highs and lows—to this service. We cannot be revved up to 100% of emotion all the time. We need ordinary, humdrum things in our lives while grieving: getting a drink of water, preparing a meal, taking out the trash. We need down-time. This is why this service can go from something as heart-wrenching as the “Wise Thief” exapostilarion to something as quotidian as a Little Litany or a set of Trisagion Prayers.

Glory to thy long-suffering, O Lord!

A photograph of the church of St Anthony the Abbot, the Russian Greek-Catholic Church in Rome, after the Twelve Gospels service ended, 2015.

My Interview on Holy Week with Christopher Jasper on Pipes with Augustine

A few days ago, I gave an interview to Mr Christopher Jasper, the founder and director of the online Gregorian Chant Academy. The main subject of our interview is the various reforms of Holy Week, but we touched several related issues as well, such as the mindset of the whole project of liturgical reform in the 20th century. I make bold to suggest that those who have followed my work on this subject over the years will find it interesting. I’d also like to thank Mr Jasper for his time and our enjoyable conversation.

Ordo Hebdomadae Maioris & Memoriale Rituum: Useful Books for the Pre-55 Holy Week

Saint Anthony Press, established with the mission of publishing rare or otherwise “lost” Catholic liturgical and devotional books, has reprinted the Ordo Hebdomadae Maioris (Order of Holy Week), containing the Holy Week liturgies and Order of Mass with seasonal Prefaces, according to the 1920 typical edition of the Roman Missal (in use until 1955), restoring the ancient and venerable liturgies replaced by the 1956 Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae Instauratus (and later incorporated into the 1962 Roman Missal).

Sized for easy liturgical reading whether handheld or on the altar, its texts and chants are set in color and in a font and style based on historical printings of the Roman Missal since 1604.

Table of Contents
The “Pre-55” Holy Week
­– Palm Sunday
– Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week
– Thursday of the Lord’s Supper
– Order of Mass with Prefaces
– Good Passover
– Holy Saturday

Details
Cost: $50 USD (plus shipping).
Size: 8.5 x 11 in. Hardcover; 128 pages, color.
Glued, not sewn, binding.

Sample pages (note: not all pairs are meant to be contiguous):

Saint Anthony Press has likewise released a reprint of the Memoriale Rituum which contains the instructions for certain more significant sacred functions to be performed in smaller churches according to the 1920 typical edition, revised in 1950 by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. Sized for easy liturgical reading whether handheld or on the altar, its texts and chants are set in color and in a font and style based on historical printings of the Roman Missal since 1604.

Table of Contents
–The Blessing of Candles on the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
–The Blessing of Ashes at the Beginning of Lent
–Palm Sunday
–Holy Thursday
–Good Friday
–Holy Saturday 

Details
Cost: $40 USD (plus shipping).
Size: 8.5 x 11 in. Hardcover; 64 pages, color.
Glued, not sewn, binding.

Sample pages:

Saint Anthony Press has also published a reprint of the Missae Defunctorum, a liturgical book that contains the Order of Mass for the Dead with its Prefaces, Propers, and Prayers, plus the Rite of Absolution (excerpted from the Roman Ritual) according to the 1920 typical edition of the Roman Missal.