Medieval Books of Hours in the Public Library of Bruges

Another win for the YouTube suggestion algorithm, which usually has such bizarrely counter-intuitive ideas about what I might be interested in watching. In the 15th century, the Low Countries were an important center of production of beautifully illuminated books and manuscripts, including Books of Hours. A public library in Bruges which holds a collection of 21 very fine examples of them, produced this video several years, which gives an excellent explanation of their contents and illustrations, demonstrated with some period reenacting.

There are just a couple of quibbles I would make with this video. One is the explanation of the Hours of the Divine Office as taking place every 3 hours on the clock, with Matins at midnight, Lauds at 3am etc. Before the invention of precise time-keeping devices, these hours were always an approximation, and in practice, the even spacing-out of the 8 canonical Hours was always more of an ideal than a reality. By the period this video is discussing, the 15th century, the liturgical duties of cathedral chapters, monasteries etc. had expanded considerably, relative to the customs of very early Middle Ages, and the Hours were generally said in choir in two blocks: Prime through None in the morning, with Mass after the apposite Hour, and Vespers, Compline, Matins and Lauds in the evening, with various other things (e.g. the Litany of the Saints) added to one block or the other, according to occasion and custom.

The other would be the reference to the prayers of the Office of the Dead as “sinister texts”, which is simply untrue, and would have been met with derision from those who created and used these books. The reality of death was of course far more present to medieval people than it is to us, and so also the urgent importance of praying for the dead. But the traditional Office of the Dead strikes a very healthy balance between contemplation of the reality of sin and death on the one hand, and God’s infinite mercy on the other. Vespers of the Dead was often called the “Placebo”, from the words of its first antiphon, “Placebo Domino in terra viventium. - I will please the Lord in the land of the living”, and Matins was called the “Dirge” in English, likewise from the first antiphon, “Dirige, Domine Deus, in conspectu tuo viam meam. - Guide, o Lord God, my way in Thy sight.” Surely there is nothing sinister about either of these, or texts such as “In a place a place of pasture, there He hath set me”, or “I believe I shall see the Lord in the land of the living”, etc.

The suggestion came, by the way, from my watching this video posted two days ago by Peter’s son Julian of his visit to a private library collection, in which he inspects inter alia two Roman Breviaries, one of the 14th century, and another of 15th.

The Christian Sculptor and His Work: Guest Article by Julian Kwasniewski

The following article forms the foreword to the newly republished edition of Hubert van Zeller’s Approach to Christian Sculpture, reproduced here with permission of the publisher. The new and entirely re-typeset edition is available internationally, directly from the publisher, Barns & Noble, or Amazon. A musician, visual artist, and writer, Julian Kwasniewski is Marketing and Communications Coordinator at Wyoming Catholic College. His writings have appeared in numerous venues, including The National Catholic Register, Catholic World Report, The Catholic Thing, Crisis Magazine, Salvo Magazine, Latin Mass Magazine, and The European Conservative.

When Hubert van Zeller writes that “religious carving is meant to be a plea for light and truth, not for charm,” he expresses a truth which is just as relevant today as in 1959 when he wrote the book you are now holding in your hands. This monk and sculptor was concerned with “the present lack of direction in Christian sculpture” in both technical and spiritual approaches. Van Zeller’s idea that “before a piece of sculpture can be called Christian we must be sure that it can be called sculpture” is of course applicable to all mediums, and unfortunately just as (if not more) forgotten in our day than in his. Consequently, despite the fact that van Zeller and many of his contemporaries who appear on the pages of this book are now nearly forgotten, the problems which this author identifies—and the solutions he proposes for them—remain current.

Van Zeller was a remarkable man, and the more I familiarise myself with his extensive literary output, the more my esteem for him increases. Van Zeller would have been the first to admit that before he an author or sculptor he was a monk. The first two sentences of his autobiography are: “Religion is ordinary or extraordinary according to the way you look at it. So is sculpture.” (Hubert van Zeller, One Foot in the Cradle; An Autobiography (New York; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1959), xi) Thankfully van Zeller looked at both religion and sculpture in such a way as to find them exciting. In numerous other books he has treated of the first, in the present work he addresses the latter.

Born in 1904 in Egypt to British parents, van Zeller remembers in his autobiography his first experiments with carving as a child. It was at the age of seven or eight that he decided what he “wanted to be good at before all else.” Picnicking and boating with family and friends on a small island was the occasion. But “this time the picnic had no appeal for me. All I wanted to do was to get back to the beach on the mainland where I had seen an Arab boy with a small assortment of knives in his lap cutting bits of black washed-up wood into shapes.” Something about the Arab boy’s task resonated with the young Hubert. Though he “possessed neither material nor tools,” van Zeller promised to carve a face in a piece of wood for a friend, so sure was he “that the power lay somewhere inside” that he “could afford to take risks.” The craze for carving which ensued was so strong that his parents believed it “would burn itself out in a week.” Carving was his passion, not merely a hobby. (Ibid. 39-46)

Van Zeller recognized the intensely therapeutic nature of carving for him, throughout his life. “Whether it was a physical effort or not,” carving was “the outlet” even in times of convalescence from illness. Stone cutting was an activity he pursued his whole life, and he unsurprisingly developed a method and philosophy of sculpture: “working in company has enabled me to benefit by the ideas of others, working in solitude has enabled me to form my own,” he wrote in the preface to this book.

Several aspects of art and its successful pursuit form the burden of this present work. If interest in sacred art was wanting not only in general but was especially “wanting among those who are in a position to steer its course” in the author’s day, the same is true in ours. The result is that “this book is accordingly addressed to a variety of readers. For the layman and priest alike, it is meant to clarify the issues at stake; for the stone-carver it is meant to make more precisely religious the employment of his powers; for the non-Christian it is meant to explain what our artistic tradition and sculptural effort are about.”

It is the final three chapters of this book, however, which form its most valuable contribution to the scene of Catholic art, since they examine the relationship of the Church to the artist and the artist to his work. “It can be claimed,” writes van Zeller, “that sacred sculpture can develop only under certain conditions. Of these the primary condition is collaboration between the Church and the craft.” If the craft of sculpting has not fundamentally changed since van Zeller’s day, what of the Church?

Van Zeller was writing on the eve of Vatican II, and if artistic conventions were being questioned by intellectuals and artisans alike in the decades leading up to that pivotal event, the aftermath of the Council made it seem as if the Church herself had discarded her artistic heritage and ideals, along with many other things relegated to a suddenly rejected past. “Since we cannot expect the Church to help on something of which she does not approve,” van Zeller recognized in 1959, “we must find out how far the Church approves of contemporary movements in sculpture and how much she is committed to their support.” Since, in the ensuing confusion, it isn’t always clear what the Church has approved of, the task of the Catholic artist has been made all the more difficult.

As to its actual texts, the Council took a surprisingly traditional stance on church art:

“Very rightly the fine arts are considered to rank among the noblest activities of man’s genius, and this applies especially to religious art and to its highest achievement, which is sacred art. These arts, by their very nature, are oriented toward the infinite beauty of God which they attempt in some way to portray by the work of human hands; they achieve their purpose of redounding to God’s praise and glory in proportion as they are directed the more exclusively to the single aim of turning men’s minds devoutly toward God.

Holy Mother Church has therefore always been the friend of the fine arts and has ever sought their noble help, with the special aim that all things set apart for use in divine worship should be truly worthy, becoming, and beautiful, signs and symbols of the supernatural world, and for this purpose she has trained artists. In fact, the Church has, with good reason, always reserved to herself the right to pass judgment upon the arts, deciding which of the works of artists are in accordance with faith, piety, and cherished traditional laws, and thereby fitted for sacred use.

The Church has been particularly careful to see that sacred furnishings should worthily and beautifully serve the dignity of worship, and has admitted changes in materials, style, or ornamentation prompted by the progress of the technical arts with the passage of time….

Thus, in the course of the centuries, she has brought into being a treasury of art which must be very carefully preserved. The art of our own days, coming from every race and region, shall also be given free scope in the Church, provided that it adorns the sacred buildings and holy rites with due reverence and honor; thereby it is enabled to contribute its own voice to that wonderful chorus of praise in honor of the Catholic faith sung by great men in times gone by…

Let bishops carefully remove from the house of God and from other sacred places those works of artists which are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety, and which offend true religious sense either by depraved forms or by lack of artistic worth, mediocrity and pretense…

It is also desirable that schools or academies of sacred art should be founded in those parts of the world where they would be useful, so that artists may be trained.

All artists who, prompted by their talents, desire to serve God’s glory in holy Church, should ever bear in mind that they are engaged in a kind of sacred imitation of God the Creator, and are concerned with works destined to be used in Catholic worship, to edify the faithful, and to foster their piety and their religious formation.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 122-24, 127)

One reads such texts today with a sense of astonishment at how very far in the opposite direction everything went–not just after the Council, but even after 1963 when this document was approved and before the Council even closed. For it was in 1963 that the Consilium was established, which brought with it a spirit at least of questioning and revising, if not rejecting, much that came before.

Van Zeller is clear: “The liturgy…is taken to be the key to the whole thing. It is also the yardstick by which the carvings themselves are measured.” Unsurprisingly, then, art floundered when the liturgy floundered, if it is true that “it will be the liturgy which gives the note to the statues, decoration, arrangement,” as van Zeller puts it. Yet the liturgy remains the key to understanding what standards art should be measured by, and what better body of liturgical rites than than those we know gave rise to the greatest and most legitimate artworks in Western history, the traditional Latin rites of Europe?

Van Zeller recognizes, though, the risks inherent in a liturgical aesthetic, noting “the risk either of drawing liturgy towards aesthetics, which would be bad theology (for liturgy is a directly and essentially religious reality, hence much more than a thing of aesthetical experience), or else of elaborating a non-aesthetic philosophy of art.” Van Zeller then references several Vatican instructions on modern art, which he sums up in the following words: “What all this amounts to, then, is this: let the moderns go ahead with their work, but let them show an acute consciousness of the reverence due to God and to the house of God.” This is achieved by avoidance (in the words of Mediator Dei) of anything which is a “deformation of sane art”, though, as van Zeller remarks, “the point at which sane art leaves off and mad art begins is not altogether clear.”

Prophetically, van Zeller wrote that “the Church has the duty, at this time especially, of being on its guard” because in “the confusion of ideologies, each eventually bringing to the surface its own appropriate expression, the Church can take no risks.” “Artistic expressions must be held up steadily and long before the light of truth,” and “whether a work of art survives the test of time is often a measure of its truth: if it is not true, it is of no consequence and the sooner it perishes the better....Perhaps the chaotic state of modern art, secular particularly but religious also, is the prelude to another great resurgence such as Christian centuries have witnessed in the past.”

One of van Zeller’s main questions is: what ought we to want from sculpture–what is its meaning? “If we look back, we see that all periods of Christian sculpture have meant something, even if it was something which was not immediately understood. Christian sculpture of the present day, however obscure the message which some of it may bring, means something. The truth of it is that the generality of the faithful, whatever the period, want sculpture to mean what they mean. It would be more humble if they wanted it to mean what God means.” Joseph Shaw has recently commented admirably on religious and specifically liturgical “intelligibility” in the liturgy, noting that the understanding of the significance of a text or work of art should not be confused with its direct intelligibility. (See chapter 4 of “Understanding Liturgical Participation” in The Liturgy, the Family, and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays of a Traditional Catholic (Lincoln, NE: Os Justi Press, 2023), 57ff.)

I believe van Zeller expresses the same thing: “The sculptor is trying to get nearer to truth; Catholicism is telling him where to look, and how to get there, and what it is.” One of the things Catholicism’s tradition teaches is that immediate intelligibility is not the highest good when it comes to sacred worship, and therefore by extension, sacred art. Another thing it tells the artist is that he is always drawing upon his predecessors and must harmonise his innovations with theirs. In the words of the author:

Tradition, like nature, is to the sculptor the background against which he works. It does not determine his manner, which is an individual thing, but it probably conditions his having a manner at all. Very few sculptors, however creative, can work entirely out of their heads. Even those who think that they work entirely from their own reserves are in fact drawing upon the law of sculptural heredity. Anyway if they repudiate an ancestry, sculptors will produce only ill-bred, vulgar work.

The idea that religious inspiration dispenses from skill is certainly problematic in all areas of art. For example, in recent years Irina Gorbunova Lomax has written powerfully of this tendency in the world of Iconography. “The sculptor who is true only to his religious aspiration and not to the principles of his craft may produce works of interest, and even of edification, but these will not be works of Christian art.” (Irina Gorbunova-Lomax, The Icon: Truth and Fables (Brussels: Brussels Academy of Icon Painting/China Orthodox Press, 2018))

This brings us to the heart of this book’s relevance today: if sentimental kitsch, grotesque abstraction, anti-incarnational simplicity, or hyperrealistic romanticism continue to dominate the world of religious artwork today, the diagnoses of these ills and the solutions to them that van Zeller proposes remain timely. Prayer, van Zeller ultimately claims, is fundamental for truly religious artwork of high quality, as is dialogue with tradition, mastery of technique, respect and understanding of materials, and fidelity to one’s own artistic sensibilities and vision.

Sculptures of the Madonna and Child and St Joseph by Van Zeller.  

Before I close, I ought to say something regarding van Zeller’s own work and opinions. Van Zeller’s dislike for the Gothic Revival as a style “without fire, sunlight, poetry, music, or anything much else” will certainly surprise readers and perhaps discredit him in the eyes of many today. However, he acknowledged that this is his personal opinion:

Just because I happen to think that the Romanesque represents the peak of Christian sculpture, and that the Gothic Revival represents the depths, I do not demand the agreement of my readers. The most that I would ask of a reader would be the patience to note the reasons which I might advance for my view. Every book about art, as about all subjects that are worthwhile, is a personal book.

I would second this sentiment: even if van Zeller’s artistic output and opinions do not resonate with you, nonetheless his reasons are carefully thought out and worthy of pondering.

In the context of Gothic Revival, his main concern is that it produces false works because it imitates a certain style exteriorly without being able to replicate the interior state which gave genuine rise to the original exterior expression. This is a valid concern for any style, Bauhouse as much as Gothic, Romanesque as much as Art Nouveau. An interior fidelity and harmony is required for an exterior counterpart: “More important than fidelity to one’s material is fidelity to oneself….The sculptor who produces works which do not express himself but someone else is making use not of a creative but of an imitative gift.”

“For a style of carving to be copied, its inspiration has to be experienced,” he writes. “It is no good trying to work out one’s own problem according to another man’s solution. Truth appears to us in its way, and we respond to it in ours” is an idea that van Zeller takes up in his more properly spiritual works Sanctity in Other Words and We Live With Our Eyes Open. In the first he remarks how we can draw inspiration from various aspects of the lives of the saints but can’t ever “photocopy” them in the path of our own life. Each person is unique. The sculptural echo in this book is his statement that “while there is no harm in following one school of sculpture rather than another, there is harm in following one school so closely that the individual creative spark is smothered.”

In We Live With Our Eyes Open, van Zeller comments on truthfulness in prayer and the common desire to use someone else’s words when really we ought to form our own:

God in any case has seen into your mind before you have, and if there is really nothing there for the time being He won’t in the least resent your being honest about it. This is to be true, to be humble; it is what He wants. Certainly it would be a mistake under such circumstances to fall back upon a sentiment which looks the sort of thing one ought to feel, merely for the sake of finding something—incidentally something not quite true—to talk about. (We Live With Our Eyes Open (Stamullen: The Cenacle Press at Silverstream Priory, 2023), 71.)

It would be fascinating if van Zeller had applied this idea to art: that if we have nothing genuine to say, it might be better not to produce than to produce false works of art.

For van Zeller, the Romanesque is the epitome: “in the Romanesque conception, indeed, theology and aesthetics were one. Such a union had not been achieved before, and it has been achieved since only for the briefest periods and in particular regions.” The architectural origins of Romanesque style gave its sculptural aspect “discipline, balance, and three-dimensional design.” If we look to a Romanesque Madonna for “for human loveliness we are disappointed, but we find instead a dignity and power which are far more moving.”

Though we may not agree with the author in this or that particular assessment of his, the reprinting of this deeply reflective book should be welcomed by all Catholics who take interest in promoting or practising the arts, both sacred and profane. As an historical snapshot it provides, along with several other of van Zeller’s books, an important window into his time period, which was one of such promise, effervescence, confusion, and bewilderment–in that way, not unlike our own. As the meditation of a life-long sculptor and Catholic priest, its claims deserve careful consideration. May it inspire not only truer art but truer Christianity in a new generation of readers.

The Fourth Centenary of the Death of William Byrd

Today is the 400th anniversary of the death of the English composer William Byrd. Peter’s son Julian, who is himself a musician, and very knowledgeable about sacred music, has an excellent article about him over at Catholic World Report, which I heartily recommend to our readers. He gives a good summary of Byrd’s life and career, and explains some of the features of his works in various genres: Masses, motets, his settings of various hymns and antiphons etc.

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/07/02/not-a-tame-byrd-remembering-a-great-recusant-composer/

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

I make bold to add just one point about Byrd which is pertinent to our own times. Although the precise date of his birth is unknown, unlike his friend and collaborator Thomas Tallis (1505 ca. - 85), he was certainly born too late (ca. 1540) to have known the Catholic Church as it had been in England before the destruction visited on it by the greed and impiety of the English monarchs. In the long reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603), he was often heavily fined for “recusancy”, non-attendance at the services of the new religion; some of his works are veiled responses to her intensification of the persecution of Catholics. Among his acquaintances was a priest of the Jesuit mission named Henry Garnet, who was sentenced in 1606 to be hung, drawn and quartered. In the same year that he died, the English crown prince, soon to become King Charles I, went to Spain to arrange a marriage with one of the royal infantas; this project foundered in part because Charles knew that he could not get Parliament to agree to toleration for Catholics, or to repeal England’s anti-Catholic penal laws, conditions demanded by the Spanish.

In other words, Byrd lived in very dark times for the Church indeed. This did not stop him from doing what he could for Her, placing his talents at the service of God, and creating a lasting monument that still proclaims His glory to this day. And although Catholicism in England is, of course, not free of the problems that vex the Church everywhere in our own time, it has now been free for many decades; in our still-ongoing Corpus Christi photopost series, we have seen particularly beautiful public processions in both York and London. As a Latin proverb says “Succisa virescit - being cut down, it flourishes.” Let us strive to do as Byrd did, knowing that better days are coming, later, perhaps, than we wish for, but sooner than we hope.

Here are just a few examples of Byrd’s work, selected out of his vast oeuvre with the current liturgical season in mind. 

The Mass for Five Voices

The Salve Regina

Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the Sequence of Pentecost

Cibavit Eos, the Introit of Corpus Christi

Hodie Simon Petrus, the Magnificat antiphon of Second Vespers of Ss Peter and Paul.

A Musical Monument of Lenten Piety: Dietrich Buxtehude’s “Membra Jesu Nostri”

Our thanks to Julian Kwasniewski for sharing with us this lovely explanation of some devotional music for Passiontide. Mr Kwasniewski is a musician specializing in Renaissance lute and vocal music, an artist and graphic designer, as well as marketing consultant for several Catholic companies. His writings have appeared in this publication, National Catholic Register, OnePeterFive, Crisis, Latin Mass Magazine, and The European Conservative. You can find some of his artwork on Etsy, and his music on YouTube.

Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew O.P. 

One of the great monuments of devotional music from the Baroque period is Dieterich Buxtehude’s cycle of seven sacred cantatas Membra Jesu Nostri, which sets Biblical and medieval Latin poetry in honor of the wounds of Christ. Buxtehude (1637-1707) was a Dutch organist and composer who had significant influence on other later Baroque composers such as Handel and Bach. Regarded primarily as a keyboard composer until the early 20th century, over 100 vocal compositions of his survive. A number of his vocal pieces have been lost, including oratorios—mini-opera’s focusing on religious themes.

Although he—like Bach—composed for Lutheran congregations, it was not unusual for Buxtehude to use devotional or Biblical texts in Latin stemming from the Catholic tradition. Such is Membra Jesu Nostri, whose main text is drawn from a medieval poem Salve mundi salutare in honor of the crucified Christ, often attributed to St Bernard. This work is extant in a number of variant forms; in Buxtehude’s cantata, it is paired with various scriptural texts.

Membra Jesu Nostri is scored for five voices: two sopranos, alto, tenor, and bass, along with a small ensemble of instruments: two violins, cello, and “basso continuo.” This last is a type of accompaniment, based on harmonic indications paired with a bass line, and in some ways reminiscent of modern guitar chord symbols, because it gave performers indications rather than exact notes to play, leaving room for improvisation and decoration. This “basso continuo” could be played by multiple instruments, often organ or harpsichord, lute, harp, and a bowed instrument like a cello or the viola da gamba, an instrument similar to the cello, but with more strings.

One of the best performances of Membra Jesu Nostri was directed by René Jacobs, and includes two of my favorite singers. One is Maria Cristina Kiehr, an Argentinian soprano whose voice avoids the operatic vibrato that often makes classically-trained singers off-putting. The second singer is Andreas Scholl, one of the world’s leading countertenors, meaning that he sings in an alto range using his falsetto. Scholl avoids the squeaky or thin sound that sometimes is associated with the male falsetto, instead giving us a rich and warm sound perfectly controlled and ornamented. This performance is well filmed, giving a good glimpse of the various historical instruments being used. The basso continuo is played on an organ, lute, and “violone”, a type of Renaissance-era double bass.

Turning to the libretto, each cantata addresses a part of Jesus’ crucified body: feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and face. Buxtehude alternates between “concerto” sections using the full choir and all the instruments, with arias of one, two, or three voices and simple accompaniment. A full translation can be found on Wikipedia.

Ad Pedes—“to the feet”. The piece opens with an instrumental “sinfonia”, or short prelude, which itself opens with a static C minor chord before plunging into a stirring counterpoint. The primary sentiment of this section is encapsulated by the final bass aria:

“Sweet Jesus, merciful God
I cry to You, in my guilt
Show me Your grace,
Turn me not unworthy away
From Your sacred feet.”

If you want to try a slightly slower take on the piece, you might try listening to this performance.

Ad Genua—“to the knees”. This movement opens with slow sonata “in tremulo”, where the bowed instruments create a wavering, pulsing effect by their bowing technique. The Concerto text is taken from Isaiah, where the prophet speaks of Jerusalem as a mother, but here applied to the crucified Christ: “You will be brought to nurse and dandled on the knees”. Again, a different and slower take on this movement may be found here:

Ad Manus—“to the hands”. This sinfonia opens with violent phrases which climax in a E flat dissonance against a D on the word “wounds” two measures after the choir comes in. As in the previous movement, the final aria is a trio.

Ad Latus—“to the side”. This fourth movement opens in a 6:4 time-signature, maintaining a triple meter until the arias. This gives it a dance-like quality that perfectly matches the text taken from the Song of Songs, calling the beloved to rise up: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come, my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow of the cliff.” Mystical writers have long associated the dove with the soul and the cleft of the rock as the wound in Christ’s side. Between the arias in four-four time, the sinfonias revert to triple time.

Ad Pectus—“to the breast”. For this movement, Buxtehude reduces the five voices of the concerto to three, just alto, tenor, and bass. The opening text from St Paul on “rational infants drinking the rational milk” is applied to drinking from the wound in Christ’s side, a theme found in such writers as St Bernard. René Jacobs interpretation of the whole piece is considerably faster than others: listen here to see the sort of difference between a more resonant space, slower tempo, and having two singers per line. Note that here there is no plucked instrument in the basso continuo.

Ad Cor—“to the heart”. In this penultimate section, Buxtehude changes the ensemble’s instrumentation, substituting five viola da gambas for the two violins and cello. This creates a very rich and somber tonal landscape. Another effect Buxtehude utilizes is a regular change of time-signature. This gives me the impression of a racing heart alternating with deep sorrow when one is in the grip of a strong emotion. The vocal forces are reduced to two sopranos and bass. The lyrical bass solo which forms the centerpiece of this sixth movement interweaves with the viol consort, melding into a trio where dissonances in all parts build tension and emotion on the words from the Song of Songs “vulnerasti cor meum”, “you have wounded my heart”. Another beautiful take on this movement (although only the first part) is by Ensemble ZENE.

Ad Faciem—“to the face”. In the final movement, we are back at the original scoring of five voices and violins. In a rhythmic concerto section, a text from the Psalms is sung: Let Your face shine upon Your servant, save me in Your mercy.” An unusual 6:4 trio aria emphasizes the stanza of the Latin poem which speaks of the crowning with thorns. Rather than repeating the concerto as the other movements have done, this final one ends with a contrapuntal Amen reminiscent of some Bach cantatas.

Even if you are not a musician, and couldn’t care less what a sinfonia, viola da gamba, or a time signature is, I believe that Membra Jesu Nostri has the power that all beautiful works of art have: to speak to the soul, uplift it, and draw one out of oneself. As we continue in our Lent towards Holy Week, perhaps listening to these cantatas can be an opportunity for relaxation, artistic renewal, and spiritual revelation.

Exclusive NLM Interview with Archbishop Sample: Why Young People Are Attracted to Traditional Liturgy

Archbishop Sample offering the Holy Sacrifice at the National Shrine

NLM is pleased to present the following transcription of an interview conducted by Julian Kwasniewski with the Most Reverend Alexander K. Sample, Archbishop of Portland, in connection with the Sacred Liturgy Conference in Salem, Oregon, June 27–30, 2018. Much of what his Excellency says is highly pertinent to the Youth Synod taking place at the Vatican this month. This interview is published here for the first time.


Julian Kwasniewski: First off, I just have to say thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Archbishop Sample: I want to encourage you young people, and especially young people who are serious about their faith and about the sacred liturgy. I want to do everything I can to encourage you.

JK: The first question I want to start with is very simple. What is a priest?

AS: It is a simple question and it might strike someone as kind of an odd question — we all “know” what a priest is because we see them. But do we really understand who the priest is?

I think over time, perhaps particularly since the Council, there has been a reduction, if you will, in people’s understanding of the nature of the priesthood and its place within the Church. A lot of people have come to see the priest as what he does. The focus is what the priest does. Even that has changed a lot, but I think the average person might say the priest celebrates Mass, he hears confessions, he supervises the parish, he administers things. They see his functions; they don’t see his identity. That is key: his priestly identity. Who is he? It’s not so much what he does; it’s who he is, because everything he does flows from who he is.

So who is he? He is a man chosen by God, called to this order and through the sacrament of Holy Orders, through the laying on of hands and the prayer of the church; he is sacramentally configured to Christ the High Priest. There is that an ontological change that takes place in him, change on the very level of his being. He becomes something new, since his soul is forever marked with the character of the priesthood, so that he can minister in the Church in the person of Christ the head, in persona Christi capitis. So there is a close identification between the ordained priest and the High Priest, Jesus Christ; he is called to be an alter Christus, another Christ. All Christians are by our baptism called to be other Christs, but the priest in a particular way represents Christ in the Catholic Church.

He participates in the tria munera, the threefold office of Jesus Christ, as Priest, Prophet, and King. The priest is ordained to teach, to sanctify, and to rule or govern God’s people in the name and person of Christ. He is to teach the doctrine of the Church, always according to the mind of the Church and in harmony with the magisterium. He is a sanctifier; he is the one who sanctifies God’s people, especially through the sacraments, and most especially through the celebration of Holy Mass and the hearing of Confession. He is a shepherd, the guide of the community, he points the way to eternal life.

If we understand who the priest is in this sense — the sense in which the Church understands who the priest is — then we see that all the functions that he does and all the things he does flow from this essential identity.

Celebrating a pontifical Mass in Rolduc

JK: I wonder if you could tie that in with the recent Corpus Christi procession that you did, since it seems to manifest the three gifts you were talking about: it is a witness to the Church’s teaching; it publicly witnesses to the ruling position of the Faith in society; and it is a practice that can sanctify us who participate in it.

AS: Right. As I was processing with Our Blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharist through the streets of Portland — and we went through a part that is a very secular area — all I kept thinking to myself was, “Lord Jesus, take possession of these streets, these streets belong to you. Reclaim them, Lord Jesus.” And when we were in the park for the Rosary and Benediction before we turned around, and headed back to the Cathedral, that was my prayer. People were walking by and amazed at this group of people marching and praying. I’m sure many of them were thinking “what is this thing you have on the altar there,” and of course, it was Our Blessed Lord. But I kept thinking to myself, “Lord, these streets belong to you. Reclaim and sanctify them.”

JK: How would you relate this experience of Eucharistic adoration to your episcopal motto: Vultum Christi Contemplari. What does your motto tell us about what you just said?

AS: I took my motto from the writings of St. John Paul II, who I consider my patron saint, quite honestly. I have no connection to him by name, but I really do consider him my patron saint now. He has been a great inspiration to me; I’m not sure I would be a priest today if it was not for him.

This idea of contemplating Christ’s face was something that John Paul II wrote a lot about. In Novo Millenio Ineunte, he recalls the scene in the Gospels where the Greeks come to Philip and they say, “We want to see Jesus.” The Holy Father picks up on that idea and says that this question, “we want to see Jesus,” is a question that is really in the heart of every person in the world today. Even if they don’t know it, they want to see the face of Jesus. He said they don’t want Christians just to talk about Christ — the world wants us to show them Christ. That’s our job: to let the light of Christ’s face shine before the generations of the new millennium. But, he goes on to say, our task would be hopelessly inadequate had we not first contemplated His face.

So he said we must contemplate the face of Christ. We must know Him intimately and deeply, we must cultivate that close personal relationship with the Lord, in order for us to show Him to the world. It’s very close to my own spirituality of prayer and being in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament and just contemplating Christ’s presence in His Face. This is where my motto came from.

Later, in his last encyclical, Ecclesia Dei Eucharistia, John Paul II put it very bluntly: This is the task that I have set before the Church at the beginning of the new millennium, Vultum Christi contemplatri, to contemplate the face of Christ. And then he also speaks of the Marian dimension which he develops in his pastoral letter on the Rosary, that we contemplate the Face of Christ through Mary in the praying of the Rosary.

JK: Do you think the pope’s emphasis on contemplation is related to the problem of activism in our times?

AS: Yes. John Paul II is saying, “Church: This is your task. To first contemplate the face of Christ ourselves so that we may then let it shine before the nations.” Since we cannot give to the world what we do not have, we must first know Christ before we bring Him to others. For a Catholic in the world (not a contemplative religious), there must be a balance between contemplation and work, knowing Christ deeply and intimately, adoring him in prayer, in order for one to effectively carry on the apostolic works of the Church.

JK: It seems that many young people these days are rediscovering contemplation and an ability to give themselves joyfully to Christ through loving the Latin Mass and the old liturgical prayer of the Church.

AS: That’s a very good point, and it’s a point I made in the homily I gave at the Solemn Pontifical Mass at the National Shrine in Washington D.C. You know, the Church was filled with young people!

A lot of times, priests expect that if you go to a Traditional Latin Mass according to the 1962 missal, the church will be filled with grey hair, old people filled with nostalgia for days gone by, and that they have a sort of emotional attachment to the liturgy they grew up with.

But more and more, the majority of the people in the church at these masses are people who never lived during the time when this was the ordinary liturgy, that is, before the Council. If you are under a certain age (and that age is getting higher and higher), you never experienced this liturgy growing up. And yet young people — which is something Pope Benedict XVI said in his letter to the world’s bishops when he issued Summorum Pontificum — have discovered this [form] too, and have found it very spiritually nourishing and satisfying. They have come to love and appreciate it.

That is amazing to me: young people who have never experienced this growing up in the postconciliar Church, with the Ordinary Form (sometimes celebrated well, sometimes very poorly with all kinds of aberrations and abuses), have still discovered the Latin Mass and are attracted to it.

JK: What, in your view, accounts for that attraction?

AS: I would say its beauty, its solemnity, the sense of transcendence, of mystery. Not mystery in the sense of “Oh, we don’t know what’s going on,” but rather, that there is a mysterium tremendum celebrated here, a tremendous mystery. The liturgy in the old rite really conveys the essential nature and meaning of the Mass, which is to represent the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ which he offered on the Cross and now sacramentally, in an unbloody manner, in the Holy Mass.

I think young people are drawn to it because it feeds a spiritual need that they have. There is something to this form of the liturgy, in and of itself, that speaks to the heart of youth. Young people will continue to discover this, and they will be the ones who carry forward the Extraordinary Form when the older generation goes to their reward. Certainly this will be young people of your generation, but ... I’m 57. I was baptized in the old rite, but by the time I was aware and cognizant of Mass, we had already come to the new liturgy. So everybody younger than me has no experience really of this liturgy. Anyone under my age could be considered “young” in discovering this beautiful liturgy!

JK: Your Excellency, what would you say is the most important element of tradition for the Catholic youth to hold and cherish at this time?

AS: I think what young people need to do first is to discover — and many have — the Church’s tradition. Many young people have been deprived, in a certain way, of our Catholic heritage, of the great tradition which is ours in the Catholic Church. I know for myself I feel I was ... I don’t want to say cheated because that sounds like someone did it intentionally out of ill will for me ... but I feel like I was deprived of real teaching and appreciation and contact with my Catholic culture and my Catholic tradition and where we come from. I lived in and grew up in an age when there was this attitude that the Church had, in some way, hit a reset button at Vatican II, and that we could let go of all the past, as if the Church needed a new beginning and a fresh start.

You are far too young to have lived through that experience, and you are very blessed to live in the time that you do, because there was nothing like this for me when I was growing up. I grew up in a time when all of those things in the past had to be cast aside. Even something as simple as the Rosary, it was kind of discouraged — or if not discouraged, it was certainly not encouraged. I never saw Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction until I was a college student. I never knew such a thing existed. I grew up when there was a lot of experimentation with the Mass, always trying to make it “fresh and new.” There was a period of time growing up when you came to Mass on Sunday, and you just didn’t know what was going to happen next! The changes were coming so fast, and not just changes but experimentation and aberrations. So I was deprived of any contact with my tradition; I discovered it, on my own, as a college student.

JK: Was the liturgy the only area in which you felt deprived of contact with tradition, or are you speaking more broadly?

AS: In ‘tradition’ I would certainly also include the teachings of the Church that I never learned. I never understood what the Mass was — and I went to 12 years of Catholic school. If you has asked me what the Mass meant, I would probably have told you that it was a reenactment of the Last Supper, the last meal which Jesus shared with His disciples and in which He gave them His Body and Blood ... which is part of the truth. But the idea that the Mass was in any way a sacramental re-presentation of the paschal mystery, that Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary was made truly, sacramentally present at the altar — and that it is an altar, and not just a table! — that would have been a foreign idea to me.

So certainly part of the tradition is that young people need to be deeply in touch with the Faith, what we believe, what the Catechism teaches. Young people must not take it for granted that what they have received in education (whether in a Catholic school or a religious education program) is an adequate formation in the Faith. They need to really delve into the teachings of the Church, the Catechism, they need to read good, solid books and articles, and other media forms, whether internet or movies. So that is part of it.

But of course, a big part of our tradition is our liturgical tradition. It’s in our DNA — and that’s why many are attracted to the traditional forms of the liturgy — because it’s in our Catholic DNA. Young people need to acquaint themselves with the richer, deeper tradition. Vatican II did not hit a reset button. Although, perhaps, the tradition needed to be renewed and refreshed, it never was meant to be destroyed or cast aside.

Pontifical Mass at Rolduc

JK: Would you put sacred music into this category, too?

AS: The rich liturgical tradition of the Church includes her sacred music. We don’t have to have pop music at Mass. The first time I heard Gregorian chant was when I was a college student. I’d never heard of chant before. When I heard it in a music appreciation class at a secular university, I hadn’t a clue what it meant, but it instantly spoke to my heart—instantly. The first time I heard it I was moved, really moved. So there is this rich liturgical, sacred music tradition that we need to recapture, recover, that young people need to learn about.

Moreover, we should all have devotions in our life. Devotions extend what the liturgy begins. Things like the Rosary, the chaplet of Divine Mercy, Eucharistic Adoration, other devotions to the Blessed Virgin, having favorite saints, patron saints that you pray to, Stations of the Cross…All these rich parts of our Catholic devotional tradition feed the life of faith and extend what we experience in the sacred liturgy, but also lead us back to it.

JK: Do you have any additional advice for young traditional Catholics trying to recover their tradition? 

AS: I’d say there is a tendency sometimes to see these things — doctrine, liturgy, devotions — in opposition to things like works of charity, works of mercy. I would emphasize that we must not get to a place where all we are concerned about is being of right doctrine (orthodoxy), having right liturgy (orthopraxy), good sacred music, that we are doing all the right devotions. If we are not doing works of mercy, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, if we are not taking care of the poor and disadvantaged, then we are not living fully our Catholic faith. That’s part of our tradition too!

I think traditional-minded Catholics should not let, perhaps, the more liberal elements in the church co-opt the works of justice and mercy as being “something of the new Church.” Catholics have always been steeped in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Church of the ages is the one that built hospitals and took care of the sick and the poor and the dying, built schools to educate poor children without opportunities.

The works of justice and mercy are also very much a part of our tradition, and I would caution young people not to get so focused on the other elements we spoke of that they forget that Jesus teaches us to love, to serve those who are in need. Remember the parable He gives us on the Last Judgment, when he separates the sheep from the goats. He does not separate them based on whether they are praying the traditional prayers or not. He separates them based on “when I was hungry did you feed me, when I was thirsty did you give me to drink, when I was homeless, did you shelter me, when I was sick and in prison did you visit me?” This is the basis of the judgment… it’s not an either/or!

This is a tendency I see: if you are a “progressive Catholic,” you are all about the social justice issues, taking care of the poor, working for justice and everything, but your liturgical worship tends to be a bit off and maybe you reject other moral teachings of the Church, while sometimes traditionally-minded Catholics are characterized as being all about the Mass, and right worship, right music, right devotions, the right vestments, orthodox teaching, and don’t care so much about the poor and works of mercy.

We’ve got to pull this together: it is not an either/or, it is a both/and in the Church. The works of mercy go back to the apostolic times, go back to the Acts of the Apostles; as St. Paul says, we must always take care of the poor. This is deeply traditional in our Church.

Archbishop Sample with prison inmates

The Façade of Assisi Cathedral: Guest Article by Julian Kwasniewski

The Cathedral of St Rufino in Assisi, the third church to be built on the same site, was begun in 1140 A.D., about 40 years before St Francis was born. It is perhaps less visited than the major Franciscan sites in the city, but it was certainly very important in the early history of the Order. It was while hearing Francis preach in the church (where they both had been baptized as children, along with many of their early followers) that Clare decided to follow him in his life of poverty. We are very glad to share with our readers these marvelous photographs of the church’s façade, along with the accompanying commentary, both by Julian Kwasniewski, Peter’s son; I think that the use of black and white really conveys very well how intricate these carved decorations really are. You can see some more of his excellent work recently publish on the website OnePeterFive (here and here).

The Façade of the Cathedral of Assisi: A Personal Discovery

Introduction: Where and How

“Terrible is this place: it is the house of God, and the gate of heaven; and it shall be called the court of God.” (Genesis 28, 17, the Introit for the Dedication of a Church.) 

This past July, I was blessed to be able to visit Assisi, the magnificent city of St. Francis, and of medieval Christendom. Although we saw many famous places of beauty and majesty, here I wish to share my thoughts about an obscure place of wonder, that of San Ruffino, the Cathedral of Assisi. At this church I found a beauty which, after reflecting on it later, filled me with delight and fear at the truth shown therein.

Having glanced briefly at the interior and exterior and said the usual sort of thing that you say about another great edifice, my group of family and friends prepared to move on, hoping for some lunch and gelato! However, I was about to have the scales lifted from my oblivious eyes. Some of our group ended up taking a look at the crypt–treasury, and my father and I were left to wait in the square in front of the church. Then I discovered the real beauty and complexity of this court of God.

This is what I wrote in my journal: “July 16th 2016 …The Façade of the Cathedral of Assisi is exquisite: not awe-inspiring like the façade of Chartres, but in the way that one must ‘get to know it.’ It took me a good half hour to appreciate its workmanship. Going over the façade again and again, each time bringing to my eyes new details: heads, faces, people, and animals, all secretly hidden only for the attentive. The idea of a church that is so extensive in its decoration that no one man can appreciate it is a lost principle—and only God can really understand and value the offerings that these churches make. Also, in Christendom there is no sense of ‘we have built some great churches, now we can do something else.’ No, rather: ‘nothing we do can satisfy God—but a little bit more makes a little bit more…’ ”

Continue Reading this Article. . .