“Apostle of the Apostles” - Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Mary Magdalene

In the Missal of St Pius V, the Creed is said on every Sunday, and several categories of feasts: all those of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, Angels, Apostles, Doctors, etc. To this list is added one other woman, St Mary Magdalene, in commemoration of the fact that it was she who announced the Resurrection of Christ, the foundation of the Faith, to the Apostles; for this reason she has often been called “the Apostles of the Apostles.” This custom was widely observed in the Middle Ages, but originally not accepted at Rome itself; the Ordinal of the papal liturgy in the reign of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) specifies that the Creed is not to be said on the feast, indicating that it was known to be done elsewhere. It was still omitted according to the rubrics of printed editions of the Roman Missal in the first half of the 16th century; its addition in the rubrics of 1570 is one of the rare cases where a new custom was added to the Roman Rite from elsewhere in the highly conservative Tridentine reform. (It was removed from her feast in 1955, and from the Doctors in 1961.)

Two pages of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon, France, in 1500 (folio 95 recto and verso). The rubric about the Creed begins in the middle of the right column of the first page. Note that at the break between the two pages, St Bonaventure is listed as a Saint on whose feast the Creed is said; this edition was printed for the Franciscans, who counted him informally as a Doctor before the title was officially given in 1588. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Réserve des livres rares.)

The Gregorian propers of her Mass (Introit, Gradual etc.) are taken from the various common Masses of holy women; in the Middle Ages, the Epistle was that of Holy Matrons, Proverbs 31, 10-31, “Who shall find a valiant woman? etc.” In the Tridentine Missal, a new Epistle was created, the Song of Songs, 3, 2-5 and 8, 6-7, which begins as follows.

I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. (quaesivi illum et non inveni.) The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go ...

St Gregory the Great refers the words “I will seek him whom my soul loveth” to John 20, 11-18, when Mary meets Christ at the tomb and mistakes him for the gardener, in the Breviary homily for Easter Thursday.

We must consider how great was the force of love that had enkindled this woman’s heart, who left not the tomb of the Lord, though even the disciples were gone away. She sought Him Whom she had not found there, (exquirebat, quem non invenerat) and as she sought Him, she wept, … Whence it came to pass that she alone, who had stayed behind to seek Him, was the only one who then saw Him.

“When I had a little passed by them” (i.e. the watchmen of the city) then refers to tomb of the Lord being just outside the city, and the words “I held him: and I will not let him go” to her embracing the Lord, until He says to her, “Cling to me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”

‘Noli me tangere’ by Jacob van Oostsanen, 1507. The words of John 20, 15, that Mary Magdalene at first thought the Risen Christ was the gardener, gave rise to a delightful tradition of portraying Him with various gardening implements, such as the shovel seen here, or the kind of broad-brimmed hat often worn by gardeners.

From the time of St Gregory, the Western Church accepted that Mary Magdalene was also the sinful woman who anoints Christ’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee, as recounted in Luke 7, 36-50, the Gospel for her feast. This connection was probably made from the words that immediately follow this passage, or at least reinforced by them, Luke 8, 1-3. “And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, And Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto him of their substance.” (Mark 16, 9 also refers to the seven devils.)

She is also traditionally held in the West to be Martha and Lazarus’ sister, of whom Christ says in the same Gospel “Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10, 38-42) This passage is read on the feast of St Martha on July 29th, the octave of Mary Magdalene; from it, Martha has traditionally been seen as the symbol of the active life, and Mary of the contemplative. The same passage is then read also on the feast of the Assumption, a custom inherited, like the feast of itself, from the Byzantine Rite; this was understood allegorically in the Middle Ages to signify that in the person and life of the Virgin Mary are perfected both the active and the contemplative life.

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, by Henryk Semiradzki, 1886

The Byzantine Rite (in which the Creed is said at every Eucharistic liturgy) keeps July 22 as the feast of the “Myrrh-bearer and Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene,” and on June 4 commemorates “Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus the Just.” Neither of the two Marys thus distinguished is associated with the sinful woman of Luke 7, but the Gospel of Mary Magdalene’s feast day is the passage from Luke 8 noted above. The two sisters are traditionally numbered among the “Myrrh-bearers” who went to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ on the morning of the Resurrection, although they are not named as such by the Gospel; with them are included also Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, Joanna and Susanna named in Luke 8, and Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. They are commemorated as a group on the second Sunday after Easter, along with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. At Vespers of the preceding Saturday, the following idiomel is sung, paraphrasing Matthew 28 and Luke 24.

Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came to the grave seeking the Lord, and they saw an Angel like lightning sitting on the stone, who said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He has risen as he said; in Galilee you will find him’. To him let us cry aloud, ‘Lord, risen from the dead, glory to you!’

In the Roman Rite, Matthew 28, 1-7 is the Gospel of the Easter vigil, which concludes with a very much shortened Vespers; the antiphon for the Magnificat is the beginning of the Gospel, “And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher, alleluia.” Even though the term “Apostle of the Apostles” does not occur in the Roman liturgical books, the liturgy itself proclaims this role for her as the first person named in the accounts of the Resurrection.

The church of Rome was traditionally very conservative about the addition of new texts to the Office; one often finds that the proper Office of a saint hugely popular in the Middle Ages, such as St Nicholas, is found in virtually every medieval Breviary except that of the Roman Curia, the basis of the Breviary of St Pius V. Such is the case with Mary Magdalene, whose Roman Office is mostly that of the common of Holy Women. She has proper antiphons for the Benedictus and the two Magnificats, but none for the psalms; there are also three proper hymns, although that of Matins is a single stanza and a doxology. Three responsories at Matins referring to her are borrowed from Easter, but the rest are taken from the common of Holy Women.

Other medieval breviaries, however, adopted one of various proper Offices for the feast, of which the most interesting is that found in the Dominican Breviary. At First Vespers, the antiphon of the Magnificat reads as follows:

Celsi mériti María, quae solem verum resurgentem vidére meruisti mortalium prima: óbtine ut nos visu gloriae suae tecum laetíficet in caelis.
Mary of high merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the true Sun rising; obtain that He may grant us joy by the vision of His glory in heaven.

And at the Benedictus:

O mundi lampas, et margaríta praefúlgida, quae resurrectiónem Christi nuntiando, Apostolórum Apóstola fíeri meruisti! María Magdaléna, semper pia exoratrix pro nobis adsis ad Deum, qui te elégit.
O lamp of the world, and bright-shining pearl, who by announcing the Resurrection of Christ, didst merit to become the Apostle of the Apostles! Mary Magdalene, of thy kindness stand thou ever before God, who chose thee, to entreat him for us.

Outstanding among the responsories of Matins is the eighth, (necessarily not as beautiful in my translation).

R. O felix felícis mériti María, quæ resurgentem a mórtuis Dei Filium vidére meruisti mortalium prima! Pro cujus amore, sæculi contempsisti blandimenta: * sédula nos apud ipsum, quæsumus, prece commenda. V. Ut tecum mereámur, o Dómina, pérfrui felicíssima ipsíus præsentia. Sédula.
R. O happy Mary of happy merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the Son of God rising from the dead; for whose love thou disdained the blandishments of the world: * by thy prayer, we ask thee, commend us to Him with diligence. V. That with thee, o Lady, we may merit to enjoy his most happy presence. By thy prayer.

The Office used by the Premonstatensians shares a number of texts with that of the Dominicans; it contains this very interesting and uncommonly long (and hence rather rarely used) antiphon:

Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus, quia Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere; et qui nasci dignatus est de Maria Virgine, tangi non dedignatus est a Maria peccatrice. Haec est illa Maria, cui dimissa sunt peccata multa, quia dilexit multum. Haec est enim illa Maria, quae resurgentem a mortuis prima omnium videre meruit Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, quem pro nostris reatibus oret, quaesumus, in aeternum.
A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners; and He that deigned to be born of the Virgin Mary, did not disdain to be touched by Mary the sinner. This is that Mary, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. This is indeed that Mary, who before all others merited to see our Lord Jesus Christ rising from the dead; and we ask that she pray Him forever for our sins.

Lastly, we may note the Preface of her feast in the Ambrosian liturgy, another text that can only suffer in translation.

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos te, Pater omnipotens, omni tempore glorificare, et in die festivitatis hodiernae Beatae Mariae Magdalenae exultantibus animis praedicare. Quam sic tui amoris igne accendere dignatus es; ut ad Christi Filii tui vestigia devota corrueret, et eadem pretioso unguento perfunderet. Osculari quoque, ac lacrimis rigare, et capillis non cessat extergere, donec audire promeruit, ‘Dimissa sunt tibi peccata, vade in pace.’ O beata fides, divinae misericordiae munita praesidio! O digna conversio, quae tantum munus accepit, ut quae antea draconis antiqui faucibus merito tenebatur astricta, plena jam gaudens libertate, sanctis Apostolis dominincae Resurrectionis mereretur esse praenuncia. Et ideo…

Truly it is fitting and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we glorify Thee, Father almighty, in every moment, and on this feast day of blessed Mary Magdalene proclaim Thee with spirits rejoicing. Whom Thou didst so deign to kindle with the fire of Thy love, that in devotion she fell at the feet of Christ, Thy Son, and anointed them with precious ointment; and ceased not to kiss them, to wash them with her tears, and wipe them with her hair, until she merits to hear, ‘Thy sins are forgiven go, in peace.’ O blessed faith, strengthened with the help of divine mercy. O worthy conversion, that merited to receive so great a gift, that she who was formerly deservedly held fast in the jaws of the ancient dragon, now rejoicing in complete freedom, should merit to be the first to announce the Lord’s Resurrection to the Holt Apostles. And therefore with the Angels and Archangels…

The Penitent Magdalene, by Caravaggio, ca. 1594-95.

The Triumph of St Norbert

Today is the feast of St Norbert, the founder of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, who died on this day in the year 1134. Religious orders have traditionally kept a variety of secondary feasts of their major Saints, and the Premonstratensians were no exception. Since June 6th often occurs within the octaves of Pentecost or Corpus Christi, for a time it was relegated in their liturgical books to a “Commemoration” of their founder’s death, and a “Solemnity of St Norbert” was instituted on July 11th, so the feast could more conveniently be kept with an octave, as was customary for all major Patron Saints. (This was also done by the Benedictines on the same day.) There was also a feast on May 7th of the translation of his relics, which were taken in 1627 from the cathedral of his episcopal see of Magdeburg, which had turned Protestant quite early on, to Strahov Abbey in Prague, where they remain to this day.

The shrine of St Norbert at Strahov Abbey, from this post of 2016.

Another of these secondary feasts is called “the Triumph of St Norbert”, commemorating his defeat of a particularly bizarre heresy in the Low Countries, especially in the area of Antwerp. Norbert was a great promoter of Eucharistic devotion, one of the characteristic features of his order, well over a century before Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi. As recounted in the Premonstratensian Breviary, Tanchelm, “a most wicked man and enemy of the whole Christian faith, and of all religion”, denied any value or purpose to the Blessed Sacrament, and had somehow succeeded in convincing his fanatical followers to worship himself, and venerate his bathwater as a relic. The local clergy, unable to make any headway against the sect, consigned one of their churches to the newly founded order of canons regular; St Norbert and his brethren completely defeated the heresy solely by the force of their preaching. Faithful Catholics who had managed to hide the Sacrament and sacred vessels from profanation, keeping them hidden in some cases for several years, brought them back to St Norbert, who restored to them to the churches.

The Citizens of Antwerp Return to St Norbert the Monstrance and Sacred Vessels They Had Hidden from Tanchelm - Cornelis de Vos, 1630

In the early 17th century, the same Abbot of Prémontré who presided over the translation of St Norbert’s relics, Pierre Gosset, granted the celebration of this feast to the province of the Order which included the Low Countries. It was extended to the entire Order by Pope Leo XIII, and originally assigned to the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, then moved back a day after St Pius X’s Breviary reform. The Office for this feast is identical to that of Corpus Christi, except for the lessons of the second nocturn, which recount the story of the heresy’s defeat. A commemoration of St Norbert is added to both Vespers and Lauds; at the latter, the antiphon is taken from his principal feast.

Aña Antverpienses, Tanchelmi haeresi sacramentaria dementatos, verbo Dei sane propinato, ad fidei Catholicae communionem reduxit. - By soundly preaching the word of God, he brought the citizens of Antwerp, who had been driven mad by Tanchelm’s heresy on the Sacrament, back to the communion of the Catholic Faith.

The Premonstratensian Libera me, Domine

One of the most beautiful and beloved pieces of the Gregorian chant repertoire is the last responsory of Matins of the Dead, Libera me, Domine, which is also sung during the Absolution at the catafalque. The Roman version, certainly the best known, is one of the rare examples of a responsory with more than one verse; another very prominent example is the very first responsory of the liturgical year, Aspiciens a longe on the First Sunday of Advent. Many medieval Uses expanded Libera me by adding more verses, and there are dozens of variants recorded. Here is the text of the Premonstratensian version as sung on All Souls’ Day, which has three additional verses. (I was unable to find a recording of it; the Roman one is given below.) The first two of these, Tremens factus sum and Dies illa, are in the opposite order from the Roman version; the additional verses are sung only on All Souls and for the funeral of a deceased member of the Order. The repetitions of the responsory are also arranged differently; they are here given in full. As in most medieval Uses, the words Requiem aeternam ... luceat eis are not sung with any of the responsories in their Office of the Dead.

R. Líbera me, Dómine, de morte aeterna * in die illa tremenda, * Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra, * dum véneris judicáre sáeculum per ignem.
V. j. Dies illa, dies irae, calamitátis et miseriæ, dies magna et amára valde, quando caeli movendi sunt et terra.
V. ij. Tremens factus sum ego et tímeo, dum discussio vénerit atque ventúra ira in die illa tremenda.
V. iij. Quid ego misérrimus, quid dicam, vel quid faciam, cum nil boni pérferam ante tantum júdicem in die illa tremenda?
V. iv. Plangent super se omnes tribus terrae; vix justus salvabitur, et ego miser ubi parebo in die illa tremenda?
V. v. Nunc, Christe, te déprecor, miserére, pie; qui venisti redímere nos, perpetim veni salvare in die illa tremenda, quando caeli movendi sunt et terra, dum véneris judicáre sáeculum per ignem.

R. Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death on that awful day * when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
V. j. That day shall be a day of wrath, of calamity and misery, a great day, and exceeding bitter. When the heavens and the earth shall be shaken.
V. ij. Trembling do I become, and fearful, when the trial and wrath shall come on that awful day.
V. iij. What shall I say or do, most wretched man that I am, since I have no good to bring before so great a judge on that awful day?
V. iv. All the tribes of the earth shal weep for themselves, the just man shall scarcely be saved, and where shall, a wretched man, appear on that awful day?
V. v. Now, o Christ, I beseech Thee, have mercy, o Good one; Thou who came to redeem us, come ever to save us on that awful day when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

“Apostle of the Apostles” - Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Mary Magdalene

In the Missal of St Pius V, the Creed is said on every Sunday, and several categories of feasts: all those of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, Angels, Apostles, Doctors, etc. To this list is added one other woman, St Mary Magdalene, in commemoration of the fact that it was she who announced the Resurrection of Christ, the foundation of the Faith, to the Apostles; for this reason she has often been called “the Apostles of the Apostles.” This custom was widely observed in the Middle Ages, but originally not accepted at Rome itself; the Ordinal of the papal liturgy in the reign of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) specifies that the Creed is not to be said on the feast, indicating that it was known to be done elsewhere. It was still omitted according to the rubrics of printed editions of the Roman Missal in the first half of the 16th century; its addition in the rubrics of 1570 is one of the rare cases where a new custom was added to the Roman Rite from elsewhere in the highly conservative Tridentine reform. (It was removed from her feast in 1955, and from the Doctors in 1961.)

Two pages of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon, France, in 1500 (folio 95 recto and verso). The rubric about the Creed begins in the middle of the right column of the first page. Note that at the break between the two pages, St Bonaventure is listed as a Saint on whose feast the Creed is said; this edition was printed for the Franciscans, who counted him informally as a Doctor before the title was officially given in 1588. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Réserve des livres rares.)

The Gregorian propers of her Mass (Introit, Gradual etc.) are taken from the various common Masses of holy women; in the Middle Ages, the Epistle was that of Holy Matrons, Proverbs 31, 10-31, “Who shall find a valiant woman? etc.” In the Tridentine Missal, a new Epistle was created, the Song of Songs, 3, 2-5 and 8, 6-7, which begins as follows.

I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. (quaesivi illum et non inveni.) The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go ...

St Gregory the Great refers the words “I will seek him whom my soul loveth” to John 20, 11-18, when Mary meets Christ at the tomb and mistakes him for the gardener, in the Breviary homily for Easter Thursday.

We must consider how great was the force of love that had enkindled this woman’s heart, who left not the tomb of the Lord, though even the disciples were gone away. She sought Him Whom she had not found there, (exquirebat, quem non invenerat) and as she sought Him, she wept, … Whence it came to pass that she alone, who had stayed behind to seek Him, was the only one who then saw Him.

“When I had a little passed by them” (i.e. the watchmen of the city) then refers to tomb of the Lord being just outside the city, and the words “I held him: and I will not let him go” to her embracing the Lord, until He says to her, “Cling to me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”

‘Noli me tangere’ by Jacob van Oostsanen, 1507. The words of John 20, 15, that Mary Magdalene at first thought the Risen Christ was the gardener, gave rise to a delightful tradition of portraying Him with various gardening implements, such as the shovel seen here, or the kind of broad-brimmed hat often worn by gardeners.

From the time of St Gregory, the Western Church accepted that Mary Magdalene was also the sinful woman who anoints Christ’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee, as recounted in Luke 7, 36-50, the Gospel for her feast. This connection was probably made from the words that immediately follow this passage, or at least reinforced by them, Luke 8, 1-3. “And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, And Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto him of their substance.” (Mark 16, 9 also refers to the seven devils.)

She is also traditionally held in the West to be Martha and Lazarus’ sister, of whom Christ says in the same Gospel “Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10, 38-42) This passage is read on the feast of St Martha on July 29th, the octave of Mary Magdalene; from it, Martha has traditionally been seen as the symbol of the active life, and Mary of the contemplative. The same passage is then read also on the feast of the Assumption, a custom inherited, like the feast of itself, from the Byzantine Rite; this was understood allegorically in the Middle Ages to signify that in the person and life of the Virgin Mary are perfected both the active and the contemplative life.

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, by Henryk Semiradzki, 1886

The Byzantine Rite (in which the Creed is said at every Eucharistic liturgy) keeps July 22 as the feast of the “Myrrh-bearer and Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene,” and on June 4 commemorates “Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus the Just.” Neither of the two Marys thus distinguished is associated with the sinful woman of Luke 7, but the Gospel of Mary Magdalene’s feast day is the passage from Luke 8 noted above. The two sisters are traditionally numbered among the “Myrrh-bearers” who went to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ on the morning of the Resurrection, although they are not named as such by the Gospel; with them are included also Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, Joanna and Susanna named in Luke 8, and Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. They are commemorated as a group on the second Sunday after Easter, along with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. At Vespers of the preceding Saturday, the following idiomel is sung, paraphrasing Matthew 28 and Luke 24.

Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came to the grave seeking the Lord, and they saw an Angel like lightning sitting on the stone, who said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He has risen as he said; in Galilee you will find him’. To him let us cry aloud, ‘Lord, risen from the dead, glory to you!’

In the Roman Rite, Matthew 28, 1-7 is the Gospel of the Easter vigil, which concludes with a very much shortened Vespers; the antiphon for the Magnificat is the beginning of the Gospel, “And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher, alleluia.” Even though the term “Apostle of the Apostles” does not occur in the Roman liturgical books, the liturgy itself proclaims this role for her as the first person named in the accounts of the Resurrection.

The church of Rome was traditionally very conservative about the addition of new texts to the Office; one often finds that the proper Office of a saint hugely popular in the Middle Ages, such as St Nicholas, is found in virtually every medieval Breviary except that of the Roman Curia, the basis of the Breviary of St Pius V. Such is the case with Mary Magdalene, whose Roman Office is mostly that of the common of Holy Women. She has proper antiphons for the Benedictus and the two Magnificats, but none for the psalms; there are also three proper hymns, although that of Matins is a single stanza and a doxology. Three responsories at Matins referring to her are borrowed from Easter, but the rest are taken from the common of Holy Women.

Other medieval breviaries, however, adopted one of various proper Offices for the feast, of which the most interesting is that found in the Dominican Breviary. At First Vespers, the antiphon of the Magnificat reads as follows:

Celsi mériti María, quae solem verum resurgentem vidére meruisti mortalium prima: óbtine ut nos visu gloriae suae tecum laetíficet in caelis.
Mary of high merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the true Sun rising; obtain that He may grant us joy by the vision of His glory in heaven.

And at the Benedictus:

O mundi lampas, et margaríta praefúlgida, quae resurrectiónem Christi nuntiando, Apostolórum Apóstola fíeri meruisti! María Magdaléna, semper pia exoratrix pro nobis adsis ad Deum, qui te elégit.
O lamp of the world, and bright-shining pearl, who by announcing the Resurrection of Christ, didst merit to become the Apostle of the Apostles! Mary Magdalene, of thy kindness stand thou ever before God, who chose thee, to entreat him for us.

Outstanding among the responsories of Matins is the eighth, (necessarily not as beautiful in my translation).

R. O felix felícis mériti María, quæ resurgentem a mórtuis Dei Filium vidére meruisti mortalium prima! Pro cujus amore, sæculi contempsisti blandimenta: * sédula nos apud ipsum, quæsumus, prece commenda. V. Ut tecum mereámur, o Dómina, pérfrui felicíssima ipsíus præsentia. Sédula.
R. O happy Mary of happy merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the Son of God rising from the dead; for whose love thou disdained the blandishments of the world: * by thy prayer, we ask thee, commend us to Him with diligence. V. That with thee, o Lady, we may merit to enjoy his most happy presence. By thy prayer.

The Office used by the Premonstatensians shares a number of texts with that of the Dominicans; it contains this very interesting and uncommonly long (and hence rather rarely used) antiphon:

Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus, quia Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere; et qui nasci dignatus est de Maria Virgine, tangi non dedignatus est a Maria peccatrice. Haec est illa Maria, cui dimissa sunt peccata multa, quia dilexit multum. Haec est enim illa Maria, quae resurgentem a mortuis prima omnium videre meruit Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, quem pro nostris reatibus oret, quaesumus, in aeternum.
A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners; and He that deigned to be born of the Virgin Mary, did not disdain to be touched by Mary the sinner. This is that Mary, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. This is indeed that Mary, who before all others merited to see our Lord Jesus Christ rising from the dead; and we ask that she pray Him forever for our sins.

Lastly, we may note the Preface of her feast in the Ambrosian liturgy, another text that can only suffer in translation.

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos te, Pater omnipotens, omni tempore glorificare, et in die festivitatis hodiernae Beatae Mariae Magdalenae exultantibus animis praedicare. Quam sic tui amoris igne accendere dignatus es; ut ad Christi Filii tui vestigia devota corrueret, et eadem pretioso unguento perfunderet. Osculari quoque, ac lacrimis rigare, et capillis non cessat extergere, donec audire promeruit, ‘Dimissa sunt tibi peccata, vade in pace.’ O beata fides, divinae misericordiae munita praesidio! O digna conversio, quae tantum munus accepit, ut quae antea draconis antiqui faucibus merito tenebatur astricta, plena jam gaudens libertate, sanctis Apostolis dominincae Resurrectionis mereretur esse praenuncia. Et ideo…

Truly it is fitting and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we glorify Thee, Father almighty, in every moment, and on this feast day of blessed Mary Magdalene proclaim Thee with spirits rejoicing. Whom Thou didst so deign to kindle with the fire of Thy love, that in devotion she fell at the feet of Christ, Thy Son, and anointed them with precious ointment; and ceased not to kiss them, to wash them with her tears, and wipe them with her hair, until she merits to hear, ‘Thy sins are forgiven go, in peace.’ O blessed faith, strengthened with the help of divine mercy. O worthy conversion, that merited to receive so great a gift, that she who was formerly deservedly held fast in the jaws of the ancient dragon, now rejoicing in complete freedom, should merit to be the first to announce the Lord’s Resurrection to the Holt Apostles. And therefore with the Angels and Archangels…

The Penitent Magdalene, by Caravaggio, ca. 1594-95.

The Triumph of St Norbert

Today is the feast of St Norbert, the founder of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, who died on this day in the year 1134. Religious orders have traditionally kept a variety of secondary feasts of their major Saints, and the Premonstratensians were no exception. Since June 6th often occurs within the octaves of Pentecost or Corpus Christi, for a time it was relegated in their liturgical books to a “Commemoration” of their founder’s death, and a “Solemnity of St Norbert” was instituted on July 11th, so the feast could more conveniently be kept with an octave, as was customary for all major Patron Saints. (This was also done by the Benedictines on the same day.) There was also a feast on May 7th of the translation of his relics, which were taken in 1627 from the cathedral of his episcopal see of Magdeburg, which had turned Protestant quite early on, to Strahov Abbey in Prague, where they remain to this day.

The shrine of St Norbert at Strahov Abbey, from this post of 2016.

Another of these secondary feasts is called “the Triumph of St Norbert”, commemorating his defeat of a particularly bizarre heresy in the Low Countries, especially in the area of Antwerp. Norbert was a great promoter of Eucharistic devotion, one of the characteristic features of his order, well over a century before Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi. As recounted in the Premonstratensian Breviary, Tanchelm, “a most wicked man and enemy of the whole Christian faith, and of all religion”, denied any value or purpose to the Blessed Sacrament, and had somehow succeeded in convincing his fanatical followers to worship himself, and venerate his bathwater as a relic. The local clergy, unable to make any headway against the sect, consigned one of their churches to the newly founded order of canons regular; St Norbert and his brethren completely defeated the heresy solely by the force of their preaching. Faithful Catholics who had managed to hide the Sacrament and sacred vessels from profanation, keeping them hidden in some cases for several years, brought them back to St Norbert, who restored to them to the churches.

The Citizens of Antwerp Return to St Norbert the Monstrance and Sacred Vessels They Had Hidden from Tanchelm - Cornelis de Vos, 1630

In the early 17th century, the same Abbot of Prémontré who presided over the translation of St Norbert’s relics, Pierre Gosset, granted the celebration of this feast to the province of the Order which included the Low Countries. It was extended to the entire Order by Pope Leo XIII, and originally assigned to the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, then moved back a day after St Pius X’s Breviary reform. The Office for this feast is identical to that of Corpus Christi, except for the lessons of the second nocturn, which recount the story of the heresy’s defeat. A commemoration of St Norbert is added to both Vespers and Lauds; at the latter, the antiphon is taken from his principal feast.

Aña Antverpienses, Tanchelmi haeresi sacramentaria dementatos, verbo Dei sane propinato, ad fidei Catholicae communionem reduxit. - By soundly preaching the word of God, he brought the citizens of Antwerp, who had been driven mad by Tanchelm’s heresy on the Sacrament, back to the communion of the Catholic Faith.

The Premonstratensian Libera me, Domine

One of the most beautiful and beloved pieces of the Gregorian chant repertoire is the last responsory of Matins of the Dead, Libera me, Domine, which is also sung during the Absolution at the catafalque. The Roman version, certainly the best known, is one of the rare examples of a responsory with more than one verse; another very prominent example is the very first responsory of the liturgical year, Aspiciens a longe on the First Sunday of Advent. Many medieval Uses expanded Libera me by adding more verses, and there are dozens of variants recorded. Here is the text of the Premonstratensian version as sung on All Souls’ Day, which has three additional verses. (I was unable to find a recording of it; the Roman one is given below.) The first two of these, Tremens factus sum and Dies illa, are in the opposite order from the Roman version; the additional verses are sung only on All Souls and for the funeral of a deceased member of the Order. The repetitions of the responsory are also arranged differently; they are here given in full. As in most medieval Uses, the words Requiem aeternam ... luceat eis are not sung with any of the responsories in their Office of the Dead.

R. Líbera me, Dómine, de morte aeterna * in die illa tremenda, * Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra, * dum véneris judicáre sáeculum per ignem.
V. j. Dies illa, dies irae, calamitátis et miseriæ, dies magna et amára valde, quando caeli movendi sunt et terra.
V. ij. Tremens factus sum ego et tímeo, dum discussio vénerit atque ventúra ira in die illa tremenda.
V. iij. Quid ego misérrimus, quid dicam, vel quid faciam, cum nil boni pérferam ante tantum júdicem in die illa tremenda?
V. iv. Plangent super se omnes tribus terrae; vix justus salvabitur, et ego miser ubi parebo in die illa tremenda?
V. v. Nunc, Christe, te déprecor, miserére, pie; qui venisti redímere nos, perpetim veni salvare in die illa tremenda, quando caeli movendi sunt et terra, dum véneris judicáre sáeculum per ignem.

R. Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death on that awful day * when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.
V. j. That day shall be a day of wrath, of calamity and misery, a great day, and exceeding bitter. When the heavens and the earth shall be shaken.
V. ij. Trembling do I become, and fearful, when the trial and wrath shall come on that awful day.
V. iij. What shall I say or do, most wretched man that I am, since I have no good to bring before so great a judge on that awful day?
V. iv. All the tribes of the earth shal weep for themselves, the just man shall scarcely be saved, and where shall, a wretched man, appear on that awful day?
V. v. Now, o Christ, I beseech Thee, have mercy, o Good one; Thou who came to redeem us, come ever to save us on that awful day when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

“Apostle of the Apostles” - Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Mary Magdalene

In the Missal of St Pius V, the Creed is said on every Sunday, and several categories of feasts: all those of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, Angels, Apostles, Doctors, etc. To this list is added one other woman, St Mary Magdalene, in commemoration of the fact that it was she who announced the Resurrection of Christ, the foundation of the Faith, to the Apostles; for this reason she has often been called “the Apostles of the Apostles.” This custom was widely observed in the Middle Ages, but originally not accepted at Rome itself; the Ordinal of the papal liturgy in the reign of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) specifies that the Creed is not to be said on the feast, indicating that it was known to be done elsewhere. It was still omitted according to the rubrics of printed editions of the Roman Missal in the first half of the 16th century; its addition in the rubrics of 1570 is one of the rare cases where a new custom was added to the Roman Rite from elsewhere in the highly conservative Tridentine reform. (It was removed from her feast in 1955, and from the Doctors in 1961.)

Two pages of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon, France, in 1500 (folio 95 recto and verso). The rubric about the Creed begins in the middle of the right column of the first page. Note that at the break between the two pages, St Bonaventure is listed as a Saint on whose feast the Creed is said; this edition was printed for the Franciscans, who counted him informally as a Doctor before the title was officially given in 1588. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Réserve des livres rares.)

The Gregorian propers of her Mass (Introit, Gradual etc.) are taken from the various common Masses of holy women; in the Middle Ages, the Epistle was that of Holy Matrons, Proverbs 31, 10-31, “Who shall find a valiant woman? etc.” In the Tridentine Missal, a new Epistle was created, the Song of Songs, 3, 2-5 and 8, 6-7, which begins as follows.

I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. (quaesivi illum et non inveni.) The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go ...

St Gregory the Great refers the words “I will seek him whom my soul loveth” to John 20, 11-18, when Mary meets Christ at the tomb and mistakes him for the gardener, in the Breviary homily for Easter Thursday.

We must consider how great was the force of love that had enkindled this woman’s heart, who left not the tomb of the Lord, though even the disciples were gone away. She sought Him Whom she had not found there, (exquirebat, quem non invenerat) and as she sought Him, she wept, … Whence it came to pass that she alone, who had stayed behind to seek Him, was the only one who then saw Him.

“When I had a little passed by them” (i.e. the watchmen of the city) then refers to tomb of the Lord being just outside the city, and the words “I held him: and I will not let him go” to her embracing the Lord, until He says to her, “Cling to me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”

‘Noli me tangere’ by Jacob van Oostsanen, 1507. The words of John 20, 15, that Mary Magdalene at first thought the Risen Christ was the gardener gave rise to a delightful tradition of portraying Him with various gardening implements, such as the shovel seen here, or the kind of broad-brimmed hat often worn by gardeners.

From the time of St Gregory, the Western Church accepted that Mary Magdalene was also the sinful woman who anoints Christ’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee, as recounted in Luke 7, 36-50, and this is traditionally the Gospel for her feast. This connection was probably made from the words that immediately follow this passage, or at least reinforced by them, Luke 8, 1-3. “And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, And Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto him of their substance.” (Mark 16, 9 also refers to the seven devils.)

She is also traditionally held in the West to be Martha and Lazarus’ sister, of whom Christ says in the same Gospel “Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10, 38-42) This passage is read on the feast of St Martha on July 29th, the octave of Mary Magdalene; from it, Martha has traditionally been seen as the symbol of the active life, and Mary of the contemplative. The same passage was then read also on the feast of the Assumption, a custom inherited, like the feast of itself, from the Byzantine Rite; this was understood allegorically in the Middle Ages to signify that in the person and life of the Virgin Mary are perfected both the active and the contemplative life.

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, by Henryk Semiradzki, 1886

The Byzantine Rite (in which the Creed is said at every Eucharistic liturgy) keeps July 22 as the feast of the “Myrrh-bearer and Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene,” and on June 4 commemorates “Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus the Just.” Neither of the two Marys thus distinguished is associated with the sinful woman of Luke 7, but the Gospel of Mary Magdalene’s feast day is the passage from Luke 8 noted above. The two sisters are traditionally numbered among the “Myrrh-bearers” who went to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ on the morning of the Resurrection, although they are not named as such by the Gospel; with them are included also Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, Joanna and Susanna named in Luke 8, and Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. They are commemorated as a group on the second Sunday after Easter, along with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. At Vespers of the preceding Saturday, the following idiomel is sung, paraphrasing Matthew 28 and Luke 24.

Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came to the grave seeking the Lord, and they saw an Angel like lightning sitting on the stone, who said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He has risen as he said; in Galilee you will find him’. To him let us cry aloud, ‘Lord, risen from the dead, glory to you!’

In the traditional Roman Rite, Matthew 28, 1-7 is the Gospel of the Easter vigil, which concludes with a very much shortened Vespers; the antiphon for the Magnificat is the beginning of the Gospel, “And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher, alleluia.” Even though the term “Apostle of the Apostles” does not occur in the Roman liturgical books, the liturgy itself proclaims this role for her as the first person named in the accounts of the Resurrection.

The church of Rome was traditionally very conservative about the addition of new texts to the Office; one often finds that the proper Office of a saint hugely popular in the Middle Ages, such as St Nicholas, is found in virtually every medieval Breviary except that of the Roman Curia, the basis of the Breviary of St Pius V. Such is the case with Mary Magdalene, whose Roman Office is mostly that of the common of Holy Women. She has proper antiphons for the Benedictus and the two Magnificats, but none for the psalms; there are also three proper hymns, although that of Matins is a single stanza and a doxology. Three responsories at Matins referring to her are borrowed from Easter, but the rest are taken from the common of Holy Women.

Other medieval breviaries, however, adopted one of various proper Offices for the feast, of which the most interesting is that found in the Dominican Breviary. At First Vespers, the antiphon of the Magnificat reads as follows:

Celsi mériti María, quae solem verum resurgentem vidére meruisti mortalium prima: óbtine ut nos visu gloriae suae tecum laetíficet in caelis.
Mary of high merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the true Sun rising; obtain that He may grant us joy by the vision of His glory in heaven.

And at the Benedictus:

O mundi lampas, et margaríta praefúlgida, quae resurrectiónem Christi nuntiando, Apostolórum Apóstola fíeri meruisti! María Magdaléna, semper pia exoratrix pro nobis adsis ad Deum, qui te elégit.
O lamp of the world, and bright-shining pearl, who by announcing the Resurrection of Christ, didst merit to become the Apostle of the Apostles! Mary Magdalene, of thy kindness stand thou ever before God, who chose thee, to entreat him for us.

Outstanding among the responsories of Matins is the eighth, (necessarily not as beautiful in my translation).

R. O felix felícis mériti María, quæ resurgentem a mórtuis Dei Filium vidére meruisti mortalium prima! Pro cujus amore, sæculi contempsisti blandimenta: * sédula nos apud ipsum, quæsumus, prece commenda. V. Ut tecum mereámur, o Dómina, pérfrui felicíssima ipsíus præsentia. Sédula.
R. O happy Mary of happy merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the Son of God rising from the dead; for whose love thou disdained the blandishments of the world: * by thy prayer, we ask thee, commend us to Him with diligence. V. That with thee, o Lady, we may merit to enjoy his most happy presence. By thy prayer.

The Office used by the Premonstatensians shares a number of texts with that of the Dominicans; it contains this very interesting and uncommonly long (and hence rather rarely used) antiphon:

Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus, quia Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere; et qui nasci dignatus est de Maria Virgine, tangi non dedignatus est a Maria peccatrice. Haec est illa Maria, cui dimissa sunt peccata multa, quia dilexit multum. Haec est enim illa Maria, quae resurgentem a mortuis prima omnium videre meruit Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, quem pro nostris reatibus oret, quaesumus, in aeternum.
A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners; and He that deigned to be born of the Virgin Mary, did not disdain to be touched by Mary the sinner. This is that Mary, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. This is indeed that Mary, who before all others merited to see our Lord Jesus Christ rising from the dead; and we ask that she pray Him forever for our sins.

Lastly, we may note the Preface of her feast in the Ambrosian liturgy, another text that can only suffer in translation. 

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos te, Pater omnipotens, omni tempore glorificare, et in die festivitatis hodiernae Beatae Mariae Magdalenae exultantibus animis praedicare. Quam sic tui amoris igne accendere dignatus es; ut ad Christi Filii tui vestigia devota corrueret, et eadem pretioso unguento perfunderet. Osculari quoque, ac lacrimis rigare, et capillis non cessat extergere, donec audire promeruit, ‘Dimissa sunt tibi peccata, vade in pace.’ O beata fides, divinae misericordiae munita praesidio! O digna conversio, quae tantum munus accepit, ut quae antea draconis antiqui faucibus merito tenebatur astricta, plena jam gaudens libertate, sanctis Apostolis dominincae Resurrectionis mereretur esse praenuncia. Et ideo…

Truly it is fitting and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we glorify Thee, Father almighty, in every moment, and on this feast day of blessed Mary Magdalene proclaim Thee with spirits rejoicing. Whom Thou didst so deign to kindle with the fire of Thy love, that in devotion she fell at the feet of Christ, Thy Son, and anointed them with precious ointment; and ceased not to kiss them, to wash them with her tears, and wipe them with her hair, until she merits to hear, ‘Thy sins are forgiven go, in peace.’ O blessed faith, strengthened with the help of divine mercy. O worthy conversion, that merited to receive so great a gift, that she who was formerly deservedly held fast in the jaws of the ancient dragon, now rejoicing in complete freedom, should merit to be the first to announce the Lord’s Resurrection to the Holt Apostles. And therefore with the Angels and Archangels…

The Penitent Magdalene, by Caravaggio, ca. 1594-95.

The Triumph of St Norbert

Today is the feast of St Norbert, the founder of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, who died on this day in the year 1134. Religious orders have traditionally kept a variety of secondary feasts of their major Saints, and the Premonstratensians were no exception. Since June 6th often occurs within the octaves of Pentecost or Corpus Christi, for a time it was relegated in their liturgical books to a “Commemoration” of their founder’s death, and a “Solemnity of St Norbert” was instituted on July 11th, so the feast could more conveniently be kept with an octave, as was customary for all major Patron Saints. (This was also done by the Benedictines on the same day.) There was also a feast on May 7th of the translation of his relics, which were taken in 1627 from the cathedral of his episcopal see of Magdeburg, which had turned Protestant quite early on, to Strahov Abbey in Prague, where they remain to this day.

The shrine of St Norbert at Strahov Abbey, from this post of 2016.

Another of these secondary feasts is called “the Triumph of St Norbert”, commemorating his defeat of a particularly bizarre heresy in the Low Countries, especially in the area of Antwerp. Norbert was a great promoter of Eucharistic devotion, one of the characteristic features of his order, well over a century before Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi. As recounted in the Premonstratensian Breviary, Tanchelm, “a most wicked man and enemy of the whole Christian faith, and of all religion”, denied any value or purpose to the Blessed Sacrament, and had somehow succeeded in convincing his fanatical followers to worship himself, and venerate his bathwater as a relic. The local clergy, unable to make any headway against the sect, consigned one of their churches to the newly founded order of canons regular; St Norbert and his brethren completely defeated the heresy solely by the force of their preaching. Faithful Catholics who had managed to hide the Sacrament and sacred vessels from profanation, keeping them hidden in some cases for several years, brought them back to St Norbert, who restored to them to the churches.

The Citizens of Antwerp Return to St Norbert the Monstrance and Sacred Vessels They Had Hidden from Tanchelm - Cornelis de Vos, 1630

In the early 17th century, the same Abbot of Prémontré who presided over the translation of St Norbert’s relics, Pierre Gosset, granted the celebration of this feast to the province of the Order which included the Low Countries. It was extended to the entire Order by Pope Leo XIII, and originally assigned to the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, then moved back a day after St Pius X’s Breviary reform. The Office for this feast is identical to that of Corpus Christi, except for the lessons of the second nocturn, which recount the story of the heresy’s defeat. A commemoration of St Norbert is added to both Vespers and Lauds; at the latter, the antiphon is taken from his principal feast.

Aña Antverpienses, Tanchelmi haeresi sacramentaria dementatos, verbo Dei sane propinato, ad fidei Catholicae communionem reduxit. - By soundly preaching the word of God, he brought the citizens of Antwerp, who had been driven mad by Tanchelm’s heresy on the Sacrament, back to the communion of the Catholic Faith.

Corpus Christi in the Norbertine Rite in California

The church of Ss Peter and Paul in Wilmington, California, located at 515 West Opp Street, will have a solemn High Mass this Thursday for the feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated according to the Premonstratensian Use by the Norbertine Fathers of St Michael’s Abbey. The Mass will start at 7:00 pm, and be followed by a Eucharistic Procession.

From last year’s Corpus Christi celebration - the deacon at the solemn Mass wearing the “almutium”, a large garment of white rabbit fur worn over the maniple at the singing of the Gospel and the “Ite, missa est.”

A Premonstratensian Mass of the Epiphany

We received a late submission of Epiphany photos, but one which deserves its own separate post, since it gives us a chance to enjoy something a little unusual, a Solemn Mass celebrated in the Premonstratensian Rite. These come to us courtesy of Mr Adhika Lie from the church of Ss Peter and Paul in Wilmington, California, which is staffed by the Norbertine Canons of St Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, one of the most vibrant young religious communities in the United States today. The photos show us very nicely some of the proper customs which distinguish the Premonstratensian Use from the Roman.

At the first “Dominus vobiscum”, the deacon kneels and elevates the front of the priest’s chasuable, as seen here. In The Liturgies of the Religious Orders, Archdale King writes that this was also done by the Cistercians and in some local Uses, but that the custom was in his time (1955) “very generally disregarded.”

The deacon and subdeacon bowing their heads at the Collect.

The subdeacon singing the Epistle.

The subdeacon bringing the burse and corporal to the altar, and in the photo below, setting the corporal on the altar. In medieval Uses, it was commonly the practice to prepare the altar and the chalice either during the Epistle, or between the Epistle and Gospel.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

All Saints and All Souls Announcements: O. Praem. in California; St John Cantius in Chicago; Columbus, Ohio

Here are a couple of other announcements about liturgies for tomorrow’s solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed on Thursday.

Premonstratensian Rite in Wilmington, California

The church of Ss Peter and Paul in Wilmington, California, will have solemn Mass in the Premonstratensian Rite, celebrated by the Norbertine Fathers of St Michael’s Abbey, on All Saints’ Day and All Souls, both starting at 7:30 pm. The church is located at 515 West Opp Street; see the current parish bulletin here.

The deacon at a Premonstratensian Mass, wearing the almuce, which is donned only for the singing of the Gospel and the Ite, missa est. a unique custom of the Norbertines. 

Mozart’s Requiem in Chicago at St John Cantius

On Thursday, November 2nd, the annual All Soul’s Requiem Mass will be offered in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite at the church of St John Cantius in Chicago, Illinois. The Requiem Mass in D minor (K. 626) by W.A. Mozart will be sung by the St Cecilia Choir and Orchestra., as well as the Miserere of Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783) and Pie Jesu by Andrew Lloyd Webber (b. 1948). The Mass begins at 7:30 pm; the church is located at 825 North Carpenter Street.

Holy Family, Columbus, Ohio

The Latin Mass Community of Columbus, Ohio, will have Mass for All Saints will be at 5:30pm, a first Mass for All Souls at 9am, and a Solemn Requiem at 7pm. All three Masses will be at Holy Family Church, located at 584 West Broad Street.

The Beheading of St John the Baptist 2016

Joannes schola virtutum, magisterium vitae, sanctitatis forma, norma justitiae, virginitatis speculum, pudicitiae titulus, castitatis exemplum, poenitentium via, peccatorum venia, fidei disciplina; Joannes major homine, par Angelis, legis summa Evangelii satio, Apostolorum vox, silentium Prophetarum, lucerna mundi, Praecursor Judicis, Christi metator, Domini testis, totius medius Trinitatis: hic tantus datur incestui, traditur adulterae, addicitur saltatrici.
(From the Premonstratensian Breviary, the antiphon at the Magnificat for First Vespers of the Beheading of St John the Baptist.)

Alabaster head of St John the Baptist, carved in England in the 15th century; from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

John, the school of virtues, the master of life, the form of holiness, the norm of justice, the mirror of virginity, the glory of modesty, the model of chastity, the way of penitents, the forgiveness of sinners, the discipline of the Faith; John greater than man, equal to the Angels, the greatest plant of the law of the Gospel, the voice of the Apostles, the silence of the Prophets, the light of the world, the Forerunner of the Judge, that showeth Christ, the witness of the Lord, that standeth amid the whole Trinity; this man so great is handed over to the unchaste, he is delivered to the adulteress, he is consigned to the dancer.

Video of a Norbertine House in Belgium

A reader sent me notice of a film made ca. 1964 for the Belgian television network BRT, about the Premonstratensian Abbey of Park (Abdij van ’t Park), just outside Leuven. There is a small amount of commentary in Dutch at the beginning, but most of the film just shows images and sounds from the abbey rather than commentary. There is a lot of nice footage of the interior of the church, with altars prepared for Mass, the sacristy, the choir, and the chant, and some footage of the Norbertine liturgy, with pontifical Vespers, and a procession of the canons. It has to be said that the music which is added by the film-maker on top of the footage is in many places extremely weird, but perhaps typical of the era. The video is not embeddable, so I can’t put it here, but you can watch it at this link: http://www.canvas.be/video/abdij-van-t-park. It will only be available for a month.

The Abbey’s website also overs a nice virtual tour of the complex, which dates back to the very beginning of the Premonstratensian order; it was founded in 1129, within St Norbert’s lifetime.

“Apostle of the Apostles” - Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Mary Magdalene

In the Missal of St Pius V, the Creed is said on every Sunday, and several categories of feasts: all those of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, Angels, Apostles, Doctors, etc. To this list is added one other woman, St Mary Magdalene, in commemoration of the fact that it was she who announced the Resurrection of Christ, the foundation of the Faith, to the Apostles; for this reason she has often been called “the Apostles of the Apostles.” This custom was widely observed in the Middle Ages, but originally not accepted at Rome itself; the Ordinal of the papal liturgy in the reign of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) specifies that the Creed is not to be said on the feast, indicating that it was known to be done elsewhere. It was still omitted according to the rubrics of printed editions of the Roman Missal in the first half of the 16th century; its addition in the rubrics of 1570 is one of the rare cases where a new custom was added to the Roman Rite from elsewhere in the highly conservative Tridentine reform. (It was removed from her feast in 1955, and from the Doctors in 1961.)

Two pages of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon, France, in 1500 (folio 95 recto and verso). The rubric about the Creed begins in the middle of the right column of the first page. Note that at the break between the two pages, St Bonaventure is listed as a Saint on whose feast the Creed is said; this edition was printed for the Franciscans, who counted him informally as a Doctor before the title was officially given in 1588. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Réserve des livres rares.)

The Gregorian propers of her Mass (Introit, Gradual etc.) are taken from the various common Masses of holy women; in the Middle Ages, the Epistle was that of Holy Matrons, Proverbs 31, 10-31, “Who shall find a valiant woman? etc.” In the Tridentine Missal, a new Epistle was created, the Song of Songs, 3, 2-5 and 8, 6-7, which begins as follows.

I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. (quaesivi illum et non inveni.) The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go ...

St Gregory the Great refers the words “I will seek him whom my soul loveth” to John 20, 11-18, when Mary meets Christ at the tomb and mistakes him for the gardener, in the Breviary homily for Easter Thursday.

We must consider how great was the force of love that had enkindled this woman’s heart, who left not the tomb of the Lord, though even the disciples were gone away. She sought Him Whom she had not found there, (exquirebat, quem non invenerat) and as she sought Him, she wept, … Whence it came to pass that she alone, who had stayed behind to seek Him, was the only one who then saw Him.

“When I had a little passed by them” (i.e. the watchmen of the city) then refers to tomb of the Lord being just outside the city, and the words “I held him: and I will not let him go” to her embracing the Lord, until He says to her, “Cling to me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”

‘Noli me tangere’ by Jacob van Oostsanen, 1507. The words of John 20, 15, that Mary Magdalene at first thought the Risen Christ was the gardener gave rise to a delightful tradition of portraying Him with various gardening implements, such as the shovel seen here, or the kind of broad-brimmed hat often worn by gardeners.

From the time of St Gregory, the Western Church accepted that Mary Magdalene was also the sinful woman who anoints Christ’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee, as recounted in Luke 7, 36-50, and this is traditionally the Gospel for her feast. This connection was probably made from the words that immediately follow this passage, or at least reinforced by them, Luke 8, 1-3. “And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, And Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto him of their substance.” (Mark 16, 9 also refers to the seven devils.)

She is also traditionally held in the West to be Martha and Lazarus’ sister, of whom Christ says in the same Gospel “Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10, 38-42) This passage is read on the feast of St. Martha on July 29th, the octave of Mary Magdalene; from it, Martha has traditionally been seen as the symbol of the active life, and Mary of the contemplative. The same passage was then read also on the feast of the Assumption, a custom inherited, like the feast of itself, from the Byzantine Rite; this was understood allegorically in the Middle Ages to signify that in the person and life of the Virgin Mary are perfected both the active and the contemplative life.

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, by Henryk Semiradzki, 1886

The Byzantine Rite (in which the Creed is said at every Eucharistic liturgy) keeps July 22 as the feast of the “Fair Virgin, Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene,” and on June 4 commemorates “Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus the Just.” Neither of the two Marys thus distinguished is associated with the sinful woman of Luke 7, but the Gospel of Mary Magdalene’s feast day is the passage from Luke 8 noted above. The two sisters are traditionally numbered among the “Myrrh-bearers” who went to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ on the morning of the Resurrection, although they are not named as such by the Gospel; with them are included also Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, Joanna and Susanna named in Luke 8, and Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. They are commemorated as a group on the second Sunday after Easter, along with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. At Vespers of the preceding Saturday, the following idiomel is sung, paraphrasing Matthew 28 and Luke 24.

Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came to the grave seeking the Lord, and they saw an Angel like lightning sitting on the stone, who said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He has risen as he said; in Galilee you will find him’. To him let us cry aloud, ‘Lord, risen from the dead, glory to you!’

In the traditional Roman Rite, Matthew 28, 1-7 is the Gospel of the Easter vigil, which concludes with a very much shortened Vespers; the antiphon for the Magnificat is the beginning of the Gospel, “And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher, alleluia.” Even though the term “Apostle of the Apostles” does not occur in the Roman liturgical books, the liturgy itself proclaims this role for her as the first person named in the accounts of the Resurrection.

The church of Rome was traditionally very conservative about the addition of new texts to the Office; one often finds that the proper Office of a saint hugely popular in the Middle Ages, such as St Nicholas, is found in virtually every medieval Breviary except that of the Roman Curia, the basis of the Breviary of St Pius V. Such is the case with Mary Magdalene, whose Roman Office is mostly that of the common of Holy Women. She has proper antiphons for the Benedictus and the two Magnificats, but none for the psalms; there are also three proper hymns, although that of Matins is a single stanza and a doxology. Three responsories at Matins referring to her are borrowed from Easter, but the rest are from the common of Holy Women.

Other medieval breviaries, however, adopted one of various proper Offices for the feast, of which the most interesting is that found in the Dominican Breviary. At First Vespers, the antiphon of the Magnificat reads as follows:

Celsi mériti María, quae solem verum resurgentem vidére meruisti mortalium prima: óbtine ut nos visu gloriae suae tecum laetíficet in caelis.
Mary of high merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the true Sun rising; obtain that He may grant us joy by the vision of His glory in heaven.

And at the Benedictus:

O mundi lampas, et margaríta praefúlgida, quae resurrectiónem Christi nuntiando, Apostolórum Apóstola fíeri meruisti! María Magdaléna, semper pia exoratrix pro nobis adsis ad Deum, qui te elégit.
O lamp of the world, and bright-shining pearl, who by announcing the Resurrection of Christ, didst merit to become the Apostle of the Apostles! Mary Magdalene, of thy kindness stand thou ever before God, who chose thee, to entreat him for us.

Outstanding among the responsories of Matins is the eighth, (necessarily not as beautiful in my poor English).

R. O felix felícis mériti María, quæ resurgentem a mórtuis Dei Filium vidére meruisti mortalium prima! Pro cujus amore, sæculi contempsisti blandimenta: * sédula nos apud ipsum, quæsumus, prece commenda. V. Ut tecum mereámur, o Dómina, pérfrui felicíssima ipsíus præsentia. Sédula.
R. O happy Mary of happy merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the Son of God rising from the dead; for whose love thou disdained the blandishments of the world: * by thy prayer, we ask thee, commend us to Him with diligence. V. That with thee, o Lady, we may merit to enjoy his most happy presence. By thy prayer.

The Office used by the Premonstatensians shares a number of texts with that of the Dominicans; it contains this very interesting and uncommonly long (and hence rather rarely used) antiphon:

Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus, quia Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere; et qui nasci dignatus est de Maria Virgine, tangi non dedignatus est a Maria peccatrice. Haec est illa Maria, cui dimissa sunt peccata multa, quia dilexit multum. Haec est enim illa Maria, quae resurgentem a mortuis prima omnium videre meruit Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, quem pro nostris reatibus oret, quaesumus, in aeternum.
A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners; and He that deigned to be born of the Virgin Mary, did not disdain to be touched by Mary the sinner. This is that Mary, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. This is indeed that Mary, who before all others merited to see our Lord Jesus Christ rising from the dead; and we ask that she pray Him forever for our sins.

Lastly, we may note the Preface of her feast in the Ambrosian liturgy, another text that can only suffer in translation. 

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos te, Pater omnipotens, omni tempore glorificare, et in die festivitatis hodiernae Beatae Mariae Magdalenae exultantibus animis praedicare. Quam sic tui amoris igne accendere dignatus es; ut ad Christi Filii tui vestigia devota corrueret, et eadem pretioso unguento perfunderet. Osculari quoque, ac lacrimis rigare, et capillis non cessat extergere, donec audire promeruit, ‘Dimissa sunt tibi peccata, vade in pace.’ O beata fides, divinae misericordiae munita praesidio! O digna conversio, quae tantum munus accepit, ut quae antea draconis antiqui faucibus merito tenebatur astricta, plena jam gaudens libertate, sanctis Apostolis dominincae Resurrectionis mereretur esse praenuncia. Et ideo…
Truly it is fitting and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we glorify Thee, Father almighty, in every moment, and on this feast day of blessed Mary Magdalene proclaim Thee with spirits rejoicing. Whom Thou didst so deign to kindle with the fire of Thy love, that in devotion she fell at the feet of Christ, Thy Son, and anointed them with precious ointment; and ceased not to kiss them, to wash them with her tears, and wipe them with her hair, until she merits to hear, ‘Thy sins are forgiven go, in peace.’ O blessed faith, strengthened with the help of divine mercy. O worthy conversion, that merited to receive so great a gift, that she who was formerly deservedly held fast in the jaws of the ancient dragon, now rejoicing in complete freedom, should merit to be the first to announce the Lord’s Resurrection to the Holt Apostles. And therefore with the Angels and Archangels…

The Penitent Magdalene, by Caravaggio, ca. 1594-95.