New Chant Propers for St Louis de Montfort

We are very grateful to Mr Steven Merola for sharing with us this explanation of some newly composed chant propers for the Mass of St Louis de Montfort, the patron of the Montfort Academy in Mt Vernon, New York, where he teaches. The new compositions are by Mr David Hughes.

St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1673-1716) looms large in the minds and spirituality of many Catholics today. His life of self-sacrifice in the spirit of St. Dominic (he was a Dominican tertiary), his fierce opposition to Jansenism, and his tireless efforts to re-evangelize his own nation are both edifying and relevant to those facing the present crisis in the Church. Many find his teachings on the Rosary and on True Devotion to Mary indispensable to their relationship with Our Lady. Many of us - those who belong to a parish, school, or order dedicated to him, Montfortian brothers or sisters, or anyone with a devotion to this great Saint - would be eager to celebrate his feast on April 28th or to offer his votive Mass.

A statue of St Louis in St Peter’s Basilica. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Jordiferrer; CC BY-SA 4.0)

Yet, those who would set out to do so will find a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, at least if they wish to do a Solemn or Sung Mass. For, as I will detail below, although St. Louis has his own proper Mass, no official chants exists for it. That is, until recently, when that musical gap in the Church’s tradition was filled by a local composer for the benefit of the students of The Montfort Academy, a Classical high school in Mt. Vernon, New York. I write this article to offer the fruits of this labor for the benefit of all those who wish to honor this great Saint with the music of his Mass.

Although many Saints’ feasts have their own propers, the majority take theirs, in whole or in part, from one of about a dozen commons. Thus, Catherine of Siena, Martha, and Teresa of Avila all have the Mass Dilexisti from the Common of Virgins, Thomas Aquinas, Anthony of Padua, and Gregory Nazianzus have In medio ecclesiae from the Commons of Doctors, and so on.

However, from the late nineteenth century up to the opening of the Second Vatican Council, there was a movement to write unique propers for recently canonized Saints. An early example of this trend is Benedict Joseph Labré (canonized 1881), whose Mass Reliqui contains unique propers for his Masses within and outside of Paschaltide. They are lengthier than most of those found in the commons, and were chosen to reflect his life as a missionary among the poor. The Introit, for example, from Jeremiah 12 reads: “I have left my home and my inheritance; I am poor and needy; the Lord has taken me up” (reliqui domum meam, dimisi hereditatem meam. Inops et pauper ego sum. Dominus autem assumpsit me).

Some of these Saints with unique propers made it onto the general calendar, such as Anthony Mary Zaccaria, who was canonized in 1897. Most of them, however, can be found in the “Proper of Saints for Certain Places” (proprium Sanctorum pro aliquibus locis), an appendix to the Roman Missal: among them are Peter Claver (1888), Joan of Arc (1920), and Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, and Companions (1930), whose Masses are often found in an appendix of the Liber Usualis.

There are several Saints, however, who were Saints canonized in the early twentieth century, and whose Masses were assigned unique texts for the readings and propers, but the propers were never set to music. It seems that before the monks of Solesmes could write the necessary chants, the Second Vatican Council was called and their compositions ground to a halt. One Saint in this category is Maria Goretti (1950), and another is St. Louis-Marie de Montfort (1947).

This situation of having text but no music puts one in a difficult spot. If a church or school named for Louis de Montfort would like to celebrate his titular feast on April 28th, they are required by the rubrics to use his propers. But what if they wish to have a Sung or Solemn Mass? How can one sing chants which have never been written? One option is to sing the propers recto tono or to a psalm tone. A second is to have a skilled chanter improvise based on other chants of a similar length and textual structure. The former is far from ideal, and the latter is largely impractical. A third option, then, is to set the text to one’s own music.

For a special Mass on April 28th of last year, organist and choir director David Hughes composed an original set of chant propers for the feast of St. Louis de Montfort. He drew from his extensive background in the study and singing of plainsong to contrafact some of the chants and compose others that are new, yet in accord with the Church's musical tradition. These were sung for the first time at a Mass of the Patronal Feast of The Montfort Academy. I will examine below some of his approach to composing these original chants.

Introitus (Isa. 52, 7) Quam pulchri super montes pedes annuntiantis et praedicantis pacem, annuntiantis bonum, praedicantis salútem, di- centis Sion: Regnábit Deus tuus. (T. P.) Allelúia, allelúia. ℣. (Ps 48, 2) Audíte haec, omnes gentes: áuribus percípite, omnes qui habitátis orbem. Gloria Patri. Quam pulchri…	Introit How beautiful are the feet upon the mountains of him that proclaims and preaches peace, that announces good, that preaches salvation, that says to Sion: Thy God shall reign. Alleluia, alleluia. ℣. Hear these things, all ye nations: perk up your ears, all ye who inha- habit the earth. Glory be to the Father. How beautiful…
Alleluia, Allelúia. 1 Cor. 1, 23-24 Nos autem prædicámus Christum crucifixum, Dei virtútem et Dei sapientiam.	Alleluia, Alleluia. We preach Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Alleluia. Eccli. 3, 5-6 Sicut qui thesaurizat, ita et qui honoríficat Matrem suam: et in die oratiónis suae exaudiétur. Allelúia.	Alleluia. As one who collects treasure, thus is he who honors His Mother; and on the day of his prayer he will be heard. Alleluia.
Offertorium, Ps. 115, 16-17 O Dómine, quia ego servus tuus; ego servus tuus, et filius ancillae tuae: dirupisti víncula mea: tibi sacrificábo hostiam laudis. (T. P.) Allelúia.	O Lord, I am Thy servant, Thy ser- vant and the child of Thy handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds; I will offer to Thee a sacrifice of praise. Alleluia.
Communio, Eccli, 3, 5-6 Sicut qui thesaurizat, ita et qui hono- ríficat Matrem suam, et in die oratiónis suæ exaudiétur. (T. P.) Allelúia. [3]	As he who collects treasure, thus is he who honors His Mother; and on the day of his prayer he will be heard. Alleluia.

We can see from the rich and varied choice of texts how these propers reflect many facets of St Louis de Montfort’s life and spirituality. The Introit, while including a play on his name (Montfort/montes), depicts his role as a preacher to his own people. The First Alleluia, which draws from the lesson of the Mass (1 Corinthians , 17-25), refers to the wisdom of the cross that was so central to his spirituality, however much it may have made him seem a “fool” in the eyes of the world. It may also be a reference to the great calvary he erected at Pontchateau. The remaining propers naturally focus on the centrality of Mary in St. Louis’ spirituality. He advocated we should all become servants of Our Lady and place ourselves under her authority in order to be freed from sin and free to do God’s will – hence the Offertory, “I am the son of Thy handmaid; Thou hast loosed my bonds.” The second Alleluia and Communion have the same text. Each refers to how one with True Devotion to Our Lady may be assured of her intercession, as “one who stores up treasure.” These last three propers also make reference to the Gospel of the Mass (John 19, 35-27), in which Our Lord tells St. John from the cross, “behold thy Mother.”

In composing the music for these propers, Mr. Hughes drew from chant formulae and quotations from pieces with similar words or themes. He also considered which of the chant modes would be most suitable for the text and liturgical context of each proper. While he wrote them with great respect and knowledge of the Church’s musical tradition, they are unique compositions that reflect his own style, particularly the Offertory and Communion.

The Introit begins and ends with quotations from the famous mode 1 Gaudeamus chant, which serves as the Introit for several different feasts, including, traditionally, two of Our Lady’s most important ones, the Assumption and the feast of the Holy Rosary. There is text painting on the ascent and descent of the word montes and the step-like motion of pedes, as well as a reference to Dignus est Agnus, the Introit of Christ the King, in that both feature lists connected by polysyndeton.

The next propers are largely formulaic mode 2 and 8 Alleluias, chosen because their melodies are some of the most common and widely known, and thus are easily sung by an experienced chant choir.

The Offertory is in the second mode, whose nature is more pensive and introspective. This chant spends the most time on the dominant note la and as a whole is less florid than, say, a Gradual. It opens with a reference to the Offertory Domine Iesu Christe from the Requiem Mass. There is also a neat reference on the word tibi to the Introit Tibi dixit (2nd Sunday of Lent), which features the same pattern of a tristropha, dotted virga, and another tristropha. The downward cadence on dirupisti has an element of text painting as well.

Communion chants, along with Introits, are often the most colorful and least formulaic of the propers. This Communion is in the sixth mode, which is warm and consoling. An interesting choice was made to rise rather than fall on the cadence of suam; the first part of the chant drives up to that word, after which it descends. The double porrectus on the word orationis is the last bit of text painting, illustrating the sureness of the prayer of him who honors the Mother of God.

The following video contains just the propers given above.

The Mass at The Montfort Academy that day concluded with a short procession with a relic of St. Louis de Montfort, which was accompanied by an original Latin hymn I wrote for the occasion. It is entitled Serve Reginæ (O Servant of the Queen), and consists of three stanzas written in sapphic strophes, one of the classical poetic meters. This is the same meter as appears in the Office hymn Iste Confessor, and so it can be used with any of the many melodies written for that hymn. To the three stanzas of my hymn is appended the doxology of Iste Confessor. That Thursday of last year was perhaps the first time in recent history (or maybe ever) the Mass of St. Louis de Montfort was sung with all its propers in musical fullness. I have written this article and provided the text and music of these propers here so that anyone who wishes to do a Sung or Solemn Mass of this great Saint may adorn it with fitting chant.

Serve Reginæ, decus Armoricæ, Prædicans tuo populo demisse, Et Dei Matri studii Magister    Optime veri:	O Servant of the Queen,       glory of Bretons, Sent as a preacher       to your own nation, And greatest teacher       of true devotion    To the Mother of God:
Ordinum binum in utroque sexu Et crucis supra montem es fundator, Quam levis nobis famulatus Matris    Tu docuisti.	Two orders you founded,       brothers and sisters, And built a great Calvary       upon the mountain, You taught how gentle to us is Servitude to our Mother.
Patris æterni gratia nivalis, Spiritu Sancto gravis, at intacta: Exhibe nobis faciem Iesu,    O! Via, Mater.	By favor of the Eternal Father,       pure as snow And, still a virgin, pregnant       of the Holy Ghost, Show to us the face of Jesus,    O Mother and Way.
Sit salus illi, decus, atque virtus, Qui super cæli solio coruscans, Totius mundi seriem gubernat Trinus et unus. Amen.	To him be glory, power,       and salvation, Who reigns from       the throne of heaven, And directs the course       of all the world    Three and one. Amen.

Sancte Ludovice Maria, ora pro nobis!

NOTES: [1] In the Baronius edition of the Roman Missal (pp. 1742-1744), one finds in the “Appendix for Some Places and Congregations” an entirely different set of propers, collect, readings, secret, and postcommunion for Louis de Montfort. My research has found these alternate propers in the supplementum of a French missal, and evidence of the collect as far back as 1892 when St Louis was added to the general Dominican calendar (“Analects of the Dominican Order,” pp. 222-23). It seems there is another Mass proper to France which Baronius erroneously printed in their missal. The texts above are the ones that what appear on pages 135-16 of the Proprium Sanctorum pro aliquibus locis of the 1962 Missale Romanum.

[2] For Votive Masses outside of Paschaltide: The Gradual is Omnes gentes (Liber Usualis p. 104**); the Alleluia is Nos autem praedicamus, as above. For Votives after Septuagesima, the Tract is Beatus vir…cupit nimis (LU p. [8]).

[3] For Communion verses, I recommend Psalm 115.

“Enrichment” by Impoverishment? The Fate of the Propers for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany in the Modern Missale Romanum

The collect, secret and postcommunion in the traditional Roman Rite for this coming Sunday, the 4th after Epiphany, have over a millennium of attested use in the liturgy. It is concerning, therefore, to note that, despite this, neither the collect nor the postcommunion for this Sunday are contained anywhere in the Novus Ordo, a book so often described as an “enrichment” of the Roman Rite, and more recently as containing “all the elements” of it. Let us take a brief look at the history of this Sunday’s prayers, and their fate in the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms.

The 4th Sunday after Epiphany (Dom IIII post Theophaniam), in the
Sacramentarium Triplex, Zürich, Zentralb. Ms. C 43, ff. 35r-35v

Collect (CO 1898)

Deus, qui nos, in tantis perículis constitútos, pro humána scis fragilitáte non posse subsístere: da nobis salútem mentis et córporis; ut ea, quæ pro peccátis nostris pátimur, te adiuvánte vincámus.

O God, who know that our human frailty cannot stand fast against the great dangers that beset us, grant us health of mind and body, that with your help we may overcome what we suffer on account of our sins.

The Corpus orationum tells us that this prayer appears in a total of forty-three manuscripts, dating from the 8th century. In all of these, it is an Epiphanytide collect, and in the vast majority of them (thirty-seven), it is used on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany, just as we find in the 1962 Missale Romanum.

It has completely disappeared from the Novus Ordo. It seems more than likely that the phrase in tantis perículis constitútos, pro humána scis fragilitáte non posse subsístere was deemed not suitable for the new, post-Vatican II “modern mentality”. [1]

Secret (CO 749)

Concéde, quǽsumus, omnípotens Deus: ut huius sacrifícii munus oblatum fragilitátem nostrum ab omni malo purget semper et múniat.

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that what we offer in sacrifice may cleanse us in our frailty from every evil and always grant us your protection.

This prayer has a variety of use in the tradition, the two main groups being:

• as an Epiphanytide secret, in forty manuscripts from the 8th century onwards (thirty-three of which use it on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany);
• as a Lenten secret: thirty-one manuscripts, from the 9th century onwards (note that in twenty-five of these, it is also used as an Epiphanytide secret).

The Corpus orationum also gives a third group of ten manuscripts, dating from the 8th century onwards, which use this prayer in diverse ways, with frequent duplication: in Advent (five manuscripts), Lent (three manuscripts), the Proper/Common of Saints (four manuscripts), and Votive Masses (two manuscripts). In one of these manuscripts, this secret/super oblata prayer is actually used as a collect!

In the 1962 Missal, this secret is used on Saturday in Week 3 of Lent as well as the 4th Sunday after Epiphany, and in every one of the thirty-one manuscripts where this prayer occurs in Lent, it is duplicated on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany. As per the policies of Coetus XVIII bis of the Consilium, [2] in the Novus Ordo this duplication is eliminated, in this case by removing the prayer’s (slightly earlier and better-attested!) use in Epiphanytide, and retaining its Lenten use. However, it has been moved to Thursday in Week 4 of Lent, a day on which it is never attested in the manuscript tradition. Of course, the post-Vatican II liturgical reformers couldn’t possibly have retained this prayer on a Sunday – after all, the phrase fragilitátem nostrum ab omni malo purget semper et múniat is obviously much too difficult for most of the faithful!

Postcommunion (CO 3321 b)

Múnera tua nos, Deus, a delectatiónibus terrénis expédiant: et cæléstibus semper instáurent aliméntis.

May your gifts, O God, detach us from earthly pleasures and ever renew us with heavenly nourishment.

The Corpus orationum informs us that there is some limited variation in the use of this prayer: three manuscripts use it in the Proper/Common of Saints, with relevant textual additions. In the vast majority of manuscripts (forty-two), however, it is an Epiphanytide postcommunion, with thirty-five manuscripts using it on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany, as we find in the 1962 Missal.

But, like this Sunday’s collect, this postcommunion is nowhere to be found in the Novus Ordo. And, like the collect, it is highly likely it is the phrase a delectatiónibus terrénis expédiant that was deemed unsuitable for “modern man” and what Fr Carlo Braga called the “new perspective of human values”. [3] The only changes the Consilium was originally going to make to this postcommunion were two minor “restorations” to the text as it is given in the Gelasianum Vetus (n. 1267; cf. CO 3321 a): Múnera tua nos... was to become Mensa tua nos... and instáurent adjusted to instruat. Furthermore, it should be noted that all the prayers for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany were originally going to be kept intact as a set in the reformed Missal on the same Sunday: see Schema 186 (De Missali, 27), 19 September 1966, p. 18. [4]

Schema 186 (De Missali, 27), 19 September 1966, p. 18

So, this coming Sunday provides yet more material in the traditional Roman Rite – prayers used for at least 1,200 years in the Church – that was omitted from the post-Vatican II Missal because it was sifted through the ideological filter of the 1960s “experts” and considered “too difficult”. It is difficult to see this so-called “enrichment” of the Roman Missal as anything but an impoverishment in many respects. As Fr John Hunwicke has aptly put it:

[T]he motives controlling the selections [the Consilium] made, and their editorial alterations, have a consistent mens, videlicet, to enforce a levelling-down: [in the Novus Ordo] we end up with a liturgical culture squeezed everywhere into the straight-jacket of one decade. On the other hand, the Authentic Use, having evolved organically over two millennia, picking up like a glacier diverse materials from every age it passed through, contains within it so much more cultural diversity.

NOTES

[1] See, e.g., Lauren Pristas, “The Orations of the Vatican II Missal: Policies for Revision”, Communio 30 (Winter 2003), pp. 621-653, at p. 633 (quoting a 1971 essay by Dom Antoine Dumas): “In the liturgical renewal, from the beginning the revisers regarded concern for truth and simplicity to be particularly indispensable so that the texts and rites might be perfectly—or at the least much better—accommodated to the modern mentality to which it must give expression while neglecting nothing of the traditional treasury to which it remains the conduit.” Of course, more often than not, for the Consilium “accommodating the modern mentality” took priority over “neglecting nothing of the traditional treasury” of prayers, as the statistics show.

[2] See Schema 186 (De Missali, 27), 19 September 1966, pp. 1-2: Ergo, pro unoquoque textu, pluries in missali occurrente, perpaucis exceptis, usum antiquiorem retinuimus. Pro missis, quae exinde orationibus carent, novas selegimus. I QUAESITUM: Placetne Patribut ut, in missali romano recognito, textus orationum non repetatur? (“Therefore, for every text that frequently occurs in the Missal, its ancient use is to be retained, with very few execptions. For Masses which lack orations after this, new texts are to be selected. QUESTION 1: Does it please the Fathers that, in revising the Roman Missal, the text of orations not be repeated?”) It should be noted that this policy is a direct result of Coetus XVIII bis taking n. 51 of Sacrosanctum Concilium out of its original context, and applying it in a manner which was never envisaged by the Council Fathers: see my article “Continuity or Rupture, Again: An Example of the Consilium’s (Ab)use of the Constitution on the Liturgy”.

[3] See part four (of five) of my translation of Braga’s essay “Il «Proprium de Sanctis»”, Ephemerides Liturgicae 84.6 (1970), pp. 401-431 (at p. 419).

[4] For more on Schema 186, and an arrangement of it in parallel with the 1962 and 1970/2008 Missals, see my book The Proper of Time in the Post-Vatican II Liturgical Reforms (Lectionary Study Press, 2018) (Amazon USA, UK; PDF)

First Issue of Sophia Press’ Benedictus (August 2021) Now Available

A surprise greeted me in my mailbox last week on July 7 (an auspicious date, to be sure): the first-ever full issue of Benedictus, the new daily Latin Mass companion published by Sophia Institute Press. This issue covers the whole month of August. Readers may recall that this initiative was announced at NLM on February 10.

My hopes were already high, given the short sample that was mailed out during Lent and the detailed advertising, but I have to say that the first issue exceeds all my expectations. It is an absolutely gorgeous publication. I will share now some photos along with brief comments. (If any of the images are blurry, that’s the fault of my bucket-o’-bolts camera; make due allowances.)

For the sake of scale (it’s a compact book that would fit in a purse or a jacket pocket, but not a pants pocket; a bit larger than Magnificat):

The two-tone artwork (black and gold) with gray shading is more elegant by far than anything I’ve seen in a missallette like this; the layout is handsome, the font easy on the eye; the meditations and features are exquisitely chosen from traditional sources, which will be one of the great benefits Benedictus bestows on its users.

First, for the layout of the Order of Mass, which is repeated with full Propers and Ordinary for each Sunday and Holy Day (so, no page turns in those cases):

 

 

 

Continue Reading this Article. . .

An Expansive Counter-Reformation Lex Orandi Retains Its Relevance

It seems to have become almost fashionable in traditional circles — a sign of sophistication, as it were — to speak slightingly of “Masses added in the nineteenth century” and “regional Italian saints who don’t really belong on the general calendar.”

I understand the reasons why they are saying this. The sanctoral cycle has a tendency to fill up over the centuries, and sometimes a gentle pruning is needed (certainly not what happened in 1969, which was more like an atom bomb). Moreover, the perspective of the Vatican has too often been confined to the Italian peninsula, from which historically most of its office-holding prelates have been drawn. Some examples of more recent Italian saints added to the general (traditional) calendar would be St. Andrew Avellino, St. Andrew Corsini, St. Francis Carraciolo, St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Jerome Emiliani, and St. Philip Benizi.

However, I have a confession to make. I rather like the proper Masses for such newer feasts. As I illustrated in an article on the Mass of St. Jerome Emiliani, these Masses enrich the Tridentine Missale Romanum with a greater variety of antiphons, readings, and orations, in ways that integrate well into the proper and common Masses already present for many centuries or millennia. Even if these recent additions are not of the same venerable spirit and language as the rest of the missal, they present to us minor facets of the same lustrous jewel whose splendor we enjoy throughout the year. I would say they amplify the lex orandi and should be counted strengths of the usus antiquior as we have inherited it.

Today’s saint — Anthony Mary Zaccaria (1502-1539)  — is a fine example of how beautiful in itself, and how pertinent to our situation, such a proper Mass may turn out to be in God’s Providence. Here we have, I submit, an exemplary Counter-Reformation (and therefore, by extension, counter-revolutionary) Mass.

The Collect reminds us that it is the Catholic Church, not the Protestants, who correctly receive, understand, and apply the doctrine of St. Paul the Apostle, and that the supereminent science of Christ is not to be found in wearisome disputations or endless Scriptural exegesis but in vital contact with His holy mysteries in the sacred liturgy of the Church and in her sacraments.

Fac nos, Dómine Deus, supereminentem Jesu Christi scientiam, spíritu Pauli Apóstoli edíscere: qua beátus Antonius María mirabíliter erudítus, novas in Ecclesia tua clericórum et vírginum familias congregávit. Per Dóminum…
       Grant us, O Lord God, to learn in the spirit of Paul the Apostle, that transcendent knowledge of Jesus Christ by which blessed Anthony Mary, wonderfully instructed, gathered in Thy Church new families of clerics and virgins. Through our Lord…

This theme is strongly accentuated by the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, and Communion, all of which are taken very unusually from Pauline Epistles — 1 Cor. 2, 4: “My speech and my preaching was not in the persuasive power of human wisdom, but in the showing of spirit and power”; Phil. 1, 8–9: “For God is my witness, how I long after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding. V. That you may approve the better things, that you may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Jesus Christ”; Phil. 1, 11: “Alleluia, alleluia. Filled with the fruit of justice through Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God, alleluia”: and Phil. 3, 17: “Be ye imitators of me, brethren, and observe them who walk, so as you have our model.”

The Epistle, again, is from St. Paul, this time 1 Tim. 4, 8–16, which is a most magnificent tribute to the ministry of priests:

Godliness is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. For therefore we labor and are reviled, because we hope in the living God, Who is the Saviour of all men, especially of the faithful. These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth: but be thou an example of the faithful, in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in chastity. Till I come, attend unto reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. Neglect not the grace that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with imposition of the hands of the priesthood. Meditate upon these things, be wholly in these things: that thy profiting may be manifest to all. Take heed to thyself, and to doctrine: be earnest in them. For in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.

This reading from 1 Timothy appears only in this Mass in the usus antiquior (see Matthew Hazell, Index Lectionum, p. 156), which is beneficial to all: an organic and gentle addition of Scripture to the annual cycle, rather than the drinking-from-a-fire-hose approach of the multi-year lectionary. I have often said that if enrichment with Scripture was (and is) desired, it should take the form of assigning appropriate readings to individual saints or subclasses of saints, so as not to lose one of the chief perfections of the traditional Roman rite: the textual and theological integrity that results from keeping a particular person or mystery or season in view from Introit to Postcommunion.

The Gospel (Mark 10, 15–21) recounts the rich young man whom Jesus invited to the way of perfection; he went away sad because he did not follow the Master’s advice, but the saint we are celebrating took the advice and ran with it. (This Gospel, or nearly the same one, is also read in the usus antiquior for the feast of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows on February 27.)

A host of saints (among them St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria) venerating the Blessed Sacrament

The Offertory transmits the message that the praise of God will be best given to Him liturgically, and that it involves the whole heavenly court: “I will sing praise to Thee in the sight of the angels; I will adore at Thy holy temple, and give glory to Thy name.” Bear in mind that St Anthony Maria Zaccaria was called the Apostle of the Quarant’ore (Forty Hours’ Devotion), which he spread with marvelous zeal.

The Secret reminds us of the purity, bodily and spiritual, necessary for offering this most holy sacrifice and partaking of the sinless flesh of Christ. It reiterates the salutary discipline of celibacy.

Ad mensam caelestis convivii fac nos, Dómine, eam mentis et córporis puritátem afferre qua beátus Antonius María, hanc sacratíssimam hostiam ófferens, mirífice ornátus enítuit. Per Dominum…
       May we bring to the table of the heavenly banquet, O Lord, that purity of mind and body with which blessed Anthony Mary, in offering this most sacred Victim, was so wonderfully adorned and resplendent. Through our Lord…

Finally, the Postcommunion reminds us that we are in a spiritual battle and that the Eucharist is elevated as a standard against heretical foes. It is not all “comfort and joy”; there is grit and determination in this prayer, as well as a potent mysticism of divine charity, a charity that seeks and saves the lost. The prayer also happens to be one of those (the significance of which is discussed elsewhere at NLM) that addresses directly the Lord Jesus:

Caelesti dape qua pasti sumus, Dómine Jesu Christe, eo corda nostra caritátis igne flammescant: quo beátus Antonius María salutáris hostiae vexillum contra Ecclesiae tuae hostes éxtulit ad victoriam: Qui vivis et regnas…
       By the food of Heaven with which we have been fed, O Lord Jesus Christ, may our hearts be inflamed with that fire of charity with which blessed Anthony Mary carried the banner of the saving Victim to victory against the enemies of Thy Church. Who livest and reignest…

However the Tridentine or medieval purists might feel about feasts and Masses like this one (and they are entitled to their opinion), I for one am grateful they’re on the old calendar and I look forward to assisting at them year after year. St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, pray for us.

The Campaign Against Musically-Shaped Memory

Research has demonstrated what everyday experience already knew: music is the most powerful of all memory aids. The reason we can so easily remembered twenty-six pieces of unrelated information when we memorize the alphabet as a small child is that we learn a song about it. Years after one has last heard a certain song, all it takes is a snatch of its melody for the whole thing to come flooding back. People in comas have reawakened when their loved ones sang or played familiar music to them. Music embeds itself deep in the psyche; its highly articulate structure secures for it a permanence that is often missing from mere text. It takes ten times longer to memorize a spoken poem than the same poem set to a melody.

We know that before the Council, there were still many places that, in spite of St. Pius X’s best intentions, did not use the full chanted propers, but substituted for them “Rossini Propers” or something similarly dreadful; we know that the majority of Masses were recited, not sung or solemn. Nevertheless, there were High Masses and fully chanted Propers; this cannot be denied, for many eyewitnesses and historical records confirm it. For many communities of religious, a fully chanted Mass was normative. Popular liturgical writers could confidently refer to and comment on the chants of Mass, expecting to be understood. “Ad te levavi,” “Puer natus est,” “Nos autem,” “Resurrexi,” “Spiritus Domini,” “Requiem aeternam,” were texts and melodies that enjoyed currency and, more importantly, embedded themselves into the collective ecclesial consciousness. They were the stuff of the Church’s long-term memory. Everyone knew what “Gaudete” and “Laetare” referred to, namely, the Introits of the particular Sundays in Advent and Lent when rose-colored vestments could be worn.

In his letter Sacrificium Laudis of 1966, Paul VI encouraged monks and nuns to retain chant (though in the eleventh hour Rembert Weakland torpedoed his efforts, which were never more than Hamletesque), but he certainly expected Mass everywhere else to be characterized by a lack of chant. In his infamous General Audience of November 26, 1969, right before the Novus Ordo Missae was to go into effect, he said:

It is here that the greatest newness is going to be noticed, the newness of language. No longer Latin, but the spoken language will be the principal language of the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant. We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church’s values?

He replies, not too convincingly: 

The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human, because it is apostolic. Understanding of prayer is worth more than the silken garments in which it is royally dressed. Participation by the people is worth more—particularly participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is easily understood and converted into everyday speech. 

It would be difficult to believe that the Supreme Pontiff, Pope of Rome, actually said these words, had they not been carefully recorded and committed to print and were they not readily available. Later in his address, the Pope cautiously suggests that Latin will not perish, but never says that chant will survive. The fact that he rushed to promulgate a missal in 1969 for which there was no corresponding chant book—a glaring defect that would be repaired only in 1974 when the monks of Solesmes published the revised Graduale Romanum, at which point the horses had not only bolted from the barn, but the barn had been razed and the ground unrecognizably planted over—points to the same conclusion: this pope had absolutely no intention of following one of the teachings of Vatican II that could not be called ambiguous or ambivalent, namely, the assignment of “chief place in liturgical services” to Gregorian chant, as signed by 2,147 council fathers and promulgated by the same pope only six years earlier (Sacrosanctum Concilium 116).

The loss of chanted propers of the Mass was therefore a deliberate strategy, not an accidental fallout. The appearance of the 1974 Graduale Romanum was a sad afterthought that made no impact on parochial life; the tradition had already been severed. Stories are rife of monks, nuns, friars, and laity chanting from the Liber Usualis one week, and the following week singing folksy English songs from binders or booklets, never to take up the chant again. What this means, if we go back to our opening remarks about music as a repository and vehicle of memory (indeed, of an ever-deepening memory that lives and grows while it endures), is that the Church was systematically deprived of her most precious liturgical memories in the form of the cantillated scripture verses with which her worship had been adorned for at least a millennium and a half.

The result? A rupture or dissolution of memory that, at least as far as individuals and communities are concerned, would be comparable to severe amnesia or to Alzheimer’s, with a superficialization of the meaning and content of worship. It is not that one treasure was substituted for another, but a treasure was lost, and in its place was put a random collection of vastly inferior items that enjoyed neither diachronic nor synchronic universality. The power of music to retain and transmit the Faith was fragmented, atomized, and fluxified.

The replacement of the annual reading cycle with two-year and three-year reading cycles; the abolition of many priestly prayers in the Mass (at the start, at the offertory, before communion), the distension of the integral one-week psalter to an expurgated four-week psalter, the optionitis and opportunities for presidential improvisation—all of these moves run strongly against the formation of memory by continual repetition. Together they guaranteed that almost no Catholics—including, tragically, the clergy—would be able to internalize the liturgy to such an extent that it became bone of one’s bone, flesh of one’s flesh. Or, at any rate, what was internalized would be inadequate compared to the inheritance of the Faith. Instead, due in part to the sheer quantity of text and in part to the assumption of recited liturgy as normative, the clergy would have to remain largely at the level of reading texts out of “official books.” This reinforced legal positivism and cut off Catholics from an ingrained, intuitive sense of what is and is not liturgy, what is and is not in keeping with tradition. If one has the liturgy within oneself because of its stability of form, relatively narrow compass, rhythm of language, and most of all its standard assigned music, then one attains much more readily that experiential knowledge called by St. Thomas Aquinas “connnatural knowledge,” that is, intimate acquaintance of something’s essence not by reasoning but by sympathy. One would therefore be in a position to tell when a note jarred against this harmony, when a word or phrase grated against the ear.

In short: the ancient liturgy is capable of planting itself within, while the reformed liturgy is spread out in so many texts and books, and multiplied by options, that it would be well-nigh impossible to “have it” within. This makes its user less offended by deviation and more pliant to officialdom, from which the books are handed down.

The Introit for Pentecost, from the Codex Gisle (ca. 1300)

Imagine Roman clergy from the Middle Ages who had somehow been transported to our time and had sat through a parish Novus Ordo Mass. Their first question would be: “Where was the Ad te levavi?” or “Where was the Puer natus? We didn’t hear it anywhere.” They knew what the Roman liturgy was not because it had been dictated to them by a pope or any conference of bishops, but because they had it in their ears, their mouths, their hearts. This was true, be it noted, well before and well after 1570, since the text, music, and ceremonial aspects of the various Latin rites and uses enjoyed considerable analogy with one another and a stability of form akin to the massive stone architecture of their churches: they were recognizably from and for the Catholic Church. Nothing substantial in the Roman rite had changed or would be changed until 1907 when Pius X laid hands on the Breviary, and after World War II, when Pius XII disfigured the Holy Week ceremonies.

The worst part about loss of memory is that, after a certain point, the one suffering from it no longer realizes that he has lost it. Traditionalists in the Church today are like nurses trying to remind a patient of who she is or where she came from or who her relatives are, showing pictures from the past, singing a bit of chant, trying in some way, in any way, to reactive the memory of a beloved mother.

Thanks be to God, not all hope of recovery is lost. For indeed the Church is not a monolithic entity with merely mortal powers but is composed of many members united in their Head. The Head of this Body has never lost His memory and never will; He sends the Spirit of truth to remind the disciples of all that He has taught, not only in His lifetime but in the lifetime of the Church that He governs from heaven, and on which He has bestowed the treasures of liturgical rites and their traditional music. The memory is present in actuality in Him, and in a mixture of act and potency among us, as in a body with some healthy limbs and some diseased or damaged limbs. With the prophet we can say: “Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the weak knees” (Is 35:3). The rigor mortis of legal positivism is giving way to the warm love of tradition for its own sake.

To change metaphors, rebuilding a bridge that has collapsed is difficult but not impossible, if there is a willingness to reconnect the two sides over the abyss. I have been singing the proper chants for the usus antiquior for thirty years now, and have reached a point where they are totally ingrained in me. Every Sunday of the year, practically every holy day, the chants are right there in my soul, brought up instantly when the singing begins. And the same is true for many of my friends around the world, a growing number that includes new recruits, new reverts and converts, cradle Catholics who have been driven by a longing for more to seek out a worship that has and is more. The memory of the Church that was thought to be obliterated has, by the grace of God, returned to the Mystical Body; a bridge, even if a narrow and rickety one, has been erected again, joining the past to the future by way of the present. What a privilege to be a part of the rebuilding—part of the reactivating and transmission of beautiful, noble, gracious memories.

Are Women Permitted to Sing the Propers of the Mass?

In the wider Catholic world, the question posed in the title is not even on the radar screen. If you can have altar girls and female lectors — indeed, apparently, acolytesses and lectresses, in a veritable salmagundi of sanctuary servants — then why not women singing music for the Mass? (Never mind the fact that the concept of “propers” has more or less disappeared outside the world of the usus antiquior.) However, traditionalists, myself included, reject both altar girls and female lectors, arguing that it is only appropriate for males to fill these roles, and, in general, that the patronizing and vocationally deviant clericalization of the laity should be avoided. It might therefore be thought that, as a matter of logical consistency, we ought to maintain that women should not form a chant schola to execute the propers of the Mass. Yet this conclusion does not follow.

While I am an adamant opponent of feminism, I am no less staunch an opponent of chauvinism wherever I see it — and I do see it reappearing in the traditional movement, along with other -isms (e.g., antisemitism, libertarianism, sedevacantism) that are incompatible with Catholic tradition. The revival of traditional liturgical practice has permitted the reappearance of some extreme points of view that deserve refutation. For example, not only have I heard traditionalists argue against women singing the propers; I’ve heard them argue that none of the laity whatsoever should sing any of the Mass Ordinary or responses. (On that last point, see here, here, and here.)

The point of departure for the question on women chanters is the rather blunt statement of Pope St. Pius X in his famous 1903 motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini:

With the exception of the melodies proper to the celebrant at the altar and to the ministers, which must be always sung in Gregorian chant, and without accompaniment of the organ, all the rest of the liturgical chant belongs to the choir of levites, and, therefore, singers in the church, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir…. On the same principle it follows that singers in church have a real liturgical office, and that therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church.

Stated thus, it sounds cut and dried. But is it self-evident that “all the rest of the liturgical chant” (would this include the Ordinary?) “belongs to the choir of levites” (whatever that means exactly)? It seems that Pius X has in view singers in the sanctuary or the “choir” area of a transept of a monastic-style church, where their placement and vesture suggest that they are performing a ministerial function. The operative conception here, it seems to me, is that of a cathedral, seminary, or boys’ school.

If singers are, in contrast, somewhere in the nave, whether on the floor or up in a loft, it is more difficult to see that they constitute a “choir of levites” with a “real liturgical office.” Just as laywomen were not forbidden to sing the Ordinary of the Mass (indeed Pius X and his successors encouraged this) even though the Ordinary is manifestly a liturgical text also said by ordained ministers, by the same logic women would be competent to sing the propers.

To make the situation clearer, Pius XII in his encyclical Musicae Sacrae of 1955 lifted the ban for lay women as long as they were not in the sanctuary (the internal quotations are from three earlier decisions of the Sacred Congregation of Rites):

Where it is impossible to have schools of singers [scholae cantorum] or where there are not enough choir boys, it is allowed that “a group of men and women or girls, located in a place outside the sanctuary set apart for the exclusive use of this group, can sing the liturgical texts at Solemn Mass, as long as the men are completely separated from the women and girls and everything unbecoming is avoided. The Ordinary is bound in conscience in this matter.”

Granted, Pacelli’s words are not exactly a resounding encouragement to have women, but it shows that there is no ban on women singing, as long as they are outside the sanctuary.

Let’s think this through, with attention to the symbolism of church architecture. The development of choir lofts, which can certainly be said to be the norm in most churches built in the century prior to Vatican II, perfectly accords with the role of the choir as a body that provides chant and polyphony for the liturgy, with mixed voices as needed or desired, and in a way that does not involve the singers in the ceremonies taking place below. This preserves the anonymity of the choir and bypasses the danger of distraction for the congregation, since the musicians do not so easily risk “putting on a show.” If the propers can be sung polyphonically with men and women, does that not establish that women may sing the propers by themselves?

Admittedly there is a longstanding tradition of having only men singing, inasmuch as the choir was seen as fulfilling a properly liturgical role. Yet just as it is possible for altar boys to substitute for acolytes, and even for any laity (such as girls in a girls’ school) to make the responses at Mass provided they are in the pews and not in the sanctuary, so too it is possible for non-vested laity to substitute for a properly liturgical choir. Put differently, lay people from outside the choir area can fulfill a liturgical function, but not in a properly liturgical manner, which would involve their being vested and being more closely associated with the ritual action in or near the sanctuary, as we see in solemn Vespers when the singers in cassock and surplice process into the sanctuary, genuflect, bow to each other, and split off to their seats on the sides for the chanting of the psalmody. (It also seems clear enough that whenever there is a schola of clergy or male religious singing the propers, as Pius X envisioned, women should not join them.)

We should also take into account the not inconsiderable witness of centuries of women religious singing the sacred liturgy, and doing so not because there are no men around to do it (although that will usually be true), but because it is proper to themselves: it is a requirement of their consecrated life, expected and indeed demanded of them by the Church. They do not “substitute” for anyone else but do it by a right proper to and inherent in them. Moreover, depending on the order or congregation, the nuns might perform this opus Dei in the choir area of a monastery church (still with a symbolic separation from the sanctuary), chanting all the parts of the Mass except those of the major ministers. It is true that this fact in and of itself does not establish an analogous right for unconsecrated lay women to do the same, but it does establish, once and for all, that women as such are not disqualified from singing the chants of the liturgy, provided that good order is maintained.

Once again we can see what a fine and helpful development the choir loft was, and why it should be present in every Catholic church. How many blessed hours of my life have been spent in choir lofts, leading or singing with scholas and choirs of men and women, in Santa Paula, California; in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Maryland; in Gaming and Vienna, Austria; in Lander, Wyoming and in Lincoln, Nebraska!

We cannot leave history and prudence behind. There has been an evolution in the attitudes toward women in the Church, even while we still hold fast to the ancient truth, now contradicted by Pope Francis, that women should not be vested and serving in ministerial roles (cf. 1 Cor 14:34). One need look no further than the redoubtable Justine Ward to see that women were heavily involved in the resurgence of Gregorian chant in the twentieth century and taught people how to sing it, which means that they were in the lay schola.

It’s not clear to me what we could possibly gain by trying to prevent women from singing the propers, provided the singers are musically qualified (and the same holds, obviously, for men — no one’s sex makes him or her more adept for the art of singing). Unlike the minor orders of acolyte and lector, there has never been a minor order of cantor/singer. It is therefore impossible to classify women singers along with altar girls/acolytesses and female readers/lectresses as part of the same progressive “slippery slope” for the ordination of women as deacons or priests. Musicologists and musicians are free to argue about whether a higher-pitched or lower-pitched rendering of chant works better from the point of view of liturgical aesthetics, and sociologists or anthropologists of religion could argue about cultural expectations and associations, etc., but none of this pertains to the question at hand.

On a practical level, unless there is some extenuating circumstance like a CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium with its pedagogical aims, it would be strange to have a men’s schola and a women’s schola dividing up tasks at the same liturgy; this is best avoided. When only men or only women are singing the propers, the worshiper can more easily forget about it and pay attention to the chants, the texts, and the ceremonies. When the two scholas go back and forth, it draws attention to the octave difference between men and women — that is, it draws attention to the performers, which is not ideal. Similarly, chant sung by men and women simultaneously is sometimes an unavoidable necessity, but chant tends to sound best in a true unison, not in organum of parallel octaves. If a chapel or parish has two scholas, a men’s and a women’s, it would be better to have one or the other sing all the propers at Mass. This is what I did at Wyoming Catholic College. The men’s schola sang multiple times a week; at a certain point, a women’s schola was created to give the women a chance to immerse themselves more fully in the chant and to give the men a much-needed rest. Here, too, a certain complementarity developed that was beneficial for all.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

The Ultimate Communion Antiphon Book for the Usus Antiquior

Most singers of chant will be familiar with the old workhorse Communio by Richard Rice (CMAA, 2008), my own copy of which is so well-thumbed and beaten up it’s a wonder it still holds together. Others may be familiar with the Solesmes publication Versus Psalmorum et Canticorum (repr. CMAA, 2008), which contains pointed psalm texts for the Introits and Communions of the entire liturgical year. Although I used both of these books for many years as a choir director, I have discovered a new volume that definitively surpasses them for Sundays and Holy Days.

In November of 2019, I visited Houston to give four lectures, and while there, I decided to “crash” the Schola practice on Sunday at the FSSP parish, Regina Caeli. The singers were gracious and let me join them for the High Mass. At one point, the director, Kyle Lartigue, handed me a book: Ad Communionem: Antiphons and Psalms (Justitias Books, 2016), which, I discovered, was Mr. Lartigue’s own production.

Unlike the other communion books available, which either lack the antiphons and full musical notation (Versus Psalmorum) or utilize the awkward and untraditional Nova Vulgata for the psalm texts, Ad Communionem includes the antiphons for all Sundays and first-class Holy Days, followed by the pertinent psalm from the preconciliar Vulgate, notated in square notes. (The old Vulgate verses are a breeze to sing for those who are familiar with the Missale Romanum and the Breviarium Romanum or the Breviarium Monasticum.) Ad Communionem also includes Psalm 33 and the Gloria Patri in all modes, and an appendix with the Adoro Te and Ubi Caritas. The antiphons are organized not alphabetically (as in Rice’s book, where one must rely on the index) but by Sunday and feastday in chronological order, which makes it much easier to use. While the Solesmes book is more comprehensive, it merely “points” the texts rather than musically notating them, and both the poor quality of the reproduction (many times removed from its original) and the typographical conventions contribute to confusion and stumbling performances.

It’s exactly what I’d want my own schola to have, and in fact when I returned from Houston I asked the pastor in my town if he would buy a bunch of copies for our choir loft. This book deserves to be standard issue for every TLM schola in the English-speaking world. (I should mention that the antiphons and verses are accompanied by an inline English translation from the Douay-Rheims, which closely matches the Latin sense.)
 

Having a Communion antiphon book with psalm verses (regardless of which of the above three options is used) allows the cantors and/or schola to sing however many verses may be needed to prolong or shorten the music for a particular occasion. Sometimes more than one priest is distributing communion and it goes quickly; at others times perhaps there is an overflow crowd and only one priest distributing, which can take quite some time. The chanting of psalm verses has many benefits: the texts are liturgically appropriate and the music is very much in the background, as it should be; the overall effect is calming and prayerful, but the recurrence of the antiphon adds a welcome contrast to the simplicity of the psalm tones, and impresses the repeated text and melody in the minds of all who listen to it. The format also allows for maximum flexibility in musical forces. One can arrange it this way: antiphon (sung by all); verse (begun by cantor and completed by schola); antiphon; etc. Or: antiphon (sung by all); odd verse (sung by cantor); even verse (sung by all); antiphon; etc. Or instead of cantor and tutti, the schola may be divided into two halves. The simple format allows for a ready use of isons and organum.

Now that the TLM is coming back all over the place, Ad Communionem: Antiphons and Psalms is, I would maintain, a required tool for everyone who sings the proper chants. It is one of two books I always carry with me to the choir loft (the other being my Liber Usualis). The book is available in paperback and hardcover. A large sample of the pages may be found here. An index may be found here.

Mr. Lartigue has also produced a number of other books: a newly-typeset Latin edition of the traditional Martyrologium Romanum (updated through 1961, with an appendix of saints canonized after that year); a two-volume edition of traditional Sunday Vespers; Holy Week chants and a complete Kyriale. All of these books are newly typeset and more affordable than their competitors.

Pay a visit to his website: https://justitiasbooks.com/.

King Herod and the Martyr Children

Why in the world would anyone ever think of killing a child?

If we look at the nature of Herod’s murderous decree and the way in which the Innocents suffered for Christ, we see that the persecution of the child results from a hatred of God, of human nature as the imago Dei, and of Christ who has a special love and welcome for all “little ones”: children, the elderly, the poor, the handicapped, the helpless, the oppressed.

Herod “the Great,” as he was called by some of his contemporaries, slaughtered the children of Christ’s age because he did not want to submit to the reign of Christ the King. He did not want anyone else to rule over him; he wanted only to rule himself—and, of course, to rule others. (As St. Thomas notes: “Mary and Joseph needed to be instructed concerning Christ’s birth before He was born, because it devolved on them to show reverence to the child conceived in the womb, and to serve Him even before He was born, ST III.36.2 ad 2.)

Then Herod, perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry, and sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning: Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. (Gospel of the day)

The Roman Emperors who persecuted Christianity in its infancy stand in league with Herod: they sought to extinguish a religion that taught the supremacy of another king, another ruler, to whom all earthly knees must bend. If Christianity had not exacted this otherworldly allegiance, the Emperors would have left it quite alone. Any bizarre mystery cult or intellectual religion was palatable to the cosmopolitan taste of the Romans; as long as the citizens would tip a spoonful of incense into the fire to honor the divinity of the Emperor who commanded all earthly obedience, then they could go about worshiping or not worshiping whatever god they pleased. But Christianity declared that there was a higher kingship, a higher imperium: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above” (John 19, 11). To this higher authority, all earthly kings and kingdoms must pay homage.

It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty and everlasting God. Because by the mystery of the Word made flesh the light of Thy glory hath shone anew upon the eyes of our mind: that while we acknowledge Him to be God seen by men, we may be drawn by Him to the love of things unseen. (Preface of the Nativity)

As if such a claim were not audacious enough, Christianity went further. It taught that all men who share in the mystery of Christ are adopted sons with Him, co-heirs of the kingdom of heaven—and as a consequence, that all men, from Emperor to slave, are fundamentally equal in the eyes of God. [1] Thus, while in the worldly order the slave negates himself before his master and the citizen falls before his Emperor, in the divine order inaugurated by Christ, the master serves his slave and the Emperor his citizens. [2] All must serve one another in humility and love. The most basic Christian identity is that of servanthood: Jesus tells his disciples that they are to distinguish themselves not as masters but as servants. [3]

Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings, O God, Thou hast perfected praise, because of Thine enemies. Ps. O Lord our God, how admirable is Thy Name in the whole earth! (Introit)

At this late time in the history of the West, when Christianity has become so story-book familiar that its radical message fails to attract notice, can we begin to imagine how offensive this religion must have been to the pagans of ancient empires? We must renew in our minds the impression the Christian faith produced: it was a stumbling block, impious and rebellious. Indeed, it was something that had to be not only rejected but crushed, for it turned upside-down almost everything that fallen mankind takes for granted. In overthrowing the idols of paganism, Christ did more than introduce the worship of the true God; he destroyed an entire world, an entire philosophy of life, based upon the idolatry of power and self-will.

When we venerate martyrs, we venerate those who will not tip a spoonful of incense to the gods of this world; we honor those who by their example, by the offering of their life, prove to a world comfortably entangled in self-love that man is meant to live unto God alone and sacrifice all that he is in the service of others.

O God, whose praise the martyred Innocents on this day confessed, not by speaking, but by dying: destroy in us all the evils of sin, that our life also may proclaim in deeds Thy faith which our tongues profess. (Collect)

A man and woman who conceive a child are bound by natural and divine law to nurture and educate that child, or to give it up for adoption when they cannot take responsibility for its upbringing. They are bound to submit to the demands laid upon them by their children, just as Joseph and Mary devoted their lives to serving the Christchild, and as all faithful parents do when they sacrifice years to the rearing of their children. The child is like a king in that he must be served, but he is absolutely helpless, he is all neediness and dependence, he cannot even survive unless cared for by others. He begs to be welcomed; he needs and demands love. If there is one person whom all should love, it is the child, the infant, who is pure dependency and trust. Where is the human being who cannot find room in his heart to do this much?

Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that the new birth of Thine only-begotten Son in the flesh may set us free, who are held by the old bondage under the yoke of sin. (Commemoration of Christmas)

Herod was such a man. Just as there was no empty room in the inn of Bethlehem, there was no receptive room in his heart for another person to take precedence. All that Herod knew is that this promised child would threaten his lovable self, his selfish self-rule; and that was enough of a motive for him to send the soldiers on their horrible mission. In a mockery of his own rulership, Herod slaughtered the most innocent of his subjects, simply to ensure that none of them would grow up to manhood and ask of him some sacrifice of honor, freedom, or power. As St. Peter Chrysologus preaches:

Herod’s inhuman cruelty has exposed how far jealousy tends to go, and spite leaps, and envy makes its way. While this cruelty was jealously seeking the narrow limits of temporal reign, it strove to block the rise of the eternal King. … In his earthly fury he hunts Him whom he does not believe to be born from heaven. He moves the soldier’s camp to the bosoms of mothers, and attacks the citadel of love among their breasts. He tests his steel in those tender breasts, sheds milk before blood, causes the infants to undergo death before experiencing life, brings darkness on those just entering into the light of day…. In fear of a successor, he moved against his Creator. He slew the innocent babies, with intent to kill Innocence Himself. … Their tongue has been silent, their eyes have seen nothing, their hands have done nothing. No act has proceeded from them; then, whence do they have any guilt? They who did not yet know how to live got death. The period of their life did not protect them, nor did their age excuse them, nor their silence defend them. With Herod, the mere fact that they were born was their crime. [4]

The ultimate cause of abortion is that some people do not want to have another person “reigning” over them, another life making claims upon them, absorbing their time and their energy—in a word, making them servants. Whether it be parent, relative, doctor, nurse, counselor, politician, employer, or any other who is primarily responsible for the decision to abort or the collective pressures which bring it about, abortion objectively means: I, the adult with power over life and death, will have no ruler but myself alone; non serviam, I will not serve, I will not show mercy. This child is a nuisance, an inconvenience, a hardship, it will change the way we have to live our lives, and that, finally, is what we cannot allow.

The children abandoned by their parents and murdered by the abortionist are rejected, just as the infant boys were rejected, on account of Christ whom they represent. The Holy Innocents shed their blood in witness to Christ “who came to his own and his own received him not” (John 1, 11). Strikingly, St. Peter Chrysologus declaims:

Isaias had foretold that a virgin would bring forth the God of heaven, the King of the earth, the Lord of the regions, the renewer of the world, the slayer of death, the restorer of life, the author of perpetuity. The very occurrence of the Lord’s nativity proved how sad this was for worldly men, how frightening to kings … Fearing a successor, they tried to slay the Saviour of all men. At length, since they could not find Him, they devastated His country, mixed mothers’ milk with blood, and beat to death the infants of His own years. They dismembered the companions of His innocence, because they could not find for punishment sharers in any guilt of His. If they did all this after Christ was already born, what would they in their wild fury have done to Him when He was conceived? (Chrysologus, Sermons, 242)

The Holy Innocents did not meet their death freely confessing a Savior whom they knew; they played no active part in their own martyrdom. They were slaughtered for the same reason Christ was ultimately crucified: self-will, self-rule. That Christ disappointed Jewish hopes for a Messianic leader who would establish political self-rule takes on deeper significance when considered in relation to fallen man’s restless desire for worldly autonomy or autocracy, the desire to be the very rule of behavior, the measure of right and wrong. The kingdom of Christ is not of this world, His rulership is of an entirely different order (John 18, 33-38). There is only one rule of behavior, one measure of right and wrong—the Truth which Jesus himself is (John 14, 6).

These are they who were not defiled with women: for they are virgins. These follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were purchased from among men, the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb: and in their mouth there was found no lie: for they are without spot before the throne of God. (Epistle of the day)

As the chief priests, the people, and Pilate rejected Christ in the end, so Herod rejected Him in the beginning. The sudden friendship that sprang up between Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas, son of the Herod who ordered the massacre of the Innocents, is not a mere coincidence recorded by Luke (23, 12) for the curious reader. Among other things, it demonstrates the ultimate identity of the first Herodian rejection of Christ the infant and the final Roman-Jewish rejection of Christ the man. The end circles around to meet up with the beginning, just as the legal endorsement of abortion logically necessitates the legal endorsement of euthanasia, or any “purification of unwanted social elements.”

In line with two kinds of persecutions, there are going to be two kinds of martyrs: those who are killed on account of professing a Gospel which their persecutors hate, and those, like John the Baptist, who are killed because their presence prevents someone else from living as he or she pleases. The latter kind of martyr, though not giving an explicitly Christian witness, is by no means unrelated to Christ. As victims of the insidious pride which has the kingdom of God as its formal object, their witness to the Messiah is not personal but cosmological. The Holy Innocents died a death of rejection by the world and its powers long before Christ died on the Cross, despised and rejected; they were killed out of the same hatred for God and for his law that will later propel the enemies of Christ and all who persecute Christians throughout history.

The witness given by a martyr is brought about by persecutors who torture or kill him precisely because he represents the Creator and the Redeemer to an ungrateful and sinful world. To be persecuted is obviously a necessary condition for martyrdom, but it is more. If a sleeping Catholic is attacked and killed by a Moslem out of hatred for the Christian faith, the former can be a martyr—not because he consciously bore witness, but because his very identity as a Catholic was the reason for which the other killed him; the motive specified the generic act of killing as an act of persecution. If, on the other hand, a Moslem judge ordered the death of a Christian because he had committed a serious crime, the Christian would not be a martyr by anyone’s definition. The motive of the killer thus figures crucially in the definition of any “passive” or “unconscious” martyr such as the Holy Innocents.

Although the victims of abortion are not martyrs because they are not incorporated into either the Old Covenant (as were the circumcised Hebrew children slaughtered by command of Herod) or the New Covenant (as would be children who are sacramentally baptized and thus capable of being killed in odium fidei), their death is nevertheless an implicit and analogous rejection of God the Creator and Christ the Redeemer. It is therefore not inappropriate to link the memory of these victims with the story of the Holy Innocents recounted each year, and to pray to God for the conversion of all who lend their support to the ever-crystallizing regime of Antichrist.

[1] See John 1, 12–13; Rom. 8, 14–23; Eph. 1, 5; Gal 4, 4–7; 1 John 3, 1; Acts 10, 34; Rom. 10, 12; Eph. 6, 8-9; Col 3, 11.
[2] See Phlm 1, 15–16; Eph. 6, 9; Col. 4,1; the same teaching is already present in Wis. 6, 2–10 and Sir. 32, 1–3.
[3] See Luke 9, 48; Eph. 5, 21; Phil. 2, 3; Matt. 20, 25–27; Mark 9, 34.
[4] Selected Sermons, trans. G. Ganss [New York: Fathers of the Church, 1953], 254–55; 256–57.