The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Saints John and Paul, as recounted in the pre-Tridentine Breviary according to the Use of the Roman Curia.
At Rome, (the passion) of John and Paul, brothers… when the Caesar Julian was taken by sacrilegious lust for money, he sought to color his greed by the witness of the Gospel. For as he took from the Christians their goods and properties, he would say, “Your Christ says in the Gospel, ‘Who renounceth not all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple.’ ” Now it came to his notice that Paul and John were helping the crowds of Christians by means of the riches which the virgin Constantia (the daughter of Constantine, whom John and Paul had formerly served) had left to them. And he sent a man to see them, and say that they must adhere to him. But they answered … “Because of your iniquity we have desisted from greeting you, and withdrawn ourselves entirely from all association with your rule. For we are not false, but true Christians. … We do not do you this injury, that we prefer any sort of human person before you. We prefer to you the Lord, who made the heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them.” (The saints also declare their refusal to return to the court, where they had formerly served Constantine, and greet the emperor.) Julian said to them, “I give you a pause of ten days. When they have passed, if you come to me willingly, I will hold you as my friends; if you do not come, I will punish you as public enemies.”
Despite the great antiquity of the cultus of Ss John and Paul, and the presence of their names in the Roman Canon, they are rarely represented in art. These paintings decorate the place within their house where they were originally buried; other martyrs whose connection to them is not altogether clear, Ss Crispus, Crispinian and Benedicta, are represented alongside them. The relics have long since been moved into the altar of the church dedicated to them, which was built on top of the house.
Then the holy men John and Paul, calling the Christians to themselves, gave orders concerning all the things which they could leave behind, and for the whole of the ten days busied themselves with almsgiving day and night. But on the eleventh day they were confined within their house. (A military officer named Terentian is then sent to their house and says to them) “Our lord Julian has sent a little golden statue of Jove to you, that you may adore it and burn incense. But if you do not do this, you will both be struck with my sword. … ” John and Paul said, “If Julian is your lord, have peace with him. We have no other Lord, but the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, whom he (i.e. Julian the Apostate) did not fear to deny. And because he was once cast away from the face of God, he wishes others to come down with him to destruction.” (Terentian has them decapitated and buried in their house.)
The exterior of the church of Ss John and Paul, which was completely rebuilt in the 12th century.
Julian was at once slain in the war with Persia, and when Jovinian had become the most Christian emperor, the churches were opened, and the Christian religion began to rejoice. (Following this, many possessed persons are healed in the house of Saints John and Paul, including the son of Terentian, who himself converts to Christianity, and writes the passion of the Holy Martyrs.)
A later and apocryphal tradition says that Julian the Apostate was killed by a Christian soldier in his army named Mercurius, (who is honored in the East as a Saint), as depicted here in a Coptic icon. (image from wikipedia.) The true historical date of Julian’s death is the same as the feast of Ss John and Paul, June 26th.
R. Hæc est vera fratérnitas, quæ numquam pótuit violári certámine: qui effúso sánguine secúti sunt Dóminum: * Contemnentes aulam regiam, pervenérunt ad regna caelestia. V. Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitáre fratres in unum. Contemnentes. Gloria Patri. Contemnentes.
R. This is the true brotherhood, which could never be injured in the struggle; who by shedding their blood, followed the Lord. * Disdaining the palace of the king, they came to the heavenly kingdom. V. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity. Disdaining. Glory be to the Father. Disdaining.
In the Breviary of St Pius V and its predecessors, this responsory is said on the feasts of Several Martyrs who are also brothers. The devotion to John and Paul is one of the oldest in the city of Rome, and the responsory was almost certainly originally written for their feast day.
Today is the feast day of Ss Primus and Felician, who were martyred around the year 297. The traditional account of their passion is not regarded as historically reliable, but there is no doubt of the fact of their martyrdom, or of the antiquity of devotion to them. They are said to have been brothers of the Roman patrician class who devoted themselves to works of charity; Primus was quite elderly when they were arrested for the practice of the Christian Faith. The judge who tried them separated them from each other, and tried to convince each one to sacrifice to the pagan gods by saying that the other had already done so. Neither of them was deceived, and so they were taken to a place about 12 miles from Rome near the town of Nomentum, and there beheaded. After the end of the persecutions, a church was built over the site of their burial, but this no longer exists.
The martyrdom of Ss Primus and Felician, depicted in a collection of Saints’ lives known as the Weissenau Passionary, 1170-1200. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.) Felician, looking much like Jesus, is the one in the middle being nailed to a tree trunk, while Primus is lying down with his hands tied, and having molten lead poured into his mouth.
What makes these two Saints particularly noteworthy for us today is that they were the very first whose relics were removed from the site of their original burial and brought into a Roman church. This took place around the year 645, in the reign of Pope Theodore I, and is important for two reasons. The first is that is shows that by the mid-7th century, Christianity had definitively broken many of the ancient Roman taboos about the treatment of the dead. The foremost of these would be the very ancient law which required that they be kept apart from the living in their own places, the “necropolises”, or cities of the dead, outside the walls of the cities of the living. Furthermore, the Romans had many prohibitions of both a legal and religious nature about moving bodies at all from their original burial places, which were now also evidently set aside.
Two Roman mausolea in the necropolis just outside the walls on the southeast side of Pompei. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Diego Delso, (delso.photo, CC BY-SA 4.0).
This in turn would make possible one of the most important shifts in the history of early Christian archeology, the gradual emptying of the catacombs. The Roman prohibition on burying the dead inside the city walls applied to the Christians as much as to anybody else, which is why they made their underground cemeteries, which we now call the catacombs, outside the city. For the first three centuries after the end of the persecution, these cemeteries continued to be used for burials, but also became pilgrimage sites for those who wanted to venerate the tombs of the martyrs buried within them. By the time of Pope Theodore, however, the political instability of Italy made such pilgrimages out into the countryside potentially very dangerous, and part of his motivation for moving the martyrs into Rome itself would certainly have been so that pilgrims could venerate their relics in the relative safety of the city.
Over the next few centuries, therefore, the catacombs would be completely emptied of Saints’ relics, such that by the 10th century, we have a graffito at the entrance of one of them which says, “Turn around, there’s nothing to see here”, meaning that all of the martyrs had been taken away to the churches. When the catacombs were excavated in modern times, only one grave which certainly belongs to a martyr was found still undisturbed, that of St Hyacinth (Sept. 11) in the catacomb of Bassilla on the via Salaria.
Pope Theodore built a chapel for Saints Primus and Felician at the church of St Stephen on the Caelian hill, generally known as “Santo Stefano Rotondo – round St Stephen’s”, the only round church built in Rome in ancient times. Although the entire building has been extensively rebuilt and redecorated since its original construction, a fair portion of the apsidal mosaic of this chapel remains in good condition. At the bottom is a poetic inscription in Latin: Aspicis auratum caelesti culmine tectum, / Astriferumque micans praeclaro lumine vultum. (You look upon a gilded roof with its height in heaven, and a star-bearing face that shines with brilliant light. Photo by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P.)
Today is the feast of two Roman Saints named Nereus and Achilleus. An inscription placed over their burial place by Pope St Damasus I (366-84) tells us that they were soldiers who were forced to participate in the persecution of Christians, but threw away their weapons and armor, and were in turn martyred for the Faith. There can be no doubt of the authenticity of their martyrdom, or that their feast is very ancient, but the date of their death is uncertain, and the various details later added to their story are considered legendary. In the pre-Tridentine Roman Divine Office, their Matins lessons amount to barely over a hundred words, which are restated with similar brevity in the reformed version of St Pius V. Their feast was kept at the lowest rank, and shared with another Roman martyr who died on the same day, St Pancratius.
Pope St Gregory the Great venerating a miraculous image of the Virgin and Child, surrounded by Ss Papias and Maurus (left), and Nereus, Achilleus and Domitilla (right); 1606-7, by Peter Paul Rubens. This painting was commissioned for the Chiesa Nuova, the church of the Roman Oratory, which dedicated to both the Virgin Mary and St Gregory; parts of the relics of the five Saints depicted in it are in the high altar.
They were buried in part of the Christian cemetery complex now known as the Catacomb of Domitilla, about 1½ miles from the Aurelian Walls down the via Ardeatina; Pope Damasus then built a small basilica on the grounds over this cemetery. More than two hundred years later, Pope St Gregory the Great preached in this church on the martyrs’ feast day. However, in later centuries, when the empire had fallen apart, and the countryside around Rome was no longer safe for pilgrims to traverse, the relics of nearly all the Saints who had originally been buried in the various catacombs were brought into the city, and placed in churches. The basilicas over the cemeteries were then abandoned and mostly fell into ruin, in some cases, so completely that their exact location is no longer identifiable.
The interior of the modern reconstructed basilica of Ss Nereus and Achilleus, at the catacomb of Domitilla. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY 2.0)
It is not certain when Nereus and Achilleus were brought into Rome. Around 800 AD, Pope St Leo III built or rebuilt a church in their honor next to the baths of Caracalla, and it is possible that this was done specifically to accommodate the translation of their relics. But one way or another, four centuries later, they were brought to the church of St Hadrian in the Roman Forum.
When Pope Clement VIII elevated the great Church historian Cesare Baronio, a priest of the Roman Oratory and close friend of its founder, St Philip Neri, to the rank of cardinal in 1596, he gave him the church of Ss Nereus and Achilleus as his title. Baronio immediately set about giving the building a much-needed top-to-bottom restoration. The following year, the Saints’ relics were discovered at St Hadrian, and solemnly translated to their own church on the day before their feast.
At the time, it was mistakenly believed that this was the church in which St Gregory had preached the aforementioned homily, and the cardinal therefore had the full text of it carved onto the episcopal throne in the apse, where it can still be seen today. The feast itself was raised to the rank of semidouble, and excerpts of the same homily, on the Gospel of the healing of the prince’s son (John 4, 46-53) were added to the breviary. (Another part of the same homily is read on the 20th Sunday after Pentecost.)
Here is the conclusion, starting from where St Gregory mentions the Saints for the first time. If he seems very pessimistic about the state of the world, one must remember that Rome was in a terrible condition after the Gothic wars of the sixth century, and he would have walked through roughly two miles of ruins to get to the place where he preached it. Assuming he took the shortest route from the Lateran, where the popes lived at the time, he would have passed by at least one broken aqueduct, an abandoned bath complex, and a good many large but long-empty houses.
“Behold, this world which is loved flees away. These saints at whose grave we stand trampled the flourishing world with contempt. They had long life, continual health, material riches, many children, tranquility in long-lasting peace, and yet, though it flourishing in itself, this world had already withered in their hearts. Behold, now this world is withered in itself, and still, it flourishes in our hearts. Everywhere is death, everywhere mourning, everywhere desolation; on all sides we are struck, on all sides we are filled with bitterness. And yet, in the blindness of our mind, we love the very bitterness of the tasted fleshly desire; we pursue what flees, we cling to what falls, and since we cannot hold onto that which falls, we fall with what we hold onto. Once, the world captivated us for itself with its delight; now it is now full of such misfortunes that already it sends us back to God.
Consider, therefore, that what happens in time does not count, for the end of all temporal things shows how meaningless is that which can pass away. The collapse of things shows us that something which passes away was almost nothing, even when it seemed to stand firm. Dearest brothers, think of these things with careful consideration; fix your hearts in the love of eternity, so that, while you disdain to reach the heights of earth, you may come to that glory which you hold by faith, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God, and lives and reigns with the Father in unity of the Holy Spirit, through all the ages of ages. Amen.”
The ruins of the baths of Caracalla in Rome, depicted in an engraving by the Swiss artist Louis Duclos (1748-1810), ca. 1780. In St Gregory’s time, the complex was already abandoned, but of course nowhere near so badly ruined.
John was an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Prophet: an Apostle, because he wrote to the churches as a teacher; an Evangelist, because he wrote a book of the Gospels, which the other twelve Apostles did not do, apart from Matthew; and a Prophet, for on the island of Patmos, whither he had been banished by Domitian because of his testimony to the Lord, he beheld the Apocalypse, which contains such infinite mysteries of the future. And Tertullian says (De praescript. 36, ca. 200 A.D.) that at Rome, he was put into a vessel of boiling oil, but he came out cleaner and healthier than he went in.” (St Jerome in his treatise against Jovinian, the fifth lesson of Matins of the feast. In the homily on the day’s Gospel, St Matthew 20, 20-23, St Jerome explains the Lord’s prophecy to the sons of Zebedee that they will drink the cup of His Passion.)
The Martyrdom of St John the Evangelist, by Charles le Brun, 1641-42, from the church of St Nicholas du Chardonnet in Paris.
“The question arises how the sons of Zebedee, namely, James and John, drank the cup of martyrdom, since Scripture tells that only that James the Apostle was beheaded by Herod, but John died a natural death. But if we read the history of the Church, in which it is told that he also for the sake of his witness (to Christ) was cast into a vessel of boiling oil, and thence went forth as a champion of Christ to receive his crown, and was at once exiled to the island of Patmos, we see that his spirit did not fail at the prospect of martyrdom, and that John did drink the cup of confession that the three children in the fiery furnace also drank, although the persecutor did not shed their blood.” (Commentary on Matthew, book 3, chap. 20)
The right wing of the St John Altarpiece, by Hans Memling, ca. 1479, showing the Apostle John and his vision of the Trinity.
From the lessons at Matins cited above, one would reasonably assume that the principle object of today’s feast is the Apostle’s martyrdom. However, in the Pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary, different lessons were read which make no mention of it, although it is spoken of in the Magnificat antiphon, which carried over into the Breviary of St Pius V: “In ferventis olei dolium missus beatus Joannes Apostolus, divina se protegente gratia, illaesus exivit, alleluia. - Cast into a pot of boiling oil, the blessed Apostle John, protected by divine grace, came out unharmed, alleluia.” From its first appearance in the late 8th-century, it is known as the feast of St John “before the Latin Gate”, even though the walls of which the Latin Gate are a part were built 200 years after St John’s time. The feast therefore most likely originated, like many secondary feasts, as the dedication feast of the small church built in St John’s honor near the Latin Gate, and was only later associated with the episode of the pot of oil.
The church of St John at the Latin Gate is the station church of the Saturday before Palm Sunday, here photographed by our Roman pilgrim friend Agnese on that occasion in 2014. (interior below)
Next door to the main church is the small oratory known as “Saint John in oleo”, said to be on the very spot where the pot of oil was set up; it is attributed to Donatello Bramante, the original architect in charge of rebuilding St Peter’s Basilica in the early 16th-century.
It is also unlikely a mere coincidence that the Byzantine Rite also keeps a secondary feast of St John only two days later. His principal feast is on September 26; since the Byzantine liturgical year begins on September 1st, he is the first in the year among the Twelve Apostles. On May 8th, a commemoration is made of a miracle whereby a manna-like substance came forth from his tomb in the city of Ephesus, which healed the faithful both physically and spiritually. This day was already occupied in the West, from very ancient times, by the feast of the Apparition of St Michael, and this might explain the slight discrepancy in the dates.
St John the Evangelist writing his Gospel on a scroll, ca. 1450, by the Cretan icon painter Andreas Ritzos (1421-92)
There is a famous Italian saying about Rome, “Una vita non basta – one life is not enough”, i.e., to see everything worth seeing in the Eternal City. Today I was reminded how true this is when I saw these images shared on social media by an old friend, Mr John Sonnen, he of Orbis Catholicus fame. Despite having visited all the major churches of Rome countless times, and many of the minor ones, I never knew that the basilica of Saint Anastasia on the edge of the Palatine Hill has these relics, which are purported to be part of a veil which belonged to the Virgin Mary, and the cloak of St Joseph, brought to Rome by St Jerome in the later fourth century. My thanks to Mr Sonnen for sharing with us his pictures of the reliquary, which has been exposed for the veneration of the faithful today, the feast of St Joseph the Worker. (The cloak is in the lower part.)
As the Church reaches the culmination of the liturgical year in the ceremonies of Holy Week and Easter, the tenor of the lectionary shifts; where the first four weeks of Lent focus on lessons for the catechumens who will be baptized at Easter, Passiontide, and especially Holy Week, closely follows the events of the Lord’s death and Resurrection. As in the earlier part of Lent, and indeed the other seasons when stations are kept, the choice of Roman stational churches in Holy Week is closely tied to the Scriptural readings of the Masses. A notable difference is that where the earlier part of Lent took the Pope and his court to every corner of the city’s historical center, the stations of Holy Week are all quite close to the ancient papal residence at the Lateran. The furthest away is Santa Prisca, just a little over a mile distant, with the rest being much closer; the Pope and his court would thus keep their travel to a minimum in a period of lengthy and taxing ceremonies.
On Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry of the Savior into Jerusalem is quite rightly celebrated at the cathedral of Rome dedicated in His name. In the early Middle Ages, a large number of chapels and oratories were constructed by various Popes around the Lateran basilica; one of these was dedicated to Pope St. Sylvester I, and large enough that at least one medieval source refers to it as a basilica. The palms for the procession were blessed there by the cardinal archpriest of St. Lawrence outside-the-Walls, and then brought to the large dining hall known as the triclinium of St. Leo III; there, the Pope distributed them to the clergy and faithful, before the procession made its way through the complex into the cathedral itself. In the later Middle Ages, the Popes often preferred to reside at the Vatican, and so Palm Sunday also has a station informally assigned at St. Peter’s; on these occasions, the palms were blessed in an oratory known as S. Maria in Turri (St. Mary in-the-Tower), directly underneath the bell-tower within the large courtyard that stood before the ancient basilica. During the extensive renovations of the Lateran and Vatican complexes in the 16th and 17th centuries, S. Sylvester in Laterano and S. Maria in Turri were both demolished; and nowadays, the Pope routinely celebrates Palm Sunday at St. Peter’s.
The Basilica of St. Peter as it stood ca. 1450, by H.W. Brewer.
Ss. Sylvester I and Leo III both sat upon the chair of St. Peter during events of the greatest importance for the history of relations between Church and State. Sylvester was the first Pope to be elected under the peace granted by the Emperor Constantine, and received the property of the Lateran as a gift from him; he was later held to be the recipient of the temporal state of the Church as part of the so-called Donation of Constantine. While this document has long been known to be a fiction, it did not create the Papal State, but rather a legal sanction for the long-standing de facto possession of central Italy by the Papacy after the collapse of the Roman Empire. St. Leo III was the Pope who crowned Charlemagne as the first Holy Roman Emperor, after his predecessor had effectively made the Papal State a protectorate of the Frankish empire. The blessing and distribution of the palms in parts of the Lateran complex associated with these Popes is probably behind the text of the preface which forms part of the blessing of the palms in the Missal of St. Pius V; as many liturgical writers have noted, it is unusual as a preface in that it makes no specific reference to the occasion on which it is used.
Truly it is worthy and just etc. … Who gloriest in the counsel of Thy Saints. For Thy creatures serve Thee, because they know Thee to be their only author and God, and all Thou hast made praiseth Thee, and Thy saints bless Thee. Because with free voice they confess the great name of Thy Only-Begotten Son before the kings and powers of this age. Before Whom stand the Angels and Archangels, Thrones and Dominations, and with all the army of the heavenly host, they sing the hymn of Thy glory, saying without end. Holy, Holy, Holy etc.
On Monday of Holy Week, the station was originally kept at the church known as the “titulus fasciolae – the title of the bandage,” to the south of the Caelian Hill near the Baths of Carcalla. Several explanations have been proposed for this odd name; an ancient tradition states that when St. Peter had been released from prison by his jailers, and was fleeing Rome, he stopped on the site of this church to change the binding on the wound where his fetters had been. The church was also associated with two of the most venerated Roman martyrs of the early centuries, Ss. Nereus and Achilleus; nothing is now known of them for certain beyond their martyrdom and that they were soldiers who renounced their military service to follow Christ. Their unreliable legend states that they were baptized by St. Peter himself, and in the years after the Apostle’s death, made many converts among the Roman nobility, among them, Flavia Domitilla, a relative of the Emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Being close by the Lateran, their church (now much smaller after extensive restorations in the mid-15th and late 16th centuries) would have made a convenient station after the lengthy ceremony of the previous day.
The interior of Ss. Nereus and Achilleus. Photograph by Fr. Lawrence Lew O.P.
By the High Middle Ages, it had fallen into ruins, and the station was transferred to the church of St. Praxedes on the Esquiline hill, a few steps away from the basilica of St. Mary Major. Her legend says that during the persecutions, she and her sister Pudentiana expended their patrimony in tending to the saints, providing for their material needs, sheltering them, visiting them in prison, and burying them after they had received the crown of martyrdom. After many years spent in helping the Christians, she prayed God to release her from the sight of such cruelties as were inflicted upon them, and so died a peaceful death. Her feast day is kept on July 21, the day before that of St. Mary Magdalene, who appears in the Gospel of Holy Monday (John 12, 1-9) anointing the feet of Christ. Just as Praxedes and her sister tended to the needs of the martyrs before and after their suffering and death, Mary and her sister Martha tended to Christ before and after His Passion. Today He is received as a guest in their home, and His feet are anointed by Mary Magdalene, who will later come with several other women to His tomb to anoint His body.
Ss. Praxedes and Pudentiana, together with the Virgin Mary, from the mausoleum of Theodora, (portrayed on the left) the mother of Pope St. Paschal I, (817-24). Paschal rebuilt the church and added this funeral chapel on the north side of it; it is also called the Chapel of St. Zeno, but in the Middle Ages was often referred to as the Garden of Paradise. Theodora was still alive when the image was made, hence the square blue halo.
On Tuesday, the station is kept at the church of St. Prisca on the Aventine Hill. This church is built on the site of a very ancient title and house-church, long believed on good evidence to be one of the places where St. Peter stayed during his years in Rome. The titular saint shares the day of her martyrdom, January 18, with the feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Rome, and the anniversary of the church’s dedication is kept on the feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Antioch. It has been proposed that her association with St. Peter derives from presence of the relic venerated as the Apostle’s chair at the place of her burial, and perhaps later at her church, before it was moved to its present location at the Vatican.
The Gospel read at this Mass was originally John 13, 1-32, a longer version of the gospel of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. In this first chapter of the five which St. John devotes to the events of the Last Supper, St. Peter himself figures very prominently, first as the only disciple to speak when Christ washes the feet of the Twelve, and then as he asks John to ask the Lord which of the disciples is the traitor among them. Later on, it was replaced by the Passion according to St. Mark, the longest of the four Passions in proportion to its Gospel as a whole. St. Jerome, who lived for a time in Rome on the Aventine hill, records the tradition (also attested in much earlier sources) that Mark was the disciple and interpreter of Peter, who calls him “my son” in his first epistle, (5, 13) and composed his gospel in Rome before going to evangelize Egypt. It is therefore possible that St. Prisca stands on the very place where Mark wrote the Gospel, having learned of the life of Christ from one of the most important eyewitnesses.
Several years ago, I read a very interesting book called Mourning into Joy: Music, Raphael, and Saint Cecilia, by Thomas Connolly. (Yale Univ. Press, 1995). The principal subject is Raphael’s painting The Ecstasy of St Cecilia, but it also contains a great deal of information about devotion to the Saint, at whose basilica the Lenten station is held today. I am here paraphrasing what Connolly writes about this station, and its connection to Cecilia; the credit for putting this information together is entirely his.
The Ecstasy of St Cecilia, by Raphael, 1515-17, now in the National Gallery of Bologna. To the left of St Cecilia we see Ss Paul and John the Evangelist, to the right, Ss Augustine and Mary Magdalene. The broken instruments at her feet symbolize that she has rejected the things of this world in order to “sing only to God in her heart”, as is stated in her Office.
In 1744, three inscriptions were found very close to the Basilica of St Cecilia in the Trastevere area of Rome, referring to a small shrine of the “Bona Dea”, as she was called, “the good goddess.” Although she was quite popular in ancient Rome, we know very little about this goddess, since men were excluded from participation in her cult, and it was forbidden to write down what took place at her two annual festivals. One of these was held at a temple dedicated to her on the Aventine hill, the other in the house of the senior magistrate of the Republic, presided over by his wife. During the rites, all men and male animals were excluded from the house; in fact, “Good Goddess” is a euphemistic name, since men were not allowed to speak or even know her true name. One of the most famous episodes in the history of the late Roman Republic, involving all of the leading political figures of the day, including Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar, took place when these rites were held in the latter’s house in 62 BC. A man named Clodius Pulcher dressed as a woman in an attempt to sneak into the rites and seduce Caesar’s wife, creating an enormous and long-lasting scandal.
The Bona Dea was a goddess very much associated with female chastity, and therefore, anything to do with the goddess of sexual desire, Venus, was also removed from the house where the rites of the Bona Dea were held. This would include any statues and images of Venus, and most particularly the plant myrtle, which was woven into crowns and worn on the head by her worshippers at her principal festivals.
When the Lenten Station is held at the Basilica of St Cecilia on the Wednesday of the Second Week, next door to a shrine of the Bona Dea, the traditional Epistle is taken from the Deuterocanonical additions to the book of Esther, the only reading from that book in the Missal. (This reading was later borrowed from this day for the votive Mass “against the pagans.” It has been suppressed in the post-Conciliar rite.) In chapter 13, Mardochai is praying for the delivery of the Jewish people from their enemy Haman, who has arranged for the Persian Emperor to order the massacre of all the Jews in his dominions.
“In those days, Mardochai prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘O Lord, Lord, almighty king, for all things are in thy power, and there is none that can resist thy will, if thou determine to save Israel. Thou hast made heaven and earth, and all things that are under the cope of heaven. Thou art Lord of all, and there is none that can resist thy majesty. And now, O Lord, O king, O God of Abraham, have mercy on thy people, because our enemies resolve to destroy us, and extinguish thy inheritance. Despise not thy portion, which thou hast redeemed for thyself out of Egypt. Hear my supplication, and be merciful to thy lot and inheritance, and turn our mourning into joy, that we may live and praise thy name, O Lord, and shut not the mouths of them that sing to thee, O Lord, our God.’ ” (vss. 9-11 and 15-17)
This is the reading as it appears in the Missal of St Pius V, but before the Tridentine reform, it began as follows: “In those days, Esther prayed to the Lord, saying…” And this, despite the fact that it is Mardochai who offers this prayer in the Bible.
A leaf of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon in 1497. The Mass for today’s station begins in the middle of the right column.
It might seem that by taking the words of a man and putting them in the mouth of a woman, the Church has somehow adopted or absorbed an aspect of the Bona Dea cult when reading these words right next door to her shrine at the Basilica of St Cecilia. This is not the case, however. In chapter 2, 7, it is stated that Esther, (who becomes the Queen of Persia, and saves the Jews from Haman) was called “Hadassah,” (הֲדַסָּה) which is the Hebrew word for “myrtle”, the plant of Venus that was excluded from the rites of the Bona Dea. This would therefore be a deliberate critique of the Bona Dea, and a statement of rejection of the many pagan cults that excluded one class of persons or another.
Before the early eighth century, the church of Rome kept the Thursdays of Lent (with the obvious exception of Holy Thursday) and the Saturdays after Ash Wednesday and Passion Sunday as “aliturgical” days. (The term aliturgical refers, of course, only to the Eucharistic liturgy, not to the Divine Office.) This is attested in the oldest liturgical books of the Roman Rite, and in the collection of papal biographies called the Liber Pontificalis, which tells us that Pope St Gregory II (715-31) instituted the Masses of these days. This is why even in the Missal of St Pius V, the Thursdays of Lent borrow their chant parts (the introits, graduals, offertories and communions) from other Masses; the respect for the tradition codified by St Gregory the Great was such that it was deemed better not to add new pieces to the established repertoire. (The two formerly aliturgical Saturdays simply repeat the Gregorian propers from the previous day, indicating that their Masses were added by a different Pope.)
When the Mass was instituted for today, the station was appointed, for no readily obvious reason, at a church on the Esquiline Hill dedicated to St Lawrence, traditionally said to be the very place where his martyrdom happened. To distinguish it from his many other Roman churches, it now bears the nickname “in Panisperna”, but was long known as “in Formoso”; the origin and meaning of these terms is disputed. The Introit of the Mass is therefore repeated from his feast day. “Confessio et pulchritúdo in conspectu ejus: sánctitas et magnificentia in sanctificatióne ejus. Ps. 95 Cantáte Dómino cánticum novum: cantáte Dómino, omnis terra. Gloria Patri. Sicut erat. Confessio. – Praise and beauty are before him: holiness and majesty in his sanctuary. Sing to the Lord a new song: sing to the Lord, all the earth. Glory be. As it was. Praise.”
The Epistle, Ezechiel 18, 1-9, was clearly chosen as a prequel to that of the following day, verses 20-28 of the same chapter. This refers directly to St Lawrence, whom Pope Sixtus II set in charge of the Church’s charitable activities. “If a man be just, and do judgment and justice, … (and) hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment: hath walked in my commandments, and kept my judgments, to do truth: he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.” The words “if a man be just, and do … justice” refer to a verse of Psalm 111, “He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor: his justice remaineth for ever and ever,” which is cited by St Paul in the Epistle of St Lawrence’s feast, 2 Cor. 9, 6-10. This also looks back to the previous week’s reading from the prophet Isaiah (chap. 58, 1-9): “deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him.”
The Gradual, borrowed from the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, is taken from Psalm 16, and on this day is read as the prayer of the great martyr in the midst of his sufferings, sung by the Church on the very site where they were inflicted upon him. “Custódi me, Dómine, ut pupillam óculi: sub umbra alárum tuárum prótege me. V. De vultu tuo judícium meum pródeat: óculi tui vídeant æquitátem. – Keep me, o Lord, as the apple of Thine eye, beneath the shadow of Thy wings protect me. V. Let my judgment come forth from Thy countenance: let Thine eyes behold equity.” (Ps. 16, 8 and 2) The Gradual of his feast day, which in Rome would have been celebrated at his tomb, is taken from the same Psalm, and represents his plea to God after his sufferings had ended, and his body laid to rest. “Probasti, Dómine, cor meum, et visitasti nocte. V. Igne me examinasti, et non est inventa in me iníquitas. – Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night. V. Thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me.” (Ps. 16, 3)” Note the contrast between the first, which ends with the word “aequitas”, and the second, which ends with its opposite, “iniquitas.”
The Gospel, Matthew 15, 21-28, is the story of the Canaanite woman who comes to the Lord to plead for the healing of her daughter, who is possessed by a devil. The Lord at first appears to reject Her with the words, often so sadly misrepresented, “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs”, but at her reply, “ ‘Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters’, Jesus answering, said to her, ‘O woman, great is thy faith: be it done to thee as thou wilt’ and her daughter was cured from that hour.”
Christ and the Canaanite Woman, by Pieter Lastman (Dutch, 1583-1633), 1617
For the Fathers of the Church, this episode represents the conversion of the nations, an important theme in Lent, the season of baptismal preparation. In the first commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew by a Latin Father, St Hilary of Poitier explains that the Canaanite woman, who had “gone forth from the regions (of Tyre and Sidon)” represents the proselytes, the pagans who had “passed from the nations unto the works of the Law… She herself now needs no healing, who confesses Christ to be the Lord and the Son of David.” Her possessed daughter represents the unconverted: “but she asks for help for her daughter, that is, for the people of the nations, seized by the dominion of unclean spirits.”
“And so that we might understand that the Lord’s silence came because He chose when to speak, and not from any difficulty in His will, He added ‘O woman, great is thy faith’, so that she, now certain of her salvation, may also trust in the gathering (into the Church) of the nations, who, believing in that time, just like the girl, will be delivered from the rule of unclean spirits. … For after the people of the nations were prefigured in the daughter of the Canaanite woman, immediately, those who were taken by various kinds of illness are offered to the Lord upon the mountain (verses 29 and 30), which is to say, unbelievers and the sick are instructed by the faithful to worship and fall down (before the Lord), even they to whom health is restored, and all the powers of their mind and body are remade, so that they may hear, and behold, and praise and follow God.” (Commentary on Matthew 15, PL IX, 1004C sqq.)
A statue of St Hilary of Poitiers by Franz Anton Koch (1742) in the church of St Michael in Mondsee, Austria. The serpents at his feet represent the heresies which he fought and defeated with his writings. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 3.0)
An interesting theme runs through this Mass, in which “bread” is mentioned in both readings: in the Epistle, “if a man be just, and do judgment and justice, … (and) hath given his bread to the hungry”, and in the Gospel, “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs.” The Communion is taken from the 15th Sunday after Pentecost: “The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (John 6, 52. Incidentally, in the Gospel of this Sunday, Luke 7, 11-16, Christ also performs a miracle on behalf of a mother, the widow of Naim.) The Offertory is taken from the Sunday before that, and refers to eating. “The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him: and shall deliver them. O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet.” (Psalm 33, 8-9)
It seems possible that this theme was chosen to encourage observance of what was originally a liturgical novelty, the celebration, and therefore also the reception, of the Eucharist on a Thursday in Lent. On the following Thursday, the Communion is that of the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, also taken from John 6, “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him, saith the Lord.” (verse 57)
In the current arrangement of the Roman Breviary, this feria also has a responsory which makes reference to the Canaanite woman, and is used only on this day. (In some other Uses of the Roman Rite, the responsories of the first week of Lent are ordered differently, and this one is used more often.) Palestrina really outdid himself when he set it as a motet in 1572.
R. Tribulárer, si nescírem misericordias tuas, Dómine; tu dixisti: Nolo mortem peccatóris, sed ut magis convertátur et vivat: * Qui Chananaeam et publicánum vocasti ad poenitentiam. V. Secundum multitúdinem dolórum meórum in corde meo, consolatiónes tuae laetificavérunt ánimam meam. Qui Chananaeam.
R. Troubled had I been, but that I knew Thy mercies, o Lord; Thou didst say, “I will not the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn from his way and live”, * Thou, Who didst call the Canaanite woman and the publican unto repentance! V. According to the multitude of the sorrows within my heart, thy consolation have given joy to my soul. Thou, Who didst call…
The institution of the three Sundays before Lent, Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, is attributed to Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who reigned from 590 to 604. The plague which killed his predecessor, St Pelagius II, and lead to his election, was only one in a long series of disasters that befell the city of Rome and the Italian peninsula in the course of the sixth century. Constant warfare between the Goths, the Lombards and the Byzantines had brought to ruins much of the former Capital of the World, which in Gregory’s time was also largely abandoned. In the year 546, the Gothic king Totila had expelled most of the inhabitants from the city; small numbers of people returned, but the city would not be properly re-populated for centuries. The introit of the first of these Sundays, Septuagesima, reflects the turbulent and mournful age in which it was composed: “The groans of death have surrounded me, the pains of death have surrounded me, and in my tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice from His holy temple.” The theme of calling upon the Lord in a time of tribulation is repeated frequently though the Masses of these Sundays.
The station churches of this pre-Lenten period comprise a series of visits to the tombs of the major patrons of Rome, invoking their aid and protection for the beleaguered city. On Septuagesima, the station is kept at the church of Saint-Lawrence-outside-the-Walls, built over the tomb of the famous deacon and martyr. On Sexagesima, the station is at Saint-Paul’s-outside-the-Walls, and on Quinquagesima at Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, both of which have the tombs of the Apostles for whom they are named under the main altar. On the following Sunday, the first of Lent, the station is at the cathedral of Rome, the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, commonly called Saint John in the Lateran. The stations of the pre-Lenten period therefore repeat those of the Easter octave in reverse order: Saint John on the Easter vigil, Saint Peter on Easter Monday, Saint Paul on Tuesday and Saint Lawrence on Wednesday. The station at Mary Major for the feast of the Purification, which often falls within the season of Septuagesima, corresponds to the same stational observance on Easter Sunday.
The epistles of the three Masses are chosen in reference to the station churches. On Septuagesima, St Paul compares the Christian life to the athletic contests of the ancient Romans: “but they contend for a corruptible crown, we for an incorruptible one.” (1 Cor. 9, 24 – 10, 5) From the earliest times, the martyrs have been called the ‘athletae – champions or combatants’ of Christ par excellence, and the word ‘athleta’ is used in countless liturgical Offices. The symbol of victory in the Roman athletic stadium, the palm branch, is still used as a symbol of martyrdom; this epistle is therefore fittingly read at the tomb of St Lawrence. Over the course of Lent, stations will be kept at four different churches dedicated to this most renowned among Rome’s many martyrs; a great many other churches and chapels, including the private chapel of the Papal household, were dedicated to him in the Middle Ages.
The entrance to the tomb of Saint Lawrence at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura
The epistle of Sexagesima is the longest Sunday epistle of the year. (2 Cor. 11, 19 – 12, 9) The collect of this Mass is one of two in the temporal cycle that refer to the Saint in whose honor the stational church is dedicated; it may have been borrowed from a group of collects originally used on the Commemoration of Saint Paul on June 30th, also celebrated with a station at his church. At the tomb of Saint Paul, the Church reads his lengthy apologia for his works as an Apostle, in which he recalls the sufferings he has undergone in his mission to proclaim the Gospel. In the Ambrosian rite, this same epistle is read on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29th; the church of Milan seems to have borrowed this reading from the Mass of Sexagesima. (Pictured right - Ss Peter and Paul, by El Greco; 1590-1600)
On Quinquagesima, although the station is at St Peter’s, the epistle is not taken from either of his Biblical letters; rather, the so-called Hymn of Charity from the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians is read. (chapter 13) The Vatican is not only the site of Saint Peter’s tomb, but also of his death in the circus of Caligula, in the area on the south side of the Basilica. An ancient tradition tells us that Peter was crucified upside-down at his own request, saying to the Roman executioners that he was unworthy to die in precisely the same manner as the Lord, and wished his cross to be turned so that he might look towards Heaven. This happened in fulfillment of the words of Christ to Peter, “thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another will gird thee, and lead thee where thou wouldst not.” This prophecy was given just after Peter had three times answered the question “Simon, do you love me?” with the answer, “Lord, you know that I love you”, rendering a threefold confession for his threefold denial, as Saint Augustine says. At the place where the sacred relics of the Prince of the Apostles are kept and venerated, it is his fellow Apostle and co-founder of the Roman Church who speaks of the love of God, for the sake of which St. Peter embraced his martyrdom, a stone’s throw away from his tomb.
These same three Roman patron saints, Peter, Paul and Lawrence, were also essential to the transformation of the heart of pagan Rome into a Christian sacred space. The main street of the Roman Forum was called the Via Sacra, the Sacred Way, because it passes by several of the most ancient and notable temples. Close to the Capitoline Hill, from which the great temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus looked down over the city, it comes very close to the Mamertine Prison, where important prisoners awaited judgment and execution. In 141 A.D., the Emperor Antoninus Pius built a new and imposing temple on the Via Sacra about half way through the Forum, in honor of his recently deceased and divinized wife, Faustina; when Antoninus died in 161, he was in due course divinized himself, and added to his wife’s temple.
Saint Justin Martyr and other early Church fathers knew of the tradition that Simon Magus, who sought to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from St. Peter (Acts 8), was in Rome at the same time as the Eternal City’s founding Apostles. The apocryphal Acts of St Peter tell the story that Simon sought to win the Emperor Nero to his teachings, which he would prove to be true by flying off a tower built in the Forum specifically for this purpose. As he was lifted up into the air by the agency of demons, Peter and Paul knelt on the street and prayed to God, whereon Simon was dropped, and soon after died of his injuries.
The Fall of Simon Magus, by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1461-62
The legend goes on to say that the enraged Nero arrested Peter and Paul and threw them into the Mamertine prison before their execution. There they converted the two wardens, Processus and Martinian, in whose acts it is told that St Peter caused a well to spring up from the ground so that he could baptize them. The site has been venerated as the place of the Apostles’ imprisonment for many centuries, and pilgrims can still visit it to this day; a plaque near the door lists the famous Roman prisoners, such as King Jugurtha of Numidia, who were killed there, the saints who suffered and died within its walls, and the later saints who have come to venerate the site. On the opposite end of the Via Sacra, Pope St. Paul I built an oratory dedicated to Peter and Paul, nicknamed ‘ubi cecidit magus – where the magician fell.’ This oratory contained as its principal relic the stone upon which St. Peter knelt to pray for the defeat of Simon Magus (pictured right) and the vindication of the Christian faith. The oratory was later demolished, but the stone itself is preserved in the nearby church of Santa Maria Nuova. (Photo courtesy of J.P. Sonnen.)
Some of the numerous churches in Rome dedicated to Saint Lawrence are connected with the events of his martyrdom, such as San Lorenzo in Panisperna, which is venerated as the place where he was killed by being grilled over a fire. A tradition of uncertain origin claims that the great deacon-martyr was tried and sentenced to death on the steps of the temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina. Sometime in the seventh or eighth century, the central part of this temple was complete rebuilt and transformed into a church, called San Lorenzo in Miranda.
The church of San Lorenzo in Miranda, within the temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina.
The Mamertine, the Oratory of Ss. Peter and Paul, and San Lorenzo in Miranda are not the first Christian sites in the Roman Forum. Indeed, the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian fronts on the Via Sacra, and was dedicated in 527 A.D., less than twenty years before the depopulation of the city. However, Cosmas and Damian, although highly venerated throughout the Christian world, were Arabians, not Romans, and are depicted as such in their church. The later churches discussed here are particularly important, partly because they are on the Via Sacra, but much more so because they are dedicated to three Roman saints, honoring Peter and Paul on either end of the Forum, and Saint Lawrence right in the middle. Regardless of the truth or falsehood of the legends with which they are associated, by the end of the eighth century, the Sacred Way itself had become sacred to Christ, and to the memory of some of His most illustrious and most Roman ‘athletae’.
The Dialogues of St Gregory the Great are a collection of stories and miracles of Saints whom the author knew personally, or were known by people whom he knew, written as a conversation between himself and a Roman deacon named Peter. The work was translated into Greek early on, and became very popular in the East, whence Gregory’s nickname in the Byzantine tradition, “the Dialogist.” The second book is occupied entirely by the life and deeds of St Benedict, for which it is earliest and the most important source.
In the fourteenth chapter of the fourth book, Gregory gives this touching story of a paralyzed beggar named Servulus, who was wont to spend much of his time in the portico of the basilica of St Clement in Rome. Servulus’ death, which took place on December 23rd, was witnessed by a member of the monastic community which Gregory had led prior to his papal election; this unnamed man was still alive at the time he wrote.
The façade and part of the portico of the modern basilica of St Clement, which was built in the early 12th century, replacing the building that Ss Gregory and Servulus would have known. (Image from Wikimedia Commons, released to the public domain by the author.)
“… often when the souls of the elect go forth, a sweet sound of heavenly praise is wont to burst forth, so that, as they willingly listen to it, they may be permitted by the soul to barely feel the dissolution of the flesh. … in that porch which leads the way to the church of the blessed Clement, there was a certain man called Servulus … who was poor in wealth, but rich in merits, and whom a long sickness had afflicted. For from the time when I first came to know him to the end of his life, he lay paralyzed. What can I say, but that he could not stand, and was never able to sit up in his bed, could never put his hand to his mouth, or turn from one side to the other. His mother and brother attended and served him, and whatever he could get in alms, by their hands he bestowed upon other poor people. He could not read at all, yet he had bought for himself the books of Sacred Scripture, and taking in as guests any religious men, he eagerly had them read them to him; and thus it came about that he fully learned the Sacred Scripture in his own way. …
He always took care in his pains to give God thanks day and night with hymns and praises, and when he knew that he was close to death, he urged all the strangers lodged in his house to rise and sing psalms with him as he awaited his departure. And as he, though dying, was singing with them, of a sudden he restrained the voices of the singers, startling them with a loud cry, and saying, ‘Be silent! Do you not hear the great praises that resound in heaven?’ And while he lay the ear of heart to those praises which he heard inwardly, his holy soul was released from the flesh, and as it went forth, so great a fragrance filled the place, that all who were present were filled with an unfathomable sweetness, and thus did they clearly learn from this that those praises had received his soul in heaven. One of our monks who is still living was present for this event, and bears witness to it with great weeping, for until they gave his body over for burial, they smelled that fragrance continually.”
As part of a recent jubilee year pilgrimage to Rome, the Institute of the Good Shepherd celebrated Vespers in the Pantheon on December 11th, the feast of Pope St Damasus I. The main celebrant was Monsignor Valentin Miserachs Grau, a canon of the basilica of St Mary Major who has been an important figure in sacred music in Rome for many years; he was formerly the director of the choir at Mary Major, and served as dean of the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music from 1995-2012. Once again, we are glad to share some very beautiful photos taken by our friend Don Elvir Tabaković, a former professional photographer from Croatia who is now in religious life.
Mons Miserachs meets members of the Institute in the porch of the Pantheon.
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