In the Missal of St Pius V, the Creed is said on every Sunday, and several categories of feasts: all those of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, Angels, Apostles, Doctors, etc. To this list is added one other woman, St Mary Magdalene, in commemoration of the fact that it was she who announced the Resurrection of Christ, the foundation of the Faith, to the Apostles; for this reason she has often been called “the Apostles of the Apostles.” This custom was widely observed in the Middle Ages, but originally not accepted at Rome itself; the Ordinal of the papal liturgy in the reign of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) specifies that the Creed is not to be said on the feast, indicating that it was known to be done elsewhere. It was still omitted according to the rubrics of printed editions of the Roman Missal in the first half of the 16th century; its addition in the rubrics of 1570 is one of the rare cases where a new custom was added to the Roman Rite from elsewhere in the highly conservative Tridentine reform. (It was removed from her feast in 1955, and from the Doctors in 1961.)
Two pages of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon, France, in 1500 (folio 95 recto and verso). The rubric about the Creed begins in the middle of the right column of the first page. Note that at the break between the two pages, St Bonaventure is listed as a Saint on whose feast the Creed is said; this edition was printed for the Franciscans, who counted him informally as a Doctor before the title was officially given in 1588. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Réserve des livres rares.)
The Gregorian propers of her Mass (Introit, Gradual etc.) are taken from the various common Masses of holy women; in the Middle Ages, the Epistle was that of Holy Matrons, Proverbs 31, 10-31, “Who shall find a valiant woman? etc.” In the Tridentine Missal, a new Epistle was created, the Song of Songs, 3, 2-5 and 8, 6-7, which begins as follows.
I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. (quaesivi illum et non inveni.) The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go ...
St Gregory the Great refers the words “I will seek him whom my soul loveth” to John 20, 11-18, when Mary meets Christ at the tomb and mistakes him for the gardener, in the Breviary homily for Easter Thursday.
We must consider how great was the force of love that had enkindled this woman’s heart, who left not the tomb of the Lord, though even the disciples were gone away. She sought Him Whom she had not found there, (exquirebat, quem non invenerat) and as she sought Him, she wept, … Whence it came to pass that she alone, who had stayed behind to seek Him, was the only one who then saw Him.
“When I had a little passed by them” (i.e. the watchmen of the city) then refers to tomb of the Lord being just outside the city, and the words “I held him: and I will not let him go” to her embracing the Lord, until He says to her, “Cling to me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”
‘Noli me tangere’ by Jacob van Oostsanen, 1507. The words of John 20, 15, that Mary Magdalene at first thought the Risen Christ was the gardener, gave rise to a delightful tradition of portraying Him with various gardening implements, such as the shovel seen here, or the kind of broad-brimmed hat often worn by gardeners.
From the time of St Gregory, the Western Church accepted that Mary Magdalene was also the sinful woman who anoints Christ’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee, as recounted in Luke 7, 36-50, the Gospel for her feast. This connection was probably made from the words that immediately follow this passage, or at least reinforced by them, Luke 8, 1-3. “And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, And Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto him of their substance.” (Mark 16, 9 also refers to the seven devils.)
She is also traditionally held in the West to be Martha and Lazarus’ sister, of whom Christ says in the same Gospel “Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10, 38-42) This passage is read on the feast of St Martha on July 29th, the octave of Mary Magdalene; from it, Martha has traditionally been seen as the symbol of the active life, and Mary of the contemplative. The same passage is then read also on the feast of the Assumption, a custom inherited, like the feast of itself, from the Byzantine Rite; this was understood allegorically in the Middle Ages to signify that in the person and life of the Virgin Mary are perfected both the active and the contemplative life.
Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, by Henryk Semiradzki, 1886
The Byzantine Rite (in which the Creed is said at every Eucharistic liturgy) keeps July 22 as the feast of the “Myrrh-bearer and Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene,” and on June 4 commemorates “Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus the Just.” Neither of the two Marys thus distinguished is associated with the sinful woman of Luke 7, but the Gospel of Mary Magdalene’s feast day is the passage from Luke 8 noted above. The two sisters are traditionally numbered among the “Myrrh-bearers” who went to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ on the morning of the Resurrection, although they are not named as such by the Gospel; with them are included also Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, Joanna and Susanna named in Luke 8, and Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. They are commemorated as a group on the second Sunday after Easter, along with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. At Vespers of the preceding Saturday, the following idiomel is sung, paraphrasing Matthew 28 and Luke 24.
Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came to the grave seeking the Lord, and they saw an Angel like lightning sitting on the stone, who said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He has risen as he said; in Galilee you will find him’. To him let us cry aloud, ‘Lord, risen from the dead, glory to you!’
In the Roman Rite, Matthew 28, 1-7 is the Gospel of the Easter vigil, which concludes with a very much shortened Vespers; the antiphon for the Magnificat is the beginning of the Gospel, “And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher, alleluia.” Even though the term “Apostle of the Apostles” does not occur in the Roman liturgical books, the liturgy itself proclaims this role for her as the first person named in the accounts of the Resurrection.
The church of Rome was traditionally very conservative about the addition of new texts to the Office; one often finds that the proper Office of a saint hugely popular in the Middle Ages, such as St Nicholas, is found in virtually every medieval Breviary except that of the Roman Curia, the basis of the Breviary of St Pius V. Such is the case with Mary Magdalene, whose Roman Office is mostly that of the common of Holy Women. She has proper antiphons for the Benedictus and the two Magnificats, but none for the psalms; there are also three proper hymns, although that of Matins is a single stanza and a doxology. Three responsories at Matins referring to her are borrowed from Easter, but the rest are taken from the common of Holy Women.
Other medieval breviaries, however, adopted one of various proper Offices for the feast, of which the most interesting is that found in the Dominican Breviary. At First Vespers, the antiphon of the Magnificat reads as follows:
Celsi mériti María, quae solem verum resurgentem vidére meruisti mortalium prima: óbtine ut nos visu gloriae suae tecum laetíficet in caelis.
Mary of high merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the true Sun rising; obtain that He may grant us joy by the vision of His glory in heaven.
And at the Benedictus:
O mundi lampas, et margaríta praefúlgida, quae resurrectiónem Christi nuntiando, Apostolórum Apóstola fíeri meruisti! María Magdaléna, semper pia exoratrix pro nobis adsis ad Deum, qui te elégit.
O lamp of the world, and bright-shining pearl, who by announcing the Resurrection of Christ, didst merit to become the Apostle of the Apostles! Mary Magdalene, of thy kindness stand thou ever before God, who chose thee, to entreat him for us.
Outstanding among the responsories of Matins is the eighth, (necessarily not as beautiful in my translation).
R. O felix felícis mériti María, quæ resurgentem a mórtuis Dei Filium vidére meruisti mortalium prima! Pro cujus amore, sæculi contempsisti blandimenta: * sédula nos apud ipsum, quæsumus, prece commenda. V. Ut tecum mereámur, o Dómina, pérfrui felicíssima ipsíus præsentia. Sédula. R. O happy Mary of happy merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the Son of God rising from the dead; for whose love thou disdained the blandishments of the world: * by thy prayer, we ask thee, commend us to Him with diligence. V. That with thee, o Lady, we may merit to enjoy his most happy presence. By thy prayer.
The Office used by the Premonstatensians shares a number of texts with that of the Dominicans; it contains this very interesting and uncommonly long (and hence rather rarely used) antiphon:
Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus, quia Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere; et qui nasci dignatus est de Maria Virgine, tangi non dedignatus est a Maria peccatrice. Haec est illa Maria, cui dimissa sunt peccata multa, quia dilexit multum. Haec est enim illa Maria, quae resurgentem a mortuis prima omnium videre meruit Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, quem pro nostris reatibus oret, quaesumus, in aeternum.
A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners; and He that deigned to be born of the Virgin Mary, did not disdain to be touched by Mary the sinner. This is that Mary, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. This is indeed that Mary, who before all others merited to see our Lord Jesus Christ rising from the dead; and we ask that she pray Him forever for our sins.
Lastly, we may note the Preface of her feast in the Ambrosian liturgy, another text that can only suffer in translation.
Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos te, Pater omnipotens, omni tempore glorificare, et in die festivitatis hodiernae Beatae Mariae Magdalenae exultantibus animis praedicare. Quam sic tui amoris igne accendere dignatus es; ut ad Christi Filii tui vestigia devota corrueret, et eadem pretioso unguento perfunderet. Osculari quoque, ac lacrimis rigare, et capillis non cessat extergere, donec audire promeruit, ‘Dimissa sunt tibi peccata, vade in pace.’ O beata fides, divinae misericordiae munita praesidio! O digna conversio, quae tantum munus accepit, ut quae antea draconis antiqui faucibus merito tenebatur astricta, plena jam gaudens libertate, sanctis Apostolis dominincae Resurrectionis mereretur esse praenuncia. Et ideo…
Truly it is fitting and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we glorify Thee, Father almighty, in every moment, and on this feast day of blessed Mary Magdalene proclaim Thee with spirits rejoicing. Whom Thou didst so deign to kindle with the fire of Thy love, that in devotion she fell at the feet of Christ, Thy Son, and anointed them with precious ointment; and ceased not to kiss them, to wash them with her tears, and wipe them with her hair, until she merits to hear, ‘Thy sins are forgiven go, in peace.’ O blessed faith, strengthened with the help of divine mercy. O worthy conversion, that merited to receive so great a gift, that she who was formerly deservedly held fast in the jaws of the ancient dragon, now rejoicing in complete freedom, should merit to be the first to announce the Lord’s Resurrection to the Holt Apostles. And therefore with the Angels and Archangels…
The Penitent Magdalene, by Caravaggio, ca. 1594-95.
By “the Gospel of Nicodemus”, I mean not the apocryphal gospel of that title, but the passage of St John’s Gospel in which Christ speaks to Nicodemus, chapter 3, verses 1-21. This passage has an interesting and complex history among the readings of the Easter season. For liturgical use, the Roman Rite divides it into two parts, the second of which begins at one of the most famous verses in all the Gospels, John 3, 16, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son …”; the first part anciently included verse 16, but was later cut back to end at 15.
Christ and Nicodemus, by Fritz van Uhde, ca. 1886
The oldest surviving Roman lectionary, the “Comes Romanus” of Wurzburg, was written around 700 A.D, and represents the liturgy of approximately 50-100 years earlier, the period just after St Gregory the Great; in it, John 3, 1-16 is assigned to be read twice in Eastertide. The first occasion is on the Pascha annotinum, the anniversary of the previous year’s Easter and baptism of the catechumens. The second is the Octave Day of Pentecost, the observance of which is, of course, much older than the feast of the Holy Trinity which we now keep on that Sunday.
In his Treatises on the Gospel of St John (11.3), St Augustine say that “this Nicodemus was from among those who had believed in (Christ’s) name, seeing the signs and wonders which He did” at the end of the previous chapter. (2, 23) “Now in this Nicodemus, let us consider why Jesus did not yet entrust Himself to them. ‘Jesus answered, and said to him: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ (John 3, 3) Therefore, Jesus entrusts Himself to those who have been born again. … Such are all the catechumens: they already believe in the name of Christ, but Jesus does not entrust himself to them. If we shall say to the catechumen, ‘Do you believe in Christ?’ he answers, ‘I believe’, and signs himself; he already bears the Cross of Christ on his forehead.”
These words refer to the very ancient custom, still a part of the rites of Baptism to this very day, by which the catechumens were signed on their foreheads with the Cross. Augustine here follows his teacher St Ambrose, who says in his book On the mysteries, “The catechumen also believes in the Cross of the Lord Jesus, by which he is also signed: but unless he shall be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive forgiveness of sins, nor take in the gift of spiritual grace.” (chapter 4)
Augustine then says (11.4), “Let us ask (the catechumen), ‘Do you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink (His) blood?’ He does not know what we are saying, because Jesus has not entrusted Himself to him.” The fact that Nicodemus first came to Christ at night (John 3, 2) also refers to his status as a catechumen. “Those who are born from water and the Spirit (John 3, 5), what do they hear from the Apostle? ‘For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk then as children of the light.’ (Eph. 5, 8) and again, ‘Let us who are of the day be sober.’ (1 Thess. 5, 8) Those then who have been reborn, were of the night, and are of the day; they were darkness, and are light. Jesus already entrusts Himself to them, and they do not come to Jesus at night as Nicodemus did…”.
Following this interpretation, the Gospel is perfectly suited for the celebration of the Pascha annotinum, in which the catechumens commemorated the day when Christ first entrusted Himself to them in both Baptism and the Eucharist.
Two leaves of a 1491 Missal according to the Use of Passau (Germany). The Mass for the Octave Day of Pentecost begins towards the bottom of the first column on the left, with the rubric “everything as on the feast, except the Epistle and Gospel.”
On the Octave Day of Pentecost, this Gospel is repeated, although the Wurzburg manuscript here attests to a custom of the Roman Rite observed in northern Europe, but not in Rome itself. Already in very ancient times, baptisms were done on Pentecost as on Easter; this is attested in a letter of Pope St Siricius (384-399) to Himerius, bishop of Tarragon in Spain (cap. 2), and one of Pope St Leo the Great (440-461), in which he exhorts the bishops of Sicily to follow the Church’s custom and the example of the Apostle Peter, who baptized three thousand persons on Pentecost day. (Epist. 16) The Gospel of the vigil of Pentecost, John 14, 15-21, is continued on the feast itself with verses 23-31, both passages referring to the sending of the Holy Spirit. Since Baptism was traditionally administered on Pentecost, the reading of the Nicodemus Gospel on the Octave, a foundational text for the Church’s understanding of that Sacrament, expresses what an important aspect of the feast this really was.
This point is made even more clearly by the Ambrosian rite. The Church of Milan assigns two Masses to the Easter vigil and each day of Easter week, one “of the solemnity”, and a second “for the (newly) baptized”; the latter form a final set of lessons for the catechumens who have just been received into the Church. At the Easter vigil Mass “for the baptized”, the Nicodemus Gospel is read, ending at verse 13. The first prayer of this Mass begins with a citation of it: “O God, who lay open the entrance of the heavenly kingdom to those reborn from water and the Holy Spirit, increase upon Thy servants the grace which Thou hast given; so that those who have been cleaned from all sins, may not be deprived of the promises.” The Epistle, Acts 2, 29-38, is taken from St Peter’s speech on the first Pentecost, ending with the words, “and you will receive the Holy Spirit.”
On Easter itself, the Gospel of the Mass “for the baptized” is John 7, 37-39.
On the great day of the festivity, the Lord Jesus stood and cried out, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive, who believed in him: [for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.]
However, the words noted here in brackets are omitted at this Mass. Pentecost also has two Masses, and at its Mass “for the baptized”, this Gospel is repeated, but including the final words, further emphasizing the connection between the two great baptismal feasts.
The remains of the Baptistery of Saint John at the Fonts (San Giovanni alle Fonti), the paleo-Christian baptistery of Milan, discovered under the modern Duomo in 1889.
In the second-oldest Roman lectionary, the Comes of Murbach, roughly a century later than the Wurzburg manuscript, the Nicodemus Gospel was added to a third Mass, that of the Finding of the Cross on May 3rd. The origin and gradual diffusion of this feast are not the subject of this article; suffice it to note two points here. The Wurzburg lectionary has neither the Finding of the Cross nor the Exaltation, but both are in Murbach, and are well-established by the end of the Carolingian period. The latest possible date for Easter, (occurring only once per century since the Gregorian Calendar was promulgated in 1582), is April 25, making May 2nd the latest date for Low Sunday. It is probably not a coincidence that the Finding of the Cross was fixed to May 3rd, the first date at which it must occur in Eastertide, but cannot fall within the Easter Octave itself.
The choice of Gospel was certainly determined by the final words, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting.” St Augustine explains, “As those who looked upon the serpent did not perish from the bites of the serpents; so those who with faith look upon the death of Christ are healed from the bites of sins. But they were healed from death to temporal life: here, however, He says “that they may have eternal life.” (Tract. in Joannem, 12, 11)
The Deposition of Christ, by Michelangelo, 1547-53, also known as the “Nicodemus Pietà” from the generally accepted tradition that the hooded figure at the top of the group is Nicodemus, and a self-portrait of the artist. From the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo di Firenze.
It may also have been motivated by the fact that the Pascha annotinum was by this time falling into disuse; Bl. Ildephonse Schuster notes in The Sacramentary (vol. 2, p. 260) that it is only rarely mentioned in Rome after the 8th century. (The Murbach lectionary omits its Epistle.) This is probably due both to the disappearance of the adult catechumenate, and to the fact that it was supposed to be celebrated with the same rites as Easter itself, but will often occur in Lent; it would then have to be transferred, rather obviating the point of it. Assigning John 3, 1-16 to May 3rd may therefore have been intended to maintain its importance by finding it a more prominent position in the liturgy. And indeed, it is as the Gospel of the Finding of the Cross that it will serve as part of the liturgy of Eastertide past the Middle Ages and through the Tridentine period.
Although the Octave of Pentecost is very ancient, Rome and the Papal court never kept the first Sunday after Pentecost as part of it. (This forms another parallel with Easter, since the liturgy of Low Sunday differs in many respects from that of Easter itself.) In northern Europe, as noted above, the Octave Day was a proper octave, repeating the Mass of the feast, but with different readings: Apocalypse 4, 1-10 as the Epistle, and John 3, 1-16 as the Gospel. Both of these traditions were slowly but steadily displaced by the feast of the Trinity, first kept at Liège in the early 10th century; but there was a divergence of customs here as well. When Pope John XXII (1316-34) ordered that Holy Trinity be celebrated throughout the Western Church, he placed it on the Sunday after Pentecost, a custom which became universal after Trent. But even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries and several major dioceses in Germany still kept the older Octave Day of Pentecost, and put the feast of the Trinity on the Monday after.
Others compromised between the older custom and the new by keeping the readings from the Octave of Pentecost, but inserting them into the Mass of the Trinity; this was observed at Sarum, and by the medieval Dominicans and Premonstratensians. After the Tridentine reform, however, as part of the general tendency to Romanize liturgical books, this compromise was retained only by the Old Observance Carmelites, leaving the first part of the Nicodemus Gospel only on the Finding of the Cross for all the rest of the Roman Rite.
In 1960, the feast was suppressed from the general Calendar, and relegated to the Missal’s appendix “for some places”, causing the effective disappearance of the crucial Gospel passage from the liturgy of Eastertide. This defect been partially remedied in the Novus Ordo; the reading is broken into two pieces, assigned to the Monday and Tuesday after Low Sunday, but not to any major feast of the season.
A second (and shorter) part of this article will consider the second part of the Gospel of Nicodemus, John 3, 16-21, on Pentecost Monday, June 9th.
In light of the Church’s very ancient tradition of celebrating the Saints’ feasts on the day of their death, when they attain to their heavenly reward, the Conversion of St Paul is almost unique in specifically commemorating the beginning of a Saint’s career. I say “almost” because traditionally, many feasts of bishops are kept on the date of their episcopal ordination. However, this custom arose from cases like that of St Basil the Great, who died on January 1st, where another feast was already in place, or St Ambrose, who died on Holy Saturday of 397, April 4th, a date which frequently occurs in Holy Week or the Easter octave. (A more recent example is Pope St John Paul II, who died on April 2, and is kept on October 22, the day of his Papal inauguration.) There is no feast analogous to the Conversion of St Paul for the callings of the other Apostles, although the Gospel accounts thereof may be read on their feast days.
The reason for the choice of date for this feast is unknown. An early martyrology attributed to St Jerome refers to January 25 as the “translation” of St Paul. One would suppose that the feast must therefore be Roman in origin, since the only known major translation of St Paul’s relics took place within Rome. However, it actually originated in the Gallican Rite; it is absent from the oldest Roman lectionary, and the most ancient sacramentaries. At the beginning of the eighth century, the feast first appears with the title of “Conversio” on the calendar of St Willibrord, and by 750, in the second oldest lectionary of the Roman Rite.
With its classic liturgical conservatism, the church of Rome was slow to adopt new liturgical formulae even for some of the most venerated Saints. As I have noted in previous articles, it was almost the only place to have no proper Office for St Nicholas, and only a very partial one for St Mary Magdalene. Likewise, the Roman Mass and Office of St Paul’s Conversion are copied, with some adjustments, from the older and specifically Roman feast on June 30th, originally known as the “dies natalis – the birth (into heaven)” of St Paul, and later as the “Commemoration of St Paul”.
Among the Gregorian propers of the Mass, the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion are the same on both days, while only the Alleluia differs. Of the three prayers, the Collect of the Commemoration is partly rewritten for the Conversion, the Secret is the same, the Postcommunion differs, but the latter two make no reference to the feast. The Scriptural readings of the Conversion, Acts 9, 1-22 and Matthew 19, 27-29, were both originally used on the Commemoration, and then later changed on that day (since the liturgical conservatism of Rome was strong, but not absolute.) The Roman Office of the Conversion has only two musical propers distinct from those of the Commemoration, the Magnificat antiphon of first Vespers (which was suppressed in 1955) and the Invitatory.
The Introit Scio cui credidi
In his History of the Roman Breviary, Mons. Pierre Batiffol dedicates a large portion of the sixth chapter (almost 40 pages in the 1912 English edition) to a congregation appointed by Pope Benedict XIV (1740-58) in 1741 to make and study various proposals for a reform of the Breviary. The consultors agreed that the Commemoration of St Paul should be suppressed from the general calendar, since the Pope no longer went to the Apostle’s tomb on that day, which was the feast’s original purpose. On the other hand, there was no question that the Conversion of St Paul should be retained. This proposal for the secondary feasts of St Paul was implemented in the post-Conciliar reform, which often claimed to return to the original customs of the Roman Rite, but in this case, completely suppressed a feast which is indisputably Roman and ancient, and retained one which is indisputably not Roman and later.
Batiffol also notes that one of the consultors of the congregation, noticing that the musical propers in the Office of January 25th make no reference to the feast, composed a whole new Office for it based on the reading from Acts 9. The congregation, whose work was never implemented, and whose papers were not rediscovered and published until well over a century later, rejected the proposal. For all his trouble, the poor consultor might just as easily have proposed the adoption of the proper Office for the feast then used by the Dominicans, which contains a number of very beautiful texts, such as the third responsory for Matins.
R. A Christo de caelo vocátus, et in terra prostrátus, ex persecutóre effectus est vas electiónis: et plus ómnibus labórans, multo latius inter omnes verbi gratiam seminávit, * atque doctrínam evangélicam sua praedicatióne complévit. V. Inter Apóstolos vocatióne novíssimus, praedicatióne primus, nomen Christi multárum manifestávit gentium pópulis. Atque. Gloria Patri. Atque. R. Called by Christ from heaven, and laid low upon the earth, from a persecutor, he became a chosen vessel, and laboring more than all others, sowed the grace of the word much more broadly among all, * and completed the teaching of the Gospel by his preaching. V. Last among the Apostles by vocation, but first in preaching, he made the name of Christ known to the people of the nations. And. Glory be. And.
In this same Office, the Magnificat antiphon at Second Vespers is the only one taken from one of St Paul’s Epistles, Galatians 1, 15-16.
Aña Cum autem complacuit ei qui me segregavit ex utero matris meae, et vocavit per gratiam suam, ut revelaret in me Filium suum in gentibus, continuo non acquievi carni et sanguine. ~ But when it pleased Him, who set me apart me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal His Son in me among the Gentiles, immediately I condescended not to flesh and blood.
The feast of St Peter’s Chair was originally kept on one of two dates. Some sources, going back to the fourth century, attest to it on January 18th, among them, an ancient Martyrology formerly attributed to St. Jerome. Others place it on February 22nd, such as the Philocalian Calendar, which contains an equally ancient list of liturgical celebrations. It is not at all clear why exactly the same feast is found on two different dates, and even less clear why a surprising number of early Roman sacramentaries and lectionaries make no reference to it at all. However, in the later Middle Ages, the January 18th observance had been almost completely forgotten, and the liturgical books of the period before the Council of Trent, even those of the Ambrosian and Mozarabic Rites, are nearly unanimous in keeping the feast on February 22.
In 1558, Pope Paul IV (pictured right), a strong promoter of the Counter-Reformation, added a second feast of St Peter’s Chair to the calendar, on January 18: a response, of course, to the early Protestant Reformers’ rejection of the governing authority of the See of Peter and the bishop of Rome. The newly restored feast was assigned to the day given in the ancient manuscripts, particularly the Martyrology “of St. Jerome,” which the scholars of the era regarded as an especially important witness to the traditions of the Roman Church, where Jerome had once live and served as secretary to the Pope.
Although it was then a very new custom to keep two feasts of St Peter’s Chair, both were included in the revised Breviary called for by the Council of Trent, and issued at Rome in 1568 under the authority of Pope St Pius V. January 18th was now qualified, in accordance with the evidence of certain manuscripts, as the feast of St. Peter’s Chair in Rome, while February 22 was renamed St Peter’s Chair at Antioch, where the Prince of the Apostles was also the first bishop, and where “the disciples were first given the name Christian.” (Acts 11, 25) It should be noted that although the January feast was the more recent in terms of the liturgical practice of not just Rome, but the entire Latin Rite, the more important of the two titles is assigned to it, rather than to the better-established feast in February.
January 18th falls eight days before the Conversion of St Paul; the restoration of a feast of St Peter to this day was also certainly intended to reinforce the traditional liturgical association of the two Apostolic founders of the church in Rome. The early Protestants claimed justification for their teachings in the writings of St. Paul, several of which became for Luther a “canon within the canon” of the Bible. The two feasts, therefore, form a unit by which overemphasis on Paul is corrected by a renewed emphasis on the ministry of Peter. In accordance with the same tradition, the Use of Rome has long added to each feast of either Apostle a commemoration of the other; thus, the eight day period from January 18 to 25 begins with a feast of Peter and commemoration of Paul, and ends with a feast of Paul and commemoration of Peter.
The same day is also the feast of St Prisca, who remains in the Tridentine Breviary as a commemoration. It is possible, though by no means certain, that an ancient relic believed to be the actual chair of St Peter was first kept at or near the same catacomb where this obscure Roman martyr was buried, and later moved to the church on the Aventine hill dedicated to her. This basilica keeps its dedication feast on February 22; it is probably more than chance that both the feast and the dedication of St Prisca should be on days associated with St Peter’s Chair.
The former cathedral of Venice, San Pietro in Castello, also claims to possess a chair of St Peter, that of Antioch. Laying aside the question its authenticity, the writing on it is certainly Arabic, and of the 13th century.
The Breviary of St Pius V also added on January 24th a feast found in many medieval liturgical calendars, which, however, had not previously been kept at Rome itself, that of St Paul’s disciple Timothy. The addressee of two of the Pastoral Epistles, and the Apostle’s companion in so much of his missionary work, St Timothy is very often called an Apostle himself in medieval liturgical books, as is St Barnabas. In the Tridentine Breviary and Missal, he is given the titles Bishop and Martyr, since he was beaten to death by a mob in his episcopal city of Ephesus, many years after St Paul’s death. His feast forms a kind of vigil to the Conversion of St Paul; by this addition, each of the two great Apostles is accompanied, so to speak, by another Saint prominently associated with him.
Whether by coincidence or design, an interesting group of feasts occurs between that Ss Peter and Prisca on the one end, and Timothy and Paul on the other. January 19th is the feast of a group of Persian martyrs, Ss Marius and Martha, and their sons Audifax and Abacum. They were said to have come to Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius II (268-70), and after ministering to the martyrs in various ways, were themselves martyred on the Via Cornelia by decapitation.
January 20th is traditionally kept as the feast of two Saints who died in Rome on the same day, but many years apart. The first is Pope Fabian, who was elected in 236, although a laymen and a stranger to the city. According to Eusebius (Church History 6, 29), he entered the place where the election was being held, and a dove landed on his head; this was taken as a sign that he was the choice of the Holy Spirit, and he was forthwith made Pope. Fourteen years later, at the beginning of the first general persecution under the Emperor Decius, he was one of the first to be martyred. He shares his feast with St Sebastian, said to be a soldier of Milanese origin, as attested by St. Ambrose himself, but martyred in Rome in 286. The relics of St Fabian are kept in one of the chapels of the Roman basilica of St Sebastian, built over the latter’s grave in the mid-fourth century.
On the following day, the Church has kept since the fourth century the feast of one of Rome’s greatest martyrs, St Agnes, who was killed in the persecution of Diocletian at the age of twelve or thirteen. She is named in the Canon of the Mass, and a basilica built near her grave was one of the very first public churches in Rome, a project of the Emperor Constantine himself, along with those of Ss Peter and Paul, the Holy Cross, and St Lawrence.
St Vincent of Saragossa, another martyr of the last general persecution, has long been held in a special place of honor by the Church, along with his fellow deacons Ss Stephen and Lawrence, all three of them having been killed in particularly painful ways. The church of Rome added to his feast on January 22 a martyr from three centuries later, St Anastasius; he was a Persian who converted to Christianity after seeing the relics of the True Cross, which had been stolen from Jerusalem by the Persian king. This is a proper custom of the city of Rome itself, imitated by only in a handful of churches before the Tridentine reform. A church was built in his honor by the middle of the 10th century, directly across from the future site of one of the city’s most impressive monuments, the Trevi Fountain.
The 23rd of January was long dedicated to St Emerentiana, the foster-sister of St Agnes, whose murderers she bravely rebuked. While praying at her sister’s tomb two days after the latter’s martyrdom, she was spotted by a gang of pagan thugs, who stoned her to death. She was still a catechumen, but the Roman Breviary of 1529 states, “There is no doubt that she was baptized by her own blood, because she steadfastly accepted death for the defense of justice, while she confessed the Lord.” The mortal remains of both women are currently kept in a silver urn underneath the main altar of the church of St Agnes outside-the-Walls on the via Nomentana, and thus, on the very site of Emerentiana’s martyrdom. (Her feast is now a commemoration on the feast of St. Raymond of Penyafort.)
The Martyrdom of St. Emerentiana, shown on a late 14th century cup in the British Museum.
To sum up, therefore, Peter is accompanied by a Roman martyr, Paul by a martyr of one of the oldest Greek churches, that of Ephesus, where both he and St John the Evangelist had lived and preached. Between their two feasts are celebrated martyrs from the two extremes of the Christian world in antiquity, Persia and Spain; native Romans, one the highest authority in the Catholic Church, and one the least and last of its members; a Roman soldier from the venerable see of Milan, representing the might of the Empire, subjected to Christ; and a young woman who in the pagan world was a person of no standing at all, but in the Church is honored as one of its greatest and most heroic figures. The eight day period from January 18-25, then, becomes a celebration not just of the two Apostles who founded the church in the Eternal City, but of the universality of that church’s mission to “preside in charity” over the whole Church, as St Ignatius of Antioch says, and bring every person of whatever condition to salvation in Christ.
Several weeks ago, in an article entitled “‘An Art Which Leads the Soul by Words’: Sacred Rhetoric in the Roman Liturgy,” I discussed the nature and significance of rhetoric in Western culture and in Christian spirituality. I encourage you to read that article if you haven’t already, but to ensure that all readers will have at least a bare minimum of theoretical foundation before we continue, I’ll provide some key excerpts by way of summary:
“Rhetoric is, quite simply, the art of language. If my students remember only one definition—or even only one vague definitional idea—of rhetoric, I want it to be this one. Though it requires a bit of elaboration and qualification, it is accurate and pleasing to the ear, and it counteracts the ruinous tendency to equate rhetoric with the deliberate misuse or even abuse of language.”
“The Church’s ancient liturgies [as well as Sacred Scripture] employed highly rhetorical texts. Indeed, rhetoric is so central to salvation history and the Christian experience that a new definition is called for, one that pertains specifically to Christian education and foregrounds the role of rhetoric in the spiritual and liturgical life of the Church. I will propose one: rhetoric is the sublimation of language.”
“When we speak of persuasion in the Christian and rhetorical sense, we must look far beyond the impoverished modern sense.... Rhetorical persuasion is language in the service and pursuit of truth.”
“There is one domain of Christian life” in which we find “a harmonious public ceremony that is persuasive in the fullest, most transcendent, most sanctifying and transformative sense that this word could ever hope to have. The domain of which I speak is the sacred liturgy, which glorifies the eternal God while marshalling every imaginable rhetorical resource to persuade fallen man that this God exists, and that His words are supremely true, and that His works are wondrously good.”
In the present article, we will examine the rhetorical qualities of one short prayer found in the Roman Mass. Our objectives are three: First, to appreciate the poetic excellence that informs our traditional liturgical texts, which emerged from an intellectual culture that, in its ability to craft language and achieve eloquence, far surpasses our own. Second, to explore a serious yet often overlooked difficulty surrounding the issue of vernacular liturgy. Third, to more fervently bemoan and bewail the fact that the Latin Church has lost the will to teach her children the Latin language.
The analysis below involves obscure rhetorical terminology. I understand that most people have not studied this terminology and do not find it enjoyable. If you have no interest in it, feel free to ignore it, but I have an important reason for including it: I want to demonstrate that the expressive techniques found in our inherited liturgical texts are part of a venerable and well-documented tradition of rhetorical education that extends through medieval culture and the Patristic era all the way back to Greco-Roman antiquity. These techniques have names because they were studied and taught and employed for centuries by societies that believed in the power of language to change hearts and reshape the world.
As Christians, we can understand this as the power of language to achieve “divine persuasion”—in other words, to achieve conversion, in the broad sense of the word. The good God wants us to convert to Him, that is, to continually turn back to Him with greater fidelity and obedience and affection. He does not compel us to do this, for we are intelligent beings with free will, but He does persuade us, and one of His most persuasive texts is the traditional Eucharistic liturgy of western Christendom, also known as the Latin Mass.
Today we will examine the Súscipe sancte Pater, which is currently the first fixed oration in the Mass of the Faithful. This lovely prayer signals a sacred crescendo in the liturgical drama, as we move from preparatory prayers and scripture readings to the sacrificial action of the Offertory and Canon. This is the text as it appears in the 1962 Missal:
Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam, quam ego indignus fámulus tuus óffero tibi Deo meo vivo et vero, pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis, et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam.
And this is the English translation given in my hand missal:
Receive, O holy Father, almighty, eternal God, this spotless host which I, thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my own countless sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present; as also for all faithful Christians, living or dead; that it may avail for my own and for their salvation unto life eternal.
This prayer is, by the standards of traditional liturgy, quite new. Along with other Offertory prayers and the prayers at the foot of the altar, it was introduced during the Middle Ages, and it was in limited use until the Roman Rite, whence it originated, spread far and wide with the liturgical standardization decreed by St. Pius V. Let there be no mistake, though: this prayer existed long before the Counter-Reformation. The following example is taken from a French manuscript produced sometime before the middle of the thirteenth century:
And here is another, from the early fourteenth century:
This is how the prayer appears in a printed Missale Romanum published in 1607, thirty-seven years after the promulgation of Quo primum.
One thing we should observe about liturgical texts such as this one is that punctuation cannot be considered part of the original composition. Though the punctuation in the 1607 text is similar to that of the modern text, the punctuation—or “pointing,” to use a more medieval term—in the older manuscripts is sparse and not consistent with modern practices.
As you’re reading through the analysis, keep the following question—which we’ll discuss further in a future article—in mind: How successfully could all this rhetorical excellence be translated into another language, especially if that language is not closely related to Latin? (And let us remember also that from a stylistic perspective, the Romance languages are closer to one another than to Latin.)
Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam: The prayer begins with a sense of grandeur and upward movement through auxesis (or in Latin, amplificatio), which is a general rhetorical strategy for achieving eloquence and richness of thought through expansive language. Various specific rhetorical figures can contribute to auxesis. In this case we have antonomasia, because the descriptive phrase “holy Father” initially replaces the appellation “God”; appositio, where the descriptive phrase “almighty eternal God” builds upon the initial address to “holy Father”; and pleonasm, which is eloquent redundancy—the title “God” implies “holy,” “almighty,” and “eternal,” and therefore it is not strictly necessary to include these adjectives. Finally, note the overall structure of this clause: imperative verb → elaborate identification of the subject of the verb → object of the verb. This creates interest and emotion, since we must wait a few moments to learn what is to be received, and a sense of urgency in calling upon God the Father, whose grace and goodness make the offering of this “immaculate victim” possible.
quam ego indignus fámulus tuusóffero tibi Deo meovivo et vero: Let’s focus here on rhetorical figures of sound, which I have indicated with underlining and which are remarkably abundant in this passage. We have assonance (general repetition of vowel sounds), with the particularly melodic phrases indígnus fámulus tuus and Deo meovivo et vero; we also have dramatically rhythmical alliteration (repetition of initial consonant sounds) in vivo et vero and pleasing consonance (repetition of final consonant sounds) in indígnus fámulus tuus. The result is a sonorous and memorable phrase whose beautiful music contrasts, in paradoxical and therefore thought-provoking fashion, with the righteous self-abasement expressed on the semantic level (i.e., the level of direct meanings that the words convey).
pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis: The evils for which the Victim is offered—sins, offenses, negligences—are listed in order of decreasing severity. This is called catacosmesis, and here it creates a sense of alleviation and hope, as though our various moral failings in the service of God are diminishing as we approach the consummation of the expiatory sacrifice. We also see hyperbole (eloquent exaggeration), a favorite rhetorical figure in biblical and devotional literature. Many saintly priests have said these words day after day, year and year, and it would not be reasonable to repeatedly accuse them of “countless” misdeeds. And yet, the prayer reminds us that there is a certain immensity, a transgression that is somehow immeasurable, in every act that violates the laws of an infinitely loving God.
et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: Elegance and emphasis are achieved through anaphora (repetition of initial words in nearby phrases), with the addition of sed in the second phrase imparting rhythmical intensity that I find highly effective. That one extra syllable, considered only on the level of sound, creates a sense of urgency that harmonizes with the words: the vast multitude of Christians everywhere, even those who have died and now languish in Purgatory, are in desperate need—the Victim must be offered; the sacrifice must be performed.
ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam: Note the number of monosyllabic connecting words—ut, et, ad, in—placed between longer words. This resembles polysyndeton, which is defined as the use of many conjunctions between clauses; here we have two conjunctions and two prepositions, and they mostly join nouns or pronouns rather than clauses, but the effect is similar: pauses multiply, the reading tempo changes, and our thoughts slow down as we meditate upon this concluding idea with its crucial and resounding significance.
Let us recall that this is but one short prayer selected from the vast collection of writings in the Roman Missal. The traditional Latin liturgy is a rhetorical masterpiece of epic proportions, and the persuasive objectives of all this finely crafted language are the noblest imaginable: God’s glory, and man’s salvation.
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Compared to other ancient liturgies, the Roman Rite is unusual in treating the Mass of Maundy Thursday as a feast of the Lord, vesting the clergy in white, and saying the Gloria in excelsis and the Creed. It is far more unusual in not reading one of the Synoptic accounts of the Lord’s Supper as the Gospel, but rather John 13, 1-15, the washing of the disciples’ feet. In the Ambrosian Rite, for example, the vestments are red for the whole of Holy Week, including both Holy Thursday and Good Friday, a custom which the church of Milan received from antiquity, when red was a color of mourning; the Gloria and Credo are not said. The Gospel is Matthew 26, 17-75, which goes from the preparations which the Lord orders the disciples to make for the Last Supper until the crowing of the rooster after Peter’s betrayal.
The Washing of the Disciples’ Feet, 1308, by Duccio di Buoninsegna (ca. 1255/60 - 1318/19), part of the great altarpiece of the cathedral of Siena known as the Maestà. (Public domainimage from Wikimedia Commons.)
In the Byzantine Rite’s Divine Liturgy of Holy Thursday, the psalms and antiphons with which the Eucharistic rite normally begins are replaced by the first part of Vespers, but the hymns which are sung are of a decidedly non-festal tone, heavily focused on the betrayal of Judas.
“Judas the transgressor, o Lord, who dipped his hand with Thee in the dish at the supper, lawlessly stretched out his hands to take the silver pieces; and he that reckoned up the price of the myrrh, did not shudder to sell Thee, that art beyond price; he who stretched out his feet to be washed, deceitfully kissed the Master to betray him to the lawless; cast from the choir of Apostles, and having cast away the thirty silver pieces, he did not see Thy Resurrection on the third day; through which have mercy on us.”
The Gospel is also from St Matthew, chapter 26, 1 – 27, 2; the washing of the disciples’ feet, John 13, 3-17, is inserted after verse 20, and three verses of St Luke, from his account of the Agony in the Garden (22, 43-45) are inserted after verse 29. The Mozarabic Rite also reads a longer and more complex composite Gospel of the same episodes, while the Armenian liturgy reads the Last Supper twice, as part of longer readings from the first chapter of the Passions of Matthew (26, 17-30) and Mark (14, 1-26), as well as the washing of the feet. The Syro-Malabar tradition is similar to the Ambrosian.
In other words, by far the dominant tradition in Christian liturgy is to emphasize the Institution of the Eucharist as a part of the whole Paschal mystery, by placing it in the context of the Passion narrative. The same narrative then continues on Good Friday, as e.g. in the Ambrosian Rite, which reads most of Matthew 27 at a synaxis of readings done after Terce, the principal commemoration of the Passion on that day.
A photo of the Good Friday post Tertiam in the Ambrosian Rite, from 2017. At Matthew 27, 50 “And Jesus again crying with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost”, all kneel, and two servers (subdeacons in the solemn rite) strip the altar; all the candles and lights are extinguished. A sign is then given with the bells, which are henceforth “bound” until the Easter vigil; the Passion resumes, but the rest of it is said in a lower voice.
However, it would be very superficial to think that by reading only John 13, 1-15, and that in a Mass of a more festal character, the Roman Rite does not do the exact same thing as the others. For after the Gloria in excelsis is sung, the bells are “bound”, as the Italians say, replaced with the dissonant noise of the crepitaculum, and the organ is silenced, signs that the Church’s joy at receiving the gift of the Eucharist is overshadowed by the impending sufferings of Our Lord. The saying of the Creed emphasizes the fact that at the Institution of the Eucharist and priesthood, Christ established the apostolic college that would go forth to preach and teach the Faith to the world, and as time went on, commission others to do likewise. But it is worth remembering that the Creed itself speaks of the Incarnation, death and Resurrection of Christ, i.e., the Paschal mystery, but does not say anything about the Mass or the Eucharist.
This also explains why the chants of the foremass of Holy Thursday, the introit, gradual and offertory, also make no mention of the Eucharist, but all speak of the Passion and Resurrection. “in whom is our salvation… and resurrection… wherefore God also did exalt Him… I shall not die, but live, and tell of the works of the Lord.” The collect refers to the betrayal of Judas and the confession of the good thief, and also speaks of the Passion and the Resurrection, but not of the Eucharist.
Offertorium Déxtera Dómini fecit virtutem, déxtera Dómini exaltávit me: non moriar, sed vivam, et narrábo ópera Dómini.
Offertory Ps. 117 The right hand of the Lord hath wrought might: the right hand of the Lord hath exalted me; I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
As I noted earlier this week, the Roman Mass of the Lord’s Supper originally had no foremass, but began with the Secret. By the time this custom was changed, in the later decades of the 8th century, the text of the liturgy was regarded as a closed canon, and thus, all of its elements are taken from elsewhere: the introit from Holy Tuesday, the collect from Good Friday, the epistle and gradual from Tenebrae, the Gospel (reduced to the first 15 verses) also from Holy Tuesday, and the offertory from the Sundays after Epiphany. It is the epistle from St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (11, 20-32) that sets the Institution of the Eucharist in the broader context of the Passion which the chant parts and oration speak of.
“(T)he Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said, ‘Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me.’ In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying, ‘This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me.’ For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until he come.” (verses 23-26).
The canon of the Mass on Holy Thursday has both a variable Communicantes and Hanc igitur; here again, the Institution of the Eucharist is set in the broader context of the Passion. The former refers to “the most sacred day on which Our Lord Jesus Christ was given over (traditus) for us”, i.e., to His Passion, while the latter refers to it as “the day on which Our Lord handed over (tradidit) to his disciples the mysteries of His Body and Blood to be celebrated.”
Until the first part of the eighth century, the Thursdays of Lent were “aliturgical” days in the Roman Rite, days on which no ferial Mass was celebrated. A similar custom prevails to this day in the Ambrosian and Byzantine Rites, the former abstaining from the Eucharistic Sacrifice on all the Fridays in Lent, the latter on all the weekdays. I have described in another article why Pope St Gregory II (715-31) changed this custom, and instituted Masses for the six Thursdays between Ash Wednesday and Holy Week. The Epistle and Gospel for the Thursday in the fourth week of Lent were clearly chosen as a prelude to those of the following day, which are a much older part of the lectionary tradition. In the Epistle of both days, one of the prophets raises not just a man, but a son, at the behest of his mother, anticipating the Resurrection of the Son of God; on Thursday, Elisha raises the Sunamite’s son (4 Kings 4, 25-38), and on Friday Elijah raises the dead son of the widow of Sarephta (3 Kings 17, 17-24). Likewise, on Thursday, Christ raises the widow of Naim’s son (Luke 7, 11-16) as he is borne out to burial, and on Friday, Lazarus, on the fourth day after his death (John 11, 1-45).
In his Treatises on the Gospel of St John, St Augustine notes à propos of this latter Gospel, and the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world, “(Christ) raised one that stank, but nevertheless in the stinking cadaver there was yet the form of its members; on the last day, with one word He will restore ashes to the flesh. But it was necessary that He should then do some (miracles), so that, when these were put forth as signs of His might, we might believe in Him, and be prepared for that resurrection which will be unto life, and not unto judgement. For He sayeth thus, ‘The hour cometh, when all that are in the graves shall hear His voice. And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.’ ” (Tract 49, citing John 5, 28-29)
The Raising Of Lazarus, painted by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, 1304-06
When St Paul spoke at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17, 19-34), many of the pagan philosophers who had gathered to hear him scoffed at the mention of the resurrection of the dead. The Church Fathers bear witness to the repulsion which many pagans felt at the Christian belief that the body might share the immortality which they saw as proper only to the soul, and many early heresies rejected both the Incarnation and the resurrection of the flesh professed in the Creed. On the day when the Raising of Lazarus is read, therefore, the Lenten station is kept at the church of St Eusebius on the Esquiline hill, which stood very close to a large and very ancient necropolis, a “city of the dead”, one which dated back even before the founding of Rome itself. In this way, the Church, led by the bishop of Rome, proclaimed to the ancient pagan world Her belief in the resurrection of the body, made possible by the death and resurrection of the Savior.
On the ferias of Lent, the Communion antiphons are taken each one from a different Psalm in sequential order, starting on Ash Wednesday with Psalm 1. The days which were formerly aliturgical do not form part of this series, namely, the six Thursdays, and also the first and last Saturday; the ferias of Holy Week are also not included. (See the table below; click for larger view.)
The series is also interrupted on six days when particularly important passages of the Gospels are read, and the Communion is taken from them instead, the last such being the Raising of Lazarus.
Communio Videns Dominus flentes sorores Lazari ad monumentum, lacrimatus est coram Judaeis, et exclamavit: Lazare, veni foras: et prodiit ligatis manibus et pedibus, qui fuerat quatriduanus mortuus. Seeing the sisters of Lazarus weeping at the tomb, the Lord wept before the Jews, and cried out: Lazarus, come forth: and he who had been dead four days came forth, bound by his hands and feet.
The Roman Mass of the day makes no other reference to the Gospel; in this sense, the Ambrosian Rite gives Lazarus much greater prominence. The second to sixth Sundays are each named for their Gospels, all taken from St John: the Samaritan Woman (4, 5-42), Abraham (8, 31-59), the Man Born Blind (9, 1-38), Lazarus (11, 1-45), and Palm Sunday (11, 55 - 12, 11). On the Fifth Sunday, four of the seven Mass chants cite the day’s Gospel, and the Preface speaks at length about the Raising of Lazarus. The Ingressa (Introit) of the Mass is similar to the Roman Communion cited above.
Ingressa Videns Dominus sororem Lazari ad monumentum, lacrimatus coram Judaeis, et exclamavit: Lazare, veni foras. Et prodiit ligatis manibus et pedibus, stetit ante eum, qui fuerat quatriduanus mortuus.
Seeing the sister of Lazarus at the tomb, the Lord wept before the Jews, and cried out: Lazarus, come forth: and he who had been dead four days, coming forth, stood before him, bound by his hands and feet.
The first reading of the Mass is Exodus 14, 15-31, the Crossing of the Red Sea, a passage which most rites have at the Easter Vigil. St Paul teaches in First Corinthians that this is a prefiguration of baptism: “Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: And did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.)” (chap. 10, 1-4) St Ambrose, in his Commentary on the Song of Songs, says that just as the children of “after the crossing of the Red Sea … were cleansed … by the flow of the rock that poured forth spiritual water, for the rock was Christ; and therefore they ate the manna; so that, as often as they were washed clean, they might eat the bread of angels… now also, in the mysteries of the Gospel, you recognize that being baptized … you are cleansed by spiritual food and drink.” (IV, 5; PL XV, 1905A)
The Crossing of the Red Sea, depicted in a paleo-Christian sarcophagus, a reasonably common motif in early Christian funerary art. The front of the sarcophagus has been sawed off and used as the front of an altar in the cathedral of Arles in France.
The Ambrosian Rite uses this passage not at the Easter vigil, but as an introduction to the story of Lazarus, whose death and resurrection foretell those of Christ Himself, and in Him, our own; first spiritually in the waters of baptism, and second in the body, at the end of the world. The chant which follows the first reading is called the Psalmellus; as the name suggests, it is almost always taken from one of the Psalms, like its Roman equivalent, the Gradual. Here we might expect that it be taken from the canticle of Moses in chapter 15, which follows the same passage at the Easter Vigil of the Roman and Byzantine Rites; instead, it is taken from the Gospel.
Psalmellus Occurrerunt Maria et Martha ad Jesum, dicentes: Domine, Domine, si fuisses hic, Lazarus non esset mortuus. Respondit Jesus: Martha, si credideris, videbis gloriam Dei. V. Videns Jesus turbam flentem, infremuit spiritu, lacrimatus; et veniens ad locum, clamavit voce magna: Lazare veni foras. Et revixit qui erat mortuus, et vidit gloriam Dei. Mary and Martha came to meet Jesus, saying: Lord, Lord, if Thou had been here, Lazarus would not have died. Jesus answered: Martha, if thou shalt believe, thou shalt see the glory of God. V. Seeing the crowd weeping, Jesus groaned in spirit, weeping, and coming to the place, He cried out in a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth. And he that had died came back to life, and saw the glory of God.
The only other day on which the Psalmellus is taken from the Gospel is Holy Thursday, which in the Ambrosian Rite is much more focused on the Passion than on the Institution of the Eucharist. The first reading at the Ambrosian Mass of the Lord’s Supper is the entire book of Jonah, whose story Christ Himself explains as a prophecy of His death and resurrection; the Psalmellus which follows it is taken from the first part of the Passion of St Matthew, chapter 26, 17-75. The Ambrosian liturgy then makes explicit in the Preface this link between the death of Lazarus and that of Christ, in which our redemption is effected. (I here cite only the end of this beautiful text, which can only be spoiled in translation.)
Praefatio O quam magnum et salutare mysterium, quod per resurrectionem Lazari figuraliter designatur! Ille tabo corporis dissolutus, per superni regis imperium continuo surrexit ad vitam. Nos quidem primi hominis facinore consepultos, divina Christi gratia ex inferis liberavit, et redivivos gaudiis reddidit sempiternis. O how great and profitable to salvation is this mystery, which is represented in a figure through the resurrection of Lazarus! He, being loosed from the corruption of the body, by the command of the Almighty King rose at once to life. Christ’s divine grace delivered us from hell, who indeed were buried by the crime of the first man, and restored us to eternal joy, when we had returned to life.
The preface of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, sung during the Capitular Mass at the Basilica of St Ambrose in Milan in 2012. The part of the preface which I have cited above begins at 1:23.
In the Byzantine Rite, the connection is made even more explicit; the Gospel of the Raising of Lazarus is read on the day before Palm Sunday, which is therefore called Lazarus Saturday. Bright vestments are used at the Divine Liturgy, instead of the dark vestments used at most services of Lent and Holy Week. The troparion sung at the Little Entrance declares the meaning of the Raising of Lazarus, and is also sung the following day, which is one of the Twelve Great feasts of the Byzantine liturgical year.
TroparionΤὴν κοινὴν Ἀνάστασιν πρὸ τοῦ σοῦ Πάθους πιστούμενος, ἐκ νεκρῶν ἤγειρας τὸν Λάζαρον, Χριστὲ ὁ Θεός, ὅθεν καὶ ἡμεῖς ὡς οἱ Παῖδες τὰ τῆς νίκης σύμβολα φέροντες, σοὶ τῷ Νικητῇ τοῦ θανάτου βοῶμεν· Ὡσαννὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις, εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου! Confirming the general resurrection before Thy passion, Thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God! Whence we also, like the children, bearing the symbols of victory, cry out to Thee, the Vanquisher of death: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!
The troparion of Lazarus Saturday sung in variety of languages; see original post on Youtube for the list, and the text of the troparion in several of them.
The Paschal character of the day expressed by the use of bright vestments also informs the kontakion which follows the troparion.
Kontakion Ἡ πάντων χαρά, Χριστός, ἡ ἀλήθεια, τὸ φῶς, ἡ ζωή, τοῦ κόσμου ἡ ἀνάστασις, τοῖς ἐν γῇ πεφανέρωται τῇ αὐτοῦ ἀγαθότητι, καὶ γέγονε τύπος τῆς ἀναστάσεως, τοῖς πᾶσι παρέχων θείαν ἄφεσιν. The joy of all, Christ, the Truth, and the Light, the Life, the Resurrection of the world, has appeared in His goodness to those on earth. He has become the image of our Resurrection, granting divine forgiveness to all.
While the troparia and kontakia are sung by the choir, the priest silently reads a prayer called the Prayer of the Trisagion, but sings the doxology out loud. It is followed at once by the hymn “Holy God, Holy mighty one, holy immortal one, have mercy on us.” On a very small number of days, however, the Trisagion, as it is called, is replaced by another chant, the words of Galatians 3, 27, “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ, alleluia.” Among these days are certain feasts of Lord such as Christmas, Epiphany (i.e. the Baptism of the Lord), Easter and Pentecost, and also Lazarus Saturday.
The traditional Church Slavonic version of “As many of you ...” begins at 0:52
As the Church prepares to accompany the Savior to His passion and death, and celebrate His glorious Resurrection, the Orthros (Matins) of Lazarus Saturday declares in several texts of surpassing beauty our salvation in Christ, who in His humanity wept for the death of Lazarus, the death He himself would shortly suffer, and in His divinity raised both Lazarus and Himself, as he will raise the whole of our fallen race on the last day.
Knowing beforehand all thing as their Maker, in Bethany didst Thou foretell to Thy disciples, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep today’; and knowing, Thou asked, ‘Where have ye laid him?” And to the Father Thou prayed, weeping as a man; whence also crying out, Thou raised from Hades Lazarus, whom Thou loved, on the fourth day. Therefore we cry to Thee: Accept, Christ and God, the praise of those that make bold to bring it, and deem all worthy of Thy glory.
O Christ, Thou raised Lazarus that was dead for four days from Hades, before Thy own death, confounding the power of death, and for the sake of one beloved to Thee, proclaiming beforehand the liberation of all men from corruption. Wherefore adoring Thy omnipotence, we cry out, ‘Blessed art Thou, o Savior; have mercy on us!’
Providing to Thy disciples the proofs of Thy divinity, among the crowds Thou didst humble Thyself, taking counsel to hide It; wherefore, as one that knoweth beforehand and as God, to Thy disciples Thou foretold the death of Lazarus. And in Bethany, among the peoples, perceiving not the grave of Thy friend, as a man Thou asked to learn of it. But he that through Thee rose on the fourth day made manifest Thy divine power; Almighty Lord, glory to Thee!
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