The Feast of St Andrew the Apostle 2023

The hymns sung at the litia, the blessing of bread, wine and oil which is celebrated at Vespers on major feasts in the Byzantine Rite, for the feast of St Andrew the Apostle.

The first-called among the disciples, and, as an imitator of Thy Passion, likened unto Thee, O Lord, Andrew the Apostle, with the hook of Thy Cross, drew up those who once had wandered in the depths of ignorance, and brought them to you. By his prayers, o Thou that are good above all, grant peace to our lives, and save our souls.

The Calling of Ss Peter and Andrew, one of the panels from the reverse of the large altarpiece of the Cathedral of Siena known as the Maestà, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-11.

Let us sing, o ye faithful, of the brother of Peter, Andrew, the disciple of Christ; for once he once sought to catch fish by casting nets into the sea, but now, with the rod of the Cross, he casts his net over the world, and turns the nations back from error through Baptism; and standing before Christ, he asks for peace for the world, and great mercy for our souls.

 Having received within his heart the mystic flame that enlighteneth the mind and burneth away sins, the Apostle and disciple of Christ shineth forth with the mystical rays of his teachings in the unenlightened hearts of the nations, and likewise, burns the fables of the impious like twigs; for the fire of the Spirit hath such. O strange and fearful wonder! The tongue of clay, the body of mud, the nature of mud, the body of dust receiveth knowledge mystical and immaterial. But do thou, o teacher of matters ineffable, witness of things in heaven, intercede that our souls may be enlightened!

Statue of St Andrew with his Cross in the Lateran Basilica in Rome, by Camillo Rusconi, 1715 (Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen from Wikimedia Commons)

Having seen the God for whom thou longed walking in the flesh upon the earth, o First-Called of His witnesses, thou didst shout with joy to thy brother: o Simon, we have found the One for whom we long! And to the Savior did Thou cry out like David: As the deer yearneth for streams of water, so doth my soul long for Thee, o Christ our God! Wherefore, adding love to love, by the Cross did Thou pass over to Him that thou loved, as a true disciple, becoming a wise imitator of Him through the suffering of thy Cross. Wherefore, since thou sharest now in His glory pray to him unceasingly for our souls.

Let us acclaim Andrew, the herald of the Faith and servant of the Word; for he fishes men from the depths (of error), holding in his hands the Cross in place of a rod, and letting down its power like a fishing-line, draweth up souls from the errors of the enemy, and bringeth as a gift most welcome to God. O ye faithful, let us ever acclaim him ceaselessly sing to him with the choir of Christ’s disciples, that he may pray Him to be merciful to us on the day of judgment.

Ss Nicholas and Andrew with the icon of the Virgin ‘Hodegetria’ (She Who Leads the Way)

The Vigil of St Andrew

In the Roman Rite, the term “vigilia – vigil” traditionally means a penitential day of preparation for a major feast. The Mass of a Saint’s vigil is celebrated after None, as are the Masses of the ferias of Lent or the Ember Days, and in violet vestments; however, the deacon and subdeacon do not wear folded chasubles, as they do in Lent, but the dalmatic and tunicle. The Mass has neither the Gloria nor the Creed, the Alleluja is simply omitted before the Gospel, not replaced with a Tract, and Benedicamus Domino is said at the end in place of Ite, missa est.

Folio 122r of the Gellone Sacramentary, a sacramentary of the Gelasian type written in 780-800 AD. The Mass of the vigil of St Andrew begins with the large Q, decorated with two fish in honor of his calling as a “fisher of men”; the same device is used with the Collect of the feast day towards the bottom of the page. The preface “Reverentiae tuae” cited below begins with the decorated VD about the middle of the page. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048)

Before the Tridentine reform, the vigil of a Saint consisted solely of the Mass, and had no presence in either the Roman version of the Divine Office, or in that of most other Uses. A minority custom, which seems to have been predominantly German, gave an Office to the vigils of Saints, which consisted of a homily at Matins, and the use of the collect of the vigil as the principal collect of the day; the rest of the Office was that of the feria. The Breviary of St Pius V adopted this latter custom for the vigils of Saints, a rare example of change in an otherwise extremely conservative reform; but even for the Roman Rite, this was not an absolute novelty. Historically, the vigils of the major feasts of the Lord (Christmas, Epiphany etc.) did include the Office, and the change in 1568 simply extended the scope of a well-established custom.

Writing in the mid-12th century, the liturgical commentator John Beleth states that the feast of St Andrew the Apostle “has no vigil, because it occurs in a time of fasting, (i.e. Advent), wherefore it was not necessary that a vigil be instituted for it.” (Summa de Ecclesiasticis Officiis 164). At the end of the 13th century, William Durandus repeats this statement word for word (Rationale 7,38). It may safely be assumed that this is not said merely in error, and does reflect a custom which they both knew to be in use at the time. [1] Nevertheless, the vigil of St Andrew is a very ancient observance of the Roman Rite, attested in the oldest sacramentaries and lectionaries with its own proper Mass, alongside those of the Assumption, the Birth of St John the Baptist, Ss Peter and Paul, and St Lawrence.

The church of Rome is particularly concerned to honor St Andrew as the brother of its first bishop, whom he brought to Christ, as recounted in the Gospel of the vigil. The Introit of the vigil Mass is therefore taken from the Gospel of the feast, Matthew 4, 18-22. “Dóminus secus mare Galiláeae vidit duos fratres, Petrum et Andréam, et vocávit eos: Veníte post me: faciam vos fíeri piscatóres hóminum. – By the sea of Galilee, the Lord saw two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and called them: “Come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men.”

The epistle is a selection of verses from chapters 44 and 45 of the book of Sirach, with the first verse taken from the book of Proverbs. Several words differ from the version of Sirach found in the Vulgate, an indication of the reading’s extreme antiquity. In the lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite (ca. 650 AD), it is assigned to the feast, but about a century later, in the lectionary of Murbach, it has been moved to the vigil. From this position, it became the common Epistle for vigils of the Apostles, as we find in the Missal of St Pius V. The words “divided him his portion among the twelve tribes” refer to the words spoken by the Lord to St Andrew’s brother, “You, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, shall also sit on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matthew 19, 28)

Prov. 10, 6a The blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the just, Sir. 44, 26 therefore he gave him an inheritance, and divided him his portion among the twelve tribes, 27 and he found grace in the sight of all flesh, 45, 2 and magnified him in the fear of his enemies, and with his words he made prodigies to cease. 3 He glorified him in the sight of kings, and gave him commandments before his people, and showed him his glory. 4 He sanctified him in his faith, and meekness, and chose him out of all flesh. 6 And he gave him commandments before his face, and a law of life and instruction, and 7 exalted him. 8 He made an everlasting covenant with him, and he girded him about with a robe of justice, and the Lord put on him a crown of glory.

In the Gospel, John 1, 35-51, St Andrew is named as one of two disciples of St John the Baptist who follow the Lord after John points to Him and says “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Andrew finds and brings to the Lord his brother Simon, who is then first given the name “Cephas”, the Hellenized form of the Aramaic “kepha – the rock.” The passage continues to include the Lord’s meeting with Philip, who was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter; Philip then brings to Him Nathanael, whom the other Evangelists call Bartholomew. This passage also provides the Communion antiphon of the Mass, which is unique to it. “Dicit Andréas Simóni fratri suo: Invénimus Messíam, qui dícitur Christus: et adduxit eum ad Jesum. – Andrew sayeth to his brother Simon, ‘We have found the Messiah, who is called Christ’, and brought him to Jesus.”

The Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries each have a proper preface for the vigil of St Andrew. The former speaks of the importance of the ancient discipline of fasting in preparation for a major feast. “VD. Reverentiae tuae dicato jejunio gratulantes, quo apostolica beati Andreae merita desideratis praevenimus officiis, ut ad eadem celebranda solemniter preparemur. – Truly it is worthy and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we give Thee thanks always and everywhere, o Lord, Holy Father, almighty and everlasting God, rejoicing in the fast dedicated to Thy veneration, by which we anticipate the merits of the blessed Apostle Andrew, our glad duty, that we may be prepared to solemnly celebrate the same. And therefore…”

In the Gregorian Sacramentary, this preface is displaced by that of the feast day, which lays greater emphasize on St Andrew’s role as a member of the Apostolic college. “VD. Qui Ecclesiam tuam in apostolicis tribuisti consistere fundamentis, de quorum collegio beati Andreæ solemnia celebrantes, tua, Domine, preconia non tacemus. Et ideo. – Truly it is worthy… who granted to Thy Church to stand firmly upon the foundation of the Apostles; and among their company, as we celebrate the solemnity of the blessed Andrew, we proclaim also Thy praises, o Lord. And therefore…”

Surprisingly, it is the Ambrosian Preface, not the ancient Roman one, that speaks particularly of St Andrew’s relationship to his brother Peter, and the fact that they both shared the Lord’s death by crucifixion. “VD. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Per quem beatus Apostolus Andreas tantum caelesti gratia eminet praecipuus, quantum etiam beati Petri Apostoli germanitate demonstratur esse præclarus: ut, quos una genitrix edidit mundo, una regeneratione per Crucis patibulum collocarentur in caelo. Et ideo… – Truly it is worthy… through Christ, our Lord. Through Whom the blessed Apostle Andrew stands forth as preeminent in heavenly grace, as he is also shown glorious as the brother of the blessed Apostle Peter; so that those whom one mother brought forth unto the world, might be reborn through the gibbet of the Cross, and placed in heaven. And therefore…” The final words “be placed in heaven” refer to a verse of Psalm 112 which is often referred to the Apostles, “That he may place (collocet) him with princes, with the princes of his people.”

The Crucifixion of St Andrew, by Mattia Preti, from the choir of the basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome.

In the year 1955, as part of a simplification of the rubrics of both Missal and Breviary (which was in reality anything but a simplification), the vigil of St Andrew was suppressed, although the similarly ancient vigils listed above were not. Since the Gospel passage occurs nowhere else in the Missal, in 1960, it was rescued, along with the Introit, as part of a newly created votive Mass “to ask for ecclesiastical vocations”; the Epistle and the Communion, however, have disappeared. In the post-Conciliar rite, in which vigils in the traditional sense do not exist, both the Introit and Communion from the vigil of St Andrew have been moved to his feast.

[1] According to the rubrics of the Breviary and Missal of St Pius V, if the vigil occurs in Advent, the Office is that of the ferial day of Advent, with no mention of the vigil. However, the Mass of the vigil remains the principle Mass of the day, with commemorations of the feria and the martyr St Saturninus.

The Feast of St Andrew the Apostle 2018

The hymns sung at the litia, the blessing of bread, wine and oil which is celebrated at Vespers on major feasts in the Byzantine Rite, for the feast of St Andrew the Apostle.

The first-called among the disciples, and, as an imitator of Thy Passion, likened unto Thee, O Lord, Andrew the Apostle, with the hook of Thy Cross, drew up those who once had wandered in the depths of ignorance, and brought them to you. By his prayers, o Thou that are good above all, grant peace to our lives, and save our souls.

The Calling of Ss Peter and Andrew, one of the panels from the reverse of the large altarpiece of the Cathedral of Siena known as the Maestà, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-11.

Let us sing, o ye faithful, of the brother of Peter, Andrew, the disciple of Christ; for once he once sought to catch fish by casting nets into the sea, but now, with the rod of the Cross, he casts his net over the world, and turns the nations back from error through Baptism; and standing before Christ, he asks for peace for the world, and great mercy for our souls.

Having received within his heart the mystic flame that enlighteneth the mind and burneth away sins, the Apostle and disciple of Christ shineth forth with the mystical rays of his teachings in the unenlightened hearts of the nations, and likewise, burns the fables of the impious like twigs; for the fire of the Spirit hath such. O strange and fearful wonder! The tounge of clay, the body of mud, the nature of mud, the body of dust receiveth knowledge mystical and immaterial. But do thou, o teacher of matters ineffable, witness of things in heaven, intercede that our souls may be enlightened!

Statue of St Andrew with his Cross in the Lateran Basilica in Rome, by Camillo Rusconi, 1715 (Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen from Wikimedia Commons)

Having seen the God for whom thou longed walking in the flesh upon the earth, o First-Called of His witnesses, thou didst shout with joy to thy brother: o Simon, we have found the One for whom we long! And to the Savior did Thou cry out like David: As the deer yearneth for streams of water, so doth my soul long for Thee, o Christ our God! Wherefore, adding love to love, by the Cross did Thou pass over to Him that thou loved, as a true disciple, becoming a wise imitator of Him through the suffering of thy Cross. Wherefore, since thou sharest now in His glory pray to him unceasingly for our souls.

Let us acclaim Andrew, the herald of the Faith and servant of the Word; for he fishes men from the depths (of error), holding in his hands the Cross in place of a rod, and letting down its power like a fishing-line, draweth up souls from the errors of the enemy, and bringeth as a gift most welcome to God. O ye faithful, let us ever acclaim him ceaselessly sing to him with the choir of Christ’s disciples, that he may pray Him to be merciful to us on the day of judgment.

St Nicholas and Andrew with the icon of Virgin Hodegetria (She Who Leads the Way)

Liturgical Notes on the Vigil of St Andrew

In the Roman Rite, the term “vigilia – vigil” traditionally means a penitential day of preparation for a major feast. The Mass of a Saint’s vigil is celebrated after None, as are the Masses of the ferias of Lent or the Ember Days, and in violet vestments; however, the deacon and subdeacon do not wear folded chasubles, as they do in Lent, but the dalmatic and tunicle. The Mass has neither the Gloria nor the Creed, the Alleluja is simply omitted before the Gospel, not replaced with a Tract, and Benedicamus Domino is said at the end in place of Ite, missa est.

Folio 122r of the Gellone Sacramentary, a sacramentary of the Gelasian type written in 780-800 AD. The Mass of the vigil of St Andrew begins with the large Q, decorated with two fish in honor of his calling as a “fisher of men”; the same device is used with the Collect of the feast day towards the bottom of the page. The preface “Reverentiae tuae” cited below begins with the decorated VD about the middle of the page. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048)

Before the Tridentine reform, the vigil of a Saint consisted solely of the Mass, and had no presence in either the Roman version of the Divine Office, or in that of most other Uses. A minority custom, which seems to have been predominantly German, gave an Office to the vigils of Saints, which consisted of a homily at Matins, and the use of the collect of the vigil as the principal collect of the day; the rest of the Office was that of the feria. The Breviary of St Pius V adopted this latter custom for the vigils of Saints, a rare example of change in an otherwise extremely conservative reform; but even for the Roman Rite, this was not an absolute novelty. Historically, the vigils of the major feasts of the Lord (Christmas, Epiphany etc.) did include the Office, and the change in 1568 simply extended the scope of a well-established custom.

Writing in the mid-12th century, the liturgical commentator John Beleth states that the feast of St Andrew the Apostle “has no vigil, because it occurs in a time of fasting, (i.e. Advent), wherefore it was not necessary that a vigil be instituted for it.” (Summa de Ecclesiasticis Officiis 164). At the end of the 13th century, William Durandus repeats this statement word for word (Rationale 7,38). It may safely be assumed that this is not said merely in error, and does reflect a custom which they both knew to be in use at the time. [1] Nevertheless, the vigil of St Andrew is a very ancient observance of the Roman Rite, attested in the oldest sacramentaries and lectionaries with its own proper Mass, alongside those of the Assumption, the Birth of St John the Baptist, Ss Peter and Paul, and St Lawrence.

The church of Rome is particularly concerned to honor St Andrew as the brother of its first bishop, whom he brought to Christ, as recounted in the Gospel of the vigil. The Introit of the vigil Mass is therefore taken from the Gospel of the feast, Matthew 4, 18-22. “Dóminus secus mare Galiláeae vidit duos fratres, Petrum et Andréam, et vocávit eos: Veníte post me: faciam vos fíeri piscatóres hóminum. – By the sea of Galilee, the Lord saw two brothers, Peter and Andrew, and called them: “Come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men.”

The epistle is a selection of verses from chapters 44 and 45 of the book of Sirach, with the first verse taken from the book of Proverbs. Several words differ from the version of Sirach found in the Vulgate, an indication of the reading’s extreme antiquity. In the lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite (ca. 650 AD), it is assigned to the feast, but about a century later, in the lectionary of Murbach, it has been moved to the vigil. From this position, it became the common Epistle for vigils of the Apostles, as we find in the Missal of St Pius V. The words “divided him his portion among the twelve tribes” refer to the words spoken by the Lord to St Andrew’s brother, “You, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, shall also sit on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matthew 19, 28)

Prov. 10, 6a The blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the just, Sir. 44, 26 therefore he gave him an inheritance, and divided him his portion among the twelve tribes, 27 and he found grace in the sight of all flesh, 45, 2 and magnified him in the fear of his enemies, and with his words he made prodigies to cease. 3 He glorified him in the sight of kings, and gave him commandments before his people, and showed him his glory. 4 He sanctified him in his faith, and meekness, and chose him out of all flesh. 6 And he gave him commandments before his face, and a law of life and instruction, and 7 exalted him. 8 He made an everlasting covenant with him, and he girded him about with a robe of justice, and the Lord put on him a crown of glory.

In the Gospel, John 1, 35-51, St Andrew is named as one of two disciples of St John the Baptist who follow the Lord after John points to Him and says “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Andrew finds and brings to the Lord his brother Simon, who is then first given the name “Cephas”, the Hellenized form of the Aramaic “kepha – the rock.” The passage continues to include the Lord’s meeting with Philip, who was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter; Philip then brings to Him Nathanael, whom the other Evangelists call Bartholomew. This passage also provides the Communion antiphon of the Mass, which is unique to it. “Dicit Andréas Simóni fratri suo: Invénimus Messíam, qui dícitur Christus: et adduxit eum ad Jesum. – Andrew sayeth to his brother Simon, ‘We have found the Messiah, who is called Christ’, and brought him to Jesus.”

The Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries each have a proper preface for the vigil of St Andrew. The former speaks of the importance of the ancient discipline of fasting in preparation for a major feast. “VD. Reverentiae tuae dicato jejunio gratulantes, quo apostolica beati Andreae merita desideratis praevenimus officiis, ut ad eadem celebranda solemniter preparemur. – Truly it is worthy and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we give Thee thanks always and everywhere, o Lord, Holy Father, almighty and everlasting God, rejoicing in the fast dedicated to Thy veneration, by which we anticipate the merits of the blessed Apostle Andrew, our glad duty, that we may be prepared to solemnly celebrate the same. And therefore…”

In the Gregorian Sacramentary, this preface is displaced by that of the feast day, which lays greater emphasize on St Andrew’s role as a member of the Apostolic college. “VD. Qui Ecclesiam tuam in apostolicis tribuisti consistere fundamentis, de quorum collegio beati Andreæ solemnia celebrantes, tua, Domine, preconia non tacemus. Et ideo. – Truly it is worthy… who granted to Thy Church to stand firmly upon the foundation of the Apostles; and among their company, as we celebrate the solemnity of the blessed Andrew, we proclaim also Thy praises, o Lord. And therefore…”

Surprisingly, it is the Ambrosian Preface, not the ancient Roman one, that speaks particularly of St Andrew’s relationship to his brother Peter, and the fact that they both shared the Lord’s death by crucifixion. “VD. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Per quem beatus Apostolus Andreas tantum caelesti gratia eminet praecipuus, quantum etiam beati Petri Apostoli germanitate demonstratur esse præclarus: ut, quos una genitrix edidit mundo, una regeneratione per Crucis patibulum collocarentur in caelo. Et ideo… – Truly it is worthy… through Christ, our Lord. Through Whom the blessed Apostle Andrew stands forth as preeminent in heavenly grace, as he is also shown glorious as the brother of the blessed Apostle Peter; so that those whom one mother brought forth unto the world, might be reborn through the gibbet of the Cross, and placed in heaven. And therefore…” The final words “be placed in heaven” refer to a verse of Psalm 112 which is often referred to the Apostles, “That he may place (collocet) him with princes, with the princes of his people.”

The Crucifixion of St Andrew, by Mattia Preti, from the choir of the basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. 

In the year 1955, as part of a simplification of the rubrics of both Missal and Breviary (which was in reality anything but a simplification), the vigil of St Andrew was suppressed, although the similarly ancient vigils listed above were not. Since the Gospel passage occurs nowhere else in the Missal, in 1960, it was rescued, along with the Introit, as part of a newly created votive Mass “to ask for ecclesiastical vocations”; the Epistle and the Communion, however, have disappeared. In the post-Conciliar rite, in which vigils in the traditional sense do not exist, both the Introit and Communion from the vigil of St Andrew have been moved to his feast.

[1] According to the rubrics of the Breviary and Missal of St Pius V, if the vigil occurs in Advent, the Office is that of the ferial day of Advent, with no mention of the vigil. However, the Mass of the vigil remains the principle Mass of the day, with commemorations of the feria and the martyr St Saturninus.

Saints of the Roman Canon - St Andrew, November 30th

Today is the Feast of St Andrew who, as an Apostle, is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass.

Before he was called to follow Christ he was a follower of John the Baptist, and like him, he is depicted with unkempt hair.

Here are two more icons that caught my eye. The second of the two was painted by Sr Petra Clare; it now hangs in Pluscarden Abbey in Scotland. I remember seeing it many times when I visited.

The cross upon which he was martyred, during the persecution of Nero has a characteristic X shape. As someone from the British Isles, I am well aware of this because he is the patron saint of Scotland, and the Scottish flag depicts it symbolically. This was incorporated into the Union Jack sometime after the formal union of the two countries in the 18th century.

The martyrdom itself is depicted in Western portrayals of the Saint. For example here is one by Rubens in characteristically dramatic style. In accordance with tradition he is shown bound, not nailed, to the cross.

Andrew was the brother of St Peter and the portrayal of the calling of the two as fishermen who will become 'fishers of men' is another common scene in Western portrayals, such as this one by Duccio di Buoninsegna.

Here he is represented in an early mosaic from Ravenna; note that Christ is beardless. (I do not know who the figure in the toga is on the right.)

 Below is a baroque painting of the same scene.

The Calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew, c.1626-30 (oil on canvas) by Cortona, Pietro da (Berrettini) (1596-1669); 28.7x57.4 cm; Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, UK; Italian, out of copyright

This is one of a series of articles written to highlight the great feasts and the saints of the Roman Canon. All are connected to a single opening essay, in which I set out principles by which we might create a canon of art for Roman Rite churches, and a schema that would guide the placement of such images in a church. (Read it here.) In these, I plan to cover the key elements of images of the Saints of the Roman Canon - Eucharistic Prayer I - and the major feasts of the year. I have created the tag Canon of Art for Roman Rite to group these together, should any be interested in seeing these articles as they accumulate. For the fullest presentation of the principles of sacred art for the liturgy, take the Master’s of Sacred Arts, www.Pontifex.University.

St Sylvester and St Andrew: The End and the Beginning of the Sanctoral Cycle

As anyone who has ever used an altar missal or a hand missal knows, the traditional Missale Romanum is laid out in different sections: the Temporal cycle, beginning with the first Sunday of Advent and culminating in the last Sunday after Pentecost; the Sanctoral cycle, beginning with the Vigil of St. Andrew (if one is using the pre-1955 edition) or the commemoration of St. Saturninus with the Feast of St. Andrew on its heels (if one is following the 1962 edition) and ending with the Abbot St. Sylvester Gozzolini on November 26; the Commons, beginning with the Vigils of Apostles (pre-1955) or the Popes (post-1955) and ending with the Blessed Virgin Mary; the votive Masses; and lastly, diverse prayers, the Mass for the Dead, and local Masses.

While missals have not always been organized thus,[1] it is obvious that the Temporal cycle as it has existed for quite some time makes perfect sense: we say that the Church’s liturgical year begins with the season of Advent and ends with the last Sunday after Pentecost. But, taking St. Andrew as the official beginning of the Sanctoral cycle[2] and Abbot St. Sylvester as its official ending, can we discern a similar fittingness to the way this cycle is set forth in the Missale Romanum?

Before proceeding further, I would like to make two qualifications. First, Abbot St. Sylvester Gozzolini, O.S.B. (1177-1267), founder of the “Sylvestrines,” is a relatively late addition to the General Calendar, having been introduced by Pope Leo XIII in 1890. As a result, he is not found on the calendars of some dioceses and of a number of religious orders.[3] Nevertheless, for the vast majority of Catholics who worship with the usus antiquior, the last saint in the Sanctoral is, in fact, Abbot St. Sylvester.

Second, while the medieval commentators on Scripture (such as William Durandus) say very little about the relationship between the Temporal and Sanctoral cycles, and while many details are initially the result of chance or practicality, we nevertheless know that the liturgy, as it organically develops under the care of Divine Providence, often exhibits a remarkable fittingness in the arrangement or disposition of its parts that goes well beyond the limited scope of human intentions.[4] This is the reason why we can aim the question of fittingness at any aspect of the liturgy and expect to find plausible answers, even as the medieval allegorists could look at the ceremonial actions — the kissing of the altar, the turning around of the priest, the making of signs of the cross — and see in them representations of phases in the life of Christ or of His bitter Passion.[5] Thus, there is every reason for us to offer a symbolic explanation of why the traditional Sanctoral begins and ends as it does.

St. Sylvester Gozzolini, O.S.B.

Let us begin with the ending. As my St. Andrew Daily Missal explains, St. Sylvester “owed his religious vocation to the sight of a relative’s dead body. He at first lived a solitary life, but later founded a monastery under the Rule of St. Benedict.” The slightly macabre story of his “conversion” in the old-fashioned sense of the term is, in fact, thematized in the Collect of the feast:

Most merciful God, who, when the holy abbot Sylvester, by the side of an open grave, stood meditating on the emptiness of the things of the world, didst vouchsafe to call him into the wilderness and to ennoble him with the merit of a singularly holy life: most humbly we beg of Thee, that like him, we may despise earthly things, and enjoy fellowship with Thee for evermore. Through our Lord.

We are not surprised to find the theme of “despising earthly things” in our pursuit of the unum necessarium, since it is a defining feature of the spirituality of the traditional liturgy.[6] We find it present, for example, in the potent Secret of the Last Sunday after Pentecost, which reads, in part: “...turn to Thyself the hearts of us all, that we may be freed from earthly covetings and pass over to heavenly desires [omnium nostrum ad te corda converte, ut a terrenis cupiditatibus liberati, ad coelestia desideria transeamus].” Yet the Collect of St. Sylvester takes on a peculiar appropriateness, falling as it does in the season of Fall. At least in climates of the northern hemisphere, the end of the liturgical year coincides with the time when the natural world darkens and sleeps. The vegetation has lost much of its green, as if the viridescence of the Pentecost season has finally worn off for sheer remoteness from its origin (“when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith left on the earth?”); leaves have browned and fallen to the ground like so many bodies of mortal beings ready to corrupt in their graves. Notable for its melancholy associations, the autumn is nature’s season of letting go and preparing for the long winter that precedes the paschal season of Spring and its supernatural analogue of resurrection. Indeed, the month of November is observed as the month of the dead, and we should see in this no mere accidental association with All Saints.[7]

The traditional Sanctoral, in fact, seems to concentrate our attention on what might be called “personal eschatology”: each of us must be vigilant, sober, ready for the coming of Christ our Judge. The eschatological note of the end of the year was furnished by the Gospels for the feasts of St. Cecilia on November 22nd (Matthew 25:1–13, the wise and foolish virgins) and of Pope St. Clement on November 23rd (Matthew 24:42–47, “be watchful, for you know not the hour…”). The former Gospel was then repeated on November 25th when St. Catherine’s feast took off in the West after the 11th century. Add to this the intensity of the prayers that were appointed for St. John of the Cross on November 24th (not December 14th as in the Pauline missal), and one sees an escalating theme of mortification with a view to our sinful mortality and our longed-for immortality.

Instead of wrapping the end of the liturgical year in the otherworldly, Teilhardian triumphalism of “Christ the King of the Universe,”[8] the feast of St. Sylvester on November 26 lends this juncture a more sober, introspective and retrospective note, as of a memento mori: look at the dead body in the open grave and see your own end; meditate on this in preparation for the start of Advent, when we celebrate the coming of the One who saves man from his sinfulness and mortality; see through the pomps and vanities of what the world counts as valuable, and set your sights on holiness, in imitation of the many saints who, beginning with the precursor St. John the Baptist, sought out the wilderness, or rather, sought God who called them and ennobled them. There is something of irony or paradox in the way the traditional liturgy winds down the year and starts it up again — as if illustrating T.S. Eliot’s line: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”[9] At least, that is how the world ends at the death of each one of us, at the moment we breathe our last. The quiet of the grave leads to the quiet of a wintry season that brings before our eyes a poor family, a stable, a manger, an infant in swaddling clothes, and no prospect of divine victory — except for the almost imperceptibly increasing daylight.

Turning to the beginning of the Sanctoral cycle, we find traditionally the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle on November 30th. Since the Sanctoral is concerned with remembering, venerating, and calling upon the disciples of the Lord, it is supremely fitting that the first saint is St. Andrew, who is the first disciple of the Lord in His public ministry. The Byzantine Church gives to Andrew the official liturgical epithet “Πρωτόκλητος,” that is, “the first-called,” and we see in the Roman calendar’s arrangement an analogous priority and prominence.

In this way, the Sanctoral as printed in the altar missal and in our daily missals reflects the priority of the calling of the disciple of Christ — “Come, follow Me” — and the necessary self-renunciation and via crucis this will entail, as we follow Him to eternal glory. We are to follow Christ, “in whom the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9), rather than the emptiness of the things of this world. The entire Christian life is a passage through the wilderness to reach the fellowship of the promised land — and of this passage, the Sanctoral cycle, in general and in detail, is a vivid representation.

The feast of the Apostle Andrew has been celebrated for over a thousand years, while that of Abbot St. Sylvester has been celebrated only for a century and a quarter. But if one views the liturgical calendar as being like the construction of a great cathedral — say, that of Milan, which was begun in 1386 and was officially ended in 1965, taking almost 600 years to complete — we see how its development adds stone after stone, statue after statue, until the whole structure is finished. In adding St. Sylvester Gozzolini to the Sanctoral, Pope Leo XIII added a fitting final stone to the Sanctoral structure, making it yet more spiritually fruitful for those who avail themselves of the usus antiquior.

As a postscript, one must sadly point out that the way in which the new (Pauline) Roman Missal arranges the Sanctoral cycle departs from the framework, stable for over half a millennium, that starts on the cusp of December and ends in the last week of November. In a move illustrative of the conflation of aggiornamento with secularization, the new Sanctoral cycle conforms itself to the now-triumphant secular calendar by starting on January 1st (actually, January 2nd) and ending on December 31st, even though these dates have no special significance in the liturgical year as it unfolds from Advent to the season after Pentecost. The usus antiquior, in its Temporal and Sanctoral cycles alike, bears consistent witness to a more ancient and more authoritative structuring of time.

The beginning of the Sanctoral in the Novus Ordo

NOTES

[1] There was no uniformity in the layout of missals in the Middle Ages. The very oldest liturgical books began the Temporal cycle with the vigil of Christmas, and ended with Advent (if they had it; some don’t), while the feasts of the Saints were woven in among the Temporal Masses. Obviously, this was not a very satisfactory arrangement, since things move relative to the Temporal every year. Later on, when the Temporal and Sanctoral Masses were separated, one finds books in which St. Andrew is the first Saint, but others in which it is St. Hilary on January 14, since all of the Saints from December 26 to January 13 were integrated into the Temporal.

[2] I speak of Andrew as coming first because the Vigil of his feast, which was observed until the drastic changes of Pope Pius XII in 1954, did come first and obviously took precedence over the Commemoration of St. Saturninus. Therefore it is more correct to say that the Roman Sanctoral begins with St. Andrew. The collateral damage of the removal of this Vigil included the loss of the Gospel unique to it, John 1:35–51. As if to make reparation, the 1962 Missale Romanum included a new votive Mass for Vocations featuring this Gospel.

[3] For example, the Franciscans, along with a large number of Italian dioceses, observe on this day St. Leonard of Port Maurice; the Dominicans never received his feast, but have one of their blesseds on that day, and, before 1911, were running the octave of St. Catherine of Alexandria; the Carmelites were running the octaves of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. John of the Cross, the Cistercians never received him, etc. He was removed without compunction by the Consilium in its revision of the General Calendar in the late 1960s.

[4] It makes no difference whether those who disposed the parts consciously intended a certain signification; for they are working with pieces that are ultimate provided to them by God and are orchestrared by Him into a whole that is greater not only than its part, but even than the sum total of its parts.

[5] The number of such interpretations, moreover, is indefinite, for the same reason that Scripture may be legitimately interpreted in many (perhaps even infinitely many) different ways, as St. Augustine explains in De Doctrina Christiana.

[6] As I recently demonstrated here in “A Tale of Two Collects: Different Worldviews in Old and New Prayers.”

[7] All the more, then, is it necessary for symbolic reasons that Christ the King take place at the end of October, prior to this season of decline.

[8] See my article at OnePeterFive, "Between Christ the King and 'We Have No King But Caesar.'"

[9] From Eliot's poem “The Hollow Men.”

My thanks to Gregory DiPippo for assistance with this post.