An Interesting Fact About Today’s Lenten Station

Several years ago, I read a very interesting book called Mourning into Joy: Music, Raphael, and Saint Cecilia, by Thomas Connolly. (Yale Univ. Press, 1995). The principal subject is Raphael’s painting The Ecstasy of St Cecilia, but it also contains a great deal of information about devotion to the Saint, at whose basilica the Lenten station is held today. I am here paraphrasing what Connolly writes about this station, and its connection to Cecilia; the credit for putting this information together is entirely his.

The Ecstasy of St Cecilia, by Raphael, 1515-17, now in the National Gallery of Bologna. To the left of St Cecilia we see Ss Paul and John the Evangelist, to the right, Ss Augustine and Mary Magdalene. The broken instruments at her feet symbolize that she has rejected the things of this world in order to “sing only to God in her heart”, as is stated in her Office.

In 1744, three inscriptions were found very close to the Basilica of St Cecilia in the Trastevere area of Rome, referring to a small shrine of the “Bona Dea”, as she was called, “the good goddess.” Although she was quite popular in ancient Rome, we know very little about this goddess, since men were excluded from participation in her cult, and it was forbidden to write down what took place at her two annual festivals. One of these was held at a temple dedicated to her on the Aventine hill, the other in the house of the senior magistrate of the Republic, presided over by his wife. During the rites, all men and male animals were excluded from the house; in fact, “Good Goddess” is a euphemistic name, since men were not allowed to speak or even know her true name. One of the most famous episodes in the history of the late Roman Republic, involving all of the leading political figures of the day, including Cicero, Pompey and Julius Caesar, took place when these rites were held in the latter’s house in 62 BC. A man named Clodius Pulcher dressed as a woman in an attempt to sneak into the rites and seduce Caesar’s wife, creating an enormous and long-lasting scandal.

The Bona Dea was a goddess very much associated with female chastity, and therefore, anything to do with the goddess of sexual desire, Venus, was also removed from the house where the rites of the Bona Dea were held. This would include any statues and images of Venus, and most particularly the plant myrtle, which was woven into crowns and worn on the head by her worshippers at her principal festivals.

When the Lenten Station is held at the Basilica of St Cecilia on the Wednesday of the Second Week, next door to a shrine of the Bona Dea, the traditional Epistle is taken from the Deuterocanonical additions to the book of Esther, the only reading from that book in the Missal. (This reading was later borrowed from this day for the votive Mass “against the pagans.” It has been suppressed in the post-Conciliar rite.) In chapter 13, Mardochai is praying for the delivery of the Jewish people from their enemy Haman, who has arranged for the Persian Emperor to order the massacre of all the Jews in his dominions.

“In those days, Mardochai prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘O Lord, Lord, almighty king, for all things are in thy power, and there is none that can resist thy will, if thou determine to save Israel. Thou hast made heaven and earth, and all things that are under the cope of heaven. Thou art Lord of all, and there is none that can resist thy majesty. And now, O Lord, O king, O God of Abraham, have mercy on thy people, because our enemies resolve to destroy us, and extinguish thy inheritance. Despise not thy portion, which thou hast redeemed for thyself out of Egypt. Hear my supplication, and be merciful to thy lot and inheritance, and turn our mourning into joy, that we may live and praise thy name, O Lord, and shut not the mouths of them that sing to thee, O Lord, our God.’ ” (vss. 9-11 and 15-17)

This is the reading as it appears in the Missal of St Pius V, but before the Tridentine reform, it began as follows: “In those days, Esther prayed to the Lord, saying…” And this, despite the fact that it is Mardochai who offers this prayer in the Bible.

A leaf of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon in 1497. The Mass for today’s station begins in the middle of the right column.

It might seem that by taking the words of a man and putting them in the mouth of a woman, the Church has somehow adopted or absorbed an aspect of the Bona Dea cult when reading these words right next door to her shrine at the Basilica of St Cecilia. This is not the case, however. In chapter 2, 7, it is stated that Esther, (who becomes the Queen of Persia, and saves the Jews from Haman) was called “Hadassah,” (הֲדַסָּה) which is the Hebrew word for “myrtle”, the plant of Venus that was excluded from the rites of the Bona Dea. This would therefore be a deliberate critique of the Bona Dea, and a statement of rejection of the many pagan cults that excluded one class of persons or another.

The Ember Saturday of Lent at Sarum and St Peter’s

In the Roman Missal, the fifth prophecy is the same on all four of the Saturday Ember Days, Daniel 3, 47-51, with a few of the verses re-ordered. The words that follow in the Biblical text (verses 52-57) are sung as a canticle, according to a very beautiful melody; the text is from the so-called Old Latin translation of the Bible which was used before St Jerome’s version, and contains several more verses than are found in the Vulgate. In the Roman Use, the canticle is sung on the Ember Saturdays of Advent, Lent and September, but supplanted by a very short Alleluja on the Ember Saturday of Pentecost week.

The Sarum Use arranges both the reading and the canticle that follows differently on each of the four Ember Days. In Advent, it is basically the same as the Roman, with a few small variants. In Lent, on the other hand, the words of the Roman canticle are sung as part of the Lesson; the canticle of Sunday Lauds, the Benedicite (Daniel 3, 57-88) is then sung in a special arrangement, alternating between two cantors who sing the verses, and the choir singing the response.

The fifth lesson and canticle of the Ember Saturday of Lent in Sarum Missal printed at London in 1500. The lesson begins in the lower part of the second column.

The Lesson

The Angel of the Lord went down with Azariah and his companions into the furnace, and he drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, and made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew. And the flame mounted up above the furnace nine and forty cubits, and burnt such of the Chaldeans as it found near the furnace, the ministers of the king who kindled the fire. And the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm. Then these three as with one mouth praised, and glorified, and blessed God in the furnace, saying: (Here Sarum continues to read as part of the Lesson the words which are sung as the Canticle in the Roman Use.) Blessed art thou, O Lord the God of our fathers: and worthy to be praised, and glorified, and exalted above all for ever: and blessed is the name of thy glory, which is holy: and worthy to be praised, and exalted above all in all ages. Blessed art thou in the holy temple of thy glory: and exceedingly to be praised, and exceeding glorious for ever. Blessed art thou on the throne of thy kingdom, and exceedingly to be praised, and exalted above all for ever. (Here 3 verses are added from the old Latin text.) Blessed art thou upon the scepter of thy divinity: and exceedingly to be praised, and exceeding glorious for ever. Blessed art thou, that beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the cherubims: and worthy to be praised and exalted above all for ever. Blessed art thou, who walkest upon the wings of the winds, and upon the waves of the sea: and worthy to be praised and exalted above all for ever.

Here the canticle begins, alternating between two cantors and the choir.

V. Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven, and praiseworthy and glorious forever. R. Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven, and praiseworthy and glorious forever.
V. All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord. O ye heavens, bless the Lord. O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye a hymn, and exalt him above all for ever. (This response is repeated by the choir after each verse.)
V. O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord. O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord. O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord. O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord. O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord. O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord. O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O ye fire and heat, bless the Lord. O ye nights and days, bless the Lord. O ye darkness and light, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O ye cold and heat, bless the Lord. O ye frost and snows, bless the Lord. O ye lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O let the earth bless the Lord. O all ye mountains and hills, bless the Lord. O ye that are born of the earth, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O all ye seas and rivers, bless the Lord. O ye fountains, bless the Lord. O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O all ye fowls of the air, bless the Lord. O ye beasts and cattle, bless the Lord. O ye sons of men, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O let Israel bless the Lord. O ye priests of the Lord, bless the Lord. O servants of the Lord, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
V. O spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord. O ye holy and humble of heart, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye.
V. O Ananiah, Azariah, Misael, bless the Lord. R. Sing ye...
The Cantors repeat the beginning: Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven. and the choir finishes: And praiseworthy and glorious forever.

O ye holy and humble of heart, bless the Lord!

When the Lenten station is held at St Peter’s Basilica, on Ember Saturday and Passion Sunday, the Papal altar is decorated with relics according to a particular arrangement. The relics of martyrs are placed closer to the edge of the mensa, and those of other Saints further in; the four corners are decorated with reliquaries shaped like obelisks, with long bones (tibias and such) in them. On each of the two short sides of the altar is set a rectangular panel containing relics of 35 Popes, between them, all of the Sainted Popes except the most recent.

On the long side facing the apse, a bust reliquary of Pope St Damasus I (366-84, feast on December 11), containing the relics of his skull, is placed in the middle. This is a particularly appropriate choice, since Damasus was a great promoter of devotion to the saints and the cult of the relics, particularly those of the Roman martyrs. Within many catacombs, he rearranged the spaces around the tombs of the martyrs to make it easier for pilgrims to find and visit them, decorating the tombs themselves with elaborately carved inscriptions written by himself in classical poetic meter. For this reason, he is honored as the patron Saint of archeologists.

The Canaanite Woman in the Liturgy of Lent

Before the early eighth century, the church of Rome kept the Thursdays of Lent (with the obvious exception of Holy Thursday) and the Saturdays after Ash Wednesday and Passion Sunday as “aliturgical” days. (The term aliturgical refers, of course, only to the Eucharistic liturgy, not to the Divine Office.) This is attested in the oldest liturgical books of the Roman Rite, and in the collection of papal biographies called the Liber Pontificalis, which tells us that Pope St Gregory II (715-31) instituted the Masses of these days. This is why even in the Missal of St Pius V, the Thursdays of Lent borrow their chant parts (the introits, graduals, offertories and communions) from other Masses; the respect for the tradition codified by St Gregory the Great was such that it was deemed better not to add new pieces to the established repertoire. (The two formerly aliturgical Saturdays simply repeat the Gregorian propers from the previous day, indicating that their Masses were added by a different Pope.)

The high altar of San Lorenzo in Panisperna, with a monumental fresco of the Saint’s martyrdom painted in 1591 by Pasquale Cati. Photo by our dear Roman pilgrim friend Agnese Bazzucchi.

When the Mass was instituted for today, the station was appointed, for no readily obvious reason, at a church on the Esquiline Hill dedicated to St Lawrence, traditionally said to be the very place where his martyrdom happened. To distinguish it from his many other Roman churches, it now bears the nickname “in Panisperna”, but was long known as “in Formoso”; the origin and meaning of these terms is disputed. The Introit of the Mass is therefore repeated from his feast day. “Confessio et pulchritúdo in conspectu ejus: sánctitas et magnificentia in sanctificatióne ejus. Ps. 95 Cantáte Dómino cánticum novum: cantáte Dómino, omnis terra. Gloria Patri. Sicut erat. Confessio. – Praise and beauty are before him: holiness and majesty in his sanctuary. Sing to the Lord a new song: sing to the Lord, all the earth. Glory be. As it was. Praise.”

The Epistle, Ezechiel 18, 1-9, was clearly chosen as a prequel to that of the following day, verses 20-28 of the same chapter. This refers directly to St Lawrence, whom Pope Sixtus II set in charge of the Church’s charitable activities. “If a man be just, and do judgment and justice, … (and) hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment: hath walked in my commandments, and kept my judgments, to do truth: he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.” The words “if a man be just, and do … justice” refer to a verse of Psalm 111, “He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor: his justice remaineth for ever and ever,” which is cited by St Paul in the Epistle of St Lawrence’s feast, 2 Cor. 9, 6-10. This also looks back to the previous week’s reading from the prophet Isaiah (chap. 58, 1-9): “deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him.”

The Gradual, borrowed from the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, is taken from Psalm 16, and on this day is read as the prayer of the great martyr in the midst of his sufferings, sung by the Church on the very site where they were inflicted upon him. “Custódi me, Dómine, ut pupillam óculi: sub umbra alárum tuárum prótege me. V. De vultu tuo judícium meum pródeat: óculi tui vídeant æquitátem. – Keep me, o Lord, as the apple of Thine eye, beneath the shadow of Thy wings protect me. V. Let my judgment come forth from Thy countenance: let Thine eyes behold equity.” (Ps. 16, 8 and 2) The Gradual of his feast day, which in Rome would have been celebrated at his tomb, is taken from the same Psalm, and represents his plea to God after his sufferings had ended, and his body laid to rest. “Probasti, Dómine, cor meum, et visitasti nocte. V. Igne me examinasti, et non est inventa in me iníquitas. – Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night. V. Thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me.” (Ps. 16, 3)” Note the contrast between the first, which ends with the word “aequitas”, and the second, which ends with its opposite, “iniquitas.”

The Gospel, Matthew 15, 21-28, is the story of the Canaanite woman who comes to the Lord to plead for the healing of her daughter, who is possessed by a devil. The Lord at first appears to reject Her with the words, often so sadly misrepresented, “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs”, but at her reply, “ ‘Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters’, Jesus answering, said to her, ‘O woman, great is thy faith: be it done to thee as thou wilt’ and her daughter was cured from that hour.”

Christ and the Canaanite Woman, by Pieter Lastman (Dutch, 1583-1633), 1617

For the Fathers of the Church, this episode represents the conversion of the nations, an important theme in Lent, the season of baptismal preparation. In the first commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew by a Latin Father, St Hilary of Poitier explains that the Canaanite woman, who had “gone forth from the regions (of Tyre and Sidon)” represents the proselytes, the pagans who had “passed from the nations unto the works of the Law… She herself now needs no healing, who confesses Christ to be the Lord and the Son of David.” Her possessed daughter represents the unconverted: “but she asks for help for her daughter, that is, for the people of the nations, seized by the dominion of unclean spirits.”

“And so that we might understand that the Lord’s silence came because He chose when to speak, and not from any difficulty in His will, He added ‘O woman, great is thy faith’, so that she, now certain of her salvation, may also trust in the gathering (into the Church) of the nations, who, believing in that time, just like the girl, will be delivered from the rule of unclean spirits. … For after the people of the nations were prefigured in the daughter of the Canaanite woman, immediately, those who were taken by various kinds of illness are offered to the Lord upon the mountain (verses 29 and 30), which is to say, unbelievers and the sick are instructed by the faithful to worship and fall down (before the Lord), even they to whom health is restored, and all the powers of their mind and body are remade, so that they may hear, and behold, and praise and follow God.” (Commentary on Matthew 15, PL IX, 1004C sqq.)

A statue of St Hilary of Poitiers by Franz Anton Koch (1742) in the church of St Michael in Mondsee, Austria. The serpents at his feet represent the heresies which he fought and defeated with his writings. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 3.0)

An interesting theme runs through this Mass, in which “bread” is mentioned in both readings: in the Epistle, “if a man be just, and do judgment and justice, … (and) hath given his bread to the hungry”, and in the Gospel, “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs.” The Communion is taken from the 15th Sunday after Pentecost: “The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (John 6, 52. Incidentally, in the Gospel of this Sunday, Luke 7, 11-16, Christ also performs a miracle on behalf of a mother, the widow of Naim.) The Offertory is taken from the Sunday before that, and refers to eating. “The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him: and shall deliver them. O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet.” (Psalm 33, 8-9)

It seems possible that this theme was chosen to encourage observance of what was originally a liturgical novelty, the celebration, and therefore also the reception, of the Eucharist on a Thursday in Lent. On the following Thursday, the Communion is that of the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, also taken from John 6, “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him, saith the Lord.” (verse 57)

In the current arrangement of the Roman Breviary, this feria also has a responsory which makes reference to the Canaanite woman, and is used only on this day. (In some other Uses of the Roman Rite, the responsories of the first week of Lent are ordered differently, and this one is used more often.) Palestrina really outdid himself when he set it as a motet in 1572.

R. Tribulárer, si nescírem misericordias tuas, Dómine; tu dixisti: Nolo mortem peccatóris, sed ut magis convertátur et vivat: * Qui Chananaeam et publicánum vocasti ad poenitentiam. V. Secundum multitúdinem dolórum meórum in corde meo, consolatiónes tuae laetificavérunt ánimam meam. Qui Chananaeam.

R. Troubled had I been, but that I knew Thy mercies, o Lord; Thou didst say, “I will not the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn from his way and live”, * Thou, Who didst call the Canaanite woman and the publican unto repentance! V. According to the multitude of the sorrows within my heart, thy consolation have given joy to my soul. Thou, Who didst call…

The Story of Susanna in the Liturgy of Lent

In the Roman Rite, the story of Susanna is read as the epistle of Saturday of the third week of Lent, the longest epistle of the entire year. This episode is not in the Hebrew text of Daniel, but in the manuscripts of the Septuagint, it appears as the beginning of the book, probably because in verse 45 Daniel is called a “younger man”, which was apparently understood to mean “younger than he was when the rest of the story happened.” When St Jerome produced the group of translations now known as the Vulgate, he relegated the story to the end of the book, along with the other “apocryphal” episode known as Bel and the Dragon; hence the common designation of Susanna as chapter 13 of Daniel. Well before Jerome’s time, however, the great biblical scholar Origen had defended the canonicity of Susanna in a letter to his friend Africanus, who claimed that the Greek puns in the book proved that it could not be part of the original text. It is very important to note that Origen’s defense of the story, and of the other deuterocanonical books, repeatedly refers to the “use” of the book in the churches, i.e., in the liturgy. He also cites a saying of the book of Proverbs, “Thou shalt not remove the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have set,” (22, 28), a passage long understood by Jewish commentators as a command to preserve the ancient traditions of religious practice. His opinion, and not that of St. Jerome, is clearly that of the majority of early Christians, as reflected not only in theoretical consideration, but also in early Christian art, and the ancient traditions which find their way into the lectionaries.

(Pictured above: Daniel in the lion’s den, from the Dogmatic Sarcophagus in the Vatican Museums, ca. 340 A.D. On the right, the prophet Habakkuk bringing food to Daniel.)

A contemporary of Origen provides an exegetical basis for understanding the importance of the story of Susanna to the early Church. Among the fragments of a commentary on Daniel written by Hippolytus of Rome (died ca. 236) we read in reference to Susanna that she “prefigured the Church; and Joachim, her husband, Christ; and the garden, the calling of the saints, who are planted like fruitful trees in the Church. And Babylon is the world; and the two elders are set forth as a figure of the two peoples that plot against the Church – the one, namely, of the circumcision, and the other of the gentiles.” (On Susannah 7: the reader will understand, of course, that this quotation is in no wise chosen in endorsement of Hippolytus’ anti-Jewish sentiments.) And later on, “it is in our power also to apprehend the real meaning of all that befell Susannah. For you may find this also fulfilled in the present condition of the Church. For when the two peoples conspire to destroy any of the saints, they watch for a fit time, and enter the house of God while all there are praying and praising God, and seize some of them, and carry them off, and keep hold of them, saying, ‘Come, consent with us, and worship our gods; and if not, we will bear witness against you.’ And when they refuse, they drag them before the court and accuse them of acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, and condemn them to death.” (On Susannah 22)

We cannot be certain that it is Hippolytus’ interpretation specifically which influenced the early Church to assign the story of Susanna to Lent. However, we can say with certainty that the Lenten readings for Mass were largely chosen as lessons for the catechumens who would be baptized at Easter, and that the story of Susanna was read to prepare the new Christians for the reality of persecution in the Roman Empire. This is reflected in the art of the catacombs, where stories from the Lenten lectionary are always very prominent, Susanna among them. In the catacomb of Praetextatus, for example, she appears as a lamb (the name Susanna is written over her), with two wolves on either side of her labelled “seniores – the elders.”

Susanna as a lamb between two wolves, from the Arcosolium of Celerina in the Catacomb of Praetextatus, mid-4th century.

In the catacomb of Priscilla, the story appears in three parts in the burial chamber known as the Greek Chapel, made in the second half of the second century A.D. On the right side, the two elders are pointing at Susanna’s midriff, indicating that “they were inflamed with lust towards her” (verse 8); on the left side (further from the camera in this photo), the two elders, having been refused by Susanna, accuse her before the people of adultery by placing their hands upon her head (verse 34). She is condemned to death, but the prophet Daniel, inspired by the Lord, saves her by asking the two elders separately where exactly in Joachim’s garden they witnessed the supposed adultery. When they give different responses, the Jews of Babylon realize she is innocent, and put the two elders to death; in the final scene, Daniel (not visible in this photograph) and Susanna give thanks to God for her deliverance.

The so-called Greek Chapel in the Catacomb of Priscilla, second half of the second century. The stories of Susanna appear on the side walls, with white backgrounds.

In Rome, the Station for today is kept at the church of St Susanna, who is traditionally said to have been martyred, like her uncle Pope St Caius (283-96) and her father, St Gabinus, under the Emperor Diocletian. This station was clearly chosen for the coincidence of names; in the Ordinary Form, it has been moved to Monday of the week traditionally known as Passion Week, although the stations have not been rearranged accordingly. In the lectionary of 1969, it may also be read in an abbreviated form which begins directly with Susanna’s condemnation at verse 41.

The façade of Santa Susanna, by Carlo Maderno, 1603

In the Ambrosian Liturgy, which in many respects provided inspiration for the post-conciliar revisions, the association with the Lord’s Passion is made even more explicit. The reading is assigned to Holy Thursday, which in the Milanese lectionary is focused much more on the Passion than on the institution of the Eucharist. At a service of readings and prayers said after Terce, the first reading is that of Susanna; the psalmellus (the equivalent of a gradual in the Roman Rite) which follows is taken from Psalm 34, “Unjust witnesses rising up have asked me things I knew not. They repaid me evil for good.” The second reading is from the book of Wisdom, chapter 2, 12 – 25, beginning with the words “In those days the wicked said to each other: Let us lie in wait for the just, because he is useless to us, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life.” The Gospel that follows immediately after, Matthew 26, 14-16, tells of the betrayal of Judas, who sells the Lord for thirty silver pieces.

Although the reading was chosen to prepare the catechumens for membership in a persecuted sect, it continued in use after the liberty of the Church, as did many other early liturgical references to the Age of the Martyrs. In the Breviary of St. Pius V, we read an explanation of this in the second nocturn of Passion Sunday, from the ninth Lenten sermon of Pope St Leo the Great.

(In Lent) a greater fast was ordered by the holy Apostles, taught by the Holy Spirit, so that by a common sharing in the Cross of Christ, we too may in some measure partake in what He did for our sake, as the Apostle says, ‘If we suffer with Him, we will be also glorified with Him.’ Certain and sure is the hope of blessedness promised to us, when we partake of the Lord’s Passion. There is no one, dearly beloved, who is denied a share of this glory because of the time he lives in, as if the tranquility of peace was without occasion for virtue. For the Apostle foretells us, ‘All that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution’; and therefore, there will never lack the tribulation of persecution, if the observance of godliness is not lacking. For the Lord himself says in his exhortations, ‘He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.’ And we must not doubt that these words apply not only to his immediate disciples, but belong to all the faithful and to the whole Church; who all heard of His salvation in the person of those present.

A Lenten Station Mass in the Roman Forum

Today’s Mass is one of the series instituted by Pope St Gregory II (715-31) when he abolished the older custom of the Roman Rite, by which the Thursdays of Lent were “aliturgical” days on which no Mass was celebrated. The station appointed for the day is at the basilica of Ss Cosmas and Damian, which was constructed by Pope St Felix IV (526-30) in the Roman Forum, partly by rebuilding two earlier structures. As we see it today, this church preserves very little of its original appearance. The one surviving part of its earliest decoration, the apsidal mosaic, has been heavily restored more than once. Because the Forum is within the Tiber’s flood plain, the church was very badly damaged over the course of the Middle Ages, and in 1632, Pope Urban VIII had a new floor put in roughly 23 feet above the level of the old one, effectively cutting the building in half.

The Stational Mass at Ss Cosmas and Damian in 2017; photo by the great Agnese. The forward tilt of the apsidal mosaic is determined in part by the fact that it was meant to be seen from a vantage point more than 20 feet lower than the current floor of the church.

This Mass is unique in that three of its prayers, the Collect, Secret and Post-Communion (but not the prayer “over the people” at the end), were originally composed for the feast of the Saints to whom the station church is dedicated; in the Old Gelasian Sacramentary, the oldest sacramentary of the Roman Rite, they are assigned to the feast of Ss Cosmas and Damian on September 27th. It is not at all evident why the compilers of the Gregorian Sacramentary decided to move them from the feast to the station without altering their wording, so that the Collect speaks of the “blessed solemnity of Cosmas and Damian”, and the Secret of the sacrifice offered “in the precious death of Thy just ones.” (On the feast itself, these prayers are replaced with the ones found in the Missal of St Pius V.) The only other prayer of a stational Mass that refers to a Saint in this way is the Collect of Sexagesima Sunday, which mentions St Paul, at whose tomb the station is held. However, this prayer was composed specifically for the Mass of Sexagesima, and does not refer to the day as a feast, nor is there any mention of St Paul in the other prayers.

In the Lent volume of The Liturgical Year, Dom Prosper Guéranger attempts to explain this anomaly as an imitation of the Byzantine Rite, and is followed in this by the Blessed Schuster. The Byzantine Third Sunday of Lent is effectively kept as a feast, known as the Veneration of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross. The following Thursday, today, marks the middle of Byzantine Lent, and has some special liturgical texts which encourage the faithful to persevere in the fasting and other exercises which they have already half-completed. Guéranger and Schuster therefore both explain the festal character of today’s Roman stational Mass as an imitation of the festal character of the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross and of Mid-Lent.

These photos were taken yesterday in the church of St Anthony the Abbot in Rome, the church of the Pontifical Russian College (on the Esquiline hill, very close to Santa Maria Maggiore.) At the end of Orthros of the Third Sunday of Lent, the Cross is brought out of the sanctuary and set up in the middle of the church in this fashion, and remains there until after the Ninth Hour on the following Friday. For the feast of the Annunciation and its afterfeast, the festal icon is placed next to it. (Courtesy of the church’s rector, Fr Joseph Koczera, SJ.)

However, Mid-Lent is in point of fact a very minor feature of the Byzantine liturgy. There are references to it on each weekday after the Veneration of the Cross (as Guéranger does note), but there are far more of them on Wednesday and Friday than on Thursday, and in any case, they are on every day vastly outnumbered by references to the Cross. Furthermore, the texts about Mid-Lent are encouragements to perseverance, but do not have a festal character such that one would call it a “blessed solemnity.” For example, the very first such text on Monday begins “having now completed half the hard toil of our self-restraint...”

If the Byzantine Rite had any influence on the Roman in this regard, it seems much more likely it would be felt rather on Laetare Sunday, which has a similarly festive tone, and would determine the station for that day at the basilica of the Holy Cross. It may also perhaps have influenced the choice of Gospel for the Tuesday after Laetare, John 7, 14-31, which begins with the words, “Now about the middle of the feast.” However, it is difficult to see what any of this has to do with Ss Cosmas and Damian; they were indeed Saints from the Byzantine East, but hardly the only ones with a church in Rome.

Folio 35r of the Gellone Sacramentary ca. 780 AD. The Mass of today’s station at Cosmas and Damian begins with the next-to-last rubric; the prayers are not those of the Saint’s feast day.

There is a further problem with this explanation. The Old Gelasian Sacramentary was copied out ca. 750 AD, but represents the state of the Roman liturgy of about 50 years earlier, before the aforementioned reform of St Gregory II. The manuscript therefore contains nothing at all for the Thursdays of Lent. However, later Gelasian sacramentaries, made towards the end of the 8th century or beginning of the 9th, do include Masses for these Thursdays, but the prayers which they have for that of the third week are not those of Ss Cosmas and Damian, and have nothing festive about them. This means that the festive character of the station suggested by the prayers currently in use may well not be original, and would therefore have played no role in determining the station. It seems to me that it would therefore be better to simply recognize that the anomaly cannot be satisfactorily explained.

The choice of some of the other liturgical texts for this Mass, however, is quite easy to understand. By the time of St Gregory II’s reform, the chant repertoire for the Masses was already regarded as a closed canon; therefore, new Gregorian propers were never composed for the Thursdays of Lent, which instead borrow them from other Masses. The Introit is taken from the 19th Sunday after Pentecost: “I am the salvation of the people, saith the Lord; from whatsoever tribulation they shall cry out to me, I will hear them, and I will be their Lord forever.”

The Latin word for “salvation” here, “salus”, also means “health”, and was clearly chosen because Cosmas and Damian were doctors; in the East, they are two among several Saints known as “moneyless” healers, those who did not charge their patients for their services. This theme is also reflected in the Gospel, Luke 4, 38-44, which recounts Christ’s healing of St Peter’s mother-in-law, followed by various other healings of physical ailments (vs. 40) and the expulsion of many demons (vs. 41). These physical healings look back to the Gospel chosen by Gregory II for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday, the healing of the centurion’s servant (Matt. 8, 5-13). The healing of the possessed looks back to the healing of the possessed daughter of the Canaanite woman on the Thursday after that (Matt. 15, 21-28), and forward to the Gospel of Passion Thursday, Luke 7, 36-50, the anointing of Christ’s feet by the sinful woman. This woman has long been understood in the West to be St Mary Magdalene, “from whom seven demons had gone out”, as stated at the beginning of the next chapter. (Luke 8, 2)

At the end of the Gospel, the people of Capharnaum “stayed (Jesus) that he should not depart from them, to whom he said, ‘To other cities also I must preach the kingdom of God.’ ” These words are appointed to be read in the first Christian church built in the Forum, the very heart of ancient Rome, which the Romans themselves often called simply “The City.” Ending the reading with Christ’s own words about preaching to other cities therefore reminds us of the providential role which the Roman Empire played in the spread of the Gospel: first, by pacifying the world, as noted in the Martyrology entry of Christmas, which states that Christ was born “in the forty-second year of the rule of Octavian Augustus, when all the world was set at peace”; second, by building the road system which Christian missionaries used to travel to every corner of the empire. This may be why the Communion antiphon was also taken from the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, “Thou hast commanded thy commandments to be kept most diligently. O! that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications.” (Psalm 118, 4-5).

It also reminds us specifically of the German mission of St Boniface, who came to Rome in 718 to receive confirmation of and authority to continue his missionary activities in Germany from St Gregory II. Four years later, he returned to Rome, and was consecrated a bishop for the entire region by the same Pope, given the pallium, and authority to organize a hierarchy. And indeed, considering the significance of this mission, and the active interest which Gregory II took in it, we may well posit that this Gospel was chosen for the Mass first, and then the station chosen as an appropriate place to read it.

All of these themes appear also in the Epistle of the day, Jeremiah 7, 1-7. “Stand in the gate of the house of the Lord, and proclaim there this word…” The original gates of the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian on the Forum side are to this very day preserved from the original building out of which the church was made, and date back to the beginning of the fourth century. As one stands at them, one can look into the Forum and see several of its most important monuments, including the regia, the ancient home of Rome’s chief religious authority, the pontifex maximus, and the temple of the first divinized emperor, Julius Caesar. More than anything else, it was the refusal of the early Christians to participate in the cult of the divinized emperors that led the Romans to persecute them; the admonition of verse 6 to “walk not after strange gods to your own hurt” would therefore refer to the conversion of Rome, the former persecutor, her renunciation of her ancient and false gods, and her role in leading other peoples (at that point, the Germans) to do the same.

The basilica of Ss Cosmas and Damian, seen from the Palatine Hill. The bronze doors seen near the bottom of this photo are the ones mentioned above. Going left from this point of view, but right when exiting the church, the regia is just a few steps down the street which passes in front of it, known as the Via Sacra, and the temple of Julius Caesar is next to the regia.

That none of this is accidental is confirmed by the prayer “over the people” at the end of the Mass, which asks that “the heavenly propitiation may increase (‘amplificet’) the people subject to Thee.” The verb “amplificet” can mean both to increase in number, but also to broaden, in the sense of spreading the Church beyond the former territories of the Roman Empire, as St Boniface was then doing in Germany. The word “subject” is placed first for emphasis in the Latin. The Romans subjected many peoples to their empire, which then became the means of their evangelization. These peoples are now subject to Christ, and worship Him in the very heart of that empire, led by one who now more truly bears the title “Pontifex Maximus.”

The Station of the First Friday of Lent

Many of the stories that form the corpus of Lenten Scriptural readings in the traditional Roman Rite are frequently depicted in frescoes in the catacombs, and on early Christian sarcophagi. We may safely assume that such readings were already part of the Roman Church’s lectionary before the end of the persecutions and the building of the earliest churches. When the tradition of the Roman station churches was formed, some of them were chosen in reference to those readings; an obvious example is the Saturday of the Third Week of Lent, when the Epistle is the story of Susanna, and the station is held at the church of a Roman martyr of the same name. In other cases, such as the octave of Easter, it is clear that the stations were fixed first, and many of the readings were chosen because of them.

There are also days on which it is impossible to determine whether the station church was chosen as an appropriate place for a particular reading, or vice versa, and indeed, it is quite possible that the liturgy was created all of a piece, including both the texts of the Mass and the station, which was considered an intrinsic part of the liturgy. Such a one is the station for today, which is held at the very ancient church of Ss John and Paul on the Caelian Hill.

The facade of the church of Ss John ad Paul, and the dome of the chapel which houses the relics of St Paul of the Cross. Photo by Agnese, from the first post of the 2018 Roman pilgrims Lenten series.

The Saints to whom the church is dedicated are two Roman brothers martyred by the Emperor Julian the Apostate, who reigned from 361-63. The traditional account of their lives states that they had been military officers under Constantine, and later served in the household of his daughter, Constantia, who at her death left them a large fortune with which to take care of the poor. When Julian, the son of Constantine’s half-brother, came to the throne, they refused to attend him at the court because of his apostasy from the Faith. The emperor would have used this as a pretext to seize the money left by Constantia, but granted them ten days to reconsider; the two Saints therefore gave all the money away for its intended purpose. A captain of the imperial bodyguards named Terentian was then sent to their house, bearing a statue of Jove and the Emperor’s promise that they would be greatly honored if they would worship it; otherwise, they would be killed. The words of their response are sung as the second antiphon of Lauds on their feast day: “Paul and John said to Terentian, ‘If Julian is thy lord, have thou peace with him; we have no other than the Lord Jesus Christ.’ ” They were beheaded at once, and buried within their own house on the Caelian hill, directly across from the imperial residence on the Palatine.

The traditional account also states that Jovian, who succeeded Julian as Emperor, immediately converted their house into a church. In reality, this was done about 30 years later by a Roman senator named Byzas and his son Pammachius, and the basilica was at first known as “titulus Pammachii – the title of Pammachius”; this is the name with which the station is indicated in the oldest list of Gospel readings according to the Roman Rite, the Wurzburg Lectionary (ca. 650AD), and earlier than that, as the location of a synod held by Pope Symmachus in 499.

Pammachius was a friend of St Jerome, and several of the letters exchanged between them survive. His wife Paulina was the daughter of another friend of Jerome, St Paula, but when she died in childbirth in 397, after roughly 12 years of marriage, Pammachius became a monk, and devoted his life to study and the works of charity. At the great port city of Rome, known simply as “Portus Romanus”, he and St Fabiola (yet another friend of Jerome) constructed a large hospice for pilgrims and the poor and sick, called a “xenodochium – a place for receiving strangers”, the first such institution founded in the West. (The site of it has been identified and excavated in modern times) In a letter praising his friend and this initiative, St Jerome states that in its founding, all the poor, needy and helpless have now become the heirs of Pammachius and his deceased wife Paulina. “Other husbands scatter on the graves of their wives violets, roses, lilies, and purple flowers, and assuage the grief of their hearts by fulfilling this tender duty. Our dear Pammachius also waters the holy ashes and the revered bones of Paulina, but it is with the balm of almsgiving.” (Letter 66, cap. 5; PL XXII, col. 642). Pammachius died during the Gothic sack of Rome in 410, and is honored by the Church as a Saint.

A detail of a painting of St Pammachius, from the church of Ss John and Paul. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Alekjds, a.k.a. our friend Fr Alek Shrenk; CC BY-SA 4.0.)

Roughly a third of a mile to the east of Ss John and Paul, there now stands a large modern hospital complex known as San Giovanni Addolorata. Underneath it are the remains of a very large Roman house of the early imperial era, which belonged to the one of the city’s oldest families, the Valerii. In the early 5th century, a daughter of this family, St Melania the Younger, another friend of Jerome, inherited it as part of her father’s enormous fortune. In the year 406, she and her husband Pinianus decided to sell the bulk of their property and devote themselves to the poor, but in fact, the house was so large and luxurious that they were unable to find a buyer until after the sack of 410, when the building was severely damaged, and its value thus greatly reduced. By the year 575, when most of Rome had been reduced to a pitiable state, another xenodochium was founded within the ruins of the house, and named for the Valerii.

There can be no doubt that the traditional Epistle of today’s station, Isaiah 58, 1-9, particularly the last part of it, refers to the Christian charity which Saints like John and Paul, Pammachius and Melania exercised on behalf of the poor on or near the site of the church. “Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the homeless into thy house: when thou shalt see one naked, cover him, and despise not thy own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy health shall speedily arise, and thy justice shall go before thy face, and the glory of the Lord shall gather thee up.” (vss. 7-8)

The Gradual of the Mass is taken from Psalm 26; as with so many chants of the Roman Rite, the text is taken from one of the Old Latin versions of the Bible which predate the Vulgate. “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord. V. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may be protected by his temple.” This is certainly a reference to the unique fact that Ss John and Paul were buried not in a catacomb, or at any rate, outside the city, as Roman law prescribed, but within their own house.

The Gospel, St Matthew 5, 43 – 6, 4, is part of the Sermon on the Mount, in which the Lord speaks of the spirit in which the works of charity are to be done, not only to our friends and neighbors, but also to our enemies. “Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you.” (vs. 43) This may perhaps be taken as a reference to Julian, the last pagan Emperor, and a persecutor of the Church, by whom John and Paul were martyred. The basilica also sits next to a large temple dedicated to the divinized Emperor Claudius, who did not persecute the Church, but did expel the Jews from Rome, with many of the first Christians among them, as recounted in Acts 18, 2 and Suetonius’ Life of Claudius (cap. 25). More importantly, the Christians’ refusal to participate in the worship of the divinized Emperors was one of the principal reasons why they were persecuted by the Romans.

The white blocks of marble seen in the lower middle of this photo (also by Agnese, from the first post of the 2015 series), supporting the church’s bell-tower, are just a small part of the surviving section of the podium of the temple dedicated to the divinized Emperor Claudius. Much more of it can be seen when one goes through the door to the left, under the house of the Passionist Fathers, who were given charge of the church by Pope Clement XIV (1769-74).

Likewise, the words of verse 47, “And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this?” may also be understood in reference to Julian, who reverted to heathenism, and like so many pagans before and after him, thought to inspire men to do good solely by philosophy, while living without the grace of Christ. As part of his scheme to revive the largely moribund worship of the Greco-Roman gods, he hoped to institute a program of charitable endeavors to be run by pagan priests (which they greeted with apathy), in emulation of those of the Christians. In one of his letters, he famously complained that “… it is disgraceful when no Jew is a beggar, and the impious Galileans support our poor in addition to their own; everyone is able to see that our co-religionists are in want of aid from us.”

The Wurzburg Lectionary is not a lectionary in the proper sense of the term, in that it does not contain the actual readings, but merely lists them by their first and last words, together with their liturgical date, and the Roman station church whenever one is assigned. During the actual Mass, the reading was done out of a Bible, and many ancient Bibles have markings or marginal notes that indicate liturgical readings. The Gospel for today is therefore noted in the Wurzburg Lectionary as follows:

On Friday, at (the title) of Pammachius. A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Canon 40. Jesus said to the disciples, “Ye have heard that it hath been said” (vs. 43) up to “and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee.” [Fer(ia) vi, in Pammachi, lec(tio) s(a)n(cti) ev(angelii) sec(undum) Mat(thaeum). k(anon) xl. D(i)x(it) Ihs discipulis suis audistis quia dictum ÷ usq(ue) Pater tuus qui videt in abscondito reddet tibi. – “Canon” refers to an ancient chapter system for the Gospels known as the Eusebian canons.]

Verse 4 and verse 6 of Matthew 6 both end with the words “and Thy Father etc.”, and per se, it is impossible to tell whether the Gospel was meant to end at the one or the other. (The numbered chapters and verses of the Bible are a much later invention.) In fact, already in the 9th century, there are lectionaries that end the reading at verse 4, and others that end it at verse 6. However, the antiphon at the Magnificat for Vespers is taken from verse 6, and is attested in almost all of the ancient antiphonaries, a fact which argues for the longer version of the reading. “Tu autem cum oraveris, intra in cubiculum tuum, et clauso ostio, ora Patrem tuum. – But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father.”

Folio 25v of a late eighth-century lectionary produced in northern Italy (perhaps in Verona or Monza), with the Gospel of the Friday after Ash Wednesday in its longer form, Matthew 5, 43 – 6, 6; most of the final verse is on the following page. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9451; image cropped)

If the Gospel was originally read in its longer form, including verses 5-6 of Matthew 6, this may also be an oblique reference to Ss John and Paul. The Latin word “cubiculum – chamber” literally means “sleeping place”; the Christians also used it to mean a burial chamber within the catacombs, an expression of the belief that death is really a sleep which will end at the final resurrection. Many of these chambers, though certainly not all, were created for wealthy persons, as evidenced by the beautiful decorations still preserved within them; had Ss John and Paul been buried in a catacomb, they most likely would have been laid in such a space. Instead, they were buried within their own house, which therefore became the “chamber” in which they await “the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”

A painted cubiculum within the Roman Catacomb of Priscilla.

Roman Pilgrims at the Station Churches 2024 (Part 3)

In the eleven years we have run this series, we have had a number of interruptions, when, for one reason or another, our Roman pilgrim friends were unable to make it to the stational churches. So this year we lost the second half of the second week of Lent, and the beginning of the third, to Agnese having a serious cold, work commitments, and the ever-popular Roman public transport strike. (Maybe two strikes... who can tell?) Things should be back on track now to the end of Passion week, so it’s time to do some catching up. We also have some videos from Jacob Stein’s YouTube channel Crux Stationalis, and a some photos from our newest Roman pilgrim, Fr Joseph Koczera SJ. Our thanks to them all for sharing with us these testimonies of the Faith in the Eternal City!

Monday of the Second Week of Lent – St Clement

This basilica is famously built on top of two earlier levels; the 12th-century church sits on top of a church of the 4th century, which in turn sits on top of two ancient Roman buildings, one of the later 1st and another of the mid-2nd century. (All three of these levels are accessible to the public.) The procession begins in the ruins of the ancient basilica (1st picture), makes its way upstairs and through the large portico, before entering the main church for the Mass. Also notice in the 6th photo the custom of strewing greenery on the floors of churches during the station Masses; nobody seems to really know where this comes from or why it is done.

Agnese has a real knack for catching photos of the station processions from one side of the portico or cloister as they make their way through the opposite side.

The church’s liturgical choir, and the three ambos which form part of it, date to a mid-6th century restoration of the old basilica; they were removed from the ruins of it and set in place in the new basilica when it was built at the beginning of the 12th century.

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Following the Roman Station Churches in Chicago

The Canons Regular of St John Cantius, based in Chicago, Illinois, have a well-deserved reputation for cultivating excellence in the liturgy, and we have gladly featured them many times here on NLM. They were recently kind enough to share with us some information about their way of keeping the Roman tradition of the Lenten station churches, more than 4,800 miles away from the Eternal City.

The stational shrine set up for the First Monday of Lent, at the basilica of St Peter’s Chains.  

At the parishes which they staff, a shrine is set up on a side altar during Lent. Each day, and a sign posted in it with the name of the stational church for that day, along with either a relic of church’s titular Saint, or a piece of the church itself. At the conventual Mass each day, and at each sung Mass on Sundays, the clergy and servers process to the stational shrine and reverence the relic with incense, before the deacon sings Procedamus in pace; the procession then goes to the high altar as an abbreviated Litany of the Saints is sung, in imitation of the ancient stational processions. While it’s not quite the same as joining the stational liturgies in Rome, this brief ritual each day of Lent, along with preaching which incorporates the stational churches and their connection to the daily liturgies of Lent, the Canons Regular are reviving this ancient custom on the local level, giving a sense of the universality of the Church, and the Romanitas of the liturgy.

The station shrine in the church of St Peter in Volo, Illinois, also staffed by the CRSJC, set up for the Second Sunday of Lent, station at Santa Maria in Domnica.

Back in Chicago, the basilica of St Mark on Monday of the Third Week, with a statue of the Evangelist.

Laetare Sunday, a jeweled Cross for the basilica of the Holy Cross, nicknamed “in Jerusalem”.

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Roman Pilgrims at the Station Churches 2024 (Part 2)

We continue with our annual series of photos of the Lenten station churches in Rome, thanks to our friends Agnese, Jacob, and Fr Joseph. Every year, at least one station gets omitted due to something Roman happening; this post does not include the station of Ember Friday, since there was a major strike going on that day. Don’t forget to visit Jacob’s YouTube channel Crux Stationalis, and enjoy his visits to the Eternal City’s many other important religious sites. Gratias vobis, cari amici!

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent – St Anastasia

The statue of St Anastasia in the niche in front of the high altar was planned by a sculptor called Francesco Aprile, in imitation of a similar statue of St Cecilia by Stefano Maderno, and Bernini’s Blessed Ludovica Albertoni. Aprile died in 1684 at the age of 30, and the work was executed by Ercole Ferrata, who was already in his 70s, and died very shortly after completing it.

Photos by Fr Joseph: the stem of the Portuguese cardinal Nuno da Cunha e Ataíde, who commissioned a significant restoration of the church in the early 18th century.

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The Station Churches of the Ember Days of Lent

During all four sets of Ember Days, the stations are held at the same three churches: on Wednesday at St Mary Major, on Friday at the church of the Twelve Apostles, and on Saturday at the basilica of St Peter in the Vatican. In Advent, Pentecost week, and September, there is often no clear connection between the station church and the actual text of the day’s Mass. On the Lenten Ember Days, however, the Gospel of the Mass each day makes a clear reference to the saint or saints in whose church it was intended to be said.

The high altar of St Mary Major, decorated with relics for the Lenten station in 2017. Photo by the great Agnese.

On Ember Wednesday, the Gospel is St Matthew 12, 38-50, in which the Lord rebukes the Pharisees who wish to see Him perform a sign. “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign; and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.”

In the Christian perspective, Jonah is unique and uniquely important among the prophets for two reasons. First, he personally does not say anything about Christ, as, for example, Isaiah says that a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. In Jonah’s case, it is what happens to his body that prophesies the destiny of Jesus’ body, His death and Resurrection. Secondly, this prophetic explanation of his story is given to us by Christ Himself. He therefore became at a very early period one of the most frequently represented subjects in Christian art.

Stories of Jonah, from a late 2nd century fresco in the Catacomb of Callixtus. From right to left, Jonah is thrown into the sea, where a monster is about to swallow him; Jonah is spat out of the sea-monster; Jonah rests under the vine. The Greek and Latin words for “whale” can also mean “sea-monster”, and the creature that swallows the prophet is usually shown as such in early Christian art.

In the ancient paintings and sarcophagi from the catacombs of Rome and elsewhere, Jonah is almost invariably shown nude, whether he is depicted being thrown into the water, swallowed by the whale, vomited out by the whale, or lying down under the vine that God uses to shield him from the sun. His nudity emphasizes the reality of his human nature, and therefore emphasizes the reality of Christ’s human nature. It must be born in mind that early heretics like the Docetists, Gnostics, and later the Arians, were concerned to deny not so much the divinity of Christ as the humanity of God. In antiquity, the idea of a savior, sage or miracle-worker sent from heaven was not particularly difficult to accept; what many in the Roman world found much harder to believe was that God took such interest in the welfare of the human race that He actually joined it. The nude figure of Jonah, therefore, is as much an assertion of the Incarnation, against the early heresies, as it is a proclamation of the death and resurrection of Christ.

A third-century sarcophagus in the Vatican Museums’ Pio-Christian collection. This is one of the most elaborate versions of the Jonah story, and is therefore known as the Jonah Sarcophagus, although there are many other ancient representations of the prophet. Note that Noah is seen standing in a square ark above the sea-monster on the right, a clever use of the extra space to add another important Biblical episode.

This tradition was already well established when the basilica of Saint Mary Major was built right after the ecumenical council of Ephesus, both to honor the chosen vessel of God’s Incarnation, and to re-assert this dogma of our salvation against the heretic Nestorius; the station is kept at the natural choice of church in which to read this crucial Gospel passage. Oddly enough, the traditional Roman Rite uses only one passage from the book of Jonah itself at Mass in the whole of the year; chapter 3, in which Jonah preaches repentance to the Ninivites, is read on the Monday of Passion week, and repeated at the Easter Vigil. In the traditional Ambrosian liturgy, on the other hand, the entire book (actually one of the shortest in the Bible, only 48 verses) is the first reading of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper; in the Byzantine Rite, it is read at the Easter vigil.

At the end of the same Gospel, the Mother of God Herself appears in person: “And one said unto him, ‘Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking thee.’ But He answering… said: ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?’ And stretching forth His hand towards His disciples, He said: Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.’ ” These words are explained by St Gregory the Great to mean that the disciples of Christ are His brethren when they believe in Him, and His Mother when they preach Him; “For as it were, one gives birth to the Lord when he brings Him into the heart of his listener, and becomes His Mother by preaching Him, if through his voice the love of God is begotten in the mind of his neighbor.” (Homily 3 on the Gospels).

The Coronation of the Virgin, apsidal mosaic of St. Mary Major by Jacopo Torriti, 1296

On Friday is read at the basilica of the Twelve Apostles the Gospel of the man healed at the pool of Bethesda, John 5, 1-15, wherein “lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered.” This healing may be seen as a prophecy of the mission given by Christ Himself to the Apostles, and in them to the whole Church. During His earthly ministry, when He first sent the Apostles forth, He “gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities. And the names of the twelve Apostles are these: The first, Simon who is called Peter, etc. (saying) ‘Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.’ ” (Matthew 10, 1-2 and 8). Likewise, on the feast of the Ascension, we read that He renewed this commission to the Apostles, giving as one of the signs that shall follow those that believe in Him, “they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover.” Here, when Christ heals the man who is too lame to reach the pool as the Angel of the Lord stirs the water, He says to him, “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.” In the Acts of the Apostles, the very first miracle of healing reported after the first Pentecost is that of the lame man to whom their leader says “Arise and walk.” (chapter 3, 1-16)

Three images of Christ as healer on a 3rd-century sarcophagus, also in the Pio-Christian Collection of the Vatican Museums. From left to right, the healing of the paralytic, who is shown carrying his bed; the healing of the blind man; the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. The fourth image is Christ transforming water into wine at the wedding of Cana. In antiquity, Christ was often shown holding a magic wand to indicate that He is working a miracle; some commentators have most unfortunately chosen to understand this to mean that the early Christians thought of Christ principally as a magician.

The Synoptic Gospels tell the story of another paralytic healed at Capharnaum, whose friends had to take the roof off the building to lower him down into the place where Jesus was preaching. (Mark 2, 1-12 and parallels) When Christ says to him first “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” the Pharisees grew indignant at this usurpation of God’s prerogatives. He therefore heals the man of his bodily infirmities to show that “the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,” and then addresses him in the same terms He uses with the man at the pool of Bethesda, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house.”

The healed paralytic carrying his bed is another motif of great importance in early Christian art, representing the forgiveness of sins, an article of the faith which we still profess in every recitation of the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. Such images usually consist only of Christ and the man carrying his bed, and it is impossible to say whether we are meant to see him as the paralytic of Capharnaum or Bethesda. More likely, we are meant to think of them both at once.

The healing of the paralytic of Bethesda, from the basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, ca. 550 A.D. In the same church, the paralytic of Capharnaum is shown being lowered through the roof, a rare case in which the two are clearly distinguished.

The latter, however, represents another idea of great importance to the early Church, namely, that gentiles are not obliged to live according to the religious laws of the Jews. In the early centuries, many Christians still felt themselves to be very close to their Jewish roots, and continued to follow the Mosaic law; a small but apparently rather vocal minority of these held that the same law should be binding upon all Christians. The paralytic of Bethesda, however, when reproved for violating the strict interpretation of law that no work may be done on the Sabbath, replies “He that made me whole said to me, ‘Take up thy bed, and walk.’ ” He therefore symbolizes the fact that Christ Himself has given the Church a new law, by which Christians are freed from the observance of the law of Moses.

The same idea is expressed by another common motif in early Christian art, the scene referred to as the Traditio Legis – the Handing-Down of the Law. In these images, Jesus is shown with a scroll representing the new law of the Christian faith, in the company of at least the Apostle Peter, usually also Paul, and sometimes all twelve; very often, He is passing the scroll directly to them. The Apostles, who had of course discussed this same question at the very first Council of the Church, that of Jerusalem (Acts 15), hand down to the Church and its members the new law that permanently dispenses us from the religious observances of the Old Covenant. This is certainly one of the reason why the story of the paralytic of Bethesda is read in the basilica of the Twelve Apostles.

The Traditio Legis with Ss. Peter and Paul, from the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (prefect of Rome, died 359 A.D.) Note that as Christ is handing the scrolls of the law to the Apostles Peter and Paul, He is also stepping on the face of the sky god, here used as a symbolic figure, to represent His dominion over the heavens.

The Traditio Legis with all twelve Apostles, from a late-4th century imperial mausoleum in Milan, now the chapel of St Aquilinus in the basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore. Here, Christ has one scroll in His hand, and six in the case at His feet, a total of seven; this number symbolizes perfection, and hence the perfection of the new law.

At the Mass of Ember Saturday, the Church reads St Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration (chapter 17, 1-9) at the basilica of St Peter in the Vatican. In his homilies on this Gospel, St. John Chrysostom teaches that the purpose of the Transfiguration was to strengthen the Apostles’ faith in Christ’s divinity, so that they might not be overwhelmed with sorrow at His Passion or lose faith in His Resurrection. The Greek Church instituted a feast of the Transfiguration long before it was adopted by the West, fixing the day to August 6th, forty days, the length of Lent, before the Exaltation of the Cross. This association of the Transfiguration with the Passion is beautifully expressed by the early Byzantine mosaic in the apse of Sant’ Apollinare in Classe near Ravenna, built in the mid-6th century. The witnesses of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah above, the Apostles Peter, James and John below, represented as three sheep, are standing around a great jeweled Cross, rather than Christ in in His glory and majesty; only the face of the Lord appears, within a small medallion in the middle of the Cross, an expression of the humility with which He accepted the Passion.

The three witnesses of the Transfiguration, Ss Peter, James and John, often appear together in the Gospels as the disciples closest to Christ. Along with Peter’s brother St Andrew, they were the first disciples called to follow Him, and were present for the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Luke 4, 38-39); they were also the witnesses of the healing of the daughter of Jairus, (Mark 5, 37) and the agony in the garden (Mark 14, 33). They alone receive new names from Christ as a sign of their mission, (Mark 3, 16-17) Peter, “the Rock”, being the name given to Simon, James and John receiving the name Boanerges, “sons of thunder”. But at the Transfiguration, as in so many other places, it is Peter alone whose words the Evangelists record for us, words which the church of Rome sings this days at his very tomb, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”