The Catholic Institute of Sacred Music cordially invites you to the final event of its 2024–2025 Public Lecture and Concert Series.
Tenebrae: The Church’s “Office of the Dead” for Christ Crucified
Lecture by James Monti (Dunwoodie, New York)
Saturday, April 12, 10:00 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT)
From at least as far back as the sixth century, the Church has begun her daily worship on the three days of the Easter Triduum with a unique solemnization of the Divine Office known as Tenebrae, a sung liturgy hewn from the Scriptural prophecies of the Passion, to form a veritable “Office of the Dead” in which She mourns the death of Christ. The sacred texts of this office inspired a priceless treasury of plainchant, and later, a vast corpus of polyphonic settings, particularly for the Scriptural centerpiece of Tenebrae, the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The purpose of this lecture will be to explore the history, the meaning, the music and the striking ritual actions of this profoundly moving office, which in recent years has undergone an amazing resurgence, fostered by the magnetic appeal of its compelling sights and soundscape.
The lecture is available live via Zoom. An RSVP is required, and space is limited. The lecture is available for free, but if your means allow we are grateful for a donation to support the work of the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music.
This post concludes the Tenebrae part of our Holy Week photopost series; we will move on to the other ceremonies of the Triduum next week. Many thanks to all the contributors - feliciter!
Oratory of Ss Gregory and Augustine – St Louis, Missouri
Marching on into the Triduum, here is the first set of photos of Tenebrae services. As always, there is always room and time for more, so please feel free to send yours in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, and don’t forget to include the name and location of the church; and of course, our thanks to all the contributors - feliciter!
The momentum behind rediscovering and restoring tradition has not abated; on the contrary, I would say it is intensifying. Those who care, care more; and those who know and love will not be deterred by those who are indifferent to or full of hatred for tradition. They have increasingly shown their cards, as it were, and they are not altar cards.
With that as a prefatory remark, here are three new publications for the pre-55 Holy Week, which continues its quiet conquest.
The Masses of Holy Week & Tenebrae
I am pleased to announce the release of TheMasses of Holy Week & Tenebrae, published by Os Justi Press in time for Lent. This book contains the complete pre-55 Latin texts, with English translation, for Palm Sunday, the Triduum Masses, and the Office of Tenebrae, including complete Gregorian chants. Simple rubrics are indicated. No page turning is required. The book features many medieval illustrations as well. In the PDF they are in color; in the printed book, in grayscale.
Ideal for scholas, for personal study, or as a congregational worship aid, the book is handsomely printed with readable type and weighs in at nearly 500 pages. The cost is $20. Bulk discounts are available (and for multiple countries, not just the USA) by contacting the publisher. The book is also available through Amazon, including all of its international sites.
The cover is shown above. Below are some sample pages; more may be found here.
On Wednesday, April 5th, beginning at 8:00 pm, St Martin of Tours Catholic Church and Our Lady and St John Catholic Church will host a Tenebrae service at the parish of St Martin, located in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, at 639 South Shelby Street. The music, sung by the choir of St Martin of Tours, will include Thomas Tallis’ setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the motet Christus Factus Est by Anton Bruckner.
Those who have assisted at the traditional Roman liturgy for some time can usually name many things about it that they noticed over the years — things that impressed, provoked, consoled, puzzled, that made them wake up, question more, dig deeper. There is a moment of transition, I find, from being one who appreciates the old liturgy, perhaps now and again, or as a field trip, or as a pastoral duty, to being one who has fallen in love with it, who makes it his spiritual home, and who, accordingly, may justly be called a traditionalist. (As much as some people protest against the use of that word, it remains immensely handy for naming a phenomenon, which is what language is supposed to do.)
My books mention many such experiences, but here are two that are especially appropriate to share in Easter week.
The first was the contrast I noticed, several years in a row, between the modern (Paul VI) Easter Vigil and the Easter Sunday Missa Cantata of the Roman Rite. The reason for comparing these two is that I was involved at the time in providing music for both — the “Ordinary Form” on Saturday night and the “Extraordinary Form” (how quaint are those terms now!) on Sunday morning.
The Paul VI vigil had no “spaces,” no obvious opening to mystery through which one could enter. It was a flood of didactic text, spoken aloud, with musical interludes. Modern people are already awash in words. Do we really need more? In the N.O. Easter Vigil, one felt that one had been thoroughly drenched in the Bible readings conducted in Nabbish, a lengthy homily, the unsatisfying glamor of receiving some people into the church in a ritual that culminated in applause, and a celebration of the Eucharist wholly lacking in supernatural resonance or fearful majesty. It made an impression for sheer length, number of lilies, and candles, but otherwise it was like cookie dough — the same consistency throughout.
The Easter Missa cantata, on the other hand, was full of the sound of Alleluias sung in Gregorian chant — sixteen of them (not counting the repetitions of the Communion antiphon). The chants for Easter are strong, sometimes strange, always unearthly, already half-dwelling in the realm of eternity. The church, ablaze with white and gold… the ritual nailed to the altar, from which salvation pours out like blood and water… the clouds of incense billowing… all point to the mysterious reality of the Crucified and Risen One — and this is something that can be perceived by anyone seeking God or even seeking some meaning in life. Marshall McLuhan said, decades ago, that modern culture is obsessed with images and that the Church must therefore provide images of great power: visual and audible images that are startlingly different from what secular culture offers. At the Easter morning sung Mass, I had an almost unnerving sense of stepping back through time across all the centuries that separated me from the resurrection of Christ and coming once again into His powerful presence. This was a ritual that somehow poured from His glorified wounds to bathe me in their light. There was a holy awe about the place, a restrained joy coiled like a spring ready to leap to heaven, a hushed adoration like that of Mary Magdalene when she discovered Christ in the garden and He would not let her touch Him.
Let me not be misunderstood: I am not calling into question the good will of anyone who contributed to the Easter Vigil. On the contrary, there was abundant good will, which I remember fondly. The problem is deeper than the individuals: it is in the rites they are using and the customs that have grown up around them to the point of having nearly the force of law. The face liturgy presents to us depends much more on the rites and customs than it does on the personnel who happen to be using them; the former determine and delimit the possible range of influence for the latter.
The second experience was singing, and then reflecting on, Lesson III of Holy Saturday’s Tenebrae: “Incipit Oratio Jeremiae Prophetae.”
Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: consider and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned unto aliens: our houses to strangers. We are become orphans without a father, our mothers are as widows. Our water we have drunk for money: we have bought our wood for a price. We were dragged by our necks, we were weary and rest was not given unto us. Unto Egypt, and unto the Assyrians have we given our hand, that we might be satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned, and are no more: and we have borne their iniquities. Servants have ruled over us: there was none to redeem us out of their hand. Our bread we fetched at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the desert. Our skin was burnt as an oven, by reason of the violence of the famine. They have oppressed the women in Sion, and the virgins in the cities of Juda. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, be converted unto the Lord thy God.
Pondering these prophetic words led me to see their application to our current liturgical situation, and the parallels have only grown clearer with time. We are alienated from our inheritance; our houses of worship are sold off to Masonic lodges or Hindu ashrams; we are become like orphans without a father in Rome or, in some cases, a father in our diocese; we bought our reforms for a steep price, and were dragged along without our consent; we grew weary of hyperactive participation and longed for a contemplative rest that was denied us; we exchanged our birthright for a seat at the United Nations and the European Union; those who fomented our disasters are mostly long-gone and we suffer from their sins; slaves of fashion rule over the sons of God; we fetched our traditional bread wherever we could find it, afraid of the sword of church authority in the desert of the post-Council; the spiritual famine has been violent, and it has extended even to threatening the religious life of consecrated virgins. Jerusalem, O Church on earth: be converted unto the Lord thy God!
Someone once said of the liturgical reformers: “They took the faith out of our hands and knees.” The reform stripped away, or allowed to be stripped away, bodily spiritual formation. Catholics can get a visceral sense of the contrast when they attend their first Tridentine Mass and find that there’s a lot more kneeling than they are accustomed to (even at High Mass) and more demands placed on their attention in general. It is a liturgy that pre-dates the invention of television, so it expects a long attention span, and the ability to be quiet and sit still. The faith has to penetrate into our bones and muscles or it remains cerebral and ineffectual.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the contrasting practices of Holy Communion. In too many churches, the faithful walk up in multiple lines and receive the Body of Christ in their hands, like people queueing for bus tickets, after which they take a cup to wash it down, like teammates sharing Gatorade. In traditional communities, the faithful kneel along the communion rail and wait until the priest comes to them to bless them with the Host — “Corpus Domini nostri + Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam, Amen” — and places it gently on their tongues. These two contrasting scenes are, in reality, expressive of two different ideas of religion, if we take religion in the sense of the virtue by which we offer God our worship through concrete words and actions.
This is why I am not surprised that the former Benedictine monk Gabriel Bunge, a world expert on the Trinity icon of Rublev, left the Catholic Church to become Eastern Orthodox. No one ever introduced him to the real Western tradition that corresponded to what he was studying from the East. He came to the conclusion that the only authentic tradition left was the East. His conclusion should rather have been that the modern West had abandoned its own authentic tradition, and that we have an urgent calling to recover it.
After experiences like the two I recounted, one’s soul is seared with the truth, at once liberating and daunting: I cannot go back to the 60s and 70s, to those pathetic works of human hands. Let the dead bury the dead. It is the perennially youthful Roman Rite that gives joy to me, that shines forth light and truth.
Anonymous, Central Panel of the Knappenaltar, Hallstatt, Austria, 1450
Without doubt the most dolorous day of the Church’s annually recurring sanctification of time is Good Friday, the day on which she commemorates in a special manner the Passion and Death of Our Lord, the day that is the culmination of forty days of fasting and penance, and the only day of the year in the Latin rites of the Church on which her altars are deprived of the Holy Sacrifice.
But as Christian disciples who are sorrowful but always rejoicing (see 2 Cor. 6, 10), Good Friday is not an occasion of defeat but of love's triumph. Today, let us look at five good effects of this solemn, somber day.
1. Music
The liturgical observance of Good Friday has inspired not only a number of beautiful musical compositions but also a number of musical genres. The celebration of Tenebrae, the combination of Matins and Lauds during the pre-dawn mornings of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, led to a body of music called Lamentations. The Matins of Tenebrae include several passages from the Book of Lamentations in the Old Testament. Jeremiah’s wrenching dirge over the destruction of Jerusalem was traditionally chanted, but beginning in the fifteenth century it became the inspiration for non-liturgical polyphonic settings by several famous composers. These Lamentations are recognized today as among the finest examples of Renaissance and Elizabethan music.
The Three Hours’ Devotion, or “Seven Last Words of Christ,” is a Good Friday service begun by Father Alphonso Messia, S.J., in 1732. From its place of origin in Lima, Peru, it quickly spread to all other countries in Central and South America and from there to Italy, England, and America, where both Catholics and Protestants enthusiastically embraced the devotion. The service, which alternates between homilies on the seven last statements of the crucified Christ and various hymns and prayers, has also inspired the composition of memorable music, including “The Seven Last Words of Christ” by Franz Josef Haydn (1787), “Les Sept Paroles de Notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ sur la Croix” by Charles Gounod (1855), and “Les sept paroles du Christ” by Theodore Dubois (1867).
Lastly, the Gospel readings of the traditional Roman rite backhandedly led to the creation of Passion Music. In the Roman calendar, all four Gospel narratives of the Lord’s Passion are read at a time during Holy Week: the Passion according to St. Matthew on Palm Sunday, the Passion according to St. Mark on the following Tuesday, the Passion according to St. Luke on Spy Wednesday, and the Passion according to St. John on Good Friday. During a High Mass, these narratives would be chanted by three clerics: a tenor taking the role of the narrator, a high tenor taking the role of the mob and various individuals, and a bass voice taking the role of Christ.
The music for these parts is an outstanding example of the power and beauty of Gregorian chant; understandably, then, it left a deep impression on the Western imagination even after the Protestant Reformation in large part did away with the liturgical setting of Holy Week. Nature abhorring a vacuum, Protestant composers soon began writing passion oratorios to replace the music of solemn liturgy, the most famous of which are J. S. Bach’s “Saint John Passion” and “Saint Matthew Passion.”[1]
2. Food
Good Friday is principally known as a day of fasting. In contemporary Church discipline, it is only one of the two mandatory days of fasting left on the calendar (Ash Wednesday being the other). In former times, it was the occasion of far more rigorous fasting. The Irish and other Catholics kept what was known as the Black Fast, in which nothing was consumed, except perhaps for a little water or plain tea, until sundown. And in the second century the early Church is said to have kept a forty-hour fast that began at the hour when Christ died on the Cross (3 p.m. Friday) and ended on the hour that He rose from the dead (7 a.m. Sunday).[2]
But despite its link to fasting, Good Friday is also associated with several foods. In Greece it is customary to have a dish with vinegar added to it, in honor of the gall our Lord drank on the Cross.[3] In some parts of Germany, one would only eat dumplings and stewed fruit.[4] In other areas of central Europe, vegetable soup and bread would be eaten at noon, and cheese with bread in the evening. At both meals people would eat standing and in silence.[5]
The widespread custom in Catholic countries of marking every new loaf of bread with the sign of the cross took on a special meaning on Good Friday. In Austria, for instance, Karfreitaglaib, bread with a cross imprinted on it, was eaten on this day.
But the most famous Good Friday bread is the hot cross bun. According to legend Father Rocliff, the priest in charge of distributing bread to the poor at St. Alban’s Abbey in Hertfordshire, decided on Good Friday in 1361 to decorate buns with a cross in honor of Our Lord’s Passion. The custom spread throughout the country and endured well into the nineteenth century, where it was sold on the streets of England, as the nursery rhyme tells us, for “one a penny, two a penny.” Today, hot cross buns are available during all of Lent.
Several pious superstations also grew around the hot cross bun, such as the belief that it would never grow moldy and that two antagonists would be reconciled if they shared one. Good Friday hot cross buns were kept throughout the year for its curative properties; if someone “fell ill, a little of the bun was grated into water and given to the sick person to aid his recovery.” Some folks believed that eating them on Good Friday would protect your home from fire, while others wore them “as charms against disease, lightning, and shipwreck”![7]
3. Customs
Besides the lore surrounding hot cross buns, Good Friday became a magnet for an assortment of non-liturgical customs and folk beliefs. In Mexico and other lands, piñatas in the likeness of Judas Iscariot would be beaten to a pulp.[8] In Europe, people refrained from all forms of merriment: no joking and laughing, no noisy tasks, no theatrical performances (except for Passion plays), no dancing and, as we shall see, no hunting. Even children “abstain[ed] from their usual games.”[9]
In the Middle Ages it was common for the population to wear black during all of Holy Week as a sign of mourning and especially on Good Friday, and it was Church law until 1642 to refrain from all servile labor during the Triduum. Schools, businesses, law courts, and government offices would all close during Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. In Catholic countries it was common for pardons to be granted to prisoners during Holy Week, and often charges would be dismissed in court in honor of our Lord’s Sacrifice.[10]
The list of what could and could not be done was often inspired by the events of the Passion. It was auspicious to plant and to garden on Good Friday because “Christ blessed and sanctified the soil by His burial,”[11] but woe to the man who swung a hammer or drove a nail on the day that these objects became instruments of Our Lord’s torture. Doing laundry was also verboten, as Christ’s clothes were stained with blood during His Passion. According to one superstition, any woman who did the washing on Good Friday would find the clothes spotted with blood and bad luck would follow her all the year. It was, however, good luck to die on Good Friday, since one’s soul would, like the Good Thief’s, be given speedy access to Heaven.
Georges Seurat, "The Gardener," 1882-1883
Among the non-superstitious customs, one of the most impressive can be found in the Eastern rites of the Christian Syrians and Chaldeans. Their customary greeting, Schlama or “Peace be with you,” is not used on Good Friday and Holy Saturday because it is the signature salutation of Christ after His resurrection (see Lk. 24,36; Jn. 20,21; 20,26) and is redolent of Judas’ perfidious greeting. Instead, they say “the Light of God be with your departed ones.”[12]
And, of course, the Western and Eastern rites of the Church developed beautiful liturgical and para-liturgical traditions for this unique anniversary. In the traditional Roman rite, the liturgical ministers vest in black as they would for a Requiem Mass. The service consists of the Mass of the Catechumens, where several readings, including the Passion according to St. John, are proclaimed; the Oratio Fidelium or “Prayer of the Faithful,” in which the Church solemnly prays for the world in a series of moving petitions; the Adoration of the Cross, when the priest unveils a crucifix in three stages and the people venerate the Cross with a kiss; and finally, the Mass of the Presanctified, a communion rite involving Hosts consecrated from a previous day.
Before the nineteenth century, the Good Friday service was supplemented throughout Europe by great processions through the streets that featured images of the suffering Christ and dolorous Blessed Virgin Mary borne on decorated platforms. This custom is still maintained today in the Latin countries of both the New and Old Worlds. Other popular or once-popular devotions include the Forty Hours’ Devotion, the Three Hours’ Devotion (see above), and the Stations of the Cross, the latter often dramatized (in Hispanic communities) outdoors.
Good Friday procession of the epitaphios in Greece
The most striking feature of the Good Friday service in the Byzantine Rite, on the other hand, is the “burial service” of Our Lord, where the faithful mourn the death of their Savior in a kind of funeral procession. A large and usually ornate shroud called an epitaphios bears Christ’s image and is carried around the perimeter of the church before it is placed in a Sepulchre. In addition to the Procession of the Holy Shroud, twelve Gospels are chanted, and a number of litanies are prayed, and a watch is kept at the Sepulchre.
4. Holy Deaths
The Catholic hagiographical tradition also cherishes the memory of several saints whose birthday into eternal bliss occurred on the anniversary of Our Lord’s death. Often, their feast days are transferred to another date; still, the day on which they died is a significant part of their life’s story.
Saints Azades, Tharba, and thousands of other Persian martyrs were cut down in a brutal persecution that began at twelve noon on Good Friday in A.D. 341 and ended on Low Sunday of the same year. Azades was a eunuch favored by the king; when he was martyred, the aggrieved tyrant limited the persecution to bishops, priests, monks, and nuns. Tharba, on the other hand, was a beautiful consecrated virgin who preferred being sawn in half to the lascivious advances of her judges. Their feast day is April 22.[13]
Matthias Stom, "Saint Ambrose," 1633-1639
Saint Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) is one of the great Latin doctors of the Church and the bishop who facilitated the conversion of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Ambrose prayed during his final hours on Good Friday with his arms outstretched in imitation of his crucified Master and passed away shortly after receiving the Viaticum. His feast day is kept on December 7, the anniversary of his episcopal ordination.
Saint Proterius was a Patriarch of Alexandria who was stabbed to death in 557 by Eutychian schismatics in a baptistery where he had taken sanctuary. After killing him, the schismatics “dragged his dead body through the whole city, cut it in pieces, burnt it and scattered the ashes in the air.” His feast day is February 28.[14]
Saint Walter of Pontoise was an Abbot of St. Martin’s near Pontoise, France. He so feared becoming vainglorious from ruling a monastery that he frequently ran away from it. Eventually the Pope had to order him to remain in his abbey. Saint Walter was beaten and imprisoned by his fellow Benedictines for his opposition to simony within the order, but he bore his persecution with patience and even joy. He passed away on April 8, 1099, and his feast day remains on that day.[15]
Saint Francis of Paola, founder of the Minim Friars, sensed at the age of ninety-one that his death was approaching. Gathering his disciples and giving them his final instructions, he died on Good Friday in 1507 while listening to the reading of the Passion according to St. John. His feast is kept on April 2, the day that he passed away. Fifty-five years later, when his tomb was desecrated by the Huguenots, the saint’s body was discovered to be incorrupt. Nevertheless, the Huguenots dragged it out and burned it.[16]
Saint Margaret Clitherow, also known as the “Pearl of York,” is one of the forty great English recusant martyrs canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Arrested for giving Catholic priests safe harbor, she refused to plead on the grounds that her young children could then be tortured and forced to testify. Consequently, Margaret received the standard punishment for those who refused to plead: she was stripped and crushed to death by an immense weight. The two sergeants who were put in charge of her execution could not bring themselves to do it and hired four beggars instead. After her execution, even the ruthless Queen Elizabeth I wrote to the citizens of York to express her horror at St. Margaret’s death, who as a woman should not have received capital punishment. Her feast day is August 30.
Saint John Baptist de la Salle is the founder of the Christian Brothers and the patron saint of teachers; because of the vast educational reforms he instituted, he is also considered the father of modern pedagogy. To meet the dire educational and social needs of his day, this holy priest proposed the radical idea of popular free schools. Among his reforms was a focus on reading and the teaching of elementary-school children in the vernacular rather than Latin. During Holy Week of 1719, Saint Jean Baptiste sensed that his life was coming to an end. On Holy Thursday he blessed the brothers who had gathered at his bedside, and on Good Friday “he breathed his soul into the hand of his Creator.”[17] His feast is celebrated on May 15.
After decades of teaching small children and caring for the sick and elderly, the Servant of God Maria Luisa Godeau Leal founded the Augustinians of Our Lady of Help and took the religious name Maria of the Eucharist and of the Holy Spirit. Maria, who hailed from Mexico City, died on Good Friday, March 31, 1956. Her cause is currently being put forth for canonization.
Lastly, mention should be made of St. Veronica Giuliani who, although she did not pass away on Good Friday, led a life that was punctuated by this holy day. Veronica was a Poor Clare Abbess, mystic, and stigmatist. When only eighteen months old, she uttered her first words in response to a shopkeeper who was doling out a false measure of oil: “Do justice, God sees you.”[18] She had the privilege of receiving divine communications from the age of three, and loved the poor so much that she often gave them the clothes off her back. When she was four, “her dying mother entrusted each of her five children to a sacred wound of Christ”: Veronica was assigned the wound in Christ’s side.[19]
After becoming a nun of the Poor Clares, she desired to become united with Christ in His sufferings. Eventually, she was favored with the stigmata in the form of the Crown of Thorns, which left wounds that were painful and permanent. And on Good Friday in 1697, she received the impression of the wounds on Christ’s hands, feet, and side. After her death an autopsy was performed and it was discovered that on her heart were recognizable symbols of Christ’s Passion. Her body, which was laid to rest in her monastery at Citta del Castello, remained incorrupt until it was destroyed by a flood from the Tiber River.
5. Conversions
Good Friday is also auspicious for the living as well as for the dying. A number of sinners became saints, or at least embarked on the path to sanctification, because of this liturgical anniversary. Two of these saints had a conversion experience while hunting. Both Saint Eustace (a Roman martyr) and Saint Hubert (a medieval confessor Bishop of Germany) are said to have been irreverently using the day on which Our Lord’s blood was shed for us in an attempt to shed an animal’s blood for sport when they came upon a stag with a glowing cross between its large antlers. In Hubert’s case, the stunned hunter fell to his knees and heard a voice say to him, “Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord and leadest a holy life, thou shalt quickly go down to hell.” Hubert heeded the warning, eventually becoming the wise and holy bishop of Maastricht. And the image of a stag with a cross between its antlers eventually appeared on the label of the strong German liqueur named Jägermeister, or “master of the hunt.”
Robert Leighton, "Saint Hubert," 1911
But perhaps the most powerful conversion story involving Good Friday is the life of Saint John Gualbert (d. 1073). Saint John was an Italian nobleman whose only brother was murdered by a man that was supposed to have been his brother’s friend. Swearing revenge, John chanced to come upon him face to face in a narrow passageway on Good Friday. When he drew his sword to slay the murderer, the man dismounted his horse, knelt down, and “besought him by the passion of Jesus Christ, who suffered on that day, to spare his life.” The memory of Christ, who prayed for his murderers on the cross, greatly affected Saint John, and lifting his brother’s killer from the ground, said to him: “I can refuse nothing that is asked of me for the sake of Jesus Christ. I not only give you your life, but also my friendship for ever. Pray for me that God may pardon me my sin.”[21]
Anonymous, "St. John Gualbert," 14th century
John then went to a nearby monastery to pray, and as he knelt before the crucifix begging forgiveness for his sins, Christ on the cross bowed his head three times, signaling (as Saint John interpreted it) that He was pleased with his repentance. John immediately asked the Abbot to be admitted as a monk. Although the Abbot was apprehensive of John’s father, who was shocked by his son’s decision, John eventually became an exemplary monk and the founder of his own religious community at Vallis Umbrosa in Italy.
Conclusion
Scholars remain uncertain about the precise origins of the English name “Good Friday.” Is it like the Dutch term Goede Vrijdag that means the same thing, or is it, as others have speculated, a corruption of “God’s Friday”? Either way, we can see how God’s Friday of merciful self-giving, and the Church’s annual remembrance of it, have created an abundance of good things both little and great.
This article, which first appeared in the Winter/Spring 2013 issue of The Latin Mass magazine, has been since updated. Many thanks to the editors of TLM for allowing its publication here.
Notes
[1] Francis X. Weiser, S.J., Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958), 191, 203–204.
[2] Weiser, Handbook, 201.
[3] Evelyn Vitz, A Continual Feast (Ignatius Press, 1985),190.
[4] Katherine Burton and Helmut Ripperger, Feast Day Cookbook (Catholic Authors Press, 2005), 53.
[5] Weiser, Handbook, 205.
[6] Burton, Feast Day Cookbook, 52.
[7] Weiser, Handbook, 206.
[8] See Wendy Devlin, “History of the Piñata,” Mexico Connect, http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/wdevlin/wdpinatahistory.html; Olga Rosino, Belinda Mendoza, and Christine Castro, “Piñatas!” http://www.epcc.edu/ftp/Homes/monicaw/borderlands/10_pi%C3%B1atas.htm.
[9] Weiser, Handbook, 205.
[10] Weiser, Handbook, 187.
[11] Weiser, Handbook, 205.
[12] Weiser, Handbook, 205.
[13] Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints, 1866 edition, accessible at bartleby.com.
[14] Butler, Lives.
[15] Butler, Lives.
[16] Lawrence Hess, “St. Francis of Paula,” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06231a.htm.
[17] Matthias Graham, “St. John Baptist de La Salle,” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08444a.htm.
[18] Lawrence Hess, “St. Veronica Giuliani,” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15363a.htm.
[19] Joan Carroll Cruz, The Incorruptibles (TAN Books 1977), 252.
We continue our Holy Week photopost series with part 2 of Tenebrae, before we move on to Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. I am also including two videos from the Oxford Oratory, and three from our friends of the mighty Schola Sainte-Cécile. We have received a slow but steady stream of new contributions, and there is always room for more; if you have photos you would like to share, send them in to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, remembering to include the name and location of the church. Evangelize through beauty!
St Patrick’s Church – Albury, New South Wales, Australia
One of the many enouraging signs of the slow-but-steady growth of interest in the recovery of our Catholic liturgical tradition is the increasing number of churches that do Tenebrae services during the Sacred Triduum. In 2015, the year I took over as managing editor of NLM, and in the three years after that, we had only one photopost for Tenebrae; in 2019, we got up to two, and after last year's interruption, we will have two again this year. There is always room for more, so feel free to send in photos of any part of the Triduum or Easter to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, remembering to include the name and location of the church.
Notre Dame de Lourdes – Libreville, Gabon (ICRSP)
Nossa Senhora do Pilar – São João Del Rei, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Our thanks to Mr Jehan-Sosthènes Boutte for sharing with us this artice about a particularly interesting medieval variant found in the Tenebrae Offices of various Uses.
Most readers of this site are familiar with the Tenebrae services traditionally held on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and with the particular ceremonial which accompanies them according to the Breviary of Saint Pius V, and its subsequent revisions until the 1950s. What they may not know is how different Tenebrae could be in other uses of the Roman rite. While the structure and most of the content was the same everywhere, many Uses had some variations to the service, and kept them for a long time; indeed, some have kept them to this very day.
One such variation regarded the end of the service. As it is widely known, in the Tridentine Breviary, Tenebrae ends with the singing of the “Christus factus est”, the Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 50 (Miserere mei Deus), the prayer “Respice quaesumus Domine” and the “Strepitus”, which was described thus by an article written here some years ago:
Then the strepitus begins--the noise that symbolizes the earthquake that took place at Christ's death, which is made by banging books on the choir stalls. While this symbolism maintains, it is also as if, with the strepitus, we’re begging Christ to come out of the tomb, especially on Holy Saturday. While the strepitus is still going on, the Christ candle--the Light which the darkness cannot overcome--is brought back out and replaced in the hearse, and all depart in silence.
On this point, however, the Tridentine Office was more an exception than a rule, since most Uses of the Roman Rite concluded Tenebrae with a short and unusual litany, sometimes called the “Kyrie puerorum” (Kyrie of the children), which differed only in some slight details from one Use to another. ~ There are reasons to believe this litany was once part of the Roman Office. The incredibly rich site of the Schola Sainte-Cécile tells us the following:
When the Roman Office was simplified due to the exile of the Papacy in Avignon, the singing of the Gradual Christus factus est replaced a very curious and old litany – present in the Antiphonary of Compiègne – in which that same text, Christus factus est, was sung, in between several verses, on another melody. This ancient litany was kept by most French diocesan rites, particularly that of Paris.
The Antiphonary of Compiègne being one of the most ancient Roman antiphonaries we have today, it’s presence in the ancient basilical Roman Office is plausible, even though one can wonder how such a strange text could have found a place in the austere Office of the Roman Church.
In any case, this litany was sung in most French uses, with the notable exception of the Use of Lyon; it was also present in the Sarum and Dominican Uses. Here is the text of this litany as it appears in this latter rite (the text is virtually identical to that of the Sarum liturgy):
Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. Dómine, miserére. Christus Dóminus factus est oboediens usque ad mortem.
Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie, eleison. Lord, have mercy. Christ the Lord became obedient unto death.
On Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday, the following is then sung:
℣. Qui passúrus advenisti propter nos. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Qui expansis in cruce mánibus, traxisti omnia ad te sáecula. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Qui prophétice prompsisti: Ero mors tua, o mors. ℟. Christe eleison.
℣. Thou who camest to suffer for our sake. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Thou who with hands outstretched upon the cross didst draw all ages unto Thyself. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Thou who prophetically foretold: I shall be thy death, o death. ℟. Christe eleison.
On Good Friday, this part is replaced with the following:
℣. Agno miti basia cui lupus dedit venenósa. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Vita in ligno móritur: infernus et mors lugens spoliátur. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Te qui vincíri voluisti, nosque a mortis vínculis eripuisti. ℟. Christe eleison.
℣. Let us greet with a kiss the gentle Lamb to whom the wolf gave poisoned kisses. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Life upon the Tree did die: hell and death in anguish are despoiled. ℟. Christe eleison. ℣. Thyself wert willing to be bound, and so didst redeem us from the bonds of death. ℟. Christe eleison.
In both cases, it is concluded as follows:
Dómine, miserére. Christus Dóminus factus est oboediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Dómine, miserére. Christus Dóminus factus est oboediens usque ad mortem. Mortem autem crucis.
Lord, have mercy. Christ the Lord became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy. Christ the Lord became obedient unto death. Even the death of the Cross.
When those words are sung, the friars prostrate themselves or kneel, and recite a silent Pater noster, after which, Psalm 50 is recited recto-tono. The celebrant says the prayer “Respice quaesumus”, without “Dominus vobiscum” or “Oremus”, then strikes his hand on a book or on his choir-stall and all leave in silence.
Of course, as I said earlier, this rite has some variations depending on the local use. For instance, in the Parisian rite, after the Kyrie came the verse “Domine miserere, parce famulis tuis” (Lord have mercy, spare Thy servants). And in the Hungarian rite of the diocese of Esztergom, the litany ended with the singing of the Christus factus est as it is known in the Tridentine Breviary:
Being no theologian, I will not risk a comment on all verses of this litany; it is perhaps enough to look at the last verse of Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday, which always struck me: “Thou who prophetically foretold: I shall be thy death, o death”. This is a perfect example of a Christian liturgical interpretation of the Old Testament; this verse is taken from Hosea 13, 14: “O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite”, and is also used as the first antiphon of Lauds on Holy Saturday. It reminds us that the victory of Christ over death is not a metaphor: He did not “merely” give us life after death (although that would have already been most merciful from Him), nor did He conquered death in an allegorical way. He did really and permanently conquer physical death for all those who shall be saved; such is the meaning of the resurrection of the dead, of whom Christ was the first. This is also what separates Christianity from all other religions; while the latter often speak of a life after death, in which death is seen as a necessary (or even a good and desirable thing) step to eternal happiness, Christ and His Church promise us not only to live after death, but also to rise from our graves; for as the Byzantine Easter troparion says, “upon those in the tomb, He hath bestowed life”.
After the reforms which followed Vatican II, Tenebrae fell out of use in most places; and consequently, the few churches which kept a distinct Use for Tenebrae largely abandoned them. But just as Tenebrae has in recent years won a good deal of popularity back among Catholics, we can hope the same will happen for the “Kyrie puerorum”, especially considering the fact that it never was completely absent. The Order of Preachers has kept it intact in its proper version of the Liturgy of the Hours; indeed, I discovered this litany when attending Tenebrae in a Dominican convent. While the service itself was mostly an adaptation of the Dominican office in French, along with bits and pieces from various places, it ended nevertheless as it always had in the Order of Saint Dominic, with the Kyrie puerorum.
Here is the service of Holy Saturday as it is performed in the Dominican province of Toulouse, in Southern France. The litany starts at 1:34:30.
Moreover, the revived interest in Sarum Rite in the English-speaking world might also leave room for a rediscovery of its version of the “Kyrie” – especially considering there are now numerous resources for the rite of Salisbury in both Latin and in English.
Last but not least, the late professor Laszlo Dobszay of happy memory suggested that this litany be included ad libitum in a hypothetical revision of the Roman Breviary (pre-Divino Afflatu). Therefore, while rejecting archeologism, we ought to recover those ancient particular traditions where and when they were observed, inasmuch as they may be profitable for the faithful.
As we traditionally do, we will plan on having a whole series of photoposts of your Holy Week liturgies, with individual posts for Tenebrae, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. As always, we are glad to receive images of the OF, EF, Eastern Rites, the Ordinariate Use, etc., including any part of the liturgy. Please send your photographs to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org, and remember to include the name and location of the church, along with any other information you think important.
Please read this! – I would ask people to do a few things to make it easier for us to process the photos. The first is to size them down so that the smaller dimension is around 1500 pixels. The second is to send the pictures as zipped files, which are a lot easier to process, (not links, and not as photos attached to an email). The third is to not mix photos of one ceremony with those of another, and to put the name of the ceremony (“Tenebrae”, “Holy Thursday”, “Good Friday”, “Holy Saturday”, and “Easter Sunday”) as the subject of the email. Your help is very much appreciated.
Here are just a few highlights from 2019, starting with the altar of repose at the cathedral of St Paul in Birmingham, Alabama.
Solemn Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the church of St Eugène in Paris, home of the mighty Schola Sainte Cécile.
The incensation of the Blessed Sacrament during the Mass of the Presanctified at the church of the Holy Innocents in New York City.
The burial shroud of Christ during Vespers of Good Friday at the Byzantine Catholic Church of St John the Baptist in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
A particularly nice Tenebrae hearse at the Oratory of St Gianna in Tucson, Arizona.
The lighting of the Paschal reed at St Mary’s Parish in Kalamazo, Michigan.
The St John Choir Schola in Calgary, Alberta, will hold a Tenebrae service on the evening of Spy Wednesday, March 31st, starting at 7:30pm local time (MDT), and livestreamed on YouTube from Our Lady of the Assumption Church: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAdHYI4QLiM. Due to pandemic restrictions, all of the beautiful music was pre-recorded last weekend. The full program can be seen here, and an abbreviated form with just the lyrics of the hymns here. The service will be will also be recorded and available on the same YouTube channel for those in different time zones who would like to watch it later.
Caligavérunt óculi mei a fletu meo: quia elongátus est a me, qui consolabátur me: Vidéte omnes pópuli,
* Si est dolor símilis sicut dolor meus. V. O vos omnes, qui transítis per viam, atténdite et vidéte. Si est dolor ... Caligavérunt ... (The ninth responsory of Tenebrae on Good Friday.)
R. My eyes have grown dark with my weeping, because He is departed from me, Who did console me; See, all ye peoples, * if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. V. All ye that pass by the way, behold, and see, if there be... My eyes...
Tomás Luís de Victoria’s setting, sung by The Sixteen
We conclude the Tenebrae part of this year’s Holy Week photoposts, moving on soon to the Easter vigil and Easter Sunday.
Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar - São João del Rei, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Presided over by H.E. José Eudes, bishop of São João Del Rei. The music was provided by the Association of Don Bosco’s Choirs, which sang the psalms in Gregorian chant, and the Orquestra Ribeiro Bastos, which performed the antiphons and the responsories in the setting of Fr José Maria Xavier. Reader João Melo writes to say that Tenebrae has never ceased to be celebrated every Holy Week in its entirety at this church - Deo gratias!
From at least as far back as the sixth century, the Church has begun her daily worship on the three days of the Easter Triduum with a unique solemnization of the Divine Office known as Tenebrae, a sung liturgy hewn from the Scriptural prophecies of the Passion, to form a veritable “Office of the Dead” in which She mourns the death of Christ. The sacred texts of this office inspired a priceless treasury of plainchant, and later, a vast corpus of polyphonic settings, particularly for the Scriptural centerpiece of Tenebrae, the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The purpose of this lecture will be to explore the history, the meaning, the music and the striking ritual actions of this profoundly moving office, which in recent years has undergone an amazing resurgence, fostered by the magnetic appeal of its compelling sights and soundscape.
