A Child Singing with the Angels: The Non-Funerary Funeral

Louis Janmot (1814-1892), Souvenir du ciel

In my old St. Andrew’s Daily Missal — or rather, my reprint of the 1945 edition, which I love both because of its superb commentaries, and because its calendar and Holy Week match up with the customs of an increasing number of traditional parishes nowadays — we find the following heading on p. 1821: “The Burial of Little Children.” The commentary reads:

When a baptized child dies before reaching the age of reason, it goes at once to heaven to praise God and enjoy Him with the angels. Wherefore the Gloria Patri of the Psalms is not replaced by the Requiem aeternam, and the Mass is the Votive Mass of the Angels, with white vestments and Gloria in excelsis, unless the rubrics prescribe the Mass of the day. If in the afternoon, Votive Vespers of the Angels may be sung.

I can’t remember when I first heard about this beautiful custom of not celebrating a Mass for the Dead or funeral Mass for such a little child, but rather a Mass of the Angels; it was probably a couple of decades ago by now. But since I had long been attending only university chapels and did not live near a traditional parish, no occasion like this had ever occurred. It remained theoretical knowledge.

Recently, however, a little child died in our local community, and the rector of the nearby oratory of the Institute of Christ the King offered the Mass just as described above. I had the privilege of singing in the Choir. I found the entire thing extremely striking, and wish to share some thoughts on it, since this old custom has barely survived into the post-Montinian era.

The first thing that must be said is that the old custom bespeaks a resolutely and audaciously supernatural perspective: when all are mourning the loss of a citizen of earth, the Church rejoices in the gaining of a saint in heaven. The Introit of the Requiem Mass pleads: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.” The Introit of the Mass of the Angels exults: “Bless the Lord all ye His angels: you that are mighty in strength, and execute His word, listening to the voice of His orders.” Then the verse challenges us with an imperative: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless His holy name.” We are told to do the very thing the departed child is now doing, whose soul, with all that is within it, blesses the Lord.

Holy Mother Church bids us sing with and honor the angels, among whom is found the soul of this little child, a soul already mature in Christ through baptism, adorned with the full complement of infused virtues. The Epistle in the words of the Apocalypse brings before us the hosts of heaven, spirits and souls of the just, saying: “To Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, benediction, and honor, and glory and power, for ever and ever.” There is no danger of hell for the baptized child, nor any deportation to the fires of purgatory; the gates of heaven are immediately flung open to receive this sinless, guiltless adopted son of God. This is why the interlectional chants proclaim: “Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the high places. … Alleluia, alleluia. I will sing praise to Thee in the sight of the angels: I will worship towards Thy holy temple, and I will give glory to Thy name. Alleluia.”

Just as, with apparently wild-eyed fanaticism (though in truth it is but the most sober right judgment) the Church, according to John Henry Newman, can say it were better for the entire universe to perish than that one sin be wilfully committed, [1] so too, with a queenly confidence born of the mercies of the King, the Church, says the usus antiquior, deems it better, more truthful, more grateful, to don white vestments and sing alleluia for a Christian who dies before the age of reason than to put on black and utter the aweful words of the Dies Irae. [2]

The liturgical reform, monstrous in its rationalist leveling of every irregularity, [3] could not tolerate this sharp distinction between the lightsome angelic Mass for the child saint and the dark Requiem Mass for the adult sinner; in its baffling dullness of heart, the reform was blind both to supernatural realities and natural ones. [4] The sable grief that follows the dead man weighed down with years, the urgent reminder to pray for the repose of his soul, the supernatural glory that surrounds a babe of days snatched from this world and thus preserved from the scourge of sin, temptation, vice, anguish, and all the ills that cling to fallen human life—such horizons of life and faith were closed off to utilitarian brains.

The Montinian reform turned everything upside-down. It converted Requiems into informal beatifications, draped in the white of an Easter triumph presumed to be already gained, while suppressing the only instance where white vestments ought to be worn and alleluias and doxologies chanted, where heavenly glory may be joyfully, through a veil of tears, acknowledged as accomplished. The reform took away from the small child the Mass of the Angels that befitted it, and bestowed the honors of the altar on the old man to whom it was foreign, and who needs earnest suffrages for pardon and salvation. Salva me, fons pietatis! It took away this magnificent testimony of faith in a victory known to be won by a few, and substituted a pseudo-victory vainly extended to all.

And why does the old liturgy exhort us, in the very presence of the child’s dead body, to praise the Lord — a sentiment that might seem out of place, to say the least? Here is where the eye of faith is more necessary than ever, to see what should be seen, and not to be clouded over by our frail flesh.

The one and only ultimate end of man is the beatific vision. If someone attains this, he has attained the purpose for which he was created and redeemed. If someone fails to attain this, he has failed as a human being and as a Christian. Our final condition is either total victory or total failure: we have gained all, or lost all. There is nothing in between. The only “happy ending” is heaven, and the only “tragedy” is hell. The rest is relative. The baptized child who dies, although not granted by Divine Providence the relative good of life in this world, has been granted the absolute good of eternal life in the world to come.

This is what all Christians say they desire: eternal life in God. This is the goal of our pilgrimage. And that is why Holy Mother Church, with her lofty and utterly realistic wisdom, clothes herself in white and sings the Mass of the Angels for the little baptized child who flies from this world, and sings with no less fervor the Requiem Mass, clad in black. Alleluia is the song of the lover and the visionary; the Dies Irae is the sequence of the worldly and battleweary. That such customs as these ever had to be swept away is part of the “mystery of iniquity” that surrounds the 20th-century Church. That such customs are beginning to come back is part of the mystery of Providence that surprises the Church of the 21st-century.

NOTES

[1] The text is found in Difficulties of Anglicans, and is quoted in my article “The Denial of the Law of God and His Rights.”

[2] The traditional difference between the funeral of the child who dies before the age of reason and the funeral of everyone else extends beyond the Mass to the obsequies afterwards. In the typical burial, the psalms, verses, and prayers are penitential and pleading for mercy; the child’s burial, on the contrary, can draw from Psalm 118 (“Blessed are the undefiled in the way”) and Psalms 148–150 (“Praise ye the Lord from the heavens”); Psalm 23 (“The earth is the Lord’s”) is recited, followed by this beautiful collect: “O almighty and most merciful God, who dost immediately grant eternal life to every little child who goeth forth from this world after being born again in the baptismal font, without any merit of his own, even as we believe Thou hast done this day for the soul of this little child; grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, through the intercession of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, and of all the saints, that we may serve Thee here with clean hearts and be united with these blessed children for ever in heaven.”

[3] See my article “In Praise of Irregularity.”

[4] See my article “The Scandal of the Modern Catholic Funeral.”

Visit www.peterkwasniewski.com for information, articles, sacred music, and Os Justi Press.

Milanese Requiem Set for the Holy Sepulchre

For the jubilee year of 1600, Milan sent the Holy Sepulchre a complete set for solemn Requiem masses, including two folded chasubles. Made of very deep indigo cut velvet, silk, silver-gilt thread, and gold braid, in the spaces between the acanthus pattern are the fourteen symbols of the Passion, sometimes called the Arma Christi (Christ’s arms, in the sense of weaponry). The Jerusalem Cross is featured throughout. (From the holdings of the Terra Sancta Museum: https://www.terrasanctamuseum.org.  Thanks to the Liturgical Arts Journal for permission to share these photos with our readers.)

All Saints and All Souls Photopost 2017 (Part 2) - Black is the New Black

We continue with your photos of All Saints and All Souls liturgies. We have a couple of videos in this post, one of the full Requiem Mass, another of just the Dies Irae, another very vivid memento mori, and of course once again, we are happy to note the many churches using black vestments. Evangelize through beauty!

Mater Ecclesiae - Berlin, New Jersey

All Saints

All Souls

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All Saints and All Souls Photopost 2017 (Part 1) - Black is the New Black

As was the case last year, we received many more photographs of All Souls liturgies than All Saints, and once again, it’s great to see that all of them have black vestments. We start off with some very impressive memento mori decorations from our friends in the TLM community in Malta. Thanks to all those who sent these in - evangelize through beauty!

Church of St Paul - Birkirkara, Malta

Holy Family Church - Columbus, Ohio

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From the Archive: On the Use of Black Vestments

From time to time, it’s nice to look back at some of the articles in our archives (currently over 12,000 items!) For All Souls’ Day, here is a great piece about black vestments posted by our founding editor Shawn Tribe in November of 2005, when NLM was less than four month old. This was a year and half before Summorum Pontificum, and I think it is probably not too optimistic to think that opposition to the use of black vestments has weakened even further, now that more people will have used them in the EF Requiem Mass, where they are mandatory.  

Many out there are likely aware that there has been these past 40 years or so an aversion to black vestments for times such as funerals, or for the Feast of All Souls and so on. (Thankfully this is decreasing with the newer generations of clergy.)

Often black vestments have been excluded in practice (though not necessarily in law) -- enough so that there are entire generations who will have never seen a black vestment worn, let alone know of its existence as a liturgical colour. For example, in the modern rite, red is now worn on Good Friday instead of black, which is still used in the classical rite of course. White will typically be worn for funerals. Sometimes purple will be used.

Now let us get it straight: this is not a liturgical abuse as these are options which the Church has given, or in the case of Good Friday, changes that have been made. There are some, however, for whom this is not simply aesthetic (nor should it be), nor a question of common practice in a diocese, but is actually an ideological opposition aimed at the perceived “negativity” of black. This latter idea is a problem. I wish to address in a roundabout way both the problem with the former way of thinking, but also I want to make a case for why I believe the effective disappearance of black is not desirable, even when we are just exercising another legitimate liturgical option as a norm.

The use of black is representative of some fundamental Christian realities. While Christians are a people of hope (the oft used argument for those wishing to exclude black), we are also a people aware of the reality of sin and judgement. We do not presume to know the state of our loved one’s soul. Too often even some parish priests themselves acquiesce to this idea that our achieving of our heavenly reward is a fait accompli. While we indeed hope and pray that our loved one has attained his or her heavenly reward, it is not a hope that is without reservations or loving concern. As Christians we are hopeful and yet also have a humble realism. We know that we are sinful creatures and we do not always meet the mark, nor necessarily repent of our sins. As such, we both hope and pray.

Black, with its echoes of mourning and reserve, both acknowledges our own emotional response to the loss of a loved one, and is further representative of our need to pray for the repose of our loved one’s soul. It also is a reminder and symbol of our belief in Purgatory wherein the suffering souls require our prayers and especially Masses. After all, Requiem masses are not merely memorials made for the living -- tools for our psychological and emotional comfort -- but are first and foremost powerful prayers and graces for the repose of our dearly beloved. If we approach the afterlife of heaven as “automatic” or as a given, who will take seriously the need to pray for the souls of Purgatory or our departed loved one? Eventually, who will see the need to have a funeral Mass? Black represents our mourning and also that there is work yet to be done -- the work of prayer, the graces of the Mass. The gold or silver which adorns the decoration of a black vestment gives us that silver-lining of Christian hope which we have for the resurrection of our loved one, and eventually ourselves, into Our Father’s House.


From a cultural perspective, this lack represents a divide from the common cultural sentiment expressed at death which has been informed by religious principles for generations -- one cannot help but notice that black is still the colour of mourning among most people at a funeral. If we are truly interested in speaking to people in symbols and language they can understand and relate to, the use of black at a funeral cannot be surpassed in this regard. (I am not suggesting that culture must inform liturgical practice; in this case, I think the Faith has informed the culture and the culture still retains this formation on a deep level.)

There really is nothing to stop a priest from re-introducing black vestments into the sacred liturgy when the rubrics allow for it -- and this I would heartily recommend to parish priests who read this weblog.

That being said, I receive many emails from readers on this weblog asking advice on how to approach such questions in there parishes. Often they are facing situations where there is little interest in the liturgy, or at least, little interest in the goals of the reform of the reform -- which may go in an opposite direction from where their parish is heading.

In such instances, getting black vestments re-instituted may be a non-starter with their parish clergy -- but as I say, there is a surprising openness to them from many of the younger clergy. If you don't have that situation, don’t worry, there may yet be hope. While you may not get black vestments instituted in your parish, there is another option that comes halfway at least, and may be more acceptable in such a situation and would help begin to restore this balance of hope, mourning and prayers for the dead.

Here is my proposal for a pastor that can’t yet (or won’t) re-institute black vestments: a white (or preferably off-white cream colour) vestment, with a large, substantial band of black brocade going up the centre of the vestment -- or also with the traditional Y-orphrey. The key is making the black noticeable.