St Stephen of Hungary and the Tomb of Pope Sylvester II

Today is the feast of St Stephen, the first king of Hungary, crowned on either Christmas day of 1000, or New Year’s Day of 1001; before then, the ruler of the Hungarians had been known as the Grand Prince. He held the throne until his death on the feast of the Assumption in 1038, and was canonized in 1083, together with his son Emeric, and a Venetian monk and missionary named Gerard Sagredo, the first bishop of Csanád, one of the eleven sees which Stephen established in his country. His feast is kept on the general calendar on September 2, the date on which the capital of Hungary, Buda, was liberated from the dominion of the Ottoman Turks in 1686; it is also the date of Emeric’s death in 1031.

The Baptism of King Stephen, 1875, by the Hungarian painter Gyula Benczúr (1844-1920).

The Matins lessons for Stephen state that “he obtained the royal crown from the Roman Pontiff, was anointed as king by his (i.e. the Pope’s) order, and offered his kingdom to the Apostolic See,” which is to say, placed it under his vassalage. The precise circumstances of this act, and its significance, have been the subject of much debate among historians, and I do not intend to delve into this very complicated matter. But it is worth noting that this event is depicted on the monument of the contemporary Pope, Sylvester II, who reigned from 999-1003. This was set up in the Lateran basilica in 1909, the work of a sculptor named Jószef Damko, at the behest of Vilmos Fraknói, a well-known priest and historian, as a tribute to the Saint who was very much the father of their nation. In the upper part, Stephen and Emeric kneel down before the Virgin and Child, and in the lower part, Stephen receives his crown from the Pope. (Both images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

The lower part of the monument is the original inscription from the tomb of Pope Sylvester, the only part which survived after the two fires that devastated the Lateran basilica in the 14th century. This man was born with the name Gerbert, in a town called Aurillac in south central France, about 945 AD. After studying in a nearby Benedictine monastery as a youth, he traveled to Spain, where he learned a variety of subjects then largely unknown to most of the West, but flourishing under the patronage of the Moorish rulers. It was he who reintroduced the general use of the abacus, and he is also said have been the first to use the so-called Arabic numbers, (which were actually invented in India). This gave rise to the foolish idea (repeated by the 12th century English historian William of Malmesbury) that he was a wizard, which in turn gave rise to a popular tradition among the Romans, (not, of course, ever endorsed by the Church), that when a pope is about to die, his bones rattle within the tomb, and the stone of the inscription sweats.

I was in Rome for Holy Week this year, staying not very far from the Lateran. I visited the basilica on Holy Thursday, but didn’t see or hear anything unusual about the monument, nor did I hear any reports to that effect, but it was the Triduum and Easter, and of course people were very busy; Pope Francis died four days later, on Easter Monday. But in 2005, I was at the Escorial in Spain on April 1, and overheard the women who worked in the giftshop repeating a news report from Rome, that the stone had indeed been seen to sweat, and a rattling noise heard coming from behind it, and John Paul II died the next day.

Cistercian Chants for the Feast of St Bernard

In honor of the feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux, here are two sets of recordings of Cistercian chants made in the 1960s. The first one has the Salve Regina, the hymn Sanctorum meritis from Vespers of Several Martyrs (starting at 3:30), the hymn Jesu corona virginum from Vespers of a Holy Virgin (starting at 5:48), and the Magnificat, with the antiphon “Verbo caro factum est, alleluia, et habitavit in nobis, alleluia.” (starting at 7:28). You may note that the text of the two hymns differs slightly from the versions in the Roman Breviary, since the Cistercians, like the other religious orders, never adopted the revised versions of the hymns promulgated by Pope Urban VIII. These are followed by Terce of the Epiphany (minus the hymn). The second contains various chants for the Dead: the Libera me, Chorus Angelorum, and Clementissime Domine.

The Feast of St Roch

Among the Saints listed in the Roman Martyrology on August 16th is St Roch, one of the most popular Saints to invoke in times of plague. According to the supplement to the Golden Legend, he was born in 1295, the son of the governor of the French city of Montpellier. (Modern scholarship tends to place his birth in the middle of the 14th century.) On the death of his parents, he distributed the considerable patrimony which they left him to the poor, and became a full-time pilgrim.

St Roch Among the Victims of the Plague, and the Virgin Mary in Glory, by Jacopo Bassano, ca. 1575. The inclusion of the Virgin Mary above refers to the fact that Roch’s feast is celebrated the day after the Assumption.

The hospices which were built near many major pilgrimage centers to receive the pilgrims also served as hospitals for the poor (hence the two versions of the same word, deriving from the Latin word for guest); in Roch’s time, plague was running rampant, and he encountered many sufferers in these places, as he traveled to Rome and through various cities of northern Italy. Many of these he healed simply by making the sign of the Cross over them, until he himself became infected. Not wishing to impose any further burden on the local hospital, he went out into the woods to die, but was miraculously brought food by a dog, until its master found him and took care of him. On recovering, he continued to cure many people of the plague.

When he returned to Montpellier, however, he was not recognized, and therefore arrested as a spy and imprisoned, remaining in captivity until his death five years later. When they came to take care of his body, he was recognized as the son of the city’s former governor from a cross-shaped birth-mark on his chest. A plaque was found next to the body with these words written on it: “I indicate that those who suffer from the plague, if they flee to Roch’s protection, will escape from that most cruel contagion.” A magnificent church was built, and his body laid to rest therein, where many miracles continued to happen at his intercession.

A statue of St Roch made in Normandy in the early 16th century. The richness of his clothing indicates his status as the son of a nobleman; his pilgrim’s hat is adorned with the keys of St Peter, indicating Rome as his destination; the dog which brought him food is traditionally shown at his side. Roch is also typically shown lifting up his garment to reveal a sore or injury on his leg from which he was miraculously healed. (Public domain image from the website of the Cloisters Museum in New York City, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

Devotion to St Roch spread very rapidly over the course of the later 14th and early 15th century. Although his feast is rarely found on liturgical calendars, votive Masses in his honor are very commonly included among those dedicated to healer Saints. In the Missals of Sarum, Utrecht and elsewhere, his votive Mass is found in the illustrious company of those of Saints Sebastian, Genevieve, Erasmus, Christopher, Anthony the Abbot, and the Archangel Raphael. One common version even includes a proper Preface, something almost unheard of in the pre-Tridentine period; it refers, however, to God’s mercy in sparing the Ninivites, and asks for His merciful deliverance from the plague, but makes no mention of Roch. The somewhat clumsy collect reads as follows: “O God, who are glorious in the glory of the Saints, and to all those that flee unto their protection, grantest the salutary effect of their petition; by the intercession of Thy blessed Confessor Roch, grant to Thy people, who hold forth their devotion in his festivity, that they may be delivered from the sickness of that plague which he suffered in his body for the glory of Thy name, to which may they ever be devoted.”

The supplement to the Golden Legend also mentions that his body was stolen by the Venetians in 1475, and enshrined in a “most renowned” church they built dedicated to him, which still exists. The seat of a pious confraternity named for him is located close by, and is justifiably known as the “Sistine Chapel of Venice”, filled with paintings by the great Venetian master Tintoretto. As one of the busiest ports in Europe, in regular contact with the East, Venice was a city to which new plagues (or new strains of old ones) were continually arriving; over twenty outbreaks are recorded there between the mid-14th and mid-16th centuries. It may be that the Venetians acted from sheer desperation in stealing St Roch; on the other hand, pious thefts of this sort were a specialty of theirs, and over the years, they also managed to nick St Mark the Evangelist and St Athanasius from the Copts of Alexandria, St Lucy from the city of Syracuse, and one of St Peter’s chairs from Antioch.

The altar of the church of San Rocco in Venice; the relics are in the urn with plaque on it in the middle. (Public domain image from Wikipedia by Didier Descouens.)

The Feasts of St Lawrence

Since the earliest times, St Lawrence has been venerated as a patron Saint of the city of Rome, along with Ss Peter and Paul, and his feast day has always been one of the most important in the ecclesiastical year. A remarkable number of Roman churches are dedicated to him, several more, in fact, than are dedicated to either of the Apostolic founders of the Church in the Eternal City. Among them are the Patriarchal Basilica of St Lawrence outside-the-Walls, where he is buried, and three of the most ancient parishes in the historical center of the city: San Lorenzo in Panisperna, (the reputed site of his martyrdom), San Lorenzo in Lucina, and San Lorenzo in Damaso. These four churches are frequently found on the list of station churches from Septuagesima Sunday to Low Sunday, in proximity to stational observances in honor of Ss Peter and Paul. San Lorenzo in Miranda was one of the first major churches to be built in the heart of the ancient city’s political and religious life, the Roman Forum; it sits within the portico of the temple of the divinized Emperor Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina, on the steps of which the great martyr was said to have been tried and condemned.

The Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside-the-Walls, in an eighteenth century engraving by Giuseppe Vasi.

Two private chapels of the popes are also dedicated to him, San Lorenzo ‘in Palatio’ at the Lateran, and the Niccoline Chapel at the Vatican. The former was built in the mid-8th century, and after various restorations and embellishments, became a papal chapel about three centuries later; rebuilt by Nicholas III (1277-80), it now survives only in part within a building known as the Scala Sancta, across the street from the pope’s cathedral. The chapel’s nickname ‘Sancta Sanctorum – the Holy of Holies’, does not come from its status as a papal chapel, but from the amazing collection of relics formerly kept therein: among them, a piece of the grill on which St Lawrence was roasted alive, and some parts of his body.

In the 330-year period from 1048 to 1378, the popes spent roughly 250 years outside of Rome; after so long a period of neglect and partial abandonment, and two massive fires in the 14th century, most of the vast complex of buildings around the Lateran was in no state to be lived in. The popes therefore took up residence at the Vatican, and have been there ever since. In 1447, Nicholas V built a new chapel within the Vatican, and commissioned the Dominican painter Fra Angelico to paint the walls with stories of the two deacon martyrs, St Stephen and St Lawrence, to whom the chapel is jointly dedicated.

The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen, on the left wall of the Chapel of Nicholas V, by Fra Angelico. The martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is directly beneath it, but the part that shows Lawrence on the grill in the lower right hand corner is ruined.

The association of Ss Stephen and Lawrence, naturally suggested by the parallels between their lives and deaths, figures prominently in art and liturgy in Rome. Both were deacons under the authority of the pope in their respective cities, Stephen in Jerusalem under St Peter, and Lawrence in Rome under St Sixtus II, the most venerated of the early popes martyred after Peter. Both were put in charge of the Church’s charitable activities by the popes whom they served, and both were eloquent preachers of the Christian faith. Both suffered terrible martyrdoms, Stephen by stoning, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, while Lawrence was roasted alive.

In the office of St Stephen, the third antiphon of Lauds (partially quoting Psalm 62, with which it is sung), reads “Adhaesit anima mea post te, quia caro mea lapidata est pro te, Deus meus. – My soul hath stuck close to Thee, because my flesh was stoned for Thy sake, my God.” In the office of St Lawrence, this same antiphon is changed to “Adhaesit anima mea post te, quia caro mea igne cremata est pro te, Deus meus. – My soul hath stuck close to Thee, because my flesh was burnt for Thy sake, my God.” The artistic pairing of the two done so beautifully by Fra Angelico is also found twice in the Sancta Sanctorum which the Niccoline Chapel replaced, in the mosaics over the altar and in the frescoes that adorn its walls.

St Lawrence in the 11th century mosaics over the altar of the Sancta Sanctorum. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

The martyrdom of St Lawrence in the late 13th-century frescoes on the walls of the Sancta Sanctorum. The Emperor Decius appears on the left; the medieval accounts of St. Lawrence usually place his death in the persecution of Decius in 250-51, rather than that of Valerian in 257-58.

On August 3rd, a two-week long cycle of feasts associated with St Lawrence begins with the Finding of St Stephen, a feast of the universal calendar of the Roman Rite until 1960. The body of St Stephen was discovered in the year 415, along with those of Gamaliel, his son Abibas, and Nicodemus, when Gamaliel appeared to Lucian, a priest of Jerusalem, and revealed the place of their collective burial. Relics of Stephen were brought to many places throughout the world; in the final book of The City of God, St Augustine describes a number of miracles that took place when a part of them came to Africa, including the raising from the dead of six people. Another portion of them was brought to Rome in the reign of Pope Pelagius II (579-90), who placed them in the basilica of St Lawrence outside-the-Walls; the Golden Legend tells the story that when the pope went to lay them in Lawrence’s tomb, the Roman martyr moved to one side to make room for his fellow Levite. The early 13th-century porch still has extensive remains of original frescoes of that period, illustrating the history of the two great deacon martyrs; sadly, these were already in poor condition when the church was hit with a bomb during World War II, damaging them further.

The relics of St Stephen being laid to rest in the tomb of St Lawrence, by Lorenzo di Niccolò, ca. 1412.; from the Brooklyn Museum.

On August 6th occurs the feast of St Sixtus II, who was martyred at the catacomb of Callixtus, along with six of the seven deacons of the church of Rome, the seventh being Lawrence. When the edict of persecution was issued by the Emperor Valerian in the year 257, the holy Pope ordered Lawrence to distribute all of the wealth of the church to the poor of the city. Having done so, Lawrence then saw Sixtus being led to martyrdom and, as told by St Ambrose, addressed him thus: “Whither goest thou without thy son, father? Whither, holy priest, dost thou hasten without thy deacon? Never wast thou want to offer sacrifice without thy minister. What then hath displeased thee in me, father? Hast thou found me ignoble? Make proof surely whether thou didst choose a worthy minister. Dost thou deny a share in thy blood to one to whom thou didst entrust the consecration of the Lord’s blood, and a share in the celebration of the sacraments?... Abraham offered his son, Peter sent Stephen before him…” To this Sixtus replied, “I do not leave or abandon thee, son, but greater contests await thee. We, as elder men, receive the way of an easier combat; a more glorious triumph against the tyrant awaiteth thee as a younger man. Soon shalt thou come after, cease weeping; after three days shalt thou follow me, as levite followeth priest.” (These words from the 39th chapter of St. Ambrose’s De Officiis form the basis of several antiphons and responsories in the office of Saint Lawrence.) Sixtus and his deacons were then beheaded by Roman soldiers.

The martyrdom of St. Sixtus and his deacons, from a 14th century manuscript of the lives of the saints.

St Sixtus is named in the traditional canon of the Mass, immediately after the first three successors of St Peter, followed by two contemporary bishops also martyred under Valerian, Pope Cornelius and St Cyprian of Carthage; St Lawrence is then named first among the non-bishops. A Roman station church near the Lateran is named for Sixtus; it was entrusted to Dominican nuns within the lifetime of St Dominic, who died on his feast day. (The church attached to the Dominicans’ Roman University of St Thomas, also called the Angelicum, is dedicated to both Sixtus and Dominic.) After their founder was canonized in 1234, the Order of Preachers kept his feast on the 5th of August, rather than the day of his death, in deference to the much older feast; this remained their custom until the reforms of the later 16th century, when he was moved back a day to make way for Our Lady of the Snows. Likewise, when Pope Callixtus III instituted the feast of the Transfiguration in 1456, assigning it to the sixth of August, many churches simply ignored it because the day was already occupied by St Sixtus.

The Madonna and Child with Ss Sixtus II and Barbara, generally known as “the Sistine Madonna”, by Raphael Sanzio, 1513-14; commissioned for the monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza, which had relics of both Saints.

The ninth of August, the vigil of St Lawrence, was formerly also kept as the feast of St Romanus, which was reduced to a commemoration in the Tridentine reform. He was said to have been a soldier converted to Christ by the preaching of Lawrence, who baptized him while in jail awaiting execution; Romanus was beheaded at the orders of the Emperor the day before Lawrence was killed.

The tenth is the feast of Lawrence himself, the day of his martyrdom by being roasted alive on a grill; the Byzantine tradition, which devoted the sixth of August to the Transfiguration centuries before the Latin church, commemorates Sixtus, his deacons, and Romanus all together along with Lawrence himself on this day. The story of his martyrdom is told thus in the Roman Breviary of 1529. (Valerian appears as an official under the previous persecuting emperor, Decius.)

And Decius said to the blessed Lawrence: Sacrifice to the gods. And he answered, “I offer myself as a sacrifice to God, unto the odor of sweetness, for a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God.” But the executioners pressed on in adding the coals, and placing them under the grill… . The blessed Lawrence said, “Learn, wretched Valerian, how great is the might of my Lord, for thy coals bring me refreshment, but to thee eternal torment; for he knows that I denied not his holy name when accused, I confessed Christ when asked, I gave thanks while being roasted.” … And all those present began to marvel, since Decius had commanded him to be roasted alive. But with a most comely countenance he said, “I give thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, who hast deigned to strengthen me.” And lifting up his eyes to Valerian, he said, “Behold wretched man, thou hast roasted one side; turn me over, and eat.” Then giving thanks to the Lord, he said, “I give thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, because I have merited to enter thy gates.” And saying this he gave up his spirit.

Saint Lawrence, in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna, ca. 450. The armoire on the left contains four books labelled with the names of the four Evangelists, a reference to the custom of keeping liturgical books locked in the sacristy in an era when any book was an expensive rarity. The deacon would process to the sacristy when it was time for the Gospel, receive the book from a porter, and process it out, a custom still found in the traditional Ambrosian liturgy.

The thirteenth of August is the feast of St Hippolytus, an officer of the guards in the prison where St Lawrence was held, and also converted by him to Christianity. In the Breviary of 1529, he is said to have taken the body of Lawrence for burial; reproved for this by the Emperor, and threatened with torture and death, he answered “May I merit to be a likeness of the blessed martyr Lawrence, whom you have dared to name with your polluted mouth.” After torture, he was killed by being torn apart by wild horses. The story is normally dismissed as a fabrication by modern scholars on the grounds that this manner of death, reported by the poet Prudentius, is the same as that of the Greek mythological character Hippolytus, the son of Theseus who was dragged to death by the horses of his chariot. It seems not to have occurred to any of the modern skeptics that the persecutors might have been inspired by his name to choose this manner of killing him in imitation of the mythological story.

It is certainly true, however, that there is much confusion about Hippolytus’ history; when Pope St Damasus I (366-84) placed an epitaph upon his tomb recounting his martyrdom, he stated that he himself “relied on purely oral tradition, which he does not guarantee: ‘Damasus tells these things which he has heard; it is Christ who maketh proof of them.’ ” (Loeb Classical Library, The Poems of Prudentius, p. 304, footnote) Prudentius also attests that he personally was healed of various ailments more than once while praying at Hippolytus’ tomb. In the Communicantes of the traditional Ambrosian canon, Sixtus, Lawrence and Hippolytus are named (in that order) immediately after the twelve Apostles, indicating how great the devotion to them was in the see of Milan in antiquity.

The Saint Hippolytus triptych by Dietric Bouts the Elder, ca. 1470.

Like all of the most important feasts, that of St Lawrence was traditionally celebrated with an octave; the octave day has a proper Mass, like the octave of Ss Peter and Paul, sharing only the Epistle and Gospel with the feast day. The introit of this Mass is taken from Psalm 16, which is also said at Matins of St Lawrence: “Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night, thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me.” The words “visited (my heart) by night” refer to the Emperor’s threat to torture Lawrence for the length of the night, to which the great Levite answered, “My night hath no darkness, but in it all things shine brightly in the light.”

St Donatus of Arezzo

When St Cajetan, the founder of the Theatine Order, and one of the great inspirations of the Counter-Reformation, was canonized in 1671, his feast was assigned to the date on which he died in 1547, August 7th. Until then, that day had been kept principally as the feast of a Saint called Donatus, a 4th century bishop of the Tuscan city of Arezzo; he had been added to the calendar at Rome about 500 years earlier, and was celebrated in dozens of other medieval Uses all over Western Europe.

The Tarlati Polyptych, 1320, by the Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti (1280 ca. - 1348), commissioned by Guido Tarlati, bishop of Arezzo, for the parish church of St Mary, which still houses it to this day. St Donatus is the bishop at the lower left, followed by Ss John the Evangelist, John the Baptist and Matthew; in the second register, the martyrs John and Paul (also killed by Julian the Apostate), Vincent, Luke, the two Jameses, Marcellinus and Augustine; in the cuspids, a virgin martyr named Reparata, (the titular Saint of the old cathedral of Florence), Catherine, Ursula and Agatha. In the central section, the Virgin and Child, the Annunciation, and the Coronation of the Virgin.

In the last pre-Tridentine editions of the Roman breviary, (the breviary which St Cajetan would have used), his office has six hagiographical lessons, mostly taken from Bl. Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend. The entry in the latter is based on a Passion attributed to Donatus’ successor as bishop, Severinus, which is indeed old enough that St Gregory the Great cites an episode from it in passing in the Dialogues. In the breviary of St Pius V, however, he is reduced to a single lesson of just over 70 words, which removes the many obviously dubious historical details; he also retains the title of a martyr, even though the oldest record of him in a martyrology calls him a confessor.

The legend tells that he was educated in Rome by a priest called Pigmenius, alongside Julian, the nephew of the emperor Constantine, who is known to history with the epithet “the Apostate.” (In reality, Julian was raised in Asia Minor, and spent almost none of his life in Italy.) When the latter became emperor, he killed Donatus’ parents and Pigmenius, at which Donatus himself fled to Arezzo, where he lived with a holy monk named Hilarinus. He performed several miracles, and was eventually chosen as bishop. As he was celebrating Mass one day, the church was invaded by pagans, who broke the glass chalice as the deacon proffered it to the people. Donatus gathered up the fragments and restored the chalice by his prayers, but the devil managed to hide one of the pieces of the cup. Nevertheless, the Saint poured wine into it, which did not run out of the hole, a miracle which converted many of the pagans.

The Miracle of St Donatus, 1652, by the Spanish artist Jusepe de Ribera.

The Golden Legend continues with various other miracles, most notably the healing of the waters of a poisonous fountain, from which a dragon emerged at Donatus’ prayer, which he then killed. It also puts his martyrdom in roughly the year 380, “when the Goths were laying waste to Italy”, an event which did not actually happen until over 20 years later. But the pre-Tridentine Roman breviary says nothing about the dragon or any of the other, later miracles, stating simply that after “God glorified his Saint with many signs”, Donatus was martyred along with Hilarinus by Julian. (The latter died in 363.)

The cathedral of Arezzo was originally built on a hill outside the city, over the site of Donatus’ burial, but in the later 13th century, replaced by a new structure within the city walls. In the mid-14th century, a large tomb for the Saint was built directly behind the main altar; much like that of St Peter Martyr and some others, it was designed so that pilgrims could walk through the structure and venerate the tomb above their heads. (People were of course rather shorter in the Middle Ages than they generally are now.) The front of the tomb is decorated with images of the life of Christ and the Virgin, and various Saints, including Donatus and Bl. Pope Gregory X, who died in Arezzo in 1276, and is buried in the cathedral. (The construction of the new church was financed in part by a large donation which he left for that purpose in his will.) The other side is decorated with scenes from the life of Donatus. (Both images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0.)

St Donatus’ skull is kept in this 14th century reliquary, in the church of St Mary which also houses the polyptych shown above. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Dominic

Saint Dominic died on the evening of August 6, 1221, and was canonized in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) who had known him personally and declared that he no more doubted his sanctity than he did that of Saints Peter and Paul. At the time of his canonization, the feast of the Transfiguration had not yet been adopted in the West. August 6th, however, had long been kept as the feast of Pope St Sixtus II, who was martyred in 258 after a reign of less than a year. He is named in the Canon of the Mass, and was the Pope under whom St Lawrence served as deacon; his feast is part of a two-week long series of feasts associated with the great Roman martyr. One of the very first churches given to the Order (still the home of Dominican nuns to this day), was the ancient church of St Sixtus in Rome; for these reasons, the feast of St Dominic was assigned by Pope Gregory to August 5th, and kept on that day for over three centuries by the Dominicans and others.

In 1558, however, Pope Paul IV ordered the general observance on August 5th of the titular feast of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, and the transfer of St Dominic’s feast back one day to August 4th. This change was at first rejected by a general chapter of the Order held at Avignon in 1561, but was slowly accepted and eventually adopted formally in a revision of their liturgical books promulgated in 1603. St Jean-Marie Vianney, who is still often referred to simply as “the Curé d’Ars”, died on the feast of St Dominic in the year 1859, and was canonized by Pius XI in 1925. His feast was added to the General Calendar three years later, originally on August 9th, but later moved back to August 8th.

The Madonna and Child with St Catherine, and St Dominic Presenting the Donor, by Titian, 1512-16.

In the Calendar of the Novus Ordo, St Dominic and the Curé d’Ars were made to switch places; the idea being, apparently, that since Dominic’s feast could hardly be kept on the actual day of his death, which would involved bumping the Transfiguration out of the way, at least St Jean-Marie could. This seems a case where a basically good principle was applied with more zeal than wisdom, since no account was taken of the fact that the Curé d’Ars himself had celebrated that day as the feast of St Dominic, like centuries of priests before him.

As is also the case with the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, many Dominican houses keep the feast of St Dominic on the more traditional feast day, including the basilica in Bologna where he is buried, and which is now named for him. It was originally known as San Niccolò nelle Vigne, (St Nicholas in the Vineyards), and at the time it was given to the still very new Order of Friars Preachers in 1219, was on the outskirts of the city. The friars were able to expand it rapidly into a large complex to serve one of their most important communities, near one of the oldest and most important centers of learning in Europe. It was here that St Dominic died and was buried, originally laid in the floor of the church’s choir.

Upon his canonization in 1234, a proper Office and Mass were composed for his feast; this was sung for the first time in the choir of San Niccolò on August 5, 1234. At the time of St Dominic’s death, the prior of the Dominican house of Brescia, Guala Romanoni, beheld a vision, which he later described thus to Blessed Jordan of Saxony, Dominic’s successor as master general. Jordan writes:

He saw an opening, in heaven, by which two bright ladders descended. The top of one was held by Christ, the other by His Mother; on either one, angels ascended and descended. At the bottom of the two ladders, in the middle, was placed a seat, and on it sat one who seemed to be a brother of the order, with his face covered by his hood, as we are wont to bury our dead. Christ the Lord and His Mother pulled the ladders up little by little, until the one who was sitting at the bottom reached the top. He was then received into heaven, in a cloud of light, with angels singing, and that bright opening in heaven was closed. … That brother who had the vision, who was very weak and sick, realized that he had recovered his strength, and set out for Bologna in all haste, where he heard that on that same day and same hour, the servant of Christ Dominic had died. I know this fact because he told it to me in person. (Libellus de Principiis Ordinis Praedicatrum)

In the Office of St Dominic, the third antiphon of Lauds refers to this event: “Scala caelo prominens fratri revelatur, per quam Pater transiens sursum ferebatur. – A ladder stretching forth from Heaven is revealed to a brother, by which the Father passing was borne on high.” The very first time this Office was sung, it was Guala himself who intoned this antiphon. (He is now a blessed, and his feast is kept by the Order on September 4th.)

The Vision of Blessed Guala, depicted on the tomb of St Dominic in his church in Bologna.

Most of the propers for the Mass of St Dominic in the Dominican Use (the Introit, Epistle, Gradual, Gospel and Communio) are taken from the common of Doctors of the Church. Some of these parts are found in more than one Mass, but here the choice is a deliberate one, to express that St Dominic in his teaching and his life stands in the same position to the Order specifically as a Doctor does to the Church as a whole. (The Cistercians observe a similar custom on the feast of St Bernard.) The Alleluia verse is proper to the Dominicans, and like many medieval composition for both the Office and Mass, is in rhyme.

Alleluia, Pie Pater Dominice, / tuorum memor operum, / Sta corum summo judice / Pro tuo coetu pauperum. ~ Holy Father Dominic, / mindful of thy works / stand before the great Judge / for thy gathering of the poor.

A leaf of a Missal decorated by the Blessed Fra Angelico, the famous Dominican painter, from the museum of the Dominican church of San Marco in Florence, ca. 1430.

This is followed by a lengthy sequence, In caelesti hierarchia, which can be read at this link in Latin and English.

In 1921, a newly composed proper preface for the feast of St Dominic was added to the Missal.

Vere dignum … Qui in tuae sanctae Ecclesiae decorem ac tutamen apostolicam vivendi formam per beatissimum patriarcham Dominicum, renovare voluisti. Ipse enim, Genitricis Filii tui semper ope suffultus, praedicatione sua compescuit haereses, fidei pugiles gentium in salutem instituit, et innumeras animas Christo lucrifecit. Sapientiam ejus narrant populi, ejusque laudes nuntiat Ecclesia. Et ideo cum angelis et archangelis etc.
Truly it is meet … Who for the glory and defence of Thy Holy Church did will to revive the apostolic manner of life through the most blessed patriarch Dominic. For he, supported always by the help of Thy Son’s mother, put down heresies by his preaching, established champions of the faith for the salvation of the nations, and won innumerable souls for Christ. The nations speak of his wisdom, and the Church declares his praise. And therefore with the angels and archangels etc.

In the Tridentine period, the Dominicans instituted a special feast for all the saints of their order, as did several other religious orders. Ironically, this feast was also bumped from its original location by the dedication feast of a Roman basilica; initially kept on November 9th, the day after the octave of All Saints, it was later moved to the 12th to make way for the Dedication of Saint John in the Lateran. The preface of St Dominic noted above was appointed to be said also on this feast, a fine liturgical expression of the holy Founder’s position as the model for all the sons of his Order.

Fr Thompson has written previously about the procession that accompanies the singing of the Salve Regina at the end of Compline in the Dominican Use. In many houses, it was also customary to add after it the antiphon of the Magnificat for Second Vespers of the feast of Saint Dominic; it is here sung by the Dominican students at Blackfriars, Oxford.

O lumen Ecclesiae, doctor veritatis, rosa patientiae, ebur castitatis, aquam sapientiae propinasti gratis; praedicator gratiae, nos junge beatis. ~ O light of the Church, teacher of truth, rose of patience, ivory statue of chastity, freely you gave the water of wisdom to drink; preacher of grace, join us to the blessed.

St Martha Kills a Dragon

At that time, there was in a certain grove by the Rhone, between Arles and Avignon, a dragon, half beast and half fish, bigger than a cow, longer than a horse, having teeth like swords that were as sharp as horns, and fortified, as it were, with two shields on either side; and it would lay low in the river, and destroy all those who passed along it, and sink the ships. … Besought by the people, Martha came to it, and found it in the grove as it was eating a man. She threw holy water on it, and showed it a cross, and so it was immediately beaten, and stood still like a sheep. Martha tied it up with her belt, and the people at once destroyed it with spears and stone. The dragon was called by the inhabitants “Tarasconus”; wherefore in memory of this, that place is still called “Tarascon”… (From the Golden Legend)

St Martha and the Tarascon, from the Hours of Louis de Laval, 1470-85; Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms Latin 920, folio 317v 

This story from the Golden Legend was included in the Roman Breviary even so late as 1529, in one of the last editions before the Tridientine reform. All trace of it was removed in the revision of Pope St Pius V, but it survives to this day in the folk traditions of southern France. The monster, also called “Tarasque” in French, appears on the shield of the city of Tarascon, where the legend is commemorated in a folk festival held every year, and an effigy of the creature is carried through the city in a parade.

(Image from Wikipedia by Gérard Marin)

He also appears in some of the Corpus Christi festivals in Spain, as seen here in Valencia.

(Image from Wikipedia by Chosovi)

A Reliquary from the Time of St Ambrose

Today is the feast of a group of four Saints, the martyrs Nazarius and Celsus, who are traditionally said to have died at Milan in the middle of the first century, and Popes Victor I (ca. 189-99) and Innocent I (401-17). On the Ambrosian Calendar, the two martyrs have the day to themselves, and their feast is kept with a vigil; there is also a feast of the translation of Nazarius’ relics on May 10th.

The high altar of the church of the Holy Apostles and St Nazarius, commonly known as “San Nazaro in Brolo”, with the relics of St Nazarius.

In 395 AD, their bodies were discovered by St Ambrose in a garden outside the city; when the tomb of Nazarius was opened, his blood was seen to be as fresh as if he had just been wounded. His relics were then taken to a basilica which Ambrose had constructed about 15 years earlier, and dedicated to the Twelve Apostles; a large apse was added to the church, and the relics laid to rest in a crypt in the middle of it. In 1578, in the course of building a new altar for the church, a silver reliquary contemporary to the original construction of the basilica was discovered under the high altar, with relics of the Apostles Ss Peter and Paul inside it. St Ambrose himself attests that these relics had been given to him by Pope St Damasus I, for the first dedication of the church to the Twelve Apostles; St Charles was rather disappointed to find that they were not relics of their bodies, but relics “by contact”, pieces of cloth that had touched the Apostles’ bones. Nevertheless, he donated one of his own copes to wrap up the relics of St Nazarius, the Apostles, and four of his Sainted predecessors among the archbishops of Milan, who were buried in the church. The reliquary is now displayed in the museum of the Archdiocese of Milan; thanks to Nicola for all of these pictures.

On the lid of the reliquary are shown Christ and the Twelve Apostles. On the lower left are seen the baskets of fragments collected by the Apostles after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes; on the lower right, the six vessels of water turned into wine during the Wedding at Cana. The custom of representing Christ beardless to distinguish Him from the Father was still common in this era, although soon to fade away. The classical style of all five of the panels is very typical of the highest quality artworks of the era, as one would expect from a work commissioned by a man of aristocratic background and high political rank like St Ambrose; this is particularly evident in the pose of the standing figures, which are very reminiscent of the better Roman statues.

Joseph sitting in judgment on his brothers; the young prisoner on the left is Benjamin, the older one on the right is Judah. The hat worn by Joseph and the other brothers, known as a Phrygian cap, was generically associated by the Romans with peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond, and often adopted by the Christians to represent the characters in the Old Testament.

The Three Children in the Furnace, also wearing the Phrygian cap, and the angel that comes to make the inside of the furnace cool.

The Judgment of Solomon.

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The Feast of St Anne 2025

Come, all creation, let us praise the divinely wise Anna on cymbals and with psalms, who from her womb gave birth to the divine mountain, and has passed to the spiritual mountains and the dwelling-placesof paradise, and let us cry out to her: Blessed is thy womb which bore her who truly carried within her womb the Light of the world, and comely are thy breasts which nourished with milk her who with milk nurtured Christ, the Nourishment of our life! Whom do thou entreat, that He deliver us from all tribulation and every assault of the enemy, and save our souls. (A hymn for Vespers of the feast of St Anne in the Byzantine Rite.) 

An icon of St Anne holding the Virgin Mary, ca. 1440-57 by Angelos Akotandos (1400-57)

Δεῦτε, πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις, ἐν κυμβάλοις ψαλμικοῖς εὐφημήσωμεν Ἄνναν τὴν θεόφρονα, τὴν τὸ θεῖον ὄρος ἀποκυήσασαν ἐκ λαγόνων αὐτῆς, καὶ πρὸς ὄρη νοητὰ καὶ Παραδείσου σκηνώματα σήμερον μεταβεβηκυῖαν, καὶ πρὸς αὐτὴν βοήσωμεν· Μακαρία ἡ κοιλία σου, ἡ βαστάσασα ἀληθῶς τὴν τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου ἔνδον ἐν κοιλίᾳ βαστάσασαν, καὶ οἱ μαστοί σου ὡραῖοι, οἱ θηλάσαντες τὴν θηλάσασαν Χριστόν, τὴν τροφὸν τῆς ζωῆς ἡμῶν, ὃν καθικέτευε τοῦ ῥυσθῆναι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης θλίψεως καὶ προσβολῆς τοῦ ἐχθροῦ, καὶ σωθῆναι τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν.

An Italian Festival Revived in New Jersey, Sept. 6

The faithful are invited to attend a celebration in honor of Our Lady of the Torrent on Saturday, September 6th, at St. Aloysius Church in Caldwell, New Jersey, with a High Mass in the Extraordinary Form starting at 11 am, followed by a procession and a light reception with a display of associated memorabilia. For more information, or to RSVP by claiming free tickets, please visit https://MariaSSDellaLavina2025.rsvpify.com or use the QR code. The church is located at 219 Bloomfield Ave.

Over the past few years, Fr. William Rock, a priest of the Fraternity of St. Peter and friend of NLM, has been working with the Italian Apostolate of the archdiocese of Newark to revive devotion to the Blessed Mother under the title of Our Lady of the Torrent (Madonna della Lavina) at his home parish. This devotion originated in Cerami, Sicily, Fr. Rock’s ancestral town through his maternal grandmother, with the abandonment and miraculous discovery of a Byzantine icon of the Virgin around 1630, (as related here.)

When they came to the United States, the Ceramesi immigrants brought devotion to Our Lady of the Torrent with them. In 1912, a Maria SS. della Lavina Mutual Aid Society was established in Caldwell, New Jersey, which had a large Ceramesi population, and a yearly feast was celebrated. The celebration grew into a multiday event with religious celebrations as well as a carnival, but came to dwindle over time. When Fr Rock was a child, the now one-day celebration consisted only of Mass and the procession of an image of the Madonna around town. Until recently, it had been completely neglected for many years, but not altogether extinguished. For example, when he was ordained in 2019, Fr. Rock chose the Maria SS. della Lavina image from his home parish for his holy card, due to the sentimental value it had for himself and for his family. Another devotee, Dr. Rosemary Intili Ferdinand, related the impact this devotion had in her life in this 2022 interview.

In 2023, as part of a larger effort of rejuvenation undertaken by the Italian Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Newark, Fr. Rock was invited to revive devotion to Our Lady of the Torrent, the progress of which he relates in this post from last year. The hope is to build on the events of previous years with the incorporation of customs such as the use of neckerchiefs typically worn at Sicilian festivals, the holding of votive laurel branches during the procession, and providing cavatieddi atturrati, cookies exclusive to Cerami, at the reception.

Incensation of the image of Our Lady of the Torrent during last year’s celebration.

The Basilica of St Christina in Bolsena, Italy

Today is the feast of St Christina, a less well-known member of the illustrious company of ancient virgin martyrs whose true histories have been lost in the mists of time. The pre-Tridentine Roman breviary gives three brief lessons about her, which state that she took from her father, the prefect of the area around the lake of Bolsena in northern Lazio, some idols made of gold and silver, had them destroyed, and used the precious metal to benefit the poor. For this, her father had her tortured her in various ways, and then attempted to kill her by drowning her in the lake. As is so often the case in such legends, nature refused to cooperate with the persecution of God’s saints, and Christina was rescued from drowning by an angel; eventually her father’s successor as prefect had her killed by being shot full of arrows. This is said to have taken place during the persecution of Diocletian, at the very beginning of the 4th century.

St Christina Giving Her Father’s Golden Idols to the Poor; first half of the 17th century, by an anonymous Flemish follower of the Neapolitan painter Massimo Stanzione (1585-1656).

The editors of the Tridentine breviary, recognizing the legendary character of the story, which has likely been confused with that of another Saint of the same name from Tyre in Lebanon, reduced her feast to a commemoration on the vigil of St James the Greater. However, her church in the town of Bolsena (about 69 miles north north-west of Rome) is famous as the sight of the Eucharistic miracle which is traditionally said to have given rise to the feast of Corpus Christi, and one can still see the altar within it at which this miracle is said to have taken place. (As painful as it is to impugn this beautiful story, the bull of Pope Urban IV which promulgated the feast makes no mention of it, nor does St Thomas Aquinas, who composed the Mass and Office of the feast at his behest. The story does not appear in any source, in fact, until quite some time later.) It was originally consecrated by Pope St Gregory VII in 1077, and the interior preserves the form of an early central Italian Romanesque basilica. A lovely Renaissance façade was added to it by the Florentine architects Francesco and Benedetto Buglioni in 1492-94, at the behest of the papal legate to nearby Viterbo, Cardinal Giovanni di Medici, the future Pope Leo X. The bell-tower was added in the 13th century. (All photos by Nicola de’ Grandi.)

The large chapel on the left of the main church is the original site of the Eucharistic miracle, completely rebuilt in the Baroque period.

The oratory on the right is dedicated to St Leonard.

The relics of St Christina are now within the reliquary in this side-altar.

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“Apostle of the Apostles” - Liturgical Notes on the Feast of St Mary Magdalene

In the Missal of St Pius V, the Creed is said on every Sunday, and several categories of feasts: all those of the Lord, the Virgin Mary, Angels, Apostles, Doctors, etc. To this list is added one other woman, St Mary Magdalene, in commemoration of the fact that it was she who announced the Resurrection of Christ, the foundation of the Faith, to the Apostles; for this reason she has often been called “the Apostles of the Apostles.” This custom was widely observed in the Middle Ages, but originally not accepted at Rome itself; the Ordinal of the papal liturgy in the reign of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) specifies that the Creed is not to be said on the feast, indicating that it was known to be done elsewhere. It was still omitted according to the rubrics of printed editions of the Roman Missal in the first half of the 16th century; its addition in the rubrics of 1570 is one of the rare cases where a new custom was added to the Roman Rite from elsewhere in the highly conservative Tridentine reform. (It was removed from her feast in 1955, and from the Doctors in 1961.)

Two pages of a Roman Missal printed at Lyon, France, in 1500 (folio 95 recto and verso). The rubric about the Creed begins in the middle of the right column of the first page. Note that at the break between the two pages, St Bonaventure is listed as a Saint on whose feast the Creed is said; this edition was printed for the Franciscans, who counted him informally as a Doctor before the title was officially given in 1588. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Réserve des livres rares.)

The Gregorian propers of her Mass (Introit, Gradual etc.) are taken from the various common Masses of holy women; in the Middle Ages, the Epistle was that of Holy Matrons, Proverbs 31, 10-31, “Who shall find a valiant woman? etc.” In the Tridentine Missal, a new Epistle was created, the Song of Songs, 3, 2-5 and 8, 6-7, which begins as follows.

I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. (quaesivi illum et non inveni.) The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go ...

St Gregory the Great refers the words “I will seek him whom my soul loveth” to John 20, 11-18, when Mary meets Christ at the tomb and mistakes him for the gardener, in the Breviary homily for Easter Thursday.

We must consider how great was the force of love that had enkindled this woman’s heart, who left not the tomb of the Lord, though even the disciples were gone away. She sought Him Whom she had not found there, (exquirebat, quem non invenerat) and as she sought Him, she wept, … Whence it came to pass that she alone, who had stayed behind to seek Him, was the only one who then saw Him.

“When I had a little passed by them” (i.e. the watchmen of the city) then refers to tomb of the Lord being just outside the city, and the words “I held him: and I will not let him go” to her embracing the Lord, until He says to her, “Cling to me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”

‘Noli me tangere’ by Jacob van Oostsanen, 1507. The words of John 20, 15, that Mary Magdalene at first thought the Risen Christ was the gardener, gave rise to a delightful tradition of portraying Him with various gardening implements, such as the shovel seen here, or the kind of broad-brimmed hat often worn by gardeners.

From the time of St Gregory, the Western Church accepted that Mary Magdalene was also the sinful woman who anoints Christ’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee, as recounted in Luke 7, 36-50, the Gospel for her feast. This connection was probably made from the words that immediately follow this passage, or at least reinforced by them, Luke 8, 1-3. “And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, And Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto him of their substance.” (Mark 16, 9 also refers to the seven devils.)

She is also traditionally held in the West to be Martha and Lazarus’ sister, of whom Christ says in the same Gospel “Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10, 38-42) This passage is read on the feast of St Martha on July 29th, the octave of Mary Magdalene; from it, Martha has traditionally been seen as the symbol of the active life, and Mary of the contemplative. The same passage is then read also on the feast of the Assumption, a custom inherited, like the feast of itself, from the Byzantine Rite; this was understood allegorically in the Middle Ages to signify that in the person and life of the Virgin Mary are perfected both the active and the contemplative life.

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, by Henryk Semiradzki, 1886

The Byzantine Rite (in which the Creed is said at every Eucharistic liturgy) keeps July 22 as the feast of the “Myrrh-bearer and Equal to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene,” and on June 4 commemorates “Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus the Just.” Neither of the two Marys thus distinguished is associated with the sinful woman of Luke 7, but the Gospel of Mary Magdalene’s feast day is the passage from Luke 8 noted above. The two sisters are traditionally numbered among the “Myrrh-bearers” who went to the tomb to anoint the body of Christ on the morning of the Resurrection, although they are not named as such by the Gospel; with them are included also Mary, the mother of James and Joses, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, Joanna and Susanna named in Luke 8, and Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. They are commemorated as a group on the second Sunday after Easter, along with Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. At Vespers of the preceding Saturday, the following idiomel is sung, paraphrasing Matthew 28 and Luke 24.

Mary Magdalen and the other Mary came to the grave seeking the Lord, and they saw an Angel like lightning sitting on the stone, who said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He has risen as he said; in Galilee you will find him’. To him let us cry aloud, ‘Lord, risen from the dead, glory to you!’

In the Roman Rite, Matthew 28, 1-7 is the Gospel of the Easter vigil, which concludes with a very much shortened Vespers; the antiphon for the Magnificat is the beginning of the Gospel, “And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher, alleluia.” Even though the term “Apostle of the Apostles” does not occur in the Roman liturgical books, the liturgy itself proclaims this role for her as the first person named in the accounts of the Resurrection.

The church of Rome was traditionally very conservative about the addition of new texts to the Office; one often finds that the proper Office of a saint hugely popular in the Middle Ages, such as St Nicholas, is found in virtually every medieval Breviary except that of the Roman Curia, the basis of the Breviary of St Pius V. Such is the case with Mary Magdalene, whose Roman Office is mostly that of the common of Holy Women. She has proper antiphons for the Benedictus and the two Magnificats, but none for the psalms; there are also three proper hymns, although that of Matins is a single stanza and a doxology. Three responsories at Matins referring to her are borrowed from Easter, but the rest are taken from the common of Holy Women.

Other medieval breviaries, however, adopted one of various proper Offices for the feast, of which the most interesting is that found in the Dominican Breviary. At First Vespers, the antiphon of the Magnificat reads as follows:

Celsi mériti María, quae solem verum resurgentem vidére meruisti mortalium prima: óbtine ut nos visu gloriae suae tecum laetíficet in caelis.
Mary of high merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the true Sun rising; obtain that He may grant us joy by the vision of His glory in heaven.

And at the Benedictus:

O mundi lampas, et margaríta praefúlgida, quae resurrectiónem Christi nuntiando, Apostolórum Apóstola fíeri meruisti! María Magdaléna, semper pia exoratrix pro nobis adsis ad Deum, qui te elégit.
O lamp of the world, and bright-shining pearl, who by announcing the Resurrection of Christ, didst merit to become the Apostle of the Apostles! Mary Magdalene, of thy kindness stand thou ever before God, who chose thee, to entreat him for us.

Outstanding among the responsories of Matins is the eighth, (necessarily not as beautiful in my translation).

R. O felix felícis mériti María, quæ resurgentem a mórtuis Dei Filium vidére meruisti mortalium prima! Pro cujus amore, sæculi contempsisti blandimenta: * sédula nos apud ipsum, quæsumus, prece commenda. V. Ut tecum mereámur, o Dómina, pérfrui felicíssima ipsíus præsentia. Sédula.
R. O happy Mary of happy merit, that first among mortals did merit to see the Son of God rising from the dead; for whose love thou disdained the blandishments of the world: * by thy prayer, we ask thee, commend us to Him with diligence. V. That with thee, o Lady, we may merit to enjoy his most happy presence. By thy prayer.

The Office used by the Premonstatensians shares a number of texts with that of the Dominicans; it contains this very interesting and uncommonly long (and hence rather rarely used) antiphon:

Fidelis sermo et omni acceptione dignus, quia Christus Jesus venit in hunc mundum peccatores salvos facere; et qui nasci dignatus est de Maria Virgine, tangi non dedignatus est a Maria peccatrice. Haec est illa Maria, cui dimissa sunt peccata multa, quia dilexit multum. Haec est enim illa Maria, quae resurgentem a mortuis prima omnium videre meruit Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, quem pro nostris reatibus oret, quaesumus, in aeternum.
A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners; and He that deigned to be born of the Virgin Mary, did not disdain to be touched by Mary the sinner. This is that Mary, to whom many sins were forgiven, because she loved much. This is indeed that Mary, who before all others merited to see our Lord Jesus Christ rising from the dead; and we ask that she pray Him forever for our sins.

Lastly, we may note the Preface of her feast in the Ambrosian liturgy, another text that can only suffer in translation.

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos te, Pater omnipotens, omni tempore glorificare, et in die festivitatis hodiernae Beatae Mariae Magdalenae exultantibus animis praedicare. Quam sic tui amoris igne accendere dignatus es; ut ad Christi Filii tui vestigia devota corrueret, et eadem pretioso unguento perfunderet. Osculari quoque, ac lacrimis rigare, et capillis non cessat extergere, donec audire promeruit, ‘Dimissa sunt tibi peccata, vade in pace.’ O beata fides, divinae misericordiae munita praesidio! O digna conversio, quae tantum munus accepit, ut quae antea draconis antiqui faucibus merito tenebatur astricta, plena jam gaudens libertate, sanctis Apostolis dominincae Resurrectionis mereretur esse praenuncia. Et ideo…

Truly it is fitting and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we glorify Thee, Father almighty, in every moment, and on this feast day of blessed Mary Magdalene proclaim Thee with spirits rejoicing. Whom Thou didst so deign to kindle with the fire of Thy love, that in devotion she fell at the feet of Christ, Thy Son, and anointed them with precious ointment; and ceased not to kiss them, to wash them with her tears, and wipe them with her hair, until she merits to hear, ‘Thy sins are forgiven go, in peace.’ O blessed faith, strengthened with the help of divine mercy. O worthy conversion, that merited to receive so great a gift, that she who was formerly deservedly held fast in the jaws of the ancient dragon, now rejoicing in complete freedom, should merit to be the first to announce the Lord’s Resurrection to the Holt Apostles. And therefore with the Angels and Archangels…

The Penitent Magdalene, by Caravaggio, ca. 1594-95.