A Proper Hymn of St Francis of Assisi

This year the Church marks the 8th centenary of the death of St Francis of Assisi, which took place later on the evening of October 3rd, 1226. Following the ancient (and indeed pre-Christian) principle that feasts begin on the preceding evening, his feast is assigned to today, October 4th. Here is a very nice recording of the hymn for 2nd Vespers of the proper Office composed for him shortly after his canonization, and used ever since then by the Franciscan Order.

Decus morum, dux Minorum, Franciscus tenens bravium, In te vite datur vitae, Christe, redemptor omnium.	The glory of our way, the leader of the Friars Minor, / Francis, holding his prize, is given to life in Thee, the Vine, O Christ, Redeemer of all.
Plaudat frater, regnat pater Concivis caeli civibus; Cedat fletus, psallat coetus, Exsultet caelum laudibus.	Our brother hails, our father reigns a fellow with heaven’s citizens; Let weeping end, let the chorus sing, Let heaven exult in praise.
Demptum solo, datum polo Signorum probant opera; Ergo vivit, nam adivit Aeterna Christi munera.	His works of wonder prove that he is Taken from earth, given to heaven; Therefore he lives, for he entered The eternal gifts of Christ.
Pro terrenis votis plenis Reportat dona gloriae; Quem decoras, quem honoras, Summae Deus clementiae.	For the fullness of his prayers on earth He receives the gifts of glory, Whom Thou grace and honor, O God greatest mercy.
Hunc sequantur, huic iungantur Qui ex Aegypto exeunt, In quo duce, clara luce, Vexilla Regis prodeunt.	Let them follow him, and be joined to him / Who march out of Egypt; With him as leader, in bright light The standards of the King go forth.
Regis signum ducem dignum Insignit manu, latere; Lux accedit, nox recedit, Iam lucis orto sidere.	The sign of the king marks him on his Side and hand as a worthy guide; The light comes, the night departs, When the star of day has risen.
Est dux fidus, clarum sidus, Ducit, relucet, devia Devitando, demonstrando Beata nobis gaudia.	He is a trusty guide, a bright star He leads, he shines, avoiding The wrong path, showing Blessed joys to us.
Mina gregem dux ad regem Collisor hostis callidi, Nos conducas et inducas, Ad cœnam Agni providi. Amen.	Bring the flock to the king, our leader, Who dash down the clever enemy; May thou lead and bring us To the banquet of the Lamb. Amen.

The Franciscan Office of their Holy Founder was composed by a German member of the order, Julian of Speyer, roughly ten years after the Saint’s death, and is one of the best known examples of a later type of Office known as a “rhymed office.” This particular hymn, however, was apparently added to it by Cardinal Thomas of Capua (1185-1239), Archbishop of Naples and a notary in the Papal court at the time St Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX. (The highly compressed rhyme scheme puts an accurate and poetic translation far beyond my literary skills.)

Rhyme itself was not used by the ancient Greeks or Romans, and where it occurred it was considered a blemish on poetry. Verse was formed by the alternation of long and short syllables in regular patterns; the iambic pentameter used so much by Shakespeare is broadly similar. (His type of English poetry is however much freer than Latin verse.) An example of this type of poetry in the liturgy is an antiphon found in the Office of St Peter in Chains on August 1st.

Aña Solve, jubente Deo, terrarum, Petre, catenas,
Qui facis ut pateant caelestia regna beatis.

Release at God’s order, o Peter, the earthly chains
Who make the kingdom of heaven open to the blessed.

These two lines are written in dactylic hexameters, the same metrical form used in the epic poetry of Homer and Virgil; they were composed by Pope St Leo I, (440-61) and inscribed on a wall of the ancient church of St Peter.

As the Latin language evolved into the modern Romance languages, the vowel quantities on which ancient poetry was based came to be less and less perceptible, leading over the centuries to the emergence of rhyme as we understand it today. (The older forms, on the hand, never ceased to be used.) By the High Middle Ages, this new type of poetry had become extremely popular in the liturgy. Four of the five sequences in the Roman Missal (Lauda Sion on Corpus Christi, Veni Sancte Spiritus on Pentecost, Stabat Mater on the feast of the Seven Sorrows, and the Dies irae of the Requiem Mass) are in rhyme. Likewise, whole Offices were routinely composed in which all of the proper musical parts, (antiphons, hymns and responsories), are rhymed.

Julian of Speyer is considered one of the great masters of this type of liturgical composition, and the rhymed offices which he wrote for St Francis and St Anthony of Padua were widely imitated from his own time (he died in about 1250) until the Tridentine liturgical reform, when rhymed offices fell out of favor. Many continued to be used by the older religious orders, and churches which maintained their own proper Offices, but the newer orders, in the spirit of the Tridentine reform, preferred to base their proper Offices on Scriptural quotations. Thus, for example, the five antiphons used by the Oratorians at Lauds of St Philip Neri are all quotations from the Bible, while the proper hymns are all written in thoroughly classical meter. (The Jesuits, unsurprisingly, do not even have a proper Office for St Ignatius.)

The disfavor into which rhymed offices fell is also a by-product of the increasingly common habit in the Tridentine period of reciting the Office in choir recto tono, i.e. singing everything on a single note, rather than with its longer, proper notation. This manner of saying the Office makes the sing-song quality of the medieval rhyme schemes far more obvious; most people would agree that the Dies irae, for example, sounds much better when sung then when read. The recording of the hymn above shows very nicely how the proper musical notation transcends the rhyme scheme.

Medieval hymnographers also loved the trick used in this hymn, in which the last line of each stanza is the title (i.e. first line) of another hymn. (A similarly constructed piece is sung in the Cistercian Office of St Bernard.) The hymns thus quoted are all from the repertoire generally found in all medieval Uses of the Office.

Christe redemptor omnium - from Vespers of Christmas, pre-Urban VIII
Exultet caelum laudibus - from the Common of Apostles
Aeterna Christi munera - from the Common of Apostles
Summae Deus clementiae - from ferial Matins of Saturday, pre-Urban VIII
Vexilla Regis - from Vespers of Passiontide
Iam lucis orto sidere - the hymn of Prime
Beata nobis gaudia - from Lauds of Pentecost
Ad cœnam Agni providi - from Vespers of Eastertide, pre-Urban VIII

The difficulty of this trick is to integrate the titles into the words of a new composition in a new sense, and the results here are quite good. Some of the expressions in the vocative case, such as “Lucis creator optime,” could be interchanged with any of the others, but I do not say this as a critique of the author; medievals valued originality far less than we do. “Aeterna Christi munera,” however, works very cleverly with the third stanza, as do “Vexilla Regis prodeunt” with the fifth and “Beata nobis gaudia” with the seventh.

The citation of the Easter hymn in its original text, “Ad coenam Agni providi,” is the only real flaw, since in the original, the word “providi” does not modify “Agni”, but the main subject of the stanza, which appears in the fourth line. (“Ad coenam Agni providi, et stolis albis candidi, post transitum maris Rubri Christo canamus principi. - Looking forward to the banquet of the Lamb, and shining in white stoles, after the passing of the Red Sea, let us sing to Christ the prince.”) Here, “providi” is left marooned to modify “the Lamb”, who is now “looking forward” to no stated object; I have left it untranslated above. The exact same flaw occurs in a hymn to St Anthony the Abbot constructed in the same way, which I have written about previously.

The Vespers Hymn for the Feast of the Guardian Angels

A very nice alternation of chant and polyphony, by the Ensemble Venance Fortunat. The English translation is that of Alan Gordon McDougall (1896-1965).

1. Custodes hominum psallimus angelos,
Naturae fragili quos Pater addidit
Coelestis comites, insidiantibus
Ne succumberet hostibus.

Angel-guardians of men, spirits and powers we sing,
Whom our Father hath sent, aids to our weakly frame,
Heavenly friends and guides, help from on high to bring,
Lest we fail through the foeman's wile.

2. Nam quod corruerit proditor angelus,
Concessis merito pulsus honoribus,
Ardens invidia pellere nititur
Quos coelo Deus advocat.

He, the spoiler of souls, angel-traitor of old,
Cast in merited wrath out of his honoured place,
Burns with envy and hate, seeking their souls to gain
Whom God's mercy invites to heaven.

3. Huc custos igitur pervigil advola,
Avertens patria de tibi credita
Tam morbos animi, quam requiescere
Quidquid non sinit incolas.

Therefore come to our help, watchful ward of our lives:
Turn aside from the land God to thy care confides
Sickness and woe of soul, yea, and what else of ill
Peace of heart to its folk denies.

4. Sanctae sit Triadi laus pia jugiter,
Cujus perpetuo numine machina
Triplex haec regitur, cujus in omnia
Regnat gloria saecula. Amen.

Now to the Holy Three praise evermore resound:
Under whose hand divine resteth the triple world
Governed in wondrous wise: glory be theirs and might
While the ages unending run. Amen.

A Medieval Hymn of St Bernard

Here is a very nice medieval hymn for the feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux, which is used in the Cistercian Divine Office at both Vespers of his feast. According to the Analecta hymnica, the great catalog of medieval liturgical hymns, both the author and the date of composition are unknown, but it appears in several Cistercian sources in the 13th century, and has been in continual use within the order ever since. (It does not seem that any of the great translators like Neale or Caswell ever put their pens to this, so we must be content with my poor English prose translation.) This recording from the abbey of Marienstatt in Germany also includes the versicle that follows the hymn, “Ora pro nobis, sancte Bernarde”, in a more solemn tone which is different from the Roman one.

Bernardus Doctor inclytus, Caelos conscendit hodie, Quem attraxit divinitus Splendor paternae gloriae.	Bernard, the renowned doctor ascends the heavens today Whom the splendor of the Father’s glory drew from on high.
Exsultet caelum laudibus De Bernardi consortio, Quem conjungis caelestibus, Jesu, nostra redemptio.	Let heaven exult in praises for Bernard’s company, Whom You join to the citizens of heaven, Jesus, our redemption.
Rufum dorso per catulum Praefigurasti puerum Fore Doctorem sedulum, Conditor alme siderum.	By the figure of a dog with a red back, you showed that the boy would be a zealous teacher, O maker of the stars.
Nascentis ei claruit Clara Christi nativitas, Hoc a te donum habuit, O lux, beata Trinitas.	For him shined most brightly The glorious birth of Christ; This gift he had from you, o light, o blessed Trinity.
Arcana sacrae paginae Declarat, et mysterium Quod effecit in Virgine Deus, creator omnium.	He set forth the mysteries of the holy book, which God, the creator of all things, wrought in the Virgin.
Rore perfusum gratiae Monstrat dulcor eloquii; Per te fons sapientiae, Summi largitor praemii.	The sweetness of his speech showed him to be filled with grace, though Thee, o font of wisdom, giver of the highest reward.
Detentos a daemonibus Sanat, morbos languentium Curat, confert doloribus Magnum salutis gaudium.	He heals those held by devils, he cures the ailments of the sick, and gives the great joy of salvation to their griefs.
Vita vivit feliciter Cum Maria Christifera Cum qua degustat dulciter Aeterna Christi munera.	Happily he lives (eternal) life with Mary, the bearer of Christ, with whom he sweetly tastes the eternal gifts of Christ.
Summae Deus potentiae, Tibi sit laus et gloria: Da post cursum miseriae Beata nobis gaudia. Amen.	God of highest power, to thee be praise and glory: after the way of wretchedness give us blessed joys. Amen.

There are some interesting things to note. The hymn is an acrostic, the first letters of each stanza spelling his name BERNARDVS. The meter is the iambic dimeter, that of the original hymns of St Ambrose and other early Christian poets, short and long syllables alternating four times for a total of eight. (Substitutions are very common, especially since vowel quantities were already weakened in the 5th century, and hardly perceived as such in the High Middle Ages.) As such, it could in theory be sung in any one of a great many melodies, and other common hymns in this meter were often sung with different music from one church to another. However, it was an essential characteristic of the medieval Cistercians to keep a strict uniformity of observance in all their houses, and it is almost certain that they would have all used the same music.

The words of the third stanza “By the figure of a dog with a red back” refer to an episode recorded in the life of St Bernard. When his mother Aleth was pregnant with him (the third of her seven children, of whom four others are Blesseds), she dreamt that she was carrying a barking white dog with some red hair on its back. A religious man whom she consulted explained this dream to mean that the child she bore would be like the dogs mentioned in Psalm 67, “The tongues of your dogs lick the blood of their enemies”, guarding the house of God against its enemies, a preacher, and a healer of souls. This latter idea derives from St Gregory the Great’s symbolic interpretation of the dogs that licked the sores of Lazarus (hom. 40 in Evang.), in a passage which is read in the Roman Breviary on Thursday of the second week of Lent. “A dog’s tongue heals the sore which it licks; and so do holy teachers, when they instruct is in the confession of our sins, touch the sores of our souls by their tongues (i.e. their speech).” The following stanza refers to a vision of the Child Jesus which Bernard himself had when he was a boy, and fell asleep while waiting with his family to go out to Matins and the Midnight Mass of Christmas.

Christ Embracing St Bernard, ca. 1625, by Francisco Riablta (1565-1628). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Medieval hymnographers loved the trick performed by the author of this hymn, in which the last line of each stanza is the title (i.e. first line) of another hymn. (A similarly constructed piece is sung in the proper Office of St Anthony the Abbot.)

Splendor paternae gloriae – an original hymn of St Ambrose himself, which the
      Cistercians sing at Sunday Lauds, the Roman Office at Monday Lauds.
Jesu, nostra redemptio – from the feast of the Ascension, pre-Urban VIII
Conditor alme siderum – from Vespers of Advent, pre-Urban VIII
O lux, beata Trinitas – Saturday Vespers, pre-Urban VIII
Deus, creator omnium – the Ambrosian hymn for Sunday Vespers
Summi largitor praemii – a hymn for Lent sung by the Cistercians at Matins;
      also used at Sarum, but not in the Roman Office.
Magnum salutis gaudium – processional hymn for Palm Sunday
Aeterna Christi munera – Matins hymn of the Apostles.
Beata nobis gaudia – Lauds hymn of Pentecost.

In addition, the first line of the second stanza, “Exsultet caelum laudibus”, is the title of the pre-Urban VIII version of the Vespers hymn of the Apostles. (Like all the religious orders that retained their own Uses of the Divine Office, the Cistercians never adopted Pope Urban VIII’s reform of the hymns.)

The difficulty of this trick is to integrate the titles into the words of a new composition in a new sense. Some of the expressions in the vocative case, such as “Jesu, nostra redemptio,” could be interchanged with any of the others, (I do not say this as a critique of the author; medievals valued originality far less than we do,) but the last three are particularly well chosen.

The Cistercians were founded at the very end of the 11th century as “strict constructionalists” of the original Rule of St Benedict, which they felt had been unhappily compromised by later developments and customs that emerged within the Cluniac monastic empire. The term which St Benedict uses for “hymn” in the Rule (capp. 9, 12, 13 and 17) is “ambrosianum”, since it was St Ambrose who first introduced the use of hymns into the West. This led the Cistercians to the believe that St Benedict’s original intention was not merely that monks should sing “a hymn” at certain Hours, but that they should use the specific corpus of hymns used by Ambrose himself. This corpus would be found, as they thought, in the Ambrosian Divine Office; they therefore sent people to Milan to copy out the Ambrosian hymnal then in use, and bring it back to Citeaux. It was incorporated into their Office to the despite of many hymns which at that point had long been in general use within the broad liturgical family of the Roman Rite. This was very controversial, even for an age in which there was a great deal of liturgical variation, and the Order was eventually pressured into adopting the traditional corpus of hymns, with some variations. This is why some of the original Ambrosian hymns such as “Splendor paternae gloriae” are given a more prominent place within the Cistercian Office than they were elsewhere.

Hymns for the Medieval Office of Corpus Christi

When Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi in 1264, he also offered a complete set of Mass and Office texts composed at his behest by St Thomas Aquinas. These are rightly recognized to be among the finest of the High Middle Ages, and have been treasured by Catholics as the official liturgical expression of Eucharistic devotion for many centuries. However, the feast had already been established almost two decades earlier in the city of Liège; in his bull Transiturus, Pope Urban refers to the visionary St Juliana of Mont-Cornillon, who had composed an office of Corpus Christi before St Thomas. Her assistant in this task and in the promotion of the feast was a canon of the church of St Martin in Liège, John of Lausanne; this church and several others continued to use the older Office or parts thereof well after Pope Urban’s time. In a 15th-century manuscript of St Juliana’s life, a note is added by a later hand that refers to this Office, saying that “(i)t begins with the words Animarum cibus, and is found in its entirety in the church of Tongres (about ten miles from Liège) and elsewhere; then Urban IV instituted the office which is now sung everywhere.” (As noted in “The Feast of Corpus Christi”, edited by Barbara R. Walters et al., Penn. State Univ. Press, 2006, p. 61.)

The collegiate church of St Martin in Liège, depicted in a watercolor by Joseph Fussell (1818-1912). Image from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. 

Despite the broad liturgical standardization after the council of Trent, Liège maintained its own proper medieval use, edited according to certain criteria of the Tridentine reform, until the French Revolution ended the independence of the city’s Prince-Bishopric. It would appear from the printed liturgical books of the era that the office of St Thomas was adopted throughout the diocese as part of this reform. At the church of St Martin, however, where the feast of Corpus Christi was first celebrated, several parts of the older office Animarum cibus were added to St Thomas’; among them, proper hymns are assigned to the minor hours of Prime, Terce, Sext and None. (This was done in some parts of the Low Countries on a very small number of feasts, where the use of Rome has the same hymns at these hours every day.) As was typical of the period, several lines are borrowed from other hymns already part of the general repertoire; for example, the first line of the hymn of Prime, “Summae Jesu clementiae” is borrowed from a much older hymn which begins with those same words.

At Prime
Summae Jesu clementiae,
Qui ob salutem mentium
Caelestis alimoniae
Nobis praestas remedium

Mores, vitam et opera
Rege momentis omnibus,
Et beatis accelera
Vitam dare cum civibus.

Praesta, Pater, per Filium,
Praesta per almum Spiritum,
Quibus das hoc edulium
Prosperum serves exitum. Amen.

Jesus, of greatest clemency, who for the salvation of our souls grant us the remedy of heavenly nourishment, in every moment guide our manners, life and works, and hasten also to grant us life with the blessed citizens (of heaven.)
(Each of these hymns is sung with the same doxology:)
Grant this, Father, through the Son, and through the Holy Spirit, and a properous end to those to whom you give this food.

At Terce
Sacro tecta velamine
Pietatis mysteria
Mentes pascunt dulcedine,
Qua satiant caelestia.

Sit ergo cum caelestibus
Nobis commune gaudium,
Illis quod se praesentavit,
Nobis quod se non abstulit.

The mysteries of devotion, covered by a sacred veil, feed our souls with the same sweetness that fills those in heaven. Let this then be the joy which we share with them, that He has made Himself present to them, and Has not (by so doing) removed Himself from us.

At Sext
Splendor superni luminis,
Laudisque sacrificium
Coenam tui da numinis
Tuae carnis post prandium.

Saturatus opprobriis
Ad hoc cruci configeris
Et irrisus ludibriis
Crudeli morte plecteris

Splendor of heavenly light, and sacrifice of praise, grant the banquet of your Divine presence after that of your flesh. For this were you weighed down with reproaches, this nailed to the Cross, derided and mocked, and punished with a cruel death.

At None
Aeterna caeli gloria
Lux beata credentium
Redemptionis hostia
Tuarum pastus ovium.

Hujus cultu memoriae
Dirae mortis supplicio,
Nos de lacu miseriae
Educ qui clamas: Sitio.

Eternal glory of heaven, blessed light of believers, victim for our redemption, pasture of your sheep, by the worship of this memorial, by the punishment of this dreadful death, lead us forth from the pit of misery, you who cried out “I thirst.”

The Mass of St. Gregory the Great, by Robert Campin, 1440, or an assistant.

Each of these hymns contains a specific reference to the canonical hour at which it would be sung. The words “in every moment guide our manners, life and works” in the first hymn fit with one of the main ideas of the hour of Prime, to pray for the the sanctification of the day’s work; this is also expressed by the two invariable prayers of that Hour in the Roman Rite and most other uses. The references to receiving Communion in the hymn Sacro tecta velamine derive from the generally observed custom of the Middle Ages that the principle Mass of all major feast days was celebrated after the singing of Terce. The hymn for Sext refers to the Crucifixion which took place “at the sixth hour”, as St Matthew says, and that of None speaks of the death of Christ at the ninth hour, and His crying out “I thirst” just before, as told in the Gospel of St John.

The Eastertide Hymns of the Apostles

In the Roman Breviary, the feasts of the Apostles and Martyrs share a special proper Office which is used only in Eastertide, with different antiphons, responsories, chapters and versicles from those said during the rest of the year. This tradition is common to all Uses of the Roman Rite; many medieval breviaries (e.g. that of the Premonstratensians) develop it further, and extend at least some of these features to other categories of Saints. The Apostles, however, are the only ones whose Office also has proper hymns for Eastertide. This applies to the feasts of St Mark the Evangelist, whose First Vespers are celebrated this evening, of Ss Philip and James on May 1st, and the feast of St John at the Latin Gate on the 6th. It also applies to the feast of St Barnabas on June 11, but only in the extremely rare years when Easter falls on its latest possible date, April 25. (This has happened only 4 times since the Gregorian calendar was promulgated in 1582, and will happen only ten times in this millennium.)

Properly speaking, the Vespers hymn Tristes erant Apostoli, (which is repeated at Matins), and the Lauds hymn Claro paschali gaudio are both parts of the hymn Aurora lucis rutilat, which is sung at Lauds of the Sundays and ferias of the Easter season. This hymn is undoubtedly very ancient, and was often attributed to St Ambrose, but this attribution is now regarded as incorrect, and it is not used at all in the Ambrosian Office. In the Mozarabic Rite, which has a strong tendency toward the prolix in its use of hymns, all twelve stanzas are sung daily at Prime in Eastertide. Here we see it in the edition published in 1775.

Pope Urban VIII’s classicizing revision of both parts is one of the least successful aspects of that reform, and fully justifies the famous bon mot often said against it, “Accessit latinitas, recessit pietas – Latinity came in, and piety went out.” Fortunately, the mighty Tomás Luis de Victoria composed this splendid version in alternating chant and polyphony before the reformed versions became standard. (The version in the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours is much closer to the original. See the Latin original and an English translation by John Mason Neale at this link:
https://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni/AuroraLucis.html)

Another version, also in alternating chant and polyphony, by Victoria’s fellow Spaniard, priest and composer Francisco Guerrero (1528-99).

The Lauds section in chant.

A Hymn for Lent, Lost and Restored

The Roman tradition has always been very conservative about the use of hymns in the Divine Office. In most liturgical seasons, there are three proper hymns, one each for Matins, Lauds and Vespers, but many feasts, including some of the greatest solemnities (Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension etc.), have only two. In the Ordinal of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), the ancestor text of the breviary of St Pius V, Lent is an exception, since it has four hymns, one each for Matins and Lauds, but two for Vespers. Audi, benigne Conditor is said from Monday to Saturday, but Sunday Vespers has its own hymn, Aures ad nostras, an anonymous work first attested in a 10th century manuscript from the abbey of St Benedict on Monte Cassino.

The hymn Aures ad nostras in a breviary according to the Use of Esztergom, the primatial see of Hungary, 1523-24. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 8879)

St Pius V’s reform of the Roman breviary made very few alterations to the established repertoire of musical propers for the Office in all their genres (antiphons, responsories etc.) This hymn was therefore left in its place, with a small correction of the awkwardly arranged opening words (“Ad preces nostras Deitatis aures”), but otherwise unchanged.

In early 1588, Pope Sixtus V established the Sacred Congregation for Rites, and appointed as its first prefect Alfonso Gesualdo, archbishop of Conza in southern Campania, and uncle of the famous composer Carlo Gesualdo. As part of the preparatory work for new editions of the breviary and missal of St Pius, the cardinal wrote to various nuncios in Europe, asking them to canvas the learned men of their respective nations for suggestions as to what might be due for revision. The reports of two different nuncios (Prague and Madrid) contained the suggestion that Aures ad nostras be removed from the Office completely; another (Venice) suggested it be corrected, since its numerous metrical flaws made the Catholic Church look foolish to the Protestant heretics. [1]

This information comes from an article by a chant scholar and canon of the cathedral of Chartres, Fr Yves Delaporte, published in 1907. In the second part, he gives the following information from the notes of the commission that prepared the revised breviary which Pope Clement VIII promulgated in 1602. “The hymn Ad preces nostras... has been removed; it seemed inept in both its choice of words and phrasing, was put together with no account of (metrical) feet or syllables, and further, was superfluous, since in all offices, the same hymn is said at both Vespers, and no other solemn observance... has more then three hymns.” [2]

In the post-Conciliar Rite, however, it has been restored to use, but not in Lent. The first three stanzas serve as the hymn for the Office of Readings on Tuesday of weeks 2 and 4 of the Psalter, and the fifth, sixth and eighth on Wednesday; on both days, it concludes with the same, original doxology. In accordance with the usual censorship of any negative thoughts that might disturb the complacency of Modern Man™ in his splendor, the fourth stanza, which says that “we are submerged beneath the wave of sin” is suppressed, as is the seventh, which refers to the newly unfashionable practice of fasting, and the “thousand vices of the flesh.” Both of these stanzas also contain significant blemishes in their Latinity. Surprisingly, the reference to Satan in the eighth stanza remains in place, and only a few other alterations were made.

This first recording, from the always wonderful Schola Hungarica, begins with the antiphon Media vita, which was commonly sung with the Nunc dimittis at Compline in Lent. The first stanza of the hymn begins at 2:20, in a Gregorian melody, followed by a polyphonic version of the second, and only these two are sung.

The first stanza of the hymn in a musical collection of the 15th century. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Musique, RES-1750)

This English translation is from the collection Pange Lingua by Alan G. McDougall (Burns and Oates, London, 1916.) [3]

Ad preces nostras Deitátis aures, [4] Deus, inclína pietáte sola: Súpplicum vota súscipe, precámur    Fámuli tui.	God, of thy pity,    unto us thy children Bend down thine ear in    thine own loving kindness, And all thy people’s    prayers and vows ascending Hear, we beseech thee.
Réspice clemens solio de sancto, Vultu seréno lámpades illustra: Lúmine tuo ténebras depelle    Péctore nostro.	Look down in mercy    from thy seat of glory. Pour on our souls the    radiance of thy presence, Drive from our weary    hearts the shades of darkness, Lightening our footsteps.
Crímina laxa pietáte multa, Ablue sordes, víncula disrumpe: Parce peccátis, réleva jacentes    Déxtera tua.	Free us from sin by    might of thy great loving, Cleanse thou the sordid,    loose the fettered spirit, Spare every sinner,    raise with thine own right hand All who have fallen.
Te sine tetro mérgimur profundo: Lábimur alta scéleris sub unda: Brachio tuo tráhimur ad clara    Sídera caeli.	Reft of thy guiding    we are lost in darkness, Drowned in the great wide    sea of sin we perish, But we are led by    thy strong hand to climb the Ascents of Heaven
Christe, lux vera, bónitas et vita, Gaudium mundi, píetas immensa, Qui nos a morte róseo salvasti    Sánguine tuo:	Christ, very light and    goodness, life of all things, Joy of the whole world,    infinite in kindness, Who by the crimson    flowing of thy life-blood From death hast saved us,
Insere tuum, pétimus, amórem Méntibus nostris, fídei refunde Lumen aeternum, charitátis auge    Dilectiónem.	Plant, sweetest Jesu,    at our supplication Deep in our hearts thy    charity: upon us Faith’s everlasting    light be poured, and increase Grant us of loving.
Tu nobis dona fontem lacrimárum, Jejuniórum fortia ministra; Vitia carnis millia retunde    Frámea tua.	Grant to our souls a    holy fount of weeping, Grant to us strength to    aid us in our fasting, And all the thousand    hosts of evil banish Far from thy people.
Procul a nobis pérfidus absistat Satan, a tuis víribus confractus: Sanctus assistat Spíritus, a tua    Sede demissus	Bruised by thine heel may    Satan and his legions Far from our minds be    driven, that are guided By the indwelling    of the Holy Spirit Sent from Heaven
Gloria Deo sit aeterno Patri: Sit tibi semper, Genitóris Nate, Cum quo aequális Spíritus       per cuncta,    Sáecula regnat. Amen.	Glory to God the    Father everlasting, Glory for ever    to the Sole-begotten, With whom the Holy    Spirit through the ages Reigneth coequal.

This splendid polyphonic version by the Flemish composer Adrian Willaert (1490 ca. - 1562) has only the odd-numbered stanzas, since it was written to be sung in alternation with the Gregorian melody. (Willaert spent the last 35 years of his life as the Master of the Chapel at the basilica of St Mark in Venice, and is regarded as the founder of the Venetian school of polyphony, which makes great use of multiple choirs.)

[1] Of the hymn’s thirty-six lines, twenty-eight contain mistakes according to the rules of classical Latin prosody.

[2] Les Hymnes du Bréviaire Romain de Pie V à Urbain VIII, 1568-1632; Rassegna Gregoriana, Nov.-Dec. 1907, col. 495-512; cited by Dom Anselmo Lentini OSB in Te decet hymnus, p. 49, with incorrect citation of the first column number (489 instead of 495). Second part, May-June 1908, col. 231-250. (My thanks to Fr Brian Austin, FSSP, for providing me with a copy of the second part.)

[3] This meter is known as the Sapphic stanza, after its inventor, the Greek poetess Sappho (ca. 630-570 B.C.) Each stanza has three lines that run as follows, ⎼⏑│⎼⏒│⎼⏑⏑│⎼⏑│⎼⏒, and then one shorter line, ⎼⏑⏑│⎼⏒, with the primary accents on the long syllables (⎼) at the beginning of each foot. English, however, lends itself more naturally to meters that place the primary accent at the end of a foot, such as the iambic pentameter (⏑⎼ x5); this accounts for the awkwardness of McDougall’s translation in many places, since he retained the meter of the Latin version.

[4] The original wording, “Aures ad nostras Deitatis preces, / Deus, inclina”, abuses the flexibility of Latin word order, and sounds at first blush like it means “O God, incline the prayers of the Divinity to our ears”; hence, the correction to the much clearer (and theologically sounder) “Ad preces nostras Deitatis aures, / Deus, inclina. – O God, incline the ears of the Divinity to our prayers.”

Bl. Rabanus’ Hymn for the Purification Quod Chorus Vatum

In the Roman tradition, the feast kept on February 2nd was always known as the Purification of the Virgin Mary. Of course, it also commemorates the presentation of the Lord in the temple, which is why liturgical commentators of the Middle Ages such as our dear friend William Durandus often referred to it as a “double feast”. The Roman Office for it was always a mixture of parts proper to the feast, and others drawn from the common Office of the Virgin Mary, with the three hymns taken from the latter. But there were other traditions which mixed these elements differently; for example, in the use of Liège, the hymn for Lauds of Christmas, A solis ortus cardine, was sung at both Vespers.

Many medieval Uses have a hymn for Vespers, Quod chorus vatum, which was written by the Blessed Rabanus Maurus (780 ca. - 856), whose feast day is today. Among them is the Use of Sarum, (along with those of the Carmelites and Premonstratensians), which is why we have this lovely setting in alternating chant and polyphony by the famous English composer Thomas Tallis (1505-85). In the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours, it was by some miracle incorporated into the feast without any of the usual cack-handed mangling of the text. The English translation below is the Anglican priest Thomas Alexander Lacey (1853-1913), and very cleverly keeps the meter of the original. The individual lines are too long for the side-by-side tables which I normally use for hymns.

Quod chorus vatum venerandus olim,
Spiritu Sancto cecinit repletus,
In Dei factum genitrice constat
   Esse Maria.

Hæc Deum cæli Dominumque terræ
Virgo concepit peperitque virgo,
Atque post partum meruit manere
   Inviolata.

Quem senex Iustus Simeon in ulnis
In domo sumpsit Domini, gavisus:
Ob quod optatum meruit videre
   Lumine Christum.

Tu libens votis, petimus, precantum
Regis æterni genitrix, faveto,
Clara quæ cæli renitens Olympi
   Regna petisti.

Sit Deo nostro decus et potestas,
Sit salus perpes, sit honor perennis,
Qui poli summa residet in arce,
   Trinus et Unus. Amen.

All prophets hail thee, from of old announcing,
By the inbreathèd Spirit of the Father,
God’s Mother, bringing prophecies to fullness,
   Mary the maiden.

Thou the true Virgin Mother of the Highest,
Bearing incarnate God in awed obedience,
Meekly acceptest for a sinless offspring
   Purification.

In the high temple Simeon receives thee,
Takes to his bent arms with a holy rapture
That promised Saviour, vision of redemption,
   Christ long awaited.

Now the fair realm of Paradise attaining,
And to thy Son’s throne, Mother of the Eternal,
Raisèd all glorious, yet in earth’s devotion
   Join with us always.

Glory and worship to the Lord of all things
Pay we unresting, who alone adorèd,
Father and Son and Spirit, in the highest
   Reigneth eternal. Amen.

St Ambrose’s Hymn for St Agnes

In honor of the Second Feast of St Agnes, which is kept today in the Roman Rite, here is one of the very first Western hymns ever written in her honor, a work of St Ambrose (♰397). The Ambrosian Rite does not keep the Second Feast, but uses this hymn at both Vespers and Lauds of St Agnes on January 21st. It was never previously adopted at Rome itself, but in the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours, it is assigned to Lauds.

Most of the translation given here is by Kathleen Pluth. Hers was done for the Liturgy of the Hours, which omits the half or whole of several of Ambrose’s original stanzas. These omitted parts are printed in italics, as is the accompanying prose translation, my own, very much inferior work. The recording has the whole of the original text.

Agnes, beatae virginis, natalis est, quo spiritum caelo refudit debitum, pio sacrata sanguine	The blessed virgin Agnes flies back to her home above the skies. With love she gave her blood on earth to gain a new celestial birth.
Matura martyrio fuit, matura nondum nuptiis; nutabat in viris fides, cedebat et fessus senex.	Mature enough to give her life, though still too young to be a wife, the faith wavered in the men, and the tired old man yielded.
Metu parentes territi claustrum pudoris auxerant; solvit fores custodia fides teneri nescia.	Her parents struck with fear, had increased guards of her virtue; the guardians open the doors, knowing not how to keep to their duty.
Prodire quis nuptum putet; sic laeta vultu ducitur, novas viro ferens opes, dotata censu sanguinis.	what joy she shows when death appears that one would think: her bridegroom nears! bringing new riches to her Husband endowed with the price of blood.
Aras nefandi numinis adolere taedis cogitur, respondet: Haud tales faces sumpsere Christi virgines;	Her captors lead her to the fire but she refuses their desire, “For it is not such smold’ring brands Christ’s virgins take into their hands.”
Hic ignis extinguit fidem, haec flamma lumen eripit: hic, hic ferite, ut profluo cruore restinguam focos.	“This flaming fire of pagan rite extinguishes all faith and light. Then stab me here, so that the flood may overcome this hearth in blood.”
Percussa quam pompam tulit! Nam veste se totam tegens, curam pudoris praestitit, ne quis retectam cerneret.	Courageous underneath the blows, her death a further witness shows, she took care of her modesty lest anyone see her uncovered.
In morte vivebat pudor, vultumque texerat manu; terram genu flexo petit, lapsu verecundo cadens.	In death, her modesty lived, and she covered her face with her hand, for as she falls she bends her knee and wraps her robes in modesty.
Gloria tibi, Domine, gloria Unigenito, una cum sancto Spiritu in sempiterna sæcula. Amen.	O Virgin-born, all praises be to You throughout eternity, and unto everlasting days to Father and the Spirit, praise. Amen.

The meter which St Ambrose uses here, the iambic dimeter, has eight syllables per line. The very first word of this hymn, “Agnes”, should be in the genitive (possessive) form “Agnetis”, but that would make for nine syllables. He therefore treats “Agnes” as if it were a Greek genitive ending in -es, from “Agne”, which means “holy, pure”, and is very frequently used in the Byzantine liturgy to refer to the Virgin Mary. The Ambrosian Breviary changed the line to the more Latin “Agnetis almae virginis.”

Kathleen Pluth has done over 150 versions of Latin hymns into English poetry, for the Adoremus Bulletin, Magnificat, and Word on Fire’s Liturgy of the Hours; this one was originally published in a collection of the lives of young Saints: Radiate: More Stories of Daring Teen Saints. (It was also published on one of our sister sites, the Chant Café.) She has a license in Sacred Theology, and was formerly director of sacred music in a large parish and separately in a classical school. Our thanks to her for sharing her work on NLM.

Two Medieval Hymns for Epiphany

For brevity’s sake, the title of this post is slightly inexact: the first of these two hymns is for Epiphany, while the second was used for the whole period from Christmas to the octave of Epiphany.

The Baptism of Christ, 1471-79 by the Austrian painter Michael Pacher (1435 ca. - 1498). Image from Wikimedia Commons by Uoaei1, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Roman Divine Office is traditionally much more conservative than other Uses in the adoption of new texts, and this is particularly true in regard to hymns. Seasons such as Advent and Lent have three hymns, one each for Matins, Lauds and Vespers, but many feasts, even some of the greatest and most ancient, have only two. And thus for the Epiphany, the hymn Crudelis Herodes (originally Hostis Herodes impie) is said at both Vespers and Matins, and O sola magnarum urbium at Lauds.

Many medieval Uses, however, added one to this repertoire, an anonymous composition of at least the 10th century, A Patre Unigenitus. (Dreves, Analecta hymnica medii aevi, vol. 2, p. 80 and vol. 27, p. 66) In the Use of Sarum, it was sung at Matins during the octave, since on the feast itself, Matins has no hymn; the Carmelites and Dominicans put it at Lauds. It is a slightly irregular alphabetic acrostic; A is used twice, and the not-very-well composed strophe that supplied the letters V, X, Y and Z dropped out of use. The C of “clarum” is written with a K, a common practice in acrostics, since K is hardly used in classical Latin. The original reading of the S line was “Sceptrum tuumque inclitum”; this is grammatically irregular, since the enclitic particle “-que” should be attached to the first word, and so it was often corrected to the reading given below, as in the Dominican and Carmelite Offices. The English translation is by the great John Mason Neale, from “Collected Hymns, Sequences and Carols of John Mason Neale” (Hodder and Stoughton London 1914.)

A Patre Unigenitus Ad nos venit per Virginem, Baptisma cruce consecrans, Cunctos fideles generans.	From God the Father, Virgin-born To us the only Son came down, By death the font to consecrate, The faithful to regenerate.
De caelo celsus prodiens Excepit formam hominis, Facturam morte redimens, Gaudia vita rediens.	From highest heaven His course began, He took the form of mortal man, Creation by His death restored, And shed new joys of life abroad.
Hoc te, Redemptor, quaesumus Illabere propitius Klarumque nostris cordibus Lumen praebe fidelibus	Glide on, Thou glorious Sun, and bring The gift of healing on Thy wing; The clearness of Thy light dispense Unto Thy people’s every sense.
Mane nobiscum, Domine, Noctem obscuram remove, Omne delictum ablue, Piam medelam tribue.	Abide with us, o Lord, we pray, The gloom of night remove away; Thy work of healing, Lord, begin, And do away the stain of sin.
Quem jam venisse novimus, Redire item credimus, Sub sceptro tuo inclito Tuum defende clipeum.	We know that Thou didst come of yore; Thou, we believe, shalt come once more: Thy guardian shield o’er us extend, Thine own dear sheepfold to defend.
Gloria tibi, Domine, Qui apparuisti hodie, Cum Patre et Sancto Spiritu, In sempiterna saecula.    Amen.	All glory, Lord, to Thee we pay, For Thine Epiphany to-day; All glory, as is ever meet, To Father and to Paraclete.    Amen.

In the Liturgy of the Hours, the hymn has been subjected to the usual cack-handed alterations by Fr Anselmo Lentini OSB, and assigned to First Vespers of the feast of Our Lord’s Baptism. On the basis of a minority manuscript tradition, the address is changed to the second person, and various other words altered to fit that (e.g. the vocative “Unigenite” in the first line.) The fifth strophe is replaced by a doxology invented by Lentini.

In the Roman Breviary, and in most medieval Uses, the hymns of Prime, Terce, Sext and None are completely invariable throughout the year, although their doxology often changes. However, there existed a minority tradition (e.g. at Liège in the Low Countries, and in England at York, but not in the much more widely diffused Use of Sarum), which assigned a proper hymn, Agnoscat omne saeculum, to these Hours, starting on Christmas day, and continuing through to the octave of Epiphany. The hymn was broken up into two strophes per Hour, plus the doxology of the current feast. When Fr Guido Dreves SJ (1854-1909) was publishing his monumental collection of medieval hymns, the Analecta hymnica, its attribution was apparently a matter of debate; Dreves himself says (vol. 50, pp. 85-6) only that it is certainly by the same author as the common hymn of the Virgin Mary Quem terra, on the grounds that it shares two lines with it. (This seems a weak line of argument; medievals valued originality far less than we do, and borrowing texts was extremely common.) Writing in 1984, Fr Lentini ascribed it to “an unknown author of the 7th or 8th century.” Several more recent scholars, however, accept the traditional attribution to St Venantius Fortunatus (ca. 530-600), the author of the great Passiontide hymns.

In the Liturgy of the Hours, it remains miraculously untouched; the first three strophes and the sixth are assigned to Vespers of the Annunciation, and the fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth to the Lauds of the newly invented Solemnity of Mary on January 1st. It is a tribute to the smashing success of the new Office that no recording of either is available on YouTube, but it would have been sung with the same melody used for the other Christmas hymns, according to local custom, so I have included here the original version of the Roman Vesper hymn of Christmas, Christe Redemptor omnium. The English translation is from the same volume of John Mason Neale cited above.

Ad Primam Agnoscat omne saeculum Venisse vitae praemium, Post hostis asperi iugum Apparuit redemptio.	At Prime Let every age and nation own That life’s reward at length is shown; The foe’s hard yoke is cast away, Redemption hath appeared to-day.
Isaias quae cecinit, Completa sunt de Virgine: Annuntiavit Angelus, Sanctus replevit Spiritus	Isaiah’s strains fulfilment meet, And in the Virgin are complete: The Angel’s tongue hath called her blest , The Holy Ghost hath filled her breast.
Ad Tertiam Maria ventre concipit Verbi fidelis semine; Quem totus orbis non capit, Portant puellae viscera.	At Terce The Virgin Mary hath conceived, By that true word which she believed, And Whom the wide world cannot hold, A spotless maiden’s arms enfold.
Radix Jesse floruit Et virga fructum edidit; Fecunda partum protulit Et virgo mater permanet	Now buds the flower of Jesse’s root, Now Aaron’s rod puts out its fruit; She sees her Offspring rise to view, The Mother, yet the Virgin too.
Ad Sextam Praesaepi poni pertulit, Qui lucis auctor exstitit; Cum Patre caelos condidit, Sub Matre pannos induit.	At Sext He, by Whose hand the light was made, Deigns in a manger to be laid; He with His Father made the skies, And by His Mother swaddled lies.
Legem dedit qui saeculo, Cuius decem praecepta sunt, Dignando factus est homo Sub legis esse vinculo	He that once gave the Law to men, And wrote it in Commandments Ten, Himself man’s nature deigns to share, The fetters of the Law to wear.
Ad Nonam Adam vetus quod polluit, Adam novus hoc abluit, Tumens quod ille deicit, Humillimus hic erigit	At None Now the Old Adam’s sinful stain Doth the New Adam cleanse again; And what the first by pride o’erthrew, This lowliest One uprears anew.
Jam nata lux est et salus, Fugata nox et victa mors; Venite, gentes, credite, Deum Maria protulit.	Now light is come, Salvation shewn, And night repelled, and Death o’erthrown; Approach, ye nations! own this morn, That God of Mary hath been born.

The Feast of the Holy Relics

In the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, the entry on Relics states that “It has long been customary especially in churches which possessed large collections of relics, to keep one general feast in commemoration of all the saints whose memorials are there preserved. (As will be explained below, this is something of an overstatement.)

Part of the relics collection of the basilica of St Petronius in Bologna.

An Office and Mass for this purpose will be found in the Roman Missal and Breviary, and though they occur only in the supplement Pro aliquibus locis and are not obligatory upon the Church at large, still this celebration is now kept almost universally. The office is generally assigned to the fourth Sunday in October.” The author, Fr Herbert Thurston SJ, wrote “generally” because there was a variety of uses in regard to the date. I have seen the feast on October 26 in a 19th century breviary printed at Naples, while the Dominicans kept it on the 30th, and the Premonstratensians on November 14th. The Catholic Encyclopedia article was published just prior to the reform of St Pius X, which abolished the custom of fixing feasts to particular Sundays; after that reform, the most common date was November 5th.

The Divine Office for the feast is that of the common of Several Martyrs, with lessons in the second nocturn taken from St John Damascene’s Treatise on the Orthodox Faith, which perfectly summarize the Church’s theology of relics.

“Christ the Lord granted us the relics of the Saints as fonts of salvation, from which very many benefits come to us. … In the (old) law, whosoever touched a dead person was deemed unclean, but these (i.e. the Saints) are not to be reckoned among the dead. For from that time when He who is life itself, and the Author of life, was reckoned among the dead, we do not call them dead who have fallen asleep in Him with the hope and faith of the resurrection.”

This mid-11th century fresco in the lower basilica of St Clement in Rome shows the translation of the relics of St Clement, which Ss Cyril and Methodius discovered while they were evangelizing the Slavs in the region to which Clement had been deported, and where he had been martyred in the early 2nd century. The two Saints are depicted at left with Pope St Nicholas I, to whom they gave the relics; in the middle, St Clement is depicted as a living person, lying on a bier and covered with a red blanket, holding up his head, to indicate that the relics are his living presence among us. At the right, the Pope is celebrating Mass, with the Missal open to the “Per omnia saecula” and “Pax Domini” before Communion. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

He goes on to note various kinds of miracles that are worked by relics: “demons are expelled, illnesses driven away, the sick are healed, the blind regain sight, the leprous are cleansed, temptations and sorrows are scattered, and every best gift descendeth through them from the Father of lights (James 1, 17), unto those who ask with unwavering faith.”

As a theologian and Doctor of the Church, St John is best known for his defense of sacred images against the iconoclast heresy. “Iconoclasm” literally means “the breaking of images”, but in its Byzantine form, it also attacked the Church’s devotion to relics, just as the Protestant form would eight centuries later. Shortly after the Synod of the Hieria, which took place in the Emperor’s palace in Chalcedon in 753, and made iconoclasm the official policy of the Byzantine Empire, the altar of the nearby basilica of St Euphemia was dismantled, and her relics removed from it and cast into the sea. This was the first in a twenty-year long campaign of similar desecrations, and persecution of the iconodules. When the Second Council of Nicea was convoked in 787 to reestablish the orthodox faith, several accounts of miracles worked by both images and relics were adduced in their favor, and incorporated into the Council’s official acts, following the line set out by St John.

The Mass of the Holy Relics found in the supplement to the Missal is a fairly recent composition; its three prayers are all proper to the feast, but the Gregorian propers and Scriptural readings are selected from other Masses. The Introit is taken from the feast of Ss John and Paul, the first martyrs whose relics were buried inside a church within the city of Rome. “Many are the afflictions of the just; and out of them all will the Lord deliver them. The Lord keepeth all their bones, not one of them shall be broken.” The Epistle, Sirach 44, 10-15, is that of the octave day of Ss Peter and Paul, over whose tombs and relics the Emperor Constantine built two of Rome’s earliest public churches; it is here selected for the verse “Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name liveth unto generation and generation.” The Gradual Exsultabunt Sancti and the Gospel, Luke 6, 17-23, the beginning of the Sermon on the Plain, are both taken from the vigil of All Saints, since the feast of the Holy Relics is effectively celebrated as a part of All Saints’ Day. The remaining chants are taken from the Masses of various Martyrs.

A 15th-century reliquary of St James the Greater, the presence of which in the cathedral of Pistoia made that city into one of the major pilgrimage centers of medieval Italy.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of relics in the devotional life of the medieval Church, and a general commemoration “of the relics” is often found in medieval breviaries among the series of votive commemorations known as “suffrages.” However, a general feast of relics per se is actually quite rare in the Middle Ages; one of the few notable examples is found in the Use of Sarum, which kept such a feast on the Sunday after July 7th. This date was chosen because July 7th was the feast of the translation of perhaps the most important relics in pre-Reformation England, those of St Thomas of Canterbury. Translation feasts were also celebrated for St Martin of Tours and St Benedict, and indeed, all three were kept within a single week, with the former on the 4th and the latter on the 11th.

In point of fact, it was a much more common practice to celebrate the translation or reception of a specific relic or group of relics, rather than a feast of relics in general. In 1194, a feast of this kind was established at Paris, celebrated on December 4th under the title “Susceptio Reliquarum – The Receiving of the Relics.” The objects in question were believed to be several of the Virgin Mary’s hairs, three of St John the Baptist’s teeth, the arm of St Andrew the Apostle, some of the stones with which St Stephen was killed, and a large portion of the skull of St Denis. The pre-Tridentine Breviary of Paris has a special Office for the day, which mixes together parts of the Offices of these Saints with others from that of All Saints’ Day, and the hymns of Several Martyrs. Particular emphasis is laid on the Virgin, to whom the cathedral of Paris, where these relics were kept, is dedicated, and on local hero St Denis. This Office remained in use in the post-Tridentine period, with modifications that did not change its basic tenor.

(Many of the relics kept at Notre Dame de Paris were destroyed during the Revolution, one of the most famous ones that survived was the Crown of Thorns, which had its own feast on the Parisian calendar on August 11th. It was rescued from destruction when the church was severely damaged by a fire on April 15, 2019; the following video shows it being formally brought back to the restored cathedral at the end of last year, and installed in an absolutely hideous modern display... thing...)

I am sure that some of those who read this article will smile (or perhaps smirk) at the idea of relics of the Virgin Mary’s hair or the stones used to kill St Stephen. In this, they will not be alone. In the early decades of the 18th century, the church of Paris turned to a general and radical revision of its liturgical books, the reform which we now call “neo-Gallican.” This reform embraced many of the rationalist critiques brought against some of the Church’s traditional stories and legends; in the 19th century, Dom Prosper Guéranger, the great enemy of the neo-Gallicans, complained bitterly of their splitting up of both St Mary Magdalene and St Denis into different personages according to the various parts of their legends.

Likewise, suspicious (to say the least) of the authenticity of these relics, the neo-Gallican reform completely erased the original character of the “Susceptio Reliquiarum”, transforming it into a general feast of relics. Renamed as “the Veneration of the Holy Relics”, and transferred to November 8th, the octave day of All Saints, it was then given a completely new Office, which contains no references at all to the specific relics for which it was originally instituted, or the Saints whose relics they were.

The neo-Gallican liturgical reforms contain a great many lapses in taste and judgment which almost beggar belief; however, the new Office of the Holy Relics, whatever its history may be, is from a literary point of view one of the better efforts of its kind. Like most people who put their hand to changing historical liturgies, the Neo-Gallican revisers were painfully obsessed with making everything “more Scriptural,” and the new antiphons and responsories consist almost entirely of direct citations from the Bible. But they are very well chosen from a wide selection of books, and do demonstrate effectively that the Church’s veneration of relics is a tradition thoroughly grounded in Scripture. Just to give one example, the following responsory cites an Old Testament episode which was later used by Cardinal Newman in his Apologia to justify the veneration of relics.

R. They cast the body into the sepulcher of Elisha, and when it had touched the bones of Elisha, the man came back to life, and stood upon his feet. (4 Kings 13, 21) V. By faith they received their dead raised to life again. (Hebr. 11, 35) And when…

It is also, I believe, the only example of a neo-Gallican Office that was adopted for use outside France, and continued to be used, at least in part, even after the neo-Gallican liturgies were definitively suppressed in the 19th century. The Neapolitan breviary which I mentioned above contains it in almost exactly the same form as it appears in the 1714 edition of the Parisian Breviary. The one feature of the Office which the neo-Gallican reforms could not make into a chain of Scriptural citations is the corpus of hymns, to which a great many new compositions were added. The new Parisian Office of the Holy Relics includes a hymn written by a cleric of the diocese of Paris named Claude Santeul (1624-84) which was adopted by the Benedictines for their version of the feast, and is thus still part of the Antiphonale Monasticum for the Office to this very day. The meter is one used by the classical poet Horace called the Third Asclepiadean, not previously part of the traditional repertoire of Christian hymns. Some of Santeul’s odd vocabulary (e.g. “Christiadum” instead of “Christianorum”) is determined by the need to find words that fit the meter, but his complicated word order is a deliberate imitation of Horace’s style.

Reverence their poor and sadly dear remains!
Folded in peace their earthly vesture lies,
Dear pledges, left below, but thence to rise,
Pledges of heavenly bodies, free from pains!

And here ye may lift up your thankful strains,
Ye Christian companies. The spirit flies,
And hath its recompense in quiet skies,
And leaves with you below its broken chains:

Yet for their bones meek Piety shall plead,
Blest Piety, which honoureth the dead!
Though scatter’d far and wide, yet God’s own eye
Doth keep them that they perish not; and when

The promised hour shall come, their God again
Shall gather them, and as He builds on high
His habitation, each there, moulded by His grace,
Shall live and find a sure abiding place.

To us the places where your ashes be
Shall be as altars, whence shall steadier rise
Our prayers to Heav’n; and that blest Sacrifice,
Where God the Victim cometh down from high,

Shall consecrate to holier mystery;
He here accepts your deaths as join’d with His,
Here builds all in one body, and supplies
Our dying frames with immortality.

And hence your graves become a tower of aid,
A refuge from bad thoughts, a sacred shade;
Until, fresh clad with new and wondrous dowers,
Our flesh shall join the angelic choirs, and be

A living temple crowned with heavenly towers;
Where evermore the praises shall ascend
Of the great undivided One and Three,
And God be all in all, world without end. Amen.

(English translation by Isaac Williams from Hymns translated from the Parisian Breviary, Rivington, London, 1839)

The neo-Gallican use also has a different Gospel from the one named above for the feast of the Holy Relics, Luke 20, 27-38, in which Christ disputes with the Sadducees about the nature of the final Resurrection. The conclusion of this passage is particularly important as the foundation of what St John Damascene says, that the Saints are not truly dead. “Now that the dead rise again, Moses also showed, at the bush, when he called the Lord, The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; for he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live to him.” In the Parisian Breviary, the homily that accompanies it is taken from a treatise written by St Jerome against a priest from Gaul named Vigilantius, who had denied the value of praying to the Saints and venerating relics, a work in which we see the Saint at his wittiest and most acerbic.

“Vigilantius is vexed to see the relics of the martyrs covered with a costly veil, and not bound up with rags or hair-cloth, or thrown down the midden, so that Vigilantius alone in his drunken slumber may be worshipped. Are we, therefore guilty of sacrilege when we enter the basilicas of the Apostles? Was the Emperor Constantius guilty of sacrilege when he transferred the sacred relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople? In their presence the demons cry out, and those who dwell in Vigilantius (i.e. the devils) confess that they feel their influence. And at the present day, is the Emperor Arcadius guilty of sacrilege, who after so long a time has conveyed the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea to Thrace? Are all the bishops to be considered not only sacrilegious, but fools as well, because they carried that most worthless thing, dust and ashes, wrapped in silk in golden vessel? Are the people of all the churches fools, because they went to meet the sacred relics, and welcomed them with as much joy as if they beheld a living prophet in their midst, so that there was one great swarm of people from Palestine to Chalcedon with one voice re-echoing the praises of Christ? They were forsooth adoring Samuel and not Christ, whose Levite and prophet Samuel was. You imagine he is dead, and therefore you blaspheme. Read the Gospel: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

St Jerome the Penitent, by Titian, 1575; when depicted in this fashion, he is traditionally shown holding a rock with which he is said to have beaten his breast as an act of penance. Given the ferocity of Jerome’s polemical writings, and a general apprehension of his character (he quarreled violently with several of his friends), Pope Benedict XIV is supposed to have remarked on seeing such a representation of the Saint, “If it is true, that would be the only way you got into heaven.”

The Vesper Hymn of St John Cantius

Today is the feast of St John Cantius (1390-1473), a priest of the diocese of Krakow, Poland, who spent most of his life as a professor at the Krakow Academy, which is now known as the Jagiellonian University, and counts the astronomer Copernicus and Pope St John Paul II among its other illustrious alumni. The revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints recounts two beautiful traditions of the university long observed in the Saint’s honor. (vol. 4, p. 154) He was well known for his generous charities to the poor, and the story is told that once, on seeing a famished beggar pass by the dining hall, he brought the man all of his food; on returning to his seat, he found his plate miraculously filled up again. This was long commemorated by the custom of setting aside a meal for a poor man every day; at the beginning of dinner, the vice-president of the university would cry out in Latin, “A poor man is coming!”, to which the president would reply, “Jesus Christ is coming!”, and the man was then served. The other is that in the ceremonies at which degrees were conferred, the candidates were vested with the Saint’s doctoral gown.

The tomb of St John in the right transept of the church of St Anne in Krakow, the collegiate church of the Jagiellonian University. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons by Gryffindor.)

When St John was canonized in 1767, and his feast added to the general calendar, his Office was given three proper hymns: one which is said at both Vespers, another at Matins, and another at Lauds. Butler’s Lives states that he is the only simple Confessor whose Office has its own hymns in the Roman Breviary; this is both inexact and irrelevant. It is certainly true that the Roman Rite as observed in Rome itself was always very conservative in its use of hymns, and very few Saints of any class have their own proper hymns. But the feast of the Seven Founders of the Servite Order, who were all simple Confessors, have proper hymns for their collective feast on February 12th, and plenty of Confessors, both bishops and non-bishops, have proper hymns which are used in specific places or by certain religious orders. (See these articles on the hymns of St Augustine, Anthony the Abbot, and Bernard of Clairvaux.) The author of these hymns is unknown, but they were composed around the time of the canonization.

Here is a beautiful recording of the Vesper hymn by the choir of St John Cantius church in Chicago, made at the church of St Anne in Krakow where St John is buried. The English translation given below is by Mons. Hugh Henry, taken from the book The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal, by Dom Matthew Britt OSB. (Benzinger, 1922)

Gentis Polónae gloria, Cleríque splendor nóbilis, Decus Lycáei, et patriae Pater, Joannes ínclite.	O glory of the Polish race, O splendour of the priestly band, Whose lore did thy lyceum grace, John, father of the fatherland.
Legem superni Núminis Doces magester, et facis. Nil scire prodest: sédulo Legem nitámur éxsequi.	The law of the supernal will Thou teachest both in word and deed; Knowledge is naught—we must fulfill In works, not barren words, our creed!
Apostolórum límina Pedes viátor vísitas; Ad patriam, ad quam téndimus, Gressus viamque dírige.	On foot to apostolic Rome Thy pilgrim spirit joyful hied; Oh, to our everlasting home The path declare, the footstep guide!
Urbem petis Jerúsalem: Signáta sacro Sánguine Christi colis vestigia Rigasque fusis flétibus.	Again, in Sion’s holy street, Anew thou wet’st with tearful flood The pathway of the Saviour’s feet Erst wet with His redeeming blood.
Acerba Christi vúlnera, Haeréte nostris córdibus, Ut cogitémus cónsequi Redemptiónis pretium.	O sweet and bitter wounds of Christ, Deep in our hearts imprinted stay, That the blest fruit the sacrificed Redeemer gained, be ours for aye!
Te prona mundi máchina, Clemens, adoret, Trínitas, Et nos novi per gratiam Novum canámus cánticum.    Amen.	Then let the world obeisance due Perform, O God, to Thy high Will; And let our souls, by grace made new, Sing to Thee a new canticle!    Amen.