A Tale of Two Collects: Different Worldviews in Old and New Prayers

Every year, as we come to the feast of St. Albert the Great on November 15, I am struck again by the enormous difference in theology between the traditional Collect for his feast (as found in MR 1962) and the rewritten Collect published in the Missal of Paul VI. One can see this particular pair as emblematic of a shift from one understanding of Christianity to another.

The old collect, translated literally, reads thus:

O God, who didst make blessed Albert, Thy bishop and Doctor, great by his bringing human wisdom into captivity to divine faith: grant us, we beseech Thee, so to adhere to the footsteps of his magisterium, that we may enjoy perfect light in heaven. [1]

The new collect, as given in the current edition of the modern Roman Rite, reads:

O God, who made the Bishop Saint Albert great by his joining of human wisdom to divine faith, grant, we pray, that we may so adhere to the truths he taught, that through progress in learning, we may come to a deeper knowledge and love of you. [2]

In the former prayer, God makes Albert great because he brought human wisdom into captivity to divine faith (in humana sapientia divinae fidei subjicienda). The prayer echoes St. Paul writing to the Corinthians about the destruction of worldly wisdom: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels, and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10, 4–5). It is also reminiscent of the verse from the Psalms: “Thou didst ascend the high mount, leading captives in thy train, and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there” (Ps. 67, 19 [68, 18]).

The perspective is not that human wisdom is bad, but that it is likely to be rebellious if not subordinated to divine faith, and that it will “come into its own” when the pride with which it is pursued is crushed and the knowledge is made, to so speak, obedient unto death, as was Christ in His humanity. There has to be a certain mortification and re-alignment of human wisdom if it is to be in harmony with the ineffable mysteries of God and a tool of sanctification. This is why the collect concludes on a note of ascension, with the enjoyment of perfect light in heaven: that is where the very font of truth and all wisdom is perfectly found, and it must be the measure of all we do in this earthly pilgrimage. We ask to be guided by Albert’s teaching because “our conversation is in heaven” (Phil 3, 20). We cannot seek earthly knowledge for its own sake: “If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Col 3, 1). In this collect, the notes of asceticism and mysticism are strongly sounded.

In the latter prayer, however, all of these elements have been deliberately muted. Here, God is said to have made Albert great because he joined human wisdom to divine faith (componenda). The two are placed parallel to each other, as if two links in a chain, or two peas in a pod, or two doughty comrades in arms. No hierarchy, no dependency, no subordination is expressed; no mistrust of wayward human thought, no necessity of bringing the worldly into subjection to the heavenly, no implicit asceticism. Here, reason is not governed by faith and destined to a goal beyond itself, but the two are like Church and State according to modern liberalism.

Not surprisingly, what we are said to gain through adhering to the truths he taught is not the ascetical-mystical ascent to heavenly light which casts all earthly knowledge into the right (finite) perspective, but “a deeper knowledge and love of you”—the kind of inspiring sentiment one will find on the higher-priced Hallmark cards. Shifting the focus away from Albertus Magnus as a great philosopher and theologian of the conquest of knowledge for celestial beatitude, the prayer turns platitudinous by invoking “love” in the pairing “knowledge and love.” No one would doubt that a canonized saint lived a life of heroic charity; but that is generic and beside the point when commemorating this particular saint. What he exemplifies in the Mystical Body is exactly what the old prayer conveyed and the new one nearly contradicts.

To underline the this-worldliness of the paradigm at play, we note that the means suggested to us for arriving at this deeper knowledge and love is none other than — you guessed it! — “progress in learning” (scientiarum progressus). Homage is thus paid to the modern ideal par excellence, that of Progress, which we might interpret as evolution, the leitmotif of all modern thought. Might this be the progress by which we modern Christians have learned to set aside the sixth commandment, which we now understand to be more than ordinary people can reasonably bear? Or the progress by which we have become so superior to our bloodthirsty ancestors that we must give an utterly novel interpretation to the fifth commandment?

The contrast between the two collects is extremely telling. It tells of a deliberate shift from a hierarchical worldview rooted in faith and aspiring to the beatific vision, to a humanistic worldview of scientific progress through diverse “sources” of knowledge that is meant, in an unspecified way, to deepen our knowledge and love of God.

As Lauren Pristas and others have shown, this shift in attitude towards or evaluation of worldly realities is programmatically present in the heavily-redacted Collects of the Missal of Paul VI when compared with their predecessors in the Missal of the usus antiquior. The number of examples is vast; in order to limit myself, I have chosen to look at a one-month (!) period of the liturgical year, namely, September 18 to October 19. The biblical, patristic, and medieval Christian assessment of terrena or earthly things as we find it in the old collect of St. Albert appears again and again.

For the traditional feast of St. Joseph of Cupertino on September 18 — suppressed in the Novus Ordo calendar — the Church prays, with a lovely reference to the saint’s famous levitations:

O God, who hast ordained that Thine only-begotten Son when lifted up from the earth should draw all things to Himself: mercifully grant through the merits and example of Thy seraphic Confessor Joseph, that we may be lifted up above all earthly desires and be found worth to come unto Him: Who liveth and reigneth…

Or, for St. Francis of Assisi on October 4:

O God, who, through the merits of blessed Francis, didst give increase to Thy Church by enriching her with new offspring: grant us that following his example we may despise earthly goods and ever be glad to partake of Thy heavenly gifts. [3]

(Here, for comparison’s sake, is how the new Collect for Francis reads: “O God, by whose gift Saint Francis was conformed to Christ in poverty and humility, grant that, by walking in Francis’ footsteps, we may follow your Son, and, through joyful charity, come to be united with you.”)

Or, for the commemoration on October 9 of the martyrs SS. Denis, Rusticus, and Eleutherius — optional on the new calendar:

O God, who this day didst strengthen blessed Denis Thy martyr and Bishop with fortitude in suffering, and didst associate Rusticus and Eleutherius with him in preaching Thy glory to the heathen: grant, we beseech Thee, that following their example we may for love of Thee despise worldly success and may not fear worldly misfortune [pro amore tuo prospera mundi despicere, et nulla ejus adversa formidare].

On October 10, the feast of St. Francis Borgia, also suppressed in the Novus Ordo, the traditional liturgy prays:

O Lord Jesus Christ, who art the model of true humility and its reward: we beseech Thee, that as blessed Francis took Thee as model in contemning worldly honors and Thou hast glorified him, so Thou wouldst associate us with him both in the contempt and in the glory: Who livest and reignest…

On October 16, the feast of St. Hedwig — a saint who miraculously stayed on the modern calendar — we find this potent Collect in the usus antiquior:

O God, who didst teach blessed Hedwig to renounce the pomps of this world, that, with her whole heart, she might follow the humble way of Thy cross: grant that, through her merits and example, we may learn to trample under foot the perishable delights of this world, and by cleaving to Thy cross, surmount all obstacles: Who livest and reignest…

(The new missal’s collect for St. Hedwig is thin gruel: “Grant, we pray, almighty God, that the revered intercession of Saint Hedwig may bring us heavenly aid, just as her wonderful life is an example of humility for all.”)

The special postcommunion for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s feast in the usus antiquior (October 17) includes the petition: “make us renounce the proud vanities of the world.” Nothing like this is found in the new Missal. (In fact, the word “vanity” or “vanities” never appears in the current altar missal.)

The old collect for St. Luke (October 18) focuses on mortification:

Let holy Luke, Thine Evangelist, we beseech Thee, O Lord, intercede for us, who for the glory of Thy name ever bore in his body the mortification of the Cross.

The new collect, although more customized to St. Luke, drops all reference to asceticism, in keeping with the prevailing bias Pristas and others have documented.

Lastly, on October 19, in celebrating the triumph of St. Peter of Alcantara (also removed from the new calendar), the Church in her traditional liturgy prays:

O God, who didst vouchsafe to ennoble blessed Peter, Thy Confessor, by gifts of marvellous penance and highest contemplation: grant, we beseech Thee, that by his merits pleading for us, we may so mortify the flesh as the more easily to take hold of the things of heaven.

All of the above, mind you, are Collects from a one-month period, namely, September 18 to October 19. Do we detect a pattern? Yes, without a doubt. The dogmatic and disciplinary freight of the lex orandi is unmistakable. The liturgy is asking the Lord for a specific attitude of contemptus mundi, which St. Albert all the more impressively illustrates precisely because he is a scholar, author, scientist, naturalist, and man of affairs who has nevertheless held firm to the primacy of the kingdom of heaven. Century after century, collect after collect, the liturgy lucidly expressed and tirelessly inculcated this lofty vision of man’s vocation, the finality of the celestial fatherland, and the relativity of earthly affairs — until the 1960s, when Progress built a home for itself in a Church that had once anathematized the statement: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.” [4]

“How’s that dangerous liaison with Progress been working out for you?,” asks Historical Consciousness.

St. Albert the Great — great because you subordinated the human to the divine, the temporal to the eternal, the natural to the supernatural, the secular to the sacred, the earthly to the heavenly — pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

NOTES

[1] Deus, qui beatum Albertum Pontificem tuum atque Doctorem, in humana sapientia divinae fidei subjicienda magnum effecisti: da nobis, quaesumus, ita ejus magisterii inhaerere vestigiis, ut luce perfecta fruamur in coelis.
[2] Deus, qui beátum Albértum epíscopum in humána sapiéntia cum divína fide componénda magnum effecísti, da nobis, quǽsumus, ita eius magistérii inhærére doctrínis, ut per scientiárum progréssus ad profundiórem tui cognitiónem et amórem perveniámus.
[3] Lord God, who chose Saint Luke to reveal by his preaching and writings the mystery of your love for the poor, grant that those who already glory in your name may persevere as one heart and one soul and that all nations may merit to see your salvation.
[4] Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, n. 80, promulgated with the encyclical Quanta Cura on December 8, 1864.

Photos courtesy of Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

Humility of Service in Fixity of Form: The Policy of St. Benedict of Nursia

March 21 is the dies natalis of one of the most influential of all saints, Benedict of Nursia, Patriarch of Western Monasticism and Co-Patron of Europe. Highly pertinent to this blog’s concerns are the many profound liturgical lessons contained in the Holy Rule. Today I would like to consider a point from chapter 5.

According to St. Benedict, the root of humility is that a man must live not by his own desires and passions but by the judgment and bidding of another: ambulantes alieno judicio et imperio. When St. Benedict comes around to ordering the monastic liturgy, he makes continual reference to how things are done elsewhere: the psalms prayed by our fathers, the Ambrosian hymn, the canticles used by the Church of Rome. Even when fashioning his monastic cycle of prayer, he is constantly looking to the models already in existence. In like manner, chapter 7 warns us against “doing our own will,” lest we become corrupt and abominable.

This is the true spirit of liturgical conservatism, piety towards elders, and the imitation of Christ. We are not the ones who determine the shape of our worship; we receive it in humility as an “alien judgment” that we make our own. To do otherwise is to put the axe to the tree of humility. (St. Benedict allows for a redistribution of the psalms, as long as monks rigorously hold to the principle of praying the full psalter in one week. Therefore it would not conflict with humility for a monastic community to make some adjustments to the cycle of psalms, yet it would smack of temerity to reject the most ancient and stable pillars of the office, such as the praying of the whole psalter each week, and, to take a couple of specific examples, Psalms 109–112 for Sunday Vespers and Psalms 66, 50, 117, 62, and 148–150 for Sunday Lauds.)

Liturgical prayer has always been the foremost way of inculcating submission to Christ and His Church, so that we can learn His ways, and assimilate His prayer, and drink of His wisdom—which will certainly not be something we ourselves could have “cooked up.” Thus we take His yoke upon us…the yoke of tradition.

Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, it was taken for granted in Catholic circles that it is a special perfection of the sacred liturgy to be fixed, constant, stable, an immovable rock on which to build one’s spiritual life. The liturgy’s numerous and exacting rubrics were understood as guiding the celebrant along a prayerful path of submissive obedience, in which he could submerge his personality into the Person of Christ and merge his individual voice with the chorus of the Church at prayer. The formal, hieratic gestures transmitted an eternally fresh symbolism while limiting (if not eliminating) the danger of subjectivism and emotionalism. The priest or other minister was conformed to Christ the servant, who came not to do His own will but the will of Him who sent Him; he is commanded what to speak and what to do; he never speaks of himself.

The Father who abides in the Son does the work of the Son, and the Son who abides in the priest likewise does the work of the priest. In this way, even as the Son was “emptied of glory” in taking on the form of a slave, so, too, is the priest who enters His kenosis, sharing the hiddenness, humiliation, passion, and death of Christ. We may even say that the priest imitates and participates in the descent of Christ into hell by offering the Holy Sacrifice for the release of souls in Purgatory, which has a certain resemblance to the limbo of the fathers.

The last Holy Communion of St. Benedict

Our Lord, the great High Priest of the New Covenant said: “I cannot do anything of myself” (Jn 5:30). Here we have perhaps the most radical statement of the priest’s being tethered to the liturgy. It is a tethering so complete that he may truthfully say: “I cannot do otherwise.” If he thinks or acts otherwise, he has not yet become a slave, in imitation of the One who assumed the likeness of a slave. Worse, if he is allowed to do otherwise by a liturgical book, that book is a smudged and fractured mirror that does not reflect the Word.

This is why we ought to be unnerved by one of the most notable novelties in the Missal of Paul VI and in all the revised liturgical books, namely, that by which the celebrant is given many options among which he may choose, as well as opportunities for crafting his own speech: “in these or similar words.”[1] Confronted with such a phrase, one might legitimately ask: “How similar is similar?” In reality, the word of the liturgy and the word of the minister ought to be homoousios, of one and the same substance, not homoiousios, of a similar substance.

In the action of selecting options and extemporizing texts, the celebrant no longer perfectly reflects the Word of God who, as the perfect Image of the Father, receives His words and does not originate them, who does the will of another and not His own will. The elective and extemporizing celebrant does not show forth the fundamental identity of the Christian: one who receives and bears fruit, like the Blessed Virgin Mary; one who conceives with no help of man, by the descent of the Spirit alone.[2]

Instead, he adopts the posture of one who originates; he removes this sphere of action from the master to whom he reports; he carves out for himself a zone of autonomy; he denies the Lord the privilege of commanding him and deprives himself of the guerdon of submission; for a moment he leaves the narrow way of being a tool and steps on to the broad way of being somebody. He becomes not only an actor but a playwright; his free choice as an individual is exalted into a principle of liturgy. He joins the madding crowd that says, in the words of the Psalmist: linguam nostram magnificabimus, labia nostra a nobis sunt; quis noster dominus est? “We will magnify our tongue; our lips are our own; who is Lord over us?” (Ps 11:5).

But since free choice is antithetical to liturgy as a fixed ritual received from our forebears and handed down to our successors, choice tends rather to be a principle of distraction, dilution, or dissolution in the liturgy than of its well-being. The same critique may be given of all of the ways in which the new liturgy permits the celebrant an indeterminate freedom of speech, bodily bearing, and movement. Such voluntarism strikes at the very essence of liturgy, which is a public, objective, formal, solemn, and common prayer, in which all Christians are equally participants, even when they are performing irreducibly distinct acts. The prayer of Christians belongs to everyone in common, which means it should not belong to anyone in particular. The moment a priest invents something that is not common, he sets himself up as a clerical overlord vis-à-vis the people, who must now submit not to a rule of Christ and the Church, but to the arbitrary rule of this individual.

In the liturgy above all, we must never speak “from ourselves,” but only from Christ and His beloved Bride, the Church.

The deepest cause of the missionary collapse of the Church in the Western world is that we have lost our institutional and personal subordination to Christ the High Priest, the principal actor in the liturgy, the Word to whom we lend our mouth, our hands, our bodies, our souls. For the past fifty years it has not been perfectly clear that we are in fact ministers and servants of another, intelligent instruments wholly at His disposal. On the contrary, the opposite message has been promoted over and over again, ad nauseam, whether in words or in deeds: we have “come of age,” we are shaping the world, the Church, the Mass, the entire Christian life, according to our own lights, and for our own purposes. It is not difficult to see both that this is an inversion of the preaching of Christ and of the tradition of the Church and that it cannot produce renewal, but rather, confusion, infidelity, boredom, and desolation. We see here an exact parallel to what has happened with marriage: when so-called “free love” entered into the picture, out went committed love and heroic sacrifice, and in came lust, selfishness, dissatisfaction, and an unspeakable plague of loneliness. “Without me, you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). In the realm of sexual morality as in the realm of liturgical morality, we have given a compelling demonstration of what we can accomplish without Christ and without His gift of tradition—namely, nothing.

As if the Church had suddenly developed an autoimmune disease, churchmen in the twentieth century turned against ecclesiastical traditions, against greatness in music, art, and architecture, against rites and ceremonies, in a sterile love-affair with nothingness. We have witnessed an inbreaking of the underworld, an influx of demonic energy and chaos. Rejecting one’s past is rejecting oneself; this is what makes the comparison to an autoimmune condition apt. It does no good to pretend that we are dealing with anything less harmful than this, less dangerous, or less in need of exorcism.

I believe that we are much more on our guard now: the enemy of human nature has shown his cards and we are better prepared to detect his wiles. I would include in this category the flurry of thinking and writing that has taken place in recent years about the inherent limits of papal authority, the obligation of the pope to act as servant of the servants of God rather than an oriental (or South American) despot, and the inner connection between liturgy, dogma, and morality. As time goes on, I have no doubt that the truth of the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi will be made manifest in a blazing light of obviousness that will swell the ranks of Catholic traditionalists and expose the modernism of their opponents past all gainsaying.

The liturgical humility taught and practiced by St. Benedict will be, once again, as it had already been for so many centuries of Church history, a vital force in the restoration of worship for which we pray and labor.

NOTES

[1] See Rev. Paul Turner, In These or Similar Words: Praying and Crafting the Language of the Liturgy (Franklin Park, IL: World Library Publications, 2014). A synopsis may be found at http://paulturner.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ml-in-these-or-similar-words.pdf.

[2] See “The Spirit of the Liturgy in the Words and Actions of Our Lady” in Peter Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2017), 53–87.

Married Couples Recorded in the Roman Martyrology, with a Litany for Private Use

Saints Aquila and Priscilla

As I was reviewing page proofs for the book Are Canonizations Infallible? Revisiting a Disputed Question, I was struck once again by the account that was given during John Paul II’s pontificate of why so very many people “had” to be beatified and canonized starting in 1983. The rationale was this: the Church taught at Vatican II that holiness is everyone’s calling. And since the Church always remains faithful to Christ, there must therefore be a whole lot of saints in every category, especially from recent times, that need to be accelerated through the process in order to provide lots of examples and encouragement.

Now, this is a curious mixture of truths and falsehoods. It is of course true that the Church will always produce sanctity; no age is without saints. But it is not true that we can, as it were, crank up the factory and simply make more saints while maintaining the most rigorous standards of what constitutes publicly venerable holiness, or Christian perfection in charity. Nor is it by any means guaranteed that any particular age will be more fruitful than, or even equally fruitful as, any other age in verifiable saints. It could well be that modernity erects more barriers to the achievement of beatifiable and canonizable holiness. Indeed, this seems to be implied in Leo XIII’s letter Testem Benevolentiae.

One claim I have frequently seen in the literature surrounding John Paul II’s pontificate is that he wanted to present lots of examples of married sanctity to the laity. In and of itself, and taking into account the caveats of the preceding paragraph, we can say this is a laudable intention. For instance, we can rejoice in Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who, living relatively near to us in history, make spousal and parental holiness more vivid to our eyes. One also occasionally meets with cynical interpretations of hagiography that accuse the Church of denigrating marriage and promoting only a celibate model of sanctity. While some writers over the centuries doubtless had an axe to grind with marriage, this is by no means an operative assumption, nor is the dogmatic teaching that virginity consecrated to Christ is a more perfect state of life incompatible with a generous estimation of the good of sacramental marriage.

A way to see that the Church has not, in fact, been slow to recognize the sanctity of married couples and parents is to become more familiar with the traditional Roman Martyrology, which, as I have grown familiar with it over the years, has placed before me daily after Prime a remarkable procession of spouses, parents, and widows who have been part of our collective memory and liturgical worship for untold centuries. I continue to believe that it is highly valuable to read the Martyrology daily, for it furnishes a fuller picture of the models of sanctity venerated by the Catholic Church than the vastly smaller number of saints who are venerated in the Mass itself can give us by itself.

When we look more closely, we find in fact quite a good number of married saintly couples listed in the traditional Martyrology. By this, I mean something very specific: an entry that lists both the husband and the wife as saints. There are, as one would imagine, many more that list a saintly man or woman, husband or wife, without making mention of the other spouse or parent; and there are times when the whole family is martyred but only the husband is named. These have also been listed, because they too bear witness to the sanctity achievable in the married state and in the responsibilities of parenthood. (I have also included a few entries that speak of continent marriages, but these are few in number compared to the other categories.) It should also go without saying that plenty of other saints in the Martyrology would, in fact, have been married and/or parents, but here I am listing only those where the text itself includes such a description.

This article concludes with a litany in the usual style, for devotional use.

Saints Daria and Chrysanthus 

1. Saints who were married to each other

At Rome, blessed Dafrosa, wife of St. Flavian, Martyr, and mother of SS. Bibiana and Demetria, Virgin-Martyrs, who after the slaying of her husband was first sent into exile, and afterwards beheaded under the same prince. (Jan. 4)

At Sebaste, in Armenia, St Peter, Bishop, the son of SS. Basil and Emmelia, and brother also of SS. Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Bishops, and of Macrina, Virgin. (Jan. 9; cf. Mar. 9 and Jul. 19)

At Rome, on the Via Cornelia, the holy martyrs Marius and Martha his wife, and their sons Audifax and Abachum, Persians of noble birth, who came to Rome to pray in the time of the Emperor Claudius. After they had borne scourging, the rack, fire, iron hooks and the amputation of their hands, Martha was slain in the Nympha, and the others beheaded, and their bodies burnt. (Jan. 19)

At Caesarea in Mauritania, the holy martyrs Severian and Aquila his wife, who were burnt to death. (Jan. 23)

At Ostia, the holy martyrs Maximus and Claudius, brothers, and Praepedigna, the wife of Claudius, with their two sons, Alexander and Cutias; who, though they were of very noble birth, were at Diocletian's command all put to the test, and sent into exile. Later they were burned to death, offering themselves to God as a sweet sacrifice of martyrdom. Their relics were cast into the river, but discovered by the Christians, and buried near the same city. (Feb. 18)

At Nicomedia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Victor and Victorinus, who for three years were tormented by many tortures, together with Claudian and his wife Bassa; and, being cast into prison, they fulfilled there their life's course. (Mar. 6)

At Nicomedia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Macedonius, Patricia his wife, and his daughter, Modesta. (Mar. 13)

In Illyria, SS. Philetus, a senator, Lydia his wife, and his sons Macedo and Theoprepes; and also Amphilochius, a captain, and Chronides, a notary, who endured many torments for their confession of Christ and obtained the crown of glory. (Mar. 27)

At Milan, St Valeria, Martyr, wife of St Vitalis, and mother of SS. Gervase and Protase. (Apr. 28)

At Attalia in Pamphylia, the holy martyrs Exuperius, his wife Zoe, and Cyriac and Theodulus their sons; they were the slaves of a certain Paganus, and in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, by order of their master, on account of their outspoken profession of the Christian faith, were scourged and severely tortured. Finally they were cast into an oven and so gave up their souls to God. (May 2)

In the Thebaid, the holy martyrs Timothy and Maura, his wife, whom, after many torments, the prefect Arian ordered to be fixed to a cross, whereon they hung alive for nine days, confirming each other in the faith, and achieved their martyrdom. (May 3)

At Rome, blessed Calepodius, Priest and Martyr, whom the Emperor Alexander had slain with the sword, and his body dragged through the city and cast into the Tiber. Pope Callistus buried it after it had been recovered. Palmatius the consul was also beheaded, with his wife and children, and forty-two others of his household, of both sexes; likewise Simplicius the Senator with his wife and sixty-eight of his household; and also Felix with Blanda his wife, whose heads were suspended at different gates of the City as a warning to the Christians. (May 10)

At Rome, St. Artemius, with his wife Candida, and his daughter Paulina. Artemius, at the preaching and miracles of St. Peter the Exorcist, believed in Christ, and was baptized with all his household by St. Marcellinus, Priest. He was scourged and slain with the sword by command of the judge Serenus: while his wife and daughter were driven into a crypt and buried beneath stones and debris. (Jun. 6)

At Rome, on the Via Salaria, the passion of blessed Getulius, a most famous and learned man (the father of the seven holy brethren, whom his wife Symphorosa bore him), and his companions Cerealis, Amancius and Primitivus. At the command of the Emperor Hadrian they were arrested by the governor Licinius and first of all scourged, then cast into prison, and lastly delivered to the flames: but since they were in no wise hurt thereby, they fulfilled their martyrdom by their heads being broken sticks. Symphorosa, the wife of blessed Getulius, gathered up their bodies and buried them with honour in a sand pit in her villa. (Jun. 10; cf. Jul. 18)

At Rome, St. Zoa, Martyr, wife of the blessed martyr Nicostratus, who, while praying at the Confession of blessed Peter the Aposde, was taken by the persecutors under the Emperor Diocletian, and cast into a dark prison. Then she was tied to a tree by the throat and hair, and a horrible smoke produced beneath her, and so she gave up the ghost, confessing the Lord. (5 July) [To which is related an entry two days later:] At Rome, the holy martyrs Claudius, a notary, Nicostratus (chief secretary, and the husband of blessed Zoa the Martyr), Castorius, Victorinus and Symphorian. St. Sebastian brought them all to the faith of Christ and the Priest blessed Polycarp baptized them. While they were busied in recovering the bodies of the holy martyrs, the judge Fabian ordered them to be apprehended, and after he had tempted them for ten days with threats and flatteries, and could not move them in the least, he ordered them to be thrice tortured and then cast headlong into the sea. (Jul. 7)

In Asia Minor, SS. Aquila and Priscilla, his wife, of whom mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles. (Jul. 8)

At Cordova in Spain, the holy martyrs George, a Deacon, Aurelius and his wife, Natalia, Felix and his wife, Liliosa, in the Arab persecution. (Jul. 27)

At Tomi in Pontus, the holy martyrs Marcellinus, a tribune, his wife Mannea, and their sons John, Serapion and Peter. (Aug. 27)

At Adrumetum in Africa, SS. Boniface and Thecla, who were the parents of twelve sons, blessed Martyrs. (Aug. 30)

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, SS. Theodotus, Rufina and Ammia; the first two of these were the parents of St. Mamas the Martyr, to whom Rufina gave birth in prison and whom Ammia educated. (Aug. 31)

At Rome, on the Via Appia, blessed Cornelius, Pope and Martyr; in the persecution of Decius, after being exiled, he was commanded to be beaten with leaden scourges, and was beheaded with twenty-one others of both sexes. And Cerealis also, a soldier, with his wife Sallustia, whom the same Cornelius had instructed in the faith, were beheaded on the same day. (Sep. 14)

At Rome, the passion of the holy martyrs Eustace and Theopistis, his wife, and their two sons Agapitus and Theopist, who were condemned to the beasts, under the Emperor Hadrian but by the help of God were uninjured by them. They were then enclosed in a heated brazen bull and consummated martyrdom. (Sep. 20)

At Damascus, the holy martyrs Paul and Tatta his wife, and their sons Sabinian, Maximus, Rufus and Eugene, who, accused of professing the Christian religion, were tortured by stripes and other punishments, and in torment gave up their souls to God. (Sep. 25)

In Persia, the holy martyrs Dadas, a kinsman of King Sapor, Casdoa his wife, and Gabdelas his son, who were deprived of their honours, wounded by various tortures and, after long imprisonment, slain by the sword. (Sep. 29)

At Jerusalem, SS. Andronicus and Athanasia his wife. (Oct. 9)

At Rome, the holy martyrs Chrysanthus and his wife Daria, who, after many sufferings which they endured for Christ, under the prefect Celerinus, were commanded by the Emperor Numerian to be set in a sand-pit on the Via Salaria, and there, while still living, to be covered with earth and stones. (Oct. 25)

St. Zachary, Priest and Prophet, the father of blessed John the Baptist, the Precursor of the Lord. Also St. Elisabeth, the mother of the same most holy Precursor. (Nov. 5)

At Emesa in Phoenicia, the holy martyrs Galatio and Epistemis his wife, who in the persecution of Decius were beaten with scourges, their hands, feet and tongues mutilated, and finally achieved martyrdom by beheading. (Nov. 5)

On the same day, St. Natalia, the wife of blessed Adrian, Martyr, who for a long time ministered to the holy martyrs held in prison at Nicomedia under the Emperor Diocletian; and when their battle was over she went to Constantinople, and there rested in peace. (Dec. 1)

At Rome, the holy martyrs Claudius, a tribune, and his wife Hilaria, and their sons Jason and Marus, with seventy soldiers. Of these the Emperor Numerian commanded Claudius to be bound to a huge stone and cast headlong into a river, while the soldiers and sons of Claudius were condemned to death. Blessed Hilaria, after burying the bodies of her sons, was arrested by the heathen a little while after while praying at their tombs, cast into prison and passed to the Lord. (Dec. 3)

At Rome, the finding of the holy martyrs Nemesius, a Deacon, Lucilla, a Virgin, his daughter, Symphronius, Olympius a tribune, Exuperia his wife, and Theodulus his son, whose commemoration is made on August 25. (Dec. 8; cf. Aug. 25.)

In the same city, St. Flavian, an ex-prefect, who was the husband of blessed Dafrosa, a martyr, and the father of the holy virgin martyrs Bibiana and Demetria. He was condemned under Julian the Apostate to be branded for Christ's sake and sent into exile at Bagni-di-Ferrata in Tuscany, where he gave up his spirit to God in prayer. (Dec. 22)

On the same day, St Melania the Younger, who left Rome with her husband Pinian and went to Jerusalem; she led a religious life among the holy women, and her husband among the monks, and both died a holy death. (Dec. 31)

St. Henry and St. Cunegund

2. Married saints who lived a life of continence

At Antioch, under Diocletian and Maximian, the birthday of St. Julian, Martyr, and of Basilissa, Virgin, his wife, who kept her virginity while with her husband, and ended her life in peace. But Julian (after a crowd of priests and ministers of Christ's Church, who fled to them because of the cruel persecution, had been burnt with fire) was tortured with many torments at the command of the governor Marcian and condemned to death. With him suffered also Antony, a priest, and Anastasius. The latter, after he had been raised from the dead, Julian himself had made a sharer of Christ's grace. Celsus, a boy, with his mother Marcionia, and his seven brothers, and many others, suffered martyrdom. (Jan. 8)

At Bamberg, St. Cunegunda, Empress, who was married to the Emperor Henry I, but preserved her virginity with his consent. Enriched with the merit of good works, she rested in a holy death and thereafter was famous for her miracles. (Mar. 3)

Solemnity of St. Joseph, Workman, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Confessor, Patron of Artisans. (May 1)

At Bamberg, St. Henry I, Emperor of the Romans and Confessor. He led a life of perpetual virginity with his wife St. Cunegund, and brought St. Stephen, King of Hungary, and almost all his people, to embrace the faith of Christ. (Jul. 15)

3. Wives and widows, mentioned as such

Wives: St. Joanna (May 24), St. Clotilde (Jun. 3), St. Perpetua (Aug. 4), St. Serena (Aug. 16), St. Tryphonia (Oct. 18).

Widows: St. Paula (Jan. 26), St. Marcella (Jan. 31), St. Louisa Albertoni (Jan. 31), St. Joan de Lestonnac (Feb. 2), St. Juliana (Feb. 7), St. Frances of Rome (Mar. 9), St. Louisa de Marillac (Mar. 15), St. Lea (Mar. 22), St. Grata (May 1), St. Corona (May 14), St. Rita of Cascia (May 22), St. Margaret of Scotland (Jun. 10), St. Elisabeth of Portugal (Jul. 8), St. Athanasia (Aug. 14), St. Jane Frances Fremiot de Chantal (Aug. 21), St. Cyriaca (Aug. 21), St. Margaret (Aug. 27), St. Eutropia (Sep. 15), St. Catherine of Genoa (Sep. 15), St. Galla (Oct. 5), St. Bridget (Oct. 8), St. Hedwig (Oct. 16), St. Elisabeth of Hungary (Nov. 19), St. Olympias (Dec. 17), St. Begga (Dec. 17).

4. Husbands, mentioned as such

St. Craton (Feb. 15), St. Palmatius (May 10), St. Simplicius (May 10), St. Euthymius (Aug. 29), St. James Intercisus (Nov. 27), St. Venustian (Dec. 30).

5. Mothers or fathers, mentioned as such

Fathers: St. Richard, King of the English (Feb. 7), Theusetas (Mar. 13), St. Quirinus (Mar. 30), St. Pudens (May 19), St. Philip the Deacon (Jun. 6), St. Tranquillinus (Jul. 6), St. Thomas More (Jul. 6), St. Joachim (Aug. 16), St. Simplicius (Aug. 26), St. Marcellus (Oct. 30).

Mothers: St. Macrina (January 14), Queen Matilda (Mar. 14), St. Monica (Apr. 9), St. Plautilla (May 20), St. Marcella (Jun. 28), St. Mary (Jun. 29), St. Anne (Jul. 26), St. Theodota (Aug. 2), St. Nonna (Aug. 5), St. Helen (Aug. 18), St. Bassa (Aug. 21), St. Philippa (Sep. 20), St. Sophia (Sep. 30), St. Tryphonia (Oct. 18), St. Mary Salome (Oct. 22), St. Denise (Dec. 6), St. Fausta (Dec. 19).

Saints Joachim and Anne

A Litany of Married Saints

(For private use)

Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us. Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, pray for us.
Holy Mother of God, pray for us.
Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Zachary and Elisabeth, pray for us.
Saints Aquila and Priscilla,
Saints Flavian and Dafrosa,
Saints Basil and Emmelia,
Saints Marius and Martha,
Saints Severian and Aquila,
Saints Claudius and Praepedigna,
Saints Claudian and Bassa,
Saints Macedonius and Patricia,
Saints Philetus and Lydia,
Saints Vitalis and Valeria,
Saints Exuperius and Zoe,
Saints Timothy and Maura,
Saints Felix and Blanda,
Saints Artemius and Candida,
Saints Getulius and Symphorosa,
Saints Nicostratus and Zoa,
Saints Aurelius and Natalia,
Saints Felix and Liliosa,
Saints Marcellinus and Mannea,
Saints Boniface and Thecla,
Saints Theodotus and Rufina,
Saints Cerealis and Sallustia,
Saints Eustace and Theopistis,
Saints Paul and Tatta,
Saints Dadas and Casdoa,
Saints Andronicus and Athanasia,
Saints Chrysanthus and Daria,
Saints Galatio and Epistemis,
Saints Adrian and Natalia,
Saints Claudius and Hilaria,
Saints Olympius and Exuperia,
Saints Melania and Pinian, pray for us.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Let us pray. Grant, we beseech Thee, O almighty God, that the intercession of Holy Mary, Mother of God, St. Joseph, her most chaste Spouse, and all holy husbands and wives, fathers and mothers now reigning in Thy Kingdom, may everywhere gladden us, so that, while we commemorate their merits, we may experience their protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God for ever and ever. Amen.

How Liturgical “Forms” Concretely Define Religious Belief — or Undermine It

For a thousand years, priests offering Mass in the Roman rite observed the rule that they should hold their thumb and forefinger together from the time of the consecration until the ablutions (a rule still observed, of course, wherever the traditional Latin Mass is celebrated). This custom reflects the Church’s profound faith in the Real Presence. After the consecration, Our Lord is really, truly, substantially present wherever the outward appearances of bread and wine are present, which means in every last particle of the host. For this reason, the priest should not casually handle other things after touching the host, but keep those two fingers together except when distributing communion, until he is able to wash them in the ablutions. In this way, too, the priest is continually reminded of the awesome mystery he is handling with his fingers — and so are the laity.

As a layman, it bothered me that this longstanding and sensible custom had disappeared, so I decided to pose a number of questions to a sizeable group of priests who celebrate the usus antiquior, primarily to learn the importance they themselves attach to the custom. The results were published at NLM in five installments, with a concluding reflection (links may be found here). One priest responded to the series with the following account:

At the Mass in which I was ordained a deacon, the Eucharist was “served” from a glass dish of sorts … I purified it with great care after Holy Communion; it required a rather noticeable period of time to do so, which was obviously more than local clergy and people were used to. After that Mass both the vocation director and the ordaining bishop “corrected” me on this matter, with the bishop reminding me that the purification was only a “ritual purification” and that such care was not needed in carrying it out, since a sacristan would wash everything after. (A totally incoherent position.)
          This was my introduction — and a rather painful one, at that — to the practical lack of faith on the part of the clergy in the Real Presence, which I have witnessed and experienced many times in the 11 years since then. I say “practical,” because few would deny the Real Presence and most would even defend it quite eloquently. But the way they actually handle the Eucharist betrays their lack of understanding and/or belief. (This is particularly the case with how they handle the Precious Blood, the purificator, etc. — but this is the topic of another discourse.)
          Therefore, when I began to study the usus antiquior and learned about the detailed and systematic process of purification, which really leaves little room for error, and of the practicalities such as holding the consecrating digits together until purification, my faith was confirmed. And, although knowledge of the Church’s historic practice served, perhaps, to heighten my awareness of just how bad things generally can be now, and thus heightened my sense of pain, yet at the same time, it was a consolation to know that I was on the right track.

This author has put his finger (if I may say so) on the nub of the problem. The Catholic faith is not something purely abstract that we learn and assent to as an intellectual exercise. We learn our faith and we discern its meaning through practice, through what we do with or to the words, things, and persons that embody this faith. How we speak to Our Lord or about Him; how we handle the sacramental signs and, above all, His all-holy and life-giving Body and precious Blood; how we treat our priests and how they treat their people. This is where we find out, experientially, day after day, what the Catholic religion is — and whether it has been replaced by a rival system of belief.

In our practice, we teach ourselves; by our example, we teach those around us, especially children. This is where modern liturgy has grievously failed, in numerous ways and as a matter of practice, through its repudiation of the meaning of vital forms of expression, forms that convey the essence and purpose of the Mass. What is at stake in the escalating tensions between divergent liturgical “sensibilities” is not just mere “form” (as if we were talking about matters of taste or fine art), but rather, the meaning inherent in form and expressed by it — that is to say, truth. And not truth alone, but justice, as in the virtue of justice by which we give to God and the things of God that which they rightly demand and which we owe as His creatures and dependents. Thus, the divergence between “old rite” and “new rite” is a divergence of truth and justice: two different “religions,” taking this word in its Thomistic acceptation.

Just as the reverent forms and practices of the traditional liturgy point to and express vital truths for our faith, the numerous casual practices that permeate Novus Ordo liturgies are not coherent with the meaning and the purpose of the Mass. A friend of mine, a young lady who transitioned a few years ago from the Novus Ordo to the traditional rite, sent me a reflection that illustrates this point:

In my years attending the N.O. at very mainstream parishes (not like Oratorians at all), I experienced a palpable and oppressive sense of what I can only describe as a dictatorship of the casual. It wasn’t that I didn’t personally wish for more reverence, but the atmosphere just made it feel very out of place. It felt strange to be one of the few who bowed in the creed (we never dreamed of making a genuflection). It felt equally strange to show extra reverence such as bowing of the head after adoring the host at the consecration. Some faithful received on the tongue, but this was unusual. If one stayed in the pew, even for a moment, to make acts of thanksgiving after Holy Mass, one was most certainly in the minority. Then of course there was the chit-chat about sports games, social events, and all kinds of trivialities that took place in the Sacred Presence. Also there were frequent rounds of applause tucked into liturgies. Rounds of applause for a good joke in the homily, for a speaker advertising the parish picnic, for the choir upon completion of the rousing recessional song — the occasions were all too frequent.
          There is a pervading “bad attitude” that results in this oppressive dictatorship of the casual. It is a mystery to me what drives this insidious force. It took root years ago, but why does it still thrive when many good people in these parishes desire, if only in a vague way, greater reverence? Now, I know that we should all be willing to openly express our faith in God even unto death. However, something has gone terribly wrong when one feels a furtive sense, almost guilt — a feeling of “Well, who do you think you are, acting all holy!” — when one expresses reverence in a visible act.
          I’ll give a vignette that comes to mind. My sisters and I thought wearing veils would be kind of nice, but I remember my argument against it was: “We’re already such a distraction up in front of church playing our instruments in view of everyone. Then we’re going to throw veils into the equation? Besides they don’t ‘go’ with the kind of music we play.” I really don’t know if that reasoning was sound, but it illustrates the conundrum of reverence-hungry faithful who find themselves in the rigid N.O. framework. It’s a framework where piety and devotion often look ridiculous. Think of it: we have on our hands an atmosphere where showing due honor to Our Lord in what is supposed to be His house, at what is His Sacrifice, looks ridiculous. This is a brazen evil.

It is ironic that some Novus Ordo proponents criticize those who favor the traditional liturgy as people fixated on form, when in reality it is impossible not to care about form, since there is no truth accessible to us humans without the clothing of form. Every liturgy comes to us as a definite concrete set of forms with their own inherent meaning, and this meaning will be either full, rich, accurate, and nourishing of orthodoxy, or banal, impoverished, ambiguous, and inadequate to our needs. In this sense, everyone is fixated on form because human language and spiritual activity are formal through and through. The primacy of form, and the corresponding priority of getting it right, are inescapable; there is no “essential thing” independent of form that is “enough” for us.

No doubt, truth is known by the divine intellect apart from any created form; but men know the truth as expressed in a definite way, under sensible and intelligible signs. Some signs are well suited to the truth they signify, and others are not. For example, solemnity is compatible with, indeed required by, the notion of the sacred, while casualness and spontaneity are not.

Martin Mosebach’s The Heresy of Formlessness illuminates the folly (and ugliness) of imposing on ourselves the modern faith in abstract society and an abstract world with abstractions reigning globally and governing relationships individually, in contrast to the real spiritual vitality that can be found in things, real things, and how real things and actions resonate in the spiritual realm. This sensitivity to material reality is something our society has lost — not only the idea that there is a spiritual reality encompassing the material world, but also that we touch the spiritual through what we do with matter, or, in other words, that the form of things and what we do with them matters in the life of the spirit. One sees the same Cartesian contempt for the flesh in the liturgical reform, which strips barren the inherited treasury of forms in order to present as purely verbal and conceptual a worship as is still consonant with public human activity.

As the historical record indicates, Modernity fears Catholicism because Catholicism reminds it — reminds us — that reality includes the supernatural, that which encompasses and penetrates the natural with mysterious powers that reason can approach, but only through faith and analogy. This approach requires a surrender to the divine and an acceptance of tradition that modern epistemology in its egocentric rationalism and voluntarism cannot tolerate. Like liberalism in Newman’s analysis, a halfway house between Catholicism and atheism, the Novus Ordo is a halfway house between a time-embracing and time-transcending tradition and a modernity trapped in its own death spiral.

In conclusion, the past fifty years of liturgical praxis have taken a serious toll on the faith life in our communities. The Novus Ordo perspective dwells erroneously on abstractions like validity and fails to recognize the deep (human and divine!) connection between form, meaning, and truth. The consequences of this error are now unmistakable. According to Bishop Barron, for every new Catholic, six are leaving the Church. In a survey of Catholics, 80% under age 50 do not believe in the Real Presence. The pandemic has only accelerated the already glaring differences between the traditional practice of Catholicism and its modern substitute. The loss of faith evidenced statistically is understandable, even predictable, given that the main catechism for most Catholics is the Mass. A concerted return to the traditional liturgy is not simply beneficial but necessary for the continued life of our churches. Bishops who do not grasp this in time will preside over the white-chasubled funerals of their cremated dioceses.

In the cycles of history, including the history of salvation unfolded for us in Scripture, we perceive times of exile, as well as the varied responses people make to their exilic condition. It seems that we are living in a peculiar time marked by institutional self-exile, as if the Church had become its own Pharaoh and Pilate. That is no excuse for failing to do what we can and must as children of Israel, as disciples of Christ; rather, it is the perfect opportunity to pray for and seek a return to Catholic tradition, having at its heart a liturgy that is worthy of — and truly communicative of — the most important work the Church does, and, consequently, that is capable of serving as the foundation for a coherent future.

A Comparison of the Old and New Blessing of Candles on Candlemas

Coped priest blessing candles at the side of the altar (usus antiquior)

Of late, comparing and contrasting the prayers of the Pauline modern missal with those of the traditional Roman missal has been a passionate avocation of mine. Taking my cue from Lauren Pristas and Matthew Hazell, true masters of this labor, I find that simply placing the old and new texts beside one another and pondering their differences can be an extraordinarily enlightening exercise. It tends to confirm, time and time again, the doctrinal richness, ascetical realism, and poetic flair of the old prayers and the absense of these qualities in the new.

In this article I shall compare the prayers for the blessing of candles on February 2nd, Candlemas day, known in the old calendar as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in the new calendar, with a Grecophilic nod, as the Presentation of the Lord.

The first and most obvious difference is that the traditional Roman rite blesses the candles by means of a sequence of five prayers, in which is expressed a well-developed theology of candles as sacramentals; of how they relate to the order of creation and the order of redemption; of the liturgical reenactment and mystical participation in Christ’s own entrance into the temple; of Jesus Christ as the light of the world and His Spirit as the internal fire/light that guides us through the “perilous darkness of this life to the never-failing light” of heaven; of Simeon as a model of one so guided, whom we should imitate as we receive Jesus in the substance of our flesh; and of the connection between the oil Moses commanded to be prepared so that lamps might burn continuously in the Lord’s presence and the blessed candles we now burn as symbols of the “lumen Spiritus” in our inward minds. The prayers are particularly outstanding for their pneumatology.

A second obvious difference is the repetition of the act of blessing the candles, which is similar to the many signs of blessing to be found in the traditional rite of Mass (think of the Roman Canon!), the rite of blessing of holy water, the rite of baptism, and so forth. Precisely seven times the priest makes the sign of the cross over the candles, using the language “bless and sanctify” in the first, second, and third prayers, and asking one last time for “the grace of Thy blessing” in the fifth prayer.

First prayer

DOMINE sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus, qui omnia ex nihilo creasti, et jussu tuo per opera apum, hunc liquorem ad perfectionem cerei venire fecisti: et qui hodierna die petitionem justi Simeonis implesti: te humiliter deprecamur; ut has candelas ad usus hominem, et sanitatem corporum et animarum, sive in terra, sive in aquis, per invocationem tui sanctissimi nominis, et per intercessionem beatæ Mariæ semper Virginis, cujus hodie festa devote celebrantur, et per preces omnium Sanctorum tuorum bene✠dicere, et sancti✠ficare digneris: et hujus plebis tuæ, quæ illas honorifice inmanibus desiderat portare, teque cantando laudare, exaudias voces de cælo sancto tuo, et de sede majestatis tuæ: et propitius sis omnibus clamantibus ad te, quos redemisti pretioso Sanguine Filii tui: Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. R. Amen.

(Holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God, who hast created all things out of nothing, and by Thy command hast caused this liquid to become perfect wax by the labour of bees: and who, on this day didst fulfil the petition of the righteous man, Simeon: we humbly entreat Thee, that by the invocation of Thy most holy Name and through the intercession of Blessed Mary ever Virgin whose feast is today devoutly observed, and by the prayers of all Thy Saints, Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless ✠ and sancti✠fy these candles for the service of men and for the health of their bodies and souls, whether on land or on sea: and that Thou wouldst hear from Thy holy heaven, and from the throne of Thy Majesty the voices of this Thy people, who desire to carry them in their hands with honour, and to sing Your praises; and that You would look with favour on all who call upon You, whom You have redeemed with the precious Blood of Your Son, who being God, lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. R. Amen.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Truthfulness of the Pre-1955 Good Friday Prayer for the Jews

Abel and Abraham presenting their prototypical offerings with Melchisedech's

As we prepare in Advent to celebrate the birth of the Messiah who, in His earthly life, was sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15, 24), among whom He inaugurated His visible mission “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19, 10), it seems appropriate to reflect on the controversial Good Friday petition for the Jews; since, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen famously remarked:

Every other person who ever came into this world came into it to live. He came into it to die. Death was a stumbling block to Socrates — it interrupted his teaching. But to Christ, death was the goal and fulfillment of His life, the gold that He was seeking. Few of His words or actions are intelligible without reference to His Cross. He presented Himself as a Savior rather than merely as a Teacher.

The prayer for the Jews in the pre-1955 Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday reads as follows:

Let us pray also for the faithless Jews [perfidis Judaeis]: that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. [No instruction to kneel or to rise is given, but immediately is said:] Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from Thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness [Judaicam perfidiam]: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Henri de Lubac — no traditionalist, to be sure — devotes an entire chapter of his famous work Medieval Exegesis to the meaning of the word perfidis in patristic literature, and (surprise!) it turns out that it does NOT mean “perfidious” or “treacherous” or “nefarious.” In Christian vocabulary, it is the right word to designate the idea of being unfaithful to a commitment one had undertaken. The Israelites accepted the old covenant, which was ordered to accepting the Messiah. By not having received Him when He came, they were guilty of infidelity to the Lord. Thus, the phraseology is absolutely correct. (Addendum: A Latinist friend pointed out to me that perfidus and its derivatives occur twenty times in the Hispano-Mozarabic Missal: once against those who stoned St. Stephen, a few times against pagans, sometimes against heretics, and at other times against sinners contra religionem without further distinction.)

‘The Synagogue’: outside Bamberg cathedral

Pius XII introduced the first unnecessary change by inserting the standard instruction for kneeling and standing. John XXIII continued the trend of accommodating political pressure by removing the word perfidis/perfidia from the Good Friday prayer. The rite of Paul VI simply jettisoned the traditional prayer altogether, replacing it with a typically Hallmarkian text. It was a final misstep for Benedict XVI, in “rehabilitating” the usus antiquior, to replace the Roncallian version with a brand new prayer of eschatological orientation rather than evangelical, which makes it inferior, as Christian prayer, to the ancient prayer. This succession of changes seems to concede the argument that there really was something “anti-Semitic” about the old prayer, when it does no more than translate the teaching of the New Testament into the lex orandi. Balking at this lex orandi is a backhanded way of balking at divine revelation. In this way, ironically, the ones who show themselves to be guilty of perfidia are the Christians who cease to pray and work for the conversion of all, including the Jews.

Even if, for reasons of prudence, we may need to use or accept the 2008 prayer for the time being, Catholics who make use of the pre-1955 Holy Week liturgy should be in a position to defend the classic prayer, rather than to accept the false premise that there was something wrong with it.

On the now-defunct Foretaste of Wisdom blog there was a fine piece entitled “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Relationship between Christianity and Judaism after Christ,” the substance of which I reproduce below, for the benefit of NLM readers.

1. Christianity is the continuity (fulfilment) of the faith of the Judaism of the Old Covenant.

As regards the substance of the articles of faith, they have not received any increase as time went on: since whatever those who lived later have believed, was contained, albeit implicitly, in the faith of those Fathers who preceded them. (Summa theologiae, II-II, Q. 1, art. 7)

2. Judaism after Christ is not the continuity of the faith of the Judaism of the Old Covenant.

Accordingly we must say that if unbelief be considered in comparison to faith, there are several species of unbelief, determinate in number. For, since the sin of unbelief consists in resisting the faith, this may happen in two ways: either the faith is resisted before it has been accepted, and such is the unbelief of pagans or heathens; or the Christian faith is resisted after it has been accepted, and this either in the figure, and such is the unbelief of the Jews, or in the very manifestation of truth, and such is the unbelief of heretics. Hence we may, in a general way, reckon these three as species of unbelief. (Summa theologiae, I-II, Q. 10, art. 5)

3. The Old Law was a step, a bridge from the law of nature to the new law of the Gospel. It is inherently temporary and ordered beyond itself.

Hence, the New Law is called a law of love and consequently is called an image, because it has an express likeness to future goods. But the Old Law represents that image by certain carnal things and very remotely. Therefore, it is called a shadow (as in) Colossians 2:17: “These are but a shadow of the things to come.” This, therefore, is the condition of the Old Testament, that it has the shadow of future things and not their image. (Super Heb., X.1, no. 480)

In the present state of life, we are unable to gaze on the Divine Truth in Itself, and we need the ray of Divine light to shine upon us under the form of certain sensible figures, as Dionysius states (Coel. Hier. i); in various ways, however, according to the various states of human knowledge. For under the Old Law, neither was the Divine Truth manifest in Itself, nor was the way leading to that manifestation as yet opened out, as the Apostle declares (Hebrews 9:8). Hence the external worship of the Old Law needed to be figurative not only of the future truth to be manifested in our heavenly country, but also of Christ, Who is the way leading to that heavenly manifestation. But under the New Law this way is already revealed: and therefore it needs no longer to be foreshadowed as something future, but to be brought to our minds as something past or present: and the truth of the glory to come, which is not yet revealed, alone needs to be foreshadowed. This is what the Apostle says (Hebrews 11:1): “The Law has a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things”: for a shadow is less than an image; so that the image belongs to the New Law, but the shadow to the Old. (Summa theologiae, I-II, Q. 101, art. 2)

The salutiferous Cross foreshadowed under Moses

4. That the Old Law is said to be “everlasting” and that the call of God is “without repentance” does not establish that the Old Law remains in force as such or that it was not God’s intention to bring it to an end in the fullness of time.

The Old Law is said to be “for ever” simply and absolutely, as regards its moral precepts; but as regards the ceremonial precepts it lasts for ever in respect of the reality which those ceremonies foreshadowed. (Summa theologiae, I-II, Q. 103, art. 3 ad 1; see also the corpus in full)

In this way one avoids the opinion of the Jews, who believe that the sacraments of the Law must be observed forever precisely because they were established by God, since God has no regrets and is not changed. But without change or regret one who disposes things may dispose things differently in harmony with a difference of times; thus, the father of a family gives one set of orders to a small child and another to one already grown. Thus, God also harmoniously gave one set of sacraments and commandments before the Incarnation to point to the future, and another set after the Incarnation to deliver things present and bring to mind things past. (Summa contra Gentiles, IV.57, 2)

5. Professing “Judaism” after the time of Christ — that is, holding on to the Old Covenant in its oldness after it has been fulfilled — is objectively a grave sin based on a grave theological error:

All ceremonies are professions of faith, in which the interior worship of God consists. Now man can make profession of his inward faith, by deeds as well as by words: and in either profession, if he make a false declaration, he sins mortally. Now, though our faith in Christ is the same as that of the fathers of old; yet, since they came before Christ, whereas we come after Him, the same faith is expressed in different words, by us and by them. For by them was it said: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,” where the verbs are in the future tense: whereas we express the same by means of verbs in the past tense, and say that she “conceived and bore.” In like manner the ceremonies of the Old Law betokened Christ as having yet to be born and to suffer: whereas our sacraments signify Him as already born and having suffered. Consequently, just as it would be a mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old said devoutly and truthfully; so too it would be a mortal sin now to observe those ceremonies which the fathers of old fulfilled with devotion and fidelity. Such is the teaching Augustine (Contra Faust. xix, 16), who says: “It is no longer promised that He shall be born, shall suffer and rise again, truths of which their sacraments were a kind of image: but it is declared that He is already born, has suffered and risen again; of which our sacraments, in which Christians share, are the actual representation.” (Summa theologiae, I-II, Q. 103, art. 4)

6. The Old and New Laws are not parallel; the Old Law was a step in God’s divine economy, in which the New Law is the goal.

Accordingly then two laws may be distinguished from one another in two ways. First, through being altogether diverse, from the fact that they are ordained to diverse ends: thus a state-law ordained to democratic government, would differ specifically from a law ordained to government by the aristocracy. Secondly, two laws may be distinguished from one another, through one of them being more closely connected with the end, and the other more remotely: thus in one and the same state there is one law enjoined on men of mature age, who can forthwith accomplish that which pertains to the common good; and another law regulating the education of children who need to be taught how they are to achieve manly deeds later on. We must therefore say that, according to the first way, the New Law is not distinct from the Old Law: because they both have the same end, namely, man’s subjection to God; and there is but one God of the New and of the Old Testament, according to Romans 3:30: “It is one God that justifieth circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.” According to the second way, the New Law is distinct from the Old Law: because the Old Law is like a pedagogue of children, as the Apostle says (Galatians 3:24), whereas the New Law is the law of perfection, since it is the law of charity, of which the Apostle says (Colossians 3:14) that it is “the bond of perfection.” (Summa theologiae, I-II, Q. 107, art. 1; see also the responses to the objections)

Abraham pays tithes to Melchisedech

In all of this, St. Thomas shows himself to be the faithful interpreter of Tradition, as this quotation from St. Augustine shows:

For we see that priesthood has been changed; and there can be no hope that what was promised to that house may some time be fulfilled, because that which succeeds on its being rejected and changed is rather predicted as eternal. He who says this does not yet understand, or does not recollect, that this very priesthood after the order of Aaron was appointed as the shadow of a future eternal priesthood; and therefore, when eternity is promised to it, it is not promised to the mere shadow and figure, but to what is shadowed forth and prefigured by it. But lest it should be thought the shadow itself was to remain, therefore its mutation also behooved to be foretold. (City of God, XVII, 6)

In light of this rock-solid teaching from the Church’s Common Doctor, it is impossible to maintain that the traditional (pre-1955) version of the prayer for the conversion of the Jews on Good Friday constitutes an “antisemitic” attack on them. Rather, it expresses accurately, elegantly, and charitably the teaching of the New Testament and of the Church, ordered to the salvation of all mankind in Christ, — especially the people chosen in view of the Christ, the true and natural Son of God.

I should like to close with a quotation from an article published in (of all places) Theological Studies in the year 1947, by John M. Oesterreicher, “Pro Perfidis Judaeis,” and happily available on the internet:

To conclude with a proposal made from time to time: that the Church should modify the expression perfidia Judaica and restore the ancient order for the Good Friday prayer, I should like to venture an opinion. The Church will hardly alter the words perfidia Judaica, which, as we have shown, are not intended to dishonor the Jews, and this because she may not and will not forget Christ’s claim for recognition from His own people. She, the custodian of truth, must call things by their proper names; thus, Israel’s resistance to Christ, unbelief. Indeed, she would be an enemy of the Jews did she conceal from them the source of their unrest.

In 1947, it was still possible for a scholar naively to say: “The Church will hardly alter the words…” And yet, as a friend pointed out to me, the same author, Oesterreicher, later took to “Judaizing” opinions. After the reformatory carnage through which we have passed since then, is it possible we might learn a lesson or two from our mistakes as we work to restore the traditional Roman rite?

Recommended further reading:

• Fr. Brian Harrison, “The Liturgy and ‘Supersessionism’”
• Foretaste of Wisdom, artiles on Palm Sunday and Holy Saturday
• FIUV Position Paper, “The Good Friday Prayer for the Jews” (also contained in this book)
• Fr. John Hunwicke, many articles

Christ delivering the fathers of the Old Covenant from hell

All photos (except Bamberg cathedral) courtesy of Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

[This article was updated.]