The Theology of the Novus Ordo Good Friday Liturgy

This article continues an ongoing series on the theology of the various Good Friday rites, covering that of the Novus Ordo. I have decided to break it into two parts, this one on the ceremonial aspects of the rite; the next part will discuss the textual changes. The previous articles discussed the rites in the Missal of St Pius V, and the revised Holy Week of Pius XII; I would suggest reading at least the latter before reading this one.

In a few important respects, the Good Friday ceremony of the post-Conciliar Missal returns to the historical practice of the Church, and corrects some of the serious problems of the 1955 “Solemn Liturgical Action”, while getting rid of its clumsy title as well. The celebrant wears a chasuble for the whole ceremony, restoring an important sign of the link between the Mass and the Death of Christ on the Cross; the rubrics make this connection explicit by prescribing that the priest and deacon be dressed “as if for Mass” (sicut ad Missam induti). The three complete changes of vestments introduced in the 1955 reform are removed, to everyone’s relief.

Several of the ritual peculiarities that separate the Solemn Liturgical Action from the rite of Mass are removed. The first two readings are said in the usual manner of the 1969 Mass. The solemn prayers are said from the same place that the general intercessions are usually said. At the end of the rite, the prayers have returned to an order which is the same as that of the Mass, with a single Postcommunion and blessing of the people.

Reading on Good Friday at the London Oratory

Some of the new practices of the Pius XII reform which separate the rite from that of the Mass have been retained, most notably, beginning the ceremony with the altar completely bare of cross, candles and cloths. These all find their way to the altar as they do in the 1955 rite, and the fundamental arrangement of the ceremony remains the same as well: the readings, the solemn prayers, the adoration of the Cross, very much reduced in solemnity, and the distribution of Communion, without the Mass of the Presanctified.

The Cross may be brought into the church from the sacristy, as in 1955, and unveiled in three stages, as in both 1955 and 1570. A second option is also provided, that it be carried in from the door, and raised at the words “Behold the wood of the Cross…” at three stations, the door, the middle of the nave, and before the sanctuary. In this latter case, the Cross is not veiled and uncovered in three stages, an entirely pointless innovation. In either case, the rite may be also be done by the deacon or “another suitable minister”; the “suitability” of the latter is not defined, and no specific circumstances given when this may be done. It is therefore always licit (but never required) for the Cross to be presented to the faithful by someone other than the celebrant of Mass, diminishing the priestly nature of the rite.

The adoration of the Cross itself is done in the simplified manner of the 1955 ritual, by a simple genuflexion “or another appropriate sign according to local use, e.g. by kissing it.” Of course, one might just as well decide that the “local use” be the one that all localities were using before the 1955 reform, namely, a triple genuflexion, kiss, and single genuflexion before moving away.

One of the very worst features of the 1955 reform, by which it is permitted to merely hold up the Cross for the faithful to see and briefly adore at a distance, without coming forward to kiss it, is somewhat improved in 1970. The 1955 version foresaw this if the congregation were too large, and only for them; the new version says that at least “part of the clergy and the faithful” (my emphasis) do the adoration first. Again, we can only hope that no one has ever actually put this deplorable idea into practice. The Communion rite is fundamentally identical to that of the 1955 reform; as noted above, the conclusion of the ceremony is the same as that of an ordinary Mass of the new rite.

There are a number of textual changes to the very ancient readings, chants and prayers of the ceremony; I will discuss these in a separate post. They are not insignificant, but strange as it may seem to say, the most important theological change is the abandonment of black vestments in favor of red.

The reading of the Gospel in the Ambrosian Rite Good Friday ceremony.

Here an historical note is in order first. The use of black vestments on Good Friday is attested by William Durandus at the end of the 13th century, in the Rationale 3.18, where he describes a four-fold color scheme of white, red, black, and green. (parag. 6) Violet was treated as an appropriate alternative to black for Advent, Septuagesima and Lent (as “scarlet – coccineus” was an alternative to red: parag. 7-8), but not for Good Friday, and he explicitly states that this was the custom of the Roman church. It is true that what Durandus says was not followed everywhere, and that red vestments were worn on Good Friday in some places in the Middle Ages, e.g. in the Sarum Use. (It is also true that we know far less about the late medieval use of liturgical colors than we would like to.)

However, the post-Conciliar reformers had very little interest in the medieval Uses, and if they had a specific source in mind for changing the vestments on Good Friday to red, it was almost certainly the Ambrosian Rite. None of the many things putatively borrowed from other rites came into the Novus Ordo in their integrity, i.e. as they were actually done or said; at Milan, from very ancient times, red was a color of mourning, and thus used for the whole of Holy Week, including Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday. (Marco Navoni, Dizionario di Liturgia Ambrosiana.) No suggestion seems to have been made to borrow the Ambrosian custom of using black on the ferias of Lent, even though this is also attested by Durandus for the Roman Rite.

It should hardly need saying, therefore, that the change from black to red must be understood within the context of the Roman Rite as it was when the change took place, and not in reference to any putative source, or putative return to an earlier custom.

Why then is it important?

The liturgical celebration of the events of Our Lord’s life is not a series of commemorations of events in the dead past. We live though these events as things for which we are really present, and in which we really participate. In Advent, we repeatedly invite Him to come to us; we do not thank Him for having come 2000 years ago. The first Invitatory of the season is “Come, let us worship the King who is to come”, not “the King who was going to come.” At Christmas, we sing “For unto us a Child is born”, not “was born”; at Epiphany, “Behold, the Lord has come to rule.” At Easter, we join our Byzantine brethren in saying “Christ is risen”, not “Christ rose.” (This last is particularly significant because in the original Greek, the verb “anesti” is an aorist, and should technically be translated as “rose”; nevertheless, in all languages that distinguish between the perfect tense and the simple past, it has been received as “Christ is risen”, and rightly so.) Dozens more examples might be adduced to the point.

St Francis Institutes the Manger Scene at Greccio (from which derives the English word “creche”), painted by Giotto in the upper basilica of St Francis at Assisi, 1297-1300. The living representation of Christ’s Birth in expressed in the fact that what St Francis holds is clearly the Child Himself, and not just a doll.

It is surely not a coincidence that this understanding of the Christian liturgical year is so strongly present in the writings of a Church Father who is particularly important as a Doctor of the Incarnation, Pope St Leo the Great (444-61). In his sermons, he loves to begin with a reminder that the mystery of the day is something which should always be present to us, but is especially so on the feast itself. A classic example of this idea may be found in one of his sermons on the Passion.

“All seasons, most beloved, engage the minds of Christians with the mystery of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection; nor is there any service of our religion in which the reconciliation of the world and the taking-on of human nature in Christ are not celebrated. But now, the whole Church must be instructed with greater understanding, and enkindled with more fervent hope, when the very greatness of the matters is expressed by the recurrence of these holy days, and in the pages of the Gospel; so that the Lord’s Pasch should be not so much remembered as a thing past, but rather honored as a thing present.” (non tam praeteritum recoli quam praesens debeat honorari. Sermon 64, 13th on the Lord’s Passion)

In the same vein:

“Therefore, all things which the Son of God did and taught for the reconciliation of the world, we know not only in the history of deeds in the past, but we also feel in virtue of the present works.” (Sermon 63, 12th on the Lord’s Passion. See also Sermons 42 (8th on Lent), 36 (6th on Epiphany), 26 (6th on Christmas) etc.)

This may very rightly be seen as a development from the central rite which the liturgical year enshrines, the celebration of the Eucharist, and the historical understanding of it; at every Mass, the Sacrifice of the Cross is not remembered as a thing past, but honored as a thing present.

With this idea of the liturgy as the living representation of the events of Christ’s life, Good Friday is not simply a day to remember His Passion, but to mourn over it as if we ourselves were present for it, no less than His Mother and St John. It was therefore quite natural that the Roman church’s liturgical color scheme should evolve in such a way as to restrict black to Good Friday and the other principal occasion of mourning, the Requiem Mass.

As I explained in the first article in this series, this is very much the animating spirit behind all the rites of the historical Good Friday ceremony. The “communion” which we receive on that day is the kissing of the Cross; the Mass of the Presanctified imitates the rite of Mass to express the union of the first Mass, the Lord’s Supper, with the Sacrifice of the Cross, and therefore of every Mass with the Sacrifice of the Cross. At a normal Mass, the Fraction rite, the reunion of Christ’s Body with the Blood shed for our redemption, represents the Resurrection; on Good Friday, the Resurrection is not made manifest, because the Body is broken, but not reunited with the Blood.

All of this is very much attenuated in 1955 by the simplification of the adoration of the Cross, the elimination of the Mass of the Presanctified, and the restoration of Eucharistic communion to the faithful. This attenuation carries over into the Missal of 1970, and is exacerbated by the removal of black vestments, the vestments of mourning which are worn when a dead body is present. While violet for the day would have been even less in keeping with the historical tradition, in the context of the modern rite, it would have been a far more appropriate choice, as the normal color for a funeral. The use of a color principally associated with the deaths of the Apostles and Martyrs does not emphasize the fact that Christ shed His blood for us on Good Friday, but rather deemphasizes what makes the shedding of it unique and uniquely important.

The Cappa Magna in the Light of Nature, Rationality, and Mystery

I. The Realm of Subrational Nature

God the Creator is often extravagant in the decorations with which He supplies His creatures. Of course, there are plenty of insects and beasts whose humble appearance enables them to hide effortlessly in the mud or among the rocks or vegetation in which they live. This kind of camouflage gives less scope to the artist’s paintbrush. But there are also organisms at the opposite extreme: the ones that are patently designed to be noticed, even marveled at.[1] The zoologist Adolf Portmann has a lot of interesting things to say about such animal forms and patterns.

Peacock

Marvellous Spatuletail

Peruvian racquet-tailed hummingbird

Frilled coquette hummingbird

Lyrebird

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A New Black Vestment Set

An old friend, Fr Joseph Langan of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, sent us these photos of a new set of black vestments which he commissioned from the famous Gammarelli firm in Rome. The floral decoration is of a type called “lampas” in English, “lampasso” in Italian, in which flowers or other kinds of decorative element are sewn in bright material on a darker background. (See an example below.) The use of this floral motif on a Requiem vestment makes for a highly appropriate expression of the Christian understanding of death as something which ultimately leads to rebirth and reflourishing, as we say in the Requiem preface “For life is changed for Thy faithful, o Lord, not taken away.”

A 14th-century Italian lampasso with birds and flowers. (image from Italian wikipedia)

Liturgical Colors and Vesting Prayers: A Radio Talk by Fr Eric Andersen

The website of Mater Dei radio, based in Portland Oregon, has made available another interview with Fr Eric Ansdersen, a priest of the diocese of Portland, this time talking about (inter alia) the liturgical colors, the use and symbolic meaning of the vestments, and clerical dress. Click here to listen.

From the Archives : Liturgical Colours for Lent in the Ambrosian Tradition

This article by our Ambrosian expert Nicola de’ Grandi was originally published on NLM on March 23, 2010. From time to time, we will be reposting earlier articles which may be of interest to our newer readers.

According to the Ambrosian liturgical tradition, this present week is the last week of the ordinary Lenten season, before the beginning of the season “in Authentica”, known as Holy Week in the Roman Rite. In fact, there is no Passiontide in the Ambrosian Rite, and Crucifixes in Ambrosian churches are never veiled.

This shift gives an occasion to give our readership some information about the use of liturgical colours during Lent in the Ambrosian Rite.

First of all, it should be noted that in the Ambrosian Tradition, the whole of Lenten time is “aeortological”, that is no Saint’s feast - apart from St. Joseph and the Annunciation, the former only since 1902 - is ever celebrated during Lent. Thus, almost on every Lenten weekday, the Mass is de feria, with the only exception of the above mentioned feasts. Fridays are always aliturgical, and the celebration of the Mass in Ambrosian churches is strictly, as is the celebration of Mass by Ambrosian priests in the Roman Rite churches of the diocese.

The liturgical colour for Lenten feriae is that of strict penance: black.


In fact, according to the Ambrosian tradition, black is not only the colour of mourning (and, as such, used for requiem Masses), but also the true color of penance and fast. In this sense it is used at least since the 12th century not only for Lenten ferial days, but also for the Minor Litanies, which in the Ambrosian Rite occur after the Ascension, not before.



It is also worth noting that the use of black for Lenten feriae has been recently restored as an option in the Ordinary Form of the Ambrosian Rite.

On Sundays, on the contrary, when penance is partially mitigated and the fast is suspended, the colour used for liturgy is -or rather should be- a dark sort of violet called “morello”, which is very different form the Roman “violaceo”.

You see an example of this difference in the photo below, taken during a Pontifical Mass in the Cathedral; the Archbishop of Milan is wearing morello vestments, while the deacon is wearing a roman violet dalmatic. (The imposition of the ashes takes place at the beginning of Lent only in the Ordinary Form.)


Rose-colored vestments are never used in the Ambrosian tradition.

The use of black and morello ends with the Thursday after the Fifth Sunday of Lent; the following Friday is, of course, aliturgical.

The Saturday after the Fifth Sunday of Lent is called “in Traditione Symboli - at the handing down of the Creed”, the day on which the Creed was imparted to the catechumen. From this day forward, the Ambrosian Church drops black and wears only red during the whole week “in Authentica”, even on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, until Easter Eve.

During the Easter Vigil, which has structure very different from the Roman one, the celebrant and major ministers will drop red and wear white, which is used only the Saturday “in albis”.

On the Sunday immediately afterwards, called “Dominica in Albis depositis”, as the neophytes put aside the white dress they received during the Paschal Vigil, so also for liturgical cermonies, white is replaced with green, which will be used for the rest of Eastertide.

The Immaculate Conception: Liturgical Blue

As most of our readers know, blue is generally not one of the liturgical colours currently permitted, except for privileges granted to certain places. One such privilege is the one granted to Spain (and extended to its former colonies) of using blue on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M., granted by Bl. Pius IX in recognition of Spain's leading rôle in the propagation of the recently defined dogma. Here are some images from celebrations of this year's Feast in various places in Spain.

H.E. Jesús Esteban Catalá Ibáñez, bishop of Málaga, celebrating First Vespers in his cathedral:


(Source: Diocese of Málaga)

Mass in the Extraordinary Form celebrated by the Fraternity of Christ the Priest in Toledo's church of the Saviour recently entrusted to them:


(Source: Fraternity of Christ the Priest)

Pontifical Mass in the cathedral of Valenica, celebrated by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect of the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education:


(Source: Archdiocese of Valencia)

Mass in the usus antiquior in Mondoy, Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela:


(Source: Una Voce La Coruña)

Mass in the parish of Granda, Archdiocese of Oviedo:


(Source: Hoc Signo)

The image of Mary Immaculate of the Trinity (Inmaculada de la Trinidad) returns to its Basilica of Mary Help of Christians after having presided over the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception in Seville Cathedral (featuring another Spanish custom, the acolytes in tunicles):


(Source: Arte Sacro)

Liturgical Colors in the Ancient Dominican Rite

Recent discussion on the New Liturgical Movement about the proper color for tabernacle veils and antependia at Requiem Masses, moved me to do some investigation about Dominican practices. The result was something of a surprise, and nothing about it is found in Bonniwell's history of our Rite.

Since the edition of 1687 edition of the Dominican Missal produced under the direction of the Master of the Order Antonin Cloche, O.P., Dominican vestment colors have been identical to those of the Roman use. Before that date, however, the practice was different. Use of white, red, and green basically followed the modern Roman use, but there were interesting exceptions. On simplex feasts of confessors, where the Roman use was white, the celebrant had a choice between using yellow or green. This use of yellow for confessors is a well-known aspect of the Sarum Rite.

The use of green assimilates, at least in the time after Epiphany and Trinity, simplex feasts to the ferial. This is not surprising, as the Dominican Rite of Humbert (1256) and the middle ages resisted the early modern practice of introducing so many saints' days and raising them in so much rank as to erase the ferial office and even that of Sundays (as was generally the case before the Pius X calendar reform). Indeed, the number of feasts above simplex was very limited in the ancient Dominican liturgy, even Apostles were only semidoubles. Although I cannot find any rubric on it, I suspect that the use of the ferial color was also at least an option on feasts of three lessons. In the 1200s and 1300s confessor feasts with yellow vestments included, among others, Gregory the Great, Benedict, Ambrose, Bernard, and Francis. All were only simplex feasts. It is also interesting that the vestment for the "highest feasts" was to be "the best one," but "a violet vestment cannot be used on Easter, nor a white one on Pentecost, nor a red one on Christmas."

Another surprise is the following rubric in the 1868 Ceremonial that does seem to go back to Humbert: "Violet may be used in place of black." This odd phrase speaks to a thirteenth-century development underway in Humbert's time. Innocent III forty years earlier had spoken of the liturgical colors as only "white, red, green, and black." But he mentions that violet has come into use in certain places. This Dominican rubric seems to reflect that older practice of using black not only for Requiems, but also on all other penitential days. So the friars had the option of conforming to the local use of violet during Lent, Advent, and Ember Days, where this had happened, but the assumption was they were still using black on those days as Innocent had considered normal. In 1869, of course, this rubric would also have permitted violet in place of black at Requiems–a practice that seems to have existed even in the Roman Rite in some places up to that time. Lest there be any confusion as to what the current Dominican practice was, the Caeremoniale of 1869 explicitly states that since the promulgation of the Cloche Missal these old rubrics completely abrogated and not to be followed. That they had to say this causes me a bit of suspicion. Were some Dominicans still following them? Perhaps the nineteeth-century French yellow chasuble decorating this post belonged to some French Dominicans?

The question of the interchangeability of black and violet brings up the issue of what color the paraments would be at a Requiem Mass if the Blessed Sacrament were reserved on the altar. Here what the Caermoniale of 1869 says and does not say is very interesting. About the tabernacle veil we read the following: "The exterior of the tabernacle is to be decently covered by a canopy (conopaeum). The canopy is to be of cotton, woolen, or hemp cloth, and to be white in color or, better, matching the color of the office of the day." The form of this rubric (which is not in Humbert) suggests to me, at least, that the specification "cotton, wool, or hemp" (gossypio sive lana sive cannabe), instead of "silk" (serica), is quite ancient and that the use of material matching the vestments, which would have been in silk, is later. Notice there is nothing to exclude use of any color of the day, including black. And I was unable to find any rubric to forbid a black conopaeum.

So, as of 1869, there was no formal rule in the Dominican Order against use of black tabernacle veils or black antependia on an altar with a tabernacle. But I suspect this was not the practice because of a related rubric. This involves an altar on which there is on-going Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. In that case, the altar paraments are all to be white, "even if that does not match the color of the vestments for a Mass being celebrated at it." This, of course, concerns Mass in the Presence of the Sacrament Exposed. Again, however, nothing is said about violet or black when the Sacrament is not exposed. Nevertheless, although the rubrics are silent, the earlier specification that the conopaeum may always be white, and the association of the Blessed Sacrament with white here, suggests that perhaps the practice in 1869 might have been to use a white conopaeum at Masses using black vestments at an altar with a tabernacle. But finding out what was actually done in our priories will require much more work than I am ready to undertake right now.

As it is my understanding that the debate over use of black or violet antependia at altars with tabernacles in the Roman Rite was only resolved in the mid-twentieth century, I am not surprised about the lack of clarity in the 1869 Caeremoniale. In any case, I suspect in the last century at least, many Dominican parishes probably just followed whatever the local Roman practice was. The medieval rubrics for Dominican vestment color options seem to envision this kind of accommodation to local practice. And I can assure you that not doing something the "Roman Way" can generate unpleasant comments from those who attend Dominican Rite Masses and from those who see pictures of them. The pressure on Dominicans to follow the common practice, alien to our traditions as it might be, will always be great.