Implementing the Traditional (Pre-55) Roman Holy Week, Part 2 — Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday

(Continuing from Part 1.)

Holy Thursday

You probably have most of the materials needed for Thursday even if you have never done the 1955 Holy Week, only that of Paul VI; if you do not have an ombrellino, silk can be placed over a more ordinary umbrella… the veil for the second chalice really ought to be plain white, and you need wide ribbon, but a white chalice veil turned inside-out does in a pinch. Practice tying a bow beforehand, and make sure that the ribbon is suitably wide, lest your two left thumbs get in the way.

The Pange lingua gloriosi ought to be sung in alternation (cantors-all or men-women); this becomes particularly acute when the people are used to intoning themselves only part of it and not really knowing the melody as well as they think, having learned it orally. But hopefully no one insists on going on to Tantum ergo when either one must wait briefly or return to the second verse… Some instruction may be needed; otherwise, more musically advanced parishes may choose a polyphonic setting of the text to conclude the hymn.

Remember that it is not especially Roman for the thurifers to ever walk backwards. It is also easier to walk the normal way. When arranging the altar of repose, think of your future selves; flowers do not belong right in front of the altar. While the ideal altar of repose is temporary, as splendid as it ought to be, and does not use a tabernacle, but rather a sort of urn, it must lock, and the altar of repose needs to be reasonably out of the way. A side altar must do for many of us, and it can be quite splendid as shown in another example from the Institute of Christ the King. 

If the Mandatum is sung, I personally do not feel scrupulous about singing any particular antiphons and especially all of them. The music is meant to cover the time of the washing, nothing more or less, but Holy Thursday presents a special case. Choral enthusiasts have heard or even performed the Maurice Duruflé harmonization outside of the liturgy. The chant (harmonized or otherwise) is popular, well-known, beloved. It is fairly easy for experienced congregations to join at least the response portion, with the schola taking the verses. This makes it hard to insist on singing another antiphon first; one certainly will not have time after.

But should the Mandatum be done at all? It depends. Some pastors in the West (Europe and North America) are sensitive to not only not having ecclesiastical subordinates as does a bishop or religious superior, or at least the dean of a cathedral chapter, but that the otherwise natural replacement are children, not the men of the parish, and so they do not wish to touch the feet of the altar servers, at least the minors. Since most servers are boys, or at least will be some part of the contingent necessary for the Mandatum rite, then it is easy to justify omitting the rite. It is also optional. Now, most of this is optional as it is, but if one had to cut one thing from this week, it would be the Mandatum, if it meant preserving everything else including Vespers of Thursday and Friday.

Moving on to the stripping of the altars: my reading is that ps. 21 and its antiphon are sung recto tono, not with the chant from Good Friday’s Matins. The psalm need not be repeated, nor the repetition of antiphon delayed, if the carpet, some of the candlesticks, etc. are not removed promptly, so long as the ministers have finished removing the altar cloths and the major part of the work is completed.

More considerations on the Divine Office will follow, but I would strongly encourage you to sing, even recto tono, Vespers after the main liturgy on Thursday and Friday; on all three days of the Triduum, one could celebrate None beforehand, although this is not strictly required.

Good Friday

One does not need black falls for the legilia or covers for the missal. Everything is “naked” on this day. But what applies to purple folded chasubles applies to the black worn on this sacred day. The Good Friday celebrant’s chasuble should be even more splendid than usual if possible.

If you have adoration lasting into the night of Thursday, ending at midnight per the rubrics common to all variations of the Roman rite, then you will likely wish to change the candles and followers at the altar of repose before beginning the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified.

The choirmaster must work with the celebrant to give the right pitches for the unveiling of the cross. Try to roll with what he sings, not what you planned to sing.

Just as on Sunday and on Thursday, the music for the adoration covers the adoration itself. It need not extend beyond this, and should not, only to the extent that a chant should finish logically and polyphony should finish in its entirety, omitting subsequent chants or polyphonic settings. For example, one may end the Reproaches with one final “Popule meus,” one should repeat the antiphon Crucem tuam, and one should sing the (entire) Crux fidelis, but one need not sing all of the chants just to sing them, if adoration has concluded.

The books are clear: the people adore by genuflecting on both knees three times as they approach the single large crucifix placed on a cushion. Permission was given, admittedly, to pass down the communion rail a crucifix which essentially eliminates this creeping to the cross. But it happens once a year. It replaces communion on this day. This rite was broken in bits first in 1955, and in 1970, doing what Thomas Cranmer and his ilk wished to do but as it turns out from the inside. Unless there is an unusually large congregation (not realistic in most churches attached to the traditional rite and to the traditional Holy Week ceremonies), I would not recommend skipping the creeping of the cross in favor of the permission to move down the altar rail with a crucifix to be kissed by the faithful, but this requires coordination with ushers.

Should the people remove their shoes? I am in favor of this, and it may happen anyway, as they copy the clergy.

The rest of the rite is quite straightforward, so long as the Vexilla Regis begins only when the procession departs to return to the main altar. I hardly wish to touch the prayer for the Jews, but most clerics will probably use the 2007 prayer preceded by the genuflection as with the other prayers (keep in mind that this is the original pre-Carolingian practice).

Make sure you know that the tool used to light and extinguish candles is brought to the altar of repose for the actual Mass of the Presanctified when candles are lit at the same time that the cross is adored and, importantly, that it is returned to the sacristy before Tenebrae.

Holy Saturday

The triple candle is not easy to make. I do not make it myself. Various ways of heating the wax to twist three candles together including a sous-vide machine and using a weight system may work. I find that it is most in the spirit of things to have three candles in one, as opposed to three candles in a candelabra attached to a pole.

If possible, I encourage using a different dalmatic than the one for the Mass as seen here in photos from Saint Mary’s Oratory in Wausau, Wisconsin. A nice lampas could work too. The priest’s chasuble for the vigil itself is also especially striking.

Prepare the list of readers in advance. Some readings can be done by a chanter from the schola, but others are followed by tracts or are preceded by one. I do not think that forcing at most a handful of clerics to sing twelve readings is an ideal to which we should aspire. Laymen who can sing should be pressed into service.

For the procession and the blessing of the font, it may be necessary to begin the tract as the celebrant prepares and the candle is removed. Otherwise, the tract will be so long with the ministers left waiting at the font. If the Palestrina setting is sung, there is a second part in polyphony, or one may sing the chant.

The Litany is tricky. First, it seems that it may be started as the celebrant begins to process from the baptistry; he need not be prostrating at this point, if he blessed the font. Otherwise, it makes sense to wait, when the font is not blessed.

All of the invocations are doubled, that is, from “Pater de caelis…miserere nobis” to “Santa Maria, ora pro nobis” all the way to the end of the Litany, with the invocations “Ut…te rogamus audi nos” (possibly — probably — excluding the Agnus Dei; see below). This is entirely foreign to anyone used to the 1960 or 1970 rubrics. I find it best for cantors to sing and to reply to themselves, that is, they sing all of the first “Santa Maria, ora pro nobis” by themselves, and so on and so forth. Then the people only reply to the second invocation. Why? In part, to not mess up and to stay together. The chant books have breath marks omitted from missals in the last set, and then the people clearly hear the plural invocations of the saints (some pairs of saints invoked together, the “All ye…” concluding each section…).

Further, the cantors alone should restart at “Agnus Dei…” and in my ideal world, they sing until “Parce nobis, Domine” etc. The last invocation is not sung with the same melody as in Mass XVIII, so it needs to be taught to the congregation ahead of Holy Week. (One can send links via email newsletters and the various apps for parish communications; it might be helpful to do a series with recordings. A handful of parishioners in the pews who are prepared can make a difference.)  I cannot tell from the rubrics or from the ceremonials if the Agnus Dei strophes or the “Christe, audi nos”/“Christe, exaudi nos” are also doubled. To me, I think that they logically are not, but everything else is, so it feels inconsistent. In any case, some instruction on the chant of the Litany is needed.

The pitch will almost inevitably drop when doubling. I recommend starting on B flat or at least A and to correct the falling pitch at each new set (certainly by “Peccatores”…).

For the solemn Alleluia, the choirmaster must work with the celebrant to give the right pitches. Try to roll with what he sings, not what you planned to sing. In this case, feel free to intone for the repetition if the celebrant takes you too high such that the next two, or even the current one, are out of range. With this in mind, ideally, the bulk of tracts are sung in one key, but the verse and final tract follow the last pitch of the final Alleluia, and so they may be in a different key if you choose a more comfortable key for the others.

I personally prefer to omit the Marian antiphon, even if on Saturday there is not much congregational singing to do. In a way, Christ is not yet risen! Also, recessing to organ music is much easier after singing for three to four hours, and besides, the antiphon comes back after Compline, not Vespers, and we should respect this even outside of obligatory prayer of the office in choir.

We will conclude the series with Tenebrae and the Divine Office.

Implementing the Traditional (Pre-55) Roman Holy Week, Part 1 — Introduction and Palm Sunday

This essay (which will be divided into three posts) is by the same anonymous author who contributed the series on the implementation of the pre-1939 (mostly the same as pre-1955) liturgy on every single day of the liturgical year. In that series, Holy Week is mentioned in broad strokes: which days to do first, and why.

Now let us consider the details of that rite. We shall not examine the “what to do” in detail, except where there is possible confusion, but rather the little things that have come up over years of celebrating the ancient Holy Week. This series transmits the lessons learned and what would have been nice to know years and years ago when first approaching the introduction of the classical Holy Week in a parochial setting. Some of what follows is in the realm of opinion, well-informed by books and by practice as it may be; but the goal is to give clergy, sacristans, MCs, and directors of sacred music food for thought.

In the end, I want to be clear: you can, and you should, celebrate the traditional Holy Week in parish churches even on a skeleton crew. 2020 and 2021 proved that this was possible. Plenty of evidence can be found on YouTube and on social-media platforms. But one cannot do this on a whim. It requires some planning, and that is the ultimate point of this series.

Why the traditional Holy Week of the Roman rite?

Why, indeed? A priest whom this author knows well puts it: the faithful like the Triduum, in the Novus Ordo that is, because it is the most Catholic part of the entire Novus Ordo, though they will not say this in so many words, without yet considering the degree to which it is more Catholic than the reformed rite of Pius XII and to which it has more in common with the classical Holy Week, or conversely the degree to which it retains elements of the Pian reform, and this even excluding the degree to which it declines towards or away from the ideal.

The Catholic nature is obvious, yet is somewhat obscured all the same when looking back to the 1955 rite, for one sees the catholicity even with no knowledge of the rites celebrated immediately “anterior” to the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council and is troubled in the same thought by the changes, even when one does not know explicitly that they are changes or that we should be bothered at all. For example, without getting too far ahead or off-track, one can immediately sense that the Litany of the Saints ought to be sung during the paschal vigil as one unified chant, not divided in two in order to do something else in between the two sections.

One is likely to be deeply moved by the character of the 1955 rites displaying in its way a deeper catholicity from even the best of the Novus Ordo, to say nothing of the typical celebration.  I recall my first brush with the Pius XII rites in my adolescence. The rite was celebrated in the afternoon of Good Friday. The black recalled a funeral, even though I had not yet been to a traditional Requiem Mass on any occasion (I had only read about it online), and the sober community mingling after the liturgy also called to mind the funeral customs of our own times.

Later, in my adolescence and into adulthood, when experiencing even the best of the Novus Ordo (ad orientem, Gregorian chant and especially sacred polyphony, three deacons reading the Passion without congregational participation, a second priest assisting in choir dress instead of Mass vestments, etc.), the wider flexibility in times permitted (a later hour may be chosen, per the rubrics, for “a pastoral reason”), actually worked against us: to celebrate the modern form of the presanctified liturgy of Good Friday in the evening (let us say at or after the customary dinner hour in most Western nations except for Spain), after a day jam packed with devotions, including the Stations of the Cross and confessions at noon celebrated for hundreds of people, instead of structuring those around the major liturgical office celebrated at a more dignified hour, meant that the liturgy became an afterthought, the loss of the funerary character even more apparent, already so from the get-go with the use of red instead of black vestments. Gregory DiPippo has expressed why this is so important and how it is indeed diminished in the changes made to the liturgy in 1970.

All of this is resolved when one finally attends the unreformed Holy Week. It is unambiguously Catholic. It is all tied to the Mass, the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary united to the offering of the Last Supper, in the expectation of the Resurrection and Ascension to come, all undergone by Christ that we too may share in new heavenly life. The rites are ordered and well-constructed even to the least knowledgeable observer. I would not say that I am jealous of those whose first and only experience of this sacred week is in the classical rite (some converts or children for example know only this rite, as unbelievable as that sounds), but there is something remarkable about this: they get to see possibly the most obviously Catholic rite that there is, in its depth, in its intensity. They have, up to this point, received nothing but the best, handed down as it ought to be.

Ceremonials and Other Books

The Brignoles community produces a handy volume taken from the 1951 edition of Fortescue (O’Connell), The Ceremonies of the Roman Rites Described, apparently, per the monks, with emendations conforming to the 2017 indult from the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei pertaining to the use of the ancient ceremonies.

Otherwise, the full Fortescue is available on the Internet Archive.

Francophones or those willing to grit their teeth should remember that Stercky’s Manuel de liturgie, volume 2, is the place to find the ceremonies of the various seasons and important occasions.

There are of course other volumes; Lawrence O’Connell’s The Book of Ceremonies is available from Corpus Christi Watershed; while relatively little in this volume pertains to Holy Week, as one must imagine that it was hardly celebrated solemnly with deacon and subdeacon even in American seminaries, the portion on the Forty Hours’ Devotion will clarify how to celebrate Mass on Holy Thursday after the consecration.

Other books are out there to complement these. Finally, one ought to follow Holy Week as provided for in the Memoriale Rituum designed for smaller churches with fewer resources and especially without the choral obligation of the Divine Office and conventual Mass, but the collective wisdom nowadays is to follow the ceremonies as prescribed for larger churches, cathedrals and those with a chapter of canons, making amendments as necessary to the shape of the building and to the personnel available, not omitting the rite or doing it radically differently as the preconciliar legislation envisions, wherein the Memoriale Rituum is obligatory in smaller churches. However, I believe that it is better to follow the full rite and to adapt a sung or solemn Mass to the circumstances of the available, qualified people and to the church building itself.

The Requisite Personnel

You might ask what I consider a skeleton crew: you need the priest. In the best of circumstances, you can find a priest or deacon and even a second minister to serve as subdeacon. He need not be in holy orders, although having two deacons or at least a second priest and a deacon lessens the burden on the principal priest.  (I am not going to address here whether laymen not in seminary or in holy orders can or should serve as subdeacon; that’s up to the priest in charge in the end). In any case, you obviously need at least one priest.

As to the servers:  you need four for the main functions of master of ceremonies, thurifer; and acolyte; a crucifer for Thursday, and  if one does not have a subdeacon, also for Sunday and Friday — this server can and will need to have other roles during the week — and then one or two capable of fetching and taking away things when they are needed or no longer needed. This could be the crucifer when he is not occupied, and one of these servers needs to carry the paschal candle during Saturday’s vigil.

Ideally, you have a second thurifer for Thursday, someone to carry the ombrellino, and torchbearers at the solemn Masses, at least two, up to eight. For Tenebrae, you need the minimum number of people who can sing the office competently including the readings; the same applies to the twelve prophecies of Holy Saturday, insofar as you will have not just a large number of readings but some which are quite long, and making just one person, or a few men plus the subdeacon if one is lucky to have one, sing everything tends to not work out very well in my experience. At least four men excluding the subdeacon is my preference, but you need to work with what you have and work up to what you prefer (all according to providence…)

Palm Sunday

First, the vestments. You need, in addition to the usual celebrant’s violet cope and chasuble, etc., two additional chasubles, then the ordinary deacon’s stole, plus two maniples.

If you are so lucky, you need three more deacons’ stoles and maniples for the Passion.

As to the shape and ornamentation of the chasubles, they can be whatever you prefer, all things being equal. However, the Roman or French forms cut short are the easiest to manage in my opinion, even though they are not truly folded. In these cases, you must have fabric for the broad stole worn by the deacon for the palm Gospel and then from the Gospel until the end of communion.

There are also fuller medieval or at least neo-Gothic forms, such as the forms preferred by English Benedictines and by the Solesmes congregation, of which I have given an example for another liturgical season; now, these are more elaborate, and the low Mass chasubles are not so elaborate, allowing for the possibility of rolling up a chasuble for the portions of the Mass where the deacon does so. Indeed, the truly folded chasuble is described in an earlier NLM article. This means that the separate piece of fabric is not necessary, although it may remain more convenient. 

The Saint Philip Neri and Spanish cuts are the least well-adapted to this context since the joints of the shoulders are blocked in the same way that a French chasuble pinned up, and not made short in the first place, gets in the way. Having worn a folded chasuble in the French style pinned up  as a straw subdeacon, it would be very difficult to wear such a vestment (that is, any form where the “folded” element is stiff and in the way of the shoulder joint) in my opinion. One needs to keep the arms pinned to the body when the hands are kept folded, but such a design impedes this; the arms are kept out at ninety degrees, closer to a yoga pose than to Christian worship. I hesitate to show an example of a Neri chasuble intended for contemporary liturgical celebrations of the ancient Roman liturgy, since the one which I have seen  is a commissioned piece from a relatively new studio (in other words, in both cases, I have a practical opinion to give, but also it is a matter of taste: de gustibus etc., and I do not wish to seem like I’m picking on someone).

Pins attached temporarily or snaps sewn onto the chasuble would be convenient if one chooses instead the Borromean form, which is softer like the Gothic chasuble; the soft fabric would not get in the way of the ministers’ arms. The vestment could be made with some skillful tailoring such that one can roll the deacon’s chasuble instead of purchasing a separate piece of material to serve as the broad stole.

The Ceremonies

For the first antiphon Hosanna Filio David and then for the distribution of palms, I strongly advocate making sure that the people have at least the antiphons as they do in the Ordinary Form. Giving the people the music, not just the text and translations, keeps them centered on the rite, even if they don’t sing, as this ceremony alone can last upwards of twenty minutes. It is easy to make the scores via some form of Gregorio (via an online editor or by using LaTeX in full, which is what I recommend) and to distribute them printed on copy paper; the chants are quite easy for the people to sing with the numerous repetitions.

Using the psalms given in the 1955 reform can work very well; you are still repeating the antiphons several times allowing for the popular participation described above. To me, there is a gap: should there be a doxology in these psalms? The office retains it, the Mass does not, and the 1955 reform treats it like the office. I leave it to each one’s judgement. You can use psalms, or you can make a repetition polyphonic. Between Palestrina, Victoria, and others, there are several approachable settings of one or both antiphons beginning “Pueri hebraeorum.” The important part is that Catholics in the choir (hopefully most members…) are able to receive palms without having to start the music only after the clergy, servers, and musicians do so; this depends on the size of the choir, its musical capabilities, and the arrangement of your church building.

I would also include the ferial tone of the dialogue of the palm-blessing preface in the material given to the congregation, as people tend to sing the usual solemn tone.

The choir should be in place to follow the clergy as they exit; there is time for this at the end of the prayers if the choir is singing in a gallery instead of from the chancel (sanctuary). For the procession, I personally do not feel scrupulous about singing any particular antiphons and especially all of them. Choose a selection of three or four and repeat; the people will probably not be able to follow very easily, so providing the text may be wise, but the music is probably unnecessary. However, you should give the faithful the chorus (in square notation, with translation)  of the Gloria, laus et honor, and you should give instructions for every musical element sung this week.

As an aside: henceforth, you should assume that I believe that the faithful should always be given some form of bilingual missals or books with square notation for the easier musical elements; Good Friday may be the only day where there is no congregational singing despite the ease of doing so, and Saturday presents little opportunities for it in the first place but on the other days, there is usually something to sing. The people are not an afterthought, and taking care of their participation through reading and singing fosters their prayerful participation. These ceremonies are too long to not do so.

The schola should walk ahead towards the end, in order to prepare for the door ceremony and the responsory, for which one may need to sacrifice a stronger singer to lead the clergy and people, positioned to do so while able to hear the end of the first chorus and the verses. Ideally, that singer can make it back for the Ingrediente, which lasts long enough for the clergy to change. In any case, the ministers should wait for the chant to end and for the introit to begin before they (the ministers, that is) start the prayers at the foot of the altar. The choir should start the responsory immediately after the subdeacon (crucifer) knocks on the door, returning to their usual place before the introit. By the way, finding a way to let sound out without cracking the door may be necessary. (There may be a window to open or some other interesting way to create a hole that doesn’t totally ruin the ceremony’s effect.)

The Passion should be sung by competent persons or omitted. Do not force a priest or deacon who cannot carry a tune to sing. Ideally, A or B flat is the reciting tone. The fewer sharps or flats, the easier it is to lose the key and then drop in pitch. By using A or B flat, or at least G, you also pitch this such that you do not need a true countertenor to sing the Synagoga and a true bass to sing the Christus. Those parts are simply noticeably higher and lower respectively than the Chronista’s.

If you do not already have one (or three), consider acquiring a legile, or rather three. This article is the folding wooden lectern especially used for the celebrant at Lauds or Vespers and for the ministers singing the Passion, so as to be both more Roman and to use something neater (in the sense of clean, not just fascinating or interesting) than a black metal music stand. These can be repurposed for the choirmaster and for the readings at Tenebrae; as noted above, one is customarily used by the celebrant of Lauds or Vespers in the true Roman fashion, as seen in the photo from the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. For Sunday, you will want three falls, either in the simple fabric without trim used to cover the images; or in the same fabric as the vestments, the frontal, and the tabernacle veil; or otherwise in an appropriate fabric. It need not be “churchy”; too often, fabrics with ecclesiastical patterns look cheap despite being expensive.

Do not pay for such a lectern in an ecclesiastical-goods shop. Find a woodworker. Three can be had for less than the price of one from a catalog if done right. Consider that clergy somehow seem to always fall on the extremes of height, below or above average. My resting elbow drop, from the top of the elbow to the floor, is 48 inches (around 122 cm). This is a bit taller than the shortest examples available to purchase from a manufacturer of such goods off the rack; the surface is plenty big enough for the Passion books, a missal (for the Exsultet or the readings of the Paschal Vigil), etc.

Now, if you can’t do it yourself, and you can’t have someone do it locally in their home shop, then commission a quality woodworking company to make this article. There are several who could produce an excellent product if you give them photos and work patiently through the design process, although giving a recommendation is impossible without revealing too much about my own situation. Naturally, the stain should match or at least complement the other wooden pieces in the church, but otherwise the question of ornamentation such as knobs is up to you.

There are several ways of keeping the legs together (chains or hinges both work) which can be gleaned from internet searches; as to the fall: either its weight plus that of a book will keep it in place, or you can consider a clip that goes the width of the leather. In my opinion (only that), the fall should come to just above the floor in the front and in the back, without a break. It’s not a pair of trousers. In other words, the example from Gricigliano is perfect, except that the fall could be a bit shorter for my liking, but no harm is done otherwise. Plus, if you use the same fabric as the vestments, or at least something that complements those well, a fourth fall can be purchased so as to serve as the broad stole; in fact, it is somewhat easier to just have a separate piece of fabric than to take off, tie up, and put back on the fuller “Gothic” or even conical chasuble even if it could (should) be done.

In the next installment we will continue with Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.

St. Thomas Aquinas: Mystagogue on the Proper Approach to Holy Communion

From an embroidered banner in St Dominic's, Newcastle. Photo by Lawrence Lew, O.P.

Today, March 7, is the dies natalis of St. Thomas, and thus, his feast day. We know from his biographers that he was famed for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. He used to pray with his head resting against a tabernacle. On his deathbed, he hailed the Host and specifically said that if he had taught anything amiss concerning this great sacrament, he submitted to the judgment of the Church—as if to say that his mind was most occupied with Eucharistic theology. He went to Mass twice a day: first saying his own Mass, served by his socius Reginald, and then serving Reginald’s Mass.

(Before anyone says “oh, that’s the usual hagiographical exaggeration again,” it should be pointed out that our sources on Aquinas are remarkably detailed and have stood up to the most exacting scholarly scrutiny; the process of fact-collecting for his canonization was especially thorough, the records were well-organized, and the men in charge put all the right questions to as many eyewitnesses and confreres of the friar as they could find. Reports from independently interviewed and widely differing sources agree on all the most important aspects.)

We are therefore not surprised to find among his writings many beloved prayers and hymns in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. Most of these belong to the deservedly praised Office and Mass of Corpus Christi, one of the great liturgical achievements of the Middle Ages, with its poetry standing at a consistently high level of eloquence and fervor. Fr. Paul Murray has written a most engaging book that should be required reading for every Thomist and every Catholic theologian: Aquinas at Prayer: The Bible, Mysticism, and Poetry (Bloomsbury, 2013).[i]

Looking at a famous prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas, printed in the Praeparatio ad Missam pro opportunitate Sacerdotis facienda of the traditional Roman Missal, will show us what the proper approach to Holy Communion is and ought to be:

All-powerful and everlasting God, behold,
I approach the sacrament of Thine only-begotten Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ.
As one infirm, I approach the medicine of life;
as one unclean, the fountain of mercy;
as one blind, the light of eternal splendor;
as one poor and needy, the Lord of heaven and earth.

Therefore, I ask Thee,
from the abundance of Thine immense generosity,
to cure my illness,
wash away my uncleanness,
illuminate my blindness,
enrich my poverty,
and clothe my nakedness,
that I may receive the Bread of Angels,
the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
with such reverence and humility,
such contrition and devotion,
such purity and faith,
such pur­pose and intention,
as is expedient for the salvation of my soul.

Grant, I beg Thee, that I may receive
not only the sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood,
but also the reality and power of this sacrament.
 
O most gentle God,
grant me so to receive the Body of Thine only-begotten Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ,
which He took of the Virgin Mary,
that I might be worthy
to be incorporated into His Mystical Body
and counted among His members.

O most loving Father,
give to me Thy beloved Son,
whom I intend to receive now
in veiled form on my pilgrimage,
that I may one day contemplate Him
with unveiled face for all eternity,
who with Thee liveth and reigneth
in the unity of the Holy Ghost,
world without end, Amen.

There is so much one could say about this fervent, tender, all-encompassing prayer! It begins with a very deliberate placing of oneself in spiritual position: “Father, behold, I approach Thy Son.” It then probes with wide-eyed honesty all that is lacking in the one approaching: he is sick, unclean, blind, poor, and needy, who calls the One to whom he approaches his healing, mercy, light, and ultimate treasure, God Himself.

This honest confession of his weakness and of the divine largesse of the Savior having been made, the saint pivots to petition. On the basis of my lack and Your wealth, O God, I ask You to cure, wash, illuminate, enrich, and clothe me, thus to prepare me to receive the King and Lord of all—and with the right dispositions.

These dispositions the saint spells out with characteristic clarity and order: reverence is mentioned first (that’s not insignificant!); humility, the foundation of all virutes, comes next; contrition, because the impediment of attachment to sin should be removed before receiving the all-holy, most pure Body of Christ; devotion, which is an expression of the virtue of religion by which we give to God what we owe Him; purity, that is, chastity, so that we do not “unite the members of Christ with a prostitute” (1 Cor 6:15); faith, without which it is impossible to please God, indeed without which one cannot even know what one is doing, or whom one is approaching, in the Mass; purpose: to be single-minded in what we are proposing to do, and not, e.g., seeking the applause of the world or acting from thoughtless routine; intention, to receive God for the love of God and for the right love of one’s salvation. We can see in this list a sort of commentary on the conditions laid down under Pius X for frequent communion.

Aquinas begs the Lord, next, to admit him not only to the sacramental sign (the sacramentum tantum to use technical language), but also to the “reality and power” of it (the res tantum). He goes on to say immediately what that reality of the Eucharist is: incorporation into the Mystical Body, the corpus mysticum, of Christ, to have Him as one’s head and to be His living member. Here we see that the prince of scholastics could never be reproached by the denizens of nouvelle théologie as one who had lost sight of the intimate relationship between the Eucharistic Body and the Mystical Body.

In two tender superlative phrases—O mitissime Pater and O amantissime Pater—Thomas twice cries out to the Father to give him the Son: “grant me so to receive…” and then, more urgently, “give to me Thy beloved Son.” He is veiled now in the sacrament, hidden under the appearance of food, in order to be (as He truly is) the bread of wayfarers, the manna from heaven by which we attain to heaven; but the goal of this partaking is nothing other than the face-to-face vision of the Son—with the Father and the Holy Spirit—in eternal glory. That is the goal to which the Angelic Doctor is straining, the goal that stamps his entire theological enterprise.

This goal has something to tell us also about how our earthly liturgy should be celebrated. It should be such as to foster in us these virtuous dispositions, intimate longings, and aspirations to heaven. It should not throw up impediments to a good preparation for the Holy Eucharist that endures from before Mass, through Mass, to the end of Mass when giving thanks for the supernal gift received. We could go so far as to say this prayer gives us a kind of “checklist” or “grading rubric” to measure how well or how poorly a given liturgy prepares us to approach the Son of God, how well it disposes us for our communion with Him, or at least how well it provides conditions within which such dispositions are most likely or most favored or most free to be developed. I think it would be difficult to dispute that a Tridentine low Mass or high Mass would typically score very high while the Novus Ordo would typically score very low in terms of the “Aquinas Gold Standard.”

Studying this great theologian’s great prayer shows us—to our shame and, one hopes, our repentance—just how far the liturgy has fallen away from a truly Catholic sensibility, and just where the remedy lies: in the simple and uncompromising return to the traditional rite of the Roman Church.

NOTE
[i] This work is an especially good antidote for the ludicrous blasphemies of the pseudo-mystic Adrienne von Speyr, whose Book of All Saints contradicts the canonization records and seven centuries of papal teaching on the heroic sanctity of St. Thomas.

Time for the Soul to Absorb the Mysteries — Part 1: From the Entrance to the Interlectional Chants

The season of Advent has always felt to me as if it is, and should be, a time of quiet meditation. Moving in a direction contrary to that of secular society in its frenzied rush towards Christmas exhaustion, a Catholic ought to be able to push away the distractions and focus on preparing inwardly for the mystery of the coming of Christ — the One who has come into the world as Savior, the One who will come at the end of time as Judge, the One who comes into my soul by His grace. And the sacred liturgy, it seems to me, ought to help us to be still, to be receptive, to be attuned to His voice. Ideally, it should immerse us in an expectant silence from which true and redemptive joy can proceed.

As the liturgy developed historically and its ritual and aesthetic elements became more fully developed, it seems that the Christian clergy and people followed an unerring instinct towards the creation of prayers, chants, and ceremonies that allow TIME for the soul to absorb the meaning of what is happening.

This psychological-spiritual opening up of space and time for the soul’s growth is accomplished in many ways in different rites or rituals. It is done through repetitious prayers, as in the Byzantine litanies, many of them redundant, though always eloquently worded; it is done through periods of silence in between periods of proclamation; it is done through motions, processions, non-verbal actions; it is done most of all through meditative chants that do not seem to be in any hurry to be finished, and which allow the mind a certain holy leisure or rest. There are repetitions, gaps, spaces, pauses, and visual signs that do not demand of the mind the constant tackling of new ideas or concepts, but permit it to dwell or linger somewhere before moving on.

The liturgy is like a winding path up a steep mountain, with open ledges on which one can rest before continuing. In this way, it emulates the spiral motion, the combination of the straight and the circular, that Pseudo-Dionysius envisages as the soul’s path into God. There is a forward progression, yes, but it takes its time winding around, in order to move up at a human pace. Attempting to go straight up or straight in would defeat us.

The classical Roman Rite of Mass, particularly in the form of the High Mass or Solemn Mass, admirably displays the spiritual pedagogy of the spiral motion, the frequent ledges, the moments of prayerful repose before continuing on with our climb up Mount Calvary, Mount Tabor, Mount Sion. In contrast, the Novus Ordo is designed in a manner contrary to this spiritual pedagogy, and thwarts the soul’s ascent up the holy mountain.

The Processions

Traditional liturgical rites of East and West are fertile in processions. We are pilgrims and we act out our condition. A town, the grounds of a church, the church building inside, offer a symbolic geography to be covered and converted as we move from point to point. The time it takes for a leisurely procession is one of the most important “burnt offerings” we can raise up, since our time is, in a way, our life and energy.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in particular, should open with a stately, unrushed procession of splendidly vested ministers towards the sanctuary, accompanied by grand music (instrumental or choral or both). Those ministers represent us, and we are walking with them towards the Holy of Holies. This is a solemn and wonderful moment, with its own distinctive meaning and satisfaction. Why do we completely spoil the effect by asking people to put their noses in a hymn book? The choir or schola should be lifting up our minds to God and allowing us to experience this procession as a procession, with all our senses in act. Where the procession is well done, it becomes one of these occasions of journeying without the baggage of the nagging necessities of the workaday world.

The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar

Then we come to those marvelous preparatory prayers, which I always miss so much in any Novus Ordo Mass, where we suddenly start BANG!, without taking time to prepare well for what is to come. The traditional liturgy pauses for a breath at the end of the procession and, rather than rushing into the sanctuary, recites Psalm 42, the Confiteor (twice), and versicles and prayers expressive of the forthcoming sacrifice. We are suspended between the entrance and the commencement, the intention and the execution, and our souls can expand, adjust, collaborate, get ready to move on. It reminds me of the process whereby one’s eyes adjust themselves to the indoors when one enters a dark room from a bright sunny day outside. Our spiritual sight is accustomed to the garish day, with its obvious objects and confident navigation. At divine worship we are being drawn into the interior, the innermost, the mystery that is luminously dark, caliginously blazing, and we do not know our way. We need some time to adjust. What blessed minutes, which carry us so gently and yet so irresistibly into the sphere of the divine!

From the Introit to the Lesson

Whether we are at a Low Mass or a High Mass, one of the greatest blessings of the TLM is that, on the one hand, we are gently drawn into prayer, as if by an invisible hand nudging us forward, and, on the other hand, we are not immediately talked to and expected to talk back. We are surely participating in the unfolding drama, but we are not targeted and harried; the activity does not get bogged down in a closed circle, like a boring classroom. The liturgy seems to be going on over our heads or around us or in front of us, and we can relate to it all the more deeply because it is outside our grasp, beyond what we can access, with no possible illusions that we are the ones driving it forward. Of course we have a role to play, and this will sometimes include verbal responses; but the overall effect is one of a giant motion that we can join, if we will, that will take us somewhere our own resources could never get us. The unfailing Introit, announcing the day’s mystery, throws down a sort of spiritual gauntlet: “Friend, wherefore art thou come?” (Mt 26:50).[1] The cascading Kyries, the exultant Gloria, the richly compact Collect, the apt Lesson, invite us to come deeper and deeper into worship, putting on the mind of Christ.

The Interlectional Chants

If the preparatory prayers seal the door to the world and habituate us to the new climate of worship, and if the subsequent prayers and lesson demand of us the exercise of our spiritual capacities, it is the interlectional chants, sung in full, that have the special power to plunge us into meditation and even contemplation.[2] At other points in the Mass, multiple things can be happening at once (the peculiar perfection called “parallel liturgy”), but here, during the Gradual and Alleluia  —  or the Gradual and Tract in Lent, or the double Alleluia in Paschaltide  —  the ministers take their seats, the people are seated. A restfulness descends with the sound of the chant; time stands still. The melismatic melodies draw out lovingly, syllable by syllable, the exquisitely beloved words of God, so that we cannot rush past them, or treat them in a utilitarian way, or think of them as mechanical responses made to a dreary rehearsal of psalms. They exist in and for themselves, living monuments of God’s faithfulness and love, and we are permitted to have them on our lips, in our ears, in our hearts. They are a ladder let down from above on which we are bidden to climb up. In this way, the Lesson and all that has come before has a chance to sink in, and the soil is plowed with deep furrows for the Gospel and all that will come after.

I shall continue next week with the Offertory and the Canon of the Mass.


NOTES

[1] Interestingly, St. Benedict cites this verse in chapter 60 of his Rule when speaking about a priest who desires admission into the monastery. He says that the priest may be admitted only on condition of agreeing to abide by the entire rule, as if to say: Why are you coming here, unless to embrace and benefit from the monastic discipline? The liturgy, too, is something we should approach only if we are ready to embrace its discipline, which is the only way to obtain its benefits.

[2] I am indebted to Dr. William Mahrt for opening my eyes and ears to the theological and liturgical significance of the interlectional chants (Gradual, Tract, Alleluia). They are the contemplative and musical high-point of the Gregorian Mass prior to the consecration.

Priestly Preparation Before Mass and Thanksgiving After Mass

By the grace of God I’ve been a Catholic all my life, and during these decades, I’ve known and observed many priests going about their duties. One of the most fascinating differences among them is how they bear themselves before and after Mass. It took me a long time to realize how great an impact for good or for ill this can have.

Let us take as our point of departure a marvelous line in the Code of Canon Law. Canon 909 reads: “A priest is not to omit dutifully to prepare himself by prayer before the celebration of the Eucharist, nor afterwards to omit to make thanksgiving to God.”

As if commenting on this canon, Bishop Marc Aillet writes:

Tearing us away from the secular world and thus from the temptation of immanentism, [the liturgical rites] have the power to immerse us suddenly in the Mystery and open us to the Transcendent. In this sense, one can never stress enough the importance of the silence preceding the liturgical celebration, an inner narthex, where we are freed of the concerns, even if legitimate, of the secular world, in order to enter the sacred space and time where God will reveal his Mystery; one can never stress enough the importance of silence in the liturgy to open oneself more readily to the action of God; and one can never stress enough the appropriateness of a period of thanksgiving, whether integrated into the celebration or not, to apprehend the inner extent of the mission that awaits us once we are back in the world.

The Time Before Mass

Consider first the time before Mass. Shawn Tribe wrote an article here a number of years ago that deeply affected me—an article urging the recovery of a spirit of reverence, respect, and quietude in the sacristy before the celebration of Mass. He noted that many sacristies have a sign reading SILENTIUM, and recalled the very old custom of the priest reciting hallowed prayers as he dons each separate garment in preparation for offering the Holy Sacrifice. Before a High Mass, a Solemn Mass, or some other major liturgy the platoon of servers will be very busy, but there is no reason why they can be quietly busy, learning to move in an atmosphere of prayerful preparation and anticipation, keeping their voices down and their conversations useful to the matters at hand.

The holiest priests I’ve known (although there are exceptions to any rule) have tended to arrive in the sacristy early so that they could prepare in an unrushed spirit. I have noticed that they would carefully say the vesting prayers and be ready, waiting, often looking at a wall-mounted crucifix, before the servers had finishing pulling themselves together. When the bell rings or the clock strikes, such a priest is ready to process in, with a “Procedamus in pace” on his lips. What a profound “ripple effect” his earnest, calm, and focused mind can have on the entire sacristy atmosphere, and on all who are working in it!

Contrast this with the priest who rushes in at the last minute, in a whirl and a tizzy. He’s looking here and there, maybe stealing a quick glance at the Ordo, racing against the clock. He throws open the closet and grabs the alb and the chasuble, scarcely taking time to straighten them before walking out into the church. Where is the “dutiful preparation” of Canon 909? Do the servers imbibe a true spirit of reverence towards this most awesome of all human actions—indeed, do they see that the priest is embarking on a divine action of which he is, and they are, totally unworthy, and before which we stand in fear and trembling? Or take the other contrast, Father Foghorn, whose arrival everyone knows because you can hear him yacking away in the sacristy before Mass, about the weather, or football, or something in the news, or someone’s sick aunt, or whatever the topic du jour may be. Indeed, he might even be giving out commands about liturgical preparations, but the generalissimo manner is enough to debar anyone from prayer.

The truth is simple: Father Foghorn and Reverend Roadrunner are not edifying. We need clergy who, before Mass, conscientiously pursue the spirit of recollection, prayerfulness, humility, and peace. At the end of the day, this is not merely for the benefit of a bunch of rag-tag servers or half-asleep pewsitters; it is for the benefit of the clergy themselves, who stand to win or lose their vocations based on how they approach the very work for which they have been set apart. The devil, shall we say, never omits to prepare for whatever dark business he has in hand, and it seems he targets those who have forgotten their dignity. We must not omit to prepare ourselves for ascending the mountain of the Lord in the company of the angels.

The Time After Mass

Let us turn to the time after Mass. Although I don’t remember ever seeing this custom while growing up in a mainstream American parish in the 1970s and 1980s, I began to notice in college and afterwards that more conservative or traditional priests, having returned to the sacristy, would say “Prosit” and then give a blessing to the kneeling altar servers. This is a laudable custom that surely deserves to be retained wherever it exists or revived wherever it has fallen into desuetude.

But what should happen next? The best way I can answer that question is to describe a particular priest friend of mine, whose example in this regard was as luminous as can be. After blessing the servers, he would quietly divest (no indulging in sacristy banter and very little of the “post-game debrief”), and then immediately step out to the sanctuary, kneel on the side, and pray for several minutes. He sometimes used the traditional prayers of thanksgiving from the Missale Romanum, other times not. It was clear that he was not doing this to be seen by men, yet everyone saw him nonetheless—and this is as it should be. The priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the most sublime act of worship on the face of the earth, the ecstasy of angels and the terror of demons—how can he possibly return immediately to secularity, light chit-chat, text messages, voicemails, or emails, or rush away to do something else (unless it is a genuine emergency)?

The holy priest just described is the polar opposite of the priest who seems unable to get away fast enough when Mass is over. He zips out of the sanctuary or nave (depending on the planned or available route of escape), whips off the garments, and is out the door quicker than you can say: “Father, do you have a minute to hear a confession?” To a layman, this is a dismaying experience. I was taught in grammar school to stay a bit after Mass and make thanksgiving. Why isn’t our priest, our leader, doing the same? We always say that example speaks louder than words.

Then there is the priest who obviously thinks that the time after Mass is created for socializing, often at great length, in the atrium or right outside the main doors of the church. I’m not saying that greeting people, shaking hands, and asking “How’s your mother doing?” or questions of that sort is a bad idea; in fact, on Sundays it seems to be an especially good opportunity for making the sort of “horizontal” connections that ought to be avoided during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself. Nevertheless, when the post-liturgical bonhomie is conducted with such vim and vigor that the faithful who are trying to pray in the church can hear the guffawing and backslapping pouring through the entrance, or when the extent of the socializing crowds out any real prayer of thanksgiving on the priest’s part, we are dealing with a mixed-up sense of priorities.

When we have received our Lord in Holy Communion, He is, for some precious minutes, really, truly, substantially present within us. If we are in a state of grace (and we’d have no business receiving communion otherwise), He is always with us spiritually; but He is not always with us in the miraculous mode of His physical Eucharistic presence. This is a special time, a time of unique intimacy and love, when our praises to God and His favors to us are poured out more abundantly, when we are most of all abiding in Him and He in us. Let us not squander this gift from the Lord—and let the clergy lead the way in setting a strong and sincere example of how to rejoice and give thanks. I am reminded of a saying attributed to St. Pius X: “If the priest is an angel, the people will be saints; if the priest is a saint, the people will be good; if the priest is good, the people will be mediocre; and if the priest is mediocre, the people will be beasts.”

The Advantage of the Usus Antiquior

As a parting thought, the impression has grown on me more and more over the years that one of the strongest merits of the usus antiquior is that it has preparation and thanksgiving already “built in.” Yes, there is still a brief period for each in the Novus Ordo, but nothing comparable to Psalm 42 and its accompanying versicles and prayers, or to the Placeat and the Last Gospel. One feels that one has decisively begun and decisively ended. There is a suitable psychological and spiritual transition from the secular world to the sacred, and again from the sacred to the secular. And yet, paradoxically, it is among usus antiquior-celebrating priests that I have tended to find the greatest recollection and prayerfulness before and after Mass, too. What this suggests to me is that the very reduction of the rituals of preparation and thanksgiving within the Ordinary Form has had a bleed-over effect on the time before and after the liturgy itself.

This is why we should adamantly oppose any “reform” of the 1962 Missale Romanum that involves the abolition of the prayers at the foot of the altar and the Last Gospel. Those who speak of the value of the 1965 Missal—the supposed implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium—as if it’s the fulfillment of legitimate liturgical reform are not thinking carefully enough about why these introductory and conclusory parts became popular in the first place and why, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they were eventually integrated into the liturgy.