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| The Reform of Holy Week in the Years 1951-1956 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-04-2021, 08:58 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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The Reform of Holy Week in the Years 1951-1956: A translation of the study by Fr. Stefano Carusi IBP
After many delays, Rorate Caeli presents the following translation of Fr. Stefano Carusi's work on the reform of Holy Week under Pope Pius XII.
This translation is the work of a U.S.-based priest who had spent much time in Rome and who wishes to remain anonymous.
[UPDATE November 2, 2010: the translator has given permission for his name to be appended to this post: he is Fr. Charles W. Johnson, a U.S. military chaplain.]
The text has been scrupulously translated, but the formatting has been changed slightly by turning the bullet points in the original Italian text into numbers typed in boldface.
This text is posted with the intention of encouraging civil and constructive discussions on the roots of the liturgical reform.
Rorate does not take the view that important theological and liturgical disputes even within the Traditional Catholic world ought to be swept under the rug. CAP.
From Disputationes Theologicae:
THE REFORM OF HOLY WEEK IN THE YEARS 1951-1956
FROM LITURGY TO THEOLOGY BY WAY OF THE STATEMENTS OF CERTAIN LEADING THINKERS
(ANNIBALE BUGNINI, CARLO BRAGA, FERDINANDO ANTONELLI)
by Stefano Carusi
"It was felt necessary to revise and enrich the formulae of the Roman Missal. The first stage of such a reform was the work of Our Predecessor Pius XII with the reform of the Easter Vigil and the rites of Holy Week (1), which constituted the first step in the adaptation of the Roman Missal to the contemporary way of thinking" (Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, April 3, 1969)
INTRODUCTION
In the course of recent years, the publication of numerous studies concerning the history of the theological and liturgical debate of the 1950's has cast new light on the formation and the intentions (which were not always openly declared at the time) of those who were the actual composers of certain texts.
As regards the work of the reform of Holy Week in 1955 and 1956, it is desirable to consider the declarations, finally made public now, of the well-known Lazarist Annibale Bugnini, and of his close collaborator and later secretary of the "Consilium ad reformandam liturgiam" Father Carlo Braga, and of the future-Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli, in order to establish whether or not their work of liturgical reform corresponds to a wider theological project and in order to analyze the validity of the criteria used and then reproposed in the reforms that followed. We shall consider the notes and minutes of the discussions of the preparatory commission, preserved mainly in the archives of the Congregation of Rites and recently published in the monumental work of the liturgical historian Msgr. Nicola Giampietro, which testify to the tenor of the debate.
In October of 1949 at the Congregation of Rites, a liturgical commission was named which would have as its object the Roman rite. (Actually, the commission was named on May 28, 1948, while the constitutive meeting of the commission was held on June 22 of the same year. See Fr. Thomas Richstatter's "Liturgical Law: New Style, New Spirit", Franciscan Herald Press 1977, p. 182. CAP.) It was to study whether eventual reforms should be adopted; unfortunately, the calm necessary for such a work was not possible on account of the continual requests by the French and German episcopates demanding immediate changes with the greatest and most precipitous haste. The Congregation of Rites and the Commission considered themselves bound to treat the question of the horarium of Holy Week in order to circumvent the imaginative creations of certain "autonomous celebrations," especially in regard to the Vigil of Holy Saturday. In this context, it was necessary to approve "ad experimentum" a document that permitted the evening celebration of the rite of Holy Saturday, i.e. the "Ordo Sabbati Sancti” [“The Order of Holy Saturday”] of January 9, 1951. (2) In the years 1948-1949, the Commission was erected under the presidency of its Cardinal Prefect Clemente Micara, replaced in 1953 by Cardinal Gaetano Cicognani; also present were Msgr. Alfonso Carinci, Fathers Joseph Löw, Alfonso Albareda, Agostino Bea, and Annibale Bugnini. In 1951 Msgr. Enrico Dante was added; in 1960, Msgr. Pietro Frutaz, Fr. Luigi Rovigatti, Msgr. Cesario d'Amato, and finally Fr. Carlo Braga. (3) This last-named was long a close collaborator of Annibale Bugnini; in 1955 and 1956, he participated in the work of the commission though not yet a member, and was moreover, along with the aforementioned Fr. Bugnini, the author of historical-critical and pastoral articles on Holy Week (5), which would eventually be revealed as "letters of transit," so to speak, for the changes which followed.
The Commission worked in secret and under pressure from the central European episcopates (6), though it is not clear if their pressure was meant to intimidate or encourage the Commission. So great was the secrecy that the unexpected and sudden publication of the "Ordo Sabbati Sancti instaurati" ["On the Restored Rite of Holy Saturday”] on March 1, 1951, "came as a surprise to the very officials of the Congregation of Rites," (7) as commission member Annibale Bugnini has stated. This same Fr. Bugnini informs us of the singular manner in which the results of the Commission's work on Holy Week were conveyed to the Pope: the Pope "was kept informed by Msgr. Montini as well as weekly by Fr. Bea, Pius XII's confessor. Thanks to this link, notable results could be achieved even in the period when the Pope's illness prevented anyone else from approaching him." (8) The Pope was afflicted with a serious stomach malady that required a long convalescence; and so it was not the Cardinal Prefect of Rites, in charge of the Commission, who kept him informed but then-Msgr. Montini and the future-Cardinal Bea, who was to have a great role in the reforms to follow.
The labors of the Commission were protracted until 1955, when, on Nov. 16, the decree "Maxima redemptionis nostrae mysteria" [“The Greatest Mysteries of Our Redemption”] was published, which was to take effect at Easter of the following year. The bishops received these novelties in various ways, and, beyond the façade of triumphalism, there were not lacking laments over the introduction of these innovations, and indeed requests began to multiply for permission to retain the traditional rites. (9) But by now the machine of liturgical reform had been set in motion and to halt it in its course would have proven impossible and moreover inadmissible, as the events to follow would demonstrate.
Despite the wish that the liturgists should sing, as it were, in unison—compounded by a certain monolithic attitude, which in the 1950's was meant to show unity of purpose—authoritative voices were raised in dissent but promptly constrained to silence despite their competence. Such was the case not only for certain episcopates but also for certain liturgists, such as Léon Gromier, who, notable for his well-documented commentary on the Caeremoniale Episcoporum, (10) was also a consultor for the Congregation of Rites and a member of the Pontifical Academy of the Liturgy. In July of 1960 in Paris, in a celebrated conference, he spoke his mind [on all of this] in a heated but well-reasoned manner. (11) Pope John XXIII himself, in 1959, at the celebration of Good Friday at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme followed the traditional practices, thus making evident that he was not in agreement with the innovations recently introduced and that he recognized the experimental nature of those changes.
Certain reforms introduced experimentally in 1955 and 1956 were clearly inserted into the fabric of the ritual in a clumsy manner, so much so that they were easily corrected in the reform of 1969. But that topic deserves a separate treatment.
In order to sketch the importance of the reform of Holy Week, both liturgically and theologically, mention must be made of the commentary provided by two of the greatest protagonists of this event, so that the intentions of those who labored over this project might be brought into focus. Father Carlo Braga, the right arm of Annibale Bugnini and for years at the helm of the authoritative review Ephemerides Liturgicae, defined the reform of Holy Saturday in bold terms, calling it "the head of the battering-ram which pierced the fortress of our hitherto static liturgy." (13) The future-Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli defined it thus in 1956: "the most important act in the history of the liturgy from St. Pius V until today." (14)
THE INNOVATIONS EXAMINED IN DETAIL
We now arrive at a detailed analysis which will cast in relief some of the more obvious changes brought about by the "Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae Instauratus" [“The Restored Order of Holy Week”] of 1955-1956 and which will explain why this reform became the "head of the battering-ram" in the heart of the Roman liturgy and "the most important act since St. Pius V until now."
For each of the innovations cited there is given as well a commentary which relies as much as possible on the what the actual authors of the texts later stated; then there is also a brief sketch of the traditional practice.
PALM SUNDAY
1. Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae of 1955-1956 (hereinafter: OHS 1956): innovation of using the color red for the procession with palms but violet for the Mass. (15)
Commentary: In the archives of the Commission we read: "One thing that might perhaps be done ... the color red might be restored as was used in the Middle Ages for this solemn procession. The color red recalls the royal purple." A little further on: "In this way, the procession is distinguished as something sui generis." (16) One does not wish to deny that red might signify the royal purple, although the assertion that this was the medieval practice remains to be proven; but it is a peculiar way to proceed, this search for things that are sui generis [sic], and then the decision that red must have a positively determined symbolism on Palm Sunday, even though red in the Roman rite is the color of Martyrs or of the Holy Spirit. In the Ambrosian rite it is used on this Sunday to symbolize the Blood of the Passion and not royal status. In the Parisian rite, the color black was used for both ceremonies [procession and Mass--transl.]. In some dioceses it was foreseen that one color would be used for the procession and another for the Mass, a practice borrowed perhaps from the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, (17) and one which does not make much sense when applied to Palm Sunday, as Léon Gromier relates. This innovation must be attributed, not to a documented practice, but to an extemperaneous idea of a "professor of Pastoral Theology at a Swiss seminary." (18)
In the Missale Romanum of 1952 (hereinafter: MR 1952): there is the unvarying use of violet for both the procession and the Mass. (19)
2. (OHS 1956): Abolition of the folded chasubles and, consequently, the "broad stole" or stola largior. (20)
Commentary: This touches on one of the oldest customs, one which had survived from earliest antiquity until then and which showed forth the ancient nature of Holy Week, which no one had ever dared alter because of both the veneration with which it was regarded as well as the extraordinary nature of these rites and of the extraordinary sorrow of the Church during the days of Holy Week.
(MR 1952): Use of folded chasubles and the broad stole during the singing of the Gospel by the deacon. (21)
3. (OHS 1956): Novelty of blessing the palms while facing the faithful, with back turned to the altar, and in certain cases, turned to the Blessed Sacrament. (22)
Commentary: For the sake of the participation of the faithful, the idea is introduced of liturgical actions done facing the people, but with the back turned towards God: "Influential [in the reform] was the visibility of particular gestures in the celebration, detached from the altar and performed by the sacred ministers while facing the people." (23) A blessing was invented that was performed over a table which stood between the altar and the altar rail, while the ministers faced the people. A new concept was introduced of liturgical space and of orientation during prayer.
(MR 1952): The palm branches are blessed on the altar, on the Epistle-side "horn," after a reading, a gradual, a Gospel, and above all a Preface with a "Sanctus" that introduces the prayers of blessing. This is the extremely ancient rite of the so-called "Missa sicca." (24)
4. (OHS 1956): Suppression of the preface which speaks of Christ's authority over the kingdoms and powers of this world. (25)
Commentary: It is astonishing to note that the intention to proclaim solemnly Christ's kingship (26) is carried out by suppressing the preface which describe His kingship. This preface is declared superfluous in no uncertain terms and therefore to be eliminated: "Considering the little coherence of these prefaces, their prolixity, and, in certain formulations, their poverty of thought, their loss was of little relevance." (27)
(MR 1952): The Roman rite often uses, for certain great liturgical moments, e.g. the consecration of the oils or priestly ordination, the singing of a preface, which is a particularly solemn way of calling upon God; likewise for the blessing of the palms a preface was prescribed which spoke of the divine order of creation and its subordination to God the Father, i.e. the subordination of the created order, which is admonished through kings and governments to be duly obedient to Christ: "Tibi enim serviunt creaturae tuae quia te solum auctorem et Deum cognoscunt et omnis factura tua te collaudat, et benedicunt te Sancti tui: quia illud magnum Unigeniti tui nomen coram regibus et potestatibus hujus saeculi libera voce confitentur" ["For thy creatures serve Thee, because they acknowledge Thee alone as their origin and God, and all thy work praises Thee together, and thy Saints bless Thee: for they confess with unfettered voice the great Name of thy Only-begotten before the kings and powers of this world"]. (28) In a few elegant lines, the text of this chant reveals the theological foundation of the duty of temporal governments to be subservient to Christ the King.
5. (OHS 1956): Suppression of the prayers concerning the meaning and the benefits of sacramentals and the power that these have against the demon. (29)
Commentary: The reason for this--explains a note from the archives--is that these prayers are "replete ... with all the showy display of erudition typical of the Carolingian era." (30) The reformers agreed on the antiquity of the texts but did not find them to their taste because "the direct relation between the ceremony and daily Christian life was very weak, or rather [between the ceremony and] the pastoral-liturgical significance of the procession as homage to Christ the King." (31) It is apparent to no one how there is lacking a connection to the "daily life" of the faithful or to the homage to Christ the King in its full "pastoral-liturgical significance." Clearly, the plan was one of a kind of rhetoric that today appears dated, but at the time had a certain cachet. Though desiring a "conscious participation in the procession, with relevance to concrete, daily Christian life," (32) they relied on arguments that were neither theological nor liturgical.
The "concrete, daily Christian life" of the faithful is then indirectly disdained a few lines later: "These pious customs [of the blessed palms], although theologically justified, can degenerate (as in fact they have degenerated) into superstition." (33) Apart from the poorly concealed tone of rationalism, one should note that the ancient prayers are deliberately replaced with new compositions, which, according to their authors' own words, are "substantially a new creation." (34) The ancient prayers were not pleasing because they express too clearly the efficacy of sacramentals, and it was decided to come up with new prayers.
(MR 1952): The ancient prayers recall the role of sacramentals, which have an effective power against the demon ("ex opere operantis Ecclesiae" [“by the action of the Church as acting”). (35)
6. (OHS 1956): Novelty of unveiling the processional cross, (36) even though the altar cross remains veiled.
Commentary: We admit that the liturgical significance of this innovation completely escapes us; the change seems to be a liturgical "pastiche" born of the haste of the authors rather than something related to mystical symbolism.
(MR 1952): The altar cross is veiled as is the processional cross, to which is tied a blessed palm, (37) a sign once again on this day of the glorious Cross and the victorious Passion.
7. (OHS 1956): Elimination of the cross striking the closed doors of the church. (38)
Commentary: This rite symbolized the initial resistance of the Jewish people and the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, but also the triumph of Christ's cross, which throws open the doors of heaven just as it is the cause of our resurrection: "hebraeorum pueri resurrectionem vitae pronuntiantes" ["the children of the Hebrews declaring the resurrection unto life"]. (39)
(It should be noted that despite the absence of this little rite from the post-1955 liturgical books of the Roman Rite, it continues to be inserted into not a few Palm Sunday processions celebrated according to either the 1962 or 1970 Missal. CAP.)
(MR 1952): The procession returns to the doors of the church, which are shut. A sung dialogue between one choir of cantors outside, alternating with another inside the church, precedes the opening of the church doors, which takes place after the foot of the processional cross strikes against them. (40)
8. (OHS 1956): Creation of a prayer to be recited at the conclusion of the procession, at the center of the altar, the whole of which is recited facing the people (“versus populum”).
Commentary: No one can decide where the missal is to be placed or who is to hold it while on the step, because in the haste for reform, no one took note of this lacuna, which required a further rubric—i.e., rubric “22a” or “22-bis”—which is more confusing than the one that precedes it. (42) Its insertion, in effect, “gums up” the preceding ceremonies thanks to its arbitrary nature: “At this point, i.e. to give the procession a precise termination, we decided to propose a particular Oremus [prayer].” (43)
Father Braga likewise openly admitted, fifty years later, that the creation of this oration was not a happy choice: “The element that is out of place in the new Ordo [of Holy Week] is the concluding oration of the procession, which disrupts the unity of the celebration.” (44) The “experimental” changes, motivated by a desire for innovations, have revealed with time their inadequacy.
(MR 1952): The procession ends as usual, and then the Mass begins, as always, with the prayers at the foot of the altar.
9. (OHS 1956): The distinction between the “Passion” and the Gospel is eliminated. Moreover, the last sentence of the Passion is suppressed (most likely due to a publishing error, as other explanations seem implausible). (45)
Commentary: The Passion had always been marked by a narrative style; it was divided among three voices and was followed by the Gospel, which was marked off by the fact that it was sung by a single deacon on a different tone, and was accompanied by the use of incense (but not torches). The reform confuses these two aspects. Passion and Gospel are melded into a single chant, while meretricious editing crops verses at the beginning and the end [of the passage]. In the end, accordingly, the Mass, as well as the deacon, is deprived of the Gospel properly so-called, which is, in effect, suppressed.
(MR 1952): The chanting of the Passion is distinct from that of the Gospel, which ends at verse 66 of Matthew, chap. 26. (46)
10. (OHS 1956): Elimination of the Gospel passage which connects the institution of the Eucharist with the Passion of Christ (Matthew 26: 1-36). (47)
Commentary: We now come to a pass that to us seems the most disconcerting, above all because it seems, as far as the archives reveal, that the Commission had decided not to change anything in regard to the Passion, since it was of the most ancient origin. (48) Nevertheless, we know neither how nor why the narrative of the Last Supper was expunged. It is hard to believe that for simple motives of saving time thirty verses of the Gospel would be struck out, especially considering the relevance of the passage concerned. Up till then, tradition desired that the narration of the Passion in the Synoptics always include the institution of the Eucharist, which, by virtue of the sacramental separation of the Body and Blood of Christ, is the herald of the Passion. The reform, with a single stroke aimed at a fundamental passage of Sacred Scripture, obscured the vital relation of the Last Supper, the sacrifice of Good Friday, and the Eucharist. The passage on the institution of the Eucharist was eliminated as well from Holy Tuesday and Holy Wednesday, with the astounding result that it is nowhere to be found in the entire liturgical cycle! This was the result of a climate of hasty change, which disrupted centuries-old traditions yet was incapable of considering the entirety of Scripture read during the year.
(MR 1952): The Passion is preceded by the reading of the institution of the Eucharist, indicating the intimate, essential, theological connection between the two passages.
HOLY MONDAY
(OHS 1956): The prayer “Contra persecutores Ecclesiae [Against the Church’s persecutors]” is prohibited, as is the prayer for the Pope. (50)
Commentary: This move abetted the elimination of all references to the fact that the Church has enemies. The reformers’ “reason” desired to obscure, with euphemisms and the suppression of entire passages, the reality of the Church’s persecution at the hands of enemies both earthly and infernal, who struggle against the Church with both violence and the insinuation of heresy among the faithful. (So one reads in the suppressed prayer.) This same irenic attitude is encountered again on Good Friday, as Fr. Braga frankly admits. (51) In the same context, the concurrent suppression of the prayer for the Pope is decreed; and so begins the practice of reducing the presence of the name of the Roman Pontiff in the liturgy.
(MR 1952): The prayer “Against the Church’s persecutors” and the prayer for the Pope are recited. (52)
HOLY TUESDAY
(OHS 1956): Suppression of Mark 14: 1-31, thus shortening the Passion according to St. Mark. (53)
Commentary: Here is the second, disturbing elimination of the Gospel passage on the institution of the Holy Eucharist as placed in relation to the sacrifice of the Passion. The suppression of approximately thirty verses does not seem to have been solely for reasons of time, considering, once again, the importance of these verses.
(MR 1952): Mark 14: 1-31, the Last Supper and the Institution of the Eucharist, begins the reading of the Passion. (54)
HOLY WEDNESDAY
(OHS 1956): Suppression of Luke 22: 1-39, thus shortening the Passion according to St. Luke. (55)
Commentary: This is the third time one is struck by the elimination of the Gospel passage on the institution of the Eucharist in its natural connection with the sacrifice of the Cross. In this instance, as in the preceding, it is difficult to believe that for simple motives of saving time these thirty important verses were eliminated.
(MR 1952): The account of the Passion is preceded by the institution of the Holy Eucharist with which it is related by its nature. (56)
HOLY THURSDAY
1. (OHS 1956): Introduction of the stole as part of the choir dress of priests. (57)
Commentary: This is the beginning of the myth of concelebration on Holy Thursday. The bolder among the reformers wished to introduce it along with this reform, but resistance—especially from members of the Commission such as Cardinal Cicognani and Msgr. Dante—blocked this novelty. Father Braga writes: “As to the ‘participation’ of the priests, sacramental concelebration did not seem attainable (the mind-set, even of certain members of the Commission, was not yet prepared for it).” (58) In effect, there was a strongly hostile feeling against concelebration on Holy Thursday because it was not traditional: “Concelebration, whether sacramental or purely ceremonial, was to be excluded.” (59) To introduce the idea of concelebration, its proponents had to be content with the creation of the practice of having every priest present don a stole, (60) not at the moment of communion only but beginning with the start of the Mass.
(MR 1952): The priests and deacons wear the usual choir dress, without the stole, and put on the stole at the time of communion only, as is the usual custom. (61)
2. (OHS 1956): The practice is introduced of giving communion with only those hosts consecrated on this day. (62)
Commentary: It is incomprehensible why those present cannot communicate with hosts already consecrated previously. The Roman practice of the “Fermentum”—which is historically documented—was to communicate, in general, from a particle of the Eucharist from the Sunday prior, to show the communion of the Church throughout time and space, within the reality of the Body of Christ. This presence, being “real and substantial,” continues when the assembly departs and at the same time, with even greater logical coherence, precedes the reuniting of the assembly. With this [new] rubric, the idea is introduced of the Real Presence being tied to the day of the celebration, as well as the idea that one is obliged to communicate from hosts consecrated on the same day. It is as much as to say that those hosts are in some way different from those consecrated earlier. One should note that this obligation relates not merely to the symbolism of the tabernacle being empty before the Mass of Holy Thursday—which, at most, might have had some significance, albeit a novel one—since the text affirms that those who receive communion must receive only hosts consecrated on this day. (63) The underlying theology does not seem very solid, while the symbolism is debatable.
(MR 1952): There is no mention of this practice of giving communion with hosts consecrated on Holy Thursday. (64)
3. (OHS 1956): The washing of feet is no longer at the end of Mass but in the middle of Mass. (65)
Commentary: The reform appealed to a restoration of the “veritas horarum” [i.e., observance of the “true times” of the services], an argument used in season and out, like a veritable hobby horse. In this case, however, the chronological sequence given in the Gospel is abandoned. Rivers of ink flowed in order to convince others of the scandal of an horarium that was not in full accord with that of the Gospels, but in this case not only was a rite anticipated, or postponed, for practical reasons, but the chronological order of the Gospel narrative was inverted within a single ceremony. St. John writes that Our Lord washed the feet of the Apostles after the supper: “et cena facta” [“the supper having been finished”] (John 13: 2). It escapes understanding why the reformers, for whatever obscure motive, chose, arbitrarily, to put the washing of the feet directly in the middle of Mass. While Mass is being celebrated, consequently, some of the laity are allowed to enter the sanctuary and take off their shoes and socks. Apparently there was a desire to re-think the sacredness of the sanctuary and the prohibition of the laity from entering it during divine services. The washing of feet, therefore, is spliced into the offertory, an abuse whereby the celebration of Mass is interrupted with other rites, a practice founded on the dubious distinction of Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist.
(MR 1952): The rite known as the Mandatum, or washing of the feet, is carried out after Mass and not in the sanctuary, after the stripping of the altars and without interrupting Mass or allowing the laity to enter the sanctuary during the service, and withal respecting the chronological sequence given in the Gospel. (67)
4. (OHS 1956): Omission of the Confiteor recited by the deacon before Holy Communion. (68)
Commentary: The third, despised Confiteor is done away with, without recognition of the fact that the confession made by the deacon, or the server, although borrowed from the rite for communion extra missam [outside of Mass], is a confession of the unworthiness of the communicants to receive the sacred Species. It is not a “duplication” of the confession made by the priest and ministers at the beginning of Mass, since at that point they have simply recited their own unworthiness to approach the altar and to celebrate the sacred mysteries. (Hence, at a sung Mass it is recited sotto voce.) This is distinct from one’s unworthiness to approach Holy Communion.
(MR 1952): The Confiteor is recited before communion. (69)
5. (OHS 1956): At the end of Mass, during the stripping of the altars, it is mandated that even the cross and candlesticks are to be removed. (70)
Commentary: It was decided that everything should be stripped from the altar, even the cross. The rubrics of the reformed Holy Thursday do not explain, however, what to do with the altar cross, but one learns this by accident, as it were, from the rubrics of the following day. In effect, the rubrics of Good Friday speak of an altar without a cross, (71) which one can deduce from the fact that it was taken away during the stripping of the altars, or perhaps in a more private manner during the night. (This and other problems arise when one changes a liturgy which has benefited from layers of tradition and which is all but intolerant of hasty alterations.) Perhaps, on the basis of a certain liturgical archeologism, the reformers wished to prepare souls for the spectacle of a bare table in the middle of the sanctuary—something which makes little sense theologically.
(MR 1952): The cross remains on the altar, veiled and accompanied by the candlesticks, enthroned there in expectation of being unveiled the following day. (72)
Sepulchre
GOOD FRIDAY
1. (OHS 1956): The name “Solemn Liturgical Action” is devised, (73) thus eliminating the very ancient names “Mass of the Presanctified” and “Feria Sexta in Parasceve.”
Commentary: The terminology of “Presanctified” underlined the fact that the sacred Species had been consecrated at an earlier ceremony and showed the connection with the return of the Eucharist, an important and ancient part of the rite. But the Commission despised this concept and decided to reform the name along with the rite itself: “[We need] to trim back the medieval extravagances, so little noted, of the so-called Mass of the Presanctified to the severe and original lines of a great, general communion service.” (74) The usage “in Parasceve” [i.e., Friday “in Preparation”] was no longer in favor, even though its Hebraic overtones indicate its great antiquity.
(MR 1952): The name is “Mass of the Presanctified” or “Feria Sexta in Parasceve.” (75)
2. (OHS 1956): The altar no longer has the veiled cross (and candlesticks -- CAP) on it (76)
Commentary: The cross, especially the one on the altar, has been veiled since the first Sunday of the Passion, so that it should remain where it naturally ought to stand, namely at the center of the altar, later to be unveiled solemnly and publicly on Good Friday, the day of the triumph of the redemptive Passion. The authors of the reform apparently did not like the altar cross and decided to have it removed to the sacristy on the evening of Holy Thursday, and not in a solemn way but in the containers used to carry away the altar cloths after the stripping of the altars, or perhaps during the night in some unknown way, about which the rubrics for Holy Thursday are silent. On the very day of greatest importance for the Cross, when it ought to tower over the altar even though veiled at the beginning of the ceremony, it is absent. The fact that it remained present for nearly fifteen days on the altar, though publicly veiled, makes for the logic of its corresponding public unveiling, instead of an a-liturgical return of the cross from the sacristy as though someone hid it there in a closet during the night.
(MR 1952): The cross remains veiled at its usual place, i.e. on the altar, stripped of its cloths, and flanked by the usual candlesticks. (77)
3. (OHS 1956): The reading of the Gospel is no longer distinct from that of the Passion.
Commentary: The entire passage is given a more narrative title: “The History of the Passion.” The motive behind this change is not clear, given that the Commission seemed to oppose such a change in the analogous case of Palm Sunday. (78) Perhaps the intention was, as elsewhere, to do away with everything that made reference to the Mass, such as the reading of the Gospel, and consequently to justify the suppression of the name “Mass of the Presanctified.”
(MR 1952): The Gospel is sung in a way distinct from the singing of the Passion, but on this day of mourning, without incense or torches. (79)
4. (OHS 1956): The altar cloths are no longer placed on the altar from the beginning of the ceremony; at the same time, it is decided that the priest is not to wear the chasuble from the start, but only the alb and stole. (80)
Commentary: The fact that the celebrant wears the chasuble even for a rite that is not, strictly speaking, the Mass witnesses to the extreme antiquity of these ceremonies, which the members of the Commission recognized as well. On the one hand, they maintained that the ceremonies of Good Friday were composed of "elements that (since ancient times) remained substantially untouched," (81) but on the other hand they desired to introduce a change that would separate the Eucharistic liturgy from the "first part of the liturgy, the liturgy of the word." (82) This distinction, in embryonic form at the time, was to be marked--according to Father Braga--by the fact that the celebrant wore the stole only and not the chasuble: "For the liturgy of the word [the celebrant] was left only the stole." (83)
(MR 1952): The priest wears the black chasuble, prostrates himself before the altar, while the servers, meanwhile, spread a single cloth on the bare altar. (84)
The question of the prayer for the Jews, though completely pertinent to the study of Holy Week, cannot be addressed except by a study that gives clarity to the philological misunderstanding relative to the erroneously interpreted words "perfidi" and "perfidia." (85)
5. (OHS 1956): For the seventh prayer, the name "Pro unitate Ecclesiae" ["For the unity of the Church"] is introduced. (86)
Commentary: With this expressive ambiguity the idea is brought in of a Church in search of its own social unity, hitherto not possessed. The Church, according to traditional Catholic doctrine, solemnly defined, does not lack social unity in the earthly realm, since the said unity is an essential property of the true Church of Christ. This unity is not a characteristic that is yet to be found through ecumenical dialogue; it is already metaphysically present. In effect, the words of Christ, "Ut unum sint" ["That they may be one"], is an efficacious prayer of Our Lord, and as such is already realized. Those who are outside the Church must return to her, must return to the unity that already exists; they do not need to unite themselves to Catholics in order to bring about a unity that already exists. The aim of the reformers, however, was to eliminate from this prayer, says Father Braga, (87) some inconvenient words that spoke of souls deceived by the demon and ensnared by the wickedness of heresy: "animas diabolica fraude deceptas" and "haeretica pravitate."
By the same logic, they desired to do away with the conclusion, which expressed hope for a return of those straying from the unity of Christ's truth back into His Church: "Errantium corda resipiscant et ad veritatis tuae redeant unitatem." At any rate, it was not possible to reform the text of the prayer but only the title, since at the time—laments Father Braga again—“unity was conceived in terms of the preconciliar ecumenism." (88) In other words, in 1956 the unity of the Church was conceived of as already existing, and God was being beseeched to bring back into this already existing unity those who were separated or far off from this unity. In the Commission there were members with traditional ideas who opposed the work of doctrinal erosion, though powerless to stop the creation of theological hybrids, such as the choice to leave the traditional text but to give it a new title. Annibale Bugnini himself, about ten years later, acknowledged that to pray for the future unity of the Church constitutes a heresy, and he mentions this in an article for L'Osservatore Romano that found fault with the title of the prayer "For the unity of the Church" introduced ten years prior by the Commission of which he was a member. Praising the prayers recently introduced in 1965, he writes that the prayer's name was changed from "For the unity of the Church" to "For the unity of Christians," because "the Church has always been one," but with the passage of time they were successful in eliminating the words "heretics" and "schismatics." (89) It is sad to note that these shifting maneuvers were employed with the liturgy in order to bring in theological novelties.
(MR 1952): The text is the same as that of 1956, wherein it is prayed that heretics and schismatics would return to the unity of His truth: "ad veritatis tuae redeant unitatem," (90) but without the ambiguous title of the 1956 version: "Pro unitate Ecclesiae."
6. (OHS 1956): At this point, there is the creation of a return procession of the cross from the sacristy. (91)
Commentary: This time, the cross returns in a liturgical manner, i.e. publicly rather than placed into the hampers used to collect the candlesticks and flowers from the previous evening [the Mass of Holy Thursday]. In the liturgy, when there is a solemn procession of departure, there is a solemn return; this innovation makes for a solemn return of a symbol that, the evening before, was carried away together with other objects in a private form, placing it—in the best-case scenario—in a wicker basket. There seems to be, in fact, no liturgical significance for introducing this procession of the return of the hidden cross. Perhaps we are confronted with a maladroit attempt to restore the rite carried out at Jerusalem in the fourth and fifth centuries and made known to us by Egeria: "In Jerusalem the adoration took place on Golgotha. Egeria recalls that the community assembled early in the morning in the presence of the bishop ... and then the silver reliquary [theca] containing the relics of the true Cross were brought in." (92) The restoration of this procession of the return of the cross took place in a context that was not that of Mount Calvary of the early centuries but in the context of the Roman liturgy, which over time had wisely elaborated and incorporated such influences from Jerusalem into a rite handed down over many centuries.
(MR 1952): The cross remains veiled on the altar beginning with Passion Sunday; it was unveiled publicly in the precincts of the altar, that is in the place where it remained publicly veiled until that point. (93)
![[Image: Adoration+of+the+Cross.jpg]](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iy0ieTwXi_w/TExgs8fwsoI/AAAAAAAABFU/zcBF5D2bQ7Y/s400/Adoration+of+the+Cross.jpg) Pope John XXIII adoring the cross according to the rubrics in effect prior to the reforms
7. (OHS 1956): The importance of the Eucharistic procession is downplayed. (94)
Commentary: The procession with the cross is a new creation, but the reform decides to downgrade the return procession with the Body of Christ to an almost private form in an inexplicable inversion of perspective. The Most Holy Sacrament was carried out the day before in a solemn manner to the altar of the Sepulcher. (We deliberately use the name "Sepulcher" because all of Christian tradition calls it thus, including the Memoriale Rituum and the Congregation of Rites, even if the Commission members barely tolerated this term (95); it appears to us profoundly theological and suffused with that sensus fidei [sense of the Faith] that is lacking in certain theologians.) It seems logical and "liturgical" that there should be for a solemn procession like that of Holy Thursday an equally dignified return on Good Friday. After all, here there is a particle of the same Blessed Sacrament from the previous day, the Body of Christ. With this innovation the honors to be paid to the Blessed Sacrament are reduced, and, in the case of Solemn Mass [of the Presanctified], it is the deacon who is instructed to go to the altar of the Sepulcher to bring back the Sacrament, while the priest sits tranquilly resting on the sedilia. The celebrant graciously arises when Our Lord, in the form of the sacred Species, is brought in by a subaltern, and then goes to the high altar. Perhaps it was for this reason that John XXIII did not want to follow this rubric at the Mass celebrated at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and desired to go himself, as Pope and as celebrant, to bring back the Most Holy Sacrament.
(MR 1952): The Most Blessed Sacrament returns in a procession equal in solemnity to that of the preceding day. It is the celebrant who goes to bring It back, as is natural. Since one is dealing with Our Lord Himself, present in the Host, one does not send a subordinate to bring Him to the altar. (96)
8. (OHS 1956): Elimination of the incensing due to the consecrated Host. (97)
Commentary: There is no apparent reason why the honors rendered to God on Good Friday should be inferior to those rendered on other days.
(MR 1952): The consecrated Host is incensed as usual, although the celebrant is not incensed. (98) The signs of mourning are evident here, but they do not extend to the Real Presence.
9. (OHS 1956): Introduction of the people reciting the Our Father. (99)
Commentary: "The pastoral preoccupation with a conscious and active participation on the part of the Christian community" is dominant. The faithful must become "true actors in the celebration .... This was demanded by the faithful, especially those more attuned to the new spirituality.... The Commission was receptive to the aspirations of the people of God." (100) It remains to be proven whether these aspirations belonged to the faithful or to a group of avant-garde liturgists. It remains as well to specify theologically what this above-mentioned "new spirituality" and its "aspirations" were.
(MR 1952): The Pater [Our Father] is recited by the priest. (101)
10. (OHS 1956): Elimination of the prayers that make reference to sacrifice while the Host is consumed. (102)
Commentary: It is true that on this day, in the strict sense, there is no Eucharistic sacrifice with the separation of the sacred Species, but it is also true that the consuming the Victim, immolated the preceding day, is a part, though not an essential one, of the sacrifice. This is, in a certain sense, the sacramental continuation of the sacrifice, because the Body, when consumed, is nevertheless always the Body as immolated and sacrificed. Accordingly, tradition always speaks of the sacrifice in the prayers connected with the consuming of the Host. Some members of the Commission held that after so many years of tradition the time had come to correct errors and to declare that words such as "meum ac vestrum sacrificium" ["my sacrifice and yours"] were "completely out of place in this instance, since one is not dealing with a sacrifice but only with communion." (103) The decision was then taken to abolish these age-old prayers.
(MR 1952): The prayer, "Orate, fratres, ut meum ac vestrum sacrificium, etc." is recited, but, given the unique context, it is not followed by the usual response. (104)
11. (OHS 1956): Placing a part of the consecrated Host into the wine in the chalice is abolished. (105)
Commentary: Placing a particle of the consecrated Host (a rite also known in the Byzantine rite) into the unconsecrated wine obviously does not consecrate the wine, nor was that ever believed by the Church. Simply put, this union manifests symbolically, though not really, the reuniting of the fragment of the Body of Christ with the Blood, to symbolize the unity of the Mystical Body in eternal life, the final cause of the entire work of redemption, which is not unworthy of being recalled on Good Friday.
The “Memoire” preserved in the archives of the Commission affirm that this part of the rite absolutely had to be suppressed, because “the existence of a belief in the Middle Ages that the commingling of the consecrated bread [sic!] alone in the wine was sufficient to consecrate even the wine itself also brought about this rite; once the Eucharist was studied more profoundly, the lack of foundation for this belief was understood. But the rite remained.” (106) This affirmation is rendered scandalous by the absence of any historical foundation and by the scientific method; and it implies quite profound theological consequences. In addition, it remains to be proven historically that during the Middle Ages the belief under discussion was in currency. Some theologians may have held erroneous opinions, but this does not prove that in fact the Roman Church fell into error to the point that she made it part of the liturgy with this precise theological view in mind. (The belief that the wine is consecrated by mere commingling with the Bread of Angels was not unknown among medieval Catholics, and is still held by the Greek Orthodox, as shown by the rubrics of the Liturgy of the Presanctified as observed by the Greeks and by some Slavs. However, it was never officially accepted by Rome as a legitimate belief, and it is interesting to note that by and large the Russian Orthodox share the Roman stand. CAP.)
In this context, one would be affirming that the Roman Church, conscious of the serious error, did not wish to correct it; one would be maintaining [in effect] that the Roman Church could change her view over the course of the centuries on a point that is so fundamental; and one would also be affirming that the she could err in relation to a dogmatic fact (such as the universal liturgy), and that for several centuries. Perhaps justification was sought for the work of reform already undertaken, which sought to correct all the errors that entire generations of Popes failed to detect but that the keen eye of the Commission had finally unmasked.
It is not pleasant to note that these affirmations are imbued with a pseudo-rationalism of a positivist stamp, the kind in vogue during the fifties. Often it relied on summary and less than scientific studies in order to demolish those deplorable “medieval traditions” and introduce useful “developments.”
(MR 1952): A part of the consecrated Host is placed in the wine, but, with great theological coherence, the prayer before consuming the Precious Blood is omitted.
12. (OHS 1956): The change of times for the service, which could have been accomplished in harmony with popular customs, ended up creating notable pastoral and liturgical problems.
Commentary: In the past, pious customs and practices were developed in a way that was consonant with the liturgy. A common example in very many places: from noon, even today, a great crucifix is set up, in front of which the Tre Ore [“Three Hours”] of Christ’s suffering is preached (from noon until three o’clock). As a consequence of the change in time for the service, one is confronted with the paradox of a sermon delivered before the crucifix at a time when the crucifix ought to remain veiled, because the Good Friday service is to be held in the afternoon. (108) Some dioceses even today are constrained to hold the “Liturgical Action” [of the Passion of the Lord] in one church, while in another the ancient pious practices are conducted, in order to avoid a too obvious visual incongruity. Numerous similar examples could be adduced. It is clear, though, that the “pastoral” reform par excellence was not “pastoral,” because it was born of experts who had no real contact with a parish nor with the devotions and piety of the people—which they often enough disdained.
According to the reformers, during the hours of the afternoon a “liturgical void” had been created, and an attempt to remedy this was sought “by introducing paraliturgical elements, such as the Tre Ore, the Way of the Cross, and the Sorrowful Mother.” (109) The Commission decided, therefore, to remedy this scandal using the worst “pastoral” method: namely writing off popular customs and paying them no mind. The disdain in this type of “pastoral” method forgets that inculturation is a Catholic phenomenon of long standing. It consists of a reconciliation, one as generous as possible, of piety to dogma, and not of a unilateral imposition of provisions by “experts.”
(MR 1952): The problem is not a question of times: liturgy and piety have developed over the centuries in a fusion of one with the other, without, however, coming into conflict in an antagonism as pointless as it is imaginary.
HOLY SATURDAY
1. (OHS 1956): A blessing of the Paschal candle is introduced using a candle that has to be carried by the deacon during the entire ceremony. (110)
Commentary: When this reform came into effect all the Paschal candlesticks in Christendom were rendered useless for Holy Saturday itself, even though some dated back to the dawn of Christianity. Under the pretext of returning to the sources, such liturgical masterpieces from antiquity became unusable museum pieces. The three-fold chanting of “lumen Christi” [“The light of Christ”] no longer has a liturgical reason to exist.
(MR 1952): The new fire and the grains of incense are blessed outside the church, but not the candle; the fire is passed to a reed, a kind of pole with three candles at the top, which are lit during the procession, successively with each invocation of “lumen Christi”; hence the three-fold invocation, one for each candle as it is lit. With one of these candles was lit the Paschal candle, which remained from the beginning of the ceremony on the Paschal candlestick. (In many early Christian churches, the height of the candlestick required the ambo to be built to the same height so that the candle could be reached.) [See the picture below. CAP.] The fire (the light of the Resurrection) was brought in on the reed with its triple candle (the Holy Trinity) to the great Easter candle (the Risen Christ), in order to symbolize the Resurrection as the work of the Most Holy Trinity. (111)
Ambo and Paschal candelabrum
2. (OHS 1956): The fabrication of placing the Easter candle in the center of the sanctuary after a procession with it in a church that is progressively lit up at every invocation of “Lumen Christi” [“The light of Christ”]; and at every invocation all genuflect toward the candle [sic!]; at the third invocation, the lights in the entire church are lit. (112)
Commentary: After the fabrication of a procession with the candle, it was decided to have it placed in the center of the sanctuary, where it becomes the reference point of the prayers, just as it was during the procession; it becomes more important than the altar and the cross, a strange novelty that shifts the orientation of prayer in successive stages.
(MR 1952): The candle remains unlit on its candelabrum, often (according to a rubricist I consulted, this should be "always". CAP) at the Gospel side; the deacon and subdeacon go up to it with the reed to light it during the singing of the praeconium [i.e., “Exsultet”]; until the singing of the “Exsultet,” the only candles lit from the “fire of the Resurrection” are those on the reed. (113)
The singing of the Exultet
3. (OHS 1956): A twisting of the symbolism of the “Exsultet” and of its nature as a diaconal blessing. (114)
Commentary: Some reformers wished to do away with this ceremony, but the love which the singing of the “Exsultet” was always enjoyed resulted in others opposing any change in the text: “the Commission, however, considers it opportune to preserve the traditional text, given that the passages to be eliminated are few and of little importance.” (115) The result was the nth pastiche of a traditional chant wedded to a rite now totally altered. Thus it happened that one of the most significant moments of the liturgical cycle became a theater-piece of astonishing incoherence.
In effect, the actions spoken of during the singing of the “Exsultet” have already been performed about a half-hour before in the narthex. For the grains of incense there is sung: “Suscipe, Pater, incensi hujus sacrificium vespertinum” [“Accept, Father, the evening sacrifice of this incense”], (116) but they have already been inserted into the candle for a good while. The lighting of the candle with the light of the Resurrection is elaborated with the words: “Sed jam columnae hujus praeconia novimus quam in honorem Dei rutilans ignis accendit” [“But now we know the tidings of this column which the flickering fire lights to the honor of God”], (117) but the candle has long been lit by then and a goodly amount of wax consumed. There is no longer any logic. The symbolism of the light is twisted even further when the order of lighting all the lights—the symbol of the Resurrection—is triumphantly chanted: “Alitur enim liquantibus ceris, quas in substantiam pretiosae hujus lampadis apis mater eduxit” [“For it is nourished by the flowing wax which the Mother bee has drawn out unto the substance of this precious Light”], (118) but it is sung in a church which for quite some time has been totally illuminated by the candles lit from the new fire.
This reformed symbolism is incomprehensible for the simple reason that it is not symbolic: the words being proclaimed have no relation to the reality of the rite. Furthermore, the singing of the Easter proclamation, in union with the actions that accompany it, constitutes the diaconal blessing par excellence. After the reform, the candle is blessed outside the church with holy water, but it was desired to retain a part of the ancient blessing since it had great esthetic beauty; unfortunately, this approach reduces the liturgy to theater.
(MR 1952): The singing of the “Exsultet” begins with the candle unlit; the grains of incense are fixed in it when the chant speaks of the incense; the candle is lit by the deacon and the lights in the church are lit when the chant makes mention of these actions. These actions, in union with the chant, make up the blessing. (119)
4. (OHS 1956): Introduction of the unbelievable practice of dividing the litanies in two, in the midst of which the baptismal water is blessed. (120)
Commentary: This decision is simply extravagant and incoherent. Never was it known that an impetratory prayer was split into two parts. The introduction of the baptismal rites in the middle is of an even greater incoherence.
(MR 1952): After the blessing of the baptismal font is finished, the litanies are sung before the beginning of Mass. (121)
5. (OHS 1956): Introduction of placing the baptismal water in a basin in the middle of the sanctuary, with the celebrant turned towards the faithful, his back to the altar. (122)
Commentary: Basically, it was decided to substitute the baptismal font with a pot placed in the middle of the sanctuary. This choice was dictated, once again, by the obsession that all the rites should be carried out with the “sacred ministers facing the people,” (123) but with their back towards God; the faithful, by this logic, become the “true actors of the celebration …. The Commission was receptive to the aspirations poured out by the people of God …. The Church was open to the ferment of renovation.” (124) These reckless decisions, founded on a pastoral populism that the people never requested, ended by destroying the entire sacred edifice, from its origins until the present.
At one time, the baptismal font was outside the church or, in succeeding ages, inside the walls of the edifice but close to the main door, since, according to Catholic theology, Baptism is the door, the “janua Sacramentorum” [“the door to the Sacraments”]. It is the Sacrament that makes those still outside the Church members of the Church. As such, it was symbolized in these liturgical customs. The catechumen receives [in Baptism] the character that makes him a member of the Church; therefore, he is to be received at the entrance, washed in the baptismal water, and thus acquire the right to enter into the nave as a new member of the Church, as one of the faithful. But, as a member of the faithful, he enters only the nave and not the sanctuary, wherein are the clergy, who are composed of those with the ministerial priesthood or who stand in relation to it. This traditional distinction was insisted on because the so-called “common” priesthood of the baptized is distinct from the ministerial priesthood and is distinct essentially, not superficially. They are two different things, not degrees of one single essence.
With the mandated changes, however, not only the baptized (as was already done on Holy Thursday) but even the non-baptized are summoned into the sanctuary, a place set aside for the clergy. One who is still “prey to the demon,” because still with Original Sin, is treated just like one who has received Holy Orders and enters into the sanctuary even though still a catechumen. The traditional symbolism, consequently, is completely massacred.
(MR 1952): The blessing of the baptismal water is given at the baptismal font, outside the church or near the entrance. Any catechumens are received at the entrance of the church, given Baptism, and then bid enter the nave, but not the sanctuary, as is logical, neither before nor after their Baptism. (125)
6. (OHS 1956): Alteration of the symbolism of the chant “Sicut cervus” [“Like the hart that yearns”] of Psalm 41. (126)
Commentary: After the creation of a baptistery inside the sanctuary, one is confronted with the problem of carrying away the baptismal water to some other location. It was decided, accordingly, to contrive a ceremony for carrying the water to the font after blessing it in front of the faithful and especially after conferring any baptisms as there might be. The transport of the baptismal water is accomplished while “Sicut cervus” is sung, i.e. that part of Psalm 41 which speaks of the thirst of the deer after it has fled from the bite of the serpent and which can only be slaked by drinking the water of salvation. At any rate, insufficient attention was paid to the fact that the deer’s thirst is sated by the waters of Baptism after the bite of the infernal serpent; for if Baptism has already been conferred, then the deer no longer thirsts, since, figuratively speaking, it has already drunk! The symbolism is changed and thus turned on its head.
(MR 1952): At the end of the singing of the prophecies, the celebrant goes to the baptismal font, to continue with the blessing of the water and to the conferral of Baptism as necessary; meanwhile, the “Sicut cervus” is sung. (127) The chant precedes, as is logical, the conferral of Baptism.
7. (OHS 1956): Creation ex nihilo of the “Renewal of Baptismal Promises.” (128)
Commentary: One is, in a certain sense, proceeding blind when devising pastoral creations that have no true foundation in the history of the liturgy. Pursuing the notion that the Sacraments ought to be re-enlivened in the conscience, the reformers thought up the renewal of the baptismal promises. This became a kind of “examination of conscience” concerning the Sacrament received in the past.
A similar tendency was observed in the twenties of the last century. In a veiled polemic with the provision of St. Pius X concerning the communion of children, the singular practice of a “solemn communion” or “profession of faith” was introduced; children of around thirteen years had to “remake” their first communion, in a kind of examination of conscience on the Sacrament already received several years before. This practice—although without calling into question the Catholic doctrine of “ex opere operato” [“from the work performed”]—emphasized the subjective element of the Sacrament over the objective. The new practice eventually ended up obscuring and overshadowing the Sacrament of Confirmation. A similar approach will be encountered in 1969 with the introduction on Holy Thursday of the “renewal of priestly promises.” With this latter practice is introduced a linkage between sacramental Holy Orders and a sentimental, emotional order, between the efficacy of the Sacrament and an examination of conscience, something rarely encountered in tradition.
The substrate of these innovations—which have no foundation either in Scripture or in the practice of the Church—seems to be a weakened conviction of the efficacy of the Sacraments. Although not in itself a plainly erroneous innovation, it appears nonetheless to lean towards theories of Lutheran provenance, which, while denying that “ex opere operato” has any role to play, hold that the sacramental rites serve more to “reawaken faith” than to confer grace.
It is difficult, moreover, to understand what was actually being sought with these reforms, since in fact edits were made to shorten the length of the celebrations, but tedious passages were introduced which burden the ceremonies unduly.
(MR 1952): The renewal of baptismal promises does not exist, just as, in this form, it has never existed in the traditional history of the liturgy of either East or West.
8. (OHS 1956): Creation of an admonition during the renewal of promises, which can be recited in the vernacular. (129)
Commentary: The tone of this moralizing admonition betrays all too well the era in which it was composed (the mid-fifties). Today it already sounds dated, besides being a rather tedious adjunct. There is also the typical a-liturgical manner of turning to the faithful during this rite, a hybrid between homily and ceremony (which will enjoy great success in the years to follow).
(MR 1952): Does not exist.
9. (OHS 1956): Introduction of the Our Father recited by everyone present, and possibly in the vernacular. (130)
Commentary: The Our Father is preceded by a sentimental-sounding exhortation.
(MR 1952): Does not exist.
10. (OHS 1956): With no liturgical sense whatsoever, there is introduced here the second part of the litany, broken off at the half-way point prior to the blessing of the baptismal water. (131)
Commentary: Before the blessing of the baptismal water, the litany is recited kneeling; afterwards, a great number of ceremonies are performed, along with movements in the sanctuary; then there is the joy following the blessing of the baptismal water and any Baptisms that follow; and then the same impetratory prayer of the litany is resumed at the precise point where it was broken off a half-hour before and left hanging. (It would be difficult to determine if the faithful remember when they left this prayer half-finished.) This innovation is incoherent and incomprehensible.
(MR 1952): The litany, recited integrally and without interruption, is chanted after the blessing of the baptismal font and before Mass. (132)
11. (OHS 1956): Suppression of the prayers at the foot of the altar, the Psalm “Judica me” (Ps. 42), and the Confiteor at the beginning of Mass. (133)
Commentary: It was decided that Mass should begin without the recitation of the Confiteor or the penitential psalm. Psalm 42, which recalls the unworthiness of the priest to ascend to the altar, was not appreciated, perhaps because it has to be recited at the foot of the altar before one can go up to it. When one understands the underlying liturgical logic here relative to the altar viewed as the “ara crucis” [“altar of the Cross”], a place sacred and terrible, where the redemptive Passion of Christ is made present, a prayer expressing the unworthiness of anyone to ascend those steps makes sense. The disappearance of Psalm 42 (which in the following years would be eliminated from every Mass) seems, instead, to be a wish for a preparation ritual having to do with an altar that is, symbolically, a common table rather than Calvary. As a consequence, the holy fear and sense of unworthiness affirmed by the psalm are no longer inculcated.
(MR 1952): Mass begins with the prayers at the foot of the altar, Psalm 42 (“Judica me, Deus”), and the Confiteor. (134)
12. (OHS 1956): In the same decree, all the rites of the Vigil of Pentecost are abolished, except the Mass. (135)
Commentary: This hasty abolition has all the marks of being tacked on at the last moment. Pentecost always had a vigil similar in its ceremonies to that of Easter. The reform, however, was not able to deal with Pentecost. But then again, the reformers could not leave untouched two rites which, fifty days apart, would have been, in the one case, a reformed version and, in the other, a traditional version. In their haste they decided to suppress the one they did not have time to reform; the ax fell on the Vigil of Pentecost. Such improvident haste resulted in rapid editing of the rites of the Vigil of Pentecost, so that the texts of the Mass which traditionally followed those rites no longer harmonized with them. Consequently, in the rite thus violently mutilated phrases remain which are rendered incongruous with the words of the celebrant during the Canon.
The Canon presumes that the Mass is preceded by the rites of Baptism, which have been, however, suppressed. As a result, thanks to this reform, the celebrant recites during the special “Hanc igitur” words related to the sacrament of Baptism during the Vigil, whether the blessing of the font or the conferral of the Sacrament: “Pro his quoque, quos regenerare dignatus es ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto, tribuens eis remissionem peccatorum” [“For these, too, whom Thou hast deigned to regenerate with water and the Holy Spirit, granting them remission of their sins”]. (136) But there is not a trace of this rite anymore. The Commission, in its haste to suppress, perhaps did not notice.
(MR 1952): The Vigil of Pentecost has rites which are baptismal in character, of which the “Hanc igitur” of the Mass makes mention. (137)
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, as already affirmed, the changes were not limited to questions of the horarium, which legitimately and sensibly could have been modified for the good of the faithful; rather, they overturned the age-old rites of Holy Week. Beginning with Palm Sunday, a ritual of “versus populum” is created, so that the back is turned towards the altar and the cross. On Holy Thursday, the laity are made to enter the sanctuary. On Good Friday, the honors rendered to the Most Blessed Sacrament are reduced as is the veneration of the Cross. On Holy Saturday, not only is the reforming imagination of the experts allowed to run wild, but the symbolism relating to Original Sin and to Baptism as the doorway into the Church is demolished. In an era that claims it desires to rediscover the Scriptures, the passages read on this most important of days are reduced, and the Gospel passages on the institution of the Holy Eucharist in Matthew, Luke, and Mark are edited out. Traditionally, every time that the institution of the Eucharist was read during these days, it was placed in relation to the account of the Passion, to indicate how completely the Last Supper was an anticipation of the death on the Cross the following day, and thus to indicate how much the Last Supper is of a sacrificial nature. Three days were dedicated to the reading of these passages: Palm Sunday, Holy Tuesday, and Holy Wednesday. Thanks to the reform, the institution of the Holy Eucharist disappears completely from the liturgical cycle!
The entire raison d’être of the reform seems to be permeated with the whiff of rationalism and archeologism, with at times dollops of pure imagination. It is in no way intended to suggest that these rites lack the requisite orthodoxy, both because it would be unfounded and because the divine assistance promised by Christ to the Church even regarding what theologians call “dogmatic facts” (among which, we maintain, the promulgation of a universal liturgical law must be included) prevents a clearly heterodox expression within her rites. Having made this stipulation, though, we cannot excuse ourselves from noting the incongruence and extravagance of some of the rites of the reformed Holy Week, while at the same time upholding the possibility and liceity of a theological discussion of the same, in order to discover a true continuity of the liturgical expression of Tradition. To deny that the "Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae Instauratus" is the product of a group of expert academics—joined unfortunately by opportunistic liturgical experimenters—is to deny the reality of the facts. With due respect to the papal authority that promulgated this reform, we are allowed to advance the criticisms which follow, since the experimental nature of these innovations requires that a balance be struck between such criticism and respect for authority.
According to Father Carlo Braga, this reform was the "head of the battering-ram" which broke into the Roman liturgy for the holiest days of the year. Something so revolutionary was bound to have repercussions on the entire subsequent spirit of the liturgy. In effect, it signaled the beginning of a deplorable attitude by which things could be done or undone in liturgical matters at the pleasure of the experts. Things could be suppressed or reintroduced on the basis of historico-archeological opinions, without taking account later that the historians had been wrong. (The most egregious example as it turned out, mutatis mutandis, was the much touted "Canon of Hippolytus.")
The liturgy is not a toy in the hands of the theologian or symbolist most in vogue. The liturgy draws its strength from Tradition; from the Church's infallible use of Tradition; from those gestures which have been employed for centuries; and from a symbolism which cannot exist merely in the minds of free-thinking academics but which corresponds to the consensus of clergy and people who have prayed in that manner for ages. Our analysis is confirmed by the synthesis of Father Braga, a protagonist extraordinaire of those events: "That which was not possible, psychologically and spiritually, at the time of Pius V and Urban VIII because of tradition [and we would like to emphasize "because of tradition"], because of insufficient spiritual and theological formation, and because of a lack of acquaintance with the liturgical sources, was possible at the time of Pius XII." (138) While we share his analysis of the facts, we might be permitted to object that Tradition, far from posing an obstacle to the work of liturgical reform, is the foundation for it. To treat of the era following the Council of Trent with disdain and to define Saint Pius V and the popes that followed him as men of "insufficient spiritual and theological formation" is presumptuous and proximate to heterodoxy in its rejection of the centuries-old work of the Church.
It is no mystery that this was the climate in the fifties and sixties during the reform. Under the pretext of archeologism, the millennial wisdom of the Church was replaced by the caprice of personal judgment. Acting in this way, one does not reform the liturgy but deforms it. Under the pretext of restoring ancient practices--about which scientific studies of a dubious and fluctuating value have been written--one gets rid of tradition and, having torn the fabric of the liturgy, now makes a flawed patch job by sewing on an archeological discovery of unlikely authenticity. The impossibility of an integral revival of rites that—if they ever existed—have been dead for centuries results in handing over the remaining work of "restoration" to the free flight of the "experts'" imagination.
The over-all judgment on the reform of Holy Week is mainly rather negative: it certainly does not constitute a model of liturgical reform (thanks, in part, to the artificial way it was pieced together and its use of personal intuitions at odds with tradition). The case of the reform of 1955-1956 was analyzed because it was, according to Annibale Bugnini, the first occasion for the inauguration of a new way to conceive of the liturgy.
The rites produced by this reform were used universally by the Church for very few years, amidst a continual succession of reforms. Today, that artificial way of conceiving of the liturgy has been left behind. The great work of re-appreciating the riches of the liturgy of the Roman rite is making headway. Our sight must be set unceasingly on what the Church has done for centuries, in the certainty that those ancient rites have the benefit of the Holy Spirit's "unction." As such, they constitute an irreplaceable model for every work of reform. The then-Cardinal Ratzinger has this to say: "In the course of her history, the Church has never abolished or prohibited orthodox forms of the liturgy, because that would be foreign to the very soul of the Church." (139) These forms, especially those going back a millennium, remain the guiding light for every work of reform.
[1] Cf. S. Congregation of Rites, Decr. “Dominicae Resurrectionis,” Feb. 9, 1951: AAS 43, 1951, pp. 128 et ss.; Decr. “Maxima redemptionis nostrae mysteria,” Nov. 16, 1955: AAS 47, 1955, pp. 838 et ss.
[2] N. Giampietro, “A cinquant’anni dalla riforma liturgica della Settimana Santa,”in Ephemerides liturgicae, anno CXX, 2006, n. 3 luglio-settembre, p. 295.
[3] A. Bugnini, The Liturgical Reform (1948-1975), Rome, 1983, pp. 17 et ss.
[4] C.Braga, “‘Maxima Redemptionis Nostrae Mysteria’: 50 anni dopo (1955-2005)” in Ecclesia Orans, n. 23 (2006), p. 11; the author clearly affirms that he witnessed the reforms first-hand and that he actively assisted it by his labors.
[5] A.Bugnini, C.Braga, Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae instauratus (Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae, sectio historica 25), Rome, 1956; for historical-critical commentary see also: Sacra Congregatio Rituum, sectio Historica, n. 90, De instauratione liturgica maioris hebdomadae. Positio: Typis Pol. Vaticanis, 1955. For the published works of Annibale Bugnini which were to prepare for the reform, cf: A. Bugnini, “De solemni Vigilia Paschali instauranda. Commentarium ad decretum 9 febr. 1951,” in Ephemerides Liturgicae 65 (1951) suppl. ad fasc. I (also published in the collection Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae, sectio historica 24); “Il primo esperimento della Veglia Pasquale restaurata,” in Ephemerides Liturgicae 66 (1952).
[6] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 300.
[7] A. Bugnini, The Liturgical Reform., op. cit., p. 19.
[8] Ibid..
[9] N. Giampietro, op. cit., pp. 320-327; the traditional rite, nevertheless, was allowed to be retained in the Holy Land up until 2000.
[10] L. Gromier, Commentaire du Caerimoniale Episcoporum, Paris, 1959.
[11] L. Gromier, Semaine Sainte Restaurée, in Opus Dei, 1962, n. 2, pp. 76-90. The French original is online at http://civitas.dei.pagesperso-orange.fr/gromier_fr.htm, while an English translation can be found in http://civitas.dei.pagesperso-orange.fr/gromier.htm
[12] See the adjoined photographs and the confirmation given by Msgr. Bartolucci, who received the order from Msgr. Dante to use the traditional rites; P. Cipriani, S. Carusi, edd., “Intervista a Mons. Domenico Bartolucci, su Disputationes Theologicae” (http://disputationes-theologicae.blogspo...sulla.html and translated by Rorate Caeli: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2009/08...enico.html).
[13] C.Braga, op. cit,, p. 33.
[14] F. Antonelli, “La riforma liturgica della Settimana Santa: importanza attualità prospettive” in La Restaurazione liturgica nell’opera di Pio XII. Atti del primo Congresso Internazionale di Liturgia Pastorale, Assisi- Roma, 12-22 settembre 1956, Genova 1957, pp. 179-197, cited in C. Braga, op. cit, p. 34.
[15] Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae Instauratus, iuxta editionem typicam vaticanam, Turonibus 1956 (hereinafter: OHS 1956), pp. 3 and 9; the pagination is identical to that of the “typical edition.”
[16] Archives of the Congregation of Saints (originally the Sacra Congregatio Rituum), “Annotazione intorno alla riforma della liturgia della Domenica delle Palme,” p. 9, cited in N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 309.
[17] Missale Romanum, Ex Decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini Restitutum S. Pii V Pontificis Maximi jussu editum aliorum pontificum cura recognitum a Pio X Reformatum et Benedicti XV Auctoritate Vulgatum, editio vigesima quinta juxta typicam vaticanam, Turonibus MCMXLII (hereinafter: MR 1952), p. 455.
[18] L. Gromier, Semaine Sainte Restaurée, p. 3.
[19] MR 1952, p. 129.
[20] OHS 1956, p. 3.
[21] MR 1952, xxvii.
[22] OHS 1956, p. 3.
[23] C. BRAGA, op. cit., p.22.
[24] MR 1952, p. 129-132.
[25] OHS 1956, pp. 3, 4.
[26] OHS 1956, p. 3; cf. as well note 13.
[27] C. Braga, op. cit., p. 306.
[28] MR 1952, p. 131, 132.
[29] OHS 1956, pp. 3, 4.
[30] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 307.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] MR 1952, pp. 133, 134.
[36] OHS 1952, p. 7.
[37] P.Martinucci, Manuale Sacrarum Caerimoniarum, Rome, 1912, Editio tertia, pars I, vol. II, p. 183.
[38] OHS 1956, p. 8.
[39] MR 1952, p. 135.
[40] Ibid.
[41] OHS 1956, p. 9.
[42] Ibid.
[43] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 309.
[44] C. Braga, op. cit., p. 25.
[45] OHS 1956, p. 14.
[46] MR 1952, p. 141.
[47] OHS 1956, p. 11.
[48] N.Giampietro, op. cit., pp. 304, 305.
[49] MR 1952, p. 137.
[50] OHS 1956, p. 15; the text contains a prohibition against adding the old prayers.
[51] C.Braga, op. cit., p. 28; N. Giampietro, op. cit., pp. 304, 305.
[52] MR 1952, pp. 118, 142.
[53] OHS 1956, p. 17.
[54] MR 1952, pp. 143, 144.
[55] OHS 1956, p. 22.
[56] MR 1952, pp. 149, 150.
[57] OHS 1956, p. 55, rubric n. 4.
[58] C.Braga, op. cit., p. 26.
[59] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 294.
[60] C. Braga, p. 27.
[61] P. Martinucci, op. cit., p. 201 (n° 24), p.73 (n° 293).
[62] OHS 1956, p. 55; also, the tabernacle must be emptied of any previously consecrated Hosts.
[63] Ibid.
[64] MR 1952, p. 154 et ss.
[65] OHS 1956, p. 57.
[66] C. Braga, op. cit., p. 17.
[67] MR 1952, pp. 158, 159.
[68] OHS 1956, p. 61.
[69] Caeremoniale Episcoporum, l. II, cap. XXIX, 3.
[70] OHS 1956, p. 64.
[71] OHS 1956, p. 65; alternatively, the removal of the cross is included in the vague passage: “celebrans (…) denudat omnia altaria ecclesiae” [“the celebrant …strips all the altars of the church”], ibid., p. 63, note n.7.
[72] MR 1952, p. 158.
[73] OHS, p. 65.
[74] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p.315.
[75] MR 1952, p. 160.
[76] OHS, p. 64.
[77] MR 1952, p. 171.
[78] N. Giampietro, pp. 304, 305.
[79] MR 1952, p. 164.
[80] OHS, p. 64.
[81] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 314.
[82] C.Braga, op. cit., p. 28.
[83] C.Braga, p. 30.
[84] MR 1952, p. 160.
[85] For the meaning to be assigned to these terms see the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of June 10, 1948, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, XL, 1948, p. 342.
[86] We would add the evidence (on the level of the history of popular customs) of the missals which might be consulted or the “Ordo” booklets; there appear at this point hand-written corrections or little slips of paper which remind the celebrant, without obliging him to buy another missal, of the innumerable corrections to the prayers made at various stages, beginning with the 1950’s—an unequivocal sign of a liturgy, if we might be allowed the expression, “permanently evolving.”
[87] C. Braga, op. cit., p. 30.
[88] Ibid.
[89] A.Bugnini, “Le nuove orazioni del Venerdì Santo,” in L’Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.
[90] MR 1952, p. 169.
[91] OHS 1956, p. 78.
[92] C. Braga, op. cit., p. 30, 31.
[93] MR 1952, 171.
[94] OHS 1956, 82.
[95] C. Braga, op. cit., p. 28. A confirmation of this aversion on the part of some members of the Commission for the expression “sepulcher” can be found in N. Giampietro, op. cit, p. 312.
[96] MR 1952, p. 174.
[97] OHS 1956, p. 82.
[98] MR 1952, p. 174.
[99] OHS 1956, p. 83.
[100] C. Braga, p. 18.
[101] MR 1952, p. 175.
[102] OHS 1956, p. 83.
[103] N. Giampietro, op. cit. , p. 297.
[104] MR 1952, p. 174.
[105] OHS 1956, p. 83.
[106] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 297.
[107] MR 1952, p. 176.
[108] OHS 1956, p. iv.
[109] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 314.
[110] OHS 1956, p. 86.
[111] MR 1952, p. 178.
[112] OHS 1956, p. 88.
[113] MR 1952, p. 178.
[114] OHS 1956, p. 89.
[115] N. Giampietro, op. cit., p. 318.
[116] OHS 1956, p. 94.
[117] OHS 1956, p. 94.
[118] OHS 1956, p. 94.
[119] MR 1952, p. 179-185; in terms of history, it is possible to discuss the evolution of the relation of the sung parts with the gestures, with various eras being assigned for the introduction of gestures in relation to the evolution of the text; nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the development of the symbolism of the ritual gestures and the meaning of the words has been fixed for centuries in a harmonious way and under the seal of tradition.
[120] OHS 1956, p. 101-102, 113-114.
[121] MR 1952, p. 207.
[122] OHS 1956, p. 103.
[123] C. Braga, p. 23.
[124] C. Braga, p. 18, 19.
[125] MR 1952, p. 199 et ss.
[126] OHS 1956, p. 111; a somewhat confusing rubric is foreseen for rubric no. 23 in the case of a baptistery located apart from the church; in this case, the “Sicut Cervus” is sung at a convenient point. It is impossible to understand the reason for this inconsistency which contradicts the preceding rubric.
[127] MR 1956, p. 199.
[128] OHS 1956, p. 112.
[129] OHS 1956, p. 112.
[130] OHS 1956, p. 112.
[131] OHS 1956, p. 113-115.
[132] MR 1952, p. 210.
[133] OHS 1956, p. 115.
[134] MR 1952, p. 210.
[135] OHS 1956, p. vi, note 16.
[136] MR 1952, p. 247.
[137] MR 1952, p. 336 et ss.
[138] C.Braga, op. cit., p. 18.
[139] Joseph Card. Ratzinger, “A dieci anni dal motu proprio Ecclesia Dei”, a conference given on Oct. 24, 1998.
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| Easter Sunday |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-04-2021, 06:17 AM - Forum: Easter
- Replies (7)
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INSTRUCTION ON EASTER
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year
36th edition, 1880
What is the festival of Easter?
EASTER, in Latin Pascha, signifies passing over, and has the following historical origin: Under Pharao, King of Egypt, the Jews in that country groaned under intolerable bondage. God had mercy on His people, and the hour of deliverance came. By His command the first-born of all the Egyptians was killed by an angel. The Jews had been ordered by God to be ready for emigration, but first to kill a lamb, eat it in their houses in common, and sprinkle the door posts with its blood. And the angel of death, by order of God, passed the doors sprinkled with the blood of the lamb, and did no harm to any child of the Israelites, whilst he slew all the first-born sons of the Egyptians. In grateful memory of this passing their doors, the Jews observed the festival of Easter, the Pasch, or Passover. After the death of Jesus, the apostles introduced the same festival into the Church in grateful remembrance of the day on which Jesus, the true Easter Lamb, took away our sins by His blood, freed us from the angel of eternal death,
and passed us over to the freedom of the children of God.
Where, during this time, was Christ's holy soul?
In Limbo, that is, the place where the souls of the just who died before Christ, and were yet in original sin, were awaiting their redemption.
What have we to expect from the Resurrection of Christ?
That our bodies will rise again from death. (Rom. viii. ii.) For if Christ our head is alive, then we His members must also become reanimated, because a living head cannot exist without living members.
What is meant by the Alleluia sung in Easter time?
In English Alleluia means, Praise the Lord, and expresses the joy of the Church at the Resurrection of Christ, and the hope of eternal happiness which He has obtained for us.
Why does the Church on this day bless eggs, bread, and meat?
To remind the faithful that although the time of fasting is now ended, they should not indulge in gluttony, but thank God, and use their food simply for the necessary preservation of physical strength.
At the Introit the Church introduces Christ, Her Head, as addressing His Heavenly Father in these words; I arose, and am still with thee, alleluia; thou hast laid thy hand upon me, alleluia: thy knowledge is become wonderful, alleluia, alleluia. Lord, thou hast proved me and known me: Thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up. (Ps. cxxxviii.) Glory be to the Father, etc.
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH O God, who on this day, through Thine only-begotten Son, didst overcome death and open unto us the gate of everlasting life; as by Thy prompting grace Thou dost breathe on the desires of our hearts, so do Thou ever accompany them with Thy help. Through etc.
EPISTLE (i Cor. v. 78.) BRETHREN, purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened: for Christ our Pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Quote:EXPLANATION. St. Paul here exhorts us that we should at this time remove by a good confession and true penance the leaven, that is, the sins we have committed, and partake of the Paschal lamb in holy Communion with a pure, sincere heart; as the Jews were on this day commanded to eat the Paschal lamb with unleavened bread, abstaining on this day from the old leaven.
During the octave of this festival repeat often with the Church: "Alleluia! Praise to the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endureth forever. Alleluia ! This is the day the Lord has made, Alleluia! Let us rejoice therein, Alleluia! Our Paschal Lamb is Christ who sacrificed Himself for us, Alleluia!"
GOSPEL (Mark xvi. I 7.) AT THAT TIME, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James and Salome, bought sweet spices, that, .coming, they might anoint Jesus. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they come to the sepulchre, the sun being now risen. And they said one to another: Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And looking, they saw the stone rolled back, for it was very great. And entering into the sepulchre they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed with a white robe, and they were astonished. Who saith to them: Be not affrighted; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen, he is not here; behold the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples, and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee: there you shall see him, as he told you.
Why did the holy women desire to embalm the body of Jesus with spices?
Because it was the custom of the Jews to embalm the dead, and as the Sabbath was so near and the time so short that they could not do it before the burial, these pious women procured the spices, and immediately after the Sabbath, hurried in the early morning to the sepulchre, to perform this act of love. We are taught by their conduct, that true love is never indifferent or slow, and what is agreeable to God it does without hesitation.
Why did the angel send the women to the disciples, and especially to Peter?
Because the disciples were to announce the Resurrection of Christ to the whole world, and they were now much saddened, and disturbed because of His death. Peter was the head of the apostles, and on account of having three times denied our Lord, he was greatly dejected and faint of heart, and was, therefore, above all to be comforted.
What encouragement does the Resurrection of Christ give us?
It encourages us to rise spiritually with Him, and live henceforth a new life, (Rom. vi. 4.) which we do if we not only renounce sin, but also flee from all its occasions, lay aside our bad habits, subdue our corrupt inclinations, and aim after virtue and heavenly things.
ASPIRATION I rejoice, O my Jesus, that Thou hast victoriously risen from death. By Thy triumph over death, hell and the devil, grant us the grace to subdue our evil inclinations, walk in a new life, and die to all earthly things. Amen.
INSTRUCTION. IT is certainly true that Christ, by His death on the cross and by His resurrection, has rendered perfect satisfaction, and effected man's redemption; (Heb. ix. 12.) but we must not imagine that there is no further need of doing penance, or of working out our salvation. For, as the children of Israel, though freed from Pharao's bondage, had to fight long and against many enemies in order to gain the Promised Land, so also must we, though freed by Christ from the servitude of the devil, battle against our enemies to the end of our lives to obtain the promised, heavenly land, for no one is crowned unless he has properly fought, (ii Tim. ii. 5.) We must apply the merits of the redemption and satisfaction of Christ to our soul by the frequent reception of the holy sacraments; by imitating His virtues; by patiently bearing our trials and sufferings; and by a penitential life. The pious Angelus Silesius very appropriately writes:
"God is a Lamb that avails you not, my Christian,
If you become not also a lamb of God.
The cross on Golgotha redeems not from evil,
If it is not also erected in thee;
The dear Christ's death aids you not, my Christian,
Until in Him and for Him you also have died."
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| Season of Paschal Tide |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-03-2021, 05:54 AM - Forum: Easter
- Replies (3)
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THE HISTORY OF PASCHAL TIME
We give the name of Paschal Time to the period between Easter Sunday and the Saturday following Whit Sunday. It is the most sacred portion of the Liturgical Year, and the one towards which the whole Cycle converges. We shall easily understand how this is, if we reflect upon the greatness of the Easter Feast, which is called the Feast of Feasts, and the Solemnity of Solemnities, in the same manner, says St. Gregory, [Homilia, xxii.] as the most sacred part of the Temple was called the Holy of Holies; and the Book of Sacred Scripture, wherein are described the espousals between Christ and the Church, is called the Canticle of Canticles. It is on this day, that the mission of the Word Incarnate attains the object towards which it has hitherto been unceasingly tending: mankind is raised up from his fall, and regains what he had lost by Adam’s sin.
Christmas gave us a Man-God; three days have scarcely passed, since we witnessed His infinitely precious Blood shed for our ransom; but now, on the day of Easter, our Jesus is no longer the Victim of death: He is a Conqueror, that destroys death, the child of sin, and proclaims life, that undying life which He has purchased for us. The humiliation of His swathing-bands, the sufferings of His Agony and Cross, these are passed; all is now glory,- glory for Himself, and glory also for us. On the day of Easter, God regains, by the Resurrection of the Man-God, His creation such as He made it at the beginning; the only vestige now left of death, is that likeness to sin which the Lamb of God deigned to take upon Himself. Neither is it Jesus alone that returns to eternal life; the whole human race also has risen to immortality together with our Jesus. ‘By a man came death,’ says the Apostle; ‘and by a Man the Resurrection of the dead: and as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.’ [1 Cor. xv. 21,22].
The anniversary of this Resurrection is, therefore, the great Day, the day of joy, the day par excellence; the day to which the whole year looks forward in expectation, and on which its whole economy is formed. But as it is the holiest of days,- since it opens to us the gate of Heaven, into which we shall enter because we have risen together with Christ,- the Church would have us come to it well prepared by bodily mortification and by compunction of heart. It was for this that she instituted the Fast of Lent, and that she bade us, during Septuagesima, look forward to the joy of her Easter, and be filled with sentiments suitable to the approach of so grand a solemnity. We obeyed; we have gone through the period of our preparation; and now the Easter sun has risen upon us!
But it was not enough to solemnize the great Day when Jesus, our Light, rose from the darkness of the tomb: there was another anniversary which claimed our grateful celebration. The Incarnate Word rose on the first day of the week,- that same day, where on, four thousand years before, He, the Uncreated Word of the Father, had begun the work of the Creation, by calling forth light, and separating it from darkness. The first day was thus ennobled by the creation of light. It received a second consecration by the Resurrection of Jesus; and from that time forward Sunday, and not Saturday, was to be the Lord’s Day. Yes, our Resurrection in Jesus which took place on the Sunday, gave this first day a pre-eminence above the others of the week: the divine precept of the Sabbath was abrogated together with the other ordinances of the Mosaic Law, and the Apostles instructed the faithful to keep holy the first day of the week, which God had dignified with that twofold glory, the creation and the regeneration of the world. Sunday, then, being the day of Jesus’ Resurrection, the Church chose that day, in preference to every other, for its yearly commemoration. The Pasch of the Jews, in consequence of its being fixed on the fourteenth of the moon of March, (the anniversary of the going out of Egypt,) fell by turns on each day of the week. The Jewish Pasch was but a figure; ours is the reality, and puts an end to the figure. The Church, therefore, broke this her last tie with the Synagogue; and proclaimed her emancipation, by fixing the most solemn of her Feasts on a day, which should never agree with that on which the Jews keep their now unmeaning Pasch. The Apostles decreed, that the Christian Pasch should never be celebrated on the fourteenth of the moon of March, even were that day to be a Sunday; but that it should be everywhere kept on the Sunday following the day on which the obsolete calendar of the Synagogue still marks it.
Nevertheless, out of consideration for the many Jews who had received Baptism, and who formed the nucleus of the early Christian Church, it was resolved that the law regarding the day for keeping the new Pasch, should be applied prudently and gradually. Jerusalem was soon to be destroyed by the Romans, according to our Saviour’s prediction; and the new City, which was to rise up from its ruins and receive the Christian colony, would also have its Church, but a Church totally free from the Jewish element, which God had so visibly rejected. In preaching the Gospel and founding Churches, even far beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, the majority of the Apostles had not to contend with Jewish customs; most of their converts were from among the Gentiles. Saint Peter, who in the Council of Jerusalem had proclaimed the cessation of the Jewish Law, set up the standard of emancipation in the City of Rome; so that the Church, which through him was made the Mother and Mistress of all Churches, never had any other discipline regarding the observance of Easter, than that laid down by the Apostles, namely, that it should be kept on a Sunday.
There was, however, one province of the Church, which for a long time stood out against the universal practice: it was Asia Minor. The Apostle St. John, who lived for many years at Ephesus,- where indeed he died,- had thought it prudent to tolerate, in those parts, the Jewish custom of celebrating the Pasch; for many of the converts had been members of the Synagogue. But the Gentiles themselves, who, later on, formed the mass of the faithful, were strenuous upholders of this custom, which dated from the very foundation of the Church of Asia Minor. In the course of time, however, this anomaly became a source of scandal: it savoured of Judaism, and it prevented unity of religious observance, which is always desirable, but particularly so in what regards Lent and Easter.
Pope St. Victor, who governed the Church from the year 193, endeavoured to put a stop to this abuse; he thought the time had come for establishing unity in so essential a point of Christian worship. Already, that is in the year 160, under Pope St. Anicetus, the Apostolic See had sought, by friendly negotiations, to induce the Churches of Asia Minor to conform to the universal practice; but it was difficult to triumph over a prejudice, which rested on a tradition held sacred in that country. St. Victor, however, resolved to make another attempt. He would put before them the unanimous agreement which reigned throughout the rest of the Church. Accordingly, he gave orders, that Councils should be convened in the several countries where the Gospel had been preached, and that the question of Easter should be examined. Everywhere there was perfect uniformity of practice; and the historian Eusebius, who lived a hundred and fifty years later, assures us, that the people of his day used to quote the decisions of the Councils of Rome, of Gaul, of Achaia, of Pontus, of Palestine, and of Osrhoene in Mesopotamia. The Council of Ephesus, at which Polycrates, the Bishop of that city, presided, was the only one that opposed the Pontiff, and disregarded the practice of the universal Church.
Deeming it unwise to give further toleration to the opposition, Victor separated from communion with the Holy See the refractory Churches of Asia Minor. This severe penalty, which was not inflicted until Rome had exhausted every other means of removing the evil, excited the commiseration of several Bishops. St. Irenaeus, who was then governing tile See of Lyons, pleaded for these Churches, which, so it seemed to him, had sinned only through a want of light; and he obtained from the Pope the revocation of a measure which seemed too severe. This indulgence produced the desired effect. In the following century, St. Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea, in his Book on the Pasch, written in 276, tells us that the Churches of Asia Minor had then, for some time past, conformed to the Roman practice.
About the same time, and by a strange co-incidence, the Churches of Syria, Cilicia. and Mesopotamia, gave scandal by again leaving the Christian and Apostolic observance of Easter, and returning to the Jewish rite of the fourteenth of the March moon. This Schism in the Liturgy grieved the Church; and one of the ponts to which the Council of Nicaea directed its first attention, was the promulgation of the universal obligation to celebrate Easter on the Sunday. The Decree was unanimously passed, and the Fathers of the Council ordained, that ‘all controversy being laid aside, the Brethren in the East should solemnize the Pasch on the same day as the Romans, the Alexandrians, and the rest of the faithful.’ [Spicilegium Solesmense.] So important seemed this question, inasmuch as it affected the very essence of the Christian Liturgy, that St. Athanasius, assigning the reasons which had led to the calling of the Council of Nicaea, mentions these two: the condemnation of the Arian heresy, and the establishment of uniformity in the observance of Easter.’ [Epist. ad Afros Episcopos.]
The Bishop of Alexandria was commissioned by the Council to see to the drawing up of astronomical tables, whereby the precise day of Easter might be fixed for each future year. The reason of this choice was, that the astronomers of Alexandria were looked upon as the most exact in their calculations. These tables were to be sent to the Pope, and he would address letters to the several Churches, instructing them as to the uniform celebration of the great Festival of Christendom. Thus was the unity of the Church made manifest by the unity of the holy Liturgy; and the Apostolic See, which is the foundation of the first, was likewise the source of the second. But, even previous to the Council of Nicaea, the Roman Pontiff had addressed to all the Churches, every year, a Paschal Encyclical, instructing them as to the day on which the solemnity of the Resurrection was to be kept. This we learn from the synodical Letter of the Fathers of the great Council held at Arles, in 314. The Letter is addressed to Pope St. Sylvester, and contains the following passage: ‘In the first place, we beg that the observance of the Pasch of the Lord may be uniform, both as to time and day, in the whole world, and that You would, according to the custom, address Letters to all concerning this matter.’ [Concil. Galilae. t. 1].
This custom, however, was not kept up for any length of time, after the Council of Nicaea. The want of precision in astronomical calculations occasioned confusion in the method of fixing the day of Easter. It is true, this great Festival was always kept on a Sunday; nor did any Church think of celebrating it on the same day as the Jews; but, since there was no uniform understanding as to the exact time of the Vernal Equinox, it happened sane years, that the Feast of Easter was not kept., in all places, on the same day. By degrees, there crept in a deviation from the rule laid down by the Council, of taking the 21st of March as the day of the Equinox. There was needed a reform in the Calendar, and no one seemed competent to bring it about. Cycles were drawn up contradictory to one another; Rome and Alexandria had each its own system of calculation; so that, some years, Easter was not kept with that perfect uniformity which the Nicene Fathers had so strenuously laboured for: and yet, this variation was not the result of anything like party-spirit.
The West followed Rome. The Churches of Ireland and Scotland, which had been misled by faulty Cycles, were, at length, brought into uniformity. Finally, science was sufficiently advanced in the 16th century, for Pope Gregory XIII. to undertake a reform of the Calendar. The Equinox had to be restored to the 21st of March, as the Council of Nicaea had prescribed. The Pope effected this by publishing a Bull, dated February 24, 1581, in which be ordered that ten days of the following year, namely from the 4th to the 15th of October, should be suppressed. He thus restored the work of Julius Caesar, who had, in his day, turned his attention to the rectification of the Year. Easter was the great object of the reform, or, as it is called, the New Style, achieved by Gregory XIII. The principles and regulations of the Nicene Council were again brought to bear on this the capital question of the Liturgical Year; and the Roman Pontiff thus gave to the whole world the intimation of Easter, not for one year only, but for centuries. Heretical nations were forced to acknowledge the divine power of the Church in this solemn act, which interested both religion and society. They protested against the Calendar, as they had protested against the Rule of Faith. England and the Lutheran States of Germany preferred following, for many years, a Calendar which was evidently at fault, rather then accept the New Style, which they acknowledged to be indispensable; but it was the work of a Pope! [Great Britain adopted the New Style, by Act of Parliament, in the year 1732. – Tr.] The only nation in Europe that keeps up the Old Style is Russia, whose antipathy to Rome obliges her to be thus ten or twelve days behind the rest of the civilized world.
All this shows us how important it was to fix the precise day of’ Easter; and God has several times shown by miracles, that the date of so sacred a Feast was not a matter of indifference. During the ages when the confusion of the Cycles and the want of correct astronomical computations occasioned great uncertainty as to the Vernal Equinox, miraculous events more than once supplied the deficiencies of science and authority. In a letter to St. Leo the Great, in the year 444, Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybea [The modern Marsala] in Sicily, relates that under the Pontificate of St. Zozinius,- Honorius being Consul for the eleventh, and Constantius for the second time,- the real day of Easter was miraculously revealed to the people of one of the churches there. In the midst of a mountainous and thickly wooded district of the Island was a village called Meltinas. Its church was of the poorest, but it was dear to God. Every year, on the night preceding Easter Sunday, as the Priest went to the Baptistery to bless the Font, it was found to be miraculously filled with water, for there were no human means wherewith it could be supplied. As soon as Baptism was administered, the water disappeared of itself, and left the Font perfectly dry. In the year just mentioned, the people, misled by a wrong calculation, assembled for the ceremonies of Easter Eve. The Prophecies having been read, the Priest and his flock repaired to the Baptistery,- but the Font was empty. They waited, expecting the miraculous flowing of the water, wherewith the Catechumens were to receive the grace of regeneration: but they waited in vain, and no Baptism was ad ministered. On the following 22nd of April, the Font was found to be filled to the brim, and thereby the people understood that that was the true Easter for that year. [Sti. Leonis Opera, Epist. iii.]
Cassiodorus, writing in the name of king Athalaric to a certain Severus, relates a similar miracle, which happened every year on Easter Eve, in Lucania, near the small Island of Leucothea, at a place called Marcilianum. There was a large fountain there, whose water was so clear, that the air itself was not more transparent. It was used as the Font for the administration of Baptism on Easter Night. As soon as the Priest, standing under the rock where with nature had canopied the fountain, began the prayers of the Blessing, the water, as though taking part in the transports of the Easter joy, arose in the Font; so that, if previously it was to the level of the fifth step, it was seen to rise up to the seventh, impatient, as it were, to effect those wonders of grace whereof it was the chosen instrument. God would show by this, that even inanimate creatures can share, when He so wills it, in the holy gladness of the greatest of all days. [Cassiodorus, Variarum, lib. vii. epist. xxxiii.]
St. Gregory of Tours tells us of a Font, which existed even then, in a church of Andalusia, in a place called Osen, and whereby God miraculously certified to His people the true day of Easter. On the Maundy Thursday of each year, the Bishop, accompanied by the faithful, repaired to this church. The bed of the Font was built in the form of a cross, and was paved with mosaics. It was carefully examined, to see that it was perfectly dry; and after several prayers had been recited, every one left the church, and the Bishop sealed the door with his seal. On Holy Saturday the Pontiff returned, accompanied by his flock; the seal was examined, and the door was opened. The Font was found to be filled, even above the level of the floor, and yet the water did not overflow. The Bishop pronounced the exorcisms over the miraculous water, and poured the Chrism into it. The Catechumens were then baptized; and as soon as the sacrament had been administered, the water immediately disappeared, and no one could tell what became of it. [De Gloria Martyrum, lib. i. Cap. xxiv.] Similar miracles were witnessed in several churches in the East. John Moschus, a writer in the 7th century, speaks of a Baptismal Font in Lycia, which was thus filled every Easter Eve; hut the water remained in the Font during the whole fifty days, and suddenly disappeared after the Festival of Pentecost. [Pratum spirituale, cap. ccxv.]
We alluded, in our History of Passiontide, to the decrees passed by the Christian Emperors, which forbade all law proceedings during the fortnight of Easter, that is, from Palm Sunday to the Octave day of the Resurrection. St. Augustine, in a sermon he preached on this Octave, exhorts the faithful to extend to the whole year this suspension of law-suits, disputes, and enmities, which the civil law interdicted during these fifteen days.
The Church puts upon all her children the obligation of receiving Holy Communion at Easter. This precept is based upon the words of our Redeemer, who left it to His Church to determine the time of the year, when Christians should receive the Blessed Sacrament. In the early ages, Communion was frequent, and, in some places, even daily. By degrees, the fervour of the faithful grew cold towards this august Mystery, as we gather from a decree of the Council of Agatha (Agde), held in 506, where it is defined, that those of the laity who shall not approach Communion at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, are to be considered as having ceased to be Catholics. [Concil. Agath. Canon xviii.] This Decree of the Council of Agatha was accepted as the law of almost the entire Western Church. We find it quoted among the regulations drawn up by Egbert, Archbishop of York, as also in the third Council of’ Tours. In many places, however, Communion was obligatory for the Sundays of Lent, and for the last three days of Holy Week, independently of that which was to be made on the Easter Festival.
It was in the year 1215, in the 4th General Council of Lateran, that the Church, seeing the ever growing indifference of her children, decreed with regret that Christians should be strictly bound to Communion only once in the year, and that that Communion of obligation should be made at Easter. In order to show the faithful that this is the uttermost limit of her condescension to lukewarmness, she declares, in the same Council, that he that shall presume to break this law, may be forbidden to enter a church during life, and he deprived of Christian burial after death, as he would be if he had, of his own accord, separated himself from the exterior link of Catholic unity. [Two centuries after this, Pope Eugenius the Fourth, in the Constitution Digna Fide, given in the year 1440, allowed this annual Communion to be made on any day between Palm Sunday and Low Sunday inclusively. – In England, by permission of the Holy See, the time for making the Easter Communion extends from Ash Wednesday to Low Sunday. Tr.]] These regulations of a General Council show how important is the duty of the Easter Communion; but, at the same time, they make us shudder at the thought of the millions, throughout the Catholic world, who brave each year the threats of the Church, by refusing to comply with a duty, which would both bring life to their souls, and serve as a profession of their faith. And when we again reflect upon how many even of those who make their Easter Communion, have paid no more attention to the Lenten Penance than if there were no such obligation in existence, we cannot help feeling sad, and we wonder within ourselves, how long God will bear with such infringements of the Christian Law?
The fifty days between Easter and Pentecost have ever been considered by the Church as most holy. The first week, which is more expressly devoted to celebrating our Lord’s Resurrection, is kept up as one continued Feast; but the remainder of the fifty days is also marked with special honours. To say nothing of the joy, which is the characteristic of this period of the year, and of which the Alleluia is the expression,- Christian tradition has assigned to Eastertide two practices, which distinguish it from every other Season. The first is, that fasting is not permitted during the entire interval: it is an extension of the ancient precept of never fasting on a Sunday, and the whole of Eastertide is considered as one long Sunday. This practice, which would seem to have come down from the time of the Apostles, was accepted by the Religious Rules of both East and West, even by the severest. The second consists in not kneeling at the Divine Office, from Easter to Pentecost. The Eastern Churches have faithfully kept up the practice, even to this day. It was observed for many ages by the Western Churches also; but now, it is little more than a remnant. The Latin Church has long since admitted genuflexions in the Mass during Easter time. The few vestiges of the ancient discipline in this regard, which still exist, are not noticed by the faithful, inasmuch as they seldom assist at the Canonical Hours.
Eastertide, then, is like one continued Feast. It is the remark made by Tertullian, in the 3rd century. He is reproaching those Christians who regretted having renounced, by their Baptism, the festivities of the pagan year; and he thus addresses them: “If you love Feasts, you will find plenty among us Christians; not merely Feasts that last only for a day, but such as continue for several days together. The Pagans keep each of their Feasts once in the year; but you have to keep each of yours many times over, for you have the eight days of its celebration. Put all the Feasts of the Gentiles together, and they do not amount to our fifty days of Pentecost.” [De Idolatria, cap. xiv.] St. Ambrose speaking on the same subject, says: “If the Jews are not satisfied with the Sabbath of each week, but keep also one which lasts a whole month, and another which lasts a whole year;- how much more ought not we to honour our Lord’s Resurrection? Hence our ancestors have taught us to celebrate the fifty days of Pentecost as a continuation of Easter. They are seven weeks, and the Feast of Pentecost commences the eighth. … During these fifty days, the Church observes no fast, as neither does she on any Sunday, for it is the day on which our Lord rose: and all these fifty days are like so many Sundays.” [In Lucam, lib. viii. cap. xxv.]
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| Holy Saturday |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-03-2021, 05:34 AM - Forum: Lent
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INSTRUCTION ON HOLY SATURDAY
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year
36th edition, 1880
Why is this day called Holy Saturday?
BECAUSE on this day Jesus, the Holy of holies, rested in the sepulchre, and because the Church to-day blesses the new fire, the Easter candle, and the baptismal water.
Why is fire struck anew, blessed, and the lamps and candles in the Church lighted from it?
In ancient times it was customary to strike a new fire every day, bless it, and light the candles from it, and later this was done every Saturday; in the eleventh century this ceremony was restricted to Holy Saturday. The fire is struck from a stone to indicate, that Christ is the light of the world, and the Stone which the Jews rejected has now become the Corner stone of His Church; (Ps. cxvii. 22.) that the divine Son, the light of the world, was apparently extinguished at His death, but at His resurrection shone anew; that all those who witness this ceremony today be spiritually enlightened hereafter. This fire is blessed, because the Church blesses every thing that is used for divine service, and because the light and fire represent Christ, who brought the fire of love upon earth with which to enkindle our hearts. (Luke xii. 49.)
What is represented by the triple candle?
The triple candle represents the most Holy Trinity of which the second Divine Person came down upon the earth as the true light. For this reason the priest (or deacon) sings at the lighting of each candle: Lumen Christi, Light of Christ, and kneeling three times humbly adores the Triune Deity, and especially Christ the true, divine Light. The chanter responds Deo gratias, Thanks be to God.
What does the Easter candle signify?
It is an emblem of Christ who has risen from death. Christ the true Light leads us from the bondage of Satan into the freedom of the children of God as the pillar of fire led the children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt. The five holes in the candle represent the five wounds of Jesus by which mankind was healed , (i Pet. ii. 24,) and the five grains of frankincense signify the spices with which the body of our Lord was embalmed.
Why are all the candles and lamps lighted from the triple candle?
To show that Christ was begotten by the Father of Light from all eternity, and is therefore true God from true God, true Light from true Light, from whom enlightenment is diffused over all men. (ii Cor. iv, 6.)
To what do the twelve prophecies refer which are read before the blessing of the baptismal font?
They have reference to Christ in whom the predictions contained therein were verified. The number corresponds to the twelve apostles, who announced their fulfillment to the world.
Why is the baptismal water blessed with so many ceremonies and what is its signification?
The baptismal water is blessed with so many ceremonies that the different effects of baptism may be shown, and that this holy Sacrament may be administered and received with more reverence and devotion; it signifies the blood Of Christ by which our souls are purified.
What is the meaning of these ceremonies?
The priest with his hand parts the water in the form of the cross, to illustrate that God gives to it the virtue of regenerating all those born in original sin, making them children of God through Christ who died on the cross. He touches the surface of the water with the palm of his hand, to show that the Holy Ghost is over this water as at the creation, and bestows many graces on those who are baptized. He blesses it; signing it three times with the sign of the cross, because the water receives its sin-cleansing power only through the sufferings and the merits of Christ, from the Father, by the cooperation of the Holy Ghost. The baptismal water is thrown by the priest towards the four parts of the earth, because the grace of baptism should reach all nations. The priest breathes on the water three times in the form of a cross, as the Creator breathed into man the breath of life; Christ breathed upon the apostles the divine Spirit who by His grace and power revives and sanctifies those who are baptized. The Easter candle, (emblem of Christ, risen from the dead) is dipped three times into the water each time deeper, to show that the baptized should become more and more enlightened through the light of Christ's doctrine, more and more penetrated by its divinity, more and more purified from sin. The people are sprinkled with this water to remind all those present who have received sanctification in baptism, and have lost it by sin, that they should strive to regain it by true repentance. Finally, oil and chrism are mixed with the water as a sign that the grace of the Holy Ghost of which these are figures, is given through the water to those who receive this Sacrament; and also, that the baptized should, after baptism, devote themselves to the service of Christ, the Anointed One, and unite themselves in love to Him.
Why is the baptismal water blessed only on this day and on the Saturday before Pentecost?
Because in early times converts were baptized only on these days; and because the risen Saviour is the example of a soul sanctified by the Holy Ghost in baptism.
How should we assist at the blessing of the baptismal water?
With sentiments of sincere gratitude for the grace of baptism; with the firm resolution of preserving our baptismal innocence, or if we have lost it, of gaining it by penance. We should renew our baptismal vows especially on this day by saying the apostle's creed, making acts of faith, hope, love, and contrition; and renounce anew the devil, all his pride, and all his suggestions.
Why does the priest prostrate himself after blessing the baptismal water and rise again after the litany of the saints has been chanted?
To most humbly ask God, by the intercession of the saints, that He would give to all men the grace of baptism, that as all men have been dead and buried in sin, so they may rise with Christ as new creatures to grace and eternal life.
Why are the altars decorated on this day?
Because the Church, the beloved bride of Christ, de- sires to announce in advance to her children the glad tidings, that the Lord has risen from the dead; she decorates her- self therefore, and causes the bells to peal and joyous hymns to resound. It also has reference to the glorious, incorruptible body with which Christ adorned Himself at His Resurrection.
Why is there no Introit in this day's Mass?
The Introit of the Mass was formerly an entire psalm which was sung while the people were assembling in church ; but as in early times the people on Easter were already assembled to assist at the ceremonies, no Introit was sung at the Mass. The Church observes the same practice, although she abolished the night vigils on account of the abuses to which they gave rise.
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH: O God, who makest this most sacred night illustrious by the glory of the Resurrection of our Lord, preserve in the new offspring of Thy family the spirit of adoption, which Thou hast given them; that being renewed in body and soul, they may serve Thee with purity of heart. Through the same etc.
EPISTLE (Coloss. iii. i 4.) BRETHREN: If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: mind the things that are above, not the things that are on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then shall you appear 1 with him in glory.
After the epistle the priest sings three times: Alleluia! as a joyful exclamation over the Redeemer's triumphant victory
Quote:EXPLANATION. St. Paul places Christ's resurrection before us as the example and motive of the spiritual resurrection from sin, which should be effected in us by the holy Sacraments at Easter. With Christ we should die to the world, and live hidden in Him, if we desire to rise at the Last Day with Him in glory, and be acknowledged before all men by Him as His own.
GOSPEL (Matt, xxviii. 17.) IN the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen, and the other Mary, to view the sepulchre. And behold there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven: and coming, rolled back the stone , and sat upon it. And his countenance was as lightning, and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror, and be- came as dead men. And the angel answering, said to the women: Fear not you: for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen, as he said. Come, and see the place where the Lord was laid. And going quickly, tell ye his disciples that he is risen: and behold, he will go before you into Galilee; there you shall see him. Lo, I have foretold it to you.
What are we to learn from this gospel?
That we, too, will receive the plenitude of divine grace and heavenly blessings, if like these pious women we seek Christ early, that is, by making a good intention before we begin our work.
Why is there no Credo or Agnus Dei said, nor the kiss of peace given, and why are short vespers said after communion?
Formerly, the Credo or Confession of Faith was said by the newly baptized, the Agnus Dei was sung in the Litany of the Saints, and these are therefore omitted in the Mass. The kiss of peace is not given, because Christ had not yet said to His disciples, Peace be with you. Short vespers are said after the priest's communion, because this day is a type of the eternal Sabbath in heaven which has no vespers, that is, evening.
Do not omit on this day to thank our Lord for the many graces He has given us through His passion and death. If in the evening the solemn ceremonies of the resurrection are held, assist at them and there make the repeated resolution to rise from the sleep of sin and begin a new life with Christ.
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| Archbishop Viganò: A Meditation on the Passion and Death of the Lord |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-02-2021, 09:46 PM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Archbishop Viganò: A Meditation on the Passion and Death of the Lord
The Saviour reminds us that His most holy Passion must also be fulfilled in his Mystical Body - the Church.
This is your hour; it is the reign of darkness. Luke 22:53
The texts of the liturgy of the Sacred Triduum strike us, like the lash of a whip, for the crude brutality of the torments to which the Lord was subjected by the will of the Sanhedrin, at the order of the Roman procurator. The crowd, instigated by the high priests, invokes the innocent blood of the Son of God upon themselves and their children, denying in the space of just a few days the triumph which had been attributed to Him at His entrance into Jerusalem. The praises and cries of Hosanna turn into shouts of Crucify him, and the palm branches become whips and clubs. How much crowds can disappoint: they are capable of giving honor with the same conviction with which shortly afterwards they decree the death sentence.
Who are the protagonists and those responsible for this condemnation? Judas, one of the Twelve Apostles, a thief and a traitor, who for thirty pieces of silver hands the Master over to the ecclesiastical authority to have him arrested. The Sanhedrin, that is, the religious authority of the Old Law, which is still in force at the moment of the Passion. The false witnesses, who are either paid or else seek notoriety, who accuse Our Lord, contradicting one another. The people, or better the crowd that is ready for demonstrations in the square and lets itself be led by a few skilled manipulators. The Procurator Pontius Pilate, the representative of the Emperor in Palestine, who issues an unjust sentence but with official authority. And the whole jumble of nameless subordinates who rage with unprecedented cruelty against an innocent man, for the sole reason that this is expected of them: the Temple guards, the soldiers of the Sanhedrin, the Roman soldiers, the violent mob.
Our Lord is condemned to death despite the fact that his innocence has been recognized by the legitimate Magistrate: Accipite eum vos et crucifigite; ego enim non invenio in eo causam – Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him. Pilate does not want to antagonize the high priests, nor have the crowd against him, which the priests can manipulate by leveraging hatred of the Romans, who militarily occupy Palestine. Pilate knows the contempt that the Levites and elders of the people harbor against him, considering him a pagan from whom they must keep their distance, to the point of not wanting to contaminate themselves by entering the Praetorium: they remain outside even as they ensure that the temporal power which oppresses them will become their accomplice in condemning their Messiah for blasphemy, that is, for a religious crime. Or rather: in order to send an innocent man to death without a conviction. Innocens ego sum a sanguine iusti huius, says Pilate: I am innocent of the death of this just man. Thus the civil authority, out of fearfulness in the face of arrogance and the blackmail of a riot, abandons the exercise of justice; just as the spiritual authority, in order not to lose the power which it has monopolized, hides the prophecies, insisting on not recognizing the promised Messiah despite the continuous confirmations of His divinity, and conspires to kill Jesus Christ because, speaking the truth, He has proclaimed that He is God. The princes of the priests threaten Pilate: Si hunc dimittis, non es amicus Cæsaris – If you release him, you are no friend of Caesar – and they go so far as to submit themselves to the imperial power in order to put their King to death: Non habemus regem, nisi Cæsarem – We have no king but Caesar. But was it not Herod, the king of Judea?
Even on the Cross, where the Lord intones the antiphon of his own Sacrifice with the words of the Psalmist: Deus meus, Deus meus: ut quid me dereliquisti? – My God, my God: why have you abandoned me? – those who have memorized the Sacred Scriptures pretend not to recognize in that solemn cry the last warning to the Synagogue, presaging the abolition of the Levitical priesthood and the imminent destruction of the Temple, forty years later, at the hand of Titus. In Psalm 21 David foretells what the Jews had before their eyes, what they were no longer able to understand because of their blindness, and we hear that warning repeated today in the Reproaches of the liturgy of Good Friday, incredulous at the infidelity of the chosen people and broken-hearted at the no less appalling repetition of the infidelity of the new Israel, of her pontiffs, of her ministers.
There is not a single word, in the liturgy of the Paschal Triduum, that does not sound like a pained and suffering accusation: the accusation of the Lord that sees fulfilled in his betrayal by Judas and his own people the action by which the religious and civil power unite against the Lord and His Christ: Astiterunt reges terrae, et principes convenerunt in unum, adversus Dominum, et adversus Christum ejus – The kings of the earth rise up, and princes conspire together against the Lord and his Anointed.
Our Lord says: If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you. If you were of the world, the world would love what is its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you. Remember the word that I have spoken to you: A servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. With this warning the Savior reminds us that His most holy Passion must also be fulfilled in his Mystical Body – If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you – both in individuals over the course of the centuries as well as in the Church as an institution at the end of time. And the correspondence between the Passion of Christ and the Passion of the Church is significant.
This correspondence seems to me to be even more evident in this hour of darkness, in which the power of the new unfaithful and corrupt Sanhedrin is allied with the temporal power in persecuting Our Lord and those who are faithful to Him. Today also the princes of the priests, thirsty for power and eager to please the empire that keeps them subjugated, have recourse to Pilate to have Catholics condemned, accusing them of blasphemy for not wanting to accept the betrayal of their leaders. The Apostles and martyrs of yesterday live once more in the apostles and martyrs of today, who for now are denied the privilege of a bloody martyrdom but are not denied persecution, ostracism and derision. Once again we find Judas, who sells good shepherds to the Sanhedrin; once again we find false witnesses, villains, those who instigate the crowd, the temple guards and the soldiers of the Praetorium; once again we find Caiaphas who tears his garments, Peter who denies the Lord, and the Apostles who run away and hide; once again we find those who crown the Church with thorns, who slap her face and mock her, who scourge her and expose her to ridicule; who throw upon her the Cross of the scandals of her ministers, the sins of her faithful; once again today there are those who dip the sponge in vinegar and pierce the side of the Church with a spear; once again today there is a seamless garment and those who cast lots for it. But just as on Good Friday, so also today the Mother of the Church and an Apostle will remain at the foot of the Cross, witnesses of the passio Ecclesiæ just as they were once witnesses of the passio Christi.
May each of us, in these hours of silence and recollection, examine himself. Let us ask ourselves if we want to be, in the liturgical action of the end times, among those who, even if only for the sake of conforming, looked away, shook their heads, and spat on the Lord on His journey to Calvary. Let us ask ourselves if in this sacred re-presentation we will have the courage to wipe the bloody Face of Christ in the devastated image of the Church, if like the Cyrenian we will know how to help the Church carry her Cross, if like Joseph of Arimathea we will offer a worthy place in which to lay her until she is resurrected. Let us ask ourselves how many times we have slapped Christ, taking the part of the Sanhedrin and the high priests, how many times we have placed human respect ahead of our Faith, how many times we have accepted thirty pieces of silver to betray and hand over the Savior, in His good ministers, to the princes of the priests and the elders of the people.
When the Church will cry out her Consummatum est under a black sky, while the earth will shake and the veil of the temple will be torn from top to bottom, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ (Col 1:24) will be accomplished in the Mystical Body. We will await the deposition from the Cross, the laying in the sepulchre, the absorbed and mute silence of nature, the descent into Hell. There will be, also in this instance, temple guards to keep watch and ensure that the pusillus grex does not rise again, and there will be those who will say that its followers have come to steal it.
Holy Saturday will also come for the Holy Church; the Exultet and the Alleluia will also come after the sorrow, death, and darkness of the tomb. Scimus Christum surrexisse a mortuis vere: we know that His Mystical Body will also rise with Him, just at the moment when his ministers will think that all is lost. And they will recognize the Church, as they have recognized the Lord, in fractione panis.
This is my wish, from the bottom of my heart, for this Holy Easter and for the times that await us.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
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| Abp. Viganò weighs in on ‘scandalous’ prohibition of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-02-2021, 08:05 PM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. weighs in on ‘scandalous’ prohibition of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica
‘For sixty years the doctrinal deviations introduced by Vatican II have insinuated that Mass offered without the people has no value,
or that it has less value than a concelebration or a Mass at which the faithful assist.’
April 1, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — On March 12, by means of an ordinance issued without signature, protocol number, or addressee, the First Section of the Secretariat of State forbade the celebration of private Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, beginning on the First Sunday of Passiontide. In the following days, Cardinals Raymond L. Burke, Gerhard L. Müller, Walter Brandmüller, Robert Sarah, and Joseph Zen expressed their justified bewilderment at this decision, which due to the irregular form in which it was drawn up leaves one to conclude that is an explicit order of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
Catholic doctrine teaches us the value of the Holy Mass, the glory it offers to the Most Holy Trinity, and the power of the Holy Sacrifice for both the living and dead. We also know that the value and efficacy of the Holy Mass does not depend on the number of faithful who assist at it nor on the worthiness of the celebrant, but rather on the unbloody reiteration of the same Sacrifice of the Cross through the work of the priest-celebrant, who acts in persona Christi and in the name of the entire Holy Church: suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis, ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui; ad utilitatem quoque nostram totiusque Ecclesiae suae sanctae.
The scandalous decision of an anonymous functionary of the Secretariat of State, easily identified as the unmentionable Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, unfortunately simply makes explicit what is already the practice in dioceses all over the world: For sixty years the doctrinal deviations introduced by Vatican II have insinuated that Mass offered without the people has no value, or that it has less value than a concelebration or a Mass at which the faithful assist. The post-conciliar liturgical norms forbid the erection of more altars in the same church and prescribe that during the celebration of a Mass at the main altar, other Masses should not be celebrated at the side altars. The Montinian Missale Romanum even provides a specific rite for the Missa sine populo, in which the greetings are omitted — for example, the Dominus vobiscum or the Orate, fratres — as if, in addition to those present, the Heavenly Court and the souls in purgatory were not also assisting at the Eucharistic Sacrifice. When a priest presents himself in any sacristy in the world asking to be able to celebrate the Mass — I am not saying in the Tridentine Rite, but also in the reformed one — he invariably hears the answer that he can join the previously scheduled concelebration, and in any case he is looked upon with suspicion if he asks to be able to celebrate without having some of the faithful present. It is useless to object that celebrating a private Mass is the right of every priest: The conciliar mens knows how to go far beyond the letter of the law in order to apply the spirit of Vatican II with tetragonal coherence, manifesting its true nature.
On the other hand, the reformed [Novus Ordo] Mass was modified in order to attenuate, silence, or explicitly deny those Catholic dogmas that constitute an obstacle to ecumenical dialogue: speaking of the four purposes of the Mass is considered scandalous, because this doctrine disturbs those who deny the latreutic, propitiatory, thanksgiving, and impetratory value of the Holy Sacrifice, as defined by the Council of Trent.
For the Modernists, nothing is more detestable than the simultaneous celebration of several Masses, just as celebration coram Sanctissimo (that is, in front of the tabernacle placed over the altar) is intolerable. The Holy Mass, for them, is a supper, a convivial feast, and not a sacrifice: For this reason the altar is replaced with a table and the tabernacle is no longer present over the altar, moved to “a place that is more suitable for prayer and recollection”; for this reason the celebrant faces the people and not God.
The ordinance of the Secretariat of State, beyond the disrespect towards the Canons of the Basilica and the hypocritical sleight-of-hand of the absence of a signature or protocol number, represents only the latest confirmation of a fact that evidently does not want to be either admitted or opposed by those who, albeit with good intentions, insist on considering individual actions without wanting to frame them in the broader context of the so-called “post-council,” in the light of which even the most insignificant changes acquire a disturbing coherence and demonstrate the subversive value of Vatican II. While it is true that on paper Vatican II reaffirms the value of the private Mass — as His Eminence Cardinal Burke recalls in his recent statement — in reality it has made private Mass the prerogative of “nostalgics” who are doomed to extinction or to eccentric groups of the faithful. The condescending air with which liturgists pontificate on these themes is indicative of an intolerance for anything Catholic that has survived in the tortured ecclesial body. In coherence with this position, Bergoglio can deny the title of Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix to Mary Most Holy with impunity, with the sole intent of pleasing Lutherans, who say that “papists” idolatrize a woman and deny that Jesus Christ is the One Mediator.
Prohibiting private Masses at Saint Peter’s today legitimizes the abuses in the other Basilicas and churches of the world, where this ban has already been in force for decades even though it has never been explicitly formulated. And it is even more significant that this abuse is imposed by means of an apparently official act, in which the authority of the Secretariat of State is meant to silence with reverential fear those who wish to remain Catholic despite the efforts of the present Hierarchy to the contrary. But in the past, prior to Benedict XVI, anyone who wanted to celebrate Holy Mass at Saint Peter’s did not have an easy life and was expelled from the temple like an excommunicated vitandus if he simply dared to celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin, to say nothing of the Tridentine Rite.
Of course, for the neomodernists, private Masses can be prohibited, and they will also seek to abrogate the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, because — as “Max Beans,” one of the most zealous sycophants of Santa Marta, recently admitted — the Tridentine liturgy presupposes a doctrine which is intrinsically opposed to “conciliar theology.” But if we come to the point of the scandal of the prohibition of private Masses in Saint Peter’s, we owe it also to the modus operandi of the Innovators, who proceed step-by-step in the liturgical, doctrinal, and moral fields, applying the principles of the “Overton Window.” Let’s acknowledge it: These indecorous winks at heretics and schismatics are in line with a strategy aimed at non-Catholic sects which finds its true completion in the broader strategy aimed at non-Christian religions and today’s reigning neopagan ideologies. This is the only way to understand this deliberate will to indulge the enemies of Christ in order to please the world and its prince.
It is from this perspective that one should understand the projection of animals on the facade of the Vatican Basilica; the entrance of the pachamama idol carried on the shoulders of bishops and clergy; the offering dedicated to Mother Earth placed on the altar of the Confession during a Mass presided over by Bergoglio; the desertion of the papal altar by the one who refuses the title of Vicar of Christ; the suppression of liturgical celebrations under the pretext of the pandemic and their replacement with ceremonies that recall the cult of personality of communist regimes; Saint Peter’s Square completely immersed in darkness so as to align itself with the new rites of globalist ecologism. This modern golden calf awaits the return of a Moses who descends from Sinai and restores Catholics in the True Faith after driving out the new idolaters, the followers of the Aaron of Santa Marta. And let no one dare to speak of mercy or love: Nothing is more distant from Charity than the attitude of he who, representing the authority of God on earth, abuses it in order to confirm in error the souls whom Christ has entrusted to him with the order to feed them. The pastor who leaves the sheepfold open and encourages the sheep to come out of it, sending them into the jaws of ravenous wolves, is a mercenary and an ally of the Evil One, and will have to render an account to the Supreme Pastor.
In the face of this umpteenth scandal, we may note with dismay the timid and complicit silence of the prelates: Where are the other cardinals, where is the archpriest emeritus of the Basilica, where is Cardinal Re, who for years, like me, celebrated his private Mass each morning in Saint Peter’s? Why are they now silent in the face of so much abuse?
As also happens in the civil sphere on the occasion of the pandemic and the violation of natural rights by the temporal authority, so also in the ecclesiastical sphere the dictatorship needs subjects without backbone or ideals in order to impose itself. In other times, the Vatican Basilica would have been besieged by priests, the first victims of this hateful tyranny that has the audacity to pass itself off as democratic and synodal. God forbid that the hell on earth which is establishing itself in the name of globalism is nothing but the consequence of the indolence and timidity, or rather the betrayal, of many, too many, clergy and laity.
The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is drawing near to Her Passion, in order to complete in Her own members the sufferings of Her Head. May these days that separate us from the Resurrection of Our Redeemer spur us on to prayer, penance, and sacrifice, so that we can unite ourselves to the Blessed Passion of Our Lord in a spirit of expiation and reparation, according to the doctrine of the Communion of Saints which permits us, in the bond of true Charity, to do good to our enemies and beg God for the conversion of sinners: even those whom Providence has inflicted upon us as temporal and ecclesiastical Superiors.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
31 March 2021
Feria Quarta Hebdomadae Sanctae
[Emphasis mine.]
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| Good Friday |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-02-2021, 07:14 AM - Forum: Lent
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INSTRUCTION ON GOOD FRIDAY
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year
36th edition, 1880
THIS day was formerly for the Jewish people a day of preparation for Easter, and was called by them the Parasceve; for us Christians it is the anniversary of the death and burial of our Lord who on this day, being Him-self both High-Priest and Victim, offered Himself upon the cross for the salvation of the world.
Why do Catholics hold this day in such veneration?
Because it is one of the greatest days from the beginning of the world to its end. On this day the designs which God had from all eternity were perfected, as Jesus Himself expressed when He said: All is consummated; for on this day He was given up to the Gentiles by the Jews, was scourged, crowned with thorns, loaded with the cross, dragged to Calvary amid taunts and sneers, there nailed to the cross between two thieves, and by His painful death finished the great work of redemption.
Why did Christ suffer so much to redeem us?
To show us what an immense evil sin is, on account of which He underwent such cruel sufferings that He might satisfy divine justice. His love for us was so great that He gave the last drop of His blood to save us. He rendered satisfaction for all men without exception, that none might be lost, that every one might possess eternal life. Look up to-day, and every day of thy life, to Christ on the cross, and see how God punishes sin, since He did not even spare His only-begotten Son, who took upon Himself our sins, and for them died this cruel death. What death is due to thee, if thou dost not despise and flee from sin?
Why does the Church celebrate the commemoration of the passion of Christ in such solemn quietness?
That we may be induced to thank the Saviour for our redemption, and to move us to sincere love for Him by serious meditation on His passion. For this reason St. Paul ordered the observance of this day, and the Christians even in his time sanctified it by deep mourning, and rigorous fasting.
Why do we not observe Good Friday with such festivities as do the Protestants in Europe?
Because our grief for our Saviour's death is too great to permit us to celebrate it joyously, even nature mourned His death; the sun was darkened, the earth -trembled and the rocks were rent. Although the Christian rejoices on this day in the grace of redemption through Christ, he is aware that his joy cannot be pleasing to God unless he endeavors to participate in the merits of the passion and death of Christ by sorrow for his sins, by amendment and penance; and this is the very reason why the Church solemnizes this day in a sad and touching manner.
Why are there no candles lighted at the beginning of the service?
To signify that on this day Christ, the Light of the world, became, as it were, extinguished.
Why does the priest prostrate himself before the altar at the beginning of the service?
That with him we should consider in deepest sorrow and humility how the Saviour died on the cross for our sins, and how unworthy we are on account of them to lift up our faces.
Why does the service commence with the reading of two lessons?
Because Christ died for Jews and Gentiles. The first lesson is from the Prophet Osee, (Osee vi. i 6.) and the other from Exodus, (Exod. xii. i n.) from them we infer that by the bloody death of the immaculate Lamb Jesus we are healed of our sins, and redeemed from death.
After the first lesson the priest says the following:
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH O God! from whom Judas received the punishment of his sin, and the thief the reward of his confession: grant us the effects of Thy mercy; that as our Lord Jesus Christ at the time of His passion bestowed on each a different recompense of his merits, so having destroyed the old man in us, He may give us the grace of His Resurrection. Who liveth, etc.
REMARK After the Passion: the priest prays in behalf of the one, only true Church, that she may increase, and that peace and unity may always remain with her; for the pope, that his government may be blessed; for the bishops, priests , the clergy , and the people, that they may serve Gad in justice; for those converted to the faith, that they may continue to grow in knowledge and in zeal for the holy religion; for rulers as defenders of the Church, that they may govern with wisdom and justice, and that those under them may be loyal to them with fidelity and obedience; for the unfortunate, that God may have mercy on them; for heretics and apostates, that they may be brought back from error to the truth of the Catholic faith; for the Jews, that they may be enlightened; for the heathens, that they may be converted.
Before each prayer the priest says, Oremus, (Let us pray) Flectamus genua, (Let us kneel); when kneeling, we say Amen, and at the, call Levate (Rise up) we rise: except at the prayer for the Jews, when the genuflection is omitted, be- cause the Jews bent the knee in mockery before our Lord. As Christ on this day prayed for all men, the Church desires, that we do the same; say, therefore, the following:
Quote:PRAYER O Lord Jesus! who on the cross, while enduring the most excruciating pain, didst pray with a loud voice for all men, we humbly pray Thee for Thy vicar, Pope N., for our bishop N., for all the priests and clergy, for our civil government, for the neophytes, for the unfortunate and oppressed, for all Catholics, that Thou mayst preserve them in the true faith, and strengthen them, that they may serve Thee according to their different vocations. We pray Thee also for all unbelievers, and those separated from the true fold, for the Jews, and for the heathens, that Thou mayst unite all in Thy holy Church, and bring them to eternal salvation. Amen.
What is done by the priest after these prayers?
The priest then goes down from the epistle side of the altar, takes the veiled crucifix, and extending it towards the people, uncovers it so much that the head is seen, and sings in a low voice: Ecce lignum crucis, etc.: Behold the wood of the cross on which the Salvation of the world was hanged! The choir answers: Venite, adoremus: Come, let us adore at which all kneel, adoring Christ who died on the cross for us.
The priest then advances to the corner of the altar, uncovers the right arm of the Crucifix, and sings in a higher tone: Ecce lignum crucis, etc.; to which the choir responds as before. Then at the middle of the altar he uncovers the entire Crucifix, and elevating it, sings in a still higher tone than before: Ecce lignum, et. The choir responds again : Venite adoremus.
The image of the crucified Redeemer, which has been hidden from our view since Passion Sunday should make a deep impression upon us; it teaches us at the same time how the Saviour became gradually known to the world. Jesus is adored three times, because He was mocked three times: in the court-yard of the high-priest, in Pilate's house, and on Mount Calvary. When the crucifix is unveiled the priest carries it to the place prepared for it, and kneeling he places it on the cushion covered with a white veil to represent the laying of Christ in the sepulchre; he then retires to the gospel side of the Altar where he puts off his shoes, like Moses, when he was about to approach Almighty God; he then kneels and meditates on the passion of Christ; goes a few steps forward, again kneels, and still a third time, this time directly in front of the crucifix. He adores Jesus with humility, considers His infinite love, which brought Him to the cross and laid Him in the sepulchre for our Redemption, and then kisses with reverence the image of the crucified Saviour.
During this veneration of the cross the choir chants alternately the versicles called the Reproaches, and between each part of the canticle the following words in Greek and Latin: "Holy God! Holy and strong God! Holy and immortal God ! have mercy on us!" In these versicles Christ tenderly and lovingly reproaches the people who crucified Him, which we may also take to ourselves, who have so often crucified Jesus anew by sin. They are therefore called reproaches, words of complaint, and continue during the veneration of the cross by the priest. Afterwards a hymn of praise composed by St. Fortunatus is sung in honor of the victory gained on the cross by our Saviour, which calls upon us also to render praise and thanks to Jesus crucified.
Adore also in deepest humility the Saviour who died on the cross, and is now victoriously enthroned; ask with sincere contrition the forgiveness of your sins, and by a threefold advance, kiss with sincere love His sacred wounds, promising to love all men, even your enemies, and to have pity n all in distress, according to His example.
What follows the veneration of the cross?
The sacred Host consecrated on Holy Thursday, and kept in the chalice, is brought by the priest in procession, from the repository to the high altar, incensed in sign of adoration, and after a few short prayers the priest elevates It with the right hand, breaks It, puts one part in the chalice and communicates, and soon after leaves the altar.
Is there, then, no Mass said on this day?
No; for on this day there is no bread and wine consecrated, which is the essential part of the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Why is no Mass said on this day?
Because Jesus Christ having this day sacrificed Himself on the altar of the cross in a bloody offering, it is not meet that His death sacrifice should be to-day repeated even in an unbloody manner. Besides this, Mass is a joyous and comforting sacrifice, and is therefore omitted because of our mourning.
What devotions may be practised today?
Besides adoring Jesus in the holy sepulchre, the stations may be said, meditations made on the sufferings of our Lord. Let the words of St. Augustine touch your heart, when he places the crucified Redeemer before our mind in the following words: "Behold the wounds of Jesus who is hanging on the cross, the blood of the dying, the price of our redemption! His head is bowed to give the kiss of peace; His side is open to love; His arms are extended to embrace us; His whole body sacrificed for our redemption." Let these words be the subject of your meditation that He may be wholly in your heart who is nailed to the cross for you.
MANNER OF CONTEMPLATING CHRIST'S BITTER PASSION
" Christ also suffered for us: leaving you an example that you should follow his steps." (i Peter ii. 21.)
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WHENCE does it come," writes St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "that so many of the faithful look with so much indifference at Christ on the cross? They generally assist during Holy Week at the commemoration of His death without any feeling of gratitude or compassion, as if it were a fable or an event in which they had no interest. Know they not, or believe they not what the gospel relates of Christ's passion? Indeed they know it, and believe it, but do not think of it. It is impossible that he who believes and meditates, should fail to become burning with love for God who suffers and dies for love of him." But why, we may ask here, are there so many who draw so little benefit even from the contemplation of the passion and death of Jesus? Because they fail to consider and imitate the example which Christ gives in His sufferings."
The cross of Christ," says St. Augustine, "is not only a bed of death, but a pulpit of instruction." It is not only a bed upon which Christ dies, but the pulpit from which He teaches us what we must do. It should now be our special aim to meditate upon the passion of Christ, and to imitate those virtues which shone forth so preeminently in His passion and death. But many neglect to do this. They usually content themselves with compassion when they see Christ enduring such great pains, but they see not 'with what love, humility, and meekness He bears them, and so do not endeavor to imitate His example. That you, O Christian soul, may avoid this mistake, and that you may draw the greatest possible benefit for your soul, from the contemplation of the passion and death of Christ, attend to that which is said of it by that pious servant of God, Alphonse Rodriguez: We must endeavor to derive from the meditation on the mysteries of the passion and death of Christ this effect, that we may imitate His virtues, and this by slowly and attentively considering each virtue by itself, exercising ourselves in forming a very great desire for it in our hearts, making a firm resolution to practice it in words and works, and also to conceive a holy aversion and horror of the opposite vice; for instance, when contemplating Christ's condemnation to the death of the cross by Pilate, consider the humility of Jesus Christ, who being God, as humble as He was innocent, voluntarily submitted and silently accepted the unjust sentence and the ignominious death. Here you see from the example given by Jesus, how you should despise yourself, patiently bear all evil, unjust judgment, and detraction, and even seek them with joy as giving you occasion to resemble Him. To produce these necessary effects and resolutions, you should at each mystery contemplate the following particulars:
First, Who is it that suffers? The most innocent, the holiest, the most loving, the only-begotten Son of the Almighty Father, the Lord of heaven and earth.
Secondly, What pains and torments, exterior and interior, does He suffer?
Thirdly, In what manner does He suffer, with what patience, humility, meekness and love, does He bear all ignominy and outrage?
Fourthly, For whom does He suffer? For all men, for His enemies and His executioners.
Fifthly, By whom does He suffer? By Jews and heathens, by soldiers and tyrants, by the devil and all impious children of the world to the end of time, and all who were then united in spirit with His enemies.
Sixthly, Why does He suffer? To make reparation for all the sins of the whole world, to satisfy the justice of God, to reconcile the Heavenly Father, to open heaven, to give us His infinite merits that we may from them have strength to follow the way to heaven.
At the consideration of each of these points, and indeed at each mystery of the passion of Christ, the imitation of the example of His virtues is the main object, because the true life of the Christian consists in the imitation of Jesus. In considering each stage of the passion of Christ place vividly before your mind the virtue which He practiced therein; contemplate it and ask yourself whether you possess this virtue, or whether you still cherish the opposite vice. If you find the latter to be the case make an act of contrition, with the firm resolution to extirpate this vice, and excite in yourself a sincere desire for the opposite virtue. In this way you will draw the greatest advantage from the contemplation of Christ's passion, and will resemble Christ, and, as the pious Louis of Granada says, there can be no greater honor and adornment for a Christian than to resemble his divine Master, not in the way that Lucifer desired, but in that which He pointed out, when He said: "I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so do you also."
THE PASSION OP OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN
(CHAPS. XVIII., XIX.)
AT THAT TIME, Jesus went forth with his disciples, over the brook of Cedron, where there was a garden into which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas also, who betrayed him, knew the place: because Jesus had often resorted thither together with his disciples. Judas therefore having received a band of men and servants from the chief priests and the Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said to them: Whom seek ye? They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith to them: I am he. And Judas also, who betrayed him, stood with them. As soon then as he had said to them: I am he; they went backward, and fell to the ground.
Again therefore he asked them: Whom seek ye? And they said: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered: I have told you, that I am he. If therefore you seek me, let these go away. That the word might be fulfilled which he had said: Of them whom thou hast given me, I have not lost any one. Then Simon Peter having a sword, drew it, and struck the servant of the high-priest, and cut off his right ear. And the name of the servant was Malchus. Then Jesus said to Peter: Put up thy sword into the scabbard. The cup which my Father hath given me, shall not I drink it?
Then the band, and the tribune, and the servants of the Jews took Jesus, and bound him: and they led him away to Annas first: for he was father-in-law to Caiphas, who was the high-priest of that year. Now Caiphas was he who had given the council to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people. And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. And that disciple was known to the high-priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high-priest. But Peter stood at the door without. Then the other disciple who was known to the high priest, went out, and spoke to her that kept the door: and brought in Peter. And the maid that waited at the door, saith to Peter: Art not thou also one of this man's disciples? He saith: I am not. Now the servants and officers stood at a fire of coals, because it was cold, and warmed themselves and with them was Peter also standing, and warming himself. The high-priest then asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doctrine. Jesus answered him: I have spoken openly to the world: I have always taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither all the Jews resort: and in secret I have spoken nothing. Why askest thou me? ask them who have heard what I have spoken to them: behold they know what things I have said. And when he had said these things, one of the officers standing by, gave Jesus a blow, saying: Answerest thou the high-priest so? Jesus answered him: If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil: but if well, why strikest thou me? And Annas sent him bound to Caiphas the high-priest. And Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said therefore to him: Art not thou also one of his disciples? He denied it and said: I am not. One of the servants of the high-priest, a kinsman to him whose ear Peter cut off, saith to him: Did not I see thee in the garden with him? Then Peter again denied, and immediately the cock crowed. Then they led Jesus from Caiphas to the governor's hall. And it was morning: and they went not into the hall, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate therefore went out to them, and said: What accusation bring you against this man? They answered and said to him: If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to thee. Pilate then said to them: Take him you, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said to him: It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. That the word of Jesus might be fulfilled which he said, signifying what death he should die. Pilate therefore went into the hall again, and called Jesus, and said to him: Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus answered: Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it thee of me. Pilate answered: Am I a Jew? Thy own nation, and the chief priests, have delivered thee up to me. What hast thou done? Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth: every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him: What is truth?And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him. But you have a custom .that I should release one unto you at the Passover: will you therefore that I release unto you the king of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying: Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Then, therefore, Pilate took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers platting a crown of thorns, put it upon his head: and they put on him a purple garment, and they came to him, and said: Hail, King of the Jews! And they gave him blows. Pilate, therefore, went forth again, and saith to them: Behold I bring him forth to you that you may know that I find no cause in him. So Jesus came forth bearing the crown of thorns, and the purple garment. And he saith to them: Behold the man. When the chief priests, therefore, and the officers had seen him, they cried out, saying: Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith to them: Take him you, and crucify him; for I find no cause in him. The Jews answered him: We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore had heard this saying, he feared the more. And he entered into the hall again, and he said to Jesus: Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to him: Speakest thou not to me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee? Jesus answered: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. Therefore he that hath delivered me to thee, hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, saying: If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar's friend. For whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar. Now when Pilate had heard these words, he brought Jesus forth: and sat down in the judgment-seat, in the place that is called the Pavement, and in Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the Parasceve of the Passover, about the sixth hour, and he saith to the Jews: Behold your king. But they cried out: Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith to them: Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered: We have no king but Caesar. Then therefore, he delivered him to them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him forth. And bearing his own cross he went forth to that place which is called Calvary, but in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title also, and he put it upon the cross. And the writing was: Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. The title, therefore, many of the Jews did read, because the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin. Then the chief-priest of the Jews said to Pilate: Write not, the king of the Jews: but that he said: l am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered: What I have written, I have written.
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified him, took his garments (and they made four parts, to every soldier a part) and also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said then one to another: Let us not cut it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the Scripture might be fulfilled which saith: They have parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture they have cast lots. And the soldiers did indeed these things. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing, whom he loved, he saith to his mother: Woman! behold thy son. After that, he saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own.
Afterwards, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst. Now there was a vessel set there full of vinegar. And they put a sponge full of vinegar, about hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus, therefore, had taken the vinegar, he said: It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost.
Then the Jews (because it was the Parasceve) that the bodies might not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day (for that was a great Sabbath-day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. The soldiers, therefore, came: and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him. But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it gave testimony, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true, that you also may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him. And again another Scripture saith: They shall look on him whom they pierced. And after these things, Joseph of Arimathea (because he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews), besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore and took away the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also came, he who at the first came to Jesus by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. They took therefore the body of Jesus, and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified; and in the garden anew sepulchre , wherein no man yet had been laid. Therefore, because of the Parasceve of the Jews, they laid Jesus there; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
THE PEOPLE AT THE CROSS AND THE PEOPLE OF TODAY
AT Golgotha, in sight of the temple and city of Jerusalem, in the presence of two or three millions of Jews, who had come to the city from all lands, Jesus, the Son of God, hung upon the cross, an expiatory sacrifice for mankind burdened with all manner of sin. Near the cross of her dying Son stood Mary, His mother, filled with grief; by her side John, the beloved disciple, and kneeling at the foot of the cross almost insensible from sorrow and anguish, convulsively winding her arms around the wood of the cross, was Mary Magdalen, the penitent.
On a cross at the right hand hung a penitent thief turned towards the Saviour; at the left hand on another cross groaned another criminal of impenitent heart, blaspheming the Holy One of Israel. Around the agonizing Saviour stood the Scribes and Pharisees, that hypocritical class of practiced miscreants,who hated and persecuted the innocent Lamb Jesus, even in death, who blind to all the predictions of the prophets whose books they had read, blind to the actual miracles which Jesus had wrought before their eyes to prove His divinity and His mission, filled with envy and hatred, reviled the dying Redeemer. At a distance stood a crowd of curious, indifferent people, who had come to Jerusalem to attend the feast of the Passover, and having heard of Jesus were present at His crucifixion. Not far from them the rough soldiers and executioners lay around, dividing among themselves the Saviour's clothes and casting lots for His seamless garment.
This was the society that surrounded the Son of God and Redeemer of the world bleeding on the cross, and in their different phases they are types of the men of today. Only few were there who clung to the Saviour in unwavering faith and true love, ready to die with Him, and for Him. There were few who suffered all taunts and sneers, all revilings and blasphemies, and departed not from the cross. Of these three were especially faithful, viz. Mary, John, and Magdalen. Those who like Mary and John are pure and innocent, or like Magdalen are weeping for their sins, who confess Jesus with their heart and lips, cling faithfully to Him, and permit neither persecution nor death to separate them from Him, are like the faithful three at the cross.
As then by the cross, so today, the number of the faithful is small, and great is the number of those who, like the careless spectators of the crucifixion, are not decided enemies of Jesus crucified, nor yet His firm friends. They have indeed been baptized in the name of Jesus, they remain externally with the Catholic Church, which Christ founded, but they are sunk in lukewarmness, have no living faith, and are wavering to and fro like a reed between the world and Jesus. They fear the sneers of the so-called learned and enlightened, many of whom are well represented by the Scribes and Pharisees, who, having no faith in Christ themselves, bear in their hearts only hatred and contempt for His Church; they shun the cross, because it is too heavy for their sensuality; they do not, it is true, commit public crimes, they prize highly a good name, occasionally observe the law of the Church, but are accessible to every error; their ears incline to every blasphemy against the religion of Jesus and His ministers, the priests.
Instead of standing fearlessly and boldly for Christ, for the holy faith He has taught, and which the Church teaches,they turn away, are silent, even go with the Church's enemies that they may not be sneered at. The are neither hot, nor cold, so that the words of the Scriptures are verified in them: Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth. (Apoc. iii. 16.) The Lord casts away from Him these lukewarm, indifferent Christians, as nauseous saliva, and leaves them to their destruction. The true Pharisees of our day are those who purposely close their eyes to the light of truth, who have put aside faith in Jesus, and are no longer disposed to receive instruction. Their pride, their egotism has blinded them , with their poor reason they wish to understand the mysteries of the Almighty, with their weak intellect to fathom His ways, even seek to be equal to God; they deny every revealed truth, they deny the existence of heaven and hell, they propose to live like the animals, without God, but their end is ruin!
Few of them, having seen their error, as the thief on the cross at the right hand of Jesus, turn repentingly to the Redeemer; obdurate as the robber and murderer at His left, the
Pharisees of our day cease not to blaspheme the Crucified, and to revile His holy Church. These are assisted by the apostates and unbelievers, who, like the soldiers and executioners, divide among themselves His clothes, and cast lots for His seamless garment. Those clothes which the soldiers divided among themselves, are the truths which the apostates and heretics yet retain after their apostasy from the Church. They have divided these truths, for they have separated themselves into thousands of sects, and ppsrs,ess only portions of the one truth, which Jesus has laid down in His Church, whole and complete. "Upon my vesture they have cast lots."
This seamless vesture of Christ is His holy Church that cannot be separated or divided, she is one, and must remain one to the end of time. Concerning this one true Church, the sects all quarrel, all want to be the true Church without considering that, as but one soldier, by lots, received Christ's seamless garment, so only one association of men can be the true Church, and that is association which Christ has chosen.
Thus we find at the cross on Golgotha the different classes of people of our day represented, namely, the pure and innocent; the repenting sinners, firm adherents of Jesus and His teachings; as also the lukewarm, wavering, nominal Christians; obdurate heretics, professed infidels and apostates. So today mankind is divided into like parties. To which party do you belong, O Christian soul?
To which do you wish to belong? Choose! The time of the division is near. The Lord already holds in His hand the winnowing shovel to clear His floor. If you are not a firm adherent of Jesus and His Church, in the storm that is gathering you will be blown like chaff. If you remain with the small group at the cross, in persevering courage, you will stand firm, and on the day when the cross shall appear in the clouds of heaven, you, with Mary, the mother of the faithful, with John and with Magdalen, will triumph forever, as a victorious knight of the cross. Decide!
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| The Clock of the Passion |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-02-2021, 06:51 AM - Forum: Lenten Devotions
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The Clock of the Passion
Summary listing from the work The Clock of the Passion, or the Affectionate Reflexions on the Sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ,
THURSDAY
Hour 1 - 6:00 p.m. Jesus says good-bye to His Mother before the Supper.
Hour 2 - 7:00 p.m. Jesus washes the feet of His Disciples, and institutes the Most Holy Sacrament.
Hour 3 - 8:00 p.m. Jesus gives the Sermon of the Supper, and goes to the Garden of Olives.
Hour 4 - 9:00 p.m. Jesus prays at the Garden.
Hour 5 - 10:00 p.m. Jesus enters into His agony.
Hour 6 - 11:00 p.m. Jesus sweats blood in His agony.
Hour 7 - MIDNIGHT. Jesus is handed over by Judas, and bound.
FRIDAY
Hour 8 - 1:00 a.m. Jesus is led to the house of Annas.
Hour 9 - 2:00 a.m. Jesus is taken to the house of Caiphas, and slapped.
Hour 10 - 3:00 a.m. Jesus is blindfolded, mistreated and mocked.
Hour 11 - 4:00 a.m. Jesus is dragged before the Great Council, and is judged worthy of death.
Hour 12 - 5:00 a.m. Jesus is taken to Pilate, and accused.
Hour 13 - 6:00 a.m. Jesus is mocked and ridiculed by Herod.
Hour 14 - 7:00 a.m. Jesus is returned to Pilate, and Barabbas is preferred over Him.
Hour 15 - 8:00 a.m. Jesus is cruelly scourged at the pillar.
Hour 16 - 9:00 a.m. Jesus is crowned with thorns, and presented to the people.
Hour 17 - 10:00 a.m. Pilate condemns Jesus to death, and begins His walk to Calvary.
Hour 18 - 11:00 a.m. Jesus is stripped naked and his Crucifixion is commenced.
Hour 19 - MIDDAY. Jesus is now Crucified, and pleads for those who have Crucified Him.
Hour 20 - 1:00 p.m. Jesus commends His Spirit to the Father.
Hour 21 - 2:00 p.m. Jesus undergoes His last hour of agony.
Hour 22 - 3:00 p.m. Jesus dies [offer a moment of silence now], and is then pierced with the lance.
Hour 23 - 4:00 p.m. Jesus is lowered from the Cross, and delivered to His Mother.
Hour 24 - 5:00 p.m. Jesus is buried, and left in the Holy Sepulchre.
Translated from the Italian by Abate J. Gaume, Barcelona, Spain, 3rd corrected edition, 1859 (pg 279-280) and translated from the Spanish by Jan Paul von Wendt - cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx
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| 24hrs Prayer Devotion: For the Intention of Finding a Suitable Property for Fr. Hewko |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-01-2021, 07:33 AM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer
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24HRS Prayer Devotion
Easter to Ascension Thursday
Some of the faithful in Great Britain and elsewhere recently held a 24hrs Prayer Devotion during Holy Week ending on Holy Saturday.
If any faithful would like to follow their example and participate in a 24hr Prayer Devotion from Easter Sunday till Ascension Day for the intention of finding a suitable property for Fr. HEWKO for the growth of Tradition, please contact recusantsspx@hotmail.co.uk
The idea is a 24hrs continual prayer devotion from Easter Sunday till Ascension Thursday. Ideally, people sign up and commit themselves to pray at a particular hour/half hour so that united throughout the world we can pray for the same intention all day and night long.
If you are willing to take part, please contact us at the email above, with the name and the time you can pray. We would be grateful if you could keep to your timings as much as possible but can assure you it is not a sin should you not be able to once in a while. The prayers to be said during that hour can be individually chosen, but must include the rosary as it was given as the spiritual weapon for our times to touch the heart of Our Lord.
Fr. Hewko is searching for a property with a large building to house priests, potential seminarians and Benedictine monks, ideally additional buildings that could serve as retreat centers with housing to accommodate retreatants, or a large amount of acreage for future growth needs, etc. Such a ‘base of operations’ would greatly aid in the development of Catholic Tradition!
As Archbishop Lefebvre said, "We must build again the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ in this Christian world which is disappearing. You shall tell me: "But, Monseigneur, this is the fight of David against Goliath!" Yes, indeed, I know. But in his fight against Goliath, David won the victory! How did he win the victory? By a little pebble which he took from the torrent. What is this little stone which we have? Jesus Christ! Our Lord Jesus Christ! (Archbishop Lefebvre, 60th Ordination Anniversary Sermon, 1989)
The goal is to get enough people to fill the 24hrs by Easter Sunday so that we won’t miss a day in praying collectively for this intention. If you have more time at hand, please don’t hesitate to chose several time slots. We will update you which hours are covered and which hours still need to be filled.
Viva Cristo Rey!
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| Polyphony and Tenebrae for Holy Week |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-01-2021, 07:23 AM - Forum: Lent
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From The Catacombs archives:
Polyphony and Tenebrae for Holy Week
Excerpt from The Easter Book by Fr. Francis X. Weiser (*see note below), pp. 100-101
“… The Miserere is often sung by a choir at the Tenebrae services. The most famous for this psalm is the composition by Gregorio Allegri (sixteenth century) [#1]. It consists of a double chorus for eight voices, was written for the papal choir during Holy Week, and was kept unpublished by order of the popes to reserve this music for exclusive use in the Sistine Chapel. So it remained until 1769, when Leopold Mozart brought his fourteen-year-old son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from Austria to Rome to hear the music of the Holy Week services in the papal chapel. The youthful genius was so thrilled with the Allegri Miserere that on returning to his lodgings he wrote out the entire eight-part chorus from memory. The following day father and son returned to the Tenebrae service carrying the boy’s manuscript, in order to check what he had written from memory. Only a few notes of the music needed correction. This prodigious feat was brought to the attention of the reigning pope, Clement XIV, who sent for father and son. The Mozarts feared that the Pope would be indignant at the plagiarism implied in the boy’s act, but His Holiness praised him highly, and forthwith ordered the publication of the Miserere for the whole world to enjoy. Since then, throughout the Christian world, to hear this great masterpiece sung is one of the most moving experiences of Holy Week.
Every year during these services in the Sistine Chapel the papal choir performs the “Lamentations” by Palestrina [#2], one of the most majestic pieces of sacred music ever written. Another choral piece by Palestrina is the beautiful Improperia (Reproaches) [#3], first heard in 1560, a work of great tenderness and solemnity. There are other musical compositions inspired by the “Reproaches,” notably that of Victoria [#4], the great rival of Palestrina…."
See HERE for links to this beautiful Holy Week music.
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| Holy Thursday |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-01-2021, 05:35 AM - Forum: Lent
- Replies (5)
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INSTRUCTION ON HOLY THURSDAY
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year
36th edition, 1880
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What festival does the Church celebrate to-day?
THE Catholic Church commemorates to-day the institution, by our Saviour, of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. This commemoration she has celebrated from the first ages of Christianity.
What remarkable things did Christ perform on this day?
He ate with His apostles the Paschal lamb which was a type of Himself; it was eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread; they ate it standing with clothes girded, and staff in hand, in remembrance of the hurried escape of the Jews from Egypt. (Exod. xii.) After having eaten the Paschal lamb our Lord with profound humility washed the feet of His apostles, exhorting them to practise the same humility and charity; afterwards, He gave them His Flesh and Blood under the appearance of bread and wine, for spiritual food and drink, thus instituting the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the priesthood; for when He said to the apostles: Do this in commemoration of Me, he ordained them priests.
After this He held His last discourse in which He particularly recommended brotherly love; said that beautiful, high-priestly prayer, in which He implored His Heavenly Father particularly for the unity of His Church. He then went as usual to Mount Olivet, where He commenced His passion with prayer and resignation ,to the will of His Father, suffering intense, deathlike agony, which was so great that He sweat blood. Here Judas betrayed Him into the hands of the Jews, by a treacherous kiss. They bound Him and led Him to the high-priests, Annas and Caiphas, where He was sentenced to death by the council, and denied by Peter.
The Introit of the Mass reads thus: We ought to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: in whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection: by whom we have been saved and delivered. (Gal. vi. 14.) May God have mercy on us, and bless us: may He cause the light of His countenance to shine upon us, and may He have mercy on us. (Ps. lxvi. 2.)
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH [See Good Friday.]
What ceremonies are observed in this day 's Mass?
The crucifix is covered with a white veil in memory of the sacred institution of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. The priest comes to the altar robed in white vestments; the Gloria in excelsis is solemnly sung, accompanied by the ringing of bells, and all Christians are exhorted to render praise and gratitude to the Lord for having instituted the Blessed Feast of Love; after the Gloria the bells are silent until Holy Saturday to indicate the Church's mourning for the passion and death of Jesus; to urge us also to spend these days in silent sorrow, meditating on the sufferings of Christ, and in memory of the shameful flight of the apostle sat the capture of their Master, and their silence during these days. At the Mass the priest consecrates two hosts one of which He consumes at the Communion, and the other he preserves in the chalice, for the following day, because no consecration takes place on Good Friday. The officiating priest does not give the usual kiss of peace before Communion, because on this day Judas betrayed his Master with a kiss. After Mass, the consecrated host in the chalice, and the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle, are taken in procession to the sacristy or repository, in memory of the earliest times of Christianity, when the consecrated hosts for the communicants and the sick, were kept in a place especially prepared, because there was no tabernacle on the altar. Moreover it also signifies Christ's going to Mount Olivet, where His Godhead was concealed. After the procession the priests with the choir say vespers in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
EPISTLE, (i Cor. xi. 20 32.) BRETHREN, When you come together into one place, it is not now to eat the Lord's supper. For every one taketh before his supper to eat. And one indeed is hungry, and another is drunk. What! have you not houses to eat and drink in? Or despise ye the Church of God?and put them to shame that have not? What shall I say to you? Do I praise you? In this I praise you not. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke it, and said: Take ye, and eat:,this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. In like manner,also, the Chalice, after he had supped, saying: This Chalice is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye, as often as you shall drink it, for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink this chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until he come. Wherefore, whoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep. But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But whilst we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord, that we be not condemned with this world.
EXPLANATION. The early Christians were accustomed, after the celebration of the Lord's Supper, to unite in a common repast; those who were able furnished the food, and rich and poor partook of it in common, in token of brotherly love. This repast they called "Agape," a "meal of love." At Corinth this custom was abused, some ate before Communion that which had been brought, became intoxicated,and deprived the poor of their share. The Apostle condemns this abuse, declaring it an unworthy preparation for Communion, and reminds the Corinthians of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament telling them what a terrible sin it is to partake of the body and blood of the Lord unworthily, for whoever does this makes himself guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, and eats and drinks his own judgment, that is, eternal damnation. Therefore prove yourself, O Christian soul, as often as you communicate,see whether you have committed any grievous sin which you have not confessed, or for which you were not heartily sorry.
GOSPEL (John xiii. i 15.) BEFORE the festival day of the Pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father: having loved his own who were in the world ,he loved them to the end. And when supper was done, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray him: knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he came from God, and goeth to God: he riseth from supper, and layeth aside his garments: and having taken a towel, he girded himself. After that, he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel, wherewith he was girt. He cometh therefore to Simon Peter, and Peter saith to him:Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered, and said to him: What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith to him: Thou shalt never wash, my feet, Jesus answered him : If I wash thee not, thou shaft have no part with me. Simon Peter saith to him: Lord! not only my feet,but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him: He that is washed, needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly. And you are clean, but not all. For he knew who he was that would betray him: therefore he said: You are not all clean. Then after he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, being set down again, he said to them: Know you what I have done to you? You call me Master, and Lord: and you say well, for so I am. If then I, being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that as, I have done to you so do you also.
Why did Jesus wash the feet of His disciples?
To give them a proof of His sincere love and great humility which they should imitate; to, teach them that although free from sin, and; not unworthy to receive His most holy body and blood, their feet needed cleansing, that is, that they should be purified from all evil inclinations which defile the heart, and prevent holy Communion from producing fruitful effects in the soul.
Why is it that on this day in each church only one priest says Mass at which the others receive Communion?
Because on this day Christ alone offered the unbloody Sacrifice, and having instituted the Blessed Sacrament, fed with His own hands His disciples with His flesh and blood, it is therefore proper that in commemoration of this, the priests in one church should receive the Blessed Sacrament from the hands of one, according to the example of the apostles, but as a sign of the priestly dignity which on this day Christ gave to the apostles and their successors,each priest wears a stole.
Why are the altars stripped on this day?
To show that Jesus took off, as it were, at the time of His passion, His divine glory, and yielded Himself up in utter humiliation into the hands of His enemies to be crucified, (Phil. ii.6. 7.) and that at the crucifixion He was forcibly stripped of His garments, which the soldiers 'divided among ' them, as foretold in the twenty-first psalm, which is therefore said during this ceremony. The faithful are urged to put off the old sinful man with his actions, and by humbling themselves become conformable to Christ.
Why is it that spiritual superiors wash the feet of their subjects, as do also the Catholic princes the feet of twelve poor men?
To commemorate the washing of the apostles' feet by Christ, and to teach all, even the highest to exercise the necessary virtues of humility and charity towards all, even the lowest, according to the example given by Jesus. Princes and spiritual superiors therefore kiss the feet after washing them, and the pope presses them to his breast giving to each person a silver and a gold medal on which is pictured the washing of the feet by Christ.
What is Tenebrae and what its meaning?
It is the office which the clergy say on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, accompanied by the lamentations of the Prophet Jeremias, arid other ceremonies. The word Tenebrae means darkness, and represents the prayers formerly said in the dark hours of the morning. In the Tenebrae the Church mourns the passion and death of Jesus, and urges her children to return to God; She therefore makes use of those mournful words of Jeremias: Jerusalem! Jerusalem! be converted to the Lord, thy God!"
Why is the Tenebrae said in the evening?
In memory of that time when the early Christians spent the whole night preceding great festivals in prayer, but later, when zeal diminished, it was observed only by the clergy on the eves of such festivals; also in order that we may consider the darkness, lasting for three hours, at the crucifixion of Christ, whence the name Tenebrae; and lastly, to represent by it that mourning, of which darkness is the type.
Why, during the prayers of the clergy, are the lights in the triangular candlestick extinguished one after another?
Because the Tenebrae, as has been already remarked, in the earliest times of the Church, were held in the night, the candles were extinguished one after another, as the daylight gradually approached they were no longer necessary; again, at the time of the passion and death of Jesus, His apostles whom He calls the light of the world, one after another gradually left Him; at the death of Christ the earth was covered with darkness. The Jews, blinded by pride, would not recognize Christ as the Saviour of the world, and therefore fell by His death into the deepest darkness of hardened infidelity.
What is meant by the last candle which is carried lighted behind the altar, and after prayers are finished, is brought back again?
This candle signifies Christ, who on the third day came forth from the grave, by His own power, as the true light of the world, though according to His human nature He died and lay in the grave until the third day.
Why is a noise made with clappers at the end of the Tenebrae?
This was formerly a sign that service was over; it also signifies the earthquake which took place at Christ's death.
How should we attend the Church service on this day?
The Church commemorates on this day the institution of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar; we should therefore consider with a lively faith that Jesus, our divine Teacher and Saviour, is really and truly here present; we should adore Him as the Son of God, who became man to redeem us; should admire the love which determined Him to institute the Blessed Sacrament, that He might always be with us; and should thank Him for all the inestimable graces which we derive from this Sacrament.
Remark
In the Cathedrals the holy oils which are used in Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, and Extreme Unction, as also in consecrating baptismal fonts and altar stones, are blessed on this day. Let us thank our Lord for the institution of these Sacraments at which blessed oils are used.
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| Holy Week Conferences - Livestreamed |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-31-2021, 07:01 AM - Forum: Conferences
- No Replies
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Fr. Hewko is planning on livestreaming his conferences for the Sacred Triduum. Father has planned them tentatively as follows.
+Holy Thursday+
Conference/Holy Hour of Adoration - 5:30 PM
+Good Friday +
Conference - 2:00 PM
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