<![CDATA[The Catacombs - The Liturgical Year]]>

<![CDATA[The Catacombs - The Liturgical Year]]> https://thecatacombs.org/ Fri, 15 May 2026 12:30:28 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[The Beginning of Ambrosian Forelent]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6863 Mon, 10 Feb 2025 15:27:21 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6863 The Beginning of Ambrosian Forelent

Gregory DiPippo, NLM | February 09, 2025

The Ambrosian season after Epiphany presents some interesting and unique characteristics compared with the same period in the Roman Rite. In the latter, from its first attestation in the Lectionary of Würzburg, the season has a full compliment of Gospel readings; in the Ambrosian Rite, on the other hand, the liturgical texts of the season were slow to evolve, but their evolution can be traced out from the surviving ancient manuscripts.

The traditional Roman rubrics are organized in such a way that none of the Sundays between Epiphany and Septuagesima are omitted; in the Tridentine reform, a system was created, and is still in use, by which those which cannot be celebrated in their regular place are moved to the end of the season after Pentecost. The Ambrosian Rite has no such tradition, with the exception of the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, which is never omitted, and always celebrated as the last Sunday before Septuagesima. (Prior to the Borromean reform of the Ambrosian liturgical books, this Sunday was called “the Fifth after Epiphany”, and there was no Sixth, since Easter very rarely occurs late enough for one to be necessary.) This custom is first attested in a liturgical ordo called the “Beroldus Novus” in the 13th century; its origin is to be found by tracing out the history of the period in Ambrosian liturgical books.

A page of an Ambrosian Missal printed in Milan in 1522, with the Mass of the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, preceded by the rubric that it is always celebrated “next to” (juxta) Septuagesima.

A codex kept in the Capitular Library of the basilica of St John the Baptist in Busto Arsizio contains a very ancient order of readings, one which certainly predates the Carolingian period, when the Ambrosian lectionary underwent a major reform. This codex has two different lists of Gospels, a “capitulary”, which is older, and gives only the incipits, and a later “evangeliary”, which gives the full texts. The differences between these two bear witness to two different phases in the evolution of the lectionary tradition. The capitulary has readings for only the first two Sundays after Epiphany, with no signs of any later corrections, while the evangeliary gives Gospel pericopes for the first four Sundays, with corrections added later in a Romanizing direction.

Neither list mentions a Fifth Sunday, which in most medieval missals was given as the last of the season, since the Sixth Sunday only very rarely occurs. The Ambrosian Rite borrowed the three Sundays of the Roman Forelent in at least two stages, and while both lists include the Sundays of Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, the capitulary does not include Septuagesima.

In the Ambrosian Missals of Bergamo (mid-9th century) and Biasca (end of the 9th century), which are fully in line with the Carolingian reform, the order of readings agrees with that of the “corrections” in the evangeliary of Busto. Furthermore, both of these have as the Gospel of the Fifth Sunday that which is now read on the Sixth, Matthew 17, 14-20. (As noted above, this will remain in place until the minor adjustment of the Borromean reform.)

“At that time: there came to the Lord Jesus a man falling down on his knees before him, saying: Lord, have pity on my son, for he is a lunatic, and suffereth much: for he falleth often into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said: O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: Why could not we cast him out? Jesus said to them: Because of your unbelief. For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you. But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting.”

The healing of the possessed boy; folio 166r of Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. Here it is used to illustrate the Gospel of the Third Sunday of Lent, Luke 11, 14-28, which begins with the expulsion of a devil from a mute, and in which Christ goes on to say “if I cast out devils by Beelzebub; by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I by the finger of God cast out devils; doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you.” (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

The fact that this pericope is always found just before Forelent provides a useful clue as to its origin. Unlike the other Gospels of this season, it has no parallel at all in the Roman Rite, and therefore clearly does not derive from the Romanizing tendency attested by the corrections in the Busto manuscript. The admonition at the end to prayer and fasting gives it a clearly penitential character, which explains why it is always read as the introduction to Forelent, as the Church prepares itself for an intensified period of prayer and fasting.

The introduction of this final Sunday is further explained by a shrewd observation of the scholar Patrizia Carmassi regarding another lectionary, a codex in the Ambrosian Library (A 23 bis inf.) of the 13th century, but certainly copied from a much older archetype. This manuscript contains a list of the prophetic readings for the whole liturgical year, with a very significant correction for the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany; the rubricated title “Dominica Quinta post Epiphaniam” is cancelled out and replaced with “Dominica in Septuagesima.” We may therefore suppose that the archetype did not include Septuagesima, but did have the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, a problem which the later copyist fixed simply by changing the title, treating it as an alternative for the older title.

In the Codex Mediolanensis, a Gospel book from the area of Milan with liturgical notes that date it to the 7th or 8th century, Septuagesima is still missing. Nevertheless, in the early Carolingian period, when the liturgical books of Milan were being revised and Romanized, the fourth and fifth Sundays after Epiphany were added. From this, we may deduce that these Sundays were seen as part of Forelent, along with Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, and the adoption of Septuagesima was therefore felt to be unnecessary. The custom of always reading Matthew 17, 14-20, on the Sunday before Septuagesima therefore reflects an ancient understanding of it as part of Forelent, regardless of what that Sunday is actually called.

There are some interesting parallels to the Ambrosian Gospel in other non-Roman western rites. In the oldest form of the Mozarabic lectionary, there is only one Sunday of Forelent, called “ante carnes tollendas – before taking away meat.” The Gospel of this Sunday, Matthew 17, 1-20, includes both the episode of Christ’s Transfiguration, and that of the possessed child read in the Ambrosian Rite. In two lectionaries of the ancient Gallican Rite, that of Luxeuil (6th century) and a fragmentary manuscript at Würzburg (7th century) the Gospel of the same Sunday, which is called “the Sunday after St Peter’s Chair”, is only the first part, Matthew 17, 1-9, which the Roman Rite reads on the Second Sunday of Lent, and the preceding Ember Saturday.

The Transfiguration, by Raphael, 1517-19; in the lower part, the possessed child and his father are seen before the remaining nine Apostles.

In this episode, Moses and Elijah, who appear to either side of the Lord, represent the catechumens, since they both undertook a fast of 40 days in preparation for a vision of the Lord, as the catechumens do in Lent, to prepare themselves for the illumination of baptism at Easter. The antiquity of the association between this episode and the discipline of Lent is shown by a passage of St Ambrose’s commentary on the Song of Songs.

“Moses, set on the mountain for forty days, and receiving the Law, required no food for his body: Elijah, hastening to his rest, asked that his soul be taken from him: Peter, also on a mountain, looking upon the glory of the Lord’s resurrection, did not wish to come down, saying ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here.’ ”

This passage is ideally placed between the Baptism of Christ, celebrated on Epiphany, and His passion, as Ambrose explains in his book “On the Holy Spirit” (16, 755b).

“So that you may know that (God) made mention of the Lord Jesus’ descent (from heaven in the Incarnation), he further adds that he proclaimed his Anointed one unto men (Amos 4, 13); for at the Baptism, he proclaimed this, saying, ‘Thou are my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ (Matthew 3, 17). He proclaimed this on the mountain, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him. (Matthew 17, 17). He proclaimed this in His Passion, when the sun departed, and the seas and land trembled.”

The Mozarabic Rite, however, extends the Gospel of the Sunday “ante carnes tollendas” to include the episode of the possessed boy. This can be explained from a sermon of St Isidore of Seville, who compares the exorcism which Christ performed on the boy to the one performed as part of the rite of baptism.

“Exorcism is a word (or ‘speech’) of rebuke against an unclean spirit in regard to the possessed, but is also done for the catechumens, and by it, the most wicked power of the devil and his ancient malice, or his violent incursion, is expelled and put to flight. This is signified by that lunatic whom Jesus rebuked, and the demon went out from him. But the power of the devil is exorcized, and they are breathed upon, so that they may renounce him, and being delivered from the power of darkness, may be taken over to the kingdom of their Lord though the sacrament of Baptism.”

However, it still remains to be explained why the Gallican tradition includes only the episode of the Transfiguration, the Mozarabic that of the Transfiguration and the possessed boy, while the Ambrosian includes only the latter.

This article is mostly a translation of notes written by Nicola de’ Grandi.]]> The Beginning of Ambrosian Forelent

Gregory DiPippo, NLM | February 09, 2025

The Ambrosian season after Epiphany presents some interesting and unique characteristics compared with the same period in the Roman Rite. In the latter, from its first attestation in the Lectionary of Würzburg, the season has a full compliment of Gospel readings; in the Ambrosian Rite, on the other hand, the liturgical texts of the season were slow to evolve, but their evolution can be traced out from the surviving ancient manuscripts.

The traditional Roman rubrics are organized in such a way that none of the Sundays between Epiphany and Septuagesima are omitted; in the Tridentine reform, a system was created, and is still in use, by which those which cannot be celebrated in their regular place are moved to the end of the season after Pentecost. The Ambrosian Rite has no such tradition, with the exception of the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, which is never omitted, and always celebrated as the last Sunday before Septuagesima. (Prior to the Borromean reform of the Ambrosian liturgical books, this Sunday was called “the Fifth after Epiphany”, and there was no Sixth, since Easter very rarely occurs late enough for one to be necessary.) This custom is first attested in a liturgical ordo called the “Beroldus Novus” in the 13th century; its origin is to be found by tracing out the history of the period in Ambrosian liturgical books.

A page of an Ambrosian Missal printed in Milan in 1522, with the Mass of the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, preceded by the rubric that it is always celebrated “next to” (juxta) Septuagesima.

The Transfiguration, by Raphael, 1517-19; in the lower part, the possessed child and his father are seen before the remaining nine Apostles.

In this episode, Moses and Elijah, who appear to either side of the Lord, represent the catechumens, since they both undertook a fast of 40 days in preparation for a vision of the Lord, as the catechumens do in Lent, to prepare themselves for the illumination of baptism at Easter. The antiquity of the association between this episode and the discipline of Lent is shown by a passage of St Ambrose’s commentary on the Song of Songs.

“Moses, set on the mountain for forty days, and receiving the Law, required no food for his body: Elijah, hastening to his rest, asked that his soul be taken from him: Peter, also on a mountain, looking upon the glory of the Lord’s resurrection, did not wish to come down, saying ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here.’ ”

This passage is ideally placed between the Baptism of Christ, celebrated on Epiphany, and His passion, as Ambrose explains in his book “On the Holy Spirit” (16, 755b).

“So that you may know that (God) made mention of the Lord Jesus’ descent (from heaven in the Incarnation), he further adds that he proclaimed his Anointed one unto men (Amos 4, 13); for at the Baptism, he proclaimed this, saying, ‘Thou are my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ (Matthew 3, 17). He proclaimed this on the mountain, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him. (Matthew 17, 17). He proclaimed this in His Passion, when the sun departed, and the seas and land trembled.”

The Mozarabic Rite, however, extends the Gospel of the Sunday “ante carnes tollendas” to include the episode of the possessed boy. This can be explained from a sermon of St Isidore of Seville, who compares the exorcism which Christ performed on the boy to the one performed as part of the rite of baptism.

“Exorcism is a word (or ‘speech’) of rebuke against an unclean spirit in regard to the possessed, but is also done for the catechumens, and by it, the most wicked power of the devil and his ancient malice, or his violent incursion, is expelled and put to flight. This is signified by that lunatic whom Jesus rebuked, and the demon went out from him. But the power of the devil is exorcized, and they are breathed upon, so that they may renounce him, and being delivered from the power of darkness, may be taken over to the kingdom of their Lord though the sacrament of Baptism.”

However, it still remains to be explained why the Gallican tradition includes only the episode of the Transfiguration, the Mozarabic that of the Transfiguration and the possessed boy, while the Ambrosian includes only the latter.

This article is mostly a translation of notes written by Nicola de’ Grandi.]]> <![CDATA[The Station Churches of the Christmas Season]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6747 Sat, 28 Dec 2024 12:34:11 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6747 The Station Churches of the Christmas Season
(Part 1)

Gregory DiPippo - NLM [slightly adapted - not all hyperlinks included from original] | December 27, 2024

The Station Churches of Rome are nowadays perhaps thought of as a particular feature of Lent, since that season is the only one that has a station for every day, and the Lenten stations are the only ones which are still kept in Rome itself. However, the Missal of St Pius V, preserving the ancient traditions of the Roman Church, lists stations for several other periods of the liturgical year, such as the Sundays and Ember days of Advent, the pre-Lenten Sundays, and the octaves of both Easter and Pentecost. Prior to the 70-year long removal of the Papacy to Avignon, it was still the custom for the Pope to personally celebrate the principal liturgies at the stations, although one safely assume that this was kept more assiduously by some and less so by others. The following article in three parts will examine the station churches of the Christmas season, from the vigil of Christmas to the feast of the Epiphany.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

According to a very ancient custom of the Church of Rome, Christmas Day is celebrated with three Masses: one at midnight, preceded by Matins and followed by Lauds; one at dawn, after the hour of Prime; and a third during the day, to be celebrated, as on all major feasts, after Terce. In the Roman Breviary, we still read a homily of St Gregory the Great (590-604) at Christmas Matins, which begins with the words “Because, by the Lord’s bounty, we are to celebrate Mass three times today…” Like most of the great solemnities, Christmas is also preceded by a vigil day, particularly dedicated to fasting and penance in preparation for the feast. Thus, there are in fact four Masses on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of December.

Of these four Masses, three currently have the same station listed, the great Basilica of Saint Mary Major. This is, of course, the oldest church in the world dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and the most important of the many Marian churches in Rome. It was built by Pope St Sixtus III (432-440) to honor Her after the third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus had rejected the heresy of Nestorius, and formally defined Her title “Mother of God.” It is the traditional home of the famous icon known as the “Salus Populi Romani – Salvation of the Roman people”, one of the oldest icons in existence. Almost directly above the main altar of the church, the great arch still preserves the original mosaics of Pope Sixtus’ time, depicting events from the life of the Virgin. The Nativity of Christ, however, is not shown among them; it seems that the Annunciation and Epiphany, prominently depicted one above the other on the left side, were felt to contain between them the whole of the Nativity story.

Santa Maria Maggiore in an 18th century engraving by Giuseppe Vasi.

It is almost certain that already in St Gregory’s time, on the twenty-fourth of December, the canonical hour of None and the vigil Mass of the Nativity were both celebrated by the Pope and his court in the main basilica of Mary Major, to be followed by solemn First Vespers of Christmas. After a rest of some hours, the Pope and clergy would arise in the early part of the night for Matins, the first Mass of Christmas, and Lauds; thus, the Church kept watch for the Nativity of the Lord alongside the Virgin Mary in the stable at Bethlehem. By the middle of the seventh century, however, a small oratory had been built on the right side of the basilica, called “Sancta Maria ad Praesepe”, that is, Saint Mary at the Crib. This chapel was for many centuries the home of the relics reputed to be those of the Lord’s Crib, first attested in Rome in the reign of Pope Theodore (640-49). From roughly that time, the station of the Midnight Mass was kept in the chapel, while the services properly belonging to the Vigil of Christmas remained in the main basilica.

St. Anastasia

The second Mass is kept at the church of St Anastasia, located at the base of the Palatine hill, very close to the site of the great chariot racing stadium of Rome, the Circus Maximus. The standard opinion among liturgical scholars has long been that this was originally not part of the celebration of Christmas at all, but a Mass in honor of the church’s titular Saint, who was martyred during the persecution of Diocletian in the city of Sirmium, the modern Mitrovica in Serbia. (See the article on St Anastasia by J.P. Kirsch in the Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. 1.2, col. 1923, and Bl. Ildephonse Schuster’s The Sacramentary, vol. 1, p. 368.) This strikes me as extremely improbable, since her feast is not included in the oldest liturgical books of the Roman Rite. The so-called Leonine Sacramentary gives her name last among a group of seven martyrs whose feast is on December 25th, but there is no mention of her (or any of the others) in any of the nine different Mass formulae for Christmas that follow; she is completely absent from the Gelasian Sacramentary. The lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite (ca. 650 AD) lists the Gospel for the second Mass as Luke 2, 15-20, the account of the shepherds coming to Bethlehem, which continues the Gospel of the first Mass, Luke 2, 1-14. This does not exclude the possibility that the station was chosen because the day was also St Anastasia’s feast; in the later Gregorian Sacramentary, her Mass and that of Christmas are given together, with the proper texts of the martyr first. In the Missal of St Pius V and its late medieval predecessors, she is kept as a commemoration at this second Mass.

The third Mass of Christmas was originally celebrated not at Mary Major, but at Saint Peter’s in the Vatican. This would certainly be because the sheer size of the church, just over 100 meters long, would allow for a greater crowd to attend the most solemn of the three Nativity Masses, that which commemorates the eternal birth of God the Son from God the Eternal Father. St Ambrose tells us in the De Virginibus that his sister Marcellina was veiled as a nun by Pope Liberius in St Peter’s on Christmas Day; it is also known that Pope St Celestine I (422-32) read the decisions of the Council of Ephesus to the faithful on the same occasion. One of the most important events in the history Christendom is also connected with this stational observance; on Christmas Day, 800 A.D., Charlemagne was crowned as the Emperor of Rome by Pope St Leo III, before the celebration of the Mass.

The Coronation of Charlemagne, from the Grand Chronique de France, ca. 1455

In about 1140, a canon of St Peter’s Basilica named Benedict records in his account of the ceremonies held in his church, now known as the eleventh Ordo Romanus, that the station of this third Mass was still kept there, but a half a century later, the twelfth Ordo tells us that it is at Mary Major. For most of the Middle Ages, the population of Rome was roughly 20,000 people, living in a city built for a million and a half, and a large church was no longer necessary for the papal Mass of Christmas. Furthermore, for much of the period, the city was ruled by military strongmen, and the Pope, though nominally temporal sovereign of the city, had little or no control over it. For these practical reasons, the station was sometimes kept in the 12th century at Mary Major, which is very much closer than St Peter’s to the Pope’s residence at the Lateran Basilica, and would have been easier and safer for the Papal court to reach. There were in fact several such “double stations” at various periods, and the definitive transfer of this one was probably not made until the later 14th century. The liturgical writer Sicard of Cremona still speaks of the station at St Peter’s in roughly 1200, and explains that “in the Communion of this Mass… ‘All the ends of the earth (have seen the salvation of our God.’); and because the blessed Peter saw this, and confessed it more than the others, as the Father that is in Heaven revealed it to him, therefore the station is at St Peter.”

On the mosaic arch over the altar of Mary Major, the lowest part of the right side depicts the city of Bethlehem, and the left side the city of Jerusalem; this pairing of the two holy cities is a common motif in early Christian art. It is interesting to note that the oratory of the Crib was also frequently called “Sancta Maria in Bethlehem”, and represented, as it were, the city of Christ’s Birth within the Eternal City. For this reason, when the relics of Saint Jerome were moved to Rome from the real Bethlehem, where he died, they were placed once again “in Bethlehem.” In like manner, the church which housed the relics of the True Cross was called “Holy Cross in Jerusalem.” The union of the two holy cities was further shown by the fact that the relics of the Crib of Christ, who was born in this world so that He might die for our sakes, were formerly arranged in the shape of a cross.

[Image: Sacra+culla+S.+Maria+Maggiore.jpg]

The relics of the Lord's Crib in a reliquary of 1830.

This chapel also has a special connection with two of the great Saints of the Counter-reformation. St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Company of Jesus, celebrated his first Mass on the principal altar of the Crib chapel; so great was his devotion to the Mass that he deemed a full year necessary to prepare himself properly to celebrate it. In the same place, St Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the first order of Clerks Regular, was graced on Christmas Eve with a vision, in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and handed him the Infant Jesus to hold. Both of these events are still commemorated by marble plaques near the altar of the now rebuilt Sancta Maria ad Praesepe.

The chapel was severely damaged during the sack of Rome in 1527, and almost entirely rebuilt in the later 16th-century; it is now often called “the other Sistine Chapel” in honor of the Franciscan Pope Sixtus V (1585-90), under whose auspices the rebuilding was carried out. Like many of the Popes of this era, he was not buried at St Peter’s, which was still under construction during his pontificate. The place which he chose for his monument, therefore, was the great chapel of the Crib, placing opposite himself the monument of his now sainted predecessor, Pius V. To this day, their spiritual brothers are still present in the Virgin Mary’s most ancient church; Dominican friars hear confessions in several languages through most of the day, and Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate serve as sacristans and chaplains. The relics of the Crib have long since been moved to the main altar, so that they may be seen more easily by the many pilgrims who come to church each day.

The second part of this article will discuss the Station churches of the feast days within the Christmas Octave.]]> The Station Churches of the Christmas Season
(Part 1)

Gregory DiPippo - NLM [slightly adapted - not all hyperlinks included from original] | December 27, 2024

The Station Churches of Rome are nowadays perhaps thought of as a particular feature of Lent, since that season is the only one that has a station for every day, and the Lenten stations are the only ones which are still kept in Rome itself. However, the Missal of St Pius V, preserving the ancient traditions of the Roman Church, lists stations for several other periods of the liturgical year, such as the Sundays and Ember days of Advent, the pre-Lenten Sundays, and the octaves of both Easter and Pentecost. Prior to the 70-year long removal of the Papacy to Avignon, it was still the custom for the Pope to personally celebrate the principal liturgies at the stations, although one safely assume that this was kept more assiduously by some and less so by others. The following article in three parts will examine the station churches of the Christmas season, from the vigil of Christmas to the feast of the Epiphany.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Santa Maria Maggiore in an 18th century engraving by Giuseppe Vasi.

St. Anastasia

The Coronation of Charlemagne, from the Grand Chronique de France, ca. 1455

The relics of the Lord's Crib in a reliquary of 1830.

This chapel also has a special connection with two of the great Saints of the Counter-reformation. St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Company of Jesus, celebrated his first Mass on the principal altar of the Crib chapel; so great was his devotion to the Mass that he deemed a full year necessary to prepare himself properly to celebrate it. In the same place, St Cajetan of Thiene, founder of the first order of Clerks Regular, was graced on Christmas Eve with a vision, in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and handed him the Infant Jesus to hold. Both of these events are still commemorated by marble plaques near the altar of the now rebuilt Sancta Maria ad Praesepe.

The chapel was severely damaged during the sack of Rome in 1527, and almost entirely rebuilt in the later 16th-century; it is now often called “the other Sistine Chapel” in honor of the Franciscan Pope Sixtus V (1585-90), under whose auspices the rebuilding was carried out. Like many of the Popes of this era, he was not buried at St Peter’s, which was still under construction during his pontificate. The place which he chose for his monument, therefore, was the great chapel of the Crib, placing opposite himself the monument of his now sainted predecessor, Pius V. To this day, their spiritual brothers are still present in the Virgin Mary’s most ancient church; Dominican friars hear confessions in several languages through most of the day, and Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate serve as sacristans and chaplains. The relics of the Crib have long since been moved to the main altar, so that they may be seen more easily by the many pilgrims who come to church each day.

The second part of this article will discuss the Station churches of the feast days within the Christmas Octave.]]> <![CDATA[The Station Churches of the Ember Days of Lent]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=5977 Fri, 23 Feb 2024 10:22:25 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=5977 The Station Churches of the Ember Days of Lent

NLM | February 21, 2024

During all four sets of Ember Days, the stations are held at the same three churches: on Wednesday at St Mary Major, on Friday at the church of the Twelve Apostles, and on Saturday at the basilica of St Peter in the Vatican. In Advent, Pentecost week, and September, there is often no clear connection between the station church and the actual text of the day’s Mass. On the Lenten Ember Days, however, the Gospel of the Mass each day makes a clear reference to the saint or saints in whose church it was intended to be said.

The high altar of St Mary Major, decorated with relics for the Lenten station in 2017. Photo by the great Agnese.

On Ember Wednesday, the Gospel is St Matthew 12, 38-50, in which the Lord rebukes the Pharisees who wish to see Him perform a sign. “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign; and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.”

In the Christian perspective, Jonah is unique and uniquely important among the prophets for two reasons. First, he personally does not say anything about Christ, as, for example, Isaiah says that a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. In Jonah’s case, it is what happens to his body that prophesies the destiny of Jesus’ body, His death and Resurrection. Secondly, this prophetic explanation of his story is given to us by Christ Himself. He therefore became at a very early period one of the most frequently represented subjects in Christian art.

[Image: Jonah+Fresco+-+Catacomb+of+Callixtus.jpg]

Stories of Jonah, from a late 2nd century fresco in the Catacomb of Callixtus. From right to left, Jonah is thrown into the sea, where a monster is about to swallow him; Jonah is spat out of the sea-monster; Jonah rests under the vine. The Greek and Latin words for “whale” can also mean “sea-monster”, and the creature that swallows the prophet is usually shown as such in early Christian art.

In the ancient paintings and sarcophagi from the catacombs of Rome and elsewhere, Jonah is almost invariably shown nude, whether he is depicted being thrown into the water, swallowed by the whale, vomited out by the whale, or lying down under the vine that God uses to shield him from the sun. His nudity emphasizes the reality of his human nature, and therefore emphasizes the reality of Christ’s human nature. It must be born in mind that early heretics like the Docetists, Gnostics, and later the Arians, were concerned to deny not so much the divinity of Christ as the humanity of God. In antiquity, the idea of a savior, sage or miracle-worker sent from heaven was not particularly difficult to accept; what many in the Roman world found much harder to believe was that God took such interest in the welfare of the human race that He actually joined it. The nude figure of Jonah, therefore, is as much an assertion of the Incarnation, against the early heresies, as it is a proclamation of the death and resurrection of Christ.

A third-century sarcophagus in the Vatican Museums’ Pio-Christian collection. This is one of the most elaborate versions of the Jonah story, and is therefore known as the Jonah Sarcophagus, although there are many other ancient representations of the prophet. Note that Noah is seen standing in a square ark above the sea-monster on the right, a clever use of the extra space to add another important Biblical episode.
This tradition was already well established when the basilica of Saint Mary Major was built right after the ecumenical council of Ephesus, both to honor the chosen vessel of God’s Incarnation, and to re-assert this dogma of our salvation against the heretic Nestorius; the station is kept at the natural choice of church in which to read this crucial Gospel passage. Oddly enough, the traditional Roman Rite uses only one passage from the book of Jonah itself at Mass in the whole of the year; chapter 3, in which Jonah preaches repentance to the Ninivites, is read on the Monday of Passion week, and repeated at the Easter Vigil. In the traditional Ambrosian liturgy, on the other hand, the entire book (actually one of the shortest in the Bible, only 48 verses) is the first reading of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper; in the Byzantine Rite, it is read at the Easter vigil.

At the end of the same Gospel, the Mother of God Herself appears in person: “And one said unto him, ‘Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking thee.’ But He answering… said: ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?’ And stretching forth His hand towards His disciples, He said: Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.’ ” These words are explained by St Gregory the Great to mean that the disciples of Christ are His brethren when they believe in Him, and His Mother when they preach Him; “For as it were, one gives birth to the Lord when he brings Him into the heart of his listener, and becomes His Mother by preaching Him, if through his voice the love of God is begotten in the mind of his neighbor.” (Homily 3 on the Gospels).

The Coronation of the Virgin, apsidal mosaic of St. Mary Major by Jacopo Torriti, 1296

On Friday is read at the basilica of the Twelve Apostles the Gospel of the man healed at the pool of Bethesda, John 5, 1-15, wherein “lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered.” This healing may be seen as a prophecy of the mission given by Christ Himself to the Apostles, and in them to the whole Church. During His earthly ministry, when He first sent the Apostles forth, He “gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities. And the names of the twelve Apostles are these: The first, Simon who is called Peter, etc. (saying) ‘Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.’ ” (Matthew 10, 1-2 and 8). Likewise, on the feast of the Ascension, we read that He renewed this commission to the Apostles, giving as one of the signs that shall follow those that believe in Him, “they shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall recover.” Here, when Christ heals the man who is too lame to reach the pool as the Angel of the Lord stirs the water, He says to him, “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.” In the Acts of the Apostles, the very first miracle of healing reported after the first Pentecost is that of the lame man to whom their leader says “Arise and walk.” (chapter 3, 1-16)

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Three images of Christ as healer on a 3rd-century sarcophagus, also in the Pio-Christian Collection of the Vatican Museums. From left to right, the healing of the paralytic, who is shown carrying his bed; the healing of the blind man; the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. The fourth image is Christ transforming water into wine at the wedding of Cana. In antiquity, Christ was often shown holding a magic wand to indicate that He is working a miracle; some commentators have most unfortunately chosen to understand this to mean that the early Christians thought of Christ principally as a magician.

The Synoptic Gospels tell the story of another paralytic healed at Capharnaum, whose friends had to take the roof off the building to lower him down into the place where Jesus was preaching. (Mark 2, 1-12 and parallels) When Christ says to him first “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” the Pharisees grew indignant at this usurpation of God’s prerogatives. He therefore heals the man of his bodily infirmities to show that “the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,” and then addresses him in the same terms He uses with the man at the pool of Bethesda, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house.”

The healed paralytic carrying his bed is another motif of great importance in early Christian art, representing the forgiveness of sins, an article of the faith which we still profess in every recitation of the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. Such images usually consist only of Christ and the man carrying his bed, and it is impossible to say whether we are meant to see him as the paralytic of Capharnaum or Bethesda. More likely, we are meant to think of them both at once.

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The healing of the paralytic of Bethesda, from the basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, ca. 550 A.D. In the same church, the paralytic of Capharnaum is shown being lowered through the roof, a rare case in which the two are clearly distinguished.

The latter, however, represents another idea of great importance to the early Church, namely, that gentiles are not obliged to live according to the religious laws of the Jews. In the early centuries, many Christians still felt themselves to be very close to their Jewish roots, and continued to follow the Mosaic law; a small but apparently rather vocal minority of these held that the same law should be binding upon all Christians. The paralytic of Bethesda, however, when reproved for violating the strict interpretation of law that no work may be done on the Sabbath, replies “He that made me whole said to me, ‘Take up thy bed, and walk.’ ” He therefore symbolizes the fact that Christ Himself has given the Church a new law, by which Christians are freed from the observance of the law of Moses.

The same idea is expressed by another common motif in early Christian art, the scene referred to as the Traditio Legis – the Handing-Down of the Law. In these images, Jesus is shown with a scroll representing the new law of the Christian faith, in the company of at least the Apostle Peter, usually also Paul, and sometimes all twelve; very often, He is passing the scroll directly to them. The Apostles, who had of course discussed this same question at the very first Council of the Church, that of Jerusalem (Acts 15), hand down to the Church and its members the new law that permanently dispenses us from the religious observances of the Old Covenant. This is certainly one of the reason why the story of the paralytic of Bethesda is read in the basilica of the Twelve Apostles.

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The Traditio Legis with Ss. Peter and Paul, from the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (prefect of Rome, died 359 A.D.) Note that as Christ is handing the scrolls of the law to the Apostles Peter and Paul, He is also stepping on the face of the sky god, here used as a symbolic figure, to represent His dominion over the heavens.

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The Traditio Legis with all twelve Apostles, from a late-4th century imperial mausoleum in Milan, now the chapel of St Aquilinus in the basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore. Here, Christ has one scroll in His hand, and six in the case at His feet, a total of seven; this number symbolizes perfection, and hence the perfection of the new law.

At the Mass of Ember Saturday, the Church reads St Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration (chapter 17, 1-9) at the basilica of St Peter in the Vatican. In his homilies on this Gospel, St. John Chrysostom teaches that the purpose of the Transfiguration was to strengthen the Apostles’ faith in Christ’s divinity, so that they might not be overwhelmed with sorrow at His Passion or lose faith in His Resurrection. The Greek Church instituted a feast of the Transfiguration long before it was adopted by the West, fixing the day to August 6th, forty days, the length of Lent, before the Exaltation of the Cross. This association of the Transfiguration with the Passion is beautifully expressed by the early Byzantine mosaic in the apse of Sant’ Apollinare in Classe near Ravenna, built in the mid-6th century. The witnesses of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah above, the Apostles Peter, James and John below, represented as three sheep, are standing around a great jeweled Cross, rather than Christ in in His glory and majesty; only the face of the Lord appears, within a small medallion in the middle of the Cross, an expression of the humility with which He accepted the Passion.

The three witnesses of the Transfiguration, Ss Peter, James and John, often appear together in the Gospels as the disciples closest to Christ. Along with Peter’s brother St Andrew, they were the first disciples called to follow Him, and were present for the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Luke 4, 38-39); they were also the witnesses of the healing of the daughter of Jairus, (Mark 5, 37) and the agony in the garden (Mark 14, 33). They alone receive new names from Christ as a sign of their mission, (Mark 3, 16-17) Peter, “the Rock”, being the name given to Simon, James and John receiving the name Boanerges, “sons of thunder”. But at the Transfiguration, as in so many other places, it is Peter alone whose words the Evangelists record for us, words which the church of Rome sings this days at his very tomb, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”]]> The Station Churches of the Ember Days of Lent

NLM | February 21, 2024

During all four sets of Ember Days, the stations are held at the same three churches: on Wednesday at St Mary Major, on Friday at the church of the Twelve Apostles, and on Saturday at the basilica of St Peter in the Vatican. In Advent, Pentecost week, and September, there is often no clear connection between the station church and the actual text of the day’s Mass. On the Lenten Ember Days, however, the Gospel of the Mass each day makes a clear reference to the saint or saints in whose church it was intended to be said.

The high altar of St Mary Major, decorated with relics for the Lenten station in 2017. Photo by the great Agnese.

The Coronation of the Virgin, apsidal mosaic of St. Mary Major by Jacopo Torriti, 1296