Saint Abraham on Quinquagesima

S Abraham, of course, does appear in the Roman Martyrology. His Day is October 9 (just imagine him and S John Henry Newman fighting it out for that day). And, in the Latin Rite Patriarchate of Jerusalem ... and in the Old Carmelite Rite ... there is a proper (duplex maius) for him on that day. Unless, of course, PF suppressed it with a mighty stroke of his potent hand this morning before brekker.

The reason why this Saint is not on the Universal Calendar takes us back to the time when Saints commemorated were either local, or Saints whose relics were held by the local Church. But ... for those who would like it ... I offer at the end of this post the Collect for S Abraham.

However ... I hope nobody will be upset ... I doubt whether this October liturgical provision has the same antiquity and auctoritas as the ancient, probably Gregorian, Roman provision for S Abraham: which we find in the Breviary Office of Quinquagesima. Deft and subtle clergy might usefully seize the crafty opportunity on Quinquagesima to preach about S Abraham.

This office was, needless to say, eliminated by the vandals who, according to arthur roche, produced the "much richer" Usus Deterior of the Roman rite, which he and his Argentinian mentor now desire finally to establish as the unicus usus of the Roman Rite. Their policy, poor poppets, whether in the Bugnini Age or in that of Bergoglianity, seems to me to come perilously close to being anti-semitic.

Because, in the Bergoglian 'mainstream' church, S Abraham now gets next to no mention at Mass. True, he is in the 'First Eucharistic Prayer' ... but in what percentage of churches is that august prayer used?

Mention of S Abraham can be found elsewhere in the liturgical world, not least in the de Sacramentis, but I am going to stick out my neck and claim it as a distinctive part of the distinctively Roman Rite. Rather like the teaching that Transsubstantiation is performed in caelestibus by the Acceptance by the Father of the Sacrifice, rather than by an 'epiklesis' of the Holy Spirit. 

Eucharistic Prayers which fail to mention the Saint (and which attempt to consecrate by Epiklesis) should be carefully cut out of soi disant "Roman" missals and forwarded to Hannibal B, via whatever his present post-code is.

S Abraham is our Patriarch in a way that no other human being is. It is by our participation in  his Faith that we are redeemed. His offering of his son, as mosaics in Rome and Ravenna and early Christian iconography powerfully remind us, is the type of which the Sacrifice of the Mass is the antitype. 

But Stay!! You don't need to go to Great S Mary's in Rome or San Vitale in Ravenna ... you don't need to traipse around the Romanesque churches of Lombardy ... to experience this. Direct your gondola to the glorious Ordinariate basilica of S Agatha in Landport: that will do you nicely instead. At the High Altar, as the celebrant raises his patten and his eyes, and prays Suscipe Sancte Pater ..., what directly meets his eyes is the fine sgraffito painting by a disciple of William Morris, Heywood Sumner. S Abraham stands there; beside him, his son carrying over his shoulder the wood for the sacrifice, just as the antitypical Son carried His Wood up the Hill of Sacrifice.

"Deus, qui in praemium fidei Filium tuum Unigenitum ex semine Abrahae mundo nasci promisisti; concede propitius: ut fide, quam in baptismo suscepimus, in nobis usque ad mortem per caritatem operante, caelo nasci mereamur. Per."