I am glad that Fr Anthony Chadwick is keeping alive a lovely little booklet (I have a 1988 edition) by the late Raymond Winch, called The Canonical Mass of the English Orthodox. This attempts to establish that the form of the Eucharist known to Anglo-Saxon Christians is the canonical entitlement of modern "English Orthodox"; in other words, to be Orthodox you don't have to be Byzantine. (This would seem to be a necessary distinction to make in order to sustain a belief that the collection of Particular Churches collectively and popularly known as "the Orthodox" constitute the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.)
And that Anglo-Saxon Mass is, of course, substantially the Roman Rite as brought to this country by the Augustinian Mission. Winch attempted to establish how this rite should be done; which, of course, is a distinctly broader question than the mere establishment of texts. But you can't celebrate the Eucharist without texts; and Winch's attitude here is surefooted: you wo'n't find any nonsense in him about "correcting" the rite by inserting a Byzantine Epiclesis. But there is one detail where I'm not sure that Winch's conclusion can be sustained.
"... una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro N ... communicantes ...". It is commonly held that this use of papa goes back to a time when it did not exclusively mean the Bishop of Rome (or Alexandria!). It refers to the local bishop (of course, in the local Church of Rome, from which this liturgy comes, the local bishop was the Bishop of Rome). So "English Orthodox" clergy should, at that point, just name their own bishop, and not the Bishop of Rome and (also) not their own "Patriarch" or autocephalous Archbishop. Just the one name! And this is ecclesiologically attractive in as far as the local "particular" Church is "The Church".
The problem is that in a very convincing paper by L. Eizenhofer (Sacris Erudiri VIII, 1 (1956), the writer argues that the Memento is originally diaconal and that the logic of the Canon brackets together una cum ... with communicantes .... (I firmly believe this.) He then deploys texts from Tertullian, Cyprian, Optatus, Augustine, Leo, Felix, Simplicius and Gelasius, to build up the argument that this collocation is designed explicitly to assert the necessity for communion with the Petrine See of S Peter. I quote: "Communicare und communio sind die Worter, um die sich dann fast alles dreht in den Briefen und Traktaten, die die Papste, besonders Gelasius I (492-496), der auch die Briefe seiner beiden Vorganger Simplicius (468-483) und Felix III (483-492) verfasst hat, gegen das Akacianische Schisma (484-519) schrieben. Da begegnen sie uns sozusagen auf jeder Seite und in jedem Kapitel, oft in vielfacher Wiederholung. Hie communio Acacii, hie communio Sancti Petri. Wer mit solchen Communio halt, die von der romischen Communio ausgeschlossen sind, der ist selbst excommuniziert". (No umlauts ... I dunno how to do them, or, for that matter, accents in French; and I leave it untranslated because I'm nervous about making a howler ... if some benevolent Germanist were to translate it on the thread, out of gratitude I will offer a Mass for his/her intentions.)
If, in the terminology of the Roman Church in those centuries, this passage of the Canon asserts or assumes the necessity of being in communion with Rome, or of Rome as a test of Catholic Communion, there would be a problem about using una cum papa nostro N to name the local bishop, as Winch and others suggest, unless they really are willing to assert that communio with their local bishop is ecclesiologically an essential marker of Catholic Communion.
But then, wouldn't you expect there to be some problem about using a a text crafted in Rome, in an ecclesial context out of communion with the Roman See?
(I would prefer any comments to engage with Eizenhofer's paper rather than with my summarising.)
13 May 2015
12 May 2015
Money and Concelebration.
Benedict XIV (1740-1758) concludes his argument that concelebrants are, each of them, true celebrants (pariter concelebrant) by dealing with the question of concelebrants accepting Mass-stipends. This is the acid test. You are stealing from the laity if you accept a Mass-stipend but do not say the Mass for the intention of the donor. So the question is: if a hundred priests concebrate, can a hundred priests accept, each of them, a Mass-stipend for that same Eucharistic celebration? Now ... traddies among you had better hold on tightly to something fixed to the ground, because you are not likely to enjoy what follows ... the answer given by the Sovereign Pontiff is an unambiguous Yes. In other words, each concelebrant has precisely the same sacramental standing as a priest saying his own private Mass. Watch my lips: Each : one : is : saying : Mass.
It is not surprising that, for the next two centuries, manualists concurred with this weighty papal judgement. Benedict XIV, Prospero Lambertini, had an immense reputation, based equally upon his own erudition and his papal status. In the last expiring months of the Old Rite (which had at that point received only two or three trifling modifications), on March 7 1965, a Rite of Concelebration was promulgated for use with the old rite. In accordance with actual words of the Council, the document was less than whole-hearted in its endorsement of daily Concelebration when all the concelebrants are presbyters, but the rite was intended to be used universally at Ordinations, Consecrations, Abbatial Blessings, in Councils, Synods, and Episcopal meetings, and at both Masses on Maundy Thursday.
As far as Maundy Thursday Concelebration is concerned, this is something which had not lost its last foothold in the Latin Church until our own time. The Rite of Lyons, which survived until the Council, provided that on that one day six presbyters had the right to sit with the Archbishop and concelebrate (honor sedendi et offerendi). This was but the last survival of a widespread practice of such concelebration in French cathedrals during the Counter-Reformation period.
So those 1965 provisions seem to me a thoroughly 'organic' liturgical development. They seem to me to draw, not as revolutionary liturgical subversives so often and so cheerfully do, upon dubious, impobable, and unedifying reconstructions of "what the Early Church did", but upon a broad consideration of the Latin Church's whole liturgical tradition; upon the Magisterium, and especially (when the meaning of the Roman Rite is concerned) that of Roman Pontiffs; and upon the consensus of reliable manualists.They seem to me to rest on the consistent and reiterated teaching of Popes and Doctors over the last millennium. They are not some load of rubbish dreamed up by archbishop Bugnini's generation.
And (paragraph 10) they concur with the judgement on Mass-stipends of Benedict XIV and those who followed him: Singuli concelebrantes stipendium legitime percipere possunt ad normam iuris.
The mature and settled inheritance, the auctoritas, of the Latin Church prescribes that, normally, each presbyter should celebrate ('presidentially') daily, and do so privately if he is not obliged to serve a pastoral need. This needs to be upheld and, where necessary, restored.
But the notion which one sometimes meets among traditionalists who have not informed themselves of the facts, that any form of concelebration is a treacherous sell-out to the 'Spirit of Vatican II', contradicts the traditions of the Latin Churches and the Magisterium of Popes Innocent III and Benedict XIV and the considered judgement of S Thomas Aquinas ... and a lot of Counter-Reformation manualists.
It is not surprising that, for the next two centuries, manualists concurred with this weighty papal judgement. Benedict XIV, Prospero Lambertini, had an immense reputation, based equally upon his own erudition and his papal status. In the last expiring months of the Old Rite (which had at that point received only two or three trifling modifications), on March 7 1965, a Rite of Concelebration was promulgated for use with the old rite. In accordance with actual words of the Council, the document was less than whole-hearted in its endorsement of daily Concelebration when all the concelebrants are presbyters, but the rite was intended to be used universally at Ordinations, Consecrations, Abbatial Blessings, in Councils, Synods, and Episcopal meetings, and at both Masses on Maundy Thursday.
As far as Maundy Thursday Concelebration is concerned, this is something which had not lost its last foothold in the Latin Church until our own time. The Rite of Lyons, which survived until the Council, provided that on that one day six presbyters had the right to sit with the Archbishop and concelebrate (honor sedendi et offerendi). This was but the last survival of a widespread practice of such concelebration in French cathedrals during the Counter-Reformation period.
So those 1965 provisions seem to me a thoroughly 'organic' liturgical development. They seem to me to draw, not as revolutionary liturgical subversives so often and so cheerfully do, upon dubious, impobable, and unedifying reconstructions of "what the Early Church did", but upon a broad consideration of the Latin Church's whole liturgical tradition; upon the Magisterium, and especially (when the meaning of the Roman Rite is concerned) that of Roman Pontiffs; and upon the consensus of reliable manualists.They seem to me to rest on the consistent and reiterated teaching of Popes and Doctors over the last millennium. They are not some load of rubbish dreamed up by archbishop Bugnini's generation.
And (paragraph 10) they concur with the judgement on Mass-stipends of Benedict XIV and those who followed him: Singuli concelebrantes stipendium legitime percipere possunt ad normam iuris.
The mature and settled inheritance, the auctoritas, of the Latin Church prescribes that, normally, each presbyter should celebrate ('presidentially') daily, and do so privately if he is not obliged to serve a pastoral need. This needs to be upheld and, where necessary, restored.
But the notion which one sometimes meets among traditionalists who have not informed themselves of the facts, that any form of concelebration is a treacherous sell-out to the 'Spirit of Vatican II', contradicts the traditions of the Latin Churches and the Magisterium of Popes Innocent III and Benedict XIV and the considered judgement of S Thomas Aquinas ... and a lot of Counter-Reformation manualists.
11 May 2015
THIS BLOG
I have a number of academic and other matters on which I must spend some time.
I will continue, Deo volente, to make a daily comment on this blog; but I do not think I shall have much time to check through comments. Nor shall I be able to deal individually with a lot of the greatly increasing number of emails I receive.
I apologise, therefore, for what is likely to seem a discourtesy. I am not sure when I can undertake to return to giving my computer the amount of attention it has been getting for the last year or two; I hope soon.
A week or ten days, perhaps? I will let you know.
I will continue, Deo volente, to make a daily comment on this blog; but I do not think I shall have much time to check through comments. Nor shall I be able to deal individually with a lot of the greatly increasing number of emails I receive.
I apologise, therefore, for what is likely to seem a discourtesy. I am not sure when I can undertake to return to giving my computer the amount of attention it has been getting for the last year or two; I hope soon.
A week or ten days, perhaps? I will let you know.
Benedict XIV on Concelebration
Innocent III (Pope 1198-1216) made his views on concelebration clear enough; so did S Thomas (see earlier posts). But the former, it could be argued (Durandus did), was writing as a private theologian; and as for the latter, despite his eminence, Cajetan disagreed with him.
Benedict XIV (Pope 1740-1758), undoubtedly one of the half-dozen most erudite men ever to grace the Cathedra Petri, left nothing to chance. As well as in his monumental work de Sacrosancto Missae Sacrificio (Liber III caput xvi), he made his teaching about Concelebration very clear in two magisterial documents, the encyclicals Demandatam (12 December 1743; paragraphs 9-10) and Allatae (26 July 1755; paragraph 38).
The basis of the Sovereign Pontiff's teaching is his conviction that the Eastern and Western churches are at one in this matter so that the practice of the Byzantine East can throw definitive light on the significance of our Latin practice: "It was once a rite common to the Western and Eastern Church equally, that presbyters should offer the Sacrifice of the Mass together with the bishop [copious references follow] ... at the present moment the Rite of Concelebration has grown obsolete in the Western Church, except in the Ordination of Priests which the bishop performs, and in the Consecration of Bishops, which is carried out by a bishop with two other bishops assisting".
He points out that the obsolescence of Concelebration in other circumstances in the West is comparatively recent (temporibus haud ita ab aetate nostra remotis), and that previously the 'disciplina Ecclesiae Occidentalis' demanded (postulabat) that on major solemnities, when a bishop was celebrating, presbyters should celebrate together with (una cum) the bishop - and the words of Innocent III are one of a number of exempla that he draws in to support the assertion. Not that he believes Concelebration is confined to Concelebration cum episcopo. He had to dealing with a request from Byzantines who desired to celebrate the Eucharist daily but who lacked enough altars to do so; Byzantine custom insists that every Eucharist be celebrated on a 'fasting' altar. He categorically refuses them permission to celebrate twice on the same altar and advises them instead to concelebrate "with a bishop or with another priest".
He insists that concelebrants should vest as celebrants and utter the words of Consecration "just as if they were saying Mass on their own [perinde ac si sacrosanctum sacrificium singulatim conficerent]". Benedict denies the wriggle-argument that such priests are merely saying the Words of Consecration "materialiter et recitative", insisting that they utter them "significative". They are true celebrants, albeit secondary ones (etsi secundarii, tamen vere celebrantes).
I do not believe that a laudable desire to shape ones liturgical praxis by the authentic customs of the Roman Liturgy requires that a priest should decline to concelebrate the Maundy Thursday Masses with his Bishop and Presbyterium.
More later.
Benedict XIV (Pope 1740-1758), undoubtedly one of the half-dozen most erudite men ever to grace the Cathedra Petri, left nothing to chance. As well as in his monumental work de Sacrosancto Missae Sacrificio (Liber III caput xvi), he made his teaching about Concelebration very clear in two magisterial documents, the encyclicals Demandatam (12 December 1743; paragraphs 9-10) and Allatae (26 July 1755; paragraph 38).
The basis of the Sovereign Pontiff's teaching is his conviction that the Eastern and Western churches are at one in this matter so that the practice of the Byzantine East can throw definitive light on the significance of our Latin practice: "It was once a rite common to the Western and Eastern Church equally, that presbyters should offer the Sacrifice of the Mass together with the bishop [copious references follow] ... at the present moment the Rite of Concelebration has grown obsolete in the Western Church, except in the Ordination of Priests which the bishop performs, and in the Consecration of Bishops, which is carried out by a bishop with two other bishops assisting".
He points out that the obsolescence of Concelebration in other circumstances in the West is comparatively recent (temporibus haud ita ab aetate nostra remotis), and that previously the 'disciplina Ecclesiae Occidentalis' demanded (postulabat) that on major solemnities, when a bishop was celebrating, presbyters should celebrate together with (una cum) the bishop - and the words of Innocent III are one of a number of exempla that he draws in to support the assertion. Not that he believes Concelebration is confined to Concelebration cum episcopo. He had to dealing with a request from Byzantines who desired to celebrate the Eucharist daily but who lacked enough altars to do so; Byzantine custom insists that every Eucharist be celebrated on a 'fasting' altar. He categorically refuses them permission to celebrate twice on the same altar and advises them instead to concelebrate "with a bishop or with another priest".
He insists that concelebrants should vest as celebrants and utter the words of Consecration "just as if they were saying Mass on their own [perinde ac si sacrosanctum sacrificium singulatim conficerent]". Benedict denies the wriggle-argument that such priests are merely saying the Words of Consecration "materialiter et recitative", insisting that they utter them "significative". They are true celebrants, albeit secondary ones (etsi secundarii, tamen vere celebrantes).
I do not believe that a laudable desire to shape ones liturgical praxis by the authentic customs of the Roman Liturgy requires that a priest should decline to concelebrate the Maundy Thursday Masses with his Bishop and Presbyterium.
More later.
10 May 2015
S Thomas on Concelebration
S Thomas Aquinas, as his custom was, covers pretty well most of the problems of late C20 Christianity ... Ordination of women; Concelebration ... and does so in a neat formulaic way. First, he crisply formulates an erroneous opinion; then disposes of it with Respondeo.
So first he states a propositio sometimes advanced in neo-traditionalist circles: That many priests cannot consecrate one and the same Host. He disposes of this - he was a good Catholic - by pointing to what the Church does. "According to the custom of a number of Churches the newly ordained concelebrate". The problem of rogue concelebrants Jumping The Gun he disposes of in exactly the same way as Pope Innocent III (see previous post) had done: "And it is not true that by this the consecration over the same Host is doubled; since, as Innocent III says, the intention of all must be referred (ferri) to the same instant of Consecration".
Having disposed of that little technical difficulty, he justifies the practice in itself: "Since a priest does not consecrate except in the persona of Christ, and the many are one in Christ, therefore it does not matter whether this Sacrament is consecrated through one or through many".
There is no doubt that the practice of Concelebration has become unseemly since the Council. Those of us who are hermeneutic-of-continuity traditionalists will do well to rethink the way we use Concelebration. But the fashion in some circles of ridiculing all use of Concelebration, and of denying that what the newly ordained do with their Bishop really is true Concelebration, is ill-informed and gives 'traditionalism' a bad name. We must avoid the temptation (as we struggle to set Tradition back upon her pedestal) to make 'Tradition' up ourselves; and to forget that the lady has many things new and old in her treasury.
Innocent III was a Pope, and a learned one, and as Bishop of Rome was entitled authoritatively to interpret the practice of his own Church. And S Thomas Aquinas was no mean Doctor. Not that the story ends with them.
Next, Benedict XIV.
So first he states a propositio sometimes advanced in neo-traditionalist circles: That many priests cannot consecrate one and the same Host. He disposes of this - he was a good Catholic - by pointing to what the Church does. "According to the custom of a number of Churches the newly ordained concelebrate". The problem of rogue concelebrants Jumping The Gun he disposes of in exactly the same way as Pope Innocent III (see previous post) had done: "And it is not true that by this the consecration over the same Host is doubled; since, as Innocent III says, the intention of all must be referred (ferri) to the same instant of Consecration".
Having disposed of that little technical difficulty, he justifies the practice in itself: "Since a priest does not consecrate except in the persona of Christ, and the many are one in Christ, therefore it does not matter whether this Sacrament is consecrated through one or through many".
There is no doubt that the practice of Concelebration has become unseemly since the Council. Those of us who are hermeneutic-of-continuity traditionalists will do well to rethink the way we use Concelebration. But the fashion in some circles of ridiculing all use of Concelebration, and of denying that what the newly ordained do with their Bishop really is true Concelebration, is ill-informed and gives 'traditionalism' a bad name. We must avoid the temptation (as we struggle to set Tradition back upon her pedestal) to make 'Tradition' up ourselves; and to forget that the lady has many things new and old in her treasury.
Innocent III was a Pope, and a learned one, and as Bishop of Rome was entitled authoritatively to interpret the practice of his own Church. And S Thomas Aquinas was no mean Doctor. Not that the story ends with them.
Next, Benedict XIV.
9 May 2015
Pope Innocent III on Concelebration
For a number of years, before I came to believe that Concelebration should only be done rarely and under the presidency of one's bishop, I concelebrated each morning with my colleagues (except on those mornings when I said a Latin Mass in a different Chapel with the boys and masters who liked that sort of thing). I was disconcerted by a concelebrating colleague who had a habit of edging his voice ahead of mine even when I was Principal Celebrant. Why should he, I fretted, snatch the Mass from me by consecrating ahead of me and leaving me without the substances of bread and wine to consecrate myself? So I developed a habit of getting a good head of breath earlier in the Institution Narrative so that I could keep in sync with him. I needn't have bothered. A Pope sorted this problem out for me 800 years ago.
Innocent III (1198-1216) takes it for granted that "from time to time many priests concelebrate" and adds "the Cardinal Presbyters of Rome have been accustomed to stand around the the Pontiff and to consecrate together with him" - a pretty blunt and authoritative indication from the Bishop of Rome as to the meaning of the Rites of his own Church. What concerns him is this very question of what happens if they don't keep their voices together at the words of Consecration. "Is the one who first pronounces the words the only one who confects the Sacrament?" His answer to this is that "Whether the priests utter them before or after, their intention must be referred to the instant at which the Bishop says them, with whom principally they are concelebrating, and then all consecrate and confect at the same time".
Some modern 'traditionalists' believe that all Concelebration is wrong. Innocent III thought differently.
I wonder if S Thomas Aquinas agrees with him? I'll answer that question next.
Innocent III (1198-1216) takes it for granted that "from time to time many priests concelebrate" and adds "the Cardinal Presbyters of Rome have been accustomed to stand around the the Pontiff and to consecrate together with him" - a pretty blunt and authoritative indication from the Bishop of Rome as to the meaning of the Rites of his own Church. What concerns him is this very question of what happens if they don't keep their voices together at the words of Consecration. "Is the one who first pronounces the words the only one who confects the Sacrament?" His answer to this is that "Whether the priests utter them before or after, their intention must be referred to the instant at which the Bishop says them, with whom principally they are concelebrating, and then all consecrate and confect at the same time".
Some modern 'traditionalists' believe that all Concelebration is wrong. Innocent III thought differently.
I wonder if S Thomas Aquinas agrees with him? I'll answer that question next.
7 May 2015
A plea for litanies
I expect a number of clergy did what I did on April 25: said the Litany privately after Lauds. And we have the Rogation Days coming up next week, inviting us again to revisit the Litany (is it very unreconstructed-Anglican to use the word in the singular, or should I papalise myself and always say "Litanies"?). But perhaps an overview would be useful.
Perhaps I should make clear that I am referring to the Litany; what is sometimes called the Litany of the Saints.
The use of the Litany is a plea for Divine Mercy (so should the Holy Father have mentioned the suitability of litanies during his Jubilee Year?). The texts of the Rogation Mass suggest that, rather like the Gesima Sundays, these days upon which the Litany has commonly been sung constitute a cry for help in times of affliction. But how often do we so use it? Might not the modern Catholic be more likely to turn to the Rosary? Corporately, might we offer somebody, like the Holy Father, a spiritual bouquet of Rosaries? Heaven knows, I have nothing against the Rosary. How could anyone? But the Litany is the great, majestic, formal supplication of the Western Church. Especially in times of trial.
It is also used when we are engaged upon some great Action. Hence, truncated forms of the Litany will have been heard by most Catholics on Holy Saturday, as Holy Mother Church prepares to nurture a new Brood of neophytes. It will have been heard by many at Ordinations and Consecrations, as new clergy receive the Church's most solemn commission. Those who have watched papal inaugurations will have heard it. But it rarely gets a look-in outside these contexts.
The spirit behind the use of the Litany as the solemn, stately, corporate Entreaty of an afflicted Church is particularly emphasised by its use at the Quarant' ore: the Forty Hours devotion before the most Holy Sacrament exposed. It is easy to think of this magnificent devotion as an expression of wonder at the Presence among us of our Eucharistic Lord, but this is not how the Church has seen it (what follows is plagiarised from an attractive little CTS booklet of 1949, edited by an Oratorian called Fr J R McKee).
The Forty Hours seems to have started in the 1530s, when the Church was afflicted by heretics within and Islam without. In 1539 Pope Paul III, granting indulgences to those partaking, made clear that its purpose was "to appease the anger of God, provoked by the offences of Christians, and in order to bring to naught the efforts and machinations of the Turks, who are pressing forward to the destruction of Christendom". In 1592, Pope Clement VIII wrote as follows: "Pray for the Holy Catholic Church, that the mists of error may be scattered and the truth of the one Faith be diffused throughout the world. Pray that sinners ... may be saved from drowning by the plank of Penance. Pray for the peace and unity of kings and of all Christians ... Pray that the enemies of our Faith, the dreaded Turks, who, in the heat of their presumptuous fury, threaten slavery and devastation to all Christendom, may be crushed by the right hand of the Almighty. Pray, lastly, for ourselves ...". [It is not easy to be be sure that our needs have changed much!]
And the Quarant' ore includes, on its first and third (final) day, the solemn singing of the Litany before the Blessed Sacrament exposed.
At various times and places, the Litany was accompanied by such penitential endeavours as fasting and abstinence; but not recently. The only relevant indulgence I can find in the Encheiridion is a partial one for anybody reciting any of the approved litanies (and, of course, those taking part in a Quarant' ore can acquire the plenary indulgences obtainable suetis condicionibus for spending half an hour in eucharistic adoration or taking part in a Eucharistic Procession). A rather ungenerous provision, don't you think, for which we can blame the post-conciliar cull (Pius XI had attached to the Litany a plenary indulgence semel in mense). The Hymnos Akathistos gets a plenary, and so it jolly well should; why not the Litany??
Perhaps, during the Jubilee year ...
Perhaps I should make clear that I am referring to the Litany; what is sometimes called the Litany of the Saints.
The use of the Litany is a plea for Divine Mercy (so should the Holy Father have mentioned the suitability of litanies during his Jubilee Year?). The texts of the Rogation Mass suggest that, rather like the Gesima Sundays, these days upon which the Litany has commonly been sung constitute a cry for help in times of affliction. But how often do we so use it? Might not the modern Catholic be more likely to turn to the Rosary? Corporately, might we offer somebody, like the Holy Father, a spiritual bouquet of Rosaries? Heaven knows, I have nothing against the Rosary. How could anyone? But the Litany is the great, majestic, formal supplication of the Western Church. Especially in times of trial.
It is also used when we are engaged upon some great Action. Hence, truncated forms of the Litany will have been heard by most Catholics on Holy Saturday, as Holy Mother Church prepares to nurture a new Brood of neophytes. It will have been heard by many at Ordinations and Consecrations, as new clergy receive the Church's most solemn commission. Those who have watched papal inaugurations will have heard it. But it rarely gets a look-in outside these contexts.
The spirit behind the use of the Litany as the solemn, stately, corporate Entreaty of an afflicted Church is particularly emphasised by its use at the Quarant' ore: the Forty Hours devotion before the most Holy Sacrament exposed. It is easy to think of this magnificent devotion as an expression of wonder at the Presence among us of our Eucharistic Lord, but this is not how the Church has seen it (what follows is plagiarised from an attractive little CTS booklet of 1949, edited by an Oratorian called Fr J R McKee).
The Forty Hours seems to have started in the 1530s, when the Church was afflicted by heretics within and Islam without. In 1539 Pope Paul III, granting indulgences to those partaking, made clear that its purpose was "to appease the anger of God, provoked by the offences of Christians, and in order to bring to naught the efforts and machinations of the Turks, who are pressing forward to the destruction of Christendom". In 1592, Pope Clement VIII wrote as follows: "Pray for the Holy Catholic Church, that the mists of error may be scattered and the truth of the one Faith be diffused throughout the world. Pray that sinners ... may be saved from drowning by the plank of Penance. Pray for the peace and unity of kings and of all Christians ... Pray that the enemies of our Faith, the dreaded Turks, who, in the heat of their presumptuous fury, threaten slavery and devastation to all Christendom, may be crushed by the right hand of the Almighty. Pray, lastly, for ourselves ...". [It is not easy to be be sure that our needs have changed much!]
And the Quarant' ore includes, on its first and third (final) day, the solemn singing of the Litany before the Blessed Sacrament exposed.
At various times and places, the Litany was accompanied by such penitential endeavours as fasting and abstinence; but not recently. The only relevant indulgence I can find in the Encheiridion is a partial one for anybody reciting any of the approved litanies (and, of course, those taking part in a Quarant' ore can acquire the plenary indulgences obtainable suetis condicionibus for spending half an hour in eucharistic adoration or taking part in a Eucharistic Procession). A rather ungenerous provision, don't you think, for which we can blame the post-conciliar cull (Pius XI had attached to the Litany a plenary indulgence semel in mense). The Hymnos Akathistos gets a plenary, and so it jolly well should; why not the Litany??
Perhaps, during the Jubilee year ...
Lords Spiritual
Election day ... one recalls the old bewhiskered jokes: "Sunshine until 5.00 p.m., followed by torrential rain, would be worth 30 marginals to the Conservative Party." The Irish maxim: "Vote early, Vote often". More contributions?
A friend raises the question of Mitred Abbots in our House of Lords. The Abbey of Ampleforth convinced the College of Heralds that it was the lawful successor body of Westminster (the last survivor of the Marian community under Abbot Feckenham having formally conveyed the rights of his House to an exiled English Benedictine community) and therefore entitled to use its Arms. The House of Lords traditionally had much experience of calling titles which had been dormant for centuries out of their dormancy. Could it reinstate Westminster/Ampleforth? What is the difference between Dormancy and Abeyance? Were the mitred Abbots ever legislated out of Parliament, or was it simply assumed that, since after 1559 there weren't any, they need not be noticed in statutes? I bet somebody out there knows.
A friend raises the question of Mitred Abbots in our House of Lords. The Abbey of Ampleforth convinced the College of Heralds that it was the lawful successor body of Westminster (the last survivor of the Marian community under Abbot Feckenham having formally conveyed the rights of his House to an exiled English Benedictine community) and therefore entitled to use its Arms. The House of Lords traditionally had much experience of calling titles which had been dormant for centuries out of their dormancy. Could it reinstate Westminster/Ampleforth? What is the difference between Dormancy and Abeyance? Were the mitred Abbots ever legislated out of Parliament, or was it simply assumed that, since after 1559 there weren't any, they need not be noticed in statutes? I bet somebody out there knows.
6 May 2015
5 May 2015
S Pius V: the BIG MISTAKE, THE UNIVERSAL MYTH
There is a myth which is endlessly repeated ... I groan every time I read it ... about the liturgical reforms of S Pius V. It goes like this:
(1) He wished to standardise and centralise. So he ordered everybody to use his new edition of the Roman Missal (but he did permit those with rites more than 200 years old to keep them).
This is pretty well the opposite of what his legislation ordered. He:
(2) Ordered those with such old rites to keep them. But, if they positively wanted to adopt his new edition instead, he permitted them to adopt it AS LONG AS THE BISHOP AND THE UNANIMOUS CHAPTER WERE IN AGREEMENT.
If you don't want to believe me, I suggest you read the actual TEXT of Quo primum yourself and find out. DO NOT READ SOMEBODY'S SUMMARY OF THE BULL, BECAUSE THAT WILL (almost certainly) JUST TELL YOU THE MYTH.
If you want more detail, with a fuller account of the liturgical context in the middle years of the sixteenth century, you will find a much longer explanation on my blog, 6 December 2014.
I sha'n't enable comments which show no signs of the writer having read the bull or of reading my piece from last December and simply splutter at me; or disdainful comments which tell me that I'm just splitting hairs. If you can't see the immensely profound difference between (1) and (2), it's not worth having a discussion.
(1) He wished to standardise and centralise. So he ordered everybody to use his new edition of the Roman Missal (but he did permit those with rites more than 200 years old to keep them).
This is pretty well the opposite of what his legislation ordered. He:
(2) Ordered those with such old rites to keep them. But, if they positively wanted to adopt his new edition instead, he permitted them to adopt it AS LONG AS THE BISHOP AND THE UNANIMOUS CHAPTER WERE IN AGREEMENT.
If you don't want to believe me, I suggest you read the actual TEXT of Quo primum yourself and find out. DO NOT READ SOMEBODY'S SUMMARY OF THE BULL, BECAUSE THAT WILL (almost certainly) JUST TELL YOU THE MYTH.
If you want more detail, with a fuller account of the liturgical context in the middle years of the sixteenth century, you will find a much longer explanation on my blog, 6 December 2014.
I sha'n't enable comments which show no signs of the writer having read the bull or of reading my piece from last December and simply splutter at me; or disdainful comments which tell me that I'm just splitting hairs. If you can't see the immensely profound difference between (1) and (2), it's not worth having a discussion.
3 May 2015
Those May festivals again
I have noticed in the Angelus Press ORDO that the Masses of the Invention of the Holy Cross (May 3), S John before the Latin Gate (May 6), and the Apparition of S Michael (May 8), may be said as IV class festal Masses because they are included by the 1962 Missal in its Appendix. I presume this information is accurate, and commend it to those whom it may concern. (Let's have no pedantry here: any pick-axe to break the pack-ice is to grabbed with both hands.)
This Appendix appears to have some parallelism with the provision by the 'Gregorian' Sacramentary of the texts which follow the Praefatiuncula Hucusque ( ... illa collegimus, in quibus, cui animo sedent, potest repperire)! Similarly, after S Pius X had shifted onto fixed days of the month all those festivals which earlier devotional habits had plonked onto fixed Sundays, ORDOs continued to offer some relief from this now-fashionable austerity: "Hodie celebrari potest unica Missa Sanctissimi Nominis Mariae", or even "Hodie celebrari possunt omnes Missae (praeter Conventualem) Sacratissimi Rosarii BMV" (check this out in your St Lawrence Press ORDO). It is a shame that the merciless, ruthless, singleminded revisers of the period Pius XII-Paul VI were so sure of themselves and had so little humanity, so little respect for the inculturated pieties and affections of ordinary clerics and laics. What an unprecedented rupure they did insist upon!
I do not possess a copy of the 1962 Missal; I would be genuinely grateful if readers who do have one could keep me posted about little matters of interest, such as this Appendix, which I might have missed.
This Appendix appears to have some parallelism with the provision by the 'Gregorian' Sacramentary of the texts which follow the Praefatiuncula Hucusque ( ... illa collegimus, in quibus, cui animo sedent, potest repperire)! Similarly, after S Pius X had shifted onto fixed days of the month all those festivals which earlier devotional habits had plonked onto fixed Sundays, ORDOs continued to offer some relief from this now-fashionable austerity: "Hodie celebrari potest unica Missa Sanctissimi Nominis Mariae", or even "Hodie celebrari possunt omnes Missae (praeter Conventualem) Sacratissimi Rosarii BMV" (check this out in your St Lawrence Press ORDO). It is a shame that the merciless, ruthless, singleminded revisers of the period Pius XII-Paul VI were so sure of themselves and had so little humanity, so little respect for the inculturated pieties and affections of ordinary clerics and laics. What an unprecedented rupure they did insist upon!
I do not possess a copy of the 1962 Missal; I would be genuinely grateful if readers who do have one could keep me posted about little matters of interest, such as this Appendix, which I might have missed.
2 May 2015
S Athanasius and his mouth
Doctors of the Church commonly, both in the Novus (see, e.g., S Athanasius) and Vetus Masses, have an Introit which begins In medio Ecclesiae aperuit os eius et implevit eum Dominus spiritu sapientiae ... in the Latin, but, according to the New ICEL translation, In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth, and the Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom ...
I am worried by the implied translation of eius. In Latin there are two words for his. We use suum when 'his' refers ('reflexive') back to the subject of the verb (and, in effect, means 'his own'). We use eius when 'his' does not refer back to the subject of the verb. So 'his' cannot refer back to 'he'. The character who 'opened' did not open his own mouth. If the Latin had meant to say 'he opened his [own] mouth', the word would have to be suum.
The subject both of 'opened' and of 'filled' has therefore to be Dominus, the Lord; even though it comes a bit late in the Latin (Latin word order is more flexible than English). So the introit means In the midst of the Church the Lord opened his mouth and filled him with the spirit of wisdom ... . Divine initiative ... prevenient grace ...
"But" - you cry - "probably Fr H is getting this wrong. Excessive pedanticism, combined with their innate arrogance, is the reason why all right-thinking people hate, loath, and detest all classicists so much".
You are probably right about most of that, but I have not got this little matter wrong. Try the Septuagint, where the subject of the sentence is in fact Divine Wisdom; she is the subject of every verb in the relevant passage (Ecclesiasticus 15:1-5). In the Neo-Vulgate, the same is true. And in the Authorised Version and the RSV. And, in the 1949 Burns Oates Latin-English Missal, Mgr Ronald Knox, no mean classicist, no mean biblicist, translates this introit The Lord moved him to speak before the assembled people, filling him with the spirit of wisdom ...
It's an interesting passage. Close examination will reveal to you that the translations I have listed have the verb in the future; and that one line preserved in the Vulgate is missing elsewhere. Hebrew tenses don't work like Indo-European tenses; and the Vulgate sometimes preserves a better text than other versions - its variant readings are always worth taking seriously. (There must be someone out there who would enjoy getting into the Vetus Latina ... and there are some Hebrew fragments of Sirach ...)
The introduction to the Neo-Vulgate wisely expresses doubt whether an "original text" of this book, 'The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach', otherwise known as 'Ecclesiasticus'** [not to be confused with Ecclesiastes], ever was or could be recoverable; an agnosticism with which I would like to see more editors, both of sacred and of profane texts, handling their documents. Catholics, free from the fetiches of textual fundamentalism, have less need to be worried by this than do Westcotts and Horts and the 'modern' scholarship of the twentieth century.
** If the bible on your desk doesn't have this book in it, under either name, it means you are using a Protestant bible. Get a Catholic one!
I am worried by the implied translation of eius. In Latin there are two words for his. We use suum when 'his' refers ('reflexive') back to the subject of the verb (and, in effect, means 'his own'). We use eius when 'his' does not refer back to the subject of the verb. So 'his' cannot refer back to 'he'. The character who 'opened' did not open his own mouth. If the Latin had meant to say 'he opened his [own] mouth', the word would have to be suum.
The subject both of 'opened' and of 'filled' has therefore to be Dominus, the Lord; even though it comes a bit late in the Latin (Latin word order is more flexible than English). So the introit means In the midst of the Church the Lord opened his mouth and filled him with the spirit of wisdom ... . Divine initiative ... prevenient grace ...
"But" - you cry - "probably Fr H is getting this wrong. Excessive pedanticism, combined with their innate arrogance, is the reason why all right-thinking people hate, loath, and detest all classicists so much".
You are probably right about most of that, but I have not got this little matter wrong. Try the Septuagint, where the subject of the sentence is in fact Divine Wisdom; she is the subject of every verb in the relevant passage (Ecclesiasticus 15:1-5). In the Neo-Vulgate, the same is true. And in the Authorised Version and the RSV. And, in the 1949 Burns Oates Latin-English Missal, Mgr Ronald Knox, no mean classicist, no mean biblicist, translates this introit The Lord moved him to speak before the assembled people, filling him with the spirit of wisdom ...
It's an interesting passage. Close examination will reveal to you that the translations I have listed have the verb in the future; and that one line preserved in the Vulgate is missing elsewhere. Hebrew tenses don't work like Indo-European tenses; and the Vulgate sometimes preserves a better text than other versions - its variant readings are always worth taking seriously. (There must be someone out there who would enjoy getting into the Vetus Latina ... and there are some Hebrew fragments of Sirach ...)
The introduction to the Neo-Vulgate wisely expresses doubt whether an "original text" of this book, 'The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach', otherwise known as 'Ecclesiasticus'** [not to be confused with Ecclesiastes], ever was or could be recoverable; an agnosticism with which I would like to see more editors, both of sacred and of profane texts, handling their documents. Catholics, free from the fetiches of textual fundamentalism, have less need to be worried by this than do Westcotts and Horts and the 'modern' scholarship of the twentieth century.
** If the bible on your desk doesn't have this book in it, under either name, it means you are using a Protestant bible. Get a Catholic one!
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