24 February 2022

The Five Wounds

What terrible news to wake up to this morning. I said Mass for peace; I will do the same tomorrow, making use of the Mass of the Five Wounds. 

Incidentally, recently I ran into Henry Bradshaw and one or two other friends, knowledgeable chaps, and thought I'd see if they knew anything about the dates of the entry of the Mass of the Five Wounds into medieval Missals. Apparently the Hereford Missal, which achieved a printed edition in 1502, lacked this Mass. But there is a manuscript version which has it copied in by a later hand at the end, together with the Sarum introduction about Pope Boniface. And, as in Sarum, it is associated with that other exemplar of late medieval Christological affection, the Mass of the Holy Name.

York was more interesting - my chum Surtees came up with the facts. It has the Mass of the Five Wounds in editions printed in 1509, 1516, 1517, 1530, 1533. However, it is not in the (earlier) manuscript versions of the Missal except ... get this ... that there's a nice ms at Stonyhurst, which Surtees says is from the second half of the fifteenth century, which has it written ... but left unfinished ... on an outside folio.

But it was Henry Bradshaw himself who knocked me for six. You see, I'd always assumed that the Mass of the Five Wounds was an adapted, augmented, version of an earlier Mass  de Passione Domini, still preserved in the Missal of S Pius V. Well, as Henry makes clear, neither the Mass of the Five Wounds nor the Mass de Passione Domini was in the (Milanese) 1474 editio princeps of the Missale Romanum. Nor in 1481, 1485, or 1493 editions. But the Mass of the Five Wounds appears in a 1505 edition from Venice and also in Venetian editions of 1508, 1509, 1543, 1558, 1560, and 1561, and Parisian editions of 1515, 1530, and 1540. (A Lyons edition of 1516; two Venetian editions of 1558 and 1560 from the same House; and a 1574 edition from Antwerp, do not have it.) And all these also do not contain de Passione Domini)

So, in a very crude, prima facie sort of way, might one tentatively wonder if de Passione Domini is a chopped down version of the Mass of the Five Wounds, rather than the original from which the latter was developed?

Please God, may Europe's Eastern border at least be spared the horrors of an infantry war, with all its terrible consequences.

9 comments:

  1. If I were a Pole or a Balt, I'd be pressing NATO to mobilize.

    If I were a Ukrainian, I hope I'd have the courage to fight.


    “Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the Outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.” (Cf. 1 Macc. 3:58a, 59, 60)

    – Sir Winston Churchill, Broadcast, London, 19th May 1940.

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  2. May God answer your prayers, and soon.

    "In a message on Wednesday for Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day, Patriarch Kirill praised President Putin’s “high and responsible service to the people of Russia”, saying that the Russian Orthodox Church viewed the country’s armed forces as “actively manifesting evangelical love for neighbours, and fidelity to high moral ideals of truth and goodness”."

    If you have only read War and Peace in translation, you can run this through Google Translate: http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5900861.html

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  3. The Moscow Patriarchate is very much behind this expansionist and nationalistic military aggression. They see themselves as 'The New Rome' standing against the dominant secular humanism of contemporary Western European culture, with its rapidly increasing descent into moral degeneration. It's hard for an orthodox Catholic not to have some sympathy with that view of 'The West', however, Moscow is also motivated by a deeply ingrained anti-Catholic/anti-papal prejudice. I fear greatly for the Ukrainian Uniate churches and their faithful as this latest Russian war of annexation sweeps in. I do not know how sincere is Putin's conversion and devotion to Orthodox Christianity, but his devotion to reinstating the old Soviet borders and methods of exercising political power and social control are very clear. He is, of course, an ex-KGB officer, and the Russian Orthodox Church did collaborate extensively with the Communist Soviet regime. I suspect that, for both of them (Putin and Kirill), being Russian and devotion to the nation is their primary motivation which they would not distinguish from their Christian faith - a danger with all forms of Erastianism.

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  4. The Mass of the Five Wounds was often requested in early 16th c. East Anglian wills as a Requiem Mass. The earliest I have found this is in 1505, in the will of Robert Afeld of Southolt in Suffolk - "I will have sung 5 masses of the 5 wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ, Robert Afeld".



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  5. That's a pretty good prima facie bit of detective work I'd say.

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  6. Dear Fathsr. We can be certain that whatever the media is telling us about The Ukraine action/war/invasion is not worthy of belief.

    The dedicated autodidact knows where to look to find reliable background information on the conflict but it does well for us Catholics to remember what Zaxharias had to say when it comes to Nuclear War - at least it seems possible he was describing the effects of nuclear war:

    Zacharias 14: 12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord shall strike all nations that have fought against Jerusalem: the flesh of every one shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.

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  7. Dear Father. The Chicken Kievs have come home to roost.

    https://voxday.net/2022/02/25/quantenverschrankungskrieg/

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    Replies
    1. I am sorry, but am I supposed to take seriously a publication calling itself "vox Popoli" (sic!)? You must be kidding!

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  8. Dear Victor. Not if you surrender to the genetic fallacy, no

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