Her First Divine Liturgy: Very Colloquial

In the tenth century, emissaries of St. Vladimir wandered into the Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople and were raptured into religious ecstasy at the sight of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Those pagans converted to Greek Christianity and even ensured its survival after the fall of Constantinople and its surrounding empire in 1453. The Prince's men recounted, "We knew not whether we were on earth or in heaven." So, readers, you can understand my interest in the reaction of a dear friend, nominally an Armenian Christian, to her first Divine Liturgy.

I took my friend to another Church of Holy Wisdom three Sundays ago for the usual obligation to sanctify the day of the Lord. Having grown up in one of Russia's puppet states, she speaks fluent Russian and understood the Divine Liturgy, even in its Ukrainian elements, perfectly. After the Liturgy, after lunch, and after some socializing, I asked her, "So, what did you think?" Her answer could not have had less to do with those of the Prince's pioneers. She replied, "It's very.... colloquial."

At some level she is right. The Byzantine rite is the most self-referential rite in the Church, the Pauline liturgy excluded. The Greek work leitourgia betrays that the ecclesiastical liturgy has a source origin in public works of service, the creation of monuments, and other things for popular benefit at the cost of the state. Constantinople's liturgy remained a work by the empire's Church for the benefit of the empire's people. The litanies and diaconal exclamations of the Greek liturgy were originally public prayers led by men in administrative roles while the priests performed duties germane to the Sacraments. It would only be natural that the assembled congregation have an element of self-reference. Indeed, these elements survived the monastic and hesychast makeover the Divine Liturgy received in the 11th-15th centuries.

This is not a fault of the Greek liturgy, just a fact. The city of Rome retained a spiritual identity longer after the political cohesion behind the Western empire evanesced. The Latin liturgy, not unlike the various far Eastern and north African rites, became applied on too wide a scale to be owned by any one culture or polity. Such was not the case of the Greek rite. Greek Christians held their state for twelve centuries. 

The Great Doxology in the third Greek tone, a personal favorite.

This supposed self-reference does draw attention to the mystical development of the Greek and Latin liturgies. My friend's only prior exposure to traditional rites of Christian worship are the old Latin Mass on a few occasions and the Armenian liturgy for weddings, funerals and Christmas. She said of the Divine Liturgy, "You just don't feel like your in the presence of God, watching Him as He is, like at the Latin Mass." My initial reaction to the Greek tradition could not have been more agnostic to her own. I walked into a Melkite parish during Orthros while the deacons and choir sang the Evlogitaria and became immediately aware of the Holy One's presence. This does underscore the different ways in which the Divine Liturgy and Roman tradition gained their grandeur. The Greek liturgy always had an extroverted element, to which the akathist hymns, public incensations, litanies, and processions give witness. The Roman tradition had litanies and processions in a far quieter way; the Roman emphasis was originally on the texts, almost always taken explicitly from Holy Writ or the saints' writings. The Greek liturgy gradually gained a more mystical element as the Palestinian monks of Constantinople imported their simple psalter and their hymnody, supplemented two centuries later by the hesychasts' antiphons. Rome moved from a communal (understood in the sense that the people of Rome were a community who often gathered in churches, not to be conflated with modern concepts of religious communitarianism) to a mystical setting with hardly any innovations to the texts. Elements unique to the city of Rome acquiesced to local variations when the Roman rite traveled throughout Europe and found eccentric, elaborate, divine expressions in the cathedrals of the Latin Church. The Greek liturgy retained the ritual and changed the text, the Roman liturgy kept the text and altered the ritual. 

In either case, I will not recycle that familiar "two lung" phrase of a previous Roman ordinary, but will instead leave the reflection that the Greek and Roman liturgies really should be seen as complimentary. The Roman rite presumes the presence of God, the Greek underscores it. The Roman rite basks in the truths of Christ, whereas the Greek rite explicitly states them three times a piece.

Pray for my friend, that she may see the light!

Paschaltide Musings: John 20

The following beginning verses from chapter 20 of St. John's gospel were read during the octave last week at Mass and the Office. I attended the Divine Liturgy for Monday of Bright Week. The pericopes there, the priest explained, already anticipate the mission of the Church and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the Byzantine tradition has a unique focus on the Trinity and the Holy Spirit which is not found in the Roman Church. The Roman rite, solidified in its fundamental elements when the fluid Byzantine Church was the battle ground of heresies, glosses over many of the matters concerning the Godhead mentioned in the Greek liturgy. Instead, the Roman liturgy is very Christ-centered, centered on Christ as God and as Man. This Scriptural pericope is quite fitting for the Roman tradition:

"And on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen cometh early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre; and she saw the stone taken away from the sepulchre. She ran, therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith to them: They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went out, and that other disciple, and they came to the sepulchre. And they both ran together, and that other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And when he stooped down, he saw the linen cloths lying; but yet he went not in. Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen cloths lying, And the napkin that had been about his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but apart, wrapped up into one place. Then that other disciple also went in, who came first to the sepulchre: and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead."

At face value, the Evangelist recounts the startling news given to the Apostles that the tomb in which Jesus once laid was now empty and that "they believed." What did they believe? Nothing that we would recognize, at least not yet. Before the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles were faithful and foolish friends, quick to sing the Lord's praises and endear themselves to Him, but not entirely sure why. One thinks of them squabbling over who would have a place of honor in the kingdom of heaven. Even after the Resurrection they seem no better off that before, asking at the Ascension if Christ would finally become the terrestrial and material Messiah for which the Jews longed, one who would free them from Roman oppression and begin a tangible reign of the kingdom of God on earth. When John says "they believed," we are not unfair to ask "What did they believe?"

Living two thousand years later, we enjoy the wisdom of the Fathers, the teachings of the popes, bishops, and their convened councils, as well as the accumulation of centuries of common sense. We know that miracles were outward acts of mercy on the part of Our Lord to point people to His Divinity, to draw people to His teachings and His words. Peter and the rest might have understood the miracles to have shown His favor with God, but not that He was God. Peter's confession of faith was that Jesus was the "Christ, the Son of the living God." None of the brethren understood that He was God made Man or that He must rise from the dead, as the last verse of the Johannine passage reveals. 

It would not be unlikely that Peter and the other apostle, likely John, saw the empty tomb, which had been guarded by soldiers from the Sanhedrin's forces, and presumed an assumption of Christ's body into heaven like that of Elijah when he was alive and possibly Moses after his death. Christ may, to them, have been the greatest and most amazing of all the prophets, those witnesses to God. Yet what could Jesus have accomplished as a prophet, a man, who worked miracles, died a gruesome death at the hands of his own people, and was then bodily removed from the earth? They "believed" without understanding what they believed because they could not possibly know without seeing Him and touching Him that He was God and that, unlike the miracles of prophets of old, He rose from the dead without the prayers of another man. Later, He appeared to the Apostles and to Thomas, and there He revealed His divinity most explicitly.

This is the Catholic paradigm of God. God is Who He is ("I am Who I am" is His name in Hebrew) regardless of what we want God to be. We encounter Him and He tells us about Himself if we listen. We can know about God by reason. We cannot know Him intimately without knowing Him as a person though. "The Lord is God and has revealed Himself to us" from Byzantine Mattins always seemed plain to me until I considered that it was an adaptation to refer to the "Lord" God as a master, a personhood Who comes before creatures of far lesser capacity to understand and tells us what we need to know about Him. This is the Incarnation! This is the purpose of the great condescension! Without this great consideration we demote Christ and the faith to an intellectual proposition, not what "faith" is—a word that shares a Latin root with the same word that means "loyalty." Peter had not understanding, but when he saw the empty tomb his loyalty returned and prepared him to meet his master, risen from the dead.

Silent Anaphora

source: lmschairman.org

I am curious what readers think about the spoken, silent anaphora. I cannot speak for the non-Byzantine oriental rites, but within the Latin and Greek traditions it has become acceptable for the celebrant to pray the anaphora in entirety or part in spoken silence under the sung parts of the congregation. In the Roman rite the Canon was sung by the celebrant in the same tone as the preface, signalling a continuation from the preface (maybe the origin of the Te igitur at the beginning which caused fits for the impious critics of the Canon). At some point in the 9th or 10th century the celebrant began to speak rather than sing the Canon and furthermore commenced it at the start of the Sanctus rather than after. A similar practice arose in Constantinople, perhaps inspired by the Latin habit, in the early second millennium. The celebrant says the pray after the preface dialogue while the people sing the response "It is proper and just" until they are finished, at which point he picks up the pray singing. When I first witnessed this the first words I heard were "six winged, many eyes soaring on their pinyons...." The congregation sings the Holy, Holy, Holy and the celebrant starts the anaphora, again switching from spoken to sung tone when the hymn has ended, usually at "Take, eat, this is my body" etc. The culminating moment of epiclesis cannot be heard over the singing of the "We praise You, we bless You, we give thanks to You, and we pray to You, O Our God." The priest will resume the aloud part at "especially for our most holy, pure...."

Under the influence of restorationist scholarship, many Byzantine Catholic eparchies in the United States have directed priests to sing the entirety of the anaphora, although mercifully the Melkites allow some of the anaphora of St. Basil the Great to be spoken. We all know what happened to the Roman rite in the 1960s. Within the Byzantine context, this writer has never been bothered by either the spoken parts or the practice of singing the anaphora entirely aloud, aside from the length of the anaphora of St Basil (difficult to maintain attention). I know the anaphora of St John Chrysostom and so have never felt excluded on the occasions when I have seen celebrants retain the practice of continuing the prayer in recitation while the congregation sings its responses. In the Roman rite, as with many others, I dislike the practice of an aloud, spoken Canon, although I have heard the Canon sung in the Pauline rite with success. The silent Canon climbs a long peak in a quiet mountain range. The Roman rite, far from the ritual eccentricity of the Byzantine tradition, is highly meditative and textually focused. The silence of the Canon contrasts with the flow of singing and focuses concentration on Christ's work before us. The Greek practice, either of singing in entirety or of switching between the two, creates a pace to the second half of the Divine Liturgy. The Roman rite's silence upholds that tradition's ruminative qualities. In any of these I have never felt excluded because I know the content of the prayers, I know the priest's place, and I know my place as a layman; I am certainly capable of praying with the celebrant in principle, even if not in word. The spoken, aloud practice in the Pauline rite, however, I find quite disengaging. One wonders if celebrants use Eucharistic Prayer II because they know their drowning tongues will only carry attention for so long? 

Always EP2!

The various ways of doing the anaphora in tradition demonstrate the Church's long wisdom as a spiritual psychologist. I wish she would return to her own prescription. What think ye?

Medieval Rome: Forgotten Glory?

Ancient Rome was the capital of the known and civilized world. Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire recalls the power and honor due to the City at the height of her Imperial powers:

"In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valour. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire; and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth."

Gibbon was quite gifted with adjectives. In the modern day, scholars and tourists alike remember and glorify Renaissance and baroque Rome for its humanism, its revival of painting and sculpture, its place at the center of emerging nationalistic politics, and for its romantic ambiance. This is the Rome of Bernini, Michelangelo, Sixtus V, and Urban VIII. One would think Rome was a city in eternal strife, earmarked at opposite of its history with two periods of adroit artistic and political vibrancy. The understanding of Rome is natural, intuitive, grounded in artistic history and a deep appreciation for the ancient City. It is also completely and utterly wrong.

Rome, aside from these two epochs, also enjoyed a period of religious revival, prosperity, and recovery of self-identity during the high Middle Ages. Renaissance Rome sprung forth from the fountainhead of medieval Rome, not from a vacuum of dark illiteracy and religious ignorance.

Rome entered a truly dark age after the sackings and raids of the fifth century, the abandonment by the Byzantine empire, and the waves of plague which sent most of the still-living populace into the countryside. Rule of the city devolved to the Pope, known until Pius IX as the "Lord Pope," a title used even within the Magna Carta. A form of Senate continued to run the daily, micro-level affairs of the City and the old families held some level of authority, but the Popes' spiritual and administrative power over the churches meant that the Bishop of Rome was the Lord of Rome. Unfortunately, [St] Leo III crowned Charlemagne and the various families of Italy sought the papacy so they could play king-maker and live off papal beneficences. In the 9th century, the Mohammadans sacked Rome and ravaged St. Peter's Basilica. The papacy entered its absolute nadir, when the Bishops of Rome descended from Marozia—mistress of the murderous Pope Sergius III. Indeed, six popes (John XI, John XII, Benedict VII, John XIX, Benedict VIII, and Benedict IX) came from her line, with a few elderly men functioning as placeholders in between, murdered if they lived too long.

Finally, the Gregorian reforms emancipated Rome from central Italian politics and the un-Holy Frankish Clan Holy Roman Empire. What emerged was a Rome revived in continuity with its past, aware of its present, and vivacious in faith.

Ancient peoples were not so introspective and concerned with documenting their own ways as we are today. One is often struck by the absence of ritual descriptions or theological treatises on non-Scholastic during this age. The ancient and medieval Christians expressed what they believed in what they did, not in word alone. They manifested their Roman tradition of faith in their church and secular architecture, as well as in their liturgical and artistic endeavors.

Roman art during the Middle Ages derived from the older Roman mosaic tradition. While the Orthodox Greek tradition had long ago transitioned into painted, "written" icons, less and less realistic in their appearance, the Romans, a people averse to change and innovation in religious matters, kept their mosaic tradition and even imported it into new places. The below mosaic outside of Santa Maria in Trastevere looks quite ancient, but in fact dates to the 12th century.

source: wikipedia

Unlike the Norman French and English, who built their new churches along the soaring vertical lines of gothic pillars and arches, the Roman people conscientiously kept in continuity with their received identity and tradition in all matters, especially architecture.

Between 1198 and 1216, one of the great men of the Middle Ages, Lothar Segni, sat atop Peter's chair. Keeping with his own doctrine of the spiritual power's place over the temporal power, he refitted the Lateran palace for the government of the Church and as an example to the world. Sadly, few if any records or reconstructions of the ancient Lateran palace exist for us today. Dante called the Lateran palace a place "above all earthly things." Below are two rare representations of what the palace and adjoining cathedral looked like prior to the tearing down of the palace and the addition of a baroque facade on the Archbasilica.

source: mmdtkw.org

source: augustineofcanterbury.org

These views are from the north, not the front entrance to the cathedral, which is to the east. The Lateran palace, built by the Lateran family and given to the popes by Constantine, encompassed a large courtyard—a feature of Roman palatial architecture imitated with the building of the Apostolic palace adjacent to St. Peter's basilica and the new Lateran palace. Until the 9th century or so, the popes were elected by the people of Rome in the field in front of the cathedral. Often violence would break out and whoever won control of the Lateran complex became pope. This author once recalls reading about a victor having difficulty convincing the mob to spare his opponent's life. Next to the courtyard, at the upper left of the above picture, was the Triclinium of Leo III where Innocent III held the fourth Council of the Lateran. This remarkable hall was torn down, its former foundations replaced by roads. Its apse still stands tall in memorial to its previous function.

source: wikipedia.org

The revival of education in France and trade with the East incited by the Crusades brought Rome back to significance in the intellectual and economic realms, attracting students seeking theological knowledge and merchants looking for middle-points in their routes of trade between the Continent and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Colosseum returned to use after half a millennium of dormancy as an open market and, what we would now call, an industrial park.

The Colosseum during the Middle Ages
source: wikipedia

Above all, the Romans still realized that they were the ancient City that ruled the world and that they were now, without contradiction, the City that ruled the Christian world. As such, Rome revived many of its more catholic Catholic features. The early praxis of reading the lessons of the Mass and Office in both Greek and Latin returned, as did use of the stational churches by the Lord Pope on great feasts. The ancient, un-gallicanized rite of Mass remained in use by the pope one day a year on the feast of St. Peter's Chair in Rome. This ancient use involved numerous deacons and subdeacons, long psalms instead of simple chants, no offertory or silent prayers, a sung Canon, and concelebration. The Lateran and Vatican basilicas also retained the ancient Divine Office, which uses the same orations, antiphons, and psalms as the pre-Pius X Office, but sans introductory rites, no hymns, and a more communal ritual. Moreover, the canons recited the Offices of the Dead, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of All Saints on ferial days per annum and provided pastoral care to the great many pilgrims. Innocent III himself was a canon of the Petrine basilica before his election and familiar with the observances. These rites remained in use until Franciscan pope Nicholas III squashed everything not done in the Franciscan Order. The Byzantine monastery in Rome also enjoyed a resurgence, with no less that six hundred monks and priests in residence in the 12th and 13th centuries. This also suggests that the Rome-Constantinople schism was not taken as seriously during this period as it would be after 1453. The clergy and people of Rome were the enemies of streamlining. Far from assuming the Church required one way of celebrating Mass, as the capital of Catholicism, they welcomed the catholicity of rites practiced within the City.

Medieval Rome was not the superpower ancient Rome was, nor was it the artistic center baroque Rome would be. But it was once again alive and acting as the center of the Christian world. Perhaps this is why modern historians are unable to see that the period between the Gregorian reform and the Avignon papacy was a glorious one, because they cannot understand how Christianity can be the lifeblood of a people.

Rossellino's proposal for the new St. Peter's basilica
source: studybluecom

Then came the Renaissance. Much would have to be lost and rebuilt because of the neglect of the popes while they lived in Avignon. St. Peter's basilica is particularly flagrant example of the paradigm shift. The roof on the old basilica was wood needed regular replacement, something ignored during those dark French years. As a result, the roof collapsed, fires occasioned the church, as one of the walls warped out by six feet. The basilica, built 1,100 years earlier, was beyond saving. Bernardo Rossellino proposed a new basilica built in the same style and with the same features as the old church, only with longer transepts to accommodate devotions and a longer choir for the new, medieval choir praxis. His proposal was canned by Julius II, who wanted a grand new church to house his tomb. Bramante began the construction of the modern basilica, a significant departure in style and outlook from the previous building. With the new basilica, Pope Julius baptized Rome into the Renaissance and gave precedent for a severe remodeling of many churches of the City along new lines. Rome became a center of baroquerie and its old identity began to fade. Lex supplicandi legem statuat credendi.

The old basilica, along with Cluny and St Paul outside of the Wall, the largest church in the world, is demolished
and covered with the new basilica.

Medieval Rome is gone, but we ought not forget how wonderful a Catholic city it was nor should we neglect its example as a city conscientiously dedicated to God.

Is Braga a French Rite?

Rite of Versailles

The English local uses, defunct since the death of Mary Tudor with precious few exceptions, are essentially local variations of the Rouen liturgy used in Norman France, itself a local "dialect" of the Roman rite, to borrow from Adrian Fortescue. The Dominican rite, still used according to the 1962 variation in some circles, shares many prayers and choir ceremonies with the Sarum and Norman rites. Some of the propers are stunningly similar, such as the oration Veneranda on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. It begs the question, are the Roman rite and the medieval European rites distinct from each other?

The two were certainly different prior to the Minorites (Franciscans). Rome jealously resisted any innovations even in the most remote of ways, such as the broader use of incense in the rites of Europe. The international character of the Roman Curia brought the European liturgy, a synthesis of the Benedictine monastic choir rites with the cathedral liturgies of European dioceses—themselves informed by a resurgence in literary and philosophical education, to Rome. The Curia had its own rite, which one could summarize as the Roman text with the European ritual. The Lateran Cathedral and St. Peter's Basilica retained the more congregational and communitarian Roman ritual and practices during this time. Papal Mass as it existed until 1964 could itself be called a blend of these two forces. The Franciscans used the Curial liturgy and popularized it as the Roman rite throughout Europe. Nicholas III, a Franciscan, suppressed the old Roman usages at the basilicas of the City, making the Curial rite the only form of the Roman rite (the current era is not the only time an extraordinary form of the Roman rite was suppressed!). We all know what happened under St. Pius V and the aftermath of Trent.

The consequential question then is: can the medieval European rites—excluding the unique liturgies of Milan and Toledo—similar enough to characterize as one rite with many variations? As mentioned above, Sarum, Rouen, and the Dominican rite are all very similar as they should be. Dominicans often studied at the university of Paris, itself likely influenced by the same Norman praxis which the conquerors brought to England after Hastings. What, then, of Braga? The Bragan rite, as our friend Marco has underscored many times on his excellent blog on that tradition, shares many of the same prayers as Sarum and the Dominican liturgy, both on feasts and Sundays per annum. Braga is in northern Portugal, nearly a thousand miles from Normandy. Can the Norman liturgical family really extend that far south or had dioceses begun to develop their own variation of the Roman rite very early on in the Middle Ages, only encountering the proper texts with the coming of the Minorites? Another possibility is that these common texts are themselves remnants of the liturgy used prior to Alcuin and Charlemagne's attempt to impose the 9th century Roman books on Western Europe. People will speak of the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries, but are there a reasonable number of extant Gallican source to cross-reference? Unlikely, which makes this thesis impossible to test. The neo-Gallican rites, while occasionally making concessions to Jansenist culture (octave of St. Augustine while suppressing the octave of Ss. Peter & Paul), are themselves orthodox and can be read as an attempt to revitalize French liturgical life. Unfortunately, the propers were themselves changed considerably and are not returns to the Norman texts (if they were even used in Lyons or Paris). Still, Normanesque elements are readily visible in the neo-Gallican rites: extravagant choir ceremonies, vivid and loquacious proper orations, and optional ferial readings for the resumed Sunday Mass. They are not part of the medieval European or Norman group, but imitate them in style, indicating a distant relation. 

So how were the various medieval European rites connected, given their considerable textual departure from the Roman rite, to which they imparted their ceremonies?

Feast Day Ranks

Today, tomorrow, and the day after give us some insight into how feasts have been celebrated and ranked throughout the history of the Roman Church. The Roman rite generally has four categories for days:

• Ferial
• Simple
• Semi-Double
• Double

Semi-Double is a compromise between Simple and Double. A Ferial day uses the psalter of the day (including the 12 Mattins psalms), the full preces and suffrages during the major and minor hours (intercessory prayers), and celebrates the Mass proscribed for that day. For most of the year this is a repetition of Sunday's Mass. During Lent it is a unique Mass daily. Mass uses an odd number of orations, usually three, but enough commemorations can boost it to five or seven.

A Simple usually celebrates a lesser known saint of local interest and has much the same character as a Ferial day, except the psalms at Lauds are festive and the Mass is of the saint rather than of the previous Sunday. Mass is sung after Sext on Ferial and Simple days, except when the Ferial or Simple day has a penitential character or is a vigil—like next week's vigil for St. Lawrence—in which case the Mass is after None. During Lent the Ferial days enjoy privilege and supersede the Simple feasts. On Simples the full preces are sung, but the Commemoration of the Cross is omitted during the suffrages. A Simple begins with Vespers the previous night and ends at None in the afternoon, as is still the Eastern practice for feasts.

A Double begins with first Vespers the previous night and ends with Compline the night of the feast. Mattins uses 9 psalms and 9 lessons in three nocturnes as Mattins, using either psalms proper to the feast or from the Commons. Lauds are of course festive and there are no suffrages or preces during any of the hours of the Office. Mass, sung after Terce, has no votive orations, although it can admit commemorations of impeded feasts or Ferial days.

Semi-Double is, again, a blend of Double and Simple. It retains all the psalms and the arrangement or the hours of a Double, but with the suffrage, preces, and commemoration rules of a Simple. The Rad Trad always fancied Semi-Double to be an arrangement invented by monks who thought a saint was important, but not important enough to impede Sunday. Sundays are Semi-Double, but take priority over any Semi-Double saint's feast.

What does this have to do with the period from August 4-6th? Every day of that period is a Double feast. Today's feast of St. Dominic began last night, overtaking Sunday's Vespers. Tomorrow is the feast of Our Lady of the Snows (St. Mary Major in Rome). Finally, on Wednesday, is the Transfiguration of the Lord. Despite their similar celebration in the Mass and Office they are not observed as having the same status.

Many will have heard of the ranks "Double I Class," "Double II Class," "Great Double" etc. These days illustrate the significance of these ranks. They are means of classifying the prominence of feasts that are celebrated the same way in the Office. It seems that when these classifications were given to Double feasts in the mid-second millennium—complete when Clement VIII instituted "Greater Double" rank—those in charge of the process began with the understanding that the feast of the Transfiguration would be the most significant day in the sequence. From there they also understood that while not as important, Our Lady of Snows was both a Marian feast and a major feast within the city of Rome. St. Dominic was an important enough saint to impede the Sunday Mass and Office, as he would have until 1911, but not enough to impede the other feasts. So St. Dominic retained a regular Double rank, while Our Lady of the Snows became Greater Double, and the Transfiguration was kept as a Double II Class. Hence second Vespers of St. Dominic is replaced by first Vespers of Our Lady of the Snows, which in turn loses its second Vespers to the first Vespers of the Transfiguration (which enjoys first and second Vespers). 

All this becomes apparent when one sees no Greater Double feast in the kalendar is surrounded by Ferial or Simple days!

A picture of St. Mary Major from the Rad Trad's personal collection.

From the Baptistry.

Liturgical Theology of Pentecost

source: oca.org

Pentecost is too big, too vast, too intimidating for any singular explanation, but the Roman liturgy's rich vigil for this feast nurtures the faithful with some food for thought. Let us consider the liturgy of the Roman rite for this great feast, second only to the Sunday of the Resurrection in importance.

source: traditionalmass.org

The vigil commences with the celebrant—vested in a violet chasuble—kissing the altar and following the lectors, who read six prophecies from the Old Testament, interspersed with collects sung by the celebrant. The first lesson is the familiar story of Abraham ascending a mountain with his son Isaac, prepared to sacrifice his only child in obedience to God. An angel intervenes and tells a relieved Abraham that God would never really do such a thing. All of this was proclaimed on Holy Saturday, prefiguring Christ's willingness to sacrifice everything to the Father on behalf of the world. Pentecost enters this passage late at the point when God rewards Abraham's fidelity by promising "I will bless thee and multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the seashore.... and in thy seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because thou hast obeyed My voice."

The second prophecy is an extraction from Exodus 14, wherein the Pharaoh's forces chase the Israelites through the desert and into the Red Sea, which St. Moses has just parted by the Lord's command. The Lord then tells Moses to close the Sea and drown the Egyptians, which he does. The tract continues the passage:

"Let us sing to the Lord, for He is gloriously magnified: the horse and the rider He hath thrown into the sea: He is become my helper and protector unto salvation...."

These two prophecies speak of the same thing, Baptism. Water is a symbol of creation and the essential ingredient of all that lives. Yet water is also uncertain, difficult to control. Genesis chapter 1 speaks of water roaming the earth before it had form. God used water to protect the Israelites from the Egyptians. Egypt itself is a type, a parallel, an example of sin and loss and here God saves His people—fulfilled and most perfectly expressed in the Church—through water. Through water He will "multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven," only He will no longer multiply Abraham's progeny through obedience, but Christ's Church through Sacrament. The second collect of the vigil demands this interpretation:

"O God, who by the light of the New Testament hast made clear to us the miracles wrought in earliest times, prefiguring unto us the Red Sea as an image of the sacred font, and Who in the deliverance of Thy people from the bondage of Egypt, hast foreshadowed the sacraments of the Christian dispensation; grant that all nations who have merited by faith the privilege of the children of Israel, may be born again by partaking of Thy holy Spirit."

The third prophecy, take from Deuteronomy 31, compares and contrasts closely with the Ascension of Christ. Moses, nearing death, has taken care to write down his encounters and history with God. He abjures and confronts his fellows Israelites for their infidelity to God, "For I know that, after my death, you will do wickedly, and will quickly turn aside from the way that I have commanded you." The scripture, excluded from this passage, goes on to tell us that his bones were never found. This is extraordinary. Moses joins Elijah, Enoch, and the Blessed Mother among those whose bones have not been found and the others were taken bodily by the Lord, Elijah in a chariot of fire and our Lady after her death in Jerusalem. Moses, a prefigurement of Christ who leads God's people out of bondage, many believe, Jews included, was also taken up by God. Should he have been assumed by God then an strong parallel with the Ascension presents itself. Christ of course was not assumed into heaven, but rather ascended through His own power as God. Moses brought people forth from human bondage and Christ from spiritual bondage. Both died and were raised, so to speak, and rebuked their followers for their lack of faith. Moses's followers would continue to fail God, even if they would eventually reach the promised land and create a kingdom of Israel. Christ, in a marked contrast, promises something perfect that will never be lost, a "Helper" (meaning of the word Paraclete) to preserve the faithful "in all truth." He ascends telling the Apostles to "baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.... For I am with you always, even until the end of the world." Moses's deliverance from slavery is made perfect in Christ's words.

The fourth prophecy again anticipates the inception of the Church in the Baptism of its members, "the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion, and shall wash away the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning" (Isaiah chapter 4). At this point perhaps the faithful should consider what Baptism is. It is the movement of water over a person's skin with a Trinitarian formula, yes, but it is so much more, too. "Baptism" derives from a similar Greek word meaning "to immerse" or "to plunge." To be "plunged" into Christ and in the name of the Trinity is more than to enter a visible community or lose a sentence of punishments condine to one's sins. To be "plunged" into Christ is to be immersed and filled with the very life of Christ given by the Holy Spirit, Who, St. Gregory reminds the Church of Rome during Mattins of the feast, is the love of God Himself. The Holy Spirit, to be simplistic, is God's love working and doing something, creating or renewing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes this rebirth in Baptism through water, the physical essential in life and the material, again referencing Genesis chapter 1, which formlessly covered the earth before creation. Water is also like the Holy Spirit, or "Holy Wind" to take a very literal translation, in that water is not easily contained, limited, narrowed, or defined. It enters through crevices unseen and can also be lost by poor care through other unanticipated openings. It is this in water that Christ, through the Holy Spirit, renews His creation. It is for this reason so many commentators have adduced the psalm from the Vidi aquam "I saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple, alleluia; and all to whom this water came were saved...." Therefore the Church uses as her last prophecy in the vigil Ezekiel 37:1-14:

"Thus saith the Lord God, Come, spirit, from the four winds, and blow upon these slain, and let them live again. And I prophesied as He had commanded me; and the spirit came unto them; and they lived; and they stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.... Thus saith the Lord, I will open your graves, and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O My people, and will bring you into the land of Israel.... and you shall have put My spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall make you rest upon your own land; saith the Lord almighty."

source: traditionalmass.org

A procession then brings the sacred ministers to the baptistry where the font's waters are again blessed and infused with chrism, itself a priestly thing, as on Holy Saturday. The Paschal candle, extinguished on Ascension Thursday after the Gospel, reappears. Let not the importance of its reappearance be lost. As Dr. Laurence Hemming adumbrates in his Worship as Revelation, all the fires in a church are to be lit from the Paschal fire much as the Presence of Christ in the Sacraments comes from Christ's Incarnation and work on earth. The Paschal candle is extinguished at the end of forty days because, as with Christ and the Sacraments, its purpose, to diffuse holy fire, is accomplished. The fire remains without the candle's use just as Christ remains in the Church without a bodily physical presence. The candle returns because it symbolizes the Resurrection, the event which made this new life in the Holy Spirit possible. The celebrant plunges the candle into the font, almost baptizing the font with the candle rather the other way around. The celebrant sparges the faithful with the blessed water, infuses the chrism, and baptizes catechumens into Christ and His Resurrection. More adept parishes will also have the good sense to administer confirmation at this time, giving the neophytes the Holy Spirit and His "sevenfold gifts."

After the baptisms all who have been "baptized into Christ" on earth sing the Litanies of Saints, imploring the intercession of those in heaven who are the perfection of God's promise to Abraham, "multipl[ied] as stars of heaven." The saints, together with those on earth baptized into Christ, form the Church and carry that same Spirit and fire found on Holy Saturday. Pentecost makes the Resurrection permanent on earth, preserved in the Church unto ages of ages.

source: traditionalmass.org

Mass follows immediately during the vigil. The lesson, taken from Acts of the Apostles, recounts Paul's preaching of the Baptism of Christ, or into Christ, to the Ephesians, hitherto only aware of St. John the Baptist's baptism of repentance. The alleluia is the same as on Holy Saturday. And in the Gospel St. John tells of Jesus saying "If you love me, keep my commandments." What is the Holy Spirit other than the strength to do this? This simple, demanding sentence of Christ calls to mind James 2:18, "I will show you my faith by my works." The Holy Spirit creates, re-creates, renews, strengthens, and preserves the Church in Christ, of Christ, and for Christ, as foretold to the prophets long ago. He makes all things anew, fashioning a new, holier creation out of the materials and persons of the existing, fallen creation. And He will remain with us until the very end.

In a rare moment the Byzantine tradition has a far simpler and more understated take than the Roman Church. The Greek theology of this feast can be found in the troparion of Penteost, which I heard today at Divine Liturgy and last evening at Vespers:

"Blessed are You, O Christ our God, You have filled the fishermen with wisdom by sending down the Holy Spirit upon them, and Who through them have caught in Your net the whole world. O Lover of mankind, glory to You!"

And who can turn down a chance to listen to Veni Creator Spiritus?

Dialogue on Validity, Form, and Intention

Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV celebrates the Divine Liturgy at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, 1954
source: P. Pfister, Pages de Rome Immortelle, Arthaud 1954, p. 155

The Rad Trad has been privileged to correspond with several of his readers—you know who you are—over the last year. Discussion usually beings with a question or an opinion about some liturgical matter. A recent series of exchanges between the Rad Trad and a reader was no different.

 

Enter the blogger "Maestro" of the page Foretaste of Wisdom, a site certainly worth a look. The Maestro is a Thomistic-minded Catholic and a student at Thomas Aquinas College. We recently exchanged thoughts on an article by Br. Ansgar Santogrossi, a professor at the FSSP seminary in Nebraska, concerning the Thomistic notion of "form" of the Consecration of the Eucharist and the implications for the validity (or invalidity) of the Addai & Mari rite used in the far east. The original article, which I cannot reproduce here owing to copyright, appeared in the Winter 2012 edition of Nova et Veterea should any readers wish to follow the discussion more closely. The Maestro has kindly given me permission to post some excerpts of our exchanges below. Readers may find the discussion and the historical/theological citations interesting. The exchange is given in chronological order. It is the sort of thing one can scroll through in search of a passage of particular interest rather than labor through the entire thing.

 

Thomists: please don't be too hard on me!

 

The Rad Trad: I have read the first third of the article and will finish it tomorrow with my fuller impressions. Thus far I think the author is trying very hard to fit his theological system (neo-Thomism) into texts written and prayed by people who did not believe that a particular set of words "did the deed" on their own. The quotations he adduces from Ss. Ambrose and Justin the Martyr do not really indicate that "This is my body" and "This is my blood" effect the consecration at all, just that they are the pretext for the celebration of the sacred mysteries and that it is by Christ's words that the change takes place. Perhaps the author will investigate the matter further, but the idea of "Christ's words" or "Word of God" has a very broad meaning and could (probably) means that it is Christ Who makes the change happen, rather than referring to a few specific sentences. Sure, some prayers were more important than others (which is the only reason low Mass can be permissible), but the concept of a particular set of words doing the Sacrament really does not find much evidence until the rise of the Latin Schoolmen (for all the good they did—and they did a lot—I've never been too keen on their Sacramental theology).

 

I hope the author goes into the texts of the Addai and Mari rite in some detail, as this would help him make or break his case.

The Rad Trad (fuller answer): I have finished the article and found it somewhat wanting. The author's premise is basically that everyone from Apostolic times knew that "This is my body" and "This is my blood" make the change happen, and that since the Addai and Mari rite does not (or no longer does) contain these words it does not successfully consecrate the bread and wine. Unfortunately he does not make a very conclusive case from the historical evidence.

As I said before he conflates the "Words of the Lord" with the institution narrative from St Paul used in every other celebration of the Eucharist. It gets especially bad when he begins calling the institution narrative the "words of consecration" as if it is and always has been a settled question, effectively making the rest of the article a circular argument. However in the Eastern Churches (Byzantine and otherwise) there is an emphasis on Christ doing what happens at the altar with the priest presiding in His physical stead. They do not have a concept of the priest in persona Christi, but rather say that the priest "serves" Christ's true priesthood. For instance in the Coptic liturgy (Catholics and Orthodox use it) the epiclesis is "He makes this [bread] His precious Body!" and the same is said of the chalice. Moreover words are spoken with air and breath. Perhaps you know that the Greek and Hebrew for Holy Spirit is actually "Holy Wind" or "Holy Breath?" It makes Christ's consecration a work of the Holy Spirit effected by Christ's intercession (which is why the Byzantines, for instance, insist that in their rite the consecration happens at the epiclesis). In none of the evidence proffered is it clear that the institution narrative is the consecration. 

Lastly, he assumes that the lack of an institution narrative is a relatively new omission in the Addai and Mari rite, which betrays a certain degree of historical ignorance. His best grounds is that according to one 18th century Roman account and a few 19th century Anglican accounts there was a narrative in variable places. However these accounts center on the Chaldean Catholic Church, which formed around that time as a far Eastern Church in communion with the Roman See. What he neglects to mention, or realize, is that most Eastern Churches that joined the Catholic communion at that time were forcibly Latinized and made to conform to Western theology and practices—a problem we have only just begun to solve in the Eastern Catholic Churches. Could the narrative not be a Latinization? The author constantly quotes that judgment from an older document that the absence of a narrative is a "grave abuse" but no where did it said the absence necessarily invalidated the Eucharist. He gets around this by equating it with the attempted ordination of women by some dodgy 5th century bishop who was promptly corrected.  

On the whole not very impressive. Even Aquinas admitted to some extent that his analysis was based on the Latin liturgy, which was the only liturgy he knew. This article absolutizes that analysis and tries to fit it into other Apostolic Churches' systems. Bad history, bad ecclesiology, bad theology. Your thoughts, sir?

The Maestro: Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have a couple questions which are purely theological....

St. Thomas quotes St. Ambrose, also from the de sacramentis: "The consecration is accomplished by the words and expressions of the Lord Jesus. Because, by all the other words spoken, praise is rendered to God, prayer is put up for the people, for kings, and others; but when the time comes for perfecting the sacrament, the priest uses no longer his own words, but the words of Christ. Therefore, it is Christ's words that perfect this sacrament."

An alternate translation: "How can that which is bread be the body of Christ? By consecration. But in what words and in whose language is the consecration? Those of the Lord Jesus. For all the other things which are said in the earlier parts of the service are said by the priest—praises are offered to God, prayer is asked for the people, for kings, and the rest; when it comes to the consecration of the venerable sacrament, the priest no longer uses his own language, but he uses the language of Christ. Therefore, the word of Christ consecrates this sacrament."

I don't recall Br. Ansgar quoting this in his article, but this passage seems to me to more clearly emphasize the efficacy of the actual words spoken by the priest, in bringing about the consecration - that's the impression I get. Would your interpretation of this be more along the lines of a "spiritual" language or word, in line with your broader understanding of the "Word of Christ"?

Also, I'm sure you are aware of the Council of Florence on this matter: "The words of the Savior, by which He instituted this sacrament, are the form of this sacrament; for the priest speaking in the person of Christ effects this sacrament. For by the power of the very words the substance of the bread is changed into the body of Christ, and the substance of the wine into the blood; yet in such a way that Christ is contained entire under the species of bread, and entire under the species of wine."

Obviously, the term "form" is being borrowed here from St. Thomas and Aristotle. So according to your view, would this teaching apply, like that of St. Thomas, only to the Roman liturgy? 

The Rad Trad: I would say that the last sentence in those two translations displays quite a disparity. The latter indicates a broad possibility of meanings (a spiritual idea of the "Lord's word", the institution narrative, the entire anaphora after the preface etc). Even if it refers to the narrative that would put St Ambrose in Br Ansgar's camp, but does not make the case for any sort of consensus, even in the Latin Church, prior to the Middle Ages. The quotation he used from St John Chrysostom certainly has no where near the message he thinks it has (the narrative-as-consecration just is not part of the Byzantine tradition). 

Florence is obviously referencing St Thomas, but St Thomas's analysis really cannot go beyond the Latin rite (which uses the Roman Canon—except the rite of Milan, which uses a variation of it, and the Mozarabic rite of Toledo, a very odd liturgy). From a historical perspective it is clear to me in Summa pars III question 78.1 that there was a very wide array of views on the matter at the time, even within the Roman Church. And if we are to take Aquinas as far out of his Roman context as Br Ansgar does, must we not conclude that the Byzantine rite and the Novus Ordo Mass are invalid (pars III, article 78.3, answer before the reply) because they lack the words mysterium fidei, making for an imcomplete form? 

One last note about Florence: it was not a teaching council in the same way Nicea, Chalcedon, Lateran IV, Trent, or Vatican I were teaching councils. It was a disastrous attempt to re-unite the Latin and Greek Churches. The Byzantine emperor was desperate for political capital and soldiers to fight the Muslims on his doorstep and the Roman authorities saw an opportunity to force Roman theology, customs, and discipline upon a Greek Church which would give them anything. For example the famous Cantate Domino bull by Eugene IV was actually a thinly veiled letter to the Eastern Churches saying "Join me or go to hell;" ditto for Boniface VIII and Unam Sanctam. One must take time to learn about these councils and documents and how the Church historically uses them and receive them before applying them in theological and liturgical discussion. My impression is that the above passage from Florence was an attempt to Latinize the Greek Church's theology. 

I may be wrong though!

The Maestro: Looking again at the whole of the Ambrose quote, it seems to me that his emphasis on the priests words, which, he says, are also Christ's words, indicates something very like the words of institution. And to which quote from Chrysostom are you referring? Is this the one? "It is not man who causes what is present to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself Who was crucified for us. The priest is the representative when he pronounces those words, but the power and the grace are those of the Lord. “This is My Body,” [h]e says. This word changes the things that lie before us; and as that sentence “Increase and multiply,” once spoken, extends through all time and gives to our nature the power to reproduce itself; even so that saying “This is My Body,” once uttered, does at every altar in the Churches from that time to the present day, and even till Christ’s coming, make the sacrifice complete."

I'm curious, what do you take this passage to be saying, if not that the actual words of institution, repeated by Christ, bring about the change? I also found this from St. Athanasius: "You will see the Levites bringing the loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers and invocations have not yet been made, it is mere bread and a mere cup. But when the great and wonderous prayers have been recited, then the bread becomes the body and the cup the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ....When the great prayers and holy supplications are sent up, the Word descends on the bread and the cup, and it becomes His body."

Granted, it doesn't yet establish a general consensus, but it's something...  

And I'm not certain that St. Thomas intends for every word that he discusses to be an essential part of the form. For example, he says that the word "for" ("enim") isn't actually part of the essential form, although the Roman Church uses it (III, Q.78, A.2, ad.5). He also says generally that if different words were used to communicate the same meaning it would still be valid (III, Q.60, A.8). I'm not sure that the omission of mysterium fidei affects the essential sense of the words.

St. Thomas has other arguments for the necessity of specific words in the sacraments. Since you do not consider a specific "form" or set of words to be the cause of transubstantiation in the Eucharist, would you hold a similar position with regard to the other sacraments, such as Baptism? It seems evident at least that for Baptism a specific set of words is necessary for the sacrament to be effected. St. Thomas speaks of Baptism as example for his argument that all the sacraments require words, and he quotes St. Augustine (III, Q.60, A.6). And it seems evident from Scripture too, for Christ commanded the apostles to baptize all nations "In the name of the Father," etc. If from that we can draw the necessity of a determinate set of words, why not also from the words of institution also recorded in Scripture? 

I'll have to study more on the history of the Council of Florence, but from what I gather from Catholic Encyclopedia, it seems that the main controversy there was whether the epiklesis or the words of institution brought about transubstantiation. It's not clear to me that a case like that of Addai and Mari would even have been considered - whether by the Latins or the Greeks. Isn't true that Addai and Mari has neither the Words of Institution nor an Epiklesis? I could be wrong, but it seems as though at Florence, the only two options were either the words of institution or the epiklesis.

The Rad Trad: I will refrain from further comment on the Golden Mouth's quotation until I can look up some commentaries and more translations. The bit from St Athanasius does not really suggest anything concrete at all to me. In fact, as Patriarch of Egypt his current successor is Tawadros II, Patriarch of the Coptic Church, a church which uses the liturgy I mentioned earlier which claims the change takes place as the words "He makes [the bread] into His Body" and the same for the chalice. 

A further difficulty is that writers in this time tended not to reflect too deeply on the liturgy because they took it as a given. They wrote about the natures of Christ and the Trinity because Jesus' divinity was in question. They wrote about icons because icons were in question. We, in the West, wrote so much about the Eucharist and priesthood because the protestants questioned those things. No one, until the 16th century, really questioned what happened on the altar so they did not dissect and analyze it. Moreover, there are some manuscripts from that era, but not many. They just followed what St Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11: I have passed onto you what I have received. A Melkite Catholic priest once said to me something to the effect that "We don't dwell on minimal things like validity or forms. We just do what was given to us and we only do that." 

I only adduced the bit from the Summa on the consecration simply to show the effect of over-applying the liturgical theology of one rite to another, even another Roman liturgical rite. 

There are indeed many different forms for many of the Sacraments throughout the Catholic Church. Your example of Baptism mostly holds. All valid Baptism is "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" but that is it. Romans baptize with the words "I baptize you in the name....." while the Byzantines baptize with "The servant/handmaiden of God is baptized in the name......" Roman and Slavic rites absolve sins with "I absolve you...." while the Byzantines say "Jesus Christ absolves you." Indeed it has to be verbal, because it is a prayer after all, and there are some guidelines, but the exact formula is not entrenched. 

The main controversies at Florence were (in order of importance):

• The doctrinal soundness/legality of the filioque in the Latin version of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed

• The use of unleavened bread in the Latin liturgy

• The extent of Papal power outside the Roman patriarchate

• The conflict between Scholastic ideas about the un-knowability of God versus the Hesychast Greek theology of God's un-knowability in essence and knowability in energies 

Again, it was supposed to be a reunion Council and one that did not work out. I suspect your excerpt above might be from the part of Florence wherein they discussed Scholastic theology's role in the Universal Church. The Greeks, eager for some money and soldiers, did not make much of a case for their position, except for Mark of Ephesus, who [helped] ruined the reunion upon his return to Byzantium. 

The Maestro: What I was wondering was whether the case of Baptism is at all analogous to that of the Eucharist. From all the examples you mention - if I understand you correctly - it seems that the same essential form is used throughout all of those rites ("...in the name of the Father, etc"), with only the minor differences which St. Thomas says do not change the meaning. So as far as I can see, there is a set formula, but which allows for minor variations. The formula does appear to originate directly from the words of Christ Himself, in all of these cases. Whereas, according to your position, the case is not so with regard to the Eucharist: the Roman "formula" consists in the words of institution, the Byzantine in the epiklesis, and the Addai and Mari rite doesn't even seem to have a formula. So there doesn't seem to be an analogy between Baptism and the Eucharist, in this respect: for in the latter case, in some rites, it appears that the crucial words are not those of Christ. So my question was why, if in the case of Baptism, the "formulae" for all Catholic rites seem to be drawn from the words of Christ, the same could not be said of the "formula" for the Eucharist. Of course, perhaps the same could not be said for some of the other sacraments either... I've seen a distinction between those Sacraments whose forms were given by Christ (as evident in Scripture) and those whose were not.

In any case, I am also wondering about the extent to which theological variety is acceptable in the Church. You've mentioned several times now the tendency to universalize the Thomistic theology and apply it to other rites. Obviously, there is some room for variation and theological opinion, but I'm not entirely clear on how we can hold St. Thomas' sacramental theology to be true only in the Roman Rite, or even Eastern theology to be true only in the Eastern rites... It seems to me to be more than a question of method, but of the actual theological truths. Or are we really to hold that, in the Roman Rite, the consecration really does take place at the words of institution, but in the Byzantine Rite, it really does take place at the epiklesis; and further, that in Addai and Mari... do we even know when it takes place? So if the consecration takes place at a different moment for each of these rites, what is that determines which moment? Is it simply the belief of the people within each rite? That is, does the Roman consecration take place at the words of institution because the Romans believe so, and the Byzantine at the epiklesis because the Byzantines believe so, etc? That seems to make it very subjective. Which is why, I think, we see that tendency to universalize theology, especially among the scholastics: because the nature of truth doesn't allow for that much subjectivity.

Even if we were to try to address this problem simply by saying that in all these liturgies the consecration does take place at some point, and that is what matters, nonetheless that seems to me to avoid, rather than solve, the problem...

As to Florence, the quote I gave earlier is from "Exultate Domino" bull concerning union with the Armenians. I'm not entirely sure of what all the content was (I've only skimmed it) but it does go through each of the seven sacraments. It seems almost like a catechism on the sacraments... (It's somewhere in this link: http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/florence.htm#3) The Catholic Encyclopedia gives a brief summary of the debates that occurred concerning the Eucharist, and it seems an important one was concerning the words of institution versus the epiklesis. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05584a.htm

The Rad Trad: You may find this commentary on the Addai & Mari rite, provided by the Chaldean Catholic diocese of the USA, heuristic: http://www.kaldu.org/3_chaldean_culture/TheAnaphora_ApostlesAddai_Mari.html

The baptismal rites all use "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" not because the clergy of those rites though Our Lord gave them a formula, but because He gave them a command: to reveal the Trinity and baptize people into the Triune Godhead, to the Father, in the Son, by the Holy Spirit. Similarly with the Eucharist, He did not necessarily mean to restrict His command to the repetition of words over bread and wine, but to communicate the need to repeat an action. The Greek for "Do this in memory of me" is actually very strong, meaning "Do this for the anamnesis of me" (do this action as I do it). By that He meant the entire Eucharistic action: thanksgiving, the establishment of the purpose of the bread and wine, and the offering of Himself on the Cross—the sacrifice made present on the altar, and the rising up on the third day. One would be hard-pressed to find a Eucharistic prayer East or West that does not repeat this pattern. Also, the Eucharist was instituted in the context of a meal, which indicates to me at least that the eating and drinking in His sacrifice is the action being continued, not the specific words alone. If you have a strong enough interest in this matter I suggest you track down a copy of Gregory Dix's Shape of the Liturgy, a monumental book on liturgical history (some of his work is outdated, but it is still the best book of its kind) which frames its discussion around the idea of anamnesis. Dix ws an Anglo-Catholic, but, aside from the chapter on the Anglican liturgy (which I ignored) it hardly shows. 

The consecration, to my mind, does take place at different times in the different rites owing not only to the form, but also to the intention. Can a priest accidentally consecrate, as would be the case in the Byzantine rite at the narrative, when he does not intend to do so? The priest is given power to "offer sacrifice for the living and the dead" (old ordination rite) and to "offer the Eucharist" (new ordination rite), not to use a particular formula. If the priest has the power and intention, and he offers the Eucharist in manner hallowed by time and which the Church has accepted, who am I to tell him he's doing it wrong or that the change happens in a way otherwise than what his rite's tradition says? 

I think St Thomas's writing on the consecration is very limited to the Roman rite, not least because he does not purpose to offer an a priori form for consecration, but rather the form for consecration in the only Eucharistic prayer he ever knew. He is using Scripture as evidence, not as a starting point. He really is holding the liturgy as a revealed truth (as do I) and attempting to understand it; the issue is that he had one datum. 

Another factor may have been that a century before St Thomas lived priests began to elevate the Host and Chalice at Mass (people would actually yell from the nave "Show us" and "Let me see"), a kind of piety that substituted for the actual reception of Communion (from the 9th century until the 18th Communion was never really distributed at Mass, only at side chapels and on major feasts due to popular fear of unworthy reception). I think those elevations may have popularized discussion as to the exact moment of change.  

With Florence, as with most Councils, one must contextualize what they are saying to understand the extent of it. In the Eastern Churches, for instance, they say there are "at least seven Sacraments" whereas we say "there are seven sacraments and then many sacramentals." The Easterners refer to Sacraments as Mysteries and lump Mysteries and Sacramentals into Sacraments (all possible means of transmitting grace). It takes some patience to understand and might be at the heart of the bulls to the Armenians and Copts.

The Maestro: The idea of anamnesis does intrigue me, though I am wondering - and perhaps I misunderstand - why would that concept not include the words by which Christ consecrated the bread and wine?

So according to your position, the most essential validity of the sacrament, for whatever rite, is determined by the power and intention of the priest, and the approval of the Church? I wonder though, has the Church officially approved of the idea that the Byzantine consecration occurs at the epiklesis, or that the Addai and Mari consecration occurs... whenever it does? As I understand, the Church thus far has attempted to "universalize" the Thomistic account of the consecration, as at Florence - unless I am missing something. Furthermore, has the Addai and Mari rite actually been magisterially approved? I am not certain that the CDF qualifies as a strictly magisterial authority, when compared to something like Florence or Trent, or the common opinion of the theologians and scholastics. Has the Church approved of it elsewhere? As for the power and intention of the priest, if the approval of the Church is doubtful, intention seems a week foundation; and the exercise of power seems properly to imply the need for some instrument or means by which it is exercised - such as a set of words - or else the priest could say any prayer he likes, with the intention, and effect the consecration. It's similar to my earlier problem: it seems very subjective.

You make interesting points about St. Thomas and the history of the elevation and so forth. 

The Rad Trad: Dix does not necessarily exclude the importance of the institution words, but he does not think they are strictly needed (as evidenced by the anaphora of St Hippolytus for instance) for the action, though he does not see a conflict there either. I will let his book speak for itself.

The idea of the Church approving something "magisterially" is actually quite novel and quite new (Counter-Reformation era, before only grave matters went to Rome and the bishop most often passed judgment). The older concept is summed up by St Vincent of Lerins: "If it is tradition it needs no explanation. If it is not tradition then it has no explanation." Time and perpetual use gives a rite the Church's approval, not the stamp of a congregation in Rome or the Pope (if what he does is novel). The Church has not magisterially approved the apparition of the Empty Tomb to Mary Magdalen and the other Mary in the year 33, she has just always believed and taught it. The Byzantine rite was never "approved," nor was the Roman rite until 1570. Heck, the Mass of Paul VI was released by a congregation in Rome, not by the Pope. Is it approved? The Addai and Mari rite pre-dates the Pauline Mass by approximately 1,600 years, which, in Scholastic terms, would indicate its approval by the "Universal Ordinary Magisterium" to me. The approval of the Church is not doubtful to me. It is not even doubtful to Br Ansgar, given the rite's constant use, which is why he attempts, with debatable success, to demonstrate that it originally had an institution narrative which disappeared. Intention is a necessary condition, not the primary condition, for a Sacrament to take place. Time and use hallows rites, intention grows out of them (which is why I mentioned the elevations which began in the Middle Ages—a positive development to be sure).

The Maestro: Perhaps the main problem in my mind is whether the truth of the matter determines the intention of the priest and faithful, or whether their intention is what determines the truth of the matter. In other words, have the faithful always believed the rite is valid because it is so, or is it valid because they have believed so? If the truth is determined by their belief and intention, then it seems the answer is the latter. Granted, normally speaking, that a certain belief is in the tradition is evidence for its truth - and I don't think I could answer such an argument, at this point - but that's different than saying that it's being in tradition is the cause of its truth. Are you proposing this latter?

 

  

Quick Thoughts on Liturgy and the End of the World

Today was, in the Roman rite, the last Sunday after Pentecost, a Sunday which in liturgical terms signifies the end of the world and the Last Judgment when the "Lord with woundes redde will come to judge the quick and the dedde." In the Roman rite, and by extension all the Latin uses except the Mozarabic rite, the liturgical year reflects the process of salvation history. The year begins a week after it ends. The beginning's Gospel actually has something of an apocalyptic tone, picking up on the desolation and judgment themes of the last Sunday. Advent signifies the wait of the Jews and of the entire sin-riddled world for a redeemer, which culminates in the birth of Christ. Interestingly, the first Sunday of Advent is significant because it establishes the need for salvation and the third, Gaudete Sunday, is important because it rejoices in the immanence of that salvation; the other two Sundays, of lesser import, can be superseded by the Immaculate Conception and the Christmas Vigil. After the celebration of His Nativity and the other relevant feasts (Circumcision, Epiphany, Baptism in the Jordan, and the Purification) the focus shifts to His time in the desert and His teachings on salvation in Lent, culminating in His redeeming work during Holy Week and life in the Resurrection during Paschaltide. The time after Pentecost is significant in that it is after the coming of the Holy Spirit, the age of the Church and the Saints. Revelation has ended, but the Divine Life for us believers is constant until the End finally comes. And then it starts all over again.

 

In contrast the Byzantine rite's kalendar does not focus as much on the seasons as it does on the major feasts on the Church. Days that we Romans would not consider feasts they do, such as Palm Sunday. Feasts dictate the liturgical year. Indeed, in any well appointed Byzantine parish there should be icons on both sides of the nave depicting various events in the process of revelation. One would notice that the icons are arranged chronologically, beginning with the birth of the Blessed Virgin and ending with her Dormition/Assumption at the end of her life. In between would be the events of Her Son's time on earth: the Annunciation (which can compete with Good Friday in the Byzantine rite), the Nativity, Theophany, Palm Sunday, Pascha, the Ascension, Pentecost and more.

 

In contrast with the broader approach of the Roman rite, with its many seasons, the Byzantine rite's year is very personal and seen through the eyes of our Lady. As one who has experienced both I prefer the Roman kalendar myself, particularly because of Advent, by far the richest and most beautiful time of the liturgical year in either rite (just my opinion).