This post is more or less a follow up on the previous post concerning my voter's dilemma. When running an errand I, in a fit of boredom, turned on the radio and heard a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh's show. The American pundit has recently released a children's book called Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. A caller, in tears, thanked Limbaugh for his vague use of divine "providence" and "God" at a point in the story line when one character on the Mayflower falls overboard. Mr. Limbaugh then launched into the conventional buncombe, so familiar to Americans, about how America was originally a Christian nation and gave a short lesson on the persecution of the "God-fearing" pilgrims at the hands of the "King." This is romantic rubbish!
The "pilgrims" were a group of mad Englishmen called Puritans, a wicked sect of Protestantism descended from the very worst theology of John Calvin. Their worship was horrid, some Biblical lections in a stark and barren church; iconoclasm was rife in the Isles in those days. Moreover their time in England was an unmitigated disaster for the country. Their influence exploded in the early 17th century during the English Civil War under Oliver Cromwell, who, upon ceasing power, proceeded to cut off King Charles' head and enable the same to happen to poor William Laud. They overhauled the Anglican Church, further alienating it from Apostolic origins than Elizabeth and Cranmer previously had done, damaging many beautiful temples along the way. Even after their downfall, Puritans still had some deleterious influence in England. The restoration of Charles II and the deposition of James II, his son, meant that the sovereign of England would effectively be given his power not by God, but by the judgment of Parliament, a tremendous paradigm shift in English identity.
By the time all this disastrous excitement took place in England, many Puritans had gone off to found settlements in North America. The aftermath of the Cromwell affair illustrates exactly why these "pilgrims" wound up in America. English authorities, still reeling from the upheaval of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, were far too wise to entertain the mad sentiments and whims of a sect that wished to carry England's religious reforms even further, upsetting the government, the family, and society at large. So they were sent packing. It pains many to realize America was founded by religious riffraff and tax-dodgers.
Recently I have been reading Church World Mission by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, the deceased rector of St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Seminary and one of the foremost liturgical theologians of the 20th century. He was "Catholic friendly" and influenced many Catholic liturgical thinkers, among them Robert Taft, Aidan Kavanagh, and David Fagerberg. In Chapter VI, "Theology and Liturgy," Schmemann has some strong words immanently applicable to the present state of the Roman liturgy in all sectors ("traditionalist," "neo-con," mainstream, and liberal).
source: schmemann.org
Some background is necessary. Schmemann, unnecessarily I think, emphasizes a dichotomy between "East and West" in theology and philosophy. By "East" he means the Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches and by "West" he means an agglomeration of Roman Catholicism, protestantism, ancient pagan philosophy, and secularism. The author hammers the early influence of "Western" thought into Christianity and its damaging influence on theology and liturgy. He goes to great length to lay guilt for the poor state of Christianity today on the "West" and its philosophy, sometimes to an unhealthy extreme. I myself have observed this phenomenon and criticized it here, but one need not discard the general usefulness of philosophy in understanding Divine Revelation. What Schmemann defines as the "West" really only came into vogue in the West with St. Augustine's reliance on Plato and only became a constant feature in the West six or seven centuries after that with the advent of Scholasticism and its utilization of Aristotle. Even Scholasticism remained the domain of academics and the papal court, not catechists, parish priests, and the laity. The Scholastic age was, if anything, the high point of liturgy in the Latin Church, proving that, before the Reformation ruined everything, some balance was achievable. Scholasticism, particularly Thomism, only became the intellectual norm because when the Council of Trent created the seminary to replace the priestly apprenticeship (usually conjoined with university education) a simple, forthright method of thought easy for export was needed and St. Thomas fit the bill. The "East" on the other hand had integrated Plato and other Greek thinkers more broadly and deeply than the "West" and at an earlier time (Origen, St. Clement of Alexandria, the Cappadocian Fathers etc). Schmemann, in the quotes below, certainly criticizes the modern state of the liturgy East and West, but uses the "West" as a veil through which he critiques some Scholastic, secular, and rationalistic tendencies in the Russian Orthodox Church that he could not bring himself to articulate boldly.
Without further ado:
"What is more serious, however, is the fact that the liturgy—central as it may be among the activities of the Church—has ceased to be connected with virtually all the other aspects of the Church's life.... One may be deeply attached to the 'ancient and colorful rites' of Byzantium or Russia, see in them precious relics of a cherished past, be a liturgical 'conservative,' and at the same time completely fail to see in them, in the totality of the Church's leitourgia, an all-embracing vision of life, a power meant to judge, inform, and transform the whole of existence, a 'philosophy of life' shaping and challenging all our ideas, attitudes, and actions" (131).
"The Church is not an institution that keep s certain divinely revealed 'doctrines' and 'teachings' about this or that event of the past, but the very epiphany of these events themselves" (134).
"It suffices to consult any post-patristic manual of dogmatics to find the sacraments, for example, treated in the chapters devoted to 'means of grace' and nowhere else, as if they had nothing to do with the faith itself, the structure of the Church or knowledge of God" (135).
"Take Baptism, for example. If today so many priests, not to speak of laymen, see no need whatsoever for the baptismal blessing of water and are perfectly satisfied with pouring some holy water into the baptismal font, it is because they do not experience this blessing as the sacramental re-creation of the cosmos so that it may become that which it was intended to be, a gift of God to man, a means of man's knowledge of God and communion with Him. Yet when deprived of this cosmical connotation, the understanding of Baptism itself begins to be altered.... From regeneration and re-creation, new birth and new life, attention shifts to original sin and justification, and thus to an altogether different theological and spiritual content. If the initial and organic connection of Baptism with Pascha and Eucharist has been all but forgotten, if Baptism has ceased to be a paschal to be a paschal sacrament and Pascha a baptismal celebration, it is because Baptism is not experienced as a fundamental act of passage from 'this world' unto the Kingdom of God—an act which, making us die here 'in the likeness of Christ's death,' makes our life to be hidden with Christ in God. But again, deprived of this eschatological connotation, Baptism is less and less connected—in theology and piety—with Christ's death and resurrection...." (138).
I cannot help but think blessing a bucket of water
rather than a font conveys the wrong message.
source: lms.org.uk
I am happy to say that this blog attracts a very international readership, but this post will probably be most understood by my American compatriots.
Modern American conservatism has become an
irrelevant parody of itself.
source: tinypic.com
As a Catholic I am a registered and voting Republican with no delusions, illusions, or allusions about the Grand Old Party. It is not Catholic, it is not pro-Catholic, and it does not prioritize a restoration of long neglected Christian cultural mores. I am a Republican because being one allows me to influence the nomination of which candidates earn that dubious title "lesser of two evils."
And yet is it not now approaching a reductio ad absurdum? At what point must I stop voting? The Democrats essentially ceased to be a Catholic acceptable party in the 1970s when they embraced Second Wave Feminism, which, ironically, disdains the feminine. Republicans come in two camps these days: 1) cultural reactionaries in desperate search for the mythical era of the "Founding Fathers" and a "return to the Constitution" and "freedom" and then 2) the "establishment" Republicans afraid of saying the most remotely disagreeable thing to the general population's prejudices and which relies on poorly modeled "bipartisanship" and "fiscal conservatism." The first group is unable to have an impact because of the second's stranglehold on money. Yet the gridlock has no long term relevance because both of their positions are divorced from the political reality and ignore Christ, the King of All.
America's political dominance in the last half century and unprecedented material wealth birthed that most democratic of groups, the American middleclass: two Japanese cars, no more than two children, an annual seven day vacation in a tropical setting, a few credit cards (which pay for each other), 40+ hour work weeks, and a lot of television. There are, within the middleclass, two tendencies, one towards a mild nostalgia towards a more pristine American culture in the public sphere and in schools (although these people can hardly be bothered to take steps towards realizing this restoration) and a self-congratulating and passive progressivism. Rarely can those in either category be troubled to sacrifice any of their premier features for the public good. Consider, for instance, the sort of impact a big, happy family has on people; many are uncomfortable at first, but upon seeing a large family observers often are mesmerized by the love and support of the older brother for the young, of the mother for the daughters etc. Yet a third child might mean only one car, a modest vacation, and tracking the checking account rather than living on credit. In short, duty and obligation, not "freedom" and the "Constitution"—that shriveled piece of parchment long past expiration.
In short, given the pseudo-atavistic and material tendencies of modern Republicans and their political inefficacy, I am wonder if it is even worth voting for them any longer. Not only are their ideas less practical and distanced from the Moral Law, but their party base is collapsing under the economic and demographic trends which the current administration has accelerated. Do I feign supporting the "lesser of two evils" still or withhold my, likely menial, vote?
Today is the feast of the dedication of the Cathedral of Our Savior, commonly known as the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the diocese of Rome and hence the foremost Church in the world. The cathedral has probably been re-built half a dozen times due to fires, earthquakes, and the Avignon papacy, yet some of the original building remains, which traces its origins to the Emperor Constantine. I had re-published an old post showing some pictures I took of the Cathedral during my visit there a few years ago. I think this better than posting images available from the internet because the display the "flow" of the cathedral and lend themselves to an appreciation of the look and scale. At the end I have added a video of the consecration of the FSSP seminary chapel in Nebraska which, although done to the 1962 rite, is textually very close to how the Mass part of the rites would have been done at the Lateran during its several re-consecrations. Happy feast!—one of my favorite of the year.
The image of Christ dominates this great cathedral built in His name
Today is the day we commemorate the (re-)dedication of the Archbasilica of Our Savior, also known as St. John Lateran. This church is great not so much for its size, grandeur, history, or architecture—although all are quite impressive, but because this church is the cathedral of Rome and, hence, the foremost church in the world. It is the Pope's cathedral, although people often mistake St. Peter's for this honor.
The throne of the Bishop of Rome
Christian worship existed at this location in the southeastern corner of Rome, near the walls of the old City, since the first century, when Ss. Peter and Paul themselves were present there. After Christianity was permitted to crawl out of the Roman woodwork Emperor Constantine began to build several major churches on behalf of the Christians. Contrary to popular opinion, Constantine did not give too much preference to Christianity over paganism during this period. He gave the Church and the Bishop of Rome considerable real estate, like the Lateran Palace, where the popes resided until the reign of Pius IX, but not in prime locations.
The Church of Our Savior eventually became the main seat of the Bishop of Rome due to its proximity to the Lateran Palace. Important stational days in Holy Week—particularly Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Holy Saturday—which are communal in nature take place here. The consecration of the Bishop of Rome, and his coronation as Pope, and special blessings took place at this cathedral, emphasizing the Pope's role as a bishop for the City. During one Maundy Thursday Pope St. Gregory the Great was performing the mandatum (re: foot-washing ceremony) and after washing twelve men's feet and thirteenth appeared. This man's luminous face was described as perfect by the Pope. The man immediately disappeared. St. Gregory concluded it was an angel, or perhaps even Our Lord Himself. This is why in the old Roman rite thirteen men's feet were washed in Maundy Thursday as opposed to the instinctive twelve.
The Cathedral of Our Savior was subjected to barbaric invasions by the Goths in the sixth century, by the Saracens in the ninth century, and earth quakes throughout. By the reign of Sergius III (r. 904-911) the Cathedral had fallen into such disarray it required a re-model, including a new roof. It was re-dedicated by Pope Sergius and given a consecration to Ss. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, hence its vulgar name "St. John Lateran."
The Lateran Cathedral as seen from the square
In the first millennium the square in front of the Lateran Cathedral and Palace hosted the election of the Pope. After the death of the previous Pontiff the clergy would gather all Roman citizens, the cardinals (originally the priests and deacons of Rome) would elect nominees from amongst themselves, and the candidate with the greatest yell from the crowd would be the new Bishop of Rome. In the late first millennium violence often resulted and which faction could gain entrance to the Cathedral, consecrate its candidate, and enthrone him would have the Pope! During the middle ages the Archbasilica hosted five ecumenical councils, the Papal Court, and the public square of Rome. Pope Innocent III famously received St Francis of Assisi here, after first suggesting that the poor saint preach to the pigs in the public market—a suggestion which the saint immediately followed, and also saw the friar holding up the Cathedral, which was crumbling under the sins of the Church.
Pope Benedict XVI enthroned after election
As the Popes moved to Avignon, the Cathedral fell again into disarray and was partially destroyed due to a fire. It was re-modeled during the Renaissance and again during the 18th century, when the statues in the niches were added. Today the Popes still use this great Cathedral for Maundy Thursday, Ascension Thursday, Corpus Christi, pastoral visits, and enthronement after election.
I was blessed by God to be able to visit this awesome place a year and a half ago, whilst in Rome during Lent. My two friends and I, one Catholic and one then-searching, thought the Lateran to be an interesting one hour stop we could make on our way to the Colosseum. We spent five hours in the Lateran and two in the Colosseum.
The facade, a baroque addition, is impressive, but not as impressive as the one gracing St. Mary Major. I was not impressed with the Lateran until I stepped inside. What first struck me was the sheer scale of the place. I have been to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City several times, a larger church, but less open and hence smaller in scale.
The imposing Cosmatesque floor
My feet were sore from walking the Eternal City in boating shoes, so I ended up dragging the pads of my feet without intending to do so. This had the most spectacular effect. One can feel the texture of the mosaic floor in this Cathedral. Every bump and tile has character to it. History seeps from the ground of this place and the Spirit of God encompasses it. The words of the introit are verily said of this house of God:
Terrible is this place and This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven; and it shall be called the court of God.—Genesis 28:17
We made our way through the various side chapels over the course of an hour or two, before coming to the Chapel of St. Francis, shown below.
Depictions of the Saint and the Holy Ghost are abound in the chapel, including this one of this heart, re-calling his stigmata:
The Blessed Sacrament Chapel is next to the Papal Altar. There is a grand tabernacle surrounded by four statues of Popes. Interestingly the Popes are vested as deacons, indicating that they too are just servants at the altar of the High Priest, Christ. The Chapel is crowned by a depiction of the Last Supper and then of Our Lord's Ascension:
In the center of the Cathedral is the Papal Altar, topped by a canopy and reliquary which, although ornamented with busts of St. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, contains the head of St. Paul. Imagine that almost every Pope from the fourth century has celebrated Mass in this place, surrounded by St. Paul and Our Lord Himself.
The Papal Altar
And the ciborium with the reliquary:
Across from the altar is the great apse of the Cathedral. A massive back wall is topped with gold mosaics containing icons of Our Lord, Our Lady, Ss. John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, and other Biblical figures. One must also recall the organic continuity of this cathedral. Icons of Ss. Francis and Dominic were not-so-deftly inserted at a later time! At the end of a long aisle, containing an organ, balconies for the cantors, and choir stalls for clergy in attendance, is the throne of the Supreme Pontiff:
Beyond the apse is a gift shop. Horrifically, the tomb of Pope Innocent III, the most powerful man of the Middle Ages, is a cross beam for the door frame! How passes the glory of the world!
Something striking about this place is the color in it. The nave is a bland white, as per Italian baroque style for public places, but the sanctuary and other locations from the early Christian era, Middle Ages, and Renaissance is thriving with life and color. Even niches between icons and mosaics were treated as opportunities to paint images, images which literally pop out into a third dimension:
The nave for contrast:
The layout is distinctly Roman, the floor is medieval, the ceiling Renaissance, the chapels Baroque, and place entirely Catholic.
The ceiling is a wonder
The Cathedral's altars, chapels, aisles, and niches are a testament to the on-going effort that is the Gospel of Christ, one held by sinners and saints, which must endure every trial and be maintained and expressed through every age. This aisle towards the entrance contained numerous chapels under renovation.
I will leave on a light note. One of my companions was quite taken with the statues of the twelve Apostles in the nave, which are gargantuan in this size given the scale of the Cathedral. Upon arriving at St. Matthew, my friend decided that since the former tax-collector no longer needed his gold, there was no excuse to let is sit unused.
Gimme!
Lastly, across from the Lateran Cathedral is the Scala Sancta, the Holy Stairs from Pilate's palace. Christ was tried atop these steps and descended them to take up His Cross for us. One may only ascend these steps on one's knees. More on them another time....
"But you can't believe things because they're a lovely idea."
"But I do. That's how I believe."
Thus replies Lord Sebastian Flyte, half English Catholic lord and "half heathen," to mild-aesthete and agnostic Charles Ryder, the narrator and central figure of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. This novel, written by Waugh during his convalescence following an injury during the Second World War, is a lush aesthetic education, an impossibly nostalgic lament at the decline of a great English family, and a two-decade long memory of the narrator's slow cooperation with God's grace.
Brideshead follows the "sacred and profane" memories of Captain Charles Ryder, a former architectural painter who finds himself "homeless, childless, middle-aged, and love-less" during the Second World War. His company constantly changes locations in England, each move a supposed venture into action in African later exposed as a false alarm. Eventually Ryder and his company find themselves put up in a palatial house called Brideshead, the residence of the Flyte family. Ryder tells his assistance—the boring, modern, tasteless 20th century middleclass vulgarity incarnate, Mr. Hooper—that he has been to the house before. Thus begins a reminiscence twenty years back to Oxford in 1923, and some of the most beautiful post-Victorian prose to be found in English literature:
"Oxford—now submerged and obliterated, irrecoverable as Lyonnesse, so quickly have the waters come flooding in—Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint. In her spacious and quiet streets men walked and spoke as they had done in Newman's day; her autumnal mists, her gray springtime, and the rare glory of her summer days—such as that day—when the chestnut was in flower and the bells rang out high and clear over her gables and cupolas, exhaled the soft airs of centuries of youth. It was this cloistral hush which gave our laughter its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamor."
The narrator introduces the reader to his dear friend, the charming Sebastian Flyte, a handsome, somewhat dull, but charming young man raised in a strictly Catholic family. Sebastian, who meets Charles by eructating in his dormitory through his window in an inebriated stupor, brings the narrator and the reader into the flamboyant world of the Oxonian aesthetes. Here and at Sebastian's ancestral residence Charles learns to see the world through what is beautiful, although he is not entirely converted to the aesthetes' ways. Charles resolves to become an artist and quits Oxford while his dear friend develops a problem with alcoholism and disappears from the novel for several chapters.
Charles also becomes acquainted with the Flyte family, both in England and abroad. Ryder meets the pious, apparently pharisaical mother; the pious, but doltish brother, who looks like an Easter Island head; the two sisters, one a mildly arrogant and a beauty, the other quite devout and simple-minded; and the father, who, in his detestation of the mother, lives in Venice with his mistress. With this family Charles encounters the Catholic world view and receives it with tremendous difficulty. The mother, the most devout of the lot, is cold and unapproachable, while the warmest of them, the young sister Cordelia, has no imagination beyond the teachings of the penny catechism.
Charles meets the aesthetes
As Sebastian fades his sister, Julia, illuminates and take center stage for much of the rest of the story. Julia eventually falls away from her nominal faith and marries a dubious opportunist from Canada looking to use the Flyte fortune and prestige to launch a career in English politics. Amidst Julia's struggles, Charles has several fallings out with the Flyte family and goes for years at a time without seeing them, although they do give him a start as an artist by commissioning him to paint one of their soon-to-be-demolished houses. Years later, after a long, lucrative, and lifeless career as an artist he re-unites with Julia aboard an ocean liner and begins an affair with her which will run until the end of the novel, at which point Charles' life is finally shocked into sensation again.
Brideshead's structure is non-linear and is told in several gradations of flashbacks. Indeed a New York Times review from 1945 goes as far as to suppose memory is the central point of the novel. There are too many themes in this wonderful novel to enumerate, but memory is certainly one of them.
Another major point is the conflict between genuine beauty and "simple, creamy English charm," a polite imposter for beauty. Charles is sanguine within the walls of the baroque masterpiece of Brideshead, built from the stones of a medieval castle, and within the walls of Oxford. Even his early paintings had a semblance of genuine life and beauty. But eventually his life withers and he reduces his quality to that of crowd-pleasing, highly acceptance, charming work. Sebastian's personality is, if anything, charm through and through. Oppressed by his religious family Sebastian escapes by being charming and likable to others, but also indulges in drink and becomes a dipsomaniac. Both eventually free themselves of English charm and, finally, embrace real human emotion at great personal cost.
Catholicism is not so much preached as it is presented in Brideshead Revisited. The faith, to which Waugh was a mature convert by the time he penned his magnum opus, is the eyeglass through which Charles must see the world at Brideshead. The grace and providence of God is a given, and the reader is given subtle reminders such as an offhand description of a room that has a painting of the Sacred Heart or Seven Dolors hanging on the wall, or a passage of a Fr. Brown novel being read in the background. One passage from Fr. Brown is integral to the entire story: "I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread." God is a given, not an intellectual exercise, which agnostic Charles is wont to understand.
A final theme of the book—there are too many to enumerate in detail, like the decline of the aristocracy and rise of the "middle class"—is renewal. The house itself is built of stones from an old castle and is slowly augmented by succeeding generations. During the War Brideshead is conscripted into service by the military and left "desolate" and "brought to nothing." Yet, even Charles finds some genuine renewal at the very end of the novel. Some have suggested this house, which died and was rebuilt and is the place of so much of Charles' slow acceptance of God's grace, is an icon or a type of Christ Himself or of the Church. The house's name entertains such a thesis.
Charles Ryder dines with Anthony Blanche (BBC adaptation)
One real treasure of Brideshead is the cast of secondary characters. Charles is actually a very boring, dim, and unemotional person until the end of the story. He is more a witness to what happens around him. The characters around him, particularly the non-primary characters, add oceanic depth to Waugh's novel. The father's mistress, Carla, coldly analyzes the nature of Sebastian and Charles' relationship from a distance and the disposition of Lord Marchmain, who is hiding in Venetian charm and avoiding the human reality of his failed marriage. Lady Marchmain, initially cold and calculating, eventually becomes a sympathetic character, perhaps a good soul made protective and bitter by the disappointments of her life; she is saintly, but not a saint. And a personal favorite is Anthony B-b-blanche, the eccentric ringleader of the aesthetes who, in the end, is the actual voice of wisdom and reason amidst Charles' descent into a loveless life from which he eventually arises.
The last endearment of this novel is the prose and words and descriptions contained within its very pages. Many of the descriptions are reminiscent of those of James Fenimore Cooper and Walter Scott, although considerably shorter and evoking more specific thoughts rather than merely painting a mental image of a great landscape. Waugh's writing engages the imagination and all the senses through nothing but simple paper. He describes enough to enthrall the reader and gives ample enough dialogue for readers to construe the moods and actions of the characters without narrating every move as many modern works do, no doubt in imitation of modern film. Waugh's sense of humor provides subtle opportunities for laughter in certain moments of the book, often at the expense of Mr. Hooper and the lower classes. Waugh did not confine his humor to class though. At one point, when Charles and Julia begin their affair, Waugh refers to their first sexual encounter in risibly stark words: "Now on the rough waters there was a formality to be observed, no more. It was as though a deed on conveyance of her narrows loins had been drawn and sealed. I was making my first entry as the freeholder of a property I would enjoy and develop at leisure."
Brideshead Revisited is a wonderful story of a man who remembers finding the grace of God, a house in which he is welcomed, and he came there through the efforts and trials and tears of the house's builders. The novel is both romantic and realistic, lush and lugubrious, nostalgic and pressing onward. Buy a copy!
As a post script I would like to note that the clips in this review are taken from the BBC miniseries Brideshead Revisited, possibly the best television program ever made. The miniseries takes no liberties other than compressing some dialogue and is, in effect, a serialization of Waugh's novel. The acting is spectacular and the visuals faithful to the book. Read the novel and then watch the series. All the episodes are available on YouTube.
Although Youtube will not allow me to embed this, I have wanted to share a particular clip of consecration and con-celebration in the Byzantine rite. The video is of a Patriarchal Divine Liturgy celebrated by Kyrill in the Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, one of the most liturgically competent places in the world, a Slavic version of Rome under Enrico Dante: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RGK3Qf0M4A
A few things worth knowing:
The liturgy is not sung in Russian, but in Church Slavonic, a language which predates modern Russian, but which the Church of Russia retained after it ceased to be the tongue of most people. A native Russian speaker tells me it is mostly intelligible to Russians, much like how Latin is intelligible to French and Italian speakers.
The clip begins with the "Holy, Holy, Holy" or Sanctus as we know it. The first words the celebrant sings aloud (at 0:09) are "Take, eat, this is my Body which is broken for you, for the forgiveness of sins" followed by "Drink of this all of you, for this is My Blood in the new Covenant, which is poured out for you and many for the forgiveness of sins." As stated elsewhere, the Byzantine rite treats this moment as a pretext or introduction to the anaphora rather than as the actual moment of consecration.
The two deacons "offer" the bread and wine to God in a sacrificial manner as the celebrant sings "We offer You Your own from What is Your own, from all and for the sake of all" at 1:09.
None of the clergy are using service booklets, they have the necessary parts committed to memory.
The consecration begins at 2:55 when the celebrant says "Send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here offered." The deacon points with his orarion (stole) to the bread saying "Bless the Holy Bread, Master" and the celebrant continues "and make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ." The deacon points to the chalice and makes the same remark again and the celebrant again continues "and make that which is in this chalice the precious Blood of Your Christ." He then blesses both elements saying "changing them by Your Holy Spirit." The deacons reply "Amen! Amen! Amen!" The clergy prostrate before the Body and Blood of Christ. The celebrant, as a bishop, is then re-vested in preparation for Holy Communion by removing his omorphion (pallium), a symbol of his authority. The Embodied Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium page 20 describes the omorphion as a symbol of the bishop representing Christ. After the consecration the vestment comes off as the Presence of Christ completes the fullness of revelation and reduces the celebrating bishop to the status of a mere priest.
The consecration is done quietly with regard to the congregation in attendance. Other than "Take, eat" and a few other bits they must unite themselves in prayer and pay attention to the work of the clergy in the Holy Place (sanctuary) to know what is transpiring when.
The con-celebration is tasteful. Only the celebrant says the principle parts. A reasonable number of clergy surround the altar, no more. A clear power structure is apparent in who does what. They are not taking turns talking to one another. I wonder if con-celebration was once done this way in the Roman rite (as Innocent III attests to doing with the cardinal-priests of Rome on special feasts) rather than the modern way so common in the Mass of Paul VI. I remember a friend commenting that the Dominicans at Blackfriars in Oxford had con-celebration down to such timing that they sounded like robots: "Take me to your leader. This is my body."
The Rad Trad finally has some free time after caring for his convalescing father, who recently underwent a knee replacement procedure. There will be a review of Brideshead Revisted in the next few days and the next installment in the series on the Parisian Missal. Perhaps, after all that, the Rad Trad will contemplate the next "Lesser Known Father" to review.
Another reminder to readers: please notice the new tab atop the blog which presents a page where readers can list any deceased that they would like the Rad Trad to remember when he prays the Office of the Dead during November.
Tomorrow marks the death of our holy patron, St. Felix of Valois, the great Trinitarian father and founder. Starting this week the Rad Trad will pray to St. Felix on Mondays for the welfare, needs, and salvation of his readers. As with the Office of the Dead, readers may list any intentions or needs they have in the form of a comment.
