The Old Rite: Palm Sunday

Today is one of the great days in the Church's year, Palm Sunday. Today we re-live and commemorate both the Lord's entrance into Jerusalem and His Passion and death. It is also a day which highlights our personal ignorance of God, in spite of what seems obvious in retrospect. Two millennia later, we safely judge this concatenation of events. At the time their meaning was not so obvious, and would not be until Pentecost. Are we ignorant of the truth of God's actions? Do we recognize Him in our midst? Do we expect of Him merely human things, solutions to our personal concerns?

Jouvenet's Raising of Lazarus

Just a few days before, on his way to Jerusalem, our Lord Jesus stopped in Bethany at the news that Lazarus, one of his beloved followers, had fallen ill. By the time Christ arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead and buried for four days. Yet Christ took pity upon him and his sisters, Mary and Martha. Jesus here reveals Himself to be more than a prophet, more than a healer, more than a local mystic or anti-establishment rabbi. He has dominion over death.

Christ asks Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live: And every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. Believest thou this?" (John 11:25-26). She responds that she does believe. Christ turns to the tomb where Lazarus has resided in decay and rot for days and yells "Lazarus, come out!" And the man who was not near death, but dead, was now alive.

Not quite understanding the gravity of what transpired, but still chocked and interested (John ch. 12), the people came to see and greet our Lord when he finally arrived in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was not a city with a temple, but a temple with a city. It was the center of the Jewish religion and the only place on earth where a meaningful sacrifice could be offered to God. Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire often sent money to have an offering made at the Temple for their intentions if they were unable to be in Jerusalem. And this is where Christ went, not to make a legal sacrifice on stone foundations, as St. Ambrose reminds us today in Mattins, but to make a sacrifice that would established foundations of faith.

As Benedict XVI pointed out in his second Jesus of Nazareth book, Jesus sent two Apostles ahead to acquire a donkey and a horse, meaning He already had a following in Jerusalem. Other places in the Gospel indicate that outside the Apostles, Christ had a significant entourage, several hundred people or more. These were those who greeted  Him with palms and enthusiasm. The rest of the crowd sought a thrill or novelty. Actually, did not the Apostles and other disciples? They knew more than the people of Jerusalem, but they comprehended practically nothing. In my moments of cynicism I cannot help but interpret certain words of Jesus' like "How much longer must I endure this generation?" as "These people are ridiculous." The Church has understood this frustration over the years. St. Leo the Great remarks in a sermon "Let man's weakness, then, fall down before the glory of God, and acknowledge herself ever too feeble to unfold all the works of His mercy."

Reading from Exodus at the dry Mass at the Institute of Christ the King
seminary in Gricigliano, 2003

What was the purpose of the palms? I've always wondered. At some level there is a practical and honorific element to the placing of palms in the path of the Lord, almost saying that the ground on which Christ's donkey walks is unworthy to support the Lord. Yet we ought to recall some typology from Exodus. During the Mass today there is actually a "dry Mass" (Missa sicca) to bless the palms, a ceremony with an introit, reading, gradual, Gospel, preface, Sanctus, and blessing prayers, much like a Mass. the reading from the "dry Mass" is from the book of Exodus, at the moment when Moses and the Israelites arrive at an oasis of twelve fountains and seventy palm trees. The Israelites had left their bondage but would not have made their way out of Egypt without rest, a place of shade, and some water. In short, the palms provided that. As those palms and water provided the Israelites the means of leaving the bondage of slavery, so Christ provides His people with the means of leaving the bondage of death. The third of the five collect prayers to bless the palms contains not a few didactic lines:

The branches of palms, therefore, represent His triumphs over the prince of death; and the branches of olive proclaim, in a manner, the coming of a spiritual unction. For that pious multitude understood that these things were then prefigured; that our Redeemer, compassionating human miseries, was about to fight with the prince of death for the life of the whole world, and, by dying, to triumph. For which cause they dutifully ministered such things as signified in Him the triumphs of victory and the richness of mercy.

The procession from the aforementioned celebration of Palm
Sunday by the Institute of Christ the King in 2003

Recall also that in Rome palms are not always used. Often the Roman Church substitutes olive branches given their greater availability in Italy. The olive branch is no less significant. After the Great Flood a dove brought an olive branch to Moses. To he who survived the Flood the olive branch was not a peace-offering, but rather a sign that death had ended and life had begun anew.

Olives branches are especially prevalent throughout the Mediterranean world. It is not unthinkable that the Cross was made from from the wood of an olive tree, making olive branches and palms both types and anti-types of Christ's redemptive work.

Palm Sunday initiates Holy Week, both the most important proper week of the year and a curio in the Roman rite, a week that preserves the most ancient liturgical customs of the Eternal City which fell out of regular use. In the first millennium there would be two Masses in Rome. The first would be celebrated in the presence of the Pope at St. Mary Major, where palms would be blessed and distributed. The focus of this Mass would be Palm Sunday. There would then be a procession to the Archbasilica of Our Savior, the cathedral of Rome, where the Pope would celebrate a Mass of the Passion of the Lord. The current arrangement of a "dry Mass" followed by a procession and a Mass of the Passion is a remnant of that, unless one uses the reduced new rite. The "dry Mass"—with its Introit, collect, Epistle, gradual, Gospel, preface, Sanctus, "consecration," distribution of holy things, and dismissal—is the relic of the former of the two ancient Palm Sunday Masses.

A procession of clergy and laity, holding their palms and preceded by a veiled cross—as the mystery of the Cross is hidden!—leaves the church and takes a path eventually leading back to the front door, which is sealed, a representation of the resistance of the people of Jerusalem to our Lord. A small choir still within the Church sing the hymn Gloria, Laus, et Honor Tibi Sit in alternation with those outside. The entrance of Christ, the unease of the Jewish people, the laud of Christ's followers, and the Lord's lament for Jerusalem are not simply re-enacted, but re-visited! At the end the subdeacon knocks on the door of the Church with the cross, opening it. From here the Mass of the Passion begins.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.

Hail, King of Israel! David's Son of royal fame! Who comest in the Name of the Lord, O Blessed King.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.

The Angel host laud Thee on high, On earth mankind, with all created things.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.

With palms the Jews went forth to meet Thee. We greet Thee now with prayers and hymns.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.

On Thy way to die, they crowned Thee with praise; We raise our song to Thee, now King on high.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.

Their poor homage pleased Thee, O gracious King! O clement King, accept too ours, the best that we can bring.

Glory, praise and honor to Thee, O King Christ, the Redeemer: to whom children poured their glad and sweet hosanna's song.

A short clip of the door knocking ceremony with an Old Roman

style Gloria, Laus, et Honor tibi sit.

The Mass is one of the most beautiful of the year, and especially notable for its music, including the singing of psalm 21 as the tract, the full Passion according to St. Matthew, and the Gospel in the "haunting" tone.

The prayers at the foot of the altar are the reduced form used in Passiontide, the last two weeks of Lent. This form omits the Iudica me psalm and the Gloria Patri.... doxology, which is also omitted in other parts of the Mass as at a requiem Mass. As Fr. Andrew Southwell, OSB once said, Mother Church "is in mourning."

The Epistle is from St. Paul's letter to the Philippians, in which the Apostle writes that at the "name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth." Christ's sacrifice on the Cross for man gives Him primacy over all things in God's creation.

The gradual today, as in very ancient days, is a full psalm and not just an excerpt. It is psalm 21, which Christ quoted from the Cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The Father did not desert the Son, regardless of what von Balthasar thought, but today the psalm functions as an allusion, as the psalm describes the pains of a just man suffering for the sins of the world. Christ fulfills the prophecy of David. The One with power over death dies.

Deacons reading the Passion according to St. Matthew

Then three deacons enter the sanctuary and begin to sing St. Matthew's account of the Passion of our Lord, beginning with the events leading up to the Last Supper and ending just after Christ's death on the Cross, for which there is silence and all present kneel.

The three deacons then leave and the deacon of the Mass asks for the blessing, incenses the Gospel book, and sings in a special chant-tone the burial of Christ. The separation from the Passion reading may not be intuitive, but it is instructive: this is the Gospel reading of the Mass, not the Passion—which is an interpolation into Mass. Christ's death and burial are the point of this Mass, which should clear up confusion for us, as opposed to those who watched these events two thousand years ago with little or no break, and who were left in bewilderment as to what to make of the drear they had just witnessed.

In the video to below, Fr. Tim Finigan sings the Gospel of Holy Tuesday in the same tone used for the Gospel of today. It is sublime.

The Mass continues as normal, with no extra "frills."

At Vespers the hymn Vexilla Regis is sung, which beings with the words:

Abroad the regal banners fly,

Now shines the cross’s mystery;

Upon it Life did death endure, 

And yet by death did life procure.

The hymn makes a conclusive elucidation of the mystery of Palm Sunday, that the Cross is slowly unveiled before our eyes. We do not merely read about it in the Scripture or hear some analysis in the sermon, but we enter these mystical events which are so monumental that they do not know the limits of time. Perhaps one of the great tragedies in the Roman rite in the last century or so is that with the endless stream of reforms begun by St. Pius X, furthered by Pius XII, and concluded by Paul VI, we have lost the notion that the liturgy reveals mystery to us, that it is a method of worshiping God, but also a tool God gives us to understand Him.  The raising of Lazarus, the veiling of the Cross, the Old Testament significance of the palms, the restless and lamenting entrance into Jerusalem, and the Cross itself make "sense" to us here. Through the lessons, the Mass, the hymns, and procession today God lifts the veil of ignorance the people of Jerusalem had when they went to see the One who raised a man from the dead and, in their own understanding, turned Him over for death, not realizing His dominion over it. 

The textual wealth of the ancient Roman Holy Week reflects the rich austerity of the Latin tradition. Scripture and psalms narrative a liturgy in which the Church stands in the presence of God and revisits events belonging to a place outside of time and space, belonging to eternity. While the Roman rite lacks the explicitly didactic quality of the Greek tradition, the simplicity of the rite—veiled in an odd tongue and a music belonging unto itself—perfectly present the awesomeness of God and the desperate need of the sinner for His forgiveness. With Christ, the sinner enters Jerusalem unwelcomed. The sinner witnesses the Passion again. The sinner proclaims the one wearing a crown of mockery his master. The sinner encounters God in His words and actions.

A blessed Palm Sunday to all.

An Accurate Prediction

"Did you drop my CDF insert?" "No, Father, I don't see it."

I don't know. That is the only honest answer anyone can give about our current health situation. Imperical College predicted 500,000 deaths in the UK and now predict 20,000. Oxford thinks half of the UK has already had the dreaded virus and in America we are experiencing two pandemics, the virus and uncertainty. Our economy is melting down as New York, the West Coast, and New Orleans become disease epicenters with an unknown number of fatalities to come. Will a million die? A few thousand? We will return to work by May? Will it go on for months? I don't know, and no one else does either.

So rather than labor under fear and uncertainty hear my entirely accurate prediction about the other major news this week: the optional insertion of post-1960 saints into the "EF" Mass as third class saints and the optional use of some prefaces from the Pauline Mass, most of which come from ancient sacramentaries.

Who will eagerly take advantage of the opportunity to use these new texts and novel saints in the older form of Mass? My prediction: six Benedictine monastic communities and one young curate.

On one hand this little bit of optionitis, one of the principle symptoms of the Novus Ordo Mass, is somewhat welcomed, if only because it means the old Mass is here to stay and that these items will not be used anyway.

On the other hand the movement is clearly in favor of pre-1955, and occasionally pre-Pacellian, rites of Holy Week, the first week of May, and in some other rubrics. Old rite Holy Weeks, with or without the consent of Ecclesia Dei, have multiplied many fold in the last four years. There are one off instances of churches skipping the assigned 1962 Mass on May 1 in favor of either the Paschaltide day or even the old feast of Pip 'n' Jim; I know of priests in America, England, and Italy who sing the Gaudeamus omnes Mass on August 15. A church in Australia did the old Holy Innocents Mass and Office last year. Even the ICRSS and FSSP, who have less cover that the diocesan clergy to deviate from 1962, are adding the odd commemoration and using Benedicamus Domino as the penitential dismissal.

If the Traddie fraternities are unlikely to use these optional integrations from the Pauline Mass, and they are unlikely to use them, does that mean diocesan priests who celebrate the old Mass will use them instead? No.

Allow me to explain. Diocesan clergy fall into two categories here: those who do the old Mass because someone asks for it and those who do it because they themselves want to do it. The former category relies on some layman MC to organize the Mass, guide him through the text, coordinate with the music director, and pick out the Mass for the Sunday or Holy Day—which is generally the only time when diocesan old rite Masses are offered. The latter category are attracted to the integrity of the old rite, Mass and Office, and look at it as a respite from what they do the rest of the time.

Moreover, diocesan priests more often than not celebrate the old Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, not every day of the week. There are no third class feasts for Sunday or Christmas, and unless they are simultaneously observing the pre-Pius X ranking system and integrating the new kalendar saints as Doubles, there will be no feast of "Saint" Paul VI on any Sunday.

Where will that one young diocesan curate come from? He will be an eager young priest from a quiet diocese. He will have grown up optimistically under Benedict XVI, perhaps attended a "Reform of the Reform" parish (one of the six in the world), gone through seminary during the Bergoglian years with a tightly grinning smile, and have an odd day of the week in which he is not celebrating the daily Mass in his parish. He will get out his old Missal and his new insert, congratulate himself on providing some mutual enrichment, and celebrate the third class feast of Saint John Paul II. After two years of doing this sort of thing one day a month, combined with saying the old breviary and dealing with Eucharistic ministers, disillusionment will hit and he will toss the inserts, go straight to the real thing, and await the end of "this wicked generation."

And the monks? Traditionalist monks never seem to follow the entire old rite, Roman or Monastic. Nor do they seem to follow each other, although the descendant houses of Fontgombault seem to follow some general principles: new prefaces, a sparser kalendar, odd bits of the new lectionary and in the vernacular, occasional concelebration, and the omission of the Iudica me and In principio at the conventual Mass. These imports from the Novus Ordo are meant to accentuate the communitarian aspect of monastic life. They also underscore a sort of tinkering among Traditionalist monks who spend considerable time studying the liturgy and must find some manner to change or improve it without repeating wholesale what happened half a century ago. Other than following their own kalendar and psalter, I am unaware of monks having such widespread textual deviation in the Mass from the Roman books published from 1568-1964 as they do now. I could see some of the Fontgomabult abbeys and priories using some of these saints in private Masses and the prefaces, if they do not already.

It is worth noting that many of the options provided by Summorum Pontificum and Universae ecclesiae have not been followed except in places where they practices were already in place, such as proclaiming the readings solely in vernacular as is done in Germany and in France (UE 26).

Now you have some accurate predictions. Go back to your hovel and quarantine yourself. Have a new drink I invented, the Quarantini. It is a Martini, you just drink it alone.

Missa Sicca for the Sick and the Well

We do not live in unprecedented times. The Great War, the Depression of 1929, the Second World War and similar periods were far worse. We do, however, live in the least sure times since the '50s, when people assumed half the world would nuke the other half.

Although we lack the unfulfilled prospect of death of that prior generation we do share in their uncertainty. We are into a recession that no one can fix until a vaccine for Coronavirus (COVID-19) is available. Until then, our consumer-driven economy will continue to decline athwart bailouts for businesses, unilateral payments to taxpayers, and stupid requirements that companies—bereft of revenue indefinitely—pay workers leave during this time.

Worst of all, those of us who are unlikely to perish from the disease are generally confined to our homes, bereft of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, the Miracle of the Mass, and of the community, the people of the new Israel with whom we are saved or damned. Last Sunday was the final Divine Liturgy at my Byzantine rite parish for a while. The coffee hour was suspended, leaving the hundred of us who normally spend hours in fellowship together alone and with a clear path to our cars.

In these uncertain, lonely times we the faithful must cling to what we have, the public prayers of the Universal Church. If anyone is reading this blog, then he or she has the internet. Go to DivinumOfficium.com, select either the 1570 or 1910 Office, and pray as much of it as time permits daily. I have my Pius IX breviary and have said its full contents daily in between episodes of staring at a small screen while writing code for my job. You cannot Communicate or Confess, even in good health, but the Church's prayer still belongs to you and may sanctify you.

Perhaps the strangest day of the week will be Sunday. Other than for reasons of illness, I have not missed Mass in quite some time and I imagine the same is true of you, dear reader. What follows is my suggestion for how to sanctify Sunday, which remains a precept of the Decalogue of Moses and a Divine commandment irrespective of the Church's suspension of our obligation to attend Mass.

There is a small tradition in the Roman rite, confined in modern times to one day a year, called the Missa sicca, the "dry Mass." It is what is sounds like, a "Mass" sans any texture: no bread, no wine, no water. In short, the public, non-sacerdotal texts of the Roman Mass are read without consecration of the sacred elements. Even the Mass of the Presanctified, celebrated on Good Friday, is in some sense a Mass, with the ritual of the Fore-Mass and Communion being observed. The Missa sicca, borne out of medieval devotion to the Mass by priests who wished to observe the texts of impeded Masses, exists only in the pre-Pius XII, traditional texts of Palm Sunday, wherein the consecration is replaced by the blessing of the palms.

Here is my suggestion for the Missa sicca.

Setting

Lauda Sion Salvatorem, begins the Angelic Doctor. While we consider ourselves solitary individuals, especially in these days, in the traditional view we are saved and damned as a community just as Christ died for the sake of a new Creation, the Church. So pray the Missa sicca, or whatever Sunday devotion you observe, with friends and family. I will be using Skype with a group of friends to observe the texts of the Mass.

Decide Who Will Lead

These days we are all Old Believers. The priesthood exists and offers sacrifice for us and for our sins, but it is no longer in our midst. Although I will recommend against the sacerdotal parts below, it helps for the sake of simplicity and direction to have one person in charge of the affair who is familiar with the rites and texts of the Church's official worship.

Begin with Terce

Sunday Mass is sung, without exception, after the Office of Terce, that is, the third hour of the Divine Office. If you have internet access and are reading this blog, go to DivinumOfficium.com, pick a year, and say the Office of Terce on Sundays and Holy Days before observing the Missa sicca. Terce is a minor hour involving the recitation of a hymn, three fragments of psalm 118, and a collect. If the Mass is de tempore then it will involve additional prayers said while kneeling. This adds some depth to the day beyond the readings of Mass, which are variable by nature. One benefit of the pre-Pian, traditional Office is that the psalms of the lesser hours are stationary and constant.

Say the Public Parts of the Assigned Mass

If you have a hand Missal or access to the propers of the Mass, turn to the variable parts for the Mass appointed for the day. This coming Sunday appoints Laetare Sunday, the fourth Lenten Sunday. The leader, or anyone competent to sing, can do the Introit Laetare Ierusalem followed by Kyrie eleison.

In place of the Dominus vobiscum, a priestly greeting, use Domine, exaudi orationem meam (O Lord, hear my prayer) with the reply Et clamor meus ad te veniat (And let my cry come unto You). The leader reads the collect and any applicable commemorations of lesser feasts, of any impeded Lenten feriae, or the assigned daily prayers for the intercession of the Saints (A cunctis nos) and for the Living and Dead (Omnipotens sempiterne Deus).

To keep things balanced, I would recommend letting different people read the Lesson/Epistle and the Gospel of the day. If a good singer if among you, let him or her sing the Gradual and Tract. Otherwise, let the leader read the text and keep going. 

In place of a sermon, a teaching function brought on by the Church and the permission of the local ordinary, read some applicable exegesis from the Church Fathers on the texts of the day. Some resources are available at New Advent. Many of the Fathers' commentaries are available online. Priests, East and West, usually preach on the Gospel of the day, but for a change of pace why not pull up some explication of Saint Paul's wise, inspired words? 

After a few short minutes of commentary in place of a sermon, say the Nicene Symbol, or Creed, do the Domine exaudi greeting, and say the Offertory verse.

In Place of the Canon

In a proper Mass here would come the Canon and Communion, wherein bread and wine become the precious Body and Blood of Christ and are given to we the faithful for our greater union with God and for our salvation. There is no substitution for this moment. None. Still, as the Palm Sunday Missa sicca blesses branches at this moment, the time without the consecration need not be wasted.

This would be the proper time to observe some more reflective form of devotion, the didactic elements of the Missa sicca now observed. If the people involved are amenable, pray a group rosary for each other's intentions, for the fading of the virus, and for the departed souls of those already claimed by the disease. If you are alone and praying the Missa sicca without others you may wish to enter into a spiritual Communion with Our Lord.

For those who believe they are deprived of the presence of Christ I ask are you really? We are all deprived of the Real Presence and of the "Miracle of the Mass", the re-presentation of the salvific act of Christ. That said you are not deprived of Christ's presence per se. Most churches remain open worldwide for private devotion, although lockdowns will curtail this. There remains still one more place of Christ's presence: you. You were baptized—that is, "plunged into"—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If you are free of serious sin then the presence of Almighty God, in Whose image you were made, dwells in you. John Henry Newman wrote in Loss and Gain that he was certain of a presence within him, a friend alongside him that the mechanical thoughts of Protestantism could not explain. Christ is among us, He is and always will be.

Fellowship

One benefit of attending a smaller parish is that everyone knows each other. If you are praying the Missa sicca with others then you probably know them, too. Have a coffee or tea together, catch up on the week, vent over your cabin fever, and share the intention to do more together in Christ in the days to come.

Placing the Divine Liturgy

For those keeping count, I now personally know two cases of COVID-19 in my own life, but do not be jealous, it's headed your way, too!

If you, like me, are feeling fatalistic about COVID-19 and are resigned to whatever may come then work instead on your spiritual life. Take yourself back some centuries to Constantinople, to the "Great Church" as the Eastern Romans used to call their cathedral, the Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom.

The old Basilica of Saint Peter's in Rome remains a personal interest, but not so much the Hagia Sophia. There are plenty of images of it as it stands today, but few of the Hagia Sophia other than this video few reconstructions of the grand edifice as it stood in Christian days.

NPR recently drew attention to a Stanford recreation of the Great Church's music that was accomplished by popping a balloon. The resonance allowed researchers to "map" the patterns of sound and apply Byzantine chant to those patterns. The resonance is over ten seconds, which makes one wonder whether or not the Greek musical style of droning was meant to carry the note the note further and more distinctly (in key) throughout the cathedral rather than just a stylistic choice as it is today.

But what of its appearance in Greek times?

The Roman rite was essentially the liturgy of Saint Peter's Basilica, ceremonially distilled through monasteries, through the Franciscans and the Roman Curia, and through the local cathedrals which adopted its use. To celebrate the Roman rite is a very catholic, simple thing that does not beckon to any place other than Calvary.

O how different is the Greek rite! The Divine Liturgy, especially in its more unique and special parts, draws very much on the architecture and place of the Hagia Sophia. A Byzantine historian named Bob Atchison offers these stunning images of the Great Church with specific commentary on the use of the ambo, the chancel screen, and the waves in the floor's marbling.

The chancel screen and ciborium, features common to the Roman and Byzantine traditions at this time and lost to both, were made of marble and plated in silver. Over the altar of God stood a gold cross encrusted in jewels. Unlike the iconostasis of today, one could see through the chancel screen; indeed, it was meant to be seen through in the moments when the curtain is open today during the Liturgy. Its principle purpose was not to present icons, but rather to delineate heaven and earth. The deacons' doors were off to the side, not directly visible as they are today. Icons were typically hung on columns and at a height that made it possible to venerate them. They were not yet architectural features.

Perhaps most startling different from any nearly Byzantine church today is the presence of an ambo. The Gospel is brought in procession from the north door of the iconostastis through the Royal Doors and is read from the Royal Doors. The Great Procession with the gifts to be offered as the Body and Blood of Christ follow a similar pattern. At the end of the Divine Liturgy the priest exclaims "Let us go forth in peace" and reads the "Prayer before the ambo." And yet there is never an ambo, just occasionally a movable lectern.

Formerly the ambo was the de facto center of the Hagia Sophia, the place where the most important actions for the congregated faithful took place. Separate from the sanctuary yet connected by a railing from the Royal Doors, the ambo was where the deacon read the Gospel in the midst of the people, making the singing of the words of Christ something of an act of revelation, with the deacon coming from Christ's Holy Place to proclaim the Word.

The cantors used the western, door-facing steps of the ambo to lead the lesser singers—some of them castrati—in the singing of the hymns, psalms, antiphons, troparia, and responses.

The only two times the celebrant would leave the sanctuary, other than for special ceremonies, would be to use the ambo. First, after the Cherubikon the priests in the sacristy would bring the prepared gifts into the Great Church, for the sacristy was another building, and they would be received by the celebrant or the Archbishop at the ambo. Then, at the end of the Divine Liturgy, the celebrant or a concelebrant would approach the faithful  by standing in front of the ambo and read a prayer with them. Foregoing the ambo proper, this is the only time during the Divine Liturgy, fully celebrated with all ranks of clergy, that a priest prays with the congregation rather than on their behalf, popular prayers being consigned to the deacon.

With the ceremonies intact, it would not be difficult to construct new churches that follow the old architecture and use the rites for their intended purpose, but as with the post-Tridentine Roman Mass, the people have become acclimated to something a bit different.

Modest Improvements to the Celebration of the Old Mass

The number of pre-Conciliar Masses, at least in these United States, has increased many fold since Summorum Pontificum. Most of these new Masses have comes from diocesan clergy and as such are only available once a week to the faithful. The Ecclesia Dei priestly communities like the FSSP and ICRSS have broadened their presence in America, extending, perhaps not for the better, into areas like New England, where regular clergy formerly supplied the old rites.

Given the greater issues of importance, namely reviving Catholic culture and proliferating the old(er) Mass, this blog post touches on a subject of comparative luxury, how to celebrate the old Mass better.

Here in Dallas we have three parishes of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter spaced about fifty miles from each other East to West. The FSSP follows the Rite of Econe, an extraordinary form of the 1962 Missal. Diocesan priests celebrating the old Mass usually begin with said Mass and graduate to Missa cantata, picking up habits along the way.

What follows are some modest proposals, not involving the resurrection of glorious medieval customs or additional churchwares, to improve the celebration of the old Mass.

Variety is the Spice of Life

The traditional liturgy, at least at the time of the Tridentine Missal, possessed an elegant balance of the temporal and sanctoral cycles, each with a fair balance in itself between minor and major celebrations. The degree was manifested in the obvious elements, like psalmnody and vestment colors, but also in subtler elements, like the tones used at Mass and the admission of additional prayers at the Major Hours and the Holy Mass.

Post-Tridentine canonizations and the bloating of the kalendar, in conjunction with Pius XII and John XXIII's flattening of the kalendar, have left us with something in the 1962 rites more akin to the Byzantine liturgy: nearly a saint every day, almost all of the same rank, with Sundays and a few feasts able to break the cycle. 

Some semblance of seasonality or festivity could still be accomplished through music. "Back in the day" there was a monotonous fidelity to the Missa de angelis, a fad which has generally subsided. Most traditional Masses will loosely follow the post-Solesmes editions of the Liber Usualis in singing Mass XVIII during Lent and Advent, Mass XI on "green" Sundays, Mass I during Paschaltide, and maybe Mass IX on Marian days. While the assignment of these Masses to certain seasons was more or less arbitrary on the part of the Solesmes congregation, people have become accustomed to hearing them at certain times of year.

What of the clergy's parts? Before "the Council" one heard almost nothing save for the ferial tone. It may have derived from the ubiquity of the said Mass. Today, at least among FSSP clergy in the Anglosphere, one rarely hears anything except the solemn tone for the priest's parts, the orations, and the Gospel. Without fail on All Souls' Day we hear the priest start on C for Dom and climb to D and descend for inus vobiscum. 

The ancient, solemn tone is always an option during Masses, but could not some alternation be useful here? The solemn tone would be better allocated to Sundays, feasts, and anything which in better days had "double" in the name. Among practical parish celebrations, would the ferial tone every show up? At the Oxford Oratory the old Mass normally only became sung on days special to the locals, but less significant to the universal Church. We had a votive Mass of the Angels for the Newman Society, the odd Missa cantata on a Marian Saturday, and the feast of the English martyrs. Most traditionally minded churches will also celebrate a sung Mass on Ash Wednesday and All Souls. Either due to the penitential nature of the day or the lesser quality of the feast, the ferial tone marks a different stature to the day which is useful for the faithful.

One underused option, which requires practice, but not special singing talent, is the collection of ad libitum prefaces in a more solemn tone at the back of the Missal. These accentuate the words of Thanksgiving and on greater feasts add solemnity to the occasion.

Perhaps Not Too Much Variety

Variety is the spice of life, but seasoning cannot be willy nilly, it requires some thought and direction.

One such opportunity for regularity is in the celebration of Masses on what are in the 1962 Missal call "IV Class feasts" aka a day of nothing where there was once something. On these days and on true feriae outside of Lent priests of the Fraternity will typically celebrate one of the newer votive Masses permitted on the day (St Joseph on Wednesday, Christ the High Priest Thursday, Sacred Heart on Friday). I knew one priest who, without fail, would say no Mass other than that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on anything below a III Class day, even on Saturdays of Our Lady; in the Middle Ages he would have been a "Massing priest".

What is a shame is that the Mass of the Sunday is almost never repeated. Before John XXIII, whenever the Sunday Mass was impeded—if Ss. Peter & Paul fell on a Sunday after Pentecost—the Sunday Mass would be repeated without the Gloria and Credo, without the Alleluia, and with additional commemorations on the first available day of the succeeding week.

The loss of this practice means that the Abomination of Desolation narrative from the XXIV Sunday after Pentecost is typically only read once a year while the parable the talents is reading dozens of times a year, perhaps even several times a week outside of Lent, because of the volume of post-Tridentine feasts taken from the Commons.

Instead of turning to a devotional votive Mass on IV Class and ferial days, repeat the Sunday Mass and re-immerse the faithful in its thoughtful collation of lessons.

As an aside, in the pre-Pius XII system a votive Mass could be said on nearly any day with a semi-Double feast or less if the season was not Lent or Advent. An adventurous priest, courageous enough to crack open his older Missale Romanum, might turn to the feast of Saint Alexius this year, notice it is merely a semi-Double, and say the [greatly underused] Mass of the Passion instead.

Additionally, the older old rite also had many proper Masses for saint popes, meaning not only no Si diligis, but perhaps even fewer Commons.

Liturgical Inspiration for Sermons

I remember it well. It was the second Sunday of Lent. The Gospel was the Transfiguration. The saint of the day was Pope Gregory the Great. The sermon? Why women need to dress more modestly.

One often hears that whereas in the new rite one must give a "homily", in the old rite the priest delivers a sermon. Semantics aside, diocesan clergy celebrating the old Mass almost always follow their seminary training and give a lesson either on the feast or the Gospel of the day. Traditionalist clergy tend to give either a sermon on the Gospel of the day or whatever has been on their mind that week, such as ladies' skirts not quite hitting the floor in the Mormon Trad manner.

Something is lost here. Thus far I have never heard a sermon or homily, whatever the real difference may be between them, on the Epistle of the day. Unlike in the Pauline and Byzantine rites, which generally go through blocks of Scripture during a season or month, the old Roman lectionary is very deliberate in pairing New Testament Epistles and Old Testament lessons with the Gospel percipes, either because they explicate on the virtues displayed by Christ or because they display typology of fulfillment of Christ's life. Understandably, talk during Advent normally focuses on preparation for Christmas, anticipating the coming of Christ, or the Gospel text about the End. Are these words, read at that Mass and by Saint Augustine in a Milanese garden, not worthy of their own sermon?

"And that knowing the season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy: But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences."

There is also the question of saints, especially among those celebrating the 1962 rite rather than the older forms. Saints, even Apostles, hardly ever supersede a Sunday. Ss Peter & Paul, John the Baptist, the Immaculate Conception, All Souls, and the Assumption are generally it. The odds are only one of those will pass in a given year. Large swatches of saints vital to the Roman patrimony go unnoticed. The virgin martyrs of the Roman Canon, the saintly Latin and Greek Doctors of the Church, the medieval reformers, and the Counter-Reformers all go unnoticed on their own feast days if they fall on a Sunday. While doing this weekly would be inappropriate, it would be fitting, if when a saint of Biblical or patrimonial significance falls on a Sunday and the saint's feast does not replace the Sunday, to give a sermon on the life, inspiration, and deeds of the saint of the day.

Gregory the Great was the most significant Bishop of Rome after Peter himself. Does he not deserve more attention than Mrs. Johnson's ankles?

Divining Obedience

A few years ago I wrote a short piece about the comparison of disobedience to idolatry and divination in the context where lay parishioners were chaffing at the authoritative imposition of a strict dress code. While the sermon linked in that post has since been taken offline, I did think it worthwhile to transcribe a bit of it for posterity:

To consciously and willingly disobey legitimate commands from legitimate authority cannot be without some sin. I promise, when you’re toasting away your time in Purgatory or worse for deliberate disobedience, for stealing from God what is rightfully his, you’ll have nothing but regret and remorse for how good you decided to look that day back when you were so young and beautiful.

The thin line between legitimate authority and its abuse is impossible for most laymen to discern. One cannot remain a Catholic in good standing while rejecting the right of the Church’s bishops and priests to stand, in some fashion and form, in the place of God. Dominic Prümmer, O.P. makes distinctions between servile and proper obedience in his popular moral theology handbook, and says that obedience to men is limited “by the limited competency of superiors” (sec. 459; likewise St. Thomas: “a subject is not bound to obey his superior if the latter command him to do something wherein he is not subject to him” (ST II-II.104.5)), but few moral theologians have ever bothered to explore the precise limitations of the parish pastor or of the confessor. St. Alphonsus Liguori makes the authority of the confessor near-limitless:

Obedience to a confessor is the most acceptable offering which we can make to God, and the most secure way of doing the divine will. Blessed Henry Suson says that God does not demand an account of what we do through obedience. Obey, says the Apostle, your spiritual fathers; and fear not anything which you do through obedience; for they, and not you, shall have to render an account of your conduct. (Sermon XXV)

To be sure, Alphonsus adjures his audience to obey “in everything which is not manifestly sinful,” but for the scrupulous or ignorant penitent it is not a simple matter to discern what is manifestly sinful. Indeed, sexual predators within the priesthood can easily identify those with tender consciences as potential victims. Under the pretense of a holy submission of the will, they manipulate the penitent into participating in perverse sins and utterly devastate their ability to discern good from evil. Consider this slightly abbreviated extract from a recent testimony against Jean Vanier and a related priest:

Each time, I was frozen, I was unable to distinguish what was right and what was wrong. He told me that this was part of the accompaniment. He said, “This is not us, this is Mary and Jesus. You are chosen, you are special, this is secret.” I decided to go and see Father Thomas to seek his advice. He told me to come and see him. There was a curtain, and he sat on the bed. He was not tender like Jean Vanier. Same words to say that I am special and all this is about Jesus and Mary.

When King Saul refused to slay the best of the flocks of Amalec it was not due to a scruple about utterly destroying the sinners and their goods (as one might find in a modern biblical commentator), but because he found them beautiful and wished to dispense them according to his own will. He understood the will of God and chose to do otherwise. That is why St. Samuel likened his disobedience to idolatry and divination, for it was a way of seeking his own will apart from the will of the God of Jacob, while attempting to soothe his conscience with the promise of a future sacrifice.

I have known good lay Catholics who were threatened with canonical censures for demanding the pastor baptize their new child when it had the misfortune of being born in Lent. Two years ago an American bishop made noises about imposing canonical penalties against any Catholic who supported President Trump’s immigration policies. In earlier ages of the Church it was common for popes to place entire nations under interdict for the sins or inconvenient political moves of kings, thus depriving uncounted innocents of sacramental grace.

There are reasons why medieval artists thought bishops to be fine subjects of satirical attack. It is a pity the Counter-Reformation ruined all that fun.

But this is Lent, and we are supposed to use this time to make our wills more submissive, not less. The counsel of voluntary obedience is a north star for the soul embarking into the deep, and it may be a fruitful topic of meditation in these times when obedience is used as a club for bullies or as a snare by seducers. It many ways it is easier to be submissive to the moral law considered abstractly than it is to be submissive to our pastors, confessors, and bishops. Perhaps there is something to be gained in obeying where it is not strictly necessary, some kind of moral clarity to be found by going above and beyond the mere rules and perhaps by finally seeing the invisible order of virtue and goodness intended when we were created in God’s image… but I cannot deny that it is hard to move past the variety of abuse and find what is great about obedience.

Obey those who have charge of you, and yield to their will; they are keeping unwearied watch over your souls, because they know they will have an account to give. Make it a grateful task for them: it is your own loss if they find it a laborious effort. (Heb. 13)

Lent: The Jewel of the East

The prior night, "fat Tuesday", was indeed quite fat here in Dallas. Beef tartare, seared Wagyu, chocolate tartlet, and something resembling a salad for decoration. Mardi gras has become a tradition to indulge prior to a strife that never really comes in the Western Church anymore.

Just a century ago all of Lent aside from Sundays, included fasting every day and the addition of abstinence on Fridays. "Fat Tuesday" originates in the Middle Ages, when animal fats were used up before a purely vegan Lent began on Ash Wednesday. Today, at least in these United States, fasting is mandated only for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Meat is theoretically banished one day a week, but the American bishops always grant a dispensation if Saint Patrick's feast falls on a Friday.

Had I followed the prescriptions of the Byzantine Church I attend, meat would have been off the menu for two weeks and I would have last tasted cheese or milk on Sunday. While liturgically the Sundays of Great Lent are a bit dull in the East, with the readings pre-dating their ill-related feasts, the weekdays are the most unique and beautiful of the year.

The Liturgy of the Presanctified, celebrated at no other time during the year, is all that is right about the Byzantine rite: drama, great moments, and didactic gestures. At no other time of the year does the priest circle the altar counter-clockwise while we sing "Let my prayer arise like incense before you and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice."

The faithful sing may of the hymns greeting the Eucharist while kneeling, as the priest passes by during the Great Entrance holding the precious Body of Christ under a veil, much as we expect to see Him now but not in eternity. The entire service is one great lesson in penance for those who have been conditioned by the gradual elimination of luxuries and disposed by the Church's lessons toward penance.

By contrast, our Latin tradition, yes, even the old rite, seems a bit barren by contrast. The Mass of the Presanctified is celebrated on Good Friday. The weekday Masses of Lent were presumably Presanctified Masses during the middle part of the first millennium, as evidenced by some of the orations, but gradually became penitential Masses. If the Good Friday Mass is any indication of post-antiquity, they were not so very different from actual Masses to begin with.

We have Stations of the Cross on Fridays and the odd parish fish fry, the Lenten mission, but no solid liturgical basis of Lent outside the Masses anymore. Once upon a time the Station Masses of Lent were observed in most major European cities, not just Rome, in which the bishop's appointed representative would lead a procession to the chosen church with the Litanies sung, the minor hours, the Mass, and then Vespers with the preces, psalm 50, and the suffrages of the Saints. The demolition of Catholic culture, the gutting of the Divine Office, and the atomization of society has robbed us of these treasures which even traditional parishes have displayed little interest in restoring.

We Latins have Advent, Christmas season, the Pentecost octave, and the great feasts as our boasts, but in this season of humility the East has found a precious pearl and given all it has to acquire it and show it to the rest of the Church.