The Sacramentary (LIBER SACRAMENTORUM) Historical & Liturgical Notes on the Roman ^Missal BY ILDEFONSO SCHUSTER Abbot of the ^Monastery of St TauFs Without the Walls. Translated from the Italian by ARTHUR LEVELIS-MARKE, VOLUME IV (Parts 7 and 8) New York, Cincinnati, Chicago BENZIGER BROTHERS PRIMERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE M.A. NIHIL OBSTAT : Edcardvs Mahoney, STl) Censor Deputatus. Edm. Can. Sormont, Vicarius Generalis. Westmon asterii, die 20 Decembris, 1928. First published. 1929 Made and Printed, in Great Britain CONTENTS PART VII THE SAINTS IN THE MYSTERY OF THE REDEMPTION (THE FEASTS OF THE SAINTS FROM LENT TO AUGUST 14) INTRODUCTION FACX Chapter I. The Early Lists of Feasts in the Liturgical Calendar -------- 1 Chapter II. The Vocation to the Priesthood and the Prayer of the Christian People - - xi Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Feriale 23 THE FEASTS OF THE SAINTS IN THE PASCHAL CYCLE FEASTS IN MARCH March 4. St Lucius I, Pope and Martyr - - - 32 - - 33 ,, 4. St Casimir, Confessor ,, 6. SS Perpetua and Felicitas, Martyrs - 34 ,, 7. St Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor of the Church - 3S ,, ,, - 8. St John of God, Confessor 9. St Frances of Rome, Widow - - - - - - - - ,, 10. The Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste ,, ,, ,, „ - - - 40 41 - 44 Great, Pope, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church 46 14. St Leo, Bishop and Martyr (Martyrology of St Jerome) -56 17. St Patrick, Bishop and Confessor - 57 18. St Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, Confessor and Doctor of the Church 58 12. St Gregory the v V1 The Sacramentary Ma»ch iS. St Pygmenius, Martyr (Martyrology of pagi St Jerome) 60 » 19. St Joseph, Confessor, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin >» Mary, Patron of the Universal Church 21. St Benedict, Abbot - >» 24. St Gabriel, Archangel - 65 69 ·> 24. St Quirinus, Martyr (Martyrology of St Jerome) - 73 » 25. Feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin 61 Mary of the Divine Incarnation - 73 » 26. St Castulus, Martyr (Martyrology of St Jerome) 1« 27. St John of Damascus, Confessor and Doctor of the Church » - 78 ..... 79 82 28. St John of Capistran, Confessor Friday after Passion Sunday. Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary ..... 86 FEASTS IN APRIL April 2. St F rancis of Paola, Confessor ,, 4. St Isidore, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church ..... ,, 91 93 5. St Vincent Ferrer, Confessor „ 11. St „ 13. St „ 14. SS „ 14. St .... 93 Leo the Great, Pope, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church ..... 94 Hermenegild, Martyr ..... 99 IOI Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus, Martyrs Justin, Martyr ...... 103 „ 17. St Anicetus, Pope and Martyr - XO7 „ 20. SS Victor, Bishop; Felix, Alexander, and Papias, 108 Martyrs (Martyrology of St Jerome) ,, 21. St Anselm, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church .... 108 ,, 22. SS Soter and Gaius, Popes and Martyrs „ 23. St George, Martyr . . . . M 23. St Adalbert, Bishop and Martyr „ 24. St Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Martyr >f 25. St Mark the Evangelist .... 26. SS Cletus and Marcellinvs, Popes and Martyrs 1 IO . I 12 114 "5 116 121 9· Vil Contents PAO· April 28, St Vjtalïs, Martyr - 123 - h 28. StPaul of the Cross · - - - - 125 » 2g. StPeter, Martyr - - - - - 128 >, 30. St Catherine of Siena, Virgin - · - - 12g - Wednesday after the Second Sunday after Easter. The Solemnity of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patron of the Universal Church, Confessor - 130 FEAST'S IN MAY May i. SS Philip and James, Apostles · - - *33 - ,, 2. St Athanasius, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church - *37 ,, 3. SS Alexander, Eventius, and Theodulus, Martyrs, and Juvenal, Bishop and Confessor · - 139 ,, 3. The Finding of the Holy Cross - - - · *43 „ 4. St Monica, Widow - - - - - - „ 5. St Pius V, Pope and Confessor ,, · 146 - - · 149 6. St John, Apostle and Evangelist - - - *5* ,, 7. St Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr · - - 153 ,, 8. The Appearing of St Michael, Archangel - - 154 „ 9. StGregory Nazianzen, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church · - 158 ,, 10. SS Gordian and Epimachus, Martyrs - - - *59 ,, 10. St Antoninus, Bishop and Confessor - - - 161 ,, 12. SS Nereus, Achilleus, and Domitilla the Virgin, Martyrs ; St Pancras, Martyr - 162 ,, 13. Feast of the Basilica of St Mary “ ad Martyres” - 167 „ 14. St Boniface, Martyr - · *7* · - 172 - - - ,, 15. St John Baptist de la Salle, Confessor ,, 16. St Ubald, Bishop and Confessor - - - - *73 „ 17. Sr Paschal Baylon, Confessor - - · *74 - - · *75 „ 18. St Venantius, Martyr - - - „ 19. SS Calocerus and Partenius, Martyrs ,, 19. St Pudentiana, Virgin - - 176 - ,, 19. St Peter Celestine, Pope and Confessor · - · *77 - *77 vi i i The Sacramentary ΡΛΟΒ ' *79 180 May 20. St Bernardine of Siena, Confessor » 20. St Basilla, Martyr >, 2i. St Helena, Empress and Widow - • 180 ,, 25. St Urban I, Pope and Martyr - 181 » 25. St Gregory VII, Pope and Confessor - 183 ,, 26. St Semetrius, Martyr - 187 „ 26. St Philip Neri, Confessor - - 188 „ 26. St Eleutherius, Pope and Martyr - 191 » 27. St Bede the Venerable, Confessor and D „ 27. St „ 28. St ,, 29. St » 30. St „ 31. St » 31. St of the Church .... John I, Pope and Martyr Augustine, Bishop and Confessor Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi, Virgin Felix I, Pope and Martyr Petronilla, Virgin Angela Merici, Virgin - - 192 • »93 • 194 - »97 198 - »99 - 202 FEASTS IN JUNE Friday after the Octave Sacred Heart of Jesus Corpus Christi. Feast of ..... of the - 203 June i. Dedication of the Basilica of Nicomedes - 209 ,, 2. SS Marcellinus, Priest, and Peter, Exorcist, Martyrs 21 x „ 2. St Erasmus, Bishop and Martyr ... - 214 „ 4. St Quiricus, Bishop of Siscia, Martyr - 215 „ 4. St Francis Caracciolo, Confessor - 217 ,, 5. St Felicola, Virgin and Martyr 219 „ 5. St Boniface, Bishop and Martyr - 220 „ 6. St Norbert, Bishop and Confessor - 225 ,, 9. SS Primus and Felicianus, Martyrs - 226 ,, 10.St Margaret, Queen of Scots, Widow - 229 ,, xi. St Barna. ,s the Apostle .... - 229 „ 12. St Basi· .des, Martyr .... - 233 On the same day : St Cyrinus, Bishop and Martyr, on the Via Appia; and SS Nabor and Nazarius, on the Via Aurelia, Martyrs ....... - 233 Contents June 13. St Anthony n of IX Padua, Confessor - P*Ct . 237 - j4. St Basil, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church ....... 239 ,, 15. SS Vitus, Modestus, and Crescentia, Martyrs - - 242 ,, 16. SS Quiricus and Julitta, Martyrs - 244 ,, 17. SS Diogenes, Sixtus, Bonifacius, Longinus, Blastro, - - and Liberalis, Martyrs (Martyrology of St Jerome) ....... 245 ,, 18. SS Mark and Marcellianus, Martyrs ,, 18. St Ephrem, Deacon, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church -250 ,, 19. SS Gervase and Protase, Martyrs ,, 19. St Juliana Falconieri, Virgin .... 254 ,, 20. St Silverius, Pope and Martyr .... 255 ,, 21. St Aloysius Gonzaga, Confessor - - - -257 ,, 22. St Paulinus, Bishop and Confessor - - - 260 - - - - 247 - 251 - The Night of June 23. The Holy Vigil in Honour of St John the Baptist ....... 262 June 24. St John the Baptist ,, ..... 265 24. SS John the Priest, Festus, Longinus, and Diogenes, Martyrs ....... 269 » 25, St William, Abbot - - - - «> 25-26. The Vigil of SS John and Paul, Martyrs - - 271 - - 272 » 26. SS John and Paul, Martyrs >> 27. The Protomartyrs of the Holy Roman Church - 278 » 28. St Leo I, Pope (for the second time) - 2S2 >> 28. St Irenæus, Bishop and Martyr .... 284 »> 28. The Holy Vigil at the Tomb of the Apostles Peter and Paul - 2S7 » 29. the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul The First Mass at Dawn .... The Second Mass ..... The Evening Synaxis . . . . ” 30. Commemoration of St Paul the Apostle .... 272 - - - 290 300 302 306 - 309 The Sacrcmientary x feasts IN JULY JULY 1. PAO1 3°9 Feast of the Most Precious Blood 2. SS Processus and Martinian. Martyrs 2. The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 3. The Fifth Day within the Octave of the Apostles n 4. The Sixth Day within the Octave of the Apostles 320 5. St Antony Mary Zaccaria, Confessor 320 6. Octave of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul 324 7. SS Cyril and Methodius, Bishops and Confessors 329 S. St Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal, Widow 333 9. SS Zeno and his Companions, Martyrs - 333 9. SS Patermutius and Copretes 334 Night of July 9. Vigil of the Seven Holy Brothers 335 July 10. Dies Martyrorum. The Seven Holy Brothers and St Felicitas ..... 335 The First Mass 337 The Second Mass 338 The Third Mass 338 The Fourth Mass 342 M io. SS Rufina and Secunda, Virgins and Martyrs - St Pius I, Pope >> and 343 Martyr 343 SS Nabor and Felix, Martyrs 12. St John Gualbert, Abbot 344 - · . . 345 13· St Anacletus, Pope and Martyr - 346 14· St Bonaventure, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor the Church . 347 15. St Henry II, Emperor and Confessor M T> . 348 15· SS Eutropius, Zosimus, and Bonosa, Martyrs - 15. SS Quiricus and Julitta, Martyrs The Blessed Virgin Mary »7· St Alexius, Confessor 16. Ol· of Mount Carmel 18. St Symphorosa and her Seven Sons, Martyrs «8. St Camillus de Lellis, Confessor - 350 351 354 355 357 mm· Contents xi FAGI July 19· St Vincent de Paul, Confessor ... 20. St Margaret, Virgin and Martyr M 35g - . 360 ,, St Jerome Æmiliani, Confessor · . 361 21. St Praxedes, Virgin ..... 364 ,, 22. St Mary Magdalen, Penitent ,, 20. .... 366 ,, 23- St Apollinaris, Bishop Martyr - - . 368 ,, 23· St Liborius, Bishop and Confessor St Christina, Virgin and Martyr - - - 371 - - - 371 „ 24. and The Night of July 24. Vigil of St James the Apostle - 372 July 25. St James the Great, Apostle .... 372 „ 25. St Christopher, Martyr · - 375 ,, 26. St Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 376 ,, 27. St Pantaleon, Martyr „ 28. SS Nazarius and Celsus, Martyrs - - - 380 ,, 28. St Victor I, Pope and Confessor - - - 381 ,, 28. St Innocent I, Pope and Confessor - - - 382 ,, 29. St Felix II, Pote and Martyr ,, 29. SS Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrice, Martyrs ,, 29. St Martha, Virgin ,, 30. SS Abdon and Sennen, Martyrs - ,, 31. St Ignatius of Loyola, Confessor - - - ..... 37g .... 384 - 386 ...... 388 FEASTS August i. Dedication of the Title - 390 - · - 393 AUGUST Eudoxia - - 395 „ r. The Holy Machabees, Brothers and Martyrs - 399 » 2. St Stephen I, Pope and Martyr - 400 >> 2. St Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church . 402 ,, 3. The Finding of the Body’ of St Stephen the First Martyr ...... 4O6 of 4. SS Crescention and Justin, Martyrs 4. St Dominic, Confessor >> · - - - 407 ..... 4O~ 5. Dedication of the Basilica of our Lady of the Snow 409 The Sacranientary xii PAGO August 6. The Holy Martyrs Sixtus, Felicissimus, and Agapitus, with Four others, Deacons and Martyrs - 412 The First Mass ..... 413 The Second Mass - 416 Lord Jesus Christ and Martyr - „ 6. Transfiguration of Our - 418 „ 7. St Donatus, Bishop - 421 „ 7. St Cajetan, Confessor ,, 8. SS Cyriacus, Largus, and Smaragdus, Martyrs „ 9. St Romanus, Martyr ..... 422 423 - ..... 426 The Night of August 9. Vigil in the Basilica of St Lawrence August 10. St Lawrence, Martyr .... In prima Missa “ de nocte ”... In Missa publica ..... „ ii. „ ii. St Tiburtius, Martyr 427 430 434 434 ..... 437 - 438 „ St Susanna, Virgin and Martyr ■ 12. St Euplus, Deacon and Martyr 12. St Clare, Virgin ..... „ 13. SS Hippolytus and Pontianos, Martyrs - 442 „ 13. St Cassian, Martyr ,, 14. St Eusebius, Priest and Confessor „ - 439 - 440 ..... 447 - - - 44S EUCHOLOGICAL APPENDIX Antiphons of the Greater Litanies .... 451 Ad Plures Sanctos ....... 453 In Sanctos Apostolos In Martyrum Laudem - - - . . . - 45s - - . . . . aef PART VII THE SAINTS IN THE MYSTERY OF THE REDEMPTION (THE FEASTS OF THE SAINTS FROM LENT TO THE VIGIL OF THE ASSUMPTION) Γ ISTA · QVAM · FELIX ■ ECCLESIA · VBI ■ PETRVS · PASSIONI · DOMINICAE ADAEQVATVR · VBI · PAVLVS · JOHANNIS · EXITV · CORONATVR VBI · APOSTOLVS · JOHANNES · POSTEAQVAM · IN · OLEVM IGNEVM · DEMERSVS · NIHIL · PASSVS · EST ■ IN · INSVLAM RELEGATVR (TERTVLL. DE PRAESCR.) INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I THE EARLY LISTS OF FEASTS IN THE LITURGICAL CALENDAR HE life of blessedness promised to the just after the accomplishment of their earthly pilgrimage, and the unity of the Christian family in the mystical body of Jesus Christ, which unites all the sheep of the fold to the person of the one Shepherd— such are the theological principles on which is founded the Catholic doctrine of the veneration shown to the saints. This devotion, which was foreshadowed in the Synagogue, spread and increased equally with the development of theo­ logical doctrine, and because of its popular nature, was re­ flected throughout the ages in a thousand different forms of greater or lesser suggestive and artistic value according to the various grades of culture shown by the Christian peoples. Contrary, however, to the theory of Protestants and of those Catholics who have been imbued with their spirit, the venera­ tion paid to the saints is fully justified in Holy Scripture, in ecclesiastical tradition, and in the liturgical sources of the first centuries of the Church. For, indeed, the hope of a glorious resurrection, of which the resurrection of Christ is the prototype, rendered the depositio of the dead, especially of the martyrs, similar to the Sunday celebration at least from the second century on­ wards ; so much so that Ignatius of Antioch writes to the Romans that henceforth he desires nothing more than to die, in order that the news of his martyrdom may reach the faithful at the moment when the altar is already prepared for the divine Sacrifice, so that all may give thanks together to God, for having called the Bishop of Syria from the City of Rome to Heaven. Some ten years later, at Smyrna, the anniversary of the martyrdom of St Polycarp was celebrated at his tomb with great solemnity, but there was nothing at all to suggest that the rite was cither new or unusual. Originally, perhaps, these periodical commemorations of the martyrs were not very different from those of the other iv. I T 2 The Saeramen tary Sancti or faithful departed ; hence in the diptychs of the Mass their names might follow chronologically without any apparent difference. Christian feeling, however, always made a clear distinction between the sacrificium pro dormitione and the prayers in suffrage for the dead, and those prayers addressed to God in regard to the glory granted to the martyrs whose patronage was invoked before the heavenly throne. The fact is that, besides the religious salutations traced on the walls in the Roman cemeteries, and the piercing of the sepulchral cubicola of the martyrs in order to make other tombs close to these, the Depositiones of the martyrs, at least from the end of the second century, constituted, together with the solemnities of Easter and Pentecost, of the Sundays and the stations of Wednesday and Friday, that which Tertullian happily terms the fasti of the Christians, as contrasted thenceforward with the fasti and the festival cycle of the Pagans. Thus we know from Pontius, a deacon attached to St Cyprian, that at Carthage the anniversary of a martyr was preceded by a ιταννύχια., or night vigil, and we gather from the Acta of St Saturninus of Toulouse that his natalis was celebrated not only by a night vigil, but by the singing of hymns and the offering of the holy Sacrifice at early dawn. A last trace of this rite in our present Missal is to be found in the vigiliary Mass of the day preceding the greater festivals of the year. When, in the fourth century, the daily celebration of the divine Office became almost general, the natalitia of the martyrs had long since found a place in the Christian Calendar, nor was it any longer possible to displace them ; thus the ferial was joined to the very much older festival euchology, forming together a prayer so harmonious and varied in its details, so beautiful in its whole conception, that it may well be considered one of the finest masterpieces of the Christian mind. The ancient hierarchical constitution, which usually en­ trusted each Christian community, whether in a town or in a country district, to the pastoral care of a bishop and his clergy, has left its mark very clearly in the East, in Italy, and in Africa, where the ancient episcopal sees are very numerous. This ecclesiastical arrangement, whilst contributing in a marvellous manner to the spread of the Gospel teaching, tended, nevertheless, to encourage that form of diocesan autonomy so characteristic of the early Church, and of which among the innumerable forms illustrative of it, the Liturgy is one of the most expressive. Lists of Feasts in the Liturgical Calendar 3 Formerly, as each Church jealously guarded the tombs of its own bishops, and kept an accurate record of their names and dates in order to be able to prove against the heretics its true descent from the apostles, by means of the legitimate succession of its pastors, so in like manner each body of Christians drew up its own list of hagiographical fasti which formed, as it were, the religious and particular history of each Church. These lists of feasts differ very much between one city and another; indeed, sometimes, they vary even between the different basilicas of one and the same locality, for which reason it is impossible for us to describe them all, so we must confine ourselves to examining one only—that of the Roman Church. The most ancient Feriale of Rome is named after Furius Dionysius Philocalus, the friend and secretary of Pope Damasus. Its first compilation may possibly date back to the year 336, but in any case it is not later than 354. Besides the Depositiones episcoporum of the Apostolic See, we find also noted in it, at least from the second half of the third century, the commemorations of the Roman martyrs whose feasts, however, were celebrated exclusively at their tombs,1 in the extra-mural cemeteries. Only the Nativity of our Lord, SS Cyprian, Perpetua, and Felicitas of Carthage, and some martyrs of Portus not in­ cluded among the primitive Roman fasti, form an exception to this rule. In all there are thirty-six feasts, of which twelve are those of Roman Pontiffs. If, therefore, to this group of local feasts we add those of Easter, Pentecost, and, perhaps, the Epiphany, we shall have the entire hagiographical cycle of Rome at the period immediately following the Peace of Constantine. In the Philocalian Laterculus there are two things which should be noticed : the first is the absence of the martyrs of the first two centuries, a period when the Liturgy seemed as yet unable to turn its gaze from the radiant countenance of Christ:2 Viri Galilaei quid statis aspicientes in coelum? so that the cemeteries have kept for us only very few records of these heroes of the earliest Christian period in Rome ; the other thing to be observed is the liturgical cultus paid to the Popes of the era of Constantine, in which we find one of the very first examples of public veneration given to saints who ‘ '1'he Philocalian Feriale is rather a list of the cemetery stations than a Calendar of saints’ days such as we now have. 3 At that very early period, when the bulk of the Christian people newly converted from polytheism might easily have misunderstood the Catholic doctrine concerning the cultus and the veneration paid to the saints, it was wise and prudent of the Church not to insist too much on this point. 4 The Sacramentary had testified to the Faith, not, indeed, by the shedding of their blood, but by the practice of exceptional virtues. The Syriac Martyrology of Wright, the most important hagiographical document after the Philocalian Feriale, carries us off to Nicomedia or, at least, to the Western part of Asia Minor, about the beginning of the fifth century (402-17). This text has made use in its first part of the De Martyribus Palaestinae ; of the Συναγωγή των αρχαίων μαρτυρίων of Eusebius and of some lists of Western martyrs emanating possibly from Rome; so that the document to a certain extent accords with the most ancient copies of the Martyrology of St Jerome, of which it now foims one of the most important texts for the purpose of comparison. The Martyrology known as that of St Jerome is in no way indebted to Syria for its origin, and besides that which it owes to a Greek compilation of the writings of Eusebius on the martyrs, it has resulted from the fusion of the various hagiographical elements contained in the fasti of Dionysius Philocalus, in the lists of African martyrs and in a few other scattered documents of minor importance. During the sixth century two different versions of the Martyrology were in circulation in Italy; the more detailed version, with a narrative of the notable deeds of the martyrs, is recorded by Cassiodorus1 and perhaps represents the primi­ tive type of Western martyrology; the other version with the bare mention of the names of the martvrs and their * burial places may date from the time of Sixtus III (432-40), and is spoken of by St Gregory the Great in a letter to the Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria. Both these versions met with success, the shorter one was subsequently added to in Gaul ; but St Ado2 preferred the other, making it the founda­ tion of his own historical martyrology which finally succeeded in supplanting entirely its now too laconic rival. We might here mention several other ancient calendars such as the Laterculus of Polemius Silvius of the year 448, the Fasti Consulares of 493, the Carthaginian Calendar dating from about the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century, the various classes of the MSS. of the Martyrology of St Jerome, that of Fulda, of Trêves, of Farfa, a rich harvest of ancient inscriptions in which are recorded various feasts of saints ; but it is not necessary to do more than point out these sources of information for the benefit of the student. After the Philocalian fasti, the most important and the most trustworthy means for learning more about the Roman hagiographical cycle from the fifth to the eighth ‘ De divin, led. C. XXXII Arehbuhop of Vienne (France) ; died 8„. Lists of Feasts in the Liturgical Calendar century are contained in the Sacramcntaries and in the lists of scriptural extracts to be read at the Mass. The starting· point of the liturgical year is the Christmas festival, and, as a rule, the Sacramcntaries begin with the Mass of the X’igil of Christmas. The day after is polyliturgical with three stations,1 at St Mary Major, St Anastasia, and St Peter, and is followed by the feasts of St Stephen, St John, the Holy Innocents, and St Sylvester. In the Wurzburg List of Lessons, which now represents the older Roman Comes of the early days of the seventh century, neither is the Octave of Christmas noted, as in the Capitulare Evangeliorum of the same library (of the middle of the seventh century), nor the Vigil of the Theophania, but, instead, the whole fortnight between the two solemnities is considered as a festival. In the Capitulary, the first day of January no longer evokes the unhappy memory of the sacrileges committed on that day by a dying paganism ; it has become, instead, the Octave of the Lord, associated in later times by the Gallicans with the thought of the Circumcisio, the Gospel account of which, joined to that of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple, brings us back to the days when, in the West, a separate feast of the Hypapante was not as yet celebrated. The Theophania has in reality no Octave—this is the ex­ clusive privilege of the Easter festival—but, as at Christmas and Pentecost, the feast is prolonged for some days, now done away with in the Capitulary, in which, on the other hand, are noted week by week the various Masses of Fcria IV and Fcria VI that are to be celebrated throughout the year. On January 14 and 16 occur the feasts of St Felix in Pincis and of St Marcellus ; after which the Capitulary records, besides St Prisca, St Fabian, St Sebastian (with two separate Masses), the martyrs Vincent and Anastasius (also with two distinct Masses) because of the two separate stational basilicas in which their feasts were celebrated. In the Lectionary, St Agnes has the same Epistle as St Agatha, but in the Capitulary, besides the feast de passione on January 21, that de nativitate, a week later, is also entered. No mention is made as yet of the Purificatio, but the Capitulary, after the feasts of St Agatha and of St Valentine before Lent, assigns the Gospel of the Purification to a new and unnamed festival noted simply as II men. Febr. A century later a Calendar of Monte Cassino in agreement with the Liber Pontificalis concerning the life of Sergius I, * This is not the only each time that a feast sanctuaries (as on June Martyrum; the stational case of the kind in the Roman Liturgy, since was celebrated at Rome in several separate 29) : Trinis celebratur viis festa Sanctorum Mass was repeated. 6 The Sacramentary and with the Martyrology of St Willibrord, shows how un­ certain still was the Roman liturgical tradition with regard to this new Eastern feast, by calling it simply : Set Symeonis. It is a curious coincidence that the Roman Sacramentaries, the Capitulary, and the Lectionary of Wiirzburg all agree in omitting on February 22 the feast of the Chair of St Peter. This feast, which is entered in the Philocalian Fcriale under February 22, is certainly of Roman origin, and must have penetrated in very early days into the Gallican liturgies, which, however, kept it by anticipation on January 18, on account of the Lenten fast. During Lent no extraordinary feasts are kept at Rome, but each day has its own station at the church appointed for it, with a special Mass inspired by the great religious memories of the locality ; hence the fast was rendered less monotonous and tedious by a magnificent ensemble of processions, chants, and solemn rites, always varied and always in relation to the coming Easter festival of which they were intended to be, as it were, the prelude and the preparation. Unlike the other Roman liturgical books which record the feast of the Pascha annotina or commemoration of the baptism received in the preceding year, both the Capitulary and the Lectionary of Wiirzburg omit it as being a rite already fallen into disuse together with the disciplinary rules of the catechumens. Indeed these two documents even ignore the feast of St George, which was introduced later, and take note only of those of SS Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus on April 14, and of St Vitalis on April 28. The feasts of the Ascension and of Pentecost follow with their customary rites; the fast of the Summer Ember days no longer coincides with the Octave of Pentecost, more recently instituted, and the following Sunday is called simply Sanc­ torum, as with the Greeks, because it was dedicated to all the saints. Later, about the year 561, to the feast of the Apostle Philip on May 1, there was added the name of James—that is to say, when the Apostoleion at the foot of the Quirinal Hill was consecrated and the relics of the two apostles placed therein. This James, according to the ancient Sacramentaries and the Oriental use, is James the Great, the brother of John, who was put to death by Herod shortly before Easter. Then follow the feasts of the martyrs of Ficulea,1 Alexander, Evendus, and Thcodulus, of Gordian, Paneras and Pudenziana. The month of June begins with the dedicatio S Nicomedis (619-25) of which all trace has now disappeared; next come ‘ In Latium to Ν.Έ. of Rome.—Tr. Lists of Feasts in the Liturgical Calendar 7 SS Peter and Marcellinus, Primus and Felicianus (642-49), Basilidcs, Marcus and Marcellianus, Gervase and Protase, the Baptist, the martyrs John and Paul, the Apostles Peter and Paul, the three latter feasts being preceded by a vigil. The Capitulary notes for July the feasts of the martyrs Processus and Martinianus—the Octave of the holy apostles is less ancient, the polyliturgical feast of the seven sons of Felicitas, St Apollinaris, St Felix—erroneously identified with Felix II (355-65)—the martyrs Simplicius, Faustinus and Viatrix, St Praxedes and SS Abdon and Sennen. On the first of August we find no record of the Dedicatio of St Peter in Vincoli, which was then a strictly local festival. The Wiirzburg Lectionary omits also the feast of Pope Stephen, mentioned, however, in the Capitulary, but enters instead that of Sixtus II (260-66) with his two deacons; next come the vigil and festival of St Lawrence, the natale sancti Angeli, with the dedication of his basilica in the Via Salaria, St Andrew, Advent, and the Vigil of the Natale Domini. The Capitulary adds in the month of August, SS Cyriacus, Euplius (642-49), Eusebius, the natale S Mariae, the martyrs Agapitus, Timothy, Hermas, Sabina, Felix and Adauctus, and the Beheading of St John the Baptist. Adrian, Protus and Hyacinth, Cornelius and Cyprian— with two separate Masses—Nicomedes, Lucy, and Euphemia, Cosmas and Damian occur in September ; Callixtus in October; Ccsarius, the Four Holy Crowned Martyrs, Theo­ dorus, Mennas, Martin, Cecilia, Clement, and Felicitas—with two separate Masses—Chrysogonus, Saturninus, and the Vigil of St Andrew form the cycle of the month of November. There are still wanting in the traditions of the Latin Liturgy of the seventh century, at least as universally ob­ served solemnities, the four great feasts of the Blessed Virgin in the months of February, March, August, and September, as also the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. These were intro­ duced into Rome, or at least given more importance, through the influence of a Greek Pope, Sergius I (687-701). Even in this archaic simplicity how beautiful and varied is this cycle of festivals of the saints, composed in a truly Catholic and Roman spirit, which unfolds year by year before the eyes of the faithful the most touching pages in the history of Christianity in the very capital of the Roman world. How much deeper a meaning must not the Lessons from the Holy Scriptures, chosen with such clear insight and so well adapted to each feast, have acquired when they were read in the actual places so full of inspiration where the holy martyrs lived and died for Christ, realizing in so sublime a manner the ideals contained in those inspired words. In the later Middle Ages when the liturgical spirit was I I. 8 The Sacramentary beginning· to decline, the more characteristic Offices for the feasts of the early martyrs were adapted to the new festivals, so that they became the actual Commune Sanctorum of the Missal and the Breviary. This Commune Sanctorum has ended by impoverishing the Liturgy through causing to fall into disuse, especially in the Missal, so many valuable elements of the grandest ages of the Church. It was then that an attempt was made to unite in a single group several feasts of saints formerly celebrated with entirely distinct Masses and local rites, such as those of SS Fabian and Sebastian, Vincent and Anastasius, Basilides, Quirinus, Nabor and Nazarius, etc. Having but very little artistic taste, the oldest liturgical elements had to adapt themselves during the later Middle Ages to the new feasts which ever continued to increase, thus giving rise to the “ Common,” to which, as it were on a bed of Procrustes, the greater part of the more recent solemnities were of necessity adapted for better or worse, which ended consequently in their having no longer any special signification of their own. The Breviary did not suffer so much from the same cause. The Roman cursus, by its very structure, by the unity of its design, which provides that the entire Psalter shall be re­ peated in the course of a week, and that the Holy Bible shall be read every year from beginning to end, was protected from the hagiographical invasions which had already altered the Missal. In the sixth century St Benedict, speaking of the Natalitia Sanctorum and of the Solemnitates of the Lord, makes us realize how rare these were ; for whilst he rigorously prescribes the weekly recital of the Psalter, he orders that on the greater festivals, evidently by way of exception, the Psalms, Lessons, Antiphons, and Responsories shall have reference to the feast without regard to the order of the Psalter. It is very difficult to make out the list of these festivals in the primitive Benedictine cursus. Besides the feasts which in the Wurzburg lists are preceded by a vigil, as those of St John, St Peter, St Paul, St Lawrence, St Andrew, and SS John and Paul, we have perhaps to add those of St Agnes, and of the seven sons of St Felicitas. It was only in the eighth century, about the time of Adrian I (772-95), that the various local feasts, which until then had been celebrated with special Lessons and Antiphons only in their respective urban or sepulchral tituli, were incorporated in the Calendar of the Vatican Basilica, whence they spread also outside Rome and throughout the Latin Church. The Benedictine cursus was restored a few years ago, through the action of the Apostolic See, to the simplicity and Lists of Feasts in the Liturgical Calendar 9 solemn purity of its primitive form ; so that, in the most famous monasteries occupied by the sons of the Patriarch of Monte Cassino, the liturgical life is, at this day, not very different in form and in spirit from that which was led by the monks in the Middle Ages : Ora et labora. The extreme caution shown by our forefathers and also in our day by the Religious Orders whose liturgical traditions are of the highest value, such as the Benedictines, the Carthusians, and the Cistercians of La Trappe,1 in introducing the feasts of saints into the annual liturgical cursus, is not exclusively character­ istic of the Roman Liturgy, for it is to be found more or less in all the other more ancient Latin Liturgies. At Naples, for instance, a marble calendar of the ninth century, and two valuable Capitularies of passages from the Gospels of the seventh century, record only the feasts of St Stephen, St John, the Holy Innocents, de stella Domini, the Finding of the Holy Cross, St Vitus, SS John and Paul, the Baptist, the Apostles Peter and Paul, St Lawrence, St Januarius, St Michael, the Beheading of St John, the Assumption of St John the Evangelist, and St Andrew, almost all preceded by a fast and a vigil. An Evangelarium of the sixth century in the Ambrosian library at Milan has in the margin a kind of Capitulary written between the sixth and the eighth centuries, relative to the liturgical Lessons in use in some church of the Am­ brosian rite, other than those of Milan, Verona, or of some other more important city, since in that case there would certainly have been seen traces of some local feast. We find there instead only feasts of a general character ; Christmas, St Stephen, St John, the Holy Innocents, St James, the Purification (February 15?), St George, St Paneras, St Nazarius, the Beheading of the Baptist, St Victor, and St Eleutherius. The list of the feasts observed at Aquileia in the eighth century is known to us in part from an imperfect Capitulary in the Rehdiger library at Breslau ; it comprises Christmas with its cycle of feasts, including that of St James, as in the Ambrosian rite; the octava Domini, the Thcofrhania, the Finding of the Holy Cross, St John the Baptist, the Purifica­ tion, and St Lawrence. Wc might continue to enlarge on this subject, but it would be to little purpose, for the hagiographical element in the Office, being of its own nature eminently local, varied at different times and in different places. But that which must be noticed above all is that these commemorations of saints 1 In the district of Le Perche (Normandy). Abbey originally founded in 1122.—Tr. io The Sacramentary had an especially festival character from the second century onwards. It was, indeed, due to the careful introducing of these festivals of saints into the divine Office that it became in those early days ever richer and more solemn, since the Holy Scriptures themselves which form the chief, not to say the only substance of the Breviary, find their most pleasing and most practical application in the feasts of the saints. CHAPTER II THE VOCATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD AND THE PRAYER OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE HE two Sacraments of Holy Order and of Matrimony are sacraments which were not in­ stituted merely for the sanctification of the in­ dividual who receives them, as is the case with the other five, but which have, on the contrary, an eminently social aim. As Matrimony was ordained for the preservation of the human race, and more especially the material element of the Church—that is, man ; so the Sacrament of Holy Order is in relation to the formal element of this same supernatural society, which is the Church—that is to say, to the spirit and to the grace, of which the priesthood is the steward. It is evident that, without the priesthood, the Church could not exist : indeed in the present dispensation established by God, Christ’s mission of redemption would, without the sacred hierarchy, have ended in a very great measure with the closing of his life on earth. It is indeed by means of the priesthood that Jesus Christ continues to live and act throughout the centuries. Through Peter he still feeds all the Hock which the Father has given him without losing one of his sheep. Through Paul, he continues to make known to the world the holy name of the Eternal Father, fulfilling in his own mystical body what is still wanting to the fulness of his expiation as Redeemer, that expiation which is to constitute the immense treasure of merits that the Church has at her disposal. Thus, by his priests Jesus to-day pertransit benefaciendo et sanando omnes. These are pages taken from a Gospel written more than nineteen centuries ago, but they are, at the same time, pages which are being lived over again in our own days, in which we ourselves are fortunate enough to bear a part. After so many centuries of life and story, when any other institution would have passed away, or at least would have become decrepit and be in its second childhood, the Church alone flourishes—vigorous in her eternal youth. What is the Church doing at this present day? It would be easier to say, What is she not doing? She does no wrong, III Il I me The Sacramentary 12 but quaecumque sunt vera, sancta, pulchra, pudica, all science, art, true progress, education of the masses, instruc­ tion of the children, relief of the sick, all these good works look upon the Church as their protectress and mother. There is no human need to which she has not held or does not hold out a helping hand; no tear which, as far as is possible in this vale of tears, she does not seek to wipe away ; she her­ self is the true likeness of him of whom it is written : miseratio autem Dei super omnem carnem. Such, then, is the sublime vocation and mission of the Catholic priesthood : to continue on earth the work of Jesus Christ, a work which is social and therefore Catholic in the highest signification of the word. We must realize that it is a matter of such very great importance that the sacerdotal succession should flourish ; in other words, that vocations to the priesthood should be so numerous in proportion to the endless obligations and re­ quirements of the Church, as to be in our regard second only to the sacraments themselves. This being granted, it is fitting that we should observe how wonderfully the litur­ gical tradition reflects this especially social character of the Catholic priesthood and this supreme desire of the Church. This, above all, was most apparent in olden times when the faithful, who through their constant and active participation in the holy Liturgy lived in close union with the life of the Church, took also a very important part in the ordination of her sacred ministers. * * * * * Let us begin by laying down first of all those theological principles which are to guide us in this study. Jesus Christ has said : Orate Dominum messis ut mittat operarios in messem suam. He himself has set us an example in this, be­ cause before choosing his twelve apostles, the Gospel tells us, he spent a whole night in prayer to his Father, on the summit of a mountain under the starry skies of Palestine. To prayer Jesus had joined another practice, that of fasting. Not only the forty days’ fast which had preceded his apostolic ministry, but also that other daily fast which was regular like his daily bread, so much so that when his apostles questioned him on one occasion, desiring to know why their word of command had not sufficed to drive out an obdurate evil spirit, whilst his direct intervention had been necessary, he replied : Hoc genus in nullo potest ejici, nisi in oratione et jejunio. This preliminary liturgical prayer, which became the actual form of the Sacrament of Holy Orders—for in early times, as is very often the case to this day in the East, the sacra­ mental formulas are couched in terms of supplication—appears for the first time in Holy Scripture in connection with the The Vocation to the Priesthood 13 ordination of the first seven deacons. Wc find in the begin­ ning of the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles the first page of the history of Holy Orders in the Catholic Church, because therein arc expressed the essential and necessary elements of which the sacred rite is still composed. Consequent on the proposal made by the Twelve, the multitude of the disciples proceeded to elect the seven candidates. The sacred text does not differentiate between the part taken by the eleven apostles and by the rest of the community in this election, but merely says in a general way : Ele­ gerunt, and then : hos statuerunt ante conspectum Apos­ tolorum. W e shall, however, see further on the distinctive Office assigned to the bishop who calls—Vocatio—and to the people who “ acclaim ” at the ordination of the sacred ministers. After the nomination of the candidates by means of a general suffrage, there follows in the Acts of the Apostles the sacramental rite, consisting of two parts ; the matter and the form. The apostles—the ministers of the Sacrament— orantes imposuerunt eis manus. Paul himself, speaking on a similar occasion, adds the special grace received by the deacons through this laying-on of hands : habentes mysterium fidei in conscientia pura. We have mentioned Paul. A passage in the Acts of the Apostles (xiii, 2) concerning his formal call to the Apostolate is still a subject of discussion among exegetes, as to whether it refers or not to that which we should now call his episcopal consecration. All the circumstances induce us to believe it to be such, for the scene is at Antioch, and it is a day of general observance, indeed, a fast-day. The Greek text is much clearer : Λζίτονργοίντων St άυτων τω κνρίω καί νηστίνόντων. In those first days of the Church the Paraclete was wont to water the tender seedling of the Faith abundantly with his gifts. Thus there arises one in the name of the Holy Ghost and commands that Saul and Barnabas be set aside for a special mission to which he destines them. The leaders of the Church of Antioch, obedient to the word of the Para­ clete, hasten to carry out his injunctions : totc iiprrtvo-ai -res και ffpoatvfcaptvoi και ντιθίντα Tas ytîpus αΰτοΓς àirtXwrav. Ί his imposition of hands therefore was accompanied by fast­ ing and united prayer on the part of the whole hierarchical body. The pastoral Epistles of St Paul do not add very much to these liturgical particulars. They suggest that at that time Holy Orders were conferred coram multis testibus. Further the ordination of Timothy, like that of Paul and Barnabas, 14 The Sacramentary was preceded by one or more prophecies, or inspirations of the Holy Ghost. The candidate even before bowing his head beneath the imposition of the hands of the Apostle and of the presbiterium of Ephesus, confessus est bonam confes­ sionem coram multis testibus. More than this we cannot assert with any certainty. | i ι ***** In the Canones Hippolyti, whose early Roman origin is now more than ever uncertain, but whose great antiquity is not disputed, the consecration of a bishop is thus described : Episcopus eligatur ex omni populo. . . . In eadem autem hebdomada in qua ordinatur—this points to a fixed time of the year at which ordinations regularly took place—dicat populus: Nos eligimus eum. Deinde, silentio facto in toto grege, post exomologesim, omnes pro eo orant dicentes: O Deus, corrobora hunc quem nobis praeparasti. The rite of ordination follows, and this being ended, convertunt se omnes ad eum, osculantes eum in pace, quia Hie hoc meretur. The same rite is carried out at the ordination of a priest. We should note the part then taken by the people, both in choosing the candidate and in invoking for him, in union with the bishop, the graces necessary for the faithful accomplishment of his new mission : O Deus, corrobora hunc. The Roman Liturgy reflects with great accuracy the peculiar prerogatives of this Mother Church, which through Peter and his successors is the divine foundation of all the other different churches : Vera incessu patuit Dea, as the poet says.1 The Liturgy of Rome with its magnificent array of rites, fasts, and public scrutinies which precede the ordinations, shows us also how much importance it has always attached to the apostolic traditions described above—that is, to the prayers and the solemn fasting of the whole people during the week in which the ordinations were to take place. The Liber Pontificalis attributes to Pope Callixtus the in­ stitution of the Ember days’ fast three times a year, tribus per annum temporibus. The existing week in March of the four Ember seasons forms part of and is included in the cycle of the Lenten fast and therefore originally was not taken into consideration. It is a little difficult to understand that which Callixtus really established, for we know that the Roman Church from apostolic times had added to the weekly fasts of Feria IV and VI also that of the Saturday in preparation for the Sunday festival, and this not without a certain spirit of opposition to the Jews and their sympathizers. However this may be, the three fasts of St Callixtus were so timed as to coincide 1 Vergil, Æn., I, 405.—Tb. | i ! i I , ' ι I j The Vocation to the Priesthood with the Latin festivals of the harvest, the vintage, and the drawing· off of the new wine; and to this day, the Roman Missal still preserves in the Masses for the Ember days, notwithstanding that they are days of fasting, a certain festive spirit in keeping with those events of country life. To the solemnity of these fast-days, which were obligatory on all the faithful and were publicly observed, there was joined in the fourth century the ceremony of the ordinations. At first these were characteristic of the December fasts only —hie fecit ordinationes duas mense Decembri is the stereo­ typed phrase which has passed from the Liber Pontificalis even into the biographical extracts of the Popes of the third century in the Breviarium Romanum ; but later on they took place indifferently at all the four Ember seasons of the year. We possess an extensive collection of sermons in which St Leo the Great announced to the people the recurrence of these solemn fasts, and in which he dwelt on the necessary moral and spiritual dispositions to be aimed at. At the end of his discourse he would say : Quarta igitur et sexta feria jejunemus; sabbato vero apud beatum Petruni pariter vigilemus. We must dwell briefly on these directions given out by St Leo. At Rome, and similarly in all the other episcopal sees in Italy, the tomb of the founder of the see was considered as the first living cell, from which had developed all the rest of the ecclesiastical organism. The consecrated bones, en­ closed in the golden shrine of Constantine, were not indeed dead bones, since they continued to blossom like a lily whose stem, leaves, and flowers were no other than the bishops, the clergy, and the faithful of the Church itself. Thus we understood why, at Rome, the sepulchres of the early Popes were clustered around St Peter ; at Ravenna, around St Apol­ linaris; at Nola, around St Felix; and at Naples, in the catacombs of St Januarius. On the most solemn days of the liturgical cycle, the stational Mass was, as a matter of fact, always at St Peter, notwithstanding the circumstance that originally that sepul­ chral basilica was outside the city walls; for the faithful were always desirous of keeping the feast beside their father, in his own domus, which was on this account the true house of the people, that which afterwards became known as the principal domus, the duomo, the pieve, plcbs, and finally the cathedral. In the case of the ordinations at Rome another reason must be taken into consideration. Every act conferring sacred authority was regarded in olden times as an extension of the 16 The Sacramentary plenary and absolute power conferred by Christ on Peter, as a participation in his authority. Therefore, not only must the rite take place at his tomb, but both priests and levites must receive at that sacred shrine their respective stolae, which were the mark of their dignity, just as archbishops still receive their pallium. For this reason all Masses at which formerly ordinations were held are still assigned in the Roman Missal ad S Petrum. St Leo, in the announcement referred to above, adds a new liturgical element to this assembly at St Peter, which we must explain : sabbato vero, apud beatum Petrum pariter vigilemus. Here, at last, is the night vigil spent in prayer and in the celebration of the holy Sacrifice; a rite which, in the second century, was commonly observed every Saturday night, but which was more strictly obligatory on the entire Christian community on the night in which was celebrated the Pasch. On the occasion of the ordinations on the Sundays follow­ ing the three Ember seasons, something of the same kind prevailed. This was an event which affected not only the bishop, but the people as well, for the favour which they desired to obtain from God was the choice of good and zealous ministers of the Church. Now, as Jesus Christ had expressly commanded : rogate Dominum messis, ut mittat operarios in messeni suam, so, on Sunday evening, the faithful, instead of ending their fast as they had done on the preceding Wednesday and Friday, continued it throughout the following night, and therefore betook themselves in large numbers to the Vatican Hill in order to inaugurate the great nocturnal solemnity of the sacred ordinations, at the tomb of the Chief of the Apostles. That enthusiastic faith and assiduous prayer, those thousands of Christians who, together with the Pope and his clergy, endure the fatigues of the fast, cause us to liken that nocturnal synaxis to the great manœuvres of the spiritual army—praesidia militiae christianae—which the Church was then carrying out in the greatest of her temples. Let us go back to the words of St Leo : Quarta igitur et sexta feria jejunemus. At Rome, because of a very ancient liturgical tradition, quite unlike that of the East or of Milan, one could not conceive of a fast in days of antiquity uncon­ nected with a stational Mass. Sanctificate jejunium. On Wednesdays during the four Ember weeks the station was therefore celebrated regularly at the Esquiline Basilica of St Mary Major, as though to entrust the happy result of the sacred ordinations to the intercession of her who was so beautifully invoked by Proclus of Constantinople in the words: 0 Templum, in quo Deus sacerdos jactus est. i , * ; ( ■ ; ; , ' 1 I I I The Vocation to the Priesthood At the beginning of the Mass, the newly elected candidates took their places in a specially reserved part of the church, in full view of all, thus presenting themselves to the people. A notary then ascended the ambo and read out their names, inviting any amongst the faithful who had an objection to make concerning them to come forward : Domino Deo Salva­ tore nostro Jesu Christo, elegimus in ordine diaconi (pres­ byteri), N.N. de titulo N. Si quis habet aliquid contra hos viros, pro Deo et propter Deum cum fiducia exeat et dicat. Verumtam.cn memor sit communionis sacrae—for he had afterwards to confirm his own testimony with regard to the candidates by receiving Holy Communion. If nothing was advanced against those who had been elected, they were next called upon to declare on oath that they had, during the whole of their past life, kept themselves free from those graver sins which, in accordance with the ecclesiastical discipline of those days, for ever excluded those who had committed them from the service of the altar, even though they had obtained sacramental absolution therefrom. The rite of the Wednesday in the three Ember seasons was repeated on the subsequent Friday in the basilica or apostoleion, which had been begun by Pope Julius and com­ pleted by Narses at Rome in imitation of that of Constantine at Byzantium. The relics of the Apostles Philip and James alone were preserved there ; but as the church had been dedicated to all the twelve members of the apostolic college it was chosen as a suitable place for the holding of this most important station previous to the sacred ordinations. For it was deemed fitting that the candidates for Holy Orders should first of all be presented to those whom they were to represent in a certain degree on earth and whose work they were to carry on. After the Mass, which ended at sunset—the Masses on fast-days always took place in the evening as is still the custom in the East on particular occasions—all were at liberty to recline after the Roman fashion on the couches in the triclinium and partake of the customary supper. After that evening meal, however, the fast preceding the sacred ordinations became so severe and so general that, as it in­ cluded the entire Christian community, it did not even admit of the celebration of the Saturday morning Mass, but was continued until the dawn of Sunday—that is to say, until the rite of the ordinations had been duly accomplished. The holy vigil of the night between the Saturday and the Sunday commemorated the fact that Jesus had spent the night before the choosing of the Twelve to the Apostleship in prayer on a mountain. The early Christians were very fond of this liturgical night prayer, instituted by Christ jv 2 18 The Sacramentary himself, which had been handed down by the apostles to the Churches as a sacred deposit entrusted to them by the Saviour. St Luke tells us how Paul and Silas, confined in fetters in the prison at Philippi, arose when the hour of midnight had struck and sang the praises of God in such a manner as to be heard by the other prisoners. The following verse of a very beautiful hymn composed by St Ambrose, which is still recited in the Office of Matins on Wednesdays, alludes to this incident mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles : Mentes manusque tollimus, Propheta sicut noctibus Nobis gerendum praecipit, Paulusque gestis censuit. This liturgical night prayer was in common use among the faithful from the second century onwards, especially before the celebration of the solemn Sunday sacrifice, and on the occasion of the natalis of a martyr. This vigil of prayer was called by the Greek name of pannuchis, and by the Latin title of vigilia, from which, but with a notable difference in the meaning, is derived in its modern signification our vigil, which the Greeks more appropriately call preorli—that is, the day preceding the festival. The vigil which rendered more solemn the rite of the Ordinations consisted on its liturgical side of a series of scriptural Lessons, sometimes twelve, sometimes twenty-four, read in Greek as well as in Latin. After the seventh century they were reduced to seven in number, and were interspersed with the responsorial chanting of psalms, and with collects which the bishop recited in the name of all the people. When the greater part of the night had passed in this manner, and the dawn was already beginning to lighten the sky, the Pope left the assembly, which had crowded into the nave and aisles of St Peter singing psalms, and with­ drew to the adjacent circular oratory of St Andrew, where he laid his hands upon, and consecrated, the new priests and deacons. This withdrawal of the Pontiff to a particular oratory for the sacred Ordinations may seem, at first sight, curious and unusual. It was not, however, an exceptional circumstance in the ancient Liturgy, since both Baptism and Confirmation were usually administered in two oratories quite distinct from the church—that is to say, in the Baptistery and in the Consi gnatorium, from which the people were likewise excluded. These remained in the meantime in the church and sang the Litanies as it was prescribed that they should do during the ceremony of Ordination. We must not indeed suppose that the plebs Romana in former times was any less inclined to be noisy or disorderly The Vocation to the Priesthood 19 in church than they are nowadays. To avoid, therefore, any disturbance during the administration of the sacraments which we are now considering, our fathers had adopted a radical and effective method of prevention by keeping the plebs Dei (which is at all times the plebs) at a certain distance from the sanctuary where these moving sacramental rites were being performed. In the special case of the bestowal of Holy Orders, there existed at Rome, in the Middle Ages, a second reason for the withdrawal of the celebrant from the great Basilica of the Prince of the Apostles. It was thought fitting that only the consecration of the Pope should take place at the altar of St Peter, since he alone inherited the full authority of the Apostle, all the other ordinations were to be carried out in the vicinity of his tomb, but not at the apostolic sepulchre itself, in order to show by this distinction that the sacred ministers receive only by delegation—that is, through the Pope—a portion of that fulness of power which was conferred on Peter the first Apostle of Christ. The history of the ceremonies of the Ordinations in early Christian times is extremely instructive, because it shows us what great importance was then attached to each of the above-mentioned details—that is to say, to the fast, the vigil, the suffrage of the people, etc. Pope Gelasius I (492-6) urged upon the Bishops of Lucania1 that ordinations should be held only at legitimate times— that is, on the Sundays following the week of the three Ember seasons, on the second and on the fifth Sundays in Lent. So important did it then appear that the imposition of hands, following the example of the apostles, should be conferred only on a holy day, such as the Sunday, amidst the fasting and prayer of the whole Church. St Leo, in a letter to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica, regrets that there the priests and deacons were not ordained after the Sunday pannuchis, as was done in the case of bishops, observing that circa eos—that is, the priests and deacons— par consecratio fieri debet. Many of our readers will doubtless be surprised at the great deference shown, in those days, to the people at the ordinations of the clergy. During those ages of genuine faith and Christian simplicity, the people were treated in the same manner as the apostles had treated them. Clergy and people formed then one family, closely bound together, cor unurn et anima una. The people knew but one form of prayer, the divine Office, which they sang together with the clergy in the church. The clergy, moreover, were maintained by the voluntary 1 Ancient name of part of Southern Italy.—Tr. 20 The Sacramentary ofl’erings which the faithful presented at the altar. Thus, as St Peter, before casting lots on Matthias and before electing the seven deacons, had consulted the entire assembly of the faithful, so, too, in the golden age of the Liturgy the people were always referred to on the occasion of the baptism of the catechumens as well as in regard to the ordination of levites and the appointment of priests and of bishops. The clergy indeed elected the candidates, but the people were called upon to signify their approval. formula of Gallican origin, but which has found a place in the present Pontificale Romanum, gives the following reason for this: “ Because,” it says, “ the case of the pilot and of those who are voyaging in the boat with him is one and the same ; all are in safety or all are in danger, conse­ quently, as this is a matter in which we all are interested, each one of us must have a voice in it. Therefore the holy Fathers have decreed that the people also shall be consulted regarding the character and quality of those who are about to be raised to the priesthood, whether because four eyes are better than two, or because the obedience which they must render to the newly ordained priest will be easier for them if they have previously given their consent to his ordination.” St Cyprian assures us that this custom was in force at Carthage in his day : In ordinandis clericis, fratres carissimi, solemus vos, ante, consulere, et inores ac merita singulorum communi consilio ponderare. It sometimes happened, however, in those first centuries when faith was ardent, and the sacred dignity of a minister was submitted to rather than eagerly sought after, that the people occasionally overstepped their rights, and seizing forcibly upon some candidate, carried him oft to be ordained by the bishop against his will. At Milan, for instance, the entire population, at the cry of a child, acclaimed Ambrose as their bishop, nor could the unanimous voice of the Milanese be ignored. In Africa, Pinianus was nearly ordained in spite of himself, because the people, knowing him to be rich and virtuous, wished for his ordination. St Paulinus of Nola was less fortunate, for he was seized by the faithful on Christmas Day and dragged, nolens volens, to the feet of Bishop Lampius of Barcelona, who ordained him priest. He himself relates that the violence of the mob was such that he was very nearly strangled. This recalls the story of another holy bishop of those times, who had retired to a cave to lead there a solitary life, when there suddenly came into the heads of the clergy and people of a neighbouring city in Gaul the idea of having The Vocation to the Priesthood 2 him as their bishop. No sooner said than done. They all went together to the cave οί the holy man, and because he in his humility would not hear of leaving his solitude, they bound him fast hand and foot, and put him in a cart like a calf which is being taken to the slaughter-house. Then, having brought him to their cathedral, they placed him, still bound, on the episcopal throne, amidst the enthusiastic acclamations of the people. Pope Siricius (385-98) at Rome did all in his power to prevent this abuse from getting such a footing that it might lead to the bringing for ordination undeserving and unfitting persons. We have now given a slight sketch of the ancient ecclesi­ astical regulations regarding the bestowal of Holy Orders; we have spoken often of the people and of the part which they took in the scrutinies and the elections, in the fasts and the vigils which accompanied the sacred rite, but this re­ construction is somewhat one-sided and this is the reason of its being so. In our days the Christian world, as a whole, has almost ceased to take any part in the life and in the higher interests of the Church. It is no longer concerned with the Ember days, the fasts, the scrutinies, and the ordinations, as though these things concerned only the clergy ; and thus the house­ hold of Faith is deprived of that abundance of graces which God grants to the intercession of the whole body of the faith­ ful. At this moment the venerable Vicar of Christ and many pastors of souls, especially in Italy, are full of anxiety, for in their respective dioceses many parishes are without a pastor through lack of clergy, and the Christian flock has to exist without Mass, without sacraments, abandoned to its own devices like sheep without a shepherd. This may well be a just judgement of God upon our genera­ tion, which, by the free-thinking tendencies of its public institutions, has now for a long time past embraced the anti-religious system described by the Psalmist : Quiescere faciamus omnes dies festos Dei a terra. In proof of this it will suffice to take a journey through Italy. On every side, both in the towns and in the country, we see churches and chapels, some fallen into ruins, others desecrated by being turned into law-courts, concert rooms, and even into blacksmiths’ shops, as may be witnessed at Rome, at Perugia, and elsewhere. The object aimed at is the humiliation of the priesthood, by reducing it through poverty to such a condition that it can no longer widely exercise as before its beneficent influence on the poor, the student, and the artist. Those ecclesiastical revenues which were intended bv their founders as a satisfaction for their sins and as a patrimony 22 The Sacramentary for the poor, had not only provided for the support of the priest, but had, especially in Italy, fostered for twelve hundred years Italian art in all its branches. Nowadays the clergy are reduced to poverty, indeed, to indigence, they are both scorned and despised, and, until lately, the students for the priesthood were obliged to leave their seminaries and to serve in the army—what wonder, then, that so few young men to-day have the courage to choose the ecclesiastical life in preference to some other profession no matter how modest. These are some of the causes of the present crisis in the matter of religious vocations. Shall we, then, let the souls perish for whom Christ died? God forbid. The remedy is there, and experience has shown it to be infallible. Let us only recall the words from the Ponti­ ficale Romanum which we have quoted above. To reach the port in safety is to the interest not only of the pilot, but also of all those who are with him on the ship. The priesthood therefore fills a supreme social need, and the whole body of the faithful must bring to the priest its tribute of honour, of deference, and also of pecuniary help as was clearly prescribed in the old Law. Let the more zealous add to these means the prudent encouragement of vocations among the young, which shall lead them as soon as may be to the seminary or to the cloister. Finally, to all these means let us add that one which is the most efficacious of all—viz., public and private prayer to him who has said : Rogate Dominum messis, ut mittat operarios in messem suam. This is the infallible remedy, for “ the word of God can never fail.” SANCTAE ROMANAE ECCLESIAE FERIALE N.B.—The three columns of the Feriale show as follows : The i st, marked A, the primitive Feriale contained in the Philocalian Calendar and in the Sacramentaries. The 2nd, marked B, gives the medieval feasts noted in the liturgical books of the eleventh century. The 3rd, marked C, indicates the modern feasts inserted in the Roman Missal since the thirteenth century. 1 i The Sacramentary SANCTAE ROMANAE 24 Mense A 1 Kalendis 2 vi Nonas 3 v 4 IV 5 in 6 Pridie 7 Nonis 8 νιπ Idus 4 Lucii pp. in Call isti 7 Perpetuae et Felicitatis Mm. 9 vu 10 VI 11 V 12 IV 13 III 14 Pridie 15 Idibus 16 xvii Kalendas Apriles 17 XVI 18 xv 19 XIV 20 XIII 21 XII 22 XI 23 x 24 IX 25 VIII 26 VII 27 VI 28 V 29 IV 3° III 14 Leonis ep. in Agro Verano. x8 Pigmenii mart. 24 Quirini M. in Praetextati. 25 Annunc. B. Μ. V. 26 Castuli m. via Labicana. 31 Pridie Kalendas Apriles Mense 1 K alendis 2 iv Nonas 3 ni 4 Pridie 5 Nonis 6 vin Idus 7 VII 8 vi 9 v 10 IV 11 HI 12 Pridie 13 Idibus 14 xviu Kalendas Maias 15 xvii 16 XVI 17 xv 18 xiv Tiburtii Valeriani et Maximi in Praetextati Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Feriale ECCLESIAE FERIALE Martio C B 4 Casimiri c. 7 Thomae Aquin. 8 Iohannis de Deo c. g Franciscae Rom. vid. 10 Quadraginta mm. i2 Gregorii pp. ad s. Petrum 17 Patritii ep. c. 18 Cyrilli ep. llieros. 19 Joseph Sponsi B. Μ. V. 2i Benedicti Abb. 24 Gabrielis Archang. 27 Iohannis Damasc. conf. 28 Iohannis a Capistrano c. Fer. VI post Dornin. Passionis, VII Dolorum B. Μ. V. Aprili 2 Francisci a Paula conf. 4 Isidori ep. 5 Vinccntii Ferrerii conf. 11 Leonis pap. ad s. Petrum. 13 Hermenegildi m. 14 lustini m. >7 Aniceti pap. m. The Sacramentary 20 Mense A 19 χιπ 201X11 21 XI 22 X 23 IX 24 VIII 25 VII 26 27 28 29 30 22 Gaii ep. in Callisti 25 Litaniae maiores ad Sanctum Petrum. VI V IV III Pridie Kalendas Maias Mense 1 Kalendis 2 vi Nonas 3 v 4 iv 5 HI 6 Pridie 7 Nonis 8 vin Idus 9 VII 10 vi 11 v 12 IV 13 ni 14 Pridie 15 Idibus 16 17 x8 19 χνπ Kalendas lunias XVI xv XIV 20 XIII 21 xii 22 XI 23 X 24 IX 25 VIII 26 VII 27 VI 28 V 29 IV 30 ΠΙ 31 Pridie Kalendas lunias 19 Caloceri et Partheni Mm. in Callisti Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Feriate 27 Aprili (continued) 21 Anselmi ep. c. 22 Soteris pap. m. 23 Georgii m. Fidelis a Sigmaringa m. Marci Evang. 26 Cleti et Marcellini pp. mm. Petri Canisii c. 28 Pauli a Cruce c. 29 Petri Mart. 30 Catharinae Senen. Virg. 28 Vitalis m. Maio Philippi et lacobi App. Athanasii Ep. Conf. 3 Exalt. S. Crucis—Alexandri, Eventii, Theoduli et luvenalis Transi. S. Stephani S. Iohannis ante Latinam Monicae Vid. portam 8 Appar. S. Angeli 10 Gordiani et Epiniacbi Mm. Nerei, Achillei et Pancratii Mm. Dédie. S. Mariae ad Martyres Bonifatii Mart. »9 Pudentianae Virg. Stanislai Ep. Mart. 9 Greg. Nazianz. Ep. Conf. 10 Antonini Ep. Conf. 12 Domitillae Virg. Iohannis Bapt. De la Salle Conf. Ubaldi Ep. Paschalis Conf. Venantii Mart. *9 Petri Coelestini Conf. Pontif. 20 Bernardini Conf Urbani Ep. Mart. 2 28 29 30 Petronillae Virg. Gregoni λ II Pont. Conf. Eleutherii Pp· Mart.—Philippi Conf. Iohannis Pp· Mart.—Bedae Conf. et Doct. Augustini Pontif. Conf. Mariae Magdal. de Pazzis Virg. Felicis Pp. Mart. ΗΊ The Sacramentary 28 Mense A 1 Kalendis 2 iv Nonas 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 111 . Pridie Nonis vin Idus vu vi v IV 11 III 12 Pridie 13 Idibus 14 xviii Kalendas lulias 15 XVII 16 XVI 17 xv 18 XIV 19 XIII 20 XII 21 XI 22 X 23 IX 24 VIII 25 VII 26 VI 27 V 28 IV 29 III 29 Petri in Catae, et Pauli via Ostensi, Tusco et Basso Coss. (ann. 258) 30 Pridie Kalendas lulias Mense 1 Kalendis I 2 vi Nonas 3 v 4 iv 5 ni 6 Pridie 7 Nonis 8 vni Idus 9 vu 10 v* . 11 v 12 iv I I 2 SS. Processi et Martiniani 6 Octava Apostolorum ! 10 Septem Fratrum (Rutinae et Secundae Mm.) 12 SS. Naboris et Felicis Mm. Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Feriale lunio 1 Dedic. S. Nicomedis Mart. 2 SS. Petri et Marcellini et Erasmi Mm. Francisci Caracciolo Conf. Bonifatii Ep. Mart. 6 Norberti Ep. Conf. 9 Primi et Feliciani Mm. 12 IO Barnabae Apost. Basilidis Mart.—Quirini Ep. Mart.—Naboris et Nazarii Mm.— Margaritae Reg. Vid. Iohannis a S. Facundo Conf. Antonii Conf. Basilii Magni Ep. Conf. »5 Viti, Modesti et Crescentiae Mm. 18 Marci et Marcelliani Mm., Via Ardeatina. l9 Gervasii et Protasii Mm. 23 Vig. S. Iohannis Bapt. Nativ. S. Iohannis Bapt. 26 SS. Iohannis et Pauli Mm. 28 Vig. SS. Petri et Pauli Apost.— S. Leonis secundo 29 SS. Petri et Pauli Apost. iS Ephuem Syri Conf. »9 20 21 22 lulianae de Falcon. Virg. Silverii Pap. Mart. Aloysii Gonz. Conf. Paulini Ep. Conf. 25 Gulielmi Abb. 27 SS. Protomart, S. R. E. 28 Irenaei Ep. Mart. 30 Comm. S. Pauli Apost. Iulio i Octav. S. Iohannis Bapt. Pretiosissimi Sanguinis 2 Visitationis B. M. Virg. S. Leonis II S. Antonii M. Zaccaria 7 SS. Cyrilli et Methodii 8 S. Elisabeth Vid. Pii I Pap. 12 S. Iohannis Gualberti 3° lamentar IJ ill •4 Pridie •Mense A 15 Idibus 16 xvii Kalendas Aug. 17 XVI 18 xv 19 XIV 20 XIII 21 XII 22 XI 23 X 24 IX 25 VIII 26 vu 27 VI 28 V 29 IV 30 III 3’ Pridie Kalendas Aug. 29 SS. Felicis, Simplicii, Faustini et Viatricis Mart. 30 SS. Abdon et Sennen Mart. 1 Kalendis 2 iv Nonas 3 ni 4 Pridie 5 Nonis 6 vin Idus Mense S* Stephani pap 7 VII 8 vi 9v 10 IV 11 III 12 Pridie 13 Idibus 14 xix Kai. Sept. piti Mm. reucissimi et Aga- 8 Cyriaci, Largi, Smaragdi et Soc. Mart. 9 Vigil. S. Laurentii »0 S. Laurentii M. »1 S. Tiburtii Mart. *3 SS. Hippolyti et Pontiani Mm. (Cassiani M.) ’4 S. Eusebii Conf.—Vigil Assumpt. B. Μ. V **· I · Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Feriale Iulio (continued) 14. SS. Cyri et Iohannis 18 SS. Symphorosae et VII Filior. Mm. 20 21 22 23 26 27 28 29 Margaritae Virg. Mart. Praxedis Virg. Mariae Magdal. Apollinaris Episc. Mart. Christinae Virg. (Vig. S. lacobi Apost.) S. lacobi Ap. (S. Christophori Mart.) S. Pastoris S. Pantaleonis Mart. SS. Nazarii et Celsi (Victoris I et Innocentii I) S. Marthae Virg. S. S. S. S. S. S. Anacleti Pap. M S. Bonaventurae Ep. Conf. Doct. S. Henrici Imperat. 16 B. M. Virg. de Monte Carmelo »7 S. Alcxii Conf. 18 S. Camilli de Lellis Conf. S. Vincentii a Paulo Conf. 20 S. Hieronymi Æm ili an i Conf. 23 S. Liborii Ep. 26 S. Annae Matris B. M. Virg· S. Ignatii Coni. Augusto i S. Petri ad Machabaeor Vincula. Invent. S. Stcphani 4 S. lustini Dedic S. Mariae S. Donati Ep. SS. 2 S. Alfonsi de Ligorio Ep· Conf. Doct. 4 S. Dominici Conf. 6 Transfig. D. N. I. C. S. Caietani Conf. 9 S. Romani M. S. Susannac Mart. S. Eupli Mart. 12. S. Clarae Virg. THE FEASTS OF THE SAINTS IN THE PASCHAL CYCLE FEASTS IN MARCH MARCH 4 St Lucius I, Pope and Martyr HE yearly festival of this illustrious Pontiff (died 254), who was praised by St Cyprian himself for his mildness and peaceful disposition, was noted in the Philocalian list of the Depositiones Epis­ coporum of the year 366. His original sepulchral epigraph may still be seen in the papal crypt of the cemetery of Callixtus at Rome : AOYKIC After the cemeteries were abandoned, towards the eighth century, all records of his name passed completely away from the Sacramentaries and the Roman Calendars, and it was only under Clement VIII (1592-1605) that it reappeared in the Roman Breviarv. * St Lucius did not actually die a violent death, so his name did not appear among the Nalalitia Martyrum, but only in the Depositiones Episcoporum. He was, indeed, exiled from Rome almost immediately after his consecration. Having returned later to his see, he died within a few weeks. St Cyprian, who praises Lucius greatly, mentions one or two letters of his on the manner of dealing with lapsed Christians.1 His sacred relics are venerated in the Basilica of St Cecilia across the Tiber. T The Mass is throughout that of the Common of a Martyr and Bishop, as for the feast of St Eusebius on December 16; for the liturgical custom of these later ages is to consider the hardships of exile and the distresses which in times of bitter persecution those early upholders of the Faith had to endure, as sufferings equivalent to martyrdom, even though the executioner did not end their life with the sword. The transference of the sepulchre of Pope Lucius close to that of St Cecilia should be noted. The Pontiff was originally * Ef. LXVIII, 5. 32 March 4 33 buried in the papal crypt in the via Appia, consequently very near the burial-place of the Christian Cecili, where the body of the illustrious virgin Cecilia had rested up to the time of Paschal I (817-24). When her remains were afterwards trans­ lated to the church within the city which had formerly been her own dwelling-house, the bodies of the Popes Urban I (227~33) and Lucius, because of their proximity, were also transferred to the same spot, where they rest beside her to this day, in expectation of the final resurrection. ***** The Martyrology of St Jerome also records on this day the names of a group of martyrs who were interred in the cemetery of St Callixtus : Natale Martyrum DCC, Romae in cimiterio Calesti via Appia, depositio iulii episcopi et aliorum XX VII. This refers to a group of many martyrs constantly men­ tioned in the ancient itineraries, whose number varies from twenty-two to eighty, and even goes up to eight hundred. Who were these? A graffito near the tomb of St Cornelius com­ memorates some martyrs mentioned in the Acta of that Pope : CEREALIS · ET · SALLVSTIA · CVM · XXI but it is a matter of difficulty to discover any further par­ ticulars which might elucidate the matter. MARCH 4 St Casimir, Confessor*1 The festival of this saint, who preserved a virginal purity in the midst of the frivolities of a royal court (died 1483), was instituted by Paul V. The Mass is of the Common of a Confessor not a Bishop, as for St Raymund on January 23, but the Collect is proper to the feast. The Collect is as follows : “ O God, who didst strengthen holy Casimir with the virtue of constancy amidst the delights of royalty and the blandishments of the world; grant, we beseech thee, that by his intercession thy faithful people may 1 The feasts marked with an asterisk (*) do not belong in any way to the original collection in the Roman Sacramentaries, which contained at first only local feasts. They are, however, given here as they now form part of the universal calendar of the Church, and are included in the Roman Missal. iv. 3 34 The Sacramentary despise the things of earth and ever aspire to those of heaven. ’ ’ The feasts of those saints who were kings or persons of importance in this world, have a value and a beauty special to themselves, because the more dillicult it becomes to prac­ tise Christian perfection in such a state of life, amidst, that is, the allurements put forth by riches and glory, so much the more glorious is the victory which Christ obtains through his faithful servants, who, though they were kings of men, were servants of Jesus. MARCH 6 SS Perpetua and Felicitas, Martyrs These celebrated heroines of the Faith, who form part of a group which includes three other martyrs, Revocatus, Satur­ ninus, and Saturus, do not belong to the Roman Church, for their martyrdom took place at Carthage (March 7, 202203). Nevertheless, the greatness of their fame and the renown of their Acta—put forth apparently by Tertullian—together with the constant communications which then existed between the capital of proconsular Africa and the city of Rome, were the reason that the natalis of Vibia Perpetua and Felicitas on March 7 was already entered in the Roman list of the Natalitia Martyruni, compiled about the year 336. This feast, together with that of St Cyprian, although not of a local character, are thus the first to be included by Rome in her Calendar of the fourth century. In consequence of this, the Roman diptychs of the Mass also contain the names of these three African saints. To-day’s feast appears, too, in the Gelasian Sacramentary of the Carlovingian period, although it was excluded from the Gregorian in the time of Adrian I. It is not difficult to conjecture the reason of this omission. Whilst the greater part of the Gelasian Sacramentary records a period of free liturgical development, when the feasts of the martyrs were still celebrated at the cemeteries in the presence of a great concourse of people, the Gregorian, on the other hand, re­ presents a later reformation both general and severe of the stational liturgy at Rome. Lent, which in the fourth century did not as yet form a liturgical cycle of any great importance, had gradually come to be a time of special solemnity. The Eucharistic Sacrifice was offered up every evening at sunset, instead of on the Wednesday and Sunday only, as in the days of St Leo ; so March 6 35 that towards the time of St Gregory I the fast and the daily stations were naturally obliged to exclude every other festival station, and more especially the ancient Natalitia Martyrum of the preceding centuries. In this way the feasts, not of Perpetua and Felicitas alone, but also those of St Peter’s Chair, St Lucius, St Gaius, and several other eminent Pontiffs were omitted. The memory of the great Carthaginian martyrs, however, survived in the devotion of the people, in spite of their ex­ clusion from the Liturgy ; indeed, it was so faithfully cherished that in the late Middle Ages their feast in the form of a simple commemoration was associated with that of St Thomas Aquinas, who also died on March 7. When, a few years ago, the sepulchral epigraph of Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions was discovered at Carthage amongst the ruins of the Basilica Majoruni, in which the great Augus­ tine had also preached, Pius X raised their Office to the rank of a double, at the same time anticipating their feast by a day because of that of St Thomas which occurred on the same day as their natalis. The following is the text of this important inscription, the only remains which modern Carthage has preserved relating to the group of martyrs celebrated to-day throughout the entire Latin Church. ►P IIIC · SVNT · MARTYRES ►JiSATVRVS · SATVRNINVS ►F REBOCATVS · SECVNDVLVS · PAS · NON · MART ►J4FELICIT · PERPETV A fragmentary painting in the cemetery of Callixtus, be­ longing, as some have conjectured, to the tomb of the martyrs Marcus and Marcellinus, shows how popular the /Icta of St Perpetua were at that time in Rome. In it we see pictured two martyrs ascending to Christ by means of a ladder, at the foot of which a serpent attempts to hinder their passage. It is evident that the artist was inspired and guided by the well-known vision of the Carthaginian martyr, told by her with such vivid faith in the autobiography of her martyrdom. That masterpiece of ancient Christian literature should be in the hands of all the faithful and carefully studied by everyone. The Mass is the Common of a Martyr, with special collects, which, however, are the same as those prescribed for to­ day’s feast in the Gelasian Sacramentary. Collect : " Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord our God, that we may reverence with unceasing devotion the triumphs of thy holy virgins and martyrs, Perpetua and Felicitas; and The Sacramentary 36 although we cannot pay them the honour that is their due, let us at least present to them our humble service.” Secret : “ Look, O Lord, we beseech thee, on the gifts which are laid upon thine altars in honour of the festival of thy holy virgins and martyrs, Perpetua and Felicitas, and even as by those mysteries thou didst raise them to glory, so by means of them grant us thy forgiveness.” Post-Communion : “ We are filled, O Lord, with mystical prayers and joys; grant, we beseech thee, that by the inter­ cessions of thy holy martyrs, Perpetua and Felicitas, those things which we perform in the flesh we may obtain in the spirit.” The cross dismays us often because we think only of its bitterness, and do not realize that when we suffer for Jesus Christ it is not so much we who suffer, as Jesus who suffers in us. Thus Felicitas, in the prison, groaning in the pangs of child-birth, answered with quiet dignity to the pagans who mockingly asked her how she would be able to bear the tor­ ments of martyrdom if she cried out in her present pain : “ Now it is I who suffer; but then another will suffer in me, because I shall then suffer through him.” We cannot resist transcribing here the splendid hymn which the Benedictine Hymnal of Solesmes, inspired by Dom Guéranger, appoints for to-day’s feast, at one time so cele­ brated throughout the Latin world : I. Christi sponsa piis laudibus efferat. Binas impavido pectore feminas; In sexu fragili corda virilia Hymnis pangat ovantibus. 1. Let the mystic Spouse of Christ praise of two noble women sing, Who, fearless of soul, a virile heart Within them bore, despite their weaker sex ; Let the Church with triumphal hymns acclaim them. 2. Ad lucem genitae sole sub Africo, Nunc ambae pugiles, actibus in­ clytis, In toto radiant orbe; micantibus Fulgent tempora laureis. 2. Born beneath the sunny skies of Africa, These two heroines by their meri­ torious deeds Far and wide throughout the world are known, Girded are their brows with wreaths resplendent. 3· Exornat generis Perpetuam decus ; Sponso connubiis juncta recenti­ bus, Clarescit : sed honos hanc trahit altior, Christi foedera praetulit. 3· Perpetua, distinguished by her noble lineage, Still more through her lately wedded husband, Seeks an honour far more sublime, For she aspires to espousals with Christ himself. March 6 37 Se Regis famulam libera profitons Dum servile jugum Felicitas subit : Ad luctum properans, gressibus aemulis, Palmas ad similes volat. Felicitas proclaims herself as free, and handmaid of the King of kings, While yet under servitude’s harsh yoke. With Perpetua she vies, speeding eagerly to the combat, The self-same glorious prize to win. Frustra Perpetuam fletibus et minis Impugnat genitor; quae simul angitur, « Errantem miserans, oscula filio Lactenti dedit ultima. In vain does Perpetuas irate sire With threats and lamentations assail her and upbraid, She but pities him his error, and hastens to bestow On the infant at her breast a tender, last farewell. 6. Terris Heva parens quae mala contulit Horum sentit onus Felicitas grave ; Nunc et passa sibi parturiens gemit, Mox passura Deo libens. 6. The pains of childbirth, by our common mother Eve bequeathed, Are sorely troubling Felicitas, these sufferings She, a mother, is bearing on her own account, And cheerfully awaits the moment when she must suffer for her Lord. Luxit clara dies vincere qua datur Athletis Domini, pergite Martyres : Omnis Perpetuam curia caelitum Et te, Felicitas, cupit. Now dawns the glorious day which shall bring Victory to the athletes of the Lord ; step forth ye martyrs, All the court of heaven awaits thee, O Perpetua, And with thee, Felicitas, thy faith­ ful comrade ever true. 8. Quassat Perpetuae membra tener­ rima Elidit sociam bellua. Te soror Stans, O Felicitas, ad nova proelia Erectam reparat manu. 8. A savage beast tosses Perpetua’s graceful form aloft, And sadly wounds her fellow sufferer. See, O Felicitas, thy sister, re­ covered from the blow, Holds out her hand to support thee in a fresh assault. 9· E caelo pugilum respiciens Deus Certamen, geminas ad bravium vocat ; Effuso properet sanguine, spiritus In Christi remeans sinum. 9· God, who from heaven looks down upon the unequal fight, Calls both the heroines to receive their celestial palm. The blood now flows freely from their cruel wounds, So may their souls return quickly to the bosom of Christ. The Sacramentary 38 IO. Optatus penetrat corpora Marty­ rum Lictoris gladius ; sed trepidam manum Fortis Perpetuae dextera dirigit, Praebens guttura cuspidi. 10. The long-awaited sword of the lictor at length is brought, And thrust into the bodies of the dying martyrs : But Perpetua with steady hand directs the uncertain aim And guides the weapon's sharpened point to her throat. II. 11. Nunc, O magnanimae, gaudia quae manent In Sponsi thalamo carpite jugiter ; Vos exempla dedit : praesidium potens Vestris ferte clientibus. Now, ye generous souls, rejoice for evermore, Be yours the joys prepared for you in Paradise; He wished for us to have in you examples ; Give to us your clients your aid most powerful. 12. Laus aeterna Patri, laus quoque Filio, Par individuo gloria Flamini ; In cunctis resonet Christiadum choris Virtus Martyribus data. Arnen. 12. Eternal praise be to the Father and the Son, And equal glory to the Holy Ghost, May all the choirs of Christendom Exalt the courage granted to the martvrs. Amen. * MARCH 7 St Thomas Aquinas, Confessor and Doctor* It was most fitting- that the Angel of the Schools and of Catholic Theology, who began his religious life at Monte Cassi no beside the tomb of the Patriarch of Western Monachism, and ended it with something of the glory of martyrdom amongst the sons of the same St Benedict, at the not very remote Abbey of Fossanova in 1274—it was most fitting, we repeat, that St Thomas should refresh our weary spirit by his feast in the very middle of Lent, and should confirm by his example the words which the Church sings in praise of the fast : vitia comprimis, mentem elevas. The special glory of St Thomas, his most salient virtue, is the profound love which he shows for the sacred tradition of the Church. He appears almost to be one with it, and has therefore become its most authoritative interpreter. It would, indeed, not be easy to find in the annals of Christianity a more inspired mind, and one that reflects better the perfec­ tions of the angelic spirits than that of Aquinas, who, build­ ing upon the foundations laid by the ancient Fathers of the Church, gave with marvellous accuracy a definite form to our knowledge of God. March 7 39 Our wonder increases when we consider that this monu­ ment of wisdom, faith, and contemplation of the divine truths is not so much the result of a long, unwearied study of the codices, as the outcome of confidence, the effect of habitual prayer, and of intimate union with God. In order that the eye of Aquinas might gaze undazzled upon the divine light, it was necessary that it should be both strong and pure, with a strength and purity to which he attained through his perfect detachment from all that is created, that is, earthly and of the senses, and also through his intense inner life in union with Jesus Christ. The feast of St Thomas was first included in the Church’s Calendar as an ordinary one, but Pius V, who himself be­ longed to the Order of the Friars Preachers, gave to it, at the time of the reform of the Roman Breviary, the rank of a double, together with the Office of the Common of Doctors. The Angel of the Schools, who, during his life had already added to the glory of the Eternal City by his temporary resi­ dence therein and by his preaching and miracles, possessed from the fourteenth century a church dedicated to him near the Palazzo Savelli, at no great distance, therefore, from his monastery of St Sabina. This church no longer exists, but the devotion shown at Rome towards the saint is evidenced by the beautiful chapel erected to his honour in the church of St Maria in Minervium, and by the little church near the theatre of Pompey which bears the dedication of SS Barbara and Thomas Aquinas. The Mass is of the Common, as on the feast of St Francis de Sales, with the exception of the Collect and the Lesson, which are proper to the day. These are the words of the beautiful Collect : “ O God, who by the wonderful learning of blessed Thomas, thy con­ fessor, givest glory to thy Church, and by his holy deeds makest her fruitful ; grant, we beseech thee, that we may both see with the understanding what he taught, and follow his example in what he practised.” The many recent encyclicals and papal documents concern­ ing the teaching of Thomistic theology and philosophy, which is obligatory in all Catholic seminaries, throw their inspired light on this magnificent Collect. The Church, therefore, holds the Angelic Doctor to be the most authoritative and official exponent of her teaching and of her theological know­ ledge, so that all opinions and doctrines which lead minds away from her, are from long experience at once judged by her according to the degree in which they depart from the principles of St Thomas. In the Lesson (Wisdom vii, 7-14) is clearly shown to us p 40 The Sacramentary the supernatural character of what is called the “ knowledge of the saints,” which is not merely speculative, but has a powerful influence on the will, which it bends and impels towards good. This knowledge, which is in itself a free gift, not only renders us learned, but raises the soul enriched thereby to friendship with God. In the light of this know'ledge, the charm of earthly pleasures fades away, and the judgement which the soul now forms of created things is altogether different from that common to the generality of men. The reason is that this knowledge places all things in their true light, when, that is, it considers them all with reference to God. This is Truth in all its harmony, this is the highest and most perfect wisdom, the acknowledgement of all things as coming from their first and final cause, which is God. It is, above all, through the blindness of ignorance that the devil is able to destroy so many souls. Qui ignorant et errant. For this reason, the holy Doctors, who, with the torch of divine wisdom, dispel these shades of death in which sinners grope, gain a glorious victory over our common enemy, and therefore merit a special triumph. Thus the wise teachers of the Church and all those who, by means of sacred doctrine, trained others to act justly, not only shine in heaven with a special glory, but are venerated also in the sacred Liturgy with special devotion. MARCH 8 St John of God, Confessor* It was Clement XI who first inserted in the Missal, as a semi-double, the feast of this famous patron (died 1550) of Catholic hospitals and of all those whose last days of expia­ tion upon earth, before appearing at the judgement seat of God, are passed amid the throes and agonies of disease. Innocent XIII afterwards constituted the feast of St John of God a double, and Leo XIII caused his name to be placed in the Litany of the Dying, together with that of St Camillus de Lellis. The Mass is that of the Common of Confessors not Bishops, as on January 23, except the Collect and the Gospel, which are proper to the feast. The Collect, besides alluding to the founding of the Order of the Hospitallers, refers also to the marvellous action of St John of God, when, the hospital of Granada having caught fire, he walked fearlessly in the midst of the conflagration for the space of half an hour, carrying the sick to a place of , I i I ! ! ! I I | j ] I March 8 41 safety, and throwing- the bedding out of the windows in order to save it from the Hames. The special cultus of this saint is assured at Rome by the religious of his Order, who officiate in the ancient church of St John de Insula on the island in the Tiber. It is also a tradition of the papal court that the pharmacy of the Apos­ tolic Palaces shall be under the direction of a religious of the Order of St John of God, who thus holds the post of infirmarian to the holy Father himself. The Collect is thus worded : “ O God, who didst suffer blessed John, when burning with thy love, to walk through Hames unscathed, and by his means didst beget new off­ spring to thy Church ; grant through the help of his merits that our vices may be healed by the fire of thy love and that we may receive remedies unto life everlasting. Through our Lord.” The Gospel is that of the seventeenth Sunday after Pente­ cost (Matt, xxii, 34-46), in which Jesus declares the great precept of Christian perfection, which consists essentially in love. It is true that, considering the historical character of modern liturgical composition, we might rather have expected for to-day the story of the compassionate Samaritan, the prototype of the Christian infirmarian. However, the passage chosen is well suited to the saint ; for in him the love of one’s neighbour and, still more, the love of God, reached such a supreme height as to attain to the sublime foolishness of the Cross, when, for instance, he simulated madness and allowed himself to be beaten and confined amongst the lunatics in an asylum. It was the blessed Master, John of Avila, who dis­ covered his secret and called the saint back from that strange manner of life to a more prudent rule, such as was required of him by God, so that he might in due course found a new and solidly established religious congregation. When we arc on our death-bed, the priest and those around us will invoke the intercession of St John of God on our be­ half, in the Litany of lhe Dying. Most probably we shall no longer be able to do so for ourselves, and perhaps wc may not even be able to hear the words as they are repeated ; therefore, it would be well that wc should even now pray to the saint, and obtain his intercession at the supreme moment on which our fate depends for all eternity. MARCH 9 St Frances of Rome, Widow* To-dav wc have a Roman saint, a spiritual daughter of St Benedict, an oblate of the Abbey of Sta Maria Nova, whose 42 The Sacramentary name, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was included, by order of Innocent X, in the Calendar of the universal Church, as that of a striking example and of a heavenly patron of the state of widowhood, like St Monica and St Jeanne Françoise de Chantal. The Mass is of the Common, but the Collect is proper, and alludes to the favour granted to the saint, who during a period of many years was able to behold visibly her guardian angel at her side. She died in the year 1440. When this feast is celebrated in the great Roman basilicas, it acquires a special grace and charm. There, indeed, is the memory of Frances still so fresh that we almost seem to see her still kneeling beside the tombs of the martyrs, rapt in ecstasy or absorbed in prayer. We pictured her, even now, in her humble dress—she who was the nobly born wife of the patrician Ponziani—as she returns with a bundle of firewood on her back from the Porta Portese or from the Via Ostiense to the house of the Oblates founded by her at the foot of the Capitol ; or, more wondrous still, intermingling with the crowd of beggars and asking for alms at the porch of the Basilica of St Paul, when the stational Mass was celebrated there on Sexagesima Sunday. Of all the Roman sanctuaries which most recall St Frances two especially still preserve, so to speak, the fragrance of her presence, the Basilica of Sta Maria Nova, where she made lier profession as an oblate of the Order of St Benedict, and where her body reposes, and the old house Turns Speculorum at the foot of the Capitol, where she lived with the other noble oblates whom she gathered around her. There is also a third sanctuary which calls to mind her holy life, and that is the Palace of the Ponziani across the Tiber, which is now a house of retreat for children preparing for their first Communion. There St Frances lived for many years, and exerted a holy influence over her household. There, too, having gone thither from Tor de’ Speech! to assist one of her sons who was sick, and falling seriously ill herself, she remained by order of her confessor and rendered hcr saintly soul to God. The Antiphon for the Introit is derived from Psalm cxviii : “ I know, O Lord, that thy judgements are equity, and in thy truth thou hast humbled me : pierce thou my flesh with thy fear; I am afraid of thy commandments.” The distribution of God’s gifts and the assignment of the vocations to the various states in the mystical body of the Church are part of the mystery which surrounds our pre­ destination to eternal glory. The married state and that of widowhood arc undoubtedly less glorious than that of vir- March 9 43 ginity, but they, too, are a reflection of the goodness and truth of God, who judges them to be good, and provides that souls may, through them, attain to the height of Christian perfection by the exercise of humility and fidelity to duty. Therefore the Psalmist says most truly : “ Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear” . . . because there where, by God’s disposition, the glory of virginity is wanting, the holy fear of the Lord must still hold the senses in check. Those souls who are called by God to live in the midst of the world and in the bosom of their family, walk in a narrow and arduous way, bound as they are by the marriage vow—for, as St Paul says : Tribulationem tamen carnis habebunt hujusmodi. He proceeds, however, at once to add the rule by which they must guide their conduct in the world, if not with actual vows, at least with the virtue of the evangelical counsels of perfection : Qui utuntur hoc mundo, tamquam non utantur. Praeterit enim figura hujus mundi (i Cor. vii, 28, 31). The Collect, which is biographical in character, is the following: “ O God, who amongst other gifts of thy grace, didst honour blessed Frances, thy servant, with the familiar presence of an angel ; grant, we beseech thee, that by the help of her intercession we may become worthy to be admitted into fellowship with the angels. Through our Lord.” The Lesson is from the Book of Proverbs (xxxi, 10-31), in which arc sung the praises of the ‘‘valiant woman,” the mother of a family, who faithfully performs her household duties, thus fulfilling a mission which is not less difficult, nor less important, than that of the apostolate of souls. With reference to this vocation, both St Philip Neri and St Francis de Sales observe that our self-love desires to impose its own judgements even on our practice of virtue, seeking dramatic situations and startling actions, at the same time despising the little everyday domestic virtues which continually re­ quire a considerable amount of self-sacrifice. Great occasions for practising heroic acts of sanctity happen but rarely, whereas the ordinary opportunities of overcoming ourselves occur every day. The Holy Ghost in drawing a picture of the “ valiant woman ” did not place in her hand a bow or a sword, as, by an exception, we see in that of Judith, but has represented her with a distaff and a spindle—that is, in the regular and habitual exercise of the ordinary duties of her state of life. The Gradual is that of the feast of St Agnes, and the alleluiatic verse is identical with that of St Emerentiana. The Tract which is sung after Septuagesima is the same as that for the Mass on St Apollonia’s day, except that the allu­ sion to martyrdom is omitted. * i 44 The Sacramentary The Gospel and the Offertory are common to the feast of St Emerentiana. The Secret and the Post-Communion arc common to the feast of St Scholastica on February io, whilst the Communion is taken from Psalm xliv, “ Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity.” These were the vigorous words of the great-souled Pope Hildebrand, when, exiled to Salerno for defending the liberty of the Church, he gave up his harassed spirit to God. “ Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” Here is another note of true Catholic holiness. It may consist simply in performing the ordinary acts proper to one’s condition in life without there being anything out of the common, since that which consti­ tutes heroic virtue is to be found in the inner dispositions with which the saints practise it and which are far higher than those of the general level of mediocrity. St Frances of Rome is the heavenly patron of Benedictine Oblates, and the model of widows. These, indeed, according to the mind of the apostle, are specially called to a high degree of sanctity, inasmuch as the charm of their first youth having faded like a flower, the soul, which has experienced the transitory nature of human beings, finds no secure support but in the Lord. The virtues appropriate to this state of life, from which in apostolic times the deaconesses were prefer­ ably drawn, are trust in God, assiduous prayer, mortification of the senses, and works of charity on behalf of others. MARCH io The Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste These martyrs of Sebaste, who suffered death about the year 320, and who were so much praised by St Basil and St Gregory of Nyssa, were greatly venerated even in the West from the early Middle Ages and their names placed in the Roman Missal by reason of the various medieval churches dedicated to them in the Eternal City. In the twelfth century Callixtus II erected a small oratory in their honour at the foot of the Janiculum, not far from the title of Callixtus in the Trastevere. Another church dedicated to them stood near the ancient Pretorian Camp, and is mentioned as being there in the time of Innocent IV (1243-54). Nearer the centre of the city on the Via Papalis rose up the church known as Sanc­ torum Quadrapinta de calcarariis, now dedicated to the Stig­ mata of St Francis; and, finally, close to the Flavian amphi­ theatre was the church Sanctorum Quadraginta with a cardinal’s title, now destroyed. March ίο The Mass has a certain savour of antiquity, but it is not original, for its various parts are drawn from other and earlier feasts, especially from that of the Seven Sons of St Felicitas on July io. The Introit comes from Psalm xxxiii : “ The just cried, and the Lord heard them : and delivered them out of all their troubles. I will bless the Lord at all times : his praise shall be ever in my mouth.” Suffering was as repugnant to the saints as it is to us, there­ fore they cried upon the Lord before the trial. God gave ear to their prayer, not indeed by withdrawing them from the test, but by causing them to be stronger than the temptation. The Collect for to-day is very fine, but it is taken from the Mass of the Seven Sons of St Felicitas : ‘‘ Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that we who acknowledge the boldness of thy glorious martyrs in confessing thy name, may enjoy their loving intercession for us before thee.” The Lesson is the same as that for the feast of the holy martyrs Fabian and Sebastian on January 20. The Gradual from Psalm cxxxii praises the constant one­ ness of the martyrs in all sustaining together the torments which they suffered, animated by the same faith and by the same interior grace of the Holy Ghost. “ Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment on the head, that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron.” The Tract and the Gospel are from the Common of Many Martyrs as on January 20. The Offertory is derived from Psalm xxxi, and describes the heavenly joy which follows the bitterness of martyrdom. ‘‘ Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye just; and glory, all ye right of heart.” The Secret is as follows: ‘‘Look down, O Lord, upon the prayers and oblations of thy faithful : that they may both be pleasing to thee for the festival of thy saints, and may confer on us the help of thy propitiation.” The verse for the Communion is obviously not in its original place, since it docs not correspond in any way with to-day’s Gospel Lesson. It belongs, as a matter of fact, to the feast of the Seven Martyr Brothers, sons of St Felicitas. As, however, at Rome the Mother was included in the same Mass, a graceful allusion is made in the Antiphon for the Communion to the higher significance which Jesus attributes to the title of brother, sister, and mother given to those who do the will of his Father in heaven. Communion (Matt, xii, 50) : “ Whosoever shall do the will 46 The Sacramentary of my Father that is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother, saith the Lord.” The Post-Communion, which is the same as on July 10, is the following: “Appeased by the intercession of thy saints, grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that those things which we celebrate by our temporal act we may obtain in perpetual salvation.” The only attitude befitting to man before the inscrutable designs of God is that of humble and silent adoration. No one is necessary to God, and his glory would suffer no dis­ paragement even if we were to refuse to co-operate with it. He can raise up sons to Abraham from the stones; if we do not correspond to his grace the loss will be ours alone, since God will perform by means of another that which he would otherwise have deigned to accomplish through our instru­ mentality. This is what happened in the case of the Forty Martrys of Sebaste. The angels had prepared forty crowns in heaven; one of the confessors of the Faith broke down under the torments, and apostatized, but his place was imme­ diately taken by one of the executioners, who thereby merited the fortieth crown. In early times the cultus of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste was exceedingly popular in the East. We still possess the text of their testament which the majority of critics now con­ sider to be genuine, and which is, therefore, to be regarded as a real gem of ancient Christian literature. MARCH 12 St Gregory the Great, Pope, Confessor, and Doctor Night Vigil and Stational Mass at St Peter. This feast, celebrated also by the Greeks, is to be found in the Gregorian Sacramentary in the time of Adrian I, and is one of the few which were admitted in early days into the Roman Calendar during the Lenten season. We know, in fact, that at Rome, in the ninth century : eius anniversaria solemnitas, cunctis . . . pernoctantibus . . . celebratur. In qua pallium eius, et phylacteria, sed et balteus eius consuetudinaliter osculantur.1 The renown of St Gregory (who died in 604) justified this exception, and, above all, the symbolical significance which his personality acquired historically, when in the Middle Ages it made the idea of the Roman papacy in the most sublime expression of its primacy over the whole Church a reality. 1 Joh. Diac., Vita P. S. Gregorii, 1. IV, c. 80. March 12 47 We may say, indeed, that the whole period of the Middle Ages lived in the spirit of St Gregory ; the Roman Liturgy, the sacred chant, the Canon Law, the fervour of the monks, the evangelization of the pagans, the life of the pastors of the Church ; in a word, everything connected with ecclesi­ astical activity was founded upon the holy Doctor whose writings seemed to have become the universal law of Catholicism. The large number of ancient churches dedicated to St Gregory in Rome prove how popular was his cultus, of which his greatly venerated tomb in the Vatican Basilica and his former monastery of St Andrew at the Clivus Scauri were the two chief points of attraction. John the Deacon in the ninth century bears witness to the pious care with which all the relics of St Gregory were still kept at Rome, the registers of his almsgiving, his straw bed, his rod, the codex of his antiphonary, and his monk’s girdle. The devotion paid to St Gregory I, chiefly owing to the Bene­ dictine Order of which he is one of the greatest glories, and to the Anglo-Saxon people who venerate him as their first apostle, very soon spread throughout the world. Indeed, im­ mediately after his death, the author of the sepulchral inscrip­ tion commemorating him in the portico of St Peter could find no better words in which to express the universality of his pastoral influence than by calling him—the ancient offshoot of the Consuls of Rome the eternal—the “ Consul of God,” Dei Consul factus, laetare triumphis. It would be impossible to find a happier description than this, together with these words from the same inscription : implebat actu quidquid sermone docebat. To-day’s station, even in the time of John the Deacon, was at St Peter near the tomb of the saint where the night vigil was also celebrated in his honour. In the fifteenth century the papal consistory was not held on this day in order to mark the solemnity. I The Mass, being of a later date than the Gregorian collec­ tion, derives its chants from other and earlier Masses. The Introit is from the Common of a Martyr and Bishop as on January 26, the feast of St Polycarp. By a delicate allusion to the humility with which Gregory met the pride of the Ecumenical Faster,1 the humble of heart are invited to bless God from whom they acknowledge to have received their every good. The Collect is thus worded : “ O God, who hast given to the soul of thy servant Gregory the rewards of everlasting bliss ; grant in thy mercy that we, who are weighed down 1 John II of Cappadocia, Patriarch of Constantinople.—Te. 48 The Sacramentary by the burden of our sins, may be relieved through his prayers.” “To the soul of thy servant Gregory.” These words arc well chosen, for the distinctive character of the spirituality of St Gregory, a spirituality which at once shows him to be a monk trained in the school of the Patriarch St Benedict, is wholly expressed in that title which he was the first to use : “ Gregory, servant of the servants of God.” To this day the Popes, in their most solemn utterances, follow the saint’s example, and call themselves by the title of Servus Servorum Dei, which, however, signified originally in the case of Gregory, a monk of the monastery of St Andrew : the “ servant of the servants of God,” that is, of the monks : (Servus Dei) ; in a word, the last in the monastery. The ascetic tradition of St Benedict concerning the virtue of humility has always been apparent in all the great Doctors fashioned in the Benedictine cloister. Thus we find St Peter Damian habitually signing himself : Ego Petrus peccator episcopus hostiensis ; and Hildebrand, before he became Pope under the name of Gregory VII, in like manner signed him­ self : Ego Hildebrandus qualiscumque, S.R.E. archidiaconus. The two Lessons are drawn from the Common of Doctors, as on the festival of St Ambrose, December 7. The Gradual is also that for St Clement and is taken from Psalm eix, in which is exalted the Messianic priesthood of Christ : “ The Lord hath sworn and he will not repent. Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. The Lord said to my Lord ”—that is, the Eternal Father said to Christ, his own son and the son of Mary, the lineal descendant of David—“ sit thou at my right hand ” as my equal in the power and majesty of the Godhead. The Tract is the same as for the feast of St Thomas Aquinas. The Offertory comes from Psalm Ixxxviii : “ My truth and my mercy shall be with him : and in my name shall his horn be exalted.” This is the secret of the success of the saints. They hope in God and therefore shall not fail. In the Secret we pray : “ Grant us, we beseech thee, O Lord, that by the intercession of blessed Gregory this sacri­ fice may be profitable to us ; by the offering of which thou didst vouchsafe to forgive the sins of the whole world.” The Gregorian Sacramentary appoints a proper Preface for to-day . . . aeterne Deus; qui sic tribuis Ecclesiam tuam sancti Grcgorii Pontificis tui commemoratione gaudere, ut eam illius et festivitate laetifices, et exemplo piae conversa­ tionis exerceas, et verbo praedicationis erudias, grataque tibi supplicatione tuearis, per Christum, etc. The Communion is as on December 5, the feast of St March 12 49 Sabbas. The measure of wheat which Gregory gave in due season to his fellow-servants is his pastoral activity as an unwearied preacher, an ever watchful master, and a Pontiff of spotless character. After the Communion is said this prayer: “O God, who didst make blessed Bishop Gregory rank with thy saints by his merits; mercifully grant that we who keep his memory by this festival, may also follow the example of his life. Through our Lord.” An artifice commonly employed by the devil is that of sug­ gesting to our minds an ideal and type of perfection to which, on account of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, it is impossible for us to attain. Many souls, in such a case, instead of changing their method and endeavouring to sanc­ tify themselves in the state of life in which Providence has placed them, remain in a condition of inactivity, bewailing their lot and for ever sighing for the form of sanctity un­ attainable by them. Thus they lose valuable time, embitter their heart, do harm to their health, and are of benefit neither to themselves nor to anyone else. Perfection should not mean to us merely a metaphysical abstraction, but, like the air, it must pervade all the actions of our life. It matters very little whether we are rich or poor, learned or ignorant, healthy or infirm. We must serve God in those conditions of life in which he has placed us, not in those in which we would like to place ourselves. A fine example of this practical common sense in the path of holiness is set before us by Gregory. FI is meditative char­ acter inclined him to a life of quiet study of philosophy in the peace of the cloister, whereas God destined him to be a diplo­ matist, a Pope, the administrator of an immense territorial patrimony, and even a strategist in directing the defensive works of those Italian towns which were besieged by the Lombards—a true Consul of God whose activity and whose influence were worldwide. Gregory, who was often confined to his bed with gout and internal sufferings, wasted no time in lamentations, but adapted himself in a marvellous manner to all these offices, and solely intent on serving God, he exe­ cuted them with such wonderful mastery and skill that he filled the entire Middle Ages with his spirit, leaving clearly marked traces of his genius on the after development of the Roman Pontificate. The Byzantines, too, venerate the sanctity of Gregory, to whom they give the title of “ Dialogist ” or Διάλογος on account of his four books of Dialogues, translated into Greek by Pope Zachary. In honour of the Pontiff who may be considered as the father of the Roman Liturgy and of the ecclesiastical chant, iv. .< 50 The Sacramentary we here transcribe an ancient Sequence appraising· St Gregory, which has already been edited by Bannister from a codex of the fifteenth century. O rganum spirituale Tangat decus clericale, Dum recolitur natale Vigilis Gregorii. Let the venerable ranks of the clergy cause to resound a spiritual organ, since to-day is celebrated the feast of Gregory the vigilant pastor. S criba Regis Angelorum, Floruit hic lux doctorum, Et Apostolus An glorum, Qui prius inglorii. From a scribe of the King of Angels, he became the glory and the light of the Doctors, and the Apostle of the Angles, who until then were without glory. E x prosapia Romana, Spreta mundi pompa Tana, In doctrina Christiana Vigilanter studuit Roman by race, despising the vain pomps of the world, he studied unwearyingly the teach­ ing of Christ. R ector magnus et urbanus, Cuius pater Gordianus, Felix Pontifex Romanus Atavus resplenduit. He strikingly filled the office of Pra-tor of Rome; Gordianus was his father and Pope Felix the Roman his ancestor. V irgo saeculo pusilla, Eius amita Tarsilla, Deo vigilans ancilla Vidit lesum dulciter. Tarsilla, his father’s sister, a humble virgin in the eyes of the world, was indefatigable in the service of God, and merited to behold the gentle Jesus. V ivens Silvia caelestis, Mater huius digna gestis, Fixit cor aeternis festis, Finiens feliciter. Sylvia, worthy mother of so great a saint, lived a heavenly life, and, with her heart intent on eternal joys, died a happy death. M onasteria construxit, Ac prudentia adfluxit, Monachalem vitam duxit, Derelinquens omnia. Gregory built monasteries and ordered them with prudence; re­ nouncing all things, he lived the monastic life. S ed cum cuperet sincere Mori cunctis et latere, Cogebatur apparere Ut flos inter lilia. He earnestly desired to be dead to the world and to be hid, but he was constrained like a flower to shine forth among the lilies. E ruditus in virtute A primaeva juventute, Iter vadens viae tutae, Devitavit crimina. Instructed in virtue from his earliest years, he walked in the safe path and avoided every fault. R etexendo cantilenas Sublevavit febris poenas, Odas addidit amoenas Per Scripturae carmina. He beguiled the hours of fever and suffering by revising the sacred melodies, and beautified the scriptural versicles with sublime harmonies. March 12 V idens pueros Anglorum Pulchros vultu angelorum, Mox misertus est eorum, Suspirando graviter. When he saw the children of the Angles, beautiful with angel faces, he sighed over them, full of tender pity. O Pontificem beatum, Per columnam demonstratum, Et a naufrago probatum, Dignum mirabiliter. O blessed Pontiff, whose symbol was a column, whose coming was foretold by a shipwrecked traveller, and who was worthy of all praise. R ecta scribens, recte dixit, Quo malevolos adflixit, Sed correctis benedixit, Pastor bonus omnibus. He excelled in his writings and in his spoken words, through which he reproved the wicked and blessed the good, showing himself a true shepherd to all. V igil iste Sanctus fuit, Qui ut nubes magna pluit, Et ut ros de caelo ruit, Utilis fidelibus. The saint was vigilant indeed, and like a large cloud refreshed the earth with rain, or like dew from heaven was precious to the faithful. M onstra fecit in hac vita, Verus hic Israelite, Quod cognovit eremita Ex divina gratia.’ As a true seer of the Lord he performed great wonders during his life, according to the revela­ tion granted by divine grace to the hermit.’ D eus fecit Levi pactum, Nec poenituit transactum, Pacis atque vitae factum Cum honoris gloria. God made a pact with him as with another Levi, a pact which was not broken, a pledge of peace, of life and of immortal glory. AE s in zonis non compegit, Sed pauperibus redegit, Quem Salvator praeelegit Organum mellifluum. He did not fill his purse with gold, but distributed it among the poor. He was chosen by the Saviour to be a benign instrument of the divine Word to all. I stum deprecemur Sanctum Nos viventes vita tantum, Ut cantemus Agni cantum Nunc et in perpetuum. Let us, who live only for this earthly life, beseech this so great saint that we may sing the hymn of the Lamb now and for ever­ more. The initial letters of each verse of the Sequence form the acrostic : O Servum Servorum Dei. There is another very much older Sequence which, although ' This is an illusion to a pleasing legend. A holy monk one day asked the Lord in the simplicity of his heart to reveal to him to what degree of sanctity he had already attained by his life of mortification. The Lord replied that he had equalled Pope Gregory. The monk was dis­ pleased at this reply, seeing that he lived in poverty in a cave, while the Pope ruled the world from the splendid palace of the Lateran. God then revealed to the monk that Gregory was less attached to the grandeur of the papal dignity than was the hermit himself to a cat which was the companion of his solitude ! The Sacramentary 52 it was not composed originally for St Gregory the Great, is very well suited to his feast, and was indeed sung at the solemn pontifical Mass which Pius X celebrated in St Peter in 1904 on the thirteenth centenary of the death of the great Doctor. The choir on that occasion numbered over a thousand voices, and the Pope was so impressed by the immense effect produced by the melody, that as soon as the Mass was over, he gave orders for the splendid Sequence to be sung again. Having, therefore, been thus consecrated by the approbation of Pius X, it may almost be now considered as belonging of right to the Roman Liturgy. This is the text of that important medieval composition in pure rhythm, without rhyme, formed, like the early Sequences on the alleluiatic /χίλίσγχα of the Mass. 1. Alma cohors una Laudum sonora Nunc prome praeconia. 2. Quibus en insignis rutilat Gregorius ut luna, Solque sidera. 1. O noble choir, lift up now your voices in a sublime hymn of praise. 2. And acclaim Gregory, who shines like the sun and the moon and the stars. za. Meritorum est mirifica Radians idem sacra Praerogativa. za. He is radiant with the special glory of his wondrous merits. 3· Hunc nam Sophiae mystica Ornarunt mire dogmata, Qua fulsit nitida Luculenter per ampla Orbis climata. 3· Knowledge of the most profound dogmas of holy wisdom distin­ guishes him, so that he is a light which shines unto the uttermost ends of the earth. 3«· Verbi necnon fructifera Saevit divini semina Mentium per arva, Pellendo quoque cuncta Noctis nubila. 3®· Moreover, he scattered the seed of the divine Word in men’s hearts, and drove away all the darkness of night. 4· Hic famina fundens diva, Utpote caelestia Ferens in se Numina. 4Proclaiming the Word of God, which bears within itself the power of the Godhead. 4<2. Sublimavit catholica Vehementer culmina Sancta per eloquia. 40. He exalted by his preaching the Catholic Church. March 12 53 5· 5· Having now attained to eternal glory, he exults triumphant amid the happy choirs of the blessed. 5fl. 5β· He is raised up on a lofty throne and enjoys an endless life in the rich pastures of Christ. Is nempe celsa Compos gloria, Nunc exultât Inter laetabunda Coelicolarum ovans Contubernia. Sublimis extat Sede superna, Fruens vita Semper inexhausta, Sat per celeberrima Christi pascua. 6. O dignum cuncta laude, praeexcelsa Praesulem tanta Nactus gaudia, Virtutum propter merita, Quibus viguit, ardens Velut lampada. 60. Nos voce clara Hunc et iucunda Dantes oremus Preces et vota, Qui nobis ferat commoda, Impetret et aeterna Poscens praemia. 6. Behold a pastor worthy of all praise, vho now has obtained such very great blessedness as a reward of the virtues by which he shone forth like a lamp. 6a. As we praise this great saint with joyful songs, let us offer to him our prayers and our vows, that he may intercede for us and help us as far as possible to obtain the heavenly reward. 7Quod petit praesens caterva, Praesulum gemma, Devota rependens munia Mente sincera, Favens da Sibi precum instantia, Scilicet ut polorum Intret lumina. 7O chief glory of the Pontiffs, obtain for those who offer devout homage to thee with sincere hearts, the grace which they implore, that they may enter the heavenly realms of light. 7α. Quo iam intra palatia Stantem suprema, Laeti gratulemur adepti Polorum regna, Qui tua Praesul, sistentes hac aula, lubilemus ingenti Cum laetitia. 7a. So that as we now stand in thy temple, O Pontiff, may we so merit to reach with joy unto the king­ dom of heaven, where rejoicing together with thee, 8. Recinentes dulcia Nunc celsaque alleluia. 8. We may cause to resound with immense joy the melody of a heavenly Alleluia. 54 The Sacramentary We cannot take our leave of so renowned a Pope as was Gregory the Great, whose book on pastoral government in the Middle Ages became the rule for the guidance of bishops, so much so that it was entered in the official list of objects belonging to the papal apartments, without first quoting here the eulogy affixed by the Romans to his temporary sepulchre in the porch of St Peter. After all these centuries a few precious fragments of that marble slab still remain : SVSCIPE · TERRA · TVO · CORPVS · DE · CORPORE · SVMPTVM REDDERE · QUOD · VALEAS · VIVIFICANTE · DEO SPIRITVS · ASTRA · PETIT · LETHI · NIL · IVRA · NOCEBVNT CVI · VITAE · ALTERIVS · MORS · MAGIS · ILLA · VIA · EST PONTIFICIS · SVMMI · HOC · CLAVDVNTVR · MEMBRA · SEPVLCHRO QVI · INNVMERIS · SEMPER · VIVAT · VBIQVE · BONIS ESVRIEM · DAPIBVS · SVPERAVIT · FRIGORA · VESTE ATQVE · ANIMAS · MONITIS · TEXIT · AB · HOSTE · SACRIS IMPLEBATQVE · ACTV · QVIDQVID · SERMONE · DOCEBAT ESSET · VT · EXEMPLVM · MYSTICA · VERBA · LOQVENS ANGLOS · AD · CHRISTVM · VERTIT · PIETATE · MAGISTRA ACQVIRENS · FIDEIQVE · AGMINA · GENTE · NOVA HIC · LABOR · HOC · STVDIVM · TIBI · CVRzt · HAEC · PASTOR · AGEBAS VT · DOMINO · OFFERRES ■ PLVRIMA · LVCRA ■ GREGIS HISQVE · DEI · CONSVL · FACTVS · LAETARE · TRIVMPHIS NAM · MERCEDEM · OPERVM · JAM · SINE · FINE · HABES Receive, O Earth, a body taken from thy body Which thou shalt one day give back to God. The soul has risen up to heaven, for hell shall have no claim Over one for whom death was the gate to a better life. In this tomb lies the body of a supreme Pontiff, Whose fame will always live because of his countless merits. With gifts of food and raiment he kept off hunger and cold from the poor. By his holy counsels he protected his Hock from the Evil One. And his deeds exemplified that λνΐιΐοΐι he preached in words. Thus were the Scriptures illustrated by his example. fie converted the Angles to Christ and trained them in piety, Thus winning to the true faith a new people. This, O Pastor, was thy work, thy desire, and thy aim, To present to thy Lord abundant fruits in the care of his flock. Therefore art thou named the Consul of God ; so rejoice in thy triumphs For now dost thou enjoy for ever the reward of thy labours. March 12 55 The use of Sequences in the Mass was adopted at Rome only towards the end of the Middle Ages; moreover, the Frankish medieval tradition cannot in truth be termed uni­ versal. There was, however, another hymn in honour of St Gregory, which was used as a kind of prelude to the Roman Antiphonary. It was sung in many countries on the First Sunday in Advent, before the intoning of the Introit. The earliest version may go back to the time of Adrian I, but it has since suffered many alterations. The following, in hexa­ meters, is attributed to Adrian II (867-72) : Gregorius Praesul, meritis et nomine dignus, Unde genus ducit summum con­ scendit honorem. Qui renovans monumenta Patrum iuniorque priorum, Munere caelesti fretus, ornans sapienter, Composuit Scholae Cantorum hunc rite libellum, Quo reciprocando, moduletur car­ mina Christi. The Pontiff Gregory, great in merit and renown, Ascended the Papal throne whence was derived his ancestor? He renewed the teachings of the ancient Fathers And illustrated them with the skill and wisdom granted him by God. So he composed this little book for the school of the Cantors, That they should sing, alternately, the hymns of Christ. The entire city of Rome, of which Gregory was the eversolicitous shepherd, the stational churches, the cemeteries of the martyrs, all record the tireless zeal of this incomparable Pontiff. Some, however, among the Roman sanctuaries lay claim to-day to a special feast in his honour, and these are, besides the Vatican Basilica, which holds his body in safe keeping, St Andrew at the Clivus Scauri, where Gregory was first a monk and then the Abbot, St Paul, which he caused to be embellished and which contained his family burial-place, and the Lateran, where he lived nearly fourteen years during his Pontificate. In the Middle Ages the fourteen urban regions of Rome vied with one another in honouring Gregory and in dedicating churches and chapels to his memory; thus we find the churches S Gregorii ad Clivum Scauri, S Gregarii de Cortina, S Gregorii de Gradellis, S Gregorii dei Murat ori, S Gregarii in Campo Martio, S Gregorii de ponte Judaeorum, not to mention the many other oratories named after him. A Bull of Gregory III (731-41) at the Basilica of St Paul mentions that a daily Mass was celebrated even then in that famous sanctuary of the Apostle of the Gentiles at the altar S Gregorii ad ianuas, just as at St Peter, where the tomb of 1 Pope Felix IV was Gregory’s ancestor. Also of Damasus, whose father was raised to the episcopal dignity, it was said in a poem : NATVS · QVI · ANTISTES · SEDIS · APOSTOLICAE 56 The Sacramentary the saint was placed in the outer porch, prope secretarium. The inscription of Gregory III at St Paul represents, perhaps, one of the most ancient records of the liturgical veneration paid to St Gregory the Great. The fact that to this day the Pope when solemnizing High Mass at St Peter is vested at the altar which covers the tomb of St Gregory—besides being a mark of special reverence towards the saint who may be regarded as the incarnation of all that is most sublime in the Catholic conception of the papacy—arises from the circumstance that, originally, the tomb of this great Doctor, in the atrium of the Vatican Basilica, was close to the Secretarium or Sacristy, where the priests assumed the liturgical vestments. When the new Basilica of St Peter was erected, a special point was made of preserving for St Gregory this traditional place beside the Sacristy, so it came about that the custom was also maintained of the solemn vesting of the Pope at the altar of the saint. The Greeks, too, have a great devotion to St Gregory. In his Office they address him as Sacratissime Pastor, factus es successor in zelo et sede Coryphaei, populos purificans et ad Deum adducens. Successor in sede Principis Chori Dis­ cipulorum, unde verba, veluti fulgores, o Gregori, proferens, face illuminas fideles. Ecclesiarum Prima, cum Te ad pectus complexa esset, irrigat omnem terram quae sub sole est, piae doctrinae divinis fluentis. Here we see the ancient belief of the Eastern Church with regard to the papal primacy over the universal Church. MARCH 14 The Martyrology of St Jerome assigns for to-day THE FOLLOWING COMMEMORATION : Romae, Leonis episcopi et martyris, whose sepulchre is mentioned as existing in the Basilica of St Stephen in the Agro Verano by the biographer of Adrian I : Jmmo et eccle­ siam sancti Stephani juxta eam sitam, ubi corpus sancti Leonis Episcopi et Martyris quiescit, similiter undique re­ paravit. On the tomb of the saint was inscribed this epigraph in the style of Pope Damasus, and was consequently copied in the ancient collections : OMNIA · QVAEQVE · VIDES · PROPRIO · QVAESITA · LABORE CVM · MIHI · GENTILIS · IAMDVDVM · VITA · MANERET INSTITVI · CVPIENS · CENSVM · COGNOSCERE · MVNDI IVDICIO · POST · MVLTA · DEI · MELIORA · SECVTVS CONTEMPTIS · OPIBVS · MALVI · COGNOSCERE · CHRISTVM HAEC · MIHI · CVRA · I VIT · NVDOS · VESTIRE · PETENTES March 14 57 FVNDERE · PAVPERIBVS · QVIDQVID · CONCESSERAT · ANNVS PSALLERE · ET · IN · POPVLIS · VOLVI · MODVLANTE PROPHETA SIC · MERVI · PLEBEM · CHRISTI ■ RETINERE · SACERDOS HVNC · MIHI · COMPOSVIT · TVMVLVM · LAURENTIA · CON1VNX MORIBVS · ΑΡΤΑ · MEIS · SEMPER · VENERANDA · FIDELIS INVIDIA · INFELIX · TANDEM · COMPRESSA · QVIESCET OCTOGINTA · LEO · TRANSCENDIT · EPISCOPVS · ANNOS DEP · DIE · PR ID · IDVS · MARTI AS Various circumstances induce us to see in this Bishop Leo the father of Pope Damasus, but although this is very prob­ able, it is not at all certain. That which is proved, in any case, is the antiquity of the liturgical cultus paid at the Campo Verano to this illustrious bishop, who, among his other great pastoral merits, appears to anticipate the musical glory of Gregory the Great ; for he boasts of having exercised the office of soloist, chanting the Psalms of David in the liturgical assemblies. It is well known that almost to the fifth century the liturgical chant was responsorial ; the Eastern innovation of the anti­ phon not having as yet been adopted in the West. The Scholae Cantorum, therefore, did not exist and the vocaliza­ tion of a competent soloist sufficed. This Office, however, was held in such esteem that the deacons competed with one another to obtain it, and even bishops boasted of having won praise for the manner in which they carried it out. If the above-mentioned Bishop Leo was indeed the father of Damasus, it is evident that the love of poetry and of music was handed down in that family from father to son. MARCH 17 St Patrick, Bishop and Confessor* This Apostle of Ireland, who died in 464, after a life full of austerities and of marvels, scattered the seed of the Gospel in those distant regions with such success that, from the innumerable band of holy men and women which it pro­ duced, the verdant land of Erin was known in the Middle Ages by the glorious title of the “ Island of Saints ”—a glory which three centuries of bitter persecution of the Catholic Faith at the hands of the Anglican Church utterly failed to eclipse. As a tribute, therefore, to the vigorous faith of this nation of heroes, Pius IX, in 1859, raised the feast of St Patrick, which has appeared in the Roman Breviary from the fifteenth century, to the rank of a double. Patrick may truly be re­ garded as the great patriarch of the Irish episcopate and of 58 The Sacramentary Irish monachism; a monachism whose history has left its mark throughout all medieval Europe, wherever, that is, the wandering Scotti planted their tents and introduced their traditions. Christian Rome has dedicated a new church not far from the Via Salaria to this great Apostle of Ireland ; but, also, in olden days, the Irish hospice " Scottorum," which later be­ came the Abbey SS Trinitatis near the titular church of St Lawrence in Damaso, showed how great was the fervour of faith and the love for Catholic Rome which the teaching of St Patrick had impressed on the religious feeling of the Irish. The Mass is that of the Common of a Confessor and Bishop as on February 4, but the Collect is proper to the feast. “ O God, who didst vouchsafe to send blessed Patrick, thy confessor and bishop, to preach thy glory to the nations; grant, through his merits and intercession, that what thou commandest us to do, we may by thy mercy be able to accomplish. Through our Lord.” Holiness, though necessary to all, is still more so to ecclesi­ astical superiors, and to all those who in the designs of Provi­ dence are called upon to found or constitute any kind of religious society. Those who come after must be careful not to change the spirit and the traditions ; but, in order that this may be so, it is necessary that the founders should have kindled in their work so powerful a fire of interior life and holiness that it may also inflame the hearts of future genera­ tions of disciples. It is in this sense that we can understand the saying of the apostle that it is not the sons who are to amass a fortune for their parents, but rather the parents who must do so for their children. MARCH 18 St Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, Confessor, Doctor of the Church* and The feast of this Pontiff, who died about the year 386, was instituted by Leo XIII in 1882, as a sequel to his endeavours to promote the return of the Oriental Churches to the unity of the Catholic Communion. The beginning of the episcopate of St Cyril was marked out by God with the marvellous appear­ ance in the heavens on May 7, 351, of a luminous cross which was seen by the whole city of Jerusalem. The Mass is that of the Common of Doctors as on January 29, except in the following particulars : March 18 59 The Collect contains a graceful allusion to the doctrinal work of St Cyril, who was the valiant champion of the Divinity of Christ against the Arians. On this account during the reigns of the Arian Emperors Constantius and Valens, he was deposed from his See, and forced on three occasions to endure the hardships of exile, thus earning the merit and glory of a Confessor of the Faith. Collect : “ Grant us, we beseech thee, almighty God, through the intercession of blessed Cyril, thy bishop, so to know* thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent, that we may be accounted worthy to be numbered evermore with the sheep who hear his voice. Through our Lord.” The Lesson (Ecclesiasticus xxxix, 6-14) is the alternative passage for the Common of Doctors. The Gospel, which is the same as that appointed for the feast of St Athanasius (Matt, x, 23-28), is chosen with reference to the persecutions and exiles suffered by Cyril at the hands of the Arians. Our Lord did not wish that the apostles should expose themselves recklessly to death, or that they should exercise a profitless ministry among those who were unwilling to benefit by it. He therefore commands his disciples when persecuted in one city to leave it and go to another, in order that the message of the Gospel should be spread abroad and that the whole world should see the shining light of the divine Word, and through it obtain salvation. All the apostles, and especially Paul, carried out exactly this command of the Saviour, and being cast out by the Jews, they turned to the Gentiles of the Grecian and Roman cities, amongst whom the early Church found her first recruits. St Athanasius, the great fugitive of the fourth century, against whom, as the sacred Liturgy tells us, the whole world leagued itself in persecution, has written a Avork in which he declares that flight in time of persecution, in the circum­ stances foreseen in to-day’s Gospel, is an act of great per­ fection, not only because it is a precept of Christ himself, but because instead of ending the sufferings of the Apostolate by a speedy death, it prolongs them, reserving the missionary for fresh and still more severe trials in the future. The Secret is of great beauty : “ Look down, O Lord, on the unspotted victim which we offer up to thee, and grant that by the merits of thy blessed bishop and confessor Cyril, we may ever seek to receive it with clean hearts. Through our Lord.” It was very fitting that the Mass in honour of the great author of the Mystagogic Catecheses of Jerusalem should be inspired by these precious writings in which Cyril in wonder­ * -I IU 6o The Sacramentary fully clear and concise terms expounds the teaching· of the Church concerning· the sacraments, and especially that of the Holy Eucharist. The conception of the prayer of thanks­ giving· after the Communion, in which we beg that the Holy Communion may cause us to participate in the fellowship of the divine nature, is certainly taken from St Cyril, who, in his turn, was inspired by the Second Epistle of St Peter (i, 4). Post-Communion : “ Grant, O Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of blessed Cyril, thy bishop, that the sacrament of thy body and blood, which we have received, may sanctify our minds and hearts, so that we may be deemed worthy to be partakers of the divine nature.” There is nothing more grand or more mysterious than grace, which communicates the divine life to the soul in a manner created and proportioned to its capacity indeed, but always real. Created and divine, we have said—using two terms which appear to be incompatible—yet the elevation of the soul to the supernatural sphere requires precisely the sup­ port of this higher life. Grace, in fact, prepares the soul for glory, wherefore it is not surprising if theologians appear em­ barrassed when they have to express its intimate nature; since, in order to understand it, it would be necessary to know its ultimate end, which is nothing else than the beatific vision of the divine Essence. MARCH 18 To-day the Martyrology of St Jerome announces : Romac Pymeni presbyteri. This is the martyr Pygmenius, who was interred, together with Pollion and Milix, in the cemetery of Pontianus. The Salzburg Itinerary records it thus : De­ scendis in antrum et inventes ibi innumerabilem multitudinem Martyrum: Pumenius martyr ibi quiescit, et Milix martyr in altero loco. The tomb is decorated with paintings representing the saints, and it had this peculiarity—that it could not be entered, but was only to be viewed through the fenestella confessionis. Later the relics of the presbyter and martyr Pygmenius were transferred to St Sylvester in Capite, so that in the ancient Notitia Nataliciorum Sanctorum hic requies­ centium we read: Die XVII11 mensis suprascripli (martii), natalis sancti Pymenii presbyteri et martyris. March 19 61 MARCH 19 St Joseph, Confessor, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patron of the Universal Church* In the Echternach copy of the so-called Martyrology of St Jerome, there is noted for to-day the natalis of a certain martyr, Joseph of Antioch, who cannot be identified with the most chaste spouse of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. On the other hand, other martyrologies of a later date, beginning with the tenth century, record on this day : In Bethlehem sancti Joseph nutritoris Domini, as we see, for instance, in the martyrology of Faria. From so brief a notice as this originated the great solemnity which the Catholic Church celebrates to-day. Devotion to St Joseph has developed amongst Christian people in so marvellous a manner, following such wonderful laws, that it is impossible not to recognize therein the work­ ing of divine Providence. During the first three centuries, it was necessary that the divine nature of the Redeemer should shine forth in all its brightness on an idolatrous people. For this reason the earliest festivals of the liturgical year were those having reference to the mystery of the salvation of the world, such as Easter, the Epiphany, the administration of holy Baptism. When the first dangers arising from polytheism and the Arian heresy had been averted, theology dwelt in preference upon the study of the union of the divine and the human natures in the one person of the Redeemer, and thus there arose the feasts which refer principally to the sacred humanity of Christ, such as the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, and the Falling Asleep of the most Blessed Virgin Mary. This was the golden period of Mariology, which began with the Council of Ephesus, and which throughout the early Middle Ages gave rise to so many feasts and processions, to so many basilicas and monasteries dedicated to the Mother of God, that finally the veneration shown to our Lady was so closely united to the Catholic Faith as to become its special characteristic. As the earliest christological paintings in the catacombs represented the divine Infant on his Mother’s lap, so the devotion of the Church continues to adore him depicted in Mary’s arms. The true Catholic knows that Mary is the masterpiece of Creation, and that the honour paid to her is a tribute to the divine Artifex. He knows that it was the will of Jesus himself, as her true Son, to be obliged to honour and love her infinitely ; so, in honouring and loving Mary, the 02 The Sacrame?itary faithful know that they do but follow, from afar it is true, the example of Jesus. Second only to Mary comes he who, although not the father of Jesus, nevertheless had a father’s authority over him. This is Joseph, who was not merely the putative father of the Saviour in the sense in which the Jews, ignorant of the mystery of the Incarnation, held him to be, nay, he was more, for he was the true representative of the authority of the eternal Father, and was consequently invested with the patria potestas in the bosom of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Thus the angel delivers the commands of the Lord con­ cerning the flight into Egypt and the return to Palestine to Joseph alone; he it is who, together with Mary, gives the divine Infant the name of Jesus; he it is who hastens his Immaculate Spouse to set forth into exile, as it is also on him that the responsibility rests for the maintenance of the Holy Family at Nazareth. As in the Holy House of Nazareth, under the paternal authority of Joseph, God was pleased to bless the first beginnings of the Church, so she rightly re­ cognizes and venerates as her special patron, St Joseph, the first head of this family, the household of God upon earth. The liturgical cultus of this great Patriarch developed con­ siderably in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, through the instrumentality especially of St Bridget of Sweden, of John Gerson, and of St Bernardine of Siena. The Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) introduced the commemoration of St Joseph into the Roman Breviary as a simple feast, which was raised to a double by Clement IX ; Gregory XV made the feast one of obligation,1 and finally Pius IX gave to St Joseph the title of Patron of the Universal Church. Christian Rome, besides the magnificent chapel dedicated to St Joseph in the Vatican Basilica itself, has named many churches and oratories after this glorious Patriarch, who holds the highest place amongst the saints, being by right of his office the nearest to Jesus and Mary. Among the less ancient of these churches we must mention that of St Joseph “ dei Falegnami ” on the Custodia Mamertini in the Forum Romanum; St Joseph ad caput domorum not far from the Porta Pinciana, St Joseph “alia Lungara’’ in the Leonine city; St Joseph de linea built by the celebrated Vittoria Colonna but now destroyed; St Joseph at the foot of the Collis ortorum close to the Piazza di Spagna, St Joseph “ di Cluny ” near the Via Merulana, etc. It is not improbable that the tardy institution of the feast of St Joseph in the month of March was influenced by the commemoration which the Church makes of Joseph the great partriarch during Lent, when the words of St Ambrose pro‘ i.e., for Italy. i | ! , ' ! i ' < | I rrs. March 19 63 nounced in his praise are read after the second nocturn of the Third Sunday in Lent : Ex libro S Ambrosii Episcopi, de sancto Joseph. The Mass is taken in part from the Common of a Con­ fessor, or from other earlier Masses contained in the Sacramentary. The selection has, however, been made with good taste. The Introit is as on January 15. If St Joseph is compared to a flourishing· palm-tree and to the stem of Jesse, the flower which adorns this stem is Jesus Christ, who, as St Augustine truly says, alone befits the sacred and virginal union of the Blessed Virgin with the holy Patriarch. The Collect is derived from the feast of St Matthew : “ Vouchsafe, O Lord, that we may be helped by the merits of the spouse of thy most holy mother, so that what we cannot obtain of ourselves may be given to us through his intercession : who livest.” The Lesson is from the Common of Abbots as on Decem­ ber 5, but is far more suited to St Joseph whom God placed at the head of his family upon earth, to whom he revealed the glory and the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, and whom he honoured above all other mortals. The Gradual and Tract are the same as on February 8. Three brilliant gems shine resplendent in the crown which God has placed on the head of Joseph, and these are Jesus, Mary, and Holy Church. During Paschal time the Gradual and the Tract are omitted and the following allcluiatic verses are recited instead : (Ecclesiasticus xlv) “ Alleluia, alleluia. The Lord loved him, and adorned him : he clothed him with a robe of glory. Alleluia.” The second verse (Osee xiv) is identical with that of the feast of St Paul the first hermit, and refers to the rod that blossomed which, according to tradition, marked out Joseph as the Spouse chosen by God for the Virgin Mary. The Gospel (Matt, i, 18-21) is like that of Christmas Eve. In it wc should note that, in accordance with the command of the Angel, Joseph, as the representative of the Eternal Father and as a sign of his patria potestas over the Incarnate Word, bestows on him the name of Jesus and, together with the name, entrusts him also with the mission of redeeming the human race by obedience even to the sacrifice of Calvary. Thus St Joseph enters into the designs of almighty God for our salvation and takes his part in the wondrous plan of the Incarnation of the Word. The Offertory is that for the feast of St Raymund on The Sacramentary January 23, but, as applied to St Joseph, this verse from Psalm Ixxxviii acquires a deeper meaning;, for the truth and the mercy which the Psalmist here describes as being- the ornament and strength of the just man, are in truth found in Jesus himself, who in the Holy Family was the sole treasure of his parents. To-day’s Secret has a special signification, for the offering of the host which we are about to present to God on the holy altar took place for the first time in the temple at Jerusalem when, forty days after the Nativity, Mary and Joseph brought the Incarnate Word thither, ut sisterent eum Domino. “ We render thee, O Lord, the homage of our service, humbly entreating that thou wouldst preserve in us thy gifts by the prayers of blessed Joseph, the spouse of the mother of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; on whose holy festival we offer up to thee the sacrifice of praise. Through the same.” The Preface, too, is proper to the feast, and was approved by Benedict XV. ”... everlasting God . . . and that we should magnify thee with due praise, bless and confess thee on the feast of holy Joseph, who, a righteous man, was given by thee to be the spouse of the virgin Mother of God, a faith­ ful and wise servant was set over thy family, that with a father’s care he should guard thine only-begotten Son con­ ceived of the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Antiphon for the Communion is drawn from the Gospel of the day, and its repetition at this moment of the sacred Liturgy is intended to stimulate our faith and our adoration of the majesty of him whom we have just received into our hearts. ” Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife : for that which is born in her is of the Holy Ghost.” In the Post-Communion the Church dwells for the second time to-day on the necessity of carefully guarding the gift of God and of his grace : ” Be nigh to us, we beseech thee, O merciful God, and by the intercession of blessed Joseph the Confessor mercifully preserve thy gifts about us. Through our Lord.” As the Patriarch Joseph of old garnered the corn which was to save Egypt during the seven years of famine, so, too, did the most chaste Spouse of the Virgin Mary guard against the cruelty of Herod the true Bread of eternal life, which brings salvation to all mankind. This is still the mission of Joseph in heaven : and for this reason the Church dwells again and again upon the thought that it is his powerful intercession which shall preserve the mystical life of Jesus in our souls by causing us to respond faithfully to the grace which we have received. March 21 65 MARCH 21 St Benedict, Abbot The feast of the holy Patriarch of Western Monasticism was included in the Gregorian Sacramentary in the early Middle Ages, at a time, that is, when the Roman Pontificate itself, the episcopate, the hierarchy, the religious life, the apostolate among the heathen, and both sacred and profane learning, all appear to be closely bound up with the activities of the Benedictine Order. St Gregory the Great was the first to encourage the universal cultus of St Benedict, when less than fifty years after the death of the saint, he wrote his life and made known his rule. It was owing to him that this im­ mortal code of perfection, kept for greater security in the papal archives at the Lateran, very soon superseded in Europe all other earlier forms of monastic life and became the Regula Monachorum, the eminently Roman and papal rule of the monastic devout life. The following lines were written by a contemporary of St Gregory the Great, in praise of this ever enduring code of sanctity which that famous Pontiff held to be one of St Benedict’s most wonderful achievements : QVI · LENI · IVGO · CHRISTI · COLLA · SVBMITTERE · CVPIS REGVLAE · SPONTE · DA · MENTEM · DVLCIA ■ VT · CAPIAS · MELLA IIIC · TESTAMENTI · VETERIS · NOVIQVE · MANDATA HIC · ORDO · DIVINVS · HICOVE · CASTISSIMA · VITA HOC · BENEDICTVS · PATER · CONSTITVIT · SACRVM · VOLVMEN SVISQVE · MANDAVIT · IIAEC · SERVANDA ■ ALVMNIS SIMPLICIVS · FAMVLVS · CHRISTIQVE · MINISTER MAGISTRI · LATENS · OPVS · PROPAGAVIT · IN · OMNES VNA · TAMEN · MERCES · VTRISQVE · MANET · IN - AEVV.M Thou who art desirous of bending thy neck beneath the mild yoke of Christ, Zealously meditate on this Rule, and thou wilt find it sweet as honey. In it is contained the teaching of the Old and the New Testa­ ments. Herein a divine Rule is set forth, and a life of purity. The Patriarch Benedict composed this sacred code And enjoined his followers to observe its laws. Simplicius,1 servant and minister of Christ, 1 This Simplicius was the third Abbot of Monte Cassino, and St Gregory the Great quotes him among the witnesses from whom he obtained the historical facts related in his life of St Benedict : Sim-plicio quoque, qui congregationem illius post eum tertius rexit. (Dial. II, Prolog.), P.L. LXVI, coi. 126. iv. 5 66 The Sacramentary Made everywhere known the word of the master, at first kept wellnigh hidden. Thus both of them merited the same reward in eternity. Medieval Rome, besides its eighty and more Benedictine monasteries charged with the singing of the divine Ollice in the chief basilicas, boasted of a considerable number of churches, oratories, and altars dedicated to the holy lawgiver of Roman Monasticism, who formerly had been one of its citizens, to him who, having abandoned his studies, fled from Rome and withdrew himself into the solitude of Subiaco, yet always kept the love of his own native city in his heart. For like Leo I (440-61), who arrested the advance of Attila and Genseric by his heroic firmness, Benedict also, by his threats and his authority, intimidated Totila and rendered less disastrous the taking of Rome at the hands of the king of the Goths. We will confine ourselves to mentioning a few of the churches within the city dedicated to the great patriarch of Monte Cassino, in order to give our readers some idea of the importance and extent of the cultus of St Benedict amongst the devout Romans in early times. We note then the follow­ ing churches : S Benedicti in Arenula, S Benedicti de Cacabis, S Benedicti de Thermis, S Benedicti in Piscinula, S Bene­ dicti Scotiarum, S Benedicti “ della ciambella.” In order to realize the place which the Patriarch of Latin Monasticism held in the Middle Ages, it is necessary that we should also recall a famous picture in the church of Sta Maria in Pallara where St Benedict is to be seen occupying a central position between the two Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul. It may be said with truth that, in those days, owing to its great number of monasteries, the entire Eternal City was Benedictine; since the spirit of the Regula Sancta, as it came to be called, filled all the citizens. The iron age, alas 1 was soon to follow, when the number of monks began to decline. Moreover, with the rise of the new Mendicant Orders, who were especially intended for an active life consequent on the new requirements of the faithful, a number of other stars began to shine in the firmament of the Church. St Benedict, however, still remained the great Patriarch of all these founders of religious Orders ; for, like another Moses, he had guided the Church, during many centuries, through the arid desert of the early Middle Ages. Further, just as the glory of the Judges, who arose after Moses to carry on his work, in no way lessened the glory of Israel’s great Lawgiver, so the fame of the great reformers of the religious life in the West, after the twelfth century, in no wise detracts from the splendour which surrounds the figure ... ΛάϊΐΓ· - / ·. March 21 · 67 of St Benedict, who is regarded as their father and law­ giver by a glorious company of Popes, doctors, and apostles of all the nations of Europe, as well as by innumerable martyrs and saints. The last two Pontiffs who professed the Rule of St Bene­ dict, in the nineteenth century, were Pius VII and Gregory XVI. Pope Benedict XV also had a great devotion to St Benedict. He always kept a picture of the saint on his writing-table and recited every day special prayers to that great patriarch. He celebrated the feast of St Benedict as that of his papal namesake, and on that day he used to give to the picture of St Benedict which hung on the wall above his desk the place of honour, superior to that of the Apostle St James the Great, whose name he had received at his baptism. Not infrequently we find in the ancient manuscripts of the Gregorian Sacramentary some grand Masses with Collects and Preface proper to the feast of St Benedict, whose name is also sometimes mentioned in the Canon. In our present Missal, however, the Mass is that of the Common of Abbots throughout as on December 5. The feast was only made a greater double in 1883 by Leo XIII, at the instance of the Benetictine Order, who saw with regret that the feast of their own founder was very often omitted from the Calendar of the Universal Church merely because it happened to coincide with a Sunday or a privileged feria in Lent, and could not be transferred to another day. In some monastic Sacramentaries of the early Middle Ages, the feast of St Benedict was also preceded by a vigil. The Abbey of Farfa still preserves this ancient liturgical tradition. St Gregory the Great, in describing a famous vision of the Patriarch Benedict, who, in a ray of supernatural light, was able to observe the whole of Creation, observes that, for this to be possible, it was not necessary that the world should become smaller, but that it sufficed that the soul of the saint, rapt in God, should be expanded in the vision of the divine glory ; for, as the holy Doctor well says, to one who beholds the Creator all creatures appear insignificant. This is the great secret by which we are enabled to over­ come the fascination of the things of this world ; and not be dismayed by the opposition of men, who can indeed threaten us, but who are powerless to harm a hair of our heads, unless by permission of the Providence of God. In honour of the Patriarch and Lawgiver of countless abbeys scattered throughout Europe during the Middle Ages : of the inspired teacher in whose school were educated the Doctors of the Universal Church, such as Gregory the Great, the Venerable Bede, Peter Damian, Anselm, and Bernard; of the Father of more than twenty Popes, who came forth 68 The Sacramentary from the ranks of his disciples; of the wonder-worker whose marvellous deeds were described by the authoritative pen of St Gregory I, and translated into Greek by Pope Zachary : we will give the Collects of to-day's feast which arc to be found in several copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary : Natale sancti Benedicti abbatis. Oratio : Omnipotens, sempiterne Deus, qui per gloriosa exempla humilitatis, triumphum nobis ostendisti aeternum; da quaesumus, ut viam tibi placitae oboedientiae, qua vener­ abilis Pater illesus antecedebat Benedictus, nos, praeclaris eius meritis adiuti, sine errore subsequamur. Praefatio : Vere dignum . . . aeterne Deus, et gloriam tuam profusis precibus exorare; ut qui beati Confessoris tui Benedicti veneramur festa, eius sanctitatis imitari valeamus exempla. Et cuius merita nequaquam possumus coaequari, eius precibus mereamur adiuvari, per Christum, etc. In the Ordo Romanus XI of Migne’s collection it is pre­ scribed that in the month of March the papal Concistorium shall not sit during the three feasts of St Gregory the Great, St Benedict, and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.1 We will close these notes on the ancient Roman solemnity in honour of St Benedict by quoting some verses from the De Laudibus Virginum of St Aidhelm, in which he has inter­ woven the praises of the holy Patriarch of Monte Cassino with those of St Gregory the Great, and the forty monks from Rome, who, by order of the saintly Pontiff, set forth from the Lateran to carry the Gospel to England, and intro­ duce into that country the Rule of St Benedict : Cuius praeclaram pandens ab origine vitam Gregorius Praesul chartis descrip­ serat olim, Donec aethralem felix migraret in arcem. Huius alumnorum numero glomer­ amus ovantes, Quos gerit in gremio foecunda Britannia cives; Pope Gregory has already de­ scribed the marvellous life Of St Benedict from his earliest years, To his happy entrance into the realms above. We take pride in belonging to the number of his disciples, Whom Britannia, the faithful mother of citizens, nourishes in her bosom. /1 quo iam nobis baptismi gratia For from Benedict we received the fluxit. grace of baptism Atque magistrorum veneranda And the venerable band of our first teachers. caterva cucurrit. ■ P L. LXXVIIt, col. lioS. March 24 69 MARCH 24 St Gabriel, Archangel* The festival of St Gabriel was appointed for this day in the Roman Missal by Pope Benedict XV. There already existed, however, historical precedents in its favour, for we find it in the earliest Coptic Calendar on December 18, and in the Syriac Lectionary it is recorded on March 26. In both in­ stances, as may be seen, it is placed in relationship to the festival of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, and, there­ fore, also the day recently dedicated to St Gabriel in the Roman Calendar has its cornerstone in the most ancient of the Eastern traditions. The cultus of this holy Archangel who, in the Scriptures, announces the mystery of the Incarnation to the prophet Daniel, to the high priest Zachary, and to the Blessed Virgin, was to a certain extent popular in early times both in the Byzantine and in the Western world, for the initial letters of his name, together with those of Michael, or yet more fre­ quently the paintings of the two Archangels, surround the Byzantine representation of Christ who as an infant is sitting on his Mother's lap. Among the best known Ikons it is sufficient to record here that one which is venerated at Rome on the Esquiline under the title of our Lady of Perpetual Succour, in which there appear in the sky on each side of the Child Jesus two angels poised in flight with the instruments of the Passion in their hands. Who these are we learn from the initials : XX XX CAM O A Γ which signify the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. The Ikon of the Theotokos at Farfa is almost identical with this one on the Esquiline. A beautiful Latin prayer introduced into the Roman rite of High Mass, when the priest at the Offertory blesses the oblations, made the invocation originally in these words : intercessionem beati Gabrielis Archangeli, stantis a dextris altaris incensi. In more recent times this prayer has under­ gone an alteration for which no justification is found in Holy Scripture ; since it no longer places Gabriel at the side of the altar of incense as do the prophet Daniel and St Luke, but Michael in his stead. Armellini announced in the year 1875 the discovery which he had made of an ancient oratory on the Via Appia, dedi­ cated to the Seven Martyrs, known also as the Seven Sleepers, yo The Sacramentary of Ephesus, and to the Archangel St Gabriel. This sanctuary stood near the deaconry of St Cesarius, and probably owed its origin to some Eastern community. It did not, however, have a long existence, for in the list of Roman churches of the fourteenth century it is mentioned as not having anyone in charge of it. " Ecclesia sancti Archangcli, quae non habet servitorem.”1 In the recess at the end of the chapel was represented the Blessed Virgin with the Archangel in the attitude of prayer, together with the name Gabriel, whilst above them was to be seen the Saviour surrounded by ranks of angelic spirits rendering him homage. Along the lateral walls there were a number of heads of monks, lowly and emaciated, and many of Byzantine saints, among whom must certainly have been included the martyrs of Ephesus from whom the neighbouring vineyard still takes its name. In the twelfth century the same Beno de Rapiza and Maria Macellaria, his wife, who caused the Basilica of St Clement to be decorated with paintings, showed their pious generosity also towards the little church of St Gabriel on the Appian Way. Thus at the corners of the lunette over the principal altar were painted two portraits, of a man and of a woman, with the names Beno and Maria. From the liturgical point of view the insertion of the feast of St Gabriel the Archangel into the Calendar of the Roman Church by decree of Benedict XV, far from being a novelty, represents, on the contrary, a return to the oldest traditions of Mother Church. The Introit from Psalm cii is that of the ancient Mass of St Michael : “ Bless the Lord all ye his angels; you that are mighty in strength and execute his word, listening to the voice of his orders.” What a beautiful description is this of the angels : con­ templative spirits who delight in hearing the word of God and who find all their happiness in executing it, thus co­ operating with the Word in the work of the salvation of the human race. In the Collect we exalt the merits of the Archangel Gabriel, who, from among all the other blessed spirits, was chosen by God to share his great secret, the mystery of the Incarna­ tion of the divine Word, a secret which, for the time being, was to be hidden from Satan. We therefore pray that through the merits of the Archangel, whose feasts we are celebrating, the Lord may grant us also his patronage in heaven. The Lesson is derived from the Book of Daniel (ix, 21-26). 1 Armellini, Le Chiese di Roma, Il Ed., p. 596. March 24 71 In answer to the prayers and fasting of the prophet, Gabriel conies down from heaven and declares to him that now not more than a few “weeks of years” remain before the coming of Christ who will put an end to sin and will in­ augurate the Messianic Kingdom. But, alas ! Jerusalem, which is about to rise from its ruins by the action of Cyrus, will be unfaithful to the pact made by God with Israel, because after sixty-two “ weeks of years ” the Messias shall be slain and a new people under the command of a foreign leader shall destroy the temple and its ruins shall cover the desolate Mount of Moriah. The Gradual comes from the same Psalm as the Introit: “ Bless the Lord, all ye his angels; you that are mighty in strength, and execute his word, listening to the voice of his orders. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless his holy name.” This is the true gift which we must ask for on to-day’s feast : the grace of imitating the prompti­ tude and zeal of the holy angels in swiftly obeying the com­ mands of God. This disposition of obedience and of perfect submission to the will of God must be universal and con­ tinuous so as to become that which St Paul calls rationabile obsequium vestrum. The modern compiler of the Mass has taken the Tract from the Gospel narrative instead of from the Psalter as is cus­ tomary. The merit of Gabriel is intimately connected with the mystery of the Incarnation which he announced to Mary— and it is her consent which the Archangel carries back to the Eternal Father. Tract (Luke i, 28 sqq.) : “ Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee.” y. “ Blessed art thou among women : and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” This second blessing is that given by Elizabeth. y. “ Behold thou shalt conceive and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call him Jesus.” This Gospel interpolation is inspired by the well-known text of Isaias:1 y. “ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, y. And therefore the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” When this feast is kept at Eastertide, instead of the Gradual and the Tract, the allcluiatic verse is sung; which the modern composer of the Mass has formed out of the two following verses : “ Alleluia, alleluia.” y. (Psalm ciii, 4) “ Who maketh his angels winds and his ministers a burning fire. Alleluia.” 1 Isaias vii, 14. η2 y. The Sacramentary (Luke i, 28) “ Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Alleluia.” The Gospel (Luke i, 26-38), in which Gabriel, in the name of the most august Trinity and of all the heavenly court, salutes her who is blessed among all creatures, and announces to her that the Lord has called her to be the Mother of God, is the same as that for Ember Wednesday in Advent. Mary obediently accepts her vocation, and the Fiat which she pro­ nounces in the presence of the Archangel represents the formula of her religious profession. The Offertory (Apoc. viii, 3-4) is as on the feast of St Michael. It has reference to the incensing of the oblations and of the altar which takes place at this point in the liturgical action. “ An Angel stood near the altar of the Temple, having a golden censer in his hand : and there was given to him much incense : and the smoke of the perfumes ascended before God.” This incense is a symbol of the divine Liturgy—that is, of our prayers and our sacrifices which the holy angels together with Christ our High Priest, of whom they are the ministers, offer for us before the throne of God. For this reason also in the Roman anaphora of the Mass, we pray that the holy angels may bear our eucharistie sacrifice from the earthly to the heavenly altar, and that they may obtain for those who partake thereof all grace and benediction in abundance. The Secret is inspired by the Offertory verse and beseeches the Lord to accept our offering which to-day is accompanied by the prayers of the Archangel ; so that as he is venerated on earth with special devotion, he may be our intercessor in heaven in our spiritual needs. The Communion is from the Canticle of the three youths of Babylon (Dan. iii, 58) : ”0 ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord : sing a hymn and exalt him above all for ever.” In the Post-Communion we ask of God through the merits of the Angel Gabriel that, as he was the first to make known to us the mystery of the divine Incarnation, so he may both obtain for us its full fruition in ourselves and may also bring it about that we, being incorporated with Christ by virtue of the Blessed Sacrament, may live in him and may partici­ pate with him in his Father’s inheritance. The spiritual fruit to be derived from to-day's feast, be­ sides that of a tender devotion to the Queen of Angels, is a great reverence for the presence of most blessed spirits to whom Jesus has committed the care and protection of his Church. It is because of this that St John, in the Apocalypse, instead of addressing himself directly to the seven Bishops of Asia, directs his admonitions to the guardian Angels of the several churches entrusted to them. March 24 73 MARCH 24 To-day the Martyrology of St Jerome notes also : Romae Cyrini Martyris. This martyr was a tribune in the time of Hadrian. His place of burial was venerated in the cemetery of Praetextatus on the Via Appia, and is mentioned in the ancient pilgrim itineraries : Ibi intrabis in speluncam magnam et ibi invenies S Urbanum episcopum et confessorem, et in altero loco Felicissimum et Agapitum martyres, et diaconos Syxti, et in tertio loco Cyrinum martyrem, et in quarto Januarium martyrem. The tombs of all these martyrs were restored in the eighth century by Pope Adrian I ; but later on the relics of St Quirinus must have been transferred to San Silvestro in Capite, since his name appears on this day in the Notitia Nataliciorum of that church. Pope Damasus must doubtless have composed one of his epigrams for the tomb of St Quirinus the tribune. De Rossi believed that he had found some fragments of it, but it has not been possible to reconstruct its meaning. MARCH 25 Feast or the Annunciation to the Blessed Mary of the Divine Incarnation Virgin Collecta at St Adrian. Station at St Mary Major. Such was the ancient title of this festival in the various medieval Sacramentaries and Martyrologies, from which we gather that, originally, it was considered as a feast of our Saviour, rather than of the Blessed Virgin. The date of March 25 was not fixed arbitrarily, but arises from that of the Nativity, which occurs nine months later, and even as early as the seventh century the first date was supported by so venerable and universal a tradition that, when the Council of Trullo in 692 forbade the celebration of the feast of any martyr during Lent, it made a special excep­ tion for that of the Incarnation of our Lord on March 25. We know that, to this day, the Greeks suspend the daily celebra­ tion of the divine Sacrifice during the Lenten fast, except on Saturdays, Sundays, and March 25, unlike the ancient Spanish rite, which, in order to avoid this liturgical concession in favour of the feast of the Incarnation of our Lord, transfers it from the spring to the winter equinox about a week before Christmas. It cannot be denied that whilst the spirit of the Liturgy is 74 The Sacramentary already intent upon the contemplation of the mystical Lamb of God immolated upon Calvary on the eve of the Pasch, it appears a somewhat sudden and violent change to turn abruptly in the middle of Lent from the cross to the joyful mysteries of the House of Nazareth. But, of greater weight than all these considerations, which are largely of a subjec­ tive nature, is the solemn event and the historic date of March 25, which inaugurates the New Testament ; so much so that, in the early Middle Ages, it was regarded among Christian nations as the true commencement of the civil year. It appears that, at Constantinople, the feast was already kept in the time of Proclus, who died in 446, but in the West it appears later, for it is not to be found in the Gallican Missal, and is included only in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries of the early Carlovingian period. At Rome all indication of it is wanting in the Wurzburg List of Gospels, while from the Liber Pontificalis we only learn that it was Sergius I who ordered it to be celebrated with due solemnity —that is to say, with a grand stational procession from the deaconry of St Adrian to St Mary Major. This custom was long maintained, and the Ordines Romani of the twelfth century describe at length the majestic ceremony which took place on this day, in exact resemblance to that other festival on February 2, of which we have previously spoken—namely, that of the Hypapante of the Byzantines. The capital of the Catholic world has dedicated to this con­ soling mystery of the Annunciation of our Redemption several churches, which are of importance on account of their vener­ able antiquity. Besides the Oratory of the Annunciation at Tor de’Specchi—originally Sancta Maria de Curte—we may mention the four churches now destroyed : Sta Maria An­ nunziata in Camilliano, Sta Maria Annunziata on the Esquiline, Sta Maria Annunziata “ allo Quattro Fontane,” and Sta Maria Annunziata near the Ælian bridge. On the other hand, there still exists on the Via Ardeatina the sanctuary of our Lady called by the inhabitants of Rome “ 1’Annunziatella,” under which was found an ancient Christian vault. It was there, in all probability, that St Fclicola was interred after her martyrdom. The Libri In­ dulgentiarum of the late Middle Ages mention this rural oratory as one of the IX ecclesiae which the pilgrims were wont to visit, so that the road leading to it was called simply Για Oratoria in a Brief of Urban V (1362-70). Even to this day the Roman populace Hock on festivals to this sanctuary of our Lady on the Via Ardeatina, especially on the first Sunday in May. The Mass, although we are in the middle of Lent, carries us straight back to Advent. Yet this white winter blossom March 25 75 which recalls the snows of Christmas has its own deep sig­ nificance, for it reminds us of Gideon’s fleece—that gracious symbol of the spotless virginity of the Mother of God—which was found by the Prophet newly wet with the dew of spring in the midst of a sun-baked plain in Palestine. The Introit is taken from the usual “ Canticle of Virginity,” as St Jerome used to call Psalm xliv. “ All the rich among the people shall entreat thy countenance ; after her shall virgins be brought to the King : her neighbours shall be brought to thee in gladness and rejoicing. My heart hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the King. y. Glory be.” In the Collect the emphasis given to the words “ we who believe her to be truly the Mother of God ” points to the period following the disputes of Nestorius, and his condemna­ tion at the first sessions of the Council of Ephesus. Collect : “ O God, who didst please that thy Word should take flesh at the message of an angel in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant to us thy suppliants, that we who believe her to be truly the Mother of God may be helped by her intercession with thee. Through the same Lord.” The Lesson from Isaias (vii, 10-15) was read also on Ember Wednesday in Advent. In it is clearly foretold the miraculous conception of the Virgin, and also the divine nature of her offspring. Jews and rationalists deny that the Hebrew word Alniah here used by the Prophet signifies exclusively “ virgin ” and not rather ‘‘ young girl.” The orthodox interpreters, on the other hand, reply that, as a matter of fact, each time—and it is not very often—that this word is used in Holy Scripture it always refers to a virgin ; moreover, it can be inferred from the circumstances of the case that the marvellous sign an­ nounced by the Prophet must be a miraculous birth, one, that is, outside all the laws of nature. The word Almah, taken in the sense which rationalists desire to give to it, makes the prophecy of Isaias altogether meaningless. The verses from Psalm xliv which form the Gradual must be understood primarily as referring to the Messias, but in their liturgical use, consequent on the intimate union of the divine Son and his Mother, they apply also to her who is ‘‘blessed among women.” Gradual: ‘‘Grace is poured abroad in thy lips; therefore hath God blessed thee for ever. V. Because of truth, and meekness, and justice ; and thy right hand shall conduct thee wonderfully.” Tract (Psalm xliv) : “ Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear : for the King hath greatly desired thy beauty, y. All the rich among the people shall entreat thy counten­ ance : the daughters of kings in thy honour, y. After her 76 The Sacramentary shall virgins be brought to the King : her neighbours shall be brought to thee. y. They shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing; they shall be brought into the temple of the King.” At Eastertide the preceding verses arc omitted, and the following alleluiatic verses are recited in their stead : ‘‘Alleluia, alleluia, y. (Luke i, 28) Hail, Mary, full of grace : the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. Alleluia, y. The rod of Jesse hath blossomed : a virgin hath brought forth God and man : God hath given peace, reconciling the lowest with the highest in himself. Alleluia.” The Gospel is that of Ember Wednesday in Advent (Luke i, 26-38), which, in the Middle Ages, was recited with special solemnity in chapters and monasteries, as if to announce to the religious the near approach of Christmas. St Bernard, following a monastic custom which still exists, was in the habit of commentating fully upon it to his monks (of Clairvaux) assembled in chapter. Hence we possess the splendid collection of his homilies Super Missus est, the most beautiful passages of which are included in the Roman Breviary. Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum: that is the most complete and most perfect act of consecration which has ever been made. The Angel had announced to Mary the sublime dignity to which it was God’s intention to raise her, and she on her part, in the supernatural light which filled her, realized the in­ effable blending of love and suffering which was consequent on that position. Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum: by these words she who was so greatly blessed signified that she consented, not only to give life and human flesh to the Word of God, but also to share with him poverty and persecutions ; the insults and even the sorrows of Calvary. For this reason Mary in heaven is nearest to the throne of God, just as on earth her heart most closely resembled the Sacred Heart of her divine Son. On this solemn festival we cannot refrain from calling to mind once more the praises of Mary contained in the verses which were formerly to be read in St Mary Major under the mosaics of Sixtus III representing the life of the Blessed Virgin : Virgo Maria, tibi Xystus Digna salutifero munera Te Genitrix, ignara viri, Visceribus salvis, edita nova tecta dicavi venire tuo. te denique foeta nostra salus. The Offertory (Luke i, 28, 42) is identical with that ap­ pointed for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. It is important in regard to the history of the Angelic Salutation which appears here for the first time in its most ancient form, which form was preserved intact in its euchological use down to the four­ teenth century. “ Hail, Mary, full of grace : the Lord is with March 25 I I 1 I I I I I 77 thee. Blessed art thou among· women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” The Secret retains the thoroughly classical form of the Leonine period : “ Strengthen, O Lord, in our minds, we be­ seech thee, the mysteries of the true faith ; that we who con­ fess him that was conceived of the Virgin to be true God and man may, by the power of his saving resurrection, deserve to arrive at eternal gladness. Through the same.” The Preface is that usually recited on the feasts of the Blessed Virgin as on December 8. The Communion, which comes from Isaias vii, 14, “ Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son ; and his name shall be called Emmanuel,” is that of the Fourth Sunday in Advent. It contains not only the prediction of the Virgin Birth, but also announces explicitly the definite and enduring character of the new Messianic Era. God will no longer enter into a temporary pact with Israel, nor will he appear henceforth merely for a brief moment to a few privileged prophets, but he will dwell perpetually in the midst of the redeemed and sanctified human race. This is the signification of the new divine title of Emmanuel : “ God with us.” The Post-Communion is the same as that of the First Sunday in Advent. This shows still further the fortuitous character of this Mass, which was inserted in the Sacra­ mentary long after the time of St Gregory. Posthumous addi­ tions to the work of the holy Doctor were avoided as far as possible ; thus the new feasts which arose in the seventh cen­ tury derived their Masses from those which were more ancient. Post-Communion : “ Pour forth, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the incarnation of Christ thy Son was made known by the message of an angel, may by his passion and cross be brought to the glory of his resurrection. Through the same.” As Jesus Christ in order to begin his life of suffering took flesh in the womb of the most Blessed Virgin in fulfilment of her trusting Fiat, so in order to commence his mystical life in our hearts by means of his grace, he desires that we too shall proclaim our own Fiat, and dedicate ourselves entirely to him. On this assent, complete, perpetual, intimate, and active, all our holiness and perfection must depend. On the occasion of the feast of the Annunciation we may recall here one of the most celebrated compositions in the Byzantine Liturgy, that of the “ Acathistic hymn,” which treats of this mystery at some length. Sergius of Constanti­ nople, the father of the Monothelite heresy, would seem to have been its author. It was composed as a hymn of thanksgiving to the Blessed Virgin, who in 626 had delivered the 78 The Sacramentary Imperial city from the hordes of the Avars. It is called “ Acathistic ” because, unlike the other καθίσματα, it was sung standing on the Saturday after the Fourth Sunday in Lent by the clergy and people who spent the whole of the night in this way in vigil. The following is one of the strophes containing the Angelic Salutation : “ The Archangel Gabriel was sent by God to say to the Virgin * Hail.’ And he, contemplating, O Lord, thine In­ carnation, was frightened, and with angelic voice said to Mary : ‘ Hail, for through thee joy shall return to the world. Hail, thou resurrection of fallen humanity ; Hail, thou who dost wipe away the tears of Eve; Hail, thou who art so sub­ lime that the human mind cannot reach thee; Hail, O depth inscrutable even to the angels themselves; Hail, O Throne of the King; Hail, thou who dost bear him who sustains the universe. Hail, O star that reflects the Sun; Hail, O Seat of God Incarnate.’ ” MARCH 26 In the Martyrology of St Jerome, we find to-day : Romae, in citniterio via Lavicana, natalis sancti Castoli Martyris, whose sepulchre is also indicated in the ancient itineraries. The cemetery of Castulus was on the right of the Via Labicana, near the aqueduct of the Aqua Felice,1 but it is now unapproachable. According to his Acta, Castulus was employed as zetarius cubiculi Diocletiani Augusti at the Imperial palace, when, during the persecution in that Emperor’s reign, he was accused of being a Christian and was buried alive in a sand­ pit on the Via Labicana. The tomb of the martyr of the same name is recorded in an inscription naming several deceased persons who were interred near that spot : QVOR · SVN · NOMI NAE · MASIMI CATABATICV ISECVNDV MARTYRE DOM IN V CASTOLV . ISCALA The following inscription was placed over the tomb of St Castulus : ‘ Originally the Aqua Alexandrina constructed by Alexander Severus for the Thermæ of Nero, circa a.d. 226. Restored in 15S6 by Sixtus V (Felice Perelti), hence the modern name.—Tr. Λ. ■·· March 27 79 TE · DVCE · VENERIVS · RABIDAS · COMPESCVIT · IRAS ATQVE · VESANA · NIMIS · INIMICI · IVRGIA · VICIT CASTVLE · TV · DIGNVS · PRAESTAS · CVLTORIBVS · ISTAS HAEC · TIBI · SERVATVS · NVNC · OFFERT · MVNERA · SVPPI.EX Venerius with thine aid broke down the hostile fury and overcame the senseless malice of the enemy. Thou, O Cas­ tulus, art generous of these favours to thy votaries. Venerius, whom thou hast kept safe and sound, offers thee now these gifts as a suppliant. The body of St Castulus was transferred by Paschal I to the titulus Praxedis, as the marble inscription commemorat­ ing the translation testifies. MARCH 27 St John of Damascus, Confessor Church* and Doctor of the This feast was introduced in 1890 and marks the first period of the pontificate of Leo XIII, when the question of the Eastern Church was very much in his thoughts. If the efforts of the Pope did not meet with all the success that was hoped for, it was certainly not for lack of zeal on the part of the Catholic Church, which then, as always, stretched out her motherly arms to welcome the disinherited daughters of the East, saddened by the schism of wellnigh one thousand years, and crushed in addition by their servitude under the Crescent. The Mass, although compiled with great care, nevertheless reveals its modern character by the repeated historical reminis­ cences which illustrate it. That episode of doubtful authen­ ticity which relates how the saint’s arm was cut off, and the part played by him in defending holy images, must have especially struck the compiler. The eminent place which St John Damascene holds in the history of Catholic theology, his influence in the formation of the Catholic scholastic system ; above all, the fact that with him the Eastern patristic era terminates, and that after him not a single Byzantine generation has contributed anything towards the building up of the theological structure—so wonderful in itself—erected by him, all these considerations appear to have made hardly any impression on the mind of the composer of to-day’s Mass. The Second Council of Nicea in the year 787 paid a noble tribute of praise to this holy monk of Jerusalem, of the laura of Mar Saba, and extolled him as being the most valiant champion of orthodoxy against the errors of the Iconoclasts. He was commonly known as the “ Chrysorroa ” and, as 8o The Sacramentary early as 813, Theophanus1 attests that this title of honour had been given to him “ because of the spiritual grace bright as gold which shone in his teachings and in his life.” The Greeks celebrate his feast on December 4, but the name of the Χρυσορρόα$ of St Sabbas appears very often at the beginning of their liturgical hymns, for the splendid compositions of St John Damascene caused even those fine ones of Romanus the melodos to be completely forgotten. The Antiphon for the Introit is drawn from Psalm Ixxii : “ Thou hast held me by my right hand : and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with glory thou hast received me. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart. Glory be.” The Collect is as follows : “ Almighty, everlasting God, who didst fill blessed John with heavenly learning and with a spirit of wonderful strength that he might spread devotion to holy images; grant us through his prayers and example that we who venerate these images may both imitate his virtues and enjoy his patronage. Through our Lord.” The Lesson from the Book of Wisdom (x, 10-17) has been t chosen with much discrimination. That which has been written of Joseph and of Moses, showing that God did not abandon them in prison and in exile, but filled them with such great wisdom as to make them feared even by kings, is here applied to St John of Damascus, who had so much to suffer from the calumnies of the heretics in the time of Con­ stantine Copronymus. The latter in derision changed the Arab name of the saint, “Mansur,” into that ofMàv^pos, which means “ bastard.” The iconoclastic conciliabulum which met at Constantinople in 754 vented its spite on St John Damas­ cene by cursing him with a fourfold malediction, anathe­ matizing him together with the Patriarch Germanus of Con­ stantinople and a certain George of Cyprus: Ή Tpiaç tous rpcîs κα^ΐλίκ “The Trinity has exterminated these three.” The Gradual from Psalm xvii again recalls the severed arm of the saint to which the Introit alludes : “ God who hath girt me with strength, and made my way blameless, y. Who teacheth my hands to war, and thou hast made my arms like a brazen bow.” The Tract is taken from the same Psalm : “ I will pursue after my enemies, and overtake them. y. I will break them, and they shall not be able to stand ; they shall fall under my feet. y. Therefore will I give glory to thee, O Lord, among the nations, and I will sing a psalm in thy name.” During Eastertide, the preceding psalmody being omitted, 1 Afterwards became Archbishop of Nicea in 845.—Tr. March 27 81 these alleluiatic verses are recited : “ Alleluia, alleluia, y. (1 Kings xxv, 26, 28) The Lord hath saved thy hand to thee: for thou lightest the battles of the Lord. Alleluia, y (Psalm exliii) Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight and my fingers to war. Alleluia.” Out of Eastertide the Gradual is as above, but the alleluiatic verse is the following : “ Alleluia, Alleluia, y. Thou hast given me the protection of thy salvation ; and thy right hand hath held me up. Alleluia.” The remembrance of the arm of the Damascene having been cut off suggested also the choice of the Gospel Lesson (Luke vi, 6-ij), in which is related the healing of the man with a withered hand. Figuratively this miracle signifies that human strength is unable of itself to work what is good ; it must be aided by divine grace. Thus we see the condemna­ tion of the Pelagian heresy of the sufficiency of fallen human nature to attain to the supernatural life of grace and, later, to that of glory. “ Yet not I,” says St Paul, “ but the grace of God with me.”1 In the Offertory (Job xiv, 7) we find another allusion to the arm of the saint, which having been cut off -was miraculously restored. The image chosen is very graceful— that of a tree which on being pruned acquires greater vigour and puts forth foliage in more abundance : “ A tree hath hope; if it be cut, it groweth green again, and the boughs thereof sprout.” The Secret reminds us, somewhat arbitrarily perhaps, of the part played by St John Damascene in the controversy regarding sacred images ; the composition is somewhat cramped in style, though the language is not without ele­ gance : “ Grant, O Lord, that the gifts which we offer up to thee may become worthy in thy sight through the loving intercession of blessed John, and of those saints who, through his means, are set before us for honour in our churches. Through our Lord.” The recollection of the severed arm is revived once more in the Communion, Psalm xxxvi : “ The arms of the wicked shall be broken in pieces, but the Lord strengtheneth the just.” We would like to quote here a fine thought of St John Chrysorroas regarding the Church’s independence of the civil power which then, as now, exercised such great authority over the so-called independent Churches in the East : Ad imperatores spectat recta reipublicae administratio; ecclesiae regimen, ad pastores et doctores. Eiusmodi invasio latro­ cinium est, fratres. Quum Samuelis pallium scidisset Saul, quid ei contigit? Regnum ipsius abscidit Deus.2 ‘ i Cor. xv, 10. iv. • Pair. Gr. XCIV, coi. 1295. 6 82 The Sacramentary The Post-Communion is the following· : “ May the gifts which we have received, O Lord, shield us with heavenly armour; and may we be fortified by the protection of blessed John, joined with that of all thy saints whose images through his means are held in honour in the churches. Through our Lord.” The Christian religion does not condemn science, but pride, because this latter closes the door to truth. Learned men, therefore, especially those who join exemplary holiness of life to great knowledge, are most useful to the Church, since they not only walk in the way of salvation, edifying the faith­ ful by their example, but they usually bring back a great number of souls to the truth. Such, briefly, was the work achieved by this saintly monk of the laura of St Saba at Jerusalem. He did not fill any prominent place in this world; he was neither a bishop nor a leader of men. Yet, because he loved the truth and preached it fearlessly, he merited the glory of being the true Chrysorroas, the last doctor of the Eastern Church, the one torch that was to shine in the dark night of the separation from the Apostolic Communion which even then was closing in. MARCH 28 St John of Capistran,1 Confessor* Our forefathers, down to the seventeenth century, used great reserve in celebrating the feasts of saints during Lent ; and this was in order that they might be able to attend with greater recollection, under the clear guidance given by the Liturgy, to the exercises of penance and purification which are meant to prepare us for the Paschal feast. The lukewarm faith of these later days has moved the Church to mitigate to a great extent the severity of the ancient Lenten regula­ tions, so as to adapt them to the weakness of the modern spirit; the result of which has been that this holy time no longer differs very much from the rest of the year, and that the Lenten Liturgy is less understood and is relegated to a second place in our thoughts. Almost all the days which had still remained unoccupied by feasts of saints in the Roman Calendar of Pius V were thus filled in later times by new offices, beautiful, no doubt, in themselves, and having both an historical and a theo­ logical importance, but on which rests the blame of having broken into and almost destroyed that marvellous cycle, so old and so deeply theological—namely, the Lenten Liturgy. We are indeed far from those golden days when prepara‘ Capistrano, a town in the Abruzzi.—Tr. March 28 83 tion for Easter meant the closing of the theatres and the lawcourts; when the whole Roman world, beginning with the Basileus of Byzantium, covered itself with sackcloth and ashes, and when the rigorous fast which lasted until sun­ down was so universal that it seemed to have become no longer a special act of devotion, but one of the essential forms of the religion of a world at once Roman and Christian. Nowadays Lent makes very little difference to the ordinary mode of life as led throughout the year by the indifferent Christians of our time ; hence the sacred Liturgy also, which in practice always accurately reflects throughout the ages the Christian spirit of the day, coniines itself, for the greater part of Lent, to adding a special commemoration of the actual feria to the divine Oilice of the saint of the day. During these last few years, however, a sound movement of reform has originated in Rome, which, it is hoped, will produce abundant fruits of devotion. Pius X, true to his desire of restoring all things in Christ, after having brought back to the Gregorian melodics all their original freshness, desired also to give again to the Psalter its ancient place in the prayer of the Church. The better to accomplish his intention he removed a few feasts from the Calendar and expanded the Oilices of Sundays and ferias so that the primitive Office De Tempore has begun to show itself once more in its original classical lines, like an old masterpiece which is being freed by the hand of the restorer from the later additions that dis­ figure it. The Mass of St John of Capistran, one of the Friars Minor, whose death occurred in 1456, the famous preacher of the Crusade against the Turks, was instituted by Leo XIII in 1890. The compiler was evidently deeply impressed by the splendid victory of Belgrade which was largely due to the prayers and exhortations of the saint. This Mass is much richer and more varied than the preceding one in honour of St John of Damascus. A great part of it alludes to the fervent devotion practised by the great Franciscan towards the holy name of Jesus. The Introit is derived from the Canticle of Habacuc (iii, 18, 19), and refers to the triumph of Belgrade: “ But I will re­ joice in the Lord; 1 will joy in God my Jesus. The Lord is my strength. (Psalm Ixxx, 2) Rejoice to God our helper; sing aloud to the God of Jacob, y. Glory be.” The Collect contains historical reminiscences: “ O God, who by means of blessed John didst cause thy faithful to pre­ vail over the enemies of the cross in the power of the most holy name of Jesus; grant, we beseech thee, that by his inter­ cession we may overcome the wiles of the enemies of our 84 The Sacrament ary souls, and be found worthy to receive the crown of righteous­ ness from thee. Through the same.” The ancient crusades against the Infidels are to be regarded from the supernatural point of view, from which our fore­ fathers looked upon them. They represented the highest en­ deavour put forth by Christianity to prevent the brute-force of the Mohammedans from destroying the civilization brought about by the preaching of the Gospel. The soul of this power­ ful and constant resistance, eventually victorious at Lepanto and at Vienna, was the Holy See, which for more than five centuries, shrinking neither from sacrifices nor from expense, united in one body, under the banner of the Cross, the Catholic forces of all nations, and directing them against the Crescent, saved Europe from many an internal war whilst ensuring it the victory over Western Asia and Islam. The Lesson (Wisdom x, 10-14) is, in greater part, that of the preceding day, with obvious allusion to the severe per­ secutions and imprisonment endured by the saint for the Faith. But the Lord also went down with him into the dark dungeon, and drew him forth in triumph, crushing his enemies who would have trampled upon him. They were enemies of the just man because they were also enemies of God ; and for this reason the Omnipotent, in taking up the defence of his saint, judged and upheld his own cause according to the words of the Prophet : Exsurge, Deus, judica causam tuam: memor esto improperiorum tuorum, eorum quae ab insipiente sunt tota die. As regards the observance of the Law, only two classes of persons were recognized by the orthodox Hebrew ; that of the descendants of Israel, who by virtue of their circumcision alone could aspire to the full enjoyment of the Messianic promises; and the other, consisting of the Gentiles—the pariahs of Jehovah, who feared the God of Abraham, adopted circumcision, and bound themselves to observe the Law, but who only partook of the privileges of the Israelites in a secondary degree. In the Gradual (Psalm xxi, 24, 25) this distinction is made between the proselytes ‘‘who fear God” and the true seed of Israel, with whom the Lord has con­ tracted a real bond of friendship. Gradual: ‘‘Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him. y. Let all the seed of Israel fear him, because he hath not slighted nor despised the supplica­ tion of the poor man.” The Tract (Exodus xv, 23) is from the grand Canticle of Moses, after the defeat of Pharaoh’s army at the passage of the Red Sea, and is well suited to the character of to-day’s feast, which is, as it were, a yearly echo of the triumph over the Crescent before the fortress walls of Belgrade. ( ! , , March 28 85 Tract : “ The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he is become salvation to me : he is my God and I will glorify him. y. The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty is his name. y. (Psalm Ixxv) The Lord, who destroyeth wars, the Lord is his name.” During Eastertide the Gradual and the Tract are omitted, and in their place the following alleluiatic psalm is said : “ Alleluia, alleluia, y. (Psalm Iviii) But I will sing thy strength, and will extol thy mercy in the morning. Alleluia, y. For thou art become my support and my refuge in the day of trouble. Alleluia.” Out of Eastertide, after the Gradual, is said instead of the Tract: “Alleluia, alleluia, y. (Psalm Iviii) But I will sing thy strength and will extol thy mercy in the morning. Alleluia.” The Gospel (Luke ix, 1-6) describes the conditions and privileges of the Christian Apostolate ; conditions which do not belong only to the story of the first preaching of the Gospel, but which still continue in the Catholic Church to this day. We need only call to mind the devoted missionaries who are spreading the knowledge of the kingdom of God through the inhospitable regions of Oceania, Africa and Asia, in order to be convinced that only the Spirit of God which ani­ mates, sanctifies, and upholds the mystical body of the Church can render men capable of such great heroism. The Offertory (Ecclesiasticus xlvi, 6), in which the praises spoken of Joshua are applied to St John of Capistran, cele­ brates the victory of Belgrade, which was attributed not so much to the swords of the combatants as to the power of God in answer to the prayers of the saint. Offertory : “ He called upon the most high sovereign when the enemies assaulted him on every side, and the great and holy God heard him.” The Secret is in these words : “ Mercifully look down upon the sacrifice which we offer up to thee, O Lord ; that, through the intercession of blessed John, thy confessor, it may securely establish us under thy protection and crush the wiles of our enemies. Through our Lord.” The verse for the Communion is taken from Wisdom x, 20 : “ They sang to thy holy name, O Lord, and they praised thy conquering hand.” After the Communion is read this prayer : “ We who have been filled with heavenly food and refreshed with spiritual drink, beseech thee, almighty God, through the intercession of blessed John, thy confessor, to protect us from the wicked enemy and keep thy church in everlasting peace. Through our Lord.” Formerly it was the power of Islam which threatened the The Sacramentary 86 Christian polity. Now, instead, the danger comes from the Jews, a people which has no country, and which, therefore, hates the fatherland of others, allied as it is with Freemasonry. Jews and Freemasons together make war on Catholicism and on Europe, and their attack is all the more dangerous and difficult to meet by reason of its secrecy. Against this tremendous peril we must have recourse to the invincible power of prayer, and, as we are not allowed to hate anyone but are rather commanded to love all men, even our enemies, let us on this day pray for the conversion of all those erring souls, those especially who let loose the terrible scourge of a war from which they alone reaped anything of advantage; so that being all brought to repentance, " Ecclesia . . . tranquilla devotione laetetur.” O wondrous right hand of the Most High ! In order to accomplish great marvels he uses of choice the humblest in­ struments, sometimes even those that appear the least efficient and the most despised by men, that the result may not be attributed to the creature but to the Creator alone. Thus in the fifteenth century, when the humanist influence was strongest, and the Christian Powers themselves, instead of listening to the voice of the supreme Pastor and joining forces against the Crescent which was threatening to over­ power the liberties of the civilized world, were intriguing subtly against each other, God raised up a poor son of St Francis, who, emaciated, barefoot, and lacking all earthly re­ sources, aroused half Europe by his fiery words, and led her to victory under the walls of Belgrade : Digitus Dei est hic. Christian Rome can regard the ancient monastery of Sta Maria in Capitolio as a sanctuary of St John of Capistran, for having passed in the late Middle Ages from the hands of the Benedictine monks to those of the Friars Minor, it was sancti­ fied as being the dwelling-place of the saint. FRIDAY AFTER PASSION SUNDAY Feast of the Seven Sorrows Virgin Mary* of the Blessed This Office does not, strictly speaking, connote a festival, but a day on which we commemorate the sorrows of the Blessed Virgin, before beginning the liturgical cycle of the mysteries of our redemption and of the Passion of our cruci­ fied Saviour. Its origin does not go back beyond the late Middle Ages, and the Servite Order contributed greatly to I j Friday after Passion Sunday 87 making it widely known. Nevertheless, a special devotion to the Sorrows of our Lady, “ the Co-redemptress of the human race,” had long held a place in the hearts of the Christian people. Innocent XI, in t688, instituted a second commemoration of the Sorrows of the Mother of God in the month of September, but this latter solemnity has a somewhat different character from that in March. In Lent, the Church unites with Mary in weeping beside Jesus crucified ; whereas, the September festival, which follows closely upon the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, is rather a feast of the triumphs of our Blessed Mother, who, by her cruel martyrdom at the foot of the cross, co-operated with her Son in the redemption of the human race, and merited the glory of being exalted above all the choirs of angels and saints. The composition of the Mass, though very devout, does not show much liturgical talent in the composer, nor an exact knowledge of the ancient laws and the rhythm which govern the various kinds of Church melody. Thus he has inserted on his own account a passage from the Gospels in place of the psalm for the Introit—a chant which primitive custom reserved to the deacon who sang it amid the splendour of lighted candles and the perfume of burning incense; the Collects, no longer following the rules of the cursus, are drawn out by a superfluity of words ; the Gradual and the Communion are inspired by those of the votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin, but the text has been slightly altered in order to adapt it to the festival. Introit (John xix, 25-27) : “ There stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, his mother’s sister Mary of Cleophas, and Salome, and Mary Magdalen, y. Woman, behold thy son, said Jesus; to the disciple, however, Behold thy mother, y. Glory be.” The Collect is far from showing the symmetrical and har­ monious conciseness of the ancient collects of the Roman Sacramentaries. The modern compiler has filled it with various ideas, and amongst them there is a very beautiful one upon which we might well meditate to-day : ‘‘all the elect stand beside the cross.” They live by the spirit of the cruci­ fied Saviour through Christian mortification, without which it is impossible to keep the grace of Christ, wherefore St Paul called the worldlings of his day : inimicos crucis Christi. Collect : “ O God, at whose passion, as foretold by Simeon, a sword of sorrow pierced the most sweet soul of glorious Mary, virgin and mother; grant in thy mercy that we who reverently call to mind her anguish and suffering, may be helped by the glorious merits and prayers of all the saints 88 The Sacramentary who faithfully stand at thy cross, and win the happy fruit of thy passion : who livest.” In votive Masses throughout the year, the following prayer is said, which is more ancient and far better in construction than the preceding one : Collect: “We beseech thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, let thy mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose holy soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow at the hour of thy passion, implore thy mercy for us both now and at the hour of our death. Through our Lord.’’ The Lesson comes from the story of Judith (xiii, 22-25), and is eminently suitable for celebrating the glories of the “ Co-redemptress ” of the human race, who in order to save the world from final ruin did not spare herself nor her onlybegotten Son, but, in perfect conformity with the will of the Eternal Father, she, his Immaculate Mother, offered him up in sacrifice on the altar of the cross. The Gradual and the Tract are not drawn from the Psalter but from the Gospels and from other verses of the sacred Liturgy, applicable to the remembrance of the sorrows of the Mother of God. Gradual: “Thou art sorrowful and tearful, O Virgin Mary, standing at the cross of the Lord Jesus, thy Son, our Redeemer, y. O Virgin Mother of God, he whom the whole world doth not contain, the source of life made man, beareth this punishment of the cross.’’ Tract (John xix) : “ Holy Mary, the queen of heaven and mistress of the world, stood by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, full of sadness, y. (Lam. i) O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow.” In votive Masses throughout the year when the Tract is not recited, the following aileluiatic verse is said : “ Alleluia, alleluia, y. Holy Mary, the queen of heaven and mistress of the world, stood by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, full of sadness. Alleluia.” At Eastertide there is added a second aileluiatic verse—not a very happy choice—from the Lamentations of Jeremias (i, 12), where he is mourning the destruction of Jerusalem : “ Alleluia, alleluia. O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow. Alleluia.” The hymn which now follows as the Sequence is one of the most inspired examples of Franciscan poetrv. It is commonly attributed to Fra Jacopone da Todi, and while it breathes all the grace and ingenuous spontaneity of Umbrian art in the fourteenth century, it shows at the same time a deep religious feeling. This much we may say from the literary point of view; Friday after Passion Sunday as regards the liturgical aspect it should be noticed that, historically speaking, the Sequence is nothing more than the aileluiatic melisma to which, in the Middle Ages, a text was added in the place of mere vocalizations, at first in prose and later in verse. Therefore, consequent on its very origin, the Sequence should be omitted every time that the alleluia is not sung; as, for instance, during Lent, or in Masses for the Dead : but the Missal of St Pius V has sanctioned several exceptions to this rule, which had already been consecrated by the Church’s use. Stabat Mater dolorosa Juxta crucem lacrymosa, Dum pendebat Filius. Cujus animam gementem, Contristatam, et dolentem, Pertransivit gladius. At the cross her station keeping, Stood the mournful Mother weep­ ing, Close to Jesus to the last : Through her heart, his sorrow sharing, All his bitter anguish bearing, Now at length the sword had passed. 0 quam tristis et afflicta Fuit illa benedicta Mater Unigeniti ! Quae moerebat, et dolebat, Pia Mater, dum videbat Nati poenas inclyti. Oh, how sad and sore distressed Was that Mother highly blest Of the sole-begotten One ! Christ above in torment hangs; She beneath beholds the pangs Of her dying glorious Son. Quis est homo qui non fleret, Matrem Christi si videret In tanto supplicio? Quis non posset contristari, Christi Matrem contemplari Dolentem cum Filio? Is there one who would not weep, Whelmed in miseries so deep Christ’s dear Mother to behold? Can the human heart refrain From partaking in her pain, In that Mother’s pain untold? Pro peccatis suae gentis Vidit Jesum in tormentis, Et flagellis subditum, Vidit suum dulcem natum Moriendo desolatum, Dum emisit spiritum. Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled, She beheld her tender child All with bloody scourges rent ; For the sins of his own nation Saw him hang in desolation, Till his spirit forth he sent. Eja Mater, fons amoris, Me sentire vim doloris Fac ut tecum lugeam. Fac ut ardeat cor meum In amando Christum Deum, Ut sibi complaceam. O thou Mother ! fount of love ! Touch my spirit from above, Make my heart with thine accord : Make me feel as thou hast felt; Make my soul to glow and melt, With the love of Christ my Lord. Sancta Mater, istud agas, Crucifixi fige plagas Cordi meo valide. Tui Nati vulnerati, Tam dignati pro me pati, Poenas mecum divide. Holy Mother ! pierce me through ; In my heart each wound renew Of my Saviour crucified : Let me share with thee his pain, Who for all my sins was slain, Who for me in torments died. I I The Sacramentary 9