Mozarabic liturgy...

The New Liturgical Movement has reported that Mozarabic liturgy is to be celebrated in the Pagan Archbasilica of the Vatican on 16th May by the Archbishop of Toledo. That presents an interesting historical anomaly. Skipping lightly over whether the music or the rite itself will be authentically Mozarabic, just think what pope Hildebrand would have thought! He despised the Mozarabic Rite and called it "the Toledan superstition." Why? Who can say? Probably because it differed in many important ways from the abridged (hence "breviary") liturgy he himself celebrated and it was the nature of this megalomaniac to think that whoever thought, worshipped, and acted in any way contrary to the way he thought, worshipped and acted was a heretic. The Mozarabic liturgical books had been approved in Rome in 1065 but this clearly wasn't enough for Hildebrand, the driving force of whose pontificate was absolute uniformity and centralization and the acknowledgement of his temporal (or at least feudal) authority. And so he attempted to have the Mozarabic liturgy abolished by pressuring the Hispanic lords and sending his Romanising Cluniac monks over the Pyrenees. Alfonso VI of Castile, whom to-day we might call European, perceived that attempts by the reformers to supplant the venerable Mozarabic liturgy were met with popular resistance and so he put the matter to trial by combat, pitting Roman and Mozarabic champions against each other. The Roman champion was defeated and this was clearly not to the king's liking and so he caused a great fire to be kindled in Burgos, and declared that whichever of the Roman or Mozarabic books thrown into the fire and was unscathed, that rite would be accepted. According to legend, the Roman missal smouldered whereas the Mozarabic missal flew out of the fire unharmed. Then wrath mastered the king and he kicked the Mozarabic missal back into the fire, saying: "Let the horns of the laws bend to the will of kings!"

Clearly God favoured the Mozarabic Rite! However, Alfonso VI appealed to Hildebrand who was determined to impose the Roman Rite and so he sent his legate Cardinal Ricardo to Castile where at the Synod of Burgos in 1080 the Roman Rite was enforced throughout León and Castile and the Mozarabic Rite solely restricted to Toledo. I don't know how this was achieved but I expect it was by force of arms. Such was the organic development of the Roman Rite in Spain. It's interesting to compare the contemporaneous ecclesiastical reforms of Lanfranc in England and the later Norman Conquest of Ireland but which most history books would pass over as insignificant "reforms of the church." Or, going back to Charlemagne's time, compare the suppression of the various Gallican uses in his zeal for Romanitas. Or, nearer to Rome, the riots in Milan in 1442 when Eugenius IV launched an abortive attempt to impose the Roman Rite on the Milanese. But the suppression of the Mozarabic Rite in Spain exemplified a tendency, accelerated by the Council of Trent four hundred years later, of centralization and uniformity, all under the aegis of the Papacy. It is intolerant, arrogant and stupidly wrong to suppose that just because a rite has not its uttermost origins in the pope's chapel it is of its very nature heretical, suspect and in need of reform. But such has been, for the most part, the history of the popes and their relationship with the native uses and rites of the West. And the irony is that the old rites and the old uses of the West contain many antient features that have been lost in the Roman Rite. Mozarabic vespers, for example, contains an obvious allusion to the old Lucernarium in the preces, even so:

Κύριε, ἐλέησον
Χριστέ ἐλέησον
Κύριε, ἐλέησον
Pater noster, &c.
℣ In nomine Domini Iesu Christi, lumen cum pace.
℟ Amen.
℣ Hoc est lumen oblatum.
℟ Deo Gratias.

Just imagine being in attendance as the lamps were lighting. It would certainly call to mind Egeria's experiences in the Holy Land. But no! This is Toledan superstition!

I wonder what pope Francis thinks of this Toledan Archbishop celebrating Adoptionist, reformed liturgy in his church?

I have seen a dragon...

F.E Brightman (1856-1932), as liturgical scholars all know, was a distinguished ecclesiastical scholar and tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford. Apropos of fiery dragons, C.S Lewis wrote these alliterative staves:

We were talking of dragons, Tolkien and I

In a Berkshire bar. The big workman

Who had sat silent and sucked his pipe

All the evening, from his empty mug

With gleaming eye, glanced towards us;

"I seen 'em myself," he said fiercely.

This short poem is a fictionalized account of a meeting between Lewis and Brightman at some point (we're not told when). Brightman used to sit quietly in the Common Room of Magdalen College, saying nothing except on rare occasions. It transpired that they were all talking about dragons one evening and Brightman said: "I have seen a dragon." Nobody said a word for a moment, until: "where was that?" "On the Mount of Olives," he said. He went quiet again and never, even to his death, explained what he meant. This story can be read in Tolkien's letters (no.300) and in Carpenter's The Inklings: C.S. Lewis,  J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their friends, chapter 4.

O, to have been a fly on the wall in the Bird and Baby in the 1940's!

The Bidding Prayer...

Who would not echo the sentiments expressed here by Dr Daniel Rock?

"That we Catholics of England should ever have left off our Salisbury, York and other venerable missals and breviaries, and laid aside our fine old national uses and ritual - among the rest the 'bidding of the bedes' - it is deeply to be lamented. Let us hope, however, that ere long a rite which was practised by the Anglo-Saxons, the Anglo-Normans, and the English, till the end of Mary's reign, may once more be taken up and put to fill its place in the public worship of the Catholics of England, so that our people, as of yore, may all join their priest and say along with him, before he begins his sermon, the truly Catholic petitions of the 'bidding prayer.'" (The Church of Our Fathers, volume II, 1903).

If I remember rightly, the missal of Paul VI has a bidding prayer in this place...

Fiery Dragons...

I am as susceptible to flattery as a dragon, I'm afraid, but I agree with everything said here by valued reader Dale (except I would ascribe a certain nastiness to most converts, to whatever religion). This was in response to my own remark that I tend to prefer the Novus Ordo these days to what passes for "Tridentine" liturgy in Traddieland:

"Hello Patrick, yes I find that your understanding of Catholic traditionalists is spot on, well actually, rather brilliant. For me, I would much rather deal one-on-one with those who attend and support the novus ordo (this especially applies to clergy). The traditionalists are nasty and stupid at the same time. Their ecclesiology makes no sense and when one simply mentions that the Pope is personally infallible, with supporting documents from the Council by the way, they start spittle throwing (they remind me of Byzantine Orthodox converts to be honest). Their fixations on Latin and celibacy is truly bizarre; one of their clergy actually told me that married eastern rite Catholic priests are not real priests and that their Sacraments are invalid! My only real advice is to stay far, far away; of course, it took me years to arrive at this simple piece of advice. Their liturgical knowledge is virtually non-existent by the way; they actually believe that they are celebrating the 'Mass of the Ages' and do not even know that their calendar is simply a modern invention post-Vatican II."

The reason I have so unique an insight into the poor traditionalist mind is because I was myself a traditionalist for years and spent most days of the week among them. And so when I tell you what traditionalists think and believe, it is absolutely and objectively true. But the essential difference between me and them was I wanted more. I wanted Tradition. They don't. They just want comfortable nonsense and a feeling of triumphalism over their Novus Ordo enemies; the sentiment, expressed with hideous delight, "I go to a Latin mass!" I saw all those "Latin masses" into which I put so much time and effort over the years as a work in progress; they see them as the ideal and they have no desire to move on to higher things. A priest, on his own, in a pink chasuble for Laetare Sunday is, to them, the quintessence of liturgical orthopraxis and the sum total of all organic liturgical development. That this is in many ways not dissimilar to dressing up a pig in a lace cotta does not enter their imagination at all.

In short: their beliefs (largely based on lies, fables and superstition) are rubbish, their orders are invalid (since either 1947 or 1968, take your pick...but don't the modern priests have fun playing as subdeacons, an order that was abolished before any of them were ordained!), they are ignorant, stident, nasty and, perhaps worst of all, they have no taste. This last can be proven simply by the instance of a woman approaching me and saying, after I had sat grinding my teeth through a Mass in honour of Joseph the Worker, "oh Patrick, wasn't it a lovely Mass!" And she meant that sincerely. I thought better of asking her whether she'd actually shut her eyes and listened to the schola. Well, it comes back to the pig in the lace cotta, doesn't it? The priest goes, oink, oink and lifts up his trotters at the elevation, and hey presto, a valid Latin Mass! We do the hokey cokey and we turn around, that's what it's all about!

Many Partings...

Easter Sunday reminds me of two chapters in The Lord of the Rings; the Field of Cormallen and Many Partings. I think I have transcribed the relevant parts of Cormallen before. At the battlefield of Dagorlad on the twenty-fifth of March, when Gandalf, upon whom no shadow fell, stood tall and with a great cry that soared above the reek and wrack of war declared that the realm of Sauron was ended. Afterwards, at the celebrations in Ithilien, a land of swift flowing waterfalls and of fragrant herbs, the garden of Gondor, in which the King was enthroned, the bard who knelt before him and begged leave to tell his lay and with his harp, now in the high elven tongue, then in the grey elven, and the tongues of Men, moved them all with sweet words. That is fair enough and very good literature (I hasten to add, not my version of it! See Book VI Chapter IV), but that Middle-earth, the οἰκουμένη, is a fallen world is brought home in the passage below, which I hope resonates with you as it did with me.

"Then Treebeard said farewell to each of them in turn, and he bowed three times slowly and with great reverence to Celeborn and Galadriel. 'It is long, long since we met by stock or by stone, A vanimar, vanimálion nostari!' he said. 'It is sad that we should meet only thus at the ending. For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. I do not think we shall meet again.'
And Celeborn said: 'I do not know, Eldest.' But Galadriel said: 'Not in Middle-earth, nor until the lands that lie under the wave are lifted up again. Then in the willow-meads of Tasarinan we may meet in the Spring. Farewell!'"

("A vanimar, vanimálion nostari" means "O beautiful ones, parents of beautiful children").

It's specifically this last part that I find to have a paschal quality because not only does it echo Treebeard's song as he strode through the woods of Fangorn with the hobbits in Book III but it also echoes Bombadil's words with which he dispelled the curse of the Barrow-wight in Book I:

Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!

Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,

Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!

Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!

Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,

Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.

"Till the world is mended..." These are the words that connect the two chapters. But also the words "where gates stand for ever shut," which calls to mind that beautiful Collect for Easter Day in the Book of Common Prayer:

ALMIGHTY God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jeſus Chriſt haſt overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlaſting life: We humbly beſeech thee, that as by thy ſpecial grace preventing us, thou doſt put into our minds good deſires; ſo by thy continual help we may bring the ſame to good effeƈt, through Jeſus Chriſt our LORD, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghoſt, ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

These have a vernal quality, even as Galadriel speaks of a new Spring. Tasarinan, significant in being the place of refuge to which the exiles of Gondolin, fairest of cities, came in antient times, was in Beleriand which was destroyed in the War of Wrath and the Change of the World and lies now under the sea (cf. Isaiah 40:3). But thither they may meet in the Spring when the gates of everlasting life are thrust open and the world is mended. It is about anticipation and keeping vigil. As I have said, Middle-earth is a fallen world. Galadriel herself alludes to this in Book II when she says that Spring and Summer have gone forever by. We too are fallen and look both backwards to Paradise, to the Spring before the blight of sin came and forward to the same, turning ever thitherward in prayer, to eternity when our sin is taken up and transformed by the inscrutable mercy of God. Not for naught do we celebrate Easter in the Spring! For Spring is the season of life when the world is refreshed and the winter of death is driven out. What better time to reflect upon the nature of salvation, in which even a man like me, born in 1988, can look with the eyes of truth over the years from the foundation of the world and forth to eternity in the knowledge that God is merciful and compassionate.

Let us join then with St Paul in saying that Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Alleluia, Alleluia! Glory to thee, O LORD! Alleluia, Alleluia, glory to thee!

I wish all my readers every temporal and spiritual blessing for Easter! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

In Parasceve...

"Unhappy was the Jewish people, that they were so unbelieving. All creatures acknowledged their Creator, save only the Jews. Heaven acknowledged the birth of Christ; for when he was born a new star was seen. The sea acknowledged Christ, when he went with dry feet upon its waves. Earth acknowledged him, when it all trembled at Christ's resurrection. The sun acknowledged him, when it was darkened at Christ's passion from midday to the ninth hour. The stones acknowledged him, when they burst asunder at their Creator's departure. Hell acknowledged Christ, when it let forth its captives, through the harrowing of Jesus. And yet the hardhearted Jews, through all these signs, would not incline with faith to the merciful Jesus, who will help all men who believe in him. But let us believe that God the Father was ever without beginning, and that the Son was ever begotten of the Father; for he is the Wisdom and Power through which the Father hath created all creatures; and they were all quickened by the Holy Ghost who is the will and love of the Father; these three one God indivisible, existing in one Godhead, all equally powerful, for whatsoever is less and less powerful, that is not God. But the Father sent the Son for our redemption, and he alone assumed human nature and suffered death of his own will, and arose from death on the third day, and ascended to heaven on the fortieth day after his resurrection, before the sight of many men and ruleth with the Almighty Father and the Holy Ghost now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen." Ælfric of Eynsham, English Abbot from the happy time when England was still Orthodox.

Russian Triduum...

The Cathedral church of the Dormition of the Mother of God and All Saints of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) at Ennismore Gardens in London will be celebrating the Three Holy Days and Easter at the following times (click to enlarge).

The Annuntiation...

Gabriel Angelus locutus est Mariae dicens, Ave Gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus, Alleluia, Alleluia!

And so 2015 begins with omens of sorrow...

Dominica Palmarum...

I have transcribed here an Old English sermon for Palm Sunday, translated into "modern" English in 1868 by Richard Morris, an Anglican divine and philologist. I have my own copy but for those of you who haven't, Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises, from which the text below is derived, is available in Google Books here. For those of you who are interested in the Ancrene Riwle (which Tolkien translated), an old monastic rule, there is a beautiful section in this volume about the "wooing of our LORD," which is a treatise on love with obvious parallels with the Song of Songs, and in which the spouse is either the Church or the pure soul. Whosoever said that English is inapt for the liturgy is a fool! Now the sermon:

Quum appropinquasset Iesus Hierosolymis, & cetera. Good men, it is a holy day to-day which is observed every twelve months. The gospel tells how the Saviour came nigh towards the city of Jerusalem to-day, with his apostles, and also with other companies of men. When he came to the hill called Olivet, then sent he his two disciples, saying to them, Go unto the city that is over against you and ye shall straightway find there an ass bound with her colt, unbind them and lead them to me. If any man saith ought to you, say that the LORD hath need thereof, and immediately they shall let you depart therewith.

Euntes autem discipuli fecerunt sicut praecipit illis Iesus, &c. The apostles went and did as the Saviour had commanded them. They took the ass and her colt and led them to him and put their clothes upon the foal of the ass, and our LORD, afterwards, rode thereon up towards Jerusalem. When it was known all over the city that the Saviour was come thitherward then ran towards him all the Hebrew men, some with good hearts and others with evil intentions. Many of the multitude that had previously followed our LORD and also (the faithful of the city) those who believed upon him, took their clothes, and the best they had, and strewed them under the ass' feet, in the way wherein the LORD rode, for love and honour of him. The other men who had no garments climbed upon goodly trees and took the twigs and blossoms thereof and put them under the ass' feet and bestrewed all the path in his honour.

And all the Hebrew folk that went behind and before him sang this song of praise specially for his honour, thus saying, Hosanna filio David, benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini; that is, He is blessed he that cometh in the name of the LORD. Thus they praised him until he rode in at the east gate of the city that is still called Speciosa porta, that is the fair gate, as it is still called; and since Christendom was never over twelve months it is opened. But to-day all the people went forth in procession to Mount Olivet and also into the temple. Now, dear brethren, I have in the first place repeated to you the gospel, now ye shall understand secondly what it betokens. Ye heard erewhile in the gospel how our LORD sent two apostles, Peter and John, towards the city that they should unbind the ass, and her foul with her; and how our LORD sat upon the foal of the ass. Dear brethren, ye have heard how much humility our LORD shewed for us. He might ride, if he desired, on rich steeds, and palfreys, mules and Arabs, but he would not, nor even upon the big ass, but upon the little foal that was still suckling; nor had ever borne any burden, nor had ever been defiled by any other ass. In so great humility did God Almighty place himself for us, and moreover set us an example, that when we have wealth in abundance in this life be ye not therefore proud, nor wild, nor stark, nor wayward, nor highminded; but the greater the prosperity we have in this life, the meeker ought we to be, and the more temperate, as if it were not our weal, and thank our LORD for it who hath given it us, and give thereof to those men who have it not.

Good men, when the believing Hebrews went and strewed with twigs the LORD's path wherein he rode, then was fulfilled what Isaiah the prophet foretold many hundred winters ere this should be, thus saying, Parate viam Domini rectas facite semitas eius. Raise up the LORD's way and make his paths straight.That betokeneth that we shall incline our hearts and have good belief towards our LORD. The prophet commanded that we should make his paths (straight); we make them straight if we keep his commands, and if we are under true confession (shrift); and are God-fearing wholly in all things; and if we each of us have love among us one toward another, as if we were brethren; and if we thank our LORD for all things that he sends us, the good and the evil; if we do this, then do we make right and clean God's ways and his paths that God may ride therein. If we do this then will God Almighty dwell in us. Also I erewhile said how, when our LORD rode to Jerusalem, the Hebrew folk sang their song of praise in honour of our LORD. Some sang it through the Holy Ghost, whether they would or no; and the children played in the street praising our LORD and said Hosanna, filio David. David, the psalmist, foretold this in the psalter long before, the while he lived, and said ex ore infantium, et lactentium. He prophesied this of our LORD through the Holy Ghost. "LORD, out of milk-drinking children's mouths thou bringest forth praise; thou castest down the old enemy because of thy foes, and thy foes thou avengest."

Now we will say more as to what this gospel betokens: the city which was over against the Saviour's two disciples betokens this world, which is transitory and evil, and very treacherous and irksome. Toil thou ever so much, always shall it be undone; and sometimes divers storms come, and war, and famine, and disease of body, all for our guilt; and when thou weenest that thou shalt live best of all, then goest thou forth (diest) and another cometh; wherefore let no man trust too much to this life. She deceiveth us where we least suspect. We are not born to have pride, nor even any other vanities; but we are in this life that we might earn the eternal bliss in the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard how God Almighty sent his apostles towards the city after the ass' foal which was bound, and afterwards unbound. The apostles denote the teachers, that is the wise teachers who are now over holy Church and lead a spiritual life; and they shall ever unbind God's people from the devil, and tell them God's lore; and how they shall lead their lives and earn the everlasting bliss through prayer and through shrift, repenting with fasts and with alms; and pray for them day and night that Christ may have mercy on their misdeeds.

The ass denotes the Church, or the synagogue; she was bound under the old law, and now is she unbound under this new law. Good men, learn what this synagogue was in this old law ere Christ was born. Just as the Jews had their synagogue after Moses' laws, so have we now a Church after the LORD's law; and ever on the Saturday Jewish folk came at set time to the synagogue and praised their LORD, according to their law. That was their Sunday, and they kept their day of worship better than we do. Beloved, all the believing Jews who observed faithfully their laws and obeyed their LORD ere he came to this world were called synagogue, just as all Christian folk who keep Christ's behests are now called Church. The ass that was bound and afterwards unbound betokeneth the synagogue that was bound under the old law; that was all the believing folk of the Jews that were strongly bound ere our LORD came to this life. They had different laws to what we have. That was the law then - the same injury that I did thee thou shouldest do to me; and if thou sinnedst towards thy LORD and it became known, neither gold nor silver might avail thee, but they should take thee and draw thee asunder with horses or dash thee to pieces with stones. Wherefore, dear brethren, there is much need that we thank our LORD who hath helped us to fulfil the severe old law with the new. Now no man may atone for his sin with a penalty, but towards Christ alone with shrift, as his priest teacheth him; also with his fasts which quickly overcome the waywardness of the flesh; and church-going, and to do good for the Church, and many other kinds of good works which would take too long to tell you at present.

But how then if a man is so sinful and possessed of the devil that he will not either for his highmindedness, or for his pride, or for the willfulness of his foul heart, observe his shrift? Then forsooth I say unto you that there is no need that anyone here in this life should pray pater noster for his soul, nor sing mass, nor do any other good thing. Ah! how should another man's good deeds profit him who never in this life took thought of any good thing? Ah! who is he that may water the horse and not drink himself? No more may any one do good for their souls who in this life would not begin to do good. Great need have we then, dear brethren, as long as we live in this life, of true shrift and greatly to dread our manifold sins and earnestly to beseech our merciful LORD that he may grant to us so to live in this brief life that we may depart hence to the eternal bliss wherein dwell the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, ever without end, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

There are some interesting themes here. For example, the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, and the subsequent words about the valleys lifted up and the mountains laid low. This is a prophecy that we usually associate with Christ's Baptism but here it betokens Christ's entry with triumph into Jerusalem which can be said to be, for us, the fulfillment of our baptisms and our own mystical entry into the City of God whereat the Angels give praise. It's very simple and moralistic. Also of note is the comparison the homilist makes between Jerusalem and our own world, which is full of travail and sorrow, but the ass upon which Christ rode in triumph is the Church, which was unbound from servitude to the Old Law and stablished and made fast in the New.

In terms of indulgences, penances and the rest it's interesting to see the Saxon approach expounded here. We are told to greatly dread our manifold sins and to beseech Christ in true shrift of heart, as the priests teach us. Alas, alas that the Normans, under their papal banner, won at Hastings! Alas for the Church! Alas for the English! But as we enter into Holy Week, let us do so with sorrow, trembling and sobriety, remembering that by our own sins and wickedness did Christ's Passion come to pass.

A Prelude...

There are others, most notably the blogger Rubricarius, whose knowledge of these high matters far exceeds my own but as someone who thinks a lot about liturgy I venture to make some brief points on a matter very dear to me. There is considerable debate among the wise as to which part of Holy Week merits the first prize for sheer violence and atrocity in Pius XII's reformation in the liturgies for these solemn and serious days. Some would say Palm Sunday with its weird inversion of red to violet, the aliturgical facing-the-people blessing (or what's left of it), and the cut-down Passion; others the anti-evangelical incorporation of the Mandatum into the Mass rite on Maundy Thursday; then there is the sorry state of Good Friday with its Vexilla Regis-less quasi-communion service; or the bastardised vigil service of Holy Saturday in which there is no triple candle and the four remaining prophecies are sung to the Paschal Candle, which has taken on the significance of the phallic symbol as far as this individual is concerned.

Dismally and meanly hideous all, and invariably at the wrong times. But to me most shocking of all these reforms was the abolition of Paschal Mattins, Mattins to greet the Resurrection of the LORD. This is for several reasons. People now call the Vesperal Liturgy (or what passes for it these days), formerly celebrated on Saturday morning after None and now celebrated in the evening (at whatever time you like), the "Easter Vigil." This is totally wrong. Do people not realise that the word vigil implies Mattins? Clearly not. But the tradition of keeping vigil throughout the night to greet the LORD's Resurrection is recorded by Egeria in Jerusalem in the fourth century and what she describes in her Itinerarium resonates with mediaeval praxis and not modern Roman praxis. Even where traditionalists have taken it upon themselves to celebrate pre-1956 Holy Week, they invariably do so at the wrong times which means that the vesperal liturgy of Holy Saturday takes place at around 8 o'clock in the evening as opposed to when it should and ought to be celebrated, at around 10 o'clock in the morning. Mattins is consequently omitted. As a result, Paschal Mattins has become virtually extinct. Pontifical Mattins is inconceivable! But does this not seem strange? It means that Holy Week comes to something like an anti-climax. I say this because the vesperal liturgy, understood as a Lucernarium, on Holy Saturday is the mere prelude to the true solemnity of Easter manifested in Mattins and its ceremonies. In mediaeval times, as it still is in the Byzantine Rite, the sole ultimate focus of the liturgical year was Paschal Mattins.

I can see its splendour in my mind's eye. At the end of the Good Friday services Christ's holy rood was buried at the sepulchre. And just as the Lucernarium witnesses a reversal of Tenebrae with the paschal fire, so Mattins witnesses a reversal of the burial of the cross and the Paschal season a restoration of the normal liturgical order. Either before or during Paschal Mattins (praxis varied among local uses), the clergy would process in majesty to the sepulchre. The Lenten array would be removed and the images of the church be shewn forth in their splendour just as the veil of the Temple was torn at the consummation of Christ's ministry. The rood would then be lifted up and the choir would sing the antiphons Dum transisset sabbatum, Sedit angelus, Christus resurgens and Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro as the rood was worshipped, as on Good Friday, and carried in procession. Mattins would then begin in earnest or conclude with the Te Deum. This could even be done following post-Tridentine praxis, with some thought and a little work but, as usual, people aren't interested. I once was engaged in conversation with a university professor who told me he thought the Paschal Vigil was so moving but what he had in mind was the ceremonies of the phallic candle. How the Philistines have triumphed!

On a Tolkien note, the people of Gondolin were celebrating a kind of Mattins when the city fell. They were facing eastwards too to greet the rising Sun.

Palm Sunday photos...

Three little maids from school are we...

I know he doesn't have much time for me but I hold Mr Di Pippo of the New Liturgical Movement in some esteem for his liturgical scholarship. His articles on the changes to the rites of Holy Week are well worth reading, as was his article on aliturgical days in the Roman Rite (even if it did conclude rather lamely with allusions to Uniates in Rome). Anyway, you'll notice that there is very little commentary on the photos he has uploaded about Palm Sunday here. Nor do you see him in any of them. But he won't say what he really thinks! Why? If the NLM is supposed to be in the cause of liturgical renewal (which is implied by the title), surely frankness and blunt honesty are called for?

''It does not add to the dignity of a rite that a crowd of useless boys stand about the sanctuary doing nothing. Nor is it in accordance with the tradition of the Roman rite to add useless ornamental attendance.'' (Adrian Fortescue, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, 1943).

Knowing that this post will not be challenged, I have no qualms about producing two of the dismal photos here. Awful, gratuitously awful...

Translating the Creed...

In the run up to the revised (some would say "corrected") translation of the missal there was some controversy over the word consubstantial in the Creed. Apparently this ugly Latinism is more orthodox than "of one being with." I would argue that the word consubstantial is inferior not only on aesthetic grounds but on the principle that it is not a translation; two letters have been cut off the end! And in terms of theology, how can you argue that one language is better expressive of the high trinitarian doctrine than another? If you followed this principle we'd all be worshipping in Greek! Nobody can argue that substantia and οὐσία mean precisely the same thing in all subtleties. It's like the words visible and invisible; do not seen and unseen sound better? Or worshipped as opposed to adored. Just because a word is not of Latin derivation, does not make it inferior or suspect.

Below are the texts, and you can make your own minds up but, as always, I would argue strongly in favour of the old ICEL. In most respects, it's decidedly more English than the turgid, halting and artificial rubbish that came in 2011. That's probably the subconscious underlying reason the traditionalists hated it so much. I have seen far too often on traditionalist blogs an open contempt for the English language; one blogger, otherwise liturgically sensible at times, said that we were "condemned to a bastard Germanic language well removed from the tongues of liturgy." Another, much older, blogger has often derided English albeit in his profession that can be forgiven. But as someone devoted to the English language in purpose of heart and mind I find this attitude shameful.

International Consultation on English Texts 1975 version (that which I grew up with).

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one LORD, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us [men]* and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the LORD, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

*I pasted the text from Wikipedia but the word men was missing therefrom. I have inserted it because I remember reciting it like this as a boy.

The 2011 crap...

I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one LORD Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the LORD, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The Latin text.

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Factorem cæli et terræ, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.

Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei Unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia sæcula.

Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri: per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de cælis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato; passus, et sepultus est. Et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in cælum, sedet ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis.

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem: qui ex Patre procedit. Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.

Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi. Amen.

Now, if I were to translate the Creed from Latin into English myself, my translation would be far closer to the 1975 version, albeit I would use a few different words and devices. But like the traditional version (!), it would roll off the tongue as good language does. The 2011 version is just cumbrous with unEnglish forms.