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^ JESUIT
BffiL MAJ,
SEMINARY
Gbe Catbolic library 5
HOLY MASS
VOL. I.
ROEHAMPTON :
PRINTED BY JOHN GRIFFIN.
HOLY MASS
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE
AND
THE ROMAN LITURGY
JESUIT
BIBL MAT.
SEMINARY
13 *
THE REV. HERBERT LUCAS, SJ
VOL. I
ST. LOUIS, MO. I
B. HERDER, PUBLISHER
17, S. BROADWAY
LONDON :
MANRESA PRESS
ROEHAMPTON, S.W.
1914
IWibtl bstat:
S. GEORGIUS KIERAN HYLAND, S.T.D.,
CENSOR DEPUTATUS
Imprimatur:
* PETRUS EPUS SOUTHWARC.
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE attempt to write yet another book about the
Mass, while, for English-speaking Catholics, Dr.
Fortescue s work on the Roman Liturgy holds the
field, may be deemed, perchance, both presumptu
ous and inopportune. It has been thought, how
ever, that there is room for a shorter and more
popular treatment of the same subject, and I have
been asked to undertake it. The following pages
will, however, be found to contain no mere sum
mary of Dr. Fortescue s more erudite and com
prehensive treatise. Indeed, as will appear more
particularly in Chapters X. XIII. and XVI., the
opinions here put forward on more than one ques
tion of some importance will be found to differ from
those to which that distinguished scholar has given
expression. A considerable portion of the contents
of these two little volumes has, in substance, al
ready appeared in print, in the form of articles
contributed to The Dublin Review ( i 8934), The
Tablet ( 1896, &c.), The Montii ( 1900 and 1902),
and lastly to a couple of local magazines, viz., The
Xaverian and The Ignatian Record (1908 10).
vi PREFATORY NOTE
The matter of these articles has, however, been
thoroughly revised and for the most part recast;
and in the process sundry views which the writer
had formerly held have been notably modified. It
only remains for me to thank the Editors or former
Editors of the above-named reviews and periodi
cals for permission to reproduce, as far as might
be deemed advisable, the contributions in question.
HERBERT LUCAS, SJ.
5/. Francis Xairier^s,
Liverpool,
January, 1914.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
SACRIFICE AND SACRAMENT I
CHAPTER II.
THE CHRISTIAN ALTAR AND THE HEAVENLY
SANCTUARY 14
CHAPTER III.
PROPHET, PRIEST AND KING. THE PARTS OF
THE MASS 24
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROMAN MISSAL AND ITS ANCESTRY . . 31
CHAPTER V.
THE LITURGY : HIGH MASS AND LOW MASS I SUR
VIVALS AND ACCRETIONS 46
CHAPTER VI.
THE COLLECT, SECRETA AND POSTCOMMUNION 65
CHAPTER VII.
THE LESSONS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE ... 78
CHAPTER VIII.
THE OFFERTORY 93
CHAPTER I.
SACRIFICE AND SACRAMENT.
IN the Catechism of Christian Doctrine which is
in use in our Catholic schools, and which is familiar
to all of us, after a dozen or so of questions and
answers concerning the Sacrament of the Holy
Eucharist, we come to the words: " Is the Holy
Eucharist a Sacrament only? No ... it is also
a Sacrifice"; words which, to a hyper-critical
reader might almost suggest the thought that the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should be regarded as
in a manner subsidiary to the Sacrament of our
Lord s Body and Blood. This, of course, is by no
means the case. In dealing with the Sacrament
before touching on the doctrine of the Church re
garding the Mass, the compilers of our catechism
have wisely followed the example set by the
Fathers of the Council of Trent, both in their pre
liminary discussions, and also in the final reduction
of the conciliar decrees and canons. And indeed
the reasons which led them to adopt this course
are not far to seek. For, until the dogmas of the
Real Presence and of Transubstantiation have been
established, it is plainly impossible to make good
the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the
words of our own Bishops: "If there were no
power in the word of consecration to make the true
body and blood of Christ really and objectively
present, ... we should not have on our altars
2 HOLY MASS
the Victim of Calvary, and without its Victim the
sacrifice could not subsist." 1
Nevertheless, it is worthy of remark that lo
gically, and one may even say historically, the Eu-
charistic Sacrifice is prior to the Sacrament, since
the reception of the latter is essentially a participa
tion in the former, and pertains to its integrity.
The Sacrament, as received by the faithful in Holy
Communion, is the fruit of the Sacrifice. It
is not merely the Body and Blood of our Lord,
together with His human Soul and His Divinity,
which we receive, but His Body and Blood under
the special aspect of a Victim which has been
sacrificially offered. And this is a point on which
it seems desirable to lay some stress, not merely
on the general ground that every object of human
knowledge gains in clearness by being looked at
from various points of view, but also for a reason
peculiar to the matter in hand. For it is incon
testable that the sacrificial system of the Old Law,
pointing as it does to the existence of some kind
of eucharistic sacrifice under the New Dispensa
tion, suggests considerations which are well cal
culated to predispose the mind of an enquirer after
the truth towards the Catholic doctrine concern
ing the Sacrament of the Eucharist, apart from
which, as has been said, the Eucharistic Sacri
fice " could not," in fact, " subsist."
It would be superfluous and inopportune to en
ter here upon a discussion as to the origin of sacri
fice, and as to the precise significance of its primi-
1 " Vindication of the Bull on Anglican Orders," p. 12.
HOLY MASS 3
tive forms. Whatever may be the true answer to
the question whether the idea of sacrifice has its
ultimate roots in a natural instinct or in a primitive
revelation, or whether, as is perhaps more probable,
revelation came to the aid of instinct, to guide it
and keep it in check, it may, at any rate, safely
be said that the Sacrifice of the New Dispensation
should be considered as immediately and design
edly related rather to the fully developed system
which it was to supplant, than to the more rudi
mentary institutions of remoter times. Whatever
may have been the case in prehistoric ages, or
among barbarous peoples, it is plain that in the
levitical code the idea which lies at the root of
all sacrifice is that of an offering, of an offering
which affords a means of access to God, of an offer
ing which is in some sense vicarious, as symbolical
of the self-oblation of the offerer. To state the
matter as briefly as possible, the notion of sacri
fice and of self-sacrifice are indissolubly connected,
even though the connection may often have been
obscured, or forgotten, or overlooked.
Now this oblation, or self-oblation, might have
three several ends or purposes. It might be a
simple and yet most solemn acknowledgment of
the supreme dominion of God ; and this would seem
to have been the true inward significance of the
holocaust or whole-burnt offering. Or it might be
in the nature of a thank-offering or peace-offering,
terms which sufficiently explain themselves. Or
again it might have for its specific purpose the re
moval of an obstacle, in the form of a sin or tres-
4 HOLY MASS
pass, which impeded the approach of the offender
to God; in which case the sacrifice would be in
the strict sense propitiatory. This threefold divi
sion of sacrifices according to their moral character
or purpose is, it need hardly be said, explicitly and
repeatedly recognized in Holy Scripture; and the
order of enumeration, corresponding as it does to
descending grades of dignity, is that which is fol
lowed in the opening chapters of the Book of Levi
ticus, where the subject is systematically dealt with.
But the normal order of actual succession was
necessarily different from this. For it is plain that
for the attainment of the end ultimately desired,
viz., full fellowship with God, it was needful that
obstacles should first be removed; and accord
ingly, in the actual carrying out of the ritual, the
sin-offering or the trespass-offering took prece
dence of the other kinds of sacrifice. 1 After the
sin-offering, the holocaust; and then, to put the
seal as it were upon the reconciliation already
effected, came the thank-offering or peace-offer
ing. 2
It is next to be observed that there were cer
tain characteristic details which differentiated
these three kinds of sacrificial oblation, and which
have an important bearing on the manifold sig
nificance of the unique and all-consummating
Sacrifice of the New Law. That in the holocaust
or whole-burnt offering the entire victim was con
sumed by fire on the altar, is sufficiently indicated
by the terms employed to describe this species of
1 E.g. Lev. xvi. 3. 2 Lev. ix. 8, 12, 18.
HOLY MASS 5
sacrificial oblation in the Septuagint and in the
Vulgate, as well as in the English versions, Catholic
and Anglican. It is less clearly implied in the
original Hebrew word olah, which means a " send
ing up " or " causing to ascend." In the sacrifice
for sin, a portion only of the victim was laid upon
the altar, the remainder when the ritual was car
ried out with full solemnity being taken " out
side the camp " to be there burnt as a thing un
hallowed. 1 On these more solemn occasions at
least, no portion of the victim might be eaten,
either by the offerer or by the priest. It was only
in the case of private and particular sin-offerings
that the priests had their allotted portion reserved
to them; 2 and this allowance must be taken to
have been something of a derogation from the
fuller symbolism of the more solemn ritual. The
rite of the peace-offering was of a widely different
character. Here the sacrificial meal was of pri
mary importance. A portion of the victim was
consumed by fire, a second portion was reserved
for the priest or priests, but the greater part of
the flesh was eaten by the offerer and his friends,
special mention being made in the 22nd Psalm of
the poor as guests at the feast. 3
Now in a sentence which has been embodied in
one of the prayers in the Roman Missal (the " Se-
creta " of the seventh Sunday after Pentecost), St.
Leo tells us that in His one sacrifice Our Lord has
united and consummated the ancient rites with all
1 Lev. xvi. 27. 2 Lev. vi. 18.
8 Lev. vii. 15; xix. 6; Ps. xxii. 27.
6 HOLY MASS
their diversities. The words, which like every other
good example of ecclesiastical Latin suffer in the
process of translation, are these : " Deus, qui lega-
lium differentiam hostiarum unius sacrificii perfec-
tione sanxisti; accipe sacrificium," &c. And in
deed it is easy to see that Christ s offering of Him
self was a holocaust by reason of its completeness, a
propitiatory offering for sin by reason of its atoning
efficacy and purpose, and finally a peace-offering
whereby the atonement was not only made but
sealed by a sacrificial meal. That the Sacrifice of
Calvary had the character of a holocaust is not
indeed asserted in express terms anywhere in the
New Testament; but it is very clearly implied in
the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the perfection
of our Lord s self-offering is contrasted with the
imperfections of the ancient sacrifices, the holo
caust being included in the brief enumeration. 1
More explicitly the writer of the same Epistle calls
attention to the fact that Christ suffered " extra
portam " " outside the gate," thus carrying out
in His own person the symbolism of the sin-offer
ing, in which (as has been said) the body of the
victim was burnt " extra castra " " outside the
camp." And he develops at considerable length
the antitypal relation of the sacrifice of the Cross
with that most solemn of all the expiatory sacri
fices of the Old Law which was offered on the day
of Atonement. 3 Here, however, it will be well
briefly to forestall a possible objection. It may
1 Hebr. x. sqq. 2 Hebr. xiii. 12 sq. 3 Hebr. ix. 6 sq.
HOLY MASS 7
be said that precisely in so far as Our Lord, by
suffering " extra portam," fulfilled the special sym
bolism of the sin-offering, He departed from that
of the holocaust. But the answer is easy, and ought
to satisfy anyone but the most captious. For while
from a merely human point of view Our Lord suf
fered as an outcast far from the temple precincts,
yet His own body was the veritable temple or
tabernacle of which the sacred edifice on Sion was
but the type. " I banish you," says Coriolanus
in the play, to the Roman Senators ; and the Syna
gogue which spurned and rejected the Messiah was
itself rejected of God. Where Christ was, there
was the legitimate tabernacle and altar, and so the
characteristic features of the holocaust were not
wanting to His self-offering.
But it was essential to the antitypal perfection
of this all-sufficing sacrifice that it should likewise
include the specific qualities of a peace-offering;
and these it can be said to have possessed only if
the Holy Eucharist be taken into account. As in
the peace-offerings of the Old Law the flesh of the
victim was no less truly eaten than the victim it
self was truly slain, so also but after a more per
fect manner it must needs be in the case of the
supremely perfect sacrifice of the New Dispensa
tion. In the ancient rite, conditioned as it was
by the limitations of material objects, only a
portion of the victim could be offered on the altar,
since a portion was to be eaten. Here the whole
is offered and the whole is eaten. Moreover, the
whole is eaten entire by every one of the faithful,
HOLY MASS
in accordance with the words of St. Thomas s
hymn:
Sic totum omnibus, quod totum singulis;
" So giveth He all to all that He giveth all to each."
And again :
Sumit unus, sumunt mille,
Tantum isti quantum ille,
Nee sumptus consumitur.
Which may be rendered thus:
Taketh one or take Him many
Each hath much as all, nor any
Can consume what all may eat.
But there is another point of correspondence to
be noted. The sacrifices of the Old Law were
divided, as regards the nature of the objects
offered, into two classes, viz., those in which the
blood of a living victim was shed, and the bloodless
offerings of meal and wine. It must however
be borne in mind that these two kinds of " oblata "
were not per se mutually independent, but that the
second class was supplementary to the first. In
the 1 5th chapter of the Book of Numbers it is
clearly laid down that for every animal victim that
was immolated a certain measure of meal and of
wine was likewise to be offered. It is also pre
scribed in the second chapter of Leviticus, that
when an offering of meal was made, the priest was
to lay a handful of the meal upon the altar " as
a memorial." 1 The precise significance of this
phrase is, indeed, extremely obscure; but bear
ing in mind the typological nature of the sacri
fices of the Old Law, we should be led to expect,
1 Lev. ii. 2.
HOLY MASS
under the New Dispensation, ( i ) that there would
be a bloodless offering supplementary to the great
Sacrifice of Calvary, and (2) that, in some way
or other, this bloodless offering would have the
character of " a memorial." How fully this ante
cedent expectation is fulfilled in the Holy Euchar
ist it is hardly necessary to point out. The Sacri
fice of the Mass is supplementary to the Sacrifice
of the Cross in substance one with it, in act
distinct from it and it is, as our Lord Him
self has told us, in the nature of a " memorial."
What has already been said will, it is hoped,
have helped the reader to appreciate, in their
special bearing on the Holy Eucharist, the force of
St. Paul s assertion that the sacrifices of the Old
Law were no more than " a shadow," and yet so
far as they went a truthful shadow, " of good
things " that were " to come " ; and of his more
definite assertion that " we have an altar whereof
they have no power to eat, who "after the final
setting aside of the Old Dispensation continue to
" serve the tabernacle " of the levitical ordinances,
preferring the shadowy type to the glorious
reality. 1
How immeasurably this glorious reality does in
deed surpass its shadowy types may in some de
gree be understood from the following considera
tions. With certain exceptions, to be found in the
case of a sacrificial offering made by a priest on
i Hebr. x. i; xiii. 10. The Pauline authorship, in sub
stance it not as regards the very words, of the Epistle to
the Hebrews is here assumed.
HOLY MASS
his own behalf, every sacrifice for which provision
is made in the levitical ordinances, may be said
to have involved a two-fold substitution; the sub
stitution on the one hand of the priest, and on
the other hand of the victim, for the person on
whose behalf the sacrifice was offered. And on
both counts these sacrifices were not merely im
perfect, but of their very nature essentially and
intrinsically inadequate. They were in the first
place imperfect because the priest who offered
them, even though he had been ceremonially set
apart from his fellow-men for this very purpose
and thereby invested with a kind of official sanc
tity, was, nevertheless, like his fellow-men, a sin
ner; and he was, therefore, in his personal capacity,
unsuited to act as a mediator on their behalf.
14 For every high priest taken from among men is
ordained for men in (or, unto) the things that ap
pertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and
sacrifices for sins; who can have compassion on
them that are ignorant and that err, because he
himself also is compassed with infirmity; and
therefore he ought, as for the people, so also for
himself, to offer for sins." 1
The levitical sacrifices were, in the second place,
essentially imperfect and inadequate because the
animals which were offered as a substitute for him
who offered them, were of no intrinsic value in the
sight of God. " If you should kindle the forests
of a whole mountain side," He says in effect, " and
consume in one great holocaust all the beasts that
1 Hebr. v. i 3.
HOLY MASS ii
dwell therein, it would be of no account in My
eyes." " And Lebanon shall not be enough to
burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt
offering." 1 The substitution of a dumb animal for
a man was a purely symbolic rite, having precisely
the value of a symbol and no more. And the
willingness of the victim to be thus offered by way
of sacrifice, though crudely represented or simu
lated by means of garlands or gay trappings, was,
after all, a mere legal fiction. But in the sacrifice
of Calvary perpetuated in the Mass our great
High Priest, Christ Jesus our Lord, was and is of
unique dignity and of unique aptness for His office.
For He possessed and possesses both the nature of
God who was to be propitiated, and the nature of
man on whose behalf the propitiation was to be
made. It is in this sense that He was the ideally
perfect Mediator, the " one Mediator," by means of
an all-sufficient oblation, between man and God. 2
For the Victim again, was of infinite price; and
besides this, since Priest and Victim were one,
there was in this case no mere symbolical substitu
tion of an unwilling animal for a being of a higher
order, but an entirely voluntary self-substitution
of the infinitely worthy for the graceless sinner.
Another reflection may fitly find expression
here. It is one which, though it more immediately
concerns such as are in priestly orders, has its
application to the laity also, and it may be usefully
called to mind as often as we say or hear Mass. 3
1 Isaiah xl. 16.
2 i Tim. ii. 5. Cf. Hcbr. viii. 6; ix, 15; xii, 24,
3 Cf. Lucas, At the Parting of the Ways, pp. 238 ff.
12 HOLY MASS
The grace of ordination to the priesthood not
only confers the power of consecrating the sacred
elements, and so of offering in union with our
Lord the bloodless sacrifice of His Body and
Blood; but it also stimulates or should stimulate
the priest to make a complete and unreserved self-
offering, in union with the self-offering of Christ
whose priesthood he shares. As Christ was both
Priest and Victim, so should the members of His
priesthood be. Nor is this a new-fangled or far
fetched notion. Every Christian altar, as we know,
has the character of a tomb or sepulchre, inasmuch
as it contains enshrined within it or beneath it,
the relics of martyrs, in accordance with those
words of the Apocalypse : " I saw beneath the altar
[in heaven] the souls of them that were slain for
the Word of God and for the testimony which they
held." 1 The usage, and the hallowed words on
which it is founded, alike remind us that the suffer
ings of the martyrs are incorporated as it were
and made one with the sufferings of Christ, and
that, in virtue of this incorporation, they are ac
cepted by God as a true and efficacious sacrifice.
Nor, as has been said, is this a matter which
concerns priests alone. The whole body of the
faithful, in virtue of their vital union with Christ
our Lord, may be regarded as in some sense par
ticipating in His priesthood, and all are or may
be associated with Him in His function as a pro
pitiatory victim. It was not to ecclesiastics alone,
but to the faithful at large, that St. Paul wrote:
1 Apoc. vi. 9.
HOLY MASS 13
" I beseech you, therefore, by the mercy of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
pleasing unto God, your reasonable service." 1 In
stances of the Christian spirit of self-sacrifice
among the laity abound, not only in the history of
the Church at large, but in the unwritten records
of the hidden life of the poor in every city and
country of the world. May they abound yet more
in the years that are to come. Nor is there any
more efficacious means whereby this desirable con
summation may be brought about than diligence in
hearing Holy Mass as often as we can, and more
especially by that fuller participation in the Holy
Sacrifice which is afforded by frequent and when
possible daily Communion.
1 Rom. xii. I.
CHAPTER II.
THE CHRISTIAN ALTAR AND THE HEAVENLY
SANCTUARY.
SOME further observations on the sacrificial charac
ter of the Mass may usefully engage our attention
before we proceed to consider the liturgy in de
tail.
In the great majority of theological treatises on
the Holy Eucharist which have been published
since the Council of Trent, it has been either as
serted or assumed that the idea of sacrifice involves
that of an offering made by way of " destruction."
And since in the Holy Eucharist as such there is no
physical " destruction/ theologians have been
greatly puzzled to explain how the definition of a
"sacrifice" is verified in the Mass. Vasquez, for ins-
tance,who has had many followers, states the matter
thus: " Since by the force of the words, only the
Body of Christ is put under the species of bread,
and only His Blood under the species of wine
although under either species the whole Christ is
present by concomitance the consecration of the
two separate species thus performed constitutes a
representation of that separation of the Body from
the Blood which makes death ; and this representa
tion is called a mystical separation. And the death
itself is represented; therefore it is called a mys
tical slaying. . . . Before the consecration of the
wine, the Body of Christ is not represented as dead
HOLY MASS IS
or immolated." Lugo on the other hand, whose
opinion has been popularized by more than one
English writer, holds that the essential idea of
sacrifice, as involving some kind of " destruction,"
is realized in a certain " exinanition " (or " ke-
nosis " as a modern writer might say) which our
Lord undergoes in placing Himself under the
sacramental species. It is a self-abasement com
parable with that of the Incarnation, and in some
respects going even beyond it. For in the Holy
Eucharist He lies as it were dead upon the altar,
not so much by virtue of the mystical separation
of the Blood from the Body of which Vasquez
speaks, as by the fact that the natural operations
and functions of the human body are suspended
in the sacramental state. It is in this assumption
of the " status victimae," or of a " status declivior,"
that, in this view, the element of destruction or
quasi-destruction is to be found. According to
Lugo and those who follow him, the double con
secration is essential to the sacrifice, not as a matter
of intrinsic necessity and ex natura rei, but simply
as a matter of positive institution.
It is needless to proceed further in the enumera
tion of the various theories that have been devised
to meet the difficulty. The very fact of their di
versity is enough to show that no plea of universal
acceptance can be set up on behalf of any one
of them. Roughly speaking, they are all reduci
ble as has been already implied to the statement
that in the act of consecration there is some kind
of " moral " or " equivalent " destruction, and that
16 HOLY MASS
thus the " ratio sacrificii " is saved. But all such
explanations leave it open to the objector to say:
" If destruction is a necessary element in sacrifice,
then where the destruction is real, there will be or
may be a real sacrifice; but where the destruction
is only moral or symbolical or equivalent
(which really means not quite equivalent) the rite,
however solemn, will be a sacrifice only in some
moral or symbolical or equivalent or not quite
equivalent sense .
In our own days the suggestion has been
made and the point has been developed and
insisted on by more than one distinguished theo
logian that the whole of this difficulty has been
occasioned by a misapprehension as to the precise
part which " destruction " holds in the notion of
sacrifice, or to state the matter slightly other
wiseas to the part which destruction actually held
in the sacrificial system of the Mosaic law. That
animal victims offered in sacrifice must be slain is,
of course, beyond dispute. Yet even in the case of
animal victims it is particularly deserving of notice
that the actual slaying of the victim was by no
means the most important item in the ritual. In
deed, the act of slaying the victim was not per se
a priestly function at all. It could be performed,
and usually was performed, not by the priest, but
by the person who made the offering. The priest s
duty was to receive the victim s blood, to pour it
about the altar, to lay upon the altar the body or a
portion of the body, according to the nature of the
sacrifice, and, of course, to kindle the fire by which
HOLY MASS 7
it was to be consumed. The distinction between
the part which was assigned to the offerer and
that which was proper to the priest is quite
clearly laid down at the outset of the Book of Levi
ticus ; and it certainly should not be left out of
account in any serious discussion of the subject.
The case has been forcibly stated by Wilhelm
and Scannell, in a passage which summarizes the
teaching of Professor Schanz:
The notion of offering (oblatio, prosphora) may
be taken as the fundamental notion of all sacrifices
.... The burning or out-pouring of the gifts
hands them over to God, and through their accep
tance God admits the giver to communion with
Him. For the essential character of the sacrificial
gift is not its destruction, but its handing over and
consecration to God. . . . The out-pouring of the
libation and the killing of the animals are but the
means for handing over the gift to God, and for
bringing the giver into communion with Him. The
killing necessarily precedes the burning, but the
killing is not the sacrifice. The victim is killed
in order to be offered *; in other words the killing
is preparatory to the sacrifice. More importance
attaches to the blood of the victim which is gath
ered and poured out at the altar. For, according
to ancient ideas, the life, or the soul, is in the
blood. When, therefore, the blood is offered, the
highest that man can give, viz., a soul or a life,
is handed over to God. . . . [Again] the sanc
tifying power of fire is as well known as the role it
1 Greg. M. in Ezech i. 2, Horn. 10, 19.
C
r8 HOLY MASS
plays in heathen mythologies. God Himself was
a fire, Our God is a consuming fire/ 1 or the fire
was a power sent down from heaven, and frequently
the heavenly fire is said to have consumed the
victim. . . . The independent unbloody sacrifices
can only be explained from the same point of view,
viz., that they express oblation of self to, and union
with, God. . . . Sacrifice in general may, there
fore, be defined as the offering to God, by an
authorized minister, of an actual gift of something
of our own transformed by the consecration of the
minister, and thus passing into the dominion of
God, Who accepts the gift for the sanctification
of the offerer. " 2
To say, however, that the slaying of the victim
is not the sacrificial act par excellence is a very
different thing from saying (what would be alto
gether untrue) that the victim s death is not of the
essence of sacrifice. The animal sacrifices of the
Old Law were, as has already been said, an attempt
to shadow forth the voluntary self-offering of a
vicarious substitute. But as was also said, it is to be
remembered that every sacrifice involved a double
substitution, viz., that of the victim, and under
another aspect that of the priest for the offerer.
And it is only another way of expressing the same
truth to say that the priest was in a very true sense
a substitute for the victim. As victim, the animal
represented the offerer. As presenter of the victim
the priest performed on its behalf what by the
1 Hebr. xii. 29.
2 Wilhelm and Scannell, Dogmatic Theology (1898), ii.
451.
HOLY MASS 19
nature of the case the victim could not (even had
it been otherwise capable) have done for itself.
Hence it is explicitly noted, as an element in the
perfection of the sacrifice of Christ, that in this
case Priest and Victim were one and the same.
And yet even here the idea of substitution was not
wanting, for here the all-perfect Victim was self-
offered for his people. In the divine tragedy of
Calvary it is plain that it was not the act of slaying
our Lord that constituted the sacrifice, but our
Lord s acceptance of the death inflicted on Him.
But it is also plain that the death was inflicted by
those, or the representatives, on whose behalf the
sacrifice was offered; so that in this respect also
the typology was preserved or realized.
Although, however, in the case of a living
victim, death by the shedding of blood was of the
very essence of the sacrifice, inasmuch as it was a
necessary and indispensable preliminary to the
presentation of the flesh and the blood to God upon
the altar, it is by no means clear that in the case
of a commemorative sacrifice, in which, after the
shedding of the blood " once for all," the same
Victim is offered again and again, we are com
pelled to look for a repeated equivalent of the
bloodshedding, or for an element of real or equi
valent " destruction." Under the limitations which
conditioned the offering of animal victims, any
thing in the nature of a repetition of the offering
was plainly impossible, even had there been reason
for such repetition. But these limitations being
absent in the case of the supreme sacrifice of
20 HOLY MASS
Christ, it would seem that the sacrificial " presen
tation " or " oblation " of the Victim might be
repeated indefinitely, and that nothing more was
required in order to the realization of the idea of
a true bloodless sacrifice than that the presentation
or oblation should be made by means of a suitable
outward and significant rite, not necessarily in
volving any sort of " destruction." That the rite
actually chosen and instituted by our Lord does in
fact " show forth His death " by virtue of the
separate consecration of the host and of the
chalice, is of course a truth to be maintained and
cherished; and our attention is pointedly called to
it by the words " mysterium fidei " ("the mystery
of faith "), which are embodied in the form of
consecration of the chalice. Nevertheless, in view
of the divergence of opinions among theologians.,
it would seem to be desirable not to lay undue stress
upon any of the particular explanations of the
" ratio sacrificii " in the Mass, as though, if this
particular explanation (e.g., that of Vazquez or De
Lugo) were mistaken, the " ratio sacrificii " would
be lacking.
The point may be aptly illustrated by means of
a comparison. In treating of the mystery of man s
redemption two questions must be distinguished,
viz. : ( i) What was necessary in order that Christ
our Lord might redeem mankind? and ( 2) how did
our Lord in fact redeem mankind? To the first
question the answer is that any single act of the
God-Man would have been sufficient for the pur- .
pose. To the second the answer is that in fact
HOLY MASS 21
our Lord redeemed us by dying on the cross. And
to this simple statement may be added many
considerations which bring into prominence the
manifold congruity of the " plentiful redemption,"
going so far beyond the mere intrinsic necessities
of the case, whereby we were redeemed.
Precisely so in dealing with the Sacrifice of the
Mass we must distinguish between two questions,
viz.: (i) What were the necessary and sufficient
conditions to be fulfilled in order that the Mass
might be a true sacrifice? and (2) what is it that
in fact makes the Mass a true sacrifice? The first
question has reference to the intrinsic necessities of
the case, the second concerns the actual institution
of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. To the first question
it should, I think, be answered that so far as we
can see any rite which God might have chosen to
institute, whereby the Divine Victim, once slain,
should be again self-offered upon an altar, would
have been sufficient for the verification or reali
zation of the " ratio sacrificii." For instance, it
was not so far as we can see intrinsically impos
sible that there should have been a eucharistic
sacrifice " under one kind," had it pleased God so
to ordain ; and it is at least exceedingly doubtful
whether we are justified in postulating any second
" destruction " or " quasi-destruction " or " mys
tical destruction " of the Victim, once slain, as an
indispensable element in the rite. But to the
second question the answer must be that, at least
de facto, at least as a matter of positive divine
ordinance, the particular rite whereby it has
22 HOLY MASS
pleased our Lord to offer Himself again upon the
Christian altar, and therefore the particular act by
virtue of which the Holy Eucharist is a true sacri
fice, consists in the double or separate consecration.
And here again it is easy to point out the manifold
congruity of the divine choice. So, too, the view he
had taken leaves quite untouched the opinion of
Lugo, in so far as this opinion has reference to the
congruity of the actual form of the Eucharistic ob
lation rather than to its very essence. And thus the
teaching of Vazquez and Lugo, instead of being
opposed to one another, become mutually comple
mentary, each emphasizing an important aspect of a
many-sided truth. But it is important, as it seems
to me, to avoid creating a gratuitous difficulty by
laying down, as though it could be proved a priori,
that what God has in fact done it was intrinsically
necessary that He should do in order that the
Mass might be a true sacrifice.
By way of supplementing and completing what
has already been said, it may be useful to return
for a moment to the relation which the death of
the victim held to the completed sacrificial ritual.
The death was necessary, not merely that the phy
sical acts of pouring out the blood and burning the
flesh might be accomplished, but that the very life
of the victim, conceived of as being contained in
the blood, might be removed, as it were, to another
sphere of existence. Not, of course, that the soul
of an animal could really survive its immolation.
But this was precisely one of those many limi
tations by reason of which the sacrifices of the Old
HOLY MASS 23
Law were mere types and symbols. The symbo
lical presentation of the animal s life conceived
as still contained in the blood to God, was a faint
foreshadowing of the act whereby our Lord, trium
phant over death, offered or presented on our
behalf the life which He had laid down yet not
lost. It is particularly noteworthy that both in
the Apocalypse and in the Epistle to the Hebrews
the sacrifice of Christ is regarded as in a manner
perennial and continuous, at least so far as regards
the ritual act of the self-presentation of the Divine
Victim. Christ having died on the Cross entered
into the heavenly sanctuary to offer or present on
our behalf, not the blood of goats and heifers, but
His own. 1 And he entered that heavenly sanc
tuary, not like the levitical High Priest to with
draw after a few moments, but to make everlast
ing intercession for us. 2 So, too, on the Apoca
lyptic altar the Lamb for ever stands " as it were
slain," i.e., bearing all the marks of death, yet
ever living, a propitiatory Victim to the end of
time. 3 And what according to our way of
reckoning takes place in heaven continuously or
perennially, is reproduced on earth, not indeed
continuously in any single place, but daily and
hourly on ten thousand altars " from the rising of
the sun even to its going down."*
1 Hebr. ix. 12. 2 Hebr. vii. 25.
3 Apoc. v. 6. * Mai. i. u.
CHAPTER III.
PROPHET, PRIEST AND KING.
THE PARTS OF THE MASS.
SOMETHING has been said, in the foregoing
chapters, of Holy Mass as a sacrifice, having for
one of its chief fruits the Holy Sacrament of
the Eucharist. But before entering into an exam
ination of the details of the liturgy, that is to say,
of the lessons, the psalmody, the prayers, and the
ceremonies in which the central act of sacrifice is
enshrined, it may be worth while to take account
of a truth that is too often overlooked, viz., that
in the Mass, as it is actually celebrated all the
world over, and not in the Roman rite alone, our
Lord exercises, through His ministers, a threefold
function, even as he exercised a threefold function
in His visible human life on earth. He came, as
we all know, in the character ( i ) of the supremely
great Prophet or Teacher, (2) of the supremely
perfect High Priest of the New Dispensation, and
(3) of the King whose royalty was not of this world
but who was to found and rule over an everlasting
kingdom which is to have its final consummation
in heaven. As Prophet, as God made Man that He
might become His own messenger to mankind, He
claims our faith. As our High Priest He laid, by
His all-atoning sacrifice, the foundations of our
hope. As King He appeals to our loyalty and love.
Now to this threefold function of Christ our Lord
HOLY MASS 25
correspond the three main portions into which the
sacred liturgy of the Mass, apart from prelimin
aries and supplementary accretions, is divided.
I. The first portion, the " Missa catechumen-
orum," as it was once called, which corresponds
with the teaching office of our Lord, consists,
chiefly, though not exclusively, of lessons from
Holy Scripture, followed, in the case of the prin
cipal parochial Mass on Sundays, by a homily on
the Gospel of the day, and, at all Masses on Sun
days and on certain other days, by the chanting
or recitation of the " Credo." It is plain that an
appeal is here made primarily to our faith, a point
which it is well to bear in mind, whatever " method
of hearing Mass " we may adopt. Or, to express
the same truth in a different form, our Lord in
Holy Mass feeds us with the bread of the word
before feeding us with His Body in the Holy Sac
rament. A recent writer has indeed laid stress,
undue stress, as it seems to me, on the fact as
suming it to be a fact that this first portion of
the Mass had its origin in a religious service dis
tinct from the Holy Sacrifice. Now, that from the
earliest times, doctrinal and catechetical services
have been held apart from the Mass, and that these
services did in fact take a form similar or at least
analogous to that of the " Missa catechumenorum,"
inasmuch as they embodied the reading of passages
from Holy Scripture, alternating with psalmody
and prayer and followed by a homily, need not be
called into question. Instances may be found in
the " Peregrinatio Silviae " (or " Etheriae "), a
26 HOLY MASS
very notable pilgrim-book of the fourth century;
and indeed they may be found nearer home in the
Matins and Lauds of the Divine Office. But with
the exception of that apostolic age during which the
Holy Sacrifice was immediately preceded by the
Agape, without perhaps, the interposition of any
reading or homily, it may be doubted whether any
instance can be found of the celebration of Mass
apart from an introductory doctrinal exordium. 1
The catechumens were excluded from being present
at the " Missa fidelium "; but the faithful were
expected, or they still are, to attend the " Missa
catechumenorum " which preceded it.
II. That the second great division of the Mass,
which embraces the offertory, preface and Canon,
constitutes the specifically sacrificial portion of the
service, is a statement which might seem to need
neither proof nor illustration. At any rate, what
ever it does need under either head, will be set
forth later. The point on which I wish to insist
at present is the relation of this central portion of
liturgy to the virtue of hope. More than once in
the epistle to the Hebrews St. Paul insists on the
truth that our hopes of life everlasting rest en
tirely on the sacrifice offered by Christ our Lord.
He speaks of " the hope set before us, which we
have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm,
and which entereth in, even within the veil, where
1 Cf. Cabrol, Origines Liturgiques, pp. 333 ff. The truth
of the statement made above is not, as it seems to me,
affected by the circumstance that the Mass might be com
menced in one church (where the lessons were read; and,
after a procession, continued and finished in another.
HOLY MASS 27
the fore-runner Jesus is entered for us, being made
a High Priest forever according to the order of
Melchisedech." 1 He tells us that our Lord " hath
an everlasting priesthood whereby He is able also
to save forever them that come to God by Him 2 ;
that He is " the Mediator of a better testament "
than that which was given to Moses, " which is
established on better promises " 3 ; that " Jesus is
not entered into the Holies," i.e. a sanctuary
" made with hands, .... but into heaven itself,
that He may appear now in the presence of God
for us " 4 ; and lastly that " we have a confidence
in the entering into the Holies," that is to say, a
sure hope that we shall, if we be faithful to
God s law, enter into the heavenly sanctuary, " by
the Blood of Christ," who has opened for us " a
new and living way," being " a High Priest over
the house of God." 5
Of course I am well aware of the objection that
may be raised by non-Catholics against the appeal,
in this connection, to the passages which have just
been quoted, inasmuch as all of them have refer
ence, primarily, to the Sacrifice of Calvary. For
the purpose of the present chapter, however, it is
assumed that the Eucharistic sacrifice is a perpet
uation of the sacrifice offered on the Cross, and that
what is said of the efficacy of the one is, by con
sequence, true also of the other.
It can hardly be doubted that the hearing of
1 Hebr. vi. 1820. 2 Hebr. vii. 24, 25.
8 Hebr. viii. 6. * Hebr. ix. 24.
Hebr. x. 1921.
28 HOLY MASS
Mass will more efficaciously help to strengthen the
tempted and console the afflicted if due attention
is paid to this intimate and special connection of
the Holy Sacrifice, as such, with the virtue of hope,
than if it were overlooked. By the words " Sursum
Corda," and by the prayers, " Communicantes "
and " Nobis quoque peccatoribus," we are not only
bidden to lift our hearts above earthly cares and
vanities, but reminded that our fellowship is with
the saints who are gone before us, and that our true
franchise (our " conversation " as the Douay Ver
sion has it) is in heaven. 1 And this in virtue of
that very sacrifice one with that of the Cross at
which we are assisting The hearing of Mass
should be to us as a vision of the true Jacob s lad
der, reaching from earth to heaven, the ascent of
which has been made possible for us solely by the
merits of Christ s Precious Blood shed for us on
Calvary, and through all time offered for us on the
Christian altar.
III. If the Mass of the Catechumens appeals
to our faith, and the prayers and ceremonies which
more immediately accompany the act of sacrifice
are calculated and intended to keep alive and re
awaken our hopes of eternal life, it is plain enough
that the concluding portion of the Mass, of which
Holy Communion, received either sacramentally or
spiritually, either personally or (so to say) vicari
ously, is the essential element, has a no less specific
relation to the virtue and disposition of charity or
i Phil. iii. 20.
HOLY MASS 29
love. This is so palpably evident that there is no
need to labour the point.
It is, however, not so obviously plain that charity
has a special relation with the kingly office of our
Lord. Yet that this is so there can, I believe, be no
reasonable doubt. The love which is demanded of
us is not, primarily, affective but effective ; its seat
is not in the feelings or emotions but in the will;
not sentiment but loyalty is the tribute that is due
from us ; and it is a tribute due to our Divine
Saviour as our Sovereign Lord and Master. ; If
you love Me, keep My commandments," 1 He says;
and if the lowest and most indispensable kind of
charity consists in obedience, the highest manifes
tations of the love of Christ are those of the Saints
who, with a more generous loyalty, have followed
more closely in His footsteps, fighting under His
Standard of the Cross, and rejoicing to suffer with
Him.
So much for charity, or the love of our Lord, in
general. As regards the Holy Eucharist in parti
cular, it is as a King that Christ, the Bridegroom,
woos His Bride, the Church, the Holy Eucharist is
the chief pledge of his love, and Holy Communion
is " the marriage-feast of the King s Son," 2 or
rather, perhaps, a foretaste of that marriage-feast
in its full consummation. 3 It is, in the same in
choate sense, " the marriage-feast of the Lamb,"*
of " the Lamb that was slain " 5 and yet liveth for-
1 St. John xiv. 15. 2 St. Matth. xxii. 2 flf.
3 Apoc. xix. 7. 4 Apoc. xix. 7.
Apoc. v. 6, 9, 12.
30 HOLY MASS
ever and " whose name is King of kings and Lord
of Lords." 1 " Blessed are they that are called to
the marriage-supper of the Lamb " 2 ; and it is well
that we should know and recognize, even "as in a
glass, darkly," 3 the blessedness that is ours in this
Sacrament of union and love. 4
1 Apoc. xvii. 14. 2 Apoc. xix. 9. ; I Cor. xiii. 12.
4 For the leading ideas of this chapter I am indebted to
reminiscences of certain sections in the fourth volume of Dr.
Amberger s Pastoral-Theologie, a work which I have not
been able to consult again at the time of writing.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROMAN MISSAL AND ITS ANCESTRY.
IT toiay be useful to state, at the outset of the
present chapter, that the terms " Mass," " the
Mass," or " a Mass," must here be understood as
having reference to the verbal or printed text of
the liturgical service, and not primarily to the great
sacrificial act of which the verbal or printed text
is but the outward vesture. Looking at the text
as a whole, it is found to consist, mainly, of ( i )
Prayers, (2) lessons from Holy Scripture, and
(3) choral pieces. Of the Scripture lessons and the
choral pieces it will not be necessary to say any
thing in detail just at present. But of the prayers
this much at least must here be noted, viz. : That
they are either ( i) fixed or (2) variable: that the
fixed prayers are those which belong to (a) the
" Ordinary " and (b) the " Canon " of the Mass
(though the Canon allows of certain minor varia
tions on the Festivals, and during the Octaves of
Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension Day and
Pentecost) ; that, of these two portions, the Canon,
which extends from the end of the Preface to the
Pater Noster exclusively, is thoroughly Roman in
structure and composition, while the prayers which
make up the bulk of the Ordinary are of later intro
duction, and are probably in large measure of Gal-
lican origin or provenance ; and lastly, that the va
riable prayers are the Collect, the Secreta, and the
32 HOLY MASS
Post-Communion (with, on occasion, the " Oratio
super populum "), which vary from day to day,
and the Preface, which, roughly speaking, varies
with the season.
Now the Roman Missal, by which for present
purposes must be understood the official " Missale
Romanum " with its authentic supplements, as dis
tinct from sundry abridged and adapted transla
tions thereof, contains the full text of ajl the
Masses which must or may be sung or said on
every day of the year. I say " which must or
may be sung or said," because there are days on
which a certain liberty of choice is allowed. For
instance, on minor festival days occurring during
Lent, the celebrant has the option of saying either
the Mass of the feast or that of the feria; and
there are many occasions, in the course of the year,
on which " votive " Masses (e.g., a Mass for the
deceased) may be celebrated. Of the Roman Mis
sal it may be truthfully said that it derives its
descent from the particular copy of St. Gregory s
Mass-book which, at the Emperor s own request,
Pope Hadrian I. sent to Charlemagne, to serve as
a guide and pattern for the liturgical usage of all
the churches in his dominions. And it is to this
origin that we owe the indications, in Missals in
tended for use all the world over, of the local Ro
man " Stations," of which something must be said
hereafter.
It would, however, be a mistake to imagine that
nothing more is needed except the omission from
the Roman Missals of the prayers, lessons and an-
HOLY MASS 33
tiphons proper to festivals of later origin, in order
to get back to St. Gregory s Mass-book. And this
for the simple reason that St. Gregory s Mass-book
was not, strictly speaking, a " Missal." The Mis
sal as we know it has, in fact, arisen out of the
fusion of some four or five distinct books. In
the days when all books were in manuscript, and
liturgical books usually or commonly engrossed on
parchment, it is easy to understand that economy
in material and in labour was an all-important con
sideration. The Mass, so far as the words and
ceremonies were concerned, was a highly dramatic
service, in which the celebrant, the deacon, the
sub-deacon, and the choir or " schola cantorum,"
each had their appointed parts; and it was ob
viously reasonable that each should have a book
containing only the portion of the service which
pertained to himself. The celebrant, in primitive
times and in the early Middle Ages, did not himself
read the Epistle and the Gospel, or the choral parts
of the Mass; and accordingly his book the " Sa-
cramentarium " as it was called did not contain
these. Its contents consisted of the Canon (for
the " Ordinary " was of later introduction), to
gether with the variable prayers (collects, secretae,
and postcommunions) and the prefaces, with, it
may be added, an appendix of sundry forms of
blessing, etc. The deacon s book, the " Evan-
geliarium," contained Gospels only, and the sub-
deacon in like manner had his Lectionary, unless,
indeed, as would often be the case, the lessons
were read from a Bible or New Testament, or from
34 HOLY MASS
a volume containing some portions thereof. For,
as is well known, marginal notes, indicating the
commencement and end of the liturgical lessons,
are found in many early Biblical MSS. So too,
the cantors and the choir had the book or books
which, under the various names of " Antiphon-
arium," " Graduale," " Cantatorium," contained,
set to musical notation, the choral portions of the
Mass, i.e., introits, graduals, tracts and se
quences, and the antiphons at the offertory and
Communion. " Antiphonarium," it may be ob
served, is a more comprehensive term than " Grad
uale " or " Gradale." In Rome the Graduale was
called " Cantatorium." 1
This at any rate was the ideal, and no douibt
in cathedrals and great abbey churches the nor
mal usage. But it is hardly to be supposed that in
the eighth and ninth centuries, for instance, every
parish priest had in his possession a full set of
liturgical books, and it is at least probable that
many had to be content with a small manual more
or less similar to the " Stowe Missal." This is an
early Irish Mass-book which resembles our modern
missals in that it contains the entire text of the
liturgy, and not merely the celebrant s part, while
on the other hand it contains only three Masses,
one for ordinary use (" cottidiana "), one for
Saints days, and one for the dead.
To sum up the whole matter in a few words :
Our present usage, by which the celebrant reads
the whole of the Mass, including the parts ori-
iAmalarius in P.L. cv. 1245; Cath. Encycl. i. 579.
HOLY MASS 35
ginally proper to deacon, sub-deacon and choir,
as well as his own, must needs have had its origin
in what is now known as a " Low Mass " i.e., a
Mass without deacon, sub-deacon or choir; a form
of celebration which necessarily presupposes the
combination in a single volume of elements proper
to the sacramentary, lectionary, and gradual re
spectively. This fusion naturally took place at
first on a small scale and in a fragmentary fashion,
as in the " Stowe Missal," and it reached its final
stage of completeness for all churches, however
obscure, only when the invention of printing had
facilitated the multiplication of copies, and the
enforcement, by pontifical decrees, of liturgical
uniformity.
And now, let us turn to the Roman Missal it
self, and examine its contents. Let it be supposed
that the reader has in his hands a copy of the,
" Missale Romanum," such as ought to be in the
hands of every one who can read and understand
the simple yet stately Latin of the Church s liturgy.
The volume is divided into the following
parts : -
(i) The " Proprium de Tempore " or Proper
of the Season. This contains the Masses for all
the Sundays in the year, beginning with Advent
Sunday, for Ascension Day and Corpus Christi,
and for the week-days in Lent, Easter-week and
Whitsun-week, the Rogation days, and the Ember
days occurring in September and December. It
is in the nature of a survival from a more primitive
arrangement that the Masses for the Christmas
36 HOLY MASS
season, i.e., from Christmas Eve till the Octave
of the Epiphany, though determined by the day
of the month and not by the day of the week, yet
find a place in the " Proprium de Tempore." In
other words this collocation of the Christmas festi
vals points back to a time when the " Sanctorale "
(of which presently) had not been separated from
the " Temporale."
The circumstance that the Ordinary and Canon
of the Mass, with the variable prefaces, find their
place, not as might have been expected at the be
ginning or at the end of the book, but immediately
before the Mass for Easter Sunday, calls for a word
of explanation. It has been suggested that this
arrangement is really due to considerations of con
venience, in as much as the book opens more easily
in the middle. It seems to me, however, more
likely that the position of the Canon in the Missal
is not unconnected with the fact that the great
festival of Easter was the nucleus from which the
ecclesiastical calendar was developed. This, if I
understand him rightly, is Ebner s opinion ; but he
points out that the practice varied in successive
centuries. In the earliest extant MSS., from the
seventh century down to the close of the eighth,
the Canon is found near the end of the book, either
as a separate item or, more frequently, embodied
in a " Missa cottidiana " or Mass for days not
specially provided for. But from the beginning
of the ninth century it takes its place, more natur
ally as one would think, at the beginning of the
book. Finally, in MSS. of the twelfth and thir-
HOLY MASS 37
teenth centuries, it gradually settled down, so to
say, into its present position; a position which it
probably owes to the special honour which was
felt to be due to the central solemnity of Easter. 1
At any rate there can be no question as to the prac
tical convenience of the present arrangement.
(2) The " Proprium Sanctorum." This contains
the Masses appointed for those festivals chiefly
Saints days which are determined by the civil
calendar, i.e., which are assigned to certain days
of the successive months from November 27th, the
earliest possible date for the first Sunday in
Advent, to November 26th. It contains, in ad
dition, the Masses for a few feasts of compari-
tively recent origin, which, like that of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus, are determined by the days of the
ecclesiastical and not of the civil calendar.
(3) The " Commune Sanctorum." As a matter
of convenience certain Masses have been drawn up
suitable for any saint of a particular class, Martyr
Confessor, Virgin, c., and it not unfrequently
happens that the whole or part of the Mass for the
festival of this or that individual servant of God
is taken from the " Common of Saints," while
in the case of others the whole of the variable por
tion of the Mass is " proper," that is to say, peculiar
to their own feast.
(4) The " Commune Sanctorum " is followed by
a series of " votive Masses," e.g., the Mass of the
Holy Ghost, the Mass of the Blessed Sacrament,
1 Ebner, Quellcn u. Forschungen, usw. pp. 363 372.
38 HOLY MASS
&c., and these again by the Masses for the de
ceased. The same part of the Missal likewise
contains a long series of collects for particular
intentions, " ad libitum sacerdotis," many of which
are of quite singular beauty.
( 5 ) Next follow, or may follow, certain author
ized supplements, of which the first (" Pro aliqui-
bus locis ") forms part of the body of the Missal.
This contains the Masses for a number of feasts
which, though not universally observed, have been
conceded to more than one country or region. The
supplements for particular dioceses, or groups of
dioceses (e.g., those of England and Wales), and
for particular religious orders, are published sepa
rately. And it may be useful to warn the reader
that, in ordering a Missal from a publisher or
bookseller, care should be taken to specify the
supplements required, so that they may be bound
up with the Missal. Some religious orders, how
ever, have not merely a supplement, but a special
Missal of their own, identical of course, in sub
stance, with the " Missale Romanum," though
differing from it in certain details.
It has already been mentioned that the nucleus of
the Roman Missal, so far as its non-choral portions
are concerned, is or was to be found in the copy
of St. Gregory s Sacramentary sent by Pope
Hadrian I. to Charlemagne. About this book a
few words must here be added. The transaction is
recorded in a letter written by the Pope to the
Emperor between the years 784 and 791. He says
in effect : " You have asked us to send you an unin-
HOLY MASS 39
terpolated (immixtum) copy of the Sacramentary
arranged by our holy predecessor Pope Gregory.
This we now do by the hands of John, Abbot of
Ravenna." 1 So much is clear, but it is unfortu
nately no less certain that not one of the many ex
tant MS. copies of the " Gregoranium," as we may
henceforth call it, is by any means " immixtum,"
for all of them have been, as Dom S. Baumer
has pointed out, " largely augmented from other
sources," mainly, perhaps, Gallican. It is true that,
within a generation of the arrival of Hadrian s
MS., a serious and presumably successful attempt
was made, by an editor who is believed to have
been Alcuin, to purge the already inflated Gregori-
anum of its alien elements. So far as he adopted
the plan of relegating these to a kind of supple
ment, or second and third " book," separated from
the older portion of the work by a "praefatiuncula"
or " little preface " of his own (known as the" Hu-
cusque "), his task of careful discrimination has
been effective. But in many cases he was content to
leave inserted material in the position in which he
found it, merely indicating the later additions by
means of asterisks or obeli. And it unfortunately
happened that, notwithstanding his stringent direc
tions, copyists omitted to reproduce these dia
critical marks. Hence, to the question: " Can we
restore St. Gregory s Mass-book? " the answer
must needs be, if not wholly negative, at best a
1 Cod. Carol., ed Jaff6, p. 274; apud Duchesne, Origines,
p. 114.
40 HOLY MASS
very hesitating affirmative. 1 The question, how
ever, concerns only the antiquity of particular
Masses, and other points of quite secondary impor
tance. It in no way affects the substance or general
structure of the book, the whole of which is, of
course, included in the later and " largely aug
mented " copies.
But the Gregorianum was not the earliest Roman
Mass-book to gain a wide circulation. Indeed, a
careful examination of numerous ninth-century
catalogues of cathedral and monastic libraries led
Baumer to the conclusion, now I think generally
accepted, that the purpose of Hadrian s gift was
not as used to be supposed the substitution of
the Roman for the early Gallican liturgy through
out the Frankish dominions, but rather the sub
stitution of a correct and up-to-date Roman book
for an earlier one, likewise Roman, which had for
the most part already supplanted the old Gallican
sacramentaries. This earlier Roman book is
described in the catalogues as " Gelasian." In
Rome the " Gelasianum," even in its original
shape, had long since become obsolete, under stress
of the liturgical reform introduced by St. Gregory.
The nature of this reform is compendiously de
scribed by " John the Deacon," his biographer.
He reduced within the limits of a single book
the Gelasian codex of Masses, eliminating much,
effecting a few transpositions, and making some
1 See an excellent article by Mr. E. Bishop in the Dublin
Review, October, 1894. From this article Baumer s words
( above j are quoted.
HOLY MASS 41
additions." 1 And this is all that we are told about
the relation of the Gregorianum to the Gelasianum
as regards the general structure of the two works.
Of particular changes in detail, introduced by St.
Gregory, mention will be made later, as occasion
offers.
Of the Gelasianum several manuscript copies
are extant, though, strange to say, not one of them
mentions the name of its author or compiler in its
title or superscription. 2 But there are, as it seems
to me, no adequate grounds for calling in question
the ascription of books of this type, at least as
regards their chief contents, to Gelasius I. (c. 490).
It is, however, recognized on all hands that, even
in the earliest of them all, the original text has
almost certainly been somewhat thickly overlaid
with extraneous matter, from which the task of
separating out the original text can hardly be said
to have been attempted with any near approach to
completeness. Not only are there extensive inter-
1 " Scd et Gelasianum codicem dc Missarum solemniis, mul-
ta subtrahens, pauca convertens, nonnulla vcro superadjiciens
. . . in unius libri volumine coarctavit " (Vita ii. 17;
P.L. Ixx. viii. 94). Simple as this statement seems at first sight,
it must be admitted that the words which follow " superadji
ciens," viz. " pro exponendis evangelicis lectionibus " have
puzzled and baffled all the commentators. Nor can I pre
tend to explain them. There is nothing in the Gregorianum
which can be said to serve " for the exposition of the Gospel
lessons."
2 Bona (ii. v. 4) " suspects " that the Vatican Cod. Reg.
316 " contains the Ordo of Gelasius." This is the MS. which
Tommasi, Muratori, Vezzosi, and in our own days Mr. H. A.
Wilson, have edited as " The Gelasian Sacramentary." Mr.
Wilson has of course collated other MSS.
42 HOLY MASS
polations from Gallican sources, but every known
MS. of the Gelasianum has been to a greater or
less extant " Gregorianized," particularly as
regards the Canon of the Mass. Probst s obser
vation that those sections in the Gelasianum which
have the word " Or do " in their title are of later
date that those which have for their superscription
" Orationes ct preces," at least deserves mention. 1
For present purposes, however, it must be enough to
say ( i ) that the Gelasianum, as represented by the
earliest extant MS., is in three " books " (reduced
by St. Gregory to one) ; and (2) that it has a very
much larger number of collects (usually two for
each Mass), of variable prefaces, and of variable
clauses in the Canon of the Mass, than the Gregori
an um.
Older still than the Gelasianum, but of quite a
different character, is the so-called " Leonine Sac-
ramentary " or Leonianum, which, however, has
nothing to do with St. Leo the Great (c. 450),
except that it probably dates from shortly after
his time, and that many of its prayers are adap
tations of passages from his sermons. 2 Of the
Leonianum only one copy, a Verona MS., is
known to exist, or, perhaps, ever existed. The
number of collects, prefaces, and even of complete
1 Probst (herein following Tommasi) Die altesten romis-
chen Sakramentarien u. Ordwes, pp. 171 f.
2 Havard, Centonisations Patristiques dans les For mules
Liturgiques (Appendix II. to Cabrol, Origines, &c.), pp.
133 .
HOLY MASS 43
Masses for one and the same day, is at first sight
sight almost bewildering; and it is now commonly
acknowledged that it never was an official Mass-
book, but was rather in the nature of a private
collection, from which prayers might be taken more
or less ad libitum .* Probst, however, suggests
that this multiplicity of Masses for a single feast
(e.g. that of St. Lawrence) is to be explained by
the simple hypothesis that the compiler has faith
fully recorded the various local usages followed
respectively in the several churches dedicated to
one and the same saint. 2 He also gives reasons
based on internal evidence, for thinking that a
considerable number of the prayers preserved in the
Leonianum are to be ascribed to St. Damasus (c.
375), to whom with some probability, but without
any positive evidence, he attributes the introduction
of variable elementscollects, prefaces, &c. into
the Roman rite. 3 However this may be, there can
be no doubt that many of the Leonine prayers are
of great beauty and not a few of them have been
preserved in the Roman Missal of to-day. 4 The
1 So Cabrol, Origines, p. 109; Fortescue, p. 1 1 8, note 5.
But in fact the observation that the Leonianum is an unofficial
compilation was made long ago by the brothers Ballerim
in their preface to vol. ii. of the works of St. Leo (P.L. Iv.
15 ff.), as was pointed out in The Tablet, 1896, ii. 1008.
2 Probst, Sakramentarien, pp. 88 f.
a Ibid., pp. 62 ff.
4 For instance, the exquisitely perfect prayer (analyzed
by Cabrol, pp. i 10, I i i) " Deus qui humanae substantiae,"
etc., used for the blessing of the water in the Offertory
ot the Mass.
44 HOLY MASS
MS. is unfortunately imperfect at the beginning
and contains no text of the Canon. 1
Beyond this point it is impossible to trace the
ancestry of the Roman Missal in, so to say, the
direct line. Indeed, from the aforesaid charac
teristic features of the Leonianum, the Ballerini
draw the conclusion that at the time of its com
pilation no official Mass-book can have been in
existence, and consequently that the Gelasianum,
in its original form, must have been the earliest
of its kind. 2 Yet of what may be called collateral
ancestors there are several, viz., the four or five
extant early Gallican Mass-books, the conventional
titles of which are given below. 3 In Chapter XVI.
convincing reasons, as they seem to me, will be
giving for holding that the ultimate origin of the
Gallican rite was Roman, and that consequently
1 For fuller information on these three Mass-books, see
the Introductions and notes in P.L. lv., Ixxii., Ixxviii., and in
the standard editions of Feltoe (Leonine) and Wilson (Gelas-
ian); Probst, op. cit.; Baumer, Das so-genannte S. Gela
sianum; E. Bishop in Dublin Review, I.e.; Cabrol, I.e.;
Lucas in The Tablet, 1896, ii. 1007 ff. ; 1897, i. 86 ff.,
ii. 204 ff. ; and Fortescue, pp. 117 ff.
* Praefatio, &c., n. 12 (P.L. lv. 17 f.j.
3 They are (i) the Reichenau Mass-book edited by Mone
in 1853, (2) the " Missale Gothicum," (3) the " Missale
Francorum," and (4) the " Sacramentarium Gallicanum,"
now commonly known as " the Bobbio Missal." To these
may be added, as illustrating the subject, the Ambrosian,
and Mozarabic, and " Stowe " (Celtic) Missals; and also the
description of the Gallican and Spanish liturgies, which are
in substance one, by St. Germanus of Paris and St. Isidore
of Seville respectively. More particular references will
be given later.
HOLY MASS 45
the Galilean rite, by which I mean the form of
liturgy which prevailed not only in Gaul and Spain,
but in Northern Italy, and possibly also in remoter
Ireland, from the fourth to the seventh century,
may be expected to throw light on the very obscure
history of the Roman Mass in its earlier stages
of development. In the meanwhile this brief
statement may be sufficient to justify such refer
ences as may be made, in the intervening chap
ters, to Gallican sources.
CHAPTER V.
THE LITURGY : HIGH MASS AND LOW MASS :
SURVIVALS AND ACCRETIONS.
FROM the foregoing considerations on the sources
of the Roman liturgy, we pass now to the study
of the prayers and ceremonies with which, in ac
cordance with the prescriptions of the Church, the
central act of sacrifice is, in the Roman rite, ac-
panied and surrounded; in other words, with the
sacred liturgy as for centuries past it has been
carried out, with a few local exceptions, through
out western Christendom. " For the most part,"
writes Mr. Edmund Bishop, " Catholics are con
tent, where the sacred liturgy is concerned, to take
in an even, not to say indifferent, spirit, the good
that comes to them, without enquiring too parti
cularly how it came. They are content in a general
way with the fact that they are in the full current
and stream of an uninterrupted tradition, the
source of which is to be found in the apostolic
age itself. Still, it should be even for Catholics
a subject of interest to ascertain in some manner
the steps by which the Mass-book in use to-day
came to be what it is; and to trace the gradual
accretions that have gathered round the primitive
kernel. 1
Now it might, perhaps, be expected that, in
1 E. Bishop, " The Earliest Roman Mass-book," in Dublin
Review, October, 1894.
HOLY MASS 47
dealing with the prayers and ceremonies of the
Mass as we know them, a writer should start with
those parts of the liturgy which are more central,
fundamental and primitive. But there may be
some advantage, on the other hand, in clearing the
ground by first of all dealing with certain portions
and features of the Mass which are of secondary
importance, and of a less venerable antiquity than
the prayers which more immediately accompany
and surround the essential act of sacrifice. This is
what I propose to do in the present chapter.
Many of us are so thoroughly accustomed to
regard " Low Mass " as the ordinary form of
celebration, and to think of " High Mass " as a
more or less exceptional solemnity suitable for
special occasions, that it may require something
of an effort to bear in mind the unquestionable
fact that High Mass is the normal type, of which,
so far as the non-essential ceremonies are con
cerned, Low Mass is a kind of abridged edition.
And the nature of the abridgment may be indicated
by saying that, in Low Mass, besides the omission
of the chant and the incense, the functions of
deacon and sub-deacon are performed by the cele
brant. As an illustration of this latter may be
mentioned the circumstance that, while he reads
the Epistle, the celebrant, who is then acting (so
to say) as sub- deacon, holds the book, just as the
sub- deacon does when he chants the Epistle at a
High Mass; whereas when he reads the Gospel,
the celebrant keeps his hands joined, as the deacon
does while the book is held for him at the chanting
48 HOLY MASS
of the Gospel. Moreover, as the deacon, when he
sings the Gospel in a High Mass, faces the north
(originally, perhaps, because it was thought right
that he should face the bishop s throne), so in a
Low Mass the Missal is placed, for the reading of
the Gospel, slantwise upon the altar, and the cele
brant stands facing as nearly northwards as the
circumstances of his position conveniently permit.
(The church is, of course, assumed to be correctly
" orientated " with the great doors at the west end,
and the altar towards the east. When this is not
the case, the terms " north," " east," &c., are still
retained for convenience of designation or descrip
tion.) Another item in Low Mass which finds its
explanation only in the fuller ceremonies of High
Mass, is the position of the " Lavabo." Why
should the celebrant wash his fingers just after
the offering of the unconsecrated host and chalice?
That the act is symbolical of the perfect purity of
heart with which he should approach the sacred
mysteries is perfectly true; but why is it placed
precisely here? For the simple reason that, in a
High Mass, the offering of the bread and wine is
immediately followed by the censing of the oblata
and of the altar : and since this is a process which
might easily cause some slight accidental soiling
of the fingers, it is perfectly natural and congruous
that, as soon as the celebrant has in his turn been
censed by the deacon, he should find the acolytes
ready with the water-cruet, the basin, and the
towel. The censing being omitted in a Low Mass,
the " Lavabo " has nevertheless been retained,
HOLY MASS 49
mainly, no doubt, by reason of its symbolic signi
ficance. The need for a washing of the fingers
would, of course, be more evident when " loaves
and flasks of wine " were offered and received by
the celebrant at this point of the service. 1 It may
be of interest to note that, in the Ambrosian rite,
the celebrant washes his fingers again immediately
before the consecration, at the point where, in the
Roman liturgy, he wipes them lightly on the cor
poral.
Of the preliminary portion of the Mass, which
includes all that is said and done before the collect,
it may be said that it consists of a number of more
or less fragmentary survivals from the fuller ritual
of a pontifical High Mass, or rather of the Mass
as solemnly celebrated by the Pope himself in the
sixth or seventh century. That our latter-day
Roman Missals have been developed from an an
cient Papal Mass-book is indicated, as has been
said, by the titles or superscriptions " Static ad
S. Mariam Majorem," and the like, which stand
at the head of the Masses for the Advent Sundays,
for Christmas Day and the festivals which imme
diately follow it, for the Epiphany, Septuagesima,
Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, and for each of
the days of Lent, Easter Week (including Low
Sunday), and Whitsun Week (not including Tri
nity Sunday), the Rogation days, the Ember days,
Whitsun-eve, and (by reason of the litanies) St.
Mark s day, April 25th. February 2nd, the feast
1 Fortescue, p. 310.
E
50 HOLY MASS
of the Purification of our Lady, or Candlemas, was
likewise a stational day, but the indication has
dropped out of our modern Missals. The blessing
of the candles, it should be observed, is attached
to the day of the month, whereas the feast is liable
to be displaced and transferred, if it should fall on
a Sunday.
In the first of the " Ordines Romani " published
by Mabillon, we have a graphic description of the
observance of the Roman " Stations." " The
curious reader," says Fr. Thurston, " may there
find narrated how the assembly of the clergy
and officials meets first at some church used as
a rendezvous, where the procession is formed to
set out to the station of the day. The sacred mini
sters are grouped around the Pope in order of due
precedence, according to their special functions.
The acolytes go in front, walking, but the papal
deacons with their primicerius ride on horseback,
as does the Pope himself. Immediately before
him, the Apostolic sub-deacon bears a processional
Cross, while at his side the stratores help to clear
the way and keep off the crowd. The clergy of
the church where the station is held come out to
meet the Pope, and conduct him to the sacristy,
where he is vested for Mass with the same solem
nity with which the vesting of a bishop now takes
place at the beginning of a pontifical function. . .
Before the assembly is dismissed [at the end of
Mass], a regionary subdeacon announces from the
foot of the altar that on the next day that station
HOLY MASS 51
will be held at such and such a church, to which
the choir answer: Thanks be to God. "*
The psalm " Judica me Deus," with its antiphon
" Introibo ad altare Dei," though now said by the
celebrant at the foot of the altar, was originally
what may be described as his private " Introit ";
that is to say it was the psalm which, first as a
matter of laudable custom, and afterwards by rule
and precept, he recited on his way from the sacristy
to the altar, while the choir sang the " Introit "
proper to the day. How entirely appropriate to
the purpose specified is the psalm, and more partic
ularly the antiphon, may be illustrated by a passage
from the ancient tract " de Sacramentis," tradi
tionally attributed to St. Ambrose, and perhaps
compiled from his instructions. Addressing the
neophytes who have just received baptism on Holy
Saturday or Whitsun-eve, the writer says: "You
came, then, full of desire, to the altar ; you came . .
to the altar that you might thence receive the
Sacrament. Let your soul exclaim : I will go unto
the altar of God, to God Who giveth joy to my
youth. You have laid aside the decrepitude of sin,
1 Thurston, Lent, &c., pp. 155 ff. (abridged); /./;.,
Ixxviii. 937 ff. With reference to the " Ordines Romani "
it may be noted here that although, in Mabillon s edition and
Migne s reprint, the first four among them are arranged in
chronological order, the seventh, to which reference will be
made hereafter, is of earlier date than any of them. It
owes its position in the series to the fact that it deals with a
particular set of ceremonies, viz., those connected with the
" Scrutinies," not with the normal celebration of a pontifi
cal Mass. Cf. Probst, Sakramenlarien, pp. 398 ff.
52 HOLY MASS
you have taken on the grace of youth; this is the
gift which the heavenly sacraments have bestowed
on you. Hear David saying: Thy youth shall be
renewed as the eagle s/ " etc. 1
The passage only repeats, in a somewhat ampli
fied form, what St. Ambrose himself had more
briefly said in the eighth chapter of the tract " de
Mysteriis." 2 As regards the date and provenance
of the " de Sacramentis," internal evidence points
to northern Italy, and to a time when Arianism was
still rampant. No other heresy is alluded to, and
the tract is therefore at least as old as the early
part of the fifth century. 3 The suggestion that the
tract may have been taken down by a stenographer
from the instructions of St. Ambrose himself, and
destined at first, by reason of the " disciplina ar-
cani " then in full force, for private circulation,
is Probst s. 4
The passage, however, does not, as Bona points
out, either prove or indicate that either antiphon
or psalm were already, in the fifth century, recited
by the celebrant on his way to the altar; and we
must be content to know that the usage had become
thoroughly established about the time of the Nor
man Conquest. 5
1 De Sacram. IV. ii. 7 (P.L. xvi. 437)
2 P.L. ibid. 403.
3 Cf . Duchesne, Origines, p. 169.
4 Probst, Liturgie des VierLen fahrhunderts, p. 239.
5 The earliest witnesses cited by Bona (de Rebus Litur-
gicis, II. ii. 3) are a MS. of perhaps the eleventh century.,
and the " Micrologus," an anonymous tract of approxi
mately the same date.
HOLY MASS 53
The joyful access to the altar heralded by this
psalm receives, however, in the case of one who is
not fresh from the waters of baptism, a check at
the thought of sin ; and the psalm is appropriately
followed by the " Confiteor." A child s hymn
gives a simple expression to the leading thoughts
of both.
Now to God s altar will I go
That He with joy may fill my youth:
That sin s dark ways I may not know
But walk by light of God s own truth. 1
But I am weak and wayward, Lord,
And from the path too oft have strayed ;
The fault is mine; Thine the reward
Of pardon for confession made.
With grief sincere I now confess
My sins of thought and word and deed:
And that I may no more transgress
Mary and all the saints will plead.
The " Confiteor," as we know it and use it, is the
result of the " survival of the fittest " among many
similar forms of prayer which were composed,
though no particular form was prescribed, for the
use of the celebrant and the sacred ministers while
they either lay prostrate (as still happens on Good
Friday), or knelt or stood at the foot of the altar,
while the choir continued or concluded the singing
of the " Introit." 2 I say knelt or stood, for although
Father Thurston writes: " The Good Friday pros
tration probably represents an act of humiliation
which was as habitually practised in the early
Church, as the genuflection is with us, every time
1 " Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam," etc,
2 Bona, I.e. n. 5.
54 HOLY MASS
that the chief Pontiff and his attendants made their
solemn entry into the sanctuary for High Mass,"
this seems to me to be too sweeping a statement. 1
Surely, for instance, there would be no prostration
in paschal time. Nor do the words of the first
" Ordo Romanus " suggest prostration as usual
or habitual. " The fourth chorister precedes the
pontiff, to place a cushion (or a faldstool, " ora-
torium ") for him before the altar, and the pontiff
on his arrival prays thereon (or thereat)." 2 This,
however, is in the description of the Easter Mass.
For the rest, it is but fitting that, before proceeding
to the altar to plead for the people, the celebrant
should first take his stand in the midst of those who
represent the congregation, ranging himself for the
moment with those on whose behalf he is about to
offer the Holy Sacrifice. 3
The " Introit," sung by the choir, and now, but
not originally, recited by the celebrant at the altar,
is said, in the " Liber Pontificalis," to have been
introduced by Celestine I. (c. 425).* It originally
consisted of a complete psalm, to which the anti-
phon and doxology (i.e., the " Gloria Patri ") may
have been added later. But the psalm is now
1 Thurston, Lent, &c., p. 330.
2 P.L. Ixxviii. 942.
3 On the contents and structure of the Confiteor see chap
ter xv.
4 " Hie . . . constituit ut cl. psalmi David ante sacrificium
psallerentur antiphonatim (i.e., not " with an antiphon," but
by alternating choirs) qoiod ante non fiebat, nisi tantum re-
citabantur epistolae Pauli apostoli et sanctum evangelium,
et sic missae fiebant " (P.L. cxxiii. 199 f.)
HOLY MASS 55
represented only by a single verse, so that this
choral piece now consists of an antiphon, one verse,
usually the first of a psalm, the " Gloria Pa-
tri," and the repeated antiphon a typical ins
tance of a fragmentary survival. It may be of
interest to mention, in passing, an intermediate
stage in the process of abbreviation. The psalm
of the introit was, of course, sung while the Pope
proceeded from the sacristy to the sanctuary. But
it would often happen that he reached the sanc
tuary before the psalm was finished. And we learn
from the " Ordo Romanus " already referred to,
that when this was the case he gave a sign to the
leader of the choir ("ad priorem scholae "), who
thereupon sang the " Gloria Patri " without fin
ishing the psalm. 1
The " Kyrie Eleison," as we learn from St.
Gregory himself, is the abbreviated substitute for
a litany which still held its place, at least on certain
occasions and in penitential seasons. What the
occasions were on which the litany was said, St.
Gregory does not tell us, but they were plainly not
of rare occurrence, for he writes: " In quotidianis
autem missis aliqua quae did solent tacemus, [et]
tantummodo Kyrie eleison et Christe eleison dici-
mus." 2 That the litany was characteristic of peni
tential seasons appears from the rubric in a MS. of
the Gregorianum, which directs that when it has
been sung the " Gloria in excelsis " and " Alleluia "
are to be omitted. 3 It may be mentioned that the
1 P.L. Ixxviii. 942.
* Epist. IX. xii.; P.L. Ixxvii. 956- 8 ? Ixxviii. 25.
56 HOLY MASS
early Irish MS. known as the " Stowe Missal " be
gins, after a short antiphon, with what we now call
the Litany of the Saints. But, seeing that one of the
prayers which immediately follows has the colo
phon: This prayer is sung at every Mass "* it
may be inferred that the litany was not recited every
day. 2 The litany which, in the Roman rite, was in
common but not daily use, though longer than the
" Kyrie," would seem to have been notably shorter
than what is popularly known as " the Litany of
the Saints." The official title of this is " Litaniae
Majores the Greater Litanies," a term which
manifestly presupposes the existence of " lesser lit
anies," now no longer in use. These may probably
have resembled the series of petitions, each fol
lowed by " Domine miserere Lord have mercy "
which in the Ambrosian rite are still chanted or
recited on the Sundays in Lent. There is moreover
some reason for thinking that the lesser litanies
were in or before St. Gregory s time transferred
from the position which, as Probst believed, they
1 MacCarthy, p. 195.
2 It has repeatedly been observed (by Warren, MacCarthy,
and others) that a fragmentary MS. of the Irish Abbey of St.
Gall (one of St. Colombanus continental foundations) be
gins, like the Stowe Missal, with the antiphon " Peccavimus,"
etc., which in the latter precedes the litany. But the very
remarkable similarity even in strange details of the initial
P in the two MSS., has not, I believe, been noticed in any
work on the subject; and I take the opportunity of calling
attention to it here. The point of this observation is that
from the close similarity of the MSS., so far as they admit of
comparison, we should learn not to regard the Stowe Missal
as an altogether isolated witness in liturgical matters.
HOLY MASS 57
formerly held after the Gospel. The greater lit
anies were, on the other hand, of a processional
character. These latter still hold their place on
Holy Saturday and on Whitsun-eve, on which days
the final " Kyrie " of the litany serves as the
" Kyrie " of the Mass. 1 The same may perhaps
have been formerly the case on the Rogation days
and on March 25th, on which days the " Litaniae
majores " are also prescribed. 2
The " Gloria in excelsis " is the Latin version
of a Greek hymn which, in the Byzantine rite,
forms part of the morning office ("Orthros," corres
ponding to our " Lauds "), but not of the Mass. 3
According to the " Liber Pontificalis " it was St.
Telesphorus (c. 130) who first ordered that the
" Gloria " should be sung at the midnight Mass
of Christmas Day. 4 But this statement may prob
ably have reference only to the opening words of
the hymn, which is said, but on doubtful authority,
to have been first translated in its entirety by St.
Hilary of Poitiers (c. 350). Bona cites St. Athan-
1 This is true, of course, only of the principal Mass on
Whitsun Eve, when it follows the blessing of the font.
2 Cf. Probst, Abendldndische Mcsse, pp. 123 ff., and
(not quite in accord with him) Thurston, Lent and Holy
Week, pp. 434 f.
8 Brightman, Eastern Liturgies, p. 577 (s.v. " Gloria ").
1 " Hie constituit ut . . . natali Domini noctu missae
celebrarentur (here we have the very origin of the midnight
Mass) . . . et ante sacrificium hymnus diceretur angelicus,
hoc est, Gloria in excelsis Deo " (L.P. in P.L, cxxvii.
H75f.). No indication is here given of the position of
the " Gloria " in the Mass. This is doubtful by reason of
the statement in the " L.P." that down to Celestine s time
the liturgy began with the lessons.
5 8 HOLY MASS
asius for its use as a morning hymn, and observes
that Alcuin (c. 800) is the first to mention the
tradition concerning St. Hilary. 1 By Pope Sym-
machus (c. 500) if we may trust the " Liber Ponti-
ficalis," its use was extended to all Sundays and
to the feasts of Martyrs. 2 With the exception,
however, of Easter- day, it was to be sung only when
the celebrant was a bishop; and this prohibition
lasted during many centuries. 3 Berno of Reiche-
nau, in his treatise " de Officio Missae " (c. 1030)
argues at great length that there is no reason why
priests as well as bishops should not recite this
hymn at Mass. 4 And although M6nard and Bona,
commenting on the passage, 5 very pertinently re
mark that the quite explicit regulation on the
subject ought to have been accounted a good and
sufficient reason for abstention, we may well rejoice
that the pious importunity of private devotion
tolerated as we must suppose by a not too-exacting
authority should have at last carried the day, and
that we are not only allowed, but commanded, to
recite the " Gloria " in every festal Mass.
1 Bona, II. iv. He aptly justifies the use of the word
" hymn " to describe the Gloria by quoting the words of
St. Augustine (in Ps. cxlviii.j: "Si laudas Deum et non
cantas, non _dicis hymnum. Si laudes quod non pertinet ad
laudem Dei, non dicis hymnum. Hymnum ergo tria ista
habet, et canticum, et laudem, et Dei."
2 P.L. cxxviii. 453 f.
^ 3 So Menard s_ MS. of the Gregorianum: "Item dicitur,
Gloria (&c.) . . . si episcopus fuerit, tantummodo die dormnico
sive diebus festis. A presbyteris autem minime dicitur,
nisi solo in Pascha " (P.L. Ixxviii. 25).
4 P.L. cxlii. 1058 f.
5 Me"nard (note 9) in P.L. Ixxviii. 268; Bona, I.e.
HOLY MASS 59
And here a remark and a digression may be
allowed which may possibly help devotion. While
it is a most excellent " method of hearing Mass "
to follow the celebrant verbatim throughout the
service with the help of the Missal, this particu
lar " method " has at no time been prescribed to
the laity. And even were it only by way o f
an occasional change, it may be useful sometimes to
fix the attention on particular words or phrases and
to dwell upon them for a while, developing and ex
panding them in our thoughts, after the fashion of
St. Ignatius Loyola s " second method of prayer,
without feeling bound to " hurry on " so as to keep
pace with the priest at the altar. Among many
words and phrases which thus lend themselves to
expansive and affective reflection are those of the
Gloria : " We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we glorify
Thee, we give Thee thanks," &c., which do, indeed,
strike the very key-note of the Eucharistic liturgy.
Here is a simple expansion of these words in the
form of a child s hymn or rhymed prayer (it makes
no claim to be regarded as poetry).
AN ACT OF PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING.
All glory be to God on high !
We praise Thee, bless Thee, glorify
Thy name, and thank Thee, dearest Lord,
For all Thy gifts on us outpoured.
Ungrateful may we never be,
Forgetful of our debt to Thee.
We thank Thee for Thy lowly birth,
We thank Thee for Thy life on earth ;
We thank Thee for Thy words and deeds,
So full of comfort for our needs.
60 HOLY MASS
We thank Thee for Thy passion too,
Wherewith our hard hearts Thou wouldst woo ;
Thy sweat of blood, the scourging sore
That for our sins Thy body tore ;
We thank Thee for Thy thorny crown,
And for the Cross that bore Thee down
Upon the road to Calvary,
And for Thy death upon that tree ;
Lord, Thou didst bear it all for me.
And lest Thy love we should forget,
Another boon Thou addest yet,
Of all the best, Thy Flesh and Blood,
To be our soul s enduring food.
O wondrous gift ! O love supreme,
Surpassing every thought or dream
Of man s dull heart ! But Thou hast said :
" Take ye, and eat, in form of bread,
And drink the blood for sinners shed."
All glory be to God on high !
We praise Thee, bless Thee, glorify
Thy name, and thank Thee, dearest Lord,
For all Thy gifts on us outpoured.
Passing now from the preliminary to the con
cluding portion of the Mass as we know it, we
shall find that the " Gloria " is not the only instance
in which what was originally a kind of usurpation,
prompted by private devotion, has come to have the
force of law. As we all know, immediately after
the postcommunion and the salutation, " Dominus
vobiscum," with its response, the deacon sings:
Ite, missa est," i.e., " Go, you are dismissed,"
or, more literally, " Go, it is the dismissal." And
yet, if we are well-conducted Christians, we don t
go, but stay in our places. We wait for the bles
sing, and for the " last Gospel." These are plainly
HOLY MASS 61
in the nature of supplementary accretions super-
added to an earlier and simpler " use." And this
fact accounts, likewise, for the apparently incon
gruous arrangement by which " Ite, missa est " has
an elaborate musical setting, whereas, unless the
celebrant be a bishop, the blessing is not chanted
at all. It will readily be understood that we have
here the survival of a period during which none
but a bishop was allowed to give the blessing at the
end of Mass ; and Dr. Fortescue is probably right
when he finds the origin of the blessing, as given in
non-pontifical functions, in that which bishops
usually give as they pass the congregation on their
way from the altar after any service. 1 But in fact
the story of episcopal blessings at or towards the
end of Mass is rather complicated; and both for
brevity s sake and because it is of no living interest
it may well be omitted here. 2
In the Lenten Masses and on certain other occa
sions, as we all know, the dismissal is replaced by
the words, " Benedicamus Domino," which may be
construed as an invitation to stay for Vespers, as
many of us, very laudably, do stay, when, on
1 Fortescue, p. 393. The Micrologus calls in question the
existence, at any time, of such a prohibition as has been
mentioned above. At any rate, he says in effect, if it was ever
in force, it had already in his time been completely over-ridden
by a custom so well established that any departure from it
would be a scandal (P.L. &c. 990 (I.).
3 The confusion introduced into the subject by Mnard
(note 100, in P.L. Ixxviii. 286 fT.) was long since cleared
up by Bona, II. xvi., a point which deserves to be borne in
mind by students ot an otherwise excellent rommentary on
the Grecrorianum.
62 HOLY MASS
Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, Vespers are
chorally recited immediately after the Mass. And
the " Oratio super populum," which forms a dis
tinctive feature of the ferial Masses in Lent is, I
am inclined to think, closely connected with the
combination of a late Mass with early Vespers
during the penitential season. For the " Oratio
super populum " is no other than the prayer proper
to the Vespers of the day ; and its introduction here
may well have been by way of an abbreviated sub
stitute for Vespers, for the benefit of those, and they
would be many, who could not remain for that ser
vice. The reader will also remember the shortened
Vespers of Holy Saturday, which are incorporated
in the liturgy of the Mass for that day. Father
Thurston s suggestion, to the effect that the "Oratio
super populum " was specifically a prayer for those
of the faithful who had not communicated,
is, as it seems to me, of doubtful value, though
it had been already made by the author of the
Micrologus nearly nine hundred years ago, and
is cited with approval by Bona. 1 Against it may
be cited not only the " oratio super populum "
proper to Ash Wednesday (* ut qui divino munere
sunt refecti, caelestibus . . . nutriantur auxiliis ")
which quite plainly and unmistakably implies that
those on whose behalf it is said have, in fact, re-
received Holy Communion, but also several of the
corresponding prayers in the Gelasianum. Thus
on two successive pages of Wilson s edition may be
found the following phrases, occurring in lenten
1 Thurston, Lent, &c., p. 190; P.L. cli. 1014; Bona, I.e.
HOLY MASS 63
prayers "super populum," viz. (i) " plebem . . .
quam divinis tribuis proficere sacramentis " ; ( 2 )
" caeleste munus quod frequentant "; (3) " plebs
tua benedictionis sanctae munus accipiat " ; and
again a little later, (4) " populis qui sacra mysteria
contigerunt." 1 It seems hardly possible to under
stand these expressions either of presence at Holy
Mass or of the penitential ordinances proper to the
season.
The " last Gospel," which normally consists of
St. John s sublime prologue: " In the beginning
was the Word," &c., owes its place in the liturgy
to a devout practice of reciting this passage on the
way from the altar to the sacristy. By a custom,
long since legalized, but of relatively late intro
duction, when a festal Mass displaces that of a
Sunday or " feria," the Gospel of the Sunday or
ferial Mass is read as the last Gospel. This is at
least the case in private Masses. In cathedrals
and monastic or collegiate churches where the
ritual can be fully carried out, two solemn Masses
are celebrated, one of the Sunday or feria, and one
of the feast.
It has already been implied that, etymologically
speaking, the word " Mass " means, simply, " dis
missal." The form " missa," for " missio," is
analogous to other low- Latin words, having the
same termination, which are to be found in litur
gical documents. Such are " ingressa," the
Mozarabic name of the introit, for " ingressio,"
" collecta " for " collectio " (" collectio " being
1 Wilson, The Gelasian Sacramentary, pp. 19, 40.
64 HOLY MASS
the form used in the old Galilean Mass-books),
" ascensa " for " ascensio," and so forth. The
phrase " missarum (not " missae ") solemnia " had
reference originally, to the two-fold dismissal (i)
of the catechumens, and in some cases of the peni
tents, either before or after the Gospel or the
homily, and (2) of the faithful at the end of the
service. 1 It may seem strange, but it is unques
tionably true, that from these solemn acts of dis
missal the liturgy of the Mass, as a whole, has
taken its name. By a similar extension of
meaning the term is used in the " Peregrinatio
Silviae " to designate other services also.
1 The point at which the catechumens were dismissed was
not always everywhere the same, as will be seen later.
See below, chapter viii.
CHAPTER VI.
THE COLLECT, SECRETA AND POSTCOMMUNION.
OF the three main divisions of the Mass, doctrinal,
sacrificial and sacramental respectively, of which
something was said in an earlier chapter, each con
tains a variable prayer, or short series of such
variable prayers, assigned to the particular day on
which the Mass is celebrated, or, to speak more
accurately, assigned to the Mass itself, which may
happen to be a " votive " Mass.
The three variable prayers are, of course, the
Collect, the Secreta and the Postcommunion. And
although our immediate concern is with the first
of these only, they have so much in common that
they may be conveniently dealt with together.
The word " collect " (" collecta "=" collectio "
=" synaxis ") originally meant no more than " an
assembly " or even " a crowd," as when the capit
ularies of Charlemagne decree penalties against
those who, on certain occasions raise an armed mob
(" si quis cum . . . cum collecta et armis vene-
rit"). 1 And its earliest ecclesiastical use was
similar to this, except that it signified, of course,
an assembly or gathering for religious purposes.
This meaning it continued to bear even down to
the seventh century; for in several MSS. of the
Gregorianum, under date, February 2nd (iv. nonas
1 Carol i Magni Capit. iii. 74, apud Bona, II. v. 9.
F
66 HOLY MASS
Feb.), we find the title " Oratio ad collectam ad
S. Adrianum," and presently "Ad missam ad S.
Mar. Majorem," which implies, of course, that the
congregation assembled at St. Adrian s, and thence
went in procession to St. Mary Major, where the
Mass was celebrated. 1 From the full form, " ora-
tio ad collectam," to the shorter and simpler " col-
lecta," the transition was easy and obvious, and
thus we get the meaning " a prayer recited (or
chanted) on the assembly of the congregation."
It next lost this more special significance, and, in
the Western Church came to signify any liturgical
prayer of the same general type as those which
served as " collects " in the more restricted sense.
Thus, in the early Gallican Mass-books, the title
" collectio " is given to a number of variable
prayers occurring at various points of the Mass,
e.g., " collectio ad nomina," " collectio ad pacem,"
&c. In the Roman liturgy, however, the term
" collect " is exclusively applied to those variable
prayers which are chanted or recited before the
Epistle, though these prayers often retain their
name even when they are used on other occasions.
Nor should a secondary and adventitious mean
ing of the term be overlooked. The mediaeval
writers on the liturgy tell us that the " collect "
is so called because, in it, the celebrant " gathers
up " into a compendious expression the silent
prayer and petitions of all who are present. 2
On a majority of feast-days only one collect is
1 P.L. Ixxviii. 46.
2 Bona, I.e.; Probst ; Abendl. Messe, p. 126,
HOLY MASS 67
said, but the number may be increased by one or
more " commemorations/ when these are pre
scribed by the rubrics, or by an " oratio imperata,"
i.e., a prayer added by order of the Bishop.
Moreover, as a rule, ferial Masses (i.e., Masses
proper to particular week-days) have at least three
collects, exclusive of the " imperata." The next
point to be noticed is that whatever the number of
collects may be, that of the secretae and post-
communions is the same; or, in other words, that
each collect has its corresponding secreta and post-
communion. Of the subsidiary collects which are
said or sung when one or more lessons from Holy
Scripture, in addition to the Epistle and Gospel,
are read, something will be said in Chapter VII.
These variable prayers, proper to particular days
or particular Masses, and all conforming to a cer
tain structural type to be presently described, are
characteristic of the Western liturgies, as distinct
from the Eastern, which have nothing that corres
ponds to them in point of form and variability.
And they undoubtedly deserve serious study. A
" liberal " education is supposed to impart at least
some appreciation of the beauties of classical
Latin ; but it is well to remember that ecclesiastical
Latin has its beauties also, and that these are no
where more apparent than in the collects, secretae,
and postcommunions of the Roman Missal.
While these three classes of prayers have, as
has been said above, certain general features in
common, there are others which are severally char
acteristic of each class. To take the latter first,
68 HOLY MASS
a very cursory examination of the Missal is suffi
cient to reveal the fact that whereas the collect is of
more general import, the secreta almost invariably
(and in the case of the older Masses quite invari
ably) contains a special reference to the Sacrifice
(" haec munera," or " dona," or " sacrificia," " has
hostias," or the like), while the postcommunion no
less invariably has reference to the Sacrament,
which, be it observed, all those who have been pre
sent at Mass are assumed to have received. By way
of illustration it may be useful to cite the secreta
and postcommunion of the Mass for the Wednesday
in the third week of Lent.
S. " Suscipe, quaesumus Domine, preces populi
tui cum oblationibus hostiarum: et tua mysteria
celebrant es ab omnibus nos defende periculis.
Per Dominum," &c. (" Receive, we beseech Thee,
O Lord, the prayers of Thy people, together with
the sacrificial gifts which we offer," &c.)
PC. " Sanctificet nos, Domine, qua pasti
sumus mensa caelestis: et a cunctis erroribus
expiatos, promissionibus reddat acceptos. Per
Dominum," &c. (" May the heavenly banquet
wherewith we haue been refreshed sanctify us, O
Lord," &c.)-
It is nothing short of a liturgical solecism when,
in certain Masses compiled in comparatively
modern times, the secreta contains no reference
whatever to the sacrifice as such, but is concerned
solely with the Communion. The re-awakened
or re-awakening liturgical sense of our own times
will, it may be hoped, preserve the venerable Mis-
HOLY MASS 69
sale Romanum from any additional blots and blun
ders of this kind.
To return now to the general characteristics
which are common to all these variable prayers, it
will be profitable to consider carefully the struc
tural type to which they all, more or less perfectly,
conform. Every one of these prayers will be found
to contain all or some of the following elements,
and, for the most part, no others, viz. :
(1) The invocation: " Deus," " Omnipotens
sempiterne Deus," " Domine," or the like. (" O
God," " Almighty and everlasting God," " O
Lord," &C.) 1
(2) The " motive," very commonly, but not in
variably, introduced by the relative " qui,"
(" who,") : e.g., " Deus, qui corda fidelium Sancti
Spiritus illustratione docuisti " (" O God, who hast
taught the hearts of Thy faithful by the light of
the Holy Spirit ") ; or, " Deus, cujus proprium est
misereri semper et parcere " (" O God, whose prop*
erty it is always to show mercy and to spare ").
Or again to take a couple of examples from Masses
proper to Saints days: "Deus qui praesentem
diem fionorabile?n n&bis in beati Joannis nattvi-
tate fecisti " (" O God, who hast made this day
honourable for us by the birth of blessed John
i.e., the Baptist) ; " Deus qui tiodiernam diem
i Dr. Fortescue (pp. 249 ff.) gives an analysis of the typi
cal collect which in some details differs from the above;
but I see no reason for modifying what was already in print
a year or more before the publication of his book (viz., in
The Xaverian, 1909).
70 HOLY MASS
apostolorum tuorum Petri et Pauli martyrio conse-
crasti " (" O God, who hast hallowed this day
by the martyrdom of Thy Apostles Peter and
Paul), " &c. Sometimes the " motive " is ex
pressed by means of an appellative or adjectival
clause, or by a word or phrase " in apposition ";
and in the former case, as is obvious, " invoca
tion " and " motive " are or may be in a manner
fused into one. E.g., (a) " Deus, infirmitatis hu-
manae singulars praesidium " (" O God (who
art) the support of human weakness ") ; (b) " Om-
nipotens sempiterne Deus, salus aeterna creden-
tium " (Almighty and everlasting God (who art)
the everlasting salvation of them that believe,"
&c. In a large number of instances, however,
the " invocation " stands alone, without the ad
dition of any specific " motive " for confidence.
(3) The "petition." This is so obviously the
very centre and substance of the prayer that it can
never be lacking, and it hardly calls for illustra
tion by examples, except indeed for the sake of
completeness, and also for the sake of indicating
the solemn simplicity and sobriety of language
which marks these strictly liturgical prayers. Here
are a few specimens:
" Exaudi nos pro famulis tuis infirmis, pro qui-
bus misericordiae tuae imploramus auxilium."
("Graciously hear our prayers for Thy servants who
are sick, for whom we implore the aid of Thy
mercy.")
" Da Ecclesiae tuae, eorum in omnibus sequi
praeceptum, per quos religionis sumpsit exordium."
HOLY MASS /I
(" Grant that Thy Church may in all things follow
their precepts from whom it derived its first be
ginnings," i.e., the Holy Apostles.)
(More briefly) " Fidelibus tuis perpetuam con
cede laetitiam." (" Grant to Thy faithful an un
broken gladness,") &c.
(4) The " petition " is commonly, though by no
means universally, enforced by the expression of
a " purpose." It may be explained that, roughly
speaking, the " motive " has special reference
to God, being an appeal to Him in consideration
of one or other of His attributes or acts, whereas
the " purpose " has reference, more especially, to
the needs of the petitioners. E.g., to take first
the instance last quoted, the " petition " and the
" purpose " are thus expressed, the particle " ut "
( " in order that ") introducing the latter:
" Fidelibus tuis perpetuam concede laetitiam ;
ut quos perpetuae mortis eripuisti casibus, gaudiis
facias perfrui sempiternis." (" Grant to Thy
faithful an unbroken gladness, that Thou mayest
make them to enjoy eternal bliss whom Thou hast
rescued from the perils of everlasting death.")
Here, be it observed, much of the force of the
Latin is lost by the unavoidable transposition of
the clauses. This, however, is only one out of
innumerable instances in which the terse elegance
of the original refuses to lend itself to the exi
gencies of translation. Moral: All who can do
so should by all means learn to use, and to love,
the Missale Romanum, and not to be content
with any poor, weak-kneed English substitute.
HOLY MASS
It should be added that, occasionally, the place
of the " purpose " is taken by a secondary petition,
and likewise that the petition itself sometimes
takes, grammatically, the form of a " purpose,"
introduced by some such formula as " da, quaesu-
mus, ut" ("grant, we beseech Thee, that"), &c.
But on these departures from the normal type it is
not necessary here to dwell.
(5) Last of all, and apart from the body of the
prayer, comes the " conclusion," of which the most
usual form is " Per Dominum nostrum Jesum
Christum qui tecum vivit et regnat, in unitate
Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia saecula saecu-
lorum." Sometimes, however, the contents of the
prayer require a somewhat different ending, e.g.,
" Per eundem Dominum," or, " Qui tecum vivit et
et regnat," where our Lord has been already men
tioned, or again "... in unitate ejusdem Spi
ritus Sancti . . . ," when mention has been made
of the Holy Spirit, and so forth. The immense
majority of collects and of secretae and post-
communions are addressed, as the student of the
Missal will readily see, to God the Father. But, in
accordance with our Lord s own precept, all such
prayers are addressed to the Father " through
Jesus Christ our Lord," and, in accordance with a
venerable liturgical usage, the unity of the Three
Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity is always
explicitly affirmed in prayers of this class. .When,
however, a series of collects is -prescribed, the
" conclusion " is attached only to the first and last
of them; and when a collect is used " extra-litur-
HOLY MASS 73
gically," i.e., otherwise than in the Mass or the
Divine Office, the " short conclusion " (" through
Christ our Lord ") is used.
Those who pay intelligent attention to the litur
gical chant at High Mass, and in particular to the
chant of the celebrant, will easily be able to dis
cover for themselves that the intonations used in
the singing of the collect and the postcommunion
serve, as a rule, to mark off two at least of the
main divisions indicated above. Two inflections,
a greater and a lesser, occur in the body of the
prayer, the greater for the most part coming at the
close of the " motive," while the lesser concludes
the " petition " and introduces the " purpose " of
the prayer. When these prayers are correctly
printed, as in the authentic " Missale Romanum,"
the place of the inflexions is indicated by a colon
" punctum principale " and a semi-colon " semi-
punctum " respectively. These stops, it will be
observed, indicate, not precisely " breaks in the
sense " (as Haberl incorrectly says), but rather
the logical divisions of the sentence, which is not
quite the same thing. The following example
may serve to illustrate this, the syllables on which
the inflexions fall being indicated by italics and
hyphens :
" Deus, qui omnipotentiam tuam parcendo max-
ime et miserando ma-ni-fe-stas : multiplica super
nos misericordiam tu-am; ut," &c.
It will have been noticed that whereas the col
lect is usually introduced by the single word " Ore-
mus," the series of collects which, on Good Friday,
74 HOLY MASS
follow the Gospel, are each introduced by an intro
ductory formula, in which we are invited to pray
for the special intentions for which the several
prayers are offered. That such invitatory for
mulas were in daily use in the Gallican liturgy will
be shown hereafter, viz., in Chapter XVI. Whether
this was ever the case in the Roman liturgy, ex
cept in the case of the " orationes solemnes " above
referred to, is doubtful. Such formulse are indeed
found in the ordinal of the Gelasian Sacrament-
ary, but inasmuch as this book, in the form in
which it has come down to us, shows unmistakable
traces of Gallican influence, no certain argument
as to the Roman use can be drawn from its testi
mony. Moreover, it would in any case be unsafe
to argue from a very special ceremonial, like that
of ordination, to a common use of such invita-
tories. Yet though the fact seems to have been
overlooked by many writers, one such formula
(fixed, not variable) is actually to be found in the
Ordinary of the Mass, and is never omitted. I
refer to the " Orate fratres," which daily serves to
introduce the secreta. And since the secreta was
and is thus prefaced, it is at least possible that
the collect and the postcommunion may likewise
have had, in the fourth century or earlier, their
variable or fixed invitatories. It should also be
noted that another somewhat analogous formula has
survived in the words: " Praeceptis salutaribus
moniti," which immediately precedes the " Pater
noster."
Returning for a moment to the Good Friday
HOLY MASS 75
collects, it will be remembered that, after the cele
brant has chanted the invitatory, the deacon, with
the words: " Flectamus genua," bids us all kneel
down, after which, almost as though the deacon
had made a mistake, the subdeacon sings " Le-
vate," telling us to rise from our knees. The
deacon, however, has made no mistake. What has
happened is simply this, that whereas his summons
to kneel down was originally followed by an
interval of silent prayer, this interval as a conces
sion to human weakness was gradually curtailed
till the act of kneeling became, what it is now, a
simple genuflection. " Flectamus genua," etc., is
still said on the Wednesdays and Saturdays in the
Ember weeks of Advent, Lent, and September, and
in the morning office of Holy Saturday. There
can, I think, be little doubt that the invitatory was
originally sung by the deacon; and it is at least
certain that it was the deacon who originally sang
" Levate." Its transference to the sub-deacon may
well have been occasioned by a desire to minimize
the apparent incongruity to which attention is
called above. Yet as a warning against hasty
conclusions, it may be worth while to observe that
the liturgy of the Coptic Jacobites has a triple
genuflection without any pause, the invitatory to
"bend the knee " being thrice repeated. 1
In conclusion, space may be found for a few
specimens of complete collects, which may serve
to illustrate not only the structural analysis that
has been given above, but also some at least of
1 Brightman, Eastern Liturgies, p. 159.
76 HOLY MASS
the beauties of these altogether admirable prayers.
The first three are taken from the " Proprium de
tempore," and the last from the collection of
" Orationes ad diversa " (prayers for special oc
casions) which may be found in the Missal imme
diately after the votive Masses and the Nuptial
Mass, and which are too often overlooked alto
gether.
(Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost.} " Omni-
potens sempiterne Deus (invocation), qui abun-
dantia pietatis tuae et merita supplicum excedis et
vota (motive) : effunde super nos misericordiam
tuam (petition) ; ut dimittas quae conscienta me-
tuit, et adjicias quod oratio non praesumit " (pur
pose). (" Almighty and everlasting God, who out
of the abundance of Thy loving-kindness dost sur
pass alike the deserts of Thy suppliants and their
desires: pour out Thy mercy upon us; so that
Thou mayest pardon what conscience gives us
reason to fear, and mayest grant in addition what
in our prayers we dare not to claim at Thy hands.
(Fourth Sunday after Easter.} "Deus, qui
fidelium mentes unius efHcis voluntatis : da populis
tuis id amare quod praecipis, id desiderare quod
promittis; ut inter mundanas varietates ibi nostra
fixa sint corda, ubi vera sunt gaudia." (" O God,
who dost make Thy faithful to be of one mind and
will: grant to Thy people to love what Thou com-
mandest and to desire what Thou has promised;
that our hearts may there be fixed, where true joy
is found.")
(Fifth Sunday after Easter.} "Deus, a quo
bona cuncta procedunt, largire supplicibus tuis:
HOLY MASS 77
ut cogitemus, te inspirante, quae recta sunt, et te
gubernante, eadem faciamus." (" O God, from
whom all good things proceed, grant to Thy sup
pliants that by Thy inspiration we may think of
what is right, and that under Thy guidance we may
do the same.") Could any petition be more simple
and comprehensive or, in the original Latin, more
forcibly expressed? It will be noted that here,
by reason of the shortness of the prayer, the " punc-
tum principale " is shifted forward to the usual
place of the " semi-punctum," and the latter is
omitted altogether.
(For the grace of humility.} " Deus, qui su-
perbis resistis, et gratiam praestas humilibus : con
cede nobis verae humilitatis virtutem, cujus in se
formam fidelibus Unigenitus tuus exhibuit ; ut nun-
quam indignationem tuam provocemus elati, sed
potius gratiae tuae capiamus dona subjecti." (" O
God, who dost resist the proud, and givest grace
to the humble : grant us the virtue of true humility,
whereof Thine Only-begotten Son showed in Him
self an example to Thy faithful ; that we may never
be so puffed up as to provoke Thine indignation,
but that rather by submission to Thy will we may
become the recipients of Thy gifts.")
In this chapter the position of the collect, as
the first item in the Mass of the Catechumens, has
been taken for granted. Sundry questions relative
to its original position, and to the mutual rela
tions of the variable prayers occurring in the
several Western liturgies, may be more con
veniently dealt with in subsequent chapters.
CHAPTER VII.
THE LESSONS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE.
THE first of the three chief divisions of the Mass,
apart from preliminaries and supplementary accre
tions, consists in the main, as has been said, in
the chanting or reading of certain passages from
Holy Scripture. To them, all else in this part of
the liturgy is subsidiary. These lessons from Holy
Scripture are nowadays commonly and popularly
spoken of as " the Epistle and Gospel "; and the
phrase represents, with sufficient accuracy, the more
ordinary usage of our time. Anyone, however, who
is in the habit of using the Missal will have noticed
that the first lesson, even when there are only two,
is sometimes taken, not from the Epistles, but
either from the Old Testament or from the Acts of
the Apostles or from the Apocalypse. He may
further have observed that on the Wednesdays in
the four Ember-weeks, as well as in the fourth
week of Lent and in Holy Week, three les
sons are read, one from the Old Testament, one
from the Apostolic writings, and (of course) one
from the Gospels; that the Mass proper to the
Ember Saturdays has six lessons (the number was
originally twelve) besides the Gospel ; and that on
Holy Saturday, as part of the baptismal service,
twelve lessons, called " prophecies," are read in
addition to the Epistle and the Gospel, and six
on Whitsun-eve. It is plain from the sermons of
HOLY MASS 79
St. Augustine that in his day, and in Africa, some
times only two lessons were read. Thus: " Primam
lectionem audivimus apostoli ; Fidelis sermo,
etc. . . . deinde cantavimus psalmum . . . . post
haec evangelica lectio decem leprosos . . . os-
tendit." And again: " Prima lectio . . . hodie
. . . est apostoli facta." Sometimes, however,
there were three or more. Thus: " In omni
bus lectionibus quas recitatas audivimus . . .
primam . . . Isaiae prophetae, quia omnia quae
lecta sunt ncc meminisse nee dicere possu-
mus." 1 According to the * Liber Pontificalis,"
the practice of reading two lessons only, i.e.,
the Epistle and the Gospel, was already well-estab
lished in Rome, in the earlier years of the fifth cen
tury. For, as has been seen above, Celestine I. is
there said to have introduced psalmody before the
lessons, which, apart from special occasions, are
distinctly said to have been two only. Yet there is
reason to believe that at an earlier period the usual
number, outside of Paschal time, was three. For
the Gallican rite, derived originally from Rome,
ordinarily had three lessons; the Mozarabic usu
ally three ; and the Ambrosian rite retains the three
lessons on Sundays and all greater feasts. More
over internal evidence seems to point in the same
direction. The Bobbio Missal has three lessons
on the first Sunday in Advent, on Christmas Day,
on the first Sunday in Lent, in the " Missa in Sym-
boli traditione," on Easter Sunday and in Paschal
time (from Apocalypse, Acts, and Gospel of St.
1 P.L. xxxviii. 950, 962, 262. Cf. Fortescue, p. 256.
8o HOLY MASS
John), and in many instances under the head
ing: " Incipiunt lectiones cottidianis," (sic.). 1
Moreover it will be noticed that except in Paschal
time, the Epistle is immediately followed, not
only by the " gradual," but also by a second
antiphon introduced and concluded by the word
or phrase, " Alleluia," or, in Lent and on certain
other occasions, by the " tract." Now when two
lessons are read before the Gospel, the first is
followed by the gradual, the second by the tract,
or, in Whitsun-week, by the " Alleluia " antiphon;
which at least suggests that the duplicated
psalmody points to a " dropped " lesson. 2 Unfortu
nately, however, for the peace of mind of " con
jectural reconstructionists," the argument loses its
force if we accept at its face value the statement
of the " Liber Pontificalis," not only that Celestine
introduced the singing of a psalm at the introit, but
also that down to his time there was no psalmody
at all " ante sacrificium " ; which might be
taken to imply that not the introit only, but also
the gradual and Alleluia antiphon were added to
the more primitive rite, after the lessons had al
ready been reduced to two only; assuming that
1 P.L. Ixxii. 451 ff. So too St. Germanus: " Lectio pro-
phetica suum tenet ordinem . . . Quod enim propheta cla-
mat futurum, apostolus docet factum. Actus autem aposto-
lorum vel Apocalypsis foannis pro novitate gaudii paschalis
leguntur" (Germanus, Epist. i. ibid. 90).
2 Duchesne was, I think, the first to call attention to this
point. The compiler of the Stowe Missal designates the
duplicated psalmody by the odd title " Psalmus bi-
gradualis " (so in Probst s reprint, Abendl. Messe, p. 46, but
not in MacCarthy, p. 199).
HOLY MASS 81
there once were three. But it is permissible to
doubt whether the eighth century compiler of the
" Liber Pontificalis " has rightly understood his
authority, and whether he has not erred in ascribing
to Celestine anything beyond the introduction of
the " psalmus ad introitum " ; or whether again, by
" ante sacrificium," he really means anything more
than " at the commencement of the liturgy." 1
That the reading of the Gospel is surrounded
with a more elaborate ceremonial than that of the
Epistle is evident to anyone who has been present
at High Mass. After the deacon has recited the
" Munda cor meum Cleanse my heart and my lips
O Lord," and has received the blessing of the cele
brant, a little procession is formed, consisting of
the master of ceremonies and the thurifer with
the incense, the acolytes with their candles, the sub-
deacon, and lastly the deacon who is to sing the
Gospel. The announcement of the Gospel (" Lec
tio Sancti Evangelii," &c.) is greeted with the re-
ponse, " Gloria tibi, Domine," and while this is
being sung the book is censed. The " tone " of
the Gospel is, too, more solemn that that of the
Epistle, and at its conclusion, the book is carried
by the subdeacon to the celebrant, who kisses the
open page. Still more striking is the solemnity
when, as in the Cathedral at Milan and in two or
three of the more ancient churches in Rome, the
Gospel is sung from an ambo or pulpit. All this
special honour paid to the Gospel is manifestly in
accordance with the fitness of things. But the
1 The passage has been quoted above, p. 54 (note 4).
G
82 HOLY MASS
Epistle also has its distinctive though minor so
lemnity. It is chanted by the subdeacon ; whereas
the other lessons, when there were more than two
in all, were probably read, not by the subdeacon,
but by " lectors," the very raison d etre of whose
office was to perform this function. Dr. Fortescue,
however, writes: " It was not originally the privi
lege of the subdeacon to read it," i.e., the Epistle.
" At first all lessons (including the Gospel) were
read by lectors ... In the West as late as the fifth
century the lessons were still chanted by readers.
Gradually the subdeacon obtained the right to
sing the Epistle as a consequence of the deacon s
privilege of singing the Gospel." The number
of sacred ministers had been reduced to two, so
also had the usual number of lessons, " one minister
sang the Gospel, it seemed natural that the other
should sing the Epistle." 1 To this day the first
lesson on Good Friday is read by a " lector," the
second by the subdeacon; and the " prophecies "
on Holy Saturday and Whitsun-eve are likewise
read by clerics representing the " lectores " of
earlier days. 2
It may here be mentioned in passing that the
gradual too was in pre- Gregorian days sung by the
deacon. St. Gregory himself somewhere relates
that this arrangement was apt to lead to an abuse,
as deacons were apt to be chosen for their vocal
powers. Accordingly the duty of singing the
1 Fortescue, p. 263, citing Reuter, Das Subdiaconat, pp.
177185.
2 Probst, Abendl. Messe, p. 108.
HOLY MASS 83
gradual was transferred to cantors, who, for the
purpose, could not be allowed to mount higher
than the steps of the ambo. Hence the name
" gradual."
As regards the choice of the passages to be read
in each Mass, there can be little doubt that
originally the Epistles and the Gospels were read
continuously from the text of the New Testament,
or rather of its parts, and that the words " Deo
gratias " and " Laus tibi, Christe," which are now
said by the server or assistants at the conclusion of
the Epistle and Gospel respectively, are survivals
of the sign originally given by the celebrant that
the reading should cease. The memoirs of the
apostles or the writings of the prophets are read,
as far as time permits," says St. Justin (c. iso). 1
And the giving of a sign to cease reading finds
it parallel in the similar directions, occurring in
the Roman ordines, that the celebrant is to signify
that the singing of the psalm at the introit, or of
the Kyrie, is to be brought to a close. In this con
nection it may be observed that down to the present
day it happens on certain occasions that the reading
in a community refectory is brought to an end by
means of the ancient formula " Deo gratias," the
use of which for such a purpose probably comes
down by unbroken tradition from quite primitive
times.
It is, however, almost certain that already in
the fourth century the practice of reading the
1 Apol. I. Ixvii. 3. " Lectio igitur erat continua neque
fiebat per pericopas." (Rauschen, ad loc.)
84 HOLY MASS
sacred text continuously had begun to give place to
a system, or rather to sundry systems which varied
locally, of fixed " pericopae," i.e., to the assign
ment of particular passages to particular days or
Masses. And it can hardly be doubted that the
lectionary ("Liber Epistolarum et Evangeli-
orum"), in actual use is due to a partial fusion of
several such systems. It is obvious that the
Epistles and Gospels assigned to certain particular
feasts and seasons, as for example, Christmas,
Epiphany, Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Ad
vent, Lent, the Ember- days and Saints days, have
been chosen as specially appropriate to the occa
sion. But in the case of the Sundays after Pente
cost, and of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth after
Epiphany, i.e., of rather more than half the Sun
days of the year, it is impossible to discover anv
such special appropriateness. On the other hand,
in the case of these very Sundays, traces are still
visible, at least, as regards the Epistles, of the
primitive method of continuous or successive read
ings. Thus the Epistles for the fourth, sixth, sev
enth and eighth Sundays after Pentecost are from
Romans, for the ninth, tenth and eleventh from
First Corinthians, for the twelfth from Second
Corinthians, for the thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth from Galatians, for the sixteenth, seven
teenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first from
Ephesians, for the twenty-second and twenty-third
from Philippians, and for the twenty- fourth from
Colossians. The Epistle for the eighteenth Sunday
is an exception, probably because the Mass of that
HOLY MASS 85
day was originally intended to close the Ember-
week. The sequence is resumed, so to say, on the
fifth and sixth Sundays after Epiphany, on which
days the Epistles are taken from Colossians and
First Thessalonians respectively. This will seem
the less strange if we bear in mind that, when the
number of Sundays after Pentecost exceeds
twenty-four, the Masses appointed for the
last Sundays after Epiphany are used to
make up the number. It is remarkable, too,
that on each day, Thursdays excepted, from
the Saturday before the fourth Sunday in Lent till
the Saturday before Palm Sunday, as well as on all
the Sundays between Easter and Pentecost, St.
John s Gospel is read. And it is difficult to dis
sociate this fact from 1 the circumstances that, on
his own showing, many, if not all, of St. Au
gustine s 88 " tractates " on St. John were de
livered during Lent, and those on St. John s first
Epistle, in Paschal time. 1 Beissel, however, insists
that no certain conclusion as to liturgical usage can
be drawn from this ; partly because it is incredible
that the Bishop of Hippo can have delivered so
many discourses within less than forty days, and
partly because some of the " tractates " deal with
only a verse or two of the Evangelist. 2 But St.
Augustine s statement that, during the two weeks of
the Passion and the Resurrection, he must needs
1 Prol. in Ep. I Joan. (P.L. xxxv. 1977).
2 Beissel, Enstehung der Perikopen des romischen Mess-
buches (1907), p. 9. The tractates, he holds, rightly no
doubt, were addressed, as " conferences," to a select
audience.
86 HOLY MASS
interrupt his exposition, because the lessons ap
pointed to be read during those weeks were so
authoritatively fixed, is a clear testimony to the
fact that a regular system of non-continuous peri-
copae was, if not yet established for the whole
year, at least in process of establishment. 1
For the rest, several of the Gospel lessons in
dicated by St. Augustine as assigned to particu
lar days of the ecclesiastical year still hold in the
Roman Missal the place which, in his day, they held
in the liturgy of the African Church. And the
schemes of pericopae drawn up respectively by St.
Gelasius and St. Gregory so far as they can be
ascertained show a gradual approximation to that
which obtains at the present time. 2 It may further
be remarked that, as in other points so also in the
choice of the lessons from Holy Scripture, the
Western Liturgies show a far closer relationship
among themselves than with the Eastern rites. 3
1 " Sed quia nunc interposita est solemnitas sanctorum
dierum, quibus certas ex Evangelic lectiones oportet re-
citari, quae ita sunt annuae ut aliae esse non possint," &c.
(St. Augustine, I.e.) Father Thurston (Lent and Holy
Week, p. 167) has moreover compiled an interesting table of
the Lenten liturgical psalmody showing unmistakable traces
of an originally unbroken sequence. Cf. Cath. Encyl. i.
581 ft". An article by Dom G. Morin in the Revue Bene
dictine first, I believe, called attention to this matter. The
facts seem hardly to square with Dom F. Cabrol s sugges
tion (Origines Liturgiques, p. 339) that the psalmody was
chosen to suit the preceding lesson (" II ne faut pas oublier
que dans ces anciens offices la psalmodie et les lemons sont
en 6troite connexion ").
2 Beissel, pp. v., 44.
3 Beissel, p. vi. On the whole subject see also Fortescue,
pp. 254 ff.
HOLY MASS 87
A word or two may now be said on the relation
of the collect or collects to the lessons from Holy
Scripture. It will be noticed, on reference to the
Roman Missal, that whenever the Gospel is pre
ceded by more than one lesson, the additional les
sons, i.e., those which come first, are separated,
one from another, by a collect. And although, in
a majority of cases, no special relation in point
of meaning or purport can be traced between the
lessons and the collects, yet, whenever such a re
lation can be traced, it is invariably between the
collect and the lesson which precedes it, not with
that which follows it. This is transparently clear
in the case of the prayer " Deus qui tribus pueris,"
&c. (" O God Who for the three children didst
temper the fiery flames "), which follows the lesson
from the third chapter of Daniel on the Ember
Saturdays. And a similar relation is not less
plainly evident in the case of several of the Ploly
Saturday and Whitsun-eve " prophecies " and the
prayers which severally follow them. 1
Now these facts suggest a conjecture which may
perhaps deserve consideration. Was not the Gospel,
and perhaps also the Epistle, originally followed,
1 Here one may cordially agree with Dom Cabrol when
he writes (pp. 339, 340): " Les collectes . . . surtout sem-
blent la plupart du temps dependantes d une priere litanique,
d une lecture ou d une psaume qu elles ont pour mission de
comple ter ou de commenter " (italics mine). And (re
ferring back to a previous note) it is probable enough that
one of the causes which led to the break-up of the original
continuity of the liturgical psalmody was precisely the de
sire to choose appropriate rather than merely successive
psalms.
S& HOLY MASS
likewise, by a collect? For such a sequel to the
Epistle there is, it must be confessed, no trust
worthy evidence available. 1 But in the case of the
Gospel the question might almost seem superfluous,
inasmuch as the word " Oremus," immediately fol
lowing the Gospel (or, rather, the Credo, which is
however of relatively late introduction) to this day
bears witness to the fact that something has here
been omitted. For, as matters now stand, the in
vitation to pray is followed by no specific prayer,
but by the " OfTertorium," originally a psalm,
which with its antiphon was not recited by the cele
brant at all. Nevertheless, it is not quite clear
what was the nature of the omitted prayer. Was
it a single prayer of somewhat secondary import
ance, like the " Oratio super sindonem," which
occurs precisely here in the Ambrosian rite? Or
was it a series of intercessory petitions, identical
perhaps, or all but identical, with those which fol
low the Gospel on Good Friday? Or is it possible
that a twofold change has here taken place, viz.,
first the substitution of a single prayer, no other
than the principal collect of the Mass, for the series
of petitions aforesaid, and then the transference
of this principal collect from its original place
to its present position?
That this last hypothesis, with allowance for the
1 The Stowe Missal has a collect after the Epistle (Probst,
p. 46, MacCarthy, p. 198), or rather, it has twd, one in
the first hand, the other added (perhaps for alternative use)
by Moel Caich; which at least shows the persistence of the
usage in Ireland. But it is not safe to draw conclusions from
the unsupported testimony of this somewhat wayward MS.
The St. Gall fragment is not available for comparison here.
HOLY MASS 89
inevitable crudeness of a too compendious state
ment, is the true one, several indications conspire,
if I mistake not, to render at least highly probable.
First of all, it is beyond doubt that the " precea
solemnes," as we may conveniently call the Good
Friday collects with their invitatories, were, in pre-
Gregorian and pre-Gelasian days, chanted on many
other occasions besides the one on which they have
survived. For this we have the all but explicit
testimony of Celestine I., and of the author of
the fifth-century tract, " de Vocatione Gentium,"
who plainly allude to them as in common use. 1
On the whole I am strongly inclined to believe
that a somewhat complex change has here taken
place. If we may trust the analogy of the Eastern
rites, this was the original position of the litany, that
" lesser litany," originally a deacon s litany, of
which something has been said in chapter VI., and
which was followed by " the prayer or prayers of
the faithful." 2 This latter prayer (or prayers), in-
1 " Obsecrationum quoquc sacerdotalium sacramenta rc-
spiciamus quae ab apostolis tradita . . . uniformiter cele-
brantur, ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi. Cum
enim sanctarum plebium praesules mandata sibimet lega-
tione fungantur, . . . postulant et precantur, ut infideli-
bus donetur fides, ut idolotrae . . . liberentur erroribus, ut Ju-
daeis . . . lux veritatis appareat, ut haeretici . . . resipis-
cant, ut schismatic! spiritum . . . caritatis accipiant, ut lap-
sis paenitentiae remedia conf erantur, ut denique catechumenis
. . . misericordiae aula reseretur " (Celest. Ep. xxi. 1 1,
P.L. 1. 535; cf. De Vocat. Gentium i. 12, apud Probst,
AbendL M. p. 1 1 8, note i).
2 Brightman, pp. 9 ff., 38 ff., I59f., 223 ff., 2646". In the
Byzantine rite the litany survives before " the prayer of the
catechumens " but seems to have fallen out before the
prayers of the faithful (ibid. pp. 275, &c.).
90 HOLY MASS
variable in the East, gave place, in the Western
rites, to the variable collect. And finally both the
litany and the prayer or prayers which followed it
were transferred either simultaneously or succes
sively to the present position of the Kyrie and the
collect. I suspect moreover that the litany, in its
more or less primitive form, underwent a twofold
development, viz., (i), in its original position into
the " orationes solemnes " now recited only on
Good Friday, and (2), in its transferred position,
into the longer processional litany known as the
" litaniae majores," popularly called " the litany
of the saints."
That, moreover, the collect was in fact trans
ferred from its original place after the Gospel to
its present position may be inferred with a high
degree of probability from two independent con
siderations, viz., (i) that in the Gallican liturgy.,
whose Roman origin is here assumed, the place
of the principal collect (" collectio sequitur ") was
undoubtedly not before the lessons but after the
Gospel, and (2) the plain statement of the " Liber
Pontificalis," that down to Celestine s time the ser
vice began with the reading of the lessons. 1 Nor
is it difficult to divine a motive for the transfer
ence. For when, in course of time, the dismissal
1 The " preces pro populo " are placed after the Gospel
by St. Germanus (P.L. Ixxii. 92). And the " Sacramen-
tarium Gallicanum " or Bobbio Missal invariably places the
lessons before the collect, even in the " Missa cottidiana
Romensis " with which the MS. begins. (P.L., ibid. 451 ff.).
HOLY MASS 91
of the catechumens fell into disuse, and the " Mass
of the Catechumens " thereby ceased to have a
distinct existence as such, there would no longer
be any reason for postponing the principal collect
to so late a point in the service; and its trans
ference to the more prominent position which it
now holds might well seem congruous and natural.
To cut down superfluities was, as sundry indica
tions show, one of the aims of Roman, i.e. Papal,
liturgical reformers. It is however possible that
the * transference " took place by two stages, viz.
( i ) by the addition of a collect before the lessons,
and (2) by the omission of the collect after the
Gospel, as now superfluous. In this case the Am-
brosian rite, which has the principal collect before
the lessons, but keeps a minor collect, the " Oratio
super sindonem," after the Gospel, would bear wit
ness to the intermediate stage; and would afford
an interesting example of " arrested development."
That a somewhat analogous change was made, at
an early date, in the position of the Pax in the
Roman liturgy, and that this change was probably
due to similar reasons, will be seen in a later
chapter.
In a later chapter, also, something further will
be said about the gradual. As regards the Creed,
it must suffice to say, here, ( i ) that it was intro
duced into the Eastern liturgies in the fourth cen
tury, as a protest against current heresies, but that
its position varied in the various rites; (2) that it
was introduced into the Gallican liturgy in 510;
92 HOLY MASS
but (3) that the Roman Church, on the ground that
it had never been affected with heresy, did not
introduce it into the Mass till a much later date,
possibly not till 1014, when the Emperor Henry
III. is said to have persuaded Benedict VIII. to
make the innovation.- The date, however, though
very positively affirmed by Berno of Reichenau,
cannot be regarded as quite certain. 1
1 Bona, II. viii. 2; Fortescue, p. 288.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE OFFERTORY.
BY the " Offertory " of the Mass, in a broad and
somewhat popular sense of the term yet one that
is recognized by Bona and other writers of re
pute may here be understood all that is said
and done between the conclusion of the Gospel,
or Creed, or homily, as the case may be, and the
commencement of the Preface. As a whole, the
Offertory plainly pertains to the sacrificial portion
of the Mass, of which it forms a kind of prepara
tory section, its nucleus or kernel being the pre
paration of the " oblata," i.e., of the unconse-
crated elements. In the Byzantine liturgy, and to
a less extent in the other Eastern rites, this prepar
ation has been developed into a somewhat ela
borate service, the Prothesis or Proskomide, which
not only precedes the liturgy proper, but, when the
full ceremonial of a pontifical function is observed
is (or was) carried out by a deputy or assistant
priest at " the altar of the prothesis." Dr. For-
tescue apparently overlooks this quite characteristic
feature of the prothesis, a feature doubtless often
or even commonly omitted (just as many cere
monies of High Mass are omitted in a low Mass),
and one which may even have passed into desue
tude, but which was certainly once observed. " On
this point the Byzantine liturgists are explicit and
unanimous. From one to another, with merely ver-
94 HOLY MASS
bal variations, they hand down the statement of the
fact, accompanied with the traditional symbolic
interpretation. The service of the prothesis, they
say, symbolises the time of the ministry of
St. John the Baptist, while our Lord was as yet
hidden, and the deputy celebrant represents the
Precursor whom the Messiah sent before His face
to prepare His way. 1 When Dr. Fortescue writes
that " in the East there is no Introit," and that
" there is no procession of Entrance because the
celebrant and his ministers are already in church
when the service begins," his words most
probably reflect, correctly enough, the current
usage, but they certainly do not describe that of the
palmy days of the Byzantine liturgy. There un
questionably is, or was, an introit, " eisodikon,"
sung at the " procession of entrance," sometimes
called " the little entrance." And moreover, " the
celebrant and his ministers " are, or were, not al
ready in church," but outside in the narthex; and
what is more, all the congregation were there too,
till the entrance of the bishop. 2 Brightman defines
"The Little Entrance" as "the entrance of the bishop,
after vesting in the narthex during the enarxis,
with the people from the narthex into the church. 3
In the pontifical Mass, the bishop still first inter
venes at this point, being fetched from the nave
1 Lucas, in Dublin Review, April, 1893, p. 283, where full
references are given.
2 Dublin Review , I.e., pp. 289 ff. But see Fortescue, p. 298,
Brightman, p. 367.
3 The " enarxis " is a short service which followed the pro-
thesis.
HOLY MASS 95
by the presbyters and deacons, a deacon carrying
the Gospel." It is, however, a kind of misnomer,
though of old standing, to call it " the entrance of
the Gospel," inasmuch as on certain occasions the
Gospel is not carried. It is the entrance of the
bishop, preceded usually, but not always, by the
Gospel. " In the absence of the bishop the pro
cession ... is still made," from the altar by the
north aisle and " back to the altar by the holy
doors." The case is precisely analogous to that of
a modern compared with an ancient procession.
Originally as Father Thurston has somewhere said,
a procession implied a place to proceed from, and
another place to which the procession was made.
In its modern and sadly shrunken form it is often
no more than a circuit, starting from the altar and
returning to the same spot. To sum up, "returning
to the same spot," there is an introit in the Eastern
liturgies, and the prothesis or anticipatory offering
of the elements is carried out before it by a priest
of rank inferior to that of the pontificating bishop.
A very short preliminary service analogous to the
prothesis and preceding the introit is prescribed
in an interesting liturgical tract appended to the
Stowe Missal. 1 And a somewhat similar usage is
observed in the Mozarabic rite, and by the Domini
cans at Low Mass. But there is, I believe, no
thing at all to show that anything answering to
the Byzantine prothesis ever had a place in the
1 MacCarthy, pp. 245 ff. (nos. 4 6). Another recension
oi the same, from the Lebar Breac, ibid. pp. 259 ff. (nos.
4, 6).
96 HOLY MASS
Roman rite, with which we are here chiefly con
cerned." 1
The history of the offertory in the Roman Mass
is somewhat complicated, and on many points so
obscure that we are to some extent reduced to the
necessity of employing the not very satisfactory
method of probable conjecture. For present pur
poses the subject must needs be very briefly treated.
One thing at any rate is certain, viz., that the of
fertory, as we know it, is the result of a twofold
process, first of abbreviation and then of expan
sion. There can be no reasonable doubt that the
interval between the Gospel (or homily or Creed)
and the Preface was, at least on more solemn oc
casions, to a great extent occupied by two cere
monies which, so far as every- day practice is con
cerned, have completely disappeared from the
Mass as we know it. One of these consisted in
the successive dismissals of catechumens and peni
tents, with accompanying prayers; the other (al
ready mentioned in the foregoing chapter) in the
prayers for all orders of the Church and for " all
sorts and conditions of men," heretics, schismatics,
unbelievers, &c., whether in the form of a litany
followed by a collect, or in that of the " orationes
solemnes " which are still recited on Good Friday. 2
1 " In all Eastern rites and in the Gallican ... a later
practice grew up of preparing (and offering) the gifts before
the liturgy begins. Rome alone kept the primitive custom
... of preparing them at this point, when they were about
to be consecrated. The other practice is certainly later "
(Fortescue, I.e.).
2 See above, chapter vii.
HOLY MASS 97
At how early a date the dismissal of catechumens
and penitents passed into disuse it is impossible
to say with any approach to accuracy, the more so
because of the great variety of local custom. It
seems clear, however, that whereas in the days of
persecution such a dismissal at all Masses was a
matter of necessity, in the course of the fourth
century the ecclesiastical discipline as regards cate
chumens was more thoroughly systematised, the
holy season of Lent (Quadragesima), and to a less
extent, that of Paschal time ( Quinquagesima, as it
was often called) being set aside for their instruc
tion. Hence, in the Gelasianum and in the seventh
of the " Ordines Romani," which seems to be pre-
Gregorian, we find elaborate and very interesting
directions for the * Scrutinies " or examination of
candidates for baptism, who are, moreover,
throughout described as children. It is at least pos
sible that the baptism of adult converts took place
after private instructions, at Pentecost. The public
" scrutinies " were held in successive weeks of
Lent; special days being appointed for the suc
cessive ceremonies pertaining to them. But indeed
the whole subject of the catechumenate is of suffi
cient interest to justify, by way of digression, a
rather lengthy quotation from Father Thurston s
admirable work on the ceremonies of Lent and
Holy Week. It will be seen that his observations
are in large measure concerned with the reminis
cences of ancient usage which still survive in the
rite of baptism, no longer carried out, as formerly,
in close connection with the Mass. He writes:
H
98 HOLY MASS
" For modern Catholics, to whom the word bap
tism recalls no other picture than that of a tiny
infant beside the font in the arms of its godmother,
it requires an effort of the imagination to conceive
how much was done in the early Church to invest
this rite of Christian initiation with every sort of
solemnity. 1
" Complete illumination, to use a word which
was technically employed in the Eastern Church as
almost a synonym for baptism, was only imparted
after two years preparation and by slow degrees.
At every stage the catechumen was wisely made
to feel the unspeakable value of that which was
being conferred on him in his admission into the
Church of Christ. At every stage he was tested
to see whether he were really worthy of the
privileges of worship; and during the last three
weeks of his catechumenate some little ceremony
was gone through almost every other day, making
an advance towards the climax of that wonderful
Easter vigil when at last took place the triple im
mersion in the newly consecrated water, and the
sacramental words were spoken which washed away
all his sins and invested him with the spotless robe
of sanctifying grace. . . . There was in the first
place a formal admission to the catechumenate,
now principally represented in the baptismal
ritual by the ceremonies which take place at the
1 It is not, however, to be supposed that all the ceremonies
described by Father Thurston formed part of a primitive
liturgical usage. In their fullest development they are, I
believe, to be ascribed to the fourth and fifth centuries.
HOLY MASS 99
church door before the adult candidate is led into
the baptistery .... Then after the third Sunday in
Lent, those who during the past two years or more
had given satisfaction and had profited by the
instructions given, were elevated to the dignity of
electi (chosen ones), or competentes (fel
low candidates), and during this last stage of
their preparation they went through a ritual which
appears in a condensed form in the second portion
of our present baptismal service. . . . We may
note in particular the solemn delivery and recital
of the Creed in several parts of the world the
4 Pater Noster, a portion of the Gospel, and two
of the psalms were formally imparted in the same
way and after that the renunciation of the
devil." 1
In the Gelasianum we find special insertions
made in the Canon of the Mass on behalf of the
candidates and their godparents, similar to those
which are still made, on behalf of the newly bap
tised, in the Masses of Holy Saturday and Whitsun-
eve as well as throughout Easter week and Whitsun
week. A reminiscence of the ancient practice may
also be found in the lessons read on the Wednes
day of the fourth week of Lent, which all have
reference either to cleansing or to " illumination "
or both. The first is from Ezechiel, and contains
the words: " I will pour upon you clean water,
and ye shall be cleansed from all your filthiness" ;
and in the second, from Isaiah, we read: " If your
1 Thurston, Lent and Holy Week, pp. 170 ff.
100 HOLY MASS
sins be as scarlet they shall be made white as
snow : and if they be red as crimson they shall be
white as wool." 1 The Gospel recounts the healing
of the man who had been blind from his birth,
and was bidden to wash in the pool of Siloe or
Siloam. 2
It seems almost incredible that the candidates
should not have been allowed to remain in the
church for the reading of the Gospel, and for the
homily which doubtless followed it. Yet the
rubrics of the seventh " Ordo Romanus " clearly
prescribe the dismissal of the catechumens before
the Gospel. This, however, I suspect to have been
the result of an innovation on the earlier practice,
and one which did not permanently hold its
ground. Its origin admits of a ready explanation.
If the Creed and the " Pater Noster " were to be
solemnly delivered to the candidate, why not the
Gospel also? We have already seen, in the passage
quoted above, that a " delivery of the Gospels "
did, at least locally and at some period, form part
of the ritual of the catechumenate. It is, in fact,
elaborately provided for, under the title of " aperi-
tio aurium the opening of the ears," both in the
Gelasianum and in the seventh Ordo. It took
place on the Wednesday in what we now call Pas
sion Week, when, in presence of the candidate,
1 Ezech. xxxvi. 25; Isai. i. 18.
2 St. John, ix. i 38. This, however, is not the Gospel
assigned to the day in question in the seventh " Ordo Ro
manus " nor is the lesson from Isaiah there found. (P.L.
Ixxviii. 996).
HOLY MASS ior
the initial sections of St. Matthew, St. Mark, St.
Luke and St. John, respectively, were read by four
deacons from four separate books previously laid
on the altar. 1 That the practice, however pic
turesque and in some respects appropriate, was
regarded as an innovation, may fairly, I think, be
inferred from the fact that it was disapproved and
condemned by more than one provincial or local
council. 2
The mention of these details might well seem
irrevelant to the subject of the present chapter,
were it not that a quite overwhelming mass of at
least circumstantial evidence goes to show that,
originally, the dismissal of the catechumens took
place after the Gospel, i.e., at that point in the lit
urgy with which we are here concerned. As regards
the final " passing " of the custom, Bona observes
that no trace of it is to be found in documents of
later date than A.D. 700, nor is it mentioned, even
by way of reminiscence, in the numerous mediaeval
tracts or treatises in the Mass. To put the lowest
limit at 700 or thereabouts seems, however, to
savour of excessive caution, and Dr. Fortescue is
probably right in saying that the dismissals had
become obsolete a century earlier, viz., in the time
of St. Gregory the Great, unless, indeed, it was he
who gave its quietus to this ritual. No provision
is made for "scrutinies" in the Gregorianum ;
and the survival of the warning " si quis cate-
1 P.L. Ixxiv. 1087 f. ; Ixxviii. 997; Wilson, The Gelasian
Sacramentary, pp. 50 ff.
2 Cf. Probst, Abend! . Messe, p. 121.
102 HOLY MASS
chumenus, recedat " ("if there be any catechumen
here, let him retire ") in the Holy Saturday ritual
prescribed in the post-Gregorian " Ordo Romanus
I." was probably no more than a mere formality.
I do not know on what grounds Dr. Fortescue
dates the disappearance of the " orationes solem-
nes " or " prayers of the faithful " at about the
same time. " They seem," he says, " to have
shared the fate of the prayers for catechumens
when the discipline of the catechumenate came to
an end." 1 Is not this rather in the nature of a con
venient rather than a well-grounded conjecture?
There is no trace of these prayers in the Gelasi-
anum except on Good Friday, and although one or
two MSS. of the Gregorianum prescribe their use
on the Wednesday in Holy Week, they form no part
of the Mass for that day. On the contrary, it is
clearly prescribed that they are to be recited some
hours before Mass. 2 The argument from silence
against the common use of these prayers in
the time of St. Gelasius would seem to be
of precisely the same kind as that from the
silence of the Gregorianum with reference to the
dismissals. As, however, they seem to have been
in use in the time of St. Celestine, we are shut
down to a period of about seventy years (430
500) as that during which they fell into desuetude.
Their disappearance, it may be observed, is more
easily accounted for if it be borne in mind that,
as has been pointed out in chapter i., there is no
*P. 294.
Z P.L. Ixxxviii 80 f. Cf. Ebner, Quellen, usw., p. 213.
HOLY MASS 103
evidence to show that they ever had a place in all
Masses without exception, and that in all proba
bility it was only on more solemn occasions, and
more especially in penitential seasons, that they took
the place of the " lesser litany " with its collect.
Or if, with Probst, Duchesne, Fortescue and others,
we adopt the hypothesis that their use was more
frequent than I am disposed to believe, then we
may also accept the further hypothesis, put for
ward by the first-named writer, that, as the ec
clesiastical calendar of feast-days was gradually
developed, and as in the Western Church it more
and more powerfully affected the liturgy, the
lengthy " orationes " were, by degrees, more and
more frequently displaced in favour of the festal
or dominical collect. 1 How and why the collect
came to be transferred to its present position is a
question that has been dealt with in the foregoing
chapter.
And now the question remains whether, in the
Roman rite, the " nomina offerentium," i.e., the
announcement of the names of those who had made
offerings for the Holy Sacrifice, or of benefactors
in general, were, in the fourth century, read during
this portion of the Mass. That such was the case in
the early Gallican rite is I think beyond reasonable
1 Probst, Abendl. Messe, p. i 19. His contention that the
" orationes " continued to be said in the " Missa cottidiana ro-
mensis " has no support from the Gallican books, which
(strange to say) alone, with the Stowe Missal, give this
Mass. The " Deprecatio S. Martini " which the Stowe Missal
places between the Epistle and the Gospel would seem to be
a specimen of the " lesser litany."
104 HOLY MASS
doubt. For the title " collectio post nomina " oc
curring passim in the Gallican books, together with
the contents of many of the prayers themselves,
sufficiently indicate that not only distinguished
personages but particular individuals were named.
Now the Gallican usage is most easily explaind
on the supposition that it was derived, ultimately,
from Rome. And moreover, although the " ora-
tiones solemnes," and the litany which, as is here
assumed, often took their place, were in themselves
distinct from the reading of the diptychs or " re
cital of fhe names " in question, the latter would
very naturally and appropriately be attached to
them. Thirdly, certain abuses in connection with
the reading of the names against which St. Jerome
inveighs in a passage to be quoted later, can be
more easily accounted for if the names were read
at the offertory, than if they had, in his day, found
a place in the Canon of the Mass. 1 And fourthly,
an apt occasion for the transfer of the diptychs
to the Canon might well have been afforded by.
the disuse, except on special occasions, of the
" orationes solemnes," and by the transfer of the
litany, to which (ex hypothesi) they had been at
tached. 2 The subject will be again dealt with in
the chapters on the Canon.
1 See vol. ii.
2 A fifth reason might be found in the prayer " Suscipe
S. Trinitas " (the last before the secreta), which is, in fact,
a slightly modified Gallican prayer "post nomina" (Cabrol,
Diet, de UArch. Chr. i. 606), were it not that this prayer, in
stead of being a genuine survival from an earlier form of
the Roman rite, seems to be rather in the nature of a later
HOLY MASS 105
Another rite which unquestionably had its ori
ginal place towards the close of the Offertory, still
using the term in its broad sense, was the giving
of the kiss of peace. This is its position in all
the liturgies, Eastern and Western, with the sole
exception of the Roman; and it is all but im
possible to doubt that this single exception is due
to a transfer of the Pax from the position which it
once held in the Roman liturgy likewise. This
question will likewise be dealt with in a subsequent
chapter.
But besides the dismissals, the " orationes " or
litany, and the Pax, the offertory, as its name de
notes, had for its central and essential element the
bringing up of gifts or offerings for the Holy Sacri
fice. Not, primarily at least, the offering of the
gifts to God by the celebrant, but their presentation
to the celebrant by the faithful. The gifts thus
offered would seem to have been, in the first in
stance, bread and wine alone ; then the custom
crept in of offering other things as well, whether
for the service of the church or for the support of
the clergy or for the poor. Hence the necessity
of regulations to the effect that nothing was to
be offered, during Holy Mass, except bread and
wine. Offerings of oil on Maundy Thursday, and
of the first-fruits of the harvest and the vintage,
either on certain specified days or when the season
insertion from a Gallican source. Any references to the
above-named work (not now accessible) are taken from
notes on a single article, on the liturgy of the African Church,
made some years ago.
106 HOLY MASS
made them possible, were, however, permitted by
various local regulations; and finally the making
of a " collection," in the form with which we are
all familiar, took the place of the older offerings in
kind. 1
The mediaeval rite, as carried out in Rome, may
be thus briefly described. After the Creed, the
pontiff or the celebrating bishop, attended by the
sacred ministers, descended to the " senatorium,"
or as we might say to the altar-rail, to receive
the offerings of the faithful, who presented their
loaves " in fanonibus," i.e., wrapped in linen
cloths. Strictly speaking, the Pope received only
the offerings of the nobility ("principum"). Those
of the rest of the faithful were received by the
bishop who was on weekly duty (" episcopus heb-
domadarius "). The loaves were placed on a large
extended linen cloth held by two acolytes. The
wine was offered in flasks (" amulae "), from which
it was poured by the archdeacon into a large
chalice carried by the sub- deacon. This, in its
turn, when it became full, was emptied into a larger
two-handled vessel carried by acolytes. Mean
while the " schola " or choir sang the " Offer-
torium." This originally consisted, like the in-
troit, of a complete psalm with its antiphons
("cum versibus "), or of such a portion of the
psalm as was sufficient to occupy the time con
sumed in receiving the offerings. These were then
brought to the altar, the celebrant washed his
i Bona, II. viii. 4 ff.
HOLY MASS 107
hands, the deacon selected what was needed for
the sacrifice about to be offered, and, after the
" Orate, Fratres," the secreta was recited while the
choir finished the offertorium. 1 Of this lengthy
ceremonial, which was in use on solemn occasions
more than a thousand years ago, a curious survival
may probably have been witnessed by some of my
readers at Milan. Here offerings of bread and
wine are brought to the sanctuary gates by ten
old men (" vecchioni "), and the wine and water
by ten aged women, on behalf of the congregation,
and are there received by the deacon. 2 It may be
added that, in Rome itself, and wherever the Ro
man rite is observed, there is a somewhat similar
ceremonial presentation of bread, wine and water,
on occasion of the consecration of a bishop ; while,
on the still more solemn occasion when a sain,t is
to be canonized, a procession of clerics enters the
sanctuary, bearing not these elements alone, but
candles and other symbolical gifts. 3
1 Ordines Romani, i. 13 f. t ii. 9 f-> ui - 1 2 ff -
Ixxviii. 948 f., 972 f., 980 f.). For further details and
interesting observations cf. Bona, II. ix. i; Fortescue, p.
299.
2"Wickham Legg (Ecclesiological Essays, p. 53) says
that these offerings are not now used at the Mass actually
in course ot celebration, but at some later one " ( Jenner, in
Caih. Encycl. i. 401 B). Dr. Fortescue presumably has
good authority for saying that the custom described above
is " a foreign interpolation " in the Ambrosian rite (p. 300).
3 Among these gifts are a pair of doves in a cage, and
another cage containing song-birds which in due course are
liberated, and which symbolize, as they do in the frescoes
108 HOLY MASS
It is to be noticed that no other prayer, except
the secreta, is prescribed for this portion of the
service, either in the Gregorianum or in the Roman
Ordines. And, indeed, it seems clear that no other
prayers were in fact recited, except perhaps as a
matter of private devotion, during the performance
of what Anglican writers term " the manual acts "
connected with the reception and immediate pre
paration of the oblata.
To such practices of private devotion, to the
operation of the principle of " the survival of the
fittest," and to those Gallican influences which in
more than one particular so powerfully affected
the Roman rite, must be ascribed the gradual es
tablishment of the existing series of offertory
prayers, first as a matter of custom and then as
part of the prescribed " Ordo," or, as we call it,
the " Ordinary" of the Mass. These prayers are
six in number, exclusively of the psalm " Lavabo," 1
and of the blessing of the incense and the invoca
tions used during the act of censing the oblata and
the altar. They are (i) " Suscipe sancte Pater,"
&c., at the offering of the unconsecrated host;
(2) " Deus qui humanae substantiae," &c., at the
of the Catacombs, the happy spirits of the Blessed. The
present writer had the honour to take part in this function
on occasion of the canonization of SS. Peter Claver, John
Berchmans, Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., and of the Seven
Founders of the Servite Order. Leo XIII. on that occasion,
I believe, ordered that the little birds should not be liberated
within the building, as there they would starve.
1 Ps. xxv.
HOLY MASS 109
blessing of the water; (3) " Offerimus," &c., at the
offering of the chalice, where the plural number
indicates what is sometimes forgotten that the
prayer should be said by the deacon together with
the celebrant; (4) " In spiritu humilitatis," &c. ;
(5) " Veni Sanctificator," &c. ; and (6) " Suscipe
sancta Trinitas," &c. Now it only needs a little
attention to see that not only is the general purport
of these prayers identical with that of certain por
tions of the Canon, but that they anticipate some
of its very expressions. This is more particularly
the case with the prayer ** Suscipe sancta Trini
tas," with its commemoration of the passion, re
surrection and ascension, and of the saints. And
this fact alone should be sufficient to make us sus
pect the unofficial and even the non-Roman
origin of these items. For such mere repeti
tions are not in accordance with what has been
described as the " austere simplicity " and the
strict phraseological economy which is character
istic of thoroughly Roman compositions; and it is
not surprising to find that most of these prayers
can be traced back to Gallican sources. 1 As illus
trating what has been said about " the survival of
the fittest," these words of Bona may be worth
quoting. The prayers which are said at the offer
tory vary [or varied] in various churches, since, as
the Roman Church for a long while did not employ
them," i.e., had no prescribed prayers for this part
of the service, " each church adopted its own."
1 For details see Fortescue, pp. 305 ff.
i io HOLY MASS
The prayer " Deus qui humanae substantiae " is,
as Cabrol has observed, a Roman collect borrowed
for its present purpose. 1 The statement, however,
that the offertory prayers are mainly of Gallican
origin, must not be taken to mean that in their se
quence and purport they represent corresponding
portions of the Gallican liturgy, but only that, taken
singly, they originated for the most part " north of
the Alps." 2 At any rate, whatever their proven
ance, there can be no question as to their beauty,
and no one will now grudge the repetitions which,
in combination with the Roman Canon, they in
volve. Dr. Fortescue has well said of these
and other liturgical accretions to an earlier and
structurally simpler rite: " If one may ven
ture a criticism of these additions from an aes
thetic point of view, it is that they are exceedingly
happy . . . The Eastern and Gallican rites are
too florid for our taste and too long. The few
non-Roman elements in our Mass take nothing
from its dignity, and yet give it enough variety
and reticent devotion to make it most beautiful." 3
If, moreover, it be allowable to suggest a thought
which carries us a step beyond what is actually
expressed in these prayers, we may suitably ask,
at this point of the Mass, that as the bread and
wine are to be changed into the Body and Blood
of Christ, our hearts, too, may be changed into
the likeness of His. And in this connection we
1 Bona, II. ix. 2; Cabrol, Origines, p. 110 f.
2 Fortescue, p. 183.
s P. 184.
HOLY MASS in
may well invoke the intercession of our Lady. As
the child s hymn has it:
Now, at Thy altar, bread and wine,
Thy priest doth offer; Thou, O Lord
Wilt change them, by Thy power divine
To Flesh and Blood, at Thine own word.
At Mary s prayer, dear Jesus, Thou
Didst change the water into wine;
O take my heart, and change it now
That it may be more like to Thine.
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