The following is copied from Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year.
-----------
We may
be sure, that a season, so sacred as this of Lent, is rich in mysteries. The
Church has made it a time of recollection and penance, in preparation for the
greatest of all her Feasts; she would, therefore, bring into it everything that
could excite the faith of her children, and encourage them to go through the
arduous work of atonement for their sins. During Septuagesima, we had the
numberSeventy, which
reminded us of those seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, after which, God’s
chosen people, being purified from idolatry, was to return to Jerusalem and
celebrate the Pasch. It is the number Forty that the Church now brings before us:
- a number, as Saint Jerome observes, which denotes punishment and affliction [In
Ezechiel, cap. xxix].
Let us remember the forty days and forty nights of the Deluge
(Gen. vii. 12), sent by God in his anger, when he repented that he had made
man, and destroyed the whole human race, with the exception of one family. Let
us consider how the Hebrew people, in punishment for their ingratitude,
wandered forty years in the desert, before they were permitted to enter the
Promised Land [Num. xiv. 33]. Let us listen to our God commanding the Prophet
Ezechiel to lie forty days on his right side, as a figure of the siege, which
was to bring destruction on Jerusalem [Ezech. iv. 6].
There are two, in the Old Testament, who represent, in their own
persons, the two manifestations of God: Moses, who typifies the Law; and Elias, who is the
figure of the Prophets. Both
of these are permitted to approach God, - the first on Sinai [Exod. xxiv. 18],
the second on Horeb [3 Kings, xix. 8], - but both of them have to prepare for
the great favour by an expiatory fast of forty days.
With these mysterious facts before us, we can understand why it
was, that the Son of God, having become Man for our salvation, and wishing to
subject himself to the pain of fasting, chose the number of Forty Days. The
institution of Lent is thus brought before us with everything that can impress
the mind with its solemn character, and with its power of appeasing God and
purifying our souls. Let us, there fore, look beyond the little world which
surrounds us, and see how the whole Christian universe is, at this very time,
offering this Forty Days’ penance as a sacrifice of propitiation to the
offended Majesty of God; and let us hope, that, as in the case of the
Ninivites, he will mercifully accept this year’s offering of our atonement, and
pardon us our sins.
The number of our days of Lent is, then, a holy mystery: let us,
now, learn from the Liturgy, in what light the Church views her Children during
these Forty Days. She considers them as an immense army, fighting, day and
night, against their Spiritual enemies. We remember how, on Ash Wednesday, she
calls Lent a Christian
Warefare. Yes, - in order that we may have that newness of life, which will
make us worthy to sing once more our Alleluia, - we must conquer our three enemies
the devil, the flesh, and the world. We are fellow combatants with our Jesus,
for He, too, submits to the triple temptation, suggested to him by Satan in
person. Therefore, we must have on our armour, and watch unceasingly. And
whereas it is of the utmost importance that our hearts be spirited and brave, -
the Church gives us a war-song of heaven’s own making, which can fire even
cowards with hope of victory and confidence in God’s help: it is the Ninetieth
Psalm [Ps. Qui habitat in
adjutorio, in the Office of
Compline]. She inserts the whole of it in the Mass of the First Sunday of
Lent, and, every day, introduces several of its verses in the Ferial Office.
She there tells us to rely on the protection, wherewith our
Heavenly Father covers us, as with
a shield [Scuto circumdabit
to veritas ejus. Office of
None.]; to hope under the shelter of his wings[Et sub pennis ejus
sperabis. Sext.]; to have
confidence in him, for that he will deliver us from the snare of the hunter
[Ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium. Tierce.],
who had robbed us of the holy liberty of the children of God; to rely upon the
succour of the Holy Angels, who are our Brothers, to whom our Lord hath given charge that they keep us
in all our ways [Angelis suis
mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. Lauds and Vespers.], and who, when our Jesus permitted
Satan to tempt him, were the adoring witnesses of his combat, and approached
him, after his victory, proffering to him their service and homage. Let us get
well into us these sentiments wherewith the Church would have us be inspired;
and, during our six weeks’ campaign, let us often repeat this admirable
Canticle, which so fully describes what the Soldiers of Christ should be and
feel in this season of the great spiritual warfare.
But the Church is not satisfied with thus animating us to the
contest with our enemies; - she would also have our minds engrossed with
thoughts of deepest import; and for this end, she puts before us three great
subjects, which she will gradually unfold to us between this and the great
Easter Solemnity. Let us be all attention to these soul-stirring and
instructive lessons.
And firstly, there is the conspiracy of the Jews against our
Redeemer. It will be brought before us in its whole history, from its first
formation to its final consummation on the great Friday, when we shall behold
the Son of God hanging on the Wood of the Cross. The infamous workings of the
synagogue will be brought before us so regularly, that we shall be able to
follow the plot in all its details. We shall be inflamed with love for the
august Victim, whose meekness, wisdom, and dignity, bespeak a God. The divine
drama, which began in the cave of Bethlehem, is to close on Calvary; we may
assist at it, by meditating on the passages of the Gospel read to us, by the
Church, during these days of Lent.
The second of the subjects offered to us, for our instruction,
requires that we should remember how the Feast of Easter is to be the day of
new birth for our Catechumens; and how, in the early ages of the Church, Lent
was the immediate and solemn preparation given to the candidates for Baptism.
The holy Liturgy of the present season retains much of the instruction she used
to give to the Catechumens; and as we listen to her magnificent Lessons from
both the Old and the New Testament, whereby she completed their initiation, we ought to think with gratitude
on how we were not required to wait years before
being made Children of God, but were mercifully admitted to Baptism, even in
our Infancy. We shall be led to pray for those new Catechumens, who this very
year, in far distant countries, are receiving instructions from their zealous
Missioners, and are looking forward, as did the postulants of the primitive
Church, to that grand Feast of our Saviour’s victory over Death, when they are
to be cleansed in the Waters of Baptism and receive from the contact a flew
being, - regeneration.
Thirdly, we must remember how, formerly, the public Penitents, who
had been separated, on Ash Wednesday, from the assembly of the Faithful, were
the object of the Church’s maternal solicitude during the whole Forty Days of
Lent, and were to be admitted to Reconciliation on Maundy Thursday, if their
repentance were such as to merit this public forgiveness. We shall have the
admirable course of instructions, which were originally designed for these
Penitents, and which the Liturgy, faithful as she ever is to such traditions,
still retains for our sakes. As we read these sublime passages of the
Scripture, we shall naturally think upon our own sins, and on what easy terms
they were pardoned us; whereas, had we lived in other times, we should have probably
been put through the ordeal of a public and severe penance. This will excite us
to fervour, for we shall remember, that, whatever changes the indulgence of the
Church may lead her to make in her discipline, the justice of our God is ever
the same. We shall find in all this an additional motive for offering to his
Divine Majesty the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and we shall go through our
penances with that cheerful eagerness, which the conviction of our deserving
much severer ones always brings with it.
In order to keep up the character of mournfulness and austerity
which is so well-suited to Lent, the Church, for many centuries, admitted very
few Feasts into this portion of her year, inasmuch as there is always joy,
where there is even a spiritual Feast. In the 4th century, we have the Council
of Laodicea forbidding, in its fifty-first canon, the keeping a Feast or
commemoration of any Saint, during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays or Sundays
[Labbe, Concil., tom. i.].
The Greek Church rigidly maintained this point of Lenten Discipline; nor was it
till many centuries after the Council of Laodicea that she made an exception
for the 25th of March, on which day she now keeps the Feast of our Lady’s
Annunciation.
The Church of Rome maintained this same discipline, at least in
principle; but she admitted the Feast of the Annunciation at a very early
period, and somewhat later, the Feast of the Apostle St. Matthias, on the 24th
of February. During the last few centuries, she has admitted several other Feasts
into that portion of her general Calendar which coincides with Lent; still, she
observes a certain restriction, out of respect for the ancient practice.
The reason of the Church of Rome being less severe on this point
of excluding the Saints’ Feasts during Lent, is, that the Christians of the
West have never looked upon the celebration of a Feast as incompatible with
fasting; the Greeks, on the contrary, believe that the two are irreconcilable,
and as a consequence of this principle, never observe Saturday as a
fasting-day, because they always keep it as a Solemnity, though they make Holy
Saturday an exception, and fast upon it. For the same reason, they do not fast
upon the Annunciation.
This strange idea gave rise, in or about the 7th century, to a
custom which is peculiar to the Greek Church. It is called the Mass of the Presanctified, that is to say, consecrated in a
previous Sacrifice. On each Sunday of Lent, the Priest consecrates six Hosts,
one of which he receives in that Mass; but the remaining five are reserved for
a simple Communion, which is made on each of the five following days, without
the Holy Sacrifice being offered. The Latin Church practises this rite only
once in the year, that is, on Good Friday, and this in commemoration of a
sublime mystery, which we will explain in its proper place.
This custom of the Greek Church was evidently suggested by the
49th Canon of the Council of Laodicea, which forbids the offering the Bread of
sacrifice during Lent, excepting on the Saturdays and Sundays [Labbe, Concil., tom. i.]. The Greeks,
some centuries later on, concluded from this Canon, that the celebration of the
Holy Sacrifice was incompatible with fasting; and we learn from the Controversy
they had, in the 9th century, with the Legate Humbert [Centra Nicetam., tom.
iv.], that the Mass of the
Presanctified, (which has no
other authority to rest on save a Canon of the famous Council in Trullo [Can. 52. Labbe, Concil. tom. vi.] held in 692,) was justified
by the Greeks on this absurd plea, - that the Communion of the Body and Blood
of our Lord broke the Lenten Fast.
The Greeks celebrate this rite in the evening, after Vespers, and
the Priest alone communicates, as is done now in the Roman Liturgy on Good
Friday. But for many centuries, they have made an exception for the
Annunciation; they interrupt the Lenten fast on this Feast, they celebrate
Mass, and the Faithful are allowed to receive Holy Communion.
The Canon of the Council of Laodicea was probably never received
in the Western Church. If the suspension of the Holy Sacrifice during Lent was
ever practised in Rome, it was only on the Thursdays; and even that custom was
abandoned in the 8th century, as we learn from Anastasius the Librarian, who
tells us that Pope St. Gregory the Second, desiring to complete the Roman
Sacramentary, added Masses for the Thursdays of the first five weeks of Lent
[Anastas. In Gregorio II]. It is difficult to assign the reason of this
interruption of the Mass on Thursdays in the Roman Church, or of the like
custom observed by the Church of Milan on the Fridays of Lent. The explanations
we have found in different authors are not satisfactory. As far as Milan is
concerned, we are inclined to think, that not satisfied with the mere adoption
of the Roman usage of not celebrating Mass on Good Friday, the Ambrosian Church
extended the rite to all the Fridays of Lent.
After thus briefly alluding to these details, we must close our
present Chapter by a few words on the holy rites, which are now observed,
during Lent, in our Western Churches. We have explained several of these in our
“Septuagesima.” [See their explanation in the volume for Septuagesima]. The suspension
of the Alleluia; the purple vestments; the laying aside
the deacon’s Dalmatic, and the subdeacon’s Tunic; the omission of the two
joyful canticles, - the Gloria
in excelsis, and the Te
Deum; the substitution of the mournful Tract for the Alleluia verse in the Mass;
the Benedicamus Domino instead of the Ite, Missa est; the additional Prayer said over
the people after the Post-communion Collects on Ferial Days ; the saying the
Vesper Office before mid-day, excepting on the Sundays; - all these are
familiar to our readers. We have only now to mention, in addition, the
genuflections prescribed for the conclusion of all the Hours of the Divine
Office on Ferias, and the rubric which bids the Choir to kneel, on those same
Days, during the Canon of the Mass.
There were other ceremonies peculiar to the season of Lent, which
were observed in the Churches of the West, but which have now, for many
centuries, fallen into general disuse; we say general,because
they are still partially kept up in some places. Of these rites, the most
imposing was that of putting up a large veil between the Choir and the Altar,
so that neither clergy nor people could look upon the Holy Mysteries celebrated
within the Sanctuary. This veil - which was called the Curtain, and, generally speaking, was of a
purple colour - was a symbol of the penance to which the sinner ought to
subject himself, in order to merit the sight of that Divine Majesty, before
whose face he had committed so many outrages. It signified, moreover, the
humiliations endured by our Redeemer, who was a stumbling-block to the proud
Synagogue. But, as a veil that is suddenly drawn aside, these humiliations were
to give way, and be changed into the glories of the Resurrection [Honorius of
Autun. Gemma animae. Lib. iii. cap. lxvi.]. Among other
places where this rite is still observed, we may mention the Metropolitan
Church of Paris, Notre Dame.
It was the custom also, in many Churches, to veil the Crucifix and
the Statues of the Saints as soon as Lent began; in order to excite the
Faithful to a livelier sense of penance, they were deprived of the consolation
which the sight of these holy Images always brings to the soul. But this
custom, which is still retained in some places, was less general than the more
expressive one used in the Roman Church, and which we will explain in our next
volume, - we mean the veiling the Crucifix and Statues only in Passion Time.
We learn from the Ceremonials of the Middle Ages, that, during Lent,
and particularly on the Wednesdays and Fridays, processions used frequently to
be made from one Church to another. In Monasteries, these Processions were made
in the Cloister, and barefooted [Martène. De
antiquis Eccles ritibus. Tom.
iii. cap. xviii.]. This custom was suggested by the practice of Rome, where
there is a Station for every day of Lent, and which, for
many centuries, began by a procession to the Stational Church.
Lastly, - the Church has always been in the habit of adding to her
prayers during the Season of Lent. Her present discipline is, that, on Ferias,
in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, (which are not exempted by a custom to
the contrary,) the following additions are to be made to the Canonical Hours:
on Mondays, the Office of the Dead; on Wednesday, the Gradual Psalms; and on
Fridays, the Penitential Psalms. In some Churches, during the Middle-Ages, the
whole Psaltery was added each week of Lent to the usual Office [Martène. De antiquis Eccles ritibus. Tom. iii. cap. xviii.].
No comments:
Post a Comment