Farewell Whitsuntide, Paschaltide, and Regina cæli

This week I have striven to say some of the Breviary Hours, thus participating in some degree in the liturgy of Whitsuntide, the Octave of Pentecost, the last echo of the Paschal season. Just as in the Extraordinary Form, the traditional, immemorial form of the Roman Rite, Lent is preceded by Septuagesimatide, beginning 63 days before Easter Sunday, so the Octave of Pentecost follows on and continues the celebration of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, until the 56th day, Whit Saturday. (If, as is now common, Corpus Christi is kept on the Sunday after Trinity, the Solemnity of the Sacrament of the Altar falls on the 64th day, 63 days after Easter, exactly parallel to Septuagesima Sunday 63 days before Easter.)

At midday this Whit Saturday, walking back to my car after brunch, I prayed for the last time this year the Regina cæli, which I first repeated with the special Premonstratensian and Dominican forms:

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja,

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Spiritum misit, sicut dixit, alleluja:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja. (O.Præm.) 

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja,

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Jam ascendit, sicut dixit, alleluja:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja. (O.P.) 

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja,

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluja:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja.

("Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia, for He Whom thou didst merit to bear, alleluia, hath sent the Spirit / now ascended / risen again, as He said, alleluia: pray for us to God, alleluia.")

Eastertide ends after None; first Vespers of the Holy Trinity marks the beginning of the long Sundays per annum. This year, Trinity Sunday falls on the feast of St Philip Neri, and he will not be marked by any commemoration because of this (except among his sons the Oratorians, who transfer his feast to Monday); he will I am sure be pleased by this coincidence, being one who preferred to hide his sanctity, and who has now been "hidden with Christ in God" for over four hundred years. "Eternity!" – such he once cried; and what must that be like?

I will be serving at the parish vigil Mass this evening, and will be asking St Philip's prayers – not least for the Oratorians throughout the world, and specially for those in process of establishing a new Oratory in Brisbane. 

Easy Pentecost Novena

How best to make the Pentecost Novena?

I.  It was Our Lady and the Apostles (plus the holy women and Our Lord's near relations) who made the first Novena: they and the rest of the believers (whom we trust joined with them in petition), to the number of about 120 persons, were the whole Church of God on earth in those days, and it was their united supplication that won from the Father through the risen and ascended Christ – as He commanded them to ask – the uncreated Gift of the Holy Ghost.

Therefore, believing in the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church and the communion of saints, no less than in Father, Son and Holy Ghost, it seems most reasonable to ask Our Lady and the Apostles, being the pillars and foundations of the Church, to once again join us in prayer for the descent of the Spirit, the Sanctifier, the Lord and Vivifier, that He may hallow and bless us, infusing us with grace whereby we may be supernaturalized and made perfect men.

One should thus invoke the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles, that they may pray with and for us:

Sancta Maria, Mater Jesu, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Petre, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Joannes, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Jacobe, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Andrea, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Philippe, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Thoma, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Bartholomæe, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Matthæe, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Jacobe, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Simon, ora pro nobis.

Sancte Juda, ora pro nobis.

Omnes sancti Apostoli, orate pro nobis.

Omnes sancti Discipuli Domini, orate pro nobis.

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II. Since Our Lady is Queen of the Apostles and Queen of All Saints, and is of all creatures the closest to her Divine Son, it is only most rightful to especially call upon her loving maternal intercession.  

To this end, the Regina cæli, as sung by the Dominicans, having the Ascensiontide variant Jam ascendit, sicut dixit, is perfectly suitable, if it have subjoined the usual versicle, suitably adapted, with the Collect for Friday after the Octave of the Ascension from the 1738 Paris Missal (with per Dei Genitricem Mariam supplied):

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja:

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Jam ascendit, sicut dixit, alleluja.

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja.

V/. Gaude et lætare Virgo Maria, alleluja.

R/. Quia ascendit Dominus vere, alleluja.

Oremus.

Deus, qui nos Resurrectionis et Ascensionis Dominicæ solemnia celebrare fecisti: da famulis tuis, ut (per Dei Genitricem Mariam) et advenientis Spiritus sancti gratiam purificatis mentibus suscipere mereamur. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. R/. Amen.

(This Collect is especially good, and in itself sums up all we wish for: "O God, Who hast made us to celebrate the solemnities of the Lord's Resurrection and Ascension, grant unto Thy servants, that, by Mary the Mother of God, we likewise may deserve to receive the grace of the Holy Ghost with purified minds. Through the same Christ our Lord.  Amen.")

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III. It ought go without saying that fundamentally and primarily we should adore and beseech God the Holy Ghost Himself, with the well-known Veni Sancte Spiritus, its versicle Emitte and the Pentecost Collect Deus qui corda fidelium (as it were thus anticipating the feast); and append the Magnificat antiphon of Ascension Day:

O Rex gloriæ, Domine virtutum, qui triumphator hodie super omnes cælos ascendisti: ne derelinquas nos orphanos, sed mitte promissum Patris in nos, Spiritum veritatis, alleluja.

As the versicle and the Collect address God the Father, while the O Rex gloriæ addresses God the Son, thus all Three Persons of the Adorable Trinity are properly worshipped, and the Gift of the Holy Ghost rightly besought.

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I think that these three elements – asking those first pray-ers to pray with and for us, praying in especial to Our Lady, and calling upon the Holy Spirit direct – are eminently suitable and easy ways to make a good Pentecost Novena.  And as I noted above, even alone the Collect from the Missale Parisiense would do as a super-succinct Novena prayer.

Three Regina cæli's

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja:

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluja.

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja.

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja:

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Jam ascendit, sicut dixit, alleluja.

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja.

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja:

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja,

Spiritum misit, sicut dixit, alleluja.

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja.

******

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia:

For He Whom thou didst merit to bear, alleluia,

Hath risen, as He said, alleluia.

Pray for us to God, alleluia.

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia:

For He Whom thou didst merit to bear, alleluia,

Hath now ascended, as He said, alleluia.

Pray for us to God, alleluia.
(O.P., Ascensiontide)

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia:

For He Whom thou didst merit to bear, alleluia,

Hath sent the Spirit, as He said, alleluia.

Pray for us to God, alleluia.
(O.Præm., Whitsuntide)

Mary's Month

Autumn is well and truly with us here, as the cooler, rainier weather and the fall of leaves demonstrates: "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;" has been the couplet (by Keats) on my mind.

How then is autumnal May Mary's month?  Primarily, I would hazard, because it is part of Eastertide, and Our Lady is the supreme masterpiece of Christ's Victory: not only redeemed, but perfected from the first moment of her existence; not only saved from every fall into sin, but preserved, "spirit, soul and body", and already assumed in body and soul into that perpetual triumph and glory which will be the lot of the Saints after the General Resurrection.  

If Christ is the First-Begotten from the Dead, His Virgin Mother is the signal exemplar of His grace.  She is God's masterpiece, and so it behooves us, at this season of rejoicing, to rejoice and be glad in her: Gaude et lætare, Virgo Maria, alleluia: Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia.  

It is a pious belief and well-founded that Christ, rising from the dead, went first to His Mother to shew her that He had returned: this rewarded her great faith, in that she alone did not despair at His Death, but knew that He would rise again. Hence, when the holy myrrh-bearing women found the tomb empty, He was to be found (as decades before at the Epiphany) "with Mary His Mother".  Mary Magdalen was rewarded for her penitent zeal by beholding Christ Risen; but Christ's appearance to the Immaculate Virgin necessarily preceded His appearance to the Magdalen.

This May, we sing Regina cæli thrice each day until its very end, for those following the Traditional Calendar; and the 31st of May is very fittingly kept as the feast of Our Lady as Queen: for such a great Lady is very obviously a Queen, just as Christ is the true King.  May their reign extend into every heart!

Jam Ascendit

The Dominicans (and other religious orders) have a special form of the Regina cæli for Ascensiontide: they sing, not Resurrexit, sicut dixit, but Jam ascendit, sicut dixit - "Now He's ascended, as He said" (not "Jam's gone up"!).  These words, having the same number of syllables as Resurrexit, can be sung to the same tune.

As a private devotion, very suitable for Ascensiontide as we make with all the Church the original Novena and await the Promised Spirit, one may add a modification of the usual versicle ("for the Lord hath truly ascended"), plus an appropriate collect from the 1738 Paris Missal (for Friday after the Octave of the Ascension), as follows:

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja:

Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja:

Jam ascendit, sicut dixit, alleluja:

Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja.

V/.  Gaude et lætare, Virgo Maria, alleluja.

R/.  Quia ascendit Dominus vere, alleluja.

Oremus.

Deus, qui nos Resurrectionis et Ascensionis Dominicæ solemnia celebrare fecisti: da famulis tuis, ut et advenientis Spiritus sancti gratiam purificatis mentibus suscipere mereamur.  Per eumdem Dominum... in unitate ejusdem Spiritus...

(God, Who hast made us to celebrate the solemnities of the Lord's Resurrection and Ascension: give unto Thy servants that we may also deserve to receive with pure minds the grace of the promised Holy Spirit.  Through the same our Lord... in the unity of the same Holy Spirit...)

The Risen Christ Appears to His Blessed Mother

As is the Tradition of the Church, upon His Resurrection, Our Lord appeared first to His Most Holy Mother, that she, being blessed among all women, might receive the firstfruits of Easter joy. When it was said by the angel, "He is risen, He is not here," well, that's where He was: gladdening the heart of the Most Blessed Virgin.

Regina cæli, lætare, alleluja!
Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluja!
Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluja!
Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluja!

R/. Gaude et lætare, Virgo Maria, alleluja!
V/. Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluja!

Oremus.

Deus, qui per resurrectionem Filii tui, Domini nostri Jesu Christi, mundum lætificare dignatus es; præsta, quæsumus; ut, per ejus Genitricem Virginem Mariam, perpetuæ capiamus gaudia vitæ. Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum. R/. Amen.

It's five o'clock in the morning! I'd best go to bed!