Snippets from Dale

On advice from a bookdealer I'm waiting for the latest Fortescue-O'Connell-Reid, the one with Summorum Pontificum cura in it; in the meanwhile, I make do with Dale's Ceremonial according to the Roman Rite (ninth edition, 1904)...

Fortescue, famously, was right to note Dale's unintentionally humorous style, which in some places is flagrantly un-English, even bizarre ("The postures to be maintained in choir are the standing, the sitting, and the kneeling. ... The clergy will observe not to kneel at... During High Mass all retain the standing posture from..." - Part I, Chapter I, Nos. 3. & 4., page 3).

That said, Dale seems a useful source - and makes some candid observations (I, I, 10., page 4f):

"The clergy should comport themselves in choir with silence, modesty, and recollection; abstaining from everything that would indicate frivolity or irreverence, such as reading letters, talking, giving snuff to each other, gazing about, sitting cross-legged, lolling in their seats, and other acts of this nature."

I do hope that some of my readers in or aspiring to Holy Orders (hi, Quasi! hello, reverend members of the Cloister!) take note - imagine that, reading letters or giving snuff to one another in choir... but wait a moment, I'm sure a Dominican told me that the old rule was that snuff could be taken by the sacred ministers during Mass, down to the end of the Gloria in excelsis (presumably this was the case in the Baroque period, when the Gloria could be half-an-hour long).

Reading over Dale's instructions for serving Low Mass, I note some interesting points, quaintly expressed:

"1. The Server at Low Mass should strictly be a Cleric as the Rubrics prescribe; nevertheless Laics are now through custom allowed to serve. They will observe all that is prescribed for the Cleric, with the exception that they do not wear the cassock and cotta.² [I assume this meant that "laics" served Mass, when permitted, in default of a Cleric to do so, in lay clothes.]

"[Footnote]² The use of the cassock and cotta is now universally allowed to laics serving at the Altar, in those countries where the first tonsure is seldom conferred upon any but adults. The use of gloves [let O.A.T.H. members take note!] is prohibited. (S.C.R., Aug. 12, 1854.)

"5. Before leaving the sacristy with the Priest, the Server will, if necessary, light the candles on the Altar..." [He must presumably use a very long taper to light them with.]

"7. At the door of the church will take holy water for himself, but will not offer any to the Priest. [Interesting - I learnt and use the contrary custom.]

"9. The Server should discreetly request [i.e. not loudly abuse or kick] those who are kneeling to make way for the Priest, beckoning them to withdraw their feet, or to stand up, as occasion may require: the same should be observed in returning to the sacristy. [What a crowded church full of hoi polloi this assumes...]

"15. ... In genuflecting he will not bend himself in an ungraceful manner [this is easier said than done, especially when my bad knee is playing up], but descend straight to the ground on the right knee, with the face turned towards the Altar.

"16. Should the Priest inadvertently have put the burse of the corporal where it is liable to be stained by wax from the candles, the Server will place it in a better position; he will also do the same, at the proper time [vide infra, No. 27.], with regard to the veil of the chalice.

"18. ... And here, in order that these things may be better attended to, we may as well state, that one [serving Mass] should abstain from reading the office, or reading spiritual books, as also from speaking with others, or turning around to look at what is going on. This is what St. Charles Borromeo enjoined... [See previous comments about clergy in choir.] At the Psalm Judica me Deus, at the Kyrie eleison, and the rest, the Server should be careful to answer alternately with the Priest, and not to anticipate him, lest he become confused.

"27. Should the Celebrant [at the Offertory] give him the veil of the chalice, he will fold it; and if the Altar be large enough, leave it there, near the Altar-card, but beyond the corporal, on the Epistle side. Should, however, the Altar be narrow and there be danger of the veil being stained by wax from the candles, he should carry it to the credence, or elsewhere. Should the Priest himself fold it, he will observe what has been mentioned above, respecting the burse (No. 16.) [While oft priests have the server carry the veil from one side to the other after the ablutions - which custom Dale entirely omits to mention - I've never seen the server take the veil at the Offertory...]

"36. At the Sanctus... He should not strike his breast...

"37. At the conclusion of the first Memento, or a little earlier, he will proceed to light the small candle for the Elevation. [Here in Australia, the Latin Mass sayers of Melbourne and Sydney, F.S.S.P. and ex-F.S.S.P., keep this custom, as do the Dominicans who use their old rite.]

"38. He will... for the Elevation,... take the chasuble with his left hand, not drawing it toward himself, but only lifting it when the Priest elevates the Host and the chalice, and not when he genuflects, for then it should not be held. [I have observed, and having observed it for a while myself followed, the contrary custom - which appears to follow the precedent of the Hæmorrhisa, boldly taking hold of Christ's garments, on the theory that the saving power that went out from Him then, may now spill over from the consecrating Priest, Christ's Sacramental Instrument, even to the lowly Server. to sanctify him.] ... He should not kiss the chasuble, either before or after. ... [Dale also does not mention the pious practice of bowing moderately when the Priest bowed low to pronounce the Verba Domini, before then bowing down deeply at the genuflections ensuing.]

"41. Whilst the Priest is signing himself with the chalice,² the Server should not ring the bell, since the Elevation of the chalice is not made to excite the people to the adoration, which is already over, but the Priest only signs himself as he did with the Host. Besides, the Rubric of the Missal prescribes that the bell should be rung at the Sanctus and at the Elevation only; and to do so at this time would merely cause the people to stand up, whereas they should remain kneeling till the Benediction inclusively.³

"[Footnote]¹ Should any of the faithful approach for Holy Communion, he will now say the Confiteor. He should not accompany the Priest when he communicates the people [this was written before the use of the communion plate was enjoined], but, if necessary, he may assist to sustain the [communion] cloth.

"[Footnote]² There is no Rubric which directs the bell to be thrice rung at the Domine, non sum dignus, in the Mass. It is usual in some countries to ring the bell at the "Hanc igitur oblationem," though the Rubric does not recognise the custom.

"48. ... [The candles] should not be left smoking, as is too often the case, nor should they be put out by the breath, but with the proper extinguisher."

(Part VI, Chapter V, pages 355-363)

Amongst my readers and fellow-bloggers, perhaps Patricius, as an interested M.C. and peruser of ceremonials, may find this of interest.

Baumstark's Laws of Liturgy

Anton Baumstark was a liturgical scholar of the old school, who did not believe that tinkering with the sacred cult was the proper concern of liturgists, but that on the contrary one ought be not master but student of the liturgy. (One may note in passing that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the One Liturgist - Λειτουργὸς - as Hebrews viii, 2 attests.)

Famously, he formulated two laws describing the organic evolution of the liturgy over time: first, that on the most solemn days the most ancient and sober rituals tend to be retained; second, that over time, newer liturgical developments can tend to replace by degrees older features of the divine cult. For instance, until the post-Conciliar reforms, the Divine Office of the last three days of Holy Week, and of the whole of Easter Week, was marked by a simplicity of form unchanged for many ages - no hymns were sung, no short chapters read at the Day Hours, and so forth - this being an example of his first law. Contrariwise, the ancient Roman ferial Office has over time gradually been replaced by a multiplicity of saint's days, so that the weekly cycle of ferial Vesper hymns focussing on the Six Days of Creation are hardly ever sung through in one week, being replaced by hymns for the various occurring saints from their respective Common or Proper.

Baumstark's second law was well-explained by Jungmann, when considering the place of the Lord's Prayer, preces and Collect in the Divine Office. (I write here not of Matins, which was not generally read apart from Lauds - its union with the latter being the ideal, as even its name suggests.) According to mediæval testimony, at the Lateran Basilica the Lord's Prayer was said at the end of each Hour of the Office, with no collect at all appended. It is conjectured that this was the case especially if no priest were present (note here that monks, such as those who sang the Office at the Lateran, were originally unordained), and that in the remote past the Lord's Prayer was the normal conclusion of each Hour - a Collect proper to the day or time being added, at first to give greater solemnity, and then more and more often, so the Lord's Prayer became in the nature of a preface to it. (As the priest first said Dominus vobiscum before the Collect, the Collect itself savoured of things sacerdotal, and was only by degrees, it is argued, accepted as right for a layperson to say: and then it is prefixed with Domine exaudi instead.) The Benedictine and Dominican Breviaries still retain this characteristic pattern of Pater before Collect at the Day Hours.

However, in these, and in the Roman Breviary when the Lord's Prayer still rarely makes an appearance, the Pater noster is always preceded by a threefold Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison. It is thought that this - like the Kyrie at Mass - was once a full litany (as in the Byzantine Rite), but over time was abbreviated to this simple form (St Benedict in his Rule terms it a litany). This litany before the Pater noster disappeared, only to be replaced, apparently under Celtic influence, with suffrages or preces recited after it - originally, these were a series of petitions, each followed by a versicle and response (usually from the psalms), but over time were reduced to a dialogic pattern of versicles and responses.

The Carthusian Breviary retained these long preces at all Hours; but outside that austere Order, it was felt increasingly that preces were not so appropriate to feast days, and so were restricted to ferias in various Breviaries, then were cut down in length (especially at the Little Hours), then were restricted to penitential days, and acquired a penitential sense - since one knelt to pray them, days when they were said were termed "kneeling days". By the mid-twentieth century, the Roman Breviary was being shortened by "simplification of the rubrics" - and the preces at the Little Hours, including the longer and more specialized ones at Prime and Compline, were finally abolished, while Lauds and Vespers only kept their preces on most Ember Days, plus ferial Wednesdays and Fridays of Advent and Lent. In the Roman Breviary, moreover, the Lord's Prayer, from being the original concluding prayer of prayers, had become considered as but part of these preces - and so was in essence discarded altogether from its ancient place.

In the Little Office of Our Lady (itself a pious addition to the daily Office, that became as it were a separate spin-off more suited to lay use because of its relative brevity, simplicity and devotional quality), until the last pre-Conciliar reforms what survived before the Collect of each Hour was not the Lord's Prayer at all, but rather the threefold Kyrie that itself had been a later preface to the Pater noster.

In a separate development, for long centuries (until the last changes under John XXIII before the Council) a Pater and later an Ave had been said as a preparation before each Hour (also a Credo at some Hours), and a Pater with versicle after it... and this, from being a pious custom lifting up the mind to God (as St Ignatius analogously directs before meditation) beforehand, and prolonging the official liturgical prayer, became a fixed devotion, part of the Office. The Lord's Prayer having disappeared from its first place in the Hours, it reappeared elsewhere, finally almost being removed entirely. (In the modern Divine Office, which in many ways represents a decided break with the traditional, organic development of the liturgy, the Lord's Prayer is said aloud, after some intercessions, and before the Collect, but at Lauds and Vespers only, for somewhat artificial reasons.)

As Jungmann summarizes Baumstark's second law, A becomes Ab, Ab becomes AB, this becomes (A)B and finally B alone remains - A being the original liturgical prayer, first b then B being the addition to it that gradually expands in importance until it takes its place entirely.

Another example of this law is the way that, while the more conservative Roman Rite Divine Office still largely consists of the recitation of the psalms, in the Byzantine Rite, the various Canons and divers troparia, kontakia and whatnot - liturgical hymns, of great dogmatic value - have so multiplied that it is they, not the psalms, that are the chief feature of the Hours: indeed, usually the kathisma(ta) or portion(s) of the psalms appointed are very hurriedly recited in monotone by a reader even in monasteries, so that the massed choirs can then break forth in magnificent chanting of the ecclesiastical compositions that now have pride of place; and in parish celebrations, very often the psalms to be recited are drastically pruned and abbreviated, being overshadowed by the more recent and popular elements of the services.