Parisian Sequence for Our Lady's Nativity

From the 1738 Paris Missal comes this Sequence for Our Lady's Nativity:

1. Gaudii primordium,

Et salutis nuntium

Diem nostræ canimus.

2. Quæ dat hora Virginem,

Spondet Deum hominem:

En venit quem quærimus. 

3. Quam in matrem eligit,

Hujus ortum dirigit,

Deus omnis gratiæ.

4. Domum quam inhabitet,

Mox e qua nos visitet

Ornat Sol justitiæ. 

5. Quot micat luminibus,

Suis Deus usibus,

Quod vas fingit gloriæ!

6. Quot latent miracula!

Fiet hæc nubecula

In vim magnam pluviæ. 

7. Benedicta Filia,

Tota plena gratia,

Tota sine macula.

8. Cæli quod jam habitas,

Pande nobis semitas,

Prece, Virgo, sedula. 

9. Iram promeruimus,

Christe; pacem petimus:

Hanc da matris precibus.

10. Ut in nobis maneas,

Corda nostra præbeas

Pura culpis omnibus.

Amen. (Alleluja.)

And, thanks to Google Translate taking a French translation from the Schola Sainte Cecile's website, here is an English version:

We celebrate the day that begins our joy, the day that announces our salvation.

The moment that gives birth to the Virgin Mary promises us a God-man: the one we are expecting will appear.

The God of all grace, who chose Mary for her mother, presides over her birth: he overwhelms her with his blessings.

The Sun of Justice decorates with his gifts the house he wishes to inhabit, and from which he comes to make himself visible to men.

With what glory must shine this precious vessel, which God takes care to form for himself!

What prodigies are here confined! It is a little cloud which rises, but which will yield for us a fertile and abundant rain.

Holy and blessed daughter, filled with the graces of the Lord, pure and spotless virgin:

Pray for us unceasingly, O holy Virgin, and open to us by this means the entrance of heaven, where you dwell.

We have deserved thine anger, O Jesus; we sigh after our reconciliation: grant it at the prayers of thy Mother.

So that we may be a dwelling worthy of thee, O Lord, deign to purify our hearts from all sin. Amen. Alleluia. 

The Lord's Most Holy Crown of Thorns – III

Sure enough, the 1738 Paris Missal has a proper Mass for the Feast of the Reception of the Holy Crown of Thorns, but kept on the 11th of August.  As with most of the Neo-Gallican formularies of that Missal, the chants are selected entirely from Scripture (whereas the Dominican Mass thereof begins with the Introit Gaudeamus omnes).  Only the Gospel and the Collect of the two Masses are the same.

What particularly interested me were the Parisian Secret (which alludes to Ps 118:120a, Confige timore tuo carnes meas – "nail down my flesh with the fear of Thee") and Postcommunion (with its pleasing contrast of Christ's humiliation with His exaltation), which I now subjoin:

Deus, qui, ut peccatorum nostrorum spinas evelleres, Filii tui caput spinis transfigi voluisti: carnem nostram et corda nostra casto tuo timore confige; ut in mentibus nostris Spiritus tui gratia renovatis, et cupiditas extirpata deficiat, et caritas plantata proficiat; Per eumdem... in unitate ejusdem...

(God, Who, that Thou mightest pluck out the thorns of our sins, didst will the thorns to transfix the head of Thy Son: nail our flesh and heart with Thy chaste fear; that in our minds renewed by the grace of Thy Spirit, both extirpated cupidity may fail, and implanted charity make progress; Through the same... in the unity of the same...)

Deus, qui passionis Filii tui instrumenta fecisti ejus ornamenta triumphi; præsta per hæc mysteria, quæ sumpsimus, ut non erubescamus illius improperium portare, cujus ignominiæ insignia veneramur: Per eumdem...

(God, Who didst make the instruments of Thy Son's Passion the ornaments of His triumph: grant by these mysteries which we have received, that we may not blush to bear His shame, Whose insignia of ignominy we venerate.  Through the same...)

By contrast, the traditional Roman Missal, at least in older editions (such as the 1958 altar missal I have before me, whose flyleaf reveals it cost £13/6/-), provides a Mass of the Sacred Crown of Thorns to be said in some places (pro aliquibus locis) on the Friday after Ash Wednesday.  This Mass stands closer in its texts to the Dominican – it has the same Lesson and Gospel, and the same orations – but the Introit is the same as that in the Paris Missal (excepting the Psalm verse), and likewise they share the same first part of the Gradual.

The Roman and Dominican secret is as follows:

Tuorum militum, Rex omnipotens, virtutem robora: ut, quos in hujus mortalitatis stadio unigeniti Filii tui corona lætificat; consummato cursu certaminis, immortalitatis bravium apprehendant.  Per eumdem...

Strengthen, almighty King, Thy soldiers with power: that those in the stadium of this mortal life may rejoice in the Crown of Thine Onlybegotten Son; having finished the course of strife, may they lay hold of the prize of immortality.  Through the same...

This secret is an evident allusion to St Paul's words – the Apostle hoped to be crowned with glory by the Lord; but first the Lord Himself had worn the crown of suffering:

Nescitis quod ii qui in stadio currunt, omnes quidem currunt, sed unus accipit bravium? Sic currite ut comprehendatis.  Omnis autem qui in agone contendit, ab omnibus se abstinet, et illi quidem ut corruptibilem coronam accipiant: nos autem incorruptam.

Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain.  And every one that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one.

 — I Cor. ix, 24-25

Labora sicut bonus miles Christi Jesu.  Nemo militans Deo implicat se negotiis sæcularibus: ut ei placeat, cui se probavit.  Nam et qui certat in agone, non coronatur nisi legitime certaverit.

Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi.  In reliquo reposita est mihi corona justitiæ, quam reddet mihi Dominus in illa die, justus judex: non solum autem mihi, sed et iis, qui diligunt adventum ejus.

Labour as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses; that he may please him to whom he hath engaged himself.  For he also that striveth for the mastery, is not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love his coming.

— II Tim. ii, 3-5; iv, 7-8

Likewise, here is the postcommunion the Roman and Dominican formularies share:

Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus: ut hæc sacramenta quæ sumpsimus, per sacrosanctæ Filii tui coronæ, cujus solemnia recensemus, virtutem, nobis proficiant ad medelam.  Per eumdem...

(Bowing low we pray Thee, almighty God: that these sacraments which we have received, by the power of the holy and sacred Crown of Thy Son, whose solemnity we celebrate, may profit us as a healing remedy.  Through the same...)

It may seem strange that we beg God to grant that the Sacrament heal us "by the power of the... Crown [of thorns]", but of course it is by the most stupendous merit of the voluntary sacrifice of His Passion – one element of which was bearing the cruel imposition of a thorny crown – that we are saved and raised up, and to receive Christ's very Flesh and Blood is precisely to be brought into contact with His Sacred Humanity, the Instrument whereby our salvation was won on Calvary, and from which power goes forth to heal.  All the Sacraments have their power from the Passion: and to receive a Sacrament is to be touched by the living power of Christ, Priest and Victim, a grace won for us on Calvary's tree.

It is interesting that the same feast is provided with such differing texts.

A Latin Sequence for Nuptial Mass

Something amusing I've found, for Latinists to look at: a sequence for use at Nuptial Masses, according to the Neo-Gallican Paris Missal of 1738. The opening stanza (cf. Tobit viii, 5) would not be very acceptable in English these days!

[PROSA] DE SPONSALIBUS

Sub cantu Pentecostes [i.e. Veni Sancte Spiritus]

Instar infidelium

Deum nescientium

Nefas sanctos nubere.

Dæmoni subjaceat,

Brutus cujus audeat

Mens Deum excludere.

Huc ades, et fortibus

Hostem liga funibus,

Sacræ dux militiæ.

Deus, ipse venias;

Has ades ad nuptias,

Fons, o Christe, gratiæ.

Magnum o mysterium!

O Dei consortium

In Christo cum homine!

O sacra commercia

Christi cum Ecclesia,

Virginis cum virgine!

Vir uxorem diligat,

Sociam dux dirigat,

Christus ut Ecclesiam.

Christo crux, opprobria;

Puram ut Ecclesia

Consequatur gloriam.

Christum ut Ecclesia;

Docilis ad omnia,

Uxor virum timeat.

Metum amor pariat;

Læta mens obediat;

Cor apertum pateat.

Jam duo non eritis;

Unum corpus stabitis:

Sit et unus spiritus.

Purus omni macula,

Casta servet vincula

Thorus Deo cognitus.

Quidquid hic est carneum,

Et e terra terreum,

Tollet mors propinquior.

Sacramenti pietas,

Spiritus societas

Mortem vincet fortior.

Hic, si præsis, prospera;

Si recedis, aspera

Erunt, Deus, omnia.

Quod sacrat oblatio,

Firmet benedictio

Et mansura gratia. Amen.

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...)

Donation #25

I've been a blood donor on and off over the last seven years or so, and have in the last year switched from making whole blood donations (which can be done quarterly) to plasma (which can be done as often as every fortnight). That said, this evening's was my first donation since the 19th of December!

Anyhow, at the price of some discomfort from the needle (I have a very low pain threshold, how wimpy), tonight's was number twenty-five, and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service therefore gave me a nice new ballpoint pen, to match the keyring earnt by five or so bleedings.

Give blood today! (Surely it is one of the corporeal works of mercy...)

To refortify myself, upon returning home I had steak and ale (as Bad Queen Bess had for breakfast): a ⅓kg slab of meat with the juices still running red, and a Grimbergen... a man's meal, to put hairs on the chest (no wonder Eliz. I never married). While I did feel lightheaded after the beer, didn't the doctor used to recommend that expectant mothers drink stout for nourishment? That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Then I did the washing-up (when you share with two other blokes, it can really pile up), and have just had a cuppa.

Greatly to my delight, as I came in the kitchen door I espied a package for me on the table: the facsimile edition of the 1738 Missale Parisiense that I bought from Shawn Tribe of NLM fame has finally arrived - after 79 days in transit - from British North America. In the heyday of Empire, a gentleman of leisure could have circumnavigated the globe at the same speed, as Verne tells it, and as a brave Yankee lady journalist proved.

Oh well. At least, now I again have access to a copy, I can blog with reference to its very interesting contents, liturgical and euchological in particular.

St Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr

Truly he is worthy of his name, the Angel of the Church of Smyrna, Polycarp, for he bore much fruit by the grace of God our Saviour, and persevered unto death in bearing witness to him: thus he won the crown of life (cf. Apoc. ii, 8. 10). This great martyr of the early Church has long been one of my favourite saints.

Who could not be moved by the authentic record of his martyrdom, no less than by his own epistle to the Philippians, or indeed by the epistles sent to him and his church, among the famous collection of letters left us by St Ignatius of Antioch?

What, too, of those vignettes remarking his zeal for the truth and terror of heresy: his own account, given to and preserved by St Irenæus, of his master St John the Evangelist fleeing the bathhouse at Ephesus upon sighting a notorious Gnostic, “lest the walls collapse, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within”; and the story of Polycarp himself, while at Rome to consult with the Pope upon the date for Easter, as a faithful disciple of St John, the evangelist of the true Incarnation and Passion, and first enemy of the spirit of Antichrist, rebuking proud Marcion the heresiarch, upon running into him – for, being conjured by the same to “recognize” him, Polycarp responded by saying “I recognize... the firstborn of Satan!” These texts, these words, these deeds, Divine Providence has preserved for us as precious souvenirs of the saintly first Christians.

While in the old rite (a.k.a. the extraordinary form) he is feasted on the 26th of January, in the new rite (the aptly named ordinary form) he is celebrated today, on the 23rd of February – in agreement with the Byzantine calendar.

All was presaged beforehand by St John the Divine, in his Epistle to the Angel of the Church at Smyrna, preserved for us as chapter ii, verses 8-11, of the Apocalypse (Revelation), and appointed nowadays as the first reading at Mass according to the postconciliar books:

“And to the angel of the Church at Smyrna write: Thus says the First and the Last, who was dead and is alive:
“I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich; and that thou art slandered by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
“Fear none of those things that thou art about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will haave tribulation for ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.
“He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”

It is instructive to note that the Lord addresses the “angel” (the good bishop himself, surely) in the second person singular throughout, except for in the second sentence of verse 10, where reference is made to those members of the Smyrnæan Church who are later recorded as suffering for the Faith by the same Epistle (written by others of the same Church) that goes on to record at length the stirring martyrdom of St Polycarp.

The Roman Breviary and Missal give only a proper 3rd Lesson (not from his own writings, but merely a short biographical sketch, albeit by St Jerome) and Epistle (not the above passage, but I John iii, 11-16) respectively for him, taking the rest from the relevant common; the 1738 Paris Missal has the following proper orations:

Deus, cujus gratia beatum Polycarpum Pontificem tuum in sacerdotium elegit, doctrina ad prædicandum erudiit, potentia ad perseverandum confirmavit; da nobis ex ejus imitatione populum Christianum et instruere vivendi exemplo, et confirmare patiendo. Per…

(O God, Whose grace chose blessed Polycarp thy Pontiff for the priesthood, taught him doctrine for preaching, and strengthened him with power to persevere; give unto us from the imitation of him both to instruct the Christian people by the example of our living, and to strengthen them by our endurance. Through…)

Præsenti sacrificio, Domine, corda nostra purifica; et cum beato Polycarpo Martyre tuo atque Pontifice, tamquam pinguissimum nos holocaustum assume. Per…

(By this present sacrifice, Lord, purify our hearts; and, with blessed Polycarp thy Martyr and Pontiff, receive us as a most rich whole burnt offering. Through…*)

Pater Unigeniti et benedicti Filii tui Jesu Christi, da nos, quæsumus, in tribulatione patientes, partem capere cum beato Polycarpo in calice Christi tui, ad resurrectionem vitæ æternæ; ut te laudemus et glorificemus per sempiternum Pontificem Jesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat…

(Father of Thine Onlybegotten and blessed Son Jesus Christ, give us, we beseech Thee, in suffering tribulation, to take hold of a share with blessed Polycarp in the chalice of Thy Christ, for resurrection unto life eternal; that Thee we may laud and glorify through the everlasting Pontiff Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who with Thee liveth…*)

*Cf. St Polycarp’s own prayer at his martyrdom:

O Lord God Almighty, Father of thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received our knowledge concerning thee, the God of angels and powers, and of the whole creation, and of all the race of the just who lived before thee,
I thank thee that thou hast deemed me worthy of this day and hour, that I should have my portion in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of thy Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life, both of the soul and body, in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit. Among these may I be received before thee this day as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, even as thou hast prepared and made manifest beforehand, and hast fulfilled, thou who art the unerring and true God.
On this account, and concerning all things, I praise thee, I bless thee, I glorify thee, together with the eternal and heavenly Jesus Christ thy beloved Son, with whom to thee and the Holy Spirit be glory both now and for ever. Amen. (Martyrdom of St Polycarp, 14:1b-3)

The modern rite adapts this last prayer, and its source in the account of the death of St Polycarp, for the proper collect:

Deus universæ creaturæ, qui beatum Polycarpum episcopum in numero martyrum dignatus es aggregare, ejus nobis intercessione concede, ut, cum illo partem calicis Christi capientes, in vitam resurgamus æternam. Per.

(God of all creatures, Who didst deign to aggregate blessed bishop Polycarp to the number of the martyrs, grant unto us at his intercession, that, grasping with him a share of the chalice of Christ, we may rise again to life eternal. Through…)