The First Week after Pentecost
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
On the day of Pentecost the holy apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their divine Master,[1] they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations, and baptizing men in the name of the holy Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of one God in three Persons should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not until after many centuries that it was inserted in the cycle of the liturgical year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.
Every homage paid to God by the Church’s liturgy has the holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our redemption centre in It. The feasts of the blessed Virgin and the saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us, each week, a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all grace.
This explains to us how it is that the Church was so long in instituting a special feast in honour of the holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at a certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remembrance and the influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? From all eternity, before any created being existed, God liveth and reigneth, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honour of that mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by fixing some one day in the year, whereon the faithful would assemble for offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.
The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls, who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve, at a future period, in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one, no one will doubt that knows, from Alcuin’s writings, how full its author was of the spirit of sacred liturgy; but, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to private devotion, which no one ever thought would lead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however, became a great favourite, and was gradually circulated through the several Churches; for instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Counoil of Selingenstadt, held in 1022.
In the previous century, however, a feast properly so called of holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium—the very same that was to have the honour, later on, of procuring to the Church’s calendar one of the richest of its solemnities. Stephen, bishop of Liège, solemnly instituted the feast of holy Trinity for his Church, in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church’s law, which now reserves to the holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence; and Riquier, Stephen’s successor in the See of Liège, kept up what his predecessor had begun.
The feast was gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the abbot of Reichna, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated monastery, drawn up in 1091, in which we find mention of holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.
Under the pontificate of Alexander II, who reigned from 1061 to 1073, the Church of Rome, which has frequently sanctioned the usages of particular Churches by herself adopting them, was led to pass judgment upon this new institution. In one of his decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places; but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason: that the adorable Trinity is, every day of the year, unceasingly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui sancto; as likewise by several formulas expressive of praise.[2]
Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground, as we gather from the Micrologus; and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a doctor in liturgical science, explaining the appropriateness of that feast’s institution in these words: ‘Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at once, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the holy Trinity; and rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of the same holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, immediately began to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism.’[3]
In our own country, it was the glorious martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, that established the feast of holy Trinity. He introduced it into his archdiocese, in the year 1162, in memory of his having been consecrated bishop on the first Sunday after Pentecost. As regards France, we find a Council of Arles, held in 1260 under the presidency of archbishop Florentinus, solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of holy Trinity to be observed with an octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its houses, as far back as the year 1230. Duraudus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that, during the thirteenth century, the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last, Sunday after Pentecost; others kept it twice: once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost solemnity, and a second time on the Sunday immediately preceding Advent.
It was evident, from all this, that the apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice, whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII, who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as the year 1334, completed the work by a decree, wherein the Church of Rome accepted the feast of holy Trinity, and extended its observance to all Churches.
As to the motive which induced the Church, led as she is in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering of a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our petitions, are ever being presented to It: such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced, at that period, into the liturgical calendar. Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of saints marked on the general calendar, and universally kept, were very few. From that time, they began to be more numerous; and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come, when the Sunday’s Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this celebration of the memory of God’s servants on the very day which was sacred to the holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.
The very essence of the Christian faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of one God in three Persons. This is the mystery whence all others flow. Our faith centres in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite object whose vision is to form our eternal happiness; and yet, we know it only because it has pleased God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence, which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabiteth light inaccessible.[4] Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings; it may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works; but the knowledge of God’s intimate Being can come to us only by means of His own gracious revelation.
It was God’s good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends to give us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness unto brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the eternal Word, God seemed intent on inculcating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind; and every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced from the earth, had not the infinite goodness of God watched over its preservation.
Not that the old Testament Books were altogether silent on the three divine Persons, whose ineffable relations are eternal; only, the mysterious passages, which spoke of them, were not understood by the people at large; whereas, in the Christian Church, a child of seven will answer those who ask him, that, in God, the three divine Persons have but one and the same Nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural, and said: ‘Let Us make man to Our image and likeness,’[5] the Jew bows down and believes, but he understands not the sacred text; the Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees, under this expression, the three Persons acting together in the formation of man; the light of faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is a likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, understanding, and will, are three faculties within him, and yet he himself is but one being.
In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, Solomon speaks, in sublime language, of Him who is eternal Wisdom; he tells us—and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us—of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being a distinct Person in the Godhead; but how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil! Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim, as they stood around God’s throne; he heard them singing in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: 'Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord!’[6] But who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals give praise to our Creator? So, again, in the Psalms, and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us; a brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us; but it passes away, and obscurity returns seemingly all the more palpable; we have but the sentiment of the divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the sovereign Being.
The world had to wait for the fullness of time to be completed; and then, God would send into this world His only Son, begotten of Him from all eternity. This His most merciful purpose has been carried out, and the Word made Flesh hath dwelt among us.[7] By seeing His glory, the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father,[8] we have come to know that, in God, there is Father and Son. The Son’s mission to our earth, by the very revelation it gave us of Himself, taught us that God is eternally Father, for whatsoever is in God is eternal. But for this merciful revelation, which is an anticipation of the light awaiting us in the next life, our knowledge of God would have been too imperfect. It was fitting that there should be some proportion between the light of faith, and that of the vision reserved for the future; it was not enough for man to know that God is One.
So that, we now know the Father, from whom comes, as the apostle tells us, all paternity, even on earth.[9] We know Him not only as the creative power, which has produced every being outside Himself; but, guided as it is by faith, our soul’s eye respectfully penetrates into the very essence of the Godhead, and there beholds the Father begetting a Son like unto Himself. But, in order to teach us the mystery, that Son came down upon our earth. He Himself has told us expressly that no one knoweth the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him.[10] Glory, then, be to the Son, who has vouchsafed to show us the Father! and glory to the Father, whom the Son hath revealed unto us!
The intimate knowledge of God has come to us by the Son, whom the Father, in His love, has given to us.[11] And this Son of God, who, in order to raise up our minds even to His own divine Nature, has clad Himself, by His Incarnation, with our human nature, has taught us that He and His Father are one;[12] that They are one and the same Essence, in distinction of Persons. One begets, the Other is begotten; the One is named Power; the Other, Wisdom, or Intelligence. The Power cannot be without the Intelligence, nor the Intelligence without the Power, in the sovereignly perfect Being: but, both the One and the Other produce a third Term.
The Son, who had been sent by the Father, had ascended into heaven, with the human Nature which He had united to Himself for all future eternity; and lo! the Father and the Son send into this world the Spirit who proceeds from Them both. It was a new Gift, and it taught man that the Lord God was in three Persons. The Spirit, the eternal link of the first two, is Will, He is Love, in the divine Essence. In God, then, is the fullness of Being, without beginning, without succession, without increase; for there is nothing which He has not. In these three eternal Terms of His uncreated Substance, is the Act, pure and infinite.
The sacred liturgy, whose object is the glorification of God and the commemoration of His works, follows, each year, the sublime phases of these manifestations, whereby the sovereign Lord has made known His whole self to mortals. Under the sombre colours of Advent, we commemorated the period of expectation, during which the radiant Trinity sent forth but few of Its rays to mankind. The world, during those four thousand years, was praying heaven for a Liberator, a Messiah; and God’s own Son was to be this Liberator, this Messiah. That we might have the full knowledge of the prophecies which foretold Him, it was necessary that He Himself should actually come: a Child was born unto us,[13] and then we had the key to the Scriptures. When we adored that Son, we adored also the Father, who sent Him to us in the Flesh, and with whom He is consubstantial. This Word of life, whom we have seen, whom we have heard, whom our hands have handled[14] in the Humanity which He deigned to assume, has proved Himself to be truly a Person, a Person distinct from the Father, for One sends, and the Other is sent. In this second divine Person, we have found our Mediator, who has reunited the creation to its Creator; we have found the Redeemer of our sins, the Light of our souls, the Spouse we had so long desired.
Having passed through the mysteries which He Himself wrought, we next celebrated the descent of the holy Spirit, who had been announced as coming to perfect the work of the Son of God. We adored Him, and acknowledged Him to be distinct from the Father and the Son, who had sent Him to us with the mission of abiding with us.[15] He manifested Himself by divine operations which are peculiarly His own, and were the object of His coming. He is the soul of the Church; He keeps her in the truth taught her by the Son. He is the source, the principle of the sanctification of our souls; and in them He wishes to make His dwelling. In a word, the mystery of the Trinity has become to us, not only a dogma made known to our mind by revelation, but, moreover, a practical truth given to us by the unheard-of munificence of the three divine Persons: the Father, who has adopted us; the Son, whose brethren and joint-heirs we are; and the Holy Ghost, who governs us, and dwells within us.
Let us, then, begin this day, by giving glory to the one God in three Persons. For this end, we will unite with holy Church, who in her Office of Prime recites on this solemnity, as also on every Sunday not taken up by a feast, the magnificent Symbol known as the Athanasian Creed. It gives us, in a summary of much majesty and precision, the doctrine of the holy Doctor St. Athanasius, regarding the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.[16]
The Athanasian Creed
Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est ut teneat Catholicam fidem.
Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in æternum peribit.
Fides autem catholica hæc est, ut unum Deum in Trinitate, et Trinitatem in Unitate veneremur:
Neque confundentes Personas, neque substantiam separantes.
Alia est enim Persona Patris, alia Filii, alia Spiritus sancti.
Sed Patrie, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti una est divinitas, æqualis gloria, coæterna majestas.
Qualis Pater, talis Filius, talis Spiritus sanctus.
Increatus Pater, increatus Filius, increatus Spiritus sanctus.
Immensus Pater, immensus Filius, immensus Spiritus sanctus.
Æternus Pater, æternus Filius, æternus Spiritus sanctus.
Et tamen non tres æterni, sed unus æternus.
Sicut non tres increati, nec tres immensi, sed unus increatus et unus immensus.
Similiter omnipotens Pater, omnipotens Filius, omnipotens Spiritus sanctus.
Et tamen non tres omnipotentes, sed unus omnipotens.
Ita Deus Pater, Deus Filius, Deus Spiritus sanctus.
Et tamen non tres Dii, sed us est Deus.
Ita Dominus Pater, Dominus Filius, Dominus Spiritus sanctus.
Et tamen non tres Domini, sed unus est Dominus.
Quia sicut singillatim unamquamque Personam Deum ac Dominum confiteri Christiana veritate compellimur: ita tres Deos aut Dominos dicere Catholica religione prohibemur.
Pater a nullo est factus, nec creatus, nec genitus.
Filius a Patre solo est: non factus, nec creatus, sed genitus.
Spiritus sanctus a Patre et Filio, non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens.
Unus ergo Pater, non tres Patres; unus Filius, non tres Filii; unus Spiritus sanctus, non tres Spiritus sancti.
Et in hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil majus aut minus: sed totæ tres Personæ coæternæ sibi sunt, et coæquales.
Ita ut per omnia, sicut jam supra dictum est, et Unitas in Trinitate, et Trinitas in Unitate veneranda sit.
Qui vult ergo salvus esse: ita de Trinitate sentiat.
Sed necessarium est ad æternam salutem; ut incarnationem quoque Domini nostri Jesu Christi fideliter credat.
Est ergo fides recta, ut credamus et confiteamur: quia Dominus noster Jesus Christus Dei Filius, Deus et homo est.
Deus est ex substantia Patris ante sæcula genitus: et homo est ex substantia matris in sæculo natus.
Perfectus Deus, perfectus homo: ex anima rationali, et humana carne subsistens.
Æqualis Patri secundum divinitatem: minor Patre secundum humanitatem.
Qui licet Deus sit, et homo: non duo tamen, sed unus est Christus.
Unus autem non conversion divinitatis in carnem, sed assumptione humanitatis in Deum.
Unus omnino non confusione substantiæ, sed unitate personæ.
Nam sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo, ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.
Qui passus est pro salute nostra, descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.
Ascend it ad cœlos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis: inde venturas est judicare vivos et mortuos.
Ad cujus adventum omnes homines resurgere habent cum corporibus suis, et reddituri sunt de factis propriis rationem.
Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vitam æternam; qui vero mala, in ignem æternum.
Hæc est fides catholica: quam nisi quisque fideliter, firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit.
Whosoever would be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.
Which faith, except every one doth keep entire, and unviolated, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
Now the Catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance.
For one is the Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one; the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Ghost is uncreated.
The Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost is incomprehensible.
The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Ghost is eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.
As also they are not three uncreateds, nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.
In like manner the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty the Holy Ghost is almighty.
And yet they are not three almighties but one almighty.
So, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
So, the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord.
And yet they are not three Lords, but one Lord.
For, as we are compelled, by the Christian truth, to acknowledge each Person, by himself, to be God and Lord; so are we forbidden, by the Catholic religion, to Say there are three Gods, or three Lords.
The Father is made of no one, neither created nor begotten.
The Son is from the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son; not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
There is, then, one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
And in this Trinity, there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less; but the whole three Persons are coeternal to one another, and coequal.
So that, in all things, as hath been already said above, the Unity is to be worshipped in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity.
He, therefore, that would be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the right faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and Man.
He is God, of the substance of his Father, begotten before the world; and he is Man, of the substance of his Mother, born in the world.
Perfect God, perfect Man: subsisting of a rational soul, and human flesh.
Equal to the Father according to his Godhead: less than the Father, according to his Manhood.
Who although he be both God and Man, yet he is not two, but one, Christ.
One, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of the Manhood unto God.
One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
For, as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.
Who suffered for our salvation; descended into hell; rose again, the third day, from the dead.
He ascended into heaven; he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
At whose coming, all men shall rise again with their bodies; and shall give an account of their own works.
And they that have done good, shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholic faith; which except every man believe faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved.
MASS
Although the Sacrifice of the Mass is always celebrated in honour of the blessed Trinity, yet, for this day, the Church, in her chants, prayers, and lessons, honours, in a more express manner, the great mystery, which is the foundation of our Christian faith. A commemoration is, however, made of the first Sunday after Pentecost, in order not to interrupt the arrangement of the liturgy. The colour used by the Church on this feast of Trinity is white, as a sign of joy, as also to express the simplicity and purity of the divine Essence.
The Introit is not taken from holy Scripture. It is a formula of glorification in keeping with the feast, and speaks of the blessed Trinity as the divine source of the mercies bestowed on mankind.
Introit
Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas, atque indivisa Unitas: confitebimur ei, quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.
Ps. Domine Dominus noster, quam admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra! ℣. Gloria Patri. Benedicta sit.
Blessed be the holy Trinity, and undivided Unity; we will praise it because it hath shown its mercy unto us.
Ps. O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is thy name in the whole earth, ℣. Glory, &c. Blessed.
In the Collect, the Church asks for us firmness in the faith, whereby we confess Unity and Trinity in God. Faith is the first condition required for salvation; it is the first link of our union with God. It is with this faith that we shall conquer our enemies, and overcome all obstacles.
Collect
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione veræ fidei, æternæ Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia majestatis adorare Unitatem, quæsumus, ut ejusdem fidei firmitate, ab omnibussemper muniamur ad versis. Per Dominum.
O almighty and everlasting God, who hast granted thy servants, in the confession of the true faith, to acknowledge the glory of an eternal Trinity, and, in the power of majesty, to adore an Unity: we beseech thee that, by the strength of this faith, we may be defended from all adversity. Through, &c.
Commemoration of the First Sunday after Pentecost
Deus in te sperantium fortitudo, adesto propitius invocationibus nostris: et quia sine te nihil potest mortalis infirmitas, præsta auxilium gratiæ tuæ, ut in exsequendis mandatis tuis, et voluntate tibi et actione placeamus. Per Dominum.
O God, the strength of such as hope in thee: mercifully hear us calling on thee: and since mortal weakness can do nothing without thee, grant us the assistance of thy grace; that, in observing thy commandments, we may please thee, both in will and action. Through, &c.
Epistle
Lectio Epistolæ beati Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos.
Cap. xi.
O altitudo divitiarum sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei: quam incomprehensibilia sunt judicia ejus, et investigabiles viæ ejus! Quis enim cognovit sensum Domini? aut quis consiliarius ejus fuit? aut quis prior dødit illi, et retribuetur ei? Quoniam ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia: ipsi honor et gloria in sæcula. Amen.
Lesson of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans.
Ch. xi.
O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen.
We cannot fix our thoughts upon the divine judgments and ways, without feeling a sort of bewilderment. The eternal and the infinite dazzle our weak reason; and yet this same reason of ours acknowledges and confesses them. Now, if even the ways of God with His creatures surpass our understanding, how can we pretend to discover, of ourselves, the inmost nature of this sovereign Being? And yet, in this uncreated Essence, we do distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost from each other, and we glorify them. This comes from the Father’s having revealed Himself, by sending us His Son, the object of His eternal delight; it comes from the Son’s showing us His own Personality, by taking our Flesh, which the Father and the Holy Ghost did not; it comes from the Holy Ghost’s being sent by the Father and the Son, and fulfilling the mission He received from Them. Our mortal eye respectfully gazes upon these divine depths of truth, and our heart is touched at the thought, that it is through God’s benefits to us that He has given us to know Him, and that our knowledge of what He is came through what He gave us. Let us lovingly prize this faith, and confidently wait for that happy moment, when it will make way for the eternal vision of that which we have believed here below.
The Gradual and Alleluia-verse are full of joy and admiration, at the presence of that sovereign Majesty, who has vouchsafed to send forth His rays into the darkness of our minds.
Gradual
Benedictus es, Domine, qui intueris abyssos, et sedes super Cherubim.
℣. Benedictus es, Domine, in firmamento cœli, et laudabilis in sæcula. Alleluia, alleluia.
℣. Benedictus es, Domine, Deus patrum nostrorum, et laudabilis in sæcula. Alleluia.
Blessed art thou, O Lord, who beholdest the deep, and sittest on the Cherubim.
℣. Blessed art thou, O Lord, in the firmament of heaven, and worthy of praise for ever. Alleluia, alleluia.
℣. Blessed art thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and worthy of praise for ever. Alleluia.
Gospel
Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Matthæum.
Cap. xxviii.
In illo tempore: Dixit Jesus discipulis suis: Data est mihi omnis potestas in cœlo et in terra. Euntes ergo docete omnes gentes: baptizantes eos in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti: docentes eos servare omnia quæcumque mandavi vobis. Et ecce ego vobiscum sum omnibus diebus, usque ad consummationem sæculi.
Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Matthew.
Ch. xxviii.
At that time: Jesus said to his disciples: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold! I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
The mystery of the blessed Trinity, which was taught us by the mission of the Son of God into this world, and by the promise of the speedy sending of the holy Spirit, is announced to men by these solemn words, uttered by Jesus just before His ascension into heaven. He had said: ‘He that shall believe, and shall be baptized, shall be saved’;[17] but He adds, that Baptism is to be given in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Henceforward man must not only confess the unity of God, by abjuring a plurality of gods, but he must, also, adore a Trinity of Persons in unity of Essence. The great secret of heaven is now published through the whole world.
But, whilst humbly confessing the God whom we have been taught to know as He is in Himself, we must, likewise, pay a tribute of eternal gratitude to the ever glorious Trinity. Not only has It vouchsafed to impress Its divine image on our soul, by making her to Its own likeness; but, in the supernatural order, It has taken possession of our being, and raised it to an incalculable pitch of greatness. The Father has adopted us in His Son become Incarnate; the Word illumines our minds with His light; the Holy Ghost has chosen us for His dwelling: and this it is that is expressed by the form of holy Baptism. By those words pronounced over us, together with the pouring out of the water, the whole Trinity took possession of Its creature. We call this sublime marvel to mind as often as we invoke the three divine Persons, making upon ourselves, at the same time, the sign of the cross. When our mortal remains are carried into the house of God, there to receive the last blessings and farewell of the Church on earth, the priest will beseech the Lord ‘not to enter into judgment with His servant’; and in order to draw down the divine mercy upon this Christian, who has gone to his eternity, he will say to the sovereign Judge that this member of the human family ‘was marked, whilst in this life, with the sign of the holy Trinity.’ Let us respect this divine impress which we bear upon us: it is to be eternal; hell itself will not be able to blot it out. Let it, then, be our hope, our dearest title; and let us live for the glory of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen!
In the Offertory the Church begins the immediate preparation for the Sacrifice, by invoking on the oblation the name of the three Persons, and again proclaiming the mercy of God.
Offertory
Benedictus sit Deus Pater, unigenitusque Dei Filius, sanctus quoque Spiritus: quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.
Blessed be God the Father, and the only-begotten Son of God, likewise the Holy Ghost: for he hath shown his mercy unto us.
In the Secret, holy Church asks that the homage we are making, in this Sacrifice, of ourselves to the sacred Trinity, may be presented to It not to-day only, but may become eternal by our being admitted into heaven, where we shall contemplate, and without a veil, the glorious mystery of God, One in Three Persons.
Secret
Sanctifica, quæsumus Domine Deus noster, per tui sancti nominis invocationem, hujus oblationis hostiam: et per eam nosmetipsos tibi perfice munus æternum. Per Dominum.
Sanctify, we beseech thee, O Lord, our God, by the invocation of thy holy name, the victim of this oblation: and, by it, make us an eternal offering to thee. Through, &c.
Commemoration of the First Sunday after Pentecost
Hostias nostras, quæsumus Domine, tibi dicatas placatus assume: et ad perpetuum nobis tribue provenire subsidium. Per Dominum.
Mercifully receive, we beseech thee, O Lord, the sacrifice we offer thee: and grant that it may be a continual help to us. Through, &c.
Then follows the Preface; it is proper for this feast, and for all Sundays, throughout the year, which have no other assigned to them.
Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus. Qui cum unigenito Filio tuo et Spiritu sancto unus es Deus, unus es Dominus: non in unius singularitate Personæ, sed in unius Trinitate substantiæ. Quod enim de tua gloria, revelante te, credimus, hoc de Filio tuo, hoc de Spiritu sancto, sine differentia discretionis sentimus. Ut in confessione veræ sempiternæque Deitatis, et in Personis proprietas, et in Essentia unitas, et in Majestateadoretur æqualitas. Quam laudant Angeli, atque Archangeli, Cherubim quoque ac Seraphim; qui non cessant clamare quotidie, una voce dicentes, Sanctus, &c.
It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always, and in all places, give thanks to thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God. Who together with thy only-begotten Son, and the Holy Ghost, art one God, and one Lord: not in the singularity of one Person, but in the Trinity of one substance. For what we believe of thy glory, as thou hast revealed, the same we believe of thy Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or distinction. So that in the confession of the true and eternal Deity, we adore a distinction in the Persons, an unity in the Essence, and an equality in the Majesty. Whom the Angels and Archangels, the Cherubim also and Seraphim praise, and cease not daily to cry out with one voice, saying, Holy, &c.
In the Communion-anthem, the Church continues her praise of the mercy of the great God, who has made use of His own blessings upon us, in order to enlighten and instruct us regarding His incomprehensible Nature.
Communion
Benedicimus Deum cœli, et coram omnibus viventibus confitebimur ei: quia fecit nobiscum misericordiam suam.
We bless the God of heaven, and we will praise him in the sight of all the living, because he hath shown us his mercy.
Two things are needed for our reaching God: the light of faith, which gives our understanding to know Him; and the divine Food, which unites us to Him. In the Postcommunion, holy Church prays that we may have both; and be thus brought to that union, which is the happy end of our creation.
Postcommunion
Proficiat nobis ad salutem corporis et animæ, Domine, Deus noster, hujus Sacramenti susceptio: et sempiternæ sanctæ Trinitatis, ejusdemque individuæ Unitatis confessio. Per Dominum.
May the receiving of this Sacrament, O Lord our God, avail us to the salvation of body and soul: together with the confession of an everlasting holy Trinity, and of the undivided Unity thereof. Through, &c.
Commemoration of the First Sunday after Pentecost
Tantis, Domine, repleti muneribus, præsta, quæsumus: ut et salutaria dona capiamus, et a tua numquam laude cessemus. Per Dominum.
Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord, that the great sacrifice, we have partaken of, may avail us unto salvation, and make us never cease praising thee. Through, &c.
The last Gospel is that of the first Sunday after Pentecost; it is read by the priest instead of that of St. John.
Gospel
Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam.
Cap. vi.
In illo tempore: Dixit Jesus discipulis suis: Estote misericordes sicut et Pater vester misericors est. Nolite judicare, et non judicabimini: nolite condemn are, et non condemnabimini. Dimittite et dimittemini. Date et dabitur vobis: mensuram bonam, et confertam, et coagitatam, et supereffluentem dabunt in sinum vestrum. Eadem quippe mensura qua mensi fueritis, remetietur vobis. Dicebat autem illis et similitudinem: Numquid potest cæcus caecum ducere? nonne ambo in foveam cadunt? Non est discipulus super magistrum: perfectus autem omnis erit, si sit sicut magister ejus. Quid autem vides festucam in oculo fratris tui, trabem autem, quæ in oculo tuo est, non consideras? Aut quomodo potes dicere fratri tuo: Frater, sine, ejiciam festucam de oculo tuo: ipse in oculo tuo trabem non videns? Hypocrita, ejice primum trabem de oculo tuo: et tunc perspicies ut educas festucam de oculo fratris tui.
℟. Deo gratias.
Sequel of the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Ch. vi.
At that time: Jesus said to his disciples: Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again. And he spoke also to them a similitude: Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye; but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypocrite, cast first the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother’s eye.
℟. Thanks be to God.
VESPERS
Ant. Gloria tibi, Trinitas æqualis, una Deitas, et ante omnia sæcula, et nunc et in perpetuum.
Ant. Glory be to thee, O equal Trinity, one Deity, both before all ages, and now, and for ever.
Ps. Dixit Dominus, page 72.
Ant. Laus et perennis gloria Deo Patri, et Filio, sancto simul Paraclito, in sæculorum sæcula.
Ant. Praise and perpetual glory be to God, Father and Son, together with the holy Paraclete, for ever and ever.
Ps. Confitebor tibi, page 73.
Ant. Gloria laudis resonet in ore omnium Patri, genitæque Proli; Spiritui sancto pariter resultet laude perenni.
Ant. Let the glory of praise sound in every mouth to the Father, and to the Son begotten of him; to the Holy Ghost, also, let perpetual praise be given.
Ps. Beatus vir, page 74.
Ant. Laus Deo Patri, parilique Proli, et tibi sancte studio perenni Spiritus, nostro resonet ab ore omne per ævum.
Ant. Let praise be given to God the Father, and to his equal Son; and may our lips celebrate thee unceasingly, O holy Spirit, for all ages.
Ps. Laudate pueri, page 75.
Ant. Ex quo omnia, per quem omnia, in quo omnia: ipsi gloria in sæcula.
Ant. From whom are all things, by whom all things, in whom all things—to him be glory for ever.
Ps. In exitu Israel, page 76.
Capitulum
(Rom. xi.)
O altitudo divitiarum sapientiæ et scientiæ Dei: quam incomprehensibilia sunt judicia ejus, et investigabiles viæ ejus!
O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God; how incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways!
Hymn*
Jam sol recedit igneus,
Tu lux perennis Unitas,
Nostris, beata Trinitas,
Infunde amorem cordibus.
Te mane laudum carmine,
Te deprecamur vespere;
Digneris ut te supplices
Laudemus inter cœlites.
Patri simulque Filio,
Tibique sancte Spiritus,
Sicut fuit, sit jugiter
Sæclum per omne gloria.
Amen.
℣. Benedictus es, Domine, in firmamento cœli.
℟. Et laudabilis et gloriosus in sæcula.
Now is the burning sun retreating;
do thou, O everlasting Unity,
O blessed Trinity, our Light,
pour forth love into our hearts.
It is to thee we pray, at morn and eve,
in our songs of praise: grant us, thy suppliants,
that we may praise thee
in the company of the citizens of heaven.
To thee, O God, Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost!
may glory be, as it hath ever been,
for ever and for endless ages.
Amen.
℣. Blessed art thou, O Lord, in the firmament of heaven;
℟. And worthy of praise, and glorious for ever.
Antiphon of the Magnificat
Te Deum Patrem ingenitum, te Filium unigenitum, te Spiritum sanctum Paraclitum, sanctam et individuam Trinitatem, toto corde et ore confitemur, laudamus, atque benedicimus: tibi gloria in sæcula.
Oremus.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui dedisti famulis tuis in confessione veræ fidei æternæ Trinitatis gloriam agnoscere, et in potentia majestatis adorare Unitatem; quæsumus ut ejusdem fidei firmitate, ab omnibus semper muniamur adversis. Per Dominum.
Thee God the Father unbegotten, thee the only-begotten Son, thee the Holy Ghost the Comforter, holy and undivided Trinity, with all our heart and mouth, we confess, praise, and bless: to thee be glory for ever.
Let us Pray.
O almighty and everlasting God, who hast granted thy servants, in the confession of the true faith, to acknowledge the glory of an eternal Trinity, and, in the power of majesty, to adore an Unity: we beseech thee that, by the strength of this faith, we may be defended from all adversity. Through, &c.
Commemoration of the Sunday
Ant. Nolite judicare, ut non judicemini: in quo enim judicio judicaveritis judicabimini, dicit Dominus.
℣. Dirigatur, Domine, oratio mea,
℟. Sicut incensum in conspectu tuo.
Oremus.
Deus in te sperantium fortitudo, adesto propitius invocationibus nostris: et quia sine te nihil potest mortalis infirmitas, præsta auxilium gratiæ tuæ, ut in exsequendis mandatis tuis, et voluntate tibi et actione placeamus. Per Dominum.
Ant. Judge not, that ye be not judged: for, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, saith the Lord.
℣. Let my prayer, O Lord, be directed,
℟. As incense in thy sight.
Let us Pray.
O God, the strength of such as hope in thee: mercifully hear us calling on thee: and, since mortal weakness can do nothing without thee, grant us the assistance of thy grace; that, in observing thy commandments, we may please thee both in will and action. Through. &c.
The middle ages have left us several sequences for the feast of the blessed Trinity. They are much overladen with metaphyeioal terms, and, for the most part, have but little melody or poetry in them. They give us the language of the Schools, with so much roughness, that they would scarcely find any readers now-a-days to relish them. There is one, however—the one composed by Adam of Saint Victor—which we here insert, as it maintains, even in its scholastic phraseology, all the majesty and melody which characterize the compositions of that great poet.
Sequence
Profitentes Unitatem
Veneremur Trinitatem pari reverentia,
Tres personas asserentes
Personali differentes a se differentia.
Hæc dicuntur relative,
Quum sint unum substantive, non tria principia.
Sive dicas tres vel tria,
Simplex tamen est usia, non triplex essentia.
Simplex esse, simplex posse,
Simplex velle, simplex nosse, cuncta Simplicia.
Non unius quam duarum
Sive trium personarum minor efficacia.
Pater, Proles, sacrum Flamen,
Deus unus: sed hi tamen habent quædam propria.
Una virtus, unum numen,
Unus splendor, unum lumen, hoc una quod alia.
Patri Proles est æqualis,
Nec hoc tollit personalia amborum distinctio.
Patri compar Filioque,
Spiritalis ab utroque procedit connexio.
Non humana ratione
Capi possunt hæ personæ, nec harum diecretio.
Non hic ordo temporalis,
Non hic situs, aut localis rerum circumscriptio.
Nil in Deo præter Deum,
Nulla causa præter eum qui creat causalia.
Effectiva vel formalis
Causa Deus, et finalis, sed nunquam materia.
Digne loqui de personis
Vim transcendit rationis excedit ingenia.
Quid sit gigni, quid processus,
Me nescire sum professus: sed fide non dubia.
Qui sic credit, ne festinet,
Et a via non declinet insolerter regia.
Servet fidem, formet mores,
Nec attendat ad errores quos damnat Ecclesia.
Nos in fide gloriemur,
Nos in una modulemur, fidei constantia:
Trinæ sit laus Unitati,
Sit et simplæ Trinitati coæterna gloria!
Amen.
Confessing the divine Unity,
we venerate the Trinity with one and the same worship;
we acknowledge three Persons,
differing from each other by a personal difference.
They have their names from their relations,
for they are substantially one, and not three principles.
When speaking of them as Three,
thou must remember, that their Nature is one, and that their Essence is not threefold.
Their being, and power,
and will, and knowledge, all are simple:
the power of one is not less
than that of two, or of three, Persons.
Father, Son, holy Spirit, one God,
and yet have they certain things proper.
One power, one deity,
one splendour, one light: what one hath, another hath.
The Son is equal to the Father;
neither is that equality destroyed by the personal distinction existing between them.
Equal to the Father and the Son
is the spiritual Bond, who proceedeth from both.
Man’s reason cannot
comprehend these three Persons, nor their distinction.
In this mystery, there is no order of time,
no position of place, no boundaries of space.
There is nought in God but God;
and, besides him, there is no cause that causeth things produced.
God is cause, efficient, and formal,
and final; but never cause material.
It is beyond the power of reason
or genius to speak worthily of the three Persons.
I confess that I know not what divine Generation and Procession are;
and yet do I believe them with undoubting faith.
Let him who thus believes, have patience;
and not imprudently stray from the royal path.
Let him keep his faith, correct his manners,
and go not over to those errors which the Church condemns.
Let us glory in our faith;
let us sing our hymns, in the constancy of one same faith;
be praise to the trinal Unity,
and coeternal glory to the simple Trinity!
Amen.
O indivisible Unity! O Trinity distinct in one only Nature! Infinite God, who hast revealed Thy·self unto men! graciously bear with us, while we dare to make our adorations before Thee, and pour forth our heart’s thanksgiving, feeling ourselves overwhelmed by the brightness of Thy majesty. O Unity divine! O divine Trinity! we have not, as yet, seen Thee; but we know that Thou art, for Thou hast vouchsafed to reveal Thyself unto us. This earth, whereon we are living, has the mystery distinctly proclaimed to it, every day of its existence: that same august mystery, whose vision is the source of the happiness enjoyed by the blessed, who are glorified, and are united with Thee in closest union. The human race had to wait long ages, before the divine formula was fully revealed; happy we, who live in its full possession, and can, and do, delightedly proclaim Unity and Trinity in Thine infinite Essence! There was a time, when an inspired writer spoke an allusion to this grandest of truths; but his words flashed across the minds of his hearers, as lightning traverses a cloud, and then leaves it darker than before. ‘I have not learned Wisdom,’ said he, 'and have not known the science of saints. Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who hath held the wind (the storm) in his hands? Who hath bound up the waters together, as in a garment? Who hath raised up all the borders of the earth? What is his name? and what is the name of his Son, if thou knowest?’[18]
Thanks to Thine unbounded mercy, O Lord God! we now know Thy name. Thou art called the Father; and He whom Thou begettest from all eternity is named the Word and Wisdom. We know, too, that from the Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit of love. The Son, clad in our flesh, has dwelt on this earth, and lived amongst men; then came down the Spirit, and He abides for ever with us, till the destinies of the human race are accomplished here below. Therefore do we dare to confess the Unity and the Trinity; for we have heard the divine testimony, and have believed; and, having believed, we have spoken, with all certainty.[19]Accept, then, this our confession, O Lord, as Thou didst that of Thy brave virgin and martyr, Cecilia, who, when the executioner had thrice struck her neck with the sword, and her noble blood flowed in streams from her wound, expressed her faith, as she breathed forth her soul, and confessed, by the position of her hands, the Unity of Thy Nature and the Trinity of Thy Persons.
The hymn of Thy Seraphim has been heard here on earth: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts!’[20] We are but mortals; we are not prophets, as was Isaias; and yet we have a happiness which he had not: we can repeat the song of those blessed spirits, with fulness of knowledge, and can say unto Thee: ‘Holy is the Father, holy is the Son, holy is the Spirit!' Those same Seraphim flew with two of their wings; with two they hid their face; and with two they covered their feet. So it is with us: strengthened, as we are, by the divine Spirit who has been given to us, we strive to lighten the heavy weight of our frail mortality, and raise it aloft on the wings of desire; we hide our sins by repentance; and veiling the weakness of our intellectual vision beneath the cloud of faith, we receive the light which is infused into our souls. Docile to the revealed word, we submit to its teachings; and it imparts to us not merely a distinct, but even an enlightened, knowledge of that mystery, which is the source and centre of all others. The angels and saints in heaven contemplate it with that inexpressible reserve, which the prophet describes by saying that they hide their face with their wings. We poor mortals have not, and cannot have, the sight of the great truth; but we have the knowledge of it; and this knowledge enlightens our path, and keeps us firm in the truth. We have a dread of presuming to be searchers of Thy majesty, lest we should he overwhelmed by glory[21]; but, humbly treasuring up what heaven has vouchsafed to reveal to us of its secrets, we dare thus to address Thee:
Glory be to Thee, O divine Essence, that art but one! Thou art pure Act; Thou art Being, necessary, infinite, undivided, independent, perfect from all eternity, peaceful, and sovereignly happy. In Thee we acknowledge, together with the inviolable Unity, which is the source of all Thy perfections, three Persons distinctly subsistent; but, in Their production and distinction, the one same Nature is common to all; so that the personal subsistence which constitutes Them, and distinguishes Them one from the other, causes no inequality between Them. O infinite blessedness in this life of the three Persons! They contemplate in Themselves the ineffable perfections of the Essence which unites Them together, and the attribute of each of the three, which divinely animates the Nature that nought can limit or disturb I O wonder of that infinite Essence, when it deigns to aot outside itself, by creating beings in its power and its goodness! The three Persons work then together; so that the one which acts in a way which is His special attribute does so in virtue of a will common to all. May a special love be given to that divine Person who, in the act which is common to the three, deigns to reveal Himself thus markedly to us creatures; and, at the same time, may thanks be given to the other two, who unite, in one same will, with the Person who vouchsafes to honour us with that special manifestation of Himself!
Glory be to Thee, O Father, Thou Ancient of days![22] Thou art unborn, without beginning; but communicating, essentially and necessarily, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, the Godhead which dwells in Thee! Thou art God, and Thou art Father. He who knows Thee as God, and knows Thee not as Father, does not know Thee as Thou art. Thou producest, Thou begettest; but it is within Thine own bosom that Thou generatest; for nought is God, which is outside Thyself. Thou art being, Thou art power; but Thou hast never been without a Son. Thou speakest to Thyself all that Thou art; Thou explainest Thyself; and the fruit of the fecundity of Thy thought, which is equal to Thyself, is a second Person coming forth from Thee: it is Thy Son, Thy Word, Thine uncreated Word. Once didst Thou utter this Word; and Thy Word is eternal as Thyself, and as Thy thought, of which that Word is the infinite expression. Like the sun which is visible to our eyes, and which has never existed without its own brightness; this brightness is by the sun, it is with the sun; it emanates from it without lessening it, and it never exists as something independent of its source. Bear, O Father, with this weakness of our understanding, which borrows from the beings Thou hast created, an image whereto to compare Thee. And so, again, if we study ourselves, whom Thou hast created to Thine own likeness, we find that a thought of our own, in order that it may be something distinct from our mind, has need of a term, a word, to fix and express it.
O Father! we have been brought to know Thee by that Son whom Thou eternally begettest, and who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to us. He has taught us that Thou art Father, and Himself Son; and that, nevertheless, Thou art one with Him.[23] When one of His apostles said to Him: ‘Lord! show us the Father,’ He answered him: ‘He that seeth Me, seeth the Father.’[24] O Unity of the divine Nature, whereby the Son, though distinct from the Father, is not less than the Father! O delight of the Father in the Son, by whom He has the knowledge of Himself: delight of intimate love, of which He spoke to His creature man, on the banks of Jordan, and on the top of Thabor![25]
O Father! we adore Thee, but we also love Thee; for a father should be loved by his children, and we are Thy children. It is an apostle that teaches us that all paternity proceeds from Thee, not in heaven alone, but on earth too.[26] No one is father, no one has paternal authority, be it in a family, or in the State, or in the Church, but by Thee, and in Thee, and in imitation of Thee. Nay more: Thou wouldst have us not only be called, but really and truly be Thy sons;[27] not, indeed, by generation, as is Thy only-begotten Son, but by an adoption which makes us jointheirs with Him.[28] This divine Son speaking of Thee, says: ‘I honour My Father’[29] we, also, honour Thee, O sovereign Father, Father of infinite majesty! And, until eternity dawn upon us, we glorify Thee now from the depths of our misery and exile, uniting our humble praise with that which is presented to Thee by the angels, and by the blessed ones who are of the same human family as ourselves. May thy fatherly eye protect us, may it graciously find pleasure in us Thy children, whom, as we hope, Thou hast foreseen, whom Thou hast chosen, whom Thou hast called to the faith, and who presume, with the apostle, to call Thee the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation.[30]
Glory be to Thee, O Son, O Word, O Wisdom of the Father! Thou emanatest from His divine Essence. He gave Thee birth before the day-star;[31] and He said to Thee: ‘This day have I begotten Thee’;[32] and that day which has neither eve nor morrow, is eternity. Thou art Son, and only Son; and this name expresses one same nature with Him who begets Thee; it excludes creation, and shows Thee to be consubstantial with the Father, from whom Thou comest forth, perfectly like Him in all things. And Thou comest forth from the Father, without coming out of the divine Essence, being coeternal with Thy source; for in God there is nothing new, nothing temporal. Thy sonship is not a dependency; for the Father cannot be without the Son, any more than the Son can be without the Father. If it be a glory in the Father to produce the Son, it is no less a glory in the Son to be the exhaustive term to the generative power of the Father.
O Son of God, Thou art the Word of the Father. Uncreated Word, Thou art as intimately in Him, as is His thought; and His thought is His Being. It is in Thee that this His Being expresses itself, in its whole infiniteness; it is in Thee that He knows Himself. Thou art the spiritual fruit produced by the divine intellect of the Father; the expression of all that He is, whether He keep Thee mysteriously in His bosom,[33] or produce Thee outside Himself. What language can we make use of, in order to describe Thee, and Thy glories, O Son of God! The Holy Ghost has vouchsafed to come to our assistance, in the writings which He has inspired: and it is with the very expressions He has suggested, that we presume thus to address Thee: ‘Thou art the brightness of the Father’s glory; Thou art the figure of His substance.[34] Thou art the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image that reflects His eternal goodness.’[35] We presume, likewise, to say to Thee, what we are taught by the holy Church assembled at Nicea: ‘Thou art God of God; Light of Light; true God of true God.’ And we add, with the fathers and doctors: ‘Thou art the torch eternally lit by the eternal torch. Thy light lessens nought of that which communicates Itself to Thee; neither is Thy light inferior in aught to that from which it is produced.’
But when this ineffable fecundity, which gives an eternal Son to the Father and to the Father and Son a third term, willed to manifest Itself outside the divine Essence; and, not having again the power to produce what is equal to Itself, deigned to call forth from nothingness intellectual and rational nature, as being the nearest approach to its author, and material nature, as being the least removed from nothingness—then, O only-begotten Son of God, the intimate production of Thy Person in the Father’s bosom revealed itself by creation. It is the Father who made all things; but it is in Wisdom, that is, in Thee, that He made all.[36] This mission of working, which Thou receivedst from the Father, is a consequence of the eternal generation, whereby He produces Thee from Himself. Thou camest forth from Thy mysterious rest; and creatures, visible and invisible, came forth, at Thy bidding, out of nothing. Acting in closest union with the Father, Thou pouredst out upon the worlds thou createdst somewhat of that beauty and harmony, of which Thou art the image in the divine Essence. And yet, Thy mission was not at an end when creation was completed. Angels and men, who were intellectual and free beings, were destined for the eternal vision and possession of God. The merely natural order could not suffice for these two classes of Thy creatures; a supernatural way had to be prepared for them, whereby they might be brought to their last end. Thou, O only-begotten Son of God, art this way. By assuming human nature Thou unitedst Thyself to Thine own work, Thou raisedst angel and man up to God; and by Thy human Nature Thou showedst Thyself as the supreme type of the creation, which the Father bad effected by Thee. Oh unspeakable mystery! Thou art the uncreated Word, and, at the same time, Thou art the First-born of every oreature;[37] not, indeed, to appear until Thy time should come; and yet preceding, in the divine mind and intention, all created beings, which were destined to be Thy subjects.
The human race, though destined to possess Thee in its midst as its divine intermediator, rebelled against its God by sin, and, by sin, was plunged into the abyss of death. Who could raise it up again? Who could restore it to the sublime destiny it had forfeited? Thou alone, O only-begotten Son of the Father! It is what we never could have hoped for; but God so loved the world, as to give His onlybegotten Son,[38] to be not only the Mediator, but the Redeemer, too, of us all. Thou, our First-born, askedst Thy Father to restore Thine inheritance unto Thee;[39] Thou hadst to purchase back this inheritance. Then did the Father entrust Thee with the mission of Saviour to our lost race. Thy Blood, shed upon the cross, was our ransom; and by it we were born again to God, and restored to our lost privileges. Therefore, O Son of God, we, Thy redeemed, glory in calling Thee OUr Lord.
Having thus delivered us from death, and cleansed us from sin, Thou vouchsafedst to restore us to all the grand things we had lost; for, henceforth, Thou art our Head, and we are Thy members; Thou art King, and we Thy happy subjects; Thou art Shepherd, and we the sheep of Thy one fold; Thou art Spouse, and the Church, our mother, is Thy bride; Thou art the living Bread come down from heaven, and we are Thy guests. O Son of God! O Emmanuel! O Son of Man! blessed be the Father who sent Thee; but blessed, also, be Thou, who didst fulfil the mission He gave Thee, and who hast been pleased to say, that Thy delights are to be with the children of men![40]
Glory be to Thee, O holY Spirit, who eternally emanatest from the Father and the Son in the unity of the divine substance! The eternal Act, whereby the Father knows Himself, produces the Son, who is the infinite image of the Father; the Father is full of love for this brightness which eternally proceeds from Himself; and the Son, contemplating the source whence He for ever comes, conceives for this source a love as great as that wherewith He Himself is loved. What language could desoribe this mutual ardour and aspiration, which is the attraction and tendency of one Person to Another in the eternally immovable Essence! Thou art this Love, O divine Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, as from one same principle; Thou art distinct from both, and yet art the bond that unites Them in the ineffable delights of the Godhead; Thou art living Love, personal Love, proceeding from the Father by the Son, the final term which completes the divine Nature, and eternally perfects the Trinity. In the inaccessible bosom of the great God, Thy Personality comes to Thee both from the Father, of whom Thou art the expression by a second production,[41] and from the Son, who, receiving of the Father, gives Thee of His own; for the i[42]nfinite Love which unites Them is of both Persons, and not of one alone. The Father was never without the Son, and the Son never without the Father; so likewise, the Father and the Son have never been without Thee, O holy Spirit! Eternally have They loved; and Thou art the infinite Love which exists between Them, and to which They communicate Their Godhead. Thy Procession from both exhausts the productive power of the uncreated Essence; and thus are the divine Persons Three in number; all that is outside Them is created being.
In the divine Essence, there is not only Power and Intelligence, but also, and necessarily, there is Will, from which action follows. Will and Love are one and the same thing; and Thou, O divine Spirit, art this Will, this Love. When the glorious Trinity works outside Itself, the act conceived by the Father, and expressed by the Son, is accomplished by Thee. By Thee, likewise, the Love, which the Father and Son have for each other, and which is personalized in Thee, is extended to beings which are to be created. It is by His Word that the Father knows them; it is by Thee, O divine Love, O holy Spirit, that He loves them; and thus, all creation proceeds from the divine goodness.
Emanating, as Thou dost, from the Father and the Son, Thou art sent, by both, to us creatures; and yet so as not to lose thereby the equality Thou hast, from all eternity with Them. The Son, when sent by the Father, clad Himself, once for ever, with our human nature; and His Person, by the works which are peculiarly His own, is shown to us as distinct from that of the Father. So likewise, O holy Spirit, we recognize Thee as distinct from the Father and the Son, by Thy coming down to fulfil in our regard the mission given to Thee by both. It is Thou that inspiredst the prophets;[43] Thou that overshadowedst Mary in the divine Incarnation;[44] Thou that restedst on the flower of Jesse;[45] Thou that ledst Jesus into the desert;[46] Thou that didst glorify Him by miracles.[47] The Church, His bride, receives Thee, and Thou teachest her all truth,[48] and Thou abidest in her, as her devoted friend, even to the very end of time.[49] Our souls are signed with Thy seal,[50] and Thou quickenest them with supernatural life;[51] Thou dwellest even in our bodies, making them Thy temple;[52] in a word, Thou art to us the Gift of God,[53] and the fountain springing up even into life everlasting.[54] May special thanks be given to Thee, O holy Spirit, for the special works Thou accomplishest in our favour!
And now, having adored each of the divine Persons, and blessed each for the favours He has bestowed upon this world, we again dare to fix our unworthy gaze upon that Trinity of Majesty which exists in the Unity of the divine Essence. O Sovereign Lord! we again confess what Thou hast taught us; and we confess it in the words of Thy servant Augustine: ‘They are not more than Three: One that loveth Him who is from Him; and One that loveth Him from whom He is; and One who is that very Love.’[55] But we have still a debt of gratitude to pay for that unspeakable favour of Thine, whereby, O blessed Trinity, Thou hast vouchsafed to mark us with the image of Thyself. Having resolved, from all eternity, to admit us into fellowship with Thyself,[56]Thou hast prepared us for it according to a type taken from Thine own divine Nature.[57] There are three powers in our one soul; this tells us that it is Thou who gavest us our existence; and yet this likeness to Thyself, which is the glory of our natural being, was but a preparation for further purposes of Thy generous love towards us. After having bestowed upon us this natural being, it pleased Thee to decree, O sacred Trinity, that a supernatural being should also be imparted to us. The fulness of time having come, the Father sends us His Son; and this uncreated Word brings light to our understanding: the Father and the Son send us the Spirit; and the Spirit brings love to our will: and the Father, who cannot be sent, comes of Himself, and gives Himself to our soul, giving her a power beyond her own strength. It is in holy Baptism, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that is produced, in the Christian, this work of the Three divine Persons, which is so admirably in keeping with the faculties of our soul; and these faculties are but an outline of the masterpiece, which the supernatural action of God can alone complete.
Blessed union! whereby God is in man, and man is in God! Union that brings us to adoption by the Father, to brotherhood with the Son, to our eternal inheritance! But how has this indwelling of God in His creature been formed? Gratuitously, by God’s eternal love. And how long will it last ? For ever, unless man himself refuse to give love for love. Mortal sin admitted into the soul, the divine indwelling is at an end: the very moment that sanctifying grace is lost, the Three divine Persons who had taken up their abode in that soul,[58] and were united with her, abandon her; God is no longer in her, save by His immensity; the soul does not possess Him as she did before. Then Satan again sets up his wretched kingdom within her, the kingdom of his vile trinity: concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life.[59] Woe to the man who would dare to defy his God by such rebellion, and put evil in the place of infinite good! Hell and eternal torments are the consequences of the creature’s contempt of his Creator. God is a jealous God; if we drive Him from the dwelling of our souls, the deep abyss must be our everlasting abode.
But is this rupture beyond the hope of reconciliation? Yes, as far as sinful man’s power is concerned; for he can never, of himself, recover his position with the blessed Trinity, which God’s gratuitous bounty had prepared, and His incomprehensible goodness achieved. But, as the Church teaches us, in her liturgy,[60] God never shows His power more, than when He has pity on a sinner and pardons him; it is this powerful mercy of God which can work the prodigy of a reconciliation; and He really does work it, as often as a sinner is converted. When the august Trinity deigns to return into the soul of repentant man, the angels and saints in heaven are filled with joy, as the Gospel assures us;[61] for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have testified Their love, and sought Their glory, by making him just who had been a sinner; by coining again to dwell in this lost sheep; in this prodigal, who had, but a few days before, been tending swine; in this thief who, but just now, had, with his fellow culprit, been insulting on the cross the innocent Crucified.
Adoration, then, and love, be to Thee, O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, O perfect Trinity, who hast vouchsafed to reveal Thyself to mankind; O eternal and infinite Unity, who hast delivered our forefathers from the yoke of their false gods! Glory be to Thee, as it was in the beginning, before any creature existed; as it is now, at this very time, while we are living in the hope of that true life, which consists in seeing Thee face to face; and as it shall for ever be, in those everlasting ages, when a blissful eternity shall have united us in the bosom of Thine infinite Majesty. Amen.
[1] St. Matt, xxviii. 19.
[2] De feriis. Cap. Quoniam. This decretal has been erroneously attributed to Alexander III.
[3] De divinis Officiis. Lib. xi. Cap. 1.
[4] 1 Tim. vi. 16.
[5] Gen. i. 26.
[6] Is. vi. 3.
[7] St. John i. 14.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Eph. iii. 15.
[10] St. Matt. xi. 27.
[11] St. John iii. 16.
[12] St. John xvii. 22.
[13] Is. ix. 6.
[14] 1 St. John i. 1.
[15] St. John. xiv. 16.
[16] ‘It is a psalm or hymn of praise, of confession, and of profound, self-prostrating homage, parallel to the canticles of the elect in heaven. It appeals to the imagination quite as much as to the intellect. It is the war-song of faith, with which we warn first ourselves, then each other, and then all those who are within its hearing, and the hearing of the truth, who our God is, and how we must worship Him, and how vast our responsibility will be if we know what to believe, and yet believe not. It is:
The psalm that gathers in one glorious lay
All chants that e’er from heaven to earth found way;
Creed of the saints, and anthem of the blest,
And calm-breathed warning of the kindliest love,
That ever heaved a wakeful mother’s breast.
For myself, I have ever felt it as the most simple and sublime, the most devotional formulary to which Christianity has given birth, more so even than the Veni Creator and the Te Deutn.’ (Dr. Newman; Grammar of Assent, page 129.) [Note added by Tr.]
[17] St. Mark xvi. 16. * In the monastic rite, it is given thus, and is preceded by a responsory:— ℟. breve.—Benedicamus Patrem, et Filium, * Cum sancto Spiritu. Benedicamus. ℣. Laudemus et superexaltemus eum in sæcula. Cum. Gloria Patri, etc.Benedicamus. O Lux beata Trinitas, Et principalis Unitas, Jam sol recedit igneus, Infunde lumen cordibus. Te mane laudum carmine, Te deprecamur vespere; Te nostra supplex gloria Per cuncta laudet sæcula. Deo Patri sit gloria, Ejusque soli Filio, Cum Spiritu Paraclito Et nunc et in perpetuum. Amen.
[18] Prov. xxx. 3, 4.
[19] Ps. cxv. 10; 2 Cor. iv. 13.
[20] Is. vi. 3.
[21] Prov. xxv. 27.
[22] Dan. vii. 9.
[23] St. John X. 30.
[24] Ibid, xiv. 8, 9.
[25] St. Matt. iii. 17; 2 St. Pet. i. 17
[26] Eph. iii. 15.
[27] 1 St. John iii. 1.
[28] Rom. viii. 17.
[29] St. John. viii. 49.
[30] 2 Cor. i. 3.
[31] Ps. cix. 3.
[32] Ps. ii. 7.
[33] St. John i 18.
[34] Heb. i. 3.
[35] Wisd. vii. 26.
[36] Ps. ciii. 24.
[37] Col. i. 15.
[38] St. John iii. 16.
[39] Ps. xv. 5.
[40] Prov. viii. 31.
[41] St. John xv. 26.
[42] Ibid. xvi. 14, 15.
[43] 2 St. Peter i. 21.
[44] St. Luke i. 35.
[45] Is. xi. 2.
[46] St. Luke iv. 1.
[47] St. Matt. xii. 28.
[48] St. John xvi. 13.
[49] St. John xiv. 16.
[50] Eph. i. 13; iv. 30.
[51] Gal. v. 25.
[52] l Cor. vi. 19.
[53] Hymn Veni Creator.
[54] St. John iv. 14; vii. 38. 39.
[55] Non amplius quam tria sunt; unus diligens eum qui de illo est, et unus diligens eum de quo est, et ipsa dilectio. S. Augustinus, De Trinitate, lib. vi. cap. 7.
[56] 1. St. John. i.
[57] Gen. i. 27.
[58] St. John xiv. 23.
[59] 1 St. John ii. 16.
[60] Collect for the tenth Sunday after Pent.
[61] St. Luke xv. 10.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibus dat spiritus pinguedinem.
Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations, who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.
Man has been cast forth from Eden, and has gone into the dreary land of his exile. He has nothing left him of the tree of life, but the recollection that it was once his. It remains in the happy land where it was first planted; how could it go after the sinner man, now that he is banished into the vale of tears? No! it remains in paradise; far from the abode of suffering, and out of mortals' sight, it continues in all its loveliness, bearing testimony to the primitive intentions of God, which were peace, innocence, and love. The day will come when we shall see it again, for it is to be one of the charms of the new earth, into which our Lord will lead His chosen people on the day of the great Pasch, and of the restoration of all things.[1] Happy day! after which, as the apostle tells us, every creature longeth, bowed down as it now is, and made subject, by reason of a fault which was not its own, to the inconstancy of ceaseless change. Man, who, against the creature’s will, subjected it to the servitude of corruption, keeps up within it the hope that, the time of deliverance being come, it, too, will partake, in its own way, of the glorious liberty of the children of God.[2] The glory of the new paradise will be greater than that of the one of old; for, it is not under the veil of symbols, or in a passing way, that the deifying union is to be fulfilled, but divine Wisdom will give Himself, and for ever, and without veil, to man, in an eternal embrace.
And yet this union, whose permanent enjoyment is to make the eternal bliss of heaven, is to be contracted even now, and on this very earth of ours; for it is the economy of the divine plan, that, in all things, the future life should have its roots in the present one, and should be but the revelation, in the light of glory, of the ineffable realities formed here by grace. What, then, after the fall, will be the conditions of the alliance, from which eternal Wisdom has not been turned by the sin committed by His creature man?
Oh the depth of the riches of this Wisdom ef God![3] His love is strong as death,[4] and, even after man’s disloyalty, will be infinitely admirable in its delicate ways of gaining its object. There is to be nothing unbecoming in the alliance He is bent on! He will admit no compromise with the depravity which has befallen our now sinful race! His mercy is infinite; and, through that, He has pardoned the offence, the moment the offender expressed his sorrow; but the pardon is not one which was to mean no compensation, no expiation on man’s side; that would have ill-suited the dignity of such a Spouse as He. And since sinful man cannot offer an adequate expiation, He, Wisdom, undertakes to pay the culprit’s whole debt, and give him back the holiness he has forfeited; this done, He will take our human nature, and espouse her to Himself as His much-loved bride. ‘I will espouse thee unto Me, in justice and judgment,’ says this God to man, by His prophet Osee.[5]
And He adds: ‘I will espouse thee unto Me in faith.’[6] For, just as the entrance of divine Wisdom into this world, which He conies to save from pride by humility, is to be without exterior parade or glory, so, likewise, the divine union is to be accomplished in the mystery of the sacred Species of the nuptial banquet, and these Species will offer nought to view but the appearance of bread and wine, such as one could find on any table. But faith will see through that veil; and the unspeakable dignity conferred on the children of men by this heavenly food, will reflect its brightness on the whole creation.
The whole world of creatures, each in its own way, was in expectation of this marvellous manifestation, which was to be made upon the sons of God,[7] by the union to be contracted between Wisdom and man. The prophet thus speaks of this universal expectation: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens; and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and these shall hear Jezrahel.’[8] Jezrahel means the seed or race of God. God will give to man, through corn and wine, the substance to be offered in the mysteries; and, through oil, the priesthood, which is to transform them into the marriage-dowry, in the very action of the Sacrifice. It is to be by the Sacrifice, and by Blood, that this alliance of justice and love is to be contracted.
We read in Scripture that Moses was one day traversing the desert; he had on him a legal transgression; the angel of the Lord met him, and was about to slay him, when Sephora, the wife of this future leader of Israel, averted the divine vengeance by the rough and speedy circumcision of her son, Eliezer: then marking with his blood the feet of the guilty one, she said to him: ‘A spouse of blood art thou to me.’[9] Thus, and with far greater truth, could divine Wisdom say to the human race; for He is not to save, He is not to be united with man, except by the Blood of this Son of Man, who is one in person with that same Wisdom.
Nay, far from lessening, this very sight of man’s misery has increased the ardour of His love. Later on this Man-God will say: ‘I have a baptism, wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!’[10] It was the same from the very first: no sooner has expiation been shown as the royal way, whereby humanity is to be restored to Him, and again made worthy of Him, by the shedding of divine Blood—Wisdom has ever had that thought before Him. He is impatient for the great immolation of Calvary; and until its time comes, He will suggest to His people rites and sacrifices figurative of that one Sacrifice, and of the banquet of the adorable Victim, the marriage-feast.
His garden, the place of His delight, is no longer paradise; it is this parched earth of ours, where man has now, more than ever, need of being loved of God. Ye Cherubim, whom God has stationed to guard the tree of life,’tis well that sinful man be kept from approaching it. But the flaming sword ye hold in your hands, will not prevent divine Wisdom from leaving paradise, and joining our human race here in its banishment. He was not only the tree, but He is, likewise, the river of life. Speaking of Himself, He says, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus: ‘Like a brook out of a river of a mighty water, as though I were but a mere channel of a river, I came out of paradise. I said: “I will water My garden of plants, and I will water abundantly the fruits of My meadow.” And behold! My brook became a great river, and My river became like a sea; for I make doctrine to shine forth unto all, as the morning light, and I will declare it afar off, yea, even to the most distant ages. I will penetrate to all the lower parts of the earth, and will visit all that sleep, and will enlighten all that hope in the Lord.’[11]
This living light, which from early morning enlightens the whole earth with divine Wisdom, is the varied teaching of prophecies and figures, which were given by God through the course of ages, and, from the very moment of man’s creation, put the shadow of the Messias upon the whole universe. By means of this manifold teaching, Wisdom conveyeth Himself, through nations, into holy souls;[12] rouses man up, when discouragement makes him slumber;[13] cherishes his hopes, and bids him hope, by looking at the future. Those bloody sacrifices, which were prescribed immediately after man’s departure from Eden, as the ritual expression of his early worship of God, will be offered up by all after generations; and even when idolatry shall have led mankind into the abyss of every crime, those sacrifices will raise up their voice, and keep up the prophecy which they are intended to proclaim—the prophecy of a Victim, who will be one of infinite worth. The stream of primitive traditions will, as it flows through time and space, become impregnated with foreign elements, and transmit many a worthless or even dangerous material; still, it is through the rite of sacrifice, observed by the whole world, that the desire and expectation of Christ will be maintained among all nations.[14] Satan, that old serpent thief, may succeed in inducing men to build altars to himself, and on those altars offer him sacrifice, which is due to God alone; but he cannot stifle the voice of truth which accompanies every sacrifice, the voice which teaches that an innocent and pure victim may be substituted in place of guilty man, and work his expiation. This will arouse the notion of the promised Mediator in many a soul bewildered by the orgies of this satanic worship; and here, again, the very sight of the serpent was made to be the cure of them he had stung, and became the sign and ensign of the son of Jesse.[15] O root of Jesse! root of the Wisdom of the Most High! who is there that can understand the depth of Thy counsels, or penetrate the devices of Thy immense love?[16] Verily, Thou art more beautiful than any light of day; for that light yields when night comes on; whereas Thou, O Wisdom, art overcome by no evil, be it as black as sin![17]
All those ancient sacrifices were powerless to produce grace; their very multiplicity proved their inability to do so;[18] but what they could and did effect was the keeping alive in mankind the remembrance of the fall, and the expectation of a Redeemer; they were, likewise, the basis of those supernatural acts, which are requisite for man’s justification and salvation. But, besides their representing the redemptive element, which the fall of man has introduced into the plan of God, these bloody sacrifices express, also, the union of God with His creature, which was the primary and chief object of creation. That union was to be effected in the banquet prepared by Wisdom, the eucharistie banquet, wherein He, Wisdom, the Son of God, was to be received by man, and thus united with him. This sublime mystery was also expressed by those figurative sacrifices, wherein the people partook of the viotims offered: for, in the Eucharist, the Victim is the Man-God, offered to God, and eaten of by man; the Deity is appeased by the Blood of the divine Lamb, and mankind is restored, because nourished by His Flesh, which thus feeds him to a new and divine life. Such was the general law observed by all nations, when offering sacrifice: the portion intended for God was consumed by fire, and thus transmitted to heaven; but another portion of the same victim was taken and eaten by the people: and all this signified that there was communion between heaven and earth, and that the receivers were all made one, because they all partook of the same sacred food. How admirably are thus grouped together all the mysteries of God’s goodness towards His creature man! And what a prophecy this was! It was unceasing, for it was proclaimed each time a sacrifice was offered up, and there were thousands every day. It was thus that the divine Lamb, whom they foretold, was slain from the very beginning of the world;[19] His Blood, in all these early ages, was applied, through hope and faith, to the souls of men, and cleansed them from their sins; and the mysterious ritual, with its inspired code of prescriptions, was keeping man on the alert, and preparing him for the banquet of the nuptials of the Lamb.[20] Then, let Wisdom extol His own triumph! It is He who caused that in the heavens there should rise a light which never fails, and covers the whole earth as with a cloud; He alone has compassed the circuit of heaven, has penetrated into the bottom of the deep, has traversed the waves of the sea, and has stood in all the earth, and in every people, as the King of all, holding the chief rule, and vanquishing, strongly and sweetly, the hearts of all, both high and low.[21]
Meanwhile, the time of banishment is running on; the long period of expectation is more than half over. The nearer the realization of the promised alliance comes, the more ardent are the longings of chosen souls. As to our Jesus Himself, He seems to desire a preparation of a more telling kind than any of these others that have preceded. He will turn His attention to the very spot where He is to dwell on this earth. And where is that? His Father, the Creator of all things, whose every word is fulfilled by His Son, has a chosen people; and among these He would have His Son be nationalized, if we may reverently use such a word. He said to Him: ‘Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thine inheritance in Israel!’[22] In obedience to this His Father’s will, He establishes Himself in Sion, He takes His rest in the holy city, and fixes His power in Jerusalem.[23] Jerusalem! It is the city of peace, and is to be the scene of such stupendous mysteries! It is here that Isaac, the child of promise, had come carrying on his shoulders the wood for his self-sacrifice; here his father was about to slay him, when a ram was mysteriously substituted; and the mount of the one true Sacrifice was thus selected. It is here, also, that there then lived a king-priest, who bore the likeness of the Son of God;[24] it was Melchisedech; and when Abraham, the father of believers, came to him, this Melchisedech offered what was to be the sacrifice of the alliance to come, a sacrifice of bread and wine; and thereby showed to Abraham, who saw into the future, the day of Christ, his Son.[25]
It is at the very period, when the world at large has fallen into idolatry, and offered to false gods the homage of its sacrifices, that divine Wisdom leads into this chosen dwelling-place the people of whom He is to be born as Man; it is the fulfilment of the command: Let thy dwelling be in Jacob! let thine inheritance be in Israel! In this one people Wisdom will maintain His Father’s claims, and keep alive and pure the light of the expectation of nations. He delivers it, at the cost of countless prodigies, from the Egyptian bondage.[26] The feast of the Paschal Lamb—slain the same day on which, at a future time, is to be celebrated the Supper of the Lord, and the immolation of the true Lamb—is the signal of deliverance, and of a triumphant march, through the waters of a sea, to the mount of the alliance: the chosen people becomes the bride of God,[27] the priestly kingdom, and the holy nation.[28] Figure, in all things, of God’s true people traversing the desert of this world, Israel drinks of the waters which come from the rock, and the Rock is Christ;[29] a bread rained down daily from heaven, strengthens him amidst the fatigues of journey and battle; and this bread of angels, as the Scripture terms it, took any taste the eater wished it to have.[30] God Himself dwells with Israel under his tents. He has had a tabernacle made for him, on the plan of one shown by God on the mount; and in front of this tabernacle there is an altar, on which a chosen family, consecrated by oil of unction, may alone offer, under the direction of a high-priest, the manifold legal sacrifices, each of which points to some excellency or other of the one great Sacrifice of the future. From this altar, on which burns a fire that is never quenched, there goes up to heaven without interruption the smoke of the flesh and blood of the victims slain. They are a supplication for the coming of that saving Host, which is to put an end to these hecatombs. There are also offerings of flour and wine, the necessary accompaniment of holocausts and peace-offerings; these prefigure the august Memorial which is to keep up and perfect the divine Sacrifice of the cross, by an unbloody application of it. There is, in these early days, a sacrifice which goes under the name of a memorial; it is an offering by itself, consisting of fine flour, and unleavened loaves and wafers.[31] Then, there are the proposition loaves; they are kept within the veil, as the most holy of the sacrifices, as being a perpetual memorial of sacrifice and covenant;[32] and what a mysterious, yet unmistakable, figure is all this of the future eucharistic Presence, kept up in the Church under the sacred Species, even when the celebration of the mysteries is over!
As there is but one altar in Jacob, which, by its oneness, points towards Him who, at a future time, is to be both victim and altar; so there is but one place, the tabernacle and its surroundings, and later on the temple and the holy city, where it is lawful to celebrate those sacred banquets of communion, which, according to universal custom, close the sacrifice in which they are offered. The last time that Moses had his people assembled around him, in the plains of the Jordan, he thus spoke to them: ‘Beware lest thou offer thy holocaust in every place that thou shalt see. In the place which the Lord your God shall choose, that His name may be therein, thither shall ye bring your holocausts, and victims, and tithes, and the firstfruits of your hands. There shall ye feast before the Lord your God, ye and your sons and your daughters, your men-servants and maid-servants, and the levite that dwelleth in your cities; and thou shalt rejoice, and be refreshed, before the Lord thy God, in all things, whereunto thou shalt put thy hand.’[33]
The material prosperity promised to the Jewish people, as a reward of his faithfully observing the numerous figurative prescriptions of the law of Sinaï, was itself but a figure of the spiritual blessings which were to transform the soul, and prepare it for the coming of divine Wisdom in the flesh. But Israel is slow to raise himself above material things. He easily falls a prey to all the scandals he witnesses among the Gentiles. Severe punishments teach him that he is not safe, except in keeping the law given to him. He keeps the letter of the ritual precepts with scrupulous exactitude, but sees nothing of their chief meaning, which is the Redeemer to come, and the spiritual dispositions which those outward observances were intended to prompt. God is continually warning him by the prophets, and seeking to reclaim him to the spirit of His divine institutions. Thus, in the psalms, He remonstrates with him, but with such paternal affection that one can scarcely suspect a complaint, though there is a most bitter one: 'Hear, O My people! and I will speak: O Israel! and I will testify unto thee. I am God, thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; and thy burnt-offerings are always in My sight. I will not take calves out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy flocks; for all the beasts of the wood are Mine, the cattle on the hills, and the oxen. I know all the fowls of the air, and with Me is the beauty of the field. If I should be hungry, I would not tell thee; for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof. Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks? or shall I drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy vows unto the Most High! . . . The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me; and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God,' that is, my Christ, who is the Saviour signified by all these sacrifices![34] Later on, however, to this people, stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears,[35] which has gone deeper and deeper into outward formalism, and knows no other virtue or perfection, God speaks in strong language, expressing His disgust for sacrifices, which they have robbed of the only worth they possessed in His eight, that is, their prophetic sense. ‘To what purpose do ye offer Me the multitude of your victims?’ says He by the prophet Isaias, ‘I am full; I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck-goats. When ye came to appear before Me, who required these things at your hands, that ye should walk, (defiling) My courts? Offer sacrifice no more in vain: your incense is an abomination unto Me!’[36] But these warnings are not heeded; pride increases in the carnal Jew, in proportion to his narrow heart and views. He dreams of a Messias who is to be an earthly conqueror. As to the true Messias, whose divine characteristics are foretold by the victims offered in sacrifice, this Jew will deny Him, for he finds Jesus too closely resembling these poor victims, by His sufferings and meekness.
Then comes the last of the prophets, Malachias. He turns to the Gentiles: they have been less favoured than Israel, but they have kept up the expectation of a Saviour, and, when He comes, they will lovingly receive Him. Malachias announces the final abrogation of a worship which had been so perverted, and the substitution of a divine memorial, which shall be the same in all places, and shall make all people one, by their ail partaking of the great Sacrifice to come: I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, to the priests of Israel; I will not receive a gift of your hand; for, from the rising of the sun, even to the going down, My name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered unto My name a clean oblation.[37]
The fullness of time has come; then, bless God, O ye Gentiles! Make the voice of His praise to be heard![38] Too long, life has been to you but the empty dream of night. You hungered after the fruit of life; you thirsted for living water. But, like the hungry man who dreams of a sumptuous repast, yet never satisfies the hunger which gnaws him; like the thirsty man who dreams that he drinks, yet, on waking, is tormented with the same burning thirst, and finds his soul still empty; so was the multitude of your erring people.[39] Yet, now, behold! The standard of Jesse appears on the mountain, and rallies you around it. Ye Gentiles, that once were strangers, feed now to your hearts content, in the deserts turned into fruitfulness![40] The water from the rock flows plentifully through your once parched lands. The glory of Libanus, the beauty of Carmel and Saron, adorn your hills, and refresh your lonely plains; your wilderness shall rejoice, and flourish like the lily.[41] Rain shall be given to your seed; and the bread of the corn of your land shall be delicious.[42] ’Tis just it should be so; for, shall the labourer plough all day long? Shall he be ever opening and harrowing his ground? No; the time comes when, having made smooth the surface of his field, he sows and scatters his seeds, and puts wheat in the rows he has marked. Such is the providence shown to the Gentiles by the Lord God of hosts; and thereby He evinces both the sureness of His divine counsels, and the magnificence of His justice.[43]
Eternal Wisdom had not given up the mysterious designs of His love. He kept close to the fallen human race, even when He severely chastised it. He owed it to Himself to put guilty man to the test, so to make him feel, before raising him up, how deep had been his fall. It was on this account that He permitted him to be overtaken by night, and fear, and anguish; He Himself sends him sufferings, in order that, having thus brought him to sound the frightful depth of his misery, He might trust Himself to the safe welcome and keeping of His creature’s humility. This done, He would raise him up by repentance, and strengthen him with hope, and, joyously meeting him, disclose to him again His divine charms, and enrich him with the treasures which are in the keeping of His love.[44]
This is Saturday; let us turn to Mary, who was made for us Gentiles the seat of Wisdom. In her chaste womb was wrought the mystery of mercy, which had been the expectation of all the long ages past. Her most pure blood provided the substance of that spotless Body wherewith the most beautiful of the sons of men contracted the indissoluble alliance of our nature with eternal Wisdom. Mary’s soul is enraptured at seeing the ineffable mystery of these divine nuptials effected in her chaste womb. She is that enclosed garden, where, more delightedly than in the early days of the universe, Wisdom enjoys light and love; the flowery couch of the Canticle,[45] perfumed, by the holy Spirit, with the sweetest fragrance; the glorious tabernacle, incomparably more holy than that of Moses. It is within her, under the immaculate veil of her flesh, that, by the unspeakable embrace of the two natures in the unity of God’s only-begotten Son, the Holy Ghost pours forth the unction, which makes Him Spouse, and, at the same time, Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.
Let man, then, be of good courage; the Bread of heaven, the Bread of the covenant, has at last come down upon our earth; and although nine months must pass before the great night comes, when He is to be made visible to us all in Bethlehem, yet, even now, the High Priest is at His work in this His holy temple. ‘Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not,’ He says to His eternal Father; ‘but a Body Thou hast fitted unto Me. Holocausts for sin did not please Thee. Then said I: “Behold I come;” in head of the book it is written of Me, that I should do Thy will, O God!’[46]
We will close, to-day, our selections from the Office of the Blessed Juliana, by the following hymn; it is assigned to Compline in the ancient books of the Church of St. Martin-au-Mont.
Hymn for Compline
Christus noster vere cibus,
Christus noster vere potus,
Caro Christi vere cibus,
Sanguis Christi vere potus.
Vera caro quam sumimus,
Quam assumpsit de Virgine:
Verus sanguis quem bibimus,
Quem effudit pro homine.
Vere tali convivio,
Verbum caro comeditur;
Per quod viget religio,
Per quod coelum ingredimur.
Panis iste dulcedinis
Totus plenus, et gratiæe,
Alvo gestatus Virginis,
Rex est aeternae gloriae.
Hujus panis angelici
Saginemur pinguedine;
Ut tam pii viatici
Delectemur dulcedine.
O coeleste convivium!
O redemptorum gloria!
O requies humilium!
Æterna confer gaudia.
Praesta Pater per Filium,
Praesta per almum Spiritum;
Quibus hoc das edulium,
Prosperum serves exitum.
Amen.
Christ is truly our meat,
Christ is truly our drink;
the Flesh of Christ is truly our meat,
the Blood of Christ is truly our drink.
The true Flesh which he took
from the Virgin, is what we eat;
the true Blood, which he shed for man,
is what we drink.
In this banquet, the Word made Flesh
is truly eaten; it is on him
that our worship rests,
and by him that we enter heaven.
This Bread, which is all full
of sweetness and grace,
is the King of eternal glory,
that was carried in the Virgin’s womb.
Let us feed on the richness of Angels’ Bread;
that we may find delight
in the sweetness of a viaticum
so full of mercy.
O thou heavenly banquet!
O glory of the redeemed!
O repose of the humble!
grant us eternal joys.
Grant, O Father, through thy Son,
grant, through the Spirit of love,
that we, to whom thou givest such nourishment as this,
may be brought by tbee to a prosperous end.
Amen.
We will continue our selections from the magnificent Preface given in the liturgy of the eighth book of the. Apostolic Constitutions.
Constitutio Jacobi
Neque hoc solum: verum etiam et posteris ejus, a te in multitudinem innumerabilem effusis, eos qui tibi adhæserunt glorificasti, eos vero qui a te defecerunt punivisti; admisso quidem Abelis sacrificio ut innocentis, fratricidi autem Caini munere ut detestandi fastidito.
Tu enim es opifex hominum, vitae largitor, indigentiae expletor; legum dator, easque servantium remunerator, transgredientium vindex. Qui diluvium mundo propter impie viventium multitudinem intulisti, et eo ex diluvio in arca eripuisti cum octo animabus justum Noam, finem quidem eorum qui praeterierant, originem vero successurorum. Qui horrendum ignem adversus Sodomitanam pentapolim concitasti, ac sanctum Lotum ex incendio eruisti.
Tu es qui Abrahamum liberasti avita impietate, et mundi haeredem constituisti, ipsique Christum tuum apparere fecisti. Qui Melchisedecum pontificem divini cultus designasti. Qui Isaacum effecisti filium promissionis. Qui Jacobum ad Ægyptum introduxisti.
Tu, Domine, Hebræos ab Ægyptiis oppressos, ob promissa patribus eorum facta, non neglexisti. Cumque homines legem naturalem corrupissent, et creaturam modo fortuitam arbitrarentur, modo plusquam oportet honorarent; non sivisti errore duci; quin potius edito sancto famulo tuo Moyse, per eum legem scriptam in adjutorium naturalis tribuisti; et creaturas ostendisti opus tuum esse, errorem vero de multitudine deorum exterminasti.
Aaron et posteros ejus honore sacerdotali decorasti. Hebræos, cum peccarent, castigasti; cum reverterentur, suscepisti. Ægyptios decem plagis ultus es; mari diviso trajecisti Israelitas; insecutos Ægyptios delevisti submersione. Ligno amaram aquam dulcescere fecisti; ex petra dura aquam profudisti; e coelo mannam depluisti; praebuisti ex aere escam, ortygometram: constituisti nocte columnam ignis ad illustrationem, et die columnam nubis ad umbraculum in æstu. Per Jesum ducem a te declaratum septem gentes evertisti, Jordanem dirupisti, fluvios Ethan siccasti, muros prostravisti absque machinis.
Pro omnibus, tibi gloria, Domine omnipotens.
Te adorant innumerabiles copiæ angelorum, archangelorum, thronorum, dominationum, principatuum, potestatum, virtutum, et cherubini, item seraphini senis alis, binis quidem velantes pedes suos, binis vero capita, et duabus aliis volantes, ac dicentes una cum mille millibus archangelorum et denis millibus denum millium angelorum, indesinenter ac sine vocis intermissione clamantibus:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Sabaoth: pleni sunt cœli et terra gloria ejus: Benedictus in sæcula.
Amen.
And not this only; but, when thou hadst increased the posterity of man to an innumerable multitude, thou glorifiedst them that kept faithful to thee, but punishedst them that fell off; accepting the sacrifice of Abel, because he was innocent, rejecting the gifts of the fratricide Cain, because he was abominable.
For thou art the maker of mankind, the giver of life, the supplier of indigence; the giver of laws, and the rewarder of such as keep them, the avenger of them that transgress. ’Twas thou didst bring a deluge upon the world, because of the multitude of the ungodly; from which deluge thou by the ark deliveredst the just Noe, with eight souls, Noe who was the end of the foregoing generations, but the source of them that were to follow. ’Twas thou that kindledst a fearful fire against the five cities of Sodom, and snatchedst holy Lot from the burning.
’Twas thou deliveredst Abraham from the impiety of his forefathers, and madest him the heir of the world, and showedst him thy Christ. ’Twas thou appointedst Melchisedech to be high-priest of thy divine worship; thou that madest Isaac the son of the promise; thou that broughtest Jacob into Egypt.
Thou, Lord, didst not abandon the Hebrews, when they were oppressed by the Egyptians, on account of the promises made to their fathers. And when men had corrupted the natural law, and had, at one time, looked on creation as the effect of chance, and, at another, had honoured it more than it deserved, thou permittedst them not to be led astray by error, yea, thou raisedst up thy holy servant Moses, giving, through him, the written law, as an aid to the natural; thou showedst that creatures are thy work, and tookest away the error of plurality of gods.
’Twas thou didst adorn Aaron and his posterity with the priestly honour; that punishedst the Hebrews when they sinned, receiving them when they repented; that inflictedst the ten plagues on the Egyptians; that carriedst the Israelites across the divided sea; that drownedst the Egyptians, who pursued them. ’Twas thou madest the bitter water become sweet, by the wood; that broughtest water out of the hard rock; that rainedst manna from heaven: that grantedst quails to come from the air, as food; that appointedst a pillar of fire by night to give light, and a pillar of a cloud by day to overshadow them from heat. By Josue, proclaimed by thee as leader, thou didst overthrow the seven nations; thou dividedst the Jordan, driedst up the rivers of Ethan, and overturnedst the walls without instruments.
Glory be to thee, O almighty Lord, for all these things!
Thee do adore the innumerable hosts of angels, archangels, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, virtues, and cherubim; the seraphim, also, with their six wings, with two covering their feet, with two their heads, and with two flying, and saying with thousand thousands of archangels, and ten thousand times ten thousand angels incessantly, and with uninterrupted voices, crying out:
Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord of hosts: heaven and earth are full of his glory: be he blessed for ever!
Amen.
[1] Apoc. xxii. 2.
[2] Rom. viii. 19-22.
[3] Rom. xi. 33.
[4] Cant. viii. 6.
[5] Osee ii. 19.
[6] Ibid. 20.
[7] Rom. viii. 19.
[8] Osee ii. 21-22.
[9] Exod. iv. 24-26.
[10] St. Luke xii. 50.
[11] Ecclus. xxiv. 41-45.
[12] Wisd. vii. 27.
[13] Ps. cxviii. 28.
[14] Gen. xlix. 10; Agg. ii. 8.
[15] Num. xxi. 6-9; Is. xi. 10.
[16] Ecclus. i. 6.
[17] Wisd. vii. 29, 30.
[18] Heb. x. 1-4.
[19] Apoc. xiii. 8.
[20] Apoc. xix. 7-9.
[21] Ecclus. xxiv. 6-11.
[22] Ecclus. xxiv. 12, 13.
[23] Ibid. 15.
[24] Heb. vii. 3.
[25] St. John viii. 56.
[26] Wisd. x. 15.
[27] Exeh. xvi; Osee ii, etc.
[28] Exod. xix. 6.
[29] 1 Cor. x. 4, 11.
[30] Wisd. xvi. 20-29.
[31] Levit. ii. 2, 9.
[32] Ibid, xxiv. 7-9.
[33] Deut. xii. 7, 11-13.
[34] Ps. xlix. 7-14, 23.
[35] Acts vii. 51.
[36] Is. i. 11-13.
[37] Malach. i. 10, 11.
[38] Ps. lxv. 8.
[39] Is. xxix. 7, 8.
[40] Ibid. v. 17.
[41] Is. xxxv. 1, 2, 7.
[42] Ibid. xxx. 23.
[43] Ibid, xxviii. 24-29
[44] Ecclus. iv. 18-21.
[45] Cant. i. 15.
[46] Heb. x. 5-7.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Having, by His divine light, increased the Church’s appreciation of the sovereign mystery of the august Trinity, the Holy Ghost next leads her to contemplate that other marvel, which concentrates in itself all the works of the Incarnate Word, and leads us, even in this present life, to union with God. The mystery of the holy Eucharist is going to be brought before us in all its magnificence; it behoves us therefore, to prepare the eyes of our soul for the worthy reception of the light which is so soon to dawn upon us. As, during the whole year, we have never lost sight of the mystery of the holy Trinity, and all our worship has unceasingly been offered to the Three divine Persons; so, in like manner, the blessed Eucharist has uninterruptedly accompanied us throughout the whole period of the liturgical year, either as the means for paying our homage to the infinite Majesty of God, or as the nourishment which sustains the supernatural life. Though we knew and loved these two ineffable mysteries before, yet the graces of Pentecost have added much to both our knowledge and our love; yesterday, the mystery of the Trinity beamed upon us with greater clearness than ever; and now we are close upon the solemnity which is to show us the holy Eucharist with an increase of light and joy to our faith.
The blessed Trinity is, as we have already shown, the essential object of all religion; It is the centre to which all our homage converges; and this, even when we do not seem to make It our direct intention. Now, the holy Eucharist is the best of all the means whereby we can give to the Three divine Persons the worship we owe Them; it is, moreover, the bond whereby earth is united with heaven. It is easy, therefore, to understand how it was that holy Church so long deferred the institution of the two festivals immediately following Whitsuntide. All the mysteries we have celebrated up to this time were contained in the august Sacrament, which is the memorial, and, so to say, the compendium, of the wonderful things wrought in our favour by our Redeemer.[1] It is the reality of Christ’s presence under the sacramental species that enabled us to recognize in the sacred Host, at Christmas, the Child that was born unto us, in Passiontide, the Victim who redeemed us, and at Easter, the glorious conqueror of death. We could not celebrate all those admirable mysteries without the aid of the perpetual Sacrifice; neither could that Sacrifice be offered up, without renewing and repeating them.
It is the same with the feasts of our blessed Lady and the saints: they kept us in the continual contemplation of the holy Sacrament. When we honoured Mary on the solemnities of the Immaculate Conception, the Purification, or the Annunciation, we were honouring her who had, from her own substance, given that Body and Blood which was then offered upon our altars. As to the apostles and the martyrs, whose memories we solemnized, whence had they the strength to suffer so much and so bravely for the faith, but from the sacred banquet which we then celebrated, and which gives courage and constancy to them that partake of·it? The confessors and virgins, as their feasts came round, seemed to us as so many lovely flowers in the garden of the Church, and that garden itself all fruitful with wheat and clusters of grapes, because of the fertility given by Him who is called, in the Scriptures, both Wheat and Wine.[2]
Putting together all the means within our reach for honouring these blessed citizens of the heavenly court, we have chanted the grand Psalms of David, and hymns, and canticles, with all the varied formulas of the liturgy; but nothing that we could do towards celebrating their praise could be compared to the holy Sacrifice offered to the divine Majesty. It is in that Sacrifice that we entered into direct communication with them, according to the energetic term used by the Church in the Canon of the Mass (communicantes). The blessed in heaven are ever adoring the most holy Trinity by and in Christ Jesus our Lord; and it is by the Sacrifice of the Mass that we were united with them in the one same centre, and that we mingled our homage with theirs; hence, they received an increase of glory and happiness. So, then, the holy Euoharist, both as Sacrifice and Sacrament, has always been prominently before us. If we are now going to devote several days to a more attentive consideration of its magnificence and power; if we are now going to make more earnest efforts to taste more fully its heavenly sweetness; it is not something fresh, which attracts our special notice and devotion for a season, and will then give way for something else: the Eucharist is that element prepared for us by the love of our Redeemer, of which we must always avail ourselves in order that we may enter into direct communication with our God, and pay Him the debt not only of our worship, but also of our love.
And yet, the time was to come when the Holy Ghost, who governs the Church, would inspire her with the thought of instituting a special solemnity in honour of that august mystery, in which all others are included. There is a sacred element, which gives a meaning to every feast that occurs during the year, and graces it with the beauty of its own divine splendour; that sacred element, which is the most holy Eucharist, had itself a right to a solemn festival, in keeping with the dignity of its divine object.
But that festive exaltation of the divine Host, and those triumphant processions so deservedly dear to the present generation of Christians, were not practicable in the ages of the early persecutions. And when those rough times had passed away, and the courageous martyrs had won victory for the Church, those same modes of honouring the Eucharist would not have suited the spirit and form of the primitive liturgical observances, which were kept up for ages following. Neither were they needed for the maintenance of the lively faith of those times; they would have been superfluous for a period such as that was, when the solemnity of the Sacrifice itself, and the share the people at large took in the sacred mysteries, and the uninterrupted homage of liturgical chants sustained by the crowds of faithful adorers around the altar, gave praise and glory to God, secured correctness of faith, and fostered in the people a superabundance of supernatural life, which is not to be found now-a-days. The divine Memorial produced its fruits; the intentions our Lord had in instituting the Eucharist were realized; and the remembrance of that institution, which used then to be solemnized as we now celebrate Mass on Maundy Thursday, was deeply impressed on the minds of the faithful.
This state of things lasted till the beginning of the thirteenth century, when, as the Church expresses it, a certain coldness took possession of the world;[3] faith grew weak, and the vigorous piety which characterized the Christians of the previous ages became exceedingly rare. There were grand exceptions, here and there, of individual saintliness; but there was an unmistakable falling off among people at large, and the falling off was progressive; so much so, indeed, that there was danger that the mystery, which by its very nature is the mystery of faith, would suffer, in a special manner, from that coldness, that indifference, of the new generation. Even at that period, hell had been at work, stirring up sacrilegious teachers here and there, who dared to throw doubts upon the dogma of the real Presence; fortunately, the people easily took alarm, and, as a general rule, were too strong in the old faith to be led astray. The pastors, too, of the Church were alive to the danger, for there were souls who allowed themselves to be deceived.
Scotus Erigena had formulated the sacramentarian heresy: he had taught that the Eucharist ‘was but a sign, a figure of spiritual union with Jesus, of which the intellect alone could be cognizant.’ His teaching made little impression; it was regarded as mere pedantry, and was too novel to make head against Catholic tradition, such as was to be found exposed in the learned writings of Paschasius Radbert, Abbot of Corbie. The sophistry of Scotus was revived, in the eleventh century, by Berengarius; but although its new promoter was more crafty and conceited than its originator, and did greater and more lasting mischief, yet it died with him. The time for hell to play havoc by such direct attacks as these had not yet come; they were laid aside for others of a more covert kind. That hotbed of heresies, the empire of Byzantium, fostered the almost extinct germ of Manicheism; the teaching of that sect regarding the flesh—that it is the work of the evil principle—was subversive of the dogma of the Eucharist. While Berengarius was trying to bring himself into notice by the noisy, but ineffectual, broaching of his errors, Thrace and Bulgaria were quietly sending their teachers into the west. Lombardy, the Marches, and Tuscany, became infected; so did Austria, in several places, and almost all at one and the same time; so, too, did three cities of France: Orleans, Toulouse, and Arras. Forcible measures were used for repressing the evil; but it knew how to grow strong by retreat. Taking the south of France for the basis of its operations, the foul heresy silently organized its strength during the whole of the twelfth century. So great was the progress it made thus unperceived, that when it came publicly before the world, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, it had an army ready for the maintenance of its impious doctrines. Torrents of blood had to be shed in order to subdue it, and deprive it of its strongholds; and for years after the defeat of the armed insurrection, the Inquisition had to exercise active watchfulness in the provinces that had been tainted by the Albigensian contagion.
Simon of Montfort was the avenger of the Catholic faith. But, while the victorious arm of the Christian hero was dealing a death-blow to heresy, God was preparing for His Son, who had been so unworthily outraged by the sectarians in the Sacrament of His love, a triumph of a more peaceful kind, and a more perfect reparation. It was in the year 1208, that a humble religious of the Congregation of the Hospitallers, by name the Blessed Juliana of Mont-Cornillon near Liege, had a mysterious vision, in which she beheld the moon at its full, but having a hollow on its disc. In spite of all her efforts to divert herself from what she feared was an illusion, the same vision appeared before her as often as she set herself to pray. After two years of such efforts and earnest supplications, it was revealed to her that the moon signified the Church as it then was; and that the hollow she observed on its disc expressed the want of one more solemnity in the liturgical year; a want which God willed should be supplied by the introduction of a feast, to be kept annually in honour of the institution of the blessed Eucharist. The solemn commemoration made of the last Supper, on Maundy Thursday, was no longer sufficient for the children of the Church, shaken as they had been by the influences of heresy; it was not sufficient even for the Church herself, who, on that Thursday, has her attention divided by the important functions of the day, and is wholly taken up, a few hours later, by the sad mysteries of the great Friday. At the same time that Juliana received this communication, she was also commanded to make known to the world what she had been told was the divine will. Twenty years, however, passed, before the humble and timid virgin could bring herself to put her person thus forward. She at length mentioned the subject to a Canon of St. Martin’s of Liége, named John of Lausanne, whom she much respected for his great holiness of life; and she besought him to confer with men of theological learning on the subject of the mission confided to her. All agreed that not only there was no reason why such a feast should not be instituted, but, moreover, that it would be a means for procuring much glory to God and great good to souls. Encouraged by this decision, the saintly Juliana had a proper Office composed and approved for the future festival; it begins with the words: Animarum cibus, and a few portions are still extant.
The Church of Liege, to which the universal Church owes yesterday’s solemnity of the blessed Trinity, was predestined to have the honour of originating the feast of Corpus Christi. It was a happy day, when, in the year 1246, after so many delays and difficulties, the bishop of Liege, Robert de Torôte, published a synodical decree that each year, on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, there should be observed in all the churches of his diocese, with rest from servile work, and with the preparation of fasting on the eve, a solemn feast in honour of the blessed Sacrament.
But the mission of the Blessed Juliana was far from being at an end; she had to be punished for having so long deferred it. The bishop died; and the decree he had issued would have long been a dead letter, had there not been one, and only one, church of the diocese, whose clergy were determined to carry the decree into execution: these were the Canons of Saint Martin-au-Mont. Though there was no authority, during the vacancy, that cared to enforoe the observance, yet, in the year 1247, the feast of Corpus Christi was kept in that privileged church. Robert’s successor, Henry de Gueldre, a warrior and grandee, took no interest in what his predecessor had had so much at heart. Hugh de Saint Cher, Cardinal of St. Sabina, and legate in Germany, having gone to Liege with a view to remedy the disorders to which the new episcopal government had given rise, heard mention of the decree of the late bishop Robert, and of the new feast. The Cardinal had, formerly, been prior and provincial in the Order of St. Dominio, and was one of the theologians who, having been consulted by John de Lausanne, had favoured the project. He was of the same mind when legate; and claimed the honour of keeping the feast himself, and singing Mass with much solemnity. Not satisfied with that, he issued a circular, dated December 29,1253, which he addressed to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and faithful of the territory of his legation; and, in that document, he confirmed the decree of the bishop of Liege, and extended it to all the country over which he was legate, granting one hundred days’ indulgence to all who, being contrite, and having confessed their sins, should, on the feast itself or during its Octave, devoutly visit a church in which the Office of Corpus Christi was being celebrated. In the year following, the Cardinal of St. George in Velabro, who had succeeded as legate, confirmed and renewed the ordinances made by the Cardinal of St. Sabina. These reiterated decrees, however, failed to remove the wide-spread indifference. A terrible blow had been given, by the proposed feast, to the powers of hell, and satan excited every possible opposition to it. As soon as the legates had taken their departure, several local superiors, men of note and authority! published their own ordinances in opposition to what had been already given. In 1258, the year of the Blessed Juliana’s death, there was still but the single church of St. Martin that would celebrate the feast, which it was her mission to spread throughout the entire world. But she left the continuation of her work to a holy recluse, of the name of Eve, to whom she had confided her secrets.
On the twenty-ninth day of August, 1261, James Pantaléon ascended the papal throne, under the name of Urban IV. He owed his election to this dignity to his great personal merits, for by birth[4] he had nothing to recommend him. He had been archdeacon of Liege, and there had met with the Blessed Juliana, and had approved her work. In this his exaltation to the papacy, Eve thought she had an indication of God’s providence. She induced the bishop, Henry de Gueldre, to send his written congratulations to the new Pontiff, and, at the same time, to entreat him to confirm, by his own approbation, the feast which had been instituted by Robert de Torôte. About the same time, several supernatural events had attracted public attention; and in particular, the prodigy at Bolsena, near Orvieto, (where the papal court happened to be then residing) of a corporal having been stained with blood by a miraculous Host. These events seemed as though providentially permitted in order to rouse Urban’s attention, and to confirm him in the holy zeal he had formerly evinced for the glory of the blessed Sacrament. St. Thomas of Aquin was appointed to compose, according to the Roman rite, the Office for the feast; which Office was to be substituted for the one prepared by the Blessed Juliana, which she had adapted to the ancient liturgy of France. The Bull Transiturus was published soon after; it made known to the Church the Pope’s intentions. Urban there mentions the revelations which had come to his knowledge before his election; and declares that, in virtue of his apostolic authority, both for the confounding of heresy, and for the increase of the true faith, he institutes a special solemnity in honour of the divine Memorial left, by Christ, to His Church. The day there fixed for the feast is the fifth feria (that is, the Thursday) after the Octave of Pentecost; for the Papal document does not mention, as the decree of the bishop of Liege had done, the feast of the blessed Trinity, which had not yet been received into the calendar of the Church of Rome. In imitation of what had been done by Hugh de Saint Cher, the Pontiff granted a hundred days’ indulgence to all the faithful, who, being contrite, and having confessed their sins, should assist at Mass, or Matins, at first or second Vespers, of the feast; and for assisting at Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, and Compline, forty days for each of those Hours. He also granted a hundred days to those who should assist, on any day within the Octave, at the Mass and the entire Office. Among all these details, there is no allusion to the procession, for this was not introduced till the following century.
All now seemed settled; and yet, owing to the troubles which were then so rife in Italy and the Empire, the Bull of Urban IV was forgotten, and remained a dead letter. Forty years and more elapsed before it was again promulgated and confirmed by Pope Clement V, at the Council of Vienne. John XXII gave it the force of a settled law, by inserting it in the Clementines, about the year 1318; and he had thus the honour of putting the finishing stroke to the great work, which had taken upwards of a century for its completion,
The feast of the blessed Sacrament, or, as it is commonly called, Corpus Christi, began a new phase in the Catholic worship of the holy Eucharist. But, in order to understand this, we must go more thoroughly into the question of Eucharistic worship, as practised in the previous ages of the Church: the inquiry is one of importance for the full appreciation of the great feast, for which we must now be preparing our souls. No preparation, it seems to us, could be more to the point, than to devote the next two days to a faithful and compendious study of the chief features in the history of the blessed Eucharist.
It belongs to Thee, O holy Spirit, to teach us the history of so great a mystery. Scarcely has Thy reign begun upon the earth, when, faithful to Thy divine mission of glorifying our Emmanuel,[5] who has ascended into heaven, Thou at once raisest our eyes and hearts up to that best gift of His love, whereby we still possess Him under the eucharistic veil. During those long ages of the expectation of nations, it is Thou who didst bring the Word before mankind; Thou spakest of Him in the Scriptures, Thou proclaimedst Him by the prophets.[6] O Thou who art the Gift of the Most High,[7] Thou art, also, infinite Love; and it is through Thee, as such, that are wrought all the manifestations which God vouchsafes to make to us His creatures. It is Thou that broughtest this divine Person, the Word, into the womb of the immaculate Virgin Mary, there to clothe Him with sinless flesh, and so make Him our Brother and our Saviour. And now that He has ascended to His Father and our Father,[8] depriving us of the sight of His human Nature all beauteous with its perfections and charms; now that we have to go through this vale of tears deprived of His visible company: He has sent Thee unto us;[9] and Thou hast come, O divine Spirit, as our Consoler. But the consolation Thou bringest us, dear Paraclete, is ever the same: it is the faithful remembrance of Jesus;[10] yea, more, it is His divine Presence, perpetuated by Thee in the Sacrament of love. We had already been told that this would be so; that Thou wouldst not speak of Thyself,[11] or for Thyself; but that Thou wouldst come to give testimony of the Emmanuel,[12] continue His work, and produce His divine likeness in each one of us.
How admirable is this Thy fulfilment of Thy sublime mission, which is all for the glory of Jesus! O divine Spirit, Guardian of the Word in the Church! it is far beyond our power to describe how great is Thy vigilance over the word of teaching, brought by the Saviour to this earth of ours, a teaching which is the true expression of Himself, and which, coming, as He Himself does, from the mouth of the Father, is the nourishment of His bride here below.[13] But with what infinite respect and vigilance, O holy Spirit, dost Thou preside over the august Sacrament, wherein is present, with all the reality of His adorable Flesh, that same Incarnate Word, who, from the very beginning of creation, was the centre and object of all Thy dealings with creatures! It is by the mystery produced by Thine omnipotence, that the exiled bride recovers her Spouse; it is by Thee that she traverses the long ages of time, holding and prizing her infinite treasure; it is by Thee that she, with such superhuman wisdom, puts it to profit, by so arranging, so modifying her discipline, yea, her very life, as to secure in each age of time the greatest possible faith, respect and love towards the divine Eucharist. If she anxiously hide It from the profane men that would only turn their knowledge into blasphemy; or if she lavish upon It all that liturgy can give of pomp and magnificence; or if, again, she bring It forth from her sacred temples, and triumphantly carry It in procession through the crowded streets of cities, or the green lanes of the quiet country, it is Thou, O divine Spirit, that inspirest her with what is best; it is Thy divine foresight that suggests to her what is the surest means for gaining, in each respective period and age, the most of honour and love for Jesus who is ever present in the sacred Host, and who deigns to let His love be delighted with being thus among the children of men.[14]
Vouchsafe, O Holy Ghost, to aid us in our contemplations of this sacred mystery. Enlighten our understanding, inflame our hearts, during these hours of preparation for its feast. Give to our souls the knowledge of that Jesus, who is coming to us beneath the sacramental veil.
May this holy mystery be to us, during this last portion of the year and its liturgy, our Bread to support us on the journey we have still to make through the desert, before we can reach the mount of God;[15] we have yet a great way to go, and a way so different from the one we have already passed through, when we had the company of Jesus in the mysteries He was working for our salvation. Be Thou, O holy Spirit, our guide in those paths, which the Church, under Thy direction, is courageously traversing, while she is every day approaching nearer to the end of her pilgrimage here below. Yet scarcely have we entered on this second portion of our year, than Thou, divine Spirit, bringest us to the banquet prepared by divine Wisdom,[16] where the pilgrim receives the strength he needs for his journey. We will walk on, then, in the strength of this heavenly food;[17] and when our course is run, we will, with the same Bread to support us, cry out, with the Spirit and the bride, that our Lord Jesus may come[18]to us, at that last hour, and admit us into His eternal kingdom.
In honour of the adorable Sacrament, and in memory of the Blessed Juliana, to whom the Church owes the feast she is about to celebrate, we will offer our readers, to-day and during the Octave, the main portions, which are still extant, of the Office which bears her name. It will be interesting to them to hear how this Office was drawn up; we give the details as supplied to us by the Bollandists, in the life written of her by one of her contemporaries.
Juliana, then, began to ask herself whom she should get to compose the Office of the great feast. She knew of no clever man, or holy priest, who seemed to her fitted for the work; so, trusting solely to divine Wisdom, she made up her mind to select a young brother of the Hospital, named John,[19] whose innocent life had been revealed to her by God. John refused the work, declaring that it far exceeded his powers or learning; he begged her to excuse him, as he was but an ignorant man. Juliana knew all that; but she also knew that divine Wisdom, whose work she was furthering, could speak admirable things through an unlearned man; she kept to her purpose; and John, unable to resist the entreaties and influence of Juliana, began his labours. She prayed, and he wrote; and with the efforts of the two united, the work progressed in a way that surprised the young brother. He attributed all, and he was not far wrong, to Juliana’s prayers. When he had any considerable portion of the composition ready, he gave it to her, saying: ‘This, Sister, is what heaven sends thee: read it, and examine whether I have put down anything, either in the chant, or the words, which needs correction.’ She would then take it; and, by the wonderful infused wisdom which she possessed, would examine, and, where needed, correct; and with so much prudence and judgment, that not even the most expert critics could find anything to change. And thus, by the wondrous help of God, was completed the whole Office of the new feast.[20]
The antiphons we here subjoin were taken by the Bollandists,[21] from a very ancient Directorium of the church of Saint-Martin-au-Mont. They are the antiphons assigned for the Benedictus and Magnificat of each day during the Octave.
Antiphons
Animarum cibus Dei Sapientia nobis carnem assumptam proposuit in edulium, ut per cibum hujus pietatis invitaret ad gustum divinitatis.
Discipulis competentem conscribens hereditatem, sui memoriam commendavit inquiens: Hoc facite in mei commemorationem.
Totum Christus se nobis exhibet in cibum, ut sicut divinitus nos reficit quem corde guetamue, ita nos humanitue reficiat quem ore manducamus;
Et sic de visibilibus ad invisibilia, de temporalibus ad æterna, de terrenis ad cœlestia, de humanis ad divina nos transferat.
Panem angelorum manducavit homo, ut qui secundum animum cibum divinitatis accipimus, secundum carnem cibum humanitatis sumamus: quia sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo, ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.
Panis vitæ, panis angelorum, Jesu Christe vera mundi vita; qui semper nos reficis, in te nunquam deficis, nos ab omni sana languore, ut te nostro viatico in terra recreati, te ore plenissimo manducemus in æternum.
Suo Christus sanguine nos lavat quotidie, cum ejus beatæ passionis quotidie memoria renovatur.
Sanguis ejus non infidelium manibus ad ipsorum perniciem funditur; sed quotidie fidelium suavi ore sumitur ad salutem.
Verus Deus, verus homo semel in cruce pependit, se Patri redemptionis hostiam efficacem offerens: semper tamen invisibiliter eat in mysterio, non passus sed quasi pati repræsentatus.
Dominus Jesus Christus sine vulnere quotidie sacrificatus, mortalibus in terra præstitit cœlesti fungi ministerio.
The Wisdom of God, the food of souls, hath offered to us, for our nourishment, the Flesh he had assumed to himself; that, by this food of his love, he might lead us to taste of what is divine.
Leaving to his disciples a worthy inheritance, he urged them to be mindful of himself, saying: Do this in memory of me.
Christ gave his whole self to us as our food; that as he, whom we taste with our heart, divinely refreshes us, so he, whom we receive with our mouth, might refresh us by his human nature;
And thus it is that he gives us to pass from things visible to invisible, from temporal to eternal, from earthly to heavenly, from human to divine.
Man hath eaten of the Bread of angels; so that we who, according to the soul, receive the food of the Godhead, may take, according to the flesh, the food of Christ’s humanity: for, as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.
O Bread of life! O Bread of angels! Jesus Christ, true life of the world! who ever feedest us, and never failest in thyself! heal us of ail our weakness; that being refreshed on earth by thee as our viaticum, we may feed on thee, to our fill, in eternity.
Daily doth Christ wash us in his Blood, for daily is renewed the remembrance of his sacred Passion.
His Blood is not shed by the hands of faithless men, which would be to their destruction; but daily is it received, and sweetly, and to their salvation, by the faithful.
Once did Christ, true God and true Man, hang upon the cross, and offer himself to the Father, as an effectual victim of redemption; yet is he ever invisibly present in the mystery, not Buffering, but represented as suffering.
The Lord Jesus Christ, who is daily sacrificed, but without a wound, grants to mortals on earth to fulfil a heavenly ministry.
[1] Ps. cx. 4.
[2] Zach. ix. 17·
[3] Collect for the feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis.
[4] Troyes, France, was his native town.
[5] St. John xvi. 14.
[6] 2 St. Pet. i. 19-21.
[7] Hymn for Pentecost.
[8] St. John xx. 17.
[9] St. Luke xxiv. 49.
[10] St. John xiv. 26.
[11] St. John xvi. 13.
[12] St. John xv. 26.
[13] St. Matt. iv.
[14] Prov. viii. 31.
[15] 3 Kings xix. 8.
[16] Prov. ix.
[17] 3 Kings xix. 8.
[18] Apoc. xxii. 17.
[19] We must not confound him with John de Lausanne, of whom we have previously spoken.
[20] Vita B. Julianæ, ab auctore coævo descripta lib. ii. cap. 2. Act. SS. ad diem quintam Aprilis.
[21] Ibid. in Append.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Christum regem adoremus dominantem gentibus, qui se manducantibusdat spiritus pinguedinem.
Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations; who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.
God has satisfied the intense desires of man’s heart. The house of the marriage-feast, built by divine Wisdom on the top of mountains, has had flowing unto it all the nations of earth.[1] Yesterday, the whole Catholic world was animated with sentiments of love towards the adorable Sacrament; and the people said to each other, in a holy transport of gratitude: ‘Come! let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob.’ Yesterday, the Bud of the Lord was seen by us all in magnificence and glory;[2] this divine Bud, this rich ear of corn that has sprung up from our earth, was carried in triumph, and excited the enthusiasm of the faithful, making them rejoice before It, as they that rejoice in the harvest.[3] It was a heavenly harvest, that had been the expectation of nations. It was the precious ear of corn, despised indeed by Israel, but gleaned by Ruth, the stranger, in the field of the true Booz, in Bethlehem.
It is for this day of the great meeting of nations, foretold by Isaias, that the Lord had kept reserved on the mountain the feast on a victim such as had never been seen before, a feast of wine, the richest and purest.[4] The poor have eaten at this banquet, and they have given fervent praise to their God; the rich have eaten, and have fallen down in adoration; and all the ends of the earth, prostrate in His sacred Presence, have recognized that He who thus gave them to feast was Christ their King.[5] 'This,' they said, ‘is our God, we have waited for Him;[6] we have patiently waited for Him; He was the desire of our soul; we desired Him in the night, and, in the morning early, our first thoughts were upon Him; He is the Lord, and His remembrance could not be effaced, even through the long ages of expectation.[7] Thou, O Lord, art my God, I will exalt Thee, and give glory to Thy name, for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thy designs of old, faithful; faithfully hast Thou fulfilled Thy eternal decrees.’[8]
These expressions of love on the part of the human race were but a feeble echo to the infinite love which God vouchsafed to have for His creature man. The divine Spirit, who has achieved the wonderful union between the children of Adam and eternal Wisdom, shows us, everywhere in the Scriptures, that this Wisdom was impatient of delay, that He was taking each obstacle as it came, and removing it, and was preparing, in countless ways, for the marriage-feast so much longed for.
We will devote these first two days of the octave to considering the leading features in the history of this eucharistic preparation; we shall be well repaid by the additional light which these truths will reflect upon the dogma itself. We are going to review the loving ways whereby eternal Wisdom sought, for so many long ages, to bring about His own union with ourselves. As a matter of course, we clothe these truths in Scripture language, for the Scriptures are our guide in this research; it is they that tell us the workings of the divine intentions in our regard. How, then, do the Scriptures speak of these, before the mystery of the Incarnation was actually accomplished?
The second Person of the adorable Trinity is there brought before us under the name of Wisdom: until the time of His union with man being accomplished in the most perfect degree possible, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, this is the name under which He passes in the Scriptures, a name which gives Him the appearance of a Bride. But once the mystery of perfect union is achieved, another name is given Him, the name of Spouse, or Bridegroom. His other name of Wisdom seems almost forgotten; and yet, in the ages of lively faith, it was not so; the people of those days were too full of the Scriptures to forget it. Thus we find the first Christian emperor dedicating, to this ruler and centre of his every thought, the trophy of his victory over paganism, and that of the triumph of the martyrs. ‘All burning with love for the Wisdom of God,' says Eusebius,[9] Constantine consecrated the ancient Byzantium, which he called by his own name, to the God of the martyrs;[10] and dedicated to eternal Wisdom the grandest structure of this new Rome, Saint Sophia, which for many ages was the finest Christian church in the world. Like our forefathers in the faith, let us, too, honour divine Wisdom, and gratefully think upon the love which urged Him, from all eternity, to unite Himself to man!
It is this love that explains the mysterious joy, which, as the Scripture tells us, He had at the beginning of time, when this world of ours was being gradually developed in all the beauty of its fresh creation; for sin had not then come in, to break the harmony of this work of the Most High. At each additional manifestation of creative power, Wisdom takes delight, and by His delight, adds a new charm to this the future scene of the divine marvels, planned as those have been by His love. This Wisdom is delighted at the omnipotence which produces creation; He plays every day, as the creation goes on; He plays in this world, for each progress in its formation brings man nearer, man whose palace it is, and His delights are to be with the children of men.[11]
Incomprehensible love! It precedes, though it foresees sin; and though foreseeing it, loves not the less! It has its divine delights to be with us, and we have attractions for it, in spite of all the bitterness caused by the sight of our future black ingratitude! The fall of man will, as one of its terrific consequences, modify much and cruelly the earthly existence which Wisdom is to have upon our earth. But in order that we may the more easily understand, and more fully appreciate, how immense must that love be, which could be proof against such obstacles, let us turn our thoughts, to-day, to the course that these loving intentions would have taken, had man persevered in the state of innocence. Although the sacred Scriptures were written for the benefit of fallen man, and are ever telling us of the mystery of the restoration of the sinful world, yet do they make frequent allusions to God’s original intention; and with these to guide us, it is not difficult to mark out the leading features of the primitive plan.
Wisdom, speaking of Himself, says: ‘The Lord possessed me, ir the beginning of His ways.’[12] Is He not the first of all creatures?[13] Not, of course, as to that divine form of which the apostle speaks, and by which Wisdom is equal to God,[14] but in that human existence, which He has selected, in preference to all other possible natures, for the one whereby to unite Himself with finite being. That selection was one of an unlimited and most gratuitous love; it made the type and law of entire creation to be One who would so closely resemble us human beings. What an honour! We are told in holy Writ that the most high and almighty Creator created wisdom before all things, and created her in the Holy Ghost; and that, taking her as His type, and number, and measure, He poured her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh.[15] When the fullness of the appointed time came, divine Wisdom Himself was to come, giving to all creation, of which He was the head and centre, its purpose and meaning. He was to blend and unite with the infinite homage, which resulted from His own divine personality, the homage of every existing creature, and thus give perfection to the external glory of the Father by His own eternal and infinite adoration. Then was to appear the dignity of that human nature, chosen by divine Wisdom, from the beginning, to be His created form, and the instrument of that homage to the Father, which is perfect and divine, because of the personal union of this created nature with the Nature of God the Son. Eternal Wisdom will thus be one with the Son of the purest of virgins; the nuptial-song will be taken up by all creatures, both in earth and heaven; and through this Son of Man, who will then be called the Spouse, Wisdom will continue, to the end of time, in the soul of every individual that does not refuse the honour, the ineffable mystery of His divine marriage with our nature.
He wishes, then, to unite Himself with each one of us. But what means will He adopt for this deifying union? Of all the Sacraments, which our Lord might have instituted after His Incarnation, in the supposition of man’s not forfeiting his state of innocence, there is not one, says Suarez, which has so many probabilities on its side, as the Eucharist; there is not one which, in itself, is so desirable, and so independent of sin; for the notion of expiation, which, in our present state, lingers about It, as the memorial of Jesus’ Passion, may be prescinded from It without affecting the essence of the Sacrament—that essence being the real Presence of our Lord, and the close union whereby He unites us to Himself.[16] It is the same with the Eucharist as a Sacrifice: the primary notion of sacrifice, as we shall see further on, does not absolutely include the idea of sin. So that, when Christ, as the head of the human family, comes into this world, to offer up a Sacrifice in the name of us all, that Sacrifice will be one which is worthy of His Father and of Himself. Spouse as He is, and by virtue of the divine unction Priest too, it is by the Eucharist as a Sacrifice that He will act in this twofold character; for by that Sacrifice He brings the human race into union with Himself by the embrace of the sacred Mysteries; and, when He has divinized it by union with Himself, making it one body of which He is the Head, He offers it to His eternal Father.
But for the coming of the Spouse there must be a numerous retinue, to do Him honour and tell His praises, when the day arrives for His entrance into the banquet-hall; and from now till the time when earth, being peopled enough, shall have ready for her King-Priest a court that is worthy of Him, so many ages are to intervene! What will Wisdom be doing in the interval? We have already seen how in the early days of creation He played before His Father, and was all transported with delight. But when the work was done, the Creator withdrew into the repose and rest of the seventh day. Seated on His Father’s right hand, in the splendours of the Saints, will Wisdom wait inactive for that day to come, when He, who has begotten Him before the day-star and has betrothed Him to human nature, shall send Him down to this earth, there to consummate the alliance, for which He has been eternally longing? The sacred Scriptures give a very different description of Him, during the time preceding His actual coming. They tell us that Wisdom is so active, though so gentle, that He is more active than all active things, and was everywhere, and put Himself in every place, and in the Prophets, so that He was easily found by them that wished to find Him; He even anticipated their research, and was more ready to show Himself, than they could possibly be to find Him. If any soul was intent, like some early riser, to find Him, He soon met such a seeker; nay, Himself went about seeking for such as were worthy of Him, and when He met them in the ways, here or there in this wide world, this beautiful Wisdom would show Himself to them with all cheerfulness. Thus do the Scriptures describe Wisdom as engaged during the ages preceding His Incarnation. He does not, as yet, quit the throne of glory on which He sitteth, lighting up all heaven with His beauty, but He is preparing the day of His marriage, by impressing it on man’s mind and notice in every possible way; He meets him at every turn to speak of it, to tell him of how He, Wisdom, loves him; He selects certain symbols of the wondrous mysteries He intends to achieve when the time comes. Let us take one of these symbols for our lesson to-day, that we may not lose a particle of what Jesus has ever done to make Himself known. But before we go further, let us listen to the Scripture character drawn of this beautiful Wisdom: He is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness; holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtile![17] And now to a choice symbol chosen by Jesus, whereby He spoke of Himself, before He came to the nuptials.
The Lord God, says Scripture, had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning, wherein He intended to place man, whom He was not to create till the sixth day. In the midst of this paradise there grew a tree of singular beauty, to which God had attached a great mystery; its name was the tree of life. A river, with four streams, watered this garden of delights;[18] it was shown later on to Saint john as a river of water of life, dear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.[19]The tree and the river bear no allusion to future sin; they had been put in paradise, the abode of innocence, before man himself; they are portions of the primitive plan of God; and therefore, in themselves, signify only what has reference to the state of innocence. Now, an ancient writer, published under the name of St. Ambrose, says: ‘The tree of life in the midst of paradise, is Christ in the midst of His Church.’[20] ‘So then,’ says St. Augustine, ‘Christ was the tree of life; neither would God have man to live in paradise, without presenting to him mysteries of things spiritual under corporal forms. In the other trees, therefore, he had food; but in that one (of life), he had a sacred symbol (sacramentum). And what is it that was symbolized, but Wisdom, of which it is said, She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her?[21] For it is right to give to Christ the name of a thing which had been made in order to signify Him.’[22] St. Hilary, too, bears testimony to this same traditional interpretation. After quoting the same text from Proverbs, he says: ‘Wisdom, which is Christ, is called the tree of life; because, as we are taught by the authority of the Prophets, on account of its being a symbol (sacramentum) of His future Incarnation and Passion, our Lord compared Himself to a tree, when He said: A tree is known by its fruit. . . . This tree, then, is living; yea, not living only, but rational also, for it gives its fruit when it wills, and, as the Psalm says, in its own time. And what is that time? That of which the apostle speaks, when he says that God might make known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He had purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times: the dispensation of the fruit, then, is reserved for the fullness of times.’[23] But what is to be the fruit of this tree—the leaves of which fall not off,[24] and are for the healing of the nations[25]—but divine Wisdom, in His own very self and substance? In His divine form He is the food of the angels too; but He is to be that of man in His two Natures, that thus, by His Flesh, reaching man’s soul, He may fill that soul with His Divinity, as it was beautifully expressed in the Office composed by Blessed Juliana.[26]
Thus, therefore, divine Wisdom had preceded man in paradise: Adam was not yet there, but Wisdom was; for His love made Him hasten thither, and take up His abode there, ready to receive man on his arrival, in that tree of life, which He, together with the Most High, had planted in the garden of delights. Speaking of this tree, the bride of the Canticle said: ‘As the apple-tree among the barren trees of the woods, so is my Beloved among the sons of men; I sat down under His shadow whom I desired, and His fruit was sweet to my palate.’[27] This sweet fruit of the tree of life was a figure of the Eucharist.
But how is this? we were yesterday invited by Wisdom to eat bread in His house, and not fruit in His garden. What means this change of language? It is because man has brought about an immense change of purpose: in his pride, he has eaten of a fruit which was not good, a forbidden fruit, the eating of which has ruined him; he has been driven from the garden of delights; Cherubim and a flaming sword have been placed, to keep the way of the tree of life. Instead of fruits of paradise, the food of man is, henceforth, to be bread, which costs toil and sweat, bread, which means grinding under a millstone, and burning with fire. Such is the sentence passed on man by a justly angered God.[28] But alas! this most just condemnation is to go far beyond the guilty one; it will strike man, but it will strike divine Wisdom, too, who has given Himself to man to be his food and companion. In the immensity of His love, Wisdom will not abandon this fallen nature of man; He will, that He may save it, take upon Himself all the consequences of the fall, and, like fallen man, will become passible and mortal. The marriage-feast is not to be in Eden, as was first intended. Poor Eden! she had been so exquisitely prepared for that feast; she had her fragrant fields of loveliest emerald, and her fruit which was so fair to behold, and so pleasant to eat of,[29] and so immortalizing with a youth that was to last for ever! To reach man, now that he is fallen, eternal Wisdom must make His way through the briars and thickets of His new abode. The marriage-feast will be kept in a house, which it has cost Him infinite pains to build to Himself, as a cover against the miseries of the land of exile. And as to the food served for the banquet, it is not to be the fruit spontaneously yielded by the tree of life; it is to be the divine Wheat, ground by suffering, and baked on the altar of the cross.
All history culminates in the sacrifice of our Lord, and all creation converges to it, as to its centre. The reason of this is, that, in the creation and government of the world, God seeks His own glory, as the last end for which He does all His works. Now, the Sacrifice offered by the Incarnate Word alone gives to God the infinite glory due to His sovereign majesty. The Christians of the first ages of the Church thoroughly understood all this. It is the idea which inspired the fine Preface of the liturgy given under the name of St. James, in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions. We wish we could give our readers the whole of this liturgy: we intend, however, to quote, during the days of this octave, some of the most striking passages.
Constitutio Jacobi.
Vere dignum et justum est ante omnia laudare te verum Deum, ex quo omnis paternitas in cœlo et in terra nominatur, solum ingenitum, omnis boni largitorem. Tu enim es primus natura, et lex existendi, ac omnem numerum superans.
Qui omnia ex nihilo in rerum naturam protulisti per unigenitum Filium tuum: ipsum vero ante omnia sæcula genuisti absque intermedio Verbum Deum, Sapientiam viventem, primogenitum omnis creaturæ, Angelum magni consilii tui, pontificem tuum, regem autem et Dominum omnis naturae quæ intelligi ac sentiri potest. Tu namque, Deus aeterne, cuncta per ipsum condidisti, et per ipsum cuncta dignaris convenienti providentia; per quem enim largitus es ut essent, per eumdem etiam ut bene essent dedisti.
Deus et Pater unigeniti Filii tui, per eum ante omnia fecisti cherubinos et seraphinos, exercitus, virtutes et potestates, principatus et thronos, archangelos et angelos.
Atque post haec omnia, per eum fabricasti hunc qui apparet mundum, cunctaque quæ in eo sunt. Nam tu es qui coelum ut pellem extendisti, et terram supra nihilum collocasti sola voluntate; qui noctem ac diem fabricatus es; qui in cœlo solem posuisti ad dominium diei, et lunam ad dominium noctis, atque chorum stellarum in cœlo delineasti in laudem magnificentiæ tuæ; qui mare magnum a terra separasti, et illud quidem animalibus parvis ac magnis refersisti, hanc autem cicuribus ac indomitis replevisti, herbis coronasti, floribus decorasti, seminibus ditasti.
Neque solum per Christum condidisti mundum, sed et in ipso mundi civem hominem efficisti, ac eum mundi mundum, seu ornatus ornatum constituisti. Dixisti enim Sapientiae tuæ: 'Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram, et ad similitudinem; et dominentur piscibus maris et volatilibus cœli.' Ideoque fecisti eum ex anima immortali et corpore dissipabili; et dedisti ei, in anima quidem rationalem dijudicationem, justi ac injusti discretionem; in corpore autem donasti quinquertium sensuum atque motum progressivum.
Tu namque, Deus omnipotens, per Christum in Edene ad orientem plantasti paradisum, omni genere esculentarum plantarum ornatum, et in eum tanquam in opiparam domum induxisti hominem; quem, cum efficeres, lege naturali ac insita donasti, quo intus ac ex se haberet cognitionis Dei semina. Introducens autem eum in paradisum deliciarum, potestatem quidem omnium ad participandum concessisti, unius vero solius gustatum in spem meliorum rerum interdixisti, ut si mandatum custodiret, illius servati mercedem ferret immortalitatem.
Cum autem mandatum neglexit, et, fraude serpentis mulierisque consilio, gustavit prohibitum fructum; ex paradiso quidem juste illum expulisti, bonitate vero tua funditus pereuntem non despexisti; sed qui ei subjeceras creaturam, dedisti ut suis sudoribus ac laboribus sibi pararet victum, te omnia producente, augente ac maturante: atque eum brevi somno affectum, per jusjurandum ad regenerationem vocasti; decreto mortis soluto, vitam ex resurrectione promisisti.
It is truly right and just, that, before all things, we should give praise to thee, who art true God, from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, who art the only unbegotten, the giver of every good thing. For thou art first by nature, and the law of existence, and surpassing all number.
Thou it is that broughtest all things, out of nothing, into the nature of things, by thine only-begotten Son: but him thou begottest before all ages, without an instrument, God the Word, living Wisdom, the first-born of every creature, the Angel of thy great counsel, thy Priest, the King, also, and Lord of every nature that can be understood or felt. For thou, eternal Godi createdst all things by him, and by him thou vouchsafest a suitable providence to all things; for, by whom thou gavest things to be, by the same thou gavest them well-being.
O God and Father of thy only-begotten Son! by him thou madest, before all things, the cherubim and seraphim, the hosts, the virtues and powers, the principalities and thrones, the archangels and angels.
And, after all these, thou madest by him this visible world and all that is in it. For thou art he that stretchedst out the heavens as a tent, and settedst the earth upon nothing, by thine only will; that madest night and day; that, in the heavens, placedst the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night, and inscribedst a choir of stars in heaven unto the praise of thy magnificence; thou dividedst the great sea from the land, replenishing the one with animals little and great, and filling the other with creatures, both tame and wild, crowning it with herbs, beautifying it with flowers, enriching it with seeds.
Neither only createdst thou the world by Christ, but in him, also, thou madest man citizen of the world, appointing him the world of the world, or the ornament of the ornament. For thou said8t unto thy Wisdom: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air.’ Wherefore, also, thou madest him of an immortal soul and a body liable to dissolution; and thou gavest him, in his soul, rational judgment, and discernment between right and wrong; and in his body, five senses, and progressive motion.
For thou, O almighty God, plantedst by Christ, in Eden, at the east, a paradise, adorned with every sort of plant fit for food, and into it, as into a wellprovisioned house, thou didst lead man, to whom, when thou createdst him, thou gavest a natural and innate law, to the end that he might have within and of himself the seeds of the knowledge of God. And when introducing him into the paradise of delights, thou grantedst him leave to partake of all things save one, whereof, to give him the hope of better things, thou forbadest him to taste, that, if he kept that commandment, he might receive immortality, as the recompense of his observance.
But when he neglected the commandment, and, by the serpent’s guile, and the woman’s counsel, tasted the forbidden fruit, thou drovest him from paradise, justly indeed, yet, in thy goodness, thou despisedst him not, though utterly ruined; but, having previously subjected creation unto him, thou grantedst him to procure food by his own sweat and labour, though it was thou by whom all things are produced, increase, and ripen. And when he had slept the short sleep (of death), thou, by an oath, calledst him to a new birth; and, loosing the decree of death, thou promisedst him life, after the resurrection.
We will close this day with the several hymns, composed under the direction of Blessed Juliana; they were used for each of the Little Hours of the Office, which preceded that of St. Thomas. It was a custom of the Church of Liège to vary the hymns, at these Hours, according to the different seasons and feasts.
At Prime
Summe Deus clementiæ,
Qui ob salutem mentium
Coelestis alimouiæ
Nobis præstas remedium;
Mores, vitam et opera
Rege momentis omnibus,
Et beatis accelera
Vitam dare cum civibus.
Great God of mercy!
who, for the salvation of souls,
grantest us the remedy of a food
that comes from heaven.
Direct thou our manners, and life,
and works; and give us speedily
to spend our life
with the blessed citizens of heaven.
At Tierce
Sacro tecta velamine
Pietatis mysteria
Mentes pascunt dulcedine,
Qua satiant coelestia.
Sit ergo cum coelestibus,
Nobis commune gaudium,
Illis quod sese præstitit,
Nobis quod se non abstulit.
Shrouded with a sacred veil,
the mystery of love
feeds our souls with a sweetness,
which contents even them that are in heaven.
With the blessed in heaven, then,
let us have one same joy,
for, to them he gave himself,
and us he did not leave.
At Sext
Splendor superni luminis,
Laudisque Sacrificium,
Cœnam tui da numinis
Tuæ carnis post prandium.
Saturatus opprobriis
Ad hoc cruci configeris,
Et irrisus ludibriis
Crudeli morte plecteris.
O brightness of supernal light,
O Sacrifice of praise!
grant us the banquet of thy Divinity,
after this of thy Flesh.
It was for this, that, filled with reproach,
thou wast nailed to the cross,
and derided with scoffs,
wast made to suffer a cruel death.
At None
Æterna cœli gloria,
Lux beata credentium,
Redemptionis hostia,
Tuarum pastus ovium;
Hujus cultu memoriæ
Diræ mortis supplicio
Nos de lacu miseriae
Educ, qui clamas: Sitio.
Præsta, Pater, per Filium,
Præsta, per almum Spiritum:
Quibus hoc das edulium
Prosperum serves exitum.
Amen.
O thou, that art the eternal glory of heaven,
the blessed light of believers,
the victim of redemption,
and the pasture of thy sheep!
By our worship of this memorial
of thy cruel death,
lead us from the abyss of misery,
O thou that criest: I thirst.
Grant, O Father, through thy Son,
grant through the Spirit of love,
that we, to whom thou givest such nourishment as this,
may be brought by thee to a prosperous end.
Amen.
[1] Is. ii. 2.
[2] Ibid. iv. 2.
[3] Ibid. ix. 3.
[4] Ibid. xxv. 6.
[5] Ps. xxi. 27-30.
[6] Is. xxv. 9.
[7] Is. xxvi. 8, 9.
[8] Ibid. xxv. 1.
[9] De Vita Constant. lib. iii. cap. 48.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Prov. viii 30, 31.
[12] Ibid. viii. 22.
[13] Ecclus. i. 4.
[14] Philipp, ii 6.
[15] Ecclus. i. 4. 8-10.
[16] De Sacr. Disp. iii. sect. 3.
[17] Wisd. vii. 22-26; vi. 13-17; ix. 4, 10.
[18] Gen. ii. 8-10.
[19] Apoc. xxii. 1.
[20] Append. Ambros, In Apocalyps. c. ii. v. 7.
[21] Prov. iii. 18.
[22] De Genes. ad Litt. lib. 8.
[23] Tract in psalm. 1, 9, 10.
[24] Ps. i. 3.
[25] Apoc. xxii. 2.
[26] Page 146.
[27] Cant. ii. 3.
[28] Gen. iii. 19.
[29] Gen. ii. 9.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
The history of the blessed Eucharist is one with that of the Church herself: the liturgical usages, which have varied in the celebration of the most august of all the Sacraments, have followed the great social phases of the Christian world. This was a necessity; for the Eucharist is the vital centre, here below, whither everything in the Church converges; it is the inner bond which unites together that society of which Christ is the Head, the society whereby He is to reign over the nations, which are to be His inheritance.[1] Union with Peter, the Vicar of Christ, must always be the indispensable condition, the external mark, of the union of the members with the invisible Head; but supported, in an ineffable manner, on the rock which bears the Church, the divine mystery wherein Christ gives Himself to each one of His servants must ever be the essential mystery of union; and, as such, the centre, and the bond, of the great Catholic communion. Let us, to-day, get a clear notion of this fundamental truth, on which was based the very formation of the Church, at her commencement; and let us consider the influence it exercised on the forms of eucharistic worship during the first twelve centuries. To-morrow, we will continue the subject, by examining how subsequent loss of fervour, and heresy, and social degeneracy, induced the Church to gradually modify these forms, which, after all, are but accidental: they were admirably adapted to the favoured times they had served, but would scarcely suit the changed circumstances and requirements of later generations of the Church's children.
It was on the eve of His Passion that our Lord instituted the great Memorial, which was to perpetuate; in all places, the one Sacrifice, whereby are perfected for ever they that are sanctified.[2] The cross was 'the altar of the world,’ as St. Leo calls it;[3]and on that cross, says the same holy Doctor, was made, a few hours after the last Supper, 'the oblation of the whole human nature; for the whole human race was united with this last act of infinite adoration and reparation, offered by its Head, to the supreme Majesty of God.’[4] The Church, issuing with the Blood and water from the side of her Saviour, was then but in her infancy; and the mystery of divine union—which Jesus had come upon the earth to produce, by Himself uniting to the Father, in the Holy Ghost, the members of His mystical body—was to have its immediate realization in those members only by its successive application to each. This was the object of the sublime institution of the Eucharist at the last Supper. It was a new Testament, which gave to the future Church the possession of the mystery, whereby each generation would be linked on to its predecessors by the unity of the one Sacrifice, and would find in that same unity the mutual bond of its members.
Immediately after instituting this new Passover, Jesus said to His disciples: ‘A new commandment I give unto you: that ye love one another, as I have loved you: and, by this shall all men know that ye are My disciples.’[5] This was Jesus’ first injunction to His disciples after giving Himself to them in the Eucharist; this love of, and union with, each other, was to be the mark of the Covenant, which He then, through His apostles, contracted with all those who were to believe in Him through the word of their preaching.[6] His very first prayer, after that first giving of His Body and Blood under the eucharistic species, is for that same union of His faithful one with another; a union admirable as is the mystery which produces and maintains it; a union so intimate, that its model is the union existing between Jesus and His eternal Father: May they all be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they may be made perfect in one.[7]
Under the direction of the holy Spirit, the Church understood, from the very first, the intentions of her divine Master. The three thousand, who were converted on the day of Pentecost, are described, in the Acts, as persevering in the doctrine of the apostles, in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in prayers.[8] And so great is the power of union derived from their all partaking of the heavenly Bread, that they were remarked by the Jews as a class of men forming a society distinct from every other, which won the esteem of all that beheld them, and drew others daily to join them.[9]
A few years later the Church, led on by the same holy Spirit, passed beyond the narrow limits of Judea, and carried her treasures to the Gentiles. It was a world of corruption, where all was discord between man and man, and where the only remedy for the outrages of individual egotism was the tyranny of a Cæsar. Into such a world the Christians came, and showed it, from east to west, the marvel of a new people, which, by the sole influence of its virtues, recruited its members from every class of society, and from every dime, and was stronger and more united than any nation that had ever appeared on earth. The pagans were in admiration at this strange and inexplicable novelty; without knowing what they were doing, without troubling themselves with any further inquiry, they bore testimony to the perfection wherewith these Christians fulfilled the dying wishes of their Founder; they thus spoke of them: ‘See how they love one another!’
It was, indeed, a mystery; but the faithful, the initiated, understood it; for it had been thus explained to them by the apostle: ‘We, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one Bread.’[10]
This text is admirably commented by St. Augustine in a sermon he preached to the neophytes, a few hours after their Baptism: ‘I remember,’ he says, 'the promise I made, of explaining to you, who have been baptized, the mystery of the Lord’s Table, which you now see, and of which you were made partakers in the night just past. . . That Bread which you see on the altar, that Bread which has been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ: that chalice, or, rather, what that chalice contains, which has been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. By these did Christ our Lord will to give us His Body and His Blood, which He shed for us, unto the remission of our sins. If you have properly received them, you are what you have received, for the apostle says: “We, being many, are one bread, one body.” It is thus that he expounded the Sacrament of the Table of the Lord: We, being many, are one bread, one body. We are, by this Bread, instructed how we are to love unity. Was this Bread made out of one grain P Were there not many grains of wheat P But, before they came to be bread, they were separated one from the other; they became joined by means of water, and by a certain bruising: for, unless the wheat be ground, and be moistened with water, it could never take the form we call bread. It was the same with you, until you were, so to say, ground by the humiliation of fasting, and by the sacrament of exorcism. Baptism and water came to you; you were moistened, that so you might come to the state of bread. But, even so, there is no bread without fire. What, then, does fire signify P It is the chrism; for the oil which makes our fire is the Sacrament of the Holy Ghost. . . The Holy Ghost, therefore, comes; after water, comes fire; and you are made Bread, which is the Body of Christ. . . Christ willed that we should be His Sacrifice—the Sacrifice of God. . . Great, very great are these mysteries! . . Do you so receive them, as to take care that you have unity in your hearts.[11] Be one, by loving one another, by holding one faith, one hope, and undivided charity. When the heretics receive this Bread, they receive testimony against themselves; for they are seeking to make division, whereas this Bread is the sign of unity.’[12] The Scripture, speaking of the first Christians, says that they had but one heart and one soul;[13] and it is the unity which is signified by the wine in the holy mysteries. ‘For,’ continues St. Augustine, ‘the wine was once in so many bunches of grapes; but now it is all one, one in the sweetness of the chalice; for it has gone through the crushing of the wine-press. So you, after those fastings, and labours, and humility, and contrition, have come, in the name of Christ, to the chalice of the Lord; and you are there on that table, and there in that chalice. You are there together with us, for we have eaten together, and drunk together, and that because we live together.[14]Thus did Christ our Lord (by the wine made one out of many grapes) signify us, and He wished us to be one with Him, and, by His Table, consecrated the mystery of our peace and unity.’[15] These admirable expressions of St. Augustine are but the substance of the doctrine regarding the holy Eucharist, held by the Church in the fourth century. They give us the very essence of that doctrine, in all its fulness and in all the clearness of its literal truth; no other could have been given to neophytes, who, up to that time, had been kept in complete ignorance of the august mysteries, of which they were henceforth to partake. Of the discipline of that secrecy we shall have to speak a little further on. The doctrine of the Eucharist here laid down by the great bishop of Hippo, is identical with that given by all the fathers. In Gaul, St. Hilary of Poitiers,[16] and Saint Cesarius of Arles;[17]in Italy, Saint Gaudentius of Brescia:[18] at Antioch and Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom;[19] at Alexandria, St. Cyril:[20]all had the same way of putting this dogma of faith before their people. Christ is not divided: the Head and the members, the Word and His Church are inseparably one in the unity of the mystery instituted for the very purpose of producing that unity. And this unanimous teaching of the fathers, who lived in the golden age of Christian eloquence, was reproduced by Paschasius Radbert, in the ninth century,[21] by Rupert in the twelfth,[22] and by William of Auvergne in the beginning of the thirteenth.[23]
It would be too long to give the names, and still more to quote passages, in testimony of how all the Churches, for the first twelve centuries, looked upon the holy Eucharist in this same way, that is, as instituted for the purpose of union. If we follow this traditional teaching back to the apostolic source whence it originated, we shall find St. Cyprian, in the age of persecution, speaking to his people upon the union between the divine Head and His members, which is the necessary result of the holy Sacrament; he shows this, not only by the nature of bread and wine, the essential elements for the consecration of the mysteries, but likewise by the mingling of water with the wine in the eucharistic cup: the water, he says, signifies the faithful people; the wine denotes the Blood of Christ; their union in the chalice—union necessary for the integrity of the Sacrifice, union the most complete and inseparable—expresses the indissoluble alliance between Christ and His Church, which consummates the Sacrament.[24] The same St. Cyprian shows that the unity of the Church by the Chair of Peter, which is the subject of one of his finest treatises, is divinely established on the sacred mysteries; he speaks enthusiastically of the multitude of believers, the 'Christian unanimity’ being held together, in the hoods of a firm and indivisible charity, by the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.[25] Christ in His Sacrament, and Christ in His Vicar, is, in reality, but the one same Rock that bears the building which is erected upon it; the one sole Head, visible in His representative, His Vicar, and invisible in His own substance in the Sacrament.
This sentiment of union, as the result of the Eucharist, was rooted in the soul of the early Church; her very mission was to bring about the union of all the children of God, that were dispersed throughout the world;[26] and when the violence of her enemies obliged her to provide her children with some secret sign, whereby they might recognize each other, and not be recognized by pagans or persecutors or blasphemers, she gave them the mysterious icthus, the fish, which was the sacred symbol of the Eucharist. The letters which form the Greek word for fish (icthus) are the initials of a formula in the same language, which gives this sentence: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. The fish is shown to us in the Book of Tobias[27] as a figure of Christ, who is the food of the wayfarer, casts out the devil by His virtues, and gives light to the world grown old in iniquity. Again: it is not without a prophetic and mysterious purpose, that the fish is mentioned in Genesis, as being blessed by the Creator, at the commencement of the world, just as man himself was.[28] It is found with the bread miraculously multiplied in the Gospel, when our Lord prefigures the marvels of the Eucharist. It is brought again to our notice, after the Resurrection; it is found lying on hot coals, and is offered by Jesus, together with bread, as a repast to seven of His disciples, on the banks of lake Tiberias.[29] Now, what is this fish, this bread? The fathers answer: Christ is the Bread of that mysterious repast; He is the Fish taken from the living water, and is roasted on the altar of the cross by the fire of His love, and feeds the disciples on His own substance, and offers Himself to the entire world as the true icthus.[30] No wonder, then, that we find this sacred symbol on almost everything that the Christians of the first three centuries possessed; on precious stones, rings, lamps, inscriptions, paintings, there was the fish, in some shape or other. It was the watchword, the tessera of the Christians, in those days of persecution. An inscription of the second century, discovered in modern times at Autun, thus speaks of the Christians: ‘This divine race of the heavenly icthus, this noble-hearted race, receive from the Saviour of the saints the nourishment which is sweet as honey, and drink long draughts of the divine fount, holding icthus in their hands.’[31] A holy bishop of Asia Minor of that same early period, by name Aberoius of Hierapolis, who was divinely led into various lands, everywhere recognizes the disciples of Christ by the holy fish, which makes all, however separated by distance, to be one. ‘I have,’ says he, shortly before the close of his life of travel, ‘I have seen Rome: I have beheld the queen city, in her robes and sandals of gold; I have made acquaintance with the people decked with bright rings. I have visited the country of Syria, and all her cities. Passing the Euphrates, I have seen Nisibis; and all people in the east were in union with me, for we all formed but one body; everywhere, faith presented to all, and gave as nourishment to all, the glorious and holy icthUs, which came from the only fount, and was taken by the most pure Virgin.’[32]
This, then, was the bond of that mighty union between Christians, which was such a puzzle to the pagan world; and the more the real cause of that unity was kept concealed from its eyes, so much the more violent was the fury wherewith it attacked the Church. Our Lord had said: ‘Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine.’[33] These words contained, in principle, the discipline of secrecy, which was observed in the Church till the conversion of the western world was completed. The holiness of the Sacraments, the sublimity of the Christian doctrines, necessitated an extreme reserve on the part of the faithful, living amongst people whose moral degradation and brutal corruption were such as our Saviour had foretold. But it was most of all imperative to hide from the stare and sacrilege of pagans the most holy Eucharist, that ‘great pearl of the sacred Body of the Lamb,’ as Venantius Fortunatus calls it.[34] Hence the Christian assemblies, when they met for divine worship, were divided into two classes, the initiated and the uninitiated, i.e. the faithful and the catechumens. The distinction began with the apostolic age, and was kept up till the eighth century. A few weeks before the solemn administration of Baptism, there took place, as we have elsewhere explained,[35] the giving, or as it was termed, the tradition,, of the Symbol, to the future members of the Church; but the eucharistic mystery, the arcanum by excellence, was, even then, kept back from the fortunate candidates for holy Baptism. This explains the varied precautional expressions, the reticence, the studied obscurity of phraseology, used by the fathers in their discourses to their flock, and this for years after the times of Constantine and Theodosius. The catechumens were admitted while the holy Scriptures were being read, or while the Psalms were being chanted; but as soon as the bishop had given his discourse on the portion which had been read, either of the Gospel or other passages of the sacred Volume, these catechumens were dismissed by the deacon; and this missa, or missio, gave its name to that first portion of the liturgy; it was called the Mass of the catechumens; just as the second part, from the oblation to the final dismissal, was called the Mass of the faithful.
And yet, though holy mother Church kept so jealous an eye on her treasure as not to let it be fully known except to her true children, made such by Baptism, with what delight did she, at the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, reveal to her new-born children, as soon as they came from the font, the ineffable secret hitherto kept in her heart as bride, the full mystery of the icthus! Having incorporated them into Christ by the saving waters, enrolled them in His army, and marked them with the sign of His soldiers by the anointing conferred by the bishop, with what maternal fondness did she lead them, from the baptistery first, and then from the chrismarium, to the hallowed precinct of the mysteries instituted by the Word Incarnate! There Jesus, their Head, was awaiting His new members, that He might draw all the more closely the bonds which already knit them to His mystic body, and unite them to Himself in the infinite homage of that one great Sacrifice, which He Himself was offering to the eternal Father.
This wondrous unity of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which included in one oblation both Head and members; this unity of Sacrifice, which kept alive and strengthened the union of each Christian community and of the whole Church, was admirably expressed by the magnificent forms of the primitive liturgy. After the catechumens had been dismissed and the unworthy expelled, all the faithful, without exception, from the emperor and his court down to the poorest cottager whether man or woman, advanced towards the altar, each one offering bis share of bread and wine for the sacred mysteries. Themselves a kingly priesthood, as St. Peter calls them,[36] a living victim figured by the gifts they brought, they assisted, standing, at the immolation of the divine Victim, whose members they truly were; then united in the kiss of peace, the external sign of their union of heart, they received in their hands, and still standing, the sacred Body, their spiritual nourishment; the deacons offered them the chalice, and they drank of the precious Blood. Even babes in their mothers’ arms were eager for the divine drink, and received some drops, at least, into their innocent mouths. The sick, who could not leave their rooms, and prisoners, were not deprived of being united with their brethren in the sacred banquet; they received the precious Gifts at the hands of ministers, who were sent to them for the purpose by the bishop. The anchorets in their deserts, Christians living in the country, and all such as could not be present at the next assembly, took the Body of our Lord with them, that thus they might not, because of distance, be deprived of uniting in the coming celebration of the mysteries of salvation. Those were ages when unity was continually being attacked by persecution, schism, and heresy, all three at once; and the Church, to counteract the danger, had no hesitation in facilitating, by every lawful means, the use and application of the venerable Sacrament, which is the sign of unity, and the innermost centre, and the strongest tie, of the Christian community.
It was from the same principle of unity, that, although there were generally several churches or centres in each city for the assemblies of the faithful, and a greater or less number of clergy, yet all the faithful and clergy came together for the collect orsynaxis, into some one place, fixed upon by the bishop. ‘Where the bishop shall show himself,' says St. Ignatius of Antioch, ‘there let the multitude be; just as, where Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful, either to baptize, or to celebrate the agape (the Eucharist) without the bishop.[37] Do all of you assemble, for prayer, in the one same place; let there be unity of common prayer, unity of mind, unity of hope. . . Do all of you come together, as though you were one man, into the temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Christ Jesus, the great high-priest of the unborn God.[38] Let us enjoy the one Eucharist; for one is the Flesh of our Lord Jesus, and one His Blood which was shed for us; one also is the Bread which was broken to us all, and one the Cup which was distributed to all; one altar to the whole Church, and one bishop surrounded by the presbyterium and the deacons.’[39]
The presbyterium was the college of priests of each city; they kept near the bishop, were his council, and celebrated the sacred functions together with him. It would seem that, at the beginning, they were twelve in number, the more closely to represent the apostles; but in the great cities that number was soon doubled. We find that, towards the close of the first century, there were, in Rome, five and twenty priests, who were respectively set over twenty-five titles, that is, churches, of the metropolis. The pontiff took first one, and then another, of these titles, for the celebration of the mysteries. The twentyfour priests of the other titles united with the pontiff in the solemnity of one and the same Sacrifice, and concelebrated at one and the same altar. In their respective places, the seven deacons, and all the inferior clerics, each according to his rank, co-operated in the thrice holy mysteries. We have already seen the active part taken in the same by the faithful people.
It was the very time when the eagle of Patmos, St. John the Evangelist, was being favoured with his inspiration and vision of the gorgeous ritual of heaven. He beheld the Lamb that was slain, yet standing in the midst of the four and twenty Elders who were seated on thrones encircling the throne of God, which is also the throne of the eternal High Priest. Clad in white garments, and wearing golden crowns, these four and twenty Elders held harps in their hands, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. Then came the seven spirits, who were before the throne of God, like so many burning lamps; and then, thousands of thousands of angels, who were round about the throne, singing praise to the Sacrifice and triumph of the Lamb; and then, every creature, which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, all cried out, giving benediction, and honour, and glory, and power, to Him that liveth for ever and ever.[40] This admirable vision represented the fullness and unity of the Sacrifice, which was offered once, but to last for ever, end was offered by Him who is the Head of all created beings. The Church on earth, the exiled bride of Jesus, did her best, when offering that same Sacrifice, to repeat the sublime ritual of heaven. And as in heaven the divine Lamb, the eternal High Priest, drew after Him the celestial hierarchy, so likewise on earth all the Churches came round the officiating pontiff, and united with him in the holy Sacrifice, each one according to the sacred Order he held.
It was impossible for the universal Church, subject as she is to the conditions of place and time, to meet here below at one altar; but the unity of the Sacrifice, which was everywhere offered, was, like the unity of the Church herself, expressed by the mutual transmission, between the various bishops, of the sacred Species that had been consecrated by them; and these, each one put into the chalice from which he received the precious Blood. St. Irenæus,[41] who lived in the second century, tells us that the supreme hierarch, the Pontiff of Rome, used to send these sacred gifts, not only to Churches in the west, but even into Asia, as emblems of the unity existing between the Churches there, and the Church, the mistress and mother of all others. So, too, when the number of the faithful became so great as to induce the Church to allow individual priests to celebrate the holy mysteries privately, the priests of the town where a bishop resided never thought of exercising this isolated function, until they had received from the bishop a fragment of the Bread he had consecrated, and which they mingled with their own Sacrifice. It was the fermentum, the sacred leaven of Catholic communion.
As an appropriate conclusion to the above subject, we append the following beautiful liturgical formula taken from the Apostolic Constitutions,[42] a writing admitted by critics to have been completed in the third century.
Thanksgiving for the Mysteries
Gratias agimus tibi, Pater noster, pro vita quam manifestasti nobis per Jesum Filium tuum; per quem tum omnia creasti, tum universis provides; quem et misisti, ut ad salutem nostram homo fieret; quem etiam permisisti pati et mori; quem et resuscitans glorificare voluisti, et sedere fecisti ad dexteram tuam; per quem et promisisti nobis resurrectionem mortuorum.
Tu, Domine omnipotens, Deus æterne: quemadmodum hoc erat dispersum, et quum fuit congregatum, factum est unus panis, ita congrega Ecclesiam tuam a finibus terræ in regnum tuum.
Adhuc gratias agimus, Pater noster, pro pretioso sanguine Jesu Christi effuso nostra causa: et pro pretioso corpore: cujus et hæc antitypa celebramus, quum ipse nobis constituent mortem illius annuntiare: per ipsum enim tibi gloria in sæcula.
Amen.
We give thanks unto thee, O Father, for the life thou hast manifested unto us by thy Son Jesus; by whom thou hast both created all things, and providest for all; whom thou also sendedst, that, for our salvation, he might be made Man; whom thou also permittedest to suffer and to die; whom also, raising him up again, thou willedst to glorify, and madest him to sit at thy right hand; by whom also thou didst promise us the resurrection of the dead.
O almighty Lord, eternal God! as this (element), which was once disunited, being united hath become one Bread, so do thou assemble together thy Church from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom.
We also give thanks to thee, our Father, for the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for our sake; and for his precious Body; of which we are now celebrating the antitypes (the mysteries); for he himself did appoint that we should announce his death; for, by him, is glory (given) to thee for ever.
Amen.
[1] Ps. ii. 8.
[2] Heb. x. 14.
[3] Serm, viii. de Pass.
[4] Ibid. iv. ds Pass.
[5] St. John xiii. 34, 35.
[6] Ibid. xvii. 20.
[7] Ibid. 21-23.
[8] Acts ii. 42.
[9] Acts ii. 47.
[10] 1 Cor. x. 17.
[11] Serm, ccxxvii. In die Paschæ. Ad Infantes, de Sacramentis.
[12] Serm. ccxxix. Fer. ii. Paschæ, de Sacramentis fidelium.
[13] Acts iy. 32.
[14] Serm. ccxxix.
[15] Ibid. cclxxii. In die Pentecost. Ad Infantes, de Sacramentis.
[16] Lib. viii. de Trinit.
[17] Hom. vii.
[18] Serm. ii. ad Neoph.
[19] In cp. i, ad Cor. Hom xxiv.
[20] Lib. x. in Johan.
[21] De corp. et sang. Domini., cap. x.
[22] De div. Off., lib. ii., c. 2.
[23] De Sacrament. Euchar. cap iv.
[24] Ep. lxiii.
[25] Ep. lxxvi.
[26] St. John xi. 52.
[27] Tob. vi.
[28] Gen. i. 22, 28.
[29] St. John xxi. 9.
[30] St. Paulin. Ep. xiii; St. Aug. Confess, xiii. 23: St. Ambr. Hymn. Pasch; Proep. African. De promission.
[31] Inscript. Augustod. Spicileg. Solesm. i.
[32] Titul. Abercii. Spicileg Solesm. iii.
[33] St. Matt. vii. 6.
[34] Vernant. Fortun. lib. ii. carm. 25.
[35] Volume for Lent; Wednesday of the fourth week.
[36] 1 St. Pet. ii. 9.
[37] Ad Smyrn. viii.
[38] Ad Magnes. vii.
[39] Ad Philadelph. iv.
[40] Apoc. iv, v.
[41] Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 14.
[42] Lib. vii. cap. 25.