Divine Do-Overs: The Secret of Recapitulation in the Traditional Calendar

By Michael P. Foley

Followers of the 1962 liturgical calendar may have noticed an odd pattern. There is a reading, theme, event, or saint that appears on a particular day. Then, later in the year, the same reading, theme, event, or saint reemerges, only not quite in the same manner. This can happen with both occasions in the same cycle, either the “Temporal Cycle” (comprising seasons such as Advent, Lent, etc.) or the “Sanctoral Cycle” (the rotation of saints’ feasts). Or, each event can occur in a different cycle.

For example: Palm Sunday, especially with the blessing and procession of palms, celebrates Christ’s Kingship, but there is also a Feast of Christ the King. Holy Thursday celebrates the gift of the Eucharist, but there is also a Feast of Corpus Christi. Good Friday commemorates the blood our Lord shed for us on the Cross as well as His pierced heart, but there is also a Feast of the Precious Blood, a Feast of the Holy Cross,¹ and a Feast of the Sacred Heart. September 27 is the Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damien, but we also pray to these saints on Thursday of the Third Week of Lent.² The Ember Wednesday of Advent focuses on the Annunciation, but there is also a feast for it on March 25.

One would think that since the traditional Missal has an annual cycle of readings (as opposed to the three-year cycle of the new lectionary), there would be a minimum of repetition in order to expose the faithful to as much variety as possible. But instead, we find a startlingly different strategy. What on earth is it?

Recapitulation

The answer to that question is the subject of this essay. What we see in the traditional calendar is an ingenious strategy of recapitulation. The concept of recapitulation has been a part of sacred tradition almost from the beginning: St. Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 130) speaks of it,³ and so does St. Augustine, who uses it to describe the patterns in the Bible where certain things are said in such a way that it looks as if they are proceeding in chronological order or in the order of events, whereas the narrative is [really] secretly recalling prior things which had been overlooked.⁴

Augustine gives as an example the fact that Genesis first mentions the Lord God planting a garden of paradise and then states that He formed out of the ground “all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of” (2:8-9). The second statement, that God grew trees, “recapitulates” the first by making explicit something that is not in the first statement, namely, the precise manner in which God planted the garden.

A similar dynamic is at play in the Church year. Every event in the life of Christ or in sacred history, as well as every mystery of the Christian faith, is too profound to be comprehended in a single sitting. There are too many facets, too many layers, to be taken in at once by our feeble intellects. Hence the Church often returns to the same thing she had celebrated earlier in the year but from a different perspective. She wishes to experience the mystery in a way in which she might not have been able to before. When the Church meditates on the Annunciation during Ember Wednesday of Advent, her thoughts are dominated by the impending celebration of the Nativity. But when she meditates on the Annunciation during Lady Day (March 25), she is freer to consider other dimensions of this great event: the mystery of the Incarnation, the role of the Holy Spirit, and most importantly, the fiat of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Since several of these recapitulations occur during the summer, let us look at three of them now: Corpus Christi, the Precious Blood, and the Transfiguration.

Corpus Christi

Holy Thursday is essentially the original Feast of Corpus Christi (“Body of Christ”), the celebration of the institution of the Eucharist. Yet as a part of the sacred Triduum, Maundy Thursday is mixed with other considerations: the institution of the priesthood, the call to service dramatized by the washing of the feet, Judas’ betrayal of our Lord, the agony in the garden, etc.

Fittingly, the first person to see the need for an additional feast to honor the Blessed Sacrament is our Lord Himself. In the thirteenth century, a humble sixteen-year-old girl began having dreams of a bright moon marred by a small black spot. After years of seeing this perplexing vision, Jesus Christ appeared to her and revealed its meaning. The moon, He told her, represented the Church calendar, and the black spot the absence of a feast in honor of His Blessed Sacrament. That nun was St. Juliana, Prioress of Mont Cornillon (d. 1258) [pictured above], and the feast she was commissioned by our Lord to promote was that of Corpus Christi.

Even before its universal promotion in 1314, Corpus Christi was one of the grandest feasts of the Roman rite. By request of Pope Urban IV, the hymns, Mass propers, and Divine Office were composed or selected by St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), whose teaching on the Real Presence was so profound that the figure of Jesus Christ once descended from a crucifix and declared to him, “Thou hast written well of me, Thomas.” The mastery with which Aquinas weaves together the scriptural, poetic, and theological texts of this feast amply corroborates this judgment.

One of the most conspicuous features of Corpus Christi is the procession after Mass, for which Holy Church grants a plenary indulgence (under the usual conditions) to all those who take part in it. This public profession of the Catholic teaching on the Real Presence, which was solemnly encouraged by the Council of Trent, was traditionally accompanied by ornate pageantry and much celebration. The streets would be elaborately decorated with garlands and images, and the procession would wind through the whole town.

While it is true that the Eucharist is both the Body and Blood of our Lord, and while the Collect for the feast states that we “venerate the sacred mysteries of [both Christ’s] Body and Blood,” the focus of Corpus Christi is predominantly on His Eucharistic Body. The reason for this has not so much to do with the sacrament per se, but the principle of recapitulation. When we consider the Host and the Precious Cup together, we think of the miracle of Transubstantiation, the Real Presence, and the great appropriateness of bread and wine as the matter of the sacrament, of how crushed grains and crushed grapes die to sustain us and rise again as a new creation.

But when we consider the Host rather than the Precious Cup, our minds are drawn to a different set of themes. We think of food for our souls, the Panis angelicus, the great spiritual nourishment prefigured by the manna from heaven and by the multiplication of the loaves. We also think incarnationally: Emmanuel, “God is with us,” was once among us veiled in a body and is now among veiled in the appearances of bread and wine. Finally, we think eschatologically, of how the Host, which makes present the Risen Christ, is a foreshadowing of the glorified bodies the elect will enjoy at the end of time. Hence, the Magnificat antiphon for Vespers on Corpus Christi speaks of the Body of Christ as the “pledge of our future glory.”

Precious Blood

On the other hand, when the Church thinks of the Precious Blood, she does not think primarily in terms of food or drink. For although we consume the Blood of our Lord at Holy Communion (even if we are receiving under the species of bread alone), the mention of His blood by itself invites us to meditate on four other topics.

The first is ablution and aspersion, washing and sprinkling. The flesh of the sacrificial lamb may have been eaten during the feast of Passover, but its blood was sprinkled on the doorposts, thereby averting the Angel of death. Similarly, St. Peter speaks of being sanctified for “the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:2), while the Book of Revelation describes the Blood of the Lamb of God as washing the white robes of the saints (7:14; cf. 1:5).

Second, the red Blood that washes white also redeems, buying us back from the slave block of the devil. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read that “neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by His own blood [Christ] entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12).⁵ One of the earliest epithets for the Savior’s Blood in Church parlance is pretium redemptionis nostrae, the “price of our redemption.”

Third, we remember the Atonement, with its teaching on sin and propitiation. The Blood forcibly reminds us of our shared responsibility in spilling it and God’s mercy in accepting it as our reconciliation with Him. In the Book of Genesis, the blood of Abel “speaks” from the ground (4:10). What does it say? That Cain is guilty. Similarly, the Epistle to the Hebrews states that the Blood of Christ “speaks better” than Abel’s (12:24). What does it say? That we are guilty, but that we are also reconciled. Christ was wounded for our iniquities (Is. 53:5), but it is by these stripes that we are healed (I Pet. 2:24). Hence, God proposes His Son as “a propitiation, through faith in His blood…for the remission of former sins” (Rom. 3:25).

These awesome themes and more are explored on the Feast of the Most Precious Blood (July 1). The feast began in Spain in the sixteenth century and was promoted by St. Gaspar del Bufalo (d. 1837), founder of the Missionaries of the Most Precious Blood. When Pope Pius IX was exiled from Rome, one of his companions, Don Giovanni Merlini, third superior general of the Missionaries, suggested that he vow to extend the feast to the entire Church if he regained possession of the Papal States. But the Pope decided instead to extend the feast immediately to all Christendom on June 30, 1849. That same day, the French drove out the Italian nationalists who had captured Rome. Since June 30 was a Saturday before the first Sunday of July, Pius IX decreed on August 10 of that year that every first Sunday of July would be dedicated to the Most Precious Blood (this was later changed to July 1).⁶

In 1934, to commemorate the nineteenth centenary of our Lord’s death, Pope Pius XI raised the feast to the rank of a double of the first class (according to the pre-1960 system). The feast was also extolled shortly before Vatican II by Pope John XXIII in an excellent apostolic letter entitled, “On Promoting Devotion to the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”⁷ While purists laboring under the error of what Pope Pius XII called archeologism (the presumption that older means better) might sniff at this “recent” feast, John XXIII saw in it traces of God’s ongoing love for His Church. “The Church’s wonderful advances in liturgical piety match the progress of faith itself in penetrating divine truth,” he writes. “Within this development it is most heart-warming to observe how often in recent centuries this Holy See has openly approved and furthered” this devotion.⁸

Of course, our Lord’s Blood was considered earlier on Good Friday, but our hearts on that day were filled with such sorrow that it was difficult for us to appreciate Its magnificence. It is therefore appropriate that we recapitulate the theme, under a more triumphant banner. After noting that the Church has already celebrated Good Friday and Corpus Christi, Dom Guéranger asks, “How is it…that holy Church is now inviting all Christians to hail, in a particular manner, the stream of life ever gushing from the sacred fount?” His answer: “What else can this mean, but that the preceding solemnities have by no means exhausted the mystery?”⁹

The Transfiguration

Another feast that it is fitting to celebrate after the Triduum and Corpus Christi is that of the Transfiguration on August 6. As Pope Benedict XVI notes in his encyclical Sacramentum Caritatis, the Transubstantiation of bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood is not only a profound miracle in its own right, but it “introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of ‘nuclear fission’” that sets off a chain reaction which will ultimately culminate in the “transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all.”¹⁰ And one of the first hints of this cosmic transfiguration at the end of time is the personal transfiguration of our Lord, when His face shone as the sun and His garments became white as snow (cf. Matt. 17:2).

The Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Lent is also of the Transfiguration. According to tradition, our Lord deigned to be transfigured before three Apostles — Peter, James, and John — in order to fortify them for the brutal and demoralizing spectacle of His forthcoming crucifixion¹¹ (note that it is these same three Apostles that He wanted with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane). The Transfiguration was meant to give the Apostles a foretaste of the Resurrection in order to help them overcome the trauma of the Crucifixion. By the same logic, the Church wisely anticipates the glory of Easter during the penitential season of Lent by calling to mind the Transfiguration, as if to give the faithful a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.

But Lent is not the time to savor the glory of Easter, and there is so much more to glean from the Transfiguration than a means of steeling one’s courage. How appropriate, then, that the Church recapitulates the event during the more jubilant Time after Pentecost. It is there that she can ruminate on at least three other aspects of this mystery:

First, as with Corpus Christ, she can consider our future glory. One of the Breviary hymns for the feast speaks of the event as a “sign of perennial glory.”¹² As Peter the Venerable teaches, the Resurrection is already prefigured in the Transfiguration; and the Resurrection, needless to say, is a “sneak peek” at the amazing, luminous, space-and-time-defying bodies the elect will acquire on the Last Day.¹³

Second, she can reflect on the relationship between the two Testaments. When Jesus is transfigured, Moses and Elijah, representatives of the two main branches of the Old Testament (the Law and Prophets), accompany Him. The triptych of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus therefore represents the sum of biblical history. But eventually, Moses and Elijah disappear and only Jesus remains. The High Priest of the new Covenant is in continuity with the Old but is also greater than it.

Third, she can speculate on the “social” dimension of the transfiguration. What does it mean to say with the Pope that the world will be “transfigured”? What does it mean to have human living transfigured by the Catholic call to action,¹⁴ under the social kingship of our transfigured Lord? How should our lives, our social interactions, and our politics be transfigured in light of the “nuclear fission” of Christ’s Eucharistic Body? Interestingly, the date of the feast was chosen for a socio-political reason, to commemorate the Christian victory over the Turks at the Battle of Belgrade in July 1456, news of which reached the Pope’s ears on August 6.¹⁵

Why It Matters

Recapitulation in the calendar is valuable for at least two reasons. First, it “gets” us. That is, recapitulation ideally suits the way we grow in wisdom and love. It knows that physiologically we are monogastric, but mentally we are ruminants: we are creatures who, to borrow a colorful image from St. Augustine, need to call things up from the stomach of our mind in order to chew on them more. Recapitulation presupposes that because we see now through a glass darkly and know only in part, we need to circle around the same object several times, like a spy plane gathering intelligence. Returning to the same thing but in a new light deepens our experience and knowledge of that thing.

Second, it “gets” mystery. Recapitulation is not just a concession to the littleness of our minds, it is an acknowledgement of the greatness of the sacred. Realities such as those narrated in Scripture or defined by Catholic dogma or even instantiated in the life of a saint are too august to be captured by a single snapshot. They need to be revisited again and again from different camera angles. This is why there are different accounts of the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament and why there are four different Gospels rather than one “definitive” biography of our Lord. And it is why the traditional calendar recapitulates seemingly “redundant” elements.

Conclusion

There are instances of recapitulation in the 1970 calendar as well, but not as many. The Feast of Corpus Christi was changed to the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ; and John XXIII’s beloved Feast of the Precious Blood was suppressed, leaving no day on which Christ’s Blood is exclusively adored. The three-year cycle of Biblical readings eliminates, two-thirds of the time, several of the pairings necessary for recapitulation, as does the fact that the new lectionary is not influenced by the station days, over 50% of which were cut from the new calendar.

Such a situation should increase our gratitude for the plentiful “divine do-overs” that we enjoy in the usus antiquior. The concept of recapitulation hearkens to the charming poetics of sacred Scripture and the classical theology of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. But more than that, recapitulation affords us the opportunity to delve more deeply into the mysteries of our Faith, mysteries which we, God willing, shall one day behold with utter clarity. In this sense, the recapitulations of the year can help bring us just that much closer to the beatific vision.

Image credits

1. The Vision of Saint Juliana of Mont Cornillon, by Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674), courtesy of http://www.barber.org.uk/.
2. The Transfiguration, by Pietro Perugino, courtesy of http://www.thinkingfaith.org/.

Notes

1. And in the calendar before 1962, there were two feasts for the Cross: one on May 3 (dropped in 1960) and one on September 14. [back]


2. We do so because the stational church for that day is Santi Cosma e Damiano. [back]


3. Irenaeus uses it for Christ's summing up and redeeming all human experience (cf. Apostolic Preaching, 6). [back]


4. On Christian Doctrine 3.36.52, translation mine. [back]


5. See Ulrich F. Mueller, "Feast of the Most Precious Blood," in Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12 (NY: The Encyclopedia Press, 1913), p. 373. [back]


6. June 30, 1960. [back]


7. "On Promoting Devotion to the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." [back]


8. "On Promoting Devotion to the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." [back]


9. Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, vol. 12, trans. Dom Laurence Shepherd (Great Falls, Montana: Bonaventure Publications, 2000), p. 386. [back]


10. Sacramentum Caritatis, 11. [back]


11. See Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.45.1. [back]


12. The hymn is Quicumque Christum quaeritis, and the verse is Signum perennis gloriae. [back]


13. Those bodies will possess the four gifts of impassibility, agility, subtlety, and clarity. [back]


14. See Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J. Insight (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), PP. 742-43. [back]


15. As Pope Calixtus III later wrote: "if this fortress [at Belgrade] had been lost, the very existence of the entire Christian republic would have been in danger" (Letter to a Burgundian Bishop, http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/endmiddle/bluedot/belgrade.html). [back]

Michael P. Foley, an associate professor of Patristics at Baylor University, is author of Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?: The Catholic Origin to Just About Everything (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and Wedding Rites: A Complete Guide to Traditional Vows, Music, Ceremonies, Blessings, and Interfaith Services(Eerdmans, 2008). Dr. Foley's article, "Divine Do-Overs: The Secred of Recapitulation in the Traditional Calendar," Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition Vol. 19, No. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 46-49, is reproduced here by kind permission of Latin Mass, 391 E. Virginia Terrace, Santa Paula, CA 93060, and the author.

Loss of Graces: Private Masses vs. Concelebration

Peter A. Kwasniewski

Sitting at my desk one evening about ten years ago, I wrote excitedly in my journal about an overwhelming experience that morning.

“August 12th. The feast of Saint Clare. Thanks be to God, the greatest and best. This morning, by His unspeakable mercy, I was given the chance to attend a private old-rite Mass and receive the Lord: a gift worth more than all gifts. But without my having the slightest idea it would happen, He also granted me the privilege of serving this Mass, which was offered by the holy Abbot of Fontgombault. There is some sort of Benedictine retreat going on here at the Kartause for a week, with oblates from all over Europe in attendance, and three French abbots and many monks too, and there will be bishops visiting, etc. It’s all rather splendid. Yesterday I’d heard that a monk was going to say the old rite at 6:00, so I got up and came down for it, heading into the sacristy. I found out that the Abbot himself, taking precedence, was going to offer the day’s first Mass before other monks did, and, as I knew how to serve, he asked me if I would serve it. Laus Deo! It was the most peaceful Mass I have ever attended. The Abbot lingered over every phrase, and I honestly thought he was in an ecstasy during the Canon. I felt there were hundreds of souls and spirits in the chapel with us. I am speechless. Glory be to God.”

That is the kind of thing you really can’t forget, but even better, it’s the kind of thing you really can’t plan, either. The lack of planning is part of the gift. It comes like a thief in the night. You know you don’t deserve it, and it comes to you anyway, because the Lord is so good to us sinners.

The daily offering

The reason I’m recounting this story isn’t to focus on the experience itself, but rather on what it helped me to see about one important facet of our Catholic tradition, in a lesson that mingled pain with joy. This monk’s offering of the holy sacrifice for his own sins and for the sins of the world embodied in its very prayerfulness, by its God-focused intensity, an irrefutable justification for the long-standing custom of private Masses¹ offered by individual monks prior to their conventual Mass, or, for that matter, by any priest who has the possibility of celebrating a daily Mass. I envisioned in my mind’s eye all of these monks quietly beseeching the divine mercy all over the world: a small army of Abraham’s “just men,” placating divine wrath and winning grace for sinners.

As most readers of this journal will know, up until the liturgical rupture it was customary for each priest who lived in a monastery or other religious community both to celebrate his own private Mass each morning and to assist at a communal or conventual Mass. The rationale was obvious: the Mass is the foremost act of religion, devotion, prayer, adoration, thanksgiving, and praise that any ministerial priest can offer, since it is none other than the immolation of the High Priest Himself. As Venerable Pope Pius XII explained: “It cannot be overemphasized that the Eucharistic sacrifice of its very nature is the unbloody immolation of the divine Victim, which is made manifest in a mystical manner by the separation of the sacred species and by their oblation to the eternal Father.”² Each and every Mass pours forth the fruits of the sacrifice of Calvary into the Church, for the inestimable benefit of all the faithful—for the release of souls in purgatory, for the honor of the saints in heaven, and for the perseverance of souls on earth—and ultimately for the salvation of the entire world.³ Therefore, objectively speaking, the more Masses celebrated, the better off the world is.

In the maelstrom of postconciliar changes, the private Mass fell under a shadow of suspicion, even contempt. With rare exceptions, individual monks no longer celebrate private Masses. If there are several priests living in one place with one publicly scheduled Mass, they will generally concelebrate it. Surely there is something amiss here. The profound sacramental theology we inherit from the Middle Ages and the Council of Trent teaches us that each Mass—or to be more specific, each enactment of the mystical oblation on the altar—is a renewal and application of the saving event of the Cross, and as such, wins further pardon and actual graces for the human race. How, then, can this shift towards the communal be justified? Would not a denial that each priest should celebrate his own Mass each day imply at some level a repudiation of this theology, and with it, a downplaying of the Mass as a true propitiatory sacrifice? I am not speaking of a formal repudiation, such as Luther’s or Calvin’s, whereby the Mass is denied to be a sacramental representation of the sacrifice of Calvary. I mean a repudiation of the truth that each and every Mass advances the salvation of the world. If the practice of individual Masses is abandoned, it appears that personnel in the Church have made a decision that affects, nay retards, the salvation of sinners. A monastery in which twelve monks daily offered hoc sacrificium laudis is responsible for pouring out the grace of Calvary twelve times upon this timebound and ever-needy world of ours. The one all-sufficient sacrifice with its intrinsically infinite merit was applied concretely to us, to the world of sinners, a dozen times.⁴

Colossal difference


Priest extending arms after the consecration (Carmelite Rite)
Let’s examine a scenario more closely, to see if mystical theology and common sense can shake hands. Say you have eleven of these monks celebrating Mass at separate side altars each morning, followed later by the conventual Mass that the twelfth monk offers. You have twelve re-presentations of the Sacrifice of Calvary taking place. It is as if the veil separating earth from heaven was pierced twelve times to let the dew of grace fall through, that it might soak into the soil of our souls. Since the Eucharist as a sacrifice is propitiatory, it accomplishes what it represents: each time the Mass is offered, the fruits of the redemption are extended to souls throughout the world. As Pope Leo XIII stated: “Christ has willed that the whole power of His death, alike for expiation and impetration, should abide in the Eucharist, which is no mere empty commemoration thereof, but a true and wonderful though bloodless and mystical renewal of it.”⁵
Now, let’s say those twelve monks decide to stop celebrating their individual Masses and come together around the altar for one Mass — a single Mass, a single sacramental sacrifice. Certainly there may be several Mass intentions; each priest can bring his own intention and even accept a stipend for it. Nevertheless, when it comes to the immolation of the holy Victim, this Victim is made really present only once, and so the salvific offering of that Victim is made present only once. Extrapolate over the course of the year. At a more traditional monastery of twelve ordained monks, if we count not only the private Missae recitatae (recited or low Masses) but also the community Missae cantatae (chanted or high Masses), what do we find? The living symbols of the Lord’s Passion, the full dynamism of that mystery, will have been made present upon the altar about 4,800 times each year within the walls of their most fortunate church. At a monastery where the twelve scrapped their personal Masses for concelebrated ones, the number drops drastically, to, let’s say, 400 Masses a year. We are looking at a colossal difference in sacramental mediation, priestly intercession, the irruption into the world of the Precious Blood that washes away our sins. I don’t know about you, but it strikes me that several thousand applications of the saving Passion of Christ to a world drowning in sin and suffocating with guilt is a much better prospect for the salvation of men and societies than a few hundred. But that’s just the beginning; I limited myself to one small community of monks. Imagine the difference if we multiplied these figures for all Catholic priests across the face of the earth! By the singular privilege of their ordination and its sacred character, each of them is able to offer every day the one saving Sacrifice of Calvary, but so many, in the past forty years, have chosen instead to limit themselves to a single Mass celebrated en masse.⁶

The problem with concelebration

If one denies that the number has any significance, is he not on the way to denying the truth of secondary causality, the truth of the historicity or temporality of grace, the truth of the ministerial priesthood, the truth that God cares for creatures—He cares so much for them that it makes a difference to him whether there are still one or two or five just men in a city of criminals? In the Catholic theology of the Mass, each priest, as alter Christus acting in persona Christi, renews the one sacrifice of Calvary, in such a way that both sides of the mystery are safeguarded: (1) there is no other and no further sacrifice than that of Christ, which in itself and with nothing else supposed suffices for the salvation of the whole of creation; and (2) there are ordained priests conformed to and participating in the unique office of the High Priest, such that there are temporally distinct makings-present or presencings of Calvary, pouring the grace and merit of the High Priest into the hearts of men here and now. If you get rid of (2), you are a classical Protestant; if you get rid of (1), you are a liberal Protestant. If you retain both and see them as mutually reinforcing, you are a Catholic. To separate one from the other destroys the sacramental economy and the truth of the Incarnation no less than if one were to separate the natures and persons in Christ, as Nestorius did.⁷

The abandonment of private Masses in favor of conventual Masses, the sidelining of one-priest celebration in favor of many-priest concelebration, implicitly undermines the latter truth, namely, that there are temporally distinct presencings of Calvary which are in themselves really and truly channels of grace for the world. This confirms from yet another angle that the direction of the liturgical reform, as Michael Davies and others have long maintained, has an essentially classical Protestant trajectory.

Saint Thomas Aquinas was not unaware of the custom of concelebration used on rare occasions. An article of the Summa asks “Whether many priests can consecrate one and the same host?”⁸ As an argument in the affirmative he brings forward a fact: “according to the custom of certain [local] churches, priests, when they are newly ordained, concelebrate with the bishop who ordained them.”⁹ The body of the article mentions the same custom, comparing it to the Apostles supping together with Christ at the Last Supper, and notes that when there are many priests, all direct their several intentions to one and the same instant of consecration, so that they share but one intention. Replying to an objection, Saint Thomas goes so far as to say: “Since a priest consecrates only in the person of Christ, and the many are one in Christ, for this reason it makes no difference whether this sacrament is consecrated by one or by many, except that it is necessary to observe the rite of the Church.”¹⁰ In other words, concelebration involves many priests acting as one because they have a single intention to consecrate the Eucharist. There is, then, only one sacrifice taking place when many speak the words of consecration. But precisely for this reason, the Angelic Doctor sustains the common sense view mentioned above, for as he writes elsewhere in the Summa: “In many Masses, the offering of the sacrifice is multiplied, and therefore the effect of the sacrifice and of the sacrament is also multiplied.”¹¹ So the next time someone says “There’s nothing the matter with concelebration,” you might counter: “Sure, it’s not morally wrong, but it robs the Church and the world of so many other Masses that could have been celebrated individually by those priests, and so it deprives us of many effects that might have been obtained.”

The Popes weigh in

Is this a view sustained by the papal Magisterium? Although understandably Pope Paul VI is no hero among lovers of liturgical tradition, we should not be especially surprised to find him upholding the custom of private Masses:

We should also mention “the public and social nature of every Mass,” a conclusion which clearly follows from the doctrine we have been discussing. For even though a priest should offer Mass in private, that Mass is not something private; it is an act of Christ and of the Church. In offering this Sacrifice, the Church learns to offer herself as a sacrifice for all. Moreover, for the salvation of the entire world she applies the single, boundless, redemptive power of the Sacrifice of the Cross. For every Mass is offered not for the salvation of ourselves alone, but also for that of the whole world. Hence, although the very nature of the action renders most appropriate the active participation of many of the faithful in the celebration of the Mass, nevertheless, that Mass is to be fully approved which, in conformity with the prescriptions and lawful traditions of the Church, a priest for a sufficient reason offers in private, that is, in the presence of no one except his server. From such a Mass an abundant treasure of special salutary graces enriches the celebrant, the faithful, the whole Church, and the entire world—graces which are not imparted in the same abundance by the mere reception of Holy Communion.¹²

This passage is from Paul VI’s encyclical Mysterium Fidei, promulgated in 1965, after the promulgation of the star-crossed Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium.¹³ In it we see reproduced with utter fidelity the doctrine of Pope Pius XII, who treated of the subject at some length in his majestic encyclical Mediator Dei of 1947. Two paragraphs in particular come to mind:

Some in fact disapprove altogether of those Masses which are offered privately and without any congregation, on the ground that they are a departure from the ancient way of offering the sacrifice; moreover, there are some who assert that priests cannot offer Mass at different altars at the same time, because, by doing so, they separate the community of the faithful and imperil its unity; while some go so far as to hold that the people must confirm and ratify the sacrifice if it is to have its proper force and value.

They are mistaken in appealing in this matter to the social character of the Eucharistic sacrifice, for as often as a priest repeats what the divine Redeemer did at the Last Supper, the sacrifice is really completed. Moreover, this sacrifice, necessarily and of its very nature, has always and everywhere the character of a public and social act, inasmuch as he who offers it acts in the name of Christ and of the faithful, whose Head is the divine Redeemer, and he offers it to God for the holy Catholic Church, and for the living and the dead. This is undoubtedly so, whether the faithful are present—as we desire and commend them to be in great numbers and with devotion—or are not present, since it is in no wise required that the people ratify what the sacred minister has done.¹⁴

It would be comparatively easy to assemble reams of testimonies from Tradition and tight theological argumentation in defense of what the Popes are teaching here. That being said, there is something more that we must not forget. When it comes to mysteries beyond the reach of reason, the truth is as much a matter of that mysterious center of the person we call the “heart” as it is of the mind—a matter of whether our spiritual instincts are right, our intuitions sound, and our inmost feelings harmonious with reality. Modernism, though it claims to be from and for our feelings, exudes the lifeless chill of rationalism and freezes whatever it touches. In contrast, the dogmas and practices of traditional Catholicism, though they have at their disposal armies of ironclad scholastic proofs, breathe and sing and sigh like the living presence they mediate to us in flesh and blood.

A stream of sacrifice poured up

With this in mind, let me return, in the end, to the beginning. In one of Robert Hugh Benson’s finest novels, The King’s Achievement (1904), there is a passage that deeply resonated with me when I first read it a few years ago, as it called back to mind the short but precious time I spent with the monks of Le Barroux as well as that early morning Mass with the Abbot of Fontgombault.¹⁵ At this point in Benson’s tale, the character Christopher Torridon, a young monk at Lewes Priory, is reflecting on the daily monastic routine’s all-encompassing goal: “the uttering of praises to Him who had made and was sustaining and would receive again all things to Himself.”

They [the monks] rose at midnight for the night-office, that the sleeping world might not be wholly dumb to God; went to rest again; rose once more with the world, and set about a yet sublimer worship. A stream of sacrifice poured up to the Throne through the mellow summer morning, or the cold winter darkness and gloom, from altar after altar in the great church. Christopher remembered pleasantly a morning soon after the beginning of his novitiate when he had been in the church as a set of priests came in and began Mass simultaneously. The mystical fancy suggested itself as the hum of voices began that he was in a garden, warm and bright with grace, and that bees about him were making honey—that fragrant sweetness of which it had been said long ago that God should eat—and as the tinkle of the Elevation sounded out here and there, it seemed to him as a signal that the mysterious confection was done, and that every altar sprang into perfume from those silver vessels set with jewel and crystal.¹⁶

Now, I know there are lots of scholarly studies and popular pamphlets (especially from the 1960s and 1970s) questioning or rejecting private Masses and defending concelebration. Earlier still, Karl Rahner had sown seeds of doubt with his characteristically dense and subtle speculations. The shelves of seminary libraries groan with such materials. After slogging through page after page of effete archaeologism and voodoo sociology, however, what I always want to know is this: Why is it so hard for these people to see what Christopher Torridon (that is, Robert Hugh Benson), and generations of simple believers over the centuries have seen? It consoles me to know that every day, every year that passes, slowly but surely, the Eternal High Priest is drawing the hearts of His ministers back to the altar of God, for the service of which they were ordained; that He is calling them to “worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. As our Holy Father said in his homily for Midnight Mass this past Christmas: “The Liturgy is the first priority. Everything else comes later.”+

Notes

1. Editor's Note: Given the confusion surrounding this topic, it is important to define the term "private Mass." Joseph Jungmann's seminal work on the liturgy has this to say about the subject: "From these Masses said in private homes, or on an estate or at a graveside where at least a group of people, however small, attends the sservice, we must carefully distinguish the private Mass strictly so called. This we understand as a Mass celebrated for its own sake, with no thought of anyone participating, a Mass where only the prescribed server is in attendance, or even where no one is present, as was once the case in the so-called Missa solitaria. These are Masses -- contrasted to the conventual Mass and the parochial Mass -- which are most generally referred to in medieval documents as missae privatae or speciales or peculiares (J. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite [Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986], I:215). [back]


2. Pius XII, Mediator Dei (1947), n. 115; cf. nn. 68-70. [back]


3. Ibid., nn. 71-75. [back]


4. Note that if there are twelve Priests in the community, one of them would not celebrate a private Mass that day in order to be the Priest who offers the conventual Mass in the midst of his brethren. No Priest celebrates twice a day (bination) unless pastoral need requires it, which would not be the case in such a community. [back]


5. Leo XIII, Mirae Caritatis (1902), n. 18. [back]


6. Some have objected that this kind of language "quantifies" grace. It does not. Rather, we must guard against "transcendentalizing" grace so that it ceases to be connected to space and time. [back]


7. Nestorianism is "one of the great heresies of the fifth century, which broke the personal unity of Christ by positing in him two subjects [i.e., persons], one Divine and one human" (Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology [Milwaukee: Bruce, 1951], 199). In reality there is only one Person in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who assumed human nature when "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." [back]


8. Summa theologiae III, q. 82, a. 2. [back]


9. Ibid., sed contra. [back]


10. Ibid., ad. 2. [back]


11. Summa theologiae III, q. 79, ad 3: "In pluribus vero Missis multiplicatur sacrificii oblatio, et ideo multiplicatur effectus sacrificii et sacramenti." In this context St. Thomas is explaining why receiving many hosts at the same Mass does not increase the effect of the sacrament, whereas many Masses does redound to greater good. [back]


12. Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei (1965), n. 17. [back]


13. In fact, the Pope is quoting from that constitution in the first sentence of the excerpt, which echoes a similar phrase from Pius XII. [back]


14. Mediator Dei, nn. 95-96. [back]


15. My experience with the monks at Le Barroux is recounted in my article "Contemplation of Unchanging Truth," The Latin Mass vol. 17, n. 5 (Advent/Christmas 2008). [back]


16. Robert Hugh Benson, The King's Achievement, ed. with a foreword by Francis X. Connolly (New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1957), 86. [back]

[Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming. The present article, "Loss of Graces: Private Masses vs. Concelebration," was originally published in The Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 6-9, and is reprinted here by kind permission of Latin Mass Magazine, 391 E. Virginia Terrace, Santa Paula, CA 93060, and the author.]

Indulgences: Taking Advantage of God's Mercy

by Michael P. Foley

Lent is upon us, and with it a greater opportunity for obtaining indulgences. Most Catholics are unaware of this treasure at their disposal: they view indulgences as an embarrassing relic of a corrupt medieval past, one from which the Church since Vatican II has wisely distanced herself. Their ignorance and suspicion is in turn shared by other Christians, not only anti-intellectual fundamentalists but even the well-educated. Last March, several representatives of Reformation communities visited Rome for the Pauline year and waxed critical of a recent indulgence granted to those who went on pilgrimage to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. Their reaction prompted a helpful clarification from Walter Cardinal Kasper.¹

Soteriology

One of the problems about discussing indulgences, the Cardinal pointed out, is that we must first grasp the deeper Catholic understanding of grace and sin. That understanding emanates from one conviction: that every sinner can become a saint. “Justification” for a Catholic does not simply mean believing that Jesus Christ is one’s personal Lord and Savior; it means becoming a living icon of Christ inside and out, a luminous reflection of the glory of God, a full restoration of the divine image and likeness in which we are made.

In the words of Dietrich von Hildebrand, “We should not forget that the Church’s doctrine of justification insists on the possibility of men being fully transformed in Christ, of their becoming saints. It is here that the deepest differences between the Catholic Church and Luther’s doctrine of sola fides is to be found.”²
Catholics believe that the grace bought for us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ does not simply “impute” the divine charges against us in an external, forensic, or legalist manner so that we can slip into heaven without being internally changed, like a letter processed in the mail. Rather, grace not only forgives but washes away, heals, restores, and transforms.

Further, Catholics understand sin to be not just a transgression against God but a self-laceration or self-mutilation. Saint Augustine said it best: “For so you have ordained it, O Lord, and so it is: that every disorder of the soul is its own punishment.”³ Every sin is a disorder of the soul, and every disorder reaps an effect, both on myself and on others around me. Specifically, my sins pollute and corrupt myself and the rest of the world.

Consequently, the complete triumph over sin requires not only forgiveness but a healing of the wounds that sin has inflicted. Note that there is a difference between forgiveness and healing, just as there is a difference between your being saved on the operating table (which the surgeon wrought without your cooperation) and then spending the next several weeks in rehab, cooperating with the physician in your recovery. Forgiveness removes the bullet of sin, but the effects of this spiritual gunshot wound are still there and still in need of healing. This is why in the sacrament of Confession our sins our completely forgiven, but we are still given penance by the priest. Penance does not “ratify” our being forgiven or substitute for forgiveness or forgive us a second or third time; it is there to aid in the healing process, to remedy the effects of sin after the sin itself has been removed.

Indulgences

This brings us to indulgences. Like the penance we do after receiving absolution in Confession, indulgences are there to help us remedy the effects that our sins have had on our souls. According to Canon Law, an indulgence is a

remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints (992).

This is a fulsome definition which requires some explanation. First, “an indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.” As we have explained, indulgences concern healing, not forgiving. The wounds of sin are their own punishment, yet even this punishment, when it is temporal rather than eternal, is remedial, ordered towards our healing and recovery. An indulgence, then, is the substitution of one form of God’s healing (remedial punishment) with another that is less painful.

Second, a Christian gains an indulgence “through the action of the Church.” Spiritual healing does not happen simply by dint of our own efforts: it is dependent on the store of graces that Christ’s victory and the merits of the saints make available. This store is called the thesaurus Ecclesiae, the treasury of the Church, and by the authority of Saint Peter’s successor, who has been given the keys to this treasure trove (Matthew 16:19), the Church dispenses it through indulgences. By doing indulgenced acts or reciting indulgenced prayers, we cooperate with the Divine Physician in accelerating the healing process of our souls. A “plenary” indulgence grants complete healing or full remission of temporal punishment, whereas a “partial” indulgence remits only some temporal punishment and confers only partial healing.

Third, a Christian must be “duly disposed” and fulfill “certain prescribed conditions.” Such qualifications remind us that indulgences are not a “Get Out of Purgatory Free” card, where the lucky winner gets into Heaven on a technicality while remaining the same warped and deviant sinner. Their purpose is the same as that of the Christian life in general: the complete transformation of the believer into a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. That is why Canon Law speaks of the believer needing to be duly disposed and fulfilling certain conditions. To obtain a plenary indulgence, for example, four conditions must be met:

1. The sacrament of confession (a single confession may suffice for several plenary indulgences; one may go to confession within a period of about twenty days before or after doing the indulgenced act);
2. Holy Communion (a separate Holy Communion is required for each plenary indulgence; the Church recommends but does not require that this be done on the same day as the indulgenced act);
3. Prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father (usually by means of an Our Father and a Hail Mary; a separate act of praying for the Holy Father is required for each plenary indulgence, and it is likewise recommended that this be done on the same day);
4. The interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin.

Note the pervasive focus on transformation. Confession and Communion are healing sacraments, meant to aid in our spiritual conversion, to increase our charity and our unity with Christ. Similarly, for an indulgence to be plenary, the penitent must not only be free from sin but free from any attachment to sin. This is a tall order: Saint Philip Neri (d. 1595) was once granted a vision in a crowded church that revealed who was receiving the plenary indulgence being offered. There were only two: himself and an old charwoman! Fortunately, one can still receive a partial indulgence if one falls short of a plenary.

It is not necessary to fulfill these conditions for a partial indulgence. To obtain any kind of indulgence, however, one must have a general intention to do so. Consequently, many “Morning Offerings” include statements such as, “I have the intention to gain all the indulgences attached to the prayers I shall say and to the good works I shall perform this day,” and “I resolve to gain all the indulgences I can in favor of the souls in Purgatory.”⁴

Further, as this second statement implies, an indulgence may not be applied to another living person, but it can be applied to the deceased. Applying an indulgence to the souls in Purgatory makes sense because they are in the process of being purged or healed of the effects of their sins that have been forgiven; like us, they are undergoing temporal punishment which indulgences have the power to remit. And the fact that indulgences can be applied to the departed is a beautiful illustration of a central Christian teaching, that death has no sway over the mystical Body of Christ. After the Resurrection, Christ’s Body is never to be sundered again, and that Body includes us, His baptized faithful. The Church on earth therefore has the capacity to help the faithful in Purgatory every bit as much as she can help the faithful on earth, for death is nothing to those who live in Christ.



Dante in Purgatory by Gustave Doré
Finally, one may gain several partial indulgences in the course of a day but only one plenary indulgence. Putting all of these facts together, it is theoretically possible to receive a plenary indulgence, either for oneself or for the dead, once a day if one is a daily communicant who goes to Confession every two or three weeks.

The Enduring Myth

There are several myths about indulgences, the most enduring of which is the notion that the Church used to sell indulgences and that this corrupt practice was one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation. This claim, solemnly reported in secular history books, is a distortion of the facts.

The Church has never sold spiritual graces for money; what it did allow in the Middle Ages was an indulgence to be attached to charitable donations. There is obviously nothing wrong with donating to a charity or church. In the late Middle Ages, however, this practice was scandalously abused for clerical profit, especially in Luther’s Germany where a real-life monk named John Tetzel rivaled in odiousness Chaucer’s fictional Pardoner from the Canterbury Tales. It was because the theoretically sound practice of indulgencing charitable donations was so vulnerable to abuse that the Council of Trent decided that it was best to discontinue it. But it is inaccurate to say that the Church “stopped selling indulgences,” for it never sold them to begin with.

1968

Another myth is that the Church “dropped” indulgences after Vatican II. The New York Times, with its typical grasp of Catholic subtleties, ran an article last year under the title “For Catholics, a Door to Absolution Is Reopened.” The internet version has an additional title: “Indulgences Return, and Heaven Moves a Step Closer for Catholics.”⁵ Note the numerous flaws in the titles alone: no door was re-opened, nothing returned, and indulgences, as we have already seen, are not a form of absolution. The NYT’s mélange of facts and falsehoods went on to inspire a number of shrill editorial harrumphing across the country about the Church’s alleged slide back into the “Dark Ages.”

The truth is that in 1968 Pope Paul VI issued a new Enchiridion of Indulgences.⁶ This marked a change for the Church, for it replaced the Raccolta or Manual of Indulgences familiar still to many traditional Catholics.⁷ The Raccolta is a gem, containing over 600 pages of prayers and invocations for virtually every occasion or devotion. Though the indulgences attached to it are now outdated, it is still a must-have for every traditional family.

Two changes in Paul VI’s Enchiridion are immediately noticeable. First, it omits any temporal reference to partial indulgences. Under the older arrangement, one would see statements such as “300 days” or “five years” attached to a partial indulgence. These figures, based on the stringent penitential sentences of the early Church, were used to provide some measurement of the efficacy of a partial indulgence. Unfortunately, however, many took the numbers to indicate how much one’s stay in Purgatory was being shortened, a misconception not only about indulgences but about Purgatory, which as a reality outside of time has no days or years. Though the loss of some sort of ruler is lamentable, one can understand the Pope’s desire to avoid such confusion.

Second, the new Enchiridion is far shorter: the 781 previously indulgenced prayers and works were reduced to 73. The disadvantage of this change is that many beautiful prayers have essentially been forgotten, but this does not necessarily mean that Paul VI was an enemy of these prayers or of indulgences as a whole. This can be seen in the Enchiridion’s unprecedented three “general grants” preceding the seventy particular indulgences. The first grants a partial indulgence to those who “in the performance of their duties and bearing the trials of life, raise their mind with humble confidence to God, adding, even if only mentally, some pious invocation.”⁸ The second grants a partial indulgence to those who “in a spirit of faith and mercy, give of themselves or of their goods to serve their brothers in need.”⁹ The third grants a partial indulgence to those who “in a spirit of penance, voluntarily deprive themselves of what is licit and pleasing to them.”¹⁰

The significance of these additions cannot be underestimated. Rather than limit indulgences, the pope expanded them through these general grants to virtually any prayer, good work, or abstinence, including those in the old Raccolta.¹¹ Contrary to the widespread impression that the Church after Vatican II wished to “get away” from indulgences, she actually increased their availability.

Lenten Indulgences

There are several indulgences available during the holy season of Lent. These include the following:

A plenary indulgence for reciting the prayer “Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus” on every Friday in Lent and Passiontide when recited after Holy Communion before an image of Christ crucified. On any other day the indulgence is partial (no. 22).

A plenary indulgence for those who piously make the Way of the Cross. There must be fourteen stations and movement from one station to the next, unless the stations are made publicly and it is not possible for everyone taking part to go from station to station except the one conducting the exercise (63).

A plenary indulgence for those who recite the Tantum ergo on Holy Thursday (59).

A plenary indulgence for devoutly assisting in the adoration of the Cross and kissing it during a Good Friday liturgical service (17).

And as we mentioned above with the second general grant, a partial indulgence is attached to any voluntary act of fasting or abstinence. Since the Lenten fast is no longer obligatory (except on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday), any Catholic who observes the traditional forty-day fast can obtain thirty-eight partial indulgences.¹²

Indulgences Per Annum

In addition to these seasonal indulgences, it is also helpful to recall that throughout the year one can obtain a partial indulgence for reciting the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed (16), the litanies of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Most Precious Blood of Jesus, Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, and all Saints (29, the Magnificat (30), Memorare (32), and Miserere Mei, that is, Psalm 50 (33), the Collect of the saint whose feast day it is (54), and for using any article of devotion (crucifix, cross, rosary, scapular, etc.) properly blessed by a priest (35). There is even a partial indulgence for making the sign of the cross (55).

There are plenary indulgences, on the other hand, for a family recitation of the rosary (48), a public recitation of the rosary in a church (48), and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament or a private reading of Sacred Scripture for at least half an hour (3, 50, resp.).

Conclusion

We began with the observation that Catholics believe that every sinner, no matter how depraved, can become a saint. We also intimated that the transformation from one to another is a fairly extensive endeavor, which is why we should be grateful for spiritual salves like indulgences that the Church continues to make abundantly available. Indulgences are outstanding instances of God’s great generosity, a special means by which we can cooperate with our Lord in the emotional, psychological, and spiritual reformation of our souls. Catholics should not hesitate to be positively avaricious in their desire to take advantage of this gracious cure.+

Notes

1. See "Explain Indulgences to Help Ecumenism," Zenit.org, 2/10/09. For a good explanation of the theology of indulgences, see Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Constitution Enchiridion of Indulgences (1968) and the 2000 document Gift of the Indulgence from the Apostolic Penitentiary, the branch of the Vatican that deals with indulgences. The FSSP also has a nice summary in their 2010 Liturgical Ordo. [back]


2. Trojan Horse in the City of God(Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Press, 1993), p. 259. [back]


3. Saint Augustine's Confessions 2/12/1919, trans. Frank Sheed, ed. Michael P. Foley (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett, 2005). [back]


4. Taken from Rev. F.X. Lasance, My Prayer-Book: Happiness in Goodness (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1908), 209. [back]


5. By Paul Vitello, 2/10/09. Cf. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/nyregion/10indulgence.html. [back]


6. Copies of this are easy to obtain. A word search of "Enchiridion of Indulgences" can find versions of it online (the Vatican website has it in Latin only); it can also be purchased in book form unter the titles Manual of Indulgences (USCCB and Apostolic Penitentiary, 2006) or Handbook of Indulgences (Catholic Book Publishing, 1992). [back]


7. The last English edition was published by Benziger Bros. in 1957. It has been since reprinted by Marian House. [back]


8. This grant is intended to "serve as an incentive to the faithful to practice the commandment of Christ that 'they must always pray and not lose heart' (Luke 18:1)." [back]


9. This grant is intended to "seve as an incentive to the faithful to perform more frequent acts of charity and mercy" (John 13:15; Acts 10:38). [back]


10. This grant is intended to "the faithful to bridle their passions and thus to bring their bodies into subjection and to conform themselves to Christ in his poverty and suffering" (Matthew 8:20, Matthew 16:24). [back]


11. This is also confirmed in Indulgence no. 28: "A partial indulgence [is granted] to those who spend some time in pious mental prayer." [back]


12. Those living in or visiting Rome should also know that a partial indulgence is granted to those who on the day indicated in the Roman Missal devoutly visit the stational Church of the day; if they also assist at the sacred functions celebrated in the morning or evening, a plenary indulgence is granted (56). [back]

[Michael P. Foley is associate professor of patristics at Baylor University. He is author of Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?: The Catholic Origin to Just About Everything(Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and Wedding Rites: A Complete Guide to Traditional Vows, Music, Ceremonies, Blessings, and Interfaith Services(Eerdmans, 2008). Dr. Foley's article, "Indulgences: Taking Advantage of God's Mercy," Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 44-47, is reproduced here by kind permission of Latin Mass, 391 E. Virginia Terrace, Santa Paula, CA 93060, and the author.]

How Sweet are Thy Words

The Bible lesson by Gerrit Dou

by Peter A. Kwasniewski

Let me begin with a massive understatement: the Bible is not an easy book, and few, too few, are Catholics who make the study of it a regular part of their spiritual lives. Indeed, before we even delve into it, we are confronted by the fact that the Bible is really many books of many different styles, periods, and particular purposes, so just opening it anywhere and starting to read will not prove the best approach for most of us. Because it was written under the inspiration of the one God, however, the Bible is also fundamentally one book: it deals with the one history of salvation for mankind and it has one goal in view—the knowledge and the love of God, leading to an ever more perfect union with Him. Since, as the Church teaches, “the ‘study of the sacred page’ should be the very soul of sacred theology,”¹ there is nothing more important in theological studies and in our lifelong education as Catholics than turning and returning to the revealed Word. We must therefore regularly set apart time for this task—or, as the saints see it, this great privilege—of reading the only words that have God as their primary author.

Why read the Bible and make it a familiar companion? There are two kinds of answers to this question. One is merely human—a literary, sociological, or cultural answer. It’s good to be familiar with the Bible stories, they have formed Western culture, they are eloquent and moving, they illustrate the great problems of human existence. This answer is really beside the point, because all great literature does this; one could make exactly the same argument for reading Homer, Dante, or Shakespeare. Moreover, as both Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome observed long ago, the Bible is not always, at least for most of us, a “delightful” reading experience, the way poetry tends to be. It is full of perplexing obscurities, remote historical details, repetitions, seeming contradictions, not to mention brutalities and sensualities of a most unedifying nature, such that even the stuffed new Lectionary does not attempt to include them. It demands of us much effort if we are to crack the shell and reach the meat inside.

The other answer is that of faith. We read Scripture because it is what the Church claims it to be—God’s word, true and trustworthy, showing us the path of life, revealing to us something of who God is. In this respect it is unlike any other book we have. The Summa theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas is well worth studying and one can easily devote one’s entire life to mastering its contents. But note how Saint Thomas says in the very first question of the Summa that all his efforts are placed at the service of sacra doctrina, the “holy teaching” that God Himself communicates to us through Scripture and Tradition, safeguarded and handed down by the Church. Saint Thomas had no illusions about the relative importance of his secondary text to the one and only primary source. If God had wanted to reveal either the Summa theologiae or the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Mount Sinai or, some centuries later, on the mount of the beatitudes, He could very easily have done so. The fact that He did not should make us wonder why He persists in speaking to us through so complicated an instrument.

In the end, therefore, it is really the conviction of faith that moves us, or should move us, to take up this book and persevere in reading it. Scripture rewards diligence (meaning, from the Latin diligere, a free and serious love), and it opens itself only to those who show their perseverance.

In What Spirit We Should Read

Scripture itself expresses well the spirit we should ask the Lord to give us as we strive to read and understand His words. The longest and most elaborately crafted Psalm is 119 (Vulgate 118), a hymn in praise of the law of the Lord and a plea for the grace to live according to it. The Psalm again and again mentions “thy word(s),” as in these verses:

11 I have laid up thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.
16 I will delight in thy statutes; I will not forget thy word.
17 Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live and observe thy word.
25 My soul cleaves to the dust; revive me according to thy word!
103 How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
105 Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
130 The unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.
160 The sum of thy word is truth; and every one of thy righteous ordinances endures for ever.

Echoing verse 160 above, Jesus prays to His Father: “Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth” (John 17:17). The prophet Jeremiah perfectly captures the appetite that we should have for this sanctifying and truthful word: “When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart, because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16). In his second letter to Saint Timothy, Saint Paul discusses the important role that the “sacred writings” will have in the lives of those who strive to “live a godly life”:

All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:12-17)

Old Woman Reading a Lectionary by Gerrit Dou
A Word of Life, Bread for the Soul

All of Scripture is based on the experience of the Holy by the Holy. Its overriding goal is that we, joining the saints of the old and new covenants, should likewise enter into communion with the living God. It was written by those who became saints for those who are now striving to become saints. Scripture speaks everywhere about vice and error, but it positively teaches only virtue and truth, which it receives directly from the source. As Saint Peter writes in his second epistle:

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. … You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. (2 Peter 1:16, 19-21, 2:1-2)

This passage also begins to teach us about the need for an authorized, trustworthy interpreter of the holy writings, if they are to be a “lamp shining in a dark place,” rather than the false teaching and false prophecy that brings “swift destruction” and discredits the “way of truth.”

Consider, in conjunction with the foregoing text from Saint Peter, the following text from the first epistle of Saint John:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)

What Saint John is concerned to deliver is not bits of ephemeral information, a beautiful story or lyric; he is neither a modern journalist nor a novelist-poet. John heard, saw, and touched Jesus, and reclining at table against His breast, He received the ineffable gift of the Lord Himself in the most holy Eucharist. The next day he stood beneath the gibbet of the cross and watched the same Lord spill His Blood in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. Two days later, John and Peter saw the empty tomb. That evening, the Lord newly risen from the dead stood before ten of the apostles locked in the upper room and said, “Peace be with you,” showing them His pierced hands and side. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands . . .” It was out of these unforgettable, life-changing experiences that the beloved disciple, aided by the Spirit of truth, was able to draw forth his Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse.

Like all who follow the apostles, Saint John did not merely hear a word of life, He fed upon the ever-living Word of God and was transformed into a living image of Him. Jesus says: “I am the living bread come down from heaven . . . He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:51, 56). Jesus did not come to bring us a message; He came to give us Himself. The good news is that “God so loved the world that He gave us His only-begotten Son.” In its origin, in its content, and in its purpose, therefore, Scripture is given to us for our salvation; it orients us toward Christ, teaches us about Him, urges, reproves, and consoles, all for the sake of furthering this communion with the Word-made-flesh. It is truly a great mercy that, as our Lord said, we are not left orphans—in any way. We are given infallible teaching to nourish our minds and guide our steps; we are given direct access to the eternal High Priest, who stooped to the nothingness of our flesh in order to raise us up to His divine glory; we are given the perfect gift that encompasses all gifts, the Holy Spirit. We are given all that we need to be holy: not slaves trembling in fear, but friends of God, purified of all that is not pleasing to Him. “Blessed be the Lord our God, for He has come to His people and set them free . . . that being delivered from the hand of our enemies we may serve Him without fear, holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our lives” (Luke 1:68, 74–75).²

Saint Anthony Reading by Marcantonio Bassetti
Six Important Truths about Scripture

In conclusion, I would like to leave the reader with helpful points of orientation that I found some years ago in the work of a now-forgotten French Dominican, Fr. Chifflot.³ This balanced and traditional exegete presents six important truths about Scripture that serve as reliable principles for us while we study the sacred page.

1. The Bible is a sacred history. It is not metaphysics; it is a history, the history of a people. But as its protagonist is the Eternal One, it is necessarily unlike any secular history. It is the history of a “love affair” between the Infinite and the Finite. And so it evokes all the grandeur and beauty of God and all the misery, horror, desperation, and darkness of fallen man.

2. The Bible is a promise. The People of God has a history, and it is a forward-moving history, a journey towards a goal, a promised land. It is a book of hope which springs from past deliverance and longs for future fulfillment. There is thus always a tension in the text; it is not “merely” about the past, nor is it simply “news” about the present, or “predictions” of the future. It is about all time in its purposeful movement—the past and the future breaking into the present, the present stretching towards eternity.

3. The Bible is the book of Christ. The written word of God is about the personal Word of God, Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, who breaks into history as the Messiah or Anointed One. Saint Jerome famously says: “To be ignorant of Scripture is to be ignorant of Christ.” Pope Leo XIII adds: “In its pages His Image stands out, living and breathing; diffusing everywhere around consolation in trouble, encouragement to virtue and attraction to the love of God.” Blaise Pascal likewise speaks of “Jesus Christ, whom both Testaments concern: as the expectation of the Old, as the model of the New, and as the center of both.” As Saint Augustine says, the Old Testament is the New Testament hidden under a veil, while the New is the Old now made manifest. This being so, the Old Testament is thoroughly Christian, because it tells of the preparation of the chosen people for their Messiah, their unconquerable Davidic ruler. Since Christianity is the fulfillment of the Jewish religion, all that belonged to the Jews now belongs by right to us, including the Hebrew Scriptures. The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum expresses these points beautifully.⁴

4. The Bible is the book of the Church. The Church opens the Bible for us. As Dei Verbum teaches:

There exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while Sacred Tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity . . . Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. . . . [T]he task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office [Magisterium] of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.⁵

History has borne abundant witness to this last claim: wherever the authority of the Catholic Church has been assailed or rejected, the authority of Scripture has grown progressively weaker, in some instances disappearing altogether. Conversely, wherever Scripture is accepted as divine truth, there is an awareness, bright or dim, of some supernatural reality called “the Church,” and a desire to belong to it, as if implicitly recognizing that a book by itself doesn’t make a religion. John Henry Newman made a similar observation in regard to Marian devotion, saying in his Letter to Pusey that, as a matter of historical fact, wherever the cultus of the Virgin Mary was abandoned, sooner or later faith in the very divinity of Christ was abandoned. Because of the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation, Mother and Son can never be parted, no more than Father and Son.

5. The Bible is a mirror. It holds up to us a mirror that reveals who we are, where we have come from, what we are destined for. It is a sword that penetrates the secret places of the heart: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

6. The Bible is the book of prayer.⁶ The Bible is full of prayer; it is about men of prayer and their faithful worship, as well as men who are unfaithful and idolatrous. It shows us the pattern of life and the false paths of death. It gives us the words of so much of our liturgy. The Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours consist chiefly of psalms, canticles, and short readings; the traditional Roman Missal is shot through with Scriptural verses from Introit to the Last Gospel. Unlike the new Lectionary, a repository of artificially segmented texts, and unlike the new Missal, a stripped and shivering product of rationalism, the great Missale Romanum is a living testament of Tradition, saturated with Divine Revelation, resonant, fragrant, irreducibly complex, united to the Word of God as bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. Traditional Catholics have no need to feel “left out” of the movement to “recover” the Bible, for our Faith was already there, and it goes deeper than the moderns. Generations upon generations have been nourished and informed by the Word of God expressed with vibrant diversity and density in the liturgy itself, in architecture and the other plastic arts, in sacred music and religious hymns, in Catholic culture and its customs. Wherever the traditional Faith has been strong, the Bible has received the devotion its holy content deserves, the veneration its saving message demands. Now that our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI is leading the way with a genuine reform of the Church, let us not fail to do our part to live a genuinely traditional Catholic life—not the truncated version that modernity sought to produce from the Enlightenment to the present, but the robust life of Faith practiced by our ancient and medieval forefathers, rooted in the Word of God and the Sacraments of the Church.
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Notes

1. CCC 132, citing DV 24. [back]


2. Zechariah is speaking here of servile or slavish fear, not of the filial or reverential fear that suits a child in relation to his parent and, all the more, a creature in relation to its creator. [back]


3. T.G. Chifflot, O.P., Water in the Wilderness, trans. Luke O'Neill (Herder and Herder, 1967), 55-78. [back]


4. See Dei Verbum, 14-16. [back]


5. Dei Verbum 9-10; cf. the opening paragraph of Leo XIII's Providentissimus Deus. [back]


6. See Chifflot, pp. 75-76. [back]

[Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming. The present article, "How Sweet are Thy Words," was originally published in Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Fall 2009), pp. 6-9, and is reprinted here by kind permission of Latin Mass Magazine, 391 E. Virginia Terrace, Santa Paula, CA 93060, and the author.]