‘The first half of the ecclesiastical year is devoted to setting forth the great doctrines of the Christian religion, the second half to setting forth its practical duties. Neither would be complete without the other. Religion consists of credenda, things to be believed; agenda, things to be done; but belief is unreal unless it is made the basis of action; and action cannot commence without the stimulus supplied by belief. The Collects for this season [of Trinitytide] are prayers for the Divine help and guidance to enable us to bring forth the fruits of Christianity. The [Prayer Book] Gospels bring before us the teaching and example of our Blessed Lord; the [Prayer Book] Epistles exhort us to the practice of Christian virtues. The latter are all, with the exception of those for the first three, fifth, and twenty-fifth Sundays, taken from St Paul’s writings, and generally follow the order in which they stand in the New Testament. The Roman Missal counts the Sundays after Pentecost, not after Trinity. We follow the Sarum Missal in counting them after Trinity’. 

from ‘The Prayer Book: Its History, Language, and Contents’, by Evan Daniel, 1837-1904 

‘If we compare the indifference shown by the Catholics of the present age for the Rogation Days, with the devotion wherewith our ancestors kept them, we cannot but acknowledge that there is a great falling off in faith and piety. Knowing, as we do, the importance attached to these Processions by the Church, we cannot help wondering how it is that there are so few among the Faithful who assist at them. Our surprise increases when we find persons preferring their own private devotions to these public Prayers of the Church, which to say nothing of the result of good example, merit far greater graces than any exercises of our own fancying.
 
The whole Western Church soon adopted the Rogation Days. They were introduced into England at an early period; so, likewise, into Spain, and Germany. Rome herself sanctioned them by her own observing them; this she did in the 8th century, during the Pontificate of St Leo the Third. She gave them the name of the Lesser Litanies, in contradistinction to the Procession of the 25th of April, which she calls the Greater Litanies. With regard to the Fast which the Churches of Gaul observed during the Rogation Days, Rome did not adopt that part of the institution. Fasting seemed to her to throw a gloom over the joyous forty days, which our Risen Jesus grants to his Disciples; she therefore enjoined only abstinence from flesh-meat during the Rogation Days. The Church of Milan, which, as we have just seen, so strictly observes the Rogations, keeps them on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, that is to say, after the forty days devoted to the celebration of the Resurrection.
 
If, then, we would have a correct idea of the Rogation Days, we must consider them as Rome does, - that is, as a holy institution which, without interrupting our Paschal joy, tempers it. The purple vestments used during the Procession and Mass do not signify that our Jesus has fled from us, but that the time for his departure is approaching. By prescribing Abstinence for these three days, the Church would express how much she will feel the loss of her Spouse, who is so soon to be taken from her’.

​from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger OSB, 1805-1875

​O Almighty God, who hast created the earth for man, and man for thy glory: mercifully hear the supplications of the people, and be mindful of thy covenant; that both the earth may yield her increase, and the good seed of thy word may bring forth abundantly, to the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Divine Worship: The Missal.

‘[T]he Collect, Epistle and Gospel [in the Prayer Book] are the same as in the Roman rite, and are derived from ancient sources. Our Collect adds “hearty” to desires and in place of “the humble” puts “Thy humble servants”. The old Collect ends at “defence” whilst our Collect adds “against all our enemies”.
 
Again we have a warning against those terrible sins of uncleanness. Again the Epistle implores us to avoid them; and the Gospel shows us Who alone can expel the unclean spirit. The Collect takes up this thought and prays that God will stretch forth the right hand of His Majesty to be our defence. The Collect suggests that our prayer to avoid this danger and for His help comes from our “Hearty desires”, or heartfelt desires.
 
…The Collect assumes that we do not want to leave the house of our soul empty, that we want to cast out all uncleanness and put the love of God into our souls. So it speaks of our desires for cleanness as being “hearty desires”… which come from the heart. Unless they are hearty desires we shall never conquer evil”.

from Teaching the Collects, 1965, by ​H.E. Sheen

‘After this the Priest says, Holy things to holy men. Holy are the gifts presented, having received the visitation of the Holy Ghost; holy are you also, having been deemed worthy of the Holy Ghost; the holy things therefore correspond to the holy persons. Then ye say, One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ.  For One is truly holy, by nature holy; we too are holy, but not by nature, only by participation, and discipline, and prayer.
 
After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Trust not the judgment to your bodily palate no, but to faith unfaltering; for they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body and Blood of Christ.
 
In approaching therefore, come not with your wrists extended, or your fingers spread; but make your left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is to receive a King. And having hollowed your palm, receive the Body of Christ, saying over it, Amen. So then after having carefully hallowed your eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, partake of it; giving heed lest you lose any portion thereof; for whatever you lose, is evidently a loss to you as it were from one of your own members. For tell me, if any one gave you grains of gold, would you not hold them with all carefulness, being on your guard against losing any of them, and suffering loss? Will you not then much more carefully keep watch, that not a crumb fall from you of what is more precious than gold and precious stones?
 
Then after you have partaken of the Body of Christ, draw near also to the Cup of His Blood; not stretching forth your hands, but bending , and saying with an air of worship and reverence, Amen, hallow yourself by partaking also of the Blood of Christ. And while the moisture is still upon your lips, touch it with your hands, and hallow your eyes and brow and the other organs of sense. Then wait for the prayer, and give thanks unto God, who has accounted you worthy of so great mysteries.
 
Hold fast these traditions undefiled and, keep yourselves free from offence. Sever not yourselves from the Communion; deprive not yourselves, through the pollution of sins, of these Holy and Spiritual Mysteries. And the God of peace sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit, and soul, and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23): To whom be glory and honour and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and world without end. Amen’.

On the Sacred Liturgy and Communion from Catechetical Lecture 23
by St Cyril of Jerusalem, c.313-386

‘The Lenten Ember days are the most recent of the four sets and do not have the same importance as the other three, since the whole of Lent is devoted to spiritual renewal. Doubtlessly the three days, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, formed part of the Lenten liturgy from its very beginning, as can be seen from the formulary content. Wednesday, devoted to our Lady, is a day of reflection and spiritual orientation; Friday emphasises conversion and penance; Saturday, a preview of Easter, marks the renewal of our baptismal covenant.
 
There may well be a relation between this week’s Ember day liturgy and that of the first Sunday of Lent. Christ fasts forty days and conquers the devil. Moses and Elias, representing the Old Testament, also fast forty days (even the paralytic’s thirty-eight years have an affinity to the number forty). On Ember Saturday, Christ, Moses, and Elias appear together on the Mount of Transfiguration. Thus the Ember days do not fail to contribute their share to the theology of Lent’.

from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

‘The season [of Septuagesima] is expressive of several profound mysteries. But these mysteries belong not only to the three weeks which are preparatory to Lent: they continue throughout the whole period of time which separates us from the great feast of Easter.

The number seven is the basis of all these mysteries. We have already seen how the holy Church came to introduce the season of Septuagesima into her calendar. Let us now meditate on the doctrine hidden under the symbols of her liturgy. And first, let us listen to St. Augustine, who thus gives is the clue to the whole of our season's mysteries. “There are two times”, says the holy Doctor: “one which is now, and is spent in the temptations and tribulations of this life; the other which shall by then, and shall be spent in eternal security and joy. In figure of these, we celebrate two periods: the time before Easter, and the time after Easter. That which is before Easter signifies the sorrow of this present life; that which is after Easter, the blessedness of our future state... Hence it is that we spend the first in fasting and prayer; and in the second we give up our fasting, and give ourselves to praise”.

The Church, the interpreter of the sacred Scriptures, often speaks to us of two places, which correspond with these two times of St Augustine. These two places are Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon is the image of this world of sin, in the midst whereof the Christian has to spend his years of probation; Jerusalem is the heavenly country, where he is to repose after all his trials. The people of Israel, whose whole history is but one great type of the human race, was banished from Jerusalem and kept in bondage in Babylon.

Now, this captivity, which kept the Israelites exiles from Sion, lasted seventy years; and it is to express this mystery, as Alcuin, Amalarius, Ivo of Chartres, and all the great liturgists tell us, that the Church fixed the number of seventy for the days of expiation. It is true, there are but sixty-three days between Septuagesima and Easter; but the Church, according to the style so continually used in the sacred Scriptures, uses the round number instead of the literal and precise one.

The duration of the world itself, according to the ancient Christian tradition, is divided into seven ages. The human race must pass through the seven ages before the dawning of the day of eternal life. The first age included the time from the creation of Adam to Noah; the second begins with Noah and the renovation of the earth by the deluge, and ends with this the vocation of Abraham; the third opens with this first formation of God's chosen people, and continues as far as Moses, through whom God gave the Law; the fourth consists of the period between Moses and David, in whom the house of Juda received the kingly power; the fifth is formed of the years which passed between David's reign and the captivity of Babylon, inclusively; the sixth dates from the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and takes us on as far as the birth of our Saviour. Then, finally, comes the seventh age; it starts with the rising of this merciful Redeemer, the Sun of justice, and is to continue till the dread coming of the Judge of the living and the dead. These are the seven great divisions of time; after which, eternity.

In order to console us in the midst of the combats, which so thickly beset our path, the Church, like a beacon shining amidst the darkness of this our earthly abode, shows us another seven, which is to succeed the one we are now preparing to pass through. After the Septuagesima of mourning, we shall have the bright Easter with its seven weeks of gladness, foreshadowing the happiness and bliss of heaven. After having fasted with our Jesus, and suffered with Him, the day will come when we shall rise together with Him, and our hearts shall follow Him to the highest heaven; and then after a brief interval, we shall feel the Holy Ghost descending upon us, with His seven Gifts. The celebration of all these wondrous joys will take us seven weeks, as the great liturgists observe in their interpretation of the rites of the Church. The seven joyous weeks from Easter to Pentecost will not be too long for the future glad mysteries, which, after all, will be but figures of a still gladder future, the future of eternity. 

Having heard these sweet whisperings of hope, let us now bravely face the realities brought before us by our dear mother the Church. We are sojourners upon this earth; we are exiles and captives in Babylon, that city which plots our ruin. If we love our country, if we long to return to it, we must be proof against the lying allurements of this strange land, and refuse the cup she proffers us, and with which she maddens so many of our fellow captives. She invites us to join in her feasts and her songs; but we must unstring our harps, and hang them on the willows that grow on her river's bank, till the signal be given for our return to Jerusalem. She will ask us to sing to her the melodies of our dear Sion: but how shall we, who are so far from home, have heart to “sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?” No, there must be no sign that we are content to be in bondage, or we shall deserve to be slaves forever.

These are the sentiments wherewith the Church would inspire us during the penitential season which we are now beginning. She wishes us to reflect on the dangers that beset us; dangers which arise from ourselves and from creatures. During the rest of the year she loves to hear us chant the song of heaven, the sweet Alleluia; but now, she bids us close our lips to this word of joy, because we are in Babylon. We are pilgrims absent from our Lord, let us keep our glad hymn for the day of His return. We are sinners, and have but too often held fellowship with the world of God's enemies; let us become purified by repentance, for it is written that “praise is unseemly in the mouth of a sinner”’.

​from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger OSB, 1805-1875

​‘To effect a transition from the joyous spirit of Christmas time to the sober and serious character of Lent, the Church has inserted a period of mental conditioning before Ash Wednesday, Pre-Lent, as this period may be called, consists of three Sundays, Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, i.e., the seventieth, the sixtieth, and the fiftieth day before Easter. These numbers do not, of course, result from accurate calculation, but because the first Sunday in Lent was called Quadragesima the three previous Sundays received the name of the nearest round figure… These three Sundays may be regarded as a prelude to the entire Easter season.
 
The liturgy of Pre-Lent with its magnificently constructed Mass formularies dates from the time of Pope St Gregory the Great; perhaps the saint himself was responsible for their composition. In content they reflect the period of the migration of nations, an age of war, tumult, and suffering’.

​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

​Father Parsch reflects on the image (above): ‘The design attempts to illustrate Septuagesima’s leading themes. At the bottom we see what happened in paradise: our first parents are driven from the garden by the cherub with flaming sword. Behind them remain the tree of life and the lily of innocence. In their path are thorns and thistles, and beside them a hissing serpent. But there is still room for hope – already the Sun of redemption shines from afar. In the centre picture our heavenly Father is inviting all of us into His vineyard. At top the station saint, Lawrence, encourages us to fight the holy battle for the good of God’s kingdom by waving to us with crown and palm’.

​‘The three Sundays preceding Lent are called Septuagesima (seventieth), Sexagesima (sixtieth), and Quinquagesima (fiftieth). Actually they are not the seventieth, sixtieth, and fiftieth days before Easter as their names would indicate. These titles seem to have been arbitrarily chosen for the sake of round numbers, in keeping with the much older term of Quadragesima (fortieth) which denotes the first Sunday of Lent.
 
The preparatory time of pre-Lent was established by the practice of the Greek Church, which started its great fast earlier than the Roman Church did. We find the pre-Lenten Sundays mentioned as early as 541, in the fourth Council of Orleans. At the time of pope Saint Gregory I (604) they were already celebrated in Rome with the same liturgical Mass texts that are used today.
 
The spirit of pre-Lent is one of penance, devotion, and atonement, the Sunday Masses and the liturgical rules reflecting this character. The Gloria is omitted, purple vestments are worn, and the altars may no longer be decorated with flowers.
 
In ancient times, when the law of abstinence was much stricter and included many other foods besides meat, the clergy and a good number of the laity started abstaining progressively during the pre-Lenten season, until they entered the complete fast on Ash Wednesday. After Quinquagesima (i.e., the last Sunday before Lent) this voluntary fasting began with abstinence from meat; consequently, this Sunday was called Dominica carnevala (Farewell-to-meat Sunday), from which comes the word “carnival”. Another, more scholarly, explanation of the derivation of carnival is that it comes from the Latin Carnem levare (carnelevarium) which means “withdrawal” or “removal” of meat.
 
The Oriental Church, too, abstained first from meat, but began on Sexagesima (the second Sunday before Lent), which is called “Meatless” (apokreo, in Greek; miasopust, in Slavic). With Quinquagesima the Eastern Church began (and still begins) the abstinence from butter, cheese, milk, and eggs. Thus in eastern Europe that day is called “Cheeseless Sunday” (syropust).
 
In preparation for Lent the faithful in medieval times used to go to confession on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. From this practice, that day became known as “Shrove Tuesday” (the day on which people are shriven from sins). An old English sermon of the eleventh century exhorts the faithful thus: “In the week immediately before Lent, everyone shall go to his confessor; and his confessor shall so shrive him as he then may hear by his deeds what he is to do”’.

from The Easter Book, 1954, by Fr Francis Weiser SJ, 1901-1986

‘With the inclusion of... a liturgical provision in Anglicanorum coetibus, the Holy See acknowledged the legitimate patrimony of Anglican ecclesial communities coming into full communion. The presumption here is that an essential part of that patrimony must be liturgical since worship expresses in a most tangible way not only the ethos of a community, but also the faith that prompted it to seek full communion in the first place. Just as it would be unthinkable to describe the Catholic Church without reference to its liturgical and sacramental life, so it would in some sense be for every ecclesial body. The manner in which an ecclesial community worships uniquely expresses its inner life.
 
The publication of Divine Worship was of historic significance in that this is the first time the Catholic Church acknowledged the value of liturgical forms in use in communities that emerged in the sixteenth century reformations and, moreover, undertaken to incorporate them. To be sure, the Church over the years has drawn elements of the musical traditions of these communities — such as hymns, motets, and chorales — but never official liturgical texts or usage.
 
…It is remarkable that the Catholic Church should have undertaken a formal process such as the Anglicanae traditiones Commission to identify and incorporate the richness of Anglican liturgical practice. In constituting a body of authoritative texts duly approved and promulgated by the Holy See, Divine Worship is true to the fundamental character of a liturgical “patrimony”.
 
It is massively important to recognise that the liturgical books comprised by Divine Worship arise from an exercise of Peter’s authority over the churches that recognises the authentic faith of the Church expressed in Anglican forms of worship and confirms that expression as a treasure or patrimony for the whole Church. In other words, the universal Church recognises the faith that is already hers expressed felicitously in another idiom. The elements of sanctification and truth that are present in the Anglican patrimony are recognised as properly belonging to the Church of Christ and thus as instruments of grace that move the communities where they are employed towards the visible unity of the Church of Christ subsisting in the Catholic Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 8). By further enriching those expressions through access to the Magisterium that authentically interprets the Word of God and preserves Christian teaching from error, the Catholic Church proposes this form of worship anew as an efficacious means of sacramental grace for future generations.
 
To be sure, the sources are Anglican, and many of the liturgical texts in Divine Worship have their origin in a situation of ecclesial rupture. Yet there is a powerful dynamism at work in the reintroduction of these texts in communities now in full communion with the See of Peter. It is not just that they are given a “new lease on life” in a new context or successive generation. These liturgical forms “return” to the Church having been purified and transformed in Catholic communion. Words pronounced at other times and in other context are no longer simply Cranmer’s poetry or an English assertion of independence from Rome, or now merely the eloquence or piety of the priest celebrant who speaks them, but rather the words of the Church and her faith’.

from a talk entitled Anglican Patrimony: A Perspective from the Holy See
given at a conference The Gospel and the Catholic Church: Anglican Patrimony Today
Oxford, April 2018, by Archbishop Augustine Di Noia OP

Next Sunday is Septuagesima, the beginning of that period of Pre-Lent, consisting of three Sundays that precede and prepare the Church (according to the Ordinariate and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite) for the great penitential season of Lent. The liturgical character of this period anticipates Lent by omitting the Alleluia and the Gloria from Mass, and the Te Deum from the Divine Office, and by clothing the church and her ministers in violet.

The ancient hymn below, translated by the eminent Anglican hymnographer, John Mason Neale, may be sung on this Sunday before Septuagesima, so as to emphasise the bittersweet loss of the Alleluia from the Sacred Liturgy; a word dear to the hearts of Christians, that will not now be heard again until the Easter Vigil. ​Here follows Neale’s own explanation:

‘The Latin Church, as it is well known, forbade, as a general role, the use of Alleluia in Septuagesima. Hence, in more than one ritual, its frequent repetition on the Saturday before Septuagesima, as if by way of farewell to its employment. This custom was enjoined in the German Dioceses by the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 817: but various reasons render it probable that the following hymn is not of earlier date than the thirteenth century. The farewell to Alleluia in the Mozarabic rite is so lovely that I give it here. After the Alleluia Perenne, the Capitula are as follows:— “Alleluia in heaven and in earth; it is perpetuated in heaven, it is sung in earth. There it resounds everlastingly: here sweetly. There happily; here concordantly. There ineffably; here earnestly. There without syllables; here in musical numbers. There from the Angels; here from the people. Which, at the birth of Christ the Lord, not only in heaven, but the earth, did the Angels sing; while they proclaimed, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will”. The Benediction:— “Let that Alleluia which is ineffably sung in heaven, be more efficaciously declared in your praises. Amen. unceasingly sung by Angels, let it here be uttered brokenly by all faithful people. Amen. That it, as it is called the praise of God, and as it imitates you in that praise, may cause you to be enrolled as denizens of the eternal mansion. Amen”. The Lauda:— “Thou shalt go, O Alleluia; Thou shalt have a prosperous journey, O Alleluia. R. And again with joy thou shalt return to us, O Alleluia. V. For in their hands they shall bear thee up; lest thou hurt thy foot against a stone. R. And again with joy thou shalt return to us, O Alleluia”’.

Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences, 1867, edited by John Mason Neale, 1818-1866

67 years ago today the late King George VI died at his estate at Sandringham in Norfolk at the age of 56. His daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, was in Kenya at the time, en route for a tour of Australia. Though it was to be another sixteen months before her Coronation in Westminster Abbey, Elizabeth had become Queen. She was 25 years old. For the whole of her adult life Elizabeth has been Sovereign. She has surpassed Queen Victoria’s long reign of 63 years, and on the 31st January we learned that Elizabeth II passed Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine’s 66 year and 358 day reign to become the longest-reigning female ruler in history. It is a remarkable milestone, but one which is notable for the quality of service and dedication rendered by this Christian monarch to God on behalf the many peoples of her realms and territories throughout the world.

Today, then, is marked as Accession Day in those places where the Queen remains Head of State (the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, etc.). It was first marked during the reign of Elizabeth I, and later a ​‘Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving’ was first published in 1576, and was renewed during the reign of James II in 1685. A collect in Divine Worship: The Missal is provided for use in the Commonwealth realms where the Ordinariate is present, and follows below. 

​‘I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong. But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do. I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it’.

on the occasion of her 21st birthday, as Princess Elizabeth, 1947

Of your charity, please pray for the repose of the soul of Monsignor Edwin Barnes, who died today, following a short illness, on this his 84th birthday. Pray also for his widow, Jane. Mgr Barnes served as Prinicpal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford, from 1987 to 1995, and served as the first Bishop of Richborough, a provinical episcopal visitor in the Province of Canterbury, from 1995 to 2002. He and his wife were received into full communion in 2011, after which he was ordained priest for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. In 2012 he was appointed a Chaplain of His Holiness. ​Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Jesu, mercy. Mary, pray. 

‘Among the opinions we can be sure to encounter is a certain uneasiness with our Missal’s use of traditional language and even the snarky charge that Divine Worship is really just a “Tudorbethan fantasy, an exercise in mock-Tudor nostalgia, or a Cranmerian pastiche with limited appeal and prospects only for evangelising a small set of gin-sipping anglophiles.” I exaggerate for effect, but only slightly – just wait until the blogs light up and start smoking with both sharp criticism and misplaced praise for the linguistic register of Divine Worship. Criticism of our sacral dialect is to be expected and is in fact quite understandable, given what we’ve lived through in the general linguistic confusion of the last fifty years and given the unfortunate politicising of liturgical expression, but I would suggest too that such misapprehension can be an occasion to rediscover and rethink the evangelising potential of Catholic worship in our distinct sacral idiom.

First observation: Liturgical language is not primarily a means of description or information; it is not and has never been the diffuse idiom of everyday communication and commerce; rather it is the Church’s focused, concentrated instrument of mediation to effect, to incarnate our participation in the saving mysteries of our faith and to immerse, to wash the faithful in the figural meanings of Holy Scripture.

Second observation: Liturgical language is stylised, enacted speech with its own kind of intelligibility, and far from excluding archaic elements it welcomes a modicum of traditional expressions and some ritualised conventions that “reach to the roots”, resonate in the auditory memory, and habituate an experience of worship wider, deeper, older than ourselves, transcending the gathered congregation in time and space to represent and configure our incorporation into the Communion of the Saints.  

Third observation: Liturgical language is recursive and immersive; it bears and demands repetition, day by day, week by week, season by season, year by year, without ever exhausting its capacity to stimulate meditation and work ongoing conversion of life; its words are “poetic” in the sense of being athletic, even ascetic, by gently, insistently stretching the limits of expression in order to exercise, train, tune, and elevate our faculties that we might lift up our hearts to God and open out our lives in love and service.

Along these lines, recent decades have seen some new appreciation of the function of liturgical language, though it’s been an appreciation forged in fires of controversy and some ashes of compromise - as well you know. Still the ecclesial context is vital – what a difference it makes to be fully, unambiguously Catholic! Words, of course, signify their meanings in context, according to their arrangement, occasion, and purpose, the time, place, and attitude of their utterance (ad placitum ab suppositio as medieval grammarians were fond of saying). When we recite the familiar words of the Nicene Creed, I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, those words must mean something very different to us as Catholics than when we said the same words as Anglicans (with our fingers crossed!). It makes a profound difference to pray the Mass with the Collect for Purity at the beginning and the Prayer of Thanksgiving at the end, clustered now not around an equivocal Prayer of Consecration (one not altogether clear about what exactly it’s doing), but irradiating from the confidence of the Roman Canon and the power of the Holy Sacrifice. Such a context can literally transfigure the significance of familiar words. Yet we also know from our Anglican experience that the rich words of the Prayer Book can fall flat and ring hollow when an otherwise lovely lex orandi gets detached from an authoritative lex credendi and leaves lex vivendi prey to the zeitgeist of “lifestyle politics” and sets souls adrift.
​   
It seems to me, then, that we have to learn to read our own Anglican history and to examine our habits and affections in a new key, a new context, not so much for the defensive retention of a “goodly heritage”, but to discover in its resources a new impetus for transfiguring mission’.

from a talk entitled Very Members Incorporate:
​Some Reflections on the Sacral Language of Divine Worship
2 February 2015, by Dr Clinton Allen Brand KSG 

‘Sylvester I reigned as Pope from 314 to 335, succeeding Pope Melchiades. Because of his banishment to Mount Soracte, he was considered a “confessor” and counted among the martyrs. During his pontificate the Church began to come out of the darkness of the catacombs. He was a friend of Emperor Constantine, confirmed the first General Council of Nice (325), gave the Church a new discipline for the new era of peace. He might be called the first “peace Pope” after centuries of bloody persecution. A series of illustrious basilicas were erected during his reign (Lateran, St Peter’s, St Paul’s).

Numerous legends dramatise his life and work, e.g., how he freed Constantine from leprosy by baptism; how he killed a ferocious dragon that was contaminating the air with his poisonous breath. Such legends were meant to portray the effects of baptism and Christianity’s triumph over idolatry. For a long time the feast of St Sylvester was a holyday of obligation. The Divine Office notes: He called the weekdays ferias, because for the Christian every day is a “free day” (the term is still in use; thus Monday is feria secunda)’.

​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

‘O Virgo Virginum, the last of the Great O Antiphons in the old English liturgy of Sarum, occurs on December 23rd. Its structure is quite different from all the other Great O Antiphons. The first part is a question addressed to the Virgin Mary; in the second part she replies with another question, and then, gives her answer.
 
O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? That which ye behold is a divine mystery.
 
Here, at Silverstream Priory, since the beginning of Advent, we have been singing O Virgo Virginum each morning as the Marian Antiphon at the end of Lauds’.

Dom Mark Daniel Kirby OSB, Prior of Silverstream Priory, Co. Meath, Ireland, writing in 2012

​‘The last of the seven titles of Jesus before the Vigil of Christmastide is without doubt the most beautiful of all. Emmanuel: God-with-us. Both in the sound of the word and its meaning, the Christian mystery is summed up succinctly and mellifluently. In Jesus, God is personally present to the world. On the eve of the Nativity ‘Emmanuel’ is telling those who wait for God that he is closer than they could possibly imagine. In that name God and man are hyphenated, conjoined forever, just as God’s nature and ours are joined in the one to whom the name belongs. God, through his Son, with us in Jesus the man. The marvellous depth of the incarnation is given here for our contemplation in a single word. As long as our capacity for wonder lasts, the wonder of this miracle will never be exhausted’.
 
from Seven Bells to Bethlehem: The O Antiphons by Fr Oliver Treanor

​‘In the universal struggle against evil which is common to all who espouse progress, and particularly progress in world peace, [the] emphasis on human dignity is what unites every effort for good. Here the desire of the nations converges on the aim of the Kingdom. But because the nations rely on earthly means for achieving what they desire, and because the citizens of the Kingdom on earth are still vulnerable to sin, respect for the human person is not always recognised as the cornerstone of positive growth.
 
…Only sacrifice can bring about what the Kingdom promises. Only the incarnation of Christ can persuade that such sacrifice is worthwhile. In his birth as man, by his death for others, Jesus reveals the hidden glory of human nature in each person – no matter how depraved – and the worthiness of each person in God’s eyes of love. This is why every other ideology, even humanism, falls short of what is needed… Until [Christ] returns, while the Advent of time continues, the Church will not cease to pray for that Kingdom to come in which all the desires of the human heart will be satisfied and men of clay will live in peace’.

from Seven Bells to Bethlehem: The O Antiphons by ​Fr Oliver Treanor

‘The Church hails Christ as the Rising Sun at eventide on December 21st - the mid-winter solstice and darkest day of the year. It is the time of the night’s predominance, when the darkness seems to have overcome all. The sun is at its furthest remove from the northern hemisphere. It appears to pause as if in death - but only to return, rising once more to begin a new cycle in the seasons of life. The timing of the antiphon is perfect. It reflects the people's hope in the birth of a child destined to die that he might rise in a dawning that would conquer darkness forever. His appearance is a celebration of the true feast of Sol Invictus - the Unconquered Sun, whose brief pause in the tomb for three days would be followed by an eternal spring. So the unrestrained revelry of Christian Saturnalia is not, like its old pagan forerunner, some desperate antidote to the fears of winter. It is a sparkling elixir of joyful hope that, as Christ has triumphed over sin and death, so those he has redeemed will share his victory of every bleakness in the human condition that winter symbolises’.

from Seven Bells to Bethlehem: The O Antiphons by ​Fr Oliver Treanor

‘It was the simple humanity of Jesus that unlocked the hearts of those he met. They recognised in him one who “did not cling to his equality with God as a thing to be grasped” but became as all men are (Phil 2:6). Seeing this opened a new hope of holiness in them – from Nathaniel and the apostles to Mary Magdalene and the prostitutes. Sanctity was no longer an unreachable goal. Nor was it to be confused with the sanctimonious externals of their Jewish leaders. Heaven was to be found within themselves. 
 
...What was true in Jesus’ time is still true today. The key that releases hope and permits the heart to soar is on the outside. It takes another to turn it so that doors will open on earth and therefore also in heaven. Christians are called to do what Christ did: to set others free to be themselves that they might perceive the value of what they they, might rise above what is false within them and put underfoot all that hinders growth of is unworthy of them’.

​from Seven Bells to Bethlehem: The O Antiphons by ​Fr Oliver Treanor​

‘[T]he heavenly community, with which the Bible closes, will be one in which the sufferings of God’s people will be recompensed. Exchanging their cross for the tree of life, they will see face to face the One who turned all pain to good account. Those who washed their clothes in the blood of the Lamb, those who came through the great persecution, those who resisted the beast – symbol of evil – preferring to endure all that the Church must, rather than opt for compromise. And in the centre of the new Jerusalem stands the source of the revelation: “I Jesus have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and offspring of David” (Rev 22:16). Spanning the life of the Church in heaven with the Church on earth, Jesus unites both communities as the vine unites the ground and sky, the above and below, North and South, East and West, by its prodigious extension. At the end of time, as this last word of scripture affirms, the pruning will be complete. Its effect will have been so to fortify the vine that it will easily support the new heaven in its branches, the new earth in its roots, and the entire company of the blessed as its weighty crop, “twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month” (Rev 22:2). Until that final consummation, the victory song of the saints and martyrs already round the throne of glory mingles with the hymn of the Advent Church still struggling. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’ to the offspring of David (Rev 22:17), or as the liturgy puts it on December 19th, “O Root of Jesse, you stand as a signal for the nations; O come to deliver us, and do not delay”’. 

from Seven Bells to Bethlehem: The O Antiphons by Fr Oliver Treanor

‘[T]he Church in Advent calls upon the coming Christ as “O Adonai”. It is a direct application of the Holy Name, in its covert form, to Mary’s son. One of the earliest Christian faith-formulas was “Jesus is Lord”. “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead”, wrote St Paul to the Romans, “you will be saved” (10:9). It was the great and sustaining creed of the post-resurrection Church at Pentecost, when the full redeeming significance of Jesus’ name burst forth upon the Christian community like light from heaven, like a terrific fire that burned and yet never consumed. “Know assuredly,” cried the apostle Peter in his Pentecost sermon, “that this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, God has made both Lord and Christ, Leader and Saviour” (Acts 2:23, 36; 5:31). Not by accident was Jesus crucified, nor by the whim of tragic fate, but by deliberate, pre-destined design, in order that sin might be forgiven through the name of Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of that name by poured out and received (Acts 2:38).
 
… The Advent antiphon’s supplication – “O Adonai, you gave the Law on Sinai. O come and save us with your mighty power’ – is not however for the Jewish law or the Mosaic covenant. It is for the reality that these things signified and which came to pass at Christian Pentecost: the new covenant, the new law is now inscribed not on tablets of stone but on human hearts. This was what the prophet Jeremiah had declared would come about in the latter days, in the age of Messiah. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them out of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people” (31:31-33). The waiting Church of Advent today keeps these words in mind as it imitates the first disciples of the Acts who waited in the upper room for this promise from the Father to appear. Christmas therefore is a type of Pentecost. Men awaiting a birth. The birth of the Lord in a stable. The birth of the Church in an upper room in Jerusalem. The re-birth of hearts in a fiery baptism of the Spirit, God’s “mighty power” sent in response to the prayer, “O come and save us”’. 

from Seven Bells to Bethlehem: The O Antiphons by Fr Oliver Treanor

‘To intone the great “O Wisdom” of the antiphon is to stand against Efficiency and Success. It is to recognise that idolatry does not change, only its forms. It is to acknowledge the absurdity of contemporary wisdom – the depersonalisation of the Unborn; the degradation of human dignity through genetic engineering; the despoliation of relationships by laboratory parenting; the human sacrifice of the unemployed to the demigod, Economy; the inadequate concern for the poor and homeless, the elderly and the ill. It is to acknowledge also the blindness of a society which, after approving such absurdity, then queries naively the rising crime rate, increased incidence of suicide, disaffection of its citizens and widespread collapse of family life’.

from Seven Bells to Bethlehem: The O Antiphons by Fr Oliver Treanor

​‘Like children awaiting the Christ Child, we are hardly able to restrain our happiness over the coming of the Lord. Actually it is Christmas joy anticipated. The Church modifies her colours; instead of violet she uses rose, a softened hue of violet and thus a compromise between the colours symbolising penance and joy. Unlike other days in Advent, the altar is adorned with flowers; organ music is permitted; and at the High Mass the assistant ministers against wear the tunic and dalmatic. Persons who love the liturgy should celebrate such extraordinary days in a special manner and make the most of their distinguished features. The colour rose ought to predominate in the church (vestments, altar hangings) and in the home too (at the dinner table, for example). Pastors could use the occasion to preach on the adornment proper to the house of God. Rarely is the Church’s mood so unmistakable. Of course, our Advent joy must be deepened and purified; this is done through the day’s liturgy’.  

from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954

‘Why need they observe certain rites and ceremonies? Why need they watch, pray, fast, and meditate? Why is it not enough to be just, honest, sober, benevolent, and otherwise virtuous? Is not this the true and real worship of God? Is not activity in mind and conduct the most acceptable way of approaching Him? How can they please Him by submitting to certain religious forms, and taking part in certain religious acts? Or if they must do so, why may they not choose their own? Why must they come to church for them? Why must they be partakers in what the Church calls Sacraments?
 
I answer, they must do so, first of all and especially, because God tells them so to do. But besides this, I observe that we see this plain reason why, that they are one day to change their state of being. They are not to be here for ever. Direct intercourse with God on their part now, prayer and the like, may be necessary to their meeting Him suitably hereafter: and direct intercourse on His part with them, or what we call sacramental communion, may be necessary in some incomprehensible way, even for preparing their very nature to bear the sight of Him.
 
Let us then take this view of religious service; it is “going out to meet the Bridegroom”, who, if not seen “in His beauty”, will appear in consuming fire. Besides its other momentous reasons, it is a preparation for an awful event, which shall one day be. What it would be to meet Christ at once without preparation, we may learn from what happened even to the Apostles when His glory was suddenly manifested to them. St Peter said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord”. And St John, “when he saw Him, fell at His feet as dead”.

This being the case, it is certainly most merciful in God to vouchsafe to us the means of preparation, and such means as He has actually appointed. When Moses came down from the Mount, and the people were dazzled at his countenance, he put a veil over it. That veil is so far removed in the Gospel, that we are in a state of preparation for its being altogether removed. We are with Moses in the Mount so far, that we have a sight of God; we are with the people beneath it so far, that Christ does not visibly show Himself. He has put a veil on, and He sits among us silently and secretly. When we approach Him, we know it only by faith; and when He manifests Himself to us, it is without our being able to realise to ourselves that manifestation.
 
Such then is the spirit in which we should come to all His ordinances, considering them as anticipations and first-fruits of that sight of Him which one day must be. When we kneel down in prayer in private, let us think to ourselves, Thus shall I one day kneel down before His very footstool, in this flesh and this blood of mine; and He will be seated over against me, in flesh and blood also, though divine. I come, with the thought of that awful hour before me, I come to confess my sin to Him now, that He may pardon it then, and I say, “O Lord, Holy God, Holy and Strong, Holy and Immortal, in the hour of death and in the day of judgement, deliver us, O Lord!”
 
Again, when we come to church, then let us say: – The day will be when I shall see Christ surrounded by His Holy Angels. I shall be brought into that blessed company, in which all will be pure, all bright. I come then to learn to endure the sight of the Holy One and His Servants; to nerve myself for a vision which is fearful before it is ecstatic, and which they only enjoy whom it does not consume’.

Blessed John Henry Newman, 1801-1890

‘God comes to us in his word. That is why it does not seem altogether incongruous to devote the second Sunday in Advent to prayer about the Bible. In any case it was almost inevitable that in 1549, the period of the first English Book of Common Prayer for which this collect was composed, the pride and joy of the Reformers in the rediscovery of the Bible should find expression in one of the new prayers. The collect prays that this priceless treasure of God’s word may be used to the fullest advantage. It emphasises the truth that the scriptures comes from the hand of God.
 
…[T]hey should be read intellectually, like any other book. In such an approach there are a number of stages. One begins by simply reading them or hearing them read. One should at the same time ‘mark’ them or give particular attention to them. (And how hard that is sometimes, when for instance the lessons are read in church!) Then one should learn them, or at least select portions of them, by heart. What a relief it is in sickness, or in the ‘slow watches of the night’, to be able to repeat the beloved words to oneself.
 
And then, of course, one should ‘inwardly digest them’. That means to understand them and let their meaning enter into the very fibre of one’s being. And intelligent person will want to understand the purport of what he reads, particularly when the subject-matter is an important as this. He will therefore seek explanation od the more difficult passages either from published commentaries or from some of the clergy whose special province it is to expound the scriptures.
 
This means that he will study the Bible intelligently, not using it as a talisman, or fetish, not thinking that there is any special value in knowing the list of the kings of Israel or the journeys of St Paul, but realising that in the scriptures God uses the talents of chosen writers and through them speaks to his chosen people’. 

from Reflections on the Collects, 1964
​by William Wand KCVO, 1885-1977 (Bishop of London 1945-1955)

​‘Another step forward in our Christmas preparation!... By way of introduction to this ancient observance [of Ember Days], let us read an Ember sermon of Pope St Leo I:
 
“Dearly beloved brethren: With the anxious solicitude proper to us as the shepherd of your souls, we urge upon you the rigid observance of this December fast. The month of December has come round again, and with it this devout custom of the Church. The fruits of the year now drawing to a close have all been gathered in, and therefore meetly do we offer our abstinence to God as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. What can be more useful than fasting? By that exercise we draw near to God, we make strong stand against the devil, and overcome the sweet enticements of sin. Fasting has ever been the bread of strength. From fasting proceed pure thoughts, reasonable desires, and healthy counsels. Through voluntary mortification the flesh dies to lust, and the soul renews the practise of virtue.
 
But since fasting is not the only means to secure health for our souls, let us adorn our fasting with works of mercy. Our fast must be turned into a banquet for the poor. Let us devote time and effort to the underprivileged, the widow and the orphan; let us show sympathy to the afflicted and reconcile the estranged; provide lodging for the wanderer and relieve the oppressed; give clothing to the naked and cherish the sick. Thus every one who offers to the God of all goodness this Advent sacrifice of fasting and alms will become worthy to receive from Him the eternal reward of His heavenly kingdom!’
 
The observance of Ember Days, a most venerable feature of the liturgical calendar, dates back to early Roman antiquity (they are older than Advent). Pope Leo I (c.450) has left us a series of beautiful sermons for these days. Originally the Ember Days were an occasion of thanksgiving for the three great harvests of wheat, grapes, and olives – all very meaningful nature symbols employed by the liturgy. In the Offertory procession the faithful brought tithes of the harvest to be used for the offering then and there, for the support of the Church, and for the poor.
 
These days also stress spiritual renewal. In the bustle of business and work, we too easily forget our future status. Therefore, during these four times of the year we should concentrate on God and scrutinise our spiritual condition. Lent is our annual retreat, while the Ember Days serve as quarterly check-ups. A grave and earnest mood comes over Mother Church, but there are no tears or mourning. Fasting is not so much an expression of penitence and sorrow as a joyous tithe to God, and an incentive to almsgiving’.

​from The Church’s Year of Grace, 1953, by Pius Parsch, 1884-1954