The Poor Clares in San Antonio attending our nuptial Mass in 2014
You can now listen to my radio "fireside chat" with the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in San Antonio at this link, provided you have iTunes installed. Just select the broadcast for April 27, 2016.
Our discussion, which was prompted by the month's-mind Requiem Mass offered for their late abbess, Mother Angelica of EWTN fame, at my former parish in San Antonio, revolved around the prayers and Gregorian chants of the Requiem, devotions for the souls in purgatory during the Middle Ages, the Office of the Dead, and the importance of reclaiming the spirituality behind these traditions in the modern age.
The sisters' main site is the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel, or Texasnuns.com. From there, you can learn a bit more about them, buy their soap, and find their blog, Quidnunc. My first real encounter with the Poor Clares was when they attended a Requiem Mass for my stepfather years ago. Since then, I correspond with them every once in a while, and was honored to design service booklets for one of their solemn professions. And, if you saw my post two days ago, I did the same for the Requiem Mass for Mother Angelica according to the Divine Worship Missal of the Personal Ordinariates, which is now on YouTube below.
A few of the 180 clerks that have worked for Justice Antonin Scalia lined up at the steps to the US Supreme Court. At the head, in cassock and surplice, is the late Justice's son, Father Paul Scalia of the Diocese of Arlington.
As I type this, the body of Justice Antonin Scalia lies in repose at the United States Supreme Court. I'm not generally a political blogger and it's not my intention to canonize the man here, but from what I know of him, Justice Scalia was an exemplary Catholic with a great heart and a Morean sense of humor, and was committed to a consistent interpretation of the Constitution over any political or party loyalties. I've learned at least one fascinating fact about Scalia every day this past week from articles shared by friends. For instance, on one occasion, he walked into a Catholic church that had been remodeled after Vatican II and loudly exclaimed, "where the hell is the tabernacle!?" It's still hard to believe he's gone; Scalia sat on the Court since before I was even born and will be, most likely, the highest-ranking US public official to ever have frequently attended the traditional Latin Mass for the rest of my life (indeed, a handful of traddies find it highly suspicious that one of "their own" was able to make it so far up without soiling his immortal soul in the process).
There was probably some heated debate behind closed doors between Scalia's son, Father Paul (a regular celebrant of the traditional Latin Mass), and the powers-that-be in the Archdiocese of Washington over what form of Mass the Requiem for the late Justice would take, but it was decided that it would be the Ordinary Form. Whatever Scalia's wishes might have been, it was surely determined that a Requiem in the old rite would have been just too bizarre and even embarrassing to cast before the whole nation's gaze. It could have been the most-watched Latin Mass in history since John F. Kennedy's funeral, but alas. It's a twofold shame; first, in that Catholics have near-completely abandoned the practice of praying for the dead, and second that they, like the rest of the developed world, have little concern for respecting the dead's wishes or honoring them in fitting ceremony.
The old Requiem Mass with its solemn, somber chants was the finest jewel in a crown of prayers and special rites developed by our medieval forebears to remember and pray for their deceased loved ones, even in a world where death lurked behind the corner for every man, woman, and child with no respect to age, status, or wealth. The Ordo Commendationis Animae (Order for Commending a Soul to God) began with prayers over the just-deceased person, then a procession bearing the corpse directly to the church. This was a communal event in every village, whereby even those who didn't know the deceased could join. From 1389 on, an indulgence of one hundred days was attached to joining a funeral procession on the way to the church.
There were, of course, no funeral homes in those many centuries, so bodies were cleaned and prepared on-site (perhaps in the crypt), then laid out in the chancel on a platform encompassed by a "herse" (a framework to support candles over and around the body) as the clerks or monks began Vespers from the Office of the Dead. This vigil of prayer is, as far as I know, only kept today by very devout associations such as the Knights of Columbus, who are committed to praying the Rosary on the night before any deceased member's Mass of burial.
Illustration of a herse by Gothic revivalist Augustus Welby Pugin, a "patron" of this blog.
The Office of the Dead continues the following morning with Matins and Lauds. Although these were sung chiefly by the clergy and monastics, evidence abounds that these services were held nearly and dearly by the lay faithful. Every book of hours (those prayer books, often richly illuminated, used by the more well-to-do laymen of the medieval world) contained, usually toward the end, a full order of service for the Office of the Dead. Unlike the other hours and devotions, which tended to be abbreviated forms of the ones used by the clergy, the layman's book of hours contained the whole Office of the Dead, unabridged. We can see from surviving last wills and testaments that nobles would leave very specific instructions for how these offices would be executed upon their deaths, indicating their preferences for the Placebo (the opening of the psalm Placebo Domino from Vespers) or Dirige (from Matins, Dirige Domine) just as anyone today might call for "Amazing Grace" or "On Eagle's Wings".
An illustration of the Office of the Dead from the Llangattock Hours
Even before the main funeral Mass, other Requiem Masses might be offered the day before or the same day upon receiving news of the death. A testator might have even requested one or more of his favorite (non-Requiem) Masses to be offered for his soul. Imagine, then, a priest vested in white or red to offer the votive Mass of the Holy Ghost or a deceased's patron like Saint John the Baptist, complete with Glorias and Alleluias, before then changing to black to begin the Requiem!
We come, at last, to the Requiem Mass itself: the Mass with prayers and chants dedicated entirely to the eternal rest of the deceased. The whole liturgy is directed for the departed soul: the Roman liturgy eventually even modified the Agnus Dei to end with "grant him (her, them) rest" rather than the communal "have mercy upon us". The most famous of all these chants, and the one most likely to appear in a film touching upon anything related to the danse macabre is the Dies Irae: the Day of Wrath. This sequence, at least six minutes of chanting about God as the just and terrible Judge on the last day, remains an option for Ordinary Form funerals in theory, but is so rare now that we can call it effectively suppressed. No other single aspect of the traditional Requiem was so memorable, nor so despised and vilified by liturgical authors during and after the Second Vatican Council, as the Dies Irae. The four last things (death, judgment, heaven, and hell) have never been so out of fashion.
In the earliest stages of the Requiem Mass's development, say the seventh or eighth centuries, monks were wont to keep the practice of offering Requiems to themselves, judging the laity unworthy of having a special Mass offered just for themselves. This quickly gave way to the opposite approach; that every Christian, no matter how sinful, was entitled not just to their own Requiem, but an exsequial high Mass; a spirit of charity to the dead that lasted right up to the Reformation.
Illustration of a Requiem Mass by A.W. Pugin
At the end of the Requiem, the priest approaches the body to incense it and pray the absolutions, imploring God to spare the soul the temporal punishments earned in purgatory for sins forgiven in life. Modern Catholic funerals no longer require the presence of a body, but in the medieval world, it was essential to even have a Requiem at all. If a body couldn't be had, then a mock-up of an empty casket, called a catafalque, was erected to represent the body. This was especially needed during the Crusades and the Hundred Years' War, when men regularly died in battle many miles away from home. Even then, great efforts were made to mark exactly where a body was buried, so that years or even decades later, a family could dig it out and reinter it in their family chapel. Catafalques, likewise, were erected even for memorial Requiems for groups of persons, or for commemorating all the souls of the faithful departed on All Souls' Day.
A catafalque erected for an anniversary Requiem for King Louis XVI of France, who was beheaded during the French Revolution
Time will tell if anything remotely resembling the traditional exequies will take place for Justice Scalia at the National Shrine tomorrow. EWTN will begin broadcasting at 11am. I've read that Scalia's son, Father Paul, will preach the homily, but don't know if he will be the celebrant. In any case, I'll be watching, thinking, and praying.
Father Paul prays Psalm 129 (130), de Profundis, beside his father's casket in the Supreme Court building.
I've been following the blog called How to Rebury a King with great interest. This site is maintained by Dr. Alexandra Buckle, a musicologist and consultant for the committee that created the Anglican liturgies for the reinterment services at Leicester Cathedral this week. Not long ago, Dr. Buckle discovered an old manuscript detailing the rite of reinterment as it was used for Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (whose tomb made an appearance in my recent article on hearses and hearse-cloths). While manuscripts detailing medieval burials abound, this particular document is the only one in known existence that outlines the order of service for a reburial.
That blog's entry for today (here) shared a collect for reinterment which draws on the imagery of Ezekiel's valley of bones, but which is not known to exist anywhere else, period. Unfortunately, that prayer had a section that was purged for its overly medievalist, overly Catholic material for Thursday's service; but Dr. Buckle was gracious enough to at least post the full prayer and translation for the rest of the world to see. I'll also reproduce it here, but in reverse order.
Here's the prayer used at the service on Thursday, contemporized and purged (as seen on page 16 of the order here):
"Almighty and eternal God, creator and redeemer of souls, who by the prophecy of Ezekiel deigned to bind together dry bones with sinews, to cover them with skin and flesh, and to put into them the breath of life: as we return the bones of your servant Richard to the grave, we beseech you to grant him a peaceful and quiet resting place, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever."
Now, here's the full prayer in translation, with the excised portion in colored text:
"Let us pray. Omnipotent and eternal God, creator and redeemer of souls, who through the prophecy of Ezechiel are worthy to bind together truly dry bones with sinews, to cover them with skin and flesh, and to put into them the breath of life, we supplicants pray to you for the soul of our dear [INSERT NAME] whose bones we now place in the grave that you may deign to grant him a peaceful and quiet resting place and, that having remitted all his sins of worldly heedlessness as conceded to him by a pardon of full indulgence, that, through your ineffable mercy, you erase and wash away all of it, whatever he has erred in this world by his own or another’s guilt. Who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God through all for ever and ever. Amen."
And finally, for reference for the scholars among you, the original Latin text:
"Oremus. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, animarum conditor et redemptor, qui per Ezechielis vaticinium ossa vehementer arida nervis compingere, pelle et carnibus superinduere, ac in ea spiraculum vitæ intromittere dignatus es: te supplices deprecamur pro anima in cari nostri N [nomine], cuius ossa iam denuo tradimus sepultura, ut ei tribuere digneris placidam et quietam mansionem et remittas omnes lubrice temeritatis offensas, ut concessa sibi venia plenæ indulgentiæ quicquid in hoc seculo proprio vel alieno reatu deliquit, totum ineffabili pietate tua deleas et abstergas. Qui cum Deo Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivis et regnas, Deus per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen."
I don't blame Dr. Buckle for whatever role she had in excising the prayer. The Church of England's doings aren't any of my business; indeed, such medievalisms as "a pardon of full indulgence" and "by his own or another's guilt" would feel quite out of place there. No doubt Archbishop Cranmer came to many of the same conclusions back in the 1540's and 1550's when he took the axe to all the Catholic funerary rites as much as the populace would allow him to without rioting.
What's more tragic, I say, is that this sort of bowdlerization was exactly the same as that systematic process of destruction that Archbishop Bugnini applied with his liturgical jackhammer to the Missal, Breviary, and other sacred texts in use by the Roman Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Yikes!
-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses
-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily
Though last Sunday's procession for Richard III may seem impressive and stately to us, I invite you to consider the possibility that funerary processions (though perhaps not to the same scale) were a relatively common sight even among the commons of the Middle Ages, thanks to the efforts of the guilds. The procession to the church was a visible call for the entire community to come together to mourn and pray for the deceased's soul.
A hearse cloth dating to 1539, London.
After being brought into the church, the medieval; denizen's coffin was borne over a hearse; not the car or carriage used to transport a body, but a metal frame which suspended candles over the body while it rested in the middle of the church for one to three nights before the burial. Traditionally, it would have been placed on the hearse, covered with a hearse-cloth (or a pall), and then the clerks would sing the evensong Office of the Dead, beginning with the Placebo. Most parish churches owned a simple hearse cloth for all parishioners to share, but among the wealthier classes, it was common to commission a specially embroidered cloth with fantastical designs to ensure that the deceased would be remembered.
Artist Jacquie Binns embroidered the hearse cloth that currently lays over the coffin of Richard III while it awaits reinterment. While it's not what I would have designed, to say the least; and I'm perplexed at how the organizers neglected to build a hearse at all; I can at least appreciate how the artist decided to incorporate the likenesses of several people who were instrumental in the recovery of the king's remains, including Philippa Langley and Dr. John Ashdown-Hill. Some of those personages appear in Channel 4's excellent documentary on the search for Richard III's remains below (even if, as Langley later complained, the documentary made it seem as though she was in love with Richard): Richard III - The King in the Car Park.
One of the more elaborate examples of a hearse, in the medieval sense.
One of two or three surviving hearses in all of England. This one is over the tomb of Sir Richard Beauchamp in Warwick.
Another is the Marmion Tomb, West Tanfield.
Other entries during "Richard III Week":
-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses
-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily
