ALMSGIVING (Mark Aquilina)

Of the three marks of Lent — prayer, fasting and almsgiving — almsgiving is surely the most neglected.

And yet, in the only place where the Bible brings all three together, the inspired author puts the emphasis firmly on the last: “Prayer and fasting are good, but better than either is almsgiving accompanied by righteousness … It is better to give alms than to store up gold; for almsgiving saves one from death and expiates every sin. Those who regularly give alms shall enjoy a full life” (Tob 12:8-9).

Why is almsgiving better than prayer and fasting? Because it is prayer, and it involves fasting. Almsgiving is a form of prayer because it is “giving to God” — and not mere philanthropy. It is a form of fasting because it demands sacrificial giving — not just giving something, but giving up something, giving till it hurts.

Jesus presented almsgiving as a necessary part of Christian life: “when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Mt 6:2-3). He does not say IF you give alms, but WHEN. Like fasting and prayer, almsgiving is non-negotiable.

The first Christians knew this. “There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need” (Acts 4:34-35).

That was the living embodiment of a basic principle of Catholic social teaching, what tradition calls “the universal destination of goods.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it succinctly: “The goods of creation are destined for the entire human race” (n. 2452).

But they can’t get there unless we put them there — and that requires effort.

As with prayer and fasting, so with almsgiving. If we have a plan, we’ll find it easier to do. Throughout history, many Christians have used the Old Testament practice of “tithing” as a guide — that is, they give a tenth of their income “to God.” In practice, that means giving it to the poor, to the parish, or to charitable institutions.

My friend Ed Kenna, an octogenarian and dad, remembers the day he decided to start tithing. “When I was a senior in high school, back in 1939-40, I read an article on charitable giving in a Catholic newspaper,” he recalls. “And it had a lot of testimonies to the fruits of tithing. Breadwinners told how God provided whenever they were in need or had an emergency. I decided, then and there, to start tithing, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

For Kenna, those 65 years have had their financial ups and downs. He served in the military during World War II, went to college and raised a family of nine children. Through it all, he says, he was often tempted, but he never wavered in his tithing. “There were many times when I reached a point where I said, ‘Something has to give — but I’m not going to give up on my tithing.’”

It’s a matter of trusting God, Kenna adds, “and God will not be outdone in generosity.”

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35), but those who tithe often find themselves on the receiving end as well. “I worked as an industrial engineer through the highs and lows of American industry,” Kenna recalls. “Twice my job fell victim to corporate mergers, but the phone always rang just in time. I never lost an hour of work to layoffs.”

He sees the difficult times as God’s test of our trust. “It’s especially hard in the beginning. On your first paycheck, it hurts. On the second, the pain’s a little less. At about the third or fourth, there’s no pain at all. You get used to it. It’s a habit. But you have to make that firm resolution: I’m gonna do it and not give in.”

Kenna, like many others, interprets tithing to mean taking ten percent off the “first fruits” — gross income, rather than net. He divides this up as “5 percent to the parish and 5 percent to other Catholic institutions.” He also gives of his time and has, for many decades, been a volunteer for the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Indeed, many Catholics extend the concept of almsgiving beyond money to include time and talent as well, donating a portion of these to worthy causes.

In the late fourth century, St. John Chrysostom looked at the good life people were living in the imperial court, and he was filled with righteous anger. In the name of God, he raged against those who owned toilet seats made of gold, while other people starved in cold hovels.

While our commodes may be made of less precious materials, many Americans today enjoy a better standard of life than any Byzantine emperor ever knew. Central heat, central air conditioning, electric lights, consistently safe food and water, antibiotics, and even aspirin — these are luxuries beyond the dreams of our ancient ancestors.

We are living high, but are we giving high?

It’s a good question to ask ourselves during Lent. It is a scandal, after all, for Christians to have closets overstuffed with clothing when there are families who are shivering because they can’t pay their heating bill. It is a scandal for Christians to be epidemically overweight when they have near neighbors who go to bed hungry.

We need to give to God — whom we meet in our neighbor — until these problems go away. Whatever we give, whether it’s a tenth or a twentieth or half, is symbolic of the greater giving that defines the Christian life. As God gave himself entirely to us, so we give ourselves entirely to Him. In the Eucharist, He holds nothing back. He gives us His body, blood, soul and divinity — everything He has. That’s the giving we need to imitate.

Charity begins at home, where we daily make the choice to give our time, our attention, our affirming smile, and give generously. But charity must not stop there, because for Catholics “home” is universal, and our family is as big as the world. We need to dig deep and give much where much is needed. But, whenever possible, our charity should also involve personal acts, not just automatic withdrawals from our bank account. Pope John Paul asked us to see, and be seen by, “the human face of poverty.”

We give what we have till we have nothing left to give. My friend and sometime co-author Regis Flaherty remembers his sister Pat as a woman who practiced giving all her life, to her sibilings, her husband, her children and her friends. To the end, she gave what she could. “When she was dying she was in and out of consciousness, but whenever she looked up at us, she would invariable smile — absolutely amazing considering how much she was suffering.”

Sometimes all we can give is a smile, but sometimes that is the greatest sacrifice, the greatest prayer, and indeed the most generous and most sacrificial alms.

FASTING (Article by Mark Aquilina)

“Why do Catholics have to fast?”

The question came from a non-Catholic Boy Scout in my son’s troop. We had spent a long, soggy weekend in the middle of the woods. And now, Sunday morning, the adults announced that breakfast would be delayed so that the Catholics could keep the Communion fast. He was not a happy camper.

His question comes to mind again as Lent begin, because fasting is the most distinguishing practice of the season. On two days in Lent, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Catholics limit their eating to one full, meatless meal. On all the Fridays of Lent we abstain from meat.

Why do Catholics fast? Our reasons find firm grounding in the Bible.

When we fast, we follow holy example. Moses and Elijah fasted forty days before going into God’s presence (Ex 34:28, 1 Kgs 19:8). Anna the Prophetess fasted to prepare herself for the coming of the Messiah (Lk 2:37). They all wanted to see God, and they considered fasting a basic prerequisite. We, too, wish to enter God’s presence, so we fast.

Jesus fasted (Mt 4:2). And since He needed no purification, He surely did this only to set an example for us. In fact, He assumed that all Christians would follow His example. “When you fast,” he said, “do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting” (Mt 6:16). Note that He did not say “IF you fast,” but “when.”

And WHEN is now. In Lent the Church extends the idea of fasting, beyond the minimal skipping of meals, to a more far-reaching program of self-denial. Jesus said: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself … daily” (Lk 9:23). So we “give up” something that we’d ordinarily enjoy: sweets, soda pop, a favorite TV show, or the snooze alarm.

Fasting has its health benefits, but it’s not the same as dieting. Fasting is something spiritual and far more positive. Fasting is a spiritual feast. It does for the soul what food does for the body.

The Bible spells out specific spiritual benefits of fasting. It produces humility (Ps 69:10). It shows our sorrow for our sins (1 Sam 7:6). It clears a path to God (Dan 9:3). It is a means of discerning God’s will (Ezr 8:21) and a powerful method of prayer (8:23). It’s a mark of true conversion (Jl 2:12).

Fasting helps us to be detached from the things of this world. We fast, not because earthly things are evil, but precisely because they’re good. They’re God’s gifts to us. But they’re so good that we sometimes prefer the gifts to the Giver. We practice self-indulgence rather than self-denial. We tend to eat and drink to the point where we forget God. Such indulgence is really a form of idolatry. It’s what St. Paul meant when he said, “their god is the belly … with minds set on earthly things” (Phi 3:19).

How can we enjoy God’s gifts without forgetting the Giver? Fasting is a good way to start. The body wants more than it needs, so we should give it less than it wants.

St. John of the Cross said that we cannot rise up to God if we are bound to the things of this world. So we give up good things, and gradually we grow less dependent on them, less needy.

All of this is part of our preparation for heaven. For we’re destined to lose our earthly goods anyway. Time, age, illness and “doctor’s orders” can take away our taste for chocolate, our ability to enjoy a cold beer, and even the intimate embrace of a loved one. If we have no discipline over our desires, then these losses will leave us bitter and estranged from God. But if we follow Jesus in self-denial, we’ll find a more habitual consolation in the ultimate good — God Himself.

How is it that some people are able to remain serene and cheerful amid extreme suffering and even when facing imminent death? It’s not just a matter of temperament. They’ve prepared themselves for the moment by giving up the things of this world, one small thing at a time. They’ve grown so accustomed to small sacrifice that the big one isn’t such a stretch.

No one says that fasting is easy. In fact, says Benedictine Father Thomas Acklin, author of The Passion of the Lamb: God’s Love Poured Out in Jesus. “Fasting can seem very hard, and it can seem that if I do not eat I will become weak and will not be able to work, or pray, or do anything.

“Yet there is that marvelous moment,” he adds, “when, after some hours have passed, my stomach has stopped growling and I’ve even forgotten what I’ve given up, when there is a lightness, a freedom, a clarity of the senses and a brightness of attitude and feeling, an incomparable closeness to the Lord.”

Lent is a special season, but God wants these forty days to have a lasting effect on our lives. So, in a sense, fasting is for always. Father Rene Schatteman, an Opus Dei chaplain in Pittsburgh, says that he received this lesson directly from a canonized saint. “I learned from St. Josemaria Escriva, whom I had the privilege of knowing personally, that a person should make some small sacrifice at each meal, always, and not just during Lent.”

Fr. Schatteman emphasizes the importance of little things, and the big effect they can have: “We should all feel the need to help Christ redeem the world by practicing self-denial in everyday, ordinary eating and drinking … to take a bit less, or a bit less of what we like most, to avoid eating between meals, to skip a snack or dessert, etc., without making a big deal of it.”

A Pittsburgh businessman (who asked for anonymity) told me of his longtime practice of fasting on Fridays, “a 12-15 hour fast from food, water-only.” He said, however, that this can be difficult to carry out, not because of the hunger, but because it can disrupt family life. “It’s very hard to sit at the family table and not eat. It’s not so much a question of resisting the temptation of the food. I always felt like I was breaking fellowship. My fasting actually felt selfish, like I was taking something away from our time together as a family.”

He has since modified his fast, “to be broken at the family dinner in the evening.”

Why do Catholics fast? Our anonymous businessman put it well: “It’s medicine for my biggest problem — selfishness and lack of self-control. To force myself to curb my appetites, to not satisfy my desires — even for a short period of time — this is a good thing. To offer up the little sacrifice to God, for my family, for people who are hungry through no choice of their own, this I think is also good.”

A wonderful article about PRAYER

PRAYER (by Mike Aquilina)

How do you know it’s Lent?

It’s not so much by the ash mark on your forehead or fish marks on the calendar. Tradition tells us that Lent has three distinguishing marks: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

This three-part series will examine those practices. Prayer is surely the best place to begin, because it’s the one that unites them all. Fasting and almsgiving are themselves just forms of prayer.

There are two classic definitions of prayer. The one in most catechisms comes from St. John of Damascus (eighth century): “Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God.” The other comes from St. Clement of Alexandria (third century). He defined prayer as “conversation with God.”

In prayer we talk to God, and He talks to us. As in any relationship, this conversation takes many forms. Think of all the ways a husband and wife communicate: formal marriage vows, casual chat, winks across a crowded room, affectionate caresses, and phrases they never tire of repeating.

Our communication with God includes a similar range of expressions — set phrases, quiet conversation, gestures such as the Sign of the Cross, and the intimate embrace of the sacraments. Just as a man and woman grow in love by repeating “I love you,” so we Christians grow in love by repeating the Church’s prayers.

Prayer comes in many forms and styles. These are usually divided into “vocal” and “mental” prayer. The categories are helpful, but not watertight. All prayer, after all, should involve our mind; so, in a sense, all prayer is mental prayer. Modern writers sometimes speak of the two types as formal prayer and spontaneous prayer.

Again, such distinctions are useful; we should, however, step beyond them for a moment. When we look at all prayer as conversation, it can change the way we go about it. Thinking of prayer as conversation can help us also to overcome obstacles — such as distractions, dryness, inability to focus — because all these things also come up in human conversation.

Prayer is a conversation that never ends. In the Scriptures, St. Paul says: “Pray at all times” (Eph 6:18); “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:1); and “be constant in prayer” (Rom 12:12). He saw prayer as endless conversation.

That seems to be asking a lot, but it’s really the best way to think about it. If we are to pray this way, we have to form the habit of prayer. And, like any good habit or skill, prayer requires a sustained effort, over time, with much repetition.

Many people bristle when they hear about discipline in prayer. They think prayer should always be spontaneous. And sometimes prayer does come spontaneously, as when we experience some great joy or great sorrow. But spontaneity is most often the fruit of discipline. It is usually the best-trained musicians who are able to improvise freely. To do anything well takes time, dedication and patient endurance through sometimes-tedious exercises.

The most effective way to discipline our prayer life is by following a program, a schedule of sorts — what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin called “a game plan for the Christian.” The best time to set up such a plan is during Lent.

A “plan of life” is a firm but flexible program that schedules our prayer amid the ordinary duties of work, family life and social activity. A daily plan should include some vocal prayers, such as the Rosary or other devotions; plus reading of the Bible and some spiritual book (the writings of the saints are best); attendance at Mass (at least on Sundays and holy days, but more often if possible); and quiet time for more focused conversation with God in mental prayer. The best place for this prayer is in church, before Jesus in the tabernacle.

“Prayer first means God is speaking to us and not the other way around,” says Father Kenneth Myers, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. “That requires silence — the art of listening carefully to the Lord. And the best place to do that is in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament requires real effort and commitment, but even when our hearts are dry and it seems fruitless to keep on praying, being before the Eucharistic Lord is like being in the sunlight — even by doing nothing we still absorb those powerful rays of light.”

Our plan should also include weekly or monthly practices, such as confession, fasting, almsgiving and so on.

It helps to set standard times, or to key each practice to other activities, so that we never forget. We can keep our spiritual book by the coffee pot and read while the java is brewing every morning. We can use the beginning of our lunch hour as a reminder to say the Angelus. We can pray the Rosary while waiting for the bus home in the evening. We can listen to ten minutes of the Bible on tape as we drive.

We should plant prayers throughout the day like vines. Put one here, one there — and pretty soon, like ivy on a wall, our prayer will cover our day.

This is how Jesus modeled prayer for us. His own prayer life was rich and varied. Sometimes He offered formal prayers (Mk 12:29, 15:34). He kept holy days, made pilgrimages and attended the rich liturgy of the Jews (Jn 7:10-14). He also prayed spontaneously (Jn 11:41-42). He made time to pray alone in silence (Lk 3:21-22). Yet He also prayed together with His friends (Lk 9:18). He fasted, and He studied the Scriptures.

The first Christians followed their Lord in all these practices, and so do we.

Not that it’s always easy to do. But the formal quality of prayer helps us know what to do when we meet with obstacles. “Never, Never, never, never give up!” says my friend Steve Galvanek. A systems analyst, husband and dad, Steve says his plan sustains him even when he’s tired and preoccupied. “If in my feeble attempts to say a Rosary, I manage just one or two heartfelt Hail Marys, that’s far better than if I hadn’t tried at all”

Even the more unpleasant and difficult things in life can become reminders to pray. The key is to think of them as opportunities rather than obstacles. Another friend of mine, Sarah Scott, admits that it’s hard to find time to pray. She’s a mother of five, owner of a home-based business and volunteer at her children’s Catholic school. “It helps to offer everything up all the little things that you don’t like to do,” she says. “I hate folding laundry. But, instead of getting annoyed about it, I try to offer it up and think about what other people have to deal with. Efforts like this keep me talking with God throughout the day.”

Sounds like a plan. 

FROM: http://www.salvationhistory.com/blog/intro_to_lent_1_prayer/ 

Pope Benedict XVI: Mass of the Lord's Supper Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 22:15). With these words Jesus began the celebration of his final meal and the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus approached that hour with eager desire. In his heart he awaited the moment when he would give himself to his own under the appearance of bread and wine. He awaited that moment which would in some sense be the true messianic wedding feast: when he would transform the gifts of this world and become one with his own, so as to transform them and thus inaugurate the transformation of the world. In this eager desire of Jesus we can recognize the desire of God himself – his expectant love for mankind, for his creation. A love which awaits the moment of union, a love which wants to draw mankind to itself and thereby fulfil the desire of all creation, for creation eagerly awaits the revelation of the children of God (cf. Rom 8:19). Jesus desires us, he awaits us. But what about ourselves? Do we really desire him? Are we anxious to meet him? Do we desire to encounter him, to become one with him, to receive the gifts he offers us in the Holy Eucharist? Or are we indifferent, distracted, busy about other things? From Jesus’ banquet parables we realize that he knows all about empty places at table, invitations refused, lack of interest in him and his closeness. For us, the empty places at the table of the Lord’s wedding feast, whether excusable or not, are no longer a parable but a reality, in those very countries to which he had revealed his closeness in a special way. Jesus also knew about guests who come to the banquet without being robed in the wedding garment – they come not to rejoice in his presence but merely out of habit, since their hearts are elsewhere. In one of his homilies Saint Gregory the Great asks: Who are these people who enter without the wedding garment? What is this garment and how does one acquire it? He replies that those who are invited and enter do in some way have faith. It is faith which opens the door to them. But they lack the wedding garment of love. Those who do not live their faith as love are not ready for the banquet and are cast out. Eucharistic communion requires faith, but faith requires love; otherwise, even as faith, it is dead.

From all four Gospels we know that Jesus’ final meal before his passion was also a teaching moment. Once again, Jesus urgently set forth the heart of his message. Word and sacrament, message and gift are inseparably linked. Yet at his final meal, more than anything else, Jesus prayed. Matthew, Mark and Luke use two words in describing Jesus’ prayer at the culmination of the meal: “eucharístesas” and “eulógesas” – the verbs “to give thanks” and “to bless”. The upward movement of thanking and the downward movement of blessing go together. The words of transubstantiation are part of this prayer of Jesus. They are themselves words of prayer. Jesus turns his suffering into prayer, into an offering to the Father for the sake of mankind. This transformation of his suffering into love has the power to transform the gifts in which he now gives himself. He gives those gifts to us, so that we, and our world, may be transformed. The ultimate purpose of Eucharistic transformation is our own transformation in communion with Christ. The Eucharist is directed to the new man, the new world, which can only come about from God, through the ministry of God’s Servant.

From Luke, and especially from John, we know that Jesus, during the Last Supper, also prayed to the Father – prayers which also contain a plea to his disciples of that time and of all times. Here I would simply like to take one of these which, as John tells us, Jesus repeated four times in his Priestly Prayer. How deeply it must have concerned him! It remains his constant prayer to the Father on our behalf: the prayer for unity. Jesus explicitly states that this prayer is not meant simply for the disciples then present, but for all who would believe in him (cf. Jn 17:20). He prays that all may be one “as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe” (Jn 17:21). Christian unity can exist only if Christians are deeply united to him, to Jesus. Faith and love for Jesus, faith in his being one with the Father and openness to becoming one with him, are essential. This unity, then, is not something purely interior or mystical. It must become visible, so visible as to prove before the world that Jesus was sent by the Father. Consequently, Jesus’ prayer has an underlying Eucharistic meaning which Paul clearly brings out in the First Letter to the Corinthians: “The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:16ff.). With the Eucharist, the Church is born. All of us eat the one bread and receive the one body of the Lord; this means that he opens each of us up to something above and beyond us. He makes all of us one. The Eucharist is the mystery of the profound closeness and communion of each individual with the Lord and, at the same time, of visible union between all. The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. It reaches the very mystery of the Trinity and thus creates visible unity. Let me say it again: it is an extremely personal encounter with the Lord and yet never simply an act of individual piety. Of necessity, we celebrate it together. In each community the Lord is totally present. Yet in all the communities he is but one. Hence the words “una cum Papa nostro et cum episcopo nostro” are a requisite part of the Church’s Eucharistic Prayer. These words are not an addendum of sorts, but a necessary expression of what the Eucharist really is. Furthermore, we mention the Pope and the Bishop by name: unity is something utterly concrete, it has names. In this way unity becomes visible; it becomes a sign for the world and a concrete criterion for ourselves.

Saint Luke has preserved for us one concrete element of Jesus’ prayer for unity: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:31). Today we are once more painfully aware that Satan has been permitted to sift the disciples before the whole world. And we know that Jesus prays for the faith of Peter and his successors. We know that Peter, who walks towards the Lord upon the stormy waters of history and is in danger of sinking, is sustained ever anew by the Lord’s hand and guided over the waves. But Jesus continues with a prediction and a mandate. “When you have turned again…”. Every human being, save Mary, has constant need of conversion. Jesus tells Peter beforehand of his coming betrayal and conversion. But what did Peter need to be converted from? When first called, terrified by the Lord’s divine power and his own weakness, Peter had said: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Lk 5:8). In the light of the Lord, he recognizes his own inadequacy. Precisely in this way, in the humility of one who knows that he is a sinner, is he called. He must discover this humility ever anew. At Caesarea Philippi Peter could not accept that Jesus would have to suffer and be crucified: it did not fit his image of God and the Messiah. In the Upper Room he did not want Jesus to wash his feet: it did not fit his image of the dignity of the Master. In the Garden of Olives he wielded his sword. He wanted to show his courage. Yet before the servant girl he declared that he did not know Jesus. At the time he considered it a little lie which would let him stay close to Jesus. All his heroism collapsed in a shabby bid to be at the centre of things. We too, all of us, need to learn again to accept God and Jesus Christ as he is, and not the way we want him to be. We too find it hard to accept that he bound himself to the limitations of his Church and her ministers. We too do not want to accept that he is powerless in this world. We too find excuses when being his disciples starts becoming too costly, too dangerous. All of us need the conversion which enables us to accept Jesus in his reality as God and man. We need the humility of the disciple who follows the will of his Master. Tonight we want to ask Jesus to look to us, as with kindly eyes he looked to Peter when the time was right, and to convert us.

After Peter was converted, he was called to strengthen his brethren. It is not irrelevant that this task was entrusted to him in the Upper Room. The ministry of unity has its visible place in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Dear friends, it is a great consolation for the Pope to know that at each Eucharistic celebration everyone prays for him, and that our prayer is joined to the Lord’s prayer for Peter. Only by the prayer of the Lord and of the Church can the Pope fulfil his task of strengthening his brethren – of feeding the flock of Christ and of becoming the guarantor of that unity which becomes a visible witness to the mission which Jesus received from the Father.

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you”. Lord, you desire us, you desire me. You eagerly desire to share yourself with us in the Holy Eucharist, to be one with us. Lord, awaken in us the desire for you. Strengthen us in unity with you and with one another. Grant unity to your Church, so that the world may believe. Amen.

PAPAL WAY OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM: Meditations

(click on the image to read the meditations for each station)

  

PRESENTATION

“If someone were to catch sight of his homeland from afar, separated by the sea, he would see his destination but lack the means of reaching it. So it is with us… We glimpse our goal across the sea of the present age… But to enable us to go there, the One who is our goal came to us… he brought us the plank by we can make the passage. No one may cross the sea of his age, unless he be carried by the cross of Christ… So do not forsake the cross, and the cross will carry you.”

These words of Saint Augustine, taken from his Commentary on John’s Gospel (2,2) introduce us to the prayer of the Way of the Cross.

The Way of the Cross is meant to help us cling to the wood of Christ’s cross through the seas of life. It is not merely a sentimental, popular devotion; rather, it expresses the core of the Christian experience: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34).

For this reason each Good Friday the Holy Father makes the Way of the Cross before the whole world and in communion with it.

This year, Pope Benedict XVI turned to the world of Augustinian Nuns for the texts of the prayer, entrusting their composition to Sister Maria Rita Piccione, O.S.A., Mother President of the Our Lady of Good Counsel Federation of Augustinian Monasteries in Italy.

Sister Mary Rita is a member of the Augustian hermitage of Lecceto, near Siena, one of the Tuscan convents of the thirteenth century and a cradle of the Order of Saint Augustine. She is currently a member of the community of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome, the site of the house of formation for all Augustinian novices and professed sisters in Italy.

The texts are thus the work of an Augustinian nun, but the illustrations also draw their form and colour from a feminine and Augustinian artistic sensibility. Sister Elena Maria Manganelli, O.S.A., of the hermitage of Lecceto, formerly a professional sculptress, created the pictures which illustrate the various stations of the Way of the Cross.

This interplay of word, form and colour gives us a taste of Augustinian spirituality, inspired by the early community of Jerusalem and based on communion of life.

The preparation of this Way of the Cross was born, then, of the experience of nuns who “live together, reflect, pray and dialogue”, to cite Romano Guardini’s lively and insightful description of an Augustinian monastic community.

Each station is announced by its traditional title, followed by a short phrase which offers a starting-point for meditation on that station. We can imagine these words as spoken by a child, as a reminder of the simplicity of the little ones who see to the heart of things, and a sign of openness, in the Church’s prayer, to the voice of childhood, at times abused and exploited.

The readings from the Word of God are drawn from the Gospel of John, except for those stations which lack a corresponding text or where the text is found in other Gospels. This shows a desire to emphasize the message of glory proclaimed by the cross of Jesus.

The biblical text is then illustrated by a reflection which is brief, clear and original.

The prayer, addressed to “Jesus most humble” – an expression dear to the heart of Augustine (cf. Conf. 7, 18, 24) – abandons the adjective humble at the crucifixion-exaltation of Christ, and is the avowal which the Church as Bride makes to her Bridegroom.

This is followed by an invocation to the Holy Spirit who guides our steps and pours the love of God into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5): here the Apostolic-Petrine Church knocks at the door of God’s heart.

Each station takes up a particular footprint left by Christ along the Way of the Cross, a footstep in which the believer is called to tread. The steps which mark the Way of the Cross, then, are truth, honesty, humility, prayer, obedience, freedom, patience, conversion, perseverance, simplicity, kingship, self-giving, maternity, silent expectation.

The pictures of Sister Elena Maria – austere in form and colour – present Jesus, alone in his passion, as he passes through the arid land digging a furrow and watering it by his grace. A ray of light, ever present and set in the form of a cross, alludes to the gaze of the Father, while the shadow of a dove, the Holy Spirit, recalls that Christ “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God” (Heb 9:14).

In offering this prayer of the Way of the Cross, the Augustinian Nuns wish to render a homage of love to the Church and to the Holy Father, in full harmony with the particular devotion and fidelity to the Church and the Popes professed by the Augustinian Order.

We are grateful to Sister Maria Rita and Sister Elena Maria who, nourished by constant meditation on the Word of God and the writings of Saint Augustine, and sustained by the prayer of the Communities of the Federation, agreed to share with utter simplicity their experience of Christ and the Paschal Mystery in a year when Easter falls on 24 April, the anniversary of the Baptism of Saint Augustine.

Pope Benedict XVI on Palm Sunday: We are on pilgrimage with the Lord...

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Dear young people!

It is a moving experience each year on Palm Sunday as we go up the mountain with Jesus, towards the Temple, accompanying him on his ascent. On this day, throughout the world and across the centuries, young people and people of every age acclaim him, crying out: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

But what are we really doing when we join this procession as part of the throng which went up with Jesus to Jerusalem and hailed him as King of Israel? Is this anything more than a ritual, a quaint custom? Does it have anything to do with the reality of our life and our world? To answer this, we must first be clear about what Jesus himself wished to do and actually did. After Peter’s confession of faith in Caesarea Philippi, in the northernmost part of the Holy Land, Jesus set out as a pilgrim towards Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. He was journeying towards the Temple in the Holy City, towards that place which for Israel ensured in a particular way God’s closeness to his people. He was making his way towards the common feast of Passover, the memorial of Israel’s liberation from Egypt and the sign of its hope of definitive liberation. He knew that what awaited him was a new Passover and that he himself would take the place of the sacrificial lambs by offering himself on the cross. He knew that in the mysterious gifts of bread and wine he would give himself for ever to his own, and that he would open to them the door to a new path of liberation, to fellowship with the living God. He was making his way to the heights of the Cross, to the moment of self-giving love. The ultimate goal of his pilgrimage was the heights of God himself; to those heights he wanted to lift every human being.

Our procession today is meant, then, to be an image of something deeper, to reflect the fact that, together with Jesus, we are setting out on pilgrimage along the high road that leads to the living God. This is the ascent that matters. This is the journey which Jesus invites us to make. But how can we keep pace with this ascent? Isn’t it beyond our ability? Certainly, it is beyond our own possibilities. From the beginning men and women have been filled – and this is as true today as ever – with a desire to “be like God”, to attain the heights of God by their own powers. All the inventions of the human spirit are ultimately an effort to gain wings so as to rise to the heights of Being and to become independent, completely free, as God is free. Mankind has managed to accomplish so many things: we can fly! We can see, hear and speak to one another from the farthest ends of the earth. And yet the force of gravity which draws us down is powerful. With the increase of our abilities there has been an increase not only of good. Our possibilities for evil have increased and appear like menacing storms above history. Our limitations have also remained: we need but think of the disasters which have caused so much suffering for humanity in recent months.

The Fathers of the Church maintained that human beings stand at the point of intersection between two gravitational fields. First, there is the force of gravity which pulls us down – towards selfishness, falsehood and evil; the gravity which diminishes us and distances us from the heights of God. On the other hand there is the gravitational force of God’s love: the fact that we are loved by God and respond in love attracts us upwards. Man finds himself betwixt this twofold gravitational force; everything depends on our escaping the gravitational field of evil and becoming free to be attracted completely by the gravitational force of God, which makes us authentic, elevates us and grants us true freedom.

Following the Liturgy of the Word, at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer where the Lord comes into our midst, the Church invites us to lift up our hearts: “Sursum corda!” In the language of the Bible and the thinking of the Fathers, the heart is the centre of man, where understanding, will and feeling, body and soul, all come together. The centre where spirit becomes body and body becomes spirit, where will, feeling and understanding become one in the knowledge and love of God. This is the “heart” which must be lifted up. But to repeat: of ourselves, we are too weak to lift up our hearts to the heights of God. We cannot do it. The very pride of thinking that we are able to do it on our own drags us down and estranges us from God. God himself must draw us up, and this is what Christ began to do on the cross. He descended to the depths of our human existence in order to draw us up to himself, to the living God. He humbled himself, as today’s second reading says. Only in this way could our pride be vanquished: God’s humility is the extreme form of his love, and this humble love draws us upwards.

Psalm 24, which the Church proposes as the “song of ascent” to accompany our procession in today’s liturgy, indicates some concrete elements which are part of our ascent and without which we cannot be lifted upwards: clean hands, a pure heart, the rejection of falsehood, the quest for God’s face. The great achievements of technology are liberating and contribute to the progress of mankind only if they are joined to these attitudes – if our hands become clean and our hearts pure, if we seek truth, if we seek God and let ourselves be touched and challenged by his love. All these means of “ascent” are effective only if we humbly acknowledge that we need to be lifted up; if we abandon the pride of wanting to become God. We need God: he draws us upwards; letting ourselves be upheld by his hands – by faith, in other words – sets us aright and gives us the inner strength that raises us on high. We need the humility of a faith which seeks the face of God and trusts in the truth of his love.

The question of how man can attain the heights, becoming completely himself and completely like God, has always engaged mankind. It was passionately disputed by the Platonic philosophers of the third and fourth centuries. For them, the central issue was finding the means of purification which could free man from the heavy load weighing him down and thus enable him to ascend to the heights of his true being, to the heights of divinity. Saint Augustine, in his search for the right path, long sought guidance from those philosophies. But in the end he had to acknowledge that their answers were insufficient, their methods would not truly lead him to God. To those philosophers he said: recognize that human power and all these purifications are not enough to bring man in truth to the heights of the divine, to his own heights. And he added that he should have despaired of himself and human existence had he not found the One who accomplishes what we of ourselves cannot accomplish; the One who raises us up to the heights of God in spite of our wretchedness: Jesus Christ who from God came down to us and, in his crucified love, takes us by the hand and lifts us on high.

We are on pilgrimage with the Lord to the heights. We are striving for pure hearts and clean hands, we are seeking truth, we are seeking the face of God. Let us show the Lord that we desire to be righteous, and let us ask him: Draw us upwards! Make us pure! Grant that the words which we sang in the processional psalm may also hold true for us; grant that we may be part of the generation which seeks God, “which seeks your face, O God of Jacob” (cf. Ps 24:6). Amen.

Pope Benedict XVI's Palm Sunday Homily

April 17, 2011

Text from www.vatican.va 

THE CEREMONIAL BURIAL OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED IN THE HOLY LAND

THE BURIAL OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED IN JERUSALEM

by Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P. 

(http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2008/04/burial-of-christ-crucified-in-jerusalem.html)

 

This post is about a virtually unique pactice, the Burial of Christ Crucified, a "paraliturgy" that is performed on Good Friday evening. I understand it is not unique to the Holy Sepulche, but is also done at "Holy Land Shrines" thoughout the world, such as that of the Franciscan Church of the Custody in Washington D.C. But, first, a picture of the crowds waiting for the beginning of this very unusual Holy Week liturgy: you can see two of us, the Dominicans, waiting in the crowd. We will later be in the procession. You can get some idea of the crowds present for this in such a small space.

This liturgy is a representation of the deposition of Jesus from the Cross, of his anointing and his deposition in the Tomb. This «mimesis» unfolds in the very same places of the Passion where which these events actually took place, namely from the summit of Calvary (which is below the Golgotha Chapel) and the edicule of the Tomb (in the Holy Sepulcher Church proper).

The ceremony is is as follows. First, the procession of the Franciscans of the Custody leaves the sacrsity in procession (this year, four Dominicans were present this year in the procession – including yours truly). At the end of the procession came the new custos or minister provincial of the Custody, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, with his ceremonial deacons, the incense, spice, and oil bearers (you can see the silver containers in the pictures), and the friar carrying the Cross with the image of the Crucified. The Custos wore a spendid black cope and the deacons, black dalmatics, as this is a kind of funeral service for our Lord. The Cross used as a special wax effigy of Jesus that can be removed from the cross, as you will see in the pictures. You will also notice that the custos is a "mitred" provincial and also wears a pectoral cross. I don't think I know of any other mendicant friar provincial that does this. We Dominicans don't have anything like that. I think it is unique to the Custody of the Holy Land.

The procession then goes around the Holy Sepulcher Church, singing the chant Parce Domine. At stations around the church, the Gospels of the Passion are read by assigned deacons or priests in the various languages of the world: I noticed: Latin, Arabic, Italian, French, Spanish, German, and Polish. Finally, the procession goes up the very narrow stair to the Golgotha Chapel, directly over the Rock of Calvary. It would be hard to describe how crowded this is; no "personal space" here. The Golgotha Chapel has a Latin Catholic side on the right and a Greek Othodox side on the left. Both are over the Rock, but the Greek side has the hole down to the Rock under the altar. We Latins get use of the Greek altar once a year for this ceremony, although they have a (rather bored looking) Greek priest on duty to "guard" it during the ceremony. I hurried over and stuck a cloth through the hole under the altar and touched the Rock of Calvary. More on that cloth later.

The Cross is raised over the altar by the two deacons, and one of the friars ceremoniously removes the Crown of Thornes, and the Nails, showing each to the crowd. Using a cloth, the Body of the Lord is then lowered from the cross and wrapped in a shroud, to be taken downstairs to the Stone of Unction. This stone is in the church proper, just inside the door. There it is laid on the stone and the custos pours oil and spices over it. He then incenses it, as the friars sing various lamentation chants. Finally, it is wrapped in the shroud, taken up, and carried in procession to the Holy Sepulcher itself in procession. (After it is removed, the faithful present all rush to the stone to soak up the oil and spices with cloths they have brought with them–since I was right there with the friars, I was one of the first!)

When the procession arrives at the Sepulcher, the image of our Lord is laid in the Tomb and the door is shut. "Guards" are then left on duty: a Franciscan of the Custody, and (of course) two Greek Orthodox priests to make such we Latins don't do any funny business. Here are some pictures of the ceremony.

The Cross of Our Lord about to be carried in procession:

The procession of friars going around the chruch:

One of the priests reading the Gospel (in Latin this time, I think):

The Custos taking at the end of the procession (note white mitra simpex):

Our Lord being taken from the Cross over the "Greek" Altar at the Golgatha Chapel:

The Custos incensing the Body of the Lord on the Stone of Unction:

The Body of Our Lord laid in the Tomb:

"And they put (Franciscan and Greek) soldiers on guard":

GOOD FRIDAY

Definition and etymology

Good Friday, called Feria VI in Parasceve in the Roman Missal, he hagia kai megale paraskeue (the Holy and Great Friday) in the Greek Liturgy, Holy Friday in Romance Languages, Charfreitag (Sorrowful Friday) in German, is the English designation of Friday in Holy Week — that is, the Friday on which the Church keeps the anniversary of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Parasceve, the Latin equivalent of paraskeue, preparation (i.e. the preparation that was made on the sixth day for the Sabbath; see Mark 15:42), came by metonymy to signify the day on which the preparation was made; but while the Greeks retained this use of the word as applied to every Friday, the Latins confined its application to one Friday. Irenaeus and Tertullian speak of Good Friday as the day of the Pasch; but later writers distinguish between the Pascha staurosimon (the passage to death), and the Pascha anastasimon (the passage to life, i.e. the Resurrection). At present the word Pasch is used exclusively in the latter sense. The two Paschs are the oldest feasts in the calendar.

From the earliest times the Christians kept every Friday as a feast day; and the obvious reasons for those usages explain why Easter is the Sunday par excellence, and why the Friday which marks the anniversary of Christ's death came to be called the Great or the Holy or the Good Friday. The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark.

Office and ceremonial

There is, perhaps, no office in the whole liturgy so peculiar, so interesting, so composite, so dramatic as the office and ceremonial of Good Friday.

About the vigil office, which in early times commenced at midnight in the Roman, and at 3 a.m. in the Gallican Church, it will suffice to remark that, for 400 years past, it has been anticipated by five or six hours, but retains those peculiar features of mourning which mark the evening offices of the preceding and following day, all three being known as the Tenebrae.

The morning office is in three distinct parts. The first part consists of three lessons from Sacred Scripture (two chants and a prayer being interposed) which are followed by a long series of prayers for various intentions; the second part includes the ceremony of unveiling and adoring the Cross, accompanied by the chanting of the Improperia; the third part is known as the Mass of the Presanctified, which is preceded by a procession and followed by vespers. Each of these parts will be briefly noticed here.

The Hour of None being finished, the celebrant and ministers, clothed in black vestments, come to the altar and prostrate themselves for a short time in prayer. In the meantime, the acolytes spread a single cloth on the denuded altar. No lights are used. 

When the celebrant and ministers ascend the altar, a lector takes his place on the epistle side, and reads a lesson from Osee 6. This is followed by a tract sung by the choir. Next comes a prayer sung by the celebrant, which is followed by another lesson from Exodus 12, chanted by the subdeacon. This is followed by another tract (Psalm 139), at the close of which the third lesson, viz. the Passion according to St. John, is sung by the deacons or recited from a bare pulpit --"dicitur passio super nudum pulpitum". 

 

When this is finished, the celebrant sings a long series of prayers for different intentions, viz. for the Church, pope, bishop of the diocese, for the different orders in the Church, for the Roman Emperor (now omitted outside the dominions of Austria), for catechumens .... The above order of lessons, chants, and prayers for Good Friday is found in our earliest Roman Ordines, dating from about A.D. 800. It represents, according to Duchesne (234), "the exact order of the ancient synaxes without a liturgy", i.e. the order of the earliest Christian prayer meetings, at which, however, the liturgy proper, i.e. the Mass, was not celebrated. This kind of meeting for worship was derived from the Jewish Synagogue service, and consisted of lessons, chants, and prayers. In the course of time, as early perhaps as A.D. 150 (see Cabrol's "Origines Liturgiques" 137), the celebration of the Eucharist was combined with this purely euchological service to form one solemn act of Christian worship, which came to be called the Mass. It is to be noted that the Mass is still in two parts, the first consisting of lessons, chants, and prayers, and the second being the celebration of the Eucharist (including the Offertory, Canon, and Communion). While the Judica, introit, and the Gloria in Excelsis have been added to this first part of the Mass and the long series of prayers omitted from it, the oldest order of the Synaxis, or meeting without Mass, has been retained in the Good Friday service. The form of the prayers deserves to be noticed. Each prayer in three parts.

    * The celebrant invites the congregation to pray for a specified intention.

    * The deacon then says "Let us kneel" (Flectamus genua); then the people were supposed to pray for a time kneeling in silence, but at present immediately after the invitation to kneel the subdeacon invites them to stand up (Levate).

    * The celebrant collects, as it were, all their prayers, and voices them aloud. 

 The modern collect is the representative of this old solemn form of prayer. The first part is reduced to the Oremus, the second part has disappeared, and the third part remains in its entirety and has come to be called the collect. It is curious to note in these very old Good Friday prayers that the second part is omitted in the prayers for the Jews, owing, it is said, to their having insulted Christ by bending the knee in mockery before Him. These prayers were not peculiar to Good Friday in the early ages (they were said on Spy Wednesday as late as the eighth century); their retention here, it is thought, was inspired by the idea that the Church should pray for all classes of men on the day that Christ died for all. Duchesne (172) is of opinion that the Oremus now said in every Mass before the Offertory, which is not a prayer, remains to show where this old series of prayers was once said in all Masses.

Adoration of the Cross

The dramatic unveiling and adoration of the Cross, which was introduced into the Latin Liturgy in the seventh or eighth century, had its origin in the Church of Jerusalem. The "Peregrinatio Sylviae" (the real name is Etheria) contains a description of the ceremony as it took place in Jerusalem towards the close of the fourth century.

 Then a chair is placed for the Bishop in Golgotha behind the Cross... a table covered with a linen cloth is placed before him; the Deacons stand around the table, and a silver-gilt casket is brought in which is the wood of the holy Cross. The casket is opened and (the wood) is taken out, and both the wood of the Cross and the Title are placed upon the table. Now, when it has been put upon the table, the Bishop, as he sits, holds the extremities of the sacred wood firmly in his hands, while the Deacons who stand around guard it. It is guarded thus because the custom is that the people, both faithful and catechumens, come one by one and, bowing down at the table, kiss the sacred wood and pass on. (Duchesne, tr. McClure, 564)

Our present ceremony is an obvious development of this, the manner of worshipping the True Cross on Good Friday observed at Jerusalem. A veiled image of the Crucifix is gradually exposed to view, while the celebrant, accompanied by his assistants, sings three times the "Ecce lignum Crucis", etc. (Behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the salvation of the world), to which the choir answers, each time, "Venite adoremus" (Come let us adore). During the singing of this response the whole assembly (except the celebrant) kneel in adoration. When the Cross is completely unveiled the celebrant carries it to the foot of the altar, and places it in a cushion prepared for it. He then takes off his shoes and approaches the Cross (genuflecting three times on the way) and kisses it. The deacon and subdeacon also divest themselves of their shoes (the deacon and subdeacon may take off their shoes, if that be the custom of the place, S.C.R., n. 2769, ad X, q. 5), and act in like manner. For an account of the peculiarly impressive ceremony known as the "Creeping to the Cross", which was once observed in England, see article CROSS. The clergy two and two follow, while one or two priests vested in surplice and black stole take crosses and present them to the faithful present to be kissed. During this ceremony the choir sings what are called Improperia, the Trisagion (in Greek as well as Latin), if time permits the hymn Crux fidelis ...(Oh, Cross, our hope...). The Improperia are a series of reproaches supposed to be addressed by Christ to the Jews. They are not found in the old Roman Ordines. Duchesne (249) detects, he thinks, a Gallican ring in them; while Martene (III, 136) has found some of them alternating with the Trisagion in ninth century Gallican documents. They appear in a Roman Ordo, for the first time, in the fourteenth century, but the retention of the Trisagion in Greek goes to show that it had found a place in the Roman Good Friday service before the Photian schism (ninth century).

 

A non-Catholic may say that this is all very dramatic and interesting, but allege a grave deordination in the act of adoration of the Cross on bended knees. Is not adoration due to God alone? The answer may be found in our smallest catechism. The act in question is not intended as an expression of absolute supreme worship (latreia) which, of course, is due to God alone. The essential note of the ceremony is reverence (proskynesis) which has a relative character, and which may be best explained in the words of the Pseudo-Alcuin: "Prosternimur corpore ante crucem, mente ante Dominium. Veneramur crucem, per quam redempti sumus, et illum deprecamur, qui redemit" (While we bend down in body before the cross we bend down in spirit before God. While we reverence the cross as the instrument of our redemption, we pray to Him who redeemed us). It may be urged: why sing "Behold the wood of the Cross", in unveiling the image of the Cross? The reason is obvious. The ceremony originally had immediate connexion with the True Cross, which was found by St. Helena in Jerusalem about the year A.D. 326. Churches which procured a relic of the True Cross might imitate this ceremony to the letter, but other churches had to be with an image which in this particular ceremony represents the wood of the True Cross.

 

As might be expected, the ceremony of the unveiling and adoration of the Cross gave rise to peculiar usages in particular Churches. After describing the adoration and kissing of the Cross in the Anglo-Saxon Church, Rock (The Church of Our Fathers, IV, 103) goes on to say: "Though not insisted on for general observance, there was a rubric that allowed a rite, at this part of the office, to be followed, which may be called The Burial of the Rood. At the hind part of the altar ... there was made a kind of sepulchre, hung all about with a curtain. Inside this recess...the cross, after the ceremony of kissing it had been done, was carried by its two deacons, who had, however, first wrapped it up in a linen cloth or winding-sheet. As they bore their burden along, they sang certain anthems till they reached this spot, and there they left the cross; and it lay thus entombed till Easter morn, watched all that while by two, three, or more monks, who chanted psalms through day and night. When the Burial was completed the deacon and subdeacon came from the sacristy with the reserved host. Then followed The Mass of the Pre-sanctified. A somewhat similar ceremony (called the Apokathelosis) is still observed in the Greek Church. An image of Christ, laid on a bier, is carried through the streets with a kind of funeral pomp, and is offered to those present to be worshipped and kissed.

 

Mass of the presanctified

To return to the Roman Rite, when the ceremony of adoring and kissing the Cross is concluded, the Cross is placed aloft on the altar between lighted candles, a procession is formed which proceeds to the chapel of repose, where the second sacred host consecrated in yesterday's Mass has since lain entombed in a gorgeously decorated urn and surrounded by lights and flowers. This urn represents the sepulchre of Christ (decree of S.C.R., n. 3933, ad I). The Most Holy Sacrament is now carried back to the altar in solemn procession, during which is sung the hymn "Vexilla Regis prodeunt" (The standards of the King advance). Arrived in the sanctuary the clergy go to their places retaining lighted candles, while the celebrant and his ministers ascend the altar and celebrate what is called the Mass of the Presanctified. This is not a Mass in the strict sense of the word, as there is no consecration of the sacred species. The host which was consecrated in yesterday's Mass (hence the word presanctified) is placed on the altar, incensed, elevated ("that it may be seen by the people"), and consumed by the celebrant. It is substantially the Communion part of the Mass, beginning with the "Pater noster" which marks the end of the Canon. From the very earliest times it was the custom not to celebrate the Mass proper on Good Friday. Speaking about this ceremony Duchesne (249) says,

    It is merely the Communion separated from the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist properly so called. The details of the ceremony are not found earlier than in books of the eighth or ninth century, but the service must belong to a much earlier period. At the time when synaxes without liturgy were frequent, the 'Mass of the Presanctified' must have been frequent also. In the Greek Church it was celebrated every day in Lent except on Saturdays and Sundays, but in the Latin Church it was confined to Good Friday.

 

At present [1909] the celebrant alone communicates, but it appears from the old Roman Ordines that formerly all present communicated (Martene, III, 367). The omission of the Mass proper marks in the mind of the Church the deep sorrow with which she keeps the anniversary of the Sacrifice of Calvary. Good Friday is a feast of grief. A black fast, black vestments, a denuded altar, the slow and solemn chanting of the sufferings of Christ, prayers for all those for whom He died, the unveiling and reverencing of the Crucifix, these take the place of the usual festal liturgy; while the lights in the chapel of repose and the Mass of the Presanctified is followed by the recital of vespers, and the removal of the linen cloth from the altar ("Vespers are recited without chant and the altar is denuded").

 

Other ceremonies

The rubrics of the Roman Missal prescribe no further ceremonial for this day, but there are laudable customs in different churches which are allowed. For example, the custom (where it exists) of carrying in procession a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows is expressly permitted by decrees of the S. Con. of Rites (n. 2375, and n. 2682); also the custom (where it exists) of exposing a relic of the Holy Cross on the high altar (n. 2887), and the custom of carrying such a relic in procession within the walls of the church, not, however, during the usual ceremonies (n. 3466), are expressly permitted. Rock (op. cit. 279, 280) notes, with interesting detail, a custom followed at one time in England of submitting voluntarily to the rod of penance on Good Friday.