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Devotion to the Holy Cross and a Dislocated Mass-Text Gerald Ellard, Sj

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Devotion to the Holy Cross and a Dislocated Mass-Text Gerald Ellard, Sj DEVOTION TO THE HOLY CROSS AND A DISLOCATED MASS-TEXT GERALD ELLARD, SJ. St. Mary's College HOULD a priest through inadvertence read a collect for an introit, or S vice versa, there results a momentary derangement of the custom­ ary sequence of the Mass-parts. But if his missal should supply him, year after year, with a prayer instead of an offertory-anthem, there would be a continuing dislocation in that particular Mass-text. This does happen every year on September 14th, feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, when, in place of an qffertoriutn, the book provides a secret- prayer, disguised a bit by an alleluia substituting for the customary Per Dominant at the end: Protege, Domine, plebem tuam per sig- With the sign of the holy Cross pro- www sanctae cruets, ab insidiis inimi- tect Thy people, Lord, from all the corum omnium, ut tibi gratam exhibeamus snares of their enemies. Look with servitutem, et acceptabile fiat sacrifi- favor upon the service we offer Thee, cium nostrum, alleluia. and accept our sacrifice, alleluia. (Knox translation) Yet the resultant dislocation is so very slight as to pass quite unnoticed. I have never heard a priest advert to it in conversation. For identifi­ cation purposes we may style this form Protege in the subsequent dis­ cussion. Of course there is another feast of the Holy Cross, its Invention, May 3rd in our missals; also, among the Votive Masses there is one listed Of the Holy Cross. These three Masses of the Holy Cross, In­ vention, Exaltation and Votive, are very closely related in their choral parts, the introit, gradual and communion-anthem being com­ mon to all three. It is only those for September 14th and the Votive Mass that share this strangely misplaced secret-for-offertory-anthem. Cardinal Schuster mentions this anomaly, and interprets our inad­ vertence of it as follows: "The antiphon for the offertory is merely a devout prayer, and this fact betrays that it belongs to a later period, when the true office of this chant was no longer understood."1 "The 11. Schuster, The Sacramentary (New York: Benziger, 1930), V, 109. 333 334 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES offertory," said Abbot Cabrol in speaking of this Mass, "as are some other offertories, is in the form of a prayer."2 Not in a position to challenge such a forthright statement, I content myself with saying that this is the only such displaced offertory I have observed. My interest in that Votive Mass Of the Holy Cross drew my attention to this matter some years ago, and I have wanted ever since to ascertain what the liturgical source-books (or, such of them as are at my dis­ posal) might disclose as to this minor dislocation, or any allied circum­ stances, pertaining to the devotion to the Holy Cross. If this one tiny blemish of dislocation still attaches to these two Holy Cross Masses, it soon becomes evident that for centuries they shared a second, even stranger "mistake," which was eventually cor­ rected by text-alteration. The prayer now serving as secret in the Mass of the Exaltation begins: "Iesu Christi domini nostri corpore et sanguine saginandi. ." This last word the Knox Missal translates, "As we prepare to feast...." But this prayer, as originally framed, was worded to serve as a postcommunion, and thus naturally referred to communion as something already taken place: its key-word was "saginati." We shall wish to refer to this prayer, also, in the sequel, and so I propose that we call it simply Saginati. It was Saginati that got out of place, and later on crowded out our Protege. The Henry Bradshaw Society publications include the first printed Roman Missal, a Milan book of 1474, and with it a collation of numer­ ous other printed missals up to 1574.8 This is particularly fortunate, as, after 1570, it is the "standardized" Missal of the Tridentine Council we have in our hands. From this source, then, we learn that it was in those Renaissance years between 1474 and 1574 that the incongruity of saying "saginati" before communion finally became intolerable, and effected the simple change to "saginandi." But our 'wrong number' Protege continued calmly in possession, as it does to this day. What can this prayer tell us about itself, or about the Church, in those far­ away days when Mass-texts were in the making? "All devotion to the cross," Bouyer states in a recent volume, ".. .is a hymn of victory."4 Well, all the leads in this little inquiry go back to 2 F. Cabrol, The Year's Liturgy (New York: Benziger, 1940), II, 184. 3 R. Lippe, Missale Romanum Mediolani 1474 (London: HBS 17,33), 1(1889), 11(1907). 4 J. Bouyer, The Paschal Mystery (Chicago: Regnery, 1950), 40. A DISLOCATED MASS-TEXT 335 that turbulent seventh century, when the Christian cause first came under the prolonged assault of Islam, or when the Cross, to use a later expression, was first being shadowed by the Crescent. In fact, the beginning of this story actually antedates the Moslems, and has to do rather with a resounding defeat of Christianity at the hands of Chosroes II, King of the Persians, which was destined to be followed by a most spectacular triumph over the same monarch some years later. The all-conquering Persians had engulfed city after "Western" city (we would say "Byzantine"): Amida, Edessa, Aleppo, Antioch; no place seemed safe fprn his armies. Jerusalem had been occupied with terri­ ble slaughter, and in 614 the precious relics of the True Cross were carried off in triumph. In 616 the Persians had possessed them­ selves of Alexandria, and were continuing to besiege Constantinople itself. But then the Persian bubble of world-conquest broke. The Christian Emperor, Heraclius, spurred on by the Metropolitan Sergius, sallied out of the city, broke the besieging ring, and routed the Persians time after time. Heraclius next invaded their homelands, and at last ended by effecting Chosroes' downfall (628) by revolution. When the day of final reckoning came, Heraclius demanded that the relics of the True Cross be restored. So the Cross came in triumph to Constantinople, and thence, in the spring of 629, was borne to Jerusalem by Heraclius himself. So complete a triumph, after such signal defeat, could not but deeply impress the contemporary mind. The subsequent erection of this portion of the True Cross in the basilica on Mount Calvary was the material exaltation that was being celebrated. It should surprise no one that this furnished the incentive for a wave of fresh devotion to the Holy Cross everywhere in Christendom. So, when Jerusalem again fell, only twenty years later, this time to the Moslems, there seemed all the more reason for celebrating that earlier recovery, and thus by fervent prayer securing a second one as well. It was chiefly in the second half of the seventh century, then, that feasts of the Holy Cross were being inserted in the growing liturgies of East and West. The Paris codex, B N nouv acq 2171, a Lectionary of Silos, reflecting the Iberian uses of about 650, is said to list the ob- 336 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES servance there as Dies Cruris, or Sancte Cruris.5 Liturgists in fact have long maintained that the two terms we now use, "invention" on May 3rd, and "exaltation" on September 14th, mark later and arbitrary differences introduced in a quasi-conspiracy to retain in the calendar the former feast of Gallican origin, as well as the latter one coming in from Rome. The latest scholar who has expressed himself on the sub­ ject, Dom Hesbert, voices a word of caution against accepting this as­ sertion any longer without subjecting it to examination in the sources.6. The September date, at any rate, perpetuates the actual anniversary of the original consecration of the basilicas built by St. Helena, and inaugurated with such splendor on September 14th, 335. Every sub­ sequent exaltation is thus subordinated to that first one. The man known later as Pope Gregory the Great had lived at Con- stantinople, as papal apocrisarius, from about 578 to 585, or quite a while before the soul-stirring events we have been recalling. As Pope (590-604), he carefully overhauled the existing Roman Mass-book, but there is no evidence that he then or later introduced a festival of the Holy Cross at Rome. An almost contemporary copy of his Mass-book^ at least in its festal calendar, survives as part of a Padua manuscript (D 47), reaching back to the time of Pope Honorius I (625-38), or very shortly thereafter.7 This Padua book does not possess a Mass for the Holy Cross, but it does include, and under the date of September 14th, a prayer with the rubric, "Ad Salutandam Crucem in S. Petrol This prayer doubtless refers to a veneration-service in St. Peter's 5 Lectionary of Silos: Dom G. Morin in 1893 published, as the basis of a Liber Comicusr an eleventh century MS, B N nouv acq 2171, as giving Visigothic liturgical uses of about 650, Anecdota Maredsolana I. It is a long time since I have paged Morin's book, but Dom L. Ferotin, in his comparative study of the Silos lectionaries, first in Liber Ordinum (Paris,, 1904) and later also in Liber MozaraUcus Sacramentorum (Paris, 1912), gives all the head­ ings of this manuscript, without, however, giving its text. May 3rd is there described as 'Sancte Cruris' (887). I notice in Lexikonfilr Theologie und Kirche, (Kreuzerhohung), the- reference given simply as Dies Crucis. Perhaps the combination, Dies Sancte Crucis, is- what Morin's text provides.
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