A Latin Mass for Passiontide

Lent IV

As Lent turns into Passiontide, the Catholic mind turns more intensely to thoughts of the Cross, to Christ Crucified and to His Sorrowing Mother. The hymn Stabat Mater Dolorosa sets this theme.

It is ascribed popularly to the Franciscan Jacopone di Todi, but is also ascribed by Pope Benedict XIV, with a wealth of scholarship, to Pope Innocent III. It was only in the year 1727 that it entered the Roman Liturgy, being assigned to the feast of the Seven Dolours of Our Lady, on the Friday after Passion Sunday (and before Palm Sunday!).

I have searched in vain for the chant version, so familiar from traditional renditions of the Stations of the Cross. This happy fault forces us to look at the rich inspiriation that the Church's Liturgy has provided for composers of every age.

First in time, of the three examples here is that of Fr. Antonio Vivaldi, composed about 1727, the same year that it was introduced to the Roman Missal, probably for the girls of the Pio Ospedale della Pieta, or State Orphanage of Venice, where he had been on the staff until 1711. The composition is divided into eight sections. The melodies of sections 1 to 3 are repeated in sections 4 to 6. Only the first 10 stanzas of the hymn are used.

The second is the Stabat Mater of the short-lived Giovanni Battista Pergolesi composed in 1736. The German poet German poet Tieck once wrote: "I had to turn away to hide my tears, especially at the place, 'Vidit suum dulcem natum'" in speaking of this setting. The melodies have given rise to some criticism because they were thought to be too cheerful. Of particular note is the line: 'dum e-mi-sit' in that it is marked to be sung intermittently to create a musical picture of the last breaths of Our Lord on the Cross. This device has been copied by other composers.

Finally, we will consider the Stabat Mater of Giacomo Rossini, written in 1832 and revised in 1841. The composition was not intended for liturgical use. It is essentially a performance piece. However, despite the obvious operatic tendencies, this seems not to have been Rossini's intention. Writing of his Petite Messe, he says that his sacred works come of a real religious feeling: "Here it is then, this poor little Mass. Have I written truly sacred music, or just bad music? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. Not much skill, but quite a bit of feeling - that's how I'd sum it up. Blessed be Thy name, and grant me a place in Paradise".

While the sensuality of the composition has often been regarded as unsuitable for the sanctity of the theme, Rossini's defenders, who included Fr. Taunton, one of Cardinal Manning's Oblates of St. Charles, have said: "critics who judge it harshly, and dilettanti who can listen to it unmoved . . . must either be case-hardened by pedantry, or destitute of all 'ear for music'".

Mother of Sorrows, pray for us!

Radio Maria Mass for Lent

A Latin Mass for Lent

Lent III

In 1350, Pope Clement VI determined that each of the four principal Marian Antiphons would be assigned, each to its own season. Two are very familiar to us, the Regina Caeli and the Salve Regina. Indeed, you would sometimes think that Pope Clement had assigned the Salve Regina to every Latin Mass in saecula saeculorum, in season and out of season.

However, the other two antiphons, both beautiful and beautifully short, are lost treasures for the great majority of Catholics and even the great majority of Catholics attached to the Gregorian Rite. The Alma Redemptoris Mater is assigned to Advent and Christmastide. The Ave Regina Caelorum is assigned to the time from after Purification until Holy Thursday. It is, in effect, the Marian Antiphon of Lent.

In this clip, the Antiphon is performed by Tien-Ming Pan, organist of St. Paul's Catholic Church, Taipei, upon the organ of Aletheia University, Taiwan. Once again, even this simple, short prayer to Our Lady displays the universality, both in time and space, of the Catholic Church and of devotion to the Mother of God. Henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed (Luke i:48).

Despite its relative hiddenness today, it is not difficult to find examples of settings of the Ave Regina Caelorum. Among the compositions by less well-known composers is that in the second clip by Jachet of Mantua. Jachet's religious works, almost the whole of his oeuvre, may be taken as a fair representation of the mind of the Fathers of the Council of Trent upon polyphonic Church music, especially the President of the Council, Ercole, Cardinal Gonzaga, scion of the great Ducal House of Manutua, Bishop of Mantua and Jachet's principal patron.

In the clip above is the setting by Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690), one of the maestri di capella of St. Mark's in Venice. His Ave Regina Caelorum, in the clip above, clearly displays the eastern idiom that was charasteristic of Venetian Church Music. That eastern or Byzantine influence is most obviously demonstrated in In Ecclesiis by Giovanni Gabrieli (1554-1612). The Gabrielis, uncle and nephew, are the most notable exponants of the Venetian School.

Johann Kasper Kerll (1627-1693) was an influential, although now hardly known, Catholic organist and Baroque composer who served both the House of Habsburg (in Vienna and Brussels) and the House of Wittlesbach (in Munich). His Ave Regina Caelorum has the richness of the Baroque but with a sobriety suited to its devotional theme. Certainly my favourite of the three.

Radio Maria Mass for Lent

Lent II

The Miserere (which is Psalm 50 in traditional Catholic Bibles) is the ultimate psalm of penitence. It features prominently throughout the liturgical year but, as you would expect, nowhere more prominently than during Lent. Incidentally, both Psalms 55 and 56 also begin with the words Miserere Mei Deus. During Lent, Psalm 50 is included in all Sunday and Weekday Vespers (on Sundays from Septuagesima), and, most famously, during Tenebrae of Holy Week.

Psalm 50 is one of the Seven Penitential Psalms. The others are Psalms 6, 31, 37, 101, 129 and 142. The lenten devotion of reciting the Seven Penitential Psalms was common throughut Christendom and deserves to be common again.

The setting in this video is that of Allegri and is the most famous musical setting of Psalm 50. It is one of the three settings (that of Abbot Giuseppe Baini on Wednesday, that of Tommaso Bai on Thursday, and Allegri's on Friday) that were annually sung during the Tenebrae in the Papal Chapel.

These settings acquired a considerable reputation for mystery and inaccessibility because the Holy See forbade the making of copies of the music held by the Sistine Chapel Choir, threatening any publication or attempted copy with excommunication. However, a young Mozart attended the ceremonies of Holy Week at the Vatican in 1770 and transcribed them from memory afterwards. Although, it must be admitted that the version that emerged is a conflation of the settings of Allegri and Bai.

Lent I

As with Advent, the season of Lent is forgotten by the modern mind. Penance, preparation, patience are all too much for it. For the modern mind, it must be fun, easy and instant. As with the hymns of Advent, the hymns of Lent can be one means of restoring the spirit of Lent. The wisdom of the Church has foreseen this need and ensures that, since the organ is silent during Lent to increase the sense of penance and simplicity, the hymns of Lent are simple enough to sing unaccompanied. Here is the first 'theme song' of Lent, Attende Domine.

Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi. "Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon us, who have sinned against Thee" is the constant refrain of this hymn, and the constant refrain of the Liturgy (and, hopefully, of the penitent soul) during Lent. The hymn is in Mode V and is based upon a tenth century lenten litany from the Mozarabic Rite. While most of the modern Gregorian Chant derives from the music of the Papal Chapel or the Frankish Imperial Chapel, some has been adopted, on account of its beauty and depth, from the Mozarabic Liturgy of the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain.

The gradual decline of the Mozarabic Rite began about the middle of the eleventh century, being reduced to the use of only a few Chapels and Parishes by the beginning of the twentieth century. However, the chant of the Rite survived longest in common use, being commonly used in alternation with Gregorian Chant, most notably in the Cathedral of Toledo.

Despite such set-backs as the slaughter of the whole college of Chaplains of the Mozarabic Chapel at Toledo Cathedral by Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War, the Rite has survived and a commission by the Archbishop of Toledo led to the republication of the liturgical books towards the end of the twentieth century.

Holy Week Ceremonies in the Gregorian Rite in Ireland (2015)

 

Palm Sunday

29th March, 2015

Diocese of Dromore, St. Mary's Chapel, Chapel Street, Newry, Co. Down.
9 a.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Meath, Silverstream Priory, Stamullen, Co. Meath.
10 a.m. - Blessing of Palms, Procession, and Holy Mass
4 p.m. - Vespers and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Archdiocese of Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy, St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, Dublin 8.
10.15 a.m. - Blessing of Palms
10.30 a.m. - Holy Mass

Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Sacred Heart Church, The Crescent, Limerick City.
10.30 a.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Cork and Ross, St. Peter and Paul's Church, Paul Street, Cork City.
12 noon - Holy Mass

Diocese of Raphoe, Ss. Joseph and Conal's Church, Bruckless, Co. Donegal.
12.30 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Meath, Church of the Nativity, Johnstown, Navan, Co. Meath.
1 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Kerry, Holy Cross Church, O.P., Tralee, Co. Kerry.
1.30 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Galway, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, St. Mary's Church, O.P., The Claddagh, Galway City.
2.30 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Ossory, Society of Saint Oliver Plunkett, St. Patrick's Church, Kilkenny City.
5 p.m. - Holy Mass

Spy Wednesday 

1st April, 2015

Archdiocese of Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy, St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, Dublin 8.
7 p.m. - Tenebrae

Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Sacred Heart Church, The Crescent, Limerick City.
7 p.m. - Holy Mass
8 p.m. - Tenebræ

Holy Thursday

2nd April, 2015

Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Sacred Heart Church, The Crescent, Limerick City.
3 p.m. to 5 p.m. - Confessions.
7 p.m. - Holy Mass with washing of the feet. (Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from the evening Mass to Midnight)
8 p.m. - Tenebræ.

Diocese of Meath, Silverstream Priory, Stamullen, Co. Meath.
6 p.m. - Mass in Coena Domini

Archdiocese of Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy, St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, Dublin 8.
8 p.m. - Holy Mass of the Lord's Supper

Good Friday

3rd April, 2015

Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Sacred Heart Church, The Crescent, Limerick City.
3 p.m. - Mass of the Presanctified.
7 p.m. - Stations of the Cross.
8 p.m. - Tenebræ

Diocese of Meath, Silverstream Priory, Stamullen, Co. Meath.
3 p.m. - Synaxis of the Passion of the Lord, with Adoration of the Holy Cross

Archdiocese of Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy, St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, Dublin 8.
5 p.m. - Liturgy of the Passion
7 p.m. - Stations of the Cross

Holy Saturday

4th April, 2015

Diocese of Meath, Silverstream Priory, Stamullen, Co. Meath.
11 a.m. - Blessing of Easter Baskets
8 p.m. - Solemn Paschal Vigil, with 1st Mass of the Resurrection

Archdiocese of Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy, St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, Dublin 8.
9 p.m. - Easter Vigil

Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Sacred Heart Church, The Crescent, Limerick City.
9 p.m. - Easter Vigil

Easter Sunday

5th April, 2015

Diocese of Dromore, St. Mary's Chapel, Chapel Street, Newry, Co. Down.
9 a.m. - Holy Mass

Archdiocese of Dublin Latin Mass Chaplaincy, St. Kevin's Church, Harrington Street, Dublin 8.
10.30 a.m. - Holy Mass

Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Sacred Heart Church, The Crescent, Limerick City.
10 a.m. - Confessions.
10.30 a.m. - Holy Mass followed by blessing of the Easter lamb.

Diocese of Meath, Silverstream Priory, Stamullen, Co. Meath.
10.45 a.m. - Tierce and Holy Mass

6 p.m. - Vespers and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Diocese of Cork and Ross, St. Peter and Paul's Church, Paul Street, Cork City.
12 noon - Holy Mass

Diocese of Meath, Church of the Nativity, Johnstown, Navan, Co. Meath.
1 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Kerry, Holy Cross Church, O.P., Tralee, Co. Kerry.
1.30 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Galway, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, St. Mary's Church, O.P., The Claddagh, Galway City.
2.30 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Ossory, Society of Saint Oliver Plunkett, St. Patrick's Church, Kilkenny City.
5 p.m. - Holy Mass

Diocese of Killaloe, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, St. Joseph's Church, Ennis, Co. Clare.
5.30 p.m. - Holy Mass

Archdiocese of Tuam, The Old Church, Our Lady's Shrine, Knock, Co. Mayo.
5.30 p.m. - Holy Mass

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If you have additional information or corrections please e-mail to thecatholicheritageassociation@gmail.com

Latin Mass in Ballinasloe

On Saturday, 28th March, 2015, members and friends of the Catholic Heritage Association made their first pilgrimage to the Diocese of Clonfert culminating in a Latin Mass in St. Michael's Church (1858), Ballinasloe, Co. Galway.  St. Michael's is one of the finest Churches in the Diocese, rivaling the Cathedral of the Diocese, Loughrea, 50 years its junior.

Latin Mass in Duiske Abbey

Latin Mass in Goresbridge Co. Kilkenny

The Cistercians of Kildare and Leighlin - Baltinglass

We have seen that the Great Abbey of Mellifont had made seven foundations in the first eleven years.  Eight foundations in total were made before the suppression. The first seven were Bective (1146), Boyle (1148), Baltinglass (in Kildare and Leighlin)(1148), Inislounaght (1148), and Manister or Manisternenay, Co. Limerick (1148), Kilbeggan (1150), Newry (1153).  The final direct foundation by Mellifont was at Abbeyshrule (1200). By the time of the suppression, Mellifont had a further twenty indirect filiations. Baltinglass Abbey was founded under the patronage of Dermot Mac Murchadha, King of Leinster who was to betray his Race by inviting in the Normans twenty-one years later.  McMorrough was also responsible for the romanesque Church at Killeshin.  His descendants still reside in the heart of the ancient kingdom of Leinster at Borris House, near where our Mass for the Pope's Birthday was celebrated in 2012. The Abbey was given a kind of nickname in accordance with Cistercian custom, and was known as De Vallis Salutis or Valley of Salvation. Dr. Keating refers to it as 'Monasterium de Via' or the Monastery of the Way. The Abbey buildings were completed by 1170, the year before Mac Murchadha's death, when his son-in-law, the Anglo-Norman Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke took the kingdom for himself.

Baltinglass made four foundations Jerpoint, Co. Kilkenny (1160), Abbeymahon, Co. Cork (1172), Monasterevin (Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin)(1178), and Abbeyleix (also Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin)(1184).  Thus, the Baltinglass line accounts for all the Irish Cistercian Abbeys of Kildare and Leighlin, the only Continental Cistercian Abbey of Kildare and Leighlin being Duisk Abbey, Graignamanagh, founded from Stanley in Wales in 1204. Kilenny Abbey (1162), a foundation of Jerpoint close to Duiske Abbey, was suppressed in 1227, the year before the visitation of Stephen of Lexington, since it offended against the Cistercian Rule that monasteries should be at least 12 Burgundian Leagues apart.

After the Anglo-Norman conquest of Leinster, Baltinglass retained a strong Irish identity. In 1185 the abbot of Baltinglass, Albin O’Mulloy, was made bishop of Ferns. At the close of the year 1185, Albin O'Molloy, Cistercian Abbot of Baltinglass, was appointed bishop of Ferns in the Lent of 1187, at the Provincial Council of Dublin, he administered to the Archdeacon Gerald Barry (Cambrensis), a rebuke at his presumption at casting aspersions upon the character of the Irish clergy and spoke out against the clergy coming from England and Wales, criticising their evil ways and bad example for the innocent Irish clergy. Bishop O'Molloy was present at the coronation of Richard I on 3rd September 1189. On 3rd April, 1206, King John nominated him to the Archbishopric of Cashel but the Pope declined to ratify the appointment.

In 1227, the same year as Kilenny was suppressed, abbot Malachy was deposed and Baltinglass was made subject to Furness Abbey in Cumbria. A new Anglo-Norman abbot was installed but the community opposed him, drove him out of the abbey, knocked him off his horse and took the monastic seal. It took an armed force to get the abbot reinstated. The cellarer, who was principally held responsible, was expelled to Fountains Abbey where, for a year, he was to take the ‘lowest place among the priests’. The new abbot resigned soon after his reinstatement. In 1228 the Abbey had 36 choir monks and 50 lay brothers.

However, by the turn of the thirteenth century the internal standards of observance in the Irish Abbeys had been allowed to decline. The Cistercian General Chapter heard disturbing reports and, in 1216, organised a general visitation of the Irish houses. The Irish monks resented this interference from Clairvaux and when the visitors arrived at Mellifont the gates of the monastery were shut in their faces. The troubled soon spread to the other Irish Cistercian monasteries. The visitors were blocked from entry and their presence was greeted with riot. The rebellion soon became known as the ‘conspiracy of Mellifont’.

In 1227 the abbot of Clairvaux sent two French monks to address the problems but they were able to remove no more than six abbots from office and they appointed the Anglo-Norman abbot of Owney to act in their stead. The Irish bitterly resented him and did all they could to hinder his progress.
From the foundation of Mellifont itself there had been conflict between the ethos of the French monks and their Irish brethren to such an extend that St. Malachy received the complaints of St. Bernard when the French returned home in dispute.

Those mutual misunderstanding were only intensified within the Order after the Norman invasion, when the Mellifont filiation acted as a native congregation in contrast to those Cistercian houses of directly Norman foundation. The misunderstanding came to a head in the early 13th century. The Mellifont filiation resisted efforts of the general Chapter to subject it to regulation, but was eventually compelled to submit. After those abortive attempts to impose continental observance, Stephen of Lexington, abbot of Stanley, Graiguenamanagh’s motherhouse undertook a visitation of the Irish Cistercian houses in 1228 on behalf of the General chapter, to reform them radically. The Mellifont filiation was broken up and its member houses were re-assigned to the oversight of English, French and Welsh houses, Margam, Buildwas, Furness, Fountains and Clairvaux and Lexington placed groups of Anglo-Norman monks in the Irish houses and deposed those abbots involved in the rebellion, appointing some twelve abbots himself.

The specific causes of dispute are hard to discover. It seems, however, that at least some of what was in Anglo-Norman eyes abuse, and infringement of Cistercian rule, was to the Irish simply the accommodation of traditional monastic practice. Thus, for example, Irish monks preferred to dwell in individual cells, rather than communionally. Equally, a nun’s monastery, adjacent to that of the male religious, might be unacceptable to Lexington but was perfectly respectable in Gaelic Ireland - and indeed to the modern-day Institute of Chrust the King, the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, or the Abbey of La Barroux!

Lexington’s condemnation of sins of the flesh may refer not to abuse in the strict sense, but a ‘monasticism’ that encompassed a ‘para-monastic' married Christian laity, in the older Irish manner, which we could call Third Orders or secular Oblates today.

Only gradually did the General Chapter cast off Anglo-Norman dominance and realise the true situation. In 1274 the General Chapter condemned the laws being enforced under Norman control, forbidding the reception of native Irish novices or the appointment of Irish monks to any position of authority in their communities. Finally it reversed its earlier decision and returned to Mellifont its jurisdiction over its filiations and Baltinglass returned to the restored Mellifont filiation. The following thirty years brought a succession of Irish abbots. It was a period of hope but that hope was again stifled by political pressure. The civil powers ignored the General Chapter's condemnation of Anglo Norman discrimination. The infamous Statutes of Kilkenny merely institutionalized that discrimination and the Black Death struck another blow to the once flourishing Order in Ireland. By the end of the 14th century Mellifont had become a recognised Anglo Norman institution and was never again to see the phenomenal flourishing of monastic life, substituting instead royal patronage and the acquisition of property.

Henry Tudor's commissioners described Baltinglass in 1541 as owning castles at Graungeforth, Knocwyre, Mochegraunge, Graungerosnalvan, Grangecon, Littlegraunge amongst others. In the early sixteenth century the annual income of the abbey was estimated at £76 (£126 in peacetime) making it one of the richest Cistercian abbeys in Ireland at that time. The Dissolution came quickly to Baltinglass. It was one of only five Irish Cistercian monasteries suppressed in the first round of closures, 1536-7.

Not content with the dissolution of the monastery, the Anglicans also raped the monastic church and buildings. The sanctuary, as can be seen from the pictures was crudely adapted as a Protestant church. As can be seen from the late 18th century engraving in the National Library of Ireland collection, the tower at the central crossing, a common, if un-Cistercian, feature of the Irish Cistercian Churches, was still extant, and the monstrously rustic tower at the entrance to the Protestant Church, sitting with ill-informed arrogance in the middle of the Nave, was a very late excresence.

The gate house, a feature that is still prominent at Mellifont also, became the home of the FitzEustace family. The gate house was broken down, along with parts of the monastery, when James FitzEustace rebelled in 1580. In 1587 the gate house restored and survived until 1882 when it was knocked down to provide building materials for the new house and church of the Church of Ireland.

The arches of the Abbey are it's most distinctive feature, having both squared and rounded piers still standing along the south side of the nave. The north-east crossing pier is decorated with a lion and foliage ornaments. The striking similarity between these nave arches and those of Jerpoint Abbey are notable. One depicts a warrior thrusting forward with a circular shield. Another strikingly similar feature are the stone tiles decorated, it is said by the same master craftsman, the so called 'Baltinglass Master', who also worked on Jerpoint Abbey. Some of these tiles have been placed for display so that you can get a close up view. To the side of the Church wall is a huge plinth with a large stone pyramid atop, which was constructed as a mausoleum for the Stratford family. Another example of Anglican barbarism that has breached the East Wall of the first chapel in the Southern Transept.

Mass in Graignamanagh

One of the first fruits of the Novena of Grace has been the kind permission to have a Mass in the Gregorian Rite in Duiske Abbey, Graignamanagh (or Graiguenamanagh), Co. Kilkenny, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, 19th March, feast of St. Joseph. A location map can be found here. The last Mass organised by St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association in this Parish was a Requiem for the 40th Anniversary of Bishop Thomas Keogh.

St. Joseph, pray for us!
St. Francis Xavier, pray for us!

Father Prout

Today is the birthday of Francis Sylvester Mahony known as 'Father Prout'. With a nom de blog like mine, the thought came to me that I ought to make some tribute to the author of The Bells of Shandon. As it turned out, his story brings side-lights into many of the stories that I have already published.

The Catholic Encyclopedia gives a good biography upon which the authors of wikipedia have been unable to improve and which the Diocese of Cork and Ross has adopted in its entirity. The most notable points are that having studied with the Jesuits in Clongowes Wood, he spent a few years as a novice with them and became a teacher of rhetoric at his own school, the great Canon Sheehan being one of his pupils, but he was dismissed for leading some of the students on a drunken outing to Celbridge. He studied in a variety of Continental Seminaries and was ordained at Lucca in Italy in 1832, against all advice. He returned to his native Diocese, where he served as a zealous and hardworking hospital chaplain during a cholera epidemic, where he won the life-long friendship and admiration of Father Mathew, the Capuchin Temperance campaigner. Among the ecclesiastical misadventures of 'Father Prout' was to be the attempt to have Father Mathew made Bishop of Cork!

The misadventure that led to Father Mahony's leaving the Diocese - and the active Priesthood - was his campaign to be given the living of 'the brickfield chapel,' that was to become St. Patrick's Church on the Lower Glanmire Road, then a chapel-of-ease to the Cathedral Parish. Father Mahony had been the principal fundraiser for the building of the new Church, which, I think you'll agree, is a fine building, and a magnificent achievement that was virtually the first new Church built in the City in two generations. The disappointment of Father Mahony, who had proved himself apostolic and capable, was understandable, especially when met with the immovable object of Bishop Murphy (r. 1815 - 1847).

He moved to London and held his own amid the literary greats of the time, although his name is now 'writ in water.' We read in The Catholic Encyclopedia: "Dowered with a retentive memory, irrepressible humor, large powers of expression, and a strongly satiric turn of mind, an omnivorous reader, well-trained in the Latin classics, thoroughly at home in the French and Italian languages, and a ready writer of rhythmic verse in English, Latin, and French, he produced... an extraordinary mixture of erudition, fancy, and wit, such as is practically without precise parallel in contemporary literature. The best of his work appeared in "Fraser's Magazine" during the first three years of his literary life. He translated largely from Horace, and the poets of France and Italy, including a complete and free metrical rendering of Gresset's famous mocking poem "Vert-Vert" and Jerome Vida's "Silkworm". But his newspaper correspondence from Rome and Paris is notable chiefly for the vigours of his criticisms upon men and measures, expressed, as these were, in most caustic language."

The Catholic Encyclopedia is not noted for its forgiving tone towards renegades but it expresses itself generously towards Mahony: "Although for thirty years Mahony did not exercise his priestly duties, he never wavered in his deep loyalty to the church, recited his Office daily, and received the last sacraments at the hands of his old friend, Abbé Rogerson, who left abundant testimony of his excellent dispositions."

His roguish humour caused him to adopt the name of a certain Father Prout of Watergrasshill as his nom de plume.

The original Father Prout had been forced from his Diocese (Cashel) on account of a wrangle with Archbishop Butler over his refusal to agree to the amalgamation of his Parish, which he described as "the greatest injustice since the partition of Poland." Fortunately, he was welcomed into the neighbouring Diocese of Cork by Dr. Moylan.

Mahony's fictional Father Prout seems no less sanguine, although he claimed to be a French-educated parish priest, the son of Dean Swift and Stella, who writes works such as The Apology for Lent in scholarly praise of fish!

When he died on 18th May, 1866, as we have read, fortified by the rites of Holy Mother Church, his body was taken back to Cork for a Solemn Requiem Mass in St. Patrick's Church "the church which", in the words of his biographers, "was the dream of his impetuous youth," as his biography says, from where he was taken to his family vault in St. Ann's Churchyard, Shandon, to be buried in the shadow of the bells he immortalized.



The Reliques of Father Prout, is perhaps his most famous work and it is in that collection that his true claim to fame, The Bells of Shandon, is to be found as part of The Rogueries of Tom Moore.

In my opinion, it is the true anthem of Cork, although the words of The Banks and Beautiful City were handed out to every school child in the city by the Lord Mayor last year! The Bells has none of those shameless hussies pressing wild daisies and Beautiful City lifts "the sweet bells of Shandon were dear to my mind." I may stand on a Shandon Belle ticket in the next mayoral election!

The clip consists of that fine ecumenical anthem Iníon an Phailitínigh (a Kerry song, mind you) and a verse of The Bells sung by Seán Ó Sé, whose own voice is another contender to be the true anthem of Cork!

THE BELLS OF SHANDON

With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee ;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine,
While at a glibe rate
Brass tongues would vibrate —
But all their music
Spoke naught like thine ;
For memory dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells tolling
Old "Adrian's Mole" in,
Their thunder rolling
From the Vatican,
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Notre Dame ;
But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter
Flings o'er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly ; —
O! the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

There 's a bell in Moscow,
While on tower and kiosk o !
In Saint Sophia
The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer
From the tapering summit
Of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom
I freely grant them ;
But there is an anthem
More dear to me, —
'Tis the bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

Tenebrae

Up until the Easter Triduum, the texts of the Masses and Offices of Holy Week are not noticably different from those of the rest of Lent. However, it has long been a custom to celebrate the early morning Offices of Matins and Lauds of the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Holy Week on the afternoon before. Those Offices are known as Tenebrae or Darkness.

They seem to be a wake for the three days that Our Lord spent in the tomb. They evoke in the Christian something of the anguish of that first Holy Week, filled with betrayal and confusion. As the psalms are completed, the 15 candles are extinguished, one by one, until only a single candle remains. This candle represents Christ. It is taken down while the congregation makes a thunderous noise in remberance of the moment of Christ's death. The loss of these evocative ceremonies in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, or at least their loss throughout the greater part of the Church, is one of the greatest losses to the Christian Faithful in the recent reform of the Roman Liturgy.

Our first clip is of Tomas Luis de Victoria's setting of the Offices of Holy Week. It is the most familiar polyphonic setting of Tenebrae, perhaps because of the completeness of the text, which was first published in 1585. As a composer of the Tridentine era, the emphasis he gives to the text, in combination with the musical setting, is striking and one of the keys to the impact of his composition. Victoria kept strictly to the text in terms of repetitions and draws out, by means of colour and number of voices, the meaning and the proper impact of the words.

The second clip is the second responsory after the second lesson of the second nocturn in the 1680 composition of Marc-Antoine Charpentier of the Office of Holy Thursday for use at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. While the presentation of the libretto, the text of the Office, still has a directness, we can sense that, a century later than Victoria, the need for mere display in terms of music has already begun to appear, even while the composer must still bow to the requirements of the liturgical text.

The third clip is part of Francois Couperin's 1714 setting of one of the Lessons of the Office of Spy Wednesday for use in the Abbey of Longchamps. In contradistinction to the first two clips, which are austere and relatively simple and direct in sound, Couperin's composition is more florid and senuous. This reflects the change from a Renaissance to a Baroque style. The text of the Lamentations of Jeremiah deplore the destruction of Jerusalem, a symbol of the betrayal, abandonment and Crucifixion of Christ.

Finally, we have two clips of the service itself from Blackfriars in Oxford. The service is performed by Dominicans who, in the first clip sing the preces on Maunda Thursday and, in the second clip sing two responsories of Matins and then the Benedictus of Lauds. You will see the hearse of candles in the centre of the Sanctuary. For those who might question the cantors having their backs to the Tabernacle in the second clip, the Blessed Sacrament has been removed to the Altar of Repose.

Mother of Sorrows, pray for us!

The Hallowing of Time

The Catholic Church, both in its wisdom and in its understanding of humanity, has many means of sanctifying time. Today, set between Candlemas, which brought Christmastide to a close, and Septuagesima, which opens the long period of preparation for Easter, is an excellent moment to consider the lesser cycles that sanctify time which are blessed by the Church.

Liturgically, we have Ember Days, seasonal periods of prayer and fasting, or Rogations, the twice-yearly occasions for rogating or imploring the mercy and goodness of God.

We also have the dedication of days and months to particular devotions. One traditional method, for example, dedicates Monday to the Holy Ghost, Tuesday to the Holy Angels, Wednesday to St. Joseph, Thursday to the Blessed Sacrament, Friday to the Sacred Passion, Saturday to Our Lady and Sunday to the Most Holy Trinity. The cycle of Votive Masses in the Missal varies from this formula slightly, dedicating Monday to the Most Holy Trinity and including the Holy Ghost on Thursday, while including the Holy Apostles in the dedication of Wednesday.

Of the days dedicated, the most familiar and the most commonly practised, even in our own day, is the dedication of Saturday to Our Lady. The visions of Simon Stock and the children of Fatima would seem to be confirmation from Heaven of this venerable tradition. However, the origin of the dedication of Saturday seems to originate in the Court of Charles the Great (742-814) with the monk Alcuin of York, who composed two Masses in honour of Our Lady for Saturdays. By the 11th Century, the devotion was well established in the Universal Church when St. Peter Damien famously promoted the devotion and Pope Urban II prescribed prayers to Our Lady on Saturdays for the success of the first Crusade.

The dedication of months is also very traditional and frequently enriched with Indulgences. One traditional method devotes January to the Holy Name of Jesus, March to St. Joseph, May to Our Lady, June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, July to His Precious Blood, September to the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, October to the Holy Rosary, November to the Holy Souls, and December to the Holy Infancy. Most of these are derived from liturgical feasts ocurring during the month.

The tradition of special devotions to Our Lady during the month of May can certainly be traced to the High Middle Ages, the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X of Castille being frequently cited. The dedication of the entire month to Our Lady may have taken until the 17th Century to be widespread. However, to Pope Clement VIII we owe the custom of the Crowning of Images of Our Lady, now strongly associated with May.

The origin of the dedication of June to the Sacred Heart is less clouded in the mists of history. We owe it to Angéle de Saint Croix, a Parisienne schoolgirl of the 1830s, who was inspired to propose it to the Superioress, not because the feast of the Sacred Heart falls in June, since it is a movable feast dependent upon the timing of Easter, but because Angéle felt that, if Our Lady had a whole month of May, the Sacred Heart should have a whole month of June.

The Superioress recommended her to make the suggestion to the Archbishop when he visited the school the following week. This she did and the Archbishop responded immediately, dedicating the month of June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout the Archdiocese for the joint intentions of the conversion of sinners and the return of France to the practice of the faith. The devotion soon spread and became universal throughout the Church.

In such ways, the Church recommends to the Faithful to dedicate each moment of time to God and to His Angels and Saints, to sanctify time and, by doing so, to sanctify ourselves.