A spiritual conference by Monsignor Andrew Wadsworth
All Souls Day Morning of Recollection – Juventutem DC
A spiritual conference by Fr Andrew
Given that this morning of recollection has been sponsored by the newly-formed chapter of Juventutem DC, I thought it might be appropriate to offer a few thoughts on the name ‘Juventutem’ and its obvious reference to Psalm 42 which is to be found in the prayers at the foot of the altar that occur in the Traditional Latin Mass. In most Masses in the Extraordinary Form, Psalm 42 is said in its entirety. In almost all Masses at least verse 4 of this psalm is said. In Sung Masses, it is not heard as the prayers at the foot of the altar coincide with the singing of the introit and the kyrie. In Masses during Passiontide and in Requiem Masses (such as this morning’s Requiem Mass for All Souls), the psalm is omitted but the antiphon retained.
Although commentators often disagree in their explanation of the origins of certain features of the liturgy, it would seem that historically, this penitential act has occupied its place at the beginning of Mass, at the foot of the altar, from the time when the Roman liturgy was spreading into Gall-Frankish territory. The psalm did not gain an entrance into many rites of Mass, however, even through the later Middle Ages and for a considerable time after. In the liturgies of religious orders such as the Carthusians and Dominicans Psalm 42 did not appear in their rite of Mass when these orders were established in the 13th century. Even when it was inserted, only a single verse was recited, Introibo ad altare Dei. Even when the psalm itself is omitted, the antiphon is said once.
This wonderful psalm expresses perfectly the sentiment which should animate the priest as he approaches the altar. It expresses a very great truth – the priest is powerfully attracted to the altar. A priest belongs at the altar and there is no place where he is more conscious of the reality of his priesthood than when he stands at the altar. The altar of God, however, is an awesome and holy place, yet there the priest stands, an unworthy servant of the Most High. He might call to mind the words of St. John Chrysostom: ‘When the priest calls upon the Holy Ghost and offers the tremendous Sacrifice: tell me in what rank should we place him? What purity shall we require of him, what reverence?’”
As a priest approaches the altar for the celebration of Holy Mass, he longs to ascend there to perform his sacred duty, to draw near to the Lord and to be united to Him. St John Chrysostom continues: “By the words iuventutem meam the priest may indeed, also, acknowledge that from his early days God has been his delight and bestowed on him a thousand joys.”
These are very beautiful thoughts but this psalm clearly expresses mixed emotions and demonstrates something of the divided heart that is so much a part of our human condition. It contains a sort of lament but one which includes a vow to give thanks in the Temple. Even when we are anxious and things are not going as we planned, we can purpose to praise God despite the way we feel. This primacy of will over emotions is one of the early lessons of the Mass and an essential one for anyone who wants to find happiness in the Church. It runs so very counter to all of the counsels of this age that suggest that our feelings are the greatest guide to reality. In truth, they are the least reliable guide and should often be mistrusted or even ignored.
What is so magnificent about Psalm 42 is that it is a pure expression of yearning for God with no expectation of reward or any other benefit – we seek God for the good which He is in Himself and not ultimately for personal gain. This approach to the altar which begins every Mass in many ways sums up all that follows. We should note that the approach to the altar is always one of happiness and joy, even if the Mass is celebrated in circumstances that are less than joyful or even downright sad. Perhaps it is for this reason that the Syrians call the whole Mass simply Kurobho, “approach.”
St. Ambrose relates the meaning of this psalm to those who have just been baptized: “The cleansed people, rich with these adornments, hastens to the altar of Christ, saying: I will go to the altar of God, to God who makes glad my youth; for having laid aside the slough of ancient error, renewed with an eagle’s youth, it hastens to approach that heavenly feast. It comes, and seeing the holy altar arranged, cries out: You have prepared a table in my sight.”
Most of us approach the altar with our baptism in the relatively distant past but this essential aspect of our Christian identity is of major importance every time we come to Mass. The traditional designation of the ‘Mass of the Catechumens’ and the ‘Mass of the Faithful’ reminds us of what a tremendous privilege it is as those who are baptized to be permitted to remain for the whole accomplishment of the offering of the Sacrifice and even more to approach the altar for the reception of Holy Communion.
These prayers “at the foot of the altar,” as Josef Jungmann explains in his momumental writings on the history of the development of the Mass, only existed after the year 1000. This is because before the eleventh century, as a rule, there were no steps up to the altar—not even a predella or platform. Yet by the ninth century, these prayers had been inserted:“On the way to the altar, Psalm 42 was spoken in common, and upon arrival at the altar, two orations were added in conclusion, one of which is our Aufer a nobis. In witnesses to this particular arrangement of the entry (of the priest at Mass), there are found in addition various apologiae, forerunners of our Confiteor, included in a variety of ways and in an assortment of forms. They are either added at the beginning or inserted somewhere in the middle or subjoined at the end.
This arrangement quickly took the lead over other plans of a similar kind…Very seldom was there any clear transfer of the psalm to the altar steps. Often this transfer occurred because the chasuble was put on the altar, as was the custom especially at private Mass. In other cases the rubric was left indefinite. This diversity of practice corresponded to the variety in spatial arrangements. Often the distance from sacristy to altar was very short. In order not to prevent the psalm’s being said with proper care and to lend it greater importance, it was not begun until the steps were reached. This must have been the origin of the arrangement now found in the Missal of Pius V.”
Although we cannot be confident about the origins of this Psalm and its place in the liturgy of the Mass, we do have the psalm itself which is worthy of careful attention and rewards a close reading. I would like briefly to walk through this psalm with you and offer a little commentary on those phrases which I have high-lighted in your printed hand-outs:
– Judge me, O God
We ask a serious thing when we ask God to judge us because we ask Him to search our heart and discern our truest motives which alone give meaning to our actions. So often we judge others by their actions in the hope that they will judge us by our intentions. Only God has all the information necessary to make such judgments. For this reason, He, and He alone is the judge of all.
– distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy
We always want it to be clear that we are not just like everyone else but we forget that for God, it is as if we are the only one who exists – He is faithful even when we are faithless!
– deliver me from the unjust
We need God to help and rescue us, particularly form those who will bring about our ruination. Bad company, occasions of sin etc.
– For Thou art, God, my strength
A profession of faith – we need to make them often in the course of the day so that the muscle of faith may be exercised and become strong.
– why do I go sorrowful?
It is easy to be depressed but we have to minister to our emotions speaking faith to our feelings.
– Send forth Thy light and Thy truth
Only God can show us the way, the right path, without His light, we are really lost.
– they have conducted me and brought me unto Thy holy hill
This is where God brings me- to the holy hill which is the altar, the Mass: the one place where we can make sense of all of this confusion and chaos.
– I will go in to the altar of God
This is the future tense of intention and purpose – I have to keep coming here, I have to keep ascending this holy hill – it is the only answer.
– to God Who giveth joy to my youth
God is the only reliable source of happiness, the only true satisfaction for any human heart. So many marriages, relationships and friendships fail because people do not understand that nobody can ultimately satisfy us, only God.
– I will give praise upon the harp
I have to keep singing and not be deterred even when the opposition or discouragement, either from within myself or from others, is very considerable.
– Hope in God
The fundamental virtue of the Christian life – the ability to look beyond our present difficulties and to see a time when all will be well. It is the virtue most obviously demonstrated by the Holy Souls for whom we pray today.
I want to conclude these brief thoughts with a citation from the writings of Pope Benedict XVI, his very particular commentary on a verse from this psalm with he mentions in concluding a sermon he preached on Sexagesima Sunday in 1962 at the first Mass of a newly ordained priest. It is of particularly personal significance for me as I chose to include this citation in the printed program for my first offering of the Traditional Latin Mass, the day after my ordination, twenty-there years ago. It says, far better than I could ever say, what lies at the heart of this word of Scripture:
“and I will come to the altar of God, the God of my joy” (Ps.42:4)
Pope Benedict writes:
We want to ask God that he will always let something of the splendour of this joy, if it is is necessary, fall on our life; that he may give the radiance of this joy ever more deeply and purely to this priest who today for the first time comes before the altar of God; that he will still continually shine upon him when he does so for the last time, when he comes before the altar of eternity in which God shall be the joy of our eternal life, our never-ending youth. Amen.
This is but one example of how the richness of timeless tradition serves as an antidote to "the contemporary" which worships "youth" (a gift from God) perverting that love into a form of idolatry (a good unto itself – not a gift).
Blessed are we who heard at the beginning of every Holy Mass – "I will go unto the altar of God – the God who gives joy to my youth."
How foolish we men are – to have erased this Word of God from the Holy Mass.
"Introibo ad altare Dei", said Blessed Noel Pinot, priest martyr of the French Revolution as he ascended the scaffold in February 1794, still in the Mass vestments he was wearing when he was seized.
Any priest can say this in the sacristy with his servers before the NO Liturgy as an act of preparation.
Unfortunately for the faithful, especially for our young people, as we hand over the Church from one generation to the next, we cannot hear this traditional prayer of the Church, as the Bugnini liturgy committee, and the forces of "contemporary ideology," wanted the Church to forget it.
We are instead to drink from the "River of Forgetfulness." We are not to know or care of Noel Pinot, or Edmund Campion, or Agatha, Perpetua or Lucy.
Unfortunately that doesn't benefit the Faithful. Although I understood the rationale for simplifying the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar but the Mass was impoverished by their deletion altogether. The current Penitential Rite Options simply don't fill that void
I often programmed as a choral prelude, (when I HAD a choir… "sigh",) verses 3 and 4 of the psalm, (can't remember which metric psalter, or mayhaps I cobbled it from several,) set to the Tallis Third Mode Melody.
Congregation loved hearing the words almost as much as the older members of the choir loved pronouncing them.
The whole bass section would get teary-eyed, remembering their days as servers.
In a similar vein, (although this isn't scriptural, of course,) I was always looking for an appropriate setting of the St Michael prayer, for a postlude.
The more I learn about "the way things used to be," the more I understand the barely concealed rage of some traditionalists.
That ways were found to shoe-horn into the Mass any newly-minted lunacy a DRE or liturgist could dream up, while any attempt to cleave to what had been done with great profit to many souls for many years is nearly unforgivable.
Sorry, OT rant — I'm using a text for CCD classes that seems to delight in finding different phrasing, different rituals, and different emphasis than the Church Herself has used AND CONTINUES TO USE IF YOU ACTUALLY LOOK AT WHAT SHE HERSELF SAYS, because, you know, "Oh, the Church changed all that decades ago…."
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Incidentally, if someone were to take upon him- or herself the task of playing Boswell to Msgr. Wadsworth's Johnson, following him around and recording his every spoken utterance….. well, I'm just sayin', it would be a grand thing.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Although I would much prefer Mass, old or new order, to be celebrated in Latin rather than the vernacular, I have come to believe that it has been a disaster to prevent the use of translations for the older use. I am not thinking of the traditionalists, but of my ordinary parishioners, who have been deprived of an awareness of the riches of the older use. They do not know Latin. And the English texts they hear are not the unchanged tradition. The people are reluctant to "go back to Latin" because, if they have no Latin, they cannot be aware that more than just a translation took place in the 1960s. Ordinary Catholics are rightly adamant that the Vatican Council must not be undermined. They will have no truck with the Lefebvrists, for instance, who seem to want this. What I think we need is translations for liturgical use of the old order. At a stroke this would reconnect us to the tradition of "real liturgy" which is such a problem for the Church today.
I would also argue for new editions of the old Mass re-incorporating those things which ought not to have been lost over the last 150 years, and also incorporating those newer things from the last 50 years which can enrich the tradition.
It doesn't help the faithful directly, but could be life-changing for an altar boy or two. Which would help the faithful after all, only in God's time.
Yes, Latin has got to be a huge natural barrier to most Catholics under 60 (priests not least among them!), who didn't grow up with it at all.
The Benedictine monastery in Norcia recently sent out a letter discussing their monks' formation classes. One of the classes is largely devoted just to translating the traditional Vespers hymns. This ends up being similar to what Msgr. Wadsworth is doing above — a line-by-line meditation on the traditional liturgy. Could Catholic schools do something similar in the classroom? How about priests in the pulpit? Would be challenging but probably not as tough as getting a 1962 Missal in the vernacular.
What was needed per Sacrosanctum Concilium, and what is needed now, is the end point of the "Reform-of-the-Reform," which is a revised version of the 1962 Missal in the vernacular, coupled with the laity's vocalized (sung or spoken) parts of the (Sanctus, etc) Mass per the good part of the Novus Ordo.
While we're at it put the "kiss-of-peace" where the Church had it some 1,900 or so yrs ago – as B16 noted from the written evidence of the Fathers – before the offering of the gifts. And for heaven's sake – for "the mystery of Faith" – can we get it down to "the mystery" (you know – the definite article indicates – well – being sure of yourself) instead of being so confused about what it is? And can it refer to the Eucharist please – since it is proclaimed smack in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer? In other words, "When we eat this bread…" and not the other two "options."
Then we can deal with the other parts of SC – primacy of Gregorian Chant – continuation of Latin.
What was needed per Sacrosanctum Concilium, and what is needed now, is the end point of the "Reform-of-the-Reform," which is a revised version of the 1962 Missal in the vernacular, coupled with the laity's vocalized (sung or spoken) parts of the (Sanctus, etc) Mass per the good part of the Novus Ordo.
While we're at it put the "kiss-of-peace" where the Church had it some 1,900 or so yrs ago – as B16 noted from the written evidence of the Fathers – before the offering of the gifts. And for heaven's sake – for "the mystery of Faith" – can we get it down to "the mystery" (you know – the definite article indicates – well – being sure of yourself) instead of being so confused about what it is? And can it refer to the Eucharist please – since it is proclaimed smack in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer? In other words, "When we eat this bread…" and not the other two "options."
Then we can deal with the other parts of SC – primacy of Gregorian Chant – continuation of Latin.
secrets in the sacristy helps no one
Latin? not at all. I could chant by heart, in Latin, 5 Ordinaries by the age of 10. It seemed that condescending liberals over 50 had the problem with Latin. I was there and had first hand experience with that phenomenon
The prayers were never intended to "benefit the faithful "at any time. They were strictly a private devotion started in the sacristy as part of the vesting rite. Just as Cranmer transferred the Collect of Purity from the sacristy to the north side of the altar.
In some of the religious orders, i.e. the Cistercians, the "Veni Creator Spirtus", the Hail Mary, and Pater Noster were also said either on the way or at the steps. The present NO options are intended for the benefit of the people and should be retained, but with the traditional prayers at the foot of the altar added to the NO as an option.
"Condescending" liberals and all other liberals have just moved beyond Latin to today's lingua franca, English. Since Rome and ICELso thoroughly botched the use of English ever since Vatican II, better the liturgy of the Anglican Ordinariate be permitted to replace the Novus Ordo. THe AO, the Anglicans, or the Western Rite Orthodox churches have the truly beautiful English liturgies today. Certainly not the RCC.
I was an altarboy before the beauty and grace of the Mass was ruined by left-wing loons.The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar benefited me immensely. The "reforms" were deleterious to my Faith but I have lived to see the day when the left-wing loons are miserable because the young are abandoning what they are selling. I am now very happy
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The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, in English, are one of the traditional options in the new Ordinariate Rite, which looks set to demonstrate how post-conciliar liturgy might be better informed by tradition.
Wow – that is very good news – and quite interesting – in comparison to the "River of Forgetfulness" from which the children of the Bugnini liturgy now drink.
Yes he can say this in the Sacristy and I hope he does. At my parish when the Mass begins, I repeat this to myself over and over as the good Father, the pianist and cantor intone ' On Eagles Wings' or some other appropriate (?) entrance 'song'.
I do yearn for the 'Joy of my Youth'.
I find no Joy in the contemporary Hollywood musical style 'songs' being passed off as Hymns, being passed off as 'liturgical'. I love the parishioner next to me. I love the Mass be it Novus Ordo just as much as the Traditional Latin mass. but I don't need to clap my hands to the music or turn before every Mass and 'greet' the person next to me.
You have a missal and can read the prayers at the foot of the altar whenever you wish. You don't need the celebrant's recitation of them cluttering up the entrance rite in order to derive any benefits from them.
Excessive medieval accretions need to be eliminated throughout the eucharistic liturgy and the offices.
Your problem is that you’ve failed to mature with the times over the years. You’re still trying to relive your days as an altar boy by living vicariously through the TLM.
The prayers at the foot of the altar are the priest’s private devotions and should be kept that way. The beauty of the entrance rite should not be interrupted by the celebrant’s excessive personal piety and what was originally strictly a private devotion.
[Admin note: Dear “Dunstan”, your opening remarks are insulting. Any more of that, and I’ll be happy to delete your scribblings. I have little patience with rude anonymous users.]
You can always go to the public library and read about them. No need to turn the eucharistic liturgy into a junkyard of memories and a display case for a piece of liturgical pastiche, or a stage for sickening sweet kitsch.
Latin is dead so try to get accustomed to the idea. English is the lingua franca of the world. Only the SSPX and the harpies who follow them think they can turn back the clock to Pius V’s court liturgy of clerical performers. A liturgy which few want today.
[Admin note: Now this is impressive: a user who feels compelled to post four querulous comments on a single thread that was written 43 weeks ago. Rest assured that practically no one will see them.]