Pope Pius XII’s encyclical of November 11, 1947, Mediator Dei, was the Magna Carta of the liturgical movement until Vatican II. This was the first papal encyclical entirely devoted to the liturgy, and its publication signaled papal support and approval of the liturgical movement which had already begun. Its French origins can be traced to Abbot Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B. (d. 1875), who inculcated the spirit of the liturgy in the monasteries he founded and whose publications disseminated a spirituality of the liturgy. Pope Pius X provided stimuli for the movement in his motu proprio, Tra le sollecitudini (1903), which saw the active participation of the faithful as “the foremost and indispensable fount” of “the true Christian spirit.” Pius X’s thinking was welcome at the the Abbey of Mont-César, where Dom Lambert Beaudoin (d. 1960) inaugurated a Belgian parochial liturgical movement in 1909.1 Similarly, the monastery of Maria Laach in Germany delved into the historical and theological aspects of the liturgy, with an eye toward pastoral renewal. Once the ball started rolling, liturgical associations, publications, study weeks, and congresses multiplied at diocesan, national, and international levels.2
The publication of Mediator Dei was a papal seal of approval on the growing liturgical movement, geared toward the pastoral renewal of worship. The reforms that would follow from 1951 through 1960 were primarily concerned with this pastoral aspect. While the encyclical sounded a note of approval, it was also a belated attempt by the Holy See to take leadership in the area of liturgical reform, which up until this time had been largely directed by scholars, monks, and pastors. Additionally, it was an assertion of papal control over liturgical experimentation and change.3 Despite a certain cautionary tone—censuring any “aberrations from the path of truth and rectitude” (in no. 9)—Mediator Dei gave strong impetus to the liturgical movement and enumerated many of the positive results already achieved: the eucharistic celebration was better known, understood and appreciated; reception of the sacraments was widespread and frequent; the eucharist was viewed as the source of true Christian devotion; there was a better sense that the faithful comprise the Body with Christ as head. Vatican II’s “full, conscious and active participation” was foreshadowed when the encyclical noted that “the Christian community is in duty bound to participate in the liturgical rites according to their station” (no. 5).
Significant for the continuing work of pastoral liturgical renewal was Mediator Dei’s no. 109, which called for the establishment in each diocese of an advisory committee to foster liturgical renewal. For the universal church, Pius XII himself established the Pontifical Commission for the General Liturgical Restoration on May 28, 1948. One of the first tasks was preparing an experimental rite for a restored Easter Vigil.
Originally and essentially a nocturnal celebration, the Easter Vigil had suffered decline for a long time because of the practice of anticipating the celebration at an increasingly early hour on Saturday. From at least the seventh century, there was no question of spending the entire night in vigil. The service began at two in the afternoon and in the course of later centuries was gradually moved earlier so that the lighting of the new fire took place at noon, falsifying the entire symbolism of the vigil. In 1556 Pope Pius V actually forbade the celebration of the Easter Vigil after midday!4
Frederick McManus has bewailed the disemboweled vigil celebration inherited from medieval times:
The anomaly of chanting, in broad daylight, “This is the night in which Christ burst the bonds of death” is matched only by the misunderstanding and lack of appreciation of the faithful. The triumphant Alleluja is intoned with the observance of Good Friday barely past, Baptism is rarely administered on Holy Saturday, the numbers in attendance at Holy Saturday service are small, the ignorance of the Easter mystery is great.5
A clarion call for renewal came on November 2, 1950, from the bishops of Germany, Austria, and France, who asked for transfer of the Holy Saturday liturgy to the evening or night, abrogating the law requiring the celebration of the vigil on the morning of Holy Saturday.6 Similar requests came from other bishops, religious, and various other groups. Pius XII referred these requests to a newly-formed pontifical commission, which drafted appropriate rubrics to make the change possible. On February 9, 1951, the Congregation of Sacred Rites promulgated the new rubrics for a nocturnal celebration of the vigil.7 This was considered to be an optional rite and experimental. Those who made use of the new rite were asked to inform the Congregation of the attendance and devotion of the faithful and the success of the restoration of the paschal vigil.8
McManus wrote a commentary on the experimental rite and summarized the changes in the rite which would permit greater participation by the people. He noted that the restored vigil is “popular in the best sense—by the introduction of the baptismal promises, by the considerable part assigned to the faithful, and by the observance of the vigil in the night hours when people can be present more easily.”9
A year after the rite had appeared, many bishops praised the restoration, told of the copious benefits derived from it, and asked that the permission to celebrate it be further extended. Pius XII referred these reports, many of which contained comments for improvements in the rite, to the Pontifical Commission for General Liturgical Restoration, which made a number of rubrical changes and recommended the extension of the experimental rite for three more years.
On January 11, 1952, the Congregation of Sacred Rites extended the optional celebration of the restored Easter Vigil for three years.10 In 1955 it was renewed for another year, before being declared mandatory. On November 16, 1955, the Restored Rite of Holy Week was decreed by the Congregation of Sacred Rites, and in January 1956 the new liturgical book was published.11 Not only did the decree affect the celebration of the vigil, it also had an impact on other celebrations. The decree reviewed early liturgical history and noted that ancient celebrations were held corresponding to the time of the biblical mysteries; it decried the confusion and other detrimental effects of the medieval transfer of rites to the day hours. As a result, the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper was to be celebrated between five and eight p.m.; the Good Friday celebration of the Lord’s passion and death was set between three and six p.m. The Easter Vigil was ideally to be held at midnight, but the local bishop could anticipate this time provided it did not begin before twilight or at least not before sunset.12 Thus, the desire for the attendance and fruitful participation of the faithful at these central celebrations was a major factor leading to the promulgation of the restored rites.
Frederick McManus wrote in a commentary on the 1955 restored rite:
Perhaps the feature of the new Ordo of Holy Week which is most striking concerns the participation of the faithful in the solemn rites. The rubrics of the Ordo refer constantly to the responses to be made by the members of the congregation and to their activity in the carrying out of the holy liturgy. This is of course a notable departure from the rubrical norms of the Roman Missal. The Missal rubrics were prepared at a period when popular appreciation of the sacred liturgy and actual participation in it were at a low ebb. Now the active participation of the faithful, urged repeatedly by the Pontiffs of this century, is made a matter of rubrical law as incorporated into the very text of the new liturgical book. The Roman Missal speaks rarely of the part to be taken by the laici; the new Ordo is insistent that the faithful should express openly, by word and song and deed, the interior worship which they offer to Christ and through Him to the Father.13
Three things stand out in bold relief in looking at the progressive restoration of the rites of Holy Week. First, the goal of the restoration was pastoral—to ensure attendance and rightful participation of the faithful in the services. Second, the restoration looked toward ancient models as a paradigm for correction of abuses or elimination of anomalies. Third, the officially promulgated rites were shaped not only by scholarly considerations but also by the feedback from dioceses and religious communities who had experienced the provisional reforms.
While the revisions in the Ordo of 1955 concerned the shape of the rites of the triduum, they also restructured the experience of time. The reform intimately involved calendars—not just the liturgical calendar, but also the domestic calendars of the faithful, since it was for the sake of their presence and participation that the changes were effected. Calendars are not just about days and times, they are about setting priorities, keeping common memories, and shaping consciousness. The intent of the reforms in the fifties, pastoral in nature, was to establish the triduum as a priority in the lives of the people.
The monumental revisions of the liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil, published in the Ordo of 1955, set a solid foundation for further reforms after the Second Vatican Council.14 Since the liturgical calendar is the basis on which the celebration of the eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours are organized, the study group in charge of calendric revision was first on the list of Consilium committees.15 The fruit of their labors appeared in March, 1969, entitled General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar. Work on the revision of the Roman Missal began in April 1964, and the revised book appeared in 1970.16 The Missal contains the official prayer texts and rubrics for the paschal celebrations.17
Prior to the publication of the Ordo of 1955, Holy Thursday Mass had been celebrated in the morning with the rest of the day devoted to the adoration of the Eucharist. The transfer of the consecrated elements to a place of reservation till the next day—a secondary and practical rite—had taken on disproportionate prominence. The altar of reservation had become a highly decorated repository, and prayer “visits” to various churches of the city had become a devotional practice.
The year 1955 saw the restoration of an evening Mass of the Supper of the Lord; thus, outside of cathedrals where a morning mass with the consecration of chrism was held, there were no daytime celebrations. In order to emphasize the connection between the celebration of the eucharist and the commandment of service (the mandatum of John 13:15), the 1955 Ordo proposed a rite of footwashing18 to take place after the Liturgy of the Word at the evening mass. The place for eucharistic reservation was to be modestly decorated; adoration by the faithful could take place until midnight.
The Missal of 1970 kept the revisions of 1955; the major revisions post-Vatican II were textual. The Johannine account of the footwashing (John 13:1–15) remained the same. The Pauline reading (1 Cor. 11:20–32) was shortened to the account of the institution of the eucharist (1 Cor. 11:23–26) and a reading from Exodus (12:1–8, 11–14), the account of the eating of the Passover lamb, was introduced. A favorite text in early patristic mystagogic catecheses, the reading speaks of the memorial of the redemption of those saved by the blood of the lamb. For Christians the text signals a linkage with God’s redemptive actions in history which continue in the present. The opening prayer of the service was a new composition; other prayers and the preface to the eucharistic prayer were taken or adapted from ancient texts.
Before 1955 the Good Friday service took place in the morning. The afternoon was a time for public devotions such as the Stations of the Cross19 or the Three Hours’ Service,20 sermon meditations on the words of Jesus while on the cross, along with hymns and prayers. A sermon on the passion was sometimes given in the evening. The 1955 Ordo placed the celebration in the afternoon or evening hours and permitted the reception of the reserved sacrament.
The 1970 revision gave back to Good Friday its ancient title, In Passione Domini (Celebration of the Lord’s Passion). The chief revisions, as true for Holy Thursday, were textual. The two readings prior to the Johannine Passion21 had been Hosea 6:1–6 and Exodus 12:1–11. The Exodus reading had been transferred to Holy Thursday. The Hosea reading was eliminated. The Suffering Servant song of Isaiah (52:13–53:12) became the first reading. A passage from the Letter to the Hebrews (4:14–16; 5:7–9) on the saving character of Jesus’ death became the second reading.
The General Intercessions were redistributed according to the provisions given in the General Instruction on the Missal; basically, there was a change in the order. Some of the prayer texts were altered in keeping with the ecumenical spirit of Vatican II. While the 1955 Prayer for the Unity of Christians prayed “for heretics and schismatics,” those “deceived by the wiles of the devil,” the new prayer prays for “brothers and sisters who share our faith in Jesus Christ” and that God would gather together “all those who seek the truth with sincerity.” If the 1955 intercessions prayed “for the conversion of the Jews,” the revision now prays “for the Jewish people” in this way: “Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.” The older intercessions also prayed for the conversion of “pagans,” that they “give up their idols.” The 1970 revision prays for “those who do not believe in God that they may find him by sincerely following all that is right.” With the Muslims especially in mind, an intention was added for those who believe in God without believing in Christ.
The revision of the language of prayer was necessary and significant. It must be borne in mind, however, that the liturgy of 1955 was celebrated entirely in Latin. Thus, only those participants who knew Latin or who followed along in a hand missal which had an English translation would have understood the content of the prayers. Likewise, the rubrics called for the announcing of the intention, Oremus pro . . . (“Let us pray for . . .), followed by a directive to kneel (Flectamus genua) for silent prayer, a directive to stand (Levate), followed by the collect proper, Omnipotens sempiterne Deus . . . (Almighty and eternal God . . .). Unfortunately, in most parishes the period for silent prayer while kneeling was omitted, turning the prayers into a Jack-in-the-box liturgical experience of bobbing up and down while the presider chanted (or recited) unintelligible texts in Latin. Even those with hand missals would have had a difficult time in reading the unfortunate texts!
The veneration of the cross, derived from Jerusalem practice of the fourth century, was not part of the seventh-century papal liturgy, which consisted of biblical readings and general intercessions. There was at the same time, however, a Roman presbyteral ordo which had a more popular type of service, including a veneration of the cross. A century later the papal liturgy did include the veneration.
During the veneration of the cross, the Ordo of 1955 included the singing of the Improperia, the Reproaches. The text itself derives from the medieval period and is a concatenation of snippets from various biblical books, e.g., Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Micah, and Psalms, interspersed with the singing of the Trisagion in Greek and Latin.22 The text begins: “My people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me!23 I led you out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom, but you led your Savior to the cross. . . .”
In 1955 the Improperia were to begin as the veneration of the cross started, followed by the antiphon Crucem tuam adoramus (“We adore your cross, O Lord,” an antiphon translated from the Greek), followed by Crux fidelis (“Faithful cross”) as an antiphon for the hymn Pange, lingua, glorosi (“Sing, my tongue”). The rubrics clearly indicated that the singing was to continue for only as long as the veneration; the singing must conclude with the final stanza of the Pange, lingua, a trinitarian doxology. In other words, the only requisite piece was the initial part of the Reproaches and the concluding doxology of the final hymn—depending on the length of the veneration. Again, it is important to note that in parish celebrations it would be the choir, not the congregation, engaged in the singing, and the texts would not be understood by the majority of congregants.
The present liturgy does include the Improperia, but no portion of them need be sung. The Missal states, “During the veneration the antiphon ‘We worship you, Lord,’ the reproaches, or other suitable songs are sung.” Note that the Improperia is not the first text listed; usually in contemporary official documents the preferred choice is listed first. Merely because of the wide availability of “other suitable songs,” most parishes do not use the Reproaches. Other parishes, because of the susceptibility of anti-Semitic interpretation of the texts, have chosen to omit them. Another approach is taken by a smaller number of parishes; it is to use the Reproaches where catechesis has informed the participants that the texts are not addressed to the Jewish people, but rather to those who have gathered for this celebration. A final approach is to use modern adaptations of the texts which include not only biblical references but references to contemporary society.
The missal indicates that the veneration is of a cross, not a crucifix, i.e., there is no corpus. This practice derives from the Jerusalem celebration at the time of Egeria. Many, if not most parishes today use a large rough-hewn cross or a large gemmed cross, reminiscent of early Christian crosses.24 The Johannine account of the passion sets the tone for the celebration. Raymond Brown has characterized this gospel account as the Passion of the Victorious Christ. Thus the cross is venerated not as instrument of torture but as sign of triumph—it is the “hour” of victory in John’s passion account.
The Ordo of 1955 restored the Easter Vigil to its rightful nocturnal position. The initial blessing of the new fire was to take place outside the church and in the midst of the people, who would receive a candle for their procession into the church following the paschal candle, a rite derived from fifth-century Jerusalem. The readings were reduced from twelve to four, as found in the Gregorian sacramentary. Following the blessing of the baptismal water, the congregation renewed its baptismal profession of faith.
The Missal of 1970 delineates the structure of the vigil. “The night vigil is arranged in four parts: (a) a brief service of light; (b) the liturgy of the word, when the church meditates on all the wonderful things God has done for his people from the beginning; (c) the liturgy of baptism, when new members of the Church are reborn as the day of resurrection approaches; and (d) the liturgy of the eucharist, when the whole Church is called to the table which the Lord has prepared for his people through his death and resurrection.”
While the changes from 1955 are few, some are significant. First, the rites of blessing the fire, the procession with the paschal candle, and singing the Easter Proclamation, the Exultet, have been shortened “to allow more time for the readings.”25 There is a danger that the “brief service of light” (especially because of its dramatic elements—fire, light, candles, procession, song) may overshadow the vigil readings. Robert Taft, S. J., has suggested that readings (generally scriptural) are the heart of nocturnal vigils of any sort.26 Thus, the shortening of the light service serves a useful purpose, viz., that the assembly will have sufficient time for the proclamation of God’s word, silent meditation on that word, and psalmic response and prayer.27
Second, the readings from the Hebrew scriptures are now seven in number, of which at least two (one must be Exodus 14) must be read.28 The texts are as follows: Genesis 1–2 (creation), Genesis 22 (the sacrifice of Abraham), Exodus 14 (the passage through the Red Sea), Isaiah 54 (a vision of the New Jerusalem), Isaiah 55 (the free offer of salvation), Baruch 3 (wisdom and the commandments of life), and Ezekiel 36 (new heart and new spirit). While the choice and number of readings at the vigil has varied throughout the centuries, the earliest list, from fifth-century Jerusalem, specified twelve readings. There the selection of readings may have been influenced by the pattern of the Jewish “Poem of the Four Nights” in the Targumim—the night of creation, the night of Abraham’s sacrifice, the night of liberation from bondage, and the night of final redemption. Thomas Talley notes that the “first three [Jerusalem] readings [viz., Genesis 1:1–3:24, Genesis 22:1–18, and Exodus 12:1–24] then, thoroughly establish the Jerusalem vigil as the continuation of the Passover tradition in the New Covenant and the following readings interpret the passage to that New Covenant, a passage that was being accomplished sacramentally in the baptistry.”29 While the current list of seven readings do not form an exact parallel with the “Poem of the Four Nights,” the themes of that poem are found in the triduum liturgies. Presently, the Passover charter narrative (“third night”) of Exodus 12 is proclaimed on Holy Thursday. The required reading of the passage through the Red Sea similarly plays out the theme of liberation in a dramatic way. The Genesis account (“first night”) is a usual choice for just about every parish and the reading of the sacrifice of Abraham (“second night”) is again a very popular choice. Thus one can detect a continuity with the Passover tradition in the vigil readings.
Third, the most obvious change is a structural one. The 1955 Ordo had a service of light followed by vigil readings at the end of which baptisms were celebrated. Easter eucharist followed, beginning with introductory rites and a word liturgy, including epistle and gospel reading. The present structure moves the Pauline reading and resurrection gospel to serve as a conclusion of the vigil readings. The “unofficial” Commentary notes that now “baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 6:3–11) is thus celebrated after the joyful proclamation of [Christ’s] resurrection.”30 The older structure had the advantage of keeping vigil readings intact. It also then provided genuine mystagogical catechesis for the newly baptized, who, after their going down into the font, now heard the “mystery” announced in the Pauline reading. Further, the 1955 structure dramatically introduced the singing of the Gloria, suppressed during the Lenten season, and highlighted the paschal Alleluia, silenced since Ash Wednesday. The 1970 structure often gives the impression of being a very long mass with an almost interminable series of readings.
Fourth, a significant change in liturgical praxis can be noted. Although the Ordo of 1955 (and for that matter, the Tridentine Missal) had a provision for baptisms after the vigil readings, baptism at the Easter Vigil was rare indeed. Today, however, because of the tremendous reception of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), the Easter Vigil is usually the time for baptism of adult candidates and often a time for baptism of children and infants. The prescription, “The celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation should take place at the Easter Vigil,”31 has become a parochial norm.32 The newly baptized now stand in our assemblies as images of rebirth and resurrection and as symbols of the resurgent church.33 Since the revisions of 1955, the entire assembly stands with the neophytes in renewing their own baptismal promises—promises that epitomize the manner of living in the spirit of resurrection.
The liturgical books published in the wake of the Second Vatican Council have set the ritual structures for the paschal celebrations. In large measure the revisions have been most beneficial, yet some questions persist vis-à-vis the experience of the culmination of the liturgical year.34
In his study of Holy Week liturgy, John Martin observes:
A survey of church notice-boards will show that in Holy Week our congregations are presented with a bewildering variety of aids to their devotion—evangelistic sermons, didactic talks, devotional addresses, slides, film-strips, Passion plays, choral recitals, Compline, Stations of the Cross, to name the most common: and almost any combination of these is possible. The effect of piling the plate with these devotional tidbits instead of with the solid food of the liturgy is unfortunate. It suggests—to put it crudely—a running buffet from which the guests can pick this or that item according to their tastes, presumably with the implication that those who do not care for any of them need not eat at all.35
While Martin makes a justifiably strong case for the liturgical observance of Holy Week, the above quotation shows that a certain “Holy Week piety” has captured the religious imagination of Christians of various denominations. That this week is present in Christian consciousness as a “special week” is in part due to the fact that the week opens with a dramatic celebration of Palm Sunday, when the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem is ritually celebrated by a procession with blessed palm branches. Even though the official designation of this Sunday in the Roman Catholic church is “Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday),” the common name is Palm Sunday and it is seen as the beginning of Holy Week.36
On the other hand, the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar studiously avoids the term “Holy Week,” except in listing the table of liturgical days.37 The revision of the liturgical year delineates (a) Lent, which lasts until the Holy Thursday celebration of the Supper of the Lord exclusive, (b) the “Easter triduum of the passion and resurrection of Christ,” which lasts until evening prayer on Easter Sunday, and (c) the Easter Season. Yet—and does this show the grip of popular piety?—the “unofficial” Commentary notes that “Holy Week includes the last days of Lent and the first days of the Easter Triduum.”38 The point of this discussion is that while the official revisions of the liturgical year focus on what might be called a “liturgically correct piety”—Lent, Triduum, Easter Season—there is still another strain of popular piety which has its own conceptualizations and foci.
Kenneth Stevenson describes three distinctive pieties, “modes of religious attitudes,” that helped to shape the paschal rites.39 The first he terms “unitive,” by which the Easter mystery is approached “as a single and wholesome affair in which the faithful gather to celebrate the death and resurrection in one liturgy, through the night.”40 In discussing the sermon Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis, Thomas Talley notes that the passion is not considered distinct from Christ’s glorification, as in later developments which distinguished Good Friday and Easter. “The primitive Pascha celebrated the memorial of the death of Jesus as a total festival of our redemption in Christ, including not only his glorification but also the incarnation.”41
A second piety may be called “rememorative,” and it lies behind the trend toward “historicism”42 present from the fourth century onwards. Rememorative piety revels in the celebration of certain events in a vaguely historical fashion, often associated with symbolism.43 The veneration of a relic of the true cross is a case in point; while the cross is venerated, there is no “re-enactment” of the events that led to the crucifixion or of crucifixion itself.
The third piety, the “dramatic” or “representational,” enters “by the back door, for it is hard to determine exactly when it begins.”44 Examples abound in the medieval period, such as the Good Friday “burial” of consecrated hosts in the sepulchre, which could be a walled recess, tomb, or vaulted enclosure.45 This representational piety is the “culmination of the pictorial mind” and the result of popular piety.46
Stevenson is surely correct when he notes that these three pieties coexist today.47 It may be difficult to sort out which liturgical element is “rememorative” as distinct from “representational”; I suspect that they often overlap. Nonetheless, these categories do describe varieties of living pieties, ways in which the mystery is grasped. One would hope that these celebrations are something more than pious glimpsings of a distant past.
The liturgies of the triduum ought to be “more than a series of commemorations of past events recalled to mind”; rather, they should be the “means whereby the worshipers participate in the saving events.” They are not a “number of ceremonies at which the faithful are present, but a unified sequence of sacramental acts whereby they commit themselves afresh to Christ and share anew in His death and resurrection.”48
The Christian Pascha, no matter by which piety it is approached, is not just the commemoration of successive historical events. “It is truly and essentially a movement, a passage, a spiritual dynamism, because it is the liturgical celebration of that saving act whereby the Lord Jesus Christ, passing from this world to the Father, dying in order to rise again and to give life to [all] by his death, enables the Church to pass with him into the kingdom of everlasting life.”49
What can assist this assembly in its dying and rising with Jesus, in its passage into God’s reign? The current rubrics permit, and even encourage, preaching during the rites of the triduum. While some adopt the position that the liturgies on these days “preach for themselves,” I believe that brief homilies can assist the assembly to enter into the mystery being celebrated, if they attend to a critical principle. One of the necessary conditions for effective preaching, according to Hans van der Geest, is that the sermon contain what he terms a “dimension of deliverance.”50 If I translate his notion of “deliverance” into Lutheran language, his dictum becomes “Effective sermons preach both the ‘law’ and ‘gospel.’” Translated into Roman Catholic language, it becomes “Effective homilies preach both the cross and the resurrection.” Van der Geest’s principle—arrived at after an empirical study of some two hundred Roman Catholic and Protestant services—is that effective preaching is a “both/and” enterprise—a naming of sin and a naming, with equal vigor, of grace.
What effective preaching can do is help “present-ize” or “event-ualize” the mystery. An example may clarify the point. One (ineffective) Good Friday sermon began with the preacher shouting “God died!” There followed a vivid, even dramatic presentation of the agony on Calvary, but the event was presented as “long ago and far away.” It may have stirred compunction; it may have inspired repentance, but it left the hearers distanced in time and space from the mystery. By way of contrast, another Good Friday sermon given by a venerable and aged priest began: “If you think the passion of Jesus has ended, you have not walked the boundaries of our parish.” This sermon glimpsed not the historical Jesus but the Jesus incarnate, dying and rising, among the people of the world.
Lawrence A. Hoffman presents a helpful grid to explore the question of the meanings of a liturgical act. “First, rituals convey private meaning, which is to say whatever idiosyncratic interpretations people find in things.” Second, rituals communicate “official meanings, the things the experts say that a rite means.” Third, “[r]ites also convey what I call public meanings. These are agreed-upon meanings shared by a number of ritual participants, even though they are not officially preached by the experts.”51
“Ritual thus has at least three kinds of meaning: private, official, and public. In addition, however, there is yet a fourth level in which ritual means something. Ritual manufactures what we can call normative meaning, a structure of signification that ritual affixes upon the non-ritualized world that the ritual participants re-enter when the rite has concluded.”52 Ronald Grimes terms this fourth level “paradigmatic” and defines it as the capacity of ritual “to form values and guide activities outside the context of the rite itself.”53
It is this fourth level of meaning—the normative or paradigmatic—that is crucial, especially during the pinnacle celebration of the triduum. Through whatever lens of piety the liturgy is viewed, despite whatever types of meaning are assigned to the prayers, songs, gestures, posture, and rites of the triduum, these liturgical actions de facto produce a “structure of signification” that affects the time after the celebration. Another way of saying this is that rituals have a transformative power; individuals and communities are changed by ritual praxis. As Nathan Mitchell has observed, “the goal of ritual is not to produce a meaning, but to produce an outcome—a person redefined by grace as God’s own welcoming heart and hand.”54 The rites of the triduum, like all rituals, are not so much ways of thinking or speaking, as “technologies,” i.e., embodied skills that redefine the users. For instance, “We become hospitable . . . not by analyzing hospitality, but by greeting guests, offering them the kiss of peace, washing their feet, serving them food, adoring Christ’s presence in them,” as chapter 53 of the Rule of Benedict mentions.55
The crucial issue for the triduum liturgies is not so much to analyze pieties or meanings, as to celebrate the rites in such a way that the participants can genuinely engage in the various rituals. It is through the ritual engagements of the triduum—assembling together, singing together, washing feet, trudging to the cross, bending in adoration, bathing in a blessed bath, anointing with fragrant oil, shouting acclamations together, listening to God’s word, sharing a holy food and drink—that we appropriate the paschal mystery, that we die with Christ Jesus and rise to new life. But this new life is given not for the individual, but to individuals for the sake of God’s reign, or as Alexander Schmemann phrased it, “for the life of the world.”
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza puts it this way: “The gospel is not a matter of the individual soul; it is the communal proclamation of the life-giving power of Spirit-Sophia and of God’s vision of an alternative community and world. The experience of the Spirit’s creative power releases us from the life-destroying power of sin and set us free to choose an alternative life for ourselves and for each other. . . . Christian spirituality means eating together, sharing together, drinking together, talking with each other, receiving each other, experiencing God’s presence through each other, and, in doing so, proclaiming the gospel as God’s alternative vision for everyone, especially for those who are poor, outcast and battered.”56 This ought to be the outcome of the triduum well-celebrated.
1. Beaudoin addressed the liturgical congress at Malines, Belgium, on liturgical piety, indicating three interrelated concerns: liturgical praxis (revitalizing and renewing worship), liturgical catechesis (formation for liturgical participation), and liturgical theology (reflection on theological underpinnings of worship). See his Liturgy: The Life of the Church (1914).
2. For a more detailed account, see Virgil C. Funk, “The Liturgical Movement (1830–1969),” in Peter Fink, S.J., ed., The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship (Collegeville, 1990), pp. 695–715.
3. John M. Huels, O.S.M., “Participation by the Faithful in the Liturgy 1903–1962,” Jurist 48 (1988): 617. See also Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948–1975, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, 1990), p. 6. I am relying on Huels’s careful study for the details of canonic reform.
4. Aimé Georges Martimort et al., eds., The Church at Prayer, vol. 4, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, 1986), p. 40.
5. Frederick R. McManus, The Ceremonies of the Easter Vigil (Paterson, N.J., 1953; with supplement, 1957), p. vii. Quoted in Huels, “Participation,” p. 623.
6. Huels, “Participation,” p. 623.
7. Dominicae Resurrectionis Vigiliam, further explicated on January 12, 1952; for texts, see AAS 43 (1951): 128–37.
8. Huels, “Participation,” p. 623. See AAS 43 (1951): 128.
9. McManus, Ceremonies, p. viii. Quoted in Huels, “Participation,” p. 624.
10. AAS 44 (1952): 48.
11. Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae Instauratus (Rome: Desclée & Socii, S. Dedis Apostolicae et S. Rituum Congregationis Typographi, 1956).
12. Ordo, nos. 7–9.
13. Frederick R. McManus, The Rites of Holy Week (Paterson, N.J., 1956,2d ed., 1957), pp. vi-vii. Quoted in Huels, “Participation,” p. 626. Since the liturgies were still in Latin, one chapter was designed to be used by a commentator at the liturgies to help all participate fully.
14. For biblical, liturgical, and historical information on the paschal triduum, see Adrian Nocent, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, vol. 3, The Easter Season, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, 1977), pp. 1–145. A shorter account of liturgical history can be found in Martimort, Church at Prayer, vol. 4, pp. 31–76. The “classic work” on Holy Week is H. Schmidt, Hebdomada Sancta, 2 vols. (Rome, 1956–1957).
15. Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy, p. 305. Pages 306–336 treat the work of the committee whose first meeting was held in January 1965.
16. Missale Romanum ex decreto Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum auctoritate Pauli Pp. VI promulgatum (Vatican Polyglot Press, 1970). The missal was reprinted in 1972 and went into a second edition in 1975. See Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy, pp. 337–406, for an account of the work of the commission as well as the personal interventions of Pope Paul VI in shaping the Order of Mass.
17. For a detailed, yet compact description of the current triduum rites, see John F. Baldovin, S. J., “Liturgies of Holy Week,” in Fink, New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, pp. 543–52. J. D. Crichton, The Liturgy of Holy Week (Dublin, 1983), presents the current rites in detail with some historical background.
18. For a discussion of footwashing, see Pier Franco Beatrice, La lavanda dei piedi: Contributo alla storia della antiche liturgie cristiane, Bibliotheca Ephemerides Liturgicae “Subsidia” 28 (Rome, 1983); P-M Gy, “Les origines liturgiques du lavement des pieds,” La Maison-Dieu 49 (1957): 50–53; T. Schaefer, Die Fusswasching im monastischen Baauchtum un in der lateinischen Liturgie (Beuron, 1956). For information on the interpretation of the Johannine passage, see Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (xiii-xxi), The Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.J., 1970), pp. 548–80; Martin F. Connell, ”Nisi Pedes, Except for the Feet: Footwashing in the Community of John’s Gospel,” Worship 70 (November 1996): 517–31. It is interesting to note that even in the “free church” tradition, footwashing rites can be found; for instance, the Church of the Brethren celebrates “The Love Feast” once or twice annually, the first part of which is a footwashing service.
19. The “stations” are carvings of pictures of fourteen scenes depicting events in the last journey of Christ from Pilate’s house to entombment. The service consists of meditations on each of the events as well as songs and prayers. Probably originating from Jerusalem pilgrims who traversed the route from Pilate’s house to Calvary, it was popularized in the medieval period by the Franciscans. A hymn of unknown date, the Stabat Mater Dolorosa, descriptive of the sorrows of Mary at the cross, was the usual hymn sung. Suggested authors are Innocent III (d. 1216), Bonaventure (d. 1274), and Jacopone da Todi (d. 1306). Its popularity is attested to by the number of vernacular translations as well as musical settings.
20. Instituted by the Jesuits on the occasion of an earthquake in Lima in 1687, the Three Hours’ Service, celebrated from noon till three o’clock, enjoyed popularity in the Anglican as well as Roman Catholic Church.
21. For remarks on anti-Semitism in the Johannine Passion, see Joanne Pierce, “Holy Week in the Middle Ages,” in this volume.
22. The text can be found in the Missal of St. Denis and Senlis, dating from 880; it appears in the Romano-Germanic Pontifical of 950 and the Pontifical of Durandus of 1293. The text is loosely based on phrases from the apocryphal book 2 Esdras 1, 2, passim. Whether the text is originally of French provenance is disputed; Anton Baumstark, in his Comparative Liturgy, suggests the possibility of borrowing from the poetry of Eastern offices. Louis Bouyer suggests a Syriac origin in Le mystère pascal (Paris, 1947), p. 339. Cf. L Brou, “Les improperes du vendredi saint,” Revue Gregorien 20 (1935): 161–79; J. Drumbl, “Die Improperien in der lateinischen liturgie,” Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 15 (1973): 68–100.
23. This “refrain” seems to have been a later addition to the original text.
24. See Pierre Jounel, “Le culte de la croix dan la liturgie romaine,” La Maison-Dieu 75 (1963): 68–91; Patrick Regan, “The Veneration of the Cross,” Worship 52 (1978): 2–13.
25. Commentary on the Norms for the Liturgical Year, p. 19.
26. Robert F. Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today (Collegeville, 1986), pp. 165–90.
27. For a brief discussion of contemporary vigil services, see John Allyn Melloh, “When All the Morning Stars Sang,” Assembly 22, no. 4 (September 1996): 728–29.
28. While the Commentary on the Norms for the Liturgical Year indicates that the light service was shortened to allow more time for the readings, now only two of the “vigil” readings from the Hebrew scriptures are required; this prescription, I believe, is the result of joining the required “mass” readings to the original vigil readings.
29. Thomas J. Talley, Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York, 1986), p. 50. See pp. 52–53 for a note on the muting of continuity with Jewish institutions at the Church of Rome during the Gregorian reform.
30. Commentary on the Norms for the Liturgical Year, p. 19.
31. RCIA, no. 23.
32. Cf. Paul F. Bradshaw, “ ‘Diem baptismo sollemniorem’: Initiation and Easter in Christian Antiquity,” in Maxwell E. Johnson, ed., Living Water, Sealing Spirit: Readings on Christian Initiation (Collegeville, 1995), pp. 137–47, for a discussion of whether baptism at Easter in the third century was a widespread phenomenon.
33. John the Deacon writes to Senarius in response to some question, c. 500 C.E.: “All the neophytes are arrayed in white vesture to symbolize the resurgent church. . . .” See E. C. Whitaker, ed., Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy (London, 1970), p. 157.
34. For a critique of the Easter Vigil from a feminist perspective, see Ann Patrick Ware, “The Easter Vigil: A Theological and Liturgical Critique,” in Marjorie Proctor-Smith and Janet R. Walton, eds., Women at Worship: Interpretations of North American Diversity (Louisville, 1993), pp. 84–106.
35. John T. Martin, Christ Our Passover: The Liturgical Observance of Holy Week (London, 1958), p. 10.
36. The procession with palms derives from fourth-century Jerusalem practice. The Roman liturgy was a celebration of the passion; it later added the procession with palms.
37. General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, p. 14.
38. Commentary on the Norms for the Liturgical Year, p. 22. Emphasis mine.
39. Kenneth Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited: The Liturgical Meaning of Holy Week (Washington, D.C., 1988), pp. 9 ff.
40. Ibid., p. 9.
41. Talley, Origins, p. 12. See also Christine Mohrmann, “Pascha, Passio, Transitus,” Ephemerides liturgicae (1952): 37–52.
42. See Robert F. Taft, “Historicism Revisited,” in Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding (Washington, D.C., 1984), pp. 15–30.
43. Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, p. 9.
44. Ibid., p. 10.
45. J. Gordon Davies, Holy Week: A Short History (Richmond, Va., 1963), p. 52; See H. P. Feasey, “The Easter Sepulchre,” Ecclesiastical Review 32 (1905): 468–99.
46. Stevenson, Jerusalem Revisited, p. 11.
47. Ibid., p. 11. I would disagree, however, with his summary generalizations on that same page.
48. Davies, Holy Week, p. 65.
49. J. Gaillard, “Le mystère pascal dans le renouveau liturgique,” Maison-Dieu 61 (1961): 42. Quoted in Davies, Holy Week, p. 66.
50. Hans van der Geest, Presence in the Pulpit: The Impact of Personality in Preaching, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Atlanta, 1981), pp. 29, 69–111.
51. Lawrence A. Hoffman, “How Ritual Means: Ritual Circumcision in Rabbinic Culture and Today,” Studia Liturgica 23 (1993): 80–81.
52. Ibid., p. 82.
53. Ronald Grimes, Ritual Criticism (Columbia, S.C., 1990), p. 44. Quoted in Hoffman, “How Ritual Means,” p. 82.
54. Nathan Mitchell, “The Amen Corner,” Worship 71 (January, 1997): 71.
55. Ibid.
56. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York, 1983), pp. 344–45.