Dr. Fortescue is not wanting in criticism of the ceremonies which now accompany the Canon. He doubts the value of the Secret recitation of that Prayer. He tells us that an inaudible Canon is not primitive. Indeed the practice of saying aloud the eucharistic and baptismal prayer was warmly commended by Justinian who gives excellent reasons from Scripture for the practice.1

All the Canon (except its ekphonesis at the end) is said silently. This is already in Ordo Rom. II. It has been so ever since. It is difficult to say when that custom began or what was its original reason. Undoubtedly during the first three centuries the people heard the consecration-prayer. The fact that the old Roman offertory-prayers are called Secrets because they are not heard shows that there was a time when this was the special note of them alone.' 2

Examining the reason given that it is done to shield the sacred text from the vulgar, Dr. Fortescue remarks that ' it is not easy to see why a silent prayer should be more reverent than one heard, the vulgar are already supposed to be excluded, the faithful who will receive Communion are surely not unworthy to hear the consecration, though they do not join in the priestly prayer. . . . Once more, a man who could receive Communion could hear any prayer.'

Genuflexions during the Recital of the Institution did not definitely make their appearance in the Roman Missal until the Reform of Pius V in 1570. The absence of such genuflexions in no way signified a want of belief in the Real Presence before 1570. In the same way, marks of respect were often wanting to the Reserved Sacrament. Middle Ages, says Mr. Edmund Bishop,

In the

'the Blessed Sacrament reserved was commonly treated with a kind of indifference which at present would be considered to be of the nature of "irreverence," I will not say indignity. But the question of " reverence" or "irreverence" in these matters is one much more difficult to handle than some who deal with it with confident touch at all recognize; little realizing how entirely subjective are their appreciations, and how much the 1 Justinian, Novell. 137 § 6. Fortescue, op. cit. p. 325.

ideas even of persons external to the Roman Communion are really determined by practices and usages that are purely postTridentine or at most can be traced back to a type of devotionalism developed in Germany in the century, or almost the decades, immediately preceding the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation.'1

As to the elevation during the Recital of the Institution Dr. Fortescue has a word of warning.

'It is true that this mediaeval ceremony of the elevation has tended to become a new centre of gravity for the Mass. It is possible to exaggerate its importance. A rite unknown till the XIIth century cannot be of first importance in any liturgy. We must teach our people that the essence of the Mass is not the elevation, but consecration and communion.' 2

Note the importance given to communion. So to Dom Fernand Cabrol, Offertory, Consecration, Communion, are the three chief parts of the Mass.3

Nor does Dr. Fortescue like the abundance of shrill ringings with the little bell during mass.

'These two ringings (at the Sanctus and elevation) are the only ones demanded by the rubrics. An indefinite number of others have grown up, especially in France, where they love the bell. So you may hear it as the celebrant makes the sign of the cross at the beginning, at the offertory, at the "Hanc igitur," at " omnis honor et gloria," at "Domine non sum dignus." There is no authority for any of these; nor does a perpetual tinkling add to the dignity of Mass. Moreover at High Mass no bell at all is required, though its use is tolerated. The singing and obvious ceremonies make the order of the service quite plain without the bell. At Rome itself there is no bell at High Mass.' 4

Dr. Fortescue adds in a note that the practice of ringing a bell as a warning for the people to come up to the communion-rails

1 Edmund Bishop, History of the Christian Altar, p. 12. (Reprinted from The Downside Review, July 1905.)

• Fortescue, op. cit. p. 345.

F. Cabrol, Origines liturgiques, Paris, 1906, p. 365. • Fortescue, op. cit. p. 343.

is commonly justified as necessary so that people may know when to come for Holy Communion. But we could conceivably instruct our people sufficiently that they could follow the Mass without that. When we hear Confessions we do not ring a bell before giving absolution.'

Speaking of the practice of saying the Secret collect (Secreta) after the Offertory in a low voice so as not to be heard by the people, Dr. Fortescue warns us that

'As soon as a liturgy begins to have two simultaneous actions or sets of prayers, one by the celebrant in silence at the altar and at the same time another by the deacon or choir aloud in the body of the church, there is the danger of dislocation, that one of the two actions may go ahead and outstrip the other, to the destruction of all concord.''

We suffer from such practices as these in the Church of England to-day, introduced especially at the Offertory with a view it is said of 'saving time.' The choir sings a hymn when the alms are being collected, while the priest, in defiance of the rubric, places the bread and wine upon the Holy Table, the attention of the faithful being distracted by three different actions. A similar practice in the Church of Rome, that of singing Benedictus qui venit after the Consecration, seems now frowned upon by the Roman authorities.

'The practice of waiting till after the Consecration and then singing "Benedictus qui venit," etc.-once common-is not tolerated by the Vatican Gradual.' 2

:

We are here tempted by Dr. Fortescue to leave the text of the Canon itself and speak of some of the practices in the Missal which lend themselves to criticism.

A strange piece of obscurantism persists in the Roman Rite at the blessing of the incense, in the obstinate retention of the name of Michael instead of Gabriel.

The blessing of the incense has a curious allusion to St. Michael "Stans a dextris altaris incensi." It seems obviously 2 Ib. p. 323.

1 Fortescue, op. cit. p. 313.

to refer to Luke i. 11-19 [" an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense," and at v. 19, " I am Gabriel "] where the angel is St. Gabriel. A great many mediaeval missals have Gabriel here; it is at least probable that the name has been changed by mistake.' 1

Dr. Fortescue tells us in a note that people have approached the Congregation of Rites to have Gabriel substituted for Michael, but in vain (S.C.R. 25 Sept. 1705).'

An appeal to antiquity does not encourage the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist. It is only a presumed following of our Blessed Lord at the Last Supper.

For many centuries the Roman Church has used Azyme (unleavened bread) at Mass.'

Although the Roman custom has the best authority possible, since (supposing that the last supper was the Passover supper) our Lord certainly used azyme, it does not seem that it comes from the first age. Rather it appears that at Rome too leavened bread was used originally. Azyme was a later thought, to reproduce more exactly what our Lord did.' 2

Unless there was a principle of using azyme, certainly ordinary bread would have been taken. There seems no doubt that it was so. In the first place there are no texts at all really in favour of azyme. All the earlier writers, in West and East, speak of the bread as the ordinary kind, which, then as now, was leavened.' 8

If another opportunity and the requisite space offered themselves it would not be a hard matter to point out misdevelopments, or some might use a harsher expression, in the Roman liturgy since the early Middle Ages. Mr. Edmund Bishop thinks the multiplication of octaves in the Kalendar a distinct misfortune, and that the introduction of the hard rules of the Pie 4 is not to be looked

1 Fortescue, op. cit. p. 309.

2 Ib. p. 300.

s Ib.

P. 301.

• Gasquet and Bishop, The Bosworth Psalter, p. 72 note (London:

G. Bell, 1908).

upon as a real advantage. Some of us may know the severe criticism passed upon Pius the Tenth's new distribution of the Psalter, the Psalter being the very backbone of the Breviary, and yet the ancient distribution was destroyed; without, as it appeared to the critics, sufficient reason being shewn for so fundamental and far-reaching a change.

The burial service in the Rituale can hardly be called a burial service at all. It is rather a collection of most excellent prayers to be said by the bedside of a dying man as the soul is departing beautiful when used as first intended, but out of place when death has taken place. Again, the Offertory Anthem in the Mass of Requiem contains a prayer that the souls of the faithful may be delivered from the pains of hell. Is this appropriate when the state of the soul is already determined for good or ill? Once it was apparently used by the bedside of the dying; there most suitable, but unfortunately transferred to a mass that may be said hours, days, months, or years after the fate of the soul has been determined for all eternity.

Dies Irae is a magnificent piece of poetry as a description of the day of judgement. But what place has it in a Requiem Mass ? Except the last two verses, there is hardly any petition for the faithful departed. It was not wise in 1570 to leave it in the Requiem Mass; a better place would have been among the Sundays in Advent.

The practice of burying priests and bishops with their feet to the west is now known to have been a revival during the Renaissance of the Pagan practice of laying out the corpse with the feet to the door. This has been well shewn by Mr. W. H. James Weale, the Roman Catholic author of a very useful Catalogue of Western Missals, in one of the numbers of his periodical which borrowed the name of the old Cambridge journal1 that had been discontinued for many years: and he is pleased to note that in many dioceses on the Continent where the Roman Rituale has not been introduced, the old practice of burying

1 Ecclesiologist, edited by W. H. James Weale, 1888, No. 3, p. 47.