Veneranda Antiquitas: Dom Mabillon on the Use and Abuse of History

In the second volume of his Musei Italici, the Maurist monk and scholar Dom Jean Mabillon (1632-1707) presented the first critical edition and study of the Ordines Romani, a loose collection of ceremonial documents spanning many centuries that represent early Roman and Franco-Roman liturgical practice.

The 17^th century absorbed a swelling tide of new documentation and filtered it with the increasing rigor of new disciplines and erudite philological methods, thanks in large part to Mabillon’s own Maurist Congregation. These documents shed new light on the historical development of the western liturgy, and prompted questions about how to reconcile contemporary practices with the historical witness.

As the first editor of the Ordines Romani, Mabillon occupied a privileged vantage point from which to survey the broad streams of the Roman rite’s historical development. In his final reflections before presenting the ordines, Mabillon asks the question of his generation—perhaps the quintessential question of the modern, “historically-conscious” world—what to do with all this history?

His brief comments here furnish us key principles for thinking about the questions of continuity and reform in the Church.

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Musei Italici, v. 2, cxl1 – xlxvi (Paris, 1724)

21. Whether older liturgical rites should always be preferred to newer ones? Whether all should be restored to one form?

There are three things to consider in sacred rites: antiquity (antiquitas), uniformity (uniformitas), and constancy (constantia). Our sacred rites are almost as ancient as our religion itself, but equally ancient is their diversity across the various churches. As Firmilianus said in his letter to Cyprian: “There are many things that vary according to the diversity of places and people, but this in no way harms the peace and unity of the Catholic Church.” Diversity was present from the beginning among the Romans, not only “about the dating of Easter, but about many other divine sacraments (divinae rei sacramenta).” Firmilianus states somewhere: “the way things are done in that place is not identical to what is done in Jerusalem.” See also Socrates in book 5, chap xxii, where he says that no religious sect observed the same ceremonies, even those that held the same beliefs about God.

Diversity of rites arises from the variety of peoples’ customs, since not everyone likes to do things in the same way or is able to get accustomed to the same habits; and also from the various founders of churches who, in matters that were themselves indifferent, laid down rules this way or that to fit the variety of places and times (pro temporum ac locorum varietate constituerunt). Therefore, it seems to me that those who try to reduce all to one and the same manner want to force all peoples to conform strictly to the same exact customs habits; nor do they do justice to the churches’ first founders, since they would so easily subvert what they established or permitted. Moreover such changes are almost never attempted without harm to the peace of the Church. This could be proven by examples, if it weren’t already obvious to everyone.

So we must live with diversity of rites chiefly for the good of peace, but also for the sake of the Church, which is made beautiful by this variety. For the Church is that much sweeter to the taste because of this variety in modes of worship. Masters of Ceremonies should take especial note of this. Many of them never rest until they have forced even the most unwilling to conform to their rites!

Those who think that ancient rites should always be preferred to new ones, or vice versa that new ones should always be preferred to old ones, face another difficulty: Neither one is pleasing without tasteful discretion (Neutrum sine delectu placet). Wherever the ancient rites hold sway, let them be preserved untouched (constanter retinendi); where new have prevailed over the old, let the old be held in high esteem, and the new not rejected. For once something has come into use and been established, it can scarcely be changed without causing a disturbance. In any case, just as the changing conditions of certain places led to a variety in rites, so diversity of times in the same places has led to the same rites being changed.

What is to be praised, therefore, in such matters, is constancy (constantia), as long as the peace and concord of the Church are preserved, and Christian charity, to which all rites must yield and render tribute (cui omnes ritus cedere ac suffragari necesse est). But if it is possible to maintain antiquity while preserving peace and charity, then no one in their right mind would say that the new is to be preferred.

In recent times, it is astonishing to see how casually the writers of new liturgical books undo sacred rites of such venerable antiquity, while knowing nothing at all about the practices themselves, much less the reasons and meaning of these practices. For, seeing what is done in their own time and assuming that everything has been done in the same way in all previous centuries, they invent likely reasons for a received novelty, reasons that are not infrequently at odds entirely with the minds of the ancients.

Here it is well to point out several examples that demonstrate our point.

1) Formerly in the Roman Church the custom was to present the pope with the sacra—i.e., the Eucharist—as he made his way to the altar, and for the sacra to be kept there until the communion, when a particle of this previously-consecrated Eucharist was added to the chalice. Then, out of the latest offering of the sacrifice, a particle was reserved “and remained on the altar until the end of the Mass,” according to Amalar in Book 3, ch. 35. According to the Ordo Romanus I, this was done “so that during the whole time the Mass is being offered, the altar be not without the sacrifice.” Thus there was never a time in the Mass when the Eucharist was not on the altar, either the viaticum on the altar itself, or a particle reserved in the sacristy.

Leo X introduced an opposite rite. Writing at the time, Paris de Crassis, the Master of Ceremonies, asks “why the sacrament of the Body of Christ, which by common custom is reserved in churches, must first be removed before a Mass is held there?”

Our ancestors, he responds, did so not because they were averse to the presence of the saving host, but because otherwise the Mass ceremonies could not be fittingly and correctly carried out, since in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament the celebrating pope or bishops could not sit or wear the mitre or receive incensation before the Sacrament, and especially because they themselves would have to incense it and not the deacon, who usually incenses. Moreover, whenever the celebrating prelate incenses, he has first to kneel before the Sacrament before incensing the altar cross and oblations and the altar. Finally, it seems unreasonable that the Sacrament should be confected again in a chapel or oratory where the Sacrament is already being adored, lest there be doubt about which of the two Sacraments ought to be adored.

But in former times it was enough to adore the Sancta once, whether the Eucharist was carried first to the altar as in the first Ordo Romanus, or kept on the altar itself, as in the second. Indeed the holy Fathers were convinced that any sacred ceremony, devoutly performed, not only did not harm the Eucharist, but greatly honored God. Nor was there any doubt for them which consecrated species should be adored, since the present sacrifice is all that concerned them. And there is not need to scruple over the adoration of one species or another, since the object is the same.

2) [The Direction of Reading …]

3) It would take us too long to go through each and every respect in which modern rites differ from the ancient, but we refer to a few here for the reader’s interest. The priest once sang the angelic hymn turned toward the people, unlike the final greeting before the Postcommunion, which he sang turned toward the altar, according to OR I. He did not begin the Canon before the end of the Trisagion, clearly so that the clergy and people could stand in awe-filled silence as the priest recited the Canon in a low voice. The Communion antiphon was not sung, as now in many churches, after the communion itself, but during the communion along with its psalm [….]. The priest did not recite the parts sung by the choir or recited by other ministers, but occupied himself in meditation or the doing of some other rites. [….]

We are not advocating for the restoration of these ancient rites, as if by our private authority, nor do we intend to cast contempt on more recent ones—far be it from us!—but to encourage those in charge of church offices to consider the ancient precedent—more venerable the closer it be to the source—and warn them not to bring out all of these vulgar and insipid excuses, as if they thought that our forefathers were utter fools for sanctioning any ritual that differs from their ideal. On the contrary, if sacred rites are to be reformed, let it be according to the mind of the ancients (veterum ratio habeatur), and let us strive to be as little removed from them as possible.

The churches of Cambrai and Arras cleaved to this principle in the restoration of their sacred rites. [….] The reformers of this Ordo state that their intention was to set in order “whatever seemed to differ from right judgment (a statu rectitudinis deviando) or from the Roman ordo, but not in such as away as to institute a new ordo (novus ordo), lest any room be given for objection that the most holy Roman ordo was in any way violated.”