EPISTLE
(Taken from Notes Made at the Conferences of Dom Prosper Guéranger)
After the Collect, and the other Prayers, which are frequently added under the name of Commemorations, there follows the Epistle, which is, almost always, taken from the Epistles of one or other of the Apostles, although, occasionally, from some other Book of the holy Scriptures. The custom of reading only one Epistle in the Mass, is not of the number of those which were in use in the primitive Church; yet it dates back at least a thousand years. In the Early Ages, there was read first a Lesson from the Old Testament; after which, followed some passage selected from the Apostolic Writings. At present, it is the Epistle alone that is read, excepting on Ember Days and certain Ferias. The practice of reading Lessons from the Old Testament during Mass, ceased when the Missal was drawn up in its present form, and which contains the whole of what is said at Mass, both by the Priest and by the Choir; and, on that account, is called a Full Missal. An Ancient Missal, called a Sacramentary, contained nothing, as we have already stated, beyond the Prayers, the Prefaces, and the Canon. All the rest was to be looked for in the Antiphonary, the Bible, and the Evangeliarium. We have been losers by the change; for each Mass had its proper Preface; whereas, now, the number of these liturgical compositions is reduced to a minimum. The same method was observed in the Divine Office, since, in those times, there were no Breviaries; and each Choir had to be supplied with a Psaltery, Hymnary, Bible, Passional, which related the Acts of the Saints, and a Homily-Book, which contained the Sermons of the Holy Fathers.
For a long period after that, the first Sunday of Advent retained its privilege of having two Epistles in the Mass. At last, it, also, was to have but one. The Office of this Sunday was, however, treated with a special consideration, and has retained, more faithfully than most others, the ancient usages. Thus, though a semidouble, the Suffrages are not to be said upon it; nor, indeed, during the whole period up to the Epiphany. The Suffrages do not date beyond the 11th century; previously there were none. Thus everything in the holy Sacrifice proceeds with order: the Priest has, first of all, expressed the desires and petitions of the assembled Faithful, holy Church has spoken through him. We shall soon be hearing the words of our divine Master, in the Gospel; but we are to be prepared for that, by the word of his servant; this was done in the Epistle. So that, we first have the Prophet, then the Apostle, and, at length, our Lord Himself.
[Note: The "suffrages" that Dom Gueranger mentions were special prayers to the Virgin Mary, Ss. Peter and Paul, the local patron saint, and a special prayer for peace, done at the end of Lauds and Vespers in the older form of the divine office. They were sadly reduced with the breviary reform of Pius X and eliminated altogether with the reform of John XXIII. The term "semidouble" referred to an older system of ranking feasts, also abolished by John XXIII.]
| GRADUAL
Between the Epistle and the Gospel, we have the Gradual. It consists of a Responsory and its Versicle. Formerly, the whole Responsory was repeated both before and after the Versicle, in the way now used with the Brief Responsories; only, the Responsory was exceedingly rich in notes. The Gradual is really the most musical piece in the whole Liturgy; and, as the rendering of it requires great skill, there were never more than two chanters permitted to sing it. When about to sing it, they went to the Ambo, which was a sort of marble pulpit, placed in the church; and it was on account of the steps, which led to the Ambo, that this portion of the chant got the name of Gradual; just as the Gradual Psalms were those which the Jews used to sing whilst ascending the steps of the Temple. [Note: the word gradus in Latin means "step"] |
|