On the Threshold
Watts, Henry C.
154 THE COMMONWEAL December i6» 1925 ON THE THRESHOLD By HENRY C WATTS T N the cathedral chapters and the chapter houses of •*- the monastic orders, both of the continent and in England,...
...The brethren march out in their order from choir, and take their places in the chapter house...
...The reader for the week goes to the great lecturn in the centre of the chapter, and recites the daily portion on the peculiar intonation prescribed...
...the professed going to their panelled stalls, and the novices, after the custom of novices, taking their places humbly on the floor...
...It is not a far cry from 0 Sapientia to Christmas...
...This sense of expectation continues unchanged through Advent until December 17, when a most marvelous development takes place, and the great "O" antiphons begin, to continue until December 23...
...Christmas is, indeed, even yet twenty-four hours off...
...Over his ordinary choir vestment the reader wears a rich cope, and the acolytes with the tapers and incense attend him as at High Mass...
...No translation can do justice to, or represent adequately the resonance and richness of the e£cle$ias« tical Latin of these seven great antiphons, of which the first is O Sapientia...
...There is at once a quickening and a pulsation in the liturgy...
...Instead of sitting during the recital of the martyrology, as on all other days of the year, the clerics or the monastics remain standing in their chapter, as the reader begins to declaim this amazingly rich record...
...though it is publicly carried out with full ceremony at Westminster Cathedral and elsewhere...
...For perfection of artistic arrangement it would be difficult to find, in the entire annals of art, anything approaching the beauty shown in the liturgical gradation of the offices between Advent Sunday and the Mass, In Die Nativitatis Domini, of Christmas Day...
...for these great antiphons, even on ferial days, are sung in their entirety before the Magnificat, as well as after, while the Magnificat itself is sung throughout with the festival intonation at each of its verses...
...Then he proceeds as follows— "In the year 5199 from the creation of the world, when in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...
...But on Christmas Eve this recitation is invested with the greatest ceremony...
...for it was the custom of the prior and monks of Durham to gather around the fire of their calefactorium on the night of O Sapientia for conversation, and to enjoy an allowance of figs and nuts...
...There is a pause in the recital, as all kneel down to honor in anticipation...
...But what amazing skill and artistry that on the threshold can fling back the veils of time, and command the story of the world that it shall furnish a guard of honor to approach the great event of Bethlehem...
...in the one thousand and thirty-second year after the anointing of David the King...
...In itself the martyrology is always interesting...
...in the sixty-fifth week according to Daniel, the prophet...
...for it is a reminder of the days when there were no printed books and certainly no calendars, and the clerics had to carry in their minds what festival was being celebrated on the following day...
...in the one hundredth and ninety-fourth Olympiad...
...One of the most striking features of this change is the introduction of the Advent hymn, Conditor alme siderum, with its plaintive melody in the fourth mode...
...So the martyrology is always a day ahead, and what is read out on Christmas Eve, is actually the portion for Christmas Day...
...First of all there is that entire change that is brought about by the beginning of the liturgical year on Advent Sunday, with its complete change of office and the accompaniments of divine worship...
...The reader then raises his voice, and in a loud tone proclaims the tidings— "The Nativity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to the Flesh...
...In recent years there has been a revival of secular pageantry...
...but nothing has ever yet been devised with the boldness, the magnificence and grandeur of this recital, which flings out the whole story of the world's history as though it were a scroll unrolled...
...The monks of old evidently felt thiv...
...154 THE COMMONWEAL December i6» 1925 ON THE THRESHOLD By HENRY C WATTS T N the cathedral chapters and the chapter houses of •*- the monastic orders, both of the continent and in England, there takes place on Christmas Eve one of the most richly symbolic incidents of the whole dazzling pageantry of the Catholic liturgy...
...A ripple of excitement seems to pass through the liturgy, culminating in a climax of expectancy and anticipation at the solemn chanting of the martyrology on Christmas Eve...
...in the seven hundred and fifty-second year of the building of the city of Rome...
...in the fifteen hundred and tenth year after Moses and the people of Israel passed out from the land of Egypt...
...in the forty-second year of the empire of Octavianus Augustus, the whole world then being ordered in true peace, then being the sixth age of the world, Jesus Christ, Eternal God, being also the Son of the Eternal Father, having deigned to save the world by His most blissful Advent was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and the nine months of His Conception being accomplished, was born of Mary the Virgin in Bethlehem of Judah and was made Man...
...Very little of ceremony attends the reciting of the martyrology ordinarily...
...But O Sapientia marks a definite stage in the approach to Christmas...
...This is the solemn chanting of the martyrology for Christmas Day, which occurs near the end of the office of Prime...
...As a capitular ceremony it is one that few lay people are able to be present at...
...in the two thousand and fifteenth year after the birth of Abraham...
...a mode which refuses any stamp of finality and leaves on the mind a definite yet indefinable impression of waiting...
...First of all, he tells the day of the month and the age of the moon— "The eighth day before the Calends of January and the twenty-ninth day of the moon...
...in the two thousand nine hundred and fiftyseventh year after the Flood...
Vol. 3 • December 1925 • No. 6
