Charlemagne protected his country, Gaul, from the attacks of the Saracens to the south and from the barbaric Saxons in the north. He was a great general, and likewise used his armies to protect the pope from a tribe of invading Lombards - Long Beards - that descended on Italy.
Charlemagne was also a religious man. As he moved from place to place in his campaigns, he attended Holy Mass. It was then that he noticed, as Firmilian of Caesarea had once noticed nearly 600 years earlier, that no two churches in his empire celebrated Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass the same way. Except for the words of consecration, every ordained priest celebrated Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass as he pleased. Charlemagne thought this was bad - bad for the unity of his empire. He looked for ways to reform the liturgy.
During one of Charlemagne's trips to Italy, he met a Benedictine monk named Alcuin. Alcuin was on his way back from Rome to England, where he was director of bishop's school at York. After Charlemagne talked with Alcuin, he felt that this English monk was just the person he needed to help in his liturgical reform. Charlemagne asked the bishop of York in England to let Alcuin live and work in Gaul for this purpose. The bishop was willing, and Alcuin came to live in Charlemagne's palace in Aachen.
Alcuin was pleased with this new appointment. For a long time he, too, had been thinking that the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass should be celebrated in the same way everywhere. Now he saw that the only way of doing this was to take Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass as it was celebrated in Rome, Latin and all, and bring it north into Charlemagne's empire.
Charlemagne went along with Alcuin's suggestion. Still, Charlemagne knew that his people would never get used to the Roman Mass unless they could mix some of their own liturgical customs with it to give their Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass a "northern flavor."
Charlemagne sent personal messengers to Pope Adrian, asking him to send the exact wording of the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass that he, the pope, celebrated. This was consider asking a big favor. There were no printing presses at that time, and anything written had to be done by hand. It was a large task to write a whole book by hand, or even one week's Masses from beginning to end. But the pope needed Charlemagne's military protection too much to refuse him this service. The pope sent Charlemagne a book known as the Hadrian Sacramentary. This was Pope Adrian's collection of prayers for the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass, baptisms, and other ceremonies.
Alcuin did not make many changes in Pope Adrian's prayers. The changes he made, he tested immediately in the emperor's chapel. The emperor attended these Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass, and after the Mass he discussed the new liturgy with Alcuin, with the priests assigned to the chapel, and with people who attended the Eucharistic celebration. Everyone had an opportunity to offer genuine and sincere criticism, suggestions, and the new Holy Mass liturgy was soon accepted.
Charlemagne introduced his own changes into new liturgy. Some of these he made on the spur of the moment, as the idea struck him.
One change had to do with the way people were called to Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. The Romans used wooden clappers, two pieces of wood that clapped sharply against each other. In Gaul, Charlemagne preferred to use bells, and the louder they rang the better he liked it. Another change was organ music. Rome did not allow any musical instruments in Church. But when some friends of Charlemagne gave him an organ, he immediately installed it in his chapel. The people loved it.
In Rome, incense was considered a pagan perfume. and was rarely used at Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. Charlemagne liked clouds of fragrant smoke, and used incense frequently. At Alcuin's suggestion, Charlemagne also introduced the Spanish custom of praying the Nicene Creed during the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass celebration. However, he made his own rules about its use. Up to that time the Nicene Creed had been recited just before Holy Communion. Charlemagne decided it should be sung. And he changed its place from before Holy Communion to right after the Gospel - which is where we still have it today.
To make sure that his liturgical reform would be a success, Charlemagne decreed that the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass must be celebrated his way throughout his empire. He appointed agents to see that the law was obeyed. The duty of these agents had was not very difficult. People in Gaul could see that the new Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass combined the advantages of the Roman Mass with the best from their own liturgy. With time, the reformed liturgy took such firm root that it continued even after Charlemagne's death.
The new liturgy became known as the Gallo-Roman Mass. It soon spread even outside Gaul. It was adopted and changed even further by the more northern Germanic countries. These further change was referred to as the Germanic Gallo-Roman Mass.
In the eleventh century, during times of danger, German emperors in the north often responded to calls for help from Italy and Rome in the south. Along with their barons and troops, these German rulers also brought their bishops and priests to Rome. And along with these priests came the Germanic Gallo-Roman liturgy. So now, the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass that had left Rome had come back home - but with German changes in it. Rome took the Germanic liturgy, made some further changes, and then accepted it. Now it could be called the Roman Germanic-Gallo-Roman liturgy.
Eventually, this new Roman liturgy made its way back to the northern countries once again, where it stayed in use right up to the time of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Many of its features were reforms made by Charlemagne.
As early as the late fourth century, and on through the ninth, popes had been trying to get the Roman liturgy adopted by the entire Western Church. But during all these centuries there was still much variety in the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. In some places individual ordained priests celebrated Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass any way they pleased. Whole nations developed their own national liturgies. Two example of national liturgies were the Celtic liturgy in Ireland and Brittany, and Mozarabic liturgy in Spain.
Ireland was one place that had its own liturgy. Brittany, along the northwestern coast of France, was another. These two countries were the home of the Celtic people.
In the year A.D. 818, emperor Louis the Pious of France fought with Brittany. The emperor won the battle and suppressed the Celtic liturgy, making the people of Brittany adopt the Roman liturgy. Several centuries later, after a victory in A.D. 1172, England made the Irish Celts do the same. There was nothing wrong with the Celtic liturgy. But the French emperor and the English king knew that if they allowed conquered people to keep their national liturgy, they would be leaving them an effective means of resisting government authority.
Another case of liturgical suppression was the Mozarabic liturgy. Back in the eighth century, Arabs from Africa had invaded Spain. That invasion made communication between Spain and Rome very difficult. As a result, Spain had to organize its liturgical life more or less on its own. This was not difficult; for a long time Spain already had a liturgy well adapted to its culture. But cut off from Rome and influenced by Arab culture, Spain's liturgy became very wordy and elaborate - quite different from the clear, balance Roman liturgy. The Mozarabic, or Spanish, liturgy continued until the eleventh century. The Pope Gregory VII decided that Spain would be better off with the Roman liturgy. So the Mozarabic liturgy was no longer celebrated throughout Spain.
Being the Vicar of Christ, Pope Gregory VII had the right to say which liturgies should be used. When he told Spain to do away with the Mozarabic liturgy, Gregory probably thought that unity in the liturgy would be a sign of unity in faith and a visible mark of that faith.
If Gregory were living now, after Vatican II, he might think differently. Popes today still require that certain parts in the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass be the same everywhere on earth. But the Church authority also encourages each nation to express its liturgy in its own cultural way. Once again we have unity in diversity, oneness with differences.
The years between A.D. 1014 and A.D. 1517 - the so-called Middle Ages - are sometimes spoken of as the "Gothic" period. The word Gothic has different meanings for different people. Some hear the word and immediately think of the Goths, a race of barbarians who once overran the Roman Empire. Others think of it as a style of architecture which replaced classic Roman and Greek architecture.
The number of practicing Christian increased during the Gothic period, and larger Church were needed. This was especially noticeable on great feast days of the Church, when vast crowds came to celebrate Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. Up to this time many of the churches had been built in the Greek-Roman style. These buildings were shaped like a rectangle or a shoe box, and had a flat or slightly tilted roof. The walls had to be strong to hold up the roof, and only small windows could be placed in them. Sometimes rows of pillars inside the buildings held part of the weight. Buildings constructed in this way could not be made large enough to hold thousands of people. To meet the need for larger Church, a new style of architecture came into use. We still call it the Gothic style. Its key feature was the pointed arch.
By using the arch, builders were able to make larger Church. Some of their buildings could hold 10,000 or more parishioners. The sanctuary alone was often bigger than the large Church we see today. These arches were reinforced and supported by 'flying buttresses' - props built on the outside of the Church. The arches and the props took the weight of the roof off the walls, so that large windows of stained glass could be placed in the walls. The height of the building could also be increased. In some churches, the arched vault over the main altar rose to more than 150 feet. On the roof were steeples that doubled the height of the building. Everything about these Church pointed upward.
These huge Church were called 'cathedral.' The word cathedral comes from a Latin word that means "chair." In these spacious new Church a special throne like chair was reserved for the bishop. (The cathedral is the bishop's church, the principal church of a diocese.) When a bishop decide to build a cathedral, the architects drew up their plans, and many talented peoples played a part. Artists, masons, stone-cutters, sculptors, painters, tapestry weavers, etc.
In fact, it took a hundred or more years to build some of the cathedrals. For instance, Notre Dame of Paris was begun in A.D. 1163 and completed in A.D. 1260. The cathedral at Chartres was started in the early 12th century and was completed in the 16th century. It took that long to finish these buildings because of all the detail artists and sculptors put into them. In the cathedral at Chartres, for example, there are 3,889 figures in the stained glass windows. But what a joy, what a triumph, when the work was finished and the bishop led the first procession into his new cathedral. Bells would ring in the nearby belfries, announcing the event. People would come by the thousands, gathering under the great arched domes that seemed to reach all the way to heaven. There, in a splendor that our modern cathedrals have never equal, the People of God would join with their bishop in celebrating Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass.
The Gothic period was an age of educational progress. The first European university, in Paris, was officially begun in the year A.D. 1215. Saint Albert the Great, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Bonaventure taught there, to name a few. Thousands of students from all over Europe came to Paris and formed a "university world" as full of life and movement as that of any modern university. Christians began to study the learning and philosophies of the non-Christians Greeks and of the Muslims.
It was during this period that paper, which had been invented in China, was introduced into Europe by the Arabs. Paper was cheaper and more plentiful than the sheepskin parchment that Europeans still used, and it can make available to more people which also made communication easier.
The Gothic period was also an era of religious debate on many topics. Some of these arguments had to do with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. For example, in the eleventh century a man named Berengar of Tours explained Christ's presence in the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass in such a way that people thought he meant that maybe Christ is not really present. In the year A.D. 1079, a Council in Rome decided that Berengar's ideas were incorrect. He and his followers were ordered to make a public confession of faith in the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. They also had to agree that only an ordained priest could celebrate Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass.
The people reacted to these doubts about the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass by developing a great desire to see the consecrated Host as often as possible. The use of the monstrance - a showcase for the sacred Host - became popular, and there were many processions of the Blessed Sacrament. Seeing the Host became the "in" thing. A bell would be rung to announce the consecration. For some people, the consecration was the only part of the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass they attended. There is a documented story of a priest who would not raise the Host high enough to suit the people. They would shout to him, 'Higher, higher.' The bishops were concerned about this attitude. In the year A.D. 1210, for example, the bishop of Paris told his priests not to lift up the unconsecrated bread at the Offertory of the Holy Mass. The bishop did not want parishioners to adore bread before it was even consecrated! Strange as it may seem, during these years when people were so eager to see the consecrated Host, fewer and fewer baptized Christians received communion. They seem to have forgotten that the Lord Jesus Christ is present in the Host mainly to be eaten as food. After all, the words of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew are: "Take this and Eat it, this is my body."
In every age, God has raised up great religious teachers. In the Middle Ages one of the greatest of these teachers was Saint Thomas Aquinas. He was born at Roccasecca, a little town near Naples, in A.D. 1225. He was the youngest son of Count Landulf of Aquino. As a six year old schoolboy with the Benedictines at Monte Cassino, Thomas Aquinas astonished his teachers by asking them, "What is God?" Later Thomas became a Dominican friar and studied at Cologne under the famous teacher Saint Albert the Great. In school Thomas spoke so little that his classmates called him a "dumb ox." But Saint Albert the Great, who knew that Thomas was very intelligent, told the students: "Call him a dumb ox, if you will, but I tell you that his belongings will shake the whole world."
After Thomas began to preach and teach, Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote a long series of writings called quaestiones disputatae - religious questions that people were asking. Using the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible and Church tradition, he wrote answers that were easy to understand. Once when he had to answer a very difficult question, he went up to the altar and put his head against the tabernacle door. Then he said, "Lord, you know everything. You are present in this tabernacle. Give me the answer to this question."
Saint Thomas wrote much about the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. He explained that this sacrament is the very heart of all the other sacraments. In the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass, Thomas taught, the Lord Jesus Christ renews the sacrifice of Calvary and gives us Himself. His humility and His divinity. Christ also remains in the Host even after the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass is finished.
Many developments in the liturgy during the Gothic period had to do with things related to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. The altar became wider and longer. Up to that time, the altar had been scarcely about a meter square in size. The enlarged altar was built of choice materials, decorated with enamel and sculptures. There was room on it for a crucifix, candles, and reliquaries (places where relics of saints are kept). In the center of the altar was a tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament was kept. One bishop of Paris ordered: "The very sacred Body of Our Lord must be kept carefully and conscientiously in the most noble part of the altar under lock and key."
The chalice was the object of particular attention. In Church that was rich, the chalice had to be made of pure gold. If the Church was poor, at least the cup part of the chalice had to be gold plate. Jewelers ornamented chalices with tiny sculptures, enamels, and even diamonds. The bishop had to bless the precious cups with sacred chrism (specially blessed oil).
During Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass the priests wore vestments that were made and blessed just for the liturgy. These robes had a stiff lining inside several layers of cloth. This made it possible for artists to paint and decorate the vestments. After a while these decorations became so important that the people spoke of the vestments as "liturgical ornaments."
Plain chant, the music of Saint Gregory the Great, became highly developed during this period. A Benedictine monk, Guy d'Arezzo, started using what we call the do-re-mi scale. In the abbey where Guy d'Arezzo lived, the monks began to chant in several voices. We still use a chant Mass that was composed at that time, the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass of the Angels. Also at this time some of the Church's most beautiful Latin song verses were composed, such as the Stabat Mater and the Pange Lingua.
The book of Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible were given added marks of honor. It was solemnly carried during the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass and incensed with respect as the Word of God. Monks made copies of the Sacred Scriptures and adorned the pages of their copies with brilliant colors. They drew fancy curlicues and tiny designs on the pages. This process was called illuminating.
The Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass, with its yearly seasons of joy and sorrow, gave people ideas for other religious performances. People made up plays to celebrate Christmas, Easter, the lives of the saints and martyrs, and above all the Passion of Christ. Some of these plays were like the world famous Passion Play that began in the 17th century and takes place every year in the lovely German village of Oberammergau. Crowds enjoyed these plays so much that they had them repeated time and again. they sat for hours listening and watching until they knew the plays by heart. They laughed until they cried when they heard the donkeys giving the prophet Balaam a rough time (a story in the Old Testament Book of Numbers) When they cheered if the actor got up the tree very nimbly, and booed if he was clumsy. They shed real tears as they silently followed the long Passion of Christ.
The people liked to watch plays about Christ and the saints. Many of them also wanted to visit the Holy Land or see the shrines of saints. In the Middle Ages incredible numbers of pilgrims set out in long caravans, even though the roads were terrible and the countryside was full of bandits. Every year millions pilgrims went to Rome, and hundreds of thousands went to Jerusalem. And always, at the end of the pilgrimage, there was Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass.
Some modern artists and scholars think that the Gothic age was a glorious time in history. Others disagree. Apart from what anyone says about the Gothic period, the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass was at the heart of Christian life at that time. Remember that: The Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass began the people's Sunday and set the rhythm for their week. The great liturgical feasts with their solemn Masses marked the seasons of the year with celebrations of events in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and the saints. The famous cathedrals were built around the altar for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass. It was the final event of pilgrimages which drew tens of thousands of Christians onto the road to shrines and holy places.
From the Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass grew the religious plays and dramas. The Holy Eucharist/Holy Mass inspired the most beautiful chants of the period and encouraged musical art.
In the year 1517...
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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