Order Our Days in Your Peace

One of the reasons for my long love-affair with the Roman Canon is the fact that every now and then a phrase I’ve heard a thousand times pops out with the singularity of a first hearing.  This time was in the “Hanc igitur.”

Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostræ, sed et cunctæ familiæ tuæ, quæsumus, Domine, ut placatus accipias: diesque nostros in tua pace disponas, atque ab æterna damnatione nos eripi, et in electorum tuorum iubeas grege numerari.

“Therefore, Lord, we pray: graciously accept this oblation of our service, that of Your whole family; order our days in Your peace, and command that we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those You have chosen.”

An interesting choice of words.  I have perhaps a too-Kantian (or is it Pelagian?) tendency to imagine that I am responsible for the ordering of my days—and in a sense, I am.  But here, as is so often the case at Mass, we are reminded that the real ability and responsibility for any good human effort lie with God; and so we ask God to order our days.

The manner in which those days are ordered is beyond interesting; indeed, the choice of words is positively curious.  “Order our days in Your peace,” says the official Novus Ordo translation.  But what is God’s peace?  And what does it mean for our days to be contained in that peace, as if peace were a bargain box or a chesterdrawers?

My first association of the phrase hails from medieval history.  “The peace of God” was the periodic fast (if you like) from war and warlike recreations such as jousting; like a New England blue law, “the peace of God” applied only on certain days and during particular seasons—Sundays and Lent were typical.

My second association of the phrase is its magisterial (in the nontechnical sense!) usage in Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday, when the terrifying character Sunday reveals his true identity as “the Peace of God” (and leaves the mystery of who he is still mysterious!).

Though the associations are accidental and less ancient than the text concerned, both I think shed some light on its meaning.  Both link “the peace of God” to Sunday, to the Sabbath, specifically, as the day to which God’s peace most properly belongs.  The medieval peace, among other things, had the function of insuring that God was properly worshipped on Sunday: if you’re not allowed to engage in your knightly pursuits, the “I’m busy” excuse becomes less tempting.

Come to think of it, perhaps some bishop should

revive “the peace of God” and apply it to soccer?

Chesterton’s character, in addition to calling to mind his namesake day of the week, is also linked to the original day of rest taken by God as a culmination to His creative activity.  Sunday is the ringleader of a group of benevolent spies, an anti-anarchist, a force simultaneously of playful chaotic energy and absolute authority and control.  You could hardly say that Sunday wields his power; he simply has it, and others fall into line accordingly—out of fear, before they really know him, and out of joy and the love of adventure once they do.  The peace of God, in Chesterton’s reading, is a remarkably active and in some sense a perilous matter, like skydiving with a tiller.  And might not the same be said of the Mass?  (I once hear priest giving a talk on the old Mass remark how larded it was throughout with humble pleas not to strike down the celebrant for his audacity in making the sacrifice; and while I had never quite thought of the Kyrie in that light, the description fits.)

One sense, then of “Your peace” might be simply the peace of Sunday, the Sabbath.  The embedding of these words in the key prayer of the Mass further suggests that perhaps this “peace” may be identified with the celebration of the sacred liturgy itself.  But there is another possibility—not an alternate meaning, but an additional one; for “peace” in liturgical language also carries with it a sense of final rest.  RIP, says the tombstone—a terrifying image in popular culture, until one realizes that it is a prayer: Requiescat in pace; “Rest in peace.”  And in the Catholic mind, the rest is not the merely negative rest …

… from which we hope that Carrie doesn’t rise

to wreak her revenge on our hapless selves …

but rather a positive affair, one of those delicate euphemisms by which we veil mysteries too glorious to speak lightly of.  For the Catholic, indeed, “Rest in peace” is a brief optative phrase meant to bring to mind a larger picture:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,

and let perpetual light shine upon them.

…

Absolve, O Lord,

the souls of all the faithful departed

from every bond of sin.

And by the help of Thy grace

may they be enabled to escape the avenging judgment.

And enjoy the bliss of everlasting light.

…

May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord,

with Thy Saints for evermore:

for Thou art gracious.

…

May the Angels lead thee into paradise:

may the Martyrs receive thee at thy coming,

and lead thee into the holy city of Jerusalem.

May the choir of Angels receive thee,

and mayest thou have eternal rest with Lazarus, who once was poor.

Put simply, “Rest in peace” is another way of saying “Rest in Heaven.”  And as “peace” stands in for Heaven here, I would suggest too that in the Roman canon “peace” has the additional meaning.  “Order our days in your peace” is perhaps first of all a request from the harried Christian that the world not overcome him in daily life.  The second and richer meaning of the phrase seems to be a reminder that all our days and our daily work should be ordered around the Mass: that the Mass, whether we make it daily or weekly, is the pinnacle of that slice of time in which it falls.  And in this sense, the phrase is once again not a command but a comfort: a reminder that the sacred in which we intermittently participate can, if we permit it, permeate all of life, converting chronos to kairos.  In some sense, sacred time contains secular time.  The third and final meaning takes this sense to the next level.  Participation in the Mass is not merely the salvation of our sanity, nor a way of making daily life fancier and finer, or even happier and holier (though it is all these things).  Participation in the Mass is in fact participation in the life of Heaven itself; and through the Mass, then, if our days are ordered in it—defined by and around it, so that its laws and aspirations and language become a lived second nature to us—though this Massedness of daily life, daily life itself becomes a foretaste of Heaven; transpires, in some mysterious sense, inside the life of Heaven.

“Therefore, Lord, we pray: graciously accept this oblation of our service, that of Your whole family; order our days in Your peace, and command that we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those You have chosen.”

A Most Masculine Mass

 From times when I read more about the liturgy than I generally do now, I vaguely recall some spats within the Catholic blogosphere about whether the Tridentine Mass was “feminine” or “masculine”, and whether being either was a particularly good or bad thing.  At the height of one particular wave of discussion, I seem to recall someone claiming that the Mass was actually feminine, but that was cool because so was Our Lady, and this was why men where more attracted to the priesthood in the days of the Old Mass (or, today, in dioceses that made its celebration easier).

Perhaps it is a sign of excessive levity, but I tended to find such convoluted arguments more entertaining than convincing.  Fond of analogy as I am (how could a student of the Renaissance survive otherwise?), and always delighted by the discovery of difference between the sexes …

Speaking of which, R.I.P. Phyllis Schlafly.

… attempts to identify anything as complex as the Tridentine Mass with anything as complex as an entire gender (if that is indeed the word I want) struck me as dubious (although I did make a mild attempt to contribute pacifically to the Which Mass Conversation from another angle).  And, enormous respect for Fr. Z notwithstanding, I am at this point quite leery of arguments which purport to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that one form is objectively superior to the other.  Subjectivity, now, is a whole ’nother matter.  After having had one of many brain waves this summer on the topic of male-female distinctiveness …

It’s amazing, by-the-by, how being married to a man 

will tell you more about men 

even than growing up with seven brothers.

… I realized that, while the Tridentine Mass may not itself be “masculine” or “feminine,” there is at least one good psychologically-based explanation for why it might be (if it is) more attractive to men: sound.

On the balance, we are told that the average man tends to be more oriented towards what he sees, and the average woman more toward what he hears.  Thus, a man might be more apt to learn from reading a book or seeing a thing done, whereas a woman might be more apt to learn from having a process described to her.  A man will remember find a new location better if he has seen a map, but a woman is more likely to replay her interlocutor’s directions in her head (hence perhaps one—only one—of the reasons why women more willingly ask directions: verbal directions are more helpful when one processes information verbally).  In school, girls are more comfortable being lectured at, and seem to naturally acquire the ability to concentrate on what the teacher is saying—and while part of this is certainly due to boys’ higher energy levels, I’m convinced that at least some of it has to do with the fact that boys just find verbal information takes longer to process.  The difference goes on all the way into the area of romance, where women are delighted by the whispering of sweet nothings into their ears, whereas men prefer to feast their eyes on their beloved.  Ironic, then, that women are the ones who seem more able to carry on conversation … but I digress.

What, then, of the two sexes at Mass?  There is no doubt that the Tridentine Mass is rich in layers of meaning.  A Missa Cantata (which was the standard Sunday Tridentine at the parish where my husband and I sang in choir together) has plenty of ear-worthy material for the devout to latch on to.  You may not hear “Introibo ad altare Dei,” but you can hear the Gregorian Chant proper; you will miss “Benedictus Deus in saecula” but be rewarded with a motet by Victoria; “Te igitur” will be inaudible, but you get a Palestrina Sanctus instead.  (And so much the better if one is in choir, and able to SING all these things instead of merely hearing them!)  There is plenty of food for the Catholic who needs to hear prayer in order to pray well.

There is a reason, you know, that Holy Mother Church 

indulges spoken rosaries more generously than silent ones.

The problem—for me, in my weakness—arises when there is no choir, and the priest is concerned with saying as rapid a Mass as possible.  Sotto voce becomes more and more sotto and less and less voce; and if you’re not sitting in the front row you have to watch his gestures very carefully; and if you are in the front row, the rapidity with which things proceed is less than edifying.

One can, of course, replay the propers in one’s head, or turn to a missal or the classic little red book in the pews.  But it’s not the same.  Love wants the tangible; the Beloved wants to hear—or, since the canon is not actually addressed to the people, in this case to overhear—the Lover.

Now I know that Silence Is Golden; that there is something transcendental about it; that after music, it is the best herald of Heaven that we have on Earth; that all the great saints and contemplatives enjoyed it.  And no doubt I will appreciate silence more after my several hours of daily silence (oh, the life of an academic!) begin to be regularly punctuated by wails, whines, yells, and the slamming of doors—oh, for the next twenty-five years!—yes, I will certainly appreciate silence more, then.  And the silence of the Irish-influenced Trid is undoubtedly more conducive to my spiritual well-being than the sounds of Praise and Worship—our only other current Sunday option.

But nevertheless, I miss my Tridentine Missa Cantata, and my Tridentine Dialogue Mass, and my Latin Novus Ordo; and I wish I didn’t feel pangs of guilt, as if breaking some unwritten law of the parish, every time I whisper “Suscipiat Dominus.”  There is an abundance of formettes (pardon the levity) available, and at the moment my husband and I seem to have a binary choice between the two extreme ends of the devout liturgical spectrum.

Still, both Masses are full of devout, reverent, well-intentioned and not too terribly catechized Catholics.  I shouldn’t complain.  At least there are no clowns in sight.

I thought about a picture of some actual clowns, but then 

realized it might trigger PTSD in folks of a certain age.   

You’re welcome

R.I.P., Alan Rickman

This is quite obviously belated; and I did notice his demise at the time: but, R.I.P.  And let me advise readers who have not seen the truly excellent miniseries The Barchester Chronicles (the BBC’s adaptations of Trollop’s The Warden and Barchester Towers)—do it.  There are infelicities, to be sure, but the stellar performances of the ever-delightful Susan Hampshire as Signora Madeline Neroni and Alan Rickman as (of course) the villainous but also misunderstood and somewhat put-upon Mr. Slope are not to be missed—not to mention Donald Pleasance’s turn as the warden himself.

Did you know that Donald Pleasance, who played the

birdwatcher in The Great Escape, was initially a conscientious

objector during WWII?  That he then changed his stance, and

joined the R.A.F.?  That his plane was shot down,

and he spent the last year in a POW camp?  I didn’t either …

Alan Rickman is VERY young, deliciously slimy, and delightfully … well, I had better not say anything else about Mr. Slope, or I will be giving away spoilers.  Let me just add that the final words of that character, as Rickman uttered them (they are not in the novel Trollop wrote, alas) are unforgettable.