These citations sufficiently indicate the mind of the Catholic Church in respect to the uses of ritual and symbolic ceremony. The prime intention is the instruction and edification of the believer, but it is evident that a necessary element in this edification is the thought that the rite is one composite act of worship, a prayer, an offering to Almighty God. This is the theory of Catholic art, the view which pious churchmen have always entertained of the function of artistic forms in worship. That all the products of religious art in Catholic communities have been actuated by this motive alone would be too much to say. The principle of “art for art’s sake,” precisely antagonistic to the traditional ecclesiastical principle, has often made itself felt in periods of relapsed zeal, and artists have employed traditional subjects out of habit or policy, finding them as good as any others as bases for experiments in the achievement of sensuous charm in form, texture, and color. But so far as changeless dogma, liturgic unity, and consistent tradition have controlled artistic effort, individual determination has been allowed enough play to save art from petrifying into a hieratic formalism, but not enough to endanger the faith, morals, [80] or loyalty of the flock. He therefore who would know the spirit of Catholicism must give a large portion of his study to its art. From the central genius of this institution, displayed not merely in its doctrines and traditions, but also in its sublime faith in its own divine ordination and guidance, and in its ideals of holiness, have issued its liturgy, its ceremonial, and the infinitely varied manifestations of its symbolic, historic, and devotional art. The Catholic Church has aimed to rear on earth a visible type of the spiritual kingdom of God, and to build for her disciples a home, suggestive in its splendor of the glory prepared for those who keep the faith.
All Catholic art, in so far as it may in the strict use of language be called church art, separates itself from the larger and more indefinite category of religious art, and derives its character not from the personal determination of individual artists, but from conceptions and models that have become traditional and canonical. These traditional laws and forms have developed organically out of the needs of the Catholic worship; they derive their sanction and to a large extent their style from the doctrine and also from the ceremonial. The centre of the whole churchly life is the altar, with the great offices of worship there performed. Architecture, painting, decoration, music,—all are comprehended in a unity of impression through the liturgy which they serve. Ecclesiastical art has evolved from within the Church itself, and has drawn its vitality from those ideas which have found their permanent and most terse embodiment in the liturgy. Upon the liturgy and the ceremonial functions attending it must be based all study of the system of artistic expression officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
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The Catholic liturgy, or text of the Mass, is not the work of any individual or conference. It is a growth, an evolution. Set forms of prayer began to come into use as soon as the first Christian congregations were founded by the apostles. The dogma of the eucharist was the chief factor in giving the liturgy its final shape. By a logical process of selection and integration, certain prayers, Scripture lessons, hymns, and responses were woven together, until the whole became shaped into what may be called a religious poem, in which was expressed the conceived relation of Christ to the Church, and the emotional attitude of the Church in view of his perpetual presence as both paschal victim and high priest. This great prayer of the Catholic Church is mainly composed of contributions made by the Eastern Church during the first four centuries. Its essential features were adopted and transferred to Latin by the Church of Rome, and after a process of sifting and rearranging, with some additions, its form was completed by the end of the sixth century essentially as it stands to-day. The liturgy is, therefore, the voice of the Church, weighted with her tradition, resounding with the commanding tone of her apostolic authority, eloquent with the longing and the assurance of innumerable martyrs and confessors, the mystic testimony to the commission which the Church believes to have been laid upon her by the Holy Spirit. It is not surprising, therefore, that devout Catholics have come to [82] consider this liturgy as divinely inspired, raised above all mere human speech, the language of saints and angels, a truly celestial poem; and that Catholic writers have well-nigh exhausted the vocabulary of enthusiasm in expounding its spiritual significance.
The insistence upon the use of one unvarying language in the Mass and all the other offices of the Catholic Church is necessarily involved in the very conception of catholicity and immutability. A universal Church must have a universal form of speech; national languages imply national churches; the adoption of the vernacular would be the first step toward disintegration. The Catholic, into whatever strange land he may wander, is everywhere at home the moment he enters a sanctuary of his faith, for he hears the same worship, in the same tongue, accompanied with the same ceremonies, that has been familiar to him from childhood. This universal language must inevitably be the Latin. Unlike all living languages it is never subject to change, and hence there is no danger that any misunderstanding of refined points of doctrine or observance will creep in through alteration in the connotation of words. Latin is the original language of the Catholic Church, the language of scholarship and diplomacy in the period of ecclesiastical formation, the tongue to which were committed the ritual, articles of faith, legal enactments, the writings of the fathers of the Church, ancient conciliar decrees, etc. The only exceptions to the rule which prescribes Latin as the liturgical speech are to be found among certain Oriental congregations, where, for local reasons, other languages are [83] permitted, viz., Greek, Syriac, Chaldaic, Slavonic, Wallachian, Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopic. In each of these instances, however, the liturgic speech is not the vernacular, but the ancient form which has passed out of use in other relations.[50]
The Mass is the most solemn rite among the offices of the Catholic Church, and embodies the fundamental doctrine upon which the Catholic system of worship mainly rests. It is the chief sacrament, the permanent channel of grace ever kept open between God and his Church. It is an elaborate development of the last supper of Christ with his disciples, and is the fulfilment of the perpetual injunction laid by the Master upon his followers. Developed under the control of the idea of sacrifice, which was drawn from the central conception of the old Jewish dispensation and imbedded in the tradition of the Church at a very early period, the office of the Mass became not a mere memorial of the atonement upon Calvary, but a perpetual renewal of it upon the altar through the power committed to the priesthood by the Holy Spirit. To the Protestant, Christ was offered once for all upon the cross, and the believer partakes through repentance and faith in the benefits conferred by that transcendent act; but to the Catholic this sacrifice is repeated whenever the eucharistic elements of bread and wine are presented at the altar with certain prayers and formulas. The renewal of the atoning process is effected through the recurring miracle of transubstantiation, by which the bread and wine are transmuted into the very body and blood of [84] Christ. It is in this way that the Catholic Church literally interprets the words of Jesus: “This is my body; this is my blood; whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life.” When the miraculous transformation has taken place at the repetition by the priest of Christ’s words of institution, the consecrated host and chalice are offered to God by the priest in the name and for the sake of the believers, both present and absent, for whom prayer is made and who share through faith in the benefits of this sacrificial act. “The sacrifice of the Mass,” says Cardinal Gibbons, “is identical with that of the cross, both having the same victim and high priest—Jesus Christ. The only difference consists in the manner of the oblation. Christ was offered upon the cross in a bloody manner; in the Mass he is offered up in an unbloody manner. On the cross he purchased our ransom, and in the eucharistic sacrifice the price of that ransom is applied to our souls.”[51] This conception is the keystone of the whole structure of Catholic faith, the super-essential dogma, repeated, from century to century in declarations of prelates, theologians, and synods, reasserted once for all in terms of binding definition by the Council of Trent. All, therefore, who assist in this mystic ceremony, either as celebrants and ministers or as indirect participants through faith, share in its supernatural efficacy. It is to them a sacrifice of praise, of supplication, and of propitiation.
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The whole elaborate ceremony of the Mass, which is such an enigma to the uninstructed, is nowhere vain or repetitious. Every word has its fitting relation to the whole; every gesture and genuflection, every change of vestments, has its symbolic significance. All the elements of the rite are merged into a unity under the sway of this central act of consecration and oblation. All the lessons, prayers, responses, and hymns are designed to lead up to it, to prepare the officers and people to share in it, and to impress upon them its meaning and effect. The architectural, sculptural, and decorative beauty of altar, chancel, and apse finds its justification as a worthy setting for the august ceremony, and as a fitting shrine to harbor the very presence of the Lord. The display of lights and vestments, the spicy clouds of incense, the solemnity of priestly chant, and the pomp of choral music, are contrived solely to enhance the impression of the rite, and to compel the mind into a becoming mood of adoration.
There are several kinds of Masses, differing in certain details, or in manner of performance, or in respect to the occasions to which they are appropriated, such as the High Mass, Solemn High Mass, Low Mass, Requiem Mass or Mass for the Dead, Mass of the Presanctified, Nuptial Mass, Votive Mass, etc. The widest departure from the ordinary Mass form is in the Requiem Mass, where the Gloria and Credo are omitted, and their places supplied by the mediaeval judgment hymn, Dies Irae, together with certain special prayers for departed souls. In respect to the customary service on Sundays, festal, and ferial days there is no difference in the words of the High Mass, Solemn High Mass, and Low Mass, but only in the manner of performance and the degree of embellishment. The Low Mass is said in a low tone [86] of voice and in the manner of ordinary speech, the usual marks of solemnity being dispensed with; there is no chanting and no choir music. The High Mass is given in musical tones throughout by celebrant and choir. The Solemn High Mass is performed with still greater ritualistic display, and with deacon, sub-deacon, and a full corps of inferior ministers.
The prayers, portions of Scripture, hymns, and responses which compose the Catholic liturgy consist both of parts that are unalterably the same and of parts that change each day of the year. Those portions that are invariable constitute what is known as the Ordinary of the Mass. The changeable or “proper” parts include the Introits, Collects, Epistles and Lessons, Graduals, Tracts, Gospels, Offertories, Secrets, Prefaces, Communions, and Post-Communions. Every day of the year has its special and distinctive form, according as it commemorates some event in the life of our Lord or is devoted to the memory of some saint, martyr, or confessor.[52] Mass may be celebrated on any day of the year except Good Friday, the great mourning day of the Church.