It is to be observed further that Lent is not devoted to consideration of Christ’s sufferings. This occupies the mind during Holy Week. The aim of Lent is not to move the faithful to dwell upon the passion of Christ, but only to prepare them for keeping Easter worthily through fasting, penance, and abstinence. The liturgical prayers in Lent contain no reference to the Redeemer’s sufferings, but speak of fasting and mortification alone. It is the same with the Epistles and Gospels. On Palm Sunday for the first time, our thoughts are directed to the Passion in the collect for the day, while in the prayers for the so-called Passion Sunday it is not mentioned.
Those weeks of Lent had an exceptional character in which, in the sixth and following centuries, the scrutinies took place, i.e. the services designed for the examination of candidates in preparation for baptism. These began on the Wednesday of the third week in Lent, and lasted until Holy Saturday. Originally seven, they were reduced in course of time to three, owing to the adoption of the Gelasian sacramentary. Accordingly, the Masses for the third, fourth, and fifth Sunday and for the Saturday before Passion Sunday speak of baptism and not of the Passion.[231] In the present Roman Missal scarcely a trace of this is to be found.[232]
The prayers of the Masses both for Sundays and week-days, for by far the greater part, are still identical with those of the Gregorian Sacramentary, while the lections from Scripture are in some instances much older. The Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent, which narrates the fast of Jesus and His temptation by the devil, was read on this day already in the time of Leo the Great. The Gospel for the second Sunday treats of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the Gospels for the two following Sundays, the healing of the dumb man, and the casting out of the devil, and the miracle of the loaves. The Gospel for Passion Sunday contains the account of our Lord’s encounter with the Jews and their attempt to stone Him.
In the Middle Ages, the commencement and beginning of Lent was marked in a way visible to all by hanging a curtain between the nave of the church and the choir on Ash Wednesday, or, according to Durandus, on the First Sunday in Lent. This was called the Lenten Veil, or, in common parlance, the “Hunger-veil.” It remained hanging until Good Friday, but in many places was drawn aside on Sundays, obviously because Sundays were not fast days. The veil was usually quite plain, but sometimes it was adorned with pictorial representations from sacred history. It is first referred to in writings of the ninth century, but was in use much earlier. In some places in Westphalia and Hanover it exists to the present day. These Lenten-veils are still to be frequently seen in museums and church lumber-rooms, where not infrequently they are erroneously mistaken for carpets. They were practical in their object—the ordinary man who had no calendar was put in remembrance by them that it was the season of Lent. Allegorical interpretations were naturally not lacking, and are to be found in Rupert of Deutz.[233] A similar custom also exists in Russia, where, on the first Sunday in Lent, the altar curtains are drawn together and so remain until Palm Sunday.
During the first six centuries, it was taken for granted that saints’ days must not be observed during Lent. The Trullan synod introduced the first exception to this rule in favour of the Annunciation. In the West, this rule was soon entirely set aside, but, on the other hand, in token of sorrow, the Allelujah ceases during the entire Lent, a custom of which the Greek Church knows nothing. The Lenten prayers have a particularly earnest tone, and Lent from quite an early date appears richly provided from a liturgical point of view, each week-day having its own special Mass. In old days in Rome, there was a procession every day, for the Pope and clergy proceeded from the papal palace in solemn array to some church in the city where a halt (statio) was made, and Mass was sung.
8. The Transfiguration
In the existing calendar, the Transfiguration of our Lord is commemorated by a special festival, the festum Transfigurationis, which, as it is kept on a fixed date, is excluded from the proper sequence of the ecclesiastical year and treated in the same manner as the saints’ days. From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed, the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457, in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already been kept on this day. It appears in the Synaxaria of the Copts in Selden and Mai, in the menology of Constantinople belonging to the eighth century, and, later, in the Neapolitanum, and among the orthodox Syrians. In the East it was commonly observed. Sermons on the event are found among those of St Augustine and Leo the Great.[234] The tendency to transfer to another period of the year the commemoration of those events which fell within Lent, is also perceptible in the case of the feast of the Seven Dolours. More will be said on this point in the second part.
9. The Ascension
A special festival in commemoration of the return of the Redeemer to heaven does not indeed appear in the earliest lists of Church festivals given by Tertullian and Origen in the third century. Still, the terms in which the earliest witnesses refer to it, prove that this day was kept as a festival in quite early times. The first witness for it is Eusebius, who calls it a high festival in the treatise he composed on the discussions concerning Easter at the first General Council in 325. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates speaks of it as a general festival.[235] With regard to documents of an official character, the church-order contained in the so-called Apostolic Constitutions,[236] gives it the name of The Taking Up [into Heaven] (ἀνάλεψις, St Luke ix. 51, where the form ἁνάλημψις occurs). Numerous sermons among the works of the Fathers afford further evidence for the existence of the feast. Augustine[237] is inclined to attribute the appointment of the festival to an ordinance of the Apostles or to the injunction of a general council. The latter cannot be proved as certain. As soon as persecution ceased, the feast of the Ascension made its way naturally in all parts of the Church, unassisted by any authoritative enactment, for it was impossible that the concluding act of our Saviour’s earthly life should remain unnoticed among festivals and in the Liturgy. This was all the more unlikely, as the spot from which our Lord returned to the Father at once became the object of reverence. The Empress Helena had already ordered a splendid basilica to be built on the Mount of Olives, which, unfortunately, was destroyed by the Saracens, and has never been rebuilt. At the present day, a small unimposing church marks the spot which was a place of pilgrimage as early as the fourth century,[238] and where it is believed one of our Lord’s footprints in still visible.