More Italian Yesterdays

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Phocas—that blood-stained figure who emerges now and then to surprise us by some memorable action—said the Pope was right, and gave him the building to do with it as he liked. And then Boniface carried out the great plan which must have been simmering in his brain for years. The temple, built for the seven deities of the seven planets, was to become the shrine of the bodies of the Saints and be consecrated to the one True God, under the title of “St. Mary of the Martyrs.” Under that perfect dome of exactly equal height and diameter (142 feet) he would finally lay to rest all the sacred remains which were still buried in the Catacombs all round the city. But there was much to do first. The rich architectural disposition of the interior required no alteration beyond the erection of a High Altar; the great window to the sky Boniface would not close; when dust and rubbish were cleared away the material preparations were over, but the tremendous ceremony of purification and consecration had yet to be accomplished. For these the illustrious predecessors of Boniface had been inspired to draw up a ceremonial of such profound meaning and glorious diction as remains matchless in the annals of the Liturgy.

We can only see it now with the eyes of the spirit, but, even while trying to do that, we must not let the magnificence of the external function make us forget that which the Church so lovingly and repeatedly impresses upon us—first, that there is but one Sanctuary worthy of the Most High, His Throne and dwelling in the inaccessible light of the Fixed Heaven, round which all universes that the human mind can grasp revolve, like starry spindrift round a living sun; and, secondly, that the home God has built for Himself on earth and loves with the most passionate tenderness is the heart of the Christian, where He will abide for time and eternity if it do not cast Him out.

The chief object of ecclesiastical architecture is to symbolize the grandeur of the union between the soul and its Creator; as such, and as the storehouse and dispensary of graces, the banqueting-hall where He feeds us with Himself, the arsenal where He arms us for the combat and trains us for His soldiers, where, in His surpassing love and mercy, He deigns to remain in the adorable Eucharist, the consecrated Church is the crown of human production, and rightly do we strain every nerve to make it rich and noble and fair.

When that is done, and all that men can give has been lavished on beautifying and enriching it, it has to be cleansed from every blemish of earthy contact before it can be offered to the service of God. When we wander through the Cathedrals of the world, Westminster Abbey, Strasburg, Notre Dame, Milan, asking ourselves how mere men ever attained to the production of such beauty and grandeur, do we ever stop to think that those towering walls were washed from vault to pavement, within and without, with holy oil, on the day of consecration?

The Cathedral was the symbol of the soul, and every act and prayer of the ceremonial depicted for our fore-fathers—so well instructed in the truths we first take for granted and then forget—the processes by which God confers on us the gift of immortality. On the eve of the great day all left the building, the new doors were closed, no step sounded on the pavement, no voice might break the stillness of the place. It was a dead thing waiting for life, as the soul that is not united to God waits, under its inherited burden of sinfulness, for regeneration.

Outside the precincts a great tent has been erected, and here, all through the night, the Bishop and his assistants have been praying the prayers of David the great penitent. All night long the penitential psalms have been going up, beseeching the Lord to wash away the sins of His people, His exiles on earth who are waiting without the camp and entreating Him to take them into grace and bring them to their Father’s home. With the first faint light of dawn the prayers cease, the supplicants arise, and the Bishop puts on his vestments, one by one and with a special prayer for each, because he thus figures the Son of God putting on the garment of our humanity. And because Christ, as man, prayed to His Father and ours, the Bishop comes forth from the tent and prostrates himself before the steps of the church in fervent prayer, with all his clergy kneeling around him.

Now the natural soul is cold and blind, and closed to Grace; so the church stands, unlighted and with fast-closed doors. And because the Spirit of God is all gentleness and mercy, and condescends to most patient stratagems to capture the heart He covets, the Bishop goes three times round the great building, praying and knocking softly at its doors, while the clergy follow him and pray too, as the angels pray for us. At last the first barrier falls; the doors open, reluctantly as it were. The Bishop crosses the threshold saying, “Peace eternal to this House, in the Name of the Eternal.” The procession passes within, the shadows swallowing up the gold and crimson of the vestments that had been sparkling in the sun.

A strange sight the empty church presents now. On the pavement two broad paths of ashes traverse its entire length and breadth, in the form of a Greek cross. The assistants stand in silent groups while the Bishop, slowly moving down from the apse to the entrance, and then across from one transept to the other, traces in the ashes the Latin and Greek alphabets with his crozier. Why? Because the first need of the soul is instruction. “How shall they know except they first be taught?” And since God will not take possession of a soul without its own concurrence and consent, it must know Him before it receives Him.

Knowledge brings the desire for purification from sin, original or actual; and now the church, the symbol of the soul, must be purified. The Bishop mingles wine with water, to denote the Humanity and the Divinity of Christ; to these he adds ashes to commemorate His death, and salt as an emblem of His resurrection; the mystic flood is poured in waves over the altar, and thence all down the pavement of the church, while hundreds of acolytes scale the ladders placed against the walls and the mystic liquid runs down them in glistening sheets to mingle with the mimic ripples on the floor. Let it run. When it has drained away the holy oil flows golden and fragrant over the carved and gleaming walls, and pious hands are applying it to the exterior of the building—sometimes even to its roof—in copious floods.

Now indeed the church is ready for its destiny, even as the Christian emerges from Baptism ready for his God. The chants swell louder and sweeter, the Alleluia rings out triumphantly from a thousand hearts, the incense sends up its first perfumed spirals to hang among the fretted arches of the deep vault; the sub-deacons approach the Pontiff and offer for his blessing the rich vessels and vestments which are the wedding presents of the Faithful to the new-born Bride of Christ—the House is ready for the Master and His guests.