'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH’

New Zealand Tablet, 18 September 1913, Page 3

' STAND FAST IN THE FAITH ’

(A Weekly Instruction specially written for the N.Z. ~;~- : /; Tablet by 'Ghimel'.) - ; ' .

BENEDICTION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT—II It must often appear strange to us that the Litany of Loreto in honor of the Blessed Virgin should occupy such a large place in a service which is professedly held out of reverence for our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Over and above the direct veneration of our Lord which appears in the hymns, ' 0 Salutaris Hostia' and ' Tantum 'Ergo/ in the numerous genuflections and the blessing, there is generally some hymn, most often a litany, in honor of our Lady, and this hymn or litany takes up most of the time. The explanation of this anomaly is to be found in the history of Benediction, for the hymn of praise to Mary is really the stock upon which the other part of the Benediction service has been grafted. As early as <the thirteenth century members of the numerous confraternities and guilds of those days were accustomed to assemble in the evening in order to sing canticles before a statue or picture of our Lady. These canticles (called Laude, praises), were written not in Latin but in the vulgar tongue, and gave the service from first to last a lay character. So popular did these services become with the devout laity, that confraternities were established for the express purpose of singing these canticles. The custom of holding an evening service in honor of our Lady started in Italy, and soon spread throughout Europe, but while in Italy (the hymns sung were almost endless in number, in England, Germany, and France the laity stuck to a-few chants, especially to the 'Salve Regina ' (Hail, Holy Queen) as they heard it sung at the end of the Divine Office by the Dominican, Carmelite, and Servite Friars. The whole service was looked upon as the product of private devotion, suited to the people, ' and even before it was glorified by the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, we note that it was already a service which possessed those three very popular elements which contribute so much to make our present Benediction attractive to the majorityl mean the profusion of lights, the brevity, and the pleasant music in which all were probably able to join. For, strange to say, we may regard this "Salve" as being in its origin simply the attempt of the laity to imitate and reproduce that part of the Office of the monks which specially appealed to them. The antiphon of our Lady at the end of Vespers or Compline varying with the season, is the one feature in the monastic Office which, speaking generally, is sung, and not merely recited in monotone. Hence it is admitted by nearly all, that the anthem in the Anglican liturgy, which forms the great attraction of the choral service in our Protestant cathedrals, is simply a substitution for the antiphons of our Lady sung at the conclusion of the ancient Lauds and Compline. But before the Reformers took to imitating these popular antiphons of the Office in their own special way, the laity, as a whole, had taken to imitate them in theirs. Just as the Rosary was a miniature Psalter with 150 Hail Marys instead of 160 Psalms, just as the scapular was a miniature religious habit, just as the Stations of the Cross were a miniature pilgrimage to the Holy Land, just as the morning and evening Angelus are probably a curtailment of the Tres Preces, the morning and night prayers of the monks; so the " Salve," which has by degrees developed into the Salut and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, was originally a lay imitation of the most popular feature of the monastic Office' (Thurston at Eucharistic Congress of 1908, p. 460). Now we turn to the other feature of Benediction, the Exposition of the Blessed-Sacrament find the blessing. The idea of exposing the Blessed Sacrament for veneration in a monstrance goes back to the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. The beginning of the thirteenth century witnessed a great manifestation of popular veneration for the

Blessed Sacrament by way of protest against certain false theological views, and when the practice of elevating the Sacred Host was introduced into the Mass about this time, people became persuaded that some special virtue and merit were attached to the simple act of looking at It. The famous miracle of Bolsena, about the middle of the same century, led to the instituticm of the Feast of Corpus Christi with its public procession of the Blessed Sacrament. Processions on other occasions became common, and by degrees the Blessed Sacrament came to be carried in transparent vessels, so, that the people might be able to satisfy their devotion by looking at the Host. This custom in turn led to the erection in churches of imposing tabernacles, more or less opcm in front, where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved in a monstrance, and also to the practice of exposing the Blessed Sacrament during • any function, when it was desired to make it more solemn. ' Now it seems certain,' concludes Father Thurston, ' that our present Benediction service has resulted from the general adoption of this evening singing of canticles before the statue of our Lady, enhanced as it often came to be in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the Exposition of the Blessed Sacramont, which was employed at first only as an adjunct to lend it additional solemnity. The blessing at the close seems to have been added simply because the custom gained ground of making the sign r of. the cross over the people whenever the Blessed Sacrament was replaced in the tabernacle after a procession, or after being carried to the sick or any kind of an exposition. But in the course of the seventeenth century, we find numberless bequests for Saints (Benedictions) in French wills, the items to be sung, often of a most miscellaneous character, being minutely specified, and among these the condition is frequently appended- that the Blessed Sacrament should be exposed during the whole time of the. Salut' (Enycl. Oath. 11, 446).