The Holy Name Society of St. Mary, Conshohocken, PA is organizing a Traditional Men’s Silent Retreat at Malvern Retreat House in Malvern, PA from February 7-9, 2025 with Fr. Gregory Eichman, FSSP as Retreat Master. Open to family and friends that are practicing Catholics – men 18 and older. Cost is $325 – includes accommodations & meals.

Registration deadline is January 20^th.

Contact Ken Orner at stmarys.hns.treasurer@gmail.com for more information.

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

In chapter 11 of his The True Meaning of Christmas – The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season (Fr. Rock recommended), Professor Michael Patrick Barber presents various theories of how and why December 25th was chosen as the date for the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord.  One of these, the Calculation Theory, Prof. Barber explains thus:

Ancient Attempts to Date Jesus’ Birth

Advocates of the Calculation Theory argue that early Christians decided on marking the Nativity of Jesus on December 25[th] due to complex chronological computations.  There is clear evidence that supports this explanation; some certainly did this.  However, as we shall see, this does not fully make sense of why December 25[th] was selected as the date of Christ’s nativity.

Jewish Traditions about the Births of Biblical Persons

It is often said that early Christians were influenced by a Jewish tradition that held that the great figures of Isreal’s past died on the day of their birth.  This is sometimes called the “integral age” view.  Evidence for this tradition can be found in the Babylonian Talmud, which dates to around A.D. 500.  For example, the Talmud claims that Moses died on the anniversary of his birth [Qiddushin 38a].  It also reports opinions about the birth and death of Abraham and Jacob [Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a].  While they disagree on the exact month, the rabbis agree that these patriarchs were born and died on the same month the world was created, though they are never said to have died on their birthdays.  One teacher coordinates their births and deaths with the month Passover is celebrated.  At another point, we are told that another patriarch, Isaac, was born on Passover.

By dying on the anniversary of their births, these men are said to have lived “the full measure” of their years.  In connection with this, the Talmud cites the Scripture passage: “I will fulfill the number of your days” (Exodus 23:26).  Many writers have believed that early Christians were influenced by these Jewish traditions and applied them to Jesus.  This, however, is unclear.  The Talmud dates to hundreds of years after the period we are examining.  Whether Christians who were trying to determine the date of Jesus’s birth were influenced by the Jewish traditions described above is impossible to know.

Nevertheless, there are some parallels between what the rabbis said about the patriarchs and what is found in ancient Christian chronologists.  For one thing, it does seem like calculations regarding Jesus’ conception or birth were connected to beliefs about when His death occurred.¹

Now, despite the reservations Prof. Barber expressed, I favor the Calculation Theory because it has the most explanatory power in that it explains not only the December 25th date of Christmas, but also the January 6th date of Epiphany, and why there are Twelve Days between the two of them (points which Prof. Barber does not address directly).  I do not have any better arguments than what Prof. Barber presented about the Christian use of such a method and its possible link to Jewish traditions, but regardless of the whys behind it, it seems that the early Christians did indeed use this method.  But, to begin, we must discuss the date of Easter.

In the first few Christian centuries, the majority of the local Churches celebrated the Christian Pasch on a Sunday, claiming the authority of the Apostles Peter and Paul, while Churches in Asia Minor, claiming they were following a practice received from the Apostle John, associated the Christian Pasch with the celebration of the Jewish Passover on the 14th day of the Jewish Month of Nisan, regardless of on what day of the week it fell.  Because of their practice, the members of this latter group were called Quartodecimans (14th-day-ers).  It is important to note that at this time, the yearly liturgical observance of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection were all celebrated on the same day.  Only later on would these be spread out over different days.²  So, the Churches in Asia Minor associated the Pasch with the date associated with Our Lord’s Passion and Death while the other Churches were associating it with the day of the Resurrection, Sunday.

Due to the complications in calculating the actual 14th of Nisan, a Quartodeciman sect fixed the date instead to “the fourteenth day of the first month in spring [which] was the equivalent of our 6 April.”³  It seems that from this, in the Christian East, the date of April 6th became regarded as the actual calendar date of the Crucifixion.  Applying the Calculation Theory by setting April 6th as also the date of Our Lord’s Conception, and calculating nine months, we arrive at January 6th, the date of the Eastern Feast of the Theophany.  First celebrated at “the end of the second [late 100s] or at the start of third century [early 200s],”⁴ the Feast of the Theophany commemorated various revelations of God through Christ, namely: “His Nativity, the homage of the Wise Men from the East, His Baptism, the miracle at Cana of Galilee and the miraculous multiplication of the loaves.”⁵ Over time, in the Christian East, the commemoration of Our Lord’s Baptism would predominate over the other mysteries.

There were other dates, however, which were also claimed to be the date of the Crucifixion and one of these dates was March 25th.  On this point, Prof. Barber wrote:

the Canon [a work attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, part of which was inscribed on a Roman statue in A.D. 222] concludes that Jesus died on March 25[th] of the year 29.  Tertullian, another second-century Christian writer, also fixes the Crucifixion to this date [Against the Jews 8, 18].  This agreement suggests that the date had found acceptance by at least some Christians.⁶

The arrival at this date in the Canon seems to be the result of attempting to determine the yearly Julian date of the 14th of Nisan including that of the year in which Our Lord was crucified.⁷  Be that as it may, this March 25th date for the Crucifixion was the one accepted by the Roman Church.  In the Roman Martyrology, by way of supporting evidence, March 25th is indicated as the day of death of the Good Thief who, of course, died on the same day as Our Lord.  Applying the Calculation Theory by setting March 25th as also the date of Our Lord’s Conception, and calculating nine months, we arrive at December 25th, the date on which the Roman Church has celebrated the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity since at least A.D. 335-6.⁸ During this time, however, Greek Christians in Rome celebrated the Theophany on January 6th and kept December 25th as the Feast of St. Anastasia at the church named after her in the city.⁹

In the course of time, due to liturgical cross-pollination,¹⁰ the majority of Eastern Churches eventually accepted the Roman date of December 25th for the Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity while retaining the Feast of the Theophany, which now no longer commemorated the Nativity.  The December 25th date “was introduced at Antioch, ab. 375; Constantinople, ab. 379; Jerusalem, 424-458; and Alexandria, ab. 430.”¹¹  The Roman Church, for its part, adopted a January 6th Nativity-less Feast of the Theophany, more commonly called in the West the Feast of the Epiphany.  In the western tradition, while the Office of the day does mention other mysteries, the Mass of Epiphany on January 6th, unlike in the East, focuses on the Visitation of the Magi, not the Baptism.  Our Lord’s Baptism is the focus of the Mass on the Octave Day of the Epiphany, January 13th, the second mystery of the western Epiphany.  The Gospel for the Mass of the Second Sunday after Epiphany relates Our Lord turning water into wine at the wedding feast, the third mystery of the western Epiphany.  It is important to note here that while the Feast of the Theophany/Epiphany is the older feast absolutely, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord is older in the Roman tradition.

As the devotion towards St. Anastasia in Rome declined, the Mass celebrated at St. Anastasia church became a Mass of Christmas with a commemoration of St. Anastasia.¹² Today, this Mass, along with the commemoration, is the Second Mass, or Dawn Mass, of Christmas, celebrated after the Office of Prime.  The First Mass of Christmas, the Midnight Mass (which is not a Vigil Mass), celebrated after the Office of Matins, was instituted in imitation of the ceremonies carried out by the Church of Jerusalem.  What is now known as the Third Mass of Christmas, the Day Mass, celebrated after the Office of Terce, reflects the original Roman Mass of the day.¹³   These three Christmas Masses, then, represent/reflect Hierosolymitan, Greek, and Roman liturgical traditions.  Additionally, perhaps due to the Nativity previously being celebrated as part of the Feast of the Theophany, one of the readings of the Byzantine Church on December 25th is the Visitation of the Magi (Matt 2:1-12).¹⁴  Traditionally, the proper Last Gospel for the Roman Third Mass of Christmas is also the Visitation of the Magi (Matt 2:1-12), as the Prologue of St. John is the Gospel of the Mass.  Perhaps this choice was influenced by the Greek practice.

To further support the Calculation Theory, it ought to be pointed out that the Armenian Orthodox Church never adopted the Roman date for the celebration of Our Lord’s Nativity.  As such, the Armenian Orthodox Church still celebrates Our Lord’s Conception on April 7th and His Birth on January 6th.¹⁵

Now, some confusion may arise if one were to look at a modern calendar and notice that January 7th is marked as Orthodox Christmas.  Should not Orthodox Christmas be December 25th?  The discrepancy comes from a difference in calendars and how December 25th is determined.¹⁶  Originally, both the Latin and Greek Christians used the Julian Calendar.  But, when the Catholic Church adopted the Gregorian Calendar in A.D. 1582, ten days were removed from the calendar.  Since the Gregorian Calendar was not adopted by the Orthodox Churches, the Western and Eastern celebrations of fixed feasts then differed by ten days.  Due to the particularities of each calendar, this difference has increased over time.  To makes matters even more complicated, some Orthodox Churches have adopted a revised Julian calendar in which the fixed feasts now correspond to the Gregorian dates, such as Christmas, but the moveable feasts, such as Easter, still fall on the original Julian dates.¹⁷  The Armenian Orthodox Church, outside of Jerusalem, adopted the Gregorian Calendar.¹⁸  So, there are now currently five dates for the Feast of the Nativity:

• Gregorian December 25th (Western Christians)
• Julian December 25th / Gregorian January 7th (some Eastern Christians)
• Revised Julian December 25th / Gregorian December 25th (some Eastern Christians)
• Gregorian January 6th (most Armenian Orthodox)
• Julian January 6th / Gregorian January 19th (Armenian Orthodox in Jerusalem)

For their part, the Twelve Days of Christmas observed both by Latin and Eastern Christians (except the Armenians), counting inclusively starting on Christmas day itself and ending on the day before the Epiphany (December 25th to January 5th), recognized already in A.D. 566-7 by the Second Council of Tours as a sacred time (can. xi, xvii),¹⁹ resulted from the above mentioned cross-pollination of two different liturgical traditions which originally commemorated Our Lord’s Birth on two different days calculated from two different days presumed for Our Lord’s Crucifixion, which were also presumed to be the days of His Conception, which happened to be this many days apart.  They are, in a sense, an echo (or scar) in the Church’s liturgy of the great Easter Controversy from the early Christian centuries.²⁰

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. Barber, Michael Patrick. The True Meaning of Christmas – The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2021), pp. 156-7.
2. Goddard, Philip J. Festa Paschalia – A History of the Holy Week Liturgy in the Roman Rite. (Leominster: Gracewing, 2011), p. 21.
3. Ibid., p. 19
4. Katrij, Julian. A Byzantine Rite Liturgical Year. Trans. Wysochansky, Demetrius. (Detroit: Basilian Fathers Publication, 1983), p. 344.
5. Ibid., p. 342.
6. Barber, p. 160.
7. Talley, T. J. The Origins of the Liturgical Year.  (New York: Pueblo Books, 1986), p. 9.
8. Denis-Boulet, Noele M. Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Section X – The Worship of the Church, vol. 113 – The Christian Calendar. Trans. Hepburne-Scott, P. (New York: Hawthron Books, 1960), p. 50.  Another theory is that the date of 25 December was chosen to coincide with the Winter Solstice.  When the Julian calendar was originally promulgated, it was so arranged that 25 December would correspond with the Winter Solstice and 25 March with the Spring Equinox and as such 25 December was kept as the observed Winter Solstice and 25 March as the observed Spring Equinox and so on for the other two.  However, due to the defects of the Julian calendar, the observed dates had drifted from their respective astronomical events by several days.  The First Council of Nicaea held in A.D. 325, without correcting the defects of the Julian calendar, shifted the observed date of the Spring Equinox to 21 March and thus that of the Winter Solstice to 21 December, and so on for the other two, so that they aligned, at least for the time being, with their respective astronomical events (Old Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Reform of the Calendar”).  As was said in the body, the Roman Church has celebrated the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity on 25 December since at least A.D. 335-6.  All the previous being taken into account, in order for the Winter Solstice theory to be applicable, the date of 25 December would have had to been chosen before the A.D. 325 Nicaean shift of the Equinoxes and Solstices, and, also, this date would have had to be retained after the shift.
9. Schuster, Ildefonso. The Sacramentary, vol. I. Trans. Levelis-Marke, Arthur. (Waterloo: Arouca Press, 2020), p. 363.
10. Denis-Boulet, p. 57-58.
11. King, Archdale. The Rites of Eastern Christendom, vol. II. (Piscataway: Gorgia Press, 2007), p. 574, n. 135
12. Schuster, p. 363.
13. Ibid., pp. 362-4.
14. “Matthew 2, 1-12, which is also read at the Divine Liturgy of Christmas. (In the Byzantine Rite, the feast of the Epiphany is wholly dedicated to the Lord’s Baptism, and the adoration of the Magi is read as the Gospel of Christmas day.)” New Liturgical Movement: The Royal Hours of Christmas Eve
15. King, pp. 574-575.  Also Berber, p. 148.
16. See Berber, p. 148.
17. The Revised Julian Calendar
18. The Armenian Apostolic Church – Calendar and Feast Days
19. Old Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Christmas.”
20. Goddard, p. 25, n. 45 – “The notion that 25 March or 6 April was the date of the Crucifixion seems to have governed the celebration of the Nativity either on 25 December or 6 January, following the commonly held belief that Christ’s earthly life began and ended on the same date.” See also Talley, pp. 129-130.

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

[Having reviewed the writings of Durandus after this article had originally been posted, I realized that I had misinterpreted his treatment of the antiphons at Lauds during the Greater Ferias.  Having come to this realization and having consulted with and receiving some information which is vital for having a proper understanding of this matter from a friend, I have prepared this revision. – Fr. Rock] 

It is not uncommon for Advent to be compared to Lent.  After all, they are both times of preparation for major feasts, the latter for Easter and the former for Christmas.  The liturgical color for both is violet, the Gloria is omitted, flowers are absent, the organ is silent, the Deacon and Subdeacon traditionally wear folded chasubles in place of their dalmatic and tunicle, and the Benedicamus Dominio is traditionally used instead of the Ite, Missa est.  And in both, some relaxation of these penitential aspects, along with the wearing of rose vestments, is allowed on the Sundays near their midpoints.

But, despite these similarities, there are also some significant differences between these two seasons as well.  One of the most striking is their lengths.  Lent will always be 46 days long (40 days of fasting starting on Ash Wednesday plus the 6 Sundays).  Advent, however, will vary in length year to year from 22 to 28 days inclusively.  This is because, unlike Lent, Advent in the Roman tradition follows a checklist to determine its length and observances rather than simply counting backwards a set number of days from the major feast.  This list is as follows:

• Christmas, the Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity, is always celebrated on December 25th, regardless of on what day of the week it falls.
• Advent has four Sundays counting backwards from Christmas.
• December 24th is the Vigil Day of Christmas, which may correspond with the Fourth Sunday of Advent depending on the year.  This day has a proper antiphon for the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79), also known as the Canticle of Zachary, sung at Lauds, and the Christmas Proclamation is chanted during Prime.
• The 7 Greater Ferias of Advent are kept from December 17th to December 23rd inclusively.  These days have proper Psalm and Benedictus antiphons at Lauds in the morning.  The “Great Antiphons” or the “O Antiphons” (as they all start with “O”) are sung as antiphons with the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), or Canticle of Mary, at Vespers in the evenings.  The antiphon “Nolíte timére; quinta enim die véniet ad vos Dóminus noster / Fear not: for on the fifth day, Our Lord shall come unto you [plural]”¹ is sung at Lauds on December 21st.
• The Winter Ember Days are observed following the Third Sunday of Advent.

Returning to the comparison with Lent, the Greater Ferias of Advent could be paired with Holy Week, as they are a more intense time of preparation, and the Vigil Day of Christmas with Holy Saturday, as they are both the final day of preparation with the festival quality of the next day being participated in by the liturgy of the current.²

It is worthwhile to note at this point that if anything is the Christian answer to the riotous Roman-pagan Saturnalia, it is the Greater Ferias,³ not Christmas (even if, eventually, some of the trappings of Saturnalia were adopted by the Christians for their celebration of Christmastide).  Although it began as a one-day celebration on December 17th, the festivities were extended so that before the first century A.D., Saturnalia “ran from December 17[th] to December 23[rd],”⁴ the same dates as the Greater Ferias, but was never celebrated on December 25th.  The Christian-Roman celebration of the Nativity of the Lord has been observed on December 25th since at least A.D. 335-6.⁵  Only a few decades later, in A.D. 380, a local council in Saragossa, Spain, urged the faithful to be present at church during the days of, and as a “counterobservance to,” Saturnalia (and to continue to be present through the Nativity and until the Epiphany).⁶  The O Antiphons, for their part, were “known and used as early as the beginning of the sixth century [A.D. 500s].”⁷  This would not be the only instance at this time of the year where the Church responded in such a way to pagan festivities.  As Mr. Gregory DiPippo has pointed out, “a common feature of the liturgies of January 1st [is] that they were designed at least in part as an answer to and reproof of riotous pagan celebrations of New Year’s Day.”  For example, the Epistle for January 1st (Tit 2:11-15) exhorts: “denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly and godly in this world,” and not behave as the pagans are currently.

Over the course of time, these seven Greater Ferias with their seven O Antiphons acquired spiritual meanings.  William Durandus the Elder, Bishop of Mende (d. A.D. 1296), who did for the liturgy what St. Thomas Aquinas did for theology, will be our guide as we explore these interpretations (Rationale Divinorum Officium, VI, XI, 4-6).  But, before that, it should be explained that “feria” comes from a Latin word meaning “free day” or “festival day.”  When a day on the liturgical calendar does not have a feast, it is called a feria, that is, a free day to be spent in contemplating God and the things of God.

In his treatment, Durandus first explains that each of the O Antiphons, and thus each of the seven days, can be seen as corresponding to one of the seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost with which Christ is anointed as foretold by the Prophet Isaias: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.  And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: [1] the spirit of wisdom, and [2] of understanding, [3] the spirit of counsel, and [4] of fortitude, [5] the spirit of knowledge, and [6] of godliness.  And he shall be filled with [7] the spirit of the fear of the Lord” (Isa 11:1-3).  These same Gifts are also those bestowed on those illuminated by Baptism.

These seven days also signify the longing of the ancient fathers for the coming of Christ, which was manifested by their maintaining a sevenfold structure of observance (“septenario servientes“).  St. Thomas Aquinas explains this sevenfold observance in the Prologue to his Commentary on the Psalms: “seven also signifies the Old Testament, for the Old Testament fathers maintained a sevenfold structure of observance (septenario serviebant).  They observed the seventh day [that is the Sabbath Day/Saturday]; the seventh week [that is the Feast of Weeks/the Jewish Pentecost]; the seventh month [the month with the Feast of Trumpets/Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur/the Day of Atonement, and Sukkot/the Feast of Tabernacles]; and the seventh year of the seventh decade, which is called the jubilee (cf. Lev 25:8–10).”

Additionally, Durandus notes that “by these seven antiphons, the Church shows the manifoldness of vice, and asks for the remedy for each vice, for, before the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, we were ignorant or confused, doomed to eternal punishments, slaves of the devil, bound by the evil habit of sin, covered by darkness, driven out and exiled from our homeland” (Rationale, VI, XI, 5).  In each of the Antiphons, a remedy is requested from the longed-for Son: for ignorance, “Dec 17 O Wisdom, come and teach us the way of prudence;” from the doom of eternal punishment, “Dec 18 O Lord, come and redeem us with an outstretched arm;” for slavery to the devil, “Dec 19 O Root of Jesse, come and liberate us, and delay no longer;” for the habits of sin, “Dec 20 O Key of David, come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death;” for darkness, “Dec 21 O Orient, come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death;” for exile for both the Gentiles – “Dec 22 O King of the Gentiles, come and save the human race which you fashioned from clay;” and for the Jews – “Dec 23 O Emmanual, our king and our lawgiver, come and save us, O Lord our God.”  Durandus also explains how the order of the Antiphons themselves follows the order in which these remedies should be applied.  For example, one must be redeemed before being liberated from the prison, and so on.

At Lauds during the Greater Ferias of Advent, proper antiphons, which change daily, are appointed for the Psalms and Old Testament Canticles.  These antiphons are also used during the diurnal Minor Hours of their respective days.  Historically, however, there were only six sets, not seven, of these antiphons in order to leave room for propers of the Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle, which always falls during the Greater Ferias.⁸  In these six sets, Durandus sees represented the six ages of the world, where “the first age is reckoned from Adam to Noah; the second, from Noah to Abraham; and, as Matthew the evangelist duly follows and distinguishes, the third, from Abraham to David; the fourth, from David to the carrying away into Babylon; the fifth, from the carrying away into Babylon to John the Baptist; the sixth, from John the Baptist to the end of the world.”⁹  The first five of these ages, and part of the sixth, occurred entirely before the Advent of Our Lord and thus represent the periods which the ancients spent preparing for the Lord’s First Advent.  These six sets of antiphons also represent the six works of mercy enumerated by Our Lord by which we are to prepare for His Second Advent (the season of Advent is concerned with both the First and the Final Coming of Our Lord, along with His intermediate coming into the soul by grace) – “[1] For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat: [2] I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink: [3] I was a stranger, and you took me in: [4] naked, and you covered me: [5] sick, and you visited me: [6] I was in prison, and you came to me” (Mat 25:35-36).

May these reflections help us enter into these last days leading up to Christmas with the same spirit as our forefathers in the Faith, understanding them to be an invitation to separate ourselves from the riotousness of our post-Christian culture, at this time of year particularly, by a more assiduous assistance at the Church’s liturgies and by endeavoring for a greater devotion in prayer, and also as seeing them as representing the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost by which Christ and the Baptized are anointed; the longing of the ancient fathers for the coming of the Messiah; the sevenfold vices which held mankind captive and their sevenfold remedies sought from the Son; the ages of the world leading up to the first Advent of the same Son; and the good works we must do to prepare for His second.

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. Guéranger, Prosper. The Liturgical Year, vol. 1 (Advent). Trans. Shepherd, Laurence. (Fitzwilliam: Loreto
   Publications, 2000), p. 494.
2. Traditionally, on 24 December, the Vigil Day of Christmas, the altar could be decorated with flowers and other trappings, the organ could be played without restraint, the solemn tone was used at Mass, all stood for the orations, and the Deacon and Subdeacon would wear dalmatic and tunicle, yet the color of the vestments was still violet, the Benedicamus Domino was used, and it was still a day of fasting and abstinence (Matters Liturgical [1956], 461.c, d, e).  For information about how the Easter Vigil, which is the Mass of Holy Saturday and not the “First Mass of Easter,” participates in the festivity of the next day, see here.  The festal liturgies proper of Christmas and Easter both begin with First Vespers celebrated in the evenings preceding.
3. Talley, T. J. The Origins of the Liturgical Year.  (New York: Pueblo Books, 1986), pp. 150-151.
4. Barber, Michael Patrick. The True Meaning of Christmas – The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2021), p. 155.  See also Saturnalia: Meaning, Festival & Christmas | HISTORY.
5. Denis-Boulet, Noele M. Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Section X – The Worship of the Church, vol. 113 – The Christian Calendar. Trans. Hepburne-Scott, P. (New York: Hawthron Books, 1960), p. 50.
6. Talley, pp. 150-151.
7. Cabaniss, J. Allen. Liturgy and Literature – Selected Essays. “A Note on the Date of the Great Advent Antiphons.” (University of Alabama, 1970), p. 100.
8. Previously, these sets of proper antiphons were for Monday through Friday inclusively, with Saturday only having only a proper antiphon for the Old Testament Canticle.  As each Sunday of Advent has proper antiphons as well, this rounded out the number to six sets.  If the Feast of St. Thomas (21 December) fell on a weekday, the set of antiphons for that day, excluding the antiphon for the Old Testament Canticle, would be used on Saturday together with the Saturday antiphon for the Canticle (unless Christmas Eve fell on the 4th Sunday of Advent, in which case, the antiphons of the 4th Sunday, excluding again the one for the Old Testament Canticle, would be used on Saturday instead of those of the Feria, six sets still being maintained).  A full set for Saturday was added during the breviary reform of Pope Pius X, and the rubrics governing the use of these antiphon sets were changed.  Mr. Gregory DiPippo gives the texts of these antiphons and a bit of their history in this post on the New Liturgical Movement blog.
9. St. Augustine’s Tractates (Lectures) on the Gospel of John, 9 (John 2:1-2), 6.

“All of the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
—Saint Francis of Assisi

Holy Mother Church has given us the tradition of Rorate Mass in the midst of Advent as an opportunity to contemplate the mystery of darkness and light. Outside, the streets and fields wait in night’s stillness for dawn, but inside the sanctuary, candlelight leaps into the shadows and overpowers them. We may feel as if the darkness of sin and indifference – like the darkness of the troubles that plague our world, our nation, and our Church – threatens to overwhelm and destroy the Light of Christ. But darkness cannot overcome light. The light of just one candle is enough to dispel darkness. Imagine the power of the Light of the World!

It is especially poignant that this candlelit Mass is offered in honor of Our Lady, as it was she who held and nurtured inside of her the Eternal Light. The Rorate Mass is a visible, burning reminder that, by vigilantly tending the flame of faith in our own hearts through prayer and penance, humility and hope, we prepare for the dawn of Christ inside ourselves too.

It takes days to set up all the candles in the Shrine before Rorate. Hundreds of tiny, flickering flames set the altar and sanctuary aglow. We invite you to join us in this spiritual labor by offering a candle to Our Lady this year for your particular intentions. The Rorate Mass will be offered for those intentions enrolled. And the candles that burn for those intentions will continue to bear your prayers to Heaven for seven days and nights.

Unite your prayers to our Lady’s at this year’s Rorate Mass by lighting a candle. Together, let us hearken to the Dawn, hidden just beyond the horizon: https://stalphonsusbalt.org/rorate

Watch the live broadcast of High Mass from the Shrine, featuring Francisco Guerrero’s Missa Beata Mater and a prelude and motets by Biebl, Poulenc, Ola Gjeilo, and Palestrina. Mass begins just before dawn at 6 am on Saturday, 14 December: https://youtube.com/live/pwwZi8T9-Yk

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

“I think tomorrow is a feria, is there a votive Mass you would like?” I asked the server when we returned to the sacristy after Mass.  I was, together with a number of FSSP Priests, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, one of the FSSP’s international houses of formation in Denton, Nebraska, for the 2024 FSSP North American Study Days held this past September.  The topic of study was the liturgy.  We had two outside speakers, Fr. Uwe Michael Lang of the London Oratory, who attended in person, and Mr. Gregory DiPippo of the New Liturgical Movement blog, who attended via zoom.  An FSSP Priest from Germany also presented via zoom.  We visiting Priests would say our daily Masses at the various altars in the seminary chapel, assisted by one of the seminarians as a server.  After a short back and forth, my seminarian-server, answering my question, chose the votive Mass for a happy death (Ad postulandam gratiam bene moriendi).

The next day, when I arrived in the sacristy, the seminarian-server had laid out the violet vestments for this votive Mass and had also prepared the chalice, paten, and other items.  After I had vested, we proceeded to the altar and began.  This was my first time using this particular votive Mass.

As death is brought to the fore in this month dedicated to the Poor Souls, I thought it would be fitting to share the propers of this votive Mass and to glean from them insights on how the Church views death.

The Introit for this votive Mass is taken from Psalm 12 and reads as follows:

Ps. 12:4 Enlighten my eyes that I never sleep in death: lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him.  Ps. 12:1 How long, O Lord, wilt Thou forget me unto the end?  How long dost Thou turn away Thy face from me?  ℣. Glory be….Enlighten…

This Psalm is “a prayer in tribulation” and was used by David when he was being persecuted by King Saul.  The Haydock Commentary explains that “death” here spiritually means the death of the soul brought about by mortal sin, and the enemy, historically the person of Saul, spiritually is the devil and his fallen angels.  In context of this votive Mass, the chant is asking that at the moment of death (“the end”), one be protected from the devil and his minions lest they prevail by occasioning the soul to fall into mortal sin and thus be condemned to hell for all eternity as a punishment.

In the Collect, the Priest prays:

Almighty and merciful God, Who bestowest on mankind both the remedies of health and the gifts of life everlasting: look mercifully upon us Thy servants, and refresh the souls which Thou hast made; that at the hour of their going hence they may be found worthy to be presented without stain of sin to Thee, their Maker, by the hands of the holy angels.  Through Our Lord…¹

Here the priest is asking that the souls of the Faithful, refreshed by God’s grace, may be presented at the moment of death without any sin before the seat of God’s judgement by the holy angels, in contradistinction to the devils feared as enemies in the Introit.

The Epistle is taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans (14:7-12):

Brethren: For none of us liveth to himself: and no man dieth to himself.  For whether we live, we live unto the Lord: or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.  For to this end Christ died and rose again: that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.  But thou, why judgest thou thy brother? Or thou, why dost thou despise thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.  For it is written: As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God.  Therefore every one of us shall render account to God for himself.

In this reading, St. Paul reminds the Faithful that all will be judged at the moment of death.  Therefore, each should live unto the Lord – that is, live a Christian life by the help of God’s grace – so that at death, each may render a good account of himself to God.

The Gradual is that of the Third Saturday in Lent and is also used in the Votive Mass for Pilgrims:

Ps. 22:4 If I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death I will fear no evils; for Thou art with me, O Lord.  ℣. Thy rod and thy staff they have comforted me.

The Alleluia is taken from the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost:

Alleluia, alleluia.  ℣. Ps:30, 2-3 In Thee, Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded: deliver me in Thy justice and save me; bow down Thy ear to me, make haste to deliver me.  Alleluia.

By both of these, the soul expresses her confidence and hope in God.

In Septuagesima, the following Tract, from Ember Wednesday in Lent, is used:

Ps. 24: 17-18, 1-4 Deliver me from my necessities, O Lord: see my abjection and my labor: and forgive me all my sins.  ℣. To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust, let me not be ashamed: neither let my enemies laugh at me.  ℣. For none of them that wait on Thee shall be confounded: let all them be confounded that do vain things.

Here again, as in the Introit, the enemies are the fallen angels working to bring about the damnation of the soul.  The soul cries, asking God to forgive her all of her sins.  As this chant is used as the Church is preparing for her primary season of penance, the soul fittingly groans under the weight of her sins and infidelities.

During Paschaltide, the following chants are used:

Alleluia, alleluia. ℣. Ps 113:1 When Isreal went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people. [21st Sunday after Pentecost]

Alleluia.  ℣. Ps. 107:2 My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready: I will sing, and give praise unto Thee, my glory.  Alleluia. [20th Sunday after Pentecost]

Psalm 113 recounts the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt including their passing dry-shod through the Red Sea.  The passage of the Hebrews through the Red Sea is seen as spiritually representing the translation of the soul via Baptism from the death of sin to the life of grace (see 1 Cor 10:1-4).  Grace here below, if kept, is the seed of eternal glory in the world to come.  The verse from Psalm 107 expresses the disposition of soul well-prepared to enter into eternal life there to praise God for all eternity.  As these are used during Eastertime, they are more joyful than the other interlectional chants used during the other times of the year.

The Gospel is taking from St. Luke’s account of Our Lord foretelling the destruction of the Temple (21:34-36):

At that time: Jesus said to His Disciples: Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life: and that day come upon you suddenly.  For as a snare shall it come upon all that sit upon the face of the whole earth.  Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come and to stand before the Son of man.

The Gospel again warns that all are to give account to the Just Judge, the Son of man, for how they conducted themselves in this life.

The Offertory is taken from the Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost:

Ps. 30: 15-16 In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped: I said, Thou art my God, my times are in Thy hands.

Only God knows the hour of one’s death.  As such, the Faithful should place their hope in God that He will provide for their needs at that time.  This, however, does not mean that one can live a dissolute life and expect a grand conversion at the end, for as the tree leans, so does it fall.

After the oblata are prepared, the following Secret is used:

Receive, O Lord, we beseech Thee, the sacrifice which we offer unto Thee for our last days: and grant that by it, all our sins may be washed away, that we, who by Thine appointment, are stricken by Thy scourges in this life, may obtain eternal rest in the life to come.  Through Our Lord…²

Adam and Eve were created with preternatural gifts, including immortality.³  These gifts would have been passed down to their descendants, but they were lost as a punishment, a scourge, for their sin.  We, their children, still suffer under this scourge, and the others which our sins have brought about, or which God permits for our benefit.  In this oration, the Faithful ask that by the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which may God remember they offered when they are dying, they may be washed from their sins and thus be able to enter into eternal life after bearing in a Christian manner the scourges inflicted during this life.

The Communion is the same as that for the Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost:

Ps. 70:16-17, 18 O Lord, I will be mindful of thy Justice alone: Thou hast taught me, O God, from my youth, and unto old age and grey hairs, O God, forsake me not.

Here the soul reminds God that He has been with the soul for her entire life and asks that God forsake her not at the end.

The final oration, the Postcommunion, is as follows:

We beseech Thy clemency, O almighty God, that by the power of this sacrament Thou wouldst vouchsafe to strengthen us Thy servants with Thy grace; so that in the hour of our death the enemy may not prevail against us, but that we may be found worthy to pass, in company with Thine angels, into life everlasting.  Through Our Lord…⁴

A theme throughout this Mass, brought to a conclusion by this final prayer, is that as death approaches, that moment upon which hangs one’s eternal destiny, the soul’s enemies, that is the fallen angels, will seek to draw the soul to perdition.  Here, contrariwise, the Faithful ask God for the strength to overcome these enemies and enter into the life of the blessed with those angels who did not fall, similar to the request made in the Collect.  It is worth noting here that the orations of this Mass, slightly modified, are also used in the votive Mass of the sick for those who are close to death.

May these texts and short reflections aid you, dear reader, to reflect upon how the Church, according to these Mass formulae, understands death and contemplate how you should strive to live so that when the moment of death comes, which must come to us all, you will be disposed to receive God’s grace for the forgiveness of any remaining sins and to combat the enemies of your souls.  Pray regularly for the grace of a good death, and, if possible, see if your Priest would offer up this votive Mass for your benefit and for the benefit of those dear to you.

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. Translations are taken from the Saint Andrew Daily Missal, Societe Liturgique Canadienne, Engreg., 1945.  Original Latin: Omnipotens et misericors Deus, qui humano generi et salutis remedia et vitas aeternae miinera contulisti: respice propitius nos famulos tuos, et animas refove, quas creasti; ut, in hora exitus earum, absque peccati macula tibi Creatori suo per manus sanctorum Angelorum repraesentari mereantur. Per Dominum.
2. Original Latin: Suiscipe, quaesumus, Domine, hostiam, quam tibi offerimus pro extremo vitae nostrae, et concede: ut per earn universa nostra purgentur delicta; ut, qui tuae dispositionis flagellis in hac vita atterimur, in futura requiem consequamur aeternam. Per Dominum.
3.  See Ott, Ludwig. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Trans. Lynch Patrick. Edited by Bastible, James. Updated by Fastiggi, Robert. (Baronius Press, 2018), pp. 113-116, 123.
4. Original Latin: Quaesumus clementiam tuam, omnipotens Deus, ut per huius virtutem sacramenti nos famulos tuos gratia tua confirmare digneris: ut in hora mortis nostrae non praevaleat contra nos adversarius; sed cum Angelis tuis transitum habere mereamur ad vitam. Per Dominum.

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

As a going away present, one of the families of Regina Caeli parish in Houston, Texas gifted me both volumes of the recently published translation of Honorius Augustodunensis’s Jewel of the Soul published by Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.  I was very excited to receive it, having seen the review posted on the New Liturgical Movement blog.  The family asked that I provide a review of the work.  As such, this post is a response to their request.

To begin with, this work is a liturgical commentary, with a heavy emphasis on the allegorical or spiritual interpretation of the rites.  The author himself was a “priest, monk, and hermit active in southern Germany and Austria” who died around 1140.¹  According to the first paragraph of the introduction:

Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae, or Jewel of the Soul, stands out among the treatises of the pre-Scholastic blossoming of commentary on the Franco-Roman liturgical rite.  Building on the work of Alamar of Metz (775-850), who wrote during the formative state of this rite, the Jewel is a liturgical encyclopedia, a rhymed-prose summa that explains the sacred mysteries of the Latin Church for clerics.  It was read and imitated widely in the twelfth and thirteen centuries as the major authority on the liturgy, only superseded by William Durand’s Rationale divinorum officiorum (1291-1292), a work deeply indebted to it.²

According to the publisher’s website, this is “the first complete translation into a modern language” of this work.

In the translation, the first volume contains the Dedicatory Letters, Preface, and the first two Books.  The first Book treats mainly on the Mass, the second on the Divine Office.  The second volume contains Book 3, Book 4, and the Valediction.  Books 3 and 4 both deal with the days of the liturgical year, with Book 3 addressing each individually and Book 4 ambitiously attempting to harmonize them so that they tell an overarching historical story over the course of the Church’s year, starting with Genesis and creation, even if some of the days symbolize both events or moments from the Old Law (“Under the Law”) and from the New Law/the Age of the Church (“Under Grace”).  Throughout, the original Latin is presented on the lefthand pages, with the English translation on the right.

Overall, this work is no doubt a jewel, but I do have a few criticisms of the publication.  The first is that there did not seem to be a consistent standard as to when something would be kept in the Latin in the translation, such as the names of prayers.  There were some instances where I expected the Latin name to be given but a translation was provided instead, when, in other similar situations, the Latin would be provided.  Also, as Honorius based his work on ceremonies of the Franco-Roman liturgy he was familiar with, they differ in certain respects from what was promulgated in the Roman books following the Council of Trent.  I would have appreciated it if diagrams had been provided by the translators illustrating what Honorius was describing where the ceremonies differ.  This would also be of benefit for those with little or no familiarity with the traditional Roman Rite.  But, to be fair, the notes do explain certain things, such as the non-Roman practice of the bishop blessing the faithful before the distribution of Communion.³  Considering, however, the work as a whole, these criticisms are relatively minor.

One positive thing which I would like to note is that I was struck by the militaristic interpretations of the rites.  Honorius strongly viewed the Crucifixion as a battle waged between Christ and the Devil, with Christ emerging victorious and thereby freeing man from sin and death (what is called today the Christus Victor model of the atonement).  Based on the unity of the Mass and the Sacrifice of the Cross, Honorius viewed the Mass as an expression of this battle with the Priest entering into combat in Christ’s place (e.g. I.44, I.72).  This understanding served as the foundation for one vein of liturgical interpretation presented in the Jewel.  While understanding the Cross as a combat predates this time, and is expressed in the liturgy itself,⁴ such an interpretation of the liturgy would have been eagerly received by Honorius’s contemporaries as the Christian success of the First Crusade (1096–1099), with its capturing of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Crusader States, was a recent event.  It should also be noted in this regard that the 1100s and 1200s were, perhaps, when chivalry reached its height.⁵  The contemporary social and political situation also served as another foundation used by Honorius with the feudal, hierarchical arrangement of society and the current manner of warfare serving as a complementary lens for interpretation so that, for example, the bishop could be seen as a victorious emperor (I.73), the cantors as military captains (I.76), and the assembled faithful as an army arranged for spiritual battle (I.75).  Similarly, the rites are also viewed as the service of soldiers in the presence of and for the benefit of their Divine King (e.g., II.1).  This militaristic vein of interpretation would no doubt serve well those who have a more combative disposition but also, and more importantly, help restore a proper masculine spirit to the Church’s rites.

From my reading, while this militaristic mode of interpretation can be found in William Durand’s work (d. 1296), it is infrequently used.  In a similar way, while Durand’s contemporary St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) does not deny that in some way man was rescued from the domination of the devil when he discusses Christ’s Passion, he mostly focuses on the Satisfaction model of the atonement where Christ made, by His voluntary sacrifice, satisfaction to the justice and honor of God, thereby paying the debt to God man incurred by sin (S.T. III, q. 48, a. 4).⁶  It is worth noting in this regard that a shift occurred with the theology of St. Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109) who proceeded “from the contemplation of the guilt of sin,” which demands an infinite expiation, while those before him proceeded “more from the contemplation of the consequences of the Redemption, and therefore stress[ed] the negative side of the Redemption, namely the ransoming from the slavery of sin and of the Devil.”⁷  This shift may explain why combat themes are more prominent in the comparatively earlier writing of Honorius and not in the comparatively later writings of Durand and Thomas.

In closing, I would heartly recommend this work to those who are interested in approaching the Latin Liturgy, and the Mass in particular, in the same way as our Catholic forefathers, especially embracing an allegorical outlook.  It would also serve well those who seek to practice their Faith in a more militaristic, chivalrous manner, in the manner of a knight, in the manner of a crusader.

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. Honorius Augustodunensis. Jewel of the Soul, vol 1. Trans Thomas, Zachary and Eger, Gerhard. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press – Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2023), p. vii.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 583, n. 60.1.
4. Such as in the Preface of the Holy Cross (most likely 8th Century, Alcuin of York) – “Qui salútem humáni géneris in ligno Crucis constituísti: ut, unde mors oriebátur, inde vita resúrgeret: et, qui in ligno vincébat, in ligno quoque vincerétur / Who didst establish the salvation of mankind on the tree of the Cross; that whence death came, thence also life might arise again, and that he, who overcame by the tree, by the tree also might be overcome” – and the Easter Sequence [Ascribed to Wipo, 11th Cent.]  – “Mors et vita duéllo conflixére mirándo: dux vitæ mórtuus regnat vivus. / Death and life contended in that conflict stupendous: the Prince of Life, who died, deathless reigneth.”
5. Chivalry | Definition & Examples | Britannica.
6. The Satisfaction model also has support in the Liturgy, such as in the Exsultet (5-7th Century) of the Easter Vigil which has the text: “Qui pro nobis ætérno Patri Adæ débitum solvit: et véteris piáculi cautiónem pio cruóre detérsit. / [Christ] Who for our sake paid Adam’s debt to the eternal Father, and, pouring out His own dear Blood, wiped clean the record of our ancient sinfulness.”  Indeed, the Roman Canon itself, codified for all intents and purposes by St. Gregory the Great (d. 604), presents the Sacrifice of the Mass, and thus the Sacrifice of the Cross, as being the offering of the Son to the Father.
7. Ott, Ludwig. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Trans. Lynch, Patrick. Edited by Bastible, James. Updated by Fastiggi, Robert. (Baronius Press, 2018), p. 204.

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

On the first Sunday in October in 1571, the seventh day of the month, a Christian fleet, commanded by Don Juan of Austria, engaged a Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto.  The resulting Christian victory – which preserved Christendom from a Turkish sea-invasion – was in large part due to the prayers of the Rosary Confraternities and the intervention of Our Lady.  In commemoration, a feast was instituted, that of “Our Lady of Victory,” which was later renamed “Our Lady of the Rosary.”  Because of the prominence of this feast, the entire month became dedicated to the Holy Rosary.

According to pious tradition, as recounted in the traditional Matins readings of the Third Nocturne for the Feast, the Rosary, in more or less its present form, was given to St. Dominic by Our Lady to combat and ultimately defeat the Albigensian heresy in southern France.  As such, the connection between the Holy Rosary and victory over the enemies of the Church was established long before the battle at Lepanto.

The traditional core of the Rosary is composed of 150 Hail Marys.  Because of this, it was known as Our Lady’s Psalter, the 150 Aves mirroring the 150 Psalms.  These 150 Aves are then divided into three sets of five mysteries, the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious, with ten Hail Marys being assigned to each mystery.

When Our Lady appeared at Fatima, she asked that a third of the Rosary be recited daily for peace, meaning 50 Hail Marys or one set of Mysteries.  This is how many pray their daily Rosary, but a full Rosary has 153 Hail Marys in total, the above-mentioned 150 for the Mysteries and 3 which are introductory.  It is worth noting that between May 13, 1917, the day of the first apparition at Fatima, and October 13, 1917, when the Virgin Mary presented herself as the Lady of the Rosary, there are, counting exclusively of the day of the first apparition, 153 days.

In his Fifth Method for Saying the Rosary, St. Louis de Montfort associates the 153 Hail Marys with the 153 fishes which were caught in John 21 when Our Lord appears to the Apostles as they are fishing on the Sea of Galilee.  The saint expressed that the Rosary’s “fruitfulness [is] shown in the net that St. Peter by order of Our Lord threw into the sea and which though filled with 153 fish did not break.”¹

Numerous interpretations have been given as to the meaning of the number of fishes caught. Cornelius à Lapide, in his commentary on the Gospel of John, summarizes them as follows:

S. Jerome gives (in Ezek. xlvii. 9) the literal reason; because there are just that number of different kinds of fish.  This is what he says, “Those who have written about animated nature say that there are an hundred and fifty-three kinds of fish.  One of each of these kinds was caught by the Apostle, and more remained uncaught.  For noble and ignoble, rich and poor, all sorts and conditions of men, are drawn out of the sea of this world to salvation.”   You must, however, understand the matter thus, that only the chief genera of fishes are included in this number, for, speaking strictly, there are many more kinds.  Therefore by this number, or symbol, Christ signified that all nations were to be gathered up into the net of the Church, whose head and prince is Peter, and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs.

Symbolically, Cyril says the number one hundred signifies the fulness of the Gentiles which was about to enter into the net of Peter and the Church: the fifty signifies the smaller number of the Jews, who would be saved: the three represents the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, by the faith and worship of Whom both Jews and Gentiles are gathered together and saved.  But S. Augustine (Tract. 122) says, “This number is made up of three times fifty plus three, because of the mystery of the Trinity.  The fiftieth was the year of jubilee in which all the people rested from all their labours.  The year of jubilee represented the state of Gospel grace.”

More particularly and plainly Rupertus and Maldonatus explain thus.  By those three numbers is signified the three-fold race of men who are saved.  The hundred denotes those who are married, “for these are the most numerous.  The fifty denotes the widows and the continent, for these are fewer in number.  The three denotes virgins, the fewest of all.”

So, 153 could represent all the nations of the world brought into the Church – or – 100, the Gentiles, 50 the Jews, and 3 the Holy Trinity – or – 3, the Trinity, and 50 thrice, the Year of Jubilee – or – 100, the married; 50, widows and the continent; and 3, the virgins.  All are possible and non-contradictory interpretations.

St. Augustine also notes, as he is wont to do, in his Tract on the Gospel of John that 153 is the sum of the first 17 whole numbers, that is 1+2+3 and so on up to 17 which gives 153.  17 is, of course, 10+7, with 10 representing the Ten Commandments and 7 the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Here 153 represents the combination of Grace and the Commandments and therefore all “who are sharers in such grace are symbolized by this number, that is, are symbolically represented.”² So, 153 can represent all those who share in grace.

In recognizing that 153 is the sum of the first 17 whole numbers, St. Augustine recognizes 153 as what would be called by modern mathematicians a Triangular Number.  These numbers can be visualized by using beads laid out to form a growing triangle.  The number of beads which form a complete row of the growing triangle, and thus form a complete triangle themselves, and which count is also equal to the sum of the number of rows, are the Triangular Numbers (see accompanying image).  The series of Triangular Numbers up to 153 are 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55, 66, 78, 91, 105, 120, 136, and 153.  153 is the 17th Triangular Number, meaning that the 153rd bead fully completes a triangle with 17 rows of beads.

Additionally, 153 is also a Hexagonal Number.  These numbers can be visualized by beads forming growing nested hexagons all sharing the original bead as a corner point and each new hexagon having side lengths which are each one bead longer than the previous.  Similar to Triangular Numbers, the number of beads which close each of the hexagons are the Hexagonal Numbers (see accompanying image).  The series of Hexagonal Numbers up to 153 are 1, 6, 15, 28, 45, 66, 91, 120, and 153.

153 is also the sum of the first five positive factorials: 5! + 4! +3! + 2! + 1! = 5x4x3x2x1 + 4x3x2x1 + 3x2x1 + 2×1 + 1 = 120 + 24 + 6 +2 +1 = 153.

Further, 153 is a Narcissistic Number which is a number where the sum of the digits each raised to the total number of digits returns the original number.  153 has 3 total digits: 1, 5, and 3.  The calculation of the Narcissistic Number is: 1³ + 5³ + 3³ = 1 + 125 + 27 = 153.

Now, dear reader, you might be asking what is the importance of Triangular Numbers, Hexagonal Numbers, and Narcissistic Numbers?  To be honest, I do not know, but they are important to mathematicians and, more importantly, reflect the order which God has built into the creation He designed.

In addition to its mathematical properties, 153 also has a curious association with the mandorla, the “almond-shaped aureole of light surrounding the entire figure of a holy person; it was used in Christian art usually for the figure of Christ.”³ The mandorla is also called the vesica piscis, or the “bladder of a fish.”  The connection between this shape and the number 153 is explained as follows:

The number 153 is also sometimes said to be related to a symbol called the “vesica piscis”, which consists of the intersection of two equal circles whose centers are located on each other’s circumferences. However, the relevance of the number 153 to this shape is rather dubious.  It rests on the fact that the ratio of the length to the width of this shape equals the square root of 3, and one of the convergents of the continued fraction for the square root of 3 happens to be 265/153.  It is sometimes claimed that this was the value used by Archimedes, but this is only partly true.  Archimedes knew that the square root of 3 is irrational, and he determined that its value lies between 265/153 and 1351/780, the latter being another convergent of the continued fraction.⁴

It should be noted that sideways, the vesica piscis resembles the shape of the body of the Christian Fish, the “Jesus Fish,” the ichthus, a symbol used in the early Church, now usually encountered on the back of cars.  (N.B.: as the vesica piscis also has non-Christian and unedifying associations, a high degree of caution should be observed if one wishes to undertake further research, especially with regards to image searches).

Now, dear reader, if the above number treatment seems weird and foreign to the Christian approach to things, I can only encourage you to read more Augustine as he spends a great deal of time dealing with numbers in this manner.

The 153 Hail Marys of the full Rosary are filled with meaning.  153 could represent all the nations of the world brought into the Church – or – 100, the Gentiles, 50 the Jews, and 3 the Holy Trinity – or – 3, the Trinity, and 50 thrice, the Year of Jubilee – or – 100, the married; 50, widows and the continent; and 3, the virgins.  153 is also mathematically teeming as it is a Triangular Number, a Hexagonal Number, the sum of the first five positive factorials, a Narcissistic Number, and also associated with the shape of the almond-shaped glory cloud found in Christian art.  These are all fitting and proper things to reflect upon during this month dedicated to the Holy Rosary.  May these reflections, then, aid in keeping this month well.

Our Lady of Victory, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us!

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. Writings of St Louis Marie de Montfort – Methods for Saying the Rosary.
2.  St. Augustine’s Tract on the Gospel of John, 122, 8.
3. Mandorla | Byzantine, Christian & Medieval | Britannica.
4. Catch of the Day (153 Fishes) (archive.ph).

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

In January 2023, I received an unexpected yet joyfully welcomed email which invited me to join in a project with the Italian Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Newark to rejuvenate the neglected devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Torrent (Madonna della Lavina) at my home parish in New Jersey.

While devotion to the Blessed Virgin under this title originated in Cerami, Sicily around 1630, the image at the foundation of the devotion is a Byzantine icon from, possibly, the 1300s.  There are different theories of how this icon made its way to Cerami, located in the mountainous area of eastern Sicily, but none of them are conclusive.  A telling of the story how this image of the Virgo Lactans received the title “Our Lady of the Torrent” can be found in one of the earliest articles I wrote for the Missive.

Brought by Sicilian immigrants to the New World, this devotion would find a home at St. Aloysius church in Caldwell, New Jersey.  While there had been Ceramesi immigrants in the area since the 1880s, the beginning of the American observance took place on a hot summer day in 1912, when, during a work break, Ceramesi laborers began to sing in honor of Maria SS della Lavina – “protector of their fathers in Italy and of them in America.”¹  Soon after, a Maria SS della Lavina Mutual Aid Society was established (chartered in 1912, now discontinued).  In 1934, one known affectionally as “Uncle Sam” (Mr. Santo Stivale) commissioned Mr. Onorio Ruotolo, founder of the New York City Leonardo da Vinci Art School, to produce a painting of the Blessed Virgin patterned on the Ceramese painting of the Virgin nursing her Son.

Over time the devotion would grow to including a large, multiday festival and a procession in honor of the Madonna, celebrated around Labor Day weekend (the feast day in Cerami is September 7th).  The Society would also build a hall near the church in 1939, which was eventually given over the Knights of Columbus and then to the town, which turned the property into a garden.  As time passed, the large festival ceased to be celebrated, while, for a time, the procession would continue passing through the old Italian/Ceramesi areas of the town.

I have fond memories of participating in the Maria SS della Lavina devotions as a child.  When I was younger, I helped set up drinks for the participants of the yearly procession at my maternal grandparents’ house, a rest stop along the route.  When I was a bit older, I served the Mass prior to the procession and carried the processional cross.  By the time I went to college, not even the procession was being done, although there had been an attempt at a revival at one point.

When the time came, I selected the St. Aloysius painting as the image for my Priestly ordination holy card due to the sentimental value it carries for my family and myself.  This choice has led to a deepening devotion to Our Lady under this title, including eventually realizing that I have ancestral ties to Cerami through my maternal grandmother, meaning that my family’s participation in this devotion most likely goes back to the old country (it is also likely that one my relatives was among the original founders of the Mutual Aid Society in Caldwell).  As stated above, one of the first articles I wrote for the Missive was on the origin of the devotion to Our Lady under this title.  This article served as the catalyst for being invited by the Italian Apostolate to aid in the rejuvenation of the devotion.

As a result of this collaboration, an initial celebration was held in honor of the Madonna della Lavina at St. Aloysius church in Caldwell, on Thursday, September 7, 2023, which is, as was stated, the day of her feast in Cerami.

In the time leading up to the event, my mother, our neighbor, his son – all who have ties to the devotion – and I gathered together memorabilia, mostly pins and photos.  The neighbor’s son, who has professional experience with these sorts of things, put together a display for a reception.  As we were organizing the memorabilia, I noticed in a photograph that American and Italian flags were carried in the procession.  I asked if we knew where the Italian flag was, and my neighbor and his son provided me with the contact information of the one they thought had it.  I gave the provided contact a call and he agreed to meet at the church on the day of the event during the setup time.  On the day of the event, he arrived with another gentleman.  They had brought with them, among other items, the old Society banner, the wooden crown and mantle which had adorned the painting during the procession, and the Society’s officer sashes.  The wooden crown was handmade by Uncle Sam, while the faux jewels were added later by others.  Embroidered on the inside of the mantle are the names of those who fashioned it.  It was a great and unexpected surprise to receive these items.  There is no doubt that Our Lady’s hand can be seen in this.

On the day of the 2023 celebration, I offered a Low Mass in honor of the Madonna della Lavina.  I chose to use the Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Grace (B. Mariae Virg. Matris Gratiae) from the Masses for Various Places (Missae pro aliquibus locis) as the image is classified as an image of Our Lady of Grace.  The Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Grace is the same as the Mass of the Holy Name of Mary (September 12th), except for a proper collect (opening prayer).  For the Mass, the painting, which normally adorns a wall in the foyer (narthex) of the church, was displayed near the side altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In attendance were members of the former Society and Knights of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George.  During the sermon, after expressing special thanks to the Archbishop, Joseph Cardinal Tobin, and to the Pastor of St. Aloysius, Msgr. Robert Emery, for their support, I preached about how the restoration of this devotion, and of those like it, should not be undertaken simply for the sake of nostalgia or in an effort to recreate an idealized past, but rather because they are, in and of themselves, worth recovering and because the faithful recognize something in them which will be spiritually beneficial for themselves and their children today.  The Mass was followed by a gathering in the parish center where there was the aforementioned display.  At the gathering, I presented an overview of the history and practices of the devotion as practiced both in Cerami and in Caldwell.  About fifty attended the Mass and thirty the reception afterwards.  Photos of last year’s event can be found here on the Il Regno Blog.

On Wednesday, November 22, 2023, the pastor of St. Aloysius church received a decree from the Cardinal Archbishop, dated November 1, 2023, granting me a three-year permission to celebrate annually the Traditional Latin Mass in honor of Our Lady of the Torrent, thus making this celebration “the only Archdiocesan approved Extraordinary Form Italian Devotion.”²  The FSSP North American Provincial also gave his nod for me to continue participating.  The first usage of this permission was on Saturday, September 7, 2024.  This year’s celebration was greatly expanded from the previous years.  A polyphonic Solemn High Mass (Palestrina’s Missa Brevis), in which a diocesan priest ministered as deacon and a canon of the Institue of Christ the King as subdeacon, was celebrated.  Again, the Mass was that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Grace.  During the sermon, I compared the Italian immigrants to Aeneas, the remote founder of Rome.  When Aeneas fled Troy, he carried his father on his back, led his son, and brought with him his household idols.  Symbolically, the father represented Troy’s past and its culture; the son, the future; the idols, reverence towards their gods.  Similarly, the Italian Immigrants of the late 1800s and early 1900s left a worn-torn and devastated area, invaded by an enemy.  They carried their traditions and cultures from their different regions and towns, which merged to form a broader, unique Italian-American culture and a unique subtype of American Catholicism.  By their hard work and sacrifices, they laid the foundation for a better future for their descendants.  They brought with them, not false gods or idols of paganism, but their saints and devotions, taken from their towns, cities and regions, such as the Madonna della Lavina.

After Mass was over, the image was incensed, and the procession, with an honor guard formed by the local Knights of Columbus, began.  An Italian Feast Band, a must for Italian feasts, met the image outside the main doors of the church.  Originally, the procession was to cover part of the older route from when I was younger, but, due to weather concerns, it was kept on the church’s property.  When the Society was discontinued, the original processional litter (vara) was donated to another parish nearby, which modified it to carry a statue of Our Lady.  While it would have been very fitting to use this vara, as it was modeled on the one used in Cerami for the feast of Our Lady of the Torrent, the modifications made this impossible.  Unsure how we would carry the image during the procession, Our Lady provided.  I had returned to New Jesey a few days before to prepare for the event.  The pastor of the local FSSP apostolate asked how preparations were going and if we had a carrier for the procession.  It turned out that the chapel had recently received a new carrier, and so he was able to offer us the older one for our use.  The day before the event, we were able to modify this litter by adding an art easel to it, making it a vara capable of carrying the image.  When the image reentered the church at the conclusion of the procession, the band followed.  The image was again incensed and then left in the Sanctuary for the devotion of the faithful.  A light reception of Italian pastries followed the procession in the church’s gym, where the neighbor’s son had again set up a display.  It was truly a family event, as my relatives played key roles in bringing about this year’s celebration, which had about 110 in attendance, nearly double from the year before.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of my family for their effort, all those who made donations or gave support in anyway, as well as the major organizational sponsors of the event: the Borough of Caldwell, the Knights of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George, the Station of The Cross – Catholic Media Network, Calandra’s Italian Village, and Caldwell Flowerland.

Next year’s celebration is scheduled for Saturday, September 6th, 2025, with Mass starting at 11 am, again at St. Aloysius church in Caldwell, New Jersey.  All are graciously invited to attend.

To conclude, I present to you, dear reader, the following photographs of the 2024 event.

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Mater Lavinæ!

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. From the newspaper clipping “Madonna della Lavina Society – Ceramesi Roots of Caldwell” believed to be from The Progress Newspaper, 1979.
2. Per the Director of the Italian Apostolate of the Archdiocese of Newark.

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

According to the Genesis creation account, on the Fourth Day, God created the sun, the moon, and the stars:

And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: to shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth, and it was so done.  And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars.  And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth.  And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness.  And God saw that it was good.  And the evening and morning were the fourth day.  (Gen 1:14-19).

It is of great importance to note that in addition to marking the distinction between the day and the night, these heavenly bodies were also given “for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.”  As the Hebrew word translated here as “seasons” can also mean “feasts,”¹ this passage indicates that God intended these heavenly bodies to play a role in the religious observances of the pinnacle of material creation, man.  The role of the sun in this regard, particularly with respect to the solstices and the equinoxes, was explained previously.  More recently, an explanation of the role the phases of the moon play in this regard was also presented.  This just leaves the stars to be treated.

The roles of the stars when first encountered might strike some as strange as the foundation of the stars’ role is found in the 12 constellations of the zodiac.  For some, the word “zodiac” immediately calls to mind the sin of astrology, but this was not the case for our Christian forefathers.  For them, the constellations which comprise the zodiac were placed there by God for the sake of measuring time.  The solar year was determined by the time it took the sun to traverse all 12 signs of the zodiac.  That this is how Christians measured the year is attested to by William Durandus the Elder, Bishop of Mende (d. A.D. 1296), the great medieval liturgical commentator, in his Rationale Divinorum Officium (see VIII, III, 4).  Additionally, the Roman Liturgical books contained a section entitled “The Year and its Parts” (De Anno et ejus Partibus) which begins:

The year comprises twelve months, or fifty-two weeks and one day; more precisely, 365 days and almost six hours; this being the time taken for the sun completely to traverse the Zodiac.²

The text then goes on to explain leap years and that the year actually falls short of the 365 days and six hours.

As the sun progresses through the zodiac, it enters, is in, and then leaves each of the constellations, dividing the year into 12 segments based on which constellation the sun is currently traversing.  However, just as it was explained previously that in addition to the astronomical full moon and astronomical Spring Equinox there are the Ecclesiastical full moon and the Ecclesiastical Spring Equinox, there is also the Ecclesiastical zodiac which is the counterpart to the astronomical zodiac.  But, in order to understand this, one must have an understanding of how the Roman calendar expresses the days of the month.

Like many ancient peoples, the early Romans used the phases of the moon to determine the months.³  The first day of the month, the Kalends, was the day of the new moon (when the first crescent of the waxing moon was visible), the Nones marked the first lunar quarter (the half moon while the moon is waxing), and the Ides, the full moon.⁴  On the Kalends, a pagan Roman priest, the pontifex minor, would announce the new crescent and how many days until the Nones.  On the Nones, he would announce how many days until the Ides.  The days between the Kalends and the Nones and between the Nones and the Ides were kept in a count-down fashion.  These three days, the Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides, served as the reference days for the rest of the days of month.

As the calendar developed, the months became disassociated from the phases of the moon, but the method of determining the days within the month as well as the names for the reference days were retained.⁵  The Kalends still indicated the first day of the month, while the Nones was either the fifth or seventh day of the month, and the Ides the thirteenth or fifteenth day of the month, depending.  Although these reference days were no longer tied to the phases of the moon, the relationship between them continued to reflect this origin.  The full moon occurs “about 14 days”⁶ after the full moon (the Ides is on the thirteenth or fifteenth day of the month) and the first quarter around seven days after the new moon (the Nones is on the fifth or seventh day of the month).  The following little poem is way of remembering how the Nones and Ides fall in each month:

In March, July, October, May,
The Ides are on the fifteenth day,
The Nones the seventh; but all besides
Have two days less for Nones and Ides.”
– Gildersleeve’s Latin Grammar

Laid out in a table, the reference days would fall as follows:

In the reckoning of the day of the month, a given day either fell on one of the three reference days, the day before one of the reference days (the Pridie), or a count back from one of the three reference days, inclusively.  Yes, the days were counted backwards from the reference days.  Remember, days between the Kalends and the Nones and between the Nones and the Ides were originally kept in a count-down fashion.  In the calendar introduced by Julius Caesar, which was later adopted by Christians, this method for reckoning the days of the month was maintained.

By way of an example, in the current method of determining the day of the month, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord falls on the 25th day of December, but, in the Roman Books, it falls die octavo ante Kalendas Mensis Ianuarii, that is, on the eighth day before the first day of January, counting inclusively.  The following explains visibly how that was determined.

According to this method, the Nativity of Our Lord and the Nativity of John the Baptist are celebrated on the same day of the month, the eighth day before the Kalends of January and of July respectively, although according to the currant usage one falls on the 25th and the other on the 24th.

In his Rationale, Durandus explains that each Ecclesiastical zodiac period begins on each 15th day before the Kalends (see VIII, III, 5).  So, for example, during the month of March, Ecclesiastical Aries begins on the 15th day before the Kalends of April, which is March 18th (currently, astronomical Aries begins around March 21st).  In the month of April, Ecclesiastical Taurus begins on the 15th day before the Kalends of May, April 17th (currently, astronomical Taurus begins around April 20th).  Durandus then spends the next 12 paragraphs explaining each of the different constellations of the zodiac.

In his treatment of Aries, Durandus explains that this constellation is the start of the zodiac, as it is claimed that the sun was created in Aries and that this is the sign which the sun is in around the beginning of spring, the Spring Equinox (see VIII, III, 6).  Here, Durandus, as he does throughout his work, is just echoing an earlier tradition for

many ancient Christians such as Julius Africanus believed that God created the sun on March 25th, the [original Julian observed] spring Equinox.  Their reasoning was based on Scripture.  In Genesis, the reason God makes the heavenly lights-the sun, moon, and stars-is to “separate the day from the night” (Genesis 1:14).  It was assumed that when God divided the day and the night, He separated them evenly.  Since day and night are evenly divided during the spring equinox, March 25 was believed to be the day God created the sun and the moon.⁷

A March 25th date for the creation of the sun would both fall within Ecclesial and astronomical Aries.

But why does this matter to Christians?

In his letter to the Emperor Marcian (CXXI), Pope St. Leo the Great (d. 461) expressed that the celebration of Easter was always to occur in the first month (Paschale etenim festum, quo sacramentum salutis humanae maxime continetur, quamvis in primo semper mense celebrandum sit⁸), no doubt referring back the ordinance that the Hebrew Passover was to be celebrated in “the first month” (Lev 23:5).  The writings of the Jewish historian Josephus (d. ~A.D. 100) shed some relevant light onto how the “first month” is to be determined.  In his Antiquities of the Jews (3.10.5), Josephus wrote:

In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of our year, on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries, (for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians,) the law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover.

According to Josephus, “the first month” is when the sun is in Aries, corresponding with Durandus’ claim that Aries marked the beginning of the zodiac cycle and thus the year.

While St. Leo, for his part, does not state exactly how the month he referenced is to be determined, he does indicate that Easter, according to ancient custom, can only be celebrated from March 26th (the day after an observed Spring Equinox) to April 21st (Siquidem ab undecimo kalendarum Aprilium, usque in undecimum kalendarum Maiarum, legitimum spatium sit prefixum, intra quod omnium varietatum necessitas concludatur: ut Pascha Dominicum nec prius possimus habere nec tardius⁹).  An earlier reference to this tradition can be found in the Festal Letter of St. Athanasius for the year A.D. 349.  This Letter expresses that the date of Easter for that year proposed by the church of Alexandria — after the First Council of Nicaea, the church of Alexandria was entrusted with calculating the date of Easter — was rejected by the church of Rome because it fell beyond the limits received from St. Peter (ob traditionem a Petro apostolo acceptam).¹⁰  The window provided by St. Leo of March 26th to April 21st corresponds to when the sun is, for the most part, in Aries (March 21st to April 19th astronomically or March 18th to April 16th ecclesiastically), corresponding to the determination of the “first month” given by Josephus.  The occasion of this letter to Marcian by Leo was a dispute with the Bishop of Alexandria who had, again, proposed a date for Easter outside of the Roman range.  Reflecting on this, Cardinal Ratzinger, in his Spirit of the Liturgy, wrote the following:

In the fifth century there was a controversy between Rome and Alexandria about what the latest possible date for Easter could be.  According to Alexandrian tradition, it was April 25.  Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461) criticized this very late date by pointing out that, according to the Bible, Easter should fall in the first month, and the first month did not mean April, but the time when the sun is passing through the first part of the Zodiac — the sign of Aries.  The constellation in the heavens seemed to speak, in advance and for all time, of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (Jn I:29), the one who sums up in himself all the sacrifices of the innocent and gives them their meaning.  The mysterious story of the ram, caught in the thicket and taking the place of Isaac as the sacrifice decreed by God himself, was now seen as the pre-history of Christ.  The fork of the tree in which the ram was hanging was seen as a replica of the sign of Aries, which in turn was the celestial foreshadowing of the crucified Christ.¹¹

After the conflict which prompted his letter, Pope St. Leo sought a more permanent solution to the disagreement with Alexandria.  The result was the work of Victorius of Aquitaine.  Unfortunately, even though he was tasked by Rome, Victorius did not use the Roman limits when he developed his Easter Tables and, as a result, the Alexandrian range became the standard.¹²  Thus the current range of the Gregorian Easter is March 22nd to April 25th, the Alexandrian range.  Even so, because the date of Easter is tied to the observed Spring Equinox, which itself is associated with Aries, the date of Easter is thus always associated with Aries, even if Easter occurs when the sun has left Aries.

With regards to Easter and its association with the Spring Equinox, it would be worthwhile here to note that by the time of the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), due to defects in the Julian Calendar, the observed date of the Spring Equinox (March 25th) no longer corresponded with the actual astronomical event, which was then occurring around March 21st.  As a result, March 21st became fixed as the Ecclesiastical/observed date for the Spring Equinox.¹³  The earliest Easter could be in the Alexandrian range (March 22nd) was still the day after the observed Spring Equinox (March 21st).  It was imperative for the early Christians that Easter fall after the Spring Equnoix, for, as (?pseudo-)Anatolius, Bishop of Laodicea in Syria, wrote in his De ratione paschali, around the year A.D. 270:

In this correspondence of the sun and moon [i.e., the Spring Equinox], the Pasch [the Easter Sacrifice] is not to be offered up, because so long as they are discovered in this combination, power of darkness is not overcome, and as long as equality between light and darkness prevails and is not diminished by the light, it is shown that Pasch is not to be offered.  And therefore it is enjoined that the Pasch be offered after the vernal equinox.¹⁴

Here Anatolius is commenting that since the Winter Solstice, the longest night and shortest amount of daylight in the year, the amount of daylight has been steadily increasing and the night has been growing shorter, while at the Spring Equinox the amount of night and daylight is equal.  Anatolius reasons that since in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, the Light overcame darkness, its liturgical commemoration should not be celebrated until the natural light has overcome the natural darkness, which is not until at least the day after the Spring Equinox when they are equal.¹⁵

The Feast of Easter, then, is associated not only with the sun (Easter is to be celebrated after the Spring Equinox) and the moon (Easter is to fall after the full moon) as explored previously, but also with the stars by its association with Aries, the three types of heavenly bodies created by God in the Genesis account.

In a materialist society such as that in which we find ourselves today, it is very easy to see the heavenly bodies simply as combinations of atoms governed by the laws of physics, but our Christian forefathers saw in these bodies vestiges of the Divine given to provide structure to the universe.  It would serve us well to regain such a worldview, one which rises above the material and sees in creation the great harmony set there by the Creator intended for all men, but especially for those redeemed by the Blood of the Son of God Who entered into the great cycles of days, months, and years, which He Himself set into motion.

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. 1. Strong’s Dictionary, H4150.
   2. Taken from an English translation from a 1967 Dominican Breviary provided by the Divinum Officium Project here.
   3. Bickerman, E. J. (Elias Joseph). Chronology of the Ancient World. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 16-21.
   4. Ibid., p 44.
   5. Ibid., p. 47.
   6. See What is the moon phase today? Lunar phases 2024 | Space.
   7. Barber, Michael, Patrick. The True Meaning of Christmas-The Birth of Jesus and the Origins of the Season. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press: 2021), p. 162.
   8. PL 54:1055 (1844).
   9. PL 54:1057 (1844).
   10. PG 26:1355 (1857).
   11. Ratzinger, Joseph. The Spirit of the Liturgy. Trans. Saward, John. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), p. 99-100
   12. Cullen, Olive M. A Question of time or a Question of Theology: A study of the Easter controversy in the Insular Church. (Maynooth: 2007), pp. 73-74.
   13. The Old Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Reform of the Calendar.”
   14. As quoted by Godard, Philip J. Festa Paschalia-A History of the Holy Week Liturgy in the Roman Rite. (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2011), p. 20.
   15. The reader is no doubt familiar with the fact that the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24th) occurs soon after the Summer Solstice (June 21st), the day with the most daylight and shortest night, and that Our Lord’s Nativity (December 25th) occurs slightly after the Winter Solstice (December 21st), the day with the least daylight and longest night.  Liturgical commentators have associated the decrease of daylight associated with the Nativity of John and the increase of daylight associated with the Nativity of Christ with the following line spoke by John: “He must increase: but I must decrease” (Joh 3:30).  The increase of Christ then goes on to the Spring Equinox, when daylight and night are equal, and then past to when daylight prevails, signaling the Light’s victory over darkness by Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  There does not seem to be any comparable association with the Fall Equinox, when daylight and night are equal length, although the Fall Ember Days and the associated Hebrew Festivals are celebrated around this time.  In the days following the Fall Equinox, the amount of night will increase until the Winter Solstice.

by Fr. William Rock, FSSP

There is a plethora of Catholic calendars with varying degrees of detail and information.  Interestingly, some of them, such as those published by the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer and Sophia Press, indicate the phases of the moon.  The question naturally arises as to why such calendars include this information.  Some might even object that such a thing smacks of paganism.  The answer, however, has its roots in the calendar of the Old Testament.

The Hebrew people used a lunisolar calendar where the length of the 12 months was determined by the cycle of the moon, resulting in months which were 29 or 30 days long (the lunar part of the calendar).  As this would fall short of the solar year, an additional month would be added in intervals to realign the lunar months with the solar year (the solar part of the calendar).  The month would start with the new moon,¹ which is when the moon is at its minimum visibility at the start of a period of increase (i.e., the first visible crescent when the moon begins to wax).  The days of the month, for their part, were counted, inclusively, from the most recent new moon.  The days of the month, then, are really days of the moon, with the first day of the moon, the first day of the month, corresponding to the new moon.

The beginning of the month, the new moon, was kept as a festal day.  God commanded the Hebrew people through Moses that “on the first days of your months [that is, the day of the new moon], you shall sound the trumpets over the holocausts, and the sacrifices of peace offerings, that they may be to you for a remembrance of your God.  I am the Lord your God” (Num 10:10).  Again, in the Psalms is found: “blow up [bucinate, sound] the trumpet on the new moon, on the noted day of your solemnity” (8o:4).

The feasts of the Torah, which were to be kept on certain days of the month, were determined by counting days from the start of their respective months, that is from the new moon which began the month.  The most important of these feasts for our purposes here is the Feast of Passover which was to be kept in “the first month, the fourteenth day of the month at evening” (Lev 23:5).  It is important to note here that the full moon occurs “about 14 days”² after the new moon.  This means that the celebration of the Passover was associated with, but not determined by, the full moon.

In the early Church, there was a controversy over when the feast of the Lord’s Resurrection, the Feast of Easter, should be kept.  The greater number of the churches kept this feast on Sunday, while the churches of Asia Minor kept the feast on the fourteenth day of the first Hebrew month regardless of which day of the week it fell.  This controversy came to an end at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.  The Old Catholic Encyclopedia explains as follows:

It is generally held that the Last Supper took place on the Jewish Feast of the Passover, which was always kept on the fourteenth day of the first month of the old Jewish calendar.  Consequently, since this month always began with that new moon of which the fourteenth day occurred on or next after the vernal equinox, Christ arose from the dead on Sunday, the seventeenth day of the so-called paschal moon.  It is evident, then, that an exact anniversary of Easter is impossible except in years in which the seventeenth day of the paschal moon falls on Sunday.  In the early days of Christianity there existed a difference of opinion between the Eastern and Western Churches as to the day on which Easter ought to be kept, the former keeping it on the fourteenth day and the latter on the Sunday following.  To secure uniformity of practice, the Council of Nicæa (325) decreed that the Western method of keeping Easter on the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon should be adopted throughout the Church, believing no doubt that this mode fitted in better with the historical facts and wishing to give a lasting proof that the Jewish Passover was not, as the Quartodeciman heretics believed, an ordinance of Christianity.³

The calendar being used by these Christians was the Julian Calendar, the months of which, by this time, no longer had any ties to the lunar cycles.  Resulting from the need to determine the relevant “fourteenth day of the moon,” the early Christians adopted the Greek Metonic Lunar Cycle, also known as the Cycle of Golden Numbers, founded on the work of Meton of Athens (5th century B.C.).  A key part of Meton’s work is summarized as follows:

In the year now known as 432 B.C., Meton, an Athenian astronomer, discovered that 235 lunations (i.e. lunar months) correspond with 19 solar years, or, as we might express it, that after a period of 19 solar years the new moons occur again on the same days of the solar year.  He therefore divided the calendar into periods of 19 years, which he numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. to 19, and assumed that the new moons would always fall on the same days in the years indicated by the same number.  This discovery found such favour among the Athenians that the number assigned to the current year in the Metonic Cycle was henceforth written in golden characters on a pillar in the temple, and, whether owing to this circumstance or to the importance of the discovery itself, was known as the Golden Number of the year.⁴

And so, the Nicaean calculation of Easter was based not only on the Julian determination of the Spring Equinox (solar), which was observed on March 21st, but also the relevant 14th day of the moon of the Metonic Lunar Cycle (lunar), which, as was stated above, is associated with the full moon.  The Church, then, not only had a solar calendar in the Julian, but also an independent lunar calendar.

The method for determining Easter established by the Council of Nicaea is generally summarized as follows: “Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon following the Spring Equinox.”  And, while this is helpful, it should be more actually expressed as: “Easter is to be celebrated on the first Sunday following the 14th day of the Moon of the Metonic Lunar Cycle which occurs after March 21st of the Julian Calendar, when the Spring Equinox is observed.”  Because there might be some discrepancy between the astronomical events and their observances in the calendars, in order to avoid confusion, the Julian March 21st is referred to as the Paschal or Ecclesiastical Equinox, while the associated 14th day of the moon is referred to as the Paschal or Ecclesiastical full moon.  As such, a more proper rendering of the first would be: “Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first Ecclesiastical full moon following the Ecclesiastical Spring Equinox.”

At the time of the First Council of Nicaea, the astronomical Spring Equinox did regularly occur on or around the Julian date of its observance and the astronomical Paschal full moon regularly occurred on or around the associated 14th day of the moon.  However, as the centuries progressed, the shortcomings in the Julian Calendar resulted in the astronomical Spring Equinox and its Ecclesiastical observation becoming more and more disassociated from each other.  Additionally, “it was found that the paschal moon of the Metonic Cycle was losing all relation to the real paschal moon”⁵ due to its shortcomings.  For these reasons, Pope Gregory XIII (d. A.D. 1585) undertook a reform of the calendar, which not only corrected the shortcomings of the solar Julian Calendar (reassociating the astronomical Spring Equinox with the calendar’s March 21st), but also the independent lunar calendar (reassociating the 14th day of the lunar month with the astronomical Paschal moon).  From this point, the Gregorian March 21st and the Gregorian 14th day of the moon became the Paschal/Ecclesiastical Equinox and Paschal/Ecclesiastical full moon, respectively, used in the determination of the date of Easter (at least for those who accepted the reform).

The Church has never lost track of the fact that she is indeed using two different calendars, one solar and one lunar, to calculate not only the Feast of the Resurrection, but also all the observances which depend on this date – Septuagesima, Ash Wednesday and Lent, the Spring Ember days, the days of Holy Week, the Minor Rogations, the Ascension, Pentecost, the summer Ember Days, Corpus Christi, and the Feast of the Sacred Heart.  In fact, Roman Liturgical books contained detailed explanations, in the section entitled “The Year and its Parts” (De Anno et ejus Partibus) on how to determine Easter, and thus the associated moveable feasts, a calculation which involves, among other things, the Gregorian Golden Number of the lunar calendar.  Additionally, in her daily proclamation of the Roman Martyrology at the Office of Prime, where the entry for the following day is read, the lector begins not only by indicating the entry’s Gregorian calendar day (solar), but also its Gregorian day of the moon, the day of the lunar calendar, with the first day associated with the new moon.  The antiquity of this practice is attested to by Pope Gregory XIII in his decree promulgating his reformed calendar (Inter gravissimas [A.D. 1582], 10).

So now, when you, dear reader, look upon a Catholic calendar which shows the phases of the moon, you can think back to this article and remember the prominent role the moon and its phases play in the shaping of our liturgical year.

Fr. William Rock, FSSP was ordained in the fall of 2019 and is currently assigned to St. Stanislaus Parish in Nashua, NH.

In support of the causes of Blessed Maria Cristina, Queen, and Servant of God Francesco II, King 

1. Old Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Jewish Calendar.  See also Bickerman, E. J. (Elias Joseph). Chronology of the Ancient World. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 16-21.
2. See What is the moon phase today? Lunar phases 2024 | Space
3. Old Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Epact.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.