Monday 3 October 2011

The bells, the bells...



A rather interesting rubric in the 1576 Missale Romanum Google Books have been kind enough to digitalise.

3 comments:

davidforster said...

The point being ... I think ... that in current practice the bells are sounded during the Gloria and then are silent, but here they are sounded after the procession to the altar of repose, and then are silent. Correct?

Rubricarius said...

David, Yes. I noticed the rubric whilst looking at a 1598 MR yesterday published in Antwerp. The 1574 Antwerp edition (also from Google) does not have it. It does not appear to be widespread.

Lector Orientalis said...

This is a fascinating rubric. I wonder whether one may make an analogy between this ringing of bells and that prescribed in the Byzantine Rite for the carrying of the Shroud on Good Friday? I am also reminded of how this procession with the Sacrament on Maundy Thursday is—provided that one follow the rite in the form that existed before its mutilation in the 1950s—much more Orthodox than the degenerate varieties that papists introduced, for other occasions, from the late Middle Ages onwards. On Maundy Thursday, several degrees of veiling of the Sacrament are involved: It is to be placed in a chalice covered with a pall and upturned paten, covered with white silk tied with a ribbon, then enveloped in a humeral veil. This is entirely in keeping with the Byzantine mentality of veiling the Sacrament out of reverence, and should be contrasted with the much more recent phenomenon, in the West, of exposing the Sacrament to view.