Lent is kind of a big deal for Catholics (and other liturgically emphatic Christians such as Anglicans and Lutherans). Due to the post-Vatican-II obsolescence of Ember Days and the gradual non-emphasis on the penitential nature of Advent over time, Lent is really the only widely observed penitential season in the modern Church. To those who don’t observe it, Lent often carries the perception of a “Catholic Ramadan” or, thanks to the well-intentioned marketing efforts of the Hallow app, “Mark Wahlberg’s 40 Day Challenge.”
Lent was an even bigger deal for medieval Catholics, and as a result it’s a big deal for academics–including my intellectual confreres who study the liturgy practiced by St. Isidore of Seville and the Visigoths. In the small but ever-growing body of scholarship on the topic of the Old Hispanic Liturgy, Lent is a topic that appears and reappears consistently (Baptismal rites are another such topic). The book Music and Meaning in Old Hispanic Lenten Chants is one of the foremost examples, but it only scratches the surface of academic fascination with the lenten period. It makes sense–Visigothic Lent was interesting and a variety of factors set it apart from the rest of the liturgical year more so than was the custom in other western liturgies. Each Sunday in Lent had an extra reading, the offices and chants were extremely unique, and over time a great many paraliturgical activites developed around the triduum–as excellently examined in Mozarabs, Hispanics and the Cross by Raul Gomez-Ruiz.
One of the most important liturgical events that occurred during Visigothic Lent was the preparation of the catechumens for Baptism, which included the public memorization of the creed (symbolum) during Holy Week. (The Visigothic Church is, in fact, was one of the earliest adopters of the Nicene creed in the liturgy). On Palm Sunday, the creed would solemnly be “passed on” (recited to) to the catechumens, a liturgical event known as the traditio symboli. On Holy Thursday, having rehearsed for a few days, the catechumens recited it aloud as a group.
There are many angles from which we can examine this ceremony. It is a security against lingering heresy; a reminder for the baptized of the promises they carry with them; an opportunity for the congregation to unite themselves in Faith and brotherhood with the new catechumens. I think, too, it symbolized the fruits of catechization: the existing congregation passes on the Faith (in word, thought, and deed) to the new catechumens, who only reflect back the same Faith after a period of study.
When I was working on my Master’s Program I wrote a research paper on the symbolum and I still enjoy digging into that sort of thing, but it can get rather dry. Now that I have less time for contemplating footnotes and more for contemplating daily life, I have been thinking about the experience of the Visigothic catechumen. The careful memorization, the practicing with friends outside of Church, the fear of public speaking that might grip one’s throat at the last minute on Holy Thursday. The agonizing wait until Easter. All while undertaking (in most cases) far more rigorous fasts than the average Catholic observes today. After the climactic redditio Symboli, Good Friday would involve a panoply of processions and paraliturgy, and Holy Saturday would offer a day of solemn rest (I wrote about this three years ago) before Easter arrived.
And that was all packed into one week that came after several weeks of fasting, praying, and (for the catechumens) instruction. During the time these liturgical practices came into being, the Visigothic Church was rebuilding itself after centuries of heresy’s stronghold in Iberia (first Priscillianism, then Arianism). Practicing and reciting the creed was an act of daring hope as well as Faith–hope for a united Church, with a united liturgy, sacraments, and beliefs. Wariness in early Iberia still lingered in many quarters between Visigothic newcomers, the long-established hispano-Roman communities, and fringe Celtic rural villages where pagan rites were still praticed at least well into the seventh century. The liturgy was a place where the Faithful new and old symbolically affirmed a set of shared beliefs that were meant to trickle out into their lives outside the sanctuary.
The Old Hispanic prayers during the sign of peace on Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday illuminate even further the really momentous thing that was happening during these liturgies. On Palm Sunday, the ad Pacem (proper prayer during the sign of Peace) reflected this emphasis on unity:
Deus qui es unitas sancta et Trinitas indiuisa, adauge in nobis fidei donum et beate charitatis affectum : quo utroque a te ditati ex munere. heredes efficiamur promissionis eterne.
God, who are holy unity and undivided Trinity, magnify in us the gift of faith and the disposition of blessed charity, so that enriched by you from each of these gifts, we may be made heirs of the eternal promise.
Ferotin, Liber Sacramentorum, 224
The Ad Pacem for the liturgy of Holy Thursday is much longer so I will not include the entirety here, but for one momentous phrase that nicely rounds out the ceremony of the creed:
propellatur a nobis osculum Iude traditoris, et conferatur pax, quam ceteris discipulis commendauit preceptio tue institutionis.
Dispel from us the kiss of Judas the traitor, and let that peace be brought upon us, which the precept of your teaching entrusted to the rest of the disciples.
Ferotin, Liber Sacramentorum, 237
By reciting the creed as one, the catechumens and the professed Faithful warded away the kiss of the traitor and embraced the peace of the apostles who stayed Faithful to Christ unto and beyond the foot of the Cross.
I think such an approach would do us all well in these days approaching Easter!
Musings of a medievalist mama 