Thomas Aquinas
1224/1225 - 7 March 1274.
Part III
Thomas Aquinas, a great admirer of the Holy Eucharistic.
Thomas Aquinas was also a Latin word painter. He shows it in the hymns composed for th liturgy of the feast of the Holy Eucharistic (Corpus Christi), promulgated by Pope Urban IV (ca 1195 - 2 October 1264) in 1264. (1)
The origin of the feast.
The Augustinian nun Juliana of Liège (ca 1192 - 5 April 1258) had a veneration for the Blessed Sacrament from her early youth, and always longed for a special feast in its honour. (2)
In 1208, she reported her
first vision of Christ in which she was instructed to plead for the institution
of the feast of Corpus Christi. The vision was repeated for the next 20 years
but she kept it a secret. When she eventually relayed it to her confessor, he
relayed it to the bishop. (3)
Juliana also petitioned the learned Dominican Hugh of St-Cher, Jacques Pantaléon (Archdeacon of Liège who later became Pope Urban IV) and Robert de Thorete, Bishop of Liège. At that time Bishops could order feasts in their dioceses, so in 1246 Bishop Robert convened a synod and ordered a celebration of Corpus Christi to be held each year thereafter.(4)
The celebration of Corpus Christi became widespread only after both St. Juliana and Bishop Robert de Thorete had died. In 1263, Pope Urban IV investigated claims of a Eucharistic miracle at Bolsena, in which a consecrated host began to bleed.
In 1264, he issued the papal bull ‘Transiturus de hoc mundo’, in which Corpus Christi was made a feast throughout the entire Latin Rite.(5) This was the very first papal sanctioned universal feast in the history of the Latin Rite.(6)
While the institution of the Eucharist is celebrated on Holy Thursday, the liturgy on that day also commemorates Christ's New Commandment ("A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you." John 13:34), the washing of the disciples' feet, the institution of the priesthood and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. For this reason, the Feast of Corpus Christi was established to create a feast focused solely on the Holy Eucharist.
The liturgy of the feast Corpus Christi by Thomas Aquinas.
A new liturgy for the feast was composed by St. Thomas Aquinas. This liturgy has come to be used not only on the Feast of Corpus Christi itself but also throughout the liturgical year at events related to the Blessed Sacrament.
The hymn, composed by Thomas for
Vespers of Corpus Christi, 'Pange Lingua', is also used on Holy Thursday during
the procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the altar of repose.
The last two verses of Pange Lingua are also used as a separate hymn, 'Tantum
Ergo', which is sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
'O Salutaris Hostia', another hymn sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament,
comprises the last two verses of 'Verbum Supernum Prodiens', Aquinas' hymn for
Lauds of Corpus Christi.
Aquinas also composed the proprium for the Mass of Corpus Christi, including the sequence 'Lauda Sion Salvatorem'. The epistle reading for the Mass was taken from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11:23-29), and the Gospel reading was taken from the Gospel of John (John 6:56-59).
Prior to the liturgical reforms
following the Second Vatican Council, separate feasts existed for the Body of
Christ, held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and the Most Precious Blood
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with a feast held on July 1.
For those groups
currently using the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the two distinct
feasts remain according to the liturgical calendar of the Extraordinary Rite.
Until 1955, the Feast of Corpus Christi was followed by a privileged octave.
References
1.^ At the time Corpus
Christi was introduced. Paschaltide is now ended by Whitsunday. See Corpus
Christi: All About Corpus Christi
2.^ Catholic encyclopedia [1]
3.^ Phyllis Jestice, Holy people of the world Published by ABC-CLIO, 2004 ISBN
1576073556 page 457 4.^ The decree is preserved in Anton Joseph Binterim,
Vorzüglichsten Denkwürdigkeiten der Christkatholischen Kirche (Mainz, 1825-41),
together with parts of the first liturgy written for the occasion.
5.^ The Feast of Corpus Christi By Barbara R. Walters, Published by Penn State
Press, 2007 ISBN 0271029242 page 12
6.^ Oxford history of Christian worship By Geoffrey Wainwright, Oxford
University Press 2006 ISBN 0195138864, page 248
All from Wikipedia.
Fresco of Raffaello Santi, known simply as Raphael (6 April 1483 - 6 April 1620)
Raphael Urbinas, also
Raffaello Santi, known simply as Raphael (6 April 1483 – 6 April 1620) placed
Thomas Aquinas on his fresco 'Disputa del Sacramento', Vatican Palace, Rome,
1509-1510. This fresco decorates the apartments of Pope Julius II in the Vatican
Palace.
The Vatican palace.
It is certain that Pope Symmachus (498-514) built a residence to the right and left of St. Peter's and immediately contiguous to it.
By the end of the 13th century the building activity of the Popes Eugene III, Alexander III, and Innocent III had developed the residence of Symmachus into a palatium which lay between the portico of St. Peter's and the Vatican Hill.
Pope Nicholas III
(1210/1220 –Pope 25 November 1277 – 22 August 1280) began building on the
Vatican Hill a palace of extraordinary dimensions, which was completed by his
immediate successors. He also secured land for the Vatican Gardens.
These buildings were scarcely finished or fitted when the Popes moved to Avignon and from 1305 to 1377, no Pope resided permanently in the Vatican Palace. Pope Urban V spent a short time in Rome and Pope Gregory XI died there in 1415.
500the Anniversary of the fresco 'Disputa del Sacramento', 1509-2009.
Vatican City 2009, Mi Block 33.
When Urban V resolved to
return to Rome, the Lateran Palace having been destroyed by fire, the ordinary
papal residence was fixed at the Vatican.
The apartments, roofs, gardens, and chapels of the Vatican Palace had to be
entirely overhauled, so grievous had been the decay and ruin into which the
buildings had fallen within sixty years (see Kirsch, "Die Rüchkehr der Päpste
Urban V. u. Gregor. XI.", Paderborn, 1908). The funds devoted to the repairs of
the Vatican during the residence at Avignon had been entirely inadequate.
Urban VI (Pope 8 April
1378 – 15 October 1389) and his successors restored to the palace a
degree of comfort as a place of residence, so that, when Pope Martin V came from
Constance to Rome (28 September, 1420), little remained to be undertaken except
some rearrangement of the apartments.
Nicholas V (Pope 16 March 1447 – 24 March 1455) erected buildings on the east and north sides of the Cortile del Papagallo, on the spot where the Loggia of Raphael and the Appartamento Borgia and the Stanze stand today.
Pius II (Pope 19 August
1458 – 15 August 1464)and Paul II (Pope 30 August 1464 – 26 July 1471)
beautified the buildings of the south aide, and Innocent VIII (Pope 29 August
1484 – 25 July 1492) effected such alterations in the old palace in the portico
of St. Peter's at the foot of the hill that it was henceforth known as the
Palazzo di Innocenzo VIII.
Alexander VI (Pope 10
August 1492 – 18 August 1503) added to the Palace of Nicholas V the Torre
Borgia, which bears his name. In his apartments, beautiful decorated by
Pintodiccio, Alexander lived with his wife and children.
Pius III (Pope 1503), moved into the apartments of Alexander VI, and Julius II
(Pope 1 November 1503 – 21 February 1513) also. However, before 1508, Julius
decided to move to the upper floor. He would not spend his days on the place
where his immoral predecessor had lived.
Pope Julius II ordered
architect Bramante to decorate the living, the ‘Stanza delle Segnatura’, with
fresco’s. After some troubles, Bramante introduced Raphael Santi (6 April 1483 -
6 April 1520).
Julius paid Raffael an advance on 3 January 1509, after which the painter got
down to work. About the middle of 1510, this fresco ‘Disputa del Sacramento’ was
finished.
The fresco ''Disputa del Sacramento'.
Raphael created a scene spanning both heaven and earth. Above, the Blessed Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and various biblical figures such as Adam, Moses and Jacob surround Christ. God sits above Jesus depicted reigning over the golden light of heaven. Below, on the altar sits the monstrance.
Theologians who are depicted debating ‘Transubstantiation’ flank the altar: the
change of the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in
the Eucharist. Pope Gregor the Great (ca 54 - Pope 12 August 604)
Pope Sixtus IV is the gold dressed Pope in the bottom of the painting. Directly
behind Sixtus is Dante, wearing red and sporting a laurel wreath (symbolizing
his greatness as a writer.
In the left hand corner,
there is a bald figure reading a book, leaning
over a railing.
This is Raphael's mentor and famous renaissance architect Bramante.
At the bottom of the painting four Dominicans:
Fra Angelico, in the middle Thomas
Aquinas with Pope Gregory and
Thomas de Vio (Cajetan) with cardinal's
hat,
and at the right after some figures
Savonarola.
Vatican City 2009, Mi 1650, Sc -.
Ajman 1972, Mi 1891.
Pieter Paul Rubens, 28 June 1575 -
30 May 1640.
Tapestry
after design by Pieter, Paul Rubens 'The institution of Corpus Domini'
for the church of the monastery of the Clare Sisters in Madrid. Thomas Aquinas
as defender of the Eucharistic at the right of the Monstrance.
Malta 1980, Mi 607, Sc 567.
Tapestry by P.P.Rubens: Saint Clare
among the Fathers of the Church. ca 1623, 86 x 91 cm.
Rubens designed twenty
cartons for tapestries about The triumph of the
Eucharisty over the
idolatry, dedicated to the church of the monastery of
the Sisters Clare in Madrid. Thomas
Aquinas and before him Clara of Assisi with
monstrance.
On the left Gregor the Great, Augustin and Ambrosius (not on the stamp): on the right Norbert, who opposed the errors of Tanchelm (+1115). Beside him Hieronymus. Preserved in Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Grenada Grenadines 1996, Mi 2217, Bl 345; Sc 1811.
Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos, 16380-1711.
Painting
of Thomas Aquinas by the Columbian artist Gregorio Vásquez de Arce
y Ceballos,
preserved in the University of Bogotá. Thomas is presented with
the hymn Pange lingua, to be read with a loupe. On the postmark the text:
facientes veritatem.
Colombia 1982, Mi 1597, Sc 902. Postmark Bogotá 06.08.1982.
Pange lingua in music history.
"There are two plainchant settings of the Pange Lingua hymn. The better known is a Phrygian mode tune from the Roman liturgy, and the other is from the Mozarabic liturgy from Spain. The Roman tune was originally part of the Gallican Rite.
The Roman version of the Pange Lingua hymn was the basis for a famous composition by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez, the Missa Pange lingua. An elaborate fantasy on the hymn, the mass is one of the composer's last works and has been dated to the period from 1515 to 1521, since it was not included by Petrucci in his 1514 collection of Josquin's masses, and was published posthumously. In its simplification, motivic unity and close attention to the text it has been compared to the late works of van Beethoven, and many commentators consider it one of the high points of Renaissance polyphony.
Juan de Urrede, a Flemish composer active in Spain in the late fifteenth century, composed numerous settings of the Pange Lingua, most of them based on the original Mozarabic melody. One of his versions for four voices became one of the most popular pieces of the sixteenth century, and was the basis for dozens of keyboard works in addition to masses, many by Spanish composers.
Building on Josquin's treatment of the hymn's third line in the Kyrie of the Missa Pange Lingua, the "Do-Re-Fa-Mi-Re-Do"-theme became one of the most famous in music history. Simon Lohet, Michelangelo Rossi, François Roberday, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, Johann Jakob Froberger[2], Johann Kaspar Kerll, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Fux wrote fugues on it, and the latter's extensive elaborations in the Gradus ad Parnassum made it known to every aspiring composer - among them Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose Jupiter [3] theme borrows the first four notes.
The last two verses of Pange Lingua are often separated out. They mark the end of the procession of the monstrance in Holy Thursday liturgy. Various separate musical settings have been written for this, including one by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and one by Widor.
Pange Lingua has been translated
into many different languages for worship throughout the world. However, the
Latin version remains the most popular. The Syriac translation of Pange Lingua
was used as part of the rite of benediction in the Syro-Malabar Church of
Kerala, India, until the 1970s."
Source: Wikipedia
Stained glass windows
The Saint John's Cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch has a stained glass window with Saint Thomas and Saint Bonaventura, by L.C. Hezenmans, of the atelier of Jean-Baptist Capronnier (1814-1891), 1878.
On the window, Thomas with the first line
of his hymn 'Lauda Sion Salvatorem', for the Liturgy of Corpus Christi, 1264.
On
the north-side of the Cathedral a statue of Thomas Aquinas, with
a dove at his
ear and a book with the first line of the hymn: 'Lauda Sion Salvatorem'.
Netherlands 1985, Mi 1219, Sc B614.
Thomas Aquinas composed also the hymn 'Adoro Te devote latens Deitas.'
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