The Chair of Peter

Today's feast of the Chair of Peter, which I have posted about in Chair of St Peter last year, clearly has a particular significance this year, falling as it does less than a week before the present Pope lays down the Petrine burden. At Mass this morning the homily urged us to keep both the Pope and the College of Cardinals in our prayers, as well as the man who will be elected to fill the See of Peter - not that, I am sure, we are not so doing.

There is an informative post about the way the feast is celebrated in St Peter's Basilica in an article from 2011 on the New Liturgical Movement website which can be seen at Decorations of the Vatican Basilica on the Feast of St. Peter's Chair. This site as well as  another one on the same theme can be found in my post from last year More on the Chair of St Peter.

There is information about the history of the enthroned statue of St Peter attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio from the Vatican website here.

 The enthroned statue of St Peter in the Vatican as vested for today's feast

Image: Panoramio

For those who have not read it here is the second lection from the Office of Readings for today in the Divine Office. It is from one of the homilies of Pope St Leo the Great (440-461), who was, I think it fair to say, the first Pope or indeed Father of the Church to fully outline the responsibilities of the Papal office.

" Out of the whole world one man, Peter, is chosen to preside at the calling of all nations, and to be set over all the apostles and all the fathers of the Church. Though there are in God’s people many shepherds, Peter is thus appointed to rule in his own person those whom Christ also rules as the original ruler. Beloved, how great and wonderful is this sharing of his power that God in his goodness has given to this man. Whatever Christ has willed to be shared in common by Peter and the other leaders of the Church, it is only through Peter that he has given to others what he has not refused to bestow on them.

  The Lord now asks the apostles as a whole what men think of him. As long as they are recounting the uncertainty born of human ignorance, their reply is always the same.

  But when he presses the disciples to say what they think themselves, the first to confess his faith in the Lord is the one who is first in rank among the apostles.

  Peter says: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replies: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” You are blessed, he means, because my Father has taught you. You have not been deceived by earthly opinion, but have been enlightened by inspiration from heaven. It was not flesh and blood that pointed me out to you, but the one whose only-begotten Son I am.

  He continues: And I say to you. In other words, as my Father has revealed to you my godhead, so I in my turn make known to you your pre-eminence. You are Peter: though I am the inviolable rock, the cornerstone that makes both one, the foundation apart from which no one can lay any other, yet you also are a rock, for you are given solidity by my strength, so that which is my very own because of my power is common between us through your participation.

  And upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. On this strong foundation, he says, I will build an everlasting temple. The great height of my Church, which is to penetrate the heavens, shall rise on the firm foundation of this faith.

  The gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith; the chains of death shall not bind it. Its words are the words of life. As they lift up to heaven those who profess them, so they send down to hell those who contradict them.

  Blessed Peter is therefore told: To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth is also bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.

  The authority vested in this power passed also to the other apostles, and the institution established by this decree has been continued in all the leaders of the Church. But it is not without good reason that what is bestowed on all is entrusted to one. For Peter received it separately in trust because he is the prototype set before all the rulers of the Church."

The text has been downloaded from the Universalis site, and is, I think, a different translation from that in the Divine Office as used in this country, Ireland, Australia etc.

The image of St Leo

Today is the feast of Pope St Leo I, the Great, about whom I have posted last year in St Leo the Great.

He is of particular interest as the Pope who begins the serious development and understanding of the implications and obligations of the petrine ministry of the Papacy. That theology was expressed, along with other teaching, in his sermons, both profound and elegant - a joy to read when they appear in the Office of Readings.  That fact, combined with a pontificate of twenty one years from 440-461, his famous meeting with Attila the Hun, established him as a key figure in the emergence of the Papal office, as well, of course, as his Tome which shaped the decision of the Council of Calcedon in 451 - "Peter has spoken through Leo "- makes him a crucial figure in the development of the Papacy.

There appears to be a degree of consistency in the way St Leo is depicted in early pictures of him, although they are all much later than his lifetime. Nevertheless they may preserve a tradition as to his appearance.

St Leo the Great
Santa Maria Antiqua Rome
Eighth century

Image: John Dillon on Medieval Religion discussion group site

St Leo I, detail of a miniature from the menologion of Emperor Basil II, 10th century
 Vatican Library (Vat. Gr. 1613 folio 412)

Image: Britannica.com

 

St Leo is shown on the right, paired with St Peter in a fresco, probably of thirteenth century date,
in the rupestrian church of San Nicola at Castelrotto, near Mottola in Apulia.
This painting surely indicates an awareness of St Leo's very concious identification of himself as St Peter's active successor

Image: John Dillon on the Medieval Religion discussion group site

The painting in its setting, which indicates the decorative style of the time as used in such a rock-cut church.
Note the figures of donors between the central and right hand panels.

Image: John Dillon on the Medieval Religion discussion group site

St Leo the Great

Last year I posted St Leo the Great ... and his biographer to mark the feast of one of the greatest and most influential Pope-theologians. I always enjoy the extracts from his sermons and writings appointed for the Office of Readings.

This year I have found an illustration of St Leo seeing off Attila the Hun from the gates of Rome with the assistance of SS Peter and Paul. It comes from the great fourteenth century Hungarian Chronicle.

Image: orientem.blogspot

Chair of St Peter

From today's Office of Readings for the Feast of the Chair of St Peter:

From a sermon by Pope Saint Leo the Great (440-461), the first Pope to really develop and adumbrate a Petrine theology for the Papacy and Church

The Church of Christ rises on the firm foundation of Peter's faith

Out of the whole world one man, Peter, is chosen to preside at the calling of all nations, and to be set over all the apostles and all the fathers of the Church. Though there are in God’s people many shepherds, Peter is thus appointed to rule in his own person those whom Christ also rules as the original ruler. Beloved, how great and wonderful is this sharing of his power that God in his goodness has given to this man. Whatever Christ has willed to be shared in common by Peter and the other leaders of the Church, it is only through Peter that he has given to others what he has not refused to bestow on them.

The Lord now asks the apostles as a whole what men think of him. As long as they are recounting the uncertainty born of human ignorance, their reply is always the same. But when he presses the disciples to say what they think themselves, the first to confess his faith in the Lord is the one who is first in rank among the apostles.

Peter says: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replies: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” You are blessed, he means, because my Father has taught you. You have not been deceived by earthly opinion, but have been enlightened by inspiration from heaven. It was not flesh and blood that pointed me out to you, but the one whose only-begotten Son I am.

He continues: And I say to you. In other words, as my Father has revealed to you my godhead, so I in my turn make known to you your pre-eminence. You are Peter: though I am the inviolable rock, the cornerstone that makes both one, the foundation apart from which no one can lay any other, yet you also are a rock, for you are given solidity by my strength, so that which is my very own because of my power is common between us through your participation.

And upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. On this strong foundation, he says, I will build an everlasting temple. The great height of my Church, which is to penetrate the heavens, shall rise on the firm foundation of this faith.

The gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith; the chains of death shall not bind it. Its words are the words of life. As they lift up to heaven those who profess them, so they send down to hell those who contradict them.

Blessed Peter is therefore told: To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth is also bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.

The authority vested in this power passed also to the other apostles, and the institution established by this decree has been continued in all the leaders of the Church. But it is not without good reason that what is bestowed on all is entrusted to one. For Peter received it separately in trust because he is the prototype set before all the rulers of the Church.

Responsory

Before I called you away from your boat, Simon Peter, I knew you for my own; I have appointed you leader of my people. I have delivered to you the keys of the kingdom.

Whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven. I have delivered to you the keys of the kingdom.

St Leo the Great ... and his biographer

Today is the feast of St Leo the Great, Pope from 440 until 461, and by any standards one of the towering figures in the history of the Papacy. As a theologian, as a practical Bishop of Rome in troubled times and as a key exponent of Petrine claims he is central to the emergence and recognition of the Papacy as the central institution of the Church.

St Leo the Great

From an eighth century painting in Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome.
Although this is three centuries after Leo's time it appears to be the earliest picture that I can find of him. I do not know if it incorporates a tradition as to his appearance, but it conveys a convincing impression.

I always find great pleasure as well as instruction when the Breviary readings are from St Leo - his style is clear and conveys a great sense of spiritual and doctrinal authority.

My interest in him is enhanced by the fact that what still appears to be the standard book in English on him, The Life and Times of St Leo the Great
( SPCK 1941) was written by T.G.Jalland, sometime vicar of St Thomas here in Oxford, close to where I live and where I used to be churchwarden.

Dr Jalland lies buried in the churchyard there, with his wife and her parents - her father was the great historian of the English medieval church Alexander Hamilton Thompson. Trevor Jalland was vicar there from 1933 until 1947, and whilst at St Thomas also delivered the Bampton Lectures in 1942, published in 1946 as The Church and the Papacy, and also still a standard work. His book on St Leo can be read online here, if you subscribe to the virtual library.

Fr Hunwicke, the current p-i-c of St Thomas', wrote as follows about his predecessor on his blog on 11 September this year - I have added the odd comment myself in []:

" Inadequates; wet indequates, we are. Speak for yourself, I hear you say? Very well, I will. How can I compare myself with my distinguished predecessor, Fr Trevor Gervase Jalland? According to Oral Tradition, one Good Friday, at the Mass of the Presanctified (ah, those were the days), some unfortunate Altar boy presented himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. His Parish Priest brushed him aside with such decision that the child keeled over ... ah, those were the days. [When he was incumbent at St Mark's Swindon he is said to have thrown the sacring bell at a liturgically offending server...]

Jalland (Vicar 1933-1947) went on to found the Theology Faculty at Exeter University; he came back to S Thomas's to be buried, the Funeral Mass being said by the veteran and erudite (he's still going strong in his nineties) Prebendary Michael Moreton of Exeter (who was writing about the importance of versus Orientem decades before the papists rediscovered it). Fr Michael risked raised eyebrows at Jalland's very Establishment funeral by using the Canon Romanus. "Jalland was a Patristics scholar and I resolved that he should have a Patristic Eucharistic Prayer."

According to the same Oral Tradition, Fr Sweeney (Vicar 1979-2003, now enjoying his retirement), was not much less resolute. I have been told that he would kick an ill-placed Sacred Minister and, dissatisfied during Mass with the Music (he is a distinguished musician), would clap his hands and berate the organ loft ... you see what I mean about my own inadequacy and wetness? [I was present upon such occasions...]

Jalland had few qualms about facing lesser men down. He was at the heart of the process of liturgical revision in the Church of England back in the 1960s, fighting the battle for an oblatio in the anamnesis. Ultimately, this battle was lost; bigots, evangelical, in General Synod were able to vote down the proposed "We offer thee this bread and this cup". But most notorious of his audacities was Jalland's response to being asked, in 1942, to preach the Bampton Lectures in this University. This is probably the most prestigious series of lectures upon a theological topic in the Church of England ... and Jalland chose to devote his eight lectures to The Church and the Papacy. This was a time when Dom Gregory Dix had demonstrated the congruity of the Vatican I decrees on papal primacy and infallibility with the praxis of the anti-Nicene centuries; but Dix's audience tended to be mainly his fellow Anglican Catholics. Jalland's hearers would be Anglican theological specialists of every doctrinal school."

Fr Hunwicke continued on September 13th:

"The 1942 Bampton Lectures of my distinguished predecessor at S Thomas's, Dr Trevor Jalland, are a tour de force demonstrating his sure-footed competence in discussing the relationship of Papacy to Church in every succeeding Christian era, from a decidedly favourable verdict ought to be given regarding not only the Petrine texts, but also the tradition of the Apostle's residence and death in Rome down to That the Roman episcopi, whether in plurality or as successive holders of a single office, were held to be and were in fact the heirs of the authority of St Peter and of his co-Apostle St Paul in the Roman See seems to be suggested, if not guaranteed, even by such limited evidence as we still possess, though it is equally clear that reflexion on the real implications of the original data was needed before their full significance was generally appreciated. The value of the papal office as the primary centre of unity, as the highest court of appeal, as a custodian of order and a corrector of aberrations from the original depositum fidei - all this and much more emerges ... only when the Church becomes aware of itself in a fuller sense as a world-wide organisation, and when a local and 'parochial' consciousness gives place to an oecumenical outlook. This papal ideal, in spite of the occasional distortion and falsification which it has undergone in the course of its long history, is to be viewed in its perfection not as an instrument for the suppression of liberty, but as a means under providence for the safeguarding of the ordered freedom of the `sons of God' ... it is a strange form of historical blindness which is unable to perceive in its long and remarkable history a supernatural grandeur which no merely secular institution has ever attained in equal measure. Its strange, almost mystical, faithfulness to type, its marked degree of changelessness, its steadfast clinging to tradition and precedent, above all its burning zeal for order and Justitia,compel us to acknowledge that the Papacy must always defy a categorisation which is purely of this world."

I rather think St Leo would have been quite approving of all this. I also sense that Trevor Jalland had certain Leonine qualities. One rather wonders how Attila the Hun would have fared if he had turned up on Hollybush Row or Becket Street in OX1 in the Jalland years.

I do not know if St Leo was a scatterer of servers or hurler of bells during liturgical celebrations in fifth century Rome.

I should add that Fr Jalland was not, it would appear, very popular with some at least of his parishioners at St Thomas', who, I am led to believe, in later years referred to him by his surname alone, and who had to rescue from a junk shop parish banners he had disposed of and restore them to the church after he left. He also made the mistake of selling off the parish hall given by the great Victorian vicar, Thomas Chamberlain. On the other hand he did commission Martin Travers to produce the handsome statue of Our Lady now in the church, as well as a parclose screen for the Lady Chapel, although that, alas, was never realised.