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| 'one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water' John 19:34 |
Today is Good Friday, though the churches are empty of worshippers because of the Corona Lockdown. Stay home, save lives, read Finnegans Wake!
Holy Week was the one time of the year when James Joyce would visit a Catholic church. Although he lost his faith, he always kept his love for Church ritual and music, telling his brother Stanislaus c1900, 'The Mass on Good Friday seems to me a very great drama.'
Strictly speaking, there is no mass on Good Friday. But, until 1955, the Good Friday service was called the Mass of the Presanctified, in which the priest elevated a sacrament consecrated and reserved at an earlier mass.
In 1955, Pope Pius XII ended the Mass of the Presanctified and also instituted the custom of offering the Holy Communion to the faithful. The sense of watching a drama would have been stronger in Joyce's day, when the worshippers' role was to watch the priest alone receiving the sacrament.
Here's Stanislaus Joyce:
'The Mass of the Presancitifed...was introduced, I believe, in the fifth or sixth century, no doubt to supplant the dramatic interest of the pagan mysteries, which the people still missed. It was as a primitive religious drama that my brother valued it so highly. He understood it as the drama of a man who has a perilous mission to fulfil, which he must fulfil even though he knows beforehand that those nearest to his heart will betray him. The chant and words of Judas or Peter on Palm Sunday: 'Etsi omnes scandalizata fuerint in te, ego numquam scandaizabor' ('Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will” Matthew 26:33) moved him profoundly. He was habitually a very late riser, but wherever he was, alone in Paris or married in Trieste, he never failed to get up in all weathers to go to the early morning Mass on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.'
My Brother's Keeper 117-118
'The Mass of the Presancitifed...was introduced, I believe, in the fifth or sixth century, no doubt to supplant the dramatic interest of the pagan mysteries, which the people still missed. It was as a primitive religious drama that my brother valued it so highly. He understood it as the drama of a man who has a perilous mission to fulfil, which he must fulfil even though he knows beforehand that those nearest to his heart will betray him. The chant and words of Judas or Peter on Palm Sunday: 'Etsi omnes scandalizata fuerint in te, ego numquam scandaizabor' ('Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will” Matthew 26:33) moved him profoundly. He was habitually a very late riser, but wherever he was, alone in Paris or married in Trieste, he never failed to get up in all weathers to go to the early morning Mass on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.'
My Brother's Keeper 117-118
Stephen talks with Cranly about the drama of this ceremony in Stephen Hero:
'Isn’t it strange to see the Mass of the Presanctified — no lights or vestments, the altar naked, the door of the tabernacle gaping open, the priests lying prostrate on the altar steps? ...Don’t you think the Reader who begins the mass is a strange person. No-one knows where he comes from: he has no connection with the mass. He comes out by himself and opens a book at the right hand side of the altar and when he has read the lesson he closes the book and goes away as he came. Isn’t he strange?'
Renzo Crivelli quotes Joyce's sister, Eileen, who followed him to Trieste:
'He used to go to the Greek Orthodox Church because he liked the ceremonies better there. But in Holy Week he always went to the Catholic Church.'
Triestine Itineraries
'Isn’t it strange to see the Mass of the Presanctified — no lights or vestments, the altar naked, the door of the tabernacle gaping open, the priests lying prostrate on the altar steps? ...Don’t you think the Reader who begins the mass is a strange person. No-one knows where he comes from: he has no connection with the mass. He comes out by himself and opens a book at the right hand side of the altar and when he has read the lesson he closes the book and goes away as he came. Isn’t he strange?'
Renzo Crivelli quotes Joyce's sister, Eileen, who followed him to Trieste:
'He used to go to the Greek Orthodox Church because he liked the ceremonies better there. But in Holy Week he always went to the Catholic Church.'
Triestine Itineraries
Alessandro Francini Bruni, a close friend in Pula and Trieste, confirms this:
'You had better not look for Joyce during the week before Easter because he is not available to anyone. On the morning of Palm Sunday, then during the four days that follow Wednesday of Holy Week, and especially during all the hours of those great symbolic rituals at the early morning service, Joyce is at church, entirely without prejudice and in complete control of himself, sitting in full view and close to the officiants so that he won't miss a single syllable of what is said, following the liturgy attentively in his book of Holy Week services, and often joining in the singing of the choir.
Joyce would not sacrifice a minute of this annual pleasure, not even for an intellectual kingdom.'
Alessandro Francini Bruni, 'Joyce Stripped Naked in the Plaza', Portraits of the Artists in Exile, pp35-36
Ellmann, citing Joyce's sisters, has him standing in the corner rather then close to the officiants:
'During Holy Week he behaved in a way that seemed odd to his sisters. Too fond of the liturgy and music to forgo them, but determined to make clear his indifference, he avoided going with Eileen and Eva or sitting with them. Instead he came by himself and stood in a corner; and when the mass was over left quietly without waiting. He...made clear that his own motive was esthetic, not pious.'
Ellmann p 309-10
Crivelli also quotes a lecture from Stanislaus Joyce on his brother's attitude to Catholicism:
'Something in the pomp and ceremony with which the legend of Jesus is told in the offices of the Church impressed him profoundly, but on almost all the fundamental tenets of belief his attitude to Catholicism was more like that of the gargoyles outside a cathedral than of the saints within it.'
'I profess no religion at all. Of the two religions, Protestantism and Catholicism, I prefer the latter. Both are false. The former is cold and colourless. The second-named is constantly associated with art; it is a 'beautiful lie' – something at least.'
Joyce to Georges Borach, 21 October 1918 ('Conversations with James Joyce')
Ellmann, citing Joyce's sisters, has him standing in the corner rather then close to the officiants:
'During Holy Week he behaved in a way that seemed odd to his sisters. Too fond of the liturgy and music to forgo them, but determined to make clear his indifference, he avoided going with Eileen and Eva or sitting with them. Instead he came by himself and stood in a corner; and when the mass was over left quietly without waiting. He...made clear that his own motive was esthetic, not pious.'
Ellmann p 309-10
Crivelli also quotes a lecture from Stanislaus Joyce on his brother's attitude to Catholicism:
'Something in the pomp and ceremony with which the legend of Jesus is told in the offices of the Church impressed him profoundly, but on almost all the fundamental tenets of belief his attitude to Catholicism was more like that of the gargoyles outside a cathedral than of the saints within it.'
Joyce felt contempt for the priests who administered the services he loved, describing them in Stephen Hero as 'black tyrannous lice.' Here's his clearest statement of his attitude to religion:
'I profess no religion at all. Of the two religions, Protestantism and Catholicism, I prefer the latter. Both are false. The former is cold and colourless. The second-named is constantly associated with art; it is a 'beautiful lie' – something at least.'
Joyce to Georges Borach, 21 October 1918 ('Conversations with James Joyce')
'His anti-religious convictions were unshakable. I had come back from a talk with his daughter, who seemed to be interested in knowing something about Catholic dogma. Joyce, on hearing this, grew suddenly quite violent and said: 'Why should a young woman bother her head about such things? Buddha and Confuscius and all the others were not able to understand anything about it. We know nothing, and never shall know anything...'
TENEBRAE
'On Spy Wednesday night Cranly and Stephen attended the office of Tenebrae in the Pro-Cathedral They went round to the back of the altar and knelt behind the students from Clonliffe who were chanting the office.'
Stephen Hero
The most dramatic part of Easter for Joyce was the Tenebrae (darkness). Until 1955, this was the morning prayer on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week, also performed on the previous evenings. The candles of the church were extinguished one by one and a last candle, representing Christ, was hidden behind the altar.
Matthew 27:45
In total darkness, the celebrants made a terrifying banging noise, called 'strepitus' (great noise/uproar), by knocking on the choir stalls. This represented universal confusion and terror at the death of Christ, and the earthquake at Calvary.
'And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent'
Matthew 27:51
Imagine how this felt to Joyce, with his fear of thunder. Perhaps this service was the reason for his astraphobia?
Joyce's sister Eileen passed on a story about the strepitus to her own daughter Bozena:
'Mamma remembered that while Jim was quite young he was so frightened by Tenebrae on Good Friday that he ran away.'
Bozena Berta Delimata, 'Reminiscences of a Joyce Niece,' James Joyce Quarterly, Fall 1981, p54
Joyce also mentions this in Stephen Hero:
'— Do you like the services of Holy Week? said Stephen.
— Yes, said Cranly.
— They are wonderful, said Stephen. Tenebrae — it’s so damned childish to frighten us by knocking prayerbooks on a bench.'
In April 1903, Joyce in Paris wrote home asking for a book to be sent to so that he could follow the French service:
'Dear Mother. . . . Tell Stannie to send me at once ... a Holy Week Book....large black print and no references. He will understand....Send Holy Week Book in time for Tenebrae on Wednesday.
Letters II, 40
Joyce went to the service again on Good Friday:
'He attended mass that day at Notre-Dame, standing in the rear of the
church to compare, with the aid of a missal from Ireland, the French
style of Tenebrae. Then he took a long walk through the streets of Paris,
and did not return to his little room at the hotel until late that night. A
telegram was waiting for him, and he opened it with foreboding. It read,
'MOTHER DYING COME HOME FATHER.''
Ellmann, 128
Joyce also wrote a poem called 'Tenebrae' in 1901, known only from its title in a letter to Stanislaus (Letters II,10).
Letters II, 40
Joyce went to the service again on Good Friday:
'He attended mass that day at Notre-Dame, standing in the rear of the
church to compare, with the aid of a missal from Ireland, the French
style of Tenebrae. Then he took a long walk through the streets of Paris,
and did not return to his little room at the hotel until late that night. A
telegram was waiting for him, and he opened it with foreboding. It read,
'MOTHER DYING COME HOME FATHER.''
Ellmann, 128
Joyce also wrote a poem called 'Tenebrae' in 1901, known only from its title in a letter to Stanislaus (Letters II,10).
THE BANNERS OF THE KING GO FORTH
Joyce loved the music of Holy Week, in particular the processional hymn, Vexilla Regis (Banners of the King), sung at Vespers. This was written in 569 CE by Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers and hymnogapher at the Merovingian court.
In A Portrait of the Artist, discussing the music of Holy Week with Lynch, Stephen praises the Vexilla Regis:
'(Aquinas) wrote a hymn for Maundy Thursday. It begins with the words Pange lingua gloriosi. They say it is the highest glory of the hymnal. It is an intricate and soothing hymn. I like it; but there is no hymn that can be put beside that mournful and majestic processional song, the Vexilla Regis of Venantius Fortunatus.
Lynch began to sing softly and solemnly in a deep bass voice:
Inpleta sunt quæ concinit
David fideli carmine
Dicendo nationibus
Regnavit a ligno Deus.
David fideli carmine
Dicendo nationibus
Regnavit a ligno Deus.
IMPROPERIA
The Improperia (Reproaches) are a sung part of the Good Friday service, in which Christ reproaches his people for their ingratitude.
'My people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me!
I led you out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom, but you led your Saviour to the cross.'
Joyce used this on pages 187-193 of Finnegans Wake, in which Shaun, directly reproaches his brother Shem. In the first draft, Joyce listed seven charges, and titled the section 'Improperia'.
EASTER 1938
On Good Friday in 1938, the young Swiss writer Jacques Mercanton visited Joyce in Paris:
"He told me that Good Friday and Holy Saturday were the two days of the year when he went to church, for the liturgies, which represented by their symbolic rituals the oldest mysteries of humanity.
'I am going to work until 5:00 in the morning. Then I will go to Saint Francis-Xavier's for the office. if you want to join me you will have to rise early....
The following day, Holy Saturday, I reached Saint Francis-Xavier's at the moment of the blessing of the baptismal fonts. Joyce was standing among the group of men who had accompanied the priest into the side chapel. He was enveloped in a thick gray cape and carried a cane over his arm. His face was sad under his gray hair. He was following the ritual from very close. When the procession regained the altar, he walked slowly as far as one of the lateral aisles of the chrch and rested there, leaning against the grill. I joined him. He looked frightened, recognized me in the shadows by my voice, slipped his frail hand into mine. Then, as soon as the Mass began, he made a nervous impatient gesture and murmured in English, 'I have seen the rebirth of fire and water. Enough until next year. The rest is without interest.'
And he walked rapidly away, his face set, while the Gloria burst out from the bell-towers.'
"He told me that Good Friday and Holy Saturday were the two days of the year when he went to church, for the liturgies, which represented by their symbolic rituals the oldest mysteries of humanity.
'I am going to work until 5:00 in the morning. Then I will go to Saint Francis-Xavier's for the office. if you want to join me you will have to rise early....
The following day, Holy Saturday, I reached Saint Francis-Xavier's at the moment of the blessing of the baptismal fonts. Joyce was standing among the group of men who had accompanied the priest into the side chapel. He was enveloped in a thick gray cape and carried a cane over his arm. His face was sad under his gray hair. He was following the ritual from very close. When the procession regained the altar, he walked slowly as far as one of the lateral aisles of the chrch and rested there, leaning against the grill. I joined him. He looked frightened, recognized me in the shadows by my voice, slipped his frail hand into mine. Then, as soon as the Mass began, he made a nervous impatient gesture and murmured in English, 'I have seen the rebirth of fire and water. Enough until next year. The rest is without interest.'
And he walked rapidly away, his face set, while the Gloria burst out from the bell-towers.'
'The Hours of James Joyce' in Potts (ed), Portraits of the Artist in Exile p.215
'BLOOD THICKER THEN WATER, LAST TRADE OVERSEAS'
Later that year, Mercanton met Joyce in Montreux, where they talked about a mysterious sentence in Finnegans Wake:
'I remembered a phrase Joyce had commented upon the day before in a voice full of nostalgia: 'Forth from his pierced part came the woman of his dreams, blood thicker than water, last trade overseas.' (FW 130.31-3) Anna Livia, the river, the woman born of man's rib, and, through the proverb, the blood mixed with water that spurted from Christ's side at the blow of the spear, 'fluxit unda cum sanguine'. Last voyage and last return over the sea where every life comes to an end. There is the art of fancy for you, one that stirs the imagination in its most secret and intimate recesses.
'I am very fond of that sentence,' said Joyce.'
'The Hours of James Joyce' in Potts (ed), Portraits of the Artist in Exile p.228
The sentence, written in the early 30s, is one of the epithets of HCE in the Questions and Answers chapter. Mercanton has slightly misquoted the line, which should say, 'forth of his pierced part came the woman of his dreams, blood thicker then water last trade overseas'. So blood flowed followed by water.
Mercanton's Latin is a slight misquotation of the 13th century chant Ave Verum Corpus:
unda fluxit et sanguine.'
Joe Heschmeyer, the Catholic apologist, explains the parallels on his Shameless Popery blog:
'Just as the rib taken from Adam created his bride Eve, the Blood and Water flowing from Christ create His Bride, the Church. The Blood on the Cross is the same Blood offered in the Eucharist....And the water signifies the water of Baptism.'
('from whose pierced side water and blood flowed')
The Vexilla hymn which Joyce loved has a similar verse:
Quae vulnerata lanceae
Mucrone diro, criminum,
ut nos lavaret sordibus,
Manavit unda et sanguine
('Whereon wounded beside by the sharp point of the cruel spear that he might cleanse us from sin he shed forth water and blood')
The Vexilla hymn which Joyce loved has a similar verse:
Quae vulnerata lanceae
Mucrone diro, criminum,
ut nos lavaret sordibus,
Manavit unda et sanguine
('Whereon wounded beside by the sharp point of the cruel spear that he might cleanse us from sin he shed forth water and blood')
Joyce has 'blood thicker then water', following the order in John's Gospel 19:34: 'et continuo excivit sanguis et aqua'.
The blood and water flowing from Christ's side is prefigured by the creation of Eve from Adam's rib - the cause of the sin.
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| The creation of Eve from Orvieto Cathedral. |
'Just as the rib taken from Adam created his bride Eve, the Blood and Water flowing from Christ create His Bride, the Church. The Blood on the Cross is the same Blood offered in the Eucharist....And the water signifies the water of Baptism.'
Anna as the blood and water flowing from the wounded HCE shows her redemptive, cleansing role in the book. As a river, she carries away the waterborn rubbish of Dublin.
The shirt brought back clean to HCE in the final monologue has been washed in the
Liffey.
Mercanton met Joyce met again in Paris, on Holy Thursday in 1939, when he heard Joyce reciting the closing pages of the Wake On Good Friday, Joyce, reminded of the Wake line by Mercanton, sang that verse from the Vexilla Regis:
'We walked the Terrace of the Invalides in the vernal gloom of a Parisian Good Friday.... Prompted by the night wind, both of us buttoned up our overcoats and, to comfort us in the cold weather, I imagined the Oriental warmth of the first Good Friday.
'Warm? On no,' he said, 'they lighted a fire in the courtyard of the praetorium, quia frigus erat.'*
Stretching out his hands, he bent over an invisible fire. And I repeated that consecrated phrase: 'Forth from his pierced part came the woman of his dreams, blood thicker than water, last trade overseas.' ' That's true,' he said, 'today...' and, as in A Portrait of the Artist, he began to sing softly in a deep slow voice:
Quae vulnerata lanceae
Mucrone diro, criminum,
ut nos lavaret sordibus,
Manavit unda et sanguine'
I listened to that wonderful chant, the most distressing, the most consoling in the whole liturgy, for it celebrates the grief of God himself. It was the last time I was to hear Joyce sing.'
'The Hours of James Joyce' in Potts (ed), Portraits of the Artist in Exile p.245-246
Mercanton met Joyce met again in Paris, on Holy Thursday in 1939, when he heard Joyce reciting the closing pages of the Wake On Good Friday, Joyce, reminded of the Wake line by Mercanton, sang that verse from the Vexilla Regis:
'We walked the Terrace of the Invalides in the vernal gloom of a Parisian Good Friday.... Prompted by the night wind, both of us buttoned up our overcoats and, to comfort us in the cold weather, I imagined the Oriental warmth of the first Good Friday.
'Warm? On no,' he said, 'they lighted a fire in the courtyard of the praetorium, quia frigus erat.'*
Stretching out his hands, he bent over an invisible fire. And I repeated that consecrated phrase: 'Forth from his pierced part came the woman of his dreams, blood thicker than water, last trade overseas.' ' That's true,' he said, 'today...' and, as in A Portrait of the Artist, he began to sing softly in a deep slow voice:
Quae vulnerata lanceae
Mucrone diro, criminum,
ut nos lavaret sordibus,
Manavit unda et sanguine'
I listened to that wonderful chant, the most distressing, the most consoling in the whole liturgy, for it celebrates the grief of God himself. It was the last time I was to hear Joyce sing.'
'The Hours of James Joyce' in Potts (ed), Portraits of the Artist in Exile p.245-246
*Joyce quotes the Vulgate of St John's Gospel 18:18:
'Stabant autem servi et ministri ad prunas, quia frigus erat, et calefaciebant se: erat autem cum eis et Petrus stans, et calefaciens se.' (Now the servants and ministers stood at a fire of coals, because it was cold, and warmed themselves. And with them was Peter also, standing, and warming himself.)
Had he memorised the Vulgate? Our was this part of the service?
