Lenten Weekday Masses

A Priest Celebrating Mass, c. 1600, Giorgio Picchi the Younger

Many of the readers of this blog follow what is commonly known as the "historic lectionary" or the "one year lectionary," in contrast to the various iterations of the three-year lectionary, as well as other still more novel lectionaries. But what we've come to know as the historic lectionary (or, as I call it, “the lectionary”) as we encounter it on Sundays is only a rather small part of the whole. The historic lectionary is not, you see, limited to Sundays and feasts like Christmas and Epiphany, but encompasses much, much more. For example, the lectionary includes four sets of the ancient Ember Days: the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday in the third week of Advent, in the first week of Lent (today being Ember Friday in Lent), in the octave of Pentecost, and following the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14.

By the close of the Middle Ages, most western lectionaries also included readings for nearly every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year, sometimes corresponding quite closely with the Sunday lections immediately preceding. You can see, for example, this overview of Eastertide weekday lections, which describes the character of the weekday readings for the weeks following the Resurrection of Our Lord and leading up to the Ascension. In addition to all of this, full mass propers were also provided for every day within the octaves of Easter and Pentecost. But Lent, in this respect, has a character all its own: it has not only mass readings assigned for every Wednesday and Friday, as well as this week’s Ember Days, but a full set of mass propers for every single day from Ash Wednesday until the Resurrection of Our Lord. To put this in perspective, in our current books, we have the full mass propers for Ash Wednesday, for the Sundays in Lent, and for each day of Holy Week - but all of this comprises less than one third of the totality of Lenten mass propers.

This is a great loss, because the Lenten weekday lectionary is staggeringly rich. For example, while Matthew 6:16-21 is appointed for Ash Wednesday, describing the practice of fasting, it is followed on Thursday by Matthew 6:5-8, describing prayer, and on Friday by Matthew 5:43-6:4, describing almsgiving. Friday and Saturday of that week also see the reading of Isaiah 58 as the Epistle, which warns against outward fasting with no spiritual discipline, a danger both then and now, and a welcome reminder at the beginning of the Lenten fast.

The pairings of weekday Epistles and Gospels also have some striking typology, with all of the Lenten weekday Epistles being drawn from the Old Testament, something almost unheard of in the rest of the year. On Monday after Invocavit, for instance, the parable of the sheep and goats from Matthew 25:31-46 is matched with Ezekiel’s oracle of God as the true Shepherd. The two readings before the Gospel for Ember Wednesday give us the precursors to Our Lord’s forty days of fasting (recounted on the Sunday previous) in the accounts of Moses and Elijah, a typological thrust which culminates in the reading of the Transfiguration gospel on Ember Saturday. The Friday of Reminiscere week sees Joseph and his brothers paired with the parable of the wicked tenants, and the Saturday after Reminiscere pairs Jacob and Esau with the parable of the prodigal son.

As the season of Lent continues on, some of the readings grow quite lengthy. The Friday of Oculi, for instance, prescribes the reading of the entire account of the Samaritan woman at the well from John 4:5-42 (paired beautifully with Numbers 20:2-13). In Laetare week, the Wednesday Gospel is the healing of the man born blind from John 9:1-38, and the Friday Gospel the raising of Lazarus from John 11:1-45. These three Gospels are also those commonly connected with the catechumenal scrutinies.

While the entirety of the weekday Lenten lectionary tradition has a disproportionately Johannine influence, in the last two weeks of Lent prior to Holy Week, the weekday Gospels are solely drawn from St. John’s Gospel - quite fitting, as St. John’s Passion is given pride of place on Good Friday. The Johannine emphasis can also be seen in the curious arrangement for Thursdays in Lent. When the rest of the Lenten masses were solidified around the time of St. Gregory the Great, Thursdays were vacant (or, more accurately, aliturgical). When Thursdays in Lent began to be populated with readings, there were two major traditions. One, the distinct minority tradition followed by Rome, assigned Gospels to the Thursdays from the existing pool of lections. So, for instance, this tradition appoints the account of the rich man and Lazarus to be read on the Thursday after Reminiscere, which is otherwise read on the First Sunday after Trinity. A second tradition, constituting the vast majority of late medieval uses, and also reflected in Lutheran use, took these formerly vacant Thursdays as an opportunity to read portions of the Gospel of John that were not otherwise read. So, for example, the Thursday after Reminiscere in this tradition appoints John 5:30-47 as the Gospel, a text which is otherwise not found anywhere in the mass lectionary. As a result, very nearly half of St. John’s Gospel ends up being read in the span of the six weeks from Ash Wednesday through the beginning of Holy Week - and more than half, if the Passion on Good Friday is included.

In order to accommodate this robust cycle of Lenten masses, the sanctoral calendar, even in the otherwise densely populated late medieval missals, thins out considerably, and many of the saints whose feasts typically occur during Lent are merely commemorated with second collects, and lack their own full masses, leaving the Church to focus wholly and entirely on the season at hand.

In Lutheran usage, the exact frequency of the celebration of these weekday masses is somewhat in question. The Magdeburg Cathedral Book of 1613 provides two weekday masses each week through the season of Lent, just as it does through the rest of the year, and these two weekday masses correspond almost exactly with the preceding medieval use, apocryphal readings and all. The rest of the lectionary tradition is supported by the daily Magnificat antiphons provided in the Magdeburg Cathedral Book, which are drawn from the historic Gospels appointed for each day.

Rather less helpful is Matthäus Ludecus, in his 1589 Missale for the Havelberg Cathedral, where he served as dean, when he provided this note in the middle of the mass for Ash Wednesday:

The peculiar offices, Collects, Lessons, Epistles, Tracts, and Gospels on each ferial day throughout Lent were hardly assigned without wisdom or good order by the godly doctors of the early church; all of which, lest the book grow too large, have been purposefully omitted, and those only that fall on Sundays have been included. But whoso will to read the others—let him seek elsewhere.

Ludecus’ Missale is, in large part, a musical work, and the addition of an extra 33 masses with their respective introits, graduals, tracts, and so on - “assigned with wisdom and good order “ though they may have been - would have increased the size of the already substantial book by nearly fifty percent. Still, it does illustrate an important point - Lutherans did rely substantially on preceding medieval liturgical books even in the years following the compilation of the Book of Concord. See, for example, any number of Kirchenordnungen that direct which Sundays and feasts are to be observed, but provide none of the readings, collects, or chants necessary to do so, assuming that you will make use of the existing missals and graduals in an evangelical way.

There are a few distinctives of Lenten weekday masses apart from the lectionary itself. The tract Domine non secundum, found below,  is appointed for Ash Wednesday, and subsequently for most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays until Wednesday of Holy Week, with a genuflection prescribed at the last phrase, beginning, “Help us, O God of our salvation…” The Lenten weekday masses are also characterized by the oratio super populum - the “prayer over the people” following the Complend (post-communion collect).

℣ O Lord, deal not with us after our sins:
Nor reward us according to our iniquities.
℣ O Lord, remember not against us former iniquities:
Let Thy tender mercies speedily come to us: for we are brought very low.
℣ Help us, O God of our salvation: for the glory of Thy Name:
And deliver us, and purge away our sins, for Thy name’s sake.

But how, you might ask, is all of this useful? I don’t expect that most readers of this blog have daily masses through the entirety of Lent, so what good is all of this historical detail? Well, I do imagine that most, if not all, clergy reading this have some sort of congregational midweek Lenten observance. So, as a result, it would be quite easy to use the Wednesday masses, or at least to use the Wednesday lections. And, since we do this every year, you might well work your way through the Friday lections one year, and perhaps the Saturday lections in another, and perhaps the Mondays in yet a different year. It is entirely possible that, in looking at the historic weekday lectionary for Lent, you have your midweek Lenten services planned out for the next six years - I think I just heard a collective sigh of relief. If not that, you might still use these readings as a guide in your personal devotion alongside the faithful of the Church for the last 1500 or more years, as you prepare for the passion, death, and resurrection of Our Lord.