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Then after the priest will say,
Stand still, and hearken him always.
He says agnus thrice until he cease,
The last word he speaks of peace.
In that peace may thou not be,
If thou be out of charity,
Then is good of God to crave,
That charity might thou have.
There when the priest the pax will kiss,
Kneel thou and pray then this.
Gods lamb, that best may
Do the sin of the world away,
On us have mercy and pity,
And grant us peace and charity.
For in charity are three kinds loves,
That to perfect peace needly behoves.
The first love is certainly
To love the Lord sovereignly.
Therefore I pray thee, God of might,
Thou make my love, both day and night,
Securely to set over such a dele [part]
Sovereignly to love thee well,
That by thy might and governing
I be ever in thy yearning,
Sovereignly thee to pay
In all that ever I can or may;
And pressed be I, early and late,
To my degree and my estate,
All good deeds to fulfill,
To eschew all that are ill.
The second is a privy love
That is needful to behove,
The which love is properly
Between my soul and my body.
Therefore make thou, good Lord,
My body and soul of one accord
That either part by one assent
Serve thee with good intent.
Let never my body do that ill,
That I may never my soul spill.
The third love is without doubt
To love each neighbour all about
And of that love for no thing cease,
Therefore I pray thee, prince of peace,
That thou will make, as thou may best,
My heart to be in peace and rest,
And ready to love all manner of men,
My sib men [relatives] namely, then
Neighbours, servants and such subject,
Fellows, friends, none to forget,
But love each one, both far and near,
As my self with heart-e clear.
And turn their hearts so to me,
That we may fully friends be,
That I of their good, and they of mine
Have ay joy, with heart-e fine.
As I pray for myself here,
I pray thee, grant to other the same manere, [manner]
So that each man love well other,
As he were his own brother.
Such love among us be,
That we be well loved of thee;
That by this holy sacrament
That now is here in present
And by the virtues of this Mess,
We might have forgiveness
Of all our guilt and all our myss [misdeed],
And by thy help come to bliss. Amen.
“There when the priest the pax will kiss…”
This line may be a mystery to you, as it was to me until I read Eamon Duffy’s “The Stripping of the Altars”, an excellent book on medieval religious practices in England just before the Reformation.
The sign of peace has become controversial today. It’s one of the things I hate most about the modern Mass as it takes our focus away from God and towards man, plus if you’re not a people person, it’s pretty much a form of torture.
In the TLM, it is carried out by the priests in a solemn mass, with a ritualised exchanging of the kiss of peace, but in a low mass only the words are said and no-one does anything.
In the medieval church in England we had an interesting practice which is referred to here. After saying the words “peace be with you”, the priest kissed the corporal, then the lip of the chalice, and then the pax. The pax was a disk or tablet bearing an image of Christ. This was then taken round the congregation, for each to kiss. The prayer given here was designed to be said at that time.
As no-one in the congregation would receive communion every Sunday, the pax acted as a form of communion - it was kissed by the priest and then by the people, thus emphasising the peace that exists between the priest and the people, and thus between the individuals, for whom the priest offers the Mass, and God.
If you look at the prayer, it is clear that the idea of peace between people was taken much more widely then. Today, in the new Mass, we turn away from God in order to offer the sign of peace, then immediately forget the meaning of what we have just done by moving on to the next section of the Mass. In the TLM, we acknowledge the words but also move on to the Communion.
The prayer above is practically a theological treatise based on the Gospel (love God first, then our neighbour as ourself): first we acknowledge that to be at peace we need to love God, secondly we need to love ourselves, and thirdly we need to love our neighbour.
I found this particularly meaningful:
Therefore make thou, good Lord,
My body and soul of one accord
That either part by one assent
Serve thee with good intent.
That expresses so much of the Christian life, doesn’t it?
And the goal of this peace among all those in the church?
So that each man love well other,
As he were his own brother.
Such love among us be,
That we be well loved of thee.
So when I reach the sign of peace in the Mass, this prayer will be in my mind.
This is an elephant ivory pax of the Holy Trinity, made in France (Paris) or possibly England in the second half of the fourteenth century. It depicts the Holy Trinity and the relief is worn smooth, presumably by kissing, in the area of Christ's head.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Next extract
This is an excerpt from The Lay Folks Mass Book, a verse poem from the 14th/15th century, originally written in Middle English.
Each Sunday I post a short excerpt, transcribed into modern English for ease of reading, and harmonised from the 4 surviving versions which are in different dialects and with some variations in text.
Notes on the transcription: like German, the letter “e” on the end of words is often pronounced. In general, modern English has dropped all these so in transcribing it I have generally followed modern English which means that in most cases the rhyme and meter work. But occasionally, I have put letters in square brackets where required for the verse, or sometimes separated the endings with a hyphen to indicate that they should be pronounced as a separate syllable.
Most of the words have a modern English equivalent which is very similar, but where that doesn’t happen I have put the meaning in [ ].
One important word: the term for Mass in middle English is Messe, with the “e” pronounced, as in German. I have generally written it as Mess for the sake of the rhyming.
The text used is the one published by Thomas Frederick Simmons in 1879 and reprinted in 1968.
I happened to be looking at a flamethrower website the other day ($499.99 special offer, California-compliant nozzle included!). What impressed me most was when the ad's narrator mentioned the need one sometimes has to "apply flame at a distance."
I like to apply peace at a distance.
This is just a toy for boys with pyromaniac tendencies 🤣