The Dies Irae: Part 1
The first in our triptych on this forgotten liturgical gem from the late Canon Foley.
This week I have unearthed another of the late Canon Foley’s excellent writings, this time on the Dies Irae. It is a long read, but it is supposed to be read devotionally. I have included artwork alongside his text (as you will see) to help. I won’t send you three separate emails, instead the links are at the bottom, or if you wish go onto our webpage.
The Dies Irae Attributed to Thomas of Celano (1200-1225) Sequence from the Latin Requiem Mass since the sixteenth century.
Of all the reflections on the Last Judgement, few compare with this Latin poem attributed to Thomas of Celano (1200-1225). It is known from its opening words as the Dies Irae, a title borrowed from the prophecy of Zephaniah 1.15ff. The entire poem is a delicate tapestry of quotations from the Old Testament and the New which treat not only of the cosmic events associated with Last Judgement, but also of the emotional response of one individual, our poet Thomas of Celano. Combined with the author’s remarkable command of revelation he displays an equally remarkable sensitivity to the response of the human spirit to the inevitability of death and the unwelcome prospect of a final judgement to follow. In fact, he speaks as if he himself were already dead and preparing to face judgement. In keeping with common usage, this judgement is considered in two stages. The first immediately follows the death of the individual and concerns him or her alone; the second concerns the universal judgement which engages the whole of humanity and will follow at the end of this world.
Summary of the 19 verses of our Sequence:
Part 1: The theme of the Last Judgement is announced (1)
Part 2: Five events associated with the Judgement are briefly described (2-6)
Part 3: The poet laments his own fate and prays for compassion (7-17)
Part 4: The fate of mankind is followed by a prayer for eternal rest (18-19) Almost every verse in Part 3 of the Sequence contains a succinct prayer:
Save me source of goodness; do no leave me to perish; let not your labour be in vain; grant me pardon; O God help me a suppliant; give me also some hope; do not let me burn in hell; let me stand at your right hand; call me among the blessed; help me as I face my final end.
With Part 4 his vision is raised to include the destiny of the whole of mankind for whom he offers his final prayer that all may rest in peace. The author is believed to be a Franciscan friar and a contemporary of Saint Francis of Assisi, called Thomas of Celano. By common consent Scripture scholars, theologians, and especially poets, consider his Latin composition to be beyond compare. Unfortunately, that means that in any language, other than the original Latin, it suffers badly. The number of English language poets of distinction who have attempted this task runs into hundreds. One of them made as many as eighteen versions but, in the end, had to admit that his last attempt was no better than his first.
An Unfashionable Sequence
It has to be admitted that the Dies Irae has fallen from favour and has almost completely disappeared from public worship. It is not to be found in the revised English edition of the Roman Missal or the Mass Lectionary, published in the wake of Vatican II. Determined researchers will find it in the Latin version of The Prayer of the Church for optional use during the last weekdays before the beginning of Advent each year. There are those who are convinced that it has been elbowed out of public worship in the face of modern trends. Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, who was one of the most influential liturgists at the Vatican Council, has this to say:
‘They (the liturgical Consulters) got rid of texts that smacked of a negative spirituality inherited from the Middle Ages. Thus they removed even such beloved texts as the ‘Libera me Domine’, the ‘Dies Irae’, and others that overemphasised judgement, fear, and despair. These they replaced with texts urging Christian hope and arguably giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection’.
Something tells me that Bugnini was not well pleased with this development! On the rare occasions when it is sung, it is set to Gregorian chant. Others have attempted musical settings, and some of them have been very successful in their own way. The Requiem Masses of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) and Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) stand out for obvious reasons. The prayer ‘Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen’ (inspired by verse 19) has, in recent years, been popularised by Andrew Lloyd Weber’s (1948-) musical setting. (In passing, I must make a plea for exclusion of this ‘song’ from the musical repertoire for Christian weddings. It seems a bit previous to pray that the bride and groom will enjoy eternal rest as they sail up the aisle on their wedding day!)
Poetic Licence
There is every danger of spoiling with too much analysis, a text that gives the impression of being the spontaneous outpouring of a deeply spiritual soul. The term inspiration is normally reserved to the Word of God. There is, however, such a thing as the inspiration of artists and poets. Within the limits of that definition, our Sequence can claim to be inspired. There are nineteen verses, each consisting of three lines and the last words in each verse rhyme. The metre is constant and moves ahead at a fare pace. We might expect this repetitive formula to prove boring by the time we reach the end of the poem, but that is certainly not the case. No two verses end with the same rhyme and the sounds and emphases generated in each verse have an uncanny capacity to enhance the impact of the verse on the listener.
"The Evening of the Deluge" by National Gallery of Art is marked with CC0 1.0.
Biblical Sources
The following are the main biblical texts that are quoted to a large extent from the Latin Vulgate of Saint Jerome, which was used in the Church for the best part of a thousand years.
Verse 1: Reference to King David and an unnamed Sibyl. Verse 2: The return of the Son of Man (Luke 21.25-27). Verse 3: The trumpet blast (Matthew 24.31). Verse 4 and Verse 5: The final judgement (Apocalypse 20.11-13). Verse 7: the fate of good and evil people (1 Peter 4.18). Verse 9: The Gospel Passion Narratives (passim). Verse 10: The Samaritan woman at the well (John 4.1ff). Verse 11: Vengeance and recompense (Deuteronomy 32.35). Verse 13 Mary Magdalene (Luke 8.2) and the Repentant Thief (Luke 23.43). Verse 15 Separation of sheep from goats (Matthew 25.33). Verse 16 Eternal punishment or eternal life (Matthew 25.45).
Here now follows the Latin text with a literal translation and brief notes:
Titian, Pieta.
Verse 1
Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla teste David cum Sibylla.
A day of wrath, that day which will reduce this world to ashes as David and the Sibyl claim.
The first words of our poem, Dies irae, act as a clarion call to catch our attention and to announce the theme of what follows, namely, the Last Judgement. These words, and much of the vocabulary of the rest of the poem, are borrowed from the Latin Vulgate translation of the Prophet Zephaniah 1.15-18 which address the same subject:
A day of distress and anguish,
Dies tribulationis et angustiae,
a day of ruin and devastation,
dies calamitatis et miseriae,
a day of darkness and gloom
dies tenebrarum et caliginis,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
dies nebulae et turbinis
a day of trumpet blast and battle cry.
dies tubae et clangoris
In the fire of his passion
In igne zeli eius
the whole earth shall be consumed,
devorabitur omis terra
for a full, a terrible end he will make
quia consummationem cum festinatione faciet
to all the inhabitants of the earth.
cunctis habitantibus terram.
It must, however, be noted from the outset, that Thomas of Celano parts ways with Zephaniah in one essential. Far from being a prophet of doom, Thomas is a prophet of compassion and redemption. While he is prepared to face the prospect of a final judgement, he never loses sight of the goodness of God and the hope of final redemption. Our poet invokes both King David and an unnamed Sibyl as witnesses to Jewish revelation and to Gentile wisdom respectively (‘as David and the Sibyl claim’). His choice of King David is probably dictated by the fact that David was also a poet and is credited with the composition of many of the Psalms. He was known, in unguarded moments, to break into song and dance (2 Samuel 6.14). Our poet may have had in mind one particular psalm which affirms that this world must one day ‘pass away’:
Long ago you laid the earth’s foundations, the heavens are the work of your hands. They pass away but you remain; Psalm 101.25.
All attempts to identify the sibylline oracle and her message have come to nothing. Those who are familiar with the sound of poetry in any language will recognise the careful choice of sounds already evident from verse one and developed in all the subsequent verses with remarkable versatility. The mood can change from verse to verse and even from line to line. No doubt what the poet has to say is as important as the manner in which he says it. There will be a day when this world of ours will be reduced to ashes. We have this on the authority of Sacred Scripture. That will be a day when the anger of the Creator will be visited on unrepentant sinners and his blessing bestowed on the just. If this blunt confrontation is too much for us to swallow in these enlightened times, we may find it nuanced in the rest of the poem when anger is tempered with compassion and justice with mercy. For the moment, however, we are left to ponder the judgement of God face to face.
John Martin: The Last Judgement
Verse 2
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus.
+
What terror lies ahead,
when the judge is about to arrive,
to take strict account of everything.
We quickly move on from the distant echo of a prophetic threat, to the heavy step of the judge. Harsher sounds announce his arrival and the noisy Latin gerundives (futurus/venturus/discussurus) capture the commotion before the bailiff calls for ‘silence in court’. Nothing will escape his attention as he scrutinises the lives of thosebefore him. The gentle shepherd of their lives on earth now gives way to the strict arbiter of everything they have done or failed to do in life (‘cuncta stricte discussurus/to take strict account of everything’).
Four Last Things by Hieronymus Bosch
Verse 3
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
+
A trumpet blast will pierce the skies
over the graves of the world,
to summon all before the throne.
Our third verse recalls two of the well-documented signs of the end of the world included in Saint Paul’s catalogue of sounds and signs of the end (1 Thessalonians 4.13ff). There is no escaping the mighty trumpet blast as the last post booms out, and the dead rise from their graves. (Tuba mirum spargens sonum/per sepulchra regionum). In this centenary year of the First World War, most of us will know the emotions evoked as a solitary trumpet calls an abrupt halt to our silent prayer for the dead. Everyone is constrained to present themselves (to summon all/coget omnes ante thronum). We are more attuned to the image of angelic harps in the heavenly orchestra, but Christian art has introduced a much more varied selection of musical instruments. The angelic trumpet may well echo the ancient Jewish custom of sounding the Shofar (Ram’s horn) as a call to battle or an invitation to join in the celebration of major festivals. Christian art has felt free to include a variety of instruments with the heavenly chorus, including flutes, trombones and an accordion.
God judging Adam, William Blake
Verse 4
Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.
+
Death and nature will be shaken,
when a creature returns to life,
to plead his case before the judge.
Our poet is clearly aware of the solidarity of mankind with the rest of nature (Death and nature will be shaken). Death entered the world as a result of original sin (Romans 5.12) and the earth itself was blighted on the occasion of that first sin of disobedience (Gen 3.1 ff). It is the same judge who passed the first judgement on Adam and Eve and on the wily serpent who is now about to pass the final judgement on mankind. The verse, however, implies that the suppliant will not be perfunctorily condemned but will have an opportunity to enter a plea (to plead his case before the judge).
Written by Canon Foley
St Augustine’s Coatbridge has generously allowed us to reproduce some of the writing of the late Canon. If you want to read more of his writings please click here. St Augustine’s is also the home of Being Catholic TV, Scotland’s first Catholic TV channel.
To go to the part two, please click here.