In accordance with the Official Typical 1956 Edition of the "Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae Instauratus" OUR holy Mother the Church, appointed by God to teach all men, uses signs and symbols, vestments and lights, colors and ceremonies. They are all part of her role as an inspiring teacher, anxious to appeal to man's every sense to make her message clear and her mission complete. Her liturgy, however, is not a mere drama at which men are silent spectators. Her liturgy appeals to men so that they might be moved to sentiments of love and adoration, thanksgiving and atonement. She makes every Sunday...

The document popularly designated as the Bull Coena, or the Bull In Coena Domini, derives its name from the practice, which is of great antiquity in the Roman Church, of publishing annually, on Maundy Thursday, the anniversary of the institution of the Lord's Supper, thence called Dies Coena Domini, certain sentences of excommunication against the enemies of the Roman See and the Roman Church. The document containing these sentences being in the form of a Papal Bull or Letter Apostolic, is accordingly called the Bull Coena or In Coena. For the last two centuries and a half it has undergone no...

THE division of the official literature of the Roman rite into six books the Missal, Breviary, Pontifical, Ritual, Ceremonial of Bishops and the Martyrology is not primitive, although it is very ancient; for in primitive times there were no liturgical books properly so-called. The Bible was all-sufficient; and while it yielded the psalms, canticles and lessons of the Office, the essential formulae of the mass and the sacraments were handed down by oral tradition. Nevertheless the discoveries of liturgical science during the last few years have established beyond doubt and discussion that some...