Medieval Ressourcement and the Mysticism of St. Thomas: An Appreciation of Urban Hannon’s Thomistic Mystagogy

St Thomas Aquinas's contemporaries 'inhabited a mystical world whose spell could not be broken by even the most relentless logician.'

From One Peter Five

By David Foley, PhD

Urban Hannon. Thomistic Mystagogy: St. Thomas Aquinas’s Commentaries on the Mass. Foreword by Hugh Barbour, O. Praem. Lincoln, NE: Os Justi Press, 2024. pp. 174.

It would never have occurred to medieval disciples of the Angelic Doctor to suppose that he was anything other than a mystagogue, for they inhabited a mystical world whose spell could not be broken by even the most relentless logician. (In this latter connection, one’s mind may turn to Peter Abelard or John Duns Scotus; they, too, would have encountered with equal repugnance the two prevailing strains of theology that have seduced our minds from the enchantment of the Middle Ages: desiccated rationalism and maudlin personalism.) Indeed, the earliest accounts of St. Thomas’ life proclaim him as a “stranger to this world and citizen of Heaven,” a man who “conversed with Heaven’s countrymen while still a pilgrim in this mortal body,” one whose mind was constantly “absorbed by the things of God.” These resonant phrases were written by William of Tocco, the first biographer of Friar Thomas and one of the saint’s confreres in the Order of Preachers during the final years of his earthly career, who memorably describes the mysticism of St. Thomas in the following terms:

[Thomas] has been called an “abyss”^[1] because of the profound depth of his genius, since at the Lord’s summons Thomas entered the abyss of Christ’s side (cf. Jn. 20:27). In his writings, in order to penetrate the secrets of the godhead more deeply, Thomas set forth divinely inspired truths with such certitude that he seemed to hold them before his eyes or to touch them with his own hand, and so point them out to others with the outstretched finger of his understanding. In the end, then, nothing remained for Thomas except that which exceeded the grasp of the human intellect: to behold Christ in His divinity, insofar as this is possible for man, of whom he had received a mystical knowledge beyond that of other men.^[2]

Tocco’s Life of St. Thomas Aquinas is replete with moving descriptions of the ecstasies and visions that the Angelic Doctor experienced so often in life, chiefly while he assisted at the sacred mysteries, and whose secrets he guarded so jealously until death. Indeed, it is mainly owing to the pious impetrations of Thomas’ lifelong companion, Reginald, that we now possess our saint’s death-bed account of the mystic revelations that he was granted by the Divine Wisdom. Readers may likewise catch a glimpse of the Angelic Doctor’s hidden life of liturgical prayer in the poetry that he composed for Corpus Christi –– again, it was only at the behest of Pope Urban IV that St. Thomas disclosed this facet of his intimate union with Christ –– the hymns of whose Office are equally marked by theological profundity, an effortless mastery of meter, and a childlike purity of devotion. From these revelations, the reader discovers that the heart of St. Thomas’s mystical life was the altar, and its lifeblood was the sacred mysteries which frequently reduced him to tears or rapt him into the secret mansions of heaven.

For the publication of his felicitous new study, Thomistic Mystagogy, we are bound in gratitude to Urban Hannon, who sets out to trace, with a degree of precision that is quite foreign to medieval biographers, the animating principle behind St. Thomas’s mysticism: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Preceding Hannon’s work is the masterful Foreword of Fr. Hugh Barbour, whose delightful style and swift, coruscating succession of insights on a vast range of subjects –– from book-making and the Liturgical Movement to Thomas’s horror of novelty and the Dionysian character of his mystical theology  –– occasion in the reader a certain agnosticism whether all of this has unfolded in five pages, or whether such a fine specimen of English prose has not been misplaced from another century. Needless to say, these short pages repay with usury the modest expense of the book. But then, one cannot discount the signal contribution to Thomistic studies that follows. First of all, it may be said of Urban’s little work –– the substance of which scarcely exceeds one-hundred pages –– that, much like the sparse liturgical teaching scattered throughout the Thomistic corpus, its brevity belies its depth. In fact, the two are largely identical, for Hannon’s Mystagogy essentially amounts to a continuous commentary on the Roman Rite of the Mass cobbled together from the various liturgical texts that we find within Thomas’s larger works, namely the Summa Theologiae and the Scriptum super Sententiis. Fittingly, Hannon’s method of composition situates his study within a venerable tradition of medieval exegesis; the reader is most readily reminded of St. Thomas’s own Catena Aurea (or ‘Golden Chain’), which represents a seamless verse-by-verse exposition of the four Gospels drawn from the exegetical writings of the Church Fathers.^[3]

Urban is the first to acknowledge his role as a thirteenth-century schoolman by structuring his study into two main sections according to the scholastic method. First, he introduces the Divisio textus by identifying and explicating the parts and principles that constitute the text at hand –– here, the Roman Missal, or perhaps more accurately, the celebration of the Mass. Secondly, he pursues the Expositio textus by presenting a continuous commentary on the text according to its literal structure, from the priest’s Confiteor to the Ite, missa est, with the words of consecration being conspicuously absent from his treatment here (being extensively covered in Thomas’s discussions of the Eucharist elsewhere). Throughout the study, Urban also observes the medieval glossator’s method of composition, which consists chiefly in two things: the harmonious arrangement of his source material (St. Thomas’s writings) into a unified text, and his own ongoing explication, or “glosses,” on this authoritative text. To give the reader some impression of how the method works, it is worth reproducing a passage from Mystagogy at random:

St. Thomas finds that the difference between these two kinds of enunciation, public and private, is whether or not the priest is “praying in the person of the people.” For some of the priest’s words “pertain both to the priest and to the people, like the common orations” –– and these are the things he says publicly, out-loud, like the Collect and the Postcommunion. But others of the priest’s words “regard only the priest’s own office, like the consecrations and prayers of this sort that he makes for the people” –– and these are the things he says privately, like the Oblation prayers and the Roman Canon… In the Summa Theologiae, Thomas also considers the possibility that perhaps the priest says some things secretly as a sign of the Passion, since the first priests were the apostles, and “around the time of Christ’s Passion, the disciples confessed Christ only secretly.” (16-17)

In this example, representative of the entire study, Hannon seamlessly interweaves direct quotations and paraphrases from St. Thomas with his own concise observations, which variously include examples, conclusions, contextual notes, and pertinent references to other texts.

Since most of us are no longer conversant in the Church’s vernacular, Hannon’s work involves an additional operation with which his medieval counterpart was happily not afflicted: namely, translation. A vivid catalogue of accusations may be justly brought against the preponderance of contemporary translations of St. Thomas, no less than they may be brought against many contemporary forms of Thomism –– items may include “gloomily unpoetical,” “slavishly literal,” “plodding and tedious,” or quite simply “not English” –– but Urban emerges from the tribunal Not Guilty on All Counts; his translations are lively and readable, faithful to the Latin but firmly English in their idiom, displaying a clear understanding of the deeper signification of the original text. Even so, if one should wish to descend into minutiae, he might express some reservations about minor choices in Hannon’s translation, such as the uniform rendering of conjunctions and adverbs throughout (e.g. autem and tamen as “yet” and “nevertheless”) –– of course, his intention here is to reproduce in English the formulaic structure of Thomas’ prose, but then words of this kind served more often than not as punctuation in scholastic Latin (medieval scribes had not yet discovered full-stops and semicolons) rather than definite signifiers. Ultimately, an able-bodied man cannot fail to observe that a limb is a damn sight better than a prosthetic, and by the same reasoning a good translator (like Urban Hannon) is the first to protest how far preferable it would be for readers to have recourse to the original without his mediation. Accordingly, students of the Latin tongue will be pleased to find that Urban has fastidiously provided the Latin citations for every reference throughout, as well as a seventy-page appendix featuring facing-page translations of the four short liturgical commentaries of which the study is principally composed.

Naturally, it remains for us to make some specific remarks about the subject of Hannon’s study: St. Thomas’s exposition of the Holy Sacrifice. Every comment that St. Thomas makes on the text of the Mass or the elements of its celebration equally embraces the Doctor’s painstaking study of the tradition –– in particular, the writings of the Fathers and medieval masters –– and his total abandonment to contemplating the sacred mysteries. Being perhaps the pre-eminent example in history of a rational animal, St. Thomas does not share with some of his contemporaries an extravagant enthusiasm for allegorical interpretation, yet his intellect was wholly alive to the spiritual realities veiled beneath every word and gesture of the Mass. Consequently, his exegesis possesses something from all of the four senses according to which the medievals interpreted Scripture: literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. Like the inspired words of Sacred Scripture, the apostolic liturgy is inscribed with many dimensions of meaning, such that it can signify diverse things at the same moment. Hence, according to St. Thomas, the use of incense in the Mass is simultaneously historical (being derived from the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law), practical (it dispels foul odors, with which medieval churches must have been amply furnished), and mystical (it represents the sweetness of the good odor of Christ diffused through the hierarchy of His Church to all of her members). Another particularly delightful specimen of Thomistic exegesis is his extended discussion, adapted from the commentary of Pope Innocent III, of the eight different sets of the Sign of the Cross made throughout the Mass, which is well worth reproducing in part:

The priest represents the Passion of Christ not only by words, but also by deeds. Whence also at the beginning of the Canon, he makes three signs of the cross, at the words haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrificia illibata, to signify the triple handing over of Christ, namely by God, by Judas, and by the Jews. Yet second, at the words benedictam, adscriptam, ratam etc., he makes three commonly over both [host and chalice], to show that Christ was sold to three, namely the priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees. Yet he makes two separately over the body and blood, to show the seller and the one sold. Third, he makes two at the words benedixit et fregit: one over the body, another over the blood, to show that this sacrament prevails for the health of body and of soul… (121)

Thomistic Mystagogy, like all of the Angelic Doctor’s writings, demonstrates Thomas’s rare gift to uncover a thing’s essence with the greatest economy of words. Yet the reader ultimately arises from his reading (which might have occurred in a single sitting) rather cross with St. Thomas for never having devoted more words, preferably an entire treatise, to the Roman Mass, marvellously rich as his scattered glosses are. One is inclined to suspect that the sacred mysteries were too near to Thomas’s heart for him to lay bare on parchment. Secretum meum mihi!

Perhaps the greatest service that this little book renders to the Catholic world is collecting the major expositiones missae that occur throughout St. Thomas’s œuvre into the convenient form of a handbook. Students of the Middle Ages may be disappointed by the absence of a close study of the text and its sources (personally, I had hoped to learn something about the extent to which St. Thomas relies on twelfth-century theologians, like Peter Lombard and Pope Innocent III), but Hannon acknowledges that these subjects fall outside the scope of his study, the main purpose of which is to furnish scholars with Thomas’ liturgical writings and to catalyze further research on them. Touching on the edition’s physical characteristics, although the glued binding of both the hardcover and softcover editions is of a quality consistent with the book’s modest expense, the handsome typesetting, capacious margins, and elegant font of the contents more than compensate for this shortcoming.

In his superb Foreword to a new translation of one of St. Thomas’s principal sources for liturgical exegesis –– Pope Innocent III’s Mysteries of the Mass[4] –– Peter Kwasniewski richly develops upon the theme of the final words of Hannon’s study: “Perhaps … the best way to read St. Thomas Aquinas’s theology of the rites of the Mass is as a liturgical lectio divina” (98). Dr. Kwasniewski rejoins: “Since the liturgy was considered to be the continuation of the very realities spoken of in Scripture and pointed to by the things narrated in Scripture, these excellent pedagogues of tradition taught the searching soul to ‘read’ the ceremonies of the Church in the same way, with the result that each ritual word or action could convey multiple levels of edifying instruction, just like the Scriptural page.”^[5] Although he plaintively recalls that, for some centuries, “the Latin mystagogical tradition we are describing was [tragically] jettisoned,” Kwasniewski optimistically observes the gradual revival of interest among faithful Catholics in the works and practices of medieval liturgical commentators. The newly translated writings of Honorius Augustodunensis,^[6] Pope Innocent III, and now St. Thomas Aquinas, “offer modern readers easy access to a treasure-trove of medieval mystagogy that can aid our assimilation of the sacred mysteries today.”^[7] There can be no resolution of the liturgical crisis that now faces us, nor even the faintest conception of what the Tradition to which we must return actually is (spoiler: it is not the 1962 Roman Missal and vernacular processional hymns), without a humble and studious submission to our Latin liturgical patrimony, which is for the wise an inexhaustible treasure-house and for the simple a warm, inviting hearth.

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^[1] The literal meaning of the Hebrew name Thomas is “abyss” (abyssus), which would have been familiar to medieval students of the Bible through Jerome’s Interpretation of Hebrew Names and Isidore’s Etymologies.

^[2] This biography, originally published seven hundred years ago, is now available to English-readers for the first time in the edition: William of Tocco, The Life of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. David M. Foley, with a foreword by Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P. (Saint Marys, KS: Angelus Press, 2023), 69. Urban Hannon’s review of the same is available online, at: https://thejosias.com/2023/05/29/book-recommendation-william-of-toccos-the-life-of-st-thomas-aquinas/

^[3] William of Tocco describes St. Thomas’s Catena Aurea in the following terms: “Thomas also produced a commentary on the four Gospels that was brilliantly interwoven with the authority of the Holy Fathers. In this work, although its content was drawn from many authorities, Thomas assembled such a coherent exposition of the Gospels that the commentary seemed to be the work of a single doctor” (Tocco, Life of St. Thomas, 77).

[4] Pope Innocent III: The Mysteries of the Mass; The Four Kinds of Marriage, trans. David M. Foley, with a foreword by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (Saint Marys, KS: Angelus Press, 2023). Incidentally, Hannon has written a short review of this new edition, which is available online at: https://thejosias.com/2024/03/25/book-recommendation-pope-innocent-iiis-the-mysteries-of-the-mass-and-the-four-kinds-of-marriage/

^[5] Peter Kwasniewski, “Learning Liturgical Lectio Divina from a Medieval Pontiff,” in The Mysteries of the Mass, 1.

^[6] Zachary Thomas and Gerhard Eger have recently published a splendid facing-page translation of Honorius’ twelfth-century masterwork of liturgical commentary: Honorius Augustodunensis, Jewel of the Soul, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 79 & 80, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023). Mention should also be made here of Thomas’ recent translation of Fr. Franck Quoëx’s profound study of St. Thomas’ liturgical theology (Franck Quoëx, Liturgical Theology in Thomas Aquinas: Sacrifice and Salvation History, ed. and trans. Zachary Thomas. Thomistic Ressourcement Series 25. Washington, DC: CUA Press, 2024), as well as Eger’s exquisite editions of ancient liturgical texts with musical notation, most recently his Psalterium Romanum: Pars Diurna (Canticum Salomonis, 2024), concerning which see: https://sicutincensum.wordpress.com/2024/05/20/psalterium-romanum/

^[7] Peter Kwasniewski, “Learning Liturgical Lectio Divina,” in The Mysteries of the Mass, 2.