Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/579

 PASSION

525

PASSION

crated to the service of God, should devote themselves to prayer and meditation on our Lord's Passion. It was not until towards the end of his life that he wrote the rules of the institute which were approved by a Brief of Clement XIV in 1770. St. Paul had as co- operatrix in the foundation of the Passionist nuns, a re- ligious, known as Mother Mary of Jesus Crucified, whose secular name was Faustina Gertrude Costantini. She was born at Corneto, 18 August, 1713. In youth she placed herself under the direction of St. Paul of the Cross, and became a Benedictine in her native city, iwaiting the establishment of a Passionist convent. Through the generosity of her relatives, Dominic Cos- tantini, Nicolas his brother, and Lucia his wife, a site was obtained for the first convent of the new institute in Corneto, and a suitable house and chapel were built. On the Feast of the Holy Cross, 1771, Mother Mary of Jesus Crucified, with the permission of Clement XIV, with ten postulants, was clothed in the habit of the Passion and cnt ercd t he first convent of Passionist nuns, solemnly opened by the vicar capitular of the diocese. St. Paul, detained by illness, was represented by the fir.st consultor general of the order. Father J<jlin IMary. Mary of Jesus Crucified became the first mother su- perior of her order and remained so until her death in 1787. The spirit of the institute and its distinctive character is devotion to the Passion of Christ, to which the sisters bind themselves by vows. Their life is aus- tere, but in no way injurious to health. Postulants seeking admission must have a dowry. Their con- vents are stri<-tly enclosed. The sisters chant or recite the Divine Office in common and spend the greater part of the day in prayer and other duties of piety. They attend to the domestic work of the convent, and occupy themselves in their cells with needlework, making vestments etc. With the approbation of Pius IX a house was established at Mamers in the Diocese of le Mans, France, in 1872, and continued to flourish until suppressed with other religious communities in 1903 by the Government. There is also a Passionist convent at Lucca whose foundation was predicted by Gemma Galganino, the twentieth-century mystic. On 5 May, 1910, five Passionist nuns from Italy arrived in Pittsburg to make the first foundation of their insti- tute in the United States.

Sisters of the Most Holt Cross and Passion. — This second Order of Passionist nuns was founded in England in 18.50 when Father Gaudentius, one of the first Passionists who joined Father Dominic in that country, formed a plan of providing a home forfactory girls in Lancashire. With the sanction and appro- bation of Dr. Turner, then Bishop of Salford, and his vicar-general, a house was secured for a convent and home in Manchester in 1851. The first superior was Mother Mary Joseph Paul. The community pros- pered and rules were drawn up. The sisters took the name of Sisters of the Holy Family and in course of time became aggregated to the Congregation of the Passionists (although immediately subject to the bishop of the dioce.se) under the name of Sisters of the Most Holy Cross and Passion. The institute under this title and its rules were approved by Pius IX on 2 July, 1876 per moriiim experimenti ad dccennium and received its final approbation from Leo XIII, by a De- cree dated 21 June, 1887. The institute had its origin chiefly in the lamentable state of female operatives in the large towns of England, who, though constantly exposed to the greatest dangers to faith and morals, had no special guardians or instructors save the clergy. To protect and maintain these women, and, if erring, to help them reform, are the special tasks of the sis- ters. The Passionist spirit of the institute may be known from their approved rules. "As this congre- gation is affiliated to and bears the same name as the Congregation of Clerks of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Jesus Christ . . . let them in a particular manner strive to keep alive in their hearts the memory

of Jesus Crucified, and cultivate an ardent and tender devotion to His most holy Passion and Death, so that they may imbibe His spirit, learn His virtues, and faithfully imitate them. Although the Sisters are not bound, as are the above named Clerks, by a special vow, they should, nevertheless, with all eagerness pro- mote the same salutary devotion in the hearts of those whose education they undertake" (Rules, ch. I). The sisters have founded Houses of Refuge and Homes for factory girls; they also teach parochial schools, and have boarding schools for secondary education. They instruct converts and others, visit the sick, and per- form all the duties of Sisters of Mercy and Charity. Since their final approbation they have increased rap- idly and now have two provinces with 18 convents in England, 3 in Ireland, and 3 in Scotland, 2 train- ing colleges for teachers, and large parochial schools wherever their houses are established, 9 homes for factory girls; the sisters number 430.

A similar Society was established in Chili by the Passionists a few years ago and these are now, by their own request, to be aggregated to the Anglo-Hibernian sisterhood. Another active community of Passionist Sisters was established, and existed in Lourdes until 1903.

A. Devine.

Passion Music. — Precisely when, in the develop- ment of the liturgy, the history of the Passion of Our Lord ceased, during Holy Week, to be merely read and became a solemn recitation, has not yet been ascer- tained. As early as the eighth century the deacon of the Mass, in alb, solemnly declaimed, in front of the altar, on a fixed tone, the history of the Passion. The words of our Lord were, however, uttered on the gos- pel tone, that is, with inflections and cadences. The original simplicity of having the whole allotted to one person gave way in the twelfth century to a division into three parts assigned to three different persons, the prie-st, or celebrant, the deacon, and the sub-deacon. To the priest were assigned the words of our Lord, the deacon assumed the role of the Evangelist, or chro- nisla, while the sub-deacon represented the crowd, or turl)a, and the various other persons mentioned in the narrative. The interrelation of the alternating voices, their relative pitch, and the manner of interpreting the part allotted to each have come down to us and may be heard in Holy Week in almost any city church, the only change since the early times being that all three parts are now generally sung by priests. The juxta- posed melodic phrases extend over an ambitus, or compass of the whole of the fifth and two tones of its plagal, or the sixth mode. The evangelist, or chronista, moves between the tonic and the dominant, while the suprema vox, representing the crowd, etc., moves be- tween the dominant and the upper octave. The tones upon which the words of our Lord are uttered are the lower tetra-chord of the fifth mode with two tones of thesixth. Laterthefourth tone of the fifth mode, b, was altered into b flat, to avoid the tritonus between the tonic and the fourth. Throughout the Middle Ages the Passion was the theme most frequently treated in mystery plays and sacred dramas. 'I'he indispensable music in these performances was either the plain chant or liturgical melodies or religious folk-songs. It was not until toward the end of the fifteenth century that the whole narrative received harmonic treatment.

Jacobus Hobrecht, or Obrecht (14.50-1.505), was the first composer, so far as is known, who presented the subject in the form of an extended motet, a departure which laid the foundation for a rich and varied litera- ture of passion music. In Obrecht's composition the three melodic phrases are, in a most ingenious manner, made to serve as canti fermi, and, by skilful combin- ing of the various voices and letting them unite, as a rule, only on the utterances of the iurba, variety is maintained. The work must have become known in a