Translating Ecclesiantium Arcanery into English - or what the heck are we talking about
Jengie Jon
Shipmate
From time to time we have had a dictionary thread in Ecclesiantics and on its predessor "Mystery Worship" because of the tendency to use abstruse words and idiosyncratic acronyms. As far as I can establish there has not been an edition since we moved boards although there were several still remaining on the old boards; I found this from 2007 and this from 2010. I definitely think there were more recent ones. Now given that we have at least one shipmate who will find it useful, I think it is time we produced a new edition.
Entries can take three forms. Firstly you can post a term or terms with definitions. Secondly you can post corrections or further information to terms already posted (please quote post). Finally, you can ask questions about terms you do not understand.
On a personal level as someone new to helping out in a sacristy, I would be grateful for clear definitions of any useful terminology a very junior apprentice sacristan may need.
Entries can take three forms. Firstly you can post a term or terms with definitions. Secondly you can post corrections or further information to terms already posted (please quote post). Finally, you can ask questions about terms you do not understand.
On a personal level as someone new to helping out in a sacristy, I would be grateful for clear definitions of any useful terminology a very junior apprentice sacristan may need.
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But, seriously, this thread is a Good Idea.
Chalice - A goblet to hold the wine which represents the blood of Christ.
Patten - A dish to hold the wafers or bread which represent the body of Christ.
I’ve only ever seen it spelled with one t—paten. Is patten a UK spelling?
With these somewhat arcane words we easily find spellings which people may unconsciously associate with other words , such as the fairly recent 'cannon' law.
Purificator - small square cloth carried by the celebrant to wipe the rim of the chalice between administrations of communion wine.
Slype - short passageway, with a roof, between the transept of a monastic church and the chapterhouse, usually with a door at the church end.
Note for those sent to hurry into the sacristy and procure a purificator: These are typically folded in thirds, twice. That's how you know it isn't a lavabo "towel," which may be of similar size when unfolded, but is folded in thirds and then in half. The purificator also has a small cross stitched on, in either red or white thread, while the lavabo towel is plain and crossless. But perhaps you've got a kind sacristan who labels all these (or their containers) for easy identification.
I can't provide a linky, but IIRC the various bits of linen have a nice Marian motif embroidered thereupon. Seemly, edifying, albeit a tad costly...
...but didn't some chap in the Bible have something to say about peeps who made snide remarks about giving to the poor, instead of wasting money on ointment, and stuff?
@Pigwidgeon 's links depict exactly the sort of thing we have at Our Place.
That's one I haven't heard. The Church Of My Yoof (so Low, we were under the foundations, let alone the floorboards) had just such a passageway, between the church, and the adjacent parish hall. Built in the 1950s, it was completely covered in, and had doors at both ends, but it joined the church where a transept would have been, if in our case we had had such a thing. Which we did not.
Our church complex seems to have an abundance of corridors thanks to the school which was built behind it in two stages in the late 1920s and the 1950s. There is the "bottom corridor" that runs from the boiler house to the big hall; the "short corridor" which runs from the office door to the former school office, and then there is the "top corridor" which runs along the top of the former school building. It is possible to get lost in there, and occasionally we have to retrieve visitors who have wandered into the school building by mistake.
Transept - in a cross-shaped church, either of the two parts forming the arms of the cross shape, projecting at right angles from the nave.
Come to think of it, that's an architectural term, rather than liturgical, but there are probably many such terms, unintelligible to Joe Public...
As far as I can make out from the sacristy I work in.
Purificators have white crosses (normally)
Lavabo towels have none
Corporals have red crosses
But that is one specific sacristy and my experience only
And if you're facing the Altar (liturgical east), the transept to your right is the south transept, and the one to your left is the north transept, no matter which is the actual geographical direction.
BTW, do Salvation Army corporals have stripes?
Maybe not so way-back in some places, but in my current shack the Gospel is read from midway in the center aisle. The other Bible readings are still read from the lectern and so is the sermon. The carting about and altar duties are filled by LEMS, adult lay Eucharistic ministers. Such kids we've had in the last twenty years haven't been particularly interested in serving at the altar.
I never thought I'd be able to contribute to this thread, but now I can.
I've always thought this one is slightly banal after all the fancy-pants Latin terms that get bandied around the sacristy / vestry / little room to the side. Sort of "cotton toilet paper" or "chemical-free ersatz chemical wipe" whose primary purpose in any case, pre-HIV (when everyone woke up to the alleged risk of germs that had always been there), was to become covered in a rainbow of lipstick.
I really think we need a far more hi-fallutin' terminology for this liturgical tea-towel.
This is most interesting!
Thank you @ Eutychus.
My grandfather was a SA Captain, who died as a Private in WW1. His headstone caused some puzzlement : a war grave, yet bore the SA ranking.
My mum was a Sergeant Major. I always understood this was the highest rank for non- commissioned soldiers. She had to leave when she “ married out”.
Apologies for tangent.
"Manus purgo" is probably dead wrong but sounds appropriately churchy.
Not known in Orthodoxy.
a a ...
Was ALL Outrage!
I think it should be sanisquirtum, plural sanisquirta. The acolyte administering it should be the sanisquirtor (fem. sanisquirtrix).
I've mentioned this before, but I've posed the question for ecclesiastic arcanists If your celebrant squirts his or hands with sanitary gel AND has a more flamboyant lavabo with bowl, towel, acolytes etc. which is the real one?
My view, incidentally, is that it has to be one using the gel. Once there's a separate squirting with gel, the fancy one becomes just that, fancy flummary.