Customary Kisses (solita oscula)

If you like kisses, the Mass has unfortunately become much less interesting for you in the past hundred years. Yesterday, in search for an answer about the priest kissing the Sacred Host at Mass prior to the kiss of peace, I consulted a wonderful book called The Holy Mass by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875). The book has some great one-liners, all the better because he's entirely serious. For instance:

The Priest has yet two other Prayers to recite before the Communion. Those now found in the Missal are not very ancient; nevertheless, they are at least a thousand years old.

Not very ancient, but at least a thousand! Anyway, it turns out that, in the Mass of St. Pius V, the priest kisses the altar in front of the Sacred Host, rather than the Host itself.

Dom Prosper Guéranger

But the older form of the Mass is filled with many other kisses, called solita oscula. Pretty much every time the deacon gives or receives something from the celebrant, he kisses both the object and the hand of the celebrant. Adrian Fortescue, English Catholic priest and liturgist (1874-1923), who wrote Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, describes it thus:

The ceremonial kiss (osculum), which occurs frequently, should be made by merely touching the object with the closed lips. The rule is that every time anyone hands anything to the celebrant one kisses first the object, then the celebrant's hand. On taking things from the celebrant, first his hand, then the thing is kissed. But blessed candles and palms are kissed first when they are taken. When the Sanctissimum is exposed, only the kiss at the epistle, gospel, and for the chalice and paten remain. The thurible is then not kissed, nor the incense spoon. If the Ordinary assists at his throne the thurible is not kissed when handed to the celebrant, nor the incense spoon, nor the celebrant's hand at the epistle and gospel. At Masses for the dead and at funerals nothing is ever kissed.

Fortescue, however, is of the opinion that all this kissing is a little too florid for the austere Roman Rite, and hoped it would be reformed:

Two points occur which one might hope the authorities would simplify. One is the constant kissing. Certainly this is a very ancient sign of reverence; in some few cases, as, for instance, to kiss the hand of a bishop, no one would wish to see it abolished. But would not the actions gain in dignity if the endless kissing of objects and of the celebrant's hand by the deacon ceased? At such a simple action, so constantly repeated, as the deacon performs incensing, are eight "solita oscula." He has to kiss the spoon, the hand, the hand, the spoon; the thurible, the hand, the hand, the thurible. If only from the point of view of artistic effect these repeated inclinations of the head are not graceful. If all kissing were reduced to the chief cases of the paten and chalice and, at certain more important moments, of the hand of a bishop, the general effect of a ceremony would be calmer, and the osculum would become a more real sign of respect.

Fr. Adrian Fortescue

Personally, I've seen it in real life, and I kind of like the ceremonial kisses. They show a polite reverence for the office of the priest. Though, I will admit, kissing seems more in keeping with Latin or Oriental culture than Anglo-Protestant culture, which informs the American Catholic aesthetic.

You can see video footage of these kisses in the 1940 Easter Mass on YouTube:

Check out these times: 50:40, 51:18 - 51:40

Kissing the altar before the kiss of piece is at 1:05:26