And by this term I mean the use in a particular congregation of both the Extraordinary and the Ordinary Forms of the roman Rite. I have raised before the problems which this involves. They are, perhaps, at their most acute in the weeks before Ash Wednesday. Elsewhere in the year - for example, in Pentecost Week and on the Sunday next before Advent, these problems can be fudged or elided or ignored. But during the Gesima weeks, the problems get lengthy and structural.
In the EF rite, one irrevocably bids farewell to Alleluia with a twofold use at Evensong on the Saturday before Septuagesima. Thereafter, one replaces the Alleluia before the Gospel with the Tract. But in the OF, Alleluia continues until Shrove Tuesday. There is an obvious difficulty in this as, on weekdays perhaps, on one day the Mass is EF, on the next OF. Here at S Thomas's, we have an additional little local difficulty in as far as, while using the Three Year Lectionary on Sundays, we take the sung propers from the English Gradual (which gives the Roman/Sarum propers rendered into the texts of the Prayer Book Psalter and the Authorised Version).
Then there is the question of liturgical colour. My recollection from last year is that the Oxford Oratory sings Sunday Evensong of the Gesimas, but in green copes.
Life would be simpler if the Congregation for Divine Worship decreed - perhaps optionally - that the Gesima weeks would be Purple and Alleluia-free in the OF as well as in the EF.
Life would be simpler if the Congregation for Divine Worship decreed - perhaps optionally - that the Gesima weeks would be Purple and Alleluia-free in the OF as well as in the EF.
ReplyDeleteOr...breathe it not in Gath... that the C.D.W. decree that in the E.F.use green for the 'gesimas and approve new alleluia verses [tongue firmly in cheek]
In all seriousness, as you dear Father can only be acutely aware, a pressing need is for some harmonisation of the two General Calendars, and perhaps to a lesser extent of the Lectionary between the two forms, lest we end up with a situation like that before the Synod of Whitby.
After all, the present pontiff has expressed the desire that the two forms (and presumably the Anglican strand when that is added) should be mutually enriching, not mutually exclusive.
At the current time there seems a great danger that the 1962 Missale is preserved in aspic, frozen in time like some great fossil, rather than continue to organically evolve as it had done from the 1570 Missale.
Personally, I prefer the 1965 Missale, perhaps simply because I grew up with the changes of the 1950s and early 1960s, but perhaps because it seems to me to demonstrate a continuity [tho' I could never understand why, just as colour television was making an impact, the colour changes of e.g. Holy Week were dropped, whereas 1969 was a definite rupture ...
Be that as it may, we need not only to see enrichment of the O.F. by the E.F., but also not to be afraid of the reverse.
Regards,
John U.K.
What you hope for Fr. might happen. The Holy Father seems keen that it's the EF which "pollinates" the OF to bring it into closer conformity with tradition. Since "restoration" is really quite Vat2, who knows what might come back in the future?
ReplyDeleteI'm on the other side on this one; I believe Lent should start (and be seen to start) on Ash Wednesday, not on Septuagesima, and that that is the point to go over to purple or sackcloth and stop singing Alleluia.
ReplyDeleteActually, I reckon Common Worship has got it right - white till Candlemas, then green till Shrove Tuesday, then purple/sackcloth/no Alleluias from Ash Wednesday on.
This parish...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cantius.org
...does both OF and EF, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that they change colors and whatever else is necessary to flip between rites, even more than once in the same day. Helps to have a religious order of priests and seminarians on hand.
Life would be simpler if the Congregation for Divine Worship decreed - perhaps optionally - that the Gesima weeks would be Purple and Alleluia-free in the OF as well as in the EF.
ReplyDeleteSo what would stand in the way of C.D.W. making such a calendar adjustment?