On Monday May 3, we lose the Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross, double of the Second Class. My reasons for regarding this Feast with affection are the same as the arguments I deployed on April 12, and I will not repeat them. Of course, May 3 is the Novus Ordo date for SS Philip and James, which Pius XII had ejected on to May 11. Both of these feasts were Days of Devotion (Holy Days which had been demoted from "Obligation to go to Mass" to "You are most strongly urged to go to Mass"), and were still days on which Parish Priests were obliged applicare Missam pro populo. The ease with which, from the middle of the twentieth century, such highly ranking festivals were dumped or shifted around from day to day at the ephemeral whimsy of transient Pontiffs, seems to me an early indication of that arbitrary approach of papal liturgists to Tradition to which we rightly apply terms like Rupture and Bugnini.
Pip and Jim, of course, went on their travels in 1956, after Pius XII, or one of his advisers, had the bright idea of snitching May 1 from the Marxists by making it the Solemnity of S Joseph the Workman ('Opifex' ... 'Craftsman'?). The ploy never worked, not least because the US of A kept Labour Day on quite a different date. In any case, I rather liked - and like - putting on blood-red vestments on the Workers' Day and commemorating the Apostle who, in his Epistle, did make some remarks about the Unrighteous Rich which surpass anything Marx and Engels said.
And when S Joseph occupied May 1, his solemnity on the Wednesday after Easter II (April 21 this year) was abolished ... a Double of the First Class with an Octave reduced to zilch, just like that. It had been extended (from the Carmelites) to the entire Church by Blessed Pius IX in 1847 ... the eve of the Year of Revolutions (you recall that we also owe to him the Feast of the Precious Blood) ... and was moved from the Third Sunday after Easter to the preceding Wednesday by Pius X. Frankly, I rather like the propers for that feast, with their emphasis on S Joseph's ancestry and the suggestion that his sexual continence is Typified by his namesake's rejection of Mrs Potiphar's bed. That the 'Workman' was pure faddery is demonstrated by his demotion to an Optional Memorial in the post-Conciliar rite. (Incidentally, younger readers should make a note that - as Wise Virgins who keep Cheney by their computers will already have spotted - in 2047, 2058, and 2069, the Wednesday after Easter II will fall ... on May1! Annos valde Iosephinos! Episcopal Conferences, as they feverishly read this blog, might like to remember that they have the competence to move S Joseph from March 19 to a date permanently outside Lent ... they could select the Wednesday afer Easter II!)
Finally: this year, on April 25, S Mark, with Litaniae Sanctorum de praecepto trailing along with him, is suppressed by a supervenient Sunday. (These Litanies are commonly thought to have been introduced to replace the ancient Roman Robigalia ceremonies.) Bishop Andrew Burnham, in his very readable Heaven and Earth in Little Space: The Re-enchantment of Liturgy has questioned the wisdom of never (except in the case of SS Peter and Paul) allowing the Apostles to display their wares to lay devotion on a Sunday.
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8 comments:
I was actually thinking about the Feast of St Joseph the Worker yesterday afternoon. It occurred to me that it is a somewhat theologically suspect feast. Why exactly are we celebrating Our Lord's adoptive father for an aspect of his holy life which was objectively bad and constituted a punishment for original sin? Work is not noble, despite what trendy clerics have tried to say of late. Scripture and Tradition are quite clear on this point. If it is noble then why on earth do we talk about "servile works"?
Christian, it is hard to see how you can say that work is not noble, since Adam was given work before the Fall. The curse is not that there is work, but that the work will be subject to futility and disappointment. That ever-trendy cleric Pope John Paul II wrote in his Encyclical Laborem Exercens:
"The Church finds in the very first pages ofthe Book of Genesis the source of her conviction that work is a fundamental dimension of human existence on earth. An analysis of these texts makes us aware that they express-sometimes in an archaic way of manifesting thought-the fundamental truths about man, in the context of the mystery of creation itelf. These truths are decisive for man from the very beginning, and at the same time they trace out the main lines of his earthly existence, both in the state of original justice and also after the breaking, caused by sin, of the Creator's original covenant with creation in man. When man, who had been created "in the image of God.... male and female", hears the words: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it", even though these words do not refer directly and explicitly to work, beyond any doubt they indirectly indicate it as an activity for man to carry out in the world. Indeed, they show its very deepest essence. Man is the image of God partly through the mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate, the earth. In carrying out this mandate, man, every human being, reflects the very action of the Creator of the universe."
Let's not forget the other early May casualties of the reform in its next phase (1960-61): St. John before the Latin Gate on May 6th; and the Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel on May 8th.
The moving of SS Philip and James from their historic date, that of the dedication of the Basilica of the Twelve Apostles, was, arguably (as there is so much competition,) one of the very worst events of Pius XII's pontificate.
Father, are you (and your most excellent bishop) suggesting that we kick against the nuvo-liturgical-pricks and celebrate S. Mark on his proper day? It seems a very counter-revolutionary thing to do. I am all for it!
I now understand the motive for your re-posted post of yesterday: since Easter, the Pasch, is indeed over (during which, excepting when one's titular is S. Mark, no within the 8va of Pasch "bumping" is allowed) - since the 8va is indeed over it follows that S. Mark's day (Double 2nd Class) MUST bump the 3rd Sunday After Easter (a mere Semidouble) which still, of course, must be commemorated including its proper Gospel. Am I getting this right?
I would presume that from his current vantage point of regularly rubbing elbows with S. Mark, the Venerable Pope Pius XII prays us return these stolen goods to their proper places.
Mr(is that right?) Cavenaugh,
I think that you are confusing "activity" and "work." Technically speaking, for example, all academic "work" is not work at all, it is contemplation. Given that their was no pain in childbirth before the fall I doubt if reproduction can be properly termed "work" either. Physical labour is "work." It seems clear from scripture and from the Catechism of the Council of Trent that physical labour is a punishment. I am sure that most people would agree that even fruitful and fulfilling work causes physical strain and tiredness and is only necessary because our physical needs are not met as a matter of course, as they were before the fall.
Oral tradition has it that the Congregation of Sacred Rites did its utmost to reduce the 'worker' aspects of the feast, hence the choice of 'opifex'. They also were not in favour of the Holy Week changes which like those of the 60's were done by a select committee who hoodwinked the Pontiff.
More and more information is coming out all the time about the 50's reforms in which Bugnini had a big hand.
The May festivals of the Invention, John before Domitian, Gargano, etc., were not abolished by Pius, but rather by John XXIII...though admittedly the Johannine rubrics were mostly drafted under Pius. Still, they did not get published until 1960, with a 1961 implementation date (and even a reminder to priests not to anticipate getting to chop Matins before January, 1961!)
The feasts were relegated to the Missal appendix.
-Dr. Lee Fratantuono
Christian,
(yes it is Mr. C.., although Steve will do just as well)
Sorry to be dense, but it is not so clear to me that physical labor is a curse. The Catechism of Trent says, in its exposition of the Fourth Commandment: "For from these words it can be gathered that the faithful are to be exhorted not to spend their lives in indolence and sloth, but that each one, mindful of the words of the Apostle, should do his own business, and work with his own hands, as he had commanded them." The fulfillment of a commandment and an apostolic exhortation, which also combat the vices can hardly be a curse.
Furthermore, St. Thomas in the Summa writes that even in the state of innocence, man had need of food, and to gather food is work (or physical labor). That physical labor is now accompanied by strain does not show that labor is cursed, but that we are cursed in that our labor is no longer a delight.
But that work was part of man's original estate is, to me, clear from God's commandment in Genesis, both the commandment cited earlier in JPII's encyclical to "subdue the earth" and in the command to Adam in Genesis 2:15 "And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it" which is surely physical work. Aquinas, in treating of this passage uses "labor" in the sense of "work which entails suffering" as you seem to be using it. But work itself is not objectively bad (since, as the Catechism states "Hence it is not difficult to perceive that all servile works are forbidden, not because they are improper or evil in themselves, ...").
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