On October 25, I took a brief holiday from the S Lawrence Press Ordo (rite of 1939) and into the Bugninified calendar of 1961/2. Deeming Ss Chrysanthus and Daria to have been reduced to a Commemoration; and the day being therefore free to say a Mass of Saints marked in the Martyrology for the day concerned: in this case, Ss Crispin and Crispinian: I did just that (the English Missal provided information about which of the Commons to use).
If the various forms of the Old Rite are eventually reduced to what Cornish philologists would call a Unified Form, I would put in a plea for the following.
The Bugnini reduction of Simples to Commemorations should not be followed. But it should be permitted, on Semidoubles and Simples, to say the old Sunday Mass, or the Mass of a Saint in the Martyrology, or a Votive, or a Requiem (some of these options are, of course, available under the 1939 rubrics, but not, I think, all).
Having read the excellent point made by Rubricarius, I add: the same liberties should be extended to most Doubles, and those doubles which it is considered should be undisplaceable, should be recategorised as Greater Doubles.
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5 comments:
A massive mistake, IMHO, was reducing the semi-doulbes to simples in the 1956 stage of the reform. These then got further reduced in the next stage to mere commemorations, along with feasts that were simples before 1956, in 1960.
The doubles, with a few exceptions, should have been so treated as most had been introduced from the seventeenth century onwards with the not so latent agenda of preventing the Sunday office being celebrated. In contrast most of the semi-doubles and simples were from an older stratum of the Kalendar and should, in my view, have been retained in preference to most of the modern doubles.
Ah, I did the same thing Father. It stirs the blood!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRj01LShXN8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Two disparate questions for the learned author and readers of this blog:
1. Between Crispin and Crispinian, where does Crispian come in? It is the name in which the Bishop of Portsmouth rejoices.
2. Why are Doubles do called? Has it something to do with the doubling of the antiphons, and if so, what exactly?
I have always understood that on doubles and above, the antiphons were said in full both before and after the psalm or canticle; while on lesser days only the first few words were said before the psalm, and the whole antiphon afterwards.
St,
As to your second question@
Yes and no. In 'modern' times double feasts had the antiphons sung at Mattins, Lauds and Vespers sung entire both before and after the psalms and canticles.
However, historically the concept of a double feast was that it contained a ferial Office and a feast Office - i.e. a double Office. Batiffol discuses this in his work on the Breviary giving references to two Mattins, one early evening the other close to midnight. In the course of time the ferial Office vanished leaving just the feastal parts.
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