... does not, of course, exist, either in the OF calendar or in the (already heavily reformed) books of 1962. Except vestigially; the old Octave Day was made the Feast of our Lady's Immaculate Heart in 1944 by Pope Pius XII. One of the changes made in the post-Conciliar Calendar which I find very attractive is the movement of the Feast of our Lady, Queen, originally placed on May 31 by Pius XII in 1955, to this slot. The reasons for associating this observance with the Assumption cycle are too obvious to need spelling out. The great fourteenth bishop of Exeter John de Grandisson (whom old lags in the reading of this blog will remember I have mentioned several times) arranged to have his enthronement on August 22 and (although it was not the anniversary of his death) to have his obit kept on the day following (is such a practice common?). Naturally; he was a devoted client of our Lady, particularly under the title of Mater Misericordiae, and his devotion seems to have been very much along the lines of that recommended by S Louis Grignion de Montfort.
I suppose an unofficial repetition of the Assumption Mass on the days within the Octave is contrary to current rules both in OF and EF; votive masses of events in the life of our Lord and his Mother are, with the exception of the Immaculate Conception, not allowed. One could, however, say ordinary votives of our Lady. I would like to see restored, as an optional Votive, the old Gaudeamus mass of the Assumption, the one superseded in 1950. It makes an important point about the Assumption: that we ought to see that mystery in terms of our Lady's mediatorial role. The Collect: it is Mary's intercession we need to be saved; the Secret: she has migrated so that we may sense her intercession in heavenly glory; the Postcommunion: it is by her intercession that we pray to be delivered a cunctis malis imminentibus.
It is interesting that the OF restored the "Gaudeamus" Introit as an option to "Signum magnum".
ReplyDeleteI said a votive mass of the BVM in my prison chapel yesterday because there could be no celebration on he Assmption. I am pleased to hear that was liturgically acceptable and indeed licit - Fr Simon Heans.
ReplyDeleteI was curious, just now, to see what the Ordinariate Missal had for liturgical forumulae and noticed that like the OF both Introits are included as I said above - more power to the Ordinariate !
ReplyDeleteI would rather just have Gaudeamus for the feast. The new Mass only seriously challenges the old with the Introit and Epistle, but for reasons of tradition and that the Epistle leaves off the typology of the actual death of Holofernes, the old Mass wins heartily.
ReplyDeleteAt Knock, Co. Mayo, the Mother of God, with S. Joseph and S. John the Evangelist, had the good liturgical sense to appear after First Vespers of the Octave Day of her Assumption, 1879.
ReplyDeleteThe mediatorial role is in the collect for the Dedication of st. Mary Major which is taken from the pre-50 Assumption collect.
ReplyDeleteI think both the OF and the EF according to the 62 books do allow the repetition of the Assumption mass on the Sunday within the Octave, as an "external solemnity".
ReplyDeleteThe OF formulary of the Assumption Mass restored not only (as an option) the introit Gaudeamus, but also the very beautiful offertory Assumpta est. The eventual restoration of this to EF would be one of the few acceptable "enrichments" from OF to EF.
ReplyDeleteFurther to Dom Benedict's comment above it is interesting to note that all of the Holy Ones, 'with the good liturgical sense to appear after first Vespers of the Octave-Day of the Assumption', who appeared at Knock had Octaves stripped from their feasts by the modernists, along with the titular of Knock parish church, St. John the Baptist.
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