"This Feast ... owes its origin to the Bishops of the tenth [Spanish] Council of Toledo, in 656. These Prelates having thought that there was an incongruity in the ancient practice of celebrating the feast of the Annunciation on the twenty-fifth of March, inasmuch as this joyful solemnity frequently occurs at the time when the Church is intent upon the Passion of our Lord, and is sometimes obliged to be transferred into Easter Time, with which it is out of harmony for another reason;-- they decreed that, henceforth, in the Church of Spain there should be kept, eight days before Christmas, a solemn Feast with an Octave, in honour of the Annunciation, and as a preparation for the great solemnity of our Lord's Nativity."
However ... Dom Gueranger goes on ... in time the Spaniards realised that they ought to keep the Annunciation on the same day as the rest of the world, and so they returned to celebrating it on March 25. But long habit had made the People so keen on their December 18 celebration that "it was was considered requisite to maintain some vestige of it."
Hence today's celebration ... kept originally in the dominions of the King's Majesty of Spain, but, by Gueranger's time "in almost all the Churches of the Catholic world".
A random browse in the internet confirms Gueranger's suspicions. 1573, Toledo; 1695, Venice and Toulouse; 1702, the Cistercians; 1713, Tuscany; 1735, the Papal States. That is the natural, organic way in which the Calendar ... and the Liturgy in general ... used to evolve before the Gestapo took it over.. In my own happy visits to the Traditionalist Carmelite community at Lanherne, I have noticed this celebration in their liturgical books (Duplex minus primae classis).
In the old Appendix pro aliquibus locis (duplex maius), and thence within this Kingdom of England, the second and third nocturns are graced with particularly fine Readings: from S Ildephonsus (too little of his stuff survives): forceful, terse, elegant. And from S Bede the Venerable, who is never afraid to display knowledge of Semitic or Greek vocabulary.
I bet S John Henry and his associates at Littlemore and Oscott enjoyed these passages, despite the Hispanic origins. Dr Wiseman, of course ....
How very suitable that observance was and is to this particular liturgical and human moment. Any woman who has given birth, and her male possessions, will recognise the nervous anticipations as the Day draws closer. God Bless anybody reading this blog who ... ...
You have to admit that the Fathers of Toledo had a point, the Annunciation in March does inevitably gain a Passiontide tinge. Just as the feasts of the Holy Cross allow us to celebrate the victory of the Cross less overshadowed by the pain of the Crucifixion, and Corpus Christi the institution of the Eucharist less overshadowed by the context of the Last Supper, this additional commemoration seems highly appropriate. I shall add it to my personal kalendar forthwith.
ReplyDeleteThe Annunciation Gospel was historically also read on the Advent Ember Wednesday Mass, no?
ReplyDeleteI found the Mass in the 1897 paroissien of Nantes and Father Lefebvre's 1937 Missel-Vesperale Romain. Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini? Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.
ReplyDeleteNoted earlier today that the abbot at Barroux, because the Gospel is Missus est Angelus, gave a homily after Prime in capitulo.
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