It is well known that one of the major issues in seeking full, visible Christian unity is the date of the celebration of Easter. It has ever been thus – Nicea, Whitby, etc. – and made more difficult by the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. But it occurs to me, that we (that is, some Catholic Bishops Conferences) have created an extra problem by the transferance of major feasts of our Lord to the nearest Sunday, most notably Epiphany, Ascension and Corpus Christi.
So today, I celebrate Epiphany with my Lutheran family, while in my calendar it is plain old “Christmas time (after January 2) Friday”. I would not even like to try to explain to my family the tortuous means by which Sunday becomes Epiphany, so that the Baptism of our Lord becomes Monday.
I know why we do this, of course. These transferred Solemnities are all holy days of obligation. When they fall on weekdays, many Catholics would find themselves faced with a degree of difficulty in getting to mass. But the Solemnity of the Assumption is a holy day of obligation too, and we don’t translate that, even though, unlike Christmas, it is a normal working day in Australia. Other holy days included in the Canons – “Holy Mary the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, Saint Joseph, Saint Peter and Saint Paul the Apostles, and All Saints” – have simply been dropped from the list of holy days of obligation in Australia. I guess the alternative – a rather shocking one – would be to remove Epiphany, Ascension and Corpus Christi from the list in the same way – but these are feasts of the Lord himself, and it would be a rather shameful thing to do.
So we find ourselves pastorally between a rock and a hard place. But maybe – like the Church in England in reference to the much lesser issue of meatless Fridays – we should just bite the bullet and restore the Calendar to its rightful place. We should say: this is our Calendar. It is a part of our Catholic identity. We will keep it as it is and celebrate it accordingly. What Jew, what Greek, what (for that matter) Anglican would do what we have done to their calendar? And would it not be a first step in unity with our separated brethren to celebrate these days on the same day that they (and many other Catholics throughout the world) do?
PS. Can anyone tell me if – for those parishes situated in regions where the dates of the feasts are translated – the Extraordinary Form and Anglican Ordinate parishes follow suit?
PPS. And admittedly, the Lutherans often do celebrate major weekday feasts on “nearest Sundays”, but it is “ad hoc” according to particular need, and it is rather more a matter of transferring the propers of the Mass for that feast to Sunday, rather than altering the calendar itself.)
A very good point, David.
One gets the impression that this is yet more evidence of the attitude of minimalism (let’s just do the minimum, and dare not ask any more of anyone).
The thought process? Holy days of obligation not falling on Sundays mean that there is a risk Catholics will not go to Mass as they should (here I exclude those who honestly cannot attend, for there is no sin in that), and, given how few go to Confession, the number of those in mortal sin will snowball. Hence, abolish all such days.
The trouble with such an argument is that the vast majority of Catholics don’t even come to Mass on Sundays!
While of course we should attend Mass at least on Sundays and Holy Days, this is not primarily about the penalty for not worshipping Almighty God, as the inestimable benefit of doing so!
My parish priest spoke in promotion of going to weekday Mass last Sunday – something I’ve never heard another priest preach about, sad to say – and surely that is the spirit we as Catholics ought have: that, as the Mass is the greatest prayer, the one acceptable Sacrifice, wherein Christ is received, surely we should hie ourselves to Mass whenever we can, rather than creep like a snail so reluctantly thither only when it is incumbent on us to do so.
I think the real fault is not in mediocre, sloppy, minimalist liturgies – don’t get me wrong, I have had to force myself to Mass under those conditions, gritting my teeth – but in the lack of desire to worship God, “to be glad in His presence with psalms”, and the lack of any great desire for true Communion with Him. If we aren’t intent upon seeking God, and one day (see previous post) being with Him for ever, or if rather that idea is distant from us and (if truth be told) conjures up only boring images of sitting strumming a harp on a cloud. then no wonder we have no appetite for Mass-going.
The strong impulse to fall on our knees and worship, “to enter His courts while singing His praise” – THIS is what seems so sadly lacking.
“we as Catholics ought have: that, as the Mass is the greatest prayer, the one acceptable Sacrifice, wherein Christ is received, surely we should g0 to Mass whenever we can, rather than creep like a snail so reluctantly thither only when it is incumbent on us to do so.” A very good point Joshua.
It would be really beneficial if more parishes considered those of us who start work by 8 and have earlier Masses weekday. Here is a brief poll of those Churches who do:
St Pat’s and St Francis CBD
St Aloysius-North Caulfied
St Joseph’s Malvern (Tues and Thurs 7am)
St ignatius 7.30 and St Anthony’s Shrine 6.45am.
“It is well known that one of the major issues in seeking full, visible Christian unity is the date of the celebration of Easter. ”
From an eastern perspective, I think there may possible be a few other issues a little further up the list of obstacles to full, visible Christian unity such as the filioque, papal infallibility, the nature of original sin and the Immaculate Conception.
From a liturgical point of view, the use of unleavened bread in the Roman Rite (which is also seen as a doctrinal issue) is more of an obstacle than calendar issues.
In our bible study group at Church we got off track, which happens fairly often, and started talking about the different calendars used in the Orthodox Church. A devout Greek gentleman said, “As calendar is just a calendar. The Greeks were probably wrong to adopt the new calendar without the agreement of other Orthodox. But these are not differences which divide us. It’s the dogma, the teaching, which is important.”
My father recently asked me if we celebrated Christmas on the 25th December. I explained that all Orthodox celebrate Christmas on the 25th December, it is just for some the 25th December is the 7th January.
I dunno. Easter moves around the calendar quite a bit, in order to ensure that (among other matters to do with the full moon and the equinox) it always falls on a Sunday. In consequence the Ascension and Pentecost also move around the calendar. Christ the Kings moves around so that it always falls on a Sunday.
For historical reasons, our calendar is a bit of a mish-mash. We have two out-of-phase cycles running in parallel – the cycle of weeks, which reflects the phases of the moon, and the annual cycle, which reflects the rotation of the earth around the sun. We’re used to this, and it doesn’t bother us that, say, 6 January can fall on any day of the week.
When it comes to fixing periodic commemorations, we can do this by reference to the lunar cycle, or the solar cycle. Our longest established periodic commemoration – the Lord’s day – is of course fixed according to the lunar cycle, as are more recent observances like First Fridays. Easter is fixed by a complex mechanism which involves both – it’s the first Sunday [weekly cycle] after the first full moon [lunar cycle] after 21 March [solar cycle] which is deemed for these purposes to be the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, even in years when the astronomical vernal equinox falls on 20 March. Christmas is fixed by the solar cycle, as are a number of other feasts, e.g. the Assumption.
Theologically, it doesn’t seem to me that there need be any preference for using one cycle over the other. Using the lunar cycle is the more ancient practice, I think, because the Jewish liturgical calendar was basically lunar. I’m open to correction here, but I think it’s not until about the fourth century that the church started fixing feasts according the annual calendar (i.e. for specific calendar dates).
Fashions change, and for some time now we’ve seen a shift back towards a preference for fixing feasts according the lunar calendar. Christ the King, for example, was established in 1925 and fixed on the last Sunday in October; in 1969 it was moved to the Sunday before the first Sunday of Advent. Divine Mercy Sunday, already popularly established in Poland and elsewhere as the Sunday after Easter, was formally ratified in that position by the Vatican in 2000. The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was established in about 1900 for the Friday eight days after Corpus Christi (which is itself fixed by the lunar cycle). It would be an interesting question to find out when the church last established a new solemnity by reference to the solar cycle – i.e. on a fixed calendar date – but I’m guessing you’d have to go back quite a while.
Perhaps the trend towards moving established solemnities from the solar cycle to the lunar cycle – e.g. moving the Epiphany from 6 January to the Sunday between 2 January and 8 January – can be seen in this light. Of course there are pastoral reasons for doing so; as the world becomes more urbanised and more industrialised and more capitalised, fewer and fewer people can actually participate in celebrations held during the week, and what’s the point of a celebration if not to celebrate? But there’s an inertia factor, and the sense that some people will have that, because the Epiphany has always been celebrated on 6 January, therefore it [i]ought[/i] to be celebrated on 6 January. That’s a mistake, obviously, and it becomes easier to recognise as such when we note the equal validity and long tradition of using the lunar cycle to fix commemorations and solemnities.
It’s fair to point out that a move of this kind means that Catholics celebrate these events “out of step” with some (most?) other Western Christians. On the other hand, they already celebrate them out of step with Eastern Christians (including, if I’m not mistaken, Eastern Catholics), so this is an area where diversity of practice is already found.
As for the position of Catholics who prefer to attend mass in the EF, I think there’s a bit of an anomaly here. Solemnities and Holidays of Obligation are fixed by Vatican decrees of one kind or another, with provision for National Conferences to make variations. So far, the rules (both Vatican and national) for all Latin Catholics are uniform, which means that EF parishes and communities should celebrate the Epiphany on the same day as the rest of us. On the other hand, the EF liturgical calendar has not been revised since (I think) 1962, so an EF Catholic going to mass on 6 January will hear a mass which is startlingly like the mass for the Epiphany, while on Sunday he will hear a mass which isn’t. That’s a bit of an anomaly, obviously, which needs to be rectified either by establishing separate dates for solemnities celebrated in the EF (unlikely) or by an appropriate revision to the EF calendar (which doesn’t seem to be imminent). Joshua could possibly comment on this with more knowledge than I.
The position for ordinariate communities will be even more complicated, since some of the Anglican parishes expected to from the nucleus of Ordinariate communties are already worshipping using, in essence, the OF Roman Missal and its associated calendar, while others are using the BCP and it’s calendar. The Anglican tradition, it’s fair to say, would see this as a a question about which a reasonable diversity of practice is legitimate and should be allowed. Those who wish to celebrate according to the BCP calendar, or something like it, will be faced with the same anomaly as EF communities; their calendar will be out-of-step with the solemnities they are actually required by canon law to observe.
Yes Schutz I went to EF Mass this am at St Als for the Epiphany .If you look up Mass’s and Confessions link on the Newman Community web site you will see that.
sunday is Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Whilst that bastion of Anglo Catholicism in melbourne (St peters eastern hill) is today the Epiphany and Sunday is Baptism of the Lord.
“the Calendar to its rightful place. We should say: this is our Calendar. It is a part of our Catholic identity. We will keep it as it is and celebrate it accordingly. What Jew, what Greek, what (for that matter) Anglican would do what we have done to their calendar? And would it not be a first step in unity with our separated brethren to celebrate these days on the same day that they (and many other Catholics throughout the world) do?” I agree
It’s nice to say it’s all done to make life more convenient, but it’s really just laziness. As Matthias so rightly says, seconding David, it is just terrible that we Catholics give in to the secular society around us and keep our little feasts on Sundays, not having the guts to keep them on the right days in the midst of the working week.
What is needed is proper catechesis on the reason for celebrating with special solemnity these great days, and preaching up their importance.
Bring back Epiphany on the 6th (after all, we haven’t dared move Christmas from the 25th to the nearest Sunday, nor moved Holy Thursday and Good Friday to Easter Sunday!), and let’s have Ascension on Ascension Thursday – as is still done in many dioceses in the U.S. – and Corpus Christi on Thursday after Trinity…
From what I understand, what was once done was that Epiphany, for instance, was kept on the 6th, but, for the sake of the faithful who were sincerely unable to attend Mass on that day, one of the Sunday Masses was kept as the “external solemnity” of the Epiphany; the other Masses were of the actual day (Sunday after Epiphany being the Holy Family in the EF), and so was the Office. The same was commonly done for Corpus Christi.
“. . . to keep them on the right days in the midst of the working week.”
There’s nothing particularly “right” about, e.g., 6 January for celebrating the Epiphany. It’s a day that the church chose, more or less arbitrarily, at some point in the past. (I say “more or less” arbitrarily; it’s not unconnected with the date of Christmas, of course, but there is no particular reason why it should be exactly 12 days after Christmas.) If the church chose 6 January at some point in the past and that was “right”, then if the church chooses the Sunday between 2 January and 8 January at some other point in time, won’t that become “right” too? Or is there some authority beyond the church which determines when the church has made the “right” choice, and when it hasn’t?
I think there’s actually two issues raised here. First, is it a good idea to, e.g., move the Epiphany from 6 January to the Sunday between 2 January and 8 January? As pointed out above, either approach is well-grounded in our tradition. Given that, it seems to me that this is always going to involve a balance of competing considerations – respect for our heritage and the customs of the past, a desire for uniformity with other Christian communities, pastoral needs, etc. As with all such judgments, opinions can legitimately differ. I think the Catholic approach is to have one’s input into the corporate decision, and then to accept and embrace the corporate decision, even if it isn’t what one had hoped for. That’s the approach I am talking to the new translation of the missal, for instance, and I would hope for a similar generosity from others who find themselves disappointed by a decision the church has made.
The second issue is whether, e.g. those who prefer to celebrate in the EF, or Anglican Ordinariates, should have their own calendars. This strikes me as problematic; the whole point about a calendar is that it’s a collective thing; a calendar that I, and I alone, observe, is hardly a calendar at all. Possession of a shared calendar was one of the marks of a unified community (which is why Protestant countries were so reluctant to embrace the Gregorian Calendar between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, despite its admitted technical superiority).
Historically the Latin Rite has always maintained a uniform calendar (and indeed from time to time has sought to impose it on one or more of the Oriental Rites, but in the spirit of charity which should prevail in the Christmas season let us not dwell on that). It’s important to note that those who prefer the EF are not a distinct community as far as the church is concerned. Quite the reverse; the EF is part of the patrimony of all Latin Rite Catholics (as is the OF) and can be celebrated by any Latin rite priest (as can the OF), and people who prefer to worship at a church which employs the EF are not in any sense detached from their parishes of residence. The EF is simply a mode of celebration open to individual Latin Catholics, and to all Latin Catholics.
In light of that, it’s very unlikely that the church will ever approve a distinct EF calendar. The question is whether they will revise the EF to bring it into line with the canonical calendar, or simply allow the current anomaly to continue for perhaps a long time. My bet is on the latter; the church has a talent for tolerating anomalies.
You neglect the normative value of tradition, and forget that it is only in certain places that the Church has permitted the assigning some feasts to the nearest Sunday – the norm (as per Canon Law and the liturgical books) is to maintain the celebration on the traditional day.
From memory, the Epiphany is an even older celebration than Christmas (the Armenians never adopted Christmas, being content with Epiphany) and thus it goes back at least 1600 years if not more, for all of which it has been held on the 6th of January. The modern fad for moving feasts is all of fifty years old.
There is, of course, no dogma of the Faith involved in this, but it is suggestive to note that the traditional dates are long-hallowed, and to change them (when other Christians haven’t) may well have been foolish. This raises the related issue of the wholesale moving about of saints’ days when the new General Roman Calendar was compiled in the 1960’s – lots of days were moved hither and thither, with the result, as older people have told me, that the saint’s day they were born on, whose name they were therefore given, suddenly moved or disappeared! St Thomas, for instance, was always on the 21st of December, yet suddenly moved – and yet St Stephen stayed on the 26th. It seems illogical to argue that the preparation for Christmas requires clearing away the Apostle, yet the Christmas Octave can still endure the presence of the Deacon and Protomartyr. Look at how St Valentine’s Day had St Valentine removed – when it would have been wiser to retain him, and the opportunity taken to turn pagan ideas of erotic love back to a more Christian notion, when preaching that day – and some far less well-known saint slotted in instead.
Yes, Roma locuta est and all that, but one is permitted to hope that in these and like matters improvements can be made and any missteps corrected.
You neglect the normative value of tradition . . .
Hold on. Care required here. Tradition with a capital ‘T’ – you know what I mean by this – has a normative value, but “what we’re used to doing” doesn’t – at least, not in the same sense. And the date on which we celebrate, e.g., the Epiphany is certainly not a matter of Tradition. It’s what we’re used to doing.
. . . and forget that it is only in certain places that the Church has permitted the assigning some feasts to the nearest Sunday – the norm (as per Canon Law and the liturgical books) is to maintain the celebration on the traditional day.
I don’t think this is quite right. I’m open to correction, but I think the norm is that the solemnity follows the Holy Day of Obligation. The power to move the obligation to the Sunday (or suppress it entirely) rests with the bishops’ conference. If they move it to a Sunday, the solemnity normatively follows. If they suppress it entirely, the solemnity stays where it is.
From memory, the Epiphany is an even older celebration than Christmas (the Armenians never adopted Christmas, being content with Epiphany) and thus it goes back at least 1600 years if not more, for all of which it has been held on the 6th of January. The modern fad for moving feasts is all of fifty years old.
This can’t be right. If the Armenians were celebrating the Epiphany that early, then they were celebrating it before they adopted the Julian calendar. When they adopted the Julian calendar, they must have moved their celebration to 6 January, from whatever date they had been celebrating it on under the preceding Sassanid calendar. (The Sassanid calendar was lunar, so the Armenians wouldn’t have had too much difficulty dating Easter, and reckoning all their other festivals in relation to Easter, which I suspect is what they did.) Bear in mind also that in the Armenian tradition – as in the Eastern Tradition generally – the Epiphany celebrates the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, so the date of the celebration would have needed no connection to Christmas (and presumably had none, if they didn’t celebrate Christmas).
So the practice of moving feasts is not necessarily as modern as you think.
(And this, of course, gives rise to another example of the movement of feasts. Originally Western as well as Eastern Christians celebrated the Baptism of the Lord on 6 January, but of course we no longer do. We moved it to 13 January, and then to the first Sunday after 6 January.
There is, of course, no dogma of the Faith involved in this, but it is suggestive to note that the traditional dates are long-hallowed, and to change them (when other Christians haven’t) may well have been foolish. This raises the related issue of the wholesale moving about of saints’ days when the new General Roman Calendar was compiled in the 1960?s – lots of days were moved hither and thither, with the result, as older people have told me, that the saint’s day they were born on, whose name they were therefore given, suddenly moved or disappeared! St Thomas, for instance, was always on the 21st of December, yet suddenly moved – and yet St Stephen stayed on the 26th. It seems illogical to argue that the preparation for Christmas requires clearing away the Apostle, yet the Christmas Octave can still endure the presence of the Deacon and Protomartyr. Look at how St Valentine’s Day had St Valentine removed – when it would have been wiser to retain him, and the opportunity taken to turn pagan ideas of erotic love back to a more Christian notion, when preaching that day – and some far less well-known saint slotted in instead.
Yes, Roma locuta est and all that, but one is permitted to hope that in these and like matters improvements can be made and any missteps corrected.
I accept that moving a feast may be unwise – as I pointed out, there’s a balance of considerations involved, and opinion may legitimately differ about where the balance should be found. I have to say, though, that the inconvenience of people finding that their birthdays no longer coincide with their name-days would come fairly low down any any List of Pressing Concerns about the Movement of Feasts.
It’s also worth pointing out that the calendar which was reformed at that time was itself the product of a similar reform; the production of the Tridentine calendar involved junking a slew of medieval saints, and also a bunch of anatomical feasts – the Five Wounds, the Stigmata of St Francis of Assisi, etc. No doubt a lot of people regretted their loss, too.
The truth is that reform of the liturgical calendar is a never ending process, which proceeds in waves, though it never quite stops. The conservatively-minded will always regret these changes; they have a preference (quite legitimately) for what they are used to. But that preference cannot be elevated to an overriding principle.
Don’t presume to think my mention of the Armenians is wrong. You will find it in any reputable work of heortology (the study of liturgical feasts).
The Armenians of course used the Julian calendar until 1923; some still use it, in which case their 6th January is equal to the 19th in the Gregorian calendar.
As to when they adopted it, given that they as a nation adopted Christianity in 301, separating from the Persian cultural orbit, and given that the earliest references to the Epiphany date from later in that century, chances are (barring absolute proof of the date they adopted the Julian calendar) that it has been kept on Julian January 6th.
(The old Armenian calendar was a solar calendar, but with no leap year, so shifted relative to the Julian by one day per annum; but I cannot ascertain when this was used for ecclesiastical purposes and when the Julian was.)
In any case, I fundamentally disagree with how you dismiss “small-t” tradition (while thank God you retain “capital-T” Tradition!) – that is a good example of how a false hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity has poisoned the Church, in contradistinction to the true hermeneutic of continuity and reform within continuity (and, of course, organic development, as per the principles long since enunciated by St Vincent of Lerins).
To clear out obscure saints’ days is one thing, and has been done repeatedly down the centuries; but to completely change the whole Church Year is utterly different – almost amounting to a substantial change.
Sundays after Epiphany and after Pentecost (the latter, of course, anciently denominated slightly differently, but retaining their order), Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, the Octave of Pentecost, the Ember Days at the four seasons – all of these have been integral parts of the Roman Calendar as far back as evidence goes (we have sermons of St Gregory and St Leo the Great for many of these); and they were all abolished. I think that is a scandal and a great shame. Furthermore, the wholesale moving about of feast days at behest of a committee is again completely untraditional and indeed anti-traditional, an unheard-of innovation.
Yes, i think Perry is in fact underestimating the Scriptural grounding of the Christian calendar. The lunar and solar rhythms are present in the Scriptural stories themselves, and the Calendar enacts this (eg. The practice of Octaves, or the 40 days of Lent and between Easter and Ascension). The Jews know this well and are a model of faithfulness in this regard.
But to get back to the main point at issue: it is an example of decline into mediocrity and minimalism, an acceptance of irrelevance and defeat, to give up feasts falling on the same days as they have for many centuries and cravenly to move them to Sundays.
To be truly ecumenical we would do as our fellow Orthodox Christians (far more numerous than the fractious Protestants) and keep our feasts on the same days, in the main, as they do (barring little problems such as the Gregorian versus Julian calendars), since this expresses our ancient common heritage.
IMHO, if we wish to achieve rapprochement with the Christian East, it will be by reviving the practices and disciplines we have sloughed off through sloth, while they have kept them: strict fasting in Lent and at other due seasons; a consciously hieratic liturgy, always chanted; far more rigor in monastic practices; and so forth. Most of the discipline of the Eastern Orthodox once had its counterpart, not always identical but certain analogous and partaking of the same spirit, in the Latin West.
We must rediscover our primitive charism, just as Vatican II told us; and that, not in some fondly imagined dreamtime, but in the traditions of the Roman Church.
i have just received my weekly bulletin from the Newman Community. The goo Father Tattersall must hav ebeen reading this blog for here is anouncement regarding moveable feasts:
“Every year on the Solemnity of Epiphany, the Church announces after the Gospel of the Mass, the moveable
feasts for the year of grace ahead. The Roman rite has a special formula (the “Noveritis”) for this announcement: to the proclamation of the date of
Easter is also added those of Septuagesima, Ash Wednesday, the diocesan synod, Ascension, Pentecost and First Sunday of Advent. The Roman recitative uses the same tune as the Exultet of the Easter Vigil, which gives a taste
of the Easter joy to this publication of the date of Easter.
Dom Prosper Guéranger comments on this:
“This custom, which dates from the earliest ages of the Church, shows both the mysterious connection which unites the great Solemnities of the year one with another, and the importance the Faithful ought to attach to the
celebration of that which is the greatest of all, and the centre of all Religion. After having honoured the King of the universe on the Epiphany, we shall have to celebrate him on the day which is now announced to us, as the conqueror of death.”
This year’s proclamation is translated as follows:
“Know, dearly beloved Brethren, that by the mercy of God, as we have been rejoicing in the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, so also do we announce unto you the joy of the Resurrection of the same our Saviour. Septuagesima Sunday will be on the 5th day of February. Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the fast of most holy Lent will be
on the 22th of the same month. On the 8th of April we shall celebrate with joy the holy Pasch of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ will be on the 17th of May. The Feast of Pentecost on the 27th of the same month. The Feast of Corpus Christi on the 7th of June. On the 2th of December will occur the first
Sunday of the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom are honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
If fully restoring the calendar *with* obligatory holy days is out of the question (which I wish it weren’t, but it seems to be, at least at the moment), I’d still rather restore the calendar *without* obligation do than what we’re doing now.
Let those of us who do care celebrate the feasts on their traditional days/dates in harmony with the liturgy.
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The other important contribution the calendar can make is to the mutual recognition of each churches martyrs. The Hagiology of Martyrs will be an important aspect of Christian Unity because it will help us to forgive one another and to recognize the faith of the other church’s martyrs. This will be a powerful development to further Christian Unity.