do take note that from Vespers tonight till Vespers next Saturday, the Invitatory, Antiphons and Responsory are on page 0-67: Pentecost (and Its Octave). Festivals that occur within this octave:
Monday - May 24: Esther (p. 1298)
Tuesday - May 25 - Bede the Venerable, Theologian (p. 1299)
The Treasury returns to the civil calendar on May 31 (which the three-year lectionary observes as Visitation, but not the 1-year - we wait till July 2).
Nobody anywhere celebrated the Visitation on 31 May before the novus ordo moved it there. The Eastern Church celebrates it on 30 March, the Western Church celebrates it on 2 July.
ReplyDeleteIt is not universally celebrated in the East; in the West the Franciscans pushed it initially, and Pope Urban VI established it as a feast for 2 July in the general calendar in 1389, not so much to honour the Visitation as to help end the French pope (Avingnon)/Italian pope thing.
And so it stood until the novus ordo, and the wannabes have followed suit.
Stupid Question:
ReplyDeleteHow long does an Octave last? 8 days? or just until the next Sunday?
Or something else?
The octave lasts through the next Sunday BUT the Feast of the Holy Trinity has displaced the final day of this particular octave, so its propers are used on that day. In the one year series, the historic Gospel (John 3) still reflects the time when it was simply the octave of Pentecost and not the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Pax!
ReplyDeletePast Elder,
ReplyDeleteI have always found the July 2 date odd, given the fact that the event commemorated occurs prior to the Nativity of St. John, which is commemorated on June 24. The March date makes more chronological sense than either the May or July date.
Pastor Weedon,
I realize it isn't a Lutheran authority, but of odd interest is the 1962 BCP of the Anglican Church of Canada, which titles next Sunday as "The Octave Day of Pentecost, commonly called Trinity Sunday". I have a celebrant's manual for this book titled "Decency and Order" which directs that Red vestments should be worn on Trinity Sunday. Interestingly, the Canadian BCP does this with the Christmas Octave and the Easter Octave as well:
"The Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ being New Year's Day"
"The Octave Day of Easter being the Sunday after Easter Day"
In all three instances, the Collect of the first day of the Octave is used throughout (on the three days after Christmas, it is a second Collect after those of Stephen, John, and Innocents), but on the Octave Day itself, a completely different collect is appointed.
Rob+
That is true, Father Rob, and is the stated reason why the novus ordo moved it to fall between the Annunciation and the Nativity of St John.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of octaves, the octave of the Nativity of St John was the logic, as it were, applied to the placement of the Visitation on the day after the octave, though the question remains, St John was not born yet when the Visitation happened, although maybe the idea was that even so, at least the octave was over when an event historically before it was celebrated.
Roman "logic" can and often is a bit impenetrable at times, and only disappears when the RCC becomes Christ in his body now on earth for a person.
However two factors may be significant. The emphasis on the feast originates with the Franciscans, and everybody knows they can't think worth a dam, can't pray or work (ora et labora) like proper monking monks having no proper communal life at all, and these "beggars" became fabulously wealthy through moves putting ownership out of personal hands that would make a Wall Street baron green with jealousy.
The other factor is that Urban's main concern in establishing the feast was to help end the Rome/Avignon split, so I don't suppose the Gospel accounts were all that much in his mind. After all the conclave that elected him "pope" had to beat feet out of town afterward to avoid rioting in the streets!
I might add that the original office for this feast was written by an English Benedictine named Adam Easton, which was abolished by the Pius V missal. Some bishops refused to accept the new feast too after Urban instituted it, so I guess his plan for the feast didn't work, so to speak.
As to the 30 March date, I have no information at all why the East uses it, though it fits with the time of Mary going to visit St Elisabeth in Hebron, and moreso than bloody two months after the Annunciation when Joseph showed up three months after to take her home.
The Gospel portion for the day includes the words of St Elisabeth, which are the basis for the Ave Maria, or Hail Mary, which sounds a little stilted to modern ears but then again so would Yo Cuz too miss the mark. The "hail" is simply a salutation of honour in Latin, not a phrase of worship.
It is SO good to be "Lutheran"!
Past Elder,
ReplyDeleteIn a similar fashion to your description of the Octave of St. John, I have seen several orders which call for the celebration of the Baptism of our Lord on January 13th. Of course, it equally feels odd to me to celebrate this feast before celebrating the Presentation of our Lord.
Let's just say I have some longstanding beefs with some elements of the calendar... and we'll leave it at that :)
Rob+
Father Rob --
ReplyDeleteYou must be looking at some old, but not that old, Roman stuff. Epiphany originally included the whole youth of Jesus, nativity and all, and only later was separated into separate observances East and West.
In the Roman calendar of my very early youth, the feast didn't exist at all, though in the East (an outpost of which was right down the street) it was part of what we call Epiphany on 6 January, from which date Rome has now dislocated that feast.
It was in 1955, among the many revisions to the Roman rite and calendar Pius XII instituted that year, that a separate Baptism of the Lord appears on 13 January, replacing the Octave of the Epiphany. Just a few years later with the (Pastor Yount Alert) miserable manifestation of the nefarious novus ordo, more appropriately termed the bogus ordo, it was fixed on the Sunday after Epiphany as a general rule.
Man is it good to be Lutheran! However, if my unfortunate fate to have been raised in the rubber room of romanitas can serve to warn my confessional Lutheran brethren, even cyberbrethren, that anything with even a taint of 1960s Roman influence is as sorry a source for our stuff as Willow Creek, it was worth it.