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| Vesperal Holy Saturday liturgy at the rite time source: sgg.org |
Why bother with the old Roman rite?
A friend's parish has incrementally restored—or lapsed in recidivism—the traditional Palm Sunday and the Pre-Sanctified Mass on Good Friday. If the pastor can free himself of the "do everything after the Gospel" mentality Pacelli introduced, fixing Mandy Thursday would be quite simple. The real trick is the Holy Saturday liturgy. Doing it during the day is probably out of the question, but getting the rite right is at least feasible. The problem is that since Pius and Paul VI put their respective "forms of the same rite" at night, people are accustomed to a two and a half hour liturgy that ends some time around midnight. The real thing takes about four hours with the readings, psalms, and orations as well as the processions and doubled Litany of the Saints.
The man in question needs some ideas from you readers, food for thought to feed his pastor heading into next year in hopes of a complete Roman Triduum. At first I was tempted to suggest a mix-'n'-match like Fr Ronald Silk used to do in Cambridge, the old ceremonies with the reduced readings. One would still have the blessing of the fire with the three prayers, the triple Candle representing the Trinity, the blessing of the font and Holy Water, the leading of the neophytes to the front of the church supported by the prayers of the heavenly host during the Litany of Saints, and the conclusion of Vespers. And yet are not the readings—the entirety of salvation history prior to Christ—not integral to that worship?
One might be tempted to abjured that mentality for its spiritual sloth, but this would get our friend no where and it is not without precedent. Unless I am wrong, the Roman rite had twelve prophecies, but all the local usages had merely four. The Greek rite had fifteen, but the Arabs and Slav have reduced it to four or a few more depending on one's locale.
So, why bother? Why make the effort for the old rite? Suggestions needed!
Well... many Byzantine churches cut the Gospel during the Presanctified Liturgies, so some reduction is feasible as long as it doesn't go too far. Much better than reinventing the wheel like Bugnini and Pacellidid in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that most (if not all) medieval Western Rites had/have four Prophecies: I know that is the case for Sarum and the Dominican, for example. If the length is really the problem for the priest, there are worse solutions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the richness and special-ness of the Roman Rite's Holy Saturday liturgy is worth it precisely because of all the prophecies. They work together to illustrate the key typographical points of salvation history, having served in ancient times as the last instruction to the catechumens. This special feature of the Roman Rite should not be discarded, for what exactly is more important than celebrating the Sacred Liturgy with all pomp and ceremony?
Walt Whitman once said about baseball (greatest sport ever): "the game of ball is glorious."
DeleteWell, the Holy Saturday Liturgy prior the Pius XII's revisions....is glorious.
Those were not just twelve readings. Those were twelve of the most beautiful readings a human ear can ever hear.
ReplyDeleteI am going to a FSSP led Holy Week and even though I am happy that I have access to the 1962 texts, it is so heartbreaking to see the abridged versions and knowing that it is a transitional liturgy which will lead to the Mass of Paul VI.
Give us back traditional Holy Week!!!
I had given some thought to reducing the lessons, but alas that not only eliminates the full presentation of salvation history, it disrupts the vigil (read: Mattins) structure of the rite. Bugnini, we know, cut and pasted together an asymmetrical product for Holy Saturday.
ReplyDeleteIt has been conveyed to me that some in the FSSP intend to make a formal request to use the ancient Holy Week rites, but they're waiting for a time when the answer is assuredly affirmative. In the mean time, as Fr. Hunwicke has alluded, if the SSPX are not going to use Benedict's new prayer for the Jews on Good Friday,then why don't they just go back to the unadulterated rites wholesale? The SSPX could single-handedly reset this entire discussion/restoration if they got themselves out of '62 mode! Joannes nunc a somnio resurgens...
My former FSSP pastor in Venice asked every year for permission to use the old rites; it was always denied to him. Belonging to a corporate group of priests using 1962 books has its benefits and its (often tremendous) shortcomings.
DeleteThough the possibility of cutting the lessons (the Gregorian Sacramentary had just four, maybe he could use that lessons), but I would rather support Patrick's opinion: it is better to omit the blessing of the font. Or perhaps he could just celebrate the whole rite: the faithful need to know how that ancient rites were in their fullness, and to become accustomed to them.
A doubt: is that priest planning to sing Paschal Mattins and Lauds?
K. e.
As for Mattins/Lauds, that would depend on the timing. It would prove difficult enough to advance the vigil earlier in the day leaving little "waking" hours to hold the Office later. Indeed, it's always a let down to go through three days of Tenebrae and then have nothing the great Pascha!
DeleteToo bad they are worried about "asking permission." Just do it; these Rites are the most Roman of rites.
DeleteOmitting the blessing of the font cuts about an hour off the ceremonies.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good point. Assuming there are no baptisms to be conferred then, though, does not the Font still need to be blessed at Pascha for use the rest of the year?
DeleteI hope their carpet won't catch fire with red hot sparks coming out of the fire, especially if the weather is windy! I use a similar arrangement with a cast iron pot on a stand. Just make sure you're upwind from it when lighting charcoal, etc. That is unless you like a burnt alb and cope...
ReplyDeleteMy recollection is that the Vigil took about three hours, or just over. This was in English, mostly, so a bit slower. The only concession was that the Prophecies were montoned. On the other hand, the Tracts and Ordinary were sung to polyphony, so it balanced out. We were never able to move it earlier than 4:00 p.m., so Easter Matins was at 7:00 a.m. on the day.
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me, I don't understand why we're so concerned about the length of service that occurs once a year, and that people don't have to attend.
The problem is that ever since 1956, the Paschal Vigil became, because of the changed time, a Mass of precept. And now, even if we start the vigil around 3 or 4pm and restore the rite, it would still be canonically a Mass to fulfill the Sunday obligation.
DeleteTo shift the mentality away from driving attendance up is the much more difficult proposition compared to restoring the ritual itself.
Anecdotally, for what it's worth, I've had several mom friends of mine with younger children express how it would be EASIER to do Holy Saturday if it were celebrated in the morning again. Interesting view from what is arguably the least liturgically concerned demographic.
Anecdotally, for what it's worth, I've had several mom friends of mine with younger children express how it would be EASIER to do Holy Saturday if it were celebrated in the morning again. Interesting view from what is arguably the least liturgically concerned demographic.
DeleteGiven that greater attendance was one of the major motivators for moving the time to the evening...well, the ironies abound.
The changes to the Holy Week schedule represent a greater discontinuity with tradition than the new rites themselves. This is shown well by your friend's pastor: he's willing to consider the old rite but only in the evening; restoring the rites to their proper times is beyond the pale.
ReplyDeleteCelebrating the old rites at the new times seems like an admission that evening celebration is proper and just. (One often sees this argument, that Pius XII's ritual reforms went too far, but the time change restored correct praxis.) I don't see how you could later move back to the morning after conceding that point.
Assuming that the full restoration of the old rite/traditional schedule is too big of a change to make in a single step, then one would be better off first moving the new rites to the morning. (Perhaps using an argument of convenience per John R.'s mothers-with-children observation above.) Once that is done, substituting the old rites would be a relatively trivial change.
I agree. When I was doing pre-Pius X holy week a couple of years ago, all at the right times, full office, correct psalms, etc. someone in Traddieland invited me to celebrate the holy week rites with him in a prominent traditionalist church. I asked him the times and he said everything was in the late afternoon/evening, to which I said he was welcome to that rubbish but I failed to see why I should forego my own commitments to countenance his own hybrid rite, even if the texts were identical to that which I was doing.
DeleteTo me, if you don't do it properly IN ITS ENTIRETY, you might as well not do it.
The twelve prophecies in the Roman rite belong to a very early period and the practice found in Sarum and related rites and uses really comes from a later period in the Roman liturgy when the number of prophecies had been reduced to four. The great Baumstark explains how the earlier praxis was reintroduced in ‘Comparative Liturgy’ (pp.167-168) and concludes with a characteristic snipe ‘Those Teutonic barbarians, therefore, were not always the wicked people that Gregory VII so much abominated.’
ReplyDeleteThe core of those extended readings at Vespers is ancient going back to the Jerusalem tradition witnessed by Egeria etc. There clearly has been some mild re-casting with Noah and the Ark entering the Western praxis and a couple of minor variations. The Byzantine rite, arguably, preserves the Jerusalem tradition the best with its fifteen readings (in the Slav praxis) on Holy Saturday and ten in the Vesperal Liturgy for Epiphany Eve, the latter lost in the West. Why miss things out? It does seem bizarre in the extreme to want to reduce services to the shortest form possible.
Let’s not forget the intimate connection with Vespers and the Lenten services. In many rites Vespers and the Lenten Masses were fused more closely than in the Roman rite as a single service. This lingered longer with the Triduum and some uses in France had the blessing of the new fire before the Vesperal liturgies of each day of the Triduum right up to the early nineteenth century.
Like some of the comments above I find the argument about the received traditional services being at the wrong times unconvincing. In his series on NLM Gregory DiPippo makes a very good argument that the 'restored' times are actually more inauthentic than the traditional praxis. From a practical aspect the ‘wrong’ times are actually far easier for people in the modern world as JohnR alludes. Those without their own transport inevitably find services after midnight very difficult to get home from. I have recounted elsewhere that one of fellow directors at The Saint Lawrence Press has never been tainted with the ‘restored’ services. Her parents used to take their children to the services in the morning but when the new times came in they considered them far to inconsiderate of families so didn’t bother and just went to Mass on Easter Sunday.
I too would say it would be better to do the new rites (either EF or OF – as in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) at the old times rather than the old rite at the new times yet far better not to bother with the new rites at all and simply celebrate the traditional services in their fullness.
P.S.
Delete'... suggest a mix-'n'-match like Fr Ronald Silk used to do in Cambridge, the old ceremonies with the reduced readings.'
I think that is a tad unfair to Fr. Silk. He had extremely limited resources and so adopted the Sarum/Dominican pericopes for practical reasons. He was certainly not in favour of any of the Holy Week reforms. Indeed in many ways he was the most traditional of Roman priest I have met and strongly condemned the destruction of the Eucharistic Fast. A very good man very much missed.
For the first time, I will be using the old times for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, having been influenced by the somewhat slack French usage and Gricigliano. This year, this has been forced on me by my sailing club AGM. The same goes for Sarum as for pre Pius XII Roman. We Sarum-ites have four prophecies and I have only ever blessed the baptismal water once since I was ordained a priest in 1998. I now observe the old times.
DeleteI would remark that, in terms of the reformed times, Saturday morning is in some ways more convenient for many people (and then you could have a quickie anticipated Mass as well!)
ReplyDeleteFriday isn't bad, as many places (though not as many as in former years) have it as a work-free day, or at least it's easier to take off from work.
Thursday, however, is trickier, as that would require two days off from work.
I'm not saying that the attempt shouldn't be made; I merely point out that there are legitimate difficulties for a number of working people. The best option, in my opinion, at least for the time being, would be to give up any dogmatism about times, and permit their celebration at whatever time works best for a particular community.
"During the last few years we have experienced the triumph of the liturgists' in the new arrangement of the services for the end of Holy Week and for Easter. For centuries these had been enriched by devotions which were dear to the laity—the anticipation of the morning office of Tenebrae, the vigil at the Altar of Repose, the Mass of the Presanctified. It was not how the Christians of the second century observed the season. It was the organic grovith of the needs of the people. Not all Catholics were able to avail themselves of the services but hundreds did, going to live in or near the monastic houses and making an annual retreat which began with Tenebrae on Wednesday afternoon and ended at about midday on Saturday with the anticipated Easter Mass. During those three days time was conveniently apportioned between the rites of the church and the discourses of the priest taking the retreat, with little temptation to distraction. Now nothing happens before Thursday evening. All Friday morning is empty. There is an hour or so in church on Friday afternoon. All Saturday is quite blank until late at night. The Easter Mass is sung at midnight to a weary congregation who are constrained to 'renew their baptismal vows' in the vernacular and later repair to bed. The significance of Easter as a feast of dawn is quite lost, as is the unique character of Christmas as the Holy Night. I have noticed in the monastery I frequent a marked falling-off in the number of retreatants since the innovations or, as the liturgists would prefer to call them, the restorations. It may well be that these services are nearer to the practice of primitive Christianity, but the Church rejoices in the development of dogma; why does it not also admit the development of liturgy?"
ReplyDelete"The Same Again Please" in THE SPECTATOR, Nov 23, 1962
That's Evelyn Waugh, of course.
DeleteExcellent, excellent post. This is something I noticed in the last few years attending Orthodox liturgy regularly. The pian reforms were a shame. All told, the history of 20th century liturgical reform in the Roman Church is marked by tendencies which serve to remove it from the shared tradition of the east and west.
ReplyDelete