Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
So it sounds like what this is saying it that the Mass for Ascension Thursday must also be celebrated on the Sunday after the Ascension and that the Mass proper to this day is not to be celebrated.
Or it is saying that these days should be celebrated on Sundays in addition to their respective days on the 1962 calendar.
I don't know whether that's the intent or not, but at least from an analysis of the language (albeit, in a vacuum) it's one interpretation.
Sorry, just the lawyer in me. :)
It was a huge mistake by the Vatican to ever allow this. I regularly attend the Ordinary Form, and would especially seek out a TLM to avoid "Ascension Thursday Sunday" (to quote George Weigel). I hope this injustice is undone during this Pontificate.
Does anyone know if the Holy Father has at any time expressed his opinion on this issue (including before his election as Pope ofcourse)?
"I understand that in England and Wales"
Who is speaking here? Is it Msgr. Perl? Does he have the authority of the Commission when speaking in the first person?
Emilio,
These things are never undone during the same pontificate. The same pope doesn't give authority to someone and then take it away.
Here in my state in the American Southeast, our priest offered the Mass for the Feast Day of the Ascension of our Lord, last night,Wednesday, in the Missal of '62. Praise be God! The Paschal candle was extinguished.
The rest of the Diocese has had it permanently transfered to Sunday.
Kyrie Eleison.
I think it was wrong to allow moving holydays from whatever day they fell during the week, to the nearest Sunday. What it does is just remove one more bit of Catholicity, Catholic tradition, which held us up as somewhat unique among a sea of mediocrity (non-Catholic Christians).
Moslems and Jews treasure their holydays. They look forward to them and celebrate them with great reverence. Their holydays make part of the ordinary work week special.
I have never heard of a religion which has tried to discard or do away with as much of it's own tradition that made it unique or distinct among everyone else as the Catholics. I have never heard of a religion (save for Catholics), who are ashamed of their tradition, observances which made us different and have attempted to discard, deny them.
That the approval for this comes from the very top of Church authority is even more appaling.
And we wonder why the Catholic Church is in crisis.
Look to the top , people !!
This statement seems to be a lot more moderate to what appeared on the bishops' website. Firstly, it speaks neither of private Masses or of the Office, but only of those Masses in the Extraordinary Form celebrated upon request of the Faithful, thus public, scheduled Masses, the Breviary remains unchanged. As Mass and Office normally go together, it would seem absurd to have on Ascension Thursday the most solemn Office combined with a Mass of the Feria or, even more absurd, with a different feastday, whose office would be suppressed or transferred to another day (as St Joseph the Worker today). Thus the only sensible solution would be that the 'transferring' means that the external celebration of the feast is to be held on the Sunday, i.e. that the Mass is repeated then as a solemn votive Mass. But even this does not seem an absolute norm - at least if the 'should' is something similarly weak in Latin it seems more like a pastoral recomendation than Law. From what I am gathering about what is going on in England today, I assume that most regular Latin Mass sites seem to have adopted a similar position.
The real flop was having given this authority, as always, to Bishops' Conferences. Curiously, Catholic World News gave its employees the day off today in observance of this feast - I wonder if their diocese is among the very few left that still observes Ascension Thursday today.
Pittsburgh Observerves ALL of the HDOs on the actual day, unless they fall on a Saturday or Monday.
I explained earlier today on another posting for NLM that six provinces of the US observe today as a day of precept: Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and Omaha.
"Does anyone know if the Holy Father has at any time expressed his opinion on this issue"?
Well, the Vatican is closed today for Ascension Thursday, an official holiday in Vatican City. If he felt strongly against marking the 40th day of Easter, certainly he would not give staff off for a Thursday Feria.
What's also interesting is the bit of the dubium that the author quotes back at the bishops. It's clear that they didn't send 'a request for information', as their press release might suggest; they send the statement of a position.
When the Pope first freed the Mass up I had great hope and excitement for the future. But now I'm getting a sickening feeling in my stomach that with every change that is being made they are slowly changing my beloved Mass of the Ages into the NO Mass. Don't talk to me about organic changes. These take centuries to happen not weeks.!!!
Now we're second-guessing Mons. Perle (who, rumor says, will be consecrated bishop very soon)? I seem to remember that when he was saying things certain people liked, he was the "vox Dei." Now, we need to determine just what the Pope thinks? His mind is expressed through his curial officials, unless he explicitly says otherwise.
Furthermore, whatever he thought of the issue before his election is not really ad rem; indeed, what he thinks of it now is not really ad rem, either, since -- as I just noted -- policy decisions are made by those to whom he has entrusted the munus of a curial office.
However, if you want to know his mind on an issue from his pre-election days: He saw absolutely no problem with Communion-in-the-hand!
All this simply to say, we can't have selective hearing and selective obedience.
"His mind is expressed through his curial officials, unless he explicitly says otherwise."
I would respectfully disagree with that, especially concerning this Pope. A Pope is much more limited in expressing himself explicitly as Pope than before, because of the great responsibility his words carry. We would have cause to infer that his mind was not always expressed through Archbishop Marini, Cardinals Re, Sodano, and Kasper...and two other archbishops sent packing to Assisi and the nunciature in Egypt respectively. There was the issue of his very direct "no" regarding Communion to pro-choice politicians en route to Brazil, which was later carefully cleaned up and PC'd by the Secretariat of State and the Vatican spokesman...as if to say, "right he said that, but this is what he REALLY meant." Before his election, and after, he has been very critical of certain aspects of the post-Conciliar liturgical reform, especially where concessions to the secular culture have been made - so I would be most interested to know what he thought and thinks concerning this issue. I would also be interested in knowing from where it is known that the Pope has absolutely no problem with Communion in the hand-not that I doubt the assertion made, but out of curiosity.
You've got to remember, folks, that the bishops of England and Wales are not, as a body (even if some individuals do have a spark of faithfulness about them), concerned in the slightest with Catholic tradition. They do what their liberal-minded minions in Eccleston Sq (their grossly expensive HQ funded by the sheep) tell them.
So, when it comes to explaining what they want us to hear, they paraphrase Vatican texts in the manner prescribed by the minions. As such, we never get the truth; Rome is invariably disobeyed; the mantra 'yes but...this doesn't apply to England and Wales'; the loyal faithful rarely speak out against them - most of us make very good sheep. Yet the bishops continue to portray themselves as faithful leaders. Rome has never stepped in to resolve the problems, and so they are perpetuated.
This country is a desert where loyal Catholicism is concerned. Pray for us and for the Holy Father that he will somehow find a way to send us loyal, true and faithful shepherds. And don't under-estimate the extent of that task.
From where was this primary text obtained? I'm just curious...it seems a bit different from the usual style of replies of the Commission....not that I'm an expert on their compositions.
Proving once again, if not how irrelevant Ecclesia Dei is, at least how far behind the actual (and, by now, long-standing) praxis of traditional congregations and communities. Unless their job is simply to confuse us all. I note that FSSP, for example, places Ascension on Thursday in their ordo -- and always have, as far as I know -- without prompting a cease and desist order from ED, one assumes.
Dear Father Stravinskas,
I am not quite able to understand the point you made in another post about Ascension and the forty days after the Resurrection, and your point about selective obedience in this post, they leave me troubled, although a comment box is a terrible place to explain an idea. Perhaps you could put your thoughts into a larger post on NLM that would more thoroughly explain what you are getting at.
Thank you,
This whole thing is all too unclear to take seriously. Does this mean that those communities that say only the Traditional Rite Mass and Office don't pray today? There's nothing with which to substitute the Feast of the Ascension texts. An appeal to the CDW is in order here. Has anyone even seen the entire original text of this letter?
Fr. Stravinskas,
It's interesting that you seem to believe this to be a matter of obedience. Dr. Alcuin Reid says that "certainly no decree of the English and Welsh bishops has been published. Such publications are necessary before obedience to the change is required." Are you saying that Dr. Reid is wrong?
I seem to remember that when he was saying things certain people liked, he was the "vox Dei."
I can't say I can recall anyone suggesting that ever.
On the matter of questioning this decision, it's a fair thing to do, because the matter is not one of dogma.
So, similar to the fact that one can raise questions about the prudence or communion in the hand, girl altar servers, so too can these things be questioned.
There's nothing wrong or inconsistent in that.
It's only inconsistent if we say it is okay to question one such matter but not another.
I should think that one can obey this regulation (if it ever amounts to that) in the same way that Eadmer obeyed St. Anselm's instruction to tear up his (Eadmer's) biography of him (Anselm). He apparently tore up the specific copy, but not before he had made another one. Eventually, Anselm changed his mind.
In a similar spirit, one could, for instance say one low mass (to which I can guarantee nobody will turn up), and have a mass for Sunday within the Octave at its usual time. Eventually, the Bishops will just come to their senses, or go to God, whichever comes first. Petitioning would be useful, particularly if it was international, such things being a possibility in the age we live.
I do hope nothing of this sort happens here in Australia.
We need to see the full text of what the bishops sent in, as well as what PCED replied; the text given here is a bit surprising in using the first person singular.
It seems that celebrating the external solemnity on Sunday while still quietly observing the feast today might be a feasible solution. Many EF communities in the US have done this for years with Corpus Christi.
This is all ludicrous. Half the world has never heard the name of Jesus Christ and y'all are worrying about celebrating a private Mass for the Ascension and an "external" Mass on Sunday? Get a life.
Father Peter, yes, but one could say (and I have heard it being said) the same thing about lots of things, wearing chasubles for Mass, for instance, or celebrating Mass in Jeans. It could be said about a lot of musical arguments, and is commonly used as an anti-aesthetic argument. But this is a matter of what is fitting and pleasing to God. I should think it is hardly ludicrous. Of course, beauty or fittingness or tradition is not an end in itself, but that doesn't mean it isn't something worth mediately worrying about. I would think that one of the wonderful things about the Incarnation and consequent sacramentality, is the affirmation of the value of things around us, even of "insignificant" detail.
Besides which, what is to say that these things do not have a role in bringing people to God and to His Church? For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out, at the end of time, that a lot of people have been turned off from the Church by the vacillation of its leaders, and also by their abandonment of its traditions. I also wouldn't be surprised if ecumenism with the Orthodox has not been gravely retarded by some of the reforms of the last forty years.
Kiran,
I have no argument with most of what you say. Which is why I have fought these issues for over 30 years -- long before most of these posters had made their First Holy Communion. My concern is that we can get to the point where we strain out gnats and swallow camels, which is the very reason why the Church of the Fifties had such a hard fall in the Sixties and Seventies. Verbum sapienti.
Reducing Ascension Thursday to nothing more than a ferial day destroys the traditional Novena to the Holy Ghost which for centuries has been offered during those momentous nine days of waiting for Pentecost. It is the origin of all novenas. What's up with that? I'll question that till the cows come home.
Helen
The transposition of Epiphany and Ascension is, in fact, more than annoying (the same regulation is valid in Hungary). Their day was not chosen by accident: Christ DID ascended on the 40th and not the 44th day after Resurrection; and Epiphany is an ancient common feast of all Chistianity (more ancient than Christmas itself). The transposition is also a blow against the ecumenism. There were, of course, no necessity of the transposition: the obligation does not concern for those who are unable to celebrate the Mass of solemnity on the very day. And the argument, that some people will then never meet the feast? The solution is very simple: the octaves of the two solemnities should be restored and a permission given to take the Mass of the feasts on the following Sundays (instead of the 7th Sunday of Easter, resp. 1st ordinary Sunday) in churches, where the pastoral prudence requires it. (Parenthetically: a part of the proprium of 7th Sunday is taken from Ascension; while the Introit, Collect etc. has only a few or no reference to either the feast, the octave or the Eastertide). Thus both the due day of the solemnity were kept, and the pastoral desires fulfilled.
I note the following points:
First, since neither the entire text of the dubium nor that of the response has been published, and since they have not published binding norms to effect the decision, nothing in the Bishops' statement is binding.
Secondly, the response of the P.C.E.D. has force only to the party which entered the dubium, so this only affects England and Wales and only after the Bishops of England and Wales publish norms in regard to it.
Thirdly, this decision will have no binding force elsewhere until three months after it has been published in the Acta Apostolicć Sedis, or at such time as the law itself stipulates when it is published.
Fourthly, priests may proceed as before until they are instructed otherwise by their respective diocesan bishops. It is the responsibility of diocesan bishops to impose such norms. No priest or laic has any obligation to make a change until told to do so by legitimate authority.
Lastly, even supposing that a change affects, say, Canada, the faithful are still free to ignore it and to read in the vernacular (or in Latin) what they read before, regardless of what the priest intones from the Altar. We are only obliged to 'hear Mass' and to avoid disruptive or sacriligious or offensive behaviour in church. If we may pray the rosary at Mass, we may certainly read any lections we please.
So I advise that we entirely ignore this intrusion from Msgr. Perl.
P.K.T.P.
Berthold Kress is very perceptive about the meaning of 'should'. I have found that the Vatican loves to fudge on this English word. In its weak sense, should means 'it is better that'; in its stronger sense, it means 'one must'. In at least English civil law, one normally uses 'shall' or 'must' for strict obligation: the testator shall pay ...
I have noticed a real difference between these two shoulds in Canadian and American use. Canadians tend to use 'should' in the weaker sense much more often than do Americans, as in 'You should walk a mile every day'.
American tend to use it more often to express a polite command: 'You really should leave my house now'.
P.K.T.P.
In the cultural context of England and Wales, the change is odd. Ascension Thursday is one of those feast days still widely recognised outside of the church - BBC radio, for example, always does something about it on the day. There was a time when our bishops would have understood the evangelistic value of such a connection. It worries me that they no longer seem to do so.
Lazlo, you are entirely right about the Epiphany. And then we had the silly decision to get rid of the universally recognized St. Valentine, and replace him with Cyril and Methodius as a token gesture towards 'ecumenism.' I am not sure the Eastern Orthodox really notice that feast, or care in particular, but we in the west have lost a wonderful opportunity for evangelization.
Another point worth bringing up is the clear distinction between Eastertide and Ascensiontide in the Extraordinary Form, which is also fudged by moving it to Sunday.
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