A Novus Ordo Moment

Father H's humourous explanation of the question 'just what Feast does occur today?'

From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment

Yes; I'm feeling just slightly in favour of the Novus Ordo at this precise moment. Let me tell you why, as you sit comfortably and patiently at your computers ... because this is a tad complicated if you only give it half your attention ... or just scroll impatiently down ... as you sometimes do ... I wasn't born yesterday ...

Once upon a time, the Feast of the Epiphany had an Octave. This meant that the Day was continued liturgically for a week; so that if, as this year, Epiphany fell on a Sunday, the Liturgy kept on about the Epiphany for a week and then we observed the Eighth day ... 'the Octave Day' ... on the following Sunday. The Mass for the Octave Day was like the Mass of the Epiphany itself, but varied from it in a number of places so as to commemorate the Lord's Baptism (you will remember that the Western Feast of the Epiphany, historically, commemorates three mysteries: the Magi; the Baptism; the Wedding at Cana).

By the whimsy of the Calendar, that is what we would once have had, in the Extraordinary Form, this year. Epiphany, Sunday January 6; Octave Day (with the Lord's Baptism as its special theme) on Sunday January 13.

That is what the St Lawrence Press Ordo, giving the Roman Rite as it had evolved up to 1939, offers us. (It's had to go into a reprint this year ... 59 Sandscoft Avenue Broadway, WR12 7EJ ... there may be some of this second printing still in stock.)

However, in 1893 Pope Leo XIII instituted the Feast of the Holy Family, to be observed on the Sunday after the Epiphany.

So what do you do in a year like this one, when January 13 could be either the Sunday after Epiphany (=Holy Family), or the Octave Day of the Epiphany (=Baptism)? Which does one observe?

Under the 1939 rules, you would have observed the Octave Day on the Sunday, bur 'anticipated' the Holy Family on the Saturday the 12th. This idea of 'inclusion by anticipation' was later abolished by liturgical 'reformers'

We move on now to Venerable Pius XII. He abolished the Octave, but rebranded the Octave Day itself and its Mass as the Feast of the Lord's Baptism (he didn't change the actual texts; this was simply a change of name). The Novus Ordo revisers subsequently built on this with their bright idea of fixing the celebration of the Baptism onto the Sunday after Epiphany (they had found a place for the Holy Family on the Sunday after Christmas). (Thereafter, in the Novus Ordo, one ventures into the dangerous wilderness of Ordinary Time.)

So, just for this year, those who follow the 1939 rules (St Lawrence Press Ordo), and those who follow the Novus Ordo, will be thinking about the Lord's Baptism this coming Sunday, January 13. However, those who follow the 1962 Calendar recommended by Summorum Pontificum will be meditating upon the Holy Family.

That is why, this next Sunday, I am tempted to be Novus Ordo ... or do I mean, 1939?

There. Wasn't that interesting? Now you can relax again.