February 2024 Newsletter & Readings
Greetings,
I suspect I speak for many when I observe that this is one of those years when the liturgical calendar seems more confusing than it is clarifying. As I write, Candlemas, often considered the absolute end of the Christmas-Epiphany season, still lies ahead. But Septuagesima Sunday, the beginning of the traditional pre-Lenten period, has already passed.
Then again, perhaps it’s not so much confusing as it is simply unexpected but also somewhat appropriate. The joy and celebration of Christmas overlaps and then gives way to an awareness of the call to, and the continued need for, penance.
I have to admit that as an adult convert my Lenten sensibilities are very much a work in progress. While I certainly wasn’t unaware of Lent, it didn’t factor much into the practices and traditions with which I was raised. What that provides me, however, is an opportunity to deepen my understanding of, and appreciation for, how the Church’s many traditions serve to express and enrich our understanding of the Christian faith itself.
One such tradition I’ve learned about in recent years is the depositio, or discontinuance, of the Alleluia throughout the liturgy beginning with the vigil of Septuagesima Sunday. As described by Father Francis X. Weiser, S.J., some decades ago, “On Saturday before Septuagesima Sunday (the third Sunday before Lent) this ancient and hallowed exclamation of joy and praise in the Christian liturgy is officially discontinued in the Western Church to signify the approach of the solemn season of Lent. According to the regulation of Pope Alexander II (1073) the Alleluia is sung twice after the prayers of the Divine Office, and not heard again till the solemn vigil service of Easter, when it once more is used as a glorious proclamation of Easter joy.”
Often referred to as the “Burying of the Alleluia,” given the common practice of writing the word on a board or piece of parchment and then burying it in the churchyard, this is one of the many liturgical traditions that had fallen by the wayside but that, fortunately, is making a comeback.
May the “ancient and hallowed exclamation of joy and praise” remain silently in our hearts, if not gloriously on our lips, as we begin once again our Lenten journey.
In Domino,
Jeff Rowe
Readings
Excerpt: The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite
Fr. Michael Fiedrowicz. Angelico Press, pp. 89-90
The scriptural portion of the service following the Collect consists of the Epistle, Gradual, and Gospel, which may be followed by a sermon. In the Solemn High Mass, the Epistle is sung by the subdeacon and the Gospel by the deacon. While the subdeacon turns toward the altar, the deacon proclaims the Gospel toward the north, in eastern-oriented churches— a symbolic expression that the Gospel should drive out the powers of darkness and convert the pagans.
At a Low Mass, changing from the Epistle to the Gospel side and the positioning of the missal facing somewhat north are remembrances of the practice in the early church of reciting the readings from two ambos situated in the north and south side. The practice of directing the proclamation of the Gospel toward the north is a sign of the universal opening of the Church that does not limit the glad tidings to its own community. In the current form, the reading of the Epistle and Gospel is not done facing the people, they are read in liturgical Latin, and the Gospel is accompanied by candles and incense, all of which express the latreutic character of the readings insofar as proclaiming the great deeds of God (magnalia Dei) does not simply fulfill a didactic function, but constitutes an act of glorifying God.
Excerpts from The Liturgical Year
Very Rev. Dom Prosper Guéranger, Abbot of Solesmes, 1833-1875
February 2 – The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Forty Days of Mary’s Purification are now completed, and she must go up to the Temple, there to offer to God her Child Jesus. Before following the Son and his Mother in this their mysterious journey, let us spend our last few moments at Bethlehem, in lovingly pondering over the mysteries at which we are going to assist.
The Law commanded, that a woman, who had given birth to a son, should not approach the Tabernacle for the term of forty days; after which time, she was to offer a sacrifice for her Purification. She was to offer up a lamb as a holocaust, and a turtle or dove as a sin-offering. But if she were poor, and could not provide a lamb, she was to offer, in its stead, a second turtle or dove.
By another ordinance of the Law, every first-born son was to be considered as belonging to God, and was to be to redeemed by six sides, each side weighing, according to the standard of the Temple, twenty *obols. (*Leviticus 12; Exodus 30:13. The Obol was about three half-pence of English money)
Mary was a Daughter of Israel — she had given Birth to Jesus — he was her First-born Son. Could such a Mother, and such a Son, be included in the Laws we have just quoted? Was it becoming that Mary should observe them?
If she considered the spirit of these legal enactments, and why God required the ceremony of Purification, it was evident that she was not bound to them. They, for whom these Laws had been made, were espoused to men; — Mary was the chaste Spouse of the Holy Ghost, a Virgin in conceiving, and a Virgin in giving Birth to, her Son; her purity had ever been spotless as that of the Angels — but it received an incalculable increase by her carrying the God of all sanctity in her womb, and bringing him into this world. Moreover, when she reflected upon her Child being the Creator and sovereign Lord of all things — how could she suppose that he was to be submitted to the humiliation of being ransomed as a slave, whose life and person are not his own?
And yet, the Holy Spirit revealed to Mary, that she must comply with both these Laws. She, the holy Mother of God, must go to the Temple like other Hebrew mothers, as though she had lost a something which needed restoring by a legal sacrifice. He, that is the Son of God and Son of Man, must be treated in all thing’s as though, he were a Servant, and be ransomed in common with the poorest Jewish boy. Mary adores the will of God, and embraces it with her whole heart.
Ash Wednesday
Yesterday, the World was busy in its pleasures, and the very Children of God were taking a joyous farewell to mirth: but this morning, all is changed. The solemn announcement, spoken of by the Prophet, has been proclaimed in Sion: (Joel 2) the solemn Fast of Lent, the Season of expiation, the approach of the great Anniversaries of our Redemption. Let us, then, rouse ourselves, and prepare for the spiritual combat.
But, in this battling of the spirit against the flesh, we need good armour. Our holy Mother the Church knows how much we need it; and therefore does she summon us to enter into the House of God, that she may arm us for the holy contest. . . .The enemies we have to fight with, are of two kinds: internal, and external. The first are our Passions; the second are the Devils. Both were brought on us by Pride, and man’s Pride began when he refused to obey his God. God forgave him his sin, but he punished him. The punishment was Death, and this was the form of the Divine Sentence: Thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return. (Genesis 3:19) . . .
It is probable, that, when this ceremony of the Wednesday in Quinquagesima Week was first instituted, it was not intended for all the Faithful, but only for such as had committed any of those crimes, for which the Church, inflicted a public penance; and these alone received the Ashes. Before the Mass of the day began, they presented themselves at the Church, where the people were all assembled. The Priests received the confession of their sins, and then clothed them in sackcloth, and sprinkled Ashes on their heads.
After this ceremony, the Clergy and the Faithful prostrated, and recited aloud the Seven Penitential Psalms. A Procession, in which the Penitents walked bare-footed, then followed; and on its return, the Bishop addressed these words to the Penitents: “Behold, we drive you from the doors of the Church, by reason of your sins and crimes, as Adam, the first man, was driven out of Paradise, because of his transgression.“ The Clergy then sang several Responsories, taken from the Book of Genesis, and in which mention was made of the sentence pronounced by God when he condemned man to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, for that the earth was cursed on account of sin. The doors were then shut, and the Penitents were not to pass the threshold until Maundy Thursday, when they were to come and receive absolution.
Dating from the 11th Century, the discipline of Public Penance began to fall into disuse, and the holy rite of putting Ashes on the heads of all the Faithful indiscriminately, became so general, that, at length, it was considered as forming an essential part of the Roman Liturgy.