Feb. 2 Observance

bwhitmore

Our EF choir director was surprised to learn that this Sunday, February 2 will be observed as Purification/Candlemas (our diocesan Mass follows the FSSP ordo), and he indicated this wasn't correct as it should be Fourth Sunday after Epiphany. Just curious - are there any places where this Sunday will observed as Epiphany IV? The propers are the same as Epiphany III, so much less work!

chonak

This doesn't answer your question, but in case anyone is wondering, it really is correct for Purification to supercede the seasonal Sunday Mass, because (despite its Marian title) it is a Feast of Our Lord. (I found that explanation in the Cantius ordo.)

Incardination

Everywhere I've been, Candlemas has always been celebrated in lieu of the corresponding Sunday where it has fallen that way.

As chonak indicates, the Purification / Candlemas is also the Presentation. In the EF calendar, 2nd Class feasts of our Lord take precedence over Sundays (which are 2nd Class). Even were it simply a 2nd Class of our Lady, it could be done as a Solemnity on that particular Sunday.

madorganist

This may be helpful:
https://1962ordo.today/day/purification-b-v-m-candlemas-2-2/

CharlesW

(Purple) I will be celebrating Gen Beauregard Lee, the Georgia groundhog who has the gift of prophecy, on Feb 2nd.

O holy whistle-pig, granted prophetic gifts
enlighten us we pray.

There is a little thing called the Super Bowl, meaning the attendance at the evening mass will drop to the point it should be cancelled.

Candlemas is celebrated at the cathedral and I don't remember us ever celebrating it at the parish level. Is this different in other places? Of course, we celebrate the Presentation of the Lord, but the candle blessing is a cathedral thing. The "new" calendar seems to have re-oriented everything. Maybe confused is a better word.

tomjaw

Is this a confusion... While Candlemas will always take precedence over the III / IV Sunday after Epiphany (in 62 or pre 55 Rubrics) It can not take precedence over Septuagesima...

CCooze

i tend to use the Traditio website, if I am at any time confused:

Jeffrey Quick

Our EF choir director was surprised

He shouldn't have been. He should have an Ordo, and when anything unusual pops up, ask Father. The poor man is now looking at having to do twice as much chant, and all of it new, on 4 days notice. It was a long hard rehearsal on Tuesday night.

(Speaking of Ordi...I used to use the Cantius one, as being the easiest to understand, but too often it was in disagreement with our priests, who use the one from the Vatican. I got a Romanitas this year.)

FWIW, here's what's on the docket at St. Sebastian (1PM)
Full candle-blessing and procession chants, and Proper.
Mass IX, Credo I
At Offertory: Beata progenies (Leonel Power)
At Communion: Alma redemptoris mater (L. Perosi), O sacrum convivium (Remondi)
Recessional: The Immaculate Conception (QUELLA, Kevin Allen)

Incardination

I tend to use the Traditio website

Although... this happens to be 1950's rubrics, which wouldn't be an exact match for those parishes (most I would think) using 1962. Just to make you aware!

tomjaw

It is all very well using these various Ordo, but they are usually only set for the Roman Calendar, and so do not have the local feasts...

JonathanKK

A general recommendation: the explanations for a lot of things can be found in the 1960 rubrics promulgated by Pope John XXIII which are divided into three parts.

I. - RUBRICAE GENERALES
II. - RUBRICAE GENERALES BREVIARII ROMANI
III. - RUBRICAE GENERALES MISSALIS ROMANI

An English translation can be found HERE.

The missal and breviary each contain the appropriate two out of three parts. Under the first part there is XI - De praecedentia dierum liturgicorum which has a table that governs the precedence of days, that is where it says that 2nd class feasts of the Lord take precedence over 2nd class Sundays.

It is also useful to have on hand the 1962 Missale Romanum, which can be had in .pdf HERE. If you go to the page for Feb. 2nd, there is a rubric before the proper texts which says "Festum Purificationis habetur tamquam festum Domini", and so there you have it.

Salieri

A quibble--intended in a friendly manner:

The plural of Ordo is Ordines.

Jeffrey Quick

In a related matter: did anyone get Jeff Ostrowski's email this morning, and check out the link? He points out several liturgical issues in this feast, one of which is clear, and one which isn't.

1. Exsurge Domine (after Lumen): This is NOT in the '62 Missal, though it's in the 62 Liber Usualis. The Rubrics my priest gave me to work from omit mention of it, going right on. He's working from a missal perspective, not from the Liber, so it would never occur to him to say "Do NOT sing Exsurge."

2. The verse to Responsum accepit Simeon. Ostrowski says that it is not in the 62 Missal or Gradual. But the verse IS in the Missal, but not in the '62 Liber OR the Liber Brevior (which is what we sing from). I suppose I could psalmtone something, but at 9:30 on the Sunday, I don't think it's going to happen. Should it, in the future?

tomjaw

How interesting, Our Alto did not have the Exsurge in her 1962/63 Liber, of course the music is on another page. N.B. We have very few 1962 L.U. among our choir. My 1961 Liber (reference copy only) has the Exsurge!

We always follow the older rubric so we sang the Exsurge.

I see the CMAA reprint of the Graduale is missing the Exsurge...

Anyway our Programme for today,

Asperges (first version)
ANT. Lumen ad revelationem
ANT. Exsurge Domine
ANT. Adorna thalamum (repeated)
ANT. Responsum accepit (repeated)
RESP. Obtulerunt
INT. Suscepimus
KYR. Missa Dixit Maria, Hasler
GLO. Missa Dixit Maria, Hasler
GRAD. Suscepimus
ALL. Senex
CREDO. I (a few members of the choir were suffering from sore throats and begged to have break from Polyphony)
OFF. Diffusa est
OFF Motet. Ave Maris Stella, Hasler
SANC. Missa Dixit Maria, Hasler
BEN. Missa Dixit Maria, Hasler
AGN. Missa Dixit Maria, Hasler
COM. Responsum
COM Motet. Nunc Dimittis, Tattersall, Soprano solo
COM Motet. O Gloriosa Domina, Byrd.
Domine Salvam fac
Marian Anthem, Alma Redemptoris, Guerrero.

Carolus16

The LU has a section at the beginning labeled “Changes in the Liber Usualis”. On page lxxxvi in my copy it says that Exsurge, Domine is omitted, although the antiphon is still included in the main body of the Liber.

Carolus16

Also, re: the verse for Responsum: it’s not in the 1908 Vatican Gradual or subsequent books, but it is in older chant books like the 1903 Solesmes book, Dom Pothier’s 1895 Liber Gradualis, and the Ratisbon Gradual. I wonder why it was dropped.

tomjaw

I wonder why it was dropped.

Are but don't the older books use the Missal text, they later decided the Graduale text is just as ancient, and so they swapped over.

CharlesSA

I couldn't get access to an older set of rubrics. Perhaps now I can since I have internet access on my phone. But, we have a little Latin Mass community in our area that has a Latin Mass once per month. So we did the Feast of the Purification today. As some of these comments have done, it highlights some differences in changes from pre-62 and 62 missals. Is there an Asperges according to the 62, and are there prayers at the foot of the altar? I just ask because it might be a similar issue to that of Palm Sunday, which also has a pre-Mass blessing and procession. In the pre 1955 Palm Sunday, there is the regular procession to the altar followed by the Asperges, and then the blessing comes. Incensing the altar and prayers at the foot are done as usual after the procession ceremony ends. But in the 1955, there is no Asperges and, I think, no prayers at the foot. I am just mixed up now with pre and post 1955, and wondering what was supposed to be done today, in the 62 missal. I suspect that the Asperges (today being a Sunday) and prayers at the foot were excised from today as well, and if I were to guess, both would have been done pre-62 missal.

Anyway, the way we did it today (1962) highlighted how the previous way makes better practical sense. We were nearing the end of the Obtulerunt when the priest began incensing the altar, having skipped prayers at the foot. Then, the Introit being somewhat long, he was waiting for about 5 minutes doing nothing, waiting for us to finish singing the Introit and the Kyrie. If he had done the prayers at the foot, it would have been close to perfect timing - he would have been ready to intone the Gloria right around when we finished singing the Kyrie.

Obviously, there are other times in the TLM when the priest will be "doing nothing" while the choir sings the liturgical text - especially if the choir js singing a polyphonic ordinary - but it needn't have been that way for the beginning of Mass today if the priest would have simply done the prayers at the foot of the altar. I don't see how a blessing and procession hold such a function/purpose that they are said, in the 1962 missal, to replace the prayers at the foot. Same with the Asperges - how could it be said that a blessing of candles and procession replaces the function or purpose of the Asperges? Or did the reformers only excise it because it would "make the Mass too long," having already done a 10 or 15 minute pre-Mass ceremony?

Carolus16

The Asperges was explicitly suppressed for Palm Sunday but I don’t think it was for Candlemas (perhaps the issue of Candlemas sometimes occurring on Sunday wasn’t something the reformers considered?).

Incardination

We did:

Servers and celebrant standard procession in to a hymn
Asperges
Blessing (5 prayers)
Distribution - Lumen repeated throughout; no Exurge although there is, of course, the prayer that follows the distribution
Procession - timed Obtulerunt to begin so that we started the Introit just before the celebrant was changing vestments (it was indoor only)
No Prayers at the Foot of the Altar - celebrant reverenced the altar after changing and then began the incensation

As far as I know, this is all in accordance with '62, which I just checked against the Missale. I'll also say that while there was a short wait by the celebrant for the Gloria, it was not unduly long.

Jeffrey Quick

What Incardination said.
For us, it was a little odd because...there were no candles! Everywhere else I've seen this, the church has provided candles (part of sharing a parish I guess). ONE person brought in candles to bless, so there was a candle blessing, but the 5 small tapers and 2 Bic lighters weren't multiplied. The idea was that Lumen would cover this lady's candles being returned. So Fr. comes down to altar, looks up at me, I look down at him, expecting him to start Lumen, because I thought that's what we'd agreed on. Finally realized that wasn't going to happen, started Lumen. Get to 2nd iteration of Lumen, see servers are lined up for procession, and stop (not even a Gloria Patri). Meanwhile Fr. is getting a candle lit, so there's this HUGE silence before he gets around to "Procedemus in pace". So off we go, and they were about done by the time we started Obtulerunt.

Some bad pitch levels and wrong notes in the pregame. But I was over the moon at how the communion music went. Also: new attendance high, 224.

madorganist

According to the 1960/62 rubrics, the blessing of candles and procession no longer has a penitential character. Purple vestments were formerly worn until the Mass itself, and the organ was played only to accompany singing. That changed with the 1960 rubrics. White vestments are to be worn. That it why the Exsurge antiphon was suppressed. It is used elsewhere in the traditional liturgy: before the Rogation processions. Like the Exaudi antiphon sung on Ash Wednesday, it has the form of an introit. Perhaps someone else can enlighten us as to the historical reasons for that. In any case, it is worth noting that both of these chants have been assigned as ferial introits during Lent in the novus ordo Graduale.

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