As an aside, where does this priest think he has to be that evening?

This is arguably one of the most important Eucharists of the entire year. It is one of, if not THE most important consecration of the whole year. It is literally THE Mass where we commemorate THE thing upon which all other Masses hinge.

Reading your OP is just blowing my mind. I just can't comprehend what on earth is going through this priest's mind.

If you approach him (I hope you do) and then he is unresponsive, you need to reach out to your diocesan liturgical director post haste.

Scratching my head in amazement. I wonder what body parts this priest will want to wash next. There is something to be said for do it right, or leave it alone.

Chrism Mass was held on the 7th.

H.T. Mass in English is in the a.m. Spanish Mass will be in the evening at a mission church.

Again, I reiterate that the missal specifically states that churches should combine if circumstances warrant.

At the bare minimum, one should be early evening and other late evening. Not in the morning for heaven’s sake.

I won't play Pilate's advocate, but combining churches is only warranted when the traveling distance is small enough.

[Disclaimer: I no longer have to put up with this sort of behavior]

When my parish (an oratory) was, temporarily, living under the roof of a canonical parish, we had to find ways (because one was exclusively multiple-vernacular and the other is TLM) to allow both. Early evening and late evening are better options than stupidity.

First, we are celebrating HT at 9 A.M. This is a first for me and I wonder about the validity of it.

… "validity" should not be an issue here. HT was traditionally celebrated in the morning, and this practice perdured for centuries.

I don't know your particular situation. However, it might be that the morning time is all that is possible for your priest to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; and Canon law says somewhere that the 'good of souls' must be the ultimate law…

I would like to apologize to this thread (Jani in particular) for getting a little riled up yesterday. My responses were a bit heated.

Sadly, I have been in a similar situation in the past and I ended up having to resign because the priest was so destructive (which I've detailed elsewhere on the forum). This saddens me greatly.

I suppose what bothers me most is the 'washing of hands' more than the time of the Mass. (Come to think of it, I was told once that these masses were celebrated in the morning once upon a time but had forgotten.) Nevertheless, this reeks of modernism/liberalism. The classic "I'll do it my way" situation which is absolutely anathema to the spirit of traditional liturgy. (And here I don't just mean TLM's; I mean any formalized and rubric'd liturgy whatsoever, N.O. or V.O.)

I once had someone send me a recording they had made of one of my larger organ works. This person took the liberty of adding fake percussion, changing tempos, using other midi sounds, and even changed the title of the work. He was pleased as punch with himself, but I was horrified and never sent him a response because I couldn't think of anything redeeming to say. In the end, what he performed and published on the internet was a parody of my composition at best. The "washing of hands" feels like liturgical parody to me. There's little left of the essence of the original if you are going to deform the rite so much. It is so frustrating to run up against these abuses over, and over, and over again. It hurts my heart. You were all reading that hurt.

I pray that all goes well, Jani. I also pray that there will be people around this priest (yourself included) who are well-informed and can keep him in check writ large. A priest who wants to do the washing of hands is bound to want to do other funny things too.

I don’t have time to look it up now, but the Maundy Thursday Mass is supposed to be in the evening. The Chrism Mass can (and is) traditionally in the morning, but the Mass of the Last Supper is supposed to be in the evening.

1. The bishop has to approve any Mass occurring before Holy Thursday evening, and only on the bases referenced by Mr Chonak.

2. Washing of hands has not only no basis in the rite, it contradicts the rite for the reasons alluded to above. In the liturgical context of the Triduum, washing of feet evokes taking-on of responsibility, while washing of hands evokes abdication of responsibility.

That is almost completely false, actually, with respect to Holy Thursday and Good Friday. There were at one point three Masses, of which we do not actually possess details: one for the reconciliation of penitents, another for the blessing of chrism, and then the Missa in coena Domini. However, in Ordo Romanus I, the first two have disappeared; the reconciliation of penitents survives in another rite where it was practiced, e.g. in the Sarum version posted online at one point. (As an aside, I wonder if the Armenian door ceremony on the evening, or after the morning Divine Liturgy, of Palm Sunday is a conflation of the door ceremony of the Latin blessing of palms with the historical reconciliation of penitents.)

OR I and the Wurztburg lectionary, dating from the mid-seventh century, have only one Mass, the chrism being blessed at the Missa in coena Domini as in the missal of St Pius V. The Murbach lectionary a century later has only the "Mass in which the chrism is made." Wurztburg has no Gospel; Murbach has a longer text from John 13, and OR I has the Gospel found in the Roman rite as passed down. The Mass of Holy Thursday was celebrated "hora tertia" according to OR I, which is suitable as it is not only a feast, but it is a feast of the Lord, which is why suppressing the Credo in 1955 was nonsensical.

The Mass of the Presanctified was also celebrated "hora tertia" according to OR I. This anticipation is interesting as Good Friday is the day of penitence par excellence, the fast being broken only after Vespers on such a day, with the liturgy of the day following None, but the placement of the major office in the morning demonstrates the link to the Mass celebrated the morning before, for it is one and the same sacrifice. I don't like at all the idea that "Mass on Holy Thursday doesn't end." That is a novelty. But it is true that the sacrifice of Good Friday is that of the previous day, not only in speaking of Golgotha itself. If anticipating the liturgy is a problem, then we should stop reading the Passion on Palm Sunday and, even in the 1955 liturgy, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In the case of Rome, this anticipation also allowed the first part of the liturgy to be repeated in parishes.

St Pius V permanently moved the other major liturgies to the morning as had been customary for centuries, but [edited: I forgot to mention the reform of Pius XII, as Gregory DiPippo did] in the reform of 1955, on Holy Saturday, as has been discussed elsewhere, this only shifted the incongruity from one end of the liturgy to the other without actually respecting the most ancient customs of the church in both the East and the West. Further, since this Mass is not a Mass of the Resurrection (not traditionally), we are not yet proclaiming Christ's resurrection, which is still clearly the case in the Byzantine rite, where the baptismal ceremonies and Divine Liturgy take place in the morning. "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life" only returns at Matins in the late evening of Holy Saturday… just like "Surrexit Dominus vere" is proclaimed in that glorious mode VI chant at Matins. In fact, since everything is chained together, you traditionally didn't even sing Regina Cæli until after Compline following the paschal vigil…

and heck, in the Novus Ordo, despite the missal's dealio about the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night and First Mass of Easter, nevertheless, not even Hannibal could remove the custom of singing the Gospel with only incense… because Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to anoint Our Lord, who would rise, but who has not yet done so.

Matthew, you offer interesting data, but I have trouble following your argument. Are you saying that:
- the earliest written evidence shows the Holy Thursday mass and Good Friday liturgy were celebrated in the morning?
- characteristics of the Easter Vigil liturgy separate it in kind from the mass of Easter Day?
- celebrating these masses in the morning is an anticipation of their proper time of celebration, but of practice as ancient as our evidence for the liturgy itself?

Tomjaw, thanks, I agree and am sad that the traditional ways were abandoned in favor of novelties.
In the days before electric lighting, it makes absolute sense to do as much as possible during the daylight hours.
I think we moderns have a fascination with the darkness of evening and night because we experience so little actual darkness. Light is only a switch flip away.

I my perception, people perceive a sort of romance about the Novus evening services, partly because of the time of day. I would like to see explanations of the old services that highlighted the inherent romance of them.

There was no hand washing! There was also no foot washing. Okay then.

Jani, there was no foot washing in my parish on Thursday night either, which came as a complete surprise.

Chris,

I will wait for “the Vigil Show” this evening before I comment.... :)

(Old, I know, but somebody had to say it.)

"Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed." - Samuel Johnson