Feast of the Sacred Heart in 1880
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 708
    I have an old hymnal and the Preface is dated June 4, 1880 Feast of the Sacred Heart. I've determined that June 4 was a Friday in 1880 but was it the Feast of the Sacred Heart?
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,185
    Yes.

    At the time (and from 1856) it was a universal double major feast. It was and is the first octave-free Friday after Pentecost, so: Pentecost, ...octave: Trinity, ..., Thursday: Corpus Christi, ...octave, Friday: Sacred Heart! So it's the 19th day after Pentecost.

    (Corpus Christi being on the first free Thursday after Easter Time, in honour of the Holy Sacrament.)

    In 1880 Pentecost was on May 16, being the 50th day of Easter which was March 28.
    Thanked by 1Don9of11
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    I like the Mass Cogitationes well enough, but the pre-Pius XI Mass and Office had its charms. This post reminds me of that.
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 708
    Andrew, what is a double major feast? Or what makes it a double? Is it like a double header in baseball?
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,185
    It's the "rank" of the observance, for solemnity and precedence.

    At the end of the 19th century there were eight ranks, namely first class double, first class feria, second class double, major double, double, semidouble, simple, minor feria. (I think is this right...) Ordinary Sundays were "only" semidouble and so frequently were superseded by saints' days. Starting in about 1911 the arrangement started to be simplified and changed.

    No one really knows why doubles are so called, but "probably" from a very ancient (and lost) custom of saying Matins (which is rather long) twice on big feast days: "double observance", one for the weekly calendar and one for the festal. Since it was for different observances, I guess it's like that rare thing in the major leagues, a three team double header. However the main difference by 1900 was (I believe) the use of the whole antiphon instead of only the incipit, for each psalm in the Office.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranking_of_liturgical_days_in_the_Roman_Rite

    https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06021b.htm (see "Division of Feasts")
    Thanked by 2Don9of11 M. Jackson Osborn
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    Yeah, we discussed recently that this extra nocturn was a feature of the Lateran rite, but that discussion was the first time that anyone had brought receipts, and I am not entirely convinced.
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