External Solemnities in the Ordinary Form
  • GerardH
    Posts: 690
    I think more people should be aware of the following rubric from the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year:
    58. For the pastoral good of the faithful, it is permitted to observe on Sundays in Ordinary Time those celebrations that fall during the week and that are agreeable to the devotion of the faithful, provided the celebrations rank above that Sunday in the Table of Liturgical Days. The Mass of such celebrations may be used at all the celebrations of Mass at which the people are present.

    How often does a patronal solemnity or anniversary of dedication land on a weekday and get all but forgotten? If possible, I think every parish and community should be taking advantage of this option to add greater solemnity to the celebrations most important and particular to them. We celebrated the Solemnity of Sts Peter & Paul (a solemnity in the universal calendar, but also our patronal solemnity) yesterday, Sunday 28 June, with an orchestral Mass.

    This provision is equivalent to external solemnities in the EF, if slightly more restricted to "celebrations that fall during the week".

    The corresponding rubric from the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours is as follows (emphasis added):
    245. Except on solemnities, Sundays of Advent, Lent and Eastertide, Ash Wednesday, during Holy Week and during the octave of Easter, and on 2 November, a votive Office may be celebrated either in whole or in part for a public or devotional reason: for example, at the time of a pilgrimage, on a local feast, or during the external solemnity of a saint.
    Thanked by 2Roborgelmeister irishtenor
  • GerardH
    Posts: 690
    Follow-up discussion question: Has anyone else utilised this option before? Which celebration?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,696
    We did it sometimes for the titular and for saints of which we had the relics (the actual body).

    Never the dedication which I found absurd because the church was indeed apparently consecrated (although the Mass should be celebrated on the anniversary even if it was only a solemn blessing)

    I know a parish that moved its external solemnity outside of Lent or Easter — I can’t remember which season was the problem — to another Sunday later in the year. Even in the TLM this could be permitted if the solemnity is permanently impeded by the season (but Sundays of Paschal Time were fair game after low Sunday).

    Also, my gripe with the NO and the 1960 is that it’s not sensible to celebrate before with one exception: for whatever reasons the rubrics do not allow an external solemnity of (Our Lady of) the Holy Rosary on the Sunday following October 7th unless the feast is also a titular or patronal feast. By law it must be on the I Sunday of October which falls before October 7 (or in the 1960 creates the bizarre situation of celebrating an external solemnity on the day itself)**, because this was the date to which it was formerly fixed.

    **apparently this possibility actually existed for particular feasts under certain circumstances but I’m not sure how it applies in practice. Sometimes what Stercky says is mysterious, which is why I would say that external solemnities are for all intents and purposes of feasts that fall during the week even for the TLM context.
    Thanked by 2GerardH Liam
  • davido
    Posts: 1,221
    Yea, it stinks when St Patrick’s Day falls on a Sunday. Not much recourse for our patronal feast day during Lent
  • TLMlover
    Posts: 165
    Would this apply to the Assumption? It's on Saturday this year.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,686
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  • GerardH
    Posts: 690
    @TLMlover I see no reason why not, although a strict interpretation would require you to celebrate it on the previous Sunday, not the following.
  • cantarealseñor
    Posts: 5
    I think it's more confusing in some parishes named after Our Lady or Saint Mary sans title or advocation, like mine, where even the pastor doesn't know when we celebrate our patronal feast.

    My diocese celebrates the Dedication Anniversary of the Cathedral as a proper Solemnity on the last Sunday of June each year (near June 30, its actual dedication anniversary) unless impeded by Corpus Christi (the feast of its title, and its city), St. John the Baptist, or - as was the case last year - SS. Peter and Paul. It was disappointing that some parishes, including mine, did not get the memo from the liturgy office and celebrated the green Sunday this year.
  • GerardH
    Posts: 690
    But the dedication of the cathedral is a solemnity only in the cathedral itself? And a feast throughout the rest of the diocese...
  • GerardH
    Posts: 690
    I think it's more confusing in some parishes named after Our Lady or Saint Mary sans title or advocation, like mine, where even the pastor doesn't know when we celebrate our patronal feast.

    There almost always is a particular title buried somewhere in the original designation of the parish, but I would default to 1 Jan, Mary, Mother of God - which is obviously a solemnity already.
  • cantarealseñor
    Posts: 5
    But the dedication of the cathedral is a solemnity only in the cathedral itself? And a feast throughout the rest of the diocese...


    The diocese's liturgy office (and ordo) has elevated it to a solemnity for all churches throughout the diocese, including the cathedral.
    Thanked by 1Roborgelmeister
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,696
    Unless specified otherwise, the Assumption is the default feast of title for Marian churches. Churches of Our Lord have their feast of title on the Transfiguration (it was originally Christmas).

    This is in the rubrics for the TLM and nothing would have changed this AFAICT.

    I do know that in this diocese there is a parish of “Our Lady of the (fake) Lake” and that title is celebrated on the day that is otherwise the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the NO; I don’t know how they choose the propers.

    I have to go back and read a bit more about how the pre-55 does it (the 1960 rules are very different) but this is why I favor celebrations on the Sunday after and the bishop (and sometimes Rome) intervening when that’s impeded. Celebrating on the closest Sunday of the same month becomes unmanageable in your case, and then doing it before the feast gives me hives (this is allowed for the external solemnity in almost all cases in the 1960 rubrics, sigh).
  • PLTT
    Posts: 186
    @cantarealseñor the rule post-1970 for churches named generically after the Lord or the Virgin Mary (or some title not listed in the General Calendar) is given by the (very useful and overlooked) 1970 document Calendaria Particularia.

    https://www.cultodivino.va/content/dam/cultodivino/documenti/Calendaria-Particularia-ENG.pdf

    35. The solemnity of one of the titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary that is not in the
    General Calendar or a particular calendar is observed either on 15 August or on
    another date in those calendars on which there is a Marian celebration that fits in
    better with the particular title, for example, by reason of great pilgrimages, popular
    traditions, etc.

    The same method is to be followed in the choice of a date for the solemnity of titles
    of the Lord not listed in the General Calendar or a particular calendar.


    ==============
    Incidentally, the practice of your diocese was explicitly addressed in Notitiae:

    Query: May the anniversary of the dedication of a church and the solemnity of the patron or title of a church be transferred to a Sunday?

    Reply: Yes, in the following case: the Sunday is in Ordinary Time or in the Christmas season and the anniversary is of a particular church or the solemnity is of the principal patron of a specific place or of the title of a particular church. All Masses with a congregation may be the Mass for such celebrations (see General Norms . . . no. 58).

    No, if the transfer would be to a Sunday of Advent, Lent, or the Easter season, or to one on which any solemnity of the Lord, of Mary, or of the saints listed in the General Calendar falls; or if the celebration involves the anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral church or the patron of a region or nation or a secondary patron: Notitiae 5 (1969) 404, no. 16.

    May the anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral be celebrated on a Sunday in Ordinary Time?

    Reply: No. The case involves celebrating a particular feast of the Lord throughout a diocese (see General Norms . . . no. 52 a, c). In the Table of Liturgical Days (no. 5) only feasts of the Lord listed in the General Calendar take precedence over Sundays of the Christmas season and Sundays in Ordinary Time; proper feasts do not and the celebration of the dedication of the cathedral Church is a proper feast (Table . . . no. 8 b). The basis for this rule is to safeguard the special character of Sunday and to prevent it from being supplanted by other celebrations.

    However, an instance may happen, for example, on the occasion of a renovation or a special anniversary, when the bishop of a diocese wishes to stress the importance of the cathedral as the symbol of the unity of the local Church by bringing together the entire diocesan community at the same celebration. Often this is possible only on a Sunday. In such an instance the bishop may use the power granted him by the GIRM no. 332: "In cases of serious need or pastoral advantage, at the direction of the local Ordinary or with his permission, an appropriate Mass may be celebrated on any day except solemnities, the Sundays of Advent, Lent, and the Easter season, on days within the octave of Easter, on All Souls, Ash Wednesday, and during Holy Week"







    Thanked by 2a_f_hawkins cantarealseñor
  • Ioannes Andreades
    Posts: 315
    @TLMlover my understanding is that a parish calendar cannot permanently assign a titular or dedication anniversary solemnity to a Sunday (General Norms 5-6). So my reading of the General Norms is that in years when the Assumption is not a Solemnity of precept (e.g. 2026) or perhaps on a special anniversary, it could be transferred to Sunday. In the latter case, however, the issue is not just liturgical but canonical, as canonically August 15 is usually a day of precept, and just because you transfer the liturgy away from the 15th doesn't mean that the obligation to attend on the 15th is automatically transferred for those who participate. Check with a canon lawyer or at least get the authorization of someone who could dispense from obligation.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • GerardH
    Posts: 690
    ...transferred to Sunday.

    To be clear, UNLY 58 is not about transferring a solemnity, but celebrating it on the Sunday prior. The solemnity would still be celebrated on its proper date, meaning it is celebrated twice. This happens in the EF too where there is a custom in many places of re-celebrating Corpus Christi (Thursday after Trinity) on the following Sunday.
  • Ioannes Andreades
    Posts: 315
    @GerardH Thank you, I should have written "observed on."
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,696
    Correct the general norms reiterate the Divino Afflatu rules: no more fixing feasts to Sunday including particular feasts.

    The one about the cathedral dedication is funny. There was apparently a desire to keep it as a solemnity diocesan-wide. Before 1955, it also had a common octave.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,686
    The Cathedral of The Holy Cross, Boston, was dedicated on 8 December 1875 (150 years ago this past December), so the dedication as such is doubly-impeded in terms of liturgical precedence as it were. That said, it's underscored in other ways.

    Pondering that substantively: putting aside which celebration would be the most apt for the worship of God, and considering the pastoral benefit - which commemoration is most likely to connect pastorally with the faith imaginations of the faithful?

    While I love dedication feasts and the richness of scriptures rarely otherwise heard, I also know I am a Catholic liturgy geek, and what resonates with me in that regard hardly resonates with the PIPs. (We even face this deciding whether to celebrate the titular feast on Sunday; I love it, but it appears that feedback to ppl in charge is that PIPS are more confused than edified - even with glorious giant transept windows depicting the Invention and Exaltation of the Holy Cross.)

    It also appears to be a very untypical place (outside of certain "ethnic" traditions carried over from Old Countries) in the USA that celebrates the nation's patronal feast with any particular ... public vigor. The full force of secular Xmas-tide waxes strong on the day following Thanksgiving Day, and has done so for a long time, at least as far back as World War I, and what little time people make for non-Xmas things outside of work is ... scarce; I have found that American thing unedifying since childhood, growing up as I did in a family where the tree and creche were not erected until all little children had gone to their bedrooms on Christmas Eve...a cultural thing we only shared with other German-Austrian Catholic families.

    In the face of that, I have long felt left to defend the integrity of Advent. I love the lection cycle for Advent in the conciliar Lectionary (also those for Lent and for Eastertide, though I concede Easter 5 is the weakest link - or Jan Brady, as it were - in the attempted chain).
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,696
    The dedication is moved to the next day and its octave overlaps in the case of the anniversary because IC is of obligation currently and is a primary I class feast or the universal church (I think that this still holds true for 1962). It could also be moved in the decree of consecration to another day (but after 1911, a date, not a Sunday) along with the octave.

    If Dec 9, for pre-1960, is the II Sunday of Advent, it is outranked by the dedication, and the Sunday is commemorated at the Mass and office. The Sunday Mass is then said (commemorated at low Masses) on the first simplex feast or day within the octave in the following week (as it happens to be the case of the IC anyway and indeed any feast falling on Sunday: Trinity, Christ the King, Holy Family…).

    I am against that. Our coequal diocesan patroness is OL of Guadalupe (afaik, the patrons are coequal: the other is St Joseph, already a solemnity/I class feast, and for pre-55 without octave due to Lent). So this problem would arise for us on one of the two middle Sundays per the pre-55 rules.

    Gregory DiPippo is also against that for the Immaculate Conception which is privileged in the 1962, though I think that he has lost that battle.

    I don’t know if the rules were the same before 1911. But had it been consecrated the year that our cathedral was, 1914, then the dedication Mass would be sung even as the office is otherwise of the day (as the Immaculate Conception is not a I class feast of the Lord.)

    My solution is to make a big deal out of the actual feasts. I don’t love external solemnities, although we do that of the Rosary annually, but the problem of confusion still arises when the faithful are then faced with an obligatory solemnity/I class feast because the day falls on Sunday that year and the Sunday in question yields to the feast. Being in trad land, we bump my beloved Saint Anne this year to Monday. Outside of the cathedral and the parish of St Ann, I will get neither if I attend the NO, which is just bonkers. The 1962 will just drop the latter entirely, even if we didn’t have the dedication of the cathedral to observe.
  • Chaswjd
    Posts: 309
    There is also the question of whether a feast could be transferred to a Saturday evening. It would not technically be transferred to the Sunday. However, it could fulfill the Sunday obligation as a mass celebrated in a Catholic rite on the evening before the Sunday. It would allow for greater participation by members of a parish than by a weekday celebration.

    It is threading the needle rather finely, but . . .
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