Octave Day of St. Stephen Protomartyr

Today is the Octave Day of St. Stephen the Protomartyr. It is of simple rite. As on the feast the liturgical colour is red.

At Mattins there is one nocturn of three lessons. The invitatory is proper, the hymns at Mattins and Lauds for martyrs, but the antiphons and psalmody are from the Psalter for Friday. The first and second lessons are from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the third lesson proper to the feast. At Lauds the psalmody is ferial but the rest of the Office is as on the feast, the collect being proper to the Octave Day. At the Little Hours ferial psalmody is used. Hymns of Iambic metre have the Doxology in honour of the Incarnation.

Mass is as on the feast, Sederunt principes, but the collect is proper for the Octave Day, Omnipotens sempiterne Deus. The Gloria is sung, the second collect is of the BVM Deus, qui salutis, the third collect Ecclesiae for the Church or the collect for the pope. The preface of the Nativity is sung but the proper communicantes in the Canon is not said outside of the Octave of the Nativity.

Vespers are of the following Octave Day of St. John the Evangelist.

In the 'liturgical books of 1962' the novelty of a feria of 'Christmastide' has been created as in the 1970-2002 books. This is made up of parts of the Office from January 1st combined with the ferial psalter. At the Little Hours the Doxology of the hymns is however not changed in honour of the Incarnation. The Mass is as that on January 1st but without the Creed.

Before the 1911-13 reform the octave days of the comites Christi were of double rank. The octaves of St. Thomas (in Englsnd), St. John the Evangelist and the Holy Innocents would have been commemorted in Lauds and Mass. The Mass was the same except the additional collects de tempore were omitted and the Creed was sung due to the commemoration of the octave of St. John.