Saturday 31 October 2009

Vigil of All Saints

Today is the Vigil of All Saints. It is of simple rite and the liturgical colour is violet.

At Mattins the invitatory, hymn, antiphons and psalms are those of Saturday but the lessons, Desccendens Jesus, are taken from the Common of Several Martyrs. At Lauds the second scheme of psalmody is sung (the original ferial arrangement before 1911) and the ferial preces are sung kneeling.

At Prime, Terce, Sext and None the short set of ferial preces are also sung.

Mass is sung after None. Following the normal rules four candlesticks are on the altar, the chant is ferial and one cantor leads the choir. There is no Gloria. The second collect is of the Holy Ghost, Deus,qui corda, the third collect either for the Church or the pope. As it is a 'kneeling day' thechoir kneels for the prayers and from the Sanctus until Pax Domini. As the Gloria is not sung the dismissal is Benedicamus Domino.

Vespers are first Vespers of All Saints. The antiphons are proper and the psalms from the Common of Apostles. The Office hymn, Placare, Christe, servulis is sung to an equisite melody. A commemoration of the Sunday is sung.

In the 'liturgical books of 1962' the Vigil of All Saints has been abolished. Today is kept as a fourth class Office of the BVM on Saturday. Occuring scripture is, of course, a week different to that in the old rite. Vespers are the same.

3 comments:

Father G said...

Wasn't abolished for me!

violet vestments
no relics
no flowers
had to make missal inserts for the faithful though...for those who didn't have older missals...

gemoftheocean said...

Hi, I went to Mass on Oct.31 and found that particular tinkering annoying. I have two missals prior to '62 and in each they had the vigil, but zip, zero, nada, bupkis.

Any Idea WHY this particular change?

Rubricarius said...

Gem,

The usual sort of thing, 'medieval accretion' etc, which to be fair in this case is true.

The '1948 Commission' seemed very concerned whether Vigils were celebrated in their entirety with Office and Mass or just commemorated and whether there were too many. (Memoria sulla riforma liturgica 118, 119) "..se convenga ridurre le vigile, quanto al numero e al grado, a quelle proposte nell'alinea precedente [Christmas, Easter and Pentecost]."