The Vigil of the Epiphany is a semi-double of the second class and a privileged Vigil of the second class. The liturgical colour is white.
In the post-1570 Roman rite the Vigil of the Epiphany takes the place of the Office of the Sunday which occurs from the 1st to 5th January and has all the privileges of a Sunday both in concurrence and occurrence. (c.f. rubric in the Breviary at the end of January 1st). Prior to the 1911-13 reform the Octave Days of the comites Christi feasts were celebrated as doubles which meant that the Sunday, under the 1568-1911 rubrics, was moved to the first free day, the 5th, the date of the ancient Vigil. Examining older books one can find two sets of formularies: one for the vacant Sunday with the collect Omnipotens as used today and one for the 'real' Vigil with the collect Corda nostra. These, distinct, celebrations were also found in Sarum practice and its closest surviving modern descendant the Dominican rite. The 1911-13 reform reduced the rank of the comites Christi Octave Days to simples and the 'real' Sunday had the Feast of the Holy Name transferred from the Second Sunday after the Epiphany to the Sunday before the Epiphany or January 2nd. The 1948 Commission for General Liturgical Reform clearly didn't understand this and stated '..La vigilia ha semplicemente la liturgia della domenica dope il Natale..' Memoria sulla riforma liturgica p.47, #3. On p. 49 the proposal to abolish the Octave can be found.
At Mattins the invitatory, hymn, antiphons and psalms are those used for the Circumcision. In the first nocturn the lessons are from the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans with the responsories from the Circumcision. In the second nocturn the lessons are from a sermon by St. Augustine and in the third nocturn the homily is from St. Jerome's commentary on the second chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. The Te Deum is sung. At Lauds and the Hours again the antiphons are those from the Circumcision, O admirabile commercium etc. The Sunday psalms are sung (Pss. 92, 99, 62, Benedicite & 148) The chapter is proper to the Vigil, the hymn A solis ortus cardine as sung for the Nativity and the Circumcision, and the antiphon on the Benedictus is proper, Dum medium silentium as is the collect, Omnipotens. After the collect of the Vigil a commemoration is sung of St. Telesphorus Pope & Martyr.
At the Hours the antiphons of Lauds are sung and the psalmody is festal. At Prime (Pss. 53, 118i, 118ii) the preces are omitted, the lectio brevis is Itaque jam non est servus. The hymns of the Little Hours are sung with the Doxology and melody in honour of the Incarnation.
At Mass, sung after Terce, the Gloria is sung, the second collect is of St. Telesphorus, the third collect of the BVM, Deus, qui salutis. The Creed is sung and the preface is of the Nativity.
Vespers are first Vespers of the great feast of the Epiphany. The antiphons Ante luciferum genitus etc are sung with the psalms from the First Vespers of the Common of Apostles (Pss. 109, 110, 111, 112 & 116). The chapter, Surge, illuminare, Jerusalem is from Isaiah, the Office hymn Crudelis Herodes. For the feast and its octave a Doxology in honour of the LORD's manifestation is sung at all hymns of Iambic metre: Jesu, tibi sit gloria, Qui apparuisti Gentibus, Cum Patre, et almo Spiritu, In sempiterna saecula. The rest of the Office is proper. At Compline Te lucis is sung with the Doxology and tone of the feast.
In the 'liturgical books of 1962' the Vigil is completely abolished and the day is another fourth class feria of Christmastide. Mattins has one nocturn and three lessons. St. Telesphorus is commemorated at Lauds and said Masses but with the collect Gregem tuum from the Pian fiddlings with the Commons in the 1940s. The hymns of the Little Hours are sung without the Doxology of the Incarnation. Vespers are the same as the Old Rite. At Compline Te lucis is sung without the proper Doxology. The Ordinary Form of the 1962 rite has restored the Vigil in the 2002 Roman Missal.
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5 comments:
So, if this fell on a Sunday, (I mean of course, one before 1911), this would be the Sunday rite - a vigil like Xmass. ? If so, why not done in violet?
In England, as I take it, we don't need to worry, since the Octave of S Thomas the Martyr would [have been] celebrated, or was that only in Sarum?
Anonymous,
I suspect rather like the Vigil of the Ascension that as it is falling in a festive period white is used.
In Sarum when the Vigil of the Epiphany fell on a weekday the Gloria and Creed were omitted.
I want to argue it was not a festal period without the Octave days, and the absence of a Sunday mass is interesting. Of course, you have covered this absence in your first remarks back in ’09, which are worth re-reading
But I want to ask when did the Vigil of Epiphany on Sunday get replaced by the Octaves days – I am not sure that was clear to me.
In the east, the Vigil of the Epiphany is still on a par with that of Christmass. Both are occasions when the Liturgy of S Basil must be celebrated if it is not on the following feast. The rule is exactly the same. Of course, Orthodoxy does not observe colour rules at this time.
When did the Vigil move to Sunday disconnected from the epiphany itself?
Why? How? Was it ever violet? Surely it must once have been. Maybe we are not going to find a source that explains the colour.
I intend to argue from recent Byzantine practice. I presume that is okay, due to the many icons on this blog.
I take the view that there is no such thing as a Christmass season, neither in the past nor in the Missal and Breviary before 1955. There is a Christmass octave and there Christmass ends. After that, there is the period before Epiphany and occupied by the octave days of the succeeding feasts.
It is only the octave days that extend the ‘festive’ period to ‘twelve days of Christmass’. Without them, there would only be an octave.
The Byzantine practice is that the Sundays before and after Christmass are still numbered from the preceding Pentecost. No Advent and no after Epiphany. I take that to be significant. It is also noticeable that the Epiphany vigil contains texts from the Circumcision.
You have said before now that the ordinary succession of Sundays is suspended at this time. Before 1911two Sundays after Christmass day could be occupied successively by a feast and its Octave day.
I argue that Christmas is the Sunday of this unusual time, and so I suppose, the Circumcision, its octave day, is another one, and, like a normal Sunday, its texts can be used on free days later the same week.
I want to argue it was not a festal period without the Octave days, and the absence of a Sunday mass is interesting. Of course, you have covered this absence in your first remarks back in ’09, which are worth re-reading
But I want to ask when did the Vigil of Epiphany on Sunday get replaced by the Octaves days – I am not sure that was clear to me.
In the east, the Vigil of the Epiphany is still on a par with that of Christmass. Both are occasions when the Liturgy of S Basil must be celebrated if it is not on the following feast. The rule is exactly the same. Of course, Orthodoxy does not observe colour rules at this time.
When did the Vigil move to Sunday disconnected from the epiphany itself?
Why? How? Was it ever violet? Surely it must once have been. Maybe we are not going to find a source that explains the colour.
I intend to argue from recent Byzantine practice. I presume that is okay, due to the many icons on this blog.
I take the view that there is no such thing as a Christmass season, neither in the past nor in the Missal and Breviary before 1955. There is a Christmass octave and there Christmass ends. After that, there is the period before Epiphany and occupied by the octave days of the succeeding feasts.
It is only the octave days that extend the ‘festive’ period to ‘twelve days of Christmass’. Without them, there would only be an octave.
The Byzantine practice is that the Sundays before and after Christmass are still numbered from the preceding Pentecost. No Advent and no after Epiphany. I take that to be significant. It is also noticeable that the Epiphany vigil contains texts from the Circumcision.
You have said before now that the ordinary succession of Sundays is suspended at this time. Before 1911two Sundays after Christmass day could be occupied successively by a feast and its Octave day.
I argue that Christmas is the Sunday of this unusual time, and so I suppose, the Circumcision, its octave day, is another one, and, like a normal Sunday, its texts can be used on free days later the same week.
(continues...)
We do have a situation where a Vigil, with no greater feast on it – although, anciently in England, the Octave day of S Thomas the Martyr will have been major enough to raise the rank – is now ordered to be celebrated in white.
I wonder when the move to celebrating the Vigil in white occurred (assuming there was a move). Was it late in the day after – or do I mean at? – Trent and the Missal of Pius V? Before that, there was huge variation in practice across different places. The colour of one day sandwiched between two great feasts could easily have been a non-issue.
Did they just decide to leave the day white as it had been, and was going to be, for convenience? Did an old custom get mislaid?
I admit the vigil of Penetecost starts with mattins in white, but there is an older tradition that Eastertide is 50 days. That is not itself the earliest tradition, but it is the tradition now. There is no such authentic rule that Christmass lasts for a certain period beyond its octave, except for the de facto gap that appeared after removing the octaves in 1955
Perhaps on analogy with that, this vigil was put into white too, or it provided an excuse that a variation did not matter.
The pattern of Sundays only resumes after the Epiphany – although that is, I hope I am right in saying, one of the Eastern feasts imported into the West along with the Tranfiguration as part of the reciprocal deal. I may be wrong, but if so, it was imported earlier, having previously not existed in the West.
Without it, how would the Sundays resume after Christmas? I don’t know, but I presume like the East, there would be Sundays after Pentecost again. Epiphany arrrived before Advent.
Think about it another way, without Epiphany, would we think there were twelve days of Christmass? I think we would just see the octave days of major feasts as usual, supplanting some minor Sundays, before the general pattern resumed.
As our blog host says, the liturgy contains layers upon layers.
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