Sunday within the Octave of the Sacred Heart, the third Sunday after Pentecost, is of semi-double rite. The structure of the Office is as last Sunday and again the liturgical colour is white. The Gospel pericopes from St. Luke have the parable of the shepherd going after one sheep missing from his hundred strong flock.
At Vespers yesterday afternoon the antiphons Suavi jugo tuo etc, not doubled, were sung with psalms 109, 110, 111, 115 & 129. The chapter was Carissimi, humiliamini etc and the Office hymn En ut superba criminum. After the collect of the Sunday commemorations were sung of the preceding feast of St. Anthony, of St. Basil and of the Octave. At Compline the Dominical psalms were sung and Te lucis had the Doxology and tone of the Octave.
At Mattins the invitatory, hymn, antiphons and psalms are as on the feast of the Sacred Heart but the antiphons are not doubled. In the first nocturn the lessons are a continuation of the First Book of the Kings. The responses are of the Octave. In the second nocturn the lessons are from the Encyclical of Pius XI in 1928 that, inter alia, gave the feast an Octave. In the third nocturn the homily is from St. Gregory on St. Lukes Gospel. The Te Deum is sung. At Lauds the antiphons Unus militum etc are sung, as on the feast, with the Dominical psalms. After the collect of the Sunday commemorations are sung of St. Basil and of the Octave.
At the Hours the hymns have the Doxology Jesu tibi sit gloria, Qui Corde fundis gratiam etc. The antiphons from Lauds are sung in the normal sequence at the Hours. At Prime the festal psalms are sung (Pss. 53, 118i & 118ii). In the short responsory the versicle Qui Corde fundis gratiam is sung. The lectio brevis is of the Sunday, Deus autem.
Mass is sung after Terce. The Gloria is sung, the second collect is of St. Basil, the third collect of the Octave. The Creed is sung, the preface is of the Sacred Heart.
At Vespers the antiphons Unus militum etc, not doubled, are sung with psalms 109, 110, 115, 127 & 147. The Office hymn is En ut superba criminum. After the collect of the Sunday commemorations are sung of the Octave, St. Basil and of SS Vitus, Modestus and Crescentia. At Compline Te lucis has the Doxology and tone of the Octave.
In the 'liturgical books of 1962' the Octave of the Sacred Heart has been abolished. The liturgical colour of the day is green. At Vespers on Saturday there were no commemorations. At Compline the psalms of Saturday were sung. Mattins is is cut down to a single nocturn of three lessons. At Lauds there are no commemorations. Prime has the Dominical psalms and Qui sedes etc in the short responsory. None of the hymns have the Doxology of the abolished Octave. Mass has a single collect and the preface of the Trinity. At Vespers the antiphons and psalms of Sunday are sung, there are no commemorations.
Art: Jerome Nadal
In the liturgical books of 1880, so to speak, (a breviary printed by Mame, and a Dessain diurnal from a little earlier) the Feast of the Sacred Heart does not of course yet have its Octave, but then neither does it have some of the other features discussed.
ReplyDeleteThe office hymn at Vespers is Auctor beatae saeculi, while ‘En ut superba criminum’ is reserved to Mattins; and I Vespers have the V/. Ignem veni mittere and the Ant. Ad Magnificat is the beautiful Improperium expectavit Cor meum, while at II Vesp. it is Ad Jesu autem, cum venisset..., the V/. being Haurietis aquas in gaudio.
The Antt. on the pss. are always as at Lauds, a wholly different set beginning with Discite a me quia mitis sum. The collect is different too.
The psalms at I Vespers were then the same as the Corpus Christi Vespers pss., still set for II, (three being the same). The new antiphons referring to the psalms set make sense, but seem less moving than the older ones. Merely an aesthetic judgment, I suppose.
I can’t put my hand on a 1911 – 1928 breviary for the moment, but I have access to the 1962 online Diurnal on the net that seems to include the texts of the feast as you describe. I used it on the Sunday, just to annoy the shade of Pacelli.
So the question is, why did good old Pius XI alter the office – if it was him? It may very well have been arch-modernizer Pius X, but seems a little too imaginative for him. Some changes, but not all of them, seem beneficial, but is this not simply another instance of papal, ahem, ‘alteration’? No one declared a dogma while I wasn’t looking, did they? That seems to be the usual reason for a wholesale change of rite...
Also, the use of both I and then II Vespers psalms on the Sunday in the Octave seems to hint at an External solemnity, the repetition of the complete festal office, although that is not really what is happening.