Vigil of All Saints

The Vigil of All Saints is of simple rite and its liturgical colour is violet. As with all simple rite Vigils the Office runs from Mattins to None.

At Mattins the invitatory is Populus Domini etc, the Office hymn Summae Parens clementiae etc from the ferial Office of Saturday along with the antiphons, psalms and V&R too from the Saturday. The lessons, proper to the Vigil, in the nocturn are taken form a homily of St. Ambrose from the Common of Several Martyrs. The responsories are from the Saturday. The Te Deum is not sung. The second scheme of Lauds for Saturday is sung with psalms 50, 91, 63, Audite, caeli, and 150. The Office hymn is Aurora jam spargit. After the antiphon on the Benedictus , Illumina, Domine, has been repeated the ferial preces are sung, with the choir kneeling. After the collect of the Vigil the Suffrage of the Saints is omitted (c.f. pre-1911-13 praxis when the Suffrages were sung).

At Prime the psalm displaced from Lauds by the Miserere is added to the psalmody of the day: Pss. 93i, 93ii, 107 & 149. The chapter is the ferial Pacem et veritatem. Both the Dominical and ferial preces are sung, with the choir kneeling. At the other Hours the short series of ferial preces are sung, again with the choir kneeling, before the collect of the Vigil.

Mass is sung after None. Following the normal rules for Vigils four candles are placed on the altar, in contrast with two on ordinary ferial days. The deacon and sub-deacon wear violet dalmatic and tunicle, not folded chasubles. The ferial tone is used for the orations and for the preface and Pater noster. There is no Gloria. The second collect is of the Holy Ghost, Deus,qui corda, the third collect Ecclesiae. As it is a 'kneeling day' the choir 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 the feast of All Saints with a corresponding colour change to festive white. The Office is proper and the antiphons Vidi turbam magnam etc are sung, doubled, with Pss. 109, 110, 111, 112 and 116. The Office hymn is Placare, Christe, servulis. After the collect of the feast a commemoration of the Sunday is sung with the antiphon on the Magnificat being Vidi, Dominum for the Saturday before the first Sunday of November. The Suffrage is omitted as are the Dominical preces at Compline.

In the 'liturgical books of 1962' the Vigil of All Saints has been abolished. Today is kept as a IV class BVM on Saturday.