The feast of the Solemnity of St. Joseph Spouse of the Blessed Virgin and Patron of the Universal Church is a Double of the First class with an Octave. It is the primary feast of St. Joseph. The feast was introduced into the Universal Kalendar by Pius IX in 1847 as the 'Patronage of St. Joseph' as a double of the second class to be celebrated on the third Sunday after Easter and in 1870 the feast became a double of the first class and the title 'Patron of the Church' added. In 1911 the feast was renamed the Solemnity of St. Joseph and became a primary double of the first class with an Octave. In 1913 the celebration was moved to the Wednesday after the second Sunday after Easter. Although relatively modern the feast is a fine example of typology with the Patriarch Joseph being used as a 'type' of the foster-father of the LORD. The feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross is transferred to Thursday.
At Vespers yesterday afternoon the antiphons Jacob autem etc were sung with psalms 109, 110, 111, 112 & 116. The chapter was proper and the Office hymn was Te Joseph celebrent agmina Caelitum. At Compline the Dominical psalms were sung, Te lucis had the Paschal Doxology.
The Office is proper. At Mattins the invitatory is Laudemus Deum nostrum In veneratione beati Joseph, protectoris nostri, alleluia and the Office hymn is, again, Te Joseph. The antiphons of the nocturns are proper and, as at Vespers, rather beautiful:
Angelus Domini apparuit in somnis Joseph, dicens: Surge, et accipe Puerum et Matrem ejus, et fuge in Ægyptum; et esto ibi, usque dum dicam tibi, alleluia.
Angelus Domini apparuit in somnis Joseph, dicens: Surge, et accipe Puerum et Matrem ejus, et vade in terram Israel; defunct sunt enim qui quaerebant animam Pueri, alleluia.
Consurgens Joseph, accepit Puerum et Matrem ejus, et venit in terram Israel; et habitavit in civitate, quae vocatur Nazareth, alleluia.
In the first nocturn the lessons are from the book of Genesis and are extended in comparison to those for St. Joseph's 19th March feast. In the second nocturn the lessons are from a sermon on St. Joseph by St. Bernardine of Siena and in the third nocturn the homily is from St. Augustine on the Gospel fragment from St. Luke. The Te Deum is sung. At Lauds the antiphons from Vespers are sung with the Sunday psalms (92, 99, 62, Benedicite & 148). The Office hymn is Caelitum Joseph decus. After the collect of the feast a commemoration is sung of St. Hermenegild.
At Prime the festal psalms (53, 118i & 118ii) are sung under the first antiphon of Lauds. At Prime and the Hours the hymns are sung with the Paschaltide Doxology.
Mass follows Terce and is proper, with the introit Adjutor. The Gloria is sung. (In private Masses the second collect is of St. Hermenegild). The Creed is sung and the preface is that of St. Joseph.
At second Vespers the antiphons, psalms and hymn are those that were sung yesterday at first Vespers. The Office hymn is Te Joseph. The versicle and its respond along with the antiphon on the Magnificat are proper to second Vespers. After the collect of the feast commemorations are sung of the transferred feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross and of St. Monica. At Compline the Dominical psalms are sung.
In the 'liturgical books of 1962' the Solemnity of St. Joseph simply does not exist as this beautiful feast was shamefully suppressed in 1956 to be replaced by the appalling 'San Giuseppe Comunista'. The feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross has also been struck from the 1962 calendar and today is kept as a IV class Paschaltide feria. The vast majority of 'traditionalists', who vociferously support the 'liturgical books of 1962', are completely and blissfully unaware of the existence of the Solemnity of St. Joseph yet alone its abolition.
Will never for the life of me figure out why Bishop Lefevbre obeyed the 1962 liturgy and calendar.
ReplyDeleteHe was not the only traditional bishop ordaining & consecrating.
However,he was the one Bishop who could've turned the tide if he obeyed & practiced the pre-1950 rubrics,office,calendar,liturgy,
Holy Week,etc..
Wasn't meant to be and we will never know what could've been.
Of course in England, we have some MARTYRS tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHoly Cross AFTER them?
I seem to recall that last year someone popped up to object the solemnity was not a particularly old feast, so why complain about the 1st May business? Well, the Sacred Heart is hardly old either, but the revolutionaries didn’t quite dare abolish that. The Holy Family is new, but again, didn’t get abolished as too many places were dedicated to it in the meantime (and see below). That did however get worked back and back until it eventually disfigured the Christmas octave instead of the Epiphany.
ReplyDeleteThe kalendrical feast of S Joseph on 19th March falls in Lent so it is good to celebrate the Universal Patronage aspect outside it. I personally find it meaningful, tho that is not quite the point.
(One English diocese took the Holy Family as its patron, and so all sorts of interesting liturgical things resulted. Not just The Holy Family itself, but other days celebrating its members also acquired extra rank; this feast got an Octave before the 1911 changes, Sunday to Sunday, as well as OL Graces and I think, the Finding of the Child. All gone now).
It has been discussed elsewhere that le grand archeveque was not a ‘liturgist’ – maybe no bad thing.. – and cared more for the Faith and doctrine than the precise liturgy used. Good for him, but there is the principle of lex orandi... I have only recently got round to finding your interview of 2014 on The Rad Trad’s blog – well worth a trip, in which you make that point.
You also say that whatever 1962 was, and you have illustrated in the past that it was simply NOT the last traditional/ Trent, all Latin rite, since some places had vernacular lessons printed in just like the later 60s revisions, it was abrogated or wound up with all the earlier and later experiments, in 1970 or whenever. The 1969 ‘novus ordo’ of the mass was just one more of those temporary stages of alteration. I also take your point that because of the meaning of Quo Primum, original Trent was not. And that is both important and tragically overlooked.
I suppose the archbishop was just too busy with the fight to sit down and consider this. We know he allowed many (most?) of his priestly followers to use the 1935 rite until when he was negotiating with Rome in his last years. We read that he got the idea into his head that not using the ‘latest’ Latin rite was somehow a sign of sedevacantism, and so he picked 1962 as a shibboleth, but you deal effectively with that – the sedies are very keen on the last thing Pius XII thought of and won’t look either at what he abolished or what came after him. But I think we have read that at Econe itself the French practice of reading vernacular lessons, printed in or not, was sometimes done.
I think it was The Rad Trad himself who named the current version – because it is NOT the original one – of 1962, as ‘The Rite of Econe’ : it is now just what they happened to do in that place. Unless you gave him the idea of course.
CMRI are the only Sede's who hero worship Pope Pius XII.
DeleteMost of us obey the Pre-1950 system.
By the way, I have several copies of the 1960 pew missal with (the rather free) English translation. Clearly, when it was already printed – WITH the Invention, and S John Before, etc, Roncalli published his new “British Rail” calendar – the one with Third Class and below, that omits many of the feasts in the following book. So they attached the new calendar, along with the list of instructions of more things to leave out, including the Third Confiteor, (that is never omitted from any IXRSP/S mass); also when to lose the Last Gospel and the Prayers at the Foot, to the front of a book that suggested something rather different. That supplement is dated December 1960.
ReplyDeleteIt is SO bad, I personally can’t see what there was left to do to make 1962 – except of course, to allow the lessons in vernacular translation.
Was it – 1962 – merely more tinkering round the edges? – or were there no more actual tinkerings to be done, and the “books” of 1962 were merely the production of solid objects that contained those rather far-reaching changes ordered in the stick-in /pull out section issued late in 1960?
Did they just spend twelve months putting the third class signs on half the masses and deciding which lessons to put in the vernacular, and so there it was, “1962”? Is that second thoughts of 1960 tinkering its origin?
The 1961 Liber – the last one produced as far as I know – contained the 1960 order of feasts – with the simple/ double rites and ranks - like the missal, that could have been reprinted from nearly any book since 1913, plus the Pacelli holy week with its own, out-of-sequence numbering of pages, so that it was obviously inserted into the older text. It keeps ordering things like I vespers of this and that, so that if anyone of a 1962 bent does try to use it they would have to transfer these things to a second vespers as 1962 practically works like the 1970 rite in this respect.
So no one thought it worthwhile to issue the standard music book with even the changes already announced in 1960, let alone anything subsequently ‘codified’ into a dated rite.
I’ll bet no one bought books of 1962. Because for one thing, you had [most of?] the crib for what to do and not to do at the end of 1960. And for another, no one could possibly have taken it seriously. One wonders how many were printed. And Because it wasn’t long before 1964 happened; and then 1967. And then...
The late 1950's/1960's were straight from Hell.
DeleteJust reading about all of the changes gives me a headache.
Another afterthought if you don't mind entertaining it.
ReplyDeleteJohn xxiii did once at least demonstrate his preference for the older liturgical practice of Good Friday. Do we think he had any interest in the liturgical changes issued in his name or was he 'just following orders' from the activists in Pius's liturgical office? I puzzle to see what he did in any direction since both scholarship and contemporary opinion agree Vatican 2 was already planned and Montini was involved
Anonymous 10th May,
ReplyDeleteNo, I certainly d.on't mind entertaining that at all. He certainly appears to have been a more reasonable person than his predecessor, far less arrogant and I suspect open to another point of view. What is odd is that he should declare V2 an inspiration etc when, as we know, Pacelli had set up six preparatory committees - one of them being the 'Bugnini' one.
Anonyous 9th May,
Very strange I must say. Good for you. IMHO he was the very worst of the twentieth century popes - and there was a lot of competition.
Some interesting comments on this post and other but I am afraid I have no time to respond to all of them at the moment. A family funeral on Friday so I have just composed posts for Sunday and now must prepare but thank you all for your comments.