Sunday, October 31, 2010
At church today...
...we sang a rousing "For all the saints..." and it brought back sudden wonderful sweeping memories of singing it with thousands and thousands of others on a great hillside at the conclusion of that glorious Mass with the Holy Father...and then I thought "Why are we singing it today?" and it was because, under the silly new system we are obliged to mark All Saints Day on the nearest Sunday instead of the day itself. So today was officially the Mass for All Saints. Well, it was - as always in our parish - a most beautiful Mass, and with splendid music and so on but....PLEASE CAN WE HAVE OUR FEAST-DAYS BACK? It's so confusing muddling along like this!
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7 comments:
I think (thankfully, it needs to be said) that All Saints is one of those feasts that retains its celebration on Nov 1st, and is only celebrated on the Sunday when that is the day before Nov 1st, such as today. So next year, when Nov 1st is on a Tuesday, we will celebrate All Saints on the proper day.
I agree, though, that it would be great to have all our other feast days back on the 'proper' day, and not the nearest Sunday. It just seems wrong.
I'm amused by the fact that despite this enthusiasm for rationalising feast days Christmas day is still kept on 25th December. How quaint!
Well said! I wonder if the traditionalist who are now coming out of hiding after 40 years, after the papal visit, will now start confronting this issue with the liberal Bishops head on. I do not know any one who agrees with it. I agree with Jay - It just seems wrong!
Completely agree. So many of our lukewarm Catholic brothers and sisters need to have it more clearly demonstrated as to What makes us different, WHY were are Catholic. What it MEANS to be Catholic.
Properly understanding and keeping our feast days and Solemnities clear would help to that end.
Watering down the faith and lead to a water down sense of that very faith. Sad.
For the past 20 years or so, all Holy Days of Obligation (not just the ones we "lost" a couple of years ago) were transferred to the Sunday if they fell on a Saturday or a Monday. So last year's celebration of All Saints Day was a source of irritation because, being tranferred to the Sunday, it shunted All Souls Day on to November 3rd. This year has been even worse: not only was All Saints Day celebrated in October (I ask you), but November 1st was a complete non-day, waiting for November 2nd to arrive. Can you imagine what the great saints themselves would have made of this silliness?
When, in his recent pastoral letter, Archbishop Nichols urged the faithful, in the aftermath of the Holy Father's visit, to be more confident in publicly proclaiming their faith, it occured to me that it would be much easier to do so if we had all our Holy Days back on their proper days, and not hidden out of sight on the nearest Sunday. We must keep praying....
The bishops aren't to blame for this one. Sadly, the ordinary man in the pew is. Attendance was so low on feast days (stupidly named "holy days of obligation") that something had to be done.
Malcolm - When in the last 40 years did you ever hear a pastoral letter on the importance of Mass attendance, not only on Sundays, but on Holy Days of Obilgation as well?
While you are right that the laity bear their fair share of responsibility, their Lordships don't get away with it quite that easily. They consulted on this issue some 10 years before the change was made, and the proposal was roundly rejected. This time, they took very limited soundings, but, even so, I have yet to meet a priest who was consulted who was in favour of the idea.
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