Sunday, June 10, 2012
Thursdays...
...from now on, will mean Evensong and Mass at the Precious Blood church near London Bridge, where the South London Ordinariate group meets. I went for the first time this past Thursday. Evensong is beautiful, and although I had always thought of it as linked intrinsically with choirs-with-white-ruffles and evening-sunlight-through-stained-glass and bells-pealing-out-over-English-countryside, it works just as well in a big brick London church with a railway trundling alongside. The Ordinariate group has a cheery parish feel to it, and we gathered afterwards for champagne and cake as there were three major birthdays to be marked including that of the priest. It was appropriate to be marking this particular Thursday, as it was the ORIGINAL FEAST DAY for CORPUS CHRISTI, now pointlessly transferred to Sunday. Please, dear Bishops, may we have our feast-days back? In lieu, we had a Votive Mass of the Precious Blood. Anyway, from now on: Thursday, Evensong 6pm, Mass at 6.30pm. Nearest station: London Bridge. The Mass will also be useful for all the local city-office workers.
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3 comments:
Many thanks for being such a great advocate for the Ordinariate, Joanna.
The transfer of the Holy Days to the nearest Sunday has undoubtedly been a diminution; not only has the liturgy of the "replaced" Sundays been lost, but most people I speak to agree that the significance of the transferred Solemnity has largely been lost. This seems to be the case particularly with Corpus Christi; the reason for its original establishment on Thursday has virtually disappeared (hint: it wasn't just because it happened to be Early Closing Day).
Oddly enough, we're having St Peter and Paul's day on Friday. Our parish priest emphasised that this was a holy day of obligation.
I've got sympathy with the bishops. The reality is that it's hard to get Catholics into mass for Holy Days, and they have to respond to this. I suspect that Peter and Paul's day is a sort of trial. If it goes well, we'll have more Holy Days onthe traditional date.
But my feeling is that once a Holy Day is seen as an obligation rather than a feast, you've lost the battle. St Peter and Paul's day on Friday means that Friday discipline is suspended for that week, so it should be seen as a positive thing, not an imposition.
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