Liturgical year

“ In many countries the Midnight Mass is the distinctive Christmas service, a great and unique event in the year, something which by its strangeness gives to the feast of the Nativity a place by itself. Few Catholic rites are more impressive than this Midnight Mass, especially in country places; through the darkness and cold of the winter's night, often for long distances, the faithful journey to worship the Infant Saviour in the splendour of the lighted church. It is a re-enactment of the visit of the shepherds to the cave at Bethlehem, aglow with supernatural light. ”

“ All this may possibly serve as some explanation for the fact that the Christian Church, as such, has no fast for the last day of the year, no festival for New Year's Day except one quite unconnected with the lessons which may be drawn from the flight of time. The death of the old year, the birth of the new year, have touching associations for us. But the Church consecrates no death but that of Jesus and His martyrs, no nativity but that of her Lord, and of one whose birth was directly connected with His own—John the Baptist. ”

“ If Easter is developed in a celebration of song or procession, of sermon and of decoration, with full use of its symbolic value, it is sure to bring the whole countryside together, in an experience of the New Year rising from the grave of winter and of the divine Lord risen from the dead. ”

“ Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church year, then as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should gather around the table of the Lord, kneeling before God’s altar in the ministering of that Holy Communion which unites them with the past, the present, and the future—the communion of the saints of God’s Holy Church with His Beloved Son. ”

“ The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, celebrated the 15th of August, is commemorative of the glorious taking up to heaven of Mary, soul and body. (This is a pious tradition.)
All Saints' Day is November 1st. Every day is a saint's day. There is not a day that the Catholic Church does not celebrate a feast in honor of some special mystery or saint. But as there are more saints in heaven than could be thus specially honored, she sets aside this one day every year in honor of all the saints in heaven. ”

“ In the year of our Lord's incarnation 729, in which the Easter of our Lord was celebrated on the 24th of April, he performed the solemnity of the mass, in memory of the same resurrection of our Lord, and dying that same day, thus finished, or rather never ceases to celebrate, with our Lord, the apostles, and the other citizens of heaven, that greatest festival, which he had begun with the brethren, whom he had converted to the unity of grace. ”

“ Of the summer or spring commemoration but scant traces are to be recovered [932] ; that of winter survives, in a dislocated form, in more than one important anniversary. Its observances have been transferred with those of the agricultural side of the feast to the Gemeinwoche of harvest [933] ; [Pg 265] but they are also retained, at or about their original date, on All Saints’ and All Souls’ days [934] ; and, as I proceed to show, they form a marked and interesting part of the Christmas and New Year ritual. ”

“ Nor was it only the different sections of the liturgy, but the very divisions of the ecclesiastical year that reflected themselves in his demeanour; the most careless observer, we are told, 'could not fail to be struck by the triumphant exultation of his whole manner on Easter Sunday'; though it needed a more familiar eye to discern the subtleties in his bearing which were produced by the approach or Advent, and the solemn thoughts which it awakened of the advance of human life, the progress of the human race, and the condition of the Church of England. ”

“ Therefore it is the intention of the Church that we should every year contemplate with her the life of Christ from its beginning to its end. In Advent we should, by repentance and longing expectation, prepare the way for the coming of our Redeemer into our hearts; in Lent we should, by penance and mortification, participate in His sufferings, die to sin, and spiritually rise with Him to a new life at Easter. ”

“ The festival of the dedication of a Church has indeed no connection with the ecclesiastical year, and the festival of the patron saint belongs to the same category as the ordinary saints’ days, but formerly, and even to some extent at the present time, both have such a marked position among the festivals that they deserve some special mention. ”

“ We must also consider Christmas in connection with the festivals which follow in the course of the year, such as the Circumcision of our Lord, which, of course, falls on the eighth day after Christmas, the Octava Domini, the Epiphany, and Candlemas Day. ”

“ The festivals of our Lord, Easter and Pentecost especially, compose what is called the Church’s year in the stricter sense, and, if they coincide with a saint’s day, they take precedence. The Church’s year is built upon a single basis and according to one plan, which did not originate in the mind of any one person, but developed out of the historical conditions resulting from the connection of Christianity with Judaism. ”

“ From Advent, with which the Church Year begins, to Trinity, our Lord is set before us in His life and His work. "We live over again, year by year, the time of the Incarnation from Bethlehem to Bethany." The design is to "bring out, and to bring home to the minds and hearts of all who shall reverently use these holy festivals and fasts, the great representative facts of Christ's life—to exhibit and to glorify Him. ”

“ The times of the Birth and Passion of Christ, with such like niceties, being not material to religion, were little regarded by the Christians of the first age. They who began first to celebrate them, placed them in the cardinal periods of the year; as the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, on the 25th of March, which when Julius Cæsar corrected the Calendar was the vernal Equinox; the feast of John Baptist on the 24th of June, which was the summer Solstice; the feast of St. Michael on Sept. 29, which was the autumnal Equinox; and the birth of Christ on the winter Solstice, Decemb. ”

“ This festival, which occurs on the 14th of September, celebrates the restoration of the Holy Cross of Calvary to Jerusalem in the year 628. All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1st) , is the day dedicated to those whose sanctification during life merited [172] their canonization by the Church after death; while All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2nd) is the day set apart for special prayers, having for their object the liberation of the suffering souls in Purgatory. The older designation of the first-named was Allhallowes Day, in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon word haligan, holy. ”

“ It spreads from pole to pole.”
h—Trinity Sunday, the octave, or eighth day of the feast of Pentecost, is a church festival held in commemoration of the doctrine of the Trinity. The introduction of this day into the calendar is of comparatively recent date, it being established by Pope Benedict XI, in the year of our Lord 1305. ”

“ Grant me grace to approach Thy august sacraments with unfeigned piety; to come to the life-giving sacrament of Penance, with a lively faith, a firm confidence, and a sincere contrition, and to draw nigh to Thy holy table with a most profound humility, inflamed by love, and a heart hungering after that bread which is the delight of the soul. Shower, O Lord, Thy choicest blessings on our holy mother, the Church; on her visible head the Pope, and all her bishops and priests, particularly of this country; crush the efforts made by impiety to destroy their labors. ”

“ Accordingly, the Empress Maria Teresa desired an alteration, and Pope Clement XIV. issued a new brief in 1771. In this, the direction to keep a fast on the vigil of the suppressed festivals, and to attend mass, was set aside, and the following festivals were prescribed to be kept as complete holy days; Christmas, St Stephen’s Day, New Year, Epiphany, Easter (two days) , the Ascension, Pentecost (two days) , Corpus Christi, SS. Peter and Paul, All Saints, the five principle feasts of our Lady, and the festival of the patron saint of the country, i.e. ”

“ Coming to January 1, the modern and the Roman New Year's Day, we shall find that most of its customs have been anticipated at earlier festivals; the Roman Kalends practices have often been shifted to Christmas, while old Celtic and Teutonic New Year practices have frequently been transferred to the Roman date. [113]
The observances of New Year's Day mainly rest, as was said in Chapter VI., on the principle that “a good beginning makes a good ending,” that as the first day is so will the rest be. ”

“ The other festivals observed by the Lutherans are, New Year’s Day, or the Circumcision, a festival not near so ancient as the four above mentioned; the festival of the Three Kings, or, otherwise, the Epiphany; the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, or Candlemas; and Lady Day, or the Annunciation. There is no public work nor service devoted to the Blessed Virgin, nor are there any processions, or other ceremonies, which are observed by the Roman Catholics on the two latter festivals. The festival of the Sacred Trinity is solemnized on the Sunday after Whitsunday ”

“ To every people, of all ages and countries, these rites and ceremonies possess a dramatic power of the highest order. Ancient yet ever new, they never weary by repetition as fast and festival recur in the ecclesiastical year. On this an English writer says,
"The very ruggedness of the Gregorian modes serves to impart to them a character of durability. ”

“ Christian Year, The.—The Church's Year of Festivals and Fasts is called the Christian Year because as Bishop Cosin says, "the Church does not number her days, or measure her seasons, so much by the motion of the sun, as by the course of our Saviour; beginning and counting her year with Him who, being the true Sun of Righteousness, began now to rise upon the world."
The Christian Year is one of our richest possessions and has been handed down to us from the most ancient {53} times. ”

“ On weekdays of Lent (Monday through Friday) the celebration of the Divine Liturgy is strictly forbidden. They are non-liturgical days (with one possible exception, the Feast of Annunciation) . The reason for this rule is that the Eucharist is by its very nature a festal celebration, the joyful commemoration of Christ's Resurrection and glorification and His presence among His disciples. ”

“ The preface divides the ecclesiastical year into four periods corresponding to the various epochs of the world’s history, a time of deviation, of renovation, of reconciliation and of pilgrimage. The book itself, however, falls into five sections:— (a) from Advent to Christmas (cc. 1–5) ; (b) from Christmas to Septuagesima (6–30) ”

“ The Christian passover, as originally limited to Holy Week and Easter Week, was consecrated in the first place to the remembrances of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and to this the religious ceremonies, in so far as they differed from the ordinary services, owed their special character. But, in the second place, it is to be observed that so long as the Catechumenate remained in existence, and even to some extent afterwards, Easter was the only season regularly appointed for baptism. ”

“ Then the names of those who died during the past year are read, and with affectionate remembrances of them the celebration closes.
The service on New Year's Eve is so numerously attended from all the neighbourhood round, that the church will hardly contain the throng. At half-past eleven a discourse is begun, in which the events of the year about to close are passed in review, with other subjects appropriate to the time, until, as the clock strikes twelve, the trumpet choir sound hail! to the new year. Then the verse
"Now all give thanks to God"
is sung, and with a prayer the service ends. ”

“ Patience! perhaps Bice may at last bring her marvelous voice to my aid.
December 15.—Every day our communion has grown more exalted. She breathes upon me the atmosphere of that radiant world, and fills my soul with rapture. I live in a sublime enthusiasm. We hold intercourse by means of music. We stand upon a higher plane than that of common men. ”

“ We are all of us familiar with the usual ceremonies which usher in the New Year—the sitting up to watch the Old Year out and the New Year in, the ringing of the church bells immediately after the last stroke of twelve, the handshaking, and exchange of greetings. ”

“ We speak of the Great Jubilee introduced in ancient times among Christian customs and observed by our predecessors, who bestowed upon the years of general jubilee the title of the Holy Year, because it was usual for such a year to be blessed by a greater number of holy ceremonies, as these furnish the most copious means of help for the correction of morals and the leading of souls to sanctity. "We have ourselves seen with our own eyes the fruitful result of the last solemn celebration of the Holy Year. ”

“ The Holy Year was a distinct contribution to the literature of the Anglican Revival. Very inferior in strength and beauty to the Christian Year, it was more useful to editors of hymn-books, and it helped to concentrate interest upon the selection of hymns suited to the Church year. Bishop Wordsworth kept closely to the Prayer-book ideal of devotion, and some of his 268 less-known poems are illustrative of its special teaching. ”

“ With regard to the Roman rite in particular, there are no special masses for the Sundays after Easter and Pentecost in the Leonine sacramentary. A further development appears in the Gelasian sacramentary, where the Sundays in Lent and those between Easter and Pentecost alone have a clearly defined liturgical character, and keep their special place in the Calendar. ”