The Easter Season (50 days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost) is also the season of mystagogy, the period of post-baptismal catechesis for the neophytes. The neophytes, formerly the elect, formerly the catechumens, formerly the inquirers—their title changes as they move through the liturgical process—received the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil. They were...
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With a title like “Ordinary” Time, it might seem this long season in the Liturgical Year is somehow dull or inconsequential—but nothing could be further from the truth.
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This June is a very solemn month. There are four Solemnities on the Liturgical Calendar: Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Birth of St. John the Baptist. The first three are movable feasts, scheduled according to the date of Easter each year: Trinity Sunday...
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John Mason Neale was an Anglican minister in the nineteenth century: he was born on January 24, 1818 and died on August 6, 1866. For the Easter Season, Neale translated O filii et filiae, Rex coelestis, Rex gloriae from the Latin:. After attending Trinity College, Cambridge, Neale joined the Oxford Movement, founded by John Henry...
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The “Maundy” of Maundy Thursday comes from the Mandatum, the new commandment Jesus gave his Apostles after washing their feet at the Last Supper–love one another as I have loved you. The ceremonial re-enactment of Jesus’ humility was not part of the parish celebration of Holy Thursday in Pre-Reformation England. It was performed...
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The Catholic Church in England before the Reformation used some adaptations of the Latin or Roman Rite called the Sarum Use. These adaptations had developed at Salisbury Cathedral and took their name from the Latin for Salisbury. During Holy Week, these Sarum Use adaptations of the ritual demonstrated the great devotion of the...
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It has finally come again. The Season of Lent, I am speaking of. I always find it a relief. Many folks are surprised to hear me say that. I think of a scene from the vintage 1970s biopic “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” St. Francis has shed his clothing and is making a ruckus in the piazza below the Cathedral. The...
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