Thank you for your response. I didn’t know about religious communities consolidating the calendars. How is that done? Do they use the EF Temporal Cycle and the OF Sanctoral Cycle?
It’s really up to the major superior. Benedictines have an interesting organization. Every monastery and abbey is autonomous; however, they usually belong to a congregation. These decisions are made by the abbots working together as a congregation.
Mendicants, on the other hand, do not have autonomy. All of the houses are connected to one major superior for each obedience. That major superior will appoint a committee to work on the calendar, which will be presented to the superior for approval, then sent to the Vatican.
Franciscans are at a disadvantage here. Unlike other mendicants that are one community or at most two, there are more than 100 Franciscan communities of men. I don’t mean houses. I mean autonomous branches of the same order, each with its own government, but the same rule.
To maintain some kind of unity, the Friars Minor, Friars Minor Conventuals, Friars Minor Capuchins, Poor Clares, Secular Franciscans, TORs, and religious who follow the Rule of Penance, have formed the Franciscan Liturgical Commission. It’s a commission of our best liturgists and theologians. They put together the calendar, then the missal, lectionary and breviary to fit the calendar. They will insert all of our feasts around the Franciscan Sanctoral Cycle.
The major orders have their own sanctoral cycle, which overlaps with the OF sanctoral cycle. If by chance you watch mass on EWTN on October 22, you will see the Mass of Bl. John Paul II. It’s his feast day, which is observed in Poland, the Diocese of Rome and by all Franciscans. The Holy See had all of the collects and prefaces written long before the beatification, because the Holy Father had hinted the he was going to beatify him with or without a miracle. Like Bl. John Paul with Mother Teresa, Pope Benedict wanted this done before his death. It was easy to incorporate into our sanctoral cycle. This year, we will incorporate him, Mother Teresa, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Pio, St. Giana Molla, and Bl. John Duns Scotus into the EF. Last year we used the OF for all of these people.
I agree, many prelates, like Cardinal Burke, have hinted that change is a-coming for the Ordinary Form. We know from Summorum Pontificum, that change is inevitable for the Extraordinary Form. Exciting times we live in!
I think anyone with common sense knows that we can’t live forever with two forms of the same rite. This is what we had before Trent. Actually we had more than two forms, but that’s another thread. What Trent tried to do was consolidate, while leaving the religious alone. This is very important, even though some lay people may think that it does not affect them.
It is very important to leave the old religious communities alone and let them revise their liturgical life, because their liturgical life is a living expression of their charism. One of the problems with the Ordinary Form is that you can’t tell the difference between a Franciscan, Jesuit, Dominican, Carmelite or Trinitarian.
Prior to the OF, the Carmelites had their own rite, Dominicans had their own rite, Carthusians had their rite and the rest of us used our own forms of the Tridentine Mass. Basically, it was the mass prior to the Council of Trent. These differences made the Latin Church very rich. It was like Baskin Robbins. One of the best places to live was Malta. They have 52 parishes on one little island. They are run by diocesan clergy and by religious. Since the island is small, one could literally attend a different form of the mass every Sunday before 1962. Every diocesan parish celebrated the Tridentine Mass, but everyone else did their own thing. The unified OF was hard on little countries like Malta, because people liked their diversity.
This is the best line in your post. So true.
LOL Thank You
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
