J
JReducation
Guest
What happens in these cases is that the mass of the day is celebrated. The wedding rite stands alone, as does the Rite of Christian burial. That’s why you can attend a wedding on Saturday night and fulfill your Sunday obligation. The mass is the mass for the Sunday. There is not a wedding mass per se. There is a Rite of Marriage that is celebrated within the mass. But you always celebrate the mass of the day. The Church gives you choices in the readings, but the rest remains the same as prescribed for the Sunday, obviating the prayers of the Rite for the Sacrament of Matrimony.
I don’t know of any diocese that celebrates funeral masses on Sundays. Once again, theoretically you could, if it is allowed by the local bishop. The Rite of Christian Burial can be celebrated within the mass. The key word is within. The rubrics do make allowances for variations in the readings here too.
No it would not cause a problem. Because the law requires that you observe the solemnity. It does not say that it must be on a given day. There is a provision in the law to move it to Sunday, but it is not an obligation to celebrate it on Sunday. My community never celebrates it on Sunday.
When it is moved, In that case the mass for that Sunday is the mass of the Ascension. The reason that it can be done is because it does not coincide with another holy day. The Sunday after the Ascension is a Sunday of Easter. It’s not a specific holy day. There is no conflict. That’s why the law allows the Ascension to be moved to Sunday.
What happens in this case is that you have two solemnities. There is the conflict. That’s why the Saturday evening mass, this year, will not satisfy the Christmas obligation. The Christmas mass cannot replace the mass for the Sunday. Both masses must be celebrated or the other option is not to have a Saturday evening mass.
It’s a liturgical use of the frase “the evening of the preceding day” which is borrowed from the breviary. We always had Evening Prayer I or First Vespers for Sundays and Solemnities. That’s where the term came from. It was used to mean that the solemnity begins at Vespers on the preceding day, not the calendar day.
In the English translation it becomes a little odd sounding. We don’t have a word for “visperas” which is in the Latin and the Romance Languages. We have to use “preceding day”. When the Code was translated into English, it took the language from the breviary’s reference to First Vespers as the vespers that precede the solemnity. To precede, in liturgy, means to lead or to initiate. The mass of the preceding day is the first mass of the solemnity or the mass that opens the solemnity. This year, the Saturday evening mass will open the Sunday Solemnity.
Just like the Ascension, the reason that you can put the Feast of the Holy Family there is because it does not conflict with another holy day. If it were not there, then it would simply be the First Sunday of the Octave of Christmas.
The law allows for any ordinary Sunday to be used to celebrate a holy day authorized by the Church. Not every holy day can be celebrated on a Sunday, even if there is no conflict. Notice, I said ordinary Sunday, not Sunday of Ordinary Time. Those are two different things.
We had a similar situation with the Solemnity of St. Francis. It fell on a Sunday. But it’s not a solemnity for the Catholic Church. It’s only a solemnity for the four Franciscan Orders and for Italy. The Holy See had to authorize the use of the mass of St. Francis on that day in every Franciscan parish and house and in Italy. But there was no conflict, because it was an ordinary Sunday.
The laity who attended fulfilled their Sunday obligation. They simply had a whole different set of readings, different collects, a different liturgical prayer, a very long sequence before the Gospel and the renewal of vows in place of the Creed. If there were an established holy day on that Sunday, then there would be a conflict. The universal holy day would take precedence.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
