Nonetheless, more people will be forced to miss out on weekdays than weekends. How many more may vary a lot depending on the location. If BrJason is in say Montana, and people drive 3 hours each way to get to this parish, that could scotch the whole thing for a weekday.
Digitonomy, I do not know if you know the Hispanic Community well enough to make that judgment call. They will make sacrifices to keep December 12th. Even if they have to bring in a priest from out-of-the-area, they will do this. A community in a northern state asked a priest friend of mine to come and preach a mission and celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which he did.
I have no doubt. Nonetheless, I’m confident that more people will be able to do so on Sunday than on a weekday.
Oooh! Cool, cool, cool. I like it a lot. Yes! Even the LOH readings in Latin and Spanish. Thanks for that. :extrahappy:
Quite true. Just like marginal American Catholics who only show up for mass Christmas and Easter, their Mexican counter-parts would certainly be Christmas, Easter, and OLG. Latinos take OLG more seriously than many marginal American Catholics take Christmas and Easter.
Exactly. This is why I respectfully challenge Digitonomy. Having the feast in the middle of the week is no hindrance to the Mexican-American community. Many scoff at the idea of going to Mass at 5:00AM (or earlier), but, for the Mexican-American community, they show up in droves to honor La Virgen. These Masses are heavily attended not only at that very early hour, but at any time during that day. Even at the chapel of one of our local hospitals, the people fill the small space beyond capacity.
It seems likely that some adults will have to work on a weekday, and some kids will have to go to school. I’m just using common sense, and I could certainly be wrong. If having the feast in the middle of the week is no hindrance, I’m puzzled as to why they’d choose to have it as early as you state.
I don’t know if you are aware of the tradition behind having it early. It is the Mexican tradition of having the mananitas, “good morning” sung to Our Lady of Guadalupe at an extremely early hour and then follow it with Mass. Even on Mother’s Day, families will pay mariachi bands to come and seranade the mother very early in the morning, like 4AM, or, even earlier, at midnight.
Because of that my parish has an evening celebration, called Las Nochecitas, because some people just can’t go in the day for whatever reason. Attendance is huge, huge, but even with that, attendance in the morning is as great or greater. Some people will make it no matter what.
Benedictgal gave a good, quick explanation. But I’d like to add that it’s an ancient tradition in the Church to keep vigils before holy days, and in many monastaries monks and nuns still arise in the middle of the night to pray vigils. I think Las Mañanitas in a way is really not much different from the Easter Vigil, or Christmas Midnight Mass or the vigils at monasteries.
This is the justification that I expected. I also noticed while perusing my holy day mass options yesterday that one of the parishes near me has done exactly as BrJason’s did, and moved its OLoG mass to Sunday at 1pm, the normal time for Spanish mass at this parish. I presume it’s for the same reason.
Unfortunately, this goes against the USCCB directive regarding Sundays in Advent. The USCCB was very specific in that Sundays in Advent needed to be restricted. If the Church has to move the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception to December 9th when the feast falls on a Sunday, why should OLG be different? Had the feast fallen on a Sunday during Ordinary Time, then that would not have been a problem. However, the USCCB issued a specific directive that when the Feast of OLG falls on a Sunday, celebrations must be moved to Monday as the Advent Sunday outweighs and outranks all other Solemnities during this penitential season. Ditto for Lent.
Why would I think that? I mentioned above that the legitimacy of such a move was questionable.
Why not “toot the horn of the USCCB” for affirming something that they should be affirming? It is up to them to enforce what the Holy See says and they are in this instance.
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). The Mass is at 6 a.m. and I have only been able to rouse myself once to go - my food allergies and insensitivities make it difficult for me to go to a breakfast after, often two of my food allergies will be the big foods offered at a breakfast - pork (sausage) and wheat (tortillas) or pancakes.But the situation described above (one Mass on Sunday for the saint feast) would have been possible in Ordinary Time. My bishop allowed a similar thing when OL Rosary coincided with the Sunday this year.
My point was that it had repeatedly been remarked that the USCCB had indicated that the Sundays of Advent were privileged, as if it were their prerogative to do so. In fact, they have no ability to do so. What they were doing was affirming guidelines previously given by the Holy See, and at no time was any recognition made of the role of the Holy See, in various posts.
I do not like the term Ordinary Time because: A) it is a poor translation of the Latin term Tempus Per Annum, which is what the Roman Missal calls it, and B) because even Tempus Per Annum lacks a reference to any ecclesiastical kalendar theme. While the previous system of numbered Sundays after Pentecost was not ideal, at least it bore relation to a particular feast/season of the kalendar. I am well aware of what the various church seasons are.BTW, I am unclear as to why people (not just you) don’t like “Ordinary Time”, this just distinguishes the Church seasons, there is Advent, Christmas, Ordinary, Lent, Triduum (sp?), Easter, Ordinary and then it cycles through again. Of course, within Ordinary Time are the individual Feasts that can be transferred to a Sunday as I understand it where-as if the feast falls during one of the other Seasons or Times it can not. As a matter of fact, The Annunciation was moved to the first Monday in the Easter Season one year (making it in April) because it fell during Holy Week. (please, respond to me via a pm if you wish so we don’t de-rail this thread
When I was in school we learned that it is called “Ordinary Time” because the Sundays are named using “ordinal” numbers (“first,” “second,” “third,” etc.). It’s not to suggest that they are unimportant or dreary. We also learned that green is used in Ordinary Time because it symbolizes growth.
The USCCB doesn’t act in a vaccuum, obviously. However, the national bishops conferences do have some sort of authority, always derived from Rome, to issue rulings. That is why the USCCB issued a statement regarding what the faithful should do when the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe falls on a Sunday.
The reason why no mention was made of the actual apparition was because we were focusing on whether or not this feast was a Holy Day of Obligation in the United States. While it’s not one here, it is one in Mexico. In other words, I am on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. OLG is a huge feast here (Mass attendance is significantly higher on this day than it is for Ash Wednesday, in some parishes); however, were I to walk across the bridge and cross into Mexico, the feast becomes a Solemnity and a Holy Day of Obligation.