Saturday Vigil instead of Sunday Mass?

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Ichbinian said:
I know it’s called the Vigil of Easter. I’m pointing out that the Mass occurs at midnight (hence, SUNDAY), and, therefore, there are no Masses on Holy Saturday.
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I do not know where you are but the Saturday Vigil of Easter can and does happen before Midnight. I believe the main issue is that it occurs after dusk.

The only Mass that I have heard called the “Midnight Mass” is the Vigil of Christmas. As the Midnight Mass for Christmas has different readings from a Vigil held earlier in the Evening on Christmas Eve.
 
Ichbinian said:
I know it’s called the Vigil of Easter. I’m pointing out that the Mass occurs at midnight (hence, SUNDAY), and, therefore, there are no Masses on Holy Saturday.
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Perhaps it’s at midnight in Canada. In the US the Easter Vigil starts after sundown. That means something like 7 or 8pm.
 
byzcath said:
i do not know where you are but the saturday vigil of easter can and does happen before midnight. I believe the main issue is that it occurs after dusk.

Not just dusk, it must be full dark so usually 30-45 minutes after sunset. While I know that some places celebrate the Easter Vigil in the middle of the night (it must end before dawn), in all the years I’ve attended (in dozens of parishes) I’ve never experienced it later than 9 p.m.

the only mass that i have heard called the “midnight mass” is the vigil of christmas. As the midnight mass for christmas has different readings from a vigil held earlier in the evening on christmas eve.

I must admit that in dozens of years of attending Christmas Eve Masses, I’ve never, ever, experienced a “Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord.” In Canada, the Lectionary specifically says that that evening’s Masses are to use the readings of any of the three Masses of Christmas and they usually pick the readings for the “Mass during the Night” even when the so-called ‘Family Mass’ is celebrated at 5:30 p.m. I had a pastor imply that I was an idiot for asking if we were using the Vigil of Christmas at that Mass (“Who ever heard of using the Vigil of Christmas for that Mass?!?!?”)
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Perhaps it’s at midnight in Canada. In the US the Easter Vigil starts after sundown. That means something like 7 or 8pm.
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thank you for enlightening me!
 
Ichbinian said:
by “abused” is that people go on Saturday night all the time even though they are fully capable of going on Sunday.
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I suppose you also think it’s an abuse that people get married who are capable of being priests, nuns or monks? Or that others become priests, nuns or monks who are capable of being married?
 
I wish parishes would offer public Vespers versus Sunday vigil, like the Orthodox do.
 
bkovacs said:
I wish parishes would offer public Vespers versus Sunday vigil, like the Orthodox do.
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I would like to see more parishes offer public Lauds and Vespers, not in lieu of, but in addition to the Vigil Mass.
When I have been on retreat, different orders move directly from Morning Prayer (Lauds) into the daily Mass. My spiritual director questioned this practice since LOTH honors the hours of the day while Mass is outside of time. The opening prayer used for Mass is the same as that used for the LOTH of the day.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
When holy days (other than the Immaculate Conception and Christmas) fall on a Saturday or Monday they are dispensed. (This is for the United States; I don’t know about other countries.)

From the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship source]:

Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption, or November 1, the solemnity of All Saints, falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the precept to attend Mass is abrogated.
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The obligation (in the US) is abrogated but August 15 is still celebrated as the Feast of the Assumption. We don’t have a Sat. night Mass at my parish but I wonder, for those parishes that do, if Sat. night will be the Mass for the Feast of the Assumption or the anticipated Mass for Sunday.

Now back to the topic at hand. It isn’t an abuse to attend the anticipated Mass on Saturday night for Sunday’s obligation. Many people chose that as their regular Mass whether it is the musical style they prefer, thier favorite priest or the Mass they are scheduled to read. serve, etc. What is often abused is using Saturday evening Mass in order to avoid doing anything holy on Sunday.
 
bkovacs said:
I wish parishes would offer public Vespers versus Sunday vigil, like the Orthodox do.
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But unlike the Orthodox (and Byzantine Catholics), Great Vespers (that is Saturday Evening Vespers) would not fulfill the Sunday Obligation.

Also, Great Vespers in the Orthodox and Byzantine traditions is a bit different and longer than weekday Vespers.

In the Latin Church this is not so.
 
I am baptised and confirmed Latin Catholic (I have to follow the Latin Church rules), but regularly assist at Divine Liturgy at a Byzantine Catholic Church. Interestingly the 1983 Catholic Canon specifies the holy day obligation for all the particular churches in the Catholic Church but may be overridden by the 1990 Code of Canons of Oriental Churches, or by the particular church canon, such as the Particular Law for the Byzantine-Ruthenian Church in the USA of 1999. There are nine particular churches in the United States, in addition to the Latin: Armenian, Melkite, Syriac, Maronite, Byzantine (Ruthenian), Romanian, Ukrainian, Chaldean, Syro-Malabar.

I looked up the three canon documents (Catholic, Oriental, and Byzantine) and found that in the United States, the rules are slightly different between the Latin and Byzantine Rites. The holy day is midnight-to-midnight, but may be fulfilled on the previous day starting at 4PM in the USA (per USCCB) for Latin, and from the vigil for Oriental Churches.

Catholic Canon 1248
  1. The precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at a Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the holy day or on the evening of the preceding day.
Oriental Canon 881 §2.

In order for the Christian faithful to fulfill this obligation more easily, the available time runs from the evening of the vigil until the end of the Sunday or feast day.
Below you can see a slight difference in the holy days of obligation between Latin and Byzantine.

Byzantine Canon 294

The pastor is to celebrate the Divine Liturgy for the people of the parish entrusted to him on all Sundays and days of precept. The days of precept are:

January 6 Theophany of our Lord
Ascension of our Lord
June 29 Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul
August 15 Dormition of the Mother of God (Assumption)
December 25 Nativity of our Lord
Since 1992 Canon 1246, Latin Church in the USA, observe Sunday and:

January 1 the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter, the solemnity of the Ascension
August 15 the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
November 1 the solemnity of All Saints
December 8 the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
December 25 the solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

So a Roman Catholic could assist at Divine Liturgy on the evening before, but the converse may not work out, as 4PM Mass for a Byzantine would be too early for a Vigil (which would probably be 7PM).
 
I understand how, especially in missions, a Saturday anticipated Liturgy might be pastorally necessary, though I prefer the Sunday Liturgy on Sunday.

During the week I don’t care if a Holy Day liturgy is the evening before, in the day, or on the evening of the Feast itself.

Actually, I sort of like evening liturgies during the week. That way the whole day builds up to it, and you can truly “lay aside all earthly care” instead of wondering if you will get to work on time.

But all this is just my own feelings on the matter.
 
Cluny said:
I understand how, especially in missions, a Saturday anticipated Liturgy might be pastorally necessary, though I prefer the Sunday Liturgy on Sunday.

During the week I don’t care if a Holy Day liturgy is the evening before, in the day, or on the evening of the Feast itself.

Actually, I sort of like evening liturgies during the week. That way the whole day builds up to it, and you can truly “lay aside all earthly care” instead of wondering if you will get to work on time.

But all this is just my own feelings on the matter.
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I prefer going to an evening Mass/liturgy than not at all, but in terms of ‘laying aside all earthly care’ - I sometimes get to thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner when I get home or the like 😊
 
A priest is not allowed to have a “Saturday Vigil” TLM. That would be severely against the rubrics. The Saturday Vigil every week is an innovation, one which I detest.
 
Ace86, I do not understand why you say it is against the rules to have a Saturday Vigil Mass in Tridentine. (I was an altar boy starting about 1961, so I remember some of those times.)

Pope Pius XII restored the Easter Vigil from the morning to the evening of Holy Saturday in 1951.

Maybe you mean to exclude anything after the close of Vatican II in December 1965? That would include this:

Per Eucharisticum Mysterium, Instruction on Eucharistic Worship Sacred Congregation of Rites. May 25, 1967.
  1. Anticipating the Sunday and Feast Day Masses on the Previous Evening: Where permission has been granted by the Apostolic See to fulfill the Sunday obligation on the preceding Saturday evening, pastors should explain the meaning of this permission carefully to the faithful and should ensure that the significance of Sunday is not thereby obscured. The purpose of this concession is in fact to enable the Christians of today to celebrate more easily the day of the resurrection of the Lord.
    …
    In these cases the Mass celebrated is that assigned in the calendar to Sunday, the homily and the prayer of the faithful are not to be omitted.
    …
    The faithful who begin to celebrate the Sunday or holy day of obligation on the preceding evening may go to Communion at that Mass even if they have already received Communion in the morning.
(You can read the entire document on adoremus website.)
 
I am now in the Persian Gulf. There is only one Catholic Church in this Muslim country where the weekend is Friday and Saturday. The work week is Sunday through Thursday. Obligation Masses are celebrated Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Every Mass is packed. Masses are celebrated in French, English, and several other languages. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available a half hour before every Mass and the rosary is recited before every Mass celebrated in the church. I will need to check the website to find out exactly how many Masses are celebrated over the weekend. Many of the parishioners come from India and Pakistan.
 
DebChris- The Persian Gulf is rough- been there have the tee shirt - God bless.

I think we need to look at the biblical definition of a day. The biblical definition of a day is from Sundown to Sundown. Hence why we have the 3 Holy Days and not 4. Just a thought. Therefore one is not celebrating a Saturday mass- they are celebrating a Sunday vigil at the earliest posssible moment of Sunday. Where the abuse comes in is the scheduling of these masses which should not be before sundown. However, due to time zones, etc they have given a 4pm definition. Who are we? So therefore what one must remember is that one is not celebrating Saturday -it is already Sunday- midnight is a manmade timeline. Sun up and Sundown are God given designations from the Book of Genesis.
 
“So therefore what one must remember is that one is not celebrating Saturday -it is already Sunday- midnight is a manmade timeline. Sun up and Sundown are God given designations from the Book of Genesis.”

Although logically, wouldn’t that mean evening Masses AFTER the cutoff time (sundown, 4 p.m., whatever) on Sunday would NOT fulfill the obligation because Sunday would then be “over”:confused:

Still, I’m not disputing the Church’s right to set a time frame for fullfilling the Sunday obligation. The exact timing of Sunday Mass is a liturgical rule which the Church is free to change. The Biblical/Jewish tradition of the Sabbath starting at sunset the day before was just one factor in the decision.

The Church can permit Sunday obligation Masses on ANY day of the week for serious reason. I once knew a federal prison chaplain (a permanent deacon) whose prison always had Sunday Mass on Thursday (using the readings, prayers, etc. of the upcoming Sunday) because that was the only day a priest was available to offer it. Other institutions such as nursing homes may have Sunday Mass outside of the weekend as well.
 
That does bring up an interesting question and IMHO by that definition yes, a mass after the cut off time on Sunday would technically be a Monday vigil mass. This does kind of make it blurry though as this is when some parishes in my area offer the Teen Life Masses.
 
joandarc2008, the Vigil Mass homily is supposed to go with the next day, but if it does not it still fulfills the requirement for the next day.

There is an unusual example of Sunday evening Mass for Monday obligation: in Dec 8, 2003 the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception occurred on a Monday so it was a holy day of obligation. That does not happen much, but certainly in these years: … 1958, 1969, 1975, 1986, 1997, 2003, 2014, 2025, 2031, 2042, 2053, 2059, 2070 …

(But some parishes do not have a Monday Vigil Mass on Sunday, rather Vespers and Benediction.)
 
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