Vespers for Feast of the Presentation

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The St. Joseph Guide for the Liturgy of the Hours indicates that Vespers for Presentation this year will be first Vespers for Sunday, the next day (Feb. 3rd). But the norms for the liturgical calendar state that if Vespers of a day is concurrent with first Vespers of the following day, the one to use is to be that of the higher ranking day, and Feasts of Our Lord rank higher than Sundays in Ordinary Time, so Evening Prayer on Sat. Feb. 2nd should be that of the Presentation, not Evening Prayer I of the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. So is the St. Joseph Guide wrong on this one, or am I not understanding something?
 
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The St. Joseph guide appears to be wrong. Our abbey’s ordo as well as the CCCB’s confirms that this Saturday evening, it will be Vespers of the feast that are celebrated, not First Vespers of Sunday, as this is a Feast of our Lord.
 
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I believe this is correct as Sunday observance begins with the Vigil Mass on Saturday evening and various communities pray Vespers within the Mass.

In other words, Sunday trumps the feast day.

Jim
 
Jim - it depends on what kind of Sunday and what kind of Feast. For example, Sundays of Advent, Lent, and Easter trump Solemnities, which trump Feasts of the Lord, which trump Sundays of the Christmas season and Ordinary Time, which trump Feasts of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, etc. The Feast of the Presentation, therefore, trumps the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, meaning Saturday Feb 2nd 2019 evening prayer should be for the feast and not first evening prayer of the next day. Apparently the St. Joseph Guide is just wrong on this occasion - a good reminder that having the Guide is no substitute for a thorough understanding of the General Instruction, the General norms, and the rubrics.
 
I’ve been doing some reading on this and it seems like it was in question. Below I posted an article.

There apparently is a lot of confusion among priests and even bishops regarding this decide whether Feast Days on Saturday are treated as Solemnity for Vespers or if the Sunday Solemnity is recognized. Perhaps, the National Bishops Conferences, local bishop, and/or superior have a tendency to dictate which one should be used?

This was the quote in iBreviary regarding Vespers on Saturday Feb 2nd: “In those places where the Presentation of the Lord is observed as a Solemnity, Evening Prayer II can be found in Evening Prayer II for Feasts Observed as Solemnities found in the Prayers section of the iBreviary.”"

The default Psalms for iBreviary.org and DivineOffice.org for Saturday Feb 2nd is to following Evening Prayer I for Sunday Feb 3rd.

While ebreivary.com and http://www.universalis.com are treating it as a Solemnity and using Evening Prayer II from the Proper.

Here’s an article regarding Feasts of the Lord on Saturday:

zenit.org

LITURGY Q & A: When a Feast of the Lord Falls on a Saturday - ZENIT - English

Guidelines on Liturgical Precedence
zenit.org zenit.org

NOTE: I personally think the St. Joseph Guide is wrong. Reason: on page 37 of Christian Prayer, it says the following under the FEASTS section:
  1. Evening Prayer I is said only on universal feasts of the Lord occurring on Sunday, followed then by Night Prayer as on Sunday after Evening Prayer I
Sundays take precedence over everything EXCEPT Solemnities and Feasts of the Lord. Since, Feb 2nd is a Feast of the Lord, and not just a regular feast, Feb 2nd out ranks Sunday Feb 3rd.

Therefore, St. Joseph Guide is wrong - UNLESS the USCCB decided that Sunday Feb 3rd outranks Feb 2nd, which I don’t think they did.

Here’s a blog post from Daria Sockey - she starts out talking about regular Saint Feasts, but then eventually mentions that Feasts of the Lord would still be celebrated.

Evening Prayer I for a saint's feast? No!

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Bartholomew the apostle. Bartholomew of the synoptic gospels is identified with "Nathanael" of St. John's...
dariasockey.blogspot.com dariasockey.blogspot.com

SUMMARY - my research tells me that the Guide is Wrong.

God Bless
 
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The table of hierarchy of celebrations in my French Liturgy of the Hours clearly indicates that feasts of the Lord outrank Sundays in Ordinary Time.

Therefore Vespers of the feast would be celebrated, not First Vespers of Sunday,

This is what my abbey’s ordo says. Given that it is a translation of the Solesmes Ordo from Latin to French, except for the inclusion of local saints, I’m inclined to go with what Solesmes says! They are, after all, charged by the Vatican with the preservation of Gregorian chant, and they are known sticklers for getting liturgy correct.
 
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Phil - Sundays in Christmas season and Ordinary Time are secondary to Feasts of the Lord, but even Feasts of the Lord are secondary to Sundays of Advent, Lent, and Easter seasons - so these decisions are based not just on what kind of Feast it is, but also when in the liturgical year the Sunday occurs.
 
I just looked at iBreviary for Saturday. They provide Evening Prayer I for Sunday with a note:

In those places where the Presentation of the Lord is observed as a solemnity, Evening Prayer II can be found in Evening Prayer II for Feasts Observed as Solemnities in the Prayers section of the iBreviary.

So it sounds like if the day is a feast, Sunday trumps the feast day, but if it is observed as a solemnity, the solemnity takes precedence (at least according to iBreviary).
 
Interesting - ibreviary must be using information that somehow supersedes (or contradicts) the General Norms, then, since according to the norms a Feast of the Lord ALWAYS outranks a Sunday in Ordinary Time, without it having to be treated as a Solemnity for that to occur - and the Norms state that liturgical precedence is ENTIRELY governed by its list of liturgical rankings. So to my understanding, this Saturday’s evening prayer should be for the Presentation, period, with no option for using Evening Prayer I of Sunday instead.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
So it sounds like if the day is a feast, Sunday trumps the feast day, but if it is observed as a solemnity, the solemnity takes precedence (at least according to iBreviary).
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iBreviary is wrong (and it won’t be the first time, I’ve found many errors and rarely use it because of that; an example was June 24th a feast instead of a solemnity).

The table of hierarchy in my Liturgy of the Hours clearly indicates that a Feast of the Lord outranks a Sunday of Ordinary Time.

iBreviary seems to be treating as the feast of a saint instead of a Feast of our Lord.
 
So the Vigil Mass on Saturday, doesn’t count for the Sunday Mass ?

Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
So the Vigil Mass on Saturday, doesn’t count for the Sunday Mass ?
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The only requirement is that you attend Sunday Mass, and that is defined as any Mass after the earliest time for Saturday Vespers (4 pm) until Sunday at 11:59 pm. It doesn’t have to have the readings or elements of Sunday Mass. You could attend a friend’s wedding at 7 pm for instance, and still be covered for your Sunday obligation.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
So the Vigil Mass on Saturday, doesn’t count for the Sunday Mass ?

Jim
Click to expand...
I didn’t say that.

Any Liturgy used on Saturday evening for Mass counts as the Sunday obligation. For example, if you attend a Wedding Mass Saturday evening, they will not have the Sunday readings, but it still counts for your obligation.

Or if you attend an Extraordinary Form Mass on a Saturday evening, it will be using the Saturday Liturgy- But will still count for the Sunday obligation.

Obligations are tied to the day, not the Liturgy for that Day.

Now, with that said, there was a 1984 document which states (in summary) that for Mass, the Sunday Liturgy trumps the Feast of the Lord on Saturday evening. However, for the Liturgy of the Hours it does not.

But their seems to have been an older doc that gave the option of using Evening Prayer I for the Feasts of the Lord on Saturday if celebrated with the laity.

Read the blog post I have here on this (note you might have to read it twice, I know I did):

zenit.org

LITURGY Q & A: When a Feast of the Lord Falls on a Saturday - ZENIT - English

Guidelines on Liturgical Precedence
zenit.org zenit.org

God Bless
 
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With liturgy, it’s never as simple as it seems at first 😛

A few years ago I wanted my own Nocturnale Romanum to do the Office of Readings in Gregorian chant, following the Ordo Cantus Officii. I thought it would be rather simple as I have pretty much all of the source chant books that I needed in order to scan the antiphons; and I had a good on-line source for the accented Latin psalmody that I could just copy/paste from. It took me over a year-in retirement no less- to achieve. And there are still some tweaks I need to make.

A joke in monasteries is that once a monk has figured out the breviary, he’s ready for solemn profession. Normally, it takes 1 year of postulancy, 1 year of noviciate, and up to 3 years of simple profession to make it all the way to solemn profession…
 
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It seems according to the article in Zenet, the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship,
distinguished the difference between the Lord’s Feast Day, and a Holy Day of Obligation which would fall on Saturday, before Sunday. Those who generally attend Mass on Saturday, would not be fulfilling their Holy Day of Obligation for both the Saturday Feast and Sunday Obligation at one Mass on Saturday. We just had a warning about so-called “double dipping” this past December on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. We were to attend Mass for the Feast Day on Saturday, then again on Sunday.

However, when the Feast Day which is not a Holy Day of Obligation falls on Saturday, the Vigil Mass for Sunday and Evening Prayer 1 takes precedence.

At least that’s how I understand it, and apparently so does the Guide and IBreviary.

Jim
 
iBreviary always hedges their bets, so to speak. If they think there could remotely be an option, they write their app accordingly.
JimR-OCDS said:
So the Vigil Mass on Saturday, doesn’t count for the Sunday Mass ?
Click to expand...
We’re discussing Vespers, not Mass on Saturday evening in the average parish. The two don’t always go together. Your parish will still likely have Mass as usual (not that it would matter; your obligation is any Mass on Sunday or the evening before). The Vespers will have to follow the liturgical calendar and rankings that others have already described.
 
The guidelines issued by the congregation, and now generally applied in most countries, are summarized by the bishops’ newsletter as:

“1. In the celebration of Mass, precedence is always to be given (‘præcedentia semper danda est’) to the feast of precept, regardless of the ranks of the two consecutive feasts; and

“2. At celebrations of Evening Prayer on a holy day of obligation in which the people participate, the older guidelines would still apply, except that the texts of Evening Prayer I of the following day may be replaced by Evening Prayer II of the current day.”

zenit.org

LITURGY Q & A: When a Feast of the Lord Falls on a Saturday - ZENIT - English

Guidelines on Liturgical Precedence
zenit.org zenit.org

Jim
 
Jim - finish reading from your post down to the end…

It goes on to say:
Therefore, barring a different decision from a bishop, what to do if the Transfiguration (which ranks higher on the table than an ordinary Sunday) falls on a Saturday?

Since the Sunday is a holy day of obligation, then this fact means that the 1984 document is applied for the celebration of Mass, and the Mass of Sunday is celebrated on a Saturday evening.

For the Liturgy of the Hours, however, the table of precedence would apply so that vespers on Saturday evening still uses the texts of the feast of the Transfiguration due to its higher rank.
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NOTE: The Transfiguration is a Feast of the Lord like the Presentation (aka Candlemass). Therefore, according to the article, vespers for Saturday Feb 2 would use the Vespers from the Proper for Feb 2nd, not Evening Prayer 1 from Sunday, Feb 3rd

God Bless
 
FYI - I have an old Daughters of St Paul Edition of Christians Prayer at home (I travel with my CBP version).

I just checked to see what the Daughters of St Paul Edition says about Feb 2nd. It only has the following instructions in the Proper:

“If this feast falls on Sunday, Evening Prayer I is said.” This “Evening Prayer I” is the one written for the Presentation. In other words, when Feb 2nd is in a Sunday, the Presentation superceeds the normal Sunday Mass.

BTW - It doesn’t give any instruction to use Evening Prayer I (from Sunday) if on a Saturday.

Anyway - so either the St Joe’s Guide is wrong, or enough American diocese have chosen to match Saturday Vespers with Sunday’s Mass, even on Feasts of the Lord.

God Bless
 
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