Would you like to see the Octave of Pentecost restored?

[Prodigal1984]

It isn’t like a criticism, it is just objectively factual. I didn’t mean to make it come off as if I’m criticizing here.

 

[twf]

I agree. And of course there are still very beautifully celebrated Catholic liturgies out there as well - Ordinary Form included.

 

[OraLabora]

Thats because the former Anglican liturgy looks more Catholic than the Ordinary Catholic liturgy.
I’m not gonna criticize the Church here; but what is up with that!?

I think there’s a simple explanation. Up until the Reformation the liturgies were similar; England had the Sarum Rite, but otherwise similar. Then the Anglicans split off, and we took two different paths. It’s kind of like in Quebec, when populated by the French, our language kind of got frozen in time due to isolation while European French evolved.

That said, you should be aware that the Anglicans have their own EF vs OF style controversy, between (in Canada at least) the Book of Common Prayer and the Book of Alternative Services.

What you are seeing that is similar to the EF is High Church Anglican. Trust me, Low Church is even way more out in left field than what many think the OF is. My wife’s Anglican sub-parish is Low Church (I say sub-parish because there is a more traditional service from the BCP, without music, at 8 am, and the, umm, innovative service at 10 am from the BAS; the pastor is clearly Low Church himself; neither side has anything to do with the other; sound familiar?). I’ve been to some hokey OF Masses in my years, but nothing as cringe-worthy as her praise-band loosey-goosey Low Church “mass”, with folks waving their hands in the air at the Lord’s Prayer, etc. Talk about feeling like a fish out of water.

So beware, not all Anglican liturgies are as beautiful as a well-executed High Church service, and not all Catholic liturgies as beautiful as the way the OF is celebrated at our abbey. Pentecost today was especially well done, with the Sequence beautifully sung in Latin, among other things. I bet many EF liturgies are not as well done as our abbey’s OF liturgy.

 

[Prodigal1984]

Maybe you would know because you seem to be somewhat informed on this.
Prior to 1955 how was it even possible for some of these octaves to have existed? For example the Octaves of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and Ss. Peter and Paul. They are on the 24th and 29th of June respectively and of the same rank in octaves so wouldn’t they be overlapping each other? Which one would you do? Or was there some system where you would do a little bit of both?

 

[ProVobis]

It wears thin after about, oh, day 2. The only good thing about it is that you usually have the antiphons down pat by the last day… if you manage to last that long.

Good way to learn something is with timed repetition, but you know that already.

 

[Dovekin]

if the Nativity of John the Baptist is June 24, why did the calendar have the Visitation as July 2?

Do you mean “why wasn’t the Visitation on June 17?” As in, the nativity of JB is the octave echo of the visitation, not vice versa?
Or are you asking why did we celebrate the visit to pregnant Elizabeth after we celebrated the birth of her son?

The second is easier to answer, I think. These are commemorations, not reenactments.Calendar order does not have to follow historical order, though we might find that more acceptable. You might look at the solemnity of the Mother of God and its relation to Christmas for a similar relation (6 mos apart). The order is more “the son is greater than the mother” rather than “we should read the prequel before we get to the main event.”

These echoes are interesting. Corpus Christi is the echo of Holy Thursday, the Sacred Heart of Good Friday. But they are not on the octave because Easter and Pentecost intervened. The octaves were abandoned because of the overlap, but the echoes were maintained.

I have lots more crackpot ideas like this. Some might even be right!

 

[Prodigal1984]

Yah I meant that it seems the Church follows a pattern like the annunciation is 9 months before Christmas, the nativity of John the Baptist is 6 months before Christmas etc, so it seems to follow a pattern of making the birth and life of Christ come to life, but having the Visitation after the Birth of St John the Baptist in the traditional calendar seems off in that respect as he was still in the womb at the time of the Visitation but is celebrated after his birth.
In the new calendar it is now May 31 so seems to make more sense in that regard. I was just answering what I meant by that. But thank you for answering because I think you got it with your second guess.

 

[otrrl]

7_Sorrows

13h

Thanks. I thought it had something to do with
the number 8, but I thought maybe it was before, not after.

======================================
A novena is a nine-day period chiefly of prayer before an importance observance, It is based on the days that Mary and the apostles and disciples were sheltered together before Pentecost. There are private novenas independent of a feast day. – as I understand it,

see this encyclopedia entry for octave
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11204a.htm

see this encyclopedia for novena
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11141b.htm

 

[OraLabora]

Maybe you would know because you seem to be somewhat informed on this.
Prior to 1955 how was it even possible for some of these octaves to have existed? For example the Octaves of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and Ss. Peter and Paul. They are on the 24th and 29th of June respectively and of the same rank in octaves so wouldn’t they be overlapping each other? Which one would you do? Or was there some system where you would do a little bit of both?

Good question. The facile answer: “it’s complicated”. However that didn’t satisfy me so I dug up my 1953 Breviarum Monasticum from my library. The answer is: when does an Octave not last 8 days? When it’s the Octave of St. John the Baptist. Both the June 24th and June 29th octaves were known as “common octaves” back in '53. That’s almost the lowest level. Even lower was the “simple octave”. FWIW this was the classification I can discern:

Privileged Octaves:

Ordinary Octave I: Easter, Pentecost
Ordinary Octave II: Epiphany, Corpus Christi
Ordinary Octave III: Christmas Ascension, Sacred Heart of Jesus

Common Octaves

e.g. the two examples in your question. There are many others

Simple Octaves

e.g Nativity of the BVM, St John apostle & evangelist, St. Stephen, protomartyr, Holy Innocents (oddly these fall within the Christmas octave), St. Lawrence, deacon, all other Duplex II class feasts with octave (!!!) (try and figure THAT one out!)

Back to your question, it’s quite simple in its complexity: the Octave of St. John the Baptist is truncated after day 5 and the Octave of SS. Peter and Paul takes over.

And depending on the class of octave, a feast can come and stomp on it if it’s of a higher class. The breviary has a table to sort this out (which I haven’t quite figured out how to use because it’s all in Latin and I’m not fluent enough).

And for those who lament that the Liturgy of the Hours distributes the psalter over 4 weeks instead of the more “traditional” 1 week distribution, consider this: the month of August. August 1, 4, 6, 10, 15, 20, 22, 24, 28 and 29 would be from the festival psalter. So this year for instance, there would be no week in August where the entire psalter was said. So the notion that the psalter was a “1 week” distribution became highly theoretical before the reforms. It might have made more sense in St Benedict’s day when the calendar of saints was far sparser than in 1953.

Is it any wonder that reforms were needed to do away with all these accretions? The LOTH has been a gift to the Church. Yes, it’s also getting true that we never go a full 4 weeks without falling into the festival psalter, so in fact a 1 week distribution would now make a lot more sense with the reformed calendar and in fact my abbey uses such a schema (I’ll have to get back into it, I’ve been lazy of late and using the LOTH),

 

[OraLabora]

I spent some quality time with Mgr. Annibale Bugnini’s book at the library today on my lunch hour , particularly the bit about the Octave of Pentecost.

A quote from Mgr. Bugnini himself to start:

The Easter season lasts 50 days beginning with the Easter Vigil and ending with Pentecost. This is attested by the ancient and universal tradition of the Church, which has always celebrated the 7 weeks of Easter as though it were a single day that ends with the feast of Pentecost. For this reason, the octave of Pentecost which was added to the fifty days of Easter in the sixth century, has been abolished. However, the days from Ascension to Pentecost with their appropriate texts are used as a time of expectation of the Holy Spirit.

A few interesting footnotes, which I will try to summarize briefly:

-The commission established by Pius XII had started to look into this… in 1948.
-That the octave prolonged the traditional 50 day period of Easter by a further week… minus a day (Trinity Sunday)
-That Pentecost Sunday should be the true “pentekoste” or “50th day”

Another important quote:

To the question “whether it is agreed that Pentecost Sunday should be restored to its original character as the end of Easter through suppression of its octave”, the Pian commission replied at its meeting of February 14 1950 (my bold) by opting for suppression…

Mgr. Bugnini does admit the issue caused controversy and confusion, in a footnote.

The idea was to prepare more intensely for the feast before the feast rather than a prolongation afterwards (e.g. hymn to the Holy Spirit at Vespers between Ascension and Pentecost).

There’s a lot more. These I think are the important highlights.

My conclusion can only be that

1. This was not a foolhardy Vatican II innovation but was the fruit of much theological thinking some 15 years before the Council;
2. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was well aware and involved in the discussions;
3. It would therefore seem that the meme about St. Paul VI crying at the realization he’d signed off on the abolition of the octave, is highly unlikely; a Pope who was aware of specific imprecatory verses that were to be eliminated from certain psalms most certainly would have been aware of the long-standing and ongoing deliberations about the abolition of the Octave, for some 20 years before he finally signed off on it.

Whether one agrees with this line of theological thought or not, or with Bugnini’s accuracy in relating the events is one’s own business. But one cannot affirm that it was a decision taken lightly.

 

[Prodigal1984]

That’s great. Something added in the sixth century is abolished because the church didn’t celebrate it in the beginning.
The fact he said in the 6th century it was added makes me even more upset they took it out. 1400 years and they just take it out because in the early Church it wasn’t there. All this did was make me think it should be there even more than I did before.

It still is 50 days.
In an Octave it is considered one liturgical day for the most part. Not as much as the Easter Triduum but regardless it is 50 days to Pentecost. And yes Pentecost should be moving forward as in moving forward the rest of the year after the celebration.

See this is my problem with the reforms. They were so obsessed with the early Church that they in many ways disbanded from all of the traditions in between that time.

 

[OraLabora]

I can’t say I saw an obsession. I believe it was more a desire to remove accretions that added more weight and complexity. For example he noted that as privileged Octave it was an obstacle to celebrating other feasts. And it was important that the. changes have a historical and theological basis.

This year it dawned on me that we gradually start hearing of the Holy Spirit around the week of Ascension and it build up until Pentecost when the Church truly began. It makes more sense to me than lingering over Pentecost. Unlike Easter where Jesus made appearances afterwards, Pentecost is the kickoff for a mission. It should end with those receiving the Holy Spirit dispersing into the world without delay and filled with zeal for the winning of souls.

My original reason for not wanting the Octave back was just because of its inconvenience. But this way of looking at it speaks to me.

The book by the way is fascinating. I ordered mysel a used copy.

 

[Dovekin]

As usual, explanations raise more questions.

If they were voting to suppress the octave of Pentecost in 1950, why wasn’t it suppressed in 1955?

Pope Pius XII simplified the calendar with a decree dated 23 March 1955: only the octaves of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost were kept, octaves that differed from the others in not repeating the same liturgy daily.
Wikipedia sv Octave(liturgy)

In answering this, we should keep in mind that Paul VI was sostituto when the vote was taken, abp of Milan when it was not suppressed. This was one of the most important positions in the Vatican, the gatekeeper who determined who would see the Pope and when documents were ready to sign. There was some disagreement between Pius and Paul in between; I doubt that it was about the pentecost octave, but that could have been a symptom of the disagreement.

Also, it sounds like the Octave was suppressed to restore Pentecost to its original status as a harvest festival. What was planted at Easter grew to maturity in 7 weeks and the first fruits were harvested for Pentecost. That sense of completion was spoiled by the extension with the octave. The octave was not suppressed because it was an addition, but because it changed the meaning of Pentecost.

 

[Prodigal1984]

Well the Pentecost Octave did have the Ember Days on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.( which I believe happened in one week of every season if I am correct). But they were regarded somewhat as agricultural, or of giving thanks I think.

 

[Prodigal1984]

Another thing is why not the Christmas Octave removed too?
It wasn’t even a Privaleged Octave…
It literally has saints celebrated in it anyways.

 

[ProVobis]

For the record an octave also refers to a musical scale. A C note played an octave higher, for example.

 

[OraLabora]

Yes it was. It was a privileged Octave of the third class. See my earlier post.

 

[Prodigal1984]

Okay yes you are correct. I worded that wrong.
What I mean to say is,
Pentecost was a first order Octave.
Epiphany and Corpus Christi were second order.
Christmas and those with it were third.
Wouldn’t it make sense to suppress Christmas Octave than those three of greater privalege is what I mean.

 

[OraLabora]

Not necessarily. In this case the reason evoked is theological, not the degree of Octave. You could argue that the Octave has been replaced with a longer period of preparation prior to Pentecost. Liturgically, the readings prepare us for reception of the Holy Spirit starting after Ascension. And also, the singing of Veni Creator Spiritus, and the responsory Spiritus Paraclitus from Ascension to Pentecost. It is almost a mini preparatory season in itself, like the last week of Advent.

It seems to make a great deal of sense, really. Once the apostles received the Holy Spirit, there is a sense of urgency to get on with the task of building the Church, not sitting around in celebration for eight days.

It also marks the end of the Lord’s direct revelation to us. It has a finality that none of the other privileged Octaves have. It also marks a new beginning, the post-revelation era, the era of the Church Militant.

 

[KMG]

The Roman Rite liturgy prior to the regrettable abolition of many proper texts in the 1955 rubrical changes (changes that were never even printed in the typical editions of the liturgical books) already had a rich period of preparation for Pentecost via the proper texts of not only the Ascension Octave, but also the proper texts for the Friday after that Octave and the full Pentecost Vigil.

Octaves mystically count as a single day; the 8 days of an octave mystically equal 1 seemingly unending day. Pentecost’s octave…like that of Epiphany…was ancient. It wasn’t because the ignorant fools of antiquity had somehow “forgotten” that Pentecost was a fiftieth day…it was because they understood that octaves represent a suspension of time and qualify as one day.

Bugnini and his obsessive rationalist colleagues (and yes, Bugnini was already involved in liturgical matters as early as 1948) couldn’t stand this sort of thing, and so of course Pentecost had to lose its octave…like Epiphany, and Ascension, etc., etc.