Author Topic: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil (Read 1836 times)

SeanJohnson · « **on:** May 29, 2022, 10:35:53 AM »

Vigil of Pentecost Suppressed in 1956 Reform

https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f153_Dialogue_70.htm

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain

The ravaging of the liturgical patrimony of the Roman Rite under Pius XII was not confined to the reform of Holy Week but, as the 1948 Commission had planned, (1) extended into other areas of the liturgy as well.

A medieval manucript depicting Pentecost

The Vigil of Pentecost was cut from the liturgy in the 1956 Reform

It is still commonly believed that when the Decree cuм nostra hac aetate of March 23, 1955, purged about half of all the vigils in the Roman Calendar, the Vigil of Pentecost was “spared.” But that would be only a half-truth, for, as we shall see, it was suppressed, cast aside and, then, forgotten within the space of one generation.

All that was left virtually intact was the Vigil Mass which, in an Orwellian feat, retained its historic title in the Calendar, so that future generations would not realize what exactly they had lost.

And so it came to pass, with the not-too-unpredictable result that traditionalists today are generally unaware that while their 1962 liturgy is still formally called the Vigil of Pentecost, it has not much left in it that is traditional.

Here we will be considering the fate of the Vigil of Pentecost in the 1956 reforms, but first a few pertinent facts are needed to provide a background picture of the kind of thinking that gave rise to this particular reform.

No sound reason for suppression

When the Commission appointed by Pius XII in 1948 drew up plans for the general reform of the liturgy, it decided to jettison most of the Church’s Vigils and Octaves without, as it turns out, any reasonable justification for such radical surgery.

The official reason given by the Congregation of Rites in its decree of March 23, 1955, was for the sake of “simplification.” But, the underlying motivation for the excision of Vigils was revealed in the Commission’s “Memo” to be the reformers’ lack of appreciation and even hatred of the traditional liturgy: Bugnini and his colleagues wanted rid of them on the following pretext:

“In sum, the institution of vigils gradually lost its authentic character and became a type of lifeless liturgical formality.” (2)

This biased and unwarranted assumption became the driving force of the Commission’s determination to suppress most of the Church’s ancient Vigils. The progressivist reformers considered that, just as dead wood has to be cut away to save the plant, “simplification,” i.e., excision, was deemed necessary to obviate the “harm” that the “lifeless” traditional rites can do to the common good.

Fr. Antonelli, who was one of the Commission’s most influential members, gave a more detailed explanation of the 1955 decree:

Pretending to prune away the "lifeless" wood

“Actually the true purpose of the much-desired simplification of the rubrics is not at all, as some may have thought, to reduce the public prayer of the Church to more limited dimensions. It is rather to free it from all thoseformalistic and complicated elements,usually of late origin, which have become a burden to the ‘sacrifice of praise’ and have gradually changed the original sobriety of its structure.

“In practice, these formalistic complications have become an annoyance and a hindrance to that living participation, which the whole liturgy of its nature demands. Thus, the purpose in eliminating them is not to pray less but to pray better. That is the spirit of the decree.” (3) [Emphasis added]

But, what sort of reform presumes that all “formalistic and complicated” structures are unauthentic and “lifeless”? Here is the clearest possible indication that the Commission condemned the traditional rites on the assumption that they were not only ineffective and unproductive, but also positively harmful, an obstacle to true participation (and hence to the reception of the graces necessary for salvation).

Could any greater calumny or unjust reproach be conceived against the traditional Roman liturgy, described by Cardinal Ottaviani as “the most complete monument of the Faith,” which for centuries has nourished the souls of countless Catholics and produced an abundance of Saints?

In their deprecation of the traditional rites, the progressivists failed to appreciate that the purpose of having rigid formulas and complex rubrics was, as Cardinal Ottaviani pointed out, to act as “theological ramparts erected for the protection of the rite” and as a “formidable barrier against heresy,” in order to ensure stability of doctrine down the centuries.

As subsequent developments have shown, the razing of these bastions of orthodoxy gave rise to many deviations in the lex orandi, chief among them the Novus Ordo, which led the people away from the true Faith.

The traditional Vigil

From the earliest centuries of the Church, Pentecost had a Baptismal Vigil similar in form to that of Easter. We can see evidence of the baptismal character of these rites in the liturgies of the early Sacramentaries, which record how the Vigil was celebrated as far back as the 7^th century and earlier. (4)

When Pope St Pius V codified the Roman Missal in 1570, the Vigil of Pentecost contained texts and ceremonies handed down from previous centuries, including the following:

A 12^th century Baptism font in San Frediono Basilica, Lucca, Italy

6 readings from the Old Testament (Prophecies) and 3 Tracts, all taken from Holy Saturday;
6 Collects on the theme of Baptism;
Recitation of the Prophecies by the priest while another minister chanted them;
Procession of the clergy to the font;
Blessing of the font;
Administration of Baptism;
Singing of the Litany of the Saints;
Use of folded chasubles before the celebration of the Vigil Mass.

The most noticeable feature of this ensemble of rituals was that they echoed parts of the Holy Saturday liturgy as it had been celebrated in the great cathedrals of Christendom long before Pius V codified the Roman Missal.

The traditional Pentecost Vigil, therefore, had a specific purpose and design: to commemorate the beginning of the Church’s saving mission in the world when the Apostles added about 3,000 souls to the Church at Pentecost through the means of Baptism. (Acts 2:41) To eliminate these rituals is to destroy the very identity of the Pentecost Vigil and its historic connection to Holy Saturday.

We can regard the two great Baptismal Vigils – of Easter and Pentecost – as two almost identical ornamental bookends on a shelf enclosing the 50 days of the Easter Season. Together, they formed an artistically balanced showcase to highlight the splendor of one of the most important seasons of the Church’s Liturgical Year.

Wanton vandalism

But Bugnini, like the proverbial bull in a china shop, damaged the first and smashed to smithereens the second of these beautifully crafted ornaments.

The progressivists razed the ramparts of orthodoxy that had protected the Church's rites for centuries

The venerable texts and rituals of the Vigil of Pentecost were doomed to extinction by the 1948 Liturgical Commission. Asked whether it would be appropriate to abolish these ceremonies, all three consultors – Jungmann, Capelle and Righetti – agreed unanimously that they should be excised. (5)

And so, the axe of the Commission’s arbitrary liturgical standards was once more swung against the Church’s ancient traditions. As early as 1952, all of these ceremonies of the Vigil of Pentecost were prohibited in any church where the experimental Easter Vigil was celebrated. Then, in 1956, they were universally suppressed, with the approval of Pius XII, for the entire Roman Rite.

In the next section, we will examine closely the “fallout” of this reform as it manifested itself in the 1962 Missal.

Continued

The minutes of all the meetings that the Commission held from its inception to 1960 when it was absorbed into the Central Preparatory Commission are reproduced as an appendix in N. Glampietro, Il Card. Ferdinando Antonelli e gli sviluppi della riforma liturgica dal 1948-1970, Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 1998, pp. 278-388.
See Carlo Braga, ed., La Riforma Liturgica di Pio XII: Docuмenti: I. La Memoria sulla Riforma Liturgica, 1948, Rome: Edizioni Liturgiche, 2003, n. 117.
F. Antonelli, from the Preface to A. Bugnini, The Simplification of the Rubrics, trans. L.J. Doyle, Collegeville, MN: Doyle and Finegan, 1955, p. 7.
See the 7^th century Gelasian Sacramentary, Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae, pp. 110 ff.
Memoria, Supplement II, 1950, n. 80, p. 79.

SeanJohnson · « **Reply #1 on:** May 29, 2022, 10:38:09 AM »

A Smashing Progressivist Victory

https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f154_Dialogue_71.htm

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain

We have seen how the Vigil of Pentecost was twinned with the Easter Vigil, thus forming part of the balance and harmony that is characteristic of the Roman Rite. As such, it had long stood proudly aloft in the Calendar as a monument to the Faith, but it was brought crashing down in 1956, its shattered remains quickly swept under the carpet lest any trace should be left for posterity.

Fr. Gromier: The Vigil of Pentecost was ‘massacred’

If a monument of sorts still remains in the 1962 Missal in the form of the Mass which survived unscathed, it is not so much as a reminder of Tradition as of the revolution that brought the Vigil down.

Mgr. Leon Gromier’s knowledge of the Roman Rite was legendary, (1) and his love and respect for the ancient traditions were unsurpassed. So, his assessment of the reform of the Pentecost Vigil (which he described as having been “massacred”) is eminently worthy of credibility:

“The [reformed] Vigil of Pentecost is stripped of its baptismal character, and has become a day like any other and makes the Missal undermine the truth in the Canon.” (2)

Let us look into each of these points in order.

The liturgy impoverished

To celebrate the Pentecost Vigil without preparing for it with full Baptism-related rites – except in churches without a font (3) – was just unthinkable to our forefathers in the Faith. Historically, these preliminary ceremonies constituted a joint service with the Mass, the latter being the culmination of the whole Vigil. The two were regarded as inseparable, which explains why the Church ordered that both functions should be discharged by the same celebrant. (4)

Even though Baptism itself was not administered on every occasion, the associated ceremonies – Prophecies, procession, blessing of font and water, and litany – were, in fact, considered to be theologically more appropriate to Pentecost than to Easter. That is because they evoke the relationship between Baptism– “the re-birth” – and the Coming of the Holy Ghost, “the giver of life” (Nicene Creed).

So, cutting dead the baptismal rites of Pentecost deprived the Vigil at a stroke of a vital element of the Faith that had been given liturgical expression from the early years of Christianity.

Pentecost Vigil slighted

Even though the Vigil kept its title as a liturgical day of the first class, it nevertheless suffered a demotion in its dignity when it lost its baptismal ceremonies, as these had entitled it to a rank in the Calendar equal to the Easter Vigil.

Medieval illustration of Christ giving a baptism

A manuscript illustrating the baptismal character of Pentecost

With the loss of its distinctive shape and rich theological content, the Pentecost Vigil suddenly became, as Mgr. Gromier remarked, “a day like any other.” What a comedown for a liturgical solemnity that had long enjoyed the highest honor of twinship with the Vigil of Easter, the “Queen of Feasts”!

Let us not forget that this only came about because of the Liturgical Commission’s prejudice against Vigils in general, understood in the traditional sense of a full liturgical day, penitential in nature, usually observed by fasting in preparation for a great Feast. As such, they no longer exist in the Novus Ordo. (5)

What happened to the 1962 Vigil of Pentecost was but the first step in this process of eliminating traditional Vigils from the Calendar. It was replaced in 1969 by an optional evening Mass with newly composed texts.

The importance of Vigils in Church History

As a very ancient institution, the penitential Vigils were considered sacrosanct by the early Church Fathers, e.g., St. Jerome and St. Augustine, and were protected from arbitrary suppression by the juridical codes of canon law operative in the first millennium.

It was to the authority of these canons that St. Peter Damian appealed in the 11th century against those who objected to the penitential nature of Vigils. He called these carnally-minded contemporaries the “enemies of holy Vigils, these destroyers of time-honored fasts.” (6)

Significantly, it was only in the 20th century that the carnally-minded were allowed to prevail and to obliterate virtually all of the Church’s holy Vigils and “time-honored fasts”.

Another Bugnini botch

When Pius XII’s Commission of “experts” interfered in the liturgy of the Pentecost Vigil, the result was a typical bureaucratic bungle.

Mgr. Gromier’s remark about the Canon of the Mass reveals the level of the Commission’s incompetence. He was referring to the prayer Hanc igitur, which has its own Proper in the Pentecost Vigil and is used, moreover, throughout the Octave. Existing evidence from the 8th century Gregorian Sacramentary shows that the words of this Hanc igitur were directly linked to the Vigil’s baptismal rites. (7)

francis holding his hands up at a pentecost vigil

Francis and a charismatic leader pray at a novus ordo ‘Pentecost vigil’ at the Circus Maximus in Rome

But the focus and meaning of the prayer was lost when its referent (the baptismal rites preceding the Vigil Mass) was expunged from the Roman Missal. The result, horribile dictu, was that the words of the celebrant no longer corresponded with the Church’s own lex orandi as it had been practised since the 5th century.

The result was a jarring disconnect with Tradition that compromised the Church’s public witness to the Faith in her liturgy – that there is but one Baptism for the remission of sins, and that those wishing to be saved must be re-born “from water and the Holy Ghost.”

The reformers scoffed that the Hanc igitur had already become a meaningless vestige because, since the early Middle Ages, the number of catechumens baptized at the Pentecost Vigil declined. They did not seem to realize that its true meaning was not strictly limited to either time or place.

For, in this part of the Canon, the priest mentions all who have been baptized in the ceremonies of that day throughout the universal Church, irrespective of whether the Sacrament itself had been administered before that particular Mass. It was also an act of solidarity with the catechumens of the early Church, who were baptized on the Vigil of Pentecost by means of the same rites. Thus, these rites affirmed the Catholicity of the Church throughout the world and down the ages.

These points, however, were not addressed by the Commission, whose members were already sharpening their knives for the next round of cuts to the traditional liturgy. But what are the chances of anyone in authority today addressing these issues with a view to rectifying the injustices suffered by Catholics deprived of their rightful heritage?

Continued

As the author of the Commentary on the Ceremonial of Bishops (1959), Mgr. Leon Gromier was recognized – and feared – in the Vatican and beyond as the 20th century’s pre-eminent expert on the Roman Rite.
“La Vigile de la Pentecôte n’a plus rien de baptismal, devenue un jour comme un autre, et faisant mentir le Missel dans le Canon.”
This was the case, for example, for the Dominicans with the rare exception of those who ran parishes. Nevertheless, minus the blessing of water, the Dominican Rite retained, with minor variations, all the other features of the Pentecost Vigil observed by the traditional Roman Rite.
This is explained by Fr. Nicholas Gihr, a traditional historian of the Mass, in The Holy Sacrifice Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained, Freiburg: Herder, 1902, p. 382.
With the exception of Christmas and Easter, Vigils were either deleted from the 1969 Calendar or reduced to an optional evening Mass.
We must also distinguish between the “Mass of the Vigil” in the traditional Calendar and the so-called “Vigil Mass” of the Novus Ordo, which is an “anticipated” Mass of the following day. Canon 1248 §1 permits Catholics to miss the Mass of Sundays and Feasts by attending it on the previous evening. So much confusion has been generated over this issue – especially as new Vigil Masses have been written and various “options” have been introduced – that the whole concept of a Vigil of preparation eludes most Catholics today.
Peter Damian, Letter 118, apud The Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation, vol. 5, The Letters of Peter Damian 91-120, CUA Press, 1989, p. 342.
The Gregorian Sacramentary under Charles the Great, p. 77. Here, the Hanc igitur is specifically included among the Propers of the Vigil Mass celebrated “post ascensum fontis” (after the administration of Baptism).

SeanJohnson · « **Reply #2 on:** May 29, 2022, 10:40:11 AM »

Abolishing 15 out of 18 Octaves of Feasts

https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f155_Dialogue_72.htm

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain

If Vigils were treated badly under Pius XII, Octaves fared even worse. In fact, they were specifically mentioned as one of the first items targeted by the 1948 Commission for excision from the liturgy in the interests of “simplification.” (1)

Medieval depiction of music from an octave feast

From the Vigil Mass, Day 3, in the Octave of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul

Of the 18 Octaves in use in the Tridentine Missal, (2) only 3 – those of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost – survived the 1956 reform. The Feasts deprived of their Octaves were:

Epiphany;
Nativity of St John the Baptist;
SS. Peter & Paul;
St. Lawrence
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary;
Nativity of Our Lady;
All Saints;
Immaculate Conception;
St. Stephen;
St. John the Evangelist;
Holy Innocents;
Solemnity of St Joseph;
Ascension;
Corpus Christi;
Sacred Heart.

It is obvious from this list that Octaves were a key mainstay of the Liturgical Year throughout its different Seasons. While Vigils had the function of preparing the faithful for the Church’s great festivals and helping them to participate more effectively in them, Octaves functioned by allowing room or breathing space for the “special graces” of each Season to be assimilated and applied to their everyday lives. Without these practical aids to the spiritual life, the Church’s Feasts are more likely to be treated as transient occurrences with little expectation of long-term effects.

What reason, then, did Pius XII’s Commission give for the demolition of so many pillars of the lex orandi whose removal would make the whole structure of the Liturgical Year unsafe and unstable?

The official reason was the old chestnut of “simplification,” to prevent Octaves from overlapping other Feasts. But the Church already had tried and tested methods for dealing with this eventuality, which did not involve abolishing Octaves. (3)

The real reason, expressed by the Commission members in their “Memo,” was to have the Liturgy “freed from certain accretions, which obscure its beauty and diminish in a certain sense its efficacy.” (4) That was one way of saying that the growth of Octaves was a useless and unwanted addition and an ugly excrescence on the face of the Roman Rite.

Destruction of the Octave of the Epiphany

What was so unacceptable about the Octave of the Epiphany (which was even older than that of Christmas) that it had to be expunged from the Church’s Calendar in 1956? The answer was not readily apparent to contemporary Catholics, who were understandably mystified by its loss.

However, if we look ahead to the 1969 reforms, we can see with hindsight what was missing from the Epiphany Mass of the Novus Ordo but had been included in the traditional Feast and Octave. One major omission was the constantly reiterated references to the homage due to the King of Kings by “all the kings of the earth” (5) in the traditional Epiphany Mass and its Octave prayers.

This theme of the extension of Christ’s Kingship to the whole world could hardly be allowed to survive in the age of Religious Liberty ushered in by Vatican II. The Octave had to disappear so that its message would not to clash with Bugnini’s “recycled” Epiphany Mass, which would be specially written in 1969 to reflect the new progressivist outlook.

Effects of the reform

The abolition of the Octave of the Epiphany (which, incidentally, before the 1956 reforms, had outranked that of Christmas), (6) was not without repercussions. It gave rise to two innovations in the 1962 Missal, albeit tentative ones, but which would reach their full flowering in the Novus Ordo.

Medieval depiction of the three magi adoring the Christ child

The manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles was undermined by eliminating the Epiphany Octave

First, the final day of the Octave, 13^th January, was renamed by Pius XII the “Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord.” This was a pure innovation – there had never been a precedent for such a Feast Day in the Roman Rite. (7) Nor was there a longstanding popular devotion to this aspect of Christ’s Divinity (as there had been, for example, to the Sacred Heart) (8) to justify this addition.

In the Tridentine Missal, the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan was only narrated in the Gospel of the day as a second Manifestation of His Divinity, so as not to detract from the pre-eminence of the first Epiphany, which was being celebrated in the Octave.

The significance of this innovation was lost on most Catholics before Vatican II because they could not have realized where it was leading. For, at that time, only the members of the Liturgical Commission and their close associates knew the answer, and they were keeping it a secret.

But, the crunch was yet to come. It transpired that Pius XII’s initiative was a kite-flying exercise to prepare the faithful for the next stage of the reform. Having made the faithful swallow the new title, the reformers invented and served up a new Feast to correspond – the Baptism of the Lord – which entered the Roman Calendar in 1969.

The long-term effect of this reform was to undermine the immemorial custom in the West of thinking of the Epiphany specifically as the Feast of Christ’s Manifestation to the Gentiles in the persons of the Magi. (9) Nevertheless, it was incorporated into the 1962 Missal by Pope John XXIII.

a hollywood feel-good depiction of the baptism of Christ

Hollywood-inspired images for the new Baptism of Christ feast in the 1st Sunday after January 6

Only with hindsight can we see the connection between Pius XII’s reform and that of Paul VI who extended the Christmas Season to the first Sunday after the Epiphany (the newly minted Baptism of the Lord). By conflating the two Manifestations of Christ (His Birth and Baptism), the reformers obscured the defining characteristic of the Epiphany – Christ manifesting himself to all people as their Divine King, to Whom all rulers owe subservience – a doctrine utterly abhorrent to the progressivist mindset.

Even a small child can grasp that notion when looking at the crib figures with the Three Kings bowing down to the Christ Child. Now, as a result of the Novus Ordo, most adults know less about the Faith than the children of previous generations.

Second, in 1956, the period of the Liturgical Year after 13^thJanuary (Pius XII’s “Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord”) was renamed “the time per annum before Septuagesima.” Few people at the time would have spotted this time-bomb planted in the 1962 Missal, set to detonate in 1969, or even suspected that this innocuous-sounding change in nomenclature spelt doom for the traditional arrangement of seasons and feasts in the General Roman Calendar. (10)

For, the term “time per annum” was later adopted in the Novus Ordo to designate the revolutionary concept of “Ordinary Time,” invented solely to obliterate the “Sundays after the Epiphany,” the “Sundays after Pentecost” and the whole Septuagesima Season. And, sure enough, all were blown sky-high when the bomb went off.

Continued

1948 Memoria, chap. 1, n. 5.
This number does not include the Octaves for local Feasts such as the dedication of a church or cathedral, for the titular of a church, or for the Patron Saint of a religious order, diocese or nation, all of which were abolished by Pius XII.
The rubrics of the Missal dealt successfully with the problem of “occurrence” (i.e., when two Feasts coincided) in a variety of ways, including commemorating the lower-ranking Feast in the Mass of the day, translating it to the next free day, inserting it into a Local Calendar or celebrating it at a different altar from that of the main Mass.
1948 Memoria, n. 7.
This reference, taken from Psalm 71:10-11, has also been entirely removed from the Novus Ordo Epiphany Mass.
In the General Roman Calendar of 1954, the two Octaves were classified respectively as of second and third rank.
Any objections to the reform were brushed aside on the irrelevant grounds that the Baptism of Christ was celebrated by Eastern Rite Christians on the Epiphany.
Although the Octave of the Sacred Heart had only been added in 1929, this was not an innovation, but an enhancement of the Feast promoted by successive Popes since its institution in 1765. In fact, the cult of the Sacred Heart long pre-dates that year. As Dom Guéranger observed, there was a custom dating from the early Doctors of the Church and many Saints of regarding the Wound of Jesus’s Side pierced by the lance as “the source of all graces.”
Moreover, to atone for the sins of nations, which had violated the rights of Christ in the public sphere, Pius XI ordered that, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, an Act of Reparation should be made in all the churches of the world.
The other two Manifestations of Christ – the Baptism of Christ and the Marriage at Cana – were mentioned in the Gospels of the 13th January and the Second Sunday after the Epiphany respectively. They reflected the themes of illumination (Baptism) and power (to work miracles) contained in the Epiphany Feast.
The 1962 Saint Andrew Daily Missal, for example, provides an explanatory note in order to familiarize its readers with the concept of “time per annum.” With reference to the Sundays after the Epiphany and Pentecost, it states that “instead of being arranged to portray the progressivist development of the mysteries of Christ, the prayer and teaching of the Church are given for their own sake, independently of any feast or particular occasion.”

SeanJohnson · « **Reply #3 on:** May 29, 2022, 10:42:13 AM »

Destroying the Octave of Pentecost

https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f156_Dialogue_73.htm

Dr. Carol Byrne, Great Britain

Although the extremely ancient Octave of Pentecost, dating back to the 4th century, survived the 1956 reforms, the decision to abolish it had already been made by Pius XII’s Commission in February 1950. (1) In fact, from 1948, when the Liturgical Commission put forward a proposal to “courageously abolish the Octave,” (2) its days were numbered, in more ways than one.

Paul VI in 1969, the year he erased the Pentecost Octave from the liturgy

It was, therefore, always a “racing certainty” that this would be accomplished, if not under Pius XII, then at the first available opportunity. The Octave was given a stay of execution until 1969, when Paul VI erased it completely in order to accommodate the Novus Ordo “Ordinary Time,” which starts immediately after Pentecost Sunday.

There was, thus, no time for fond farewells or lingering leave-taking of this mighty Feast that was pivotal for the whole Liturgical Year, no time to savour its message or meditate on the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in Whose honor the Octave was instituted.

Having been deprived both of its Vigil and Octave, the Feast of Pentecost was suddenly reduced to an ordinary Sunday. It was turned into a stand-alone Feast and made to look like a one-day wonder, after which the liturgy was unceremoniously hustled from Red to Green and disconnected from the theme of Pentecost.

Wheeling, dealing & stealing

The ethicality of this reform is brought into question when we consider how it was pushed through by Bugnini alone amidst a welter of confusion and without either the informed consent or clear agreement of anyone else. Regarding the suppression of the Octave of Pentecost, Bugnini later admitted that there was much disagreement and shilly-shallying among the Consilium members and that the matter was never fully resolved:

“Here again there was disagreement. The suppression was accepted with the expectation that the formularies of the Octave would be used during the nine days of preparation for Pentecost. On this point again there were changes of mind, but the decision of the Fathers finally prevailed… [However], it subsequently caused confusion and second thoughts.” (3)

No doubt the “second thoughts” came when they realized – too late – that Bugnini’s prevarications had made it difficult for them to figure out precisely how they had been deceived into accepting an unequal trade-off between one of the highest-ranking Octaves and a concocted Novena of preparation for Pentecost. (4)

The traditional Octave of Pentecost

Pentecost

As with the Vigil of Pentecost, the Octave had also been closely connected with that of Easter. Both shared the distinction – unique in the Tridentine Calendar – of being classified as Octaves of the first rank.

As Dom Guéranger observed: “The mystery of Pentecost holds so important a place in the Christian dispensation, that we cannot be surprised at the Church's ranking it, in her liturgy, on an equality with her Paschal solemnity.”

Great would have been his surprise had he lived to see the abolition of the Octave, not to mention the Vigil, of Pentecost whose liturgy had entitled it to parity of esteem with the Easter celebrations.

Let us consider the astounding artistry and aesthetic beauty of this part of our spiritual patrimony, which Bugnini had been planning to destroy from 1948.

Distinctive features of the Pentecost Octave

Each Mass of the Octave had its own special character, celebrating one of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost in ascending order, to illustrate the successive steps of the soul towards increased likeness to Christ. (5) Why abolish the extension of Pentecost, a Feast in which, as Pope St Leo the Great taught, the Holy Ghost dispenses His Gifts “ditior largitate” (in more generous measure)? (6)

Closing the window of the "Golden Sequence"

At each Mass the Veni Sancte Spiritus with its Alleluia was sung or recited to reinforce the “outpouring of the Holy Ghost” at Pentecost. Formerly known as the “Golden Sequence,” it was widely appreciated as a masterpiece of liturgical poetry, yet its flowing rhythms, its clarity and simplicity made it appeal to the masses.

Another notable feature of the Octave was its three Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) with fasting and partial abstinence – an obvious no-no for Bugnini who had just abolished Septuagesima and tried, unsuccessfully, to do the same to Ash Wednesday. (7)

What distinguished these Ember Days from all the others in the Liturgical Year was their position within a season of jubilation, which made them a bitter-sweet time, partaking of both fasting and feasting.

A purely subjective reform

Even the progressivist theologian Fr. Louis Bouyer, a key player in the Liturgical Movement, expressed his shock and horror at this reform, which he considered both senseless and arbitrary. He delivered this broadside against his fellow progressivists:

“I prefer to say nothing, or virtually nothing, of the new Calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed, with no good reason, Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints who knows where, all based on notions of their own!” (8)

What exactly were these “notions of their own”? A brief examination of the rationale for the abolition of the Pentecost Octave will show that it was carried out in flagrant repudiation of the principles of liturgical development. For, as we shall see, Bugnini failed to apply any standards of rational evaluation of the existing tradition.

1. The rationale for the abolition of the Octave rests on Bugnini’s iron-clad theory that the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost should be a hermetically sealed unit, and that to extend the period by another few days is tantamount to destroying the unity of the Easter Season:

“The Easter season lasts 50 days, beginning with the Easter Vigil and ending with Pentecost Sunday. This is attested by the ancient and universal tradition of the Church, which has always celebrated the seven weeks of Easter as though they were a single day that ends with the feast of Pentecost. For this reason, the octave of Pentecost, which was added to the 50 days of Easter in the 6th century, has been abolished.” (9)

But, the premise is logically irrelevant to the conclusion, having no bearing whatsoever on whether the Octave should be abolished. Besides, there is simply not enough solid evidence about the liturgical practices of the first centuries to state with certainty that there were never any days of extended festivities after Pentecost. (10) And even if there were not, it would not entitle the reformers to wipe out over 1600 years of ancient and universal tradition and throw the Octave of Pentecost into the flames.

Incredibly, this 50-day-and-no-more argument (11) was enshrined in the 1969 Calendar by the Congregation of Rites and signed by its Secretary, the future Cardinal Antonelli.

The old liturgical calendar
was completely unraveled by the reform

But, the reason given in that docuмent for the abolition was spurious, being based on words purportedly written by St. Athanasius that the 50 days were celebrated “as one feast day, indeed as one ‘great Sunday.’” (12) But it can be easily verified that St. Athanasius did not write the words attributed to him in the quote. (13) Absurdly, the Bishop of Alexandria is now regarded as the champion of an Octave-less Pentecost, even though he never opposed the concept of an extended Feast.

Not only was the Pentecost Octave not a diminution of Easter, but it was eminently fitting as a vehicle of greater honor to the Holy Spirit, which was the entire purpose of the Pentecost celebrations. How could the same Spirit be pleased with the abolition of a liturgy that owed its inspiration to Himself ad majorem Gloria Dei?

2. The reformers complained that the Octave was defective because its last day was missing, overlapping with Trinity Sunday. (14)

But, this is demonstrably untrue. For, according to the Roman Missal, the Octave of Pentecost, like that of Easter, starts on the Vigil and ends the following Saturday. (15)

3. They claimed that the Octave contained a self-contradictory feature: fasting and feasting in a week of joyous celebration.

But, the purpose of fasting during the Pentecost Ember Days was not penitential. That is why the liturgical vestments were red rather than purple, while the folded chasubles – the quintessential garment of priestly penitence – were not used. Here, fasting was meant as a spiritual limbering up exercise to imitate the Apostles who, as Pope Leo the Great explained, having been sent by the Spirit, prepared themselves with “holy fasts” for their missionary service in the world. (16)

The whole basis of this reform was fundamentally flawed.

Continued

Memoria, Supplement II, 1950, p. 23, n. 76. Of the 3 “experts” consulted by the Commission, Dom Capelle stated that the Octave should be retained, but he was outnumbered by Frs. Jungmann and Righetti who voted to abolish it.
The same source reveals that this was exactly the same 2:1 outcome for the proposal to abolish the Octave of the Ascension and replace it with a pre-Pentecost Novena. Interestingly, Capelle stated that “no sufficient reason” was given for this change, and that it was “unheard of in any liturgical rites.” (“Sufficiens ratio non datur cur traditionalis octava mutetur in Novenam, quod inauditum est in usibus liturgicis”).
“Rinunciare corragiosamente all’octava”, Memoria, 1948, §79, p. 79.
A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, p. 307, n. 9; p. 319, n. 38.
Bugnini had already planned this strategy in 1950. See Note 1.
Sunday: Fear of the Lord; Monday: Godliness (Piety); Tuesday: Knowledge; Wednesday: Fortitude; Thursday: Counsel; Friday: Understanding; Saturday: Wisdom. Dom Guéranger explains the logic of the order: the first five gifts are the graces needed for the active life of the faithful in the world; the rest relate to the contemplative life and our mystical union with Christ.
Leo I, Sermo LXXVII, Chapter 1, ‘De Pentecoste III.’
Mgr. Pierre Jounel, whom Bugnini appointed to the Consilium, stated that they wanted to scrap Ash Wednesday and have Lent begin on its first Sunday. See ‘L'Organisation de l'année liturgique,’ La Maison-Dieu, 100 (1969), pp. 147-148.
L. Bouyer, Mémoires, Paris, Editions du Cerf, 2014, pp.199-200. Fr. Bouyer did not mention any names, but the Editor of the Mémoires(Note 29, pp. 303-304) conjectured that at least one of them was Mgr. Pierre Jounel who was in charge of the Temporal Cycle of the Calendar.
A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, p. 319.
At least in the Eastern liturgical heritage there was always a post-Pentecost week dating back to the early Fathers. This was called an “Afterfeast” instead of an Octave. And a docuмent relating to the 3rd and 4th centuries speaks of a post-Pentecost week of festivities: “Therefore, after you have kept the festival of Pentecost, keep one week more festival.” (Apostolic Constitutions, Book V, Chapter XX)
This, incidentally, was the same type of specious argument Bugnini used to justify the abolition of the Septuagesima Season, which allegedly overstepped the 40 days of Lent: “there should be a simplification. It was not possible to restore Lent to its full importance without sacrificing Septuagesima, which is an extension of Lent”. Ibid., p. 307, n. 6)
General Norms of the Liturgical Calendar, 1969, (§ 22, n. 12, Athanasius, Epistula festalis 1).
See here.
Memoria, 1948, §79, p. 79.
This is confirmed by Dom Guéranger in The Liturgical Year: “the Pentecost solemnity began on the Vigil, for the neophytes at once put on their white garments: on the eighth day, the Saturday, they laid them aside.”
Pope Leo I, Sermon 78, On the Whitsuntide Fast, I.

SeanJohnson · « **Reply #4 on:** June 04, 2022, 11:31:54 AM »

Timely bump (i.e., it's today).

Kazimierz · « **Reply #5 on:** June 04, 2022, 06:06:16 PM »

May the day come as well when we see this and other repressed liturgical glories of old brought back.

Pre1955 or bust!

LeDeg · « **Reply #6 on:** June 05, 2022, 07:06:16 PM »

So tragic that +Lefebrve blew it with the insistence of the 62 missal and causing further division amongst Catholics who wanted to cling to what Catholics today are starting to see, that is, the 62 (and 55 missal) were the bridge to the NO.

Author Topic: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil (Read 1836 times)

SeanJohnson

1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil

SeanJohnson

Re: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil

SeanJohnson

Re: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil

SeanJohnson

Re: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil

SeanJohnson

Re: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil

Kazimierz

Re: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil

LeDeg

Re: 1956 Suppression of Pentecost Vigil