I am into liturgical symbolism but this is just too silly for me. What say you? I think you really have to be a liturgical nerd to be into this, no?
Copied from The New Liturgical Movement:
Copied from The New Liturgical Movement:
I am sure that most of our readers have read or heard something of the various customs related to the removal of the word “Alleluia” from the liturgy on Septuagesima Sunday. In the Roman liturgical books, this is done in a typically simply fashion; at the end of Vespers of the previous Saturday, “Alleluia” is added twice to the end of “Benedicamus Domino” and “Deo gratias”, which are sung in the Paschal tone. It is then dropped from the liturgy completely until the Easter vigil. In some medieval uses, however, “Alleluia” was added to the end of every antiphon of this Vespers, and a number of other customs, some formally included in the liturgy and others not, grew up around it as well.
One of the most popular was to write the word on a board or piece of parchment, and then after Vespers bury it in the churchyard, so that it could be dug up again on Easter Sunday, and brought back into the church. Our friends from the Fraternity of St Joseph the Guardian in La-Londe-les-Maures, France, observe this every year, with the black cope otherwise used only at funerals. (If any others readers have photos of this ceremony which they would like to send in, we will be very glad to share them with our readers: photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org.)
One of the most popular was to write the word on a board or piece of parchment, and then after Vespers bury it in the churchyard, so that it could be dug up again on Easter Sunday, and brought back into the church. Our friends from the Fraternity of St Joseph the Guardian in La-Londe-les-Maures, France, observe this every year, with the black cope otherwise used only at funerals. (If any others readers have photos of this ceremony which they would like to send in, we will be very glad to share them with our readers: photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org.)
36 comments:
Saw this many times, but Clown Masses are okey-dokey
Shrouding the Cross and statues is pretty somber and sobering. It is all in how it is done.
I was in a parish where a squdron of liturgical dancers hauled down a banner emblazoned with ALLELUIA!, put it in a box, and slammed the lid. There was a lot of unintentional symbolism in that.
Fr McDonald
You and I are men of the late 20th century and the Tridentine Church. Liturgy may well be a 'given' but needed to be understood in rational-historical terms and set out in printed books, which of course were available to a literate laity. The Protestants had already showed the power of the printing-press.
Yet the illiterate layman in the later Middle Ages was far more in touch with the liturgy than are his modern counterparts. Its calendar regulated his agricultural life. Its holy days were his holidays. It was surrounded by local customs which were not merely symbolic but explained the liturgy in a way that modern 'homilies' signally fail to do.
The richness and significance of such customs as burying the Alleluia may seem quaint to our modern and sophisticated tastes, but the sobering fact is that modern Catholics are in a real sense more ignorant than their medieval ancestors.
This is common around the world at traditional parishes and greatly adds to Septuagesima and the Lenten Season. Children get the symbolism.
rcg,
Indeed. I would have opted to put the liturgical dancers in the box and slammed the lid.
"Yet the illiterate layman in the later Middle Ages was far more in touch with the liturgy than are his modern counterparts."
Quite an assumption.
"Its calendar regulated his agricultural life."
The calendar of the Church would be of little assistance in the southern hemisphere, then or now.
Its holy days were his holidays."
Serfs worked every day. Lords and Ladies and a few tradesmen might get a "holiday," but for those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, 80-90% of the people, "holiday" meant to them what "weekend" meant to the Dowager Countess of Grantham.
Kavanuagh, the King of Anonymous
"Yet the illiterate layman in the later Middle Ages was far more in touch with the liturgy than are his modern counterparts."
If they are in YOUR parish then this is a reasonable assumption. Your ignorance of the Middle Ages is appalling. It sounds like a modern "liberals" coloring book view of history and the world.
Anonymous
I have rarely come across a more ignorant comment than your last. Christians in the Middle Ages did not live in the southern hemisphere. I suggest you read Eamon Duffy's 'the Stripping of the Altars' to gain some understanding of medieval Catholicism in England. And, mutatis mutandis, it would have applied to western Christendom generally.
If you are indeed a priest called Kavanaugh resident in Georgia, founded in the 18th century as an asylum for debtors, I suggest you hang your head in shame at your profound ignorance.
Actually from what I have read serfs actually had MORE days off than many of today's workers - including me.
No lights, so didnt work in the dark. Rain - well no working the fields. And they did have "off" for Sundays and Holy days. Vital jobs, perhaps not, but as a whole, yes.
I like it! This is something that my autistic son would understand!
TJM, aye! But you tell thot to pipplle noo a days an they won’t beleive it!!
"The calendar of the Church would be of little assistance in the southern hemisphere, then or now."
See that "then or now??"
Then, because in the Middle Ages there were few Christian serfs in the Southern hemisphere. Now, because the seasons in the Southern hemisphere are reversed.
"Why are the seasons reversed in the southern hemisphere? Because the Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted. When the Earth is on one side of the Sun, the Sun shines more on the northern hemisphere, and when it’s on the other side 6 months later, the Sun favors the southern hemisphere. Where the Sun shines more, you get summer."
It's not something that interests me, so I have never really promoted it. Is that bad? If folks in the parish wanted to do it, I wouldn't object.
There are so, so many lovely devotions and blessings and rituals that a parish priest can provide, it seems impossible to keep up. I'm not against promoting more of them, but I feel no obligation to foster all of them. Is that bad?
Villeinage had largely died out by the end of the 14th century, not least because the Black Death created a labour shortage. In the 15th century labourers' wages increased in real terms; the inflation that marked the Tudor era was still in the future.
In addition to Sundays, there were a large number of local feast days (called church-ales) which were 'days off'. Henry VIII, the founder of the English Reformation abolished most of these, since he wanted his subjects to work harder.
The great feasts of the liturgical year marked the calendar and there are still echoes nowadays; universities call their first term 'Michaelmas' after the feast which falls on 29 September.
Anonymous's attempts to wriggle off the hook of his own ignorance are quite funny. But as usual he is hoist with his own petard.
petard: an early form of hand grenade.
hoist: blown up.
But of course you knew that, didn't you? You have, after all, twigged the fact that medieval Catholic peasants lived in the northern hemisphere and that south of the equator the seasons are reversed.
Still, you're good for a laugh.
John Nolan,
I am no psychologist, but I suspect Anonymous K gets his jollies by posting here. His time would be better spent working on conversions and vocations.
Sorry, John, I'm not wiggling.
"The and now" makes my assertion pretty clear, unless, as you do, you want to pretend it does not.
The liturgy - then - would be of little assistance since there were few, if any, serfs in that part of the world at that time. I am not ignorant of this fact.
And since the planting seasons of the southern hemisphere do not correspond to the cycle of the liturgy, the regulation, now, of agricultural life thereby would be disastrous.
The Catholic Church is not a European possession.
LOL - in the dictionary next to the definition of Clericalism is a picture of Anonymous Kavanaugh
Anonymous, the variations in the seasons due to the tilt of the earth’s axis was well known in the ancient world. Seasons, even within the northern hemisphere, vary significantly due to latitude. Celestial events were used to standardize and coordinate planned events regardless of where on the globe you were. Convenient symbolism, e.g. winter darkness was used for metaphore but it is more important that the faitful celebrate in unity than that we plant our crops at the unison. An Aussie might be equally grateful for relief from the heat of Satan.
"Anonymous, the variations in the seasons due to the tilt of the earth’s axis was well known in the ancient world."
Indeed.
However, planting corn after Good Friday (after the danger of frost, so they say) in the northern hemisphere is one thing. Planting corn after Good Friday in the southern hemisphere might not be a good idea.
Sweet corn in the southern hemisphere is planted, usually, in October.
Following the liturgical cycle for planting south of the equator is a recipe for famine.
Anon, is there some push to follow Liturgical cycles for planting in the Southern hemisphere? That sounds more like Lysenko than Liturgy.
Rcg, indeed it does.
OK, I’m still not getting the point. The Liturgy cycle could que the local agriculture sequence regardless of what is being done. The cues are identical everywhere on the planet so the Liturgy served as a unifier for fishermen, shepherds, farmers, vineyards and orchards.
rcg
There is no point to get. Anonymous doesn't like the idea that illiterate 15th century peasants were more connected to the liturgy than most modern Catholics are. After all, it was in Latin (horror of horrors). And the Mass was enormously popular among all classes, as recent historians have been at pains to point out.
'"The[n] and now" makes my assertion pretty clear ...'
It is not the clarity of the assertion that is questionable; it is its total irrelevance to the subject under discussion.
'Serfs worked every day'
The Church forbade 'servile' works on Sundays and Holy Days.
'"Holiday" meant to them what "weekend" meant to the dowager Countess of Grantham.'
What on earth is this supposed to mean? The writer has become something of a legend on this blog for his inapt analogies, but this is in a league of its own.
'The Catholic Church is not a European possession.'
Who says it is? However, a liturgical calendar developed in the northern hemisphere actually sits rather awkwardly in the southern.
Well, good. I reread your posts a couple of times and didn’t see any proposals for Liturgical based agriculture practices. Yes, the symbolism of day length is blunted antipodally. But the cues are certainly universal and tied together by Latin. Among other skills of arguable value, I am trained in celestial navigation. The references and language, even for the Arabic named stars, is in Latin.
rcg
The point I was trying to make was that in the Middle Ages there was no secular calendar, and so the exigencies of the agricultural year were referenced by the liturgical year, with its feastdays as markers. It's so obvious as to hardly merit comment.
To imply that the liturgical calendar dictated agricultural practices is therefore absurd, and Anonymous Kavanaugh has plumbed the depths of absurdity with his irrelevant comments.
I would like to think that a forum like this might be a medium for intellectual discussion. I don't post anything that I cannot back up, although those who disagree with my conclusions are free to do so.
Sadly, it seems to be dominated by Mark Thomas's interminable cut-and-paste exercises in non-equivalence and the sarcastic comments of a priest who prefers to post anonymously and whose ignorance of history is breathtaking.
I have got to the stage where I wonder whether it's worth contributing any further.
Well *I* appreciate you contribution, John. I sometimes will post something a little stupid (OK, a lot stupid) to serve as a focus of the discussion. As far as the body of the contributors: These fora are pretty much open to all sorts of people. It might be nice if the owner would moderate MT and some that seem to heckle. On the other hand, maybe he is allowing us to see what he sees everyday.
So please hang around and dust it up with the other folks here. You have gotten me into the books more than once and I appreciate it.
"Yet the illiterate layman in the later Middle Ages was far more in touch with the liturgy than are his modern counterparts. Its calendar regulated his agricultural life."
Now...
"To imply that the liturgical calendar dictated agricultural practices is therefore absurd..."
Which is it, one wonders."...the liturgical calendar regulated his agricultural life..." or "To imply that the liturgical calendar dictated agricultural practices is therefore absurd..."
Anon, those are completely compatible statements. Regulating is not dictating.
rcg
Don't bother arguing with him. He will nitpick until the cows come home rather than admit that his contumacious arguments have no substance. He lacks the knowledge (and probably the intelligence) to address substantive issues.
Pointing out the facts isn't "nitpicking," John.
I never said "dictating," you did, but now rcg wants to blame me for using the word.
Your contradictory statements, noted above, stand on their own.
Making ad hominem attacks against your opponent - "He lacks the knowledge (and probably the intelligence)"... is the easy way to weasel out of the discussion.
Anonymous
What 'facts' have you pointed out? You're not an opponent, since you can't engage with any discussion. I am not in the habit of making contradictory statements. You want 'ad hominem'? Then try this for size. In my opinion, and in that of every other contributor to this blog, you are a contumacious troll, whose complacency with regard to his own ignorance is something rarely encountered.
People like you are deserving of the utmost contempt. Now just bugger off and pick fleas (or nits) from primates of your own intellectual level. Leave the human race alone.
The fact that you stated that
1) "Its (the liturgy's)calendar regulated his agricultural life."
And
2) "To imply that the liturgical calendar dictated agricultural practices is therefore absurd..."
These contradict each other.
This is not the first time you have resorted to puerile name-calling. Your "contempt" is as worthless as the pixels it takes to make the word appear in a computer screen.
Anon, have you seen the new Heros of Warcraft? It’s awesome.
My contempt, and those of most other contributors here, is well-founded. For the last time, I shall spell it out for you: not that it will dent the carapace of your ignorance (it's a waste of time trying) but at least it will set the record straight.
The medieval Church did not say 'The first of August is the feast of St Peter in Chains, so we are insisting that you peasants get your first harvest in by then, since the liturgical calendar dictates it.' That's your take on it, and it's absurd.
What happened was that the first harvest coincided (more or less) with that feast in the calendar and was therefore known as Lammas or loaf-Mass. Since everyday lives were bound up with the liturgical calendar in a way that they are not now (since there was no separate secular calendar) the events of the agricultural year were placed by reference to the liturgical calendar. That's what 'regulated' means in this context.
Of course, anyone with half a brain could have worked that one out. I can only infer that you have less than half a brain (the only charitable interpretation) or that you are a petty-minded and particularly nasty troll who cannot engage with the argument and so tries everyone's patience by indulging in pointless semantic nitpicking.
And for the record, I have concluded that you are a thoroughly nasty piece of work. So you can make as many stupid comments as you please; I'm done with you. Don't bother to reply.
"The medieval Church did not say 'The first of August is the feast of St Peter in Chains, so we are insisting that you peasants get your first harvest in by then, since the liturgical calendar dictates it.' That's your take on it, and it's absurd.
This phraseology is ENTIRELY new, and an "appeal to extremes."
But that's not the point, anyway. You're also engaging in distraction.
You made two contradictory statements. 1) "Its (the liturgy's)calendar regulated his agricultural life." and 2) "To imply that the liturgical calendar dictated agricultural practices is therefore absurd..."
Now you're taking #2 and turning it into something that is, in itself, absurd. Had you made such a statement to begin with, there would be no argument.
But, you didn't. Like the "contempt" pixels, your conclusion that I am a "nasty piece of work" is worthless. But, by all means, keep trying.
Cheers!
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