Saturday, February 13th was a cold, rainy, dreary day in Georgia and a rainy night in Georgia too.
This photo was taken after the most splendid Nuptial Mass. I like in particular the winters look out of our clear glass above the ad orientem altar in our Martha and Mary Chapel, built by Henry Ford and named after his mother and mother-in-law.
Let me take a poll. In the EF Nuptial Mass, the Rite of Holy Matrimony takes place prior to the Nuptial Mass as a prelude to it, although it could stand alone without the Nuptial Mass.
In the Ordinary Form, the Rite of Marriage takes place after the homily but before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. It too can stand alone without the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
But in the EF Nuptial Mass, the couple is married for the entire Mass whereas in the Ordinary Form’s Nuptial Mass, the couple is simply betrothed for the Mass through the homily.
Would it not be best to be married for the Liturgy of the Word and the entire Mass?
6 comments:
It was something of an idée fixe among the reformers of the 1950s and 1960s that sacraments and sacramentals should be conferred within the Mass. The first step was the insertion of the foot-washing into the Mass of Maundy Thursday in 1955; by 1964 baptism, confirmation and matrimony were also celebrated between the homily and the Offertory. Thus the practice predates the Novus Ordo or OF Mass. I suppose the Ordination rite furnished a precedent.
Whether or not it was a good idea is debatable. On Ash Wednesday the distribution of ashes is accompanied by admonitory chants, in particular the responsory 'Emendemus in melius'- Let us correct our faults which we have committed in ignorance, lest we be taken unawares by sudden death and will look for time to repent but cannot find it.
Yet the Introit 'Misereris omnium' offers consolation: You overlook people's sins to bring them to repentance and you spare them.
This is putting things in the right order. Reversing the order, as happens in the OF, is bad liturgy and bad psychology.
John Nolan summarizes this nicely. I remember when they started incorporating baptism into the Mass. Most normal folks resented it: the families of the infant who wanted a family centered baptism outside of Mass and all others who resented this intrusion into the Mass. My own parish abandoned this irritating novelty fairly quickly, to almost universal rejoicing. In my opinion, the only people who benefitted were the priests who had their Sunday afternoons freed up
It has been a bit airish here of late, too. -27 windchill and a foot of blowing snow where everything under carport still buried. Hoping soon for a positive integer heat wave maybe by this next weekend.
Otherwise, have no idea of Mass as have been unable to get there for the last several weeks
I’ve always thought it was odd the way the other Sacrements were “sandwiched” inside the OF Mass. For my wife and I, we found it meaningful to assist at our first Mass as a married couple immediately following our wedding rite. We were married, in the traditional rite with a Missa Cantata, at St. Joseph’s in Macon.
As for betrothal, we did the traditional rite of betrothal soon after our engagement.
Baptism at Mass is an "irritating novelty"?
Oh my...
In the Episcopal Church, it often is celebrated at the Eucharist. The idea behind a public celebration is that the nurturing and development of the baptized is not just a parental responsibility, but also that of the community. The community shares in that person's Christian growth. Furthermore, once one is baptized in the Episcopal Church, one is immediately eligible to receive communion. Just as in the Orthodox Church. I think the incorporation of baptism in the Eucharist goes back to the liturgical developments of the 1970s, when many Episcopal parishes shifted from "Morning Prayer and Sermon" as their main Sunday worship to the Eucharist.
Anonymous at 7:46,
Baptism at Mass has died out almost everywhere, so I think “irritating novelty.”
I don’t care what the Episcopal's do
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