This year and last, the Diocese of Savannah Chrism Mass has returned to an older way of blessing the oils of the sick and catechumens and consecrating the Sacred Chrism.
Most places, including the Vatican on Holy Thursday, bless the oils of the sick and catechumens and consecrate the Chrism all three in a row after the priests have renewed their priestly promises.
For the past two years, I think we have returned to an earlier tradition or, yet another option in the Bugnini Mass, of the following:
The oil of the sick was blessed during the Eucharistic prayer, toward the end of it but before the Per Ipsum, and our bishop used the Roman Canon.
Then after the Prayer after Holy Communion, the oil of catechumens was blessed and finally the Sacred Chrism, then the Final Blessing and Dismissal occurred.
Does anyone know the significance of this format. It's symbolism is lost on me and quite frankly, to me it makes no sense.
Anyone know????
6 comments:
When I asked last year about the unusual pattern of blessings, Fr. Larkin, the MC, said that it was intended to make the connections between the oils, and the sacraments in which they are used, and the Eucharist more evident or apparent.
I imagine if we could read the reasoning in the documentation behind the change it might make more sense.
But both times in our liturgy when the oils are blessed/consecrated seem more like interruptions than anything else.
This is the older custom which was in place even in the TLM (both for the 1955 rite where the chrism mass is a separate rite and the pre-1955 rite where the blessing of oils is combined with the bishop's Maundy Thursday Mass). There is a significance to it and i've read up about it and the assorted ceremonials in the past but for the life of me i forgot where i read about it!
Oddly enough, when I was the Diocesan Master of Ceremonies for our Cathedral (between 1985 and 1991) my then bishop, Bishop Lessard asked me to considered this odd configuration for blessing the oils. I didn’t have any liturgical book indicating how to do it, only the liturgical book for the way it is done in most dioceses today, if not all. When he explained it to me, I didn’t understand the logic and why one would want to do it in a disjointed way. Since I had no liturgical book for it, I made a good case for not doing it that way and he agreed.
Just saw a bit of the Chrism Mass from Oklahoma City. Archbishop Coakley blessed all three oils together after the homily.
https://modernmedievalism.blogspot.com/2018/03/hail-holy-chrism.html?m=1
Here it is! This goes into details to compare between the pre 1955, the 1955, and the NO rite of blessing of oils. Including the odd configuration
This is what the rubrics for the Chrism Mass in Missal says:
5. I n accord with traditional practice, the blessing of the Oil of the Sick takes place before the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, but the blessing of the Oil of Catechumens and the consecration of the Chrism take place after Communion. Nevertheless, for pastoral reasons, it is permitted for the entire rite of blessing to take place after the Liturgy of the Word.
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