Ten minutes ago I presumed that there was a significant cloud...

Cover but evidently I was simply a bit early: Dawn seems to be lighting the eastern sky now just fine, although it's hard to tell still about the presence or absence of cloudiness.

Yet again this morning the livestream of Holy Mass from Warrington hasn't happened. Yesterday, it may be remembered, the transmission abruptly ended during the first sentences of the Epistle. Today, it hasn't happened at all. Tsk. I do notice that there are two Mass formularies, Miserebitur, in use before 1929, and Cogitationes, in use since. Hmm; I'm sure someone today will relieve my ignorance about this.

Oh. I could, I suppose, raise my eyes and read the paragraphs prefatory to the Mass formularies at the site I'm looking at, Introibo.fr. Pius IX in 1856 added the feast to the sanctoral cycle (how many other feasts of Our Lord were or are considered 'feasts of the saints'?-- Pio Nono had his reasons doubtless but I don't know what they were); Pius XI in 1929 had a commission of theologians re-compose the Mass and Office and he put it into the temporal cycle, with an octave i.e. (more or less) increasing its importance and dignity.

Avant 1929, l’Office hésitait à mi-chemin entre un Office de continuation de la Fête-Dieu (des éléments comme les répons de Matines en sont issus) et un Office de la Passion. Dom Guéranger [2], témoigne des raisons de cette composition hésitante : « Il est peu fait mention du Cœur de chair du Sauveur dans les formules liturgiques de ce jour. Lorsqu’au dernier siècle (XVIIIe) il fut question d’approuver une Messe et un Office en l’honneur du Sacré-Cœur, les Jansénistes, qui avaient jusque dans Rome leurs dévoués partisans, suscitèrent de telles oppositions, que le Siège apostolique ne crut pas le moment venu encore de se prononcer ouvertement sur les points débattus. Dans la Messe et l’Office qui de Rome devaient plus tard (1856) s’étendre au monde entier, il s’en tint par prudence à la glorification de l’amour du Sauveur, dont on ne pouvait nier raisonnablement que son Cœur de chair ne fût au moins le vrai et direct symbole ». Le 3ème nocturne des Matines, avec ses trois homélies patristiques, était d’ailleurs plutôt bizarre.

Pie XI voulut un office organique, qui ne soit ni une répétition de la Fête-Dieu, ni un doublon des Offices de la Passion.

Ah. The short version of that (leaving aside the machinations of the crypto-Jansenists) is that the Pius IX Office couldn't quite 'make up its mind' if it was Corpustide (to coin a phrase) or a commemoration of the Passion i.e. there are elements of Corpus Christi and elements of the Passion and Good Friday Offices. I noticed this myself, when I said Matins and Lauds earlier, and while I didn't think, 'this is bizarre!' when I got to the third nocturne lessons, I certainly do see the writer's point (made even more evident because this year the ninth lesson was of Saint Juliana Falconeri: St Augustine, St John Chrysostom, and the Writer of Hagiographical Lessons). Hmm; I wonder if at Saint-Eugène there will be a low Mass livestreamed later on (the celebration of the external solemnity of today's feast will be transmitted Sunday)?




Later, after Sext. No Mass from Saint-Eugène, alas. Indeed, far from being cloud-cooled, or damp, or dreary, today has become spectacularly sunny and I'm afraid that the temperature will reach the mid-80s F.: just a few degrees too much heat, I'm afraid. Still. Spectacularly sunny! is a welcome change.

Am looking about (had been reading Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister's Integralism and have to take a break from that; my head for such serious business is... less sound than it was 20 years ago), I found this post of Dr DiPippo's at New Liturgical Movement.


... (T)he new [Neo-Gallican] Parisian Missal [Mons de Vintimille's of 1738] did fulfill one aspect of the request made by the Lord to St Margaret Mary. Among the collection of votive Masses is a special Mass 'for the reparation of injuries done to Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament.' This Mass is placed between the votive Mass of the Sacrament and that of the Passion; furthermore, a rubric after the Octave of Corpus Christi prescribes this Mass be said on the following day, which is now kept everywhere as the feast of the Sacred Heart.

Am a bit of an idiot; somehow I had gotten it stuck in my head that the feast of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart is celebrated tomorrow-- but that doesn't happen until the end of the Assumption Octave, eh.


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