Reforming the Breviary

[Tim]

I didn't express myself clearly, I was saying only on Sunday and the actual Feast Day.

tim

[aquinas138]

I didn't express myself clearly, I was saying only on Sunday and the actual Feast Day.

tim

That's actually a good idea.  The East Syrian liturgy does something somewhat analogous, in that the entire Psalter is said at the midnight office on Sundays and dominical feasts;  other feasts follow the ferial cycle of psalms in the midnight office.  I think using the Sunday psalms for all Doubles of the I Class would be okay, if the ranking of feasts were to be frankly reassessed.  The vast majority of feasts could honestly be simples, and there is little rationale behind why some feasts are double, semidouble or simple.

[Paul]

I didn't express myself clearly, I was saying only on Sunday and the actual Feast Day.

tim

That's actually a good idea.  The East Syrian liturgy does something somewhat analogous, in that the entire Psalter is said at the midnight office on Sundays and dominical feasts;  other feasts follow the ferial cycle of psalms in the midnight office.  I think using the Sunday psalms for all Doubles of the I Class would be okay, if the ranking of feasts were to be frankly reassessed.  The vast majority of feasts could honestly be simples, and there is little rationale behind why some feasts are double, semidouble or simple.

Most newer Feasts are Doubles because they would take the place of the much longer Sunday Office, or be transferred to the next free day. Originally, Semidouble was supposed to be the "default" rank, with Doubles being the more important Saints, but this shifted to Double being the default. The 1911 reform shortened the Sunday Office (and ended the transference of most Doubles, and the 1960 reform eliminated the Semidouble rank completely. I suppose the ranking is ultimately a matter of which the Church prefers to emphasise, the Temporal or Sanctoral cycle.

[aquinas138]

Most newer Feasts are Doubles because they would take the place of the much longer Sunday Office, or be transferred to the next free day.

Of course, this hardly seems a noble motive.  All things considered, except for basically everything done with Matins, I think the 1960 reforms are pretty good, my other complaints probably being mostly personal preference.  The relative ranks of feasts seems appropriate, though I think feasts of Marian apparitions could have been III class instead of mere commemorations.  I do wish occurring feasts were also commemorated at Vespers and on Sundays.