A Slippery Slope

A reader has recommended this article about what's going on in Belgium. It's really scary:

A high proportion of deaths classed as euthanasia in Belgium involved patients who did not ask for their lives to be ended, a study found.

More than 100 nurses admitted to researchers that they had taken part in 'terminations without request or consent'.

Although euthanasia is legal in Belgium, it is governed by strict rules which state it should be carried out only by a doctor and with the patient's permission.

The disturbing revelation - which shows that nurses regularly go well beyond their legal role - raises fears that were assisted suicides allowed in Britain, they could never be properly regulated.

Since its legalisation eight years ago, euthanasia now accounts for 2 per cent of deaths in Belgium - or around 2,000 a year.

The researchers found that a fifth of nurses admitted being involved in the assisted suicide of a patient.

But nearly half of these - 120 of 248 - also said there was no consent.

'The nurses in our study operated beyond the legal margins of their profession,' said the report's authors in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

It is likely many nurses ' under-reported' their involvement for fear of admitting an illegal activity, the study said.

But it added that many were probably acting according to their patients' wishes, 'even if there was no explicit request'.

Last night, Dr Peter Saunders, director of the Care Not Killing campaign in Britain, said: 'We should take a warning from this that wherever you draw the line, people will go up to it and beyond it.'

'Once you have legalised voluntary euthanasia, involuntary euthanasia will inevitably follow,' he added.

But pro -euthanasia group Dignity in Dying said rules that see the patient taking their own life, rather than a doctor administering the drugs, could still work.

This is what happens when you start taking a utilitarian view of human life and playing God (though, admittedly, it's not uncommon to hear of even just regular nurses doing this in the States, even where euthanasia is illegal).

Strange, But Not Strangest

Wow. Rorate Caeli has this story that is indeed rather bizarre:

According to informations of the [religious news] agency I.Media, confirmed to La Croix by Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, Benedict XVI has backtracked on his decision to proclaim Saint John Mary Vianney (1786-1859) "patron saint of all priests of the world", on the closing [ceremonies] of the Year of Priests.

This solemn proclamation should take place after the Mass celebrated this Friday on St.Peter's Square in the presence of over 10,000 priests from all over the world. The figure of this French mystic, already "patron saint of all parish priests of the world" since 1929 and "patron saint of the priests of France" since 1905, has not in the end been considered very representative of the priesthood at the 21st Century, and not very universal.

I can't say I totally disagree. For pastors, parish priests, okay. But all priests? Including those who are just monks in monasteries? Including those who work in University settings or even (gasp) in the work-force in different ways? Including married men who are now priests (in the East, and under dispensations for former protestant pastors)?

And, as the article quoted in this post said:

Yet Benedict’s choice of Vianney caused loud and palpable groans in many parts of US and Europe. Modern-oriented Catholics and theologians see the choice as a political model of a priest closed off from society, overly idealized, hard for young Catholics to relate to, and one whose effect will be to increase a sense of distance between priests and ordinary people, and promote a view of priests more spiritually gifted than regular Catholics.

I'm not sure if it's true yet, but it would make sense if it is. Such a declaration would be another myopic move in the face of this scandal which has shown exactly that what we need is a new model of the priesthood, not a re-emphasis of the Counter-Reformation militarism.

Not that I have anything against St. John Vianney in himself. As I said in the comments section to that post, though:

the message sent by making him the patron[...]seems to some people (including me) to be implying that he was, in fact, a product of the current system rather than holy in spite of it.

It's like co-opting him as an example to try to prove that the current system "works"...when he was actually a huge exception to it. The system simply is not producing that many John Vianneys.

I fear the message being sent is that he was holier because he was a priest, or perhaps that he was a priest because he was holier.

If this backtracking isn't true, it's bizarre that anyone would bother to make up such a story.

Prioties and Ecumenism

As the Pope and Patriarch of Moscow move closer to a meeting, this recently came out:

Moscow, June 3, Interfax – Head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk believes there will be time when Catholic priests would be allowed to have a family.

"I think that the Catholic Church will introduce married priests sooner or later, there's nothing new in it," the Metropolitan said on air the Church and World program on Rossiya 24 TV answering the question whether the Orthodox Church is likely to face the same sex scandal as the Catholic Church.

He reminded that priests and even bishops of the early Church were married.

According to the Metropolitan, married priests "minimize the problem existing and crucial for the Catholic Church."

You'd think that, on non-essentials like this, the Church would be willing to compromise for ecumenism. I mean, they've compromised almost everything else in its name. And this could actually help things with the Orthodox, who certainly can't be said to devalue the celibate life.

Why are they so stubborn? Why so defiant? Against almost all the voices (including of allies) calling to end the ridiculous charade of "mandatory" celibacy, they are just hunkering down and digging themselves into their old ways. They're perverse. There is no other word for it.

This Post No Longer Applies

Sometimes life takes unexpected turns.

Breviary Appendices

The Appendices to the Breviary contain some interesting material that has always fascinated me.

In addition to emergency rites for the dying when a priest might not have any other books, there is the Itinerarium for before a journey, the long liturgically-structured forms for Grace at Meals, and prayers of preparation and thanksgiving for the Priest (but useful, with some modifications, for anyone really) for before and after Mass, including the traditional psalm-based ones structured almost like additional Hours that are commonly found even in hand missals for the laity. I find these prayers fascinating (and useful) because they show how paraliturgical devotions were once structured on the model of the liturgy, in stark contrast with strictly private prayers and devotions, with little resemblance to the liturgy, that later came to dominate Western Catholic spirituality.

The Appendices to the Breviary contain four pseudo-liturgical services that in the High Middle Ages were even obligatory on clerics:

The Little Office of Our Lady: prayed daily, except on feasts of Our Lady and Greater Doubles.
The Office of the Dead: prayed on all ferias and simples.
The Seven Penitential Psalms: prayed on all ferias of Lent.
and the Gradual Psalms: prayed on all ferias of Lent and Advent.

For the last two, the medieval practice may have even been greater extending to more days (Vigils, Ember days, Rogation days, etc). I believe that the only people who keep anything like this sort of schedule anymore are the Carthusians.

The Gradual Psalms were prayed with no introduction before anything else prior to Matins. The Penitential Psalms (which also includes the Litany of the Saints) were prayed after Lauds. The Little Office, interestingly, was specified to interrupt Prime and be prayed between the main part of the Hour and the "Chapter Office," otherwise it was prayed after the Hour of the day, except at Vespers and Matins-Lauds (traditionally always joined, remember) when it was instead prayed before the main Office (but after the Gradual Psalms). This is because the Office of the Dead was prayed after Vespers and after Lauds. The Office of the Dead only contains the hours of First Vespers, Matins, and Lauds (though I believe, in a very late reform, Vespers of the Dead was moved so as to be positioned on the same day after Matins and Lauds, as opposed to the evening before). I believe the Office of the Dead would be prayed before the Penitential Psalms when they were said on the same day.

Just as later, until the reforms of St. Pius X, many feasts were dumped on Sundays to reduce the number of psalms said, so even many feasts of 9 lessons were introduced so as to decrease the obligation of saying these.

The Tridentine practice, as specified in St. Pius V's bull Quod a Nobis, made these "extras" totally non-obligatory (at least in private recitation), though the following usage was encouraged (and remained suggested in the rubrics of the appendix of the Breviary up until 1960):

Little Office: suggested for any day except feasts of nine lessons, days within Octaves, and any Saturday already using the Mass/Office of St. Mary on the Sabbath.
Office of the Dead: Every Monday in Advent and Lent. First vacant day of the month.
Gradual Psalms: Wednesdays of Lent.
Pentiential Psalms: Fridays of Lent.

In general, these were replaced by shorter "place holders," as it were, in the Breviary. Thus the versicle Fidelium animae was the substitute for the Office of the Dead, the Final Marian Antiphon for the Little Office, and the various commemorations/suffrages (consolidated under Pius X into the "Suffrage of All Saints" and then removed entirely in 1960) were abridgments of other votive or little offices that various places had.

It is also interesting to note, regarding the Office of the Dead, that before St. Pius X, All Souls Day (November 2nd) used to be merely the Second Day in the Octave of All Saints with a commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, followed by the Office of the Dead at its three hours. If it was a Sunday, the Office of the Dead was said for the Monday beginning Sunday evening. After St. Pius X, an entire Office with all Hours was made for All Souls based on the Office of the Dead but containing the Hours it omits.

Though I wouldn't dream of making any of these obligatory again any time soon (it will be hard enough getting the clergy to use the Old Office, though certain reforms or things made optional could help), one might hope that they would find their way back into the devotional life of the Church in some way.

The "problem" with many of these liturgically-based devotions is that they are rather psalm-heavy, when the main Office already has dozens of psalms each day. The Little Office of our Lady, for example, is hardly "little" at all; it's structured basically as an entire Office of its own, albeit it only has 3 psalms at Matins and uses rather short psalms for the other Hours. Still, with all that repetition, the idea of saying it daily in addition to the main Office (as opposed to as a substitute; a function it served for certain groups of religious sisters) makes it a rather dauntingly dry prospect. Other "Little Offices" (for example, the Little Office of St Joseph) may have taken a lesson from this, as their "hours" generally consist of merely a hymn, a collect, and some opening and closing versicles, omitting the notion of actually having any psalms like an Office properly-so-called.

Still, I might suggest the following schema for these Office "extras" based on associated weekdays:

Little Office of Our Lady: on all Saturdays (including Ember Saturdays), except feasts of Our Lady, or when the Office of Our Lady on the Sabbath is already used.
Office of the Dead: Whenever a Requiem is to be celebrated. Especially on ferial Mondays throughout the year, traditionally a day for requiems according to the "Monday Privilege."
Gradual Psalms: Wednesdays and Friday of Advent, Lent, and Septuagesima, the Ember Wednesdays, penitential Vigils, and the Rogation Days.
Penitential Psalms: Fridays of Lent, Ember Fridays, Ash Wednesday also.

Holy Week would be excluded from any of this, of course, as would Solemnities.

This scheme attempts to maintain the devotion to Our Lady on Saturdays, using the Little Office on all Saturdays except when it would be redundant due to the Office already being of Our Lady (either of a feast or the Office of St. Mary on the Sabbath). It tries to remember Friday as the primary penitential day through the use of the Gradual Psalms on Fridays during the penitential seasons and additionally the Penitential Psalms on the Fridays of Lent, and Wednesday as a traditional secondary penitential day through use of the Gradual Psalms also on Wednesdays during the penitential seasons.

The Office of the Dead is associated with Monday in this scheme, as it was under the St. Pius V's suggestions, and also because Requiems were traditionally associated with that day due to the so-called "Monday Privilege" about when they could be celebrated (back when that was more restricted). Monday is not really a penitential day, and the Office of the Dead should not be viewed as a penitential observance (though it is certainly a somber one) so I wouldn't be inclined to link its recital just to penitential seasons.

In fact, I might be so bold as to suggest an obligatory Requiem Mass on all vacant Mondays of the year in the same way as St. Mary on the Sabbath came to be required for all free Saturdays. The devotion to Our Lady and for the Dead have always been the two primary "sideshows" to the Liturgy, and while this was eventually definitively incorporated into the cycle for Our Lady in a substantial manner through her Mass and Office on free Saturdays, the Dead never were in the same way (though priests said Requiems as purely votive masses all the time). I would suggest, then, in some future reform of the liturgy, incorporating this into the official cycle through an obligatory Requiem on Mondays (which could be fittingly accompanied by the Office of the Dead in addition to the ferial office; though whether Vespers of the Dead would be Sunday evening, or rather Monday, could be discussed).

Facing a Secular Age: Notes for the Modern Sceptic

A reader recommended a lecture series to me that I really enjoyed, touching on the relationship between nature and grace, faith and reason, and on the split that happened around the dawn of the Modern Era in the 16th-century.

They were given by Dr. Peter Erb, who was raised in the Mennonite tradition, and later converted to Catholicism, studied as a medievalist, and is a now-retired professor of Religion and Culture from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. They were given at St. Jerome's University of the University of Waterloo in January 2010.

He discusses how the so-called "New Atheists" (like Dawkins and Hitchens) are really just a manifestation of the simplistic old atheism (ie, Enlightenment atheism) attacking a Deist or Unitarian God that Christians inadvertently created through rationalism in the early modern age, but who really has nothing to do with the Trinitarian God of Catholicity. He goes on to discuss the role of Cardinal Newman and Vatican II in developing the notion of human dignity in the Church in order to address the real new atheists (the thoughtful, credible atheists, like the non-theist existentialists).

The lectures are available here and are titled, "The New Atheism and the Old Church: A Failing Apologetics," "The Old Agnosticism and the New Church: Making Sense of the Senseless," and "Faith in the Fragments: the God[!] Who Wasn't There."

Absurdly Intrusive

I found a great article responding to the article on seminary screening I shared earlier:

Some may think it a matter of progress if the church is aware of danger coming from pedophiles in the ranks. And if tests become elaborate, to go beyond Father Toups’s educated hunches, so much the better. But read what applicants to the seminaries are going to be asked, and apply the same tests to a would-be medical student, or law student, or science professional, and it will be clear what absurdity the church has backed itself into.

...

Defenders of this program might say that it differs from the professional reviews required of doctors or lawyers because priests deal with intimate human needs. Doesn’t a doctor? Don’t lawyers, when they deal with sticky divorces or child custody issues? In the modern world, many people feel closer to their doctors or lawyers (or accountants) than to their priests.

...

You can be a good doctor or lawyer and be gay. You can be a good lawyer or doctor and be a woman. You can be a good lawyer or doctor and be married. But all such possibilities are ruled out for priests. Besides, there is nothing in being a lawyer or doctor (or scientists or engineer) that makes those callings especially attractive to single men or gay men.

...

Besides, Mark D. Jordan, the R. R. Niebuhr professor at Harvard’s Divinity School, says that the odds are that the new screening rules will be enforced, ridiculously, by men who are themselves gay.

What does it take to make the hierarchy see that its mandatory celibacy rule is self-destructive for the church? Vitello notes that “half of the nation’s seminaries have one or two new arrivals a year, and one-quarter get none.” That number is bound to be reduced even further by this new obstacle course. No self-respecting person aspiring to be a doctor or lawyer would put up with such absurdly intrusive questioning. Neither should anyone who thinks there is some remaining dignity to the priesthood.

"Neither should anyone who thinks there is some remaining dignity to the priesthood." Indeed. It's especially absurd for those of us who, frankly, could be doctors or lawyers and for whom the priesthood would be, in some sense, underemployment anyway.

But one gets the sense that a lack of self-respect is actually exactly what they're looking for in candidates for the priesthood (except they'll call it "humility" or "docility" and their pathological malleability and passivity will be extolled as "obedience"). This sort of intrusive (and absurdly naive) screening is part of the creepy culture that is scaring people away from the seminaries in the first place.

They've got three main criteria for acceptance...and they're all sexual: you must be a male, celibate, and straight. That should tell us pretty much everything we need to know about this institution.

It's funny how the beggars keep trying to be choosers. Having already narrowed the pool so much (and it's that second one, mandatory celibacy, that is really the limiting factor here), they will not be able to afford being any more picky in terms of competence, efficiency, leadership, or charisma among candidates. They're going to have to desperately take whomever they can get...and that's not exactly the recipe for a healthy or effective clergy.

Good Questions

A Prayer Finally Answered

As I mentioned in my post on the 1967 Ferial Lectionary (chart here), the one thing that book did not contain in terms of my Re-Attempt of the Reform dreams for the lectionary, was Old Testament readings for the Sundays of the year.

It gives an Old Testament reading, and Epistle, and a Gospel for all the ferias within the traditional one-year cycle, but gave nothing for days that already had their own readings, like the ferias of Lent and all the Sundays of the year. The ferias of Lent already have Old Testament readings, and I speculated that they could be given Epistles by simply taking the Epistles from Matins during the period of the year (which almost perfectly matches in terms of needed length) that uses Epistles instead of Old Testament readings (which would then free-up space for even more Old Testament at Matins). But I have wondered where to find traditional Old Testament readings for the Sundays.

Originally, of course (as the Novus Ordo restored, but in an untraditional and artificial way), the Gradual and Alleluia were separated in the Roman Mass and there was a Prophecy in addition to the Epistle and the Gospel. But I had searched high and low for a reconstruction of the traditional Roman Prophecy cycle with no luck. I even emailed some prominent traditionalist liturgists, and they didn't seem to think such a thing existed, and that reconstruction would not be possible.

But, the other day, a reader (whose blog I'll now recommend and put in the sidebar too) sent me some information that gives just what I wanted. Apparently, certain traditionally minded high-church Anglican and Lutheran scholars have worked on just such a reconstruction of the historic Prophecy cycle, and he sent along a file with this reconstructed Old Testament cycle from the historic lectionary. I also got some good links to (high-church Protestant) scholarship on the matter, some relevant quotes from which I would like to share here. First, a good explanation of why:

THE TRADITIONAL EUCHARISTIC LECTIONARY of the Western Church, thought extinct by some, is alive and well in many parishes throughout the world. Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Western-rite Orthodox, Old Catholics and many protestant churches, are still using that ancient and truly ecumenical eucharistic lectionary which has been feeding the faithful for well over one thousand years. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer, The Roman Missal, The St. Andrew Service Book (Antiochian Orthodox), and many more beloved books of the Church contain within them (or they did, until recently) what is now referred to as "the traditional lectionary" of the Western Church. Robert Crouse expresses well the heart of the traditional lectionary:

In the cycle of the Christian Year, in the ancient lectionary - that cycle of Epistle and Gospel lessons which has served the Church for well over a millennium ... the essential message of Holy Scripture, God's word to us, is set before us in an orderly and supremely logical way. As we follow the lessons appointed for the Sundays and the great festivals, as we meditate upon them, as we open our minds and hearts to understand the pattern and meaning of them, we are led, step by step, into an ever deeper and clearer perception of Christian truth and the essentials of Christian life.

Since the introduction of the new three-year "Common Lectionary," first in the Roman Catholic Church, and adopted by many of the Reformed and Protestant Churches, the traditional lectionary - in many parishes - has fallen by the wayside. In many congregations, though, even through the decades of "out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new", the traditional lectionary survived, particularly within Anglicanism. In more recent times, though, the traditional lectionary has been dusted off, and with great zeal has been brought back into the eucharistic life of western Christendom. This website is both a product of this recent revival, and an attempt to spread the word to all Christians: the traditional lectionary is not dead, and it is still as theologically and spiritually vital as it ever was!

Then some historical information:

While the basic practice of reading Scripture and preaching from it was common, what was read and how much was not. In some places there was a continuous reading from Sunday to Sunday until a book was finished. Some areas of Spain and France used lessons made from a mosaic of Scripture, piecing together short selections from various parts of Scripture. Some churches used harmonies of the Gospels and read from them. And while some places read two lessons each Sunday, others read as many as four. Overall, lectio continua, the continuous reading of a book from Sunday to Sunday, seems to have been the prevailing practice in one form or another.

However, as the church year developed, the practice of lectio continua waned. Already in the first century the Church was celebrating Easter, which soon became the celebration of Easter and Pentecost, which soon became the celebration of Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Epiphany, which soon well, you get the idea. By the fourth century the festival half of the church year as we know it (Advent - Pentecost) was generally established, complete with days set apart for commemoration of saints and martyrs. These festivals and commemorations required their own readings and thus interrupted the lectio continua. As the "interruptions" became less the exception and more the rule, lectio continua gave way to prescribed readings. So that the pastor would know what the prescribed reading was, bishops had indices prepared, which gave not only references but showed the first and last words in each lesson. An assigned portion of Scripture was known as h´ perikophv, the pericope, as it was the portion of Scripture "cut out" from the Scriptures for that day. Because books other than the Bible were sometimes used (e.g. lives of the saints, martyrologies, sermons or writings of noted preachers, etc.), many bishops and church fathers also produced books called comes, sort of a pericope and sermon help book all in one. These books included not only the readings for each day, but often some commentary as well. Some comes, commentary and all, may even have been prepared so that they could be read during the service, functioning as Ante-Nicean church postils.

It was not long before books were prepared with the lessons actually written out, saving the step of having to look them up elsewhere; epistles written out in an epistolarium, the gospels in an evangelarium. A book with a complete set of lessons was called a lectionarium. Most of these were incomplete by today's standards in that they usually had assigned propers only for the festival half of the year with a selection of optional readings and propers for the rest of the year to be used at the discretion of the pastor. The same was also true for the Epiphany season, since it wasn't until the fourth century that Christmas and Epiphany became distinct festivals.

What we know today as the Historic lectionary comes to us from the Comes Hieronymi (Jerome). The date and authorship of this document is disputed, however at the very latest it was written by someone in 471. Having the name of Jerome attached to it made this document influential on its own, but when it was included in the Leonine Sacramentary it became a standard text for the Western Church. Even then, it provided assigned readings only for Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. The rest of the year was still covered by optional propers included in the comes, or by the whim of the local bishop or pastor.

Three hundred years later, Charlemagne decided to standardize liturgical practices in his domain, and as part of this had his religious advisor Alcuin do a revision of the Comes Hieronymi. What Alcuin basically did was take the Gregorian Sacramentary, the current standard in Rome, and introduce it to Charlemange's empire. This was a monumental step in church history, since it standardized worship in the Western Church and put everyone west of the Carpathians literally on the same page, at least for the festival part of the year. And because he was seeking to shorten the service, Alcuin introduced two major changes in the lectionary. First, he eliminated the reading of the Old Testament lesson. Secondly, he shortened many of the epistle and Gospel readings. Where before a lesson could have been as long as two or three chapters, now it was usually a single account from a gospel or section from an epistle that dealt with a specific topic. There were probably a number of reasons for both these changes, but what is likely the main one was the decreased literacy of both people and clergy effected by the barbarian invasions.

The next major change to the lectionary would not come until the 13th century and the establishment of the last generally accepted major festival of the Church: Trinity Sunday. This festival soon came to dominate the second half of the church year, and with that came the establishment of assigned propers for the entire year. In itself this was not new; some places had actually established year-round propers as early as the 4th century. But the High Middle Ages saw the strengthening of both monarchies and the papacy, both of which liked to have unified practice. The era of cuius regioeius lectio was over, and with the general adoption of the Sarum Missal at the end of the 13th century the liturgical practice of the Western Church, year round, was governed by the Historic lectionary.

So well constructed and established was this practice that even during the upheaval of the Reformation it remained intact. The Reformation never really asked the question "Should the lectionary be changed?" only whether it should be used.

...

Unlike other lectionary series (except those based on the Historic series), the propers for the day always match up with the readings, enhancing the theme for the day, and the lessons within each season flow together to create a seasonal theme. Indeed, of all the lectionaries the Historic is the most well-organized; there is even method in the seeming madness of the Trinity season. What is perhaps the greatest asset today is the fact that it is a one year lectionary. If repetitio mater studiorum est, then here is where you will find the most repetitio. This is especially an advantage in our era of decreased biblical literacy.

At the same time, because it is a one year series, it uses a limited number of texts. The Historic lectionary grew during times when it was common to have services on days like Easter Monday, which may also explain why some lessons are now omitted. Perhaps the most glaring of these is the parable of the prodigal son [note: though not on a Sunday, I checked and it is in fact in the traditional Roman Missal on the Saturday after the Second Sunday of Lent].

Anyway, I'm ecstatic over this find. The reader who sent this to me clarified the following also:

Actually, this is one of the reasons I think Catholics should try to become more familiar with non-Catholic liturgies, because while Rome was busy inventing a 3-year lectionary and foisting it on the world in the name of "ecumenism," the Lutherans and to some extent the Anglicans --- who used the Historic Lectionary albeit with a few alterations --- were researching and attempting to find the Prophecy/Old Testament Lessons for the Lectionary everybody was already using. Also, if Catholics had gained a little more familiarity with what their neighbors were doing, then they'd also know Bugnini was lying through his teeth when he said "This new liturgy is more ecumenical."

Anyway, this particular reconstruction is largely influenced by the Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal as far as the OT readings are concerned, with all readings brought into line and cross-referenced with a 1953 Roman Missal.

[...]there are some feasts --- Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart, Christ the King --- that never had an OT reading, since they were composed after it was dropped. For these, I took the OT reading from the Ordo Lectionum Missae, whichever one matched best with the Historic Gospel.

I plan enter these reconstructed Old Testament readings into my chart, do what I said with the Epistles (from Matins) for Lent, and then post the final product sometime as my proposal for a traditional lectionary greatly expanded yet within the bounds of the historic one-year cycle, building on the traditional foundation rather than destroying it.

Feasts of Apostles: West vs. East

Though I'm all for liturgical diversity, one thing that has always troubled me a bit (however unjustifiably) is the difference between the feast days of the Apostles in the East compared to the West. Aside from the whole Gregorian vs Julian and Reformed vs Old Calendarist debates...I was surprised to learn that the Apostles themselves would be a discrepancy even if those problems were solved.

Now, I'm not saying that the calendars need to be the same. Obviously, liturgical diversity is a good thing, and I think for the Sanctoral cycle, at least, we'd expect and hope local churches would have different local saint (ie, the traditional third class feasts). But I'd also hope that when a Saint is present on multiple local calendars...he or she would at least be present on the same day, as way of uniting those churches which do commemorate that feast.

When it comes to the traditional first class feasts, there is generally agreement on the Twelve Great Feasts*, at least, between East and West, as well as other important feasts like those of St. John the Baptist. And of course we wouldn't expect the East to have feasts like Sacred Heart or specific Marian titles or any such Western devotions, nor later "idea feasts" like Corpus Christi.

Many of the more important minor feasts (St. Nicholas, St. Lucy, St. Catherine) are in fact the same between East and West. But when it comes to the feasts of the Apostles (mainly second class feasts in the '62 books), there is some surprising disagreement. Of course, the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul is the same, on July 29th, and Saint Andrew is also November 30th in both traditions. St. Barnabas is the same in both (June 11th) but in the East he is commemorated with St. Bartholomew whereas, in the West, Bartholomew has his own feast. Interestingly, St Mary Magdalene (Jul 22nd) and the Evangelists St. Luke (Oct 18th) and St. Mark (Apr 25th) also agree, but some important feasts disagree:

Saint (West/East)
James the Greater (Jul 25/Apr 30)
John (Dec 27/Sept 26**)
Thomas (Dec 21/Oct 6th)
Philip and James the Less (May 1***/Nov 14 & Oct 9)
Matthew (Sept 21/Nov 16)
Bartholomew (Aug 24/Jun 11)
Simon and Jude (Oct 28/May 10 & Jun 19th)
Matthias (Feb 24****/Aug 9)
Stephen (Dec 26/Dec 27)
Holy Innocents (Dec 28/Dec 29)
Anne (Jul 26/Jul 25)

In many of these cases, I think it would be historically possible to trace the date of the major Feast to a specific historical event (like the transference of relics important to that church). So they may not be so much disagreement as commemorations of technically different things. For example, in the West, the Feast of St. Michael (who, as an angel, has no dies natales) is linked with the dedication of his church in Rome, whereas in the East there would be no such historical contingency (their Synaxis of the Angels is in November).

Of course, those latter feasts which seem to be off only by a day are actually effected by the presence of another feast. For example, the reason that St. Anne is a day later in the West is clearly the Western feast of St. James on July 25th (though that is only the Dormition of St. Anne in the East; they have another feast with St. Joachim [who has jumped around the Western calendar a lot] on September 9th.) Or, for example, the post-Christmas feasts are bumped up one day in the East because they have a Synaxis of the Holy Theotokos on the day after Christmas.

In the West, St. Zachary is commemorated with Elizabeth on November 5th, while in the East they are together on September 5th. But the West also has some tradition of remembering St. Zachary on September 23rd, logically the same day the East celebrates the conception of John the Baptist (the West does not commemorate the conceptions of those conceived in Original Sin) nine months before the feast of his Nativity.

It is also to be noted that the East keeps certain feasts that, in the West, are part of the Sanctoral Cycle, as part of their Temporal Cycle (by pegging them to a Sunday). Such is the case with St. Joseph and All Saints.

It should also be pointed out that the "Eastern" dates here are largely based on Byzantine practice. Other churches may have even more different dates. For example, St James has a feast on December 30th in the Mozarabic Rite. The Syriac churches have the Holy Innocents a day before (December 27th) the West instead of the day after us like the Byzantines. And the Syro-Malabar keep the Feast of St. Thomas (their founder) on July 3rd.

Interestingly, so that it would no longer interfere with the major ferias of Advent, the Novus Ordo places the Feast of St. Thomas on July 3rd also (corresponding with the Indian tradition) in accordance with an early martyrology entry on this date commemorating the transference of his relics to Edessa. This is an example of how I'm conflicted, because this seems like a logical change liturgically (the O Antiphons in question don't have to be merely commemorated then) and brings unity with the Indian Christians. And yet the traditional Apostle's feast in December goes back to at least the 9th-century in the West...

And although certainly these things are disciplinary non-essentials, it might be possible (though not necessary) to negotiate slight mutual changes to bring more unity on these shared feasts. Any future reform of the Western calendar should certainly take this ecumenical angle into account! For example, the West might agree to simply commemorate Bartholomew with Barnabas on June 11th, if the East would adopt our day for Sts. Simon and Jude, or some trade like that. We could move St. James the Greater (thus also reconciling our feasts of St. Anne) if they would switch to one of our days for one of the other Apostles in a trade-off. And I think I'd be willing to trade for their St. Matthias too (the leap-year thing is needlessly complicated, and his Western feast often falls during Lent anyway, which isn't ideal). And we could all agree to follow the traditional Indian practice of St. Thomas in July.

* As a Westerner, I have always been a little surprised at the inclusion of Palm Sunday as one of the "12 Great Feasts" in the East. Easter itself is not listed as a Great Feast, as it is considered The Great Feast around which the other Twelve adorn, as it were. However, the days of the Triduum are not included among the Great Feasts either, and I assume this is because they are considered part-and-parcel with Easter. Again, I wouldn't presume to meddle in other traditions, but as a Westerner with my own biases, I've often thought it would make more sense for me to include Palm Sunday just as part of Easter (ie, take Holy Week as a whole as the central unity) and for the twelfth adorning feast to be Immaculate Conception (though the East celebrates Mary's conception a day later than us...)

**The East commemorates the repose of St. John on this day. They have another feast on May 8th when the faithful used to take ashes from his tomb to cure the sick, which is close to the Western feast of his [survived] martyrdom before the Latin Gate on May 6th.

***This feast was, I think unfortunately, bumped to May 11th by St Joseph the Worker under Pius XII, and then brought to May 3rd in the Novus Ordo. One might wonder why, if they were going to break with tradition and move it anyway, they didn't instead pick one of the Eastern feast days for those Apostles.

****Or February 25th in a leap year. In the Novus Ordo he was moved to May 14th, presumably to avoid the leap-year complications and the feast falling during Lent. One must wonder, though, if they were going to break tradition and move his feast anyway...why they didn't instead make the ecumenical choice of August 9th (the Eastern feast of St. Matthias) given that nothing else fell on this date in the Novus Ordo calendar (at least not until the introduction of St Edith Stein as a mere optional memorial).