Saturday, June 1, 2013

Corpus Christi?

I haven't checked, but I assume that to-morrow's monthly Missa cantata in Hobart will be of the external solemnity of Corpus Christi (which in the EF Calendar fell on Thursday), rather than of the first [sorry! second*] Sunday after Pentecost – I will find out on Sunday morning!

Now, time to grab a few items, load up the car and drive down south... I will stay overnight and catch up with a dear friend, before acting as M.C. at the Mass. Directly afterward, however, I must head back north, since our parish is having Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at 4 pm, and I need to be back in time to assist, as I promised.

Next weekend, a long weekend (given the Queen's Birthday holiday on Monday), I will be in marvellous Melbourne; I suppose I'll attend the Divine Liturgy in East St Kilda with my Russian Catholic friends, although all things being equal I wouldn't mind hearing High Mass at Caulfield; or I could go to the  nearby Ordinariate Mass (that part of Melbourne being a "liturgical triangle"). Decisions, decisions...

[* Thanks for the correction, Kate; luckily the sacristan at St Canice alerted me to this, after I'd already set the Missal on the altar, else it would have been a particularly embarrassing error for me to make as an M.C. with liturgical pretensions... in my defence, I was thinking of it being the first after Trinity...]

3 comments:

Kate Edwards said...

Technically it will actually be the second Sunday after Pentecost, not the first!

But whether you get the external solemnity of the Mass of the Sunday, the texts have a strong focus on the Eucharist anyway, being a remnant of the old Octave...

Anonymous said...

Sadly no liturgical triangle here in the east of Melbourne except for St Phillips Blackburn North.

Joshua said...

1. Dear Kate - quite right, except that the texts of the 2nd Sunday long predate Corpus Christi itself, and are not remnants of the Octave; they are ancient and precious witnesses to the age-old devotion of Holy Church to the Holy Eucharist, and Providence decreed they adorn this Sunday long centuries before the Lord gave the word for the feast of Corpus Christi to be established.

2. Dear Gervase - I have happily served Mass at St Philip's, and would be glad to attend that parish regularly!