Sundays, then Saints, then Ferias

Pruning the calendar of feast days gets things exactly backwards, since historically speaking Mass was celebrated firstly on Sundays, then on the feasts of martyrs and other saints.  The development of the whole suite of feasts and seasons around Easter and Christmas paralleled this – hence the days of Lent have proper Masses, as they lead into the celebration of Holy Week.  Penitential times such as the Ember Days early on acquired proper Masses also.  But the very last days in the calendar to acquire their own Masses were ferias, and in two senses they never did: in the Traditional Roman Rite, on all free weekdays, the Sunday Mass was either repeated, including its readings, or a Votive Mass of some sort was celebrated – hence the way that old Missals specified which Votives were to be said on which weekdays.  Some mediæval Missals, such as the Sarum, provided Epistles and Gospels for Wednesdays and Fridays, so that, if those days – which were once both fast days – were without any feast, the Sunday Mass would be repeated but with those readings instead.

All this changed in 1969 or thereabouts (for experimentation had begun earlier), when an entirely new Lectionary was given to the modern Roman Rite.  Some of its features – such as extending to Advent, on the analogy of the Lenten Masses, daily readings and prayers and chants for weekday Masses; and doing the same for all of Christmastide and Eastertide, based to some extent on the ancient provision of proper Masses for each day of the Easter Octave – were logical extensions of existing practice.  Given, too, the precedent of providing Wednesdays and Fridays of old with their readings, to provide ones for every day could be seen as reasonable.

However, the Roman Rite is not the Byzantine Rite (which has had for over a thousand years a semi-continuous cycle of readings at the Divine Liturgy, such that almost the whole New Testament, except for the Apocalypse, is read through once a year), and the exaltation of the ferial Mass (most evident in Ordinary Time) that has gone with imposing a new Lectionary is in fact a reversal of the historical development, in that the readings (whether from the Proper or from the Common) for saint's days are now overshadowed by the panacea of semi-continuous Scripture readings.

I believe that this problem has arisen from confusion of Mass and Office.  In the case of the Office, the exact contrary is true, in that the ferial Office is the older, and later rather overgrown with feasts: by reason of the structure of the Office, with a weekly system for reciting all 150 psalms, and a yearly system for reading a good deal of Holy Writ at Matins, there is an impulsion in the Office toward retaining the ferial and pruning the sanctoral Office.   But in the case of Mass, I argue that the opposite is true.

First Feria of Advent

It was good to have Monday as a feria - it gave me a chance to familiarize myself with the Advent Office, with its special antiphons, little chapters, responds, and so forth, and its use of Lauds II (beginning with the Miserere).  I calculate that this year the ferial Office will be used 12 days out of the 25, and the Lauds and Vesper preces on 7 of them (but are they said on the Vigil of Christmas, which falls on a Wednesday?)...

Fr Rowe must have had similar thoughts, for he offered up Mass of the feria, that is, a repeat of the Sunday Mass, but for the omission of the Alleluia and its verse.  Since the Gloria is otherwise said on all Sundays and feasts outside of Advent, Septuagesimatide and Lent, its absence remains striking.

Santa Feria

Santa Feria has many devout clients, especially - alas! - among proponents of the aptly-named Ordinary Form, including many sad old dodderers still limping round the altar in tatty polyester green (when not ambling round the presbytery in foodstained cardigans) like the priests of Baal of old...

But traddies must not let the appalling votaries of Santa Feria put them off devotion to this ancient matron!

Santa Feria, and her younger sister Lectio Continua, are of the oldest noble Roman stock; and, if neither virgin nor martyr, she at least has the distinction of owning the greatest number of liturgical days in the calendar. In June alone, she possesses five days, and has four more as well, if one remembers that on those days other saints are only allowed a commemoration at Lauds. What wonder that, whenever the calendar has become overgrown with the multiplied feasts of lesser saints, the very Roman Pontiffs themselves have decreed a general purgation of such minor characters, the better to exalt Santa Feria.

Consider how the traditional Roman Divine Office, in its stark Scriptural beauty, shines forth most purely on its many days devoted to Santa Feria:

* on these days, Matins is of one Nocturn, with three Lessons, all devoted to her sister, Lectio Continua, who rules as the moon the night, while Santa Feria as the sun rules the day;

* all the antiphons, psalms, hymns, versicles and responsories are called ferial, in her honour;

* out of modesty, the collect of each day is drawn from the weekly festival of her elder sister, Dominica.

(It is for utterly the same reason that Santa Feria, as befits the sister of Dominica, should attire herself in the verdant green of nature, nature blossoming because raised up by grace to a new and supernatural effulgence.)

Santa Feria is shy, and gladly gives place to another: her so-called ferial Mass is instead in fact the repeated Mass of her sister Dominica - therefore she minds not if, at Mass, the priest chooses to offer up the Sacrifice as a votive in honour of some other saint or holy mystery on her days. But, jealous of her honour, her mother and ours, Sancta Mater Ecclesia, binds every priest to read his Breviary Hours in honour of Santa Feria on all such occasions. (When after some years during which Pope Leo XIII had permitted votive Offices to be read on ferial days, it was St Pius X who won for Santa Feria the greatest restoration of her cultus.)

Her name itself, which originally in Latin meant "a feast", has lost that meaning over time: but she is still much to be loved, not least by those who style themselves devotees of Sacra Liturgia, another of her holy relatives.

Indeed, the well-known song "Santa Lucia", it may appear, was surely written in honour of her: "Santa Fer-i-a, Santa Fer-I-a!"