Pentecost Sequence

[Southern Comfort]

I think I am right that the Code of Canon Law made Mass of the Sunday on Saturday Evening as permitted and fulfilling the obligation.

Yes. If anyone needs the reference:

Can. 1248 §1. A person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.

I understand the Mass assigned to the Sunday as the texts given for that celebration in the liturgical books. Therefore Pentecost Sunday has two sets of texts assigned: Vigil and Day Masses. Therefore the Vigil Mass fulfills the OBligation.

I would be happy to accept that interpretation if Eucharisticum Mysterium didn't seem to be saying something else, or at least to be ambiguous.

However there is a link between obligation and the texts used - it is not enough to go to Mass at the right time it has to be the right Mass.

There I think we are in complete agreement.

BTW, I have looked in the reponses published in Notitiae to dubia submitted to the Congregation between 1969 and 1998, but no joy there, alas.

[Southern Comfort]

I understand the Mass assigned to the Sunday as the texts given for that celebration in the liturgical books. Therefore Pentecost Sunday has two sets of texts assigned: Vigil and Day Masses. Therefore the Vigil Mass fulfills the OBligation.

I would be happy to accept that interpretation if Eucharisticum Mysterium didn't seem to be saying something else, or at least to be ambiguous.

I forgot to add also that in the preconciliar rite the Vigil of Pentecost (with its six prophecies, tracts and collects, blessing of the font and litany) was never considered as fulfilling the obligation for Pentecost. It was simply the prescribed celebration for the eve of Pentecost.

[Hare]

http://www.canticanova.com/articles/easter/artac1.htm

[FrGareth]

First, to answer Hare's original question, I used the Sequence at the Vigil, because the Wales Ordo (worded similarly to the Southwark one) specified it.

Second, I celebrated the "Pentecost Vigil Mass" because the Ordo and the notes in the Lectionary indicated that the Vigil mass was the proper Mass for the evening of the day before Pentecost.

I can find no grounds for believing that this Vigil (or the Christmas Vigil) do not fulfil obligations - the understanding I have from seminary is that ANY Mass attended after 4pm on the eve of a day of obligation counts, whether the texts are of the obligation or not.

The only counter-indication is the 1967 document which must surely be superseded by the 1983 code of canon law.

FrGareth