Triduum 2011 - Hope all goes well!

[VML]

A very good point Peter. I did not plan our Easter this year, so we sang the Swedish Lamb of God, but no words in the hymn sheet....

[Peter]

We didn't have a hymn sheet this year: the congregation used hymnbooks, hence the paraphrased Gloria they took from it. No prizes for guessing which hymnbook, but I gather its publisher doesn't think much of the Panel! At least the Sanctus used the correct (current) text and was sung form memory as it is regularly used in that particular church.

[Nick Baty]

Is there a limit on how long this "gradual transition" is allowed to take?

I presume – although am basing this on thin air – this means don't throw out everything in one go. Introduce a new Sanctus, for example, then make it part of the repertoire and drop a couple of old ones. Introduce another one and then drop a couple more.

I've planned for us phasing out all our old eucharistic acclamations by Advent, replacing them with three settings of the new text. I I realise that having just three settings is a tad tedious but we'll stick with them while we introduce a couple of Glorias straight after Christmas. The plan is to have seven sets of Eucharistic Acclamations and three Glorias by Advent 2012. Hopefully, these will keep us going for a while.

Following Peter's earlier example, I have moved this to a new thread.

[JW]

Concerning the wood of the cross. If the Wikipedia article is correct in saying that Charles Rohault de Fleury had analysed fragments of relics as pinewood then we have a discrepancy. The Santo Toribio de Liebana relic is of 'Cupressus Sempervivens'. I have to say in venerating such relics that one has to suspend logic and rationality and rely on faith. Provenance is impossible to prove - with the Santo Toribio relic there are gaps of hundreds of years.

[nazard]

The cross was made of two pieces of wood, probably of what happened to be lying about rather than procured specially for the job, so they may well have been different woods. On the other hand, the relics industry does have a dreadful reputation. It has been pointed out that if all the items of Queen Victoria's underwear sold as "genuine" really are, she changed her clothes several times a day and never wore the same underwear twice.

Back to the cross: most depictions show it made of neatly square planed wood. Before the planing machine was invented, such wood was very expensive indeed. The cross was very likely made from tree trunks very much as felled. I personally have never seen a crucifix made that way. The fragments of the true cross kept as relics are normally so small that they do not give any indication of the surface finish of the whole cross.

[JW]

Back to the cross: most depictions show it made of neatly square planed wood. Before the planing machine was invented, such wood was very expensive indeed. The cross was very likely made from tree trunks very much as felled. I personally have never seen a crucifix made that way. The fragments of the true cross kept as relics are normally so small that they do not give any indication of the surface finish of the whole cross.

The Santo Toribo de Liebana relic is incredibly smooth and shiny - but who knows what treatment it has had over the past 2000 years.

[nazard]

Thinking more about it, the other thing that is probably wrong with crucifixes is that they always depict a neat cabinet maker's joint, normally a halving joint where enough detail is shown, between the two pieces of the cross. I doubt if that was really the case. I would guess that one piece was just laid over the other and a few nails or a rope lashing used to join them. The rope is more likely: nails were expensive in a pre-industrial society.