Preparing for Lent and Easter 2012

[JW]

Thank you, Peter, for bringing our attention to the new Resurrexit. I assume it has the Nihil Obstat? And congratulations to Decani for the immense amount of work they have done in the past year.

[JW]

Is the showing of the Cross on Good Friday still a threefold affair? The instructions here seem to suggest that it isn't. I haven't seen the Roman Missal and don't want to mention this in the parish if there's no change.

[Southern Comfort]

Is the showing of the Cross on Good Friday still a threefold affair? The instructions here seem to suggest that it isn't. I haven't seen the Roman Missal and don't want to mention this in the parish if there's no change.

Two forms:

(1) Threefold, gradual unveiling (para 15, page 362), or
(2) Procession of already completely unveiled cross (para 16, page 363)

Choose which you want. In my experience over the past 42 years of the revised (1970) rites, everyone does (2), not (1), but I'm sure there must be some places where they cling to the older tradition.

[NorthernTenor]

Is the showing of the Cross on Good Friday still a threefold affair? The instructions here seem to suggest that it isn't. I haven't seen the Roman Missal and don't want to mention this in the parish if there's no change.

Two forms:

(1) Threefold, gradual unveiling (para 15, page 362), or
(2) Procession of already completely unveiled cross (para 16, page 363)

Choose which you want. In my experience over the past 42 years of the revised (1970) rites, everyone does (2), not (1), but I'm sure there must be some places where they cling to the older tradition.

I can't help but be amused by SC's estimation of the significance of his experience of the past 42 years (a blink of the eye in the context of our liturgical history), as against that of those few, poor, benighted places where they "cling" to the older tradition.

[Nick Baty]

In my experience over the past 42 years of the revised (1970) rites, everyone does (2), not (1), but I'm sure there must be some places where they cling to the older tradition.

Yes, I've only ever seen 1 in Catholic churches but I have experienced 2 with Anglicans.

[docmattc]

Choose which you want. In my experience over the past 42 years of the revised (1970) rites, everyone does (2), not (1), but I'm sure there must be some places where they cling to the older tradition.

It would be good to remember that the plural of anecdote is not data. 42 years presumably equates to a maximum of 42 parishes. This is not a statistically significant sample to make such a sweeping conclusion.

My own anecdotal information is that in 38 years of the revised (1970) rites I have never experienced (2). Therefore by SC's logic 'everyone' does (1).

[Nick Baty]

42 years presumably equates to a maximum of 42 parishes. This is not a statistically significant sample to make such a sweeping conclusion.

Not necessarily, Doc. SC might have collected information from hundreds of parishes during that 42 years.

[docmattc]

42 years presumably equates to a maximum of 42 parishes. This is not a statistically significant sample to make such a sweeping conclusion.

Not necessarily, Doc. SC might have collected information from hundreds of parishes during that 42 years.

He might, but until we see the data his conclusion is unwarranted and potentially misleading.

[Southern Comfort]

My dear friends,

JW asked a very simple question, and I gave him a very simple, factual answer: A or B. I added that I had never seen one of those two alternatives since 1970. Once again a simple statement. No quality judgement, no assertion that one was better than the other and therefore should be done.

NT's amusement is ill-judged, if not gratuitously snarky. He has, once again, read something into a comnment which simply wasn't there. I don't feel this forum benefits from that kind of behaviour.

[gwyn]

In Costa del Abergavenny we're definitely in the (1) camp.

[keitha]

Interesting to see if it's a geography thing. In two parishes in Coventry we have only ever done (2) once, when we had a new PP - and popular comment brought (1) back for the following year . New PP this year so it may change - we will see.

[John Ainslie]

My experience is a combination of both 1 and 2, i.e. procession through the church with three stations (2), but unveiling the cross a little at each station (1). This would seem to be excluded by the rubric that, in the Second Form, 'the priest or deacon receives the unveiled cross... then the procession sets off through the church to the sanctuary' (para 16). I rather think that we will be keeping to our traditional combination.

[Nick Baty]

Our cross is about six foot tall, plain wood – although smooth enough for noone to get splinters during the veneration. And I get the first view of it. There's something quite dramatic about seeing this iconic (understatement) object appear at the back of the church, above the heads of the assembly and hearing our priest sing "This is the wood of the cross..." Of course, given its size (the cross's rather than the priest's), unveiling would be a tad impractical.

[Tsume Tsuyu]

As far back as I remember, we've used the first form in our parish and, as I'm in the same neck of the woods as Keitha, perhaps it is a geographical thing. I don't have a strong feeling either way. What bothers me more is the fact that we always use (and have always used) a cross, complete with corpus, and not a plain cross.

[blackthorn fairy]

I too have only ever experienced (1) - gradual unveiling - in Wellinborough, in all those years, whether old rite or 'new'. Can't comment on elsewhere.