Bishops' Vademecum for Holy Week 2021

[John Ainslie]

I've failed to find this on the Liturgy Office website, so here it is attached.

It suggests that there can be repeated celebrations of the Good Friday liturgy. Surprisingly it fails to mention the facility given by the 1988 decree Paschalis sollemnitas to have multiple Evening Masses - and even a morning Mass - on Maundy Thursday. Article 47 says "Where pastoral considerations require it, the local Ordinary may permit another Mass to be celebrated in churches and oratories in the evening, and in the case of true necessity, even in the morning, but only for those faithful who cannot otherwise participate in the evening Mass."

Where a large-parish-smallish-church situation exists, that could be important. Many devout foilk would wish to receive Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday. There is no watching after Mass.

It will also need to be made very clear in advance that there is no 'creeping to the cross' on Good Friday this year.

[Southern Comfort]

It will also need to be made very clear in advance that there is no 'creeping to the cross' on Good Friday this year.

I am aware of some parishes where there will indeed be a procession (socially distanced) to the cross, but with each person bowing to the cross and not kissing it. This keeps some of the symbolism that is largely lost if the cross is simply held up and all bow to it in their places.

I also hear of parishes have also decided to forego Communion on Good Friday, partly for reasons of health safety but also because it helps to reduce the time that people need to be inside the building for a lengthy service.

[quaeritor]

I've failed to find this on the Liturgy Office website, so here it is attached.

Thanks for a useful link - I'd also failed to find any such advice on the L O website - and also on the (rather impenetrable) website of the Archdiocese of Birmingham. A couple of details seem to be missed:

- The Exsultet may be sung, but what happens to the responses to "The Lord be with you" etc? - and the Amen?

- the same is true of responsorial psalms - what are parishes doing at normal weekly Masses, (ours has abandoned singing) and if we try to make a special effort for the Holy Week services is there any sensible solution as to the responses? The same applies - even moreso - to the Gospel Acclamations. It does seem rather pointless to sing the (single) verse if the response is said or omitted.

- What should be done with the Triple Alleluia in the Easter Vigil? It would seem rather bizarre for the priest to to say it three times "raising his voice by a step each time" (R34) and frankly comical for the Congregation to follow suit!

I must admit I'm coming round to the conclusion that I should stop trying to wriggle through the "rules" in order to try to do as much of what we normally do as we can "get away with" and just hope for better things by Whitsun.

Q

[alan29]

My plan for the psalms will be to have the response once at the beginning and at the end and to straight through the verses.
We have no singing at all and to have the Exultet as the first bit of singing will be profound.

[John Ainslie]

I've failed to find this on the Liturgy Office website, so here it is attached.

Thanks for a useful link - I'd also failed to find any such advice on the L O website - and also on the (rather impenetrable) website of the Archdiocese of Birmingham. A couple of details seem to be missed:

- The Exsultet may be sung, but what happens to the responses to "The Lord be with you" etc? - and the Amen?

I would suggest omitting the dialogue in the middle and have the singer sing the 'Amen' rather pointedly at the end.

- the same is true of responsorial psalms - what are parishes doing at normal weekly Masses, (ours has abandoned singing) and if we try to make a special effort for the Holy Week services is there any sensible solution as to the responses? The same applies - even moreso - to the Gospel Acclamations. It does seem rather pointless to sing the (single) verse if the response is said or omitted.

To shorten services,you might want to limit the number of readings and psalms proclaimed, esp. Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Otherwise sing the psalm straight through with the refrain once at the beginning and once at the end. With Gospel Acclamations, sing the verse only.

- What should be done with the Triple Alleluia in the Easter Vigil? It would seem rather bizarre for the priest to to say it three times "raising his voice by a step each time" (R34) and frankly comical for the Congregation to follow suit!

Have the priest sing the Alleluia just once to the simple tone; the cantor can then sing one or all of the verses and then the same Alleluia at the end.

[quaeritor]

Thanks, John Ainslie, for some useful ideas, particularly the simplification of the Alleluia which I shall try to persuade the PP to use.

Could I divert you for a moment to what happens in a "normal" year, the directions for which still leave me bemused - seeming to have been put together by two different people one working from the Missal and the other from the Lectionary.

The Missal instruction (R34) for the "Great Alleluia" is straightforward:
"34. After the Epistle has been read, all rise, then the Priest solemnly intones the Alleluia three times, raising his voice by a step each time, with all repeating it. If necessary, the psalmist intones the Alleluia." Then there follows the actual music notation. which I can't reproduce here but with which we are all familiar - one word "Alleluia" sung at considerable length. It then continues:
"Then the psalmist or cantor proclaims Psalm 117 with the people responding Alleluia." - without specifying what setting.

I am not able to refer directly to the Lectionary from home (the Missal is on-line) but in my layman's Missal, and in the "missalette" (the one published by John F Neale) the next item is:

"Stand Responsorial Psalm"
Repeat the Response after each verse:"

- and the Response is printed as "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!" - clearly not three iterations of the long version that has been printed above after each verse (I hope!) We have been making a fresh start with the simple tone as we do for the Gospel Acclamation every Sunday but there is still rather a superfluity of Alleluias at the "join". What do others do in a normal year?

(ps - It's the direction to "Stand" for the Responsorial Psalm (formerly known as the Gospel Acclamation) when the Congregation is already standing that makes me suspect some maladroit cutting and pasting!)


Q

[John Ainslie]

I also hear of parishes have also decided to forego Communion on Good Friday, partly for reasons of health safety but also because it helps to reduce the time that people need to be inside the building for a lengthy service.

If you don't have Communion on Good Friday, you can't have the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament - normally at the Place of Repose, this year in the Tabernacle of the church - at the end of the Maundy Thursday Evening Mass. For the purpose of the reservation in 'the chapel of repose is... for the custody of the eucharistic bread that will be distributed in communion on Good Friday' (Paschalis sollemnitas, 55).

[Southern Comfort]

I also hear of parishes have also decided to forego Communion on Good Friday, partly for reasons of health safety but also because it helps to reduce the time that people need to be inside the building for a lengthy service.

If you don't have Communion on Good Friday, you can't have the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament - normally at the Place of Repose, this year in the Tabernacle of the church - at the end of the Maundy Thursday Evening Mass. For the purpose of the reservation in 'the chapel of repose is... for the custody of the eucharistic bread that will be distributed in communion on Good Friday' (Paschalis sollemnitas, 55).

I'm afraid this interpretation of Paschale Solemnitatis may be incorrect.

The Roman Missal tells us that Communion may be brought to the sick at any time on Good Friday (Good Friday global pre-rubric no. 2), and that Holy Communion may only be given on Holy Saturday as Viaticum (Holy Saturday global pre-rubric no. 3). The Blessed Sacrament would need to be reserved on Maundy Thursday evening to fulfil either of these requirements.

The only time that there is no procession on Maundy Thursday evening is in the case enunciated under Maundy Thursday para 44:

If the celebration of the Passion of the Lord on the following Friday does not take place in the same church, the Mass is concluded in the usual way and the Blessed Sacrament is placed in the tabernacle.

This situation is often found in parishes where there are several churches and the Triduum celebrations are shared out among them.

What Paschale Solemnitatis is talking about in para 55 is the desirability of the place of repose looking like a tabernacle and not a tomb. For those interested, the full document can be found on the Liturgy Office website: https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calend ... itatis.pdf

[John Ainslie]

Southern Comfort has highlighted a peculiar progression in the rubrics concerning the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament after Maundy Thirsday Mass. The rubric 44 that SC quotes is a new provision in the 2010 3rd editio typica of the Roman Missal, and IMHO a regrettable one.

One of the great wonders of the Sacred Triduum is the emptiness of the tabernacle both before the Maundy Thursday Mass and from after the liturgy on Good Friday, through Holy Saturday and until the Easter Vigil Communion, when we have the new 'unleavened bread of purity and truth' (cf Communion Antiphon). There is a direct reflection of Jewish Passover rituals here, with their scrupulous clearing out before the Passover unleavened bread at the Seder.

The Missal rubrics direct that the Blessed Sacrament should be kept after the Good Friday liturgy in 'a place prepared outside the church' - often the presbytery. The additional option - 'or, if circumstances require, it is placed in the tabernacle' - is unfortunate, and although the Missal allows it, Paschale sollemnitas, intended as a guide to good practice, does not (para 70).

[Southern Comfort]

While agreeing that the new provision is far from ideal, I fear the rubrical pundits would tell us that GIRM/Missal 2010 is more recent than Paschale Solemnitatis (January 1988) and therefore supersedes the latter. But even the Missal seems confused about some things.

As John says, Missal rubric Good Friday 29 does specify that "the ciborium is taken by the Deacon or another suitable minister to a place prepared outside the church or, if circumstances so require, it is placed in the tabernacle", but rubric 22 tells us that the priest or deacon "brings the Blessed Sacrament back from the place of repose to the altar by a shorter route".

If the Blessed Sacrament has been brought from the place of repose, why can it not be taken back there? It makes no sense to specify somewhere outside the church. And why specify a shorter route? Is it because some Italian priests have had a solemn procession from the altar of repose, mirroring in reverse what happened on Maundy Thursday evening?

Fr Pierre Jounel tells us that "the Italian clergy, in particular, made little differentiation between the Easter Vigil and a Saturday evening anticipated Mass of Sunday, getting through the whole rite in 45 minutes. This was what provoked the 1988 instruction on the Celebration of Easter which, says Jounel, was not necessarily aimed at abuses in other countries and certainly not in France." (Voices from the Council, OCP)

One is reminded of the way that Cardinal Francis Arinze used to go round the world hectoring people about perceived abuses which they had not even thought of! Often they were things that had hitherto only been found in Rome itself.....