THE LIBRARY UNIVERSIT NORTH CAR( REFERENCE NON-C!RCULATING ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES ZGA.QZ V* 3 $&&*&&& r^rmftft^' toA«A»A«lAAftA/»A, UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL Yw*/n/ 00024156903 U Kaa'! iilllS^lll\CV>w r\ ^.HrS:A /=• ,fi /ft, « iaAAaAAA t-. ! ' ,; ' - ^ ' M -a a a ' J ; a a ''a ^ ^ ^ ^ ; A A A A ^ C .aa r«r«nikfCi/^«MTAFAiiii>rciSJES><I^/^TiQf/^ i waaaaw MwWiS ' _ ^A Pi AMA- Ifi^AAA^, THE LITURGICAL YEAR. PASCHAL TIME. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://archive.org/details/liturgicalyear07gura THE LITURGICAL YEAR. VERY REV. DOM PROSPER GUEEANGEE, ABBOT OF SOLESMES. ©rattslatrb from il;e ^rtntlj, BY THE REV. DOM LAUEENCE SHEPHERD, MONK OF THE ENGLISH-BENEDICTINE CONGREGATION. PASCHAL TIME. VOL. I. DUBLIN : JAMES DUFFY, 15, WELLINGTON-QUAY; AND 22, PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON. 1871. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL DUBLIN: Ivxdth bg g. p. Q'&aah £ Soit, 6 & 7, GT. BRDKSWICK STKEET. PASCHAL TIME. PREFACE. With this Volume we begin the Season of Easter, wherein are accomplished the Mysteries prepared for, and looked forward to, since Advent. Such are the Liturgical riches of this portion of the Christian Year, that we have found it necessary to devote three Volumes to it. The present Volume is wholly taken up with Easter Week. A Week is indeed a short period ; but such a Week as this, with the importance of the events it brings before us, and the grandeur of the mysteries it celebrates, is, at least, equivalent to any other section of our " Liturgical Year." We have abridged our explanations as much as possible; and yet, having concluded Low Sunday, we find that we have exceeded two thirds of one of our ordinary Volumes. Hence, it was out of the question to add the remaining Weeks ; the IV PREFACE. more so, as the Saints' Feasts recommence on the Monday following the Easter Octave, and their insertion would have obliged us to have made our Volume considerably more bulky than even that of Passiontide. We have, therefore, been satisfied with giving the Mass and Office of the Annunciation, already given in our Volume for Lent, but which are needed for the Monday after Low Sunday, when Easter falls between the 22nd of March and the 2nd of April, which is frequently the case. CONTENTS. PAGE. Preface, iii PASCHAL TIME. Chap. I. —The History of Paschal Time, . 1 Chap. II.—The Mystery of Paschal Time, . .15 Chap. III. —Practice during Paschal Time, . 22 Chap. IV.— Morning and Night Prayers for Paschal Time, 29 Chap. V.—On hearing Mass, during Paschal Time, 46 Chap. VI.—On Holy Communion, during Paschal Time, 83 Chap. VII.— Of the Office of Vespers for Sundays and Feasts during Paschal Time, . 91 Chap. VIII.—Of the Office of Compline, during Paschal Time, . 102 EASTER SUNDAY 113 Morning, ...... 113 Office of The Matins, ... 125 Lauds, . 143 Mass, . 156 Afternoon, . 174 The Easter Vespers. 178 Evening, . 192 VI CONTENTS. PAGE. Easter Monday, . 201 Mass, 208 Vespers, . 217 Easter Tuesday, . 223 Mass, 227 Vespers, . 235 Wednesday in Easter Week, 243 Mass, .... 246 Blessing of the Agnus Dei, 256 Thursday in Easter Week, 266 Mass, .... 274 Friday in Easter Week, . 289 Mass, .... 295 Saturday in Easter Week, 308 Mass, .• . 316 The taking off the White Garments, 324 Quasimodo or Low Sunday, 333 Mass, 339 Vespers, 346 The Annunciation of the Ever Blessed Virgin, 350 First Vespers, . 350 Mass, 357 Second Vespers, 366 PASCHAL TIME. CHAPTER THE FIRST. THE HISTORY OF PASCHAL TIME. We give the name of Paschal Time to the period between Easter Sunday and the Saturday follow- ing Whit Sunday. It is the most sacred portion of the Liturgical year, and the one towards which the whole Cycle converges. We shall easily understand how this is, if we reflect upon the greatness of the Easter Feast, which is called the Feast of Feasts, and the Solemnity of solemnities, in the same manner, says St. Gregory, 1 as the most sacred part of the Temple was called the Holy of holies ; and the Book of Sacred Scripture, wherein are described the es- pousals between Christ and the Church, is called the Canticle of canticles. It is on this day, that the mission of the Word Incarnate obtains the object, towards which it has hitherto been unceasingly tend- ing : —mankind is raised up from his fall, and regains what he had lost by Adam's sin. Christmas gave us a Man-God ; three days have scarcely passed, since we witnessed his infinitely precious Blood shed for our ransom : but now, on the Day of Easter, our Jesus is no longer the Victim of death ; he is a Conqueror, that destroys Death, the 1 Homilia, xxii. PASCH. TIME I. -r. : 2 PASCHAL TIME. child of sin, and proclaims Life, that undying life, "which he has purchased for us. The humiliation of his Swathing-bands, the sufferings of his Agony and Cross,—these are past ; all is now glory,—glory for himself, and glory also for us. On the Day of Easter, God regains, by the Resurrection of the Man- God, his creation such as he made it at the beginning the only vestige now left of Death is that likeness to sin, which the Lamb of God deigned to take upon himself. Neither is it Jesus alone that returns to eternal Life ; the whole human race also has risen to Immortality together with our Jesus. By a man came Death, says the Apostle ; and by a Man the Resurrection of the dead : and, as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. 1 The anniversary of this Resurrection is, therefore, the Great Day, the Day of Joy, the Day by excellence : the Day to which the whole year looks forward in ex- pectation, and on which its whole economy is formed. But as it is the holiest of days, since it opens to us the gate of Heaven, into which we shall enter because we have Risen together with Christ,—the Church would have us come to it well prepared by bodily mortification and by compunction of heart. It was for this, that she instituted the Fast of Lent, and that she bade us, during Septuagesima, look forward to the joy of her Easter, and be filled with sentiments suitable to the approach of so grand a solemnity. We obeyed; we have gone through the period of ourpre- paration ; —and now the Easter sun has risen upon us ! But it was not enough to solemnise the great Day when Jesus, our Light, rose from the darkness of the Tomb : there was another anniversary which claimed our grateful celebration. The Incarnate Word rose on the first day of the week,—that same day, where- on, four thousand years before, he, the Uncreated 1 I. Cor. xv. 21, 22. HISTORY OF PASCHAL TIME. 3 Word of the Father, had begun the work of the Cre- ation, by calling forth Light, and separating it from Darkness. The first day was thus ennobled by the cre- ation of Light. It received a second consecration by the Resurrection of Jesus : and from that time forward, Sunday, and not Saturday, was to be the Lord's Day. Yes, our Resurrection in Jesus which took place on the Sunday, gave this first Day a pre-eminence above the others of the week: the divine precept of the Sabbath was abrogated, together with the other ordinances of the Mosaic Law, and the Apostles in- structed the Faithful to keep holy the first Day of the week, which God had dignified with that twofold glory, —theCreation and the Regeneration of the world. Sunday, then, being the Day of Jesus' Resurrection, the Church chose that, in preference to every other, for its yearly commemoration. The Pasch of the Christians was thus distinguished from that of the Jews, which, in consequence of its being fixed on the fourteenth of the moon of March, (the anniversary of the going out of Egypt,) fell, by turns, on each of the days of the week. The Jewish Pasch was but a figure ; ours is the reality, and puts an end to the figure. The Church, therefore, broke this her last tie with the Synagogue ; and proclaimed her emancipa- tion, by fixing the most solemn of her Feasts on a day, which should never agree with that on which Jews keep their now unmeaning Pasch. The Apostles decreed, that the Christian Pasch should never be celebrated on the fourteenth of the moon of March, even were that day to be a Sunday ; but that it should be everywhere kept on the Sunday following the day on which the obsolete calendar of the Synagogue still marks it. Nevertheless, out of consideration for the many Jews, who had received Baptism, and who formed the nucleus of the early Christian Church, it was resolved, that the law, regarding the Day for keeping the new : 4 PASCHAL TIME. Pasch, should be applied prudently and gradually. Jerusalem was soon to be clestro}7 ed by the Romans, according to our Saviour's prediction ; and the new City, which was to rise up from its ruins, and receive the Christian colony, would also have its Church, but a Church totally free from the Jewish element, which God had so visibly rejected. In preaching the Gospel and founding Churches, even far beyond the limits of the Roman Empire, the majority of the Apostles had not to contend with Jewish customs ; most of their converts were from among the Gentiles.