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In his book, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975,the architect of the reform that took place after the Second Vatican Council, Annibale Bugnini, expressed his regret that he could not move Ash Wednesday onto a Sunday. A penitential Sunday is impossible, he explains, but as things stand, Ash Wednesday is forever associated with Mardi Gras.
In countries and regions where Mardi Gras is a big thing, one can appreciate the problem, especially when celebrations spread over Ash Wednesday itself. And yet, like the consumerism of Christmas present-giving and the chocolate eggs of Easter, it is ultimately a product of Catholic liturgy. As Catholics, we have to work out how to handle this overgrown and frankly deformed progeny of our own tradition.
We have a similar problem with Halloween.
The Eve of All Hallows, that is to say the feast of All Hallowed (Holy) Souls, or All Saints, Hallowe’en, is the day before All Hallows, All Saints. As one of the major feasts of the Church’s year, All Saints is a holy day of obligation, and until the reforms of 1955, it had both a vigil and an octave. The octave meant that the same Mass, the Mass of All Saints, would be celebrated again on the eighth day, and sometimes on intervening days. The vigil Mass, with its own prayers and readings, was celebrated the day before. This arrangement made possible, for the greatest feasts of the Church’s year, repeated opportunities to contemplate the mystery expressed in the feast and, in the case of the vigil, an opportunity to contemplate it in a penitential mode, before celebrating it as a joyful feast. For the vigil was a penitential day: violet vestments were worn, and the 1917 Code of Canon Law listed the Vigil of All Saints as a fast day.
Continued below.
www.catholic.com
In his book, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975,the architect of the reform that took place after the Second Vatican Council, Annibale Bugnini, expressed his regret that he could not move Ash Wednesday onto a Sunday. A penitential Sunday is impossible, he explains, but as things stand, Ash Wednesday is forever associated with Mardi Gras.
In countries and regions where Mardi Gras is a big thing, one can appreciate the problem, especially when celebrations spread over Ash Wednesday itself. And yet, like the consumerism of Christmas present-giving and the chocolate eggs of Easter, it is ultimately a product of Catholic liturgy. As Catholics, we have to work out how to handle this overgrown and frankly deformed progeny of our own tradition.
We have a similar problem with Halloween.
The Eve of All Hallows, that is to say the feast of All Hallowed (Holy) Souls, or All Saints, Hallowe’en, is the day before All Hallows, All Saints. As one of the major feasts of the Church’s year, All Saints is a holy day of obligation, and until the reforms of 1955, it had both a vigil and an octave. The octave meant that the same Mass, the Mass of All Saints, would be celebrated again on the eighth day, and sometimes on intervening days. The vigil Mass, with its own prayers and readings, was celebrated the day before. This arrangement made possible, for the greatest feasts of the Church’s year, repeated opportunities to contemplate the mystery expressed in the feast and, in the case of the vigil, an opportunity to contemplate it in a penitential mode, before celebrating it as a joyful feast. For the vigil was a penitential day: violet vestments were worn, and the 1917 Code of Canon Law listed the Vigil of All Saints as a fast day.
Continued below.
Three Halloweens
The Protestant, the modern neo-pagan, and the Catholic will all have different interpretations of Halloween, along with different ideas of how to treat it.
