Today, the twenty-fifth of December, the eighth calends of January, the thirteenth moon of the month, we celebrate the solemn feast of the Nativity of the Lord. In short, we are twelve days away from the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord next year. For that, a Merry Christmas to everyone! This year, Epiphany fell on the first Friday of January. Next year, Epiphany will be on the first Saturday! Traditionally, the dates of the movable feasts are announced at Mass on the Epiphany. This seems pointless now with the plethora of liturgical calendars, but there is something ecclesiological we can appreciate from the practice, as we have explained here.
The star of Bethlehem | Edward Burne-Jones | 1887–1891
This means that it is time for our priests and deacons to brush up on the Epiphany announcement, a parallelising misnomer (we will be having the Christmas proclamation this Christmas) for the rather cumbersome announcement of movable feasts. Unlike the Christmas proclamation, this one does not have any stymieing elogium (say, for the phase of the moon), apart from the synodal elogium, which we have omitted, since the diocesan phase of the ongoing Synod on Synodality is already over, and our local ordinary had not issued an indiction for a diocesan synod anytime this 2024. And, unlike the Christmas proclamation, the tone for this announcement (click on the thumbnail to open the file) is familiar, being the same tone used for the Easter proclamation (yes, the Exsultet).
Oh, and a final note, 14 February will be Ash Wednesday. It is one of the two days when Filipinos cannot substitute anything for the obligatory fast and abstinence.
Niños del coro | José Gallegos y Arnosa | c. 1885–1890
Today is the twenty-second day of December. We are five days into the misa de aguinaldo, and two days away from Christmas Eve. Traditionally, before the misa de gallo, the Mass sung at midnight, the first Mass of Christmas, a cantor sings the proclamation of the birth of Christ, what many of us call kalendas, which was sang as prologue to the martyrology the previous day. Amongst us Filipinos, members of some choirs that sang in the Mass before the liturgical changes of the 1960s would probably still remember singing or hearing the kalendas, which used to be sung as a choral rite of passage from tiple to cantor.
We know, of course, that, in a deplorable, but not unexpected, happenstance, the chronological exactitude of the old text of the prologue of the Christmas martyrology was thrown off the cliff and replaced with a generic formula that situates the birth of our Redeemer at a time, rather off-puttingly, “when ages beyond number had run their course”. It is no longer a mystery to us, but we still wonder why the usus recentior strives to countenance this inelegance and ambiguity.
Le siècle d’Auguste et la naissance de Jésus-Christ | Jean-Léon Gérôme | 1855
For the usus antiquior, it is more common to use the older text. The elogium of the date is the same: the eighth calends of January. This means that 25 December is eight days away from 1 January, which is the calends of the month. The elogium of the moon changes per year, according to the epact of the year and its corresponding martyrology letter. This year, it is the thirteenth moon. Practically, especially if referencing the dates against the martyrology tables becomes too daunting a task to accomplish, we can simplify the reckoning by counting the number of days from the preceding new moon, which occurred on Tuesday, 12 December this year, feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, until 25 December.
There is a modus ordinarius found in the Martyrologium Romanum, but here we have the modus sollemnior (click on the thumbnail to open the file), which is probably monastic in provenance. If it has fallen upon our happy lot to chant the kalendas this year, then we can exercise the option to sing it in the more solemn tone in honour of the holy birth of our Redeemer.
A blessed Pentecost to everyone! Today, Holy Mother Church celebrates the 1990th anniversary of Her beginning, having been founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who ordained thus that the gates of hell shall not prevail against Her.
Today is the Ascension of the Lord. What could have been a very joyous feast has become a point of contention for many Filipino Catholics. Why? Because the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines decided to transfer the feast to a Sunday, literally destroying a chronology backed by Holy Writ itself! Fortunately, the usus antiquior operates on its own calendar, so this preposterous recklessness, which is not uniquely Filipino, but common to a motley set of episcopal conferences, can only slobber outside the gates of rubrical rectitude.
Ascensione di Cristo | Pietro Perugino | 1498
That said, we have to admit that the reason that the novus ordo loves to quote in its vain attempt to justify its scandalous penchant for transferring feasts also obtains in the vetus ordo. Not all faithful attached to the vetus ordo is able to attend Mass on a weekday, and not all priests ministering to traditional communities is able to say the Mass of All Ages on a weekday. Hence, it is often asked whether it is possible to celebrate feasts that fall on weekdays as an external solemnity on a Sunday. And the answer to this is in the affirmative. A qualified affirmative, that is.
The now-defunct Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei clarified this matter with a formal ruling on 20 October 2008 (head over here for the rescript, and here for the press release). If the local episcopal conference decided to transfer the feast to a Sunday, the feast is only transferred in the usus recentior. The feast remains on its proper day in the usus antiquior. Traditional communities desiring to mark the festivities on a Sunday are permitted, but not required, to celebrate an external solemnity of the same feast on the Sunday to which the local episcopal conference transferred it. This is the qualification of the affirmative response issued by the PCED. The feast is to be externally solemnised on the Sunday of its translation.
One may be dismayed why the PCED countenanced such anomaly, which can come across as acquiescing to the paradigm of the novus ordo, but this formal ruling is, in fact, more favourable to the vetus ordo than the other possibility being contemplated upon at this time. The first clarification Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos (head over here for the cardinal’s confirmation) provided on this matter tended towards total submission of the vetus ordo to the novus ordo calendar, where the transferred feast would command greater import over the traditional date, which would then be reduced to a status akin to that of an external solemnity, with an added insult of being optional. If the good cardinal’s response transcended the vapours of interview and became ink on paper, many traditionalists all over the world today would be required and obliged to celebrate the feast of the Ascension on 21 May, and only a mere external solemnity of the Ascension on 18 May.
Fortunately, the definitive ruling quashed this imminent obscenity. In practical terms, this means that, this Sunday, 21 May, Filipino Catholics can celebrate an external solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. This also means that, on 11 June, which is the Sunday within the octave of Corpus Christi, Filipino Catholics can celebrate an external solemnity of the Corpus Christi. This further means that, on 7 January 2024, and on 5 January 2025, as well as on 4 January 2026, which are the first Sundays after 1 January in each mentioned year, Filipino Catholics can celebrate an external solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. It bears repeating that this faculty permits, but not requires, traditional communities to celebrate the external solemnity of a feast on the Sunday chosen by the local episcopal conference.
This is a reminder that, behind the relative stability the usus antiquior today enjoys, lies a chaos of opportunities both happily seized (the tacit permissions that went into the official traditional ordo, for example) and happily missed (the obligation to follow the novus ordo calendar in reckoning traditional feasts, as mentioned above). Militancy on behalf of the vetus ordo is doomed to tragedy if we helm it as activists who fail, or even refuse, to recognise the nuances. We personally dislike favouring external solemnities to the detriment of their proper feasts, but we must not let our preferences crowd the room that Holy Mother Church built for her children with respect to matters liturgical.
Today, the twenty-fifth of December, the eighth calends of January, the twenty-first moon of the month, we celebrate the solemn feast of the Nativity of the Lord. In short, we are twelve days away from the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord next year. For that, a Merry Christmas to everyone! This year, Epiphany fell on the first Thursday of January. Next year, Epiphany will be on the first Friday! Traditionally, the dates of the movable feasts are announced at Mass on the Epiphany. This seems pointless now with the plethora of liturgical calendars, but there is something ecclesiological we can appreciate from the practice, as we have explained here.
The star of Bethlehem | Edward Burne-Jones | 1887–1891
This means that it is time for our priests and deacons to brush up on the Epiphany announcement, a parallelising misnomer (we will be having the Christmas proclamation this Christmas) for the rather cumbersome announcement of movable feasts. Unlike the Christmas proclamation, this one does not have any stymieing elogium (say, for the phase of the moon), apart from the synodal elogium, which we have omitted, since the diocesan phase of the ongoing Synod on Synodality is already over, and our local ordinary had not issued an indiction for a diocesan synod anytime this 2023. And, unlike the Christmas proclamation, the tone for this announcement (click on the thumbnail to open the file) is familiar, being the same tone used for the Easter proclamation (yes, the Exsultet).
Oh, and a final note, 22 February will be Ash Wednesday. It is one of the two days when Filipinos cannot substitute anything for the obligatory fast and abstinence.
Niños del coro | José Gallegos y Arnosa | c. 1885–1890
Today is the first day of December. We are two days and one and a half fortnights away from Christmas Eve. Traditionally, before the misa de gallo, the Mass sung at midnight, the first Mass of Christmas, a cantor sings the proclamation of the birth of Christ, what many of us call kalendas, which was sang as prologue to the martyrology the previous day. Amongst us Filipinos, members of some choirs that sang in the Mass before the liturgical changes of the 1960s would probably still remember singing or hearing the kalendas, which used to be sung as a choral rite of passage from tiple to cantor.
We know, of course, that, in a deplorable, but not unexpected, happenstance, the chronological exactitude of the old text of the prologue of the Christmas martyrology was thrown off the cliff and replaced with a generic formula that situates the birth of our Redeemer at a time, rather off-puttingly, “when ages beyond number had run their course”. It is no longer a mystery to us, but we still wonder why the usus recentior strives to countenance this inelegance and ambiguity.
Le siècle d’Auguste et la naissance de Jésus-Christ | Jean-Léon Gérôme | 1855
For the usus antiquior, it is more common to use the older text. The elogium of the date is the same: the eighth calends of January. This means that 25 December is eight days away from 1 January, which is the calends of the month. The elogium of the moon changes per year, according to the epact of the year and its corresponding martyrology letter. This year, it is the second moon. Practically, especially if referencing the dates against the martyrology tables becomes too daunting a task to accomplish, we can simplify the reckoning by counting the number of days from the preceding new moon, which will occur on Friday, 23 December this year, until 25 December.
There is a modus ordinarius found in the Martyrologium Romanum, but here we have the modus sollemnior (click on the thumbnail to open the file), which is probably monastic in provenance. If it has fallen upon our happy lot to chant the kalendas this year, then we can exercise the option to sing it in the more solemn tone in honour of the holy birth of our Redeemer.
A blessed Pentecost to everyone! Today, Holy Mother Church celebrates the 1989th anniversary of Her beginning, having been founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who ordained thus that the gates of hell shall not prevail against Her.
In 2016, we released our first Easter prophetiary, which covered Prophecies VII to XII. Since then, we received multiple requests to release the tones for Prophecies I to VI. Truth is, we have always sung these in the usual prophecy tone. However, by the time we released our old Pentecost prophetiary, we have already started work on the first half of the Easter prophecies. They were ready by 2019, and work was in progress to typeset them, so that we may print them by 2020. As we all know, the pandemic happened, and everything crashed to a halt, with exasperating abruptness, especially in an unpreparedly paranoid archipelago like the Philippines. Now, however, the first six prophecies of Easter are fully typeset in Book III of our prophetiary (click the image on the left to access the file). May it be useful to our mission to honour sacred music in its proper place in Catholic worship.
Today, the twenty-fifth of December, the eighth calends of January, the twenty-first moon of the month, we celebrate the solemn feast of the Nativity of the Lord. In short, we are twelve days away from the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord next year. For that, a Merry Christmas to everyone! This year, Epiphany fell on the first Wednesday of January. Next year, Epiphany will be on the first Thursday! Traditionally, the dates of the movable feasts are announced at Mass on the Epiphany. This seems pointless now with the plethora of liturgical calendars, but there is something ecclesiological we can appreciate from the practice, as we have explained here.
The star of Bethlehem | Edward Burne-Jones | 1887–1891
This means that it is time for our priests and deacons to brush up on the Epiphany announcement, a parallelising misnomer (we will be having the Christmas proclamation this Christmas) for the rather cumbersome announcement of movable feasts. Unlike the Christmas proclamation, this one does not have any stymieing elogium (say, for the phase of the moon), apart from the synodal elogium, which we have added as an option for next year, considering that the diocesan phase of the ominous Synod on Synodality spans from October 2021 to April 2022. And, unlike the Christmas proclamation, the tone for this announcement (click on the thumbnail to open the file) is familiar, being the same tone used for the Easter proclamation (yes, the Exsultet).
Oh, and a final note, 2 March will be Ash Wednesday. It is one of the two days when Filipinos cannot substitute anything for the obligatory fast and abstinence.
Niños del coro | José Gallegos y Arnosa | c. 1885–1890
We are a day away from Christmas Eve. Traditionally, before the misa de gallo, the Mass sung at midnight, the first Mass of Christmas, a cantor sings the proclamation of the birth of Christ, what many of us call kalendas, which was sang as prologue to the martyrology the previous day. Amongst us Filipinos, members of some choirs that sang in the Mass before the liturgical changes of the 1960s would probably still remember singing or hearing the kalendas, which used to be sung as a choral rite of passage from tiple to cantor.
We know, of course, that, in a deplorable, but not unexpected, happenstance, the chronological exactitude of the old text of the prologue of the Christmas martyrology was thrown off the cliff and replaced with a generic formula that situates the birth of our Redeemer at a time, rather off-puttingly, “when ages beyond number had run their course”. It is no longer a mystery to us, but we still wonder why the usus recentior strives to countenance this inelegance and ambiguity.
Le siècle d’Auguste et la naissance de Jésus-Christ | Jean-Léon Gérôme | 1855
For the usus antiquior, it is more common to use the older text. The elogium of the date is the same: the eighth calends of January. This means that 25 December is eight days away from 1 January, which is the calends of the month. The elogium of the moon changes per year, according to the epact of the year and its corresponding martyrology letter. This year, it is the twenty-first moon. Practically, especially if referencing the dates against the martyrology tables becomes too daunting a task to accomplish, we can simplify the reckoning by counting the number of days from the preceding new moon, which occurred on Saturday, 4 December this year, until 25 December.
There is a modus ordinarius found in the Martyrologium Romanum, but here we have the modus sollemnior (click on the thumbnail to open the file), which is probably monastic in provenance. If it has fallen upon our happy lot to chant the kalendas this year, then we can exercise the option to sing it in the more solemn tone in honour of the holy birth of our Redeemer.
Cappella Gregoriana Sanctæ Cæciliæ olim Xicatunensis 