Good grief! I don’t know what to do anymore!
Confusion in the pews.
In the new calendar April 30th is the feast of Pius V who actually standardized the Mass. (Trads-more-trad-than-trads love him! In their opinion, there hasn’t been a pope (like him) since.) But in the old calendar, today is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena, who BTW wasn’t a Doctor in the old calendar, although she is a Doctor of the Church in the new calendar - oh, and her feast was yesterday. Then tomorrow is Ascension Day in the old (and in the new) calendar, but we don’t have to attend Mass in this archdiocese to observe the feast until Sunday - because it was transferred. So, if we want to do a novena from the Ascension to Pentecost, doesn’t that mean it is shortened? Is that a real novena then? (It doesn’t really confuse me - but maybe some of my readers get confused.)
And then there is the question of Rogation days and Ember days! What are they anyway? Isn’t that funny? It doesn’t bother me, though it may bother people who follow the old calendar exclusively. You see, for many of these folks, freeing up the TLM was never the only issue - not a few have problems with Vatican II itself. [As do many others who insist they simply want the option of the TLM, while claiming they accept the Conciliar reforms of Vatican II. Right.]
April 30th, 2008 at 6:08 am
In our diocese we keep Ascension tomorrow. I am so glad.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:07 am
You know I had never heard of Rogation Days or Ember Days until last year. I still don’t know what they are.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
We recited a bunch of prayers after Mass today. I think it was called rogation prayers before Ascension. There was a litany of saints, the “graciously hear us” thing a couple of times, and some other ones too.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
We used to observe rogation days when I was a kid. They were always connected with prayers for rain, which was an uncertain thing in our dry end of the state.
St. Catherine is my baptismal patroness. I’m glad she finally made Doctor of the Church. I don’t recall that there were any women Doctors before Vatican II; about time there were a few!