Just found out the excellent news that our Bishop, Salvatore Matano, is going to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Mass will be at St. Joseph's Co-Cathedral in Burlington. Our Lady, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, is the Patroness of our diocese. If this Mass is anything like the first Mass that Bishop Matano celebrated for the Assumption, it should be standing room only. It also fulfills the Holy Day obligation, so any readers in the area should make every effort to attend. Bishop Matano has asked me to set in motion some training for the priests of the diocese who wish to learn the Extraordinary Form - as I'm one of them, I think the first thing to do is get the special kit that the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is producing. We all need to get our 1962 Missals - Altar Cards - Server training guides - that's before learning anything!
I'm off on my annual retreat this week - totally silent - prayers please!
7 comments:
Good news!
Have a good retreat. Am finding it difficult this year to get time our for mine...
I'll be praying for you! Have a good retreat.
Yes Father, have a wonderful, peaceful retreat, i am sure you are very much in need of it.
And how exciting to hear the developments in Vermont, words cannot express the hope!
How was the retreat? Hope it was spiritually enriching
Hope you had a good retreat Fr..
There's a question here about that celebration of the Extraordinary rite. The feast of the Immaculate Conception is actually Dec.8 and I'm being told, by someone who's studied this stuff a lot more than I have that you can't celebrate the EF on the evening of the previous day, that that is something permitted only under the NO (and that you can't mix rites). Do you know how it is that the bishop is celebrating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with the Extraordinary form on Dec. 7? Is there some sort of special indult this year since the feast actually falls on Saturday and to celebrate the EF on Saturday would be conflicting with regular NO celebrations of the regular Sunday Mass for the 9th (including the Saturday one)? I really want to go to this Mass, but I don't want to offend someone who is questioning whether this is a licit celebration.
For Liz's benefit: if the Bishop is celebrating the Mass as a Vigil Mass, you have a point. There is no proper Vigil Mass of the Immaculate Conception in the 1962 Missal.
However, in my diocese (Southwark, UK) there are EF Masses on Sundays celebrated on a Saturday evening.
I would suggest that the Bishop is making a legitimate pastoral provision, given that in the US (unlike here in the UK) the Immaculate Conception is a holyday of obligation.
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