The liturgical year is made up of six seasons:
- Advent - four weeks of preparation before the celebration of Jesus' birth
- Christmas - recalling the Nativity of Jesus Christ and his manifestation to the peoples of the world
- Lent - a six-week period of penance before Easter
- Sacred Paschal Triduum - the holiest "Three Days" of the Church's year, where the Christian people recall the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus
- Easter - 50 days of joyful celebration of the Lord's resurrection from the dead and his sending forth of the Holy Spirit
- Ordinary Time - divided into two sections (one span of 4-8 weeks after Christmas Time and another lasting about six months after Easter Time), wherein the faithful consider the fullness of Jesus' teachings and works among his people
But that said - and this is the first thought, although it's a relatively complicated one, and I'll need a little time to explain it - even though the Triduum begins on the Thursday of Holy Week, it doesn't therefore follow that Holy Thursday begins when the clock strikes midnight between Wednesday and Thursday. In my breviary, Morning Prayer for the Thursday during Holy Week clearly is still part of Lent, not the Triduum. So when we wake up on Thursday, we're still in Lent, and the Triduum hasn't yet begun. So if you gave up sweets or coffee or beer or some such for Lent, you're still on the hook for at least a few more hours.
Naturally - or naturally if you're interested in liturgical minutia, which admittedly not many people are - this observation raises the question, heightened in importance if you've forsworn sugar for the previous six weeks and are counting the minutes until you can finally eat a bowl of ice cream: How many more hours? When precisely, does the Triduum actually begin on Thursday? Well, here is how the American bishops answer the question:
The Ceremonial of Bishops sets the context in no. 297:
With this Mass, celebrated in the evening of the Thursday in Holy Week, the Church begins the sacred Easter Triduum and devotes herself to the remembrance of the Last Supper.
So there is a straightforward answer: the Triduum begins on Thursday evening, when the Holy Thursday Triduum celebration begins.It may be worth noting that Thursday of Holy Week, even before the day transitions to the Triduum, is unusual for a couple of other reasons. One is that priests aren't allowed to celebrate any masses without a congregation that day. Another is that a second important liturgical observance (presumably much scaled back this year) occurs every year on this particular Thursday: the Chrism Mass. This is the annual mass at which all the sacred oils used for sacramental celebrations throughout the diocese are blessed by the bishop, and then distributed to pastors for their own parishes. This mass is considered a high point of sacerdotal ministry, and in a normal year, priests are strongly encouraged to be present with the bishop to concelebrate. FWIW, at our parish, priests always have interpreted these legal requirements as meaning that there should be no daily morning mass at the parish on Holy Thursday. Instead, we celebrate Morning Prayer (except not this year).
2. Every year on Holy Thursday (using that term loosely - see the first point above), our parish hosts a parish potluck dinner, which many of our parishioners call the Parish Seder, but is billed as the Agape meal, just prior to the celebration of the Holy Thursday liturgy. Please see Jack's comment below regarding the distinction, which is a good one: in no way, shape or form does the meal resemble an actual Jewish Seder: we serve fried chicken plus a huge smorgasbord of whatever the attendees bring by way of salads, fruits, vegetables, grains, desserts, etc. If anything, it's a dry run for the pigging out we'll do in a few days on Easter.
In addition to that not-at-all-authentic popular appropriation of a Jewish sacred term, one of our parish groups tries to re-create an actual Seder meal every year, using (as I understand it - I've never attended it, for a reason I'll explain in a moment) the same prescribed Passover foods that are used by Jewish families in our area (we're blessed to have many Jewish neighbors in this local community), assuming they buy their Passover foodstuffs at the same grocery stores where we all do our weekly grocery shopping. This group invites anyone from the parish who would like to attend to do so. But as I say, I've never gone.
I don't attend because, frankly, I don't think Catholics, or Christians in general, should attempt to re-create Seder meals. In fact, I don't think we should use that term at all. I was pleased to see that Joe Paprocki agrees with me:
[T]here are some serious concerns about Catholics re-enacting the Seder Meal.Paprocki also references a USCCB statement from 1988 which does, in fact, indicate that Catholics may celebrate a Seder so long as they do it with the utmost respect and integrity to Jewish law (cf no. 28). So I guess what our parish group is doing isn't actually against church law. But if Jews tell us it is disrespectful, that's good enough for me. Our celebration of Triduum, over three days, is the way we celebrate Jesus's death and resurrection. We don't need to add on to that.
First and foremost, the Seder Meal is a sacred Jewish ritual. For Catholics to re-enact this sacred ritual is disrespectful of the Jewish tradition. (imagine Jewish or Muslim children re-enacting a Catholic Mass, complete with the giggling and awkward moments that are part of any childrens’ production). The Seder Meal is a Jewish tradition that Catholics should enjoy only if we are privileged to be welcomed to a Jewish Passover table.
I agree completely about fake Seders. Jesus was a Jew, but our Easter practices were meant to symbolize the new covenant and to reach beyond the Jewish traditions. We acknowledge the old covenant in our readings every, but we view them through the lens of the new.
ReplyDeleteCelebrating a Seder with a Jewish family is a lovely thing if they invite you. Otherwise, watch "The Ten Commandments" and call it good.
Those are two diverse points. It has always seemed to me that Holy Thursday ought to be a day of celebration, a feast day. I suppose that's why we have Corpus Christi later. But it, not Easter, is my favorite Mass of the year. Then, boom, it's Good Friday.
ReplyDeleteAs for parish Seders, there are at least two Jewish schools of thought about that. (As my friend Sol Sorrin used to say, "two Jews, three opinions.") We did it for years on Palm Sunday, until the CCW ran out of women willing to put in the labor. Our first leader was trained by a rabbi. I was the second and longest-running. I took one year off and a Jewish rabbi led it. We always had Jewish people at our meal (One told me every year that I did the prayer better than her uncle back in Brooklyn.)
I know some Jews object. (And there must be a third opinion.) I carefully explained what we were and weren't doing each year. ISTM it is a lot better to follow the order, the Seder, of the dinner than it was to hold a pogrom which is what a lot of our ancestors did at this time of the year. It teaches respect for the not so old "enemy" (are you listening, Charlotte demonstrators?). And it is our history too.
(After Pope Benedict seemed to accept John's timing -- that the Last Supper was on the night of preparaton, not Passover itself -- I also mentioned the idea that the Last Supper wasn't the Passover. (Two Catholics, at least two opinions.)
Re the Cecile B. deMille Ten Commandments. For its 50th anniversary a few years ago, we held a showing over two nights in the parish with Kevin Flinn as Aaron and yours truly as Moses, in beards and costume, to introduce it and lead a discussion/q&a session each night. I had never seen the movie, it being definitely not my type. When I saw it -- looking for historical accuracy -- in preparation for the showings, I gagged at the starlets basking around deMille's swimming pool waiting for the basket to float through the bulrushes, and that it was it for me. The only invention I liked was, "So let it be written. So let it be done," with the chest-pound.
ReplyDelete(I got the gig, btw, by doing the Moses thing for the kids in summer Bible school. My producer had the music from the Ten Commandments, and I made my great entry (from the kitchen) as the trumpets and drums were joined by cymbals and bells. The kids looked up in awe, but you should have seen the looks on the faces of the teachers who didn't know it was coming. Priceless. I think they believed longer than the kids did.
Tom, wish we had a video of your gig as Moses!
DeleteI agree with the idea that we should not observe a Seder out of respect for Jewish tradition.
ReplyDeleteAs for the potluck meal, we have a perfectly good Christian tradition called the Agape (Love Feast). Early Christians continued to celebrate a festive meal separate from the Mass in which there were many hymns, prayers and blessings. Vatican II suggests its restoration especially as a way of sharing a meal with poorer members of the community, and marginal members of society.
Jack, many thanks for this comment. Now that I think about it, I believe our parish also renamed it the Agape meal some years ago. I'll revise the post.
DeleteI like the idea of the Agape meal, rather than a Seder meal, which it really isn't. FWIW I usually get irritated by the cultural appropriation wars. But as Jim pointed out, the Seder is actually a religious ceremony.
ReplyDeleteAbout the Chrism Mass, our archbishop's was held on Monday. I don't know if it always is. My husband has participated in it a couple of times. Once he was one of the ones who carried one of the amphorae of oil, or whatever they are called, up to the altar. He said the thing weighed a ton, and next time he would leave the job to a younger man. Another time he carried the balsam up. It was a much smaller container. Which reminds me, Jim, do you know what balsam actually is made of? One of the things I remember about my Confirmation when I was a kid was the sweet scent of the oil on my forehead. I thought it smelled similar to Russian olive blossoms. We had a wind-break of Russian olives on the farm, and in early June the blooms would perfume the air.
Hi Katherine, no, I am sorry to say that I'm completely foggy on what the oils actually consist of. I thought they were olive oil that was perfumed or seasoned in some way, but if that's even correct, I don't know what the details are.
DeleteOur chrism Mass is always Tuesday. That shows a little mercy toward the priest who, today, would have to go back to his parish and do another Mass right up until the deacon bellows, "Pange Lingua."
DeleteThe Catholic Encyclopedia had this to say about balsam: "...an aromatic, resinous substance that is extracted from the wood of certain trees or plants, especially those belonging to the terebinthine group or family. In the manufacture of this sweet-smelling unguent the early Greek Christians were wont to employ as many as forty different perfumed spices or essences (Goar, Euchologion, p. 627). In the beginning the Christian Era balsam was obtained from Judea (opobalsam) and from Arabia Felix (balm of Mecca ), but in modern times it is also procured, and in superior quality, from the West Indies."
DeleteWho knew it was such a process!
Since we go on a Jewish calendar today (the first day of the Triduum begins at sundown), riddle me this: First day of the Triduum is the Last Supper and Crucifixion. Second day begins at dusk on our Friday. Third day, Easter, begins at sundown on our Saturday. So how do we have separate days for the Holy Thursday and Good Friday? AND, if the Last Supper was a Passover Seder, why did the authorities crucify Jesus on Passover and then get in a hurry to get him off the cross before "the feast"?
ReplyDeleteWe used to have a Tenebrae service on Wednesday or Thursday night, which, as you point out, is technically Good Friday, in the EC. Women on one side, men in the other. Readings were responsive. It was quite atmospheric and moving. Our former parish videotaped it earlier this week, and I will follow along tonight.
Deletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NvPHC7Xa6eY
Let's agree that the Triduum runs from Thursday evening through Sunday evening. According to my fingers, that works out to three days.
DeleteBut the way we name the days of the week runs from midnight until 11:59 pm. So Thursday starts out as Lent and finishes in the Triduum. Saturday starts out as Holy Saturday (sort of a continuation of Good Friday, with Jesus in the tomb, except he's also breaking the gates of hell to free all the good souls that have been waiting for him), and ends, as you note, with it already being Easter, which begins, I'd say, during the chanting of the Exultet during the Vigil on Saturday evening.
It definitely ends when Evening Prayer II ends on Easter. I know this because the red type in by Breviary tells me so.
Jean, thanks for the link to the Tenebrae service. It's one of the most beautiful I think.
ReplyDeleteAgree about Agape and not Seder.
Another thing that I have learned upsets a fair number of Jewish people is the canonization of Edith Stein. I was sitting next to a couple of Jewish women I knew at a kids' sports event and they were discussing it. They felt it was a misrepresentation of her "martyrdom" - she was not a martyr who died for the christian faith, she died because she was Jewish. I was not part of the conversation but was glad that I overheard it. It opened my eyes.
Anne - I remember thinking the same thing about Edith Stein when she was canonized. I think JPII used some legalistic reasoning to get her inducted into the canon of saints. I think he'd have been better-served by simply setting aside the usual requirements and decreeing that she is a saint. Although that might open the door to all sort of other requests for special treatment, too.
DeleteI agree with both of you. Edith Stein died because she was a Jew; she was a saint because of the way she lived and died. A lot of the women saints of older times were canonized as virgins but, my goodness there are a myriad reasons a person may be a virgin, and none of them make you a saint. So those women, like Edith Stein, were canonized under false pretenses for reasons the male canonizers don't like to think about.
DeleteJPII was plenty good at ignoring Canon Law when it got in his way, as in plopping a novel feast on the last day of Easter and giving a pectoral cross to the archbishop of Canterbury (for which Leo XIII would say JPII is anathema). So he could have done better than to canonize Edith Stein under false pretenses and cocking a snook (whatever that means) at the Jews.
Edith Stein was in Holland when she was seized by the Nazis. She had been sent there supposedly because it was safer. The Nazi authorities there had been looking the other way about Jewish converts to Christianity. She was seized after the Dutch bishops denounced the deportation and internment of Jews. So there is some legitimately gray area here, that she was seized in part as retaliation.
DeleteBut I agree she was a saint regardless of her martyr status, and why quibble about it?
she was a saint regardless of her martyr status
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity, what makes Edith Stein a saint? As compared to probably thousands of others who made similar life choices?
She was born into a Jewish family, then was an atheist, then Catholic. She was a nursing assistant in a hospital, went to university and received a PhD, became a Catholic, was a professor, and, eventually joined an order of women religious and became a Carmelite. In reading the brief bio on her the one thing she did that sets her apart from some others was to write to Pius XI and ask him to denounce the Hitler regime. In a letter to Pope Pius XI, she denounced the Nazi regime and asked the Pope to openly denounce the regime "to put a stop to this abuse of Christ's name."
Obviously the pope paid no attention to her letter. So I would suggest she was holier than he was but not sure that's enough to be a saint.
What makes Edith Stein a saint? I don't know, same things that hopefully make all of us saints, I guess. Following God to the best of our abilities. Some people were part of history being made, others just as holy or heroic, known only to God.
DeleteAfter reading the book, Beneath a Scarlet Sky, by Mark Sullivan, I am more conscious that there are many people of the WWII era who are not well known names, who nevertheless practiced heroic bravery and self sacrifice to try to save Jews who were in danger. One of these, though he was not the main character of the book, was Cardinal Schuster of Milan. I also have more regard for Pius XII, who did a lot behind the scenes which is not well known.
About publicly denouncing Hitler, that didn't work out so well when the Dutch bishops did it.
St. Hugh stood in front of the Jews of Lincolnshire during attacks on their community in the 12th century, basically saying, "If you want to kill them, you have to kill me too." This turned away the mob.
DeleteEdith Stein was offered a chance at escape from Auschwitz, but seems to have been thinking something similar to St. Hugh--the Nazis might think twice about gassing the Jews if, to do it, they had to kill a nun.
The Nazis didn't see it that way, and Edith Stein was murdered with everyone else. Ergo, martyr.
If I stand on m head sideways, I can kind of see it.