January 14: St Felix of Nola, Memorial

According to the Wikipedia:

"Felix was the elder son of Hermias, a Syrian soldier who had retired to Nola, Italy. After his father's death, Felix sold off most of his property and possessions, gave the proceeds to the poor, and pursued a clerical vocation. Felix was ordained by, and worked with, Saint Maximus of Nola.

When Maximus fled to the mountains to escape the persecution of Decius, Felix was arrested and beaten for his faith instead. He escaped prison, according to legend being freed by an angel, so he could help his sick bishop, Maximus. Felix found Maximus alone, ill, and helpless, and hid him from soldiers in a vacant building. When the two were safely inside, a spider quickly spun a web over the door, fooling the imperial forces into thinking it was long abandoned, and they left without finding the Christians. A subsequent attempt to arrest Felix followed, which he avoided by hiding in a ruined building where a spider's web spun across the entrance convinced the soldiers the building was abandoned. The two managed to hide from authorities until the persecution ended with the death of Emperor Decius in 251.

After Maximus's death, the people wanted Felix to be the next bishop of Nola, but he declined, favoring Quintus, a "senior" priest who had seven days more experience than Felix. Felix himself continued as a priest. He also continued to farm his remaining land, and gave most of the proceeds to people even poorer than himself.

Legend assigns to Felix a martyr's death either in the year 255 under Emperor Valerian (253-260) or, in another version, in the general persecution instigated by the Emperor Decius (249-251)."

January 13: Commemoration of the Baptism of Our Lord

The Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord marks the last day of the extended Christmas season, and symbolically marks the end of the hidden years of Our Lord's life, and the beginning of his public ministry.

The feast is very recent indeed in origin: originally this was the Octave Day of the Epiphany, which encompasses the visit of the Magi, the wedding feast at Cena, and the Baptism of Our Lord. But when Pope Pius XII abolished the Octave of the Epiphany, he instituted this feast in its place.

Jan 9: Holy Family or Sunday after Epiphany?

This Sunday presents something of a liturgical oddity in the Benedictine calendar, in that the Sunday ends up being much less elaborate liturgically than it was before 1955, or is still in the 1962 Roman EF calendar. 

Once upon a time it would have been part of the Octave of Epiphany, and used the antiphons from that feast. 

In the Roman Extraordinary Form, this Sunday is the Feast of the Holy Family, a feast whose Gospel reading (the finding of the child Jesus in the Temple) provides something of a bridge between the Nativity and the Baptism of Our Lord (January 13).  

In the novus ordo, the feast was celebrated on the Sunday immediately after Christmas (where it really makes no sense chronologically at all!). 

But in the Benedictine calendar, the feast isn't celebrated at all - nor is this a '1962ism'.  In fact the Feast of the Holy Family is quite recent in origin, instituted only in 1893, and doesn't seem to have entered the monastic calendar at all as far as I can discover.  Instead, until 1955 at least, this was the Sunday within the Octave, and so the antiphons and so forth of Epiphany were used, in conjunction with - the same Gospel  as the Feast of the Holy Family!

But with the abolition of the Octave, the Sunday is of lower rank, and thus the standard antiphons of Sundays are used. 

Unless of course, you are associated with one of those monasteries that do actually celebrate the feast of the Holy Family (the feast has Canadian origins I believe), or are using the EF calendar...

January 7: Yes, it is still Christmastide (and Epiphanytide)...

Visiting the supermarket today I found that Hot Cross buns have appeared already!  Yet in fact, we are still in the last part of the Christmas season, Epiphanytide (so do keep saying Merry Christmas to people!). 

The traditional liturgy however keeps us firmly focused on Our Lord's birth, in this period particularly as a light to the whole world, represented by the worship of the Wise Men.  Fortunatley, the canticle antiphons from the old 'Octave' of Epiphany have been preserved (at least when not displaced by other feasts or the Saturday of Our Lady). 

Here's today's Magnificat antiphon:
Videntes stellam Magi, gavisi sunt gaudio magno: et intrantes domum, obtulerunt Domino aurum, thus et myrrham.

Seeing the star, the Magi rejoiced with great joy. And entering into the house, they offered the Lord gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

And here's a rather attractive setting of it by Poulenc.

January 5: Once was...Vigil of Epiphany

The Vigil of the Epiphany was abolished in 1955, but restored in 2002 in the Novus Ordo Calendar (at least where it is not celebrated on the Sunday only!).  It is unusual in that it was not a day of fasting, in keeping with the season.

There is an excellent article on the vigil and its celebration over at New Liturgical Movement.

Here is a musical offering for the Vigil by Palestrina.



The words are:

Surge, illuminare, Jerusalem,
quia venit lumen tuum,
et gloria Domini super te orta est.
Quia ecce tenebrae operient terram
et caligo populos.
Super te autem orietur Dominus
et gloria eius in te videbitur.

Arise, shine, Jerusalem;
for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.

January 3: Once was...Octave day of St John the Evangelist

Sigmund Gleismüller (1449-1511) 

In the pre-1960 calendar, today was the Octave Day of St John the Evangelist.

The three feasts of the Christmas Octave had only 'simple' octaves, which meant that they were only marked on the Octave Day itself.  At Matins in the 1953 rubrics, the Octave Day used the invitatory and hymn of the feast, but the psalms of the day, and had only two Nocturns, with the third reading and responsory of the feast.

The 1962 reinvention of the three days then, simply substituted an extra Scriptural reading for the patristic reading of the feast, which was as follows:

Reading 3: Ex Tractatu sancti Augustíni Epíscopi in Joánnem - In quátuor Evangéliis, vel pótius quátuor libris uníus Evangélii, sanctus Joánnes Apóstolus non immérito secúndum intelligéntiam spiritálem áquilæ comparátus, áltius multóque sublímius áliis tribus eréxit prædicatiónem suam: et in ejus erectióne étiam corda nostra érigi vóluit. Nam céteri tres Evangelístæ tamquam cum hómine Dómino in terra ámbulant, et de divinitáte ejus pauca dixérunt: istum autem quasi pigúerit in terra ambuláre, sicut ipso exórdio sui sermónis intónuit, eréxit se non solum super terram, et super omnem ámbitum áëris et cæli, sed super omnem étiam exércitum Angelórum, omnémque constitutiónem invisibílium Potestátum: et pervénit ad eum, per quem facta sunt ómnia, dicéndo: In princípio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum.

A lesson is from a treatise of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo - Of the Four Evangelists, or, rather, the Four Writers of the one Evangel, the holy Apostle John has not unworthily been compared by spiritual writers to an eagle, because of the lofty and glorious flight of his teaching, soaring above the other three; a flight that raises not himself alone, but also the hearts of all, whosoever will hear him. The other three writers walk with the Lord upon earth, as with a man, and enlarge little upon His Godhead; but John, as though it had wearied him to walk upon earth, in the very first words of his writing, rises not above the earth only, or above the firmament, and the heavens, but above every angel, and above every power of things unseen, and flies directly to him by whom all things were made, saying In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

R. Valde / honorándus est beátus Ioánnes, † qui supra pectus Dómini in cena recúbuit: * Cui Christus in cruce Matrem vírginem vírgini commendávit. V. Virgo est eléctus a Dómino, atque inter céteros magis diléctus. R. Cui Christus in cruce Matrem vírginem vírgini commendávit. V. Gloria... R. Cui Christi...

R. Very worshipful is blessed John, which leaned on the Lord's Breast at supper. * To Him did Christ upon the Cross commit His mother, maiden to maiden. V. The Lord chose him for his clean maidenhood, and loved him more than all the rest. R. To him did Christ upon the Cross commit His mother, maiden to maiden.

Sequence for the feast

The following sequence was written in St John's honour by a fourteenth century Swiss Dominican novice nun, Kathrin Brümsin. 

The sister was struggling to learn Latin and the liturgy, and prayed to the saint, who taught her the twenty four verses in a dream-vision.  Here are a few of the opening verses, with the translation by Dom Laurence Shepherd from Gueranger's The Liturgical year:

Verbum Dei, Deo natum,

Quod nec factum nec creatum
Venit de caelestibus,
Hoc vidit, hoc attrectavit,
Hoc de caelo reseravit
Iohannes hominibus.

The Word of God, who was born of God
and was not made nor created,
and who came down from heaven
was seen and handled and revealed to men
by John the Evangelist.

Inter illos primitivos
Veros veri fontis rivos
Iohannes exsiliit
Toti mundo propinare
Nectar illud salutare
Quod de throno prodiit.

John sprang up
amidst those true rivulets,
which from the commencement
flowed from the True Fountain;
he has made the whole world drink
of that life-giving nectar that flows
from the throne of God.

Caelum transit, veri rotam
Solis videt ibi totam
Mentis figens aciem;
Speculator spiritalis
Quasi Seraphim sub alis
Dei videt faciem.

He soared above the heavens,
And gazed
with the fixedness of his soul’s eye
on the brightness of the true Sun
this spiritual contemplator saw,
as it were from under the wings of the Seraphim,
the face of God.

Jan 2: Once was...Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus

Although the 1962 Roman EF calendar does contain it, the 1962 Benedictine calendar does not celebrate the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, traditionally set for January 2 or the nearest Sunday.  

The feast has actually been assigned to a number of different dates over time, reaching the position of the first Sunday of the year (except when it coincides with the other major feasts of that period) on January 2 only in 1913.

In some respects that date in itself is an oddity, in that it regularly coincided with the much more ancient Octave Day of St Stephen.

In the Benedictine Office

The feast is omitted altogether in the 1960 Benedictine calendar, which instead constructed a completely new Office of the Second Sunday after the Nativity.

It has, however, been restored in many of the traditional Benedictine monasteries, and the texts for it can be found in the Antiphonale monasticum and the Le Barroux Nocturnale.

One can only speculate on the reasons for the omission of the feast, but for what it is worth, here are a couple of possibilities.

Duplicate feasts?

First, the decision perhaps reflects the drive to eliminate perceived 'duplicate feasts': the feast of the Circumcision, after all, also includes the naming of Jesus, and uses exactly the same Gospel. 

Certainly the absence of the feast in the Novus Ordo calendar is based on the claim that "the imposition of the name of Jesus is already commemorated in the office of the Octave of Christmas" (Paul VI, Mysterii Paschalis, 1969).

The Feast was, however, restored to the General Roman Calendar in 2002 as on optional memorial on January 3, so this may be one of those oddities of the 1962/3 period that would ordinarily have been eventually remedied officially.

Non-Benedictine origins and associations?

Another possibility though, is that the feast was perceived as non-Benedictine in origin and association.

It was, after all, originally a feast associated with the Franciscans in the sixteenth century, and only gradually spread to the wider church, entering the General Calendar in 1721.

It is also though, the titular feast of the Jesuits (celebrated on January 3).

Readings for the feast

Here are the second Nocturn readings for the feast from a Sermon of St Bernard:

"It is not idly that the Holy Ghost likens the Name of the Bridegroom to oil, when He makes the Bride say to the Bridegroom: your Name is as oil poured forth. Oil indeed gives light, meat, and unction. It feeds fire, it nourishes the flesh, it soothes pain; it is light, food, and healing. Behold, Thus also is the Name of the Bridegroom. To preach it, is to give light; to think of it, is to feed the soul; to call on it, is to win grace and unction. Let us take it point by point. What, do you think, has made the light of faith so suddenly and so brightly to shine in the whole world but the preaching of the Name of Jesus? Is it not in the light of this Name that God hath called us into His marvellous light, even that light by which we being enlightened, and in His light seeing light, Paul says truly of us You were sometimes darkness, but now - are you light in the Lord.

This is the Name which the Apostle was commanded to bear before Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel, the Name which he bore as a light to enlighten his people, crying everywhere The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light, let us walk honestly as in the day. lie pointed out to all that candle set upon a candlestick, preaching in every place Jesus and Him crucified.

 How did that Name shine forth and dazzle every eye that beheld it, when it came like lightning out of the mouth of Peter to give bodily strength to the feet of the lame man, and to clear the sight of many a blind soul? Cast he not fire when he said In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

The Name of Jesus is not a Name of light only, but it is meat also. Dost thou ever call it to mind, and remain unstrengthened? Is there anything like it to enrich the soul of him that thinks of it? What is there like it to restore the fagged senses, to fortify strength, to give birth to good lives and pure affections? The soul is fed on husks if that whereon it feeds lack seasoning with this salt. If you write, you have no meaning for me if I read not of Jesus there. If you preach, or dispute, you have no meaning for me if I hear not of Jesus there. The mention of Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, and gladness in the heart. It is our healing too. Is any sorrowful among us? Let the thought of Jesus come into his heart, and spring to his mouth. Behold, when the day of that Name begins to break, every cloud will flee away, and there will be a great calm. Does any fall into sin? Does any draw nigh to an hopeless death? And if he but call on the life - giving Name of Jesus, will he not draw the breath of a new life again?"