Sunday In The Octave Of Corpus Christi And Second After Pentecost 1963

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7 SUNDAY within the Octave of Corpus Christi and Second after Pentecost, semidouble. White. First Vespers of St William with commemoration of the Sunday and the Octave. [In Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle Plenary Indulgence.]

8 Monday. St William, Bishop Confessor, double. White. [In Diocese of Westminster third prayers for the Archbishop.]

9 Tuesday. Mass of the Octave of Corpus Christi, semidouble. Second prayers of Sts Primus and Felician, Martyrs. Third prayers Concede.  White. [In Diocese of  Shrewsbury Our Lady Help of Christians, Patron of the Diocese, double of the First Class (transferred from 24 May). Creed. Preface of the BVM. White.]

10 Wednesday. Mass of the Octave of Corpus Christi, semidouble. Second prayers Concede. Third prayers for the Church or the Pope. White.

11 Thursday. The Octave of Corpus Christi, double . White. [In Diocese of Nottingham St Barnabas, Apostle, Titular of the Cathedral, double of the First Class, with an Octave, during which commemoration of the Octave, Creed, and Preface of the Apostles. Second prayers of the Octave of Corpus Christi. Red.]

The Indulgence ends

12 Friday. St John a S Facundo, Confessor, double. Second prayers of SS Basilides, Cyrinus, Nabor and Nazarius Martyrs. White.  Abstinence. [In Diocese of Plymouth, the Octave of St Boniface, Bishop Martyr, double. Red.]

13 Saturday. St Anthony of Padua, Confessor, double. White.

Last Thursday's feast of Corpus Christi still governs the week, with only one feast reducing it to a commemoration, except in Shrewsbury and Nottingham where there are two: each diocese is its own Church.

Saint William, whose feast falls on Monday, is the St William who was Archbishop of York, the nephew of King Stephen, and who governed the Archdiocese from 1141 to 1154. He was canonised in 1227. Is his feast celebrated anywhere this year?

For the first time, let us compare pre-1910 with post-1970.

7 SUNDAY Corpus Christi (transferred). White.

8 Monday. Feria. Green.

9 Tuesday. St Ephrem, Deacon Doctor (White) or St Columba Abbot (White) or feria (Green).

10 Wednesday. Feria. Green.

11 Thursday. St Barnabas, Apostle. Red.

12 Friday. The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. White.

13 Saturday. St Anthony of Padua, (White) or the Immaculate Heart Of Mary (White).

Apart from Green,  what strikes me is the word "or". Why "or" when you can have "and"?  And this is a busy week in the new calendar! The declaration of St Ephrem as a Doctor of the Church in 1920 could have made him a particular bridge to the East, but the change of date and the reduction of his feast (the feast of a Doctor of the Church!) to an option, equal to St Columba or, if the priest can't be bothered, to a feria leaves me bemused, to say the least.

The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was transferred from the Third Sunday after Pentecost to the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi by Pope Pius X.  It provides the last ghostly echo of that Octave, which was abolished by Pius XII, in the new calendar.

A strong word, but I really think that the modern calendar is the old calendar emasculated. The old calendar was directing, ordered and hierarchical; the modern calendar, except for Sundays (most of which are "Ordinary" anyway), is (more strong words) wimpishly laissez faire.

St Patrick's, Livesey-street, Collyhurst, in Manchester, is served by the Very Rev Edmund Canon Cantwell as its Missionary Rector, and the Revv Pierce Griffith, Richard Liptrott and James Conway.  Masses on Sunday are at 8.00, 9.00, and 10.00, with High Mass at 11.00.  Mass on Holydays is at 8.00, 9.00 and 10.00.  Evening Service on Sundays at 6.30, and on Thursdays and Holydays at 8.00. Baptisms are on Sundays at 4.00 pm. 


The appeal below is for what would probably be called a Priests' Retirement Fund today. It is shaming to think that it took the Church in England and Wales so many years to make sure that there was provision for secular priests in their old age and retirement: that it took up to the dawn of the 21st Century to sort out.  Yet by the time the Spirit of of Vatican II took hold, the notion that those priests who would benefit, or who were benefiting from the scheme, would offer Mass four times a year for living and dead benefactors, was condemned as untheological by some of their successors in the secular clergy, as we have seen. (Though it seems to me that those of the modern era seemed keener on losing the obligation to say the quarterly Mass than on renouncing the benefit of a pension from the fund.)