Blessed Epiphany!

Yes.

Here’s the actual Epiphany post.

And here’s some wisdom from B16:

Thus if we read together the promise of the Prophet Isaiah and its fulfilment in the Gospel of Matthew in the great context of all history, it is evident that what we have been told which we seek to reproduce in our Nativity scenes is neither a dream nor a vain play on sensations and emotions, devoid of vigour and reality, but is the Truth that irradiates in the world, although Herod always seems stronger, and that Infant seems to be found among people of no importance or who are even downtrodden.

But in that Baby is expressed the power of God, who brings together all people through the ages, because under his lordship, they may follow the course of love which transfigures the world. Nevertheless, even if the few in Bethlehem have become many, believers in Jesus Christ always seem to be few.

Many have seen the star, but only a few have understood its message.

Scripture scholars in the time of Jesus knew the word of God perfectly well. They were able to say without hesitation what could be found in Scripture about the place where the Messiah would be born, but as St Augustine said: “They were like milestones along the road though they could give information to travellers along the way, they remained inert and immobile” (Sermo 199. In Epiphania Domini, 1,2).

Now, speaking of experts……let’s talk about the liturgical calendar.

Yes, the calendar evolves and changes over time. Yes, different countries and communities have their own calendars. That evolution and diversity is obvious. Yes, changes were made in the decade preceding the Council. Not uncontroversial, either, by the way.

But the radical post-Conciliar overhaul of the calendar was unnecessary, disruptive and damaging in untold ways.

Of course, I gripe about this every year before Lent.

What you are about to read was inspired, last year, to puzzle out the history of Good Shepherd Sunday for a project. It’s now the fourth Sunday in Easter Season, but traditionally was the third. I ended up at a post at New Liturgical Movement in which many of the official discussions about this change are laid out – those that are publicly available, that is.

The gist? Most of the group considering the change didn’t want it. They thought it best to leave it where it was. But guess what? Somehow…..it moved anyway.

And this, gentle reader, is reason #46231 why so many of us cock a skeptical eyebrow at claims of church bodies and structures engaging in “dialogue” and “listening” and instituting policies that “the people” really really want. Promise. We know it’s what they want….

Thus, the proposal accepted by the Fathers of the Consilium was that Good Shepherd Sunday should remain in its traditional location, as the 3rd Sunday of Easter (2nd Sunday after Easter). We see also that, in the subsequent Ordo lectionum pro dominicis, feriis et festis sanctorum, [6] published pro manuscripto in July 1967 and distributed to every episcopal conference, the participants of the first Synod of Bishops, and around 800 periti (biblical scholars, liturgists, pastors, etc.), that Good Shepherd Sunday is in its traditional location.

Yet, two years later, when the typical edition of the Ordo lectionum Missae was promulgated in 1969, Good Shepherd Sunday had been moved to the 4th Sunday of Easter, with the accounts of Our Lord’s appearances to the disciples at Emmaus (Years A and B) and at the Sea of Tiberius (Year C) read on the 3rd Sunday of Easter. This is very similar to what had been suggested in Coetus XI’s alternative proposition. What was the reason given for this change?

I mean – it kind of makes sense. Group Gospels recounting the post-resurrection appearances all together for the first three Sundays, then have Good Shepherd Sunday, and then end your Easter Season with excerpts from the Last Discourse. But…..consider this:

A committee making this change, not because there was a groundswell of support, not because popular practice had moved in that direction (it couldn’t with liturgical readings, but that’s a general principle for liturgical development), but because experts decided it would be better.

One of the great puzzles to me about the past now almost seventy years is how those who make the biggest noise about a church from the ground up and sensus fidelium are not willing to critique an event that transformed the Church and was engineered from beginning to end, from the top down, and reflected the concerns of clerics and academics.

Certainly, the argument can be made that these clerics were acting on concerns emerging from engagement with the lived experience of the Church as a whole – that is obviously the stance we see in the motivation for the Council and its documents. Modernity, post-war crises, concerns about a detachment between professed faith, practice and everyday life among the laity were all real concerns.

But the jump from there to we know what’s best rooted mainly in contemporary philosophical and theological trends and a total disregard for the psychological and spiritual impact of dramatic, rapid change is huge. And worth examining and critiquing.

And noting for the sake of contemporary discussions and movements for change.

Anyway, Epiphany.

Why don’t American Latin Rite Catholics celebrate Epiphany on January 6? We can assume that TPTB wanted as many people as possible to experience the feast – so it’s on a Sunday when more of the maybe 30% of Catholics who still go to Mass will hear about it.

The logic of the season is just shattered, which it was with the removal of the Feast of the Circumcision, anyway. It’s all just one more random collection of liturgical bits that, we are given to understand, are scattered about by bishops based on not much at all, least of all any link to tradition. There’s nothing coherent about it, really, and it perhaps even reinforces the suspicion that all of this stuff is made up randomly, anyway.

A great irony of this type of post-Conciliar liturgical change, including the calendar, was that one of the rationalizations given over the decades has been ecumenical – all Christian bodies should look more alike than different, and making that happen will help the cause of unity. Of course, the short-sightedness of that was made evident rather quickly with the collapse of the mainlines Protestant denominations which were the ecumenical priorities in the cause of stripping down Catholic liturgical life.

But, go back to the mainlines. Take a quick survey of what some of the mainlines in the United States are highlighting today through their social media presence.

Note the ad orientem from the Lutherans. Here’s the video – you might be surprised at what you see.

And then the USCCB:

Good job everyone: Much unity. Such ecumenism.

Note: It’s not just in the United States. Most Catholic jurisdictions around the world celebrate Epiphany on January 6 – including Europeans – but there are notable exceptions, and big ones – Brazil, the Philippines, for example. In the process of figuring this out, I found this site, which is very, very useful and apparently kept updated.

But not all of us!

Of course, Eastern Catholics are all in. Here in Birmingham, we have Melkite and Marionite congregations, both of whom are celebrating Epiphany on, you know, Epiphany. Here’s the calendar from the Marionite parish, in all its glory that apparently Marionite Catholics are intelligent enough to figure out, but Latin-rite Catholics aren’t.

It honestly is a mess, and not the good kind of centuries-in-the-making-organic-mess that is an actually inclusive Catholicism, but the alienating kind of mess that emerges from the consultations of elites. Oh, pardon me – Spirit-led elites.