NYONE INTERESTED in the sacred liturgy should pick up a copy of the SAINT EDMUND CAMPION MISSAL, Third Edition. That pew missal has many fabulous features and is (without question) one of the most gorgeous liturgical books ever printed, especially its section containing color pages. I mention it today because it provides two versions of Holy Week—1950 and 1962—and meticulously points out the differences. No other publication I know does this. It treats the thorny question of Holy Saturday particularly well.
Anticipated Mass? • As the Campion Missal points out, our grandparents would have been utterly shocked to learn that Catholics would someday be allowed to fulfill the Sunday obligation the day before, on Saturday evening. For more than 1,000 years, the Easter Vigil was celebrated on the morning of Holy Saturday.1 The Easter Vigil was rather hastily “reformed” beginning in 1951. When it was celebrated the evening before Easter Sunday it did not fulfill the obligation to attend Mass on Easter Sunday. That’s because there was no such thing as an “anticipated” Sunday Mass for 2,000 years of church history. (The first time this was allowed for the entire Latin Rite without indult was in 1983.) Historically, the Easter Vigil was quite a penitential ceremony. Indeed, it has less music than any other Mass. Even the lowest ferial Mass has more music than it! Currently, one can fulfill the obligation to attend Easter Sunday Mass on Holy Saturday. It is disheartening to see the Easter Vigil celebrated in such a way that it takes away from Easter Sunday.
Bizarre And Strange • It’s important to remember that for many centuries, Mass was only said in the morning and the “Midnight Fast” was in effect. During the 1940s and 1950s, exceptions started to be made, allowing Mass in the evening. (Dr. Shawn P. Tunink located one particular permission given to Russia in 1929 for unknown reasons.) During the early 1960s, certain bishops were given permission to allow Catholics to fulfill their obligation the day before (“anticipatory”). Catholics at that time viewed this as bizarre and strange. Perhaps to clarify matters, the following public announcement was made over Vatican Radio on 12 June 1964:
The faithful can also satisfy the Sunday precept of holy Mass by assisting at the celebration of the divine service in the afternoon of Saturday in churches specifically designated by the local ecclesiastical authority. The Sacred Congregation of the Council, at the request of local Ordinaries, granted the faculty to celebrate holy Mass after first Vespers on Saturday together with the valid discharge of the Sunday precept. It is left to the prudent judgment of the Ordinaries to indicate the times, localities, and churches which will enjoy this faculty as has already been done in some dioceses of Italy, Switzerland, and Argentina. Among the considerations which have prompted this concession at the present time are: the enormous and ever increasing frequency of weekend trips and of skiing excursions for whose patronizers the schedules of departure and return make it at least difficult to fulfill the Sunday precept…
Special permissions for certain bishops continued. In Eucharisticum Mysterium (25 May 1967), we read the following:
Where permission has been granted [take note of that!] by the Apostolic See to fulfill the Sunday obligation on the preceding Saturday evening, pastors should explain the meaning of this permission carefully to the faithful and should ensure that the significance of Sunday is not thereby obscured. The purpose of this concession is in fact to enable the Christians of today to celebrate more easily the day of the resurrection of the Lord. All concessions and contrary customs notwithstanding, when celebrated on Saturday this Mass may be celebrated only in the evening, at times determined by the local Ordinary. In these cases the Mass celebrated is that assigned in the calendar to Sunday, the homily and the prayer of the faithful are not to be omitted. What has been said above is equally valid for the Mass on holy days of obligation which for the same reason has been transferred to the preceding evening.
The instruction Eucharisticum Mysterium did not give a general universal permission for fulfilling the Mass attendance obligation on the evening before a day of obligation. Rather, it explained the details of the use of an indult when such indult was granted.
United States Special Permission • In 1970, a special “indult” was given to bishops in the United States. This indult allowed bishops to permit Catholics in their dioceses to fulfill their Sunday obligation the day before on Saturday evening (“anticipatory”). According to Dr. Shawn P. Tunink, this indult…
“…was renewed a final time on 13 June 1979. The 1979 renewal granted the customary five-year indult. However, this permission would be unnecessary before its expiration as the new Code of Canon Law promulgated in 1983 would take up the issue directly.”
What Happened In 1983? • When the 1983 Code of Canon Law was issued, it made universal the permission to fulfill one’s Sunday obligation the night before. Since that time, many elderly people go to Mass only on Saturday afternoon (from what I can tell) and never attend church on Sunday.
Antiquarianism • In the 1950s, some wanted to move the Easter Vigil from Holy Saturday morning to Midnight. Based on a comment made by Saint Augustine, it appears the Easter Vigil was originally celebrated the day before Easter Sunday (on Holy Saturday) in the early evening, when the stars began to appear. There are multifarious reasons why it wouldn’t be wise to attempt to “recreate” or “mimic” or “bring back” practices from the time of Saint Augustine. For one thing, we know virtually nothing about the life of the Church in those days. We have a clue here and a clue there; nothing more. Very few documents have survived from those days. Moreover, even if we had copious documents, the “disciplina arcani” prevented precise details from being disseminated. Furthermore, the Easter Vigil was not celebrated at Midnight in the early church. It seems to have been celebrated in the early evening “when the stars began to show.” (For precise details on all this, consult the SAINT EDMUND CAMPION MISSAL, Third Edition, which gives all the exact citations and source documents.)
Conclusion • Conceivably, one could go one’s entire life without ever attending Mass on Easter Sunday since—starting in 1983—Church law allows the Easter Vigil to “count” as attending Mass the next day. I feel this isn’t good. For some reason, especially in “ultra-traditionalist” parishes, an idea has become prevalent which says the Easter Vigil is more important than Easter Sunday Mass. (Such an idea is erroneous.) In those parishes, certain untraditional practices are done at the Easter Vigil such as singing (!) the prophecies, and Easter Sunday suffers as a result.
1 This was done for excellent reasons. For details, see the SAINT EDMUND CAMPION MISSAL, Third Edition.
