Wednesday, July 18, 2007

SATURDAY IN THE CHURCH

Or, Anticipation is making me late

The CMAA has an excellent interview with Fr. Dennis Kolinski, SJC, a curate at the beloved St. John Cantius Church in Chicago. I will not copy/paste the article here in all fairness to the CMAA, as it will appear in the Fall 2007 issue of Sacred Music magazine.

I will make a couple of notes on it - one, Cantius' schedule is one-of-a-kind.

Saturday:
5 PM - 1970 Missal/English (Anticipated for Sunday)
- According to Fr. Kolinski, this is a Low Mass. We'll get to that in a minute.
6 PM - Rosary, Vespers, and Compline

Sunday:
6:30 AM - Matins and Lauds
7:30 AM - 1962 Missal/Low Mass
9 AM - 1970 Missal/English
11 AM - 1970 Missal/Latin
12:30 PM - 1962 Missal/High Mass

Now THIS is TRUE diversity! Fr. Kolinski notes that the Society of St. John Cantius, which he is a member of, will not take priests who will say only one form or the other. They MUST be committed to both and do them right. Even the English Mass on Sunday uses Gregorian Chant, he notes.

However, the Saturday Mass, in English, is the "anticipated Low Mass". Note - LOW Mass. And it reminds me of a conversation I had one day last month with Fr. Tom Kocik (yes, THE Fr. Tom Kocik) before Mass (he was filling in while Fr. Finelli was away). He had mentioned that he likes to keep the Saturday Mass (Anticipated, Vigil, whatever you want to call it) a bit lower than the Mass on Sunday, acknowledging that although the Saturday Anticipated Mass is "for Sunday", yet stressing the importance of Sunday.

Holy Name of Jesus Church in Providence celebrates their "anticipated" Mass (4 PM in English) in the Lady Chapel, and their two Sunday Masses (9 AM in English, and 11 AM Tridentine) in the main church. Although it's not a "totally Low Mass" (that little chapel that barely seats 100 houses a nice little two-manual, six-rank Hook and Hastings tracker organ), a couple of things that differ is the recitation (instead of singing) of the Gloria and Lord's Prayer. The Sanctus, Memorial, Amen, and Agnus is sung, however, as well as the Psalm and Alleluia. At least that's how it was when I worked there. The hymnal in the pew is Worship III.

On one message board that "We Three Snarks" frequent, Nick made a cool suggestion of scrapping the anticipated Mass and just having First Vespers for Sunday in its place. I replied by mentioning that the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City does the reverse of Cantius - they do Vespers at 5 and Mass at 6.

How many others use that take for Saturdays, being a little lower than the Sunday? The Easter Vigil, of course, would be the exception. This makes for cool discussion.

Peace,
BMP

5 comments:

PhiMuAlpha2681 said...

I would add the Pentecost Vigil, and any solemnity during OT that falls on Sunday (ala John the Baptist this year) and has a proper Vigil.

~nb

DominiSumus said...

I never thought of keeping the Vigil a little lower than Sunday, but it makes sense to me.

I like the idea since Sunday really is "the day".

Mara Joy said...

and I'm sure the Saturday folks wouldn't mind, since they're usually the ones who want to get out of the church in 54 minutes...

(tongue-in-cheeck...)

DominiSumus said...

54 minutes? I know parishes where they are itching to leave at 35.

Brian Michael Page said...

At one of my former parishes, two of the three priests (one of them the pastor) used to do funerals in 35-40 minutes - with all the usual stuff SUNG too - Collect, Psalm, Alleluia, Preface Dialogue, Sanctus, Memorial, Amen, and Agnus - plus the hymns.

BMP