Still on Easter Time. A Benedictine oblate blog

Picture: By cohdra

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The New Advent Encyclopedia's Easter article has this quote about the effect of Easter on how we set liturgical time:

"Easter is the principal feast of the ecclesiastical year. Leo I (Sermo xlvii in Exodum) calls it the greatest feast (festum festorum), and says that Christmas is celebrated only in preparation for Easter. It is the centre of the greater part of the ecclesiastical year. The order of Sundays from Septuagesima to the last Sunday after Pentecost, the feast of the Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and all other movable feasts, from that of the Prayer of Jesus in the Garden (Tuesday after Septuagesima) to the feast of the Sacred Heart (Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi), depend upon the Easter date."

The liturgical calendar was changed after Vatican II so some of the information in the above quote may be inapplicable to the current church calendar, but the main points about how Easter's date controls the movable feasts until the end of the liturgical calendar was a big light bulb in my liturgical mind.

I have always felt there is something different about using the liturgical calendar to establish my relation to time. The above quote has helped me start looking in the right place — I think.

As the quote from the Easter article shows, for much of the liturgical year, time is imprinted with the effects God's great power (the resurrection).

The liturgical calendar gets its substance from the central event in human history rather than from mere astronomical markings. This enables the pattern of liturgical time to strengthen the praying heart.

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Footnotes:

Picture is cohdranknhangers2.JPG by cohdra and is used subject to license.

I’m Back. A Benedictine oblate blog

The Christmas season began with first Vespers on December 24, 2008 and ended 18 days later after the completion of second Vespers on Sunday, January 11, 2009, which was part of the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. What a great 18 days!

I had both an active and contemplative Christmas season. The active part involved the traditional activities with family. But those active days also saw us helping family members who were ill (now all better) and I got ill (now all better). So part of the reasons for no blogs has been illness.

The silent contemplative part of the Christmas season also kept my attention on the season just ended.

The Christmas season is astounding. Very short yet packed with spiritual power: Nearly every free hour of mine was spent in monastic reading and the divine office, but mostly silence as I listened:

1. Birth of Jesus — Thursday 12/25,

2. Feast of St. Stephen who is honored as the first martyr on the day after Christmas — Friday 12/26,

3. John the Apostle — Saturday 12/27,

4. The Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, Joseph) — Sunday 12/28,

5. Mary Mother of God — Thursday 1/1,

6. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors of the Church (Memorial) — Friday 1/2,

7. Epiphany (the “showing” “appearing” or “manifestation” of Jesus to the Magi) — Sunday 1/4,

8. Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John the Baptist — Sunday 1/11

And there is more structure in the Christmas season I have not studied — for instance: the octaves and the various traditions where some of the feasts are transferred to another day during the season.

The scope of the Christmas season really overwhelmed me as I understood its broad content for the first time. I had a sense that I was being carried along far too fast without being able to stop and take in the sights.

So, the first two parts of the liturgical year (Advent and Christmas) have filled me with spiritual direction, I come out of those two seasons more convinced that silence is where to meet God this year.

End of the Year. A Benedictine oblate blog

The month of November is devoted to remembrance of the dead. Or in a larger view, to remembering those saints and people who have completed life on earth. This makes sense because November also completes the liturgical year.

This year, it is on November 30 that we start anew with Advent leading to the birth of Jesus.

I use the book Benedictine Daily Prayer (BDP) to pray the divine office and on November 26 the book has its last saint of the liturgical year to be honored. He is St. Silvester Gozzolini (“Born at Osimo, Italy, 1177; died at Monte Fano, 1267").

St. Silvester Gozzolini founded “the Silvestrine Benedictines, known as the Blue Benedictines from the color of their habit.” They followed a stricter interpretation of the Rule of St. Benedict. The small Silvestrine congregation still exists today after over 750 years and they have monasteries located on several continents, including at least two Silvestrine monasteries in the USA.

I was particularly drawn to the story of St. Silvester Gozzolini because, like St. Gregory, he was another active contemplative.

Early in St. Silvester’s adult life he became a “canon of the Cathedral (canons were the priests who assisted the bishop in running his diocese; their parish was the Cathedral church).” But he also longed to fulfill another dream — that of a contemplative.

Although it was St. Silvester’s desire to enter the solitary contemplative life, he continued in his duties at the diocese until his objection to the immoral life of the bishop caused the bishop to threaten Silvester’s removal. At about the same time, St. Silvester saw “firsthand the decaying corpse of a local nobleman who had been renowned for his physical beauty.”

St. Silvester left the diocese and went to live near the ocean in seclusion. However, disciples began to seek his guidance. That led to the formation of a group which later became a monastery and the Silvestrine congregation of Benedictine monks. Over his long life (he entered the heavenly realms at age 90) he founded 11 monasteries.

St. Silvester Gozzolini is another example of how the contemplative and active life are not in conflict.

BDP has this fitting final prayer to honor St. Silvester Gozzolini as the last saint in November, as we honor all who have gone on, and as we near the end of the liturgical year:

“Lord our God, you inspired blessed Silvester, your abbot, with the desire for monastic solitude and zeal for the active ministry. May we seek you always with true sincerity of heart and through our service in humility hasten toward our eternal home. This we ask of you.”


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Sources:

St. Silvester at St. Patrick Catholic Church

The picture is of a flying raven from IHeartVector Thank you!



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