Author: Fr. Neil Xavier O’Donoghue
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Bread for the Eucharist
In a post, I published last week, I dealt with the problem of using a big host as opposed to the exceptional small precut hosts (which I reckon make up well over 99.9% of how Catholics receive Communion). While it must be admitted that these hosts have become more breadlike over the last decades, bigger…
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Calling all Geometricians
Prior to Vatican II there was little emphasis on the breaking of the Eucharistic Bread.
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“‘Indigenous liturgical adaptations” submitted to the Vatican for approval
Last March I posted about the proposal to “incorporate in the Catholic Eucharistic celebration indigenous Mayan rites” in Southern Mexico, centered around the Dioceses of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Now more details have been made public. The Mexican bishops’ conference have finished work on series of Indigenous liturgical adaptations for the celebration of the…
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DDW confirms new Lectionary for Great Britain
The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has announced that “the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has confirmed the approval by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales for the new Lectionary.” Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland will also share this new edition of the Lectionary for Mass. Their new…
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Societas Meet Up
Two weeks from today, Societas Liturgica’s biennial Congress will start here in Maynooth. The Congress will have the theme of Liturgy and Ecumenism. Over four days over 200 liturgists and scholars of liturgy will gather to reflect on this vital theme (for more details on the theme see pages 8-12 of the Societas’ newsletter). A…
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Did you Celebrate the Vigil of Pentecost?
Paschalis Sollemnitatis, the 1988 CDW letter on the celebration of Easter, suggests that we should celebrate a Vigil at Pentecost: Encouragement should be given to the prolonged celebration of Mass in the form of a vigil, whose character is not baptismal as in the Easter Vigil, but is one of urgent prayer, after the example…
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Brief Book Review: Historical Foundations of Worship
A common basis for the study of liturgical history that can be appreciated by readers of any Christian tradition.
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May Day versus Labor Day
Today the General Roman Calendar celebrates St Joseph the Worker as an Optional Memorial. The observance is marked with more or less solemnity in different places. But I have always wondered why it is celebrated on May 1 in the United States. Even though I am currently ministering in Ireland, the land of my birth,…
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Handwritten liturgical manuscripts
All of us are familiar with the liturgical books of earlier centuries and, in particular, from centuries predating the invention of the printing press. The scholarly editions of such works as the Ordines Romani are mainstays of liturgical scholarship. Yet once liturgical books began to be printed, the custom of having handwritten manuscripts fell out…