Liturgical period in hiding

Made-to-measure clothing is better than ready-made clothing, but often too expensive. Made-to-measure clothing for liturgical seasons is free and allows for the flourishing of greater liturgical piety. And they can be observed or ignored according to taste.

What is a custom season? We can consider 15^and September – Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows – the conclusion of the “season of Mary,” which began a month ago on the solemn feast of the Assumption. It is not an official liturgical season. There are five, and they are fixed: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time.

But why not observe a tailor-made Marian season in prayer, preaching, and personal devotion? The month spans two octaves: Assumption to Queenship (15^and – 22^nd August) and Nativity of Mary to Our Lady of Sorrows (8^and – 15^and September).

The last octave – which also includes the feast of the Holy Name of Mary (12^and September) – was not established as such by liturgical authorities, as is clearly the case with the first. The Nativity of Mary was established because it falls nine months exactly after the Immaculate Conception (8^and December). Our Lady of Sorrows follows the day after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14^and September), which makes sense. So they “accidentally” form an octave. Perhaps by providence. Or simply convenient, to taste.

The Latin calendar is trudging through ordinary time in these months. Today is the 24^and Sunday – almost three quarters over!

“Ordinary Time” is uninspiring, but in English it is a slight improvement on the Latin “per annum” – Sundays “throughout the year”. “Ordinary Time” itself is not the official name for the season, and there are alternative explanations for its origins. The late Father Richard John Neuhaus preferred to call it “well-ordered time” – his own bit of customisation.

“Ordinary” has the wrong connotation in English. The mysteries of the Redemption are never ordinary. When St. John Paul the Great added new mysteries to the Rosary covering the public life of Jesus, he did not call them “ordinary” mysteries, but “luminous.”

The Latin liturgical tradition has “Sundays after Epiphany” and “Sundays after Pentecost”; the Anglicans use “Sundays after Trinity.” This is better than “throughout the year,” but is still a bit weak, a kind of looking back instead of seeing Providence in the present.

So, custom seasons have their appeal. Some options are hidden in plain sight. There are forty days between the Transfiguration (6^and August) and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, similar to the other great “forty” in the calendar – Christmas to the Presentation (2^nd February); Lent; and Easter to Ascension Day.

My own parish is Holy Cross, so we celebrate those forty days as a time of the cross, with a red altarpiece all the time, which refers to the upcoming patronal feast.

The imagination suggests other possibilities. Last month were the feasts of Jean Vianney (4^and August) and Maximilian Kolbe (14^and August), ten days apart, are a minor season of the priesthood. The patron saint of parish priests goes first, and is then followed by the one whose last recorded words, explaining his sacrifice at Auschwitz, were, “I am a Catholic priest.”

The Seven Joys of Mary (Die Sieben Freuden Mariens) by Hans Memling, 1480 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich)

Two other priestly martyrs come to mind at this time, both of whom were martyrs for John Paul, so to speak. Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko carried the flag of Solidarity which was a fruit of the papal visit to Poland in 1979. For this reason he was brutally murdered by the communist secret police in 1984. Blessed Pino Puglisi was an anti-mafia priest in Palermo. After John Paul denounced the mafia during his visit to Sicily in May 1993, there were consequences. The Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the Holy Father, was bombed in July and in September mafiosi murdered Puglisi.

Blessed Jerzy was born on 14^and September. Blessed Pino on 15^and September. Popieluszko’s feast day is 19^andOctober. Puglisi is 21^st October. John Paul himself falls on 22^nd October. The two martyrs prepare for the papal feast day, the three of them together providing a triduum of heroic resistance next month.

There are so many possibilities. October offers a Teresian fortnight, with the Little Flower (1^st October) and the great Teresa (15^and October) that adorns the month.

October is full of saints, including Saint Faustina (5^and October) and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (16^andOctober) united throughout the centuries in spreading devotion to the merciful heart of Jesus.

Saint John XXIII (11^and October) called Vatican II, St. John Henry Newman (9^and (October) was the Hidden Counselor, and Saint John Paul II (22^nd October) gave it a definitive interpretation.

These and other creative options offer ways to live liturgical rhythms amid the long period of Ordinary Time. There are those who view creativity in liturgy negatively, and for good reason. From such a perspective, customized seasonal piety would be best avoided.

Rightly so, but our Catholic liturgy is richer than we sometimes realize. The seasonal influence is entirely Catholic.

The Syro-Malabar Church, soon to be the largest of the Eastern Churches in full communion with Rome, has nine seasons instead of our four. The first four Syro-Malabar seasons are roughly comparable to the Latin seasons: Annunciation (Advent); Epiphany (Christmas); Great Lent (Lent); Resurrection (Easter).

The following five seasons replace our regular time: Apostles, Summer, Elijah’s Cross, Moses, and Dedication of the Church.

The season of the apostles begins with Pentecost and commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the early Church. It includes the solemn feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29). It is followed by summer, perhaps better translated as “harvest time.” This season marks the work of the twelve apostles and the abundant fruit born of their missionary activity.

The most interesting are the seasons of Elijah Cross and Moses, sometimes understood together as one period. The season points to the second coming and the final victory of the crucified Christ. The central feast of the season is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

The Syro-Malabar calendar elevates the twin feasts of Summer, Transfiguration and Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Instead of “ordinary time,” the faithful are reminded that the ordinary story of redemption remains forever extraordinary.

Our parish recently concluded something similar with our pious “time of the cross” and today we conclude a Marian time with Our Lady at the foot of the cross.

A blessed holiday – however you feel about it!

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