The Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has decided that Holy Days of Obligation which are Solemnities of the Lord (other than Christmas Day) are to be moved to Sundays. This means that the Epiphany, the Ascension of the Lord and Corpus Christi will now be celebrated on Sunday.
Apparently this is in response to requests from the Diocesan Councils of Priests and many others, I must say I have not been consulted, nor do I know of anyone who has been.
Here, at St Mary Magdalen we have about a third of the congregation coming to Mass on these days, plus the children of our school, many of whom would not attend here on a Sunday. Transferring these important feasts to Sunday does mean that we can celebrate them with some dignity, however what dissapoints is that in almost 25 years of priesthood I have never seen a Pastoral Letter from any of our Bishop's encouraging attendance at Holy Day Masses.
The criticisms of many who object to the transfer is that it seems another thing that is taken away from ordinary Catholics by the Bishops.
For my part I think it will be said not to celebrate the Ascension 40 days after Easter and not to have that Novena, the mother of all novenas, between Ascension and Pentecost.
Here is a petition for the reinstatement of the Holy Days of Obligation on their
traditional dates:
traditional dates:
WARNING: this petition asks for money, sign and press "back".
2 comments:
R u on your diocesan council of priests? have u attended a deanery meeting recently? all I can say is that once again the Bishops have screwed their priests or is more discrete to say abdicated their responsibilities;why demote the major feasts and leave the minor,why don't they just decide to abolish themselves pompous backsides that they r;
Pompous backsides? In the North?
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