Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Pope Saint Pius X's, who Should be the Patron Saint of Liturgical reform, has his Feast Day Today According to the Extraordinary Form

Today, September 3rd, is the feast of Pope Saint Pius X according to the liturgical calendar of the Extraordinary Form

This is one place where the new calendar is definitely an improvement over the old.  Pius actually died on August 20th.  This, however is the feast of St. Bernard, a doctor of the church, a preacher of crusade, a composer of hymns and a giant from whose shoulders we see father.  The Ordinary Form (i.e., the Novus Ordo) calendar does a better job by moving his feast to August 21st, the day after his last journey.  To accommodate this, the feast day of Saint Jane de Chantal was moved to August 12th.

According to Catholic.org, "In the USA, Jane Frances de Chantal's feast day was moved to August 12 in order to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12. " Saint Jane Frances de Chantal died on December 13th, 1641.  Apparently, her feast was celebrated on the December 12th in some places and at some times.

Pius X would be my candidate to be the patron saint of liturgical reform.  Tra le Sollecitudini, his Motu Proprio on Sacred Music (November 22, 1903), gave a papal blessing and provided a powerful wind in the sails of the Liturgical Movement. In that Motu Proprio, he introduced the main principle, participatio actuosa, of Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium. Participatio actuosa can be translated as the "actual (or perhaps "active" participation" of the congregation.  Activa would be a better adjective to use for "active" in my linguistically layman's view.  Pius wrote in Italian. Either subsequent Latin documents quoting it or th eCouncil itself may have coined it as a Latin word.  I do not know.

Restoring the people's parts of the mass to the congregation, the use of Gregorian Chant chant (today is the feast of Pope Saint Gregory the Great in the OF) which had fallen into disuse after the Catholic Reformation, and more frequent reception of communion were all part of his liturgical goals.  Neither the followers of the SPPX nor the liturgical "progressives" have lived up to this great man's liturgical leadership.  

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