Settling down to the Easter Octave


A very happy Easter to you all.

Holy Week went well in the parish: we have both forms of the Roman rite on Palm Sunday, the vetus ordo on Maundy Thursday and the modern rite on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I find the older form much easier than the modern rite, mainly because there are so few specific rubrics and directions in the Novus Ordo. Generally, we have a policy of mutual enrichment, so where there is no direction given, we follow the traditional customs, but this is not always possible, and one is left with having to invent directions for the servers. With the old rite, you can just consult Fortescue and get on with it. If, like me, you are lucky enough to have a dependable MC, you can simply do what he says.

Now we have the Easter Octave which is a beautiful time. This year, I find it a little sad that in my part of England at least, the school holidays were scheduled during Passiontide so that teachers and children are at work during the Octave. It seems to me that this is part of the rationalistic push to a six term year, circumventing the inconvenient movable feast of the Lord's Resurrection. I expect that the homeschoolers will take a different view!

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