QUAERITUR: Feast of the Precious Blood transferred this year?

From a reader:

I believe that there is an error on the FSSP calendar this year. Their calendar shows the Feast of the Most Precious Blood being transferred to July 2 because July 1 is the Feast of the Sacred Heart. According to the 1962 Rubricae Generals, #96, it states “Festum I classis impeditum a die qui in tabella praecedentiae superiorem obtinet locum, transfertur in proximum sequentem diem qui non I vel II classis.”

Since the Feast of the Visitation is on July 2 and is ranked II class, and July 3 is the 3rd. Sunday after Pentecost (also II class), then the Feast of the Most Precious Blood should be transferred to Monday, July 4 according to this rubric.

Am I reading this correctly?

ummm…

Yes.  I believe you are.

I don’t have the FSSP Ordo with me at the moment, so I’ll take your word for it.

The Feast of the Visitation, in the older, traditional Roman Calendar, should fall on 2 July.  This is a 2nd class feast.  Therefore it seems that the observance of the Precious Blood must be moved another day, to 3 July.

But wait!  There’s more!

Since 3 July is a Sunday, which is a 2nd class feast, that means Precious Blood gets bumped another day, to 4 July.

And I thought it was interesting that, this year, the Feasts of the Sacred Heart and the Precious Blood fell on the same day.

I’ll bet some people though Ascension Thursday Sunday was complicated.



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10 Comments

  1. wolfeken says:

    Here is what the Fraternity sent out a few weeks ago:

    July 1st & 2nd – ORDO CHANGE
    By FSSP on April 27, 2011
    Happy Easter!
    There is a correction for our 2011 Liturgical Ordo and Calendar for July 2nd.
    As July 1st is both the feast of the Sacred Heart and the Precious Blood of Our Lord, and as both are feasts of the same Divine Person, the higher ranking feast is celebrated while the other is omitted. Thus, July 1st is the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
    However, the Feast of the Precious Blood is not transferred to July 2nd as in the Ordo and Calendar; rather, July 2nd is the Feast of the Visitation of Our Lady.

    http://fssp.com/press/2011/04/july-1st-2nd-ordo-change/

  2. Hoo-RAA!

    I got this right when I prepared the calendar of the Dominican Rite for 2011. It can be downloaded here: http://www.musicasacra.com/dominican/C11.pdf

    Sorry about the self-congrats, but I confess this transfer surprised me too.

  3. David Homoney says:

    Father, is Ascension Thursday Sunday in any way related to Corpus Christi Thursday Sunday?

    [Shirt-tail cousins, perhaps?]

  4. kat says:

    I don’t understand the Latin above; BUT isn’t the feast of the Precious Blood a first class feast ( in the 1962 calendar)? Thus won’t it take precedence over the Feast of the Visitation, a Second class? Also, a feast of Our Lord of the first class should take precedence over a feast of Our Lady of the second class, shouldn’t it?

    Even when July 1 falls on Sunday in the 1962 Missal, the Sunday Mass is not commemorated.

    From my 1962 “St. Andrew Missal”: “In the simultaneous and variable movement of the Temporal and Sanctoral Cycles it sometimes happens that liturgical days of the Proper of the Season and those of the Proper of the Saints fall upon the same day. This is called occurrence. In this case the rule is that a liturgical day of a superior class takes precedence over and inferior. The latter is omitted, commemorated or transferred as the case may be. Only 1st class feasts may be transferred.”

    The Angelus Press calendar also has the Precious Blood on July 2.

  5. timjp77 says:

    The Institute of Christ the King calendar has the Feast of the Most Precious Blood on July 2

  6. uptoncp says:

    kat – that would apply if they actually fell on the same day, but the question here regards transference, and a feast may only be transferred onto a free day. Fr Hunwicke looked at this question in his Liturgical Notes blog a while ago (as an Ordo compiler himself, he spots these things early) and came to the same conclusion as the FSSP erratum above.

  7. Gaz says:

    Sundays? I’m just waiting for the Bishops’ Conference to transfer Christmas away from 25 December! There was one year I missed Epiphany by attending the OF on 6 January and attending the EF on the Sunday.

    I think this is great, the movement of the Feast of the Precious Blood. The priest who celebrates Monday EF private Masses who was ordained on the same feast will be very pleased!

  8. kat says:

    Thanks!
    A priest-friend translated for me and I got it better: “If two feasts of the same Divine Person…fall on the same day, the more important feast is kept, and the other is omitted.”

    Now I get it!

  9. jrotond2 says:

    I forgot about the rubric concerning same Divine Person, etc. which is noted in #95 of the Rubricae Generales just above the #96 quote on the original question.

    Tis lamentable that the Precious Blood will not be observed this year, although I suppose that a priest may say a 4th. class Votive Mass of the Precious Blood on July 4, which is a 4th. class Feria.

  10. Henry Edwards says:

    Perhaps now to trot out again the (surely apocryphal) report that several years ago a motion was placed on the agenda for a meeting of USCCB by their staff–as allegedly are all agenda items for their meetigs, the bishops themselves said not to be the culprits to blame for any of the silly stuff that comes pouring forth from the USCCB–a motion that “for the benefit of the faithful” the celebration of Holy Thursday be transferred to the immediately following Sunday.

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