Traditional Ambrosian Rite - The Liturgical Year

The Liturgical Year

The liturgical year of the Ambrosian Rite begins, as elsewhere in the West, with the First Sunday of Advent, but that Sunday, as in the Mozarabic Rite, is a fortnight earlier than in the Roman, so that there are six Sundays in Advent, and the key-day of the beginning of Advent is not St. Andrew's Day (30 November) but St. Martin's Day (11 November), which begins the Sanctorale.

The rule of this key also differs. The Roman is: "Adventus Domini celebratur semper die Dominico, qui propinquior est festo S. Andreæ Apostoli", which gives a range from 27 November to 3 December. The Ambrosian is: "Adventus Domini inchoatur Dominica proxima post Festum S. Martini", that is to say, from 12 November to 18 November. If, as in 1906, St. Martin's Day falls on a Sunday, the Octave is the first Sunday of Advent; whereas in the Roman Rite if St. Andrew's Day falls on a Sunday, that day itself is Advent Sunday. The Feriæ of Advent continue until the Feriæ de Exceptato begin. These days, which some say must have been originally de Expectato, a quite unnecessary supposition, and on which the ordinary sequence of the Psalter is interrupted and certain proper psalms and antiphons are said, occur according to the following rule: "Officium in Adventu proprium quod de Exceptato dicitur semper celebratur in hac hebd. VI Adv. nisi dies Nativitatis Domini inciderit in fer. III, vel IV; tunc de Exceptato fit in hebd. V Adv. "So that there must be two and there may be seven of these days. Christmas Eve is not exactly counted as one of them, though, if it falls on a weekday, it has the proper psalms and antiphons of that Feria de Exceptato. If it falls on a Sunday, as in 1905, that is not one of the six Sundays of Advent, the last of which is the Sunday before, but the antiphons of the sixth Sunday are used. On the sixth Sunday of Advent the Annunciation (de Incarnatione D. N. J. C.) is celebrated, for, since no fixed festivals are kept during Lent or Easter Week, it cannot be properly celebrated on 25 March, though it is found there in the Calendar and has an Office in the Breviary. On this Sunday there are two Masses, una de Adventu et altera de Incarnatione. This day may be compared with the Mozarabic feast of the Annunciation on 18 December, which is the Roman Expectatio Partus B. M. V.

Christmas Day has three Masses, in Nocte Sanctâ, in Aurorâ, and in Die, as in the Roman Rite, and the festivals which follow Christmas are included in the De Tempore, though there is a slight discrepancy between the Missal and Breviary, the former putting the lesser feasts of January which come before the Epiphany in the Sanctorale, and the latter including all days up to the Octave of the Epiphany in the Temporale, except 9 January (The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste). The day after the Epiphany is the "Christophoria" (the Return from Egypt). The Sundays after the Epiphany vary, of course, in number, six being, as in the Roman Rite, the maximum. The second is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Then follow Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays, on which, though Gloria in Excelsis and Hallelujah are used, the vestments are violet.

There is no Ash Wednesday, and Lent begins liturgically on the first Sunday, the fast beginning on the Monday. Until the time of St. Charles Borromeo the liturgical Lent, with its use of litanies on Sundays instead of Gloria in Excelsis and the disuse of Hallelujah, began on the Monday. The title of the Sunday, both then and now, was and is Dominica in capite Quadragesimæ. The other Sundays of Lent are styled De Samaritanâ, De Abraham, De Cæco, De Lazaro, and of course, in Ramis Palmarum (or Dominica Olivarum). The names of the second to the fifth Sundays are in allusion to the subject of the Gospel of the day, not, as in the Roman Rite, to the Introit. (Cf. nomenclature of Greek Rite.) Passiontide does not begin until Holy Week. The day before Palm Sunday is Sabbatum in Traditione Symboli. This, the Blessing of the Font, the extra Masses pro Baptizatis in Ecclesiâ Hyemali on Easter Eve and every day of Easter Week, and the name of the first Sunday after Easter in albis depositis, show even more of a lingering memory of the old Easter Baptisms than the similar survivals in the Roman Rite. Holy Week is Hebdomada Authentica. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Eve, and Easter Day are named as in the Roman Rite.

The five Sundays after Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi follow, as in the Roman Rite, but the Triduum Litaniarum (Rogation Days) comes on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after, instead of before, Ascension Day. The Sundays after Pentecost continue eo nomine until the Decollation of St. John (29 August). There may be as many as fifteen of them. Then follow either four or five Sundays post Decollationem S. Joannis Baptistæ, then three Sundays of October, the third of which is Dedicatio Ecclesiæ Majoris. The rest of the Sundays until Advent are post Dedicationem.

The Calendar of the Saints calls for little notice. There are many local saints, and several feasts which are given in the Roman Calendar in late February, March, and early April are given on other days, because of the rule against feasts in Lent. Only St. Joseph and the Annunciation come in the Lenten part of the Calendar, but the Masses of these are given on 12 December and the sixth Sunday of Advent respectively. The days are classified as follows:

1. Solemnitates Domini
   • First Class: the Annunciation, Christmas Day, Epiphany, Easter Day with its Monday and Tuesday, Ascension Day, Pentecost, with its Monday and Tuesday, Corpus Domini, the Dedication of the Cathedral or of the local church, Solemnitas Domini titularis propriæ Ecclesiæ.
   • First class, secondary: the Feast of the Sacred Heart.
   • Second class: the Visitation, Circumcision, Purification, Transfiguration, Invention of the Cross, Trinity Sunday.
   • Second class, secondary: the Name of Jesus, the Holy Family, the Exaltation of the Cross. The Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter Day, Pentecost and Corpus Domini also count as Solemnitates Domini.
2. Sundays
3. Solemnia B. M. V. et Sanctorum
   • First class: the Immaculate Conception, Assumption, Nativity of St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, Saints Peter and Paul, All Saints, the Ordination of St. Ambrose, and the Patron of the local church.
   • Second class: other feasts of Our Lady, St. Michael and the Archangels, and the Guardian Angels, Decollation of St. John, Feasts of Apostles and Evangelists, St. Anne, St. Charles Borromeo, the Holy Innocents, St. Joachim, St. Laurence, St. Martin, Saints Nazarius and Celsus, Saints Protasius and Gervasius, St. Stephen, St. Thomas of Canterbury.
   • Second class, secondary: the two Chairs of St. Peter, the Conversion of St. Paul.
4. Solemnia Majora: St. Agatha, St. Agnes, St. Anthony, St. Apollinaris, St. Benedict, St. Dominic, the Translations of Saints Ambrose, Protasius, and Gervasius, St. Francis, St. Mary Magdalene, Sts. Nabor and Felix, St. Sebastian, St. Victor, St. Vincent.
5. Alia Solemnia are days noted as such in the Calendar, and the days of saints whose bodies or important relics are preserved in any particular church become Solemnia for that church.
6. Non-Solemnia Privilegiata
7. Non-Solemnia Simplicia

Feasts are also grouped into four classes: First class of Solemnitates Domini and Solemnia; second class of the same; greater and ordinary Solemnia; non-Solemnia, divided into privilegiata and simplicia. Solemnia have two vespers, non-Solemnia only one, the first. The privilegiata have certain propria and the simplicia only the communia. The general principle of occurrences is that common to the whole Western Church. If two festivals fall on the same day, the lesser is either transferred, merely commemorated, or omitted. But the Ambrosian Rite differs materially from the Roman in the rank given to Sunday, which is only superseded by a Solemnitas Domini, and not always then, for if the Name of Jesus or the Purification falls on Septuagesima, Sexagesima, or Quinquagesima Sunday, it is transferred, though the distribution and procession of candles takes place on the Sunday on which the Purification actually falls. If a Solemne Sanctorum or a privileged non-Solemne falls on a Sunday, a Solemnitas Domini, the Friday or Saturday of the fourth or fifth week of Advent, a Feria de Exceptato, within an Octave of a great Feast, a Feria Litaniarum, or a Feria of Lent, the whole office is of the Sunday, Solemnitas Domini, etc., and the Solemne or non-Solemne privilegiatum is transferred, in most cases to the next clear day, but in the case of Solemnia of the first or second class to the next Feria, quocumque festo etiam solemni impedita. A simple non-Solemne is never transferred, but it is omitted altogether if a Solemne of the first class falls on the same day, and in other cases of occurrences it is commemorated, though of course it supersedes an ordinary Feria. The concurrences of the first Vespers of one feast with the second of another are arranged on much the same principle, the chief peculiarity being that if a Solemne Sanctorum falls on a Monday its first Vespers is kept not on the Sunday, but on the preceding Saturday, except in Advent, when this rule applies only to Solemnia of the first and second class, and other Solemnia are only commemorated at Sunday Vespers. The liturgical colours of the Ambrosian Rite are very similar to those of the Roman, the most important differences being that (except when some greater day occurs) red is used on the Sundays and Feriæ after Pentecost and the Decollation of St. John until the Eve of the Dedication (third Sunday in October), on Corpus Christi and its Octave, and during Holy Week, except on Good Friday, as well as on the days on which it is used in the Roman Rite, and that (with similar exceptions) green is only used from the Octave of the Epiphany to the eve of Septuagesima, from Low Sunday to the Friday before Pentecost, after the Dedication to Advent, and on feasts of abbots.