Ship of Fools: The angel of the Lord brought tidings to Mary

Thread: The angel of the Lord brought tidings to Mary Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by The Scrumpmeister (# 5638) on :

And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.

How does your church deal with the Annunciation?

Since 2012 my church, which previously kept the feast on the 25th of March - 9 months prior to Christmas Day - has celebrated the Annunciation on the 6th Sunday of Advent (our calendar observing an Advent of approximately 6 weeks).

The reasons are that:

The date of the 25th of March is comparatively late, and was fixed by the Council of Trullo.
While celebrating the Annunciation 9 months before Christmas emphasises the reality of the human nature of Christ, there are elements to this feast that ought to be borne in mind other than biology alone.
There is ancient precedent for celebrating the Annunciation in the approach to Christmas (the Mozarabic calendar keeps the feast on the 18th of December, the Ambrosian calendar keeps the feast on the 6th Sunday of Advent, some writings indicate that the feast was kept on the 24th of December at Ravenna).
The 25th of March either falls during Lent or else it lands in Holy Week or the week of Pascha. So either the joy of the feast is tempered by the season in which it sits or liturgical acrobatics have to be employed to find a suitable date for transfer.

Personally, I think that the Annunciaton does make a lot of sense when celebrated as part of Advent.

However, in the Byzantine Rite, where the transferring of feasts is far less common, the blending of elements of the Annunciation with whatever else falls on the day (including Holy Friday and even Pascha itself) provides many opportunities for reflecting on the Incarnation alongside the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ.

How and when do you keep the feast?

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

Two out of three years, the reading for Advent 4 is the annunciation. So generally, it sounds like the East and the West sort of have the same idea.

I kind of like the two parallel calendars system, with dates related to the birth of Jesus and his parents religious duties around his birth based on the 25th of December.

Posted by Ceremoniar (# 13596) on :

We always have a High Mass on Lady Day, unless it falls during Holy or Easter Weeks, in which case it is transferred after the Octave, in keeping with the rubrics of the Roman Missal.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I see no reason to change. All the dates are speculative and perhaps invented out of whole cloth. I don't see why that's a problem. We've been celebrating the Annunciation 9 months before Christmas (which let's face it makes a lot of sense, if you get my drift) for hundreds of years. Your reasons would be good in a debate if we were just now setting the date for the first time. But that ship has sailed. There's absolutely no good reason to reinvent that particular wheel.

Posted by american piskie (# 593) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But that ship has sailed. There's absolutely no good reason to reinvent that particular wheel.

You have made my day. You have made the time I have lurked here worthwhile.

Posted by TomM (# 4618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:

The date of the 25th of March is comparatively late, and was fixed by the Council of Trullo.

Uhmm...

I'm not sure this accurately reflects the way the early councils worked on points like this - generally they are a recognition of existing practice, rather than a definition of something new. Unlike say, Vatican II, the early councils had much less power to enforce a decision. On some things, when a side had won the Council, it might then also have the power to enforce the decision. I'm not sure this would fall into that category - and I'm not aware of anyone really protesting either.

There is also some evidence (IIRC, the books to see are Susan Roll, 'On the Origins of Christmas' and Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson, 'On the Origins of Feasts, Fasts and Seasons') that suggests the date of the Annunciation is worked out in relation to the date of Easter - and the date of Christmas follows from this later. The theory being that in the ancient view, perfection lay in whole numbers - and so Jesus must have died on the anniversary of his conception, so that he lived a whole number of years.

Working from memory and without looking anything up, it wouldn't surprise me if you would find that many of the medieval Western rites that kept the Annunciation in or near Advent, would have done so in addition to the March celebration, not as an alternative, in much the same manner as the modern RCL uses the the Annunciation in Advent. The argument would go 'Given how important this is, let's do it often!' as that lies behind a lot of the devotion that arises to the BVM!

Posted by The Scrumpmeister (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by TomM:

quote:
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:

The date of the 25th of March is comparatively late, and was fixed by the Council of Trullo.

Uhmm...

I'm not sure this accurately reflects the way the early councils worked on points like this - generally they are a recognition of existing practice, rather than a definition of something new.

I didn't mean to suggest that the fathers at Trullo invented the observance of the feast on the 25th of March, but rather that it was fixed by them. I'm sorry if I was careless with my wording. The celebration on this date already existed but, like some of the other, perhaps more controversial, decisions of that council, is unlikely to have been universal.

As for the authority of the council, I know that, even where it is considered to have ecumenical status, that this doesn't come until later, and that this is how councils generally work. Regardless of when the decisions of any particular council come to general acceptance, the decisions are nonetheless made at that council. There was much public discussion of this in the approach to the recent "pan-Orthodox" council.

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I see no reason to change. All the dates are speculative and perhaps invented out of whole cloth. I don't see why that's a problem.

Absolutely. The dates of feasts aren't generally meant to reflect history. It always amuses me when people cite the unlikelihood of Christ's birth on the 25th of December as evidence against the truth of Christianity.

quote:
We've been celebrating the Annunciation 9 months before Christmas (which let's face it makes a lot of sense, if you get my drift) for hundreds of years. Your reasons would be good in a debate if we were just now setting the date for the first time. But that ship has sailed. There's absolutely no good reason to reinvent that particular wheel.

Well, it's the bishops' decision rather than my own, and it's done now. Given the Byzantine practice of blending the Annunciation with whatever else collides with it, and the different western customs of transferring it to various other dates if it collides with something else, I just thought discussing our various practices might make for an interesting discussion.

[ 05. October 2016, 09:05: Message edited by: The Scrumpmeister ]

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

My mother died on 25 March.

I say the office at home and try to get to a mass, typically said, where she can be prayed for with the departed.

Posted by The Scrumpmeister (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
My mother died on 25 March.

I say the office at home and try to get to a mass, typically said, where she can be prayed for with the departed.

That's beautiful, venbede. What a lovely connection with the theme of motherhood.

The Byzantine troparion, in tone 4:

quote:
Today is the beginning of our salvation,
and the revelation of the eternal mystery.
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
Rejoice, O Full of Grace,
the Lord is with You!

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

And today, as it happens is the anniversary of my partner's death and also Our Lady of the Rosary.

I went to mass and she was prayed for. The gospel reading, as it happened was the Annunciation.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

venbede
[Votive]

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Whoops.

A horrible typo.

I wrote the date was the day of my partner's death and she was prayed for.

I meant it was the day of my partner's mother's death and she was prayed for. My partner is a he.

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

Ah. Hard to respond to that ... but somehow less sad but still sad when those anniversaries fall

Posted by Knopwood (# 11596) on :

Of course in Spain they had the feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary on December 18, to avoid clashing with Lent.

Posted by The Scrumpmeister (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Knopwood:
Of course in Spain they had the feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary on December 18, to avoid clashing with Lent.

Thank you, Knopwood. It's helpful to have a good source for it. I hadn't realised that the feast was established on that date specifically to avoid keeping it in Lent.

Interestingly, according to the Catholic Encyclopaedie article, the 25th March date was later restored in addition to, rather than instead of, the 18th of December, which corroborates what TomM said above about duplication.

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