Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Sundry liturgical questions
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
It's also possible that the person who put that in the bulletin (or on the signboard, or wherever) simply didn't know what a votive Mass was, or didn't think anyone else would.
-------------------- "The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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seasick
...over the edge
# 48
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Posted
Download the pdfs and send them to your kindle?
-------------------- We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian Church, ... an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an outward sacrifice offered therein. - John Wesley
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iamchristianhearmeroar
Shipmate
# 15483
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Posted
I'm not sure if this question is in the right place...
My grandmother died a few weeks ago and her funeral was this week. The day after the funeral I (along with the other grandchildren) was asked to visit her old house to see if there were any pictures, bits of furniture, kitchen/garden stuff we would like. I did so.
In her bedroom I found on a table a little ceramic pillbox and could hear something rattling around inside. Thinking it might be a pill which could be dangerous if a child found it (she took Warfarin) I opened the box. I discovered what appeared to be a quarter of a Communion wafer. Now, I had no idea how that had got there, and no idea if it is consecrated or not. My instinct was to consume it, but for some reason I didn't. Should I have done so?
My concern is that being a fairly unremarkable pillbox, when the house is cleared it will just go to some charity shop somewhere and someone will discover the (possible consecrated) quarter of wafer and just put it in the bin. My mum is still staying at my grandmother's old house until all the clearing is done. Should I ask her to consume the wafer do you think?
-------------------- My blog: http://alastairnewman.wordpress.com/
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
If I were you I'd ask your (or your grandmother's) parish priest and follow their advice unless it seems entirely unreasonable (e.g. 'give it to the cat'). Even if you were just going to throw it away, it'd be reasonable to take it out of the pillbox before it goes to the charity shop- you'd do that if it were a quarter of a cream cracker. [ 14. August 2015, 10:16: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Nice one to chat about in the coffee breaks at BAP too (or maybe not!)
-------------------- My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
I'd be inclined to simply consume it (reverently), or, if such is to hand, to put it in a fire or stove (e.g. an Aga or Rayburn).
Best not to take any chances - or, IOW, your first instinct was correct!
Ian J.
-------------------- Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Joan_of_Quark
Anchoress of St Expedite
# 9887
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Posted
Consuming the host is definitely the best option. If no-one can do that, I am pretty sure the canonical thing to do instead would be to dissolve it in water rather than put it on a fire. That is, wrap it in a cloth (napkin, handkerchief?) and take it to a priest. They would then dissolve it in water until it no longer resembled bread and then pour the solution down a sacrarium (if their sacristy had one, or a font that drains to earth, or the consecrated ground outside a church).
-------------------- "I want to be an artist when I grow up." "Well you can't do both!" further quarkiness
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Josiah Crawley
Apprentice
# 18481
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Posted
Here's a question about a Funeral Mass.
Is there a special way the coffin is honored with incense at the end or is it just surrounded with incense?
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I'm not sure if its written down anywhere but this is what used to happen at an AC church where I worked:- when the coffin arrived at the church door the priest took the thurible and gave 3 lots of 3 to the head end;
- at the Commendation the priest took the thurible and, walking clockwise, moved around the coffin holding the thurible on a short chain so he could make small circles;
- having made a complete circuit he again censed the coffin with three groups of 3 short swings at the head end.
As I say, I'm not sure if this is the 'standard' but it is what happened in one place.
-------------------- Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by L'organist: I'm not sure if its written down anywhere but this is what used to happen at an AC church where I worked:- when the coffin arrived at the church door the priest took the thurible and gave 3 lots of 3 to the head end;
- at the Commendation the priest took the thurible and, walking clockwise, moved around the coffin holding the thurible on a short chain so he could make small circles;
- having made a complete circuit he again censed the coffin with three groups of 3 short swings at the head end.
As I say, I'm not sure if this is the 'standard' but it is what happened in one place.
That's what we do at our place. Don't forget to sprinkle with Holy Water as well.
-------------------- "May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
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Josiah Crawley
Apprentice
# 18481
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Posted
What about when the coffin is already present from the night vigil?
Is there censing of it in the Mass before the end?
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
We sprinkle as the coffin is brought into the church (as a sentence is read recalling baptism), right before the pall is put on. At the end, I cense much as has been described above, but without anything special at the head. I will stop to cense the Paschal candle as well.
-------------------- Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Preaching blog
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
My impression is that it is not all that frequent in the CofE. Common Worship says, quote: The coffin may be sprinkled with water on entry. This may occur at the Commendation, or at the Committal.
but when I've seen it done, it has been when the coffin leaves the church, i.e. Commendation. My understanding, for what it's worth, is that it represents the water of our baptism.
An undertaker looked very disapproving a few years ago, when somebody asked about a pall, and said 'palls are very London' - by which he meant they aren't used anywhere else and he hadn't got one.
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
Do undertakers bring the pall to churches in London? I'm used to the pall being something that the church provides (even though the funeral home staff are the ones that actually put it on the casket).
-------------------- Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Preaching blog
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Adam.: Do undertakers bring the pall to churches in London? I'm used to the pall being something that the church provides (even though the funeral home staff are the ones that actually put it on the casket).
I've no idea. The point he was making was that they didn't use them where he was. I don't think they are part of usual church furniture. I can't recall having ever seen one.
However, one thing you may not realise which I think is very different from US funeral customs, is that the coffin always has its lid on at a UK funeral.
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
My church (US Anglican) has a pall for coffins. It is, I believe, white, in token of the Resurrection. I have never seen it in use. I have seen funerals conducted with the ashes from the cremation; the urn gets its own credence table and a little pall (white).
-------------------- Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Enoch:
However, one thing you may not realise which I think is very different from US funeral customs, is that the coffin always has its lid on at a UK funeral.
My experience here (in my part of the Catholic Midwest) is that when we do the funeral in the church, the casket is closed and the pall is used. When it's at the funeral home, the casket remains open.
I've only had a few funerals with cremains. When cremains are brought to church, we treat them exactly as Brenda describes. Many get cremated, but usually after the funeral.
-------------------- Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Preaching blog
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Ceremoniar
Shipmate
# 13596
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Enoch: quote: Originally posted by Adam.: Do undertakers bring the pall to churches in London? I'm used to the pall being something that the church provides (even though the funeral home staff are the ones that actually put it on the casket).
I've no idea. The point he was making was that they didn't use them where he was. I don't think they are part of usual church furniture. I can't recall having ever seen one.
The pall is not a piece of church furniture. It is the cloth that covers the casket during the Catholic funeral Mass. It is also used by other liturgical Christians. Traditionally it was black, as in this picture, but since 1970 they have more commonly been white pictured here.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
They are deucedly expensive, being so large, and if I was a church I'd be happy to let the funeral directors do this bit. In other words, if you don't already have one, don't begin!
-------------------- Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
At one of my old churches, it was just part of one of the white Mass sets, so we always used that one for funerals. Same deal at our basilica.
-------------------- Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Preaching blog
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
This is ours. You can see why I say, expensive!
-------------------- Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Ceremoniar
Shipmate
# 13596
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Posted
Considering the large size of a funeral pall, and how frequently the average parish uses one (nearly every single funeral), the cost is not really that expensive. It will be used multiple times per year, for many years.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Don't think I've ever seen one used here (England and Wales).
-------------------- My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Emendator Liturgia
Shipmate
# 17245
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Posted
They are largely not in use here in OZ from my (admitted) limited exposure. What tends to be more the 'norm' is casket flowers - a flower arrangement that covers most of the top of the casket. Of course, there is the Australian flag for the funeral of ex-servicepersons.
-------------------- Don't judge all Anglicans in Sydney by prevailing Diocesan standards!
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Ceremoniar
Shipmate
# 13596
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Posted
I infer that the posts stating that funeral palls are not used here or there are not speaking from an RC perspective. The placing of the pall is part of the rite of the Mass of Christian Burial. As an Anglo-Catholic youth in the Episcopal Church, I always saw them used there, as well.
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
One lurks in a chest in the church where I worship. Clearing out the sacristy twenty years ago we found a sheaf of forms setting out funeral wishes --- "I wish the pall to be used" was one of the boxes to tick. Was there not an anglo-catholic confraternity that encouraged their use?
I also think I used to see them used at a Remembrance Day requiem, and possibly All Souls too.
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
Watching the televised mass on Sunday from Nuestra Señora del Tránsito in Madrid by courtesy of RTVE I was surprised to see the gospeller (I speak anglican; I thought he was the deacon, and indeed his vestment was very dalmatic-like, but it wasn't and he was one of the concelebrants) put on the humeral veil to carry the gospel book to the ambo and proclaim the gospel.
I have never seen this done, either with my own eyes or on the telly. Comments?
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
I've never seen this done either. It is, however, common when you have no deacon but do have concelebrants to have one of them proclaim the gospel.
-------------------- Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Preaching blog
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Offeiriad
Ship's Arboriculturalist
# 14031
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Brenda Clough: This is ours. You can see why I say, expensive!
Fascinating! And isn't the 'urn pall' on the same page suspiciously like a chalice veil?
Posts: 1426 | From: La France profonde | Registered: Aug 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Is there any British RC shipmate who can speak for whether an RC funeral here has to have a pall as part of the ceremony?
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Re palls - we don't get that many funeral Masses at Our Place (or even non-Eucharistic funerals, for that matter), but IIRC some at least of our local funeral directors provide their own seemly purple pall.
Local custom at local crematoria seems to be a wreath or two on the coffin (with maybe a framed photo of the deceased), all (presumably) discreetly removed by the undertaker after the curtains have closed and before the body descends to the fire......
Ian J.
-------------------- Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
Before Vatican 2 it was very common in RC churches, at least in Scotland, to have a black pall over the coffin.
Since Vatican 2 the use of the catafalque,the use of the six unbleached candles around the coffin and the use of a black pall has disappeared - along with black funeral vestments.
One of the churches in Edinburgh used for a time a white funeral pall ,after Vatican 2, along with the Paschal (Resurrection) candle but I haven't seen that for a long time.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I am sorry to report that at our church we don't have an urn pall. We just use a chalice veil, which are all nearly a yard square. We are a large church and setting for Holy Eucharist involves between 7 and 9 chalices (and six ciboria and five large flagons of wine) so we had to have a veil custom made large enough.
-------------------- Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
I am not sure if there be a uniform practice among local RCs. Of recent funerals I have seen palls at the Latin Latin church (black at SS Clement & Anne) and the Irish basilica (white at S Patrick), but not among the Italians at S Antony's, nor the franco-ontarian parish in Embrun.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I think the references to funerals where an urn containing cremains is brought into the church is also quite a significant cultural difference. I've never seen that here, and I'm not sure that it would that easy to arrange it.
If the body is cremated, there are three options.
The first is that there is a funeral service in church which ends with a commendation. The body then goes to the crem, corresponding to the grave, where there is a brief committal and then it is burnt, either immediately - or one sometimes suspects, later in the day. In due course (not immediately) the ashes are given back to the undertaker.
The second is a funeral service at the crem, ending in committal, again corresponding to the grave, and then as above.
The third, particularly in rural areas where the crem is a long way off, is for the cremation to take place first - that being in effect the funeral - and a memorial service to be held later the same day or on a different day.
But I've never been to a memorial service where the urn has been brought back into the church. That would be rather like digging the body up again.
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Offeiriad
Ship's Arboriculturalist
# 14031
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Posted
Historically, cremation was envisaged as 'preparing the body for burial' - maybe a parallel to embalming? - so that the remains would be in church as 'the body of the deceased', then buried - like a body - at the committal straight after the funeral service in church.
The now familiar modern pattern - of cremation following the funeral service in church, i.e. treated as the equivalent of burial - soon became the norm, but is actually an inversion of the pattern originally intended!
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
It is also cheaper to haul around an urn, rather than a full-sized body in a coffin. You need a special vehicle to transport a coffin; you can put an urn on the front seat of your car or beside you on a bus. I can easily see why, if you plan to cremate anyway, the cremation takes place before any of the other obsequies.
-------------------- Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Offeiriad
Ship's Arboriculturalist
# 14031
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Posted
True, but it isn't good if this portability defeats the tradition of remains having a permanent final resting place. Granny's urn still being on the mantlepiece ten years after she died was a possibility never envisaged by Christian tradition.
(I once heard of a husband divorced by his wife for 'unreasonable behaviour', chief example of which was that the husband would rile his wife by putting the urn with her mother's ashes in the bay window, then opening and closing the curtains using the pulley mechanism while whistling 'Abide with me'!)
Posts: 1426 | From: La France profonde | Registered: Aug 2008
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Corvo
Shipmate
# 15220
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by L'organist: I'm not sure if its written down anywhere but this is what used to happen at an AC church where I worked:- when the coffin arrived at the church door the priest took the thurible and gave 3 lots of 3 to the head end;
- at the Commendation the priest took the thurible and, walking clockwise, moved around the coffin holding the thurible on a short chain so he could make small circles;
- having made a complete circuit he again censed the coffin with three groups of 3 short swings at the head end.
As I say, I'm not sure if this is the 'standard' but it is what happened in one place.
I thought the rule was no incense before the offertory at a funeral mass?
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
Whose rule? While at parishes I've worked at, we've just used incense for the committal, the basilica here at Notre Dame uses incense as for a regular Mass in addition.
-------------------- Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Preaching blog
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Ceremoniar
Shipmate
# 13596
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Posted
In the Extraordinary Form--so consequently in all Roman Catholic churches prior to 1970--incense is not used at a Requiem Mass until the offertory.
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Oblatus
Shipmate
# 6278
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Ceremoniar: In the Extraordinary Form--so consequently in all Roman Catholic churches prior to 1970--incense is not used at a Requiem Mass until the offertory.
As specified in manuals like Fortescue's and in Ritual Notes. We've tended to follow Fortescue, even though we use BCP 1979, so in a Requiem Mass there's no incense until the Offertory, the line "Happy are those who are called to his supper" is omitted, and a couple of other changes. No censing of people, maybe, other than the deceased at the end? I could look it up.
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Oblatus: quote: Originally posted by Ceremoniar: In the Extraordinary Form--so consequently in all Roman Catholic churches prior to 1970--incense is not used at a Requiem Mass until the offertory.
As specified in manuals like Fortescue's and in Ritual Notes. We've tended to follow Fortescue, even though we use BCP 1979, so in a Requiem Mass there's no incense until the Offertory, the line "Happy are those who are called to his supper" is omitted, and a couple of other changes. No censing of people, maybe, other than the deceased at the end? I could look it up.
Obl: You are correct about 'no censing of people' at ExForm Requiems (Requieae?) Per Fortescue, anyway. But yes, censing (and sprinkling) the body at the absolution. This is burned in my memory as I burned my hand on the thurible at the Absolution in one of my first outings as an acolyte. (That was in 1959 or thereabouts, but it's a vivid memory!)
And to you, Oblatus, greetings from The Hill (St. Meinrad) where I'm now employed!
-------------------- You can't retire from a calling.
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by georgiaboy: ... The Hill (St. Meinrad) where I'm now employed!
[OT...] Congrats! I've taken three retreats there now. I find it a wonderful place to reconnect with God. I don't have a monastic vocation, but a week per year of it does me a world of good.
If you'll be praying regularly at all with the monks, I hope we get lots of their insights shared on board the ship here! [/OT]
-------------------- Ave Crux, Spes Unica! Preaching blog
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