In Illo Tempore: 3rd Sunday after Easter
The 3rd Sunday after Easter in the Vetus Ordo draws us into that peculiar Christian experience of living between gift and fulfillment, between consolation remembered and consummation promised, between the joy of Easter already given and the greater joy that still presses toward Ascension and Pentecost. The whole formulary has a tensile quality. Expectancy. Movement.…
In Illo Tempore: Good Shepherd Sunday – 2nd after Easter
The 2nd Sunday after Easter in the traditional Roman Rite is called Good Shepherd Sunday. The nickname is well deserved. The Gospel presents Christ’s discourse in John 10, the Epistle from 1 Peter gathers into itself Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, and the Roman Station in ancient times was St. Peter’s on the Vatican Hill, at the…
In Illo Tempore: Low Sunday, Octave of Easter
We bring to completion the great Octave of Easter this Sunday, though “completion” here is to be understood in the Church’s own liturgical sense. For a full eight days, by that ancient inclusive counting which the Romans knew so well and Christians inherited, it has still been Easter Day. The Church has, as it were,…
In Illo Tempore: Palm Sunday
Ever since we set out on this spiritual journey on the Gesima Sundays, step by step we have drawn nearer to Holy Week. Now we stand at the threshold of the remaining days of Holy Week and the Sacred Triduum, those three days which are at once the Church’s deepest descent and highest elevation. Weariness…
The Mystery of Passiontide and Holy Week
Above: Christus mit der heiligen Veronika auf dem Weg zum Kalvarienberg, possibly from the Danube school, c. 1520. From The Liturgical Year. The holy liturgy is rich in mystery during these days of the Church’s celebrating the anniversaries of so many wonderful events; but as the principal part of these mysteries is embodied in the…
The 1955 Holy Week Reform: a Summary
Holy Week became the testing ground for a new liturgical methodology.
Passiontide Begins
In virtue of this decree, each of these fifteen days was considered, as far as the courts of law were concerned, as a Sunday.










