Temporal

TEMPORAL. - I. IN THE LATIN CHURCH. - That part of the liturgical year which in the official books of the Latin Church bears the title Proprium de tempore.

Today the T. begins with Advent, includes the Christmas and Epiphany feasts up to its octave, the Sundays after Epiphany, variable in number according to the date of Easter, with the three Sundays of Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima up to Ash Wednesday, with which the Lenten season begins. With the fifth week, Passion Sunday, the severity of this period is accentuated, while the "Holy Week" par excellence leads to the Sacred Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The Easter vigil, the "pannychis" (all-night vigil) par excellence, contains the passage (Passah = Transitus), from death to life, from the tomb to the resurrection, from penance and fasting to the joy of the Easter solemnity which continues for a whole week. Then follows the Easter season, that is, the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost, which have, on the 40th, the feast of the Ascension. Pentecost Sunday closes the great Easter cycle. Then follows the series of Sundays after Pentecost, which, again according to the date of Easter, oscillates between 23 and 28 effective Sundays. The time that runs from the octave of Epiphany up to Septuagesima (and, in a certain sense, up to Ash Wednesday), and from the 1st Sunday after Pentecost up to the 1st of Advent, is called simply "tempus per annum".

The developments of the feasts then led to the insertion into the T. of certain major feasts, of medieval or more recent origin: on the 1st Sunday after Pentecost the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, on the following Thursday that of Corpus Domini, on the Friday after its octave the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Also part of the T., insofar as they are movable, are the feasts: Name of Jesus (1st Sunday of the civil year, which falls between the dates 2-5 Jan.; if no Sunday falls within these days, the feast remains fixed on 2 Jan.); Sorrows of Mary (Friday of the week of Passion); Solemnity (formerly Patronage) of St. Joseph (Wednesday of the 2nd week after Easter, with its octave); Christ the King (last Sunday of Oct.). The last three feasts mentioned, however, although bound to the course of the T., are not found in the liturgical books in the "Proprium de Tempore", but among the other feasts with a fixed date, an incongruity that really disturbs the ordinary festal cycle.

Certain periods of the T. have particular prerogatives or even obligations. Thus in Advent (a time so important in the liturgical year, which however lacks a proper Preface) every feria has, if it cannot be celebrated as such, at least its commemoration, hymns, and a proper invitatory and, in the Hour of Prime, a particular versicle in the short responsory, which however, in turn, on the feast and octave of the Immaculate Conception, is suppressed. The whole time of Advent therefore has its own proper color, very cordial and full of gracious affections and sentiments. This character is then increased in the last days that immediately precede Christmas: it is the time of the famous "O" or greater antiphons, and of the particular antiphons for Lauds and the Little Hours, in short a kind of octave of preparation, interrupted only (in the universal calendar) by the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, completely out of place, when one considers it in relation to the current time. The Christmas season and that of Epiphany also have their own properties. Preface and Communicantes in the Mass, hymns, closing of hymns, versicles etc. attuned to the joy of the great solemnities.

The time that runs between Septuagesima Sunday up to the 1st Sunday of Lent, although distinct from the ordinary time of the year, nevertheless preserves its particularities, such as hymns, lessons or short chapters: but it bears the burden of the weekday prayers, and the violet color. Indeed, even the first days of Lent itself, that is, the four days added to it later (under Gregory the Great?) from Ash Wednesday up to the following Saturday, still have all the characteristics of the ferias per annum, although they already enjoy all the privileges of Lent: obligatory commemoration if they cannot be celebrated, great weekday prayers, and the proper Preface. Lent and the time of Passion have their own office which is often interrupted by the feasts of the Saints that have been accumulating also in this time. In antiquity it was an inviolable law, or nearly so, that during Lent no feast should be admitted, a custom still in force in the Ambrosian liturgy (which only recently has introduced the feasts of St. Joseph, 10 March, and of the Annunciation, 25 March). So that, by now, Lent is much reduced in its original severity, given also the reduction of fasting.

The Easter season has for its special characteristic the Alleluia, repeated innumerable times. It has its own Preface (for the more ancient feasts of martyrs also special antiphons of a joyful type) invitatory, and, at Prime, versicle and doxology in the hymns. The feasts and octaves then of the major solemnities, inserted into the T. after Pentecost, have the usual properties of the great octaves.

The arrangement of the Sundays per annum, that is, of those that remain outside the two cycles, Christmas and Easter, is relatively simple: they are numbered progressively, from Epiphany and from Pentecost (the Protestants count them from Trinity). Those Sundays that find no place after Epiphany and before Septuagesima are ordinarily transferred after Pentecost, and precisely after the 23rd. The formulary of the 24th Sunday always occupies the last place. More complicated instead is the relative system of the biblical readings of the Breviary, which until Aug. follows the regular progressive order of the Sundays, but from this month has an order of its own, independent of the numbering of the Sundays, and bound instead to the individual months. To each month (from Aug. up to Nov.) five Sundays are assigned, while at times the biblical readings undergo notable cuts.

As for the history of the T., see the expositions given under the individual entries: ASCENSION; ADVENT; SUNDAY; EPIPHANY; LITANY; CHRISTMAS; EASTER; PENTECOST; LENT; EMBER DAYS; QUINQUAGESIMA; SEXAGESIMA; HOLY WEEK; SEPTUAGESIMA. Here it suffices to say that the primitive nucleus of the whole T. was constituted by the most ancient, indeed apostolic, celebration of the death and Resurrection of Christ, as well as of the mission of the Holy Spirit, to which the Ascension was later added, and, still later, at Rome, Christmas, which in the East was celebrated on Epiphany. The time between Easter and Pentecost was organized very early (after the 4th century); at the same time Lent developed, from a period of a few days (indeed, hours), to comprise 40 full days. The development of the T. was in its main lines completed by the time of St. Gregory the Great. The T. and the Sanctoral (v.) taken together form the liturgical year, whose celebration is of the highest importance for the inner life of the Church and of the faithful. The modern liturgical movement has made notable efforts to restore its value as the foundation of the liturgical piety of the clergy and of the people. Mass and the Divine Office are closely bound to the liturgical year, and form with it a single indivisible whole. The Eucharistic Sacrifice — apart from its intrinsic value — was celebrated, primitively, on the occasion of liturgical recurrences: Sunday, great feasts, then feasts of the saints, finally every day, especially from the time when private Masses came in as an ordinary and regular institution. Official liturgical prayer likewise soon adapted itself to particular liturgical recurrences, forming that wonderful whole of psalms, readings, and chants which in antiquity and in the Middle Ages was presented in splendid codices and which even today the art of printing seeks to print with a certain splendor. The liturgical year, however, is not exhausted, as some believe, in a sterile and monotonous re-evocation of historical facts or persons, but is, instead, like the whole Church and its manifestations, a living and active thing, the bearer of operating and transforming divine grace, one of the highest manifestations of the vitality of the Church. Indeed, the great cycles, Christmas and Easter, the two pivots of the ecclesiastical year, with their time of preparation, and with their central and secondary solemnities, while on the one hand they make the fundamental facts of the work of human Redemption live again for Christians, on the other they render these same facts operative, through the sacred celebrations, with all the divine mystery that is contained in them of Christ, God-Man and Redeemer, who instituted the Church as the continuer of his saving work, in the uninterrupted, liturgical-sacramental renewal of those same mysteries. From this is deduced the necessity, indeed the obligation, incumbent on the clergy, to take care by every means and with constant commitment that the celebration of the liturgical year be carried out with a devout external apparatus and a profound internal preparation.

Giuseppe Löw

II. IN THE EASTERN CHURCH

The first nucleus of the liturgical year was constituted, in the East as in the West, by the feast of Easter with its octave and Holy Week; soon Lent was placed before it, and later a preparatory period before that, just as the time after Easter was extended to Pentecost and sometimes even beyond that term. This entire period of the T. is linked to the feast of Easter, which can fall within a span of 35 days.

The second element arises from the feast of Christmas and Epiphany, also preceded by a period of preparation and followed by an octave. This part of the T. is linked to fixed dates of the civil calendar: Dec. 25 and Jan. 6.

To close the ring of the liturgical year, one must fill the time from Pentecost to the Christmas preparation, and from the octave of Epiphany to the Lenten preparation. For this purpose several systems are practiced in the East. The first is to base the entire T., except the central and movable period of Easter, on the civil year. Thus the Coptic rite provides liturgical texts for the four Sundays of each of the first six months of the year and for a fifth Sunday that falls in that time (Tot-Amshir, i.e. seven of February); then it provides the texts of the Easter period (from Lent to Pentecost); thirdly it sets forth the texts for the four Sundays of each of the last six months of the year and for a fifth Sunday (Bashans-Mesre e Nissi, i.e. Apr.-Aug. and Epagomenes; cf. S. C. Malan, The Holy Gospel and Versicles... in the Coptic Church, London 1874).

Another system consists in dividing the time after Pentecost into consecutive and uninterrupted series of eight weeks, according to the eight musical tones. Thus does the Byzantine rite; theoretically it begins the first series with the first tone on the first Sunday after Easter; in practice on the first Sunday after Pentecost with the eighth tone (the same system was followed in some part of the Antiochene Church of the Syriac rite). The Byzantine rite divides, for its biblical readings, the same time into two periods: that of the Gospel of St. Matthew up to the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, that of the Gospel of St. Luke from that date up to the preparation of Lent (cf. A. Stoelen, L'Année liturgique byzantine [Irenimon-Collection, 10], Amay 1928).

In the other Eastern rites the T. is divided into periods whose boundaries are indicated by certain great feasts. In the Armenian rite the T., as also the Sanctoral, begins with the feast of Epiphany and its octave, followed by a variable period of weeks. Three weeks before Lent, that is the tenth before Easter, is the Sunday of Aratšavor and the beginning of the period dependent on the date of Easter which, after Lent, comprises 14 weeks, of which 7 up to Pentecost, and ends with the Sunday of Vardavar, on which the Transfiguration of Our Lord is celebrated. From that day to the Sunday of the Assumption (the one nearest to Aug. 15) 4 weeks are provided, but they may also be more or fewer according to the date of Easter; from the Sunday of the Assumption to that of the Exaltation of the Cross there are 5 weeks, and from the latter to that of Advent (that is the one nearest to Nov. 18) 6 weeks; from Advent to Epiphany 7 or 8 weeks. The great feasts of the Transfiguration, the Assumption and the Cross mark the different stages of the T., which is complete without reference to the civil calendar except for the feast of Epiphany (cf. C. Tondini de Quarenghi, Notice sur le Calendrier liturgique de la nation arménienne, in Bessarione, fasc. 90 [1906], pp. 275-94, and fasc. 91-92 [1906], pp. 71-114).

The Chaldean rite has sought even more strictly to form a system of periods of 7 weeks each. Starting from the first Sunday of the Annunciation (= Advent), which is the one nearest to Dec. 1, one counts 4 Sundays up to Christmas and then two up to Epiphany; between Epiphany and Lent 7 Sundays are provided, but in fact they may be fewer in number; Lent counts seven Sundays; then to that of Hosanna (= Palm Sunday) and of Easter are added 5 Sundays up to Pentecost; the period of the Apostles that follows has 7 Sundays; then the one called that of summer has 5 of Elijah and 4 of the Cross; for the following period, that of Moses, 4 Sundays are provided, but they may be greater or fewer in number, and there follow 4 Sundays, called of the entrance or dedication of the church, of which the first is the Sunday nearest to Nov. 1 (cf. A. J. Maclean, East Syrian daily Offices, London 1894, pp. 264-81; N. Nilles, Kalendarium manuale utrissque Ecclesiae orientalis et occidentalis, II, Innsbruck 1897, pp. 684-88).

The T. of the West Syriac rite differs somewhat from that of the Chaldean rite. Here the first period of the T. begins with the first Sunday of the dedication of the church, the one nearest to Nov. 1, and counts 8 Sundays, the Christmas period counts 2, that of Epiphany may have from 1 to 8; Lent has 6 Sundays to which is added that of Hosanna (= Palm Sunday); the Easter period counts 6 Sundays, after Pentecost come the 7 Sundays of the Apostles, then from 5 to 11 of the summer period and, finally, from the Invention of the Cross to the dedication of the church another 7 or 8 Sundays. In the Syriac rites, then, the great feasts of the cycles after Pentecost are those of the apostles Peter and Paul and that of the Cross (cf. A. Baumstark, Festbrevier und Kirchenjahr der syrischen Jakobiten, Paderborn 1910, pp. 166-94, 204-41, 247-57, 265-73 [with historical study]; P. Hindo, Disciplina antiochea antica. Siri, IV. Lieux et temps sacrés... [Codificazione canonica orientale. Fonti, 2ª serie, fasc. xxviii], Rome 1943).

Alfonso Raes