TEMPORALE. - 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; it includes the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany up to its octave, the Sundays after Epiphany, varying in number according to the date of Easter, together with the three Sundays of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima, up to Ash Wednesday, with which the Lenten season begins. In the fifth week, Passion Sunday, the severity of this period becomes more pronounced, while “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 an entire week. This is followed by the Easter season, that is, the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost, which have the feast of the Ascension on the 40th day. Pentecost Sunday closes the great Easter cycle. This is followed by the series of Sundays after Pentecost, which, again according to the date of Easter, ranges between 23 and 28 actual Sundays. The period extending from the octave of Epiphany to Septuagesima (and, in a certain sense, to Ash Wednesday), and from the 1st Sunday after Pentecost to the 1st Sunday of Advent, is simply called tempus per annum.
The development of the feasts has subsequently 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; and on the Friday after its octave, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The following feasts also form part of the T., insofar as they are movable: Name of Jesus (the 1st Sunday of the civil year, falling between 2 and 5 January; if no Sunday falls within these days, the feast remains fixed on 2 January); Sorrows of Mary (Friday of Passion Week); Solemnity (formerly Patronage) of s. Joseph (Wednesday of the 2nd week after Easter, with its octave); Christ the King (the last Sunday of October). The last three feasts mentioned, however, although linked to the course of the T., are not found in the liturgical books in the “Proprium de Tempore,” but among the other feasts with fixed dates, an incongruity that genuinely disturbs the ordinary festive cycle.
Certain periods of the T. have particular prerogatives or even obligations. Thus, in Advent (a season so important in the liturgical year, which nevertheless lacks a proper Preface), every feria has, if it cannot be celebrated as such, at least its commemoration, hymns, and a proper invitatory, and, at the Hour of Prime, a particular verse in the short responsory, which, in turn, is suppressed on the feast and octave of the Immaculate Conception. The entire season of Advent therefore has its own character, very warm and full of gracious affections and sentiments. This character is further intensified in the final days immediately preceding Christmas: it is the period of the celebrated “O” or major antiphons, and of the particular antiphons for Lauds and the minor Hours—in short, a kind of octave of preparation, interrupted only (in the universal calendar) by the feast of s. Thomas the Apostle, completely out of place when considered in relation to the current season. The Christmas season and that of Epiphany also have their own features: Preface and Communicantes in the Mass, hymns, hymn endings, verses, and so forth, attuned to the joy of the great solemnities.
The period extending from Septuagesima Sunday to the 1st Sunday of Lent, although distinct from the ordinary season of the year, nevertheless retains its particular features, such as hymns, lessons, or short chapters; but it bears the burden of the ferial prayers and the violet color. Indeed, even the first days of Lent itself, namely the four days added to it later (under Gregory the Great?), from Ash Wednesday 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 ferial prayers, and the proper Preface. Lent and Passiontide have their own office, which is often interrupted by the feasts of the Saints that have gradually accumulated in this season as well. In antiquity it was an inviolable, or almost inviolable, rule that no feast be admitted during Lent, a practice still in force in the Ambrosian liturgy (which only recently introduced the feasts of s. Joseph, 10 March, and the Annunciation, 25 March). Thus, by now, Lent has been greatly reduced in its original severity, also as a result of the reduction of the fast.
The Easter season has the Alleluia as its special characteristic, repeated countless times. It has its own Preface (for the more ancient feasts of martyrs, also special antiphons of a joyful type), invitatory, and, at Prime, a verse and doxology in the hymns. The feasts and octaves of the greater solemnities inserted into the T. after Pentecost also have the usual features of the great octaves.
The arrangement of the Sundays per annum, that is, those remaining outside the two cycles, Christmas and Easter, is relatively simple: they are numbered progressively from Epiphany and from Pentecost (Protestants count them from Trinity Sunday). Those Sundays that find no place after Epiphany and before Septuagesima are ordinarily transferred to after Pentecost, specifically after the 23rd. The formulary of the 24th Sunday always occupies the final place. More complicated, however, is the corresponding system of biblical readings in the Breviary, which up to August follows the regular progressive order of the Sundays, but from that month onward has its own order, independent of the numbering of the Sundays and linked instead to the individual months. Five Sundays are assigned to each month (from August through November), while at times the biblical readings undergo substantial abridgements.
As for the history of the T., see the treatments given under the individual entries: ASCENSIONE; AVVENTO; DOMENICA; EPIFANIA; LITANIA; NATALE; PASQUA; PENTECOSTE; QUARESIMA; QUATTRO TEMPI; QUINQUAGESIMA; SESSAGESIMA; SETTIMANA SANTA; SETTUAGESIMA. Here it is enough to say that the primitive nucleus of the whole T. consisted in 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 subsequently added and, later, at Rome, Christmas, which in the East was celebrated at Epiphany. The period between Easter and Pentecost was organized very early (after the fourth century); at the same time Lent developed, from a period of a few days (indeed, hours) until it comprised a full 40 days. The development of the T. was, in its principal lines, complete by the time of St. Gregory the Great. The T. Sanctoral (v.) together form the liturgical year, whose celebration is of the utmost importance for the interior life of the Church and the faithful. The modern liturgical movement has made considerable efforts to revalue it as the foundation of the liturgical piety of the clergy and people. The Mass and the Divine Office are closely linked to the liturgical year and, together with it, form an indivisible whole. The Eucharistic Sacrifice—apart from its intrinsic value—was celebrated primitively on the occasion of liturgical anniversaries: Sunday, great feasts, then feasts of the saints, and finally every day, especially from the time when private Masses arose as an ordinary and regular institution. Official liturgical prayer likewise soon adapted itself to particular liturgical anniversaries, forming that marvelous ensemble of psalms, readings, and chants which in antiquity and the Middle Ages was presented in splendid codices and which even today the art of printing seeks to produce with a certain magnificence. The liturgical year, however, is not exhausted, as some believe, in a sterile and monotonous commemoration of historical events or persons; rather, like the whole Church and its manifestations, it is something living and active, bringing divine grace that works and transforms, 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 period of preparation and their central and secondary solemnities, while on the one hand causing Christians to relive the fundamental events of the work of human Redemption, on the other make these same events operative, through the sacred celebrations, with all the divine mystery
contained therein of Christ, Man-God and Redeemer, who instituted the Church as the continuator of his saving work, in the uninterrupted liturgical-sacramental renewal of those same mysteries. From this is deduced the necessity, indeed the obligation, incumbent upon the clergy, to ensure by every means and with constant commitment that the celebration of the liturgical year take place with devout external solemnity and profound interior preparation.
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; Lent was soon prefixed to it, and later a preparatory period was added to Lent, while the period after Easter was prolonged until Pentecost and sometimes even beyond that date. This entire period of the T. is linked to the feast of Easter, which may fall within a span of 35 days.The second element arises from the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany, likewise preceded by a period of preparation and followed by an octave. This part of the T. is linked to fixed dates in the civil calendar: 25 December and 6 January.
To complete the circle of the liturgical year, the time from Pentecost to the preparation for Christmas, and from the octave of Epiphany to the preparation for Lent, must be filled. For this purpose, various systems are practiced in the East. The first is to base the entire T., except for 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 during that time (Tot-Amshir, that is, 7 February); then it supplies the texts for the Easter period (from Lent to Pentecost); thirdly, it offers texts for the four Sundays of each of the final six months of the year and for a fifth Sunday (Bashans-Mesre e Nissi, that is, April–May and the 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. This is what the Byzantine rite does; 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 parts of the Antiochene Church of the Syriac rite). For its biblical readings, the Byzantine rite divides this same period into two sections: that of the Gospel of St Matthew, up to the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and that of the Gospel of St Luke, from that date until the preparation for 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 marked by certain major feasts. In the Armenian rite, the T., like the Sanctorale, 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, comes the Sunday of Aratšavor and the beginning of the period dependent on the date of Easter which, after Lent, comprises 14 weeks, 7 of them 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 15 August), 4 weeks are provided for, but there may 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 18 November), 6 weeks; from Advent to Epiphany, 7 or 8 weeks. The major feasts of the Transfiguration, the Assumption, and the Cross mark the various 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 closely to form a system of periods of 7 weeks each. Beginning with the first Sunday of the Annunciation (= Advent), which is the one nearest to 1 December, 4 Sundays are counted up to Christmas and then 2 up to Epiphany; between Epiphany and Lent, 7 Sundays are provided for, though in fact there may be fewer; Lent has 7 Sundays; then, following the Sunday of Hosanna (= Palm Sunday) and Easter, 5 Sundays are added up to Pentecost; the period of the Apostles that follows has 7 Sundays; then the period called that of summer has 5 Sundays of Elijah and 4 of the Cross; for the following period, that of Moses, 4 Sundays are provided for, though there may be more or fewer, and these are followed by 4 Sundays called those of the entrance or dedication of the church, the first of which is the Sunday nearest to 1 November (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 1 November, and comprises 8 Sundays; the Christmas period comprises 2, while the Epiphany period may have from 1 to 8; Lent has 6 Sundays, to which the Sunday of Hosanna (= Palm Sunday) is added; the Easter period comprises 6 Sundays; after Pentecost come the 7 Sundays of the Apostles, then from 5 to 11 in 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, therefore, the major 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