Father Z, the California Catholic Daily, and the Catholic Caveman have all commented on the California Bishops' dispensing their flocks from attending Mass today--the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God--which is a Holy Day of Obligation.
Heaven knows why the Bishops do this. The California Catholic Daily said this:
“It’s nothing really sinister,” a former priest of the Los Angeles archdiocese told California Catholic Daily. "It’s really pretty mundane – for the convenience of the lay people.”
Well, the literary critic Guy Davenport called the idea of convenience "one of the strangest and tackiest ideas ever conceived by mankind," and he was right.
I'm happy to say that despite the dispensation there were many people in the pews at SS. Peter and Paul this morning.
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
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And why is the Feast of Epiphany no longer celebrated on January 6? Why has it been moved to the first Sunday after the New Year? Is this yet another example of the minimalism that pervades the Latin church?
The Feast is called Theophany in the East, and it is still celebrated on January 6, the 12th day of Christmas.
For Western Christians, the feast primarily commemorates the coming of the Magi; Eastern churches celebrate the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan. In both traditions, the essence of the feast is the same: the manifestation of Christ to the world (whether as an infant or in the Jordan), and the Mystery of the Incarnation.
It is one of the three greatest feasts of the year, along with Christmas and Pascha. But it has become yet another Sunday mass in the west. Too bad.
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