Portsmouth Ordo, Second Week of Easter
Sunday, April 24: Sunday of Divine Mercy (“Low Sunday” of Octave)
Monday, April 25: Mark, evangelist
Tuesday, April 26: Easter weekday
Wednesday, April 27: Easter weekday
Thursday, April 28: Easter weekday
Friday, April 29: Catherine of Siena, virgin and doctor
Saturday, April 30: Easter weekday
The week begins with the “Low Sunday” of the Easter Octave. This Sunday is now known as the Sunday of Divine Mercy, a designation affirming the message of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, twentieth-century Polish nun now venerated as the “Apostle of Divine Mercy.” Archbishop Karol Wojtyła was instrumental in correcting misinterpretations of her diary, based on mistranslations, and in having a ban on her writings reversed. As Pope John Paul II he later beatified and canonized Kowalska. It is interesting to note that he died in 2005 on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday. His beatification by Pope Benedict XVI took place on Divine Mercy Sunday of 2011, and he was canonized by Pope Francis on Divine Mercy Sunday of 2014. The week affirms our continued awareness of mercy, as we celebrate Saint Mark this week (April 25), evangelist of the good news of Christ’s saving mercy. We also commemorate Catherine of Sienna (April 29), who sought to reconcile divisions within the church, and is known for her mystical writing on the loving mercies of Christ.
Portsmouth Ordo, Octave of Easter
Sunday, April 17: Easter Sunday
Monday, April 18: Monday of Octave
Tuesday, April 19: Tuesday of Octave
Wednesday, April 20: Wednesday of Octave
Thursday, April 21: Thursday of Octave
Friday, April 22: Friday of Octave
Saturday, April 23: Saturday of Octave
This week is all about Easter. It is about the new life in the Resurrection. Lent is over, now in the distant past. “This, therefore, is the proclamation that the Church repeats from the first day: ‘Christ is risen!’ And, in Him, through Baptism, we too are risen, we have passed from death to life, from the slavery of sin to the freedom of love. Behold the Good News that we are called to take to others and to every place, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Faith in the Resurrection of Jesus and the hope that He brought us is the most beautiful gift that the Christian can and must give to his brothers. To all and to each, therefore, let us not tire of saying: Christ is risen! Let us repeat it all together, today here in the Square: Christ is risen! Let us repeat it with words, but above all with the witness of our lives. The happy news of the Resurrection should shine on our faces, in our feelings and attitudes, in the way we treat others.” - Pope Francis, April 6, 2015 (Easter Monday)
Portsmouth Ordo, Holy Week, 2022
Sunday, April 10: Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord
Monday, April 11: Monday of Holy Week
Tuesday, April 12: Tuesday of Holy Week
Wednesday, April 13: Wednesday of Holy Week
Thursday, April 14: Holy Thursday
Friday, April 15: Good Friday
Saturday, April 16: Holy Saturday – Easter Vigil 8:00pm
This week, we enter into the holiest of weeks of the liturgical calendar. From Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, the Roman missal states: “On this day the Church recalls the entrance of Christ the Lord into Jerusalem to accomplish his Paschal Mystery. Accordingly, the memorial of this entrance of the Lord takes place at all Masses, by means of the Procession or the Solemn Entrance before the principal Mass or the Simple Entrance before other Masses.” Of the Sacred Triduum: “In the Sacred Triduum, the Church solemnly celebrates the greatest mysteries of our redemption, keeping by means of special celebrations the memorial of her Lord, crucified, buried, and risen. The Paschal Fast should also be kept sacred. It is to be celebrated everywhere on the Friday of the Lord's Passion and, where appropriate, prolonged also through Holy Saturday as a way of coming, with spirit uplifted, to the joys of the Lord's Resurrection.” Of Good Friday: “On the afternoon of this day, about three o’clock... there takes place the celebration of the Lord’s Passion consisting of three parts, namely, the Liturgy of the Word, the Adoration of the Cross, and Holy Communion.” Of Holy Saturday: “On Holy Saturday the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb in prayer and fasting, meditating on his Passion and Death and on his Descent into Hell, and awaiting his Resurrection... The Church abstains from the Sacrifice of the Mass, with the sacred table left bare, until after the solemn Vigil, that is, the anticipation by night of the Resurrection, when the time comes for paschal joys, the abundance of which overflows to occupy fifty days.” And of the Easter Vigil: “By most ancient tradition, this is the night of keeping vigil for the Lord (Ex 12: 42), in which, following the Gospel admonition (Lk 12: 35-37), the faithful, carrying lighted lamps in their hands, should be like those looking for the Lord when he returns, so that at his coming he may find them awake and have them sit at his table. ...this night’s Vigil... is the greatest and most noble of all solemnities.”
Portsmouth Ordo, Fifth Week of Lent
Sunday, April 3: Fifth Sunday of Lent
Monday, April 4: Feria
Tuesday, April 5: Feria
Wednesday, April 6: Feria
Thursday, April 7: Feria (John Baptist de la Salle, Collect only)
Friday, April 8: Feria
Saturday, April 9: Feria
With the Fifth Week of Lent, Holy Week comes squarely into view, and we enter on the traditional two weeks of “Passiontide.” For this week, the Roman Missal states: “In the Dioceses of the United States, the practice of covering crosses and images throughout the church from this Sunday may be observed. Crosses remain covered until the end of the Celebration of the Lord's passion on Good Friday, but images remain covered until the beginning of the Easter Vigil.” Sunday’s collect states: “By your help, we beseech you, Lord our God, may we walk eagerly in that same charity with which, out of love for the world, your Son handed himself over to death.”
Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska
In the 1930s, a Polish nun, Maria Faustina Kowalska, received private revelations from our Lord having to do with Divine Mercy. She began to record the visions in her diary, which eventually record 14 occasions when Jesus requests the observation of a Feast of Divine Mercy. Pope Saint John Paul II wrote: “This was precisely the time when those ideologies of evil, nazism and communism, were taking shape. Sister Faustina became the herald of the one message capable of off-setting the evil of those ideologies, that fact that God is mercy – the truth of the merciful Christ. And for this reason, when I was called to the See of Peter, I felt impelled to pass on those experiences of a fellow Pole that deserve a place in the treasury of the universal Church” (Pope Saint John Paul II, Memory and Identity, 2005). In one vision, Jesus appears with his right hand raised in a blessing, his left touching his garment above his heart, from which red and white rays emanate. This is said to symbolize the blood and water that was poured out for our salvation and our sanctification. Saint Faustina conveyed the promises: “I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish” (Diary, no. 48) and “By means of this image I will grant many graces to souls” (Diary, no. 742). The Holy See declared the Sunday after East “Divine Mercy Sunday” on May 5, 2000. Further links: How to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy; Divine Mercy Novena; Divine Mercy Novena in Time of Pandemic (pdf).
April 13
This 7th-century pope became involved in the monothelite controversy, and ended up paying the price with his life. Exiled from Rome to Constantinople by Emperor Constans II, he saw in his lifetime his replacement by another pope, Eugene I. Exiled from Rome, stripped of his authority, tortured, and imprisoned, he ultimately succumbed to death and is considered a martyr. Martin defended the teaching that Christ possessed a human will and a divine will, distinct yet unified in their object, rather than one divine will . If the latter were the case, his human will could only inevitably become subsumed in the divine, rendering him no longer "fully human."
April 21
Associated with the English Canterbury, city of his see, and the French Bec, town of his monastery, Anselm was actually an Italian, born in Aosta in the Italian alps, in 1033/34. He took his monastic vows in 1060/61, drawn to the monastery of Bec in part because of its prior Lanfranc. Anselm would later succeed Lanfranc, in 1093, as Archbishop of Canterbury. While Anselm has gained renown as a philosopher and independent thinker, he was also said to have possessed great virtue: patience, gentleness, and skill in teaching, shaping the Abbey of Bec into an influential monastic school. His best-known work is Cur Deus Homo (“Why God Became Man”).
April 25
Venice in Italy and Alexandria in Egypt have made some of the most substantial claims concerning Mark. The former is said to hold his remains in its ancient Basilica. The latter claims him as their first Bishop. We do not know with certainty which New Testament Mark, if any, is in fact the writer of this gospel. We do know that his gospel, the shortest of the four, turns directly and immediately to the principal message of the gospel, presenting Christ as the eruption of God’s kingdom into our lives. “In this almost breathless narrative, Mark stresses Jesus’ message about the kingdom of God now breaking into human life as good news (Mk 1:14–15) and Jesus himself as the gospel of God (Mk 1:1; 8:35; 10:29). Jesus is the Son whom God has sent to rescue humanity by serving and by sacrificing his life (Mk 10:45)” (USCCB introduction)
April 29
Catherine was from an extremely large number of children – she was the 23rd child of Jacopo and Lapa Benincas. Born in 1347, she lived during very difficult times in the history of Europe and the Church. She entered the Dominican Third Order at the age of eighteen, devoted prayer and extreme asceticism. Her holiness came to be recognized, and she assumed more of a leadership role amongst a growing number of followers, rooted in her contemplative life. In 1378, the Great Schism began, dividing the papacy and allegiances in Christendom. Catherine spent her last years in Rome, pleading for the unity of the Church and offering herself for the Church in its agony.
Pope Saint John Paul II said the following of her: “...strengthened by her intimacy with Christ, the Saint of Siena was not afraid to point out frankly even to the Pope, whom she loved dearly as her 'sweet Christ on earth', that the will of God demanded that he should abandon the hesitation born of earthly prudence and worldly interests, and return from Avignon to Rome, to the Tomb of Peter... With similar energy Catherine then strove to overcome the divisions which arose in the papal election following the death of Gregory XI: in that situation too she once more appealed with passionate ardour to the uncompromising demands of ecclesial communion. That was the supreme ideal which inspired her whole life as she spent herself unstintingly for the sake of the Church.” (John Paul II, on declaring her one of three co-patronesses of Europe in 1999)