Tomorrow, Easter Friday is a solemnity, as is every day in the Octave of Easter. Therefore, there is no Friday penance required.
However, the Major Rogation Day (or Greater Litanies) of April 25th still stands in the trad calendar, which typically IS a day of penance. Saint Mark’s feast is not celebrated. So, how do we deal with the conundrum of a joyful Easter Week solemnity, in addition to a day of penance?
Just so happens, I found the perfect answer to this question at Catholic Culture. They gave an excerpt from Dom Prosper Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year, a 15-volume work written in the 19th century. Here’s an excerpt of the excerpt…
“We gather from an expression of St. Gregory the Great that it was an ancient custom in the Roman Church to celebrate, once each year, a Greater Litany, at which all the clergy and people assisted. This holy Pontiff chose April 25 as the fixed day for this procession…The question naturally presents itself—why did St. Gregory choose April 25 for a procession and Station in which everything reminds us of compunction and penance, and which would seem so out of keeping with the joyous season of Easter? [He explains the history of all this, see Catholic Culture link above for full piece]…
But there was a striking contrast resulting from this institution, of which the holy Pontiff was fully aware, but which he could not avoid: it was the contrast between the joys of Paschal Time and the penitential sentiments wherewith the faithful should assist at the procession and Station of the Great Litany. Laden as we are with the manifold graces of this holy season, and elated with our Paschal joys, we must sober our gladness by reflecting on the motives which led the Church to cast this hour of shadow over our Easter sunshine…”
It seems that Holy Church in her wisdom gives us the occasional reminder, when this date is within the Octave of Easter, that we are not to get too caught up in festivities. Even after the long, penitential Lent, we must remain vigilant in this brief life, when our actions will determine our eternal fate. This is what I glean from Gueranger’s analysis. Read his words and see what you think.
Gueranger goes on to say that on this day, in Italy and France, there was abstinence from meat. In France, it was also deemed a day of rest. The Litany of the Saints would be prayed as well, through the centuries. There was however, no fasting.
So the answer seems to be: Yes, be joyful, but give yourself a reminder of the Lent you just experienced. Do not run to the opposite extreme and forget Our Blessed Lord on the Cross. Do not abandon him, as did so many others.
So who was this intriguing Dom Gueranger, who wrote so eloquently? Adoremus has an article written by Joseph O’Brien, a Catholic homesteader in Wisconsin (he’s quite the writer himself) on the book by Dom Guy Marie Oury: Dom Gueranger: A Monk at the Heart of the Church. Here’s a portion…
“Dom Guy Marie Oury’s [book]…is an important book, if only because it offers our dying culture a road map to recovery…It should come as a surprise to no one that our culture—and Western Civilization as a whole—is dying. I say this not as a matter of pessimism. Nor am I discounting divine intervention. But there are symptoms enough to show that our culture is very much like the ‘patient etherized upon a table’ in T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’…
The answer is right before our eyes—and present to our other senses as well—in the sacred liturgy [he follows with facts about the life and times of Gueranger]…
Dom Gueranger: A Monk at the Heart of the Church provides a fully drawn…portrait of the man who had almost singlehandedly renewed the liturgy as the cultural heart of the Church. It also provides a living example of how Catholics can save civilization, one celebration of the Holy Mass at a time.”
Isn’t it wonderful to revive these traditions that connect us, like a golden thread, with the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, through the ages?
“I have no doubt that one day Catholicism will return to its place in this world, to which it alone holds the secret.”
Dom Prosper Gueranger