Liturgical Date Problems in Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year by St. Alphonsus Liguori

SineNomine
SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043
edited November 20 in Resources Forum

Liguori, Alphonsus M. Sermons for All the Sundays in the Year. Translated by Nicholas Callan. Eighth Edition. Dublin; London: James Duffy & Sons, 1882.

This work has strange liturgical date tagging:

  1. I find in it things like "Epiphany Season 6 Sun A", which seems to suppose a "Year A", and also things like "Trinity Sunday A", which push in the same direction. Yet there was no "Year A" in any liturgical system St. Alphonsus could possibly have used.
  2. The 22nd Sunday after Pentecost gets "Proper 22 Sun A", which continues with this strange "A" nonsense and includes the word "Proper" for some unknown reason.* This applies, mutatis mutandis, to the rest of Sundays after Pentecost as well.
  3. And then sermons for important liturgical dates like Quinquagesima,  Septuagesima, Passion Sunday (aka the Fifth Sunday of Lent), Pentecost, and even EASTER have no liturgical date at all.
  4. The First Sunday after Easter gets no liturgical date; the reason for this becomes apparent when the Second Sunday after Easter gets a label seemingly indicating that it is the Second Sunday of Easter, which it is not. This error continues, mutatis mutandis, thereafter.
  5. Eventually, the 6th Sunday after Easter (mistakenly called the 6th Sunday after Pentecost in the text itself) is mislabeled as "Ascension A", when, for St. Alphonsus, it was not the Ascension but the Sunday within the Octave thereof, i.e., the Seventh Sunday of Easter (or the 6th after Easter).

What's going on, and, more importantly, can it be fixed?

*Consulting the Info page, I see that its liturgical dates are taking from the 1979 BCP's Liturgical Calendar. Oops.

“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara

Comments

  • David Wanat
    David Wanat Member Posts: 1,826 ✭✭✭

    I can't reproduce that opening the work you linked. I'm seeing references like "XX Sunday after YY". Perhaps when tied to the Liturgical calendar, it tries to cram it into a modern equivalent? (I haven't tested that) That does sound like something that needs fixing.

    It seems like this would fit in with your suggestion for a liturgical calendar for the 1962 missal.

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  • SineNomine
    SineNomine Member Posts: 7,043

    I can't reproduce that opening the work you linked.

    Select part of the text of whichever sermon, right click, and check for the Reference. Or just look in the top left navigation box for the resource.

    “The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara