HEN I SAY “traditional” priest, I often mean clerics ordained in the 1940s and 1950s. Recently I stumbled across something in a remarkable book by Solesmes—perhaps the greatest one they ever produced—published in 1957:
I sent a message to a “traditional” priest and got this response:
Jeff: It means the Feast of Corpus Christi. Back in 1957, Corpus Christi still had a second class privileged Octave. This meant we said the Corpus Christi Office and Mass every day except for the Sunday which had its proper parts. But the proper parts that it did not have were taken from Corpus Christi. So the Mass commemorated the Octave, as did Lauds and Vespers, but the rest of the office—at least psalms, antiphons and hymns—were taken from Corpus Christi. Believe me, we had some long offices back in those days. But we often had the External Solemnity of Corpus Christi on Sunday and so therefore did not use the propers or mass of the Second Sunday after Pentecost.
The rubrics were quite complicated back in those days! But the Liber Usualis was pretty good in telling you what to do.
