Easter Week is here, which means every day this week is a first class feast day, with the traditional Latin Mass consisting of the sequence "Victimae Paschali laudes immolent Christiani" and the Credo.
The novus ordo, on the other hand, barely tolerates octaves. The new liturgy made the Easter sequence optional and eliminated the Credo this week. No surprise, considering Paul VI already had blurred the lines of Lent and Easter by reducing the Lenten fast from 40 days to a whopping two in 1966.
John Paul II continued the blurring of Lenten fasting and Easter feasting by instituting a "divine mercy novena" through Easter Week. So, after feasting through 95 percent of Lent, when Easter arrived there would be a week of intense prayer "for the sake of His sorrowful Passion." It's like a Vatican II bizarro world.
Thankfully, those who follow the 1962 calendar get to avoid all of this insanity. Universae Ecclesiae is very clear: "28. Furthermore, by virtue of its character of special law, within its own area, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum derogates from those provisions of law, connected with the sacred Rites, promulgated from 1962 onwards and incompatible with the rubrics of the liturgical books in effect in 1962."
This Sunday, 15 April 2012, has a multitude of names. Low Sunday. Quasimodo Sunday. Quasimodogeniti. Thomas Sunday. Pascha clausum. The First Sunday After Easter. The Octave Day of Easter. Dominica in albis depositis.
JPII's "Divine Mercy Sunday" was promulgated on 30 April 2000. Therefore, it has absolutely nothing to do with the traditional Latin Mass on Low Sunday. Attempting to merge 1962 and 2000 at a traditional Latin Mass this Sunday would clearly be a violation of #28 in Universae Ecclesiae.
That is not to say divine mercy is, per se, not a good thing. Of course it is. But not on a Sunday. And not during Easter. The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is on Friday, 15 June 2012 -- the liturgical day divine mercy has traditionally been observed.
There is a time for fasting for the sake of His sorrowful Passion, and a time for feasting in celebration of the risen Lord. Easter and all Sundays are times for feasting.
