Celebrating the Epiphany on January 6th

I noticed the article on Atonement Online showing a little anxiety as to whether the Ordinariates will be allowed to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6th or be obliged to move the Feast to the nearest Sunday. I think there is little to worry about.

Despite what what Episcopal Conferences have decided, the Feast remains on the 6th January in all calendars of all western rites of the Church. However, in some countries, the Epiphany is a public holiday, and people can attend Mass on the day itself. In other countries, working people might find difficulty in assisting at the Epiphany Mass because of work and the practical problem of getting to church. Here in France, the practice of celebrating the propers of major feasts on the nearest Sunday is nothing new. It is a pastoral provision for parish churches.

The other pastoral solution is to dispense from the obligation of attending the Epiphany Mass, since (in the older forms) there is an Octave after the Epiphany and a Sunday within the Octave of the Epiphany. One of the anomalies of the 1960's liturgical reform was to remove all the octaves, including the old Pentecost Octave, leaving only the Easter Octave. One of the advantages of keeping or bringing back the Octaves, pastoral in this context, is to allow the faithful to attend the Mass of a major feast, or its commemoration, on the following Sunday (or on one of the weekdays if people have to work on Sunday).

If the Bishops' Conferences in some countries oblige priests to move major feasts to the nearest Sunday (because there is no longer an Octave), this is not so in countries where the Feast is a public holiday. The Ordinariates will be following different liturgical and pastoral norms, and I am sure this obligation of moving major feasts won't affect us.

I celebrated the Epiphany today, and next Sunday, it will be Sunday in the Octave of the Epiphany with the commemoration of the Feast (proper prayers and proper Communicantes). Therefore, for us following Sarum, the Prayer Book or the older form of the Roman rite (or translations thereof), Epiphany will be celebrated on Sunday 10th January by virtue of the Octave.