Rational for this Course | Reading Assignments | Writing Assignments |
After five years of teaching religion and speech to high school freshmen and sophomores (1966-1971) my Franciscan Province asked me to teach liturgy at our provincial major seminary, which at that time was located in Dayton, Ohio. To prepare for this assignment I obtained a Master's degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame IN, and a Master's degree in liturgy from the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie in Paris, France, and a Doctorate in Sacred Theology with a specialization in sacramental theology from the Institut Catholique in Paris. An unforeseen blessing of my years in Paris was the opportunity to study under Msgr. Pierre Jounel and listen to his lectures on the Liturgical Year. As one of the principal authors of the new Missal, the Lectionary, and the Roman Calendar, and a close personal friend of Pope Paul VI, Msgr. Jounel had the "inside story" about why things are as they are. He was second reader for my doctoral thesis Liturgical Law Today: New Style, New Spirit and we remained good friends. He died on November 14, 2004 after having devoted 90 years to the renewal of the Roman Liturgy.
In teaching this course I hope to honor Jounel's memory and legacy. From the many times I have taught the course in the past, I find it exciting to see students move beyond thinking of the liturgical year as merely when to put out the Easter lilies and when to replace them with poinsettias. Students get excited when they see how the liturgical year places us in contact with the mysteries of our salvation and provides a "framework" for reading and preaching the scriptures.
Every time I teach the course I myself learn more about the Liturgical Year. I love to learn. The quotation from St. Bede the Venerable under his statue on Bede Hall at Saint Meinrad states: "Along with the observance of monastic discipline and the daily charge of chanting in the church, my delight has ever been to learn, teach or write."
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Contact Information
1. My office is in A330 (in front of Fr. Denis’ room). Office hours by appointment. (I am at Saint Meinrad on Thursdays for class and for Faculty Meetings on Wednesdays and other school events. However, my other course this semester is online and usually I work out of my home in Tell City. Home address: 640 Ninth Street, Tell City, IN 47586-1710 (Across the town square from the Church & City Hall. You are always welcome to drop by.)
2. Office phone (seldom there) – If you wish to call me, please call me on my cell phone: 812-719-2688
3. e-mail trichstatter@saintmeinrad.edu Or trichstatter@franciscan.org
4. My web page (for all the courses I teach and have taught) is at www.tomrichstatter.org Information for this course on the Liturgical Year can be found at http://www.tomrichstatter.org/yYear/y00index.htm The system I use for organizing and mapping my website uses the letter d for the section on documents and introductory materials; y for notes on the Liturgical Year. Most of the notes for this course are in the y section. The information on my web site is constantly being updated – I suggest you work online rather than print out the information.
5. The MOODLE page will disappear at the end of the course. My web site will be accessible to you in the years to come (for as long as my Franciscan province will pay for it). It is a big help to me if you post your picture on MOODLE.
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There are four required reading assignments for the course
I encourage you to do the reading assignments in advance so that you can post your written assignment early in the week and thus give time to your class mates to read it and discuss it. I would, also, encourage you to return to the discussion area. I would encourage you to open the lessons tab frequently and to return to the discussion box to look for replies to your initial post and to engage further in dialog with other participants.
1. Maxwell Johnson, Editor. Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 2000. ISBN 0-8146-6025-8.
Maxwell Johnson, Associate Professor of Liturgy, University of Notre Dame, has collected in this volume essays from the leading contemporary liturgical scholars regarding the Church year. Reading these essays will put you in touch with the current state of liturgical research. This is a "serious" book, intended for serious students of the liturgy.
2. A.G. Martimort (Editor). The Church at Prayer, Volume IV, The Liturgy and Time. New Edition, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1983. ISBN 0-8146-1366-7. Paper.
The Church at Prayer (4 Volumes) is a translation of L'Eglise en Prière, which contains the basic class notes and professorial lectures given at the Institut Superieur De Liturgie. These essays on the liturgical year while nearly 50 years old and written before the practical experience of the current calendar are important because they come from the hand of Msgr. Pierre Jounel. Fr. Jounel, a close personal friend of Paul VI and one of the outstanding liturgical scholars who shaped the post Vatican II liturgy, is the principle author of our current calendar. Consequently, these essays have more than a passing historical interest.
3. Calendarium Romanum (in English). General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the New General Roman Calendar issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on March 21, 1969 was published in English by the Bishops Committee on the Liturgy in their booklet Norms Governing Liturgical Calendars, Liturgy Documentary Series, Number 6. Washington DC: Office of Publishing and Promotion Services, USCCB, 1984. Publication number 928-9. $6.95 paper. This useful and important reference text is currently, for some reason unknown to me, out of print. Many used copies are available for purchase online, for example at www.alibris.com for as little as $2.95. You might be able to borrow a copy from your parish or diocesan liturgical library. Some bookstores still have a "new" copy for sale. The first half of the text is available online at www.catholicliturgy.com
http://www.catholicliturgy.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/DocumentSubCategories/Index/2/SubIndex/38
The Roman Calendar contains the current legislation and rational for the arrangement of the liturgical year. Anyone planning or preparing liturgical celebrations should be familiar with this important and very useful document. For example it explains why each saint was placed on the current date and why each change in the celebration of the saints was made. For the corrigenda (corrections and changes) to the Calendarium Romanum, see Notitiae 47 (1969) p. 303.
4. Ordo Lectionum Missae (in English). The text that is important for this course is the General Introduction to the Roman Lectionary for Mass. The text was published by the Bishops Committee on the Liturgy in The Lectionary for Mass, Second Typical Edition. Introduction. The Liturgy Documentary Series Number 1. Washington DC: Office of Publishing and Promotion Services, USCCB. Publication number 5-245. ISBN 1-57455-245-7. $6.95 paper. This book is out of print. You might be able to borrow a copy from your parish or diocesan liturgical library. The entire text is available online at www.catholicliturgy.com You can also find the text printed at the beginning of the Lectionary.
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Adrian Nocent. The Liturgical Year. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1977. ISBN: 0-8146-0963-5. 4 volumes. Paper. $35.00. I believe this series (even though "old") is an excellent reference book which would be useful in anyone's liturgical library. Again, it is especially important because it is written by one of the principle authors of the reformed liturgy.]
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline for the Sacraments. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines, (December, 2001) (This is the most recent Roman document on devotions during the various seasons of the Liturgical Year.)
Pope Paul VI, Marialis Cultus, Apostolic Exhortation for the Right Ordering and Development of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. (February 2, 1974) (Excellent document on devotion to Mary.)
Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Part Two: The Celebration of the Christian Mystery, Section One, Chapter One: The Paschal Mystery in the Age of the Church," nn 1066-1134; Chapter Two: The Sacramental Celebration of the Paschal Mystery," nn 1135-1209;
Code of Canon Law. Book IV, Part III, Title II: Sacred Times (cc 1244-1253). Thomas Richstatter, CLSA The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary (1985), pp 853-855. John M. Huels, CLSA New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (2000), pp 1442-1448.
Articles that I have written on the Liturgical Year can be found at Chapter y17 Bibliography along with a general bibliography on the course material.
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1. The grade for written assignments is based on both content and style. The evaluation of the "content" is , of course, more subjective than the evaluation of "style." Typing, grammar, spelling, sentence structure, readability, etc. are a part of the grade. For more formal papers a standard, accepted typing style [e.g. The Holt Guide to Documentation and Writing in the Disciplines by Kirszner and Mandell] is expected. For the assignments for this course I do not expect any special formatting other than the proper citing of sources and honesty in your work.
2. When quoting someone give the source of the quote and indicate by quotation marks where the quotation begins and ends. The "Statement on Plagiarism" in the Student Handbook is to be followed.
Saint Meinrad School of Theology is committed to creating an intellectual environment in which both faculty and students participate in the free and honorable pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, all work submitted by students is presumed to be their own. Any violation of academic integrity - cheating, plagiarism, or collusion - is considered a serious offense. The penalty for cheating, plagiarism, or collusion will be an "F" for the test, paper, or assignment involved. Multiple infractions may result in dismissal from the school. Infractions are reported to the academic dean. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the section, "Avoiding Plagiarism," in the Holt Handbook. - Taken from Student Handbook, rule of Life, Intellectual Formation pg. 6. |
This is especially important in case I should want to ask you if I can quote something you have written in my own publications.
3. The "Statement on Non-discriminatory Language" in the Student Handbook is to be followed.
4. With regard to style, the language used is to be that which could be used in a homily: see, Buttrick, Homiletic, pp 196-198, where he draws attention to racist prejudice [e.g. white / black], anti-Semitic language, sexist language, language referring to God.
5. I consider style important not only as an "academic exercise" but as part of your professional training. A priest is expected to be an educated person and while he may be required to write books for publication, he will be required to write articles for the parish bulletin that are acceptable by the parishioners.
6. With regard to content, your grade is based on my judgment of your work. I try to see if 1) you have thought seriously about the issue and 2) have incorporated the content of the readings and the course lectures and 3) and if you can express your thought in an accurate, pastoral manner. A grade of 95 or 96 means that I thought it was a very good paper, "A" level work. A grade of 89 or 90 means that I thought it was good work but not "A" level work. All the writing assignments are posted in "forums" and you can easily read the papers of your classmates and judge your work in comparison to theirs. If you feel that your work is as good as or superior to your classmates and that you are consistently receiving lower grades than they (I hope this will not happen!) please see me.
7. I intend the written assignments to be primarily for you and your ministry; not for me; not for grade, etc. [Studies have shown that often we do not know what we are thinking until we write it down and read it to ourselves.]
8. Assignments are to be posted on MOODLE before midnight on the day before the class meeting. The grade on the posting will be lowered one letter grade if the posting is not posted by the deadline. This serves a practical purpose (I can read and evaluate them all at one time without multiple logons to MOODLE) but I consider it primarily to be a part of your professional training, for example, when you have to preach at the 8 o'clock Sunday Mass, you homily has to be ready by 8 o'clock!
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Copyright: Tom Richstatter, Franciscan Province of St. John the Baptist, Cincinnati Ohio, Order of Friars Minor. All Rights Reserved. This page was created by Fr. Thomas Richstatter, O.F.M. Every effort has been, and is being made, to acknowledge sources when the ideas are not my own. Any failure to comply with the United States Copyright Act (Title 17, United States Code) will be corrected immediately should I become aware of it. This site was updated on 09/09/10 . Your comments on this site are welcome at trichstatter@franciscan.org