Proprium

The Proprium de tempore and the Proprium Sanctorum form 
in the present liturgy the two principal portions of 
our Breviary and Missals; the first comprises the parts 
appointed for the days of the year having special 
Masses or Offices (introits, prayers, lessons, 
responses, versicles, antiphons, etc.); the second is 
devoted to the Offices of the Saints.

The Proprium de tempore begins with the first Sunday of 
Advent and ends with the last Sunday after Pentecost. 
It includes, after Advent, the parts assigned for the 
Christmas season (six Sundays); Septuagesima, three 
weeks; Lent, six weeks; Paschal time, fifty days; 
Pentecost, and the twenty-four Sundays after. Most of 
the Sundays comprising this cycle, and often weekdays, 
have special Offices which composed the Proprium de 
tempore.

The Proprium Sanctorum comprises all the saints' days 
with special Offices, from St. Andrew on 30 November. 
The Offices of the saints, like those de tempore, are 
composed of lessons, antiphons, responses, hymns, or 
other liturgical passages special to these saints' 
feasts. It is unnecessary to remark that this 
arrangement is not primitive. Ages passed before the 
present liturgical cycle was evolved. In the Liturgical 
Books before the ninth or eighth century, the Sundays 
after Pentecost form groups, called after some solemn 
festival, St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, or St. 
Michael; the season of Septuagesima did not yet exist, 
at least in its entirety. A century or two later the 
Christmas season had not been evolved, even the weeks 
of Advent had practically no special Offices. In the 
first ages of the Church, except for the feast of 
Easter, Christmas Day, and Sundays, the liturgical 
cycle did not exist. The Divine Office and the Liturgy 
of the Mass were performed with the help of the books 
of the old and the New Testaments, and consisted in the 
chanting of psalms or canticles, readings, 
exhortations, and impromptu prayers. The liturgical 
cycle, that is, the feasts of the year or of the 
martyrs exerted hardly any influence on the Liturgy, 
and in this sense it may be said that in the beginning 
there was neither a Proprium de tempore nor a Proprium 
Sanctorum. Probst (op. cit. infra) thinks that it was 
at Rome, in the fourth century under Pope Damasus, that 
this liturgical "reform" took place, especially in 
arranging the liturgical prayers to suit the season and 
the feasts of the saints. This may be accepted with 
some reservations, as it is indisputable that even then 
the cycle had exerted its influence on the liturgy, in 
certain special circumstances. It seems certain that 
the origin of the Common of the Saints is the same as 
that of the Propria, and that it was at first a 
Proprium; for instance, the Common of the Apostles was 
originally the Proprium of the Apostles St. Peter and 
St. Paul; and the Common of a Martyr was originally the 
Proprium of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence.

F. CABROL Transcribed by Sean Hyland

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