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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From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright �
1996 by New Advent, Inc., P.O. Box 281096, Denver,
Colorado, USA, 80228. ([email protected])