Lots of Commemorations

I always appreciate commemorations at Lauds and Vespers, and yesterday (Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension) was a fine specimen. Three commemorations, according to the very fine Ordo from the St Laurence Press: St Norbert, St Boniface, and the Octave of the Ascension.

Commemorations can arise when one feast is displaced by another - for example, yesterday St Boniface was displaced by the Sunday. They can arise when 1st vespers of one saint is recited, but the saint of the day just finishing is commemorated. And during an octave, the octave can also be commemorated. The week after Christmas can get exciting, since several octaves overlap (depending on which rubrics you're using). It all gets complicated, which is why we need fine people like the St Laurence press to keep us on the straight and narrow.

All of this is, of course, simplified in the various Novi Ordines, where virtually nothing is commemorated, and there are virtually no octaves. Dull.

The way a commemoration takes place is that, after the main collect for the day, the Antiphon for the Magnificat (or Benedictus, at Lauds) is recited, together with the versicle and response, and then the collect of the feast being commemorated.

Commemorations for the Sunday in the Octave of the Ascension, AD MMXI

For St Norbert

O holy Priest and Bishop, thou worker of so many mighty works, and good shepherd to Christ's flock, pray for us unto the Lord our God.

V. The Lord loved him, and adorned him.
R. He clothed him with a robe of glory.
 
Let us pray.

O God, who didst appoint Saint Norbert, thy Confessor and Bishop, to be an excellent preacher of thy holy word, and through him hast enriched thy Church with a new offspring : grant, we beseech thee; that, by the intercession of his merits, we may of thee be enabled to perform those things which he taught both in word and in deed. Through etc.
 
For St Boniface
 
If any man shall come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
V. The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree.
R. And shall spread abroad like a cedar in Libanus.

Let us pray.
O God, who by the labours of blessed Boniface, thy Martyr and Bishop, didst vouchsafe to call many nations to the knowledge of thy Name: mercifully grant that we, who as on this day do keep his feast, may by his advocacy find favour in thy sight.

For the Octave of the Ascension

Father, I have manifested thy Name unto the men whom thou hast given me: and now I pray for them, not for the world, because I come to thee, alleluia.

V. God is gone up with a merry noise, alleluia.
R. And the Lord with the sound of the trumpet, alleluia.

Let us pray.
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God: that like as we do believe thine only-begotten Son our Saviour to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell. Who liveth etc.