pope john paul ii: when are the novendiales?

To clarify a point Hung brought up in the comment section: When are the novendiales? The novendiales, meaning novena, is a series of nine days of mourning for the dead. As I have been counting on this site, day 1 began last Sunday, the day after death.

I will be mentioning this in detail as I write up events of the last week, but the Cardinals have outlines what Masses to have where, celebrated for which group, by which cardinal, etc for the official novendiales, starting with the day of the funeral.

The custom of novendiales for the dead originally started in the Greek and Roman world and St. Augustine actually denounced the practice as there was no reference to them in Scripture or other holy writings. There were two customs that were celebrated according to various circumstances: nine days after death or nine days after burial.

Both practices have been retained, however rarely, in the Catholic Church. All in all, most devotion outside of Rome is being conducted based on the nine days after death. For example, Bishop Aymond of Austin celebrated the daily Mass at the Cathedral every day from the day after death until Monday, April 11 (or the ninth day after death) for the repose of the soul of Pope John Paul II.

My personal opinion, I would rather mourn for the nine days after death and then give ourselves a week to calm down. Then after a week of being "normal" without our lost beloved, then we can prepare ourselves for the next pope. Not to mention, the faithful have been mourning since his death, not since his funeral, and so to give people comfort during the initial "shock" of his loss is quite laudable. I would not want to do nothing for the first six days after death and start with the funeral.

In either case, I am not in line with the "official" period of mourning, but that is not required and tradition has used both systems of determining the mourning period.