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Church Seasons and Feasts

Understanding the Church Calendar

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Except for such widely known celebrations as Easter, Christmas and Pentecost, most lay Catholics lump all Church celebrations under the term feast or feast days. While the terminology is not…

Except for such widely known celebrations as Easter, Christmas and Pentecost, most lay Catholics lump all Church celebrations under the term feast or feast days.

While the terminology is not necessarily incorrect, feasts are only one of the three categories of such celebrations in the Church year; the other two are solemnities and memorials. But what’s the difference? The Church has always provided the faithful people of God with externally expressed devotions, festivals and celebrations through which they may pay homage to the Creator. These holy activities are not merely random events, but follow a seasonal, regulated schedule established by the Church’s liturgical calendar. The day-to-day events of the annual Church year are primarily catalogued as a solemnity, a feast or a memorial.

In the fourth century, Emperor Constantine ended the Roman persecution of all religious factions and claimed Christianity to be the state religion of the Roman Empire. As the Church and Christian faith expanded, the number of religious celebrations subsequently increased. Unfortunately, for centuries there was no centralized control over the observance of the many celebrations. Every diocese had its own calendar, therefore rituals differed, celebrations honoring the mysteries of sacred Scriptures competed with honoring a saint, feast days overlapped, and almost every Sunday liturgy was pre-empted by a special occasion. This all led to confusion and abuses that continued until the reforms of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and the eventual development of a universal calendar.

A churchwide calendar prompted the need to effectively organize the numerous holidays in a manner applicable to every diocese. A most challenging aspect of this effort was the standardization of the rituals used during the different ceremonies and, further, the sorting out and assigning of common dates or time frames to each event. A well-organized liturgical calendar did not happen overnight, but has evolved over the past 450 years. While the methods of categorizing the various festivals have varied, the Church has been consistent in her effort to arrange the events according to importance. The birth of Jesus is considered more important than the birth of John the Baptist; the birth of the Baptist more important than the dedication of St. John Lateran church; the life of the Blessed Mother outranks that of St. Francis of Assisi; and so on. The hierarchal process used as recently as the 20th century rank, or order, Church celebrations by calling them doubles of the first class, doubles of the second class, greater doubles, lesser doubles, simples and commemorations. In 1962, they were called first class, second class, third class and commemorations. The Second Vatican Council simplified the classifications to solemnities, feasts and memorials.

Solemnities

A solemnity holds the highest rank among Church celebrations and there are 24 days so marked on the annual liturgical calendar. It is a day that recalls and glorifies an important event in the life of Jesus and the most significant mysteries of the Catholic Christian faith: Christmas, Epiphany, Easter (the Easter Octaves including Divine Mercy Sunday), Pentecost, Holy Trinity, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart, Christ the King. So, too, honored as a solemnity are the days associated with the Blessed Mother: the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, the Annunciation and Mary, Mother of God. Some saints are acknowledged with a solemnity: St. Joseph, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Sts. Peter and Paul and All Saints Day.

In addition to every Sunday, the Catholic Church prescribes holy days of obligation, which include certain solemnities. In the United States there are six holy days of obligation: Mary, Mother of God, the Ascension, the Assumption, All Saints, the Immaculate Conception and Christmas. While all holy days of obligation are solemnities, not all solemnities are holy days of obligation. For example, the celebration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a solemnity but not a holy day of obligation. The same is true of the solemnity of St. Joseph and the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Some solemnities are always celebrated on the same calendar date and are known as “fixed” on the liturgical calendar — for example, Dec. 25 is always the date of Christmas, Nov. 1 is the date of All Saints and the Immaculate Conception is always on Dec. 8. Other solemnities are “moveable” — that is, their dates change or move based on the date of Easter. Pentecost is 50 days after Easter, Holy Trinity is the first Sunday after Pentecost, Corpus Christi is the second Sunday after Pentecost, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the first Friday after Corpus Christi and so on.

So, just what distinguishes a solemnity? The celebration begins with evening prayers on the day before and some, if a holy day of obligation, have a vigil Mass. If the solemnity falls on a weekday, the daily Mass looks much like a Sunday liturgy, including three readings, the Gloria and the Creed. All the prayers of the Mass reflect on the event or person being celebrated. These added liturgical elements help to embellish the special attention given the event or person.

Feasts

Celebrations identified on the Church calendar as a feast typically honor a special saint, such as one of the apostles. Other saints assigned a specific feast day include Sts. Simon and Jude, St. Stephen, the Holy Angels. Important events in Christian history are likewise identified as feasts: the Baptism of the Lord, the Conversion of St. Paul, the Transfiguration, the Visitation, the Presentation of the Lord, the Holy Family, the Birth of Mary, the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the Holy Innocents, the Triumph of the Holy Cross, and the Chair of Peter. A feast that falls on a weekday is not preceded with a vigil Mass, the Creed is not obligatory and most feasts are fixed dates on the calendar.

Memorials

The third category of celebrations and those most representative of what we call “feast days” are properly known as memorials. Memorials are identified as either obligatory, those that must be celebrated universally on an assigned day, or optional, meaning it is up to the celebrant as to whether that particular saint is celebrated. All memorials are fixed on the annual calendar. Memorials most often honor and focus us on the pious life of a saint. If Scripture mentions the particular saint, then the Mass readings on that day are taken from the applicable Scripture, such as, on the obligatory memorial of St. Martha the readings are from John (chapter 11) or Luke (chapter 10). If the saint is not mentioned in Scripture, then the readings are the ordinary, or normal, readings assigned for that day.

Optional memorials often identify a saint special or familiar to a particular location or religious order, but are often those not necessarily well known throughout the worldwide Church. For example, Sept. 19 is the optional memorial to St. Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, Italy. While the people of Naples and the surrounding area may well remember and acknowledge Januarius, a parish in another part of the world may not. The local parish priest normally decides about recognizing optional memorials.

As every country honors her founding fathers, her national heroes, independence day, and other national events, so does the Church celebrate the great sacred mysteries — the life of Jesus, the Blessed Mother, the saints and the martyrs who died for the faith. The Church classifies each celebration according to its importance and ranks them on the annual liturgical calendar as a solemnity, a feast or a memorial.

D.D. Emmons writes from Mount Joy, Pa. 

Ferial Days

If we look carefully at the Church liturgical calendar, there are some days that have no celebration assigned; no solemnity, no feast, no memorial. Such days are known as a “ferial” days, from a Latin word meaning free. In ancient Rome the term referred to a holiday, especially for slaves.

On the liturgical calendar, a ferial day is always on a weekday, Monday through Friday, and occurs during Ordinary Time. On that day the priest has the option of celebrating the previous Sunday Mass, a votive Mass or a Mass acknowledging any saint he desires. The celebrant may select the readings or use those appointed in the Lectionary for that day.

Sunday

The documents of the Second Vatican Council reflect on the importance of Sunday: “The Lord’s Day is the original feast day.… Other celebrations, unless they be truly of greatest importance shall not take precedence over the Sunday which is the foundation and kernel of the whole liturgical year” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, No. 106).

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Church Seasons and Feasts

Celebrating The Apostles Separately

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We might consider two reasons for our liturgical year’s providing separate feasts for the apostles rather than a single feast to celebrate their memory. First, many of the apostles are…

We might consider two reasons for our liturgical year’s providing separate feasts for the apostles rather than a single feast to celebrate their memory. First, many of the apostles are associated with a ministry to a particular place — for example, James (the Greater) to Spain, Thomas to India, Jude to Syria and Persia. At some point the Church embraced the local traditions and invited all Catholics to participate in celebrations to honor the individual apostles.

Second, the Church tends to expand, rather than diminish, opportunities for liturgical celebration. Thus, we acknowledge groups, such as the North American Martyrs (Oct. 19), who worked and died together, and Sts. Peter and Paul (June 29), who share an undeniable link in building up the early Church. However, allowing us to celebrate feasts dedicated to the individual apostles enables us to reflect on their distinctive, personal merits, and to discern ways in which we might incorporate an apostle’s strengths (or build on his weaknesses) as we strive to live out our own apostolic witness.

Because the first Eucharistic prayer names each of the apostles, we have an opportunity to celebrate a feast in their collective honor whenever the celebrant uses that prayer at Mass.

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Church Seasons and Feasts

Commemorating the Holy Cross and Our Lady of Sorrows

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Each September the Church celebrates the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on Sept. 14, and the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows follows on Sept. 15.  The…

Each September the Church celebrates the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on Sept. 14, and the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows follows on Sept. 15. 

The pairing of these celebrations, even in their different levels on the liturgical and sanctoral calendars, properly guides us in our levels of devotion and love of our Savior and Our Lady. He is our Divine Redeemer, to be worshiped and adored; she is His first disciple and our example. Both of these celebrations have a long history and are worthy of meditation.

Recovery of the Holy Cross

The feast of the Triumph of the Cross was observed in Rome in the late seventh century to commemorate the recovery of the Holy Cross by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 629. St. Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother, had found the True Cross in Jerusalem in the fourth century, but the Persians had captured it and only returned it after Heraclius defeated the Persian king Khosrau II. The emperor returned it to Jerusalem, and this feast recalls that event. As he approached the holy city, dressed in fine robes and festooned with jewels, the emperor found himself unable to process further until Zacharias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, told Heraclius to humble himself by removing his imperial regalia and proceeding as a barefoot pilgrim.

But on a deeper level, of course, the feast recalls Jesus’ triumph over death and the fulfillment of His great statement, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn 12:32, which serves as the Communion Antiphon on this feast). The liturgy of the Mass for this feast includes both triumph and sorrow in the readings and prayers, since Jesus both suffers His passion and defeats sin and death. From the Book of Numbers (21:4b-9), the first reading recalls the story of Moses and the bronze Seraph, raised on a pole — when the people of Israel, who had been grumbling against God for their sufferings, looked up to the serpent, they were healed of the serpent bites God had sent to afflict them.

The responsorial psalm is a poetic reminder of how God has forgiven His people for their betrayal:

“But they flattered him with their mouths / and lied to him with their tongues . . .

“Yet he, being merciful, forgave their sin / and destroyed them not . . . “

The second reading is the great hymn of Jesus’ humility and exaltation from St. Paul’s Letter to Philippians (2:6-11): “Though he was in the form of God . . . he emptied himself . . . he humbled himself . . . becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” After this falling movement in the reading, Jesus rises:

“Because of this, God greatly exalted him / And bestowed on him the name / That is above every name, / That at the name of Jesus / Every knee should bend, / Those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, / And every tongue confess that / Jesus Christ is Lord, / To the glory of God the Father.” (In the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite, also known as the Tridentine Rite, the congregation genuflects at the words “Every knee should bend” when this reading occurs.)

And, finally, in the Gospel from St. John (3:13-17), Jesus makes the connection between Moses and the Seraph and himself, as He tells Nicodemus that He must be lifted up so that those who believe in Him will have eternal life. From that passage comes the great John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Like the commemoration of Good Friday during Holy Week, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross reminds us of the wondrous contradiction at the heart of our faith: that we are redeemed by the suffering and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, offered to God the Father.

As Pope Benedict XVI remarked during his general audience on Oct. 29, 2008:

“The Cross, for all it represents, hence also for the theological message it contains, is scandal and folly. The apostle says so with an impressive force that it is good to hear directly from his words: ‘for the word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God … it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles’ (1 Cor 1:18-23).”

His Sorrowful Mother

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Sept. 15 then recalls the sorrow of Our Lady at the foot of the Cross as the fulfillment of Simeon’s prophecy at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple: “(and you yourself a sword shall pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Lk 2:35). The Gospel for Mass that day may be either the description of “his mother and the disciple . . . whom he loved” standing by the cross of Jesus (Jn 19:25-27) or the Presentation in the Temple (Lk 2:33-35).

The sequence Stabat Mater — often sung while praying the Stations of the Cross — may be chanted after the Psalm. According to Lumen Gentium (the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), “the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross, where she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, grieving exceedingly with her only begotten Son, uniting herself with a maternal heart with His sacrifice, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this Victim which she herself had brought forth” (No. 58).

The readings and prayers of the Mass focus on Mary’s special sorrows, but also on her glory, as the Alleluia verse proclaims, “Blessed are you, O Blessed Virgin Mary; without dying you won the martyr’s crown beside the cross of the Lord.”

Devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows became very popular in the monastic Cistercian and mendicant Servite orders in the 13th century. The memorial was first celebrated by the Servites; then Pope Pius VII added it to the Roman Calendar in 1814. Pope St. Pius X moved the memorial to Sept. 15 in 1913. The Servites gave us the Chaplet of Our Lady of Sorrows encouraging meditation on seven events in the life of Mary:

The Prophecy of Simeon (see Lk 2:34-35)

The Flight into Egypt (Mt 2:13-15)

The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:43-45)

Mary Meets Jesus on the Way to Calvary (from the Stations of the Cross)

Jesus Dies on the Cross (Jn 19:25-30)

Mary Receives the Body of Jesus in Her Arms (Mt 27:57-59)

The Body of Jesus Is Placed in the Tomb (Jn 19:40-42)

In religious art, Our Lady of Sorrows is depicted in three ways: as the Stabat Mater, standing by the cross; in the Pietà as an object of pity (most famously in Michelangelo’s sculpture, but also very movingly in Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ”); and as the Mater Dolorosa, Mother of Sorrows, often with seven swords (the seven sorrows) piercing her Immaculate Heart. The Stabat Mater sequence has been set to music by composers from Antonin Dvorak to Domenico Scarlatti, from Joseph Haydn to Arvo Pärt, and others, in styles ranging from Renaissance polyphony to almost operatic oratorio.

As the entrance antiphon for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross proclaims, “We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection, through whom we are saved and delivered” (based on Galatians 6:14), even as we mourn with Our Lady: “At the Cross her station keeping / Stood the mournful Mother weeping / Close to Jesus to the last.”

Stephanie A. Mann writes from Kansas.

“What a Great Thing It is to Possess the Cross!”

“What a great thing it is to possess the Cross! He who possesses it possesses a treasure” (St. Andrew of Crete, Homily X on the Exaltation of the Cross, PG 97, 1020)…. The instrument of torture which, on Good Friday, manifested God’s judgment on the world, has become a source of life, pardon, mercy, a sign of reconciliation and peace. “In order to be healed from sin, gaze upon Christ crucified!” said St. Augustine (Treatise on St. John, XII, 11). By raising our eyes toward the Crucified One, we adore Him who came to take upon himself the sin of the world and to give us eternal life. And the Church invites us proudly to lift up this glorious Cross so that the world can see the full extent of the love of the Crucified One for mankind, for every man and woman. She invites us to give thanks to God because from a tree which brought death life has burst out anew. On this wood Jesus reveals to us His sovereign majesty, He reveals to us that He is exalted in glory. Yes, “Come, let us adore Him!” In our midst is He who loved us even to giving His life for us, He who invites every human being to draw near to Him with trust.

This is the great mystery that Mary also entrusts to us this morning, inviting us to turn toward her Son. In fact, it is significant that, during the first apparition to Bernadette, Mary begins the encounter with the Sign of the Cross. More than a simple sign, it is an initiation into the mysteries of the faith that Bernadette receives from Mary. The Sign of the Cross is a kind of synthesis of our faith, for it tells how much God loves us; it tells us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins. The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us.

Pope Benedict XVI, Sept. 14, 2008, at Lourdes

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Church Seasons and Feasts

Divine Mercy Sunday

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Since the year 2000, the universal Church has concluded the Octave of Easter by celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday. This great solemnity calls the faithful to rejoice in the merciful love…

Since the year 2000, the universal Church has concluded the Octave of Easter by celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday. This great solemnity calls the faithful to rejoice in the merciful love of God as it is most profoundly manifested in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ.

But what exactly is the Divine Mercy? Where did this devotion to the Divine Mercy begin? Is this a new feast day in the Church?

A History of Mercy

In his 1980 encyclical Dives in Misericordia (“Rich in Mercy”), Pope John Paul II writes, “Believing in [God’s] love means believing in mercy. For mercy is an indispensible dimension of love; it is as it were love’s second name and, at the same time, the specific manner in which love is revealed” (No. 7).

Salvation history is rich with evidence of this truth. From the beginning, the Covenant that the Lord established with the people of Israel reflected the nature of His love. As He gives the Ten Commandments to Moses, He promises to show “mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex 20:6, RSV).

Later, again to Moses, God gives this description of himself: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy and faithfulness, keeping merciful love for thousands” (Ex 34:6-7, RSV).

As the Old Testament narratives continue, we see the people of Israel habitually turning to God in their sin and misery as a child turns to his father, trusting in his merciful forgiveness.

King David sings of the Lord who is “merciful and gracious,” “slow to anger and abounding in mercy” and who does not deal with us according to our sins (see Psalms 103, 145). Even the prophets, who preach a message of destruction to Israel for its infidelity, speak also of the mercy that the Lord wishes to lavish upon it if only the people will return to Him (see Jer 3:12; Hos 14:3).

Although the reality of God’s great compassion is unmistakably established and confirmed in the history of the Old Testament, it is the coming of His Son that gives the world the actual incarnation of this love and mercy. Pope John Paul’s encyclical observes:

“Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God’s mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does he speak of it … but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy” (No. 2).

Christ’s entire life can be seen as a testimony to the mercy of God.

At His conception, Our Lady sang her great hymn of thanksgiving: “His mercy is from age to age to those who fear Him” (Lk 1:50).

At the start of Christ’s public ministry, He proclaimed, “release to the captives” (Lk 4:18, RSV), and later, “blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Mt 5:7).

In the words of His last agony, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Lk 23:34). Indeed, the presence of Jesus Christ in the world reveals to us the face of God, who is the “Father of mercies” (2 Cor 1:3, RSV).

Jesus, I Trust in You

Simply speaking, then, the “Divine Mercy” is another name for the revelation of this magnificent love of God, which culminates in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Christians have long known and praised this abundant mercy. In this sense, devotion to the Divine Mercy is not new.

Less than a century ago, however, Christians were challenged by God himself to a renewed awareness and trust in His mercy, which has begun to fan the old flame of devotion into a more ardent veneration. Our Lord spoke to a young Polish nun, giving her a timeless reminder for all of humanity:

“Mankind will not have peace,” He said, “until it turns with trust to My mercy. … Proclaim that mercy is the greatest attribute of God.”

Sister Mary Faustina Kowalska, born in 1905, was a cloistered nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Poland. On Feb. 22, 1931, Jesus first appeared to Sister Faustina.

He was clothed in a white robe, with two rays of light emanating from His heart — one red and one white, representing the blood and water that came forth from His pierced side at His crucifixion. He requested that this image be painted with the signature, “Jesus, I trust in You,” and promised that even the most hardened sinners who would revere this image would be saved. Our Lord told Faustina of His great desire that the first Sunday after Easter be dedicated as the “Feast of Mercy,” and that this image of His mercy be known and venerated by the whole world.

Our Lord appeared to Sister Faustina — whom He called His “apostle of mercy” — many other times over the course of several years, each time speaking of His great mercy for all souls. At the direction of her confessor, Faustina documented all of her dialogues with Christ in what she called her “Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul” (which received ecclesiastical approval from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1979).

Within these pages we read the repeated and urgent plea of Our Lord’s love and the purpose of His conversations with Faustina: “My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls. … If only they could understand that I am the best of Fathers to them and that it is for them that the Blood and Water flowed from My Heart as from a fount overflowing with mercy” (Diary, p. 165).

The Feast of Mercy

Sister Faustina’s encounters with Jesus are considered private revelation — that is, a revelation outside of the deposit of faith, and one which the faithful are not obligated to believe. However, these mes-sages have been officially approved by the Church as containing nothing contrary to faith or morals.

In addition, Pope John Paul II recognized in Sister Faustina’s writings a message that was truly from Christ, and relevant to all mankind in every day and age. On April 30, 2000, the first Sunday following Easter, Pope John Paul both canonized Sister Faustina Kowalska and declared in his homily of that day his own desire that the “Second Sunday of Easter … from now on throughout the world will be called ‘Divine Mercy Sunday.’”

In conjunction with the Pope’s wishes, on May 5, 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a decree officially establishing the Second Sunday of Easter as “Divine Mercy Sunday.”

It is important to understand that this is not a new feast day in the Church. As explained in the congregation’s document, Divine Mercy Sunday gives an additional name — a new “appellation” — to the day that is already a solemnity of the liturgical year — that is, the Second Sunday of Easter. With regards to that day’s liturgy, nothing is to be changed in either the texts of the Divine Office or the Missal. In fact, the previously established liturgical readings for the day fit in perfectly with the theme of mercy. In the Gospel, the Lord imparts to the apostles His authority to bind and release the sins of men, thereby instituting the Sacrament of Penance.

The feast of Divine Mercy, then, is a continuation of the celebration of Easter; it is, as Pope John Paul once said, Christ’s “Easter gift” to the world.

“From the Heart of Christ Crucified”

The feast of Divine Mercy is not only a beautiful reminder of the love of God, but also a challenge to a deeper understanding of who He is, and who we are in relation to Him. St. Faustina recognized this truth and responded in her weakness to the power of Christ’s mercy.

At the Mass for Faustina’s canonization, Pope John Paul prayed for her intercession. We should join him in this prayer:

“Divine Mercy reaches human beings from the Heart of Christ crucified. … Today, fixing our gaze with you on the face of the Risen Christ, let us make our own your prayer of trusting abandonment and say with firm hope: ‘Jesus, I trust in You!’”

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy

Our Lord gave St. Faustina a set of prayers to invoke His mercy, called the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. On standard rosary beads, pray the following prayers:

First, on the crucifix, one Our Father, Hail Mary and the Apostles’ Creed.

On each Our Father bead, pray: “Eternal Father, I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins, and those of the whole world.”

On each Hail Mary bead, pray: “For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.”

Repeat for five decades. To conclude, pray three times: “Holy God, holy mighty One, holy immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”
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Christmas

A walk through the Christmas Season

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The Church’s liturgical season of Christmas is one of its shortest, but also one of its most unique. Within it is the eight-day celebration of the Lord’s Nativity — known…

The Church’s liturgical season of Christmas is one of its shortest, but also one of its most unique. Within it is the eight-day celebration of the Lord’s Nativity — known as the Christmas octave — as well as other feasts pertaining to the manifestation that Jesus is Lord of the nations. And there are feasts of several saints, many of whose stories contain special significance to the season.

The configuration of the calendar relative to the season of Christmas is a bit complex. It always begins on the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord — Dec. 25 — and ends on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, a movable feast roughly three weeks after Christmas.

In the U.S., Dec. 25 is always a holy day of obligation.

Christmas Day

The liturgical celebration of the Lord’s Nativity has many variables and components. There are four particular timeframes during which Mass might be celebrated in observance of this great feast: a vigil, a Mass at night, a Mass at dawn and a Mass during the day. Each of these Masses have their own unique prayers and readings. The newness of life made possible because of the Incarnation pervades the prayers and feasts of the Christmas season.

The four different Gospel readings assigned for use at the different Masses of Christmas all speak of the variety of the people affected by the Savior’s coming. The beginning of St. Matthew’s Gospel (see Mt 1:1-25), which lists Jesus’ family lineage, is proclaimed at the Vigil Mass. This includes major figures of Judaism like Abraham and David, whose covenants with God foreshadow the new and everlasting covenant that will be sealed in the blood of Christ. But Christ’s lineage also emphasizes that he came to save the poor and lowly, shown by connecting him to ancestors of low degree, socially or morally — like the four women mentioned, including David’s mistress Bathsheba. Jesus came to save them all.

The Gospel read at the Mass at night (see Lk 2:1-14) also underscores the importance of Christ’s coming for the marginalized and outcast, embodied by the news of his birth being shared firstly with the shepherds and not the rulers endowed with earthly power, who might be perceived as entitled to receiving such news on behalf of their subjects.

It is important to note that on Christmas, the faithful all are to genuflect or kneel during the Creed at the words relative to this central mystery of Christian faith, “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.” This helps us keep our hearts and minds focused on what the feast is all about. As the popular Christmas carol “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” phrases it, Jesus was “born that man no more may die; born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. …”

Dec. 26: Feast of St. Stephen

Within the octave are various feast days that have rich histories and traditions. It is interesting to note that the first feast day after Christmas — the very next day, Dec. 26 — is the feast of a martyr. Recalling the purpose for which Christ came and the assignment of his divine mission, Christians are reminded, at this early stage of the celebrations of the Christmas season, of the Lord’s exhortation that anyone who wishes to follow after him must take up his cross. St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, is held up as a living witness of what it means to proclaim that Christ is savior without counting the cost.

Dec. 27: Feast of St. John

Dec. 27 is the feast of the apostle and evangelist St. John. Regarded as the disciple closest to Jesus, St. John — believed to be the author of a Gospel, the Book of Revelation and three New Testament letters — is the one who teaches us that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). Because St. John’s Gospel alone includes the miracle at the Cana wedding feast, when Jesus miraculously changes water into wine, this feast has long been associated with the blessing of wine.

Dec. 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents

The Holy Innocents celebrated on Dec. 28 were martyrs killed as the result of Herod’s murderous rage, resulting in his desire to eliminate any threats to his power by killing anyone who fit the profile of the newborn king he learned about from the Magi (see Mt 2:13-18). Taking no chances for the babe’s survival, he ordered the murder of all boys in or around Bethlehem under the age of 2. Christ, of course, survives thanks to the heavenly intervention manifested by the angelic admonition to St. Joseph to flee with Mary and Jesus in the middle of the night to Egypt. The Gospel proclaimed on this day, referenced above, evokes two major issues about which the Church is concerned today: immigration and abortion.

Feast of the Holy Family

Many of the few details we know of Jesus’ early life relates to his familial relationships. As a young man, we know he grew in the ways of faith as the obedient son of Mary and Joseph. The Church holds up annually the Holy Family of Nazareth as a model for all families, as a model for all human relationships. As Blessed Pope Paul VI said during a visit to the Holy Family’s town in 1964, “Nazareth is the school in which we begin to understand the life of Jesus. It is the school of the Gospel.” The feast of the Holy Family is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas, except for the years when Christmas falls on a Sunday. Then it is celebrated on Dec. 30.

Jan. 1: Solemnity of Mary

Stained-glass image of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Shutterstock

The octave of Christmas ends with the celebration of the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God on Jan. 1. It is a holy day of obligation, except the obligation for Catholics in the United States is lifted when the feast falls on a Saturday or Monday. Jan. 1 also marks the Church’s commemoration of the World Day of Peace, first observed 50 years ago in 1968. It seems appropriate and fitting to be celebrated on a Marian feast day, for peace is only possible through total self-sacrifice and surrender — through total love and obedience to the will of God, of which Mary is an icon for the Church.

It bears noting that Jan. 1 previously had been known as the feast of the circumcision of the Lord, because Jewish ritual prescribes that Jewish males would have been circumcised on the eighth day after birth, in accordance with the covenant God made with Abraham. As a member of a pious, practicing Jewish family, Jesus would have received this ritual induction into the Abrahamic covenant (see Lk 2:21).

Solemnity of the Epiphany

Traditionally celebrated on Jan. 6, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, is the solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. The feast is transferred to the Sunday between Jan. 2-8 in the United States, however. In commemoration of Christ’s manifestation to the Magi — who represent how Christ came to save all mankind, not just the Jews — this feast celebrates how Christ’s identity is revealed, as is summed up in the gifts the Three Kings presented him. The gold and frankincense they gave Christ represent his status as king of the universe, the deity worthy of our true worship. And the myrrh tells of the bitter reality that the babe in the manger was born to die.

The Baptism of the Lord

The Christmas season ends with the feast of the Lord’s baptism, which falls on the Sunday after the Epiphany. (That is, unless the Epiphany falls on Jan. 7 or 8, when it then is celebrated on the following day, a Monday.) This feast commemorates the day on which Christ formally accepts his mission as the redeemer when he receives St. John the Baptist’s baptism of conversion and repentance. He sets out from the waters of the Jordan, identified as God’s own son by the Father’s voice that resounded from the opened sky, and inaugurates his saving work as the long-awaited Messiah who will free us of our sins.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael.

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Church Seasons and Feasts

Of Obligations, the Immaculate Conception and Dec. 8

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There is usually a good deal of confusion regarding the obligation to attend Mass related the solemnity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. That’s due to some complex laws governing the liturgical…

There is usually a good deal of confusion regarding the obligation to attend Mass related the solemnity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. That’s due to some complex laws governing the liturgical calendar and the obligation for Catholics in the United States to attend Mass on certain dates.

The confusion exists primarily because the obligation to attend Mass is handled differently for some holy days of obligation in the United States than it is for the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

While the obligation to attend Mass is lifted in the United States when the date for certain holy days fall on a Saturday or Monday (i.e., January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God; August 15, the solemnity of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and November 1, the solemnity of All Saints), such is not the case for Dec. 8, the solemnity honoring Mary’s Immaculate Conception. That solemnity is the patronal feast for the United States and the U.S. bishops have not extended the aforementioned exception to it. So in the United States, Catholics are obliged to attend Mass marking Mary’s Immaculate Conception no matter on what day of the week Dec. 8 falls — even a Saturday or Monday.

But there’s a hitch.

Further confusion exists when Dec. 8 falls on a Sunday, as it does this year. When that happens, Catholics might look at the liturgical calendar to find the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception celebrated on Dec. 9. Does that mean you have to attend Mass on that date? No. And here’s why.

According to the Church’s canon law, the obligation to attend Mass is fixed to a date, not necessarily when the particular feast is liturgically celebrated.

So, when Dec. 8 falls on a Sunday, the obligation to attend Mass on that date coexists with the obligation to attend Mass on Sunday. In this case, Dec. 8 is one of the Sundays of Advent, which take liturgical precedence over anything else on the liturgical calendar. Since the Church never wants to omit the liturgical celebration of the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is transferred to Dec. 9. The obligation, however, is not transferred to the temporarily given date for the celebration.

So, yes, Dec. 8 is always a holy day of obligation for Catholics in the United States — in conjunction with Mary’s Immaculate Conception. But when that date falls on a Sunday, even though the liturgical celebration of the Immaculate Conception is transferred to the next day, the obligation is not reassigned.

Still, there is no better way than the Mass to give thanks to God for the prevenient grace he bestowed on Mary in preparation for the birth of our redeemer. And so you might consider going to Mass still on Dec. 9 to thank God for this great gift he bestowed on all humanity in honoring the Blessed Mother with this privilege.

Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on Twitter @HeinleinMichael.

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