Tag: Church Seasons and Feasts

8 min read

Christmas

A walk through the Christmas Season

Michael R. Heinlein

December 10, 2019 11:37 am December 10, 2019

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8 min read

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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3 min read

Church Seasons and Feasts

Of Obligations, the Immaculate Conception and Dec. 8

Michael R. Heinlein

November 20, 2019 10:00 am November 20, 2019

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3 min read

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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9 min read

Advent

What’s the Meaning of the Seasons’ Traditions?

Joanna Bogle

November 12, 2019 1:54 pm November 12, 2019

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9 min read

C.S. Lewis, the great Christian writer who gave us Narnia, wrote a superb parody about Christmas, describing a baffled time traveler visiting Britain and finding people forced to buy squares…

C.S. Lewis, the great Christian writer who gave us Narnia, wrote a superb parody about Christmas, describing a baffled time traveler visiting Britain and finding people forced to buy squares of decorated cardboard and mail them to one another.

It is true that many semi-obligatory things, apparently belonging to Christmas in Western countries, bear very little relation to the awesome reality of the birth of Jesus Christ and the redemption of mankind. And it’s getting even sillier: in the Britain of the 1950s that Lewis knew, churchgoing was at least still a mainstream activity — it is not so now.

The commercial pressure attached to Christmas now starts in August — and, of course, manufacturers and marketers have been busy long before that. Recent additions to the “must have” of what is now regarded as a proper traditional Christmas include plastic reindeer antlers worn on the head, piped recordings of Santa Claus songs in supermarkets and battery-operated bow ties that light up.

Preparing for Christ’s Birth

For Christians, though, the glorious reality of Christmas starts with its real place in the calendar. An important date is March 25, the Annunciation — the old name is Lady Day, and it’s 40 weeks before Christmas. A baby is 40 weeks in the womb. That’s a significant number: It’s why it’s so important in the Scriptures. Think of Noah in the ark for 40 days, the Israelites traveling 40 years to the Promised Land, and Christ spending 40 days in prayer in the wilderness.

Christmas is linked to the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. The Annunciation is in the spring, linked to the vernal equinox, equal day and night.

The date of Christmas, Dec. 25, was set by Emperor Constantine in 336; Jesus’ birthday isn’t recorded in Scripture. Some say Dec. 25 was chosen as the date to celebrate Jesus’ birthday because of the ancient Roman midwinter pagan festivals coinciding with the winter solstice that occurred around this date — Christian citizens of the Roman Empire no longer worshiped the Sun God, but the Son of God.

We should relish our Christmas customs, even starting with Advent, the four weeks of preparation for the great feast. The tradition of an Advent wreath comes from the snowy parts of Europe, when, in winter, the wheels would be taken off the wagons and runners put on instead. A cartwheel makes a strong base for a great Advent wreath, with four candles, one for each week. Some traditions affirm red candles, but most use three purple and one pink, the latter signifying Gaudete Sunday, its name coming from the Latin word for joy. This is the Third Sunday of Advent, when the season of solemn preparation gives way to a note of joyful expectation. Prayers around the Advent wreath, with one candle alight during the first week, two in the second and so on, are something special on winter evenings. The great Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” dates back to the O antiphons of the eighth century.

The First Sunday of Advent is called “stir up Sunday” when Christmas puddings are made in Britain. With plenty of alcohol in it, the puddings will most certainly keep until Christmas. Everyone in the household should take a turn at stirring the mixture and making a wish. The pudding originated in Britain as plum porridge and seems to date from the 18th century. Mincemeat — chopped-up dried fruit, spices, lemon and orange peel, and shredded suet — is an older dish, originally containing minced meat, dried and preserved. Mince pies are traditionally oval in shape, representing the manger, with Christ the sweetness inside.

In the United States and Northern Europe, Christmas is synonymous with wintry things, but, for most of the world, it’s not like that. For instance, in India — where Catholic tradition goes back to St. Thomas, one of Christ’s own apostles — midnight Mass is celebrated on a warm summer night and is traditionally followed by visits to family and friends with feasting.

Feasts within Advent

St. Nicholas — from whence Santa Claus came — the saintly bishop of the early church who helped the poor, has his feast on Dec. 6, and so has become linked with Christmas. In much of Europe he arrives dressed as a bishop, mitred and robed, but in America and Britain his robes have become a red and fur-trimmed outfit. Stockings are associated with Christmas because of him. Known for his charity, he dropped money down the chimney discreetly for three poor girls — and it went into their stockings, hung by the fire to dry.

Dec. 12 is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Coatlallope), the Patroness of the Americas. Mary appeared to the saintly Aztec Juan Diego, imprinting her picture on his tilma, or cloak. You can still see it in the great basilica in Mexico City, the most popular shrine in the Western Hemisphere, visited by millions every year. Mary is pregnant with the Savior and wears the traditional ribbon of an Aztec expectant mother. Coatlallope in Aztec dialect means “one who treads on snakes” — Mary crushed the serpent’s head as was prophesied of her in Genesis.

The date for the feast isn’t accidental — it’s God’s timing, linking with Christmas. Many celebrate the feast with a piñata, essentially a pineapple shape made out of papier-mâché, filled with toys and sweets, hung up over the heads of partygoers, who bash at it until it breaks, showering the gifts down on everyone.

Scandinavians especially celebrate St. Lucy — her name means “light” — on Dec. 13, the date for midwinter in the old Julian calendar. Girls dress in white robes, with red sashes to symbolize her martyrdom, and crowns bearing candles on their heads. They bring sugary pastries, fresh coffee and treats to hospitals and community groups.

Trees, Carols and More

Christmas trees began with the eighth-century St. Boniface, who converted the pagan Germans. They saw their great evergreens as sacred because the trees did not shed their needles or appear to die in winter like other trees. St. Boniface — his Latin name means “one doing good” — taught them to worship, not the evergreen tree, but Christ who died on a tree, and who thereby offers us eternal life. Eventually, he was martyred, but meanwhile an evergreen decorated with candles became the Christmas tree. Many centuries later Prince Albert, who was of German descent and married Britain’s Queen Victoria, brought the custom to England, and from there it went to other lands.

Many cultures celebrate the Christmas season until Feb. 2, which is Candlemas, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. Before the revisions of the liturgical calendar following the Second Vatican Council, that’s when the season ended. Many homes retain some Christmas decorations — certainly the manger — all through that time. Crib scenes, in churches and homes, are said to have begun with St. Francis of Assisi in 1223 (see sidebar). While the manger is empty all through Advent, many places are known to have faithful bring the Christ Child to be blessed at Mass on the Fourth Sunday of Advent — Bambino Sunday — before traditionally placing him in the manger on Christmas morning.

Many cultures traditionally mark Christmas Eve by abstaining from meat. Italian-Americans are known for celebrating the “Feast of Seven Fishes” on that day. Roast beef or pork used to be standard in English-speaking countries on Christmas Day, but now turkey or ham is commonplace.

Christmas games, quizzes and jokes all date back to medieval times as ways of making merry in the long dark evenings of winter. Even today, with television dominating our lives, Christmas is still a time for singalongs, special programs and games.

Many carols are medieval in origin, but the 17th century gave us “While Shepherds Watched” and the 19th gave us “Away in a Manger” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Incidentally, a legend that the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was a code used by Catholics in the days of persecution is untrue: that story only started in the 1970s.

Epiphany — remembering the arrival of the Three Kings — is a big celebration in Spain. Still fixed on Jan. 6, freshly polished shoes of Spanish children are left ready on the previous evening, wherein the kings will deposit presents. Meanwhile, the Three Kings arrive at household manger scenes around the world, often having traveled from room to room around the house. The French have given us the galette des rois — a delicious pastry with a small king embedded inside. Whoever gets him is king or queen for the evening, wears a golden paper crown and chooses the first game to be played. These are known today in the United States as king cakes in many regions claiming French ancestry, such as Louisiana, where they are eaten all the way through Mardi Gras.

Christmas is a time for storytelling, family reminiscences, tales of Christmases past. Some are bittersweet, such as the World War I Christmas 1914 truce in the trenches — where soldiers on both sides put down their arms in observance of the Lord’s birth. It really happened and is a symbol of the whole heartbreaking tragedy of that war.

And Christmas is indeed bittersweet: after Christmas Day comes the feasts of the first martyr, St. Stephen (Dec. 26), and the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28).

Christ’s birth is joyful, but our redemption was won through his suffering — and through that, all suffering is redeemed and is redemptive. Christmas for some is a time of loneliness, poignant memories or mild regrets.

But Christ knows about all of that, for He came to bear our sins and bring us new life. As a British folk carol says: “For the holly bears a berry, as red as any blood / And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ, to do poor sinners good.”

Joanna Bogle is a British Catholic journalist, writer and broadcaster. In 2013, she became a Dame of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great. She has authored several books, including “Book of Feasts & Seasons” and blogs at joannabogle.blogspot.com.

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9 min read

Church Seasons and Feasts

What is the Liturgical Calendar?

Chene Heady

November 8, 2019 7:04 am November 8, 2019

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9 min read

The liturgical calendar is omnipresent in Catholic life. Many parish bulletins list the liturgical days of the week and corresponding Scripture readings. In December, tables in the narthex may be…

The liturgical calendar is omnipresent in Catholic life. Many parish bulletins list the liturgical days of the week and corresponding Scripture readings. In December, tables in the narthex may be piled high with free calendars that identify the principal feasts of the Church year (along with civic holidays). And, of course, each holy day of obligation we are reminded that Catholic worship is not simply a matter of showing up on Sundays; there is a larger pattern of feasts and fasts of which Sunday worship is only part.

But to say that the liturgical calendar is omnipresent is not to say that we always notice it. We often look past objects, such as street lights or telephone poles, precisely because they are pervasive. It is easy to treat the liturgical calendar merely as part of Catholicism’s décor, the ornamental mantle clock with Roman numerals that looks nice but which no one really uses to tell time.

Many holy men and women through the ages, however, have set their internal clock to the liturgical calendar and have found their lives reshaped in the process — for the purpose of the liturgical calendar is to orient our days around the person of Jesus. This process begins with Sunday worship, which is the cornerstone of the whole liturgical calendar. We celebrate Mass each Sunday — rather than on the Jewish Saturday — in recognition that when Jesus resurrected on Easter Sunday He began the renewal of the whole world and the universe was fundamentally changed (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1193). As the liturgical poet John Keble, a great friend of Blessed John Henry Newman, exclaimed in his poem “Easter Day,” Easter sheds “light on all the year,” making Sundays “more glorious break, / An Easter Day in every week.” Sunday worship reveals to us the nature of the world in which we live.

But, while the Resurrection is the central Christian event, every moment of the life of Jesus is a revelation of the nature and character of God. For this reason, we need not merely Sunday worship but the entire Christian year. The Church year is structured around the life of Jesus. It pursues Him from the first signs of His coming in Advent to His birth at Christmas, to His trials in Lent and death on Good Friday, to the wonders of His Easter Resurrection and Ascension, and finally catches an apocalyptic vision of Him enthroned as King in glory. As the Catechism explains, “The Church, ‘in the course of the year … unfolds the whole mystery of Christ’” (No. 1194). The Church leaves nothing out and skips no days; she asks us to meditate on Jesus at all times and in all circumstances.

Typology

The Church’s desire to see Jesus in all things, and all things in light of Jesus, also influences the scriptural readings chosen for use throughout the liturgical year. Since Jesus is God’s ultimate self-revelation to humanity, the entire human attempt to know God — the complete story of religion and all of salvation history — also culminates in Him (see Catechism, No. 102). Inspired by this insight, the Apostolic Fathers in the early days of the Church developed the reading method known as typology (Catechism, No. 128).

Typology treats events and images recorded in the Old Testament (the type) as prefiguring the life of Christ and the Church (the antitype). The fullness of God’s revelation as expressed in Christ exposes patterns and symbols in His earlier dealings with humanity that we might otherwise miss. To give just two famous examples: Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, who nonetheless does not die, is a type of Christ’s divine sacrifice and resurrection; Noah’s ark, the vessel in which humanity is saved from physical destruction, is a type of the Church, the vessel in which humanity is saved from spiritual destruction.

The Church assigns appropriate scriptural readings — generally an Old Testament passage, a responsorial psalm, a portion of an epistle and a Gospel story — for each day of the year. The Old Testament reading and the responsorial psalm are often chosen because of their typological relationship to the Gospel reading. While the basic pattern of our liturgical observances remains constant each year, our cycle of readings for these observances varies. We follow a two-year cycle for daily Mass and a three-year (A, B, C) cycle for Sundays, primarily so that we might encounter Scripture as fully as possible. The Church uses the liturgical calendar to teach us to see “Christ in all the Scriptures.”

Since I have already referenced it, the feast of Christ the King, the final Sunday of the liturgical year, may serve as a convenient example of this dynamic. The first reading for Christ the King in Year A is 2 Samuel 5:1-3; here the Israelites collectively accept David as their king. In the corresponding Gospel reading, Luke 23:35-43, the good thief on the cross accepts Jesus, the Son of David, as his king, and becomes in death the first person to pass into the heavenly kingdom. David’s divinely ordained but temporal kingship is a type of Christ’s permanent spiritual kingship.

The liturgical calendar’s frequent memorials of saints teach us another method of viewing all experience in light of Christ. The saints are a diverse bunch; they include men and women of nearly every race, region, occupation, economic status and psychological temperament. In the roster of the saints, we find a template of the many different ways in which salvation may be worked out, the varied human images that may comprise a reflection of the one Christ (see Catechism, No. 1173), the disparate forms His kingdom may take on earth.

Those saints with whom we most readily identify can be taken as patrons and encouragers in the life of faith; those with whom we find identification difficult challenge us to see God or the potential for His presence in those people whom we would too easily overlook or even disdain. By commemorating these saints in the liturgical calendar, the Church presents us with the entire picture of human sanctity and asks us to evaluate our life’s challenges and the people around us accordingly.

The liturgical calendar, then, possesses the potential to transform the way we see the world. If we were truly sensitive to its patterns, we would view our own lives, other people, the Bible, human history and the passage of time itself differently. And the decisions we would make while seeing the world in this very different light would change us into different people. As the Nobel Prize-winning poet T.S. Eliot observed in an unpublished lecture “The Bible as Scripture and Literature”: “The fall of these words [the liturgy and liturgical readings] upon the ear, as they follow their due and appointed order in the service and the cyclic recurrence of the services according to the seasons, enters into the whole rhythm of the Christian’s life with an unconscious compulsion.”

If we will allow it, the liturgical calendar will shape us at a level deeper and more fundamental than consciousness itself; we will find ourselves automatically applying Christ’s story to our own, and acting accordingly. The point is a classical Christian one, once more widely known. Keble puts it beautifully in another one of his poems: if we allow ourselves to be carried along with the liturgical calendar, “The sacred weeks, with unfelt pace” will bear “us on from grace to grace” (“Trinity Sunday”).

The Church understands human nature. Human beings naturally make sense of the world by telling themselves stories. We also structure the smaller stories of our personal lives in terms of the wider and more all-encompassing tales we know. By superimposing Scripture over the days of our lives, the liturgical calendar trains us to understand our experience in terms of Christ. We neglect this training to our own detriment. If we allow the liturgical calendar to fade into the background, lost as a mere ornament, we will still imagine our lives as a reflection of a larger story, but it will be a vastly impoverished story.

In her work “The Pantheon Papers,” the novelist and Christian humanist Dorothy Sayers vividly depicted this truth. Sayers constructed a satirical liturgical calendar for modern materialism. This new calendar exposes the secular values that too often structure our lives and our days. Here the season of Advent is replaced with the season of advertisement; Christmas is replaced with “the Birth of Science”; the feast of Easter with the feast of the Enlightenment; All Hallows with All Hollows.

In the absence of the liturgical calendar, we will structure our lives around whatever shouts at us most loudly and whatever is most materially tangible, and our lives will be corresponding hollowed. In the liturgical calendar the Church offers us an important tool for spiritual enrichment and renewal.

Chene Heady, Ph.D., is associate professor of English at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, and author of “Numbering My Days: How the Liturgical Calendar Rearranged My Life” (Ignatius Press).

Tips for tuning in to the Christian Year

• Prepare for Mass each Sunday by taking a look at the readings ahead of time. Perhaps pray with them using lectio divina.

• If unable to attend daily Mass, perhaps download an app or find the daily readings listed in your parish bulletin. Follow along with the Church’s daily narrative of salvation history and allow it to transform your worldview.

• Each week, chose a saint whose feast is celebrated about whom you’ll learn something useful in your own path to holiness.

• Decorate your home liturgically. Perhaps use a table cloth with the seasonal color, or print out pictures of different saints to display near their feasts in a special place in your home.

• Research the variety of cultural expressions of seasons and feasts, including unique foods, traditions, music, etc.

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7 min read

Church Seasons and Feasts

St. John Lateran Basilica

D.D. Emmons

September 30, 2019 9:20 am September 30, 2019

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7 min read

St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome is considered the mother church of all the Catholic churches in the Western world; inscribed on the church facade for all to see are…

St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome is considered the mother church of all the Catholic churches in the Western world; inscribed on the church facade for all to see are the Latin words “omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput,” meaning, “The mother and head of all the churches of the city and of the world.”

But why is this particular church so important to our Catholic faith that it is designated as the “mother church,” and so prominent that it garners a feast day on the Church liturgical calendar?

In first-century Rome, a palace existed adjacent to the site where the basilica would eventually be built. The palace belonged to Plautius Lateranus, and through the centuries it became known as the Lateran Palace. The Roman Emperor Nero (r. 54-68) confiscated this property from Lateranus, and in the early fourth century it came into the possession of Emperor Constantine the Great when he became emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Constantine, convinced that all his military and political successes were gifts from the Christian God, was favorably disposed to Christianity and eventually ended the persecution of religious groups while extending special attention and support to the followers of Jesus. In 312, he gave the Lateran Palace to Pope Melchiades (also known as Militades), and it became the residence of the popes for the next 1,000 years.

St. John Lateran

After emerging as ruler of all the Roman Empire, Constantine began building places of worship for Christians throughout his vast empire, and the earliest Christian basilica in the West was the Lateran Basilica, which he located next to the pope’s palace. Around 324, at the urging, or perhaps insistence, of Constantine, it was dedicated to Our Most Holy Savior by Pope St. Sylvester.

The basilica was twice rededicated, first in the 10th century to St. John the Baptist, and again in the 12th century to St John the Evangelist. The official title of this church is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and of Sts. John the Baptist and the Evangelist at the Lateran. It is best known as St. John Lateran.

The building of the Lateran Basilica not only gave the Christians of Rome an exclusive place for worship, but architecturally equaled or exceeded any of the monuments previously raised to the pagan gods. This was a momentous period not only in Rome but in both the history of the world and the history of Christianity. The early historian Eusebius of Caesarea (263-340) wrote, “After this was seen the sight which had been desired and prayed for by us all; feasts of dedication in the cities and consecrations of the newly built houses of prayer took place, bishops assembled, foreigners came together from abroad, mutual love was exhibited between people and people, the members of Christ’s body were united in complete harmony” (“The History of the Church,” Book X, Chapter III).

The use of the Lateran Palace as a papal residence ended in 1309 when the popes moved to Avignon, France, and stayed there for nearly 70 years. The Holy See returned to Rome in 1377, but the Lateran facilities were in such a deteriorated state that the pope’s living quarters were relocated, eventually to Vatican Hill, where the pope still resides. The Lateran Basilica and Palace were mostly rebuilt in 1586, and despite the permanent relocation of the pope’s living quarters, the basilica has remained the primary church of the Roman pontiff.

A feast day

The feast day honoring the dedication of St. John Lateran was introduced in the 12th century and was initially celebrated only in the city of Rome. In 1726, Pope Benedict XIII ordered a worldwide commemoration of the basilica as a sign of universal Catholic unity. The feast is celebrated on Nov. 9 and is known today as “The Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica.”

The intent behind the annual feast day is to encourage Catholics to keep strong ties to our past and to the universal Catholic Church. The building of St. John Lateran was a mark of religious freedom. Christians could worship without fear and in a church of their own. Through the grace of God the followers of Jesus had persevered over sufferings and persecutions; Christianity had been granted both legal recognition and public security. What joy those early Christians must have experienced in this newfound freedom, what excitement in joining together in their own house of worship which some historians claim held 10,000 people. This feast day reminds us of our Catholic heritage, the significant role the dedication of the Lateran Basilica played in that heritage and the courage of those first followers of Christ and the importance of uniting ourselves to the Holy See. As the pope is our universal pastor, the Lateran is our universal church.

Lateran Treaty

From the eighth through the middle of the 19th century, the papacy had been gifted with many territories, including much of central Italy. That area, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic Sea, became known as the Papal States and geographically split Italy in two. In 1870, King Victor Emmanuel II, as part of his effort to unite all of Italy and establish a new government, annexed the Papal States and occupied the city of Rome in a movement called the Risorgimento. The new government essentially took the Papal States and Rome away from the pope. Pope Pius IX (r. 1846-1878) reacted by excommunicating everyone involved with the invasion.

The king attempted to treat the papacy diplomatically and offered Pius that the pope could keep Vatican City, the palaces and churches, the liberty to conduct religious activities, receive financial compensation for the Papal States and even have authority to conduct diplomatic relations. Pope Pius stated firmly that the state government had illegally seized Rome and the Papal States. Further, and most importantly, he claimed that he would not be put in a position of being subject to the Italian government as required by King Victor Emmanuel. He declared himself “a prisoner of the Vatican” and retreated into the Vatican palace from which he and the popes who followed refused to leave for the next 59 years. This situation, or standoff, became known as the Roman Question.

In early 1929, after many of the original principals associated with the Roman Question had died and the political situation had changed, the Vatican and the Italian government ended this problem. Pope Pius XI recognized the Kingdom of Italy with the city of Rome as the capital and officially ceded the Papal States to the government. In return, the government agreed to recognize the Vatican as a sovereign state with its own police force, post office, newspaper and radio station. The Vatican could exchange diplomatic emissaries as it deemed necessary. The papacy would possess Vatican City and all the palaces and churches including those extraterritorial possessions like St. John Lateran and the pope’s summer home, Castel Gandolfo. Other concessions included a financial payment to the Vatican for the annexation of the Papal States, and the government agreed that the Catholic Church would be identified as the state church of Italy. There was no mention of the pope being subject to the Italian government. Treaties reflecting these agreements were signed in the Lateran Palace on Feb. 11, 1929. The Holy See was now a national state, independent of Italy, with its own head of state (the pope), government and church. The Lateran Agreement was superseded by a new concordat between the Holy See and the Italian government in June 1985.

Dennis Emmons writes from Mount Joy, Pa.

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Church Seasons and Feasts

The Solemnity of Christ the King

D.D. Emmons

September 2, 2019 3:19 pm September 2, 2019

9 min read

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9 min read

On the last Sunday of the liturgical year, Catholics celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. A relative newcomer to the Church calendar — established in the 20th century —…

On the last Sunday of the liturgical year, Catholics celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King. A relative newcomer to the Church calendar — established in the 20th century — this feast is designed to give special recognition to the dominion Christ our Lord has over all aspects of our lives. But why and how did it come about? And why is it so important today?

When Cardinal Ambrogio Achille Ratti was elected pope and took the name Pope Pius XI, much of the world was in shambles. The year was 1922, and while the bloodletting of World War I (1914-1918) had ended, widespread peace and tranquility were not evident.

The war to end all wars had been especially devastating to England and the countries of continental Europe. Additionally, the overthrow of the Romanov tsars by the Russian Revolution had created great upheaval in Russia and brought immense suffering. Governments were in economic chaos, unemployment was rampant and people in many places were literally starving to death.

The stability of the old social and political orders that had embraced royal houses and crowned heads of state were crumbling. The victorious warring powers sought severe penalties and unreasonable reparations from the vanquished Germans through the Treaty of Versailles.

Pessimism, a sense of helplessness compounded by hatred among the nations, was overwhelming. The time was ripe for the rise of tyrants, and rise they did. The festering philosophies of fascism, National Socialism (the Nazis) and communism now spawned the likes of Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Pope Pius XI’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XV, had warned about this prophetically in 1920 when he wrote, “There can be no stable peace or lasting treaties, though made after long and difficult negotiations and duly signed, unless there be a return of mutual charity to appease hate and banish enmity.”

In their distress, people clung to anyone who offered them hope, offered some kind of direction out of the chaos and promised to put food on their tables. They gravitated to the emerging dictators, and as they did they often sought to be self-sufficient to the exclusion of God from their everyday lives.

Many considered the basics of morality and the teachings of the Church to be out of date, no longer relevant in 20th-century society. Modern thinking allowed that, at most, Christ might be king in the private life of the individual, but certainly not in the public world.

Some political regimes advocated the banishment of Jesus altogether, not only from society, but from the family as well. As nations were reborn and governments restructured, their foundations, policies and laws were often being fashioned without regard to Christian principles.

Affirming Christ’s Kingship

In all these developments, the new Pope Pius XI saw that people were denying Christ in favor of a lifestyle dominated by secularism, material advantage and false hope created by the tyrants.

He realized that he had to ad- dress the political and economic forces that were crowding out the kingship of Jesus. As a start, he dedicated his reign as pope to “The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” ( Pax Christi in Regno Christi ).

In 1925, the Church celebrated a jubilee year in honor of the 1,600th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. The council fathers taking part in that ancient gathering in A.D. 325 had affirmed the full divinity of Jesus Christ as God the Son, one in being with God the Father. Their pronouncement became a creed that was later expanded into what we now call the Nicene Creed, which we still profess at Mass every Sunday.

Throughout the anniversary year, Pope Pius constantly emphasized the kingship of Christ as declared in the Creed: “His kingdom will have no end.” He stressed that theme throughout the year as it repeatedly appeared in the Church’s celebrations of the Annunciation, the Epiphany, the Transfiguration and the Ascension. As part of the Holy Year, which was afforded great attention and pomp by the Vatican, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flocked to Rome, demonstrating great fervor for their faith.

On Dec. 11 of the jubilee year, and in order to acknowledge perpetually the supremacy of Jesus Christ over all men, nations and earthly allegiances, the pope issued the encyclical Quas Primas, which added the feast of “Our Lord Jesus Christ the King” to the annual Church liturgical calendar.

Some at the time argued that such a celebration was unnecessary because the ancient feast of the Epiphany already acknowledged Christ as King. But more than 340 religious leaders, including cardinals and bishops, had called for the new celebration, and the pope was glad to grant their request.

The encyclical provided for the feast of Christ the King to be held each year on the last Sunday of October. This date, a week before All Saints’ Day and four weeks before Advent, was carefully chosen: It reminded the people that Jesus Christ is not only King of this world, reigning among nations today; He is also the eternal King, glorified by the saints in heaven, who will one day come to judge all humankind.

In his encyclical, the pope noted that the continuing disorder of that era, what he called “the plague of society,” had long been festering and was the result of nations rejecting Christ. Later in the encyclical the pontiff pointedly reminded national governments, “Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for His kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education” (No. 32).

Time for Consecration

The pope instructed the faithful to use this annual celebration as a time to consecrate themselves, or renew their consecration to, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, explicitly tying the celebration to devotion to the Sacred Heart and to the living Christ in the Eucharist. He also called for Catholics to make reparations for the widespread atheism being practiced in many countries.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI took several steps to enhance the witness of the feast day. To emphasize Christ’s universal reign, he changed the name of the celebration to the feast of “Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of All” ( Domini Nostri Iesu Christi universorum Regis ) He also changed the date to the last Sunday in the liturgical year, emphasizing even more strongly the connection between Christ’s kingship and His second advent (coming) to judge the world. In addition, the pope raised the feast to the highest rank of celebration on the Church calendar, that of a “solemnity.”

Today, peace still eludes us; social, political and economic orders are shaking; and the nations continue in many ways to reject the light of the Gospel. We can be grateful, then, for the chance to celebrate each year the Solemnity of Christ the King — for the world needs now, more than ever, our witness to His rule over all things.

On the kingship of Christ

The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences … the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society, in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in the future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior.

— Pope Pius XI, encyclical Quas Primas , no. 24

The “Power” of Jesus Christ

But in what does this “power” of Jesus Christ the King consist? It is not the power of the kings or the great people of this world; it is the divine power to give eternal life, to liberate from evil, to defeat the dominion of death. It is the power of Love that can draw good from evil, that can melt a hardened heart, bring peace amid the harshest conflict and kindle hope in the thickest darkness. This Kingdom of Grace is never imposed and always respects our freedom. Christ came “to bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18: 37), as he declared to Pilate: whoever accepts his witness serves beneath his “banner.” . . . Every conscience, therefore, must make a choice. Who do I want to follow? God or the Evil One? The truth or falsehood? Choosing Christ does not guarantee success according to the world’s criteria but assures the peace and joy that he alone can give us. This is demonstrated, in every epoch, by the experience of numerous men and women who, in Christ’s name, in the name of truth and justice, were able to oppose the enticements of earthly powers with their different masks, to the point that they sealed their fidelity with martyrdom.

— Pope Benedict XVI, on the feast of Christ the King, Nov. 22, 2009

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