Preview: Why St. John Henry Newman Should be on the USA's Liturgical Calendar

We're going to interrupt our series on the Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors on the Son Rise Morning Show on Monday, October 9 to discuss the feast of Saint John Henry Newman. I'll be on the show at my usual time, around 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern, to talk with Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim.

Please listen live here or listen to the podcast at your convenience here.

Saint John Henry Newman died on August 11, 1890 and usually his feast would be celebrated on the date of his death, but it was already the feast of Saint Clare of Assisi. So the anniversary of his joining the Catholic Church on October 9 in 1845 was chosen instead when his beatification was announced.

In England and Wales October 9 is celebrated as a Feast now (with the Gloria recited or sung at Mass). There were already three optional memorials on October 9 (St. Denis and Companions, St. John Leonardi, and St. Paulinus of York, an English saint) before his canonization in 2019, meaning that either the Weekday or Ordinary Time, or the memorial of one of those three saints, could be celebrated. The English Bishops moved those three optional memorials to October 10 to make room for Newman's Feast on October 9. (The Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in the United States also celebrates this Feast day.)

I propose that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops do something similar to make room for Newman on our Liturgical Calendar and offer three reasons, in ascending order of importance. 

At this time, his feast is not on the Liturgical Calendar at all, not even as an optional memorial.

I'm not going to be greedy enough to propose his feast as a Feast in the USA, but as the Memorial, thus the only feast to be celebrated on October 9--and that St. Denis and St. John Leonardi be moved as optional memorials on October 10.

My three reasons: First:

Newman and the New Evangelization: After teaching a graduate class on Newman and the New Evangelization for our local Newman University the past two summers, I'm convinced that he is an excellent patron saint for this project, which includes the Eucharistic Revival, to renew the faith of Catholics, particularly the laity. 

Newman offers many insights into how to revive and re-enforce Catholics' belief in what they believe and what the Church teaches, and to integrate it more firmly in their lives. He encouraged both growth of knowledge of the truths of the Catholic Faith and the actions that demonstrated that knowledge and belief. As he told the Little Brothers of the Oratory in Birmingham:

I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity. I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism and where lies the main inconsistencies and absurdities of the Protestant theory. I have no apprehension you will be the worse Catholics for familiarity with these subjects, provided you cherish a vivid sense of God above and keep in mind that you have souls to be judged and saved. In all times the laity have been the measure of the Catholic spirit; they saved the Irish Church three centuries ago and they betrayed the Church in England. You ought to be able to bring out what you feel and what you mean, as well as to feel and mean it; to expose to the comprehension of others the fictions and fallacies of your opponents; to explain the charges brought against the Church, to the satisfaction, not, indeed, of bigots, but of men of sense, of whatever cast of opinion.

By preparing those Little Brothers of the Oratory with vibrant knowledge and conviction of the Faith, Newman wanted them to use their personal influence to help others gain that assurance. Quoting an earlier work from his Anglican days (The Tamworth Reading Room letters of 1841) in the Grammar of Assent (1870), he proposed:

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.

He dedicated an entire sermon to this theme, "Personal Influence, the Means of Propagating the Truth" as an Anglican, so it was a constant in his life that he wanted to prepare Christians to share their Faith effectively through formal education, sermons, literature, friendships, and arguments and apologetics--in that order. Thus they would be able to move others to embrace the Truth.

I'm not alone in this belief about Newman and the New Evangelization: Bishop Robert Barron, Bishop James Conley, the late Father Ian Ker, and many others have observed this.

My Second Reason: 

The Newman Centers at secular universities in the USA: Since the first Newman Club was founded at the University of Pennsylvania in 1893--just three years after his death!--Newman Centers at secular universities have provided students with Holy Mass and the other Sacraments, continuing religious education, social activities, a place a study, etc. The National Catholic Register just published an article about them last month.

As the Newman Ministry website notes:

Over 80% of students stop practicing the faith in college—that’s most of the campus! The problem is, many students struggle to find great friends that share their faith.

It can be overwhelming to walk onto a new campus with no friends. There’s so many opportunities and decisions to make. Faith usually isn’t at the top of the list.

That’s where we come in. Newman Ministry connects students with a Catholic community on campus, so their faith thrives in college and beyond.

So Saint John Henry Newman has had an influence in the USA since the late 19th century through these campus centers for Catholics, even though not all of them still use his name. I attended the Newman Center at Wichita State University and learned about Saint John Henry Newman there (it now does not use his name, but that's still the way I think of it!).

My Third Reason: 

Newman's Miracles

Both the miracle accepted for his Beatification in 2010, and the miracle accepted for his Canonization in 2019 occurred in the United States of America, and both of them through the influence of EWTN!

Deacon Jack Sullivan had watched a program on then-Venerable John Henry Newman on EWTN and decided to ask Newman's intercession for his back problems:

“They were discussing not only Newman’s teachings, but the process of beatification,” Sullivan explained to EWTN. “At the end of the program, they had on screen an address of the Oratory in Birmingham [England] and they said, ‘if you receive any Divine favors, please contact that Oratory.’

“I happened to have a piece of paper and a pen on the table in front of me and I wrote it down. Then, I thought, ‘If I wrote it down, I might as well pray to Newman.”

“I prayed, ‘Please Cardinal Newman, help me with God so that I might walk and go back to classes and be ordained.’”

After a later surgery that found greater damage to his spine than thought:

On August 15, 2001, four days after his surgery, Sullivan again prayed to Cardinal Newman.

“I felt tremendous heat and a tingling feeling all over that lasted for five or 10 minutes,” Sullivan said. “After I experienced this, I immediately stood up straight. I was able to walk, not with a walker or cane, but on my own, without any difficulty or pain. I walked all over the hospital, just joyful. I never needed any pain medication after that.”

Melissa Villalobos was inspired by the same program to ask Newman's intercession in the second miracle:

Melissa Villalobos lives near Chicago. As a college student at Washington University in St Louis she met her husband-to-be David Villalobos, and it was there that she also first came across the Newman Center, which she had assumed was named after a rich benefactor.

Soon after graduating in 2000, she watched a TV show on EWTN called ‘Newman At 2000’. In 2010 she watched the Beatification of Cardinal Newman on EWTN, and remembers being very moved. She was given a prayer card with the face of Newman, and she began to read his works on the Internet and her devotion to him grew, so that she would turn in prayer often to ask him for favours and inspiration. . . 

When she was pregnant with her fifth child, Gemma, Villalobos began to experience bleeding from uterus. During a particularly dangerous hemorrhage, she prayed:

"Please Cardinal Newman make the bleeding stop!” As soon as she had finished her sentence the bleeding stopped. She immediately thanked Cardinal Newman, convinced that she had been healed by his intercession. She was then able to hurry downstairs and check on her children with no further bleeding.

On a visit to the doctor later that very same day, 15 May, he confirmed with an ultrasound that Melissa had been cured of her condition, and her placenta was no longer torn. The bleeding never returned. . . .

These two miracles are further evidence of devotion to Newman in the United States.

There's at least one more reason I've thought of: the many American converts, especially from the Episcopalian church, who have been influenced by Saint John Henry Newman. Like the late Thomas Howard, Holly Ordway, Father Dwight Longenecker, Deacon Scott Carson, Monsignor Jeffrey Stinson, etc., etc., many have attested to Newman's influence on them. Just peruse the stories collected on the Coming Home Network website and you'll see what he has meant to converts in the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States.

Finally, I do have a very personal reason for this proposal: after studying the works of Saint John Henry Newman since I first learned about him as a college sophomore, writing about him, teaching about him, and praying for his intercession, I'd like to attend a daily Mass on his feast day on October 9 in the next year or so.

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

The Rogation Days and the Litanies

I mentioned on my Facebook page how happy I was that the Benedictus monthly Mass book for May included the Litany and Prayers for the Rogation Days, May 15, 16, and 17. The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Thursday, which in our diocese is celebrated on Sunday, are the Rogation Days. As the Fish Eaters website explains: 

"Rogation" comes from the Latin "rogare," which means "to ask," and Rogation Days are days during which we seek to ask God's mercy, appease His anger, avert the chastisements He makes manifest through natural disasters, and ask for His blessings, particularly with regard to farming, gardening, and other agricultural pursuits. They are set aside to remind us how radically dependent we are on God through His creation, and how prayer can help protect us from nature's often cruel ways. Hence, its mood is somber and beseeching; its liturgical color is purple. . . .

Pope St. Leo III -- the Pope who crowned Charlemagne on Christmas Day of 800 -- introduced these days of penance into Rome in 816, the year of his death, after which they became standard throughout the Roman Church.

The liturgy for the Rogation Days, during which the priest is vested in purple, begins with Psalm 43:26 --"Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for Thy name's sake" -- which is followed by the Litany of the Saints. At the Litany's "Sancta Maria," all stand and a procession begins, which in older times was (and still is in rural areas) usually around the boundaries of the parish, giving to the procession the name of "beating the bounds."

The Litany is followed by Psalm 69, a series of petitions, and the Mass, with readings from James 5:16-20 and Luke 11:5-14. Prayer for God's blessing of farmers' fields so that they yield a bountiful harvest is common.

I've prayed the Litanies these three days as a private devotion, and in thanksgiving for the rain drought-stricken Kansas received Sunday!!

As I was reading Illusions of Reform: Responses to Cavadini, Healy, and Weinandy in Defense of the Traditional Latin Mass & the Faithful Who Attend It, I noticed a footnote (3) on page 184 in the article "Bible by the Pound" by Father Peter Miller, OSB. He recounts how the Ember Days, quarterly days of prayer and fasting, were thought by the reformers of the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council worthy of being retained, "but choosing their new dates was delegated to bishops' conferences, and none of the conferences ever got around to assigning dates, so a 1700-year old tradition disappeared." Father Miller tells the reader to look it up: it's in the Wikipedia article for Ember Days:

"In order that the Rogation Days and Ember Days may be adapted to the different regions and different needs of the faithful, the Conferences of Bishops should arrange the time and manner in which they are held. Consequently, concerning their duration, whether they are to last one or more days, or be repeated in the course of the year, norms are to be established by the competent authority, taking into consideration local needs. The Mass for each day of these celebrations should be chosen from among the Masses for Various Needs, and should be one which is more particularly appropriate to the purpose of the supplications."[12]

The Wikipedia article for Rogation Days demonstrates that we could have Rogation Days too:

The reform of the Liturgical Calendar for Roman Catholics in 1969 delegated the establishment of Rogation Days, along with Ember Days, to the episcopal conferences.[20] Their observance in the Latin Church subsequently declined, but the observance has revived somewhat since Pope John Paul II allowed Rogation days as a permitted, but not mandated, observance.[17] For those Catholics who continue to celebrate Mass according to the General Roman Calendar of 1960 or earlier, the Rogation Days are still kept, unless a higher ranking feast would occur on the day.[21]

As Father Miller comments in his footnote: "(Kind of embarrassing.)"

From this site, it looks like the Episcopal Church still observes these days:

Traditionally, these are the three days before Ascension Day on which the litany is sung (or recited) in procession as an act of intercession. They originated in Vienne, France, in the fifth century when Bishop Mamertus introduced days of fasting and prayer to ward off a threatened disaster. In England they were associated with the blessing of the fields at planting. The vicar “beat the bounds” of the parish, processing around the fields reciting psalms and the litany. In the United States they have been associated with rural life and with agriculture and fishing. The propers in the BCP {Book of Common Prayer] (pp. 207-208, 258-259, 930) have widened their scope to include commerce and industry and the stewardship of creation. The BCP also permits their celebration at other times to accommodate different regional growing seasons. The BOS [Book of Occasional Services] contains material for a Rogation procession, including petitions to be added to the Great Litany and the prayers of the people. The term is from the Latin rogatio, “asking.”

But once you know the tradition, and have access to the prayers, nothing--except your own lack of will or recollection--can stop you from praying the Litanies and the beautiful prayers!

Deo Gratias!

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary: from East to West

Today is the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Roman and Eastern Catholic Church, called the Feast of the Nativity of the
Theotokos (the God-bearer) in the East, including in the Orthodox Churches. In fact, this birthday feast originated in the East in the 6th century and did not come to the Western Church until sometime in the 7th century, not becoming more common in the 8th.

The date for her birth was chosen because it is at the beginning of the Liturgical Year in the East (the Liturgical Year in the West begins with the First Sunday of Advent).  In this case, "East" means both Eastern-Rite (or Byzantine) Catholic AND Orthodox.

Since her birth is celebrated on September 8, her Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8--nine months before her birth. In the Eastern-Rite Catholic Church the Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God is celebrated on December 8, and has been for centuries. As the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh explains:

Already at the beginning of the liturgical year, on September 8th, we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God, since Mary’s birth signalled “the beginning of our salvation” (cf. Stich era of Utia). In connection with Mary’s birth, since the eighth century, we celebrate the Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God, recently referred to as the Immaculate Conception (cf. Byzantine Leaflet Series, n. 36).

Saint Augustine of Hippo rejoiced on the Feast of the Nativity the Blessed Virgin Mary according to this blog:

On today’s feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Augustine writes in the old Divine Office: “Dearly beloved brethren, the day for which we have longed, the Feast-day of the Blessed and venerable and Ever-Virgin Mary, that day is come. Let our land laugh and sing with merriment, bathed in the glory of this great Virgin’s rising. She is the flower of the fields on which the priceless lily of the valleys hath blossomed. This is she whose delivery changed the nature that we draw from our first parents, and cleansed away their offense.” . . .

Father David Nix explains why Saint Augustine says that Mary's birth "changed the nature that we draw from our first parents":

The birthday of Mary is in some way the birthday of a new humanity since Jesus got His humanity from her and since we are adopted into his family through baptism. The waters of St. Anne breaking were in some since a prefigurement of the waters of our baptism, our new family. These graces of new life do not originate in Mary, but they flow through her, as Christ came through her once. When we are baptized, we are divinized by God Himself transforming us into tabernacles of the Blessed Trinity. But we also enter a new humanity that Jesus took from Mary, even though He—God— created her most perfect soul, celebrated on the Immaculate Conception (8th of December.) But 9 months later, we have the full flowering of this conception on her birthday, on the 8th of September, today.

Saint Andrew of Crete (8th century) offers a similar meditation here.

More about the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos from the Orthodox Church in America website here.

Image Source (Public Domain): 12-century German Nativity of Mary with her father, Joachim wearing a Jewish hat

At the End of a Month of Solemnities

Image Credit (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From the Peterskirche, Vienna, Austria

June 2014 was like this June: packed with Solemnities. Homiletic & Pastoral Review ran this article of mine a year later when it was almost true:

This June is a very solemn month. There are six solemnities on the liturgical calendar: Pentecost Sunday, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles. The first four are movable feasts, scheduled according to the date of Easter each year: Pentecost Sunday, 50 days after Easter, Trinity Sunday, a week after Pentecost Sunday; Corpus Christi, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (usually moved to the Sunday following, in the U.S.); and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Friday after Corpus Christi. The Birth of St. John the Baptist is a fixed feast: June 24th. In Quebec, his feast is celebrated with parades and festivities since he is the patron saint of that Canadian province. The Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul is on June 29 . . .

For those who celebrated Ascension Thursday on Ascension Sunday, there were actually seven! 

Because this year the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, being fixed on June 29 and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus--being a movable feast, based on the movable Solemnity of Corpus Christi, which is scheduled based on the date of Easter Sunday every year--is on June 28, we do not celebrate the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary this year. It would usually be on the Saturday after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.

This is one of those orderly and hierarchical elements of Catholicism: there are distinctions between how we celebrate certain days. If you attend daily Mass with any regularity on these days you see the difference. 

Solemnities are the highest level of celebration: at Mass, we'll sing or recite the Gloria and the Nicene Creed, and there are three readings--just like a Sunday Mass. We begin the celebration of Solemnities the evening before with Vespers in the Divine Office. The readings are specific to the Solemnity and the other Propers highlight the celebration. Solemnities are often Holy days of Obligation.

Feasts are the next highest level: at Mass we'll sing or recite the Gloria but not the Creed and there is no vigil. (Except for the Feast of the Presentation!) Some readings will be required during Mass; for example, when the Feast celebrates an Apostle, a reading from the New Testament that mentions the saint will be obligatory; there are just two readings (Epistle and Gospel): Except for the Feast of the Presentation! It's an exceptional feast! When February 2 occurs on a Sunday the Feast of the Presentations takes precedence. (Perhaps it should be called a Solemnity?)

Memorials and optional memorials of saints are the next level: usually the Collect and other prayers mention the saint, but the readings are part of the cycle in the Lectionary. An optional memorial is just that: it is optional whether or not it is celebrated. 

On some days, there is more than one memorial to choose from, like January 23: Saint Vincent, Deacon and Martyr or Saint Marianne Cope, Virgin; February 8: Saint Jerome Emiliani or Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin; May 25: Saint Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor of the Church or Saint Gregory VII, Pope or Saint Mary Magdalene de’Pazzi, Virgin, etc. The priest may decide whom to commemorate according to the devotion of the parish. 

As this website summarizes it:

For complete details on the order of precedence, please consult the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the New General Roman Calendar issued by Pope Paul VI in 1969. Nevertheless, the basic rule of thumb is this: Sundays, other Solemnities, Holy Week, and the Octave of Easter always take precedence. These are followed by Feasts, weekdays of Advent (December 17-24), days within the Octave of Christmas, weekdays of Lent, obligatory memorials, optional memorials, weekdays of Advent (through December 16), other weekdays of the Christmas Season, other weekdays of the Easter Season, and weekdays in Ordinary Time.

Notice also from that website that religious communities, dioceses and even countries can celebrate a saint's memorial as a feast:

Particular churches, countries, or religious communities may also celebrate the memorials of other saints of “special significance” in accord with their special devotions. For example, the memorial in honor of the patron saint of a diocese is raised to a “feast.”

In the USA, for example, June 22 is the Memorial of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More. In England, it's a Feast! 

Note on the Calendar for England and Wales, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul was moved to Sunday, June 30 so that the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is celebrated today on Saturday, June 29.

Those "weekdays" when there is no memorial or feast to celebrate are also called ferial days, as this website explains:

In the revised liturgical calendar, a weekday on which no special feast or vigil is celebrated in the Mass or the Liturgy of the Hours. On ferial days the Mass may be that of the preceding Sunday, or an optional memorial, or a votive Mass, or a Mass for the deceased. During Advent and Lent ferial days are in a privileged category, and the same freedom in the choice of Masses is not allowed. In general, the Mondays through Fridays of each week are called ferial days (feriae) and are counted, in sequence, from two to six. Sunday, or the Lord's Day (Dominica), is always the first day, and Saturday (Sabbatum) is the seventh day of the week.

Feria means "free day"! On a ferial day, a priest may choose to celebrate a Votive Mass, like celebrating the Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on a ferial Friday.

For each liturgical year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops publishes a calendar that contains notes about which feasts or memorials are celebrated and which aren't. For example:

7. Since the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated on June 28, 2019, the Memorial of Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr, is omitted this year. 

8. Since the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles, is celebrated on June 29, 2019, the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary is omitted this year. 

9. Since December 8, 2019, is the Second Sunday of Advent, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is transferred to Monday, December 9, 2019. The obligation to attend Mass, however, does not transfer. The Optional Memorial of Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, December 9, is omitted this year.

In spite of these variations, however, in her private devotions, any Catholic may observe a saint on his or her feast day. 

So: Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Good Friday on March 25

One thing I did not explain in my post for March 25 in the National Catholic Register blog roll was the tradition that the Annunciation of Our Lord and Good Friday occurred on the same date, March 25. A Clerk of Oxford explained the tradition last year:

This year Good Friday falls on Lady Day, the feast of the Annunciation. This is a rare occurrence and a special one, because it means that for once the day falls on its 'true' date: in patristic and medieval tradition, March 25 was considered to be the historical date of the Crucifixion. It happens only a handful of times in a century, and won't occur again until 2157.

These days the church deals with such occasions by transferring the feast of the Annunciation to another day, but traditionally the conjunction of the two dates was considered to be both deliberate and profoundly meaningful. The date of the feast of the Annunciation was chosen to match the supposed historical date of the Crucifixion, as deduced from the Gospels, in order to underline the idea that Christ came into the world on the same day that he left it: his life formed a perfect circle. March 25 was both the first and the last day of his earthly life, the beginning and the completion of his work on earth. The idea goes back at least to the third century, and Augustine explained it in this way:

He is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since.

This day was not only a conjunction of man-made calendars but also a meeting-place of solar, lunar, and natural cycles: both events were understood to have happened in the spring, when life returns to the earth, and at the vernal equinox, once the days begin to grow longer than the nights and light triumphs over the power of darkness. . . . 

As John Donne wrote when Good Friday did occur on March 25 in 1608, it brings the great theological mysteries of the Incarnation and the Passion together:

The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.

That's why the feast of St. Dismas is on March 25; his feast is on the date he entered into eternal life in Heaven, the traditional date of the Crucifixion. 

Image Credit: Saint John the Baptist, Annunciation, Crucifixion, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Francesc Comes, circa 1400, provenance unknown.

Lenten Posts: Saints and the Rosary

I haven't kept you up to date on my posts at the National Catholic Register (unless you've been clicking on the Other Publications tab and finding them yourself). Last Monday (March 6), they posted my reflection on the liturgical calendar, especially how the saints's feast days are effected during Lent:

Except for St. Joseph’s, all of the feasts of the saints during the 40 days of Lent are demoted to Commemorations—even St. Patrick’s (outside of Ireland, where it is a Holyday of Obligation). St. Joseph is so special that his feast is a Solemnity, and since March 19 is the Third Sunday of Lent in 2017, his feast has been moved to Monday, March 20. Otherwise, the penitential season of Lent takes precedence over the feasts of the saints. We often refer to a saint’s “feast” day even though the Church has a hierarchy to honor the saints, Our Lady, and especially Our Lord, in different ways. We might be tempted to think that it doesn’t matter, but the Church has reasons for these distinctions. . . .

Violet and White

The USCCB issues a liturgical calendar each year with notes about the adjustments made because of the date of Easter or just how dates fall on the Gregorian calendar vis-à-vis the Liturgical and Sanctoral calendars. When you look at the months of March and April this year until Palm Sunday, the liturgical color designated is Violet nearly every day, except for White on March 20 and March 25 (and the option of Rose on the Fourth Sunday of Lent). Looking at the calendar page in the March issue of Magnificat, you see the words Lenten Weekday predominating with the commemoration of the saints relegated to italics in the righthand column. During Mass for those Lenten Weekdays when there is a saint to be commemorated only the Collect for the saint will be used and the prayers and readings will be for the season.

Please read the rest there--and share if you like!

Just in time for the Second Sunday of Lent with the Transfiguration of Christ as the Gospel, the Register has published my post on praying the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary during Lent:

When Pope St. John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary in 2002, there’s no indication that he saw them as Lenten devotions. He proposed them in an Apostolic Letter on Oct. 10 that year “to bring out fully the Christological depth of the Rosary” by including “the mysteries of Christ's public ministry between his Baptism and his Passion”. In the almost 15 years since their introduction, the Luminous Mysteries have been included in most Rosary devotionals and meditation aids.

Some have resisted the option to use these mysteries for various reasons, some of which Pope John Paul anticipated in his letter: Mary, the Mother of God, is absent in all but one of the mysteries (the second); the addition of five more mysteries breaks the linkage between the 150 Aves and the 150 Psalms, and one of the mysteries is termed hard to meditate upon (the third). The five Luminous Mysteries are: 1) The Baptism of Jesus; 2) The Marriage Feast of Cana; 3) The Proclamation of the Kingdom; 4) The Transfiguration; 5) The Institution of the Eucharist. Pope St. John Paul II provided some guidance for meditation on each of these mysteries in his Apostolic Letter, noting that “we contemplate important aspects of the person of Christ as the definitive revelation of God” because “each of these mysteries is a revelation of the Kingdom now present in the very person of Jesus”.

A Luminous Lent

For Lent this year, I decided to alternate between the Luminous Mysteries and the Sorrowful Mysteries, starting on Ash Wednesday with the Sorrowful. Each of the Luminous Mysteries lends itself to a Lenten interpretation.

Please read the rest there--and Happy Transfiguration Sunday! The illustration is Carl Heinrich Bloch's (1834-1890), “The Transfiguration of Christ” from the Register post.