FEAST DAYS TIDIED UP
WHILE approving the principle that local dioceses and religious orders should have their own liturgical calendar, an Instruction issued by the Holy See at the weekend warns the authorities responsible for drawing them up that they must not give local feasts preference over the temporal cycle or the universal feasts of the Church.
Special calendars must con
form to the Church's renewer be taken from the collection of emphasis on the cycle which Common Lessons, or from suitable focuses attention on Sundays texts of sermons of the Fathers of and the feasts and seasons celethe Church.
brating the major mysteries of The feast of St. Philomena is the Christian religion, completely eliminated. It seems The Instruction has been issued from the office of the Sacred Congregation of Rites as a complement to its decree of last July simplifying the Missal and Breviary and eliminating a number of feast days of saints.
Local
The Instruction lists a number of devotional feasts which can now be observed only in those places which have a special relation to them. They include: Our Lady of Loreto. the Anticipation of Our Lady's Delivery, the Marriage of Our Lady, the Flight into Egypt, the feast of the Lord's Prayer. the feast of the Crown of Thorns, the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, the Humility of Mary, and the Purity of Mary.
Insisting on historical accuracy. the Instruction states that Breviary Lessons for all feasts must not normally exceed 120 words and that, in the absence of adequate historical information, they should
that historical evidence for her existence is too dubious. The identity of the person whose remains were discovered in the Roman catacombs in 1802 is very much in doubt now.
it is also important, states the Instruction, "to remove from diocesan calendars, rich with many saints and beau. the feasts of those martyrs and bishops of ancient times about whom there is little or no historical knowledge outside of their names."
The Instruction suggests the establishment of "a single feast of all the martyrs and bishops of a diocese." Another suggestion is the drawing up of special calendars by mutual agreement for provinces, regions, or even whole nations— and not merely dioceses.