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(LatinFestum; Greekheorte).
Feast Days, or Holy Days, are days which are celebrated in commemoration of the sacred mysteries and events recorded in the history of ourredemption, in memory of theVirgin Mother of Christ, or of His apostles,martyrs, andsaints, by special services and rest from work. A feast not only commemorates an event orperson, but also serves to excite the spiritual life by reminding us of the event it commemorates. At certain hoursJesus Christ invites us to His vineyard (Matthew 20:1-15); He is born in our hearts atChristmas; onGood Friday we nail ourselves to the cross with Him; atEaster we rise from thetomb ofsin; and at Pentecost we receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Every religion has its feasts, but none has such a rich and judiciously constructed system of festive seasons as theCatholicChurch. The succession of these seasons form theecclesiastical year, in which the feasts ofOur Lord form the ground and framework, the feasts of theBlessed Virgin and the Saints the ornamental tracery.
Prototypes and starting-points for the oldestecclesiastical feasts are the Jewish solemnities ofEaster and Pentecost. Together with the weekly Lord's Day, they remained the only universal Christian feasts down to the third century (Tertullian, "De Bapt." 19:Origen,Against Celsus VIII.22). Two feasts ofOur Lord (Epiphany,Christmas) were added in the fourth century; then came the feasts of the Apostles andmartyrs, in particular provinces; later on also those of some confessors (St. Martin,St. Gregory); in the sixth and seventh centuries feasts of the Blessed Virgin were added. After the triumph ofChristianity, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the sessions of the civil courts were prohibited on all feasts, also the games in the circus and theatrical performances, in order to give an opportunity to all to hear Mass. In the course of centuries theecclesiastical calendar expanded considerably, because in earlier ages everybishop had aright to establish new feasts. Later on a reduction of feasts took place, partly by regularecclesiastical legislation, partly in consequence of revolutions in State and church. The Statutes of Bishop Sonnatius ofReims (seeCALENDAR), in 620, mention eleven feasts; the Statutes of St. Boniface ("Statuta", Mansi XII, 383), nineteen days,"in quibus sabbatizandum", i.e. days of rest. InEngland (ninth century) the feasts were confined toChristmas, Epiphany, three days ofEaster, Assumption, Sts. Peter and Paul,St. Gregory, and All Saints. Before the reign of King Edgar (959-75), three festivals of the B.V. Mary, and the days kept inhonour of the Apostles were added; in the tenth year of Ethelred (989), the feast ofSt. Edward the Martyr (18 March), and in the reign of Canute, or Cnut (1017-35), that ofSt. Dunstan (19 May), were added. The feasts in the Statutes ofLanfranc (d. 1089) are quite numerous, and are divided into three classes (Migne, P.L., CL, 472-78)
TheDecree of Gratian (about 1150) mentions forty-one feasts besides thediocesan patronal celebrations; theDecretals of Gregory IX (about 1233) mention forty-five public feasts and Holy Days, which means eighty-five days when no work could be done and ninety-five days when no court sessions could be held. In many provinces eight days afterEaster, in some also the week after Pentecost (or at least four days), had thesabbath rest. From the thirteenth to the eighteenth century there weredioceses in which the Holy Days andSundays amounted to over one hundred, not counting the feasts of particularmonasteries and churches. In the Byzantine empire there were sixty-six entire Holy Days (Constitution of Manuel Comnenus, in 1166), exclusive ofSundays, and twenty-seven half Holy Days. In the fifteenth century,Gerson,Nicolas de Clémanges and others protested against the multiplication of feasts, as an oppression of thepoor, and proximate occasions of excesses. The long needed reduction of feast days was made byUrban VIII (Universa per orbem, 13 Sept., 1642). There remained thirty-six feasts or eighty-five days free from labour.Pope Urban limited the right of thebishops to establish new Holy Days; this right is now not abrogated, but antiquated. A reduction forSpain byBenedict XIII (1727) retained only seventeen feasts; and on the nineteen abrogated Holy Days only the hearing of Mass wasobligatory. This reduction was extended (1748) toSicily. ForAustria (1745) the number had been reduced to fifteen full Holy Days; but since the hearing of Mass on the abrogated feasts, or half Holy Days, the fast on the vigils of the Apostles were poorly observed,Clement XIV ordered that sixteen full feasts should be observed; he did away with the half Holy Days, which however continued to be observed in the rural districts (peasant Holy Days,Bauernfeiertage). Theparishpriests have to sayMass for the people on all the abrogated feasts. The same reduction was introduced intoBavaria in 1775, and intoSpain in 1791; finallyPius VI extended this provision to other countries and provinces.
By theFrench revolution theecclesiastical calendar had been radically abolished, and at the reorganization of the French Church, in 1806, only four feasts were retained:Christmas, theAscension, the Assumption, and All Saints; the other feasts were transferred to Sunday. This reduction was valid also inBelgium and inGermany on the left bank of the Rhine. For theCatholics inEnglandPius VI (19 March, 1777) established the following lists of feasts:Easter and Pentecost two days each,Christmas, New Year's Day, Epiphany,Ascension,Corpus Christi, Annunciation, Assumption, Sts. Peter and Paul,St. George, and All Saints. After therestoration of the hierarchy (1850), the Annunciation, St. George, and the Monday afterEaster and Pentecost were abolished.Scotland keeps also the feast of St. Andrew,Ireland the feasts ofSt. Patrick and the Annunciation. In theUnited States, the number of feasts was not everywhere the same; the Council ofBaltimore wanted only four feasts, but thedecree was not approved byRome; the thirdPlenary Council of Baltimore (1884), by a general law, retained six feasts:Christmas, New Year's Day,Ascension, Assumption, the Immaculate Conception, and All Saints. Sts. Peter and Paul andCorpus Christi were transferred to the next following Sunday. In the city ofRome the following feasts are of double precept (i.e. hearingMass, and rest from work):Christmas, New Year's Day, Epiphany, Purification,St. Joseph, Annunciation,Ascension,St. Philip Neri (26 May),Corpus Christi, Nativity of the B.V.M., All Saints, Conception of the B.V.M.,St. John the Evangelist. Thecivil law inItaly acknowledges: Epiphany,Ascension, Sts. Peter and Paul, Assumption, Nativity, Conception,Christmas, and the patronal feasts.
TheGreek Church at present observes the following Holy Days: Nativity of Mary, Exaltation of the Cross (14 Sept.),St. Demetrius (26 Oct.),St. Michael (8 Nov.), Entrance of Mary into the Temple (21 Nov.),St. Nicholas (6 Dec.), Conception of St. Anne (9 Dec.), Nativity ofChrist, Commemoration of Mary (26 Dec.), St. Stephen (27 Dec.), Circumcision (1 Jan.), Epiphany, the DoctorsSt. Basil,St. Gregory,St. John Chrysostom (30 Jan.), the Meeting of Christ and Simeon (2 Febr.), Annunciation, St. George (23 Apr.), Nativity of St. John, Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Elias (20 July), Transfiguration (6 Aug.), Assumption, Beheading of St. John (29 Aug.), the Monday afterEaster and Pentecost,Ascension of Christ, and the patronal feasts. TheRussians have only nineecclesiastical Holy Days which do not fall on a Sunday, viz.: Nativity, Epiphany,Ascension, Transfiguration, Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, Presentation of Mary (21 Nov.), and the Exaltation of the Cross. But they have fifty festivals (birthdays, etc.) of the imperialfamily, on which days not even a funeral can be held.
Feasts are divided:
Some of thereligious orders which have their own breviary, did not adopt the terms now used in theRoman Breviary. For example, theCistercians have the following terminology: "Festum sermonis majus, sermonis minus, duarum missarum majus, 2 miss. minus, 12 lectionum, 3 lect., commemoratio." TheDominicans: "Totum duplex, duplex, simplex, 3 lect., memoria." TheCarmelites: "Duplex majus I. classis solemnis, dupl, maj. I. cl. duplex majus 2. classis, duplex minus I, classis, duplex minus 2, classis, semiduplex, simplex, simplicissimum."
Among the feasts of the same rite there is a difference in dignity. There are
DUCHESNE, Origines du Culte Chrétien (Paris, 1889); tr. McCLURE (London, 1904); KELLNER, Heortology (tr. London, 1909), PROBST, Liturgie des vierten Jahrh. (Münster, 1893); BÄUMER, Geschichte des Breviers (Freiburg, 1895); BENTRIUM, Denkwürdigen (Mainz, 1829); LINGARD, Antiquities of the Anglo Saxon Church (London, 1858); MAXIMILIAN, PRINCE OF SAXONY, Praelect. de Liturgiis Orientalibus (Freiburg, 1908); Kirchliches Handlexicom (Münster 1907); Kirchenlexicon(Freiburg, 1886), IV; NILLES, Kalendarium, manuele, etc. (Innsbruck, 1897); MORISOT, Instructions sur les fêtes de l'année (Paris, 1908).
APA citation.Holweck, F.(1909).Ecclesiastical Feasts. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06021b.htm
MLA citation.Holweck, Frederick."Ecclesiastical Feasts."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 6.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1909.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06021b.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Vicky Gordon.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor.Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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