Tridentine Calendar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tridentine Calendar is the calendar of saints to be honoured in the official liturgy of the Roman Rite during the course of the liturgical year. It was established in 1570 by Pope Pius V, when he implemented a decision of the Council of Trent by promulgating his Roman Missal.[1] See Tridentine Mass.

A facsimile of this first edition of the Tridentine Missal was published in 1998.[2]

In the Tridentine Calendar, the rank of feasts is expressly indicated in the Tridentine Calendar only if they are ranked as Double or Semidouble. (For the meaning of these terms see the section "Division of Feasts" of the article Ecclesiastical Feasts in the Catholic Encyclopedia.) Absence of any indication means that a feast is of the rank of Simple. This tripartite ranking as Double, Semidouble, and Simple originated in the thirteenth century and, apart from deciding precedence in the case of two celebrations coinciding on the same day (as when a feast of the fixed calendar coincided with a Sunday, or a feast or an octave whose date depended on that of Easter), was of practical importance more for the Liturgy of the Hours than for the Mass.

Pope Clement VIII introduced the rank of Major Double when in 1604 he replaced the Missal of Pope Pius V with his own revision. This distinction and those of Double of the First Class and Double of the Second Class are absent in the Tridentine Calendar.

Editions of the Roman Missal later than that of Pope Pius V show many cases of raising or lowering of the rank of individual feasts of saints, as can be seen by comparing this calendar with the General Roman Calendar as in 1954.

The Missal of Pope Pius V has much fewer feasts than later editions of the Roman Missal, including the editions issued after the Second Vatican Council (see Roman Catholic calendar of saints).

Contents

[edit] January

[edit] February

In leap year, a day is added and it is of 29 days but the Feast of St. Matthias is celebrated on the 25th day and then is said twice Sexto Kalendas, that is on the 24th and 25th day, and thus the Dominical letter is changed to the one above, that if it be B, into A, if it be C, into B, similarly also in the others.

[edit] March

[edit] April

[edit] May

[edit] June

[edit] July

[edit] August

[edit] September

[edit] October

[edit] November

[edit] December

[edit] Further particulars

The Octaves (plural) mentioned for the last days of December are those of the Nativity, of St. Stephen, of St. John, and of the Holy Innocents.

Although not listed on the general Calendar, a commemoration of St Anastasia martyr is made at the second Mass on 25 December (pages 22-23 of the Ordinarium Missarum de tempore section of the Missal), and commemorations are made of St John and the Holy Innocents on 2 January; the Octave of St Stephen, and of the Holy Innocents on 3 January; the Octave of St John (page 40 of the same section of the Missal). In addition, on every feast of St Peter there is a commemoration of St Paul and on every feast of St Paul a commemoration of St Peter (page 10 of the Proprium Missarum de Sanctis section of the Missal).

[edit] Comparison with other Roman calendars

Pius V removed from the pre-existing Roman calendar many mediaeval saints, keeping only about half a dozen who had been canonized after the eleventh century. His calendar did not include Saints Joachim, Anne, Patrick, Anthony of Padua, Nicholas of Tolentino, Francis of Paola, Bernardino of Siena or Elizabeth of Hungary, nor any anatomical feasts, such as that of the Stigmata of Saint Francis of Assisi, or the Precious Blood or the Five Wounds of Christ, which are found in earlier or later calendars. He removed the word "Immaculate" from the title of the 8 December feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, abolished the previously existing special Mass for that day, whose Introit and Collect would be restored by Pope Pius IX, and directed that the Mass of the Nativity of Mary should be used instead, replacing the word "Nativity" with "Conception". He raised to the rank of double the feasts of the four Eastern Saints Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus, and, while he did not give them the title of Doctor of the Church, he assigned to them the common used for the four Western Doctors, Pope Gregory I, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome and Ambrose. On the other hand, he lowered the ranks of many saints' feasts, in order to allow celebration of Sundays and the ferias of Lent and Advent, which were outranked by most saints' feasts until the reform of Pope Pius X.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Apostolic Constitution Quo primum
  2. ^ Missale Romanum. Editio Princeps (1570). Libreria Editrice Vatican, 1998, ISBN 88-209-2547-8.
  3. ^ Paul Cavendish, The Tridentine Mass

[edit] See also

v • d • e
Calendars of Saints and Commemorations
Anglican Communion
Roman Catholic
Eastern Orthodox
Oriental Orthodox
Protestant churches
Languages