''Mysterii Paschalis'' is an apostolic letter issued '' motu proprio'' (that is, "of his own accord") by

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...

on 14 February 1969. It reorganized the

liturgical year The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be obse ...

of the

Roman Rite The Roman Rite () is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs Rite (Christianity) ...

and revised the liturgical celebrations of

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

and the

saints In Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Anglican, Oriental Orth ...

in the

General Roman Calendar The General Roman Calendar (GRC) is the liturgy, liturgical calendar that indicates the dates of celebrations of saints and Sacred mysteries, mysteries of the Lord (Jesus Christ) in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, wherever this liturgic ...

. It promulgated the General Roman Calendar of 1969.

Content of the apostolic letter

By this document, Pope Paul VI implemented the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

's norms for restoring the

and "approve by Our apostolic authority ��the new Roman Universal Calendar ��and likewise the general norms concerning the arrangement of the liturgical year". The new norms became effective on 1 January 1970.

Liturgical year

The principles indicated in the document ''Universal Norms for the Liturgical Year'' were declared applicable both to the Roman Rite and to all other liturgical rites, while the practical norms were to be understood as intended for the Roman Rite alone except in so far as by their very nature they concerned other rites as well. A liturgical day is defined as running from midnight to midnight except for Sundays and solemnities, which begin on the previous evening. Sunday, as the day of the resurrection of Christ, is the primordial feast day and does not admit other celebrations of rank below that of a

solemnity In the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite, a solemnity is a feast day of the highest rank celebrating a mystery of faith such as the Trinity, an event in the life of Jesus, his mother Mary, his legal father Joseph, or another important ...

or a feast of the Lord. In Advent, Lent and Easter, Sundays outrank even solemnities. With a very few exceptions, other celebrations are as a rule not to be assigned so that they always fall on a Sunday. The exceptions are the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the Baptism of the Lord,

Trinity Sunday Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christianity, Western Christian liturgical year, liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity. Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the ...

, the Feast of Christ the King, and, where any of these is not a

holy day of obligation In the Catholic Church, holy days of obligation or precepts are days on which Christians, Catholic Christians are expected to attend Mass (Catholic Church), Mass, and engage in rest from work and recreation (i.e., they are to refrain from engagin ...

, Epiphany, Ascension of the Lord, and the Body and Blood of Christ. A new

ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite The ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite is a regulation for the liturgy of the Catholic Church. It determines for each liturgical day which observance has priority when liturgical dates and times coincide (or "occur"), which texts are use ...

was established with regard to celebrations of saints. In accordance with the relative importance of the celebrations, they are ranked as solemnities, feasts, or

memorials A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, Tragedy (event), tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objec ...

. The solemnities of the Nativity of the Lord and

Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...

each have an

octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

, and memorials can be either obligatory or optional. Saints of worldwide significance are to be celebrated everywhere, while others are to listed in the General Calendar as optional or are to be left to local or national calendars or those of

religious institute In the Catholic Church, a religious institute is "a society in which members, according to proper law, pronounce public religious vows, vows, either perpetual or temporary which are to be renewed, however, when the period of time has elapsed, a ...

s. Weekdays of special importance are

Ash Wednesday Ash Wednesday is a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and marks the first day of Lent: the seven weeks of Christian prayer, prayer, Religious fasting#Christianity, fasting and ...

and the days of

Holy Week Holy Week () commemorates the seven days leading up to Easter. It begins with the commemoration of Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, marks the betrayal of Jesus on Spy Wednesday (Holy Wednes ...

, which outrank all other celebrations, and also the Advent weekdays from 17 to 24 December, and all the weekdays of Lent.

Overview of changes to the Proper of Saints

The Second Vatican Council decreed: "Lest the feasts of the saints should take precedence over the feasts which commemorate the very mysteries of salvation, many of them should be left to be celebrated by a particular Church or nation or family of religious; only those should be extended to the universal Church which commemorate saints who are truly of universal importance." Of devotional feasts, not celebrating an event in the mystery of salvation, Pope Pius V retained only two in the Tridentine calendar ( Corpus Christi and Feast of the Holy Trinity), but the following centuries saw the addition of feasts of the Holy Name of Mary (1683), Our Lady of Ransom (1696),

Our Lady of the Rosary Our Lady of the Rosary (), also known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, is a Titles of Mary, Marian title. The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, formerly known as Feast of Our Lady of Victory and Feast of the Holy Rosary is celebrated on 7 October ...

(1716), Holy Name of Jesus (1721), Our Lady of Mount Carmel (1726), Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1727),

Seven Sorrows of Mary Our Lady of Sorrows (), Our Lady of Dolours, the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows (), and Our Lady of Piety, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names by which Mary, mother of Jesus, is referred to in relati ...

(1814), Precious Blood of Christ (1849),

Sacred Heart of Jesus The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus () is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus Christ is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This devotion to Christ is p ...

(1856),

Our Lady of Lourdes Our Lady of Lourdes (; ) is one the Marian devotions, devotional names or titles under which the Catholic Church venerates the Mary, mother of Jesus, Virgin Mary. The name commemorates a series of Lourdes apparitions, 18 apparitions reported by ...

(1907), Holy Family (1921), Christ the King (1925), Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1931), Immaculate Heart of Mary (1942), Queenship of Mary (1954), and

Saint Joseph the Worker According to the Gospel, canonical Gospels, Joseph (; ) was a 1st-century Jews, Jewish man of Nazareth who was Espousals of the Blessed Virgin Mary, married to Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus ...

(1955). The devotional feasts of the Lord that have been kept with high ranking are

, Body and Blood of Christ, Christ the King, the Holy Family, and the

. The Holy Name of Jesus was at first removed but later restored as an optional memorial. The devotional feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary that have been kept are those of her Motherhood of God (a solemnity), her Queenship, Sorrow,

Rosary The Rosary (; , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), formally known as the Psalter of Jesus and Mary (Latin: Psalterium Jesu et Mariae), also known as the Dominican Rosary (as distinct from other forms of rosary such as the ...

, and

Presentation A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Presenta ...

(obligatory memorials), and as optional memorials

, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and the Dedication of the Basilica of St Mary Major. Reduction of the number of devotional feasts of Our Lady results in raising of profile of the feasts of the Lord closely associated with the Mother of Jesus (the

Annunciation The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...

and the Presentation of the Lord) and of the major feasts of mysteries of her life (

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Mariology, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Debated by medieval theologians, it was not def ...

, Nativity, Visitation, and Assumption). Progress in historical and hagiographical studies led to distinguishing three classes of saints included in the 1960 calendar that it seemed better not to keep in the revision. One class is that of the saints about whom there are serious historical problems. It cannot be affirmed that they did not exist, but the lack of clear grounds for venerating them led to their exclusion from the 1969 calendar with the single exception of

Saint Cecilia Saint Cecilia (), also spelled Cecelia, was a Roman Christian virgin martyr, who is venerated in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox, Anglican Communion, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches, such as the Church of Sweden. She became the ...

(22 November) by reason of popular devotion to her. Another class is that of those ancient Roman martyrs about whom there is clear historical evidence but of whom little, if anything, is known other than their names, with the result that they have little meaning for the faithful of today. A third class is that of the founders of the ancient Roman churches known as ''tituli'' and about whom there exists a specific genre of legends. For lack of evidence that they were martyrs or confessors, as pictured in the legends, they were excluded from the revision, again with the single exception of Saint Cecilia. While the many Roman martyrs and popes that remained (the popes reduced from 38 to 15) ensured that the tradition of a ''Roman'' calendar was preserved, the revised calendar also endeavored to maintain a certain geographical and chronological balance, by selecting from the martyrs inscribed in the 1960 calendar, the more famous ancient saints and those best known at a popular level in Rome and elsewhere, and adding some medieval and modern martyrs from different countries. A similar selection was made among non-martyr saints, with the result that 30 were removed to particular calendars. For the sake of geographical balance, most of these were Italians.

Reception

The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' questioned the removal of popular feast days such as Saint Valentine's Day or the feast of Saint Bernard.

References

External links