Solemnities and Feasts and Memorials, Oh My!

August 24 is a special day for the universal church.  But it is also special, in a particular way, for me.

Of course, August 24 marks the Feast of Saint Bartholomew, one of  Christ’s 12 apostles.  But many regard the names Nathanael or Nathaniel as the same as Bartholomew.  And Nathaniel is my name.  (For those who wish to argue the point, my confirmation saint is Bartholomew, so I will celebrate his feast day regardless!).

In Italy, this ‘phenomenon’ is known as a person’s onomastic feast. The word onomastic is common in Italian and other Romance languages.   In English the word is infrequently used.  It derives from the Greek onoma, meaning name.  Hence an onomastic feast is sometimes called a person’s name-day.

Oftentimes parents pick a child’s name before the child is born.  But it remains common in some cultures to name children in accord with the saint’s feast day on which they were born.   I strongly suspect that this is why I once knew an altar server by the name of Thaumaturgus (Turge, for short), named after Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus!

Bartholomew, the Patron

In any event, the feast is a fitting occasion for celebration by all those for whom Bartholomew is the patron. And he was some saint!

Tradition says Bartholomew suffered a horrible death.  He was skinned alive.  That’s not a pleasant way to die.  And, in a twist of fate that some might consider morbid, he is now the patron saint of tanners, butchers, leatherworkers, and bookkeepers.

In Florence, Italy, however, he is also the patron of cheesemakers. The reason for the cheese connection is that the knives used by the cheese merchants resemble the one used to flay Bartholomew.  Hence cheese merchants adopted the saint as their patron.

This year’s feast: between solemnities, feasts, and memorials

Alas, this year’s celebration was noticeably reduced because August 24 fell on a Sunday.

My mom asked me why wasn’t the feast moved to Monday, or the Friday before. This is an excellent question, mom!  The answer requires taking a look at the various sorts of celebrations that take place within the Church.

In the broad terms, we have three sorts of celebrations in the Church: there are solemnities, feasts, and memorials.

A solemnity is the highest sort of celebration there is.  When there is a solemnity, the Mass will include both the Gloria and the Creed, as well as two readings in addition to the psalm and Gospel.

A feast is the next rank of celebration.  During Masses on a feast day, the congregation says the Gloria but not the Creed.

Lastly, we have memorials.  Most saints are celebrated with memorials, and Memorials fall into one of two categories.  First there are obligatory memorials (with a capital M).  Celebrating these memorials is mandatory.  Optional memorials (with a lower case m) are optional celebrations.

Celebrations and their complications

However, the situation becomes more complicated when we consider that there are universal solemnities, feasts, and memorials, celebrated by the Church at large.  And there are also special ones for a parish, a diocese, a country, and even for religious orders. The “Roman Missal,” the book used during Mass to guide the celebration, includes in the introductory sections a “table of liturgical days according to their order of precedence.”

The Pascal Triduum, followed by Christmas, the Epiphany, the Ascension, and Pentecost, Sundays of Advent, Lent, and Easter, Ash Wednesday, weekdays of Holy Week from Monday through Holy Thursday, and days within the Octave of Easter are the highest priority solemnities.  Clearly, these days will never overlap with each other.

After these solemnities come solemnities in the general calendar.  The Church at large also celebrates all of these solemnities.   So, too, is the commemoration of All the Faithful Departed celebrated by the entire Church.  But next there are proper solemnities, meaning, those particular or proper to a place or community.

The Missal lists, in order, solemnities “of the principal Patron of the place, city, or state, the dedication and anniversary of the dedication of one’s own church, the title of one’s own church, and the solemnity of the Title, Founder, or principal Patron of an Order or Congregation.” After this, the Missal includes the rankings of various feasts, memorials, and the rest.

Rules, rules, and more rules!

So, what happens if a saint’s feast day, such as Bartholomew’s, falls on a Sunday in Ordinary Time?  Saint Bartholomew still gets his feast day, but, as the table notes, Sundays in Ordinary Time take precedence over a feast.  (This is not the case with Solemnities.)

We saw, this earlier in the summer, on June 29^th, that the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul took precedence over the Sunday in Ordinary Time.  As the Missal states, “Solemnities inscribed in the General Calendar” take precedence over Sundays in Ordinary Time. Hence, on Sunday, June 29^th, we, as the Catholic Church throughout the world, celebrated Saints Peter and Paul instead of the 13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

So how does my dear patron Bartholomew get his feast day?  Here is where the rules become complicated.

As already noted, solemnities have priority over the feasts. If there were some reason why Bartholomew’s celebration was a solemnity, and not merely a feast, his celebration would have precedence over Sunday. Such would be the case if Bartholomew were “the principal Patron of the place, city, or state, the title of one’s own church, or the principal Patron of an Order or Congregation.” In these instances good old Saint Bart would have precedence over Sunday.

For example, Saint Bartholomew is the patron saint of the city of Baku, Azerbaijan and the town of Gambatesa, Italy.  Catholic churches in these places would have celebrated Bartholomew’s Solemnity instead of the Sunday in Ordinary Time.  Likewise, in theory at least, the countries of Armenia or Azerbaijan could celebrate Bartholomew on Sunday because he is the patron saint of these countries.

Parishes named after him could also celebrate him.  If we were at a church named “Saint Bartholomew” (such as parishes in Cleveland, Ohio, or in Newaygo, Michigan, or in Bethesda, Maryland), Bartholomew would have priority.  Similarly, Bartholomew’s feast is a solemnity if one were attending a Mass celebrated by a religious order that took him as their patron (say, the Bartholomewites).  In this instance, too, he would have priority over the Sunday in ordinary time.

Huh? Why?

But there are even more complications!  For instance, what happens when the feast of Saint Joseph falls during Holy Week?  It gets moved to another day.  The same is true if the Solemnity of the Annunciation falls during Holy Week.  The Annunciation is then celebrated on the first Monday of the Second Week of Easter.   (Remember: a solemnity does not have priority over Holy Week or over the Easter octave.)

And so the question arises: why? Why all these complicated rules?

An old saying in the Church is Lex orandi, lex credenda.   And sometimes the saying is Lex orandi, lex credenda, lex vivendi.  Literally it means law of praying, law of believing, law of living.  It means the way we pray is the way we believe which is the way we live.

The Church cares about prayer, and particularly the prayer of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.  This is because these things show what we believe and affect how we live. In giving all these rules, the Church reminds us that there are certain essential aspects to our faith, like the importance of certain solemnities and feasts.

Celebrating solemnities, feasts, and memorials reminds us that we live within the universal Church and pray and live according to her life. But the Church also allows for local traditions and expressions of faith. The Church does not quash these but rather places them within the larger context of our faith community.

Such an example of prayer shows what we believe.  It also and reminds us that in our lives, we must not forget that we are part of a greater community.  This greater community is the Church at large.  But we belong to it through our local church.