Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Revision of the Modern Dominican Calendar

I believe most friars have already received a direct mailing of the new Calendarium Ordinis Praedicatorum, approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship on 14 April 2019 and promulgated by the master of the Order Bruno Cadore on 24 June 2019. I have made this these documents available for download here for nuns, sisters, Dominican laity, and any others who wish to celebrate Dominican saints with the new Roman Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours.  Note that those wishing to celebrate those feasts reduced to optional memorials may still do so--they are optional.

The format of this document makes it difficult to identify the changes promulgated.  So I will summarize them.  The list of Dominican feasts is not much changed but there are a good number of changes by which previous obligatory memorials have become optional, and there are some changes in the dates of celebration.  Here is a summary:

Change from obligatory to optional memorial:

4 January:         St. Zdislava Berkiana  (28 November in the U.S.)
18 January:       St. Margaret of Hungary
4 February:       St. Catherine de’ Ricci
10 May:            St. Antoninus of Florence
19 May:            St. Francis Coll Guitart
9 July:              St. John of Cologne and Companions
18 September:  St. Juan Macías
28 September:  Sts. Dominic Ibáñez de Erquicia, James Kyushei Tomanaga, Laurence Ruiz,
                                 and Companions
9 October:        St. Louis Bertrand (obligatory memorial in Western Province as secondary patron)

 Change from obligatory to optional memorial with new date:

15 January:      Sts. Francis de Capillas, Peter Sans, and Companions--move to 9 July
6 November:    Bls. Alphonsus Navarrete and Companions--move to 28 September

New optional memorials:

4 July:              Bl. Pier Giorgio Fassati
6 November:    Bls. Bonaventure Garcia Paredes, Hyacinth Serrano Lopez and Companions

Remove from the Dominican General Calendar:

23 January:      Bl. Henry Suso
12 February:    Bl. Reginald of Orleans
28 April:          St. Louis de Montfort (still an optional memorial on the Roman Calendar)
21 May:           Bl. Hyacinth-Marie Cormier
10 June:           Bl. John Domnici
17 July:            Bl. Ceslaus of Poland

The Order also published a revision of the list of Dominican saints and blesseds that are optional memorials, but only in the provinces where they lived. The four blesseds rmoved from the general calendar just listed are now approved for local use as below. Note that none of these optional local blesseds (of which there are many others) are celebrated in the United States. Three of these additonis include saints, not blesseds.  Here are those changes:

Add to local calendars:

23 January:      Bl. Henry Suso (Germany; Austria=Bavaria)
12 February:    Bl. Reginald of Orleans (France)
1 April:            Bl. Joseph Girotti (Italy--St. Dominic; Austria-Bavaria)
8 May:             Bl. Peter Claverie and Companions (France)
16 May:           Bl. Valdimir Ghika (Vicariate of Eastern Europe)
21 May:           Bl. Hyacinth-Marie Cormier (Italy--Roman)
10 June:           Bl. John Domnici (Italy--Roman)
17 July:            Bl. Ceslaus of Poland (Poland)
18 July:            St. Bartholomew of the Martyrs (Portugal)
13 August:       St. Alexander Longo and Companions (Italy--St. Thomas Aquinas)
7 September:   Bl. John-Joseph Lataste (France)
9 December:    St. Narcisa of Jesus Martillo y Morán (Peru)

A good number of local blesseds have been combined or moved, but I leave it to readers to check for this on the downloadable new calendar.


 Note that these changes become effective on the First Sunday of Advent, 2019 and that for those celebrating the Dominican Mass and Office of 1962 under the provisions of Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae the only changes implied by this would be for those who want also to celebrate Dominicans canonized or beatified after 1962. When I publish the Dominican Rite Calendar for 2020, I will include these changes.

5 comments:

Martin Wallace OP said...

Dear Fr Augustine,

Thanks for this. It may be worth pointing out that the saints on the "local" list may still be celebrated (by way of a votive Mass and/or office) on the days given in this list, either at the behest of the celebrant or, in the case of the conventual liturgy, by decision of the house chapter - provided, of course, the day is "free" according to the usual rules.

Faith said...

And I'd like to point out that Father Lataste has already been bumped, once. He was originally given the date of his death, March 5. However, that date is celebrated by St. Vincent Ferrer. So Lataste was given his birthday, Sept. 5th.
I think a mistake was made. The anniversary of benefactors can be any time, but Fr. Lataste has already been moved to Sept. 5.
What's up?

Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P. said...

Sorry about the delay in responding.

The definitive calendar is the one sent out from Santa Sabina that can be downloaded from the link on the post. It shows Bl. Joseph Lataste as on September 7, so that is now his official day. I am not sure about his original date of celebration. But he died on March 10, not March 5. And St. Vincent Ferrer has been on May 5 since before the beatification of Bl. John-Joseph. The old date for St. Vincent Ferrer was on April 5. The reason for that move was that we was too often not celebrated because of Holy Week or Easter Octave at that time.

I have no "inside" information, but I assume that he was moved so as not to conflict with the Anniversary of Familiars and Benefactors. I suspect that this was done since Bl. Joseph is probably the furthest along toward canonization of any of our blesseds (personal communication from Padre Gianni Festa, the postulator general). So he may well end up on the general calendar and would have to be on a day that did not create a conflict.

For what it is worth, a good number of the local blesseds (I did not list all of them) were also moved around. Sometimes this was to avoid new conflicts. If there is any other logic, it seems to be to reduce the number of individual celebrations of martyrs, e.g. note the new dates for the Asian Martyrs and the combination of three previously separate local blesseds' celebrations on Feb. 3.

Finally, thanks to Fr. Martin for noting (as I did earlier) that optional memorials (on the general or local calendars) can, like any saint / blessed in the Martyrologium Romanum, be celebrated it the local community decides that there is a pastoral need to do so.

Fr. Pius, OP said...

Wasn't St. Albert also downgraded from a feast to an obligatory memorial?

Anonymous said...

Yes, unfortunately St Albert was downgraded. Presumably, one can apply the same rule that exists for some other memorials, and use the special antiphons at Lauds and Vespers with the ferial psalms. Eventually there needs to be a new edition of the Proprium, which will presumably incorporate such details. - Martin OP