So why is St Joseph of Cupertino not in the General Calendar any more? Here is the text from the commentary on the Calendarium Romanum Generale of 1969 which was drawn up by the Council for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy:Memoria S. Iosephi de Cupertino (d. Auximi, anno 1693), anno 1769 in Calendario romano ascripta, Calendariis particularibus relinquitur, quia non agitur de Sancto "momentum universale revera prae se ferente".The last quotation is from Sacrosanctum Concilium n.111. The context is given by a fuller quotation:
The memoria of St Joseph of Cupertino (d. at Osimo 1693), added to the roman Calendar in 1769, is left to particular Calendars because it is not a matter of a Saint "of truly universal importance".
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.Sacrosanctum Concilium is concerned that feasts of saints should not blot out feasts commemorating the mysteries of salvation; but in the General calendar, today is now a feria for which the orations are taken from the Sunday "of the year" which would have been celebrated had the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross not occurred. It seems that some other consideration was at work. It cannot be to preserve the celebration of the "mystery of salvation" through the readings of the new Lectionary since those are normally used anyway on a simple memorial of a saint.
One principle given in the Commentary on the Renewed Liturgical Year is that they wished to achieve a certain chronological and geographical equilibrium, including saints from every century and every continent and not allowing saints from Italy and France to be too numerous. (None of which has the slightest mandate from the Fathers of Vatican II.) Presumably that principle was combined with the judgement that St Joseph of Cupertino is not a saint of truly universal importance in the decision to drop him from the calendar.
Devotees of particular saints will argue until the cows come home about their saint being of universal significance, of course, and someone has to make a judgement. Nevertheless, in the heady days of the late 1960s, I wonder whether another factor was a distaste for the extraordinary manifestations of grace in the life of the flying Franciscan.
13 comments:
but in the General calendar, today is now a feria for which the orations are taken from the Sunday "of the year" which would have been celebrated had the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross not occurred.
Not necessarily. On a feria, one is free to pick the prayers from any of the Sundays of the year... not just the one preceding it.
GIRM 363: On the weekdays in Ordinary Time, however, besides the orations from the previous Sunday, orations from another Sunday in Ordinary Time may be used, or one of the prayers for various needs provided in the Missal. It is always permissible, however, to use the collect alone from these Masses.
I find this useful whenever the translations used for the previous Sunday are particularly lame.
Fascinating, Father; thank you!
Many thanks, Zadok. that thing about using any of the Sundays was something I forgot that I once knew :-)
I do often use the Masses for various needs when it is a ferial day.
one little correction St. Joseph is a Conventual, not a Capuchin.
"Forgot I once knew"!
I like it Father!
I'm not very clued up on the erm... 'new' calendar (can't think of the right word), but can you basically chuck in a votive Mass on every day that's a "feria"?
Don't forget the feast had already been much shaved down (like so many others) prior to the Council.
From being a feast of nine lessons, with integral first vespers and proper lessons in the first nocturn, it had been reduced to a III class feast by the John XXIII changes. By 1962 the proper first nocturn had gone, along with first vespers in 1956, and the feast was just left with one nocturn and a proper third lesson.
A couple more 'shaves' and it just disappears.
Since air travel is much more common now than it was in 1969, perhaps it's time to reconsider St. Joseph's universal import.
I'm no priest, but I wonder if it's a feria... Couldn't you celebrate some sort of votive Mass of Saint Joseph of Cupertino using the texts from the appropriate common?
I think my last comment has some kind of grammatical defect.
I think you have hit this nail on the head father. May I also add that this is the same shoody workmanship that was used to drop St. Philomena from the calendar in 1961 by "good" Pope John XXIII.
Dear Father,
Could you please tell us where the Commentary on the Renewed Liturgical Year is available?
Many thanks,
Fr Matt - sorry, I misread the part in the summary of his life. I see that he was first accepted as a lay brother at Martino but then joined the convent at La Grotella which, I take it from your comment, was Conventual. Thanks for the correction. I have amended the post.
praemonstratensis - I have the official Latin edition from many years ago, published by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana. I expect they will probably still have copies.
Given so many saints who genuinely have wide appeal, I can never quite understand how St Januarius made it into the universal calendar; interesting, certainly, but hardly more important than say, St Joseph of C or St Francis Borgia. Perhaps there was a Neapolitan at the Cong of Rites at the time.
I understand that Bugnini wanted to get rid of all feasts that were not of the Lord or of the Apostles. Presumably he would have got rid even of the Assumption and Immaculate Conception if he could.
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