Celebrations for St Catherine of Siena
In the Society of St Catherine of Siena , we celebrated the feast of our patron saint today. In a paper read to the St Nicholas Study group, Susan Parsons spoke about the moral lessons of the octaves. Various octaves were suppressed during the reforms of the 1950s and we are now left with only the Christmas and Easter Octaves. The octave of Pentecost was a surprising omission from the calendar of the post Vatican II reform, paradoxically coinciding with the proclamation of the "New Pentecost" and the birth of the Catholic charismatic movement. Dr Laurence Hemming had to hand an Octavarium showing that in the older tradition, not only were there many minor octaves of universal observance, but there were also octaves for local Churches for their patronal feast and the dedication of the Church. After the paper, there was some intense discussion on the question of the Liturgical Movement in its early stages and the role played by Guéranger's Liturgical Year in bringing peopl