All Saints, Nov. 1, holy day of obligation, solemnity.
Commemorates all the blessed in heaven, and is intended particularly
to honor the blessed who have no special feasts. The background of the
feast dates to the fourth century when groups of martyrs, and later
other saints, were honored on a common day in various places. In 609
or 610, the Pantheon, a pagan temple at Rome, was consecrated as a
Christian church for the honor of Our Lady and the martyrs (later all
saints). In 835, Gregory IV fixed Nov. 1 as the date of observance.
All Souls, Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, Nov. 2. The
dead were prayed for from the earliest days of Christianity. By the
sixth century it was customary in Benedictine monasteries to hold a
commemoration of deceased members of the order at Pentecost. A common
commemoration of all the faithful departed on the day after All Saints
was instituted in 998 by St. Odilo, of the Abbey of Cluny, and an
observance of this kind was accepted in Rome in the 14th
century.
Dedication of St. John Lateran, Nov. 9, feast. Commemorates the
first public consecration of a church, that of the Basilica of the
Most Holy Savior by Pope St. Sylvester about 324. The church, as well
as the Lateran Palace, was the gift of Emperor Constantine. Since the
12th century it has been known as St. John Lateran, in
honor of John the Baptist after whom the adjoining baptistery was
named. It was rebuilt by Innocent X (1644-55), re-consecrated by
Benedict XIII in 1726, and enlarged by Leo XIII (1878-1903). This
basilica is regarded as the church of highest dignity in Rome and
throughout the Roman rite.
Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, holy day of obligation,
solemnity. Commemorates the fact that Mary, in view of her calling to
be the Mother of Christ and in virtue of his merits, was preserved
from the first moment of her conception from original sin and was
filled with grace from the very beginning of her life. She was the
only person so preserved from original sin. The present form of the
feast dates from Dec. 8, 1854, when Pius IX defined the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception. An earlier feast of the Conception, which
testified to long-existing belief in this truth, was observed in the
East by the eighth century, in Ireland in the ninth, and subsequently
in European countries. In 1846, Mary was proclaimed patroness of the
U.S. under this title.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Dec. 12, feast (in the U.S.).
Commemorates under this title the appearances of the Blessed Virgin
Mary in 1531 to an Indian, Juan Diego, on Tepeyac hill outside Mexico
City (see Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary). The celebration,
observed as a memorial in the U.S., was raised to the rank of feast at
the request of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Approval
was granted in a decree dated Jan. 8, 1988.
Christmas, Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Dec. 25, holy day of
obligation, solemnity. Commemorates the birth of Christ (Lk. 2:1-20).
This event was originally commemorated in the East on the feast of
Epiphany or Theophany. The Christmas feast itself originated in the
West; by 354 it was certainly kept on Dec. 25. This date may have been
set for the observance to offset pagan ceremonies held at about the
same time to commemorate the birth of the sun at the winter solstice.
There are texts for three Christmas Masses at midnight, dawn, and
during the day.
Holy Innocents, Dec. 28, feast. Commemorates the infants who
suffered death at the hands of Herod’s soldiers seeking to kill the
child Jesus (Mt. 2:13-18). A feast in their honor has been observed
since the fifth century.