Last Tuesday, January 24, was the feast day of St. Francis
de Sales – in the Novus Ordo calendar. This saint’s feast is on January 29 in
the “old” calendar.
My Roman Martyrology
(trans. by Rev. Raphael Collins, Newman Press, 1952) says, for January 29:
St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of
Geneva, confessor and doctor of the Church, special patron before God of all
Catholic writers in explaining, promoting, or defending Christian doctrine
either by publishing journals of other
writings in the vernacular. He departed to heaven on the 28th of
December, but because of the transfer of his body on this day, his feast is now
celebrated…
Just as an aside here, one wonders why the feast was moved
to the 24th in the new calendar. I’ve heard that many of the changes
were…capricious. At any rate, in my
little world, I tend to follow the old calendar, and thus I am celebrating the
feast of St. Francis de Sales on the 29th.
St. Francis de Sales is important to me personally for
several reasons. For one thing, he is the patron saint of St. Francis de Sales
Cathedral in Baker City, Oregon, in which city I have lived for the past nine
years. We moved to Baker City a few months before my first anniversary as a
Catholic, and I was thrilled to be attending Mass at the small but
majestic-looking Cathedral. At the time, I was a little disappointed that it
was not St. Francis of Assisi for whom the church was named, because I knew who
he was. I didn’t have a clue as to
the story of this de Sales guy.
But I learned. And I was delighted to find that St. Francis
de Sales was the patron saint of Catholic writers. I’ve always enjoyed writing,
and when I was a little girl in the early ‘60’s who wanted to be “just a
housewife”, my teachers coached me to say that I wanted to be “an author” when I
grew up – it was more in keeping with the times. This seemed a good option to
me even at the time, because I knew I didn’t want to have a job outside the
home; my motivation was not all that traditional, though – I just was very shy
and didn’t want to deal with people! Writing at home seemed the perfect “career”,
because I could assure myself that I wouldn’t have to go out into the scary
world, and I could assure my teachers that I had a career goal.
I never did earn a living at writing, but I did earn a few
dollars with some articles that were published by Homiletic and Pastoral Review. I also “edited” the parish bulletin for
several years, and thought of St. Francis de Sales watching over my shoulder
when I worked on it. I often added little quotes from his writings to cultivate
our identity as St. Francis de Sales Cathedral parish.
St. Francis de Sales is also the patron saint of the Diocese
of Baker, and that’s been especially important to me in the months since I started this
blog. I started the because it seemed
that there was just too much going on in the Church in general and in our
diocese in particular to justify my sitting on the sidelines any longer. I felt
that there were things that needed to be said, and that a blog would be the way
to say them. And so, I began. I began
with a prayer to St. Francis de Sales, and I continue to beg his assistance and
guidance on a daily basis (at least!).
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| My special icon...thanks to N.A. |
St. Francis de Sales also influenced my choice of a title
for my blog. Having read his Introduction
to the Devout Life”, I knew that he had addressed that treatise to “Philothea”.
That’s why I have written in the banner section at the top of this blog:
"You aim at a devout life, dear
Philothea, because as a Christian you know that such devotion is most
acceptable to God's Divine Majesty," says St. Francis de Sales in his book
"Introduction to the Devout Life".
And we can all be Philotheas,
as St. Francis notes: "I have made use of a name suitable to all who seek
the devout life, Philothea meaning one who loves God."
I’m a Philothea, you’re a Philothea, all God’s children can
be Philotheas!
But…I can’t resist…let’s switch gears to a liturgical issue. I love liturgy – good liturgy- and I love celebrating a feast as a
feast, a solemnity as a solemnity. I love incense and bell-ringing and candles
and appropriate altar antependia and plenty of altar servers. I love these
things not as ends in themselves, but
because their proper use enhances the liturgical sense of the celebration.
Their proper use tells us whether it’s a memorial, or a feast, or a solemnity,
and that gives us a proper appreciation of the importance of the saint for our
parish, our diocese, or our community.
Since St. Francis de Sales is the patron saint of the
Diocese of Baker, then, while most places celebrate this feast every year as a
“memorial” in the new calendar, the parishes of the Diocese of Baker should
celebrate it as a feast. And since the
Cathedral parish bears the name of the Saint, the liturgical celebration there should
a solemnity. Of course, we’re talking about a Tuesday this
year (not too many people around here follow the old calendar), so I suspect
that in most parishes, the day passed without much fanfare or acknowledgement
of the feast, and daily Mass was probably celebrated as a simple memorial of
St. Francis de Sales. It would be interesting to hear what actually transpired
around our Diocese. This would have been
an ideal day to devote a few extra prayers to St. Francis de Sales for a new bishop
for our diocese – a bishop who is holy, pastoral, and courageous. Times are
going to be tough for our new bishop, whoever he may be.
At the Cathedral parish, there was indeed a significant celebration
of the feast day with an evening Mass at 7pm, followed by an ice cream social
in the parish hall – a long-standing tradition there. I do not know whether or
not the Mass was truly celebrated as a solemnity; in the past this has not been
the case from a strictly liturgical point of view. Still, just the fact that
there was Mass on a Tuesday evening is a big deal in this town!
Next year, perhaps we will find the Diocesan Chronicle
filled with photos and stories of the various parishes of the Diocese of Baker
having proper Feasts of St. Francis de Sales on January 24th.
And perhaps it will be a time of great thanksgiving for a
new bishop, as well.
(The information about feasts and solemnities is found in a
document entitled General Norms for the
Liturgical Year and the Calendar, promulgated by the Sacred Congregation
for Divine Worship in 1969. You can view the entire document here.)
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