Vatican II at 50: Oh, When the Saints...

     Two weeks, ago Pope Benedict canonized seven new saints, including the Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American from North America to be canonized.    Catholics in the United States will celebrate and remember St. Kateri on July 14^th, while Catholics in her native Canada will remember her on April 17^th, the date of her death.   Throughout the church year, we remember many men and women whom the Church recognizes as saints.   By the time of the Second Vatican Council, the liturgical calendar had become overwhelmed by the huge numbers of saints’ days.   So, the council recommended some changes:

Lest the feasts of the saints take precedence over the feasts commemorating the very mysteries of salvation, many of them should be left to be celebrated by a particular Church or nation or religious family; those only should be extended to the universal Church that commemorate saints of truly universal significance.  The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, #111

     As a result, the post-Vatican II study group charged with implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy simplified the liturgical calendar.   Many saints were removed.    Wherever possible, the celebration of the saints’ remembrance was moved to the date of their death.   On the previous calendar, many of the saints hailed from Europe.  The revised calendar made room for saints from other parts of the world and gave conferences of bishops the freedom to include saints from their particular countries on their respective calendars.  

     As mentioned, the new calendar resulted in many saints being dropped, one of the most notable being St. Christopher.   Before the Church established a formal canonization process, many saints were named based on popular approval rather than historical evidence.  Christopher was one of them.  Very little is known about Christopher, thus he was dropped from the official liturgical calendar.  But the Church still remembers him as a martyr and counts him among its list of saints.  In Greek, the name Christopher means Christ-bearer.   In this month of remembering the saints,  let us remember Vatican II’s call to holiness and let us pray for the courage to be Christ-bearers to everyone we meet.