You may notice that today, we post the Feast of the Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ or mostly known as the Feast of Christ the King. While the world knows that this feast was celebrated on the last Sunday of November, we post it in the last Sunday of October. The reason is because today, is the original date of this feast before Pope Paul VI moved it.
This June 8 and June 11, the church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi (from the Latin word “Body of Christ"), also known as the Solemnity of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Catholics are obliged to attend Holy Mass on this day. We celebrate this feast to remember the Real Presence of our Lord’s Body, Blood, Divinity and His Soul in the Holy Eucharist.
Every November, the Catholic Church is celebrating the feast of the All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2. However, in this generation, many are confused about the two events and sadly, most people celebrate it by wearing scary costumes instead of celebrating it in the proper and holy way.
In the Catholic Church, we worship only one God. But we also give importance to the angels and saints in Heaven including the Blessed Virgin Mary by celebrating their feast day and pray for them. The protestants think that we Catholics are worshipping the Saints, which is not true. We only venerate the Saints in Heaven and veneration is not worshipping.
In the coming feast of All Saints, we, as Catholics, should honor all the Saints instead of participating in evil costume parties like wearing nightmarish creatures. These Saints are holy men and women who are already in Heaven with the Lord. However, most of us do not know that there are Saints that was removed from liturgical calendar and the media called them downgraded saints. Some of these saints are very popular in the Church in many centuries, including St. Christopher, St. Ursula, St. Nicholas (popularly known as Santa Claus), St. George and St. Philomena.
Lent or Quadregisima is a 40-Day season of prayer and act of penance such as fasting and abstinence. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. In this season, the church will start to use the purple color including the vestments in the Holy Mass and cover the images with purple veil or cloth. Quadregisima is from a Latin word means “forty” while lent from the old English word “lencten” which means “spring”
Many saints provide big help to the Catholic Church especially to its doctrines. One of them is Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican priest, a philosopher and one of the Doctors of the Church. Saint Thomas Aquinas was born from a noble family. When he was young, he was transferred from Monte Cassino to Naples to study. During his stay in Naples, he was influenced in philosophy including Aristotle. He also met John of St. Julian, a Dominican priest who influenced him to join the Dominicans.
In the Catholic Liturgical Calendar, we will see the dates of the feast of a saint and important seasons such as Lent and Advent. The feast date of a Saint is the date when he or she departed from this world and entered the Kingdom of God in Heaven. But some feast dates are not the dates of their deaths, such as the feast date of the married couple Saint Zelie and Saint Louis Martin. Saint Therese of Lisieux’ feast day was put on October 3 even though she died on September 30, because the date was already the feast day of Saint Jerome, until it was moved to December 1 on 1970. But there are three unique occasions or feasts that are celebrated in the Catholic Church, these are the nativity or birthday of three persons, the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.
In Jerusalem, three wise men have arrived from the east and were inquiring where the King of the Jews was born for they had seen His star in the East and they wanted to worship Him. When Herodes heard about this, he was instantly felt afraid and at once planned to kill the child. He instructed the three kings to search relentlessly for the child and when they find Him, let him know at oncee so he can also worship the child (Mt 2:18).
"Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means 'God is with us'." (Matthew 1:23)
During Christmas, the Holy Catholic Church celebrates Three Masses for the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It goes back at least to the 6th Century when the Church started celebrating three masses to emphasize the different parts of the Nativity - the Angel's Mass, the Shepherd's Mass and the King's Mass.
Christmas is all about the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. A season of traditional gift giving in many parts of the christian world. This custom is a symbolic reminder of the Three Kings who gave their gifts of offering to the newly born Messiah. Many christians always see a manger scene of the Three Kings paying tribute to the Holy Infant. They have in their hands special gifts that bears spiritual meaning.
