 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(July 2024) |
The Feast of the Crown of Thorns is a feast day of the Roman Catholic Church, for the Friday after Ash Wednesday. It is not universally observed.
The first feast in honour of the Crown of Thorns (Festum susceptionis coronae Domini) was instituted at Paris in 1239, when Louis IX of France brought there the relic of the Crown of Thorns, which was deposited later in the Royal Chapel, erected in 1241–48 to guard this and other relics of the Passion. The feast, observed on 11 August, though at first special to the Royal Chapel, was gradually observed throughout the north of France.
In the following century another festival of the Holy Crown on 4 May was instituted and was celebrated along with the Feast of the Invention of the Cross in parts of Spain, Germany, and Scandinavia. It was later kept in Spanish dioceses and is observed by the Dominicans on 24 April.
A special feast on the Monday after Passion Sunday was granted to the Diocese of Freising in Bavaria, by Pope Clement X (1676) and Pope Innocent XI (1689) in honour of the Crown of Christ. It was celebrated at Venice in 1766 on the second Friday of March. In 1831 it was adopted at Rome as a double major and is observed on the Friday following Ash Wednesday. As it is not kept universally, the Mass and Office are placed in the appendices to the Breviary and the Missal. The hymns of the Office, which is taken from the seventeenth-century Gallican Breviary of Paris, were composed by Habert. The Analecta hymnica of Dreves and Blume contains a large number of rhythmical offices, hymns, and sequences for this feast.
The Roman Breviary is a breviary of the Roman Rite in the Catholic Church. A liturgical book, it contains public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office.
The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and which portions of scripture are to be read.
Holy Week is the most sacred week in the liturgical year in Christianity. For all Christian traditions, it is a moveable observance. In Eastern Christianity, which also calls it Great Week, it is the week following Great Lent and Lazarus Saturday, starting on the evening of Palm Sunday and concluding on the evening of Great Saturday. In Western Christianity, Holy Week is the sixth and last week of Lent, beginning with Palm Sunday and concluding on Holy Saturday.
The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus Christ is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This devotion to Christ is predominantly used in the Catholic Church, followed by high church Anglicans, and some Western Rite Orthodox. In the Latin Church, the liturgical Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated the third Friday after Pentecost. The 12 promises of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus are also popular.
The Feast of Corpus Christi, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a liturgical solemnity celebrating the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; the feast is observed by the Latin Church, in addition to certain Western Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican churches. Two months earlier, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper is observed on Maundy Thursday in a sombre atmosphere leading to Good Friday. The liturgy on that day also commemorates Christ's washing of the disciples' feet, the institution of the priesthood, and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Ember days are quarterly periods of prayer and fasting in the liturgical calendar of Western Christian churches. These fasts traditionally take place on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of the weeks following St Lucy's Day, the first Sunday in Lent, Pentecost (Whitsun), and Holy Cross Day, though some areas follow a different pattern. The Catholic Church ended its practice of fasting on these days in 1966, and the Anglican Communion made fasting optional in 1976. Ordination ceremonies are often held on Ember Saturdays or the following Sunday.
According to the New Testament, a woven crown of thorns was placed on the head of Jesus during the events leading up to his crucifixion. It was one of the instruments of the Passion, employed by Jesus' captors both to cause him pain and to mock his claim of authority. It is mentioned in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and is often alluded to by the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen and others, along with being referenced in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter.
Matins is a canonical hour in Christian liturgy, originally sung during the darkness of early morning.
Tenebrae is a religious service of Western Christianity held during the three days preceding Easter Day, and characterized by gradual extinguishing of candles, and by a "strepitus" or "loud noise" taking place in total darkness near the end of the service.
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Nativity of Mary, Marymas or the Birth of the Virgin Mary, refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of Mary, mother of Jesus.
This article lists the feast days of the General Roman Calendar as they were at the end of 1954. It is essentially the same calendar established by Pope Pius X (1903–1914) following his liturgical reforms, but it also incorporates changes that were made by Pope Pius XI (1922–1939), such as the institution of the Feast of Christ the King, and the changes made by Pope Pius XII (1939–1958) prior to 1955, chief among them the imposition of the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary upon the universal Church in 1944, the inscription of Pius X into the General Calendar following his 1954 canonization, and the institution of the Feast of the Queenship of Mary in October 1954.
"Octave" has two senses in Christian liturgical usage. In the first sense, it is the eighth day after a feast, reckoning inclusively, and so always falls on the same day of the week as the feast itself. The word is derived from Latin octava (eighth), with “dies” (day) implied and understood. In the second sense, the term is applied to the whole eight-day period, during which certain major feasts came to be observed.
The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God is a feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the aspect of her motherhood of Jesus Christ, whom she had circumcised on the eighth day after his birth according to Levitical Law. Christians see him as the Lord and Son of God.
Mary, the Help of Christians is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based on a devotion now associated with a feast day of the General Roman Calendar on 24 May.
The Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ was in the General Roman Calendar from 1849 to 1969. It was focused on the Blood of Christ and its salvific nature.
In the Catholic liturgical calendar, the Feast of the Holy Winding Sheet of Christ honors the Turin Shroud, and is observed on the day before Ash Wednesday. It was officially declared in 1958 by Pope Pius XII.
The Commemoration of the Passion of Christ was a feast of the Roman Catholic Church, listed in the Roman Missal up to 1962 as observed in some places, and kept on the Tuesday after Sexagesima. Its object is the devout remembrance and honour of Christ's sufferings for the redemption of mankind.
The ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite is a regulation for the liturgy of the Roman Catholic church. It determines for each liturgical day which observance has priority when liturgical dates and times coincide, which texts are used for the celebration of the Holy Mass and the Liturgy of the hours and which liturgical color is assigned to the day or celebration.
Lent is the solemn Christian religious observance in the liturgical year commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry. Lent is usually observed in the Catholic, Lutheran, Moravian, Anglican, United Protestant and Orthodox Christian traditions, among others. Some Anabaptist, Baptist, Methodist, Reformed, and nondenominational Christian churches also observe Lent, although many churches in these traditions do not.
Our Lady of Europe is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary as patroness of Gibraltar and protectress of Europe. The entire European continent was consecrated under the protection of Our Lady of Europe in the early 14th century from the Shrine in Gibraltar where devotion continues to this day, over 700 years on.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Feast of the Crown of Thorns". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites: