> On Tue, 2 Jul 1996 14:25:30 -0500 (CDT) B. Crachiolo wrote:
>
> > From: B. Crachiolo <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 14:25:30 -0500 (CDT)
> > Subject: Re: FEAST 30 June
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> > I've been saving this question for the June 30 feast day, cuz it's my
> > birthday (answer to the inevitable question: old enough to know better
> > than to ask *this* question):
> >
> > What--if any--significance was/is attached to the feasts that fall on
> > one's birthday?
> >
> > I'm an RP (RP = Recovering Protestant), so I never learned these things. :)
> >
> > Beth Crachiolo
> > University of Iowa
> > [log in to unmask]
It depends on whether one was named for the saint on whose day one was
born. If not, then one has a second quasi-birthday to celebrate: one's
name-day. Then, as another list-member has pointed out, if one also has
a different confirmation name, one has a third day to celebrate, the
fortunate category into which I fall, thanks to my Protestant parents',
who paid no attention to the feast days of saints and to my later Roman
Catholic confirmation, which gave me a confirmation saint to add to the
double-Dennis (Denys, Denis) of the Areopagus and Montmartre, whose feast
day I began to celebrate as a graduate student of medieval history. But
even if one was named for the saint of the day of one's natural birth,
one at least has a chance to add a second celebration at confirmation,
which, given the frequent laments of bishops in the West during the Middle
Ages that
people were neglecting to have their children confirmed (a problem that
has come back as liturgical renewalists play around with the "proper" age
for confirmation, trying to move it from pre-adolescence to late
adolescence), might be an incentive to increase the rate of confirmation
among the baptized!
Dennis Martin
Loyola University
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