medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Erik,
No offense taken. The "saints of the day" use of the current RM, which latter incorporates the revisions to the general Roman Calendar promulgated in 1969, is simply a pragmatic convenience, useful in that, despite its omissions, it lists far more commemorations per day than any other easily accessible source I can think of. Without it one would spend far too much time both in identifying and in selecting a day for the great many ancient and medieval saints whose cults (unlike that of Cosmas and Damian) were medievally considerably less than universal in the Latin West and/or whose principal feast was not always kept on the same day.
Moreover, always saying "Today is the feast day of..." is a lot simpler than working both with the RM and with, say, an expanded Usuard from the sixteenth century (assuming one were easily available on-line -- I haven't checked to see whether that's so) and sometimes saying "Today is the feast day of..." and sometimes saying "Today was the feast day of..." I leave the latter locution for rare instances when I'm motivated to include someone whose cult appears to have lapsed altogether (I wish I had the time to do more of these -- the less familiar saints are often the ones whom I find more interesting).
Best again,
John Dillon
On Sunday, September 27, 2009, at 2:31 pm, Erik Drigsdahl wrote:
> Sorry John, no offense intended. Not in my wildest nightmares would
> it be possible to imagine that such a feast as Cosmas & Damian could
> have been moved - after 1500 years on the 27. September.
>
> Dispositions within the Roman-Catholic Church made after 1969 have I
> preferred to ignore,
> they are irrelevant to me personally as an historian, and also on this
> dignified List.
>
> Best
> Erik
>
>
> At 20:01 -0500 26/09/09, John Dillon wrote:
> >
> >I'm sorry, but being hopelessly obtuse I fail to take your meaning
> about saints of today and tomorrow. Could you perhaps be more direct?
> >
> >As I manage to say at least once a year (most recently, on 24.
> September 2009) these selective "saints of the day" notices ordinarily
> follow the calendrical order of the latest edition of the Roman
> Martyrology (RM; in deference to others writing on this list I usually
> manage to suppress my personal preference for the Latin title
> _Martyrologium Romanum_ and the abbreviation 'MR'). But exceptions
> are often made for saints now and sometimes always not entered in RM.
>
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