ousted Saint

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Who was the Saint that was ousted about ten to twenty years ago? Everyone had a necklace w/ him on it to protect them. Now they have Saint Christopher... And why was he ousted?

Thank You

Miriam Deniz

-- Anonymous, May 18, 1998

Answers

Hi Miriam,

After Vatican II, there was a complete revision of the Roman Calendar for the Church (ie, those feast days that are celebrated in the entire Church, not just in a particular country, region or religious community). There were a number of reasons for this. One was that with the changes in the Mass and the cycle of scripture readings, weekday Masses were given their own cycle of readings instead of just repeating the readings of the previous Sunday throughout the week (unless it was a Saint's day and there were particular readings for that feast). So, if there was a Saint's day every day or every other day, you wouldn't be able to have any continuity in the daily readings. For example, if the readings progressively took you through three Chapters of, say, the book of Genesis, but you had to use different readings on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday because they were feastdays, you lost the continuity of the narrative from Genesis. So, generally, there was a reduction in the number of feast days.

Secondly, there was an effort to ensure that every Saint venerated on the Universal Calendar was verifiably a Saint. Before the process of Canonization began in the Middle Ages, Saints became Saints largely through public veneration. This allowed for pious legends to develop the legendary person into a Saint. One of the Saints removed was Saint Christopher because we had only the barest details of his life and nothing to verify the legend relating to him carrying the boy Jesus across a river.

However, in the case of St Christopher, I think there was something of an uproar at his being removed, and he is still venerated by the Faithful and he is still the patron of travellers and a powerful intercessor.

Hope that helps,

God bless,

Paul McLachlan Webmaster, The Catholic Pages

-- Anonymous, May 21, 1998


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