Feasts of November

Saint Mary church - x12th century, restored 1896-1903)
Source: Wolfgang Sauber, Wiki Commons 

Herewith a quick overview of this month's feasts, and a few notes on them.

Month of the Dead

The calendar includes two days of prayer for the dead this year: All Souls is celebrated on November 3 this year, due to the clash with a Sunday; while All Souls OSB is on November 14.  

But it is also traditional to pray for the dead outside of these days this month, and so do consider saying some or all of the Office of the Dead on other days if you can manage it! If you are interested, you can find notes on the psalms used in the Office of the Dead here. 

Matins reading cycle

November marks the resumption of weekday Scriptural readings in the Benedictine Office, with readings each day of the week from the book of Ezekiel (unless of course you are using an earlier breviary, in which case the Scriptural readings are supplanted by patristic readings on All Saints for the next week or so).

In the traditional Office, Matins is the main vehicle for reading of at least some (originally likely pretty much all) of most books of the Bible over the course of the year.  In St Benedict's original conception, the length of the readings steadily increased as the nights grew longer, as well as during Lent.  But from Easter until November, the Scriptural reading cycle was carried out on Sundays only, with only very short, fixed readings during summer and the months around it, in order to ensure the monk's got enough sleep.

Over time, however, the Scriptural reading cycle has been progressively squeezed out in favour of patristic readings either for particular seasons (such as Lent) or for feasts, Octaves  and Vigils. St Benedict did of course, prescribed patristic readings in the Office - but by way of commentary on the Scriptural readings, not as something separate from that.

One of the positive virtues of the 1962 breviary, in my view, is that it has pared back these incursions, many of which recycle the same short readings several times across the course of the year, at least somewhat, and given greater prominence to the ferial psalm and reading cycle as St Benedict intended it.

But those who wish can make their own judgments by reading through the assorted Patristic readings!

OSB Feasts

This month's calendar also includes an example of one of the more bizarre 'reforms' of 1962: the feast of a Benedictine saint, St Sylvester (founder of the Sylvestrine Congregation) with a lower ranking in the Benedictine calendar than the Roman!

There is an obvious rationale for reducing three Nocturn feasts to two Nocturn ones in the Benedictine Office.

But rather less of one, I think, for reducing some eighteen Class III equivalent feasts to memorials in 1962, particularly given that three of them related to Benedictine saints!

Fortunately the decree Cum Sanctissima allows for such feasts to be celebrated as Class III, and you can find the feasts for St Sylvester in the Brignoles version of the 1963 breviary on page 552*. 

Date	1960 Benedictine	1962 Roman (where different from the Benedictine)	1953 Benedictine	Ben Confed/ 2025 Roman (where extra/different)	Other
1	All Saints, Class I		All Saints	All Saints**
2	All Souls**(transferred to 3 November this year).	All Souls**	Octave of All Saints; Commemoration of All Souls
3	**	**	Octave of All Saints	St Martin de Porres
4	St Charles Borromeo, Memorial	St Charles Borromeo, Class III	Octave of All Saints; St Charles, Memorial
5			Octave of All Saints	St Willibrord OSB
6	Four Crowned Martyrs, Memorial		Octave of All Saints		Wales: All Saints of Wales
7			Octave of All Saints
8			Octave Day of All Saints; Four Crowned martrys, memorial
9	Dedication of the Lateran, Class II		Dedication of the Lateran; St Theodore, memorial
10	St Theodore, memorial	St Andrew Avellino, Class III		St Leo I (see 11 April in MD)
11	St Martin of Tours, Class II	St Martin of Tours, Class III	St Martin of Tours; St Mennas, Memorial
12	St Mennas, Memorial	St Martin I, Class III		St Theodore of Studis or St Josaphat
13	All Saints OSB, Class II	St Didacus, Class III			US: St Frances Xavier Cabrini, Class IIIAll
14	All Souls OSB, Class II	St Josaphat, Class III
15	St Albert the Great, Memorial	St Albert the Great, Class III	St Albert the Great, Class III (Duplex)
16		St Gertrude, Class III**	St Gertrude (see 17 November in MD)		St Margaret of Scotland
17	St Gertrude, Class II/III	St Gregory Thaumaturgis, Class III	St Margaret of Scotland or St Elizabeth of Hungary
18	Dedication of the Basilicas of SS Peter and Paul, Class III
19		St Elizabeth of Hungary, Class III	St Pontianus, Memorial	St Mechtilde
20		St Felix of Valois, Class III			St Edmund
21	Presentation of the BVM, Class III; St Columba, Memorial	Presentation of the BVM, Class III
22	St Caecilia, Class III		St Caecilia, Class II
23	St Clement, Class III: St Felicitas, Memorial**	St Clement, Class III: St Felicitas, Memorial**	St Clement, Class III: St Felicitas, Memorial
24	St John of the Cross and Chrysogonus, Memorials	St John of the Cross, Class III	St John of the Cross, Class III (duplex); St Chrysogonus, Memorials	SS Andrew Dung-Lac and the Vietnamese Martyrs or St Columba
25	St Catherine of Alexandria, Memorial	St Catherine of Alexandria, Class III
26	St Slyvester OSB, Memorial	St Slyvester, Class III	St Slyvester, Class III
27					Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal
28
29	St Saturninus, Memorial		Vigil of St Andrew; St Saturninus, Memoria		Blessed Andrew Whiting and companions OSB
30	St Andrew, Class II**		St Andrew

 **Not in 2025

All Saints, All Souls and their accompanying days* Updated

October 31 marks the start of several days that have been the subject of considerable liturgical change, both over the centuries and more recently, so I thought it might be of interest to list out the various days, and provide some notes or link on their history for those interested.

The relevant days are:  

Feast or day	Instituted	Abolished or modified
Vigil of all Saints	In the Office: Breviary of 1568	1955
All Saints	Disputed: 13 May 608 (dedication of Pantheon) later transferred to November, and/or 735 (Dedication of Oratory in St Peter’s) made general in 835.	na
Commemoration of All Souls	C9th (originally Cluniac)	1960 changes to all hours instead of saying Office of Dead in addition to Office of Octave
Octave of All Saints	C1471-84	1955
All Saints OSB	?
All Soul’s OSB	1918	As for all Souls

 The Vigil (suppressed in the 1962 books)

There is a useful article on this from a few years back by Gregory di Pippio, on the  New Liturgical Movement Blog.

The key points he makes are that marking Vigils in the Office (as opposed to the Mass, and by fasting and/or abstinence) is (largely) a post-Tridentine innovation, and in some ways an odd one given that the Mass of the Vigil was traditionally celebrated after None. 

At the day hours, the only change was in the collect used.

The Feast of All Saints

The traditional explanation for the origin of this feast, repeated in many early sources, gives it a Byzantine origin, translated to the West in the dedication of the Pantheon in May 608, and then transferred to November in the eighth century.

Mr di Pippo has suggested an alternative explanation, which you can read here and here, suggesting it was instituted as a counter to the heresy of iconoclasm. 

It is certainly a plausible explanation though I tend to think that it could be a case of both explanations being true: a feast originally more limited in scope later repurposed in response to a particular need.

Commemoration of All Souls

 All Souls was originally a Benedictine (Cluniac) innovation, though it quickly gained popularity and spread.  

Earlier versions of the Monastic Office had the office of the Octave day, with the Office of the Dead said in addition to that.  The 1950 breviary, though, changed that to the current integration of the Office of the Dead into all hours (though some monasteries do retain the earlier practice),

You can read more about the history of the day here.

The Octave of the feast

The addition of an Octave to All Saints dates from the fifteenth century, and was abolished in 1955.  

I'm always torn between enjoying the Matins readings for octaves, while believing that the ancient Scriptural sequence should generally have precedence - so the best solution is to read them outside the office in my view!  If you don't have a copy of the Liturgical Readings volume, you can find most of them on Divinum Officium (select a pre 1955 office version).

Feasts of all Saints and All Soul's OSB

All Soul's OSB is an early twentieth century addition.

I haven't been able to track how far back All Saints of the Benedictine Order goes, but there were certainly votive offices of All Saints used in various places from at least the twelfth century, but they had a mixed fate!   There are equivalent feasts for many religious orders, and for some regions.

*Update: A reader has also alerted me to a note in The Saint Andrew Daily Missal (page 44 of the section near the end entitled "Supplement for the order of St. Benedict"), which says:

"Up to the end of the sixteenth century, there was no general feast of this name for the whole Order since the "Order of St. Benedict", in the modern sense, was unknown. In individual monasteries, as Monte Cassino, Cluny, Fontenelli, etc., a feast of all the saints proper to the monastery was observed on different dates; only by the revision of the monastic Breviary by Paul V., in 1621, a general feast of All holy Monks of the Order was instituted on the above date."

While I'm not quite convinced of the claim about the status of the 'Order' per se (it still isn't really an order in the traditional sense, but there was certainly earlier regional and papal legislation specifically directed at the 'Black Monks'), the explanation for when a general feast was instituted sounds plausible!

St Andrew (Nov 30)

St Andrew was the first-called of the apostles and the brother of St Peter.

Here is Pope Benedict XVI's catechesis on the saint from a General Audience given in 2006:

"...today we shall speak of Simon Peter's brother, St Andrew, who was also one of the Twelve.

The first striking characteristic of Andrew is his name:  it is not Hebrew, as might have been expected, but Greek, indicative of a certain cultural openness in his family that cannot be ignored. We are in Galilee, where the Greek language and culture are quite present. Andrew comes second in the list of the Twelve, as in Matthew (10: 1-4) and in Luke (6: 13-16); or fourth, as in Mark (3: 13-18) and in the Acts (1: 13-14). In any case, he certainly enjoyed great prestige within the early Christian communities.

The kinship between Peter and Andrew, as well as the joint call that Jesus addressed to them, are explicitly mentioned in the Gospels. We read:  "As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men'" (Mt 4: 18-19; Mk 1: 16-17).

From the Fourth Gospel we know another important detail:  Andrew had previously been a disciple of John the Baptist:  and this shows us that he was a man who was searching, who shared in Israel's hope, who wanted to know better the word of the Lord, the presence of the Lord.

He was truly a man of faith and hope; and one day he heard John the Baptist proclaiming Jesus as:  "the Lamb of God" (Jn 1: 36); so he was stirred, and with another unnamed disciple followed Jesus, the one whom John had called "the Lamb of God". The Evangelist says that "they saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day..." (Jn 1: 37-39).

Thus, Andrew enjoyed precious moments of intimacy with Jesus. The account continues with one important annotation:  "One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah' (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus" (Jn 1: 40-43), straightaway showing an unusual apostolic spirit.

Andrew, then, was the first of the Apostles to be called to follow Jesus. Exactly for this reason the liturgy of the Byzantine Church honours him with the nickname:  "Protokletos", [protoclete] which means, precisely, "the first called".

And it is certain that it is partly because of the family tie between Peter and Andrew that the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople feel one another in a special way to be Sister Churches. To emphasize this relationship, my Predecessor Pope Paul VI, in 1964, returned the important relic of St Andrew, which until then had been kept in the Vatican Basilica, to the Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop of the city of Patras in Greece, where tradition has it that the Apostle was crucified.

The Gospel traditions mention Andrew's name in particular on another three occasions that tell us something more about this man. The first is that of the multiplication of the loaves in Galilee. On that occasion, it was Andrew who pointed out to Jesus the presence of a young boy who had with him five barley loaves and two fish:  not much, he remarked, for the multitudes who had gathered in that place (cf. Jn 6: 8-9).

In this case, it is worth highlighting Andrew's realism. He noticed the boy, that is, he had already asked the question:  "but what good is that for so many?" (ibid.), and recognized the insufficiency of his minimal resources. Jesus, however, knew how to make them sufficient for the multitude of people who had come to hear him.

The second occasion was at Jerusalem. As he left the city, a disciple drew Jesus' attention to the sight of the massive walls that supported the Temple. The Teacher's response was surprising:  he said that of those walls not one stone would be left upon another. Then Andrew, together with Peter, James and John, questioned him:  "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?" (Mk 13: 1-4).

In answer to this question Jesus gave an important discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem and on the end of the world, in which he asked his disciples to be wise in interpreting the signs of the times and to be constantly on their guard.

From this event we can deduce that we should not be afraid to ask Jesus questions but at the same time that we must be ready to accept even the surprising and difficult teachings that he offers us.

Lastly, a third initiative of Andrew is recorded in the Gospels:  the scene is still Jerusalem, shortly before the Passion. For the Feast of the Passover, John recounts, some Greeks had come to the city, probably proselytes or God-fearing men who had come up to worship the God of Israel at the Passover Feast. Andrew and Philip, the two Apostles with Greek names, served as interpreters and mediators of this small group of Greeks with Jesus.

The Lord's answer to their question - as so often in John's Gospel - appears enigmatic, but precisely in this way proves full of meaning. Jesus said to the two disciples and, through them, to the Greek world:  "The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. I solemnly assure you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit" (12: 23-24).

Jesus wants to say:  Yes, my meeting with the Greeks will take place, but not as a simple, brief conversation between myself and a few others, motivated above all by curiosity. The hour of my glorification will come with my death, which can be compared with the falling into the earth of a grain of wheat. My death on the Cross will bring forth great fruitfulness:  in the Resurrection the "dead grain of wheat" - a symbol of myself crucified - will become the bread of life for the world; it will be a light for the peoples and cultures.

Yes, the encounter with the Greek soul, with the Greek world, will be achieved in that profundity to which the grain of wheat refers, which attracts to itself the forces of heaven and earth and becomes bread.

In other words, Jesus was prophesying about the Church of the Greeks, the Church of the pagans, the Church of the world, as a fruit of his Pasch.

Some very ancient traditions not only see Andrew, who communicated these words to the Greeks, as the interpreter of some Greeks at the meeting with Jesus recalled here, but consider him the Apostle to the Greeks in the years subsequent to Pentecost. They enable us to know that for the rest of his life he was the preacher and interpreter of Jesus for the Greek world.

Peter, his brother, travelled from Jerusalem through Antioch and reached Rome to exercise his universal mission; Andrew, instead, was the Apostle of the Greek world. So it is that in life and in death they appear as true brothers - a brotherhood that is symbolically expressed in the special reciprocal relations of the See of Rome and of Constantinople, which are truly Sister Churches.

A later tradition, as has been mentioned, tells of Andrew's death at Patras, where he too suffered the torture of crucifixion. At that supreme moment, however, like his brother Peter, he asked to be nailed to a cross different from the Cross of Jesus. In his case it was a diagonal or X-shaped cross, which has thus come to be known as "St Andrew's cross".

This is what the Apostle is claimed to have said on that occasion, according to an ancient story (which dates back to the beginning of the sixth century), entitled The Passion of Andrew:

"Hail, O Cross, inaugurated by the Body of Christ and adorned with his limbs as though they were precious pearls. Before the Lord mounted you, you inspired an earthly fear. Now, instead, endowed with heavenly love, you are accepted as a gift.

"Believers know of the great joy that you possess, and of the multitude of gifts you have prepared. I come to you, therefore, confident and joyful, so that you too may receive me exultant as a disciple of the One who was hung upon you.... O blessed Cross, clothed in the majesty and beauty of the Lord's limbs!... Take me, carry me far from men, and restore me to my Teacher, so that, through you, the one who redeemed me by you, may receive me. Hail, O Cross; yes, hail indeed!".

Here, as can be seen, is a very profound Christian spirituality. It does not view the Cross as an instrument of torture but rather as the incomparable means for perfect configuration to the Redeemer, to the grain of wheat that fell into the earth.

Here we have a very important lesson to learn:  our own crosses acquire value if we consider them and accept them as a part of the Cross of Christ, if a reflection of his light illuminates them.

It is by that Cross alone that our sufferings too are ennobled and acquire their true meaning.

The Apostle Andrew, therefore, teaches us to follow Jesus with promptness (cf. Mt 4: 20; Mk 1: 18), to speak enthusiastically about him to those we meet, and especially, to cultivate a relationship of true familiarity with him, acutely aware that in him alone can we find the ultimate meaning of our life and death."