The Pentecost Circle

This is preceded as a preliminary celebration by the Feast of the Ascension and the Sunday of Exaudi with its Introit from Psalm 27:7: 'HErr, hear my voice when I call etc.'" As a post-celebration follows the Feast of Trinity or Trinitatis. It deals with the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Majesty and the power After His humanity and His efficacy in the Church.
The Feast of the Ascension is celebrated forty days after Easter and ten days before Pentecost, thus on the Thursday between the Sundays of Rogate and Exaudi, in memory of the Ascension of Christ. Its origin dates back to the fourth century. The whole week is called the Week of Prayer or the Week of the Cross, because each parish of the Catholics visits a nearby church in procession every day, carrying the cross and the flags, prays on the way, and attends mass in the church, which is especially prescribed for that day. One prays especially for the forgiveness of sins, for the averting of deserved punishments, for the pope and for the whole church, for the temporal regiment, for the living and the dead.
The feast of Pentecost itself, which falls on the fiftieth day after Easter and the tenth day after Ascension, is celebrated in commemoration of the miraculous and visible outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, consequently as the feast of the foundation of the Christian Church. The Jews also celebrated Pentecost, and that as the feast of the firstfruits of the harvest, and as the feast of the legislation at Sinai. The word Pentecost is derived from the Greek Pentecoste, the fiftieth day. Its origin is in the fourth century, having been fixed in the year 305.
The Feast of Trinity is the celebration of the Feast of Pentecost. This feast dates back to the ninth century. It is most likely that it was founded by Pope John XXII. Regarding the Sundays after this feast, there is a difference between the Lutherans and the Catholics. The latter begin to count the following Sundays with the feast itself, the latter for this feast as a special one, so that with them the Sunday after Trinity, with these the first Sunday after Trinity, and with those the second Sunday after Trinity is called. This is because the feast of Corpus Christi takes place on the Thursday before.
This cycle is followed by several more feast days and holidays.
The feast of Corpus Christi is celebrated in the Catholic Church in commemoration of the presence of the body of Christ in the Lord's Supper as a high festival with processions with the presentation of the cross and the flags, which are then followed by the bishop under a canopy with the "Most Reverend"; indeed, it is the greatest holiday of the Catholics. Two nuns of Liège, Julian and Isabella, gave rise to this feast, for they boasted of apparitions and revelations they had had in 1250. The first one wanted to have seen the moon in full splendour, but with a gap in its roundness, and to have learned by special divine instruction that this moon signified the Christian Church and the gap the lack of a single feast, namely the adoration of the body of Christ in the con- secrated host, which she was now to announce to the world to celebrate. Through this the then Archdeacon Jacob of Liège, who afterwards became Pope under the name of Urban IV. later became Pope, had the idea of introducing this feast.
A miracle is said to have encouraged him in this. In his presence, during the consecration, drops of blood fell onto the white shirt of a Mass priest and, as he tried to hide them in the folds of the shirt, they formed the bloody shape of a round figure. The good man may well have had a nosebleed. Incidentally, the bloody garment is still presented as a relic Quritta Vecchia. In the same year, Pope Urban IV issued a bull in which he ordered the Feast of Corpus Christi for Christianity to be celebrated on the Thursday after the Feast of Trinity. The feast is accompanied by brilliant processions, choirboys with crosses and banners, and clergymen with lighted candles walking through the streets, and behind them, under a canopy, the bishop with the "most reverend goods". It would be fair to call Holy Thursday the Corpus Christi of the Lutherans. The name of this feast, Corpus Christi, is derived from the Old German word Fron, holy, HErr and Leichnam from Leib.
The feast of John the Baptist is dedicated to the memory of John the Baptist, who, in distinction from John the Apostle and Evangelist, is called the Baptist, because, besides many Jews, he baptized Christ himself. Now because John was six months older than Jesus, and the feast of the latter's birth was set on the twenty-fifth of December, the feast of the birth of John the Baptist has been transferred to the twenty-fourth of June. The origin of the same is said to be in the fifth century, but some hold that it was not until the year 1024 that Pope John XXI. instituted the same. On this feast day, wine is consecrated in the Catholic church and distributed to the faithful.
The commemoration of the Apostles Peter and Paul is celebrated on 29 June and has been since the fourth century.
The feast of the Visitation of Mary is one of the most recent in the Christian Church, and was decreed by Pope Urban VI in 1389, in order to invoke Mary that, as she visited and comforted Elizabeth, so she might also visit with her help Christendom, which was then hard pressed by the Turk, and as she had trodden with her feet on the mountain on her journey, so she might place her feet on the neck of the Turk. At the Council of Basle in 1441 this feast was generally instituted; it is celebrated on the 2nd of July, or the Sunday nearest to it.
The celebration of Peter's chains is celebrated on August 1 in memory of the chains which Peter wore before King Herod Agrippa, partly during his last arrest before his martyrdom; it derives its origin from the fifth century.
The feast of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Thabor is celebrated on August 6. Pope Celixtus IV introduced it generally.
The memorial day of the martyr Laurentius is celebrated in the Catholic Church on August 10.
The feast of the Assumption of Mary, celebrated on August 15, is instituted by Pope Nicholas I.
The memorial of St. Bartholomew the Apostle is to be celebrated on August 24.
The feast of the Holy Guardian Angels is held on the first Sunday in September.
The feast of the Nativity of Mary has been celebrated on September 8 since the seventh century.
The feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is celebrated on September 14. Emperor Heraclius founded it in the seventh century and Pope Honorius confirmed it; the latter is said to have taken down Christ's cross, which had fallen into the hands of the Persians during the conquest of Jerusalem, and to have had it erected again on Golgotha in 618.
The memorial of the Apostle Matthew falls on September 21.
Michaelmas, also called the Feast of Angels, is celebrated on September 29 or the nearest Sunday.
The feast of the Rosary is celebrated in the Catholic Church on 5 October and was instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1573 in honour of the victory won at Leganto in 1571.
The memorial day of the apostles Simon and Jude falls on October 28.
The Reformation feast is solemnly observed by the Lutheran Church either on the 31st of October, or on the Sunday next following. On this day Luther <pg 19> posted his 95 theses on the castle church at Wittenberg, and thus, without suspecting, much less intending it, made the beginning of the church reformation.
All Saints' Day is on November 1. After the three hundred years of bloody persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire had ceased, the Sunday after Pentecost was designated to renew the memory of all martyrs and saints. The Christians prayed at the tombs of the martyrs and saints, and thanked God for the example they had left for discipleship and for the benefits that had flowed to the Church through them. The martyrs were eulogized and their sufferings and deeds were read out. These days are called their birthdays because they were born through death to eternal life. The occidental church got this feast around the year 610 from pope Bonifacius IV. The emperor Phokas had given the pantheon to this pope. He made a church out of it and consecrated it on March 4 in honor of all the saints, martyrs and Mary. Gregory IV. set the celebration in 328 on I. November. In the Lutheran Church, too, this day is celebrated either on November 1 or on the nearest Sunday. This day is regarded as the keystone of the apostles' and saints' days of the church year.
All Souls' Day is celebrated by the Catholic Church ayi November 2. The same was ordered by Pope John XVIII in the eleventh century. Already the abbot Odilo had instituted it in his abbey. For he is said to have heard on Mount Aetna in Sicily a fearful roar and howl of the devils, and to have heard them complain among themselves that so many souls were snatched from Purgatory by the masses for souls. On this day the Catholics visit the graves of their deceased relatives in order to pray for them. In large cities in Germany, so-called "Betweber" (hence the term "Betschwestern") do this work for the nobility and are paid for it.
St. Martin's Day is celebrated in the Catholic Church on November 11. On this day, the clergy also received from the faithful the obligatory chickens and St. Martin's geese. Martin, a bishop in whose memory this day is celebrated, is said to have been the first to whom the Catholic Church paid public worship.
Mary Sacrifice. This day is November 21. Its celebration was begun in Constantinople, and then in the Western Church.
The feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle falls on November 30. It opens the series of apostles' and saints' days in the church year.
The patronal feast, i.e. the feast of the saint in whose honour the church and the altar were consecrated, still belongs to the feasts.
The annual church consecration festival, founded to commemorate the consecration of the church, is separate from the previous one. Unfortunately, in gratitude for this, Catholics everywhere, not only, but also Protestants, eat and drink and dance.
To these feasts Protestants add the public day of penance and prayer, which is partly a regular, partly an extraordinary one, and at the celebration of which in the Lutheran church the litany is sung or spoken kneeling alternately (antiphonatim).
Finally, Protestants hold an annual harvest festival, which takes place in different places at different times. Here in the country it is the general day of thanksgiving (Thanksgiving day).

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