THE
P RTAL
October 2016
Page 9
Two Great Saints
on the
Liturgical Motorway
Fr Julian Green puts into context Pope St John XXIII
and Pope St John Paul II who are both celebrated in October
The Church’s
year is somewhat like a three-lane motorway. Lane one is the ‘temporal cycle’,
following the successive liturgical seasons which are governed by the great celebrations of the mystery
of Christ, particularly by the date of Easter. So Advent, Christmastide, Lent, Eastertide and all the moveable
feast days belong to this first lane of the motorway. Lane two is what is most properly called the ‘sanctoral
cycle’, or the feasts of saints.
Usually these take second place to the celebrations in
the ‘temporal cycle’, but occasionally a feast of Our Lady
or the apostles is deemed important enough even to
displace a Sunday. Then, finally, we have the third lane
of the motorway: the ‘devotional cycle’. Oftentimes,
this is more at the forefront of Catholic consciousness
than some of the important celebrations in the other
two cycles. Ask any Catholic the significance of the
month of May or November, they will immediately tell
you that they are the months devoted, respectively, to
Our Lady and the Faithful Departed.
words ‘Vatican II’ can elicit many positive or negative
reactions from people. And yet it cannot be doubted
that, for good or bad, the Second Vatican Council
has changed so much of the practice and selfunderstanding of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately,
sometimes it is the popular perception of what Vatican
II said, rather than what it actually taught, which has
shaped the life of the Church.
I believe that we have not even begun to understand
the true depth and significance of the Second Vatican
Council. Having been misrepresented over the course
of fifty years, we need to examine once again what
the Council actually said, and have the courage to
implement its vision for the Church, standing firm in
the Tradition received over centuries, but having the
impetus from a complete focus upon and consecration
to the Lord – in the liturgy, in catechesis, in our work
of apostolate and evangelisation – to make Christ
present here and now.
October is firmly set within the long period of
Ordinary Time, and has no great feast days to mark it
out in the ‘temporal cycle’, except in the old calendar
where Christ the King crowns the month. It also
does not have many remarkably important feast days
from the ‘sanctoral cycle’, with the exception of the
apostles St Simon & St Jude on 28th and St Luke on
18th. However, October is always thought of more
as the month of the Rosary. My first thought was to
It was St John Paul II, whose pontificate was
write on the Rosary. However, two little celebrations