It has seemed to the author that the time for gathering together the ascertained results derived from these and similar books has come. It is chiefly for theological students and the younger clergy that the following book is intended. Such a work as would make it easy to deal with the subject in sermons and catechetical instructions, and, at the same time, would give clearly and briefly all the information necessary for dealing with the question from the historical standpoint, avoiding equally uncritical credulity and sceptical unbelief—such a work seems to the author demanded by the circumstances of the time.
Moreover, the Minister of Public Worship in Prussia has recently (12th Sept. 1898) required from candidates for the office of catholic teacher in higher grade schools, a considerable acquaintance with the ecclesiastical year among their other qualifications.
This is the reason why the author has confined his attention solely to the worship of the Roman Catholic Church, merely alluding occasionally to the usages of other religious bodies. For the same reason, in accordance with the meaning of the term “Heortology,” he has concerned himself with those festivals alone which are publicly celebrated, or were so celebrated formerly. The majority of these afford no features of historical interest, owing, as they do, their origin to the action of authority. In cases which do not here come under discussion, reference may be made to separate works and to the Bollandists in general. In a matter of such practical interest as this, it cannot fail that some points have been omitted; still, I think, the amount of material collected in the following pages is sufficient for the end I have had in view. In support of the views herein expressed, a somewhat detailed account is given in the third part of the documents which serve as the sources of our information. It has not seemed practical to print a selection from the large number of these documents by way of supplement, since to have done so would have interfered with the object of this book.
Bonn, All Saints’, 1900.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE OF THE SECOND
GERMAN EDITION
This second (revised and enlarged) edition—from which Dr A. Mercati, Professor in the Seminary of Reggio, Emilia, has made the Italian translation—is in substance the same as the first. The sections dealing with the dedication of churches and the feast of the patron saint, with the feast of the Immaculate Conception, with the feasts of St Mary Magdalen, St Cecilia, and St Catherine, and the two concluding sections have been added, and some appendices.
Bonn, May 1906.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
In this translation, the excursus on the German Protestant “Buss-und-Bettage” and on St Ursula have been omitted as being of less general interest, and a few notes have been added.