Memorial of Saints (November 21)

Feasts, Obligatory and Optional Memorials of Saints

• Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Gelasius I, pope
• Albert of Louvain, bishop and martyr

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been celebrated in the Eastern Church since the 6th century A.D. and in monasteries in Italy since the 9th century A.D. In 1372 A.D. the feast has been instituted for the whole Church. The feast commemorates the event (traditional stories) that the three-year-old Mary was brought to the temple in Jerusalem where she grew up with other girls. This traditional story expresses that Mary lived her whole life in the presence of God and was prepared for the great task to become the mother of the Son of God. The feast is a symbol of her total dedication to serve God.

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Memorial of Saints (November 20)

Feasts, Obligatory and Optional Memorials of Saints

• Edmund the Martyr
• Bernward
• Felix of Valois
• Dasius
• Nerses of Sahgerd
• Maxentia, virgin and martyr

St. Edmund the Martyr (ca. 841-870 A.D.) was elected the king of East Anglia in 855 A.D. when he was only fourteen years old. East Anglia was an old Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Edmund was regarded as a virtuous ruler. During the great war with the Vikings (the Danes) in 869-870 A.D., he was defeated and captured at Hoxne, Suffolk, by the Danish invaders under Ingvar. Edmund refused to renounce the Christian faith. He was first scourged, shot with arrows and beheaded at Hellesden. His body was found incorrupt in ca. 915 A.D. and was transferred to a place near Bedricsworth (died ca. 870 A.D.). He is mentioned in the CD "Passion of the Saints".

St. Felix of Valois founded together with St. John of Matha [Decembeer 17], the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (the Trinitarians). The mission of the Order is to ransom captives from the Moors. St. John worked in Spain, while St. Felix administered the French province of the Order. By 1240 A.D., the Trinitarian Order had some six hundred monasteries (died ca. 1212 A.D.).

Innocent III approved the foundation of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity in 1198 A.D. The members of the Order were given a white habit with a red and blue cross on the breast. In the Order's foundation in France, they were known as the Mathurins because of the Order's site in a chapel dedicated to St. Mathurin. Members of the Order went to Morroco, Tunis, and Spain. Their work succeeded to have released several hundred of captives from the Moors.

Saints- November 20, Learn more

Memorial of Saints (November 19)

Feasts, Obligatory and Optional Memorials of Saints

• Nerses, bishop and martyr
• Barlaam, martyr
• Mecthilde of Magdeburg, abbess
• Hilda of Whitby
• Agnes of Assisi, abbess

St. Agnes of Assisi (d. ca. 1253 A.D.) was the younger sister of St. Clare of Assisi, the foundress of the Poor Clares and the close associate of St. Francis of Assisi. She was only fifteen when she followed St. Clare into the convent. In 1220 A.D. St. Francis sent her to Monticelli to become abbess of a new convent of Poor Clares. Agnes died two months after the death of Clare. Initially buried at San Damiano, her remains were laid alongside her sister in 1260 A.D. in the newly built church of Santa Chiara in Assisi.

Related blog post:

• St. Clare of Assisi, virgin, Learn more