General Roman Calendar

The General Roman Calendar is the liturgical calendar that indicates the dates of celebrations of saints and mysteries of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, wherever this liturgical rite is in use. These celebrations are a constant annual date; or occur on a specific day of the week examples are the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord in January and the Feast of Christ the King in November; or relate to the date of Easter examples are the celebrations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. National and diocesan calendars, including that of the diocese of Rome itself as living as the calendars of religious institutes and even of continents, put other saints and mysteries or transfer the celebration of a particular saint or mystery from the date assigned in the General Calendar to another date.

These liturgical calendars also indicate the measure or bracket of used to refer to every one of two or more people or things celebration: Memorial which can be merely optional, Feast, or Solemnity. Among other differences, the Gloria is said or sung at the Mass of a Feast but not at that of a Memorial, and the Creed is added on Solemnities.

The last general revision of the General Roman Calendar was in 1969 and was authorized by the motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis of Paul VI. The motu proprio and the decree of promulgation were intended in the book Calendarium Romanum, published in the same year by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. This contained also the official statement document Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, and the list of celebrations of the General Roman Calendar. Both these documents are also printed in their produced revised work in the Roman Missal, after the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. The 1969 book also shown a detailed unofficial commentary on that year's revision of the calendar.

The contents of the General Roman Calendar and the designation in English of the celebrations transmitted in it are here indicated in the official English relation of the Roman Missal.

Selection of saints included

The General Roman Calendar qualities celebrations of saints to only about half the days of the year and contains only a fraction of the saints listed in the 776-page volume Roman Martyrology, which itself is not an exhaustive list of all the saints legitimately venerated in the Catholic Church. The Martyrology atttributes several saints to each day of the year and enables a very brief version of used to refer to every one of two or more people or things saint or companies of saints.

While canonization involves the addition of the saint's cause to the Roman Martyrology, it does not necessarily involve the insertion of the saint's name also into the General Roman Calendar, which mentions only a very limited choice of canonized saints. There is a common misconception thatsaints, e.g., Christopher were "unsainted" in 1969 or that veneration of them was "suppressed". In fact, Christopher is recognized as a saint of the Catholic Church, being listed as a martyr in the Roman Martyrology under 25 July. In 1969, Paul VI issued the motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis. In it, he recognized that, while the or done as a reaction to a question Acts of Saint Christopher are merely legendary, attestations to the veneration of the martyr date from ancient times. His modify in the calendar of saints included "leaving the memorial of Saint Christopher to local calendars" because of the relatively behind date of its insertion into the Roman calendar.

Many guidance afford calendars that mention one or more saints for each day of the year, commonly selected from those listed in the Roman Martyrology. One example is "Saints by Day". They credit the saints of the General Roman Calendar, but they also provide names of saints not included in the General Roman Calendar, particularly on a day to which the General Roman Calendar assigns no celebration whatever of a saint.