The entrance of the Custos of the Holy Land into Bethlehem on 30 November and the celebration of the first Sunday of Advent mark the opening of the new liturgical year of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land as well. As every year, the Custody has prepared a calendar (click HERE to download it), with its own celebrations, in particular the peregrinations to the Holy Places.
“The volume,” Fra Enrique Bermejo, liturgist and calendarist of the Custody, explains, “is made up of the general Roman calendar and the calendars of the Order of Friars Minor and of the Custody. It also contains the celebrations of the Diocese of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.”
The calendar follows the liturgical cycle of the Year and starts with the first Sunday of Advent. The indications for the Liturgy of the Hours and for Mass are shown for each day, including the colour of the vestments and the references of the readings. The saints and the type of celebration (holiday, memory, feast-day) are shown, according to the order of precedence in the Table of liturgical days, at the start of the publication.
This year, green is the colour chosen for the particular indications linked to the feast-days but also the special days of the Custody, such as the peregrinations to the Holy Places. These are the “titular” feast-days of the Franciscan shrines, in memory of the passage of the Lord during his life on Earth, and occupy an important place in the liturgical life of the Custody.
Other useful indications are the feast-days of the other Christian Churches, and Jewish and Muslim holidays. The names of the friars who died during the last liturgical year are also shown in an “ad hoc” appendix and on the corresponding days in the calendar. “This is not only a detail:” Fra Enrique emphasizes, “the calendar is above all an instrument for the use of the community, and it is important that the fraternity is also experienced in the communion of the Saints.”
Fra Enrique, who has been the calendarist of the Custody since 1991, pays special attention to the iconography. It was he who, in 1998, introduced the first illustrations in the margins in the calendar, to mark the presence of the peregrinations. Since 2004, considering the evolution of printing technology and thanks to some periods spent by Fra Enrique on Cyprus, due to his apostolate, the Custody has started to print the calendar in colour, including photos taken by Fra Enrique himself in the frescoed medieval churches of the island.
This year, the cycle of images is taken from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. “These photos are very rich and are a visual and pastoral aid to illustrate the liturgical feast-days. We have to help those who use the calendar to see the right and theologically complete image, to illustrate a Mystery of salvation: that what is illustrated is a Mystery.”
The Custody’s liturgical calendar is a useful tool for the Franciscan fraternity but also for everyone, all over the world, who is interested in following the liturgical life of the Custody. It is published in Latin, but a pocket-size version, in Italian, English and Spanish, is also available, showing the saints with the compulsory memory for the liturgy and the peregrinations. A year-at-a-glance calendar is also available for an overview of the whole liturgical year.
Marinella Bandini
