A solid block of green dates is on the calendar this week.  This is how my liturgically-minded eyes see the week of February 23.  I scratched my head a little.  “Really?” I thought.  “Not a single feast or special memorial of a saint to observe at Mass this coming week?”  A red 12 might signal a martyr, or a white 27 could indicate a confessor of the faith.  At our early morning daily Mass at St. Margaret of Scotland, I like having the opportunity to reflect on a saint’s life.  Being a trained historian, it’s my rare opportunity to have an audience that will listen to a bit of church history.  No such luck (for them?) this week.

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Those attending the 8:45 a.m. student Mass on Friday, February 11, 1944, at St. Francis Xavier College Church had no reason to expect anything unusual about this daily liturgy.  Fr. Claude Heithaus, a Jesuit priest, trained archeologist and professor of sociology, presided that morning.  Fr. Heithaus had given hundreds of homilies.  This day’s sermon proved to be different.  It generated intense discussion on an important subject in American society.  The issue Fr. Heithaus raised at Mass that morning was racial prejudice in America.  He asked aloud what his conscious had been questioning: why did his university admit people of all faiths but deny admission to Catholics because of their color?  St. Louis University’s response, ultimately, was the racial integration of the university.

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In the calendar of ancient Rome, the month of February was a late addition.  At least four centuries before the birth of Christ, the Roman year had only ten months.  The last, December, got its name from the Latin word for ten, decem.  The first month, March, was named for Mars, the god of war, for the springtime was an opportunity for a resumption of military battles.  So the frigid days between December and March were “downtime” – evidently too cold and too dark to bother counting.  Eventually, though, around 450 BC there emerged among Romans the practice of purification for wrongs done.  The Latin word for these purification or expiatory rites is februa.  So with the intention of getting cleaned up and right with the gods, February was the time of preparation for going to war in March.

A lot of these ancient traditions were not lost on the early Christians as they came to dominate the culture of the old Roman Empire.  Many pagan observances got a new skin.  An obvious adaption is found in this weekend’s celebration of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, sometimes referred to as the Purification of the Lord.  In this festival the customs of Judaism combine with the solar calendar to provide a most meaningful observance.  February 2 is the fortieth day following Christmas, the birthday of Jesus.  In keeping with their religious obligation, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem for His circumcision, “just as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord.’” (Lk 2:23)  In this feast of the Presentation Christ is celebrated as the “consolation of Israel.”  He is the light, the relief His people have been awaiting in their long days of distance from the Lord.

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