Mar 18, 2019

St. Paul VI’s Feast to be Celebrated May 29

Vatican City (CNA/EWTN News)—The Vatican announced on February 6 that Pope St. Paul VI’s feast day will be celebrated annually on May 29 as an optional memorial.

“Before and after becoming Pope, Saint Paul VI lived with his gaze constantly fixed on Christ whom he considered and proclaimed as a necessity for everyone,” Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, commented on the papal decree.

With this declaration, published February 6, the pope who guided the Church through the Second Vatican Council will have his memorial inserted into the renewed General Roman Calendar and liturgical books that he promulgated in 1969.

The date of the memorial, May 29, is significant as the ordination anniversary of Paul VI—then Giovanni Battista Montini—to the priesthood in 1920.

With the papal decree, the Vatican also published the new texts for the memorial of St. Paul VI to be added to the Roman Calendar, Missal, Liturgy of the Hours, and Martyrology.

“The Collect prayer resonates with all that God accomplished in his faithful servant: ‘who entrusted your Church to the leadership of Pope Saint Paul VI, a courageous apostle of your Son’s Gospel,’ and it asks: ‘grant that, illuminated by his teachings, we may work with you to expand the civilization of love,’” Sarah said.

The second reading in the Office of Readings for Paul VI’s memorial is taken from passages of his homily during the last public session of the Second Vatican Council on December 7, 1965.

Paul VI was canonized by Pope Francis on October 14, 2018, along with Oscar Romero, and five other new saints. As pope, Paul VI oversaw much of the Second Vatican Council, which had been opened by Pope St. John XXIII, and in 1969 promulgated a new Roman Missal. He died in 1978, and was beatified by Pope Francis October 19, 2014.

The Editors