Making sense of it . . .

Various people have been commenting both on the blogs and on facebook on the curious situation whereby S. Dominic and S. Jean-Marie Vianney ‘swopped’ their celebrations when the Kalendar was revised : but when I think about it, I'm not sure it does seem all that silly really.

S. Dominic actually died on 6th August : but clearly there was no way in which the Church was going to move the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord, so it was decided to commemorate his Feast two days earlier, on 4th August.

However, S. Jean-Marie Vianney actually died on 4th August – but because of S. Dominic’s feast, his feast day was put on 8th : which meant that both of them were being celebrated on the ‘wrong’ day.

All that the change did was to move S. Dominic to 8th August – so he’s still two days away from the day of his death, but now two days later, not two days earlier – whilst S. Jean-Marie is celebrated on the actual day : which seems to me to make rather more sense than the previous situation.