Bulletins

October 21, 2018

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On October 21, 1956, this parish church of ours was dedicated by the ninth Bishop of Richmond, the Most Reverend Peter L. Ireton. It was a Sunday. They were celebrating the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost. Easter that year, just like this year, fell on April 1st. From that day forward the 21st of October is observed as a Solemnity in this parish with prayers from the Common for the Anniversary of the Dedication of a Church.

As a result, no longer may we celebrate the Feast of St. Ursula and her Companions… and not for the reason that Wikipedia claimed (until I updated its page on St. Ursula a few days ago), which was that she had been removed from the Catholic Church’s list of saints. Rather, she remains in the Roman Martyrology (Martyrologium Romanum, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004, p. 582) although her commemoration does not appear in the simplified General Roman Calendar of the 1970 Missale Romanum (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970, p. 113).

Saint Ursula (Latin for 'little female bear') is a Romano-British Christian saint who died on October 21, 383, in Cologne, Germany, in the company of other virgin martyrs. Medieval legends about her being martyred with 11,000 companions have obscured her history. The Catholic Encyclopedia indicates that for the solid reconstruction of the true history of the virgin martyrs, there is a 4th or 5th century stone inscription in the choir loft of the Basilica of St. Ursula by someone named Clematius (a “man of senatorial rank, who seems to have lived in the Orient before going to Cologne, was led by frequent visions to rebuild in this city, on land belonging to him, a basilica which had fallen into ruins, in honour of virgins who had suffered martyrdom on that spot”) and some details furnished by ancient liturgical books.

It was enough for some of the most famous explorers of the West. Christopher Columbus named the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean in her honor when sailing past them in 1493. On October 21, 1520, Ferdinand Magellan rounded Cape Virgenes and entered the Straits of Magellan, naming the cape after Ursula's virgins. In 1521, Portuguese explorer João Álvares Fagundes gave the name Eleven Thousand Virgins to what is now known as Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.

St. Ursula and Companions, pray for us!

God bless you.

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard

p.s. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13,8). Amen? Amen