How to Celebrate a Saint’s Feast Day Well

            Given that there are thousands of canonized saints, we have many opportunities to celebrate a saint’s feast day.  That very term “feast day” tells us that these are celebratory events.  But how should we celebrate these feasts?  Like a normal secular holiday with BBQ and beer?  Probably not.  Several saints in our Catholic history teach us how we ought to celebrate a saint’s feast day properly. 

            One thing that St. Augustine stresses very often in his sermons is that we should imitate the saints and follow their examples.  He says, “exult and rejoice on the days of the holy martyrs; pray that you may be able to follow in the footsteps of the martyrs” (Sermon 273.9).  About saints Perpetua and Felicity he says, “it is no small part of imitation, to rejoice together in the virtues of those who are better than we are” (Sermon 280.6).  Later, he says about them as well, “by the example, you see, of their glorious struggle they encourage us to imitate them” (Sermon 281.2).  Preaching about St. Lawrence, Augustine speaks, “let us follow his footsteps in faith” (Sermon 303.2).

            Augustine then makes a connection between celebrating of the saints’ feast days and imitating them.  He preaches, “so I am urged to speak to your graces, and urge you to celebrate the feasts of the martyrs in such a way that you also take delight in imitating them by following in their footsteps” (Sermon 285.1).  And further, “so let us follow in the footsteps of the martyrs by imitating them, or else we will be celebrating their festivities for no purpose. . . let us be on our toes to imitate the martyrs, if we want the feast days we celebrate to be of any use to us” (Sermon 302.1,9).  Basically, Augustine is saying that it is silly and futile to celebrate the saints’ feast days if we are not going to at least try to imitate them. 

            For Augustine, an important part of being able to emulate the saints is being able to relate to the saints.  We must be able to see the similarities between ourselves and them so that we will know that it is possible for us to imitate them.  He says, “God wished there to be persons of all ages and either sex among the examples given by the martyrs” (Sermon 305A.2).  He also stresses the fact that they were mere humans, just like us, “may the holy martyrs pray for us that we should not only celebrate their feast but also imitate their virtues.  Let us love their confession of faith, let us applaud their crowns, and let us not despair.  We too, after all, are human just like them” (Sermon 299F.4).  He explains this idea in more detail: “’But it’s too much for me,’ he says, ‘to imitate the Lord.’  By the grace of the Lord, then, imitate your fellow servant, imitate Stephen, imitate Marianus and James.  They were only human, they were fellow servants of yours; born just like you, but crowned by the one who was not born in that way” (Sermon 284.6).

            So, throughout his sermons, St. Augustine kept teaching his flock to imitate the saints.  He went a little further to say that if we do not try to imitate them, then we are failing to celebrate their feast day well – so celebrating their feast days must include our attempts to imitate their virtues.  He also points to the humanity of the saints, that they were no different than us.  Because of this, we have genuine hope of being able to imitate them successfully, it is not an impossible goal. 

            St John Vianney also taught, in his homilies, how we ought to celebrate a saint’s feast day.  In one of Vianney’s homilies, he rebukes his congregation for the way they regularly celebrated saints’ feast days.  He first describes how feast days were kept in the early Church and then contrasts that with how his congregation had been celebrating them:

“In the early days of the church, the faithful of one providence, or district, used to come together publicly on the feast day of a saint in order to have the holiness of participating in all the graces which God bestows on such days.  The office of the vigil was started.  The evening and night were spent in prayer at the tomb of the saint.  The faithful heard the word of God.  They sang hymns and canticles in honor of the saint.  After passing the night so devoutly, they heard Mass, at which all those assisting had the happiness of going to Holy Communion.  Then they all withdrew, praising God for the triumphs he had accorded the saint and the graces He had bestowed in response to the latter’s intercession.  After that, my dear brethren, who could doubt but that God pours out His graces in abundance upon such a reunion of the faithful and that the saints themselves are happy to be the patrons of such people.  That was the way in which the feast days of patron saints was celebrated in olden times. 

What do you think of that?  Is it thus that we celebrate such feasts today?  Alas!  If the first Christians were to come back upon this earth, would they not tell us that our feasts are no different from those that the pagans kept?  Is it not the general rule that God is most seriously offended on these holy days?  Does it not seem, rather, that we combine our money and our energies together to multiply sin almost to infinity?” (We Are Keeping A Feast).

            Apparently, the people in John Vianney’s parish did not celebrate feats days well but were instead prone to drunkenness and gluttony on those days.  Can we honestly say we have never done such things?  Have we taken feast days (or other holidays – holy days) as opportunities to praise God, or have we focused on the party and fun we can have?  John Vianney is clear that the chief act of celebration on a feast day is the supernatural feast which is the Eucharist and the extra prayers to the saint, not the natural feast of ordinary food and fun. 

            If we celebrate the saints’ feast days well, we can expect extra help from them on those days.  Thomas Kempis (who is not a saint but is a classical spiritual author) teaches that we ought to ask the saints for their intercession with special fervor on their feast days, “About the time of the principal feasts good devotions ought to be renewed and the intercession of the Saints more fervently implored” (The Imitation of Christ, I.19).   

            Continuing this theme, St. Teresa of Avila relates that she received visions from the saints on their feast days.  When describing her devotion to St. Clare, and how through her intercession Teresa’s convent was able to practice great poverty, St. Teresa writes:

“On her feastday, while I was going to Communion, St. Clare appeared to me with striking beauty.  She told me to take courage and to continue on with what I had begun, that she would help me.  I became very devoted to her; and what she said has indeed come true, for a nearby monastery of nuns of her order helps sustain us.  What is more important is that little by little she brought this desire of mine to such perfection that the poverty the blessed saint practiced in her house is practiced in this one, and we are living on alms.  For it had cost me no small amount of trouble that this observance of poverty would have all the backing and authority of the Holy Father behind it so that no one could change it and that there never be any income.  And the Lord does more, and it must perhaps be through the prayers of this blessed saint, for without any request His Majesty fully provides what is necessary for us” (The Book of Her Life, chapter 33, 13).

The feast day of a saint is thus not merely an important date for us, but it is an important date for them.  They are willing and able to help us more than usual on their feast days.  This is a great motivation to celebrate their feast days well, because on those dates our prayers to the saints will be especially powerful. 

            In the early Church, a Christian poet Paulinus wrote that he considered his patron saint’s feast fay (St. Felix) to be more important a celebration than his own birthday, “I have always honored [St. Felix’s feast day] in such a way that I would treat it as my own birthday rather than that day on which I was born. . . . Ill-starred the day when I came forth, from evil stock to evil deeds; blessed the day when my protector was born for me to heaven” (Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, 57).   

            A saint’s feast day is a very special celebration, especially the feast days of our favorite saints towards whom we have strong devotions.  To celebrate them well so that we may grow in holiness we should recall the saint’s virtues and try to imitate them, attend mass devoutly, and ask for the saint’s prayers.