Home > Calendar of saints
A calendar of saints forms a way of organising a liturgical year on the finely-granulated level of days by assigning each day to association with a saint. This calendar system, when combined with major church festivals and movable and immovable feasts, constructs a very human and personalised yet often localised way of organising the year and identifying dates.
Compare Roman Missal.
Medievalist s continue the old tradition of dating by saints' days: their works may appear "dated" as "The Feast of Saint Martin" or "Lammastide". Poets such as John Keats commemorate the importance of The Eve of Saint Agnes.
Many children acquire baptismal or confirmational names from the saint associated with their date of birth, baptism or confirmation, and believing Eastern Orthodox Christians mark the "name day" of the saint whose name they bear with special attention.
Various feast days will be "ranked" with various levels of importance. In the Roman Catholic Church, from most to least importance, these are solemnities, feasts, memorials, and optional memorials. The rankings listed below are those for the universal church, various countries or dioceses may have additional saints or blesseds in their calendars. If no ranking is given, the feast day belongs to some particular calendar and not the universal calendar.
Some traditional dates ( Roman Catholic unless otherwise indicated) include:
1 January
- January 1: Mary, Mother of God - Solemnity
- January 2January 2 is the 2nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 363 days remaining (364 in leap years). Events 366 Alamanni cross frozen Rhine in large numbers, invading Roman Empire. 1492 Reconquista: Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spa: Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen - Memorial
- January 5January 5 is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 360 days remaining until the end of the year (361 in leap years). Events 1463 Poet Francois Villon is banned from Paris. 1477 Battle of Nancy, Charles the Bold killed, Burgundy beco: Saint Angela of Foligno
- January 6January 6 is the 6th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 359 days remaining (360 in leap years). Events 871 Alfred of England defeats the Danes in the Battle of Ashdown 1066 Harold Godwinson crowned King of England 1205 Philip of Swabia b: EpiphanyEpiphany is a Christian feast intended to celebrate the 'shining forth' or revelation of God to mankind in human form, in the person of Jesus Christ. The observance originally included the birth of Jesus Christ; the visit of the three Magi (Caspar, Melchi - Solemnity
- January 7January 7 is the 7th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 358 days remaining (359 in leap years). The day is Jinjitsu , in Japan. Events 1325 Alfonso IV becomes King of Portugal. 1558 France takes Calais, the last continental possession of: Saint Raymond of Peņafort - Optional Memorial
- January 13: Saint Hilary of Poitiers - Optional Memorial
- January 17: Saint Anthony the Great - Memorial
- January 18: The Confession of Saint Peter
- January 20: Saint Fabian or Saint Sebastian - Optional Memorial
- January 21: Saint Agnes - Memorial
- January 22: Saint Vincent - Optional Memorial
- January 25: The Conversion of Saint Paul - Feast
- January 26: Saints Timothy and Titus - Memorial
- January 27: Saint Angela Merici - Optional Memorial
- January 31: Saint John Bosco - Memorial
- Sunday after January 6: Baptism of the Lord - Feast