Canon LI.
The
nativities of Martyrs are
not to be celebrated in Lent, but commemorations of the holy Martyrs
are to be made on the Sabbaths and Lord’s days.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon LI.
Commemorations of Martyrs shall only be held on
Lord’s days and Sabbaths.
By this canon all Saints-days are forbidden to be
observed in Lent on the days on which they fall, but must be
transferred to a Sabbath or else to the Sunday, when they can be kept
with the festival service of the full liturgy and not with the
penitential incompleteness of the Mass of the Presanctified.
Compare canon xlix. of this Synod, and canon lij. of the Quinisext
Council.
Balsamon.
The whole of Lent is a time of grief for our sins, and
the memories of the Saints are not kept except on the Sabbaths.
Van Espen remarks how in old calendars there are but few
Saints-days in those months in which Lent ordinarily falls, and that
the multitude of days now kept by the Roman
ordo
are mostly of
modern introduction.