LOST FEASTS: October 31 - Commemoration of the Holy Relics

One of the great tragedies of the 20th century liturgical changes was the "Romanization" of the Dominican calendar that occurred in the revision of 1960, and which is codified in the calendar of the 1962 Breviarium iuxta ritum sacri ordinis praedicatorum.  Many unique Dominican feasts were removed from the liturgical calendar of the Order, including those of many Dominican blessed's and many other feasts that were particular to the Dominican Order.One such feast was the Feast of the Holy Relics.  

Relics of St. Thomas Aquinas at the Church of the Jacobins,

Toulouse, France.

As noted in the Martyrology of the Sacred Order of Friars Preachers (Bonniwell, 1955), this feast was a commemoration of "holy martyrs and of the other saints, whose bodies or relics are preserved in our churches."  In the 1909 Breviarium iuxta ritum sacri ordinis

Collect prayer from the 1909 Breviarium iuxta ritum
sacri ordinis, when the feast was celebrated on October 30.  

praedicatorum  the feast is celebrated on October 30, however in the 1924 Breviarium S.O.P. it appears on  October 31, the Vigil of All Saints Day, and remained there until it was removed in 1960.  The feast  had the rank of a totum duplex feast, which in 1962 would have been considered a 1st Class Feast.   For the Office, everything was taken from the Common of Many Martyrs, except the Collect (see below), and lessons 4, 5, and 6 at Matins, which were taken from a tract by St. John Damascene's "De Fide Orthodoxa" .  A commemoration of St. Quintinus was also made.  Interestingly, this feast superseded the Vigil of All Saints at Matins, as noted in the 1924 Breviarium S.O.P., which states "De Vigilia Sanctorum in Officio nihil fit" at the end of the Office.

Prayer

O God, who willed to adorn this church with the relics of so many saints; grant that we Your servants may enjoy in heaven the fellowship of those whose memory we venerate on earth:  Through our Lord...