Prior to the revision of the Dominican liturgical calendar in 1961, the Thursday after Sexagesima Sunday was the feast of the Translation of the Relics of St. Catherine of Siena. In the 1909 Breviarium S.O.P., which contains the entire office, the feast had a rank of Totum Duplex. The office was essentially the same as the saint's feast on April 30th. The main difference is in the lessons and responsories at Matins.
It was announced in the Martyrology as follows:
THURSDAY AFTER SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY: Transferal of the body of St. Catherine of Siena, virgin, of the Order of Preachers.
From
“Short Lives of the Dominican Saints” (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trübner
& Co., Ltd., 1901):
This festival
was originally established under the name of the Commemoration of
Saint Catherine of Siena or Feast of her Espousals, to perpetuate the
memory of the mysterious favor conferred upon her in the year 1367, when the
Saint had attained the age of twenty.
The city of
Siena was given up to the riotous festivities usual at the close of the
Carnival, and Catharine had shut herself up in her cell, seeking by prayer and
fasting to make reparation for the offences committed by the thoughtless crowds
who passed her door. Then our Lord appeared to her, and addressed her in these
words : "Because thou hast forsaken all the vanities of the world and set
thy love upon Me, and because thou hast, for My sake, rather chosen to afflict
thy body with fasting than to eat flesh with others, especially at this time,
when all others that dwell around thee, yea, and those also who dwell in the
same house with thee, are banqueting and making good cheer, therefore I am
determined this day to keep a solemn feast with thee and with great joy and
pomp to espouse thy soul to Me in faith." As He was yet speaking, there
appeared in the same place the most glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the
beloved disciple Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Paul the Apostle, and the
great patriarch and founder of her Order, Saint Dominic; and after these came
the kingly prophet and poet, David, with a musical psaltery in his hand, on
which he played a heavenly melody of ineffable sweetness. Then our Blessed Lady
came to Catharine and took her hand, which she held towards her Divine Son, and
besought Him that He would vouchsafe to espouse her to Himself in faith. To
which He consented with a very sweet and lovely countenance, and, taking out a
ring that was set about with four precious pearls and had in the other part a marvelous
rich diamond, He put the same on the finger of her right hand, saying thus,
"Behold, I here espouse thee to Me, Thy Maker and Savior, in faith, which
shall continue in thee from this time forward, evermore unchanged, until the
time shall come of a blissful consummation in the joys of heaven. Now then, act
courageously. Thou art armed with faith, and shalt triumph over all thy
enemies." The vision disappeared, but the ring, invisible indeed to other
eyes than Catharine's, remained upon her finger, a mysterious token of the love
of her Divine Spouse.
We are
expressly told that this event took place on "the last day of the
Carnival," which in Siena was the Tuesday after Sexagesima; but, following
the more general custom, the feast which commemorates it has always been kept
on the Thursday. This feast was raised to a higher rank and its name changed to
that of the Translation of the Relics of Saint Catherine in the year
1866.
The holy
Virgin of Siena died in Rome, A.D. 1380, and was first interred in the cemetery
adjoining the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, but later on the sacred
remains were removed by the Master of the Order, Blessed Raymond of Capua,
formerly her confessor, to a stone sarcophagus on the right-hand side of the
high altar of the church. When he had done this, he remembered what Saint
Catharine had predicted to him on the Eve of Saint Francis, when they were
together at Voragine on their journey back from Avignon, namely, that he should
on that same day in a future year cause such a translation of her body to be
made. Blessed Raymond afterwards detached the head from the body and sent it to
the Convent of San Domenico at Siena, where it was at first carefully
concealed, as the holy relic could not be exposed to public veneration before
the Saint had been raised to the altars of the Church. Subsequently, however
probably in the year 1385 Father Raymond made known to the Consistory of the
Republic in what manner the head of their beloved fellow-citizen had been
brought into their midst, and it was resolved that a grand festival should be
celebrated and a solemn procession made to receive the sacred relic, as though
it had been but newly brought to the city. The most touching feature in this
celebration, of which minute accounts have been preserved to us, was the
presence of the Saint's aged mother, Lapa, who walked in the ranks of the
Sisters of the Third Order, close behind the canopy, beneath which was borne
the head of her beloved child.
It would be
tedious to speak of the various relics which at different periods have been
detached from the holy body and bestowed on various convents of the Order; of
the translation of the sacred remains to the Rosary Chapel, made by Saint
Antoninus when Prior of the Minerva; and of yet a third translation, at the
time of Saint Catharine's canonization. A fourth and last translation took
place in our own times. On 17th April,
A.D. 1855, when the Church of the Minerva was undergoing restoration, the
Saint's sarcophagus was again opened by Father Alexander Vincent Jandel,
General of the Order, on which occasion a considerable portion of the sacred
relics was taken out and sent by his Most Revd. Paternity to Saint Dominic's
Convent, Stone, the Mother-House of the English Congregation of Sisters of
Penance, which bears the name of Saint Catharine. On August 4th of the same
year, the restoration of the Minerva having been completed, Pius IX. of holy
and happy memory consecrated the high altar with his own hands; and the remains
of the Virgin Saint of Siena, after having been carried in solemn procession
through the streets of the Eternal City, were, a few days later, laid to rest
beneath the same high altar, where they still repose.
Prayer
O God, you enabled the blessed Catherine, graced with a special privilege of virginity and patience, to overcome the attacks of evil spirits and to remain unshaken in your love; grant, we beseech you, that following her example by treading underfoot the wickedness of the world, and overcoming the wiles of our enemies, we may pass in safety to your glory. Through our Lord...