alia feria ejus."
Again, in the martyrology of Tallaght, from which Gorman, a later
martyrologist, says that Oengus, the Culdee, drew his materials, is
found under date May 3rd, a mention of the celebration of the Conception
of Mary. This evidence seems to show--although it is not perfectly
conclusive--that the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was
celebrated in the Irish Church in the ninth and tenth centuries, but not
on the 8th December (see Father Thurston, S.J., _The Month_, May and
June, 1904; Father Doncoeur, S.J., _Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique_,
Louvain, 1907, p. 278, et seq.; Baudot, _The Roman Breviary_, pp.
253-255; Kellner, _op. cit._).

It is to be regretted that even in the new Breviary the lessons for the
second nocturn of this feast are taken from the composition, _Cogitis
me_, falsely attributed to St. Jerome, and rejected by critics, from the
days of Baronius, as spurious (Baudot, _op. cit._, p. 236).

_February. The Purification._ Candlemas. According to the Gospel
narrative, Mary fulfilled the commands of the Law (Lev. XII. 2-8), and
on the fortieth day brought the prescribed offering to the Temple, where
she met Simeon and Anna.

The first reference found in Christian writers to this festival is found
in the famous _Peregrinatio Sylviae_, the diary of a Spanish lady who
visited Jerusalem about 385-388. She tells us that the day began with a
solemn procession, followed by a sermon on St. Luke II. 22 seqq., and a
Mass. It had not yet a name, but was called the fortieth day after the
Epiphany; and this naming shows that at Jerusalem the Epiphany was
regarded as the day of Christ's birth. The lady's words show that the
feast was not then observed in her own country. The feast was observed
in Rome in 542; and Pope Sergius I. (687-701) ordered a procession on
this festival. The opinion that is so often met with in pious books,
that this feast with its procession of candlebearers was established by
the Church to replace the riot and revels of the Pagan _Lupercalia_, is
now rejected by scholars. For, processions, with or without lights, were
so common amongst Pagans and Christians that any connection between
these two feasts is negligible.

_March. St. Joseph_. In the Western Church the cultus of St. Joseph is
not found in any calendar before the ninth century, although numerous
traces of the esteem and veneration paid to him by individuals are
found. The public cultus of St. Joseph was introduc