ed by the private
devotions of great servants of God, such as St. Bernard, St. Gertrude,
St. Bridget of Sweden, John Gerson, St. Bernardine of Sienna, and other
Franciscan preachers. The spread of the devotion in several countries
led Pope Sixtus IV. (1471-1484) to introduce St. Joseph's feast, as a
simplex, having only one lesson. Clement XI. (1700-1721) changed it into
a feast of nine lessons. Two centuries previously the feast is found in
Breviaries under date 19th March.

_The Annunciation_. Devotion to the Mother of God was continued by the
apostles after the death of her Son. Fervent and widespread devotion is
traceable in the Church's early days, but the organising of our Lady's
feasts was a work of some time and difficulty. A great difficulty was
the fear of blasphemy from pagans, and of error amongst pagan converts,
so trained in myths and genealogies of the gods. Then the festivals
commemorating the facts of the life, death and resurrection were
primarily commemorative of the Redeemer and secondarily of His Mother.
Long before the institution of her feast, the cultus of Mary was almost
universal. The feast of the Annunciation falls on the 25th March with
us. Its date depends entirely on the date of Christmas, but the birth of
Christ was not always placed in calendars on the 25th December.

In early days the feasts of martyrs and other saints were not celebrated
in Lent, and hence this feast of the Blessed Virgin was set down in some
calendars as transferred, and was celebrated in Advent. In Spain, it was
celebrated eight days before Christmas. In the East, the feast was
generally celebrated on the 25th March, and gradually this date was
fixed, and was sanctioned by several councils in the eleventh century.

_May. The Finding of the Holy Cross_. The history of the finding of the
true cross by St. Helena is well known. The Alexandrine Chronicle gives
the day as the 14th September, 320. This September feast of the holy
cross is of earlier origin than the feast of May. The latter was
established to commemorate the act of the emperor in 629, when he
brought back to Jerusalem the true cross, from the Persian conquerors.
On 3rd May, he handed it over to the Patriarch Zacharias, and, strange
to say, this festival of May spread rapidly in the Western Church,
whilst in the East only one feast, (the September one), of the finding
of the cross was celebrated for centuries. In Milan, for instance, the
September feast was