January 18 - Feast of St. Chair

Saint Chair in the Treasury Museum

Nota Bene:  I read today (2/18/13) that this feast was suppressed in 1960 and the feasts for the two chairs were rolled into one.  Thus, February 22 is rightly the Feast of Saint Chair.  If this distresses you as much as it distresses me, jump right to the Feast of Blessed Maria Teresa Fasce, also celebrated on this day. 


While the Church is very serious about the feast of St. Peter's Chair, I'm having a hard time following suit. Sure, there is a chair at the Vatican that has been St. Peter's since the first century. And there's a collection of phials full of oil from the lamps that burned at the graves of saints; one of these phials, held at the cathedral in Monza, Italy, is labeled “oleo de sede ubi prius sedit sanctus Petrus” (oils from the chair where Saint Peter first sat). And actually, there are actually two feast days -- one for each cathedra (chair), Rome and Antioch. And there is even a Mass said on each feast day (January 18 and February 22).

Sure, Peter himself, keeper of the keys to the kingdom of heaven, may have planted himself on the chair, but it is still a piece of furniture, not the man who sat on it. Today's saint is not a saint at all, but the contemplation of a reverential spirit carried ad absurdum.