What are the Moveable Feasts?

In the church Calendar we have feasts that do not occur on the same day of the month every year, but which occur sometimes sooner and sometimes later.  The reason for this is that the time and day of the their celebration depends on the feast of the Pasch (Easter) which has no fixed date.  The feast of Easter can occur on any one of the Sundays between the 22nd of March and the 25th of April.  Hence, those feasts that have no fixed date are called moveable feasts.  The center of all the moveable feasts is Easter, therefore, the whole list of Sundays, festivals and sacred seasons which are dependent on Easter form the cycle of feasts called the Easter cycle.

What are the Immovable Feasts?

Besides the moveable feasts which change their date each year, we have numerous feasts which never change, but which fall every year on the same day of the month.   For example, Christmas always occurs on the 25th of December, and the feast of the Assumption of the Mother of God on the 15th of August.  These feasts that never change their date are called immovable feasts.   The cycle of immovable feasts begins with the Ecclesiastical New Year on the 1st of September and ends on the 31st of August.

While the center of the moveable feasts is Easter, the center of the immovable feasts is the Nativity (Christmas), although not all immovable feasts are dependent on this feast.  These immovable feasts, dependent on the Nativity, constitute the Christmas cycle.

Letter #80  to Sister Remigia
by the Little Daughter of the Divine Will, Luisa Piccarreta

My good daughter, Sister Remigia,

Thank you for your wishes for Easter and for St. Aloysius; but what I recommend is that you never lose peace, and that do not think of your miseries and weaknesses.  The more you think about them, the more you will feel them, and you will really make Jesus cry.  On the other hand, by not thinking of them, dear Jesus will cover them with His Love, and the Light of His Will will change them into fortitude and divine riches.  Oh, how I wish you would occupy yourself with nothing but living from the Divine Will, to let sweet Jesus live always together with you.  Never lose sight of Him, my daughter; never leave Him alone in your heart.  May everything you do serve to court and love Jesus.  He looks at everything you do, whether they are things directed to love Him and keep Him company within your heart.  Oh, how embittered He remains when your external acts do not echo in your interior, bringing Him your kisses, your love, your longed for company… If you want to be a saint, live always with Jesus.  He takes on the commitment to make of you His faithful copy, to the extent of being able to say:  “Jesus has made of me another Jesus.”  These are His aims.  My daughter, make Him content.

Pray for me; and leaving you in the arms of the Divine Will, like a baby who lets her mama to everything to her, I say,

Your most affectionate aunt,