

Feast of the Crown
of Thorns
The first feast
in honor of the Crown of Thorns [Festum susceptionis coronae
Domini] was instituted
at Paris in 1239, when St. Louis brought there the relic of the Crown
of Thorns, which was deposited later in the Royal Chapel, in August,
and though at first special to the Royal Chapel, the feast was gradually observed
as the Feast of the Holy Crown on May
4, celebrated along with the Feast of the Cross in parts of Spain, Germany, and Scandinavia.
It is still
kept in not a few
Spanish dioceses and is observed by the Dominicans on April 24.
A special feast
on the Monday after Passion Sunday was granted to the
Diocese of Freising
in Bavaria by Clement X [1676] and Innocent XI [1689] in
honor of the Crown
of Christ. It was celebrated at Venice in 1766 on the second
Friday of March. In
1831 it was adopted at Rome as a double major and is
observed on the Friday
following Ash Wednesday. As it is not kept throughout
the universal
Church, the Mass and Office are placed in the appendices to the
Breviary and the Missal.
The hymns of the Office, taken from the
"Analecta hymnica"
of Dreves and Blume contains a large number of rhythmical
offices, hymns, and
sequences for this feast.
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