The entire Catholic Church rejoiced at the beatification of the Ulma family on September 10, 2023. It was the first time an entire family was beatified at a single celebration, as well as the only time in the history of the Church that an unborn child was beatified.
As you can read in our dedicated section on Aleteia, “Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children — including a baby who lost his life at birth — were executed on March 24, 1944, along with the Goldmanns, the Jewish family of eight they had been sheltering for a year and a half.”
Generally speaking, saints and beatified persons are honored in the liturgical calendar on their date of death. Since saints are confirmed to already be in Heaven, the date of a saint’s death would be considered their “heavenly birthday,” or the day of their “entrance into Heaven.”
Exceptions
However, this is not always possible or desirable, for a variety of reasons, including if the saint’s death date may coincide with either another major feast, or the penitential season of Lent. In these two cases, their liturgical feast would always be replaced by the other feast/season, and wouldn’t be celebrated.
An example of this situation is the feast of St. John Paul II. He died on April 2, 2005, which often falls during Lent or the first week of Easter. As a result, the Church assigned October 22 to be his feast, which is the anniversary of his elevation to the papacy.
Married couples
In the case of the few married couples who have been recognized as blesseds or saints, their wedding anniversary is often chosen, such as Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin, whose liturgical feast is July 12.
The Ulma family’s feast day follows a similar pattern, as March 24 always falls during Lent and would make it difficult to have a joyous celebration.
The Church instead has chosen July 7 as their liturgical feast, as Jozef and Wiktoria were married on July 7, 1935. The postulator of their cause confirmed this date.
Initially this feast will only be celebrated in Poland. Local bishops would have to approve this feast to be included on their calendar, or the current pope could extend it to the universal Church after their future canonization.
