The ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite is a regulation for the liturgy of the Catholic Church. It determines for each liturgical day which observance has priority when liturgical dates and times coincide (or "occur"), which texts are used for the celebration of the Holy Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours and which liturgical color is assigned to the day or celebration.
Ranks Each day in the Catholic liturgical calendar has a rank. The five basic ranks for the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, in descending order of importance, are as follows:
Solemnity — the highest ranking type of feast day. It commemorates an event in the life of Jesus or Mary, or celebrates a Saint important to the whole Church or the local community. The Mass of a solemnity has proper readings and prayers, the Gloria and Credo are recited, and occasionally there will be use of incense, a processional hymn and procession, and a recessional hymn/recession. Outside of Advent, Lent and Eastertide, a solemnity falling on a Sunday is celebrated in place of the Sunday. The equivalent type in the older Tridentine or Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and the 1962 Missal of Pope John XXIII would be a I Class Feast. Feast — the rank of secondary liturgical days including lesser events in the life of Jesus, Mary or an Apostle (theologically speaking) or for major saints. The Gloria is recited but not the Credo, and there are proper readings and prayers for the feast. A Feast pertaining to the Lord (e.g. Transfiguration) falling on a Sunday during Ordinary Time replaces the Sunday Liturgy and such will have the Credo recited at Mass. The equivalent in the older Tridentine or Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and the 1962 Missal of Pope John XXIII would be a II Class Feast. Memorial — the commemoration of a saint of lesser importance. Many memorials are optional or only observed in specific dioceses, regions or nations. The equivalent in the Extraordinary Form would be a III Class Feast. Seasonal Weekday — a weekday in Advent, Christmastide, Lent, or Eastertide, on which no solemnity, feast, or memorial happens to be observed. On Weekdays of Lent memorials are celebrated as optional memorial and such liturgy of Lent shall be used. The equivalent in the Extraordinary Form would be I, II and III Class Ferial days, and the even older Tridentine forms would be classified as Major Ferials. Feria or Ferial Weekday — a weekday in Ordinary Time on which no solemnity, feast or memorial happens to be observed. The equivalent in the Extraordinary Form would be a IV Class Ferial, and in the older Tridentine forms would be Minor Ferials.
All holy days of obligation on a global level are also solemnities; however, not all solemnities are holy days of obligation. For example, The Nativity of the Lord Jesus (Christmas) (25 December) is a solemnity which is always a holy day of obligation, whereas the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist (24 June) is not a holy day of obligation. On a local level, the reverse is also possible, e.g., in Germany the (global) feast of St. Stephen (26 December) is a holy day of obligation, without being raised to solemnity.
History The ranking of feast days of saints and of Christian mysteries such as the Ascension of the Lord, which had grown from an original division between doubles and simples.
What the original meaning of the term "double" may have been is not entirely certain. Some think that the greater festivals were thus styled because the antiphons were "doubled" at the major hours, i.e. they were repeated twice. Others, with more probability, point to the fact that before the ninth century in certain places, for example at Rome, it was customary on the greater feast days to recite two sets of Matins, the first for the week-day, the second for the feast. Hence such days were known as "doubles".
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907 shows the incremental crowding of the calendar with the following table based on the official revisions of the Roman Breviary in 1568, 1602, 1631 and 1882, and on the situation in 1907:
PopeDateDoubles, I ClassDoubles, II ClassGreater DoublesDoublesSemidoublesTotalPius V1568191705360149Clement VIII16021918164368164Urban VIII16311918164578176Leo XIII188221182412874275Pius X190723272513372280
In 1907, when, in accordance with the rules in force since the time of Pope Pius V, feast days of any form of double, if impeded by "occurrence" (falling on the same day) with a feast day of higher class, were transferred to another day, this classification of feast days was of great practical importance for deciding which feast day to celebrate on any particular day.
Pope Pius X changed things considerably in his 1911 reform of the Roman Breviary. Further retouches were made by Pope Pius XII in 1955.
A major revision was done by Pope John XXIII in 1960, which divided the days into four classes: the previous major and minor doubles and semidoubles became feasts of the III class,Note: The double-semidouble-simple classification is chiefly about "how does the Divine Office for this day look like", and in this sense these somewhat counterintuitively became, in effect, simple feasts. They did have some of the privileges of former doubles, though, such as having only one collect at Mass and not allowing non-privileged Votive Masses. and the previous simples had already in 1955 been reduced to commemorations within a (IV class) feria. It is this form that was authorized to use in the motu proprio Summorum pontificum; for those who follow this use, the decree Cum sanctissima by the CDF in 2020 in effect created a new class of feasts: while most feasts of the III class can now, on a voluntary basis, be replaced by the celebration of newer saints, a special number of important ones cannot, and these in turn can be celebrated in Lent and Passiontide again (which in 1955/60 had been forbidden for III class feasts).Note: By its non-replaceability and its use in Lent, this new class ranks very akin to the old minor doubles, though still only three lessons are said at Matins. For details, see the respective calendars.
The 1969 revision by Pope Paul VI divided feast days into "solemnities" (the previous I class feasts), "feasts" (the previous II class feasts) and "memorials" (the previous III class feastsIn the sense of a general rank-comparison. In addition, many of these feasts were removed from the Calendar.), and entirely did away with the practice of commemorations as hitherto known.The previous commemoration had meant that, e. g. at Mass, the after the collect of the Mass, a further collect was added for the commemoration, and likewise for the other two orations. There is a different mode of commemoration in limited use: The weekdays of High Advent (17-24 December), the days of the Octave of Christmas and weekdays of Lent outrank all memorials, but a memorial that falls on such a day (except Ash Wednesday and Holy Week, and of course Sundays, sollemnities and feasts) can be commemorated by having its collect entirely replace the collect of the Mass, and just the collect, with nothing else being done for the memorial (see GIRM 355). In the memorials, it introduced a new distinction between obligatory and optional memorials:Note: This very roughly mirrors the old distinction between minor doubles on the one side and semidoubles on the other - priests were free to choose a Votive Mass rather than the Mass-of-the-Day on a semidouble -, but with less ease of admitting a feast to the higher rank. An optional memorial means that the celebrant (or who prays the Office) can choose between one or more memorials and the feria.See General Instruction of the Roman Missal , 355 c
Sundays The office of Sunday originally was generally semidouble. The only exception was Low Sunday which was a double; the further of Easter and Pentecost were counted not as Sundays but as feasts, and were the only feasts with the privilege of entirely replacing a Sunday.A day such as "Trinity Sunday", on the other hand, was not a feast replacing a Sunday, but a feast perpetually fixed on a Sunday. The Sunday itself, the first after Pentecost in this case, would still enjoy full commemoration rights.
A division of the Sundays into major and minor ones - corresponding to what Pope John XXIII's Code of Rubrics would call I and II class - was very ancient. Apart from Low Sunday, the major ones were those of Advent (4), Shrovetide (3), Lent (4) and Passiontide (2), with all the others being minor. Major Sundays gave way to no feast except I class doubles, with some very few (1st of Advent, 1st of Lent, Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday and Low Sunday) outranking even them. Minor Sundays were preferred over all other semidouble occasions, but gave way to any double feast (!). Some Sundays also had feasts perpetually assigned to it, such as The Trinity (1st after Pentecost) or The Rosary (1 October). (The practical effect of the latter two facts, especially the first of these, was that such Sundays only rarely did not give way to some feast. - The surprising fact that Eastertide Sundays were, apart from the first, not ranked as major has probably the reason that the abstention of having saints-feasts was seen as a sign of a penitential season.) However, when a Sunday was thus outranked, it was always commemorated, generally at Lauds, Vespers and Mass after the prayer of the day, and by having its Gospel as Last Gospel of the Mass.
The reform by Pope Pius X (1911) made a systematically rather small change here which had very much effect: from now on, even minor Sundays would outrank minor doubles, and also major doubles if they were not feasts of the Lord. (But a Sunday would still give way to, say, the feast of St. Anne, because she had a II class double.)
In 1955, Pope Pius XIIDe rubricis ad simpliciorem formam redigendis of 23 March 1955 (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 47(1955), pages 218-224). The only English translation available on the Internet seems to be that on a blog. initiated a major revision here. All Sundays were raised to the double rite; all major ones – except those of Shrovetide, which thus were effectively demoted to minorThe exception is that they still outrank Candlemas when it is not locally a first-class feast. – outrank all feasts whatsoever, and all minor Sundays give way to only feasts of the first class and of the Lord – and if they gave way to a feast of the Lord (whether also of the first class, or not), they would be entirely replaced by it,De rubricis, 7 i.e. not commemorated.
In the 1960 reform by Pope John XXIII, the major Sundays were branded such of the first class and the minor ones such of the second, with the Shrovetide Sundays now officially demoted. However, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception would outrank Advent II once more.While Pius XII had allowed the Mass to be of her - see De rubricis, 4 - this was in effect a votive Mass. Furthermore, though this does not concern the rank, the content of the Sunday Office was reduced to what in previous times would have been called that of a simple-feast, with only three lessons at Matins, and only the last of those being of the Sunday Gospel.
As far as the ranks are concerned, there was rather little change in the liturgy reform: The Sundays of Shrovetide fell away, though, and as in 1955-1960 Advent II would again outrank the Immaculate Conception.
Ferias
Originally, the division of ferias was into the two categories of: major ferias: all ferias of Advent, Lent including Passiontide, Ember Days,excepting those of Pentecost, which are counted as days-within-the-Octave and thus rank higher Rogation Monday, and the Friday before Pentecost, minor ferias: all others.