Hierarchy Of Feast Days.

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There are degrees of Solemnity of the Office of the Feast Days of Saints. 

In the 13th-Century, the Roman Rite distinguished three Ranks: 

Simple;

Semi-Double;

Double.

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With consequent differences in the recitation of the Divine Office or Breviary. 

The Simple Feast Day commenced with the Chapter (Capitulum) of First Vespers, and ended with None. It had three Lessons and took the Psalms of Matins from the Ferial Office; the rest of the Office was like the Semi-Double Feast Day. 

The Semi-Double Feast Day had two Vespers, nine Lessons in Matins, and ended with Compline. The Antiphons before the Psalms were only intoned.

In The Mass, the Semi-Double Feast Day always had at least three “Orationes”, or, Collects. 

On a Double Feast Day, the Antiphons were sung in their entirety, before and after the Psalms, while, in Lauds and Vespers, there were no Suffragia [Editor: Intercessory Prayers] of the Saints, and The Mass had only one “Oratio” (if no Commemoration was prescribed). 

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If Ordinary Double Feasts (referred to also as Lesser Doubles) occurred with Feasts of a higher Rank, they could be simplified, except the Octave Days of some Feasts, and the Feasts of The Doctors of The Church, which were Transferred.

To the existing distinction between Major and Ordinary or Minor Doubles, Pope Clement VIII added two more Ranks, those of First-Class, or, Second-Class, Doubles. Some of these two Classes were kept with Octaves. 

This was still the situation when the 1907 Article Ecclesiastical Feasts in the Catholic Encyclopedia was written. In accordance with the rules then in force, Feast Days of any form of Double, if impeded by “Occurrence” (falling on the same day)[59] with a Feast Day of higher Class, were Transferred to another day.

Pope Saint Pius X simplified matters considerably in his 1911 reform of the Roman Breviary. In the case of Occurrence, the lower-Ranking Feast Day could become a Commemoration within the Celebration of the higher-Ranking one. 

Until then, Ordinary Doubles took precedence over most of the Semi-Double Sundays, resulting in many of the Sunday Masses rarely being said. 

While retaining the Semi-Double rite for Sundays, Pope Saint Pius X’s reform permitted only the most important Feast Days to be Celebrated on Sunday, although Commemorations were still made until Pope John XXIII’s reform of 1960.

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The division into Doubles (of various kinds), Semi-Doubles, and Simples, continued until 1955, when Pope Pius XII abolished the Rank of Semi-Double, making all the previous Semi-Doubles Simples, and reducing the previous Simples to a mere Commemoration in The Mass of another Feast Day or of the Feria on which they fell (see General Roman Calendar of Pope Pius XII).

Then, in 1960, Pope John XXIII issued the Code of Rubrics, completely ending the Ranking of Feast Days by Doubles, etc, and replacing it by a Ranking, applied not only to Feast Days but to all Liturgical Days, as I, II, III, and IV, Class Days.

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The 1969 revision by Pope Paul VI divided Feast Days into “Solemnities”, “Feasts”, and, “Memorials”, corresponding approximately to Pope John XXIII’s I, II, and III, Class Feast Days. Commemorations were abolished. 

While some of the Memorials are considered obligatory, others are optional, permitting a choice on some days between two or three Memorials, or between one or more Memorial(s) and the Celebration of the Feria. 

On a day to which no obligatory Celebration is assigned, The Mass may be of any Saint mentioned in the Roman Martyrology for that day.[60]