Liturgical order of precedence

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The Liturgical ranking is the regulation in the Roman Catholic liturgy that for each liturgical day that liturgical celebrations each takes precedence determines when meeting liturgical dates and times which texts for the celebration of Mass and the Divine Office are used and which liturgical color is assigned to.

The liturgy speaks of Okkurrenz when two parties meet in a day. The coincidence of the second Vespers of one day with the first Vespers of the following day is called competition .

Occurrences in the church year

Occurrences (also: Occurrences) arise because in the church year the cyclical, regularly recurring sequence of Sundays and weekdays can coincide with festivals that are celebrated on a certain date or on a certain occasion. In the liturgical calendar, there are also temporally flexible festivals, such as Easter with the associated Easter festival group , which are dependent on a variable Easter date , and festivals that always fall on the same day (e.g. Christmas with the dependent Christmas festival group or days of remembrance of saints ). There are also festivals of the dioceses , an order or regionally anchored festivals. Which then has priority or which options exist in the liturgical texts, is determined by the liturgical regulations on which the Roman General Calendar is the basis for the entire Church worldwide. The current version was in 1969 Pope Paul VI. promulgates . The general calendar is supplemented by particular or regional calendars of dioceses and religious orders with their own celebrations , such as the regional calendar for the German-speaking area . The regulations are published in the annual list of liturgical days according to their order of precedence, the Directory .

The starting point of the general calendar is the church year with the central festivals and festival circles of the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ (the marked times in the Christmas and Easter festivities) and the time in the annual cycle . Other festivals are classified in this scheme: Gentlemen's festivals , Marian festivals , the festivals and exemplary memorial days of saints ( martyrs , church teachers , virgins , religious , etc.) from different countries as well as the consecration festivals of the main Roman churches .

historical development

middle Ages

The week was marked by the celebration of Sunday as the day of the Lord and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, on which the paschal mystery is celebrated. The days of the week liturgically belonged to the previous Sunday, and the liturgical texts of the Sunday were repeated for a mass celebration. Until around the year 1100, festivals were a rare exception. As festa fori (public celebrations), there was a break in work and attendance at holy mass was part of the festivities. Feasts that fell on a Sunday liturgically supplanted the celebration of Sunday.

In the high and late Middle Ages, the number of saints' festivals ( martyrs , confessors , doctors of the church, popes and bishops , religious ) increased sharply. In addition, festivals were increasingly given a vigil or an octave , which were celebrated liturgically. This led to a diverse differentiation of the types of festivities and the regulations in the event of competition, also in order to upgrade and protect the men's festivals compared to saints' festivals . Such festivals were named summum festum , sollemne festum , festum medium , festum trium lectionum (“festival with the three readings”), triplex , duplex , semiduplex , simplex and others. The origin of these terms and their meaning have not yet been fully explored.

Ranking system according to the Council of Trent

After the Council of Trento , a universal calendar was added to the renewed Roman Breviary (1568) and the new Roman Missal (1570), which introduced a ranking system that was previously in use by the Franciscans and in the Roman curial liturgy .

Ranks of the festivals
Latin name meaning Examples
Festum duplex I. classis cum octava privilegiata Duplex festival (double festival) 1st class with priority octave Christmas, Epiphany, Easter Sunday, Ascension Day, Pentecost Sunday
Festum duplex I. classis cum octava non privilegiata (communi) Double festival 1st class with non-priority (ordinary) octave Immaculate Conception, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, Assumption of Mary, All Saints' Day
Festum duplex I. classis 1st class double festival Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Monday and Tuesday in the Easter and Pfíngstokatv, Annunciation, St. Joseph
Festum duplex II. Classis cum octava simplici Double festival 2nd class with a single octave The birth of the Virgin, Stephanus, Johannes Ap., Laurentius von Rom
Festum duplex II. Classis 2nd class double festival Name of Jesus, Transfiguration of the Lord, Matthias Ap., Mariä Candlemas
Festum duplex majus Higher double party (since 1602) Holy Family, Octave of Epiphany, Octave of Easter (White Sunday), Archangels, St. Peter's Feast, Names of Mary, Seven Sorrows of Mary, Francis of Assisi, Dominic
Festum duplex Double firm the last day of an octave; Bishops, martyrs, doctors of the church
Festum semiduplex Semiduplex festival (half-double festival) Wednesday to Saturday in the Easter and Pentecost octaves, confessors
Festum simplex Simple feast
Commemoratio Memory, memorial day
Ranks of the days of the week
Latin name meaning rank Examples
Dominica maior (privilegiata) I. classis Higher (privileged) Sunday 1st class Priority over all festivals
Dominica maior (privilegiata) II. Classis Higher (privileged) Sunday 2nd class Priority over parties duplex II. Classis
Dominica Sunday Priority over parties semiduplex;
from 1914 priority over all Duplex festivities
Feria maior privilegata Higher privileged day of the week Priority over all festivals Ash Wednesday
Fair maior Higher day of the week Priority over all festivals simplex Weekdays in Advent, Lent and Prayer Week
Feria weekday

The number of festivals of the duplex rank and higher increased from 89 to 208 between 1570 and 1910; many of them also had an octave, so that the celebration of simple Sundays and weekdays was largely suppressed. The number of votive masses  - especially in the form of frequent private masses that overgrown church services - had increased significantly, although the missal of 1570 only allowed them for urgent reasons (urgenti de causa ). Until the modern era, the requiem's measurement form was “improperly” often used for weekday masses because it corresponded to the intention of the mass scholarship as a “soul mass for the deceased of the founding families, according to liturgical scholar Josef Andreas Jungmann .

In a reform process from 1912 to 1914, Pope Pius X ordered that all simple Sundays should take precedence over duplex festivals; From then on, in the Liturgy of the Hours , feasts were celebrated with the psalms of the weekday instead of with the festival office, in order to avoid too frequent repetition of the same prayer texts. In 1955 the Congregation for Rites abolished all vigil days and octaves with the exception of those of the solemn festivals of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.

When different days and celebrations came together, different solutions were possible:

  • The higher-ranking celebration is celebrated, the lower-ranking one commemorated .
  • The higher-ranking celebration is celebrated, the lower-ranking one is postponed.
  • The higher-ranking celebration is celebrated, the lower-ranking celebration is canceled.
  • The movable festival is celebrated, the other is commemorated.

In a commemoration , the daily prayer (collecta), the prayer for gifts (secreta) and the final prayer (postcommunio) of the lower-ranking memorial day were added to that of the higher-ranking ones. On Sundays, due to festivals or octave days that overlapped with this Sunday, several commemorating prayers could be joined together. If a feast day of a saint with his own measurement form fell during Lent, the feast of saints was viewed as a higher priority and the weekday of Lent was commemorated. The gospel of the superseded measurement form was read as the final gospel until 1955 .

In cathedrals , collegiate churches or in churches where a large number of lay people can be expected, two different masses can be celebrated instead of postponing one of the festivals. Two convent masses are celebrated in monastery churches .

Rubric code from 1960

In 1960, the "Rubric Code " ( Codex Rubricarum Breviarii ac Missalis Romani ) was a radical reform and simplification of the rubrics that Pope John XXIII. with the Motu Proprio Rubricarum instructum of July 25, 1960, with effect from January 1, 1961. She spoke for the first time about the "Liturgical Day" and introduced a clearly structured system of four classes. The masses and offices of the Proprium de tempore were given a more important place compared to the Holy Feasts ( Proprium Sanctorum ). Sundays are only 1st or 2nd class. Sundays (class 2) were given priority over most saints' feasts, which were brought together in group 3; in this group all duplex, semiduplex and simplex festivals went on. A 1st class festival does not have priority over a 1st class Sunday. Likewise, a 2nd class festival does not have priority over a 2nd class Sunday. As before, individual feasts of the Lord are celebrated on a Sunday, the day of the Lord: the Feast of the Name of Jesus , the Feast of the Holy Family , the Feast of the Trinity , the Feast of Christ the King . The whole of Lent is now of such high importance that no 3rd class festival can be celebrated on weekdays.

Order of the liturgical days since 1970

The current classification of the liturgical days was in the context of the liturgical reform with the reorganization of the church year and the Roman general calendar after the Second Vatican Council on February 14, 1969 by the Motu proprio Mysterii paschalis of Pope Paul VI. approved and put into effect on January 1, 1970 as the basic order of the church year and the new Roman general calendar ( Latin Normae universales de anno liturgico et de calendario ). It differentiates between the following terms:

The ranking is as follows:

I. 1. The Easter triduum of suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord (from the celebration of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday to the second Vespers on Easter Sunday).
2. Christmas . Appearance of the Lord . Ascension Day . Pentecost . Sundays of Advent , Lent (Easter penance) and Easter . Ash Wednesday . Days in Holy Week . Days in the Easter Octave .
3. Solemn feasts of the Lord, Our Lady and those saints recorded in the general calendar . All souls .
4th The special celebrations for regions, communities, etc. (e.g. patronage ; church consecration , memorial of the order's founder)
II. 5. The men's festivals .
6th The Sundays in the Christmas season and the Sundays in the annual cycle.
7th The feasts of Mary and the feasts of the saints of the general calendar .
8th. The own festivals of a diocese or a religious community
9. The weekdays of Advent from December 17th to December 24th inclusive. The days of the week of the Christmas octave. The days of the week of Lent.
III. 10. The due days of remembrance of the general calendar.
11. Obligatory days of remembrance of a diocese or religious order's own calendar.
12. Not required days of remembrance.
13. The weekdays of Advent up to and including December 16. The days of the week of Christmas from January 2nd to the Saturday after the apparition of the Lord. The days of the week of Easter between Easter octave and Pentecost. The days of the week in the annual cycle.

If several celebrations meet on the same day, the one higher in the list of liturgical days is held. If a solemn festival is suppressed by a higher-ranking day (which can happen especially during Lent and Advent), then it is postponed to the next day that is not occupied by a festival with rank 1 to 8. In 2005, for example, the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord (March 25th, rank 3) was celebrated on April 4th, because the Easter triduum (rank 1) and the Easter octave (rank 2) had priority. There are no other celebrations for the year in question.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philipp Harnoncourt : The calendar. Festivals and feasts of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, p. 52.
  2. ^ Philipp Harnoncourt: The calendar. Festivals and feasts of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, p. 52.
  3. Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Festivals and memorial days of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, pp. 65-357, here p. 155.
  4. ^ Philipp Harnoncourt: The calendar. Festivals and feasts of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, p. 52; the following ranking there p. 53.
  5. Examples from: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Festivals and memorial days of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, p. 158.
    Missale Romanum . Edition XXIX post typicam. Pustet, Ratisbonae 1953.
  6. ^ Rupert Berger : Votive Mass . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 10 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2001, Sp. 909 .
  7. ^ Josef Andreas Jungmann SJ: Missarum Sollemnia. A genetic explanation of the Roman mass. Volume 1, Herder Verlag, Vienna, Freiburg, Basel, 5th edition 1962, p. 305, note 127.
  8. ^ Philipp Harnoncourt: The calendar. Festivals and feasts of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, p. 53.
  9. Benedictines of the Archabbey of Beuron (ed.): The complete Roman missal - Latin and German with general and special introductions following the missal by Anselm Schott OSB. Herder, 1963, p. XLVII.
  10. ^ Josef Andreas Jungmann SJ: Missarum Sollemnia. A genetic explanation of the Roman mass. Second volume, Herder Verlag, Vienna - Freiburg - Basel, 1948, 5th edition 1962, p. 558.
  11. ^ Missale Romanum . Edition XXIX post typicam. Pustet, Ratisbonae 1953, p. (20).
  12. ^ Philipp Harnoncourt: The calendar. Festivals and feasts of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, p. 53.
  13. ^ Herder correspondence : The rubrics for the Roman breviary and missal in the pontificate of John XXIII. Fifteenth year 1960/61, issue 4, pp. 496–497; Book 5, pp. 542-543
  14. ^ Philipp Harnoncourt: The calendar. Festivals and feasts of the saints. In: Hansjörg Auf der Maur: Celebrating in the rhythm of time II / 1. Regensburg 1994, ( Church service. Handbuch der Liturgiewwissenschaft , edited by Hans Bernhard Meyer , Part 6.1), p. 53.
  15. sbg.ac.at: Basic order of the church year , according to No. 59.