Directory (liturgy)

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Directory for the Liturgy of the Hours and Mass in the ecclesiastical province of Hamburg , church year 2017/2018

The Directory ( Latin: Directory ) is the annual liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church for one church year . The official name of the liturgical book is Ordo Missae celebrandae et Divini Officii persolvendi secundum Calendarium Romanum pro anno liturgico [XXXX] (“Regulations for the celebration of Holy Mass and for the worship of the hours according to the Roman calendar for the year [XXXX]”). In addition, the expenses for the area of ​​an individual diocese or several dioceses, an order community or an independent sub-association of an order or the Ordo virginum take into account the respective own calendar of the diocese or the order with its own celebrations , for example the regional calendar for the German-speaking area .

The Directory in the broader sense also refers to church official instructions for certain forms of worship, such as the Directory for Children's Masses (published by the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship on November 1, 1973) or the Directory "Sunday Congregation Services without Priests" (Congregation for Divine Worship, 2 June 1988).

The directory, usually a small-format book, contains information about the liturgical times , the feasts and solemn festivals , the required and not required days of remembrance of the saints , Sundays , votive masses and the time of the year . As a liturgical book it is an indispensable aid for the life of worship and belongs to the inventory of the sacristy and the parish office.

Most of the diocesan directorates were also accessible online, but this possibility of public access is being handled more and more restrictively for reasons of data protection. The reason is that directories traditionally contain the days of death of deceased clerics, which some dioceses do not want to make publicly available as personal data.

Directory as a liturgical calendar

Since there are feasts that can move in time in the liturgical calendar ( Easter ) and those that always fall on the same day (e.g. Christmas ), it can happen that different feasts fall on one day. Which then has priority is determined by the “list of the liturgical days according to their order of precedence” ( basic order of the church year and the new Roman general calendar , no. 59). The Directory regulates for each liturgical day which liturgical celebration has priority when liturgical dates and times coincide, which texts are used for the celebration of Mass and the Liturgical Office and which liturgical color is assigned to it. The starting point is the church year with the central festivals of the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ , the assigned festival circles ( Christmas festival circle with Advent and Christmas time Easter festival circle with fasting and Easter time) and the time in the annual cycle. In this cyclical, regularly recurring sequence of Sundays and weekdays , further festivals are classified: Lord's festivals , Marian festivals , the festivals and commemorative days of the saints and own festivals of the diocese, an order or the respective church .

The most important festivals - especially those of the Lord's Year, but also Marian festivals and outstanding commemorative days - are specified in the general Roman calendar or general calendar and are binding worldwide. 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 are included there.

In addition, there are regional or particular calendars that are published in regional directorates. Dioceses and religious orders have the option of adding their own celebrations to the liturgical calendar and thus commemorating saints from the respective area or order who are not included in the general calendar.

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