General Roman Calendar of 1954 - Rank of Feast Days

Rank of Feast Days

The ranking of feast days that had grown from an original division between doubles and simples and that by the time of the Tridentine Calendar included semidoubles, with Pope Clement VIII adding in 1604 to the distinction between first and second class doubles the new rank of greater double, was still in use in the 1954 calendar, and would continue until the following year, 1955, when Pope Pius XII abolished the rank of semidouble.

The rank of feast days determines which Mass is said when two feast days coincide (or "occur") on the one day, as well as when a feast day falls on Sundays or certain other privileged days. Feast days were classified as Simple, Semidouble, or Double, with feast days of the Double Rite further divided into Double of the I Class, Double of the II Class, Greater Double or Major Double, and Double, in order of descending rank. On ferias and many feast days of simple rank, the celebrant was permitted to substitute a Mass of his own choice such as a votive Mass, or a Mass for the Dead.

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 before and after the psalms were "doubled", i.e. twice repeated entire on these days. 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 one of the feria or week-day, the other of the festival. Hence such days were known as "doubles".

The Catholic Encyclopedia of the early years of the twentieth century shows the incremental crowding of the calendar (which had increased further by 1954) in the following table based on the official revisions of the Roman Breviary in 1568, 1602, 1631, 1882 and on the situation in 1907.

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 simplified matters considerably in his 1911 reform of the Roman Breviary. In the case of occrrence the lower-ranking feast day could become a commemoration within the celebration of the higher-ranking one. Further retouches were made by Pope Pius XII in 1955, Pope John XXIII in 1962, and Pope Paul VI in 1969.