Memorial (liturgy)

Last updated October 06, 2024

A memorial in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church is a lower-ranked feast day in honour of a saint, the dedication of a church, or a mystery of the religion.

Present rules

Observance

Celebrations of solemnities and feasts are distinguished from those of memorials by, for instance, recitation of the Gloria in excelsis in the Mass (an inclusion otherwise allowed only on Sundays) and the Te Deum in the Liturgy of the Hours.

The observance of memorials is integrated into the celebration of the occurring weekday (the feria ) according to the norms set forth in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) and the Liturgy of the Hours.^[2]

The GIRM lays down that, for memorials of saints, "unless proper readings are given, the readings assigned for the weekday are normally used. In certain cases, particularised readings are provided, that is to say, readings which highlight some particular aspect of the spiritual life or activity of the Saint. The use of such readings is not to be insisted upon, unless a pastoral reason truly suggests it".^[3] The Collect proper to the memorial is used or, if this is lacking, one from an appropriate Common. As to the Prayer over the Offerings and the Prayer after Communion, unless these are proper, they may be taken either from the Common or from the weekday of the current time of the year.^[4]

Celebrations of memorials occurring between 17 and 24 December and during Lent, which are then never obligatory, consist of replacing the collect of the day with that of the saint.^[5]

The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours gives the following indications on celebration of memorials occurring on ordinary days: In the Office of Readings and at Lauds and Vespers:

a) All the psalms with their antiphons are taken from the current weekday, unless the memorial has proper antiphons and psalms.

b) If the memorial has its own antiphon for the invitatory, hymn, short reading, Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons and intercessions, these are used. Otherwise these elements are taken either from the Common or from the Office of the current week and day.

c) The concluding prayer is taken from the Office of the saint.

d) In the Office of Readings, the biblical reading with its responsory is that assigned to the weekday. The hagiographical second reading with its responsory is proper to the saint, but if no proper reading is assigned, the reading is either taken from the Common or is the patristic reading of the weekday

e) Prayer during the Day and Compline are taken entirely from the weekday.^[6]

Celebrations of memorials occurring between 17 and 24 December and during Lent, which are then never obligatory, consist of adding to the Office of Readings, after the patristic reading and responsory of the weekday, the hagiographical reading and responsory of the saint, and concluding with the prayer of the saint; and adding to Lauds and Vespers, after the concluding prayer of the weekday, the antiphon (proper or common) and the prayer of the saint.^[7]

Obligatory and optional memorials

Memorials are either obligatory or optional. The rules governing the celebration of memorials, whether obligatory or optional, are identical. The only difference is precisely that an optional memorial need not be observed, and, with the limitations indicated for the second part of Advent and for Lent, there is the possibility of celebrating instead the Mass either of another memorial assigned to that day, or of the weekday, or of any saint mentioned in the Roman Martyrology for that day, or indeed (except during the first part of Advent, the days from 2 January to the day before Epiphany, and Eastertide), a Mass for Various Needs, or a Votive Mass.^[8]

Sometimes memorials that are called obligatory cease to be such. This occurs to those that fall within Lent. If two obligatory memorials coincide (as can happen when the movable memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary falls on the date of a fixed obligatory memorial), both become optional.^[9]

Pre-Vatican II forms of the Roman Rite

In approximate correspondence to memorials, Pope John XXIII's 1960 Code of Rubrics spoke of "third-class feasts", as can be seen in the General Roman Calendar of 1960, and gave some of them, either permanently or on the occasions when their celebration coincided with one of higher rank, only a commemoration within the office actually celebrated. The Code of Rubrics laid down that, unless proper psalms are assigned, a third-class office uses the weekday psalms and at matins combines the second and third readings for the ferial day into a second reading, with a reading about the saint or mystery providing the third, followed by the Te Deum. In lauds and vespers, everything after the psalms is either from the proper or the common of the feast. The same is done at terce, sext, and none. There are very few changes at prime. Compline is of the weekday unless otherwise assigned. Third-class feasts are merely commemorated on weekdays of Lent and are not observed on Sundays. During Advent, they add a commemoration of the ferial day, except on 17–23 December, days classified as second-class ferias that thus outrank them.^[10]

Before the 1960 Code of Rubrics, saints and mysteries were traditionally ranked as doubles, semidoubles and simples, with doubles further subdivided into first-class doubles, second-class doubles, major doubles and mere doubles. A few years before Pope John XXIII's reform, Pope Pius XII had already abolished semidoubles and Pope Pius X had done away with the tradition that any double feast, of which there were over 200 in the course of the year, outranked a normal Sunday celebration.

Related Research Articles

The Roman Breviary is a breviary of the Roman Rite in the Catholic Church. A liturgical book, it contains public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liturgical year</span> Annually recurring fixed sequence of Christian feast days

The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and which portions of scripture are to be read.

In the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite, a solemnity is a feast day of the highest rank celebrating a mystery of faith such as the Trinity, an event in the life of Jesus, his mother Mary, his earthly father Joseph, or another important saint. The observance begins with the vigil on the evening before the actual date of the feast. Unlike feast days of the rank of feast or those of the rank of memorial, solemnities replace the celebration of Sundays outside Advent, Lent, and Easter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vespers</span> Sunset evening prayer liturgy

Vespers is a liturgy of evening prayer, one of the canonical hours in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Lutheran liturgies. The word for this prayer time comes from the Latin vesper, meaning "evening".

In the practice of Christianity, canonical hours mark the divisions of the day in terms of fixed times of prayer at regular intervals. A book of hours, chiefly a breviary, normally contains a version of, or selection from, such prayers.

In the context of Christian liturgy, a canticle is a psalm-like song with biblical lyrics taken from elsewhere than the Book of Psalms, but included in psalters and books such as the breviary. Of special importance to the Divine Office are three New Testament Canticles that are the climaxes of the Offices of Lauds, Vespers and Compline; these are respectively Benedictus, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. There are also a number of Canticles taken from the Old Testament.

Matins is a canonical hour in Christian liturgy, originally sung during the darkness of early morning.

Lauds is a canonical hour of the Divine office. In the Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours it is one of the major hours, usually held after Matins, in the early morning hours.

The Liturgy of the Hours, Divine Office, or Opus Dei are a set of Catholic prayers comprising the canonical hours, often also referred to as the breviary, of the Latin Church. The Liturgy of the Hours forms the official set of prayers "marking the hours of each day and sanctifying the day with prayer." The term "Liturgy of the Hours" has been retroactively applied to the practices of saying the canonical hours in both the Christian East and West–particularly within the Latin liturgical rites–prior to the Second Vatican Council, and is the official term for the canonical hours promulgated for usage by the Latin Church in 1971. Before 1971, the official form for the Latin Church was the Breviarium Romanum, first published in 1568 with major editions through 1962.

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is a Byzantine Rite liturgical service which is performed on the weekdays of Great Lent wherein communion is received from Gifts that are sanctified (consecrated) in advance, hence its name; this Divine Liturgy has no anaphora.

The Office of the Dead or Office for the Dead is a prayer cycle of the Canonical Hours in the Catholic Church, Anglican Church and Lutheran Church, said for the repose of the soul of a decedent. It is the proper reading on All Souls' Day for all departed souls (Purgatory), and can be a votive office on other days when said for a particular decedent. The work is composed of different psalms, scripture, prayers and other parts, divided into The Office of Readings, Lauds, Daytime Prayer, Vespers and Compline.

In the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church, a commemoration is the recital, within the Liturgy of the Hours or the Mass of one celebration, of part of another celebration that is generally of lower rank and impeded because of a coincidence of date.

In Christian liturgy, a vigil is, in origin, a religious service held during the night leading to a Sunday or other feastday. The Latin term vigilia, from which the word is derived meant a watch night, not necessarily in a military context, and generally reckoned as a fourth part of the night from sunset to sunrise. The four watches or vigils were of varying length in line with the seasonal variation of the length of the night.

In Christianity, the Little Hours or minor hours are the canonical hours other than the three major hours.

The Use of York or York Rite was a liturgical use of the Roman Rite – itself a Latin liturgical rite – practised in part of northern England, prior to the reign of Henry VIII. During Henry's reign the Use of York was suppressed in favour of the Use of Sarum, developed at Salisbury Cathedral, followed by the Book of Common Prayer. "Use" denotes the special liturgical customs which prevailed in a particular diocese or group of dioceses; it is one of the medieval English uses, together with the Use of Sarum, the Use of Hereford, and the Use of Bangor.

Acolouthia in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, signifies the arrangement of the Divine Services, perhaps because the parts are closely connected and follow in order. In a more restricted sense, the term "acolouth" refers to the fixed portion of the Office. The portions of the Office that are variable are called the Sequences. While the structure and history of the various forms of the Divine Office in the numerous ancient Christian rites is exceedingly rich, the following article will restrict itself to the practice as it evolved in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.

The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass "the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner". The Church describes the Mass as the "source and summit of the Christian life", and teaches that the Mass is a sacrifice, in which the sacramental bread and wine, through consecration by an ordained priest, become the sacrificial body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary made truly present once again on the altar. The Catholic Church permits only baptised members in the state of grace to receive Christ in the Eucharist.

The reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X was promulgated by that Pope with the apostolic constitution Divino afflatu of 1 November 1911.

In the liturgy of the Catholic Church, a votive Mass is a Mass offered for a votum, a special intention. Such a Mass does not correspond to the Divine Office for the day on which it is celebrated. Every day in the year has appointed to it a series of canonical hours and a Mass corresponding, containing, for instance, the same collect and the same Gospel. On most days, the Mass will correspond to the Office, but on occasion, other Masses may be celebrated. Votive Masses appear in the Roman and Gallican Rites. The Suffrage Mass is a type of votive Mass that is celebrated in favour to some dead people.

The ranking of liturgical days in the Roman Rite is a regulation for the liturgy of the Roman Catholic church. It determines for each liturgical day which observance has priority when liturgical dates and times coincide, 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.

References

↑ General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 10
↑ General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 14
↑ GIRM, 357
↑ GIRM, 363
↑ GIRM, 355 a
↑ General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 235-236
↑ General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 239
↑ GIRM, 355 b-c
↑ Notification "Per Decretum die"
↑ The New Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal (PDF). Surrey Hills, N.S.W.: The Catholic Press Newspaper Co. 1960.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 10

[2] General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 14

[3] GIRM, 357

[4] GIRM, 363

[5] GIRM, 355 a

[6] General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 235-236

[7] General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 239

[8] GIRM, 355 b-c

[9] Notification "Per Decretum die"

[10] The New Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal (PDF). Surrey Hills, N.S.W.: The Catholic Press Newspaper Co. 1960.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]