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Feast Vs. Memorial?


melikalani

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Good morning! Peace be with you!

Could someone please explain the difference between a Feast Day and a Memorial? Why do some Saints have feast days, while others memorial days?

For example, on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's [url="http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/current/2006cal.pdf"]Liturgical Calendar[/url], it says that October 7 is the [b][i]Memorial [/i][/b]of Our Lady of the Rosary, on the [url="http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=95755"]Zenit article[/url] regarding Pope Benedict XVI's invitation for families to pray the Rosary, it says that October 7 is a [b][i]feast[/i][/b].

Thanks in advance for your reply.

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Since the reform of the Liturgical Calendar There are optional memorials
memorials, feasts and solemnities

The General Roman Calendar, printed, for instance, in the Roman Missal, assigns feasts of saints to only about half the days of the year. It contains only a relatively very few of the saints recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, whose official list of saints is the 776-page volume Roman Martyrology (although not all saints appear in the Martyrology). This assigns several saints to each day of the year and gives a very brief description of each saint or group of saints.

As well as the General Roman Calendar, there are national and diocesan calendars, as well as calendars of religious congregations and even of continents. These add other saints, or transfer the celebration of a particular saint to another date.

"Feria" is a Latin word that, in ecclesiastical usage, means "weekday", and refers to a day which is not a Sunday and not a Feast, for example, Tuesday in the Third Week of Ordinary Time. ("Ferial" is an adjective formed from "feria" and is used in connection with a noun, as in the phrase "ferial Mass".) "Memorial", "Feast" and "Solemnity" refer to degrees of celebration of a saint: among other differences, the Gloria is said or sung at a Feast, but not normally at a Memorial, and the Creed is added on Solemnities.

The Feast of the Holy Rosary was formally called a double 2nd class but with a certain simplification it's now just called a memorial. However the common name given by most people is the Feast of the Holy Rosary.

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