October 27 Ferial Day (What is a Ferial Day?)

 

 

 Mass from preceding Sunday.

  INTROIT (Dan 3:31, 29, 33)

All that you have done to us, O Lord, you have done in just judgment, because we have disobeyed Your Commandments; but give glory to Your own name and deal with us in accord with Your bounteous mercy.
Ps. 118:1. Blessed are they who are undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.
V. Glory be . . .

COLLECT
Forget Your anger, O Lord, and grant Your faithful pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from their sins and serve You without fear. Through our Lord . . .


EPISTLE (Eph. 5:15-21)
See therefore, brethren, how you walk circumspectly: not as unwise, But as wise: redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore, become not unwise: but understanding what is the will of God. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury: but be ye filled with the Holy Spirit, Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord: Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father: Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ.
GRADUAL (Ps. 144:15-16)
The eyes of all look hopefully to You, O Lord, and You give them food in due season.
V. You open Your hand, and fill every living creature with blessing.

Alleluia, alleluia! V. Ps. 107:2
My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I will sing and praise You, my glory. Alleluia!

GOSPEL (St. John 4:46-53)
He came again therefore into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain ruler, whose son was sick at Capharnaum. He having heard that Jesus was come from Judea into Galilee, sent to him and prayed him to come down and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.
Jesus therefore said to him: "Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not." The ruler saith to him: Lord, come down before that my son die. Jesus saith to him: "Go thy way. Thy son liveth."
The man believed the word which Jesus said to him and went his way. And as he was going down, his servants met him: and they brought word, saying, that his son lived. He asked therefore of them the hour wherein he grew better. And they said to him: "Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him." The father therefore knew that it was at the same hour that Jesus said to him: "Thy son liveth." And himself believed, and his whole house.

OFFERTORY ANTIPHON (Ps. 136:1)
By the streams of Babylon we sat and wept, when we remembered you, O Sion.

SECRET
O Lord, let this sacred rite bring us healing from heaven and cleanse our hearts of all sinfulness. Through our Lord . . .   

 
COMMUNION ANTIPHON (Ps. 118:49-50)
Remember Your promise to Your servant, O Lord, by which You have given me hope. This is my solace in my affliction.

POSTCOMMUNION
O Lord, make us ever obedient to Your Commandments, that we may be deserving of Your heavenly Gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and rules with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

 Question:
What is a Ferial Day?


This information is from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917.

A feria (Latin for "free day") was a day on which the people, especially the slaves, were not obliged to work, and on which there were no court sessions. In ancient Rome the feriae publicae, legal holidays, were either stativae (recurring regularly, e.g. the Saturnalia), conceptivae (i.e. movable), or imperativae (i.e. appointed for special occasions).

When Christianity spread, on the feriae (feasts) instituted for worship by the Church, the faithful were obliged to attend Mass; such assemblies gradually led, for reasons both of necessity and convenience, to mercantile enterprise and market gatherings which the Germans call Messen, and the English fairs. They were fixed on saints' days (e.g. St Bartholomew's Fair in London, St Germanus's fair, St Wenn's fair, etc.).

In the Roman Rite liturgy, the term feria is used to denote days of the week other than Sunday and Saturday. Various reasons are given for this terminology. The sixth lesson for December 31 in the pre-1962 Roman Breviary says that Pope Sylvester I ordered the continuance of the already existing custom "that the clergy, daily abstaining from earthly cares, would be free to serve God alone". Others believe that the Church simply Christianized a Jewish practice. The Jews frequently counted the days from their Sabbath, and so we find in the Gospels such expressions as una Sabbati and prima Sabbati, the first from the Sabbath. The early Christians reckoned the days after Easter in this fashion, but, since all the days of Easter week were holy days, they called Easter Monday, not the first day after Easter, but the second feria or feast day; and since every Sunday is the dies Dominica, a lesser Easter day, the custom prevailed to call each Monday a feria secunda, and so on for the rest of the week. The only modern language that fully preserves this Latin ecclesiastical style of naming weekdays is Portuguese, which uses the terms segunda-feira, etc. Greek uses very similar terms, but without the Latin-derived feira.

A day on which no saint is celebrated is called a feria (and the celebration is referred to as ferial, the adjectival form of feria). In the present form of the Roman Rite, certain ferias, especially those of Lent, exclude celebration of memorials occurring on the same day, though the prayer of the memorial may be used in place of that of the feria, except on Ash Wednesday and in Holy Week, which exclude even solemnities and feasts.

The Code of Rubrics of Pope John XXIII (1960) divided ferias into four classes:[1]

Class I: Ash Wednesday and the whole of Holy Week.
Class II: Advent from 17 December to 23 December and Ember Days.
Class III: Lent and Passiontide from the day after Ash Wednesday to the day before the Second Sunday in Passiontide, excluding Ember Days.
Class IV: all other ferias.

In pre-1960 forms of the Roman Rite, ferias were divided into major and minor. The major ferias, which required at least a commemoration even on the highest feast days, were the ferias of Advent and Lent, the Ember days, and the Monday of Rogation week; all others were called minor.