The Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year, printed at the front of the Roman Missal, divide celebrations into solemnities, feasts, and memorials according to their importance. The grade determines how the day is celebrated and, when two celebrations fall on the same date, which one is kept. Solemnities are the highest grade. They begin on the evening before with Evening Prayer I, they have the Gloria and the Creed at Mass, and they have three readings; some have a proper vigil Mass with its own texts. Easter and Christmas are prolonged through eight days as octaves. When a solemnity is impeded by a day of higher rank — a Sunday of Advent, Lent, or Easter, or a day of Holy Week or the Easter Octave — it is transferred to the nearest free day, which is why the Annunciation and Saint Joseph sometimes move. Feasts are celebrated within the limits of a single day and have no Evening Prayer I, except for feasts of the Lord that fall on a Sunday. The Gloria is sung at Mass but the Creed is not, since the Creed belongs to Sundays and solemnities. Memorials are of two kinds. An obligatory memorial must be observed: the collect of the saint is used, and the readings are ordinarily those of the weekday, since the Church wants the semi-continuous reading of Scripture to go forward. An optional memorial may be chosen or passed over in favor of the weekday, and where several fall on the same day only one is chosen. During Lent obligatory memorials are reduced to commemorations, kept only by an added collect. Weekdays are themselves ranked. The weekdays of Holy Week from Monday to Thursday and the days within the Octave of Easter outrank everything and admit no other celebration; Ash Wednesday stands with them. Next come the weekdays of Advent from December 17 to 24, the days within the Octave of Christmas, and the weekdays of Lent, on which only obligatory memorials may be commemorated. The remaining weekdays of Advent, the Christmas Season after the octave, the Easter Season, and Ordinary Time freely admit memorials and optional memorials. Sundays hold a rank of their own: the Sundays of Advent, Lent, and Easter yield to nothing, while the Sundays of the Christmas Season and of Ordinary Time give way to feasts of the Lord and to solemnities. The Table of Liturgical Days, which arranges all of this in nine numbered categories, is the practical instrument for resolving any conflict.

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