Advent, Quarter Tense or Ember days and Rogation Monday. They take
precedence of simple feasts only.

In the ferial office nine psalms are said, and not twelve, as in the
old order of the Breviary. The psalms found arranged in the new Breviary
for three nocturns are to be said with nine antiphons up to the versicle
of third nocturn--the versicle of the first and second being omitted
(Tit. I., sec. 7). Hence the psalms are to be said straight through
(_sine interuptione_) omitting in the first two nocturns, the versicle
and response, Pater Noster, absolutions and all pertaining to the
lessons. This simplifies things and makes the ferial office shorter than
the office of feasts.




TITLE VI.--THE OFFICE OF VIGILS.

_Etymology, nature and synonyms_. The word _vigil_ is from the Latin
_vigilare, to keep awake, to watch_, because in old times the night
before any great event, religious or worldly, was spent in watching.
Thus, the night prior to ordination to the priesthood, the night prior
to a great battle, was spent in watching before the altar. Hence, the
word vigil came to mean the prayers said during the time of watching or
waking, preparatory to the great event. It signified, too, the fast
accompanying the watching, and lastly it came to mean the liturgical
office of Mass and Breviary fixed for the time of vigilance. In the
Roman Church it was sometimes called the nocturn or night office. The
Greeks call the vigil _profesta_, the time before the feast.