The worship of God takes precedence over the daily affairs of common life, and accordingly displaces such of them as are not necessary for the support of natural life or the wellbeing of society. Thus it came to pass that the ordinary affairs of life gave place to the worship of God, and rest from labour became an essential part of the worship paid to Him. Man abstained from his wonted tasks on certain days, which received in consequence a higher consecration. And so among the ancient Romans, the idea of a day of rest and a holy day were intimately connected and received the name of _feria_. But it was among the Hebrews that the days set apart for the worship of God received the most distinctive character as days of rest.[1] The Christian Church on her part, in wishing that the day set apart for the worship of God should be observed as far as possible as a day of rest from labour, acts in accordance with ideas and customs which nature itself has planted in the human race, and which need no other justification. The term _sabbatismus_ (Sabbath rest) soon entered into the theological language of Christendom, and in public life the Christian holy days, at first only Sundays, gradually, even in secular legislation, became recognised as days of rest, sometimes in a larger and sometimes in a smaller number. The entire number of ecclesiastical holy days and seasons is actually codified for us in the different Church Calendars. Their contents fall into two essentially different divisions, each possessing an entirely different origin and history. The first division consists of festivals of our Lord, distributed over the year, regulated and co-ordinated in accordance with certain laws. The second division consists of commemorations of the saints in no wise connected with the festivals of our Lord or with one another. Occupying to some extent an intermediate position between these two chief divisions come the festivals of our Blessed Lady, which have this in common with the festivals of the saints, that they fall on fixed days, but, on the other hand, they are to a certain extent connected with each other, and with some feasts of our Lord. This is carried out in such a way that they are distributed throughout the entire Church’s year, and are included in each of the festal seasons. The former of these two divisions is the most important, and its chief feasts are also the oldest. The festivals of our Lord, Easter and Pentecost especially, compose what is called the Church’s year in the stricter sense, and, if they coincide with a saint’s day, they take precedence. The Church’s year is built upon a single basis and according to one plan, which did not originate in the mind of any one person, but developed out of the historical conditions resulting from the connection of Christianity with Judaism.