Feast of St Gregory the Great

Antiphonary of Hartker of the monastery of Saint Gall
c1000

St Gregory the Great is particularly noted for his contributions to the liturgy, the commissioning of the mission to England, and writings.  And foremost amongst these is his 'Dialogues', Book II of which is the Life of St Benedict (don't forget to start your Novena to St Benedict today!).

Here are the readings from the Benedictine Office on St Gregory:

(Reading 5): Gregory the Great was a Roman, the son of Gordian the Senator, (and was born about the year of our Lord 540.) As a young man he studied philosophy, and afterwards discharged the office of Praetor. After his father's death he built six monasteries in Sicily, and a seventh in honour of St Andrew, in his own house at Rome, hard by the Church of Saints John and Paul at the ascent of the hill Scaurus. In this monastery of St Andrew, he and his masters, Hilarion and Maximian, professed themselves monks, and Gregory was afterwards Abbot. Later on, he was created a Cardinal Deacon, and sent to Constantinople as legate from Pope Pelagius to the Emperor Tiberius Constantine. Before the Emperor he so successfully disputed against the Patriarch Eutychius, who had denied that our bodies shall verily and indeed rise again, that the Prince threw the book of the said Patriarch into the fire. Eutychius himself also, soon after fell sick, and when he felt death coming on him, he took hold of the skin of his own hand and said in the hearing of many that stood by: I acknowledge that we shall all rise again in this flesh.

(Reading 6):Gregory returned to Rome, and, Pelagius being dead of a plague, he was unanimously chosen Pope. This honour he refused as long as he could. He disguised himself and took refuge in a cave, but was betrayed by a fiery pillar. Being discovered and overruled, he was consecrated at the grave of St Peter, upon the 3rd day of September, in the year 590. He left behind him many ensamples of doctrine and holiness to them that have followed him in the Popedom. Every day he brought pilgrims to his table, and among them he entertained not an Angel only, but the very Lord of Angels in the guise of a pilgrim. He tenderly cared for the poor, of whom he kept a list, as well without as within the city. He restored the Catholic faith in many places where it had been overthrown. He fought successfully against the Donatists in Africa and the Arians in Spain. He cleansed Alexandria of the Agnoites. He refused to give the Pall to Syagrius, Bishop of Autun, unless he would expel the Neophyte heretics from Gaul. He caused the Goths to abandon the Arian heresy.

(Reading 7): He sent into Britain Augustine and divers other learned and holy monks, who brought the inhabitants of that island to believe in Jesus Christ. Hence Gregory is justly called by Bede, the Priest of Jarrow, the Apostle of England. He rebuked the presumption of John, Patriarch of Constantinople, who had taken to himself the title of Bishop of the Universal Church, and he dissuaded the Emperor Maurice from forbidding: soldiers to become monks.  Gregory adorned the Church with holy customs and laws. He called together a Synod in the Church of St Peter, and therein ordained many things; among others, the ninefold repetition of the words Kyrie eleison in the Mass, the saying of the word in the Church service except between Septuagesima inclusive and Easter exclusive, and the addition to the Canon of the Mass of the words M Do Thou order all our days in thy peace. He increased the Litanies, the number of the Churches where is held the observance called a Station; and the length of the Church Service.

(Reading 8): He would that the four Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon should be honoured like four Gospels. He released the Sicilian Bishops from visiting Rome every three years, willing them to come instead once every five years. He was the author of many books, and Peter the Deacon declareth that he often saw the Holy Ghost on his head in the form of a dove when he was dictating them. It is a marvel how much he spoke, did, wrote, and legislated, suffering all the while from a weak and sickly body. He worked many miracles. At last God called him away to be blessed for ever in heaven, in the thirteenth year, sixth month, and tenth day of his Pontificate, being the 12th day of March, in the year of salvation 604. This day is observed by the Greeks, as well as by us, as a festival, on account of the eminent wisdom and holiness of this Pope. His body was buried in the Church of St Peter, hard by the Private Chapel.

Lectio divina: On memory, study and the Rule of Faith**

I wanted to draw readers attention to a few useful posts and talks of late on how to approach lectio divina (holy or prayerful reading):

• Fr Cassian Folsom OSB podcast in the Praying without Ceasing series on the Norcia Monastery website;
• Fr Mark Kirby OSB over at Vultus Christi  (several posts and weekly lectio notes and instructions); and 
• Peter Kwasniewski has a series (two parts so far) over at New Liturgical Movement.

These are all well worth reading or listening to, especially since holy reading is a key practice in Benedictine spirituality.

That said, I'd like to respectfully disagree with some of the advice offered by these authors (and I'll apologise in advance if I've misinterpreted what they are saying, or in the case of a series still in progress, jumped the gun!), and suggest an alternative perspective on one key point, namely drawing on books (or other aids) other than the Bible.

Why we should do lectio

The strength of the material at the links is, I think, that it provides strong encouragement for everyone to do at least some prayerful reading of Scripture every day.  St Benedict allocates at least two hours a day to it for his monks (more during Lent), and while we may only be able to manage fifteen minutes or so, that is long enough to get something useful out of it.

Every Catholic should know the Bible well, for as St Benedict says in his Rule, "what page or utterance of the divinely inspired books of the Old and New Testament is not a most unerring rule of human life?"

And how can we seek to know and imitate Christ if we don't actually really know what he did or taught?

The various posts also emphasize that you don't have to have any special knowledge or training to do lectio divina, it is open to everyone.

Lectio divina and studying Scripture

All the same, I'm not convinced anyone can or should just open the Bible and read, trusting only to the aid of the Holy Spirit.  It strikes me (and I'm rather paraphrasing Mother Cecile Bruyere's book, The Spiritual Life and Prayer according to Holy Scripture and Monastic Tradition here) as a little presumptuous on our part to expect to receive by direct inspiration, what God gave us minds to use to for study.

Many seem to view lectio as an approach to Scripture that is positively opposed to intellectual study of it.  I disagree, and strongly recommend a rereading of Pope Benedict XVI's Post-Synodal Exhortation Verbum Domini for an explanation of how we should employ reason and study to the process of lectio without in any way comprising the meditative and contemplative aspects of it.  I've previously written a summary of his key points on this here.

Most modern advocates of lectio divina point to a twelfth century Carthusian source on the practice, which seems to advocate doing just that.  But can I suggest that a twelfth century Carthusian monk was not exactly operating in the same poorly catechized, theological vacuum that most twenty-first century lay Catholics are?

Medieval memory

St Benedict's monks, when they did their lectio, surely had the model of the Fathers to work from, with their careful probing of issues such as the reasons for differences between the various Gospel accounts of events, and ability to draw in a web of related verses to explain the one under consideration.

When a medieval monk pondered a few verses of Scripture, he could draw on a vast volume of memorised knowledge to help him interpret what he was reading in the light of Scripture as a whole.

Most monks knew the psalms by heart, and at least large chunks of the Gospels, so could use the common technique of interpreting a verse through others that used the same key words and ideas.

They might also have been familiar with the patristic commentaries on the verses, not least from the readings at Matins each day.

Above all, the monk would also have been well aware of how to look for the spiritual meaning of verses, looking at Old Testament people and events as 'types' of the New for example.

Cultural and theological context

Modern monks, I suspect, can get away with doing their lectio without aids because most either are already well-educated theologically (or are in the process of acquiring a theological education, many on the path to priesthood) and are immersed in Scripture through daily Mass and Office.

Few laypeople people, though, even those relatively well catechized, have much familiarity with the Bible as a whole.

Fewer still know it well enough to be able to call to mind related verses.

Moreover, for monks and laity alike, more than a century of historico-critical interpretation of Scripture has, as Fr Cassian points out in his talk, rather stripped us of the ability to read Scripture other than in the strictly literal sense, effectively stripping the Old Testament of its Christological content, and the New of its eschatological content.

When we read a psalm verse with the phrase sing 'a new song' (canticum novum) in it for example, we are liable to take it pretty literally, as 'compose a new hymn'.  Indeed, the Navarre commentary's take on the phrase in Psalm 39 (40) is "God inspires the psalmist to sing a "new" song as distinct from one of lamentation over his suffering..." (Psalms, p151).

Yet when a monk of a previous era read the phrase he would know that the phrase also occurs in a passage in Isaiah 42 that makes clear its Messianic significance.  And he would also read the psalm in the light of its use in Revelation 5, that makes it clear that what follows is a song of the people formed by the New Covenant, the Church:

"...and they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals,for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth."

When the monk read the phrase 'canticum novum' (new song), then, (as occurs in Psalms 32, 39, 95, 97, 143, and 149) he was likely to interpret what followed as a song about Messianic times, as the most popular medieval commentary on the psalms, that by St Benedict's contemporary Cassiodorus, makes clear.

The modern 'memory': it is called the internet!

We today, alas, rarely have such knowledge in our mind to draw on.

Fortunately, we do have tools available to us at our fingertips that can in effect supply that 'memory' function - concordances on key words and phrases, compilations of relevant patristic commentaries, Scripture cross-indexed against the Catechism, for example.

Unfortunately there are very few Catholic sites on the Internet (or in book form) that attempt to put together these sources in an easy to use form as an aid to lectio.  The protestant ones can be useful though, and there are some useful Catholic resources out there (I've listed a lot of them in the sidebars to my Psallam Domino blog.

Pope Benedict XVI argued strongly that the academic study of Scripture needs to be injected with a lectio divina style focus on meditation and contemplation, and that on the other side of the ledger, lectio divina needed to draw on all the intellectual tools available to truly understand what the text means for us.  Accordingly, I really strongly urge readers to consider using in their lectio with something that helps set the verses of Scripture in the light of 'the rule of faith'.  St Thomas' Catena Aurea, for example, a compilation of Patristic commentaries grouped by Gospel verses, can provide an excellent starting point for study and meditation.

**You can read more on this, including a response from Peter Kwasniewski by following the links here.

Lent rubrics

Just a reminder that Lent proper (so far as the Office goes!) starts this week (though as far as the number of penitential days goes, we have already completed four of the nominally forty days, but actually more like 36 by virtue of assorted Solemnities).

The Ordinary of the ferial Office in Lent is set out in the Farnborough edition of the Monastic Diurnal at MD 190*ff.

Each day there are two sets of collects: the first for use from Matins to None; the second for Vespers.

At Lauds and Vespers, chapters, hymns, etc of the season replace those in the psalter section;
and  the canticle antiphons are proper for each day.

If you say one of those people who rise in darkness to say Matins, do enjoy the Sunday invitatory antiphon during this season: Non sit vobis vanum mane surgere ante lucem: Quia promisit Dominus coronam vigilantibus (it is not in vain that you rise before the light: for the Lord has promised a crown to those keeping vigil).

Ash Wednesday

The readings at Matins are as follows:

Reading 1: Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew - Matt 6:16-21
In that time Jesus said to his disciples: And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. And so on.  Homily by St Austin, Bishop of Hippo (Bk. ii. on the Lord's Sermon on the Mounts ch. xii., torn. 4.)

It is evident that by these precepts we are bidden to seek for inner gladness, lest, by running after that reward which is without, we should become conformed to the fashion of this world, and should so lose the promise of that blessing which is all the truer and more stable that it is inward, that blessing wherein God hath chosen us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. In this chapter we will principally consider the fact that vain-glory findeth a ground for its exercise in struggling poverty as much as in worldly distinction and display; and this development is the most dangerous, because it entices under pretence of being the serving of God.

Reading 2: He that is characterised by unbridled indulgence in luxury or in dress, or any other display, is by these very things easily shown to be a follower of worldly vanities, and deceiveth no one by putting on an hypocritical mask of godliness. But those professors of Christianity, who turn all eyes on themselves by an eccentric show of grovelling and dirtiness, not suffered by necessity, but by their own choice, of them we must judge by their other works whether their conduct really proceedeth from the desire of mortification by giving up unnecessary comfort, or is only the mean of some ambition the Lord biddeth us beware of wolves in sheep's clothing, but by their fruits, saith He, ye shall know them.

Reading 3: The test is when, by divers trials, such persons lose those things which under the cover of seeming unworldliness they have either gained or sought to gain. Then must it needs appear whether they be wolves in sheep's clothing, or indeed sheep in their own. But that hypocrites do the contrary maketh it no duty of a Christian to shine before the eyes of men with a display of needless luxury the sheep need not to lay aside their own clothing because wolves sometimes falsely assume it.

Quinquagesima Sunday and the week ahead

Codex Egberti

This week's Gospel in the Vetus Ordo and 1962 Benedictine calendar warns of Jesus' coming Passion, and the healing of the blind man of Jericho.  You can find the third Nocturn readings for Matins on it, over at my Lectio Divina Notes blog or at Divinum Officium.

The Office from from Ash Wednesday

Lent officially starts this Wednesday.  In the Office though, the rubrics don't really change much until after the First Sunday of Lent.

The period from Ash Wednesday to the coming Saturday was something of a 'later' add-on to Lent to make up the correct number of days (given that Sundays are not counted for fasting and other purposes, although in reality we still don't quite make it to forty days, due to the several first class feasts that intervene).

The liturgy does intensify  a little however, with canticle antiphons for both Lauds and Vespers, for each day.  At Matins, the readings are Patristic, on the Gospel of the day.  The rest of the Office at Lauds to Vespers, though, remains that of  'throughout the year' up until the First Sunday of Lent.

The Benedictine (1962) Office this week in summary

Sunday March 2 – Quinquagesima Sunday, Class II
Monday March 3  – Class IV
Tuesday March 4 – Class IV (Shrove Tuesday) [EF: St Casimir]
Wednesday March 5  – Ash Wednesday, Class I
Thursday March 6  – Thursday after Ash Wednesday, Class III; SS Perpetua and Felicitas, memorial
Friday March 7 - Friday after Ash Wednesday, Class III; St Thomas Aquinas, memorial
Saturday March 8 – Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Class III [EF: St John of God]

Recovering the Opus Dei

Those who read the traditionally oriented blogs may be aware that there have been a number of posts of late arguing that the 'reform of the reform' is a lost cause.

I'd like to draw you attention in particular to two posts by two Benedictines on this topic that are well worth reading, namely by Dom Mark Kirby, and Dom Hugh Somerville-Knapman.

Dom Hugh's initial post on this subject (there are two follow-ups) focuses mainly on the Mass; Dom Mark's also draws attention to some of the issues around the wreckovation of the Benedictine Office.

The Mass and the Office

Personally I think the Office is in many ways the bigger issue, at least for Benedictines.

It is not, of course that the Mass is unimportant, far from it!  The spirituality of the vetus ordo Mass is closely bound up with that of the Office, and for the wider Church, the recovery of the traditional form of the Mass is vitally important in my view.

All the same, in terms of Benedictine spirituality, the core is arguably the Office: St Benedict, after all, barely mentions the Mass in his Rule, and in his time daily Mass was not the norm.  Moreover, the expectation that most monks would be priests is actually a late medieval innovation imposed by Popes rather than a reform generated from within, albeit one now absorbed into the tradition.

In praise of St Benedict's liturgical genius

Still, it is arguably St Benedict's particular form of the Office, together with the Rule and the Life by St Gregory the Great, that shaped the Benedictine mindset for centuries.

St Benedict devotes almost a third of his Rule  - some twenty-two chapters (RB 8-20; 45; 47; 50; 52  plus numerous other references - to the Divine Office.  It is one of the great ironies then, of Vatican II's call to recover the patrimony of religious orders, that most Benedictines now observe fewer provisions of the Rule than they did before the Council by virtue of the wholesale jettisoning of St Benedict's Office.  Even more ironic given that some argue that the liturgical provisions are actually the most innovative part of St Benedict's Rule, much of the rest being based on the Rule of the Master.

This irony is even greater when one prays and studies the Office over several years, and becomes aware of the great care and deliberation the saint exercised in selecting the pattern of repetitions and particular groupings he specified for each hour and day.  These patterns are not unimportant: whether the monk is aware of them consciously or not, they shape his thinking, for as the great scholar Laszló Dobszay argued, "If it is true to say, Chorus facit monachum (Office in common makes the monk), then we may complete the proverb thus: Hic chorus facit hunc monachum (The order’s own  Office shapes the self-identity of the monk).”

If we want to restore those bare-ruined choirs then, and see the reemergence of a genuinely Benedictine spirituality, a return to St Benedict's own form of the psalter is vital, and it is good to see that this is increasingly being publicly advocated.

Matins Patristic Readings**

A reader has kindly alerted me to the fact that the book providing the English version of the Patristic readings for the Benedictine Office is once more in print.

The Matins readings

The book, entitled The Lessons Of The Temporal Cycle And The Principal Feasts Of The Sanctoral Cycle According To The Monastic Breviary was originally published by St Meinrad's Abbey in 1941, and is now available in a reprint (you can find it on Amazon here).

It basically provides the Patristic readings for the second and third nocturns of Matins on Sundays and other days with set Gospels (such as during Lent), together with the readings for most first and second class feasts.  Note though that it doesn't contain the commons of saints, nor does it contain the first nocturn Scriptural readings (though it mostly notes what they are).

There are, I'm afraid some differences to the 1962 readings.  First, the book was compiled before the old octaves were mostly abolished, so the readings given cover the octaves, not the newer texts that often substitute on those days.  Secondly some feasts have been added or abolished since then, and a few readings changed.

Nonetheless, this is a very worthwhile book to obtain if you say Matins (unless your Latin is already superb!), or just want to do lectio divina on the readings for Sundays.

Lectio Divina in the mind of the Church

The patristic readings on the Gospels are, I think, and important resource for us to employ when doing Lectio Divina.  There are many advocates, these days, for just opening the Bible (or your Missal or whatever) and reading it unaided.  That might be fine if you already have a very good grounding in theology, but most of us need a bit more help than that, lest we fall into heresy!

In Verbum Domini, for example, Pope Benedict XVI pointed out that:

 "Saint Jerome recalls that we can never read Scripture simply on our own. We come up against too many closed doors and we slip too easily into error." (30)  

In that Exhortation, Pope Benedict argued for the need to employ all four senses of Scripture, and to listen to the interpretations of Scripture provided by the saints:

"The interpretation of sacred Scripture would remain incomplete were it not to include listening 
to those who have truly lived the word of God: namely, the saints.  Indeed, “ viva lectio est vita bonorum ”.  The most profound interpretation of Scripture comes precisely from those who let themselves be shaped by the word of God through listening, reading and assiduous meditation." (48)

The Pope urged us to reappropriate the great Patristic tradition as a guard against individualistic readings of something that is essential a communal property.  Viewing our lectio in the context of the liturgy is one guard against this, but so to is drawing on the tradition of interpretation of Scripture:

"As such, it is important to read and experience sacred Scripture in communion with the Church, that is, with all the great witnesses to this word, beginning with the earliest Fathers up to the saints of our own day, up to the present-day magisterium”. (86)

One of the fascinating survivals of the medieval monastic record are the collections of lectio notes left by so many monks.  Many of them are nothing more than anthologies of the Fathers commentaries on the psalms and other texts, along the lines of St Thomas' Catena Aurea on the Gospels.  Others are more developed commentaries such as those of St Bede, that reflect careful study, meditation and prayer.

The readings especially selected for the Office by the Church are an excellent starting point for our own efforts in this area, so do consider obtaining this book, or investigating other such collections and sound commentaries to guide your lectio efforts!

Lectio divina on the psalms

And by way of postscript on the need for study of Scripture under the guidance of the Fathers, I'd like to draw your attention to the latest (Number 3) in the series of Fr Cassian Folsom's talks on Praying Without Ceasing, which very much goes to the need to study the psalm, particularly for their Christocentric, spiritual interpretation, in order to get the most out of the Office.