Thursday, January 5, 2017

January 6: Feast of the Epiphany


The celebration of the feast of the Epiphany (the word means manifestation) on January 6 is very ancient as a decree of the Holy See dating back to 376 attests.  It is traditionally one of the great feasts around which the Church year is traditionally arranged (with Sundays after the Epiphany).  Sad then that in many Churches today it is actually celebrated on the preceding Sunday, and precedes only very ordinary time indeed!

The Feast actually encompasses three different 'manifestations' of our Lord's divinity:
  • the visit of the Wise Men from the East (the primary focus of the liturgy);
  • the baptism of Our Lord by St John the Baptist; and
  • the changing of wine into water at the wedding feast of Cena.
No wonder then that until 1955 it also had an octave.

It is also rich with devotional traditions, including the blessing of holy water (of the 'super-charged' variety!), frankinsense, gold and chalk (to be used in the annual blessing of your house).

Prayer options for the stealth hermitess (and others) Pt IV - The Offices of the religious orders Pt 1

Image result for nuns praying


Some time ago I started a series entitled 'prayer options for the stealth hermitess (and others)'.  In previous posts I've covered:
I promised to go on and talk about the liturgy of the religious orders, but when I started digging into this topic in more depth, I realised that there are actually some difficult issues around this topic, so I've hesitated to jump into this pond.  Nonetheless, here at long last I'm posting something on this topic.

I've split this into two parts: this first part looks at why you might want to say the Office of a religious order; the second part looks at the issues around the right to say these Offices.

Forms of the Office and the spirituality of the Order

Traditionally, most (though not all) of the religious orders had their own distinctive forms of the Divine Office.

The origin of this can probably be traced to the Carolingian era, where legislation required all secular priests (and canons) to say the Roman Office, and all monks to use the Benedictine form.  Prior to that time, monasteries seem to have either followed the usages of their region; said the psalms in numerical order using a combination of collective and individual prayer; or developed their own practices (of which St Benedict's Rule is by far the most developed).  The extent of the success of the Carolingian attempt to impose uniformity is somewhat debated, but regardless. over time it did, of course, unravel.

In some cases the rites used by religious orders were largely based on either the Roman or Benedictine psalm cursus, but added a rich panoply of particular texts and feasts, and often distinctive styles of chant.  Some orders, such as the Dominicans and the Bridgettines (being one of the few that has survived), had their own psalm orderings as well.

Over time these particular forms of the Divine Office were thought to be an integral element to formation in the spirituality of their respective Orders.  As Laszlo Dobszay has pointed out:
In the Middle Ages the members of different religious orders or secular churches jealously guarded their privileges to have a proper liturgy as a symbol and guarantee of their self-identity.  'The choir makes the monk' - said the old dictum, and we may add: this choir makes this (kind of ) monk. [1] 
In the case of the Benedictines, for example, there are arguably close connections between the purpose of the Office and its essential architecture, as well as between key themes in the Rule and the ordering of the psalmody.

St Benedict specifies, for example, that his monks say all of the psalms each week, aligning their work to the work of creation, and thanksgiving for it.  His numerical symbolism perhaps also points to the intercessory value of the Office: 150 psalms for the 150 days that it rained in order to destroy the evils of the world in the Great Flood; and a penitential load of 40 psalms each day for example.

There are also many key connections between the themes of the Rule, and the arrangement of the psalms in St Benedict's Office, as John Fortin, for example, has pointed toin relation to St Benedict's theme of God's constant scrutiny of us, and the ordering of Prime, inter alia. [2]  There are, in my view, many other such connections which appear to be under-appreciated by the Order (at least in the public literature I have been able to access).  These connections don't have to be explicit to have an effect: rather the implicit messages embedded in the forms help form a particular mindset.

For this reason, those attracted to the spiritualities of particular orders will naturally be interested in the liturgies particular to those orders.

The Romanising force

Just how important these distinctive liturgies are in shaping the spirituality of members of the religious orders, though, has long been debated.

In the case of the Benedictines for example, St Benedict's Office was early abandoned outright in favour of the Roman for the Triduum, for example, and a romanised version adopted for major feasts, with the use of special sets of psalms rather than the psalms St Benedict wanted used each day (the Rule suggests that only the antiphons and readings change).  In addition, St Benedict gives permission for other orderings of the psalms than the one he prescribed to be used, provided that all of the psalms are said in the course of a week, and that permission has been used both in the past (and far more extensively in our own time).

In the case of other orders, the most famous is probably the Discalced Carmelites, who adopted the Roman Rite wholesale instead of that of their own order in the seventeenth century.

Abandonment after Vatican II 

Still, the whole process accelerated dramatically after formal permissions was given for Orders to experiment with their liturgies in 1968.

Since Vatican II most religious orders have actually abandoned the particular Offices of their Orders in favour of the 1970 Roman Liturgy of the Hours, or in the case of the Benedictines, Office's of each monasteries own devising.

While some Orders initially made only relatively minor changes, in most cases, the old rites were quickly abandoned and formally suppressed, or extremely restrictive conditions were placed on their use (such as a requirement to obtain a rarely granted special permission).

In the case of the Benedictines, the 1963 breviary was never (as far as I know) formally suppressed.

But monasteries were instead generally 'encouraged' (ie forced) to 'update' their Office in line with the principles set out in the Thesaurus Liturgiae Horarum Monasticae of 1977.  The Thesaurus included some four new psalm schemas (and recognised that others could also be devised) aimed at facilitating the elimination of Prime (in line with the Roman Office), removing the repetitions in the psalter, and spreading the psalms over longer periods.

Some did, of course, cling to the traditional Benedictine psalm cursus, and until relatively recently that effectively meant continuing to use the older chant books even if not the older calendar.

In 1981  however a new psalter (Psalterium Monasticum) came out, causing many monasteries to move to the neo-Vulgate, and in 2005 Solesmes produced the first of a set of new liturgical books adapted to the modern Roman calendar and the various alternate psalm schemas.  And for reasons I don't really understand, even where monasteries like Solesmes actually do use the traditional psalm cursus, they have tinkered with lots of other elements of the hours, for example changed the placement of the hymn.  Perhaps it doesn't really have an impact, but you have to ask, why do it?

The problems with the reforms

As the reforms have progressed, however, some have come to appreciate just how integral the older forms of the liturgy are to their charism, and have observed the consequences of its abandonment.

A recent post over at Rorate Caeli by Peter Kwasniewski, for example, has recently pointed to the problems posed by the watered down version of the faith propagated by the suppression of so much of the psalter in the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours.

The problem is all the more acute for Benedictines, where the liturgy arguably plays such a central role in the charism.  Abbot Phillip Lawrence of Christ in the Desert Monastery, for example, has observed that:
Today very few follow these chapters of the Rule, especially with regard to the structure of the Divine Office. Unless we understand them well, we will begin to lose a truly Benedictine life, which has at its heart the praying of the Divine Office. There is no way that one can follow this structure of Rule of Benedict and not be aware of the truly important place of the Divine Office in the daily life of the monk and the amount of time that Saint Benedict presumed that a monk would spend in public prayer.
Indeed, some monks in monasteries once claimed to be Benedictine have taken to styling themselves as ‘a monk of  x monastery’, rather than 'OSB' perhaps in recognition of the distance they have moved from the original charism.

Turning of the tide?

Even as the erosion of the charisms of the various orders has gathered pace though, a series of legislative provisions, starting from Pope John Paul II's 1984 Indult for the Traditional Latin Mass, and most particularly Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum (2007) and Universae Ecclesiae (2011) reopened the way to these older forms of the Office.

In addition, some of the more traditionally inclined within the Orders have gone to some trouble, in recent years, to make their traditional liturgies more widely available, and even actively promoted them to the laity.

For the Benedictines, of course, there is the St Michael Abbey's reprint of the Collegeville Monastic Diurnal (as well as the French-Latin and Italian-Latin versions of the Diurnal), daily podcasts of the Office by the monasteries of Le Barroux and Norcia, many youtube videos, and a number of recent recordings released by monasteries.

The Carthusians have placed most of their Office books online.

For the Dominican's, Fr Augustine Thompson and friends provide links to online versions of the 1962 books, Ordos, and supporting material.

You can also obtain the breviaries of many other Orders secondhand, or through recent reprints.

Offices of the religious orders and tradition

Interest in the older forms of the Office of religious orders is not just confined to those who are Oblates, third order or equivalent members of the religious orders.  These older rites have acquired another attraction for the laity more generally, namely their consonance with ancient traditions of the Church.

The reasons for this in my view, are simple: the damage to the Divine Office really started with the reforms of St Pius X, which radically restructured the psalm cursus among many other changes.

Some defend these reforms on the grounds that "the weekly recitation of the entire Psalter had become more or less impossible, both because of the proliferation of feasts over ferial days, and because of a huge burden of psalmody well-suited for monastics but not for seculars."[3]  Personally I think a severe pruning of the calendar, and reduction in the level of some feasts would have done the job.

As it is, as Dobszay has persuasively argued, in my view, that the 1911 reforms eliminated a number of the most ancient and beautiful features of the Office, including several near universal features between Eastern and Western, secular and religious versions of the Office, such as the daily use of the three Laudate Psalms (Psalm 148-150).[4]

The even more drastic reforms of the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours, which cut vast chunks of the psalter out of the Office altogether; eliminated several of the hours and bowdlerised others (most notably the transformation of the Night Office into a day 'Office of Readings'); and spread the psalms over four weeks, has created a new constituency for a more traditional diet.  This is, I can't help thinking, a case of the sensus fidelium at work, for as we all know, lex credendi, lex orandi.

People are instinctively interested in the the Benedictine Office, in particular, whether they are attached to Benedictine spirituality or not, I think, simply because that form of the Office has nearly 1500 years of history behind it (and of course many of its elements go a long way further back than that).

There are, however, some interesting issues around just who is entitled to use these Offices (at least for liturgical purposes), and I'll talk about that a bit more in the next post in this series soon.

Notes

[1] Laszlo Dobszay, The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite, 2010, pg 73.
[2] John D Fortin, “The Presence of God: a linguistic and thematic link between the doctrinal and liturgical sections of the Rule of Saint Benedict”, Downside Review 117 (1999) 293
[3] Peter Kwasniewski, The Omission of the "Difficult" Psalms and the Spreading-Thin of the Psalter, Rorate Caeli, 15.11.16, summarising Cekada.
[4] Laszlo Dobszay,  “Critical Reflections on the Bugnini Liturgy: The Divine Office”, 1983 PDF available from http://musicasacra.com/literature/


Saints of the martyrology for January 5: St Telesphorus, Pope;St Apollinaris of Egypt; St Emiliana, virgin


St Telesphorus


St Telesphorus, who is commemorated today in the Extraordinary Form calendar, was pope between around 127 to 136 AD.  He was an anchorite prior to becoming pope.  Martyred under Emperor Antonius Pius, the custom of midnight masses at Christmas, inter alia, is attributed to him.

St Apollinaris of Egypt

St Apollinaris is one of the "desert mothers".  Apparently the daughter of an emperor of Rome, she put on male clothes and lived as hermit as a disciple of St. Macrius. Her true story was revealed at her death.

St Emiliana

St Emiliana was an aunt of St Gregory the Great.  St Gregory came from a saintly family: his mother and two of his paternal aunts are revered as saints, and today we celebrate one of them.  SS Trasilla and Emiliana devoted themselves to a life of virginity, fasting and prayer in their home in Rome.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, after many years in the service of God, St. Felix III, an ancestor, appeared to Trasilla and bade her enter her abode of glory. On the eve of Christmas she died, seeing Jesus beckoning. A few days later she appeared to Emiliana, who had followed well in her footsteps, and invited her to the celebration of Epiphany in heaven.

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

January 4: St Titus, Bishop and Confessor, Memorial


St Titus appears in the martyrology today with this description:

"In Crete, the birthday of St Titus, who was ordained Bishop of the Cretans by St Paul the Apostle, and, after having faithfully fulfilled the office of preaching, died a blessed death.  He was buried in the church to which he was appointed a worthy minister by the blessed Apostle."

In the Roman calendar, his feast-day is kept on February 6, but in the Benedictine it is kept on the actual day.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

January 1: Octave of the Nativity (or whatever happened to the feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord?)


Today is the Octave Day of Christmas (aka New Year), and one of those feasts that have gone through a few incarnations in recent years.

Traditionally, today is the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord.  The feast celebrates the first time the blood of Christ was shed, and thus the beginning of the process of the redemption of man.  It also serves to demonstrate that Christ was fully human, and his obedience to Biblical law.

In the 1962 Calendar (including the Benedictine Universal Calendar), all of the traditional texts for the feast are retained, but the name is dropped in favour of the Octave Day.  In the Novus Ordo calendar, the Feast was dropped altogether, and it became the Feast of Mary, Mother of God....

One would have thought that demonstrating the continuity of the Jewish and Christian religions would have appealed to the reformers, but I guess celebrating obedience to the law and countering both Arianism and gnosticism was not viewed as important back in 1970...and now we continue to reap the consequences.

In Canon law, and in many countries, the start of the new secular year is suitably a Holy Day of Obligation.   And this year, as it falls on a Sunday, there will actually be at least some people in the churches for it...

Happy New Year!

As we close out the old year and welcome the new, don't forget to say a Te Deum for 2016, and Veni Creator for aid in 2017 - you can earn a plenary indulgence for each if it is said as part of public worship on the last day of the year and the first respectively.

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Seventh day of the Octave; St Sylvester, Pope, memorial


Today is the seventh day of the Octave of the Nativity (and of course New Year's Eve, a good time to reflect on the past year and plan for the new....).

It is also the memorial of Pope St Sylvester I, who may be of interest due to the use of a life of the pope in the Rule of the Master (though not St Benedict's Rule).

Pope St Sylvester

St Sylvester was pope between 314 and 335, encompassing the period in which Constantine granted the Church official status in the Empire and the Council of Nicaea.  We know that during his pontificate, a number of the great churches were founded at Rome, including St. John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Old St. Peter's Basilica, and several cemeterial churches built over the graves of martyrs.  We also know that St Sylvester did not attend the First Council of Nicaea in 325, but he was represented by two legates, Vitus and Vincentius, and he approved the council's decision.

Beyond this, however, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction, due to the confusion created by the early sixth century life, composed around 501-508 in order to bolster the case of Pope Symmachus during the Laurentian schism.

Vita beati Silvestri

The Rule of the Master quotes from the Vita Beati Silvestri, and the great advocate of the Rule of the Master, Dom Adalbert de Vogue, saw this as evidence of the Master's Roman and early sixth century origins.  In fact though, if anything, it rather points to a somewhat later date for that Rule.

The Vita beati Silvestri, part of the 'Symmachean forgeries', has been preserved not just in Latin but also in Greek and Syriac, and includes an account of an alleged Roman council, as well as relating St Sylvester's close relationship with the first Christian emperor. The material also appears in the later forgery, the Donation of Constantine.

According to the Life, the Emperor Constantine was cured of leprosy by the virtue of the baptismal water administered by Sylvester.  The Emperor, abjectly grateful, not only confirmed the bishop of Rome as the primate above all other bishops, he resigned his imperial insignia and walked before Sylvester's horse holding the Pope's bridle as the papal groom. The Pope, in return, offered the crown of his own good will to Constantine, who abandoned Rome to the pope and took up residence in Constantinople.

The story quickly gained wide circulation, with St Gregory of Tours, for example, referring to it in his history of the Franks, written in the 580s.