In my last post I pointed to the large areas of continuity between the 1962-3 books, and the long tradition in which they are rooted, most particularly, in the case of the Benedictine Office, the Benedictine Rule itself.
So why is it that some are arguing the 1962/3 books are untraditional?
The answer is that there were a lot of changes made to the rubrics and calendar of the Office in late 1950s and early 1960s.
Against change?
Some, it seems, would reject any changes to the 1954 books at all, claiming that the legislator and/or some of those involved in producing it, were acting from ill-intent, or from a theological perspective they personally do not agree with.
Liturgical law
As Catholics though, it is not actually our personal judgments that should rule on matters of Church legislation, save in very exceptional circumstances. And in the case of the 1962 books, it is hard to see how such special circumstances can be claimed to exist given their endorsement by a previous generation of leaders of the traditionalist movement.
More fundamentally though, any piece of law is almost invariably the product of many hands and many steps in a process. And as for for any law, we should surely look at it on its actual merits, not on the basis of the often baseless claims about its origins or purpose.
Change and the liturgy
Some object to the idea of making lots of changes to the liturgy on general principles, arguing that liturgy should be largely unchanging.
But history is, in my view, not on their side. The 1911 changes to the Roman Office after all, were very major indeed. And while the post-Trent books for the Roman Office may have largely reflected late medieval Roman practice, they represented very major changes for many places outside of Rome that were either required (because their earlier rites were suppressed), or were pressured, or chose to adopt them in to show solidarity with Rome in the face of the protestant attack on the Church.
And if we go back further, we can similarly see major rounds of fundamental changes to the liturgy indeed. Consider for example the suppression of the rites of the various Roman churches in favour of that of the papal court; the suppression of the Mozarabic, Gallican and Celtic rites; and many more such examples.
Which changes?
Others though, it seems, are prepared to consider at least some changes to the earlier books.
The 1954 books, after all, contain several core elements - such as the Urban VIII hymns, promulgated in 1631; the 1911 psalm cursus; the 1945 Pian psalter for example - that many rightly in my view regard as seriously problematic.
The issue then, for this sub-group at least, is just how much change, and the merits of the particular changes.
1960 rubrics and calendar
And in this regard, when it comes to the Benedictine Office, it is important to keep in mind, I think, that none of the changes made in the late 1950s or early 1960s are in any way inconsistent with the Rule's provisions.
Indeed, many were aimed at restoring the priority of the ferial psalm cursus that St Benedict himself set out in the Rule, but that had more often then not displaced by feasts, octaves and other later additions to the Office, and at restoring the priority of the Scriptural reading cycle that St Benedict envisaged.
Others aimed at removing some of the accretions that had crept into the Office; and at reducing the level of complexity that had built up in the rubrics.
Now those who have been regular readers of my blogs will know that I am certainly not a fan of all of the changes made.
Nonetheless, I actually do agree with the basic objectives of many of the reforms.
Some of the changes clearly went too far, or were done in a very clumsy, arbitrary or outright misguided way. In other cases, the choice of mechanism to achieve the objective was perhaps not the best possible option.
The key question though, is how we deal with these issues now.
1962+?
The course we had been on prior to Traditionis Custodes was to obtain permissions to modify those elements of the 1962 books that are problematic on an optional basis.
It is frustrating of course to have to wait for sanity to return, and processes to be worked through before further changes can be proposed, but should we not be making the most of the existing permissions already given, while praying and working for a return to this path rather than rejecting it altogether?
Yet some seem to regard with suspicion, for example, the provisions of Cum Sanctissima because it was promulgated under Pope Francis despite the fact that it actually permits the celebration of feasts removed from the 1960 calendar, one of their chief complaints about the 1962 books.
Another key plank of the Restore the 54 agenda relates to the pre 1955 version of Holy Week. But widespread indults have already been granted for this.
And other changes, such as the restoration of some octaves had similarly been flagged as possible future steps.
There is obviously more that can be done in this direction, and doing the work now ready for a day when action might be possible seems to me the more constructive approach than simply rejecting papal authority altogether, or attempting to subvert it.
Assessing the merits of reforms
So how do we assess the merits or otherwise of these and other previous changes that arguably require reconsideration?
In recent debates, several different criteria have either
explicitly or implicitly been suggested to assess the legitimacy and/or extent
to which something conforms to tradition, let me list out what I think are the
main ones:
(1)
Who made the changes – anything promulgated by
Pope X/claimed as theirs by y should be rejected regardless of content.
(2)
Length and complexity – a more arduous form of
the Office cannot be supplanted by a shorter/simpler version.
(3)
Volume of changes – lots of changes made at once
can never be justified as liturgy essentially does not inherently change much.
(4)
Antiquity – if something is an ancient feast or
feature of the Office and has continued to be used, it cannot be removed from
the calendar or abolished.
(5)
Consistency with middle/late medieval practice –
if it was codified in a late medieval missal/breviary, or otherwise documented
for that period, then it is a legitimate addition to the post Trent books and
must be kept.
(6)
Organic development – if it can be seen as
unfolding naturally from earlier practice, bottom up’ changes, then it is a
legitimate change.
(7)
The merits of the changes and their impact of
changes on the fervour or otherwise of the faithful – do they make ‘the garden’
flourish or not?
(8)
Ressourcement, respect for the unfolding
patrimony – liturgy needs to be renewed by going back to both
the original and subsequent sources for it, as well as adapted where necessary to
reflect the needs of the times.
None of these, in my view, generate clear an unequivocal answers in and of themselves.
I'm not going to go through all of these, but I do want to focus on a few that have been advocated for recently.
Antiquity and length: the case of the Octave of All Saints
One recent suggestion, for example, has been that we should privilege longer forms of the Office over shorter ones, and older things over newer.
But do these two tests stand up to scrutiny?
Take the case of a Benedictine monk in a post
over at New Liturgical Movement for example, reproduced in a recent book, who uses the example of saying the Octave of All Saints (presumably
from the 1953 Monastic Breviary) to make his case, appealing to the greater length of the older Offices, and the antiquity of the Octave.
He starts by making the comparison in the number of psalms said between the 1963 Office and earlier and the Novus Ordo, which is fair enough.
But when it comes to justifying use of the 1953 books over the 1963, the All Saints Octave, as far as I can see, is a spectacularly bad
example to choose.
Antiquity
First, while some point to antiquity as a
possible justification for saying older feasts, this particular octave is not an especially ancient octave at all relatively speaking - while the feast of All Saints dates back to
at least the eighth century, the Octave itself was added to the universal
calendar by Pope Sixtus IV only in the 1480s.
Secondly, in the Benedictine version of the hour, the Octave altogether displaces the far more ancient Scriptural cycle of readings that would otherwise have been said.
Length
Moreover, the
Benedictine version of the Octave day as it was said before 1963 is not, as far as I can see, actually longer than the ferial
day in the 1963 books at all.
The table below uses the example of the Matins as it would have been said on November 5 last year to illustrate the point - it is indicative only, and there is obviously some variation in the length of the patristic and Scriptural readings each day, but the differences are minor.
I've focused on Matins as it is the hour most affected by the Octave day in
the Benedictine Office (as for feasts generally, since at the other
hours mostly substitute one text for another, whereas at Matins, some
additional texts can be added).
In the 1953 (and earlier versions of the monastic breviary including pre 1911), the Octave is not actually a three Nocturn Office. Instead it just has two Nocturns with the ferial psalms. The main change for the Octave is the use of three patristic readings said instead of the ferial Scriptural readings of the day.
The table shows the number of verses of psalms
said at the hour (as arranged liturgically, and including doxologies), as well
as the number of sentences in the readings.
The number of psalm verses said was unchanged
between 1962 and earlier breviaries; the difference rests in the readings,
which are actually generally slightly shorter for the Octave day compared to
the ferial Scriptural readings.
Matins on
November 5, 2025
|
|
Benedictine
1901, 1930, 1953 (within Octave of
All Saints)
|
Benedictine 1962 (ferial)
|
|
Nocturn I
verses
|
102
|
102
|
|
Nocturn II
verses
|
135
|
135
|
|
TOTAL
|
237
|
237
|
|
|
|
|
|
Readings
Verses/sentences
[words]
|
8
(205)
|
13
(232)
|
Now there is of course a pragmatic reason for the Benedictine reading pattern in this case - in the Benedictine Office, Matins with three Nocturns, even if shorter festal psalms are used, is generally significantly longer than the ferial Office (particularly if sung) since it has twelve psalms, readings and responsories (not the Roman nine or the normal weekday three); an extra Nocturn of canticles; the Te Deum; a Gospel; and Te decet laus.
In the Benedictine context then, a key issue that lies behind the abolition of most octaves is about the relative priority of the ancient Scriptural reading cycle over Patristic readings, an issue I want to come back to in due course.
The Roman Office
But even if one assumes that our Benedictine
monk is, for some reason, saying the Roman Office from the 1954 breviary, he would have been using a structure of the Octave day had been in place
less than 45 years when it was abolished.
The table below illustrates the impact of the
Octave day in the Roman Office.
It illustrates, firstly one of the reasons why feasts and
octave days were so popular with priests before the 1911 reform of the Roman psalter: the
octave day is almost half the length of the ferial psalmody it replaced.
It also, perhaps, goes to one of the reasons for the abolition of octave days: the 1953 version of the Octave day was actually longer than the pre-1911
version by dint of as it using the ferial psalter of the day, rather than (as
was the case before 1911) the psalms of the feast, during the Octave.
By way of comparison, the pre-1911 octave day
and the 1962 ferial offices are actually more or less the same length, but the Octave day is longer.
Matins for
5 November 2025
|
|
1910 ferial Wednesday
|
1910 Roman (of the octave) –
verses as for liturgical use including doxologies
|
1953
|
1962 Roman (ferial)
|
|
Nocturn I
|
217
|
32
|
39
|
136
|
|
Nocturn II
|
|
37
|
40
|
-
|
|
Nocturn III
|
|
49
|
57
|
-
|
|
TOTAL PSALMODY
|
217
|
118
|
136
|
136
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Readings (verse equivs)
|
13
|
35
|
35
|
13
|
|
TOTAL
|
230
|
153
|
171
|
149
|
So when it comes to length at least, there is
nothing particularly ‘anti-traditional’ about the reduction in length between
the 1953 and 1962 versions of the Roman Office: the 1962 version is arguably
more of a restoration!
Length as a criterion for what can and can't be changed in the Office
Now it may of course be that there are better
examples our monk could have picked that actually do make his case.
But the fact that one form of the Office or particular day or feast is longer or shorter does not, in and of itself, seem to me to be a sufficient criterion given several precedents to the contrary.
The Cluniacs, for example, were strongly criticised in their day (and even unto the present time) for their extremely long Offices.
But equally, at the other extreme, back in the seventh century Pope Honorius I (625-638), according to the Liber Pontificalis, ordered 'the monks' to stop saying their normal Office of twelve psalms during the Easter and Pentecost Octaves, and instead say the Roman three psalm version during the octave, as the people were displeased at its length.
Moreover, while length is relative, those praying the Benedictine Office at least should also be mindful of St Benedict's injunctions to pray frequently and fervently rather than at great length (RB 4, 20).
Is there a way forward?
So how can we assess both the objectives of the changes made in the 1962/3 books and their execution, and develop a list of priorities for further restorations or revisions to the books?
More on that, with a look at some of the particular contested changes, in the next post in the series.
