In the last couple of posts in this series on the calendar I have looked at how to incorporate feasts of the General calendar into the Office.
But as well as the generally applying feasts, there are a number of local feasts, feasts of the 'particular churches' that you need to take account of in the Office.
Local feasts
- principal patron of the country, region or province as a Class I;
- principal patron of the diocese or territory;
- anniversary of the dedication of the Cathedral of the diocese;
- patron of the town or city;
- anniversary of the dedication of the church;
- titular feast of the church;
- patron saint of the congregation or monastery;
- feast of the monasteries founder (if canonised or beatified); and
- saints specified in the calendar of the monastery's congregation.
Similarly, each Oblate should add the relevant local feasts to their own Ordo.
In some cases these saints may not appear in the General Calendar at all. In others, the effect of the local feast may be to elevate the level of the feast.
In some cases these saints may not appear in the General Calendar at all. In others, the effect of the local feast may be to elevate the level of the feast.
Where local feasts coincide with the feasts of other saints in the General Calendar, or with Sundays you will need to resolve the conflict between them.
Generally speaking, memorials are displaced by Class I&II feasts but can be celebrated in conjunction with Class III feasts; other conflicts are resolved using 'the two tables' at the front of the Diurnal.
If two feasts of the same rank conflict, there is a hierarchy of types of feasts that dictates which one is celebrated.
The Ordo I provide on this blog covers the feasts set out in the 1962 General Calendar and the Sunday cycle associated with it (which is very similar to the Roman EF Sunday cycle and calendar).
Not all monasteries who say the traditional form of the Office, though, use the 1962 General Calendar for Benedictines, as the other officially approved option is to use the revised Calendar of 1975 in conjunction with the traditional Office books and either the 1962 or 1970 calendar cycles.
This approach, however, require a lot of adaptation and supplementation of the printed chant books, and personally I'm an advocate for keeping things simple.
But if your monastery does adopt this approach, it may provide its own Ordo to Oblates, and there are a number of books around aimed at providing the supplementary texts necessary (such as the Clear Creek books available from Lulu).
Finally, by way of a summary of what we have covered so far, a quick look at how to actually find the texts for the local feasts you have added to the calendar.
In many cases, working out how to say a local feast is fairly straightforward: texts for a number of additional feasts are included as a supplement at the back of the Diurnal, more can be found in other readily downloadable chant books such as the Antiphonale Monasticism, and your particular monastery may be wiling to provide you with the relevant texts.
But if you can't find any specific texts for a particular feast, you simply use the 'Commons' of the particular type of saint (to be found in the Diurnal and other Office books).
The general principles of how a feast impacts on the hours are summarised in the tables below. Note though that there are exceptions to the rules!
If two feasts of the same rank conflict, there is a hierarchy of types of feasts that dictates which one is celebrated.
Alternative calendars
The Ordo I provide on this blog covers the feasts set out in the 1962 General Calendar and the Sunday cycle associated with it (which is very similar to the Roman EF Sunday cycle and calendar).
Not all monasteries who say the traditional form of the Office, though, use the 1962 General Calendar for Benedictines, as the other officially approved option is to use the revised Calendar of 1975 in conjunction with the traditional Office books and either the 1962 or 1970 calendar cycles.
This approach, however, require a lot of adaptation and supplementation of the printed chant books, and personally I'm an advocate for keeping things simple.
But if your monastery does adopt this approach, it may provide its own Ordo to Oblates, and there are a number of books around aimed at providing the supplementary texts necessary (such as the Clear Creek books available from Lulu).
Working out how to say a (local) feast
Finally, by way of a summary of what we have covered so far, a quick look at how to actually find the texts for the local feasts you have added to the calendar.
In many cases, working out how to say a local feast is fairly straightforward: texts for a number of additional feasts are included as a supplement at the back of the Diurnal, more can be found in other readily downloadable chant books such as the Antiphonale Monasticism, and your particular monastery may be wiling to provide you with the relevant texts.
But if you can't find any specific texts for a particular feast, you simply use the 'Commons' of the particular type of saint (to be found in the Diurnal and other Office books).
The general principles of how a feast impacts on the hours are summarised in the tables below. Note though that there are exceptions to the rules!
LEVEL OF FEAST
|
EFFECT ON MATINS
|
Class III feast
|
Invitatory antiphon and hymn of the feast (or from the appropriate Common); reading (3) and responsory of the feast; chapter and collect of the (type of) feast.
|
Class I or II feast
|
Three Nocturns, with invitatory antiphon, hymn, antiphons, psalms, readings, responsories, Gospel and collect of the feast.
|
LEVEL OF FEAST
|
EFFECT ON PRIME
|
Memorial
|
Nil
|
Class I, II or III feasts
|
Antiphon of the feast (the default
is antiphon 1 of Lauds) either specific to the feast or from the Common
|
LEVEL OF FEAST
|
EFFECT ON TERCE, SEXT AND NONE
|
Memorial
|
Nil
|
Class I, II or III feast
|
Antiphon, chapter, versicle, collect
of the feast
|
LEVEL OF FEAST
|
EFFECT ON
VESPERS
|
EFFECT ON
LAUDS
|
Memorial
|
Nil.
|
After Collect of the day, say the
canticle antiphon, versicle and collect of the memorial
|
Class III without
proper antiphons
|
Psalms and antiphons of the
day; chapter, responsory, hymn etc from
the Common
|
|
Class III with proper antiphons
|
Psalms of Sunday or the Common;
antiphons of the feast; chapter etc for the feast (from the proper of the
feast or the Common)
|
Festal Psalms (under
Sunday) – Ps 92, 99, 62;
Option of using festal canticle of
the day of the week; chapter etc for the feast (from
the proper of the feast or the Common)
|
Class II
|
All for the feast (or from the
Common of Saints or season), including psalms of feast, Sunday or Common
|
Festal psalms; option of festal
canticle; Chapter etc of feast, season or
common
|
Class I
|
All for the feast (or from the
Common of saints or season) with I Vespers the night before
|
Festal psalms; option of festal
canticle; Chapter etc of feast, season or
common
|
In the next post I'll move onto the most confusing of the calendar cycles, that of the calendar months.
2 comments:
Thank you so much for this series and your whole blog. Wow, so do I understand correctly that on feasts occurring on weekdays we have the option to use the festal canticle of fhat day instead of the Sunday Benedicite canticle? I’ve never heard of this before! Do many monasteries avail themselves of this option?
Thanks yes - the canticle option is mentioned in passing in the rubrics, but I don't know if any monastery is using them for feasts as opposed to non-penitential seasons.
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