In the last post in this series on how the calendar for the Office works I started looking at the monthly cycle in the Office.
In this post I want to continue this, focusing particularly on the practical application of the Office history we looked at in the last post on compiling your personal Ordo.
The Sunday cycle of readings: August to November
I noted in the last post that the earliest surviving Order of readings for the Roman Office started from Easter and Pentecost, and then shifted to a cycle tied to the calendar month for the rest of the year.
That system, however, was gradually pushed back and reorganised as the seasons of Advent and Epiphanytide solidified.
In the 1962 Office, the remnant of the earlier cycle relates mainly to the Matins readings for August to November, and the Saturday Magnificat antiphons that foreshadow them.
In essence, each Sunday during this period ushers in a new set of readings for Matins used in the first Nocturn of Sunday.
The actual number of Sundays in a given month, though, varies from year to year.
For this reason, the breviary also includes a set of rules on which Sundays to skip if necessary, generally arranged to maximise the number of Scriptural books sampled.
You can find these rules (which differ for each month) in the Diurnal in the 'temporale' section.
For August, for example, it says:
If the first Sunday falls between August 1 and August 3, then the month has five Sundays. If however the first Sunday falls between August 4 and 7, then the month has four Sundays only and the Antiphon assigned to the fifth Sunday is omitted. (MD 450*)
Ordo for August 2018
If we apply the rubrics for August Sundays to 2018, we find that the first Sunday falls on August 5, so the month has only four Sundays in this year.
Accordingly, we can assign them in our Ordo as follows:
Sunday August 5: First Sunday of August (Matins first nocturn readings are from Proverbs 1: 1-22)
Sunday August 12: Second Sunday of August (Ecclesiastes 1:1-17)
Sunday August 19: Third Sunday of August (Wisdom 1:1-13)
Sunday August 26: Fourth Sunday of August (Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 1:1-16)
The readings and antiphon for the Fifth Sunday of August (from Ecclesiasticus 5:1-16) are not used this year.
In the Roman Office, this reading cycle is carried through to weekdays as well, but in the Benedictine Office, these only kick in from November.
Our Ordo for August is still incomplete though, as we still lack the readings for the Third Nocturn of Matins, the Gospels, collects and canticle antiphons for the Sundays, determined by the cycle of Sundays dependent on the date of Easter.
Advent
If we move to December though, the two Sundays cycles reunite by shifting totally to a calendar month basis.
For most of the year, the Sunday cycle depends on the date of Easter, which varies each year: one the date of Easter is ascertained you count backwards a set number of days to calculate the start of Lent and the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima; count forward to get the date of the Ascension and Pentecost, and then the number of the Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost.
By contrast, the cycle of Sundays of Advent is linked to the calendar month: Advent always starts on the Sunday closest to 30 November and ends on 23 December.
That means the number of days in Advent varies each year.
Just when and how the liturgy for the season of Advent developed remains the subject of vigorous academic debate.
However it happened, the net result is that Advent in the Benedictine Office is easily the most complicated part of the year in the Office, because it involves three different overlays that interact in different ways each year:
The end of Advent in December is determined by a fixed date feast, viz the Nativity and its Vigil.
Thereafter a series of fixed day feasts combine with the Octave of Christmas to take us into January.
And that month works the opposite way to December: the start of the cycle of the Sundays after Epiphany is determined, as the name suggests, by a relationship to a fixed date feast (ie the first Sunday after January 6), but its end is determined by the resumption of the Sunday cycle related to Easter, in the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesimatide.
There is a complicated history behind this.
The season after the feast of the Epiphany developed in the period up to the eighth century to add an Octave to the feast of the Epiphany, and ends forty days after Christmas with Candlemass on 2 February.
But at the same time that this cycle was firming up, the Lenten and pre-Lenten cycle was being gradually being pushed back, eventually settling on starting with Septuagesima Sunday, whose date potentially cuts across the symmetry of a forty day Christmas season.
The organic development of the liturgy is not always neat and tidy!
That means the number of days in Advent varies each year.
Just when and how the liturgy for the season of Advent developed remains the subject of vigorous academic debate.
However it happened, the net result is that Advent in the Benedictine Office is easily the most complicated part of the year in the Office, because it involves three different overlays that interact in different ways each year:
- a fixed date system for the 'Class II' days of December 17-23, with the O antiphons used at Vespers;
- psalm antiphons for the day of the week from 17-23 December, and otherwise for the week of Advent; and
- Matins readings and canticle antiphons for each of the four weeks of Advent.
Epiphanytide
The end of Advent in December is determined by a fixed date feast, viz the Nativity and its Vigil.
Thereafter a series of fixed day feasts combine with the Octave of Christmas to take us into January.
And that month works the opposite way to December: the start of the cycle of the Sundays after Epiphany is determined, as the name suggests, by a relationship to a fixed date feast (ie the first Sunday after January 6), but its end is determined by the resumption of the Sunday cycle related to Easter, in the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesimatide.
There is a complicated history behind this.
The season after the feast of the Epiphany developed in the period up to the eighth century to add an Octave to the feast of the Epiphany, and ends forty days after Christmas with Candlemass on 2 February.
But at the same time that this cycle was firming up, the Lenten and pre-Lenten cycle was being gradually being pushed back, eventually settling on starting with Septuagesima Sunday, whose date potentially cuts across the symmetry of a forty day Christmas season.
The organic development of the liturgy is not always neat and tidy!
Feasts and days tied to calendar months - Ember Days
The final dimension of the calendar month cycle that needs to be taken into account in compiling our Ordo relates to feasts and special days in the calendar that are tied to months rather than fixed dates.
One simple example of this, with a relatively recent origin (instituted in 1925) is the feast of Christ the King, which in the 1962 calendar is tied to the last Sunday of October.
The much more ancient one is Ember Days.
Ember Days are sets of Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays days devoted to fasting and prayer that occur four times a year.
They have their own Matins readings, canticle antiphons at Lauds and Vespers, and collects, and are ranked as Class II days in the calendar.
Originally, Ember Days were tied to harvests; in the central middle ages the 'March' and 'June' Ember Days become connected to the flow of the liturgical year rather than the monthly cycle.
The September and December Ember Days, though, still reflect the older system.
In the 1962 Office, the September Ember Days are linked to the third week of September, and in the pre-1962 Rules, this meant they always occurred on the Wednesday after the feast of the Exaltation of Holy Cross. A rather odd rule change means this is no longer always the case.
The December Ember Days are always placed in the third week of Advent, ensuring that they fall after the feast of St Lucy (December 13).
Coming next, a look at the final Office cycle, that related to the date of Easter each year.
One simple example of this, with a relatively recent origin (instituted in 1925) is the feast of Christ the King, which in the 1962 calendar is tied to the last Sunday of October.
The much more ancient one is Ember Days.
Ember Days are sets of Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays days devoted to fasting and prayer that occur four times a year.
They have their own Matins readings, canticle antiphons at Lauds and Vespers, and collects, and are ranked as Class II days in the calendar.
Originally, Ember Days were tied to harvests; in the central middle ages the 'March' and 'June' Ember Days become connected to the flow of the liturgical year rather than the monthly cycle.
The September and December Ember Days, though, still reflect the older system.
In the 1962 Office, the September Ember Days are linked to the third week of September, and in the pre-1962 Rules, this meant they always occurred on the Wednesday after the feast of the Exaltation of Holy Cross. A rather odd rule change means this is no longer always the case.
The December Ember Days are always placed in the third week of Advent, ensuring that they fall after the feast of St Lucy (December 13).
Next up...
Coming next, a look at the final Office cycle, that related to the date of Easter each year.
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