Getting ready to say Benedictine Matins

Given the release of both a reprint of the 1963 breviary and a Latin-English Nocturnale, I thought it might be useful to provide a few notes on how to say Monastic Matins, and then perhaps provide a few posts on the history and spirituality of the hour.

Today, though, a few preliminary points.

New to Matins?  Grab an ordo?

First, if you are planning on saying Matins for the first time, I strongly suggest you grab a copy of my Ordo if you haven’t already.   

A new edition for the next liturgical year will be available in the not too distant future, but if you plan to start in advance of that, it is a useful tool and available in PDF form.

While it doesn’t provide page numbers to the breviary or the new Latin-English Nocturnale, it does tell you exactly what texts you will need to locate for feasts and other days, and so should help you get oriented.

For Wednesday 3 September, for example, the feast of St Pius X, which is Class III, it tells you that for Matins, the Office is

Two nocturns with invitatory antiphon, hymn, chapter and versicle of a Confessor Bishop; reading, responsory and collect of the feast. 

Even with the Ordo though, you will still need to become familiar with the ‘default’ Sunday and weekday forms of Matins, so I’ll provide a quick overview in my next post. 

St Benedict on Matins

Secondly, if you are planning on saying Matins, it is well worth starting by reading (or rereading) the relevant chapters in the Rule (particularly 8 -11, but also take a quick look at 14 - 16 and 18), since the Rule does actually set out most of the key rubrics still followed today.

In particular, the Rule sets out:

• the structure and key components of the hour for Sundays and feasts, and weekdays;
•  the psalms to be used each day (starting at Psalm 20 on Sunday and ending at Psalm 108 on Saturday), and specifies that the longest psalms in the set are to be divided;
•  the pattern of readings for Sundays, weekdays in summer, and weekdays in winter; and
• where responsories and their doxologies are used.

Before you do sit down and reread the relevant chapters though, it is worth noting that while it is easy to dismiss the Rule’s treatment of the Office as purely mechanistic descriptions, there is actually, I think, a deeper layer of meaning built into these chapters that is less obvious to the modern eye.  I will come back to this in a future post, but do look out for hints in things like number symbolism - in particular the repeated references to eight (rise at the eighth hour, the eighth of the hours and so forth), are not random, by rather signal that the hour is oriented to the 'eighth day' of creation, that is, the day ushered in by the Resurrection, and watching for the Second Coming.

Learning Matins

Thirdly, even if you are familiar with the day hours, there is still a bit of a learning curve for Matins in the Benedictine Office, as it includes several components not used at the other hours, so do make the time to sit down and learn how it work in advance of trying to say it.

I'll provide a bit of an overview in my next post on Matins, or if you prefer you can jump straight to  the more detailed notes I’ve previously provided over at the learn the Benedictine Office blog (note that some of the posts on books for Matins are now out of date, so I will update them in due course)!

Singing Matins

Fourthly, all of the hours of the Benedictine Office are meant to be sung!  

If you can, try and at least sing it on one note.

Singing Matins in chant is actually pretty hard to do as books for it are currently extremely scarce and contain only a small proportion of the chants needed.  

There are a few resources available online if you do want to start adding the chants in, but if you are new to the hour, you are probably best off waiting for the psalter for Matins being prepared by the monks of the Monastery of St Benedict at Brignoles and expected to be released later this year.

Budget your time

Finally, keep in mind that Benedictine Matins represents a big additional investment of time in the Office, as it is by far the longest of the 'hours', even on ordinary weekdays.

I'd recommend building up slowly, and starting by learning it sections, especially if your Latin is not that strong.  

Unless you have a formal obligation to say the Office, consider starting with just the introductory section of the hour for example (opening prayer, Psalms 3 and 94, hymn).  Then maybe add three or six psalms a day, and some of the fixed components for each day such as the short weekday readings and chapter/versicle at the end.