Benedictines of Mary Matins books review

I mentioned a while back that the Benedictines of Mary have now made publicly available their Matins books.

As I've seen a few questions about them in various places, I thought a fuller review might be useful!

Matins

Matins in the Benedictine Office is not an hour most laypeople will be in a position to say - it is easily the longest of the hours in the Office, generally taking a minimum of around an hour to say (with some variation by day), and is significantly longer on Sundays and feasts.  And it includes not only a lot of psalms (14 each night, of which two are fixed), but also a lot of readings.  

But if you do have the time, and are intent on saying it at least on occasion, but don't (yet) have enough Latin to use the Latin only Monastic Breviary or Nocturnale, this is the set of books for you!  

They contain everything you need to say the Night Office as said according to the 1960 calendar and rubrics, in both Latin and English.  

The books will also be useful as a reference document for breviary users, for those cases where the meaning of the hymns or readings seem particularly hard to grasp.

Accordingly, you can now throw out your English only copy of  'Monastic Breviary Matins' with its dodgy translations, changes to some readings and feasts!

The books

There are four volumes to the set.  All are printed on solid white paper, in black and red.  The books are  spiral (coil) bound, and paperback book size (8.5 in × 6.5 in × 1 in).

As such, they are clearly intended as working books used for study purposes, and will withstand robust treatment for study. They are not, however, exemplars of the 'liturgical arts' (though perhaps the sisters will consider having them printed properly down the tack if there is enough interest?).

The text size is similar to the Breviary, but smaller than the Nocturnale.

Volume 1

Volume 1 provides the psalter for each day of the week, as well as the fixed sections of the 'of time' and 'of saints' sections of the breviary necessary for Class III feasts and days.  

For the psalter book, it lays out the psalms and canticles in the standard two columns, left side Latin, right side English, as illustrated below (apologies for the quality of the scans, the actual pages are quite clear!).

The layout makes several smart changes to the ordering of texts in the breviary which makes it much easier to use, such as putting the 'throughout the year' Sunday canticles (used much more frequently) before the other seasonal versions, and integrating the Office of Our Lady into Saturday.

This volume also includes the Ordinary for the seasons, so you don't have to go hunting elsewhere for the propers for Sundays and Class III days during Advent and Lent for example (though you will still need to consult one of the other books for the readings of the day).

One of the particularly nice features is the inclusion of the key sections of the Commons for Class III feasts (the Invitatory antiphon, hymn, chapter), which again is a great time saver.  I would note that the responsory for Class III feasts is generally a fixed one from each Common so they could have been included as well, but in text at least they don't take up much space and relate to the reading, so I can see why they didn't include them.

Volumes 2 - 4

The remaining three volumes provide the proper texts for feasts and days throughout the year. The volumes are divided by:

• Easter to September (end of August); 
• September through Christmas (to December 24);
• and Christmas through Lent.

Each of these volumes starts with the temporale (of time) section, then the sanctorale (of saints) and then provides the necessary Commons for feasts, as well as the readings for the Office of Our Lady on Saturday.

The translations

The Scriptural translations are in suitably archaic in language, and seem to be taken from the Douay-Rheims.

The translations of the patristic texts, though generally avoid archaisms and are admirably clear while retaining a formal tone.  Here is a sample from the Feast of the Maternity of the BVM:

Extra feasts

The books include a few bonus feasts specific to the US and the Benedictines of Mary, as well as ranking a few feasts in the General (Benedictine) calendar more highly.  You can obviously choose whether or not to say these as you prefer!

Several of these are feasts included in older versions of the Benedictine calendar, but excluded from the 1960.

And for those fans of 1953 or earlier, this is still a very useful reference set of texts to obtain given that the readings and responsories generally has not changed (except in a very small number of very minor instances).  Most of the 'missing' texts for feasts whose ranking was reduced can be found in the relevant Commons (check the Latin versions in the new reprint of the breviary).

The only differences in the rubrics for Matins as far as I am aware relate to:

• the opening of the hour, where the 1960 rubrics open the hour in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict's specifications, and so eliminates the Pater, Ave, Creed and Deus in adjutorium);
• the use of seasonal doxologies for the hymns (which you can find in the new reprint of the 1963 breviary); and
• commemoration of feasts through the twelfth reading in some cases in 1953 and earlier.

All up, this is a very useful, well thought through set of books, and the price is very good indeed - do consider adding a donation to the monastery with your purchase!