I've been receiving a steady stream of inquiries asking about the Ordo for the Benedictine Office coming liturgical year, so thought I would reassure readers that yes, it will be available shortly.
I'm just waiting to see the (hopefully) final printed version of it before making it available in early November.
This year's Ordo
The Ordo will, as usual, provide a full guide to the moving parts of the Benedictine Office, with page references to the Monastic Diurnal and Antiphonale Monasticum (for those who want to sing the Office) for the day hours, as well as cross-references to feasts not included in the 1960 monastic calendar but included in the 1962 Roman; used by particular monasteries (where I've been made aware of them); and specific to selected countries and regions.
I have also added some additional material this year, including:
- an appendix showing the considerable number of feasts included in both the 1960 and 2002 monastic calendars, but whose date of celebration changed. This should be of assistance to those who attend the novus ordo mass on weekdays, and want to say the relevant office of the day (as well as potentially those who are oblates of a monastery using the modern sanctoral cycle);
- references to page numbers in the 1963 breviary for Matins, given the greater availability of the full breviary following the release of the Brignoles reprint;
- cross-references to sources (such as the Brignoles Breviary and the Creek Creek Enchirion) for both older and newer feasts that can be added to the calendar under the terms of the decree Cum Sanctissima;
- improved notes (though not a full ordo) on the pre-1960 Office, so that readers can assess for themselves the merits or otherwise of the various versions of the breviary.
Watch this space for news on availability!
The Brignoles Nocturnale, Volume 1
And while you are waiting for the Ordo to become available, can I also alert you, in case you are not already aware of it, to the forthcoming first volume of the Brignoles Nocturnale.
It has long been a source of scandal, in my view, that there is no published full Nocturnale containing the necessary chants for the monastic Night Office.
The monastic Office, after all, is intended to be sung, not said, or even, I would suggest, chanted recto tono.
Rather, the longer tradition is that it should be sung.
And that is particularly true of Matins, which includes some of the richest chants in the entire repertoire.
Chant books for Matins
There have been books published in the past that have provided some of the necessary chants for Matins - such as books for the Christmas season and Holy Week; a book containing many of the invitatories; and the Liber Responsorialis, which provided the chants for the Commons and a selection of feasts.
But pretty much all of these are long out of print and so hard to obtain, and none of them provide all of the chants necessary to sing Matins in the Benedictine form throughout the year.
The Brignoles project aims to change that.
Volume 1, which provides the psalter section together with the Ordinary for the various liturgical seasons, is therefore a huge milestone in this regard.
Previous psalters
There are, it should be noted, two previous books which provide monastic psalters with some chants for the the ferial Night Office.
The first was put out by Solesmes in 1981, but uses the neo-Vulgate texts for the psalms, doesn't include chants for the hymns or ordinary of seasons, and the antiphons frequently differ to those in the 1963 breviary, rendering it effectively useless for those who use the 1960 calendar and rubrics.
The other is a draft psalter put together by Peter Sandhofe (who published the Nocturnale Romanum) but never adequately proofed or published. The Sandhofe draft was actually a useful step forward, in that it bought together proposed chants for the antiphons and hymns each day. The chants themselves though, clearly needed another round of corrections to the transcriptions and scrutiny of some of the choices made. And the text of the psalms themselves, alas, contained many errors.
This new book, then, which has been carefully road tested, will therefore fill an important gap. Do consider ordering it if you say Matins!
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