Showing posts with label office basics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label office basics. Show all posts

Friday, November 16, 2018

Getting ready for Advent 2B - Reading an Ordo Part II


Continuing my series getting ready for Advent, and the new liturgical year, I want to continue on with some further comments on using an Ordo.

And in the process, I'll talk about what texts to ignore or adapt in older Office books!

An ordo and the default, or ferial texts.


A key point to keep in mind in using the Ordo, including the one provided on this blog, is that they typically only tell you what is different from the ordinary, ie what appears for the relevant hour and day of the week in the psalter section of your book.

This means that:

(1) If the Ordo is silent, you should use the default texts set out in the psalter section for the particular day and hour you are proposing to say.

(2) If the Ordo provides page numbers for a part of the hour, unless indicated otherwise, these displace the ones normally used at a particular hour.

An example: 1 Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent


For First Vespers of Advent (the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent) for example, the Ordo might read:

1 Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent: Antiphons, chapter, responsory, hymn, versicle, Magnificat antiphon, and collect, MD 1*/AM 186 ff.

What this is telling you is that the parts of the hour of Vespers not mentioned - the opening prayer, psalms, Magnificat and closing prayers (other than the collect)  - are as normally said for Saturday Vespers.

The table below spells out what this means in practice.

 VESPERS
‘Default’ texts
1 Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent
Opening prayers
MD 1
 MD 1
Antiphons
and psalms 
Saturday - MD 249 ff



Ant 1 (Regnum tuum)+Ps 144+Ant 1
Ant 2 (Laudabo)+Ps 145+Ant 2
Ant 3 (Deo nostro)+Ps 146+Ant 3
Ant 4 (Lauda)+Ps 147+Ant 4
 Antiphons of Advent 1, MD 1,
 with psalms of Saturday, MD 249 ff

 Ant 1 (In illa die)+Ps 144+Ant 1 (of
 Advent 1)
 Ant 2 (Iucundare)+Ps 145+Ant2
 Ant 3 (Ecce Dominus)+Ps 146+Ant 3
 Ant 4 (Ecce veniet)+Ps 147+Ant 4
Chapter
O altitudo, MD 254
Fratres, MD 1*
Short Responsory
Magnus Dominus, MD 254
 Ostende nobis, MD 2*
Hymn
O lux beata Trinitas, MD 254
 Conditor alme, MD 2-3*
Versicle
Vespertina oratio, MD 255
 Rorate caeli, MD 3*
Antiphon for the Magnificat
Of the following Sunday of the year
 Ecce nomen Domini, MD 3*
Magnificat
MD 209
 MD 209
Antiphon for the Magnificat
 Of the following Sunday of the year
 Ecce nomen Domini, MD 3*
Closing prayers
MD 210
 MD 210
Collect of the week or day
  MD 1*

Knowing the ferial Office


At Vespers, as the example above illustrates, almost every part of the hour can be festal, but at the other hours, fewer things change - at Prime, for example, only the antiphon.

This means that in saying the hours, particularly when it comes to the special seasons of the year, and on feasts, you need to have a good understanding of what the normal parts of the hour are and the order they are said in, as well as how different levels of feasts can affect the hour.

To help you on this, I've reposted some quick guides to the day hours, with page number references to the Monastic Diurnal, over at the Learn the Benedictine Office Blog.

Navigating older books


If you are using an older Office book, I'd suggest taking the quick guides, and drawing up your own set of page numbers for the psalter section in it.

In general, if you follow the directions in the Ordo about what parts of the Office change for a particular feast, the texts you are looking for will generally be there.

The key things to watch out for in using older books for the day hours are that:
  • only part of the antiphon may be given before the psalm - but in the 1962 rubrics they are always said in full before and after the psalm(s); and
  • older books may include additional material such preces in the psalter section, and additional commemorations elsewhere - that are no longer used.
In the case of Matins, although I haven't done a comprehensive comparison, as far as I've found there are generally very few changes in the texts for particular feasts between older books and the 1962 breviary.  The main exception is feasts that have been upgraded in various ways, such as the Assumption and Immaculate Conception, but even in these cases the 1962 breviary generally provides an option to use the older version of the feast,

The key change relates to Class III feasts, which often represent a downgrade from a three Nocturn Office to a two Nocturn one.  In this case, the feast is normally marked, in the 1962 rubrics, by:

  • an Invitatory antiphon and hymn (taken from the Common of the type of saint or of the feast);
  • a single reading (usually identical to the Roman 1962) and  responsory (either of the feast or of the type of saint;
  • Nocturn II chapter (typically that of Sext) and versicle (typically that of Terce) of the type of saint; and 
  • collect of the feast.  

Friday, November 9, 2018

Getting ready for Advent - Office basics 1: Finding your way around (Benedictine) Office books

We are rapidly coming up to the end of the liturgical year, and the start of the new, in the form of the season of Advent.

Accordingly, I thought this might be a good time to provide a quick refresher on some Office basics.

As I've had a few requests, I thought I would also provide some comments on using older Office books, such as older breviaries or editions of the Diurnal, in conjunction with the 1962 rubrics.

Time to brush up your rubrics

Advent is easily the most complex time of the liturgical year, and to say the Office in this period correctly requires a firm grasp of what parts of the Office change, and which don't, and where to find the various texts.

Today, a quick refresher on finding pages in the Diurnal (or other Office book).

The first challenge during Advent (and indeed throughout the year) is that you need to juggle page numbers in several different places in your book, and it is easy to get confused as to which section of the book you are looking for (or are in).

Page numbering in Office books

The Ordo published on this website includes pages references to the Latin-English Monastic Diurnal published by Farnborough Abbey, editions from 2005 onwards (as far as I know the latest edition hasn't changed anything, but please do let me know if I'm wrong about this!). 

It is important to note, however, that page number in the Diurnal, as for many breviaries, is not sequential throughout the book.  

Instead each key section of the book has its own numbering system, as follows:


Section
Key content
Page numbering system

Front material
Reference material such as Table of movable feasts, General Calendar and conclusions to the collects. 

Roman numerals: i to xxx.
Proper of the Season
Texts that vary according to the liturgical and calendar seasons of the year.

Numbers with an asterix: 1* to 487*.
The Psalter

The psalms and standard ‘default’ texts for each hour and day.  This is the core of the book and is (broadly) organised around the order of the psalms rather than the order in which the various 'hours' of the Office are said. 

Numbers: 1 to 269.

Proper of the Saints

Texts used on the feasts of saints, arranged by date. 

Numbers in square brackets: [1] to [385].

The Common of Saints
Used for more important feasts that don't have their own special texts.  They are grouped by types of saints (apostles, confessors, etc).   The Office of the Dead, various other special prayers, as well as indexes, are included in this section.

Numbers in parentheses: (1) to (243).

Supplement
Texts for feasts that are celebrated in certain places only. 
Numbers with two asterixes: 1** to 59**.

Using older Office books

If you are using an older edition of the Diurnal, or an older breviary, the page numbers will not be the same as those cited in the Ordo I provide here.

Instead of looking for page numbers, then, you need to focus on finding the texts for the relevant day, feast or type of text cited in the Ordo entry (Monday in the first week of Advent etc).  

If you are using a 1962 Collegeville Monastic Diurnal, this should be very straightforward.  

For earlier editions, though, there are few tricks to this (for example days in former octaves) which I'll come back to in due course, but the texts are generally all there (save for a few newer feasts).

Depending on how familiar you are with the books you are using (and whether you are juggling a chant book and a book with readings for Matins for example), you might want to create a little conversion table/index for yourself to remind you what the order of the sections is, and where to find the key texts you are looking for.

I've provided a listing for the key sections for a few books in my possession below by way of a starting point.


Section of the Office book
Monastic Diurnal
Monastic Breviary 1962 vol 1 (Advent to Pentecost)

Antiphonale Monasticum 1934
Monastic Breviary 1892 (English Congregation), Pars Hiemalis

Proper of the Season
Numbers with an asterix: 1* to 487*.
Numbers: 1 to 738.

Second section in the book – numbers: 181 – 618.

Second section in the book – numbers: 151 – 390.

The Psalter

Numbers: 1 to 269.

Numbers in parentheses: (1) to (254).

First section in book – numbers: 1 – 180.
First section in the  book – numbers, 1 - 150

Proper of the Saints

Numbers in square brackets: [1] to [385].

Numbers in square brackets: [1] to [213].

Third section in the book – numbers: 619 – 752.
Third section in the book – numbers: 301 – 604.

The Common of Saints
Numbers in parentheses: (1) to (243).

Numbers with an asterix: 1* to 389*.
Fourth section of the book – numbers: 753 – 1182.
Fourth section of the book – numbers in parentheses: (1) to (196).


Please contribute

Please do let me know if you find any errors in the page references, or other typos, or need anything clarified in this post.

And if you are using an older/other Office book for the traditional Benedictine Office not covered by the table above, please do consider sharing the order and page numbers for it via the comments box - others are probably also using it, and I'd be curious to know just when the ordering changed and how consistent or otherwise the number systems are!  If I get enough responses I will put them together in a supplementary table.