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.
