Advent in the Office

This is my annual reminder that Advent is the most complicated season for the Office, so you need to keep your wits about you!

Advent falls into two parts - the days up to and including December 16, and the final week of the season.

For the first part of the season, remember to keep a ribbon on the relevant parts for each hour of the day of 'the Ordinary of Advent' (front of the Diurnal), since these displace the normal texts set out in the psalter section of the book.

Key things to remember:

• Sundays in Advent (from 1 Vespers on Saturday) have proper antiphons at all hours;
• the Sunday antiphons are then used throughout the week at Prime to None;
• there are special Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons for each day of the Advent week;
• the default collect is of the Sunday as usual; and
• on feast days (such as for St Ambrose), a commemoration of Advent, consisting of the canticle antiphon (of the Advent day), versicle (of the season) and collect of the Advent week (in that order), is normally made at both Lauds and Vespers.

The Immaculate Conception

Another key point to note is that this year the feast of the Immaculate Conception falls on a Sunday, and, due to a special rubric just for this feast, displaces the Second Sunday of Advent (which is marked only by a commemoration at Lauds and Vespers). 

The Ordo

And just a reminder that if you are struggling, consider buying a copy of the Ordo - the summary version is on the blog, but the full version provides much more detailed instructions.

Getting ready for Advent pt 2

In my last post I suggested starting to get ready for Advent now, as it is a  particularly intensive time in the Office.

In this post, I want to continue on that theme, and highlight some of the key things you need to be aware of or remind yourself of.

The two parts of Advent

First, Advent essentially falls into two parts - the days up to and including December 16, which are Class III days; and the days between December 17 and 23, which are Class II.

First, throughout both parts of Advent, the 'Ordinary of Advent' is used, so make sure you are familiar with what is in it!

Aside from the Ordinary, it is important to keep in mind that unlike Lent and some other special seasons, the default collect throughout Advent is that of the Sunday of the relevant week of Advent, not of the day.  The exceptions are for feasts, the Ember Days of Advent, and the Vigil of the Nativity.

Thirdly, unlike Lent, Class III feasts are not reduced to commemorations.  Instead, when a feast occurs, the Advent day is 'commemorated' at both Lauds and Vespers, by using the canticle antiphon for the relevant hour and day of Advent, the versicle for Lauds or Vespers which is of the season, and the collect (of the Advent week).  You can find more detailed notes on this here: how to make commemorations of the Advent day

Fourthly, there are canticle antiphons for each day of Advent.  During the first part of Advent, these are of the day of the Advent week.  This pattern continues for Lauds during the second part of Advent, with the exception of two antiphons that are specific to the date (21 and 23 December), but at Vespers, the (O) antiphons are of the date for December 17 to 23.

Finally, when it comes to the antiphons for the psalms, during the first part of Advent, Prime to None use the antiphons of the relevant Advent Sunday.  When the days are Class II, there are specific special  antiphons for each day of the week.  If you want to know more about antiphons, and particularly singing them, try these two posts: Antiphons in Advent Pt 1 and Antiphons Pt 2.

Want to know more?

For those wanting to know more, or needing more help, you can either get a full Ordo from Lulu, use the shorter notes on the Ordo page on this blog, and/or refer to the notes I've previously written on this topic.

For notes on the individual hours in advent, follow these links:

• Matins
  
• Lauds
• Prime and Compline;
  
• Terce, Sext and None;

And for quick reference guides with page numbers to the Diurnal try these links:

• Sundays in Advent
  
• Advent weekdays
  
• Weekdays December 17-23

Getting ready for Advent - Part I

This is my annual reminder that the most complicated time of the year for the Office, Advent, is rapidly approaching, so its time to start getting ready!

This post is primarily for those relatively new to the Office - I'll say more for those more advanced in the next.

Get your Ordo now

The first key step is to make sure you have an Ordo at hand that you can use.

At a minimum, an Ordo will tell you what liturgical day is celebrated on each date, and how to resolve any conflicts between competing days and feasts (such as between Sundays and feasts, or competing days and dates in Advent).

Each year, the changing dates of  'moveable feasts' and seasons (stemming from the date of the first Sunday of Advent and Easter) interact with the calendar year cycle causing what the Diurnal calls occasions of  'concurrence' or 'occurence'.  

For the coming year, I've found  over sixty of these, and nine of these occur in December.

You can of course, sit down and work these out for yourself with the aid of the 'two tables' in the Diurnal, and a copy of the rubrics (since there are always some issues that aren't actually covered by the two tables).  But you will need to have your wits about you if you choose that path!

A short version of the one I produce can be found at the page links on this blog - click here for December. Alternatively you can purchase a more detailed version which tells you exactly which texts you should use, and providing page numbers for them in the Diurnal and Antiphonale (if you are chanting the Office).

You can purchase it Lulu: 

• in paperback form or
  
• PDF (ebook).
  

Make sure you know the structure of the hours thoroughly

Secondly, make sure you are very familiar with the different parts that make up each hour.

In the period of the calendar we are currently in, time after Pentecost, most of the texts you need, Sundays aside, can be found either in the psalter section of your Diurnal, supplemented by the section for feasts of saints.

During Advent, however, a lot of the texts in the psalter section are replaced by others, and on some days they may come from several different places.

If you get a copy of the Ordo, you will find summaries of the structure of the day hours there, or you can consult the notes on the Learn the Benedictine Office blog.

Make sure you are familiar with the Ordinary of Advent and where it slots in

The particular challenge for Advent is that the texts for the hours are a mix of the Ordinary of Advent'; psalm antiphons for the week or day of the week in the period 17-23 December; and canticle antiphons for the day of the Advent week and/or date.  

And that's before taking into account some the feasts that fall in Advent, which usually require a 'commemoration' of the Advent day.

I would also suggest looking now at the section of the Diurnal with the 'Ordinary of Advent' (MD 9*), near the beginning of the Diurnal, and making sure you know where to substitute in these texts.

Start learning/revising the chants!

Finally, the Office is meant to be sung!

If you are new to chant, it is best to start slowly, but it is pretty easy to learn at least one or two of the hymns.

A very useful site for this purpose, is called Liber Hymnarius - you can find the file for the Vespers hymn, Conditor alme siderum) here. The words for the last two verses are different to the Benedictine Office version, but the rest aligns, and should be enough to get you going!

More anon.

Book Review: A Companion to the Monastic Breviary

I want to alert readers to a new resource for the Benedictine Office, released today, which will be very useful for those using the Benedictine Office, because it provides an English translation of the (1960) rubrics published in the 1963 monastic breviary.

The volume adds to the treasury of resources to support the Benedictine Office such as the Diurnal, providing, for the first time, a full, good, clear English translation of the rubrical materials of the Monastic Breviary of 1963, as well as some brief supporting notes on the individual hours.  

Companion to the breviary

The details of the book are:

Cameron Ackerman & Gerhard Eger, A Companion to the Monastic Breviary General Rubrics. General Rubrics of the breviary The year and its parts According to the Monastic Breviary of 1963 Translated from the Latin with commentary and instruction on the hours, Libri Sancti Press, Saint Louis: 2023, $12 US.

It can be obtained from Libri Sancti Press.

The book will be a very useful addition to the libraries of regular users of the Diurnal, Antiphonale or breviary who lack the necessary Latin to read the original text (which can be found both in the breviary and on the Divinum Officium website).  The supporting notes also bring together some material that will be of interest to readers.

Nonetheless, there are some things about the nature of the monastic rubrics that it may be helpful to know, in order to appreciate what the book will and won't help you with.

Pictured supplied

What the rubrics cover

First, it is worth knowing, I think, that these particular rubrics, whether in English or Latin, are a fairly arcane, technical set of instructions.  They are essentially a mix of five different kinds of material.  

The hours and their parts

The most important material for most users will surely be the descriptions of  the hours and their parts, and how this changes with different types of days, seasons and feasts.  

However, the material is fairly brief, not always comprehensive (see below) and most of it is replicated in various ways in the body of the breviary (or Diurnal).  

Reference material

The second category is useful reference material.  Some of this is relevant only to monastic communities (such as instructions on vestments and so forth), but there are certainly rubrics that the average user of the office should ideally read at least once, and then might wish to have on hand to consult as necessary.  This includes things like the rules around anticipating Matins, and when to make the sign of the cross, bow and so forth (most of which is optional in private recitation but good to know and do if possible).  

The Ordo

Mixed into these essentials is a lot of material on the order of precedence of feasts and days which is important only if you are putting together an Ordo (rather than just using one).  The material is important for monastic communities, but not necessarily for the average user of the Diurnal or breviary. And even then, in the vast majority of cases just consulting the 'two tables' (of occurrence and concurrence, also contained in the Diurnal) is generally an easier way of finding the answer! 

For the nerds!

The final category is a lot of material that will be of interest to liturgical nerds only.  

Most people will not, for example, want to learn how to calculate the date of Easter manually, or be rushing to find an updated table of Dominical Letters, Golden Numbers, and Martyrology Letters, since these are not needed for the purpose of actually saying the Office.  Instead, the tables containing the dates of fixed and moveable feasts each year (updated in the first edition of the Farnborough Monastic Diurnal to 2066) or an Ordo will do the job for you. 

Personally I would have been inclined to leave out the year and its parts, and perhaps included instead some of the other decrees and decisions included in the breviary, such as the terms of the original approval for them, the indult for priest oblates to say the Benedictine Office and so forth.  But maybe these can be included in the next edition!

The nature of rubrics...and the problems of this set of them!

The second thing you need to know about the rubrics is that, no matter how well translated, they do not constitute a particularly user friendly document, and often require some additional context to understand.  

Finding what you are looking for: the case of commemorations

First, key provisions are often scattered through the text.  

One of the most frequent queries I receive, for example, concerns commemorations (when can you do them and how). But the instructions on Memorials and Commemorations are spread across four separate sections (rubrics 5, 72-73, 100-108, and 239-248).   

Some of these separations of material can be outright misleading if you are not attuned to the technicalities of the language. Rubric 15, for example, states that Sundays of the First Class take precedence over all other feasts, with the sole exception being the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  Read on further, though, and you will find another exception, namely the Vigil of the Nativity (rubric 30), in a separate section, one presumes, because a Vigil is not a feast! 

Contradictory provisions

There are also a few instances where the rubrics as written are internally inconsistent, contradictory or clearly incorrect. 

A good example of this concerns Prime, where rubric 161b states that "The psalms are always said as found in the Psalter throughout the week." But in fact this is not the case during the Triduum.

Gaps and missing context

The biggest problem, though, is that there are several gaps in the rubrics, or places where further explanation is warranted. 

The top of the list in my view, is this one: 

"166.  On Easter and Pentecost Sundays and on the days within their octaves, everything is done as indicated in the Breviary."

The festal canticles

Similarly, you will look in vain for instructions on when the Benedicite (Sunday Lauds canticle), festal weekday or ferial canticles should be said.  

The only relevant rubric reads as follows: 

  "In monasteries where the festive canticles are recited at Lauds, the ferial canticles are said only in the seasons of Advent, Septuagesima, Lent and Passiontide, the Ember days of September, and on vigils of the II and III class outside Paschaltide." (translation from the Companion)

This does not mean, however, that one should use the festal canticles on all days other than those when the ferial canticles are used listed. In fact the normal practice is to use the Sunday canticle (never actually explicitly described as festal in either the rubrics or the breviary), not the festal canticle of the day of the week, when the festal psalms are said, such as on Class I&II feasts.  

In this particular case, the reason for not spelling this out is presumably because the permissions to use the festal canticles were originally the subject of specific indults to individual monasteries and congregations, and there were actually two different schemas approved (the most common parallels their use in the Roman Office, but an alternative schema is also noted in the Monastic Diurnal).

A monastic audience

None of these problems with the rubrics, of course, are the fault of the translators and editors of this book.  

Rather, the issue lies with the original authors, who were writing not for those unfamiliar with the Benedictine Office, but for existing monasteries in order to explain the changes made to the calendar and rubrics from those they had previously used. 

Still, it would have been helpful, I think, to include some footnotes to assist the reader on these type of issues.

Who still uses 1960 (63)?!

Finally, it has to be said that there is a certain irony in making the 1963 rubrics (actually technically of 1960, when they were approved, or 1961, when they came into effect) available in English at this point, given that as each year goes by, fewer and fewer monasteries and individuals actually use them.  

Those trying to puzzle out the rubrics or calendar from monastic podcasts, for example, won't necessarily find what they are looking for in them since the traditional monasteries all employ greater or lesser variations to the 1963 rubrics (and calendar).   

Quite a few monasteries ignore some or all of the (silly or perhaps even sinister) changes made to the psalter section of the breviary (cutting out several verses of Psalm 13 and the Saturday ferial canticle, and changing the division points for psalms 9 and 106), and just sing them as they appear in the (pre 1962) Psautier Monastique or Antiphonale Monasticum.

More than a few monasteries have restored selected feasts expunged in the 1960 monastic calendar, as well as some rubrics from prior breviaries, such as the use of 1 Vespers for Class II feasts and the office of Our Lady on Saturday.

Some congregations, such as the Fontgambault group of Solesmes monasteries, including Clear Creek, have their own particular calendar and rubrics (in their case, a unique blend of the Novus Ordo sanctoral calendar; monastic feasts, including some suppressed in the 1960 general calendar; and the older temporal cycle.

And at least one monastery has reverted altogether to the pre-1960 calendar and rubrics.  

Why you need the rubrics!

Still, while individual monasteries have a certain freedom to devise their own rubrics and calendars, individuals do not, so having a set of the rubrics readily available as a reference document is a great step forward.

Moreover, the 1963 breviary is still, theoretically at least, normative for the Benedictine Order.  Accordingly, this volume will be particularly helpful for newer or emerging religious communities seeking to establish their own calendar, as well as for established communities interested in or considering a return to tradition. 

Image supplied

The Instructional and spiritual commentary

The second component of the book is labelled a 'an instruction and commentary', and provides a set of brief notes on the structure, history and associations of each of the hours of the Benedictine Office. 

There is a lot to like in this section, which seeks to draw together rubrical, historical and spiritual material, much of which is quite engaging.

And the notes read very well - the notes on Matins in particular nicely integrate the instructions in the Rule with other contextual material. 

But if the aim of the descriptions of each hour is to guide those new to the Office through the rubrics, it would have been useful, I think, to have included cross-references to the relevant sections of the rubrics (and ideally also to the relevant sections of the breviary and/or Diurnal).  

In addition, while I particularly liked the inclusion of material on the Scriptural and allegorical associations of the hours, it is hard to see why a twelfth century commentary by a canon (Honorius Augustodunensis) merits a quote for each hour on any objective criteria. 

Finally, some of the historical material (particularly the claimed 'newness' of Prime and Compline) has arguably been overtaken by more recent research. 

But these are minor quibbles - while this part of the book isn't a full 'how to say the Office guide', the notes are certainly worth a read.

Overall, this is certainly a book you will want to have in  your library, to dip into as needed.

Picture supplied

Understanding the calendar VIC - Liturgical seasons and Conclusion

In this last post in this series on understanding the calendar, I want to to finish off by treatment of the liturgical seasons and provide a bit of a recap of the series, in order to try and bring together everything I've covered, by way of completing the construction of the 'personal Ordo' for August that we have looked at as we've progressed through the series.

To do that, we need to recall that there are essentially five different cycles at work in the Office, consisting of: the hours; the day of the week; the date (fixed feasts); the calendar month and seasons; and the cycle of movable feasts and seasons of liturgical year, which depends on the date of Easter each year.

(1) THE HOURS

The first step in constructing your personal Ordo, you will recall, is to decide which hours you are going to say, and find the pages that relate to them in your Office book.  

In Part IIA of this series, on the hours, we looked at the eight hours that make up the Office and the way they are spread through the day and night to sanctify time.  

In Part IIB we looked at the particular character of each hour, which is reflected in the different structures employed for each of them, the hymns and other texts used at them, and the psalms allocated to each hour.

In a monastery using the traditional Office, all of the hours are normally sung each day.

Most Oblates and other laypeople though, would normally only say one or two hours - such as Prime and Compline, or Lauds and Vespers - a day.

The table below provides a starting point for your consideration, with page numbers for the Monastic Diurnal produced by Farnborough.

Hour	When said	Key considerations in deciding whether to say...	Page references in Monastic Diurnal (Psalter section, middle of book)
Matins	After midnight, before first light	No available in Latin-English; longest hour by far (40-90 mins depending on day if said).	na
Lauds	First light	Quite long (9 psalms & canticles) and complex structure; varies substantially on feasts.	37-146
Prime	Morning before work	Simple structure (only psalms and antiphons vary each day) makes it a good starting point for beginners; theology of hour is about our foundations in Christ, awareness of presence of God.	1-37 (M-Sat); 146-150 (Sunday)
Terce, Sext and None	Mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon	Simple structure, each hour is very short, uses three sets of psalms.  Traces Passion of Christ, our spiritual ascent through humility.	151-203
Vespers	Late afternoon/sunset	The most variable hour in content on feasts.  Focuses on reflection on the day.	203-256
Compline	Before bed	Best starting point for beginners as same each day of the week.  Preparation for sleep/death.	256-269

(2) THE DAYS OF THE WEEK

The second key cycle in the Office is of the day of the week, since one of the most distinctive features of the traditional Benedictine Office was originally that it ensured that the entire psalter was said each week.

Part IIIA of this series focused on the parts of each hour that vary with the day of the week in the 'ferial' Office, that is, as it said on days of the year that are not feasts, special days, or part of special seasons.   

Part IIIB of the series started looking at the different ranking of days, providing a 'default' Ordo that listed Sundays as Class II and weekdays as Class IV, includes the Office of Our Lady each week, and for any given day of the week, looked something like this:

Wednesday - Class IV

Matins: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Lauds: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Prime: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Terce to None:  All as for Tuesday to Saturday in the psalter

Vespers: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Compline: All as in the psalter every day

(3) FIXED DATE FEASTS OF THE YEAR

The next step in constructing our Ordo is to take account of the fixed date feasts of the year.

Part IVA of the series looked at the feasts of the general calendar that fall on ordinary weekdays.

Part IVB looked at the interactions of feasts with Sundays. 

Part IVC looked at how to take account of local feasts, and the effects of different levels of feasts on each hour.

It showed that for August 2018, for example, the ferial texts have to be adjusted to take account of the memorial of the Holy Maccabees that falls on that day:

Wednesday 1 August - Class IV; The Holy Maccabees, memorial

Matins: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Lauds: All as for Wednesday in the psalter with a commemoration of the Holy Maccabees

Prime: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Terce to None:  All as for Tuesday to Saturday in the psalter

Vespers: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Compline: All as in the psalter every day

(4) MONTHS AND THE 'NATURAL' SEASONS

The fourth step in the construction of our Ordo is to take account of the months and seasons in the Office.

In Part VA of the series we saw that the Benedictine Office has only two 'natural seasons': winter (First Sunday of November to Easter), when three readings are said during the week at Matins; and summer (Easter to the end of October) when the weekday readings are reduced to one.  

Part VB focused on the monthly cycle in the Office from August to the end of Epiphanytide, which depends on the interaction of calendar months and fixed date feasts.

For those who say Matins, it is worth noting that there is one other monthly cycle of readings in the 1962 version, namely for the Office of Our Lady on Saturday, there are readings for four Saturdays of each month of the year (December and March aside, where the liturgical seasons mean that there can never be more than one Saturday of Our Lady). 

With that information, we can now look at the Ordo for August 2018, for example, we can now add in the Sunday cycle for the month of August to reflect the fact that the first Sunday of August fell on August 5, so our Ordo for the first few days of August now looks like this:

Wednesday 1 August - Class IV; The Holy Maccabees, memorial

Matins: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Lauds: All as for Wednesday in the psalter with a commemoration of the Holy Maccabees

Prime: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Terce to None:  All as for Tuesday to Saturday in the psalter

Vespers: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Compline: All as in the psalter every day

Or, in summary:

All as in the psalter for Wednesday with a commemoration of the Holy Maccabees at Lauds

Thursday 2 August – Class IV; St Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, memorial

All as in the psalter for Thursday with a commemoration of St Alphonsus at Lauds

Friday 3 August - Class IV

All as in the psalter for Friday

Saturday 4 August - St. Dominic, Class III

Matins: Invitatory antiphon and hymn from Common of a Confessor; antiphons and psalms of Saturday; one reading of the feast; chapter of a confessor; collect of the feast.

Lauds: Antiphons and psalms of Saturday; rest from the Common of a Confessor not a bishop, Collect of the feast.

Prime: Antiphon 1 of Lauds from the Common of a Confessor, rest as in the psalter for Saturday.

Terce to None: Antiphon, chapter and versicle from the Common of a Confessor; collect of the feast; rest as in the psalter for Tuesday to Saturday.

Vespers: I Vespers of Sunday (ie Saturday Vespers) with Magnificat antiphon for the First Sunday of August

Sunday 5 August - First Sunday of August, Class II

Matins: All as for Sunday in the psalter with responsories and Nocturn I&II readings for the First Sunday of August

Lauds: All as for Sunday in the psalter

Prime: All as for Sunday in the psalter

Terce to None:  All as for Sunday in the psalter

Vespers: All as for Sunday in the psalter

Compline: All as in the psalter every day

.....Saturday 11 August – Our Lady on Saturday, Class IV; St. Tiburtius, Memorial 

Matins to None: Our Lady on Saturday with Matins reading of Saturday 2 of August and commemoration of St Tiburtius at Lauds.

I Vespers with Magnificat antiphon of the Second Sunday of August.

(5) THE LITURGICAL SEASONS

The last step in creating our Ordo is to take account of what is commonly known as the liturgical year, that is the cycle of feasts and Sundays whose date depends on that of Easter.

Part VIA of the series provided a bit of an overview, and focused on the parts of the Office that change each week depending on the part of the liturgical year.  

Part VIB of the series looked at the special seasons of the year and their effect on the Office.

There are two last points to note on this topic.

First, the Marian antiphons and prayers said at the end of Compline also change at particular points of the liturgical year (viz Advent, 2 February, Easter and at the end of the octave of Pentecost).

Secondly, the Office of Our Lady on Saturday has some variants for the period after the Nativity and during Eastertide.

So we are now in a position to add in the final layer of the Office cycles to our sample Ordo for August 2018, to reflect the number of the Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost:

Wednesday 1 August - Class IV; The Holy Maccabees, memorial

Matins: All as for Wednesday in the psalter, collect of the tenth Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost

Lauds: All as for Wednesday in the psalter with a commemoration of the Holy Maccabees; collect of the tenth Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost

Prime: All as for Wednesday in the psalter

Terce to None:  All as for Tuesday to Saturday in the psalter, collect of the tenth Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost

Vespers: All as for Wednesday in the psalter, collect of the tenth Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost

Compline: All as in the psalter every day, with Marian antiphon for time after Pentecost, Salve Regina

Or, in summary:

All as in the psalter for Wednesday with a commemoration of the Holy Maccabees at Lauds, collect of the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Thursday 2 August – Class IV; St Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, memorial

All as in the psalter for Thursday with a commemoration of St Alphonsus at Lauds, collect of the Tenth the Sunday [ie at all hours other than Prime and Compline]

Friday 3 August - Class IV

All as in the psalter for Friday, collect of the Tenth Sunday

Saturday 4 August - St. Dominic, Class III

Matins: Invitatory antiphon and hymn from Common of a Confessor; antiphons and psalms of Saturday; one reading of the feast; chapter of a confessor; collect of the feast.

Lauds: Antiphons and psalms of Saturday; rest from the Common of a Confessor not a bishop, Collect of the feast.

Prime: Antiphon 1 of Lauds from the Common of a Confessor, rest as in the psalter for Saturday.

Terce to None: Antiphon, chapter and versicle from the Common of a Confessor; collect of the feast; rest as in the psalter for Tuesday to Saturday.

Vespers: I Vespers of Sunday (ie Saturday Vespers) with Magnificat antiphon for the First Sunday of August; Collect of the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Sunday 5 August - First Sunday of August, Class II, Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Matins: All as for Sunday in the psalter with responsories and Nocturn I&II readings for the First Sunday of August; Third Nocturn readings, Gospel and collect of the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Lauds: All as for Sunday in the psalter, Benedictus antiphon and collect of the Eleventh Sunday

Prime: All as for Sunday in the psalter

Terce to None:  All as for Sunday in the psalter, collect of the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Vespers: All as for Sunday in the psalter, Magnificat antiphon and collect of the Eleventh Sunday

Compline: All as in the psalter every day

....Saturday 11 August – Our Lady on Saturday, Class IV; St. Tiburtius, Memorial 

Matins to None: Our Lady on Saturday as for throughout the year with Matins reading of Saturday 2 of August and commemoration of St Tiburtius at Lauds.

I Vespers with Magnificat antiphon of the Second Sunday of August; collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost.


If you want to test your understanding, have a go at constructing a full Ordo for August 2018, then check it against the version you can find here.

FINAL NOTE: BREVIARIES AND THE SEASONS

There is one last issue I'd like to cover off, in response to a question, and that relates to Office books.

As I noted earlier, the Benedictine Office has only two 'natural' seasons, summer and winter.

So you might think the two volumes of the 1962 Monastic Breviary would align with this division.  And if you are using an older breviary, you may find it comes in four volumes, labelled Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, you might think that the volume change occurs at the equinox, or some other fixed date associated with the change of seasons.

In fact, however, the divisions in these books are mostly based on the liturgical year, which only loosely aligns with the 'natural seasons'

The first of the two volumes of the 1962 breviary covers Advent to Pentecost; the second covers the Sundays after Pentecost to the end of the liturgical year.

My late nineteenth English Congregation breviary divides up as follows:

Pars Autumnalis (Autumn): First Sunday of September to Last Sunday after Pentecost
Pars Hiemalis (Winter): First Sunday of Advent to the Saturday after Ash Wednesday
Pars Vernalis (Spring): First Sunday of Lent to Pentecost
Pars Aestiva (Summer): Trinity Sunday to last Sunday of August

The date at which you change volumes, in other words, changes each year depending on the date of Easter and that of the first Sunday of Advent.

For this reason, the sections containing the feasts of saints includes some overlap between volumes. 

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS

I do hope you have found the series to be of interest and use, and please do ask any questions you may have through the comments box.

Understanding the calendar VIB - The liturgical seasons

In the last post we started looking at the cycle of 'movable feasts' that depend on the date of Easter.

Today a look a look at the key seasons and feasts of the year that are dependent on the Easter cycle.

Easter as the focus of the liturgical year

We are used to thinking of Advent as the start of the liturgical year, but in reality the liturgical year cycle originally centred on Easter, which was the first of all the feasts celebrated by the Church.

In fact Advent only became firmly established as the start of the year in the thirteenth century - indeed in the form given to it by St Gregory the Great in Rome in the late sixth century, Advent had a rather eschatological character, as indeed did the season of Epiphanytide as it developed over the seventh and eighth centuries.

Easter

The calculation of the date of Easter each year has been a source of controversy from the earliest years of the Church, with competing dates still celebrated by Orthodox and Catholics.

Even in the modern Western calendar, though, Easter remains the anchor for most of the liturgical year, with the date of many other feasts and special days, including Ash Wednesday, Ascension, Pentecost, The Most Trinity, Corpus Christi, and the Lent and Pentecost Ember Days, dependent on it.

You can read about the way it is calculated here.

For practical purposes, though, it is worth knowing that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25.

And for a list of the actual dates, consult the 'table of movable feasts' in the front of your Diurnal.

Counting backwards from Easter (1) - Septuagesima 

For Ordo purposes, it is easiest to think of the Sunday cycle as starting with the lead up seasons to Easter rather than Advent.

The traditional calendar has two pre-Easter seasons.

The first, Septuagesimatide, consists of the three weeks before Lent.

It's Sundays - Septaugesima (the ninth before Easter), Sexagesima (eighth before Easter) and Quinquagesima (seventh before Easter) can be traced back to the sixth century.

It was abolished in the 1970 calendar, but was retained in the 1962 calendar to provide a clear end point to the festive season, and soften the transition to Lent.

In the Office it is marked in several key ways:

• the Alleluia not used, with an alternative formula used in the opening prayers of the hours;
• the Scriptural reading cycle at Matins starts at the beginning of the Bible, with Genesis; 
• the collect of the Sunday is used each day at Matins and Lauds and Terce to Vespers, unless displaced by a feast; and 
• there are Magnificat antiphons at Vespers for each day of the week.

The rest of the Office though, remains as for 'throughout the year' during this time, with the ordinary days of the week being Class IV, and the Sundays Class II.

Counting backwards from Easter (2) - Lent

Like Septuagesima Sunday, the start of Lent - Ash Wednesday, a Class I 'day' - is also calculated by counting back the number of days/weeks from Easter.

In the Office, Lent has several phases:

• the days after Ash Wednesday but before the first Sunday of Lent, which are Class III days each with their own canticle antiphons and collects (one for Matins, Lauds, and Terce to None; another for Vespers), but otherwise continues to use the 'throughout the year' texts';
• from the First Sunday of Lent up to 'First' Passion Sunday, where each Sunday is Class I, and the 'Ordinary' of Lent provides the antiphons, hymns and other texts for the hours during the week';
• the two weeks of Passiontide (up to Palm Sunday) which has its own 'Ordinary' texts;
• Monday to Wednesday of Holy Week, which are Class I days with their own antiphons and special texts.  No other feasts can be celebrated during Holy Week; and
• the Sacred Triduum, where a special form of the Roman Office us used for Maundy Thursday to Holy Saturday.

During Lent, Class III feasts that occur on weekdays are reduced to commemorations.

The first week of Lent also includes the first set of 'Ember Days' of the year.

You can read more on the Office during Lent here for the period up to Passiontide, here for Passiontide, and here for Holy Week.

Counting forward from Easter (1) - the Easter Octave to the Octave of Pentecost

The feast of Easter itself is celebrated for seven days, by virtue of its Octave, all of the days of which are considered Class I of Our Lord, and so preclude the celebration of any other feasts.

This means that any first class feasts that occur in this period are transferred to the next available date.

In the modern calendar, the Scriptural number symbolism of Christ's ascension on the fortieth day after Easter (always a Thursday) has subverted in many places by shifting the feast to the Sunday.

In the 1962 calendar though, the Office is governed by the 'ordinary of Eastertide' up to the fortieth day after Easter, and then the ordinary of 'Ascensiontide' for the days up to the fiftith day after Easter, the Feast of Pentecost.

Like Easter, Pentecost also has a Class I Octave when no other feasts can be celebrated.

Counting forward from Easter (2) - Sundays and feasts after the Octave of Pentecost

The first Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost, the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, marks the start of a new cycle of feasts and Sundays tied to the date of Easter.

Apart from Trinity Sunday, these include Corpus Christi (the Thursday after Trinity Sunday) and the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (Friday after the Second Sunday after Pentecost).

The Sundays after the Octave of Pentecost are Class II, and are numbered for their distance from that feast, and mark the start of a new cycle of readings at Matins.

For the first weeks after Pentecost (ie up to August), those readings centre on the books of Kings.

From August, though, the monthly reading cycle cuts in and means that the I Vespers Magnificat canticle, the First and Second Nocturn readings for Matins, and the responsories for Matins are determined by the week of the calendar month.

The collect of the week though, as well as the Third Nocturn and Gospel readings for Matins, collects for the week and Sunday canticle antiphons are determined by the number of the Sunday after the Octave of Pentecost.

This means you need to look in two different parts of your 'of the time' section of the Diurnal to find the texts you need each week.

The last Sundays after Pentecost, and Epiphanytide

The final twist to the annual cycle that you need to be aware of is the variable number of Sundays after Pentecost (and Epiphany).

There are twenty-four sets of texts for the Sundays after Pentecost, and six for the Sundays after Epiphany.

But if you consult the table of movable feasts in the Diurnal, you will find that, depending on the date of Easter, there can actually be anything between twenty three and twenty eight Sundays after the Octave of Pentecost.

This happens because Septuagesima can cut short the cycle of six Sundays after Epiphany, while the start of Advent (determined by the date of the Sunday nearest to November 30) can push the start of Advent back as far as November 27 or forward as far as December 3.

The pragmatic solution is to use the Sunday readings, canticle antiphons and collects not used earlier in the year during Epiphanytide to fill in the gap if necessary.

The formula for which Epiphanytide Sunday's texts are used after Pentecost depends on the number of Sundays in that particular year:

• if there are 25 Sundays after Pentecost, the 24th uses the texts for the 6th Sunday after Epiphany;
• if there are 26, the 24th is the 5th after Epiphany, the 25th is the 6th;
• if there are 27,  the 24th is 4th after Epiphany, and so forth; and 
• if there are 28, the 24th is 3rd after Epiphany.

The texts for the 'twenty-fourth' Sunday are always used on the last last Sunday of the liturgical year, no matter what number that Sunday is in any particular year.

In summary....

The table below summarises the level of days (feasts aside) for the key liturgical seasons of the year.

Season	Start/date  determined by	Sundays	Weekdays
Septuagesimatide	Easter	Class II	Class IV
Lent and Passiontide	Easter	Class I	Class III (Class III feasts commemorations only; if a Class I&II feast displaces, commemoration of the Lent day at Lauds and Vespers)
Holy Week and Easter Octave	Easter	Class I	Class I
Eastertide and Ascensiontide	Easter	Class II	Class IV (Vigil of the Ascension, Class II, Ascension Class I)
Octave of Pentecost	Easter	Class I	Class I
Weeks after the Octave of Pentecost	Easter	Class II	Class IV
Advent	Sunday nearest to 30 November	Class I	Class III to 16 December (if Advent day displaced by a Class I, II or III feast, commemoration at Lauds and Vespers); Class I 17-23 November
Christmastide	Fixed date feasts and ferias, December 24-Jan 5	Class II	Vigil and Octave Day Class I; Class II Octave; otherwise Class IV
Epiphanytide	Feast of the Epiphany (Jan 6) and Sundays after; Feast of the Purification (Feb 2); note that end date determined by Easter (Septuagesima Sunday).	Class II	Class IV

And with this we have pretty much covered the calendar!

I plan on one more post, just to bring all of this material together in the sample Ordo have been constructing as we've gone along for August 2018. 

So if you have any questions on any of the material covered in this series, or on things that haven't been answered in it, please do speak up now and I'll try and include the answers in the next (and last) post in this series.