October 24: St Raphael

St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church: October 15

Today is the feast day of St Teresa of Avila, founder of the Discalced Carmelites.

Teresian monastic theology always seems to me to be, in many respects diametrically opposed to Benedictine: the choral Office plays a much smaller role in Carmelite life; the love of learning is not a noticeable feature of the spirituality, displaced by a more structured approach to meditation; Carmelites are hermits in community rather than cenobites per se; the Teresian attitude to debate and obedience within the monastery is much more absolutist than the Benedictine; and the approach to enclosure much stricter. 

Others, though, do find ways to combine the two spiritualities, and her doctrine of mystical prayer has been extraordinarily influential, and her Life and major works such as The Interior Castle should be on everyone's essential spiritual reading list.

How do you choose which form of the Divine Office/Liturgy of the Hours to say? Part I - Introduction

c15th book of hours

Many people become interested at one point or another, in saying some or all of the Divine Office (aka Liturgy of the Hours). 

And rightly so, since it is an important part of the patrimony of our faith, a continuous tradition of prayer that reaches back to the earliest years of Christianity, and provides access to the great prayerbook of the Church, the psalms.

But which one?

When you start looking for books or websites to aid you though, there are a bewildering array of options to choose from. And as learning the Office actually involves quite a lot of effort (and potentially cost in buying books) you don't want to make too many wrong choices!

So how do you decide which one you should be saying?

I want to start a little series here that aims to help you through the process of choosing an appropriate form of the Office for you and thus hopefully minimising the time and cost involved.

And I should start by thanking members of the Trad Ben yahoo group who provided some comments a while back on this subject that I intend to draw on heavily.

But first a few basics....

What is the Divine Office?

The Divine Office, or Liturgy of the Hours as it is known in the Ordinary Form, is, just like the Mass, part of the Church's public prayer, its liturgy.  There are a number of different versions of the Office - the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours and the 1962 Roman Breviary being the main ones.  But there are also many (mainly traditional) versions of the Office associated with individual religious Orders, such as the Benedictine and Dominican, as well as popular forms of it using a much smaller number of psalms (such as the Office of the Dead and the Little Office of Our Lady).

Like the Mass, each officially approved form of the Office has approved texts and associated requirements for it to be said validly (ie as liturgical prayer, the public worship of God) and licitly (according to law).

Like the Mass it is intended to be said (or rather sung in the case of the Office) in a church accompanied by appropriate ritual as befitting the highest form of prayer offered by the Church.

Where it differs from the Mass, however, is that although it is preferable that it be said by a group of people in a Church, led by a cleric (or group of religious in the case of the Office), it can also validly be said (in accordance with a permission granted following Vatican II) by groups of laypeople, or even by individuals alone. 

Indeed, these days, most priests and religious (who are required to say the Office everyday) are far more likely to say it by themselves than 'in choir' or 'in common'. 

And the flexibility this implies makes it a very attractive option for people who want to increase their prayer commitment in a way that links closely to the Mass, and join themselves to the public prayer of the Church.

The Office as a devotion

It is worth noting though, that though the Divine Office is part of the liturgical prayer of the Church, it can also be said devotionally, giving it the same (lesser) status as the rosary and other acts of piety.  And there are a number of 'Offices' which were always intended solely to be said as devotions rather than as part of the official prayer of the Church.

In part this is because of history: prior to the Council of Trent there were few restrictions on the laity saying the Divine Office.  Most priests in parish churches, as well as monasteries, sang the hours publicly everyday.  But many people said them privately as well, the reason why 'Books of Hours' were amongst the most popular books of the Middle Ages.

The need to counter widespread heresy, however, led to the introduction of much tighter controls over liturgical texts, as well as the decision to restrict the 'delegation' to say the Office (the Church can decide who can say its public prayers on behalf of us all) to clerics and religious (monks and nuns).  Laypeople could still say the Office - but only as a devotion.

The result was, particularly in association with the liturgical movement in the early twentieth century, the development of a large number of devotional 'short offices', intended solely for the laity.  An example is the relatively recent Benedictine Daily Prayer A Short Breviary, but there are many others around.

That all changed with Vatican II, with Sacrosanctum Concilium urging a recovery of the Church's longer tradition of the Office as a liturgical prayer involving the laity as well as priests and religious.  The Council (and subsequent law) removed the restriction of the formal delegation to say the Office to clerics and religious, allowing laypeople also to say it liturgically. 

Unfortunately, in my view at least, as with so much else of the positives that can be found in the texts of Vatican II, its laudable  objective of reopening the Office to the laity was largely sabotaged by the botched job of reform represented by the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours.

Yet despite the problems associated with the Liturgy of the Hours, there has been something of a revival of interest in the Office on the part of the laity, not least (perhaps somewhat ironically depending on your attitude to the pastoral decision made at Trent and in its wake) amongst the more traditionally inclined.  As a result, an increasing number of new editions or reprints of various traditional forms of the Office are becoming increasingly available.

A disclaimer

This website is of course dedicated to the traditional form of the Benedictine Office said according to the 1962 rubrics, which is my favourite form of the Divine Office.  So my comments will of course to some extent be biased towards this option!

But I, like most people, only arrived at this preference by a process of experimentation, and I am perfectly well aware that my preference is shaped by a number of particular factors - the amount of time I have to devote to the Office, my preference for the Latin, and my attraction to Benedictine spirituality in particular.  Accordingly, in the course of this series I will try to make it clear why some other options may suit others better.  Just keep in mind my possible biases on this subject...

More soon.

October 3: St Thérèse of Lisieux, Memorial

St Teresa of the Child Jesus, better known today as Therese of Lisieux or the Little Flower was born at Alençon, France, on 2 January, 1873 and died at Lisieux 30 September, 1897.

The ninth child of the family, she was fifteen when she first applied for permission to enter the Carmelite Convent. When initially refused on the ground of age, she went to Rome to seek the consent of Pope Leo XIII. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 24, and the release of her autobiography led to the rapid spread of her cult. She was declared a doctor of the Church in 1997.

Change of hymn....

Just a reminder that from this Sunday, the Office hymns for Matins and Lauds on Sunday change to Primo Dierum and Aeterne Rerum Conditor respectively.

And don't forget that you can listen to Lauds (as well as Vespers and occasionally Compline) sung by the monks of Norcia by downloading and playing or saving the recordings from their website (if time zone considerations mean it is going to appear too late on the site, save the week before's ready for use, and it will be fine except for the canticle antiphons on Sunday and the collect, provided no feasts intervene!).  Note that they also provide a weekly Ordo with page references to the Graduale (for Mass) and Antiphonale Monasticum...

In the meantime, here is the Carthusian chant version of Aeterne Rerum for your enjoyment.

September 30: St Jerome

Cavarozzi, C17th

The first of two General Audience's on the saint given by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007:

"Today, we turn our attention to St Jerome, a Church Father who centred his life on the Bible: he translated it into Latin, commented on it in his works, and above all, strove to live it in practice throughout his long earthly life, despite the well-known difficult, hot-tempered character with which nature had endowed him.

Jerome was born into a Christian family in about 347 A.D. in Stridon. He was given a good education and was even sent to Rome to fine-tune his studies. As a young man he was attracted by the worldly life (cf. Ep 22, 7), but his desire for and interest in the Christian religion prevailed.

He received Baptism in about 366 and opted for the ascetic life. He went to Aquileia and joined a group of fervent Christians that had formed around Bishop Valerian and which he described as almost "a choir of blesseds" (Chron. ad ann. 374). He then left for the East and lived as a hermit in the Desert of Chalcis, south of Aleppo (Ep 14, 10), devoting himself assiduously to study. He perfected his knowledge of Greek, began learning Hebrew (cf. Ep 125, 12), and transcribed codices and Patristic writings (cf. Ep 5, 2). Meditation, solitude and contact with the Word of God helped his Christian sensibility to mature. He bitterly regretted the indiscretions of his youth (cf. Ep. 22, 7) and was keenly aware of the contrast between the pagan mentality and the Christian life: a contrast made famous by the dramatic and lively "vision" - of which he has left us an account - in which it seemed to him that he was being scourged before God because he was "Ciceronian rather than Christian" (cf. Ep. 22, 30).

In 382 he moved to Rome: here, acquainted with his fame as an ascetic and his ability as a scholar, Pope Damasus engaged him as secretary and counsellor; the Pope encouraged him, for pastoral and cultural reasons, to embark on a new Latin translation of the Biblical texts. Several members of the Roman aristocracy, especially noblewomen such as Paula, Marcella, Asella, Lea and others, desirous of committing themselves to the way of Christian perfection and of deepening their knowledge of the Word of God, chose him as their spiritual guide and teacher in the methodical approach to the sacred texts. These noblewomen also learned Greek and Hebrew.

After the death of Pope Damasus, Jerome left Rome in 385 and went on pilgrimage, first to the Holy Land, a silent witness of Christ's earthly life, and then to Egypt, the favourite country of numerous monks (cf. Contra Rufinum, 3, 22; Ep. 108, 6-14). In 386 he stopped in Bethlehem, where male and female monasteries were built through the generosity of the noblewoman, Paula, as well as a hospice for pilgrims bound for the Holy Land, "remembering Mary and Joseph who had found no room there" (Ep. 108, 14). He stayed in Bethlehem until he died, continuing to do a prodigious amount of work: he commented on the Word of God; he defended the faith, vigorously opposing various heresies; he urged the monks on to perfection; he taught classical and Christian culture to young students; he welcomed with a pastor's heart pilgrims who were visiting the Holy Land. He died in his cell close to the Grotto of the Nativity on 30 September 419-420.

Jerome's literary studies and vast erudition enabled him to revise and translate many biblical texts: an invaluable undertaking for the Latin Church and for Western culture. On the basis of the original Greek and Hebrew texts, and thanks to the comparison with previous versions, he revised the four Gospels in Latin, then the Psalter and a large part of the Old Testament. Taking into account the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Septuagint, the classical Greek version of the Old Testament that dates back to pre-Christian times, as well as the earlier Latin versions, Jerome was able, with the assistance later of other collaborators, to produce a better translation: this constitutes the so-called "Vulgate", the "official" text of the Latin Church which was recognized as such by the Council of Trent and which, after the recent revision, continues to be the "official" Latin text of the Church. It is interesting to point out the criteria which the great biblicist abided by in his work as a translator. He himself reveals them when he says that he respects even the order of the words of the Sacred Scriptures, for in them, he says, "the order of the words is also a mystery" (Ep. 57, 5), that is, a revelation. Furthermore, he reaffirms the need to refer to the original texts: "Should an argument on the New Testament arise between Latins because of interpretations of the manuscripts that fail to agree, let us turn to the original, that is, to the Greek text in which the New Testament was written. "Likewise, with regard to the Old Testament, if there are divergences between the Greek and Latin texts we should have recourse to the original Hebrew text; thus, we shall be able to find in the streams all that flows from the source" (Ep. 106, 2). Jerome also commented on many biblical texts. For him the commentaries had to offer multiple opinions "so that the shrewd reader, after reading the different explanations and hearing many opinions - to be accepted or rejected - may judge which is the most reliable, and, like an expert moneychanger, may reject the false coin" (Contra Rufinum 1, 16).

Jerome refuted with energy and liveliness the heretics who contested the tradition and faith of the Church. He also demonstrated the importance and validity of Christian literature, which had by then become a real culture that deserved to be compared with classical literature: he did so by composing his De Viris Illustribus, a work in which Jerome presents the biographies of more than a hundred Christian authors. Further, he wrote biographies of monks, comparing among other things their spiritual itineraries as well as monastic ideal. In addition, he translated various works by Greek authors. Lastly, in the important Epistulae, a masterpiece of Latin literature, Jerome emerges with the profile of a man of culture, an ascetic and a guide of souls.

What can we learn from St Jerome? It seems to me, this above all; to love the Word of God in Sacred Scripture. St Jerome said: "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ". It is therefore important that every Christian live in contact and in personal dialogue with the Word of God given to us in Sacred Scripture. This dialogue with Scripture must always have two dimensions: on the one hand, it must be a truly personal dialogue because God speaks with each one of us through Sacred Scripture and it has a message for each one. We must not read Sacred Scripture as a word of the past but as the Word of God that is also addressed to us, and we must try to understand what it is that the Lord wants to tell us. However, to avoid falling into individualism, we must bear in mind that the Word of God has been given to us precisely in order to build communion and to join forces in the truth on our journey towards God. Thus, although it is always a personal Word, it is also a Word that builds community, that builds the Church. We must therefore read it in communion with the living Church. The privileged place for reading and listening to the Word of God is the liturgy, in which, celebrating the Word and making Christ's Body present in the Sacrament, we actualize the Word in our lives and make it present among us. We must never forget that the Word of God transcends time. Human opinions come and go. What is very modern today will be very antiquated tomorrow. On the other hand, the Word of God is the Word of eternal life, it bears within it eternity and is valid for ever. By carrying the Word of God within us, we therefore carry within us eternity, eternal life.

I thus conclude with a word St Jerome once addressed to St Paulinus of Nola. In it the great exegete expressed this very reality, that is, in the Word of God we receive eternity, eternal life. St Jerome said: "Seek to learn on earth those truths which will remain ever valid in Heaven" (Ep. 53, 10). "

September 24-25: Fourth Sunday in September/Fifteenth after Pentecost

Judith with the head of Holophernes,
Cristofano Allori (1577–1621)

Matins moves this Sunday to the Book of Judith, hence the salutation in the Magnificat antiphon for I Vespers:

Adonai Domine, Deus magne et mirabilis, qui dedisti salutem in many feminae, exaudi preces servorum tuorum.

O Adonai, Lord God, great and wonderful, Who didst give salvation by the hand of a woman, hear the prayers of Thy servants.

Mattias Gerung, 1500-1570

Sunday's Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons refer to the Gospel, St Luke 7:11-16, the raising of the son of the widow of Naim.