Understanding the Benedict Office: Introduction

I signalled previously that I would offer a series of posts on the 'liturgical code' contained in the Rule of St Benedict, by way of an aid to understanding the Benedictine Office better.

Today I want to provide a short introduction to the series explaining just why they are important.

The importance of the liturgical code for monks

Abbot Lawrence of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert says in his commentary on the Rule that:
"    

These Chapters, from 8 through 20, are very important for understanding life in a Benedictine     monastery. Today very few follow these chapters of the Rule, especially with regard to the structure of the Divine Office. Unless we understand them well, we will begin to lose a truly Benedictine life, which has at its heart the praying of the Divine Office. There is no way that one can follow this structure of Rule of Benedict and not be aware of the truly important place of the Divine Office in the daily life of the monk and the amount of time that Saint Benedict presumed that a monk would spend in public prayer...For our spirituality, we must reflect on whether the Divine Office is at the heart of my personal spirituality. This is a teaching of the Rule that is very important. Let us strive to keep the Divine Office central in our lives by being present, by praying and by giving ourselves generously to the demands of this type of prayer."

I certainly agree with his comments on the importance of the liturgical code for the life of a monastery.

Understand the structure of the Office  - and more

The most obvious value in studying these sections of the Rule lies in helping us understand the structure of the Benedictine Office, and to look at how the Office has evolved since St Benedict's time.

The chapters describe the eight hours that make up St Benedict's Office, their structure and content, when they are to be said, and how they should be approached.

And the number of chapters of the Rule that St Benedict devotes to the liturgy clearly signals that for the monk, the liturgy is the centrepoint of the life. 

But I think the importance of these chapters goes far beyond that.  St Benedict provides within it, I think, specific tools to aid the spiritual life.  He explicitly mentions, for example, the recitation of the Our Father by the superior each day as a means of combating scandal and division within the monastery.  The daily use of that ultimate penitential psalm, Psalm 50, at Lauds perhaps has a similar purpose.

More generally, the pattern of repetitions of the psalms and their progression through the week, is designed, in my view, to reinforce and teach the spirituality set out in the Rule more broadly.

For the laity too

The implicit lessons contained in this section of the Rule are just as important for Oblates and other followers of St Benedict as for monks in my view.

That is not to say that we should be reading them too literally.

First, in some areas the Church has amended St Benedict's prescriptions for the Office, and we are bound by this later legislation.

Secondly, I am not suggesting that laypeople should necessarily attempt the full monastic Office, far from it. Some may be able to, but the primary vocation of the Oblate is in the world, and the duties associated with that. Oblates will normally try and say some form of the Office or some hours from it on a regular basis, but they are certainly not bound to say the whole thing, particularly if to do so would be at the expense of other duties such as spending time with one's family.

There are though, I think, some important things being said in this section about the importance of the liturgy, about obedience and humility, and much more.

Following the structure of the Rule

Before I get down to the actual chapters though, I think it is worth noting that the start of the section of the Rule on the liturgy seems to start rather abruptly.  In fact, though, I think it is deeply connected to what comes immediately before it.

The first chapters of the Benedictine Rule take the reader through why we should embrace the monastic/true Christian life (the Prologue); the essentials for success, viz a genuine community, with someone in charge, but where authority is based on genuine listening (chapters 1-3); that getting to heaven requires us to undertake good works (ch 4); and that in whatever we do we must adopt the right attitudes, particularly of humility and obedience (chs 5 – 7).

The Divine Office, in my view, represents the practical application of all that has come so far in the Rule: our liturgical prayer articulates our response to God’s invitation to us all to be workers in his vineyard; it said communally, requires both speaking and listening, and is said in ways that reflect the internal hierarchy of the monastery; it is an active good work to praise God on behalf of ourselves and the whole Church; and it requires an attitude of obedience and humility to follow the prescriptions set out in the Rule.

So if you aren't familiar with the Benedictine Rule, do take the time, if you can, to have a quick read of the chapters up to Chapter 8 (they really aren't very long) by way of preparation for this series.

And once your ready, you can find the next post in the series here.

Understanding the Benedictine Office: upcoming series

There are quite a few people who are relatively new to the Benedictine Office looking in on this blog, so I thought it might be helpful to run a short series on the structure and underlying spirituality of the traditional Benedictine Office.

The Rule of St Benedict on the Office

In fact, the Rule of St Benedict devotes quite a few chapters to the Office, and these are traditionally read between February 10 and 26 (and again in June and October) in monasteries. 

Reading these chapters reflectively, will I think, help you to get more out of the Office, as well as aid your understanding of how it all fits together and works.

Many who do read the Rule regularly, struggle, I think, to get much spiritual juice out of the section on the Office. But my own view is that the Benedictine Office as broadly set out in the Rule is a vital element of Benedictine spirituality, teaching and reinforcing many of the messages set out elsewhere in the Rule, as well as important in its own right.

Accordingly, I plan to offer a short series of posts each day here by way of commentary on this section of it.

You don't have to have read what comes before it in the Rule to make sense of that is often described as St Benedict's 'liturgical code', but if you do have time for a quick read or refresher of the Prologue up to Chapter 7, that will certainly be helpful.  You can find online versions of the Rule of St Benedict in a variety of languages here.

Each post will set out the prescribed section of the Rule for the day in Latin and English (using the translation by Abbot Justin McCann).  I'll then set out a few notes on it for you to consider, question and debate.

And before I start that, I'll offer a sort introduction to this section of the Rule.  So more soon....

Understanding the psalms

I'd also like to draw your attention to my other blog, Psallam Domino.  Over there I'm providing a series of notes aimed at helping people pray the psalms in the Office more deeply, and particularly, to pray them in Latin, in line with the Church's tradition!

If you have a look through it, I've already provided notes on quite a few psalms, but at the moment I've just started on the psalms of Sunday Vespers, with an introductory post on Psalm 109.

To find the next part in this series, click here.

From the martyrology: St Dorothy (Feb 6)

SS Elizabeth of Hungary, Catherine of Alexandria and Dorothy
c1480

St Dorothy is one of those saints dropped from the 1969 calendar, unwisely in my view, allegedly because of the relative scarcity of early details of her life.  In reality, one can't help but conclude that she is a victim of the modernist disdain for famous miracle working saints: she was often included as one of the 'fourteen holy helpers', and regarded as one the four 'main Virgins'.  She had a widespread cult, and was frequently depicted in art throughout the middle ages and beyond.

Here is Alban Butler's take on her life:

"ST. DOROTHY was a young virgin, celebrated at Cæsarea, where she lived, for her angelic virtue. Her parents seem to have been martyred before her in the Diocletian persecution, and when the Governor Sapricius came to Cæsarea he called her before him, and sent this child of martyrs to the home where they were waiting for her.

She was stretched upon the rack, and offered marriage if she would consent to sacrifice, or death if she refused. But she replied that "Christ was her only Spouse, and death her desire." She was then placed in charge of two women who had fallen away from the faith, in the hope that they might pervert her; but the fire of her own heart rekindled the flame in theirs, and led them back to Christ. When she was set once more on the rack, Sapricius himself was amazed at the heavenly look she wore, and asked her the cause of her joy. "Because," she said, "I have brought back two souls to Christ, and because I shall soon be in heaven rejoicing with the angels." Her joy grew as she was buffeted in the face and her sides burned with plates of red-hot iron. "Blessed be Thou," she cried, when she was sentenced to be beheaded,—"blessed be Thou, O Thou Lover of souls! Who dost call me to Paradise, and invitest me to Thy nuptial chamber."

St. Dorothy suffered in the dead of winter, and it is said that on the road to her passion a lawyer called Theophilus, who had been used to calumniate and persecute the Christians, asked her, in mockery, to send him "apples or roses from the garden of her Spouse." The Saint promised to grant his request, and, just before she died, a little child stood by her side bearing three apples and three roses.

She bade him take them to Theophilus and tell him this was the present which he sought from the garden of her Spouse. St. Dorothy had gone to heaven, and Theophilus was still making merry over his challenge to the Saint when the child entered his room. He saw that the child was an angel in disguise, and the fruit and flowers of no earthly growth. He was converted to the faith, and then shared in the martyrdom of St. Dorothy."

From the martyrology: St Blaise and the blessing of throats (Feb 3)

Today in the Office we celebrate the memorial of St Blaise, one of the fourteen holy helpers, of whom the martyrology says:

"At Sebaste in Armenia, in the time of the governor Agricolaus, the passion of St. Blase, bishop and martyr, who, after working many miracles, was scourged for a long time, suspended from a tree where his flesh was lacerated with iron combs.  He was then imprisoned in a dark dungeon, thrown into a lake from which he came out safe, and finally, by order of the judge, he and two boys were beheaded.  Before him, seven women who were gathering the drops of his blood during his torture, were recognized as Christians, and after undergoing severe torments, were put to death by the sword."

There is a traditional sacramental blessing of throats that can take place today, particularly of relevant to those who sing in choirs, or sing the Office!

From the martyrology: St Brigid (Feb 1)

Today the Office celebrates the feast of St Ignatius (d. 110 at Rome):

"St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch and martyr, who gloriously suffered martyrdom on the 20th of December."

Several letters written by St Ignatius while on route to his martyrdom in Rome have survived and well worth reading.

But in many places it is also the feast of St Brigit (439-524), Abbess, a famous leader of the early celtic church and foundress of several monasteries:

"At Kildare in Ireland, St. Bridget, virgin.  Once, when she touched the wood of an altar, it immediately sprouted into life, in testimony of her virginity."

St Brigit has become something of a feminist icon in recent times, because of her authority over the double monasteries she established, a system which continued until the twelfth century.

From the martyrology - St John Chrysostom (Jan 27)

"St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, confessor and doctor of the Church, and the heavenly patron of preachers, who fell asleep in the Lord on the 14th of September.  His holy body was brought to Constantinople on this day in the reign of Theodosius the younger; it was afterwards taken to Rome and placed in the basilica of the Prince of the Apostles."

You can read Pope Benedict XVI's General Audience on this important Doctor of the Church here.

From the martyrology: SS Polycarp and Paula (Jan 26)

In the Office today we celebrate the feast of St Polycarp:

"St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna and martyr, who gained the crown of martyrdom on the 23rd of February."

St Paula and her daughter with St Jerome
Francisco de Zurbaran, c1638-40

The martyrology also lists, however, St Paula (347-404), who assisted St Jerome in his translation work and established a monastery for men and women in Bethlehem:

"At Bethlehem of Judea, the death of St. Paula, widow, mother of St. Eustochium, a virgin of Christ, who abandoned her worldly prospects, though she was descended from a noble line of senators, distributed her goods to the poor, and retired to our Lord's manger, where, endowed with many virtues, and crowned with a long martyrdom, she departed for the kingdom of heaven.  Her admirable life was written by St. Jerome."

St Jerome wrote a life of her, and a number of their letters also survive.