Brush up your rubrics: Getting ready for Advent - Matins

Continuing this little series on getting ready for Advent, today a quick look at Matins during Advent.

Matins during Advent

Matins during Advent is actually fairly straightforward - although there are some seasonal texts, unlike the day hours, Matins doesn't become more complicated in the second half of Advent!

The key changes are that:

• instead of the daily invitatory verses that are normally used with Psalm 94, there are two seasonal ones; 
• the hymn  (Verbum supernum) is of the season rather than the day of the week; 
• on Sundays there are antiphons for the season;
• the versicles at the end of the first Nocturn are of the season; 
• there are three readings each day, generally from Isaiah; 
• the final chapter is of the season; and 
• on Sundays the third Nocturn canticles are of the season.

If you are using a breviary to say Matins, all of this is set out in the Ordinary (pgs 14-15 of Volume 1 for the 1963 edition of the breviary).  It is also nicely set out in the new Nocturnal Monasticum at page 14.

If you are using the Clear Creek booklet, however, not all of these texts are included, so I'll point you to sources for the missing parts.

Invitatory and hymn

The invitatory verse up until the third Sunday of Advent is the same as the Roman Office, viz:

 Regem venturum Dominum * Venite adoremus.

The Lord, the King who is to come * O come, let us adore Him.

Note though that there are a couple of different versions of the chant around; the monastic one can be found in the Liber Hymnarius (pg 146).  

From the third Sunday, the invitatory becomes:

Prope est iam Dominus * Venite adoremus.
The Lord is now near * O come, let us adore Him.

The hymn is also the same as the Roman Office, and so the text can be found at Divinum Officium.

Nocturns

The antiphons, versicles and so forth needed are generally listed in psalters, so it is just a matter of making sure you use the ones noted for Advent. Note that on week days the antiphons are as for throughout the year.  

Brush up your rubrics: Getting ready for Advent Part I - Prime and Compline in Advent

I want to offer a short series of notes and links on the Office of Advent to encourage you to start preparing now.

Advent is easily the most complex period when it comes to saying the Office, due to the mix of texts that need to be juggled for the season, week of Advent, day of the week and date.  But on the positive side, Advent also includes some of the most beautiful texts and chants in the repertoire, which are well worth learning.

Accordingly, today a look at Compline and Prime, which are relatively straightforward.

Compline

At Compline, apart from chant tones, the only change is in the Marian antiphon, which becomes Alma Redemptoris Mater.

For the psalms, the most commonly utilised chant tone is actually the one (in directum) that appears in most chant books (I haven't been able to find the other seasonal tones in a printed book - do let me know if you know of a good source for these!).  You can get a feel for it by listening to one of the archived podcasts from Le Barroux).

For the hymn tone, you can listen to Te lucis ante terminum sung to the Advent tone (page 183 in the Antiphonale Monasticum) over at Liber Hynarius.

For the Marian antiphon, on weekdays use the simple tone:



On Saturdays, Sundays and major feasts, the Solemn tone.  Here it is sung by the nuns of Argentan:

Prime

The key change to Prime is that instead of the normal antiphons for each day of the week, there are antiphons for each week of Advent (up to December 16), and then each day of the week (December 17-23).

Up to and including December 16

Up until December 16, the antiphon for Prime (except where displaced by feasts) is the first antiphon of Lauds on Sunday.

So for week I of Advent, the antiphon is In illa die; in week 2 of Advent, Ecce in nubibus caeli.

As well as under Sundays in Advent, you can also find them in the section that sets out the Ordinary of Advent, on MD 13* (right at the front of the Diurnal).

The psalms (of each day of the week), chapter, versicles and collect all stay as usual.

The text of the hymn remains unchanged (Iam lucis), but there is an Advent hymn tone to use - the tone is the same for all of the hymns from Prime to None, and you can find it in the Antiphonale Monasticum. 

December 17-23

Between December 17 and 23, there is a different antiphon for each day of the week, and you can find these on pages 37*-40*.

The antiphon for Prime is, as usual, the first antiphon of Lauds.

November 2: All Souls

The Feast of All Souls, when we especially pray for the souls in purgatory, has Benedictine origins, having been established by St. Odilo at his abbey of Cluny in 998.

He was inspired to establish the feast by a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land who was cast by a storm on a desolate island. A hermit living there told him that amid the rocks was a chasm communicating with purgatory, from which perpetually rose the groans of tortured souls. The hermit had also heard the demons complaining of the efficacy of the prayers of the faithful, and especially the monks of Cluny, in rescuing their victims. Upon returning home, the pilgrim hastened to inform the abbot of Cluny, who then set 2 November as a day of intercession on the part of his community for all the souls in purgatory.

From Cluny the custom quickly spread across Europe, and entered the universal calendar in the fourteenth century.

1 November: Feast of All Saints

Today is the feast of All Hallows, or All Saints, when we commemorate all those who have reached heaven, known or unknown.

These days a lot of communities seem to be treating it as a chance to celebrate again your own favourite canonised saint.  But personally I favour celebrating all those faithful souls that we don't know about, but who are yet saints in heaven, particularly asking those of our own ancestors and deceased relatives and friends if they be in this happy state, to pray for us.

The origins of the feast can be traced back to the consecration of the Parthenon to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs around 609, and was originally celebrated on 13 May.  The feast was moved to 1 November by Pope Gregory III (731–741) when he built an oratory in St. Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world".

October 31: Halloween

Irish Halloween party, Daniel Maclise, 1833

Today used to be the Vigil of All Saints (aka Halloween), a night when traditionally the veil between Earth and purgatory thinned, the dead could come back to request prayers, and devils could appear to remind us of the reality of hell.

These days there are endless debates amongst Catholics infected by political correctness as to the appropriateness/catholicity of Halloween celebrations.  Personally, I'm with those who think we do need a reminder of the reality of death, demons and the workers of evil....

Basilica of Norcia destroyed

Yet another earthquake has hit central Italy, this time totally destroying the basilica that sits over the birthplace of SS Benedict and Scholastica.

It seems that the monks (and noted blogger Hilary White) who lives there are ok, but please pray for the people of Norcia and Italy.

And for the future of monastic life there.

Brush up your rubrics: the privilege of praying liturgically

One of the questions someone posed in response to my last post in this series was, do these rules apply to me?

It is actually a very good question to ponder, so here is my take on the subject.

The public prayer of the Church

One of the key things you need to understand before opening your Diurnal ore breviary is that the monastic Office, or Divine Office, even when said by one person privately, is part of the formal worship of the Church, just like the Mass and sacraments.   

Priests, for example, are praying liturgically when they say the Office in their homes rather than in a Church, and the same is true of laypeople.

This wasn't always the case when it comes to the laity.  

Between the Council of Trent and Vatican II the Church restricted the delegation to pray the Office on its behalf to priests and religious, in the interest of protecting the integrity of the texts used.  Pope Pisu XII, for example explained the reasons for this as follows:

The Church has further used her right of control over liturgical observance to protect the purity of divine worship against abuse from dangerous and imprudent innovations introduced by private individuals and particular churches. Thus it came about -- during the 16th century, when usages and customs of this sort had become increasingly prevalent and exaggerated, and when private initiative in matters liturgical threatened to compromise the integrity of faith and devotion, to the great advantage of heretics and further spread of their errors -- that in the year 1588, Our predecessor Sixtus V of immortal memory established the Sacred Congregation of Rites, charged with the defense of the legitimate rites of the Church and with the prohibition of any spurious innovation. (Mediator Dei)

Vatican II, though aspired to revive the older custom of lay participation in this form of prayer, and the 1983 Code of Canon Law was to make it clear that laypeople can pray the Office liturgically not only when they are present when it is said by monks, nuns or priests, but also when praying by themselves.

Under the 1983 Code of Canon Law, priests and religious are required to say some form of the Divine Office, and laypeople are 'earnestly invited' to participate in the Office as an action of the Church  (take a look also at the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paras 1174-1175).

Efficacy of the liturgy

This a wonderful privilege.  All forms of prayer can be good and effective.  But liturgical prayer has a higher status than other forms of prayer because:

• it is not our prayer, but prayer made in through and with Christ our high priest, in effect his action, not ours;
• it unifies us with each other, the saints and angels.,  Through it we participate in the worship in heaven; and
• it is more effective than any other form of prayer, even the rosary.

Dom Fernard Cabrol, first abbot of Farnborough, writing in 1915, explains it this way:

Private prayer has a personal value, varying according to the degree of faith, fervour, and holiness of he who prays.  The Church's prayer has always, in itself, and independently of the person praying, an absolute value.  It is a formula composed by the Church, and carrying with it her authority...Liturgical prayer is superior to all others not only because it is the Church's prayer but also because of the elements of which is composed...this prayer holds the first rank on account of its efficacy, or the effects it produces in the soul. (Introduction to Day Hours of the Church, vol 1)

The importance and value St Benedict placed on the Office is still upheld by the Church today, at least on paper. The 1983 Code of Canon Law for example says:

In the Liturgy of the Hours, the Church, hearing God speaking to his people and recalling the mystery of salvation, praises him without ceasing by song and prayer and intercedes for the salvation of the whole world. 

Participating in the liturgy of the hours

The privilege of saying the Office liturgically, though, carries obligations with it.  

We can't just make it up as we go along, and muddle through.  We have to make an effort to do it correctly, lest we be guilty of liturgical abuse.

If you actually attend the Office in a monastery, even if you don't say anything, you are participating it in it just by listening, hopefully reverently and actively.

At the other end of the scale, just watching a video or listening to a podcast doesn't mean that we are praying liturgically. It is really no different to watching Mass at home on television - watching or listening to Mass online is a good thing to do, but it is a devotional activity, not the same thing as actually participating in the liturgy.

But if you actually want to say the Divine Office, you need to keep in mind the seriousness and importance of what you are doing, and that includes learning to say the Office properly, and following the rubrics.

Divini Cultus

Let me leave you with some inspiring words of Pope Pius XI on this subject, from the Apostolic Consitutution Divini Cultus, issued in 1928:

Since the Church has received from Christ her Founder the office of safeguarding the sanctity of divine worship, it is certainly incumbent upon her, while leaving intact the substance of the Sacrifice and the sacraments, to prescribe ceremonies, rites, formulae, prayers and chant for the proper regulation of that august public ministry, whose special name is "Liturgy", as being the eminently sacred action.

For the liturgy is indeed a sacred thing, since by it we are raised to God and united to Him, thereby professing our faith and our deep obligation to Him for the benefits we have received and the help of which we stand in constant need. There is thus a close connection between dogma and the sacred liturgy, and between Christian worship and the sanctification of the faithful. Hence Pope Celestine I saw the standard of faith expressed in the sacred formulae of the liturgy. "The rule of our faith," he says, "is indicated by the law of our worship. When those who are set over the Christian people fulfill the function committed to them, they plead the cause of the human race in the sight of God's clemency, and pray and supplicate in conjunction with the whole Church."

These public prayers, called at first "the work of God" and later "the divine office" or the daily "debt" which man owes to God, used to be offered both day and night in the presence of a great concourse of the faithful. From the earliest times the simple chants which graced the sacred prayers and the liturgy gave a wonderful impulse to the piety of the people. History tells us how in the ancient basilicas, where bishop, clergy and people alternately sang the divine praises, the liturgical chant played no small part in converting many barbarians to Christianity and civilization. It was in the churches that heretics came to understand more fully the meaning of the communion of saints; thus the Emperor Valens, an Arian, being present at Mass celebrated by St. Basil, was overcome by an extraordinary seizure and fainted. At Milan, St. Ambrose was accused by heretics of attracting the crowds by means of liturgical chants. It was due to these that St. Augustine made up his mind to become a Christian. It was in the churches, finally, where practically the whole city formed a great joint choir, that the workers, builders, artists, sculptors and writers gained from the liturgy that deep knowledge of theology which is now so apparent in the monuments of the Middle Ages.

No wonder, then, that the Roman Pontiffs have been so solicitous to safeguard and protect the liturgy. They have used the same care in making laws for the regulation of the liturgy, in preserving it from adulteration, as they have in giving accurate expression to the dogmas of the faith. This is the reason why the Fathers made both spoken and written commentary upon the liturgy or "the law of worship"; for this reason the Council of Trent ordained that the liturgy should be expounded and explained to the faithful.