November 10: St Theodore, Memorial

According to Butler's Lives of the Saints:

"ST. THEODORE was born of a noble family in the East, and enrolled while still a youth in the imperial army. Early in 306 the emperor put forth an edict requiring all Christians to offer sacrifice, and Theodore had just joined the legion and marched with them into Pontus, when he had to choose between apostasy and death.

He declared before his commander that he was ready to be cut in pieces and offer up every limb to his Creator, Who had died for him. Wishing to conquer him by gentleness, the commander left him in peace for a while, that he might think over his resolution; but Theodore used his freedom to set on fire the great temple of Isis, and made no secret of this act. Still his judge entreated him to renounce his faith and save his life; but Theodore made the sign of the cross, and answered: "As long as I have breath, I will confess the name of Christ." After cruel torture, the judge bade him think of the shame to which Christ had brought him. "This shame," Theodore answered, "I and all who invoke His name take with joy." He was condemned to be burnt. As the flame rose, a Christian saw his soul rise like a flash of light to heaven."

Brush up your rubrics - getting ready for Advent 3 - Terce to None

So far in this series I've posted some notes, videos and links to chants for Prime and Compline and Matins.  Today, Terce to None.

The Ordinary of Advent

The key changes to the 'little hours' during Advent are:

• if you are singing it, the hymn has a proper tone for the season;
• there is an antiphon to be used for each hour every day for each week up to December 16, and then each day; 
• the chapter and versicle is of the season; and
• the closing prayers are said kneeling.

The hymn

The text of the hymns at each of the hours is unchanged  - so Nunc Sancte Nobis for Terce, Rector Potens for Sext, and Rerum Deus for None.

The hymn tune though - which is the same for Prime, Terce, Sext and None - is of the season (except on major feasts such as the Immaculate Conception).  Note that it is not the same as the one used in Roman Office.

I haven't been able to locate a video or nice recording of it, so the best approach to learning it is probably to listen to one of the archived Le Barroux recordings of Sext.

Antiphons

The antiphons used at the little hours are from Sunday Lauds.

For the first three weeks, as well as Sunday Lauds, the antiphons are also set out in the Ordinary of Advent section at the front of the Diurnal', on pages 13*-15*.  Between December 17 and December 23 there is a set of antiphons to be used for the day of the week (pages 37* and following in the Diurnal).

The default rule (for all purposes) is to use:

• the first antiphon of Lauds for Prime;
• the second antiphon of Lauds for Terce;
• the third antiphon of Lauds for Sext; and
• the fifth antiphon for None.

There are exceptions, though, and if you look at Saturday in this period, the Diurnal only has four antiphons for Lauds (because of the divided canticle), and so supplies an additional one for Sext.

Chapter and versicle

The chapter and versicle for each of these hours is of Advent, and is the same throughout the season on weekdays, and so can be found in the psalter section of the Diurnal, as well in the 'Ordinary of Advent' section.  There are separate texts for each Sunday.

Collect

As usual, the collect is of Sunday of the week, except for the Ember Days in the third week of Advent (and of course on feasts).

The closing prayers are said kneeling during Advent.

Feasts

On feasts, the variable texts of these hours (ie antiphon, chapter, versicle and collect) are replaced by those of the feast.

Summary: Terce, Sext and None during Advent days that are not feasts

PART OF THE HOUR	ADVENT
Opening prayers (Deus in adjutorium/Gloria patri/Alleluia)	Same as for all of the day hours (MD 1); stand, make sign of cross
Hymn	As for throughout the year, same each day for that hour; Advent psalm tone.
Antiphon	Of the Advent week or day (from Dec 17)
Psalm+Gloria Patri Psalm+Gloria Patri Psalm+Gloria+Gloria Patri	As for throughout the year, psalms for Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday to Saturday.
Antiphon	Repeat earlier antiphon
Chapter	Of Advent
Versicle	Of Advent
Closing Prayers (Kyrie/Pater noster/…Benedicamus Domino…Fidelium animae)	As throughout the year but said kneeling.
-          Collect	Of the week or day.

Dedication of St John Lateran, Class II

St John Lateran, aka the Archbasilica of Our Saviour, was built by the Emperor Constantine, and consecrated by Pope Sylvester on November 9, 324.  It is Rome's (and hence the Pope's) official Cathedral, and ranks as one of the four papal basilicas.

It has a particular significance for Benedictines, as monks fleeing the destruction of Monte Cassino after St Benedict's death established a monastery there, their stories of the founder persuading the future Pope Gregeoy I to become a monk, and to record the life of the saint.

Unfortunately the records of the Church (and subsequent monasteries) are sparse, not least because the basilica was destroyed first by the vandals in 460, and again by an earthquake in 896.  And it burnt down in 1307 and again in 1361...  The current Church largely dates from the seventeenth century, with some extensive remodelling completed in 1735.

The dedication to St John reflects the monastery established there which served the Cathedral, dedicated to St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist.

How to start a (Benedictine) monastery and some recommended reading

Today being the Tuesday of St Benedict, as well as the notes on the Votive Office I've already posted, I wanted to alert  readers to a couple of excellent blogs with posts worth catching up on at the moment, just in case you haven't seen them.

I also wanted to urge you once again, to pray for and offer financial support to the various traditional foundations, both new and established, and so some brief notes on the foundation process below.

Benedictine reading - from the new foundations

Benedictine spirituality can encompass several quite different streams, and so it is always worth exploring some of the different directions the charism can take.

In this light, the first blog I would urge you to take a look at is from Fr Pius Mary Noonan, Prior of the new foundation in Australia.

His From the Prior Column already has a lot of great material on it all worth a read.  The most recent post is on the newly canonised Carmelite Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, but focusing on some very Benedictine aspects of her thinking indeed, around the idea of peace as our objective, and the concept of the house of God within us.

The second is a series of commentaries on the Rule from Fr Mark Kirby, Prior of Silversteam in Ireland, another still relatively new foundation.  His Vultus Christi blog is always worth reading - I've obtained several excellent book recommendations from over there for example.  And the current series of commentaries on the Rule is really excellent, with lots of interesting insights.

How are Benedictine monasteries established?

Fr Mark's latest piece also alludes to the reason for the various new foundations being formed at the moment, namely some of the false ideas that have "infected and poisoned religious life for the past fifty years, rendering it tired, sterile, and degenerative."

So just how do new Benedictine monasteries get established?

We tend, I suspect, to think of monasteries as typically being founded as daughterhouses of existing monasteries, as Clear Creek was.

In reality, there are many paths!

By the nineteenth century, Benedictine monasteries were, as far as I can work out, split more or less evenly between monasteries with longstanding traditions (such as those in the Germanic countries, Spain and the English Congregation), and new start-ups without any professed nuns or monks and little or no help from existing monasteries.

Dom Gueranger for example, met his first Benedictine monk  - Dom Ullathorpe - seven or so years after he established his monastery, while on his way to Rome to do a week's 'noviciate' at St Paul Outside the Walls, immediately after which he was formally appointed abbot.

In more recent times, there are a range of models.

More than a few monasteries  - such as the nuns of Our Lady in the Desert and Petersham for example - have started from groups of laypeople, who once they have become established, have been adopted by existing monasteries or congregations.

An equally common path in the wake of Vatican II has been a single monk seeking to retain or return to the older traditions jettisoned by his or her monastery (Le Barroux being the most famous example).

The current traditional Benedictine monasteries

I've tried to summarise in the list below, of the origins of the monasteries currently using the traditional Benedictine Office and Mass occasionally or regularly.  There are also a few others that use the traditional Office, but Novus Ordo Mass.

Please do let me know if there are any I have wrong, or have missed (I've mostly used the list on the FIUV website).

(1) Founded by laypeople

Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles
Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel's Hope
Clear Creek Sisters

(2) Founded by one professed monk or nun

Le Barroux, France (men) (1970)- founded by one monk (Dom Calvet)
Le Barroux, France (women) (1979)  (Mother Elizabeth de la Londe)
San Benedetto, Norcia Italy (1998) (Fr Cassian Folsom)
Silverstream, Ireland  (Fr Mark Kirby)
Christ the King, Alabama
[Our Lady of Cana]

(3) Small group of monks (not a daughterhouse)

Benedictines of the Immaculate
?La Garde Freinet

(4) 'Reverts' - monasteries choosing to go back to the traditional Mass

Flavigny
Mariawald (OCSO)

Farnborough (Solesmes/Prinknash)
Fontgambault (though they stopped using the TLM only for a short period, under extreme pressure)

(5) Foundations from established monasteries

Fontgambault (founded from Solesmes, 1948)

Randol  (1971)
Triors  (1984)
Gaussan  (1994)
Clear Creek  (1999)
Wisques (refoundation 2013)

(Le Barroux)

Silver City (1991) (now SSPX affiliated)
Sainte-Marie de la Garde (2002)

Jouques (1967, from Limon)
Rosans (1991)
Notre Dame de l'Ecoute, Benin (2005)

St Benedict on Tuesday - Matins readings for November and Lauds in the Votive Office

This is once again a Tuesday unimpeded by feasts so in days of yore a Votive Office of St Benedict would have been said.

Even if you don't wish to say a devotional Office of the saint it is certainly salutary, I think, to make some extra devotion to St Benedict on Tuesdays in keeping with this beautiful tradition.

And hopefully at least some people will find it interesting to know something more of the liturgical traditions of the Order.

St Benedict and a good death

In previous posts I've described Vespers (said the night before) and Matins, so today I want to focus on Lauds.

But first, it is worth noting that the Matins readings for theVotive  Office in November were, appropriately for the season, on the death of St Benedict, as described in Chapter 37 of the Life of St Benedict by St Gregory the Great.  You can find the translation set out as it is in the older breviaries (ie pre-1911) over at my Lectio Divina blog.

St Benedict, by virtue of his edifying death, propped up in Church by two of his monks, is regarded as the patron of a good death, and it seems to me well worth meditating on this chapter given that this conception of the good death is so deeply counter-cultural to our times.

You might also want to consider adding to your prayers, if you don't already say it, the daily prayer to St Benedict for a happy death:

V. Intercede for us, O holy Father Benedict. R. And obtain for us the grace of a happy death.

O holy Father, St. Benedict, blessed by God both in grace and in name, who, while standing in prayer, with hands raised to heaven, didst most happily yield thy angelic spirit into the hands of thy Creator, and hast promised zealously to defend against all the snares of the enemy in the last struggle of death, those who shall daily remind thee of thy glorious departure and heavenly joys; protect me, I beseech thee, O glorious Father, this day and every day, by thy holy blessings, that I may never be separated from our dear Lord, from the society of thyself, and of all the blessed. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen."

Votive Office of St Benedict - Lauds

At Lauds the antiphons, chapter, responsory and hymn of the Office were those of the Feast of St Benedict on March 21 (Fuit vir etc).

The Benedictus antiphon, however, was:

O beati viri Benedicti sancta praeconia, o inaestimabilis dilectio caritatis, quidum saeculi pompam contempsit, aeternae vitae coniunctus est.

O blessed man

The collect was, as for the other hours:

The collect is:

Excita Domine, in Ecclesia tua Spiritum, cui beatus Pater noster Benedictus Abbas servivit; ut eodem nos repleti studeamus amare quod docuit.  Per Dominum...in unitate ejusdem Spiritus.

(Raise up, O Lord, in thy Church, the Spirit wherewith our holy Father Benedict was animated: that, filled with the same,  we may strive to love what he loved, and to practise what he taught.  Through Christ...)

The recording of the hymn below differs from the version in the 1934 antiphonale, but is worth listening to nonetheless.

November 8: The Four Crowned Martyrs, Memorial

The 'four crowned martyrs' - named in the Roman martyrology as Severus, Severian, Carpophorus and Victorinus - soldiers who were beaten to death with leaden scourges under the Emperor Diocletian for refusing to sacrifice to the gods. 

Ancient custom combines their celebration with five other martyrs under Diocletian, Claudius, Nicostatus, Symphorian, Castorius and Simplicius, stone masons who refused to make graven images under the same Emperor around 305 AD.

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.