January 12: St Benedict Biscop OSB

Today, the Roman Martyrology (and the Ordo of the English Congregation of Benedictines) mentions St Benedict Biscop, a seventh century Anglo-Saxon abbot, and he is really one of those saints who deserve to be better known as one of those responsible for the preservation of Western civilization in the 'dark ages'.

As a monk he had a reputation as being pious, ascetic, learned and holy. He is particularly honoured as the founder of the twin monasteries of Wearmouth whose Church still stands and Jarrow, where he was St Bede the Venerable's first abbot.

But his particular interest is the way his fascinating career illustrates the cross-fertilization of cultural currents at the time, and his work in importing books and skills to England where they were preserved and re-exported back to the Continent a century later.

Some modern historians, have argued that Benedict Biscop and his monastery were not in reality 'true' Benedictines.  Don't believe a word of it!  St Bede's Life of the saint opens by painting him as a true son of St Benedict of Nursia:

THE pious servant of Christ, Biscop, called Benedict, with the assistance of the Divine grace, built a monastery in honour of the most holy of the apostles, St. Peter, near the mouth of the river Were, on the north side. The venerable and devout king of that nation, Egfrid, contributed the land; and Biscop, for the space of sixteen years, amid innumerable perils in journeying and in illness, ruled this monastery with the same piety which stirred him up to build it. 

If I may use the words of the blessed Pope Gregory, in which he glorifies the life of the abbot of the same name, he was a man of a venerable life, blessed (Benedictus) both in grace and in name; having the mind of an adult even from his childhood, surpassing his age by his manners, and with a soul addicted to no false pleasures.... 

This opening section of the Life also makes a fairly clear allusion to the use of the Benedict Rule:

He spurned the ownership of transient things so that he could acquire eternal ones, and shunned earthly military service with the perishable reward, so that he might be worthy to fight for the true king and to have an everlasting kingdom [cf Prologue, RB 2, 61] in the city that is above...

 Near the end, he exhorts his monks to follow the Rule in electing his successor.  And another contemporary life defends his long absences from the monastery by pointing to St Benedict's Abbot-President type role at Subiaco.

To Rome and Lerins

Biscop (aka Benedict Barducing) was a noble who at the age of 25, in 653, left his promising career as a minister at court and headed off in pilgrimage to Rome, returning filled with fervour for the Church. Twelve years later, he did a second trip to Rome, this time ending up at the famous monastery of Lerins in the south of France (which had adopted the Rule of St Benedict by this time) where he became a monk and stayed for two years to learn what he could.

He returned to England on the instructions of the Pope, in order to act as interpreter and native guide for the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, a Greek monk who had been living in Italy as a refugee from the monothelite heresy then raging in the East. St Benedict then spent two years as abbot of the monastery at Canterbury before that role was taken over by Archbishop Theodore's companion Abbot Hadrian.

England at the time was still in the process of healing the breach between the Irish adherents of St Columba and the Anglo-Saxons, and St Benedict Biscop was firmly in the Roman party as a friend of the inimitable St Wilfrid (look him up!). In all, Abbot Benedict made six trips to Rome, each time bringing back many books (which he instructed his monks to carefully protect and retain!), relics, statues, icons, fabulous silks, and skilled workers.

Liturgy and Gregorian chant

On one of last of these trips, around 680 AD, for example he brought back a monk, Abbot John, to teach the chant for the liturgical year as it was done at Rome (and probably also do a bit of politicking on behalf of the Pope), teaching the locals "the theory and practice of singing and reading aloud, and he put into writing all that was necessary for the proper observance of festivals throughout the year."  It is worth noting that Constant Mews of Monash University has found some evidence that St Peter's at that time was essentially using the Benedictine Office.

In any case, chant workshops were as popular then as they are now it seems - 'proficient singers from nearly all the monasteries of the province' came to hear him; he received many invitations to teach elsewhere; and Abbot John's document detailing the proper observances for various feasts was, according to St Bede, copied for many other places.

Books

This St Benedict was keenly aware of the tradition of learning in the Order (possibly encouraged by his time at Lerins, which had always been something of a theological school producing many bishops). The library (and scriptorium) he assembled at Wearmouth was one of the largest then around, with over three hundred books, including many manuscripts rescued from Cassiodorus' fifth century attempt to preserve classical culture at the Vivarium (not least the Bible 'pandect' produced their, which in turn formed the basis for the Codex Amiatinus, probably the earliest surviving complete Bible).

Sacred art and architecture

Similarly, when Abbot Benedict built his own monastery at the invitation of King Egfrith of Northumbria, no effort was spared. St Bede wrote:

"After the interval of a year, Benedict crossed the sea into Gaul, and no sooner asked than he obtained and carried back with him some masons to build him a church in the Roman style, which he had always admired. ...When the work was drawing to completion, he sent messengers to Gaul to fetch makers of glass, (more properly artificers,) who were at this time unknown in Britain, that they might glaze the windows of his church, with the cloisters and dining-rooms. This was done, and they came, and not only finished the work required, but taught the English nation their handicraft, which was well adapted for enclosing the lanterns of the church, and for the vessels required for various uses.

All other things necessary for the service of the church and the altar, the sacred vessels, and the vestments, because they could not be procured in England, he took especial care to buy and bring home from foreign parts.

Some decorations and muniments there were which could not be procured even in Gaul, and these the pious founder determined to fetch from Rome..."

A holy death

St Benedict Biscop spent the last three years of his life paralysed by an illness:

"..yet he never lost his cheerfulness, nor ceased to praise God and exhort the brethren. He was often troubled by sleepless nights, when, to alleviate his weariness, he would call one of his monks and desire to have read to him the story of the patience of Job, or some other passage of scripture by which a sick man might be comforted, or one bent down by infirmities might be more spiritually raised to heavenly things.

Nor did he neglect the regular hours of prayer, but as he was unable to rise from his bed to prayer and could scarcely raise his voice in praise, he would call some of the brethren to him that they might sing the psalms in two choirs, he himself joining with them to the best of his ability."

He died early on this day in 689, surrounded by his brethren, and was buried in the Church he had founded, surrounded by the treasures that he had collected.

Prayer options for the Stealth Hermitess (and others) - Offices of the religious orders Part II

In my last post in this I talked about the value of the (traditional) Offices of the religious orders.

There is a key question around these Offices though, namely can just anyone say them?

In this post I will go into a bit of the history, and sketch out the competing positions on the answer.

Warning: this is a rather technical post and many may prefer to remain in invincible ignorance on this topic!  I would also add that I am not a canon lawyer or expert on liturgical law, so my opinions on this issue are just that, they have no particular weight.

Offices of religious orders as a devotion vs as liturgy

The first point to note is that anyone clearly can say these Offices as a devotion.

The Offices of religious orders have clearly been approved by the Church at one point or another, so there is absolutely nothing harmful in them; quite the contrary, the prayers and other components of these Offices are a treasure that deserves to be appreciated.

But can laypeople legitimately pray them as the official prayer of the Church?

The answer is not at clear cut as it turns out.

A little history

The problem is that before Vatican II, who had the right to say the Divine Office of a religious order was very tightly regulated indeed, and typically restricted to religious in solemn vows, or on the path to them.

Before Trent

Prior to the Council of Tent, a wide variety of different forms of the Office existed and their were few if any rules on who could say what.  So far as the laity went, the Office they said seems, as far as I can gather, have been largely dictated by where they lived: if your parish church was a monastery or was run by a monastery you probably got some form of the monastic office or office of the religious order in charge; if your parish was secular you probably attended the Roman Office and/or the Little Office of Our Lady.  In addition, there were a wide variety of votive offices in books of hours that appear to have been used.

The seventeenth century and after

After Trent that changed in several fundamental ways.  First, the clergy and religious, but not the laity, were formally delegated to say the Office.  The net result of this was that laypeople saying the Office by themselves were no longer deemed to be praying liturgically. 

Secondly, instead of the Office universally being sung, like the Mass it became able to be said silently.  Where once priests typically sung a large proportion of their Offices in Church with a congregation, it increasingly became a private affair. 

Thirdly, much tighter controls over the Office were imposed, with the breviaries of the religious orders now having to receive papal approval rather than essentially being an affair largely dictated by the Order, Congregation or individual monastery.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the controls became even tighter, and many Benedictine nuns running schools and other active apostolates found themselves deemed 'mere oblates', and were forced to choose between abandoning their livelihoods or being deprived of the right to say the full Office.  Oblates and Third Order members (and others) were generally not permitted to use the full Divine Offices of the religious orders; instead they typically said the Little Office of Our Lady of their Order.

From the late nineteenth century onwards, a series of individual indults provided that priest-oblates/third order members could satisfy their obligation to say the Office by using the Office of their Order.  It was a very limited permission though - for private recitation only, rather than with a group, and in the case of the Benedictines, even that was not granted until 1947.

Vatican II and after

All that changed though, with Vatican II and subsequent legislation, which firstly decreed that the various Little Offices (provided they had psalms as their basis) could constitute liturgical prayer; extended the delegation to pray the Office liturgically to the laity; and largely 'deregulated' control over the Office to the Orders themselves.

The 1979 Thesaurus for Benedictines and subsequent Directory and Directive Norms, for example, effectively gave individual monasteries the right to construct their own forms of the Office (albeit within certain limits, providing they adhered to the 1972 calendar approved for the Benedictine Confederation).

And of course, since then, Unversae Ecclesiae has made it clear that the 1962 books can also be used by members of religious orders.

Who can use the traditional Offices of religious orders?

Yet though Universae Ecclesiae made the position clear for professed members of religious orders, it did not actually specifically address the issue of third order/oblates, or the laity more generally, and the situation for these groups is, I think, pretty unclear.

Let me note that private and public associations of the faithful on the path to becoming religious institutes are, I think, in a different position which will depend on their statutes; for the purpose of this post I'm just talking about the laity.

There are, I think, four possible positions on the right to pray the traditional (1962) Office of a religious order liturgically:

Position 1: The narrow view - Only those previously covered by indults (such as priest Oblates) can use them to pray the office liturgically, on the basis of the previous indults;
Position 2:  With the permission of the monastery -  Individual monasteries or orders can give oblates/third order members permission to use their Offices, consonant with their role in forming the spirituality of the members of these associations under the Code of Canon Law;
Position 3 - All oblates - Any oblate or third order member can use the Office of the Order they are associated with; or
Position 4 - Anyone can pray these Offices.

Personally I now lean towards position 3, but I can see the arguments for a broader view.

Let's go through the arguments.

1. The narrow view - priest-oblates only

A narrow reading of the Universae Ecclesiae would seem restrict the permission to use the 1962 books strictly to professed religious, since paragraph 34 talks about 'Sodalibus Ordinum Religiosorum'.

Though many oblates, for example, like to claim the title 'OSB Obl.' the reality is that oblates and (secular) third orders are not actually technically 'sodales', or members of the religious order in question.  Rather they are members of public associations of the faithful associated with the religious order (or monastery in the case of Benedictines) in question (1983 Code of Canon Law, 303, 311).

However, pretty much everything I've found on this topic agrees that this is too narrow a reading of the document.

In particular, Universae Ecclesiae makes it clear that although the books are to be used as they stood in 1962 (ie in Latin and according to the pertinent rubrics), it also says that "With regard to the disciplinary norms connected to celebration, the ecclesiastical discipline contained in the Code of Canon Law of 1983 applies."  Since the indults for priest-Oblates/Third Order members reflected the fact that before the Vatican II, aside from religious, only priests could pray the Office liturgically; with the extension of that right to all the faithful, the previous restrictions make no sense.

Moreover, in contrast to most Orders, the 1963 Benedictine books were never actually suppressed, and continue to be used in many monasteries, albeit with assorted adaptations, right up to the present, so arguably wasn't covered by Universae Ecclesiae in any case (except by extension).

2.  Up to the individual monastery or Order

A second possibility is that it is up to individual religious orders (or in the case of Benedictines Congregations/monasteries) to decide what Office those affiliated with them should be encouraged to say.

On the face of it this seems like a reasonable position to take, but the possible outcomes would surely be contrary to the spirit, even if not the letter of Universae Ecclesiae.  It would mean that an Order like the Dominicans couldn't at least in theory, stop its professed members from using the traditional Office, but could stop its third order members from doing so.  That would appear to be a perverse outcome indeed.

And while more of a case for this approach could perhaps be made for Benedictines, where Oblates in theory at least seek to share the spirituality of the particular monastery they are associated with, the whole point of Summorum Pontificum and the subsequent clarifications was to reopen access to the Catholic patrimony.  It would surely be contrary to the intention of the legislation to deny oblates the right to enjoy the patrimony of the Order they have chosen to be associated with.

So while individual monasteries/orders certainly can give their oblates/seculars explicit permission to use the traditional Office, presumably using whatever version of the rubrics they use themselves, there is a good case, in my view, for a wider view.

3.  All oblates/third order members

This position is essentially that all third order members and equivalents have the right to say the traditional (1962) Office of their Order privately (but not publicly in the absence of religious).  This is the position that Fr Augustine Thompson OP, for example, has taken in relation to the Dominican Office.

I have to admit that this is the position that I had always assumed applied, and am still fairly attracted to, though I can see the case for a broader view.

The advantage of this position is that it preserves the traditional idea that the liturgy of the religious orders pertains to those orders, while recognising the change in status of third order members when it comes to the liturgy.

It is obviously consonant with the supervisory role of the various orders to provide assistance to third order and equivalent members - for example in the form of websites, podcasts and editions of liturgical books - to assist in this.  But doesn't fundamentally undermine the idea that a rite or use is intended to be used by a specific group of people officially recognised as associated with that particular spirituality.

I find myself quite uncomfortable, for example, with an Australian group that is currently holding a  retreat using (as far as I can gather) the Benedictine Office and a pseudo-monastic horarium, but without, at least as far as I can ascertain, actually having any monks or nuns present to lead the affair (maybe they do though, and are just not advertising the fact; I'm simply using the example to illustrate the point).

In this particular case, the group evidently has some level of ecclesiastical approval, and no doubt a number of those present are Oblates, but does this approach mean a group could, for example, could set up an association dedicated to, say, the Sarum Rite, and lead a revival of its practices?  If so, let's do it!

4.  Anyone can say the (approved form of the) Office of a religious order

In any case, the group mentioned above are probably not alone in taking a more open view as to who can say these forms of the liturgy.

I have to admit that I have, in the past, assumed, as it turns out quite incorrectly, that those using this site were generally oblates.

Instead, a survey of those who took my recent course on the Benedictine Office, has proven me wrong on this front with many people indicating that they were attracted to the Benedictine Office because of its traditional nature and relatively accessible support resources, rather than being attracted, initially at least, to Benedictine spirituality per se.

Accordingly, I've been prodded to do a bit more digging, and  it has to be said that the current Code of Canon Law, and General Guidelines on the Liturgy of the Hours do seem to imply a much less restrictive view of the subject.

Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, for example, priests were strictly restricted to using their own rite.  Under the 1983 Code, the restriction applies to the celebration of the sacraments only, not other liturgical functions such as the Divine Office.

Similarly, under the current Code Catholics have the right to join in the worship (though not necessarily to formally be enrolled as a member) of any Catholic Church, regardless of what rite it is using.  Indeed, the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours explicitly provides that celebration in common of another use satisfies any obligation to say the Office:

241. The office in choir and in common is to be celebrated according to the proper calendar of the diocese, of the religious family, or of the individual churches. Members of religious institutes join with the community of the local Church in celebrating the dedication of the cathedral and the feasts of the principal patrons of the place and of the wider geographical region in which they live. 

242. When clerics or religious who are obliged under any title to pray the divine office join in an office celebrated in common according to a calendar or rite different from their own, they fulfill their obligation in respect to the part of the office at which they are present.

The key basis for a much broader view, though, is probably Canon 214 of the 1983 Code which provides that:

Christ's faithful have the right to worship God according to the provisions of their own rite (iuxta praescripta proprii ritus) approved by the lawful Pastors of the Church; they also have the right to follow their own form of spiritual life, provided it is in accord with Church teaching.

The Offices of the religious orders are generally considered to be uses of the Roman Rite, rather than different rites per se (regardless of what they are called; one doesn't formally transfer between rites when one becomes a Dominican for example, you just acquire the right to use an alternate use of the Roman Rite), so it can be argued that these books do meet the requirement here.  Moreover the right to follow one's own form of spiritual life is arguably closely bound up in the Office for many people.

Another point in favour of the broadest view is that in the wake of Vatican II, religious Orders were actively encouraged to share their liturgy, and many did so.  If we don't take the broad view, who precisely, for example, are the resources published by the Carthusians, who have no third order or (at least back then) associated lay group, intended for?

The real problem for many is, I think, a practical one: we instinctively find the current Roman Liturgy of the Hours' totally inadequate, even subversive of the faith, for reasons many others have laid out in depth.  The  century old 1962 Roman Office though, is equally unsatisfactory in many ways, and expensive and hard to access to boot.  In the absence of  good alternatives, are we seeing the Sensus Fidelium at work?

Regardless, let me make one last point.  Even if we don't technically have the right to say a particular form of the Office, that doesn't mean we aren't praying it liturgically: if a priest says Mass in a rite not his own, for example, it is still valid, just not 'licit'.  A similar situation may well apply in the case of the Office...

January 10: St Paul the First Hermit, Memorial

St Paul of Thebes (died circa 341) fled to the desert during the persecution of Decius and Valerianus around 250 AD.  St Jerome's life of the saint relates that he lived in the mountains of this desert in a cave near a clear spring and a palm tree, the leaves of which provided him with raiment and the fruit of which provided him with his only source of food till he was 43 years old, when a raven started bringing him half a loaf of bread daily.

St Jerome also tells the story of the meeting of St Anthony the Great and St Paul, when the latter was aged 113. They conversed with each other for one day and one night. When St Anthony next visited him, Paul was dead. Anthony clothed him in a tunic which was a present from St Athanasius of Alexandria and buried him, with two lions helping to dig the grave.

He is remembered as the first Christian hermit.

You can read St Jerome's Life of the saint here.

St Peter Orseolo (Jan 10)

In the Benedictine calendar today (EF calendar Jan 15), today is the memorial of St Paul the first hermit.

But the martyrology also recalls today another hermit, this time a Benedictine, in the form of St Peter Orseolo, a Doge of Venice who became a simple monk of the Order of St Benedict.

St Peter was a Doge of Venice, and lived between 928 and 987. 

He was married at 18 and had one son, who also eventually became a Doge of Venice.

At 20, he led the Venetian fleet against Dalmatian pirates.

In 976 he became Doge after a revolution against the sitting Doge's attempts to create a monarchy.  In that position he started the rebuilding of St Mark's, as well as building hospitals and supported other social programs. 

Two years later, he quietly left town and joined a Benedictine monastery in the South of France, living a life of great asceticism. 

He subsequently became a hermit with the encouragement of St Romuald, living in the forest surrounding the monastery.

He was acclaimed a saint some forty years after his death, and the canonization was ratified in 1731 by Pope Clement XII.

January 6: Feast of the Epiphany

The celebration of the feast of the Epiphany (the word means manifestation) on January 6 is very ancient as a decree of the Holy See dating back to 376 attests.  It is traditionally one of the great feasts around which the Church year is traditionally arranged (with Sundays after the Epiphany).  Sad then that in many Churches today it is actually celebrated on the preceding Sunday, and precedes only very ordinary time indeed!

The Feast actually encompasses three different 'manifestations' of our Lord's divinity:

• the visit of the Wise Men from the East (the primary focus of the liturgy);
• the baptism of Our Lord by St John the Baptist; and
• the changing of wine into water at the wedding feast of Cena.

No wonder then that until 1955 it also had an octave.

It is also rich with devotional traditions, including the blessing of holy water (of the 'super-charged' variety!), frankinsense, gold and chalk (to be used in the annual blessing of your house).

Prayer options for the stealth hermitess (and others) Pt IV - The Offices of the religious orders Pt 1

Some time ago I started a series entitled 'prayer options for the stealth hermitess (and others)'.  In previous posts I've covered:

• non-liturgical prayer and devotions;
• devotional forms of the Offices; and
• the currently permitted forms of the Roman Office (1962, 1970 and Little Office of Our Lady).

I promised to go on and talk about the liturgy of the religious orders, but when I started digging into this topic in more depth, I realised that there are actually some difficult issues around this topic, so I've hesitated to jump into this pond.  Nonetheless, here at long last I'm posting something on this topic.

I've split this into two parts: this first part looks at why you might want to say the Office of a religious order; the second part looks at the issues around the right to say these Offices.

Forms of the Office and the spirituality of the Order

Traditionally, most (though not all) of the religious orders had their own distinctive forms of the Divine Office.

The origin of this can probably be traced to the Carolingian era, where legislation required all secular priests (and canons) to say the Roman Office, and all monks to use the Benedictine form.  Prior to that time, monasteries seem to have either followed the usages of their region; said the psalms in numerical order using a combination of collective and individual prayer; or developed their own practices (of which St Benedict's Rule is by far the most developed).  The extent of the success of the Carolingian attempt to impose uniformity is somewhat debated, but regardless. over time it did, of course, unravel.

In some cases the rites used by religious orders were largely based on either the Roman or Benedictine psalm cursus, but added a rich panoply of particular texts and feasts, and often distinctive styles of chant.  Some orders, such as the Dominicans and the Bridgettines (being one of the few that has survived), had their own psalm orderings as well.

Over time these particular forms of the Divine Office were thought to be an integral element to formation in the spirituality of their respective Orders.  As Laszlo Dobszay has pointed out:

In the Middle Ages the members of different religious orders or secular churches jealously guarded their privileges to have a proper liturgy as a symbol and guarantee of their self-identity.  'The choir makes the monk' - said the old dictum, and we may add: this choir makes this (kind of ) monk. [1] 

In the case of the Benedictines, for example, there are arguably close connections between the purpose of the Office and its essential architecture, as well as between key themes in the Rule and the ordering of the psalmody.

St Benedict specifies, for example, that his monks say all of the psalms each week, aligning their work to the work of creation, and thanksgiving for it.  His numerical symbolism perhaps also points to the intercessory value of the Office: 150 psalms for the 150 days that it rained in order to destroy the evils of the world in the Great Flood; and a penitential load of 40 psalms each day for example.

There are also many key connections between the themes of the Rule, and the arrangement of the psalms in St Benedict's Office, as John Fortin, for example, has pointed toin relation to St Benedict's theme of God's constant scrutiny of us, and the ordering of Prime, inter alia. [2]  There are, in my view, many other such connections which appear to be under-appreciated by the Order (at least in the public literature I have been able to access).  These connections don't have to be explicit to have an effect: rather the implicit messages embedded in the forms help form a particular mindset.

For this reason, those attracted to the spiritualities of particular orders will naturally be interested in the liturgies particular to those orders.

The Romanising force

Just how important these distinctive liturgies are in shaping the spirituality of members of the religious orders, though, has long been debated.

In the case of the Benedictines for example, St Benedict's Office was early abandoned outright in favour of the Roman for the Triduum, for example, and a romanised version adopted for major feasts, with the use of special sets of psalms rather than the psalms St Benedict wanted used each day (the Rule suggests that only the antiphons and readings change).  In addition, St Benedict gives permission for other orderings of the psalms than the one he prescribed to be used, provided that all of the psalms are said in the course of a week, and that permission has been used both in the past (and far more extensively in our own time).

In the case of other orders, the most famous is probably the Discalced Carmelites, who adopted the Roman Rite wholesale instead of that of their own order in the seventeenth century.

Abandonment after Vatican II 

Still, the whole process accelerated dramatically after formal permissions was given for Orders to experiment with their liturgies in 1968.

Since Vatican II most religious orders have actually abandoned the particular Offices of their Orders in favour of the 1970 Roman Liturgy of the Hours, or in the case of the Benedictines, Office's of each monasteries own devising.

While some Orders initially made only relatively minor changes, in most cases, the old rites were quickly abandoned and formally suppressed, or extremely restrictive conditions were placed on their use (such as a requirement to obtain a rarely granted special permission).

In the case of the Benedictines, the 1963 breviary was never (as far as I know) formally suppressed.

But monasteries were instead generally 'encouraged' (ie forced) to 'update' their Office in line with the principles set out in the Thesaurus Liturgiae Horarum Monasticae of 1977.  The Thesaurus included some four new psalm schemas (and recognised that others could also be devised) aimed at facilitating the elimination of Prime (in line with the Roman Office), removing the repetitions in the psalter, and spreading the psalms over longer periods.

Some did, of course, cling to the traditional Benedictine psalm cursus, and until relatively recently that effectively meant continuing to use the older chant books even if not the older calendar.

In 1981  however a new psalter (Psalterium Monasticum) came out, causing many monasteries to move to the neo-Vulgate, and in 2005 Solesmes produced the first of a set of new liturgical books adapted to the modern Roman calendar and the various alternate psalm schemas.  And for reasons I don't really understand, even where monasteries like Solesmes actually do use the traditional psalm cursus, they have tinkered with lots of other elements of the hours, for example changed the placement of the hymn.  Perhaps it doesn't really have an impact, but you have to ask, why do it?

The problems with the reforms

As the reforms have progressed, however, some have come to appreciate just how integral the older forms of the liturgy are to their charism, and have observed the consequences of its abandonment.

A recent post over at Rorate Caeli by Peter Kwasniewski, for example, has recently pointed to the problems posed by the watered down version of the faith propagated by the suppression of so much of the psalter in the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours.

The problem is all the more acute for Benedictines, where the liturgy arguably plays such a central role in the charism.  Abbot Phillip Lawrence of Christ in the Desert Monastery, for example, has observed that:

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.

Indeed, some monks in monasteries once claimed to be Benedictine have taken to styling themselves as ‘a monk of  x monastery’, rather than 'OSB' perhaps in recognition of the distance they have moved from the original charism.

Turning of the tide?

Even as the erosion of the charisms of the various orders has gathered pace though, a series of legislative provisions, starting from Pope John Paul II's 1984 Indult for the Traditional Latin Mass, and most particularly Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum (2007) and Universae Ecclesiae (2011) reopened the way to these older forms of the Office.

In addition, some of the more traditionally inclined within the Orders have gone to some trouble, in recent years, to make their traditional liturgies more widely available, and even actively promoted them to the laity.

For the Benedictines, of course, there is the St Michael Abbey's reprint of the Collegeville Monastic Diurnal (as well as the French-Latin and Italian-Latin versions of the Diurnal), daily podcasts of the Office by the monasteries of Le Barroux and Norcia, many youtube videos, and a number of recent recordings released by monasteries.

The Carthusians have placed most of their Office books online.

For the Dominican's, Fr Augustine Thompson and friends provide links to online versions of the 1962 books, Ordos, and supporting material.

You can also obtain the breviaries of many other Orders secondhand, or through recent reprints.

Offices of the religious orders and tradition

Interest in the older forms of the Office of religious orders is not just confined to those who are Oblates, third order or equivalent members of the religious orders.  These older rites have acquired another attraction for the laity more generally, namely their consonance with ancient traditions of the Church.

The reasons for this in my view, are simple: the damage to the Divine Office really started with the reforms of St Pius X, which radically restructured the psalm cursus among many other changes.

Some defend these reforms on the grounds that "the weekly recitation of the entire Psalter had become more or less impossible, both because of the proliferation of feasts over ferial days, and because of a huge burden of psalmody well-suited for monastics but not for seculars."[3]  Personally I think a severe pruning of the calendar, and reduction in the level of some feasts would have done the job.

As it is, as Dobszay has persuasively argued, in my view, that the 1911 reforms eliminated a number of the most ancient and beautiful features of the Office, including several near universal features between Eastern and Western, secular and religious versions of the Office, such as the daily use of the three Laudate Psalms (Psalm 148-150).[4]

The even more drastic reforms of the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours, which cut vast chunks of the psalter out of the Office altogether; eliminated several of the hours and bowdlerised others (most notably the transformation of the Night Office into a day 'Office of Readings'); and spread the psalms over four weeks, has created a new constituency for a more traditional diet.  This is, I can't help thinking, a case of the sensus fidelium at work, for as we all know, lex credendi, lex orandi.

People are instinctively interested in the the Benedictine Office, in particular, whether they are attached to Benedictine spirituality or not, I think, simply because that form of the Office has nearly 1500 years of history behind it (and of course many of its elements go a long way further back than that).

There are, however, some interesting issues around just who is entitled to use these Offices (at least for liturgical purposes), and I'll talk about that a bit more in the next post in this series soon.

Notes

[1] Laszlo Dobszay, The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite, 2010, pg 73.
[2] John D Fortin, “The Presence of God: a linguistic and thematic link between the doctrinal and liturgical sections of the Rule of Saint Benedict”, Downside Review 117 (1999) 293
[3] Peter Kwasniewski, The Omission of the "Difficult" Psalms and the Spreading-Thin of the Psalter, Rorate Caeli, 15.11.16, summarising Cekada.
[4] Laszlo Dobszay,  “Critical Reflections on the Bugnini Liturgy: The Divine Office”, 1983 PDF available from http://musicasacra.com/literature/

Saints of the martyrology for January 5: St Telesphorus, Pope;St Apollinaris of Egypt; St Emiliana, virgin

St Telesphorus

St Telesphorus, who is commemorated today in the Extraordinary Form calendar, was pope between around 127 to 136 AD.  He was an anchorite prior to becoming pope.  Martyred under Emperor Antonius Pius, the custom of midnight masses at Christmas, inter alia, is attributed to him.

St Apollinaris of Egypt

St Apollinaris is one of the "desert mothers".  Apparently the daughter of an emperor of Rome, she put on male clothes and lived as hermit as a disciple of St. Macrius. Her true story was revealed at her death.

St Emiliana

St Emiliana was an aunt of St Gregory the Great.  St Gregory came from a saintly family: his mother and two of his paternal aunts are revered as saints, and today we celebrate one of them.  SS Trasilla and Emiliana devoted themselves to a life of virginity, fasting and prayer in their home in Rome.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, after many years in the service of God, St. Felix III, an ancestor, appeared to Trasilla and bade her enter her abode of glory. On the eve of Christmas she died, seeing Jesus beckoning. A few days later she appeared to Emiliana, who had followed well in her footsteps, and invited her to the celebration of Epiphany in heaven.