St Benedict medals

On the subject of upcoming feasts, can I draw you to a special offer by way of fundraising activity for the Monastery of St Benedict at La Garde-Freinet in France.

Many will know of the monastery for the work of the monks there organising the Sacra Liturgia Conference and related events.

And they are currently offering a special 20% discount on St Benedict medals in the lead up to the feast of the saint next week.

So please do take advantage of the offer and obtain your medal, and help support the community at the same time!

Feast of St Patrick (March 17)

March 17 marks the feast of St Patrick in many places, and for those who say (or want to say) Matins, of the feast, I have posted notes on where to find the various texts required on my Benedictine Matins blog.

For those interested, I have also set up a facebook group where you can discuss posts or ask questions (I envisage the main focus for this being Matins at the moment, but happy to have questions and discussion on broader issues relating to the trad Benedictine Office there as well).

St Patrick

St Patrick lived in the fifth century and is lauded as the apostle to Ireland.  Kidnapped by pirates at the age of 16, and forced into slavery as a shepherd, he converted to Christianity and spent long hours in prayer.  He eventually managed to escape and make his way home.  He had a vision, though,calling him to return:

You can read his own account of his story here, but here are a few key extracts:

My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae. His home was near there, and that is where I was taken prisoner. I was about sixteen at the time. At that time, I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity in Ireland, along with thousands of others.... 

After I arrived in Ireland, I tended sheep every day, and I prayed frequently during the day. More and more the love of God increased, and my sense of awe before God... It was there one night in my sleep that I heard a voice saying to me: “You have fasted well. Very soon you will return to your native country.” Again after a short while, I heard a someone saying to me: “Look – your ship is ready.” It was not nearby, but a good two hundred miles away. I had never been to the place, nor did I know anyone there. So I ran away then, and left the man with whom I had been for six years. It was in the strength of God that I went – God who turned the direction of my life to good; I feared nothing while I was on the journey to that ship... 

A few years later I was again with my parents in Britain. They welcomed me as a son, and they pleaded with me that, after all the many tribulations I had undergone, I should never leave them again. It was while I was there that I saw, in a vision in the night, a man whose name was Victoricus coming as it were from Ireland with so many letters they could not be counted. He gave me one of these, and I read the beginning of the letter, the voice of the Irish people. While I was reading out the beginning of the letter, I thought I heard at that moment the voice of those who were beside the wood of Voclut, near the western sea. They called out as it were with one voice: “We beg you, holy boy, to come and walk again among us.” This touched my heart deeply, and I could not read any further; I woke up then. Thanks be to God, after many years the Lord granted them what they were calling for.

The hymns for Lent

Today being the first Sunday of Lent, the hymns of the Office all change.

At Matins, Lauds and Vespers there are hymns for the season. And at the other hours, a Lenten psalm tone is used, the same one for Prime to None, with a separate one for Te Lucis at Compline.

Accordingly, I thought I'd try and point you to sources (written and audio) for these various chants in case you want to try learning them.

Matins: Ex more docti mystico (the fast as taught by holy lore)

The modern Liber Hymnarius (Solesmes) provides a version of this hymn which you can hear sung at the online Liber Hymnarius.  The Nocturnale Romanum provides a slightly different version of this chant that I suspect is the older version, but I'm not absolutely certain of that.  And there are recordings of a quite different chant tone around, but I haven't been able to locate a hard copy version of it.

Lauds: Iam Christe sol iustitiae

You can hear the hymn sung here.

Prime to None

I haven't been able to locate a recording of the hymn alone (if you know of one please let me know), but go to one of the Le Barroux Office websites and you should be able to find the current tone (or an archived recording).

Vespers: Audi Benigne Conditor



Compline: Lenten tone for Te Lucis

You can hear it here (last in the list).

Saints of the martyrology: St Chad of Mercia (March 2)

St Chad, Lichfield Cathedral

From the martyrology:

At Lichfield in England, St. Chad, bishop of Mercia and Lindisfarne, whose excellent virtues are mentioned by St. Venerable Bede.

According to St Bede, St Chad was one of four brothers who became students of St Aidan (a disciple of St Columba) at the monastery of Lindisfarne.  When St Aidan died in 651, all four travelled to Ireland to complete their education.

St Chad returned to Northumbria by 664, taking over as Abbot of Lastingham Monastery after his brother Cedd died from the plague.

He was appointed archbishop of York by King Oswy, replacing the exiled Wilfrid.  His appointment was highly irregular though, and so when the newly appointed Archbishop Theodore arrived in England, he instructed Chad to step down, and restored Wilfrid to his position.

St Chad accepted Theodore’s charges of impropriety with such humility and grace that Theodore subsequently ap­pointed him as the bishop of Mercia. He established a see at Lichfield.  As bishop he established monasteries and undertook a great deal of missionary work before he too died of the plague.

The wikipedia entry on the saint relates the story of his holy death:

Bede tells us that Owin was working outside the oratory at Lichfield. Inside, Chad studied alone because the other monks were at worship in the church. Suddenly Owin heard the sound of joyful singing, coming from heaven, at first to the south-east, but gradually coming closer until it filled the roof of the oratory itself. Then there was silence for half an hour, followed by the same singing going back the way it had come. Owin at first did nothing, but about an hour later Chad called him in and told him to fetch the seven brothers from the church. Chad gave his final address to the brothers, urging them to keep the monastic discipline they had learnt. Only after this did he tell them that he knew his own death was near, speaking of death as "that friendly guest who is used to visiting the brethren". He asked them to pray, then blessed and dismissed them. The brothers left, sad and downcast.

Owin returned a little later and saw Chad privately. He asked about the singing. Chad told him that he must keep it to himself for the time being: angels had come to call him to his heavenly reward, and in seven days they would return to fetch him. So it was that Chad weakened and died after seven days – on 2 March, which remains his feast day. Bede writes that: "he had always looked forward to this day – or rather his mind had always been on the Day of the Lord". 

Many years later, his old friend Egbert told a visitor that someone in Ireland had seen the heavenly company coming for Chad's soul and returning with it to heaven. Significantly, with the heavenly host was Cedd. Bede was not sure whether or not the vision was actually Egbert's own.

Learning matins

I'm regularly asked for information on how to say Matins.

So for those interested, I've set up a separate blog (easier to read and post boxes and diagrams on) where I will post some material to assist on this.

The posts will be a mix of material on the structure of the hour and its rubrics, background on the prayers it includes, and aids to a deeper understanding of the text.

Happy Lent!

Getting ready for Lent Pt 2 - Suggestions for reading and prayer

Yesterday I posted the relevant sections of the Rule of St Benedict on Lent.

Today I thought I'd post a few concrete suggestions for implementing St Benedict's regime for those who haven't already settled on a Lenten regime.

1.  Reading a book right through.

As I noted yesterday, in a monastery each monk or nun is traditionally assigned a book to read from beginning to end during Lent.  Some have argued that St Benedict probably meant a book of the Bible in chapter 48, but I don't see any reason to take that view - monastic libraries then as now contained a lot more than just Scripture!  The ideal is to have your spiritual director assign a book to you.  But failing that, you could ask for help from your guardian angel by way of making a choice.

Personally I tend to alternate my Lent's between rereading one of the great spiritual classics, and reading something new.

So if you have a personal library you can draw on including both books you've kept to reread, and maybe some you've been meaning to get around to, now is a good time to take a look at it again!  If not though, there are many fantastic options available on the net, and an excellent starting place in my view is New Advent Fathers, where you can find a dizzying array of suitable classics, such as St Augustine's Confessions, St Athanasius' Life of St Antony or Sulpicius Severus' Life of St Martin.

My own (highly selective and eclectic) list of classics to revisit each year:

• in the Eastern Church, monks traditionally reread one of St Benedict's near contemporaries, St John Climacus' (579-606) Ladder of Divine Ascent, and its a great work for all of us;   
• Walter Hilton (d c1395), The Scale of Perfection, a classic of the English mystical tradition that includes other works well worth rereading such as the Ancrene Riwle, Cloud of Unknowing and the works of Julian of Norwich and Richard Rolle; 
• the Devotions of Dame Gertrude More (descendant of St Thomas, 1604-1633), an extremely hard to obtain gem, meditations of a nun who helped re-establish the English Benedictines on the continent;
• Dom Columba Marmion, Christ the Ideal of the Monk; and
• St John Cassian's Conferences and Institutes.

This year however I personally plan to read Volume 1 of St Gregory the Great's commentary on Job (Moralia in Job), since a kind reader gifted the set to me, and I'm currently extremely interested in the debate on St Gregory the Great's contribution of the Benedictine charism, and the saints' own spirituality.

2.  Applying ourselves to prayer

St Benedict also suggests, in chapter 49, that we offer something more by way of private prayer.

Good options for this, in my view, include:

• the Penitential Psalms;
• Psalm 118;
• the psalms of Holy Week Tenebrae (try a psalm a day); or
• the Gradual Psalms (Ps 119-133).

 3.  Fasting and abstinence

I've previously written on the Rule's provisions here.  What you can do in this area will obviously depend on your own circumstances, however, I thought that you might find a few comments by one of St Benedict's contemporaries, St Fulgentius of Ruspe useful, as they seem to me to be entirely in line with St Benedict's own approach.  In a letter to a Roman consecrated virgin named Proba (probably the sister-in-law of St Boethius) he said:

....moderation must be used in the matter of fasts in such a way that neither satiety stirs up our body nor immoderate lack of food weakens it.  Let a meal of such a kind follow a virgin's fast that it neither entices the body with its pleasantness nor inflames it with satiety.  Alms for the poor are diminished by pleasantness; the body is made bellicose by satiety.  Then what is owed to brothers is devoured; here assistance is furnished to the enemy.  For us who wish to seduce the lust of glutony with a variety of flavors, pleasure consumes what the poor man ought to receive.  Accordingly let neither weakness usurp nor satiety do away with fasting.  Each one is at the service of our adversaries because one removes the usefulness of the fast that precedes, the other obstructs the possibility of the subsequent fast.  Satiety brings it about that we fast to no purpose; weakness brings it about that we are unable to fast. (Trans Robert B Eno, in Fulgentius Selected Works, The Fathers of the Church vol 95)

Getting ready for Lent...

As Lent starts this Wednesday I thought now might be a good time to remind you of the provisions relating to Lent in the Rule of St Benedict.  There are two key ones, relating to reading a book right through (chapter 48) and offering something by way of extra asceticism.

St Benedict, of course, wants whatever is offered to be approved by the Abbot, who also traditionally assigns the book to be read during the season.

The approval of a superior or spiritual director, though, isn't always possible these days, so you may need to be guided by general principles, such as Benedictine moderation, and the importance of picking something that you can persevere with, rather than attempting to be over-ambitious.

I will post some suggestions on books and prayers tomorrow.

CHAPTER XLIX OF THE OBSERVANCE OF LENT

THE life of a monk ought at all times to be Lenten in its character; but since few have the strength for that, we therefore urge that in these days of Lent the brethren should lead lives of great purity, and should also in this sacred season expiate the negligences of other times.

This will be worthily done if we refrain from all sin and apply ourselves to prayer with tears, to reading, to compunction of heart and to abstinence.

In these days, therefore, let us add something to the wonted measure of our service, such as private prayers and abstinence in food and drink.

Let each one, over and above the measure prescribed for him, offer to God something of his own free will in the joy of the Holy Spirit. That is to say, let him stint himself of food, drink, sleep, talk and jesting, and look forward with the joy of spiritual longing to the holy feast of Easter.

Let each one, however, tell his abbot what he is offering, and let it be done with his consent and
blessing; because what is done without the permission of the spiritual father shall be reckoned as presumption and vainglory and not as merit. Everything, therefore, is to be done with the approval of the abbot.

SACRED READING (ch 48)

...In the days of Lent let them apply themselves to their reading from the morning until the end of the third hour, and from then until the end of the tenth hour let them perform the work that is assigned to
them. In these days of Lent let them each receive a book from the library, which they shall read right through from the beginning; let these books be given out at the beginning of Lent.