The mystery of the numbers: 'Epiphany Sunday' and other liturgical problems

A celebration of 'plough Sunday'

This Sunday is one of those most affected by the liturgical wreckovations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and not for the better, so I thought I would put up a little note on the various changes it has gone through.

In many places, the feast of the Epiphany is being celebrated today, creating the curious phenomenon of the 'thirteen days of Christmas' this year.

When Our Lord was twelve years old...

It is probably just as well, then that the Gospel of the day, common to the three previous versions of the Sunday (Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany, First Sunday after the Epiphany, and Feast of the Holy Family) is not used, since it emphasizes the importance of numbers in Scripture.

The text in question is St Luke 2:42-52:

And when he was twelve years old, they going up into Jerusalem, according to the custom of the feast, And having fulfilled the days, when they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not. And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day's journey, and sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance. And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers. And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? did you not know, that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. And his mother kept all these words in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men.

St Ambrose's commentary on the Gospel, read at Matins in the traditional Office, points out the importance of Our Lord's age, and the number of days Jesus was missing:

We read that when He was twelve years old the Lord began to dispute. The number of His years was the same as the number of the Apostles whom He afterwards sent forth to preach the Faith. He Who, as touching His Manhood, was filled with wisdom and grace from God, was not careless of the parents of the same Manhood, and, after three days, was pleased to be found in the Temple : thereby foreshadowing that, after the three days of His victorious Passion, He That had been reckoned with the dead, would present Himself, living, to our faith, in His heavenly Kingship and Divine Majesty.

Numbers in Scripture

Numbers in Scripture then, translated into the liturgical traditions of the Church, are not random, to be adjusted to suit our convenience; rather they are meant to remind us of the mysteries being celebrated.

The twelve days of Christmas leading up to the great feast of the Epiphany, when we celebrate the manifestation of the Incarnation to the nations, is not a random number, but encoded message about the spread of the Gospel, of the universality of its message, and the centrality of the Incarnation.

Christ's incarnation was made known at his birth to the Magi, the shepherd's and the angels; and again manifested when he had turned twelve years old, in his teaching in the Temple.

The current fashion of 'Epiphany Sunday' and its companion 'Ascension Thursday Sunday' are, I think, classic examples of inorganic development of the liturgy which needed to be suppressed as quickly as possible.

Feast of the Holy Family

By contrast, the prior feast in the EF calendar, the Feast of the Holy Family, illustrates a more natural type of development of the liturgy.  It had is origins in the seventeenth century in New France (now Canada), but was only introduced into the universal Roman calendar in 1921.

As far as I can discover, never made it into the Benedictine Calendar, though the Monastic Diurnal does provide texts for it in the supplement at the back of the book.

The feast, though, used the same Gospel as the old Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany, and thus simply provided some variety, through its antiphons, within the old Octave, relating closely to the themes of the Epiphany, in much the same way that the various feasts of the Christmas Octave do.

Octave of the Epiphany

The other major twentieth century change impacting on this Sunday was the abolition of most Octaves.

Prior to the 1950s, the Sunday was part of the Octave, reflecting the fact that the Epiphany is traditionally viewed as one of the most important feasts of the year.  Indeed in many places and times, it was seen as more important than Christmas, perhaps reflecting the Eastern tradition where the nativity is celebrated as part of the feast of the Epiphany.

The extension of a feast to eight days goes back to Jewish traditions: eight people were saved in Noah's ark; boys were circumcised on the eighth day after their birth; many purification ceremonies required eight days; and many feasts were celebrated over eight days, foreshadowing Christ's Resurrection on the 'eighth day'.

The association with the number eight isn't entirely lost in the 1962 calendar, since the old Octave day of the Epiphany is still celebrated as the 'Commemoration of the Baptism of Our Lord'.  Still, given that the Epiphany particularly celebrates Christ's baptism among its three main mysteries, it seems particularly unfortunate to downplay the association with the number of eight, given its strong baptismal associations (baptisteries, for example, traditionally had eight sides because of the eight saved from the Flood).

Accordingly, prior to the introduction of the feast (and in the Benedictine Office) the Sunday would have used the psalms and antiphons of the feast of the Epiphany, though with its own readings and related texts.

Most octaves, though, were abolished in the fifties, and this, unfortunately, was one of them.  It is one that should, in my view, be brought back!

Plough Sunday

It is also worth noting that this Sunday was traditionally, at least in England, known as 'Plough Sunday', when blessings of the relevant implements were done in anticipation of the start of planting the crops for the year.

Here in Australia, it is of course, the wrong season for this lovely tradition, by I gather it is making a bit of a come back in Northern climes!

Brush up your rubrics for Advent - the chapter, versicle, responsories and hymns

Today the final part in the brush up your rubrics for Advent series, aimed at helping you to get ready for the complexities of the Advent Office.

 So far I have covered:

• The antiphons for the psalms (Pt 1);
• The antiphons for the psalms during Advent (Pt 2);
• The canticle antiphons and collects throughout the year (Pt 3);
• The canticle antiphons and collects during Advent (Pt 4).

Today I want to focus on the parts of the Office that immediately follow the psalmody (other than the canticle and its antiphon at Lauds and Vespers and the closing prayers which we have already covered).

Lauds and Vespers - all change!

The most important thing to keep in mind when saying Lauds and Vespers during Advent is that all of the parts of the Office after the psalmody - that is the chapter, short responsory, hymn and versicle - change during Advent.  

That means you have to ignore what appears in the psalter section of your Diurnal or breviary and instead use the texts found under the 'Ordinary of Advent' (Diurnal page 9* onwards; Antiphonale Monasticum page 181 onwards).

The table below summarises the impact of Advent on these two hours.

	Lauds and Vespers during the week	I&II Vespers of Sunday, Sunday Lauds
Opening prayers	As throughout the year
Antiphons for the psalms	As throughout the year until December 17, then of the week day in the period	Of the Sunday of Advent
Psalms	Of the day
Chapter, responsory, hymn, versicle	Ordinary of Advent	Of the Advent Sunday (mostly from the Ordinary)
Canticle antiphon	Of the Advent day or date
Canticle	As throughout the year
Closing prayers	Collect of the Advent week or day

The hymns (and hymn tones) of the season

Accordingly, this is the week to brush up (or learn) the hymns of the season, namely:

• Conditor alme siderum at Vespers;
• Vox clara ecce intonat at Lauds; and 
• Verbum supernum prodiens at Matins.

(Note the recordings I've linked to use slightly different texts to the monastic ones in some cases).

In the case of Prime, Terce to None and Compline the texts of the hymns do not change.  If you are singing them though, there are special chant tones for the season:

• the chant tone for the hymn, Te Lucis ante Terminum (Compline) can be found on page 183 of the Antiphonale Monasticum; and
• the chant tone for Iam lucis orto at Prime is also used at Terce to None, and can be found in the Antiphonale Monasticum on page 185.

Chapter and versicles for Terce to None

The chapter and versicles of the little hours are all of Advent, but because they are the same throughout Advent they can be found both in the Ordinary of Advent section and in the psalter section.

The table below summarises the impact of Advent on Prime, Compline and Terce to None.

PART OF THE HOUR	COMPLINE	PRIME	TERCE TO NONE
Opening prayers/section	As for throughout the year
Hymn	Text as for throughout the year; chant tone of Advent, AM 183	Text as for throughout the year; chant tone of Advent, AM 185
Antiphon and psalms	Unchanged (no antiphon)	Antiphon of the week or day of Advent with psalms of the day of the week	Antiphon of the week or day of Advent with psalms of day
Chapter/short reading and versicle	As for throughout the year		For Advent, as noted in the psalter section
Closing prayers	As for throughout the year		Collect of the Advent week or day

Matins

At Matins, the Ordinary of the season includes:

• the invitatory antiphon (which changes from the Third Sunday of Advent);
• the hymn;
• antiphons on Sundays;
• versicles at the end of Nocturn I; and
• chapter.

Brush up your rubrics for Advent - The canticle antiphons and collects in Advent

In the previous part of this series I talked about how the canticle antiphons and collects usually work; today I want to work on the canticle antiphons and collects of Advent.

Advent days and dates

The first thing you need to know is that during Advent, the antiphons for the Benedictus at Lauds and the Magnificat at Vespers are different each day, being either of the Advent day (eg Monday in the First week of Advent, Tuesday in the first week of Advent, etc) or of the date (unless, of course, displaced by a feast).

The trick is that between December 17 and 23, the Lauds canticle is generally (subject to two key exceptions) of the Advent day (not date), while the Vespers canticles of the Advent day are displaced by those of the date (viz the O antiphons).

So this year (2017) for example, at Lauds on Monday 18 November, the canticle is of Monday in the Third Week of Advent (Egredietur virga).

The O antiphons

At Vespers, however, you have to ignore the Magnificat antiphon set down for the Monday in the third week in your book and instead use the O antiphon of the date, O Adonai.

• The Great O's as they are known, can be found in the Diurnal on page 35-6*, or in the Antiphonale on page 208-11.  In other books, look after the Third Sunday of Advent.

The O antiphons are ancient indeed, known to St Benedict's contemporary Boethius, and all have essentially the same melody, so are easy to learn, and there are numerous recordings of them available on youtube.

Lauds canticles

Although Lauds mostly sticks to canticles of the Advent day, it does have some canticles of the date as well, namely for December 21 (Nolite Timere, used in the commemoration of the day as it is the feast of St Thomas) and December 23 (Ecce completa).

The table below summarises the source of the canticles between December 17 and the end of Advent - and of course don't forget that the first word of the O antiphons working backwards spells out Ero Cras - tomorrow I will come!

	Lauds	Vespers
Dec 17	Of the Advent day (2017: Third Sunday of Advent)	O Sapientia
Dec 18	Of the Advent day (2017: Monday in the third week of Advent)	O Adonai
Dec 19	Of the Advent day (2017: Tuesday wk III)	O Radix Iesse
Dec 20	Of the Advent day (2017: Ember Wednesday of Advent)	O Clavis David
Dec 21	Of the Advent day (St Thomas – for the commemoration of the Advent Day, Nolite Timere)	O Oriens
Dec 22	Of the Advent day (2017: Ember Friday of Advent)	O Rex gentium
Dec 23	Of the date – Ecce completa est	O Emmanuel
Dec 24	Of the Vigil of the Nativity	Of I Vespers of the Nativity

The collects

The collects for Advent follow the normal pattern, generally being of the Sunday each week (except at Prime and Compline).

The key exception is the three Ember days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in the third week of Advent), which each have their own collect.

Brush up your rubrics (for Advent) Part III - How the canticle antiphons and collects work

I want to continue my series on getting ready for Advent today with a look at the antiphons for the Benedictus (Lauds) and Magnificat (Vespers), as well as the collects, work in the Office more generally.  In the next part I'll focus in on the peculiarities of the Advent set.

The normal pattern of canticle antiphons and collects

On normal days (Class IV ferias and Sundays) throughout the year, the antiphons for the two New Testament canticles follow the following pattern:

• at Saturday Vespers, the Magnificat antiphon is of the following Sunday, and usually reflects the first Nocturn Scriptural readings of Sunday Matins;

• on Sundays the two canticle antiphons usually refer to the Gospels said at (EF) Mass that day (and also read at Matins);

• on weekdays, the canticle antiphons are of the particular weekday, and are the same throughout the year and so included in the psalter section of the Diurnal, breviary and Antiphonale.

The collects

The Saturday and Sunday canticle antiphons throughout the year are found in the 'temporale' section of the Diurnal and other Office books along with the Sunday collect.  The table below summarises where the collects are taken from.  It shows that the Sunday collect is usually used from Saturday Vespers until Vespers the following Friday at all hours except Prime and Compline (which have their own fixed collects used throughout the year).  

On Saturdays (or Friday Vespers if you are following the Le Barroux rubrics, which still includes Vespers of the Office of Our Lady, abolished in the 1962 rubrics), the normal weekly collect is displaced by that for the Office of Our Lady on Saturday.

Collects during the year (outside of Advent and Lent etc)

DAY AND HOUR	THE COLLECT IS OF…	NOTES
Saturday Vespers	Of the following Sunday	Unless displaced by a feast
Sunday Matins & Lauds, Terce to Vespers	Of the Sunday	Unless displaced by a Class I feast
Prime every day	Always the same – Domine Deus omnipotens…	Subject to a few rare exceptions such as All Souls and the Triduum
Compline every day	Always the same – Visita quaesumus	Subject to a few rare exceptions such as All Souls and the Triduum
Monday to Friday Matins & Lauds, Terce to Vespers	Of the previous Sunday	Unless displaced by a feast or higher level day
Saturday Matins & Lauds, Terce to None	Collect for Office of Our Lady on Saturday	Unless displaced by a feast or higher level feast. In some monasteries, the Office of Our Lady starts with I Vespers on Friday night.

Where to find the antiphons and collects

Finding the canticle antiphons for Saturdays and Sundays can sometimes be a little tricky, as from the Second Sunday of Pentecost until the end of the liturgical year, they are typically on two different places in the 'temporale' (texts for the time of year).

This is because the First (and Second) Nocturn readings of Matins are not always 'attached' to the Mass cycle of Sundays of the year.  Instead, they follow an ancient cycle of Scriptural readings that originally enabled the entire Bible to be read in a year, with the readings from August to November being of the Sunday of the month rather than the Sunday Mass cycle.

In the Monastic Diurnal, the Saturday Vespers antiphons can be found (under the heading I Vespers) from pages 432* onwards; those for the equivalent Sundays from page 461*. 

In the Antiphonale Monasticum (AM), the Saturday antiphon sequence starts at the fourth Saturday after Penteocst, on page 575 (labelled 'Tempore post Pentecosten...antiphonae dicendae in sabbatis).  The Sunday sequence starts on AM 593.

Advent and the other exceptions

The key exceptions to the patterns described above are:

• feasts, where the canticle of the feast will normally displace the canticle antiphon and collect  that would otherwise be said (except at Prime and Compline);
• some special feasts through the year when the Benedictine Office is displaced by the Roman (such as during the Sacred Triduum and on All Souls) which affect Prime and Compline;
• higher level 'days', such as the four sets of Ember Days during the year, which have their own collects; and
• special seasons of the year such as Advent.

But more on this in the next part of the series.

Brush up your rubrics for Advent - The antiphons for the psalms Part II

In the last part of this series aimed at preparing for Advent I gave a bit of an overview on the antiphons, and ended on where to find them in your Office book.

Today I want to say a bit more about their use in general, as well as cover the antiphons for the particularly tricky period of Advent between December 17 and 23.

The Lauds antiphons as the core

The first thing to keep in mind not only for Advent, but also for feasts and seasons throughout the year is that 'core' set of antiphons are usually those for Lauds.

During the first part of Advent for example, the antiphons for Sunday Lauds are also used (omitting the fourth) at I Vespers of Sunday (ie Saturday Vespers) and at Prime to None.

So during the first week of Lent, the antiphon 'In illa die' is the first antiphon sung for Advent, at Saturday Vespers (MD 1*/AM 187), is repeated at Lauds (MD 4*), and then used at Prime throughout the week (MD 6*).

Which antiphon at which hour?

Office books will sometimes simply refer to you the antiphons of Lauds (or in the case of Prime, just expect you to know!), without spelling out which is for which hour. 

An important example of this is the antiphons used between December 17 and 23, which can be found on page 37* of the Monastic Diurnal, or page 212 of the Antiphonale Monasticum.

In these cases, the basic principle you need to remember is that on feasts and during Advent, the antiphon for Prime is the first antiphon of Lauds (either of the feast itself or from the Common of the type of feast or saint); the second antiphon of Lauds is used at Terce; the third antiphon of Lauds is used at Sext; and the fifth is used at None.  The table below provides a summary.

Hour of the Office	Antiphon for the hour	Notes
Prime	1st antiphon of Lauds	The antiphon is the only thing that changes at this hour for most feasts and seasons
Terce	2nd of Lauds	Chapter, versicle and collect (but not hymn or psalms) also change for seasons and feasts
Sext	3rd of Lauds
None	5th of Lauds
(Sunday) Vespers	1st of Lauds=1st of Vespers 2nd of Lauds=2nd of Vespers 3rd of Lauds=3rd of Vespers 5th of Lauds=4th of Vespers	Some feasts have their own sets of Vespers antiphons. Psalms and chapter, responsory and rest of texts other than canticle may change for feasts and seasons.
Compline	No antiphons used with psalms

The antiphons for December 17 to 23

The most important application of this during Advent is the special sets of antiphons for the day of the week during the second part of Advent.

As noted earlier, from December 17 onwards, Advent becomes much more intense, with antiphons for the day of the week.

In 2017, December 17 is a Sunday, so the antiphons are for the (Third) Sunday of Advent.  On Monday December 18, though, you use the set for Monday (or feria secunda in the Antiphonale or a breviary).

That means 'Ecce veniet Dominus' to start Lauds, Prime and Vespers.

Note that these antiphons are used with the normal psalms that are said on the particular day of the week.

Antiphons at weekday Lauds and Vespers during Advent

The other key point to note is that while Lauds and I&II Vespers of Sunday use the antiphons for the first week of Advent, on weekdays in the first part of Advent, the antiphons (and psalms) at Lauds and Vespers are just the usual ones used throughout the year.

It is only from December 17 onwards that the Advent psalms are used at all the hours.

Antiphons for Matins

For those who say Matins, there is one set of Advent antiphons, noted in the psalter, for use on Sundays during Advent; the normal antiphons are used on all other days.

Want to learn to sing the Advent antiphons by ear?

And for those wanting to sing the Office, a very useful resource to be aware of is the archive function of the site the Chant of Le Barroux - provided you know the date of the relevant feast from last year, you can retrieve many of the hours there.

So if you can't read music (or even if you can but want to check you are doing it correctly), just go to the recording for the relevant date last year (try here for the First Sunday of Advent in 2022) and go over it until you know the antiphons for the first week. 

Note however that Le Barroux generally sings the antiphons and psalms 'recto tono' at Lauds, so start with Vespers for this purpose.

Brush up your rubrics for Advent - The antiphons for the psalms, Part I

We are rapidly approaching the end of the liturgical year and thus approaching Advent, which is surely the most complicated period for the Office of the entire year.

Time to get ready!

Accordingly, I thought this might be a good time to do a little brush-up your rubrics series, with a particular emphasis on how to say the Office is during Advent.

This series is particularly aimed at those who are relatively new to the Office, but others may find it of use as well, by way of a refresher.

In particular, for those who want to follow along with the Le Barroux monks or sing the Office themselves, I have now added page references for the Antiphonale Monasticum to my Ordo notes.  So I thought it might also be helpful to make a few comments along the way about how to adapt that book to the 1960 (and Le Barroux variant) rubrics.

The antiphons - a brief introduction

Today I want to start looking at the antiphons for the psalms, the short refrain used at the beginning and end of each psalm or group of psalms.

St Benedict specifically mentions the use of antiphons in his description of the Office in his Rule, including the use of particular sets of antiphons for festivals, in a way that seems to make it pretty clear that he is talking of antiphons in the same way we use the term (and not just the psalms sung antiphonally).   The actual sets of antiphons for various feasts and seasons though, gradually expanded over the centuries as seasons and feasts were added or became more elaborated.

Singing the Office

The antiphons are particularly important musically, as their 'mode' determines the chant tone that the psalm is sung on.

If you take a look at page 3 of the psalter section of the Antiphonale Monasticum (from page 1 in Part I if you download it), for example, you will see annotations of 'VIII G' next to the start of the antiphon (incipit) for Monday Prime during the year (Feria Secunda ad Primam...In Feriis Officio per Annum, Antiphona).

That means that the psalms that follow (Psalms 1, 2&6) are sung to Tone 8.

Textual function

But their key textual function is to introduce and conclude the psalm, either by highlighting a particularly important verse in what is being sung, or by reminding us of an aspect of the feast or season.

For this reason, Advent has several sets of antiphons just for the season:

• one set of antiphons for Sunday Matins in the season of Advent to replace those used throughout the year; 
• a set of antiphons for each week of Advent, used at I Vespers of Sunday (Saturday), Sunday Lauds to Vespers, and Prime to None each day up until 16 December; and
• a set of antiphons for Lauds to Vespers for each day of the week used between December 17 and 23.

Finding the antiphons for Advent

For much of the year the antiphons used at each hour are included in the psalter section of your Diurnal, breviary, psalter or other Office book.

If you look again at page 3 of the Antiphonale for example, you will see that it provides the leads in to the antiphons for time throughout the year (Officio per annum), Lent (Tempore Quadragesimae), Passiontide and Easter (Tempore Paschale).   You can find the same selection of antiphons in the Monastic Diurnal at the start of its psalter section (MD  2-3 in the 2004 onwards editions).

For Advent though, with the exception of Sunday Matins (where the Advent antiphons are included in most books) because they change each week or day, they are found in the 'temporale' section of Office books, which provide the texts for the special seasons of the year.

Accordingly, your first bit of preparation for Advent is to make sure you can find the antiphons.  For the first part of Advent (up to and including December 16):

• in the Monastic Diurnal, look in the Proper of the Season section near the start of the book - the first page provides the antiphons for 1 Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent which are also used at Lauds (with the addition of the missing fourth antiphon, MD 4*), and then for subsequent weeks.  The antiphons for Prime to None for each week are also included in the Ordinary of the ferial office of Advent, MD 9* ff;
• in the Antiphonale Monasticum, the antiphons for the first Sunday of Advent (also used at I Vespers, viz Sabbato ante Dominicam I Adventus) are on AM (Part I of the download version) on page 187, with subsequent weeks following; 
• if you are using a breviary, make sure you have the right volume, and look for them in the temporale.  In the 1962 breviary the relevant section starts on page 3 and is headed Tempus Adventus;
• in the Psautier Monastique, the antiphons for Prime to None can be found in the Ordinary of Advent section, which starts on page 560.

Antiphonale shortcuts

And one final point - I noted earlier that on page 3 of the Antiphonale it provides just the 'incipits' of the Prime antiphons.  That is because in earlier versions of the Office, the antiphons were not always sung in full before the psalms.  In many cases, only the incipit was sung before; the full thing after. 

In the 1962 Office though, it was decided to restore what was almost certainly the original practice of singing the antiphon in full both before and after the psalm(s).  So if you are using the Antiphonale, in some cases you may need to turn over to the end of the psalms to find the full antiphon written out (unless of course you know them by heart and just use the incipits as a memory prompt).

Australian monastic news - upcoming discernment weekend for young women

Just a quick update on some positive news for Australians, with a request for prayers for the success of our emerging traditional religious communities.

Daughters of the Maternal Heart of Mary

There will be a discernment weekend for the emerging community of the Daughters of the Maternal Heart of Mary on November 24-26 in Sydney.

The Daughters of the Maternal Heart of Mary is a semi-contemplative traditional community of women based in Sydney, Australia, living a life of prayer and work according to the spirit of St. Benedict.

If you are a single woman aged  18-35, please do consider going to the weekend - you can find more information by following the link.

Notre Dame Priory

And Australia's emerging men's monastery in Tasmania takes a big step forward in a few weeks, with the clothing of the first group of novices.

Please keep these young men in your prayers as they take the next step on their path.

You could also take a look at the monk shop to help support them.