Thursday, October 13, 2016

Brush up your rubrics - Lauds



Image result for lauds


For those who say Lauds (or are interested in learning to say it), I'm currently posting a series over at Psallam Domino on that hour, including the spiritual and theological context of the hour, as well as notes on the variable psalms (and links to previous more detailed notes on the fixed psalms of the hour).

For those just wanting the quick skinny on the hour, here are a few key summaries to help you.


1.  The structure of Lauds.

The table below summarises the structure of Lauds - note that there are in effect three versions of it: Lauds on Sundays; Lauds for major feasts (festal); and Lauds on normal weekdays.  The table sets out what changes each day and what doesn't.



ELEMENT OF LAUDS
 SUNDAY                       FEASTS                 WEEKDAYS                     
Opening prayers

                                          Fixed
Psalm 66

                                          Fixed
Antiphon:


Variable (normally alleluia)
Psalm 50+ Gloria


Fixed
Psalm 92+variable antiphon
Fixed +variable antiphon
Psalm+Gloria


Psalm 117
Psalm 99+variable antiphon
Of the day +variable antiphon
Psalm+Gloria


Psalm 62
Psalm 62+variable antiphon
Of the day +variable antiphon
Antiphon

Variable
Antiphon for the canticle

Variable
Variable
Variable
OT Canticle



Benedicite Domino (no Gloria)
Festal canticle of the day of the week with Gloria
Ferial or festal canticle of the day of the week  with Gloria
Antiphon

                                     Variable
Ps 148+149+150+Gloria

                                     Fixed
Antiphon

                                    Variable
Chapter

                                    Variable
Responsory

                                    Variable                
Hymn


Variable – summer winter and seasons
Of the feast
Of the day of the week or season
versicle

                                     Variable
Antiphon for the Benedictus

                                     Variable
Benedictus

                                      Fixed
Antiphon

                                      Variable
Closing prayers

                                      Fixed
-          Collect

Of the Sunday
Of the feast
Of the Sunday or day
-          Commemoration (if applicable)
Of the feast
Of the feast or day (ie Lent or Advent days)
Of the feast


2.  Page numbers in the Diurnal

The chants for Lauds can be found in the Antiphonale Monasticum (which can be downloaded from the CCWatershed or purchased through monastic bookshops, including online via Le Barroux); alternatively learn them by ear by listening to the monks of Norcia..

PART OF LAUDS                                 PAGE

Opening prayers – Deus…
MD 1
Psalm 66 – Deus miseratur…
MD 38, 58
Antiphons
of day of the week or feast/season
Antiphon(s), Psalm 50; 2 variable psalms; OT canticle; Laudate psalms Ps 148-150
Sunday, MD 39
Festal (for feasts), MD 44
Monday - MD 59
Tuesday - start MD 76
Wednesday – MD 89
Thursday – MD 102
Friday - MD 118
Saturday - MD 133
Chapter
See in psalter as above or for season/feast
Short Responsory
See in psalter as above or for season/feast
Hymn
Of the day of the week (pg nos above) or feast/season
Versicle
See in psalter as above or for season/feast
Antiphon for the Benedictus
Of the day of the week/feast/season
[on Sundays, of the week of the liturgical year]
Benedictus
MD 56, 73
Antiphon for the Benedictus
 M-S of the day of the week; Sun of the week in the calendar
Closing prayers
 MD 57
-          Collect
Of the week of the liturgical year or day/feast
-          Commemoration of the saint or day
Canticle antiphon, versicle and collect said immediately after the collect of the day

3.  Key points to remember about Lauds

1. The key texts for each day of the week (starting with Sunday) can be found in the Diurnal after Prime (but the hour is said before it) in the psalter section.

2. Lauds is said in the early morning, ideally at first light.

3. Only two (three on feasts) of the psalms change each day – Psalm 66 and 148-150 are normally said every day, and Psalm 50 is said every day except feasts and during some seasons.

4. There is also an Old Testament canticle for each day of the week (including a ‘ferial’ and optional ‘festal’ canticle for Monday-Saturday).

5. The antiphons, chapter, responsory, hymn, versicle can be of the day of the week (Class IV days), season, feast or day.

6. The collect is either of the Sunday of the week (all Class IV days) or of the day, season or feast.

7. The antiphon for the Benedictus is of the day of the week or feast from Monday to Saturday, but on Sunday is normally of the week of the month or liturgical season.


King St Edward (EF), Oct 13




Bayeux Tapestry
From the martyrology:

"In England, St. Edward, King, who died on the 5th of January. He is specially honored on this day, on account of the translation of his body."




Wednesday, October 12, 2016

St Wilfrid OSB (in some places), Oct 12




The feast of St Wilfrid (633-709), abbot and bishop of York, is not celebrated in the Universal Benedictine calendar, but in some places, such as England.

From the martyrology:
"At York, in England, St. Wilfrid, bishop and confessor."
Wilfrid was born in Northumbria in about 633 and left home early due to a family conflict, eventually studying at the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria before ending up at the King of Kent's court at Canterbury in 652.

He undertook a pilgrimage to Rome with St Benedict Biscop some time between 653 and 658.  He seems to have split up with St Benedict Biscop in Lyon, when Wilfrid stayed under the patronage of Annemund, the archbishop. Although he did make eventually make it to Rome, he remained based in Lyons for some years, leaving only after his patron's murder.

St Wilfrid returned to Northumbria in about 658,and  shortly before 664 King Alhfrith gave Wilfrid a monastery he had recently founded at Ripon, formed around a group of monks from Melrose Abbey.  Wilfrid ejected the abbot, Eata, because he would not follow the Roman customs; Cuthbert, later a saint, was another of the monks expelled.

Shortly afterwards Wilfrid was ordained a priest in the kingdom of the Gewisse, part of Wessex.

He was the lead player in the push to adopt the Roman date for Easter (and other customs) at the Synod of Whitby in 666, and a year later was made bishop of York.  He refused to be ordained by the indigenous bishops (considering those of the Irish tradition invalidly ordained) so went to Gaul for the ceremony.  This proved to be a bad mistake though, as while he either lingered there or was detained, another bishop was installed in his place.  Worse, on his way home his ship was wrecked and his party attacked by the local pagans where he landed.

Wilfrid spent three years in exile as abbot of Ripon, before being restored to his see by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury after his arrival in 669.  Further disputes, however,led him to lose his diocese once again, resolved only partially in his favour after an appeal to Rome.  He eventually retired to his monastery and died at the age of 70.

St Wilfrid and the Rule

St Wilfrid is one of those saints that I have to admit I find difficult to like, though perhaps I have been unduly influenced by St Bede the Venerable's less than favourable presentation of him in his (contemporaneous) history.

Although a great fund raiser, and enthusiastic founder of churches and monasteries, he lived ostentatiously, travelled with a large retinue, seems to have utterly lacked humility, and managed to quarrel with virtually every leading figure of the time.

His main claim to Benedictine fame, though, is the claim in his life that he was the first to introduce the Rule of St Benedict to Northumbria.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Tuesdays of St Benedict - I Vespers of the Office of St Benedict on Tuesdays


Limoges Plaque with St. Benedict.jpg
c13th Limoges
image: Jerzy Banach (1976).
I recently came across a monastic website (for the Benedictines of La Garde Freinet) urging its Oblates to consecrate Tuesdays to St Benedict.

Votive Offices

I assume this reflects the older practice of saying the 'Office of St Benedict' on Tuesday, and the idea of saying some prayers or hymns for the saint on that day seems like a great idea to me.

Votive Offices of the saints (except for Our lady on Saturday) were, alas suppressed by the original wreckovator of the Office, Pope Pius X.

Still, even if one feels constrained to follow the churches pastoral instructions on this subject (and in these troubled times, who is all that concerned about rubrics and rules!**), one can still use the prayers from them, or perhaps say them devotionally.

Accordingly, I thought I'd start trying to describe the old votive Office in occasional posts on Tuesdays that are not feasts.  In fact most of the Office is simply that of the feast of St Benedict of 21 March, but used with the psalms of the day of the week.

In the older breviary approved after the Council of Tent, the Office of St Benedict was said on all Tuesdays that were not feasts, and an Office of St Scholastica was said monthly.

Vespers in the Office of St Benedict

The Office of St Benedict on Tuesdays started with I Vespers on Monday (and ends with None, so there is no II Vespers).

I've come across a few different variants on how the Office was said - my older breviary has the psalms as of the day with the rest of the Office, however the Liber Antiphonarius of 1896 has the antiphons being of the day of the week, not the votive Office                                                                                                                          .
 Either way, most of the texts come from the Offices of the feast days of the saint.  In particular, the antiphons, chapter, responsory and hymn were the same as for the feast of the saint on March 21.

The Magnificat antiphon can be found in the texts for the Office of 11 July (for Lauds), and is:

Sanctissime Confessor Domini, Monachorum Pater et Dux, Benedicte, intercede pro nostro omniumque salute

O most holy Confessor of the Lord, Benedict, father and leader of monks,intercede for the salvation of us and everyone.




The collect was:

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.

Here is a setting of the hymn from the Office for you to enjoy.




**I should note for the record that the modern Liturgy of the Hours does allow Votive Offices:

245. For a public cause or out of devotion, except on solemnities, the Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, the octave of Easter, and 2 November, a votive office may be celebrated, in whole or in part: for example, on the occasion of a pilgrimage, a local feast, or the external solemnity of a saint.

Of course, if you are saying the Office according to the 1963 rubrics, this does not, strictly speaking, apply, but...

Maternity of Our Lady (EF), Oct 11




Here is an explanation of the feast, from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"The object of this feast is to commemorate the dignity of the Mary as Mother of God. Mary is truly the Mother of Christ, who in one person unites the human and divine nature. This title was solemnly ratified by the Council of Ephesus, 22 June, 431. The hymns used in the office of the feast also allude to Mary's dignity as the spiritual mother of men. The love of Mary for all mankind was that of a mother, for she shared all the feelings of her son whose love for men led Him to die for our redemption (Hunter, Dogm.Theo. 2, 578). The feast was first granted, on the petition of King Joseph Manuel, to the dioceses of Portugal and to Brasil and Algeria, 22 January, 1751, together with the feast of the Purity of Mary, and was assigned to the first Sunday in May, dupl. maj. In the following year both feasts were extended to the province of Venice, 1778 to the kingdom of Naples, and 1807 to Tuscany."

The feast was made universal in 1931, in honour of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus.  It was shifted to January 1 in the new calendar, allegedly for ecumenical reasons (though it is not particularly obvious what these are).

In any case, for a nice meditation on what it would have been like for Our Lady to be pregnant with Our Lord, have a read of this post over at New Theological Movement (from whence cometh the icon).

Monday, October 10, 2016

St Frances Borgia (EF, Oct 10)



San Francisco de Borja.jpg
From the martyrology:

"At Rome, St. Francis Borgia, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, celebrated for the austerity of his life, the gift of prayer, and for the firmness with which he renounced the dignities of the world, and refused those of the Church.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

St John Leonardi (EF/OF), St Denis and companions (OF) Oct 9



Today is the feast of John Leonardi in the Extraordinary Form.  From the martyrology:

"At Rome, St John Leonardi, Confessor, founder of the Congregation of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, renowned for his labours and miracles.  By his good offices the Missions for the Propagation of the Faith were established."

And also today, in the Ordinary Form, St Denis, bishop of Paris martyred around 250 AD:

"At Paris, the birthday of the holy martyrs Denis the Areopagite, bishop, Rusticus, priest, and Eleutherius, deacon. Denis was baptized by the Apostle St. Paul, and consecrated first bishop of Athens. Then going to Rome, he was sent to Gaul by the blessed Roman Pontiff Clement, to preach the Gospel. He proceeded to Paris, and after having for some years faithfully filled the office entrusted to him, he was subjected to the severest kinds of torments by the prefect Fescenninus, and at length, being beheaded with his companions, completed his martyrdom."