Friday, December 16, 2016

The Great Os: December 17 and wisdom

St Hildegarde Scivias manuscript: Wisdom

From Saturday this week (December 17) the liturgy intensifies, with all days being Class II, and set antiphons used at Lauds to Vespers for each day of the week.

Rubrics reminder

The Office between December 17 and December 23 is at its most complex for the year, so just a quick reminder of the essentials:
  • the psalms continue to be those used throughout the year for the appropriate day of the week  as normal (so  for December 17, of Saturday as set out in the psalter section of your Diurnal, or Breviary);
  • the antiphons for the psalms from Lauds to Vespers are for the day of the week between December 17 and 23 (so for Saturday December 17, the first antiphon of Lauds, also used at Prime, is Intuemini, quam sit gloriosus iste) and can be found in the front of your Diurnal or Breviary (normally around the texts for week III of Advent depending on the edition);
  • the chapters, versicles, hymns (at Lauds and Vespers) and responsories are from the Ordinary of Advent (front section of your Diurnal or Breviary, Propers of Time);
  • the Benedictus antiphon at Lauds is either of the Advent day (ie Saturday in the third week of Advent, viz Quomodo fiet istud) or the date (in the case of December 23); and
  • the Magnificat antiphon is the O antiphon set for the date.
The main exception to these rules is the feast of St Thomas on December 21.

O antiphon of the day

The highlight of this period is surely the singing of the 'O' antiphons at Vespers.

Tomorrow's is O Sapientia:

O Wisdom, that comest out of the mouth of the Most High, that reachest from one end to another, and dost mightily and sweetly order all things; come, to teach us the way of prudence!

You might want to consider using the O antiphons to pray for the sevenfold gifts of the spirit, both for ourselves and for our leaders each day.  In that light, pray then, not just for ourselves, but also that our leaders - secular and ecclesiastical - might be blessed with the gift of wisdom.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

St Lucy (December 13)


Saint Lucy (283–304), was a Christian during the Diocletian persecution.

According to her legend, her mother was cured dysentery by them praying together at Saint Agatha's tomb (pictured). She consecrated her virginity to God, refused to marry a pagan, and had her dowry distributed to the poor. Her would-be husband denounced her as a Christian to the governor of Syracuse, Sicily, who ordered her to burn a sacrifice to the emperor's image. Lucy replied that she had given all that she had: "I offer to Him myself, let Him do with His offering as it pleases Him."

Sentenced to be defiled in a brothel, Lucy asserted:

“ No one's body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will and knows all things. If now, against my will, you cause me to be polluted, a twofold purity will be gloriously imputed to me. You cannot bend my will to your purpose; whatever you do to my body, that cannot happen to me.”

Monday, December 12, 2016

Our Lady of Guadelupe (December 12)


In 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared four times before Juan Diego and one more before Juan Diego's uncle.

The first apparition occurred on the morning of December 9, 1531, when a native Mexican peasant named Juan Diego saw a vision of a maiden at a place called the Hill of Tepeyac, which would become part of Villa de Guadalupe, a suburb of Mexico City. Speaking to Juan Diego in his native Nahuatl language (the language of the Aztec empire), the maiden identified herself as the Virgin Mary, "mother of the very true deity" and asked for a church to be built at that site in her honor. 
Based on her words, Juan Diego then sought out the archbishop of Mexico City, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, to tell him what had happened.

As the bishop did not believe Diego, on the same day, Juan Diego saw the Virgin Mary for a second time (the second apparition); she asked him to keep insisting.  On Sunday, December 10, Juan Diego talked to archbishop for a second time. The latter instructed him to return to Tepeyac Hill, and ask the lady for a miraculous sign to prove her identity. That same day the third apparition occurred when Diego returned to Tepeyac and, encountering the Virgin Mary reported the bishop's request for a sign; she consented to provide one on the following day (December 11).  By Monday, December 11, however, Juan Diego's uncle Juan Bernardino had fallen sick and Juan Diego was obliged to attend to him.

In the very early hours of Tuesday, December 12, Juan Bernardino's condition having deteriorated overnight, Juan Diego set out to Tlatelolco to fetch a priest to hear Juan Bernardino's confession and minister to him on his death-bed.

In order to avoid being delayed by the Virgin and ashamed at having failed to meet her on the Monday as agreed, Juan Diego chose another route around the hill, but the Virgin intercepted him and asked where he was going (fourth apparition); Juan Diego explained what had happened and the Virgin gently chided him for not having had recourse to her. In the words which have become the most famous phrase of the Guadalupe event and are inscribed over the main entrance to the Basilica of Guadalupe, she asked: "No estoy yo aqui que soy tu madre?" (Am I not here, I who am your mother?).

She assured him that Juan Bernardino had now recovered and she told him to gather flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill, which was normally barren, especially in December. Juan followed her instructions and he found Castilian roses, not native to Mexico, blooming there. The Virgin arranged the flowers in Juan's tilma, or cloak, and when Juan Diego opened his cloak before archbishop Zumárraga on December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and on the fabric was the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The next day, on December 13, Juan Diego found his uncle fully recovered, as the Virgin had assured him, and Juan Bernardino recounted that he too had seen her, at his bed-side (fifth apparition); that she had instructed him to inform the bishop of this apparition and of his miraculous cure; and that she had told him she desired to be known under the title of Guadalupe.

The bishop kept Juan Diego's mantle first in his private chapel and then in the church on public display where it attracted great attention. On December 26, 1531 a procession formed for taking the miraculous image back to Tepeyac where it was installed in a small hastily erected chapel. In course of this procession, the first miracle was allegedly performed when an Indian was mortally wounded in the neck by an arrow shot by accident during some stylized martial displays executed in honour of the Virgin. In great distress, the Indians carried him before the Virgin's image and pleaded for his life. Upon the arrow being withdrawn, the victim made a full and immediate recovery.

Juan Diego was canonized in 2002, under the name Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. 

Truly I will come: The Great O's

Image result for o antiphons



The liturgy is becoming more intense in the lead up to Christmas.  This Sunday at Matins the invitatory antiphon has become 'The Lord is now near O come, let us adore Him'.

And from next Saturday we enter the most intense part of the liturgy in the lead up to Christmas, with daily sets of antiphons for the psalms from Lauds to Vespers, and special sets of canticle antiphons.

At Lauds, the Benedictus antiphons are mostly those of the day of the Advent week, but there are some reserved for particular dates.  At Vespers though, we sing the famous 'O Antiphons' which particular to the dates.

I'll post some notes on the liturgy each day once the O antiphons start, but as requested, herewith a short introduction.

An ancient tradition

Just how old the O antiphons are is not known, however they seem to have been known in sixth century Italy, given a reference to them by St Benedict's contemporary, St Boethius.   

At Fleury, famous (or infamous depending on your perspective!) for its raid on Monte Cassino to acquire the relics of SS Benedict and Scholastica circa 660, the antiphons were recited by the abbot and senior monks in descending rank, and then a gift was given to each member of the community. 

The texts of the O antiphons will probably seem pretty familiar to most people, because they were paraphrased into a twelfth century hymn, Veni, veni Emmanuel (O Come O come Emmanuel) which continues to be sung in both English and Latin in numerous versions.



The texts

Each of the texts refers to key prophesies of Christ, mostly from Isaiah.  There is, however, another level to them, as they have been arranged so that if you work backwards, the first letter of each one together forms two words, viz Ero Cras, or tomorrow I will come, viz:

(December 23) O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster. (O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.)

(December 22) O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti. (O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.)

(December 21) O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis. (O Dayspring, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.)

(December 20) O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel; qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis. (O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.)

(December 19) O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem Gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare. (O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples; before you kings will shut their mouths, to you the nations will make their prayer: Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.)

(December 18) O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento. (O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.)

(December 17) O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae. (O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.)

Truly, I will come...

But there is also a very nice piece of the English tradition that is worth knowing about.  In medieval England an eighth antiphon was added by starting the set a day early and adding an extra antiphon to the end of the sequence, thus making the acrostic Vero cras, or truly tomorrow (I will come).  An alternative solution, adopted in the recording below, is to sing it on December 24.

Here is the traditional text:

O Virgo virginum, quomodo fiet istud?
Quia nec primam similem visa es nec habere sequentem.
Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini?
Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.

Or:

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be?
For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after.
Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me?
The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.

The O antiphons are pretty easy to learn, as they all have a very similar chant tone.  Over time of course, numerous other settings of them have also been made.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Monastic calendars, Ordos and donations

Just a note to alert you to the availability of some great resources now available for download or purchase from the traditional monasteries, and suggest that as we move closer to Christmas you might want to consider making a donation to one or more of the traditional monasteries.

The list below is not comprehensive, so please do feel free to add other suggestions via the combox for people to consider.

Norcia

First, can I ask you to please give consideration to supporting the monks of Norcia, so badly hit by the Italian earthquakes.  The monks are gradually re-establishing the essentials, and their latest report says that they finally have a functioning chapel outside the enclosure, the chapel of St Andrew, so can offer a Sunday public Mass again.

They have been unable to print their calendar, but have instead offered it for free download online.   It is a wonderful calendar to have as it lists not only both the traditional (1963-3) and novus ordo feasts, but also older historical feasts now abolished and Benedictine specific feasts.  Please consider making a donation to their rebuilding fund.

Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles

Norcia is not, of course, the only community seeking to build a monastery!  Accordingly, you might also want to consider buying the new Caroling CD put out by the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles.  You can listen to a delightful sample below.

Clear Creek

Clear Creek are also still engaged in a long-term monastery construction process, and also offer a calendar for purchase.  I haven't seen this year's, but past editions have been gorgeous so undoubtedly worth considering!

Notre Dame Priory, Tasmania

And please don't forget the soon to be established traditional monastery in Australia.  No products on offer as yet, but some great spiritual food already being provided nonetheless.  US donations are tax deductible.

Le Barroux

Finally, the Le Barroux Ordo is available for purchase in hardcopy or free download.  It differs from mine primarily in that:
  • it is all in Latin;
  • uses the calendar specific to its group of monasteries (in particular it includes more 1962 EF feasts then the General Benedictine Calendar of 1963, as well as including feasts specific to France and the relevant dioceses);
  • uses different rubrics in some cases (retaining I Vespers for Class II feasts, and using a simplified manner of making commemorations).
Well worth referring to though, both as a check on mine (!) and particularly if you are using a  different edition of the Diurnal or Breviary, as it often gives the first few words of antiphons etc rather than page numbers (I may think about modifying mine in future as I've come to realise a great many people are using editions other than the Farnborough Diurnal!).  And of course it is obviously essential if you are an Oblate of that monastery.


December 11: St Damasus I


Pope St Damasus I (305-384) is most famous now for appointing St Jerome as his personal secretary and encouraging his Vulgate translation of the bible and presiding over the Council of Rome in 382, which set down the canon of scripture (the picture left is a letter of St Jerome to him). 

In two Roman synods (368 and 369) he condemned Apollinarianism and Macedonianism, and sent legates to the First Council of Constantinople that was convoked in 381 to address these heresies.  A fierce opponent of the Arians, he did much to promote veneration of the martyrs and enrich the church

es and liturgy.







Pope St Damasus I was  born around 305.  His life coincided with the rise of Emperor Constantine I and the reunion and re-division of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires.

Following the death of Pope Liberius, he succeeded to the Papacy in 366 amidst factional violence. A group of Damasus' supporters, previously loyal to his opponent Felix, attacked and killed rivals loyal to Liberius' deacon Ursinus in a riot that required the intervention of Emperor Valentinian I to quell.

Damasus faced accusations of murder and adultery with a married woman in his early years as Pope. The neutrality of these claims has come into question with some suggesting that the accusations were motivated by the schismatic conflict with the supporters of Arianism.

His personal problems were contrasted with his religious accomplishments, which included restoring Saint Lawrence outside the Walls, encouraging his personal secretary Saint Jerome in his Vulgate translation of the Bible, and presiding over the Council of Rome in 382, which set down the canon of Scripture.   He also did much to encourage the veneration of the Christian martyrs, restoring and creating access to their tombs in the Catacombs of Rome and elsewhere, and setting up tablets with verse inscriptions composed by himself, several of which survive or are recorded in his Epigrammata.

He died  in 384.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

December 8: Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Class I


From Ineffabilis Deus, the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX on the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 1854):

 "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."

Some of the reasoning leading up to the definition:

"God ineffable -- whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom "reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly" -- having foreseen from all eternity the lamentable wretchedness of the entire human race which would result from the sin of Adam, decreed, by a plan hidden from the centuries, to complete the first work of his goodness by a mystery yet more wondrously sublime through the Incarnation of the Word. This he decreed in order that man who, contrary to the plan of Divine Mercy had been led into sin by the cunning malice of Satan, should not perish; and in order that what had been lost in the first Adam would be gloriously restored in the Second Adam. From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so lover her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.


SUPREME REASON FOR THE PRIVILEGE: THE DIVINE MATERNITY

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son -- the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart -- and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.[1]

LITURGICAL ARGUMENT

The Catholic Church, directed by the Holy Spirit of God, is the pillar and base of truth and has ever held as divinely revealed and as contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation this doctrine concerning the original innocence of the august Virgin -- a doctrine which is so perfectly in harmony with her wonderful sanctity and preeminent dignity as Mother of God -- and thus has never ceased to explain, to teach and to foster this doctrine age after age in many ways and by solemn acts. From this very doctrine, flourishing and wondrously propagated in the Catholic world through the efforts and zeal of the bishops, was made very clear by the Church when she did not hesitate to present for the public devotion and veneration of the faithful the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin.[2] By this most significant fact, the Church made it clear indeed that the conception of Mary is to be venerated as something extraordinary, wonderful, eminently holy, and different from the conception of all other human beings -- for the Church celebrates only the feast days of the saints.

And hence the very words with which the Sacred Scriptures speak of Uncreated Wisdom and set forth his eternal origin, the Church, both in its ecclesiastical offices and in its liturgy, has been wont to apply likewise to the origin of the Blessed Virgin, inasmuch as God, by one and the same decree, had established the origin of Mary and the Incarnation of Divine Wisdom.

ORDINARY TEACHING OF THE ROMAN CHURCH

These truths, so generally accepted and put into practice by the faithful, indicate how zealously the Roman Church, mother and teacher of all Churches, has continued to teach this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Yet the more important actions of the Church deserve to be mentioned in detail. For such dignity and authority belong to the Church that she alone is the center of truth and of Catholic unity. It is the Church in which alone religion has been inviolably preserved and from which all other Churches must receive the tradition of the Faith.[3]

The same Roman Church, therefore, desired nothing more than by the most persuasive means to state, to protect, to promote and to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This fact is most clearly shown to the whole world by numerous and significant acts of the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors. To them, in the person of the Prince of the Apostles, were divinely entrusted by Christ our Lord, the charge and supreme care and the power of feeding the lambs and sheep; in particular, of confirming their brethren, and of ruling and governing the universal Church.

VENERATION OF THE IMMACULATE

Our predecessors, indeed, by virtue of their apostolic authority, gloried in instituting the Feast of the Conception in the Roman Church. They did so to enhance its importance and dignity by a suitable Office and Mass, whereby the prerogative of the Virgin, her exception from the hereditary taint, was most distinctly affirmed. As to the homage already instituted, they spared no effort to promote and to extend it either by the granting of indulgences, or by allowing cities, provinces and kingdoms to choose as their patroness God's own Mother, under the title of "The Immaculate Conception." Again, our predecessors approved confraternities, congregations and religious communities founded in honor of the Immaculate Conception, monasteries, hospitals, altars, or churches; they praised persons who vowed to uphold with all their ability the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. Besides, it afforded the greatest joy to our predecessors to ordain that the Feast of the Conception should be celebrated in every church with the very same honor as the Feast of the Nativity; that it should be celebrated with an octave by the whole Church; that it should be reverently and generally observed as a holy day of obligation; and that a pontifical Capella should be held in our Liberian pontifical basilica on the day dedicated to the conception of the Virgin. Finally, in their desire to impress this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God upon the hearts of the faithful, and to intensify the people's piety and enthusiasm for the homage and the veneration of the Virgin conceived without the stain of original sin, they delighted to grant, with the greatest pleasure, permission to proclaim the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin in the Litany of Loreto, and in the Preface of the Mass, so that the rule of prayer might thus serve to illustrate the rule of belief. Therefore, we ourselves, following the procedure of our predecessors, have not only approved and accepted what had already been established, but bearing in mind, moreover, the decree of Sixtus IV, [4] have confirmed by our authority a proper Office in honor of the Immaculate Conception, and have with exceeding joy extended its use to the universal Church.[5]

THE ROMAN DOCTRINE

Now inasmuch as whatever pertains to sacred worship is intimately connected with its object and cannot have either consistency or durability if this object is vague or uncertain, our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, therefore, while directing all their efforts toward an increase of the devotion to the conception, made it their aim not only to emphasize the object with the utmost zeal, but also to enunciate the exact doctrine.[6] Definitely and clearly they taught that the feast was held in honor of the conception of the Virgin. They denounced as false and absolutely foreign to the mind of the Church the opinion of those who held and affirmed that it was not the conception of the Virgin but her sanctification that was honored by the Church. They never thought that greater leniency should be extended toward those who, attempting to disprove the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, devised a distinction between the first and second instance of conception and inferred that the conception which the Church celebrates was not that of the first instance of conception but the second. In fact, they held it was their duty not only to uphold and defend with all their power the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin but also to assert that the true object of this veneration was her conception considered in its first instant. Hence the words of one of our predecessors, Alexander VII, who authoritatively and decisively declared the mind of the Church: "Concerning the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ancient indeed is that devotion of the faithful based on the belief that her soul, in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul's infusion into the body, was, by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin. And in this sense have the faithful ever solemnized and celebrated the Feast of the Conception."[7]

Moreover, our predecessors considered it their special solemn duty with all diligence, zeal, and effort to preserve intact the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. For, not only have they in no way ever allowed this doctrine to be censured or changed, but they have gone much further and by clear statements repeatedly asserted that the doctrine by which we profess the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin is on its own merits entirely in harmony with the ecclesiastical veneration; that it is ancient and widespread, and of the same nature as that which the Roman Church has undertaken to promote and to protect, and that it is entirely worthy to be used in the Sacred Liturgy and solemn prayers. Not content with this they most strictly prohibited any opinion contrary to this doctrine to be defended in public or private in order that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin might remain inviolate. By repeated blows they wished to put an end to such an opinion. And lest these oft-repeated and clearest statements seem useless, they added a sanction to them...."