Advent reflections: Drop down, ye heavens, from above (Responsories Pt 2)

I want to continue my series today, on the wonderful Matins repertoire of responsories, important both as a source for meditation and aid to Scriptural interpretation; but also as a source for insights on the early history of the Office.

Today, apart from looking at the responsory itself, a bit of background on their structure.

The responsories for meditation and reflection

Although I'm a keen advocate for monasteries reviving the Matins responsories where possible in chant (or polyphonic) settings, I should note that even if you just read them in text form outside of the Office, or sing them on one note in the context of the Office, I still think they have great value.

In particular, many of these texts preserve key theological concepts and themes that help us understand the meaning of the season, feast or bible book. 

Accordingly today and tomorrow I want to take a quick look at a couple of responsories for which I can't locate a recording.  

A responsory for Tuesday in the first week of Advent: Montes Israel

Today's responsory is the first of the responsories set for Tuesday in week one and two of Advent, Montes Israel, also used on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

First of all, here's the text as it is said, with a translation:

R. Montes / Israël, ramos vestros expándite, † et floréte, et fructus fácite: * Prope est ut véniat dies Dómini. V. Roráte, cæli, désuper, et nubes pluant iustum: † aperiátur terra, et gérminet Salvatórem. R. Prope est ut véniat dies Dómini.

R. O ye mountains of Israel, shoot forth your branches and blossom and bring forth fruit. * The day of the Lord is at hand to come. V. Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down the Righteous One let the earth open, and let her bring forth the Saviour. R. The day of the Lord is at hand to come.

First, a bit of background.  The responsory, it should be noted is sung immediately after each reading of the day at Matins, 'respond' in some sense to the (ever changing) readings.

Although there are far fewer responsories than readings (typically the same set of up to eleven responsories is used from periods between a week and a month or more while the same book or set of books of the Bible is being read), in most cases the link between the responsory and the readings is fairly obvious, drawing us back to key overarching themes in the book being read, the season, or feast.

For most of the year, the texts of the respond are typically drawn from the Scriptural books being read (in December, the Matins readings are mostly from Isaiah), while the verses that then comment on it may be from the same or another biblical book, the psalms, or non-Scriptural sources.

The mountain of God in Ezekiel

The 'respond' section (marked R.), in this case is 'O ye mountains of Israel, shoot forth your branches, bloom and bring forth fruit, for the day of the Lord is at hand'  and is sung to a composed melody specific to the responsory.

As for a few other Advent responsories, today's text comes from Ezekiel (36:8), though like most responsory texts, has been adapted somewhat.  The book of Ezekiel was actually read in November rather December, so its use may possibly be a remnant of the original rather longer duration of Advent in Rome. 

That theory gains some weight from the fact that it appears in the two 'Old Roman' manuscript sources, thought to preserve the seventh century Roman Office (as well as multiple other sources: the cantus database lists 82 manuscript sources for it).

Either way, it is worth looking also at the verses that comes after the respond text in Ezekiel, as it helps us understand the meaning of the responsory:

 

 But you, mountains of Israel, must burgeon anew, and grow fruit for my own people to enjoy; their home-coming is not far off now. Watch for me, I am coming back to you; soil of you shall be ploughed and sown anew; and men, too, shall thrive on it, Israel’s full muster-roll, peopling the cities, restoring the ruins. (Knox translation)

Although the Advent responsories have arguably been selected mainly for their connection to Advent themes rather than to the book of Isaiah (which is read through December) per se, today's text does actually link quite directly (whether by accident or design), with the first reading for today from Isaiah, which is:

The word that Isaias the son of Amos saw, concerning Juda and Jerusalem. And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go, and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

The verse - Rorate caeli

In terms of the standard structure of responsories, the respond is followed by a verse (marked V.) in the text for today above, which is normally sung on a more or less fixed psalm tone varying according to the mode of the respond, which is then followed by a repeat of the second half of the respond.

There are some variants on this basic pattern - Aspiciens a longe, which I posted on previously, for example, is not alone in having more than one verse, and in some cases the repeated sections start from different places, but these are rare in the modern breviary at least.

Today's verse, Rorate caeli de super, is actually does come from Isaiah (45:8), and is probably best known in its hymn form.  There are, however, many different settings of it both in responsory form (including as a respond), antiphon and more.

And for those interested in the chant version of the responsory, here it is:

Source: Stanhofe Nocturnale Romanum, via Gregobase

You can find an alternative version of the chant here.

The former feast of the Illation of the relics of St Benedict

Reliquary of St Benedict at the Monastery of Fleury
Source: Wiki Commons

In some (much) older breviaries, as I've noted in my Ordo, December 4 is marked as the feast of the Illation of the relics of St Benedict, so I thought it might be worth a brief note on what exactly the feast was about.

The short version is that while July 11 celebrates the original bringing of the relics of St Benedict to the Monastery of Fleury, December 4 celebrates the 'carrying in' of the relics of St Benedict on this date after the basilica at the Monastery of Fleury was rebuilt in 882.  Alas the 882 church no longer exists (beyond a few remnants incorporated into the later replacement version).

The feast itself (where it was said) was mostly suppressed along with many others in the late nineteenth century.  All the same, traditionally, this day marks one of the three times a year that the Life of St Benedict was read  in the monastic refectory.

The seventh century relics heist

There are essentially two competing claims to the relics of St Benedict, that of Monte Cassino, and that of Fleury (aka .Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire).

Most historians favour the claims of Fleury: on the face of it the tombs of SS Scholastica and Benedict excavated at Monte Cassino after World War II appear to be of much later construction, though there may have been some genuine remains preserved there. 

Either way, its pretty clear than enterprising group of monks from Fleury in what is now France, went on a relic raid to Monte Cassino around 672, and brought back with them what they claimed were the bodies of SS Benedict and Scholastica. 

That the Fleury monks really did go to Monte Cassino is attested to by a series of letters by Pope Vitalian (657–72), which condemned the theft, demanded that the remains be returned, and excommunicated those involved. 

The original acquisition of the relics of St Benedict is also attested to in a (likely) seventh century version of the Matryrology of St Jerome, which included the feast of the relics of St Benedict on July 11, preserved in an eighth century manuscript.

Monte Cassino in the seventh century

That monks from Gaul were able to obtain the relics reflects the sorry state of Italian monasticism at the time.  Outside of Rome and a few other major centres, monasticism seems to have been largely wiped out in the first half of the seventh century, courtesy of the Lombard invasions.  

Monte Cassino was originally destroyed around 580 (and not refounded until 717), and although Subiaco was still a vibrant centre of St Benedict's cult in St Gregory the Great's time, it too, was destroyed not long after his death, around 605.    

As a result, while there is good evidence for the continuation of Benedictine monasticism in Rome itself (most notably in the various 'Ordines Romani, describing the liturgy) Monte Cassino was largely abandoned for well over a century.

The early spread of Benedictine monasticism

In Gaul (and England), however (contrary to the claims of many modern historians), it was a different story.  

The most well-known reference to the use of the rule in Gaul is to Venerandus in 625, but there are several other explicit references to the use of the Rule in various seventh century saints lives, and perhaps most significantly of all, the major monastic centre of Lerins (not without some resistance) adopted the Benedictine rule around the middle of the seventh century.

Fleury itself  was originally founded in 631, and like a number of monasteries around that time, its charters claimed to use both 'the Rule of the most holy Benedict and lord Columbanus’.  It has been questioned in recent times, however, just to what extent, if at all, Columbanian influences persisted in these monasteries, and the Fleury relics raid only a few decades after its foundation rather supports the theory that Columbanian influence, beyond perhaps his emphasis on confession, quickly waned, replaced by the less extreme asceticism of St Benedict and others.

L'abbaye de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire

Reflecting on Advent through the responsories: Aspiciens a longe (Responsories Pt 1)

I thought this Advent I might try to highlight one of the most neglected parts of the chant repertoire, namely the responsories of Matins.

The Matins responsories, which occur after each reading at the hour of Matins, are interesting and important from several perspectives, both in their own right, as encapsulations of the theology of and aids to interpretation of the season, saint or Scriptural text being read; as beautiful chants; and as historical evidence for the development of the Office.

I hope to touch on all those points, but above all, I want to encourage you to at least read through the texts of some of them, and ideally also listen to the chants or settings of some of them.

A neglected responsory repertoire

The responsories were a key part of the medieval Office, and many of them have polyphonic settings dating from the Renaissance and baroque periods.  

But they have long been neglected in more recent times - Solesmes, for example, has produced editions of only a small selection of the total repertoire (published originally mainly in the Liber Responsorialis).

The Nocturnale Romanum produced by Peter Sandhofe in 2001 went a long way to filling the gap, but there are a number of issues with many of his transcriptions, a problem that the Nocturnale Romanum Project is aiming to rectify.  In addition, though, as the Roman Office has fewer responsories than the Benedictine, many are still not available in published form.

Their modern neglect is understandable - singing them in full takes an average of at least five minutes apiece.  Indeed, the one below, the first responsory for the First Sunday of Advent, comes in at over nine minutes in the recording I've chosen.  

There is also a substantial learning curve associated with them - while many do draw on standard melodic structures, and the verses and doxologies do follow (mostly) pre-set forms (albeit somewhat more elaborate ones than the common psalm tones), some of the main chants are quite challenging.  And there are a lot of them to learn!

So on Sundays and feasts with twelve lessons and responsories, that's around an extra hour (even added to an already long hour of the Office in its Benedictine form.

The function of the responsories

All the same, many of them are very beautiful indeed, and they do have a proper function, both in allowing time to reflect and meditate on the content of the reading, and aiding in its interpretation.  

The texts of the responsories generally pick out key verses of the Bible book being read, or around the season or type of saint, and provide some direct (through the verse(s)) or indirect (through the musical setting) interpretative aids for it.

The Advent responsories

Advent actually has more than its fair share of responsories, possibly because the season was originally longer, stretching for six weeks until St Gregory the Great shortened the period in Rome at least.  

This first one is actually probably best known in an English setting based on Palestrina, often used in the service of lessons and carols put on by Kings College and others.  But I want to urge you to listen to at least some of the chant version, which I think has a particular charm.

R. Aspíciens / a longe, ecce video Dei poténtiam veniéntem, † et nébulam totam terram tegéntem. † Ite obviam ei, et dícite: * Núntia nobis, si tu es ipse, * Qui regnatúrus es in pópulo Israël. V. Quique terrígenæ, et fílii hóminum, † simul in unum dives et pauper. Ite obviam ei, et dícite. R. Ite obviam ei, et dícite. V. Qui regis Israël, inténde, qui dedúcis velut ovem Ioseph. R. Núntia nobis, si tu es ipse. V. Tóllite portas, príncipes, vestras, † et elevámini portæ æternáles, et introíbit Rex glóriæ. R. Qui regnatúrus es in pópulo Israël. V. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. R. Aspíciens a longe, ecce video Dei poténtiam veniéntem, et nébulam totam terram tegéntem. * Ite obviam ei, et dícite: * Núntia nobis, si tu es ipse, * Qui regnatúrus es in pópulo Israël.

R. I look from afar, and behold I see the power of God, coming like as a cloud to cover the land with the hosts of his people: Go ye out to meet him and say: Tell us if thou art he, * That shalt reign over God's people Israel. V. All ye that dwell in the world, all ye children of men, high and low, rich and poor, one with another. R. Go ye out to meet him and say. V. Hear, O thou Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep. R. Tell us if thou art he. V. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. R. That shalt reign over God's people Israel. V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, * and to the Holy Ghost. R. I look from afar, and behold I see the power of God, coming like as a cloud to cover the land with the hosts of his people:  Go ye out to meet him and say: Tell us if thou art he, * That shalt reign over God's people Israel.

Getting ready for Advent pt 2

In my last post I suggested starting to get ready for Advent now, as it is a  particularly intensive time in the Office.

In this post, I want to continue on that theme, and highlight some of the key things you need to be aware of or remind yourself of.

The two parts of Advent

First, Advent essentially falls into two parts - the days up to and including December 16, which are Class III days; and the days between December 17 and 23, which are Class II.

First, throughout both parts of Advent, the 'Ordinary of Advent' is used, so make sure you are familiar with what is in it!

Aside from the Ordinary, it is important to keep in mind that unlike Lent and some other special seasons, the default collect throughout Advent is that of the Sunday of the relevant week of Advent, not of the day.  The exceptions are for feasts, the Ember Days of Advent, and the Vigil of the Nativity.

Thirdly, unlike Lent, Class III feasts are not reduced to commemorations.  Instead, when a feast occurs, the Advent day is 'commemorated' at both Lauds and Vespers, by using the canticle antiphon for the relevant hour and day of Advent, the versicle for Lauds or Vespers which is of the season, and the collect (of the Advent week).  You can find more detailed notes on this here: how to make commemorations of the Advent day

Fourthly, there are canticle antiphons for each day of Advent.  During the first part of Advent, these are of the day of the Advent week.  This pattern continues for Lauds during the second part of Advent, with the exception of two antiphons that are specific to the date (21 and 23 December), but at Vespers, the (O) antiphons are of the date for December 17 to 23.

Finally, when it comes to the antiphons for the psalms, during the first part of Advent, Prime to None use the antiphons of the relevant Advent Sunday.  When the days are Class II, there are specific special  antiphons for each day of the week.  If you want to know more about antiphons, and particularly singing them, try these two posts: Antiphons in Advent Pt 1 and Antiphons Pt 2.

Want to know more?

For those wanting to know more, or needing more help, you can either get a full Ordo from Lulu, use the shorter notes on the Ordo page on this blog, and/or refer to the notes I've previously written on this topic.

For notes on the individual hours in advent, follow these links:

• Matins
  
• Lauds
• Prime and Compline;
  
• Terce, Sext and None;

And for quick reference guides with page numbers to the Diurnal try these links:

• Sundays in Advent
  
• Advent weekdays
  
• Weekdays December 17-23

Getting ready for Advent - Part I

This is my annual reminder that the most complicated time of the year for the Office, Advent, is rapidly approaching, so its time to start getting ready!

This post is primarily for those relatively new to the Office - I'll say more for those more advanced in the next.

Get your Ordo now

The first key step is to make sure you have an Ordo at hand that you can use.

At a minimum, an Ordo will tell you what liturgical day is celebrated on each date, and how to resolve any conflicts between competing days and feasts (such as between Sundays and feasts, or competing days and dates in Advent).

Each year, the changing dates of  'moveable feasts' and seasons (stemming from the date of the first Sunday of Advent and Easter) interact with the calendar year cycle causing what the Diurnal calls occasions of  'concurrence' or 'occurence'.  

For the coming year, I've found  over sixty of these, and nine of these occur in December.

You can of course, sit down and work these out for yourself with the aid of the 'two tables' in the Diurnal, and a copy of the rubrics (since there are always some issues that aren't actually covered by the two tables).  But you will need to have your wits about you if you choose that path!

A short version of the one I produce can be found at the page links on this blog - click here for December. Alternatively you can purchase a more detailed version which tells you exactly which texts you should use, and providing page numbers for them in the Diurnal and Antiphonale (if you are chanting the Office).

You can purchase it Lulu: 

• in paperback form or
  
• PDF (ebook).
  

Make sure you know the structure of the hours thoroughly

Secondly, make sure you are very familiar with the different parts that make up each hour.

In the period of the calendar we are currently in, time after Pentecost, most of the texts you need, Sundays aside, can be found either in the psalter section of your Diurnal, supplemented by the section for feasts of saints.

During Advent, however, a lot of the texts in the psalter section are replaced by others, and on some days they may come from several different places.

If you get a copy of the Ordo, you will find summaries of the structure of the day hours there, or you can consult the notes on the Learn the Benedictine Office blog.

Make sure you are familiar with the Ordinary of Advent and where it slots in

The particular challenge for Advent is that the texts for the hours are a mix of the Ordinary of Advent'; psalm antiphons for the week or day of the week in the period 17-23 December; and canticle antiphons for the day of the Advent week and/or date.  

And that's before taking into account some the feasts that fall in Advent, which usually require a 'commemoration' of the Advent day.

I would also suggest looking now at the section of the Diurnal with the 'Ordinary of Advent' (MD 9*), near the beginning of the Diurnal, and making sure you know where to substitute in these texts.

Start learning/revising the chants!

Finally, the Office is meant to be sung!

If you are new to chant, it is best to start slowly, but it is pretty easy to learn at least one or two of the hymns.

A very useful site for this purpose, is called Liber Hymnarius - you can find the file for the Vespers hymn, Conditor alme siderum) here. The words for the last two verses are different to the Benedictine Office version, but the rest aligns, and should be enough to get you going!

More anon.

St Martin of Tours and the missing monastic saints of the Office

Shield, on the medieval city walls of Aigues-Mortes, depicting St-Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar.
Source: Wikicommons, photo by Ad Meskens

I want to draw your attention to one of the oddities of the Benedictine sanctoral calendar, namely its longstanding decidedly un-monastic focus.

St Martin, as I've written previously is a wonderful saint, and one certainly worth celebrating.

Feast rankings

The ranking of the feast as Class II in the 1960 monastic calendar though, is something of an oddity, since St Martin is the only non-Benedictine monastic saint to be accorded this level of feast in the 1960 monastic calendar, and the feast is ranked only as a Class III one in the Roman calendar.

All of the other feasts of monastic saints of the same rank (duplex majus) in the previous versions of the calendar - such as those of St Basil the Great and St Augustine - were downgraded to Class III feasts rather than Class I or II, when translated into the 1960 calendar.

The rationale for the reduction of feasts to Class III is, I think, fairly obvious and understandable.  In the Roman Office, whose calendar the Benedictine has largely mimicked since Trent, there was a huge incentive to add more feasts, since festal Matins in the Roman Office was significantly shorter than the ferial version, with nine psalms said rather than twelve.

In the Benedictine Office, though, the effect of higher level feasts is diametrically opposite: the length of the already relatively long Night Office more than doubles.  Instead of one or three readings, Matins of Class II feasts has twelve readings and responsories, as well as an extra Nocturn made up of three canticles, two extra hymns (the Te Deum and Te decet laus) are added, as well as a gospel reading.

Why then did St Martin escape the reforms?

Monastic saints in the Benedictine calendar

In general the monastic calendar gives pretty short shrift to most monastic saints, Benedictine or otherwise. 

Although the key later medieval founders of religious institutes are generally well-presented in the calendar, many key earlier monastic saints are missing altogether.  St Pachomius, for example, was only added to the monastic calendar (as a memorial) in 1960; St John Cassian, though long listed in the martyrology (and present in some of the earliest, such as that associated with St Bede) for July 23, still does not feature in the calendar at all.

Even Benedictine saints are sparsely represented in the General Calendar - very few of the Order's wealth of saints are actually included at all, and even where they are, there are cases where they are actually ranked lower than in the Roman calendar.

St Benedict aside, the only monastic saints ranked Class II (or above) are St Scholastica (St Benedict's twin sister), St Gregory the Great (author of the Life of St Benedict) and, in the case of woman's monasteries only, St Gertrude the Great.

Trent and local traditions

This lack of emphasis on monastic saints did not actually originate in 1960 or even 1913, date of the previous major cull of the Benedictine calendar, though those purges certainly exacerbated the problem.

Rather, as far as I can see, the issue is a longstanding one, dating back, as far as I can see to the post Tridentine breviaries, which, as part of the counter-reformation purge of saints and imposition of a uniform calendar, largely wiped out a great wealth of monastic feasts and local cults to be found in medieval calendars.

Instead, the Breviaries of Paul V and Urban VIII largely mirrored the Roman calendar, albeit with a few supplemental feasts and approvals for saints particular to congregations and monasteries.

St Martin and St Benedict

The reason for the prominence given to St Martin in the 1960 calendar presumably goes firstly to the fact that St Benedict dedicated a chapel to the saint at Monte Cassino and secondly to his status as a soldier-saint (given the soldiers of Christ imagery in the Benedictine Rule).

The connection between the two saints seems to have continued in Rome as well, since one of the four monasteries, almost certainly Benedictine, that supported St Peter's basilica in the mid seventh century, was dedicated to St Martin.

St Martin's prominence in a 1960s era calendar though, is a little surprising since St Benedict's reason for dedicating a chapel to him was probably to highlight his own adoption of St Martin's (very un-PC) activist missionary approach, which included converting pagan temples, as St Benedict also did at Monte Cassino, into monasteries and churches.

St Martin, though, was an extremely popular saint throughout the middle ages, and an influential model referred to in many early rules and monastic texts, almost displacing (or at least equaling references to St Antony) in the West.  

Martinian monasticism

Missionary activity aside though, St Martin's form of monasticism seems to have been very different in character to that promoted by St Benedict.

Although RB 1980, written some forty years ago now, could claim that the monastic life as lived in late antiquity was pretty much the same everywhere, few historians would accept that today.

Rather, historians are rediscovering, for late antiquity, the existence of what modern catholics would call distinct charisms - quite diverse forms of monastic life founded on very different theological and spiritual principles.

Where St Benedict, for example, advocated manual work, and encouraged his monks to try and support themselves as far as possible, St Martin's monks followed an entirely different branch of monastic theology, and did no manual work at all (the exception was that junior monks only were allowed to copy manuscripts).

Similarly, when it comes to the liturgy, the two approaches seem to have been very different.  

St Benedict followed St Augustine in urging that prayer be frequent (RB 4), short but fervent (RB 19) rather than literally continuous.   St Benedict's Office probably took up somewhere between four and eight hours a day; by contrast St Martin's seems to have been very long indeed, swallowing up most of the monastic day and night.  

Indeed, even once Cassian's advocacy for a twelve psalm maximum for an hour of the Office had spread to Tours, the 567 Synod of Tours rather creatively reinterpreted the 'Rule of the Angel' as setting a minimum number of psalms rather than a maximum 'out of honour and reverence' for St Martin! 

Influences on St Benedict?

On the face of it, then, if you were thinking about which (if any) pre-Benedictine monastic saints merited Class II status in the Benedictine calendar, I for one would be inclined to place St Basil the Great and St Augustine higher on my list.  

That said, the life of St Martin is certainly an inspiring one, both as a model of charity, of determination to confront, combat and convert both pagans and Arian heretics, and as a monastic founder.

Book Review: A Companion to the Monastic Breviary

I want to alert readers to a new resource for the Benedictine Office, released today, which will be very useful for those using the Benedictine Office, because it provides an English translation of the (1960) rubrics published in the 1963 monastic breviary.

The volume adds to the treasury of resources to support the Benedictine Office such as the Diurnal, providing, for the first time, a full, good, clear English translation of the rubrical materials of the Monastic Breviary of 1963, as well as some brief supporting notes on the individual hours.  

Companion to the breviary

The details of the book are:

Cameron Ackerman & Gerhard Eger, A Companion to the Monastic Breviary General Rubrics. General Rubrics of the breviary The year and its parts According to the Monastic Breviary of 1963 Translated from the Latin with commentary and instruction on the hours, Libri Sancti Press, Saint Louis: 2023, $12 US.

It can be obtained from Libri Sancti Press.

The book will be a very useful addition to the libraries of regular users of the Diurnal, Antiphonale or breviary who lack the necessary Latin to read the original text (which can be found both in the breviary and on the Divinum Officium website).  The supporting notes also bring together some material that will be of interest to readers.

Nonetheless, there are some things about the nature of the monastic rubrics that it may be helpful to know, in order to appreciate what the book will and won't help you with.

Pictured supplied

What the rubrics cover

First, it is worth knowing, I think, that these particular rubrics, whether in English or Latin, are a fairly arcane, technical set of instructions.  They are essentially a mix of five different kinds of material.  

The hours and their parts

The most important material for most users will surely be the descriptions of  the hours and their parts, and how this changes with different types of days, seasons and feasts.  

However, the material is fairly brief, not always comprehensive (see below) and most of it is replicated in various ways in the body of the breviary (or Diurnal).  

Reference material

The second category is useful reference material.  Some of this is relevant only to monastic communities (such as instructions on vestments and so forth), but there are certainly rubrics that the average user of the office should ideally read at least once, and then might wish to have on hand to consult as necessary.  This includes things like the rules around anticipating Matins, and when to make the sign of the cross, bow and so forth (most of which is optional in private recitation but good to know and do if possible).  

The Ordo

Mixed into these essentials is a lot of material on the order of precedence of feasts and days which is important only if you are putting together an Ordo (rather than just using one).  The material is important for monastic communities, but not necessarily for the average user of the Diurnal or breviary. And even then, in the vast majority of cases just consulting the 'two tables' (of occurrence and concurrence, also contained in the Diurnal) is generally an easier way of finding the answer! 

For the nerds!

The final category is a lot of material that will be of interest to liturgical nerds only.  

Most people will not, for example, want to learn how to calculate the date of Easter manually, or be rushing to find an updated table of Dominical Letters, Golden Numbers, and Martyrology Letters, since these are not needed for the purpose of actually saying the Office.  Instead, the tables containing the dates of fixed and moveable feasts each year (updated in the first edition of the Farnborough Monastic Diurnal to 2066) or an Ordo will do the job for you. 

Personally I would have been inclined to leave out the year and its parts, and perhaps included instead some of the other decrees and decisions included in the breviary, such as the terms of the original approval for them, the indult for priest oblates to say the Benedictine Office and so forth.  But maybe these can be included in the next edition!

The nature of rubrics...and the problems of this set of them!

The second thing you need to know about the rubrics is that, no matter how well translated, they do not constitute a particularly user friendly document, and often require some additional context to understand.  

Finding what you are looking for: the case of commemorations

First, key provisions are often scattered through the text.  

One of the most frequent queries I receive, for example, concerns commemorations (when can you do them and how). But the instructions on Memorials and Commemorations are spread across four separate sections (rubrics 5, 72-73, 100-108, and 239-248).   

Some of these separations of material can be outright misleading if you are not attuned to the technicalities of the language. Rubric 15, for example, states that Sundays of the First Class take precedence over all other feasts, with the sole exception being the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  Read on further, though, and you will find another exception, namely the Vigil of the Nativity (rubric 30), in a separate section, one presumes, because a Vigil is not a feast! 

Contradictory provisions

There are also a few instances where the rubrics as written are internally inconsistent, contradictory or clearly incorrect. 

A good example of this concerns Prime, where rubric 161b states that "The psalms are always said as found in the Psalter throughout the week." But in fact this is not the case during the Triduum.

Gaps and missing context

The biggest problem, though, is that there are several gaps in the rubrics, or places where further explanation is warranted. 

The top of the list in my view, is this one: 

"166.  On Easter and Pentecost Sundays and on the days within their octaves, everything is done as indicated in the Breviary."

The festal canticles

Similarly, you will look in vain for instructions on when the Benedicite (Sunday Lauds canticle), festal weekday or ferial canticles should be said.  

The only relevant rubric reads as follows: 

  "In monasteries where the festive canticles are recited at Lauds, the ferial canticles are said only in the seasons of Advent, Septuagesima, Lent and Passiontide, the Ember days of September, and on vigils of the II and III class outside Paschaltide." (translation from the Companion)

This does not mean, however, that one should use the festal canticles on all days other than those when the ferial canticles are used listed. In fact the normal practice is to use the Sunday canticle (never actually explicitly described as festal in either the rubrics or the breviary), not the festal canticle of the day of the week, when the festal psalms are said, such as on Class I&II feasts.  

In this particular case, the reason for not spelling this out is presumably because the permissions to use the festal canticles were originally the subject of specific indults to individual monasteries and congregations, and there were actually two different schemas approved (the most common parallels their use in the Roman Office, but an alternative schema is also noted in the Monastic Diurnal).

A monastic audience

None of these problems with the rubrics, of course, are the fault of the translators and editors of this book.  

Rather, the issue lies with the original authors, who were writing not for those unfamiliar with the Benedictine Office, but for existing monasteries in order to explain the changes made to the calendar and rubrics from those they had previously used. 

Still, it would have been helpful, I think, to include some footnotes to assist the reader on these type of issues.

Who still uses 1960 (63)?!

Finally, it has to be said that there is a certain irony in making the 1963 rubrics (actually technically of 1960, when they were approved, or 1961, when they came into effect) available in English at this point, given that as each year goes by, fewer and fewer monasteries and individuals actually use them.  

Those trying to puzzle out the rubrics or calendar from monastic podcasts, for example, won't necessarily find what they are looking for in them since the traditional monasteries all employ greater or lesser variations to the 1963 rubrics (and calendar).   

Quite a few monasteries ignore some or all of the (silly or perhaps even sinister) changes made to the psalter section of the breviary (cutting out several verses of Psalm 13 and the Saturday ferial canticle, and changing the division points for psalms 9 and 106), and just sing them as they appear in the (pre 1962) Psautier Monastique or Antiphonale Monasticum.

More than a few monasteries have restored selected feasts expunged in the 1960 monastic calendar, as well as some rubrics from prior breviaries, such as the use of 1 Vespers for Class II feasts and the office of Our Lady on Saturday.

Some congregations, such as the Fontgambault group of Solesmes monasteries, including Clear Creek, have their own particular calendar and rubrics (in their case, a unique blend of the Novus Ordo sanctoral calendar; monastic feasts, including some suppressed in the 1960 general calendar; and the older temporal cycle.

And at least one monastery has reverted altogether to the pre-1960 calendar and rubrics.  

Why you need the rubrics!

Still, while individual monasteries have a certain freedom to devise their own rubrics and calendars, individuals do not, so having a set of the rubrics readily available as a reference document is a great step forward.

Moreover, the 1963 breviary is still, theoretically at least, normative for the Benedictine Order.  Accordingly, this volume will be particularly helpful for newer or emerging religious communities seeking to establish their own calendar, as well as for established communities interested in or considering a return to tradition. 

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The Instructional and spiritual commentary

The second component of the book is labelled a 'an instruction and commentary', and provides a set of brief notes on the structure, history and associations of each of the hours of the Benedictine Office. 

There is a lot to like in this section, which seeks to draw together rubrical, historical and spiritual material, much of which is quite engaging.

And the notes read very well - the notes on Matins in particular nicely integrate the instructions in the Rule with other contextual material. 

But if the aim of the descriptions of each hour is to guide those new to the Office through the rubrics, it would have been useful, I think, to have included cross-references to the relevant sections of the rubrics (and ideally also to the relevant sections of the breviary and/or Diurnal).  

In addition, while I particularly liked the inclusion of material on the Scriptural and allegorical associations of the hours, it is hard to see why a twelfth century commentary by a canon (Honorius Augustodunensis) merits a quote for each hour on any objective criteria. 

Finally, some of the historical material (particularly the claimed 'newness' of Prime and Compline) has arguably been overtaken by more recent research. 

But these are minor quibbles - while this part of the book isn't a full 'how to say the Office guide', the notes are certainly worth a read.

Overall, this is certainly a book you will want to have in  your library, to dip into as needed.

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