Feast of the Annunciation

From the readings at Matins:

Reading 4 (From Sermon 22 of Pope St Leo the Great): The Almighty and merciful God, Whose nature is goodness, Whose will is power, and Whose work is mercy, did, at the very beginning of the world, as soon as the devil's hatred had mortally poisoned us with the venom of his envy, foretell those remedies which His mercy had foreordained for our healing. He bade the serpent know that there was to be a Seed of the woman Who should yet bruise the swelling of his pestilential head; this Seed was none other than the Christ to come in the flesh, that God and Man in one Person, Who, being born of a Virgin, should, by His undefiled birth, damn the seducer of man.

Reading 6: The devil rejoiced that by his fraud he had so deceived man as to make him lose the gifts of God, forfeit his privilege of eternal life, bring himself under the hard sentence of death, and find in his misery a certain comfort in the accomplice of his guilt; he rejoiced also that God, in His just anger, was changed towards man, whom He had made in such honour. But, dearly beloved brethren, that Unchangeable God, Whose Will cannot be divorced from His goodness, by His own secret counsel carried out in a mysterious way His original purpose of goodness, and man, who had been led into sin by the wicked craft of the devil, perished not to disappoint that gracious purpose of God.

Reading 7: Then therefore, dearly beloved brethren, the fullness of that time came, which God had appointed for our Redemption, our Lord Jesus Christ entered this lower world, came down from His heavenly throne, and, while He left not that glory which He hath with the Father before the world was, was incarnate by a new order and a new birth new, in that He Who is Invisible among His own, was made visible among us; He Who is Incomprehensible, willed to be comprehended; He Who is before the ages, began to be in time; the Lord of all shadowed the glory of His Majesty, and took upon Him the form of a servant; the Impassible God vouchsafed to become a man subject to suffering; and the Immortal laid Himself under the laws of death.

Reading 8: For though the true mercy of God had infinitely many schemes to hand for the restoration of mankind, it chose that particular design which put in force for destroying the devil's work, not the efficacy of might but the dictates of justice. For the pride of the ancient foe not undeservedly made good its despotic rights over all men, and with no unwarrantable supremacy tyrannized over those who had been of their own accord lured away from God's commands to be the slaves of his will.And so there would be no justice in his losing the immemorial slavery of the human race, were he not conquered by that which he had subjugated.

Third week of Lent

Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry

This Sunday's Gospel is from St Luke 11:14-28.  You can find the texts and the Matins readings on it here.

This week in the 1962 Benedictine Office in summary

The key feast this week is the solemnity of the Annunciation on Tuesday.

Sunday March 23  – Third Sunday of Lent, Class I
Monday March 24 – Monday in the third week of Lent, Class III [EF: St Gabriel]
Tuesday March 25 - Annunciation of the BVM, Class I
Wednesday March 26 - Wednesday in the third week of Lent, Class III
Thursday March 27 – Thursday in the third week of Lent, Class III; St John Damascene, Memorial
Friday March 28 – Friday in the third week of Lent, Class III [EF: St John of Capistran; Seven Sorrows of BVM]
Saturday March 29 – Saturday in the third week of Lent, Class III

Feast of St Benedict (March 21)

From the Matins readings of the feast:

Reading 5: Benedict was born of a noble family at Norcia, about the year of our Lord 480, and studied letters at Rome. Desiring to give himself altogether to Christ Jesus, he betook himself to a very deep cave at the place now called Subiaco. In this place he lay hid for three years, unknown to all except the monk Romanus, by means of whom he received the necessaries of life. While he was in the cave at Subiaco, the devil one day assailed him with an extraordinary storm of impure temptation, and to get it under, he rolled himself in brambles till his whole body was lacerated, and the sting of pain drove out the sallies of lust.

Reading 6: At last the fame of his holiness spread itself abroad from the desert, and some monks came to him for guidance, but the looseness of their lives was such that they could not bear his exhortations, and they plotted together to poison him in his drink. When they gave him the cup, he made the sign of the Cross over it, whereupon it immediately broke, and Benedict left that monastery, and retired to a desert place alone.  Nevertheless his disciples followed him daily, and for them he built twelve monasteries, and set holy laws to govern them.

Reading 7: Afterwards he went to Cassino, and brake the image of Apollo which was still worshipped there, overturned the altar, and burnt the groves. There, in the year 529, he built the Church of St Martin and the little chapel of St John; and instilled Christianity into the townspeople and inhabitants. He grew in the grace of God day by day, so that being endowed with the spirit of prophecy he foretold things to come. When Totila, King of the Goths, heard of it, and would see whether it really were so, he sent his Spatharius before him, with the kingly ensigns and attendance, and feigning himself to be Totila. But as soon as Benedict saw him he said: My son, put off that which thou wearest, for it is not thine. To Totila himself he foretold that he would go to Rome, would cross the sea, and would die after nine years.

Reading 8: Some months before he departed this life, Benedict forewarned his disciples on what day he was to die; and he ordered his grave to be opened six days before he was carried to it. On the sixth day, being the 21st of March, in the year 543, he would be carried into the Church, where he received the Eucharist, and then, in the arms of his disciples, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, and wrapt in prayer, he gave up the ghost. Two monks saw his soul rising to heaven, clothed in a most precious garment, and surrounded with lights, and One of a most glorious and awful aspect standing above, Whom they heard saying This is the way whereby Benedict, the beloved of the Lord, goeth up to heaven.

I should note that traditionally, St Gregory's Life of St Benedict is used for the table reading in monasteries from this feast.  If you would like to make it your own reading to, you can a copy online here.

More on lectio divina!

This is just a note to draw your attention to the latest part in Peter Kwasniewski's Lectio Divina series over at New Liturgical Movement.

The post contains a discussion of my post on the need for proper guidance in reading Scripture, and some helpful suggestions on resources to help those doing lectio, and guide your theological formation more generally.

I've posted a comment over there, but let me repeat the gist of it here with a few additional notes.

Study vs prayer?

In the main the NLM post agrees with my concerns about the potential dangers of reading Scripture unaided, but still argues that study and prayer are not the same thing, study being directed to intellectual ends.  Dr Kwasniewski argues that:

"Study originates in a desire to know something intellectually; its medium is our thoughts about things; its goal is conceptual understanding. Prayer originates in a desire to be united to the beloved; its medium is the things themselves; its goal is to get closer to the reality and to conform oneself to it. When we study, we are taking things into our mind; when we pray, we are being drawn to the thing itself, which, at least at times, forces our mind to be quiet."

There is therefore a danger, he suggests, in study driving out the space for prayer.

I agree that is a danger, but the view that study and prayer are potentially at odds with each other, I would suggest, is entirely an artifact of modern approaches to 'study' of the text, rather than those traditionally adopted by the Church until relatively recent times. 

In particular, the historico-critical approach has encouraged the study of the text in order to find what was 'really' originally said, done or written; what was really meant by the text given its 'original' cultural and historical setting, and perhaps what it means for doctrine. 

The more traditional approach to study of the text, on the other hand, is to study it in order to find Christ in the text (where he is not the explicit subject of it), to enable it to be interpreted in the light of other verses of Scripture that deal with the same ideas (the Rule of Faith), and to understand its moral teachings and applicability to us in the here and now.

Study applied to our transformation

The more traditional approach certainly requires study - in reading the Old Testament one needs to be familiar with typology, events and people who foreshadow events in the Gospels for example; in reading the New, one has to be familiar with the Old Testament events and prophesies are that are being responded to. It also requires looking at things like word concordances so one can find the web of associations around a particular text. 

But its object is not the accumulation of intellectual knowledge, but rather the transformation of the reader. 

Study then, is, Dom Paul Delatte's classic Commentary on the Rule of St Benedict suggests, a necessary step in the lectio divina process, but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself.  Lectio divina he suggests:

"...is not merely intellectual activity and culture of the mind...it is the work of the intelligence if you will, but of the intelligence applying itself to divine mysteries and divine learning...it is the organized totality of those progressive intellectual methods by which we make the things of God familiar to us and accustom ourselves to the contemplation of the invisible.  Not abstract, cold speculations, nor mere human curiosity, nor shallow study; but the solid, profound and persevering investigation of Truth itself....It is a study pursued in prayer and in love.  The name lectio is only the first of an ascending series: lectio, cogitatio, studium, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio (reading, thinking, study, meditation, prayer, contemplation); but St Benedict knew that the remaining degrees would soon come if the soul were loyal and courageous..." p306)

There is, unfortunately, no one book on lectio and how study relates to it that I would recommend, but I did personally find Australian Trappist Michael Casey's book Sacred Reading The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina, quite helpful in attempting to map out some of the intellectual effort involved in the process.  I've also recently come across O'Keefe and Reno's Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible which looks to be quite helpful in articulating the different approaches involved.

On the study tools for lectio 

The NLM post contains some links to very useful resources to assist the reading of Scripture, and to it I would add the Ancient Christian Commentary series, which provides an anthology of patristic texts on each book of Scripture arranged by chapter.

That said, I do agree that there is a challenge for us in how to integrate the 'study' of Scripture with prayer.  In the end though, I think that the dangers of over-intellectualising the process can easily be overcome if we keep the proper end of lectio in mind.  My own favourite description of lectio divina is from the fourteenth century Cloud of Unknowing:

"God's word...can be likened to a mirror. Spiritually, the 'eye' of your soul is your reason: your conscience is your spiritual 'face'. Just as you cannot see or know that there is a dirty mark on your actual face without the aid of a mirror, or somebody telling you, so spiritually, it is impossible for a soul blinded by his frequent sins to see the dirty mark in his conscience, without reading or hearing God's word." (ch 35, Penguin edition, p102)

Feast of St Joseph (March 19)

From the readings for Matins:

Reading 5 (From the Sermons of St Bernard, Abbat of Clairvaux. 2nd on Luke i. 26): What and what manner of man the blessed Joseph was, we may gather from that title wherewith, albeit only as a deputy, God deemed him fit to be honoured he was both called, and supposed to be the Father of God. We may gather it from his very name, which, being interpreted, signifieth Increase. Remember likewise that great Patriarch who was sold into Egypt, and know that the Husband of Mary not only received his name, but inherited his purity, and was likened to him in innocence and in grace.

Reading 6: If then, that Joseph that was sold by his brethren through envy, and was brought down to Egypt, was a type of Christ sold by a disciple, and handed over to the Gentiles, the other Joseph flying from the envy of Herod carried Christ into Egypt. That first Joseph kept loyal to his master, and would not carnally know his master's wife; that second Joseph knew that the Lady, the Mother of his Lord, was a virgin, and he himself remained faithfully virgin toward her.

Reading 7: To that first Joseph it was given to know dark things in interpreting of dreams; to the second Joseph it was given in sleep to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.The first Joseph laid by bread, not for himself, but for all people; the second Joseph received into his keeping that Living Bread Which came down from heaven, not for him only, but for the whole world.

Reading 8: We cannot doubt but that that Joseph was good and faithful to whom was espoused the Mother of the Saviour. Yea, I say, he was a faithful and wise servant, whom the Lord appointed to be the comfort of His own Mother, the keeper of His own Body, and the only and trusty helper in the Eternal Counsels.

Feast of St Patrick (March 18)

Feast of St Gregory the Great

Antiphonary of Hartker of the monastery of Saint Gall
c1000

St Gregory the Great is particularly noted for his contributions to the liturgy, the commissioning of the mission to England, and writings.  And foremost amongst these is his 'Dialogues', Book II of which is the Life of St Benedict (don't forget to start your Novena to St Benedict today!).

Here are the readings from the Benedictine Office on St Gregory:

(Reading 5): Gregory the Great was a Roman, the son of Gordian the Senator, (and was born about the year of our Lord 540.) As a young man he studied philosophy, and afterwards discharged the office of Praetor. After his father's death he built six monasteries in Sicily, and a seventh in honour of St Andrew, in his own house at Rome, hard by the Church of Saints John and Paul at the ascent of the hill Scaurus. In this monastery of St Andrew, he and his masters, Hilarion and Maximian, professed themselves monks, and Gregory was afterwards Abbot. Later on, he was created a Cardinal Deacon, and sent to Constantinople as legate from Pope Pelagius to the Emperor Tiberius Constantine. Before the Emperor he so successfully disputed against the Patriarch Eutychius, who had denied that our bodies shall verily and indeed rise again, that the Prince threw the book of the said Patriarch into the fire. Eutychius himself also, soon after fell sick, and when he felt death coming on him, he took hold of the skin of his own hand and said in the hearing of many that stood by: I acknowledge that we shall all rise again in this flesh.

(Reading 6):Gregory returned to Rome, and, Pelagius being dead of a plague, he was unanimously chosen Pope. This honour he refused as long as he could. He disguised himself and took refuge in a cave, but was betrayed by a fiery pillar. Being discovered and overruled, he was consecrated at the grave of St Peter, upon the 3rd day of September, in the year 590. He left behind him many ensamples of doctrine and holiness to them that have followed him in the Popedom. Every day he brought pilgrims to his table, and among them he entertained not an Angel only, but the very Lord of Angels in the guise of a pilgrim. He tenderly cared for the poor, of whom he kept a list, as well without as within the city. He restored the Catholic faith in many places where it had been overthrown. He fought successfully against the Donatists in Africa and the Arians in Spain. He cleansed Alexandria of the Agnoites. He refused to give the Pall to Syagrius, Bishop of Autun, unless he would expel the Neophyte heretics from Gaul. He caused the Goths to abandon the Arian heresy.

(Reading 7): He sent into Britain Augustine and divers other learned and holy monks, who brought the inhabitants of that island to believe in Jesus Christ. Hence Gregory is justly called by Bede, the Priest of Jarrow, the Apostle of England. He rebuked the presumption of John, Patriarch of Constantinople, who had taken to himself the title of Bishop of the Universal Church, and he dissuaded the Emperor Maurice from forbidding: soldiers to become monks.  Gregory adorned the Church with holy customs and laws. He called together a Synod in the Church of St Peter, and therein ordained many things; among others, the ninefold repetition of the words Kyrie eleison in the Mass, the saying of the word in the Church service except between Septuagesima inclusive and Easter exclusive, and the addition to the Canon of the Mass of the words M Do Thou order all our days in thy peace. He increased the Litanies, the number of the Churches where is held the observance called a Station; and the length of the Church Service.

(Reading 8): He would that the four Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon should be honoured like four Gospels. He released the Sicilian Bishops from visiting Rome every three years, willing them to come instead once every five years. He was the author of many books, and Peter the Deacon declareth that he often saw the Holy Ghost on his head in the form of a dove when he was dictating them. It is a marvel how much he spoke, did, wrote, and legislated, suffering all the while from a weak and sickly body. He worked many miracles. At last God called him away to be blessed for ever in heaven, in the thirteenth year, sixth month, and tenth day of his Pontificate, being the 12th day of March, in the year of salvation 604. This day is observed by the Greeks, as well as by us, as a festival, on account of the eminent wisdom and holiness of this Pope. His body was buried in the Church of St Peter, hard by the Private Chapel.

Lectio divina: On memory, study and the Rule of Faith**

I wanted to draw readers attention to a few useful posts and talks of late on how to approach lectio divina (holy or prayerful reading):

• Fr Cassian Folsom OSB podcast in the Praying without Ceasing series on the Norcia Monastery website;
• Fr Mark Kirby OSB over at Vultus Christi  (several posts and weekly lectio notes and instructions); and 
• Peter Kwasniewski has a series (two parts so far) over at New Liturgical Movement.

These are all well worth reading or listening to, especially since holy reading is a key practice in Benedictine spirituality.

That said, I'd like to respectfully disagree with some of the advice offered by these authors (and I'll apologise in advance if I've misinterpreted what they are saying, or in the case of a series still in progress, jumped the gun!), and suggest an alternative perspective on one key point, namely drawing on books (or other aids) other than the Bible.

Why we should do lectio

The strength of the material at the links is, I think, that it provides strong encouragement for everyone to do at least some prayerful reading of Scripture every day.  St Benedict allocates at least two hours a day to it for his monks (more during Lent), and while we may only be able to manage fifteen minutes or so, that is long enough to get something useful out of it.

Every Catholic should know the Bible well, for as St Benedict says in his Rule, "what page or utterance of the divinely inspired books of the Old and New Testament is not a most unerring rule of human life?"

And how can we seek to know and imitate Christ if we don't actually really know what he did or taught?

The various posts also emphasize that you don't have to have any special knowledge or training to do lectio divina, it is open to everyone.

Lectio divina and studying Scripture

All the same, I'm not convinced anyone can or should just open the Bible and read, trusting only to the aid of the Holy Spirit.  It strikes me (and I'm rather paraphrasing Mother Cecile Bruyere's book, The Spiritual Life and Prayer according to Holy Scripture and Monastic Tradition here) as a little presumptuous on our part to expect to receive by direct inspiration, what God gave us minds to use to for study.

Many seem to view lectio as an approach to Scripture that is positively opposed to intellectual study of it.  I disagree, and strongly recommend a rereading of Pope Benedict XVI's Post-Synodal Exhortation Verbum Domini for an explanation of how we should employ reason and study to the process of lectio without in any way comprising the meditative and contemplative aspects of it.  I've previously written a summary of his key points on this here.

Most modern advocates of lectio divina point to a twelfth century Carthusian source on the practice, which seems to advocate doing just that.  But can I suggest that a twelfth century Carthusian monk was not exactly operating in the same poorly catechized, theological vacuum that most twenty-first century lay Catholics are?

Medieval memory

St Benedict's monks, when they did their lectio, surely had the model of the Fathers to work from, with their careful probing of issues such as the reasons for differences between the various Gospel accounts of events, and ability to draw in a web of related verses to explain the one under consideration.

When a medieval monk pondered a few verses of Scripture, he could draw on a vast volume of memorised knowledge to help him interpret what he was reading in the light of Scripture as a whole.

Most monks knew the psalms by heart, and at least large chunks of the Gospels, so could use the common technique of interpreting a verse through others that used the same key words and ideas.

They might also have been familiar with the patristic commentaries on the verses, not least from the readings at Matins each day.

Above all, the monk would also have been well aware of how to look for the spiritual meaning of verses, looking at Old Testament people and events as 'types' of the New for example.

Cultural and theological context

Modern monks, I suspect, can get away with doing their lectio without aids because most either are already well-educated theologically (or are in the process of acquiring a theological education, many on the path to priesthood) and are immersed in Scripture through daily Mass and Office.

Few laypeople people, though, even those relatively well catechized, have much familiarity with the Bible as a whole.

Fewer still know it well enough to be able to call to mind related verses.

Moreover, for monks and laity alike, more than a century of historico-critical interpretation of Scripture has, as Fr Cassian points out in his talk, rather stripped us of the ability to read Scripture other than in the strictly literal sense, effectively stripping the Old Testament of its Christological content, and the New of its eschatological content.

When we read a psalm verse with the phrase sing 'a new song' (canticum novum) in it for example, we are liable to take it pretty literally, as 'compose a new hymn'.  Indeed, the Navarre commentary's take on the phrase in Psalm 39 (40) is "God inspires the psalmist to sing a "new" song as distinct from one of lamentation over his suffering..." (Psalms, p151).

Yet when a monk of a previous era read the phrase he would know that the phrase also occurs in a passage in Isaiah 42 that makes clear its Messianic significance.  And he would also read the psalm in the light of its use in Revelation 5, that makes it clear that what follows is a song of the people formed by the New Covenant, the Church:

"...and they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals,for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth."

When the monk read the phrase 'canticum novum' (new song), then, (as occurs in Psalms 32, 39, 95, 97, 143, and 149) he was likely to interpret what followed as a song about Messianic times, as the most popular medieval commentary on the psalms, that by St Benedict's contemporary Cassiodorus, makes clear.

The modern 'memory': it is called the internet!

We today, alas, rarely have such knowledge in our mind to draw on.

Fortunately, we do have tools available to us at our fingertips that can in effect supply that 'memory' function - concordances on key words and phrases, compilations of relevant patristic commentaries, Scripture cross-indexed against the Catechism, for example.

Unfortunately there are very few Catholic sites on the Internet (or in book form) that attempt to put together these sources in an easy to use form as an aid to lectio.  The protestant ones can be useful though, and there are some useful Catholic resources out there (I've listed a lot of them in the sidebars to my Psallam Domino blog.

Pope Benedict XVI argued strongly that the academic study of Scripture needs to be injected with a lectio divina style focus on meditation and contemplation, and that on the other side of the ledger, lectio divina needed to draw on all the intellectual tools available to truly understand what the text means for us.  Accordingly, I really strongly urge readers to consider using in their lectio with something that helps set the verses of Scripture in the light of 'the rule of faith'.  St Thomas' Catena Aurea, for example, a compilation of Patristic commentaries grouped by Gospel verses, can provide an excellent starting point for study and meditation.

**You can read more on this, including a response from Peter Kwasniewski by following the links here.

Lent rubrics

Just a reminder that Lent proper (so far as the Office goes!) starts this week (though as far as the number of penitential days goes, we have already completed four of the nominally forty days, but actually more like 36 by virtue of assorted Solemnities).

The Ordinary of the ferial Office in Lent is set out in the Farnborough edition of the Monastic Diurnal at MD 190*ff.

Each day there are two sets of collects: the first for use from Matins to None; the second for Vespers.

At Lauds and Vespers, chapters, hymns, etc of the season replace those in the psalter section;
and  the canticle antiphons are proper for each day.

If you say one of those people who rise in darkness to say Matins, do enjoy the Sunday invitatory antiphon during this season: Non sit vobis vanum mane surgere ante lucem: Quia promisit Dominus coronam vigilantibus (it is not in vain that you rise before the light: for the Lord has promised a crown to those keeping vigil).

Ash Wednesday

The readings at Matins are as follows:

Reading 1: Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew - Matt 6:16-21
In that time Jesus said to his disciples: And when you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. And so on.  Homily by St Austin, Bishop of Hippo (Bk. ii. on the Lord's Sermon on the Mounts ch. xii., torn. 4.)

It is evident that by these precepts we are bidden to seek for inner gladness, lest, by running after that reward which is without, we should become conformed to the fashion of this world, and should so lose the promise of that blessing which is all the truer and more stable that it is inward, that blessing wherein God hath chosen us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. In this chapter we will principally consider the fact that vain-glory findeth a ground for its exercise in struggling poverty as much as in worldly distinction and display; and this development is the most dangerous, because it entices under pretence of being the serving of God.

Reading 2: He that is characterised by unbridled indulgence in luxury or in dress, or any other display, is by these very things easily shown to be a follower of worldly vanities, and deceiveth no one by putting on an hypocritical mask of godliness. But those professors of Christianity, who turn all eyes on themselves by an eccentric show of grovelling and dirtiness, not suffered by necessity, but by their own choice, of them we must judge by their other works whether their conduct really proceedeth from the desire of mortification by giving up unnecessary comfort, or is only the mean of some ambition the Lord biddeth us beware of wolves in sheep's clothing, but by their fruits, saith He, ye shall know them.

Reading 3: The test is when, by divers trials, such persons lose those things which under the cover of seeming unworldliness they have either gained or sought to gain. Then must it needs appear whether they be wolves in sheep's clothing, or indeed sheep in their own. But that hypocrites do the contrary maketh it no duty of a Christian to shine before the eyes of men with a display of needless luxury the sheep need not to lay aside their own clothing because wolves sometimes falsely assume it.

Quinquagesima Sunday and the week ahead

Codex Egberti

This week's Gospel in the Vetus Ordo and 1962 Benedictine calendar warns of Jesus' coming Passion, and the healing of the blind man of Jericho.  You can find the third Nocturn readings for Matins on it, over at my Lectio Divina Notes blog or at Divinum Officium.

The Office from from Ash Wednesday

Lent officially starts this Wednesday.  In the Office though, the rubrics don't really change much until after the First Sunday of Lent.

The period from Ash Wednesday to the coming Saturday was something of a 'later' add-on to Lent to make up the correct number of days (given that Sundays are not counted for fasting and other purposes, although in reality we still don't quite make it to forty days, due to the several first class feasts that intervene).

The liturgy does intensify  a little however, with canticle antiphons for both Lauds and Vespers, for each day.  At Matins, the readings are Patristic, on the Gospel of the day.  The rest of the Office at Lauds to Vespers, though, remains that of  'throughout the year' up until the First Sunday of Lent.

The Benedictine (1962) Office this week in summary

Sunday March 2 – Quinquagesima Sunday, Class II
Monday March 3  – Class IV
Tuesday March 4 – Class IV (Shrove Tuesday) [EF: St Casimir]
Wednesday March 5  – Ash Wednesday, Class I
Thursday March 6  – Thursday after Ash Wednesday, Class III; SS Perpetua and Felicitas, memorial
Friday March 7 - Friday after Ash Wednesday, Class III; St Thomas Aquinas, memorial
Saturday March 8 – Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Class III [EF: St John of God]

Recovering the Opus Dei

Those who read the traditionally oriented blogs may be aware that there have been a number of posts of late arguing that the 'reform of the reform' is a lost cause.

I'd like to draw you attention in particular to two posts by two Benedictines on this topic that are well worth reading, namely by Dom Mark Kirby, and Dom Hugh Somerville-Knapman.

Dom Hugh's initial post on this subject (there are two follow-ups) focuses mainly on the Mass; Dom Mark's also draws attention to some of the issues around the wreckovation of the Benedictine Office.

The Mass and the Office

Personally I think the Office is in many ways the bigger issue, at least for Benedictines.

It is not, of course that the Mass is unimportant, far from it!  The spirituality of the vetus ordo Mass is closely bound up with that of the Office, and for the wider Church, the recovery of the traditional form of the Mass is vitally important in my view.

All the same, in terms of Benedictine spirituality, the core is arguably the Office: St Benedict, after all, barely mentions the Mass in his Rule, and in his time daily Mass was not the norm.  Moreover, the expectation that most monks would be priests is actually a late medieval innovation imposed by Popes rather than a reform generated from within, albeit one now absorbed into the tradition.

In praise of St Benedict's liturgical genius

Still, it is arguably St Benedict's particular form of the Office, together with the Rule and the Life by St Gregory the Great, that shaped the Benedictine mindset for centuries.

St Benedict devotes almost a third of his Rule  - some twenty-two chapters (RB 8-20; 45; 47; 50; 52  plus numerous other references - to the Divine Office.  It is one of the great ironies then, of Vatican II's call to recover the patrimony of religious orders, that most Benedictines now observe fewer provisions of the Rule than they did before the Council by virtue of the wholesale jettisoning of St Benedict's Office.  Even more ironic given that some argue that the liturgical provisions are actually the most innovative part of St Benedict's Rule, much of the rest being based on the Rule of the Master.

This irony is even greater when one prays and studies the Office over several years, and becomes aware of the great care and deliberation the saint exercised in selecting the pattern of repetitions and particular groupings he specified for each hour and day.  These patterns are not unimportant: whether the monk is aware of them consciously or not, they shape his thinking, for as the great scholar Laszló Dobszay argued, "If it is true to say, Chorus facit monachum (Office in common makes the monk), then we may complete the proverb thus: Hic chorus facit hunc monachum (The order’s own  Office shapes the self-identity of the monk).”

If we want to restore those bare-ruined choirs then, and see the reemergence of a genuinely Benedictine spirituality, a return to St Benedict's own form of the psalter is vital, and it is good to see that this is increasingly being publicly advocated.

Matins Patristic Readings**

A reader has kindly alerted me to the fact that the book providing the English version of the Patristic readings for the Benedictine Office is once more in print.

The Matins readings

The book, entitled The Lessons Of The Temporal Cycle And The Principal Feasts Of The Sanctoral Cycle According To The Monastic Breviary was originally published by St Meinrad's Abbey in 1941, and is now available in a reprint (you can find it on Amazon here).

It basically provides the Patristic readings for the second and third nocturns of Matins on Sundays and other days with set Gospels (such as during Lent), together with the readings for most first and second class feasts.  Note though that it doesn't contain the commons of saints, nor does it contain the first nocturn Scriptural readings (though it mostly notes what they are).

There are, I'm afraid some differences to the 1962 readings.  First, the book was compiled before the old octaves were mostly abolished, so the readings given cover the octaves, not the newer texts that often substitute on those days.  Secondly some feasts have been added or abolished since then, and a few readings changed.

Nonetheless, this is a very worthwhile book to obtain if you say Matins (unless your Latin is already superb!), or just want to do lectio divina on the readings for Sundays.

Lectio Divina in the mind of the Church

The patristic readings on the Gospels are, I think, and important resource for us to employ when doing Lectio Divina.  There are many advocates, these days, for just opening the Bible (or your Missal or whatever) and reading it unaided.  That might be fine if you already have a very good grounding in theology, but most of us need a bit more help than that, lest we fall into heresy!

In Verbum Domini, for example, Pope Benedict XVI pointed out that:

 "Saint Jerome recalls that we can never read Scripture simply on our own. We come up against too many closed doors and we slip too easily into error." (30)  

In that Exhortation, Pope Benedict argued for the need to employ all four senses of Scripture, and to listen to the interpretations of Scripture provided by the saints:

"The interpretation of sacred Scripture would remain incomplete were it not to include listening 
to those who have truly lived the word of God: namely, the saints.  Indeed, “ viva lectio est vita bonorum ”.  The most profound interpretation of Scripture comes precisely from those who let themselves be shaped by the word of God through listening, reading and assiduous meditation." (48)

The Pope urged us to reappropriate the great Patristic tradition as a guard against individualistic readings of something that is essential a communal property.  Viewing our lectio in the context of the liturgy is one guard against this, but so to is drawing on the tradition of interpretation of Scripture:

"As such, it is important to read and experience sacred Scripture in communion with the Church, that is, with all the great witnesses to this word, beginning with the earliest Fathers up to the saints of our own day, up to the present-day magisterium”. (86)

One of the fascinating survivals of the medieval monastic record are the collections of lectio notes left by so many monks.  Many of them are nothing more than anthologies of the Fathers commentaries on the psalms and other texts, along the lines of St Thomas' Catena Aurea on the Gospels.  Others are more developed commentaries such as those of St Bede, that reflect careful study, meditation and prayer.

The readings especially selected for the Office by the Church are an excellent starting point for our own efforts in this area, so do consider obtaining this book, or investigating other such collections and sound commentaries to guide your lectio efforts!

Lectio divina on the psalms

And by way of postscript on the need for study of Scripture under the guidance of the Fathers, I'd like to draw your attention to the latest (Number 3) in the series of Fr Cassian Folsom's talks on Praying Without Ceasing, which very much goes to the need to study the psalm, particularly for their Christocentric, spiritual interpretation, in order to get the most out of the Office. 

Praying without ceasing: St Benedict's numerical theology

If you've been listening to the excellent talks on prayer given by Fr Cassian, Prior of the monastery of Norcia, you will know that a lot of this week's talk (the second in the series) deals with the question of how we can be said to pray without ceasing in the context of the Divien Office.

Sacred numbers

Fr Cassian notes that the Fathers, including St Benedict, placed a lot of meaning on numbers.

In particular, he points out that St Benedict uses two numbers to signal completeness or totality -  praying seven times a day in the day hours, and the twelve psalms of Matins (leaving aside the two said daily) - to indicate that the Divine Office enables us to meet this Scriptural injunction.

Seven, he notes, is frequently used in Scripture to denote completeness, or continuous prayer.  And twelve is also used to indicate universality or completeness, for example in the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles, the saints in the canon of the Mass and so forth.

Number of psalms in the day

By way of a possible footnote to Fr Cassian's talk for those who enjoy number symbolism, I want to suggest another way in which St Benedict uses numbers to indicate the Office's fulfillment of the requirement to pray continuously.

In particular, I want to suggest that it is not just in the number of psalms he sets for Matins that plays on sacred numerology, but also the other hours of his Office.

Fr Cassian noted St Benedict's reference to the twelve psalms of Matins (RB 10).

But note that the number of psalms said each day at Lauds (except Saturday) is seven - Psalms 66, 50, two psalms of the day, 148, 149, and 150 (RB 12-13).

The number of the psalms (provided you count as a psalm anything said under a Gloria Patri) said at Prime to None is twelve (RB 17).

And the number of psalms said at Vespers (four) and Compline (three) again adds up to seven (RB 17).

And note that in RB 17, the number of psalms is carefully discussed in groupings: Matins and Lauds (already settled); Prime to None; and Vespers and Compline.

So we have a pattern: 12 (+2), 7, 12, 7.

Of course there is a bit of fudging in this but I don't think we should be too fussed at this, but rather consider the point he is trying to make in his modelling of the basic structure of the Office.

Am I onto something or reading too much into it?!

St Valentine (Memorial, Feb 14)

St Valentine is one of a small band of martyrs (along with St Thomas More) who died not least in the defence of the Christian conception of marriage.  Accordingly, a saint to whom we might particularly ask help for those who are attempting to defend the institution once again today.

Martyred during the reign of Claudius II, the saint was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome.

Here is a reading previously used in the Office for his feast, from St Augustine:

The illustrious day whereon the blessed Martyr Valentin conquered, doth this day come round to us again and as the Church doth rejoice with him in his glory, so doth she set before us his footsteps to be followed. For if we suffer, we shall also reign with him. In his glorious battle we have two things chiefly to consider the hardened cruelty of the tormentor, and the unconquered patience of the Martyr the cruelty of the tormentor, that we may abhor it; the patience of the Martyr, that we may imitate it. Hear what the Psalmist saith, complaining against sin: "Fret not thyself because of the evil-doers, for they shall soon dry up like the grass." But touching the patience which is to be shown against the evil-doers, hear the word wherewith the Apostle moveth us Ye have need of patience, that ye may receive the promise. 

Fr Cassian Folsom OSB conferences on prayer

An alert just in case you missed it - to a series of talks given by Fr Cassian Folsom, Prior of St Benedict's Monastery, Norcia, Italy, on praying without ceasing.   The talks were originally given as a retreat at Still Water Monastery, MA.

The first talk, on the desert Father tradition on praying without ceasing, is available online now from the monastery's website, which also contains further information on them.  A new part in the series of ten will be released each Friday until just before Holy Week.

Feast of St Scholastica OSB (Feb 10, Class I/II)

The Second Nocturn readings for the feast of St Scholastica are from St Gregory's Dialogues, Book II, chapters 33-34:

(Reading 5): The worshipful Scholastica, the sister of our Father Benedict, was hallowed unto the Lord Almighty from a child. Her custom was to come to see her brother once every year. And when she came, the man of God went down unto her, not far from the gate, but, as it were, within the borders of his monastery. And there was a day when she came, as her custom was, and her worshipful brother went down to her, and his disciples with him. Then they passed the whole day together, praising God, and speaking one to the other of spiritual things. And when the night came, they brake bread together. And while they were yet at table, and conversed together on spiritual things, the hour was late. Then the holy woman his sister besought him, saying Leave me not, I pray thee, this night, but let us speak even until morning of the gladness of the eternal life. He answered her: What is it that thou sayest, my sister? I can by no means remain out of my cell. Now the firmament was so clear that there were no clouds in the sky. 

(Reading 6): Then the holy nun, when she had heard the words of her brother, that he would not abide with her, clasped her hands on the table, and laid her face on her hands, and besought the Lord Almighty. And it came to pass that when she lifted up her head from the table, there were great thunderings and lightnings, and a flood of rain, insomuch that neither the worshipful Benedict nor the brethren that were with him could move as much as a foot over the threshold of the place where they sat. Now when the holy woman laid her head in her hands upon the table, she wept bitterly, and as she wept, the clearness of the sky was turned to a tempest. As she prayed, immediately the flood followed. And the time was so, that she lifted up her head when it thundered, and when she had lifted up her head, the rain came. 

(Reading 7): When the man of God saw that he could not return to his monastery, because of the lightnings, and thunderings, and the great rain, he was sorrowful and grieved, saying Almighty God forgive thee, my sister; what is this that thou hast done? She answered him Behold, I besought thee, and thou wouldest not hear; I besought my God, and He hath heard me; if, therefore, thou wilt, go forth, leave me alone, and go thy way to thy monastery. But he could not, and so he tarried in the same place, not willingly, but of necessity. And so it came to pass that they slept not all that night, but fed one another with discourse on spiritual things.

(Reading 8):And when the morning was come, the worshipful woman arose, and went unto her own cell, and the man of God went back to his monastery. And, behold, after three days he was sitting in his cell, and he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and saw the soul of his sister, delivered from the body, fly to heaven in a bodily shape like a dove. Wherefore he rejoiced because of the glory that was revealed in her, and gave thanks to Almighty God in hymns and praises, and made known to the brethren that she was dead. He commanded them also to go and take up her body, and bring it to his monastery, and lay it in the grave which he had made ready for himself. Whereby it came to pass that they twain who had ever been of one mind in the Lord, even in death were not divided.

St Romuald OSB

Today's saint, St Romuald, founded the Camaldolese Congregation of Benedictines.  Here is the Matins reading on him:

Romuald was born of a noble family of Ravenna, his father's name being Sergius. As a young man, he withdrew to the neighboring monastery of Classis to lead a life of penance. There, fired with great eagerness for the love of God and encouraged by an apparition of St. Apollinaris, he became a monk. He exercised himself un-wearyingly in fasting and prayer, and such joy showed on his face that it gladdened all those who saw him. Burning with desire for martyrdom, he set out for Pannonia, but was taken ill and forced to return. He became the founder of the Order of Camaldolese monks, whom he had seen in a vision as Angels mounting a ladder that reached up to heaven. When he had reached the age of a hundred and twenty, having served God in the greatest austerity for a hundred of those years, he at length made his way to Him in the Year of salvation 1027, and was buried with honor in the church of his Order at Fabriano.

Feast of the Purification of Our Lady (Candlemass)

Candlemass

This Sunday we celebrate Candlemass, aka the Purification of Our Lady aka The Presentation in the Temple.  It is normally a Class II feast, but is treated as if it were Class I when it occurs on a Sunday.

The Gospel for the feast is St Luke 2:22-32 (which includes the Nunc Dimittis, the only Office canticle that rarely features in the Benedictine form of the Office), and you can find the Matins readings for it over at my Lectio Divina Blog, along with what I think is the most beautiful setting of the Nunc Dimittis, by Geoffrey Burgon for the British tv series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

This week in the Benedictine Office

Here is a summary of the week in the Office.  You can find further details in the Ordo provided in the sidebar of the blog.

Sunday February 2 - Purification of the BVM, Class II
Monday February 3 - Class IV; St Blase, Memorial
Tuesday February 4 - Class IV [EF: ST Andrew Corsini]
Wednesday February 5 – St Agatha, Class III
Thursday February 6 - Class IV [EF: St Titus]
Friday February 7 – St Romuald, Class III
Saturday February 8 - Class IV, Saturday of Our Lady [EF: St John of Matha]

Change of seasons

Candlemass, as forty days after the birth of Jesus, marks the end of the Christmas season in the Office.

Accordingly, from Sunday, the Marian antiphon at Compline changes to Ave Regina Caelorum (you can listen to a video of Solemn Tone version of the chant, for use on Saturdays, Sundays and major feasts, below).

Commentary on the Rule of St Benedict by Hildemar (c845)

Source: Hildemar Translation Project

I just wanted to alert interested readers to the availability of a translation of one of the earliest known commentaries on the Benedictine Rule, by the ninth century monk Hildemar of Corbie, dating from around 845 AD.

Early monastic commentaries on the Rule

Early commentaries on the Rule, other than in the forms of adaptations of it in the form of the so-called 'mixed-rules' (combinations of the Benedictine Rule and assorted others) and a few early customaries are scarce, and those that do exist are generally hard to access.  There are of course some documents, such as early saints lives, surviving letters, charters and assorted pieces of ecclesiastical legislation that through some light on early Benedictine monasticism, but relatively few of these are available in translation.

That is slowly changing though.  A translation of the oldest known commentary on the Rule, by Smaragdus (ca816) was published in the Cistercian Studies series in 2007.

And now a collaborative translation of Hildemar's Commentary has been made available through the Hildemar Translation Project.  The translation is still a work in progress, but well worth a look.

Hildemar on the Opus Dei

Just by way of a taster to encourage you to go take a look, here are a few extracts from Chapter 8, On the Divine Office at Night, translated by Julian Hendrix:

"After he had discussed the mortification of the interior man and the formation of the exterior man, that is, the accomplishment of the steps [of humility], blessed Benedict now properly and agreeable adds concerning the Divine Office, because that Divine Office is pleasing to God because it is done by such men, that is, who abide in the twelve grades of humility, because just as the prophet says: Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner. [cf. Sir 15:9] And also the psalmist says: I, however, say to the sinner: why do you describe my justices and receive my covenant through your mouth [when] you truly hate discipline and have cast my words behind you? If you have seen a thief, you have run with him and you have spent your portion with adulterers. Your mouth has abounded with wickedness, and your tongue produces deceit. Sitting you spoke against your brother, and laid a scandal against your mother's son. You have done these things and I was silent. [Ps 49:16-21]

And rightly he added divine when he said concerning the office, because there are other offices, which are not divine. Obviously he added at night to separate other times, for there are the other offices of the day, i.e., those which he will discuss below. But as Isidore says, there are many kinds of offices, but the chief one is that service which is held for holy and divine matters. [Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae VI. c. 19. 1; translation from Barney et al.] But why is it called office? In his books, which he wrote On Offices, that is, On the Customs of Human Life, Blessed Ambrose speaks in this way: We think 'office' [officium] is so called, as in "finished"[efficium], but on account of the elegance of words, with one latter changed it is called "office", or certainly for the purpose of conducting those matters [page 271] which harms no one but benefits all. [Ambrose, De officiis 1, c. 8.26, CCSL 15, p. 10]...

Psalmists [psalmista] are so called from singing psalms. They sing to kindle the spirits of their audiences to compunction - although some readers also declaim in so heart-rending a way that they drive some people to sorrow and lamentation..." 

St John Bosco (Jan 31)

St John Bosco's feast is a memorial in the 1962 Benedictine Office.  Here is the Matins reading from the Roman Office:

The childhood of Don Bosco, who was born in a small village was marked both by its hardship and by his happy innocence of soul. He studied at Chieri, where in a short time he earned great praise for his brilliance and his virtue. Ordained priest, he went to Turin, where he made himself all things to all men, and undertook in particular the work of aiding poor and neglected boys. By providing them with teaching in the liberal arts and in trades and keeping them occupied on holidays, he strove with all his might to remove young people from poisonous sources of delinquency and vice. For this purpose, he established two congregations in the Church, one for men and one for women religious. He himself published many books filled with Christian wisdom. He also accomplished great things for the eternal salvation of unbelievers through the missionary enterprises of his congregations. With his mind constantly raised to God, this holy man never seemed to be terrified by threats, worn out by labors, oppressed by cares, or disturbed by adversities. He died in the year of salvation 1888 at the age of seventy-three, and was numbered among the Saints by Pope Pius XI.

St Frances de Sales (Jan 29)

The feast of St Frances de Sales is only a memorial in the Benedictine Office, but here is the reading on him from the Roman Office:

Francis was born of devout and noble parents in the town of Sales, from which his family took its name. He was given a liberal education, devoted himself to the study of philosophy and theology at Paris and gained the degree bi Doctor in civil and canon law at Padua. When he had been ordained priest and made provost of the church of Geneva, he carried out the duties of his office so well that Bishop de Granier sent him to preach the word of God in Chablais in order to win the inhabitants away from the heresy of Calvin. He undertook this mission with such great zeal and overcame so many dangers with the help of God that he is said to have brought back to the Catholic faith some seventy-two thousand heretics. When de Granier died, Francis was consecrated bishop. He founded a new order of nuns, named for the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin, and enlightened the Church with writings filled with heavenly teaching. At Lyons, he was seized by a grave illness and departed to heaven in the year 1622. He was declared a Doctor of the Universal Church by pope Pius IX.

St Cyril of Alexandria (Jan 28)

The Benedictine Office celebrates today as a memorial of St Cyril, but his feast is on February 9 in the 1962 Roman calendar (this year displaced by the Sunday).  Here are some readings on him from an older form of that Office:

The praises of Cyril of Alexandria have been celebrated not only by one writer or another, but have even been registered in the acts of the Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. He was born of distinguished parents, and was the nephew of Theophilus, Pope of Alexandria. While he was still young he displayed marks of his excellent understanding. After giving a deep study to letters and science he betook himself to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, to be perfected in the Christian faith. After his return to Alexandria, and the death of Theophilus, he was raised to that see. In this office he kept ever before his eyes the type of the Shepherd of souls as it had been laid down by the Apostle; and by ever adhering thereto deservedly earned the glory of an holy Bishop.

Zeal for the salvation of souls was kindled in him, and he undertook all care to keep in the faith and in soundness of life the flock unto him committed, and to preserve them from the poisonous pastures of infidelity and heresy; hence, in accordance with the laws, he caused the followers of Novatus to be expelled from the city, and those Jews to be punished who had been induced by rage to plan a massacre of the Christians. His eminent care for the preservation of the Catholic faith pure and undenied shone forth especially in his controversy against Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who asserted that Jesus Christ had been born of the Virgin Mary as man only and not as God, and that the Godhead had been bestowed upon Him because of His merits. Cyril first attempted to convert Nestorius, but when he found this hopeless he denounced him to the Supreme Pontiff the holy Celestine.

As delegate of Pope Celestine, Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus where the Nestorian heresy was condemned; Nestorius deprived of his see; and the Catholic doctrine as to the unity of Person in Christ and the divine Motherhood of the glorious Virgin Mary was laid down amid the rejoicings of all the people, who escorted the bishops to their lodgings with a torch-light procession. For this reason Nestorius and his followers made Cyril the object of slanders, insults, and persecutions which he bore with profound patience, having all his care for the purity of the faith, and taking no heed to what the heretics might say or try against him. At length he died a holy death, in the year of salvation
444 And of his own papacy the 32nd. After vast work for the Church of God, and leaving behind him divers writings directed either against heathens and heretics or to the exposition of the holy Scriptures and of Catholic doctrine, the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII. extended to the Universal Church the Office and Mass of this most eminent champion of the Catholic faith, and light of the Eastern Church.

Feast of St John Chrysostom (Jan 27)

From  the readings at Matins:

John came from Antioch and was called "Chrysostom" because of the golden flood of his eloquence. Ordained a priest of the Church of Antioch, he was later, against his will made archbishop of Constantinople to succeed Nestorius, through the influence of Arcadius the emperor. In this office, since he spoke out strongly against the degradation of public morals and the licentious lives of the nobility, he drew down on himself the hatred of many persons. He gravely offended Empress Eudoxia also, because he reprehended her for taking the money of the widow Callitropa and the land of another widow. For all these reasons he was forced into exile, while all the widows and the needy mourned at being deprived of their common father. It is beyond belief how many hardships he suffered in his exile and how many people he converted to the faith of Jesus Christ. The number, warmth and brilliance of his sermons and other writings are universally admired. He gave up his soul to God on September 14, and his body was buried in the Vatican basilica. This outstanding Doctor of the universal Church was appointed the heavenly patron of preachers by Pope Pius X.

Third Sunday after Epiphany

This Sunday is the Third after Epiphany, and the Gospel this week is St Matthew 8:1-13 (the healing of a leper and the Centurion's servant).  You can find the Matins readings on it over at my Lectio Divina Notes blog.

St Polycarp

This Sunday is also the feast of St Polycarp, so here is the reading on him from the Roman Office:

"Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John, and was consecrated by him Bishop of Smyrna. He was reckoned the chief of all the Christians of Asia, because he had been taught by several of the Apostles, and other persons who had seen the Lord. During the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and while Anicetus presided over the Church of Rome, Polycarp came thither to discuss some questions regarding the time for observing Easter. He found some heretics at Rome, who had been led astray by the doctrine of Marcion and Valentine, and brought back many of them to the faith. One day Marcion met him by accident, and said to him: Do you recognise me? whereto he replied: I recognise the devil's eldest son. Some time after, in the reign of Mark Antonine and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, during the fourth persecution since Nero, when the Pro-consul was ruling in Smyrna, the whole population being assembled in the theatre, clamoured against Polycarp, and to please them he was burnt. He wrote an extremely useful Epistle to the Philippians, which is publicly read in the Churches of Asia even to this day."

In the Benedictine Office this week....

Sunday 26 January –  Third Sunday after Epiphany; St Polycarp, memorial
Monday 27 January – St John Chrysostom, Class III
Tuesday 28 January - Class IV; St Cyril of Alexandria, memorial [EF: St Peter Nolasco]
Wednesday 29 January – Class IV; St Frances de Sales, memorial [EF: Class III]
Thursday 30 January – Class IV [EF: St Martina]
Friday 31 January – Class IV; St John Bosco, memorial
Saturday February 1 - St Ignatius, Class III

Feast of St Agnes

From the readings at Matins, by St Ambrose:

"Today is the birthday of a Virgin; let us imitate her virginal innocence. It is the birthday of a Martyr; let us also bring sacrifice. It is the birthday of St. Agnes; let men look up in admiration and children not be disheartened. You married, be filled with wonder; you unmarried, follow in her footsteps. But where shall we find words of adequate praise, since her very name bespeaks her glory and renown? In her we see a devotion that far surpasses her age; a virtue that exceeds all Power of nature. Hence, it seems to me that she had not merely a human name, but, prophetically, she was given the name of a Martyr to indicate beforehand what she was to be. The name of our Virgin to a guarantee of her purity. If I call her Martyr, already I have praised enough. For, that is great praise indeed, which one does not need to seek but is freely given by others. No one can be more praised than one who is praised by all. As many men, so many encomiums. They have only to mention her name to praise her as a Martyr. According to tradition, it was in her thirteenth year that she suffered martyrdom. How despicable the cruelty that spared not even this tender age! But how great the power of faith that found even that age its witness."

Octaves and Epiphany revisited...

If you've been reading my annual rants on the subject of Octaves and assorted stray feasts that have been inserted into (or out of) the calendar over the last few weeks, you hopefully also have caught up with the nice write up of assorted blogs take on the issue over at New Liturgical Movement.

But alas, both myself (being behind on my reading in general) and the NLM post somehow managed to miss what is surely the definitive ecumenical take on this subject over at The Low Churchman's Guide to the Solemn High Mass.  Here is an extract to give you the flavour of it:

"The problem with Ritualists is not merely that they wear unusual clothing, mutter strange incantations and attempt to secure the aid of departed spirits using mystical runes. Rather, it is that they refuse to observe the most basic standards of chronological syncronization. Ordinary churchmen know, for example, that January 1st is New Year’s Day, and toast the new year with glasses of diet ginger ale and spoonfuls of tomato aspic. For Ritualists, the same date is referred to as the Octave Day of Christmas, or the Circumcision of Christ with the Feast of the Holy Name, the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, Triumph of the Revolution and a Commemoration of the Transferral of the Relics of St Fulgentius of Ruspe."

Do go and read the rest for a good giggle.

Second Sunday after Epiphany

Though we are now technically no longer in the Christmas Season, the liturgy time after Epiphany still reflects his historical association with that feast and season.

The feast of the Epiphany feast itself, you will recall from the Benedictus antiphon of the feast, celebrates three separate events:

"Today the Church hath joined to her heavenly Spouse, for Christ hath washed away her sins in the Jordan; the Magi hasten with gifts to the royal nuptials, and the guests are gladdened with wine made from water, alleluia."

This Sunday's Gospel, from St John 2:1-11, the subject of the Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons for the Sunday, centres on the last of these three, the marriage at Cana and the miracle of water transformed into wine.

The Benedictine Office this week in summary

Sunday 19 January – Second Sunday after the Epiphany; Marius, Martha, Audifax and Abachum, memorial
Monday 20 January - SS Fabian and Sebastian, Class III
Tuesday 21 January - St Agnes, Class III (Class II for monasteries of nuns) [**in some places, St Meinrad, Class I]
Wednesday 22 January – Class IV; St Vincent, memorial [EF: and St Anastasius;**in some places, St Meinrad]
Thursday 23 January – Class IV; St Emerentiana, memorial [EF: St Raymond Pennafort]
Friday 24 January – Class IV; St Timothy, memorial [EF: Class III]
Saturday 25 January – Conversion of St Paul, Class III

St Benedict's psalter and the election of the gentiles

There is a very interesting series over at the always excellent Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment blog, which I strongly recommend reading, on what is known as 'two covenants theory', the idea that Judaism is not superseded by the New Covenant.

The situation of modern Jews when it comes to the Church is sensitive territory these days, for many in the Church, swayed by the desire to promote inter-religious unity, advocate ideas that are at odds with both Scripture and tradition.  Fr Hunwicke does a fairly comprehensive demolition on these erroneous theories in the light of the tradition, what Vatican II's Nostra Aetate actually says, and other evidence.

Fr Hunwicke's posts (as on some many other issues) have been rather helpful for my own understanding of this touchy subject, so I thought it might be timely to share some of my speculations on St Benedict's ordering of his psalm cursus that may reflect his understanding of this topic by way of a minor footnote.

The traditional understanding of the Old and New covenants

Fr Hunwicke provides a very carefully nuanced articulation of the tradition on this topic; let me provide the un-nuanced version for the sake of debate.

I would suggest that the hardline version of the traditionalist position is that modern-day Jews are no longer the chosen people: for God's promise to Abraham is fulfilled in the Church, which was founded by the faithful remnant of the Jewish people that he preserved, consisting of the apostles and disciples and their subsequent converts.  Catholics, in other words, are the new Jews.

In this view, instead of the whole Jewish people being granted a privileged place in ongoing salvation history (or at least are still the inheritors of an eschatological promise of reconciliation), they have been dispossessed just as the Canaanites were in their time, and their inheritance given to the new Israel, the Church, which is open to gentiles and Jews alike; Rabbinic Judaism, in other words, is not the Judaism of Our Lord's time.

Fr Hunwicke demolishes some of the obviously erroneous liberal views on this subject, but many traditionalists still struggle with the suggestion made by modern theologians, including Pope Benedict XVI, to the effect that while the Mosaic Covenant has been closed, modern Jews still have a privileged place in salvation history by virtue of the covenant with Abraham.

Fr Hunwicke suggests that Pope Benedict's rewrite of the (EF) Good Friday prayer, which reflects St Paul's words on the subject, arguably reflects an eschatological explanation for this view of the continuing covenant, while leaving the traditional view, that Jewish worship and practices have no salvific value, intact.

I want to draw your attention to five insights on this issue that can, I think, be gained from St Benedict's version of the Divine Office, which I think helps support the eschatological promise approach advocated by Pope Benedict and others.

1.  The old sacrifices have been superseded: Psalm 91 (92) on Friday

In the traditional version of the Roman Office, Psalm 91 (Bonum est confiteri Domino) is said on Saturday, not least because the title given to in Scripture is 'For (or 'on the day of' in the Vulgate) the Sabbath'.

St Benedict, however, moved it to Friday at Lauds.  It is a change that contemporary liturgical scholar Paul Bradshaw, for one, finds puzzling (Daily Prayer in the Early Church, p147).

Ex-Trappist turned Orthodox scholar Patrick Reardon, in his book Christ in the Psalms, though offers a very elegant and plausible rationale for this change, for he notes that as well as the Sabbath, Jewish commentaries state that it was sung daily as an accompaniment to the morning sacrifice of a lamb.  Reardon, accordingly, sees the shift of the psalm to Friday Lauds as a testimony to the idea that Friday is "our true the true Pascha and Atonement Day, on which the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world."(p181)

Reardon sees Psalm 91 as a reminder that the Old Covenant, which merely foreshadowed what was to come, has ended, and the New has replaced it:

"Prayed on Friday mornings, as the ancient Western monastic rule prescribed, this psalm reminds the Church why it is no longer necessary to make the daily offering of lambs in the temple, for those sacrifices had only "a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things" (Heb. 10:1). With respect to those quotidian lambs offered of old, we are told that "every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins" (10:11). But, with respect to the Lamb in the midst of the Throne, we are told that "this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God . . . For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (10:12-14). This is the true Lamb to whom we chant: "You are worthy to take the scroll, / And to open its seals; / For You were slain, / And have redeemed us to God by Your blood" (Rev. 5:9)." (p181)

2.  Psalm 118: the new testament is superior to the old

In the Roman Office, Psalm 118 is sung over the course of Sunday from Prime to None (and in the older form of the Office, daily at these hours).  St Benedict, by contrast, splits the longest psalm in the psalter between Sunday (Prime to None) and Monday (Terce to None).   And he organises the split so as to end Sunday None with a stanza where the psalmist claims to have outshone his teachers and those of old in his understanding:

"Through your commandment, you have made me wiser than my enemies: for it is ever with me. I have understood more than all my teachers: because your testimonies are my meditation. I have had understanding above ancients: because I have sought your commandment." (verses 98-100)

It could of course just be how things fell out.  But St Benedict's contemporary Cassiodorus (author of easily the most popular commentary on the psalms of medieval monks) certainly understood these verses as affirming the new covenant over the Old:

Certainly the new people had better understanding than the older Jewish people, for they happily accepted the Lord Christ who the Jews with mortal damage to themselves believed was to be despised.”

Cassiodorus actually sees the reference in another verse of the stanza, verse 103, which refers to the law being sweeter than honey, as another allusion to this same idea:

“Honey has particular reference to the Old Testament, the comb to the New; for though both are sweet, the taste of the comb is sweeter because it is enhanced by the greater attraction of its newness. Additionally, honey can be understood as the explicit teaching of wisdom, whereas the comb can represent that known to be stored in the depth, so to say, of the cells. Undoubtedly both are found in the divine Scriptures.”

3.  The canticle of Hannah and younger sons

Over at Fr Hunwicke's blog, commenters have noted that the recent tendency to refer to Jews as our 'older brother' is something of a mixed message given the fate of so many older brothers in the Bible!   Indeed, St Paul uses just this typology in one of his discussions on the status of the Jews, in Galatians 4:

"21 Tell me, you who are so eager to have the law for your master, have you never read the law? 22 You will find it written there, that Abraham had two sons; one had a slave for his mother, and one a free woman. 23 The child of the slave was born in the course of nature; the free woman’s, by the power of God’s promise. 24 All that is an allegory; the two women stand for the two dispensations. Agar stands for the old dispensation, which brings up its children to bondage, the dispensation which comes to us from mount Sinai.25 Mount Sinai, in Arabia, has the same meaning in the allegory as Jerusalem, the Jerusalem which exists here and now; an enslaved city, whose children are slaves. 26 Whereas our mother is the heavenly Jerusalem, a city of freedom. 27 So it is that we read, Rejoice, thou barren woman that hast never borne child, break out into song and cry aloud, thou that hast never known travail; the deserted one has more children than she whose husband is with her. 28 It is we, brethren, that are children of the promise, as Isaac was. 29 Now, as then, the son who was born in the course of nature persecutes the son whose birth is a spiritual birth. 30 But what does our passage in scripture say? Rid thyself of the slave and her son; it cannot be that the son of a slave should divide the inheritance with the son of a free woman."

Wednesday, in the Christian week, is traditionally associated with the betrayal of Judas.  That's the reason that Wednesday was a fast day in the early Church as it is in the Benedictine Rule, and in the Office, this is reflected, inter alia, in the choice of Psalm 63 at Lauds.  The variable (ferial) canticle of the day, though, is the Canticle of Hannah (I Kings [1 Sam] 2:1-10), a song of rejoicing at her pregnancy (with the prophet Samuel) that put paid to the taunts of her husband's fecund other wife.  We today tend to interpret this canticle as foreshadowing the Magnificat, which it certainly does.  But one of the earliest Benedictine monastic commentaries on the Office Canticles, by Rabanus Maurus (780-856), also interprets that typology in the light of St Paul's Galatians typology, saying by way of summary:

"But on Wednesday the Canticle of Anna the prophetess is sung, in which the expulsion of the perfidious Jews is set out, and the election of the Church of the gentiles is demonstrated."

And indeed St Benedict's psalm selections for this day come back to the theme of God's choice of peoples several times, most notably in Psalms 134 and 135.

4.  The redemption triptych (Psalms 113, 129 and 134/5) - redemption comes only through Christ

In the Benedictine Office, Psalm 113 (In exitu Israel) is said at Vespers on Monday rather than Sunday as it is in the Roman Office.  In part I think that is because it provides a type of baptism, in the parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan (especially in verse 3: Mare vidit, et fugit: Jordánis convérsus est retrórsum), one of the themes Maurus identifies in the Monday Lauds canticle (along with the Incarnation).  But it also, I think, sets up a nice triptych of opening psalms at Vespers on the first three days of the week around our redemption through Christ.

The two outer panels are provided by Psalms 113 on Monday and 134 and 135 (known as the Great Hallel in Jewish liturgy) on Wednesday.  These three psalms share both common themes and several verses between them, and take us through God's power compared to empty idols, manifested through the creation of the universe, and intervention in history to lead his people out of Egypt, and into the Promised Land.

If he were being consistent, St Benedict would have placed Psalm 128 as the first Psalm at Vespers on Tuesday, for on that day all of the other Gradual psalms are said from Terce through Vespers.  But St Benedict actually places Psalm 128 (where it arguably fits well for other reasons) on Monday, and instead, in the middle of the triptych sits Psalm 129 (De Profundis), with its promise of Christ's redeeming action ('For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption: he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquity').  Dom Gueranger, in his Liturgical Year, notes that this psalm above all, was often interpreted by medieval commentators, as a prophecy of that final reconciliation of the Jews.

5. The Hallel psalms reversed: The first shall be last?

St Benedict’s arrangement of the Sunday Office at both Lauds and Vespers is significantly different to the old Roman he started from.  Two key changes he makes are to start the variable psalmody  at Lauds with Psalm 117 (it was in Prime in the old Roman Office), and to end it with Psalm 112, at Vespers (moving Psalm 113 to Monday in order to do so).  These are, of course, the last and first respectively of the ‘Hallel’ psalms, the psalms sung at the three major Jewish festivals each year.

The more prominent position St Benedict accords to Psalm 117 is easily explained: it is one of the most quoted psalms in the New Testament, important in particular for the verses directly prophesying the Resurrection, and pointing to Christ as the stone the builders rejected.

Is it possible, though, that the ending of Vespers on Psalm 112 was also meant to provide a subtle reference to the idea that the first shall come last in relation to St Paul's prophesy in Romans that  'all Israel shall come in'?  St Benedict (485-547) may very well have been familiar with the Bishop of Ravenna, St Peter Chrysologus' (380-450) teaching to just this effect (now used in the readings of the Liturgy of Hours as Fr Hunwicke notes).  And it is certainly nicely consistent with Pope Benedict's rewrite of the Good Friday prayer:

"Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen"

So, is this all too much of a stretch?  Do let me know what you think.