 |
| Source; Fr Z |
The eighth degree of
humility is that a monk do nothing except what is commended by the common rule
of the monastery and the example of his superiors.
Rule of St Benedict, ch 7
Apologies to my non-Catholic readers for whom this will be less relevant, but today I want to focus on the issue of doing what the rubrics require.
In this post I'm going to sketch out a few of the implications of following the rubrics. In my next post I'm going to looking in a bit more detail at the other option, viz praying the Office devotionally rather than 'liturgically' and just what that distinction really means.
This post is a bit long, since I thought it would be useful to some to provide a bit of historical context, so feel free to skim!
Safeguarding the liturgy
My starting point is this: the Office is the public prayer of the Church in the same way that the Mass and sacraments are. This means that if you want to say it as such (ie liturgically) you are obliged to follow the official rules.
Sacrosanctam Concilium notes that:
Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church...Therefore, no other person at all, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.The Code of Canon Law reiterates this principle and spells out that this means using the approved books, rubrics and so forth.
That means using the officially approved texts, viz the texts set out in the 1963 breviary, in Latin, in full, and according to the rubrics set out in that breviary; failure to do so is an abuse (though how serious obviously depends on the issues in question, motives, knowledge etc).
Books
That doesn't mean you literally have to use a 1963 (1962) breviary.
For the laity, the Divinum Officium website, for example, provides the Latin according to the Monastic Breviary 1962 rubrics , along with English translations for much of it.
And most of the traditional monasteries actually use the 1934 French-Latin Psautier Monastique as their 'base text' as it were (I'll give a fuller review of this book in the not too distant future). Another, and probably better, option for most laypeople, given that the Psautier doesn't contain the Commons or readings, is to use an older breviary, and adapt it to the 1962 calendar.
In addition, many of the chants for Matins can't be found in any officially approved book. But there there are some unofficial versions around, and there has always been a fair amount of leeway granted when it comes to the music.
But it does mean that if you want to pray Matins liturgically you need to use a version of the psalter that is approved for liturgical use for example - and that does not include the King James Version used in Monastic Breviary Matins (and there are other reasons, in my view, to avoid that version of the psalms even for study purposes, which I will come to in due course).
Similarly, if you want to pray this particular form of the Office liturgically you need to pray it in Latin, consistent with the direction in Pope Benedict XVI's Universae Ecclesiae.
As far as I can find, there were a few very limited indults granted to particular monasteries to pray the Office in the vernacular prior to Vatican II, but nothing that applied generally to the 1962 books (and even then, the indults were for translations whose approval for liturgical use has subsequently been revoked in any case).
But note that some others far more qualified than I am in Canon Law have argued differently!
If you do decide to pray the Office in Latin, you need to at least be able to pronounce it correctly, and have a general sense of the meaning of the text. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources around on the net, including recordings of all of the psalms being read aloud, which I think are adequate to getting you up to speed sufficiently to satisfy this requirement.
Again, there are good reasons for praying the Office in Latin other than just complying with the rules in my view, and I'll come back to this when we get to looking at the psalms in particular.
On this blog, I'm basically following the 1962 books, since if you want to use the full traditional Benedictine Office based on a calendar aligned with the Extraordinary Form, they are the ones that are still technically in force.
It should be noted though that relatively few are actually using those rubrics in full.
In large part that is a product of history. My understanding of the story is as follows (but please do let me know if I've got anything wrong, or there is anything you can add to fill it out).
Prior to Vatican II, the Vatican regulated the liturgy for all religious orders. The books for the Office for individual congregations of Benedictines were all officially approved by the Congregation for the Sacred Rites in its various incarnations. Individual calendars could vary from it only to the extent approved by congregation for divine rites (in its various incarnations). Monasteries obviously added in local feasts, but in accordance with the rules set out in the rubrics.
Since Vatican II, that power of approval has effectively been delegated to individual congregations or monasteries. In 1965, the religious orders were given a license to experiment, and pretty much all monasteries were forced to 'update' their liturgy in various ways. In the case of the Benedictines, a set of broad principles were eventually promulgated, as well as an official calendar. For this reason, the traditionally inclined monasteries that operated continuously through this period, such as Fontgambault and its offshoots, and Jouques, have generally adopted the 1979 calendar and assorted other changes to the rubrics.
The traditional monasteries that started outside the system, either aligned with the SSPX, or as independent monasteries, such as Le Barroux, presumably felt freer at the time to modify those of the 1963 rubrics which make little sense (such as the abolition of I Vespers of the Office of Our Lady and for Class II feasts). One could also argue that this approach is consistent with the effective delegation of control over the Office to monasteries more generally. Either way, when these monasteries were formally approved under the Ecclesia Dei provisions, their liturgies were either de facto or explicitly approved. In the case of newer monasteries, I suspect their liturgy is covered in their individual (approved) constitutions.
The net result is that even among the traditional monasteries, there can be wide variations in how the Office is said that don't just reflect longstanding things particular to their congregation.
Oblates of a monastery can, I think, plausibly argue the right to follow the rubrics of the monastery they are attached to, particularly where, as is is the case for some monasteries, they send out ordos, and/or provide podcasts to help you do just that.
For others, Ecclesia Dei and Universae Ecclesiae clarify that the 1962 books can still be used, even if they were outright suppressed (which the Benedictine equivalents weren't; what appeared to be suppressed was rather the calendar associated with them).
Individual laypeople, however, are not monasteries and so do not, in my view, have a license to depart from the officially approved rubrics if they chose to take up this option.
The bottom line is that, if you are praying the Office liturgically, I think you you need to start from the principle of 'say the black and do the red' as Fr Z has famously put it. It is perhaps not quite that simple - longstanding legitimate custom can, in some cases, override the written rubrics. But the general principle holds.
And that creates a problem, since given the length and complexity of Matins, most laypeople will struggle to be able to say it in full, in Latin and according to the rubrics.
There is another option, though, and that is praying it as a devotion, and I'll talk a little bit more about what that really means in the next post.
And most of the traditional monasteries actually use the 1934 French-Latin Psautier Monastique as their 'base text' as it were (I'll give a fuller review of this book in the not too distant future). Another, and probably better, option for most laypeople, given that the Psautier doesn't contain the Commons or readings, is to use an older breviary, and adapt it to the 1962 calendar.
In addition, many of the chants for Matins can't be found in any officially approved book. But there there are some unofficial versions around, and there has always been a fair amount of leeway granted when it comes to the music.
But it does mean that if you want to pray Matins liturgically you need to use a version of the psalter that is approved for liturgical use for example - and that does not include the King James Version used in Monastic Breviary Matins (and there are other reasons, in my view, to avoid that version of the psalms even for study purposes, which I will come to in due course).
Latin
Similarly, if you want to pray this particular form of the Office liturgically you need to pray it in Latin, consistent with the direction in Pope Benedict XVI's Universae Ecclesiae.
As far as I can find, there were a few very limited indults granted to particular monasteries to pray the Office in the vernacular prior to Vatican II, but nothing that applied generally to the 1962 books (and even then, the indults were for translations whose approval for liturgical use has subsequently been revoked in any case).
But note that some others far more qualified than I am in Canon Law have argued differently!
If you do decide to pray the Office in Latin, you need to at least be able to pronounce it correctly, and have a general sense of the meaning of the text. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources around on the net, including recordings of all of the psalms being read aloud, which I think are adequate to getting you up to speed sufficiently to satisfy this requirement.
Again, there are good reasons for praying the Office in Latin other than just complying with the rules in my view, and I'll come back to this when we get to looking at the psalms in particular.
A little history
On this blog, I'm basically following the 1962 books, since if you want to use the full traditional Benedictine Office based on a calendar aligned with the Extraordinary Form, they are the ones that are still technically in force.
It should be noted though that relatively few are actually using those rubrics in full.
In large part that is a product of history. My understanding of the story is as follows (but please do let me know if I've got anything wrong, or there is anything you can add to fill it out).
Prior to Vatican II, the Vatican regulated the liturgy for all religious orders. The books for the Office for individual congregations of Benedictines were all officially approved by the Congregation for the Sacred Rites in its various incarnations. Individual calendars could vary from it only to the extent approved by congregation for divine rites (in its various incarnations). Monasteries obviously added in local feasts, but in accordance with the rules set out in the rubrics.
Since Vatican II, that power of approval has effectively been delegated to individual congregations or monasteries. In 1965, the religious orders were given a license to experiment, and pretty much all monasteries were forced to 'update' their liturgy in various ways. In the case of the Benedictines, a set of broad principles were eventually promulgated, as well as an official calendar. For this reason, the traditionally inclined monasteries that operated continuously through this period, such as Fontgambault and its offshoots, and Jouques, have generally adopted the 1979 calendar and assorted other changes to the rubrics.
The traditional monasteries that started outside the system, either aligned with the SSPX, or as independent monasteries, such as Le Barroux, presumably felt freer at the time to modify those of the 1963 rubrics which make little sense (such as the abolition of I Vespers of the Office of Our Lady and for Class II feasts). One could also argue that this approach is consistent with the effective delegation of control over the Office to monasteries more generally. Either way, when these monasteries were formally approved under the Ecclesia Dei provisions, their liturgies were either de facto or explicitly approved. In the case of newer monasteries, I suspect their liturgy is covered in their individual (approved) constitutions.
Diversity and its limits
The net result is that even among the traditional monasteries, there can be wide variations in how the Office is said that don't just reflect longstanding things particular to their congregation.
Oblates of a monastery can, I think, plausibly argue the right to follow the rubrics of the monastery they are attached to, particularly where, as is is the case for some monasteries, they send out ordos, and/or provide podcasts to help you do just that.
For others, Ecclesia Dei and Universae Ecclesiae clarify that the 1962 books can still be used, even if they were outright suppressed (which the Benedictine equivalents weren't; what appeared to be suppressed was rather the calendar associated with them).
Individual laypeople, however, are not monasteries and so do not, in my view, have a license to depart from the officially approved rubrics if they chose to take up this option.
Say the black, do the red?
The bottom line is that, if you are praying the Office liturgically, I think you you need to start from the principle of 'say the black and do the red' as Fr Z has famously put it. It is perhaps not quite that simple - longstanding legitimate custom can, in some cases, override the written rubrics. But the general principle holds.
And that creates a problem, since given the length and complexity of Matins, most laypeople will struggle to be able to say it in full, in Latin and according to the rubrics.
There is another option, though, and that is praying it as a devotion, and I'll talk a little bit more about what that really means in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment