Books for Matins

 

Benedictine Matins, or the Night Office, is not something to be embarked on lightly.

With fourteen psalms on weekdays, as well as readings, and a much longer structure for Sundays and major feasts, it is by far the longest of the hours even on ordinary days.  Indeed, it can sometimes as take as long to say or sing as all of the other hours added together.

That said, it is important in the monastic context: almost half of the psalms of the psalter are said at this hour, and its readings provide selections from most of the books of the Bible, thus serving to frame the practice of monastic lectio divina.

It also has one of the most extensive, spiritually rich and beautiful of all the types of chant repertoire, in the form of the responsories which follow each reading, and provide a meditation on them.

Books for Matins

A few years ago, it was almost impossible to find books for Matins according to the 1960 rubrics and calendar, and those that were available were either extremely expensive or highly unsatisfactory in one respect or another.

Fortunately, that situation has now completely turned around: these days we are almost spoiled for choices!

Latin-English

1. For those who need an English translation to help with the Latin, take a look at the Gower nuns' set of Latin-English Matin's books.

They have everything you need at a very reasonable price, and it is easily the best choice if you need help understanding the Latin.  

But be warned: you need to learn the structure of the how first, as the books are not always particularly user friendly!

Other useful books with English translations I've previously referred people to include the Clear Creek Matins psalter and the Liturgical Readings text, but if you have the Gower books, you won't really need these.

The Breviary/Nocturnale

For all of the texts of Matins, your basic choices are:

2.  The Monastic Breviary (Latin only).

Has everything you need for the hour (and all of the others), in reasonably compact form, comes in two volumes.   Aside from the original 1963 versions, there are two reprints available, from the monasteries of Brignoles (which includes a supplement with most older feasts included) and Farnborough.

3. Le Barroux's Nocturnale Monasticum (available in Latin only or French-Latin versions).

The alternative, if you want something for Matins only, are the Nocturnales from Le Barroux.  Nicely laid out and well-organized in a nice large print that is excellent for putting on a choir stand, but quite large and heavy, so not particularly portable or something you want to hold in your hands for a long period of time.

The chants

It is also worth mentioning that chants for the hour are also becoming more readily available.

The Monastery of Brignoles has already published Volume 1 of a full (Latin only) Nocturnale with chants, that essentially provides you with the core hymns and prayers contained in the psalter section of the hour. 

Volume 1 gives you the daily hymns, ferial antiphons, psalms, canticles and the key seasonal texts.  Volumes 2 (the temporale) and 3 (sanctorale) are still to come, but there is enough in this one to get you started.

And for the next part on this series on Matins, go here for ten things you need to know about Matins.