Monday, May 27, 2013

Picking a Year....

...In praying the Divine Office!

Many readers probably pray all or part of the Divine Office. I myself pray Vespers and Compline daily, with Mattins and Lauds on, or the evening before, the majors feasts. For those not bound to praying a particular version it is good to be aware of what options are available and what differentiates certain versions. The major differences between versions will be:
  • The arrangement of the psalms: the older psalter was modified, or outright suppressed, by Papa Sarto in 1911. The psalter from 1911-1965, when the office of Prime was suppressed, is theoretically the same throughout, but other changes by Pius XII and John XXIII means it differs in practice. The pre-Pius X psalter prescribed 12 Mattins psalms on ferial days and 9 on feasts, using a consistent repertoire on feasts for Mattins, Lauds, and Vespers. The "little hours" would be the same daily. After Pius X the offices remained the same, but the psalter changed drastically, chopping psalms into roughly equal 15-verse bits and distributing them in order throughout the week. The little hours became fungible at this point.
  • The rubrics: the post-Pius X office has the odd practice of splitting semi-double and double feasts into halves, using the ferial psalms and antiphons, but with the festal hymns, collects, and canticle antiphons. Given the number of feasts in any calendar after the 17th century, this makes a daily difference.
  • Preces/suffrages: these delightful and moving intercessory prayers are prayed on semi-double, simple, and ferial days outside of octaves. They are most notable by their absence on feasts, reminding us that we are to rejoice on feasts, but most of our time ought to be spent in prayers for mercy and in penance. The Advent/Lenten Vespers suffrage is particularly powerful. The 1911-1913 reforms reduced the suffrages to one antiphon and collect, but on the whole kept the idea. At some point between 1955 and 1960 they went extinct.
  • The calendar: the ranking system was in principle the same from time immemorial through 1955, when Pius XII eliminated semi-double days and when John XXIII tossed the entire thing in favor of a numerical system, but the number of feasts in the calendar by 1910 and the rubrics governing Sundays and other special days in the post-1911 Office make each version substantially different in practice. Even 1568 and 1910, which use the same psalter and mostly the same rubrics are very different in practice due to the proliferation of double feasts. The Johannine calendar is very simple, but also has a narrower experience with its compressed rankings and commemoration system. Most noticeable, aside from feasts, is the disappearance of most octaves and vigils in 1955, a sad loss.
  • Assorted matter: many other things changed between 1568 and the mid-twentieth century. The scriptural readings at Mattins were altered and shortened a bit by Clement VIII. Pius IX introduced a new, and improved in my opinion, feast of the Immaculate Conception. Pius XII introduced a new Assumption feast. Urban VIII toyed with the hymns. There was the 1942 Common for Popes. A lot differs that is not structural, but I do not think these matters are as substantial as the structural differences.
The choices for praying the Divine Office have proliferated thanks to the internet, which has given us both resources to pray from online editions of the Roman Office or to purchase used copies on sites like Abe Books or eBay. I will narrow my comments on what one can pray from Divinum Officium, a very nice and informative website that allows one to pray any number of editions of the Office, more or less, including a theoretical reconstruction of a medieval monastic Office—which I will actually be ignoring in my comments along with the 1960 Office according to the Pauline calendar.
 
Here we go:
  • 1570: actually 1568, but it's "Tridentine" either way. Uses the original Roman psalter, including full-length psalms aside from the little hours. Over half the days are ferial, lending a strong awareness of the temporal cycle. The limited number of psalms used for festal offices and for octaves actually makes the feasts more special. I entered a state of shock by praying ferial Vespers tonight for the first time in a very long time, after having prayed the octaves the Ascension and Pentecost, followed by the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Simple feasts have the "splitting" structure I mentioned for most feasts in the Pian Office, but I do not mind it here, as most all the saints under the Simple category were local saints of the diocese of Rome, giving those offices a special and familiar character. My only real cavil with this edition is that St. Pius V eliminated the feasts of Ss. Joachim and Ann, the ancestors of our Lord. It has the suffrages and preces, which can be time consuming, particularly during Advent and Lent, but are very rich in their content during those seasons. This year is the most difficult, and in some sense the most brutal, to pray, but I find also the most rewarding. Saints feasts can supersede Sundays, but there are comparatively so few double feasts that one does not mind the break from the green days. Twelve psalms at ferial Mattins!
  • 1910: theoretically the same as above, but the multiplication of doubles severely curtails the praying of the psalter, especially considering that any feast with the word "double" in it has first Vespers. For instance next month, June, has four ferial days—two of them Saturdays of Our Lay—and three Simple days that will be observed. At none of them will the ferial Vespers be prayed, and at some of them there preces and suffrages will be omitted because of tomorrow's feast. In practice, this is a very different Office from 1570. Feasts replace the Sunday Office very often.
  • Divino Afflatu: while the name might give one the impression that this is the 1911 Office, it is not. It is basically 1954, meaning the Pian psalter, but with fewer psalms at ferial Mattins, the "splitting" of most feasts, and the ranking of octaves to clear up any ambiguity. If one had to read the rubrics of a breviary and decide how to pray the Office for the day, this would be the most confusing edition of all mentioned by far. The calendar is very balanced in this edition, but there is the reduced length of the psalms. Each major office and minor office, and even each nocturn at Mattins, is roughly the same size—very streamlined. This edition does have some pluses: octaves are observed, preces and suffrages are still there but curtailed, one goes through the entire psalter, full range of Mattins lessons, and not too time consuming if one wants to have a fuller experience of the Office in limited time. One should note that the little hours during Holy Week and Tenebrae during the Triduum will differ from the ancient version. Feasts replace the Sunday Office about as often as they do in 1570.
  • 1955: much of what I wrote above from Divino Afflatu still applies, but without most octaves (only Pascha, Pentecost, and Christmas live), with modifications to the Triduum per Pius XII's reforms, and the mixing of most semi-double days into Simples. Also, the antiphons, I believe, are now entirely doubled on every day, discarding the partial singing of the psalm antiphons to begin a psalm on ferias, Simples, and semi-doubles, consistent with their character. The effect is the blurring of feast days.
  • 1960: calendar is mostly third class days. Very few days have first Vespers. On all but a few days there is one nocturne a Mattins, and those days are almost never Sundays. First class feasts can still take precedence over Sunday, as can second class feasts of our Lord, but these occasions are rarer than ever. The overall use of patristic texts is lacking in this Office, as is the means of commemorating superseded offices. The ancient character of feasts of ancient Roman saints or ancient saints of universal fame is gone. First class days are mostly the same, as are some second class feasts of our Lord and Lady. On the whole, this is the least time-consuming Office, but also the oddest structurally and most impoverished textually.
I would first recommend the 1570 if one has the time, and then the Divino Afflatu edition. Why Divino Afflatu over 1910? Purists may disagree with me, but I hold the 1910 Office does not fully accomplish the purpose of the Office: to pray the psalms. Yes, everything else is intact, but in this sense everything else is less important. Was the reform of 1911 wise? I would respectfully say it was very unnecessary, as some calendar changes would have solved the problem. Still, I would prefer Divino Afflatu over 1910 if those were my two choices because one can pray the psalter and still go through the entire calendar. 1960 is very barren to me and 1955, while fuller in content, is clearly a transition.
 
My advice is to take things easy and begin by praying a little hour. I started with Compline in the Divino Afflatu form and soon adapted the older version, then took on Vespers. One advantage to starting with a minor hour like Compline or Sext or whatever in the 1570-1910 form is that it is more or less the same daily, but one finds small variations like the preces from day to day, allowing both familiarity with the calendar and stability with the general structure of that particular office. Perhaps something like Vespers of Lauds on Sundays and feasts could be added later.
 
Of course this is just my suggestion. Pray whatever you like and however you find your prayer effective. The purpose of this post was to help anyone praying the Office who is confused about versions clarify those matters and to aid anyone considering praying the Office in making an informed decision, given that person's time and desire to be immersed in the ancient prayer of the Church.
 
God bless,
The Rad Trad

11 comments:

  1. A most appreciated post, Rad Trad, from one who has prayed some version of the entire Traditional (i.e. anything before 1965) Office for the last 11 years, and sporadically before then going back to his freshman year of highschool 20 years ago!

    Currently, I pray Divino Afflatu but with some elements of the Tridentine reincorporated. For example, whenever Sunday Lauds are prescribed, I use the Traditional Pss. 92,99,62 & 66, Benedicite, and 148-150. Likewise, the excerpt from Ps. 30 at Sunday Compline. Neither adaptation changes the structure or flow of the 1911 Psalter; rather they simply make for a weekly (or more) duplication of Pss. 30, 66, 149, & 150.

    For most of my experience, being once an SSPX adherent, I prayed the 1962 Breviary without any regard to the "old" rubrics of those pesky Sedevacantists. Ironically, or not, since leaving them and finding myself in "Indult" groups, I have been more and more acquainted and appreciative of the older rubrics. A friend got me interested in those old Octaves, and another sparked an interest in praying 18 psalms for Matins on Sundays.

    About three years ago, I purchased a 4-volume set of 1854 Breviaries, and went all in with the pre-1911 Office. The repetition of so many of the same psalms while never praying most of the psalter (for the lack of a ferial office, for all intents and purposes, as you mentione) caused me to reevaluate after six months. I toyed with the 1911 practice of using the ferial psalter for Double and Semidouble feasts, but try that on a few Thursdays with the 1910 psalter, and it gets tiresome quickly. So, I went back to the 1962 again, but so much was missing (e.g. Patristics, full hagiographies, Octaves, suffrages, etc.). That's when I came to the conclusion that the 1954 Breviary would best suit me; all told, it adds about 20 minutes a day to the length of the daily use of the 1962 Breviary, and accords the possibility (though not recently) of praying all 150 psalms every week. But, I would remiss to lose the full Laudate psalms at Lauds, so being a layman and free to mix and match, I borrowed that practice as stated above.

    With your praying the 1568 Breviary, do you try to incorporate feasts of saints canonized since then? If so, how? If not, how do you reconcile losing the observances of so many great and popular saints in the last 400 years?

    John

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    1. Thanks for reading, John. I wholeheartedly agree about some oddities in the Divino Afflatu Office, despite some strengths I mentioned: the fact that only one of the Laudate psalms is sung on any given day at Lauds is very strange. Indeed, Lauds everywhere in Apostolic rite in Christendom, except the post-1911 Roman rite, sings 148-150 at Lauds. In the Byzantine rite they are the only psalms at Sunday/festal Lauds.

      I do pray the 1568 Office, but I do add some major saints and feasts without doing the entire 1910 Office. I add, more or less, St. Igantius of Loyola, the Immaculate Conception, St Joseph (3rd Sunday in Paschal season), Ss. Joachim and Ann, St Gregory VII, and St Philip Neri. My general strategy is to ask: which saints/feasts that were added were important enough that they would have survived Pius V's ax?—although Gregory VII did not! I like the spartan calendar, but see not purpose in adhering to it so strictly that I ignore the modern day. I may or may not observe the Sacred Heart feast/octave, the Feast of Christ the King, and the Feast of the Holy Family depending on my mood. I do not have much devotion to the Sacred Heart, but I think the Pius XI feast is an improvement over the pre-1925 texts, though the addition of an octave to a private devotion is strange.

      I am thinking of taking the proverbial plunge and buying a late 19th century breviary myself. I could follow the calendar as I wish, as I am not in Orders!

      Aside from the feasts, the only real issue I see in the older Office is the 18 Mattins psalms on Sundays. I cannot help but think this could have been fixed by allowing secular clergy to pray the first nine of them at some other point in the day. The solutions were so simple to us looking back a century.

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  2. "I may or may not observe the Sacred Heart feast/octave, the Feast of Christ the King, and the Feast of the Holy Family depending on my mood. I do not have much devotion to the Sacred Heart, but I think the Pius XI feast is an improvement over the pre-1925 texts, though the addition of an octave to a private devotion is strange."

    Indeed, but I would much rather "liturgize" a devotion than "devotionalize" over the Liturgy! I'm not a particularly devotional person myself, but the liturgical texts of the Sacred Heart Office are rich and edifying.

    No Christ the King???!!! C'mon, the Social Kingship of Christ is so maltreated these days.

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    1. I do observe Christ the King generally, but not when Ss. Simon and Jude fall on the last Sunday of October, in which case I favor the feast of the Apostles. Not congruent with with giving precedence to feasts of the Lord, but a sane person would just pray an Office printed some time after his country's birth!

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  3. I have recently been intrigued by the modern Carthusian Breviary. Their diurnal is available online (even in Latin, French, or English):
    http://www.chartreux.org/en/texts/liturgy.php

    It is intriguing as a modern Breviary because it still retains Prime as well as the weekly Psalter, and the daily use of Pss. 148-150. One other aspect, compared to other ancient Breviaries, is the great importance it gives to the Office of Our Lady, which it integrates with the Office of the Day. They are the only Order I know that requires the recitation of both Offices in full each day. (This was more common in the past.)

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  5. I pray Divino Afflatu but recently I started to use the Tridentine psalms for Sundays.

    Isn't possible to have the best of each version? In the original Tridentine, I miss the later saints and feasts (which normally -except for some feasts, octaves and vigils- are still celebrated in the 1962 Mass, which one normally can attend). And I think is a pitty to ignore saints canonized after Trent...

    In the 1910 version, I totally miss the ferial office, and I think the santoral is having too much over the temporal.

    In Divino Afflatu, I miss the Tridentine Psalter.

    So, what about praying with the Divino Afflatu rubrics of splitting the office in ferial psalms and the rest of the feast, BUT using the Tridentine Psalter?? I know this splitting is maybe a bit strange, but I think it's not a bad compromise. Anyone else has tried that? Thoughts?

    Thanks a lot!!

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    1. I pray the pre 1911 psalter and have no problem 'splitting'. For three nocturn Feasts I use four psalms for each nocturn sung under one antiphon, as at Eastertide. The only ones I use the Common psalms for are for feasts of Apostles and Our Lord and Our Lady i.e. 'foundational feasts. It works and I find it beautiful but on Saturday especially it can be time consuming.

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  6. I forgot to say, I normally play only Lauds, Vespers and Compline

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  7. What is the office promulgated by Pope Pius X?

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