Office of Prime (IV and Final): The Place of the Communal Office Today

Prime is anomalous in the contemporary liturgical milieu. It carries universal and ancient precedent and yet is no where said publicly except for in Traditionalist monasteries and the odd parish which sings the Office on Christmas Eve for the sake of hearing the Martyrology read.

This is not entirely true. Every Eastern Church retains the Office of Prime in addition to the vigils, Vespers, Compline, and the other horae minores. These Churches will sing Prime monastically as well as parochially. Prime in the Eastern rites does not, however, have the communal and collegiate character that its Roman sibling exhibits. Indeed, the unique characteristics of Prime as a longer hour and something with long(ish) lessons and creeds made it a unique target of the antiquarian reformers whereas the Prime of the Eastern Churches follows the structure and place of Terce, Sext, and None in those rites.

What, then, can we hope for Prime today. Collegiate churches do still exist, but generally follow the Liturgia Horarum of Paul VI and, in this writer's experience, tend to give higher place to something called Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer than to the continued singing of the Office throughout the day. Secular priests bound canonically to some form of the Roman Office also typically use the Pauline Office, which has no Prime and only requires one of the surviving day hours to be said. Does Prime have a future?

As said above, Prime will continue in the Traditionalist monasteries, which are happily thriving vocationally and increasing comfortably in number. While the situation has hardly reached medieval proportions, Traditionalist parishes have also become more liturgically inclined than they were 15 years ago thanks to the broader liberalization of the older rites from the ghetto. Prime does not grace the parish schedule, but Vespers does more often as does the Office of Tenebrae during Holy Week. It is not unthinkable Prime may become an occasional visitor to parish schedules, if only in the truncated form, during Holy Week in the future.

One unconsidered setting where Prime may enjoy a serious revitalization is in the lives of ordinary Catholics who seek a deeper form of prayer. The Office of the Church, after the Eucharistic Sacrifice, is the most substantial and Divinely pleasing form of prayer there is, an on-going gift of the Holy Spirit to enrich and sanctify our quotidian lives. The average Western Christian is not a monk or priest. He or she works in an office or factory or store, has some sort of life outside of work which requires daily maintenance, and goes about socializing with other social animals. That said, he tries to make some sacred—separate—space for serious and engaging prayer, humbly in awe of his Creator.

The Office of Prime is an elegant solution to this dilemma. A layman who seeks liturgical prayer rarely has the time to say the full Office or even large chunks of its while maintaining a job, family, and other obligations. The only option is to chose a part of several parts of the Office. One pleasant future of the traditional Roman Office, in contrast to the Eastern rites at one end and the Pauline rite on the other, is its daily balance between familiarity and variety. Every day is different at the major hours and constant at the daily ones; the psalter varies by week, the prayers, readings, and antiphons and readings by the day of the season. While this is a plus to those who would pray the full Office, none of the individual parts reflect this variety other than Prime. Among the beneficial features of Prime are:

• a weekly schedule of psalms with a Dominical and festive variation, meaning feasts and Sundays will always be unique and on non-festive days one can expect to be taken through different psalms
• heuristic readings from the martyrology which relate the stories of the saints each day and which will reflect in Mass the following day
• a blessing for the day at the beginning at end
• a series of exchanges and dialogue prayers, which makes it suitable for praying the Office in groups without arbitrarily taking turns from person to person
• intercessory and penitential prayers to make the non-festive and more somber seasons fully felt

When should Prime be prayed by the layman? Ideally as the first prayer of the day. I have met some laymen who begin the day with Lauds, which is laudable, but perhaps anachronistic. The Institute of Christ the King also begins the day with Lauds at their seminary and priories. Lauds is part of the vigil and is always said in conjunction with Mattins. Even the one perceptible exception to this rule, the midnight Mass on Christmas day, inserts the Eucharist in between these two joined hours, as the Missal envisions; several medieval and non-Roman Latin rites make with more explicit by inserting Lauds into Communion much like Vespers on Holy Saturday.

Prime is down, but not out. Despite having a lesser place in the letter of the Roman law, it is more widely said that it was ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, and remains uniquely suitable to the prayer lives of Christians today. Next time you have a free moment in the morning and you are tempted to refill your poison coffee or say your devotion, break out your Breviary, iPhone app for Divinum Officium, or your Little Office, open to the day's Prime, and delve into a prayer begun in the day of Cassian, ratified by the Church's saints, and said to this very day.

Office of Prime (III): Parvum Officium

The period historians generally called the "Dark Ages", the time after the fall of the Roman Empire and before medieval Christianity accomplished "Europe", saw the gradual enhancement of the ancient Roman liturgy through devout emendations by localized Christian communities. The hymns of the Office, octaves, the feasts of most non-Roman Saints, and the ceremonies of Mass grew up around this time and continued to grow until the years after the Council of Trent and the creation of the Congregation for Rites.

One new tradition that sprang forth from the fertile soil of Early Medieval Christendom is that of the Little Office. Today, the knowledgeable faithful associate the term "Little Office" with the Parvum Officium Beatae Virginis Mariae, but there emerged a multiplicity of Little Offices over those centuries.

Perhaps the oldest is the Office of the Dead, which betrays its antiquity by its form. Its Mattins lack an introduction, omitting psalm 94 unless it is celebrated as a Duplex (November 2 and for funerals), absolutions at the readings, and any introductions. Lauds and Vespers similarly have no hymns, chapters, or opening ceremonies. No other part of the Roman Office resembles the Officium Defunctorum more than the Tenebrae and Horae Minores of the Sacred Triduum, which remained effectively unchanged from the time of Gregory the Great until 1911.

The Office of the Dead emerged as a parallel liturgy in monasteries during the closing centuries of the first millennium and became popularized through other monasteries and collegiate churches, both as means to pray for diseased monks and for canons to pray for their diseased benefactors. While eventually said daily, along with the Requiem Mass, on permitting days, it never developed as fully as the other Little Offices, lacking Little Hours (including Prime) and Compline until the Divino Afflatu reforms of Pius X.

The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary emerged slightly later and became the most popular of all paraliturgical functions. Guilds emerged in Northern Europe which commissioned priests uniquely to offer this Office and its associated seasonal votive Masses daily, again, kalendar permitting. The Marian Office has an Inviatory at Mattins, hymns throughout the day, and Little Hours, including our Prime. While Vespers, Mattins, and Lauds repeat the same psalms, antiphons, chapters, and hymns of the Blessed Virgin's feasts throughout the year, the Little Hours of the Little Office derive their psalmnody from the Gradual Psalms except for Prime. The psalms of Prime are Deus in nomine tuo (53), Benedixisti Domine (84), and Laudate Dominum omnes gentes (116). As with festive Prime, the antiphon is the first of Lauds (Assumpta est Maria in coelum). Uniquely, the hymn at Prime and the rest of the Hours is that of Compline, Memento rerum Conditor. Another unique aspect of Prime of the Blessed Virgin Mary is that unlike Prime in the Roman Office, it does not follow a unique structure based around the [assembled] Chapter, with an act of repentance, a reading of the Martyrology, prayers for the intention of the day, and the Dominical statement of faith. It simply follows the normal structure of psalms, the chapter and hymn, and an oration.

The Parvum Officium of Our Lady gained common currency by the high Middle Ages. Whenever Duffy or historians speak of nobles or guilds assembling in a church to sing Vespers or royal women "reading the Mattins" in the morning they inevitably mean that they were following the texts of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Churches and chapters that did not observe the full Office of Our Lady instead celebrated it as an elevated Simplex feast on Saturdays outside of Lent, switching from ferial psalms to Marian chapter, hymn, versicles, and orations midway through the Office.

Less common, although said at Cluny and its sister houses, was the Office of All Saints, the text I which I would one day like to see. With the mandate of all clerics to recite the full Roman Office daily, the tradition of offering these Little Offices remained but in a diluted manner. Counter-Reformation Josephilia and liturgical sloth even gave birth to this Parvum Officium of Saint Joseph, which has a solitary psalm for its Mattins, no Lauds, and a simple hymn for its Prime and following Hours.

Our next and closing post in this series will consider the place of Prime, putatively suppressed, in the Church and Christian life today.

Office of Prime (II): How to Say It

Using the rubrics that were in force from time immemorial until 1911 and Divino Afflatu, the Office of Prime mirrors the movements and variations of Lauds. The Roman Office has much variation, but essentially there are three types of days:

• Duplex feasts
• Simplex feasts
• Feriae

A Semi-Double is celebrated in much the same manner as a Double, but with a lesser ranking and some additional prayers. A day within an octave is similar, although without additional prayers. The psalms at Vespers and Mattins are from the common and the Lauds and Prime are sung using the Dominical psalms. The Little Hours never change.

A feria simply observed the Office of the day with no note of any feasts, unless they warrant a commemoration of a superseded Lenten or Advent Simplex feast. Simple feasts use the psalter of the day for Vespers and Mattins, but follow the Dominical psalms for Lauds and an abbreviation of Prime. At first this seems a strange and arbitrary shift away from the purpose of the Office, the recitation of 150 psalms of David every week spread through the day for its sanctification. In fact, Lauds and Prime before S Pius X had very little daily variation. The first psalm of Lauds would be either 50 (Miserere mei Deus) or 92 (Dominus regnavit), the second psalm varied every non-festive day of the week, and the canticle could be one of seven possibilities unless a feast occurred, in which case the Benedicite would be sung. Two psalms varied daily, one conditionally, and five remained constant. 

At Prime, the psalter was as follows:

• Sunday: 53, 117, 118i (1-16), 118ii (17-32)
• Monday: 53, 23, 118i, 118ii
• Tuesday: 53, 24, 118i, 118ii
• Wednesday: 53, 25, 118i, 118ii
• Thursday: 53, 22, 118i, 118ii
• Friday: 53, 21, 118i, 118ii
• Saturday: 53, 118i, 118ii

The entirety of the psalmody would be wrapped under one antiphon, either from the Office of the day or the first Lauds antiphon of the occurring feast. Like the other Horae Minores, the antiphon on Prime is semi-doubled, that is, read as far as the asterisk before the psalms and read in full after. On a feast, the psalms were always the three of Saturday not not the longer Prime of Sunday. Sunday Prime, before the full antiphon, also includes the Athanasian Creed. On feriae of Paschaltide, the psalms are always festive just as the Lauds are always Dominical.

If the Office is of Sunday, any feast, within an octave, or a weekday of Paschaltide, the chapter is from Timothy; otherwise, it is from Zachariah. Then follows the responsory Christe Fili Dei vivi. On festive days, the collect Domine Deus omnipotens immediately follows. Under any other circumstance the responsory and collect are separated by a series of versicle preces and the Confiteor said as at Mass and Compline. During penitential seasons the preces are expanded, although they do not include an additional psalm as they do at Vespers and Lauds during those seasons. 

Should the Martyrology be read it comes after the collect. The Roman Martyrology for the current day is always that of tomorrow's saints, usually with a word or two about them. At the end, thanksgiving is made and Our Lady and the rest of the saints are invoked for protection. Another comes another responsory, Deus in adiutorium, Gloria Patri, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison, the Lord's Prayer, another set of versicles, and the collect Dirigere:

O Lord, Almighty God, King of heaven and earth, Savior of the world, bless, lead, rule and govern our hearts and bodies, our senses, words and deeds today, following thy law and commandments, that here and for eternity with thy help we shall be saved in freedom. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. 

If the Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is to be sung this day, it begins at once. Otherwise, as with the beginning of Compline, a lector asks the celebrant for a blessing and reads a short lesson varying with the season. On feasts, however, the lesson is the same as the chapter sung at None.

After Adiutorium nostrum the dismissal is sung: Benedicite / Deus followed by the blessing:

May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life. And may the souls of the faithful, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  

Again, Prime resembles Compline in how it contrasts the other Hours, this time with its own dismissal (not the usual Benedicamus Domino) and blessing (not the usual Fidelium animae).

Divino Afflatu reordered the entire psalter to revive the de facto recitation of the 150 psalms daily. The better solution would either have been to reduce the number of Duplex feasts or lessen clerical obligations, but instead Papa Sarto initiated a radical overhaul of the Office. To the layman, the only arrant changes may have been more green vestments on Sundays and a strange new antiphon at Sunday Vespers for no apparent reason. In fact, most of the old antiphons of the Roman Office had to be discarded and replaced due to the fragmented psalter introduced in place of the full psalms of the Roman rite. Between its psalms and antiphons, the Little Hours are nigh unrecognizable. Some of the psalter remains unchanged for the great feasts of Our Lord and Our Lady, aside from the reduction of Lauds and the loss of ps. 53 at Prime on Sundays. The rest of it differs greatly every single day. The psalter became as follows:

• Sunday: 117, 118i, 118ii
• Monday: 23, 18 (in halves)
• Tuesday: 24 (in thirds)
• Wednesday: 25, 51, 52
• Thursday: 22, 71 (in halves)
• Friday: 21 (in thirds)
• Saturday: 93 (in halves), 107

If these psalms look familiar it is because most of them belong to Mattins, not Prime, in the classical forms of the Roman Office. Additionally, the Pian Lauds and Prime represent the first time psalms in the Roman rite would be said out of order. The Byzantine rite Vespers sings some psalms out of order, but following a theme of persecution, deliverance, and thanksgiving. The Pian rite, by contrast, was formed with uniformity and a side glance to Tradition in mind. Its intentions were rational and yet, unlike the preceding Gregorian/medieval and Tridentine iterations, the psalms are printed on the page out of order because they must present the remaining psalm from S Pius V's Office first.

The rules for how to recite Prime are otherwise the same under Pius X as they were under Pius V with the caveat that, again, Prime's variability tracks Lauds. Divino Afflatu limited the potential for proper psalms and texts on feasts below Duplex of the II Class to a handful of ancient Roman feasts, meaning festive Prime (still 53, 118i, and 118ii) would now be said rarely. This system would continue until 1964.