Remembering Aspects of the Leonine Office

The pontificate of Leo XIII can be remembered as a genuine mini-Renaissance of Catholic life and culture in between the collapse of the Ancien Regime and the introduction of modern malevolences. In Phoenix from the Ashes Henry Sire associates the light handed, pastoral style of Leo with that of the paternal Pius XI and John XXIII, a last gasp before centralization stuck its tentacles into any remaining ecclesiastical crevices. 

Leo's reign saw a revival of the gothic style as Romanticism and the return to Patristics set the Christian view beyond the immediate baroque era. Soaring arches, anachronistically left pale, graced new churches along with wooden statues and richer vesture. 

In theology, Leo initiated a return to Scholasticism which, for all the short comings of manuals and Thomas's unimaginative imitators, marked a needed departure from the mechanical and narrow view of the theology coming out of Western Europe, particularly France, in prior generations. Newman, who one Jesuit described as the "first original thinker since Augustine", came into the Church and with him several positive aspects of the Oxford movement: a return to the Fathers, a return to local community as the basis of prayer, and an understanding that devotions should be done out of devotion.

However, not all aspects of the last Leonine papacy deserve historical approbation. His reign saw the continued extension of feasts of nine lessons that replaced the ferial schedule of canonical hours. Of the 18 saints canonized by Leo, half received Offices of nine lessons while some existing saints, like St Cyril or St Boniface, saw their feasts upgraded to Duplex. Outside of Advent and Lent the psalms of the day hardly ever appeared by the accession of Giuseppe Pecci to the Petrine chair. If the ferial Office did appear it was hardly ever available on consecutive days, meaning the 12 Mattins psalms of the day would be read, but Vespers would be taken from the Common of a saint. Only during pentitential seasons and during the sanctoral vigils could the ferial Office even presume to appear. Under Leo, however, it would appear less, should a cleric desire a more timely Office.

Enter the below 1883 legislation from Pope Leo granting to clerics certain votive Offices of nine lessons, based on the Offices of associated feasts and said according to the rubrics of a semi-Duplex, which gave priests, if they desired, near-full authority to ignore the Roman psalter outside of Ash Wednesday, Passiontide, and the last week of Advent. These votive Offices created Commons out of feasts (Holy Angels, Immaculate Conception, Holy Apostles etc) while integrating the occurring Scripture into the first nocturne and commemorating the feria. One imagines that after Passiontide, psalm 134 might not be said by a priest until Advent. The ancient principle that the psalter is the public prayer of the Roman Church evanescenced more and more.

And yet, this author is not sure Leo is to be condemned outright for what is, more or less, a legalized abuse of the psalter. I do not know if this permission extended to those in religious orders who sang a public Office daily. If not, then this legislation merely confirms what this blog has said for years: secular priests serving the faithful outside of canonries should not have been bound to the entirety of the daily Office. The parish parson is not a monk and the forced familiarity with the Office only bred contempt for the onus Dei. Votive Offices figured greatly into medieval piety and prebendary clerics were employed by the faithful for no other reason than to offer votive Masses and Offices of the Dead, of the Five Wounds, and of local saints for their intentions. The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary was especially popular among wealthy, literate laymen and members of guilds who wished to foster communal prayer. Secular priests, at least in England, would offer Vespers and votive Offices daily in their parishes in conjunction with any prebendary clerics. With the Council of Trent, itself medieval in mindset, the parish priest became bound to the entire ferial Office and found himself something of a monk, one set apart from the very world he served.

Even with these votive Offices, the Roman rite retained more variability than the sister Byzantine rite, but something was further lost. The heart of the Greek rite are the troparia and stichera. The Roman Office is uniquely the psalms and the antiphons which adorn them.

The schedule of the Leonine Offices are:

• Monday: Holy Angels
• Tuesday: Holy Apostles
• Wednesday: Saint Joseph, Spouse of the BVM and Guardian of the Universal Church
• Thursday: Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist
• Friday: Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
• Saturday: Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Leo foresaw that priests might be especially bothered by repetition during Lent and gave additional options for Fridays of that season, the Offices of which at least relate to the general theme of the feast.

• First week of Lent: Lance & Nails of Our Lord Jesus Christ
• Second week of Lent: Holy Crown of Thorns of Our Lord Jesus Christ
• Third week of Lent: Five Holy Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ
• Fourth week of Lent: Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ