Charpentier's Te Deum - Praise the Lord!

     Last week I posted a clip of Haydn's Te Deum [here] on the Blog Nisi Dominus.  Many other composers before and since have written beautiful musical settings for this ancient hymn of praise, which probably dates back to the 4th century A.D.  
     One of the best known setting is a motet (clip below) by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, composed a century before Haydn's piece.  Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the prelude to Charpentier's Te Deum is well known, as it has been used extensively by the European Broadcasting Union as intro music to broadcasts such as the Eurovision Song Contest for many decades, and has been part of several movie soundtracks.  As we are now celebrating the Resurrection of Christ during this joyful Season of Easter, I think it's a good time to hear this magnificent musical prayer in its entirety.  The Lord is truly risen, allelujah!
     

Te Deum laudamus: te Dominum confitemur. Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi caeli et universae Potestates; Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra majestatis gloriae tuae. Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus, Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus, Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus. Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia, Patrem immensae majestatis: Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium; Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum. Tu Rex gloriae, Christe. Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius. Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum. Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum. Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris. Judex crederis esse venturus.	You O God, we praise: You, Lord, we acknowledge to be. You are the eternal Father. All the earth venerates you.To you all Angels; to you the heavens and all the Powers. To you Cherubim and Seraphim with unending voice proclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Full are heaven and earth with the majesty of your glory. You the glorious chorus of Apostles (praise), You the praiseworthy number of the Prophets (praise), You the white-clothed army of Martyrs praise. You throughout all the world are acknowledged by the holy Church, Father of immense Majesty: Who is to be worshiped, your true and only Son; Also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. You are the King of Glory, O Christ. You are the everlasting Son of the Father. When you took upon yourself to deliver man, you did not abhor the Virgin’s womb. You, by overcoming the sting of death, opened to all believers the Kingdom of Heaven. You sit at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father. Our Judge we believe that you will come to be.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.	To you therefore we ask you, help your servants: whom you have redeemed with your precious blood.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari. [added later, adapted from Psalm verses] Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum. Per singulos dies benedicimus te; Et laudamus Nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire. Miserere nostri Domine, miserere nostri. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.	In eternity with your saints make them in glory to be numbered. [added later, adapted from Psalm verses] Save your people, Lord, and bless your heritage. And rule them, and lift them up for ever. Every day we bless you; And we worship your Name forever, and forever for all ages. Vouchsafe, O Lord, this day without sin to keep us. Have mercy upon us, our Lord, have mercy upon us. Let your mercy be upon us, O Lord,  since we have trusted in you.
In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.	In you, O Lord, I have trusted: may I not be confounded forever

What's Latin Got To Do With It?

   Thus the Roman tongue is now first and foremost a sacred tongue, which resounds in the Sacred Liturgy, the halls of divinity, and the documents of the Apostolic See.  In this same tongue you yourselves again and again address a sweet salutation to the Queen of Heaven, your Mother, and to your Father who reigns on high.  This tongue is the key that unlocks for you the sources of history.  Nearly all the Roman and Christian past preserved for us, in inscriptions, writings and books, with some exceptions of later centuries, wears the vesture of the Latin tongue.

 - His Holiness Pope Pius XII's Address to the Student Youth of Rome, January 30, 1949   

     Over the last couple of days I have been watching two gentlemen going back in forth in the comboxes about the Pope’s decision not to use Latin as the official language of the upcoming Synod of Bishops.  They both make some interesting points about the place and importance of the Latin language in the life of the Church. Their spirited discussion has got me thinking not just about Latin, but about some of the distinctive features of Catholicism. 

The Pagan Roman Vergil guides the Christian Dante on his way to Paradise

A God of the Particulars . . .

     Don’t get me wrong, I have some definite opinions about Latin (after all, teaching it has been my main source of income for the past three decades), both in general and in a Church context, but I’d like to use the discussion of the language as a springboard to a broader topic.  And, really, it’s something of a paradox.  I agree with Chesterton when he says: “It [Catholicism] is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.”  Catholicism gives us an allegiance that is infinitely larger than those other things that try to make a claim on us, such as political parties and ideologies, nations, athletic teams and any number of false gods, including The Conventional Wisdom; and it is not just something larger, but something truer, something that is infinitely true, because it is our connection to the Infinite Omnipotent Creator.  At the same time, one of its unique features among the world’s religions is its interest in particulars, following the lead of its Lord, of whom I wrote in another post:

. . . He is a God of particulars.  He chose a particular people to whom he first revealed himself in order that he might incarnate himself among them in the person of the God-Man Jesus of Nazareth; he carefully chose and prepared Mary as the human mother of Jesus; he likewise chose and prepared particular individuals such as Peter and Paul to carry forward the mission of Jesus.

The Church has carefully preserved, in Scripture, in creeds, and in the broader tradition these names and the names of many others: and not only Saints, but Sinners such as the various Herods and Pontius Pilate.  The Gospels usually don’t simply tell us that Jesus entered a town, but that he entered, say, Tiberias, or Betheny.  We are told about real, individual men and women in well-known places that you can see, where you can walk down the same streets.  And it doesn’t end with Biblical figures and events: the Catholic Church has carefully preserved not only the names and stories of thousands of Saints over the past two millennia, but actual pieces of their bodies as tokens that they were real people, not myths or abstractions. 

. . . And Yet Universal

     It may seem like a contradiction that Catholicism is at the same time the only truly Universal Religion and one uniquely focused on individual people and concrete things. But the living center of it all is the Incarnation, where the Second Person of the Trinity, the Eternal Word, becomes the Man Jesus of Nazareth: Infinite God in a finite body.  It is the glorified body of the Risen Christ that I find most telling here, particularly the passage where Jesus shows himself to the “doubting” Apostle Thomas: 

St. Thomas examining the wounds of Christ

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:27-28) 

Who would have expected the Glorified Body, the eternal perfected Body, to include the horrible wounds inflicted on the first body here on Earth?  

     It seems to me that the Church, Christ’s Mystical Body on Earth, follows the model of the Master in incorporating into itself many of those things that happen to it along the way.  As St. Paul says:

  

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28) 

I’m not saying that the various experiences and traditions (including liturgical languages) that have been part of the history of the Church enjoy the same status as Christ’s Wounds. Rather, in the passage about Thomas we see a supreme example of a pattern that is reflected in lesser things as well. It does seem that God doesn’t want anything to go to waste, and that He can use those things to join us more closely to Himself and to each other.  Just look at how the stories of the Saints, from the very earliest days of the Church, have been incorporated into her liturgical life, and how devotion to them has brought countless Catholics closer to their Lord.  The same can be said of many devotional practices. 

What’s Latin Got to Do With It?

     This is where the discussion of Latin comes in.  It’s true that it wasn’t the first liturgical language of the Church (and for much of the Church never has been).  In the Western Church, however, the Latin Church, it replaced Greek within the first few centuries, when there was still a Roman Empire.  For the past fifteen centuries Latin was the language in which great theologians (St. Augustine, St. Thomas) formulated their thoughts, and the medium through which Catholics, including most of the greatest Saints, prayed to their God and heard His Word.  

St. Augustine of Hippo, last of the Romans

     That common language, on a purely human level, is a tangible way that we share in their experience.  I often relate to people, when discussing the study of Latin in a purely secular context, my experience studying English as a graduate student.  I found that in the work of authors writing in English prior to the mid-twentieth there always seemed to be a sort of substrata of allusions and knowing nods to the literary tradition of the Greeks and Romans, and a rich admixture of Latinisms; most of this was invisible to the vast majority of students who had never studied Latin (never mind Greek) or classical literature.  There was an entire dimension to the literature they were reading that they simply missed.  Consider how much more profound a loss that is in the context of the Church, whose traditions an institutions go back to a time before any language we could call English existed.   

     Of course, the Church is not merely an institution, and our predecessors in the faith are not merely our forebears: they are our fellow Christians, participants right now from their eternal heavenly home in the same Church, which is the Mysticum Corpus of Christ our Lord. If we venerate bits of their bone and tiny snips of their clothing, surely we must derive some spiritual benefit from praying the same prayers, not just the same thoughts but the exact same words, and singing the same songs as they did?  We are both body and soul, and we need tangible things to help us understand spiritual realities.  We can’t survive on abstractions: that’s why Our Lord has given us Sacraments.  The Latin language has been one of those tangible things for most of the history of the Western Church, one of the most prominent of those things (sociologists call them “identity markers”) that help us understand who we are and with whom we belong.

Look Before Leaping

     As I said above, this is not merely about Latin, because the gentleman is correct who said that the Church has changed her liturgical language in the past, and may do so again.  No human language is essential for Salvation, and the Church will go on with or without it (Matthew 16:18); also, she continually needs to assess whether the things she has picked up on the on the way are really helpful for her mission (Ecclesia reformans et semper reformanda, if I may indulge in an antique tongue). At the same time she must also consider long and hard before jettisoning things that have a long history of uniting those of us in the Church Militant with our predecessors who are now in the Church Triumphant, and beyond them to "Our Father who reigns on high," as Pope Pius XII reminds us.  Whatever happens in the upcoming Synod (things being what they are, it makes sense to conduct the proceedings in some other language), we would be unwise to abandon completely the Language of our Fathers (Lingua Patrum) too quickly.

(This Throwback was first published in January of this year.)

Allegri's Adoremus in Aeternum

The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.  (Sacrosanctam Concilium, 112)

  You may not be surprised to know that my tastes in liturgical music tend toward the more traditional.  I'm not disparaging contemporary religious music, in and of itself.  I even like some of it: I have been known to play John Michael Talbot's version of "Table of Plenty", for instance, and I have an abiding fondness for Dana Scallon's "We Are One Body".  Really. These and many others are fine as expressions of religious devotion . . . but are they truly appropriate for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Do they really capture the sacredness of the Miracle of the Holy Eucharist?
      I was once discussing Sacred Polyphony with co-worker, a very talented non-Catholic music teacher, who said of the work of composers such as Palestrina and Allegri: "It's some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.  I can't believe they got rid of it in the liturgy;  I mean, I guess they had to, but It's hard to believe."  It's understandable that he might believe this; many Catholics do, too.  On the other hand, the Church itself, in the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium says: 

The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

     The word sacred means "set aside", as in set aside for God, and so sacred music should be very special indeed.  I offer as an example the clip below, which employs both Gregorian Chant and Polyphony, Gregorio Allegri's "Adoremus in Aeternum".

Section VI of Sacrosanctum Concilium, dealing with Sacred Music:

VI SACRED MUSIC

112. The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.

Holy Scripture, indeed, has bestowed praise upon sacred song [42], and the same may be said of the fathers of the Church and of the Roman pontiffs who in recent times, led by St. Pius X, have explained more precisely the ministerial function supplied by sacred music in the service of the Lord.

Therefore sacred music is to be considered the more holy in proportion as it is more closely connected with the liturgical action, whether it adds delight to prayer, fosters unity of minds, or confers greater solemnity upon the sacred rites. But the Church approves of all forms of true art having the needed qualities, and admits them into divine worship.

Accordingly, the sacred Council, keeping to the norms and precepts of ecclesiastical tradition and discipline, and having regard to the purpose of sacred music, which is the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful, decrees as follows.

113. Liturgical worship is given a more noble form when the divine offices are celebrated solemnly in song, with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active participation of the people.

As regards the language to be used, the provisions of Art. 36 are to be observed; for the Mass, Art. 54; for the sacraments, Art. 63; for the divine office. Art. 101.

114. The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care. Choirs must be diligently promoted, especially in cathedral churches; but bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs, as laid down in Art. 28 and 30.

115. Great importance is to be attached to the teaching and practice of music in seminaries, in the novitiates and houses of study of religious of both sexes, and also in other Catholic institutions and schools. To impart this instruction, teachers are to be carefully trained and put in charge of the teaching of sacred music.

It is desirable also to found higher institutes of sacred music whenever this can be done.

Composers and singers, especially boys, must also be given a genuine liturgical training.

116. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

117. The typical edition of the books of Gregorian chant is to be completed; and a more critical edition is to be prepared of those books already published since the restoration by St. Pius X.

It is desirable also that an edition be prepared containing simpler melodies, for use in small churches.

118. Religious singing by the people is to be intelligently fostered so that in devotions and sacred exercises, as also during liturgical services, the voices of the faithful may ring out according to the norms and requirements of the rubrics.

119. In certain parts of the world, especially mission lands, there are peoples who have their own musical traditions, and these play a great part in their religious and social life. For this reason due importance is to be attached to their music, and a suitable place is to be given to it, not only in forming their attitude toward religion, but also in adapting worship to their native genius, as indicated in Art. 39 and 40.

Therefore, when missionaries are being given training in music, every effort should be made to see that they become competent in promoting the traditional music of these peoples, both in schools and in sacred services, as far as may be practicable.

120. In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church's ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man's mind to God and to higher things.

But other instruments also may be admitted for use in divine worship, with the knowledge and consent of the competent territorial authority, as laid down in Art. 22, 52, 37, and 40. This may be done, however, only on condition that the instruments are suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, accord with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful.

121. Composers, filled with the Christian spirit, should feel that their vocation is to cultivate sacred music and increase its store of treasures.

Let them produce compositions which have the qualities proper to genuine sacred music, not confining themselves to works which can be sung only by large choirs, but providing also for the needs of small choirs and for the active participation of the entire assembly of the faithful.

The texts intended to be sung must always be in conformity with Catholic doctrine; indeed they should be drawn chiefly from holy scripture and from liturgical sources.

(from Sancrosanctum Concilium, 4 December 1963)

Catholicism And The Power of Imagination

Catholicism and Cool Stuff

     One of the attractive things about Catholicism is that, traditionally anyway, it has always included a lot of Cool Stuff: gorgeous music and art (a sampling of which I try to showcase on my blog), beautiful churches in which to worship (which are themselves filled with inspiring images), ancient, uplifting prayers with which to praise our creator, and on and on.  There's a vast treasury of beauty, and you can see it, hear, touch it, even smell it.  It's all wonderful but . . . is it really necessary?

   Many non-Catholic Christians and, sadly, even a substantial number of self-identified Catholics, dismiss these tactile and aesthetic riches as pointless frippery.  Many others recognize their power, but misunderstand their purpose.  John Adams, for instance, one of my favorite figures from American history but a man whose formation was thoroughly protestant, once witnessed a Catholic Vespers service when the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia decided to take turns attending each other's churches.  He was impressed by the impact of the vestments, incense, and chanting, but also highly suspicious of its purpose, remarking "How did Luther ever break the spell?"
     Now, it's no surprise that somebody like Adams, raised in a worldview grounded in Puritanism, should mistrust and misunderstand the aesthetic aspects of Catholic worship, but we should expect better from our fellow Catholics, particularly those who design churches, plan liturgies, and compose or arrange music.  In another recent post [here] we saw how beautiful, well-ordered churches help to teach the Faith.  Today I'd like to discuss in more depth how aesthetic experiences (both inside and out of the church building) can deepen our faith and even, in some cases, help bring the unbelieving to belief.  

It's a Matter of Trust

  Before I go any further, I'd like to stress that bringing about conversion is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit.  Our Lord still wants us to play a role, however: 

 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).

A significant part of that teaching should be directed toward opening minds and hearts so that people are prepared to trust Christ and his message.
          And "Trust" is the key word. In my post "Star Trek, Secularism, And Christian Faith" [here] we looked at another passage from Matthew, in which Jesus walks on the water and then invites Peter to do the same; we saw that when Peter sinks into the waves, it was not so much from a lack of belief as a lack of trust (Matthew 14:25-32). Trust of this sort doesn’t come easily: how quickly Peter, who was a close friend of Jesus, wavered in his faith.  How many of us ordinary believers, even those of us who have had powerful and convincing encounters with the power of God, have found ourselves beginning to doubt, and starting to drift away?  This is, I think, one of the ongoing effects of original sin: that we are prey to doubt, and our emotions can overwhelm our understanding. 

     If believing Christians can be drawn into doubt, what about people with even stronger emotional incentives to disbelieve?  There are those who hope to indulge their favored sins without guilt, for instance, or who work in a profession (such as academia) or live in an environment where Christian Faith marks them out for ridicule and abuse; there are an enormous number of people who know little about the history or teaching of the Catholic Church except the misrepresentations of an uninformed and often hostile popular press; there are those who really have been harmed, or are close to somebody who has been harmed, by someone they identify with Christianity or with the Catholic Church.

The Object of Opening the Mind . . . 

William-Adolphe Bouguereau's "Song of the Angels"

     Sometimes it is possible to overcome emotional barriers with the power of imagination.  It's not  that God or the matter of our Faith is imaginary, quite the opposite. It is that evidence is not self-interpreting, it needs a mind to interpret, a mind open to sometimes unsettling truths.  Things that engage the imagination such as art, music, and stories (including films and television programs) don't simply work on the intellect, they create new emotional experiences that can sometimes shake and loosen habits of mind cemented in place by previous experiences. Jesus took full advantage of this truth about human nature when he taught in parables.  Freed from these old barriers, we are able to see reality in a new light.  The well- known Catholic blogger Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (a.k.a. Fr. Z), for instance, was a Lutheran who, after hearing a beautiful work of sacred polyphony on the radio, started to view Catholicism in a different way; this was the first step in his conversion, and eventual ordination as a Catholic priest.

     G. K. Chesterton once said: "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."  An important purpose of so  many of the tangible and beautiful things in Catholic worship, all the chanting, vestments, smells and bells, is to expand the imagination so that our minds are opened large enough to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

      There is, of course, a danger in reliance on the imagination: it can expand the mind in other, less wholesome, directions as well.  The well-meaning but misguided creators of Star Trek, for instance, are just the tip of the iceberg, and much, perhaps most, of what else is on offer in the popular culture is considerably worse. Like our conscience, then, imagination must be properly formed.  We should take seriously the power of works of imagination, both for good and for bad, always bearing in mind St. Paul's advice: "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Phillipians 4:8).  We might wish to remember the Apostle's words, and feel no guilt when we enjoy the beauty of Catholic music, art, or worship.

Vespers: 2nd "Hinge" of the Liturgy of the Hours (LOH 7)

     Vespers (Evening Prayer) is perhaps the best-known of the liturgical hours from the Liturgy of the Hours.  It is quite often celebrated as a communal prayer in a church setting apart from the rest of the liturgy; it is also familiar to many non-Catholic or Orthodox Christians, for instance among high church Anglicans where it is often referred to as "Evensong." The name Vespers comes from the Latin word for evening, vesper, because the traditional canonical hour for the prayer is 6:00 p.m., although in practice it can be prayed any time between 4:30 and 7:30 (or thereabouts).

     Evening Prayer is one of the two “Hinges” of the liturgy, along with its counterpart Morning Prayer (Lauds; see here).  Like Morning Prayer, Vespers begins (after the usual opening verse) with two Psalms and a canticle.  Here the canticle comes after the two Psalm readings (it comes in between the psalms in Lauds), and, whereas the canticle in Morning Prayer is from the Old Testament, in Vespers it’s from the New Testament (excluding the Gospels).  Next we find a short scripture reading, again from the New Testament, as opposed to Morning Prayer’s Old Testament reading.  After that there is a three-part responsory, yet again following the pattern found in Lauds.  As an example, the responsory for today, Thursday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time, is:

            The Lord has given us food, bread of the finest wheat.

-          The Lord has given us food, bread of the finest wheat.

Honey from the rock to our heart's content,

-          bread of the finest wheat.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

-          The Lord has given us food, bread of the finest wheat.

     After this comes the Gospel canticle.  Whereas in Morning Prayer we say the Canticle of Zechariah (the Benedictus, link), here we pray the Canticle of Mary (link), better known as the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).  This is the prayer that Mary, pregnant with Our Lord, recites upon meeting her cousin Elizabeth (herself bearing John the Baptist in her womb). Then, after a series of intercessions, the hour concludes with a closing prayer.

 The Visitation by Domenico Ghirlandaio

    There is much we can say about Vespers taken alone.  As is the case with all liturgical prayer, and the Divine Office not the least, it takes us out of ourselves so that our focus in prayer is directed outward to our Creator and his saving work. The  structure within each canonical hour, and our need to accommodate our observances to a schedule, even loosely,  remind us that the world does not revolve around us individually. As St. Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” ( Romans 12:2).  That transformation needs to come from without, and from above.  We are united to our Christian forebears, and their Hebrew antecedents, in reciting the Psalms that they have been offering up to the Father for thousands of years; in saying the same responses and intercessory prayers along with countless others around the world, we unite with the entire Church today in putting ourselves in the hands of God; finally, in the Magnificat  we join Mary in her song of praise and thanksgiving to God for the way in which he has manifested his power in  her life.

     Beyond that, we see an even greater dimension to Evening Prayer when we look at it in tandem with Morning Prayer.  As we have seen, Old Testament readings in the morning give way to New Testament readings in the evening.  The occasion for the Benedictus, the Gospel Canticle we pray at Lauds, is the birth of the last prophet under the Old Covenant, John the Baptist, but the focus of the canticle is on the Savior for whom he is the Forerunner (“. . . For you will go before the Lord to prepare his way . . .”);  at Vespers the Magnificat marks the first meeting of the Forerunner and the Messiah, when the unborn John “leaps with joy” at the approach of the Messiah (Luke 1:44), Himself in the Blessed Mother’s womb.  Through these two prayers we live out every day a microcosm of Salvation History, starting our day with God’s covenant with the Hebrews, with a final focus on the last Prophet John, its culminating figure, who points us toward the New Jersalem; in the evening we see the coming of the Messiah with a New Covenant, and in Mary’s Canticle the reality that the New is the Fulfillment of the Old.

     This last point, I think, is why the Church calls these two hours the “Hinges”; everything else revolves around them, and they draw the other hours together into a single fabric.  The different canonical hours are not simply a series of prayers said at intervals throughout the day, they are really one prayer that extends through the whole day,  and “sanctifies time” by turning each day into a smaller version of the Liturgical Year, and so conforms us to the cycle of Salvation History, and from there to the pattern of Eternity.

     Next up: Compline, or Night Prayer.

To read the whole series go here.

Below are some resources for anyone interested in exploring the Liturgy of the Hours -

Websites:

Universalis.com – This was the first website I encountered with the text of the LOH.  It does have the full text of all the daily prayers, although, at least in the free version available online, many of the translations are not the approved ones.  They do say that the translations in the App version are the standard ones.

Ebreviary.com – Full texts of all the prayers, which are designed so that they can be printed as booklets for group prayer – but you need to buy a subscription to gain access to most of the site.

Divineoffice.org – My favorite LOH website.  It contains the full approved translations of most of the canonical hours (although there is only one hour for Daytime Prayer).  There are also audio versions of each hour which include recorded hymns and recitation of the prayers, either spoken or chanted.

Books:

There are various one-volume books entitled Christian Prayer that contain most of the Liturgy of the Hours.  The best choice available is this one [here], although it is not complete (particularly the Office of  Readings), and hasn’t been updated since 1976.  I prefer this one [here] from the Daughters of St. Paul, which contains everything except the long readings from the Office of Readings (which are available from the websites above).  It also dates from 1976, however, and, even worse, seems to be out of print.

The Gold Standard is the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours [here].  It’s all there, but it involves a sizable financial investment (well over $100 for the whole set)

Feed Your Mind And Soul: The Office of Readings (LOH 5)

St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

 In today’s post on the Liturgy of the Hours we are taking a look at The Office of Readings.  This office was traditionally called Matins, and took place in the middle of the night, where it was considered to be the first office of the day.  In the reformed Liturgy the Church has untethered it, so to speak, from any fixed time so that it can be said at any time of day.

     We should take this independence from an appointed time as a sign of how important the Church considers this office to be: she wants us to have every opportunity to pray it, regardless of the hour.  It is different from the other offices in that it contains fewer prayers and much longer scripture readings; not only that, it includes non-scriptural readings from the Saints and from magisterial Church documents. The result is an office whose rewards are not only spiritual but educational, and the whole of which is greater than the sum of the parts.

     Let’s first take a look at the structure of the Office of Readings. When it is not preceded by the Invitatory [link], it begins as do the other offices:

            God, come to my assistance.

`           Lord, make haste to help me.

            Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,

            And to the Holy Spirit:

            As it was in the beginning, is now,

            And will be forever.  Amen.

     The Psalmody comes next, consisting of three psalm readings, each either a complete psalm or several verses from a longer one, preceded and followed by brief antiphons.  After the psalmody and a very brief verse and response we find the first reading, a scriptural reading normally in the range of 500-600 words long; these are normally arranged so that very large portions of the various books of the Bible are covered over a period of a week or two.   After a short responsory there is a non-Biblical reading, often from the Fathers of the Church, sometimes written by the Saint whose feast falls on that day.  After another short responsory there is a closing prayer; on important feast days and Sundays the closing prayer is preceded by the ancient hymn of praise Te Deum (see below).

     These long readings are one of the treasures of the reformed office.  If I were not praying the Office, I doubt I would have found the time or occasion to read so much of books such as Esther or Revelation.  But there’s more to it than that.  This isn’t simply reading: it’s very much like the practice of Lectio Divina in which we are not only taking in the words of Holy Scripture, but also offering up them up to God.  One result of the liturgical prayers and the psalms in the first part of the office, in addition to being themselves an offering of prayer, is that they put us into a sort of “prayer state” in which we are receptive to the words of scripture in a way that just doesn't happen when we are reading in an ordinary way.

     The non-Scriptural readings also deserve a special mention.  There is an impressive variety of authors to teach and inspire us. To take a random sample, on the ten days from March 19^th through March 28^th of this year there are readings from: St. Bernadine of Siena, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Irenaeus, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Basil the Great, St. Leo the Great, St. Theophilus of Antioch, Tertullian, and St. Gregory the Great.  It is unlikely that I would have assembled this list of writers on my own, very unlikely indeed that I could have chosen such consistent quality of selections.  Although they are not inspired in the sense that Holy Scripture is, they all have the approval of the Church to which Christ granted authority to act in His Name on Earth.  While none of the authors above is infallible (and Tertullian, for one, actually ended his life a heretic), we know that the passages we find in the Office of Readings are free from doctrinal error; more than that, they are not only endorsed by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, they are offered to us as part of her daily liturgy as nourishment for both our mind and spirit.

     I have found the Office of Readings to be an unexpected source of enrichment over the dozen or so years I have been praying the Liturgy of the Hours.  With the internet resources that are available today it is easier than ever to do.   

To read the whole series go here.

See also:

http://divineoffice.org/

http://ebreviary.com/

http://universalis.com/

TE DEUM

You are God: we praise you;

You are the Lord: we acclaim you;

You are the eternal Father:

All creation worships you.

To you all angels, all the powers of heaven,

Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory.

The glorious company of apostles praise you.

The noble fellowship of prophets praise you.

The white-robed army of martyrs praise you.

Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you:

Father, of majesty unbounded,

your true and only Son, worthy of all worship,

and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.

You, Christ, are the King of glory,

the eternal Son of the Father.

When you became man to set us free

you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb.

You overcame the sting of death,

and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

You are seated at God’s right hand in glory.

We believe that you will come, and be our judge.

Come then, Lord, and help your people,

bought with the price of your own blood,

and bring us with your saints

to glory everlasting.

Amen

The Liturgy of the Hours and You (LOH 3)

  In my previous posts I discussed how I came to start praying the Liturgy of the Hours (LOH), and what the LOH looks like. Today I intend to discuss how to incorporate the LOH into your daily prayer life, particularly if you are a busy layperson.  Today's discussion, in fact, is primarily intended for people who are not under obligation to pray the LOH; those who are under obligation will need to consult their superiors as to what guidelines to follow in praying the Office. For the rest of us, however, there are a wide variety of approaches that we can use.

How to Begin

     Before we begin, let’s consider some of the main ways in which the Liturgy can enhance your prayer life: by structuring your day around a schedule of times set aside for prayer, you “consecrate time”, and can remain more conscious of being close to God throughout the day;  you also unite yourself more closely to the Universal Church by participating in the same liturgical celebration that is being prayed around the world; you will also become more familiar with Holy Scripture, especially if you include the Office of Readings (which also, as an added benefit, includes extensive readings from the works and lives of the saints).

     It’s a good idea to keep those ends in mind as you begin.  Also, as is the case when beginning a physical exercise program, it’s best not to attempt to do too much too soon: once you have established the routine of regular prayer, it won’t be too hard to expand it, but if it seems impossible at the outset, you are likely to abandon it before too long.  For this reason I suggest concentrating first on the practice of simply praying at set times, even if it’s just a brief prayer.  For instance, you might decide to commit yourself to praying every day in the morning, at noon, and between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.  You may only say an Our Father, or a Hail Mary (or, if you’re really ambitious, both, followed by a “Glory Be”), but you will have already begun the sanctification of your day. 

Expanding Your Repertoire

     Once you have become used to praying at regular times, you can expand your repertoire.  You may wish to add favorite prayers; when I first started, I used to pray “The Breastplate of St. Patrick” every morning.  You may wish to try an easier variation of the Divine Office, such as Magnificat, a publication modeled on the LOH (not to be confused with the Canticle of Mary from Luke's Gospel, which is always said during Morning Prayer).  This "mini" LOH only includes modified versions of Morning and Evening Prayer, and some spiritual readings to take the place of the Office of Readings.  The prayer hours look very much like the LOH but are shorter, and since there are fewer of them, the psalms are most often not the same as the ones in that day’s LOH.  Nonetheless, when you use a substitute like Magnificat you are still praying the Divine Office along with the Church; I have even been told (although I have not verified it) that in some religious communities it can be used in the place of the regular Liturgy.  This would not be unprecedented: the Church has often made similar allowances in the past, most notably in the case of the Little Office of the Virgin Mary (which also became a popular devotion among the laity).

     You may eventually decide that you wish  to participate as directly as possible in the daily prayer of the Universal Church by praying  the official Liturgy of the Hours itself.  There are a lot of options here, as well.  Those of us who are not bound by obligation can use as little or as much of the Liturgy as we like. Morning and Evening Prayers, the “hinges” of the LOH, are the most important, and I recommend starting there.  If you can’t pray them in their entirety, you may wish to say only the Gospel Canticle from each hour (the Benedictus in the morning, the Magnificat in the evening) or the Canticle and one of the Psalms.  The Office of Readings also has a lot to offer: if you pray this office, over time you’ll discover that you can find your way around large parts of the Bible, and you’ll be much better acquainted with St. Augustine and many other great Christian Saints; since the current plan of the LOH was adopted, it can be prayed at any time of day.  There is also Night Prayer, which is fairly short, and which I have found a beautiful way to end the day.  I read somewhere years ago that you can also combine some elements of the LOH with other prayer routines, particularly family prayer.  In my family we include the Nunc Dimittis and the closing prayers from Night Prayer in our family devotions before retiring.

Finding the Prayers

     Fortunately, it is easy to find the prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours and other resources today.  Using books (none of which are really complete, except the four-volume set) can be complicated, since some parts of the Liturgy follow a four week cycle, others are tied to the liturgical season, others to particular feast days, and so on.  A website like divineoffice.org figures all that out for you. 

     In future posts I will offer my reflections on some of the particular hours and my experiences with them.  In the meanwhile, I encourage you to explore the spiritual treasures contained in the Liturgy of the Hours.

   Below are some resources for anyone interested in exploring the Liturgy of the Hours -

Websites:

Universalis.com – This was the first website I encountered with the text of the LOH.  It does have the full text of all the daily prayers, although, at least in the free version available online, many of the translations are not the approved ones.  They do say that the translations in the App version are the standard ones.

Ebreviary.com – Full texts of all the prayers, which are designed so that they can be printed as booklets for group prayer – but you need to buy a subscription to gain access to most of the site.

Divineoffice.org – My favorite LOH website.  It contains the full approved translations of most of the canonical hours (although there is only one hour for Daytime Prayer).  There are also audio versions of each hour which include recorded hymns and recitation of the prayers, either spoken or chanted.

Books:

There are various one-volume books entitled Christian Prayer that contain most of the Liturgy of the Hours.  The best choice available is this one [here], although it is not complete (particularly the Office of  Readings), and hasn’t been updated since 1976.  I prefer this one [here] from the Daughters of St. Paul, which contains everything except the long readings from the Office of Readings (which are available from the websites above).  It also dates from 1976, however, and, even worse, seems to be out of print.

The Gold Standard is the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours [here].  It’s all there, but it involves a sizable financial investment (well over $100 for the whole set)

Attende, Domine, et Miserere

Pope Benedict XVI blessing ashes on Ash Wednesday, February 17th, 2010, and the simple but lovely chant Attende Domini.  I have always admired how well the music fits the meaning in this hymn.  It is also a good way to start the penitential season that begins next week: "Heed me Lord, and have mercy, for we have sinned against you."


Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi.