Some years ago, not long after beginning to say the classical form of the Roman Rite of Mass, I realised that there was quite a lot that went along with it. A little book "Clericus Devotus" which I consider one of my greatest treasures, demonstrated in its layout of daily devotions, and particularly in the examination of conscience, what was expected from a priest in terms of the life of prayer.Soon, along with many other priests who say the older form of the Mass, I discovered the older form of the Divine Office. This is the focus of quite some controversy since Pope St Pius X made some radical revisions to the breviary and substantial "cuts" were made in the 1950s so that, amusingly, one of the titles widely sold by publishers of traditional liturgical books is Fr Hausmann's "Learning the New Breviary" which is actually an instruction manual for the 1961 breviary.
The revived interest in the older breviary has been reflected in some new publishing ventures. Nova et Vetera recently published a very fine edition of the 1961 breviary (see: New old breviaries) and Southwell Books hope that their English-Latin edition will soon be ready for press. St Michael's Abbey press publish the Monastic Diurnal which is a favourite of many lay people who are not bound to the office but choose to pray the day hours of the traditional psalter.
I now have quite a collection of different breviaries. My collection includes the four volume "Liturgia Horarum" (the post Vatican II breviary) which I said for many years, and a full set of the English translation (in pristine condition); the current volume of this is kept in the confessional for the convenience of visiting priests. Various partial volumes ("Midday Prayer", "Daily Prayer", "Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer" etc.) are helpful when I say the office with others at priests' meetings and the like.
My first 1961 breviary was the two volume doorstop edition with plastic covers. I purchased the 1961 diurnal for convenience to use with this. Then I acquired very reasonably a 1946 Burns and Oates four volume breviary which has the advantage of including the full second nocturn readings (these were mostly chopped to a single reading in the 1961 breviary). Finally a friend gave me a four volume set from 1925 with board slip cases. This set is quite compact and robust and is the one I usually use when travelling.
What I don't have is a pre-1911 breviary. 1911 was the date of the Apostolic Constitution "Divino afflatu" (English translation) by which Pope St Pius X completely restructured the psalter. The breviary looked very different before that time and I would like to be more familiar with it. As with the Mass, the Council of Trent did not compose a new breviary but simply attempted to codify the traditional liturgy. The Mass survived the first half of the twentieth century substantially intact - but the breviary did not.
Nevertheless, the pattern of the hours is still the ancient one, and the principle of having the office match the Mass of the day (especially the gospel) remains. The usus antiquior Mass does rather beckon the priest to the older breviary - and indeed the older pattern of priestly personal prayer in general.
It should go without saying that none of this is intended to imply that priests who use the older form of the breviary are more devout or holy than those who use the post Vatican II breviary. There are saints and sinners saying (or failing to say) both forms of the Divine Office.
21 comments:
Very interesting Father.
I have the three volumes of The Divine Office post Vat II. The way I got them was that a friend said, in passing, that he had come across them in a rubbish bin and did I know anyone that might be interested in having them. "Give them to me", I said. Their condition was such that they seemed to have been unused.
I do use them, daily.
JARay
A most interesting post.
Do search out a pre-1911 Breviary, it is an excellent educational experience to compare it with the reformed versions and note, inter alia, how the Dominical and Festal Offices were fused in the later editions which is hardly ever commented on. One finds too that quite a lot more was changed than just the order of the Psalter.
Two years ago I was in Dublin in August and heard a priest saying a few words (homily would be too formal a term) about the wonders Pius X had done for the liturgy - the day was August 21 - his feast in the newest calendar. I carried on to my destination, St. Patrick's (Anglican) Cathedral, and a visiting choir sang a very respectable Evensong. When the Minor Canon got to "O God from whom all holy desires..." I had the spontaneous desire to laugh aloud as the priest's words came back to me. Deus, a quo sancta desideria... was of course a collect that was sung at Lauds and Vespers in the Roman Office before the 1911-13 reform (tangentially, 'Lighten our darkness...' is a translation of the Sarum collect for Compline). The preces too, of course, are taken from the Roman Office and I was left with the ironic thought that to sample a flavour of the old Roman Office then BCP Evensong is the most accessible source!
Many years ago I was fortunate to come across a pristine 1900 Breviary set and a 'super-pristine' set from 1910 at Pendelburys both marked at £15 - needless to say they didn't remain at Pendleburys. Since then a few more sets have entered my collection but not at such a bargain price.
Father:
Needless to say, you will know this i s one of my favourite subjects, but unfortunately I have to leave for work shortly!
I just wanted to say - I know it's a partial solution, but I have found recently a lot of 'Horae Diurnae Breviarii Romani ' on AbeBooks - they are all coming from 'Pilgrim Books' in Canada (maybe a nunnery got cleared out?). Anyway, they are the 1901 edition; I got mine because I wanted to see the votive Offices which Leo XIII brought in, but Pius X got rid of!
Is that Clericus Devotus all in Latin, Father?
How do you manage it, Fr Tim?
Since leaving seminary some twenty odd years ago I have attempted to keep up the Divine Office (post Vatican II) with varying degrees of success as it's not always easy if one is in full time employment. Weekends and holidays are more accommodating.
As a matter of interest, Father, I would like to know if you read the longer, pre-"simplification of the rubrics" lessons as part of the Office, on the principle that the greater includes the lesser, or do you strictly say the 1962, while perhaps reading the pre-'62 items as optional add-on extras?
Rubricarius - many thanks for your contribution here.
Mark - thanks for the tip. (Clericus Devotus is all in Latin.)
Joshua - I'm sure either of those arguments would be sufficient justification.
that is something i like to research
It is true that the first liturgical "rupture" was the psalter changes under Pius X. This used to trouble me, since we're supposed to be all about organic development.
However, here are some practical reasons why this was not a huge deal:
1. Because the festive office trumped most Sundays, the dreaded 18-psalm Sunday Matins was rarely said (festive Matins were, I believe, 9 or 12 psalms)
2. The Leo XIII "votive offices" could be used on ferias, thus avoiding the 12-psalm Matins on ferias.
So, the older office was only theoretically there. In all practicality, no one was using it except on very rare occasions, probably with lots of grumbling that day.
Pius X had a choice. He could shove a dose of medicine down everyone's throats and force them to do the marathon Matins. I think this might have been the way to go, but that's easy for me to say.
Instead, he restored a 7-day cycle of all 150 psalms, and smoothed out the Matins to a more manageable size.
If the old Office psalter had actually ever been used, I might have lamented it more.
The Old Breviary distiguished between Sundays, Doubles and Simples and Ferial days.
Sundays had 18 psalm Mattins divided into three nocturns each containing three lessons. (12 pss in the first nocturn).
Doubles had 9 psalm Mattins divided into three nocturns whilst ferial days and simples had a single nocturn containing 12 psalms and three lessons.
The recitation of the Psalter took place at Mattins (Ps 1, Beatus vir, being the first psalm of Sunday Mattins) with Pss 1 - 108 and Vespers with 109-147. Lauds was far more 'cathedral' in that it had just two variable psalms whilst Prime and the Hours always had Ps 118.
The notable difference between the Tridentine Breviary and the pre-Tridentine forms was the arrangement of psalms at Prime. Before Trent Sunday Prime was known as 'Long Prime' as it had Pss. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 53, 117, 118a, 118b and Quicumque vult. St Pius V redistributed pss 21-25 into ferial Prime.
The basic problem was that the Sunday and ferial Office were much longer than those for doubles. Not surprisingly many, many double feasts were introduced (Battifol goes into great detial about this) so the chances of having an 18 psalm Mattins on a Sunday was pretty slim by the reign of Leo XIII and the shorter, festal, double Office celebrated on the Sunday.
The Votive Offices had a similar advantage that they outranked ferial Offices, particularly those in Lent where the Office of the Dead, Pentitential Psalms and Gradual Psalms had to be said on certain days if the Office was ferial.
The 1911-13 reform basically equalised the length of Offices. In the 1961 version, a couple of reforms later, the longest Office is that of doubles i.e. the shortest Office in the Tridentine Breviary.
In terms of the music again the changes produced a massive impact that is not generally understood. Before 1911 the antiphon (and hence the tones of the pss) came in general from the various Commons of Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins etc. Post 1911 the music was generally the same for each Monday, Tuesday etc unless one of the greater feasts occurred.
Corrigendum:
I wrote "In the 1961 version, a couple of reforms later, the longest Office is that of doubles i.e. the shortest Office in the Tridentine Breviary."
I should have written: In the 1961 version, a couple of reforms later, the longest Office is that of first class feasts, the equivalent of Tridentine doubles: i.e. the shortest Office in the Tridentine Breviary.
Apologies for any confusion caused.
Father, you're very welcome!
I've found these comments fascinating; thank you, Rubricarius and LTRBTB.
A bit confused, though: how long would the 18-Psalm Matins take? Especially if conjoined to Laudes?
I would love to see an updated, universal liturgical calendar given to us by Pope Benedict XVI, then placed in a breviary with the pre-1911 psalter. Well a person can dream, can't they?
Father: may I commend to your interest the remarkable site:
http://divinumofficium.com/cgi-bin/horas/officium.pl
which lays out the traditional office for every day in pretty well any formulation from pure 1570 to 1961 with the new calendar.
Jeffrey:
It's not necessarily too bad a dream. The 'issue' of Calendars is one that needs to be addressed. It's not as if the Gates of Heaven closed in 1962, so the Sanctoral of the Missal and Breviary should get updated eventually.
Equally, it's too confusing having separate Calendars for the two forms. I have noticed quite a few Priests now opining that an elegant solution would be something like the EF Temporal with the OF/New Sanctoral lain on the top...
A harmonised calendar would be a great thing. However this would require a great deal of research and discussion and the adoption of a clear set of principles. A scholarly friend of mind expressed the reasonable concern that this should not be something undertaken by an enthusiastic Vatican official on a spare afternoon.
Mark,
18 psalm Mattins and old Lauds (i.e. 8 psalms, or rather 7 psalms and a canticle) takes about two and a half hours to sing. Reciting it rather less, a good hour and a quarter or thereabouts.
If you're looking for a pre-1911 Breviary, Father, I suggest Abebooks.com.
I found a complete, 4 volume set made in the 1850's for about $100, by a French seller.
Only problem is that my Latin isn't too great yet and understanding the rubrics is quite difficult (let alone the actual prayers).
So pleased to see you post this, Father. I find it difficult to understand those who prefer the old Mass but the new Breviary. The interaction and connectedness of the Breviary and the Mass before the Reforms is one of the great beauties of the Liturgy, and its loss in the Reforms is a tragedy.
Thanks, Rubricarius! It makes me wonder how Priests ever had the time!
Funny how the pope who promulagated the 1960 changes to the brievary, continued to use the old psalter.
Hestor: he did!?
I just wish I could find a reasonable Divino Afflatu Breviary! Good recommendation, Willebrord!
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