Dom Columba Marmion on praying the Office

Dear Sal,

I'm glad you are enjoying the book. Are you actually "reciting the divine Office" or just reading about it? If the former, how are you doing it (in community or alone, using which version of the Office).

Please remember that the Benedictines have been involved in much of what you might be referring to as "the libs." Dom Columba marmion might have approved. Why? I believe that when you truly enter into the mysterious depths of the Liturgy (entire, including [1]Mass, [2]Sacraments, [3]Office...all that stuff in Sacrosanctum Concilium), when you really practice it day in and day out, hour after hour, that you come to an incarnational, mysterious union with the Liturgy, and it is not something so formal or rigid anymore; it is living, joyful and God-filled.

On a human scale, I think the same sort of thing happens with professionals and artists who enter deeply into the "one thing" that is their vocation, be it baking or painting or farming or running.

Those called to the Benedictine monastic life in those days, and especially to the contemplative monastic life today, breath liturgy all through the day, every day. It is a living of encounter with God, as an ambassador (the message, being, perhaps, Kyrie Eleison!), in the terms and according to the ceremonial prescribed by the Church (who gave us the entire Liturgy)...but it is not rigid. It moves beyond the letters into the Spirit.

(Of course, I'm not talking about some well-intentioned and energetic young liturgist with a head full of knowledge who wants to "improve" things. That is a whole different issue.)

Peace to you

Dear Sal,

I believe the title of that book is "Christ the Ideal of the Monk", and it has just been reprinted by Roman Catholic Books.

I absolutely agree it is a great book and well worth reading by everyone.

All the best,
Woody Jones

Woody - "Christ The Ideal of the Monk" is an altogether different book. Perhaps Roman Catholic Books will reprint more of his works including The Ideal of the Priest.

B- I do pray the Office - sometimes alone, sometimes with others. I understand what you are saying about the Benedictines. Marmion himself was a proponent of liturgical reforms, such as Mass in the vernacular, many decades before Vatican II. But Marmion had an understanding of obedience that many do not. I dare say he never treated the Office or the Mass like something that could be fashioned to his own liking. Cardinal Mahoney, on the other hand, allows liturgical abuses that Redepmtionis Sacramentum seeks to eliminate.

Celebrating Mass or praying the Office "in the terms and according to the ceremonial prescribed by the Church" is not "rigid" in itself.

If more lay people prayed the Office these days, and they can thanks to the Office being reformulated and translated from Latin around the time of Vatican II, they would be much more drawn into the mysteries of faith and especially the celebtration of the Mass. I'm afraid though that in the interest of appealing to the senses some liturgical practices make the celebration banal and worldly.

Two points:

(1) The Benedictines did have a fascinating approach to the liturgy and liturgical renewal, pre-council. I have one work by a Spanish OSB who really seemed to "get it." The big question is whether any of that profound insight played any role in the implementation of the changes in these parts. I'm reminded that Rembert Weakland, O.S.B. was one of the great chant scholars before the Council. There's no evidence of that scholarship in the masses as celebrated in Milwaukee, alas.

Another question is whether a monastic approach to liturgy is truly cut out for the Mass for lay people (I'm thinking of the spartan near-iconoclasm that is a feature of monastic life, for starters).

(2) The Divine Office does a magnificent job of tying you into the Mass and the liturgical year, with all of the feasts, solemnities and memorials.

Of course, there is now a push among the American clerical elite to revise the Liturgy of the Hours to make it "more inclusive"--i.e., to wreck it utterly. Imagine the Grail Psalter replaced by the NAB's grotesquely awful revision, among other things...

http://cba.cua.edu/ratio.cfm

Dear Dale et alia,

While it may be the case that some are working on a revision of the English translation Liturgy of the Hours to replace the Grail Psalms with something "inclusive," there are also other voices and reasons.

I trust you are somewhat aware of the hasty and messy--dare I say wild--history of the current Latin and English Liturgy of the Hours. You can read the book by Stanislaus Campbell, FSC, "From Breviary to Liturgy of the Hours" for a lot of the really messy details. Like watching sausage made.

In regard to the English version, the Latin hymns were just dropped on the floor and replaced by a melange of Protestant and Catholic English hymns, many of which have not withstood the test of time. The "Psalm-prayers" of the English version (not in Latin) could also use some work.

There is also the nagging matter of the "edited" Pslams in both the Latin and English editions, which was pushed through under Father Annibale Bugnini. Entire Psalms, and verses of other Psalms, were deemed "unsuitable" for prayer. For example, Psalm 109(110), prayed at every Sunday vespers (II) has a verse cut out; the end of Psalm 63 is routinely cut off so that it "ends" on the more pleasant "your right hand upholds me" rather than "the mouths of liars will be shut!" Fr. Bugnini did appear to have the thinnest of support (or tolerance/approval) from the Pope for this inconsistent editing of the Psalter.

The "Liturgy of the Hours" in 4 volumes that came out was really, in practice, aimed at secular clergy, active religious, and laity. Almost from the start it was recognized as too "light" for monastic and contemplative communities, who were allowed to develop their own Offices using the various Psalters and readings. Many monastic communities use either the 1-week Psalter in the Rule of Benedict or a 2-week Psalter. See http://www.kellerbook.com/SCHEMA~1.HTM for a nice summary.

It was good, but after 35 years the 2nd readings might also profit from an update. Do we really need so many readings from Gaudium et Spes? Or from Augustine on Pastors? Or St. Ignatius of Antioch?

Just a personal note: I use a number of different "Offices" depending on where I am. At the local Catholic college or parish, I use the one volume English "Christian Prayer." At home with my wife, we use the 4 volume "Liturgy of the Hours" when we pray together. In my cell or office, I use the "Psalterium Monasticum" from Solesmes (RB 1-week Psalter, full Psalms, Latin). In her cell, my wife prefers the Morning and Evening Prayer from "Magnificat." With monasteries we join with them, in English, Italian or Latin, using, usually, a chanted 2-week Psalter. There is such a wide range of "Offices" that everybody should be able to find something that suits them.

Dear Sal,

It was with some reluctance that I made my last post to Catholic Light on praying the Office.

My intention was to point out that there are "conservative" as well as "liberal" aspirations for a revision of the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours.

In regard to the many schemes of Psalmody used throughout the history of the Church, remember what St. Benedict wrote in his Rule, after so many chapters outlining his scheme (which is the one week Pslater of the Breviary and Psalterium Monasticum): "We especially impress this, that, if this distribution of the psalms should perchance displease anyone, he arrange them if he thinketh another better, by all means seeing to it that the whole Psalter of one hundred and fifty psalms be said every week, and that it always start again from the beginning at Matins on Sunday; because those monks show too lax a service in their devotion who in the course of a week chant less than the whole Psalter with is customary canticles; since we read, that our holy forefathers promptly fulfilled in one day what we lukewarm monks should, please God, perform at least in a week." (RB 18). So, historically, there was freedom to arrange the Psalms as one pleased, as long as all the Pslams were included in a week. This has now been stretched to 5 weeks in some cases, and no longer are all the Psalms prayed. I have on occasion had hermit retreat days in which I prayed all 150 Psalms in one day--that was an experience.

Blessed Dom Columba Marmion (beatified 3 Sep 2000) probably used the 1 week Psalter of the Breviary.

The following newsletter has some wonderful things to say about the Office and Blessed Dom Columba Marmion.
http://www.osb.org/sva/obl/pdf/nov2001.pdf

There are many other places where the current English Liturgy of the Hours can be improved--such as the antiphons for the Benedictus and Magnificat on Sunday. Currently, the Latin version has three antiphons, one for each of Year A, B, C Gospels, each for Vespers I, Lauds and Vespers II. But the English version uses one Antiphon of year A for Vespers I, one antiphon of year B for Lauds, and one antipohn of year C for Vespers II, mostly breaking the "Proper" antiphon for 2 out of 3 Sunday hours each year. Also, there is no music for the office at all, so everybody just makes up their own.

There is still a lot of room for wonderful, holy improvement on this great gift.

There have been some interesting lay initiatives in the past few years. A small publisher in Germany, Hartker Verlag, has issued a brand new _Nocturnale Romanum_, to make the pre-conciliar night offices available for those who observe the old forms fully.

I read on the web a few days ago that some lay people are preparing a new edition of the Hours in Latin, independent of Solesmes' work, because they expect that Solesmes will make numerous substitutions among the antiphons and displace many beautiful ones.

While b is mentioning the deficiencies of the ICEL Hours, I may as well point to my bugbear, the wordy "psalm-prayers". Whatever their merits are, they seem to have been invented out of thin air, since they don't appear in the Liturgia Horarum.

Perhaps some enterprising lay people could take the current UK Divine Office, add music, and produce something fitting for use; maybe even with official approval.

RC - My understanding is that the psalm-prayers came out of the tradition of the Desert Fathers. You're right though, they are wordy and seem misplaced. I don't use them. If I did use them I'd pray them after the antiphon instead of before where they are placed in the text.

B - Thank you for all your illuminating posts. It's wonderful to get your informed perspective on this topic.

b:

Thanks for the information--a lot to chew on here.