The Divine Office by Edward J. Quigley (cool books to read .txt) 📕

The new Breviary contains a tabella of Dominical letters, up to the year 2000 A.D. It needs no comment.

Indiction. Indiction was a cycle of fifteen years, the first of which dated from the third year of the Christian era. It was usual to indicate the number of the year in a cycle and no mention was made of the cycles already completed. Thus, the indictio sexta meant the sixth year of a cycle and not the sixth cycle or period of fifteen years. Hence, to know the year of indiction is useless for determining the date in old documents of State. Indiction was instituted by Constantine in 313 for fiscal purposes. In papal and imperial documents the name of Pope or emperor was generally given and the regnal years noted.

Movable Feasts. In virtue of the decree of the Council of Nice, in 325, Easter, on which all other movable feasts depend, must be celebrated on the Sunday which follows immediately the fourteenth day of the moon of the first month (in the Hebrew year), our March. Easter, then, is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon (i.e., the full moon which happens upon or next after March 21st). If full moon happens on a Sunday, Easter Sunday is the Sunday after the full moon. The matter of the arrangement of Easter was for long a subject of very bitter contention in the Irish and in the English Church. The Irish, clinging tenaciously to the calendar of St. Patrick, carried it everywhere in their missionary labours, so that the controversy was not confined to Ireland and England. It was long and bitter, until at last the Irish Church agreed to follow the reform. (See Healy, Ireland's Schools and Scholars, p. 592; Moran, Irish Saints in Great Britain, "The Conference at Whitby in 664," pp. 255-261).

Calendar study is interesting, and many valuable contributions on this matter have been given to us by Father Thurston, S.J., and other English and Irish scholars.

The next document in the Breviary, Part I., has the title "Rubricae Generates Breviarii," the general rubrics of the Breviary. They are called general, as they apply to every part of the Breviary and are to be distinguished from the rubrics dealing with the proper (proprium) of the Breviary, the proper of time or of the saints. The word "rubrics" was originally applied to the red marking lines used by carpenters on wood, later it referred to the titles used by jurisconsults in announcing laws, which were written in red colours. The word appears in Church literature to refer to signs and directions as early at least as the fourteenth century (Cath. Encyclopedia—word "rubrics").

The general rubrics are divided into thirty-seven Titles. Attention will be given to each; of these Titles, some of which must be modified by recent legislation. The order followed may not be the order followed in the general rubrics as given in the Breviary, as matters treated in the general rubrics found in the Breviary are treated under other headings here. However, a look at the table of contents or at the index shows the pages treating of these Titles.

"Consequently, the civilised peoples already in remote antiquity have found a call to the worship of God in the changing seasons and times and so have introduced sacred seasons. Sacred times and places are common to all religions in general. The change of times bringing with them corresponding changes in nature made a religious impression upon mankind. In turn, man sanctified certain times and dedicated them to God, and these days, thus consecrated to God, became festivals."

The entire number of ecclesiastical holydays and seasons is codified for us in the different Church calendars. Their contents fall into two essentially different divisions, each possessing an entirely different origin and history. The first division consists of festivals of our Lord, distributed over the year, regulated and co-ordinated in accordance with certain laws. The second division consists of commemorations of saints in no wise connected with festivals of our Lord or with one another. Occupying to some extent an intermediate position between these two chief divisions come the festivals of our Blessed Lady, which have this in common with the festivals of the saints, that they fall on fixed days; but, on the other hand, they are to a certain extent connected with each other and with some feasts of our Lord. This is carried out in such a way that they are distributed throughout the Church year and are included in each of the festal seasons (Kellner, Heortology, Part I.).

From Apostolic times the feasts of Easter, the Ascension and Pentecost were celebrated. In the second century feasts of the Apostles were celebrated and the cult of the Martyrs was of speedy and widespread development. But it was not, probably, till the fourth century, that the feasts of saints who were not martyrs were celebrated.

Origin of the different grades of feasts. To-day, we find Church festivals arranged in three grades, doubles, semi-doubles and simples, and it is very difficult, to determine clearly and accurately the origin and the nature of the arrangements. But from the works of scholars, who have studied this matter, the following may be considered as a fair and accurate summing up:—

In the first ages of the Church the Apostles and Martyrs only were commemorated in public prayers and, above all, in the Mass, perhaps, by a special prayer. Then, in time, followed the reading of a panegyric in their honour, and later still hymns and histories of martyrdom were added to the public recitation of the Office. Still later, there were added the feasts of the saints with an office resembling our simple office. Matins were entirely ferial, but had either a biography of the saint or a long extract from the Fathers added. The other hours were as in a Sunday office, save that these feasts had no Vesper matter.

In still later times, the Church added to the list of names on her saint roll, the names of saints who were honoured neither as Apostles nor as Martyrs. For these, special Masses, offices and feasts were established. St. Martin of Tours was the first confessor so honoured in the Western Church. For the more important feasts, an office of nine lessons was established and this came to be known as a semi-double office, and later such feasts were called doubles. Hence, before the thirteenth century, we find celebrations of simple feasts, of semi-doubles and of doubles. And Durandus, who wrote in the thirteenth century, tells us of the existence of doubles major and doubles minor. The Breviary of St. Pius V., published in 1568, gives three classes of doubles: doubles of the first class, doubles of the second class, and doubles per annum. But, in the revision by Clement VIII. the doubles per annum were again divided into doubles major and doubles minor. In the new Pian Breviary (1913) doubles are divided into Primary Doubles of the First Class, Secondary Doubles of the First Class; Primary Doubles of the Second Class, Secondary Doubles of the Second Class, Primary Doubles Major, Secondary Doubles Major. The list of feasts under each of these six headings may be seen in the Breviary.

Do double offices differ specifically from each other? No, the form is the same in all double offices. What then is the difference between doubles of different classes? The difference is chiefly in the preference which is given to them in cases of concurrence or occurrence of feasts of greater or of lesser rite.

The word "double" (duplex) is derived, some authors hold, from the ancient custom of reciting two offices or saying two Masses on the same day—one for the current feria and one for the feast (festa). Other authors say that the word is derived from the ancient practice of chanting twice or in repetition the complete responses and versicles. And, above all, the recitation of the full antiphons before and after each psalm, at Matins, Lauds and Vespers, was called "duplication," and this name, it is said, was given to the office (double, duplex) in which the practice of duplication took place.

It is often asked why are there different grades of feasts. Three reasons are given by writers on liturgy. First, to mark the diversity of merit in God's saints, their sanctity and their different degrees of service to His Church. Second, to mark their different degrees of glory in Heaven. "One is as the sun; another, the glory of the moon; and another the glory of the stars. For star differs from star" (1 Cor.). Third, for some special national or local reasons—e.g., patron of a country.

The rules laid down in the general rubrics in the new Breviary, for doubles and semi-doubles, are left unchanged almost by the regulations laid down by the Commission and by the Variationes. Their numbers were reduced, so that there now stand in the new Breviary only seventy-five doubles, sixty-three semi-doubles, and thirty-six movable feasts.

A reason for the new arrangement of double feasts in the Pian Breviary is the general one, that the Pope wished above all things the weekly recitation of the Psalter, and to bring about this weekly recitation and the restoration of the Sunday Office a mere rearrangement of the Psalms was quite insufficient, and a rearrangement of the gradation of feasts of concurrence and of occurrence was necessary.

Etymology, nature and synonyms. The word semi-double (semi-duplex) is derived from the Latin; and some writers hold that the word indicates feasts which are of lower rank and solemnity than double feasts. Others hold that it means simply, feasts holding a place between double feasts and simple feasts. Most writers on liturgy hold that on some days a double office—one of the feast and one of the feria—was held, and that in order to shorten this double recitation there was said a composite office, partly of the saint's office and partly of the feria; and they say that from this practice arose the term semi-double, or half-double.

Synonyms for the term "semi-duplex," are "non-duplex," "office of nine lessons."

1. The antiphons are not doubled in a semi-double office.

2. The Sundays of the year, excepting Easter Sunday, Low Sunday, Pentecost and Trinity, are said according to the semi-double rite. In the new Breviaries the Psalms for Matins are only nine in number, instead of the eighteen of the older book.

3. The versicles, antiphons, responses, preces and suffrages of saints, which are recited in semi-double offices, are given below under their own titles.

Etymology, nature and synonyms. The word simple comes from the Latin simplex, to indicate the least solemn form of office and it is the direct opposite in meaning to the term "double." It is synonymous with the term so often found in liturgical works, the office of three lessons.

This form of office is of great antiquity, going back to the fifth century. In the early ages of the Church and down to the fourteenth century the simple office consisted of the ferial office with lessons, antiphons and prayers. But in the end of the fourteenth century, simples came to be celebrated in the same manner as semi-doubles, with nine lessons and their nocturns, and in case of occurrence were transferred. As a result the offices of Sunday and the ferial offices were practically crushed out of the Breviary. The Commission of Reform applied an easy remedy, by restoring simple feasts to their ancient place and status. Now, they are not to be transferred; but in case of occurrence with a feast of higher rite they are merely commemorated.

These feasts have first Vespers only. At Matins, the nine psalms and three lessons are said as one nocturn. The psalms in semi-double feasts are from the Psalter under the day of the week on which the feast is celebrated. "In quolibet alio Festo duplici etiam major, vel semi duplici vel simplici et in Feriis Tempore Paschali, semper dicantur Psalmi, cum antiphonis in omnibus Horis, et versibus ad matutinum, ut in Psalterio de occurrente hebdomadae die" (Tit, I. sec, 3. Additiones et Variationes).

In commemorations in the Office, the versicle, response, antiphon and collect of a semi-double is made after the following commemorations (if they should have a place in the recitation of the day).

(1) Any Sunday, (2) a day within the privileged octave of the Epiphany or Corpus Christi, (3) an octave day, (4) a great double, (5) a lesser double. Of course the first commemoration is always of the concurring office except it be a day within a non-privileged octave, or a simple. In reckoning the order of