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

We translate the Latin Dies Dominica by our word Sunday, for in
English the days of the week have retained the names given to them in
Pagan times. In Irish, too, Deluain, Monday, moon's day, shows Pagan
origin of names of week days.

The literal translation of the Latin Dies Dominica, the Lord's Day, is not found in the name given to the first day of the week in any European tongue, save Portuguese, where the days of the week hold the old Catholic names, domingo, secunda feira, terca feira, etc. It is said that the seven days of the week as they stand in numerical order were retained and confirmed by Pope Silvester I. (314-336): "Sabbati et Dominici diei nomine retento, reliquos hebdomadae dies Feriarum nomine distinctos, ut jam ante in Ecclesia vocari coeperunt appellari voluit; quo significaretur quotidie clericos, abjecta caeterarum rerum cura, uni Deo prorsus vocare debere" (Brev. Rom. in VI. lect. St. Silvester Pope; 31st Dec.).

There is no evidence of the abrogation of the Sabbath by Christ or by His Apostles, but St. Paul declared that its observance was not binding on Gentile converts. Accordingly, in the very early days of Christianity the Sabbath fell more and more into the background, yet not without leaving some traces behind it (see art. Sonnabender in Kraut's Realenzyklop). Among Christians the first day of the Jewish week, the prima Sabbati, the present Sunday, was held in honour as the day of our Lord's resurrection and was called the Lord's Day (Apoc. i. 10; I. Cor, xvi. 2), This name, dies dominica, took the place of dies solis, formerly used in Greece and in Rome. This day has many names in the works of Christian writers. St. Ignatius, M. calls it Regina omnium dierum; St. Chrysostom, dies pacis; dies lucis; Alcuin, dies sanctus; feria prima, Baronius tells us, was another name for our Sunday.

The subject of the liturgical celebration of the Lord's Day has been a great study and a problem to modern scholars. It appears that in the first ages of the Church, Sunday was a day of solemn reunion and of common prayer. St. Justin, in his second apology, writes that on the Lord's Day town and country met together at an appointed place for sacrifice, for the hearing of the word of God, for pious readings and for common prayer. This common, prayer consisted largely in the recitation of the Psalms, hymns and prayers, of what are called the Sunday Office. This office was nearly always the same in psalms, in hymns and in every part; so that Sunday after Sunday, for many years, there was very little change in the Sunday united-prayer part of the liturgy, although the preaching on the incidents of the life of our Lord (Beckel, Messe und Pascha, p, 91), the blessings and the thanksgivings relieved the service from monotonous sameness.

A nocturn, a round of Psalms, was said on Saturday night by the vigilants preparing for the Sunday services. Before the eighth century two other short nocturns were added. This addition, which was copied from the monastic practice, built up the three nocturn form of office and became the model and form of the office for saints. "There is good reason for believing that originally the Divine Office formed part of the Mass. The synaxis, for which the early Christians assembled by night, consisted of the 'breaking of bread,' preceded by the singing of psalms and hymns, litanies and collects, readings, homilies, invocations and canticles. This was the whole official liturgical prayer, apart, of course, from private prayer" (Dom Cabrol, Day Hours of the Church, Introduction, p. xvi).

One of the chief objects of Pope Pius X. in his reform was the restoration of the liturgical importance of the Sunday office, the office of the Lord's Day, and, therefore, in its own right, superior to the saints' feasts by which it had been displaced from its special office, psalms and lessons. And this could only be effected by a change in the rules of occurrence, and in Title IV. (De Festorum occurentia, etc., section 2) we find the new rule for restoring Sunday offices to their proper liturgical rights.

In Title IV., sect, 1 (see Breviary, Additiones and Variationes) there is no change in the old rubric. The eight Sundays of the first class exclude every other feast. And the Sundays of the second class only give place to a double of the first class and then are commemorated at Lauds, Vespers and Mass, and have the ninth lesson in Matins.

But section 2 (Dominicis minoribus)… goes to the root of the matter of the new change in the rules for Sunday's liturgical office. The ordinary Sundays ranked as semi-doubles and hence their Mass and Office was superseded by the Mass and Office of some occurring feast. The length of the Sunday office, in the breviaries until lately in use, made many hearts rejoice over the occurring feast. But the almost total omission of the ancient and beautiful Sunday Masses was a misfortune and, in a sense, an unbecoming practice, which broke away from ancient liturgical rule and tradition. The abbreviation of the Sunday office in the new breviaries and the rule laid down in Title IV., sect. 2, restore Sunday's office and Sunday's Mass to their old and proper dignity.

The general rule laid down is that on Sundays throughout the year the proper office of the Sunday shall always be said. The exceptions are (1) Feasts of our Lord and their octaves, (2) Doubles of the first class, (3) Doubles of the second class. On these days the office will be the office of the feast, with commemoration in Lauds, Vespers and Mass. Henceforth Sundays are divided into:

(1) Sundays of the first class, which exclude all feasts;

(2) Sundays of the second class, which exclude all feasts save doubles of the first class;

(3) The ordinary Sundays, which exclude all but doubles of the first or second class, feasts of our Lord, and their octave days.

The date of Easter is the pivot of Calendar construction. Before Easter come the Sundays of Lent and Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, Septuagesima Sundays. Septuagesima cannot fall earlier than the eighteenth day of January, nor later than the twenty-second day of February. Hence, in some years there are fewer "Sundays after the Epiphany" than in others, owing to the dates of Easter and Septuagesima. The smaller the number of Sundays after Epiphany the greater is the number of Sundays after Pentecost. If the number of Sundays after Pentecost be twenty-five, the twenty-fourth Sunday will have the office of the sixth Sunday after Epiphany. If there be twenty-six Sundays after Pentecost, the twenty-fourth Sunday will have the office of the fifth after Epiphany, and the twenty-fifth will have that of the fifth Sunday; the twenty-sixth will be the sixth Sunday's office. It should be remembered that the Sunday called the twenty-fourth after Pentecost is always celebrated immediately before the first Sunday of Advent, even though it should not be even the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost.

Etymology and different signification of the word Feria. The word is derived probably from the Latin feriari (to rest). Among the Romans, the idea of a day of rest and a holy day was intimately united and received the name of feria. But it was amongst the Hebrews that the day set apart for the worship of God received the most distinctive character as day of rest (Heortology, p. 2). Hence the early Christians called the days of the week feriae.

Why did the Church adopt the word feriae? She wished to mark the day of the week and not to name them by their pagan name (e.g., dies lunae) nor by their Jewish names (e.g., prima sabbati), which should be a sort of recognition of the dead and dying synagogue. Hence she adopted the word feria, to denote the Christian rest in the Lord, the Christian peace and the abstinence from all sin, and that each and every day should be consecrated to God. The Christian use of the word is found in Origen (185-254) and was fully established in the time of Tertullian.

In the time of Amalare (circa 830) the ferial office had taken a well-defined form, Matins having twelve psalms and six antiphons. In Lauds of every feria were recited the psalms, Miserere; Deus, Deus meus; Deus misereatur nostri; a canticle drawn from a prophet and varying each day of the week (e.g., Confitebor, Isaias xii., for Monday's Lauds; Ego dixi, Isaias xxxviii., for Tuesday's Lauds, etc., and the two psalms Laudate (148, 150) and the Cantate, psalm 149). In the small hours the Sunday psalms without antiphons were recited. Vespers had daily, fixed psalms. At each hour the Kyrie Eleison and ferial prayers were said on bended knees and the hours terminated—as do the hours of Holy Week still—with Pater Noster and Miserere.

Ferias are divided into three classes, major ferias, privileged ferias and non-privileged. Ash Wednesday and the three last days of Holy Week are the major ferias which are privileged and exclude all feasts (vide Tit. II., sec. 2). Non-privileged feriae are the feriae of Lent and Advent, Quarter Tense or Ember days and Rogation Monday. They take precedence of simple feasts only.

In the ferial office nine psalms are said, and not twelve, as in the old order of the Breviary. The psalms found arranged in the new Breviary for three nocturns are to be said with nine antiphons up to the versicle of third nocturn—the versicle of the first and second being omitted (Tit. I., sec. 7). Hence the psalms are to be said straight through (sine interuptione) omitting in the first two nocturns, the versicle and response, Pater Noster, absolutions and all pertaining to the lessons. This simplifies things and makes the ferial office shorter than the office of feasts.

Etymology, nature and synonyms. The word vigil is from the Latin vigilare, to keep awake, to watch, because in old times the night before any great event, religious or worldly, was spent in watching. Thus, the night prior to ordination to the priesthood, the night prior to a great battle, was spent in watching before the altar. Hence, the word vigil came to mean the prayers said during the time of watching or waking, preparatory to the great event. It signified, too, the fast accompanying the watching, and lastly it came to mean the liturgical office of Mass and Breviary fixed for the time of vigilance. In the Roman Church it was sometimes called the nocturn or night office. The Greeks call the vigil profesta, the time before the feast.

The custom existed among the pagans, almost universally, before the time of Christ. The Jews practised this ancient night prayer, as the scripture in several places shows, "in noctibus extollite manus vestras in sancta" (Psalm 133). Our Saviour sanctified this use by His example, and the early Christians were, on account of these night assemblies, the objects of fear and dread, of admiration and of hatred. Organised vigils lasted till the thirteenth century in some countries, but owing to abuses and discord they became not a source of edification, but the occasion and cause of grave scandals, and were forbidden gradually and universally. The Church now retains for the faithful one congregational vigil, the vigil of Christmas. Formerly, it was customary to observe a fast on a day or night of a vigil, but that custom was suppressed sometimes, or fell into disuse. Vigil fasts are now few. Almost the only relic of the vigil now remaining is the Mass and Office.

When were vigils held? In the early ages they were held only on Saturday nights and on nights preceding great solemnities or the festivals of the Martyrs. The early converts, if they had been pagans, knew few or no prayer formulae, and very little of the psalms was learned by them even in their Christian practice. But Jews who became Christians knew psalms and hymns and prayers. So that in the early Christian vigils, there was no attempt made at reciting the Divine Office, and the custom of such recitation was not introduced until about 220 A.D. and was not obligatory (Duchesne, Christian Worship, Chap. VIII.).

It is difficult to speak with certainty about the hour of beginning or the hour of ending these vigil services. Some think that the first nocturn was said about 9 p.m. Lauds