Category Archives: Daily Office

On Antiphons

A breviary user from a non-Episcopal background sent me a nice note the other day asking about  the antiphons from the Office. She was asking about these texts:

Well can this man say: I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand, for thou hast filled me with indignation.

I have put off the clothing of peace, and put upon me the sackcloth of my prayer; I will cry unto the Everlasting in my days

These are antiphons from the feast of St Benedict; she was struck by them and was curious about what they meant and how they functioned within the liturgy. Let’s begin with the second question first.

Psalm Antiphons

Psalm antiphons have been a standard part of the Office from the early medieval period. Antiphons are small snippets of text, usually a verse or so in length, usually taken from Scripture that are repeated before and after the psalm. (The invitatory antiphon is repeated at several points within the invitatory psalm, but that’s a special case.)

The purpose of the antiphon is to contextualize our hearing/reading of the psalm. The way that we hear the psalm will shift subtly based on the content of the antiphon. It will help draw out certain aspects, and bring certain elements or ideas within the psalms to the fore as they relate to the antiphon.

Antiphons are interpretative devices; they assist in the meaning-making process. However, they are “”underdetermined”which means that they do not impose a meaning on the text but rather only suggest a potential meaning. The relationship between the psalm and the antiphon is not inherently clear. Thus, the interpreter has to do the work to figure out how the antiphon and the psalm relate to one another.

The effect is that the antiphon + psalm combination offers spiritual riches for anyone who has said the Office from one month to fifty years. By not imposing a meaning and by offering a suggestive juxtaposition, each hearer is able to find a spiritual meaning appropriate to their own level of understanding, one that will grow over the years.

For instance, consider Psalm 51, one of the penitential psalms and the single most commonly used psalm in the medieval repertoire. (That’s the one that starts “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; * in your great compassion blot out my offenses.”) It will read one way if the antiphon is “For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.” It will read another if it is “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Both of these are taken from within the psalm itself. However, choosing one or the other will shift how we hear the text.

Classically, there were common antiphons and propers. For feasts, special antiphons relating to the feast would be appointed; for ordinary days antiphons from the psalm itself would be selected. With Cranmer’s decision to simplify the Office, the psalm antiphons were dropped from Anglican liturgies. The current American prayer book restores the option to use them:

Antiphons drawn from the Psalms themselves, or from the opening sentences given in the Offices, or from other passages of Scripture, may be used with the Psalms and biblical Canticles. The antiphons may be sung or said at the beginning and end of each Psalm or Canticle, or may be used as refrains after each verse or group of verses. (BCP, 935)

Since this legitimates the use of the traditional proper antiphons which were virtually all drawn directly from Scripture, I’ve put them back into the Office in the St Bede’s Breviary. (Because of the way psalms and antiphons were grouped in the traditional Roman Offices, there is not an antiphon for every psalm for the commons. As a result, I’ve made selections from the verses used by St Bede in his abbreviated psalter as a source for antiphons.)

Propers of Abbots

So–the material referenced above comes from the Proper of Abbots since St Benedict was, indeed, a monastic abbot and legislator.

The first antiphon, “Well can this man say: I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand, for thou hast filled me with indignation,” is an adaptation of Jeremiah 15:17. In its original context, it refers to the prophet’s unhappiness with his nation and his rejection of their theological and political decisions in the face of the Babylonian crisis that would ultimately end in the double sack of Jerusalem and its destruction in 587 BC. Isolated as an antiphon and related to abbots, it speaks to the monastic’s choice to isolate himself from society and to choose a life oriented to something other than the idols of his contemporary society.

The second antiphon, “I have put off the clothing of peace, and put upon me the sackcloth of my prayer; I will cry unto the Everlasting in my days,” is a direct citation of Baruch 4:20. In this passage from the apocrypha—in a book attributed to Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah—it describes an act of penance in reparation for the nation turning away from Torah. As a monastic antiphon, it foregrounds dedication to a life of prayer.

Then, as these two antiphons are brought together in juxtaposition and one seems to lead into another, it does indeed create a potential meaning of a life that rejects the injustice of the wider society and the dedication to a life of prayer as a remedy against it. And, indeed, when you take a look at the original contexts of these two biblical passages, this meaning seems entirely consonant with them. Furthermore, as the monthly psalms have fallen, the first antiphon draws out the contrast drawn between the wicked habits of the “children of men” and the righteousness of God described in Psalm 57; the second leads directly into the question: “ARE your minds set upon righteousness, O ye congregation? * and do ye judge the thing that is right, O ye sons of men?” that kicks off Psalm 58.

So—quick recap—the antiphons are Scripture snippets that provide an interpretive context for the psalms that help us discover new or deeper meanings within them by highlighting certain themes.

Books of Hours: Scripture Content

I’m taking a quick break from posting on the images of the Books of Hours to say a little about the scriptural content of the books. This is, of course, one of the “protestant” questions about the BOH—how much “pure” Scripture was contained within these quintessentially catholic devotions in the late medieval period.

Again, levels will vary based on what items are included. That having been said, here’s a run-down based on Leroquais’ categories:

Essential

Little Hours of the BVM: [Matins] Pss 95, 8, 19, 24 (Ps 51 was printed here in the Sarum books as well as a Lenten alternative to the Te Deum); [Lauds] Pss 93, 100, 63, 67, 148-150; Dan 3:34-67 (Benedicite); Luke 1:68-79 (Benedictus) [Prime] Pss 54, 117, 118; [Terce] Pss 120-122; [Sext] 123-125; [None] Pss 126-128; [Vespers] Pss 122-126; Luke 1:46-55 (Magnificat); [Compline] Pss 13, 43, 129, 131, 130; Luke 2:29-32 (Nunc Dimittis)

The Penitential Psalms: Pss 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143

 Office of the Dead: [Placebo] Pss 116, 120, 121, 130, 138, 146; Luke 1:46-55 (Magnificat); [Dirige] Pss 5-7, 25, 27, 40-42, 51, 65, 63, 67, 148-150, 30, 142; Job 7:16-21; 10:1-12, 18-22; 13:23-28; 14:1-6, 13-16; 17:11-15; 19:20-27; Isa 38:10-20 (Song of Hezekiah); Luke 1:68-79 (Benedictus)

Secondary

Sequences: John 1:1-14; Luke 1:26-38; Matt 2:1-12; Mark 16:14-20

John’s Passion: John 18:1–? (I’ve found the incipit, but the three books I’ve looked at don’t contain it…)

Hours of the Holy Spirit: TBD?

Hours of the Cross: TBD? (For these two, I haven’t found any clear references. When I turned to one of the books to glance at the Psalms of the Holy Spirit office I found what looked like the incipit of Ps 1—but not the rest of it. Where would that be? I can’t imagine you’re only supposed to use the incipt. I think these two will require some additional investigation…)

Accessory Texts

The Gradual Psalms: Pss 120-143

The Commendations: Pss 119, 139

Psalter of (Ps.) St Jerome: Extracts  from all of the psalms, but containing Ps 51 in its entirety.

Psalms of the Passion: Pss 22-31:5

Initial Thoughts

Clearly, there are a lot of psalms going on! Not all of them, but certainly most. Furthermore, there’s a certain amount of repetition going on. (Note the overlap between the Vespers & Nones of the BVM with the Gradual Psalms.) This is a reminder that specific sections were used for specific devotions—no page turning was needed to flip to a psalm contained elsewhere in the book.

In terms of non-psalm content, there’s not a whole lot; there are extracts from Job for the Offices of the Dead and then the bits from each Gospel. As far as bits go, though, they’re not bad choices: we get the pre-existent Christ from John, the Incarnation from Matthew and Luke, the promises of the Post-Resurrection Christ from Mark, and the Passion itself from John. Again, as we see in the creeds and elsewhere, there is an emphasis on the narratives that relate to the core doctrines—less on teaching materials.

The English prymers tend to follow these selections. Some of the early protestant works add in quite a few more biblical canticles, though. There’s one very interesting outlier that deserves additional study: while the psalms in the protestant Marshall and other books mirror those of the classic catholic books, the psalm choices of Bishop Hilsey in his moderately catholic work are quite different. I don’t know why yet…

Announcement #3: Daily Office on iDevices!

(More) Big news!

Forward Movement has released their very first mobile app; it’s available for both the iPhone and the iPad. Named Forward Day by Day after their main product, it contains the full text of not only the Forward Day by Day devotional but also a full-featured—and customizable—Daily Office application!

As I mentioned before, Scott Gunn approached me a while back about adapting the St Bede’s Breviary code. With the help of an internet co-conspirator, we did the Daily Prayer site, but now the iPhone version is officially out.

And it looks great!

What we’ve got here is the regular BCP Office as you’ll find it on the breviary, but with a more limited set of options. You won’t find your Marian devotions here, but it’ll let you switch between rites and kalendars and a few other things.

The full details are laid out here in the official press release. It retails for $6.99 and that includes the full text of Foward Day by Day in addition to the awesome Office stuff and the kalendar extras we’ve built in, etc.  If you have an iDevice, you really need to get yourself this app… Click here to go to the iTunes app section and get yourself one! (And, yes, as part of the development team, I do earn a small amount from each sale so each one you buy is like a little thank-you note to the beautiful and long-suffering M who wonders out loud if I’m doing anything useful  at that computer… :-D)

If you’re like M and me, though, and have an Android device—I’m told that’s in the works and should be out in a little bit.

Books of Hours: Images II

Last time we talked broadly about illustration issues and design elements in the Books of Hours. Today, let’s look more specifically at illustration content. As we saw with textual contents, the French Roman Catholic master of the field Leroquais identified a set of essential texts: “the Calendar, the Little Office or Hours of the Virgin, the Penitential Psalms, the Litany, the Office of the Dead, and the Suffrages of the Saints” (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 14). Over the centuries, a fairly stable set of illustrations—or at least themes upon which to base illustrations—became standard in the various Books of Hours. We’ll start by making a quick survey of these.

Again—we can properly use the language of “fairly stable”; whenever we’re dealing with medieval manuscript culture, there’s no such thing as “invariable” or “always” and you’ll find occasional exceptions to these if you look hard and broad enough.

The Calendar

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 6v]

Kalendars are, at base, a simple list of dates and feasts. However, it’s never been quite that simple. Due to the calculations necessary to determine when Easter falls, locating Sundays, and establishing the hours of day and night all before reliable clocks, a variety of astronomical entries are common in kalendars certainly in the early medieval period and likely earlier. While passages of the sun into the various heavenly houses tends not to appear in the kalendars of the books of hours, the zodiac certainly does. Alongside zodiacal symbols are a set of vignettes drawn from late medieval pastoral life. Thus, these are the standard images:

  • January: Feasting
  • February: Sitting by the fire
  • March: Pruning
  • April: Garden scene
  • May: Hawking or boating
  • June: The hay harvest
  • July: Reaping the wheat
  • August: Threshing
  • September: Treading the grape
  • October: Ploughing and sowing
  • November: Gathering acorns for pigs
  • December: Killing the pig or baking bread (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 24)

In many books of hours, because of the small size, one month will take up two pages. Thus, the occupation will often appear on the first side of the month, the zodiacal symbol on the other. In cases like the one above where the whole month appears on one page, one image may be at the top and the other at the bottom. In our example, however, the artist has already laid out a much more ambitious artistic program which he has followed through the kalendar: in the upper left is a saint in the month preaching to an eager audience (except for January depicting the conversion of St Paul which falls then); in the bottom is a paired prophet and apostle holding hands, the prophet pointing to the ruin of Jerusalem/the Temple/synagogue. In the top center is a combination of the zodiacal sign and sometimes (but not always) the occupation of the month seen through the arch. Both are here in the case of December: the killing of the pig, and a capricornian goat emerging from the tower.

Needless to say, much of the attention given to books of hours by medievalists focuses here—they get to see how medieval artists depicted the occupations of daily life, how they dressed the people and portrayed them going about their business. Too, it gives us an idea of how the wealthy consumers purchasing such books wanted their artists to portray such activities…

As a liturgist, what I find both interesting and useful here is the color scheme used for writing the saints’ days. Red and blue alternate to provide visual contrast, but gold identifies the greater feasts from the lesser. Note the gold for St Nicholas, Our Lady (yes—the kalendar is written in French, not Latin…) , St Thomas (Ap.), Christmas, St Stephen, St John, Holy Innocents, and St Thomas (M.). Books of hours can be tied (sometimes only tenuously!)  to times and/or dioceses through a careful investigation of the specific saints appearing in the kalendars.

The Little Hours of the BVM

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 21r]

These are likely the illustrations and manuscript prints that medieval-leaning church folk are most familiar with. I know I’ve got a bunch o these waiting to be hung around the house that M acquired from various museums even before we met.

The way that this pattern works is that each hour is preceded by an illustration from the life of the BVM relating to the Incarnation:

  • Matins: The Annunciation
  • Lauds: The Visitation
  • Prime: The Nativity
  • Tierce: The Angel’s Announcement of the Nativity to the Shepherds
  • Sext: The Adoration of the Magi
  • None: The Presentation in the Temple/Purification of the BVM
  • Vespers: The Flight into Egypt and/or Massacre of the Innocents
  • Compline: The Coronation of the Virgin (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 28)

The Annunciation tends to be the first picture in most books after the kalendar and is one of the most elaborate. Too, it’s quite common for the historiated initial below the miniature to feature the book’s commissioner at his/her devotions, looking up to experience the Annunciation. You can see Duke de Berry in the one above if you squint… Harthan notes that the Announcement to the Shepherds is often also an interesting one because, as with the occupational images, it provides an opportunity for the artist to create a classic pastoral image.

If you’re used to looking at medieval liturgical books and looking at feasts, you’ll notice something interesting here: the hours appear in a ferial pattern. Remember that a feast will begin with a First Vespers so the first office encountered will be Vespers, then Compline, and only then Matins. Since the cycle here starts with Matins, it’s a reminder that the Hours of the BVM were a daily exercise, used without regard to feast or ferial days.

The Penitential Psalms

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 53r]

There’s quite a variety in the images before the penitential psalms. However, you can usually count on finding David somewhere in the scene. Typically, he’s the crowned figure holding a harp. In the example above, he’s hanging out in the historiated initial and there’s also a David & Goliath match-up occurring at the bottom of the page. (I’ll pass on commenting on the cardinal riding a rooster at the side of the page.)

The main miniature in this case is, of course, Christ surrounded by images of the four evangelists with their respective symbols. Given my own perspective, I’d interpret this choice of images as a reference to the medieval understanding of the omnipresence of Christ in the psalms, but that’s speculation on my part.

As the years wind on, one particular incident in the life of David does indeed become a standard image for the penitential psalms, which I happened upon by accident in some of my earlier research.

 

This is due, we’re told, to the superscription of Psalm 51: “To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” As a guy, I’d say that’s a reason but not the reason… I’m sure there’s a lovely dissertation waiting to be written on piety, lust, and the imaging of the female body in late medieval/renaissance devotional materials.

The Litany

 

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 59r]

Harthan notes that it’s unusual to find miniatures connected with the Litany unless it’s a rare illustration of Pope Gregory leading a litany through the streets of Rome against a plague, or perhaps a saint hiding in the margin or in an initial.

There are none in the one we’re looking at, and the main decorative feature seems to be the spacer between the personage/saint being invoked and the abbreviated response on the far side of the page. Here’s another view from the next page:

 

Hours of the Dead

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 217r]

Unlike the Hours of the BVM and some of the other supplementary hours, there are only three Offices of the Dead: Vespers [Placebo], Matins [Dirige], and Lauds [Requiem]. As Harthan notes, there can be quite a lot of variability with the images here. The first one that Harthan mentions is the one I’ve seen the most, an image of the Vigil of the Dead, the service that occurs in the church in the presence of the catafalqued body.  Here’s another:

 

I love the corpse in the historiated initial below the miniature…

 

The Suffrages of the Saints

 

[image from the Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) f. 105v]

The Suffrages section is, after the Hours of the BVM, “the most profusely illustrated section in the book”  (Harthan, The Book of Hours, 31). It’s a series of prayers that, certainly in this example, have a miniature of the class of saint being invoked parallel with the prayer. This is also the source of the awesome miniature of the martyrs that I put up the other day.

Concluding Thoughts

The effect and impact of the images in the Books of Hours form an integral part of the piety that they shaped. These are only the essential texts. When we added in the secondary and accessory texts, we’ll find even more images that specifically went with them. While there are certain scenes and stories from the Bible that are familiar to us, I think it’s hard to calculate how much of the late medieval popular biblical knowledge came from looking at these images. Particularly once we add in the Hours of the Cross/Passion, there is a cycle of incarnational moments and a cycle of passional moments that serve to communicate in pictures the work of the Incarnation and Redemption in a way that has dropped out of modern Anglican piety. Likewise, the images around death serve both as a reminder of mortality and a means of bringing to mind the dead who remain inextricably linked with us—through Baptism—in the Body and Mystery of Christ.

SCP Presentation

M and I returned from the Annual Conference of the Society of Catholic Priests late last night. As always, we had a delightful time. Old friends were seen and caught up with; new friends were made.

As promised, I’m posting here my remarks. A few words about it: first, the overall focus of the conference was the Anglo-Catholic social witness. This was an interesting topic for me to tackle since typically one hears of opposition between catholic and “social justice” approaches in the church. As a result, I set myself the task of speaking directly to how the liturgy is an essential element of forming a catholic social conscience. I assumed that others might speak about and deal with what I consider to be the obvious direction—the connection between eucharistic devotion and social action captured so neatly by Bishop Frank Weston: “You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slum.” (Read his whole famous address here.) So—I went for the Office instead.

Second, like most of the presentations that I post here, it might read strangely because I wrote it specifically as an oral address. As such, it’s much more colloquial and familiar in tone than a piece of academic writing.

Alright—without further ado, here it is:

The 14th century devotional treatise The Mirror of our Lady recounts one particular edifying story. A Cistercian Abbot went into the choir one morning to sing the office of matins. As he stood singing his office, he saw a devil walking to and fro among his monks with a large bag tied around his neck. He seemed to be catching things coming from the monks’ mouths and stuffing them into his bag. When the devil came to the Abbot, the Abbot asked, “who are you?” The devil replied, “I am just a lowly Devil named Titivullus, and I must perform the office given to me.” “And what office is that?” asked the Abbot. The devil explained, “I must bring my master 1000 bags a day full of failings, unsaid or mis-said words that occur in reading or singing from your order or else I will be severely beaten!” From this point, the mirror goes on to talk about the importance of diligence in the office. However, I’m sure that at some point, some wise Cistercian teacher has pulled the moral out of the story in an easy and memorable form: “beat the Devil: be attentive!” This was probably accompanied with the helpful illustration—verbal or otherwise—of the poor demon Titivullus getting wailed on with a stick by a bigger and meaner demon because all of the Cistercians sang their offices well and he missed his quota again! “Beat the Devil: be attentive!”

If you don’t remember anything else that I say today, I want you to remember that: “beat the devil: be attentive.” Of course, these days, there’s no way that Titivullus could get the job done; I imagine instead whole sets of infernal landscaping crews with blowers and mowers gathering up the words and paragraphs and pages left unsaid, drifting like blizzards in the chancels and choirs of our churches today. And that is a shame.

When people think of Anglo-Catholics or Anglo-Catholicism or even Catholic Anglicans, they tend to think of vestments and smoke and sacraments, clusters of candles, and racks of rosaries; the daily office – not so much. And yet, the daily office is a central liturgical discipline that grounds so much of what we do. The Mass and the Office are not alternatives, they are complements. To cleave to the Catholic faith East and West is to give the daily office the honor and the attention – and the attentiveness – that it is due.

The two public rites of the church – the holy Eucharist and the daily office – have the same primary purpose: the worship and glorification of God. And that always has to be kept central. But the secondary purposes are different. The Eucharist is mystigogical and leads us into the heart of the mystery of Christ. The office is catechetical and instructs and forms us in the foundations of the faith. Now, you might be wondering… The dominant theme of our time together is the Anglo-Catholic social tradition. So why am I taking up time talking about the office? (Or, as I’ve heard some Episcopal clergy say, why are you spending your time talking about prayer when you should be talking about justice issues!) It’s because the Anglo-Catholic social conscience must be formed, it must be crafted, and the distinctive characteristic that differentiates a secular drive for a just society from one formed in the Catholic Anglican tradition is the process and method of its formation. The greatest tool that we have for molding a Christian social conscience is Scripture itself, and more particularly, the attentive practice of the daily office.

The wellspring of the Western liturgical tradition and particularly the monastic practices that have nourished it is the concept that the liturgy provides an ordered and bordered encounter with Scripture. Again, the liturgy provides an ordered and bordered encounter with Scripture .This is true of the Eucharist, it’s even more true of the office. It was true of the Sarum offices that the reformers received, and the Anglican offices received an additional infusion from Cranmer’s own Protestant love of the Scriptures.

Alright, so what do I mean by ordered and bordered? When I say “Ordered”, I mean that the Scriptures are laid out in a sequential pattern that provides maximal coverage of their contents, and this pattern is repeated on a set basis. In his preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, Cranmer explicitly refers to the 9th century monastic legislation stipulating that the whole Scriptures should be read every year during the Night Office. Anything that didn’t get read in the Night Office would be read to the monks at mealtimes to make sure it got done. Cranmer’s own scheme attempted to echo this earlier monastic goal. By having four readings a day—two at each office—and making each one a chapter in length, he set up a pattern where the New Testament with the exception of the Book of Revelation would be read through three times every year, and the Old Testament would be read through once (excepts for some sections of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Ezekiel. And a few other bits.  Even when a Protestant says “All of Scripture” he doesn’t really mean it…!). These days, our prayer book lectionary uses shorter readings and only three of them so, when used faithfully, we’ll get through the majority of Scripture every two years. There are two main purposes for this ordering of Scripture. First, it gives you that foundational familiarity with the text. When you hear just a snippet at Mass, then you’ll recognize it, and know where it goes and have a sense of what all is happening around it. Second, it’s not enough to get this grounding once. Rather, it’s repeated year after year after year. It’s formational. We don’t just get to know the Scriptures, we get saturated in them. So—that’s what I mean when I say that the Scriptures are “ordered.”

Ok—so, what do I mean by “bordered?”  By “bordered” I mean that we don’t get handed the Scriptures flatly. Instead, we are given—through the Offices—a set of interpretive lenses that direct our reading and hearing of these texts. The Church year is one of these lenses; the seasons bring their own perspectives on the Scriptures. But so are the texts that we place around them. In the Sarum days before Cranmer, a variety of antiphons used to help facilitate this goal. Lines brought in from other parts of Scripture—or repetition of a significant verse—would open a new perspective, slightly shift the way that you heard a familiar text. However, the Refromation did away with most of these in the name of simplification. The texts that we repeat the most are the ones that guide us in everything else. In both the classical structure of the Daily Offices and in our Anglican, and particularly Episcopal, adaptation of it, the most important lenses that direct and shape our encounter with the rest of Scripture are the psalms and the canticles. These Scriptural songs give us our main interpretive entre into everything else that we encounter in the Offices. Through their repetition, we are given the hermeneutical keys to unlock the rest of Scripture and, in turn, to form us into a catholic social conscience. The psalms and canticles give us borders that help guide our reading of everything else.

Remember when we were talking about “ordered” and I said that we go through the Scriptures in a pattern that’s measured in years? St Benedict’s Rule laid down for the Western Church the common monastic tradition of going through all 150 psalms every week and he allowed that as a concession to the weakness of his day because it was said that real monks used to go through all of them every day. In Cranmer’s adaptation, he scaled it back even further and put the psalms on a one-month cycle, and that’s what we have in our prayer book. Actually, the official Daily Office lectionary uses a seven-week cycle but the monthly version is found written into the body of the psalter itself. Different orders around the church do it different ways as well; while the Brotherhood of St Gregory and the Order of Julian of Norwich both use the monthly cycle, the Order of the Holy Cross go through it every two weeks like many of their Roman Catholic brethren.  No matter if you’re on a one-week or seven-week cycle, that’s a lot of psalms and a lot of repetition of a lot of psalms and so their particular perspective on the Scriptures end up influencing (whether subtlety or obviously) everything else that we read.

And if that’s so for the psalms, it’s doubly true for the canticles. While our current book has multiplied our options, there’s a select set that from the time of Benedict in the fifth century have been prayed daily that has shaped our understand of what the Gospel message is all about: The song of Mary, the Song of Zechariah, the Song of Simeon, the Song of the Three Young Men, and the Te Deum sometimes called the Song of Augustine and Ambrose are key texts for us.

Thus: The Catholic Anglican tradition sees the Mass and Office in continuity with one another. The Mass is mystagogical, the Office is catechetical. The Office gives us an ordered and bordered encounter with Scripture. We go through most of it in two years and the chief interpretive lenses that the Office provides for directing our understanding of Scripture as a whole are the psalms and the canticles.

The reason the psalter was chosen for its constant repetition in the Office is because it has been recognized from the time of the Early Church as unique among the books of the Bible. One of the clearest expositions of this comes from Athanasius in his letter on the Psalms to Marcellinus where he pulls out two characteristics in particular. The first special characteristic of the psalms is that they are a microcosm of the rest of Scripture. Athanasius writes:  “Each book of the Bible has, of course, its own particular message—[and he goes on to list what some of those are]— Each of these books, you see, is like a garden which grows one kind of special fruit; by contrast, the Psalter is a garden which, besides its special fruit, grows also some of those of all the rest. [And then he goes on to connect a wide variety of psalms to events in the historical books of the Old Testament.] You see then, that all the subjects mentioned in the historical books are mentioned also in one Psalm or another; but when we come to the matters of which the Prophets speak we find that these occur in almost all.” Here, of course, Athanasius is talking about witnesses to Christ, and he offers another long section where he connects the psalms up to a long list of items from the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.  Of course, these days we not only recognize that the psalms contain messianic passages that the Church properly associated with Jesus but also that the Evangelists themselves used both passages and themes from the psalms in their own constructions of the Gospel narratives. So the psalms really do act as a microcosm. They contain all of the major genres of Old Testament writing from histories, to wisdom, to legal material, to prophetic curses and destruction oracles, as well as promises of hope and salvation, and also both represent and prefigure a host of New Testament themes—recalling that the New Testament quotes more from the Psalms than any other book of the Old Testament.

Now, having said that, we need to recognize the necessary corollary; if the psalms are a microcosm of Scripture, if they represent a summary of Scripture, a condensation of Scripture, then they have to be profoundly interpretive. When you summarize something, it means that you’re pulling out the key points. There’s not space for everything so the central items get selected for summarizing. Thus, the psalms don’t just summarize things, they put their own particular spin on them, they infuse them with their own particular angle such that when we encounter these out in the wider Bible, our perspective has already been shaped by the approach that the psalms have taken in highlighting what’s of primary importance.

So, the first special characteristic of the psalms is that they are a microcosm of the rest of Scripture. The second special characteristic of the psalms is their focus on interiority—they speak to the inner life of the individual and the community more consistently than any other set of texts. Athanasius says it this way:

Among all the books, the Psalter has certainly a very special grace, a choiceness of quality well worthy to be pondered; for, besides the characteristics which it shares with others, it has this peculiar marvel of its own, that within it are represented and portrayed in all their great variety the movements of the human soul. It is like a picture, in which you see yourself portrayed and, seeing, may understand and consequently form yourself upon the pattern given. Elsewhere in the Bible you read only that the Law commands this or that be done, you listen to the prophets to learn about the Saviour’s coming or you turn to the historical books to learn the doings of the kings and holy men; but in the Psalter, besides all of these things, you learn about yourself.

You find depicted in it all the movements of your soul, all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries. Moreover, whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you do not merely hear and then pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill. Prohibitions of evil-doing are plentiful in Scripture, but only the Psalter tells you how to obey these orders and refrain from sin. Repentance, for example, is enjoined repeatedly; but to repent means to leave off sinning, and it is the Psalms that show you how to set about repenting and with what words your penitence may be expressed.

So, here Athanasius is pointing to the personal and interior quality of the Psalms. No other book of Scripture—with the sole exception of Job—contains such intimate expressions of personal feeling. Not only intimate but uncensored as well in ways that sometimes both shock and offend us. Of course, as Athanasius reminds us, what shocks and offends may be a reflection of what we do not wish to see in ourselves.

That’s the second special characteristic of the psalms, the emphasis upon interiority. And indeed, this is one of the ways that the psalms place their own interpretive spin on the other biblical material. Sometimes the psalms give a flat account of something: In the beginning God created stuff. But far more often, the psalms embedded their summarization of other biblical events into personal or communal pleas:  God, we’re having a really hard time right now. Hey—remember that time in creation, when you created all of that stuff? We could really use you to do something like that for us now. The psalms don’t just recall the mighty acts of God, they show us how, in prayer, we remind both ourselves and God himself of the mighty acts done on behalf of our ancestors and gives us the courage and the boldness to beseech God’s mercy for mighty acts here and now.

Thus—those are two reasons coming from the Early Church why the psalms get such a special place: they’re a microcosm of the rest of Scripture, and they also give us a particular view of the internal spiritual life of the people of God.

Alright—so, the forming of the catholic social conscience. Which is what we’re here to talk about… Through our attentive practice of the Daily Office, the psalms and canticles of the Office give us an interpretive lens through which we experience the rest of Scripture. There are three fundamental concepts within the psalter that are crucial and inescapable elements of the catholic social conscience. First, they show us the center—that is, they define a reality where all creation is oriented towards God and participates together in the mutual worship of God. Second, they emphasize the rule of law—that is, they emphasize that justice is a key attribute of God and that justice, righteousness, and equity must be central values for us because they flow directly from the identity of God himself. Third, they form us in the habit of empathy because they place in our mouths the words of the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and they invite us to see the world through those eyes, and to recognize the injustices seen through those eyes. I’ll unpack each of these in turn.

First, once again, they show us the center —that is, they define a reality where all creation is oriented towards God and participates together in the mutual worship of God. We see this most clearly in the lauds psalms—147 to 150—and in the Te Deum and the Song of the Three Young Men. The Song of the Three Young Men, the Benedicite, is a 2nd century BC or so expansion of Psalm 148 that calls sequentially upon all parts of the created order to praise God: “O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever.” Then we proceed from the Cosmic Order with the angels, the heavens, the sun, moon, showers and dews, frost and cold, nights and days to the Earth and its creatures with the mountains and hills, the whales and all that move in the waters, the fowls of the air, the beasts and cattle and finally proceed to the people of God, the priests of the Lord, the servants of the Lord, the spirits and souls of the righteous. This is nothing less than a doxological ontology: things have and persist in existence to the degree that they recognize and praise the Creator who created them. There is a center, there is a source, there is a stable point around which everything else that is anchored. And it is God. God himself has made us and not we ourselves.

This is a crucial point in establishing a social conscience of any kind. There is something greater. There is something beyond us and beyond our desires to which we are accountable. Our desires and appetites, the desires and appetites of those who currently hold political, economic, or social power, stand accountable to something greater, to something more permanent, more stable and more real than they are—than we are. It is from this place and in orientation to this reality that we are able to offer a critique of existing systems—even existing systems within which we find ourselves ensnared. We renew this orientation in our acts of worship and praise. As Evelyn Underhill reminds us, the heart of true worship is adoration: she writes, “For worship is an acknowledgement of Transcendence; that is to say, of a Reality independent of the worshipper, which is always more or less deeply coloured by mystery, and which is there first.” This adoration, this acknowledgement of Transcendence, this reality independent of ourselves of which Underhill speaks is the pure and unadulterated praise that we find ourselves called to in the psalms: “Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world; Young men and maidens, old and young together. Let them praise the Name of the Lord, for his name only is exalted, his splendor is over earth and heaven.”  Notice that the political powers here get put on notice. But the psalms are happy to get even more explicit than that: “Praise the Lord, O my Soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Happy are those who have the God of Jacob for their help! Whose hope is in the Lord their God; Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; who keeps his promise forever…” The very strong message here is that all—all—political powers and systems are transitory and ephemeral in the face of God and in the face of the reality that endures beyond even the full span of creation. There is a standard—and you ain’t it.

The other part of this is that as all creation persists and perdures in and through its ceaseless praise of God, all of creation stands as fellow witness with us to the creating Word. When we despoil and disdain the created order and fail in its stewardship with which we have been tasked, we presume to cease that which is not ours to silence. As we diminish creation, the universal song of praise to God is likewise diminished.

So—that’s the first concept in the psalms and canticles for the formation of a catholic social conscience: they show us the center—that is, they define a reality where all creation is oriented towards God and participates together in the mutual worship of God. We stand rightly within this order when we join in acknowledging God as the center and ground of all being and when we offer the respect due to our fellow witnesses to the glory of God.

The second fundamental concept in the psalms and canticles is that they emphasize the rule of law—that is, they emphasize that justice is a key attribute of God and that justice, righteousness, and equity must be central values for us because they flow directly from the identity of God himself. One of the things that’s so fascinating about this is how often we see it in direct relation to the first—the worship of God flows directly into praise for his justice: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth stand in awe of him. For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth, and with righteousness to judge the world and the peoples with his truth.” For those of us who pray the Morning Office in Rite I we hear these words almost every morning. It’s composed of two snippets from Psalm 96 that have been grafted onto the end of Psalm 95. And that’s entirely appropriate because these two psalms form part of a block from 93 to 99 that celebrate God as king and that underscore this tight connection between the universal praise of God and the universal justice of God. Thus we get the end of 96: “Tell it out among the nations: The Lord is King! He has made the world so firm that it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad; let the sea thunder and all that is in it; let the field be joyful and all that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the Lord when he comes, when he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with his truth.”

The end of Psalm 98 resounds with the same theme: “Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands; lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing. Sing to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the voice of song. With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout with joy before the King, the Lord. Let the sea make a noise and all that is in it, the lands and those who dwell therein. Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord, when he comes to judge the earth. In righteousness shall he judge the world and the peoples with equity.”

One word on this judgment language: We Christians can sometimes hear this with the wrong ears and take this the wrong way. In so many of our traditions, judgment is about sin and you’re always going to come out on the short end of the stick, and thus the judgment of God is something to be feared rather than rejoiced over. (Why are the trees so darned happy about this? Do they really hate me that much?) C. S. Lewis in his writings on the psalms gives us a very helpful frame of reference to better hear this as the good news that it is. He says that too often we hear judgment and think of it as a criminal proceeding where God is going to put us in the dock and find against us. The judgment here in the Psalter, however, is best thought of as a civil case—it’s a property matter. The world is not as it should be. Things are not the way that God intended. The resources of the land and seas, the bounty of the earth are not distributed as they ought. The good news here, the reason why the trees and woods and floods rejoice is that God is going to set things to right. The goods that God intends for us will be apportioned as he designed. This judgment is good news because of the justice and equity of God.

Implicit in this judgment, however, is that there are those who are taking more than their appointed share. There are individuals and cliques and powers and systems that accrue benefits to themselves that were intended for others. Remember that psalm we mentioned a second ago, the one that said, “put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth”? The first half of that psalm which I quoted is a call to the praise of God; the second half hammers this point home: “Happy are those who have the God of Jacob for their help! Whose hope is in the Lord their God; Who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them; who keeps his promise forever; Who gives justice to the oppressed and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts us those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked. The Lord shall reign for ever, your God, O Zion, throughout all generations. Hallelujah!”

From here, of course, it’s a clear and easy jump to the Song of Our Lady that has grounded Evening Prayer for lo these many centuries: “He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away .”

The justice and equity that stands as a primary characteristic of God must be a plumb-line for us as well. The justice and equity of God demand that we insist upon and advocate for the just rule of law. Rule of law is a very simple concept: it’s the notion that there is a system of standards that apply equally to everybody. The rules are the same for everybody. No matter your power or your prestige. That’s equity. Now, I’m a privileged 21st century American. This culture is all I know and every once in a while I need to be reminded that the way I live and the justice system that I take for granted is an anomaly within the long stretch of human history. This way of life is the exception—not the norm. When I taught preaching at Emory’s Candler School of Theology, one of the best sermons that I heard in my four years of teaching was from a Nigerian Anglican priest working through a passage from Deuteronomy—it was a celebration of and a stirring call for the rule of law. Which is tenuous at best in his homeland. It opened my eyes. I can assume it. We can assume it. And when we start assuming it is when we stop safeguarding it. The justice of God, the equity of God demands that we open our eyes to ensure that the rule of law is being carried out even in our remarkably well-run systems here in America and Canada. The psalms insist on God’s concern for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the blind and disabled—in short, those who had no voice or power and thus no recourse to justice in the patriarchal and often capricious justice of the first millennium BC. Our own social conscience is formed and aligned with the Scriptural witness when we ensure that the poor and marginalized in our communities are receiving their just due under law. That the justice modeled by God is being practiced by our courts and systems. In the grand scheme of human history, it’s only fair to say that they’re doing a much better job than they could be and yet they still fall far short of God’s vision for justice.

The Scriptures speak of sin, and our own lives can attest to its reality and power. Thanks to the enduring power of sin we must be watchful lest those in positions of power and privilege use their prerogatives for oppression. Vested systems of power, whether that be in governments or corporations or the church itself, need to be held accountable to the rule of law and the demands of both justice and equity that it requires.  This attention, this attentiveness, is part of the preferential option for the poor that has driven so much of Roman Catholic social teaching in the 20th century.

So—that’s my second point: the psalms and canticles emphasize the rule of law—that is, they emphasize that justice is a key attribute of God and that justice, righteousness, and equity must be central values for us because they flow directly from the identity of God himself.

The third key concept for a catholic social conscience from the psalms is that they form us in the habit of empathy because they place in our mouths the words of the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and they invite us to see the world through those eyes, and to recognize the injustices seen through those eyes.

I’m an educated straight white male from the American middle class, meaning that I’m in the upper class globally, with a steady paying job and a house that my wonderful wife lets me live in. I’ve got it good. And that’s who I am. I can’t be anyone other than who I am. These combined conditions can create a perspective that assumes that everyone has had and will have the same advantages that I have. But how do I get a clearer picture of the world as it really is and as it is experienced by the millions and billions who have not had the advantages I have? So how do I transcend myself? How do I raise myself out of my cultural ghetto for a broader and more informed view of the realities of the world?  Certainly, travel, seeking out the experiences of others, directly serving the poor and the homeless and addicted at the South Baltimore Station with my parish are all good things. But these experiences are magnified and aided by the daily reminders tucked into the psalms about life in a situation far, far different from mine.

Old Testament scholar John Day calls the individual lament psalms the “backbone of the Psalter.” Depending on how you classify them, almost one third of the psalms, 46 of them fall into this category. If you add in another thirteen or so communal laments we’re definitely at over a third and quite a lot of the individual and communal thanksgiving psalms start from a situation of need and desperation. When we pray these psalms, we take into our mouths the pleas, complaints, and cries of those who know oppression, who have experienced loss and injustice. Sometimes the laments are familiar to us. Sometimes they offer us comfort because we recognize in a voice almost three thousand years old a shared experience of betrayal or attack. At other times they imaginatively invite us into these experiences and challenge us to relate to them.  They engage our empathy, then require us to exercise it, to stretch it, to understand the world in a different way, to see life through other sets of eyes, eyes that have seen things that many of us here have not seen and, honestly, that I earnestly pray we never see.

One of the hardest sets of psalms to wrestle with are those we refer to as the imprecatory psalms, the cursing psalms. And even bits that make us recoil pop up in some of the other, nicer, psalms. If you’re curious which ones these might be, all you have to do is take at the Daily Office lectionary in the back of your prayer book. They’re the psalms that are marked as optional; they’re the verses that have parenthesis around them to let you know that you don’t really have to read them.  I want to take a look at one of these. I want to invite us to consider this psalm from an empathetic point of view.

Psalm 137 starts out so beautifully. In fact, the whole first section of it is a favorite of many people. Furthermore, my sources from the generation before me tell me that there was even a very popular folk song based off of it: “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered you, O Zion. As for our harps we hung them up on the trees in the midst of that land. For those who led us away captive asked us for a song, and our oppressors called for mirth: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” How shall we sing the Lord’s song upon an alien soil? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let me tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.”

There you go—beautiful, plaintive, a true cry from the heart. Then we get these verses:

Remember the day of Jerusalem, O Lord, against the people of Edom, who said “Down with it! Down with it! Even to the ground!” O Daughter of Babylon doomed to destruction, happy the one who pays you back for what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”

We’re shocked and offended by these verses. Is that seriously in the Bible? Certain atheists take joy at pointing out the horrible sentiment expressed here at the joy of baby killing and offer it up as an example of the warped mentalities of religion.

A little context is helpful here. This psalm dates shortly after 587 BC when the Babylonian armies sacked Jerusalem for a second time. They’d already been there ten years earlier when Judah rebelled against their Babylonian overlords. The first time, many of the leaders (including the prophet Ezekiel) were taken off into exile in Babylon as a warning against further revolts. The rulers of Judah didn’t listen and they didn’t learn. They revolted again and the second time the Babylonian retribution was unrelenting. The city was entirely leveled to the ground, the Temple was utterly destroyed. The vast majority of the population was put to the sword and those who survived were taken to Babylon in chains. The Babylonian client states in the region were welcome to whatever was left behind and Edom in particular savaged the refugees. The book of Lamentations gives a more sustained sense of the devastation and despair while the oft-overlooked book of Obadiah explains in detail Edom’s betrayal of Jerusalem and calls an oracle of wrath upon them for their actions.

That’s the background of Psalm 137; that’s the experience of these singers who refusing to sing a song of joy in their captors’ land. In short, they are wishing against Edom and Babylon the horrors already visited upon their homes, their families, their children. So—is that an excuse, does that experience make these lines ok? No—of course not. If you’re offended by these lines, then congratulations: that means your moral sense is intact. But what these lines should cause us to do is not to question the morality of God or the psalmist but to try and wrap our heads around the kind of horrific experiences out of which this kind of plea makes sense. I’ve never experienced the brutal sack of my homeland, and I pray I never will. I don’t want to understand this psalm. And yet, the stark reality of the situation is that there are multitudes of people around the world, both victims and veterans—some of whom are in our congregations—who understand this only too well.

When I take these words into my mouth, I am forced to consider what kind of experience that must be, what depths of pain would cause otherwise rational and faithful people to make this kind of plea to God. I have never had this experience of oppression, but the Psalter places it before my eyes, my heart, and my imagination. In praying these alien lines, I am forced into an exercise of empathy that will broaden my soul. Likewise I can say: “Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. For the arrogant have risen up against me, the ruthless have sought my life, those who have no regard for God.” Or “My enemies are saying wicked things about me: When will he die, and his name perish?” Even if they come to see me, they speak empty words; their heart collects false rumors; they go outside and spread them. All my enemies whisper together about me and devise evil against me” or even “I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.” While I cannot honestly claim these words as my own, I can imaginatively extend my own experiences of betrayal and trouble to better understand them, and as resources in my conversations with those who know them far more intimately than I. And that’s important too: I’m not trying to suggest that the regular praying of the psalms in the Office is a substitute for actually engaging the people in your communities in these situations. What I do believe, though, is that your encounters with them may well be aided as a result of this sort of diligent—attentive—empathetic exercise.

So that’s the third fundamental concept from the psalms: they form us in the habit of empathy because they place in our mouths the words of the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and they invite us to see the world through those eyes, and to recognize the injustices seen through those eyes.

A catholic social conscience is formed in a number of ways. However, I will contend that it must start with the Scriptures. Yes, healthy devotion to the Eucharist will lead to care and concern for the poor as well, but the connection between the two is mediated by Scripture. And, indeed, there have been many times and places where the social conscience has lagged far behind the devotion for want of that critical mediating term. A regular discipline of praying the Daily Office nourishes the soul with the psalms and canticles that have the potential, have the opportunity, to shape these concerns with in us and see aid us in seeing them more clearly throughout the rest of Scripture. When we allow the psalms to speak their wisdom to us, they will form in us the conviction that God is the center and the source by which all other systems and powers are critiqued; that the justice, righteousness, and equity that characterize God himself must be reflected in our societies and systems; that we can transcend ourselves and situations by exercising our empathy and broadening our souls to the experiences of others. But it doesn’t happen on its own. Simply running through the words isn’t enough. All of the catechetical and formational potential of the Daily Office, all of the potential of the Psalter and the canticles, all of the potential of the Scriptures is for nought without the discipline of attentiveness. “Beat the devil: be attentive.”

Praying the Office just every once in a while isn’t enough. It has to become a discipline. That doesn’t mean that if you miss it once you’re lost or anything, but its power lies in the force of habits. Habits of mind, habits of devotion, habits of thought. That’s what transforms us—patterns of life.

Same with the psalms. The benefits that we’ve talked about only occur with attentiveness. If you are not being attentive, then you could just as well be reading the sports page. It is only while reading these words with our minds and our hearts engaged, with our souls open to the movements of the Spirit, that they can unleash their potential to melt our hearts of stone.

It is only when we bring these habits of devotion, the wisdom gained from these words, together into a hurting world that the circuit becomes complete. The spiritual wisdom from the psalms and from the Office must impact our actions and our advocacy. We must translate in our very limbs what God is calling us to do. Behold—he says—I am making all things new. Behold, now it breaks forth, do you not perceive it? Well, we will—but only if we’re attentive.

Books of Hours: Images I

After having discussed the texts of the Books of Hours, we’ll now turn to the images. Ironically, most people who study the Books of Hours are more interested in this facet than in the texts themselves as most students are going after the art-history angle rather than late medieval devotion. (Go figure!)

There are several different ways to lay this topic out and to work through it. At the moment I’m relying mostly on the art-historical data from Harthan (totally worth picking up if you’re interested at all either in the topic or in pretty medieval pictures…) cross-referenced with images from a variety of the digitized Books of Hours linked to in a previous post.

First, we’ll take a look at major kinds of images and where they appear on the page, then (likely in a subsequent post), we’ll take a look at the various possible contents of these images. Needless to say, our focus here will be primarily on the deluxe manuscript Books of Hours. That’s not to say or imply that there weren’t images in the printed Books of Hours and prymers however—there were, and I do hope to touch on those but exactly how and when that’ll happen, I can’t say.

In his section on “Decoration,” Harthan states, “The varying stress laid at various times on decoration and illustration, the problems of reconciling the inventive fantasy of the artist with the demands of the text, and the several solutions adopted for combining the separate units of text, initial, miniature and border into a decorative ensemble, represent book illumination considered as an art form” (Harthan, Books of Hours, 19). His identification here of four fundamental units on the page: 1) text, 2) initial, 3) miniature, and 4) border is quite important. Unfortunately, he leaves one of these out as he begins his explication of the illuminated elements: “The basic elements in illumination are the initial, the miniature and the border” (Harthan, Books of Hours, 19-20). While he’s correct that most of the text is not technically illuminated, we’ll keep an eye on it as we go…

So, before looking more at Harthan, let me throw up an image that contain all three (four) elements. Here we have a page from the beginning of Matins of the BVM from the British Library’s fifteenth-century Royal MS 2 A XVIII (f. 25r):

We have the picture of the Annunciation above the text. That’s the miniature. We have the big “D” with a woman with her own Book of Hours looking up at the scene. (Chances are this is the person for whom the book was commissioned). That’s an initial—but so are the smaller ones done in blue, red, and gold sprinkled down the page. We have an outline that bounds the text, containing lots of flowery stuff  between the boundary and the page; that’s the border. Text-wise, notice that we have a rubric—the text in red—and a fine, clear, easy-to-read Gothic text containing the aforementioned smaller initials.

In manuscript terms, “miniature” doesn’t technically refer to size but to the practice of painting; the Latin miniare means to paint with vermillion. Basically, it’s any large free-standing picture whether bordered or not. In the later books we see this become full page illustrations as in this great one standing before Sext from Bibliotheque nationale, Latin 1173:

 

Miniatures are miniatures and there’s not a lot to say about them until we start discussing content. Next up are the initials.

There are two fundamental types of initials in Books of Hours (as in other medieval manuscripts), decorative and historiated. Decorative are those initials that are decorated and embellished with backgrounds and various kinds of pen-strokes; historiated means that there is an image inside of it. In Books of Hours whether you’ll see one or the other tend not to be an either/or situation but a both/and. Thus, on the page with the Annunciation on it, we have a large historiated initial (with the woman in it), and a number of smaller decorative initials. Here’s another example from an earlier period, coming from Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 288 (f. 17r) from the first quarter of the 14th century:

Again—a both/and; we have a historiated initial of Jesus with bloody sweat in the Garden, then a number of decorated initials. Note the alternation of colors in the decorative initials. The most typical scheme is blue and red but I’ve seen gold or green instead of red in some and, occasionally, a three color alternation with blue, red, and gold. These denote sense-breaks and indicate when different elements begin. As you know, the Offices were originally communal affairs with alternation between individuals and groups or between two parts of a choir. The colors provide indications of hen each “part” changes, but does not assume either private or public use. We know from contemporary writings, however, that people (often women) would use their books of hours in pairs with a companion; the colors would give an indication as to when one person was to stop and the other start.

On the text, note that we have three different kinds of visual cues in the text-block: We have a “regular” text for the bulk of the material, we have rubrics (those in red) identifying the parts of the Office, but then we also have a “lesser” text identified by the smaller writing used for the invitatory antiphon. Directly after the rubric “Invitatorium” is the text “Regem xpm crucifixu: venite adoremus [the last word appears just under the “venite,” at the right ogf the new line rather than the left]” in a smaller font than the surrounding text. This becomes visually important as we move down the page because we will consistently be able to identify the antiphon even when it’s not marked because it will remain visually smaller as we see here when the second half of the antiphon is repeated after the blue decorative initial “V” (that does look sort of like a “U” if you’re not used to this script):

 

As for borders, they are often visually outgrowths from initials. For instance, if you look at the images above, you’ll see that the line in the left border of the second picture begins as a line coming off the historiated initial in the first. Citing Harthan:

Originally introduced to enclose the miniature and separate it from the text, the rectangular frame-border in Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque manuscripts (for example, in the English Winchester School of illumination) was often enlarged to form wide panels around the miniature, which were filled with a variety of closely packed acanthus ornaments or an interlace of foliage with climbing beasts and human figures. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, in the Gothic period of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, a second type of border appeared with irregular edges. Beginning as a tail-like extension of the initial into the margin, it developed into the prolific ivy- or vine-leaf border composed of curling tendrils from which sprouted tiny leaves picked out in gold. The ivy-leaf border was to become one of the most characteristic decorative features of northern Books of Hours in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. (Harthan, Books of Hours, 20)

He describes how images started escaping their initials and how miniatures would likewise escape their borders, and around 1420 would become full-fledged paintings with perspective, movement, etc. as opposed to the more cartoon-like look that we saw in the image of Jesus in the garden…

Parallel with the miniature, the borders are undergoing a similar evolution. At first, the blank margins of the text are filled only sparsely by the tail-like extension of initials from which sprout the first shoots of vine- or ivy-leaf ornament. But when these ‘tails’ extend to the corners they throw out cusped bars at right angles which provide platforms to support drolleries, grotesque figures, monsters, birds, and animals. Playful secular imagery of this kind is sometimes said, on not very clear grounds, to indicate the artists’ emancipation from clerical control. It derives more immediately from the natural inventiveness of artists and from the willingness of their clients to be diverted from their religious texts during long services in church or periods of private devotion; Books of Hours were taken to church as well as read at home. In the late fourteenth century the emphatic ‘bar borders’ supporting drolleries and little human figures gradually give way to lighter and more graceful ivy-leaf designs which now completely frame the miniature and text with a dense but delicate mass of foliated scrolls or rinceaux. (Harthan, Books of Hours, 21)

Alright—enough citing…

The Little Hours of John de Berry (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. lat. 18014) is a delightful book that shows a wide variety of decorations including most everything talked about here. What Harthan can’t always give a sense of is the balance of illustration. Some pages get lavish attention artistically; in others it’s quite scant. However, this set of hours demonstrates how decoration on a variety of levels was deployed within the same text and how beautiful results were achieved on all levels.

First, a page virtually devoid of decoration:

We have vernacular French prayers with just a couple of decorated initials and no border at all. The regularity of the text and punctuations of color make it work.

Now, decorative initials moving towards a pseudo-border in Psalm 8:

or this one:

 

Then there’s the full-on ivy-leaf border of which Harthan speaks deployed at the start of the Lauds of the BVM:

That’s enough for now—more on the content later.

And this is why I’ve always said that the breviary doesn’t live up to my dreams of what a well-crafted electronic text could live up to…

 

 

 

 

Myroure of Our Ladye: the Venite

Concerning the Invitatory.

It is not sufficient for you to praise and rejoice in God alone unless you stir up others to the same. Therefore after Alleluia or Laus tibi, you begin the Invitatory, that is to say, a calling or a stirring. Through this each of you stirs and exhorts one another to the praise of God and of our lady also. You call to those who hear you, and desire others who are absent to come and praise with you. This accords with the Psalm Venite that follows and is sung with the Invitatory. Now the Invitatory is sometimes sung in its entirety, and sometimes partially. For some come entirely to God’s service to praise him with body and soul and all their strength, and some come partially for though their body is there, their hearts are on other things as our Lord says both by his prophet and in his gospel: Populus hic labiis me honorat, cor autem eorum longe est a me. This people worships me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Five times it is sung entirely, for those who wish to be entirely in our Lord’s service must carefully keep their five senses, both the outer senses and the inner. And three times it is sung partially, for there are three kinds of people who were called to our Lord’s supper and did not come because of pride, because of worldliness, and because of fleshliness. But you who are free from such hindrances must come with a whole heart and a fervent will to the praise of the blessed Trinity and of the Queen of heaven and say, Trinum deum et unum pronis mentibus adoremus. Virgini que matri gratulantibus animis iugiter iubilemus. That is, we worship with humble and eager souls God who is three and one. That is to say, three in persons and one in substance and in Godhood. And we praise fully and intensely the virgin mother with joyful hearts.

VENITE. The Psalm is written in the Psalter and it contains five verses. In the first verse we are called and exhorted to come to praise God. In the next two verses is expressed the reason why we should praise him. In the last two verses is told the peril of those who will not come to love him and praise him.

Then you begin and say, Venite. Come, you. To whom do you speak? They who are absent cannot hear you. Whom do you bid, and why? Our Lord is present everywhere and ever more ready to hear them who pray in churches, but all have not come to him who are in church. For he says of some who worship him with their mouths that their heart is far from him. Therefore to them you say, Venite. “Come, you” as if you said, “Gather together all the thoughts and strength of your heart, and set them only upon him and so come to him in reverent fear and devotion.”

Exultemus domino. We outwardly rejoice with all the service of our bodies in our Lord and in nothing else.

Iubilemus deo salutari nostro. We rejoice in God our Savior, that is Jesus Christ, with all the powers of our souls so that our love and devotion are so great in him that we may neither hide it nor fully show it. For thus means this word Iubilemus that we may the better rejoice thus in him.

Preocupemus faciem eius in confessione. We come before his face in confession. There is confession of sins and also confession of praise. Our Lord Jesus Christ shows now his face of grace and of mercy, but at the day of judgment he will show his face of righteousness. Because we do not know how soon the judgment will come at our own death, therefore come now before he shows the face of righteousness and let us come before the face of his mercy and of grace, in confession, acknowledging our sins and unkindnesses against him, and his goodness and manifold benefits and kindnesses to us. Let us come before his face before the fiend comes into our hearts with any vanities that should distract us from him.

Et in psalmis iubilemus ei. And let us joyfully sing to him with Psalms. We sing to him and not for the pleasure of the hearers. But why should we do this?

Quoniam deus magnus dominus. For God is a great Lord in power and Lordship above all things.

Et rex magnus super omnes deos. And the great King above all gods. Angels and Saints and all good men and women, especially those who are in dignity and estates of power, are called gods because God has shared with them of his virtues, power, or grace. But all these are subject to him, and may not do anything except by his lead. Therefore he is a great King above all gods. Although he is so great in power, he is nevertheless great in love and mercy through which we know: Quoniam non repellit dominus plebem suam. The same Lord shall not forsake nor cast from him his people no matter their evil if they will be his through repentance no matter what sect or country they are from: heathen or Christian, Saracen or Jew.

Quia in manu eius fuerunt omnes fines terre. For in his hand and power are all the countries of Earth. And amongst them all, he takes heed of those where ever they be who humble themselves in faith and penance, love and devotion.

Therefore this follows: Et altitudines moncium ipse conspicit. The height and depth of the mountains he beholds. As high as a mountain is in the sight of him who stands under it, as deep as it is to the sight of him who stands above and looks down, thereby a mountain is both high and deep. Those who make themselves deep and low to God through humility, he beholds by his mercy and lift them up and makes them high mountains by his grace. Therefore the prophet says here that he beholds the height and depth of the mountains.

Quoniam ipsius est mare et ipse fecit illud. For the sea is his and he made it. For just as the bitter sea is kept within his boundaries by the power of God and may not flow upon the earth except at his permission, just so no tribulation nor temptation may come to man but by the sufferance of God who tempers all things to his servants as they may bear to their greatest profit. He has great care of them and therefore shows it.

Et aridam fundverunt manus eius. And the dry earth his hands have established. For those who are dry and thirst only for the love of God and reverence towards him he establishes and strengthens in such stability of virtue and grace that no fierceness of the sea of temptation nor tribulation may prevail against them.

Since he does all of this, even if you did not before, at least now: Venite adoremus, et procidamus ante deum. Come, you, and let us worship and fall down before God. Come for love and worship him, with the singular reverence that belongs only to God and let us fall down through humility of body and soul before God, beholding his reverent presence. Ploremus, let us weep, yielding ourselves up as guilty not for the thanks of men but Coram domino, before our Lord, qui fecit nos, who made us. For there is a great homeliness and trust of the thing made by the maker who knows what it is and why he made it. For according to our bodies we are made frail and therefore our Maker will spare us and help us and grant us mercy. According to our souls, we are made in his likeness and therefore we should and ought to desire to be like him by grace. According to both the soul and the body he made us to be partners of his joy and therefore we ought act accordingly and seek and desire to have him for our reward forever.

Quia ipse est dominus deus noster. For he is our Lord and we may surely desire that he is ours and we are his, for we are his people: Nos autem populus eius. And the sheep of his pasture: Et oves pascue eius. For he feeds us with the pasture of his holy sacraments and of his comforting grace. He has ordained us to have himself to our endless rest in joy if we become his true sheep, fruitful in the wool of virtues, in the milk of piety, in the lambs of good deeds, in the dung of humility, in the flesh of love and devotion.

But since our Lord shows this many benefits to us we must be careful that we do not lose them by our own willful unkindness and therefore we are exhorted in the following verse when he says, if you hear his voice this day, harden not your hearts or do not desire to harden your heart against his voice: Hodie si vocem eius audieritis, nolite obdurare corda vestra. , Do not harden your hearts. The time of the old law which was before the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ was likened to the night; the time after his holy incarnation was likened to the day as the apostle Paul said. We are in this day, and in the day of this grace we hear our Lord’s voice both in the holy gospel and in his Scripture and by the inspiration of his Holy Ghost. If you will not obey them, then we deserve that his grace should be withdrawn. On account of that withdrawal, our hearts become hard and obstinate against all goodness. Thus is given to us the example of the people of Israel who God brought out of Egypt in a dry way through the sea and gave them his law and fed them with manna in the desert. When water failed them he made water out of a hard stone to give them drink, and showed them many other marvels and provided for them and always they rebelled against him. They provoked his wrath for 40 years so that our Lord swore that they should never come into the land of rest to which he had called them. Nor did they. For all who came out of Egypt died in the desert except two who obeyed the will of God. By this example we are exhorted by our Lord in the Psalm to be careful lest by misuse of our free will we fall into blindness and hardness of heart as they did and so be barred from the land of endless rest, that is the joy of heaven.

Therefore since God has spoken to us and showed us many more marvels than he ever did them, he says now to us: Nolite obdurare corda vestra sicut in exacerbatione secundum diem temptationis in deserto. Harden not your hearts as they did, provoking me to wrath in the desert upon the day of temptation. Ubi temptaverunt me patres vestri probaverunt et viderunt opera mea. Where your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my works.

Quadraginta annis proximus fui generationi huic. 40 years long was I near to this generation. By this 40 years is understood to us all the time of our life which ought to be in penitence. This is understood by the number 40, for our Lord fasted 40 days and hallowed that number for the doing of penance. All the time that men live on the earth, our Lord is near to them and ready to receive them with mercy if they would repent.

Et dixi semper hii errant corde. But I said always they err in their heart. For though anything appears well on the outside, the inward heart is evermore wandering from the fear of God.

Ipsi vero non cognoverunt vias meas. For they knew not my ways from the blindness of their own sin.

Quibus iurari ira mea, si introibunt in requiem meam. Of whom I swore in my wrath, they shall never enter into my rest. God has sworn; he cannot be untrue. If we do as they did, we must have as they had – and worse for we have received more to account for.

This Psalm begins in joy but it ends in fear. If we will not serve him for love of his benefits, at least we should come to his service for fear of his righteousness. Fear, therefore, and be not reckless in his service, but both in fear of his righteousness, and in love and joy of his goodness, you should always end his praise saying: Gloria patri, etc.

This verse Gloria Patri was first made in one of the general councils. Afterwards, St. Jerome made for it the second verse that is sicut erat etc. and wrote them both to the Pope named Damasius to be said after Psalms in the divine service then the same Pope ordained and commanded that it should be done.

Brief Commercial

I have a more substantive post in the works, but I wanted to throw in a quick commercial before I forgot to do so…

As I said earlier, the Daily Prayer section of the new Forward Movement site is based off the St Bede’s Breviary code. However, also tucked away in the “Chapel” area is a section marked “Daily Devotions.” While this is a rather generic title, these are indeed the so-denoted Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families from pages 136-140 of the prayer book.

The Morning devotion includes a suggestion that “A hymn or canticle may be used; the Apostles’ Creed may be said.” Accordingly, I’ve included there links to a seasonal hymn, canticle, and the Creed. While the Early Evening devotion doesn’t contain the same rubric, I went ahead and put similar links there as well.

So–if you’re in the mood to do some prayer-book praying but don’t have time for a full office, you can find the (slightly) beefed-up Devotions here.

(Note: they’re designed to work based on your time of day but you can see the whole set by fiddling with the “office=” variable at the end of the url. To see morning, noon, early evening, and night just put in the abbreviations MP, NP, EP, or CP respectively.)

General Convention Update

Though in the midst of quite a lot of general busy-ness (yes, I owe several people emails–forgive me!) I wanted to at least say a few words on the current progress of General Convention and some resolutions that are near and dear to my heart…

Communion Without Baptism

There were two resolutions up that dealt with CWOB. One from Eastern Oregon, C040 [PDF], wanted to get rid altogether of the canon requiring Baptism before Eucharist; the other from North Carolina, C029 [PDF], wanted a “study” of the issue (costing $30,000…). To my surprise, these were both assigned not to the Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music Committee but to the Evangelism Committee. In all fairness, there was quite a lot assigned to PBLCM and I know that folks of the Ecumenism Committee had asked to review these but this is where they ended up. As I read it, if either of the resolutions had a chance of passing in any of the three committees, passage was more likely to occur in Evangelism: Ecumenism would have shot it down right quick and I suspect something similar would have happened in PBLCM. Despite my fears, the Evangelism folks made some good preliminary moves.

According to my sources, the Eastern Oregon resolution was a complete non-starter. The original text was scrapped and new text was drafted for it reiterating Baptism as the ancient and normative path to Eucharist but recognizing that in some places there is an exercise of pastoral sensitivity with the non-baptized. However, titles can’t change on resolutions meaning that this new resolution—whatever its text might have said—would still have been titled “Open Table” which would undoubtedly lead to confusion on the floor. Thus, they addressed the NC resolution. The committee apparently didn’t feel that with all the budget and structural woes that $30K for a study of CWOB was worthwhile. So, keeping the title, they scrapped some or all of the original text of C029 and imported the new paragraph they had written before.

This is really good news. In the most favorable setting for its passage, the resolution calling for abolition of the canon preventing CWOB was scrapped. The new text affirms Baptism as the ancient and normative practice of the Church prior to Eucharist. I wholeheartedly agree! What concerns me is how the language around pastoral practice will get shaped.

Nobody wants to see a communion rail lock-down; that’s just silly. What needs to be avoided, though, is any sense that Baptism is somehow optional. If we invite any and all to the Eucharist then we have precisely made Baptism optional. That’s not a pastoral practice, that’s deliberately turning our backs on the theology of the Prayer Book and the consistent witness of the Church up until the late 20th century.

What I would love to see in any discussion of pastoral discretion with regard to CWOB is the word “individual.”

The message that the resolution would send, then, is to say that pastoral discretion may be warranted in specific individual and unusual circumstances. A general call to any and all is not pastoral—nor is it evangelism; rather, it salves the consciences of those who want to see themselves as inclusive, but who don’t want to do the work of setting healthy boundaries and inviting all comers within those boundaries through the proper protocols (i.e., Baptism with water in the name of the Triune God).

If the word “individual” is omitted, then I’m concerned that such a resolution mentioning pastoral responses may be seen as permission to flout the canon without regard for our theological and sacramental integrity.

Holy Women, Holy Men

Bishop Martins made an attempt to get HWHM stricken from trial use at all in the next triennium. It failed, but what is currently up for a vote is definitely the next best thing!

The revised version of A051 [PDF] sends HWHM back to the Standing Commission for Liturgy and Music for further revision. In particular, it calls for clearer adherence to the 2006 guidelines. Now, personally, I think that adherence to 2006 is not enough; I’d like to see the 2006 guidelines merged with the 1994 guidelines as I said a while back.

Coincidentally, I’ve been reading a fascinating book by Robert Campany: Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China. One of my good friends from high school with whom I studied Japanese is a professor of Asian Religion now. He recommended this work to me knowing my interests in martial arts, qi gong, and cross-cultural asceticism. Campany looks less at particular ascetical practices and more at the discourse of, about, and around early medieval Chinese transcendents (aka “Taoist immortals”). His methodological chapters, in particular, pointed back to Peter Brown’s seminal work on “the holy man” in Christian Late Antiquity and to other scholars working on social memory and sanctity. Naturally, I couldn’t help reading this with a third of my brain focusing on the text at hand, a third of it considering how Sulpicius Severus uses both similar and different language about Martin of Tours in not just the Life but the additional epistles, and a third thinking about our current use/construction/modification of social memory and sanctity in HWHM… It makes me wonder how rigorously the whole enterprise has been approached from this angle.

In any case, the reformed version of A051 no longer presents HWHM for its first reading at the 2015 General Convention and sends it back for more work.

Forward Movement Prayer Site

Not really a resolution but something that has been sucking up a lot of my time is a new initiative unveiled at General Convention. Forward Movement is re-launching their web presence and one part of it is the new Daily Prayer site. This web app not only offers their signature Forward Day by Day devotional reading but also the Daily Offices from the ’79 Prayer Book! If any of this sounds a bit familiar—it should; the back-end code is a simplified form of the St Bede’s Breviary.

Scott Gunn approached me shortly after being named Executive Director of Forward Movement and asked if I’d be willing to collaborate on this and I happily agreed. I said I’d do the back-end work if I didn’t have to do the front-end/interface and recommended for that one of my favorite co-conspirators who shall remain nameless unless they choose to reveal themself… :-)

A mobile app is also in preparation but I can’t say exactly when that’ll launch; I’ll let you know when it becomes available, though!

Pedantic Lectionary Note on Romans 1

As your official source for pedantic lectionary minutae, I must call attention to the appearance (or lack) of Romans 1:26-7 in the Daily Office lectionary. These two verses appear to contain Paul’s clearest statement on same-sex sexual relations and, as such, have been greatly and hotly debated in recent years. Thus, the absence of these two verses is usually taken as a sign of the co-opting of the ’79 prayer book by the “gay agenda.”

As today’s Speaking to the Soul points out, however, these same two verses were specifically avoided in the Daily Office lectionary of the 1928 prayer book as well, suggesting that the creeping “gay agenda” may not be the only consideration here. However, there is one pitfall and one minor technicality concerning the aforelinked article’s method that I feel compelled to bring to your attention.

The article successfully navigates the pitfall and it is this: you can’t pick up just any 1928 prayer book and expect to see the lectionary dating from 1928. There was a revision to the lectionary tables in 1943 (the nature and character of which I have neither the time, space, nor desire to delve into at the moment…). Thus, ’28 prayer books printed after that point may or may not have the original 1928 Daily Office lectionary. As I said, they dodged this and did indeed refer to a 1928 lectionary.

What the article misses, however, is the relation or lack thereof between the Sunday Daily Office readings and the full-on readings in course. Allow me to clarify… Since the 1559 book, prayer books have, functionally speaking, had three lectionary cycles superimposed on one another throughout the year: the continuous reading in-course (this is the base layer), the appointed Sunday lessons (which are selections from what was “edifying” as defined by the editors), and the Holy Day readings (which are lightly sprinkled on top of the other two).

Yes, the 1928 Daily Office lectionary does omit Romans 1:26-27 during the Sunday reading (Romans 1:17-21, 28-32) and that’s a significant point to note. However, more significant is to look at the state of Romans in its reading in-course where Scriptural coverage rather than “edification” is in the fore-ground. Looking for it there, we note that Romans is being read in-course at Evening Prayer from the Ninth Sunday after Trinity to the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.  Monday after the 9th Sunday after Trinity appoints Romans 1:1-17; the next day goes directly to Romans 2:1-16. The whole section from Rom 1:18 to the end of the chapter is omitted. This evidence actually makes the omission even stronger. The 2 verses are omitted where the rest of the latter half of the chapter appears in the Sunday cycle and the in-course cycle fails to remedy the lack.

For comparison purposes, the American 1896 lectionary appointed all of Romans 1 for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday, the 16th of February, and the 7th of August.