The “ideal” Office
Posted by Chris T. on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
Christopher from Thanksgiving in All Things posted an interesting reflection on the Anglican Office the other day. It's long but well worth reading. There were a few points I wanted to highlight:
Cranmer’s spiral is tight and dense. What Cranmer presents in either case is a spare revision suitable for regular parochial as well as domestic use. The point is to have the Church praying personally and collectively morning and evening. The best way to do this for ordinary clerks and the masses is simplicity and regularity. What is noticeable is the relative lack of moving parts. For the most part, with the exception of changing psalms and readings in continua (retained from monastic practice) and a collect for the day, all remains fairly constant.
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I think Cranmer’s hybrid is closest to what might be called “urban monastic”. This style of the Office is the bulk of the extent Roman Rite. Cranmer's might be best termed "monastic cathedral". To my mind, Cranmer’s orders are rightly monastic and cathedral at the same time. By this I mean, he wants all to have their lives singularly (monakhos) focused on divine things in the midst of the dust of daily living and he wants regular Morning and Evening Prayer for the whole church, as had been early custom, as the way by which to make this singleness so.
What Cranmer does is turn on its head the idea that the full cadre of hours and the focus of monastics is the “ideal” rather than the exception. Rather, the ideal is a whole (national) church at prayer morning and evening. Should certain Christians (mostly laity) take up a rule of life and a community requiring more, well and good, but they are exceptional and their way of life should not in some way suggest denigration of the lives of those whose life and labor punctuated by morning and evening offering are themselves lives lived in prayer without ceasing[.]
This is a really interesting way of looking at the Office — I like particularly how Christopher turns on its head the notion that a cathedral or parochial Office represents a compromise on the "ideal" Office, arguing instead that the parochial Office developed by Cranmer and later folks could profitably be seen as the ideal.
I know this is a tension we work with a lot in our jurisdiction. For reference, I'll mention that we have folks using several different versions of the Western Office. Chiefly, they are the Office found in various American BCPs, the RC Liturgy of the Hours, the traditional monastic Office (Monastic Diurnal), and the traditional secular Office (Anglican Breviary and some Sarum sources).
Our one religious order prays from the contemporary Roman Office for the most part, and uses that as the basis for the daily liturgy at gatherings. At our jurisdictional gathering and at Wednesday night Vespers in Philadelphia, +Tim draws on the BCP Office. And of course our new traditional liturgy apostolate uses the monastic Office for Monday night Vespers and Compline.
I think there is a lot to be said for Christopher's argument that in a parish environment, an Office that could be termed "urban monastic" is indeed the ideal. It is probably not only because of the structure of the Office that Anglicans are the only Western Christians even a small percentage of whose parishes have daily corporate prayer, but it certainly helps a great deal. Getting all the Psalms frequently and a good selection of Scripture in only two offices is ideal for making the parochial Office meaningful on a daily basis. Although Independent Catholics are not well-placed to have a daily parish Office except in maybe two or three parishes in the US, one can see from my description above that the more secular and parochial our gatherings are, the more likely it is that we'll use a pared-down Office like the BCP to pray together.
That said, there is something about fuller versions of the Office I like a lot — the fact that they expand and contract a bit more easily than pared-down versions of the Office. With the monastic Office or the old secular Offices, it's very difficult to run out of material if you want to add things to make a celebration more solemn (or if you just happen to have insomnia! — I speak from experience here). But there are often options that can be stripped away temporarily if time is short or the Office is too complex to be used easily.
Some Offices "breathe" more easily than others. Since about 1911, the secular Roman Office has put so much weight on the Little Hours that those who pray only a few major offices miss important stuff. This became even more true with the revision that created the Liturgy of the Hours. The monastic Office is a bit more adaptable — Matins is easy to split in half to cover two weeks instead of one, and the little hours repeat the same Psalms over and over during the week. But even here, with so much psalmody and Scripture at Matins it would be difficult to pare down to the point where Morning and Evening Prayer could serve as a parochial Office on its own.
The answer Christopher comes to is very useful, I think:
Those who want exceptions are well to do so, but not at the denigration of those for whom morning and evening must suffice because in their daily lives of love, labor, and, leisure they are themselves instruments for God's work (at which Morning and Evening they are reminded of such, no more so than Cranmer's reintroduction of set intercessions/suffrages/preces).
I think we can see the monastic — or secular folks who are piously devoted to the liturgy — as not "an exception," exactly, but a different pole anyway. This is the case in our jurisdiction — some pray a simpler, parochial Office because it fits their lives, while others devote more time and energy to the liturgy than to other pursuits. Both yield tremendous fruit for us. This is true in the Anglican Church, of course, and in Western Rite Orthodoxy as well, from what I understand. All their clergy pray the monastic Office or a full version of the secular Office, but I believe the parochial Office is an adaptation of the Book of Common Prayer.
So there is much to be said for living in the tension between two different kinds of daily prayer — one which is almost infinitely expandable and variable, providing fertile ground for those who are called to spend a great deal of time in liturgical prayer, and one which is more spare but nevertheless grounded in traditional cycles of psalmody and Scripture. It's no surprise that the "ideal" means taking the rich diversity of the Western liturgy more seriously, doing justice to the tension between working in the world and living in prayer and contemplation. But I think Christopher's right that this kind of a focus is more useful than a reductive approach to the liturgy that sees the monastic as ideal and the parochial or cathedral liturgy as a "lesser" compromise.
12 Responses to “The “ideal” Office”
Great topic!
I appreciate the idea of the simple (parochial) office as the default with the full one as ‘above and beyond’.
But I think of the old legit liturgical movement which pointed out the fact that the High Mass is actually the norm on paper. So it is with the secular and monastic breviaries.
And I appreciate the point Derek and others have made of the value of ‘few moving parts’, the value of memorisation as the basis of a folk office. The Little Office of the BVM can work that way, or the fixed psalmody of the day hours in the old pre-1911 secular breviary. As I’m learning there is a little variety (which I like) during the week in the monastic version (the diurnal).
The Prayer Book ones are harder than that - as Paul Goings points out Roman Rite Matins and Lauds take about as long as Morning Prayer. You have to lug a Bible around to do Morning and Evening Prayer; a true breviary has the readings in it.
(I confess: I think traditional Matins is a bear. Better the simplified 1960 version at least for non-monastics. Just my opinion.)
Good Bible study but a workable office for everyday use?
I like the 1549 offices (which Christopher has helpfully outlined along with the other Anglican ones) without the talky Protestant parts at the beginning in later versions (even though they are in nice English and are not heretical) but would have appreciated a few more ‘moving parts’ as in the rejected drafts for 1549 such as office hymns.
I used to say the only good that came out of the ‘Reformation’ in England were services in the vernacular (under which you can put a wider availability of the Bible in English) and the office for everyman.
But literate Catholics already had books of hours.
The illiterate folk didn’t necessarily like being talked at in English, certainly the Devon men and Cornishmen who at the time spoke a Celtic language.
IIRC there are two offices approved for WRO, one that’s essentially the US 1928 Book of Common Prayer, part of the ‘St Tikhon rite’, and the Monastic Breviary/Diurnal (as you know your reprint of the unofficial Anglican translation of the MD was printed by Orthodox!) for the ‘St Gregory’ (Roman) rite. I forget why the secular breviary wasn’t approved as well; I don’t think the reason was theological.
AFAIK the secular breviary is approved for WRO — a priest in NZ has produced an Orthodox Roman Breviary here.
Matins and Lauds may take as long as Anglican Mattins if you speed through the former and take a leisurely pace through the latter, but at equal speeds it’s obvious the Roman breviary’s services are longer — there is, after all, three or four times as much psalmody with roughly equal readings. (As I may have noted before, I use the Diurnal during the day now and break the Matins psalmody in half into a two-week cycle — it works pretty well.) BTW, they do sell Prayer Book “breviaries” with the readings and other Office texts, minus the rest of the BCP. They also have nice BCPs bound with NRSVs and other translations of the Bible — mine is fairly portable, but there’s no doubt it’s way bulkier than most breviaries.
That said, I think the Roman Rite in the older form or the newer can make a fine parochial Office from Lauds and Vespers — not quite as full of Scripture as the BCP Office, but still fine if it were done and taken seriously. The pre-Conciliar liturgies are at most five minutes longer than the ones from the LOTH and certainly no longer than a good BCP Office.
The principle of “few moving parts” is something that bugs me about the LOTH, with its constantly changing preces. It adds a huge amount of bulk to the breviaries and makes your head spin. No chance of memorizing anything in that once fairly unchangeable part of the Office.
Father,
I also think–what a shock!–that this is a great topic.
BTW, they do sell Prayer Book “breviaries” with the readings and other Office texts, minus the rest of the BCP.
This is true, but only if you want to use a “Rite II” office; I think it’s still even available in RSV and NRSV printings. I don’t really like the BCP offices as printed; they’re too much like Bible study, and unnecessarily monotonous.
That said, I think the Roman Rite in the older form or the newer can make a fine parochial Office from Lauds and Vespers–not quite as full of Scripture as the BCP Office, but still fine if it were done and taken seriously.
Can I get an Amen!!! In fact, if the obligation for everyone besides canons and monks had been reduced to Lauds and Vespers, you wouldn’t have ever needed the 1913 reform of the Psalter, which mutilated the historical structure of both Lauds and the Little Hours. Matins would have then been available for use ad libitum, and the public office would be insisted on for the cathedrals and strongly encouraged at some level in the parishes.
This is true, but only if you want to use a “Rite II” office; I think it’s still even available in RSV and NRSV printings.
True — even the full 28 BCP/KJV bindings that are available are not portable like some of the 79 BCP/NRSV books are.
However, thanks to our friend Derek, a fairly rich, Anglo-Catholic Rite I Office should be available online soon. Not as nice as having a well-bound book for those of us who love that, but I’m glad to see his project coming along and look forward to him announcing it publicly.
Well, it’d more public sooner if you’d get your server to run sqlite3…
btw–pass along the KJV file you mentioned recently too when you get a chance; I’ve set up the MySQL server again…
Well, it’d more public sooner if you’d get your server to run sqlite3…
Oh, right, just blame everything on the decadent, lazy lifestyle of the clergy!
I’ll dig up the KJV file and see if I can manage sqlite this weekend. It’s running, I think, in that you can monkey around with databases on the command line. But I think it’s not built in to PHP and Apache or something. I’m writing a homily for Easter 5 this weekend but should have time to mess with the web server, too.
it’s probably not turned on in PHP.
Writing a homily? What kind of sorry excuse is that, anyway…
(M’s preaching Sunday…)
Paul says: “This is true, but only if you want to use a “Rite II” office; I think it’s still even available in RSV and NRSV printings.” Church Publishing has reprinted the DAILY OFFICE BOOK volumes, which include the Rite I collects and ordinaries for MP and EP , with the RSV lections.
The Anglican Catholic Church issued a kind of “Prayer Book Breviary”–I think it was a ‘28 book with the original ‘28 readings laid out for MP and EP–but they printed very few copies, and it never caught on. (One ACC priest spoke with said it was in part due to the fact that the readings were in the RSV, not the KJV.) I’ve been looking for a copy for a while now, but it’s nigh impossible to find.
I did find a used 1662 book with the 1922 lectionary printed day by day in the back, and I’ve enjoyed that. I have a soft spot in my heart for the 1922 lectionary: long readings that take you through the Bible in a year (and then some), but more attuned to the church year than Cranmer’s original lectionary.
Mr. Viola, you may be conflating two books. A certain Fr. L. Noel Stipkovich of the ACC edited a volume entitled “The American Office Book: The Liturgy of the Hours” which included the ‘28 BCP offices with some supplements like antiphons and possibly hymns, and little hours, as well as little hours, as well as the full ‘45 office lections in RSV translation. This was not an official ACC book as far as I can tell. The ACC did publish a number of office books with lections a few years back (you can see them at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~rms01/usbook.htm) but apparently they are no longer in print, which is a real shame. I would find the “Lections” volume listed at that site far more helpful than the ‘28 BCP/KJV volume currently on offer at anglicanbooks.com.
Lukacs, thanks for the reply. I was referring to Stipkovich’s book, which, as a I mentioned, is like pulling hen’s teeth to find. I was under the impression that it was an ACC book, but I may be mistaken.
You’re right, it is a shame that that the “Lections” book you pointed to is out of print. I’d love to have one myself.
I’m surprised no one has reprinted any ‘28 BCP’s with older lectionaries included. I would think there’d be some kind of market for it.