Divine Office

Paulinus has been doing a series of posts on the impoverished English of the Divine Office (I gather that the US version, the Liturgy of the Hours, is even worse), focusing so far on the inadequacies and banalities of the hymns, the interecessions, and the New Testament canticles used in place of a third psalm at Vespers (the collects would be another candidate for consideration in this series, though at least the translations in the Divine Office are slightly better than those in the Missal).

One reader commented that the obvious solution was to use the 1962 Breviary, which one is perfectly entitled to do, and this is clearly an attractive option.

My own problem with this is the calendrical question. I regularly attend Mass at my parish church, where the Mass is invariably in the Novus Ordo. If I were using the 1962 Breviary, I would in practice (not always, but certainly very frequently) be observing one feast when praying the Office and a completely different feast at Mass, the thought of which makes me uncomfortable.

I also feel uncomfortable with the idea that, if I were using the 1962 Breviary, when the Pope was celebrating (for example) the feast of St Benedict on July 11th, I’d be celebrating the commemoration of St Pius I, and would celebrate St Benedict on March 21st.

Maybe I’m wrong about this (and I'm open to counter-arguments), but I tend to feel that an important part of being in communion with the Bishop of Rome is to inhabit the same “liturgical time”, which, in practice, means observing the same calendar (local variations notwithstanding).

I remember reading a very thoughtful post on the Valle Adurni blog which discussed the merits of using the 1962 Breviary with the modern calendar, highlighting in particular the problem of the lack of appropriate texts for post-Vatican2 feasts.

I’d be interested to hear from readers who use the 1962 Breviary as to how they feel about observing one calendar for the Office and another at Mass, or about using the 1962 Office with the modern calendar.

I’ve looked into buying a Latin version of the modern Divine Office, but this would cost in the region of US $350. I wonder whether it’s possible get hold of a less expensive second hand set…?

St Paul, Hebrews, Aquinas, Grace

Over on Madame Evangelista’s blog, Berenike quoted Aelianus in the combox to the effect that “Hebrews is the key to the whole Pauline corpus”.

Whether or not Paul was the immediate author of Hebrews, I think there’s a lot of truth in this assessment, which raises the twofold question of (i) how do the various Pauline epistles relate to each other? and (ii) what is the unifying theme?

At the start of his commentary on Romans, Aquinas shows how all the Pauline epistles (culminating in Hebrews) fit together – the unifying theme being that each of them explores a different aspect of Christ’s grace.

Anyway, here’s how Aquinas maps out the epistles of St Paul with their theology of grace (a good translation of the whole epistle is available as a pdf document from the Aquinas Center for Theological renewal at Ave Maria Univeristy in Florida).

The Structure of the Pauline Corpus

According to St. Thomas Aquinas

I. All of the letters are about the grace of Christ. Nine letters consider the grace of Christ as it exists in the mystical body itself:

A. This grace is considered in three ways. First, in itself, and this is how it is treated in the letter to the Romans.

B. Second, in the sacraments which communicate it:
1. In 1Corinthians, the sacraments themselves are considered;
2. In 2 Corinthians, the ministers of the sacraments are discussed;
3. In Galatians, certain sacraments (namely those of the Old Law) are excluded;

C. Third, in its effect, namely the unity of the mystical body, the Church:
1. First, the unity itself is discussed:
a) In Ephesians, the foundation [institutio] of the Church’s unity is considered;
b) In Philippians, the progress and confirmation of the Church’s unity is set forth;

2. Second, its defense:
a) Against error, in the letter to the Colossians;
b) Against persecution: (1) In the present in 1Thessalonians; (2) In the future (and chiefly at the time of the Anti-Christ) in 2Thessalonians

II. Four letters consider the grace of Christ as it exists in the chief members of the Church, namely the prelates:

A. First, in the spiritual prelates, in 1&2 Timothy and Titus;

B. Second, in temporal prelates, and this is how it is considered in the letter to Philemon;

III. One letter, that to the Hebrews, considers the grace of Christ as it exists in the head of the body, Christ himself.

Tradition & Traditionalism

It strikes me that, when Traditional Catholics refer to Traditional Catholicism, what they generally mean is the kind of Catholicism which was forged in the crucible of the Counter-Reformation and which achieved classic status between the 1850s and the 1950s (i.e. under the popes from Pius IX through to and including Pius XII).

Traditional Catholics lament (with good reason) many of the post-Vatican2 developments within the Church, but any attempt to criticize the Catholicism of the post-Trent and pre-Vatican2 period and to advocate a return to the Catholicism of Late Antiquity (the age of the Church Fathers) or the Catholicism of the Middle Ages is met with the standard accusation of “archaeologism”.

According to a certain kind of Traditional Catholic reading of Catholic history and culture, Catholicism achieved something close to an ideal form during the period after Trent and before Vatican2, and any deviation from this ideal, whether this takes the form of further development (as in the case of post-Vatican2 Catholicism) or of a return to the pre-Tridentine past, is regarded as “un-Catholic”.

Indeed, those who wish to rediscover the riches of Patristic and Mediaeval Catholicism are often suspected of being Modernists who have the same agenda as the updaters but who are cynically using a “return to the sources” as a Trojan horse for Modernist ideas (the fact that the Trojan horse argument is not without foundation in the case of certain theologians is further grist to the Traditionalist mill).

One of the ironies in all this that, just as it is possible to discern both continuity and discontinuity between pre-Vatican2 and post-Vatican2 Catholicism, so also is it possible to discern both continuity and discontinuity between pre-Tridentine and post-Tridentine Catholicism.

Certainly, the Counter-Reformation marks a watershed in the minds of Traditional Catholics, for it was with the Counter-Reformation that a distinctive “style” of Catholicism that reached its apogee between the pontificates of Pius IX and Pius XII began to take shape.

One thing that troubles me, however, is this: Why is it okay to say “modern Catholicism is in a mess, so let’s rediscover the glories of pre-Vatican2 Catholicism”, but not okay to say “and, since pre-Vatican2 Catholicism was pretty flawed as well, let’s get back behind Trent and rediscover all the forgotten glories of Patristic and Mediaeval Catholicism”?

Many Traditional Catholics have a surprisingly narrow definition of Catholic Tradition, which they restrict to a supposed “golden age” between Trent and the eve of Vatican2 – or, more narrowly yet, between the pontificates Pius IX and Pius XII.

I can’t help feeling that our understanding of what constitutes Traditional Catholicism needs broadening – and if at times that means getting back not just to the time before Vatican2 but to the time before Trent as well, I certainly don’t think that we should be constrained by the Traditionalist view that, while much development since Vatican2 has been “bad” and needs to be abandoned, all development before Vatican2 was by definition “good” and needs to be unquestioningly retained.

If re-assessing the worth of “development” is on the agenda, I don’t see why the Catholicism of the period between Trent and the eve of Vatican2 should be exempt from such a process of re-evaluation.

St Æthelthryth (Ethelburga) of Ely

June 23^rd is the feast of St Æthelthryth (Ethelburga; Audrey) who lived from around 636-679.

On the Saints and Blessed Page, see:

Bede's account of Æthelthryth's life;

Bede's poem in honour of Æthelthryth;

and links to some prayers to St Æthelthryth.

SS Edwin and Æthelburga

Born in around 585, Edwin was the son of King Ælle of Deira (southern Northumbria), whom he succeeded at an early age, but in around 604 was deprived of his throne by King Æthelfrith of Bernicia (northern Northumbria) who thereby became King of all Northumbria, and went into exile...

Æthelburga (born in the late sixth century) was the daughter of St Æthelberht King of Kent and his wife St Bertha – a Christian Frankish princess through whose good offices (assisted by the missionary efforts of St Augustine of Canterbury) Æthelberht had embraced Christianity (his conversion being the crucial first “brick” in the building of a Christian England)...

Read more here at the Saints and Blesseds Page...

St Stanislaw of Szczepanów

Stanisław was born at Szczepanów in 1030 in southern Poland, and studied at a cathedral school in Gniezno (which at the time was the capital of Poland), before traveling abroad to further his education. Having returned to Poland, Stanisław was ordained to the priesthood, and in 1072, at the behest of Pope Alexander II he somewhat reluctantly succeeded Lambert Suła as Bishop of Kraków...

Read more here on the Saints and Blesseds blog...

St Edmund the Martyr

In 869 the Danish army under Ubbe Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless marched into East Anglia and set up camp at Thetford. Edmund challenged the invaders in battle (probably at Hoxne near Eye in Suffolk) but was defeated, and the Danes proceeded to lay waste the Kingdom, destroying churches and monasteries throughout East Anglia. The most precise account of Edmund’s martyrdom comes from Abbo of Fleury, who heard the story from St Dunstan who in turn heard it from Edmund’s own sword-bearer...

Read more at the Saints and Blesseds Page...

St Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine was prior of Saint Andrew’s monastery on the Coelian Hill when, in596, Pope St Gregory the Great sent him with at the head of a party of in between thirty and forty missionary monks to convert the English – a people who, since the departure of the Roman legions, had fallen back into paganism, and whose residual Christianity (in the few pockets where it still existed) had become increasingly isolated and distanced from the faith and practice of Catholicism...

Read more at the Saints and Blesseds Page...

St Æthelberht of Kent

Born in Kent (an Anglo-Saxon kingdom as the south-east corner of England) in around 560, Æthelberht, who was the great-grandson of Hengist (the first Saxon conqueror of Britain) became King of Kent some time between 580 and 590, and soon exercised the supremacy of a “bretwalda” over all the Saxon kings south of the Humber... Read more at the Saints and Blesseds Page...

St Antony of Padua

June 13th was the feast of St Antony of Padua.

Born in Lisbon (Portugal) in 1195 into a noble family with connectiona at the court of King Alfonso II, Fernando Martins de Bulhões chose at the age of 15 to become an Augustinian canon at the monastery of San Vincente (near Lisbon) before relocating to the priory of Santa Cruz at Coîmbra.

Read more at the Saints and Blesseds Page...

St Ephrem the Syrian

June 9^th was the feast of St Ephrem (or Ephraem) the Syrian, who was born around 306 in Nisibis (in modern Turkey by the Syrian border). The Roman presence in Nisibis (since 298) had resulted in the birth of a Syriac-speaking Christian community in which Ephrem was raised. He worked as a teacher on behalf of Jacob, the first bishop of Nisibis, and was ordained deacon, devoting much of his time to the composing of hymns and the writing of biblical commentaries. Read more here at the Saints and Blesseds Page...

St Columba (Colum Cille) of Iona

June 9^th is the feast of St Columba (or Colum Cille – “Dove of the Church”), whose life was recorded and celebrated in the Vita Columbae by Adomnán (ninth Abbot of Iona) who died in 704, and in a poem written within a few years of his death which lays claim to be the earliest vernacular poem in European literature.

Born in what is now County Donegal in December 521, Columba was a direct descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th century Irish high king. By the time of his birth, Christianity was in the process of supplanting druidism, and thriving monasteries had become the centers of theological study.

Read more at the Saints and Blesseds page...

St William of York

Born early in the 12th century, William was, according to tradition, the son of Herbert of Winchester, Henry I’s treasurer, and Emma, sister of King Stephen (though this is now disputed). With such connections it was perhaps inevitable that, having been ordained a priest, he received rapid preferment and in the early 1130s became canon and treasurer of York. Read more here...

St Norbert of Xanten

Norbert (whose feast-day is June 6th) was born into an aristocratic family c. 1080 at Xanten on the bank of the Rhine. Ordained a subdeacon, he was summoned to the imperial court, and seemed destined for a glittering ecclesiastical career. His refusal of the bishopric of Cambrai was due not to unworldliness but to the fact that he was even more committed to luxury and pleasure than he was to easy preferment, and it seemed that his weakness of character was set to prevent him not only from being a holy priest but even from being a successful worldly priest. Read more here on the Saints and Blesseds Page...

St Boniface (Wynfrith)

June 5^th is the feast of St Boniface, Apostle of the Germans.

Winfrid (or Wynfrith) was born into a noble family in Crediton in the English county of Devon in the 670s. From an early age he was inspired by the ideals of the missionary monks whom he encountered – men who exercised a type of monasticism which in many ways anticipated the charism of the mediaeval friars.

Read more here...

St Justin Martyr

Today is the feast of St Justin Martyr.

A Palestinian from Nablus, Justin was originally a pagan who went round all the various philosophical schools of the day (Stoics, Peripatetics, Pythagoreans and Platonists) before becoming completely disillusioned with the unsatisfactory nature of their account of the world and its meaning.

Read more here...