Over the past couple of days I've been praying a little bit with my Breviarium Romano-Seraphicum, taking advantage of the new privilege to do so in Summorum pontificum 9,3. On Sunday I used it for Lauds, Terce, None, and Vespers. Sext got lost in a sea of liturgical preparation disasters (dirty chalices, unrecollected servers, the lady who stuffs the poor boxes with crumpled bulletins, etc) before the 11:30 Mass. Yesterday on the feast of the archangels, I prayed Sext from the BR while I was waiting around for a committal to get started at Gate of Heaven cemetery.
Let me start out by saying that I'm not sure I'm even doing it right. I read through the rubrics during the presidential "debate" last week, but I was also talking to the brothers and answering the parish duty phone all at the same time. For instance, I wasn't sure how or if I was supposed to somehow commemorate St. Wenceslaus during the Sunday prayers.
My immediate impression was to remark on the continuity of the BR with the current Liturgy of the Hours. Much of the Sunday psalmody was the same, and since I often pray with the typical edition Liturgia Horarum, I recognized almost all of the Latin hymnody. Going on, more than anything else I was almost taken aback by how much more psalm oriented the BR is when compared to the current LH. Compared with the simple psalm-OT canticle-psalm, psalm-psalm-psalm, and psalm-psalm-NT canticle schema in the current structure of Morning Prayer, Daytime Prayer and Evening Prayer (respectively), the psalmody of the BR seemed to go on forever.
One thing I will say, and this isn't as small a thing as it seems, the BR is a lot more portable than the current breviary. You could almost put it in your habit pocket if life were simpler and it weren't for cell phone and PDA. For someone who lugged one or the other fat volume of the Roman-Franciscan Liturgy of the Hours all around Boston during five years of theology, it was nice to have something so much more portable.
I haven't been brave enough to try matins. I'm still confused about this one or three nocturn thing.
September 30, 2008
September 29, 2008
Approaching The Feast of St. Francis
The feast of St. Francis is coming up this Saturday, celebrating his birth into eternal life during the night of October 3, 1226. Today I've begun to reflect on Francis and his influence on me, having been jump-started by this post from Jeff.
I've spent almost half of my time in this life trying to put myself under Francis's influence. Oddly enough, I first met Francis not in church, but in a history class. This was before I was even a Catholic Christian, and my initial attraction to Francis was almost entirely secular.
It was the time of the first war in the Persian Gulf, and I was in my first year of college. To me--at the time--the violence had less to do with liberation and more to do with an economic system that had ceased to serve humanity and begun serving itself. Whatever it was, this "system" as my friends and I called it in our adolescent way, I wanted out of it. I looked at my own life of privileged leisure, in which I was free to study philosophy for a couple of hours each day and then spend the rest of my time drinking, going to punk shows, and chasing girls with my friends. A kind of crisis of personal responsibility as a "human being in the world" was brewing in me, but I didn't yet recognize it as a spiritual problem.
During this time I took a history course that covered thirteenth-century Europe. And there was Francis of Assisi, and right away I saw someone I could relate to. Born into a world of violence, he gave up his dream of knighthood after being imprisoned when the Assisiani lost the battle of Collestrada in 1202. Born into an economic system that began to divide people from each other, Francis opted out of it, and decided to be poor on purpose. I too was looking for a way to opt out of the "system" and--praised be Jesus Christ--I had found my model.
I've spent almost half of my time in this life trying to put myself under Francis's influence. Oddly enough, I first met Francis not in church, but in a history class. This was before I was even a Catholic Christian, and my initial attraction to Francis was almost entirely secular.
It was the time of the first war in the Persian Gulf, and I was in my first year of college. To me--at the time--the violence had less to do with liberation and more to do with an economic system that had ceased to serve humanity and begun serving itself. Whatever it was, this "system" as my friends and I called it in our adolescent way, I wanted out of it. I looked at my own life of privileged leisure, in which I was free to study philosophy for a couple of hours each day and then spend the rest of my time drinking, going to punk shows, and chasing girls with my friends. A kind of crisis of personal responsibility as a "human being in the world" was brewing in me, but I didn't yet recognize it as a spiritual problem.
During this time I took a history course that covered thirteenth-century Europe. And there was Francis of Assisi, and right away I saw someone I could relate to. Born into a world of violence, he gave up his dream of knighthood after being imprisoned when the Assisiani lost the battle of Collestrada in 1202. Born into an economic system that began to divide people from each other, Francis opted out of it, and decided to be poor on purpose. I too was looking for a way to opt out of the "system" and--praised be Jesus Christ--I had found my model.
September 27, 2008
The Imitation of Christ
The Incarnation of the Word in the human life of Jesus Christ reveals the unseen God, but it also reveals God's vision for our humanity. My homily for this weekend is posted here.
September 26, 2008
Breviarium Romano-Seraphicum
Today my "new" Breviarium Romano-Seraphicum arrived in the mail, published by the authority of our minister general Clement of Milwaukee in 1962. According to Summorum pontificum 9,3 I now have permission to use this version if I wish. (And if I can learn how!) The set seems to have once been ad usum for a Father Louis of the Couvent des Capucins in Mons, Belgium. They have a nice website you can visit here. Louis must have passed from this life or returned to the world soon after inscribing his name in his new breviaries, because they are hardly used.
The breviaries are illustrated with little Capuchin friars in various actions and postures of prayer:
The breviaries are illustrated with little Capuchin friars in various actions and postures of prayer:
September 25, 2008
Early Mass
During the workweek, our first Mass is at 6:45 am. It's really my favorite, because it's usually quiet and reverent, and there is only one paten and one cup without extra vessels to fuss over.
Right now is also my favorite time of year for the early Mass, when the beginning is at about dawn. It just seems to make sense to me to prepare and open the church while it is still dark and then have it be light at the end of Mass. It's so peaceful to walk into the church around first light--what I always understand by the summo mane of the rubrics of the Liturgy of the Hours--and greet the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in the mystical and quiet darkness. That's just the way I've always felt as a praying person; prayer to me is a kind of blessed darkness. That's one of the reasons I was so grateful to discover John of the Cross, who speaks of the rayos de oscuridad, the "rays of darkness" that shine upon us in contemplation.
On the other hand, to have it still be dark out at the end of the early Mass, as it is in the winter, is just depressing. That's why this time of year, and I suppose its opposite in the spring, is my favorite time of year for our early Mass.
Right now is also my favorite time of year for the early Mass, when the beginning is at about dawn. It just seems to make sense to me to prepare and open the church while it is still dark and then have it be light at the end of Mass. It's so peaceful to walk into the church around first light--what I always understand by the summo mane of the rubrics of the Liturgy of the Hours--and greet the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in the mystical and quiet darkness. That's just the way I've always felt as a praying person; prayer to me is a kind of blessed darkness. That's one of the reasons I was so grateful to discover John of the Cross, who speaks of the rayos de oscuridad, the "rays of darkness" that shine upon us in contemplation.
On the other hand, to have it still be dark out at the end of the early Mass, as it is in the winter, is just depressing. That's why this time of year, and I suppose its opposite in the spring, is my favorite time of year for our early Mass.
September 24, 2008
It's Sad That I Just Noticed This Now
I don't know what it is, but I'm just a "bear for (Catholic) detail" lately. (Apologies to Irwin Fletcher)
One of the first portable practices I learned as a Catholic was how to pray the Rosary. From somewhere or other I knew that you were supposed to pray the Joyful Mysteries on Mondays and Thursdays, the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the Glorious Mysteries on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
When John Paul II suggested the Luminous Mysteries back in 2002, I liked them a lot, and somewhere along the way I learned that you were supposed to pray them on Thursdays. But it wasn't until this morning, sitting in church, that I noticed how this knocks down the Joyful Mysteries to one day a week, while the Glorious Mysteries still had three days. No fair! It's especially too bad, I thought, because the Joyful Mysteries day is a perfect time to substitute the Franciscan Crown for the standard Dominican Rosary.
This has to be evened out, I thought. So, Fridays and Sundays have to be the Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries, respectively, for obvious reasons. Given those necessities, I decided that the Glorious Mysteries should cede Saturday to the Joyful.
When I got back to my room, I looked in a Rosary pamphlet that I had picked up for the kids RCIA, and there it was, arranged anew just as I had decided. So much for paying attention to what I was doing all this time! Age quod agis, frater.
P.s. My hometown church is staffed by the Dominican friars. One time, after the Luminous Mysteries had appeared, I asked one of the friars what they were going to do about it, seeing as their traditional, fifteen decade habit rosary was now sort of obsolete. Would they upgrade to one with twenty decades? To my surprise, the brother seemed genuinely annoyed by the whole business, and by the failure of John Paul II to consult the Dominicans before "changing" their Rosary.
One of the first portable practices I learned as a Catholic was how to pray the Rosary. From somewhere or other I knew that you were supposed to pray the Joyful Mysteries on Mondays and Thursdays, the Sorrowful Mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the Glorious Mysteries on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
When John Paul II suggested the Luminous Mysteries back in 2002, I liked them a lot, and somewhere along the way I learned that you were supposed to pray them on Thursdays. But it wasn't until this morning, sitting in church, that I noticed how this knocks down the Joyful Mysteries to one day a week, while the Glorious Mysteries still had three days. No fair! It's especially too bad, I thought, because the Joyful Mysteries day is a perfect time to substitute the Franciscan Crown for the standard Dominican Rosary.
This has to be evened out, I thought. So, Fridays and Sundays have to be the Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries, respectively, for obvious reasons. Given those necessities, I decided that the Glorious Mysteries should cede Saturday to the Joyful.
When I got back to my room, I looked in a Rosary pamphlet that I had picked up for the kids RCIA, and there it was, arranged anew just as I had decided. So much for paying attention to what I was doing all this time! Age quod agis, frater.
P.s. My hometown church is staffed by the Dominican friars. One time, after the Luminous Mysteries had appeared, I asked one of the friars what they were going to do about it, seeing as their traditional, fifteen decade habit rosary was now sort of obsolete. Would they upgrade to one with twenty decades? To my surprise, the brother seemed genuinely annoyed by the whole business, and by the failure of John Paul II to consult the Dominicans before "changing" their Rosary.
September 23, 2008
Experiment in Phenomenology
If you get this riff and reference, you're cooler than me.
Francis of Assisi has a posse indeed. Apologies to Andre the Giant, and ObeyGiant.
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