Ferial Matins

I left Matins to-day till the afternoon, when I paid a visit to the Church of the Apostles after work to pray.  The Lessons were from Colossians i, 1-18 - which put me in mind of the use in the modern Office of Colossians i, 12-20 (with the opening gratias agentes changed to gratias agamus, so as to provide a principal verb) as a New Testament Canticle at Vespers on Wednesdays:

[Let us give] thanks to God the Father, 

Who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light: 

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, 

and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 

In Whom we have redemption *through his blood*', 

the remission of sins; 

Who is the image of the invisible God, 

the firstborn of every creature:

For in Him were all things created 

in heaven and on earth, 

visible and invisible, 

†whether thrones, or dominations, 

or principalities, or powers:†' 

all things were created by Him and in Him, 

and He is before all, 

and by Him all things consist. 

And He is the Head of the body, the Church, 

Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; 

that in all things He may hold the primacy: 

because in Him, it hath well pleased the Father, that all fullness should dwell; 

and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, 

making peace through the Blood of His Cross, 

both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven.

(I have given here the Douay version, as closely faithful to the Vulgate; the Neo-Vulgate of the modern Office is not notably different, excepting only that the section *-*' above, in Latin per sanguinem ejus, is not in the Neo-Vulgate.  Stupidly, the English version of the modern Divine Office is bowdlerized for the tender sensibilities of liberals and modernists, by omitting from verse 16 the words marked †-†', in the modern Latin sive throni sive dominationes sive principatus sive potestates, lest they suggest to the skeptical and misbelieving some of the names of the choirs of the Angels!)

Again, as I've noted previously, the use of canticles from the Old Testament is immemorial at Lauds (and at Vigils in the Monastic Rite), and of course the three Gospel canticles are the highlights of Lauds, Vespers and Compline; if St Pius X added extra canticles to Lauds, as he did, then it seems reasonable to allow Paul VI to add New Testament canticles to Vespers.  I certainly used the modern Office with profit and devotion for well over a decade, and do miss a number of its refinements even though I've gone over to the 1962 Breviary.  It would be a good thing to dwell on these words of St Paul in the passage given above, and often to recite and pray them.

Matins for St Peter Nolasco, Wednesday of the 3rd Week after Epiphany

I was quite moved by to-day's Matins Lessons.  First, there is the wonderful Pauline hymn contained in Ephesians i, 1-14 (which the modern Office I think very rightly has taken, somewhat abbreviated to only verses 3-10, to use as a canticle at Vespers on Mondays); and then, the short account of the life of St Peter Nolasco.  His collect, too, on which together with allied prayers I've blogged earlier, is noteworthy.

Herewith, Ephesians i, 1-14:

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to all the saints who are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.  Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

Who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ: 

as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, 

that we should be holy and unspotted 

in His sight in charity: 

Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children 

through Jesus Christ unto Himself: 

according to the purpose of his will:

unto the praise of the glory of His grace, 

in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son:

in Whom we have redemption through His blood, 

the remission of sins, 

according to the riches of His grace, 

which hath superabounded in us 

in all wisdom and prudence, 

that He might make known unto us the mystery of His will, 

according to His good pleasure, 

which He hath purposed in Him, 

in the dispensation of the fulness of times, 

to re-establish all things in Christ, 

that are in heaven and on earth, in Him:

in Whom we also are called by lot, 

being predestinated according to the purpose of Him 

Who worketh all things according to the counsel of His will, 

that we may be unto the praise of His glory, 

we who before hoped Christ: 

in Whom you also, 

after you had heard the word of truth, 

(the gospel of your salvation;) 

in Whom also believing, 

you were signed with the holy Spirit of promise, 

Who is the pledge of our inheritance, 

unto the redemption of acquisition, 

unto the praise of His glory.

I was once privileged while on retreat to hear a masterly exegesis of this beautiful passage.

As I pray, after the example of the Byzantine Rite and of Bl Elizabeth of the Trinity, O.C.D., "Make me a praise of Thy glory, O Most Holy Trinity, consubstantial and undivided!"

The Lamest Canticle

I have no objection to the use in the modern Office of New Testament Canticles at Vespers in an analogous manner to the immemorial use of Old Testament Canticles at Lauds (and Monastic Vigils), in addition to the traditional three Gospel Canticles (Benedictus, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis) used at Lauds, Vespers and Compline.  Scholarly research revealed good suggestions that certain passages in the epistles of St Paul were hymnic in structure, after all.

However, the excuse for a Canticle slotted into 1st Vespers of the Epiphany and the Lord's Baptism is just dreadful, because it is a failed pastiche: it interlards the sublime concision of I Timothy iii, 16 with a response (yuk! deliver me from the Responsorial Psalm, too-aptly defined as "an exercise in short-term memory"), worked in poorly, from Ps 116:1a.  It would have been better far to either use I Tim. iii, 16 as a short reading at one of the Hours of these feasts (for which it is manifestly appropriate, excuse pun), or have it as a super-short canticle (longer at least than Psalm 116, and only a bit shorter than Psalm 132 or the Canticle from Apoc. xv, 3-4).