Visitation, Dominican Rite

Today the Dominican Breviary and Missal supply excellent proper prayers, different to the Roman orations, for the feast of the Visitation of Our Lady. (I take the translations, with alterations, from The Saint Dominic Missal, published in 1959.)

The Collect:

Omnipotens et misericors Deus, majestatem tuam suppliciter exoramus, ut sicut Unigenitum tuum per visitationem et salutationem Genitricis ejus puero clauso in utero revelasti; ita meritis ejusdem Genitricis, et precibus, ipsum nos facias revelata facie perpetuo contemplari. Qui tecum vivit et regnat...

(Almighty and merciful God, we humbly beseech thy majesty, that as thou didst make known thine Only-begotten Son through the visit and greeting of his mother to* the child as yet unborn; so likewise thou wouldst grant to us, by the merits and prayers of the same mother, to see him with unveiled face unto all eternity: who liveth and reigneth with thee...)

[* TSDM has "to", reading puero clauso as dative, which I initially misread as signifying "by", thinking of puero clauso as ablative: but of course the former is correct, as it refers to the reaction to the greeting of Our Lady on the part of the unborn Baptist as yet in his mother's womb.]

The Secret:

Omnipotens sempiteme Deus, qui de omnibus in te confidentibus curam semper habes, præsta quæsumus, ut per oblationem, quam tibi offerimus, visitationem spiritualem beatæ Mariæ Virginis in nostris necessitatibus semper sentiamus. Per Dominum...

(Almighty and eternal God, who carest for all such as trust in thee, grant, we beseech thee, that through this offering we make to thee, we may always feel the spiritual visitation of the blessed Virgin Mary in all our needs: through our Lord...)

The Postcommunion:

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui commemorationem visitationis beatissimæ Mariæ Matris Dei fieri voluisti; præsta quæsumus, ut per hoc sacrificium, quod sumpsimus, ab ejus visitationis gratia nullatenus excidamus. Per eumdem Dominum...

(Almighty and eternal God, who didst will us to make a commemoration of the visitation of the most blessed Mary, Mother of God; grant, we beseech thee, that through this sacrifice, which we have received, we may never fall from the grace of her visitation: through the same our Lord...)

The Visitation - Roman and Dominican Offices

To-day I was very thankful to have the time and earnest desire to read the Hours in sequence, more or less at their proper times, including Matins - for to-day is the feast of the Visitation of Our Blessed Lady to her cousin St Elizabeth, and the secret synaxis of the Unborn Christ and His unborn Herald, St John the future Baptist.  Matins features three strong sets of readings: passages from the Canticle of Canticles (ii, 1-17); a vivid elevated passage from Chrysostom (reworked by the Metaphrast, then done into Latin); and an extract relevant to to-day's Gospel from the Commentary on St Luke's Gospel from St Ambrose.  It was a wonderful beginning to the day.

Something reminded me to look to my copy of the Dominican Breviary, that I might compare and contrast it with the Roman Breviary (I have the latest ad last editions of both: those of 1962).  Matins in the Office of the Friars Preachers has the same selection of lessons, but, in line with the Dominican custom of having even shorter readings, in each of the three Nocturns the O.P. version's three lessons equate to only two or two and a half of their Roman equivalents.  

Evidently the Dominican book based its Visitation Hours on the Hours of Our Lady's Birthday - at Matins, the responsories and suchlike come from the Office for the 8th of September, with only the word Visitation substituted for Nativity - while the Roman Matins responsories are more scriptural.  This is likewise true regarding the antiphons at Lauds.

However, there is one evident improvement in the Dominican Breviary relative to the Roman: the former appoints, not the usual extracts from Ecclesiasticus for the Little Hours that traditionally are applied to Holy Mary, but passages taken (as are the first Lessons at Matins of this feast) from the Canticle of Canticles, of evident application to the Visitation:

Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come.  For winter is now past, the rain is over and gone.  The flowers have appeared in our land.

– Little Chapter at Lauds, Terce and Vespers (Cant. ii, 10b-12a)

Behold [my beloved] cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills.  My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart. 

– Little Chapter at Sext (Cant. ii, 8b-9a)

Shew me thy face, let thy voice sound in my ears: for thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely.

–Little Chapter at None (Cant. ii, 14b)

 

The Dominican Collect I think also superior to the Roman (albeit longer), since the Roman seems clumsily to pray for peace as a kind of afterthought, whereas the Dominican more closely adheres to the thought of the feast:

Omnipotens et misericors Deus, majestatem tuam suppliciter exoramus: ut, sicut Unigenitum tuum per Visitationem et salutationem Genetricis ejus puero clauso in utero revelasti, ita, meritis ejusdem Genetricis et precibus, ipsum nos facias revelata facie perpetuo contemplari: Qui tecum vivit...

(Almighty and merciful God, bowing low we pray Thy Majesty: that, as Thou didst reveal Thy Onlybegotten by the Visitation and salutation of His Mother by a child in the womb, so, by the merits and prayers of His same Mother, Thou may make us to contemplate forever the Same revealed face to face: Who with Thee liveth...)

May this indeed be our goal; and may the Communion we receive - as all unworthy I did this day - hasten our tracks to heaven.

A First Friday

Great is God's grace and mercy: tonight I went to Confession and then heard Holy Mass at the Redemptorist Monastery (waiting for both of which gave me a chance to catch up on a lot of the Office as well). It was strange attending a Novus Ordo Mass after so long, but I braved it and found it fine - and it did afford me that special privilege of drinking the Most Precious Blood of Christ, one which I savour when available. As the old Redemptorist so rightly said in his short sermon, his Congregation was founded to minister to the most abandoned souls; as my Confessor had said before, God waits for us as did the Father of the Prodigal Son: two insights into Divine Mercy, that grace superabounding that St Alphonsus preached in the face of Jansenist cruelty.

Reading over the Matins of the Visitation, for reasons best known to myself - and rejoicing that, having appealed to Our Lady, my Confessor gave me the Magnficat as penance, which I repeated with joy while saying Vespers after making my Communion - I was struck by the Metaphrast's vigorous version of Chrysostom elucidating the joy of the still-enwombed Baptist at the near approach to him of the unborn Christ, which may with profit be read here. And how happy are the 1st and 4th Responsories, drawing upon the Canticle of Canticles and the Psalms to illustrate the wondrous synaxis of Our Lady and St Elizabeth, of Christ and the Baptist -

R/. i. Surge, própera, amíca mea, formósa mea, et veni: jam enim hiems tránsiit, imber ábiit et recéssit: * Vox túrturis audíta est in terra nostra. V/. Intrávit María in domum Zacharíæ et salutávit Elísabeth. * Vox túrturis audíta est in terra nostra.

(R/. i. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away : for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; * Yea, the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land. V/. Mary entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elisabeth. * Yea, the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land.)

R/. iv. Ecce iste venit sáliens in móntibus, transíliens colles: * Símilis est diléctus meus cápreæ hinnulóque cervórum. V/. Exsultávit ut gigas ad curréndam viam, a summo cælo egréssio ejus. * Símilis est diléctus meus cápreæ hinnulóque cervórum.

(R/. iv. Behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills: * Like a roe or a young hart is my Beloved. V/. He rejoiceth as a giant to run his course, going forth from the uttermost part of the heaven. * Like a roe or a young hart is my Beloved.)

I also had the Matins of the Precious Blood before me (interestingly, I recognized the Lessons of the 2nd Nocturn, again from Chrysostom, as supplying the modern Office's 2nd Reading for Good Friday), and trusting in Our Lady's intercession and Our Lord's all-availing Blood I was much comforted.

Today, of course, marks the earth's aphelion from the Sun; by a mistake that I have just realized, I prayed the Breviary for the feast - which should in fact be kept tomorrow! - of St Antony Maria Zaccaria, founder of the Barnabites, or Clerks Regular of St Paul. Oh, well! I suppose repeating his Collect won't hurt me; it does after all ask for a most important grace:

Fac nos, Dómine Deus, supereminéntem Jesu Christi sciéntiam, spíritu Pauli Apóstoli edíscere; qua beátus Antónius María mirabíliter erudítus, novas in Ecclésia tua clericórum et vírginum famílias congregávit. Per eúmdem Dóminum...

Make us, Lord God, to learn the pre-eminent knowledge of Jesus Christ in the spirit of Paul the Apostle; by the which marvellously taught, blessed Anthony Mary established in thy Church new families of clerks and virgins. Through the same...