I've read a couple folks opine that the Treasury doesn't make for an easy praying of the Office. I'd like to differ. It's nowhere near as complicated as your typical Breviary. Here's how I've been using it, and it's works very well:
Matins/Morning Prayer:
Use 30 Day Psalter (see p. 1436, 1437) - it helps to write the Day plus Morning or Evening into the Psalter. Another thing I've written in is when the Psalm has an even number of divisions (usually, but not always corresponding to verses) and thus when a two-part Psalm tone can be used. Thus, at Psalm 38 my Treasury reads: 8M and Even. That lets me know that this is the first morning Psalm on the 8th day of the month and that it can be chanted with a two-part setting.
The hymn stanza from the daily propers.
The Old Testament Reading appointed for the day, followed by the proper Responsory (right now, that would be O-69)
I usually skim the Writing to see whether it fits better with the OT or the NT reading, and use it at whichever service it most closely matches. Occasionally I will read it at noon.
The Canticle, Kyrie, and Our Father
In the prayers, after the Collect for the Day (included in the daily propers), I include the prayer for the day of the week (see pp. 1306-1309)
If there is a commemoration for the day, I read aloud the words about the commemoration, feast, or festival after Matins.
Noonday Office:
I use the order provided on O-44. For the Psalm, I use the Psalm portion in the daily propers provided before the Old Testament reading.
Vespers/Evening Prayer:
Use 30 Day Psalter (see above).
Hymn verse from the daily propers.
The New Testament Reading appointed for the day followed by the proper Responsory (right now, that would be O-69).
Canticle and prayers.
In the prayers, I include at Vespers personal intercessions (remembering those who have asked for my prayers).
The reading from the Book of Concord I try to read at another time during the day.
23 comments:
Yeah, this is pretty much how I do it. (except usually when it calls to sing or chant I just speak aloud since I don't sing very well...also since I live by myself I just read both the leader and the response parts)
I use it in a similar way as well, but I read the BOC reading with Matins and the Writing with Vespers. I think this is a wonderful way to pray the Office and I encourage all Lutherans and all Christians to get this wonderful piece of devotional treasure and use it everyday.
Having picked up a copy to review and pray with until our Diocesan Prayer Book was approved and published, I have to strongly disagree with the idea that TDP is difficult to use. It is exceedingly simple, probably the simplest breviary I have ever used.
Rob+
I think it's simply a matter that Lutherans are not used to missals, and TDP is laid out more like a missal rather than a hymnal.
I grew up on missals and would agree with Fr Lyons, for that type of book it is not at all difficult.
From what I can see, that is. Don't have it or use it. I can handle different sections, coloured ribbon markers, go here then go there etc, just fine.
What I can't handle is flipping back and forth not just in the book but between civil and church calendars, the latter starting with Advent except it starts with Lent, and other things that indicate an attempt to reclaim something that should be reclaimed, but whose rhythm and nature are no longer natural, kind of like learning a language in a classroom rather than speaking it growing up and living there.
What I think would be wonderful is if Matins, Vespers and Compline would once again become features of regular parish life.
These offices are communal in nature. not private, and private observance of them comes from secular (not under the regula of an religious order) rather than regular (those under such a regula) clergy praying them. Either way, it is something featured in a life that is either wholly or partly different than a lay person's life.
We do not retreat from the world to devote ourselves to the "work of God" (a nickname for the Office) like regular clergy nor do we function in the Office of Holy Ministry in the age like secular clergy. So we do not have the option to show up for community public prayer before and after work. And the "age" has moved beyond the time when the town church was the centre of town life.
It's a tough sell, even on just a functional level. LSB on the one hand offers excellent such services, but on the other, in typical Vatican II style, has Matins, which is morning prayer, but also Morning Prayer, etc.
But I'm as reluctant to pray these services privately and call it good as I am to pray the Divine Service privately and call it good.
For private or family devotion, something that preserves the basic pattern but is simple is great and LSB offers excellent forms for that too in Daily Prayer, but I wish they would have preserved the traditional connected hymns (Magnificat etc) other than Compline.
Frankly, I don't think there's any better advice than in the Little Catechism for these things, and that's what I bloody do, just as it says for the "head of the household", and "what my devotion suggests" is the daily reading from one of the devotionals set up along the church year (the real one, not the Simon and Garfunkle 1960s one) like God Grant It! and there's a couple of others out too.
Terry,
I wonder if it is impossible, or if we just haven't tried hard enough. I know some friends who commit to praying the Office at set times in the Church and who have parishioners join them. Certainly Piepkorn advocated such 50 years ago - daily Matins and Vespers in Church. Compline is a bit of a tougher sell unless folks live very near the Church. Still, getting the Office back into the Church as a regular feature of parish life is the next step, I believe, after the regular recovery of the weekly Eucharist and can even help with the offering of individual absolution after Vespers. I think that the Penitential seasons might be a great time to introduce them.
P.S. On the two settings they really are mostly that: two settings of the same thing. Granted, Morning Prayer doesn't allow for Matins and lacks the Kyrie; granted Evening Prayer restored the ancient service of light with Phos Hilaron and replaced the Kyrie and Our Father with the Litany; still they are the same offices:
Psalms + Hymn + Reading + Canticle + Prayers
I think Evening Prayer is one of the most stunningly beautiful liturgies in LSB.
Ack, Morning Prayer doesn't allow for Te Deum...gremlins in the keyboard.
I'm all for it PW, but I also recognise that life as I know it would make me one of those that pastors love -- those who say they're all for something but show up once in a while.
Yes, they are basically the same order. However, that is apparent to Terence J Maher, PhD, BA from a Benedictine university, veteran of the liturgical Kristallnacht that was Vatican II, usw. It is not at all apparent to Terry Maher, two kids in tow, regular butt in the pew, who would wonder where even to start, pass by whatever this Matins is and figure morning prayer must be this Morning Prayer.
Things don't look like the same thing when they are separate entries with different names.
We used to understand that. The TLH Common Service is one thing, zum B, but there's directions for how to do it with and without Communion, plus as the Preface says with such ceremony as circumstances and judgement allow.
I'd better stop, German is creeping in
It is also worth noting that in the preconciliar Catholic Church very few of the laity had any knowledge of the Divine Office. At that time it was still a monastic endeavor. In fact, my husband remembers that as an RC kid his parish didn't even have missals.
One of the "better" fruits of Vatican II is that some Catholic parishes are beginning to use Morning and Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours for communal prayer which people attend as they are able. It seems to be catching on especially during Advent/Lent.
True, historically Lutherans have not had missals but gotta start somewhere! Perhaps we can restablish services of Matins/Vespers at the parish level when more people become comfortable with the idea of praying a daily office.
Meantime, when time is tight the "Daily Prayers for Individuals and Families" are just great.
I, too, love the noontime prayer remembering the Passion that Pastor Roemke mentions and try to pray it at my desk often.
Christine
That is true, to my memory there were no missals etc in the pews; that was something one bought separately, or was given as a gift, from among the several available.
Which within that mindset, was a good thing. The liturgical texts are quite separate from any musical setting of them, or arrangement for their use. The church itself does the former, independent publishers do the latter. In that way, for example, my dad, mom, and myself, all had different missals, but all were the same in the sense of usable at the same service.
That's an altogether different idea than a hymnal or "service book".
And yes, the office is monk stuff. The only reason I had any exposure to it was serving 0600 Mass for years for the Franciscan nuns in the hospital chapel, where they chanted Office before Mass before their nursing shift.
Now you can hardly find a nun in that hospital. If you want one, look for the older woman slightly overdressed or underdressed with no family around.
It's actually one of the characteristic marks of Lutheran liturgy from the 16th century onwards: the importance of the music in the rite. Compare the Lutheran daily office to the Anglican and it's the musical stuff that stands out (well, that and the retention of so much Latin): responsories, antiphons and such. Page after page of music. We don't have anything like a Book of Common Prayer, but we do have a musical liturgical heritage that is unspeakably rich and that we have only gotten a portion of into English.
It's actually one of the characteristic marks of Lutheran liturgy from the 16th century onwards: the importance of the music in the rite. . . . We don't have anything like a Book of Common Prayer, but we do have a musical liturgical heritage that is unspeakably rich and that we have only gotten a portion of into English.
Yes and YES!!
We Lutherans sing our faith, sing our liturgy and I wouldn't trade it for a million dollars!
The Lutheran Church has long been known as the singing church! With angels, archangels and all the Company of Heaven!
Christine
Certainly that is true. One of the things I have come to value the most is how so many hymns both confess and teach what they confess at the same time.
The only downside is, Lutherans typically have a hard time distinguishing a musical setting of something from the something itself, or to put it differently, see the rite itself apart from any particular setting of it.
Geez I hope nobody's reading by now cause you know what, regardless of having three degrees in music, served thousands of High Masses, been in several scholae cantorum, etc, you know what I liked best in the old days -- a simple low Mass.
The only downside is, Lutherans typically have a hard time distinguishing a musical setting of something from the something itself, or to put it differently, see the rite itself apart from any particular setting of it.
I think that's part of Luther's legacy to us. Luther placed such high importance on the place of music in the life of worship that it probably doesn't occur to most Lutherans to separate the rite from the setting.
Thomas Day writes in "Why Catholics Can't Sing" of Catholics who firmly maintain that the Mass doesn't "need" music. Technically they are right.
But as a Lutheran I would feel impoverished without it.
Christine
You're right there, Christinula.
Hymns, in the Protestant sense, were entirely unknown in what I grew up with. Closest you came was a late text that had become part of that service itself, for example, the Tantum ergo at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, which ain't exactly what comes to mind to a Protestant when you say "hymn".
To stop the service itself and sing a hymn would, or was, considered a completely unwarranted intrusion into the service itself (as distinct from singing or chanting something in the service itself, like the Gloria or Credo) characteristic of those who deny the Mass.
Which is why it struck many Catholics as a strange thing to do when the RCC started doing it. And why to this day they still don't really get it even when they do it, singing maybe the first couple of verses when all the verses are a whole.
My dad, who grew up Methodist, used to say the singing voice is a musical instrument, and one who isn't trained to play it has no more business singing in church than bringing a trumpet to church and trying to play it if he doesn't know how. He converted real good, huh? When all the congregational singing started after VII, he used say this is exactly what he thought he got away from, when you have to do that because you don't have the Mass.
To stop the service itself and sing a hymn would, or was, considered a completely unwarranted intrusion into the service itself (as distinct from singing or chanting something in the service itself, like the Gloria or Credo) characteristic of those who deny the Mass.
Ah, but here is where I would suggest that the Lutheran approach is indeed different. Unlike at a Baptist or other Protestant service, Lutherans don't "stop the service", as it were, to sing a hymn. We also sing the liturgy.
In days of yore the Catholic church produced some magnificent composers. Just put on a CD of Victoria for me and watch me cry for its sheer beauty.
But it was never meant to be sung by any but trained voices.
Therein lies the difference. Luther and others composed songs for the congregation, hymns that were pleasing to sing and at the same time confessed the faith. Music was never meant to be limited to the "professionals" in Lutheran culture.
I don't know if it is true or not but Day proposes the thesis that the Mass in Ireland, especially, became a "spoken" liturgy due to the continuing fear of discovery by the English overlords. He feels that some of that legacy was brought to the U.S.
It is also almost a given that Catholic music directors know, as you say, that most parishioners will not sing more than two verses of the contemporary drivel that Oregon Catholic Press puts out. But at the Marian feasts it was amazing how all of a sudden everyone found their voices in singing Salve Regina!
It was my experience that in Europe especially in the Italian and German Catholic parishes people loved to sing.
Christine
Well you're quite right, Christine. From the traditional Catholic mindset, congregational singing is pointless, and detracts from whatever point it may seek to make, evidencing a lack of understanding of the liturgy itself.
A "hymn of the day" just doesn't happen. As distinct from choir or even congregational singing of the Creed or something. Within that mindset, a congregational hymn is something stuck into the liturgy that doesn't need to be there, a chanted something from the ordinary is not.
I myself, though I would put my chancel prancing skills up with anybody and I mean anybody, and I can still chant from memory along with CNN coverage of stuff from Rome while everyone there stands as blank as if they were at a Hindu temple when they drag all that stuff out nobody does any more, personally preferred (talking the old days here) to leave performances to performance venues and just have a simple low Mass. Even for those who liked the 1000 am Mass (that was the BIG one growing up in my parish) it wasn't in any expectation that they themselves would be singing anything.
PS - don't know about the Irish/English thing, but I do remember being given an "Irish" rosary, which is one decade only, able to be hidden in the palm of your hand, from the days when you'd get your fingers cut off for saying it if the English caught you.
I'm still learning my way around the TDP, but love it. I also bought a 10-pack of the LSB daily prayer cards,which are the 4 offices in TDP, and also in the LSB (and are laminated). I keep a copy by by bed, by my chair in the living room, and on the document stand on my desk at work. When time is short, I always have something I can use in that short time. Not being a morning person, I seldom have time for the morning office, but once I get to work, I usually go through the prayers on the card (but no other readins due to time) I feel ready to start my day after those prayers. For those of you who are thinking she bought 10 - where are the other 7? I have been handing them out like crazy (actually, I bought 3 packs). Everyone I've given one to loves it.
Sue,
Good for you for passing out the Daily Prayer cards from LSB! They are really a great and very portable resource for anyone on the go.
You may be aware of this already but CPH also publishes a small booklet of Collects that go very nicely with the prayer cards. The booklet contains all of the Prayers of the Day for the Sundays and Seasons, Feasts, Festivals and Occasions in Lutheran Service Book, including both the three-year and one-year lectionaries. One could easily pray the collect from the past Sunday throughout the coming week and of course having the collects for Feast and Festival days adds some great options.
PE,
Fascinating about that Irish one-decade Rosary! The Irish people surely endured much under English rule.
Regarding the "hymn of the day", interestingly I've never encountered that description in my parish. I did in the ELCA one I used to belong to. Where I am now our hymns are our prayers in response to what we have heard in the Word and received in the Sacrament of the Altar.
Still, I can appreciate your fondness for the low Mass back in the day. It was uncomplicated, did what it was supposed to do and was unfettered by the hybridized liturgies that infect so many RC parishes now.
I felt sorry for the older parishioners I used to see at Mass. So many of them still looked shell-shocked by the changes. There were those who continued to kneel throughout the Eucharistic canon even though many bishops have now mandated that the people stand in order to foster "community."
Christine
I hope I've been clear that I do not at all challenge hymns, hymns of the day, usw, and am quite on board with that, but rather am trying to flesh out how it is a distinct shift from the mindset of the Mass which is one of the things lost in the shuffle and not well understood as we reclaim some of what we lost in our earlier attempts to ape American Protestantism even as we lose more in our current attempts to ape American Protestantism.
When I read Luther on liturgy it immediately makes sense to me, as he knew this stuff first hand. When I read many of our current liturgists it's much like reading news reports on a war as opposed to talking with other soldiers who have been there.
Putting together the TDP was a huge undertaking and the results are more than respectable. However, its prose strikes me as rather flat; especially when the prayers begin in the annoying "O Lord, You have done so & so" fashion, where the traditional equivalent reverently begins, "O Lord who hast done so & so." Anybody know why the linguistic tradition of the BCP and the TLH was not followed?
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