The Rule of St Benedict Chapter 9 How Many Psalms are to be said at the Night Hours A CATHOLIC PILGRIM JAN 26

In the winter time, first comes the verse: “O God come to my aid, O Lord make haste to help me”, secondly “O Lord open my lips and my mouth shall announce your praise” is said three times; then is added the third Psalm and the Glory Be. Hiemis tempore, praemisso in primis versu: Deus in adiutorium meum intende, Domine ad adiuvandum me festina, in secondo ter dicendum est: Domine labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam; cui subiungendus est tertius Psalmus et Gloria. After this, the ninety-fourth Psalm with an antiphon should be sung. Post hunc, Psalmus nonagesimus quartus cum antiphona, aut certe decantandus. Then follows the Ambrosian hymn. Inde sequitur Ambrosianum. Then six Psalms with antiphons. Deinde sex Psalmi cum antiphonis. These having been said, the Verse is said, let the Abbot give a blessing and, everyone seated on their benches, let three lessons be read from the book on the lectern by the brothers, in turn, between which three responsories are to be sung. Quibus dictis, dicto versu, benedicat Abbas, et sedentibus omnibus in scamnis, legantur vicissim a fratribus in codice super analogium tres lectiones, inter quas tria responsoria cantantur. Two responsories are sung without the Glory Be. Duo responsoria sine Gloria dicantur. After the third lesson, however, let the Glory be be sung; and when as the Cantor begins to say it, all immediately rise from their seats out of honour and reverence for the Holy Trinity. Post tertiam vero lectionem, qui cantat, dicat Gloria; quam dum incipit cantor dicere, mox omnes de sedilibus surgent ob honorem et reverentiam sanctissimae Trinitatis. The books to be read at Vigils are the divinely inspired books of the Old or New Testaments, along with the commentaries on them written by the most renowned, orthodox and catholic fathers. Codices autem legantur in Vigiliis, tam veteris Testamenti, quam novi, divinae auctoritatis; sed et expositiones earum, quae a nominatissimis, et orthodoxis, et catholicis patribus factae sunt. After these three lessons with their responsories, there follow six more Psalms, sung with Alleluia. Post has vero tres lectiones cum responsoriis suis, sequantur reliqui sex Psalmi cum Alleluia cantandi. After these there follows a reading from the Apostle, to be recited by heart, a verse, and the petition of the litany, that is “Lord have mercy”. Post hos lectio apostoli sequitur, ex corde recitanda, et versus, et supplication litaniae, id est Kyrie eleison. And so the Night Office is finished. Et sic finiatur vigiliae nocturnae. Comment St Benedict gives a lot of very practical detail in this chapter and some explanations may be helpful. What is an antiphon? It’s a small piece of text sung before and after the psalm, it usually relates to the feast day if it is a special day, and it could be taken from scripture or freely composed. So for the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, for example, the antiphons are all taken from the account of his conversion in the New Testament. On ordinary days of the year it is most often a verse from a psalm which follows it. The antiphon to Psalm 94 (95 if you follow the Hebrew numbering – the Psalm begins with “Come, let us ring out our joy to the Lord” or similar words) is treated a little differently in that it is repeated between each section of the psalm, which is every two or three verses. Why do we have antiphons? There is some evidence in the psalms themselves that certain verses were repeated, as a refrain. The most obvious example is Psalm 135/136, where the same line is repeated throughout. It is therefore very scriptural and an ancient Jewish practice. So the way it works for all Psalms (except 94) is: Antiphon – Psalm – Glory Be - Antiphon. There is evidence of various ways of reciting the psalms in different places in the early centuries, all having in common the practice of antiphons and the Glory Be in some form. Upgrade to paid Next comes a hymn, which is called “Ambrosianus” because the hymn was reputedly invented by St Ambrose, who was bishop of Milan and died in 397 AD. A number of the hymns used in the Roman and monastic breviary are attributed to him. Others were written by Pope St Gregory the Great (died 604) or are anonymous. Most hymns were written between the 4th and 7th century, so St Benedict (died 547) would certainly recognize a good number of the Latin hymns still in use today. The unique feature of the Night Office/Vigils is the readings. Here is an example from Tuesday for this week from the 1917 Roman Breviary. “Feria Tertia” on the left means Tuesday, under that you can see, in Latin, that the reading is From St Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It’s split into three small chunks (see the word “lectio”). After each reading is a responsory. You will see there is a Glory Be after the third one. The readings are shorter in the Breviary than in the monastic office, in the early centuries they may have been even longer; in the Cluniac order the whole of Genesis was read in one week! The purpose of these readings is not only to ensure the Bible was read regularly, at a time when personal copies of the Bible were very rare, but also to provide the monks with spiritual nourishment. Prayer arises from reading the word of God. The reading of the works of the Fathers of the church reinforces doctrine and gives understanding. It’s not entirely clear how the Psalms were recited in St Benedict’s time; by a single monk, by multiple, with or without repeated antiphons. But for many centuries the practice has been for the Psalm verses to be recited by two groups of monks alternately, in the Choir, which describes a place rather than a group of singers. The monks are divided into two groups, one on each side of the choir. A cantor leads by intoning the beginning of each antiphon or psalm, then the others join in, each side taking one verse in turn. St Benedict doesn’t specify here which psalms are to be read and when, but he does give very direct instructions for some of the other offices, so the psalms left from the other arrangements are mostly arranged in Vigils through the week, in numerical order. One of the monks will be deputed to be the Reader for the week, and he will go to the lectern in the centre of the Choir to read the lessons. These days he could just stay in his place as everyone has books with the readings in them, but in earlier centuries, books were very expensive and time-consuming to produce so one would be placed on the lectern. It would also have large writing so it could be read easily and by candlelight. After the reading the Reader returns to his place to continue the Psalms with the rest of the brothers. The 15th century Choir at Ripon Cathedral, with the lectern in the middle For Vigils, the monks today sit as the office is long, though in St Benedict’s day they may have recited all the Psalms standing. He only mentions sitting during the lessons. This expectation to stand led to the invention of the Misericord; a wooden stall with a seat which can be raised or lowered. When lowered, it is a solid seat; when raised, the monk perches his rear on the misericord and that helps take some of the weight off his feet. Whether leaning against the misericord or sitting, monks always rise and bow deeply during the Gloria at the end of the psalms or responsories. St Benedict does not specifically mention bowing here, but the ancient ways of showing honour to the Trinity are either falling to one’s knees and touching the head to the floor, or by a deep bow from the waist. The 15th century misericords at St Mary’s Beverley, showing a raised misericord with its little perch, the mechanism for lowering it and you can just see on either side two lowered seats. The two sets of 6 psalms are called Nocturns. St Benedict says that the second Nocturn is sung with Alleluia as the antiphon; usually it is three Alleluias. After the first Nocturn, scripture is always read; after the second, a related commentary by one of the Fathers of the church – St Augustine, St Bede, etc. At the end of Vigils, after the second Nocturn, there is a very short reading, read by the weekly reader. St Benedict says it should be done from memory but this would only be possible on ordinary days; on feast days he would most likely need a book unless he was older and had committed more to memory. Every Office in the monastery ends the same way, with Kyrie Eleison, other prayers (the “litany”) and the Our Father; though St Benedict doesn’t mention the Our Father, it is implied. He also doesn’t mention the Collect which wraps everything up. A word on the Psalms mentioned here. St Benedict probably chose Psalm 3 as the first to be sung because of the words: Ego obdormivi et soporatus sum, et exsurrexi quia Dominus suscepit me. I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me. The other function of this Psalm is to allow anyone who is late to get to their place before the Office properly begins with Psalm 94. If a monk arrives before the end of the psalm, he is not considered late to the Work of God (which is a serious offence, as we shall see later in the Rule). Psalm 94 is intended to arouse the fervour of the soul, once it has shaken off sleep. Do have a read of both of these psalms - they are certainly good ones to say in the morning. The Gloria Patri arose at the time of the Arian heresy, where Arius denied that Jesus was true God and true man. It is not explicit here, but on reading the whole Rule, it is clear that it was recited at the end of every psalm. St Benedict has more to say on the night office, so we will pick this up again next week. Incola ego sum in terra © 2024 Incola 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104