The alb is a garment proper to any baprized person, so I would think that wearing an alb would be perfectly OK.
Are you familiar with the following condemnation of such practices by the Council of Florence? I realize not every word in it applies to your case, but I submit it to you for your consideration in any case.
This is not true. From the General Instructions of the Liturgy of the Hours:
By your argument at daily Mass the liturgical participation of the faithful in their part of the Mass would not be “liturgical” because the faithful are not bound to daily attendance at Mass. This is most certainly false.
I don’t know why you would, but I also don’t know that you shouldn’t. It seems like it would be perfectly licit for you to wear cassock and alb or, as in the Anglican office, the proper choir dress (e.g. academic hood, surplice, cassock).
Good answer!
Interesting! I am a long way from thinking my prayer shawl is necessary for my salvation. My parents also had me circumcised, but It was far from being a religious event. I expect that Florence was reacting to some sort of outbreak of neo-judiazers. Recall that Councils often are proscribing some current situation that by now has pretty much ceased to exist. Interesting though that some people still want to believe that the practice of much of the old mosiac law has anything to do with their salvation.
No, I didn’t think you did, which I why I bolded the appropriate section that even if you don’t think it is necessary for salvation that it cannot be engaged in. There are many Judaeizers today in the Church, who are trying to bring back the cedar meal, which is forbidden by this council, and other Jewish practices, such as prayer shawls, etc.
Nothing that you quoted says that the faithful’s participation in the office when prayed in private is an act of liturgy, which is the public worship of the Church. The Mass and office are two different things, even if the latter flows from the former.
This is not what I have gathered from my research on the topic, though I haven’t done as much reading myself and have simply followed what priests have told me about the topic.
It’s not been my understanding from the Benedictines. It doesn’t cease to be the liturgy of the hours just because it is prayed by a layperson. It doesn’t cease to be the prayer of the entire Church. It’s not limited to the clergy; for laymen it is optional, for clergy, mandatory (priests and bishops, the entire office and for permanent deacons in Canada, Lauds and Vespers).
It does not make the distinction that private recitation by laymen is somehow not liturgical.
It also doesn’t say that it is liturgical when recited in private. The implication (because it is qualified by “according to particular circumstances”), in fact, is that they would take part in it when publicly said in the church.
Does this mean that parents are forbidden to have their sons circumsized, even if it’s not a question of salvation?
I would add that liturgical prayer is the public prayer of the Church. If the faithful are not commissioned by the Church to pray that prayer, how is it public? The ministers of the Church pray at the command of the Church and to fulfill their duty, so wherever they are, they necessarily fulfill this role publicly, just as a priest who says Mass privately still technically says a “public” Mass insofar as every Mass necessarily is the public worship of the Church, the Sacrifice of Christ offered to God the Father.
I really think this is becoming a “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” argument.
Especially since this document is from the Council of Florence. Fifteenth Century disciplines were based on issues that have absolutely no bearing today. Unless someone has a church document that bans such behavior, then it is allowed in private.
I’m sorry, Integra, but Ora is correct here. The praying of the Office is a participation in the prayer of the Church. It is not simply an act of personal piety, but a taking-part in the Church’s continuous worship, praise and supplication of her Lord. Next to the Eucharist, the Office is the best example of what liturgy actually is. That laity can participate in it in private does not mean it is less liturgical–it means that the lives of lay people become liturgy as they take part in the sanctification of time that is part of the Office. Indeed, to claim that private recitation of the Office is not a liturgical act is 1) to misunderstand the etymology of the word “liturgy” (i.e., the work/service of the people); and 2) to deny that reciting the Office is participating in the universal prayer of the church–in other words, just because we pray the Office in private does not mean that we pray it alone.