Divine Office in Western Tradition

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Little_Boy_Lost

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I noticed several Traditional parishes celebrated vespers at least once a week. I was wondering if this was commonplace before the 20th century in all parishes or something that has been received back into the traditional practice of parish life following the turn around from vatican II abuses?

As a former Anglican (now Byzantine Catholic) Morning and Evening prayer were celebrated at all but the most liberal parishes. And in most Byzantine parishes I’ve attended Vespers and Orthos are each celebrated at least once a week.

And my second question is do people forsee either the Anglican Use Parishes or Tradtional Mass parishes effecting much the addition of Divine Office to Novus Ordo parishes?
 
In Hungary until the 20th Century in every Sunday the Vespers was prayed at 3 PM . Basically the St Pius X reform changed it to the Litanies, what was understood by the faithful.

In my parish now the clergy in the presence of the faithful prays the Liturgy of Hours every day in entirety

7:15 Matins and Lauds
11:45 Sext
4:45 Rosary and Vespers
6:45 Compline

stpetervolo.org/bullentin/latest-bulletin.pdf
 
In my very Vatican II parish Morning Prayer is celebrated every morning in the church. My friend’s parish has Vespers every SUnday. It is not a "traditional"thing vs. a “Post-Vat II” thing, it is the decision of the pastor to offer it or not. Some do, some don’t.
 
I’m a Lay Chaplain to a University in England and we celebrate Lauds and Vespers every day and the Angelus at noon. Having said that the Priest has two schools and a parish as well so we only have Mass three times a week so something more prayer wise is needed.
 
That is really cool. Are you all from outside the united states? I just have never seen them offered at your local neighborhood parish. And I feel the appreciation for the Divine Office is close to zero amongst the faithful.
 
Little_Boy_Lost said:
I noticed several Traditional parishes celebrated vespers at least once a week. I was wondering if this was commonplace before the 20th century in all parishes or something that has been received back into the traditional practice of parish life following the turn around from vatican II abuses?

As a former Anglican (now Byzantine Catholic) Morning and Evening prayer were celebrated at all but the most liberal parishes. And in most Byzantine parishes I’ve attended Vespers and Orthos are each celebrated at least once a week.

And my second question is do people forsee either the Anglican Use Parishes or Tradtional Mass parishes effecting much the addition of Divine Office to Novus Ordo parishes?
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It is not a traditional vs. post-Vatican II thing. If you read the General Instruction at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Hours you will find at least the public celebration of Evening Prayer in parish churches on Sundays is strongly recommended.
 
I our Pastoral Unit, Lauds is prayed on days where there is no Mass.

It’s a hit-and-miss thing. I’ve bee pushing for our Gregorian schola to do Sunday Vespers at least once per liturgical season. No luck, in particular, no support from the priests 😦
 
Matthew_Holford said:
It is not a traditional vs. post-Vatican II thing. If you read the General Instruction at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Hours you will find at least the public celebration of Evening Prayer in parish churches on Sundays is strongly recommended.
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On the contrary, it is a “traditional” vs. post-conciliar phenomenon insofar as, in general, parish celebrations of the Office were incredibly rare in much of the Latin world prior to Vatican II. This was, of course, already on the way to changing prior to the council via initiatives of the liturgical movement, but the fact remains that parish celebrations are a recovery effort, not a mark of continuity with the standard practice of, say, the 19th and early 20th century.

Prior to that time things had been much different. In the early Church, the “cathedral” form of the Office found wide, daily participation among the faithful. While we have no evidence of a cathedral form for the Roman church, we nonetheless know that even the highly monastic form of the Roman/Latin Office enjoyed parish use well into the Middle Ages. Attendance at Sunday/feast Vespers was in many places considered just as integral a part of one’s “Sunday obligation” as assistance at Mass. Yet the more “monasticized” the Office became and, later, the more Latin drifted out of intellectual use, the more removed the Office became from the lay faithful. Already in the course of various 16th century reforms (including that of St. Pius V), it was assumed that the Office was something prayed by clerics; i.e. not celebrated by clerics on behalf of any and all who also might participate, but something prayed not only by clerics alone but increasingly in a private - solitary and unsung - manner. This assumption ruled regulation of the Office even through the reforms of St. Pius X. Only with the advance of the 20th century liturgical movement were attempts made to recover the Divine Office as the prayer of the whole Church in a robustly practical, rather than theoretical, sense.
 
Andreas_Hofer said:
On the contrary, it is a “traditional” vs. post-conciliar phenomenon insofar as, in general, parish celebrations of the Office were incredibly rare in much of the Latin world prior to Vatican II. This was, of course, already on the way to changing prior to the council via initiatives of the liturgical movement, but the fact remains that parish celebrations are a recovery effort, not a mark of continuity with the standard practice of, say, the 19th and early 20th century.

Prior to that time things had been much different. In the early Church, the “cathedral” form of the Office found wide, daily participation among the faithful. While we have no evidence of a cathedral form for the Roman church, we nonetheless know that even the highly monastic form of the Roman/Latin Office enjoyed parish use well into the Middle Ages. Attendance at Sunday/feast Vespers was in many places considered just as integral a part of one’s “Sunday obligation” as assistance at Mass. Yet the more “monasticized” the Office became and, later, the more Latin drifted out of intellectual use, the more removed the Office became from the lay faithful. Already in the course of various 16th century reforms (including that of St. Pius V), it was assumed that the Office was something prayed by clerics; i.e. not celebrated by clerics on behalf of any and all who also might participate, but something prayed not only by clerics alone but increasingly in a private - solitary and unsung - manner. This assumption ruled regulation of the Office even through the reforms of St. Pius X. Only with the advance of the 20th century liturgical movement were attempts made to recover the Divine Office as the prayer of the whole Church in a robustly practical, rather than theoretical, sense.
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I haven’t noticed any increase in the celebration of Evening Prayer post Vatican II. I cannot agree with your statement about the frequency of attendance at the Divine Office being related to a decline in people’s comprehension of Latin. There is good historical evidence that at one time many of the faithful would attend the Office. The overwhelming majority of then would not have understood Latin at all and the majority would have been illiterate in their own vernacular. There may well have been other causes for the decline in attendance at the Office but a loss of Latin among the people couldn’t have been one of them.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
I haven’t noticed any increase in the celebration of Evening Prayer post Vatican II. I cannot agree with your statement about the frequency of attendance at the Divine Office being related to a decline in people’s comprehension of Latin. There is good historical evidence that at one time many of the faithful would attend the Office. The overwhelming majority of then would not have understood Latin at all and the majority would have been illiterate in their own vernacular. There may well have been other causes for the decline in attendance at the Office but a loss of Latin among the people couldn’t have been one of them.
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It’s not as if Evening Prayer is a phenomenon that is gripping the Church at the moment, but it has nonetheless seen a resurgence. The University of Notre Dame, for instance, was a center strongly pushing for the reintegration of evening prayer into ecclesial life, and to this day it celebrates Sunday Vespers throughout the academic year. My own cathedral does not celebrate them with such regularity, but nonetheless provides at least occasional Sunday and feast offerings. Even such limited celebrations did not exist 100 years ago in most of the Church.
 
My local cathedral offers the following:

Monday to Saturday - lauds, four masses, two public rosaries
Sunday - lauds, seven masses, public rosary, and 4 PM vespers

A number of other parishes in the archdiocese offer lauds, but this an exception not a norm. The divine office is an essential part of the liturgy of the Church. While I do not wish to diminish the holy rosary in any way, I sometimes wonder why the faithful are so strongly encouraged to regularly pray the rosary (by popes, saints, lay groups, and even Our Lady herself - eg. Fatima), but so little emphasis is given to the liturgy of the hours. The rosary is ‘quasi-liturgical’, I would argue, in that the Church encourages the faithful to recite it corporately as a parish community, but it seems that it has surpassed, in the minds of the faithful, the truly liturgical divine offices. In the Eastern Catholic Churches there is far more emphasis on the liturgy of the hours - so much so, in fact, that I understand that some particular churches allow the faithful to satisfy their Sunday obligation by assisting at Great Vespers on Saturday, even if they do not make it to a eucharistic liturgy…
 
twf said:
My local cathedral offers the following:

Monday to Saturday - lauds, four masses, two public rosaries
Sunday - lauds, seven masses, public rosary, and 4 PM vespers

A number of other parishes in the archdiocese offer lauds, but this an exception not a norm. The divine office is an essential part of the liturgy of the Church. While I do not wish to diminish the holy rosary in any way, I sometimes wonder why the faithful are so strongly encouraged to regularly pray the rosary (by popes, saints, lay groups, and even Our Lady herself - eg. Fatima), but so little emphasis is given to the liturgy of the hours. The rosary is ‘quasi-liturgical’, I would argue, in that the Church encourages the faithful to recite it corporately as a parish community, but it seems that it has surpassed, in the minds of the faithful, the truly liturgical divine offices. In the Eastern Catholic Churches there is far more emphasis on the liturgy of the hours - so much so, in fact, that I understand that some particular churches allow the faithful to satisfy their Sunday obligation by assisting at Great Vespers on Saturday, even if they do not make it to a eucharistic liturgy…
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I think your analysis is quite correct. In the Eastern Churches great emphasis is placed on the Church’s liturgy. Private devotions are almost unknown in the Eastern Churches, whereas in the Latin Church there are many.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
I think your analysis is quite correct. In the Eastern Churches great emphasis is placed on the Church’s liturgy. Private devotions are almost unknown in the Eastern Churches, whereas in the Latin Church there are many.
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I wouldn’t go as far as to say that “private devotions are almost unknown in the Eastern Churches”, I would say public recitation of private devotions is unknown.
 
I wasn’t sure I wanted to respond to this thread, considering the wording of the OP.
I recommend reading the Vatican II documents, specifically the document regarding reform of religious orders.
Religious and priests are required to recite LOTH daily, specifically Lauds and Vespers. This has not changed.
Prior to Vatican II, praying the LOTH was primarily the domain of religious communities and priests. The divine office is almost as old as the Church itself. It is one way of “praying always” by honoring the hours of the day. The rosary actually comes out of the laity’s desire to join in the prayer they heard the monks reciting daily. St. Benedict is credited with standardizing the Liturgy of the Hours as it is prayed today.
Vatican II encourages the laity to join those who have taken religious vows. The laity is especially encouraged to pray Lauds and Vespers, the hinges of the Divine Office.
I first became acquainted with the LOTH while on an Easter retreat. I generally pray the Office of Readings (modified since I use the one volume Christian Prayer) plus Morning Prayer.
Many in my current parish attend early morning Mass daily. They now pray morning prayer (Lauds) before Mass using the Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer. Note, I am overseas and a different translation is used than the stateside NAB translation with which I am familiar. The complete office, not yet available in the parish bookstore, comes in 3 volumes rather than 4.
 
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