Invitatory at Vigils

[Errham]

When reading the Office of Readings as a vigils service (or any day as an anticipatory service, for that matter) would the invitatory be said? And would I repeat the invitatory for lauds the next morning or use the standard introduction? Since a vigil service should technically open the liturgical day, according to the rubrics it should be prayed with the invitatory. However, waking up in the morning and not praying the invitatory just doesn’t feel right, if you know what I mean. What’s the procedure here?

Pax
-Errham

 

[OraLabora]

No. The Invitatory is for the first Office of the day, in the morning (that is, you say it for either the Office of Readings/Vigils or Lauds, but not the other Offices if they are first). Anticipated Vigils is said on the previous day. You would start Lauds with the invitatory. Though I’ve heard the Invitatory being said (sung really) at Christmas Vigils in a couple of monasteries.

Vigils does not open the liturgical day on every day, if anticipated. Usually it is First Vespers on Sundays, feasts of the Lord, and solemnities, that opens the liturgical day. One never starts First Vespers with the Invitatory!

 

[LiturgyGuy]

No. The Invitatory is for the first Office of the day, in the morning (that is, you say it for either the Office of Readings/Vigils or Lauds, but not the other Offices if they are first). Anticipated Vigils is said on the previous day. You would start Lauds with the invitatory. Though I’ve heard the Invitatory being said (sung really) at Christmas Vigils in a couple of monasteries.

Vigils does not open the liturgical day on every day, if anticipated. Usually it is First Vespers on Sundays, feasts of the Lord, and solemnities, that opens the liturgical day. One never starts First Vespers with the Invitatory!

Why do you say that? The breviary says that “The invitatory belongs at the very beginning of each day’s prayer. It precedes either the Office of Readings or Morning Prayer; the liturgical day may begin with either hour.”

If you prayed Office of Readings during the night, like 2 or 3 am, you would begin with the invitatory. Why not when praying OoR before Compline?

 

[OraLabora]

Why do you say that? The breviary says that “The invitatory belongs at the very beginning of each day’s prayer. It precedes either the Office of Readings or Morning Prayer; the liturgical day may begin with either hour.”

If you prayed Office of Readings during the night, like 2 or 3 am, you would begin with the invitatory. Why not when praying OoR before Compline?

It’s been the practice of the Benedictine monasteries that say Vigils the previous day by anticipation, to open Lauds with the invitatory (and I’ve stayed in one where this was the practice). The only exception I have seen is Christmas Vigils.

It’s a bit poorly explained in the Breviary. The “liturgical day” really begins at midnight on ordinary ferias. The only days when the liturgical day really opens the previous evening, is when there are First Vespers, that is Sundays, solemnities, and feasts of the Lord. Saying an Office by anticipation doesn’t really open the day IMHO.

It would make no sense, for example, to pray anticipated Vigils (Office of Readings) preceded by the invitatory, when we follow that Office with Compline of the current day. The Invitatory is the liturgical act that sets the whole subsequent day, but it can’t be interrupted by going back to an Office of the current day (e.g. Compline of the current day following the OOR of tomorrow).

You might therefore make a case for using the Invitatory before the OOR anticipated the previous evening, on Sundays, feasts of the Lord and solemnities, but the case is weak indeed, on days when there are no First Vespers. Those days begin and end (liturgically) at midnight.

 

[KD8TZC]

Personally, I just pray the invitatory as my first prayer after midnight of the current day. So if I get up really early and pray the lauds, I pray the invitatory first, or if I get up late, or am sick and I don’t get to the lauds until maybe after noon (doesn’t happen often), I would still start with the invitatory. I start the same way with vigils too.

Also, remember what the Invitatory is… an invitation to pray. It serves to bring us into the presence of God, it helps us to set aside the concerns that crowd in at the beginning of the day, and it calls us to give our full attention to God. It is like the warm up that an athlete does before the actual event, a slow flexing of the spiritual muscles. The invitatory begins the dialogue with God, which continues throughout the whole Office.

 

[OraLabora]

Here’s more info. I was looking at the tables in the General Instructions of the Monastic Liturgy of the Hours (basically the same as for the LOTH but with the Monastic variants). These tables give a couple of alternate ways of organizing Monastic Schema B.

One of the variants has Vigils said in anticipation the previous days. On this table it shows quite clearly that the Invitatory comes before Lauds and not before Vigils.

I grant that the GILH is not very clear on this point. The Monastic version of the GILH is though