LOTH Invitory question

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LOL, I assure you, no offense taken. In terms of my qualifications, I once studied theology as a graduate student in a facility staffed by Benedictine monks. Even though they had their own Benedictine breviaries, for the benefit of us students they taught us and led us in the use of the 4-Volume LOTH as well as Christian Prayer. We would join them for MP and EP in a small chapel each day. I did this for six years, and that’s about how long it took me to get the hang of it. As I said in another post, the LOTH is not the most user friendly prayer book out there.
Which is why learning to pray the LOTH with a group, that does it as a tradition, is the best way to learn it.

The OCDS group I prayed the LOTH, was according to Discalced Carmelite Tradition in using the Breviary.

Monasteries often have their own LOTH, and like the Trappist, they follow a 2 week cycle, where the Breviary is a 4 week cycle.

Jim
 
I appreciate your patience, sir. You do repeat the antiphon after every psalm, no?
Yes, the normal procedure for all psalms & canticles in the LOTH is:

Antiphon
Psalm / Canticle
Doxology (unless it is the Canticle from Daniel used in MP of Sunday Week I, because the LOTH has a traditional Doxology already attached to its end).
(Psalm Prayer, if provided)
Repeat Antiphon

So repeating the antiphon is, indeed, done after every psalm.

Note that the 4-Volume LOTH has the antiphon for a psalm / canticle listed twice (at its beginning and end) but Christian Prayer only lists an antiphon once, and this was done simply to save space.
 
Which is why learning to pray the LOTH with a group, that does it as a tradition, is the best way to learn it.
Absolutely! And if a group is not available I would recommend that people desiring to learn the breviary set up a series of sessions with either a priest, deacon or nun to gradually learn it. Of course it also helps to have the St. Joseph Guide to the LOTH, which comes in a version for the 4-Volume Breviary as well as Christian Prayer.

Having a breviary app is good also because it does all the work for you (at least in theory). Unfortunately, some of those apps still mess things up, and they also make the choices for you (for example, one of my apps does not allow you to do the material for an optional memorial).
 
Basically it is saying that the invitatory may be omitted if you use the invitatory. I’m guessing that there was some nuance being addressed from the General Instructions of the LOTH but something got lost in the translation, or the current rubric did not go in enough proper detail. As it stands, I would just ignore this.
I think there’s some misunderstanding here. (although it could be me, not understanding the question)

It’s not saying “the invitatory may be omitted if you use the invitatory.”

If you pray,say, the Invitatory followed by Morning Prayer, when you get to Morning Prayer, what you omit is the “God, come to my assistance,” etc.
If, for some reason, you are going straight into Morning Prayer without the Invitatory, then you begin Morning Prayer with the “God, come to my assistance,” etc., that is printed just before the hymn.
 
I think there’s some misunderstanding here. (although it could be me, not understanding the question)

It’s not saying “the invitatory may be omitted if you use the invitatory.”
The actual rubric (as found on the bottom of page 650 of Vol. 3), states the following in the section of instructions regarding the invitatory:
“The psalm with its antiphon may be omitted when the invitatory precedes Morning Prayer.”

Not only is this part of the section specifically describing the invitatory, but at this point the invitatory psalm and its antiphon are the only psalm & invitatory addressed by the rubrics. The implication is that the psalm & antiphon in question are indeed the *invitatory *psalm & antiphon. Hence, the rubric is basically saying “the invitatory may be omitted if you use the invitatory.”
If you pray,say, the Invitatory followed by Morning Prayer, when you get to Morning Prayer, what you omit is the “God, come to my assistance,” etc.
If, for some reason, you are going straight into Morning Prayer without the Invitatory, then you begin Morning Prayer with the “God, come to my assistance,” etc., that is printed just before the hymn.
I think this is perhaps what the author intended to convey on page 650 but the instructions and implication of the actual text does not properly do the job. I say this for two reasons…
  1. The rubric in question speaks of “the psalm with its antiphon”. Although the text that you cited (“God, come to my assistance…”) is drawn from the psalter, it is not considered a psalm in the context of the LOTH. Moreover, herein there is no element of an antiphon whatsoever. It is, rather, the opening verse and its response (accompanied by the Doxology).
  2. The rule that you are referring to is listed separately in the instructions for OR and MP (on pages 651 & 655). Moreover, it is worded differently from the rubric I cited from the instructions for the invitatory. Referring to the opening verse/response/Doxology, the instructions for OR state, “If the office begins with the invitatory, all the above is omitted.” The instructions for MP state, “This verse and response are omitted when the hour begins with the invitatory.” So why would the instructions call the “God, come to my assistance…” part a “psalm & antiphon” on page 650 (in the description of the invitatory) but then call it a “verse and response” on page 655 (in the description of MP)?
As I said, I think that the authors of the LOTH intended for the rubric on page 650 to address omitting the opening verse/response/doxology for OR / MP, but messed up the wording. That is why I said initially said that, as it stands now, it makes no sense. One has to go beyond the text and presume it was not actually referring to the invitatory psalm & antiphon (despite the textual evidence that it is) but rather the opening verse/response/Doxology of the OR / MP.
 
Anther question from today’s office of readings:

After final psalm prayer and sacred silence there is the following prayer:

The Lord led this holy man along a sure path.
– He showed him the kingdom of God.

Where is this located in the breviary? (pg. #)
 
Anther question from today’s office of readings:

After final psalm prayer and sacred silence there is the following prayer:

The Lord led this holy man along a sure path.
– He showed him the kingdom of God.

Where is this located in the breviary? (pg. #)
OK, I don’t see that in my Breviary nor at divineoffice.org

So, I wonder if you’re using the same Breviary?

Jim
 
Anther question from today’s office of readings:

After final psalm prayer and sacred silence there is the following prayer:

The Lord led this holy man along a sure path.
– He showed him the kingdom of God.

Where is this located in the breviary? (pg. #)
This section of the OR is called the Verse. Although your question was posted at almost 1:00 a.m. forum time, I presume that by “today” you are still referring to July 11, and, therefore, we are still talking about the memorial of St. Benedict.

Here is the short answer to your question. The Verse you posted is found on page 1807.

This also indicates that the breviary software you used in this case made a mistake. (Seeing as you are asking for a page number, and mentioned the “sacred silence”, I assume that you have downloaded a breviary app or gotten some breviary software that you are trying out).

To explain how the breviary software made a mistake, I will now walk you through it (and therefore I will now launch into the long answer to your question).

Let me first demonstrate the correct process (if someone wants to be true to all the various rubrics in the LOTH) for determining which Verse to use for July 11.
1) Check to see what is provided in the Proper of Saints specifically for St. Benedict. As you can see on page 1528 - 1529, the only material provided for this day for OR is the Second Reading and the post-reading Responsory. There is no Verse for OR specifically designated for July 11.

2) Check the rubrics for July 11 in the Proper of the Saints for special instructions. It says, “From the common of holy men: religious, 1858, except for the following:” This is a very standard sort of instruction that pops up in the Proper, and makes things confusing. In reality, very little is taken from the mentioned common.

3) Check the ranking of this holy day. We see that it is a memorial, so we are to use the general rules pertaining to memorials. We find this in the rubrics in the Ordinary (and the Ordinary is simply the section which gives the general rules for praying the different offices). Therein, on page 651, we see the following rule pertaining to the Psalmody for the OR: “For the memorial of saints, the psalm and antiphons are taken from the current week of the Psalter, unless there are proper psalms and antiphons” (and in Step 1 we concluded that there were not proper psalms and antiphons). Moreover, concerning the OR’s Verse we read (on page 652), “For the Sunday and weekday offices and on the memorials of saints, the verse is given in the Psalter after the psalms.” Another way of saying all this is that on the memorial of saints, unless provided for in the Proper of Saints, the psalmody, antiphons and verse are taken “from the weekday” (i.e., the Weekday Psalter: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 & Week 4).

4) Based on the above instructions, yesterday when praying the OR for the Memorial of St. Benedict, we were to use the Verse from the OR for Wedneday of Week 2, which is found on page 895 (i.e., “I put all my trust in the word of the Lord. - All my hope is in him.”)

In light of this, here is the mistake that your breviary software made pertaining to the selection of the Verse to use with OR for the Memorial of St. Benedict. The designer of the software was, apparently, simply following the instructions found in the Proper of Saints for July 11. In other words, the designer saw the caption, “From the common of holy men: religious, 1858, except for the following:” and took this at face value. The designer either did not know or forgot about the rubrics for OR found in the Ordinary which state that the Psalmody and Verse for OR on the memorial of a saint are taken from the weekday and not a common (unless, of course, such things are provided in the Proper of Saints for that day). So he went to the “religious” subcategory for the Common of Holy Men and noticed on page 1858 that there is not a Verse listed. According to the rubrics for using the Common of Holy Men: Religious (on page 1857), “Everything is taken from the common of holy men, 1798… except for the following.” So, based on this, he went to find the Verse designated for OR from the Common of Holy Men and, lo and behold, therein on page 1807 we see, “The Lord led this holy man along a sure path. - He showed him the kingdom of God.” This, of course, is the Verse that you asked about.

As I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, the problem with breviary apps (and other brievary software) is that they sometimes mess up. This is a good example of that. Had July 11 had the ranking of a Feast or a Solemnity, then we would have used the Verse that your breviary software displayed, but being a memorial we were not supposed to use the Common for Holy Men for this.

As a side note, if you are curious exactly what one would use the Common of Holy Men for on the Memorial of St. Benedict, you have the option of using its Intercessions for MP & EP (pages 1819 and 1826-1827) or using the Intercessions for the weekday (which, yesterday, were on pages 902-903 & 914-915). That’s it. Had the proper not already provided gospel antiphons for both MP & EP, you would have had the same choice (either using the ones from the weekday or the ones listed in the religious section of the Common of Holy Men - pages 1863 & 1865). Once again, these instructions are pulled from the Ordinary section of the LOTH.
 
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