LOTH

[KarenElissa]

Random question, why do some Saints days have their own antiphons for the canticles and others don’t?

For example today, the 10th, and 11th are all Memorials and Charles Borromeo only has a prayer while Leo the Great has his own antiphons for the canticles. Then Martin of Tours has his own antiphons for everything as well as his own reading.

Why the difference?

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Random question, why do some Saints days have their own antiphons for the canticles and others don’t?

For example today, the 10th, and 11th are all Memorials and Charles Borromeo only has a prayer while Leo the Great has his own antiphons for the canticles. Then Martin of Tours has his own antiphons for everything as well as his own reading.

Why the difference?

I don’t know for certain but I think it just depends on the saint’s ‘rank’. If it’s a solemnity the saint’s day will probably have its own propers. The lower the rank the less likely the saint’s day will have it’s own proper. I hope the following might help.

Solemnity - EP I & II are proper, Invitatory Antiphon is proper, Office of Readings is proper, Lauds is proper but psalms of Sunday Week I are used, Daytime Prayer is taken from the Psalter or the Proper of the Season but the Final Prayer is proper. Compline is as for Sundays.

Feast - Invitatory Antiphon is proper, Office of Readings is proper, Lauds is proper but psalms of Sunday Week I are used, Daytime Prayer the hymn and psalms are from the occurring weekday but the readings and Final Prayer as proper, Vespers is proper, Compline is as for the occurring weekday.

Memorial - Invitatory Antiphon from the Common or occurring weekday, Office of Readings hymn from the Common or occurring weekday, antiphons and psalms from the Psalter, scripture readings for the occurring weekday, hagiographical reading from the Proper or Common, Lauds antiphons and psalms for occurring weekday, Final Prayer is proper, rest of the office can be from the Common or the occurring weekday, Daytime Prayer everything is from the occurring weekday, Vespers as Lauds, Compline everything for the occurring weekday.

In the above wherever the ‘proper’ is called for, if the saint lacks any propers then those parts of the office are taken from the appropriate Common.

 

[KarenElissa]

I don’t know for certain but I think it just depends on the saint’s ‘rank’. If it’s a solemnity the saint’s day will probably have its own propers. The lower the rank the less likely the saint’s day will have it’s own proper. I hope the following might help.

Ya, that is true in part, but it still doesn’t totally explain the differences. In the example I gave, they are all ranked the same, memorial, but range from only their own prayer up to their own antiphons for all the psalms and their own reading. And then the 9th is a Feast (so logically should have quite a few of its own propers), but has absolutely none, not even its own prayer.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Ya, that is true in part, but it still doesn’t totally explain the differences. In the example I gave, they are all ranked the same, memorial, but range from only their own prayer up to their own antiphons for all the psalms and their own reading. And then the 9th is a Feast (so logically should have quite a few of its own propers), but has absolutely none, not even its own prayer.

Admittedly, I didn’t check the ranks of the holy days you mentioned. Some memorials have their own Propers and some do not; I don’t know why. With respect to Feasts: your OP was about the antiphons for canticles - at Lauds the antiphon for the OT canticle and the OT canticle itself during the Psalmody should be from the Psalter for Sunday Week I, the antiphon for the Benedictus should be Proper. At Vespers the antiphon for the NT canticle during the Psalmody, the NT canticle itself, and the Magnificat Antiphon should be Proper. At Compline, the antiphon for the Nunc Dimittis is taken from the occurring feria.

 

[laszlo]

I guess that the proper antiphons in the LOTH are coming from the traditional offices.

AI quick search on the traditional offices shows that three categories have proper antiphons:

• the first class offices together with all the Sundays
• the offices of the popular ancient (usually Roman) saints: in November St Clement, St Cecilia, later in the winter Lucia, Agnete, Agatha… These are 3rd class offices

-the mostly newer offices of our Lord or the Blessed Virgin Mary. These are usually 2nd class offices

• those saints whose offices were pushed into the universal Church by their communities.

The proper antiphons usually narrate the hagiographies of the Saints, especially the antiphons of the Matins, which could not be transferred to the Liturgy of the Hours. Probably this is the rule: if in the ancient times they had enough information about the life of the Saint, it was put to the antiphons too; if not, the antiphons were take from the common, like for some offices for Apostles.

 

[Spirithound]

Random question, why do some Saints days have their own antiphons for the canticles and others don’t?

For example today, the 10th, and 11th are all Memorials and Charles Borromeo only has a prayer while Leo the Great has his own antiphons for the canticles. Then Martin of Tours has his own antiphons for everything as well as his own reading.

Why the difference?

I wondered this as well, and I can only guess that within the rank of Memorials, the saints may be ranked according to their relative status…Sorry St. Charles, I’m sure somebody will write your antiphons someday

 

[AJV]

Random question, why do some Saints days have their own antiphons for the canticles and others don’t?

For example today, the 10th, and 11th are all Memorials and Charles Borromeo only has a prayer while Leo the Great has his own antiphons for the canticles. Then Martin of Tours has his own antiphons for everything as well as his own reading.

Why the difference?

It really depends on historical circumstances and when each Office was composed and why.

St. Martin, for example, had an immensely popular cult in much of mediaeval Europe especially the the parts that were ruled by the Merovingians and the Carolingians. Thus, when the Office was taken up into the curial breviary, it passed on into the breviary of St. Pius V and then into the modern one.

If you look at the feasts that have proper Canticle antiphons, it will be usually (but not always) be one of these types:

1. memorials of the Christ, the Blessed Virgin, holy angels or Ss. Joseph ro John the Baptist
2. very popular mediaevel saints
3. great fathers of the Church, especially if associated with the Church at Rome. If their works are popular also, then most likely there will be an antiphon, excerpted from there.This is particularly because the revisers of the LOTH, in removing so many Roman feasts, attempted to highlight the ‘virtues’ so to speak, in the ones remaining.

Aug 5 - Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major (1)
Aug 20 - St. Bernard (3)
Aug 22 - Queenship BVM (1)
Aug 27 and 28 - Ss. Monica and Augustine (3) - the antiphons are from St. Augustine’s works
August 29 - Beheading of St. John (1)
September 3 - Gregory the Great (3)