Solemn post-conciliar Vespers?

[Jon_in_the_Nati]

For Christmas Eve, my parish is planning to celebrate solemn vespers in the post-conciliar form (that is, adhering to the current Liturgy of the Hours) prior to midnight’s high mass. It would be lovely to celebrate Extraordinary Form Vespers, but the people of the parish simply are not amenable to Latin. In any case, our priest asked me to set this up and make it as ‘user-friendly’ as possible.

The plan is for Solemn (First) Vespers of Christmas at 11pm, followed by music and hymn-singing, leading to Mass at midnight.

Does anyone here have any experience celebrating the current LotH in ‘solemn’ form? I can find precious few resources available for such an event, and I would appreciate any assistance or advice anyone could give.

 

[Denho]

Why not do the Office of Readings? That is the appropriate office, not Vespers.

 

[edward_george]

We have solemn vespers here at the seminary, and I encountered it frequently at my undergrad college. If you’d like, PM me and I can give you some specifics about how the rubrics work.

-ACEGC

 

[YoungTradCath]

This is off point, but I want to say this is super creepy because just a week or so ago I started a thread with this EXACT title… =p

 

[JGMendes4049]

Why not do the Office of Readings? That is the appropriate office, not Vespers.

This.

Here is the Office of Readings for Christmas. That does not include the Invitatory, which you should also add to the beginning.

 

[John_Lilburne]

For Christmas Eve, my parish is planning to celebrate solemn vespers in the post-conciliar form (that is, adhering to the current Liturgy of the Hours) prior to midnight’s high mass. It would be lovely to celebrate Extraordinary Form Vespers, but the people of the parish simply are not amenable to Latin. In any case, our priest asked me to set this up and make it as ‘user-friendly’ as possible.

The plan is for Solemn (First) Vespers of Christmas at 11pm, followed by music and hymn-singing, leading to Mass at midnight.

Does anyone here have any experience celebrating the current LotH in ‘solemn’ form? I can find precious few resources available for such an event, and I would appreciate any assistance or advice anyone could give.

Solemn form suggests singing nearly everything and using incense during the Gospel canticle.

What resources are you looking for? How the ceremony happens? A description of Ceremonial of Bishops chapter “Celebration of Evening Prayer on Major Solemnities”? The order for the entrance procession? The instructions on who leads the ceremony? Music for singing the psalms? The liturgical books for the Liturgy of the Hours? Recordings? When to stand and sit instructions?

 

[OraLabora]

11 pm is too late for Vespers. Vigils (or Office of Readings as it’s now known) as pointed out would be more appropriate. Before Midnight Mass, our abbey chants Vigils. It’s beautiful, they sing the genealogy of Jesus (in French), ornate responsories in Latin, hymn in Latin.

Might be over the top for parishes though and it’s very long as it’s monastic Vigils, which in our abbey is 6 psalms (two nocturnes of 3 each) plus 3 OT canticles, two long readings (bible and patristic), and of course the gospel (the genealogy).