Thursday, May 08, 2008

Dominican Compline for the Liturgy of the Hours Update

I thank all the readers of New Liturgical Movement and Dominican Liturgy for the comments and questions that they have sent me by email or left in comment boxes. Corrected versions of the Completorii Libellus Novus according to Dominican usage are now up at Dominican Liturgy on the sidebar. Most importantly, two musical problems were fixed. The Litany of Loreto is now cleaner, and I have added choir rubrics from Dominican Proprium (1982) to the introduction.

A number of questions and comments sent to me concern choices made in the compilation of this booklet, as to why I did nor did not include some piece of chant or text. My goal in this project was to include everything that is in the Liturgia Horarum for Compline exactly as it is modified by the official Properium Ordinis Praedicatorum of 1982. My hope wat that this would keep my personal taste out of the process as much as possible. Everything present in the normative Liturgia Horarum is included; anything changed or added by the Properium is changed or added. Nothing else is added, changed, or deleted. Options present in these texts are all present, but no others.

I received one gratifying piece of news, a student from one of the American Dominican provinces contacted me to let me know that they have downloaded the Completorium Novum in the booklet format and intend to start using it at Saturday Night Compline in their Studentate. Very gratifying!

I would still appreciate comments and corrections on this project by as comments or by email, and I will do my best to address them. If you decide to use this book for singing Compline, I would be very pleased to here about how it works out.

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