Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Part 10.3 - The Reform of Local Calendars in 1961

By a decree of February 14, 1961, the Sacred Congregation for Rites outlined the norms by which local liturgical calendars should be conformed to the revision of the Breviary and Missal issued in the previous year. This decree repeats in broad terms the same principles by which local calendars had been reformed in the reign of St. Pius X, when the new Psalter was promulgated. However, where the 1911 reform was in most cases very conservative, that of 50 years later made way for a much more significant reduction in the number of local Saints. This is a matter of no small consequence for the Breviary, in which individual churches and religious orders celebrated so much of their sacred history and tradition, especially in the lessons of Matins. The complete text of the decree is available in the online version of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis of 1961 (p.168) ; I have here given a summary of it, including only the more salient points.

1. Feasts should be on the local calendar for a good reason, and their liturgical grade should be congruent with their relative importance.

2. Feasts which were originally introduced for a particular reason which is no longer pertinent should be expunged from the calendar.

3. Feasts which were formerly added to a local calendar because of the presence of a relic within a certain territory (such as a diocese) are henceforth to be celebrated only in the church or oratory where the relic itself is actually present.

4. Secondary feasts of a principal patron, titular Saint, or religious founder are to be reduced to commemorations. Secondary feasts of other Saints are to be suppressed. (Among such secondary feasts are those of the translation or finding of a Saint’s relics, and special feasts commemorating the patronage of a Saint in a particular place.)

5. Regularly occurring votive Masses and Offices of patron Saints are suppressed.

6. In special cases, two or more Saints who have hitherto been celebrated with their own individual feasts may be joined into a single feast.

7. Feasts of the early bishops and martyrs of a diocese, of whom little or nothing is historically known, should be suppressed. A common feast of All Bishops or of All Martyrs of a particular diocese may be instituted in their place.

8. Likewise, individual religious orders may institute a feast of All Saints of their order, and keep with an individual feast only those Saints and Blesseds of particular importance to the order. Permission is given to restrict the feasts of less important Saints and Blesseds to the provinces where they formerly lived, or the churches where their relics are kept.

9. Very few feasts of the First or Second class should be admitted to the local calendars, and these only for very particular reasons. The majority of local feasts should be of the Third class.

10. In regards to local patronal feasts, there should be only one, formally recognized by a decree of the Sacred Congregation for Rites, or established as such by immemorial custom. Patronal feasts which were instituted for states that no longer exist, or because of “extraordinary events, such as plagues, wars and other calamities, or because of a special devotion which has now been allowed to lapse”, are no longer to be kept as such.

11. The decree also states that feasts “of devotion”, i.e., feasts that commemorate a particular title or event in the life of the Lord, the Virgin Mary and of other Saints, have been “multiplied exceedingly”, and are to be restricted to those places which have a special reason for keeping them. A list of such feasts is given, of which the only very prominent one is the feast of the Translation of the Holy House of Loreto, formerly kept in all of the dioceses of Italy.

12. The feast of Saint Philomena (which was never on the General Calendar) is to be removed from all local calendars.

13. In regards to the individual lessons provided for local feasts, they should be “brief and sober”, of roughly 120 words, easily understood, and purged of false or “less apt” statements. In cases where accurate historical information about the Saint is lacking, a reading from the common Offices or from the Church Fathers should be chosen.

14. The proper antiphons, hymns and responsories of a Saint’s office should also correspond to historical fact, or be replaced with pieces from the common offices.

15. Provisions are made for those feasts which have more proper features than the new structure of the Office can accommodate, as for example, offices which have four proper hymns, but no longer have First Vespers, and therefore have nowhere to put the hymn of First Vespers. Other rules are given for the manner in which the propers are to be printed.

16. All privileges and indults which are contrary to the new rubrics are revoked, but local ordinaries may petition for their reinstatement for particular reasons.

The Decree in Practice

As an example of the application of this decree to a local calendar, we may take the case of the Pope’s own Cathedral, the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, commonly known as Saint John in the Lateran, after the two Saints John, Baptist and Evangelist. Like several of the major basilicas of Rome, it did not keep to the calendar of the Roman diocese, but had its own proper liturgical calendar, which was followed in the basilica itself, and in its local dependent churches.

In 1911, the Lateran calendar contained 32 entries. Of these, sixteen also occur on the General Calendar, but are kept at a higher grade at the Lateran.

1. The feast of the Transfiguration is kept as a Double of the First class with an octave, as the titular feast of the basilica. (This was also done thoughout the diocese of Rome.) This custom derives from the Byzantine Rite, in which the feast is known as “the Transfiguration of the Savior”, and from which the Roman Church adopted the feast in 1456. In the Byzantine tradition, the feast celebrates the manifestation of Christ to his disciples as Savior, for which reason it is placed exactly forty days, the length of Lent, before the principle feast of the instrument of our salvation, the Exaltation of the Cross.

2. The same grade is given to the feast of the church’s Dedication on November 9, and to St. John the Evangelist, as co-titular of the church. (The Nativity of St. John the Baptist is not noted, since it already has this grade on the General Calendar.)

3. Five Saints or feasts are noted on the calendar because their main Roman churches are affiliated with the Lateran. Four of these are at a higher grade than on the General Calendar; one of these churches is no longer extant, a chapel of St. Margaret of Antioch (July 20), which was formerly part of the Lateran complex.

4. Nine Saints or groups of Saints are kept at a higher grade because of the presence of their relics in the basilica itself, the baptistery, or the Sancta Sanctorum, the official Papal chapel at the Lateran. This last is officially known as Saint Lawrence in the Palace, but has been called the “Sancta Sanctorum” for centuries because of its extraordinary collection of relics.

The altar of the Sancta Sanctorum, which is now part of the building across the street from the Lateran called the Scala Sancta. The grill around the altar was originally installed to protect the many precious relics stored within it.

5. Six other feasts not on the General Calendar are kept because of the presence of relics within the complex. Of these, by far the most important is the Translation of the relics of the heads of Ss. Peter and Paul, which are kept in the large baldachin over the main altar of the basilica.

6. Among the remaining entries, the most notable are the feasts of St. John the Baptist’s father, St. Zachary: that of St. John the Evangelist’s mother, Maria Salome; the Empress St. Helena, who discovered the relics of the True Cross, and whose son founded the Lateran Basilica; the feast of All Saints whose relics are kept in the Lateran; and the octaves of the Transfiguration and Dedication.

In 1961, the Lateran Calendar contained 11 entries, a reduction of just under two-thirds. Of these, five also occur on the General Calendar, but are kept at an equal or higher grade at the Lateran.

1. The Ascension is noted as the titular feast of the basilica, instead of the Transfiguration.

2. The Nativity of St. John the Baptist is noted as co-titular of the basilica. The Dedication of the church, and the feast of St. John the Evangelist are also First-class feasts, as before. To this group is added Pope St. Sylvester I on December 31, as the “founder of the Constantinian Basilica”; in the previous version of the Lateran Calendar, the founder of the Constantinian Basilica was recognized to be Constantine, who was named as such under the entry for his mother, St. Helena.

3. Only one feast is noted because of a Roman church affiliated with the Lateran, that of St. John at the Latin Gate.

4. Of the fifteen relic-feasts formerly kept at the Lateran, all but two are suppressed. That of All Saints whose relics are kept at the Lateran is retained, but transferred from its traditional date, June 23rd, the vigil of St. John the Baptist, to November 5th; special mention is made in the title of the Sancta Sanctorum. The other is that of the Translation of the Relics of the Heads of Ss. Peter and Paul, kept only as a commemoration.

5. The feasts of Ss. Zachary, Maria Salome, and Helena are retained; the octaves of the Transfiguration and Dedication were suppressed in the reform of 1955.

Just up the street from the Lateran, another basilica with its own calendar, St. Mary Major, the oldest church in the world dedicated to the Mother of God, proved to have even fewer feasts deemed important enough to retain. Its proper calendar of 1964 contains only six entries, three of which are common to the General Calendar; of its three proper feasts, one is a commemoration.

An Unimportant Blessed

Guala of Bergamo was one of the earliest members of the Order of Friars Preachers, having received the habit from St. Dominic himself; he also accompanied the founder on several of his travels. He established the convents of the Order in his native city of Bergamo and in nearby Brescia. His governance of the latter earned him such respect and admiration that he was chosen prior of the Order’s most important Italian house, that of Bologna, then called St. Nicholas in the Vineyards, now called after St. Dominic. From the reputation of his holiness and wisdom, Popes Honorius III and Gregory IX, both very close to the Dominicans, entrusted him with some of their most important affairs, making him first nuntio, then Bishop of Brescia, then legate a latere to the Emperor Frederic II. A contemporary historian notes that Guala personally wrote the peace treaty between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions that were tearing apart his episcopal city. After ten years as bishop, he resigned his see, to spend the final years of his life in prayer and meditation; he died in 1244, and his long standing cultus was approved in 1868. (See Victor O’Daniel,“The First Disciples of St. Dominic.”)

When St. Dominic was dying in August of 1221, Guala, then prior at Brescia, had a dream of a ladder let down from Heaven, with Christ and the Virgin at the top, and Angels ascending and descending by it. At the foot of the ladder sat a friar whose face he could not see; the ladder was then pulled up into Heaven, and the friar with it. On waking, Guala immediately departed for Bologna, only to learn on his arrival that St. Dominic had died at the very moment he was having his dream. In 1234, very shortly after his canonization by Gregory IX, St. Dominic’s feast was kept with a newly composed proper Office in the choir of St. Nicholas in the Vineyards, where he was buried. In this Office, the third antiphon of Lauds says, “A ladder stretching forth from Heaven is revealed to a brother, by which the Father passing was born on high.”, and at this first chanting of the Office of St. Dominic, it was Guala himself who intoned this antiphon.

The vision of Blessed Guala, by Cosimo Gamberucci, from the Great Cloister of Santa Maria Novella,
the principal Dominican church of Florence, ca. 1580.

In 1961, Guala was one of 62 Blesseds removed from the Calendar of the Dominican Use; another 19 were reduced to commemorations, leaving eight, (a mere 9 percent of the former total,) as Third class feasts.

The final article in this series will discuss some points relating to possible future reforms of the Divine Office. To read the most recent parts of this series, click here. For the complete set of links to the earlier parts of this series posted last fall, including a Glossary of terms related to the Divine Office, click here.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Part 10.2 - The Matins Lessons in the Reform of 1960

By far the most significant change introduced by the 1960 reform is the reduction of all Sundays, and all feasts of the Third class, (the former Major Doubles, Doubles and Semidoubles) to three readings at Matins.

On Sundays, the three scriptural readings from the first nocturn are reduced to two; the first is kept unchanged, the second and third are joined into one. The third reading is that which was formerly the seventh of Matins, the beginning of the homily on the Gospel of the day. The rest of the homily, formerly the eighth and ninth readings, is suppressed, as are all readings of the second nocturn.

On more than one occasion, a question which was posed in the seventh reading of Matins, and answered in the eighth and ninth, is now left unanswered. On the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, the Gospel is that of the prince of Capharnaum, who asks Christ to come to his home and heal his son. (John 4, 46-53) In the homily of Matins, Saint Gregory the Great poses the question:

Why did he that had come to ask for healing for his son hear, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe?" For he that asked for healing for his son, beyond all doubt believed; nor would he have asked him to save his son, if he did not believe him to be the Savior. Why then is it said “Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe” (to him) who believed before he saw any signs?

The answer which Pope Gregory gives to this question is no longer read. On other occasions, what remains amounts to little more than a Father of the Church clearing his throat. On the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Saint Jerome tells us:

He performed the fifth sign when, going on board the ship at Capernaum, he commanded the winds and the sea; the sixth when in the region of the Gerasenes he gave the demons power over the swine; the seventh when, entering his own city, when he cured the second paralytic in his bed. For the first paralytic was the Centurion's servant.

Between the revision of 1955 and that of 1960, a total of 55% of the Patristic readings are removed from the Temporal cycle. Of those that remain, just shy of one-third are read in Lent, a season in which the Roman Use traditionally read no scriptural lessons at Matins. The first volume of the 1960 Breviary retains 54% of the readings formerly contained in the Winter and Spring volumes; the second retains 29% of the readings formerly contained in the Summer and Fall volumes.

As noted above, nearly all of the feasts formerly classified as Major Doubles, Doubles and Semidoubles, with nine readings at Matins, are now re-ordered as Third class, and reduced to three readings at Matins. In the vast majority of cases, the only proper reading left in such offices is the “simplified lesson”, the abbreviated form of the Saints’ lives which was formerly used only when the feast was reduced to a commemoration.

A number of feasts which are reduced to only three readings at Matins also had eight responsories proper to that particular feast, among them some of the most ancient feasts of the Roman Rite, such as that of St. Martin of Tours. In the absence of anywhere to put them, six of the eight are also removed from the Breviary. A smaller number of feasts had three proper responsories, of which one must be removed.

Between the revision of 1956 and that of 1960, the corpus of proper non-scriptural readings assigned to the feasts of the Sanctoral cycle is reduced in length by exactly two-thirds. (This statistic does not include the readings taken from the common offices of the Saints, which were formerly repeated quite frequently, but hardly read at all in the new revision.) The first volume of the 1960 Breviary retains slightly more than 38% of the readings formerly contained in the Winter and Spring volumes; the second retains 27% of the readings formerly contained in the Summer and Fall volumes.

The Latin text of the motu proprio Rubricarum instructum by which this reform is promulgated contains a strangely prophetic mistake, or rather, two occurrences of the same mistake. One sentence clearly means to say that “the Divine Office is shortened a little bit”; in another, the Pope exhorts the clergy to frequently read and meditate upon the writings of the Church Fathers, which in the Breviary itself have been “slightly abbreviated here and there”. The words used to mean “a little bit” and “slightly” however, are the strictly temporal adverbs “paulisper” and “aliquantisper”, rather than the quantitative adverbs “paululum” and “aliquantulum”. The sentences therefore really mean “the Divine Office has been shortened for a while” and the readings of the Church Fathers has been abbreviated “ for a little while.” However, the mistake is in point of fact more accurate than what the composer of the Latin text obviously meant to say. The readings of the Church Fathers are abbreviated very much more than “a little bit”; on the other hand, this particular version of the Divine Office was used only “for a little while”, replaced within less than a decade by the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours.

The third part of this article will explain the changes made to the local liturgical calendars shortly after this reform. To read the most recent parts of this series, click here. For the complete set of links to the earlier parts of this series posted last fall, including a Glossary of terms related to the Divine Office, click here.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Part 10.1 - The Reform of 1960

In the year 1956, the Archbishop of Bologna, Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro, addressed a liturgical congress held in the city of Assisi, on the subject of the reform of the Breviary promulgated the previous year. (Cardinal Lercaro would later head the committee that produced the post-Conciliar liturgical reform.) In describing the reform, His Eminence contends that the essential criterion behind it was the simplification of the rubrics, and that any abbreviation was merely incidental, rather than a result sought after deliberately. At the same time, he does not mind the resulting abbreviation:

(A)nother consequence of this process has been a shortening of the Office, something which was not immediately or per se intended, but which follows logically from the adoption of the principle of simplification. No one will wish to complain about this. The time spent in prayer has its value; but the time spent does not depend only on the multiloquium, the “much speaking” which the Gospel condemns as a preoccupation of the pagans. It also depends on the way that vocal prayer is said, and the good priest will find in the moderate shortening of the text the motive for a more devout recitation.

Quoting the Vatican’s official liturgical journal, the Cardinal goes on to describe the provisory reform as “a bridge between the past and a future which (we hope) is not far distant.” This future was in fact only four years distant, something which he clearly did not imagine. While the reform of 1955 may not have been deliberately aiming to shorten the text of the Office, it is difficult to see how the 1960 reform could have been aiming at anything else.

The majority of the changes made in 1956 are confirmed in the new reform, namely:

- The suppression of the transference of Sundays and vigils.
- The suppression of the majority of the vigils and octaves.
- The reduction of Simple feasts to commemorations.
- The suppression of the Paters, Ave Marias and Apostles’ Creed from the beginning and end of the Hours.
- The restriction of the Preces of Lauds and Vespers to Wednesdays, Fridays, and Ember Saturdays.
- The suppression of the Preces of all of the minor hours.
- The suppression of the Suffrages.
- The restriction of the Athanasian Creed to Trinity Sunday.
- The suppression of the transference of impeded hymns, antiphons and readings.
- The recitation of the ferial psalms at the minor hours of all feasts not of the First class.

Further changes are introduced as follows.

1. The corpus of rubrics is completely re-written, replacing all previous rubrics from the Breviary of St. Pius V, and subsequent revisions. These rubrics cover 31 pages of small type in a duodecimo edition printed by Pustet in 1961, albeit with a great deal of wasted space on the pages.

2. A new system for the classification of liturgical days is introduced. All categories of liturgical days are now called first, second, third or fourth class. Sundays and octaves are divided into two classes, feasts and vigils into three, ferias into four. Feasts are further divided into those of the universal calendar, and those of local calendars.

Little is really changed in the classification of the Sundays, ferias, the few remaining vigils, and the three remaining octaves. The Ember Days of Advent, Lent and September are given a greater degree of precedence. However, the change to the classification of feasts is very notable, and will be discussed in greater detail later on. Suffice it to say here that the feasts now called First class are those which were formerly called Doubles of the First class, and the feasts now called Second class are those which were formerly called Doubles of the Second class. Of the feasts formerly called Major Doubles, Doubles, and Semidoubles, four are raised to Second class, the rest are now grouped together as Third class.

3. In the Breviary of St. Pius V, and subsequent revisions, as in the breviaries of the Middle Ages, very few liturgical days excluded the commemoration of an impeded feast. In the new revision, the rules of precedence are re-arranged to exclude commemorations much more frequently than was traditionally the case. Commemorations of the Saints are entirely prohibited on liturgical days of the First Class, even those of the Virgin Mary and the Apostles. Likewise, they are severely restricted on days of the Second class.

a. Major Sundays are granted precedence over all feasts, except the Immaculate Conception; they now exclude all commemorations of the Saints.

b. Ordinary Sundays of the year are now ranked higher than all feasts except those of the First class; a Third class feast occurring on such a day is now omitted, rather than commemorated.

c. Exceptions are made for Second class feasts of the Lord, such as the Transfiguration; but when a feast of the Lord is celebrated on a Sunday, the Sunday itself is now also omitted entirely. In the previous system, an impeded Sunday was always commemorated.

d. The ferias of Lent are granted precedence over the majority of feasts, bringing about the effective disappearance of the feasts of Saints Thomas Aquinas, Gregory the Great, Patrick, Benedict and the Archangel Gabriel, among others.

e. The translation of impeded feasts is now restricted to those of the First class. As a result of this change, and the re-arranged precedence rules, it becomes possible for the first time in the history of the Roman Rite for feasts of the Apostles and those of equivalent rank to be reduced to mere commemorations, or omitted entirely. This year, for example, the feast of St. Stephen the First Martyr will be reduced to a commemoration on the Sunday within the Christmas octave; next year, St. Mark the Evangelist will fall on Easter Monday, and be omitted.

4. The following feasts are removed entirely from the Calendar:

The feast of St. Peter’s Chair at Rome on January 18th. The feast of St. Peter’s Chair at Antioch on February 22nd is renamed simply “The Feast of St. Peter’s Chair.”

The Finding of the Cross – May 3
The feast of St. John at the Latin Gate – May 6
The Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel – May 8
Pope St Leo III – July 3. The feast of St. Irenaeus is transferred to this date from June 28.
The feast of St. Peter’s Chains – August 1
The Finding of the Body of St. Stephen – August 3

5. The following feasts are reduced to a commemoration:

The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary on the Friday of Passion week. (This version of this feast was added to the Breviary of St. Pius V in 1727. The September feast of the same name, originally the patronal feast of the Servite Order, was added to the general Calendar in 1814, and remains in the reform of 1960.)

St. George, Martyr – April 23rd.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel – July 16
St. Alexius, Confessor – July 17
The Stigmata of St. Francis – September 17
Ss. Eustace and Companions, Martyrs – September 20
Our Lady of Ransom – September 24

6. All antiphons at all hours are now doubled. The custom of changing the doxologies of hymns on certain feasts and in certain seasons is suppressed. The ferial chapter of Prime is abolished, and the festal chapter always said. The short reading at the end of Prime is always to be said of the liturgical season, even on feast days, where previously the Chapter of None was said.

7. When a priest says the Office entirely by himself, he is no longer to say “Dominus vobiscum” and the response “Et cum spiritu tuo.” Instead, he says the verse which was hitherto used in place of “Dominus vobiscum” by nuns, and clerics not yet ordained to the diaconate, “Domine, exaudi orationem meam”, along with the response “Et clamor meus ad te veniat.” It may be noted that this change was not introduced into the rite of Mass by the reform of the Missal issued concurrent with this reform of the Breviary.

8. The canticle of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 Audite caeli, said on Saturdays in penitential seasons, is shortened by the removal of 38 verses, including the verse from which its antiphon is taken. A similar abbreviations is made to psalm 88 at Matins of Christmas, the Transfiguration and Christ the King.

9. In the reform of St. Pius X, the psalms of Lauds are divided into two “schemes”, one for feasts and common ferias, and one for penitential ferias, such as those of Advent and Lent. When the latter scheme is used, the first psalm of the first scheme has no place in Lauds, and so it is removed to Prime. In the 1960 reform it is simply omitted. By this change, the recitation of the entire Psalter within a week, however much it may have been theory rather than practice in the past, is now formally discarded in both Advent and Lent.

10. First Vespers, which had already been suppressed in the majority of feasts in 1956, are now suppressed from the feasts of the Second class (formerly Doubles of the Second class). At the same time, the anomaly of feasts with no Vespers at all introduced by the reform of 1955 is corrected, with the exception of the Saturday Office of the Virgin Mary.

11. The manner of arranging the Sundays from August to November is altered. Formerly, the first Sunday of each month, on which a new group of Scriptural readings and responsories began, was always the Sunday closest to the first day of the month, whether before or after it. For example, the “first Sunday of September” this year was actually counted as August 29th, the closest Sunday to the first of September. In the new revision, the first Sunday of each month is simply that which occurs first within the Calendar month.

The most notable effect of this is the displacement of the Ember Days of September from their traditional place after the Exaltation of the Cross in three years out of seven. The readings of the second week of November can no longer be used according to this system, and are removed from the Breviary.

The second part of this article will explain the changes made to the lessons of Matins by this reform. To read the most recent parts of this series, click here. For the complete set of links to the earlier parts of this series posted last fall, including a Glossary of terms related to the Divine Office, click here.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Part 9.2 - An Assessment of the 1955 Simplified Rubrics

The distinctive feature of this reform is, to put it simply, that for the first time, the Office was substantially changed for the benefit of the rubrics, rather than rubrics for the benefit of the Office. In addition to the removal from the Breviary of a considerable portion of patristic readings, especially from the offices of the temporal cycle, the “simplified” rubrics of 1955 also create a number of rather peculiar anomalies; this, despite the priority given (in theory) to the rubrics over the text.

1. Although all Sundays are raised from semiduplex to duplex, their antiphons are not doubled, and thus they lack what had been hitherto the characteristic feature of double offices.

2. It is very difficult to see the logic behind the choice of which vigils were kept and which suppressed, particularly when one notices that that of St. Lawrence has been kept, and those of Epiphany and All Saints’ abolished.

3. The Octave Day of the Epiphany is renamed “the Commemoration of the Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ”. Although this is one of the most ancient aspects of the Epiphany, and indeed, the dominant one in the Byzantine tradition, the feast of the Holy Family, extended to the General Calendar in 1921, is given precedence over it if they coincide on the Sunday after Epiphany. In such case, the Baptism is not even commemorated.

4. Although the octaves of the Ascension, Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart are suppressed, the Sundays within said octaves continue to be celebrated as hitherto, with the office mostly identical to that of the feast.

5. Wholly inexplicable is the suppression of first vespers from all grades of feasts except Doubles of the first and second class. Simple feasts, which only had the first vespers, now have none at all, running from Matins to None, a change absolutely without precedent. The tradition of beginning feasts on the evening of the preceding day is one that the Christian church inherited from the pre-Christian temple and synagogue of the Jewish people, and was known to be so at the time of this reform. This suppression, extended further in the reforms of 1960 and 1970, is now recognized to be a mistake; the reformed Ambrosian Office of 1981 has retained the historical custom by which ALL feasts have first Vespers, and the more important also have second Vespers.

6. In the Vesper hymn of Confessors, the verse, “on this day rejoicing he merited to ascend to the place of blessedness,” was changed if the feast was kept on a day other than the day of the Saint’s death. The modified verse says “on this day rejoicing he merited the highest honors of our praises.” This hymn is now always said in the modified version, even on the feast of St. Martin, for whom it was originally composed, and whose feast is kept on the day of his death.

7. Most peculiar of all, editors and publishers with authorization to print liturgical books are forbidden to incorporate these changes into future editions of the Breviary, although they are plainly too much for anyone to memorize. I have seen editions of both Breviary and Missal from the years 1957-59 which do in fact incorporate the changes into the book in various ways, either by omission, or by printing the deleted texts in italics or smaller type. However, many priests decided to keep track of the new changes by a less costly expedient than the purchase of a whole new breviary.

(photo courtesy of John Sonnen)

The next part of this series will discuss the reform of 1960. To read the most recent parts of this series, click here. For the complete set of links to the earlier parts of this series posted last fall, including a Glossary of terms related to the Divine Office, click here.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Part 9.1 - The Simplified Rubrics of 1955

In his History of the Roman Breviary, Msgr. Batiffol correctly notes that “the tendency to multiply the festivals of saints will always be found to exert more power, and to command more sympathy, than any plan for reducing them.” (p. 305) The same thing may well be said about the tendency to multiply rubrics. As noted earlier in this series, the basic rubrics of the Breviary of St. Pius V are much shorter, clearer, and better organized than those of its medieval predecessors; they also left unresolved a number of questions about how to say the Office. Over the following centuries, therefore, they were frequently added to and expanded, becoming ever more precise, and as a result, ever more complicated. In the editio princeps of the Breviary of St. Pius V, the general rubrics occupy a total of seven pages. I own a copy of the Roman Breviary printed in 1900, in which they occupy 32 pages of rather smaller type, followed by 13 pages of proper rubrics for the Discalced Carmelite Order.

To give just one example of the way the rubrics were expanded: in the Breviary of 1570, the feast of Saints are classified in three grades, double, semidouble and simple. The first of these three was originally reserved for the most important feasts; over time, however, as the number of saints on the general Calendar increased, it came to be generally used as the entry-level grade for all new feasts. In order to maintain a distinction between, e.g., Easter, and a local confessor-bishop of uncertain history, the grade of double was later divided into four categories: First Class, Second Class, Major and Minor. Each of these four was then subdivided into “primary” and “secondary” feasts, the former being used for the main feast of a particular saint, and the latter for feasts such as the translations of relics, or miracle-feasts like the Apparition of Saint Michael. Thus the Office came to have effectively ten classifications of feasts.

Similar changes were made to the rubrics of the Missal, with a view to accommodating all possible concurrences of feasts and commemorations. Before the reform of 1911, the rubric printed before the preface of the Holy Trinity is thirty words long, including the date it was formally enacted. In the edition following the 1911 reform, it is expanded to 279 words, forming two head-spinningly complicated Latin sentences. The lengthy “Additions and Variations to the Rubrics”, added to the Missal by the same reform, contain a number of sentences in which the subject can only be seen from the principal verb on very clear days.

While some of these changes may seem very poorly thought out today, it must be born in mind that rubrics are supposed to function as an aide-memoire; priests traditionally learned the office by celebrating it in choir, not by reading it from book. (For this reason, many medieval breviaries, written or printed when choral Office was the norm, contain no “general rubric” at all to teach clerics how to say the office.) Many of the rubrics apply only to certain particular situations, and often would not have even been noticed by the average cleric when using his Breviary or Missal. Nevertheless, it must be granted that, taken as a whole, the corpus had become very complex indeed by the early twentieth century; many who had no experience of singing the Office in choir clearly sympathized with Thomas Cranmer’s famous jab at the rubrics of the Sarum Breviary, “…many times, there was more busines to fynd out what should be read, then to read it when it was faunde out.” (preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer.)

In March of 1955, therefore, a decree was issued by the Sacred Congregation for Rites, simplifying the rubrics of both the Breviary and Missal. I will here limit myself to enumerating the more salient features of this reform; the complete text is available in the online version of the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. I have attempted to describe these changes in a more clearly organized way than they are given in the decree itself.

The reader must keep in mind a particular feature of the reform of St. Pius X, namely, that most saints’ offices of nine readings were also provided with a simplified version of the saint’s life, summarizing it in a single lesson. This simplified lesson was to be used, according to certain rules, when the saint was only commemorated; in the reform of 1955, and the later reform of 1960, it will come to play a very important role. When an office is reduced from nine readings to three, only the simplified lesson is left.

The following changes of a general nature apply to both the Missal and the Breviary.

1. The rank of semidouble is suppressed. Offices of the temporal cycle which were traditionally kept as semidouble (including all Sundays) are raised in rank to doubles; feasts of the saints formerly kept at this grade are reduced to simples, i.e. offices of only 3 readings at Matins.

2. The custom of anticipating certain Sundays to the preceding Saturday is suppressed.

3. The vigils of Christmas, Pentecost, the Ascension, the Assumption, St. John the Baptist, Ss. Peter and Paul, and Saint Lawrence are retained; all other vigils, whether of the general Calendar, or of any local Calendar, are suppressed. If the vigil of a saint should fall on a Sunday, it is no longer to be anticipated to the preceding Saturday, but simply omitted.

(The suppressed vigils on the general Calendar are those of the Epiphany, the Immaculate Conception, All Saint’s Day, and the feasts of the Apostles Andrew, Thomas, Matthias, James the Elder, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Simon and Jude.)

4. All octaves are suppressed, both on the universal Calendar, and on all local Calendar, except those of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. This entails four octaves of the temporal cycle (Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Sacred Heart), and ten of the general Calendar. (The Assumption, Immaculate Conception and Nativity of the Virgin Mary; the Birth of St. John the Baptist; Ss. Peter and Paul; All Saints’; St. Stephen; St. John; the Holy Innocents; St. Lawrence.) Provisions are made by the new rubrics for the ensuing gaps in the temporal cycle.

5. All feasts of simple rank are reduced to commemorations.

The following changes are specific to the Breviary.

1. The Lord’s Prayer, the “Hail Mary” and the Apostles’ Creed are no longer said at the beginning and end of the hours. It should be noted that the Hail Mary and the Apostles Creed are thenceforth no longer part of the Roman office. The former was said only at the beginning of each hour, and the end of Compline. The latter was at the beginning of Matins and Prime, at the end of Compline, and also said in some of the Preces of Prime and Compline; these Preces were also suppressed by this decree.

2. The ferial preces of Lauds and Vespers, formerly said on all penitential ferias, are now to be said only on Wednesdays and Fridays, and on the Ember Saturdays of Advent, Lent and September. The preces of all other hours are suppressed.

3. The Suffrage of the All the Saints, and the Commemoration of the Cross which is said in its place in Eastertide, are both suppressed.

4. The Athanasian Creed is now to be said only on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.

5. All feasts below the rank of Double of the second class (i.e., all Double majors, Doubles and Simples) are no longer celebrated with first vespers.

6. Double feasts of the second class now use the psalms and antiphons of the day at the hours from Prime to None, as do those double majors which formerly retained the psalms of Sunday at these same hours (such as the feasts of angels.)

7. In the Missal of St. Pius X, when a feria of Lent and a lesser feast (i.e. not a double of either the first or second class) occurred on the same day, a priest might choose to say the Mass of either the feast or the feria. Permission is now granted to do the same for the Office, i.e. to say the office of either the saint or the feria.

8. The transfer or resumption of certain antiphons and of certain readings from the Scriptures from one day to another is suppressed. Likewise, the transfer of certain hymns proper to particular feast days from one hour to another is also suppressed.

9. When the office of a Sunday or vigil is impeded by an office of nine readings, the ninth lesson of Matins is no longer to be taken from the impeded office.

The second part of this article will offer some observations on this reform. To read the most recent parts of this series, click here. For the complete set of links to the earlier parts of this series posted last fall, including a Glossary of terms related to the Divine Office, click here.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Part 8.2 - The New Psalter of Pius XII and Card. Bea

In the year 1945, Pope Pius XII approved for use in the Divine Office a new Latin version of the Psalms, the work of professors at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. The project was done under the guidance of the Institute’s rector, Augustin Bea, S.J. (later Cardinal); for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the “Bea Psalter”, a term which I will also use for brevity’s sake. In the Motu proprio In cotidianis precibus Pope Pius declares that modern critical study of the Hebrew Bible and of the various ancient translations has made it possible to recover the original sense in many places where the Vulgate is obscure. For this reason, he ordered the preparation of a new translation, “which will follow the primitive texts more closely and faithfully”, though he is careful to note that “the Vulgate…is most closely connected with writings of the holy Fathers and the interpretations of the Doctors (of the Church)…” and furthermore, “that not even the Hebrew text has come down to us entirely free from (scribal) error and obscurity.”

The Bea Psalter is not a revision of an earlier Latin version, but a new translation made directly from the Hebrew. Its Latinity is wholly classical, both in vocabulary and grammar; one might say that, unlike the Gallican Psalter, it would be completely intelligible to Cicero, and completely unrecognizable to Saint Augustine. To give an idea of the character of the Bea Psalter, we may compare its version of Psalm 1, 1 with that of the Vulgate.

Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum, et in via peccatorum non stetit, et in cathedra pestilentiae non sedit. (Vulgate)

Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence. (Douay translation)

Apart from the word pestilentiae (of pestilence), the Vulgate is a perfectly literal translation of the Septuagint, which is a perfectly literal translation of the Hebrew. The authors of the Septuagint made a bit free in translating the Hebrew word lētsīm (of the scoffers) with loimōn (of the pestilent) ; the original Latin translator made even freer in translating loimōn with pestilentiae. St. Jerome chose not to alter the traditional reading in his revision, but in his re-translated psalter according to the Hebrews he writes in cathedra derisorum (in the chair of the scoffers).

In the Bea Psalter, the same line reads (changes in bold):

Beatus vir qui non sequitur consilium impiorum, et in viam peccatorum non ingreditur, et in conventu protervorum non sedet.

Blessed is the man who followeth not the counsel of the ungodly, nor entereth into the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the assembly of the scoffers.

Sequitur consilium and in viam…ingreditur express the same idea as abiit in consilio and in via…stetit, but in a more classically Latin way. The change in tense from perfect to present is unfortunate, since the perfect tense in Latin and Hebrew (as well as the Greek aorist) can also represent the idea of a constantly recurring or general notion, (the gnomic use of the tense), which is clearly the intent of the psalmist. The Greek loan-word cathedra is substituted by the Latin word conventu, for the Hebrew mōshab (a sitting down together). Most tellingly, as an example of classicizing vocabulary, lētsīm is translated with protervorum (of the impudent). The adjective protervus and its derivatives occur eight times more often in the writings of Ovid, and five times more often in those of Horace, than they do in Jerome’s Biblical translations. Overall, where the final result of the Septuagint, of the Old Latin, and of St. Jerome’s work is mostly very literal and very Hebraic, the Bea Psalter's version is an accurate and very Latin paraphrase.

It should be noted that no new versions of any of the antiphons were made to correspond to the new Psalms; had this been done, it would have created insuperable difficulties for the singing of the Office. As a result, when the new Psalter is used, a very large number of antiphons no longer correspond to the words of the Psalm with which they are sung. To give just one example, the first antiphon of Holy Saturday Tenebrae reads “In pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam”, the ninth verse of Psalm 4. The same verse in the Bea Psalter reads “In pace, simul ac decubui, obdormisco.”

The goal of this translation is clarity, and it is certainly very easy to understand for those who know Latin reasonably well. It is also difficult to think of a more artless and insipid piece of writing in the history of the Roman Rite. The translation may gain much in a certain kind of accuracy, but it loses far more in poetry and rhythm. The classic case is found in Psalm 92, 3: “Elevaverunt flumina, Domine, elevaverunt flumina vocem suam; elevaverunt flumina fluctus suos. – The rivers have lifted up, o Lord, the rivers have lifted up their voice, the rivers have lifted up their waves.” The Bea Psalter reads “Extollunt flumina, Domine, extollunt flumina vocem suam; extollunt flumina fragorem suum. – The rivers raise up, o Lord, the rivers raise up their voice, the rivers raise up their noise (or ‘crash’). ” Regardless of whether the Hebrew is better represented by the new version, the Vulgate simply sounds much better, in this and nearly every other case.

In an act of great pastoral wisdom, Pope Pius XII did not require, but simply permitted, the use of the new Psalter. Among those monastic and canonical communities which were wont to sing any part of the Office regularly, few chose to avail themselves of this permission, finding the text quite unsingable. Although initially greeted with enthusiasm by many liturgists, it lost a great deal of its prestige in the reign of Bl. John XXIII, who detested it, and refused to allow it in any service at which he was present.

In the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council seems clearly to have repudiated the Bea Psalter when it says “The work of revising the Psalter, already happily begun, is to be finished as soon as possible, and is to take into account the style of Christian Latin, the liturgical use of Psalms, also when sung, and the entire tradition of the Latin Church.” (parag. 91) Subsequently, yet another Latin Psalter was produced for liturgical use, that which is now found in the Liturgia Horarum and the New Vulgate. This latest Psalter is an extremely conservative revision of the traditional text of the Vulgate, and one which happily takes no account of the Bea Psalter. In it, Psalm 1, 1 reads “Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum, et in via peccatorum non stetit, et in cathedra derisorum non sedit” : word for word the same as the Vulgate and the Old Latin, with the one correction originally proposed by Saint Jerome.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Part 8.1 - The Gallican Psalter of St. Jerome

No other book of the Latin Bible has so complicated a history as that of the Psalter. Like the rest of the Hebrew Old Testament, the Psalms were translated into Greek by the Jews of Alexandria in the 3rd or 2nd century B.C., the translation known (imprecisely) as the Septuagint. Frequently quoted by Our Lord Himself and the Apostles in the New Testament, it enjoyed immense prestige among Christians of all languages. However, after numerous revisions and corrections, and cross-contamination from other ancient translations, the original version has been lost in a dense forest of variant readings and recensions.

By the later part of the second century A.D., Christians in the western Roman Empire had begun to translate the Septuagint into Latin. These translations were made without reference to the Hebrew original; in the Roman Empire, Greek was the lingua franca of Christian and Jew alike, and Hebrew was hardly known outside the Holy Land. Like the Septuagint, the Old Latin translations (as they are now called) were repeatedly corrected and revised; around 400 A.D., Saint Jerome famously complained “tot sint exemplaria quot codices – there are as many versions (of the Bible) as there are copies.” (Preface to the Book of Joshua.) Hoping to recover for the Latin-speaking West the original text of the Sacred Scriptures, the great Biblical scholar originally thought to revise the Old Latin by meticulously comparing it with the Septuagint. However, on discovering that the latter had become just as much of a hopeless muddle, he abandoned the project, and decided instead to make a new translation of the whole Bible directly from the “Hebraica veritas”, as he habitually called it, “the Hebrew truth.” (Pictured right: Saint Jerome in His Study, by Jan van Eyck, 1435)

In the case of every other book of the Hebrew Bible, the Church quickly saw the merits of Saint Jerome’s new version, and adopted it in place of the older one. Indeed, no complete Bible of the Old Latin now exists; of some books, we have only fragments of the older version, of others, nothing at all. The great exception is the book of Psalms.

Jerome actually produced three different versions of the Psalter in his lifetime. A first revision according to the Septuagint, now lost, was rather cursory, and in any case, ruined by careless copyists. A second, more careful one was made as part of the general project of revision which the great scholar later abandoned; comparison with the Old Latin shows that Jerome was a fairly conservative reviser. He then translated the Psalter afresh directly from the Hebrew, a work which found little acceptance in the Church; already by the fourth century, too many people knew and prayed the Psalms by heart to accept a new translation, and so they continued to use the Old Latin Psalter.

The Psalter “according to the Septuagint” as revised by Saint Jerome was adopted for liturgical use in Gaul in the reign of Charlemagne, at the initiative of Alcuin, whence its common name “Gallican psalter.” After centuries of use in the Middle Ages, it was then carried into the Breviary of St. Pius V, and appears in all the subsequent revisions thereof. Although it displaced the older Latin translation for general use, many texts of the Breviary and Missal retain even to this day the version of the Psalms used in Rome before Jerome’s time. The Ambrosian and Mozarabic Rites continued the use of the Old Latin psalms until their modern revisions, as did Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

The first page of a Psalterium Triplex, with the three versions of the Latin Psalms in parallel columns, plus glosses and commentaries. Paris BNF Ms. Latin 8846, ca. 1190.

The Gallican Psalter is not simply a revision of a translation of a translation; more precisely, it is a revision of a hyper-literal translation (the Old Latin) of a rather broad translation, the Septuagint. As such, it is in many respects quite distant from the original Hebrew, which itself is full of textual difficulties. It is also the product of an age in which Christian authors were deliberately creating a new Latin idiom for the use of the Church, with a vocabulary and manner of expression very different from that of the great classical authors. There are many places where, for various reasons, it is very difficult to understand, and its Latinity very far from what a writer like Cicero would have considered proper.

The second part of this article will discuss the new translation of the Psalms promulgated by Pope Pius XII for use in the Breviary in 1945.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568 - 1961: Series to Resume

After a long and difficult period following the deaths of my parents this past winter, I have finally reached the point where I can resume and complete the interrupted series of articles on the history of the Divine Office.

The first of these new articles will be posted tomorrow. I wish to thank for their patience especially those readers of the NLM who have written to ask when the series would be continued; I hope you find the results worth the wait.

For reference, here are links to all of the previous parts published last fall, and to the accompanying glossary.

Introduction
Part 1 : The Basic Structure of the Divine Office
Supplement : Glossary of Terms Related to the Divine Office
Part 2 : Further Observations on the Medieval Office
Part 3.1 : 1529 vs. 1568
Part 3.2 : 1529 vs. 1568 (Matins readings)
Part 4 : The Hymns of Urban VIII
Part 5.1 : The Parisian Psalter
Part 5.2 : Further Observations on the Neo-Gallican Liturgy
Part 6.1 : The Divine Office in the Tridentine Church
Part 6.2 : The Age of Revolutions
Part 6.3 : The First Liturgical Movement
Part 7.1 : The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X
Part 7.2 : The Psalter of St. Pius X
Part 7.3 : Assessment of the Reforms of St. Pius X
Part 7.4 : Appendix to the Reforms of St. Pius X

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961: Part 7.4 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X (Continued)

The following is an appendix to our consideration of the breviary reforms pursued in the early 20th century by Pope Pius X. It concludes part 7.

For terms and their definitions, please see the associated Glossary which accompanies this compendium.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961

by Gregory DiPippo
for publication on the New Liturgical Movement

Part 7.4 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X (Continued)

Appendix

In addition to the changes made to the Psalter, and the application of the Psalter to the feasts of Saints (as described in the previous sections of part 7), the following changes were also introduced into the Breviary as part of the reform of St. Pius X.

1. In the Breviary of St. Pius V, as in its medieval predecessor, all of the responsories of Matins on a Saint’s feast day are of the Saint. If the feast is one that takes the readings of the first nocturn from the feria, these readings are nevertheless said with the responsories from the feast. In the reform of 1911, such readings are now said with the responsories from the feria, which had at that point fallen into almost total disuse.

2. The Hymn Te Deum laudamus, said after the last reading of Matins on all feasts and octaves, and most Sundays, was traditionally said to have been composed by Saints Ambrose and Augustine on the occasion of the latter’s baptism. In medieval illuminated Breviaries, it was often accompanied by a picture of Saint Augustine ’s baptism, and in the Breviary of St. Pius V, it is labeled “Hymnus Ss. Ambrosii et Augustini.” However, the truth of the story is not accepted by modern scholars on several grounds, for which reason, the hymn is relabeled “Hymnus Ambrosianus.”

(See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Te deum for details.)

3. In like manner, the Creed of Saint Athanasius Quicumque vult, being recognized as not actually by Saint Athanasius, is relabeled “Symbolum Athanasianum”. The recitation of this Creed is appointed by the Breviary of Saint Pius V at Prime on Trinity Sunday, and whenever the Office of the Sunday is said; this was the custom also of the Breviary of 1529. Retained on Trinity Sunday, it is otherwise restricted by the reform of 1911 to the Sundays “per annum”, i.e. those between the Octave of Epiphany and Septuagesima, and those between the Octave of Corpus Christ and Advent. It is also to be omitted even on these if there occur the commemoration of a duplex feast or an octave.

(See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Quicumque for details.)

4. The ferial Preces of Advent, Lent and the vigils of Saints are slightly modified. The Psalm said at the end (De profundis at Lauds, Miserere at Vespers) is omitted, and new invocations for the Pope and the local bishop are added.

5. The Breviary of St. Pius V had maintained from the medieval tradition the votive commemorations of the Saints, called “Suffragia” in the Roman Use. The edition of 1568 appoints four, of the Virgin Mary, of the Apostles Peter and Paul, of the local Patron Saint, and a suffrage for Peace; a suffrage of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church was added in the 19th century. To these are added on ferial days a suffrage of the Cross. They are omitted in Advent and Passiontide, and on any duplex feast or octave; in Eastertide they are substituted by a single suffrage of the Cross. Inexplicably disliked by liturgical scholars of the early 20th century, the suffrages of the Saints are reduced to a single one “of all the Saints”, which mentions by name the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, the Apostles and the local Patron Saint; the prayer “A cunctis” which was chosen for this suffrage is also frequently said at Mass when extra prayers are to be added. The suffrage of the Cross for Eastertide was left unchanged.

7. All obligations to the recitation of the Little Office of the Virgin Mary, the Office of the Dead, and the Gradual and Penitential Psalms are suppressed. The obligation to recite the Litany of the Saints on the Major and Minor Rogations remains. These supplementary offices are left in their tradition places in the text of the Breviary, and may of course always be recited as a matter of private devotion.

8. A few minor changes are made to some of the antiphons which are proper to the various liturgical seasons.

a. On the Saturdays of Advent, the psalms of Vespers are said with the proper antiphons from Lauds of the following Sunday; in the Breviary of St. Pius V and in medieval Breviaries, they were said with the common antiphons of Saturdays per annum.

b. A new set of antiphons is appointed for the Saturday before the vigil of Christmas; the ancient custom, by which the antiphons impeded on the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle are transferred to that Saturday, is abolished.

c. Certain proper antiphons of Lauds are changed to account for the rearrangement of the Psalms: the fifth of Sexagesima Sunday, the third of the Third and Fourth Sundays of Lent, and the third and fifth of Holy Wednesday. In each case, the antiphon is changed because the psalm from which it is taken is no longer said on that day.

d. The three antiphons of Sunday Lauds per annum are increased to five, and the three antiphons of Sunday Lauds in Eastertide are reduced to one. It is not all clear why these changes were made, since the older antiphons would have fit just as well with the new arrangement of the Psalms. Likewise, the fourfold Alleluja of the minor hours in Eastertide is reduced to three Allelujas, for no discernible reason.

It should be noted that when the Monastic Breviary was reformed in 1915, none of the changes described above in b., c. or d. were received into it.

It should also be noted that, as a general rule, the same corpus of antiphons is used in both the Roman Breviary of St. Pius V and the Monastic Breviary of Paul V, where the two different arrangements of the psalms permit this. Thus, for example, on the Sundays per annum, all of the antiphons of the psalms from Lauds to Vespers are the same in the two breviaries; in the Monastic Use, there is simply one fewer psalm and antiphon at Vespers. However, the reform of St. Pius X introduces a very large number of new antiphons into the Psalter, even in places where there was no need to change the older antiphon, as, for example, on the Sundays per annum. The two Uses are thus separated even further from each other than they had been by the reformed hymnal of Pope Urban VIII, which was never adopted by any of the monastic orders.

9. The feast of the Holy Trinity is raised to the rank of double of the first class, so that its second Vespers cannot be impeded; the feasts of the Transfiguration and Dedication of the Lateran Basilica are raised to doubles of the second class.

10. In the Breviary of St. Pius V, the Office of the Dead is said with three nocturns on the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, in addition to the office of the octave of All Saints. This is now changed so that the Office of the Dead is the only office said that day, including all of the Minor hours. New readings are chosen for the three nocturns; in the first nocturn, three of the traditional readings from the Book of Job, in the second, readings from St. Augustine ’s book on the care to be taken for the Dead, in the third from First Corinthians, chapter 15. This conforms the office of this day to the pattern of the Tenebrae Offices.

11. A number of changes are made to the rubrics throughout the Breviary and Missal. These changes will be discussed as part of the next article in this series, in the light of further changes made by Pope Pius XII in 1955.


[This concludes part 7. In part 8, we will consider the reforms of 1955.]

-- Copyright (c) Gregory DiPippo, 2009

* * *
To read previous installments in this series, see: Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961: Part 7.3 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X (Continued)

We continue with the final installment of our consideration of the breviary reforms pursued in the early 20th century by Pope Pius X.

For terms and their definitions, please see the associated Glossary which accompanies this compendium.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961

by Gregory DiPippo
for publication on the New Liturgical Movement

Part 7.3 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X (Continued)

An Assessment of the Reform of St. Pius X

The reform of St. Pius X may well be described as an imperfect solution to an otherwise irresolvable problem. By 1911, the office of St. Pius V was generally considered to be too long; that of Leo XIII was extremely repetitive, and largely obscured the whole of the temporal cycle with Saints days. The innovations introduced by Divino afflatu are copied from the neo-Gallican breviaries as the only readily available historical model for the resolution of the problem.

This being said, I believe that most people would agree that it was per se a good thing to restore the recitation of the complete weekly Psalter. On the other hand, it’s use is perhaps over-extended in the 1911 reform; a system might have been created that did not leave St. Mary Magdalene or St. Francis of Assisi with the same psalms as a common feria, or reduce them to a mere commemoration when they fall on Sunday. To do so would have required a general re-organization of the rankings of feasts, but the reformers did not want to make any changes that would seem to diminish the cult of the Saints. As a result, Saints of the highest importance to the life of the Church such as Thomas Aquinas are left on a par liturgically with figures like Venantius of Camerino, of whom absolutely nothing at all is known for certain. A bolder reform might have taken the opportunity to clear away a number of the more historically dubious legends, or at least made them optional, as has been done in the modern Rite.

It is now broadly agreed that the re-arrangement of Lauds is not altogether successful. Anton Baumstark once remarked, a propos of the breaking up of the Laudate psalms (148-149-150), that the reformers had removed from the Breviary the one custom which we can say with certainty was observed by Our Lord Himself when He prayed in the synagogue. The restriction of the “second schema” of Lauds to penitential ferias only means that the very ancient series of Old Testament canticles is used only very rarely; it would certainly have been a better idea to use the second scheme in all ferial offices, regardless of the season.

Many changes were made to the corpus of antiphons, and new antiphons were introduced even where older ones might just as well have been retained, or borrowed from the Monastic Breviary. The psalms of Sunday remained almost unchanged from Lauds to Compline, and yet, of the 13 antiphons for these hours in the Breviary of St. Pius V, eight were removed, and new antiphons put in their place. Slight verbal changes were made to two others, and only three remain untouched. On the other hand, since the Breviary had to be completely reprinted anyway, the opportunity might have been taken restore the hymns of the original Pian Breviary, and permit the optional use of the Urban VIII hymns, if anyone could be found who really wanted to keep them. Instead, the original hymns are preserved only as an appendix in the newly re-arranged Antiphonale, for those who retained the use of the older text by indult or immemorial custom.

The Bull Divino afflatu, which officially promulgated this reform, states at one point “Everyone sees that with this decree, We are taking the first step towards an emendation of the Roman Breviary and Missal.” Although Pope St. Pius goes on to state that a commission will be appointed to study further the questions of liturgical reform, no further steps were taken in his pontificate, and his new Breviary remained substantially unchanged until late in the reign of Pope Pius XII. The reforms instituted in 1955 will be discussed in the next article in this series.


An appendix to this article will be added separately, giving the details of certain other, less significant changes made in 1911.

[In part 8, we will consider the reforms of 1955.]

-- Copyright (c) Gregory DiPippo, 2009

* * *
To read previous installments in this series, see: Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961: Part 7.2 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X (Continued)

We continue with our consideration of the breviary reforms pursued in the early 20th century by Pope Pius X.

For terms and their definitions, please see the associated Glossary which accompanies this compendium.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961

by Gregory DiPippo
for publication on the New Liturgical Movement

Part 7.2 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X (Continued)

The Psalter of St. Pius X

If the Church wished to restore the regular use of the entire Psalter to its public prayer, there were only two ways to do this. One was to keep the Psalter of the Pian Breviary unchanged, and radically reduce the number of Saints. This solution was in fact proposed by some liturgical writers at the time, but it would simply have restored an Office which fell into disuse in no small part because of its great length, as St. Pius X himself admits in the decree which promulgated the new Psalter. The second solution was to do as the neo-Gallican breviaries had done, namely, to restructure the weekly Psalter in such a way that it could be integrated into the Offices of the Saints, which were otherwise left untouched. The reform of Saint Pius X opted for this latter solution, “so that nothing may be lost from the cult of the Saints”. (Divino afflatu, parag. 5)

The decree of 1911 creates a mostly new arrangement of the Psalter for Sundays and ferial days, with the stated purpose of restoring as far as possible the weekly recitation of the whole Psalter. The use of the ferial psalms is extended to the great majority of the Saints’ days; the division of feasts into six grades is retained, and in all but the two highest, the psalms of the feria are said at every hour. An exception is made for the feasts and octaves of Our Lord, and the feasts (not the octaves) of Our Lady, the Angels and the Apostles, St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph; all these retain the traditional festal psalms, with a slight adjustment at Lauds. Another exception is made for all feasts which have their own proper antiphons; these are kept along with their traditional psalms at the major hours, but the ferial psalms and their antiphons are said at the minor hours.

The new Psalter admits of no repetition at all among the psalms; each is said only once in the course of the week. Matins of Sunday is reduced from eighteen psalms to nine, and that of each feria from twelve to nine, conforming them to the pattern of Matins on feast days. The number of psalms at the other hours remains unchanged, and a canticle from the Old Testament is still said at Lauds after the third psalm. The extremely ancient custom of reciting psalms 148, 149 and 150 together as the last psalm of Lauds is done away with; however, it must be noted that the psalms chosen to replace them all begin with the word “Laudate” or “Lauda”.

There are 231 places for the psalms over the seven days of the week: nine each day at Matins, four at Lauds, five at Vespers, three each at the remaining Hours. There are, of course, only 150 psalms. In order to fill each of the 231 places, without repetitions, many of the longer psalms are divided into two or more sections. Unlike the Parisian Breviary of 1736, the new Roman Psalter keeps to the numerical order of the Bible, broadly speaking, as did the older Office; no attempt was made to imitate the Parisian arrangement, constructed around a “theme of the day.”

The psalmody of Lauds is now arranged in a two-fold scheme, one to be used on feast days and ordinary ferias, the other to be used only on penitential ferias. This latter, penitential scheme retains the Miserere as the first psalm each day, and the traditional Old Testament canticles in the customary order. However, since it is used only on penitential ferias, (those of Advent and Lent, and the vigils of Saints), they are still said only quite rarely. The first scheme of each feria is arranged in imitation of Sunday Lauds; the first psalm of each day is clearly selected for its joyful theme, more appropriate to the feasts of Saints feasts, and a new selection of Old Testament festal canticles is also provided, largely borrowed from the 1736 Paris Breviary.

The complete re-ordering of the Psalter also necessitated an extensive re-writing of the corpus of antiphons which accompany them; in general, the new antiphons are longer than the traditional ones of the Pian and medieval Breviaries. Psalm 65, moved from Wednesday to Thursday, has an antiphon in the Pian Breviary, “Benedicite, gentes, Deum nostrum.”; it is is now divided into two sections, one with the antiphon “Videte opera Domini, et auditam facite vocem laudis ejus.”, the other with the antiphon “Audite, omnes, qui timetis Deum, quanta fecit animae meae.” Many of the new antiphons are borrowed directly from the neo-Gallican breviaries. The traditional rules about doubling and semidoubling antiphons are left intact.

A very notable difference from the practice of the Parisian Breviary is that the same antiphons are used in both the ferial office and the offices of the Saints; in the Parisian Breviary, the ferial psalms were mixed with the antiphons of the feast. Much of the new corpus of antiphons is clearly designed to create a repertoire which is better suited to the Saints’ offices. The traditional antiphon of Psalm 97 is a grammatical fragment, “Quia mirabilia fecit Dominus – Because the Lord hath done wonders.” It is replaced by a new antiphon, “Jubilate in conspectu regis Domini – Shout with joy in the sight of the King, the Lord.”

The preceding six paragraphs were written by taking six paragraphs from the article on the neo-Gallican breviaries, and modifying them where necessary. The careful reader will note that several sentences from the earlier article have been left completely unchanged, so closely does the reform of 1911 resemble the Parisian reform of 1736.


Other changes in the reform of St. Pius X

The reformed Breviary of Saint Pius V had given much greater prominence to the weekly Psalter than its predecessor, a change which was then undone by the subsequent increase in the number of Saints’ feasts. The reform of 1911 therefore included a number of other changes to ensure that it would remain more or less intact.

The Mass and Office of Sunday are given much greater prominence in the new reform; since the Sunday office has now been considerably shortened, the principal reason for not doing it has been done away with. Only the top two grades of feast (out of six) are allowed to impede a common Sunday – in 1913, the first year the new Psalter was universally obligatory, only eight common Sundays were impeded by feasts on the general Calendar. The custom of assigning feasts to a particular Sunday was abolished, with only one exception, the feast of the Holy Name, newly assigned to the Sunday between the Circumcision and the Epiphany. (Two further exceptions were made later, for the Holy Family by Pope Benedict XV, and the feast of Christ the King, instituted by Pius XI.) All of the others were assigned to a particular day on the calendar, although the practice of the external solemnity, i.e., the repetition of a major feast on Sunday, remains to this day.

The translation of feasts is also strictly limited to the top two grades; all others are simply commemorated if they are impeded by a more important office, or, on fairly rare occasions, omitted altogether. This being the case, it now often happens that a local feast falls on the same day as a feast of the general Calendar. Previously, one of the two feasts was celebrated on its own day, and other permanently translated to another day; under the new system, such permanent translations are also abolished.

Shortly after the reform of 1911 was promulgated, every feast which could no longer be translated was provided with a “lectio simplificata” a shortened version of the Saint’s life, in only one lesson. This was to be read, according to the new rubrics, as the ninth lesson at Matins of the impeding feast. To give a concrete example, the Discalced Carmelites formerly celebrated the feast of All Carmelite Saints on November 14th, and permanently translated Saint Josaphat to the 26th. In the new system, Josaphat is commemorated on the 14th, and a shortened version of his life read as the ninth lesson at Matins of All Carmelite Saints. This practice already existed in a very limited way in the Breviary of Saint Pius V; the extension of its use in 1911 will lead to a tremendous change to the Breviary fifty years later.

Only the most minute changes were made to the general Calendar of Saints in 1911, but the number of feasts on local calendars was in places reduced by various expedients. A number of secondary feasts were either abolished or relegated to local calendars; the feast of Our Lady’s Expectation on December 18, which originated as the Mozarabic Rite’s version of the Annunciation, disappears from many Breviaries. The diocese of Rome had formerly kept each Sainted or Blessed Pope (more than eighty of them!) with his own feast; many of these were collapsed into feasts of two or three Popes together, and a new Common of Several Confessors invented to accommodate them. The privileges related to the celebration of proper octaves were severely curtailed; ten were removed from the Carmelite calendar mentioned above, and twenty-two from the Dominican Use. All votive offices are definitively abolished without exception.


[In the third part of this section, we will conclude with an assessment of the specific reforms of Pius X.]

-- Copyright (c) Gregory DiPippo, 2009

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To read previous installments in this series, see: Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961: Part 7.1 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X

We now turn our attention in our series on the reforms to the Roman breviary to that section which will have no doubt been the most anticipated of the entire series. Namely, to the breviary reforms pursued in the early 20th century by Pope Pius X.

For terms and their definitions, please see the associated Glossary which accompanies this compendium.

Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961

by Gregory DiPippo
for publication on the New Liturgical Movement

Part 7.1 - The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X

As has already been mentioned earlier in this series, the last of the neo-Gallican rites was abolished in the year 1875, due in no small measure to the persuasion and passion of Dom Prosper Guéranger, who died in the same year. Although he had achieved one of his principal goals, the return of France to liturgical unity with the Church of Rome, the Liturgical Movement founded by him still had a great deal of work before it. In 1903, the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice , Giuseppe Sarto, was elected to the throne of St. Peter, taking the name Pius X. The last Pope to be canonized thus far was also the first who may be said to have truly shared the ideas of the Liturgical Movement. Prior to his election to the Papacy, he worked as a parish priest, as the spiritual director of a seminary, as a canon and as a bishop, first in Mantua, then in Venice. In all these roles, he was known for his encouragement of lay participation in church singing, and of lay education about the Sacred Liturgy. As Pope, he issued the famous motu proprio on sacred music, Tra le sollicitudini, and entrusted to the Benedictine Congregation of Solemnes, founded by Dom Guéranger, a complete reform of the official text of Gregorian chant.

These things may make it all the more surprising, therefore, that he also introduced into the Roman Rite one of the most characteristic features of the neo-Gallican breviaries: the near-complete re-ordering of the Psalter, and the extension of its use to the majority of Saints’ days. To understand why this change was made, the first substantial change to the Roman Breviary in nearly three centuries, we must first consider certain developments of the post-Tridentine period.


From St. Pius V to Leo XIII

In the Middle Ages, there was no idea of a General Calendar of Saints’ days to be observed universally. To be sure, there were many feasts which were observed universally, such as the principal feasts of Our Lady and the Apostles, the four great doctors of the Latin Church, and several of the more famous early martyrs and confessors. However, there was an enormous amount of local variation to calendars, which were regulated by local bishops and cathedral chapters with almost no direction from Rome. For this reason, one also finds some interesting gaps in medieval liturgical calendars, especially in regard to “new” Saints. The first Saint ever formally canonized by the Apostolic See, Ulric of Augsburg, was never celebrated with a feast day in Rome itself. Pope Gregory IX, who reigned from 1227 to 1241, canonized both St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic. Despite the tremendous importance of these two religious founders to the life of the later medieval Church, neither appears in the 1556 edition of the Sarum Breviary, or the 1501 Breviary of Bamberg, (to give just two examples); in many other places, they were kept as mere commemorations. The same Pope once called the great preacher and miracle worker Saint Anthony of Padua “the Ark of the Covenant” while the Saint himself was still alive, yet his feast is missing from many late medieval calendars, and indeed, is not included in the 1568 Roman Breviary.

The Use of Rome had already been adopted by the Franciscans at time of their foundation, and was spread by them far beyond the confines of the Pope’s diocese. The new orders of the Counter-Reformation era such as the Jesuits and Oratorians also followed the Roman Use, and it soon became the standard liturgical form for all new religious orders and congregations. The Pian reform of the Roman Breviary was also taken on by innumerable dioceses throughout Europe and the newly-evangelized Americas, creating a liturgical uniformity much greater than had been known before Trent . The Catholic Church of the Tridentine era was particularly concerned, of course, to lay greater emphasis on the cult of the Saints, which had been so thoroughly rejected by the Protestant Reformers, and to add to the ranks of the heavenly intercessors its own great heroes. Therefore, when Saints like Ignatius of Loyola and Philip Neri were canonized, their feasts were more or less universally and immediately adopted, unlike those of their great medieval predecessors.

The system of arranging Saints’ offices as established by Pope Saint Pius V remained unchanged until the reform of 1911. What did change however was the number of Saints on the Calendar, which increased dramatically over the three and a half centuries following the publication of the Pian liturgical books. This is very much an expression of the traditional Catholic devotion to the Saints, as crucial to the piety of the Counter-Reformation as it was to that of the Middle Ages. It cannot be denied, however, that the brevity of the Offices of the Saints, compared with that of the ferial and Sunday office, also played a role in this very notable rise in the number of feast days.

As has been noted earlier in this series, the Pian Breviary retained the medieval custom that on any feast day, the psalms of Sunday are said at Lauds in place of those of the feria. On feasts of double or semidouble rank (which includes all octaves), there are special psalms to be said at Matins and both Vespers, also in place of those of the feria. Consequently, the more Saints on the Calendar, the more of the Psalter is impeded; although the weekly recitation of the entire Psalter always remained the theoretical norm, in reality, it occurred only in the very rare week when there was no feast at all. The Breviary of 1568 also retained the common medieval custom by which the more important Saints’ feasts were allowed to take the place of common Sundays. This custom still exists to a very limited degree in the Roman Rite; this year, for example, the feast of All Saints will be celebrated on November 1 in place of the Office and Mass of Sunday in both forms of the Roman Rite.

On the general Calendar of 1568, there are only 137 double or semidouble Saint’s days, not including the movable feasts such as Easter and Corpus Christi. There are comparatively few double feasts; therefore, in the first full year of its use, 1569, only three of the common Sundays were impeded. All feasts of nine readings, double and semidouble, if they were impeded by a more important office, would be transferred to the next free day; in 1569, there were four such translations. However, it must always be born in mind that the general Calendar included only the basic feasts deemed important enough to be celebrated wherever the Roman Rite was in use; each diocese and religious order continued to supplement it with its own Saints, and to keep those of its particular patrons with octaves.

By the end of the 19th century, the number of Saints on both the general and local calendars had increased to such a point that ferial Offices and even common Sundays had become a rare exception. In the year 1900, when the number of doubles and semidoubles on the general Calendar had risen to 288, twenty-one of that year’s twenty-eight common Sundays were impeded by duplex feasts. The number of Saints was even greater on local Calendars. In a Franciscan Breviary published at Rome in 1829, the calendar has only eighteen free days; not a single one occurs between June 8th and October 29th. The translation of feasts had become so frequent and so complex that Pope Leo XIII decided in 1882 to impose a notable limitation on the practice; this was done, however, with the expressly stated purpose of keeping open places for the addition of even more feasts! (Batiffol, p. 300)

Some religious orders had also been granted the privilege of keeping all the feasts of their Patrons and formally canonized Saints with octaves; the Discalced Carmelites had fifteen proper octaves, in addition to the sixteen kept universally in the Roman Rite. The extreme example, the Dominicans, did not of course use the Pian Breviary; by 1900, they had added twenty-seven proper octaves, in varying degrees of solemnity, to the sixteen in general use, for a total of fourty-three. It must be noted, however, that the Dominican Calendar, like so many proper calendars, was filled with feasts to such a point that some of these octaves were themselves completely impeded by other feasts.

In addition, it had become a widespread custom to permanently assign certain major feasts to certain Sundays; thus, for example, the feast of the Holy Rosary was always kept on the first Sunday of the month of October. This was not (as is now the case in the Extraordinary Rite) an “external solemnity” for the benefit of the people; rather, the feast displaced the Sunday entirely in both the Office and the Mass. By 1911, there were eight feasts permanently assigned to Sundays on the general Calendar alone, but many more in various proper Calendars; a French missal printed right before the implementation of St. Pius X’s reform has, in the supplement “for certain places”, twenty different feasts assigned to particular Sundays.

Finally, there were also in many Breviaries votive offices of the Saints, corresponding to particular votive Masses. The Discalced Carmelites had votive offices for Our Lady and five major Carmelite Saints, with some restriction on how often they could be said. Among the Dominicans, certain votive offices were obligatory throughout the Order if a common feria occurred, and others were obligatory in various provinces or houses of study. In 1883, Pope Leo XIII granted to the entire Roman Rite a series of votive offices for each day of the week except Sunday. The rubrics specify that the ferial office must still be said on Ash Wednesday, Passiontide and the last seven days of Advent; that they needed to say this indicates how little importance was attached to the ferial office. By 1911, therefore, it was not merely possible, but probable that a priest might say a ferial office no more than handful of times during the year, and rarely if ever celebrate Mass in green vestments.


[In the second part of this section, we will continue with an analysis of the specific reforms of Pius X and a consideration of this reform.]

-- Copyright (c) Gregory DiPippo, 2009

* * *
To read previous installments in this series, see: Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568-1961