|
Home Page
from
The Abbot's Desk:
Homily
Notebook
Priors Page
Receive the Prior's Page
in your email!
Report Archives:
Nov 15 2009
Nov 8 2009
Oct 25 2009
Oct 18 2009
Oct 11 2009
Oct 3 2009
Sep 27 2009
Sep 20 2009
Sep 13 2009
Sep 6 2009
Aug 30 2009
Aug 23 2009
|
Click here for a printer friendly page
THE OPUS DEI, OR “WORK OF GOD”
Introduction and Pre-Monastic Office
The origins of the Divine Office, the Opus Dei, or ‘Work of God,’ are
in the early Church. No exact date, however can be assigned to the
inauguration of the official ‘Prayer of the Church,’ the Divine Office,
as we’ve come to know it. Many scholars hold that the origins of the
Christian Office are within the Jewish liturgical tradition, due to the
fact that the Book of Psalms is the bulk of the structure for both
Jewish and Christian public prayer (outside of the Mass).
Jews and Christians prayed psalms and other Scripture texts especially
in the morning and evening, and continue to do so. The connection
between Jewish and Christian traditions seems clear, as Christ’s first
followers were Jewish and comfortable no doubt with existing forms of
public prayer.
Along with possible Jewish roots, another important source of the
Divine Office is the New Testament injunction to “pray without
ceasing,” found in Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, a
document that even pre-dates the written Gospels. First Thessalonians,
chapter 5, verse 17 seems to have encouraged early Christians to gather
regularly for prayer, following the example of the Apostles and “Mary
the mother of Jesus” as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts
1:14).
These gatherings of early Christians would have been in the morning and
evening, but likely too at midmorning, midday, mid-afternoon; that is,
the third, sixth and ninth hours, with the ‘zero hour’ of each day
being understood as approximately 6:00 am. Hence, Terce, Sext and None
as they eventually came to be known corresponded to the third, sixth
and ninth hours of the day, that is, three, six and nine hours after
6:00 am.
Prime, ‘the first hour,’ was a later innovation in the West, beginning
close to the time of Saint Benedict (480-547) in the sixth century.
Because of its late beginning it is not universally accepted as an
authentic part of the Divine Office, so a ‘disputed office.’ Prime was
known to John Cassian, however, in the Egyptian desert at an earlier
date (Inst. 3.4). Cassian claims the monks in Bethlehem invented Prime
to keep monks from returning to bed between Lauds and Terce! That
sounds reasonable enough!
For the early Christians morning and evening prayers were the
principal or ‘major’ hours, as in the Jewish tradition. These two
gatherings were the ‘longer’ hours, meaning they were composed of more
psalms and other sacred texts. The ‘little hours’ of Terce, Sext and
None were and are just that: shorter prayer times with fewer psalms and
other texts.
Besides the morning and evening prayers, with minor or ‘little hours’
in between, the early Christian liturgy also had an all-night Vigil
service before the great feasts of the Church calendar, such as Easter,
Pentecost and Christmas. The long Vigil was typically followed by the
celebration of the Holy Eucharist at dawn, and then time allotted for a
meal and rest. This structure is carefully maintained by many Orthodox
monasteries today.
The Vigil for great feasts in some Orthodox monasteries today begins
the night before, around 8:30 pm, and only ends next morning around
7:00 am with the conclusion of Mass! The only break might be for the
main group of cantors, perhaps 7 or 8 monks, to go out for some coffee
around midnight, during which time a soloist continues with the
chanting. This sort of structure I experienced in the flourishing
monasteries on Mount Athos in Greece in 1979, during a forty-day stay.
I was in my 20’s then, and the all-night Vigil was most enjoyable. I
might feel less enthusiastic about the idea now! But I’m sure the monks
there carry on the custom with vigor.
In any case, we have the early Christian witnesses of people like
the pilgrim Egeria to the Holy Land around 380 AD, coming perhaps from
Spain, partaking in the all-night Christian Vigil in Jerusalem. The
Jewish custom of the new day beginning at sundown is seen in this
practice, which we still maintain in our Catholic tradition on Saturday
nights—at First Vespers--as well as on the evening before Solemnities.
In the Jewish tradition the new day always begins at nightfall. For us,
it is only on Solemnities and Sundays. This is certainly a way to mark
off the great feasts with practices different from those observed on
regular or ferial days.
Some scholars of Church liturgy connect the origins of the night
Vigil to the Book of Exodus account of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt at
nighttime. The resurrection of Christ also occurred in the night. The
modern practice of early morning Vigil, which Saint Benedict expected
his monks to maintain, finds its origin as well in “waiting for the
risen Lord” to come to us at dawn, as did the women disciples of our
Lord who went to the tomb at daybreak.
The idea of waiting is linked to being always ready to open the door of
the heart, of one’s time and all one has, should Jesus return even at
midnight or before sunrise. To wait in the dark, keeping vigil, is a
very ancient monastic custom, still preserved by stricter Orders and
some individual monasteries like your own and mine.
As already stated, the Book of Psalms has always been the chief text
used in whatever Christian Office is celebrated. Many of the psalms are
chosen specifically to reflect the time of day of the Office—nighttime,
morning, midday, etc. Other psalms would have a difficult time fitting
into any particular time of day, but worthy material—as divinely
inspired texts—for general use in the Divine Office.
Some psalms in fact quite naturally develop a relationship with a
particular feast or solemnity. Think of Psalm 2, for example, in
relation to the birth of our Lord: “The Lord said to me: ‘You are my
Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.’” Or Psalm 71 for the same
feast: “O God, give your judgment to the king, to a king’s son your
justice…The kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring him gifts.” This
especially calls to mind our Lord’s Epiphany.
These and other appropriate psalms understandably are assigned for
the Office during the Christmas season. Psalm 44 has a particular
Marian sound and assigned to feasts of our Lady. “Listen, O daughter,
give ear to my words: forget your own people and your father’s house.”
The Christian community has always tried to look at the psalms in
the light of the Risen Christ, and find the deepest meaning of the
psalms in Christ’s saving deeds. In the earliest practice of
celebrating the Divine Office, the laity, in congregations that we now
call parishes, were the main participants. They would gather with their
clergy—priests or deacons—and in unison or with soloists sing some or
all of the Offices. They also made use of sacred images, candles, bells
and incense to enhance the celebrations. Gestures of bowing,
prostrating in prayer, crossing oneself, etc., were also part of the
liturgy.
Early Monastic Office
We know that monastic communities were established in various
places by the fourth century, particularly in Egypt, Palestine and
Syria. With that fact regular times of common prayer came into being,
especially in the morning and evening. We now call these times Lauds
and Vespers.
Since the monastic life was structured around the call to “pray without
ceasing,” early on the ‘little hours’ or ‘minor hours’ also came into
being. But perhaps the most characteristic monastic Office was and is
Vigils, the pre-dawn assembly, longer than other Offices and perhaps
richest in content. It was kept not only on great feasts, but every
day, causing the monks to do something most ‘ordinary Christians’ would
not be inclined to do: rise well before dawn and gather in church for
prayer. The time was to be spent in prayerful watching, in vocal and
silent prayer and psalmody, as well as the proclamation of and
listening to God’s inspired Word and hearing commentaries on it by
Fathers of the Church.
We know the celebration of the Office in the early monastic
communities included solo cantors, who read or chanted while the rest
of the assembly listened and then responded with simple refrains. We
might ask why that was so. Perhaps it was due to the simple reality of
a lack of books and inadequate lighting in the prayer place. This form
of praying the hours might seem to us today to have been a more
passive, if not boring, kind of celebration than what we associate with
the Office today, with everyone able to ‘join in’ for the bulk of it.
Approaching the Office in a contemplative spirit, the monks of old
might have felt it was completely fitting that most of them listen
rather than actively contribute with vocal participation. In those days
there was no preoccupation with ‘active participation,’ a hallmark of
post-Vatican II worship, but emphasis was more on truly listening to
God’s Word in silence, pondering it in the heart, and making simple
response by a few words only. It is still a valid approach to
celebrating the Office.
At Christ in the Desert we experience this more passive approach to the
Opus Dei at Vigils on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when the church
remains dark, except for the Tenebrae stand of thirteen candles. The
psalms of the Office are chanted by soloists at the lectern, where
there is a small light. Scripture and Patristic texts are read from the
same lectern. After each psalm or reading a candle is extinguished on
the Tenebrae stand. At the end of Vigils only one candle remains lit,
under a large woven image of our Lord. At that moment we kneel for
silent prayer, followed by the chanting, on our knees, of the “Christus
factus est pro nobis obediens usque ad mortum,” (Christ became for us
obedient unto death, etc.).
Admittedly, those in ancient times or today who are not actually
doing the soloist chanting or reading could tend to fall asleep, or be
contemplatively listening and praying in the dark. Most likely, no one
would ever know. But hopefully the majority are listening and praying
with the soloist cantors.
In any case, the early monastic Office, however it was carried out,
had a definite form. In other words, the monks knew what to expect when
they went to pray in common. One of the norms or expectations of the
long Office of Vigils, for example, was the praying of twelve psalms.
There was a story that Saint Pachomius (+345)—often called the “Father
of Cenobitic Monasticism”—received the vision of an angel who warned
Pachomius not to go beyond twelve psalms at Vigils. Later on Saint
Benedict held to this norm, though in fact some of the longer psalms he
divided, thus making two psalms out of what is technically just one
psalm.
Here it should be said that much was made in the ancient world of
symbolic numbers and quantities. Twelve was two times six, a perfect
number. Four, as in the quantity of psalms at Vespers, was a special
number, as was three, as in the number of psalms at the Little Hours.
The biblical “seven times a day I praise you,” seven being a number of
perfection, was also incorporated into the mentality of legislators of
the monastic Office, such as Saint Benedict.
The recitation or chanting of the entire Book of Psalms, often
called ‘the psalter,’ within a week or every day, was also an early
monastic custom. Many monks before Saint Benedict settled on the weekly
praying of the Psalter, as is clear in Benedict’s outline, though
several of the psalms were to be repeated daily, namely, Psalms 3 and
94 at Vigils, Psalms 66 and 50 at Lauds, 4, 90, 133 at Compline. Also
psalms would be repeated several days per week at some of the little
hours, once the chanting of the longest psalm, 118, was completed early
in the week.
Saint Benedict refers to desert monks praying the entire psalter within
a given day. For his monks, however, the recitation extended over an
entire week, with repetition of some psalms every day, such as Psalms
3, 94, 66, 50, 148, 149, 150, as well as 4, 90 and 133, the traditional
Compline psalms.
We have to acknowledge that here is no set number of psalms or
prayer times that is automatically pleasing to God. What is essential,
though, is that the Office be carried out reverently and regularly.
Heartfelt prayer is the goal, that God may be worshiped and the
participants be led to the Maker of all. As such, each Office should be
characterized by reverence and care. We believe the all-Holy God is
present always and everywhere, but especially so when we gather in his
name. “Where two or three in my name are gathered together, there am I
in the midst of them,” our Lord himself said (Mt 18:20).
Reverence and a spirit of sincere devotion, then, should characterize
those who have assembled to pray in common. Perhaps the approach needs
to be something else when praying in private. Common prayer, though,
has its particular form. This should not include fussiness and tension
over ceremonies, nor should breezy casualness be the norm. Common
worship in the presence of the Creator should be done with care and
devotion, which includes a certain formality, uniformity and concern
for detail.
We know many in our day are drawn to liturgy that is done with dignity,
where a sense of mystery prevails, and the transcendent God is not
reduced to a ‘good buddy’ or an equal. We are and always will be God’s
creatures and so this relationship should be reflected in the way we
approach the Triune God in our public worship.
Saint Benedict devised a fairly strict pattern of psalm distribution,
which was already a tradition before him, and a break from another
tradition, which favored what has been called a ‘running psalter,’ that
is, simply praying the psalms in their numerical order, one after
another. Benedict’s tradition was to assign specific psalms to specific
hours of the day or night.
Both traditions were used in early monastic Offices, but the
Benedictine one more widely accepted as time went on, and still so
today. Other Christian Churches, such as present-day Coptic Christians
of Egypt, continue to favor the tradition of the running psalter. In
either case, once again, the strictest interpretation of using the
Psalter was to complete all 150 psalms in a week. The history of
monasticism saw other practices, many of them going to the extremes,
such praying the psalter in a day or the laus perennis, that is, choirs
chanting the Office non-stop, as in the Middle Ages, but generally the
virtue of discretio won the day.
Until Vatican II the entire psalter was usually prayed by monks in the
course of a week. Today there is a variety from one-week to four-week
distribution of the psalter, all of them approved by Rome for use by
laity and religious.
Happily there seems to be a slowly growing tendency among Benedictines
to return to a one-week distributiton of the 150 psalms, following the
prescription found in the Rule of Saint Benedict: At all costs take
care that every week the integral psalter of 150 psalms be sung.
(Chapter 18, verse 23, In What Order These Psalms Are To Be Said.)
to be continued
(largely based on material originally
in Spanish, by Fr Ruben Leikam, OSB,
translated and adapted by
Prior Christian Leisy, OSB
Monastery of Christ in the Desert)
----------------------------------
Prior's Page
Sunday Jan 8, 2006 |
|
Home Page
from
The Abbot's Desk:
Homily
Notebook
Priors Page
Receive the Prior's Page
in your email!
Report Archives:
Nov 15 2009
Nov 8 2009
Oct 25 2009
Oct 18 2009
Oct 11 2009
Oct 3 2009
Sep 27 2009
Sep 20 2009
Sep 13 2009
Sep 6 2009
Aug 30 2009
Aug 23 2009
|
Click here for a printer friendly page
The Opus Dei or Work of God, Part Two
Divine Office Today
Every community, however large or small, that prays the Divine Office
should be aware of being a ‘praying Church,’ which represents the
Universal Church. For those in more contemplative and monastic
communities the Opus Dei is a special ‘charism,’ that is, gift of the
Holy Spirit. It could be said that the Holy Spirit bestows the gift or
‘charism of prayer,’ or a ministry of prayer, to the individual members
and to the contemplative community as a whole.
The monastic community is one that has received the call to “pray
without ceasing.” This does not mean a perpetual presence in church,
but rather a call to “pray always,” in whatever occupation is being
undertaken. The prayer is for the Church and the good of all, outwardly
directed, for “the growth of the Body of Christ,” as Saint Paul calls
it in Ephesians 4:15. This does not discount the charism of perpetual
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which some contemplative
communities are devoted to. Many parishes today also maintain this
venerable custom.
By a ‘ministry of prayer,’ the praying Church, the monastic choir,
continues the work of salvation, through Christ being present in Word
and in Sacrament, when the Eucharist is celebrated. The two modes of
public liturgical prayer—the Divine Office and the Mass---are great
testimonies to Christ-in-our-midst. Christ is present in the assembly
that gathers and proclaims God’s Word and it also receives Christ truly
present in the bread and wine, his Body and Blood, at the Eucharist.
The monastic choir is also a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, who
bestows the particular charism or ‘ministry of prayer.’ The praying
community should be attentive to the action of the Holy Spirit, who
inspires a deeper longing for the living God. This is compared in the
psalms to a “deer that yearns for living streams.”
We do this when we are attentive to God’s living Word and his desire to
bring us to good actions and words. This is the work of the Holy Spirit
in the assembly of monks or whenever “two or three are gathered” in
Christ’s name.
Christ is present in our liturgical prayer, uniting himself with the
praying community in a relationship of Master and disciple, Head and
member, Bridegroom and bride, Creator and creature. The members of the
praying community—the monastic choir—are in communion with their Head,
Christ, and participate in Christ’s saving work. The ritual
celebrations of the Divine Office are a strong means of entering into a
dialogue of praise and contemplation of the God who saves us.
The Opus Dei thus becomes a powerful part of every day and thus should
not be neglected for other matters, however urgent. So many monastic
communities today have dropped Vigils, for example, because of the
demands of the apostolate or other works or even the priority of
‘getting more rest,’ are preferred to the ‘Work of God.’ Those who have
the leisure, so to speak, to spend more time with God, should
diligently carry out the full round of Offices in the monastic
tradition.
The Liturgy of the Hours is not the same as the Eucharistic
sacrifice, but the two are intimately connected in the one saving work
of Christ, who comes to us in many forms. When we partake of the Office
or the Mass we are invited to “taste and see how good the Lord is,” who
loved us and gave himself up for us, which we recall at every Mass and
Office when we participate through Word and Sacrament in a ‘sacrifice
of praise.’
We bring the gifts of self and all we have, including bread and wine,
to the Lord’s altar, so that God may consecrate us and our gifts, and
accomplish the two-fold purpose of all liturgical action: the
sanctification of souls and the glorification of God.
In 1970 Pope Paul VI wrote some challenging and encouraging words in his Apostolic Constitution, Laudis canticum, number 8:
“May divine praise resound more and more splendid and beautiful in the
Church of our time; may this praise unite itself to the praise which
the saints and angels make sound in the celestial dwellings and,
increasing its perfection in the days of this earthly exile, may it
approximate more and more that full praise which is eternally rendered
‘to him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb’” (cf. Rev 5:13).
Theology of the Opus Dei
In the contemplative monastic tradition of the West, pride of place
has always been given to the celebration of the Divine Office. Along
with the daily Eucharist, the Opus Dei nourishes and forms the
individuals and the community as a whole. “Let nothing be preferred to
the work of God,” Saint Benedict wrote in his Rule (RB 43.3, “Those Who
Arrive Late at the Work of God”). This reflects the constant conviction
of the Church that the Divine Office is to be among the primary
responsibilities of the Church (see: General Instruction of the Liturgy
of the Hours).
All Christians are called to pray and common prayer is an important
part of a ‘life of prayer,’ to which all believers are invited. Vatican
II tried to re-introduce the laity to this important ‘Prayer of the
Church,’ the Divine Office, and in some parishes it met with success.
In many others, though, the Divine Office remains an unknown reality
and rarely or never prayed.
Praying communities can hopefully encourage others not committed to
monastic or religious life to at least consider incorporating some of
the Divine Office into their daily lives. We certainly meet in our
monasteries today many who are zealous to be people of prayer and often
they simply need to be directed to the riches contained in the Liturgy
of the Hours.
When a community gathers to pray the Divine Office, they represent
the entire Church at prayer. It is not to be seen as a sort of
‘pooling’ of private prayers, but truly the Church praying as a body,
in the name of all and for all, thus being again the ‘Church at
prayer.’ The assembled community is a sign of communion among
themselves in Christ the Lord who prays with them, and in the Holy
Spirit who has called the community into being and bestowed upon it the
charism of prayer and who “intercedes for us with sighs to deep for
words” (Rom 8:26).
The structure of the Opus Dei is intended to promote a conversation
between God and his people (GILH), which includes both listening and
responding, silence and words, Sacred Scripture and poetic texts
reflecting Scripture themes, such as in the hymns. In more recent times
silence has come to be valued as an important element in the Divine
Office, most often after each psalm or reading. Such silence helps all
to absorb the word that has been chanted or heard, so that it may take
root and grow in attentive hearts.
On the other hand, the silence must not be so long as to bore or cause
distraction in the choir, such as one or all falling fast asleep! A
balance is needed and will inevitably vary from community to community
and between individuals within the community.
The Work of God is one of several means of prayer in the monastic day.
It holds pride of place, of course, along with the daily Eucharist. The
daily horarium revolves around the times we gather for the Office and
Mass. As we are expected to pray in solitude as well as common, the
Opus Dei should inspire our solitary prayer and vice versa.
The prayer in solitude will probably have much less structure and
ritual, but it is nonetheless a very important part of our ‘life of
prayer.’ We may begin each day with the praise of God in common with
others, but eventually we continue in secret, under the inspiration of
divine grace, the dialogue with God begun earlier.
The Opus Dei is spread over the day in order to consecrate the
entire day to God. The old custom of waiting till the end of the day
for the praying of all the Offices or praying them all at the beginning
of the day, clearly defeats the notion of sanctifying the entire day by
consciously stopping other activities to gather for prayer in the
oratory or cell. We are to go back continually to the source of our
energy and life—God himself—to draw further strength and inspiration to
‘going about doing good,’ as our Lord himself is described in the
Gospels as having done.
to be continued
(largely based on material in Spanish, by Fr Ruben Leikam, OSB, translated and adapted by Prior Christian Leisy, OSB
Monastery of Christ in the Desert)
| |
| |