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I hope that I won’t try the patience of our readers if I continue to write about the Breviary. Once the old Mass is restored to its proper place within the liturgical life of the Church, some attention, I suppose, will also shift towards considering the state of the other liturgical books from that time, especially the Breviary. I have written before about the fact that many supporters of the old liturgical books are yet convinced that the Breviary, as it stood in 1962, is badly in need of reform. And here, “reform” would really be something true to the word, that is, a return to an older arrangement as, for example, in the psalms to be said at Lauds and Compline.
But one other glaring defect in the 1962 Breviary is the lesson on the Gospel at Matins on Sundays. While I have remarked this defect before and even given an example of it, yet this Sunday I noticed a most hideous example of it. The lesson on the Gospel for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from a homily of St. Gregory the Great. I copy the texts from breviary.net:
Léctio sancti Evangélii, quam modo, fratres, audistis, expositióne non índiget: sed ne hanc táciti præterísse vídeámur, exhortándo potius quam exponéndo in ea áliquid loquámur. Hoc autem nobis solúmmodo de expositióne vídeo esse requiréndum, cur is, qui ad salútem fílio peténdam venerat, audívit: Nisi signa et prodígia vidéritis, non créditis. Qui enim salútem fílio quærebat, proculdúbio credébat; neque enim ab eo quæreret salútem, quem non créderet Salvatórem. Quare ergo dícitur: Nisi signa et prodígia vidéritis, non créditis: qui ante crédidit, quam signa vidéret?
My brethren, the passage from the Holy Gospel, which ye have just now heard, standeth in need of no explanation. But lest I should seem to pass over the same in idle silence, I will say somewhat thereon, rather by way of exhortation than of explanation. Indeed, there seemeth to me only this point which calleth for explanation: Wherefore was it that when the nobleman went unto the Lord, and besought him that he would come down and heal his son, Jesus said unto him: Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe? The very fact that he had come to beseech Christ to heal his son, putteth it beyond all doubt that this nobleman believed; if he had not believed him to be a saviour, he would not have asked him to save his son. Wherefore then said Jesus unto him : Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe: since he was one who had not seen, and yet had believed?
While attending the so-called Novus Ordo Missae at Bang Bae Catholic Church in the Seocho-gu neighborhood of Seoul, I was reading this passage to myself and thinking that it’s inclusion as is in the 1962 Breviary, without further explanation, support, etc., is almost so bad as to be a kind of giant typo or a mistake. When the 1962 Breviary was compiled, someone simply took the first lesson out of three from the old old Breviary and put it down as the sole lesson in the 1962 Breviary.
But did he look at what it says?! Gregory explains that but one point in the Gospel is in need of explanation and the passage concludes by sharpening the interest of this question. But it remains just that, a question, and nothing more. If anything at all has been said or communicated to the one reading his Breviary, it is that there is a question there where he might not have thought of one.
Great. But how will the priest find the answer to this question so that he can explain today’s Gospel to his flock? Does he have a copy of Gregory’s homilies on his shelf? That would be wonderful but not likely. If the editor had taken a phrase or two from the first lesson and combined it with the second lesson, he would at least have produced an informative passage. Here’s how he might have revised it:
Qui enim salútem fílio quærebat, proculdúbio credébat; neque enim ab eo quæreret salútem, quem non créderet Salvatórem. Quare ergo dícitur: Nisi signa et prodígia vidéritis, non créditis: qui ante crédidit, quam signa vidéret?
Sed mementóte quid pétiit; et aperte cognoscétis, quia in fide dubitávit. Popóscit namque, ut descénderet et sanaret fílium ejus. Corporalem ergo præséntiam Dómini quærebat, qui per spíritum nusquam déerat. Minus ítaque in illum crédidit, quem non putávit posse salútem dare, nisi præsens esset et córpore. Si enim perfecte credidísset, proculdúbio sciret, quia non esset locus ubi non esset Deus.
[What I've added - the second lesson - reads:] But bethink you what was his prayer, and then shall ye understand clearly wherein his faith was shaky. He besought him that he would come down and heal his son. He asked for the bodily presence of him who is spiritually always present everywhere. Then he did not believe in Christ sufficiently, for he thought that Christ could not heal unless he were bodily present. Had his faith been perfect, he would doubtless have known that God is everywhere.
Put the last two sentences of the first lesson with the whole of the second, and you’ve said something informative, albeit brief. Indeed, this was was an ideal of the successive revisions of the Breviary up until the present: the priest was supposed to have less time to mumble psalms and read lessons, so he needed a shorter Breviary. Still, even respecting this “ideal”, there was a way to do it that would at least be reasonable in regard to the lessons provided on Sundays. Somehow, on some Sundays, the 1962 Breviary cannot even attain this goal.
Is this true of the Dominican Breviary of 1962? I ordered it from Loome and hope to use it for my latin version once my latin is up to snuff. Maybe this is one area where the Novus ordo breviary got it right…
I thought I would pass along something I learned while I was studying in Rome some years ago. One of my acquaintances asked the then-Prefect of the Ecclesia Dei Commission (Cardinal Meyer) whether it was licit to say the “old Breviary” (and I’m not sure if he specificied any edition other than pre-Paul VI). The good Cardinal answered in effect: Why not? You say more of the psalter with it than with the new Breviary. Taking his opinion to heart, I say the old Breviary (the one before the “reforms” of the 1950’s), and I can add to Cardinal Meyer’s recommendation the fact that one reads a commentary on the Gospel of that day’s Mass. With the new Breviary, not only is there no correspondence whatsoever with the Epistle of the Mass (except by chance sometimes)–as with the little chapters of the old Breviary–there is rarely any kind of commentary on the Gospel of the Mass. The new Breviary may have longer readings, but the editors seem to have lacked the genius of the old compilers in knowing how much to include without overwhelming one. One example: look at the commentaries on Joshua by Origen included at length in the new Breviary. Yours in Christ,
a simple priest.
A simple priest: I was under the impression - in fact, I had asked the very question of an FSSP priest - whether a Latin Rite priest may say any Breviary at all - and the answer was ‘no’, that a priest is required to say the Breviary prescribed. Of course, in addition to saying the new Breviary, the priest might say the Breviary as it was in 1740, say, but this is a private devotion.
In short, I thought that only the priests who belong to institutes whose canonical constitution entitles them to the exclusive use of the old books can say the old Breviary as their daily Office.
By the same token, it wouldn’t be right for an FSSP or ICKSP priest to say a Breviary from 1510, unless this was in addition to the 1962 Breviary.
Dear Josephus,
Without any desire to lead anyone astray, I may state my understanding of the canonical situation regarding the Breviary to be as follows: 1) There is no question that the ordinary canonical disposition regarding which form of the Breviary is to be recited is the Paul VI Breviary for the Latin rite, or the 1962 Breviary for those enjoying the “indult”; 2) however, considering that, as is now becoming more and more voiced out loud, the ancient rite of Mass was never abolished or otherwise suspended, a fortiori this is true of the Breviary (which always enjoyed a certain latitude greater than that afforded the rite of Mass); 3) therefore, canonically there was never any real difficulty about a priest saying the pre-Paul VI Breviary; 4) but there is a certainly a question regarding whether it had to be the 1962 version or the version of St Pius X, inasmuch as the rubrics of the 1962 Missal (let alone the Breviary) to this day are not strictly enforced. Note, though, that St Pius X left no doubt, canonically or otherwise, that his reform of the Breviary was binding on the Latin rite (with the usual exce