Fr. Perrone: Why I am not a charismatic (November 18, 2001)

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, November 18, 2001):

One might rightly ask why I would devote so much ink to the subject of the charismatic Movement when there are so many other aberrations in the Church today. The answer is that most of them are clearly false because they vie in a conspicuous manner with the doctrines of the Church or its norms of worship. The charismatic movement on the other hand seems to have taken hold among many who are devoted to Catholic truth. This is precisely why there is a danger of being misled into this movement which is largely a spiritual counterfeit. As I have said, there are surely those whose spiritual lives have enjoyed a true renewal by the working of the Holy Spirit. This is in the order of the ordinary working of God who sanctifies through the sacraments, prayer, the many graces that are available to all. One of many difficulties with the CM (charismatic movement) is that its experiences are reserved only for the initiates: a precarious posture of exclusivity to the special gifts of the Holy Spirit. My pastoral then worry is well-founded: if the CM is true, then I ought to do everything possible so that my parishioners will not lack this unique relationship with the Holy Spirit. But if it is fraudulent, I must be assiduous in identifying its fallacies.

Today I want to say something about the often-made claim that the CM must be OK because the bible clearly mentions the experience of “baptism in the spirit.” For charismatics this is the necessary inaugural event that separates a charismatic practitioner from the rest of us. The idea is the essentially non-Catholic one that the sacrament of baptism by water is insufficient or at least that there remains a second “blessing” conferred by the laying on of hands in which one receives the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The consequence of this is that the initiate usually is enabled to speak in tongues, prophesy, heal, exorcise demons, etc. We find these unusual abilities mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles and at the end of St. Mark’s Gospel.

Now, we know that the apostles received the promised Gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in a distinct experience. If not for them, why not a separate bestowal of the Holy Spirit for everyone? The answer is that the apostles were in a unique situation. They were “washed clean” by Jesus at the last super but lacked the Personal Gift of the Holy Spirit until Pentecost. But for all of us who have become Christians since the time of the Lord’s passion and death and since Pentecost, all that is needed is to “be baptized … and you too will receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Like the apostles, we would not have been able to receive the Holy Spirit before Pentecost, because Jesus had not yet been glorified (cf. John 7:39). Saint Paul, like the rest of us who became Christians after Pentecost, was baptized. There is the unusual case of Cornelius in the Acts of the Apostles who appears to have received the Holy Spirit apart from baptism. But the conclusion of his Christian conversion story (not the beginning) is that he and his household is baptized – an event that took place to show how God wanted not only Jews but Gentiles also to be baptized.

Note that although the biblical term baptism has many uses (the ‘baptism’ of Saint John the Baptist; the ‘baptism’ of Jesus’ passion and death; the “baptism on behalf of the dead”; as well as the “baptism in the Spirit”), the Church’s tradition has always applied the texts about being baptized in the Spirit to the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, or even, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, Confession. Thus, apart from schismatics and heretical sects, the true Church of Christ has always understood this expression to refer to the baptism of water that all of us in Church received, usually as infants. It is the work of God and it perfectly suffices apart from any quasi-sacramental rituals or religious experiences. This fact does not deny the need for what we often hear phrased as “on-going” conversion or the ever-deepening growth in grace and holiness by the ordinary means of prayer, spiritual reading, retreats, spiritual direction, the use of sacramental, the various religious confraternities and pious associations of the laity, etc.

As for the claim of Catholic ‘pentecostals’ that we need to get something more after our baptism by water and the Holy Spirit, I am compelled to say that centuries of the Church’s orthodox theologians and Catholic tradition is against it. Yes, there is yet more that should be said on this topic: the matter of “tongues” and some of the strange associations of those involved in the Catholic CM … another time.

Fr. Perrone: Why I am not a charismatic (November 11, 2001)

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, November 11, 2001):

I had promised to treat again the subject of the Catholic Charismatic Movement. This is the first of a mini-series on this subject.

The first thing I want to make clear is that the Holy Spirit certainly can grant extraordinary spiritual gifts to certain individuals. These are those special endowments that are completely distinct from the usual working of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual life of the Christian. We all received sanctifying grace and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit at Baptism; had them increased in Confirmation; and had them restored, if lost through mortal sin, in Confession. The extraordinary gifts (charisms) that are claimed to be bestowed by the Holy Spirit to charismatics include such external things as speaking in tongues, praying in tongues, healings, and prophecies.

Now, the church has always known that there are charisms given to certain souls. Padre Pio, like St. John Vianney, could “read souls,” that is, could know a person’s secret sins. Several saints have had the gift of infused contemplation. A few have been able to foretell future events. Yet others could bilocate; a few had their bodies raised from the ground in an ecstatic rapture of prayer.

The claims of the charismatics of today are either internal or external gifts. They external ones are mentioned in the second paragraph above. The internal ones include a feeling of peace, religious fervor, and an especially intimate union with God. These last are also known in Catholic tradition, but with a difference: it is known that these spiritual graces cannot be induced, nor are they to be sought after. The Holy Spirit grants them only to whomever He wishes.

The Charismatic Movement, as the title indicates, involves phenomena that are available to many, a “movement,” and not the special prerogative of a few elect souls. Even more than in the apostolic days, thousands are claiming today to have been championed by the Holy Spirit and favored with His extraordinary gifts.

There is not doubt that God can do all He pleases. Yet it is entirely possible – perhaps, better, probable – that these claims are false and are either self-induced or the work of an evil spirit. (Demons can simulate many mystical experiences.) These possible alternative explanations are not of my own formulation. They are the teaching of the Church’s history: St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. These Carmelite saints teach us that charismatic gifts cannot be acquired, nor should they be sought after. The dangers of self-deception and pride; the dangers of diabolic influence are ever-present. Charismatics like to think that they can impart to others these special graces through a “baptism in the Spirit.” This is a kind of ritual that includes the laying on of hands by one who is already spirit-filled. The result is usually an experience of ecstatic joy, of fainting, and the capability of speaking in strange languages (“tongues”). These abilities can be had merely for the asking. Those not “spirit-filled” are thought to lack this intimacy with the Holy Spirit. The Charismatic Movement then easily becomes a sort of exclusive club; a spiritual elitism, the “full gospel” Christianity, as opposed to the one that most Catholics know and practice. The resulting pride can be sufficient (and has actually been so) as to cause charismatics to depart from the true Church. The reason is not hard to discern: they believe that they enjoy and advantageous subjective relationship with the Holy Spirit that is apart from the offerings of [an] authoritarian, hierarchical Church. Moreover, the “group” of charismatics forms its own sort of hierarchy, its leaders. These can be laymen (who often “preach,” become spiritual directors of souls, and give retreats) or priests. The dangers here for Church unity and authority are very grave.

I intend to say more on this topic and address particular aspects of the Charismatic Movement in the near future, especially those things that have been asserted by my critics.

Fr. Perrone: Why I'm not a charismatic (Sept. 2, 2001)

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" (Assumption Grotto News, September 2, 2001):

I'm not a charismatic. That will not come as a surprise to most of my parishioners. I have never said anything commendatory of the Catholic Charismatic Movement nor do I act or pray according to its fashions. It's also true to say that I have upheld traditional Catholic beliefs and forms of prayer and have resisted the introduction of anything bizarre in our parish worship.

The Catholic Charismatic Movement appears to be an ever growing phenomenon and I find that there are few theologians willing to tackle it. Our late friend, Fr. Hardon, is said to have made the remark that there are "volumes" that could be written about the errors of the charismatic movement. I count it as a great disadvantage to the Church in the USA that Fr. Hardon did not live long enough to write them. I want to say a few words about this here, with the full realization that most of the details and even most of the fundamental problems with the charismatic movement cannot even be mentioned in this space. My concern is not to write a thesis or even to compose a syllabus of errors on the subject, but to act pastorally for the good of my parishioners.

The first thing that should be known is that the charismatic movement is not a Catholic thing. It is an attempt to bring into the Catholic Church what is known outside of it as (Protestant) Pentecostalism. Although its devotees may claim their lineage to the biblical Christian Pentecost when the Holy Spirit enabled the apostles to speak in unfamiliar languages, the movement actually began in the US around 1900 A.D. The claim is that the charisms (special gifts of the Holy Spirit) have been either dormant or unrecognized in the Church since the time of the apostles but that the Holy Spirit is now leading the Church to revive these gifts in ecstatic prayer, in healings, by speaking in tongues, and through similar phenomena. This claim of theirs, however, is most assuredly false. The Church has in fact known many saints who have had extraordinary gifts with the ability to heal, or to "read souls," or to experience mystical states of prayer, etc. But it is also true that the Church has known and continued to face aberrant and sometimes weird doctrines and practices of splinter groups throughout its history; and the Church has condemned them. (The interested reader should consult Ronald Knox's magisterial treatment of this subject in his Enthusiasm. From that evidence one may see immediately that the charismatic phenomenon is nothing new in the Church.)

For me and for many Catholics, the sheer strangeness of charismatic practices is sufficiently repulsive to deter any interest in it. But it is not only for esthetic reasons that one should be wary. The necessary pre-condition for becoming a "Spirit-filled" (i.e. charismatic) person is to undergo an experience known as being "baptized in the Spirit," a sufficiently vague biblical expression that has been interpreted as an emotional moment in which one senses that something has seized him and transformed him. This event is one's personal entry into the world of the Spirit and is often accompanied by fainting (being "slain" by the Spirit), or the sensation of warmth or ecstatic joy. Once having been initiated into the movement everything in the spiritual life is different.

What are my concerns? First, that this is not a movement that springs from our tradition. The Holy Spirit has been at work for 2000 years in the one true Catholic Church that Christ founded. To expect a Catholic to believe that The Holy Spirit inspired a manner of belief and prayer in a Protestant movement that began at the beginning of the last century and which is particularly anti-Catholic and that this is how Catholics now should pray after the same Holy Spirit's influence has been kept under wraps by the Catholic Church for many centuries is asking the impossible and the ridiculous. I am particularly concerned about our young people who are often naively attracted to charismatic-sponsored events because of the otherwise doctrinal orthodoxy that may be espoused by them. This is especially so in Ann Arbor, a real center of pentecostal activity. My other worry (among others) is that many initiation ceremonies which very much like the so-called "baptism in the Spirit" experience are actually initiations into the occult and the demonic.

You can recognize charismatics by their chanting of slogans such as "Praise the Lord!" "Alleluia!" "Praise God!" "Amen!" etc. or by the way they raise or open their hands while praying. While the appearance of this may seem silly to the non-initiated outsider he should not fail to see in it the far more serious deception of participating in a manner of prayer and belief that is far from the Catholic faith and its long tradition of prayer. Saint Paul warned the proverbially wanton Corinthians to seek the "higher gifts" (especially charity) rather than to pursue the extraordinary in their religious practices. We should heed him and try to live soberly and uprightly as we await the coming of Christ (cf. Tit. 2:12-13).

The Great School of Spirituality: Learning to Love the Divine Office

Dominican Vespers photo by Lawrence OP
By Michael P. Foley

During a recent Angelus address, the Holy Father referred to the liturgy as “a great school of spirituality.” By that the Pope meant not simply the Mass but the Divine Office. Together these two sacrifices—one of the altar, the other of praise—school the believer in the divine mysteries, shaping his sensibilities, honing his judgment, and conditioning his heart to a life of holiness. The Divine Office is also a key to unlocking the great secrets of the Catholic liturgical year: its prayers and readings perfectly complement the propers of the Mass.

Today, however, the Divine Office remains relatively unknown or unused by lay Catholics, even by those who otherwise savor every morsel of our grand and sacred tradition. To address this situation, we offer a brief overview of the Divine Office and discuss some available “back-to-school supplies.”

What It Is

The Divine Office consists of the hours of Matins (originally 12:00 a.m.) and Lauds (3 a.m.), Prime (6 a.m.), Terce (9 a.m.), Sext (12:00 p.m.), None (3 p.m.), Vespers (6 p.m.), and Compline (9 p.m.). Most of these predate Christianity by several centuries. Lauds and Vespers, for instance, are heirs to the grand morning and evening liturgies before the Ark of the Covenant ordered by King David, liturgies in which over a hundred Levites would chant the Psalms.¹ Since their institution on Mount Zion, these services have never been discontinued: Solomon’s Temple, the Jewish Diaspora, and now the Church have kept up the daily praise of God in this form.²

The so-called “Little Hours” of Terce, Sext, and None, on the other hand, arose from the Jewish custom of going to the Temple for private prayer at the third (tertia), sixth (sexta), and ninth (nona) hours of the day (Sts. Peter and John were observing this custom when they cured the man lame since birth).³ Finally, Matins, Prime, and Compline were added in the early centuries of Christianity: Matins began as an anticipation of the Second Coming and a commemoration of the Resurrection, while Prime and Compline are the products of early monasticism.

Together, these eight daily sacrifices of praise fulfill Psalm 118:62 and 164 -- “I rose at midnight to give praise to Thee” and “seven times a day I have given praise to Thee.” Moreover, they punctuate the day, helping to keep the soul from becoming overwhelmed by worldly concerns, and they consecrate time itself with the fragrant incense of prayer.

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Since their institution on Mount Zion, these services have never been discontinued: Solomon’s Temple, the Jewish Diaspora, and now the Church have kept up the daily praise of
God in this form.

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God’s Prayer Book

The format of each Hour varies, but at their center is the chanting or reciting of the Psalms. As the only book of prayer written by God, the Psalms hold a unique place in the devout life. In the eloquent words of St. Augustine (354-430): “That God may be praised well by man, God Himself has praised Himself; and since He has been pleased to praise Himself, man has found the way to praise Him.”⁴ St. Basil (330-379) called the Psalter the natural voice of the Church,⁵ and St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-274) goes so far as to say that the Psalms contain the whole of theology.⁶ No wonder that St. John Chrysostom (347-407) wrote that the Christians of his time used the Psalms more than any other part of the Old or New Testament.⁷

Special mention must also be made of the Latin hymns in the Breviary (the name of the book that contains the Divine Office). Penned by saints as early as the fourth century, these hymns are, in the words of the great liturgist Fr. Adrian Fortescue, “immeasurably more beautiful than any others ever composed. Other religious bodies take all their best hymns from us. It would be a disgrace if we Catholics were the only people who did not appreciate what is our property.”⁸

Later History

The Divine Office essentially received its current configuration from Pope St. Gregory the Great, though it continued to develop long after and in somewhat diverging directions. The multiplication of saints’ days, for instance, ended up superseding the weekly rotation of the Psalms, with the result that the whole Psalter was no longer being recited within the year, let alone in a week, as intended by St. Gregory.⁹ The Council of Trent (1545-1563) was forced to deal with this problem, and calls for radical reform were legion. As Vilma Little, writing in 1957, notes with eerie relevance to our own times: “As so often happens in times of general abuses calling for redress, the suggested remedies would have been worse than the disease. Ruthless plans of wholesale alterations were put forward by certain French and German theorists.”¹⁰

Fortunately, Little continues, “the saner views of the more level-headed bishops prevailed.”¹¹ Trent outlined a moderate plan for revising the Breviary, which was enacted by Pope St. Pius V. The Sunday and weekday offices were restored while not upsetting the arrangement as a whole.

Not all changes to the Breviary during the Tridentine period, however, were for the better. In 1632 Pope Urban VIII allowed the spirit of Renaissance humanism to affect the hymns of the Breviary, revising almost all of them so that they would conform to the rules of classical prosody. The original verses of St. Ambrose and the like were butchered on the grounds that they were not “good Latin,” yet the new versions were hardly improvements.

Speaking of the four Jesuits commissioned with revising these hymns, Fortescue writes: “They slashed and tinkered, they re-wrote lines and altered words, they changed the sense and finally produced the poor imitations that we still have in place of the hymns our fathers sang for over a thousand years. Indeed their confidence in themselves is amazing.”¹² Fortunately, there is a note in the 1912 Antiphonale stating that the old hymns can be used where they are permissible “by law, custom, or indult.” It is difficult to say what this would mean after Vatican II, but it is my personal opinion that a certain latitude can be applied in good conscience.¹³

* * * * * * *
“As so often happens in times of general abuses calling for redress, the suggested remedies would have been worse than the disease. Ruthless plans of wholesale alterations were put forward by certain French and German theorists.”

* * * * * * *
But while the modifications made by Trent were sensible, they were not complete; it was left to Pope St. Pius X to enact further reforms. The Pope redistributed the entire Psalter, again with the goal of ensuring its recital within a single week. Further changes were made in 1956 and again in 1960 which simplified certain aspects of the Hours and accorded greater dignity to the Sunday Office.

Around the same time, some editions of the Breviary began to use the Psalterium Novum or Pius XII Psalter,¹⁴ which was an unfortunate repeat of the same classicist hubris that marred the hymns in 1632 now applied to the Psalms themselves.¹⁵ Fortunately, these Ciceronianized Psalms were made optional but never mandated.

Happily, all of the books considered in this article use only the traditional Vulgate Psalter. The Fraternity of St. Peter has published an impressive, new, two-volume edition of the Breviarium Romanum with the Vulgate and in accord with the rubrics of 1962, and so has Angelus Press. Both of these publications reflect the loving care that went into them: their only drawback, from a typical layman’s perspective, is that they are in Latin only. Baronius Press promises to remedy this with a new, three-volume version in English and Latin based on the popular Collegeville Breviary from 1963, which will be out in August. For bilingual alternatives currently in print, we must turn to the different variations of the Breviary.¹⁶

Variations

The celebration of the Divine Office has always admitted of greater variety than that of the Mass. To begin with, the Office used by the secular clergy and others (the “Roman Breviary”) was different from the Office used by various monastic orders (the “Monastic Breviary”). And even within this division there were further subdivisions. The Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans all had their own versions of the Roman Breviary, to say nothing of different regions and dioceses; and the Benedictines, Carthusians, and Cistercians all had their own versions of the Monastic Breviary.

One of these versions now back in print is St. Michael’s Abbey Press’s The Monastic Diurnal, Or the Day Hours of the Monastic Breviary.¹⁷ A diurnal is an abridged monastic Breviary containing only the “day Hours,” that is, every canonical hour except Matins. Diurnals were originally designed to be a handy single volume for monks and nuns to use when they were away from the cloister during the day, but they can also be used by laymen. This edition, originally compiled by the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota and published between 1948 and 1963, has been lovingly reproduced according to the highest standards. Bound in Moroccan leather with gilt edges and six cloth marker ribbons, The Monastic Diurnal is a visual treasure. In addition to all of the Psalms one needs for the week, it contains all of the relevant propers for the entire liturgical year in both Latin and English.

Another variation to the Divine Office were the breviaria parva, or “little Breviaries,” abridged editions tailored to specific uses or devotions. The best known of these is the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was especially popular with the laity and with religious communities with active apostolates and not a great deal of time for communal or private prayer. A beautiful edition of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been reprinted by Baronius Press featuring a blue leather cover, gilt edges, all of the prayers in both Latin and English, and much helpful information. The Little Office is an exquisite prayer to our Lady: its only drawback is that it does not include the calendar’s various saints of the day and some of its seasons.

Another abridged Breviary, which has been specially published by Angelus Press for use by the laity, is Divine Office: Officium Divinum. This handsome, leather-bound volume contains, in both Latin and English, Sunday Lauds, Prime, Sext, Vespers, and Compline, as well as Prime, Sext, and Compline for the entire week. Each Office and Psalm are prefaced by brief and enlightening excerpts from Fr. Pius Parsch’s The Breviary Explained, the first book of its kind when it was published in the early 1950s. The Divine Office also includes musical notation for much of the chant. Like the Little Office and the other breviaria parva, its only drawback is the absence of feast days.

Not Just For Clerics

A common misconception is that the Divine Office is only for the clergy. It is true that clerics are required to say the Divine Office: indeed, priests and seminarians sometimes joke about this requirement by calling the Office the onus Dei (burden of God) instead of its more poetic title, opus Dei (the work of God).

However, this does not mean that the Church wants the clergy to have a monopoly on the Office. St. Augustine tells us that his mother St. Monica went twice a day to church for Lauds and Vespers in addition to daily Mass,¹⁸ and the crusader king St. Louis of France, a man with eleven children and a country to rule, is said to have grieved more about the loss of his Breviary than being taken captive by the Saracens. In addition to hearing Mass twice a day, St. Louis also rose at midnight for Matins and said Prime when he woke in the morning. More recently, the Dominican spiritual master Fr. A.G. Sertillanges recommended Prime to the layman first thing in the morning, for “there are no prayers more beautiful, more efficacious, more inspiring.”¹⁹

Solemn Vespers on the Lord’s Day was once so well known among the faithful that Sunday dinner was known in some parts of Europe as the Vespers meal. St. Alphonsus Liguori assumed Sunday Vespers would be available at most parishes when he wrote: “Although there is no express commandment which makes it a mortal sin to be absent from Vespers, yet every good Catholic will make it his duty to attend when he can, and see that his family are present also. We are commanded to sanctify the Lord’s day, and the other Holy days of obligation; but if a Catholic neglects the public service of the Church on Sunday afternoons, without any reasonable excuse, how can it be expected that he will apply himself to sanctity in other ways?”²⁰


Vespers by Karl Brulloff

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Making the effort to understand the Psalms is well worth it. With their exultations of joy or their impassioned pleas for mercy, help, and even vengeance, the Psalms speak from the heart.

* * * * * * *

How

The best way to learn any method of prayer is directly from an experienced practitioner. For those who do not have access to such a person, there are several useful resources available. Both Preserving Christian Publications (PCP) and the Fraternity of St. Peter offer reprints of Cardinal Cicognani’s Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, translated by Leonard Doyle. This booklet contains the English translation of the sections in the Rubricae Generales of the 1962 Missale Romanum and Breviarium Romanum, as well as the motu proprio of Pope John XXIII introducing the changes made to the liturgy in 1960. It explains both the Breviary and Mass in minute detail and contains all of the textual changes of 1960 so that one may use this book in tandem with an older edition of the Missal or Breviary and still stay current. The PCP reprint is more handsome and durable than its FSSP counterpart (which has a comb binding), and subsequently it costs a little more: $15 for the former, $10 for the latter.

PCP has also reprinted Bernard A. Hausman’s Learning the New Breviary, “new” referring to the changes of 1960. Hausman’s little book, which retails for $14, is an excellent introduction to the mechanics of reciting the hours and following the calendar: it is written in clear, accessible prose and follows a “user-friendly” order. In 2008, the Fraternity, on the other hand, came out with its own aptly named Pocket Guide for the Recitation of the Divine Office According to the 1962 Edition of the Breviarium Romanum. This tiny, 21-page booklet is a compendium of all you need to remember about the Breviary once you have already learned it from a more thorough source. It also has a helpful section titled, “Frequently Asked Questions about Reciting the 1962 Breviary.” The Pocket Guide sells for a mere $1.50.

Seeking Understanding

At first, praying the Divine Office can be confusing, but like any other form of prayer, once it becomes familiar, its value becomes apparent. The most valuable part of the Office, however, is also one of its lingering challenges: the Psalms. The Psalms are unquestionably beautiful, but they are often difficult to understand, since we are often ignorant of the context out of which they arose. It is not unusual to recite a Psalm verse and to find oneself asking: “What on earth does that mean?” Yet making the effort to understand the Psalms is well worth it. With their exultations of joy or their impassioned pleas for mercy, help, and even vengeance, the Psalms speak from the heart.

Fortunately, there are several fine aids to assist our efforts. Thomas Merton, before he went a bit screwy in the late 60s, wrote a lovely little book on the Psalms in general entitled Praying the Psalms. A more detailed alternative is St. Robert Bellarmine’s (1542-1621) A Commentary on the Book of Psalms, translated by John O’Sullivan and reprinted by PCP. This well-made, single volume is able to contain Bellarmine’s commentary on every Psalm because it omits some of his more arcane analyses of the Hebrew wording. The result is a readable commentary which, at $56, is an excellent value.

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The Divine Office essentially received its current configuration from Pope St. Gregory the Great

* * * * * * *
There are also aids to understanding the hymns. Fr. Joseph Connelly’s 1957 Hymns of the Roman Liturgy explains the meaning and history of the 154 hymns of the Roman Breviary, as does Dom Matthew Britt’s 1922 Hymns of the Breviary and Missal. Both are still in print.

For those who pray the Office in Latin, Dom Britt’s A Dictionary of the Psalter is an essential resource. This meticulously researched volume, again reprinted by PCP, provides vital information about the peculiar Latin of the Vulgate not found in typical Latin dictionaries. To give but one example: years ago I used to recite Friday Vespers with my mentor, a priest who had suffered a stroke and was no longer able to read. When we came to Psalm 138:3, funiculum meum investigasti, he would sometimes ask, “What’s a funiculus?” I looked it up in a conventional Latin dictionary and discovered that it meant a thin cord or rope. Hence the verse literally says, “you have investigated my little rope” (the Douay Rheims renders it, “my line thou hast searched out”). That made us even more confused.

Had I only had Britt’s Dictionary, I could have learned that funiculus also signifies a measuring cord, and thus by way of metonymy it refers to one’s estate or inheritance, the portion of land measured out by surveyors’ lines. The verse, then, is stating that God has marked out my inheritance for me; God is not portrayed here not as a glorified string-inspector but a benevolent probate judge. Clearing up that ambiguity alone was worth the price of the book.

As for the Office itself, the text of Parsch’s The Breviary Explained is available online at Breviary.net;²¹ excerpts from it are also used in Baronius Press’s forthcoming Breviary and in Angelus Press’s abridged Divine Office. Votaries of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, on the other hand, have at their disposal Angelus Press’s reprint of Sr. Marianna Gildea’s 1955 Living the Little Office: Reflections on the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.This accessible book guides the reader through the prayers of the Office as it follows their order. Sr. Marianna’s commentary is insightful but not overbearing.

Conclusion

“It is good to give praise to the Lord,” the psalmist sings, “and to sing to Thy name, O most High: to shew forth Thy mercy in the morning, and Thy truth in the night” (Ps. 91:2-3). How true that is, as those who mold their daily lives to the rhythm of the canonical Hours know so well.

Resources

• St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of Psalms,trans. John O’Sullivan (Preserving Christian Publications [PCP], 2008), $56
• Breviarium Romanum (The Roman Breviary), 2 vols. (FSSP, 2009), $298
• Matthew Britt, A Dictionary of the Psalter: Containing the Vocabulary of the Psalms, Hymns, Canticles, and Miscellaneous Prayers of the Breviary Psalter (FSSP, 2007), $30
• ----------, Hymns of the Breviary and Missal(Church Music Association of America, 2007)
• C. Callewaert, De Breviarii Romani Liturgia (Romanitas, 2011), $37.50
• Joseph Connelly, Hymns of the Roman Liturgy(FSSP, 2007), $27
• Diurnale Romanum(PCP, 2008), $75
• Divine Office: Officium Divinum (Angelus Press, 1999), $31.95
• Marianna Gildea, Living the Little Office: Reflections on the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.(Angelus Press, 2010), $12.95
• Bernard A. Hausman, S.J. Learning the New Breviary(PCP, 2007), $14
• The Monastic Diurnal, Or the Day Hours of the Monastic Breviary, 6th ed. (Saint Michael’s Abbey Press, 2004), approximately $63
• John Newton, ed., The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary,2nd ed. (Baronius Press, 2008), $29.95
• Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Pocket Guide for the Recitation of the Divine Office According to the 1962 Edition of the Breviarium Romanum (FSSP, 2008), $1.50
• Roman Breviary, 2 vols. (Angelus Press, 2009), $290
• Roman Breviary-Breviarium Romanum, 3 vols. (Baronius Press, forthcoming), price not listed [$350/ £230 provisional price]
• Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal,trans. Leonard J. Doyle (PCP, 2007), $15
• Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal, trans. Leonard J. Doyle (FSSP, undated), $10

Notes

1. See 1 Paralip. 15 and 16. [back]
2. The fact that incense may only be used at Lauds and Vespers hearkens to this Davidic tradition. [back]
3. Acts 3:1-8. [back]
4. In Ps. Cxliv, 1. [back]
5. Homil. In Ps. I, 2. [back]
6. Postilla super Psalmos, prologue. [back]
7. Homily 6 on penitence. [back]
8. Adrian Fortescue, quoted in Michael Davies, The Wisdom of Adrian Fortescue (Roman Catholic Books, 1999), p. 45. [back]
9. Gregory, in turn, took this arrangement from St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism. [back]
10. Vilma G. Little, The Sacrifice of Praise: An Introduction to the Meaning and Use of the Divine Office (P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1957), pp. 17-18. [back]
11. Little, p. 18. [back]
12. Davies, pp. 30-31. As the old saying has it, Accessit latinitas, recessit pietas: When Latinity came in, piety went out. [back]
13. It should also be mentioned that the changes of 1632 only affected the Roman Breviary, not the Monastic Breviary. [back]
14. It is also called the Bea Psalter after its main author, the Jesuit priest Augustin Bea, Rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and confessor of Pius XII who was later made a cardinal by Pope John XXIII. [back]
15. To be fair, these retranslations were often more accurate renderings of the Hebrew. [back]
16. Online, however, the impressive divinumofficium.com contains the entire Breviary in both Latin and English. Musicasacra.com has a downloadable book of the Diurnale as well as other resources. [back]
17. The FSSP and PCP also sell an all-Latin Diurnale Romanum. [back]
18. Confessions 5.9.17. [back]
19. A.G. Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life, trans. Mary Ryan (CUA Press, 1998), p. 89. [back]
20. St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Mission Book: A Manual of Instructions and Prayers Adapted to Preserve the Fruits of the Mission, Drawn chiefly from the works of St. Alphonsus Liguori (NY: D & J Sadlier & Co., 1853), p. 67. [back]
21. http://Breviary.net/comment/comment.htm. Unfortunately, the rest of the website is a sedevacantist mishmash. [back]

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Michael P. Foley is an associate professor of Patristics at Baylor University. He is author of Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?: The Catholic Origin to Just About Everything (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and Wedding Rites: A Complete Guide to Traditional Vows, Music, Ceremonies, Blessings, and Interfaith Services(Eerdmans, 2008). Dr. Foley's article, "The Great School of Spirituality: Learning to Love the Divine Office," Latin Mass: The Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring 2011), is reproduced here by kind permission of Latin Mass, 391 E. Virginia Terrace, Santa Paula, CA 93060, and the author.

How Sweet are Thy Words

The Bible lesson by Gerrit Dou

by Peter A. Kwasniewski

Let me begin with a massive understatement: the Bible is not an easy book, and few, too few, are Catholics who make the study of it a regular part of their spiritual lives. Indeed, before we even delve into it, we are confronted by the fact that the Bible is really many books of many different styles, periods, and particular purposes, so just opening it anywhere and starting to read will not prove the best approach for most of us. Because it was written under the inspiration of the one God, however, the Bible is also fundamentally one book: it deals with the one history of salvation for mankind and it has one goal in view—the knowledge and the love of God, leading to an ever more perfect union with Him. Since, as the Church teaches, “the ‘study of the sacred page’ should be the very soul of sacred theology,”¹ there is nothing more important in theological studies and in our lifelong education as Catholics than turning and returning to the revealed Word. We must therefore regularly set apart time for this task—or, as the saints see it, this great privilege—of reading the only words that have God as their primary author.

Why read the Bible and make it a familiar companion? There are two kinds of answers to this question. One is merely human—a literary, sociological, or cultural answer. It’s good to be familiar with the Bible stories, they have formed Western culture, they are eloquent and moving, they illustrate the great problems of human existence. This answer is really beside the point, because all great literature does this; one could make exactly the same argument for reading Homer, Dante, or Shakespeare. Moreover, as both Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome observed long ago, the Bible is not always, at least for most of us, a “delightful” reading experience, the way poetry tends to be. It is full of perplexing obscurities, remote historical details, repetitions, seeming contradictions, not to mention brutalities and sensualities of a most unedifying nature, such that even the stuffed new Lectionary does not attempt to include them. It demands of us much effort if we are to crack the shell and reach the meat inside.

The other answer is that of faith. We read Scripture because it is what the Church claims it to be—God’s word, true and trustworthy, showing us the path of life, revealing to us something of who God is. In this respect it is unlike any other book we have. The Summa theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas is well worth studying and one can easily devote one’s entire life to mastering its contents. But note how Saint Thomas says in the very first question of the Summa that all his efforts are placed at the service of sacra doctrina, the “holy teaching” that God Himself communicates to us through Scripture and Tradition, safeguarded and handed down by the Church. Saint Thomas had no illusions about the relative importance of his secondary text to the one and only primary source. If God had wanted to reveal either the Summa theologiae or the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Mount Sinai or, some centuries later, on the mount of the beatitudes, He could very easily have done so. The fact that He did not should make us wonder why He persists in speaking to us through so complicated an instrument.

In the end, therefore, it is really the conviction of faith that moves us, or should move us, to take up this book and persevere in reading it. Scripture rewards diligence (meaning, from the Latin diligere, a free and serious love), and it opens itself only to those who show their perseverance.

In What Spirit We Should Read

Scripture itself expresses well the spirit we should ask the Lord to give us as we strive to read and understand His words. The longest and most elaborately crafted Psalm is 119 (Vulgate 118), a hymn in praise of the law of the Lord and a plea for the grace to live according to it. The Psalm again and again mentions “thy word(s),” as in these verses:

11 I have laid up thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.
16 I will delight in thy statutes; I will not forget thy word.
17 Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live and observe thy word.
25 My soul cleaves to the dust; revive me according to thy word!
103 How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
105 Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
130 The unfolding of thy words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.
160 The sum of thy word is truth; and every one of thy righteous ordinances endures for ever.

Echoing verse 160 above, Jesus prays to His Father: “Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth” (John 17:17). The prophet Jeremiah perfectly captures the appetite that we should have for this sanctifying and truthful word: “When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart, because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16). In his second letter to Saint Timothy, Saint Paul discusses the important role that the “sacred writings” will have in the lives of those who strive to “live a godly life”:

All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:12-17)

Old Woman Reading a Lectionary by Gerrit Dou
A Word of Life, Bread for the Soul

All of Scripture is based on the experience of the Holy by the Holy. Its overriding goal is that we, joining the saints of the old and new covenants, should likewise enter into communion with the living God. It was written by those who became saints for those who are now striving to become saints. Scripture speaks everywhere about vice and error, but it positively teaches only virtue and truth, which it receives directly from the source. As Saint Peter writes in his second epistle:

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. … You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. (2 Peter 1:16, 19-21, 2:1-2)

This passage also begins to teach us about the need for an authorized, trustworthy interpreter of the holy writings, if they are to be a “lamp shining in a dark place,” rather than the false teaching and false prophecy that brings “swift destruction” and discredits the “way of truth.”

Consider, in conjunction with the foregoing text from Saint Peter, the following text from the first epistle of Saint John:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)

What Saint John is concerned to deliver is not bits of ephemeral information, a beautiful story or lyric; he is neither a modern journalist nor a novelist-poet. John heard, saw, and touched Jesus, and reclining at table against His breast, He received the ineffable gift of the Lord Himself in the most holy Eucharist. The next day he stood beneath the gibbet of the cross and watched the same Lord spill His Blood in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. Two days later, John and Peter saw the empty tomb. That evening, the Lord newly risen from the dead stood before ten of the apostles locked in the upper room and said, “Peace be with you,” showing them His pierced hands and side. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands . . .” It was out of these unforgettable, life-changing experiences that the beloved disciple, aided by the Spirit of truth, was able to draw forth his Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse.

Like all who follow the apostles, Saint John did not merely hear a word of life, He fed upon the ever-living Word of God and was transformed into a living image of Him. Jesus says: “I am the living bread come down from heaven . . . He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:51, 56). Jesus did not come to bring us a message; He came to give us Himself. The good news is that “God so loved the world that He gave us His only-begotten Son.” In its origin, in its content, and in its purpose, therefore, Scripture is given to us for our salvation; it orients us toward Christ, teaches us about Him, urges, reproves, and consoles, all for the sake of furthering this communion with the Word-made-flesh. It is truly a great mercy that, as our Lord said, we are not left orphans—in any way. We are given infallible teaching to nourish our minds and guide our steps; we are given direct access to the eternal High Priest, who stooped to the nothingness of our flesh in order to raise us up to His divine glory; we are given the perfect gift that encompasses all gifts, the Holy Spirit. We are given all that we need to be holy: not slaves trembling in fear, but friends of God, purified of all that is not pleasing to Him. “Blessed be the Lord our God, for He has come to His people and set them free . . . that being delivered from the hand of our enemies we may serve Him without fear, holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our lives” (Luke 1:68, 74–75).²

Saint Anthony Reading by Marcantonio Bassetti
Six Important Truths about Scripture

In conclusion, I would like to leave the reader with helpful points of orientation that I found some years ago in the work of a now-forgotten French Dominican, Fr. Chifflot.³ This balanced and traditional exegete presents six important truths about Scripture that serve as reliable principles for us while we study the sacred page.

1. The Bible is a sacred history. It is not metaphysics; it is a history, the history of a people. But as its protagonist is the Eternal One, it is necessarily unlike any secular history. It is the history of a “love affair” between the Infinite and the Finite. And so it evokes all the grandeur and beauty of God and all the misery, horror, desperation, and darkness of fallen man.

2. The Bible is a promise. The People of God has a history, and it is a forward-moving history, a journey towards a goal, a promised land. It is a book of hope which springs from past deliverance and longs for future fulfillment. There is thus always a tension in the text; it is not “merely” about the past, nor is it simply “news” about the present, or “predictions” of the future. It is about all time in its purposeful movement—the past and the future breaking into the present, the present stretching towards eternity.

3. The Bible is the book of Christ. The written word of God is about the personal Word of God, Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, who breaks into history as the Messiah or Anointed One. Saint Jerome famously says: “To be ignorant of Scripture is to be ignorant of Christ.” Pope Leo XIII adds: “In its pages His Image stands out, living and breathing; diffusing everywhere around consolation in trouble, encouragement to virtue and attraction to the love of God.” Blaise Pascal likewise speaks of “Jesus Christ, whom both Testaments concern: as the expectation of the Old, as the model of the New, and as the center of both.” As Saint Augustine says, the Old Testament is the New Testament hidden under a veil, while the New is the Old now made manifest. This being so, the Old Testament is thoroughly Christian, because it tells of the preparation of the chosen people for their Messiah, their unconquerable Davidic ruler. Since Christianity is the fulfillment of the Jewish religion, all that belonged to the Jews now belongs by right to us, including the Hebrew Scriptures. The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum expresses these points beautifully.⁴

4. The Bible is the book of the Church. The Church opens the Bible for us. As Dei Verbum teaches:

There exists a close connection and communication between Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while Sacred Tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity . . . Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. . . . [T]he task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office [Magisterium] of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.⁵

History has borne abundant witness to this last claim: wherever the authority of the Catholic Church has been assailed or rejected, the authority of Scripture has grown progressively weaker, in some instances disappearing altogether. Conversely, wherever Scripture is accepted as divine truth, there is an awareness, bright or dim, of some supernatural reality called “the Church,” and a desire to belong to it, as if implicitly recognizing that a book by itself doesn’t make a religion. John Henry Newman made a similar observation in regard to Marian devotion, saying in his Letter to Pusey that, as a matter of historical fact, wherever the cultus of the Virgin Mary was abandoned, sooner or later faith in the very divinity of Christ was abandoned. Because of the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation, Mother and Son can never be parted, no more than Father and Son.

5. The Bible is a mirror. It holds up to us a mirror that reveals who we are, where we have come from, what we are destined for. It is a sword that penetrates the secret places of the heart: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

6. The Bible is the book of prayer.⁶ The Bible is full of prayer; it is about men of prayer and their faithful worship, as well as men who are unfaithful and idolatrous. It shows us the pattern of life and the false paths of death. It gives us the words of so much of our liturgy. The Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours consist chiefly of psalms, canticles, and short readings; the traditional Roman Missal is shot through with Scriptural verses from Introit to the Last Gospel. Unlike the new Lectionary, a repository of artificially segmented texts, and unlike the new Missal, a stripped and shivering product of rationalism, the great Missale Romanum is a living testament of Tradition, saturated with Divine Revelation, resonant, fragrant, irreducibly complex, united to the Word of God as bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh. Traditional Catholics have no need to feel “left out” of the movement to “recover” the Bible, for our Faith was already there, and it goes deeper than the moderns. Generations upon generations have been nourished and informed by the Word of God expressed with vibrant diversity and density in the liturgy itself, in architecture and the other plastic arts, in sacred music and religious hymns, in Catholic culture and its customs. Wherever the traditional Faith has been strong, the Bible has received the devotion its holy content deserves, the veneration its saving message demands. Now that our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI is leading the way with a genuine reform of the Church, let us not fail to do our part to live a genuinely traditional Catholic life—not the truncated version that modernity sought to produce from the Enlightenment to the present, but the robust life of Faith practiced by our ancient and medieval forefathers, rooted in the Word of God and the Sacraments of the Church.
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Notes

1. CCC 132, citing DV 24. [back]


2. Zechariah is speaking here of servile or slavish fear, not of the filial or reverential fear that suits a child in relation to his parent and, all the more, a creature in relation to its creator. [back]


3. T.G. Chifflot, O.P., Water in the Wilderness, trans. Luke O'Neill (Herder and Herder, 1967), 55-78. [back]


4. See Dei Verbum, 14-16. [back]


5. Dei Verbum 9-10; cf. the opening paragraph of Leo XIII's Providentissimus Deus. [back]


6. See Chifflot, pp. 75-76. [back]

[Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming. The present article, "How Sweet are Thy Words," was originally published in Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Fall 2009), pp. 6-9, and is reprinted here by kind permission of Latin Mass Magazine, 391 E. Virginia Terrace, Santa Paula, CA 93060, and the author.]