I’m pleased to draw your attention to an excellent new book by Jennifer R. O’Brien concerning three Advent hymns of the Roman Office: Conditor alme siderum, Verbum supernum prodiens, and Vox clara intonet.
Many of our readers will recognize the name of Jenny O’Brien from her insightful contributions to the Sixty Second Sermon series at Pray Tell. In this book she operates in a more scholarly mode.
Her study exhibits a masterful knowledge of the historical sources bearing on these three hymns. She addresses not only the hymn texts themselves — although an analysis of these texts is central to the book — but also the development of the Advent season as a whole. Those who have admired Abbot Patrick Regan’s wonderful book, Advent to Pentecost (Liturgical Press 2012), will rejoice to see that O’Brien, one of his most talented students, has put her energies into further unfolding the meaning of the Advent season through an examination of these hymns of the Roman Office.
O’Brien’s long-term commitment to liturgical music ministry in pastoral settings also comes into play in this study. After a discussion of the Reform of the Breviary at Vatican II, she turns to the subject of contemporary Advent hymnody, analyzing the offerings of several hymnals in current use. She also considers the selection of texts in the present lectionary and collects. Using the themes of these ancient hymns as a guide, she crafts an incisive critique of the way we pray throughout this season. Her analysis is not polemical in nature, but rather sensitive to meaning and to the formative nature of sung prayer in a liturgical setting. The study as a whole is tightly focused (there are only these 3 hymns, after all) yet it opens onto a much wider scope of interest than just these three hymns.
Not everyone could pull this off. O’Brien’s maturity is an asset here. She not only displays considerable erudition and deep knowledge of the subject matter she addresses, but she also interrogates her subject with a view toward its practical consequences.
That said, this book is not going to be the pastoral musician’s vade mecum for planning next year’s Advent program! It is a work of high-level scholarship, demanding of the reader, replete with untranslated sources in Greek and Latin, and in-depth discussions of texts and their contexts. It will delight liturgical scholars. Yet I would hope, too, that the issues it raises will eventually percolate into the world of practice. She raises questions that only those who compose hymns and assemble resources for the season will ultimately be in a position to address. Her observation, for instance, that far too few of our contemporary Advent hymns even touch on the theme of the Second Coming of Christ in judgement, certainly deserves a hearing.
A few years ago, when we were having a “short Advent,” as we are again this year, I wrote a blog post entitled “Advent Is Too Short a Time to Sing All the Songs I Want to Sing.” One of the comments in the discussion thread pointed out that the Liturgy of the Hours offers us much more scope for singing throughout the season of Advent than we can have in the Sunday Eucharist. Perhaps another fruit of this work might be to awaken further attention to the repository of wisdom found in the Liturgy of the Hours itself, which remains sadly neglected in all but a minority of our parishes.
Heralds of Hope: The Three Advent Hymns of the Roman Office. Jennifer R. O’Brien. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, Studia Traditionis Theologiae: Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology, copyright 2021. 243 pages.