Having returned from a well-deserved winter vacation, I now continue our article-by-article re-reading of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.<\/p>\n
Vatican website translation:<\/p>\n
90. The divine office, because it is the public prayer of the Church, is a source of piety, and nourishment for personal prayer. And therefore priests and all others who take part in the divine office are earnestly exhorted in the Lord to attune their minds to their voices when praying it. The better to achieve this, let them take steps to improve their understanding of the liturgy and of the bible, especially of the psalms.<\/p>\n
In revising the Roman office, its ancient and venerable treasures are to be so adapted that all those to whom they are handed on may more extensively and easily draw profit from them.<\/p>\n
Latin text:<\/p>\n
90. Cum praeterea Officium divinum, utpote oratio publica Ecclesiae, sit fons pietatis et orationis personalis nutrimentum, obsecrantur in Domino sacerdotes aliique omnes divinum Officium participantes, ut in eo persolvendo mens concordet voci; ad quod melius assequendum, liturgicam et biblicam, praecipue psalmorum, institutionem sibi uberiorem comparent.<\/strong><\/p>\n In instauratione vero peragenda, venerabilis ille romani Officii saecularis thesaurus ita aptetur, ut latius et facilius eo frui possint omnes quibus traditur.<\/strong><\/p>\n Slavishly literal translation:<\/p>\n 90. Besides, so that the Divine Office, because [it is] the public prayer of the Church, might be a font of piety and nourishment for personal prayer, priests and all others participating in the Divine Office are exhorted in the Lord that in celebrating it their mind would correspond to their voice; toward achieving this better, let them acquire richer liturgical and biblical instruction for themselves, especially of the psalms.<\/p>\n Indeed by undertaking [this] through revision, let that venerable and age-old treasury of the Roman Office be so adapted, that all to whom it is entrusted could more widely and easily enjoy it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Article 90 extends the Council Fathers\u2019 concern for developing the prayer life of priests to \u201call others participating in the Divine Office,\u201d whether in common or individually. Those familiar with the Rule of Benedict (one of the great sources for the codification of the Divine Office for monks) will recognize the allusion to the Rule in the exhortation that those praying the Liturgy of the Hours should take take that their cognitive and affective life (i.e., their \u201cmens\u201d) should correspond to the words that they speak (i.e., their \u201cvox\u201d). (When I was privileged to study liturgy at the Benedictine Ateneo S. Anselmo in Rome, I saw this sentence from the Rule prominently displayed at the entryway to the chapel as a reminder to the monks and to those who joined them for the liturgy that we should be \u201csingle-hearted\u201d in prayer.) The article reiterates its perspective that study of the scriptures and of the liturgy will be of great use in praying the Divine Office fruitfully. (Notice that the same concern extends to, e.g., the preaching of the homily and the singing of liturgical chants that should normally be drawn from scriptural and liturgical sources.<\/p>\n Recalling SC 23, the Council Fathers emphasize that any revisions of the Liturgy of the Hours must take into account the history of this liturgical form as it developed in the Roman Rite so that the revision is not merely antiquarian or aesthetic, but that it would be of genuine assistance to monastic communities, active communities bound to the Office, clerics and those laity joining in the formal daily prayer of the Church.<\/p>\n Pray Tell<\/em> readers might want to discuss: 1) the difficulty of providing a \u201cfont of piety and nourishment for personal prayer\u201d for the diverse groups and individuals who pray the Divine Office daily; 2) what resources for deepening one\u2019s appreciation of the psalms have appeared since Vatican II and how effective they have been in deepening people\u2019s engagement with the Office (and for musicians whose repertoire includes a significant portion of psalmody); 3) how the present revision incorporates traditions from earlier forms of the Roman Rite Liturgy of the Hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Council Fathers emphasize that any revisions of the Liturgy of the Hours must take into account the history of this liturgical form as it developed in the Roman Rite so that the revision is not merely antiquarian or aesthetic, but that it would be of genuine assistance to monastic communities, active communities bound to the Office, clerics and those laity joining in the formal daily prayer of the Church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,3814,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liturgy-of-the-hours","category-re-reading-sacrosanctum-concilium","category-vatican-ii"],"yoast_head":"\n