'Et erant semper in templo': The Divine Office as Priestly Temple Service (original) (raw)

Abstract

This paper seeks to show that the history of the Divine Office (the Church's daily "pensum servitutis" or "bounden duty"), is but the gradual unfolding of the image with which the Evangelist Luke closes his Gospel “They were continually in the Temple, praising and blessing God”, and which he immediately resumed in the Book of Acts, speaking of perseverance in apostolic teaching, eucharistic communion, and “the prayers” (tais proseuchais). This and other NT texts, when situated in their proper Jewish apocalyptic context, reveal a primitive community understanding itself to be the universal doxological community foretold by the Prophets, "a kingdom of priests" (Exod. 19:6, Apoc. 5:10) offering up unbloody, rational sacrifices upon earth, in a way mirroring the heavenly ministrations of Christ the High Priest and the Angels who serve him. Brief consideration is given to the problem of historicism in liturgical scholarship, which has tended to de-emphasise or deny altogether a sense of continuity with the "Temple idea" — even as, ironically, biblical scholarship more and more confirms the vital importance of Jewish temple mysticism in solving some of the most difficult puzzles regarding Christian origins. Far more important, however, than debates among contemporary scholars is the Church's living memory, witnessing to a divine reality which mere historical investigation cannot access. In order to show the pervasive nature of Temple concepts and imagery in traditional Catholic worship, the paper concludes with a brief mystagogy of the Office of Vespers according to the traditional Roman Breviary, celebrated in the solemn pontifical form. The paper was originally delivered at the Fota XI International Liturgical Conference, July 7-9, 2018. The proceedings have just been published by Smenos Publications.

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References (17)

  1. Alfred Firmin Loisy (1857-1940), a French priest and biblical scholar, is often considered, along with George Tyrrell, as the father of theological modernism in the Catholic Church. He was excommunicated in 1908 for his teaching that (as Sheridan Gilley put it) Jesus was "a limited first century Jew who, by great good fortune, had inadvertently founded the Catholic Church" ('The Years of Equipoise, 1892-1942', in V.A. McClelland and M. Hodgetts (ed.), From within the Flaminian Gate: 150 Years of Catholicism in England and Wales [London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1999], p. 37).
  2. Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution; A Study of the Latin Liturgy up to the Time of Charlemagne, trans. M.L. McClure (5th ed.: London: SPCK, 1931), p. 46. Emphasis added.
  3. Laudes, ut preces matutinae, et Vesperae, ut preces vespertinae, ex venerabili universae Ecclesiae traditione duplex cardo Officii cotidiani, Horae praecipuae habendae sunt et ita celebrandae (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 89a).
  4. Eusebius of Caesarea, Commentary on Ps. 64 (PG 23.649b); translation from Juan Mateos, 'The Morning and Evening Office', Worship 42:1 (Jan. 1968).
  5. De Oratione 25:1-3 (PL 1:1193). He seems to have in mind a round of private prayers that can also be prayed corporately.
  6. Commentary on Ps. 140 (PG 55.430), trans. in Juan Mateos, 'The Morning and Evening Office', Worship 42:1 (Jan. 1968).
  7. Apostolic Constitutions, II:59.
  8. Juan Mateos, 'The Morning and Evening Office', Worship 42:1 (Jan. 1968), pp 43, 46.
  9. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000), pp 17-18.
  10. Ibid, p. 23. covering their faces, and crying aloud the hymn, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.' 66 We may even see in the cappa magna (that much despised garment! 67 ) not a cover for the 'hinder parts' of a horse, but the glorious train that Isaias saw filling the temple (Isa 6:1). When he is stripped of it, our mind's eye may see a rough image of the One who divested himself of his glory and gave himself over to the shameful death of the Cross: He endured the nails, the spitting, Hic acetum, fel, arundo, Vinegar, and spear, and reed; Sputa, clavi, lancea; From that Holy Body broken Mite corpus perforatur; Blood and water forth proceed: Sanguis, unda profluit, Earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean, Terra pontus astra mundus By that flood from stain are freed. 68 Quo lavantur flumine.
  11. Only then, after the stripping away of his outward finery, does he don the vestments of our glorified, deified flesh to enter into the presence of the Father in the heavenly sanctuary, a spectacle which even the angelic intelligences cannot fully fathom: Yea, Angels tremble when they see Tremunt videntes angeli How chang'd is our humanity, Versam vicem mortalium;
  12. That Flesh hath purg'd what flesh hath stain'd Culpat caro, purgat caro And God, the Flesh of God, hath reign'd. 69 Regnat Deus Dei caro.
  13. We may hear, in the chant of the choir, an echo, however faint, of that Canticum Novum, the universal song of heaven and earth, which the Son of God came to earth to intone: 70 the same Song, which day by day, hour by 66 From the ancient eucharistic hymn Sigesato pasa sarx broteia, Divine Liturgy of Saint James. Translation by William Macdonald from Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. XXIV: Early Liturgies and Other Documents, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1883), p. 19.
  14. See Damian Thompson. 'Why the Cappa Magna Makes People See Red.' CatholicHerald.co.uk, 29 June 2017, http://catholicherald.co.uk/issues/june-30th-2017/people-get-ruffled-by-the-cappa-magna/ (retrieved 3 Sept. 2018).
  15. J.M. Neale's rendering of Venantius Fortunatus' hymn Pange lingua gloriosi, from Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (London: Joseph Masters, 1867), p. 3.
  16. Neale's rendering of the Ascension hymn AEterne Rex altissime, from Neale and Thomas Helmore, The Hymnal Noted: Parts I and II (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., 1851), hymn 31/p. 69.
  17. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council expressed their hope for a renewal of the Divine Office in 'Temple-speak': 'Christ Jesus, high priest of the new and eternal covenant, taking human nature, introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven. He