The Diurnal as edited by St. John Mason Neale has some remarkable deviations from the Office as we know it from the Anglican Breviary. Comparing the two, as we did with Vespers, may enrich our understanding of what it is we are celebrating today:
Versiculus Sacerdotalis
V. The Lord shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool. R. Even as the drops that water the earth.
Many Medieval uses began Lauds by adding a V. & R. before the opening versicles. The Versiculus Sacerdotalis serves a similar function to the Invitatory verse at Matins: to set the tone of the Office to follow.
Antiphons
- Who is she that looketh forth as the morning: fair as the moon, clear as the sun?
- My dove, my undefiled is but one: she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.
- The daughters saw her and blessed her: yea, the queens, and they praised her.
- Arise, and come away, O my dove: let me see thy countenance.
- How fair and how pleasant art thou: O love, for delights.
Chapter Baruch v
For God will shew thy brightness unto every country under heaven. For thy name shall be called of God for ever, the peace of righteousness, and the true glory of God’s worship.
Ant. Ben.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee.
The antiphons on the Psalms again identify the Blessed Virgin Mary (as at Vespers last night) by making scriptural allusions. In Neale’s Diurnal it is a ery beautiful feature that for the Psalter of last night the Psalms used for the Vespers of Christmas Day was used. Thereby making a liturgical connection between the Blessed Virgin and her Son. The Virgin’s privilege is rooted in Him whose Mother she is. She therefore derives “her” Palms from her Son (Christmas ranks as a higher feast than the Nativity of the BVM ! ).
Likewise, at the second antiphon, when the BVM is names as “undefiled” such a privilege is derived from her Son. Those following the dogmatic definition proclaimed in the Roman Church concerning the immaculate conception of the BVM will, perhaps, find a connection between the new dogma and this antiphon here. Such a privilege is also derived from her Son. It seems that even the commemoration of today, St. Hadrian and his wife Natalie give symbolical expression of the Blessed Virgin’s loyalty to her Son as He hung dying on the Cross (like holy Natalie stayed by her husband’s side as he suffered his martyrdom). But there is more! Lesson ix, for St. Hadrian, tells us that because of “[Natalie’s] share in his sufferings, she also is accounted as a Martyr, and was buried amongst the relics of those who were martyred at this time, albeit she herself died not the martyr’s death of violence.” Prefiguring, perhaps, the “piercing of Mary’s heart” as she co-suffered with her Son.
Much to meditatively chew on!
Fr. Gregory Wassen
for his righteousness by adulterers. He was a judge, who suffered condemnation to death by the guilty ones because he had justly judged their guilt. He was the prophet whose death was a fee paid to a dancing-girl for a lascivious dance. And lastly a thing from which even savages would shrink his head was served up as a dish at a banquet. For the order to commit the atrocity was given amid the merriment of a dinner-party; and the servants of the murderer introduced the murder amid the courses of the meal, running from banquet to prison, and from prison to banquet! See how many infamies are contained in this one crime.
little while arrested, under the Emperor Hadrian, and brought before the Judge Elpidius. Art thou, said he, the same Sabina who is so distinguished for her blood and her marriage? She answered: I am; but I give thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ for having delivered me through the prayers of his hand-maiden Seraphia from the troubling of the devils. Divers attempts were made to make her change her mind, but when they proved in vain, the Prefect passed sentence of death upon her for despising the gods. The Christians laid her body in the same grave in which she had herself laid that of Seraphia, her teacher in the faith.
Today: the Octave Day of the Repose of the Blessed Virgin Mary & the Commemoration of Sts. Timothy, Hippolytus, and Symphorian.
