p. 73The Divine Office

1. Origin and Division

The Church has placed a feast at each one of the periods of the year consecrated by an important act in the life of Our Saviour.

But this is not enough for her love and gratitude. Each hour of the day or night marked by an event in the life or passion of Jesus Christ sees a public service established to preserve its memory among men.

This prayer bore the name of the Divine Office, or the Canonical Hours, so called because the Canons regulated their disposal by hours, and they were divided into seven parts: Matins and Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.

The night, illumined by the stars of Bethlehem, also saw the sorrows of the agony; the first rays of day were the joyous witnesses of the resurrection: Matins, sung in the silence of the night, and Lauds, at the dawn, honor these different mysteries.

Toward the first hour of the day Our Lord appeared to Magdalen at the sepulchre, and to the apostles on the seashore: Prime is the memorial of these apparitions of the risen Saviour.

At the third hour, toward the ninth hour of the p. 74morning, took place the scourging, the crowning with thorns, and the condemnation of Our Lord. At this hour, also, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. All these events occupy the thoughts of the Church at Tierce.

At the sixth hour, toward midday, laden with His cross, Our Lord went up to Calvary. Over His bloody footsteps the Church leads us, and at Sext makes us assist at the sorrowful scene of the crucifixion.

At the ninth hour, three hours after midday, the sun was darkened, the earth trembled, the veil of the temple was rent in twain, the rocks were broken. The office of None calls us to weep at the sight of this awful drama.

In the evening Our Lord received in His side a new wound. Taken down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea’s anxious care, He was laid in His Mother’s arms, embalmed, and buried in the sepulchre. The offices of Vespers and Compline honor these last mysteries of the suffering life.

2. Assistance at the Divine Office

For a long time the faithful assisted at the different offices of the day and night. Following the counsels of St. Jerome, the pious Eustachia interrupted her slumber two or three times to chant the hymns and psalms—a devout practice then well known to Christian virgins. (Epist. xxii.) The people themselves were not strangers to it.

St. John Chrysostom, raised to the see of Constantinople, felt keen grief that the churches were deserted during the public offices. He earnestly exhorted his flock p. 75to be assiduous in attending the offices of the night; obedient to the voice of their bishop, the people pressed in crowds to the doors of the churches. (Sozom., l. viii. c. 7.)

These different passages, and the testimony of the ecclesiastical writers, prove to us that men went to the offices of the night, while women prayed in their homes.

Attendance at the divine office was not obligatory except on Sunday. The celebration of the Lord’s day began for the Christians of the first centuries Saturday evening, and ended the next day in the evening. (St. Augustine, Append. 280.) They united in the psalmody of the first Vespers, and again in that of Sunday night. In the morning they assisted at the holy sacrifice. They went back to the church in the evening, to end the day with sacred psalms. This was the constant practice of the Christians during several centuries.

A great chilling of the primitive fervor led to modifications in the discipline of the Church. Of the divine office which our fathers cared for so much, the majority of the faithful to-day know only Vespers. And even Vespers themselves, are they not often abandoned?

Persons who make pretensions to a certain piety consecrate the holy hour of the evening office to walking or visiting. God will surely have blessed my intentions if the reading of the following pages throws into these souls a ray of that light which enlightens and inflames, makes us know and love.

3. Vestments of the Celebrant of the Office

The Surplice.—As its name indicates, superpellicium, that is to say, the vestment above the fur garments, or pelisses, this white garment formerly was worn over the p. 76tunics trimmed with fur in which the priests were clad in winter. The Church consecrated this custom in her liturgy the more readily that she saw in it a pious allusion to the story in Genesis of the lot of our first parents. Innocence and justice had been their first garment; after the fall they were obliged to ask the animals for their fur to cover them. The Holy Book says that “the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.” (Gen. iii. 21.) Jesus Christ came to give back to guilty man the robe of his first innocence, the white robe represented by the surplice. Old customs are still existing in the Church. Those of her ministers whom she has raised to a certain ecclesiastical dignity wear furs on their camail. What a reminder put before our eyes and theirs!

The vestment of the earthly Adam, the sinner; the vestment of the heavenly Adam, the liberator; the fault and its punishment; the redemption and its fruits. The white color of the vestment comprises the richest symbolism, and piety can but gain in knowing it. In the first place it is the symbol of innocence. Among the people of antiquity it was a universal custom to blacken the faces of the guilty, and then show them to the multitude. In the Scriptures, on the inspired pen of the prophets, the Ethiopian, burned and blackened by the sun of his deserts, is the image of the sinner plunged in crime (Amos ix. 7), and, on the contrary, the pure soul is compared to the whiteness of the lily or the dove. The whiteness of the surplice represents, then, the innocence of Him Who holds among us the place of the Saint of saints. White is also the symbol of liberation and of liberty. History teaches us that on the day of his liberation the slave was clothed with a white robe. Now the priest also is a freedman. At the last supper, in instituting the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Christ worked this prodigy of mercy in favor of His ministers. He freed them from the slavery of the devil, from the servitude of the flesh and the world, by these solemn words: “I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you.” (St. John xv. 15.)

The white vestment worn by the priest in the exercise of his sacred functions will recall this glorious emancipation; it will appear to us as the distinctive sign which separates the priest from the faithful. And this is not all. “Has not Jesus Christ,” says a great doctor, “also confided to the priest the power to liberate, in his turn, his brethren? Great and sublime privilege given to the priesthood! For he who is invested with this dignity is not only a freedman of God, but more than that, he possesses the right to free others, whether by Baptism or by sacramental absolution.” (Tert., Advers. Marcion.)

In the priest who comes clothed in white to the holy tribunal, and to the baptismal font, let us recognize him “to whom Jesus Christ said: Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.” (St. Matt. xviii. 18.)

White is also a symbol of peace. The ancient authors tell us that peace was asked or announced by hoisting a white flag, or by sending to the enemy a bearer of the flag of truce clad in white.

On the day of the resurrection, the angel at the tomb p. 77of Our Lord wore a white robe, symbol of the peace which Jesus Christ had merited for us by His death, and the happy tidings of which He was soon to carry to His disciples assembled in the chamber of the last supper. When the priest announces the divine word, when he blesses, when he presents himself before God bearing the supplications of his people, he is always clothed in white, like an angel or a messenger of peace. He has the formula of this peace constantly on his lips: Dominus vobiscum—“The Lord be with you”; he has it still more in his heart. It is very fitting that he should wear before the eyes of the people this symbolic livery.

For these various reasons white always predominates in the vestments of the priest. If they are black, the cross, the white fringe, the amice, and the alb preserve in the whole of the priestly costume the rich meanings of which we have just spoken.

The material of the surplice is linen. “Woollen and silk,” say the liturgists, “can be changed, and receive another shade, but linen loves simplicity, and would not know how to lend itself to the alteration of its color; this is why the doctors of the Church consider it the figure of a simple and candid soul, the enemy of lying. Linen also improves in the tests to which it is subjected, like true sanctity purified by sorrow and perfected by adversity.” (Panopl. Sacerd. l. ii. c. 7.)

Admirable symbol of the priestly virtue! We should join to the patience of the lamb the simplicity of the dove.

The Rochet.—This is distinguished from the surplice by the narrow sleeves. It is the insignia of episcopal jurisdiction. The bishops-elect receive it from the hands of the Pope, if they are in Rome. Above the rochet they wear the chimere. These two insignia indicate that he who is thus clad exercises the principal jurisdiction in that place. This is why the bishops outside their dioceses cover the rochet either with a surplice or a short, small sleeveless mantle, called mantelet. Only the Pope may wear the rochet everywhere uncovered. By a concession, the members of the chapter, the bishop’s senate, wear this badge also.

Cope.—In the first centuries, the clergy wore in the processions of winter, or when it rained, a long mantle called pluvial. The hood with which it was ornamented gave it later the name of cope. The custom of wearing it in church during the offices and benediction was introduced by degrees. The cope has not remained without its symbolic meaning. We have seen that the fur on the camail represents the garments of fallen man, while the linen of the surplice is the figure of the white robe of innocence washed in the blood and tears of Jesus Christ. The cope, splendid in gold and precious stones, is the symbol of that other vestment which will be given to the elect in heaven, the mantle of a glorious immortality. Do we desire to receive this one day from the hands of Jesus Christ? Let us clothe ourselves here below in the white robe of the pure in heart.

4. The Chant

If we thoroughly understood the origin of the liturgic chant, the heart, mind, and voice would unite in a concert of harmony to praise the Most High.

The Language of Heaven.—In the vision of Isaias, Jehovah showed Himself to the prophet seated upon a p. 78raised and shining throne, around which the seraphim repeated the hymn of eternity: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.” (Is. vi. 3.) We see that mention is already made of chants and choruses. St. Paul is ravished to the third heaven; while splendors inconceivable to the eye of man filled his gaze, unspeakable harmony made his heart throb. To express the feelings that filled his soul, he could only say that the ear of man hath not heard anything comparable to the chants of the saints and angels. (I. Corinth. ii. 9.)

Is another witness necessary? St. John saw in heaven, before the throne of the Lamb, twenty-four ancients with musical instruments, while thousands of virgins made ravishing harmony. (Apoc. v. 8; xiv. 3.)

This language of heaven will one day be our own, for the divine art of chanting will never perish. One day the world will see the ruins piled up by the angel of wrath at the end of time; temples and palaces, paintings and statues, as well as the cabin of the herdsman and the forest oak, will be the prey of the flames. The valley of tears will make way for a new world; then there will be no more painting, no more architecture, no more eloquence, but forever there will be music—chanting will last for eternity. Who can say what this harmony will be?

While a monk was at prayer one day, he heard the voice of a bird. Its sweet notes had an unknown charm. The bird hopped from branch to branch, from tree to tree, losing itself in the forest. The monk, drawn by a secret force, rose up to follow it. For a long time he went on after the bird, and one day he stopped. The echoes no longer gave back the beautiful notes; p. 79God’s little singer had disappeared. Sadly the monk turned to go back to the monastery, which he reached only after long wandering. All had changed since his departure: it was not the same brother porter who opened the door to him; another superior was at the head of the community; all whom he knew slept under the humble cross in the cemetery. The pious legend adds that a hundred years had sped away since he had gone forth, but, thanks to the beautiful song of the bird, they had seemed as fleeting as a second. For a hundred years one single voice had charmed his ear so that he had never wearied in listening to it. Under the veil of this charming allegory we see what the chants of heaven will be to the blessed.

While the sacred chants fill the temple, let us think of heaven.

It is said that when the soldiers of the French army heard in the mountains of Lebanon the sound of distant bells, they could not restrain their tears. It recalled to them their distant country, their first communion, their parents sleeping in the cemetery; to them it was the voice of their land. For us the chant will always be the voice of heaven.

Chant of the Psalms.—Even in its manner of execution, the liturgic chant recalls heaven. Ecclesiastical history teaches us that formerly the people and the clergy united in singing the psalms together. In some churches one sang alone, while all present listened in silence, uniting themselves interiorly with him. But one day St. Ignatius, the disciple of St. John and bishop of Antioch, like his master, saw in a vision the heavenly Jerusalem. While its glories were unrolled before his wondering eyes, he heard the blessed singing alternately and in chorus the praises of God. Awakening from his ecstasy, he desired to imitate upon earth the melodies of heaven, and the custom of chanting the psalms in chorus spread from the Church at Antioch throughout the entire East.

Chant of the Anthems.—In his beautiful Treatise on the Celestial Hierarchy, St. Denis shows us the elect sometimes chanting in choir, sometimes uniting their voices to praise God together.

The Church on earth has rendered the sacred chants on the model of her heavenly sister. After having recited alternately a voice of a psalm, she unites all the voices to sing the anthems. “Yes,” let us say with St. John Chrysostom, “there is an admirable harmony between the chant of the Church and that of heaven; it is the same praise, the same joy.” Such is the liturgic chant, the language of heaven, which St. Augustine could not hear without shedding tears. His emotion should be less surprising than our insensibility. “The sacred psalmody,” says St. Justin, “excites in the heart the holiest and the most ardent desires; it lessens carnal affections; drives away evil thoughts. It is to the soul like a stream which brings to it divine fruits. It clothes the wrestler with virtue, generosity, strength, and constancy. It is a balm for pious souls in all the sorrows of this life.” (Quaest. cvii. Ad Orthod.)