Source: http://benchorensis.blogspot.com/2017/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 11:30:49+00:00

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I will not attempt to explain in any depth the vestments, the choreography, and "line-up" for the procession here, something way beyond my very limited knowledge of this kind of liturgical detail. What I can attempt, though, is to give a sense of the text and a rough outline of the procession.
For comparison, bear in mind that the sober and simple Roman rite, probably preserving a very ancient form of the Vesperal liturgy, has no hymn or little chapter of Scripture for Easter Vespers, with instead a very simple line of Scripture in the place of both: This is the day which the Lord hath made : we will rejoice and be glad in it. Easter Vespers according to the Roman rite therefore runs, (1) Opening Versicles, (2) Psalms of Sunday sung with the Antiphons, (3) the Versicle, (4) Magnificat with its Antiphon, and (5) the Collect. It is primitive, unfussy and structurally spartan. The Sarum rite has an instinct for a higher ceremonial, and not merely for the sake of aesthetics, I think. The elaborations one finds in the Sarum rite often bring into relief the sacramental bearing of the text of the Office - and in the case of Easter Vespers, this means drawing out from the Psalms of Sunday their typology vis-a-vis the Christological meaning of the Easter rite and its sacraments, viz. Baptism and the Eucharist.
First, for a brief resume of the ritual itself, and then a note on its significance.
It begins with a threefold Kyrie (not the Opening Versicle).
The first three Psalms of Sunday (110-112) are then sung with a fourfold Alleluia for their common Antiphon - the first Alleluia is intoned, and the choir replies with a threefold Alleluia.
The Gradual is then sung, This is the day which the Lord hath made : we will rejoice and be glad in it.
A series of Versicles are sung as follows - V. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is gracious: because his mercy endureth for ever. R. Alleluia. V. Let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. R. Alleluia. V. The Lord is risen. R. As he said unto you. Alleluia.
Then the Magnificat is sung with the Antiphon, And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away : for it was very great. Alleluia.
The Collect comes after the Antiphon is repeated: Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who celebrate the solemnities of the Lord's Resurrection, by the invocation of thy Spirit may rise from spiritual death : through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Then the usual salutation V. Let us bless the Lord etc. completes this part of Vespers.
So far there is not much elaboration of the rite: but at this point the procession begins from the quire to the font and back. (Here I can't vouch for the complete accuracy of the details I am about to give.) It is led by an acolyte carrying the processional cross, two taperers, two thurifers, then two Deacons carrying the oil of the Catechumens and oil of Chrism, then a boy carrying the Office book, then (in order) the equivalent of the master of ceremonies, the Rulers of the choir, the bishop if he is present, the two other Rulers of the choir, and finally the choir.
Following a fourfold Alleluia, Psalm 113 is intoned, Praise the Lord, ye servants, and then the procession sets off as one half of the choir replies with the next line of the Psalm O praise the Name of the Lord. Alleluia. The choir then continues to the font, the other half of the choir singing - Blessed be the Name of the Lord : from this time forth for evermore. Alleluia. And the rest of the Psalm is sung alternately and completed at the font, with a repetition of the Alleluia after each line, and the fourfold Alleluia repeated at its end.
At the font: Three choirboys join the procession, just behind the Deacons. When the psalm is finished, they sing in unison: Alleluia. Then is sung: Praise the Lord, ye servants : praise the Name of the Lord (in Latin the word "servants" is pueri, which can also translate as "boys"). The boys reply Alleluia.
The font is then censed.
The Priest says V. The Lord is risen from the tomb. R. Who hung for us upon the tree. Alleluia, and then the Collect, Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who celebrate the solemnity of the Lord's Resurrection, may worthily rejoice in our deliverance. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
After another Alleluia, the Psalms 114 and 115 are sung (as a single Psalm, as it is in the Vulgate), and the Psalm is sung alternately by the two halves of the choir as the procession sets off again. There is a station at the line All the whole heavens are the Lord's, until the end of the Psalm.
Here the Priest censes the crucifix, and the Psalm is finished with a repetition of Alleluia.
Then the Versicle is said, V. Tell it out among the heathen. R. That the Lord reigneth from the tree. Alleluia, and another Collect is said, God, who for our sake didst will that thy Son should undergo the suffering of the Cross to drive away from us the power of the enemy : grant to us thy servants that we may ever live in the joys of his Resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
As the procession enters the quire again, Alma Redemptoris Mater is sung with an Alleluia, followed by the Versicle V. Holy Mother of God, ever-Virgin Mary. R. Pray for us unto the Lord our God. Alleluia, and then the Collect, We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts : that as we have known the Incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an Angel, so by his Cross and Passion we may be brought to the glory of his Resurrection; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Now for a note on what I think the significance of all this ritual is.
The psalm sung on the way to the font, Psalm 113, is an invocation to the praise of the God who raises the poor from the dunghill to sit with the princes of his people - language which resonates with the Resurrection - and it also rejoices in the fruitfulness of the once-barren woman, the Church, now a joyful mother bearing children for her newly-risen Bridegroom. The Collect said as the font is censed is a joyful "variation on a theme" of the main Collect of the Vespers Office which invoked the Holy Ghost over the people. The font is the place of the death and resurrection of the Christian people: the place where (as St Paul puts it) they are baptised into Christ's death. But there is another layer of Old Testament typology ready to hand. In the Easter Vigil, Baptism is the crossing of the Red Sea by the people of Israel in their escape from the slavery of Egypt, Egypt being the type of the slavery of sin. The word ereptio, "deliverance", in the Collect really means being wrenched away with some force, suggesting a somewhat uncomfortable escape by the skin of one's teeth from a strong captor. Appropriately, the next psalm (Psalm 114 and 115 sung as a single psalm) is the "Peregrine" psalm, the psalm of pilgrimage of the people after the crossing of the Red Sea out of Egypt, and mentions the water coming from the rock from which Israel drank in the desert, and which followed them in their journey - one is instantly reminded of St Paul's "and that Rock was Christ".
To sing this psalm of pilgrimage in procession, as if the clergy and choir really were the people of Israel, processing back towards the land of promise (they are now returning towards the Altar, the place from which they receive the manna, the Bread of Angels, for their arduous journey to the heavenly kingdom) somehow gives the words an added sense of embodiment in a way that does not feel factitious.... is not, I believe, factitious. The people of the procession, by faith, touch with their hands the Things of eternity, which although hidden by the veil of the visible creature, are yet the Real enacted in mysterio, so that the types of the Old Testament and the stuff of earth are translated (in a little stone building in a small corner of a small cold island) into the Divine Tongue that spoke and the world was.
Honour is done to the crucifix on the return towards the quire at the lines from Psalm 115, All the whole heavens are the Lord's... The dead praise not thee, O Lord, neither all that go down into silence... But we will praise the Lord, from this time forth... This Psalm, and the subsequent Versicle and Collect, seems to imply a glory and power and kingship issuing from the Cross of the Risen Christ, as it precedes the Church in its pilgrimage.
The Marian Antiphon is sung on the return towards the sanctuary, which is the place of Christ's sacramental presence. Continuing the idea of the Peregrine Psalm, of the pilgrimage of Israel through the Arabian desert, one is put in mind of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, which contained the Holy of Holies, the terrible place of God's eternal glory. The Ark of the Covenant within the Holy of Holies was God's meeting place with Israel at the annual sacrifice of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement: and the meeting place of God and Man is the womb of Mary, where God and Man became One Person and began the reconciliation of all things in heaven and earth.
One can imagine this procession, or a simplified version of it at the very least, being done with great dignity in even a small parish church. In fact, that is what fascinates me the most about the idea of such ritual being performed: how powerful it would be in a place where the scale and grandeur of the rite itself was reduced and muted to allow the significance of it to speak louder, and where everyone's face was a distinct and familiar one.
As detailed in my post A Theory of Common Origin - see 21st January below - the Sarum rite contains more material from Revelation in the Eastertide Matins lessons than does the Roman rite, and less from Acts. Both have a series of homilies for the Easter Octave. Following the Octave, the Roman rite has a series from Acts for the first and second weeks after Easter, and Revelation for the third, with the General Epistles occupying the period from the Fourth Sunday after Easter until Pentecost, with a series of homilies for the Pentecost Octave. The Sarum rite, on the other hand, has a series from Revelation for the whole of the first three weeks after Easter, followed by the General Epistles, and the only place reserved for Acts is the period from Ascension to Whitsun Eve.
In the lectionary, I have kept the Sarum Matins lessons much as they are.
(1) Revelation. It isn't possible to squeeze in the whole book, so one reads only excerpts of Revelation at Matins during the first three weeks after Easter. Revelation has already been read in series in the Vespers of Advent in my lectionary, so this doesn't result in a loss: in any case, in the week immediately after Easter week, the calendar is usually packed with a series of feasts deferred from Holy Week and Easter, so the Matins lessons here will rarely get an outing. It was therefore important for them to be read somewhere else in the lectionary. My selection from the book tries to stay close to the theme of Easter: of resurrection and victory through the Cross and through martyrdom.
(2) The General Epistles. These fit neatly into a series from the Fourth Sunday after Easter until Whitsun Eve, provided one reads them for the second Vespers lesson as well as at Matins.
(3) Acts. One can read only the first four chapters or so at Matins from Ascension until Whitsun. This leaves the question as to what to do with the rest of a somewhat lengthy book that the Roman rite placed within Eastertide. Acts is very suitable for Eastertide, partly in anticipation of Pentecost, and also in part because it details the life and proclamation of the early Church, which was full of the message and power of our Lord's resurrection. I therefore used mainly the Vespers lessons to include sometimes quite lengthy readings from Acts, from Easter Monday until its completion just before the Fourth Sunday after Easter.
There was still quite a lot of space left over in my lectionary for other material.
For the Old Testament lessons from the period from Easter until Ascension, I chose Joshua, Judges and Ruth. The book of Joshua seemed right for Eastertide because in a sense it is a type of the Church (baptised in the Jordan at the Easter Vigil) entering into its new life and divine inheritance under the leadership of its "Jesus" - Joshua is of course the translators' version of the Hebrew word for Jesus. Judges and Ruth complete this period coming up to Whitsuntide: Judges is largely an account of deliverance through the power of the Spirit coming upon his Chosen.
For the period from Ascension until Ember Saturday, I have added a series from the book of Exodus that follows on from where the lectionary leaves off in Holy Week, i.e. at the foot of Sinai. The ascent of Moses into the mountain mirrors the Ascension of Jesus, and the events around the giving of the Law have been seen as a type of the Descent of the Spirit. I have tried to arrange the Exodus material accordingly, to reflect this typological understanding of the story. Several other parallels occurred to me whilst arranging the material. The Whitsun week is one of the Embertide seasons, traditionally when ordinations were performed: in fact Whitsun week was the time of the year that ordinations most often took place. A lot of the priestly material in the final chapters of the book of Exodus, and the material related to the service of the Temple, seemed very appropriate here.
I also added a series of eight lessons for the Octave of Pentecost for the Vespers lessons drawn from the Gospel of John, from the discourse and prayer of Jesus after the Last Supper in chapter 14 onwards, in which Jesus speaks of the Descent of the Spirit and the unity of the Church through the Spirit.
One more thing requires an explanation: I have left the Vespers of Easter Day as an office without any lessons at all. But to explain why, I need to write another post.
Apologies to those who leave comments as I only remember to check the post now and again. I've published the comments that came through the letterbox now.
One thing has been bothering me about the experimental lectionary. In Sarum there was a custom of celebrating the "Little Office" of St Mary on ferias in addition to the ferial office: it was said rather than sung. But on certain days the Plenum Servitium or full office of Blessed Mary was sung instead of the ferial office. Sarum specifies certain days when this should take place: the Tuesday before Ascension - Rogation Tuesday that is - and the Friday before Whitsunday are two such days. It also seems fairly clear from the rubrics that the Plenum Servitium was meant to be said on Saturdays in Advent. The Breviary gives a specific office of St Mary for use in Advent; and one for use outside Advent with a special Eastertide variation. Because the lectionary I am building is so tight, so full of continuous series of lessons, there is little wriggle room to fit in this kind of variation. I therefore built it into Advent and the other days mentioned above. I think, though, that for the rest of the year, I should allow an option for the Plenum Servitium in the lectionary on at least one Saturday per month. The Sarum Breviary provides six different sets of lessons for the Matins of Blessed Virgin throughout the year outside Advent and Eastertide: it would be good to use them all.
This is a continuation of the series on the experimental lectionary (see link at the bottom of the Sarum Office page to the lectionary which is now updated and called FROM ADVENT TO HOLY WEEK).
I found that it was possible to read through all of Genesis and the first part Exodus serially, with almost no adjustments in order, by lengthening the Matins lessons a little, and (from the beginning of Lent proper) reading Genesis as the first lesson of Vespers. Admittedly, one covers a lot of ground in the Third Week of Lent, because the story of Joseph is long, but reading longer passages of narrative is not very onerous.
The rationale for these additions should be obvious enough. (1) The Sermon on the Mount is represented in the Missal lectionary for Ash Wednesday and the days after: it is fitting to have a continuous lectionary to cover the same ground at the capite jejuni, the "head of the Fast", with its teaching on real repentance and amendment of life. (2) and (3) I discussed in the previous post. (4) The Epistle to the Hebrews is theologically apposite coming up to Good Friday.
A note about the extension of the material read from Exodus in the experimental lectionary. In the traditional lectionary, the lessons from Exodus stop before the departure of Israel from Egypt, but I have included lessons from the book right up until the ascent of Moses up to Mount Sinai. One therefore takes in a lot of material that relates typologically to events after the Crucifixion as well as the events of Holy Week itself (there is the Passover and the giving of the manna, both referring to the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday; there is the Crossing of the Red Sea which is a type of resurrection and baptism; and the ascent of Moses which is a type of the Ascension). I think that this works, however. I have previously mentioned the idea of anticipation in the liturgy, but I also included the more "Easter" from Exodus because it is read alongside Hebrews in which the Passion and Ascension are presented as a single or immediately consecutive act of Jesus as our Redeemer. In one sense, the victory is complete with the Cross - "It is finished" - and therefore one can fruitfully meditate upon the types of Resurrection and Ascension in the period immediately before the remembrance of the Cross.
The Matins lessons from Lamentations, the office of Tenebrae, I have left alone completely because they have their own musical settings. The additional parts of the Lamentations not covered in the Matins lessons has been fitted into Prime and Vespers.
Further to this series of posts about the experimental lectionary, the completed scheme for lessons for the Sundays after Epiphany are now added to the Advent to Epiphany file, which can be found via the link at the bottom of the Sarum Office page of the blog.
There is a bit of work to do on the series of lessons from Septuagesima to Holy Week. It isn't quite ready. I should be able to put the final version on-line (well, the final version for this year... it is a work that invites revision and refinement as one uses it) in the next couple of weeks. Before Septuagesima, I hope.
The scheme for Septuagesima to the end of week of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, just before Passion Sunday, is fairly simple. Genesis through to the early chapter of Exodus take up most of the Matins lessons, except when there are Homilies for Matins, although these are less numerous in the Sarum rite than in the Roman, being confined mainly to the First Week of Lent and the Ember Days.
Deuteronomy is added to my scheme for the three weeks of Pre-Lent. The reinforcement of the Law, its repetition, the emphasis on the spirit of the Law and corporate repentance in Deuteronomy, after Israel's gigantic failure at the foot of Sinai, seems like a fitting theme for Lent.
Jeremiah begins on Passion Sunday in the traditional scheme: but there isn't enough space for the whole prophecy in Passion Week and the first few days of Holy Week. I have therefore included the remainder of the prophecy, as well as Baruch (which contains the writing of Jeremiah's scribe), running from Septuagesima right through until Passion Sunday. I think that this is justified, not just thematically on account of Jeremiah's calls to repentance and the impending destruction of the Temple (which is the symbol of Christ's flesh), but also because one also anticipates the use of Jeremiah in Passion Week. Anticipation, or ritually preparing for a thing before it has quite arrived, is almost a kind of liturgical law - one thinks immediately of the first Vespers of Sunday, of the Easter Vigil, of the season of Advent, in all of which the event or something about it is savoured and enacted before its full liturgical celebration in its proper place.
There are no New Testament lessons for Lent, or even Pre-Lent, in the experimental lectionary. This may seem like a major flaw. I think that it is mitigated by the daily Mass lectionary during Lent - Lent, unlike other seasons of the liturgical year, has distinct daily ferial Masses with their own lessons - and which obviously has a great deal of New Testament material. This assumes, however, that one would read the Epistle and Gospel every day as well as the lessons for the daily office. That is, in fact, how it is intended to "work".
Next - in this series about the attempt to build a fuller lectionary (see Sarum Office page at the top of the blog for a link to the lectionary) - for the rationale behind the Christmas and Epiphany Lessons.
Matins of the Sarum rite provides unique homilies, and a series of legends, for the feasts and saints of Christmas and Epiphany. During the entire period (from Christmas to the end of the Octave of Epiphany) the Christmas Vespers are said daily, while Matins varies according the feast. There are provisions for festal processions with incense and chants on each of the major feasts after Christmas, notably a procession of deacons on St Stephen, of priests on St John, and choirboys on Holy Innocents: these take place immediately after Vespers.
Filling in extra lessons for this period in addition to the Matins lessons requires a lesson for Prime, and two lessons for Vespers. One can fill out Vespers lessons for many of the major feast days with relevant lessons taken from e.g. the 1928 BCP lectionary. Even then, though, one is left with quite a few gaps.
To take Epiphany first: I found it easy to decide on lessons for the Octave of Epiphany. For the first lesson of Vespers, many passages from Isaiah (many of them packed into the Epistle lesson of the Octave Day Mass which is put together from excerpts from Isaiah) are replete with the symbolism of water and therefore our Lord's baptism. And for the second lesson of Vespers, the first three chapters of John seemed a very apposite series for the entire Octave - I am told that the Coptic lessons at Epiphany also cover the early part of John's Gospel. Finally, there was the Prime lesson: I picked out a series of lessons from the detail in Exodus about the service of the altar and the priestly clothing of Aaron and his sons. There is a lot of detail about the priestly state here, and it is rich in symbolic detail (the use of gold, incense and anointing oil, the laver in which the priests are to wash, the clothing in priestly linen which was symbolically understood as a reference to our Lord's clothing with the stuff of earth, the offerings of wine). The passages from Exodus are ripe for the juxtaposition of the symbols of the Magi, the wedding at Cana, and the Baptism with the ultimate reference of these symbols and happenings, i.e. the Cross and Christ's Ascension to the Altar in Heaven. This is not a connection foreign to the liturgy of this period: the link is explicit enough in the symbolism of the gifts of the Magi, and I understand that there is quite a systematic link made in the Byzantine rite between the feast of the Theophany and the Paschal rites.
The Christmas lessons - mainly the lessons of Prime, and the remainder of the first lessons of Vespers on the days after the feast of St Thomas until Epiphany - caused me some difficulty. Eventually, drawing in the main upon the idea of Christmas as a feast of the birth of a king (remember that Christmas was once seen as particularly appropriate for a coronation), but specifically a king who is the Heir of David, I tried to construct a series of lessons from the building of the Temple of Solomon in the book of Chronicles. The series starts on Christmas Eve with David's prophetic utterances to his son, commanding him to build a house for God to dwell in among his people, and promising Solomon an eternal kingdom; the rest of the series leads on from there, and ends on Epiphany Eve with the visit of the Queen of Sheba (bringing spices in abundance, of course). It seemed as if the series from Chronicles provided a ready-made progression from the building of the Temple (i.e. the Incarnation, understanding the Temple as Christ's body) to the coming of the Gentiles to the Temple (the Queen of Sheba, or Saba, bringing gifts on camels) at the glorious Shewing or Epiphany of our Lord. And the account of the building of the Temple by Solomon covers much of the symbolic material, in anticipation, that will be reiterated in the lessons from Exodus read throughout the Octave of Epiphany.
Something that may cause some disagreement about the nature and purpose of a lectionary is the inclusion of the series of names connected with the service of the Temple, from I Chronicles 23 onwards. In the lectionary as it stands, the role and names of the Levites are detailed on the feast of Stephen; there is further documentary detail of the sons of Aaron (the priests) on the feast of John; and the lists on Holy Innocents concern the singers and musicians. One could draw a line between the liturgy of the Old Testament and the New - as I have done with this lectionary - between the deacons and their procession on St Stephen, to the Levites; between the sons of Aaron (i.e. the priests), and the priestly procession on St John; and between the choir of boys and its procession on Holy Innocents, and the musicians of the ancient Temple. My justification of this typological link between the old worship and the new is that it was made very early on in the history of Christianity by Clement of Rome, who is likely to have known the Apostles Peter and Paul.
One might object of course that the sheer volume of lists names, names, names simply makes the reading aloud of such passages rather silly. In that case, the idea of an annual lectionary to read all of Scripture should be forgotten about. My own feeling is that there is a purpose for such lessons other than to provide material for satirical sketches about Christian worship. (1) To remind us that the meaning of Scripture is in excess of our understanding of it; which entails a belief that (2) the mystery of Scripture is ultimately its reference to Christ, which is often hidden; which prompts us (3) to try to uncover the meaning of the sacred images and narrative because this in itself involves a creative sanctifying of the imagination: we "realise" the images of history and creation, renewing and making them holy by bringing them within the orbit of the mystery of Christ. The public reading of such difficult passages will help (4) to guard against an attitude towards any part of the canonical books that is casual, dismissive, or treats them as an obsolete historical record for critical scholarship to chew over. "Search the Scriptures... they testify of Me."
A final note about the last few days of the series of Epiphany lessons. I have added in an optional extra series of lessons for 14th to 19th January, because these days may occur before the First Sunday after the Epiphany Octave, but after the Octave Day of Epiphany. (Sarum has an Octave Sunday in Epiphany, as did the Roman rite before its removal in Pius V's reform, and therefore the Sunday Gospel of Christ in the Temple occurs a Sunday later in Sarum than it does in the 1570 "Tridentine" rite.) The Sarum rite provides a series of Matins lessons for the feasts of these few days; it would seem to make sense to downgrade these feasts to memorials if they occur after the Sunday after the Epiphany Octave, but to celebrate them with a full festal office if they fall before it.
The Prime lesson and the first Vespers lesson for 14th to 19th January are from the book of Chronicles, which is now read chronologically until Septuagesima, from chapter 1, beginning with the geneology of Adam, and moving on swiftly to the time of king David and his heirs. This series of lessons - which unfolds between Christmastide and the weeks before Lent, has a double reference to the seasons with which it both starts and ends, linking the time of Christmas (concerned with the birth of the eternal Son of David) and Septuagesima (which is liturgically the time of Creation, when the book of Genesis is begun). The period "after Epiphany" can be cut very short, of course, if Easter and hence Septuagesima fall early - which is one instance in which the proposed lectionary would often fall short in practice of the goal of traversing the entire Bible in one year. The second lesson of Vespers for the 14th to 19th January is from the first Epistle of John, suited to Christmastide because of its references to the flesh and bone nature of the Incarnation, the tangible, visible appearance of the Word of life.
Next: I have still to make the final adjustments to the lessons for the Sundays after Epiphany, but will post the link sometime soon. There is little to say except that these lessons will continue through Chronicles, and include the historical material from the reign of Hekekiah from Isaiah. Chronicles makes up the lessons for Prime and the first lesson of Vespers. The scheme incorporates the Pauline epistles, which provide the traditional Matins lessons for this period. The Epistles of Paul are read serially at Matins and at the second Vespers lesson, with six instead of three lessons of St Paul at Sunday Matins. This is on account of a peculiarity of the Sarum rite: on Sundays after Epiphany and Trinity, unlike the Roman Breviary, Sarum has no homily in the lessons of the second nocturn on Sundays - it simply has six consecutive lessons from the "Histories", as they are called... although they aren't necessarily from the historical books of the bible. Because of theological significance of the Epistles of St Paul, the lectionary will provide a place much later on, after Trinity, to fit in any of his Epistles that are not read in this season, or any lessons from Paul that are displaced because of an early Easter and hence an early date of Septuagesima.
N.B. This piece is about the experimental lectionary I am putting together (to peruse the lectionary, see the Sarum Office page and follow the link at the bottom of that page).
Isaiah provides the traditional lessons for Advent, which can vary from 22 to 28 days. (Last year there were 28 days because Christmas fell on a Sunday, giving a full fourth week after the Fourth Sunday).
Some of Isaiah is not particularly relevant to either the first or the second coming of Christ: there is a whole historical section about the attempted Assyrian subjugation of Jerusalem in the reign of King Hezekiah, for example; and there are also the parts, like Isaiah chapter 53, that are part of the liturgy of Holy Week because of their prophetic witness to the crucifixion. Parts of Isaiah already form the Matins lessons of Christmas and Epiphany.
Once one has taken out these parts, the remaining "Advent Isaiah" fits fairly neatly as a continuous lectionary into Advent, if one reads two sections each day: one section at Matins, and one at Vespers. There are occasional ferial days, such as the Ember days, when the Matins lessons are occupied by a Gospel Homily - on these days one can shift the first Isaiah lesson to become the lesson after Prime.
There is one slight complication to the neat continuous reading of Isaiah in Advent: which is O sapientia and the O antiphons, beginning on the 16th December in the Sarum rite. I therefore made a special series of lessons for 16th to 23rd December, and I tried as best I could when constructing the lectionary to make the lessons coincide with the O antiphons. By interrupting the continuous lessons and jumping around a little, it wasn't difficult - for O oriens, for example, there is the very obvious "Arise, shine" of Isaiah chapter 60. I don't think that the lack of continuity in reading through Isaiah is very important, however - aside from a few sections in Isaiah there is no particularly clear reason for the consecutive ordering of much of its material.
A couple of things stood out for me when putting the lessons in place over the last few years.
Firstly, once one sets a sequence running (e.g. for the O antiphons), the biblical text almost seems to be ready made for the series. The final O antiphon O virgo virginum to take one sample of many, just happens to coincide naturally with the final chapter of Isaiah, chapter 66. Read it: the wealth of symbolically relevant Marian detail is astonishing. Verse 7 stands out as an anticipation of the traditional understanding of the mode of our Lord's birth from the Virgin in such an obvious way that I cannot believe that the text had nothing to do with the development of the traditional idea.
The second thing that stood out for me was the general lack of reference in Isaiah to David, to his throne, to the rule of the monarchy of Israel in general. Take out the well known prophecy of chapter 9, "Unto us a son is born", and almost the only other mention of David in the book that does any symbolic or prophetic work, so to speak, is the phrase "the sure mercies of David" in chapter 55. Odd, in a way: there is a lot more Davidic material in Jeremiah and other prophets such as Zechariah - yet here are all those purple passages about the nations flowing to Jerusalem and the Temple, the restoration of all things to a primitive Eden... and yet the role of the house and throne of David in all of this is barely mentioned. Even the figure of Cyrus seems much more central for a goodish part of the book. I am not sure what to make of this, nor where to turn for really good critical studies of Isaiah. Perhaps someone could be kind and enlighten me.
Isaiah forms the bulk of the Advent lectionary, and the remaining lessons for Prime and the second lesson for Vespers are provided by two fairly obvious Advent texts, Daniel and Revelation respectively. The Apocalypse draws heavily on Daniel, so the two are complementary. I read in The Name of the Rose that the Benedictines read Revelation at Prime, although I have never been able to corroborate this - but it does seem like a natural choice for Advent, ending with the descent of the Bride and the invocation of the Bridegroom, just as he is about to "leap down from heaven" in the silence of the night. Daniel is not only complementary for the theme of Advent, but also runs on from the November lessons - my adjustments to the Sarum lectionary means that Daniel runs straight on from Ezekiel in November, the other minor prophets fitting into November also. This provides a continuity that extends the theme of Advent that one finds in the minor prophets (such as Zechariah and Malachi) back into November, which is only fitting given that Advent once began after Martinmas. I believe that it still does in Milan.
Revelation only is read until the Fourth Sunday, then the General Epistles, and Acts is reserved for the period from Ascension until Whitsunday.
My guess is that the divergence between the Roman and Sarum lectionary can be explained by a common origin in a much more extensive lectio continua at Matins. As the calendar silted up with more and more feasts (less days to say ferial Matins), and as the Matins lessons were cut short (blame the Franciscans and their influence via the papal liturgy), the Roman Breviary opted for keeping all the books of the original scheme, achieved by specifying a series of excerpts for each week of the liturgical year. Sarum on the other hand kept a series of continuous lessons for use at Matins, but because the length of the lessons were curtailed, and there were fewer and fewer ferias, the proportion of the original scheme actually read through was drastically reduced.
One of the aims of a revised lectionary might be to restore the original scheme, using some guesswork. One could lengthen the lessons, but the revision would have to be undertaken with a reduction in the number of feasts.
If one looks at the typical Sarum calendar of the mid-sixteenth century, one notices how few double feasts there are: if one limited the obstruction of the normal cycle of Matins lessons to these feasts only, one has a continuous lectionary broken only every two weeks or so.
The question then arises as to what to do with all the lessons from the simple feasts of iii and ix lessons. Several solutions occur to me (1) downgrade feasts of iii lessons to commemorations only, and read the iii lessons as a single lesson either after Prime or in place of a homily - they are predominantly legends of the saints - and (2) for feasts of ix lessons, have a "double" Matins i.e. have one ferial Nocturn without an invitatory or Hymn, with ferial lessons and responses (one could use the three festal Psalms of the Nocturn with their Antiphons), followed by two Nocturns of the feast, the second Nocturn beginning with Invitatory and Hymn, and containing in three compressed lessons the first six lessons of the festal Matins. In Sarum one could easily compress the first six festal lessons into three, because in general the first six contain, in series, the legend of the saint.
By such an arrangement one wouldn't lose any liturgical "material", and the reduction in festal days although significant would not be too monotonous... well, that is my opinion of course.
There are details of divergence here: for example in Eastertide all Sarum feasts are of iii lessons, so one could alter the rules so that feasts of iii lessons with rulers of the choir should not be downgraded to become mere commemorations; but the festal calendar is relatively spare in April and May, so it would not cause much of a problem for lectio continua.
So much for speculations about origins, and for clearing the ground. I hope to write about the actual arrangement of a "restored" lectionary for Advent in the next post.
I haven't posted here for over a year, since late 2015. I have been cured of the itch to comment on anything current (or maybe it is merely a chronic illness in temporary remission).
My reason for posting here again is largely to do with an interest in the Sarum office - not with its ceremonial primarily, or as something exotic to be studied, but as something to pray through: as a window, rather than a work of art.
I have therefore added a very brief page (top right), called Sarum Office, primarily so that I can link to a lectionary page on another webpage - alas, I cannot work out how to load files onto the site here, but I can use the webpage to load files and link to them from this site.
The lectionary: a word about that. That is what I want to write a few web log entries about at the moment, in the hope of getting some replies.
The Sarum rite follows a similar pattern to the Roman rite in its Lessons for Matins (Isaiah in Advent etc.), but is generally more sequential, more of a lectio continua. The 1888 Roman Breviary that I have jumps its way through most of Isaiah in Advent, for example, giving one samples of "the best bits", while the Sarum rite runs through a quarter of Isaiah more or less serially and then runs out of space.
One thing we know about the ancient Church is that they read much more Scripture than in the middle ages or than we do, certainly more of the Old Testament at the Mass of the Catechumens, and more at Matins (whenever that office developed). The monastic and Sarum office also provide for a lesson after the Capitular office (after Prime), and probably had lessons with lunch and dinner. The Orthodox also have lessons in their Vesperal liturgy, and then there are the two lessons of Anglican Evensong.
Holy Scripture is a mystery that initiates one into Christ. Reading it with this awareness - that when one speaks the Spirit is uttering the mysteries of the Creating and Sustaining Logos, and of our sacrificed Redeemer - is to listen for a Voice that does not always speak in words that are readily understood. I see no reason why one should not aim to read all of Holy Scripture annually if possible, even if parts of it are not obviously "edifying". If one lengthens the Matins lessons, adds a lesson after Prime, and provides two Lessons for Vespers (Evensong), this becomes close to achievable.
I am in the middle of putting together a lectionary as described. I have followed the traditional Sarum (and Roman) scheme as closely as possible: whatever books are read for traditional Matins for that liturgical season or that month are to be found in my scheme at the same season, but in a more complete form. Other books have been added to the traditional scheme to make up the four daily lessons in this experimental lectionary.
I am going to blog my way through the lectionary as I post and link it to the Sarum Office page, piece by piece. It isn't necessarily finalised and I am revising bits here and there as I use it annually. The purpose of my blogging on this is to think a little about the mystagogical and Christological currents that emerge from putting together various books of Scripture in this way, to illuminate the mystery of redemption that the church is celebrating at particular times of the year. I don't know if the actual result viz. the lectionary I have put together will recommend itself to anyone.
A final word about sources. These include the older Sarum and Roman rites, and also the revised 1928 BCP lectionary. If I were really want to be a student of the typological use of Scripture I suppose I should be looking carefully at the Orthodox office lectionary. I may get around to it eventually, but I haven't thus far.

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