Divine Office
Divine Office
As contained in approved Breviaries, the group of psalms, hymns, prayers, readings from the Old and New Testaments, patristic homilies, and lives of saints, arranged and formulated by the Church, whereby daily public or liturgical prayer is offered to God. It is also called Cursus, Canonical Hours, or Opus Dei. It is the public and official prayer by which the Church, as a visible society and as the Mystical Body of Christ, offers in union with her Divine Founder, adoration and supplication to God. In consequence, the regulation of this official prayer depends upon the supreme authority in the Church who deputes certain representatives (the priesthood) to fulfill this obligation in the name of the universal Church. “It is the common prayer which is offered to God by the minister of the Church in the person of all the faithful” (Saint Thomas). It follows from these dogmatic principles that all the faithful habitually pray in the recitation of the Office and that a priest, even though he recite the Office privately, prays in the name of the entire Church.
The history of the Divine Office may be divided into three periods. The first period extending from the Apostolic age to the pontificate of Gregory I (6th century) witnesses the formation of the fundamental parts. From Apostolic days, the Church dedicated certain fixed hours to public prayer. These hours were comprised in the vigils extending from evening to dawn. From these vigils which were daily celebrated in the 4th century emerged the major hours of the Office, Vespers, Matins , and Lauds . In the same century the day hours of Terce (6 a.m.), Sext (12 m.), and None (3 p.m.), which previously had been hours of private prayer, had become a public fixed custom. The hour of Prime (6 a.m.) was instituted in the same century and the hour of Compline, in the 6th century. From the earliest days it was the Book of Psalms that furnished the groundwork of this public prayer. In the West Saint Benedict (6th century) rearranged systematic distribution of the psalms over the canonical hours and in other ways regulated the structure and content of the Office.
During the second period (6th to 16th century) the Roman Office as celebrated in the Roman basilicas spread into France , England , and Germany . To it were added the festivals of many saints. Through monastic influences, principally Franciscan , it received periodic additions; e.g., hymns (12th century), Gradual psalms, Suffrages, Offices of the B.V.M. and of the Dead, final antiphons.
The third period, from the 16th century to our own day, is characterized by the simplification of the Office and a rearrangement of the psalms to restore the traditional ideal of the recitation of the entire Psalter within the compass of a week. Each complete daily Office requires 33 psalms which are divided among the canonical hours; the longer psalms are divided into two or more parts. The Divine Office is intimately connected with the Sacrifice of the Mass which regulates the Office of the day. Within the compass of the annual ecclesiastical cycle, the Church commemorates and renews the mysteries of the life of Christ and the work of the Redemption and honors the saints of God. This fundamental idea determines the structural contents of the Office as assigned to the various canonical hours. As contained in the Breviary, the Office is divided into: rubrics or directions for the recitation of the Office; the Ordinary , or the normal framework of the Office; the Psalter, or the psalms assigned to each hour of each day; the Proper of the Season, or the prayers and current scriptural reading and patristic homilies; the Proper of the Saints, or the prayers and historical lessons for the Office of the saints; the Common of the Saints, or certain variable parts of the Office which may be used for many saints according to their classification; a Supplement, containing the Office of B.V.M., the Office of the Dead, Penitential psalms, litanies, etc.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Divine Office
(“Liturgy of the Hours”)
I. THE EXPRESSION “DIVINE OFFICE”
This expression signifies etymologically a duty accomplished for God; in virtue of a Divine precept it means, in ecclesiastical language, certain prayers to be recited at fixed hours of the day or night by priests, religious, or clerics, and, in general, by all those obliged by their vocation to fulfil this duty. The Divine Office comprises only the recitation of certain prayers in the Breviary, and does not include the Mass and other liturgical ceremonies.
“Canonical Hours”, “Breviary”, “Diurnal and Nocturnal Office”, “Ecclesiastical Office”, “Cursus ecclesiasticus”, or simply “cursus” are synonyms of “Divine Office”. “Cursus” is the form used by Gregory writing: “exsurgente abbate cum monachis ad celebrandum cursum” (De glor. martyr., xv). “Agenda”, “agenda mortuorum”, “agenda missarum”, “solemnitas”, “missa” were also used. The Greeks employ “synaxis” and “canon” in this sense. The expression “officium divinum” is used in the same sense by the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (800), the IV Lateran (1215), and Vienne (1311); but it is also used to signify any office of the Church. Thus Walafrid Strabo, Pseudo-Alcuin, Rupert de Tuy entitle their works on liturgical ceremonies “De officiis divinis”. Hittorp, in the sixteenth century, entitled his collection of medieval liturgical works “De Catholicæ Ecclesiæ divinis officiis ac ministeriis” (Cologne, 1568). The usage in France of the expression “saint-office” as synonymous with “office divin” is not correct. “Saint-office” signifies a Roman congregation, the functions of which are well known, and the words should not be used to replace the name “Divine Office”, which is much more suitable and has been used from ancient times.
In the articles BREVIARY; HOURS, CANONICAL; MATINS; PRIME; TERCE; SEXT; NONE; VESPERS, the reader will find treated the special questions concerning the meaning and history of each of the hours, the obligation of reciting these prayers, the history of the formation of the Breviary, etc. We deal here only with the general questions that have not been dwelt on in those articles.
II. PRIMITIVE FORM OF THE OFFICE
The custom of reciting prayers at certain hours of the day or night goes back to the Jews, from whom Christians have borrowed it. In the Psalms we find expressions like: “I will meditate on thee in the morning”; “I rose at midnight to give praise to thee”; “Evening and morning, and at noon I will speak and declare: and he shall hear my voice”; “Seven times a day I have given praise to thee”; etc. (Cf. “Jewish Encyclopedia”, X, 164-171, s. v. “Prayer”). The Apostles observed the Jewish custom of praying at midnight, terce, sext, none (Acts 10:3, 9; 16:25; etc.). The Christian prayer of that time consisted of almost the same elements as the Jewish: recital or chanting of psalms, reading of the Old Testament, to which was soon added reading of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, and at times canticles composed or improvised by the assistants. “Gloria in excelsis” and the “Te decet laus” are apparently vestiges of these primitive inspirations. At present the elements composing the Divine Office seem more numerous, but they are derived, by gradual changes, from the primitive elements. As appears from the texts of Acts cited above, the first Christians preserved the custom of going to the Temple at the hour of prayer. But they had also their reunions or synaxes in private houses for the celebration of the Eucharist and for sermons and exhortations. But the Eucharistic synaxis soon entailed other prayers; the custom of going to the Temple disappeared; and the abuses of the Judaizing party forced the Christians to separate more distinctly from the Jews and their practices and worship. Thenceforth the Christian liturgy rarely borrowed from Judaism.
III. DEVELOPMENT
The development of the Divine Office was probably in the following manner: The celebration of the Eucharist was preceded by the recital of the psalms and the reading of the Old and New Testaments. This was called the Mass of the Catechumens, which has been preserved almost in its original form. Probably this part of the Mass was the first form of the Divine Office, and, in the beginning, the vigils and the Eucharistic Synaxis were one. When the Eucharistic service was not celebrated, the prayer was limited to the recital or chanting of the psalms and the reading of the Scriptures. The vigils thus separated from the Mass became an independent office. During the first period the only office celebrated in public was the Eucharistic Synaxis with vigils preceding it, but forming with it one whole. In this hypothesis the Mass of the Catechumens would be the original kernel of the whole Divine Office. The Eucharistic Synaxis beginning at eventide did not terminate till dawn. The vigils, independently of the Eucharistic service, were divided naturally into three parts; the beginning of the vigils, or the evening Office; the vigils properly so called; and the end of the vigils or the matutinal Office. For when the vigils were as yet the only Office and were celebrated but rarely, they were continued during the greater part of the night. Thus the Office which we have called the Office of evening or Vespers, that of midnight, and that of the morning, called Matins first and then Lauds, were originally but one Office. If this hypothesis be rejected, it must be admitted that at first there was only one public office, Vigils. The service of eventide, Vespers, and that of the morning, Matins or Lauds, were gradually separated from it. During the day, Terce, Sext, and None, customary hours of private prayers both with the Jews and the early Christians, became later ecclesiastical Hours, just like Vespers or Lauds. Complin appears as a repetition of Vespers, first in the fourth century (see COMPLIN). Prime is the only hour the precise origin and date of which are known–at the end of the fourth century (see PRIME).
At all events, during the course of the fifth century, the Office was composed, as to-day, of a nocturnal Office, viz. Vigils–afterwards Matins–and the seven Offices of the day, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Complin. In the “Apostolic Constitutions” we read: “Precationes facite mane, hora tertia, sexta, nona, et vespere atque galli cantu” (VIII, iv). Such were the hours as they then existed. There are omitted only Prime and Complin, which originated not earlier than the end of the fourth century, and the use of which spread only gradually. The elements of which these hours are composed were at first few in number, identical with those of the Mass of the Catechumens, psalms recited or chanted uninterruptedly (tract) or by two choirs (antiphons) or by a cantor alternating with the choir (responses and versicles); lessons (readings from the Old and New Testaments, the origin of the capitula), and prayers (see BREVIARY).
This development of the Divine Office, as far as concerns the Roman liturgy, was completed at the close of the sixth century. Later changes are not in essential points but rather concern additions, as the antiphons to Our Lady at the end of certain offices, matters of the calendar, and optional offices, like those of Saturday (see LITTLE OFFICE OF OUR LADY), or of the dead (see OFFICE OF THE DEAD), and the celebration of new feasts etc. The influence of St. Gregory the Great on the formation and fixation of the Roman Antiphonary, an influence that has been questioned, now appears certain (see “Dict. d’archéol. et de liturgie”, s.v. “Antiphonaire”).
While allowing a certain liberty as to the exterior form of the office (e.g. the liberty enjoyed by the monks of Egypt and later by St. Benedict in the constitution of the Benedictine Office), the Church insisted from ancient times on its right to supervise the orthodoxy of the liturgical formulæ. The Council of Milevis (416) forbade any liturgical formula not approved by a council or by a competent authority (cf. Labbe, II, 1540). The Councils of Vannes (461), Agde (506), Epaon (517), Braga (563), Toledo (especially the fourth council) promulgated similar decrees for Gaul and Spain. In the fifth and sixth centuries several facts (see CANON OF THE MASS) made known to us the rights claimed by the popes in liturgical matters. The same fact is established by the correspondence of St. Gregory I. Under his successors the Roman liturgy tends gradually to replace the others, and this is additional proof of the right of the Church to control the liturgy (a thesis well established by Dom Guéranger in his “Institutions Liturgiques”, Paris, 1883, and in his letter to the Archbishop of Reims on liturgical law, op. cit., III, 453 sq.). From the eleventh century, under St. Gregory VII and his successors, this influence gradually increases (Bäumer-Biron, “Hist. du Bréviaire”, especially II, 8, 22 sqq.). From the Council of Trent the reformation of the liturgical books enters a new phase. Rome becomes, under Popes Pius IV, St. Pius V, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Gregory XIV, Urban VII and his successors, Benedict XIV, the scene of a laborious undertaking–the reformation and correction of the Divine Office, resulting in the modern custom, with all the rubrics and rules for the recitation of the Divine Office and its obligation, and with the reformation of the liturgical books, corrected in accordance with the decisions of the Council of Trent and solemnly approved by the popes (Bäumer-Biron, “Hist. du Bréviaire”).
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BONA, De divina Psalmodia, ii, par. 1; THOMASSIN, De vet. eccl. disc., Part I, II, lxxi-lxxviii; GRANCOLAS, Traité de la messe et de l’office divin (Paris, 1713); MACHIETTA, Commentarius historico-theologicus de divino officio (Venice, 1739); PIANACCI, Del offizio divino, trattato historico-critico-morale (Rome, 1770); De divini officii nominibus et definitione, antiquitate et excellentia in ZACCARIA, Disciplina populi Dei in N. T., 1782, I, 116 sq.; MORONI, Dizionario di erudizione storico ecclesiastica, LXXXII, 279 sqq.; BÄUMER-BIRON, Histoire du Bréviaire (Paris, 1905), passim; CABROL, Dict. d’archéol. et de liturgie, s. vv. Antiphonaire, Bréviaire; GAVANTI, Compendio delle cerimonie ecclesiastiche, the part devoted to the rubrics of the Breviary, sections on the obligation, omission, and in general all the questions concerning the recitation of the Office; ROSKOVÁNY, De coelibatu et Breviario (Budapest, 1861); BATIFFOL, Origine de l’obligation personnelle des clercs à le récitation de l’office canonique in Le canoniste contemporain, XVII (1894), 9-15; IDEM, Histoire du Bréviaire romain (Paris, 1893).
FERNAND CABROL Transcribed by Elizabeth T. Knuth Dedicated to the monks of St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York