The McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame has always had Summer Institutes including one on the Liturgy. I have been to two of them in the past. One on the Divine Office, another honoring Father Taft a famous Byzantine Liturgy expert at the Oriental Institute in Rome who also taught regularly at ND during the summer. I took his courses on the Liturgy of the Hours, and the Liturgical Year.
This summer's Six Week Institute is virtual, entitled
“Will They Come Back After COVID?: Disaffiliation, Affiliation, and the Liturgy”
Check the link for the speakers and the schedule. Besides the speakers each week has two readings, and two video interviews, usually with the speakers.
Besides the program there is a blog called "Community"
where the participants can discuss "questions" Most of the questions are from the ND staff of the Institute, however anyone can ask a "question" i.e. create a post.
The most discussed questions so far have been the three questions asked by the ND staff that allowed participants to introduce themselves to each other. The most discussed questions was the first.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, what worries your parish, school, or diocese? Are you worried that people might not come back? Why or why not?
So far 93 participants have made a total of 123 comments on this question. I am in the process of copying them into my computer, and arranging them around a series of topics. I will be doing a series of posts on this question.
I introduced myself to the group by making this response to the above question.
Unlike most of you who are involved in parish ministry, I have not been inside a church for more than a year. A sociologist by training, before retirement I worked in the public mental health system. After retirement I got an MA in Spirituality here at ND.
My interest in this course comes from the PEW study in July 2020 which showed a large shift to virtual worship even though churches had reopened and that many were worshiping in congregations other than their own. During the pandemic experience I have been very disappointed with the quality of liturgy in the parishes.
However a friend and I who love the Divine Office found many online resources for it. We both fell in love with the Meinrad psalm tones . I had planned to worship with ND on Catholic TV but since we sing Vespers every day with the monks it seemed best to celebrate Sunday liturgy with them. We also discovered Morning Prayer in the Deanery Garden of Canterbury Cathedral. A wonderful combination of prayer, bible study, and spirituality.
We are not likely to return to parishes until the virus has really died out completely even though we were very happy and involved in several parishes. However we now have a wonderful virtual worship life.
What happens next? I think it will depend a lot on how welcoming the parishes are to our virtual worship experiences.
A few days ago I made the following post
Is it not time for the Virtual Divine Office to succeed the Breviary?
The Virtual Divine Office would be a Website containing the Four Week Psalter of Lauds and Vespers for Ordinary Time, and a Book that would contain the same material plus the psalms and canticles used in special feasts, e.g. the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Apostles, etc. These would be a simplified Office for the laity absent all the complexities of ribbons, seasons and feasts. The Instruction on the LOH #247 envisions simplified versions of the Office during Ordinary Time as a means of introducing the LOH to the laity.
Besides the Website and Book, there would be seasonal booklets (Advent, etc.) that would be used in program modeled on the very successful Little Rock Bible Study: 1)personal daily prayer at home using the website, book, and a seasonal booklet, 2)weekly meetings in small groups for celebration and study of the Divine Office, psalms and the liturgical seasons, 3)a large group celebration of the one hours of the office plus a talk or video on the Office and the Liturgical year.
During the summer ND would conduct programs using the website, book and booklets modeled on Meinrad’s programs for high school students, college students, plus programs for various parish ministry groups (catechists, music ministers, pastoral associates, etc.) all having a stable common basis in the Liturgy of the Hours materials.
Key to all this renewal of the Divine Office among the laity would be the simplicity, stability, and community of a common Website, Book, and Program of booklets while at the same time encouraging each person to personalize the experience (e.g. lectio divina), and each parish to develop its own culture of celebration in terms of hymns and music.
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Note: a paper emphasizing stability and a video talking about the Saint Meinrad programs were both part of the materials for the Summer Institute, so I am building on some things that are in the program.
The Response So Far
While so far the conversation has consisted of only 13 comments among seven of us, that has pushed us to be ranked #13 in activity, in other words the beginning of a significant side conversation. Two of those participants are people like myself who have engaged in many conversations.
Sister Elizabeth, a regional diocesan leader in religious education responded:
This sounds intriguing. Every good idea should be pursued as possibly inspired by the Spirit of God!
Linda, a Catholic campus minister at a very secular college responded by asking me if I was familiar with the Sing the Hours website.
This is the first time I have really been able to pray them more regularly. Somehow when I sing, I feel so much more connected that when I read them. Check it out.
Sing the Hours
Of course I am very familiar with the app and website and use it daily so I responded:
YES, THIS YOUNG GUY IS AMAZING! HE IS DOING THIS MOSTLY ON HIS OWN WITH THE SUPPORT OF HIS FAMILY.
The key to his success (besides some really God given talent) is his background in audio visual production and music. He wanted to do the Liturgy of Hours but was disappointed in what was out there. When the pandemic came, he said to himself that he had the time and talent to do this. And his family agreed to support him.
Just think of it. His doesn't have a university or a diocese or a monastery or a parish behind him. While I doubt any parish would attempt to do Lauds and Vespers daily for a whole year, I think there are at least a few parishes in most large dioceses that have music directors and cantors who could produce a four week psalter for use in Ordinary Time.
A virtual breviary like this is key to a renaissance of the Divine Office. Places like Notre Dame, Saint John's and Saint Meinrad have the talent and resources to do this. Unfortunately monastic communities have a two week rather than a four week psalter. Meinrad's is a mostly male place with monks and seminarians. Saint John's has more women. We need female voices in the office.
However as a starter I think some parishes with a talented director and cantors could create a four week psalter. What they need is a talented audio-visual person with a good understanding of music. There are a lot of young people out there who have audio-visual interests (our local community colleges has courses that do this). Once a parish gets a young person to do this, the parish should put out the word to all young people in the area to join in the production. What the parish would likely get is what Steve Warner got in Dublin, a very talented young group that will be the future of that parish.*
*A video of Steve Warner who used to head the ND folk choir was one of the presentations.
My suggestion as Linda and I continued the discussion about how to use this app.
I bought myself an ipad a few weeks ago. Sing the hours is really beautiful on it even outdoors. It will resonate beautifully in our main parish church (they reserve the sacrament in a side chapel which is used for daily Mass).
An adaptation of The Little Rock Model for Scripture Study is ideal for LOH. Personal virtual celebration of LOH at home, small group virtual celebrations of LOH in homes or at parish, and large group celebration of LOH in parish followed by a talk on LOH
What I hope to do is have small groups of about ten people assemble in the empty church. Invite them to bring along their ipads, iphones, portable computers etc. and assemble in a circle or semi-circle.
Paul does things so beautifully, and it only takes fifteen minutes. So I am thinking of beginning with the experience.
After giving people the experience together in a group, then I am thinking of spending time helping them call up the site or app on their devices. Hopefully they will help each other in the process, and become experienced in helping their family, and friends get Sing the Hours on different types of devices. I will also be looking for committed individuals who are very tech savvy across various devices to help do these small group events introducing Sing the Hours.
During the day I will probably start off with Lauds, then end up with Vespers, or in the evening I will start off with Vespers then end up with Lauds. We will challenge and help every body to try to find the second office on their devices, then experience it on their muted devices while I play it on the ipad.
I am a scientist and I know the pandemic is not over, We could have more surges, even big ones because of the number of unvaccinated and the variety of the variants one of which is resistant to one of the vaccines. So I would encourage getting this app/website into as many hands as possible as quickly as possible before we have lockdown again. But I think it has to be done in small groups with individual hands on attention to people using their devices.
Once people are doing Sing the Hours at home, I would encourage small group virtual celebrations both in homes and in the parish. It would be a good way to bring liturgy to the home bound especially if they are sophisticated enough to learn to use their devices. My pandemic partner has her own apartment, We have celebrated LOH by calling each other on our phones, calling up the program on our computers then, doing a count down to began the program at the same time.
The parish would be a good place for people to gather in small or larger groups for celebrations. Begin by celebrating Sing the Hours. My great room has a large TV size computer screen with a great sound system. Then begin sharing parts of the Office so people can begin to share, discuss, ask questions and perceive the structure of the liturgy of the hours.
Paul is so good, that it is going to be a challenge for parishes to do LOH well with music. The music ministry needs to experience Sing the Hours to set standards. I would begin by introducing it to small groups of the choir above and encourage them to use the app.
Then there needs to be a discussion about how to best have the choir do LOH in the parish. They are not going to want to do it exactly like Sing the Hours. I like the Meinrad psalm tones, so I would encourage them to check that out on their website. I will suggest that they begin doing Sunday evening Vespers as a way of developing their talents and shaping LOH for the parish.
After the Sunday celebration would be a good time to have a presentation on various aspects of LOH, and sharing and discussion among those who are using the Sing the Hours app. This is also a good way to spread the app/website to those who are not using it.
My ultimate goal would be to have the choir produce a Virtual Four Week Psalter tailored to the needs of the parish which would be on the parish YouTube site. LOH with its various possibilities is an ideal way of creating a parish culture of sound and visual effects that extends beyond but invites into the physical building and its worship.
Hi Jack, I also sing the Hours (Lauds and Vespers) regularly. Unless I am in an airport :-)
ReplyDeleteThe only times I am able to pray the Hours communally is when deacons and wives get together, either on retreats (usually 15-20 of us on a retreat) or at diocesan-wide gatherings (where we number in the hundreds). All of us have been trained to pray the Hours, and the deacons are supposed to pray Morning and Evening Prayer every day (although I am told that not every deacon does this).
As I am, in a very modest way, a bit of a liturgy geek, I have helped plan the prayer services (Hours and mass) a number of times. For several diocesan gatherings, I had our diaconate community chant the Hours.
As we are bilingual across the archdiocese (actually multilingual, but beyond English and Spanish there are only a few deacons who speak other languages like Polish or Tagalog in their daily lives), I designed these services to be bilingual. That meant that the English speakers would have to chant some elements of the Hours in Spanish, and the Spanish speakers would have to chant some elements in English.
My observation was that the diaconate community has no problem singing - they will try to sing whatever is put in front of them. Even though our enthusiasm probably outstrips our talent :-). But ... the Spanish speakers had no objection to singing the English prayers; navigating English is part of the daily experience of Spanish speakers in the US. But some of the "Anglos" objected vehemently to being asked to sing in Spanish. The feedback forms would say things like, "Get rid of the Spanish! English-only, please!", or "Just pray everything in English. They [meaning the Spanish speakers] all speak English."
The diaconal community no longer does bilingual praying, except that one of the readings usually is proclaimed in Spanish. Everything else is in English. And it's not chanted anymore - it's read antiphonally. Which, in my opinion, is not nearly as prayerful. But it seems the conclusion has been that asking them to chant is asking too much of them.
All this points to one of the foundational points you made in your post: a successful program/schedule/habit of praying the Liturgy of the Hours requires a stable community. The diaconal community in the Chicago Archdiocese (which with deacons and wives together numbers 1,000+) is not a stable community. We don't gather regularly to pray. And as my little 'experiment' with bilingual prayer suggests, there are some underlying issues which prevent us from coming together as a community, even on the very occasional occasions when we do gather.
A stable community would do much better at chanting the hours. A stable community could quickly learn a relative handful of plain chant tones and become adept at marrying the tones to the texts.
When my friend Betty and I met, she was a cantor in the local Hispanic parish, and sang at the bi-lingual Mass. While I was not particularly eager to add another parish (I already have two Catholic and one Orthodox) to my liturgical life, the chance to become part of an Hispanic parish was too good to pass up. So I began going there every Sunday (about once a month) when she the cantor.
DeleteEventually I gave up. The problem was not so much the Spanish but the acoustics. It had terrible acoustics. I kept moving around to try to find a place but that didn't solve the problem. I had almost as much a problem singing the English hymns as the Spanish.
The importance of stable communities in on the agenda of the ND conference, so I will have a post on that later.
FWIW, our parish is getting video screens installed later this month. The parish does pray morning prayer once per week, early in the mornings on Fridays (I am sorry to say I have never attended it - it's a bit too early for me). Today, I believe the attendees are given laser-printed sets from iBreviary or some similar web service to allow them to participate. But with the video screens coming, the texts of the psalms, canticle, responsory et al could be projected on-screen. That is sort of a different "use case" for a virtual breviary. At the very least, it will save some trees.
ReplyDeleteAt our parish, and I think at all the parishes I ever have belonged to, a rosary is prayed every morning. This is attended by some of the same folks who also attend daily morning mass. I believe they also pray the Divine Mercy chaplet (something which I don't recall while growing up; in this and in other things I think we can see EWTN's influence).
ReplyDeleteI have toyed with the idea that, if I ever retire, I would lead communal prayer of the Hours every morning at the parish. But I'd need to make sure I'm not stepping on the toes of the rosary prayers. I have nothing against the rosary. But I really do think, as a practical matter, the rosary "competes" with Morning Prayer at parishes. I believe the liturgical ideal (including the ideal of the Council Fathers) is that the community or some subset of it would gather daily for Morning and Evening Prayer. But they never have taken root. But the rosary has.
Not only the Rosary but also the Mass competes with Morning Prayer at parishes. And they both complete with Evening Prayer.
DeleteThat is why I am very much in favor of a Virtual Divine Office that allows persons, families, and small groups to pray the Office any where and anytime.
Midway through the pandemic Betty and I realized that even if Canterbury and Meinrad were on our local parish campus, we would never by able to get there regularly. It was vital to our regular prayer life to be able to adapt the hours to our schedule.
Jim, our experience is similar to yours, that the only time the deacons (and wives, if present) pray the hours communally is at retreats and other related meetings. Most of them, like you, are liturgy geeks, and take the Liturgy of Hours seriously. My husband also prays the daytime hours, though not always at the same time (it's always five o'clock somewhere, right?)
ReplyDeleteSince wives are not under any canonical obligation, I got a little burned out on the repetitiveness of some of the prayers, and am taking a break from some of it. I am praying the Office of Readings instead, since I hadn't previously done those.
LOL, when you mentioned not wanting to step on the toes of the rosary reciters prior to Mass it made me think of the negotiation that goes on between the choirs and our rosary reciters ("if you end up before twenty after the hour, we can get in our prelude song")
I think the chaplet of Divine Mercy got off the ground when St. Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina, since that was the devotion she started. It is popular here, maybe because we have a lot of people with Polish roots. Many families request it for wake services. There are several musical settings, and people do sing it pretty well, particularly the setting by Trish Short.
My wife is not a huge fan of the liturgy of the hours. I am sorry to report that our family does not conform to the ideal, in which the family would gather daily (or several times daily) to pray the Hours together.
DeleteCandidly, she finds the exclusive language off-putting. Also, it's just more demanding to pray the Hours than it is to attend a weekend mass. At a weekend mass there is a cast of, if not thousands, then at least a dozen or more who work together to make all the elements come together: readers, musicians, priest, deacon, et al. When one prays the Hours privately, one does everything by him/herself.
I admit that I find daily Mass more meaningful than the liturgy of Hours. Some of the Psalms are so uplifting. Others are a struggle to get through because they are so bellicose and vengeful. For instance Ps 149, I always end it before it gets to the "double edged sword to inflict vengeance on the nations".
Delete