How Lauds are to be said on Week-days (XIII:2)
16 Feb. 17 June. 17 Oct.
The Office of Lauds and Vespers, however, must never conclude without the Lord’s Prayer being said aloud by the Superior, so that all may hear it, on account of the thorns of scandal which are wont to arise; so that the brethren, by the covenant which they make in that prayer when they say “Forgive us as we forgive,” may cleanse themselves of such faults. But at the other Offices let the last part only of the prayer be said aloud, so that all may answer, “But deliver us from evil.”
When visitors to Benedictine monasteries assist at the Offices of Lauds or Vespers, they are often surprised that, at the end of the celebration, the abbot alone chants the Pater Noster, while the monks, bowing profoundly, listen to the prayer. In the reformed Roman Rite, all sing the Pater Noster together; people have, over the past fifty years or so, grown accustomed to doing this. In the Benedictine tradition it is not so. For centuries Benedictines have followed Saint Benedict’s clear injunction in the Holy Rule. What does it signify?
What does it suggest? Just as at Holy Mass celebrated according to the Usus Antiquior, the anaphora closes with the Pater Noster sung by the celebrant, so too are Lauds and Vespers concluded with the Pater Noster, “on account of the thorns of scandal which are wont to arise”. It should not surprise us that Saint Benedict would say such a thing. There were thorns of scandal even at Monte Cassino. There have been thorns of scandal even in monasteries governed by great saints.
Men newly come to the monastery are sometimes shocked when, for the first time, they are pricked by the thorns of scandal, that is by the weaknesses of their fathers and brothers. One father may show irritation or impatience; another may be careless in choir. One brother may be self–absorbed in the refectory and not notice that his neighbour has no water, or no salt, or no bread. Another brother may give the impression of playing free and easy with the abbot’s instructions in Chapter. Still another may leave his work half–done, or his tools in disorder. A monk, driven to exasperation, may let slip a sharp word or an unkind reflection.
There is a remarkable treatment of this sort of drama in the cloister in the novel by Pierre de Calan, Cosmas or the Love of God. Brother Cosmas, a novice in the grip of perfectionism suffers from an inability to live with the thorn pricks of day–to–day life in the cloister. Brother Cosmas is shocked by the human weaknesses he discovers all around him. He came to the monastery in search of a heavenly life; he found not angels, but men capable of gluttony, lust, greed, anger, sadness, lethargy, vainglory, and pride. How can it be, he asked himself, that the cellarer is so totally absorbed by business, and bank loans, and receipts for every expense? How can it be that Brother X. appears always to be eating or drinking something? How can it be that Brother Y. and Brother Z. exchanged angry words not five minutes after coming out of choir? Brother Cosmas found it nearly impossible to live with poor weak sinners who did not measure up to his notions of fervour, and discipline, and zeal. In the end, his inability to cope with “the thorns of scandal which are wont to arise” made him leave the monastery. I will not reveal the ending of the book. Read it yourselves. It will help you understand why Saint Benedict prescribes the Pater Noster twice each day “on account of the thorns of scandal which are wont to arise”.
When the abbot chants the Pater Noster at the end of Lauds and Vespers, he does so in persona Christi capitis, in the very person of Christ, the Head of His Mystical Body, the Church. When the Abbot chants the Our Father, he is, in effect giving his voice to Christ, so that through him, Christ might teach his monks how to pray, even as He taught His disciples how to pray, in response to the request of one among them: “Lord, teach us how to pray” (Luke 11:1). In antiquity, the Pater Noster was the priestly prayer par excellence. In the liturgical assembly the bishop or priest recited the Pater Noster. If Saint Benedict reserves the Pater Noster to the abbot, it is, says Blessed Schuster, because he supposes the abbot to be in priestly orders.
In consideration of the phrase, per ordinem dicatur, Blessed Schuster suggests that it may have been the custom, as it still is in some rites, for the choir to respond to each petition of the Pater Noster with an Amen. Dom Pothier edited the Mozarabic Pater Noster with its sequence of Amens, and it is a chant of striking beauty.
How do the monks respond to this? By bowing profoundly in choir: a gesture of complete submission, of humility, of obedience—and by hearkening with the ear of the heart to the words of Christ chanted by the abbot. Nowhere else does the first phrase of the Prologue of the Holy Rule take on such significance: “Hearken, O my son, to the precepts of thy Master, and incline the ear of thine heart.” What is the precept of the Master? First of all, it is this: “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”
But there is more. Saint Benedict presents the Pater Noster, that the abbot chants twice daily over his monks, as a sacramental of healing, and as a covenant of mercy and of mutual forgiveness. As Brother Cosmas had to learn, monks, like all people living together, irritate and exasperate one another, they strike the sensitive chord and, even, wound one another. Saint Benedict himself knew this not theoretically but by experience. When the abbot chants the Pater Noster over his sons inclined in a profound silence, he is spreading over their scratches, their bruises, and their wounds, the healing balm of the prayer of Christ, and this with a supernatural delicacy and sureness of touch.
Hearing the Pater Noster chanted over them twice daily, the monks are drawn into a mysterious covenant: they bind themselves to forgive one another as they would be forgiven by God. They ratify the abbot’s prayer over them by saying aloud the very last sentence: Sed libera nos a malo, “But deliver us from evil”. The Pater Noster is recited at all the Hours, but secretly, this same last sentence alone being said aloud. The monastic life is a struggle, a spiritual combat and a kind of exorcism, but it is also a triumph, the victory of mercy over sin, of pardon over every offense, of joy over sorrow and, in the end, of life over death.
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Dear Father,
Such a beautiful explanation!
Mother Immaculata
A very nice explanation indeed, but I’d question the idea that there is something related to the sacramental priesthood involved here (Blessed Schuster notwithstanding). The Rule makes it clear that the abbot is certainly standing in the place of Christ so I think this explanation certainly works. But how do Blessed Schuster’s comments account for the idea that according to the tradition, St Benedict himself was not a priest?
I’m curious about the basis for the comment about the priestly tradition around this prayer too, as I haven’t really seen that emphasis in the various patristic instructions/commentaries on it (Didache, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian and Augustine) that I’ve read on it. The earliest reference to the Our Father being said by the priest alone as far as I can find is in Egeria’s fourth century description of Eastern Church practices, where it is described as something different to the Western tradition. By contrast both St Cyprian and St Augustine seem to imply the people said the whole prayer in the Mass (presumably the reason the the novus ordo revival of this practice). But are there other references that I’ve missed?
Having said that, there obviously is some priestly tradition around the prayer given the development of its use in the Mass, and perhaps the reason for the abbot saying at these two hours in particular is the association of the hours with the ancient Jewish morning and evening sacrifices, the two hours when incense are permitted, and so perhaps having a more priestly character to them?
The Real Person!
Dear Miss Edwards, I regret that I haven’t time to respond to your query in the way I would like, because it merits a thorough response. Suffice it to say that I follow Blessed Schuster’s commentaries on the Rule and also his masterful “Saint Benedict and His Times”. Blessed Schuster makes a solid and cogent argument in favour of Saint Benedict being a priest. In the 1950s there came into vogue, especially in Germany, a kind of anti–sacerdotal animus in some monastic circles. This trend acquired a stronger impetus in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, with appeals to the alleged historical evidence of Saint Benedict’s lay state. It became fashionable to sniff condescendingly at Blessed Schuster’s scholarly affirmations and to assert that Saint Benedict was not a priest, that the monastic priesthood was a “medieval accretion”, and it was imperative to return to a lay monasticism. Here and there in various abbeys a moratorium on priestly ordinations or, at least, a slow–down, was put into effect. The consequences of this anti–sacerdotal animus were not good. Nonethless, the idea caught on (rather like Mass facing the people!) and soon came to be accepted on the basis of a very selective and prejudiced reading of “historical scholarship.”
With Blessed Schuster, and braving much criticism, I would ascribe credence to the Second Book of the Dialogues. It is remarkable that, in Chapter XXIV, Saint Benedict is shown to have priestly authority to handle and dispense the Body of Christ: “On a certain day, a young boy that was a monk, loving his parents more than reason would allow, went from the Abbey to their house, without asking the holy father’s blessing beforehand. The same day that he came home to them, he departed this life. Being buried, the next day after, his body was found cast out of the grave. They caused it to be put back in, but again, the day following, they found it as before. Then in great haste they went to the man of God, fell down at his feet, and with many tears beseeched him that he would give his favor to him that was dead. The man of God delivered the holy communion of our Lord’s body with his own hands to them, saying: “Go, and lay with great reverence this our Lord’s body on his breast, and so bury him.” When they had done so, the dead corpse after that remained quietly in the grave. By which you perceive, Peter, what merit he had with our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that the earth would not give rest to one who had departed this world without Benedict’s favor”.
With regard to the Pater Noster, Saint Benedict would have followed the prevailing Roman custom in this (as in other liturgical matters) by which the prayer was deemed priestly, some would say it was considered the priestly prayer par excellence.
Thank you Father – I take your point on much of twentieth century scholarship (indeed on pretty much anything to do with the Rule, Office and St Benedict!). I’m not quite convinced yet about the priesthood of St Benedict – practices were quite different in that period, the pre-20th century tradition doesn’t seem to assume he was a priest, and the resistance of monks to being made priests is recorded in several contemporary saints lives. The story of Equitius in bkI of the Dialogues, an abbot not in holy orders but going about preaching etc (and providentially protected from complaints about lack of jurisdiction by a vision to the pope) provides a nice parallel example. But I’ve ordered a copy of Blessed Schuster’s book on St Benedict (unfortunately his book of notes on the Rule seems to be harder to obtain, but I will definitely keep trying, sound well worth the read).
I guess my point on Roman practice is that we actually don’t know what it was at this time. Nor in my view is the assumption that St Benedict simply followed Roman practice a safe one – most of the twentieth century literature seems to me to use circular reasoning, viz some of St Benedict’s approach was borrowed from Roman practice (viz the Lauds canticles), therefore the rest of his Office is witness to the Roman tradition of the time. But in reality St Benedict seems to have been quite eclectic in his borrowings from other traditions (the third Nocturn at Matins from the East; hymns from the Ambrosian Rite; the addition of Patristic readings, etc), and some recent work by Constant Mews has reopened the debate on which direction the influence went (he argues St Benedict influenced Roman practice at St Peters in seventh century).
An interesting topic to delve into further though!