Nauta mundo naufrago

Venite, exsultemus Domino; iubilemus Deo salutari nostro. Praeoccupemus faciem eius in confessione et in psalmis iubilemus ei.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Liturgia Latine

How should we implement the directives found in Sacrosanctum Concilium in our celebration of the Liturgy?

For those of us fortunate enough to know Latin, the answer is simple. We need only pray the Divine Office with one of the Latin breviaries, available on-line. But for those of us who are yet learning Latin, or who celebrate with others who don't know Latin, what should we do?

I celebrate Lauds and sometimes Matins alone in the morning, before my family wakes up, and I pray them silently in Latin. But every evening, we celebrate Vespers together, and my wife does not know Latin.

So we agreed to replace some of the more repetitive texts of the Divine Office with their Latin versions. We started simply with the Gloria Patri which ends each psalm and canticle. After we mastered the text, we began chanting it, using the version found at the end of the Asperges, which we got from the Adoremus Hymnal. A few months later we moved to the Pater Noster, first saying it and then chanting it. Now we've added the introduction and conclusion, and we've just started the Magnificat, still spoken, not yet chanted.

It has really surprised me how easy all these things were to do, and how rewarding they have been.