The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman Breviary

by Edward J. Quigley

The Annunciation. Devotion to the Mother of God was continued by the apostles after the death of her Son. Fervent and widespread devotion is traceable in the Church's early days, but the organising of our Lady's feasts was a work of some time and difficulty. A great difficulty was the fear of blasphemy from pagans, and of error amongst pagan converts, so trained in myths and genealogies of the gods. Then the festivals commemorating the facts of the life, death and resurrection were primarily commemorative of the Redeemer and secondarily of His Mother. Long before the institution of her feast, the cultus of Mary was almost universal. The feast of the Annunciation falls on the 25th March with us. Its date depends entirely on the date of Christmas, but the birth of Christ was not always placed in calendars on the 25th December.

In early days the feasts of martyrs and other saints were not celebrated in Lent, and hence this feast of the Blessed Virgin was set down in some calendars as transferred, and was celebrated in Advent. In Spain, it was celebrated eight days before Christmas. In the East, the feast was generally celebrated on the 25th March, and gradually this date was fixed, and was sanctioned by several councils in the eleventh century.

May. The Finding of the Holy Cross. The history of the finding of the true cross by St. Helena is well known. The Alexandrine Chronicle gives the day as the 14th September, 320. This September feast of the holy cross is of earlier origin than the feast of May. The latter was established to commemorate the act of the emperor in 629, when he brought back to Jerusalem the true cross, from the Persian conquerors. On 3rd May, he handed it over to the Patriarch Zacharias, and, strange to say, this festival of May spread rapidly in the Western Church, whilst in the East only one feast, (the September one), of the finding of the cross was celebrated for centuries. In Milan, for instance, the September feast was received in the eleventh century, whilst the May feast was rooted in the Western Church very many years before that time.

The antiphons and hymns of this Office are, it is said, amongst the most beautiful and sublime prayers of our liturgy.

The Apparition of St. Michael. The cultus of the holy angels is of Jewish origin and existed in the Christian Church from the beginning. In St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians (modern Khonus on the Lycus) he speaks of this devotion and of the attempts of a Gnostic sect to spread false doctrines on this point (Col. ii, 18). Although the evil wrought was long lived, true devotion to the angels was practised in Colossae and there the Archangel Michael appeared. In honour of this apparition, the festival of St. Michael in September was established. Devotion to the Archangel was of very early date in Rome and in the Western Church generally. Masses in his honour are found in the oldest Roman Sacramentary (483-492); and in these he is mentioned by name in prayers and prefaces. The May feast was instituted in the sixth century, to commemorate a second apparition near Sipontum on Monte Gargano, which took place on the 8th May, 520.

June 29. Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. There always has been a constant tradition in Rome that these two saints suffered martyrdom on the same day, 29th June, and it is only natural that this day should be kept with great devotion and solemnity at Rome. In the East, feasts in honour of these martyrs were held at different seasons, Christmas, February and Epiphany. The day was kept in many places as a solemn holiday, servile works being prohibited. But in Rome, devotion was closely connected with the date and with the exact places of martyrdom. "Owing to the distance which separated the two churches of the apostles from each other, it was most fatiguing to celebrate Mass at both places, and so in course of time the festival was divided into two parts, and the Mass in honour of St. Paul took place on the 3Oth June."

July. The Visitation. This feast was probably originated by the Franciscans in the thirteenth century. It certainly was preached and spread by their zeal. It is mentioned amongst Franciscan records bearing date 1263. It was kept in different places at different dates. In Paris it was kept in April. In 1850 Pius IX. raised this feast to the rank of a double of the second class, to thank God for having, on this day, 2nd July, freed Rome from the revolutionary yoke.

Feast of St. Mary Magdalen. Commentators on Sacred Scripture are not agreed whether Mary of Magdala was the sister of Lazarus or whether there were two or three Marys connected with our Lord—Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary of Magdala, and Mary the sinner named in St. Luke's Gospel vii. 27. The Roman liturgy seems to favour the opinion that Mary of Magdala was the sister of Lazarus, and that she was a sinner and was possessed by seven devils. The history of Mary Magdalen after our Lord's death has been written, with large and varied additions of adventure, by pious mediaevalists. In the Western Church, traces of the saint's cultus are met with in Bede and his contemporaries. But devotion far and wide begins with mediaeval times. The many legends which have grown up around her name and history have so obscured historic truth that the Breviary gives no historic lessons on her feast day, but gives as a lesson part of a homily from St. Gregory. Some of the legends may be found in the Office of St. Martha (July, 29th).

August. The Assumption. "In all probability this is the earliest of our Lady's festivals" (Kellner, op. cit., p. 235). Early writers mention the Garden of Gethsemani as the place of Mary's burial and the third year—some say the twelfth year—after our Lord's death as the year of her death. St. John Damascene relying on the writings of Euthymius tells us what we know of the Assumption. He tells that the wife of the Emperor Marcian (450-457) wished to transfer our Lady's relics from Jerusalem to Constantinople and was informed by Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, that such relics were not in Jerusalem. The Blessed Mother had been buried there, in the Garden of Gethsemani, in the presence of the Apostles, Thomas alone being absent. On his arrival he wished to venerate the Mother of God; the tomb was opened for him, but nothing was found save the linen grave-clothes, which gave forth a sweet perfume. The Apostles concluded that Christ had taken to Heaven the body which had borne Him. The Emperor Maurice ordered the date, the 15th August, long and widely recognised, to be the date of this annual festival. However, some churches celebrated it on other dates. In the Gothico-Gallic missal of the eighth century, the feast is fixed for the 18th January. The festival was called sometimes dormitio Mariae, pausatio Mariae. It was celebrated in Rome at the end of the seventh century, but how long it had been in existence there, and in the West generally before that time, no one can say.

Feast of the Name of Mary. This feast owes its origin to the devotion of the faithful and was first authorised by the Pope in 1513. It was extended to the universal calendar in 1683, on the occasion of the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks.