A Private Association of Catholic Faithful for Praying the Divine Office

Sunday, Feb. 2 (Purification/Presentation/Candlemas) – Terce @ 10:30am

N.B. No First Friday Vespers or Compline in February

Sunday, Feb. 9 (5th. after Epiphany) – Terce @ 10:30am

Sunday, Feb. 16 (Septuagesima) – Terce @ 10:30am

Sunday, Feb. 23 (Sexagesima) – Solemn Vespers @ 1:15pm

Sunday, Mar. 2 (Quinquagesima) – Terce @ 10:30am

Friday, Mar. 7 (St. Thomas Aquinas/Lenten Feria/First Friday) – Compline @ 8:20pm (N.B. no Vespers)

Sunday, Mar. 9 (Lent I) – Solemn Vespers @ 1:15pm

Sunday, Mar. 16 (Lent II) – Solemn Vespers @ 1:15pm

Sunday, Mar. 23 (Lent III) – Solemn Vespers @ 1:15pm

Sunday, Mar. 30 (Lent IV/Laetare) – Solemn Vespers @ 1:15pm

Friday, Apr. 4 (Lenten Feria/St. Isidore of Seville/First Friday) – Compline @ 8:20pm (N.B. no Vespers)

Sunday, Apr. 6 (Passion) – Solemn Vespers @ 1:15pm

Sunday, Apr. 13 (Palm) – Terce @ 10:30am

Thursday, Apr. 17 (Maundy Thursday) – Mattins & Lauds (Tenebrae) @ 9am; Compline after the stripping of the altars at the end of the evening Mass

Friday, Apr. 18 (Good Friday) – Mattins & Lauds (Tenebrae) @ 9am; Compline in the evening TBD

Saturday, Apr. 19 (Holy Saturday) – Mattins & Lauds (Tenebrae) @ 9am; Lauds of Easter after Communion at the Mass of the Easter Vigil

N.B. No public Offices on Easter Sunday.

Sunday, Apr. 27 (Low) – Terce @ 10:30am

Friday, May 2 (St. Athanasius/First Friday) – Sung Vespers @ 7pm; Compline @ 8:20pm

Sunday, May 4 (2nd. after Easter) – Terce @ 10:30am

Sunday, May 11 (3rd. after Easter) – Terce @ 10:30am

Sunday, May 18 (4th. after Easter) – Solemn Vespers @ 1:15pm

Sunday, May 25 (5th. after Easter) – Terce @ 10:30am

In a few days hence, the Church transitions from the Cycle of the Incarnation to the Cycle of the Resurrection commencing with Septuagesima Sunday. Symbolic of the 70 years of the Babylonian Captivity, the name “Septuagesima” is a Latin adjective meaning “Seventieth” (in the feminine to agree with the feminine noun “Dominica” for Sunday), though this Sunday is not literally 70 days before Easter, but a symbolic name to correspond with the Latin name for Lent “Quadragesima” meaning  “fortieth”.

The Liturgy on this Sunday goes back to the Creation and Fall of Man with the assignment of the Matins’ lessons from the Book of Genesis. Paralleling this theme of Creation and Fall, the word of joy “Alleluia” is sung at the beginning (the Creation) of First Vespers on Saturday evening and solemnly sung again at the end of the same Vespers, and then snuffed out (the Fall) absolutely for nine weeks until it is sung most beautifully after the Epistle at the Mass of the Easter Vigil. It rises again, as it were, at the Resurrection to mark the restoration of the original Creation before the Fall.

Medieval customs arose to dramatize the dismissal of the Alleluia through processions,  song, and burial. Given below is the Latin text (English translation follows) of the Farewell to the Alleluia, the Alleluia Dulce Carmen. Some of the text is taken from Ps. 136  which speaks about the Babylonian captivity.

1. Alleluia dulce carmen,
Vox perennis gaudii,
Alleluia laus suavis
Est choris coelestibus,
Quam canunt Dei manentes
In domo per saecula.

2. Alleluia laeta mater
Concivis Jerusalem:
Alleluia vox tuorum
Civium gaudentium:
Exsules nos flere cogunt
Babylonis flumina.

3. Alleluia non meremur
In perenne psallere;
Alleluia vo reatus
Cogit intermittere;
Tempus instat quo peracta
Lugeamus crimina.

4. Unde laudando precamur
Te beata Trinitas,
Ut tuum nobis videre
Pascha des in aethere,
Quo tibi laeti canamus
Alleluia perpetim.

English Translation:

1. Alleluia, song of sweetness,
voice of joy that cannot die;
alleluia is the anthem
ever raised by choirs on high;
in the house of God abiding
thus they sing eternally.

2. Alleluia thou resoundest,
true Jerusalem and free;
alleluia, joyful mother,
all thy children sing with thee;
but by Babylon’s sad waters
mourning exiles now are we.

3. Alleluia cannot always
be our song while here below;
alleluia our transgressions
make us for awhile forgo;
fort the solemn time is coming
when our tears for sin must flow.

4. Therefore in our hymns we pray thee,
grant us, blessed Trinity,
at the last to keep thine Easter,
in our home beyond the sky,
there to thee for ever singing
alleluia joyfully.

The weekly public recitation of Terce will resume on Sunday, January 13 at 10:30am at Mater Ecclesiae. Unless Vespers be scheduled or otherwise noted, Terce will be prayed every Sunday as such, inclusive of the summer months.

A pending schedule of sung Vespers and Compline services for the next five months  is currently under review and will be published here once approved.

Vespers for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, including the Great “O” Antiphon “O Emmanuel” for 23 December, will be chanted at Mater Ecclesiae @ 1:00pm.

After an unfortunate, fallow period, public Divine Offices have restarted at Mater Ecclesiae with Compline and then Matins & Lauds during the 40 Hours’ Adoration this past weekend. Fr. Pasley and I are still working on a schedule for the upcoming year, so stay tuned to this site for regular updates.

Also, we bring to your attention our neighbor to the North, the Diocese of Trenton. Under Fr. Brian Woodrow, public Vespers’ services have been reintroduced in his diocese on an occasional basis. On Tuesday, October 2 @ 7:00pm in Immaculate Conception Church in Trenton, NJ, Fr. Woodrow will celebrate Vespers according the 1962 Breviarium Romanum for the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels. The CSB will continue to publicize and work with Fr. Woodrow to advance the spread of the public celebration of the Divine Office, the other “lung” of the Church’s Liturgy.

Lastly, Fr. Pasley has approved our use of Mater Ecclesiae chapel for the CSB to pray offices in common, even without his presence, provided that we do not conflict with anything else already scheduled and that the church is already open. Check here regularly for any gatherings of two or more members who plan to pray an office together in the chapel. For example, Terce could be recited between the two Sunday morning Masses.