Article in AIM magazine on office hymns and scripture
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    In the Spring magazine/ planning guide from WLP there's an article that discusses one of my hymn translations that is in their new hymnal.

    I wanted to point it out not only for the usual self-promotion, but especially because it does an excellent job of teasing out the scriptures that make up the office hymns.

    The office hymns are like compact little metrical homilies, bringing scriptures to bear upon one another in a reflective way. They aren't like the Psalter hymns that take a Psalm and versify it (O God Our Help, The King of Love, All People That On Earth Do Dwell, etc. etc.). Instead, they pick and choose scriptures and combine them.

    Think of the Scriptures hidden in Creator of the Stars of Night--just to mention one text currently in active memory.
    Thanked by 1Ben_Whitworth
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I helped edit the Lumen Christi Hymnal, half of which in a hymnal for the Divine Office. Though the context was weird (working on typography and layout, etc. en masse), it was a chance to get exposure to a lot of office hymns all at once, something I never have had previously.

    My first thought was how different and unusual they were from the kinds of hymns I am used to singing. I sort of thought, "Gosh- who would ever sing this stuff?!"

    Then I realized where the problem actually was.

    The fault, dear Forum, is not in the hymns, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
    Thanked by 2Ben_Whitworth canadash
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    One of the great things about office hymns is the textual basis it gives for discerning "with the Church" among the more lately written hymns all around us.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Adam Wood canadash
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    who would ever sing this stuff?

    Considering that one observes the Office as many as seven times a day and Mass usually only once a day, the hymns are a huge part of a life fully spent in observing the liturgy of the Roman Church.
    Thanked by 4CHGiffen canadash Adam Wood eft94530
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Yes. My point exactly.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    Also consider their ancient and constant usage. It's the hermeneutic of continuity all right there in one little Liber Hymnarius.

    Ok, to be honest, it's much more complicated than that. For example, the controversial Urbanite reforms were among the relatively modern among the waves of hymnody that have come and gone. And yet, the hymns of Ambrose and Peter Damian, though centuries apart, have much in common.

    God grant that it be ever so. Benedicamus Domino.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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