Divine Office Magnificat Antiphon
  • scholistascholista
    Posts: 109
    Once a week our fledgling schola, devoted to the Immaculate Heart Of Mary, meets to chant prayers. Currently we are learning to chant the Invitatory Psalm (in Latin). I would like to use the phrase Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum as the antiphon. Can anyone point me to a place in the Divine Office/Liber Usualis where this is a prescribed antiphon so that I am not just inventing this as an antiphon to be used in chanting the Liturgy Of The Hours? Thanks!
  • Richard R.
    Posts: 776
    The Magnificat antiphons for weekdays use various phrases (or paraphrases) of the Magnificat itself. Here are the two closest at hand, but you can find others in the Psalterium monasticum or the Antiphonale monasticum. You will need to use the tone for the Invitatory Psalm that best matches the tone of the antiphon.
    Ant_Magnificat.pdf
    22K
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  • igneusigneus
    Posts: 387
    Invitatory psalm is to be sung with an "invitatorious" antiphon: these antiphons are peculiar both by their tunes (usually significantly more melismatic than most of the other Divine Office antiphons) and formulation of the lyrics. "Magnificat anima mea Dominum" is not an "invitatorious" text at all and, as far as I know, it has never been used for an invitatory antiphon.

    (This is just a liturgical purist's rant. Of course you can assemble a private devotion for your schola from whatever chants you like.)
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  • scholistascholista
    Posts: 109
    "Magnificat anima mea Dominum" is not an "invitatorious" text at all...
    I beg to differ. Here's my rationale for using this as an invitatory antiphon: Paragraph 34 of the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours lists three things to which we have been invited in Psalm 94/95, the first of which is to sing God's praise. Is not this acclamation in praise of God by the Blessed Virgin Mary a worthy text for the first prayer of each day? I believe that it is.
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    Antiphonale Romanum (1912) p. 85 has this:

    annotation:8. G;
    %%
    (c4)MA(g)gní(gj)fi(hg)cat(h_') *(,) á(g)ni(h)ma(gf) mé(g)a(h) Dó(j_k)mi(ji)num,(jkj.) (;) quí(j')a(k) res(i')pé(j)xit(h') Dé(j)us(g'/hih_') (,) hu(g)mi(e')li(f)tá(gh)tem(h) mé(g.)am.(g.) (::)


    [Rhythmic signs from the 1949 edition.]
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  • scholistascholista
    Posts: 109
    You will need to use the tone for the Invitatory Psalm that best matches the tone of the antiphon.
    Very helpful advice - thanks!
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    But - my 2 cents - if you are mostly just looking to sing with your group something, anything, office-related, I would recommend considering doing an appropriate hour from the Little Office of Our Lady.

    The advantage being, you can actually do a whole hour having the same structure as an hour from the full Divine Office, because the Little Office has for the most part only three seasonal variants, and other than these infrequently occurring changes, what you sing remains basically the same from day to day.
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  • scholistascholista
    Posts: 109
    I would recommend considering doing an appropriate hour from the Little Office of Our Lady.
    Glad to have this recommendation! Just last week I purchased from Baronius Press Ltd a copy of The Little Office Of The Blessed Virgin Mary and am newly inspired to chant the prayer of the Church with our schola.
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    Baronius' book is how I first found the Little Office.

    If it seems from Baronius that this is the sort of thing you might want to do with your group, you might PM me; I am currently working on a singer-friendly edition.
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  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    I have sometimes sung the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin with groups and there are many advantages.
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  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    I beg to differ. Here's my rationale

    The LOTH has no such thing as an Option Four.

    https://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDWGILH.HTM
    # 36
    # 235 b
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    What everyone else has said as advice against this.

    The constant tampering with the office in order to sing, essentially, what one wants shows an intense disrespect for it as part of the liturgy. It is one thing to add to the liturgy to respect tradition, e.g. using an ordo for the 1939 calendar and following those rubrics, which works 75% of the time without a problem. It is another to make it up or substitute English in the place of Latin for an office using the traditional form. This is the direct result of simplifying the office so drastically, and the tampering is bizarre, in that it turns a liturgy that has been mandated to be sung more often and prayed by lay faithful as worship as is convenient into private devotion.
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  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,467
    @eft94530 but then there is # 246 (and following). @MatthewRoth And there is a one volume version of LOTH, and official shortened selections of Morning & Evening Prayer in the non-American parts of the world. Further there are the Little Offices, some of them very very short, such as the Immaculate Conception, approved in 1615 and indulgenced. That is because there is a need for a Parish Office, to match the resources available, which except perhaps in the USA, may be no employees and one priest shared with one or more or other parish centres. Why else should there be books of hours, for the unimaginably wealthy, and the Angelus for the unlettered?
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  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    246. In certain particular cases there is an option to choose texts different from those given for the day

    So, what are the certain particular cases?
    I say that they are enumerated in paragraphs 247-252,
    and none of those give permission to do what is proposed above.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    ^this.

    Those books are all approved. This is not. Singing traditional Vespers in English is beautiful but not approved.
  • scholistascholista
    Posts: 109
    The constant tampering with the office in order to sing, essentially, what one wants shows an intense disrespect for it as part of the liturgy.
    Just an FYI: I have no intension of disrespectfully tampering with the Office. I want to pray with the Church!

    On page 1656 of volume 4 of the LOTH (Memorial Of The Blessed Virgin Mary On Saturday) there are two prescribed Marian antiphons for the Invitatory which I am pleased to have found. We chant on Saturdays.

    Thanks for all of the helpful and enlightening input!
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