Nearly 20 years after that winter morning in the dormitory lounge, the
divine office has become both familiar and beloved.
The Catalogue lists the manuscript antiphonaries of ten Flemish collections and libraries, but does not include books that contain only limited amounts of music for the
Divine Office, such as manuscript processionals and ordinals, or printed antiphonaries, and other liturgical books.
It is interesting to note that the lauds (morning prayers) and the vespers (evening prayers) in the
Divine Office (breviary) always end with the prayer: 'May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.
Probably datable to the 1130s (or 1140s), this psalter was apparently made not as a choir book for the liturgy of the
divine office, but for personal devotional use, possibly for the female hermit Christina of Markyate, or for her patron (Abbot Geoffrey of St Albans).
There are monuments and battlegrounds to see, mission buildings built by the Indians they served and colorfully decorated by Mexican artists, exuberantly ornamented churches built by European immigrants wanting to feel a touch of home, quiet cloister gardens that invite contemplation, and places where nuns still wear the traditional habit of their order and chant the
Divine Office in heavenly Gregorian plainsong.
Several of the items are well known as Gospel canticles and were daily inclusions in the
divine office, in Lauds, Vespers, and Compline respectively, another was conventionally used at Lauds on Sundays.
With the advent of various forms of monastic and apostolic life, this unceasing prayer developed into the
Divine Office - the chanting or recitation of the 150 Psalms divided into different parts of the day.
When they aren't gathered for the
Divine Office seven times a day (including rising at midnight) or engaged in private prayer, the nuns can be found in the garden; baking altar breads to be packaged and mailed off to different congregations; or fixing furniture in their workshop.
Faithful Catholic nuns would be amazed at a nun having time to run 355 triathlons while they sing the
divine office seven times a day, plow fields, bake communion wafers and welcome strangers in their guest house.
Each of these Sundays is named after the Gospel reading for the day and emphasizes a specific theme which is discussed throughout the liturgical hymnody of the
Divine Office, especially that of Saturday Vespers and Sunday Matins.
All great Christian religious orders observe the Canonical Hours, during which they chant the
Divine Office.
"The Last
Divine Office: Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries" looks at the last divine king of England, ans the severance between Henry and the Catholic Church and the fall of the English monasteries.