I love my Monastic Diurnal!

No book has ever been with me so constantly. Admittedly there are times when I leave it at home, and there are times when I carry it with me but don't open it. Still, I feel naked without it. In the 6 months that I've owned my copy of the Monastic Diurnal, a Lancelot Andrewes Press reprint of the Oxford original, the book has become so much part of my life that I feel compelled to extol its virtues in the blogosphere, and encourage others to get hold of a copy of this wonderful book - you won't regret it.

When I needed to follow a service of Tenebrae at S. Dunstan's, I picked up my Monastic Diurnal, whenever I wish to pray the Office of the Dead as a votive, whenever I need the Litany (printed with the 7 penitential Psalms), whenever I set out on a journey I have the Itinerarium to hand, whenever I need the traditional order for Confession, for the classic prayers of Preparation for, and Thanksgiving after, the Holy Eucharist, should I ever find myself at the bedside of a dying man or women and in need of the prayer for the Commendation of a Soul - all of these needs are met in the Appendix of this little book. The majority of the pages, however, are taken up by the Psalter, arranged according to the ancient prescriptions of S. Benedict in his Holy Rule, composed in the 6th Century AD. As such, this Psalter represents a more authentic distribution of Psalms than can be found in many Office books (especially after Pope Pius X picked up his shears) and to follow this order places you in the same line as countless Benedictine saints throughout the ages, for whom the Psalms formed the backbone of their daily prayer.

The Diurnal contains all the hours of the Monastic daily office except Matins (a companion volume for Matins is available from the same press), and as such is a perfectly portable volume on which to base a modest daily prayer rule. For users, there is a website with tutorials, crib sheets and general advice. The original edition of the Diurnal was the office book of choice for a number of Anglican religious orders in the Benedictine tradition in the first half of the 20th Century, who preferred to say all 7 daily "hours" of prayer rather than the two mandated by the Book of Common Prayer. This Diurnal uses the classicand memorable Coverdale Translation of the Psalms, placing it firmly within the Anglican tradition. At the same time, this reprint has been issued largely for the benefit of Antiochian Orthodox Christians of the Western Rite, for whom it has been blessed by Orthodox Bishops for use in Western Rite parishes and monasteries.

For a small book, it's not dirt cheap ($55), but the binding has survived 6 months of abuse. It is printed on very fine "bible" paper, so you'll probably want to keep it in some sort of protective covering. If you don't pray the office (and I only do now with shocking irregularity), or if you are looking for a more Traditional form, I can't recommend the Monastic Diurnal enough. For me, the only stumbling block was that the Marian Antiphons are arranged to fit the plainchant melodies, so instead of "Joy to thee, O Queen of Heaven" you have "O Queen of heaven, be joyful" to fit "Regina coeli, laetare". Still, I suppose the only thing to do is to join the saints of ages past and start singing, instead of simply reading, the Divine Office. The LAP also publish a noted edition of the Monastic Diurnal, which I'm dying to get my hands on.

Perhaps best of all, use of the Monastic Diurnal is almost guaranteed to upset Protestant agitators. One day on the tube to Heathrow I decided to whip out my Diurnal and say some of the Hours. When I'd finished, the lady next to me asked which translation of the Bible I was reading because it looked odd. I told her I was using the Monastic Diurnal and showed her some of the pages. When she asked me whether the Suffrage of the Saints and Commemoration of the Cross at Vespers were "suggested prayers", and I replied that they were in fact obligatory, she admonished me most severely about my obligation to read the scriptures daily, and wouldn't be convinced that a daily diet of Psalmody and Short Chapters from the Divine Office was sufficient to keep me in true faith. I didn't want to boast too louldy or proudly about the fact that I have a well-thumbed Gideon's Bible on my nightstand, so I withdrew. Frankly, if it was good enough for S. Benedict.....

The Monarchy

I always seem to be shooting my mouth off about something or other these days; Anglican Controversial. Well I just read something very interesting the news. A Labour candidate has apologised after calling Queen Elizabeth II “vermin” and “a parasite”. It’s very fun and lefty, undergraduate PPS etc to be either virulently anti-Monarchist or to talk affectionately but patronisingly about the British monarch. The arguments against maintaining our monarchy normally centre on their finances, and the details of their “cost” to the nation. They often also moan about the sexist system of succession, and the fact that the monarchy is hereditary, not meritocratic.

Against those charges, backed up with facts and figures and the constant demands on public finances, the arguments in favour of the monarchy often fall down, because they centre on the unquantifiable: the sense of continuity the monarchy offers, the tourist draw. Things that are almost impossible to express with statistics, but which nonetheless, parts of society maintain are important for our national life.

It is precisely this unquantifiable benefit of the monarchy that interests me, partly because it reminds me of the situation in the church. Those who support the monarchy would openly concede that the Queen’s role is almost entirely ceremonial, but they would also argue that this is ceremonial is an integral part of our nation. It’s what makes Britain what is really is. To me, the monarchy is about maintaining a particular historical discourse of statehood which is the authentic expression of the historical, national and cultural character of the United Kingdom. Britain is not a republic, and the day that we start swearing-in a President on the fume-choked lawns outside the Houses of Parliament with music by a veteran soul singer is the day we stop being British. By contrast, Venezuela is a Republic founded by “the Liberator” Simon Bolivar, and as such, the ceremonial life of the Republic revolves around the struggle against the Spanish and the symbolism of Bolivar’s public persona. They celebrate the victory of the Battle of Carabobo, not Waterloo, and when their leaders wander around in tri-colour sashes in military parades, they are continuing the authentic ceremonial of statehood appropriate to a young nation, forged during the high-tide of Republicanism by a military figure. If president Chavez were to declare himself Emperor of Greater Bolivaria (something he would probably quite like to do), he would be rupturing the ties of continuity with how a nation, and those who feel they belong to it, perceive themselves, and have continued to perceive themselves throughout history. He would be doing something inauthentic and inappropriate to Venezuela as she is, and has been for two hundred years.

All of this reminds me of those in the church who do not recognise the value of ceremonial and ritual, the ephemeral and unquantifiably beneficial aspects of the visible life of the church. There is such an urge to re-form, to re-shape the church in a way which is subjectively deemed more appropriate, and this tendency reached a tragic zenith in the Reformation. Even now we have a Bishop in Peterborough who has written that the Eucharistic services of the church should not be treated any differently from Mattins and Evensong, and as such could be “presided over” by laypeople. Orthodox Anglicanism, which teaches the Real Presence and the role of the Sacraments in Salvation, is viewed as too “superstitious” by such extremists and must be brought up to date. I don’t believe this teaching has any place in the Church of England, when it owes no loyalty whatsoever to the Church of S. Augustine, and defiles the precious continuity which the Church of England has claimed with the pre-Reformation church.

The word “heresy” comes from the Greek word that describes a “choice” of beliefs particular to a faction opposed to Orthodoxy, and it has been used over the centuries to refer to those who have willingly cut themselves off from the family of the faithful. Whether it’s the Sacraments or the Monarchy, we would be making a huge mistake if we gave ourselves over to the “heresy” of innovation. Those who love the Church, love Her Sacraments, the “mysteries of Salvation” which we can’t quantify or put into statistics to justify their role in our lives. Likewise, those who love Britain should think twice before resigning the monarchy to history. Let us not forget what the monarchy means, and has meant to generations, and reflecting on the prospects of Britain in the coming years, we might realise that we need Queen Elizabeth now as much as we ever did.