Tuesday, December 5
Matins 12:00 am
Feast of Saint Nicholas. Oh, I wanted this to be awesome. But I was lost. The choir was beautiful. The priest (?) had a stole that looked like it had otters on it. No captions, no order of worship or bulletin I could figure out…I was lost and could only hang in there for about an hour and 10 minutes.
Lauds 1:20 am
Again, I love this source.
I used the Divine Office app and quietly mouthed Prime to myself under my cover. Not because I didn’t want to disturb anyone, but because I did not want anyone to realize I was awake and start asking me for things.
Terce 9:19 am
After running around for a dental appointment that apparently didn’t exist, I got a late start at 9:15. I used the recording on Divine Office and followed along.
I am so tired. Being up late and then waking up early isn’t doing anything for the bags under my eyes. When do people who observe the divine office in it’s medieval entirety sleep? I’ve even modified it because I would be so grumpy if I did 2 am Matins and then 5 am lauds. Is this also the impetus for the puritan “tithingman” stick? I’m gonna need to have someone come and hit me upside the head to keep me awake today.
Sext 12:13 pm
Whatever I wrote about this, my cat replaced by walking on my keyboard with, “5488888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888tfccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccdgfrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr88888888888888888” so, thanks for that, Nugget.
None 3:10 pm
I really phoned this one in. I’m zapped after a long meeting.
Vespers 7:29 pm
We started late because I prepared a meal that included traditional foods for St. Nichlas day. I doubt that medieval monks used an immersion blender for their St. Nicholas soup, but either way, it turned out pretty tasty! I didn’t feel too bad about pushing back the prayer time. I read in Bradshaw and Johnson’s The Origins of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity, that the celebration and veneration of saints has not been a topic as studied by liturgiologists because it falls under the category of “popular religion.” Of course, this does not factor in the fact that normal, every day people shaped Christianity as much—if not moreso than the clergy, theologians, and so on. Robert Taft wrote that we should, “…’intergrate into our work the methods of the relatively recent pieta popolare or annales schools of Christian History in europe’ and study liturgy not just from the top down, ie in its official or semi offical texts, but also from the bottom up, as something real people did.” You know what real people did? They ate. The liturgy of the hours was not necessarily something that everyone had access to. What I’m doing with this project is attempting to follow a schedule that was for a select few who were serving the church in a way that wasn’t part of what the general public did.
What they did do was honor the saints. Cheers to the real people!
Compline 8ish pm
It started raining just after I completed the prayer from divineoffice.org. There was thunder rumbling in the distance throughout. A lovely end to a busy day.
End of the Day Thoughts
The difficult part about this many hours is that I feel like I am always ON. I haven’t been able to do much because it feels like I have another prayer coming up soon, so I shouldn’t get too into what I’m doing. This is a big ADHD issue—for lack of a better term, time-blindness is a real issue. I’m afraid to start another project or thing (or my work!) because the possibility of focusing on my task so much that I miss the next prayer time is high.
Works Cited
Bradshaw, Paul F, and Maxwell E. Johnson. The Origins of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity. SPCK, 2011.
Busy Little Sunshine 