El
día y la noche en los himnos
It
could not be that the liturgical hymnal - the synthesis of the current sacred lyric
- be uninfluenced by this theme that has inspired so many poets and the outpouring of poetry and beautiful poetry.
We
know that the religious attitude of Israel before day and night is revealed
especially in the psalms. As Hilari Raguer OSB explains, "for the man of
the Bible, who breathes through all his pores the surrounding nature, day and
night are there as concrete and palpable realities coming out of the hands of
Creator."
The
hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours, by their very nature, could not be less. The
difference between psalms and hymns is that the latter are not inspired texts,
but products of human ingenuity. They unite to doxological praise the beating
heart of pleading prayer. Its lyrical
nature and evocative poetic force enhance the expressive value enjoyed by day
and night. Its poetic character facilitates the symbolic transposition and the one
praying feels like a lover to whom
everything speaks to him of the Beloved.
In
this respect, two groups of hymns are of interest to us: those who open the
offices of Lauds and Vespers because these two Hours themselves are intimately
ordered to the sanctification of those moments which, respectively, are the two
great stages of the day: the moment of the
aurora or orthros (morning
prayer) and the sunset (evening prayer). Thus the General Instruction on the
Liturgy of the Hours declares to us: a) Morning Lauds are directed and ordered
to sanctify the morning; b) Vespers is
celebrated in the afternoon, when the day is already declining. It is not
insignificant that the Ordinary of the Divine Office, before the classic
liturgical term "Lauds", proposes the expression "Morning
Prayer"; The same thing happens with Vespers: "Evening Prayer".
Before
beginning our review, we should note that we have limited our analysis to the hymns which
are collected in the Weekly Series. We have not considered the rest of the
Hymnal because the other compositions are affected by the circumstance of the
liturgical time for which they were conceived: either for the
"strong" liturgical times (Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter) or for
the Solemnities of the Lord, the Virgin or the Saints. Thus, the object of our
study covers a total of 62 carmina
that we could call everyday hymns. In spite of constituting only 21% of the
whole Hymnal, they give - as we shall have occasion to appreciate - a
sufficiently expressive sample for the attempt that we propose.
«LAUDES - LA AURORA»
“Light
is the shadow of God”. (Plato)
Often
the formal architecture of the hymns of Laudes appears to reproduce an almost
identical pattern throughout them. This provision is constituted, with rare
exceptions, by a doublet of the following type: the two - and even, in some
cases, up to three - first stanzas are written on the idea of light and then,
following, this idea is connected initially
with other more varied subjects, but of an eminently ascetic nature,
such as:
-that
Christ should give us charity, (1) Fulgentis auctor, verse 5, Lauds II and IV
Wednesday
-
that the theological virtues are rooted in the soul, (2) Æterna cæli, verse 5,
Lauds I and III Friday
-to
live the day in fidelity to Christ, (3) Aeterne lucis, verse 6 Lauds II and IV Tuesday
-the
promotion of virtues through the struggle against vices:
anger(4):
Aeterne lucis, verse 5, Lauds II and IV
Tuesday
sensuality,
(5); Aeterne
lucis, verse 6 Lauds II and IV Tuesday
gluttony
(6): Aeterne
lucis, verse 6 Lauds II and IV Tuesday
-avoid the sins of the tongue, (7) Sol ecce lentus, verse 3
Lauds II and IV Wednesday; Iam lucis, verse 6 Lauds II and IV Thursday
-be
guarded from all adversity, (8) Iam lucis, verse 1 Lauds II and IV Thursday
Now
the operative mechanism that has been used to amalgamate the first stanzas of
light with ascetic themes is the idea of purity, of which light is, as we know,
a classical symbol. Here are some examples:
-keep
the heart clean until the end of time, (9) Æterna cæli, verse 4 Lauds I and III
Friday
-
to be pure to the bottom of our soul, (10) Iam lucis, verse 3 Lauds II and IV
Thursday
-the
light brings us the serenity and renders us pure, (11) Sol ecce Surgit,
verse 3 Lauds I and III Thursday
-to
our dark heart, with God filling it, the day is opened and ennobled (12) Nox et
Tenebrae, verse 3 Lauds I and III Wednesday
-that
the Paraclete should keep holy the temple of our body, (13) Lucis largitor,
verse 4 Lauds II and IV Monday
-that
the purity of the soul should overcome the claims of the arrogant body (14) Lucis
largitor, verse 4 Lauds II and IV Monday
We
can extract another typical characteristic of the hymns of Laudes from the
prism of the vocabulary and the verbs that the poets use. In stanzas whose
content alludes to the auroral moment of the day, it is very common to use
expressions and verbs of an inchoative type. It is a literary technique that
instills in the mind of the reader a feeling of renewal that accompanies the
moment of the morning, when, out of the world of night dreams, awakens a new
day, capable of being filled with love for God and service to men.
The
means through which this effect is induced-looking for intent- are expressions and verbs of the
following type: verbs with prefix re- (refulgere, to return, again, to shine,
to reduce, to re-occur the day or night , Etc.), the very frequent use of the
adverb iam and the expressions of the type ecce, ecce iam, verbs like nuntiare,
reddere, ... (to proclaim, ...).
To be continued
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