The Kindly Light of the Office: Stan Metheny

The Kindly Light of the Office: Stan Metheny

Among the manifold works of John Henry (Cardinal) Newman are translations of 47 hymns from the Breviarium Romanum, and prefaces to two collections of translations of breviary hymns by others. These translations, done while he was still an Anglican, were intended to be part of a ambitious project undertaken by some friends of his to translate the entire Roman Breviary. Despite several attempts, the translation project was never completed. But the project sharpened Newman's focus on the Roman daily Office, and ultimately set him irreversibly on the road to full communion with Rome.

He had acquired his first breviary upon the death of his friend Richard Hurrell Froude in 1836. When asked to choose a book from Froude's personal library as a remembrance of his friend, his first choice was already taken. So, his former pupil, Frederick Rodgers, prompted him to take the breviary set. In his later years, Newman himself noted that this was a landmark event in his life. After acquiring the set, he undertook a careful study of the breviary texts. His Tract 75 On the Roman Breviary was critical of some aspects and content, although in the main very complementary of its 'fullness' as compared to the daily Office in the Prayer Book. But gradually, he came to accept it in toto. As was also the case with his devotion to Our Lady—he began to wear the Miraculous Medal on the Octave of the Assumption, 1845— this development of his thinking and behavior involved some internal struggle, and caused no small amount of public concern, even scandal in some quarters along the way. Advocating the use of a Roman Catholic service book by Anglicans, even if cautiously, was bold and controversial. But he remained devoted to the Divine Office for the rest of his life.

What he found in praying the Office from the breviary was a rich tradition with closer links to the prayer patterns of the Apostles and the early Church than he found in the Prayer Book. Identifying this continuity with the Church of the Apostles and the early Fathers, as well as with the late medieval Church before the Reformation, was a critical objective for him and many of his contemporaries in the Church of England. He was an important figure in the various 'movements' that shared this objective, the Oxford Movement being the most prominent. Through his praying of the breviary Office and reading the Fathers of the Church in that context, he found it increasingly difficult to remain an Anglican as he became convinced that the Roman Church was truly that same Church of the Apostles and Fathers today.

He came to understand that some aspects of the Office that he once found objectionable were actually expressions of that same patrimony he wanted so much to recover. The psalms and other texts of Sacred Scripture set amid other elements of Sacred Tradition encased in the Office texts such as antiphons, responsories, versicles, collects, and—especially—hymns, provided a context for deepening one's understanding of the scriptural and patristic readings and re-directed them as prayer and praise in the liturgy.

To summarize Dr. Withey's conclusions: Led by the kindly light of the Divine Office, Newman found in the Church of Rome the continuity with the Apostolic Church that he had so long sought—but ultimately not completely found—in his native Anglican communion. It is not surprising that Pope Benedict XVI, the proponent in our own time of the essential continuity of the Church and her Tradition through the centuries, should find in Newman a kindred spirit. There is continuity both in the ongoing praise Christ offers to the Father in His Church and also in the theological content of the prayer formulae. Recently, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith (former secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, now Archbishop of Colombo) drew attention again to an exhortation of Pope Benedict that when praying the Office we should 'aim to pray it as a true prayer, a prayer in communion with the Israel of the Old and New Testaments, a prayer in communion with all who pray throughout history, a prayer in communion with Jesus Christ, a prayer that arises from the deepest 'l', from the deepest subject of these prayers. '2

For a detailed description of Newman's relationship with the Office, read Dr. Donald Withey's excellent study, John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary: Their influence on his life as an Anglican.

Address to priests and deacons of Bavaria, 14th September 2006. Quoted by Abp. Malcolm Ranjith, Address at the Convention on Sacred Liturgy, Aquinas University College, Colombo, 2nd September 2010