Who wrote the hymns for the Office of St. Joseph, March 19th?

 

Who wrote the hymns for the Office of St. Joseph, March 19^th?

 

Most often the hymns for the feast of St. Joseph are attributed to the 17^th century Carmelite Fr. Juan Escollar, or to give his professed name, Juan de la Concepcion of the seventeenth century. However, the Liber Hymnarius says the author is Hieronymus Casanate, fuit cardinalis bibliothecarius et archivarius Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae ab anno 1693 usque ad 1700. Anno 1701. I have wondered if these two names refer to the same person, but that seems extremely unlikely. For one thing the Carmelite friar was from Spain and the cardinal was from Italy. However, they were in Rome at the same time. Perhaps a reader knows the answer. Meanwhile here is Fr. Joseph Connelly’s argument for

Juan Escollar’s authorship (Hymns of the Roman Liturgy):

 

Probably the Spanish Carmelite Juan de la Concepcion of the seventeenth century. It is most unlikely that any of hymns 106-108 [Te Joseph, Caelitum Joseph, Iste quem Laeti]were written before the seventeenth century. They are not among the known hymns of the fifteenth or six- teenth centuries, have no place in the breviaries of that time and are not in the Breviary of St Pius V.  (1568). Gerson therefore must be ruled out as a possible author.

 

The Carmelite nun, Sister Clare Mary, was greatly responsible for Clement X raising the rank of St

Joseph's feast on 19 March to that of a double of the second class and providing a revised office for that feast. This office of 1671 was the same as that of the_ oHBreviary of 1568, except for three new antiphons and three new hymns, which were 106-108. Behind the scenes Sister Clare seems to have persuaded the Carmelite friar Juan de la Concepcion, then in Rome, to compose an entirely new office. This office for the Patronage of St Joseph was sanctioned in 1680 for use by the Carmelites and, like the Roman office of 1671, contained these hymns. Later Clement XI composed the present office for 19 March-a masterpiece of composition, as Batiffol rightly says in his History of the Roman Breviary, p. 254, n. 4. The present office of the Solemnity is substantially the same as that of 1680.

 

A Carmelite life of Sister Clare, first published in 1681, and the Jesuit Patrignani's book on devotion

to St Joseph (Florence, 1707) state that Juan composed the office of 1680. The interest of Sister Clare

and the testimony of Patrignani are confirmed in a memorandum drawn up in 1714 by the future Benedict XIV and later inserted by him in his De Servorum Dei Beatijicatione, Bk. IV, Part II, ch. xx, especially sections 17 and 20.

 

No authority asserts explicitly that Juan is the author of all or any of these hymns. But as Patrignani

says that 'L'Uffizio tutto proprio del Santo' was Juan's work, the authorship of the hymns seems to be included in this statement. It is also clear that whatever the date of the composition of the office of 1680, the hymns had certainly been composed by 1671, for they are part of the office approved in that year. Further, as the decree of 1714 does not include hymns among the new elements of Clement XI's office, it must be presumed that Clement is not their author, though he has been claimed as such. The history of devotion to St Joseph seems to point in the seventeenth century to a Spaniard and to a

Carmelite as the composer of these hymns, and Juan is the only person at present known who fits both conditions. A further pointer to his authorship is a similarity of style between these hymns and some that he certainly wrote in honor of St Teresa. The influence of Urban VIII is perceptible in 106 which has many points of resemblance with Martinae celebri.