Coste, Maurice: L'hymne et sa fonction dans l'office, -
La Maison Dieu 1980, 143, 61-78
THE
HYMN AND ITS FUNCTION IN THE OFFICE
“Christ
Jesus, high priest of the new and eternal covenant, taking human nature,
introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung throughout all ages
in the halls of heaven. He joins the entire community of mankind to Himself,
associating it with His own singing of this canticle of divine praise”.
Thus, begins chapter IV, devoted to the divine office, of the conciliar Constitution
of Vatican II on the Liturgy. If this Council takes the "part for the
whole" and calls "hymn" the divine office which is sung in
heaven, it is doubtless true that this piece holds a place and fulfills an
important function at the heart of the official prayer of the 'Church.
The dynamic of the hymn in
the office:
In
the traditional monastic office, used until Vatican II, the hymn occupies, according
to the various hours, different places.
In
an article entitled "The hymn in a renewed liturgy," published in
1967, Father Gelineau summed up the question of the place of the hymn:
"In the divine office, unlike the Mass,
the hymn is one of the constituent elements alongside reading, chanting and
prayer. It fills, as the case may be, three functions:
A) Opening: this is the case with little hours
and Matins. The hymn "situates" the office in time and ‘launches’ the
celebration.
B) Deepening and lyrical expression as in
the two great hours of the morning and evening, when the hymn is after reading
... In this place, the hymn deploys more effectively its own power than at the
beginning of the Office.
C) Conclusion: as in the case with the Te Deum after the Vigils. "
The
liturgical reform will ultimately chose the opening function of the hymn. This
change of place will be formalized by the "General Instruction on the
Liturgy of the Hours,” published by the Sacred
Congregation for Divine Worship on March 15, 1971, which mentions this twice:
"The Liturgy of the Hours ... is constructed
in such a way that , after the opening hymn, there is always psalmody, then a
more or less long reading drawn from the Holy Scriptures, and finally prayers.
»N ° 33
"Immediately after the introductory
verses, the appropriate hymn is sung or said. »N ° 42
The
hymn takes on another color, and therefore plays another role, when it actually
opens the service or when it comes in response to a chant and a long listening
to the Word. In either case the hymn is a text that delivers a message
regardless of where it is used.
The hymn and time
In
these remarks about the place of the hymn in the office, we have passed over in
silence a very important fact, namely the link between the hymn and the
"mystery" celebrated by the office. The General Instruction of the
Divine Office is quite explicit on this subject:
"The role of the hymn is to give each
hour or festival its own tone, and to make it easier and more joyful to enter
prayer, especially when the celebration is with the people. »N ° 42
"The hymns, which have their place in
the office by virtue of a very ancient tradition, still retain their place. In
truth, not only by their lyrical nature, they are expressly destined for the
praise of God, but they are a popular element, and they even manifest almost exclusively, better than the
other parts of the office, the Hours or each holy day. »No. 173
The
relationship between hymn and time is to be taken at two levels. First, there
is the level of "cosmological" time with its oppositions of night and
day; Morning / mid-day / evening. Christian hymnography has always celebrated
the appearance of light, the dawn, connecting it, moreover, to the person of
Christ and to his Resurrection at the dawn of Easter. Similarly, the sunset and the shadows of the
night were, and still are a true source of inspiration for the Compline hymns.
None
of these hymns, however, celebrate morning or evening for themselves, and
"cosmological" time is only a beginning. Indeed, there is a second
level, where time takes on a "soteriological" dimension. This is the
time of the history of salvation, from the creation of the world to the
Parousia, the Incarnation, the earthly life of Jesus, the birth of the Church,
etc.
