The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman BreviaryQuigley, Edward J.
Religion
The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman Breviary
Quigley, Edward J.
Catholic Church. Breviary; Divine office
"Those who pay intelligent attention to the liturgical chant at High
Mass, and in particular to the chant of the celebrant, will be able to
discover for themselves that the intonations used in the singing of the
collect and the Post-Communion serve, as a rule, to mark off two at
least of the main divisions indicated. Two inflections, a greater and a
lesser, occur in the body of the prayer, the greater for the most part
coming at the close of the 'motive,' while the lessor concludes the
'petition' and produces the purpose of the prayer. When the prayers are
correctly printed, as in the authentic 'Missale Romanum,' the place of
the inflexions is indicated by a colon, 'punctum principals,' and a
semicolon, 'semi-punctum,' respectively. These steps, it will he
observed, indicate, not precisely 'breaks in the sense' (as Haberl
incorrectly says) but rather the logical divisions of the sentence,
which is not quite the same thing" (Father Lucas, S.J., _Holy Mass_,
chap, vi.).
The question is often asked, why _Dominus vobiscum_ is said after the
collect, or prayer. Writers on liturgy reply that it is so placed
because Christ frequently used the salutation _Pax vobis_, and the
priest in public prayer holds the place of Christ, and as he, the
priest, used this formula of salvation before the collect to obtain the
spirit of prayer and the grace of God, he repeats it so that these gifts
may be retained.
In the collects, the fatherland of the saints is rarely found, because
the saints' true home and fatherland is heaven, where they were born
again to life eternal, and their fatherland is not this valley of exile
where they spent their temporal life. Nor are their surnames given in
the collects (see the collect of St. Jane Frances Fremiot de Chantel
given on p. 180). But it is not infrequent in the collects to find
certain appellations characterising a saint or noting some special
prerogative or wonderful gift of grace. The Church's collects record the
wonderful gifts of St. John Chrysostom ("the golden-mouthed"), St. Peter
Chrysologus ("qui ob auream ejus eloquentiam Chrysologi cognomen adeptus
est") (_Rom. Brev_.). Sometimes the nation or earthly home of a saint is
given in a collect to distinguish one saint from another. This is seen
in the case of saints bearing the name of Mary, which if used absolutely
or unqualifiedly refers to the Mother of God. See the collects for St.
Mary Magdalen, St. Mary of Egypt, etc.
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