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 BRIGIDINES

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BRIGIDINES

day's Office. This change has been made with a view to restoring the original use of the liturgy, which provided for the chant or recitation of the entire Psaltery each week- It became necessary by the fact that as the saints' days, with common or special Offices, grew more numerous, the ordinary Sunday and week-day or ferial Offices, and consequently cer- tain of the psalms, were rarely recited. In making the change, occasion was taken to facilitate the read- ing of the Office by the separation of the Ordinary and Psaltery proper, but chiefly by allotting about the same number of verses for each day. It is only a first step in the revision of the entire Breviary, as agreed upon at the Vatican Council. It was proposed by a committee of liturgists appointed by Pius X, adopted by the Congregation of Rites, and sanctioned by the pope to go into effect on 1 January, 1913, in ac- cordance with the new rubrics regulating thenceforth the reading of the Divine Office.

Each day, therefore, has its own psalms, as ar- ranged in the new Psalter, except certain feast days, about 125 in number, viz., all those of Christ and their octaves, the Sundays within the octaves of the Nativity, Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Clu-isti, the vigil of the Epiphany, and the day after the octave of the Ascension, when the Office is of these days; the Vigil of the Nativity from Lauds to None and the Vigil of Pentecost; all the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, of the angcLs, St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, and the Apostles, as well as doubles of the first and second class and their entire octaves. Theirs is the Office to be read as appointed either in the Breviary, or in the Ordo of a diocese or institute, the psalms for Lauds, the Hours and Complin to be taken from Sunday; those for Matins and Vespers from the Common of the Office, unless others specially be assigned. The Office for the last three days of Holy Week remains unchanged, except that the psahns for Lauds are from the con-esponding days of the week in the Psal- ter, and for Complin those of Sunday. For all other feasts and for ferias in Paschal time the p.sahns are those of the new Psalter; the rest of the Office is from the Proper or Common. When a feast has special antiphons for any of the major hours, it retains them with its own psalms. Except for certain feasts the lessons of the first Nocturn are to be the current les- sons from Scripture, though the responsories are to be taken from the Common or Proper. Any feast that has its own proper lessons retains them; for feasts with their own responsories, those with the common lessons are to be read.

The criteria given to regulate the precedence of feasts are: gradation of rite, classification, as primary or secondary, personal dignity of the one honoured, external solemnity, local importance or privilege. Provision is made for the transfer of feasts that must make way for others more important occurring, whether occasionally or perpetually, on the same day, especially for the Sundays. The suffrages of the saints are now invoked in the one prayer "A cunctis". The Athanasian Creed is to be said only on Trinity Sunday and the Sundays after the Epiphany and Penteco.st when the Office is of the Sunday; but even on these days, when there is a commemoration of a duplex, or of an octave or day within an octave, the suffrages, prayers and .symbol and the third Collect are not to be said. Tiie week-day and other votive Offices gi-aiited by the general ind'ult of .5 July, 1883, are no longer alloweil. Nor is there now the obliga- tion of reciting in clioir the Ijittlc Office of the Bles.sed Virgin, the Office of the Dead, the Gradual, and the Penitential Psalms. The fea.sts of the dedication of a church, of a cathedral, and of the patrons of dio- ceses, are to be observed as doubles of the first class, and the feast of tlie Laleran Basilica and its titular feast of the 'I'ransfigurat ion, as doubles of the second cl;iss. Directions are given for conforming the

Missal with the Breviary, especially for the Masses of Sundays, Lenten ferias. Collects, and also for conventual Masses. On All Souls' Day, the Office and Mass of the current day are to be omitted, and the Office and Mass of the Dead only are to be re- cited; on All Saints' Day, the Ve.spers of the day, and of the Dead, are to be recited as liitherto.

The members of the Revisory Commission were: Mgr. P. La Fontaine, titular Bishop of Carystos, Secretary of the Congregation of Rites (President), Mgr. Scipio Tecchi, ISIgr. P. Piacenza, Mgr. J. Bressan (Private Secretary to the Pope), Mgr. A. Gasparri, Father P. Brugnani, O.M., Father L. Fonck, S.J., Father J. d'Isengard, CM., and Rev. F. Brehm. The complete reform of the Breviary, committed to another commission, involves a reform of the calendar; the revision of the historical lessons; the omission of lessons not authenticated; the correc- tion of texts; the new general rubric; the Common of certain classes of saints, as of confessors, holy women, and others, in order to commemorate them on one day instead of assigning a day for each.

PiAcExz.t, In Constitutionem 'Diiino Affiatu' et in rubncas commenlarium (Rome, 1912); Idem, Guida praclica per la re- cila del divino Officio (Rome, 1912); BrRTON axd Myers. The New Psalter and Its I7se (London. TM'J' f- --riixHON, Le Psal- terium Brenarii Romani et les nm, ", . , (Paris. 1912);

Welsh, The New Rubrics CEdiiil.-,: ! ^ I Iftherington, Notes on the New Rubrics and tht i >.■ \ i Psalter (Lon-

don, 1912); Am. Eccl. Rev. (Februaij ai.,! Ai,nl. Iill2).

John J. Wynne.

Brigidines (Sisters of St. Brigid), Institute of THE, was established by Most Rev. Dr. Delany, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, at TuUow, Co. Carlow, Ire- land, in. 1807. Bishop Delany, keenly alive to the lamentable state to which reUgion had been reduced by the Penal Laws and bj' the disastrous effects of the Rebelhon of 1798, began to remedy the evil by applying himself to secure the proper observance of the Lord's Day, and the religious instruction of the children and adult women of his parish and diocese. He resided at TuUow, and to inaugurate his work there he formed catechism and reading classes to be held in the church on Sundays. To carry out this purpose he selected a number of exemplary young women to form a religious community. He allowed them to make vows, and thus laid the foundation of the Brigidine Institute, one of the first of the kind founded in Ireland since the Reformation.

The sisters immediately opened schools for the poorer and higher classes of children in the neighbour- hood. This work proving successful, a building was erected for the accommodation of boarders who pre- sented themselves, but who had until then to lodge in the town. Soon many came to a^•ail themselves of the advantages of religious and secular education afforded by the Brigidine Sisters. The institute, although several times sanctioned by the Holy See, continued a diocesan congregation until 1892, when Pope Leo XIII, on being solicited to place all the houses of the institute under a mother-general, issued a Decree ap- proving of change in government for five years by way of experiment, and in 1907 Pope Pius X con- firmed, in perpetuity, the constitution of the new r6gime. Before and since that date several founda- tions have been made in Australia and New Zealand, where there are at ijreseni fourteen houses of the institute. There are five convents in Ireland: at TuUow, Mountrath, .\bbeyleix, Goresl)ridge, and Ballyroan, all in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.

The pupils of the Brigidines (boarding and benefit schools) are prepared for the Intermediate, Univer- sity, Senior Oxford, and Kensington Examinations, for those of the Incorporated Society of Music, and the technical courses.

Mother de Chantai. Fenneult.