LITURGY

“Teach us how to number our days,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.” (Psalm 90)


Chair of the Reader at Table in the refectory

This article picks up our monthly series on “Tempus per Annum,” an exploration of various ways in which our liturgical life is shaped by time and shapes our view of time. Our initial installment examined the diverse forms of commemorating a day, in feasts and ferias. We now turn to the week, a timespan firmly resonating throughout religious and liturgical life. Particularly, we will parse out some of the role of the “hebdomadary,” both in the Benedictine tradition and in his role here at Portsmouth.

The Hebdom

Weekly note posted in sacristy

What is a “hebdom”? Okay, this article was written basically because I think the word “hebdom” is so cool. It was actually at the top of my list as the name for this newsletter, which got taken up in The Current. The term is still used in French to refer to weekly publications (think Charlie Hebdo). In its variant forms, “hebdomadary” refers to weekly things, with the Latin term being derived from the Greek word for “seven” (think of the “hepta” prefix). In Matthew’s gospel (18:22), Jesus’ teaching is translated into Greek that we must forgive “hebdomekontakis hepta” (seventy-seven) times. A “hebdom” is a member of a community who is assigned various special duties for the week. It is principally associated with monasteries or convents, but it can pertain to weekly duties elsewhere, such as a shrine or a basilica. Such a person might be assigned to sing at a Mass or to lead the recitation of the Divine Office.

Week One prayers of Matins and Lauds

One finds reference to a “hebdom” scattered throughout monastic literature, as it is one of the principal temporal markers of monastic life. From the Institute of Religious Life: “The sister or monk whose duty it is to begin and end the Hours of the Divine Office and the Solemn ‘Salve,’ and to lead the prayers at the graces before and after meals... A hebdomadarian is the one who carries out this task.” The Cistercians of the U.K.: “Every monk was expected to help with the day to day tasks, and every week the precentor compiled a rota assigning a duty to each member of the community. This might involve helping in the kitchen, assisting the guestmaster, reading for the community in the refectory or officiating as priest for the week (hebdomadary).” The monks of Three Rivers in Massachusetts note that all monastic brethren, “will be learning some vocabulary that pretty much all Benedictines have in common. Very early on, he’ll recognize the liturgical assignment of hebdom, or in some monasteries, just ‘heb.’ Both are short for hebdomadary, which comes from the Latin word for ‘the guy for the week.’ The hebdomadary is assigned to lead the offices for a week at a time. Here at St. Gregory’s we have two each week: Hebdom I leads the early, spoken offices; Hebdom II leads the later, sung offices. That lets the monks who aren’t up for leading the singing have the opportunity of leading some of the services anyway.”

In Scripture and in The Rule

Prayers set up for guests at Vespers

The terminology is rooted, as is all Benedictine life, in the Rule left by Saint Benedict. The title of Chapter 38 itself refers to the weekly cycle, “The Reader for the Week.” Benedict wants this reading done well and insures the reader is sufficiently fortified: “Because of holy Communion and because the fast may be too hard for him to bear, the brother who is reader for the week is to receive some diluted wine before he begins to read.” (RB 38). The weekly routine defines kitchen work as well, as noted in RB Chapter 35: Kitchen Servers of the Week, which speaks of “the weekly kitchen servers and the attendants,” and refers to one who is beginning “his week,” bestowing a sense of weekly responsibility distinctively one’s own. The Divine Office is, of course, itself imbued with weekly meaning, including Benedict’s insistence that “the full complement of one hundred and fifty psalms is by all means carefully maintained every week, and that the series begins anew each Sunday at Vigils” (RB 18). While this practice remains formidable for modern-day schedules, Benedict scoffs at the hardship: “We read, after all, that our holy Fathers, energetic as they were, did all this in a single day. Let us hope that we, lukewarm as we are, can achieve it in a whole week.” (RB 18)

Weekly tabs for Matins and Lauds

Of course, we must look further back than Benedict to find the roots of a “hebdom,” and recall the Hebrew sabbath. The Scriptures themselves see the cycle of the week as integral to God’s very vision of creation. The sabbath or seventh day marks the consecration of all of creation, rendering it holy. The writer of Genesis 1, called “Priestly,” seems to have liturgical practice in mind, seeing the framework of the week as a reflection and commandment of God Himself. Clearly, the week delineates a principal span for our liturgical calendars, defining the time of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, as well as enumerating Ordinary Time. Each of these seven-day periods concludes as does the first story of Genesis, with an exclamation of holiness, reminding us again and again of the grace of “entering into His rest.”

Portsmouth Practices

Monastic life thus also revolves around the week. Here at Portsmouth, the reader at meals also reads the new assignments at the end of “his week,” announcing them from a notice that is later posted on the sacristy bulletin board, listing the “Offices of the Week.” The announcement sets forth four principal roles: Hebdomadary, Acolyte, Server-Epistoler, and Reader at Table. These duties will shape much of the liturgical involvement for a monk during the upcoming seven-day period.

Here, these customary practices have been passed on largely by word of mouth, though Brother Sixtus retains and frequently refers to an outline drawn up by the late Brother Francis Crowley. Some monastic communities retain “customaries,” written compendia of house practices. Br. Francis himself indicated various “editions” of his guiding outline, having produced his first version in 1997, revising it over the years. The customs have not varied greatly since his first edition, nor indeed in the life of this monastery.

The hebdomadary, indicated as “P” (“Presider”) in Br. Francis’ notes, will speak the first lines of various prayers, psalms, hymns, antiphons, and be assigned the recitation of other prayers in the office. While certain moments are reserved for the superior of the community, as “hebdom” the community members share this leadership role on by weekly rota. The specific duties of the “Hebdomadary” and the “Acolyte” are somewhat intertwined at Portsmouth. Primarily, they have shared leadership in the recitation of the Divine Office. The duties of the acolyte do not resemble those typically associated with the role, such as the lighting of candles or serving at the altar. Neither is our monastic acolyte to be identified with this designation as a stage in clerical priestly formation, though the same term is used, as we read in this week’s article about Brother Benedict’s priestly preparation. The acolyte does assist the hebdomadary, however, in being assigned to initiate some of the prayers. At Lauds, he will read the Invitatory antiphon at the beginning of the office and the first verse of Psalm 95. Br. Francis also notes that he will read the “lessons and responses” for the Divine Office. The greater part of the duties, however, lie with the hebdomadary, who will be the principal leader of the Matins, Lauds, Little Hour, Vespers, and Compline. He will, for example, open the Little Hour with the initial petition: “O God, come to my assistance.” Then he initiates the “Glory be,” the canticles of the hours, the concluding prayers: “May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.”

Also shared on a weekly rota are the duties of service at the altar. The server undertakes the customary variety of tasks associated with altar serving at the Blessed Sacrament. At Portsmouth, the server at the morning conventual Mass is also the “epistoler,” and so is typically assigned as the lector for the first reading (often from one of the epistles of the New Testament). There are also included in the role various obligations of the altar - to light the appropriate number of candles, assisting in sacristan tasks, and so forth.

Server/Epistoler notes in sacristy

Such weekly concrete duties have shaped liturgical life here, together with other shared duties of the “labora” of the monastery outside of liturgy, and are reflected vividly in the structure of temporal life established in Benedict’s Rule. As this article is being written in the week we commemorate Blessed Columba Marmion, an apt quotation from him seems appropriate: “Let us then live the life of faith as intensely as we can with Christ’s grace: let our whole existence be, as our great Patriarch would have it to be, deeply impregnated, even in the least details, with the spirit of faith, the supernatural spirit.” These “least details,” reflected in the weekly assignments of monastic life, form a “life of faith” and a “whole existence” that seeks to be oriented towards that sabbath grace, in the labora of domestic duties as well is in the ora of liturgy.