A few years
ago, while sitting down to pray Compline on a Saturday night after the children
went to bed, I was arranging the ribbons and came across something that I had
never noticed before in the Dominican Breviary.
The Psalter ends at Compline on Saturday, and the three psalms and their
antiphon are contained on pages 214 - 215.
Since there is no reason, then, to flip that page, I never did. But that night I flipped over the page, to
see if there was anything there, and I came across this rubric:
On every Saturday
throughout the year, after the recitation of the Hail O Queen, with its ℣. Permit, and the prayer Grant we besech
you, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin and the
invocation Mary, maid with its ℣. and prayer, p. 28* are said in
choir.
Lo and
behold! Purely by accident, I stumbled across a wonderful devotion that has been a part of the
Dominican Breviary for 400 years! So on
Saturdays throughout the year, after the Salve Regina and the versicle and
prayer that follow, the commemoration of St. Dominic is not made. In its place, the Litany of the Blessed
Virgin is prayed. This makes complete
sense when you consider that, since time immemorial, the Church has always
considered Saturdays to be especially devoted to the Our Lady. And what better way to end the week, then to
sing the praises of the Mother of God, who spreads forth her mantle of protection
over the entire Order.
As Fr. Bonniwell
tells the story, in his “A History of the Dominican Liturgy”, of how the custom of
singing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin was made obligatory for the Order in
1615, but as the Acts of the Chapter note, it was already in widespread use throughout
the Order anyway. And, of course, as you might expect, there was a little "funny business" that accompanied the adoption of
this custom:
This custom the Order borrowed from its Rosary Confraternities, which were wont to sing a litany of the Blessed Virgin. A book published at Rome in 1593 contains music composed by the celebrated Palestrina for the litany of the Virgin “which is sung everywhere in chapels of the Rosary Society.” The litany is divided into five parts to correspond to the five decades of the Rosary. The litany which appears in the [Dominican] Breviary of 1614 contains two interesting additions. After the invocation Regina Virginum, the Dominicans had inserted: Regina Praedcatorum! The chapter of 1656 ordered it expunged; it was making a universal prayer the prayer of one Order. After Regina Sanctorum omnium came Regina Sacratissimi Rosarii. As the Dominicans had inserted this clause before the decree of 1631 forbidding any additions to the litany, the Congregation of Rites in 1675 permitted the Confraternities of the Rosary to use it. Leo XIII extended it to the whole Church (1883).
Turning to the
Appendix of the Dominican Breviary, you will see the Litany of the Blessed
Virgin Mary in its familiar form, with the following additional rubrics and
prayers:
Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be said on Saturdays after her litany.
After Lamb of God has been said for the third time there follows:
Mary,
Maid inviolate, chaste and undefiled,
Mother
well-beloved of Christ, your own true child.
You
were made the shining gate of heaven above,
Accept
from us these words of praise we offer you with love.
We
now implore devoutly, from the heat within,
That
or souls be stainless, our bodies free from sin.
May
you bring us ever, is our earnest prayer,
The
pardon that is granted through your moving pleading rare.
O
gracious one who alone has remained immaculate.
P.T. Alleluia.
In Paschal time, in
place of the prayer Mary Maid
inviolate, one may recite the following antiphon:
Queen
of heaven, rejoice, alleluia; for he whom you were worth to bear, alleluia, has
risen as he said, alleluia. Pray to God
for us, alleluia.
After the prayer Mary Maid inviolate
or after the ant. Queen of heaven, the following
is said:
℣. Pray for us, holy mother of God. P.T.
Alleluia. ℟. That we may be made worthy of the promises of
Christ. P.T.
Alleluia.
Let us pray Prayer
Pour forth,
we beseech you, Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we to whom the
incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an angel, may,
by his passion and cross, be brought to the glory of his resurrection. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.