Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Very similar to the last two posts, just subbing out the Psalms for the 3rd Nocturn. This recording was plagued by bird noises. First take it was Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, second take my voice was audibly much more tired and one chicken was hanging around, making her presence felt. So here you can hear one psalm from the first take and two psalms from the second take and you might guess which is which.Matins is a bit of a tough one. The invitatory stays the same, so you get the hang of that. The responsories have a bit of variation and in Lent where the Te Deum is not said and instead there's a third responsory, “Felix namquam”. I'm singing the one from the Baronius Press book, which comes from Hartker's Nocturnale.But here is Matins for Wednesdays and Saturdays from Septuagesima Sunday through to Holy Wednesday or Holy Saturday if you're praying in private.I've included the optional ending in case you don't go straight into Lauds. Feel free to skip this if you have Lauds queued up ready to roll. Hopefully your podcast app allows you to do this.Booklets in PDF available: littleoffice.brandt.id.auSupport this channel, either via Substack or Buy Me a Coffee Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

I'm copying from the previous post, just changing the bit to make it 2nd Nocturn. Even the audio pretty much does this. It's a shortcut. Hope it's not too aggravating.Matins is a bit of a tough one. The invitatory stays the same, so you get the hang of that. The responsories have a bit of variation and in Lent where the Te Deum is not said and instead there's a third responsory, “Felix namquam”. I'm singing the one from the Baronius Press book, which comes from Hartker's Nocturnale.But here is Matins for Tuesday and Friday from Septuagesima Sunday through to Holy Wednesday or Holy Saturday if you're praying in private.I've included the optional ending in case you don't go straight into Lauds. Feel free to skip this if you have Lauds queued up ready to roll. Hopefully your podcast app allows you to do this.Booklets in PDF available: littleoffice.brandt.id.auSupport this channel, either via Substack or Buy Me a Coffee Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Matins is a bit of a tough one. The invitatory stays the same, so you get the hang of that. The responsories have a bit of variation and in Lent where the Te Deum is not said and instead there's a third responsory, “Felix namquam”. I'm singing the one from the Baronius Press book, which comes from Hartker's Nocturnale.But here is Matins for Sunday, Monday and Thursday from Septuagesima Sunday through to Holy Wednesday or Holy Saturday if you're praying in private.I've included the optional ending in case you don't go straight into Lauds. Feel free to skip this if you have Lauds queued up ready to roll. Hopefully your podcast app allows you to do this.Booklets in PDF available: littleoffice.brandt.id.auSupport this channel, either via Substack or Buy Me a Coffee Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a great treasure from the Church's rich history of liturgical work. Here is a wonderful way to usher in the morning. There are four psalms and two canticles.I sort of munged the different versions as the budgerigars were starting to wake up as I reached the end, plus I didn't have the words for the Commemoration of the Saints handy, so the recording includes the Kyrie from the 1915 version, but ends like the 1962 version.Booklets in PDF available:https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/Support this channel, either via Substack or Buy Me a Coffee Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Completorium is known as Compline or Complin with all the different possible pronunciations. I'm using the Roman Little Office of Our Lady in the 1915 version. The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a cut down version of the Divine Office for the Laity or Third Orders. The Gregorian Chant is from the Antiphonale Romanum. The Marian Antiphon, Ave Regina Caelorum is sung in the Simple Tone.This one was surprisingly easy to put together as I didn't make so many mistakes. Once upon a time I did have this memorised, but that was a while ago.Booklets in PDF available:https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/Support this channel, either via Substack or Buy Me a Coffee Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Vespers, Vesperae, Evening Prayer for the time from Septuagesima Sunday through Ash Wednesday, First Sunday of Lent right through to Holy Thursday. The Little Office is not prayed publically over the Sacred Triduum, but if you were saying it privately, this is what you could use. The Divine Office proper to the Sacred Triduum is pretty amazing though and well worth looking into. divinumofficium.com is a good place to start. Tenebrae is the most musical hour (Matins+Lauds) with many fine recordings available on Youtube. The rest are very pared back with minimal singing, but very beautiful in an austere way.This recording is back in the house at night with some noise removal and filter curve equalising courtesy of Audacity.Booklets in PDF available:https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/Support this channel, either via Substack or Buy Me a Coffee Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

The bird noises from about 5 minutes in are Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, which are very common in my part of Australia.Booklets in PDF available:https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/Support this channel, either via Substack or Buy Me a Coffee Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Booklets with all the music can be found here https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/ Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded with my H2 zoom microphone, this time using the exercise shed to avoid the budgerigar chirps. Instead we hear some chicken noise - they were fine, I checked. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Recorded with my H2 zoom microphone. Used Audacity for noise removal and run the Filter Curve EQ thing.The sheet music is mostly from the Prime booklet at littleoffice.brandt.id.au. The Kyrie is from my Medieval Lauds booklet there - I've become accustomed to sing from the 1915 Benziger Bros book as I like the extra Kyrie. You'll have to imagine the silent Ave Maria at the beginning.You'll see it's pretty much the same as Office 1: Post Pentecost, except for substituting “Laus tibi Domine, Rex Aeterne Gloriae” for the Alleluia.God bless you! Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Firstly, we are now well into the season of “Laus tibi Domine, Rex aeterne gloriae.” Happy Septuagesima!A keen reader found a very old typo in my Little Office Compline PDFs - somehow, long ago, I had typed up “Lumen et revelationem gentium” instead of “Lumen ad revelationem gentium”. That has been fixed in the files at littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#booklets Refreshing the files at Gumroad and Udemy will take a little longer.Looking back at last month's update, I did manage to accomplish one of the three goals, that of running through the explanation of rubrics in the Benziger Brothers 1914 Little Office book. It took two videos. Unfortunately they are recorded in fairly low resolution as my usual video device was being used elsewhere, so I used an old iPad which I had previously set to low resolution video, as sometimes a small person fills up the hard drive… anyway here they are:And the second installment looking more into the ceremonial aspects:The other two goals were a bit more ambitious - to explain how to sing psalms and make a course on singing Roman Compline.The real answer to the question “how does one psing psalms?” is that one can psing them in any way one desires. Of course, coming from a background in singing psalms in the western chant tradition in Latin, that's going to be the way I will gravitate towards, but there are many different ways to sing. I've been singing with many different people with many different styles and realising that singing in itself is a valuable skill to cultivate. Our culture seems to push people away from singing into being passive consumers of mass produced noise. Any sort of singing is better than nothing.The photo above captures my current list of ideas for Youtube videos. I'm always open to suggestions. Someone asked me how I would recite the Chaplet of the Holy Face in English and I started drawing diagrams describing my interpretation of the description in the 1789 Holy Face Manual, but co-ordinating all the elements of making videos seems to be more difficult than I remember.Also, this particular substack is devoted to the Little Office of Our Lady and sometimes I go outside that area. I have another podcast called the Latin Mass Homeschool Family, which is hosted with Spotify. Unfortunately Spotify has a policy of only hosting podcast episodes which are predominantly spoken. They recently deleted 32 episodes from my Latin Mass Family podcast without warning. I tried contacting them about getting back up copies, but turned out their system was not set up to cater for that service. The episodes were all from the 100 days of Chant challenge which I set myself a few years ago. Fortunately they are all still on Youtube. The recordings I was most concerned about were the family recordings of singing Compline, which would have been very difficult to recreate, and are all linked into a little blog at compline.brandt.id.au. Fortunately all those recordings passed Spotify's test for being mostly spoken.That gives me yet another goal, to migrate the Latin Mass Homeschool Podcast to a more music-friendly host. I'll put that job alongside updating the wowchemy themes on my webpages to hugo blocks.But all this pales in comparison with what seem to be our Holy Father the Pope's last days on earth. Let us pray for the Pope.Ave María. Grátia plena. Dóminus tecum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus et benedíctus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta María Mater Dei. Ora pro nobis peccatóribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Summer Holidays!Lenten Hymns are my main preoccupation at the moment. I have a special bunch of Masses around the feast of the Annunciation this year.Turns out there are quite a few arrangements of Audi Benigne Conditor on CPDL.org, some of them for 3 parts and designed to alternate with the chant. I love this hymn. It's one I didn't know back when I assembled A New Book of Old Hymns.Back to the Little Office, January is still Christmas time or Office 3. The feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, now known as the Presentation of Jesus, 2nd February is the last day for Office 3. The beginning of the changeover to Office 1 comes at the end of Compline. Instead of finishing with the Christmas antiphon Alma Redemptoris, you change to the next antiphon, Ave Regina Caelorum. Then the next hour, Matins, is Office 1.I often describe Ave Regina Caelorum as the Lenten antiphon, though that isn't strictly accurate. Purification to Sacred Triduum is a better description, but it's a bit more wordy. So this change doesn't catapult us into Lent or even Septuagesima. Septuagesima Sunday falls on 16 February this year, so your last Alleluias happen at None of Saturday 15 February. From Vespers Saturday 15 February, use the “Laus tibi Domine” options.With regard to my own Little Office PDFs and reprints, a keen reader found that I had left out the third collect for Compline, so that has been remedied. The up to date PDFs are always at https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#bookletsSomeone else noticed that a shop description of my truncated Benziger Brothers Little Office had a misleading description. It is a bit confusing. I have four variations of the Benziger 1915 Little Office:* The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 257 pages, paperback - lulu or shop.jubil.us* Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Office of the Dead - 433 pages, paperback - lulu or shop.jubil.us* Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1915 - 257 pages, hardcover - lulu or shop.jubil.us* The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1915, blue hardback - 257 pages, hardcover - lulu or shop.jubil.usSo only one of the four gives you the complete book with the extra commemorations and the Office of the Dead. The other three have been shortened to just the Little Office and they share a listing on Shop Jubilus - there's a drop down menu there to select which one you're after.As the school year resumes here in Australia, I have a new list of projects to work on:* a course on singing Roman Compline according to the 1962 rubrics* a video (or two) going through the rubrics section of the Benziger 1915 Little Office book* an explanation of how to sing PsalmsThese are responses to queries from kind readers like you. I live in a lovely bubble where I can go to the Latin Mass on Sundays and sometimes even on weekdays. My family sings Compline together most evenings. I've learned so much about chant over the past two decades, often volunteering for things way over my head - you don't know what you don't know. When you ask questions, it helps me reflect on my assumptions and track down the reasons for how I sing.It's still frustrating that a conventional Catholic education completely overlooks these aspects of the treasures of Catholic music. But again, you don't know what you don't know. It's by learning and passing on this information that one day maybe a good majority of Catholics will be able to sing together confidently, transcending boundaries of age and language with timeless repertoire. It will take a while for our Catholic education systems to catch on.So, I hope this message finds you well. Let's pray for each other that we may accomplish our goals in 2025!God bless. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

This December marks the 4th anniversary of the launch of the course, Sing the Little Office in Latin. If you haven't signed up already, I've just set up a coupon for you or a friend to enrol in the course for free on Udemy:(This coupon starts 12/21/2024 3:23 PM PST (GMT -8) and expires 01/21/2025 3:23 PM PST (GMT -8) or until 100 people have signed up, whichever comes first)For anyone interested in improving their writing, the Institute for Excellence in Writing is preparing for their Twelve Days of Christmas Giving which you can read about over on my family webpage. While I was editing the video, I realised that I had ignored all the Public Speaking advice in the IEW materials and that my phone camera faithfully focussed on my microphone, leaving the rest of the scene slightly blurry. More learning experiences.The photo is our Christmas Bush, an Australian native shrub which has been struggling for twenty years and finally gave a good show of flowers this year. The bush had been choked by surrounding trees, but after we took some down and cut back the wisteria vines, it sent out a new shoot which started looking healthy and leafy last year and now has this big show of red flowers just in time for Christmas.Christmas is a crazy time - both in secular circles and religious circles here. The weather is warm. The shops are full. Kids are keen for Christmas. I would love to include a jolly carol sung by our family, but if I wait for the opportunity to put that together it will be too late to send out, so I'll include a Christmas carol from another family - listen out for the introit for Christmas Day! (it's just after the 6 minute mark in case you're pressed for time) Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

This is the first time I've recorded the little prayer from the 1915 version of the Little Office and earlier.It's in my Medieval Lauds booklet : https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#bookletsHere's the antiphon from Gregobase:Behold the Lord comes, and all his saints with him: and it will be in that day a great light, alleluia.This comes in at the end of Lauds and Vespers in the older editions of the Little Office. The history of this little piece is worth reading. When the Little Offices emerged, there were three main ones: * All Saints* The Faithful Departed* Our LadySaying all of them as well as the Divine Office proved too much, so different orders generally went with either Our Lady or the Dead. The Little Office of the Saints survived in this little Commemoration in the Little Office of Our Lady. Then in 1962 the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary was pared down a little bit more and the commemoration was removed, along with the little “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison”. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

It is finished!Seven tracks for the Day Hours of Advent!PDF Booklets are available here: https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#booklets Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Vespers is beautiful.The CD is getting closer all the time! Only Compline left to knock into shape!Then we'll need a Christmas album…As always, you can find the booklets at https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#booklets Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Mid-afternoon prayer from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Roman Breviary.Or “Hora Nona”.As always, you can find the booklets at https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#booklets Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Good old Midday Prayer with the name which becomes a little awkward in English. Sext means the sixth hour after sunrise, which is midday or 12 noon.Funnily enough, the English word Noon comes from the next hour, None, referring to the Ninth Hour. This was the hour at which monks would break fast, but over time it was felt to be too onerous to wait that long, so they started breaking fast at the Sixth hour, but the name None carried across and now we have Noon being the middle of the day.As always, you can find the booklets at https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#booklets Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Here is the third track of the proposed Advent Little Office Day Hours CD. Although the name Tertia designates the third hour, this refers to the third hour after sunrise rather than the third of the canonical hours. This migrated to the Liturgy of the Hours as Mid-morning Prayer, usually prayed at 9 or 10am.As always, you can find the booklets at https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#bookletsAgain, for the keen ears, you might notice how similar the hymn is between the Prime and Terce recordings. I clean forgot to sing Memento when recording Prime, so I cut and paste from Terce. This also made me realise that there were other parts I could reuse, so you may notice some other similar bits and pieces. Also, they will probably all sound fairly similar as the recording was done in one sitting. There was a whole lot of cicada noise outside, which fortunately doesn't seem to have been picked up - although now I come to think of it, I'm editing the tracks with cicada noise outside, so I might be blissfully unaware of its presence in the audio. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

The second track on the planned Little Office CD for Advent.This is the hour of Prime - the hour which didn't get carried across from the Divine Office into the Liturgy of the Hours. Prime means “First”, but it isn't listed first in any books I've come across. At daybreak this hour is sung. In the full Office it finishes with a recitation of the Martyrology for the following day - a good practice even if the Little Office doesn't require it.As always, you can find the booklets at https://littleoffice.brandt.id.au/#bookletsKeen ears might hear how I mistakenly used the incipit tune beginning for the last Gloria Patri in the Psalms in the recording. I hope you forgive the mistake made in some sort of surge of gladness to be nearing the end of the track. These recordings aren't perfect, but I hope they help. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

This month saw some tension with the attacks on the Internet Archive in the lead up to a certain election. Fortunately the Archive is back for now and hopefully will stay up long enough for me to get my act together to plan out a survey of their medieval copies of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Nothing like some wonderful online resource disappearing to make you realise how much you depend on libraries like that.Many of you went ahead, against my warnings, and ordered copies of the prototype CD of the day hours of Office 1. The third track on the CD was a bit patchy, so that was re-recorded, this time making sure to record a “Laus tibi Domine” so that I could make a version ready for Septuagesima. I've uploaded the two versions of Terce to the podcast here. This seems to be the only Septuagesima recording on the podcast so far. If you see a track listing on the back of your CD sleeve you should have the updated Terce.Advent is zooming closer and closer and I have made a recording that I should be able to edit in time - maybe even make an Advent CD available with enough lead time for people to receive their copy!Lauds for Advent is ready. Again, I recorded the “Laus tibi Domine” for the very occasional event when Office 2 is sung for the feast of the Annunciation during Septuagesima. This will happen in 2025. The Annunciation is only one day of the year, so I'm not sure if it warrants a dedicated CD. Still, it would be good to have on the podcast.This photo helps illustrate some of the craziness of this month, which might go some way to explaining why this October update is coming out in November. Back in June we bought four one week old chicks from a farming family who drives an hour to come to our local Latin Mass. The cute little chicks grew into four handsome roosters and this became a bit of a problem. We learned a whole lot about roosters and how to work with their instincts to rule their terrain, but everything culminated in “inviting them to dinner”. This was a very moving experience. The family kindly gave us three young hens, which we are hoping will start laying soon.That explains the rooster in the shot, on to the thing in my son's hands. The lizard is a Blue Tongue Lizard which is fairly common in Australia. They're slow-moving and like eating snails, so they're generally a Good Thing to have in the garden, but it still makes me jump when I almost step on one in the living room. We had a few hot days where one such reptile must have thought the cat door looked like the entrance to a nice cool cave. Between discouraging the cats from pestering it and guiding it back to the great outdoors, this brought some extra excitement to our Spring. It seems to have moved on to a less populated backyard somewhere else now.So I guess that's it from me. Back to editing the remaining tracks for the Advent album!God bless,VeronicaLittle Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

With the idea of making CDs comes the realisation that I need to re-record the Little Office. With a new Liturgical Year starting in a month's time, I thought I'd start with Advent. I spent an afternoon recording and several hours editing to get this first track. There are more hours of editing to go, but hopefully they'll be done by Advent and a new CD can be put together.Booklets in PDF are available if you would like to follow along. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

I have started tagging all the recordings here. The front page of this Substack gives the opportunity to list posts sorted by tag. Somehow, up until now, I have neglected to post recordings for Septuagesima! This will be the first hour in plenty of time for next Septuagesima, 16 February 2025.Septuagesima Sunday is an old preparation for Lent. The name means “70th” and it is roughly 70 days before Easter. 64 days by my count. The reforms of the Roman Calendar last century thought they could dispense with this antiquated idea. Modern people are much more organised now and can launch boldly into the rigours of Lenten penance without the customary few weeks our forefathers took for easing into the extra prayer, fasting and almsgiving. There's nothing forbidding a little extra penance in the lead up to Lent, so for any listeners out there who find Lent surprisingly sudden, you might like to mark Septuagesima Sunday on your calendar and see if it helps you prepare for Lent.Since the Little Office of Our Lady missed out on these reforms, it still includes provisions for Septuagesima. The main difference is avoiding all alleluias. The opening verses swap Alleluia with Laus tibi Domine, Rex aeterne gloriae. And for most of the hours, that is it!Theoretically, I could take this adjusted beginning and tack it on to all the existing recordings. But on the other hand, it would be satisfying to re-record each hour, with all the subtle differences of each rendition. It will probably come down to how much time I have to complete the project. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

The CD orders are steadily trickling in even though I haven't encouraged listeners to buy them. This is a good way to keep reminding me to fix up the less polished tracks. Here is one now!This is a solo recording. To fit on the CD I needed to keep it short, but I didn't want to rush it. Were I singing with another person we could shrink the gap between each verse. I've tried to imitate that by myself while keeping a bit of a break at the middle of each verse (marked by an asterisk).And if you would like a copy of the CD, even though it is still much of a work in progress, here is the link. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Buy the book :* from my Shop Jubilus* direct from the printer, Lulu.comOr download the PDF from the github repository.I did write to my bishop for permission to print and received a positive answer, so I think that's all good with regard to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 826 §3.Here's an earlier article with more about the booklet: Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Here is the last instalment in the seven hours of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.You can pick up a printed book of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception either printed here at Shop Jubilus or as a PDF in the Gitlab repo.I'm copying across these recordings from the Youtube playlist. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Here is the sixth installment in the seven hours of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.You can pick up a printed book of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception either printed here at Shop Jubilus or as a PDF in the Gitlab repo.I'm copying across these recordings from the Youtube playlist. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Here is the fourth instalment in the seven hours of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.You can pick up a printed book of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception either printed here at Shop Jubilus or as a PDF in the Gitlab repo.I'm copying across these recordings from the Youtube playlist. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Here is the fourth installment in the seven hours of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.You can pick up a printed book of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception either printed here at Shop Jubilus or as a PDF in the Gitlab repo.I'm copying across these recordings from the Youtube playlist. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Here is the third installment in the seven hours of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.You can pick up a printed book of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception either printed here at Shop Jubilus or as a PDF in the Gitlab repo.I'm copying across these recordings from the Youtube playlist. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Here is the second installment in the seven hours of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.You can pick up a printed book of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception either printed here at Shop Jubilus or as a PDF in the Gitlab repo.I'm copying across these recordings from the Youtube playlist. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

A request for a podcast version of my recordings of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception. Here is the Youtube Playlist. Youtube claims to have “podcast” settings, but this doesn't carry across to podcast clients outside Youtube as far as I understand.Anyway, substack does seem to do a good job of being both a blog and a podcast.And you can pick up a printed book of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception either printed here at Shop Jubilus or as a PDF in the Gitlab repo.Now to figure out whether to stagger the uploads over the next few days - maybe to leave time to figure out whether to re-record Compline to incorporate the restored closing Antiphon chant. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

A monthly article to let you know of any upcoming variations to the Little Office of Our Lady seems like a useful thing. Except that there aren't any variations coming up until Saturday 30th November 2024. That's right, the Little Office is so easy, that it is pretty much the same every day (except for the Matins Psalms) from Trinity Sunday through to the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent. However, my PDF files describing how to sing the Little Office do change on a more erratic basis. A monthly newsletter could be an opportunity for encouraging the further refinement and development of these files.I have just this minute added links to a Terce booklet I assembled for a family gathering around this time last year - Office 1 with Salve Regina. Also a Medieval Lauds booklet, which includes the extra psalms which Pope St Pius X took out in 1910, plus the tune for the Commemoration of Saints which was part of the Little Office back then.A few weeks ago someone contacted me about funny variations on the price on my Udemy course. I forthwith set up a coupon to make the course free for the first 100 subscribers. So far 10 people have taken up the offer, which expires 08/19/2024 10:48 PM PDT (GMT -7). This button should apply the code ASSUMPTION24 for you:Yes, the Feast of the Assumption is coming up on Thursday 15th August. This is one of the very few Holy Days of Obligation still in force in Australia. (The only other one that hasn't been transferred to a Sunday is Christmas Day). Check your local diocese for your local obligations.This might be a good time to mention my attempt at a 2024 Planner for the Little Office:The little numbers in circles give some indication of which Office is prayed when, if you use the Office 1, 2 and 3 naming system. Basically, Office 1 is most of the year, Office 2 is Advent and the feast of the Annunciation and Office 3 is for Christmas through to the feast of the Purification of Our Lady on 2nd February.So, that's more information than I expected for this first stab at a monthly update. I hope you found it helpful and I look forward to another effort in September!Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you Jardin de Dieu for suggesting this post!Substack is a very helpful platform. I have uploaded the video and it seems to have already made an audio file for the podcast. I hope it appears nicely in your podcast player. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

You may have noticed that I have booklets available on how to sing the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sadly, I haven't polished these up for publication. They are still rather inconsistent and at times messy, but they are helpful for pointing you in the right direction. Preparing them for publishing feels like an epic quest beyond my present abilities. While this is a noble goal, maybe a similar yet smaller task might help towards the ultimate end. Maybe I can make a booklet for a smaller Little Office first!The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception shares some similarities and differences. Like the Divine Office, it is arranged by hours and employs similar versicles and collects. On the whole it has a rather different feel, being based around a hymn instead of the Psalms. If you can pick a hymn tune then the hours are pretty much ready to sing. That is, until you get to the last part.Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The last hour of the day is Completorium or Compline. While the large part of the hour follows the same pattern as the other hours, it ends with a new section called The Commendation or Commendatio. This consists of a hymn followed by the response, Deo gratias, then an Antiphon, Versicle and Response closing with a Collect or Prayer.The first version I recorded only had the hymn of the Commendation, so it was only recently that I began to puzzle over the Antiphon. The other parts can be sung easily with common tunes. Antiphons are little snippets each with their own melody. There are hundreds of them in the Liber Usualis and the Antiphonale Monasticum, but not this particular one.Haec est virga in qua nec nodus originalis, nec cortex actualis culpae fuit.This is the rod wherein was neither the knot of original sin, nor the bark of actual sin.Some research revealed that this particular antiphon can be found in Vespers for the medieval Franciscan feast of the Immaculate Conception, long before the universal feast was established after Our Lady gave her title to St Bernadette at Lourdes. The two manuscripts containing the antiphon date from the 17th and 18th centuries.A beautifully photographed manuscript clearly gave all the antiphons for this feast. The neumes are intelligible even after hundreds of years. I transcribed this piece into “modern” square notes and added it to Gregobase.And here is how it sounds:Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

The Livestream this one is from was not my best recording. I'll consider re-recording.For now, this should be listenable. I missed a flat sign in the Antiphon “Rubum quem viderat” and I must have been getting tired going by the mistakes, but this remix is a bit better than it was.Booklets are at littleoffice.brandt.id.au. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Another remix from 2021. Here is the original recording.I'm using the Monastic Tonus in Directum. I don't think it's a deal-breaker.The booklets are still at littleoffice.brandt.id.au. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

This was a fun one to fix. As well as trimming excess audio, I found a wrong note in the Amen of Ave Maris Stella. You can hear the original mistake in this livestream from 2021.The mistake comes from mentally transposing to make the solfege easier but forgetting to add in a ti-flat (or te). This also crops up in the hymn for Roman Compline for Ferias.The booklets are at littleoffice.brandt.id.au Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

From a recording back in 2021, trimmed back a bit. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Sacrosanctae et individuae Trinitati, Crucifixi Domini nostri Iesu Christi humanitati, beatissima et gloriosissimae semperque Virginis Mariae fecundae integritati, et omnium Sanctorum universitati sit sempiterna laus, honor, virtus et gloria ab omni creatura, nobisque remissio omnium peccatorum, per infinita saecula saeculorum. Amen.℣ Beáta víscera Maríæ Vírginis, quæ portavérunt ætérni Pátris Fílium.℟ Et beáta úbera, quæ lactavérunt Christum Dóminum.Which can be translated as:To the most holy and undivided Trinity, to the manhood of our crucified Lord Jesus Christ, to the fruitful virginity of the most blessed and glorious Mary, ever a virgin, to the entire assembly of the saints, be ascribed everlasting praise, honor, power, and glory, by every creature; and to us be granted the remission of all our sins, world without end. ℟ Amen.℣ Blessed is the Virgin Mary's womb, which bore the Son of the everlasting Father.℟ And blessed are the breasts which nourished Christ our Lord.This prayer is usually followed by * Pater noster (Our Father)* Ave Maria (Hail Mary)* Credo in Deum (Apostles' Creed)The Benziger Brothers edition of the Little Office in 1915 omits the Apostles' Creed and adds this note:To those who shall on their knees recite with devotion the above prayer, Pope Leo X granted indulgence in respect to those shortcomings and faults which they may have committed through human frailty, while saying the Office. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

These prayers are usually said silently before the Office, followed by a silent Hail Mary or Ave Maria. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

I'm struck by how much more elaborate the Christmas office is. In Australia this time of year is hot and I often find myself not keeping up with the Office.This recording comes from a Livestream from 2021. There I also recorded the prayers before and after the Office. These would be good to have on the podcast in separate episodes so you can add them to your queue as need be. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

One of these books recommended ending a public recitation of the Little Office with the appropriate Marian Antiphon. This is how Compline always ends, but is optional for the other hours.You could even pray it by itself.Here are the words:Alma Redemptóris Mater, quæ pérvia cæliPorta manes, et stella maris, succúrre cadénti,Súrgere qui curat pópulo: tu quæ genuísti,Natúra miránte, tuum sanctum GenitóremVirgo prius ac postérius, Gabriélis ab oreSumens illud Ave, peccatórum miserére.Kind mother of the Redeemer, who remain the open gate of heaven and the star of the sea: help your falling people who want to rise, you who bore your holy Parent, while nature marveled:a Virgin before and after, receiving that ‘Ave' from Gabriel's mouth, have mercy on [us] sinners.You will notice there are two different collects for this Antiphon - one for Advent and one for Christmas. I have sung the one for Christmas here. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Nice quiet solo recording of Terce, tidied up a bit from this Livestream in 2021.In the livestream I finished with the Solemn Marian Antiphon, but I thought I would upload that separately - it's an optional ending for most of the hours. It's mandatory for Compline. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Preparing for Christmas looks different for all different families. Some are shopping, some are cooking, some are decorating. I'm editing audio.This recording comes from a Livestream from 2021. I've edited it down a bit, run the noise reduction and amplify over it so it should be easier to listen to. There's a bit of bird noise in the background - quite a few magpie calls. This is the Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen). Also our pet budgerigars and wild sulphur crested cockatoos. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Another one from the 2021 Livestreams. You can watch the original video here.There is a little bit of coughing. I've reduced it a little and trimmed it a bit.God bless you! Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

This comes from a Livestream I recorded back in 2021.I have trimmed it a little and applied a noise removal and amplification. The beginning starts with chirps from my pet budgerigars, but they soon settle down. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Advent seems to be a busy time of year! Here's an hour I have missed recording in the past. The hour of Sext at Midday, which is sometimes called Noon, but shouldn't be confused with None. As always, get your PDF booklets here: littleoffice.brandt.id.auIn making this recording I did find one note wrong in the old booklets - in the flex for the Little Chapter, so you might like to update your copy. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Learning these Responsories is probably the trickiest bit of the whole project. I'm not sure about how to sing the oriscuses - they are the punctums shaped a bit like a waving flag. If your choirmaster says to sing them differently, definitely go with that.This part of Matins is good for all Advent, except feasts of Our Lady, which would be the Immaculate Conception (8th December) and Our Lady of Guadalupe (12th December) which is celebrated in the Americas as I understand it. On those feasts, the 2nd Responsory ends with a Gloria Patri and the Te Deum is sung instead of the 3rd Responsory. I have the recording for this, but still need to edit it. Stay tuned! Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

More new recordings for Advent.It seems expedient to divide up the Matins recordings into 3 parts. It makes it easier for me to upload just the parts that need updating for each season.Also, when listening to the recordings, I can sing the first part while getting ready, then start with the second part when I head off in the car.I could stitch them together to make all the combinations for the year if the three part thing is too tricky to navigate.For now, this is the third nocturn with the change in antiphon for Advent.There are also variations with regard to different versions of the office. Before 1915 there were a few more psalms in Lauds. Before 1962 there were more Kyrie Eleisons and a commemoration of All Saints at Lauds and Vespers. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe

Available with visuals at Youtube and soon Rumble and Odysee.I made this recording in an hotel room - a very unusual setting for me, but beautifully quiet. Helps reinforce the idea that a quiet space away from pet parrots is a very worthwhile goal!As always, the PDF booklets are at littleoffice.brandt.id.auI hope to complete a new set of recordings in time for Advent. I'm a bit sidetracked by some very cute tiny copies of the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception that I'd love to make available. Get full access to Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary at littleoffice.substack.com/subscribe