Franciscan Studies

LITURGY OF THE FRANCISCAN RULES (Continued) WHEN Francis saw his project of 1221 rejected and another draft lost by well-planned carelessness, he once more had recourse to the protector of the Order, Cardinal Hugoline de'Conti. Hugoline had seen the struggle from its very beginning. He did not always agree with the idealistic ideas of the Saint. Yet, he was a real friend and counsellor. What is more, he was gifted with talents which the poet of Assisi lacked: a sure sense of reality, keen insight into the difficulties of the widely spread organization and, last but not least, a great authority in the Church. In November .1223 the new Rule and its approbation came as a peal of thunder in the heavily-laden atmosphere. In the third chapter it contains a liturgical ordinance which runs as follows: 1 Clerici faciant divinum officium secundum ordinem sánete Romane ecclesie, excepto psalterio, ex quo habere poterunt breviaria. Laici dicant viginti quatuor Pater noster pro matutino, pro laude quinqué, pro prima, tertia, sexta, nona, pro qualibet istarum, Septem, pro vesperis autem duodecim, pro completorio septem ; et orent pro defunctis. The aims of Hugoline were undoubtedly clear and grandiose, worthy of his Decretals. They are laid down in two radical changes: the introduction of a uniform liturgy and the clear-cut, canonical distinction between clerics and laics, whereby all clerics 2 were to say the Office and all laics the Our Father. The uniform liturgy, adapted from that of the papal court, is to be found in books which will be studied elsewhere. It was Hugoline's logical conclusion from what he had observed at court. Innocent Ill's pontifical was well received. 3 The liturgy of his chapel had been adopted by the Order of the Holy Ghost in 1213. 4 Shortly afterwards the Office had been reformed and, about 1220, the result laid down in a new Ordinary. The papal liturgists were eager to find a satisfactory type of Office book. It is difficult to prove whether, at this moment 1.Opuscula, ed. cit. 66. 2.Bartholomew of Pisa, op. cit., fructus ix, pars 2, Anal. Franc. IV, 397: clerici fratres etsi non sint in sacris... 3.M. Andrieu, Le pontifical romain ii, in "Studi e testi", vol. 87 (Rome 1940). 4.'Regula', cap. 27; PL 217, 1143: Clerici in diurnis et nocturnis officiis consuetudinem Romana; curia; observent. 241 242Stephan Van Dijk, O.F.M. of his career, Hugoline's plans for a wider diffusion of this Office were ripening. But he certainly had grasped the significance of the evolution. Some fifteen years later, now as Gregory IX and with the tenacity of old age, he showed what had been at the back of his mind, when Francis visited him in 1223: 5 "Brothers, if you will carry out the Church's Office... I will order all the religious in the Church, other than the Canons Regular and the monks of St Benedict, to say the same Office as you." Wisely omitting to distinguish understanding from misinterpretation , one can easily regard the sweep of innovations, brought about since 1217, as the unescapable or even badly needed development . But the change is so drastic that it should be asked whether the new legislation really fitted into the ideal of St Francis, or perhaps was beside the point. Hugoline certainly was the man who tried to bridge over the differences between the saint's radicalism and the demands of common sense. But did the ordinance in question really do this? Did the Cardinal actually understand what Francis expected from the liturgical vocation of his Order? Hugoline's solution, indeed, is watertight. Yet, one feels that it answers his problem rather than that of Francis, which has been avoided rather than sifted. The new legislation preserves nothing of the troublesome past. It is the mitigation of the cardinal's ideas and of those clerics in the Order who determined evolution towards monastic observances, and not a shaping of Francis' ideals. It reflects the contemporary practice in the Church, which Hugoline knew so well, and brought the new Order, be it with the slight variation of a secular Office instead of a monastic one...