Get thee to a nunnery...

sirhugs

Riding to the Rescue
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
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Does the religiously focussed news lately inspire preistly or nun stories?
 
How does the Church deal with priests for whom celibacy is a real problem? The answer is "The Merciful Nun", my next novel!
 
BedtimeStories said:
I dunno. To me, males 25 and younger are boys. ;)


as in toys?
or tasty treats?

you'd tie them to the altar and forbid them to beat their meat as you rub your body all over theirs?
 
sirhugs said:
as in toys?
or tasty treats?

you'd tie them to the altar and forbid them to beat their meat as you rub your body all over theirs?


Not for me. I'm not into boys. I need men 35+. :eek:
 
Alter boy is a term used for anyone not a priest who helps the priest. Oddly there aren't alter girls, they are called alter boys as well. :rolleyes:

I'm not so sure about why the alter boys are always young, possibly because most people from about 16 to 30 or later are not religous, or it could be that those priest problems are a little bigger than anyone thinks. :devil:

I know I'm twisted, but I always think of nuns as being lesbian, of course priests and monks are gay.

Going with that, someone could write a series on a woman who just joined a convent and all of her adventures there. There is also the man who joined a monk order and all of his adventures there.
 
emap said:
Alter boy is a term used for anyone not a priest who helps the priest. Oddly there aren't alter girls, they are called alter boys as well. :rolleyes:

I'm not so sure about why the alter boys are always young, possibly because most people from about 16 to 30 or later are not religous, or it could be that those priest problems are a little bigger than anyone thinks. :devil:

I know I'm twisted, but I always think of nuns as being lesbian, of course priests and monks are gay.

Going with that, someone could write a series on a woman who just joined a convent and all of her adventures there. There is also the man who joined a monk order and all of his adventures there.

I would love to do a nun story, but I know so little about the inner workings of the catholic church and I'm already swamped in projects that require research. Religion and chastity are a fantastic taboo. I know what you mean about assuming nuns must be lesbian, but I actually have this twisted notion that all nuns actually have the hots for Christ himself. I'd love to see a story about an innocent and slightly nieve Christ appearing in a secluded nunnery and being mobbed by horny nuns!
 
I can help you a tad with the inner working of a convent, they work, alot, they pray, morning, noon, and evening. After that it's just like being anywhere else, tons of gossip running around, women thing. ;)

I should clarify, there is a morning prayer, they eat, say grace first of course, work until noon, say grace again go back to work then go to dinner, say grace first then have an evening prayer.

If you go back a few hundred years, a convent was where royalty families sent their daughters until they could find someone to marry her, usually sent them at 8, sometimes sooner. That's actually why I think of nuns as lesbians, if you first start thinking of sex and all you can see around is another woman, of course most are going to sleep with each other, a finger doesn't really satisfy for long. ;)
 
Offices of the Catholic Church

The prayer sessions through the day, in order, are: MATINS; PRIME; TERCE; SEXT; NONE; VESPERS

THE HOURS

The prayer of the Breviary is meant to be used daily; each day has its own Office; in fact it would be correct to say that each hour of the day has its own office, for, liturgically, the day is divided into hours founded on the ancient Roman divisions of the day, of three hours apiece -- Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers, and the night Vigils. In conformity with this arrangement, the Office is portioned out into the prayers of the night vigils, that is to say Matins and Lauds. Matins itself is subdivided into three nocturns, to correspond with the three watches of the night: nine o'clock at night, midnight, and three o'clock in the morning. The office of Lauds was supposed to be recited at dawn. The day offices corresponded more or less to the following hours: Prime to 6 A.M., Terce to 9 A.M., Sext to midday, None to 3 P.M., Vespers to 6 P.M. It is necessary to note the words more or less, for these hours were regulated by the solar system, and therefore the length of the periods varied with the season.

The office of Compline, which falls somewhat outside the above division, and whose origin dates later than the general arrangement, was recited at nightfall. Nor does this division of the hours go back to the first Christian period. So far as can be ascertained, there was no other public or official prayer in the earliest days, outside the Eucharistic service, except the night watches, or vigils, which consisted of the chanting of psalms and of readings from Holy Scripture, the Law, and the Prophets, the Gospels and Epistles, and a homily. The offices of Matins and Lauds thus represent, most probably, these watches. It would seem that beyond this there was nothing but private prayer; and at the dawn of Christianity the prayers were said in the Temple, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. The hours equivalent to Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers were already known to the Jews as times of prayer and were merely adopted by the Christians. At first meant for private prayer, they became in time the hours of public prayer, especially when the Church was enriched with ascetics, virgins, and monks, by their vocation consecrated to prayer. From that time, i.e. from the end of the third century, the monastic idea exercised a preponderant influence on the arrangement and formation of the canonical Office. It is possible to give a fairly exact account of the establishment of these Offices in the second half of th fourth century by means of a document of surpassing importance for the history we are now considering: the "Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta", written about A. D. 388, by Etheria, a Spanish abbess. This narrative is specifically a description of the Liturgy followed in the Church of Jerusalem at that date.

The Offices of Prime and Compline were devised later, Prime at the end of the fourth century, while Compline is usually attributed to St. Benedict in the sixth century; but it must be acknowledged that, although he may have given it its special form for the West, there existed before his time a prayer for the close of the day corresponding to it.

COMPONENT PARTS OF THE OFFICE

Each of the hours of the Office in the Roman Liturgy is composed of the same elements: psalms (and now and then canticles), antiphons, responsories, hymns, lessons, versicles, little chapters, and collects (prayers).

A few words must be said about each of these elements from the particular point of view of the Breviary.

(a) Psalms and Canticles

Nothing need here be added to what has already been said in section II concerning the psalms, except that they are used in the Breviary sometimes in order of sequence, as in the ferial Offices of Matins and Vespers, sometimes by special selection, independently of the order of the Psalter, as in Lauds, Prime, Compline, and, in general, in the Offices of the Saints and other feasts. Another point of notice in the composition of the Roman Office is that it allows of the inclusion of a certain number of canticles, or songs, drawn from other portions of Holy Writ than the Psalter, but put on the same footing as the psalms. These are: the Canticle of Moses after the passage of the Red Sea (Exodus, xv); the Canticle of Moses before his death (Deut., xxxii); the Prayer of Anne the mother of Samuel (I Kings, ii); the Prayer of Jonas (Jon., ii); the Canticle of Habacuc (Habacuc, iii); the Canticle of Ezechias (Is., xxxviii); The Benedicite (Dan., iii, lii); lastly, the three canticles drawn from the New Testament: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Nunc dimittis.

This list of canticles coincides more or less with those used in the Greek church. St. Benedict admits these canticles into his Psalter, specifically stating that he borrows them from the Church of Rome, and thus providing a further argument for the priority of the Roman Office over the monastic.

(b) Antiphons

The antiphons which are read nowadays in the Breviary are abridged formularies which almost always serve to introduce a psalm or canticle. They consist sometimes of a verse taken from a psalm, sometimes of a sentence selected from the Gospels or Holy Scripture, e.g. "Euge, serve bone, in modico fidelis, intra in gaudium Domini tui"; occasionally they consist of phrases not culled from the Bible, but modelled on its style, i.e. they are the invention of a liturgical author, for example: "Veni, Sponsa Christi,accipe coronam, quam tibi Dominus præparavit in æternum". Originally, the meaning of the word, and the function fulfilled by the antiphon, was not what it is now. Although it is difficult to determine precisely the origin and purport of the term, it seems that it is derived from antiphona (antiphone) or from the adjective antiphonos, and that it signified a chant by alternate choirs. The singers or the faithful were divided into two choirs; the first choir intoned the first verse of a psalm, the second continued with the second verse, the first followed with the third verse, and so on to the end of the psalm. The antiphoned chant is thus recitation by two choirs alternately. This term has given rise to technical discussions which cannot here be entered into.

(c) Responsory

Responsory, whose composition is almost the same as that of the antiphon -- verse of a psalm, sentence out of Holy Scripture or of ecclesiastical authorship -- nevertheless differs from it entirely as to the nature of its use in recitation or chant. The precentor sang or recited a psalm; the choir or the faithful replied, or repeated either one of the verses or simply the last words of the precentor. This form, like the antiphon, had already been in use amongst the Jews, and appears even in the construction of certain psalms, as in cxxxv, "Laudate Dominum quoniam bonus", where the refrain, "Quoniam in æternum misericordia ejus", which recurs in each verse, certainly corresponds to a responsory.

(d) Hymns

The term hymn has a less definite meaning than those of antiphon or responsory, and in the primitive liturgies its use is somewhat uncertain. In the Roman Breviary, at each hour either of the day or of the night there is a little poem in verses of different measures, usually very short. This is the hymn. These compositions were originally very numerous. Traces of hymns may be discerned in the New Testament, e.g., in St. Paul's Epistles. In the fourth and fifth centuries hymnology received a great impetus. Prudentius, Synesius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Hilary, and St. Ambrose composed a great many. But it was above all in the Middle Ages that this style of composition most developed, and collections of them were made, filling several volumes. The Roman Breviary contains but a moderate number of hymns, forming a real anthology. Some of them are masterpieces of art. It was at a comparatively late date (about the twelfth century) that the Roman Liturgy admitted hymns into its Breviary. In its primitive austerity it had hitherto rejected them, without, however, condemning their employment in other liturgies.

(e) Lessons

By this term is meant the choice of readings or of extracts in the Breviary, taken either from Holy Writ or from the Acts of the Saints, or from the Fathers of the Church. Their use is in accordance with the ancient Jewish custom, which, in the services of the Synagogues, enjoined that after the chanting of psalms, the Law and the Prophets should be read. The primitive Church partly adopted this service of the Synagogue, and thus brought into being the service of the night watches. But the course of readings was altered; after a lesson from the Old Testament, the Epistles of the Apostles or their Acts or the Gospels were read. Some Churches somewhat extended this usage; for it is certain that the letters of St. Clement of Rome, of St. Ignatius, and of Barnabas, and the "Pastor" of Hermas were read. Some Churches, indeed, less well instructed, allowed books not wholly orthodox, like the Gospel of Peter, to be read. In time lists were made out to fix what books might be read. Muratori's "Canon" and, still better, the "Decrees of Gelasius" may be studied from this point of view with profit. Later on men were not content to confine themselves to the reading of the holy books; certain Churches wished to read the Acts of the Martyrs. The Church of Africa, which possessed Acts of great value, signalized itself in this respect. Others followed its example. When the Divine Office was more developed, probably under monastic influence, it became customary to read, after Holy Writ, the commentaries of the Fathers and of other ecclesiastical writers on the passage of the Bible just previously heard. This innovation, which probably began in the sixth, or even in the fifth, century, brought into the Divine Office the works of St. Augustine, St. Hilary, St. Athanasius, Origen, and others. To these, later, were added those of St. Isidore, St. Gregory the Great, the Venerable Bede, and so on. This new development of the Office gave rise to the compilation of special books. In primitive times the Book of Psalms and the books of the Old Testament sufficed for the Office. Later, books were compiled giving extracts from the Old and New Testaments (Lectionary, Gospel, and Epistle Books) for each day and each feast. Then followed books of homilies (Homiliaries) -- collections of sermons or of commentaries of the Fathers for use in the Office. All these books should be studied, for they form the constituent elements which later combined into the Breviary.

Further, as regards these lessons, it is well to notice that, as in the case of the psalmody, two lines of selection were followed. The first, that of the order of ferial Offices, ensures the reading of the Scripture, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, in sequence; the second, that of the order for feasts of the saints and festivals, breaks in upon this orderly series of readings and substitutes for them a chapter or a portion of a chapter specially applicable to the feast which is being celebrated.

The following is the table of lessons from the Bible. In its essential features, it goes back to a very venerable antiquity:

* Advent -- Isaias, and St. Paul's Epistles.
* Christmas, Epiphany -- St. Paul, following this very ancient order: Epp. To Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews.
* Septuagesima and Lent -- Genesis and the other books of the Pentateuch.
* Passiontide -- Jeremias.
* Easter and Paschal Time -- Acts of the App., Apocalypse, Epp. Of St. James, St. Peter, St. John.
* Time after Pentecost -- Books of Kings.
* Month of August -- Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus.
* Month of September -- Job, Tobias, Judith, Esther.
* Month of October -- Machabees.
* Month of November -- Ezechiel, Daniel, the twelve minor Prophets.

(f) Versicles and Little Chapters

The Capitulum, or Little Chapter, is really a very short lesson which takes the place of lessons in those hours which have to special ones assigned to them. These are: Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. By reason of their brevity and of their unimportance, they are much less complicated than the longer ones, and no more need here be said about them. The Versicles belong to the psalmody, like responsories and antiphons; usually they are taken from a psalm, and belong to the category of liturgical acclamations or shouts of joy. They are usually employed after lessons and little chapters, and often take the place of responsories; they are, in fact, brief responsories. The ferial Preces and the Litanies probably belong to the category of versicles.

(g) Collects

Collects, also called prayers, are not psalmodic prayers; they are of a completely different character. Their place in the Breviary changes little; they come towards the end of the Office, after the psalmody, the lessons, little chapters, and versicles, but preceded by the Dominus vobiscum, and they gather up in a compendious form the supplications of the faithful. Their historical origin is as follows: During the earliest period, the president of the assembly, usually the bishop, was entrusted with the task of pronouncing, after the psalmody, chants, and litanies, a prayer in the name of all the faithful; he therefore addressed himself directly to God. At first this prayer was an improvisation. The oldest examples are to be found in the Didache ton Apostolon and in the Epistle of St. Clement of Rome, and in certain Epistles of St. Cyprian. In time, towards the fourth century, collections of prayers were made for those who were not adepts in the art of improvisation; these were the earliest forerunners of Sacramentaries and Orationals, which later occupied so important a place in the history of the Liturgy. The Leonine, Gelasian, and Gregorian Sacramentaries form the chief sources whence are drawn the collects of our Breviary. It may be observed that they are of great theological importance, and usually sum up the main idea dominating a feast; hence, in them the significance of a festival is to be sought.
 
emap said:
That's actually why I think of nuns as lesbians, if you first start thinking of sex and all you can see around is another woman, of course most are going to sleep with each other, a finger doesn't really satisfy for long. ;)

there were always a few men around, even if only a priest to hear confessions.
 
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