Isaiah the Post-Tribber

I have sent my velveteen Breviary away for rebind. I never snapped pictures of it because it was that bad but now I kind of wish I had. Regardless, while it is away the Liturgy of the Hours is taking its place. I had forgotten how difficult the Anglican Breviary was...

This morning during the Office of Readings I was struck by something during the scripture reading. Let's take a look:

Isaiah 26:15-21

15 You have been favourable to the nation, O Lord, you have been favourable to the nation: are you glorified? You have removed all the ends of the earth far off. 16 Lord, they have sought after you in distress, in the tribulation of murmuring your instruction was with them. 17 As a woman with child, when she draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and cries out in her pangs: so are we become in your presence, O Lord. 18 We have conceived, and been as it were in labour, and have brought forth wind: we have not wrought salvation on the earth, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have not fallen. 19 Your dead men shall live, my slain shall rise again: awake, and give praise, you that dwell in the dust: for your dew is the dew of the light: and the land of the giants you shall pull down into ruin. 20 Go, my people, enter into your chambers, shut your doors upon you, hide yourself a little for a moment, until the indignation pass away. 21 For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more.

In this season of Advent we consider the first coming of Christ alongside his second and clearly here in Isaiah we have the Catholic view of the end times.

Look at verse 17 above. Compare it to this: (highlighting from Drbo.org, its a pain to remove it)

1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: 2 And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered.

After this, the dragon appears to try and hurt the woman's son. Isaiah tells his readers to go inside their houses and hide during a tribulation. In the NRSV "indignation" is instead rendered "wrath".

Then the Lord returns. After everything else. At the end. This is the Catholic view of the endtimes. Jesus will return once, not two or three or five times. Once. This is also the order (without mention of tribulation) from the verse which is the basis of the relatively new rapture theory.

1 Thess 4:12f

12 And we will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. 13 For if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again; even so them who have slept through Jesus, will God bring with him. 14 For this we say unto you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them who have slept. 15 For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven with commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead who are in Christ, shall rise first.

16 Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air, and so shall we be always with the Lord. 17 Wherefore, comfort ye one another with these words.

The dead rise first. Just like in Isaiah. So, Paul knew what he was talking about. Of course, I don't mean to go into the end times here at length. This was just something that caught me attention.

Review: Monastic Matins - Lancelot Andrewes Press

A picture of the Matins book.
Nice gold printing on the awesome Vivella cover.

I received a couple weeks ago my copy of Lancelot Andrewes Press edition of the Monastic Matins. This is essentially a photocopy/reprint of the 1925 Oxford Press edition with updates for the interim 1956 rubrics.

Here are a few more details:

• The Psalter is the well known (Anglican) Coverdale version.
• The rest of the scripture inside is King James aka Authorized Version.
• The Collects are the English renditions from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, though they correspond almost exactly to their "traditional" Catholic English renderings from my Baronius 1962 Missal and my explicitly Catholic Monastic Diurnal.
• Being particularly Anglican, it includes and gives precedence to English Saints on the calendar. There are supplementals in the back for "Western Rite" feast days. These are for the Catholic and Western Rite Orthodox users of the book.
  
• That means it does have the Assumption and other things with the Catholic Propers included...

I feel completely comfortable using this even though it is from a Western Rite Orthodox publisher. Praying the Monastic Breviary I have found is a very ecumenical affair. The online groups I belong to for this include Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans. All three denominations feel comfortable using the Diurnal/Matins from either St. Michael's Abbey (the one I use) or Lancelot Andrewes, which also has a corresponding Diurnal (sans Latin). It is all very much centered around the Benedictine Monastic Office. I find it kind of nice we can all rally around something.

Just to make the point clear, consider the publication of the Matins book:

1. From a Catholic Breviary.
2. Translated for use by Anglicans.
3. Published by a Western Rite Orthodox publisher.
4. Used lovingly by people of all three groups.

It is a nice thought anyway. Let's get back to the review. The paper is pretty nice ("Bible Paper"), though some of the print didn't come over very well. (Smudges, stuff like that. Very few, hardly noticeable. Trust me you won't mind.) The rubrics, ironically, are black and not red. Keeps costs down I assume. There are no ribbons but I learned from an Orthodox priest how to make my own, which turned out to be more fun than simply just having them.

The blurriness in the photo is a camera effect not a printing problem. 99% of the text is absolutely perfect, as you can see.

The real gem of this edition however is the cover. The cover is fantastic. Who the heck needs leather when you have Vivella? I once wrote that every book worth having was worth buying in leather. I need to modify that a little I think.

Any book worth having is worth buying in leather but buy it in Vivella if you can. Something like that. You get my point. Oh, btw, the price is right too. $45 ain't bad. Finally, if you have the Monastic Diurnal from St. Michael's, don't worry because this one supplements it just fine. At least it seems to in my humble estimation.