thumb|340px|Office of the Dead, 15th century, [[Black Hours, Morgan MS 493]]

The Office of the Dead or Office for the Dead (in Latin, Officium Defunctorum) is a prayer cycle of the Canonical Hours in the Catholic Church, Anglican Church and Lutheran Church, said for the repose of the soul of a decedent.

History

thumb|upright=1.0|Office of the Dead from the [[Hours of Étienne Chevalier, Jean Fouquet, c. 1452–1460]]

The Office of the Dead has been attributed at times to Isidore, to Augustine, to Ambrose, and even to Origen. The Catholic Encyclopedia dismisses these attributions as unfounded, arguing that it cannot be older than the 7th or even 8th century. Its authorship is discussed at length in the dissertation of Horatius de Turre. Pierre Batiffol attributes it to Amalarius of Metz, who does refer to the "Agenda Mortuorum" contained in a sacramentary, but without claiming authorship. Bäumer-Biron, on the other hand, attributes it to Alcuin. who is known to have written various liturgical texts; but Fernand Cabrol argues that there is no reason for considering him the author of this particular office.

The Gregorian Antiphonary contains a mass and an office in agenda mortuorum, but it is admitted that this part is an addition; a fortiori this applies to the Gelasian. The Maurist editors of St. Gregory are inclined to attribute their composition to Albinus and Etienne of Liège (Microl., lx). But if it is impossible to trace the office and the mass in their actual form beyond the 9th or 8th century, it is notwithstanding certain that the prayers and a service for the dead existed long before that time. They appear in the 5th, 4th, and even in the 3rd and 2nd century. Pseudo-Dionysius, Sts. Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, and Augustine, Tertullian, and the inscriptions in the catacombs afford a proof of this (see Burial, III, 76; PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD; Cabrol, "La prière pour les morts" in "Rev. d'apologétique", 15 September 1909, pp. 881–93).

Practice and obligation

The Office of the Dead was composed originally to satisfy private devotion to the dead, and at first had no official character. Even in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, it was recited chiefly by the religious orders (the Cluniacs, Cistercians, Carthusians), like the Little Office of Our Lady (see Guyet, loc. cit., 465). Later it was prescribed for all clerics and became obligatory whenever a ferial office was celebrated. It has even been said that it was to remove the obligation of reciting it that the feasts of double and semi-double rite were multiplied, for it could be omitted on such days (Bäumer-Biron, op. cit., II, 198). The reformed Breviary of St. Pius V assigned the recitation of the Office of the Dead to the first free day in the month, the Mondays of Advent and Lent, to some vigils, and ember days. Even then it was not obligatory, for the bull "Quod a nobis" of the same pope merely recommends it earnestly, like the Office of Our Lady and the Penitential Psalms, without imposing it as a duty (Van der Stappen, "Sacra Liturgia", I, Malines, 1898, p. 115). At the present time, it is obligatory on the clergy only on the feast of All Souls and in certain mortuary services. Some religious orders (Carthusians, Cistercians etc.) have preserved the custom of reciting it in choir on the days assigned by the Bull "Quod a nobis".

Indulgence

In the ancient rite of the Roman Catholic Church, with bull Supremi omnipotentis Dei of 11 March 1572, Pope Pius V granted the indulgence of 50 days for those who recite the penitential psalms.

The 2004 Enchiridion Indulgentiarum grants the partial indulgence for the Office of the Dead.

See also

  • Purgatory

References

  • A complete office of the dead from Google Books
  • Hypertext Book of Hours - Contains the Western Office of the Dead.