Needing to economize...

I've jettisoned one or two recurring monthly debits; one of them paid for the site where until now I've recorded the Martyrology. This will do instead. 

A daily task is maintaining an 'expanded Martyrology' i.e. the Martyrology from the Traditional Office (I use Divinum Officium's Divino afflatu Prime for this because... chance or habit; there's no reason that I know of why I shouldn't use their 1960 Prime) and then the Latin of the so-called 'reform' of 200- (it's either 2004 or 2008 but I can't recall at the moment), with its Spanish (found in a pdf somewhere and downloaded here) and French (I visit the Societas Laudis page each morning) versions. It is occasionally interesting to see how the editors in the vernacular languages have expanded or embellished the typica latina. The Latin suffers inter alia from not including the saints' dates, natal or otherwise (which have to be taken from the Spanish and French). The result is that I end up with a 'more complete' Martyrology to read a year from now.  




Often enough, I use the Internet to discover a date for the saints in the Traditional Martyrology (e.g. '253 tr'). The 'experts in the historical sciences' who prepared the post-conciliar revision will often have to resort to approximations (e.g. 's XI'). Each day's catalogue of saints lists them chronologically, beginning from the earliest; I insert the MR (the Martryologium Romanum 200-) saints into the TM list at the appropriate point. An exception to this custom is that a saint whose feast is celebrated in the Kalendarium Romanum is moved to the first place (e.g. yesterday, Saint Alphonsus, who died in 1738, was noted first in the reading of the Martyrology, before half a dozen earlier saints). The number of saints noted each day varies from half a dozen to twenty or more.

When the brief vitae presented in the TM are substantially unaltered in the MR, all I will do, typically, is add the date given in the MR while leaving the original text unchanged. Sometimes, the MR will  provide additional details that do honor to the saint and if I can interpolate these into the TM texts I will do that (it is not as if the TM is a locus theologicus of dogmatic significance and in any case the original TM text is readily available). Often, the TM will specify that so and so did such and such which, pointedly, the MR doesn't reprise in its version: I leave the TM unaltered in such cases as I do also when it is a matter of a date proposed there e.g. so and so won the crown of glory sub Francisco tyranno (but I will add the MR date). These sorts of differences don't much bother me when I pray the Hour of Prime. 

I'm sure this reads as if it is very messy but it really isn't. The Martyrology at Prime is always for the next day. This will sometimes confuse me and as I type, '4 Augusti' I whisper to myself for tomorrow which is 'Nonis Augusti'. Tomorrow begins, 

4 Augusti Nonis Augusti 

Romæ, in Exquíliis, Dedicátio Basílicæ sanctæ Maríæ ad Nives.

Cataláuni, in Gállia, sancti Mémmii, civis Románi, qui, a sancto Petro Apóstolo consecrátus illíus civitátis Epíscopus, pópulum sibi commíssum ad Evangélii veritátem perdúxit....

The Spanish version then follows and the French (the entries are conveniently numbered, facilitating hunting for the dates). I put the 'expanded Martyrology' into a larger font so that it will be clear what to read when the 4th returns next year. 

We shall see how this goes forward here.


LDVM 



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