Office of Readings

Matins is the monastic nighttime liturgy, ending at dawn, of the canonical hours. In the Roman Catholic pre-Vatican-II breviary, it is divided into three nocturns. The name "matins" originally referred to the morning office also known as lauds. When the nocturnal monastic services called vigils or nocturns were joined with lauds, the name of "matins" was applied at first to the concluding morning service and later still to the entire series of vigils.

In the Byzantine Rite these vigils correspond to the aggregate comprising the midnight office, orthros, and the first hour.

In the Anglican tradition, matins or mattins is the morning prayer, consolidating the hours of matins, lauds and prime. Lutherans preserve recognizably traditional matins distinct from morning prayer, but "matins" is sometimes used in other Protestant denominations to describe any morning service.

The word "matins" is derived from Latin matutinum or matutinae, meaning "of or belonging to the morning". It was at first applied to the office of Lauds, celebrated at dawn, but later became attached to the prayer originally offered, according to the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, at cock-crow.

The night office retained for some time its name of vigils, since, as a rule, vigils and matins (lauds) were combined, the latter serving, to a certain extent, as the closing part of vigils. The name matins was then extended to the office of vigils, and the original Matins took the name of lauds, a term which, strictly speaking, only designated the last three psalms of that office, i.e., the "Laudate" psalms. At the time when this change of name took place, the custom of saying vigils at night was observed scarcely anywhere but in monasteries, whilst elsewhere they were said in the morning, so that finally it did not seem a misapplication to give to a night Office a name which, strictly speaking, applied only to the office of day-break. The change, however, was only gradual. St. Benedict (6th century) in his description of the liturgy of the hours, always refers to vigils as the night office, whilst that of day-break he calls matins, lauds being the last three psalms of that office, those excised in the reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X (Regula, cap. XIII-XIV; see Lauds). The Council of Tours in 567 had already applied the title "matins" to the night office: ad Matutinum sex antiphonae. Laudes Matutinae; Matutini hymni are also found in various ancient authors as synonymous with Lauds.

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