Maitines
Maitines es una hora canónica en la liturgia cristiana, originalmente cantada durante la oscuridad de la madrugada. Es la hora más temprana del amanecer que servía de rezo en la Iglesia católica y en la Iglesia ortodoxa para la liturgia de las horas canónicas.
Antiguamente dentro del contexto de la vida monástica o canonical se cantaban los maitines (también llamados «vigilia») bien un par de horas después de la medianoche o bien en las primeras horas del día antes del amanecer, punto al cual se celebraba la hora canónica de laudes (práctica que todavía se sigue en algunas órdenes). Se dividía en dos o (los domingos) tres nocturnales. Fuera de los monasterios, se recitaba generalmente a otras horas del día, a menudo junto con los laudes.
El término también se ha usado en algunas denominaciones de Protestantismo para describir los servicios matutinos.
Tras el Concilio Vaticano Segundo los maitines de la Iglesia católica han sido mermados en intervalo de tiempo, y ahora se denomina oficialmente Oficio de Lectura.
En el rito bizantino, estas vigilias corresponden al conjunto formado por el oficio de medianoche, el orthros y la primera hora (prima).
Los luteranos conservan unos maitines tradicionalmente diferenciados de la oración de la mañana, pero el término «maitines» se utiliza a veces en otras denominaciones protestantes para describir cualquier servicio matutino. En el oficio diario anglicano, la hora de maitines es una simplificación de los maitines y laudes del Uso o Rito de Sarum.
En el cristianismo ortodoxo oriental y en el cristianismo protestante oriental, el oficio se reza a las 6 de la mañana, siendo conocido como Sapro en las tradiciones siríaca e india; se reza en dirección este por todos los miembros en estas denominaciones, tanto clérigos como laicos, siendo uno de los siete tiempos de oración fijos.[1][2][3]
Historia
editarDesde los tiempos de la Iglesia primitiva, se ha enseñado la práctica de siete tiempos fijos de oración; en la Tradición Apostólica, Hipólito instruía a los cristianos a rezar siete veces al día «al levantarse, al encender la lámpara de la tarde, al acostarse, a medianoche» y a «las horas tercera, sexta y novena del día, siendo horas asociadas con la Pasión de Cristo».[4][5][6][7] Con respecto a la oración en la madrugada, Hipólito escribió: «Asimismo, a la hora del canto del gallo, levántate y ora. Porque a esta hora, con el canto del gallo, los hijos de Israel rechazaron a Cristo, a quien conocemos por la fe, esperando cada día la luz eterna en la resurrección de los muertos».[8]
Referencias
editar- ↑ Kurian, Jake. «"Seven Times a Day I Praise You" – The Shehimo Prayers». Diocese of South-West America of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. Consultado el 2 de agosto de 2020.
- ↑ Shehimo: Book of Common Prayer (en inglés). Diocese of South-West America of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. 2016. p. 5. «The seven hours of prayer create a cycle that provides us with a foretaste of the eternal life we will spend in the presence of God worshipping Him. ... We pray standing upright while facing East as we collect our thoughts on God.»
- ↑ Richards, William Joseph (1908). The Indian Christians of St. Thomas: Otherwise Called the Syrian Christians of Malabar: a Sketch of Their History and an Account of Their Present Condition as Well as a Discussion of the Legend of St. Thomas (en inglés). Bemrose. p. 98. «We are commanded to pray standing, with faces towards the East, for at the last Messiah is manifested in the East. 2. All Christians, on rising from sleep early in the morning, should wash the face and pray. 3. We are commanded to pray seven times, thus...»
- ↑ Danielou, Jean (2016). Origen (en inglés). Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-4982-9023-4. «Peterson quotes a passage from the Acts of Hipparchus and Philotheus: "In Hipparchus's house there was a specially decorated room and a cross was painted on the east wall of it. There before the image of the cross, they used to pray seven times a day ... with their faces turned to the east." It is easy to see the importance of this passage when you compare it with what Origen says. The custom of turning towards the rising sun when praying had been replaced by the habit of turning towards the east wall. This we find in Origen. From the other passage we see that a cross had been painted on the wall to show which was the east. Hence the origin of the practice of hanging crucifixes on the walls of the private rooms in Christian houses. We know too that signs were put up in the Jewish synagogues to show the direction of Jerusalem, because the Jews turned that way when they said their prayers. The question of the proper way to face for prayer has always been of great importance in the East. It is worth remembering that Mohammedans pray with their faces turned towards Mecca and that one reason for the condemnation of Al Hallaj, the Mohammedan martyr, was that he refused to conform to this practice.»
- ↑ Henry Chadwick (1993). The Early Church (en inglés). Penguin. ISBN 978-1-101-16042-8. «Hippolytus in the Apostolic Tradition directed that Christians should pray seven times a day - on rising, at the lighting of the evening lamp, at bedtime, at midnight, and also, if at home, at the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, being hours associated with Christ's Passion. Prayers at the third, sixth, and ninth hours are similarly mentioned by Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and must have been very widely practised. These prayers were commonly associated with private Bible reading in the family.»
- ↑ Weitzman, M. P. (7 de julio de 2005). The Syriac Version of the Old Testament (en inglés). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-01746-6. «Clement of Alexandria noted that "some fix hours for prayer, such as the third, sixth and ninth" (Stromata 7:7). Tertullian commends these hours, because of their importance (see below) in the New Testament and because their number recalls the Trinity (De Oratione 25). These hours indeed appear as designated for prayer from the earliest days of the church. Peter prayed at the sixth hour, i.e. at noon (Acts 10:9). The ninth hour is called the "hour of prayer" (Acts 3:1). This was the hour when Cornelius prayed even as a "God-fearer" attached to the Jewish community, i.e. before his conversion to Christianity. it was also the hour of Jesus' final prayer (Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34, Luke 22:44-46).»
- ↑ Lössl, Josef (17 de febrero de 2010). The Early Church: History and Memory (en inglés). A&C Black. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-567-16561-9. «Not only the content of early Christian prayer was rooted in Jewish tradition; its daily structure too initially followed a Jewish pattern, with prayer times in the early morning, at noon and in the evening. Later (in the course of the second century), this pattern combined with another one; namely prayer times in the evening, at midnight and in the morning. As a result seven 'hours of prayer' emerged, which later became the monastic 'hours' and are still treated as 'standard' prayer times in many churches today. They are roughly equivalent to midnight, 6 a.m., 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Prayer positions included prostration, kneeling and standing. ... Crosses made of wood or stone, or painted on walls or laid out as mosaics, were also in use, at first not directly as objections of veneration but in order to 'orientate' the direction of prayer (i.e. towards the east, Latin oriens).»
- ↑ Hippolytus. «Apostolic Tradition» (en inglés). St. John's Episcopal Church. p. 16. Consultado el 5 de septiembre de 2020.
