COMPIETA. — The final hour of the Divine Office.
I. NAME
It derives from the Latin completa, completorium (also used as a plural adjective: completorii, with psalmi understood), and this is the name given to the final canonical hour, with which the Divine Office ends and the liturgical day is brought to a close. The expression ad complendum is already found in antiquity to designate the postcommunio, which concludes Mass. The complete form is first found in the Regula of St. Aurelianus (d. 533): «Quando repusaturi estis, in scola ubi manetis, completa dicatur». Completorium is found in St. Benedict (Regula, chs. 16, 17, 18), who also uses the verb comple in the same sense (ch. 13): «omnes ergo in unum positi compleant, et exeuntes a completorio».II. ORIGIN
Until the early years of the twentieth century, it was commonly held that St. Benedict had conceived and instituted II. B. Plaine and J. Pargoire have demonstrated that here too St. Benedict was an organizer, not a creator. C. originated in the East. In the Regulae fusus tractatae, q. 37, 5 (PL 31, 1016), written between 358 and 362, St. Basil says: «Nocte incipiente, petendum est, ut inoffensa et a visis libera requie fruamur; qua hora etiam nonagesimus psalmus necessario dicatur». This is the oldest text that clearly speaks of the existence of C. Fifty years later, St. John Chrysostom (d. 407), in In epist. I ad Tim. hom., 14, 4 (PG 67, 577), speaking of the monks of Antioch, says: «Postquam paululum seerunt, hymnisque totum concluserunt, singuli quiescunt in stratis», where hymni, in its philological and historical context, most probably indicates C. Still more probative is the testimony of Callinicus (ca. 477–50) in the Vita S. Hypatii (Acta SS. Iunii, III, Paris 1867, p. 325), which speaks of a canonical hour (πρωθέντα) between Vespers and the Night Office. It cannot have been a private prayer, since it is mentioned together with the other parts of the Office, without any distinction. There is no doubt that it was C.These texts clearly indicate that in the East, between the fourth and fifth centuries, the monasteries had a prayer that included Psalm 90 Qui habitat, recited «nocte incipiente», between Vespers and the «vigiliae», and belonging to the series of the canonical hours.
In the West, the first certain testimony is found in the Regula secunda (fifth century), in which, after the Lucer-narium (Vespers), it is prescribed: «consuetudinarii psalmi ante somnum dicantur» (cf. C. Lambot, Un «Ordo officii» du Ve siècle, in Rev. bénéd., 42 [1930], pp. 77–80). Thus, before St. Benedict, C. already had its place and its fixed psalmodic structure, but not yet a proper name. The Regula of St. Aurelian mentions it as a customary practice in the monasteries of southern Gaul in the middle of the sixth century and with a special curius: «inprimis directaneus psalmus nonagesimus; deinde capitella consuetudinaria».
By this time C. must officially have entered Rome as well. St. Benedict speaks of it as a known institution. Moreover, Psalms 4, 90, and 133 were not included in the primitive Roman arrangement either at Matins or at Vespers, very probably because C. had been organized together with the other canonical hours before the fifth century. In Rome, however, the first explicit mention is found in the Ordo of Giovanni “Archicantor” of St. Peter (ed. C. S. Silva-Tarouca, in Mem. della Pont. accad. rom. di Archeologia, 1 [1923], p. 212): «Pulsato signo, canuntur completurio (= completoria), ubi dormiunt in dormitorio, et extremo verso dicuntur antequam dormiant, hoc est. Pone Domine custodiam ori meo, et tunc vadunt cum silentio pausare in lectula sua». In the Roman monasteries responsible for the liturgical service of the basilicas, at the end of the seventh century C. still had the character of a private prayer. But the ecclesiastical canons enacted at the Council of Aachen in 816 included C. among the obligatory canonical hours as well (Council of Aachen, can. 128).
III. STRUCTURE
C. consists, like Prime, of two parts: an introductory preamble, which we might call the Officium capituli, and the psalmody with its appendices, which constitute the Officium chori.1. Officium capituli. — It consists essentially of a brief reading and the confession of faults. St Benedict (Regula, chap. 42) prescribes that, after Vespers and supper, the monks gather together and listen to a reading from a good book, preferably the lives of the Holy Fathers, for the space of four or five leaves or “quantum hora permittit.” Then the psalmi completorii are recited and, having received the abbot’s blessing, all retire to rest. As for those who are absent, the Regula prescribes that they recite the lectio of St Peter: “Fratres, sobrii estote.” This pericope entered the Office of the secular clergy and has remained fixed to the present day. As usual, the reading began with the blessing requested from the abbot (Noctem quietam) and ended with the Tu autem. The collatio concluded with the invocation: Adiutorium nostrum. Many monasteries added to the lectio an examination of conscience (which lasted for the space of a Pater), followed by an accusation of the day’s faults, which the monks, kneeling, made to one another with the recitation of the Confiteor: “Laxant mutuo debita,” says the Regula of St Fructuosus (ca. 670), chap. 2 (PL 87, 1099). Once the accusation was finished, the presiding officer expressed the common repentance with the versicle: Converte nos, to which all responded Et averte, and the psalms were recited.
Among the Franciscans, the first part of the Officium capituli (the reading and accompanying formulas) took place in the refectory during supper. From the refectory, reciting the Miserere, the friars went to the church, where the recitation of the psalms of C. took place, beginning with the Adiutorium nostrum (cf. A. Le Carou, L'Office divin chez les frères Mineurs au XIIIe siècle, Paris 1928, pp. 23–24).
2. Officium chori. — Amalarius (ca. 830: De eccl. off., IV, 8) is the most authoritative witness to the primitive Roman scheme of C. The Deus in adiutorium was followed by four psalms: 4, 30 (the first strophe), 90, and 133, which were invariable for every day and had been chosen for C. because of their meaning of divine protection during the nighttime hour.
This arrangement lasted until Pius X, who reduced the psalms to three by suppressing Psalm 30 and reserving this scheme for the Sunday and feast-day Office, while providing the other days of the week with their own current psalmody. In the arrangement of the Psalter, this was one of the most daring reforms, departing from a practice of sixteen centuries. The psalms were followed by the versicle Custodi nos, Domine, the canticle of Simeon Nunc dimittis, the prayers (St Benedict calls them Kyrie eleison, but in their present form they are late, perhaps dating from the fourteenth century), and the blessing of the abbot or of the presiding officer. Et benedictiones missae sunt (Regula, chap. 17). Indeed, the true blessing is the present prayer Visita... habitationem istam (a clear reference to the place where the Hour was recited, namely the monks’ dwelling, not the church), et benedictio tua sit super nos semper. The blessing that follows today, Benedict et custodiat, is merely a duplicate of the preceding one. Finally, the abbot sprinkled everyone with holy water.
Later, three further elements were added to this original scheme: the hymn Te lucis, the chapter Tu autem (first attested by Durandus, who died in 1296), and the responsory In manus tuas, which, as a mandatory introduction, is later still than the chapter.
The versicle Pone, Domine, custodiam ori meo, mentioned by Amalarius in the text cited above and which concluded the Hour of C., was called “versus clusor,” because it closed the mouths of the monks in the strictest silence, until the “versus aperitionis,” namely Domine labia mea aperies, with which Matins began on the following night (cf. Regula Magistri, chaps. 30 and 37: PL 88, 990 and 1005).
In the thirteenth century, the practice arose of singing the Salve Regina after C. before an image of the Madonna; it was subsequently attached to C. and prescribed by Pius V, together with the Madonna’s other three major antiphons, to be recited according to the different seasons of the liturgical year.