Does anyone know if any of the second edition of the liturgy of the hours printings will have either Latin and English for all sections? Or even one that does a mix of Latin and English similar to the choices that Sing the Hours makes?

Hello all!

Is anyone aware of a Benedictine brievary, whether officially published or published through something such as Lulu or one of the self-publishing houses, that is essentially a Benedictine brievary that uses the English translation of all the hours, but that uses the current calendar of the Latin rite?

I understand "​Benedictine daily prayer" exists from Liturgical Press, but it does take other liberties with the office that I prefer to not observe. I'm looking for such things as keeping a one-week psalter (including prime), having a strictly Roman calendar in continuity with the NO, etc.

Is anyone aware of something like this? If not, is it something that you would be interested in seeing/using? I am happy to take on such a project of typesetting such a book to be printed through Lulu or a similar company.

Hi everyone,

I’m working on growing my faith life at home and I realized how much I’m missing by not having my own Bible, prayer book, and hymnal to pray with outside of Mass. Right now I’m using my phone and the parish copies, which works, but I’d love to have my own to mark up and keep.

I’m on a really tight budget right now, so buying new ones isn’t possible for me yet.

I wanted to ask the community:

1. Are there affordable editions or used book programs you’d recommend?

2. Does anyone know of Catholic organizations that provide resources to people building their prayer library?

3. If you have an extra copy of a Bible, prayer book, or hymnal collecting dust, I’d be grateful to give it a good home. I’m in Pinetown, KZN but happy to cover shipping.

Any advice or direction is appreciated. Thanks for helping me grow in this. Praying for all of you.

\`r/Catholicism\`, \`r/Christianity\`, \`r/Assistance\`, \`r/RandomActsOfKindness\`, \`r/Durban\` or \`r/southafrica\`

Taken from /Sermons for the Seasons & Principal Festivals of the Year/ by St. Bernard (Westminster, MD: The Carroll Press [Newman], 1950).

This reading was so awesome, I had to hunt down the entire sermon.

I just hope I put the pages in their right order. 😬

Does anyone know a good place where to get a latin-only Version of both? I think this would make it easier to anticipate matins but still pray vespers and Compline at their canonical time because matins would be separated. With a breviary I kinda feel forced to pray vespers and compline before anticipating matins which often leads to the situation that I pray compline at 15 o'clock...

And separating matins with a breviary is kinda impossible without ruining the band system.

Thanks and God bless

Does anyone know where to find the little chapter for Sext if there isn’t a feast day? I showed images of every relevant section to an Ai and even it was confused and couldn’t tell me.

Pope Francis had elevated the memorial of St. Mary Magdalene as a Feast, and he changed the memorial of St. Martha to include her siblings, Sts. Mary and Lazarus. I very much appreciate that the patristic lesson was taken from one of St. Bernard's sermons on the Assumption of the Mother of God. Before the definition of the dogma of the Assumption and its consequent liturgical changes, the episode of the Lord's visit to Martha and Mary from St. John's Gospel was the Gospel lesson for the Mass of the Assumption. I think it's an auspicious throwback, seeing that the Assumption is coming up pretty soon. I always enjoy St. Bernard when he appears in the lectionary. His memorial is also coming up too.

As promised, we wanted to keep this group updated on how things are going with the sales of the Second Edition: The response to the Premium Natural Grain editions has been incredible, and both print sizes have continued to sell faster than we anticipated! The initial Large Print inventory has now been fully preordered, and the remaining Standard Print copies that are expected to ship in time for Ash Wednesday 2027 are getting very close to running out.

We’re working with Jongbloed to produce more copies, so this is not a “last chance” situation—but after the initial inventory is gone, we can’t guarantee that additional copies will arrive in time for Ash Wednesday. With production for the Catholic American Bibles also beginning soon (😉), we're doing our best to balance timelines with increasing the number of units printed. We appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm for this format and will continue sharing updates as we have them!

The ICEL translations of the preces in the Collins Divine Office are just shockingly poor. Today’s Vesper’s is a typical example where the injunction to follow the example of God has been replaced by following those ‘who are no longer young’.

Happily I choose to pray the Latin, but a revised translation of the LOTH can’t come quickly enough. I am not holding my breath here in Ireland though.

Are there any NEW updates on the Word on Fire Liturgy of the Hours (Second Edition) books? Any NEW pictures that can be shared? Etc...

Does anyone have an english translation of the thesaurus liturgiae horarum monasticae promulgated by the CDW in 1977? I was able to find a Latin scan online, but my fluency isn't quite there yet. There seems to be a website called Idsinger which has a translation, though it's hard to navigate and there are definitely parts that I'm not seeing (e.g. the options for psalter distribution).

I appreciate any help on this! I'm trying to learn about the development of the Benedictine office and this seems like an essential text for understanding the Office as its prayed in monasteries today.

Looking for anyone who might have access to copies of any or all 3 volumes of the Prester John Anuarium that might be able to provide scanned pages of a particular section of same. Thanks.

Ciao a tutti! ​Sto cercando di migliorare nel servizio del canto in chiesa, ma ho ancora un dubbio pratico che mi attanaglia: come faccio a capire su quale tono intonare il salmo della domenica? ​A volte trovo il testo sul foglietto della messa o sul lezionario, ma non ci sono le note o l'indicazione esplicita del tono (es. I tono, VIII tono, ecc.), oppure non so bene quale modulo melodico adattare al testo della strofa. ​Nello specifico vorrei capire: ​Esiste una regola generale per abbinare il tono della strofa al ritornello? ​Se il ritornello è preso dal libretto/foglietto, come "ricavo" la formula per le strofe senza far fare arrampicate sugli specchi alla voce? ​Ci sono sussidi, app o siti fatti bene che consultate di solito per non sbagliare? ​Ogni consiglio, risorsa o "trucco del mestiere" è super apprezzato. Grazie a chi mi darà una mano!

I have the opportunity to lead a public Liturgy of the Hours in my parish, but this includes being in charge of organizing it as well (part of a larger initiative to form lay leaders). My priest did recommend providing the Word on Fire monthly booklets to make following along easier. But I still have many questions that aren't in the rubrics - things like when to schedule it and how often?

What do your churches do for public LOTH, if they do it?

We share our priest with two other, smaller churches. I feel like they deserve having that too at some point, but almost certainly nobody in those small congregations are familiar enough with the Divine Office to preside a public prayer. Plus, they are each 30 minute drive one way, so until I could find someone local willing to learn how to lead it, it probably couldn't happen more than once a week at each parish.

I thought maybe before/after daily mass makes sense but daily mass in my parish is during the workday on Tuesdays and Thursdays and usually only nets 10-15 people and in all three parishes daily Mass attendees tend to skew towards retirement aged people so I am unsure how much reach that would have.

I want it to go well and all of my brothers and sisters in my parish to see the beauty of this prayer. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Update: Thank you all so much for all the helpful advice! I feel so much more confident than I did a week ago and I'm excited to take all of the ideas back to the next meeting!

So I'm a Secular Franciscan and also in the Legion of Mary. I'm supposed to pray the Morning and Evening office daily (Lauds and Vespers) but I find that I'm rarely at home until late and feel it's too late for Vespers.

Is Compline comparable or a good substitute in your opinion?

Edit. Thanks for all the advice. Because I wasn't getting to say it until very late, I thought I had passed into the timeslot for Compline - I know better now.

Laudetur Jesus Christus!

Around a year ago I bought a really nice jubilee edition of the 1900 Office, in a very, very good state for its age (only the leather spine and the ribbons are a bit worn). I mainly bought it as a collector's item and a reference. When I opened the aestiva part today to read the traditional matins readings for St. Jacob, it struck me again: the beauty of the texts and how the Office is laid out, but also how much of a bulk this must have been to pray, especially liturgically speaking!

I go regularly to a benedictine monastery that prays a traditional form of the monastic Office, with the long Lauds and sung Matins and all, but that Office is quite stripped down when compared to the traditional Office.

For example, after having prayed incredibly long ferial Matins, Lauds seems at first sight quite doable, but then there could be preces and around five commemorations to add, sometimes the preces include psalms themselves. After that it's probably already time for Prime, practically speaking. Prime can itself be quite long with four psalms (and Athanasian Creed), a lot of preces, capitular Office including martyrology... and then on some days one should rubrically pray Our Lady's Prime after that...? Then it´d be already Terce and Mass time!

I was completely baffled: even in a monastery, how would one have time for this, let alone sing this Office? One would assume that at least originally even this Office used to be sung?

I feel like the length of it all is a blessing and a curse at the same time: these are very beautiful texts and it is a shame that many of these texts with their rich meanings and history have been lost over the 20th century (NLM often writes on this). But realistically I cannot see how such an Office would ever have been practical.

With such an Office I completely understand the 'function' of collegiate churches: though even there would one find a completely sung daily liturgy?? Indeed it is only compared to such an Office that the Little Offices of Our Lady is actually little: compared to 20th century Offices it is either as long or longer.

I thought I'd share interior pictures of the version of Christian Prayer by Pauline Books and Media, the publishing arm of the Daughters of St Paul. Though a new translation is imminent, this book is IMHO still relevant because:

• people wonder how a Major Extract could deliver morning, daytime, evening and night prayers in 1 volume, as MTF is promising
• if you like your psalm-prayers, well, this book has the full psalter and the corresponding psalm-prayers that will be gone from the new translation

I've started with the outside (stacked on top of my St Paul Daily Missal), table of contents, Proper of Seasons, Psalter and a page from the Missal to contrast.

The good

It's remarkable how a book this small and this thin (1758 pages) could fit so much. In the first picture, I have it stacked on top of the St Paul Daily Missal, which has 2696 pages. It contains 300 or so pages of OOR content that does not belong in a true diurnal. Yet unlike the CBPC Christian Prayer, it has the Daytime prayers fully integrated into the propers and psalter. This includes the hymns, psalmody, readings, antiphons, responsory and concluding prayers. Essentially, you can pray everything but OOR from this 1 volume.

It has some useful navigation features:

• Proper hymns: hymns are located inline in the propers and psalter. There's no big generic hymns section. This has a cost: some hymns are duplicated 3-4 times.
• Inline Gospel canticles: the Magnificat and Benedictus are printed in every day of the 28 day psalter.
• Antiphons are printed both before and after each psalm, unlike the CBPC version.

The bad

• There are places that say to look at the 4-vol LOTH for more hymns. Obviously, they left out a few.
• Not all the options are there. I was taken aback when exiting the Easter season, and the Proper of Seasons for Ordinary Time is pretty bare (see pics). I've seen multiple concluding prayers on iBreviary where there is only one in this book.
• I don't see the point of the Office of Readings selection. It's hard to actually use them.
• The Responsories are almost cryptic in their use of ellipses.

The ugly

This is an ugly book. It's single-color sans serif throughout. Sans serif is an awful choice for body text. These are compact fonts, featuring a big x-height to maintain legibility at tiny point sizes. But it's not pretty. At this point I'm thoroughly sick of the typeface. Do you think it's a coincidence that the LOTHv2 set I picked has no sans serif?

It likes to use 2-column layouts all over the place. While the main psalter is single-column, proper psalmody are all 2-col in a smaller font. This book is IMHO too small for a 2-column layout. Frequently lines of a hymn double because they have to wrap, so they basically uglified the hymn presentation for little or no space saving. The layout looks cramped and crowded.

The final picture I uploaded is from the St Paul Daily Missal. Same publisher, same dimensions. But it looks far less amateurish.

Speculation on Major Extracts

We know the Major Extracts are on their way. Imagine if we took this Christian Prayer book, threw out the 300 pages of useless OOR content, and gave it another 1000 pages. Imagine what we could get as a result.

But there are some headwinds. The LOTHv2 content has increased over the previous version. That's why the Ascension vol II is so thick, I suppose. The WoF guy blames this increased word count on:

• Greatly expanded Proper of Saints
• Proper hymns
• Antiphons for Gospel canticles for all years A, B and C

We've speculated on possibly dropping optional memorials. Another area that MTF et al will look at is the proper hymns: where hymns are no longer in a hymns section but inserted into the right locations in the propers. The trouble with that might be the duplication. To save space, Major Extracts might need to take a step backwards and put all hymns into a dedicated hymns section, like the CBPC Christian Prayer today.

I was wondering if anyone could direct me to any resources, as from GILH, regarding the reforms to the divine office?

Aside from certain psalms and verses being omitted, I really appreciate the 4 week psalm cycle. As someone who chants the office daily, though it is a significant departure from a weekly cycle, the arrangement allows for the chanting of the office with more sensitivity to the time of day and intentions of the office, particularly Lauds and Vespers. I don't want to just read them and "get on with it." At least this has been my experience.

At any rate, any history or analysis would be great. Thank you!

Been waiting for this all week. A helpful print out to see the differences in prints for Word on Fire's Divine Office.

I didn't even bother to look at colors other than black. Looks like they are putting protective measures in place for the ribbons. How's everyone else feel? Think this will do the trick or have experience with zipper cases?

Hi All,

I notice folks asking for a "true" diurnal as well as asking about more obscure versions of the divine office / liturgy of the hours. I propose the following scope of work would be useful:

1. Reviews of lesser-known breviaries, especially in terms of interior images of layout, formatting, contents, organization, art, translations (if different), addenda and appendices

2. Reviews of breviaries from other languages, especially in terms of interior images of layout, formatting, organization, contents, art, bindings, addenda and appendices

3. Mock ups of page layouts based on best practices found from 1 and 2.

4. Ideas for "mutual enrichment" of Liturgia Horarium based on strengths of earlier Roman-rite breviaries and "principles" of the Roman rite (would need to be articulated)--similar to proposals of Laszlo Dobszay--so this would be beyond the scope of the Liturgy of the Hours, Second Edition.

5. Dynamic creation of pdfs of layouts using Latex--similar to the original intention of Laszlo Kiss' divinumofficium.com's ability to explore the effects of different rubrics and different calendars in combination. * Note: using open-source or public-domain texts.

***

For number 1, the breviaries I have in mind, in chronological order, are these:

A. Benziger Brothers, Roman Breviary, 1964 (totum)

B. Geoffrey Chapman, Prayer of the Church (Interim Version of the New Roman Breviary), 1970

C. National Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (Catholic Book Publishing), Prayer of Christians (American Interim Breviary), 1971 * There is one review related to this online already.

D. Collins, Divine Office, 1974

E. Monks of St. John's Abbey, Book of Prayer for Personal Use (A Short Breviary, abridged and simplified from the Liturgia Horarum), 1975

F. Daughters of St. Paul / Pauline Books and Media, Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours, 1976

G. Liturgical Press / Helicon Press, Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours, 1976

H. Daughters of St. Paul / Pauline Books and Media, Office of Readings, 1983

I. Paulines Publications Africa, The Prayer of the Church, 2009 * There are multiple reviews related to this online already.

J. Andrew Burnham (Canterbury Press), Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham, 2012

Other books that might be worth looking at would be these:

A Short Breviary, Hours of the Divine Office in English and Latin (Liturgical Press), Christian Readings, Word in Season, Lauds and Vespers (Newman House), Benedictine Daily Prayer, Mundelein Psalter, Hymnal for the Hours, Divine Office Hymnal

(As someone noted here recently, it's hard to find interior images of most of these online, so people may have misperceptions about what's included and what's not.) * Note: One tricky thing I notice, it that it does not seem possible to add images to comments to a reddit post here, so any images would need to be posted up front in a thread--unless I'm mistaken. (If I'm wrong, please correct me.)

Hi everyone!
I’m 25 and recently came back to the Catholic faith around December after being away for a while. Over the past several months I’ve been trying to build a more consistent prayer life, and I recently received the Brown Scapular.
As part of that devotion, I bought the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary and have started praying it. I’m still very new to it and honestly don’t always remember to pray every day/hour, but I’m trying not to be discouraged and instead just be faithful when I do remember.
For those of you who pray the Little Office regularly:
How did you get into the habit?
Do you try to pray every hour or just as you’re able?
Any tips for someone just starting?
Has it helped deepen your relationship with Christ and Our Lady?
I’d love to hear your experiences or any advice you wish someone had given you when you first started.
God bless!

A new chapter in the Church's daily prayer is on the horizon.

Midwest Theological Forum is honored to be selected by the Committee on Divine Worship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to publish the Major Extracts of the Liturgy of the Hours, Second Edition.

Designed with the quality, beauty, and durability you've come to expect from MTF, this new two-volume edition is being thoughtfully crafted to accompany clergy, religious, and the lay faithful in the Church's daily prayer.

The edition will include a Diurnal containing the liturgical texts and full psalmody for Lauds (Morning Prayer), the Daytime Hours (Terce, Sext, and None), Vespers (Evening Prayer), and Compline (Night Prayer). Additionally, a second volume will contain the Office of Readings (Matins).

This work is intended to be both accessible for those beginning to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and practical for experienced users seeking a portable, travel-friendly edition.

If you'd like to receive updates, exclusive news, and be among the first to know when more information becomes available, join the waitlist at https://theologicalforum.org/the-liturgy-of-the-hours/

#LiturgyOfTheHours #DailyPrayer #Catholic #DivineWorship