Pray Without Cease

This week, I am praying with a new breviary. For the last year and more, I’ve been using the four volume Liturgy of the Hours. It is an immense blessing to my prayer life, particularly the Office of Readings (Matins), which has introduced me to the works of the Fathers and other Saints and to some of the Concillar documents.

My typical routine is to pray the Office on the bus into work, Morning Prayer (Lauds) after Mass, and, sometimes, Evening Prayer (Vespers) on the bus ride home. Honestly, I normally don’t get to Evening Prayer except on Mondays, where our Benedictine group prays in community at our Parish.

With the best of intentions, I resolved to pray the three mid-day hours but so far have been unable to do so. Much of this is my fault – the way I’ve scheduled my work day makes this difficult. Part of the issue, though, is the breviary itself, which I find particularly confusing and hard to follow for the mid-day hours.

Last week, I purchased Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary. My plan was to use it for a week and see if there was any improvement in my prayer habits.

Monday, for the first time, I prayed all the hours, even Compline. I cannot recommend this breviary enough.

It is based on the monastic tradition, rather than the Roman, so it may not meet the needs of those obligated to pray the hours. The readings are different from the Roman breviary, for one; it uses far more Biblical readings rather than one Biblical and one “other”.

In addition, it uses a one-week psalter instead of a four-week psalter, so the hours in this “Short” breviary are paradoxically longer than those in the full Roman breviary.

Nevertheless, it is extremely easy to follow and quite compleat, having a full set of reading for Matins (here called “Vigils”), with additional readings for feasts and memorials. The calendar is somewhat abbreviated, omitting or reducing many of the optional memorials, but adding some specifically Benedictine ones.

We’ll see how it goes, but so far I’ve managed quite well with it. It says in the introduction that it was specifically designed for Oblates, and that may be part of the appeal as well.