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Q. Can you explain for our readers a bit about what the Divine Office is first of all and where it fits in the life of the Church generally?
The Divine Office is the prayer of the Church that sanctifies each hour of the day and which must be prayed by clergy, monastics and religious and which the Church also encourages the faithful to pray, in whole or in part.
When I say it is “the prayer of the Church” I mean that it is not a devotion or a set of prayers made up by a particular group reflecting one spirituality amongst others. No: the Divine Office is the prayer of the Church, the Church’s own spirituality as it were. It is liturgical: that is, like the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the rites of the Sacraments, etc., it has official forms that have developed over the centuries and that are recognised by the Church’s hierarchy. And, as in any liturgical rite, when we pray the Divine Office we pray with the whole Church—present, absent, living and dead. Personal or spontaneous prayer is often somewhat subjective, but liturgical prayer has an objectivity that guarantees we are praying with the whole Church.
The Divine Office sanctifies each ‘hour’ (or significant moment) of the day. Following the Jewish tradition of praying seven times a day and once at night—the traditional ‘day hours’ of the Office are Lauds (prayed at dawn), Prime (prayed at the beginning of the working day), Terce, Sext and None (prayed at the third, sixth and ninth hour—roughly 09h00, 12h00 and 15h00), Vespers (prayed at sunset) and Compline (prayed before going to bed). The longer night office, called Matins, is customarily prayed well before dawn.
Thus, because of the Divine Office, we can be comforted by knowing that our clergy and monastics and religious men and women around the world, together with more and more lay men and women, are constantly lifting up their hearts and minds to God in an unceasing round of prayer for the Church and the world. To ‘plug-in’ to this great spiritual resource is a profound consolation, just as it is a joyful duty for we monks to contribute to it.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about what the Breviarium Monasticum specifically is and how was it traditionally used?
Whilst always seeking to be faithful to the command to pray constantly, the Divine Office, like the different rites of Mass (the Roman, the Ambrosian, the Eastern rites, etc.) developed in different ways in different situations. The monastic office, which the Breviarium Monasticum contains, is that which is laid down by St Benedict, the Father of Western Monasticism, in his sixth century Rule for Monks. To be sure, in specifying how the Office was to be prayed he drew on the existing tradition of praying the Office in Rome (including the arrangement of which psalms are sung at which offices). Because monks have prayer as their primary work St Benedict was very clear in stipulating what was required. Interestingly, in the history of the liturgy, he included things such as hymns and responsories bearing witness to a developed ritual very early on in the life of the Church.
This ‘monastic’ office has been traditionally used in monasteries at the times of day I mentioned above for nearly 1,500 years. Following the most recent Ecumenical Council and the so-called ‘renewal’ that followed it, many monasteries have abandoned this tradition. What St Benedict would think about this one can only wonder…!
However more recently monastic communities of classical observance have grown up around the world—our own is but one small example—where, together with the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the older rites, the praying of the monastic office in its traditional integrity is the very foundation of everything that we do. Many of these communities have Oblates who also pray the traditional monastic office in whole or in part.
To do this, of course, one needs resources, and old breviaries are very hard to find in good condition or at a reasonable price. To help address this over twenty years ago I was responsible for bringing back into print the Monastic Diurnal, the day hours of the Monastic Office in Latin and English originally published by the Liturgical Press in Collegeville.
Now, to meet a real demand, my confreres and I have worked assiduously to return the last edition of the Breviarium Monasticum, published in 1963, to print. It contains the whole of the Monastic Office—that is, matins as well as the seven day hours. It is in Latin only of course, because it was published for monastics worldwide—different countries have diurnals or other books which provide vernacular translations.
Q. I read that you have added an appendix to what was in the 1963 edition. Can you explain that please?
Yes. With the various calendar reforms in the decade or so before 1963 and given other factors, there were some feasts and so on that were not in the 1963 edition. One thinks of the Octave of the Ascension, or the feast of the Precious Blood for example. Their Office texts are very rich, and some people wish to profit from them still. The feast of the Precious Blood remains in the Roman Calendar of 1962 but is not in the monastic one. And so, given the constraints of space and time, we have included as many of the ‘missing’ texts as we could in a newly typeset appendix, without changing the text of the original. We make no claim to have the authority to change the calendar or to authorise the public use of these texts, but they are part of the tradition and if someone wishes to profit from these riches, even privately, they now may.
Of course, previous editions of the Breviarium Monasticum exist but they are rare and expensive and do not accord with this edition, which is that used by almost all the monasteries who celebrate the traditional Monastic Office (and Mass). So too they do not have some of the more recent saints and do not benefit from some of the sensible reforms promulgated leading up to 1963. (For a more detailed account of the contents of the appendix, please see this guide to the appendices in the Brignoles breviary.)
Q. We have become very accustomed in our time to inexpensive, dare I say even cheap quality books. What would you say about the importance of beauty, quality and longevity in liturgical book publishing? The set appears to be very well constructed, using noble materials. What can you tell us about what went into the production of these books?
The first thing to say is that a Breviary may be used up to eight times a day, so it must be durable. It is not an airport novel—opened once and then shelved or given away—but something that must last for years, even a lifetime. The quality of the materials used must reflect this.
It must also be easy to use frequently; that is, it must open well, its print must be clear and legible, its pages must turn easily, etc. Given the different hours of the Divine Office, it needs ribbon markers that can stay in place, etc. It must be a comfortable book to handle and with which to travel—hence the quality flexible imitation leather cover we have chosen. And it must not fall apart, which is why we have reinforced the join between the covers and the pages with a red cloth reinforcement.
So too, a Breviary must be worthy of the purpose for which it is being used: the worship of Almighty God. It is, as it were, itself a sacramental, an offering of our best to God as a sign that He and all things about Him have a priority, just as they do in all of the arts that the Sacred Liturgy embraces. Hence one uses quality bible paper, silk marker ribbons with gold edging on the pages, coloured endpapers, etc. These things are not necessary of themselves, but in a world starved of quality and beauty, they also help to lift up our hearts and minds to God when we pray.
Q. What would you say to those who are not monastics, who may be interested in this set? Is this something you think they could benefit from?
The monastic breviary is traditionally something used by monks and nuns and their oblates and other lay people associated with monasteries and this publication—the whole of the Monastic Office in Latin—is hardly the ‘lite’ version or the place to start. The bringing back into print of the Monastic Diurnal in Latin and English that I mentioned above was precisely in order to give people an ‘entry level’ publication with which to access the Monastic Office.
Our breviary, then, is more for those who know the Monastic Office and who have at least some Latin and who wish to have the Office of Matins as well as the seven day hours in the one volume. Monks and nuns who are travelling will find it useful, as will any who celebrate Matins in choir (though we are working on a three-volume Nocturnale Monasticum with all that is required to sing—not monotone, but chant—the Office of Matins; volume I, the Psalterium, will be published in November).
Others who know the Divine Office may find the Breviarium Monasticum to be of interest because it retains the ancient distribution of psalms over the various hours that survived in the Roman Office until the reforms of St Pius X. This may seem a curious thing to note, but up until that reform the Roman Office for example prayed the same Laudate psalms (Psalms 148-50) at Lauds that Our Lord Himself would have known from His own Jewish tradition. The traditional Monastic Office retains that ancient and beautiful custom, whereas the three are dispersed in the post Pius X Roman Office, amongst other innovations.
Q. If people are interested in learning how to pray using the monastic office, are there any resources you would recommend?
By far the best way so to do is to spend a week or so at a monastery that sings the traditional Monastic Office. The Office is not a text to be read but a rite in which to participate and, as any monk or nun knows, when one must be away from the monastery praying the Office on one’s own, whilst still essential, lacks something. Of its essence it is meant to be sung in choir and really, unless one has experienced that at least a little, it is hard to understand a breviary.
Of course, for many, that is easier said than done. There are some monasteries who livestream some of their Offices, and this can help when one cannot be present oneself. Recordings of some of the chant can also assist in giving mere words the flesh and blood that their singing in choir enjoys.
The Monastic Office also requires some skill in navigating—one must ‘learn to drive it’ as it were. In so doing one could not do better than to go to the Saints Will Arise blog Saints Will Arise which has years’ worth of resources on learning to pray the Monastic Office. It is an excellent resource compiled with love and devotion.
There is also a small, recent publication A Companion to the Monastic Breviary published by Libri Sancti Press which gives an English translation of the rubrics of the 1963 Breviarium Monasticum as well as some commentary and explanation of the different hours of the Office. For some reason it seems to be hard to obtain at present, but it is quite a useful help.
Q. You announced the publication of the Breviary in March and it has just been published at the end of August. What has been the reaction to the publication thus far?
We have been quite overwhelmed by the interest it has generated, from monasteries, individual monks and nuns and oblates and from lay people across the world. In one sense we took a risk in committing substantial resources to publish a worthy new edition of the Breviarium Monasticum. But we were confident that it would meet a need. The hundreds of orders from all over the world—that we are working daily to fulfil—have proved that we were not wrong.
Indeed, it is a sign of great hope that the riches of monastic and liturgical tradition the Breviary makes available again are so much in demand today. May it serve to lift up hearts and minds to Almighty God according to desire of St Benedict for a long time yet to come!
Dom Alcuin Reid is the founding Prior of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Brignoles, Provence, France www.monasterebrignoles.org and is a liturgical scholar of international renown.
