A Catholic prayer book

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No it’s not the “traditional breviary”. The traditional breviary is the Monastic. It dates all the way back to the 6th century in consistent structure. And it too contains all 150 psalms. The Roman Breviary of 1962 only dates back to 1910 when the Roman Breviary of Pius V was completely revised and restructured by Pius X to make it much lighter for diocesan clergy. The older Roman Breviary recited about 250 psalms a week, like the Monastic but with some differences in psalm order, and the new Roman Breviary of 1910 only 150 psalms were recited in a week, the order restructured breaking many traditions, and psalms re-divided requiring many new antiphons.

The 1910 breviary was the “main” breviary from 1910 to 1970, or 60 years. The current LOTH has been in force for 50 years. It’s catching up in venerability…
 
Not exactly. All the hours except Prime are there and the 164th verse of Psalm 118 is still respected: 7 times a day I shall proclaim your praise.

With the complementary psalter, one can ad libitum add the two other mid-day prayers and do all three, Terce, Sext, and None. Prime was redundant anyway. Monastics were clamouring to have it removed as it cut down time for lectio divina and made mornings very heavy from Matins through Prime.

The antiphonary I use has all the omitted verses in brackets. I still sing them.

As for structure, the hours are the same except for the standardization of the placement of the hymn between minor and major hours, and elimination of the versicle (retained ad libitum in the Monastic Office).

The psalm order has always been a huge component of the Office, Saint Benedict devotes a dozen chapters to the Divine Office, one of which details the psalm order. The older Roman Breviary was closer to the Monastic in structure. The Pius X was very controversial in its time because it broke up many venerable traditions, in particular breaking up the three Laudate psalms at the end of Lauds (148, 149, 150), and having variable instead of fixed psalmody every day at Compline, which made it essentially impossible to recite Compline from memory in the dark, a venerable tradition that continues in the monastic world.

Note I’m not saying that the Liturgy of the Hours is perfect but for a layman chanting the hours every day, it is very handy especially now with some excellent antiphonaries noted for Latin Gregorian chant.

What I am saying is that the 1910 breviary simply is not traditional, because the psalm order and the antiphons are a very venerable part of the breviary’s tradition. The 1910 Office completely broke up the Roman Antiphonary. A new one was promulgated in 1912.
 
Pretty much all monasteries of my congregation (Solesmes) that use the post-Conciliar version of the Monastic Office have done so, and redistributed its psalms elsewhere in the Office (mostly at Terce, Sext and None, there are a couple of schemas to do so). This also applies to the many monasteries using “schema B” which is a post-Conciliar Monastic Office that distributes psalms over 1 week but which is also a significant (actually almost complete) departure from tradition. Of the Benedictine monasteries of other congregations I’ve visited or of which I’m familiar with their psalter schema, not a single one has retained Prime.

The monasteries using the pre-Conciliar version of the Monastic Office have, of course, no licit mechanism to omit Prime but they remain in the minority.
 
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I am not, they are in the minority as I said. At last count the congregation has 23 monasteries. Of those, 4 abbeys and one priory use the pre-Conciliar Office.
 
I misspoke. I meant they had no licit mechanism to omit Prime. Mea culpa. I edited my post.
 
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I don’t know if this will be of any use to you but the Vatican publishes online liturgical booklets in PDF for some of the Masses that the pope celebrates, including the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve (Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord - Midnight Mass). As of today, the booklet for Christmas, 2020 is not yet listed. Here are links to the booklets for the past few years: 2019, 2018, 2017.

The booklets provide both the original language of the Mass, which is usually Italian with some Latin, and an English translation where needed.

When it becomes available, you should be able to access the booklet for the 2020 Christmas Mass as follows:
  1. On the Vatican Homepage, click on “LITURGICAL CELEBRATIONS,” in the lower left of webpage.
  2. On the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff webpage, click on “CALENDAR OF CELEBRATIONS,” in the upper left of webpage.
  3. On the CALENDAR OF CELEBRATIONS webpage, scroll down to 24 of December and click on “Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord - Midnight Mass.”
  4. On the “Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord - Midnight Mass” webpage, click on “Booklet for the Celebration” to download the PDF, upper right of webpage.
At many points during a Mass the celebrant can choose to use one of a number of available forms. Presumably, the booklet will include only those Mass forms that the pope has decided to use at that particular Mass. A Missal, on the other hand, will necessarily include all possible forms available for use during the Mass.
 
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Yes, I aware that. The Monsignor who debates with me send me these booklets every Christmas and Easter as a PDF file.

Is there a way to get a hard copy of these booklets if I am not in Rome?
 
Ori_Kasha said:
Is there a way to get a hard copy of these booklets if I am not in Rome?
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Besides printing out the PDF file yourself, I don’t know. Perhaps you can order a hard copy directly from the Vatican Press (Tipografia Vaticana). The last page of the 2019 Christmas booklet lists their email address as: info.tipografia@spc.va
 
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The last page of the 2019 Christmas booklet says in Italian, in part:
La serie completa dei libretti 2019 sarà disponibile previa prenotazione presso la Tipografia Vaticana (email: info.tipografia@spc.va)
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I don’t know Italian but Google Translate gives the following English translation of the Italian:
The complete set of 2019 booklets will be available upon reservation at the Vatican Printing House (email: info.tipografia@spc.va)
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I do not know Hebrew either but Google Translate gives the following Hebrew translation of the Italian, only right justified:
הערכה המלאה של חוברות 2019 תהיה זמינה בהזמנה בבית הדפוס של הוותיקן
(info.tipografia@spc.va :דוא"ל)
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Another Vatican webpage gives the same email address as well as other contact information for Tipografia Vaticana:
TIPOGRAFIA VATICANA
Via della Tipografia, 00120 Città del Vaticano

Tel: +39 06 698 85037
Fax: +39 06 698 84570
E-mail: info.tipografia@spc.va
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Never heard of it before but it looks like a proper Catholic missal in English for Sundays and holiday. The price is very good. It appears to be suitable for Catholics in the England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. I could be wrong but I think this is also the English translation used in the televised Masses from the Vatican.

This CBC missal would not be suitable for Catholics in the United States or Canada, for example, because those countries use different English translations of the Bible readings at Mass.

Whereas some missals, such as the CTS New Sunday Missal, contain the Order of the Mass in both Latin and English, one online review I read which mentions the CBC missal in passing makes me think that the CBC missal contains the Order of the Mass in English only. Having the Order of the Mass in both English and Latin might be helpful if you are trying to follow along with the televised Masses from the Vatican because their Masses tend to use Latin a lot.
 
Ok, so is the CTS the same as used in Vatican’s Christmas ceremony? I need the exact same missal because I cannot reach the phone of Tipografia Vaticana (someone here wrote the phone and it is not connected and then I called to Vatican’s operators and they gave me another phone number, but it is also not connected… I do not know what to do! Next Sunday is first Sunday of advent and let us say that clearly, the window is closing!
 
Ori_Kasha said:
is the CTS the same as used in Vatican’s Christmas ceremony?
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I have not seen a copy of the CTS New Sunday Missal myself and so I can not say for sure what is in it. However, based on descriptions of the missal that I have read online, I suspect that there will be some parts of the Vatican Christmas Mass at Midnight that are not found in the CTS New Sunday Missal and there will be other parts of the Vatican Mass in various languages that are found in the CTS New Sunday Missal but only in English translation.

The parts of the Vatican Christmas Mass that I suspect are not in the CTS missal include the traditional Christmas carols usually sung at the Vatican Christmas Mass, such as The First Noel (sung in Italian), Silent Night (sung in Italian) and O Come All Ye Faithful (sung in Latin), and the Christmas Proclamation (proclaimed in Latin) at the beginning of the Mass. Also, those parts of the Vatican Christmas Mass which will be composed just for that year’s celebration, such as the Pope’s homily and the various prayer petitions of the Prayer of the Faithful, won’t be in the CTS missal.

The parts of the Vatican Christmas Mass said in various languages that are found in the CTS missal but only in English translation include the First and Second (Scripture) Readings, the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel Reading.

Nevertheless, since much of the Vatican Christmas Mass will be in Latin and since the CTS New Sunday Missal includes most of those Latin parts in both Latin and English, I think a copy of the CTS New Sunday Missal could be useful to you, not only for the Vatican Christmas Mass at Midnight this year but for Masses for Sundays and Holy Days throughout the year and year after year.

By the way, missals are typically arranged so that the parts that are common (ordinary) to every Mass, including all their available optional forms, are in one section of the missal and the parts that are peculiar (proper) to a particular Sunday or Holy Day are in another section. Consequently, in order to follow any given Mass, you will need to flip back and forth between the common (ordinary) and particular (proper) sections of the missal and skip over any unchosen optional forms within a section. All that flipping and skipping can be confusing.
 
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