Anglican Breviary

[Gefra]

Recently I learned about the existance of the Anglican Breviary. The publisher claims that if contains all of the historic daily offices, that it uses the Roman Catholic Kalendar of 1955 and that it is a direct translation of the pre-Vatican II Roman Breviary. They state that any differences in the Anglican Breviary and the Roman Breviary are almost neglible. I must say the the languege is traditional English and quite majestic and beautiful. I have used the Liturgy of the Hours for the past 12 years, which has languege that is more modern, but quite flat in comparison to the Anglican Breviary. I understand that while this Breviary is not in use officialy in the Catholic Church that certain priests of the Fraternity of St. Peter have recommended its use their laity as a form of the Divine Office.

I would be interested to learn what the expierence has been of anyone who has used or is using the Anglican Breviary, and if any conflict with Roman Catholicism has been encountered in its use.

 

[ServumDomine]

I can tell you from my experience that the Anglican Breviary is a fine breviary for personal use. Of course since it is not a Catholic publication, and thus does not come with an imprimatur and the like, it is not used as a public breviary. However, that said, I couldn’t agree more with your statement about the translations. Even though the Anglican Breviary uses the Coverdale psalter and the King James Version for it’s readings (if you have a problem with this, than you might want to move on). Aside from that, there are a few minor things that come up. For instance, the collects and on certain feasts/solemnities are different, and instead of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. it’s the Conception of the B.V.M. This is easily rectified by finding the proper collects online and printing them and keeping them handy. Another issue that might pose some problems is that the Anglican Breviary counts time after Trinity Sunday instead of Pentecost, which means a little extra page flipping though once you get the hang of it, it shouldn’t be much of a problem. Lastly, the '55 calendar is a good bit different then the reforms made after '62 classifying feasts differently, that is, doubles, lesser doubles, semi-doubles and such. if you read the rubrics, you should be able to get an idea of how it works. From my use, and I’ve also used exclusively Catholic Monastic Diurnal, '62 Roman Breviary, and the Liturgy of the Hours, there is nothing that poses a big conflict with the the Catholic Faith, it is indeed more Catholic than protestant in my opinion, just with a few minor changes to make it feel more “anglicized”. I hope this helps, and although I know it’s a wonderful price for a breviary with all the offices as well as Matins readings, I might wait for the Baronius Latin/English '62 Breviary coming out complete with imprimatur and nihil obstat, and is covered under the Pope’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificium.

In Christ