I was just wondering if anyone prays the old Breviary rather than the new? I suppose that those Catholics who pray the TLM and are devoted to the Office pray the old one. However, I was wondering if Catholics who pray the N.O. choose to pray the old Breviary (for private devotion of course).
I currently pray the entire Office from the “new” breviary. However, I have become interested in the old.
Are there any good resources out there offering more information on the old breviary?
I know that the old breviary is “more involved” (for lack of a better description). Being so, did lay catholics “back in the day” pray it as lay catholics do now (in the new)?
I do the Matins, and Lauds and Vespers, time permitting. On certain days (like All Souls) I do the whole thing.
As a whole, in the Latin rite, the Divine Office has sadly never really been a part of the lay life. It was usually looked on, and sometimes in someplaces still is, as the work of the clergy. Like when I wanted to get a copy I was told “Oh, you mean the *priest’s *version!” Part was the complexity of the older office (and hence we see the short breviaries like that of Our Lady) but part is also that public celebration of the Office after the Middle Ages gradually disappeared from western Catholic life.
That said, one of the great goals of the Popes and the liturgical movement of the last century was to encourage the praying of the Divine Office. Publications urged familes to pray Prime and Compline as Morning and Night prayer. Some of the better missals had the bright idea of providing Vespers for Sundays and feasts that used the Sunday psalms- all you had to do wa provide the antiphons and hymn in the missal. But in many places, public celebration of Vespers on Sundays and holy days was quite common. From which, we get another custom of Solemn Vespers before the Blessed Sacrament. But I digress.
What sort of resources did you have in mind?
A very nice resource for the breviary texts is
breviary.net It is run by sedevacantists and hence gives the Roman breviary in its 1954 form. The rules were changed in 1958 with some parts erased and again, along with the change in calendar and futher erasing, in 1962 (which is the breviary used by the SSPX, FSSP and Indult organisations). Throughout the 1960’s there were changes to this 1962 version and finally it was replaced (for lack of the correct word) with the current Liturgia Horarum.
