Liturgy of the Hours Books

[Zooman77]

Hi all!,

I have been praying the LOTH for a few months now. I print off the liturgy from divineoffice.com. Since I now regularly pray it I have decided I want to get one of the books. Besides I am spending quite a lot of money on printer ink and am using a lot of paper. My question is what is the difference between the 4 volume VS. Christian Prayer VS. Shorter Christian Prayer? I believe the local Catholic store carries all three of these and I wanted to know the differences.

God Bless

 

[yellow8yellowM]

I’m sure others will give a more complete answer, but the 4 volume set is the entire Liturgy of the Hours. The one volume Christian Prayer is a somewhat truncated version of the 4 volume set.

I have been praying the Liturgy of the Hours for almost a year now and I would recommend the 4 volume set. You can always skip hours if you want. But if you get the Christian Prayer you can never add hours (without going to the internet, etc.).

 

[OraLabora]

The 4 volume set gives you all of the biblical and patristic readings for the Office of Readings (Matins) on the 1-year cycle, Christian Prayer only a very limited selection. Daytime prayer is also truncated, only 1 week of the 4-week cycle is given.

Over the long haul, it’s my belief that you’re better off investing in the 4-volume set. You don’t have to buy them all at once (unless you get a good deal such as a used set from someone). You can buy the volume of whatever season we happen to be in, and just before changing volumes you buy the next one. It allows you to spread the purchase over a year.

The readings of the Office of Readings are worth their weight in gold, even if now you don’t have time for it, if you do the OOR from time to time you’ll find that this is one of the best Offices of the day.

 

[friarpark]

I bought mine used off of Amazon Marketplace. Around $18 per volume on average. I believe several of them came from the same seller and some of them might have belonged to a deceased priest. I don’t pray it as often as I should, but I still like having the 4 volume set.