Please help-is this the right LOTH 4 volume set?

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If you’re just getting started with the LOTH, I’d recommend that you not buy the whole 4-volume set right away. Right now, there are 3 editions available: the 4-volume set, a book called Christian Prayer, and Shorter Christian Prayer. Each one contains the LOTH, but with varying amounts of simplification. I personally use Shorter Christian Prayer. It contains the full 4-week psalter, which is the most “basic” element of the LOTH, but does not have all the special prayers, or “propers,” for feast days and liturgical seasons (it has a few select ones, but not nearly as many as the full set). It makes it easier when learning because you don’t have as much paper to wade through and can just get the feel for the structure of the prayer itself. Christian Prayer is a middle ground between the other 2 options. I’m sure there are others here who are more knowledgeable about the matter, but that’s my 2 cents.
 
Just go on the internet and print it out - there are many sites with both the modern and traditional LOTH on them available for printing.

The 4-volume LOTH is around $150, and the single volume that I’d recommend if you were just starting is around $40, even on Amazon. It’s called “Christian Prayer” and contains Prime and Vespers, as far as I recall, with Matins or one other canonical hour for some days, and is lacking most propers (which make the 4-vol. set confusing). The one-volume is quite confusing to use; the four-volume even more so. If you want a book, either the 4-volume LOTH or “Christian Prayer” is alright if you want to do it in English. The Breviary is available otherwise. “Shorter Christian Prayer” is just the ICEL Psalter (not my favorite) with markings to make it useful for praying the Hours: you could download the rubrics from the internet and use any other Psalter (or Bible with Psalms) in it as easily, IMO.
 
MaeganFlinchum1 said:
should i get the Shorter Christian prayer? what’s the difference and why does it matter which one i get? thanks! 🙂
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Which parts of the Liturgy of the Hours do you plan to pray?

If you’re interested in Morning and Evening Prayer, either Shorter Christian Prayer or the one-volume Christian Prayer would give you everything you need. If you want to do the Office of Readings, then you need the four-volume set.

Are you familiar with divineoffice.org? That’s an easy way to get started and it’s free.
 
I was just going to do morning/night/evening etc. So shorter Christian prayer?
 
MaeganFlinchum1 said:
I was just going to do morning/night/evening etc. So shorter Christian prayer?
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Either Christian Prayer or Shorter Christian Prayer.

The main difference between them is when you come to special seasons like Lent, Easter, Advent, Christmas, and some of the saints’ days.

Christian Prayer will give you the propers for all of Lent (or other seasons). Shorter Christian Prayer gives you something like one week’s worth of propers and you repeat them for the other weeks. Shorter Christian Prayer is smaller and easier to carry if you think you will pray while traveling or that sort of thing.

I’d probably go with Shorter Christian Prayer and then move to one of the others if needed. Or, if you have a smartphone, you don’t need to buy anything. There’s an app called iBreviary that will give you everything you need for free. It’s what I normally use.
 
SuscipeMeDomine said:
Either Christian Prayer or Shorter Christian Prayer.

The main difference between them is when you come to special seasons like Lent, Easter, Advent, Christmas, and some of the saints’ days.

Christian Prayer will give you the propers for all of Lent (or other seasons). Shorter Christian Prayer gives you something like one week’s worth of propers and you repeat them for the other weeks. Shorter Christian Prayer is smaller and easier to carry if you think you will pray while traveling or that sort of thing.

I’d probably go with Shorter Christian Prayer and then move to one of the others if needed. Or, if you have a smartphone, you don’t need to buy anything. There’s an app called iBreviary that will give you everything you need for free. It’s what I normally use.
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Ok thank! I think i will go with Christian prayer! And i have a smartphone but id rather use a book
 
MaeganFlinchum1 said:
I was just going to do morning/night/evening etc. So shorter Christian prayer?
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I would say Christian Prayer; skip Shorter if you can as you will get the complete texts of the liturgical year for morning and evening prayer. You can graduate to the four-volume if you wish to do the Office of Readings.
 
I use the iBreviery app and I love it . I have the 4 volume and do know how to use it but iBreviery is so easy and it also has the mass and daily readings and prayers.
 
I’m going to vote 4-volume set, but don’t buy it all at once. It will be a good investment, the LOTH tends to make one hunger for more. When that happens you’ll be equipped, whereas if you buy Christian prayer you’re either going to have to find a lectionary or buy the 4-volume anyway so it will end up costing you more. And if it doesn’t “take”, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of takers to buy it used.

Buy the current volume, then just before the end of the current season, buy the next volume, and so forth, throughout the year.

I started with Christian Prayer in English as I found it cheap at a bookshop, it got me interested in the LOTH, so then I moved to the 4-volume in my native tongue (French). I’ve also accumulated a fair collection of monastic breviaries and antiphonaries (for chant), but that’s another story!

The biblical and patristic/hagiographic readings in the 4-volume are worth gold!
 
The Bishops here in the U.S. have approved a motion to revise the Liturgy of the Hours, similar to how the translation of the Mass was revised recently: ncregister.com/daily-news/us-bishops-approve-revision-of-the-liturgy-of-the-hours/ It don’t imagine it’ll be a huge change, and I assume laypeople will be free to use whatever version they’d like, and it will probably take several years to complete, but it’s another reason why it may be good to hold off on buying the 4-volume set for now. There’s nothing quite like shelling out a lot of money for nice books, only to have those books become somewhat obsolete several years later. It’ kind of like buying a computer…

That being said, I’d definitely recommend getting started with the Liturgy of the Hours, either with Shorter Christian Prayer, or with the longer 1-volume Christian Prayer. It would be really helpful to start praying it with others, to help you get a feel for how to do it (it can be a bit confusing at first).
 
Definitely recommend Christian Prayer over Shorter Christian Prayer. The latter is just too truncated. It seems to me once you get familiar with the LOTH you would want to graduate up anyway, so why not dig in and at least get Christian Prayer. At least it contains the proper of saints and much more complete proper of seasons.
 
Jeffgo said:
The Bishops here in the U.S. have approved a motion to revise the Liturgy of the Hours, similar to how the translation of the Mass was revised recently: ncregister.com/daily-news/us-bishops-approve-revision-of-the-liturgy-of-the-hours/ It don’t imagine it’ll be a huge change, and I assume laypeople will be free to use whatever version they’d like, and it will probably take several years to complete, but it’s another reason why it may be good to hold off on buying the 4-volume set for now. There’s nothing quite like shelling out a lot of money for nice books, only to have those books become somewhat obsolete several years later. It’ kind of like buying a computer…

That being said, I’d definitely recommend getting started with the Liturgy of the Hours, either with Shorter Christian Prayer, or with the longer 1-volume Christian Prayer. It would be really helpful to start praying it with others, to help you get a feel for how to do it (it can be a bit confusing at first).
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I keep forgetting about the re-translation. Not an issue I’m facing as I have two complete sets, 1 French and 1 Latin.
 
The Magnificate would suffice if you just want something easy to carry around. But if you think you might want to do the four volume set - get it. I need a book, its just me. I love the OOR - its like the prescribed chapter from a book of the Bible and long exerpt of a homily or writing.
 
OraLabora said:
I keep forgetting about the re-translation. Not an issue I’m facing as I have two complete sets, 1 French and 1 Latin.
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And I don’t think we’ll have to worry about buying the new set in the next week or two. 😃
 
agnes_therese said:
And I don’t think we’ll have to worry about buying the new set in the next week or two. 😃
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“Soon” is very relative in Vatican terms. When the LOTH came out in 1970, they promised a new antiphonary for Gregorian chant to accompany it, “soon”.

The first volume of that antiphonary came out in 2010, and just for Sunday Vespers, feasts and solemnities. We’re still waiting for the rest, so “soon” hasn’t completely happened yet. 😃

So “soon” in this case is over 40 years!
 
OraLabora said:
“Soon” is very relative in Vatican terms. When the LOTH came out in 1970, they promised a new antiphonary for Gregorian chant to accompany it, “soon”.

The first volume of that antiphonary came out in 2010, and just for Sunday Vespers, feasts and solemnities. We’re still waiting for the rest, so “soon” hasn’t completely happened yet. 😃

So “soon” in this case is over 40 years!
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Well, in the timeline of a 2000-year-old church, 40 years isn’t bad. 😉
I’m hoping for it to mean 5-7 years in this case. But I don’t think I’ll start up a betting pool just yet.
 
MaeganFlinchum1 said:
is this what i am supposed to get? - amazon.com/gp/product/0899424090/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER is this what i am supposed to pray? also this specific one was published in 1975… is that ok? should i get the Shorter Christian prayer? what’s the difference and why does it matter which one i get? thanks! 🙂
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Just to clarify, in case you have picked up the wrong idea. There is no ‘supposed to get’ or ‘supposed to pray’ involved. Yyou are not a priest or a nun. You do not have to say the Liturgy of the Hours at all. It is recommended to lay people, but is not an obligation. Billions of Catholics have lived holy lives without using LOTH.
 
paperwight66 said:
Just to clarify, in case you have picked up the wrong idea. There is no ‘supposed to get’ or ‘supposed to pray’ involved. Yyou are not a priest or a nun. You do not have to say the Liturgy of the Hours at all. It is recommended to lay people, but is not an obligation. Billions of Catholics have lived holy lives without using LOTH.
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Yes i know 🙂 but i thought it would be good for me to do. Because i tried it before and really liked it. I ended up getting Christian prayer. 😃
 
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