Revised Divine Office?

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tinalewis

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Hi all - I’m wondering if anyone can direct me to any information about the possibility of the Divine Office being revised or updated this year.

I heard a rumor about it at my church and I’m curious. 🙂

Thank you -
 
I don’t know of any such rumor, given that the translation of the Mass is still underway (10 years out), I doubt we will see revisions to the Office for another few years at least.
 
I haven’t heard anything that immediate but it would seem logical that it will be revised after the new translation of Mass is finalised.
 
HOPEFULLY that will mean the breviary will have better images, and not the horrible cheesy 1970’s things they do now. 😛 It is the one thing that really bugs me about my breviary - I hate those morphed out orange blobs of images.

Sorry - just a side note to the topic. :o

~Liza
 
lizaanne said:
HOPEFULLY that will mean the breviary will have better images, and not the horrible cheesy 1970’s things they do now. 😛 It is the one thing that really bugs me about my breviary - I hate those morphed out orange blobs of images.

Sorry - just a side note to the topic. :o

~Liza
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Hopefully they will publish a Latin/English edition, and publish in print and on Kindle (and Nook, iPad, and whatever other formats are out by then).
 
A project to retranslate the LOTH into English was already in infancy when the push for a new English mass translation picked up steam.

Now, the rumors are that a revision of the entire Office (not just the English translation) may be coming sometime down the road.
 
CDNowak said:
Hopefully they will publish a Latin/English edition, and publish in print and on Kindle (and Nook, iPad, and whatever other formats are out by then).
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And lose the ribbon-flipping? Heaven forfend! More seriously, whenever I see this question, I end up wondering just what about the current LOH is felt to be in need of re-translating or changing. The Psalms? The readings from the ECF’s? Elimination of the psalm-prayers which seem to be regarded by some as an ill-conceived and non-traditional addition? Restructuring of the Office to something closer to the Diurnal?
 
lizaanne said:
HOPEFULLY that will mean the breviary will have better images, and not the horrible cheesy 1970’s things they do now. 😛 It is the one thing that really bugs me about my breviary - I hate those morphed out orange blobs of images.

Sorry - just a side note to the topic. :o

~Liza
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Is there really only one edition of the Breviary available? I would think that publishers would be more or less at liberty to produce editions with better illustrations, or no illustrations at all…
 
Palaeologos said:
Is there really only one edition of the Breviary available? I would think that publishers would be more or less at liberty to produce editions with better illustrations, or no illustrations at all…
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In the US there are only a few options: the four volume, in 2 different bindings, the single volume Christian Prayer (I believe this is available in two or three editions, but all with the same art style) in at least two bindings, shorter Christian prayer (psalms for Morning and Evening IIRC, but very stripped down otherwise), and a couple other similarly incomplete editions.

ICEL (again, IIRC) holds the exclusive copyright and they have not been easy to work with in the past. The good folks at NLM have been trying to convince them to use Creative Commons (which would make it much easier to produce a new edition of the books) for the Missal, but have had no luck. Worse yet, any new edition will almost certainly use the Grail Psalter, which is property of one of the Monasteries, which is also not very cooperative with regards to copyright.
 
CDNowak said:
In the US there are only a few options: the four volume, in 2 different bindings, the single volume Christian Prayer (I believe this is available in two or three editions, but all with the same art style) in at least two bindings, shorter Christian prayer (psalms for Morning and Evening IIRC, but very stripped down otherwise), and a couple other similarly incomplete editions.

ICEL (again, IIRC) holds the exclusive copyright and they have not been easy to work with in the past. The good folks at NLM have been trying to convince them to use Creative Commons (which would make it much easier to produce a new edition of the books) for the Missal, but have had no luck. Worse yet, any new edition will almost certainly use the Grail Psalter, which is property of one of the Monasteries, which is also not very cooperative with regards to copyright.
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Ugh. What a pain. It makes me glad that the 1928 BCP can be reproduced pretty much at will. 🙂
 
CDNowak said:
I don’t know of any such rumor, given that the translation of the Mass is still underway (10 years out), I doubt we will see revisions to the Office for another few years at least.
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Why do you claim that the new translation is ten years out?
 
Just a thought: isn’t it kind of ridiculous that anyone holds the copyright to a translation of the Church’s Liturgy? It belongs to the Church Universal, and, therefore, all of humanity.
 
bwjb said:
Just a thought: isn’t it kind of ridiculous that anyone holds the copyright to a translation of the Church’s Liturgy? It belongs to the Church Universal, and, therefore, all of humanity.
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That it is. The sensible thing would be to place it under creative commons at the least (no alteration, no profit).
 
drforjc said:
A project to retranslate the LOTH into English was already in infancy when the push for a new English mass translation picked up steam.

Now, the rumors are that a revision of the entire Office (not just the English translation) may be coming sometime down the road.
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Oh God please no. I hope there’s an indult to continue using the existing one… or my expensive collection is going to be worthless and useless:

4-volume LOH in French which I use for the Night office (Vigils/Office of Readings) and when I travel
4-volume LOH in Latin for reference
3-volume diurnal antiphonary in Latin and French with Gregorian antiphons and hymns (Les Heures Grégoriennes) which is what I use every day for the day hours.
1-volume Christian Prayer in English for reference.

And just to add to it Solesmes has put out (finally!) the second volume of the official Roman Antiphonary, Vespers for Sundays and feasts. Presumably the rest is coming down the pike.

Lord knows there are shortcomings to the current LOH, but at least the length of the offices is manageable for laypeople or busy diocesan clergy.
 
OraLabora said:
Oh God please no. I hope there’s an indult to continue using the existing one… or my expensive collection is going to be worthless and useless:
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I would not sweat this one: my guess is that there may eventually be a re-translation in English, but I highly doubt anything will change in the Latin edition, and probably not in the French either. (As far as I am aware, there has never been an issue with the French versions, but you would know that better than I. 🙂 )
 
malphono said:
I would not sweat this one: my guess is that there may eventually be a re-translation in English, but I highly doubt anything will change in the Latin edition, and probably not in the French either. (As far as I am aware, there has never been an issue with the French versions, but you would know that better than I. 🙂 )
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Indeed the translation of into French was considerably less painful than the one into English. There are some exceptions but in general the French comes across reasonably close to the Latin and there’s no urgency to change it either in the Office or the Mass.

And you’re probably right about worrying about this. At the speed the Vatican normally moves I may be long dead before another remake of the Divine Office occurs. The last major one took from about the mid-40s until 1970. That’s close to 30 years. I’m almost 52 😃

(those who aren’t in the know, the idea of simplifying the Divine Office didn’t start after Vatican II but before, under the same Annibale Bugnini; only minor reforms were produced in the time of Pius XII, but the pace picked up after V II).
 
OraLabora said:
Indeed the translation of into French was considerably less painful than the one into English. There are some exceptions but in general the French comes across reasonably close to the Latin and there’s no urgency to change it either in the Office or the Mass.
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That’s what I’ve heard, although I’ve never read the full French text. (I’ve never experienced it either: my preference was, is, and always will be Latin, but that’s no secret.)
OraLabora said:
And you’re probably right about worrying about this. At the speed the Vatican normally moves I may be long dead before another remake of the Divine Office occurs. The last major one took from about the mid-40s until 1970. That’s close to 30 years. I’m almost 52 😃
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Encore un enfant 😃
OraLabora said:
(those who aren’t in the know, the idea of simplifying the Divine Office didn’t start after Vatican II but before, under the same Annibale Bugnini; only minor reforms were produced in the time of Pius XII, but the pace picked up after V II).
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That person was rather like a kid in a candy store, wasn’t he? 😦
 
malphono said:
That person was rather like a kid in a candy store, wasn’t he? 😦
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More like an elephant in a china shop!

I love how a friend of mine described the mid-day office that replaced Tierce, Sext and None: “It’s like going to the bank to consolidate your debt; you might only have one payment but the debt is still there!”.

Still, I can live with it now that I can chant the diurnal Office in Gregorian Chant in Latin from Les Heures Grégoriennes, a 3-volume set that is fairly convivial to use.

But when I retire I plan to return to the full Benedictine office!
 
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