UK Edition of the Divine Office

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephen459
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Stephen459

Guest
If you are bound to pray the LOTH, can you use the Uk edition to fulfill your obligation if you reside in the U.S.?

Thanks!
 
Stephen459 said:
If you are bound to pray the LOTH, can you use the Uk edition to fulfill your obligation if you reside in the U.S.?
Click to expand...
No. The UK uses a slightly different calendar than the US and (if I’m not mistaken) has a different translation they use for theirs than the US. If you live in the US, you need to pray the Divine Office with the US rules and calendar.
 
Pardon my ignorance, but why? If the breviary is approved by one conference of bishops, what stops one from using it in another region? We are the universal church… I see no reason why it would not fulfill one’s obligation.
 
Stephen459 said:
Pardon my ignorance, but why? If the breviary is approved by one conference of bishops, what stops one from using it in another region? We are the universal church… I see no reason why it would not fulfill one’s obligation.
Click to expand...
The same reason why Holy Days of Obligation can be different between one diocese and the next. The UK bishops have authority over the UK. They cannot decide what is okay for the US, and vice versa. The Divine Office is liturgical prayer. If you’re bound to pray the Office, you must follow the rubrics for it like a priest would for Mass. Otherwise it’s no longer liturgical, but a private devotion.
 
Last edited:
I believe the only time it would be acceptable to celebrate the UK edition is when you are in the UK and are celebrating the LOTH with a community, presumably a community of UK Catholics. Similarly, if you are in the UK on vacation, you may choose to follow the UK calendar, even if celebrating in private with a few restrictions. From the General Instructions:
  1. When clerics or religious who are obliged under any title to pray the divine office join in an office celebrated in common according to a calendar or rite different from their own, they fulfill their obligation in respect to the part of the office at which they are present.
  2. In private celebration, the calendar of the place or the person’s own calendar may be followed, except on proper solemnities and on proper feasts.
I believe if you have a devotion to a particular saint which is celebrated in the UK, but is only an Optional Memorial or not even listed in the calendar in the US, you can celebrate the office for that saint using the USA LOTH and adhering to the following precept:
  1. For a public cause or out of devotion, except on solemnities, the Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, the octave of Easter, and 2 November, a votive office may be celebrated, in whole or in part: for example, on the occasion of a pilgrimage, a local feast, or the external solemnity of a saint.
My parish has two patron saints. One of the patron saint’s feast day falls during Lent. I celebrate a votive office of that saint as a feast during Lent since it is celebrated a feast/solemnity in my parish. The other patron saint is not listed in the USA calendar, but is a solemnity in another country. My parish likewise celebrates the day as a solemnity with a procession. I similarly celebrate that saint’s feast day as a votive office, using the USA LOTH and appropriate texts.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for your answers! I don’t mind using the U.S. version. However, as an Anglophile I would love to use their version.
 
Last edited:
If you are under obligation to pray the Divine Office you must pray the Divine Office to which you are obliged. If you were a secular priest in a US diocese you would use the Office prescribed by your diocese. That would be the 4-volume US Liturgy of the Hours. It could not be the UK 3-volume Divine Office. They are different.

Similarly, if you are a religious, oblate, tertiary, etc. you must pray the Office laid down by your order, congregation or society.
 
Stephen459 said:
Fr. Vincent Serpa thinks otherwise.
Click to expand...
Indeed, he does. I believe Fr Serpa is wrong. It is my understanding that to fulfil one’s obligation to the Divine Office one must pray the Divine Office of one’s diocese (or its equivalent in law) or one’s religious community.

Of course, if one is not bound to recite the Divine Office, or part thereof, any form of it may be said and would constitute a private devotion. To say it liturgically even if not bound to it one must say the form approved for use in the place where one lives.

It seems redundant to print in the Divine Office the phrase ‘Approved for use in [names of countries]’ if it may be used anywhere.
 
Benedictines are allowed to use the secular Liturgy of the Hours when they travel or are assigned to an external apostolate. They of course use the one specified by the local conference of bishops.

Also some Benedictine communities use the LOTH,
often ones with colleges. The Benedictine HQ in Rome, Sant’ Anselmo, uses the LOTH because they are also a pontifical athenaeum. They do Lauds in Italian combined with the Mass; mid-day, Vespers and Compline are in Latin Gregorian chant. The Office of Readings is left to the individual to recite privately. When I’m there I usually say it at 5:45; Lauds/Mass are at 6:20.
 
Thank you all for the responses! After doing some more reading and thinking on the matter, I still believe one can use the breviary, in private recitation, to fulfill one’s obligation to pray the hours.

Stay safe!
 
Stephen459 said:
one’s obligation to pray the hours
Click to expand...
If you are under obligation, then you probably belong to some secular order or association that has praying the LOTH as part of it’s constitutions/rule. In which case, the sensible thing to do would be to ask a leader in that organization.
 
In the case of we oblates, the promise is to pray as much as the hours as we can according to our life situation. A mother caring for a young baby may only managed to pray Compline (if that), and a retiree like me might be able to do rather more. It is up to the individual to sort it out, as it’s a promise, not a vow.

In the Rule of St. Benedict, the admonition was for monks out of the monastery or working in the fields and who couldn’t get back to the church in time, to drop to their knees at the canonical hours and do the “best they can” on the spot. It’s why the minor hours from Tuesday to Saturday in the Rule repeated the Gradual Psalms every day, to facilitate reciting from memory. But many (especially younger ones and novices) would not be able to or not yet have the psalms memorized so they would simply pray as best they could where they were.
 
That’s beautiful!

I am discerning a vocation to the third order of St. Dominic. Like the Benedictines, he placed the chanting of the choral office at the center of his spirituality, with this distinction: that the office be chanting succinctly so that study would not be impeded.

The Rule of St. Augustine says this about the office:
  1. Be assiduous in prayer at the hours and times appointed.
  2. In the oratory no one should do anything other than that for which it was intended and from which it also takes its name. Consequently, if there are some who might wish to pray there during their free time, even outside the hours appointed, they are not to be hindered by those who think something else should be done there.
  3. When you pray to God in psalms and hymns, think over in your hearts the words that come from your lips.
  4. Chant only what is prescribed for chant; moreover, let nothing be chanted unless it is prescribed
 
Very similar to the Rule of St. Benedict! The one about use of the oratory could have been lifted directly from it!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top