The Past, Today, and the Future of a unique form of prayer.

What's in these pages?



[To go to any of these topics, just double-click the underlined Section]


Section I                         

Background and Introduction

Section II                        

20th & 21st Century Breviary Timeline

Breviary Texts - an Overview

Section IV                          

Some other People and Places

involved with short breviaries

Section V                        

Section VI                        -

En Calcat's Book of Hours and

Office of Our Lady

Stallaert & The Little Breviary

Christuslob - Seckau Abbey

Psalter Schemas

in office structures & texts

Part I - pre Vatican II texts

Part II - Other pre-vatican II texts

Part III - The Carthusian Little Office

Part IV - current texts

Part VI - New work in progress

Partial Bibliography

Section XIII

Links and Resources

The Ambrosian Office, source, inspiration and model
Part I - Overview
Part II - Ambrosian Resources & Links
Part III- Structure of each Hour

Part V - Currernt texts  - Diurna Laus

Part VII  - Ambrosian Rite Little Office Comparison with     source  material in Magistretti.

Part X - General Instruction (Latin) on the Ambrosian Liturgy of the Hours (1986)

English language versions:
many Latin versions but only one English version? - in 3 parts -

Section XVI                    

The Bridgettine Office of Our Lady, a 14th century "short" breviary, in use today.

Oratio Vespertina - "Back to the Future?"

Feedback  - from you!

This form is for your responses - it will be a great help to me.  Please take some moments and feel free to complete each part as you think best.  I respect your privacy and the form is designed to keep you anonymous, if you wish.

 

June, 2006

This website was begun in 1998, as an introduction to a larger work that would eventually become a source book for those who have an interest in the breviary and its prayer. 

The research includes the help of many wonderful people, many of whom lived through several decades of this story, and  for those who are interested in its final product, I can tell you that there is "light at the end of the tunnel".

These pages are really only a sort of general introduction, a background,  to forms of prayer texts which have several names: "short"  breviaries, little offices, breviaria parva and lay breviaries, among others. "Breviary" seems to be the name that has survived the ages, and it is with it that we'll continue here.

Simply, all these are structured variations of the  common liturgical prayer known as The Divine Office (though its current title is The Liturgy of the Hours) used in the Roman Catholic and several other churches.  Sections of the Divine Office are prayed at specific moments ("hours") during a day, and these sections, in turn, have their own names (officially renamed by the Roman Catholic Church after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council). 

This website, and the book,  take a serious look at the background and history of each of the short breviaries (and its relationship to the "official" text of the Divine Office), its compiler(s) and perhaps translator(s), ant and certainly the context and environment in which it saw

publication.ndts impact on Catholics a

I have been intrigued by these texts for most of my life, and even more intrigued by the people who produced them, who use(d) them,  and by how the texts were (or are) used. 

This website, even though it includes many, many pages of data, is only an  internet introduction is necessarily incomplete.  I welcome your questions, suggestions, thoughts and other comments.  And if anything in these pages confuses you, please don't hesitate to ask for clarification.

Theo Keller
 

GOT QUESTIONS... 
about anything in these pages? 

[Please include your e-mail address if you'd like me to respond directly to you.]  

Please use this address : sistock@ca.rr.com


What's New?

Current information on current breviary texts.

Benedictine Daily Prayer:  see the Psalm Schema at http://www.kellerbook.com/benedailyprayer.htm

See another Psalm Schema done by groups in Hungary, at http://www.kellerbook.com/hungarian.htm

initially uploaded OCTOBER, 1998.  UPDATED regularly through JUNE, 2006