Benedictine Breviary? Monastic Diurnal? Info Needed!

 Reader Norman Hartley writes:

Hi Daria, can you explain what the difference is between traditional Benedictine Office breviary such as the (Farnborough edition) Monastic Diurnal,and the single volume breviary?

I could tell Norman a few random fact about either, but since I own neither,my descriptions would be woefully incomplete. So,  would  any of you who own--or better yet, use--these books, please tell us about  them in the comments?  Using the basic, single-volume Christian Prayer breviary as the starting point, tell us how these other breviaries are different.  

Tell us what are the  pros and  the cons of using them. 

Thanks.

Another Solmenity Alert! Peter&Paul startsTomorrow Night

No. Not this Peter&Paul:

credit: collectingcandy.com

credit: wikimedia commons

These guys:


Start with Evening Prayer I  tomorrow Night.

Solemnity Alert!

Don't forget to do Evening Prayer I for St. John the Baptist tonight.

John the Baptist by Jacek Malczewski (wikimedia commons)

Bono, U2 and the Psalms

It's not too often that you find the Psalms intersecting with pop culture.

I wasn't very tuned into pop music in the 80s and 90s, and only slightly more so now that my kids  occasionally share with me a pop song that they think I might like. (Occasionally they are actually right about this, resulting in a couple of hits by Coldplay or Train or Lindey Stirling sharing space on my jogging playlist with Billy Joel, Kansas, and Orleans hits from my ancient high school days.)

So my familiarity with Irish singer Bono and his group, U2, is patchy. I know maybe two of his songs and could correctly identify his picture. I'd also heard over the years that he is a believing Catholic, has been married to the same woman for 34 years, has four children, and is a great humanitarian.

Today, I was happy to learn from this article that Bono really likes the psalms:

  “First of all, David’s a musician, so I’m gonna like him. … And what’s so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as their being Gospel and songs of praise, they are also the Blues. It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.”

Next, I enjoyed his take on the first few verses of Psalm 40, which you can listen too here. This video starts with a different song, but if you want to get right over to Psalm 40, it starts aroud 4:40.So now I'm wondering whether Bono knows about the Liturgy of the Hours, and wishing there were a way to send him a breviary with a note explaining what it is. Any ideas for how one might do that?

Good News for Liturgically Savvy Lithuanians

It's actually been out for a while but my copy only came today.

If by chance you are interested in obtaining The Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours, Lithuanian  edition, here is a link that might be helpful.

St.Mary Magdalen now has a Feast

St. Mary Magdalen's day on the liturgical calendar has now been elevated from memorial to feast.

The reason, according to Archbishop Arthur Roche, is that she “has the honor to be the first witness of the Lord’s resurrection.”

“She is the witness to the risen Christ and announces the message of the Lord’s resurrection just like the rest of the Apostles,” he said, explaining that for this reason “it is right that the liturgical celebration of this woman should have the same rank of Feast as that given to the celebration of the Apostles in the General Roman Calendar.”

This article has the complete text of the statement from the Congregations for Divine Worship.

Latest from DivineOffice.org

A while back I mentioned the challenges being faced by the DivineOffice.org website and app.

Here is the latest message from Dane Falkner about the progress with these issues. I recommend that anyone who uses and/or cares about this ministry read the whole thing. A few highlights:

• If you haven't already done so, create an account and login because as of June 6th DivineOffice.org will not be able to accept any new members and the website will be closed to any who are not already signed on. 

• When you sign on, or if you already have an account, please complete your profile. This includes a questinaire that takes several minutes but is very important. These questions ask about how and why you benefit from DivineOffice.org. The data collected will help demonstrate to Church authorities that value of this ministry, and perhaps will help  see the importance of  assisting and facilitating this work. 

• There is also a call to help DivineOffice.org to acquire copyright free recordings of hymns. If you know of musicians who will do this, or have this ability yourself, perhaps you can help Dane Falkner and his associates with this part of his work. 

Check it out.