Breviary History #3- the League of the Divine Office

guest post by James I. McCauley

 The First A Short Breviary, 1941

At the time of his death in 1938, one of the projects Dom Virgil Michel was working on was a condensed version of the roman breviary in the Vernacular. Dom Godfrey Diekmann O.S.B. (1908-2002) pushed the work along and the work received the support of the then Abbot of St. John’s Alcuin Deutsch, O.S.B. (Abbot of St. John’s 1921-1950). A key factor was that the Breviary would only be in the vernacular, and not in Latin. The Breviary was a simplified Roman Breviary, not the Monastic Breviary, though Monastic Compline was provided. The Vulgate Psalms were used in this first edition. Receiving its imprimatur in November of 1940, the first printing of the first edition came out in 1941 and quickly sold out. Further printings were done in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945 and 1951. The volume was titled A Short Breviary For The Religious and For The Laity. Amazing, every copy of the first edition (in its various printings, confusing called “editions”) that have come into my possession were once owned by lay folks, men and women! Anyone who was associated with the League of the Divine Office in this era more likely than not used this Breviary. It was phenomenally successful, and I have found used copies from all over the Midwest and the northeast. Only one of the thirty plus copies I have seen over the years has been associated with a religious. All seem to be laymen, and, at most, possibly tertiaries. Please note that this was all before Vatican II, when the layperson was supposedly sitting dumbly in his pew, clutching his rosary, and not understanding a thing as to what was going on. In plain English, active participation in the liturgy by the laity was taking place well before the liturgical changes inaugurated by Vatican II.

Just how successful was this book? My grandfather, a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, received a copy in 1944 and brought his copy out into the Pacific with him in 1944-1945. He used it faithfully. Many years later, in 1981 after his death, I inherited it, and I began to use it in September 1986. I used this regularly, on and off, had it rebound, until I finally replaced it with the Monastic Diurnal in the fall of 2009.

We have two images of the Short Breviary, one showing the Beuronese style front plate as it was in the 1941 through 1945. The 1951 shows the first piece of Brother Placid Stuckenschneider OSB (1926-2007) art associated with the Short Breviary.

The Breviary set in motion the great work of St. John’s Abbey and the Liturgical Press in regards to the Breviary, a work that should not be forgotten.

Breviary History #2 -Helping the Laity

Guest post by James I. McCauley

 Virgil Michael O.S.B. and the League of the Divine Office, 1930s

Pope St. Pius X reformed the Divine Office, but how would that reform be effected, and who would bring this reform to the laity as Pius clearly wished? In England, a great deal of work was going on in the 1920 with the nuns of Stanbrook Abbey and Dom Fernand Cabrol, O.S.B. of St. Michael’s Abbey. In the United States there was Benedictine monk, Dom Virgil Michel, O.S.B. (1888-1938) of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Dom Michel understood that the laity should pray the office, and yet he understood that the Breviary, as it stood, was not necessarily practical for most lay folks to use.

A few quotes from Dom Michel’s 1937 book, The Liturgy Of The Church:

“The Entire divine office, its daily recitation, rests upon the principle of the duty of the creature to give praise to its Creator. It is this principle that gives us the correct basis for the very existence of the divine office. All of us owe homage and glory to God . . .

The prayer of praise is therefore in a special sense a sacrifice which the member of Christ, as possessing a general priestly character, must offer up to God.”

Another point is that Dom Michel understood the importance of the vernacular. While there are those who can easily read, and prefer Latin, the majority of Catholics today do not, and that was a factor that Dom Vergil’s push for a vernacular breviary to open up the riches of the Divine Office to the laity. Dom Michel and his friend Msgr. William Busch (died 1971), both saw the Society of Approved Workmen praying the Office in 1932 and likewise, the Campion Propaganda Committee around the same time period. Busch in particular pushed the practice of the laity praying the breviary.

As a result, by 1936, St. John’s Abbey was promulgating The League of the Divine Office, a voluntary organization of lay people who agree to recite some part of the divine office every day. In my possession is an original brochure handed out by the Abbey regarding this League. Please note in the image that the full daily offices for Prime and Compline are provided as separate booklets. And note the Short Breviary – topic of the next article! In any event, the League is something that should be revived today. Any priest who runs a parish can take the scans of this brochure and pick up and carry on the good work of Virgil Michael and William Busch.

Breviary History #1- Reforms of Pius X

1. Background, Pius X, early 20^th century
   guest post by James I. McCauley

This blog has been dedicated to bringing souls to Christ by encouraging them to read the prayer of the Church, that is, the Liturgy of the Hours. However, the Liturgy of the Hours has a long backstory and I would like to share some of it with you. Please note these articles are not meant to be scholarly, but are meant to be overviews. You are welcome to make comments and ask questions, but I have one rule – be charitable and therefore do not tell me that this office is better than that office, and so on. “The important thing to do,” as my good friend Father Allan Weber, O.F.M has always said, “is to pray.”

Our story begins in the reign of Pius X (Pope 1903-1914). On November 22, 1903 he issued his motu proprio Tra Le Sollecitudini on the restoration of Church music. Within the document the great and holy pontiff stated:

“It being our ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit restored in every aspect and preserved by all of the faithful, we deem it necessary to provide before everything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for the object of acquiring this spirit from its indispensable font, which is the active participation in the holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.”

Among the many reasons Pius X reformed the Roman Breviary with the Apostolic Constitution Divino Afflatu on November 1, 1911, was to bring the above into effect. This reform of the Roman Breviary provided the general layout of the psalter until the promulgation of the Liturgy of the Hours in 1971. The reforms of Pius X had the positive effect of reducing the burden on those obligated to recite the psalter by reducing the amount of verses the priest had to say by over a thousand verse lines per week! Would you like to read from this Apostolic Constitution? Then pull out Volume IV of the Liturgy of Hours and go to page 1336 for a wonderful excerpt from this Constitution, which is the Reading for the Feast of Pius X on August 21. Simply splendid!

Now, how are we going to get the laity to actively participate in the Prayer of the Church? That is the topic of the next article.