Divine Office Resources

Harbey Santiago
Harbey Santiago Member Posts: 91 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Can anyone recommend some Verbum resources for the Liturgy of the Hours, I'm looking for stuff such as history, origins  and development. Thanks!

"Viva Cristo Rey!!"

Deacon Harbey Santiago

Comments

  • Bruce Roth
    Bruce Roth Member Posts: 328 ✭✭

    Not sure of resources about the LOTH, but the set of books are on pre-pub.  

    https://www.logos.com/product/33008/liturgy-of-the-hours

  • Deacon Steve
    Deacon Steve Member Posts: 1,608 ✭✭✭

    There is nothing that I am aware that speaks directly to the historical development of the Divine Office in the Verbum libraries.  Perhaps MJ is familiar with some resource(s) and could chime in. 

    Not a history, this resource is part of Verbum Capstone+:  The Divine Office: Explanation of Psalms and Canticles

    The Benedictine Studies Collection (11 vols.) set is a separate purchase but may provide some insight to monastic rules.

    If you do an internet search on "history of divine office" that may give you some research ideas.

  • Rosie Perera
    Rosie Perera Member Posts: 26,194 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The Rule of St. Benedict with Notes in English edited by Timothy Fry has an Appendix which has some good stuff in it. Here's how it starts out:

    Appendix 3

    The Liturgical Code in the Rule of Benedict

    From earliest times Christians have been conscious of the privilege and the responsibility of prayer. Paul exhorted the community at Thessalonica to “pray constantly” and to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:17–18). In the theology of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus himself is portrayed as a man of prayer and as a teacher of prayer: “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray; and all night he continued in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12). It is not surprising, then, that in early Christian sources outside the New Testament we find an emphatic interest in prayer, personal and public. A survey of these sources will reveal four principal lines in the development of what we today call the Liturgy of the Hours or the Divine Office—an officially established pattern of common prayer (psalms, hymns, Bible readings, petitions) that punctuates the various hours of the day and night. With Juan Mateos, we may identify these four lines of development in the Liturgy of the Hours as follows:
    1. times for prayer in the primitive Church;
    2. the development of a “monastic tradition” of prayer-times in fourth-century Egypt;
    3. the “cathedral tradition,” i.e., public prayer as celebrated in parochial or cathedral churches;
    4. the rise of an “urban monastic tradition” of prayer-times.

    Each of these four stages merits some attention.

    [and then it goes on to give each of them some attention]

    Saint Benedict Abbot of Monte Cassino, The Rule of St. Benedict in English with Notes, ed. Timothy Fry, electronic edition. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1981), 379.

    ========================

    Then there's an entry in The Modern Catholic Encyclopedia on "Liturgy of the Hours" which gives a bit about its history, insofar as it is known (it says the early history of it is obscure).

    ========================

    More thorough background is available in these books listed in a bibliography in Twenty Centuries of Christian Worship (Library of Christian Worship: Volume 2), although alas none of these books is available in Logos:

    Daily Prayer

    Bradshaw, Paul. Daily Prayer in the Early Church. London: SPCK, 1981. A standard work that elucidates the origin and early history of the daily office of prayer from its Jewish background to the office of St. Benedict.

    Guiver, George. Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God. New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1988. Deals with the history and content of daily prayer with an eye toward making the practice or prayer available to the common person.

    Fisher, Dominic F., TOR. The Liturgy of the Hours. Petersham, Mass.: St. Bede’s Publications, 1987. A historical overview of the liturgy of the hours with practical guidelines for implementing the liturgy of the hours in the local parish.

    Taft, Robert, S. J. The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1986. A scholarly investigation of the origins of the liturgy of the hours in the cathedrals and monasteries of both the East and the West. [Preview available on Google Books.]

    ========================

    A search on Google Books for "liturgy of the hours" history will find you several other books with previews available that might help in your quest as well.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,968

    from my shelves

    • The School of Prayer: An Introduction to the Divine Office for All Christians by John Brook
    • *The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West - Robert Taft
    • *Daily Prayer in the Early Church: A Study of the Origin and Early Development of the Divine Office by Paul F. Bradshaw
    • The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography... by Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer
    • Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    • The Psalms in Israel's Worship (Biblical Resource Series) by Sigmund Mowinckel
    • Brevierstudien ed. Josef Jungmann

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Harbey Santiago
    Harbey Santiago Member Posts: 91 ✭✭

    Thanks Rosie and MJ, this is precisely what I was looking for.

    "Viva Cristo Rey!!"

    Deacon Harbey Santiago

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    we may identify these four lines of development in the Liturgy of the Hours as follows:
    1. times for prayer in the primitive Church;
    2. the development of a “monastic tradition” of prayer-times in fourth-century Egypt;
    3. the “cathedral tradition,” i.e., public prayer as celebrated in parochial or cathedral churches;
    4. the rise of an “urban monastic tradition” of prayer-times.

    Starting a bit late, isn't he? I would think there should be a 00. the Temple prayers, and a 0. the Synagogue prayers.

    I'll write a post to Gabe and ask him to distribute the suggestions between the relevant product managers.

    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,968

    fgh - don't forget the Jewish prayers in the home 0.5[;)]

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."