The Breviary is so clearly the breath of the Church, and I hope more people begin with it. I promised the bishop at my ordination to pray the cardinal hours, but I quickly started praying all the hours. A few years after my ordination I realized how much of the Psalter was cut from the Breviary by Bugnini and his Consilium, and I started using the older form. It is deeply enriching to read the whole Psalter in a week; the Psalms become old friends. And we are not denied the troubling verses or the three entire Psalms that were omitted from the new liturgy of the hours. (They're good enough for God but not for us?) Over the years, the amount of the Breviary I pray in Latin has increased, and that, too, has enriched the experience. I would encourage everyone to start with the LOTH and perhaps consider moving at some point to the older form and do what they can in their state of life. Individual recitation will not look exactly like what you see the monks do in choir, so don't compare yourself to them. The invitation from God is always participation rather than performance, and the depth and breadth of participation is always open to increase.
Well said. I was a novice at a monastery 10 years ago and now in Oblate formation, so I’m using the Monastic Diurnal. I didn’t come to the TLM till 3 years ago, so it’s all rather new but my prayer life is so much the richer for it. I go back and forth between the Latin in English and hope to be praying all in Latin over the years. It just takes time. What else is time for?
The Breviary is so clearly the breath of the Church, and I hope more people begin with it. I promised the bishop at my ordination to pray the cardinal hours, but I quickly started praying all the hours. A few years after my ordination I realized how much of the Psalter was cut from the Breviary by Bugnini and his Consilium, and I started using the older form. It is deeply enriching to read the whole Psalter in a week; the Psalms become old friends. And we are not denied the troubling verses or the three entire Psalms that were omitted from the new liturgy of the hours. (They're good enough for God but not for us?) Over the years, the amount of the Breviary I pray in Latin has increased, and that, too, has enriched the experience. I would encourage everyone to start with the LOTH and perhaps consider moving at some point to the older form and do what they can in their state of life. Individual recitation will not look exactly like what you see the monks do in choir, so don't compare yourself to them. The invitation from God is always participation rather than performance, and the depth and breadth of participation is always open to increase.
Well said. I was a novice at a monastery 10 years ago and now in Oblate formation, so I’m using the Monastic Diurnal. I didn’t come to the TLM till 3 years ago, so it’s all rather new but my prayer life is so much the richer for it. I go back and forth between the Latin in English and hope to be praying all in Latin over the years. It just takes time. What else is time for?