Dear Susan —

Here's a rundown on some options for Office books in Latin. All the ones I know of are in Latin only. English-language Office books are available from Catholic Book Publishing Corporation or from the Daughters of St Paul.

First, for the current Liturgy of the Hours:

• The present Liturgia Horarum is published by the Midwest Theological Forum and is a six-volume set with daily readings from the Church Fathers. It doesn't include any music.
• The current monastic Office books with Gregorian chant are published by the Abbey of Solesmes, France, and distributed in America by Paraclete Press of Orleans, Massachusetts. They include the "Psalterium Monasticum" and the "Liber Hymnarius". However, those books only cover part of the Office, and another volume is still in preparation.

For the Old Divine Office:

• Paraclete also distributes the old Benedictine monastic Office book, the
  
  • Antiphonale Monasticum I
  • II, and
  • III.
• The old Office book used most by parish choirs, the "Liber Usualis", is available as a used book for $75-100. A small publishing company has started to re-issue the Liber, but only the 1952 edition, issued before the Holy Week reforms of the mid-1950s.
  See St. Bonaventure Publications for more info.
• Text-only editions (i.e., no music) of the old Breviary do show up in used bookstores from time to time.

If Father isn't in touch with other supporters of the Latin liturgy yet, he may like to contact:

• the Latin Liturgy Association.

Best wishes —

Richard Chonak

Dear Anonymous —

If you are interested in finding breviaries that come in other Catholic publishers, you may want to try:

• Baronius Press

Hope this helps,

Mike

Mike and team,

I happened to come across your web page by accident. . . . Good work!!!

The Liturgical Press (Collegeville, Minnesota) printed a three-volume set of the breviary with the 1962 rubrics. All the prayers are in Latin with an English translation on the other half of the page. Several other editions had previously been printed in:

• Latin/French
• Latin/Spanish, and
• Latin/Dutch (At least that I have seen.)

One four volume set was printed in English only by RCL Benziger (Benziger Brothers), who also published the Latin and the old altar missals. The hope was to make the Office available for those not bound to the office in Latin, i.e. religious brothers and sisters, as well as lay folk who did not know Latin. The Liturgical Press edition however has the psalter (psalms) in the "New" translation made under Pope Pius XII, and if the retreat house mentioned in the question uses the old breviary with the Vulgate psalter, it would have some variations in the Latin translation. The text says the same thing but (the vocabulary|the List) is a little different.

Pax,

Fr. Robert Sanchez