I have some questions for those interested in the Anglican Breviary.
(For those not familiar, the Anglican Breviary was a revision of the Roman Catholic Breviary subsequent to its 1910 revision; it contains the standard 8 prayer offices with all their attendant liturgical materials, but renders them in accordance with the psalms and prayers of the prayer book tradition. That is, the psalter is the Coverdale and BCP collects are used in some places rather than the Roman Catholic collects. Too, some of the readings at Matins are modified to reflect Anglican theological commitments in the few cases where there are significant points of divergence.)
Those (particularly though not necessarily exclusively Anglicans) who are interested in and choose to use the Anglican Breviary have some decisions with regard to its use. Please indicate where you’d fall. I’m going to leave this poll up for one week to get a sense of where folks are on things currently.
[poll id=”6″]
I am probably one of very few who actually used the Anglican Breviary for an extended period of time (1963–1979), and used it in community (Order of St. Francis, Mt Sinai, L.I., N.Y., where it was edited and compiled,). It is a brilliant work, but intense and, rather, complicated, esp. when one has been reared in the less-Baroque world of liturgically reformed post Vatican II simplicity. Restoring what the Elizabethan Reformers took away seems somewhat contrary–antiphons, etc.–but at the same time wonderfully enriching.
A mix between two choices. I feel some obligation as an Episcopal priest to use our Office liturgy and so prefer the Offices from the BCP with the minor offices in the Breviary. But also I really like the additional material found in the Breviary to enrich the BCP Offices (such as antiphons on the Benedictus and Magnificat)
I liked the richness of the Anglican Breviary but the length of Lauds and Vespers made it impractical to use. (I used it when I was a practicing law and I had to rush the praying of the offices.) Further, to gain the full benefit of the enriched office, I had to keep my Bible near by to complete the readings. In order to find a user friendly substitute, I switched to the Shorter Benedictine Breviary published The Liturgical Press. I like the length of the offices and the readings for Vigils (Matins) but I miss the prose and poetry of the 1979 BCP and the memorials to Anglican saints. I’d like to find a breviary that blends the richness in the Anglican Breviary with shorter offices of Lauds and Vespers; a breviary that is user friendly for a person who continues to work full time.
As much as I admire the AB and can dip into it with pleasure, for me “antiphon” means not just a text but also a melody, so I do my BCP supplementing out of sources that provide proper antiphons (chants) for the whole church year. Wright’s patristic readings keyed exactly to every day in the BCP1979 office lectionary are also a better fit.
I almost picked the first response because I really can’t see how the AB can be used along with the BCP. After all it contains the obsolete usage of an alien communion almost in toto.
There are (to me) better possibilities of both Roman and Sarum provenance or even mixed uses. The Cuddesdon book, Paul Hartzell’s wonderful Prayer Book Office in its several manifestations, Cowley’s Hours Of Prayer, Prime & The Hours, The Monastic Diurnal to a degree, H Galley’s PBO, The English Office Book, The Day Hours are only a few that come to mind.
(The problem is the availability of this material, and that is why the AB retains a following.)
So it’s not a matter of not caring but of caring for more suitable aids to devotion.
I agree the problem is the availability of the material. I have the old Anglican breviary that was reproduced but the print in small and the use cumbersome. I currently use the large print Roman Catholic 4 volume breviary. Before you laugh I am not that old but go to work in the dark hours of the morning
I can’t answer any of the questions in the poll. I have no use for the post-Tridentine and pre-Vatican2 rite, or those Anglican resources which derive from it. I use the BCP morning and evening offices (rite 2 in the morning, rite 1 in the evening) with the traditional canticles, with office hymns, antiphons, psalm-tones, etc. from the Sarum Breviary and Antiphoner.
http://hmcwordpress.mcmaster.ca/renwick/
The Latin is virtually complete, the English coming along nicely.
I use the BCP for morning and evening, but I don’t care for the wording of the Compline service in a few places, and prefer the Anglican service for that.