Prayer of the Hours
Breviary of the Ancient Celtic Church
Hourly prayer is a regular prayer practice of the hours. The Breviary of the Ancient Celtic Church provides four praying times per day, namely the morning (laudes), the noon (sext), the evening (vespers) and the time before bedtime (complete). The Hourly Prayer includes the Psalms and the daily reading and hymns, which can also be spoken. The order of the Psalms is based on the Benedictine Breviary. The daily readings correspond to the reading schedule of the Mass celebrations for the Sundays and weekdays of the Catholic Church. We are thus referring to the prayer and readings of the great communion of Christianity. The Benedictine Breviary schedules all 150 psalms to be read in one week. For some, this workload is not feasible in everyday work. Therefore, we have drawn up a reading plan in which the psalms are read in four weeks, i.e. about one month. But the Psalms are always read on the same day of the week and at the same hour as in Benedictine prayer, with the difference that not four, but only one psalm, is read per hour.
The prayers in the Breviary of the Ancient Celtic Church come from the rich tradition of the Celtic, Catholic and Evangelical Churches, e.g. the Antiphonary of Bangor from the 7th century, Celtic prayers from the 5th century, the Benedictine breviary of the Irish monastery in Glenstal and the German monasteries in Münsterschwarzach and Maria Laach, as well as the Evangelical tradition. The Divine Office of the Ancient Celtic Church is an expression of ecumenism and the appreciation of the prayer traditions of all churches and religious orders.
Since the reading texts from the Old and New Testaments and the Psalms are not included in the breviary, the Bible texts are also required for the reading order. Ideal for this are the lectionaries of the masses, which are arranged according to church Sundays, and a book of psalms. But a Bible can also be used. However, the breviary can also be used without the psalms and readings in the annual cycle. It offers four prayers a day for the seven days of the week and is certainly a blessing to that extent.
Breviary of the Ancient Celtic Church
Reading plan for mass celebrations on Sundays (A, B, C) and working days (I, II)
Reading year AI: 2017, 2023, 2029, 2035, 2041, 2047, 2053, ...
Year of harvest B II: 2018, 2024, 2030, 2036, 2042, 2048, 2054, ...
Reading year CI: 2019, 2025, 2031, 2037, 2043, 2049, 2055, ...
Reading year A II: 2020, 2026, 2032, 2038, 2044, 2050, 2056, ...
Reading year BI: 2021, 2027, 2033, 2039, 2045, 2051, 2057, ...
Harvesting year C II: 2016, 2022, 2028, 2034, 2040, 2046, 2052, 2058, ...
Reading plan of the Psalms
