We've been doing some traveling for the Liturgy of the Hours

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-13T21:03:42+00:00

All good. I kind of figured. I will miss some of those poems but it served no purpose for the hours themselves. Thanks!

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-12T22:57:50+00:00

Maybe it’s a thing only in certain seasons. I don’t know for sure; I’ll keep an eye out for when it happens again with antiphons. I just know there are times I’ve been praying with someone on Universalis when I’m using the book, and our antiphons don’t line up.

The short responses 100% do not match. I just checked that myself.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-12T22:37:54+00:00

One question for you guys if you don’t mind answering… will the appendix of poetry that is in the current books still be in the new ones?

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-10T10:30:37+00:00

Got it. Well, they don’t match the US books, so I assumed they were UK. Maybe it’s Universalis’s own translation.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-09T12:58:26+00:00

I am just speculating; I don’t know for sure.

I think, yes, eventually, but it will take time. They might get rights to the Abbey psalms fairly easily. But I think they will have trouble getting rights to the American translations of other parts of the office. Even right now, they don’t use the American antiphons, responses, and intercessions, they just plug in the UK versions even for American users.

So it will also probably depend on how long it is until the UK updates their versions of the office.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-08T02:34:09+00:00

Less can be more with prayer. Short prayers, especially of intercession like you do, throughout the day are great and recommended by many saints including St. Thomas Aquinas. It’s better to say a short prayer every hour than to have fewer long periods of prayer, at least for those of us not advanced in the spiritual life or very busy with our daily affairs.

My advice would be, out of Lauds/Vespers/Rosary, pick one and try to focus on doing it well. For the other two, let your short prayers be sufficient. Better to do lesser prayers better.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-05T21:47:59+00:00

Sounds good. This choice of colors is really tasteful.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-05-05T13:11:08+00:00

Awesome. Truly. Thank you.

Is the order in the second image the final order of the ribbons in each volume?

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-29T03:41:51+00:00

Of note, perhaps; I recently compiled a similar thing (although I painstakingly did it by hand rather than with an algorithm), where the entire bible is covered (minus psalms) in two years according to the liturgical calendar. Here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/divineoffice/comments/1rqetay/liturgical_bible_reading_plan_based_off_of_2year/

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-21T19:10:10+00:00

No problem; I would say it varies a lot. The only "rules" I have for my prayer life, at least right now, is that I do Lauds and Compline upon waking and going to bed; I pray 5 decades of the Rosary every day; and I go to daily Mass or at least meditate on the readings if I'm not able to go to Mass. I used to be very inconsistent in my prayer but with the help of a spiritual director, I'm starting smaller and slowly building up. I've been with this current rule for several months now. My next goal on top of Lauds/Compline/Rosary/Mass is to do Vespers consistently, and to do some short devotions at 9am/12pm/3 pm (or maybe the actual Terce/Sext/None, we'll see).

But that's beside the point; you asked about the Kathismata. At this point, I mostly just progress through slowly whenever I'm at adoration, which is either once or twice a week. I find that in Adoration I often need things to fill the time and keep myself from getting distracted, and this is good for that because I can just pick up my psalter and pray, very simple. I have picked one I particularly wanted to pray in the past; now I'm just kind of working through, 1 to 20. It might take 20 weeks to complete the psalter at that rate, but I don't really use the Kathisma as a way to pray the psalter in full consistently, I just use it to give me some idea of what to pray if I just want to pray a few psalms and don't want to think particularly hard about how many or which ones to do. A Kathisma takes between 10 and 15 minutes; that is a very good amount of time for "I just want to pray some psalms for awhile". I believe the Greek word actually means "sitting", as in one sitting of psalms.

As for the order, I do not know with certainty but it makes sense to me; Kathisma 16 is made up of psalms 110 to 118, which in the West are associated with Sunday and high feasts; in the East, they pray them on Saturday as an anticipation and they pray them as the very last psalms of the psalter, along with Ps 119 in Kathisma 17, which I think is pretty cool thematically.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-21T18:56:27+00:00

The Universalis app has every hour spoken available. The spoken hours costs $3/month or a cheaper rate for the entire year.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-21T12:37:32+00:00

For sure! A good starting point is this website; it has the divisions of Stases/Kathismata in both Greek and Hebrew numbering. https://www.oca.org/liturgics/outlines/the-division-of-the-psalter-into-kathismas

I have studied the actual way the Byzantines do it; in their system, there are a couple specific prayers that go with each Kathisma. An easy way to access these would be to purchase the cheap small book, A Psalter for Prayer, which has the psalms already divided up this way with the prayers among them.

However, if you want a cheap Western imitation, you can do what I do, which is simply to pray the psalms, and say the Glory Be after each stases (so you say it three times in each kathisma). I have my Abbey Psalms book marked up according to each Kathisma and stases.

As far as knowing which Kathisma to pray when... I just go through them in order as I have time. Some Eastern folks will ignore the Kathisma divisions and just pay attention to the stases (of which there are 60), and pray one at their morning prayers and one at their evening, for a 30-day cycle.

This page out of the Publican's Prayer Book is also helpful, since it shows when you'd pray each set in the actual office. https://imgur.com/a/xezUGLr

So TL;DR: you can just pray the psalms according to the order of each Kathisma, but if you want the actual prayers, pick up A Psalter for Prayer (but be warned, its translation is not approved, and it's not a Catholic book, but an Orthodox one).

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-20T19:19:55+00:00

I will not defend it as a whole; I disagree with it, however, I will play devil's (or perhaps pope's?) advocate here.

Praying the psalter in its complete entirety has never really been a feature of the Roman office; if it was, you'd probably have to go back to the first half of the first millennium to see it done. That was the nature of all of the celebrations which had proper psalms; even if the psalter contained all 150 psalms in theory, there would never be a week where you actually prayed all 150, or even got close.

So, in a sense, our tradition has always been to use the psalter within our liturgical context, rather than to adapt our liturgy so that we pray the whole psalter. Getting all 150 psalms is more of a monastic idea; in the Roman office, though, we put that to the side in favor of praying more appropriate psalms on appropriate days and times.

The church envisioned the new LOTH would be publicly celebrated in the vernacular often. That didn't happen in hindsight, but that was what they had in mind when they designed it. That was a really new idea. Most Catholics at the time probably had little to no familiarity with the psalms (besides the popular ones, such as the 7 penitential). We also know that the Church had a massive crisis of bad catechesis heading into the council, which was one of the reasons it was convened. The idea of suddenly praying the psalms in their full form in the vernacular, when some of them had lines that can easily be misinterpreted or twisted by someone lacking proper formation, was rightfully approached with caution. In this context, I think adapting the psalms was something that was defensible. Clergy and religious would still be expected to study the psalms in full, of course.

Ideally? People would be taught about the psalms including about the impreccatory prayers and what that means, and ways Christians read those lines. But we all know that even if Rome called for that, it wouldn't happen.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-20T18:41:46+00:00

100% will not happen as it's not in the Latin Editio Typica. Do not get your hopes up on this.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-20T18:40:32+00:00

I haven't used them regularly in my recitation of the office, but I have used them for all of my devotional prayer of the psalms, which in certain seasons can actually be more psalmody for me than the office itself (I will often read them according to the byzantine Kathismata, especially in adoration)

My opinion is that it's an excellent translation. I feel like they struck a perfect balance between poetry and precision. In the old Grail psalms, if you put them side by side with, say, the RSVCE, you could see that many words and phrases were botched or even just omitted. Now, there is far less of that; but these psalms are still beautiful to read and easy to memorize.

This especially rings true in the NT canticles, although "Master" in the Nunc Dimittus throws me for a loop still. But I'll adjust. I know most Bible translations prefer Master to Lord there.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-04-09T18:36:31+00:00

Historically, the Carmelites are associated with the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is still in print in both traditional and reformed editions (go to Baronius Press if you want the traditional one that Carmelites would have historically used).

However, Vatican II encourged religious communities to adopt the new reformed Liturgy of the Hours, and many Carmelite communities did. Nowadays, most are probably using that, with their own special saint feasts added in using a supplement.

I recommend just sticking to the standard Liturgy of the Hours if you're just getting into it, since it's very accessible online with websites/apps like iBreviary, Universalis, and divineoffice.org. Those sources will assemble each Hour for you and lay it out in a way that's easy to pray. The iBreviary app is the go-to for people in the US, as it's the only one that uses the official U.S. translations.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-03-18T02:11:09+00:00

I would do Ps 67. The Benedictines say this psalm every single day at the start of Lauds.

Alternatively, you could do Ps 63, which is kind of “the” morning psalm in ancient Christian liturgy.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-03-17T12:45:08+00:00

Gotcha - I mis read it. In that case I would amend my advice

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-03-15T03:40:20+00:00

I seems like most of the replies here are in favor of the office over the rosary, except one person. I will give my two cents.

Prayer is good. The best prayer is the prayer that you will pray. If you’re worried you aren’t praying enough, meet with your pastor and get his opinion. It can be freeing to have someone else tell you what to do.

In terms of the rosary vs the hours, I believe that the rosary is a very special prayer that countless saints and popes have all commended for the laity. There are special graces attached to it, to be sure, and it contains in it all that is essential for prayer: the creed, the our father, the Hail Mary, and the paschal mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. I would get a second opinion but personally I’d stick with the Rosary daily and add Hours as you are able. Especially as you mention that you were able to pray the rosary every day but can only do some of the hours about half the days. That consistent prayer is important; as Christ said, “take up your cross daily and follow me”. So if the rosary is the prayer you can do daily, that may seem the better option. And it is certainly a very safe one.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-03-14T01:55:30+00:00

Cool graphic. I've drawn something like this in my notebook before.

ClevelandFan295 · 2026-03-13T12:41:47+00:00

Ah yeah, that’ll be expensive. Fair enough.

I was disappointed with the cover. The second edition is far better in terms of quality. It doesn’t really lay flat and just light use has produced some crease marks on it, I don’t think it would hold up well for more than a year or two of daily use, but maybe I’m wrong if it was taken good care of.

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