(Lat. Liturgia horarum; It. Liturgia delle ore; Fr. Liturgie des heures, etc.).
The Divine Office according to the 1971 revision, that is, the Office of the reformed Roman Breviary.
The Hour services of the Western Church (see Divine Office) underwent radical revision after the Second Vatican Council. The principles of this revision were broadly outlined in the fourth chapter of the Constitution De sacra liturgia (adopted by 2131 placet to 50 non placet, 22 November 1963). A study group commissioned to work on the new breviary under the presidency of A.G. Martimort had an editio typica ready for the press by 1970, and this received the approval of Pope Paul VI on 1 November 1970 in his Apostolic Constitution Laudis canticum. Finally, the Institutio generalis de liturgia horarum (1971) offered a detailed presentation of the revision. It preceded by a few months the publication of the four-volume prototype Liturgia horarum juxta ritum romanum. Vernacular translations followed.
Lauds and Vespers – Morning and Evening Prayer – are set forth as the most important of the Hours. The old night Office (Matins, Vigils) has been redesigned as an Office of Readings, suitable for recitation at any time. Prime has disappeared; Terce, Sext and None remain, but if so desired any one of these may be chosen for recitation during the day as an hora media. Compline is the final Hour, to be said before going to bed.
Psalmody is the staple substance of the Hours, and in order to make its recitation more fruitful the Psalter has been redistributed over a period of four weeks. Additional canticles from the Old and New Testaments have been included. The lectionary has been completely recast: the Office of Readings now has two lessons only (instead of three or nine as formerly), one from the Bible, the other from the Fathers or some other ecclesiastical source. Each reading is followed by a responsory. The number of Office hymns has increased and optional hymns are proposed to give greater variety. The Latin texts have been revised here and there. A rich selection of intercessions is introduced into the Offices of Lauds and Vespers. These two Hours end with the Lord’s Prayer and a collect; the other Hours have the collect only (see Table 1).
The calendar has been vigorously rehandled, with a view to emphasizing the Temporal Cycle and to obtaining a more equal distribution of saints’ days. Sundays ‘per annum’ now replace Sundays ‘post Epiphaniam’ and ‘post Pentecostem’. In classifying the Church’s festivals the older distinction between first- and second-class doubles, major doubles, semi-doubles, simples etc., has been superseded by a simpler triple gradation: solemnities, feasts and memorials. The ordinary weekday (ferial) Office occurs with greater frequency than before.
There is a section of the Institutio generalis (§§267–84) dealing with music in the revised Office. Paragraph 274 repeats that Gregorian chant should be given pride of place when Latin is used, but it adds: ‘No kind of sacred music is prohibited from liturgical actions by the Church as long as it corresponds to the spirit of the liturgical celebration itself and the nature of its individual parts, and does not hinder the active participation of the people’. The provision of suitable music for vernacular celebrations is recommended and singing in more than one language is not excluded (§276).
A.G. Martimort: L’église en prière (Paris, 1961, 4/1983; Eng. trans., 1986–8)
De sacra liturgia (Rome, 1964; Eng. trans., 1967)
P. Salmon: L’office divin au Moyen Age (Paris, 1967)
Hymni instaurandi breviarii romani (Rome, 1968)
Institutio generalis de liturgia horarum (Rome, 1971; Eng. trans. with commentary by A.-M. Roguet)
La liturgie des heures, La Maison-Dieu, cv (Paris, 1971)
Liturgia horarum iuxta ritum romanum (Rome, 1972)
Ordo missae celebrandae et divini officii persolvendi secundum calendarium romanum generale (Rome, 1974)
R. Taft: The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: the Origins of the Divine Office and its Meaning for Today (Collegeville, MN, 1986)
P.J. Elliott: Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite: the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours (San Francisco, 1995)
MARY BERRY