CTS Divine Worship: Daily Office
By Ordinariates established by Anglicanorum Coetibus
Catholic Truth Society, 2021
2030 pages, £45 (approx. $60 USD / $ 76 CAD / $85 AUD)
To order, go to CTSBooks.org (Orders secured now will be fulfilled when the second printing is released in February 2022).
Released in September 2021 after years of anticipation, the Catholic Truth Society’s new prayer book, Divine Worship: Daily Office (Commonwealth Edition), is a magnificent contribution to the liturgical prayer life of the Catholic Church. This beautifully-produced volume serves as the approved form of the Liturgy of the Hours for clergy and faithful of the Personal Ordinariates of Our Lady of Walsingham (United Kingdom) and Our Lady of the Southern Cross (Australia and the Western Pacific Region), and may be used by all English-speaking Catholics throughout the world to enrich their spiritual lives.
Just over two thousand pages long, Divine Worship: Daily Office features the complete cycle of daily prayer for the entire liturgical year in a single book no larger than a typical breviary or pew missal—an incredible feat, considering the comprehensive lectionary of scriptural readings! Borrowing straight from the classical Anglican Book of Common Prayer tradition, Divine Worship: Daily Office contains some of the finest, most memorable English prose ever written, and serves as an invaluable, deeply meaningful ecumenical gesture to our separated Christian brethren in the Anglican churches.
Though its beautiful offices are thoroughly Anglican in character, Divine Worship: Daily Office is not a complete Book of Common Prayer (or BCP) in the usual sense. It contains only the texts of the daily offices alongside a complete yearly lectionary, whereas a BCP typically includes all of the rites and liturgies of a particular ecclesiastical body (such as the Church of England, or The Episcopal Church). While a Catholic BCP entitled the Book of Divine Worship, published by Newman House Press, was once authorized for use by the Pastoral Provision parishes (the precursor to the Catholic Church establishing the Ordinariates for the Anglican tradition), it has since been superseded by Catholic Truth Society’s Divine Worship series of liturgical books, including Divine Worship: The Missal, Divine Worship: Occasional Services, and Divine Worship: Pastoral Care of the Sick and Dying. CTS’s publication of Divine Worship: Daily Office fulfills a crucial role in the Ordinariates’ mission, providing a superb tool for evangelization while enabling the immense beauty of the Anglican patrimony to be shared throughout the Church.
Physically, Divine Worship: Daily Office is a pleasure to hold and to pray with. Printed and bound in Italy by LEGO SpA, a high-quality black leatherette cover and sewn binding allow the book to drape open easily and lie flat under its own weight. Richly gilded pages are complemented by six handsome satin ribbons—a very nice touch, though admittedly a few extra ribbons would come in handy! The text itself begins with lovely woodcut illustration taken from the famous Wilton Diptych. This is immediately followed by ecclesiastical decrees of approval; a detailed, well-thought-out General Introduction; a Table of Liturgical Days, Calendar, and Table of Lessons; Collects; Supplementary Texts; the Athanasian Creed, Litany, and Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings; the Ordinary of the Divine Office; the Psalter; and the Lessons. The volume concludes with several short appendices on various topics.
The heart of the book is the Ordinary of the Divine Office, which contains the crucial frameworks for Morning Prayer (also known as Mattins), Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Evening Prayer (or Evensong), and Compline, as well as the Office of the Dead. To my everlasting wonder and joy, I found that Mattins and Evensong are drawn almost verbatim from the greatest Anglican Prayer Book of all, the 1662 BCP! The other hours (Prime through None, and Compline) appear to be taken from nineteenth and twentieth-century Anglican sources, which are more often than not direct translations of Roman Catholic liturgical books into Prayer Book English.
Where this particular prayer book diverges most significantly from the modern Catholic Liturgy of the Hours is in the prominence it gives to Mattins and Evensong. In times past, these offices were of seminal importance in Anglican parochial life, and the celebration of daily Mattins and Evensong remains a vital part of many parishes to this day. Created by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer as an amalgamation of Matins and Lauds (Mattins) and Vespers and Compline (Evensong), they were the only offices included in the vast majority of BCPs until the mid-twentieth century, when Prayer Book revisions began including additional hours (most often Compline). Structurally, the two offices are nearly identical, each beginning with a penitential rite, followed by prescribed readings from the psalter, Old Testament, and New Testament, interspersed with scriptural canticles and concluding with a selection of prayers and collects. When prayed aloud at a reasonable pace, the offices rarely take over twenty minutes to say. When chanted or sung, they can take upwards of half an hour or more—but it is a glorious experience, truly a foretaste of heaven on earth.
Praying the Anglican offices, including those forms now confirmed into the Catholic Church via Divine Worship: Daily Office, is a wonderful means of becoming intimately familiar with the scriptures. Just by praying Mattins and Evensong alone, you cover the entire psalter without any omissions each month. Furthermore, these two offices each include a pair of scriptural readings (or lessons), typically a full chapter in length, resulting in most of the Old Testament being read once and the entire New Testament twice over the course of the year. The remaining framework of these offices is very simple, straightforward and relatively unvarying, making them easy to commit to memory and absolutely superb for family prayer.
Where Divine Worship: Daily Office truly shines is in the way it includes and organizes the daily cycle of Mattins and Evensong lessons. Frankly, it’s amazing! Using the Revised Standard Version (2nd Catholic Edition) translation, the lessons are arranged logically according to the liturgical year. Once you find the right place to start, you’ll never have to look at a calendar again—just move your ribbon forward after each lesson, and it will be located in exactly the right spot for the next office you pray. This nearly obviates the lectionary tables in the front of the book, which is a superb bit of Anglican patrimony: The biggest appeal of the Anglican offices has always been their beauty and simplicity, and Divine Worship: Daily Office makes them even simpler to pray. Everything you need to pray any of the offices for any feast on any day of the year is all contained within the covers of this beautiful, easily-portable volume.
The book does have a few quirks which I suspect will be resolved in the next edition. These include a few insignificant typos (an impressively small number, considering the sheer amount of text), and a missing doxology in one spot. Being an inveterate BCP nerd, I have minor quibbles with some editorial decisions (especially in the Litany), but the vast majority of Catholics will remain unperturbed by the small handful of nearly-unnoticeable changes here and there.
In my view, it would be a welcome improvement to have CTS’s Divine Worship: Daily Office officially authorized as an option for public use and for the clergy in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, which encompasses North America. Since the three Ordinariates for the Anglican tradition already share all their other liturgical books in common, in my view, it only makes sense that they would have the opportunity to share this office book as well. Regardless, as far as personal prayer goes, Catholic laity (or religious and clergy if they are not bound to pray a particular form of the Liturgy of the Hours) may certainly take advantage of CTS’s Divine Worship: Daily Office.
All in all, Catholic Truth Society and the Our Lady of Walsingham and Our Lady of the Southern Cross Ordinariates have done a fantastic job creating Divine Worship: Daily Office. It is truly a superb prayer book, and is in my opinion the finest Catholic breviary published in many years. Beautiful within and without, easy to learn and use, providing a complete, uncensored monthly psalter and a healthy diet of daily scripture readings, perfectly suited for busy families and clergymen alike, Divine Worship: Daily Office is a wonderful gift from the Ordinariates to the Church universal. I highly commend this volume to anyone who wishes to pray the Divine Office and thereby join in the official liturgical prayer of the Catholic Church.
J.H. Littlemore is the pen name of a guest essayist to the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society. All contributor views are their own, and not that of the ACS.