The Divine Office – Part 5

Tridentine Community News (February 13, 2011):

Additional Little Offices

Last week we described the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an abbreviated version of the Divine Office that has been popular among laymen and religious orders alike. The Church enriches the recitation of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin with a Partial Indulgence. It is logical to conclude that one may earn an Indulgence by praying any hour in the Little Office. Interestingly, the 2006 Manual of Indulgences offers no similar Indulgence for the praying of the full Office. It is possible that since the Divine Office is an official prayer of the Church, like the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it would be overstating the obvious to enrich the full Office with an Indulgence.

The Church also grants a Partial Indulgence for the recitation of any “approved” Little Office, and specifies four additional ones as examples, which are interesting prayers in their own right.

Actual and Downloadable Books

A relatively new phenomenon on the Internet is the appearance of downloadable books. These are either new books that are specifically intended to be downloaded as PDF files and printed, or out-of-print books that have been scanned in. These are relevant to our discussion because so many of the Little Office books are out of print. Some scans are better than others, and some, especially many done by Google Books, are even searchable by text. If you access the PDF version of this column at the web site at the bottom of this page, you can click on the below links to save yourself the trouble of typing in the web addresses.

A good source for the English texts of these Little Offices – and a remarkably beautiful scan job, as you can see from the below image – is Fr. F.X. Lasance’s 1914 Prayer Book For Religious, available [here].



One book that is both downloadable and in-print is Fr. F.X. Lasance’s Blessed Sacrament Prayerbook, available from www.catholictreasures.com and [here].

Four Additional Indulgenced Little Offices

Little Office of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ: A version of this Little Office is on page 761 of the Blessed Sacrament Prayerbook, however it appears that this is not the version of this Little Office which is indulgenced. That version only appeared in a 1953 book entitled Little Office of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is neither downloadable nor available used, nor available on-line. One cannot consider any other version of the Little Office of the Passion to be an approved one, though there are certainly graces to be had by reciting such sound prayers.

Little Office of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: The English text is on page 761 of the Blessed Sacrament Prayerbook and on page 652 of the Prayer Book For Religious. The Latin and English texts are available [here].

Little Office of the Immaculate Conception: This Little Office is shorter than the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A booklet may be purchased from www.aquinasandmore.com. The English text begins on page 771 of the Blessed Sacrament Prayerbook and on page 735 of the Prayer Book For Religious. The Latin and English texts are available [here].

Little Office of St. Joseph: No books are still in print. The Latin text begins on page 195 of the 1782 Parvum Cœléste Palmétum, available on Google Books [here]. The English text begins on page 591 of the Prayer Book For Religious. A web page with the text is available [here].

Like the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the other Little Offices have not been revised post-Vatican II, thus only the existing (Extraordinary Form) versions are licit to use for public prayer. It is rare indeed that the pre-Summórum Pontíficum Manual of Indulgences makes reference to a pre-Vatican II prayer.

There are yet more Little Offices, though only those which have received ecclesiastical approval are explicitly enriched with Indulgences. Some which might have been approved at some point are the Little Offices of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, of the Blessed Sacrament, and of the Angels.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

Mon. 02/14 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Low Requiem Mass)

Tue. 02/15 7:00 PM: High Mass at Assumption-Windsor (High Requiem Mass for Fr. Ulysse Lefaive)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@stjosaphatchurch.org. Previous columns are available at www.stjosaphatchurch.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat bulletin insert for February 13, 2011. Hat tip to A.B.]