So, my friend and I are enjoying our monastic karaoke experiments, but we've got a problem.
The kindly nuns at Rosano gave me a nice old copy of the Monastic Diurnal they weren't using, and it just happens to be exactly the book the monks at Norcia recommend for use by oblates. It's the 1962 edition translated by the monks at Collegeville (the translations into English are terrible. I mean REALLY bad, occasionally entirely changing the sense of the original Latin... but it just serves to keep us on our toes.)
Br. Anthony, the oblate director at Norcia, told us that it does pretty much exactly reproduce their own Divine Office.
Trouble is, it's a little awkward only having one book between the two of us, and I've checked around and the things are rare as hen's teeth, and considerably more expensive. Yowch! I thought that Baronius does them, but it turns out not. They do a three-volume M. Breviary, but not the single-volume Diurnal.
I am therefore making a little book-bleg.
If anyone has a spare Farnborough Monastic Diurnal lying around they're not using, we can guarantee it will be given a good home and be put to good use.
Drop a note if so...
(btw: I'm getting more and more confused about books. I just found the St. Michael's Abbey Press shop, where they purport to sell a thing called the Monastic Diurnal, that has the right hours in L. and Eng. But from the pic, it looks about twice the size of mine. Any of you liturgy nerds out there know why this would be? Is there maybe music in that one? Any other differences?)
~
Fair warning: I've never actually held a copy of the Farnborough printing in my hands. But the reviews when it first came out stated that it was a straight reprint of the Collegeville Monastic Breviary.
ReplyDeleteI do have a 2d hand and very heavily used copy of the Collegeville production. Judging from that and the page illustration on the Farnborough site, it does appear to be a straight reprint. I suspect the size difference has much to do with the paper stock used. The Collegeville uses very thin stock and the years have not been kind to it. (Hmm. Well, I suppose it is half a century old. I forget 1963 wasn't the day before yesterday. Lord, I'm old.)
I must say I never noticed bad translations . . . but then I never used it on a daily basis. It's value to me is the propers. Where else are you going to find a collect for St Mark Barkworth?
If you want singing, Lancelot Andrewes Press has a reprint of the Monastic Breviary Noted that Canon Winfred Douglas did in the early 1930s for Anglican Benedictine communities. The chants are based on the Benedictine chants, adapted for the English text. No Latin, alas. It uses the prayer book psalter and the KJV but follows the plan of the Breviarium Monasticum in translation. They have also reprinted the Monastic Breviary Matins, another Anglican edition which essentially means Tudor English, prayer book psalter, and KJV bible. No dots for singing in this one. But it's a nice one to have for the daily lections.
Cheers,
-John-
Well John, I don't want you to give up a treasure.
ReplyDeleteBenedictine monks at CCA have one for sale, not cheap:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.clearcreekmonks.org/_product/monastic-diurnal-liturgical-book.html
I finally got hold of a mailer and brought it to the post office this morning so it should be on its way to you as we speak. (Or communicate. Or whatever the proper term would be under the technological circumstances.)
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm mentioning it here because it occurs to me that after that hacking your e-mail underwent a while back, that old e-mail address I have may no longer be valid. Which means you never got the physical address confirmation I sent a couple of days ago. Which means I may have sent it off to a place you no longer have any contact with. So you may have to be extra nice to whomever is there now over the next couple of weeks, what with using them as a mail drop and all.
Cheers,
-John-
Hmmm, John, you should have sent me an email telling me. I didn't see this until Thursday afternoon and no, I certainly didn't get an email. I have not used the old quicustodiet address for over a year for the reasons you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThe one connected to my Lifesite account still works. Go to the Lifesite page and click on "contact us" I'm in there somewhere.
It was very silly of you to send something so valuable in the post with no idea if it was an address for me. You ought to have at least waited until I responded here.
I hope you can recall it. Is there some kind of online tracking system? Did you get it insured?