Welcome, Keiran!

Could you clarify, Keiran, what you're trying to do?

What, for example, do you mean by "non-scripture reading"? Would that be one of the Church Fathers, or some other saint, or... perhaps not a saint at all, but a theologian (perhaps of a Non-Catholic confession)?

Do you intend the book to be used in communal worship, or privately?

Given that you use "Office of Readings" and "Divine Office", do you recognize that these two expressions represent entirely different approaches to the subject in question?

In regard to your desired hymns, do you anticipate that they would be vernacular hymns or not?

Yes, you could certainly start a separate thread about this.

A great source of all the hymns for the offices is the Mundelien Psalter.

General reply to others so far:

I worked out the psalms first of all, trying to make it so that if the office is shared with a priest or someone saying the normal Divine Office, then they would not be saying the same psalm again.
I followed the same policy with the Readings: never the same one as in the Breviary.

Choosing hymns has been far more difficult. I tried to avoid the same hymn as the Breviary, but in some cases - Easter Octave for example - this has proved impossible. I have tried to find hymns with good, catchy, and simple tunes, which nonetheless say something. ("Peace is flowing like a river" is out.)
Also I presume most of you know how difficult it is to find the "definitive" version of any hymn. One or two words vary in every example you can find. In the end I always used the one in the Celebration Hymnal, which is the most common one in England.
As this book is for Mr Average, I have avoided Latin hymns.

Kieran,

"Office of Readings" is (at least on the western Atlantic shore) the name given to a revision of the traditional prayer of the Church because of some well-meaning reforms undertaken by Pope Paul VI and his henchmen. Before the transformation, this Office was called Matins, and consisted of either 1 or 3 nocturnes (night watches).

Divine Office is the name for the whole of the prayers from Matins through Compline, a title which was replaced (again, on the western shore of the Atlantic) with Liturgy of the Hours.

The most obvious difference is that one is a form of prayer and the other a form of Lectio Divina.

Before someone else beats me to it: I urge you not to assume that Mr. Average is unable or unwilling to sing hymns in Latin.

it is our duty to serve the general public. Given that, all hymns should normally be in English.

To provide hymns to serve the general public in the Common Office, one must understand what the search intends to find. Since Pope Paul VI noted that the congregation should be able to make all of its responses in Latin, and permitted the limited use of the vernacular, it's not self-evident that all hymns (even in the English-speaking world) should be in English.

I'm sorry if I've wandered off the topic, but I was trying to answer your question.

I am also in London, we only sing English songs (hymns) a couple of times a year, thanks to Covid we did not sing any English Hymns last year, but plenty of Latin ones!

I presume that you are looking for Songs / Hymns found in a modern song / Hymn book,
So this site may be of use, https://hymnary.org/browse/topics
Unfortunately this topic index does not have Office Hymns listed but you could try to find texts this way. Also it does not have very modern song books (but you can find them in dusty cupboards in your local church.

Another option is to look in old fashioned Hymnals, c. 1880-1950
https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/18701/seeking-hymns-for-common-offices#Item_5
Westminster both old and revised, Leeds, St. Andrew, The Parish Hymn book, The English Hymnal. These are all online somewhere, in these you will find translations of the Ancient Office Hymns of the Church, the first English Hymnals had many translations of Office Hymns, the second generation had mainly newly composed hymns (People sometimes call them Traditional even though they were only sang for a few years, before being dumped in favour of the new folk hymnals, which are also now being dumped.)
Also books like this have translations of latin Hymns,
https://media.musicasacra.com/pdf/pangelingua.pdf
https://media.musicasacra.com/pdf/hymnsofbreviary.pdf

Also St John Henry Newman, Neale, Caswall etc. translated large numbers of hymns and their books can be found on the internet archive.

If I was looking for Hymns for these topics I would first look in the 1949 Antiphonale Romanum (it is online on the MusicaSacra main website) and if I did not find what I wanted I would then look in the Analecta Hymnica a 56 volume collection of the Hymns used in the middle ages (and before). Of course these would all be in Latin, but you could then look for metrical translations.

Of course what you are doing has been done before, The publisher Burns, Oates and Washbourne produced a series of popular editions of the various parts of the Divine office, these used translations made by the Abbey of Stanbrook, and had the original latin and English translation side by side. The edition below was in print from 1914 to at least 1935 (the date of my edition).
https://archive.org/details/the_day_hours_of_the_church/page/n1/mode/2up

Kieran,

Not to press the point too much, but hymns for a common office could be organized around various principles, so the lack of specific response may be partly because of that. This morning, for example, we celebrate the Conversion of St Paul. Since this festival is a 3rd class feast, the hymns at Prime, Tierce, Sexte, and Compline won't take account of St. Paul's conversion, but of the time of day. At Lauds this morning, the hymn was the common of Apostles, but Matins had its own hymn, unique to this feast.

If you're hoping for a hymn for Doctors, for example, and if it should be in English, why not use a good, poetic translation of a hymn which already exists for that purpose? On the other hand, since there are now women doctors of the Church, do you propose a different hymn for each doctor, or distinct hymns for men and women doctors?


[Chris, I do think these questions are starting to get in the way. If you feel you need all this clarification before you can assist, then it's all right to let other people step up to the task.--admin]

See Hymns for Prayer and Praise
by John Harper (Editor), Canterbury Press Norwich; Melody edition (December 15, 2011)

Hardcover : 640 pages
ISBN-10 : 1848250622
ISBN-13 : 978-1848250628

This is the best IMO.

I second Paul F Ford. The latest edition seems to be currently on good offer https://canterburypress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781848250635/hymns-for-prayer-and-praise

I have written a hymn for doctors of the church in prose form. Do anyone know how I find a poet or songwriter who can turn it into verse and set it to music?