Well?
There is Evensong as a model.
HF Benedict really likes it.
(Half purple.)

A book (ONE) for each hour, with clear rubrics, layout, and ALL antiphons notated. I am a great fan of Fr Weber’s book for Compline for this very reason.

• Perhaps an option to use the old forms of Terce, Sext and None. With just one fixed psalm each, the three hours could easily implemented and memorised in schools.

This all raises interesting questions, I think. To be honest, if I was tasked with creating (or organically developing) an ideal office, I'd probably restart with the office in its variants found before the council into antiquity. However, I think there are valuable lessons to be learnt from the Liturgia Horarum which should inform such a creation.

There are negative lessons.

• The baffling decision to include antiphon texts which have no melody in the Gregorian repertory should absolutely be reversed - that went entirely against one of the directives of the Council itself. The office must be designed to be sung. Breviaries are a reduction of the norm, not the standard from which to build. The new office effectively destroyed the public celebration of the hours everywhere but in religious houses and a few cathedrals.
• As I stated before, continuous psalmody was a big loss. The psalter has an ebb and flow of its own.
• The four-week psalter is confusing to navigate for someone starting out on celebrating the office. Prohibitive even.

But there are positive lessons too.

• There seems to have been quite a rise in laypeople celebrating the (read) office on their own, facilitated in part by apps such as Universalis (taking the confusion out of the four-week psalter), but arguably also in part by the reduced load of the office - fewer psalms, fewer mandatory hours.
• One psalm at Compline seems to be plenty. In my experience, this is a very popular hour amongst the laity.
• ...
• Okay, I'm having trouble thinking of more positives. Moving on.

For most of the history of the Roman Rite, at least two versions of the Divine Office coexisted without conflict (I'm a little hazy on these details, feel free to correct me). The Monastic and the Cathedral offices were both of the same Rite, but different forms suited to their different uses. This seems largely to have been due to the requirement for all 150 psalms to be sung every week in the Rule of St Benedict. From what I recall, the reformers creating the modern office hoped that their office would be adapted universally, so that the entire Roman church would celebrate according to the one form. However, it still failed in this regard, as the Benedictines naturally insisted on a one-week psalter, and have adjusted the new office accordingly.

My point is this: embrace having diverse forms in an office. To the Monastics their 150 psalms. To the Cathedral Office a reduced Matins. How about a Parish Office? Make concessions that enable or encourage the public celebration of the hours. Heck, to the layperson an option to reduce the number of psalms. People in different vocations have different capabilites. If the office is too much of a load, only those obligated to will celebrate it. If it is too little, the transcendental contemplation of the monastics would be jeapardised.

We can decry the new office until the cows come home, but don't ignore the positives amongst the myriad of imperfections.

I'm not sure where my train of thought was heading at the start. Sorry for rambling ;p

I'm an Episcopalian so possibly biased, but I think one of the great Anglican ideas has been to make the Office accessible and do-able. What the various versions of the Book of Common Prayer Office offer: (1) a complete psalter with all the psalms in order, so the people can pray the psalms according to any agreed psalm distribution, from one common text designed for reciting or chanting; (2) a huge reduction in complexity and page-flipping (at the cost, I know, of antiphons and responsories); and (3) a bit of modularity, so it's easy to have a simple form for ordinary weekdays and a fuller form for festive occasions. Robert Taft in his magisterial tome on the LotH in East and West lauded the Anglican Office for keeping the tradition going. As it stands, it's used at every level from individuals to parishes to monasteries (although of course not 100% of Episcopalians pray it, but our parish does, morning and evening, every day, according to the BCP's 7-week psalm schedule...about 15-17 minutes is how long it takes to pray an office without music). It also already has some Roman Catholic official approbation via the Ordinariate.

An ideal office? It would include a large desk, a comfortable tufted leather chair, lots of storage for music, good lighting, some tasteful decor, soundproofing, and a comfortable distance away from Susan from Parish Council's office.

Oh wait, that's not what you were asking, is it?

Carry on.

Is there any news about the translation currently in use for the OF? I was flipping through my copy of Shorter Christian Prayer earlier this week and found some phrases ... less than desirable.

The Obligation mangles the liturgy when reform-time comes.

I would graduate the obligation to pray the Office:
-Religious, full office, preferably in choir, depending on the community life
-Secular Clergy, major hours and a daytime hour (as present)
-All else, optional

Then, revisit the postconciliar reforms on that basis. Don't abbreviate the Office on the basis of what is burdensome for secular clergy praying a breviary -- instead, reduce their obligation.

Make and publish comprehensive books accessible to laity. No specialist training needed to use them.

English office hymns need to be in rhyming translation. Very unhappy with the choice otherwise recently made. They're meant to rhyme. Latin office hymns, pre-Urban, of course.

The Divine Office app (FREE) seems incredibly useful. The only real “problem” I see is that you’re limited to 3 calendar weeks for viewing (current date and a couple weeks going forward), which is only a problem for those who might be planning for the future with celebrations as described above. You wouldn’t be able to use it to prepare for Advent quite yet, for example, but by the 31st Sunday OT you’d see Advent I available by scrolling the little calendar at the bottom.

Screenshots attached.

Sequestering the Office of Readings into its own book(s), so that instead of four seasonal volumes there would be one "Christian Prayer" book plus book(s) for OOR--as in the 1980s Pauline edition.

This is a very interesting suggestion.

I'd also like to see the psalms formatted in a way that would facilitate chanting using ordinary psalm tones.

The Office of Readings actually was published in a one-volume edition by the Daughters of St Paul once upon a time.

Thank you everyone for the input, keep it coming!

Here are some of my own ideas, basically starting from the pre-conciliar office, let me know if you like it or hate it:
1. Slight reordering of the ferial vespers psalms to better fit the days of creation theme of the hymns, as well as moving psalm 140 to its primordial place in First Vespers of Sunday. Second Vespers of Sunday would remain the same. The pool would be restricted to the traditional cursus of psalms 109-144.
2. Adding the option for a prolix response (or a shorter one) at First Vespers of Sunday and feasts (as in Sarum and the Dominican Rite).
3. Maybe adding some of the New Testament canticles from the OF office into Vespers, solely for the season of Easter, to replace the last psalm of the office. I'm somewhat of the opinion that if you don't get to sing the Tonus Peregrinus anyways, you might as well sub something in for Psalm 113.
4. Cursus of collects for the ferias of the major offices.

Maybe we'll take the colonial approach and say we discovered it. Or maybe Edison's approach and say we invented it…

If you take the Vespers from the Traditional Monastic office (as in the 1934 Ant. Monasticum) as the basis, then you have only 4 psalms at Vespers, in cursus, then you have room to add the N.T. canticle, to have five 'Psalms' as in the traditional Roman office.

As I chant the LOTH daily as a busy layperson, I would leave its length as is. I use the Office of Readings as Matins anyway, with two nocturnes as specified in Notitiae 89, at least when I have time. When pressed, I will combine it with Lauds or read it silently the previous evening.

What really irritates me is Vespers, especially in Week III where the mid-day Office feels like a major hour and Vesperettes like a minor hour, with the Gradual Psalms. I would eliminate the NT canticle. They don't chant well in any case, they are nowhere near as poetic as the psalms. Sorry, but those canticles were written as prose, and calling prose a poem does not turn prose in to a poem.

After eliminating that, I would put a third psalm at Vespers, and would restore the Gradual psalms of week III to their proper place in the little hours.

I would not restore Prime. It's redundant. Monastics love the opening up of the morning a bit more to allow more time for lectio, which works better early in the morning. Matins, Lauds and Prime make for too busy a morning.

Other than Vesperettes, I think the LOTH is fine for secular clergy and the laity. It allows me to pray the whole psalter (minus the ones omitted anyway), which I could not do with the pre-Conciliar Roman Office, much less the "full monastic". The options in the LOTH, such as two-nocturne Office of Readings and complementary psalter allow those with more time to flesh out the Office, and those too busy to keep it light.

Oh and one last thing, I'd restore, at least ad libitum, the imprecatory psalms and verses. And I would make the psalms reserved for Advent, Xmas, Lent, Easter, etc. (77, 104 etc) year-round. The psalms they would replace are already repeated elsewhere in the Office in any case.

But even as-is, I can live with the LOTH, Fantasy Office notwithstanding.

Ora

The rubrics of the new Martyrology indicate it can be proclaimed after Lauds, one of the minor hours, or stand-alone (to that monks also add the reading of a chapter of the Rule with commentary).

Looking at it from the point of view of monastics, who spend a good hour and a half with Vigils, another 40 minutes with Lauds, and probably 20+ minutes with Prime (with Martyrology proclaimed), it makes for a very full morning leaving essentially no place for lectio divina. The monks I'm associated with are very grateful for the lectio time between Vigils and Lauds. And since Vatican II abolished (at least for Benedictines) the notion of "lay brothers" to do the manual labour of the monastery, with all being equal and bound to choir, the work of the monastery is easier to get done.

I also chant the Office every day, in Latin Gregorian chant. I simply couldn't pull it off with the Divine Office pre-Vatican II. No time. Even though I'm retired, I'm very busy with choir stuff, volunteering at the abbey library, oblate affairs in Rome, and some ad-hoc translation work. Not to mention family things. I find the LOTH allows me to also take a slow meditative approach to the Office. Chant psalm in Latin, re-read silently in French. When I use our Monastic Office (all 150 psalms in a week, monastic Schema "B"), I find I am too often rushed.

I guess it boils down to "whatever works" for the circumstances we are in.

Ora

That is what the Intercessions at Lauds are for. From the General Instruction:

181. Since traditionally morning prayer puts the whole day in God's hands, there are invocations at morning prayer for the purpose of commending or consecrating the day to God.

182. The word preces covers both the intercessions at evening prayer and the invocations for dedicating the day to God at morning prayer.

Ora

It's a different format to achieve the same goal. Works for me.

Ora

tomjaw Danger of confusion When I refer to the Divine Office, I mean the volumes with that title translating the 1971 Liturgia Horarum authorised for use in the Atlantic Archipelago, Australia etc.; and LOTH to refer to the ICEL/US version of the same. I suspect you are drawing a different distinction.

Hawkins,

The Divine Office is another name for the public worship of the Church other than the Mass, as prayed in unrenovated form before 1962. It consists of the hours of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sexte, None, Vespers and Compline.

But Divine Office is not exclusively used for any of the versions before 1962. In particular it is a name for the revised version used in in many English speaking countries, and as the title of the books in which it is printed. What I am saying is that when I (and others here) use it, we are contrasting the current English DO with the ICEL/American LOTH. The translations, and several details, are different.

Both "Divine Office" and "Liturgy of the Hours" could refer to either form, but the title of the reformed Office was intentionally changed, as in the "General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours", probably to refer to the intention that it return to use as a temporal prayer, rather than something priests prayed all at once in the morning to get out of the way. Ironically, the reform homogenized the different offices so they're basically structurally all the same, but that's a different story. Divine Office generally refers to the EF office, and Liturgy of the Hours to the OF, and regardless of the name of a particular version, the reformed office is the "Liturgia Horarum"

I have not heard anyone describe the modern LOTH as the Divine Office, It is not Divine and is it an Office? Of course for the Historians among us 'Books of the Hours' are an ancient thing, although the producers and users of those ancient books would not recognise the modern LOTH as being from the Catholic Church.

Most N.O. places I know celebrating Vespers / Tenebrae / Compline are using the Divine Office pre-1962.

Westminster Cathedral celebrates Morning Prayer every day using the 1974 Divine Office I show above, and Evening Prayer on Saturdays similarly. Apart from Saturdays, and possibly other days during the summer, the choir sings Vespers, but I do not know what order it uses.
chonak - thanks for the Latin - I see Officium divinum in the heading, Liturgia Horarum in para2, divini Officii and Breviarium in para3 !

I think at the very least colloquially, the understanding is generally that Divine Office refers to the pre-conciliar office, and Liturgy of the Hours to the post-conciliar office.

But I think we've gotten pretty far off topic.