Pray Unceasingly: A BRIEFER, SIMPLER, BREVIARY

by Guillaume J. S. Williams Sr.

I wanted a more traditional mode of praying but I found that most breviaries and horologions were too complex and had more content than I really wanted. So having studied what was most essential to most of them I boiled down to this book. I hope it is as helpful to your prayer life as it is to mine. From the One might ask, “Why have a breviary?" “What is a breviary?" ”Didn’t Luther and Vatican II get rid of having to do the Breviary?” These are all good questions. I hope to give some brief introduction to the breviary and how it might be used in the modern church. The breviary as the name might suggest was a prayer office that was supposed to be brief. If one would look at breviaries in the last 1500 years, one would see they are anything but brief. Breviaries generally consisted of the whole Psalter, hymns, prayers, collects, litanies, and readings from the scriptures. As time went on, there were specific collects, hymns, prayers, etc., for specific feast days, saints days and so on.... It is my hope that this work will help all people, of all parts of the church to begin to pray the breviary. The Psalter is said to be the prayer of and for the Church. With fewer and fewer people praying it, it is no wonder we are in the shape we are today. St. Benedict said the whole Psalter was to prayed within a week. I am told that in some places it was prayed every day. This breviary has set out to follow St. Benedict’s rule. Most modern breviaries say the Psalter in four weeks. With a little discipline and scheduling I don’t see why it cannot be done in a week. As said previously, the Psalter is the prayer of the Church. It is the prayer of the Church for the Church because it is Christ prayer for the Church. The Church is the body of Christ so it prays, its individual members pray, in Christ for themselves individually and for the Church as a whole. It is my hope this breviary will be used not only by seminarians (who have time, and are prone to doing strange things with their time), pastors (who really need more time to pray), but also a tool for our shut-ins who can still see and who are separated from us by space but not by the Spirit. I hope they too will be encouraged to use this book to pray for and on behalf of the Church. It is service that they can do, and which will keep them in tune with the rest of the Church in her liturgical year....Mind you this breviary was set up in the simplest terms I could wrangle out of all the old breviaries. You have the hourly Psalter in the front, followed by the daily Psalter, followed by the daily lectionary. (If you have a printed copy) Using three ribbons or bookmarks, after you say the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, you would start at the hourly Psalter. At the appropriately marked place you would then go to the daily Psalter for that hour and then the lectionary for the day returning back to the hourly Psalter to finish the office. (If you have an electronic copy there will be hyperlinks) The psalm scheme for the most part follows the Eastern Orthodox horologion for its hourly arraignment for it appears to be the oldest and the psalms appointed for those office hours becomes apparent after much use. Lauds and Prime follow much of the psalms and canticles of the Western Church, as these were their most distinctive office hours.

268 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 1, 2017