It is with the hope that English lay folk will learn to value more
highly, and understand more clearly, the beauty, dignity, and
antiquity of the Church's public liturgical prayer that this little
book has been translated into English. While there are so many
books of private devotion-of various degrees of excellence and
authority-the one devotional book to be used above all others,
which has grown with the Church's growth and nourished the devotion
of her saints, which is intimately bound up with her history and
full of her spirit, seems to be forgotten, to be set aside as dry
and archaic, or to be regarded as the private property of clergy
and religious. Yet there is no book richer in treasures of
devotion, endowed with higher authority, or more capable of
producing in the souls of those who use it digne, attente, ac
devote, a devotional temper at once hearty and strong and truly
Catholic. It is much to be regretted that the history of the Roman
Breviary is so little known, even to those upon whom the Church has
laid the obligation of its daily recital throughout the year. Were
priests and religious better instructed in the origin, development,
and purpose of the book with which in one sense they are so
familiar, we are confident they would fulfil their obligation with
greater fervour and respect, and by this means the reign of God
would be more perfectly realized both in the hearts of those who
are priests and in the souls of the faithful entrusted to their
care. I t is for the benefit of priests occupied in the work of the
ministry, who may have neither the time nor opportunity to consult
the works recently published on the Breviary, that we have
undertaken to give in the following pages an abstract of the
monumental work of Dom Baumer on the history of the Roman Breviary,
while making use at the same time of the less voluminous work of
Mgr. Batiffo. "We conclude with the following words of Dom Baumer:
"The earthly psalmody, or, in other words, the praises of God
uttered by the lips of priests and monks, either in their solitary
cells or in the choir in church, are but the echo of those eternal
songs which the elect, in union with the choirs of saints and
angels, sing to the melodies of the heavenly Jerusalem before the
throne of the Lamb. May we all find ourselves among the elect, that
we may for ever be eternally associated with those choirs of
blessed spirits. Here below in our exile let us practise with
fervour that which is to be our endless occupation in the realms of
bliss in our Father's House.""
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