The Traditional Roman Breviary Online

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• Fully Traditional — pre-dates modernist reforms of 1950s and 60s
• Easy-to-Use Format — no liturgical knowledge required
• Latin and English — fully traditional English translation
• Thousands of Images — traditional artwork and photographs
• Hundreds of Hours of Liturgical Music — sung by the monks and nuns of Europe and the cathedral choirs of England
• Includes Little Office of Our Lady, Office of the Dead, and much more
• Pray the Office from any Computer or Smart Phone with Wi-Fi
• And Now...  Includes Daily Missal
  

2017 TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC LITURGICAL CALENDAR

 
Full-Colour Wall Calendar, featuring the Churches of Italy
published by the Guild of St. Peter ad Vincula

Beautifully produced on glossy paper, this calendar's theme is "The Churches of Italy"—your wall will be tastefully decorated with twelve beautiful colour images of some of the most beautiful and famous cathedrals and basilicas in the very hub of Catholic Europe.

More importantly, the calendar provides all the information you need to know about the feast for each day of the liturgical cycle, and clearly shows the holydays of obligation and days of fast. By popular request we have also included the civil holidays for the United States. Our calendar has been created for ease of use, and you can see at a glance what feast day it is, which Mass will be offered, and the order of the commemorations. Thanks to the subtle colour backgrounds and banners, that same quick glance at the calendar will tell you whether it is a holiday of obligation, whether you are obliged fast or abstain from meat, and provide any other items of information about the feast—all you need to follow the Church's precepts of worship for the coming year.

With introductory and closing pages that contain other important information, such as the tables of fast and abstinence, and of the dates of movable feasts for 2017, this calendar is designed to provide you with a quick and easy way to connect to the Church's year and to participate fully in the moving flow of the liturgical seasons.

Our calendar contains none of the anti-Catholic reforms of the freemason Bugnini that were introduced in the 1950s and early 1960s as part of the gradual destruction of the Catholic liturgy. In an age where so many "traditional" calendars try to confuse you with false information (missing feast days, suppressed octaves and vigils, new and suspect feasts, and so on) you can be sure our calendar is fully and authentically traditional, and will provide you with the legitimate Catholic feast days celebrated through the ages by countless saints and faithful. It is the same calendar we follow on our Breviary website, so you know it's authentically Catholic and traditional.

We have kept the price of our colour calendars the same as last year, $14.95 with free shipping anywhere in the United States. Don't make the mistake of so many people last year who left it too late to order and so missed out on the opportunity to have one of these beautiful calendars hanging in their home. Place your orders quickly to make sure you don't lose out. They make excellent gifts for Catholic friends and family members, and this year for the first time we are offering discounts if you buy in bulk.

Don't forget—by providing these calendars as gifts, you are fulfilling a spiritual work of mercy, instructing those who seek to know more about the grace-filled liturgical cycle of the Church, and who would otherwise never be aware of their sacred Catholic duties of fasting and attending Mass.

FATHER HALL'S NEW BOOK

E-BOOK HOLY ROSARY, HOLY MASS FOR SALE ON OUR ONLINE BOOKSTORE

Why do we stress the importance of Christ’s Blessed Mother and the seven sacraments? Why do we give such prominence to the Mass and the Rosary?

This series of meditations on the Story of our Redemption will help reinforce your faith in the central role of St. Mary and the Mass in God’s eternal plan for us.

Holy Rosary, Holy Mass is the work of the publisher of this website and the Breviary Online, the Dean of the Guild of St. Peter ad Vincula.   Its purpose is to bring Catholics and non-Catholics alike to a more perfect understanding of God’s single most sublime and inspiring message to us all.

Exceprts from the book Holy Rosary, Holy Mass now available online.

Holy Rosary, Holy Mass is now available in electronic format, and may be purchased and downloaded from our online bookstore, Confraternity Books.

Fr. Hall's Sermons

The Sunday Sermons have been updated, and you can now catch up on all Fr. Hall's sermons here on our website.

GUILD OF ST. PETER AD VINCULA ACCEPTS OBLATES

Our parent organization, the Guild of St. Peter ad Vincula is now accepting Oblate Postulants.  With the purpose of doing all it can to restore traditional Catholic faith, morals, culture and values to a darkened post-conciliar Church the Guild is seeking to recruit large numbers of faithful to work with its priests as true Catholic apostles.

Make no mistake, this new development is an important opportunity to change the direction of the traditional movement in the Church.  So-called traditionalists seem to have reached an impasse in their struggle to maintain the Faith and the true Mass.  Numbers are falling as more and more are disillusioned by mercenary and immoral clergy, and non-stop bickering between the various groups.  These quarrels divide the resistance movement into so many camps that Catholics can't even expect to receive Holy Communion in one church if they are seen attending another.  And these excommunications are over issues that haven't even been decided by the Church yet.

It's time for a change, and faithful Catholics need to find a a true haven of peace.  If that's what you're looking for, as well as the opportunity to follow God's call to do more work for the restoration, you should at least take the time to read what the Guild is proposing.  So take a minute, and see if you agree with what the Guild is trying to do.  If you're not content with what's going on in the traditional movement, maybe this is for you.

See the Guild's new website at peteradvincula.org.

Confraternity Books--Free Shipping

Confraternity Books now has free shipping on all orders within the United States.  Buy now and save money!

Compline Booklet

First in a series of liturgical booklets published by the Confraternity of Ss. Peter & Paul, this handy little booklet contains the text of the Office of Compline in both English and Latin for every day of the year.  For those who would like to pray this Hour of the Divine Office wihtout having to resort to computers or smart phones, this booklet is an indispensable tool.  We intent to publish other booklets in the future, so start your collection now.  You can find the Compline booklet on our bookstore website at www.confraternitybooks.com.

  An Incentive to Prayer

Foreword to an English Edition of the Roman Breviary, published in 1950

Given by His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York

IT IS TRULY meet and just, indeed it seems providential, that the Holy Year of 1950 should be marked from its outset by the publication in English of the Roman Breviary. The appearance at any time of a new rendition of the Breviary may properly be regarded as an important event in the life of the Church. When this event is associated with the Year of Jubilee, and takes place in America, great significance rightly attaches to it. Perhaps one could say that this new translation, successfully undertaken in the United States, is America's way of answering Our Holy Father's call to penance and prayer in this Year of Reconciliation.

For the truth is, the Breviary is fast becoming the prayer-book of the nun in the convent, even as it has long been the daily book of prayer for the priest. It is more than likely to become the Vade Mecum of the man in the street. This hope is justified, for the world has urgent need of the spirit, both of penance and prayer, which the Breviary, when properly used, abundantly supplies. Any earnest soul who looks about for helps in his life of prayer and in his practice of penance, need look no further. The Breviary, which is the official prayer-book of the Church, brings great graces: such as the grace to know the mind of the Church, the grace to live the life of the Church, the grace to share in the mission of the Church. In a word, more than any other book, the Breviary reveals the inner spirit of the Church and, what is just as important, it attracts the soul to intimate union with Her. All is said when it is stated that the Breviary helps the soul through and beyond such union into unity with the Church, possessing with Her "cor unum et anima una."

It is worth recalling in this regard that the closer the soul is to the Church, the closer it is to Christ. For, as Saint Paul teaches in so many places, the Church is "the body" of Christ (Eph. 5:30). Though this truth is shrouded in mystery, it emits bursts of light, as precious as they are dazzling. It helps the seeking soul to realize that the Son of God actually lives in His Church and works through Her, continuing in Her and through Her the mission He initiated in and through the Body Which His Virgin Mother gave to Him. It is an incentive to the soul to pray the prayer of the Church when the soul knows that Christ is now praying through the Church after the manner of His praying through His mortal Body. It gives courage to the soul to suffer with the Church when the soul is convinced that Christ is now suffering through His "body" which is the Church.

I point to this shining truth for the value it gives to the use of the Breviary. In this venerable book the Church has deposited the heritage of the ages, the inspirations which the Holy Spirit of God breathed into the minds and hearts of the faithful down the centuries. Actually, the thoughts dwelling therein are Christ's own; He conceived them through the mind of the Church. The feelings to be found here, too, are His own; He experienced them through His life in the Church. The prayers, with which the Breviary is replete, reveal the way Christ prays in His Church. Any one essaying to pray with Christ can pray with Him, through the open mouth of His Church, by using this prayer-book of the Church. Such a soul can be sure that in praying thus he is echoing the prayer which the Holy Spirit played on the heart-strings of the saints, evoking purest melody before the Lord.

In fine, the Breviary can best be described as the daily prayer of the Church, beginning with morning prayers, called Matins, and ending with night prayers, Compline. From dawn till dusk, and into the black watches of the night, the Church prays by the Spirit of Christ; Christ, too, prays through "his body", the Church. The Breviary is, thus, in very truth "the prayer of God" (Luke 6:12).

As a prayer-book, the Breviary is a library in itself, and a vast one, matchless for its variety, beauty and power. For instance, there are psalms of praise and petition, running the gamut of the emotions. These range from the woeful cry of misery in Psalm 29: "Out of the depths" to the hymn of exultation in Psalm 88: "The graces of the Lord I will sing forever"-the psalm, which Saint Teresa of Avila loved. There is history too. The Breviary contains selected readings from the lives of the patriarchs and prophets, as well as the history of Christ on earth and during the first years of His life in the Church. There is even prophetic history, wherein, as in the Apocalypse, the plan of God may be traced until its progress ends in triumph and glory for the striving God and regenerated humanity. All these are, of course, drawn from the Bible; in the Breviary, however, there is this advantage: they are read against a special background, proper to the various seasons and feasts of the calendar year.

A most appealing feature of the Breviary is this aspect of the spirit of the Church, expressing itself prayerfully through seasons and feasts. The praying soul who accompanies the Church through Advent is caught by Her radiant joy as She prepares, all expectant, for the journey to Bethlehem, with its Christ Child, the Angels' Song and the nearing Star. The Office for this period is charged with a calm jubilation such as we cannot hope to enjoy in its fullness until we reach the Vision of Heaven. Then, there is the season of Lent. At its coming, the Church lays aside her festive robes and puts on sackcloth and ashes for the penances She needs must undergo if Christ is to have in Her, His Agony in the Garden and His Death on the Cross. All this is but a prelude to Her cry of triumph as She stands before the Empty Tomb, adoring Her Risen Lord, Who is within a few days to send down upon Her the Divine Spirit of Love.

To us who wander the way of life in cold and darkness, the use of the Breviary affords much comfort through the short lives of the Saints as recorded in their feasts. These show how the Holy Spirit of Love worked the wonders of His grace in willing souls, thus giving to us both hope and strength against temptation. To the seekers after truth, the Breviary unlocks immense stores of wisdom through the explanation of Biblical texts by the great Doctors of the Church, such as Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine and Saint John Chrysostom. The lovers of sublime songs will here find the noble hymns composed by saintly singers and sung by the faithful, from the remote past up to the present day. I refer to the "Pange Lingua" of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the "Te Deum" of Saint Ambrose.

For a long time the Breviary was a closed book to the layman, largely because it was written in Latin. Yet its charm cast a potent spell wherever the priest prayed or the monk chanted his Breviary. In consequence, the demand for wider use of it has been growing more insistent. Moreover, this demand has been calling for better renditions, such as embody the newest translations of the Psalter and of the New Testament. Now that this present edition includes these features, it is to be hoped that the greater use of it will stimulate ever greater love for the Breviary. Certainly, such use of it will help to satisfy the inner hunger of those souls who yearn to pray through Christ, with Christ and in Christ, unto the praise of the glory of his glory, in which he hath graced us in his Son (Eph. 1:6).

In these fearful days of crises and crosses, the pattern of life in the world is tangled and oddly out of focus. Minds are confused at it, and hearts restless. If the human mind is to have calmness in crises, if the human heart is to have courage amid crosses, recourse must be had to the power that prayer gives and to the patience that penance brings. Prayer and penance, and they alone, can compose the problems now trying the souls of men. For this reason The Sovereign Pontiff's proclamation of the Holy Year is, to this generation, like to the voice of John the Baptist in the wilderness of Judea; it is a call to penance and prayer, a promise of progress towards peace and plenty where now there are war and want. It is my earnest hope and belief that this new edition of the Roman Breviary in English may be fruitful in many souls, fruitful of prayer, fruitful of penance and fruitful of unity with Christ through His Church.