The Ecumenical Institute, a division of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago, was founded by concerned citizens and churchmen as a result of a resolution offered in the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Evanston in 1954. It is a not­for­profit organization chartered by the State of Illinois. The Institute is dependent for support upon gifts, deductible for tax purposes, from individuals, corporations, religious bodies and foundations.

For the past fifteen years the Ecumenical Institute has been directly engaged in experimentation and research in contextual re­education, social reformulation, and human motivation in Chicago, throughout North America, and across the globe.

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During this century the advancement of man's awareness of his universe has reached a pace that is unparalleled in all the rest of history. At the same time, every structure that man has invented in the social process is struggling to reinterpret its foundational meaning and thrust. In these times of great upheaval around the world we are witnessing a phenomenon in the spirit of man.

As in the past this breakloose of the spirit is the indication that a New Social Vehicle is about to come into being. No new era in the social process has ever been born save out of a new awakening in man's spirit deeps. The People of God across the globe have sensed this awakening. The church universal sees that its task in these times is to recreate and recover the symbols which can be the sustaining power for the New Social Vehicle.

This experiment in a new form of the Breviary is one attempt to recover spiritual meaning in our time. Post modern man as man in the past must have a way of internally marking the times of the day. It is his means of being present to his significance. and hence of internally sustaining himself. This becomes more important as life continually grows more complex. The aim of this Breviary is to contribute to this need. Its intent is to recapture the rich heritage of spiritual nurture found in the Canonical Hours while at the same time to transpose them into the milieu of the post modern world.

THE CANONICAL HOURS

Man tells time not only by the clock but also by significance, or kairotically. Self­consciousness requires an overlay of intentionality upon time. in the midst of everyday life the patterns of man are forged by the relationships he takes to time-herein is the expression of the meaning of his life. The church has marked Christian time in several ways such as dividing the years into sacred seasons. She has told time by partitioning the day into eight segments built around the great episodes of the Christian faith. These are called the Canonical Hours 'and mark both chronological and kairotic ti me. l

The Canonical Hours wvere developed in the early church. By the third centtiry the form and arrangement had been established, and few major changes have been made since. The nocturn hours of Vespers, Matins, and Lauds came first. To these night watches were added the three day hours of Terce, Sext, and None. Later in the life of the monasteries two more hours were added: Prime in the morning and Compline at night. This gave eight hour offices, each one a three hour period of the twenty­four hour day.

In the early medieval church the Canonical Hours were used to consecrate the day and night unto God. They were a means of sanctifying the total activity of each rotation of the earth with each hour office corresponding to the particular spiritual need of that time period. Hence, the hours were from the first practical and not some theology superimposed upon the day. As one writer has put it, the offices are like an oasis one comes upon as he hurries through a day which offers the water of grace and the cool refreshing shade of heavenly assistance.

The Canonical Hours contain four major elements: hymns or canticles, the Old Testament Psalms, the Lessons or capital verses from scripture, and prayers of the historical church. The remaining part of the hours are the framework which hold these major sections and include the Invitatory, the Benediction, and Versicles.

The central key to the hour offices is the Book of Psalms. For thousands of years the Psalms have been used by the church as a source of spiritual sustenance. They express the joys and agonies in the journey of the man of faith. They reflect the spirit deeps at the very center of being. Used for depth spiritual reflection, they are unique in devotional literature, holding timeless themes and states of being. The offices of the hours are built around the Psalter with three selections from the Psalms read at each of the eight offices.

In this Breviary the Psalms are sequentially ordered taking fourteen days to complete the full cycle of the one hundred and fifty Psalms. The Invitatory, Benediction, and Versicles remain constant for each hour office. The hymns and prayers, three each for each office, are selected from both classical and contemporary sources. The Lessons are taken from the Old Testament, the Gospels, and Epistles. The Oxford University Press text is used for all Old Testament readings, including the Psalms. The Phillips translation is used for all New Testament readings.

The offices can be used in several ways. A given office can be done any time during the three hour period it encompasses. It can be rehearsed by a large or small group or by an individual. The three sets of variables make it possible to use the office in a variety of ways. One office can include all three sets of variables or can be shortened by using only one set, or three offices can be rehearsed during a three hour period, using one set of variables per hour. When appropriate, the office may be abbreviated, to the reading of one Psalm as symbolic of the whole.

The themes, moods and states of being rehearsed in the Canonical Hours can be grasped through the aid of the accompanying chart. One half of the offices dramatize the great mysteries of the faith. The other half are concerned with the spiritual states of a man of faith. The meaning and form of the hour offices here presented is adapted to the times in which we live but is grounded in the traditional development and is intended to be utterly loyal to the spirit they have embodied through the ages.

May those who wax bold to use them sense the presence of the host of witnesses who in the past have' been nurtured through participation in the offices of the hours of the day.