First, though, take a deep breathe - learning to say the Office takes a bit of effort, so you need to get familiar with the book first, and learn a little bit about the structure of each of the individual 'hours' that make up the Office before trying to start to use it.
1. Learn the Office notes - get oriented first
The Learn the Office page on this blog has a lot of material on it for you to choose from, but here are some suggested starting points.
- If you are completely new to the traditional (ie 1960 and earlier) forms of the Office, start with this post on Benedictine Office basics.
- To help find your way around the book itself, try this post.
If you already know something about the Office, or are anxious to try to get started as quickly as possible, make sure you take a look at these key posts:
- Diurnal traps and shortcuts - the diurnal assumes you know a few things; this is a guide to some of the key ones;
- how the opening and closing prayers of the hours work; and
- a quick look at some of the parts common to all the hours, hymns, chapters, versicles and responsories.
2. Start slowly and build up
Once you have oriented yourself, then you can start looking at the notes on each of the individual hours.
You don't need to say all of the hours, and my strong advice is, start with Compline, as it changes the least, and the texts are pretty much all written out in full in the Diurnal. It also makes a nice prayer for the evening, before bed.
There are also several good videos on youtube of monastic Compline so you can follow along.
The next hour to add in is Prime, a good prayer to say before starting work. It will also help you get used to having a few moving parts (the antiphon and psalms of the day), before you move onto the more complex hours.
When it comes to Lauds and Vespers in particular, I'd suggest focusing on understanding how the hours work on normal days (non-feasts) first, then worry about feasts and seasons once you are confident.
As the Office is meant to be sung, another good way to get started is listen to the podcasts of Le Barroux (or others).
3. Aids to learning
Before you get too far along, I would strongly recommend buying the Ordo I put together in either PDF (ebook) or paperback.
It contains a summary of the page numbers in the Diurnal for the main parts of each of the day hours, as well as detailed instructions on the moving parts for feasts and seasons.
A short version of the Ordo can also be found on the Saints Will Arise blog, but be warned, it is only a summary version, intended for more expert users.
Secondly, you can use the Divinum Officium monastic option as a cross-check on what you are doing - it doesn't always entirely line up with the 1960 rubrics and calendar, but it can be useful when just starting out.
Thirdly, I would recommend reading through the chapters of St Benedict's Rule (8-19), and trying to match them up to the sections in the Diurnal - it will give you a feel for both the continuity with the Rule and the organic development of it that has occurred over the centuries.
You might also find A Companion to the Monastic Breviary a useful acquisition.
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