Just to let you know, the Ordo for the Traditional Benedictine Office for the coming liturgical year (ie starting from the First Sunday of Advent 2026) is now available from the Lulu bookstore.
About the Ordo
As usual, the Ordo provides detailed instruction (including page numbers) on how to say the Benedictine Office using the Farnborough editions of the Monastic Diurnal or the Antiphonale Monasticum (1934) for the day hours, according to the 1960 Benedictine Confederation calendar and rubrics.
The Ordo also provides notes on Matins each day, with page references for the 1963 Monastic Breviary (readily available in reprint form), Gower Matins books and Nocturnale Monasticum.
The Ordo includes notes on:
- the rubrics for each liturgical season;
- older versions of the calendar and rubrics for the monastic Office for comparative purposes,
- feasts that can be added to the monastic calendar (such as selected monastic saints and saints canonised after 1960);
- common variants to the rubrics employed by monasteries using the traditional form of the Benedictine Office;
- selected feasts particular to regions, countries and monsteries; and
- the Roman Extraordinary form calendar where it differs from the monastic.
Why you need an Ordo!
An Ordo is an essential aid to saying the Office.
In theory at least, you can construct your own.
There is a table at the front of the breviary and Diurnal that gives you the dates of the moveable feasts for each year, and you can use that to work out which Sunday of the year it is.
You can use the rubrics for each month to work out which Sunday of the calendar month should be used.
You can the sanctoral calendars to work out which feasts displace the ferial Office.
And you can use the 'two tables' to work out which office prevails when conflicts arise.
That's a lot of work though!
And if you are new to the Office, this particular version will also help you find which pages you need for each Sunday, feast and other key days, and guide you through the applicable rubrics.
Which Ordo to use
There are though, a few different Ordos around to choose from.
The first thing to know is that the Benedictine Office is not the same as the Roman (whether 1962 or earlier, or the current 'novus ordo'): although they are similar in some respects, the calendars differ as do some rubrics.
Secondly, if you are Oblate of a monastery that puts out its own Ordo, you should use it if possible (at least as a starting point). Every monastery adds some feasts of its own, and many make some changes to the 1960 rubrics.
Thirdly, the Ordo I put out is geared to the 1960/63 books.
If you are following the hybrid calendar used by some (traditional Sunday calendar with modern sanctoral), or the modern Benedictine Confederation calendar, the Ordo produced by Solesmes may be the best option for you (Clear Creek also puts out a number of supplements those doing this).
Similarly, if you are following the older calendars and rubrics (such as 1930 or 1953) for the monastic Office, although there are some notes to help you in this Ordo, you will need to supplement these from elsewhere.
Formats
As I've had requests for a number of different formats for the Ordo, it is available in paperback, coil bound, PDF and EPUB formats, so please do make sure you select the one that best suits your needs!
To go directly to the various formats, follow the links below:
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