LITTLE OFFICE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

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OFFICIUM PARVUM BEATAE MARIAE VIRGINIS:  
THE [LITTLE] OFFICE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
OR THE HOURS OF OUR LADY (IN LATIN AND ENGLISH)
Introduction by Rev. F.X. Lasance
Copyright 1904, reprinted 1999, 118 pages, hardcover (red) with gold 
lettering, 17 x 12 cm
St. Bonaventure Publications
$18.00

The publisher of the excellent reprint of the 1953 Liber Usualis has now done 
the traditional Catholic world another great service by making available this 
pocket-size reprint of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Little Office is a shorter form of the Divine Office in honor of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary, for use by certain religious orders, as well as the 
laity.  It is similar to the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Roman 
Breviary.

For the laity or religious unfamiliar with Latin (a defect that should be 
speedily corrected!), a side-by-side English translation is provided of both 
the text and the rubrics. The psalms are taken from the traditional Latin 
Vulgate of St. Jerome.

As a private devotion, the use of this Office, generally attributed to St. 
Peter Damian (llth century), is richly indulgenced.  In many respects, it 
surpasses the Most Holy Rosary, a much simpler form of "layman's breviary," 
by offering the richness of psalms, antiphons, lessons, canticles, and other 
sacred texts leading the mind to God and varying according to the hour of the 
day and the season in the life of Our Lady.

The little book is prefaced with a description of all indulgences with which 
the recitation of the Little Office has been enriched by Holy Mother Church 
and comments on the rubrics and ceremonial, should one organize a group to 
recite the Little Office in common.

There are many traditional Catholics devoted to a consistent prayer life who 
do not feel themselves suited to recite the Divine Office, yet desire 
something that affords more sacred texts for meditation than the Most Holy 
Rosary.  They cannot do better that the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary.