Page "Breviary" Paragraph 51

Every cleric in Holy Orders and every member of a religious order must publicly join in or privately read aloud ( i. e. using the lips as well as the eyes — it takes about two hours in this way ) the whole of the Breviary services allotted for each day.

In large churches where they were celebrated the services were usually grouped ; e. g. Matins and Lauds ( about 7. 30 A. M .); Prime, Terce ( High Mass ), Sext, and None ( about 10 A. M .); Vespers and Compline ( 4 P. M .); and from four to eight hours ( depending on the amount of music and the number of high masses ) are thus spent in choir.

Lay use of the Breviary has varied throughout the Church's history.

In some periods laymen did not use the Breviary as a manual of devotion to any great extent.

The late Medieval period saw the recitation of certain hours of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, which was based on the Breviary in form and content, becoming popular among those who could read, and Bishop Challoner did much to popularise the hours of Sunday Vespers and Compline ( albeit in English translation ) in his ' Garden of the Soul ' in the eighteenth century.

The Liturgical Movement in the twentieth century saw renewed interest in the Offices of the Breviary and several popular editions were produced containing the vernacular as well as the Latin.