Shorter Christian Prayer [Leather Bound]

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Book Description

ISBN-10: 0899424236 | ISBN-13: 978-0899424231 | Publication Date: May 1998

Shorter Christian Prayer contains Morning and Evening Prayer for the Four Week Psalter and selected texts for the Seasons and Major Feasts of the year.  It is Ideal for Parish use.

Product Details

• Leather Bound
• Publisher: Catholic Book Publishing Company (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0899424236
• ISBN-13: 978-0899424231
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #672,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Core Prayers in a NICE format, December 20, 2002

By 

Stephen Botts "cercamon" (Los Angeles, Ca USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shorter Christian Prayer (Leather Bound)

Like an earlier reviewer, I also own the four-volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours. I do enjoy the additional readings and the somewhat nerdy activity of finding my way around the complete liturgy. But for pure prayer value, "Shorter Christian Prayer" is the book. It has the entire four-week psalter for the key prayers of the day, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, as well as the same Night Prayers as the larger volumes. What it is missing are the special readings and intercessions for feasts and memorials--but even those special days are built around the same psalms printed here. For me, on my commute, Shorter Christian Prayer is less distracting and much nicer in the hand than the standard Christian Prayer or Liturgy of the Hours. It has larger print than either. It has the gospel canticles printed on the inside covers, a brilliant idea. Plus it is a LOT cheaper.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's short, it's Christian, it's prayer; it's wonderful, February 3, 2003

By 

Brad4d "bb" (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shorter Christian Prayer (Leather Bound)

This set of prayers is a daily offering of psalms, readings, and other prayers to help direct one towards God.
I have the four-volume set of the liturgy, but find those volumes are difficult to carry with me when I am traveling, or when I am visiting a place where I will have some time to pray and just want to carry a smaller book in my pocket. What you do lose is the complete set of prayers (such as the Office of Readings and various holy days), and you do have to use more place-markers, but it's a wonderful companion that I'd rather not be without.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb condensation of Divine Office prayers and readings, May 19, 2008

By 

J. Bryant - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shorter Christian Prayer (Leather Bound)

Shorter Christian Prayer is a slim, pocket size version of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours for Roman Catholics. It is perfect for travel, or if you want the simplest form of getting into one or more of the "hours" of prayer. It has the 4-week Morning and Evening Prayers & Psalms (150), and the standard one week cycle of Night Prayer. It does not have the Liturgy of the Hours for the middle of night and wee hours of day, or the variations for all the liturgical seasons and feast days.

The full Liturgy of the Hours is a thick four volume set which we have and it is rather complicated to jump back and forth as the Psalms and Canticles are scattered and cross-referenced. That one also has numerous wrtings by many great saints, Doctors of the Church, etc. along with the Hours.

The Shorter Christian Prayer has just the essentials of the Morning, Evening and Night Prayers. Let me briefly explain the Divine Office for those not yet familiar with it.

The Divine Office, or Liturgy of the Hours, is the official prayer of the Catholic Church. It is the "official" way to incorporate prayer throughout your day, every day. It was originally intended for clergy and religious, but has over time become popular with laity. The original Divine Office consisted of prayers and readings to be performed about every four hours around the 24-hour clock. Second Vatican Council simplified it somewhat and I believe eliminated the midnight prayer, or made it optional (I am not an expert, just getting started myself).

The idea is to "pray without ceasing" as Scripture instructs us. Do you feel a gap in your spiritual life between Sunday Masses? Do you feel that you lose awareness of God in the hustle and bustle of daily life? Are you struggling with bad habits or sufferings and seem to keep losing as much spiritual ground as you gain week by week? Then you need a strong habit of daily prayer to keep your dialog with God lively every day and to continuously seek His protection from evil and guidance in the righteous way. A firm foundation of structured daily prayer will also make it easier to remember to incorporate many small spontaneous prayers each day. Instead of your faith being a weekly devotion at Mass, it also becomes a daily on-going conversation with Jesus.

My wife and I started by doing the daily morning readings and prayers of the Magnificat [...] which is an even more condensed form of daily Morning and Evening Prayer with the daily Mass liturgy. Then we tried the Divine Office but it was too much. So now we use the Magnificat for morning prayer and reading and Sunday and occassional daily Mass. And we use the Shorter Christian Prayer for Night Prayer and occassional Evening Prayer.

Each "hour" of the Divine Office takes about 10-20 minutes. It consists of prayers, brief readings from the old and new testment, a canticle, and two or more Psalms. If you perform the complete Divine Office for the full 4-week cycle you will read all 150 Psalms and cover a lot of other Scripture readings. The canticle is a prayer about Jesus that was said by someone in the Bible, such as Mary's response to the Annunciation, Zechariah's proclamation and prohecy at the birth of his son, John the Baptist, the acclaimation of Simeon in the Temple, etc.

The Psalms especially give the prayers depth as they deal with real human sufferings, betrayal, persecution, repentence, prophecy of the Christ, thanksgiving, and glorification of God.

You won't get the commentaries and mediation from the great writers of the church in Shorter Christian Prayer as you would with the 4-volume set. You won't get the less common hours of prayer, or all the seaonal variations. But you will get a very accessible, easy to carry along volume of daily prayers and readings for the Morning, Evening and Night prayers. If you build a good habit of daily prayer with this small volume then you have a sound spiritual foundation for daily protection, and peace of heart with Jesus.