THE ROMAN BREVIARY is a book of which most lay Catholics and many Protestants have heard, but it remains to very nearly all of us little more than a name. And yet the Breviary contains the Divine Office, that never-ceasing cycle of prayer which constitutes one of the obligations of the Latin Catholic priesthood. 

In past centuries the Breviary—or "Book of Hours"—contributed a large share to the prayer-life of the laity; but with the great vogue for "popular devotions" (excellent in themselves, yet subject to the danger of becoming too individualistic), lay participation in the Divine Office became less and less common. The liturgical revival, so often warmly urged by the Holy See, was bound to lead to a renewed lay interest in the Breviary. Such an interest has shown itself in America. In 1931, a group of Catholic laymen in Brooklyn, going under the name of "Approved Workmen," began reading Matins and Lauds in English once a month. In 1936, Mr. Eugene McSweeney, of this same group, in collaboration with Miss Florence Breen of New York City and under the guidance of several members of the clergy, set in motion a new society—based on a concept emanating from St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota—the League of the Divine Office, to promote lay participation in the use of the Breviary. The activities involved in membership are simple : the daily recitation of a single "hour" of the Office, participation in a monthly public recitation of an hour, and attendance at an annual corporate Communion. 

After two years the League of the Divine Office has made substantial progress in the neighborhood of New York, and indications of participation are beginning to be visible in other parts of the country. Eighty-eight persons are now known to be active members of the St. Joseph Center, and during the past year four members of that center have resigned to enter the religious life. One great but not insuperable obstacle to the spread of the idea has been the necessity of education in the use of the Breviary. The solid progress of the League of the Divine Office will increase as the concept of Mystical Body Catholicism becomes more widely known and understood, and as the Liturgy becomes recognized as the social unifying force it is intended to be and can once more so readily become.