In conformity to the suggestion on page 934 of the prayer book, the default standard is for the gospel to be in the morning and the epistle in the evening for Office Year 2. I know a number of people pray the offices in their church and at home and that it can be jarring when the church observes the flip-flop yet the breviary does not… Hopefully, this is no now longer an issue.

One note, though—the flip-flop will not occur on any Holy Days or major feasts days. Often these a time-of-day reason that the lectionary assigns these, so they will not occur at that point.

This being the St Bede’s Breviary, there is a new option added to the Preferences page that will allow you to opt out of this if that is your desire (it’s at the bottom of the “Lectionary” section within the core options…).

On page 934 of the BCP it states: “When the Office is read twice in the day, it is suggested that the Gospel Reading be used in the evening of Year One, and in the morning in Year Two.” Currently the breviary does not allow for this. I am working to correct it and will make it default once it’s done. Thus, during Year Two, the Gospel will be the second reading in the morning, meaning that the (second) reading in the evening will be the Epistle Reading.

This will change the way that I put my lectionary tables together so it will take me a little bit to accomplish. I’m hoping to get it done within the next week or two.

I’m away from my computer this weekend, but will get it fixed (and double-check the rest of the week!) As soon as possible.

I’ve consistently received two questions since the launch of the breviary—1) when will there be an iPhone/iPad app and 2) when will there be a printed version. I can now answer the first! There are a number of moving parts here, so we’re currently projecting a ship date in the 1st quarter of 2012.

Needless to say—I’ll keep you updated!

For those of you with mobile devices who enjoy the breviary, you might like to try this out as an intermediary step as development continues: a mobile-optimized version of the breviary. (Due to spotty implementation of the xhtml+mp, I don’t recommend trying to use it with a desktop browser…)

The cookies that hold preferences for the regular offices are still in effect here particularly in regard to antiphons; elements for the BVM are not included in these offices.

So, here they are:

The Office for the Dead: Morning Prayer

The Office for the Dead: Evening Prayer

However, I do need to know what settings and options are being used the most to make sure that I’m putting effort towards and tending to issues that affect the breviary and its users.

Here’s the breakdown of breviary use starting from 1 PM on 9/8/11 until now, the last entry being logged at 4AM on 10/8/11.

Total breviary uses: 3,521

Breakdown by Office:

• Morning Prayer: 1,720
• Noon Prayer: 245
• Evening Prayer: 1,229
• Compline: 327

Those who save their options with cookies, those who use a page that auto-pre-sets their options,  vs. those who use the “pre-set” options:

• cookies: 1387
• Pre-set page: 814
• pre-sets: 1320
• bare-bones: 583
• house use: 250
• high church: 226
• amplified: 167
• old school: 51
• basic prayer book: 43

Breakdown by Rite:

• Rite I: 1316
• Rite II: 2205

Breakdown by kalendar:

• BCP: 1194
• HWHM: 860
• OJN: 577
• House: 497
• Current Roman: 184
• Anglican Missal: 57
• Knott Missal: 57
• Exciting Holiness (COE): 55
• OHC: 40

Breakdown by page:

• Regular: 2625
• OJN: 444
• BSG: 390
• office: 39
• mobile: 20
• test: 3

I could break it down further based on analysis of the cookies, but I’m not interested in doing that right now. Looking across the cookies, the system currently contains 242 unique cookies with none having more that 64 visits. The lack of significant clustering around specific cookies indicates two positives to me: 1) the pre-sets are well chosen and have good appeal; 2) people really do look for a wide variety in their Office options.

On a side-note, just looking at this file has helped me solve a major issue with the cookies. One of the values was inserting a word instead of a value. Brian—reselect the same options and try again; your options ought to work now!

Interestingly, if you compare hits-per-week to average-Sunday-attendence (probably not a fair comparison for a number of reasons) this completely unsupported and unregulated e-ministry is consistently one of the top 3 parishes of my diocese…!

May light perpetual shine upon him.

However, I wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten and that work is under way. I’m starting on the Offices for the Dead. The links within the pages don’t work yet but this will give you a sense of what’s coming:

Traditional Matins for the Dead, Rite II

Traditional Vespers for the Dead, Rite I

I’ve nuked the whole table and reloaded it from scratch so hopefully all will be well with it again!

He said to him, “Go in peace.” But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance,

Naturally this sparked questions as we typically don’t end passages in the middle of a sentence.

The reason is a matter of where the thought ends in relation to where the verse ends. Here’s how it ends in the KJV:

And he said unto him, Go in peace. So he departed from him a little way.

You can see the issue—in the KJV this is the natural closing of an episode; in the NRSV (and RSV) it’s not. When you crack your Hebrew text, you’ll see that the “So” of the KJV and the “But when” of the NRSV/RSV are translating a straight “v^e” which can be rendered anywhere from a basic “and” to a variety of other conjunctions as the context determines. Further, v. 19 ends with one of the small sameks that signals a stopping point in the traditional Jewish reading of the text.

The NRSV and RSV decided that the traditional English and Jewish means of reading this passage incorrectly paused it at the end of 19, preferring to connect v. 19b with what followed.

In the English lectionaries (1662/1871/1922) 2 Kings 5 was read as a whole. In the American lectionaries it was similarly read whole until that work of radicalism known as the ’28 BCP. There, it appoints 2 Kings 5:9-19 on the Friday after the 20th Sunday after Trinity; the next morning had v. 20 through the end of the chapter.

The ’79 BCP reflects the text as written in the RSV (where the verse goes across two sentences) by truly appointing 2 Kings 5:9-19 on Monday of Proper 20 then going from vv.19-27 on Tuesday.

In short—yes, it’s a lectionary issue; but this one isn’t my fault!