The Little Hours

THE LITTLE HOURS: A Celtic Prayer Book A Complete Manual of Christian Prayer. Daily Office, Sacred Reading, Contemplation, Blessings and Devotion in the Tradition of St David.

From the edge of the Atlantic world, where heaven and earth have always seemed unusually close, comes a prayer book rooted in fifteen hundred years of Celtic and Benedictine spirituality. The Little Hours is a complete manual of Christian prayer for men and women living consecrated or serious devotional lives in the ordinary world: not in monasteries, but in homes, parishes, and workplaces across the English-speaking world.

Drawing on the Carmina Gadelica, the Antiphonary of Bangor, the Rule of St Benedict, and the ancient tradition of Dewi Sant — St David of Wales — this book holds together two of Christianity's richest streams of prayer. It is at once rigorous and accessible, ancient and immediate, comprehensive and deeply personal.

WHAT YOU WILL FIND INSIDE

The Liturgy of the Hours, arranged for daily use: Lauds at morning, the Little Hours through the day, Vespers at evening, and Compline at nightfall — each Hour complete with psalms, canticles, readings, and Celtic prayers drawn from the Carmina Gadelica tradition.

A full guide to Mental Prayer and Contemplative Stillness, with practical instruction in the Celtic inner cell, the Jesus Prayer, and breath prayer.

Lectio Divina: Sacred Reading, grounded in the Celtic tradition that produced the Book of Kells — a tradition that understood sacred reading as a genuine encounter with the living God.

The Daily Examen in the Celtic tradition, tracing the practice back to its roots in the Irish penitential tradition and the anam cara (soul-friend) relationship of the early Celtic Church.

The Rosary and Marian Devotion, with Celtic meditations on all twenty mysteries, the story of the Irish Paternoster Cord as the ancestor of the Rosary, and a full account of Mary in Celtic spirituality — including the tradition of Brigid as the Mary of the Gael.

The Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Stations of the Cross as Celtic peregrinatio, and prayers before the Blessed Sacrament, each approached through the lens of the Celtic and Benedictine inheritance.

Seasonal prayers for Advent and Christmas, Lent and Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost, and the feasts of the Order's calendar: St David (1 March), St Non (3 March), St Benedict (11 July), and the saints of Wales.

A Treasury of Celtic Prayer: the Caim (encircling prayer), the Anam Cara tradition, the Te Deum, the Benedicite, the Altus Prosator of Columba, Celtic lament, the Office of the Dead, and the Blessing of Water.

Prayers for every day and every need: morning and evening offerings, graces at meals, prayers for anxiety, illness, grief, doubt, forgiveness, and discernment.

A Retreat Companion: a day of recollection and a three-day retreat structured around the dying words of Dewi Sant: Byddwch lawen (Be joyful), Cadwch y ffydd (Keep the faith), Gwnewch y pethau bychain (Do the little things).

FOR WHOM THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN

This is the official prayer book of the Order of St David, a secular institute of the Ancient Apostolic Catholic Church whose members are dispersed across the UK, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. It is written for anyone who takes the interior life seriously: members of secular institutes and third orders, Benedictine oblates, Catholic lay faithful, and all Christians drawn to the Celtic and Benedictine traditions of prayer.

If you have been searching for a serious, beautiful, historically grounded Celtic Christian prayer book — one that goes far beyond simple Celtic blessings to offer a complete framework for the daily and seasonal life of prayer — this is that book.

Do the little things. One prayer at a time.