De ratione
Pocket Breviary is a calm, offline-first reader for the traditional Latin Breviarium Romanum and the Tridentine Mass. It serves both 1962 (John XXIII rubrics) and pre-1955 (Pius X psalter, full pre-Pius-XII calendar).
Sources
The liturgical text is rendered live from the Divinum Officium project's hand-keyed corpus. The typesetting, navigation, lexicon and offline cache are this site's own.
Signa — the signs
The reader keeps the traditional shorthand. Here is what the marks mean, so nothing on the page is opaque.
- The colour dot — the liturgical colour of the day. Green for the year's ordinary weeks, red for martyrs and the Cross, white for our Lord, our Lady and confessors, violet for the penitential seasons, black for the dead, and rose on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays.
- I–IV. classis
- The rank of the day. First class (I. classis) are the greatest feasts; the number rises as the day is lesser, down to a plain féria. The higher the rank, the fuller the office.
- ℣ · ℟
- Versicle and response. A short call (℣, versicle) and its answer (℟, response) — traditionally sung between the two sides of the choir.
- *
- The psalm asterisk marks the mid-verse pause: a breath, and the hinge where the two halves of the verse meet. In choir, one side sings to the asterisk and the other takes up the rest.
- ✠
- The cross. Make the sign of the cross on yourself at these words; where a blessing is given, it marks the gesture.
- · nunc ›
- “Now.” On the home screen this marks the hour the clock has reached — your one-tap place to begin. Past hours are dimmed.
- Tempora
- The seasons. Adventus (Advent), Nativitas (Christmastide), Epiphania, Septuagesima, Quadragesima (Lent), Pascha (Eastertide), and the long Tempus post Pentecosten — the season after Pentecost.
- Charta · Scriptorium · Vigilia
- The three reading themes: Charta (paper, light), Scriptorium (sepia, warm) and Vigilia (night, dark). Choose one from the ⚙ menu.
Principles
- Content is sovereign, chrome is invisible.
- Defaults beat options. Most users want to pray, not to configure.
- One menu glyph holds everything that isn't today's prayer.
- Beautiful typography over decorative ornament.
- Persistence without surveillance: no accounts, no analytics.
Contact
Mendum invenisti? — salve@pocketbreviary.com. You can also use the inline "Nuntiāre mendum" form inside the menu.