Daily Office

Content

What appears in the office you pray.

Sunday & festival lectionary

Which lectionary supplies the Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel readings on Sundays and major feasts. Independent of the weekday lectionary — you can pair a historic Sunday lectionary (like CSB Office A/B/C/D or TLH) with a continuous weekday lectionary underneath.

CSB Office Lectionary A Table A of the Common Service Book (1917) office lectionary — the American Lutheran default set. Year 1 of a four-year rotation (A / B / C / D) providing wide Scripture coverage across the four cycles. Public domain. CSB Office Lectionary B (Thomasius) Table B of the CSB (1917) office lectionary — the pericope series of Gottfried Thomasius (1802–1875), the Erlangen Neuluthertum theologian. Year 2 of the A/B/C/D rotation. CSB Office Lectionary C (Hannover) Table C of the CSB (1917) office lectionary — the pericope series from the Hannover Landeskirche. Year 3 of the A/B/C/D rotation. Provides paired Matins/Vespers readings on most days. CSB Office Lectionary D (Eisenach) Table D of the CSB (1917) office lectionary — the Eisenacher Reihe adopted at the Eisenach Church Conference of 1896, the most widely-used 19th-century German Lutheran alternate-pericope series. Year 4 of the A/B/C/D rotation. TLH 1941 Historic One-Year The historic one-year lectionary from The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) — the same historic altkirchliche Sunday propers used continuously in the Western Church since the medieval period. Each Sunday's readings carry through the week. LSB Daily Lectionary Distinct OT and NT readings every day, continuous through the books of Scripture. From the Lutheran Service Book (CPH 2006) / Treasury of Daily Prayer (CPH 2008).

Weekday lectionary

Which lectionary supplies Morning and Evening readings on weekdays. On Sundays and major feasts the Sunday lectionary above takes precedence. Selecting a Sunday-only option (like TLH or one of the CSB Office tables) will repeat the previous Sunday's readings on weekdays — the historic one-year practice.

CSB Daily Lectionary Distinct Morning and Evening readings for every weekday of the year, from CSB (1917) General Rubrics IX. Morning readings are typically NT; Evening readings typically OT — the BCP-style Lutheran daily office pattern. Public domain. LSB Daily Lectionary The Lutheran Service Book Daily Lectionary — one OT + one NT reading every day, continuous through the books of Scripture. From LSB (CPH 2006) / Treasury of Daily Prayer (CPH 2008). CSB Office A (Sunday propers repeated) Uses the Table A Sunday propers on every weekday too — the historic one-year practice where weekday offices repeat the previous Sunday's readings. CSB Office B (Sunday propers repeated) Uses the Table B (Thomasius) Sunday propers on weekdays. CSB Office C (Sunday propers repeated) Uses the Table C (Hannover) Sunday propers on weekdays. CSB Office D (Sunday propers repeated) Uses the Table D (Eisenach) Sunday propers on weekdays. TLH 1941 (Sunday propers repeated) The historic one-year practice: weekday offices repeat the previous Sunday's TLH readings until the next Sunday.

Psalm cycle

The source of the appointed psalm(s) at Matins and Vespers. Two genres are supported: day-deterministic (LSB pattern — every day gets a specific psalm) and seasonal-pool (CSB pattern — each season has a pool of psalms, and the app picks one per day using rotation).

CSB Table of Proper Psalms CSB (1917) General Rubrics X: a pool of appointed psalms per season and festival, from which the app deterministically picks one per day using rotation. Older Western/monastic pattern. Public domain. LSB Seasonal Cycle The LSB p. 304 Table of Psalms for Daily Prayer — specific morning + evening psalms for each day, arranged by seasonal cycles (Advent / Lent / Easter / Advent / General 4-week rotation) plus a weekly Ps 145-150 addition.

Matins

Options that affect the Matins service specifically. Other offices (Morning Prayer, Vespers, Compline) will get their own settings here as they land.

Number of psalms

Slots fill in the order LSB itself uses on p. 304's Table of Psalms for Daily Prayer: morning psalm → weekly morning addition (Psalms 145–150 rotated Sun–Sat) → first evening psalm. Each psalm resolves its own chant tone from the tone-mappings table.

1 psalm The day's morning psalm from LSB p. 304's Table of Psalms for Daily Prayer. Simplest, keeps Matins around 10–15 minutes. 2 psalms Morning psalm + LSB's weekly morning addition (one of Psalms 145–150 by day of the week). This is the LSB morning pattern. 3 psalms Morning + weekly addition + the first evening psalm for the day. Fuller monastic-style Matins that covers more of the psalter each month.

Canticle

Matins alternates historically between the Te Deum laudamus (a hymn of praise) and the Benedictus (song of Zechariah, from Luke 1). Only one is sung per service.

Te Deum laudamus The great ancient hymn of praise. Traditional Sunday and festal Matins choice. Benedictus The song of Zechariah at the birth of John the Baptist — Luke 1:68-79. A traditional weekday Matins choice.

Hymnody

The office hymn section slots between the Venite and the OT reading. Disable it here if you'd rather skip it (the hymn library is still being built out).

Skip the Office Hymn section

Daily Gospel reading

Add a lectio-continua Gospel reading to Matins after the Epistle — one chapter per day, cycling continuously through Matthew → Mark → Luke → John. The 89-chapter cycle is anchored on the First Sunday in Advent (Matthew 1 begins the liturgical year) and repeats about four times per year. Independent of the lectionary's own Gospel/NT reading; when both fall on the same day you'll simply hear two Gospel passages, which is a fine formation discipline.

Include a daily Gospel chapter

Presentation

How the office looks and scrolls on the page.

Psalm presentation

Each office's appointed psalm can be chanted with a recorded tone, read aloud with the same ESV audio used for the lectionary readings, or simply read silently from the page. "Chant with accompaniment" is the default; it falls back to "Read with ESV audio" automatically when a psalm doesn't yet have pointing data or its tone hasn't been recorded.

Chant with accompaniment Sing the appointed psalm against a recorded chant tone. Requires pointing data for the psalm; falls back to read-with-audio when pointing isn't available. Read with ESV audio Listen to the appointed psalm read aloud (Crossway ESV audio), the same way the daily lectionary readings are presented. No audio Read the psalm silently from the page. Tap Next when finished.

Syllable duration 333ms (180 BPM)

How long the cantor holds each reciting-tone syllable. Default 333ms — a triplet feel against the cadence's 90 BPM.

Hold an extra beat on internal punctuation

When enabled, commas, semicolons, colons, and em-dashes inside a reciting-tone phrase extend the recite-tone by one syllable's duration — the cantor sustains across the breath point rather than rushing the next phrase.

Offline render quality

When you prepare a day for offline use, its psalm chants are rendered to audio files and cached on this device. Choose the format that trades quality against storage the way you prefer.

MP3 (compressed, small files) About 1.5 MB per minute of stereo audio at 192 kbps. Encoded via WASM LAME — transparent to most listeners on wired or Bluetooth output. WAV (uncompressed, largest files) About 10 MB per minute of stereo audio. Bit-perfect copy of what the chant engine renders. Choose this if you can hear the difference and have the storage.

Syllable-highlight sync

The app auto-detects the output-latency of your current audio device (wired vs Bluetooth) each verse and delays the syllable highlighter to match. If the highlight still runs a little ahead or behind the audio, use this slider to fine-tune. 0 is right for most setups. Changes take effect on the next verse.

Additional offset 0ms

Auto-scroll

Scroll to each section as it begins

When enabled, the page scrolls automatically to keep the currently playing section in view. If you scroll manually, auto-scroll pauses until the next section starts.

Theme

"Parchment" is the default warm-light theme; "Dark" is a low-glare theme for early morning or nighttime prayer; "Follow system" switches between the two based on your device's preference.

Playback

How the office sounds as it plays.

App playback speed

Each video in the office has an authored playback rate (the editorial choice of how fast it should sound). This setting nudges every video up or down the YouTube playback-rate ladder by the same number of steps. At "Normal," each section plays at its authored rate; "Slower" moves every video one step slower; "Much faster" moves every video two steps faster; and so on.

Silent mode

Pray in silence (no audio)

When enabled, no audio plays at all — the YouTube player is not loaded and Crossway scripture audio is not fetched. The office becomes a text-only prayer experience where you advance through each section at your own pace using the Next button.

Video display

Hide videos (audio only)

When enabled, the YouTube player is rendered off-screen and only the audio plays. The text is the visible component of the office. Has no effect when Silent mode is on.

Autoplay

Automatically advance through sections

When enabled, the office plays through automatically. You'll still need to press "Begin" once at the start of the office (browser policy).

Homily voice

The homily is spoken aloud by your browser's built-in text-to-speech engine. On macOS, the highest-quality voices have "(Enhanced)" or "(Premium)" in their name — download them in System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System Voice → Manage Voices. This setting has no effect in Silent mode.

Text-to-speech isn't supported in this browser.

App

Updates and defaults.

App updates

The app auto-checks for a new version each time you return to it. Tap here if you suspect a deploy landed and want to pull it in immediately.

Settings