To read a book of hours was to take full delight in the world of time and the world of eternity. There is no sense of having to "move on," as we might have in a modern book. . . . We can imbibe a sense of what was once called "the fullness of time". . . . The calendar of the year, with its reminders of the saints' days and its lavish illustrations, precedes it, and following it come readings from the Gospels, prayers to the Virgin, penitential psalms and the office of the dead.
— Gary Eberle, Sacred Time and the Search for Meaning