Can Laymen Wear Vestments for Home Prayer Services?

[OraLabora]

… just because we pray the Office in private does not mean that we pray it alone.

You raised a very important point. It is not a personal prayer, it is the prayer of the Body of Christ. Even recited in private, it remains a public act of worship, whether we are mandated to it (clergy) or highly encouraged (laymen), because we are doing it in unison with those who can add their real voice to a community recitation of the LOH.

Dom Guillaume Jedrzejczak, a Trappist and former abbot of Mont-des-Cats in France, makes it clear in his commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict, that we aren’t, like in personal prayer, praying according to our personal feelings but are performing an act of solidarity with the entire Church. As he says, as a monk, there are days when he was joyful but was hit by sorrowful psalms, and days when he was in a funk when was hit with joyful psalms. These grate against our personal mood, but we must keep in mind that even if we are joyful, many members of the church are experiencing sorrow and we thus join ourselves in prayer for them. Similarly, when we’re in the dumps, many have reason for thanksgiving and we join ourselves to them too.

As such, the liturgy becomes an act of self-giving, of attaching ourselves to the entire body of the Church, those who hurt and those who praise. The LOH requires that we put aside our own personal prejudices and feelings and instead attach ourselves to the Body of Christ in prayer. It’s often a reminder to me to not be so smug about things when they go well, and often I have to drag myself kicking and screaming to my little oratory when things aren’t, and yet, the LOH uplifts me as I am carried on the prayers of others.

Properly followed I can’t see how the LOH can be anything other than liturgical. It doesn’t have the title “Liturgy of the Hours for Clergy and Religious and Just Another Devotion for Everyone Else”. It is the Liturgy of the Hours for everyone.

 

[IntegraCatholic]

Even Sacrosanctum Concilium doesn’t go so far as to say that the faithful privately reciting the office constitutes the public prayer of the Church (all liturgy necessarily is the public prayer of the Church):

1. Members of any institute dedicated to acquiring perfection who, according to their constitutions, are to recite any parts of the divine office are thereby performing the public prayer of the Church.

They too perform the public prayer of the Church who, in virtue of their constitutions, recite any short office, provided this is drawn up after the pattern of the divine office and is duly approved.

It says nothing of laymen who can perform the public prayer of the church by private recitation. In fact, it specifically says that these persons (non-clerics, and to speak more specifically, those not in major orders, as it mentioned above the quote I provided) only fulfill this role of liturgical prayer because of their constitutions (obligation and mission from the Church to do so). This is necessary to constitute a public prayer of the Church (which is liturgy).

 

[OraLabora]

It says nothing of laymen who can perform the public prayer of the church by private recitation.

Sacrosanctum Concilium in fact says:

1. Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.

It does not add “but for the laity, it isn’t liturgical”. It does not make any exception to suggest that it is not participation in the public prayer of the Church, which the preamble clearly states the Divine Office is:

1. Hence all who render this service are not only fulfilling a duty of the Church, but also are sharing in the greatest honor of Christ’s spouse, for by offering these praises to God they are standing before God’s throne in the name of the Church their Mother.

It doesn’t state “all except the laity”.

I’m not sure I understand your obsession with proving that the Liturgy of the Hours, said privately by laymen, is not part of the public prayer of the Church.

Many of us believe otherwise based on some pretty compelling evidence in official Church documents, for which you are attempting a very granular and very personal interpretation of absent words.

So can you just lay off the obsession? I don’t think, in Christian charity, it is serving anything and in fact you may be discouraging people from prayer by implying that their prayer of the LOH is somehow less worthy than they think it is. Many folks on this list are newbies: new converts or reverts, looking for encouragement in their prayer life, not a picayune argument over unwritten words.

I think the Church rather wants to encourage prayer and it does even encourage laymen to pray the LOH, quite strongly, in the breviary and in Sacrosanctum Concilium, contrary to what you believe SC says. Surely you are trying to split hairs by claiming it isn’t “liturgical”?

 

[IntegraCatholic]

I did not pick the fight about whether it is or is not liturgical prayer. Others took umbrage at my remarks, and I’ve merely responded to what they’ve written. I would like to take the time to look up some authorities on this very matter, but I don’t have the resources at hand right now, which is why I have succumbed to referencing Sacrosanctum Concilium, which does not speak directly in favor or against either position that is being presented.

Oh, and while I certainly never said anything of the sort regarding the divine office, as it is the most important prayer (in a certain sense) that a layman can pray (though, for his personal sanctity, it must rank behind his mental prayer and even the rosary), I will make it very clear now that I do think that the laity ought to immerse themselves more and more into the liturgy and tradition of the Church, making it the central axis about which their devotional life rotates. Trust me, I certainly know and believe this very firmly and have been able to practice it myself (albeit, not now as much as I have been able in the past).

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Even Sacrosanctum Concilium doesn’t go so far as to say that the faithful privately reciting the office constitutes the public prayer of the Church (all liturgy necessarily is the public prayer of the Church):

It does, however, say this:
100. Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.
And this exhortation, coupled with this:
83. Christ Jesus, high priest of the new and eternal covenant, taking human nature, introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven. He joins the entire community of mankind to Himself, associating it with His own singing of this canticle of divine praise.

For he continues His priestly work through the agency of His Church, which is ceaselessly engaged in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the whole world. She does this, not only by celebrating the eucharist, but also in other ways, especially by praying the divine office.
And this:
85. Hence all who render this service are not only fulfilling a duty of the Church, but also are sharing in the greatest honor of Christ’s spouse, for by offering these praises to God they are standing before God’s throne in the name of the Church their Mother.
And this:
90. The divine office, because it is the public prayer of the Church, is a source of piety, and nourishment for personal prayer. And therefore priests and all others who take part in the divine office are earnestly exhorted in the Lord to attune their minds to their voices when praying it. The better to achieve this, let them take steps to improve their understanding of the liturgy and of the bible, especially of the psalms.

In revising the Roman office, its ancient and venerable treasures are to be so adapted that all those to whom they are handed on may more extensively and easily draw profit from them.
…suggests that even when the laity recite the office in private (as they are encouraged to do in solidarity with the entire Church), they, as much as any priest or monk or anyone else bound by a constitution to recite it, are standing before God’s throne in the name of the Church their Mother. Note that sec. 90 is unequivocal that the office is the public prayer of the Church. That statement admits no qualification. It is the public prayer of the Church whether performed in choir or out of choir, alone or in community.

Angels on the head of a pin indeed. I will confess that is conversations like these which make me glad I am a mere Anglican.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Looks like Ora already made my points re: *Sacrosanctum! *Sorry for the repetition.

Here, though, is a selection from Apostolic Constitution Canticum Laudis:
The whole life of the faithful, hour by hour during day and night, is a kind of leitourgia or public service, in which the faithful give themselves over to the ministry of love toward God and neighbor, identifying themselves with the action of Christ, who by His life and self-offering sanctified the life of all mankind. The Liturgy of the Hours clearly expresses and effectively strengthens this sublime truth, embodied in the Christian life. For this reason the Liturgy of the Hours is recommended to all the faithful, including those who are not bound by law to their recitation.
Pope Paul VI’s understanding of all of Christian life as liturgy is, I think, important. Liturgy is not a category of action or worship into which this prayer falls but that does not according to some jesuitical formula or other. On the contrary, it is an expression of the high calling to be what God knows us to be in Christ Jesus. And, I would argue, this is what is behind the push to popularize the Office among the laity in particular. If we are indeed called to be a living liturgy, then the Liturgy of the Hours can teach us to sanctify the day and ourselves, by God’s grace, enabling us to be what we are called to be.

Liturgy, then, is the practice of becoming God’s people, individually and corporately, but always as Ecclesia, as the one Corpus Mysticum. It does not describe a kind of prayer. It is the living of a life of prayer.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[rwoehmke]

No, I didn’t think you did, which I why I bolded the appropriate section that even if you don’t think it is necessary for salvation that it cannot be engaged in. There are many Judaeizers today in the Church, who are trying to bring back the cedar meal, which is forbidden by this council, and other Jewish practices, such as prayer shawls, etc.

In truth althouigh the lady who knitted it called it a prayert shawl, it is nothing like the genuione article thaty I have bseen. It is more like a long scarf with fringes only on the small end. It is cozy in the winter and in that season I might wear it while praying, but it has little to do with my prayers. I wouldn’t wear it in summer on a bet. I guess while I recognize that as Catholics we are all jews, I hardly think that our Mass and rituals are pure innovations and not based on the religious practices of our founder and Lord who was about as jewish as one can get…