Divine Office Question

[rkrispies]

So I have been saying the Divine Office individually now for about two or three months, though admittedly not daily. I have pretty much all of the nuts and bolts down like when to say what. My problem is this: especially for morning and evening prayer, I feel like I am just reading everything out loud rather than really praying. I’m just not sure what to do. Any suggestions?

 

[mary1173]

Close your eyes and imagine that God is there physically in the room with you and you can see him standing there, and you are saying the words directly to him. Imagery works wonders when praying!

God Bless

 

[Barzillai]

Have a practice of setting up to pray the divine office. Many people light a candle, and there are other such practices.

Spend a couple of minutes before the divine office just resting, do not go from whatever you were doing to picking up the books. Stop what you were doing. Spend time in stillness. Then start the divine office.

Pause periodically during the divine office to contemplate what was just read before going on.

Compare the ideas in the passages. For example if a part of the divine office has a series of ideas in order, represented for the sake of illustration as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, try to see how idea 2 is related to idea 4. Next time think about idea 1 and 5, for example.

Place yourself in the passage, place your day, your family, your life in the passage.

At the end of the divine office, spend time in stillness and contemplation. I sometimes view the divine office as coming in two equal halves. Equal in terms of importance. The first half is praying the divine office. The second half is the time spent in stillness afterwards. Not for the same amount of time, but until it all sinks in.

God bless you. Keep it up, you are on the right track.

 

[Joannm]

Close your eyes and imagine that God is there physically in the room with you and you can see him standing there, and you are saying the words directly to him. Imagery works wonders when praying!

God Bless

Kind of difficult to read with your eyes closed.

 

[Joannm]

Have a practice of setting up to pray the divine office. Many people light a candle, and there are other such practices.

Spend a couple of minutes before the divine office just resting, do not go from whatever you were doing to picking up the books. Stop what you were doing. Spend time in stillness. Then start the divine office.

Pause periodically during the divine office to contemplate what was just read before going on.

Compare the ideas in the passages. For example if a part of the divine office has a series of ideas in order, represented for the sake of illustration as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, try to see how idea 2 is related to idea 4. Next time think about idea 1 and 5, for example.

Place yourself in the passage, place your day, your family, your life in the passage.

At the end of the divine office, spend time in stillness and contemplation. I sometimes view the divine office as coming in two equal halves. Equal in terms of importance. The first half is praying the divine office. The second half is the time spent in stillness afterwards. Not for the same amount of time, but until it all sinks in.

God bless you. Keep it up, you are on the right track.

To add to this, read the psalms slowly, pausing between each verse. Let the words sink in as you read them.

 

[JerryS]

I find it very helpful to genuinely think of it as praying and not as reading. That is, I am the faithful person crying to God, or praising God, or (the hardest to imagine) calling for destruction of enemies. I’m not reading, but praying to God. This is both convicting and reassuring (and a little confusing at times when I don’t find an obvious parallel in my own experience). I also add my own petitions to prayers, ask God for understanding for things I don’t really get, repeat/reword/emphasize passages that really speak to me during a given hour, etc.

That said, as I’ve gotten comfortable with the patterns it is easier for the mind to wander as the mouth rattles on. I know of no way to keep focused other than discipline, calling myself back to prayer when I find I’ve wandered, and using focusing techniques like others have recommended to center yourself in the prayer. I don’t punish myself (like force myself to repeat something I’ve glossed over), but just encourage myself to focus and wait for the gems to surface.

I have about the same length of experience as you. I find that reading the 4 main hours regularly really breeds the trouble focusing. It becomes just a little too repetitious, and I can feel pressured to just get the prayers in rather than really praying. However, I really miss it when I don’t pray regularly.

 

[Barzillai]

These are good suggestions and… duh … they reminded me of something else I do that makes each divine office session different and much deeper spiritually. Try reading a part of one or two books after one or more parts of the divine office.

At the end of the first office of the day I read that day’s section from the Rule of St. Benedict (see the daily Rule readings) and sometimes I read a portion of another book. Then I will also read from that other book after some of the other hours. These are major, favorite books. I know you have a few of these.

What I read in the Rule of St. Benedict or the other books causes me to see the divine office I just read in a new, deeper way. The extra readings after the divine office serve as an instant commentary on the divine office. Spiritual topics from several sources always “by chance” support and explain each other.

I have enjoyed reading everyone’s good suggestions — very helpful.

 

[DBT]

A few things that help me read “prayerfully:”

First, read s . . . l . . . o . . . w . . . l . . . y.

Second, read the office audibly. It’s much easier, I think, to fall into fuzzyness or distraction with silent reading.

Third, read with the objective of LISTENING. If we do the above, no doubt many words, phrases or ideas will catch our attention. When that happens, simply raise our hearts to God in a silent, interior and spontaneous prayer reflecting the thoughts generated by what we just read. When we do so we enter into dialogue which is what prayerful reading is all about. After these brief aspirations of the heart, continue reading and looking for the next thing to catch our attention.

Sometimes, you might find a particular “word” that you end up carrying with you throughout the entire day that becomes a kind of conversation starter for heartfelt interior conversation with God throughout your daily activity. When that happens, we’re really praying.

These “words” prayed this way often bring us to a deeper understanding of God and self. Recent “words” for me: “Bless the Lord my soul” . . . “Serve the Lord with Gladness” . . . “Enter into His rest.”

Hopefully, you get the idea!

Dave

 

[ricmat]

Yes, as suggested directly above, read audibly (or at least whisper). To “read only” requires one action of our wills. To read audibly requires two. So that’s better (or so my theory goes).

And read with enthusiasm (yes, I said enthusiasm). Pretend that you are telling a story to a youngster, and you’re trying to liven it up and make it more interesting. For some reason that works for me

And pause if you need to when you get to a particularly interesting part that you want to think about more.

It’s also helpful to put yourself in the shoes of the original composer of the psalm or canticle. Having a historical context helps me as well.

PS - I know some people who have trouble with the psalms because they think that it is poetry that is supposed to be read in Iambic Pentameter and rhyme somehow (or whatever - I’m an engineer, not a poet). The line breaks, which look as though they have some purpose, don’t mean that the sentence or thought ends at that particular point. So keep reading/praying until you hit the real end of the sentence - and it will make more sense.

 

[puzzleannie]

So IMy problem is this: especially for morning and evening prayer, I feel like I am just reading everything out loud rather than really praying. I’m just not sure what to do. Any suggestions?

it pretty much is exactly what you are doing. you are praying in the inspired words of scripture when you read the psalms so there is nothing wrong with that. your prayer is therefore God-breathed, you are praying in the Spirit even when it feels like reading. there does not need to be an emotional response all the time. what does make all the difference in the world to me is to read aloud (unless I am in the chapel or someplace where this would disturb others). This keeps my mind from wandering and much more focused on the words and their meaning. Same thing for the rosary. When I find I have daydreamed through the last decade I start praying out loud.