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Lepanto
Guest
Does your parish (or faith community,if you prefer) offer regularly scheduled liturgy of the hours?
Does your parish (or faith community, if you prefer) offer regularly scheduled liturgy of the hours?
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Phemie
Guest
We did for a while, in fact its implementation was my project for a course in liturgy that I was doing. Unfortunately there was a great misunderstanding about what the LOH was all about and at times there was no one there but the Leader of Prayer, the Cantor and the Reader.
Comments that were made: “What ‘prayer’, all we did was sing?”
How can they call it Evening Prayer – they didn’t even say the rosary?
I had spent about a year putting things in the parish bulletin to explain the LOH before we started it, but it didn’t make any difference.
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Joannm
Guest
We had the same problem. People really just want the Mass and they don’t understand the concept of gathering for prayer. However we have made some inroads during the Triduum. When I started working here 7 years ago very few people came to Morning Prayer during the Triduum. In fact, some would show up thinking there was going to be a Mass and then leave once Morning Prayer began. We began some catechesis and now we are up to our normal number of people who would attend daily mass.
We may have to cut out one of our daily morning masses in the fall and I am considering trying to introduce Morning Prayer to replace it, but I foresee the same problem…people want a Mass. However in the early Church, they did not have daily Mass and people did gather, several times a day if possible, to pray. Those who do pray the LOTH think it is a private devotion and really don’t want to pray it with others. I tend to pray Morning Prayer in the church beginning a 1/2 hour before Mass begins. I would love to have some people join me but when I approach the subject people balk and say it would interrupt their private prayer time.
We may have to cut out one of our daily morning masses in the fall and I am considering trying to introduce Morning Prayer to replace it, but I foresee the same problem…people want a Mass. However in the early Church, they did not have daily Mass and people did gather, several times a day if possible, to pray. Those who do pray the LOTH think it is a private devotion and really don’t want to pray it with others. I tend to pray Morning Prayer in the church beginning a 1/2 hour before Mass begins. I would love to have some people join me but when I approach the subject people balk and say it would interrupt their private prayer time.
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Phemie
Guest
I’ve found that it’s not even really Mass they want, it’s Communion. Some would be happy if they could just come in, say the rosary, get Communion and go. It’s all about private, not corporate, prayer.
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PhilotheaZ
Guest
Our parish has public Liturgy of the Hours during the Triduum, and Evening Prayer during our 40 Hours Devotion (usually in November). I wish we would do it more regularly.
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LRThunder
Guest
Unfortunately, no.
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tee_eff_em
Guest
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ericka1701
Guest
Not my home parish, but the parish about 35 miles away has Morning and Evening Prayer, Monday through Friday. Their weekday Masses are held after the Morning Prayer.
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Anne1964
Guest
My parish doesn’t offer it, but the cathedral near where I work offers midday prayer during the week.
Another parish close by offered morning and evening prayer every day.
Another parish close by offered morning and evening prayer every day.
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kurtmasur
Guest
Hmmmm… I wonder if perhaps projects like these could be successful if you would start with merely reciting the Hours as opposed to singing them? In this way the uninitiated would feel like they are taking part in “real” and “traditional” prayer (just like the familiar rosary and even the mass is (mostly) recited).
Then after a while, when the program gets more established and you get regulars attending you can introduce chant. And by this time they will have a great appreciation for the sung Hours.
When I started praying the Hours I only quietly recited/meditated on the texts. Then one day I was introduced into chanting the Hours and I couldn’t get over how beautiful the experience was to sing the text. Of course, it helped that by this time I actually had an appreciation of the texts and what it actually meant to pray the Hours.
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The_Prodigal
Guest
At our parish, Evening Prayer is said before Benediction, one night during the week.
During Lent, Morning Prayer is said before weekday morning Mass.
I go to both whenever I’m able.
During Lent, Morning Prayer is said before weekday morning Mass.
I go to both whenever I’m able.
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kurtmasur
Guest
Out of curiosity, I wonder how many people on this forum actually know about the Liturgy of the Hours?
Update: Never mind, I just started a poll on this topic.
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The_Prodigal
Guest
How did your pastor support this effort?
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ericka1701
Guest
I had no idea what the Liturgy of the Hours was until a friend who had spent quite a bit of time at a Trappist monastery introduced me to it. I still have yet to hear it chanted, but we have a trip planned to go to this monastery in the near future, and I am very much looking forward to praying with the brothers.
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Phemie
Guest
When your only experience of the LOTH is 6 weeks of sung Morning and Evening Prayer it doesn’t even cross your mind to do a recited prayer because it’s outside your experience.
We also kept it simple:
Invitation to Prayer
Hymn
Evening Psalm
Psalm Prayer
Second Psalm
Psalm Prayer
Word of God
Gospel Canticle
Intercessions (Byzantine Chant)
Lord’s Prayer
Blessing
On a Feast we’d sometimes have the Celebration of Light with the chanted Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Light.
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Phemie
Guest
It depends on what you mean by support. He would have given me anything I wanted or needed to make it happen and he recommended it to the community but he wanted it to be lay-led. At 73 and not well, he didn’t want to take on anything more at night.
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The_Prodigal
Guest
I see…
I wonder if anyone shares my impression that since the LOTH is, well, a form of liturgy, the laity expects a priest or deacon to lead. And therefore may be less likely to participate if it is lay-led.
And this suggests the question of whether a lay person can lead if an ordained minister is in the congregation?
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kurtmasur
Guest
That’s how I was originally exposed to the LOTH, by staying for a few days with a religious order.
I was totally ignorant during my stay with them (except of the Mass, of course). I remember that I had no clue what was going on whatsoever. When I saw them singing out of their breviaries, I was puzzled as to why they were singing out of their “missals”. Then when I actually held one of the “missals” I was even more confused when I noticed it wasn’t actually a missal, but some other “liturgical-looking book” out of which they sing. I didn’t know what to make out of the headings “Week I, II, III, IV” (of the Psalter). Furthermore, as I flipped through the pages I noticed it had a section in line with the liturgical year, even though “it wasn’t a missal.”
Then there was a moment when they didn’t even need to read out of the books because they knew a certain text “by heart” (Canticle of Zacariah and of Mary).
So these were my first impressions of the LOTH. Even after this experience, I went away still not knowing what all that had been about. I did, however, leave with a curiosity about what I had experienced and the meaning of those “liturgical-looking books that were not actually missals”. A couple of years later, intent on wanting to imitate what I had seen before with the religious order, and after consultation with a priest, I visited a religious book store and bought myself a breviary.
So yeah, that sums up my journey into discovering and praying the LOTH.
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PJM
Guest
Ones Parish might?
But a “faith community”
heck are they even Catholic
After all they only have a 'Gathering Space" while the rest of us actually have a Church.
The RCC Catecheism:
“1181 A church, “a house of prayer in which the Eucharist is celebrated and reserved, where the faithful assemble, and where is worshipped the presence of the Son of God our Savior, offered for us on the sacrificial altar for the help and consolation of the faithful - this house ought to be in good taste and a worthy place for prayer and sacred ceremonial.” In this “house of God” the truth and the harmony of the signs that make it up should show Christ to be present and active in this place.”
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otjm
Guest
Mine doesn’t and that is in part due to the fact that almost no one knows what the LOTH is. I have tried to introduce it to RCIA, but that is one night among many topics.
My parish is about 4 miles away, and having a real job, it would be at best difficult to get that going. Morning Mass starts after I am at work, and I am not even going to suggest we change that time… I miss saying or singing it in community, as I had two years of college seminary doing it daily. It definitely grows on you.
My parish is about 4 miles away, and having a real job, it would be at best difficult to get that going. Morning Mass starts after I am at work, and I am not even going to suggest we change that time… I miss saying or singing it in community, as I had two years of college seminary doing it daily. It definitely grows on you.
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