Embracing a liturgical rhythm of life

[Polycarp86]

I am a Roman Catholic but learning more and more about the east. One thing I am trying to understand is the difference between the liturgical rhythm of life experienced in both the east and the west. Could someone maybe compare and contrast them for me?

As I grow in my faith I feel a real need to adapt a sort of daily liturgical rhythm to my life. Just going to mass on Sundays and then doing whatever the rest of the week just is not going to cut it if I want to become holy.

Maybe someone could could give some insight into how Christians traditionally/currently live a life based around prayer and the church. I’ve lived my life just kind of winging it when it came to prayer but now am looking into the Divine Office in the Latin Rite. I am curious what the Eastern way of living a prayerful life in the church is like. Plus, how does it contrast with the Latin Rite?

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

There’s actually a great deal of variety in the East with regards to your question. In the West, if one wants to have a more “liturgical” prayer life, one simply prayers the Liturgy of the Hours, especially “Morning Prayer” (aka Matins) and “Evening Prayer” (aka Vespers). In the East Matins and Vespers can’t really be celebrated privately. The Hours in general, among Eastern (Byzantine) Christians, are a public service and the emphasis remains on the public celebration of those services.

However, there are ways to enter into a liturgical rhythm of prayer. Most Byzantine prayer books contain prayer “rules” for morning prayers and evening prayers. Some prayer books even contain selections from Matins and Vespers, or even abbreviated forms of Matins and Vespers for private recitation.

The East also allows for the Jesus Prayer to replace participation in the Liturgy of the Hours. Some prayer books will list how many repetitions of the Jesus Prayer will replace participation in the Hours. For example, the Melkite Publican’s Prayer Book mentions that participation in Matins/Orthros can be replaced by 300 repetitions of the Jesus Prayer, and participation in Vespers by 150 repetitions.

Finally, if one owns the Horologion (or the Byzantine Daily Worship or the Anthology of Worship) one could privately celebrate the “lesser Hours:” 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 9th Hours. I would recommend this for a more liturgical prayer life. One could replace Matins/Orthros and Vespers either with the Jesus Prayer or with the morning and evening rules in the prayer books, and then privately celebrate the lesser hours.

One other suggestion would be to do a kind of “lectio divina” with the liturgical texts appropriate for the season.