Help - Christian Prayer: Liturgy of the Hours

[brotherhrolf]

Another question…

Do you have to buy a whole new book each year or just a new St. Josephs Guide?

No, just the guide. I use holy cards in addition to the ribbons. Some of the old holy cards have additional prayers on the back that I also use.

 

[Jotobo]

That ribbon placement suggestion was extremely helpful!

Little by little this gets easier and easier to follow. Im just loving it. The feeling that there are likely hundreds of thousands, if not millions of others reading and praying what I am praying at the same time is just surreal. We are really just a living breathing body and following the Liturgy of the Hours is just proof of that.

If you dont have one, go get one, seriously. You get such a dose of daily scripture, prayer, song, reflection…on and on…

I have the Christian Prayer: Liturgy of the Hours from Catholic Book Publishing.

 

[Jotobo]

Ok, so Im getting the hang of this now but I was thrown off today. I thought we were in week two but then Proper of Seasons says to read from week four. So, I double checked the St Joseph guide and sure enough it has me reading out of week four…

Now that I dont use that guide anymore I wouldnt have known to switch to week four.

How are you supposed to know there is a sudden change like that?

 

[ricmat]

Ok, so Im getting the hang of this now but I was thrown off today. I thought we were in week two but then Proper of Seasons says to read from week four. So, I double checked the St Joseph guide and sure enough it has me reading out of week four…

Now that I dont use that guide anymore I wouldnt have known to switch to week four.

How are you supposed to know there is a sudden change like that?

In my Christian Prayer book, there are some instructions for Ash Wednesday that say Psalter week IV right at the top. But then again…right below Morning Prayer (Ash Wednesday) it also says to use the stuff from Friday, week 3, page 906. Gee - I don’t understand why you don’t understand

 

[tee_eff_em]

Ok, so Im getting the hang of this now but I was thrown off today. I thought we were in week two but then Proper of Seasons says to read from week four. So, I double checked the St Joseph guide and sure enough it has me reading out of week four…

Now that I dont use that guide anymore I wouldnt have known to switch to week four.

How are you supposed to know there is a sudden change like that?

In exactly the way you discovered it – What could be plainer than an instruction in the rubrics???

tee

 

[z_0101]

OK, I know that this is an older thread, however, I really could use some help…

I received a very nice hardcover edition of “Christian Prayer - The Liturgy of the Hours (pub. Pauline Books & Media, Boston)” as a Christmas present this year from my wife. I wish I could give you a print or edition number for this book; however, no such information is provided in the usual locations. I can however tell you that on page 28, “Principal Celebrations of the Liturgical Year” starts with the year 2008.

My difficulty with this book happens to be with the “Saint Joseph Guide for Christian Prayer (The Liturgy of the Hours) 2001 - No. 406/G.” It doesn’t seem to match or work with my copy of the “Christian Prayer.” I don’t remember if this came with my copy of the book, or if it was just wrapped in the present under the tree. If you don’t mind, I will refer to this guide as “SJG.”

So, by way of example, using today, 1/2/2011, The Epiphany - SJG indicates "Jan 2 - Sun, EPIPHANY (Sol) 211 / MP 211 (707); DP 1027; EP (220) 798; NP 1041 [OOR 1806, Rd 1882f…]. So, the problems start when I try to locate the page given in the SJG.

So for today, 1/2/11, I turn to page indicated for morning prayer - page 211. I am in a morning prayer; however, it is for the “Baptism of the Lord.”

To get to the morning prayer for The Epiphany , I need to turn to page 181 in my book. As for the “Office of Readings,” the indicated pages are not even close to what I have, my edition stops at page 1758 - and the OOR starts at 1459/1460 in my book; thus the entry for page 1806 is useless.

Please, what am I missing?

I just started praying LOTH since Christmas, I had a Holy Hour Christmas Evening and looked right up at our Lord and asked him to show me how to get started and Father walked in not more than ten minutes after that helped to get me started so I am not totally lost; however, now I am starting to get a tad confused, even with the online guides and I can’t take the the computer terminal out to the lunch room at work.

From the table of contents in my edition:
The following sections start on…
(“Section” - page)
“Proper of Seasons” - 37
(“Solemnities - i.e. Trinity Sunday” - 467)
“Ordinary” - 531
“The Four-Week Psalter” - 547
(“Night Prayer” - 1008)
“Proper of Saints” - 1055
“Commons” - 1309
“Office of the Dead” - 1433
“Office of Readings” - 1459

• then there are some other prayers and information starting in page 1734

 

[tee_eff_em]

I received a very nice hardcover edition of “Christian Prayer - The Liturgy of the Hours (pub. Pauline Books & Media, Boston)” as a Christmas present this year from my wife. …

My difficulty with this book happens to be with the “Saint Joseph Guide for Christian Prayer (The Liturgy of the Hours) 2001 - No. 406/G.” It doesn’t seem to match or work with my copy of the “Christian Prayer.” I don’t remember if this came with my copy of the book, or if it was just wrapped in the present under the tree. If you don’t mind, I will refer to this guide as “SJG.”
…
Please, what am I missing?

What you are missing is that the *Saint Joseph Guide *is published by Catholic Book Publishing as a companion to their edition of Christian Prayer, and will not assist you with your Daughters of St Paul edition. I do not know if Pauline Books publishes a similar guide for their book, but it could not hurt to contact them and ask.

Three pieces of advice in the meantime, in order of importance:
Do not become discouraged – Many beginners experience difficulty with the Liturgy of the Hours (even an abbreviated form like Christian Prayer). Convince yourself that it is “okay” if you do not get everything perfect on your fist try, and that with practice will come proficiency.

(Though you may be reluctant to hear this one) Perhaps put the book aside until Monday 10-Jan-2011, when Ordinary Time will begin – These days of Christmastide, and when and whether Epiphany is translated, can compound the confusion for beginners – There is a lot of page turning. The whole thing will become much simpler come Ordinary Time.

Read and familiarize yourself with the book outside of prayer time – Read the Ordinary. Read the rubrics (unfortunately, if your edition is like the one I am familiar with, the rubrics are not printed in red, but rather in a smaller black font ) Trying to learn the ropes while you are praying is :twocents: a mistake, and likely to lead to frustration.

tee

 

[hartleymartin]

I use a smaller book called “A Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer”, which is the Liturgy of the Hours, but only the Morning and Evening Hours, with Night Prayer. Night Prayer is the easiest, as it repeats every 7 days, whilst the other hours go on a 4-week cycle.

I’m going to leave the full Liturgy of the Hours for if I ever enter seminary or religious life and have the time to do so. I might get a chance to do it when I move out to college in a few weeks, as I will now have 4 hours more in my day in which to do things (2 hours each way commute to university took its toll on me).

 

[ricmat]

I agree with the suggestions made by tee_eff_em above. I have both versions of the book, but unfortunately I loaned my Pauline version to a friend, so I can’t direct you to the right pages.

In the Catholic Book Publishing Company version, it was really confusing trying to get lined up for today (Monday, Jan 3, 2011). But I think we are on page 218 (Monday after Epiphany to the Baptism of the Lord) for the readings, etc, and the regular Monday Week 2 for the Psalms and Canticles.

After ordinary time starts, we’re back to the regular 4 week cycle, and things will be much easier to follow - especially without a guide.

BTW - for those of you with the CBPC version, the equivalent of the St. Joseph guide is available online at this link.

 

[z_0101]

What you are missing is that the *Saint Joseph Guide *is published by Catholic Book Publishing as a companion to their edition of Christian Prayer, and will not assist you with your Daughters of St Paul edition. I do not know if Pauline Books publishes a similar guide for their book, but it could not hurt to contact them and ask.

<<>>

tee

I haven’t lost my mind!

Thank You for the information… I’ll be sending them an email and I think that I have most of the order down now that I’ve had a chance to really read thru the Ordinary; however, Night-Prayer is by far the easiest to start with.
-Z

 

[z_0101]

[SIGN]For those that are still following, or have been searching for answers[/SIGN]

A few things that helped me:

1. Father set my ribbons up and got me on the “right foot”
2. Figured out there are two versions, the Pauline and the Catholic Book Publishing editions of the Catholic Book of Prayers - The St. Joseph Guide will NOT work with the Pauline edition (THANK YOU AGAIN to the people on this Forum that help me there!!!)
3. I like the Pauline version - it is basically self contained and doesn’t require an additional guide to get to all of the readings. However, the text is all in black with only the font sizes changing.
4. For video ::
   Part one: catholictv.com/shows/default.aspx?videoID=394
   Part two: catholictv.com/shows/default.aspx?videoID=434
   The father goes thru the structure and reasoning behind the LOTH… only 30min and well worth watching!
5. This young lady is inspiring… if she can figure out how to pray the LOTH, then so can anyone! BEWARE: these are YouTube Links and the “related” sidebar may contain objectionable links and the replies are occasionally - well, “off-the-wall” - neither of these features should be attributed to this young lady despite the fact that her other videos show up in the sidebar.
   I believe that she is using a CBP edition.
   Morning prayer: youtube.com/watch?v=aowNRAm2b-4
   Find it : youtube.com/watch?v=Tjwd-NwFsgg&feature=related
6. ONLINE! - With Audio, including the hymns!!
   divineoffice.org/
   :twocents: Please consider supporting this website :twocents:
   I have been following in my book along with this website for a few months now. I have not seen a variation from the text shown in my book or a different hymn etc… that could not be explained by asking someone with the larger 4 volume set.
7. I just ran across this for those of you looking for a podcast:
   Praystation Portable Podcast
   by Father Roderick Vonhogen.
   He reads the entire days readings from introduction thru night prayer.
   Caution I just ran across this site today so I haven’t had a chance to review his readings against my book so if something seems amiss here let me know.
   (watch the wrap-around the link should be all on one line, you can go to the learnoutloud.com and click on podcasts or search for this there too)
   learnoutloud.com/Podcast-Directory/Religion-and-Spirituality/Christianity/Praystation-Portable-Podcast/6836#plink
8. and finally, one of the Deacons has the Holy Hour following mine on the weekends and he has been kind enough to give me a “Heads-up” when there are tweaks in the order of the readings; however, I’ve been catching on and made it thru Easter without too much trouble, only got lost once… well, maybe twice

-Z