As it is rather too late in the day I will come back to this tomorrow and frequently after that. As some of you know, I returned to the Church in the summer of 2004, and in October 2004 I started my novitiate year to become a Benedictine Oblate. Next month I renew my oblation for the 2nd time. So I have been working on learning LOTH since 10/04. I have some brain damage, and the only things I have managed to memorize in all that time, and they are not from the LOTH, are the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the Fatima angel’s prayer. I was able to bring back all the prayers I had learned as a child during my convent schooling and other Catholic classes. But I simply cannot memorize stuff anymore, and sometimes I even get hung up on the Our Father or the Chaplet.
I started doing the LOTH using “Work of God - Benedictine Prayer,” and I often still pray Compline from it. It is a simplified and shortened version done in 2-week cycles, but hey, you know what they say: simple things for simple minds. The dodos book sounds like it’s right up my alley. I sometimes used my big 1-volume book but usually only when David is around to help me through it. Most days I use the monthly publication “Magnificat.” I really like it and I can pray the office without getting distracted by worries of whether of not I’m doing it right. I also like the on-line site Universalis, done by the monks of the Christ in the Desert Monastery if I remember right. It is easy to use and the hours are done according to the breviary. I use it for Lauds and Vespers and Comline from time to time. Especially when I am started or in the middle of a computer work session. One local monk told me that they still make “mistakes” even after years. I’ve learned not to be scrupulous in this area, almost-perfectinoist that I am, and just pray using whatever version i feel inclined to use that time. God doesn’t care if we make mistakes, He just wants us to pray.
But seriously, I do want to learn how to do it “correctly.” And even after all this time, when I join my monastic community for one of the hours i have to have help getting through it.
And, who knows, maybe in a few years I’ll even be able to start doing some of the different Commons and the Office of Readings and other stuff. I’ll just hang in there.
The psalms with their antiphons would have been from Thursday Week 1 in the psalter. The Ant for Cant. of Z and the Concluding Prayer from the Proper because what is proper always trumps anything form the Common. The rest from the Common. .
Who’d have thunk it.