Is Shorter Christian Prayer considered the "Prayer of the Church?"

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Russ_of_Tokyo

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Forgive me if this has been asked, but the archives are huge and I turned up nothing before throwing up my hands.

Shorter Christian Prayer has the four week Psalter for Morning and Evening Prayer, but the second part of each hour is very limited, and chances are (as far as I can tell) that on any given day, the readings, intercessions and prayers will not match what is being prayed in churches who use the larger books. So if an individual uses Shorter Christian Prayer, can he/she still claim to be offering up the “Prayer of the Church”, the official “Liturgy of the Hours” or is this considered a private devotion?
 
Oops, I posted this in the wrong forum (Sacred Scripture). I hope a moderator will be able to move it to the proper forum (which I think would be Liturgy and Sacraments) and then delete this “oops” post. Sorry!
 
It’s still the liturgy of the hours, and still proper. A deacon or priest can fulfill their obligation of saying the LOtH using this book.
 
I’m not sure if such a truncated version of the Divine Office can really be called the Prayer of the Church but it’s okay for lay people like you and me. I think of it as being akin to the various “Little Offices” that were around before the 1970s.

For the full Divine Office, check out either the Liturgy of the Hours or the 1960 Roman Breviary. Both are expensive and the later can be hard to find. There are also books containing only the major offices like lauds and vespers (and sometimes compline) for the laity.
 
Rich_C said:
There are also books containing only the major offices like lauds and vespers (and sometimes compline) for the laity.
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Which is what shorter Christian prayer is. (Lauds, vespers, and compline.)
 
It is still the prayer of the Church.
My overseas parish prays Lauds before the 6:30am daily Mass using “A shorter Morning and Evening prayer.” This is the RSV version of the Shorter Christian Prayer used stateside.
Stateside I carried the Shorter Christian Prayer in my vehicle for use when I was not home during Vespers. I also used the Shorter Christian Prayer once to chant Vespers with a visiting Augustine nun before my weekly prayer meeting.
 
Russ_of_Tokyo said:
Forgive me if this has been asked, but the archives are huge and I turned up nothing before throwing up my hands.

Shorter Christian Prayer has the four week Psalter for Morning and Evening Prayer, but the second part of each hour is very limited, and chances are (as far as I can tell) that on any given day, the readings, intercessions and prayers will not match what is being prayed in churches who use the larger books. So if an individual uses Shorter Christian Prayer, can he/she still claim to be offering up the “Prayer of the Church”, the official “Liturgy of the Hours” or is this considered a private devotion?
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If the readings, intercessions and prayers are from the 4 week psalter they are identical to the 4 weeks psalter in the longer Christian Prayer. What I find interesting is that some of the readings are LONGER than found in the 4 volume LOTH.

I use both and my wife the 4 volume.
 
When I think about the LOTH as abridged, I think of the morning/evening prayer contained in the magazine Magnificat. It is a beautiful magazine containing the daily Mass.
 
I’m glad to see this thread as I have recently purchased the Shorter Christian Prayer from the Abbey. I wanted to purchase the Liturgy of the Hours but could not afford it. Anyway. My question, then, is at what time, specifically, am I to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, or Shorter Christian Prayer? I was told by someone from my Parish that when done properly, you’re praying at the same time as everyone else who does the Liturgical prayer, and that thought has always nagged me with its sheer awesomeness, eventually prompting the purchase.
 
John_Carlton said:
I’m glad to see this thread as I have recently purchased the Shorter Christian Prayer from the Abbey. I wanted to purchase the Liturgy of the Hours but could not afford it. Anyway. My question, then, is at what time, specifically, am I to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, or Shorter Christian Prayer? I was told by someone from my Parish that when done properly, you’re praying at the same time as everyone else who does the Liturgical prayer, and that thought has always nagged me with its sheer awesomeness, eventually prompting the purchase.
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The intent is to keep to the canonical hours. Morning prayer close to sunrise and evening prayer close to sunset is the intent.

You should also not beat yourself up about it and obsess over doing it “Properly”. Priests and deacons miss sometimes. They are humans who get sick, get tired, and sometimes just can’t do it due to human frailty. Be realistic. God knows your intent.

It is best to pray one of the hours regularly than to pray all the hours in fits and starts.

The Cistercian monastic community near me prays morning prayer at 7:00 AM. A parish I go to when on vacation prays the same morning prayer at 8:30, right before 9:00 AM Mass. There is no absolute strict “Proper” time to do it, but both do it regularly, day after day, week after week.

When I pray morning prayer, I do it after I drop the kids off at the parish school, before I go to work. When I pray evening prayer, I do it after the dishes are done and the kids go off to do homework or hang out in their rooms for the evening.

-Tim-
 
The Liturgy of the Hours is prayed all around the world every day, and at any given time, each of the hours is being prayed somewhere on the globe. It’s an amazing concept and it means that there is constant prayer being offered up. I guess it might be similar to the entire world doing the “wave” 🙂

OK, maybe it gets thin where there is vast ocean and no people…

My local parish in Tokyo prays Morning Prayer at 8:15 A.M. which would be 7:15 P.M. the previous night where you are.

So you might able to pray at the same time as most people in your own time zone, or a few time zones to the west if you get a late start.
 
If you’re using shorter Christian prayer, the recommended time for Morning is daybreak, and evening is sunset. It doesn’t have to be those hours, you can pray it as ‘close to the proper’ hour as you can. We pray after 8:00 mass at our Parish, around 9:00. When I’m doing it at home though (Thursdays for instance we don’t have mass at 8:00 am) I do it at sunrise or as close to it as I can.

If it’s after 11:00 though when I get around to it, I don’t bother saying morning. I’ll either get out my ‘Christian Prayer’ book and pray the midday prayer or wait till evening, and just miss morning prayer.
 
Well, since Shorter Christian Prayer is officially approved as the Prayer of the Church, the authentic Liturgy of the Hours, and the Pope did encourage the laity to Pray Morning and Evening Prayer plus Compline, I think I prefer it over my four volume set, even though I keep reading comments on the web about it being for beginners only. The compact size and simplicity is very attractive. And it reminds me of my old Book of Common Prayer which I used for Morning and Evening Prayer in my Anglican days.

I really don’t have time to pray the full Office of Readings and Daytime Prayer, but I can at least keep up with the Psalms for those time slots, and have ordered a copy of the Revised Grail Psalms for that purpose.

I really love the Revised Grail Psalms and hope to get the African version of Shorter Christian Prayer (called Christian Prayer) soon.
 
The standard times for LOTH are as follows:
6am Lauds (morning prayer)
9am Mid-morning prayer
12 noon Mid day prayer
3 pm Mid afternoon prayer
6 pm Vespers (evening prayer)

Compline (night prayer) is right before retiring for the night, even if prayed after midnight.
The Office of Readings may be prayed anytime after Evening prayer of the day before.
As others have stated, these times are not set in stone. Different religious communities schedule the Hours at slightly different times.

I pray the Office of Readings when I wake followed by Morning prayer. These two hours can be combined which is what I do.

St. Paul exhorts us to pray unceasingly. By honoring the hours, the Church does this. It doesn’t matter if morning prayer is prayed at 5am or 7am since it is 6am somewhere.
 
DebChris said:
The standard times for LOTH are as follows:
6am Lauds (morning prayer)
9am Mid-morning prayer
12 noon Mid day prayer
3 pm Mid afternoon prayer
6 pm Vespers (evening prayer)

Compline (night prayer) is right before retiring for the night, even if prayed after midnight.
The Office of Readings may be prayed anytime after Evening prayer of the day before.
As others have stated, these times are not set in stone. Different religious communities schedule the Hours at slightly different times.

I pray the Office of Readings when I wake followed by Morning prayer. These two hours can be combined which is what I do.

St. Paul exhorts us to pray unceasingly. By honoring the hours, the Church does this. It doesn’t matter if morning prayer is prayed at 5am or 7am since it is 6am somewhere.
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If you’re using shorter Christian prayer, the recommended time for Morning is daybreak, and evening is sunset. It doesn’t have to be those hours, you can pray it as ‘close to the proper’ hour as you can. We pray after 8:00 mass at our Parish, around 9:00. When I’m doing it at home though (Thursdays for instance we don’t have mass at 8:00 am) I do it at sunrise or as close to it as I can.

Thanks all for the (name removed by moderator)ut.
God bless,
 
John_Carlton said:
If you’re using shorter Christian prayer, the recommended time for Morning is daybreak, and evening is sunset. It doesn’t have to be those hours, you can pray it as ‘close to the proper’ hour as you can. We pray after 8:00 mass at our Parish, around 9:00. When I’m doing it at home though (Thursdays for instance we don’t have mass at 8:00 am) I do it at sunrise or as close to it as I can.

Thanks all for the (name removed by moderator)ut.
God bless,
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People did not always have watches, and were dependent more on whether it was sunrise or sunset than a specific time of day.
The LOTH comes from the Benedictine tradition which uses the hours given. Reading my post closely, you will find that I did say that some religious communities may use slightly different times as fits them.
On reform of religious communities, Vatican II stressed the importance of separating the hours so that they are truly honored. Some communities had actually developed the habit of praying all the hours in a single setting.
My parish has a 6:30am daily Mass. Lauds is prayed before Mass. When I was first introduced to LOTH while on retreat, Mass continued from Lauds. The same was done while on retreat in Conyers. Morning hour’s concluding prayer is the same as the opening prayer for the Mass. Of course, while LOTH honors the hours, the Mass is celebrated outside of time.
I rise about 5am., pray the Office of Readings immediately followed by Lauds. Both are finished before 6am which gives me time for breakfast before catching my morning transportation. Sleeping late on a weekend or holiday means praying Morning Prayer later than I would on a workday. The time at which we pray need not be rigid, although it is important to safeguard the time that we set aside for prayer.
 
I did not mention in my post that I currently reside in the Middle East. Since the liturgy is translated into the RSV, instead of NAB, I purchased the three volume set of Collins Divine Liturgy. This way I have the daily readings for the Liturgy of the Hours.
When I was stateside, I did use the single volume Christian Prayer. The Office of Readings contains both a scriptural reading and a non-scriptural reading. Since the single volume does not have the second reading, I would substitute a spiritual classic or other book. I would read either a chapter or a couple of pages from the book selected. It is how I read books such as St. Augustine’s Confessions, St. Theresa of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul, and others. I found it was easier to remember what I had read than if I read them in a single setting. It is more difficult to find spiritual classics here, which is why I splurged on the three volume Divine Liturgy.
If a time should come when I return permanently stateside, I most likely will purchase the 4 volume LOTH. The Marianists, who introduced me to the LOTH, used the single volume Christian Prayer while the Trappists in Conyers chanted the hours using the 4 volume set.
 
DebChris said:
Since the liturgy is translated into the RSV, instead of NAB, I purchased the three volume set of Collins Divine Liturgy.
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Really? It uses the RSV? Lately I’ve been reading the Scripture portions from my RSV-CE Bible during the Liturgy of the Hours, so this would be welcome news. The Psalms are not RSV though, are they?
 
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