Liturgy of Hours

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I’ve tried various ways of keeping some adapted form of the Hours, Anglican based ones and the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin.

I have found this stressful and difficult to keep.

So I have been adapting prayers from the Offices into little Chaplets for Morning, Evening, and Compline using the Anglican Rosary (a set of prayer beads used by various Christians and by some Catholics and some in the Anglican Ordinariate). I can also fill some of the hours with the Angelus.

What are some suggestions for the hours that could be easily said on the go? A psalm for Matins, or some other short prayer with the theme of that hour for instance? I am specifically looking for psalms, verses, any brief prayers whose themes correspond to the Hours.
 
Any reason you don’t pray the Hours as is?

For one thing, if you do, you are praying liturgically with the Church, which makes it a higher form of prayer than personal devotion.

Second, you don’t have to worry about “adapting” anything. Just follow the rubrics and pray the texts, which is scripture.

The Liturgy of the Hours alone is excellent, and the hinge Hours (Lauds, Vespers) plus Compline don’t take up a great deal of time.
 
Unless you are a religious you are not obligated to pray the TLOHs, but they are the prayers of the church. Try downloading the TLOHs to your phone or computer and then you can listen on the go. Most of these apps are free with a few exceptions. I let my computer “play” the Rosary or certain prayers of the day all day long if I chose to do so or am too buy to pick up and sit down with my “book” for some reason. Thus, I can at least absorb the prayers or prayers. Peace
 
porthos11 said:
Any reason you don’t pray the Hours as is?

For one thing, if you do, you are praying liturgically with the Church, which makes it a higher form of prayer than personal devotion.

Second, you don’t have to worry about “adapting” anything. Just follow the rubrics and pray the texts, which is scripture.

The Liturgy of the Hours alone is excellent, and the hinge Hours (Lauds, Vespers) plus Compline don’t take up a great deal of time.
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I agree with these points. Although as Mary Estelle has said, you are not under any obligation to pray the Divine Office unless you are a religious or cleric, the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours was recommended to all the faithful by Bl. Pope Paul VI in Laudis Canticum which promulgated the revised LOTH.

While the Office of Readings is certainly the most time consuming, the other more substantial ones - Lauds and Vespers - do not take long to recite at all, even when recited slowly and prayerfully. The fact that the LOTH is the prayer of the Church means that when you pray the hours you are praying with the whole Church, which I would see as being one of the most appealing reasons for praying some or all of the hours.

There are numerous phone apps available now which mean that you can pray the LOTH when you’re on the go, particularly if you’re commuting to work, etc. If you wish to pray the hours in particular, then I agree with porthos11 that you should probably attempt to pray the LOTH “as is” because everything you need is there. It shouldn’t be stressful, since it’s a matter of setting aside a few minutes and then reading and praying what the Church has given to us! With respect, it sounds like you are causing yourself undue stress by trying to tailor-make your own LOTH!
 
Christian Prayer is a shortened Liturgy of the Hours … you can purchase it on amazon.com and you can also purchase the pamphlet that tells you which prayers to pray and when for the entire year … I highly recommend it.
 
Katherine438 said:
Christian Prayer is a shortened Liturgy of the Hours … you can purchase it on amazon.com and you can also purchase the pamphlet that tells you which prayers to pray and when for the entire year … I highly recommend it.
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Also Shorter Christian Prayer, which has the full text of the major hours and the major feast days of the Church. I usually pray the Morning, Evening and Night Prayer by using SCP. I have Christian Prayer which I use for feast days not in SCP. 🙂
 
I agree. The Christian Book is very good, esp, for those just starting out. Later one can add the complete set of LOTHs or jus buy one volume at a time, depending on income, interest or dedicated prayer life. Peace and prayers.
 
Mary_Estelle said:
I agree. The Christian Book is very good, esp, for those just starting out. Later one can add the complete set of LOTHs or jus buy one volume at a time, depending on income, interest or dedicated prayer life. Peace and prayers.
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This decision really hinges on whether one wants to pray the Office of Readings. If one is going to stick with just Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer, the Christian Prayer book will serve one for a lifetime.

If one wants to throw in Daytime Prayer, CBPC has published a small “Shorter Christian Prayer”-sized “Daytime Prayer” book with the full texts as well. I keep it in my car.
 
Mary_Estelle said:
I agree. The Christian Book is very good, esp, for those just starting out. Later one can add the complete set of LOTHs or jus buy one volume at a time, depending on income, interest or dedicated prayer life. Peace and prayers.
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I have both the Christian Prayer and the Liturgy of the Hours … for some reason I tend to use the Christian Prayer more, except when it is time for Lent, then I switch to the Liturgy of the Hours.
 
Since you seem to enjoy some aspects of Anglican spirituality (“Anglican patrimony” as we call it in the Ordinariate), why not try using some material from the Book of Common Prayer. Morning and Evening Prayer from the BCP have been approved for use in the Ordinariate with only slight adaptations anyway (but the Ordinariate customary will cost you a lot more). You don’t have to say the whole office, but could just use the psalms for the day or the canticles for instance.
 
When my dh and I started praying the hours, we began by just praying one of the Psalms, its antiphon, the intercessions and closing prayer. In time we added more of the office and found it only takes about 10 to 15 minutes max to do one full office. You can build up gradually if you like. I can just about guarantee you that if you begin to say even part of the office you will be drawn to pray the hours you choose to do in their entirety. Since it’s the daily, liturgical prayer of the Church, it has special meaning and graces for us. I always encourage people to pray part of it daily since it is the prayer of the Church around the world which the body of Christ offers to God. 🙂
 
As a high school student, I sometimes find it hard to pray the hours during weekdays due to school work, especially Vespers. When busy, I sometimes let go of the hour or pray an Our Father.

I use the Christian Prayer (by the Paulines) for praying the Office when at home. It contains all the Hours except the Office of Readings. For the OoR and when I am out, I use the Divine Office App. In school, where I sometimes pray Lauds before the daily morning Mass in the school chapel, I use the Shorter Christian Prayer so I do not bring a bulky volume.

I never regretted praying this prayer starting when I was in 7th Grade. Up to this day, it has become my basis for daily prayer.
 
peter26 said:
Since you seem to enjoy some aspects of Anglican spirituality (“Anglican patrimony” as we call it in the Ordinariate), why not try using some material from the Book of Common Prayer. Morning and Evening Prayer from the BCP have been approved for use in the Ordinariate with only slight adaptations anyway (but the Ordinariate customary will cost you a lot more). You don’t have to say the whole office, but could just use the psalms for the day or the canticles for instance.
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Well you seem to get the idea better. To some of the other posters, as I mentioned, I am not saying the Hours or Little Hours fully because it was too stressful. There is also a lot of flipping around even in shorter options. Some shorter options are probably workable, but I don’t like most modern resources.

I found a way to adapt chaplets using the Anglican Rosary from some of the offices I’ve prayed including the traditional Little Office. If I want to add any hours beside Morning, Evening, and Compline I’ll probably do psalms.

There is nothing wrong with the chaplets I’ve adapted, I’m sure because the prayers are psalms, confession, verses of scripture, and other prayers in the BCP that were inherited from Catholicism and even approved as part of the Offices of the Ordinariate.

I am pretty happy with these chaplets now and can add psalms for the day and things like that if I want, and they are short and meditative and include intercessions.

I ended up finishing them before replies to this, but do find it helpful to draw on offices and the Little Office.
 
If someone wants to pray the Divine Office without buying the books, they can do so by going to divineoffice.org … they have the readings every day … it does say they are not taking new members, but if you click on support and ask to be allowed to pray the Office, they will set up an account for you. I have the books, but sometimes I find it very easy to read from the computer.
 
Katherine438 said:
If someone wants to pray the Divine Office without buying the books, they can do so by going to divineoffice.org … they have the readings every day … it does say they are not taking new members, but if you click on support and ask to be allowed to pray the Office, they will set up an account for you. I have the books, but sometimes I find it very easy to read from the computer.
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I do not want to say the Office, and I do not like to read prayers off of a screen. I will just stick to the chaplets I made.
 
Merrick said:
What are some suggestions for the hours that could be easily said on the go? A psalm for Matins, or some other short prayer with the theme of that hour for instance? I am specifically looking for psalms, verses, any brief prayers whose themes correspond to the Hours.
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HAPPY FEAST OF SAINT FRANCIS!

Here is a suggestion from Saint Francis, in his Rule of the Friars Minor:

“Let the laymen (non clerics) indeed say twenty-four “Our Fathers” for matins; for lauds five ; for prime, terce, sext and none, for each of these seven, for vespers, however, twelve; for compline seven; and let them pray for the dead.”
 
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