Liturgy of Hours?

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What does Liturgy of the Hours mean? I saw that the church I’ve been attending offers that in the evening once a week and someone said it’s a prayer thing? Would someone explain what happens at that service? Thank you.
 
The Liturgy of the Hours are prayers. I believe they started in the Monastic setting. There is a set of four volumes that hold the prayers. These books together are rather expensive. I have the “shorter” christian prayer, a one volume edition. When I bought it a few years ago it was around $26. The four volume set is around $100. Of course, it also comes in all leather for around $150/

I was part of a lay carmelite group for awhile. They met once a month and started with the evening prayer for that day. A yearly guide has all the different prayers in some sort of order. For each day there is: morning prayer, day time prayer, evening prayer, and night time prayer. There are also prayers for feast days and such.

Check with your church and see if anyone can show you how it’s done. Of course, you may want to go to one of the evenings when the prayer is done. I’m sure there will be someone there who can help you with this. 👍
 
Just for general background, in the ancient world the ‘watch’ was about three hours. Especially true in the Roman Empire.

I am unsure of how they kept this time but it is possible candles were made that lasted that long or lamps were made to hold 3 hours worth of oil.

In any case guards in the legions, on city walls and at gates kept 3 hour watches during the day and night. Everyone used this measure, it was very common.

The Apostle wrote that we should pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5) and the early Christians were doing just that. Some were able to use meditative, ejaculatory prayers like “Lord, Have Mercy!” over and over. Some gathered at intervals throughout the day and night to pray, the most practical and popular source of prayer was the book of Psalms, which were used in the Temple, at the Temple courtyards and in processions in Judea.

It is my firm belief that the Apostles prayed at the turn of the watch, but I have no way of knowing this for sure. The reason I say it though, is because it became such a universal practice, it was done in the church literally everywhere! It was certainly a practice of the earliest hermits and cenobites.

Today the Western form has evolved to the form you will find in Christian Prayer. It derives from the monastic practices in the West which were mainly Benedictine for a few centuries and also later practiced by the Canon chapters at the cathedrals. Its form includes besides Psalms and Canticles short prayers and antiphons between the Psalms, also intercessions and readings. It can be done by a solitary individual quite easily because the parts can all be exclaimed by one person.

Just as a side note the Byzantine form derives from the monastic usage in the East and therefore evolved in a different way. It’s form is more linear, chanting more Psalms straight through without breaks except for some praises and litanies that would be exclaimed by a deacon or priest. To do it right according to the calendar requires 5 books. It is always done in a community setting, I don’t know anyone who does it alone.
 
Just very generally, the Liturgy of the Hours is the “official” prayer of the Catholic Church. I think all priests and many religious are required to pray at least some of the Hours each day as part of their vows, in union with the whole Church. Many lay people also pray the Hours as a devotion. Traditionally, monks such as the Benedictines or Trappists would gather seven times a day to pray the Hours, although lay people will often just do Morning, or just Evening, or whatever they can fit into their schedule.

The prayers are centered around the Psalms. There is a four-week cycle, and if you did all of the hours for the entire cycle you would cover most of the 151 Psalms (some of them more than once). There are also scripture readings, other readings (from the writings of the Saints, etc), intercessions, hymns, and various other prayers. Morning prayer always includes the Canticle of Zechariah, and Evening prayer includes the Magnificat or Canticle of Mary. Many days also have optional prayers, antiphons, etc. in honor of the saint or feast of the day. If you are praying with a group, the psalms can be recited “choir” style, with alternating verses being read by alternate sides of the room. Most of this may be sung or chanted, which is really nice if you have enough people to do it that way.

As others have pointed out, you can buy different books or visit various websites for more information; also any priest or religious should be able to explain how it works, because it can seem confusing for a beginner. There’s also a little St. Joseph’s guide you can buy for the 1-volume “Christian Prayer” that gives you all the page numbers for every day.
 
There is a very good ‘instruction manual’ and printable copies of the each day’s Office available at:

www.liturgyhours.org

It’s a beautiful set of prayers and it actually the Official Prayer of the Catholic Church.

All clergy are required to pray the Office daily and the laity are highly encouraged to do so.

If you would like to learn, I’d recommend starting out with the printouts from the website. Your pastor can provide some assistance.

As you continue, I’d recommend purchasing the ‘Book of Christian Prayer’ it’s a 1 volume book costing about $30-$35.
and is published by “Catholic Book Publishing Co.” There is an accompanying booklet that guides you to what page numbers are for what dates.

There is also a book called the “Shorter Book of Christian Prayer” but that is more for an experienced person who wants something smaller to take to work or while traveling.

The 4 volume set is useful if you are making the Divine Office an integral part of your daily spirituality. It’s a great series, but it can easily run $150+ dollars.

Start slow and cheap, and move up 🙂

The Rosary is actually descended from the Liturgy of the Hours. The 151 Psalms relate to the 150 ‘Hail Mary’s’ of a full rosary. The ‘Our Father’ and ‘Glory Be’s’ act as the Antiphons preceding and following the daily Reading, Psalm and Canticles.

It was an easy way for the laity who could not read the Psalms to say their prayers in an organized fashion.
 
The Liturgy of the Hours is Liturgy. It ranks just after the Mass in importance. It is also connected to the Mass of the day. The Prayer Proper for the day is usually the Opening Prayer at Mass. When saints feasts are celebrated at Mass, there is a corresponding liturgy for them in the Hours. All religious and clergy pray at least some of the Hours. It is highly recommended for all the faithful.
God bless,
Deacon Tony SFO
 
Contrary to Brendan’s advice, I would suggest that if you are interested but unsure of your level of commitment, you might try to find a copy of the Magnificat, which is a combination of a small part of the Office (or, the Liturgy of the Hours), readings and meditations, and daily Mass readings. It is a periodical (sorry, don’t know the publisher) and is a simple way to break into saying the Office.

Before I got much more involved, I would get the shorter Christian Prayer, which has the morning (Lauds), evening (Vespers), and night (Compline) prayer, on a four week basis, plus some of the prayers for feast days and Sundays. It is about 1/2" thick, and not as overwhelming as the large, 1 1/2 - 2" one volume set. I would graduate to the larger one volume set before tackeling the 4 vol. set.

It is a beautiful way to pray; it is the official liturgy of the Church, along with the primary liturgy, the Mass; and somewhere in the world, someone is praying it with you.

I much prefer to pray it out loud in community, but rarely have the chance.

And if you get to a Trappist or Benedictine monestary, don’t expect to pray along with them from yours; they are on a different cycle (yours is a four week cycle).

Lauds or Vespers takes about 15 to 20 minutes of time; not exorbitent.
 
Carol Marie,

I’ve been praying the Liturgy of the Hours for approximately a year now and I LOVE IT! It is a great way of becoming better acquainted with scripture, the psalms (an excellent example of the range of prayers to send to heaven, as we encounter our human experiences), and the spirituality of the church.

I use the 1 volume “Christian Prayer” and at first used the little booklet which tells you which page to use for any given day’s readings. Now that I understand how it works, I don’t need it as much, but there are various holy days and exceptions to the rule, so it’s nice to refer to it. Doing so has also helped me to become better acquainted with the Church calendar and why certain subtleties of the Liturgy change with the seasons.

I will be waiting to purchase the 4 volume set until after what is rumored (yes, I did say rumored, as I have no real knowledge that this next event is actually coming) to be an update to the translations of the text. I want the 4 volume set because of the various readings which provide wonderful information on the various saints and access to writings that might be otherwise difficult to access. These readings are part of the Office of the Readings which is a part of the Liturgy of the Hours.

The Pope has encouraged the Laity to join in reading the Liturgy of the Hours, so that’s good enough for me. And I have been thrilled by the fruit such effort has born.

Good Luck with it,

CARose
 
In the earliest days of the Church, Christian faithful gathered (or were required to gather) twice a day, in the evening and in the morning to sing hymns and psalms, and to hear the scripture and teachings. These meetings (called *synaxeis, *sg. synaxis) later developed into Vespers and Matins, and were practised widely and developed mostly in parish settings until the end of the Middle Ages. The other hours developed in response to the admonition in Ps 118 (or Proverbs) that the just man prays seven times a day, giving rise to psalmody at 9:00 AM, Noon, 3:00 PM, before retiring to bed, and at midnight (later a service at 7:00 AM was added, but this was in response to monks going to sleep between Lauds-at 6:00 AM-and the Third Hour-at 9:00AM). It seems that the laity participated primarily in Vespers, Matins and Lauds, and in the Midnight Hour (this last was more popular in the East than in the West, but even in the West, Noctures, the prayer during the night, shewed very strong parochial elements). For the modern LotH (for the Latin Church), this shews very marked monastic influence, that was in turn privitized after Trent, even the current LotH is more private than public in nature. In the East, some of the Hours were monastic in origin, but Vespers, Midnight, and Orthros (a composite service of Nocturnes, MAtins, and Lauds) were primarily cathedral (=parochial) in origin, with monastic elements inserted (so Michael’s comment below is not accurate).

Sorry for so many technical terms, but the Divine Office boils down to Psalms, Hymns, and readings, celebrated at certain times of the day (in a perfect world, but strict adherence to time is completely unnecessary-not even all monasteries do this). It is important, however, to remeber that it is not just some monastic thing, but was for many centuries an integral part of a Christian’s life, in particular Vespers, Matins/Lauds, and Divine Liturgy/Mass-with the last being the culmination, or the zenith, but not the sole component, of divine worship.

In Christ,
Adam
 
As children of God we should pray continuously, the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the church (as many have pointed out already), was set up as a way of praying “continuously” or all through the day, the liturgy of the word: morning, daytime, midmorning, midafternoon, evening, and night prayers and with mass inbetween somewhere.

:bowdown:
 
Hi. I’ve been trying to learn the liturgy of the hours for years. seriously.

Could someone walk me through the next few days, and I’ll see if I can catch the pattern?

Thanks.

-PM
 
Wow! These posts are so informative, thank you, all of you. I really learned some things here about the Liturgy of the Hours. I have wondered about it for a long time so I’m so glad I stopped by here and got to read all the fascinating history. I have an ancient computer and no printer so the website that has the Hours on it is not as helpful as it would be if I had a better computer setup. So I think I will seek out the one volume edition soon, and learn how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, something I have always wanted to learn. Thanks, everyone! and God bless!
 
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