LoTH? Rosary? Angelus?

[Micawber]

Hi all,

I’ve been praying with Magnificat for a few years now and would like to move deeper into my prayer life.

One thing I don’t quite understand is, do people who practice the LoTH also practice the Rosary? And/or the Angelus? That seems well-nigh formidable

If I chose one or the other (for example, the LoTH), then I feel I’d be missing something; for example the Angelus which has a beautiful simplicity to it

How have you come to your current prayer routine. Which is the most Orthodox and accepted?

Thanks so very much.

~cawbs

 

[acadian]

I have been praying LOH with Shorter Christian Prayer for about a year, now, and have begun to use the 1 volume Christian Prayer on solemnities and “out of the ordinary” days. This had been something on my mind for a while - I think that’s sometimes how we “come” to adopt a certain type of prayer. When my Poor Clare friend was home for a visit, I ran across her breviary and she gave me a quick overview of how LOH works. But following puzzleannie’s wonderful advice, I went with Shorter Christian Prayer. With a few glitches and bumps in the road, morning and evening prayer have fit quite well into my days.

The rosary is something I aspire to. My mind jumps all over when I attempt it. With LoH, at least I have printed words in front of me. The Angelus is something I have no experience with, except for when I visited my Poor Clare friend at her monastery recently.

My 2 cents, your mileage may vary.

 

[Evan]

Hi all,

I’ve been praying with Magnificat for a few years now and would like to move deeper into my prayer life.

One thing I don’t quite understand is, do people who practice the LoTH also practice the Rosary? And/or the Angelus? That seems well-nigh formidable

If I chose one or the other (for example, the LoTH), then I feel I’d be missing something; for example the Angelus which has a beautiful simplicity to it

How have you come to your current prayer routine. Which is the most Orthodox and accepted?

Thanks so very much.

~cawbs

It is easy to do all three.

The Angelus, a private devotion, takes very little time and is usually memorized.
The Rosary, a private devotion, has many options and can be extended or reduced as need dictates: 5/10/15/20 decades at one time, making up your own ‘mysteries’, adding prayers after each decade and/or the entire rosary or every 5 decades.

The LOTH is a Liturgy, like the Mass. This one requires diligence but the rewards are great.

Imagine that you were ordained a priest and the bishop said go to some parish and offer mass. You had only seen a couple masses (say you were Eastern Rite). You would have to search out and learn, vesting, actions, locations of prayers in the lectionary, in the sacramentory, in the proper of seasons, and it would be a terrible ordeal. After 20 years, you would say “it’s easy, the same every day”

Similarly the LOTH. Like the mass there is a right way and a wrong way. The right way has lots of options (use the psalter only, use the psalm prayers, stand and sit at different times, include the song or not, sign of the cross on the lips, at the canticles, bow the head at the name of the day’s saints, find the proper, the common, the psalter, remember the Evening Prayer One on solemnities) But once you learn it, “it’s easy, the same every day”.

But different than the Rosary and the Angelus: the LOTH is a Liturgy, a public work of the church, being said in communion with the whole Church saying the Liturgy, in union with your bishop, you community, your Church. It follows the same seasons as the Mass.

Read the GILH (General instructions for the LOTH). ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDWGILH.HTM

The hardest thing: The approved translation of the Glory be is different from that of the Rosary.

In reciting the LOTH I found it nice to have memorized

The Lord’s Prayer
The Glory Be
The Magnficat
The Benedictus

These are said every day. They say that night prayer was written in such a way you can memorize the whole thing… that is presently beyond me.

 

[RosalynR]

I think it’s a personal choice, one is not ‘better’ than the other. I pray both the full Liturgy of the Hours and the Rosary. I started with the LOTH and then added the Rosary later because I was having trouble establishing a relationship with our Blessed Mother.

The LOTH has a rich tradition and you do get a lot out of it! But the Rosary does too!

It’s a matter of how much time you have in a day…

 

[hilde_the_dog]

LOTH is the prayer of the Church. As such all the priest, deacons and consecrated brothers and sisters should say it. As a lowly aspirant we have been taught it with the 4 vol set. There are many variations and options. One priest told me if I get the wrong reading don’t go back and do it all over again maybe God wanted me to read that instead. It could be dangerous if you are overly scrupulous.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Hi all,

I’ve been praying with Magnificat for a few years now and would like to move deeper into my prayer life.

One thing I don’t quite understand is, do people who practice the LoTH also practice the Rosary? And/or the Angelus? That seems well-nigh formidable

If I chose one or the other (for example, the LoTH), then I feel I’d be missing something; for example the Angelus which has a beautiful simplicity to it

How have you come to your current prayer routine. Which is the most Orthodox and accepted?

Thanks so very much.

~cawbs

Who said you had to choose?

The usual maxim is “Pray as you can, not as you can’t.”

 

[Micawber]

It is easy to do all three.

The Angelus, a private devotion, takes very little time and is usually memorized.
The Rosary, a private devotion, has many options and can be extended or reduced as need dictates: 5/10/15/20 decades at one time, making up your own ‘mysteries’, adding prayers after each decade and/or the entire rosary or every 5 decades.

The LOTH is a Liturgy, like the Mass. This one requires diligence but the rewards are great.

Imagine that you were ordained a priest and the bishop said go to some parish and offer mass. You had only seen a couple masses (say you were Eastern Rite). You would have to search out and learn, vesting, actions, locations of prayers in the lectionary, in the sacramentory, in the proper of seasons, and it would be a terrible ordeal. After 20 years, you would say “it’s easy, the same every day”

Similarly the LOTH. Like the mass there is a right way and a wrong way. The right way has lots of options (use the psalter only, use the psalm prayers, stand and sit at different times, include the song or not, sign of the cross on the lips, at the canticles, bow the head at the name of the day’s saints, find the proper, the common, the psalter, remember the Evening Prayer One on solemnities) But once you learn it, “it’s easy, the same every day”.

But different than the Rosary and the Angelus: the LOTH is a Liturgy, a public work of the church, being said in communion with the whole Church saying the Liturgy, in union with your bishop, you community, your Church. It follows the same seasons as the Mass.

Read the GILH (General instructions for the LOTH). ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDWGILH.HTM

The hardest thing: The approved translation of the Glory be is different from that of the Rosary.

In reciting the LOTH I found it nice to have memorized

The Lord’s Prayer
The Glory Be
The Magnficat
The Benedictus

These are said every day. They say that night prayer was written in such a way you can memorize the whole thing… that is presently beyond me.

Thanks all for your responses!

Evan, very helpful stuff that^^.

I have two questions: 1. the angelus is said at 6am, noon, 6pm - wouldn’t that interfere with LOTH matins, vespers, etc? 2. from what I can gather, it’s better to pray the LOTH with others; indeed, my parish church is just down the street - perhaps it would be even better simply to do morning/afternoon/evening prayer with them (they already do this)?

Again, thanks all!

 

[Evan]

Thanks all for your responses!

Evan, very helpful stuff that^^.

I have two questions: 1. the angelus is said at 6am, noon, 6pm - wouldn’t that interfere with LOTH matins, vespers, etc? 2. from what I can gather, it’s better to pray the LOTH with others; indeed, my parish church is just down the street - perhaps it would be even better simply to do morning/afternoon/evening prayer with them (they already do this)?

Again, thanks all!

There is some flexibiliy in the LOTH

If you say any LOTH prayer before noon, it should be Morning Prayer. (note: any prayer can be combined with the Office of Readings)
Morning Prayer should not be said before you go to bed (Like after midnight) but wait til you get up.

Evening Prayer can be said any time after about 4PM.
Night Prayer should not be combined with Evening Prayer (they are separate).

Morning and Evening are the biggies (the Church calls the the Hinges upon which the others depend).

The book “Shorter Christian Prayer”, has a limited version of Morning, Evening and Night Prayers.

If Morning and Evening are separated by enough hours, you can add
Mid Morning Prayer
Mid Day Prayer
Mid Afternoon Prayer
but this requires you to be a monk

For my wife: Morning Prayer+Office of Readings is 5:30AM
For me: Morning Prayer is 6:20AM
Evening Prayer, together at 6:30 PM
Night Prayer, (wife) is 9:00 PM

Our occational rosary is just following Evening Prayer. And we usually only say the Angelus during Lent as part of our before meal prayers. We figure it’s the right time is some time zone

The Angelus is usually said at 6AM, 12M, 6PM, but I have seen the morning Angelus offered at 8AM when I was in Catholic School so we could all recite it together.

I’ve taught about 20 people here in the parish how to pray the LOTH’s but our parish does not gather for these prayers. It’s quite an experience when we gather at my house during Holy Week and pray evening prayer together.

Now I have to learn Gregorian Chant so we can learn to sing them

 

[Joannm]

Thanks all for your responses!

Evan, very helpful stuff that^^.

I have two questions: 1. the angelus is said at 6am, noon, 6pm - wouldn’t that interfere with LOTH matins, vespers, etc? 2. from what I can gather, it’s better to pray the LOTH with others; indeed, my parish church is just down the street - perhaps it would be even better simply to do morning/afternoon/evening prayer with them (they already do this)?

Again, thanks all!

The General Instruction for the LOTH does not give specific times…just morning, midmorning, midday, midafternoon, evening, night, and Office of Readings. The exact time does not matter just the time of day. The Office of Readings can be done at any time, even the night before if necessary. For example, it is almost 7 PM here and I have been busy and haven’t said Evening Prayer yet. I will say it in a few minutes. The sisters I pray with do it at 5PM. A group of priests I know pray it at 5:45. Another group I pray with in the summer does it at 7:15 PM.

 

[Sr_Sally]

We pray with Magnificat also. As a family we say morning prayer together and night prayer. We often don’t say evening prayer because of evening lessons and commitments. I try say the rosary everyday – 5 decades (with opening and closing prayers) takes me about 20 minutes, so I can fit that into a work break. I haven’t been very consistent at all about that recently. The Angelus only takes a few minutes and I only say it at noon. So basically you do what you can, as another poster said.

In your situation, maybe add a daily rosary first and see how that works for you. Most people love the rosary, but some find it too difficult to concentrate. The Angelus really only takes a few moments, you can easily slip that in at your regular meal times and probably be close enough to the traditional times.

 

[Joyful_1]

I do the rosay every day without exceptions. Usually, I try to do Morning and Evening Prayer as well. I have the middle-sized version of the LOTH called *Christian Prayer. *Sometimes I don’t have time, but I try. The Magnificat has basically a simplified version of the LOTH. My sister(13) uses it and she likes it because of the meditations and the fact that she doesn’t need to be flipping all over of feast days and such. It’s all right there. Before that she was using the Shorter.

As far as the Angelus: I don’t usually pray that because I don’t think of it and I don’t have it memorized. As Evan said, it’s very short and can be memorized easily. I just haven’t done it yet.

 

[Victorious]

I pray the Rosary daily, and I also pray the Divine Office. The Dominican Rule for Laity as applied in my particular province prescribes Lauds, Vespers and Compline. I am not very good about saying Compline, even though it is the shortest office of all; thank God the Rule does not bind on pain of sin. Due to the amount of time it takes to say it with another office, I seldom say Matins (Office of Readings), except on a special saint’s feast day (the last time I said it was the feast of St. Thomas More). I work in a high-stress job, and sometimes, I am too tired to get up early enough to say Lauds. I found that once I got into the habit of reciting the Office, I no longer had enough energy to go to daily Mass. When the constraints of time or fatigue face me with a choice between Divine Office and the Rosary, I choose the Rosary.

The Rule for Laity prescribes Divine Office, daily Mass, daily Rosary when possible. We must do the will of God, and our state of life is the clearest indication of God’s will for our lives, so the duties of our state of life come first. This is true for all laity, whether members of Third Orders or not.

Don’t try to take on too many devotions, or you’ll end up giving up on all devotions.

 

[Victorious]

P.S. All those interested in learning to say the Divine Office should get somebody to teach them how to do it. It’s not so bad once you get the hang of it, but you’ll never figure it out on your own. Without a good teacher, you won’t even know where to start.

I had a teacher, and it still took me a year to get the hang of it. (That fact is also a commentary on my level of stick-to-it-iveness, but my point still stands.)

 

[acadian]

P.S. All those interested in learning to say the Divine Office should get somebody to teach them how to do it. It’s not so bad once you get the hang of it, but you’ll never figure it out on your own. Without a good teacher, you won’t even know where to start.

I think Shorter Christian Prayer is pretty do-able for a beginner to figure out without too much help. If you read through the “ordinary” (is that the right word??) starting around page 20? it takes you pretty step-by-step. There are also some web resources. Someone here posted a great one a couple of months ago.

Now if I had just plunged into Christian Prayer - the one volume or the 4 volume - you better believe I would have been lost. But after praying SCP for a year and having my Poor Clare friend show me a couple of things, I can slowly find my way around CP.

 

[Micawber]

I think Shorter Christian Prayer is pretty do-able for a beginner to figure out without too much help. If you read through the “ordinary” (is that the right word??) starting around page 20? it takes you pretty step-by-step. There are also some web resources. Someone here posted a great one a couple of months ago.

Now if I had just plunged into Christian Prayer - the one volume or the 4 volume - you better believe I would have been lost. But after praying SCP for a year and having my Poor Clare friend show me a couple of things, I can slowly find my way around CP.

Thanks! Anyone know if the Shorter Christian Prayer (or Christian Prayer) is available in Latin?

 

[Micawber]

Okay, so I purchased The Little Office of the Virgin Mary - naively thinking that I would be able to figure it out, or it would be self explanatory. Ummmmm…no. heh.

Anyone know of a guide for this?

 

[Monica4316]

I have the Christian Prayer book and I’m trying to learn it, and I try to pray the Rosary as well.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Thanks! Anyone know if the Shorter Christian Prayer (or Christian Prayer) is available in Latin?

Not as such. But a close approximation would be Lauds and Vespers from Newman House.

I’ve not held the book in my hands*, but I gather it contains the Psalter of Morning and Evening Prayer plus the Proper of Seasons (but not that of Saints, nor other offices of the day). It presents the official Latin facing unofficial English translation (ie, the English is not approved for public use, but is present as an aid to understanding the Latin, if needed).

(* I own an earlier edition, which covers only Ordinary Time)

tee