Need SERIOUS help with praying Liturgy of the Hours

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christopherj

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Hi all,

I am seriously at a loss and am hoping that someone here will be kind enough to help me and also, in doing so, you will undoubtedly, be helping many others as well who are having the same trouble as I am.

After much consideration, I decided that I wanted to begin praying the liturgy of the hours and so I went and purchased Vol IV of the four volume set (figuring I would purchase each book as needed to cut down on initial output of cash!). My trouble is this: I have had NO luck in finding any help in HOW to pray the liturgy of the hours.

Don’t get me wrong…I am savvy enough to do my homework before asking for help. The trouble is this: everything I’ve found online that tries to help you become acquainted with the structure of this devotion, falls short in my humble opinion because it fails to take into account that for beginners, we are going to be TOTALLY confused in the beginning.

For the life of me, I can’t understand what each section is and what it is there for. I think people who have never done this will have no idea what the different terms used actually mean. When do certain things get read and when are they omitted? I could go on and on about what I do NOT understand but suffice it to say, I don’t understand much.

Humbly speaking, I consider myself to be fairly intelligent as well as a quick study - however this has to be the most cryptic thing on earth to try and figure out. i even tried asking my priest for help but felt bad when he tried to explain it to me and I was lost before we began.

What I’m hoping is that someone can outline, step by step, exactly what you need to do / say / pray for each set of prayers (morning, daytime, evening, night, etc).

What IS the “proper of the seasons”, “the ordinary”, the psalter, the proper of the saints, the commons? It seems to me that this whole thing could be better structured to make more sense for beginners like me!

Again, I’ve read every post in every message board, read every tutorial on every other website out there and NONE of them make any sense.

I want to take part in this beautiful prayer of the Church but I could not POSSIBLY be more lost or in need of serious A,B,C,1,2,3 help. Anyone that has any ability to offer insight, PLEASE know how grateful I will be for any help you can offer!

Many thanks in advance! God bless!
 
Gosh, wouldn’t your parish priest be happy to help you or connect you with a local contact of someone/some group who is experienced at this? Have you asked for his guidance yet? (in case you don’t find the help your seeking from these forums).
 
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christopherj:
What IS the “proper of the seasons”, “the ordinary”, the psalter, the proper of the saints, the commons? It seems to me that this whole thing could be better structured to make more sense for beginners like me!
Click to expand...
The Ordinary is the Order of prayer. It contains rubrics (red print instructions) and unchanging prayers. (The Invitatory Psalm, the Gospel Canticles, the Lord’s Prayer). If every day of the week and year was prayed the same, all you would need would be an Ordinary.

But every day is *not *the same. The Psalter is a 4-week cycle of prayers that repeats throughout the year and the seasons. Every day for 4 weeks there are different psalms, readings, responses, and intercessions. If there were no liturgical seasons nor celebrations of saints, the Psalter and the Ordinary would be all you would need.

But there *are *liturgical seasons: Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, and Easter. Each liturgical season begins with Week I of the Psalter (except Lent, due to it’s beginning on a Wednesday, but anyway: ), and if/when the season extends longer than 4 weeks, the Psalter returns again to Week I.

The Proper of Seasons contains changes from the prayers in the Psalter that are apporpriate to each season. For Ordinary time, this is just the antiphons and closing prayer for Sunday of each week. For the other seasons, there is (usually) a proper Reading, Responsory, Antiphon, Intercessions and Closing Prayer. If there were no celebrations of saints, all you would need would be the Proper of Seasons, the Psalter, and the Ordinary.

But we *do *celebrate the saints. The Common of Saints contains changes from the prayers in the Psalter that are appropriate to the celebrations of various kinds of saints (martyrs, holy men, holy women, et cetera). If we never remembered the saints individually, all you would need would be the Common of Saints, the Proper of Seasons, the Psalter, and the Ordinary.

But we *do *remember saints individually and specifically. The Proper of Saints contains the changes from the Common of Saints, the Proper of Seasons, and the Ordinary that are appropriate to each saint’s feast. That is why the Office contains the Proper of Saints, the Common of Saints, the Proper of Seasons, the Psalter and the Ordinary.

Does this help you understand what the various sections are? (And why it is so important to set the ribbon markers?) Your book may have come with an Ordo to help with that. If not, and if it is from Catholic Book Publishing, you can find the Ordo published weekly here: Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours.

tee
 
Thank you all so much for your replies and Tee, thank you especially for your lengthy description which, YES! does finally shed some much needed light on things I was unsure of. It really helped the way you explained it - God willing, I will have a much easier time of praying the hours now.

God bless you all!
 
There is a good on-line tutorial for the Liturgy of the Hours at: Http//prayer.rosaryshop.com/discovering prayer.

or you can do a google search on “Discovering Prayer” and find the same link. It is by Seth Murray.

Also there is a book called Divine Office for Dodo’s by Maeline Pecora Nugent which is very helpful. It runs about $20 on Amazon.

The efforts you put into learning this great prayer will be well worth it.

Good luck, God bless.
 
I have put together a list of online and print resources for the Liturgy of the Hours. It is not exhaustive but it is comprehensive. the url is:

dboyko.info/loh.html

its a bit out of date, but it has just about everything there.
 
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