Nocturnal and praying the Divine Office

[DymphnaOfWashington]

I currently work a job that makes me nocturnal, however, I very much enjoy praying the Liturgy of the hours. I’m not really sure how to do this tho, as in when do I pray the various hours. Should morning prayer land at 5am just before bed or around 1 pm as I wake up? I’m not a member of any order that requires me to pray the hours (and would therefore offer guidance). I want to honor the spirit of the hours as marking parts of the day but I’m not sure how best to do that. Does anyone have any ideas or resources about this?

 

[pianistclare]

@OraLabora probably has some good info. Asking him to weigh in. God bless you!

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If it were me, I’d feel weird about praying the hours at times other than when they were traditionally supposed to be prayed. I don’t have a “normal” schedule either most days and tend to either stay up into the wee hours and work or go to bed quite early so I wake up in the wee hours and work.

To me, one of the features of “hours” devotions or prayers set for a certain time (such as the Angelus) is that others around the world are praying the same prayers at the same set times, so if someone suddenly rearranges the time periods because they wake up later, they would seem to me to be out of sync.

 

[DymphnaOfWashington]

I definitely feel that way but, for example, in night prayer there’s all the talk about the days labor and now we’re going to bed etc… And morning prayer talks about starting forth and asking for God’s blessing for the day, so paying that before bed also seems… well odd

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yes, I can see that being odd. Obviously these prayers were designed before the invention of electric light, when almost all chores had to be done in the daytime when people had light to see by.

 

[OraLabora]

The Rubrics of the LOTH require that the verity of the hour be respected. That is, morning prayer should be in the morning at or after sunup, daytime prayer at one of the three minor hours or thereabouts (mid-morning, noon and mid-afternoon) and Vespers in the evening.

The Office of Readings has flexibility.

Since you’re not bound to the Office, I would say “do the best you can”. To my mind, the Office of Readings is the ideal Office for you as it can be said at any time, plus it has such a rich treasury of biblical, patristic and hagiographical readings. In religious communities, it is often anticipated the previous evening.

Looking at your schedule, I am guessing that you go to bed at 5 am and rise at 1 pm. You can therefore pray mid-day prayer, Vespers and the Office of Readings at their appropriate times. Lauds can theoretically be prayed at 5 am, especially in summer when the sun is coming up that is an appropriate time. Often in monasteries it was prayed just after Vigils (Office of Readings) and Vigils was often at 2 to 5 am depending on the community (even earlier among the Carthusians).

Compline is trickier. I would ask: do you have a rest break during your shift? If so, I would think that a reasonable schedule would be something like:

5 am: Lauds (Morning Prayer)
1 pm or just after: Sext (Mid-day prayer, and as a Carmelite said on a recent newspaper interview, “be sure to NOT leave out the T when you print the article”; who said the religious don’t have a sense of humour?)
Around supper time: Vespers
Before leaving for work: Office of Readings
At your mid-shift rest break: Compline (night prayer); if you aren’t going to bed, then your prayer is always associated with the prayer of those who are resting. Remember, the LOTH is not strictly speaking a prayer for ourselves, but for the entire Church!

The Rubrics of the LOTH also allow combining Offices, especially the Office of Readings. So that is a possibility; most often it is combined with Lauds, Vespers or Compline. I imagine though, when you come home at 5 am, you aren’t too keen on a very long Office.

The beauty of the LOTH is its flexibility. The example given above is just one idea, you can play around with them. Remember that the “verity” of the hour doesn’t mean an exact timetable. Morning, mid-morning, mid-day, mid-afternoon, evening and night are all flexible concepts. For example I pray Sext at noon, but on Sundays I don’t get home from Mass until around 1 pm, so I typically pray it just after I get home.

 

[OraLabora]

To me, one of the features of “hours” devotions or prayers set for a certain time (such as the Angelus) is that others around the world are praying the same prayers at the same set times, so if someone suddenly rearranges the time periods because they wake up later, they would seem to me to be out of sync.

Besides those praying at the same time, there are different time zones and one is also relaying others in prayer. In my own case, these days I am praying Lauds at 8 am on most days, but the monastery to which I am attached as oblate prays it at 7:30. So just as they’re finishing up, I’m starting, and continuing their prayer (moreover these days I am using the same breviary as they are, which is the Monastic LOTH, all 150 psalms in a week)

Yes, I can see that being odd. Obviously these prayers were designed before the invention of electric light, when almost all chores had to be done in the daytime when people had light to see by.

That is true and moreover the days were of variable length according to the season. Saint Benedict dedicates 12 chapters to the Divine Office in his famous Rule; in the chapters especially concerning the Night Office (Vigils, now morphed into the Office of Readings in the non-monastic LOTH), he allows for shortened readings in summer on account of the shorter nights, and he moves Vespers around to take into consideration earlier sunset in winter so that the Office could be completed in daylight (clearly there were no monasteries north of the Arctic Circle in those days…)

Now we have fixed time with clocks, so communities are tied to a fixed schedule. At our abbey, Vespers is at 5 pm and this time of the year, that means it most certainly isn’t completed during daylight!