Office for the Dead?

[Thom18]

I just found this in my Christian Prayer book. Is it appropriate for private recitation? And how exactly do you “do it”? I’ve recited the LotH with monks before and know how to recite the daily prayers because of it, but don’t have any experience with this particular office.

 

[edward_george1]

The Office of the Dead is perfectly fine for private recitation. It would be advisable to follow the rubrics regarding when offices other than those of a proper liturgical day should be scheduled (oddly, the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours doesn’t include any mention at all of the Office for the Dead, so I assume it’s treated just like a votive office):

1. For a public cause or out of devotion, except on solemnities, the Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, the octave of Easter, and 2 November, a votive office may be celebrated, in whole or in part: for example, on the occasion of a pilgrimage, a local feast, or the external solemnity of a saint.

So basically, if it’s not one of the above named days, you could choose a votive office, and so you’d be fine choosing the Office of the Dead. There is, of course, one exception; the reason you can’t pray a votive on one of the days named above–2 November–is that it is All Souls’ Day, and you’re already praying the Office of the Dead for it.

-Fr ACEGC

 

[poche]

Where I used to live when someone died they would say the Office of the dead for that person.