Office Hours?

[HCC]

1. What are the traditional (Pre-VII) times for praying the various hours of the Divine Office?

-Vigils
-Matins
-Lauds
-Prime
-Terce
-None
-Sext
-Vespers
-Compline

I would prefer just a 3AM-6AM type explanation

1. Have the times in which we can pray the various hours changed?

-Office of Readings
-Morning Prayer
-Mid Morning Prayer
-Mid Day Prayer
-Mid Afternoon Prayer
-Evening Prayer
-Night Prayer

 

[curlycool89]

1. What are the traditional (Pre-VII) times for praying the various hours of the Divine Office?

-Vigils
-Matins
-Lauds
-Prime
-Terce
-None
-Sext
-Vespers
-Compline

I would prefer just a 3AM-6AM type explanation

I believe Martins was 4am, Prime is 6am, Terce is 9am, Sext is noon, None is 3pm, and Vespers is 4pm (again, I believe). I don’t know what the “official” time for Lauds or Compline was. Vigils was the evening before I think, although I’m not real sure about that one.

1. Have the times in which we can pray the various hours changed?

-Office of Readings
-Morning Prayer
-Mid Morning Prayer
-Mid Day Prayer
-Mid Afternoon Prayer
-Evening Prayer
-Night Prayer

Office of Reading can be prayed anytime during the day (and can also be prayed the day before anytime after Evening Prayer), the 3 daytime prayers are the same (9, noon, 3), Evening Prayer is anytime after 4pm, and night prayer is “right before bed” (including after midnight, which is technically speaking the next day). Morning prayer would probably be officially in the 6am-9am time slot.

 

[diggerdomer]

1. Have the times in which we can pray the various hours changed?

Yes.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

1. What are the traditional (Pre-VII) times for praying the various hours of the Divine Office?

-Vigils
-Matins
-Lauds
-Prime
-Terce
-None
-Sext
-Vespers
-Compline

I would prefer just a 3AM-6AM type explanation

The were various traditional times depending on your circumstances. I do not think there were any Church mandated official times. Btw Vigils and Matins are the same office, which was also sometimes called Nocturns. Many monastic communities would rise at midnight to recite Matins and Lauds together before going back to bed. Traditionally Prime, Terce, Sext and None were celebrated at 6 am, 9 am, 12 pm and 3 pm respectively.

1. Have the times in which we can pray the various hours changed?

Basically yes and this was partially done as a response to liturgical abuses (yes, they did exist pre-Vatican II). In many cases those bound to the Divine Office would recite the whole Office at once.

-Office of Readings
-Morning Prayer
-Mid Morning Prayer
-Mid Day Prayer
-Mid Afternoon Prayer
-Evening Prayer
-Night Prayer

The Church has not stated actual times when these Offices should be celebrated but that they should be celebrated at appropriate times. The Office of Readings can be celebrated at anytime of the day and it can (with a few exceptions) be anticipated on the previous evening (after Vespers but before Compline). Morning Prayer should obviously be celebrated in the morning and Evening Prayer in the evening. If you live on the equator where dawn and dusk are at the same time then you could fix these hours to dawn and dusk. However, if you live at extreme northerly or southerly latitudes where day length can vary significantly this isn’t possible. Prayer during the Day is said at appropriate times: in the middle of the morning, round about midday and in the middle of the afternoon. Night Prayer is said immediately before going to bed even if you go to bed after 12 midnight and it must be the last office of the day. You haven’t mentioned the Invitatory. If the first Office of the day in the Office of Readings it must begin with Invitatory. If the first office of the day is Morning Prayer it may begin with the Invitatory. One of the Marian Antiphons can be recited after Evening Prayer or Night Prayer. In monasteries the Martyrology used to be read after Prime. The reading of the Martyrology can still be done; it is now done after Morning Prayer.

 

[Mark1970]

Just to add to above comments about the pre-vatican II Hours, Lauds was in theory supposed to be observed at dawn, but obviously this changes depending on the time of year. In religious communities, it wasn’t uncommon for Lauds to be joined onto Matins and for the two to be observed as one combined Hour - A lot of older Breviaries present an either/or situation in which the two are either combined or separated.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

One of the problems with the Divine Office is that originally it was developing along two strands - the monastic office and the cathedral office. The monastic office was longer and more complex but suited to communities who devoted their lives to reciting the office, i.e. Opus Dei (the work of God). The cathedral office was shorter and more suitable to priests who had pastoral responsibilities.

Over time the monastic office prevailed and so pastoral clergy became ‘burdened’ with having to recite 8 offices per day and a daily Mass on top of all their parochial and pastoral responsibilities. Thus creeped in the abuse of reciting all 8 offices at once to get it all over and done with at the same time.

The basic structure of the monastic office evolved from the structure found in St Benedict’s Rule. As Mark said in the last post Lauds is most appropriately recited at dusk and that is what St Benedict proposed. Here in northern England that could mean, depending on the time of year, anywhere between ca. 3 am and 8 am. Likewise Vespers should really be at dusk; again in northern England that could be anywhere between 4 pm and 10 pm.

One of the things Pope Paul VI wanted to do with the revised Liturgy of the Hours was a return to celebrating each office at its appropriate time. The post-Vatican II LOTH is still very much based on the monastic model. IMHO it is a shame that an alternative based on the cathedral office was not introduced for those clergy who have an active role outside of a religious community.

 

[laszlo]

Traditional Breviaries;

The Vigils is the alternate name (in the Monastic Office) for the Matins.

Pre 1960 allowed

Matins and Lauds

• anticipated: after 2 PM and after the Vespers of the previous day
• regular: any time during the day

Rest: any time during the day in the proper sequence

In 1960 only the anticipation of Lauds was prohibited

In community
Matins, Lauds, Prime, Tertia (in fasting days even Sext and None) before Mass

Vespers : after 2 pm

Compline : last prayer of the day

In private (recommended)
Matins, Lauds immediately after getting up
Prime 6 AM
Terce 3 AM
Sext noon
None 3PM
Vespers at the end of the work
Compline: before bed

In the Liturgy of hours the Office of Reading any time, Lauds at morning, Sext and noontime, Vespers and Compline as the traditional.

 

[OraLabora]

-Vigils: varies from community to community; for example Trappists at 4 am, Carthusians at 11 pm.
-Matins Matins and Lauds I think are part of the same office; historically “Lauds” was the three Laudate psalms at the end of the office of Matins (ps. 148, 149 and 150) of the Benedictine Office which until the Pius X reforms was pretty similar to the Roman Office. Over time the entire office just became Lauds.
-Lauds at dawn
-Prime 6 am
-Terce 9 am
-None 3 pm
-Sext noon
-Vespers at the “lighting of the lamps” (sundown) but typically after 4 pm
-Compline: varies from community to community. It is the last office of the day at which the “great silence of the night” is to be observed and was typically set at a time to afford about 7-8 hours sleep before rising for Vigils. The Carthusians though have an interrupted night’s sleep, saying Compline (privately in cell) around 7 pm, and Vigils at 11 pm then Matins near dawn.

I would prefer just a 3AM-6AM type explanation

1. Have the times in which we can pray the various hours changed?

-Office of Readings any convenient time (but can be used as Vigils)
-Morning Prayer some time around sunrise, but 6 am to 8 am seems typical
-Mid Morning Prayer some time around 9 am
-Mid Day Prayer some time around noon
-Mid Afternoon Prayer some time around 3 pm
-Evening Prayer some time after 4 pm, up to about 7 pm.
-Night Prayer: just before retiring for the night.

So as you see there is no strict answer.

 

[Bbigam]

One of the Marian Antiphons can be recited after Evening Prayer or Night Prayer. In monasteries the Martyrology used to be read after Prime. The reading of the Martyrology can still be done; it is now done after Morning Prayer.

Actually, the Marian Antiphon is still required after Compline/Night Prayer.

From the GILH:

1. Finally, one of the antiphons in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary is said. In the Easter season this is always to be the Regina caeli. In addition to the antiphons given in The Liturgy of the Hours, others may be approved by the conferences of bishops.

 

[newyorkcatholic]

I pray most of the 1960 Breviary … but I’m not a monk. I’m married with a full time job. So combining hours becomes a necessity.

I pray Lauds/Prime together, sometimes with Terce. I combine Terce/Sext/None often, or None/Vespers, or Vespers/Compline.

We should try to sanctify the hours of the day at the right times, but unless you are cloistered, this is very difficult … there are 8 hours in the traditional breviary! Saying the entire office at once is one extreme, but if I said each separate hour at the ideal time, I would be forced to neglect my duties to family and work!

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I pray most of the 1960 Breviary … but I’m not a monk. I’m married with a full time job. So combining hours becomes a necessity.

I pray Lauds/Prime together, sometimes with Terce. I combine Terce/Sext/None often, or None/Vespers, or Vespers/Compline.

We should try to sanctify the hours of the day at the right times, but unless you are cloistered, this is very difficult … there are 8 hours in the traditional breviary! Saying the entire office at once is one extreme, but if I said each separate hour at the ideal time, I would be forced to neglect my duties to family and work!

Hence the reform of the Liturgy of the Hours.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Actually, the Marian Antiphon is still required after Compline/Night Prayer.

That is correct for those who are bound to the Office. One who voluntarily recites the Office may recite a Marian Antiphon after Vespers if they do not recite Compline.

 

[OraLabora]

Hence the reform of the Liturgy of the Hours.

In 1910 and 1970

In 1910 with Pius X, Lauds went from the three laudate psalms after the O.T. Canticle to one psalm. I believe that Vigils also was 9 psalms, compared to the monastic office where it remains 12 psalms. And the practice of dividing psalms into more or less equal length sections started then.

1970 of course, psalms went from a 1 week to 4 week cycle.

Monks I know speak of the “tyranny of the bell”; where they have to drop everything and run to the next Office. “We’re always caught between two bells” said one monk to me.

Just in case anyone thinks that the Vatican II reforms were some flight of fancy to reform a “traditional” breviary that’s been around forever (not accusing you of this Br. David, just anticipating from others… )

 

[newyorkcatholic]

Hence the reform of the Liturgy of the Hours.

I don’t buy it … the reform for the LoTH did include ideas such as simplification, of course. But it also took out parts of psalms (or an entire psalm, at least) that were too difficult.

Shortened things so much that the Psalter is 4 weeks instead of one … but as mentioned above, not all psalms are included, so whereas traditionally you will say the Psalter in a week, in the LoTH you will have to recite until you die and you still won’t recite the deprecatory psalms.

Lots of changes of structure, will all sorts of possible intentions.

I will happily pray the LoTH, especially if I’m in a group using it, and I have nothing against it, but I don’t buy that it’s another reform equivalent to earlier ones. [edited]

 

[Matthew_Holford]

IMHO, the reform/revision of the Divine Office/LTOH/Opus Dei by Vatican II did not go far enough. What Vatican II gave us was a liturgy still very much based on the monastic form of the Office. There used to be two ways in which the Office was developing _ the ‘cathedral’ and ‘monastic’ Offices. The monastic Office ‘won’, for want of a better way of expressing it.

Monks should not speak of the tyranny of the bell. The purpose of the monastic life is that their day is centered around the Opus Dei.

Many clergy have a lot of work to do, very important pastoral work, and often nowadays we have one priest looking after more than one parish. Many laypersons have things to do, valid and important things, care of children, work, looking after the home, and a thousand other tasks.

I do not criticise anyone who chooses to celebrate the Office. On the contrary, I greatly admired them. However, I think it would have met a great pastoral need for non-religious clergy and laity to have been given an Office similar to the ‘cathedral’ Office which would still sanctify their day and take into account the other things they must do during the day.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I still think the simplification of the Office was a good thing especially for use by the laity and secular priests.

Monastics are free to develop their own Psalter where they go through all the Psalms in a week. The four week cycle is not a bad thing.

I do agree with the shortening of some Psalms and the elimination of other Psalms is not a good thing.

Even if we did have all the Psalms in the 4 week cycle, secular clergy, and religious would not go through all the Psalms as secular clergy are only bound to recite Morning and Evening Prayer (they may have to do another office of their choice, I can not recall the excat Canon on this). For my Order, we are bound to Morning and Evening Prayer and one other office of our choice (I do the Office of Readings). So I would not get all the Psalms even if they were there.

As Matthew points out, it is still the Monasitc office.

I will get through the whole Psalter at least once a year as I have decided to pray one Stasis of a Kathisma each night before bed after a reading about the days saint. (A Kathisma is a break down of the Psalms used by the Orthodox and Byzantines, there are three Stasises per Kathisma which equal, roughly, three Psalms each. They have it broken down in the Byzantine/Orthodox office to go through the whole Psalter in a week but again, it is a monastic office.)

 

[Matthew_Holford]

… I can not recall the excat Canon on this).

I don’t know if this helps but it’s all I could find (quick cursory search admittedly): Can. 276 §2 3°

priests, and deacons aspiring to the priesthood, are obliged to carry out the liturgy of the hours daily, in accordance with their own approved liturgical books; permanent deacons are to recite that part of it determined by the Episcopal Conference;

… secular clergy are only bound to recite Morning and Evening Prayer (they may have to do another office of their choice …)

I fully accept that I may be wrong on this matter. I am no expert nor even highly knowledgeable in this area. I have read the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH) several times but it is a weighty document and every time I read it I ‘discover’ something new. My understanding/interpretation of a secular priest’s obligation is as follows:

(I have used the current names of the offices in the Liturgy of the Hours; my preference (as much as that’s relevant) is to call it the Divine Office and give the offices their ‘older’ names.)

1a. Invitatory – mandatory if the first office he recites is the Office of Readings
1b. Invitatory – optional if the first office he recites is Morning Prayer
2. Morning Prayer
3. Prayer during the Day – one occasion only: either mid-morning or noon or mid-afternoon
4. Evening Prayer
5. Night Prayer (and a Marian Antiphon)
6. Office of Readings – at any time or anticipated on previous evening (I think there’s a few liturgical days when it can’t be anticipated) and I believe it can’t be the last office of the day, I think that has to be Night Prayer.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I don’t know if this helps but it’s all I could find (quick cursory search admittedly): Can. 276 §2 3°

I fully accept that I may be wrong on this matter. I am no expert nor even highly knowledgeable in this area. I have read the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH) several times but it is a weighty document and every time I read it I ‘discover’ something new. My understanding/interpretation of a secular priest’s obligation is as follows:

(I have used the current names of the offices in the Liturgy of the Hours; my preference (as much as that’s relevant) is to call it the Divine Office and give the offices their ‘older’ names.)

1a. Invitatory – mandatory if the first office he recites is the Office of Readings
1b. Invitatory – optional if the first office he recites is Morning Prayer
2. Morning Prayer
3. Prayer during the Day – one occasion only: either mid-morning or noon or mid-afternoon
4. Evening Prayer
5. Night Prayer (and a Marian Antiphon)
6. Office of Readings – at any time or anticipated on previous evening (I think there’s a few liturgical days when it can’t be anticipated) and I believe it can’t be the last office of the day, I think that has to be Night Prayer.

Yes, the GILH says that bishops and priests are “(29)…should recite the full sequence of hours each day, observing as far as possible the true time of day.”

Permanent deacons it is up to the episcopal conference.

And just a note, the Invitatory is not a separate Hour, it is to be added to the beginning of what ever Hour is prayed first for the day.

If you start your day with Morning Prayer then you start with the Invitatory, if you start the day with Readings, then you start with the Invitatory. it is not optional if the first prayer of the day is Morning Prayer, again from the GILH, “34. The whole office begins as a rule with an invitatory.”

Even before I became a religious I prayed the Liturgy of the Hours (4 volume set) MP, EP, occasionally Readings, and Night Prayer. I wanted to pray what the Church prays. The others are nice devotions but I wanted to pray with the Church.

Now I am bound to it by my constitutions and then further when I am ordained (God Willing).

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Yes, the GILH says that bishops and priests are “(29)…should recite the full sequence of hours each day, observing as far as possible the true time of day.”

Permanent deacons it is up to the episcopal conference.

And just a note, the Invitatory is not a separate Hour, it is to be added to the beginning of what ever Hour is prayed first for the day.

If you start your day with Morning Prayer then you start with the Invitatory, if you start the day with Readings, then you start with the Invitatory. it is not optional if the first prayer of the day is Morning Prayer, again from the GILH, “34. The whole office begins as a rule with an invitatory.”

Because of the way I listed things it gave the appearance that the Invitatory was a separate office. I know it isn’t. If my understanding is correct it replaces the ‘Introduction to the Hour’ of the office with which it’s used.

Clearly, I’ve misunderstood GILH. I thought Invitatory was mandatory if you say Readings first but optional if you say Lauds first. I’m wondering if I’ve read this into it because in the ‘old’ Divine Office that issue wouldn’t have arisen, would it? Matins was always the first office and began with the Invitatory (???)

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Because of the way I listed things it gave the appearance that the Invitatory was a separate office. I know it isn’t. If my understanding is correct it replaces the ‘Introduction to the Hour’ of the office with which it’s used.

Clearly, I’ve misunderstood GILH. I thought Invitatory was mandatory if you say Readings first but optional if you say Lauds first. I’m wondering if I’ve read this into it because in the ‘old’ Divine Office that issue wouldn’t have arisen, would it? Matins was always the first office and began with the Invitatory (???)

Maybe so. In my novitiate that is how we start the day, Office of Readings, 45 minutes of private meditation, then Morning Prayer.