On Praying the Liturgy of the Hours and Friday Penance

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iceloveslitt

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Two Questions:
  1. I’ve read somewhere that the LOTH must be prayed during the canonical hours. Can I pray the Morning Prayer at around 7am and Vespers at 5pm (before Mass)? Are there any indulgences for reciting it?
  2. If I have a private and personal devotion to a Saint, and his feastday falls on a Friday. Am I still bound to keep the Friday penance?
 
  1. Yes, as a personal devotion you may pray the Hours as best suits you. Regarding indulgences, I’m not sure.
  2. No, your personal devotions do not release you from the Church’s imposition of Friday Penance.
 
  1. There is no set hours for saying the LOTH.
The ‘Office of Readings’ does not have a strict time assigned, and may be celebrated at any hour, and it can be omitted if there exists one of the reasons signaled out in the answer indicated under number 2 above. According to custom, the Office of Readings may be celebrated any time beginning with the evening hours or nighttime hours of the previous day, after Evening Prayer (Vespers) (Cf. GILH, 59).
"The same holds true for the ‘intermediate hours,’ which, nevertheless, have no set time for their celebration. For their recitation, the time that intervenes between morning and afternoon should be observed. Outside of choir, of the three hours, Mid-Morning Prayer (Tertia), Mid-Day Prayer, (Sexta) and Mid-Afternoon Prayer (Nona), it is fitting to select one of these three, the one that more easily corresponds to the time of day, so that the tradition of praying during the day, in the midst of working, be maintained (Cf. GILH, 77).
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See ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur440a.htm for more details.
  1. There is no legal obligation from the Church to keep the Friday penance. It is recommended, but not an obligation. See Catholic Answers article: catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-friday-penance-required
 
wild_thing said:
  1. There is no set hours for saying the LOTH.
See ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur440a.htm for more details.
  1. There is no legal obligation from the Church to keep the Friday penance. It is recommended, but not an obligation. See Catholic Answers article: catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-friday-penance-required
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There definitely IS an obligation to perform Friday penance. It’s right there in canon law. Abstinence from meat is the universal norm that binds all Catholics unless their local bishops have decided otherwise.
 
Here is an article about the fasting and abstinence practices for Catholics in the Philippines. (See the “In Summary” at the bottom of the article)

philippineromancatholic.blogspot.com/2011/03/fasting-and-abstinence-in-philippines.html

It sounds like on Fridays in the Philippines, you are permitted to either abstain from meat, or substitute another “exercise of piety or act of charity”.

Seems like doing something pious or charitable would also be a nice way of honoring the Saint whose feast you are celebrating on the Friday 🙂
 
iceloveslitt said:
Two Questions:
  1. I’ve read somewhere that the LOTH must be prayed during the canonical hours. Can I pray the Morning Prayer at around 7am and Vespers at 5pm (before Mass)? Are there any indulgences for reciting it?
  2. If I have a private and personal devotion to a Saint, and his feastday falls on a Friday. Am I still bound to keep the Friday penance?
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  1. I haven’t heard about any indulgences that come with the recitation of the LOTH.
  2. Yes, you are still bound to keep it. Only Solemnities (of the general calendar or a local church) that fall on a Friday gets an exception. Yet as stated by the CBCP, you can substitute it with an act of charity
 
wild_thing said:
  1. There is no set hours for saying the LOTH.
See ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur440a.htm for more details.
  1. There is no legal obligation from the Church to keep the Friday penance. It is recommended, but not an obligation. See Catholic Answers article: catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-friday-penance-required
Click to expand...
There is no set time, but there is a requirement to respect the verity of the hours. So for Lauds that means early in the morning, Terce some time mid-morning, Sext some time near mid-day, None some time mid-afternoon, Vespers some time late afternoon or early evening, and Compline before retiring for the night. The Office of Readings however, may be said at any time of day and may even be attached to another hour. I attach it to Lauds, making for an office of “Matins” in the old sense, where Matins was Vigils, combined with Lauds. There are instructions in the General Instructions on how to do it, and I have seen it done that way in a monastery.

So one wouldn’t, for instance, pray Lauds in the evening or Vespers in the morning. Beyond that, everyone is free to adjust the hours to their own reality, and of course some flexibility is allowed to vary the hours according to one’s needs. I myself prefer a fixed schedule but sometimes I do have to move an office to either a bit earlier or a bit later.
 
iceloveslitt said:
Two Questions:
  1. I’ve read somewhere that the LOTH must be prayed during the canonical hours. Can I pray the Morning Prayer at around 7am and Vespers at 5pm (before Mass)? Are there any indulgences for reciting it?
Click to expand...
The mind of the Church is, “most closely corresponding to the true time of each canonical hour” (GILH 11).

This does not mean “exact”; it gives the idea that morning prayer must be prayed in the morning and evening prayer in the evening, as close as reasonably possible to the canonical hour. 7 AM is a perfect time for Morning Prayer, as is 5 PM for Evening Prayer.

And even then, if circumstances dictate that you need to pray even earlier or later, you can still do so without breaking the spirit of the hour. For example, if you were a secular priest (no constitution) bound to the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, one Daytime Prayer, Vespers and Compline, and he either slept in or was extremely busy during an early morning. He could still legitimately pray his Lauds at 9:00 or even 10:00 AM (even though it’s strictly “Terce”), and say his Daytime Prayer at Midday, still fulfilling his obligation and respecting the verity of the hour (9:00 AM is still morning). Those of us not bound can follow a similar principle, especially if we don’t pray Daytime Prayer as a matter of course.
  1. If I have a private and personal devotion to a Saint, and his feastday falls on a Friday. Am I still bound to keep the Friday penance?
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Already answered. We don’t get to pick our own solemnities.
 
UpUpAndAway said:
In the United States. The OP is in the Philippines; I don’t personally know how the Philippine bishops’ conference has defined the requirement there.
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I’m also not convinced that Jimmy’s interpretation for the US is correct. There are competing opinions out there. Canon law is clear that Friday penance IS binding on ALL Catholics. It seems silly that the local bishops would eliminate the requirement completely (as opposed to simply allowing substitution).
 
Thanks for the response guys

☺️😊😀😀

Re:2 though I saw an infographic from Churchpop that the Friday penance is affected by personal devotions. Their infographic is about Feasts and Solemnities
 
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