Praying the Liturgy of the Hours

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I’m a lay person who just entered the Church this past Easter season. Over the past few months I’ve started praying the Liturgy of the Hours, mainly morning, evening, and night prayers. Are there are any specific requirements for doing so? As in, do you have to pray morning prayer at a certain hour, or can you just do it sometime generally in the morning? And does it have to be the same time every day?

Also, would praying the Liturgy of Hours incorrectly ever be sinful? For instance, if you were in a hurry, and skipped a certain section such as a hymn, would that be bad?

Thanks!
 
Praying incorrectly and unwillingly so, is not sinful. There is a learning curve to work through and it’s normal to flub a few things especially at first. Deliberately eliminating a mandatory element is not sinful either. It is still prayer, it just ceases to be liturgy (official prayer of the Church). An honest mistake due to inexperience or just an honest mistake does not, IMHO, make it cease to be liturgy as God reads our hearts and understands that we intended to do it correctly.

As for times, there are no fixed times. The only requirement is that the verity of the hour be respected, so one always prays Lauds in the morning and Vespers in the early evening for instance. Nor is it necessary to pray each hour at exactly the same time every day.

Mid-day prayer can be said at any one of the three mid-day hours, and one can optionally say all three using the complementary psalter for the other two, or two, or just the one mid-day Office. Of course if you are laity and not bound to the Office you can say as many or as few hours as you can manage.

The Office of Readings takes the place of the former office of Vigils (Matins) and can be said at any time, though the two most popular times seem to be in the morning before or combined with Lauds, and by anticipation the previous evening, sometimes combined with Compline (Night Prayer).

This is my personal schedule (I’m currently using a monastic breviary so there is no “mid-day” hour per se, just Terce, Sext and None each with its distinctive psalmody):

5:30 am: Vigils (Office of Readings)
6 am in summer, 7:30 am in winter: Lauds (Morning Prayer)
9:45 am: Terce
Noon: Sext and None combined (mid-day prayer)
5 pm: Vespers (Evening Prayer)
After dinner (variable timing, but usually around 8 pm): Compline (night prayer)

Traditionally, in the monastic world in St. Benedict’s time, there was no fixed time. An “hour” had a variable length and was an equal division of daylight and nighttime hours so daytime hours were longer in summer and shorter in winter, and the reverse for night hours. The Rule of Saint Benedict has a variable schedule depending on whether it was summer or winter. In modern times, with fixed times, a more typical schedule for the Hours would be (and this is by no means written in stone):

Office of Readings the previous evening or before Lauds (the Invitatory is said first if in in the morning)
Lauds (Morning Prayer) 6-9 am (the Invitatory is said first if it is the first office of the day).
Terce (“third hour”) 9-11 am
Sext (“sixth hour”) 11 am - 1 pm
None (“ninth hour”) 1 - 4 pm
Vespers (“Vespers” is derived from “evening” in Latin) 4-8 pm
Compline usually after 7 pm in religious communities, before bed in private prayer.

These are just examples. Having been to monasteries in N. America and Europe, it is highly variable. In the monastery I’m affiliated with as oblate, Vespers for instance is at 5 pm, but Thursdays is the monks’ recreation day where they go swimming, cycling, walking, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing on their vast property, relaxing, excursions together, etc., so Vespers is moved to 7 pm.

As for the other requirements related to structure, licit options, priority of celebrations, etc., I recommend reading the General Instructions for the Liturgy of the Hours in great detail, those pages contain a wealth of information that makes it much easier to pray the Hours. You can find those pages in the front of most breviaries, and if you google the term, searchable versions will pop up online.
 
You have an excellent explanation above, there is nothing I can add. I pray morning prayer in church just after daily Mass. I’m not doing evening or night prayer and really don’t have a good reason for not, I just get lazy.

I used to do morning prayer as soon as I work up in the morning and would combine evening & night prayer after getting home from work. I certainly don’t know if I’m doing it absolutely correct, but I know God hears me anyway. 😃
 
caspianx said:
I’m a lay person who just entered the Church this past Easter season. Over the past few months I’ve started praying the Liturgy of the Hours, mainly morning, evening, and night prayers. Are there are any specific requirements for doing so? As in, do you have to pray morning prayer at a certain hour, or can you just do it sometime generally in the morning? And does it have to be the same time every day?

Also, would praying the Liturgy of Hours incorrectly ever be sinful? For instance, if you were in a hurry, and skipped a certain section such as a hymn, would that be bad?

Thanks!
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For laymen, praying the Liturgy of the Word is optional. We do the best we can. Having said that however, the more you pray the easier it becomes.

When I first started, I felt that I was just reading words. There didn’t seem to be any “prayer” about it. Over the months, as I become more familiar with it and with the flow. I find myself looking forward to certain psalms and I realize that these Psalms are the words that my heart has always wanted to express to God. It is then I know that I am praying and not just reading the words.

Keep in mind that every hour of each day, someone somewhere is praying the Liturgy of the Hours. So when you do pray you are joining them in praising God.
 
You may like to use either of these books to help you pray the LOTH
  1. amazon.com/Divine-Office-Dodos-Praying-Liturgy/dp/0974464406
    The Divine Office for Dodos: A Step by Step Guide to Praying the Liturgy of the Hours
  2. amazon.com/Everyday-Catholics-Guide-Liturgy-Hours/dp/1616365285/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=REY8KWNPTTX5W9TD7FB3#reader_1616365285
I used number 2 “how to” to help me and found it excellent.

I didn’t purchase the 4 volume set of the LOTH as it was too expensive. The one I have is one volume which contains everything except the Office of 'Readings.

Hope this helps .🙂
Yin
 
Is there a community near you that prays the Liturgy of the Hours?
 
I would like to add a comment: the Liturgy of the Hours remains the public prayer of the Church even when prayed in private.

For it to remain liturgy, that is public prayer, even in private it is important to have the proper form and structure, follow the rubrics, and follow your local calendar. There are many permitted variations allowed in the General Instructions. An individual or community are free to choose any of these variations to suit preferences or personal/community schedules.

If one deliberately goes outside of these parameters it isn’t sinful. It still counts as prayer but is no longer liturgical prayer. If one inadvertently skips an element, forgets a feast or prays the wrong day, then it is my personal opinion that it is still liturgy, and if bound to the office, the obligation is fulfilled. I have seen monks for instance, take the reading for the wrong day or year. We are human, mistakes happen. I’ve been praying the LOTH pretty consitently for the last 15 years and I still goof from time to time, or scratch my head in the face of complexities like yesterday, where in Canada the memorial of SS. Anne & Joachim becomes the feast of St. Anne with a different collect, different common, and for chant, its own proper antiphons which are very difficult to find.

Saint Feria, pray for us! 😛
 
There is a bit of a learning curve. I pray Morning Prayer every morning, and sometimes Evening prayer. Yes, I do my best and sometimes do it badly; the one volume Liturgy of the Hours is (to me) notoriously difficult to follow at times. However, the very, very, very positive side is that the Psalms start to literally get “in your blood”; that is, they start to get more or less memorized and become an integral part of your life, reverberating in your conscious/even subconscious memory at times throughout the day or even night (I am minimally conscious of praying Psalms at times even as I am asleep; the Hail Mary too by the way!). Since the Psalms were an intimate part of Jesus’ prayer book, it is a marvelous way that that God works in and through our very beings.
 
anon90438963 said:
There is a bit of a learning curve. I pray Morning Prayer every morning, and sometimes Evening prayer. Yes, I do my best and sometimes do it badly; the one volume Liturgy of the Hours is (to me) notoriously difficult to follow at times. .
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I’m willing to bet you’re using the CBP version of the One Volume. The Pauline Version is a lot easier to use:

amazon.com/Christian-Prayer-Readings-Selection-Ecumenical/dp/9715903576/ref=pd_sbs_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=F4Z8EZQ9NPHJV4X3NXD0
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Can you briefly explain the differences between the two versions? This is useful info, thank you.
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While the layout is similar, the 1976 Pauline Version gives you the entire four Week Psalter for the Office of Readings where the CBP gives you a sampling.

In the CBP, Daytime Prayer is a separate section, with only two weeks of the four week Psalter.

In the Pauline, each day’s Daytime Prayer appears after that day’s Morning Prayer and before Evening Prayer, so you’re not having to flip as many pages as with the CBP.

The CBP puts the Hymns in a separate section which means you are flipping pages AGAIN, the Pauline has the Hymns in the body of the Day WITH the meter shown so if you don’t know the hymn tune but know one with that meter you can substitute it.

The Pauline also has a selection of prayers for before and after Mass, which the CBP does not have.

Because the Pauline has an easier to follow layout, it does not require a guide every year like the CBP does. All you have to do is know which Sunday you’re on, and you look at that Sunday and it lists which Week of the Psalter you are in at the top.

Note – I do recommend that anyone beginning the LotH purchase the CBP five card insert which is very helpful: Outline of the Hours, 1- Common Texts, 2- Morning Prayer for Solemnities and Feasts, 3- Invitatory Psalms, 4- Hymns for Night Prayer.

Nota bene: IF you buy the Pauline Kenyan Prayer of the Church, which is the newest English edition of the one volume, you get the ABC Antiphons for Sundays that match the Mass and the Revised Grail Psalms, but it does not have the Four Week Psalter for the Office of Readings. Since most folk DON’T do the OOR, it may not matter to you.

The Kenyan is only $25 plus shipping, while the 1976 USA can sell for well over $100 as it is out of print. Amazon is selling a Paulines of the Philipines version which I have not seen, so I’m not sure if it’s a reprint of the USA 1976 or a revision thereof.
 
Magdalen2013 said:
While the layout is similar, the 1976 Pauline Version gives you the entire four Week Psalter for the Office of Readings where the CBP gives you a sampling.
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I had double checked by Office of Reading Psalter, and it contained all 4x7x3 psalm. What is missing is all the actual readings, but quite frankly, is also missing from all one volumes version.

Sidenote: I am looking at stutler.cc/russ/african_breviary.html, where he showed the Pauline LoTH 1 volume (Prayer of the church). As it does not use a seperate section, Does the Psalter contain the OoR Psalms?
 
Jestersage: I did not say that the Pauline 1976 has the readings, all it has is the 4 week Psalter (i.e. the Psalms) that are used WITH the Office of Readings.

Please note that there is a 1976 Pauline Office of Readings book, it’s also out of print and even harder to obtain.

The Kenyan LotH does not have the Psalms for the Office of Readings at all.
 
My wife and I have been praying liturgy of the hours for about a year as a aprt of our morning prayer. We were using the Laudate app but wanted the books also. We got the 4 volume set but reading the instructions was worse than the IRS instructions for tax forms.

I found a pdf file that does a walk through of all the instructions, step by step for each of the hours. It tells where to put the ribbons, which pages to flip to when, everything. The writer explains all the options and rubics in a very easy to read manner.This is the link:

prayer.rosaryshop.com/discoveringPrayer.pdf

It has taken us about a week of practice to get to the point of feeling like we are praying again instead of getting frustrated with flipping pages and reading instruction, but it has been worth it. Once we get the Ordinary down pat, we will start adding the memorials, feasts and solemnities.

Patrick
AMDG
 
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