Praying the Psalms

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How does one pray the Psalms? I have seen it mentioned on sites and here but really don’t know how do it. Wouldn’t know which Psalms to use and so on.

Dianna
 
If you want the Liturgy of the Hours in book form, I suggest Christian Prayer. I used to pray the LOTH when I was a Catholic.
 
If you’re still learning the Liturgy of the Hours, this website (prayer.rosaryshop.com/) has a great e-book for free that was very helpful for me in learning how to pray the LOTH. It’s called “Discovering Prayer.”
 
Realize that you are not getting the entire Psalter in the LOTH. They took out the 3 imprecatory Psalms and 50 verses of other Psalms that were “too negative”. If you are just wanting to pray, then by all means, the LOTH is a great way to use the Psalms to grow closer to God. If your goal is to pray the entire Psalter, then I’d recommend just praying from a Bible.

You could try the 1962 Breviary which does use every verse of all 150 Psalms, but if you’re going to do that you’re looking at a serious time commitment that most laymen can’t manage (that’s one reason Vatican II called for a reform of the Divine Office). They pray 8 times a day instead of the LOTH which has 5 times (and each hour is shorter). It’s not that you’re praying that many more of the psalms, it’s that you’re praying all 150 in a week. The LOTH spreads out its Psalter over 4 weeks. Lots less per day.

If you want to try the LOTH on the cheap, and you have an iPhone, download the free app iBreviary which cues up each of the 5 hours that are prayed in a day in the LOTH. If you like it, you can purchase an actual book. If not, no money wasted.
 
Windmill said:
Realize that you are not getting the entire Psalter in the LOTH. They took out the 3 imprecatory Psalms and 50 verses of other Psalms that were “too negative”. If you are just wanting to pray, then by all means, the LOTH is a great way to use the Psalms to grow closer to God. If your goal is to pray the entire Psalter, then I’d recommend just praying from a Bible.

You could try the 1962 Breviary which does use every verse of all 150 Psalms, but if you’re going to do that you’re looking at a serious time commitment that most laymen can’t manage (that’s one reason Vatican II called for a reform of the Divine Office). They pray 8 times a day instead of the LOTH which has 5 times (and each hour is shorter). It’s not that you’re praying that many more of the psalms, it’s that you’re praying all 150 in a week. The LOTH spreads out its Psalter over 4 weeks. Lots less per day.

If you want to try the LOTH on the cheap, and you have an iPhone, download the free app iBreviary which cues up each of the 5 hours that are prayed in a day in the LOTH. If you like it, you can purchase an actual book. If not, no money wasted.
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I wish I had time to pray that much. I am praying more than I ever have before and it is wonderful but when choosing when to pray and what to pray I can’t set myself up for failure. I know that sometimes I can’t pray as much as other days I try to do my best.

The Pastor of the church I was at got all over me about prayer when I told him the other day that I was converting. He didn’t want to hear that praying in this way draws one very close to God.
 
Just pray them like you would pray any other written prayer. 🙂

Here is the Coptic Rite Liturgy of the Hours: agpeya.org It never changes and, therefore, it is easy to follow. Note that only monastics are expected to pray all of the Psalms in a particular hour. Most hours have twelve Psalms not including Psalm 50(51) which is prayed in every hour. I pray Psalm 50(51) and a couple other Psalms for each hour that I pray. 🙂
 
Once you know how to pray Liturgy of the Hours/Divine Office, you could also look into getting apps for your smartphone, if you have one!

My favorite is iBreviary (iOS/Android) because A) it’s free B) easy to read format C) contains more than just a breviary. But there are other options out there as well! 🙂
 
Windmill said:
Realize that you are not getting the entire Psalter in the LOTH. They took out the 3 imprecatory Psalms and 50 verses of other Psalms that were “too negative”. If you are just wanting to pray, then by all means, the LOTH is a great way to use the Psalms to grow closer to God. If your goal is to pray the entire Psalter, then I’d recommend just praying from a Bible.

You could try the 1962 Breviary which does use every verse of all 150 Psalms, but if you’re going to do that you’re looking at a serious time commitment that most laymen can’t manage (that’s one reason Vatican II called for a reform of the Divine Office). They pray 8 times a day instead of the LOTH which has 5 times (and each hour is shorter). It’s not that you’re praying that many more of the psalms, it’s that you’re praying all 150 in a week. The LOTH spreads out its Psalter over 4 weeks. Lots less per day.

If you want to try the LOTH on the cheap, and you have an iPhone, download the free app iBreviary which cues up each of the 5 hours that are prayed in a day in the LOTH. If you like it, you can purchase an actual book. If not, no money wasted.
Click to expand...
Well, there are some LOTH breviaries out there that do not leave out the imprecatory psalms. If you pray monastic Schema B, which is post-Vatican II, the imprecatory psalms and verses are there but marked out and made optional. My abbey prays them. It too is 150 psalms per week but it’s easier to manage than the 1962 breviary mainly due to the simpler liturgical year. Moreover, it has the option of splitting it into a 2-week cycle; alas I know only of a French version, long out of print. You could pray it by using Christian Prayer and an approved translation of the psalter. Use the psalter for the psalms and Christian Prayer for the rest.

Traditionally, there were 7 day hours and one night hour (Vigils or Matins). The current interpretation is to include the night hour as part of the liturgical “day”, or to include the Mass as part of the daily “hours”. The LOTH has 5 hours… but… there is a complementary psalter that can be used if you want to pray 7 hours in the day, which is what I normally do: Office of Readings (which I use as Vigils), Lauds (Morning Prayer), Terce, Sext (mid-day prayer), None, Vespers (Evening Prayer), and Compline (Night Prayer). It’s currently what most monasteries pray.

There are also other “traditions” that are possible with LOTH, such as using Ps. 4, 90 and 133 every day for compline, which is what was done as far back as St. Benedict’s days 1500 years ago. For what it’s designed for, secular users (both clergy and laity), the LOTH is great. Moreover, it’s congruent with the OF Mass, which the 1962 breviary isn’t, and the LOTH and Mass are part of a liturgical continuum.

For the day hours I use “Les heures grégoriennes”, which is an antiphonary for the LOTH that has all the day hours noted for Gregorian chant, with all the music for the hymns and antiphons. It’s Latin/French, and it has the advantage that the imprecatory verses are not left out, they’re enclosed in brackets but in their proper place in the psalm so you can choose to pray them or not as you desire. I do pray them.

For my situation, I chant the psalm in Latin. I find the psalm tones makes them a sort of “mantra” that soothes and pre-disposes to prayer; after chanting it, I read it and meditate it silently in French. I would not be able to do that with a monastic or the 1962 breviary due to time commitments; sometimes quality trumps quantity. I hope to go back to monastic though when I retire in a few years. It helps too, with the LOTH, that my children are grown and out of the house. When my kids were young, it was tough.
 
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