If one is constrained such that one does not have time to pray both the Rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours, what are the criteria determining which should be prayed? Is one definitively superior to the other? Is it a matter of personal preference? Is one more powerful than the other? Is one more encouraged?
Please help me in this matter; I am not certain which prayer is better, or whether one can be said to be better. For example, I have heard that the Liturgy of the Hours is recommended for all the faithful, and is âthe common prayer of the Churchâ. However,
I have seen promised rewards for praying the Rosary, and I have not seen any similarly promised rewards for praying the Liturgy of the Hours.
I know this is an old post, but I didnât find any of the answers really exhustive.
First, if you donât have time for the prayer of the Church, then your priorities are focused on the wrong things. Praying is our life, it is not something we squeeze into our lives.
It is true that the Rosary is a private devotion, but the fact is that given its supernatural origin, which many Popes have endorsed and no Pope has ever refuted, it really functions in practice as a liturgical prayer. Our Lady of Fatima, for example, didnât say pray the Divine Office for the souls in purgatory and for world peace. She said this of the Rosary.
This tension is indeed, true of many private revelations and devotions. Where, for example, can one find a Mass on the Second Sunday after Easter that hasnât become a de facto, Mass of the Divine Mercy in the Roman Church? It is not necessary for salvation that one believes in this private revelation to St. Faustina or practice the subsequent devotion, but how can you escape the theological influence this now has on the Churchâs own understandings of its public revelation. St. Faustina has, after all, been canonized as well as her Patron Pope, St. John Paul the Great and the Divine Mercy image is everywhere recontextualizing our theological understanding of Christ as High Priest. My point, here, is only to make clear that just saying that something is only a devotion, in practice, doesnât really amount to much. Youâre not required, for example, to believe Our Lady requested that we engage in reciting the Rosary, but if one doesnât believe it, then itâs not clear how it is possible for that same person to believe Church more generally, so much has this private revelation been incorporated into the public life of the Church.
Having said that one neednât pray the whole Divine Officeâof course unless oneâs has made a vow to do just this. Now, as it stands the obligation of the Liturgy of the Hours has already been substantially reduced: for example from praying seven to only five times a dayâand even here one can incorporate the Office of Reading with Morning Prayer. So really itâs just one long morning prayer, a very short afternoon prayer at your convenience, evening prayer and night prayer (also quite short), and the psalms are only gone through once a month instead of once a week.
Still even here one really only need pray the Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, and the Liturgy of the Hours that conforms to the new rite of the Mass has been written so that these two prayers function as the hinges for the whole Office. This is exactly because it was meant for the whole church, most of whom are also busy living secular lives, and not just for religious who have the whole day free for prayer and devotions.
The best advice I know for how to begin entering into the public prayer of the Church actually comes from an Orthodox manual on how to pray the Psalmsâremember praying the office is effect nothing more than praying the Psalms. The advice is just, to begin with, saying only the morning Psalms since consistency is much more important than volume in our prayer life. Once this becomes a firm habit then add the evening Psalm as wellâif you are a Catholic then this would amount arriving at a point where one is praying the Morning and Evening prayers of the Church daily, to this you may then add the Rosary and then later maybe even the whole Office, which would include in addition to Morning prayer and Evening prayer also the Office or readings, an afternoon prayer (short) and night prayer (also short).
Likewise, one can also simply start with the Rosary and as part of praying the Rosary ask Our Lady to make the path clear to also say the Morning and Evening prayers of the whole Church as wellâthe point I am trying to make is that it really isnât that much to do both, and the reality is that we always find the time to do things we really desire, so I donât believe that anyone who really wants to doesnât, in fact, have the time to do both; but that praying the office doesnât, in fact, obligate anyone to praying more than just the Morning and Evening prayers, and if one is thinking about the Divine Office as all five prayers (already a reduction, remember) then it may certainly appear so intimidating that one may sincerely believe that they couldnât possibly have the time.
To this, I can only say that if this, really, is too much for one to do (morning prayer and evening prayer) then its hard to understand how they could be, in any sincere way, intending to keep their baptism vows and engage seriously in the liturgical life of the Chruch, which is the very practice of Christianity, itself.
So no, technically, saying either itâs not an obligation, but I find it hard to escape the simple fact that if one canât find the time to pray both (that is if one already has the inclination to pray the Rosary as well, which clearly the original poster does) then in what way do they take the oaths of the sacraments seriouslyâand they are quite literally oaths, sacred oaths, this is exactly why we call them
sacraments in the Western church?
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