Why won't Catholic Christians recite the Liturgy of the Hours?

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The Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH) is the prayer of the Church. It falls second only to the Mass/Divine Liturgy. The Rosary is a private devotion that warrants its own respect as a tool of our Blessed Mother. But the Rosary has it’s origen from the LOTH. Folks used to not typically be able to read and books were rare to begin with and expensive to make. So the prayer beads taken from the East were incorporated to help them recite prayers…typically Psalms… Religious would memorize and recites the Psalms daily. There is lots of conjecture on this subject but historically the Rosary is a simplified private devotion to medicate on the mysteries of the life, death and resurection of Christ.

So why don’t we see more Catholics and hopefully non-Catholics praying the Liturgy of the Hours? It is awesome.
 
I pray them in the Maronite Church. The current books we have contain only the morning and evening prayers (Safro and Ramsho, respectively). In fact, anyone can listen to the Divine Office prayed in the Maronite Church via this podcast: thehiddenpearl.org/ I highly recommend it!

Alloho minokhoun,
Andrew
 
I got the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, recently. Latin, with English translation. Reprint of a 1904 edition. Intro by Father Lasance, published by Bonaventure Publications.

Nice to be able to read some Psalms, and realise how some beautifully-turned phrases in them have entered into common parlance.

Also handy to have as a break from saying the Rosary daily.

For those interested:
This site will send it by the cheapest postage. I live in the UK, and got it for $24 all in. Bargain!
aquinasandmore.com/index.cfm/title/Little-Office-of-the-Blessed-Virgin-Mary/FuseAction/store.ItemDetails/SKU/1837/
 
PS:

They won’t read it, because they don’t know about it. I’m a cradle Catholic, and I don’t think I ever heard of it.

And I think the ‘Liturgy Of The Hours’ is a post-Vatican II name for it. It’s the Divine Office, isn’t it? So that doesn’t help with ‘brand recognition’.
 
Well, actually there are a lot of us Catholic Christians who do recite the Liturgy of the Hours.

I started with the “Magnificat” magazine more than 3 years ago; last November I bought the 1 volume Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours and have recited the prayers (including midmorning, midday and midafternoon) ever since.

I think you will see more and more people doing this; I’m a cradle Catholic and had frequented Catholic web sites (including this one now over 4 years) but I hadn’t really become aware of the Liturgy of the Hours until then, and I didn’t realize that it was something that I really ‘could do’ until then.

Wish you could edit the title though to “Why don’t more Catholic Christians recite the Liturgy of the Hours”; it isn’t ‘won’t’ so much really; won’t implies that they know about it and refuse; don’t more that they do not know about it!!!
 
The title was poking fun at Jimmy B since he started the Rosary thread. There are so many Catholics that seem unaware that the Byzantine Rite do not pray the rosary but rather the Jesus Prayer on a chikoti, which looks like a rosary…sort of. I’ve konwn about the Divine Office and Liturgy of the Hours for many years. I started praying it in the seminary in 1979. In 1988, after hitting state side, I found the four volume set in a local Catholic book store at my then duty station. I began the struggle all over again learning how to recite it. Initially it’s difficult but I got the swing of it. I love it. Lately we’ve been going through a really hard change that has left me without much time and I’ve slowed on it. But I’m looking forward to a time when things get better. Everything seems to be going nuts around us. My wife returned to school and is frantically looking for a teaching position and our 13 year old is watching the 2 little ones for us. He’s a great kid but a typical teen in many ways. So with house repairs, fractured arm, wife in school, hard dealines at work and lots of other stressers it’s been a strain to say it. I do what I can and pray the rosary while driving to work. But I love it.

The Divine Office is require to be recited by reliouis and clergy. I think it would be safe to say the the Divine Office is an extension of the Liturgy of the Hours.
 
vocatio said:
The Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH) is the prayer of the Church. It falls second only to the Mass/Divine Liturgy. The Rosary is a private devotion that warrants its own respect as a tool of our Blessed Mother. But the Rosary has it’s origen from the LOTH. Folks used to not typically be able to read and books were rare to begin with and expensive to make. So the prayer beads taken from the East were incorporated to help them recite prayers…typically Psalms… Religious would memorize and recites the Psalms daily. There is lots of conjecture on this subject but historically the Rosary is a simplified private devotion to medicate on the mysteries of the life, death and resurection of Christ.

So why don’t we see more Catholics and hopefully non-Catholics praying the Liturgy of the Hours? It is awesome.
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Can you clairify? Do you mean privately or a bunch of people together? I do recite it prvately but don’t know anybody else who does so I’m kinda stuck. Additionally I mentioned to some of the folks who helped bring me back home to the RCC, they are cradle Catholics and live 3000 niles away, and they didn’t know what it was.

I think many folks do recite the LOTH, in fact, the LOTH was one of the things that brought me back to the RCC. There have been a number of very helpful threads on CA. I have Chrsitian Prayer which can be daunting sometimes but with the help of of folks here I have a good system for figuring out the daily plan.
 
Whizkid, you’re in Massachusetts. You should check out the Confraternity of Penitents (www.penitents.org ) who are based in Rhode Island but have chapters throughout many states including in Massachusetts.

The members (you can be a member or an associate) follow the 1221 Rule of St. Francis. Part of what they do is to recite the LOTH (so even if we are all separated through the country we are all ‘saying it together’ as a group).
 
For those who can’t afford/don’t want to use the 4 volume LOTH or find even the one volume Christian Prayer too difficult, there’s Shorter Christian Prayer which I have used and loved. It’s much simpler and so more likely to be used by those just getting started praying LOTH.
 
Count me as someone else who prays the LOTH. I pray morning and evening prayer every day. 😃
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Whizkid, you’re in Massachusetts. You should check out the Confraternity of Penitents (www.penitents.org ) who are based in Rhode Island but have chapters throughout many states including in Massachusetts.

The members (you can be a member or an associate) follow the 1221 Rule of St. Francis. Part of what they do is to recite the LOTH (so even if we are all separated through the country we are all ‘saying it together’ as a group).
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Thanks for the info!
 
There is an application you can download to your iPhone that has the LOTH on it every day.
 
I’m a revert who is familiar with the term, LOTH, but I don’t actually know what it is, or where to find it. I’m not terribly tech-savvy, so please if someone could direct me without the audio/video download links. :o It sounds wonderful!
 
kristie_m said:
I’m a revert who is familiar with the term, LOTH, but I don’t actually know what it is, or where to find it. I’m not terribly tech-savvy, so please if someone could direct me without the audio/video download links. :o It sounds wonderful!
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The Liturgy of the Hours is the daily prayer of the Church. It used to be prayed by clergy, monks, friars, and religious only, especially in the days when most lay people were illiterate.

It is made up of Psalms, prayers, readings, etc. Each day most people pray Morning and Evening Prayer, which consists of 3 Psalms, antiphons, prayers, and hymns.

The full LOTH is a 4 volume set that rotates on a 3 year cycle. However, most lay people use the abbreviated versions: Christian Prayer and Shorter Christian Prayer that have the essential material from the 4 volume set, but are easier for lay people to use.

I gave a link to a website that sells Shorter Christian prayer in my earlier post, but copies of it and of Christian Prayer are easily found by a simple Google search.

There’s also a magazine–a misnomer really since it is an even more abbreviated, but approved form of Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer with many nice additions, such as the daily Mass readings with meditations on them, etc. called Magnificat Magazine to which people subscribe. Many lay people like it because everything goes easily from one page to the next (there’s no flipping back and forth except for the Morning and Evening Canticles and the Te Deum).

I hope that helps you rather than confusing you more. 😊 🙂
 
kristie_m said:
Thanks Della!! I’ll look into it.😃
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You’re welcome. 🙂

About non-Catholics using the LOTH, I know some Anglican/Episcopalians use it or one like it. I’m pretty sure most liturgical denominations have some form or other of it, too.
 
So why don’t we see more Catholics and hopefully non-Catholics praying the Liturgy of the Hours? It is awesome.

**The public celebration of the Divine Office is part and parcel of the liturgical observance of churches of the Byzantine tradtion, both Catholic and Orthodox.

Generally an observant parish will have Vespers on Saturday night and one or more of the Little Hours before Sunday Divine Liturgy.

Matins (which is a major production), if celebrated, might be anticipated the night before with Vespers, or held Sunday morning.**
 
I thought that the lay people HAVE BEEN admitted to the Liturgy of the Hours whenever they could and would even from the beginning of its existence, except that in medieval times most lay people were illiterate and were working in the fields.
Actually the practice of saying 150 Our Father was meant for those who could not attend, each Our Father taking the place of a Psalm… Then it became 150 Hail Mary, and finally it became the Rosary, developing in various stages until it reached the form we know today. So it was meant to include the working lay people in thegreat prayer of the whole Church, the way I understand it…
 
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