BOOKS & MEDIABoston

How to Pray theLiturgy of the Hours

Judith Kubicki, CSSF

Copyright © 2002, Daughters of St. Paul

Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Paul’sAvenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491. www.pauline.org.

Printed in the U.S.A.

Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daugh-ters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women reli-gious serving the Church with the communications media.

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ISBN 0-8198-3381-9

Cover design by Helen Rita Lane, FSP

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproducedor transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic ormechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any in-formation storage and retrieval system without permission inwriting from the publisher.

“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughtersof St. Paul.

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“I’d like to pray the Liturgy of theHours, but…it seems so complicated.

How do I begin?”

H ow many times have you picked up acopy of Christian Prayer only to put it down

again, confused by Commons and Propers,Invitatories and Antiphons? Initially, ChristianPrayer can be intimidating. Fear not, however—it’s not as complicated as it may first appear.

This small booklet is designed to help youlearn to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. By intro-ducing you to its various components and ex-plaining—step by step—how to get started, thisguide offers the map for a prayer-journey thatcan become part of the rhythm of your daily life.

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Why Pray the Liturgy of the Hours?

Every baptized person is a member of thecommon priesthood of Jesus Christ. Because ofthis, we have the privilege and responsibility tolift up the world to God in prayer. The Liturgyof the Hours provides us with the opportunityto fulfill this priestly office by using a prayer formthat is one of the ancient treasures of the Church.A good deal of the prayer is taken directly fromthe Sacred Scriptures, both the Old and NewTestaments. The readings give us the opportu-nity to listen to the Word of God and ponder itis our hearts. The psalms are the heart of thedaily prayer of the Church. These ancient songsor prayer-poems express the entire gamut of hu-man emotion—from the depths of lament to theheights of ecstatic praise. In praying the Hours,we use the inspired words of Scripture to address

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the Father in the very words Christ used whenhe prayed. Furthermore, we believe that the au-thors of the Scriptures wrote under the inspira-tion of the Holy Spirit. Just think about it; usingthis prayer, which largely consists of Scripturaltexts, we actually participate in the loving com-munion that exists among the persons of theBlessed Trinity!

Thus, the Liturgy of the Hours deserves ourhighest esteem. Along with the Eucharist andthe other sacraments, it is part of the officialworship of the Church, that is, her liturgy. Sincethe Hours are liturgical prayer, the ideal way topray them is together with other people. Never-theless, even when we pray the Hours alone, weare united with the entire Church and all cre-ation in offering praise and thanks to the Father,through the Son, and in the Spirit. Our indi-vidual voice becomes a part of the countlessvoices throughout the world that daily offer thisprayer to God on behalf of the Church.

We human beings are both body and soul.This is why prayer that involves our five senses

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and that includes other people makes it easierfor us to express our faith and to nurture it. Wecan do this by celebrating the Hours with sym-bols that engage our whole person—spirit,imagination, body, and senses. These symbolsinclude the Word of God, light and darkness,incense, time itself, and the particular gesturesof prayer such as sitting, bowing, and standing.Attentiveness to these enriches our experienceof a prayer that reflects the very rhythm—theday, week, seasons, year— of our lives and thecycles of creation.

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A Brief History of theLiturgy of the Hours

Scripture admonishes us to “pray always” or“pray without ceasing” (1Thes 5:17). Early Chris-tians, particularly those who grew up in Judaism,were schooled in the Jewish practice of prayingat specified moments throughout the day. Thesetimes of prayer corresponded to the Roman divi-sions of the day. The ancient law of the Old Tes-tament prescribed offering the sacrifice of a lamband the offering of incense twice a day. From thefirst to the fourth centuries, the early Churchadopted this practice of associating prayer withthese times of the day. At first, this practice wassomewhat unstructured and varied from place toplace. What slowly developed was private prayerin the morning and evening. The psalms and

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other excerpts from Sacred Scripture formed thecore of these periods of prayer.

By the fourth century, two very differentstyles of this prayer gradually took shape, thecathedral office or the ecclesiastical office and themonastic office. The cathedral office was theprayer of the local church. That is, both clericsand laity gathered around their bishop for dailyprayer. The monastic office, on the other hand,was the prayer of a particular community ofmonks. Both the ritual and the purpose of thesetwo approaches to prayer were quite different.

The cathedral office was a highly structuredprayer that included many invariable or repeti-tive elements. Psalms were chosen for their ap-propriateness to the hour of the day, the feast, orthe season. For example, Psalms 63 and 51 werekey morning psalms; Psalm 141, the eveningpsalm. The cathedral office, with its focus oncelebration, employed music and colorful cer-emony, including the lighting of lamps and theburning of incense, which appealed to theworshiper’s imagination and five senses.

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The monastic office was also highly struc-tured. However, the principles governing its or-ganization were quite different. The entire psalterwas recited in cursus every week. That is, themonks began with Psalm 1, continued in se-quence to Psalm 150, and then began the cycleagain. In addition, the monks practiced what isreferred to as lectio continua, the sequential read-ing of Scripture. One book of the Bible was readfrom beginning to end before another was be-gun. The monastic office was characterized by aminimum of ceremony. Eventually, the singingof the psalms gave way to recitation by a singlemonk. The focus was on meditation and edifica-tion; the psalms were a means for sustaining con-templation rather than for praise.

Eventually, some desert monks began to livein cities, and an urban monastic office replacedthe cathedral office. By the medieval period, theprayer had become the reserve of clergy and re-ligious. What had once been the public prayerof the entire Church became, for the most part,the private prayer of the clergy. Priests and reli-

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gious prayed what was then referred to as the“Divine Office” in Latin. Although the laity oc-casionally participated, it was usually with thesense that they were joining in the prayer of aparticular community, rather than in a prayerthat belonged to them by reason of their bap-tism. Attention to the ceremony or ritual aspectsof the prayer diminished or disappeared com-pletely. Focus was placed on the book and theobligation of clergy and religious to pray it.1 Asa result, what had been ritual prayer or liturgybegan to be seen as an obligatory recitation ofprescribed prayer texts. While several attemptswere made to reform the office, none resulted insubstantial changes.

It was one of the goals of the liturgical re-newal of the Second Vatican Council to retrievethe daily prayer of the Church for the wholepeople of God. The Constitution on the SacredLiturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 1963), specifi-cally mentioned that “the laity, too are encour-aged to recite the divine office, either with thepriests, or among themselves, or even individu-

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ally” (n. 100). Furthermore, the Constitution onthe Sacred Liturgy indicated that when the officewas to be revised, “its venerable centuries-oldtreasures are to be so adapted that those to whomit is handed on may profit from it more fully andmore easily” (n. 90).

The reform of the Divine Office, now referredto as the Liturgy of the Hours and publishedunder the title Christian Prayer, achieved somemeasure of success. The restoring of the tradi-tional sequence of the hours—Morning Prayerprayed in the morning and Evening Prayer inthe evening2—was an significant step towardcelebrating the symbol of time with greatermeaning and respect. Designating Morning andEvening Prayer as the two hinges of the day like-wise restored these two hours to their rightfulplace of importance. Expanding the cycle fromone week to four, and allowing for the use of thevernacular (the language of the people ratherthan Latin), have also been positive steps to-ward renewing this prayer for the life of theChurch. However, the effort to preserve much

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of the tradition and to provide for a greater vari-ety of options have made for a more challengingprayer.

This booklet provides a road map throughthe maze of directions and options involved inpraying the Liturgy of the Hours. Primary atten-tion will be paid to Morning and Evening Prayer,with some brief comments about Night Prayer.4

One note before we begin: reading the ma-terial in this booklet and observing directivescan be important, but the most important as-pect is the experience of prayer. Giving undueimportance to guidelines and directives can getin the way of prayer. The worship of God is theultimate goal. Learning and following the road-map are a means to the goal not ends in them-selves. So be gentle with yourself as you unpackthe beauty and complexities of this ancient, butrenewed prayer of the Church.