Blessed is the Kingdom

Seeking The Kingdom In All Things

The Divine Office

Chapter Four of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy focuses on what is properly called the prayer of the Church, known as the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours. My guess is that most people associate this prayer with the daily prayers of those who live in a monastic setting or as the private prayer of priests. The council, however, encourages a wider use of this prayer by all the faithful as a way of making each day holy through continual prayer.

By tradition going back to early Christian times, the divine office is devised so that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praises of God. Therefore, when this wonderful song of praise is rightly performed by priests and others who are deputed for this purpose by the Church’s ordinance, or by the faithful praying together with the priest in the approved form, then it is truly the voice of the bride addressed to her bridegroom; lt is the very prayer which Christ Himself, together with His body, addresses to the Father.

I must admit that it was only when I began to seriously consider entering the seminary that I began to pray this prayer of the Church. It began with what we called our “Monday Night Group” in Chattanooga. The “Monday Night Group”, even when we met on Thursdays, ended our time by praying what is known as Compline or Night Prayer. This group was comprised of several men who were considering the priesthood, along with Fr. Al Humbrecht who hosted this group to actively promote the discernment of religious vocations. It was later in the seminary and with the Benedictines that I gained an even greater appreciation for this form of prayer.

One of the things that should make this prayer attractive to Christians is that it is primarily made of the Psalms. As noted in the quote from the Council above, these Biblical prayers would have been the prayerbook of Christ. How blessed are we to be given the opportunity each day to pray as Christ prayed! I also came away from my seminary days with a hope that we would soon see a widespread use of this prayer, not only by priests and religious, but by the laity. This could be done either communally, or individually. It is still one of my goals to establish a common time for this prayer at St. Thomas, even if it to pray only one of the hours each day. Every time we have to cancel a daily mass due to both of our priests being unavailable, I lament the fact that this in not yet a goal that has been realized. This is one form of liturgical prayer that does not require a member of the clergy’s presence which would make it perfect for daily prayer in any parish that could be prayed both when a priest is present or when there is simply a group of the laity gathered for daily prayer.

One thing that I noted from reading chapter four that I had missed before was the following:

Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.

I have never been in a parish where this was practiced on a regular basis, but I think it would be terrific to spend the time necessary to promote this practice in our parishes, even if it were only attended by a few. Reading these documents of the Church never fails to challenge me to a greater responsibility in my role as a member of the clergy. Here is a prime example of an area of instruction that I missed somewhere along the way. I will have to work towards including more opportunities for the communal celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours in our parish.

What has been your experience of the Divine Office? Have you been in a parish where it is prayed regularly or where people are encouraged to pray it individually? If so, how well was the prayer received? Your comments as always are welcomed.

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About The Author

Fr. Christian is the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Lenoir City, TN.

Comments

  • crazyivan

    My wife and I pray Compline every night before bed, and we try to pray Vespers on Sunday as well. Additionally, I’ve found the sermon that is contained every day in the Office of Readings is a really useful way to familiarize myself with the Church Fathers.

    With Compline, we always pray the Invitatory Psalm first, and then pause to do the mass readings, so what these prayers have resulted in is a greater immersion in scripture.

    I have to say that, as a recent convert, the Divine Office has been one of the most pleasant surprises for me. I did not have any sort of prayer life as a Protestant, in part because it was so hard to pray when I was coming up with the words myself! I am hoping to work into the discipline to start doing Lauds (Morning Prayer) daily. That will be a real challenge, I am not a morning person!

    My parish recently announced that they would be starting to do Lauds on weekday mornings. Pretty excited to hear that – I think it is a sign of some great things to come.

  • Sandy Tompkins

    We talked about this a year ago. What’s keeping us from doing it at St. Thomas? I pray the morning, evening, and night prayers and would would be extremely happy to lead it when priests aren’t available. I absolutely love the divine office and feel other lay people would, too, if given the opportunity to be instructed how to read it.

  • http://quantumtheology.blogspot.com Michelle

    My parish has been celebrating morning prayer with our priests for 22 years! There are about twenty or so of us who come one time or another, with 5 to 10 at any given time, depending on people’s work schedule. When a priest isn’t available, a lay person ably leads, and we all take it in turn to act as antiphonarian and reader.

    I’d say go for it, buy a half dozen breviaries to keep at church for those who don’t have one (it makes it easy to invite more people), and offer a casual introduction coffee, or in the evening for those who wish to learn. Ask to find out who in the parish might already be praying the Office (you might be suprised) and ask them to help teach others.

    I’ve written a couple of pieces on the Office for our diocesan paper (we did a 4 week set of article encouraging people to pray the Office last Advent), I’d be happy to share – just send me an email: mfdcst@gmail.com.

    It’s a hidden gem of the Church, a grace for all who pray it, and a great joy to have a community to pray it with, particularly for priests in this day and age.

  • http://www.fromthepulpitofmylife.blogspot.com/ Ruth Ann

    I have personally been praying the Divine Office for maybe two decades or more. I once bought volume 1 at a Catholic book store in Chicago thinking I would teach myself. That was easier said than done! One day I worked up the courage to ask a priest to help me figure out how to do it correctly. He explained it well, and then I was on my way. I decided to use the Christian Prayer version because it’s one volume and I couldn’t afford the full 4 volumes then.

    Sometime I prayed with the Franciscan friars at the Friary near my home. But mostly it was a “private” devotion for me.

    Now, I’ve been a Third Order Lay Carmelite for 6 years so I pray the Divine Office as part of my commitment to live the Carmelite way of life. We are obliged to pray Morning and Evening Prayer and Night Prayer, but many of us pray Office of Readings and Daytime Prayer as well.

    Last year one of our parishioners decided to offer “lessons” to anyone who wanted to learn the Divine Office. He leads Vespers every Sunday, and he writes something about the Divine Office in every Sunday bulletin. I attended Sunday Vespers a few times. Not many parishioners have availed themselves of the opportunity.

    My preference is to pray the Divine Office alone or with my Carmelite community. I now have the 4 volumes because I like the diversity of readings in the Office of Readings.

    About a week ago I visited some Dominican Sister friends in Illinois and they invited me to join them for Morning and Evening Prayer. I knew just what to do. They have a different translation of the psalms and I loved their version of Psalm 51. They also sang all the verses.

  • http://nowealthbutlife.com Rae

    The parish in which I was married prayed morning prayer Monday-Saturday before mass. I *think* they had 50ish copies of the Christian Prayer book and sometimes they were all in use, but I did not pay attention to number and could be wrong.

    One parish near me in college had a perpetual adoration chapel and I believe that they always had morning and evening prayer, perhaps night prayer too? The few times I was there there were 5ish people.

    I tried to have night prayer once a week with the Newman group on campus, but only 2 or 3 ever showed up. I doubt that it continued after I left.

    It seems very rare for parishes to actually follow the urging of Vatican II, but when it does happen it is wonderful. I was once kneeling before the tabernacle in the Nashville cathedral (which is right by Vanderbilt) and four or five young adults which I guessed to be students stopped by and started evening prayer. I always brought my breviary to church at that point so I joined in and it was great. It was not a regular occurrence, and only two of them appeared to know what they were doing, but it was a little bit of heaven even as we blundered through together.

    I have never understood why it is so rare in parish life. Since I know nothing about the reality of a pastor’s life it seems to me that it would not be that difficult to offer a set time for the faithful to join with him in the prayer of the Church since he is obligated to pray it anyway. Then one of the devout older women seemingly present in every parish could take over when the priest was absent, and perhaps even when he was present and it would be a normal part of healthy parish life.

    See why I don’t work for the church? God is protecting my idealism. :-)

    But perhaps I have only seen it flourish in parish life since priests just pray privately if not in the sort of parish where it would be well received? In any case, I have only seen a less than enthusiastic response when I was the one trying to make it happen on a college campus.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    I am happy for the feedback of everyone who has commented. It is my hope that we will soon have regular celebration of the liturgy of the hours at St. Thomas and that it will not be contingent upon a priest being present. I would like to say that I would always be able to be present for prayer each day at the same time, but it is unfortunately not that easy when one has the schedule of a parish priest. Thanks for sharing your ideas with me, they are very helpful!

  • http://quantumtheology.blogspot.com Michelle

    One last thought, if you want to build a cadre of able leaders of prayer, it’s useful to ask lay people to lead on occasion while you are there, though not quite by the rubrics, it does build confidence to do this with someone sitting next to you who can quietly and gracefully coach. Twenty years after I began, I remain grateful to the Augustinian who sat next to me and tipped his book in my direction and with the touch of a finger indicated the next prayer was mine.

  • Dave Wells

    Father, when I was a parishioner at All Saints, I know we used to have Morning Prayer (lay-led) in the 15 minutes before daily Mass in Advent and Lent. It might be a good way to introduce this in your parish. I agree it would be nice to see it used more frequently.

    The idea of praying the Hours has a strong appeal to me. If devout Muslims can take time out of their day to pray five times, surely Christians can pray the principal hours as well! However, I have some “issues” with the translation of the Liturgy of the Hours – it may just be me, but does it seem that the wording of the prayers are too “imperative” rather than “supplicatory”? A while back I noticed that, in the prayers themselves (not the Psalms), I seemed to be tellling God what to do most of the time, rather than humbly asking and beseeching him. I’ve recently been exposed to the Byzantine Liturgy of the Hours, and the tone of the prayers are very, very different. Is this something that is just an issue with the English translation? Would you have any suggestions for me?

    Thanks! I pray that God may bless you in your ministry.

  • Fr. Christian Mathis

    Dave,

    I have never really noticed the tone of the prayers in the Liturgy of the Hours and I have not prayed them in the Byzantine Liturgy other than at the Eucharist and the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts, so I can’t really give an intelligent comment other than to say if you are correct in your assessment it might be something the Church should take a look at. I heard that Abbot Gregory Polan, OSB of Conception Abbey has put together a new grail translation of the Psalms.

    Thanks for the comment.

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