Part I

This post is mostly about mechanics. I’ll have more to say about my actual experiences with the Hours later on.

I soon discovered that the prime difficulty of praying the Liturgy of the Hours or any part of it is that it really is different every day. There are some small bits that are identical from one day to the next, and the form of the prayer is always the same, but the precise psalms, canticles, antiphons, readings, and other prayers that fit into the slots change…and not in a simple way. First, there’s a basic four-week cycle of psalms, canticles, and readings; this is called the Psalter, and it repeats over and over again. Overlaid on this is the “Proper of Seasons”, which has alternate items for the different seasons of the liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. These also vary day by dat. And then there is the “Proper of Saints”, which has further alterations for the feasts, memorials, and solemnities of various saints. And since some of the feasts and solemnities of the year are not tied to the Gregorian Calendar—Easter being the prime example—it’s pretty much guaranteed that next year’s prayers won’t be exactly identical to this year’s.

Fortunately, there is a wide variety of help available. The Universalis web site makes the day’s prayers available on-line, if you don’t mind praying in front of a computer; I don’t like it that much, though. There’s a nifty magazine called Magnificat, which in addition to the mass readings for every day of the month also contains daily Morning, Evening, and Night prayers patterned after (though not identical to) those in the Liturgy of Hours, along with other content; if you’d like to try this kind of prayer, this is a simple way to get started (and might be sufficient for many people). I bought a copy at our local Catholic store, and found it be a neat publication; but being a purist I was a bit put off that it doesn’t offer the real Liturgy of the Hours. The important thing is to be praying, of course, and Magnificat is certainly easy to get started with.

If you want to pray the genuine Hours, and you don’t want to be getting them from the ‘Net, you need to buy a prayer book. There are a number of “official” LOTH books available; the main one is a four-book set entitled The Liturgy of the Hours, which has all of the hours, major and minor, in their complete and utter fullness. I have seen this set on-line for around $140; I’ve not actually looked through a copy.

One step down from this is a book called Christian Prayer, published by the Catholic Book Publishing Company. It’s a one-volume version that includes the complete text for Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer; the full set of hymns, with melody lines; a partial set of text for Day Prayer, which I’ve not yet looked at; and a partial set of text for the Office of Readings. I ordered a copy of this from Amazon a couple of weeks ago, and it arrived last week while I was on a business trip; I’ve been using it for Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer since I got home on Thursday and (with the exception of the Office of Readings, which is laid out in an extremely confusing way) I’ve found it easy to use, given the appropriate instruction (of which more anon).

As I say, I was on a business trip for a good bit of last week; and given that business trips involve a lot of time sitting in airports, and sitting on planes, and sitting in my hotel room I’ve found it useful over the last year to use them as “mini-retreats”. So I wanted something to take with me. I’d already ordered Christian Prayer, but I went down to our local Catholic Store and found a copy of Shorter Christian Prayer. This is a condensed version of Christian Prayer, smaller and much thinner, that is intended to be used while travelling. It includes Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer and hymns without melody lines, with a much abbreviated Proper of Saints. In retrospect, this was probably exactly the right book to start with, as it eliminates much of the potential confusion. Thursday, for example, was the memorial of St. Anthony the Abbot, the founder of monasticism; but SCP doesn’t include St. Anthony in its Proper of Saints so I didn’t need to sweat it.

As it happens, Monday was the first week day of “Ordinary Time”, which made knowing which prayers to pray very, very easy. You just start with Monday of “Week I” in the Psalter, and start going day by day. The only unusual day during the past week was Thursday, St. Anthony’s day, and given that I was using SCP that was moot anyway. In general, though, it’s useful to have some help. The Catholic Book Publishing Company also publishes a little pamphlet, the “St. Joseph Guide”, which indicates clearly which pages apply for each hour for each day of the year. There’s a edition of the Guide for each edition of the hours; my copy of Christian Prayer came with the appropriate guide for 2008. I haven’t need to use it much yet, but I’m sure it will come in handy in the long run.

As I say, CP came with the 2008 Guide; SCP did not. Everything that I’ve read on-line says that you’ll want to get this year’s Guide for whatever book you buy, which I think is true; but be aware that the book might come with this year’s Guide. Wait and see before buying another copy.

But wait! There’s more! Even with the Guide and SCP, the Hours are a bit of a do-it-yourself kit. The text for each day assumes you know how to do it, and abbreviates some parts of the “boilerplate” and leaves others out. You can tease out all of these little details (such as the fact that the “Glory to the Father” is said after each and every Psalm and Canticle, prior to repeating the Antiphon) if you study the front matter of the book diligently; but it would be very easy to be hopelessly lost. Again, fortunately, there is help, of two kinds.

First, as laypeople we aren’t required to say the Hours in any form, let alone in complete fidelity to the rubrics. It is good to be in prayer, and there’s nothing innately sinful about leaving portions of the Hours out, or making mistakes. If you’re anal-retentive, like me, you’ll want to do it just right—but in this context that might not always be a virtue. It’s the conversation with God that’s key, not dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.

Second, there are tutorials available that walk you through the whole process. Red Neck Woman recommends a book called The Divine Office for Dodos, which unfortunately is out of print. Apparently you can find it used, and their website indicates that a new edition is due out this March. Alternatively, both Jen and I independently found a tutorial called “Discovering Prayer” which can be downloaded in PDF form from the Rosary Shop. I found it to be very helpful, and Seth Murray, who is both the author of the tutorial and the proprietor of the Rosary Shop, has been very kind about answering my further questions.

Bottom line: there is a significant learning curve to get started praying any of the hours, but there are resources to help with that; and after the first day of actually trying it, and with the intent not to sweat the small stuff, I found it to be quite easy and natural. But more of that in the next post.

Part III