Tag Archives: liturgy

Continuing Discussion of the Liturgy of the Hours

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Dear Folks,

I have talked about the Liturgy of the Hours. The new edition will come out in January of next year. 

There are five “hours.”  There is morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer, office of readings, and night prayer. They don’t take an hour to do, but are called hours because they are geared toward certain times of day. There is morning prayer (lauds), mid-day prayer (terce, sext, or none, depending on whether you pray it mid-morning, mid-day, mid-afternoon), evening prayer (vespers), night prayer (compline), and the office of readings (whatever time works best). 

Before Vatican II, the breviary would get through all the Psalms every week. It was pretty much exclusively the work of priests and religious. The Second Vatican council called for it to be more widely available and to make it less burdensome. It was revised to do almost all the Psalms in four weeks (Psalms 58, 83, and 109 have been completely omitted, as well as several verses that were seen as doing more harm than good, like Psalm 137:7-9). There was a call then and by popes since that it be prayed more by lay people. 

Because this is liturgy, not a devotion, it is a way in which we are united all around the world and speaking with the voice of Christ giving worship to the Father. The liturgical year has a certain rhythm, with various seasons and feasts. Every Friday should have a little bit of Good Friday, and every Sunday should have a little bit of Easter Sunday. The Liturgy of the Hours puts us more in contact with that rhythm and helps each day have more of that rhythm throughout the day. 

There was a mini-series that came out in 2015 called A.D. (a remake of an earlier version). In episode 5 there is an example of Roman cruelty in the temple courtyard. Peter was there and spontaneously started reciting Psalm 69. Caiaphas was there and joined him.  I’m pretty sure they weren’t friends, but they could recite the Psalm together. I don’t know if that actually happened (probably not), but it could have. Imagine people from all over the diocese being able to do that.

The book that is used is called the Breviary, and the Liturgy of the Hours is also called the Divine Office. The full breviary has four volumes, but there is a one volume that gives less to the office of readings, and a Shorter Christian Prayer that is basically morning and evening prayer and night prayer.  The are also internet options. I have used iBreviary and some use divineoffice.org. This uses your phone, tablet or computer and it works but is not ideal. There is something powerful in having a sacred book set aside for a holy purpose. This is why the Missal in used as a book, but we are called not to use a tablet.

This is a way that Catholics can get together and pray as Catholics without a priest present. It is one way we can be a stronger Church with fewer priests. It is a part of opening the treasury of Catholic prayer more widely for more people. 

More Later.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Fully Praying the Mass

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Dear Folks,
Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. When we talk about the hope that the Catholic Church in America flourishes in the future, how much we flourish will revolve around how we respond to the Eucharist. The Second Vatican council has
given us some principles:
1. We are called to understand: Jesus is uniquely present, and makes present His one sacrifice on the cross (which happened once in history, but whose power is eternal, see Revelation 5). We are called to participate and be incorporated into that sacrifice,
that we can become an offering to God.
2. We are called to participate internally: The faithful are called to offer the Divine Victim not only through the priest, but together with him, and in so doing offer our own lives. We offer our work, our struggles, our suffering, our joys and sorrows, all the
aspects of our walking with God through the week.
3. We are called to participate externally: This expresses and strengthens our internal participation and encourages those around us to participate more fully (we are responsible for supporting each other). We are called to sing or say the words and do the actions that the liturgy gives us to do and do it like we mean it. There is no need to add a bunch of other things that the liturgy does not call us to do; we can focus on doing our part with all our minds and all our hearts. That will be challenge enough.
4. We are called to live out the meaning of what we celebrate in the rest of our lives that week. Think of how a bride and groom give themselves to each other in their marriage vows at their wedding and give themselves to each other is living out those vows
in their lives. The sacrament and the living out the sacrament form one act of selfgiving and each gives meaning and strength to the other.
Having someone who cares for us personally is unlike anything else in reality. I hear people are developing robots with artificial intelligence and the ability to mimic human expressions. They can be programmed to tell us how much they love us and how wonderful we are. Someone might fool themselves for a while with such a toy, but ultimately it is empty. What matters is encountering someone who truly loves us. No one loves us more than the Lord, and this most intimate encounter in the Eucharist is more precious than anything the earth can offer. Many people leave the Church or stop coming to Mass because they forget this or never were taught in the first place. If we realized what a great gift it is, how could we leave? What on earth could make us stop coming?
As I have said before, if we want a better church, if we want a better world, the first step is to fall more deeply in love with Jesus. One thing we can all do is ask: do I respond to the call to the Eucharist like I really believe in it?
Blessings,