Liturgy of the Hours

  The Liturgy of the Hours (also called The Divine Office) is the official daily prayer of the church. At the heart of the “Hours” or “Office” are the Psalms; all 150 Psalms are recited or sang over a three week period. In addition, the Hours include other selected prayers, readings from Scripture, the Church Fathers, the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and various spiritual writers.
  The Jewish custom of praying at designated times each day originated during the Babylonian Exile and was adopted by the early Christian community. The practice was common among lay and ordained persons in the early Church and formed a model for early monastic communities, where the monks gathered for prayer at established times throughout the day. Over the years, the habit of using an official prayer at designated hours was gradually limited to religious communities and the clergy.
  Today the Hours or Office are prayed in common at fixed hours by monastic communities of monks and nuns: Morning (Lauds), Midmorning (Terce), Midday (Sext), Mid-afternoon (None), Evening (Vespers), and Night (Compline). Most priests, deacons and men or women who have made vows in a religious community pray the Divine Office two or three times a day, usually Morning, Noon, and Evening. In recent years many lay (non-ordained and non-vowed) men and women have also begun praying the official Hours or a version of the Hours privately.
  This is how Elizabeth Collier explained the value of the Liturgy of the Hours in an article for America magazine: "It moves me deeply to think that people throughout the world, from all walks of life, are praying with similar texts each day. This provides an almost tangible connectedness that inspires me in the solitude of my home office. When I am able to pray in the morning, it brings a mindfulness to the gift of the day, which often stays with me after I walk out the door. The text itself provides not only the comforting repetition found in the Mass, but also enough variety that I have less of a tendency to go through the motions, as I do with other forms of prayer. By following the liturgical year I feel connected to the seasons of the church year in a way that I enjoyed when daily Mass was still an option for my schedule. And the readings for feast days allow me an opportunity to gain insight into the lives of inspiring men and women. Overall, the various types of prayers and readings touch upon the struggles and celebrations that occur in the lives of us all."
  Various versions of the Liturgy of the Hours are available in printed form. The most common ones for lay persons are Christian Prayer, Shorter Christian Prayer, and A Catholic Book of the Hours. Monthly prayer journals such as Give Us This Day and Magnificat also follow the Hours format. Various websites and smart phone applications are available for the Hours.

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Daily Prayer on Our Facebook Page

  The Daily Prayer which appears daily on our Facebook page is a variation on the Liturgy of the Hours designed for busy persons who wish to spend a few moments in prayer at the beginning of the day or at another time during the day. The Daily Prayer includes a short Psalm reading, petitions, a section from the Canticle of Zachary (Luke 1.68-79) and a section from the Lord’s Prayer.
  Here is one suggestion for how to use the Daily Prayer in the most helpful way:
1. Sit quietly for a few minutes and prepare yourself for prayer. When you are ready, read the opening antiphon (prayer).
2. Read the Psalm verse slowly and attentively. Read it a second time if you wish. Be attentive to a word, a phrase, a thought or image which strikes you about the verse. Consider what the author was trying to say, or how it applies to your life; if you were creating this psalm in your own words, what would you say?
A Note About the Psalms – The psalms are the song/prayers of the ancient Hebrew people, written between 1500 and 450 years before the birth of Christ. At times the Psalms portray a strong, vengeful, sometimes violent God; this is an impression or interpretation which was natural enough in ancient cultures but may be jarring to modern Christians accustomed to the merciful, loving, nonviolent image of God portrayed by Jesus in the New Testament. Remember that this is not so much a difference in how God actually is, but a difference in how human beings have perceived God through the lens of radically different social, political, historical and religious conditions.
3. Pray the petitions suggested for the day; think of people you know whose needs are expressed in these petitions. Add your personal needs and concerns.
4. Pray the day's selection from the Canticle of Zechariah. This prayer, traditionally prayed during Lauds, is attributed to the father of John the Baptist, who recognized in the events at hand that the long-awaited Messiah was coming. It is a reminder to us that this Messiah is now among us and awaits our recognition.
5. Reflect on the selection from the Lord’s Prayer. Although we are accustomed to praying this prayer in its entirety, pausing to reflect on a different phrase from the prayer can help us appreciate it more deeply.
6. Close your prayer time with a Glory Be or a spontaneous prayer in your own words.

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Learn More About the Liturgy of the Hours
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
[ link = http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgy-of-the-hours/ ]
“To Pray Always—the Liturgy of the Hours”
[ link = https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=264 ]
"Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions--the Liturgy of the Hours"
[ link = http://americamagazine.org/issue/426/article/liturgy-hours ]
“The Book of Psalms—Prayers for Everyday Living”
[ link = http://www.americancatholic.org/messenger/jan2005/feature2.asp ]
“Why Every Lay Person Should Pray the Liturgy of the Hours”
[ link = https://churchpop.com/2015/08/05/5-reasons-every-layperson-should-pray-the-liturgy-of-the-hours/]
Liturgy of the Hours Online
http://divineoffice.org/
http://www.ebreviary.com/