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Liturgy of Hours
Blogged by Ella Preece on 19th July 2010
As part of their vocation members of the priesthood and religious orders take part in the Liturgy of Hours or the Divine Office. The beauty of this Liturgy is that every hour of the day somewhere in the world this “celebration of the mystery of Christ” is taking place and there is a constant prayer being offered up for the universal Church. Though it is the duty of the religious to say the Divine Office as part of their vocation many lay people also join in this prayer of the Church. It is the duty of Catholics to pray for the world in which they live, for their children and to fulfill this service they too join their prayers to that of the universal Church, “all who render this service are not only fulfilling a duty of the Church, but also are sharing in the greatest honour of Christ's spouse”.
Reader Comments
Liberal Traditionalist said...
Nice idea - if only our Parish Priests gave this some thought.
Apart from Westminster Cathedral and the Blqckfriars at Oxford, I'm not aware of any Catholic Church that provides a public celebration of the Divine Office.
Westminster Cathedral celebrates said Morning Prayer (in English) and Sung Vespers (in Latin) every weekday.
The Anglicans are more active with many churches offering Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and (if you're lucky) Choral Evensong (using the 1662 Book of Common Prayer).
Broadeing-out daily worship might get round the Canon Law restrictions on how often Priests Celenbrate the Mass. Again, opening churches for longer than one hour each Sunday might just save more souls.
If there's a Parish Priest out there, do let us know what you are doing.
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Mark Dobson said...
It sounds like I was lucky to be in Exeter then. At Sacred Heart I believe there's morning prayer every day at least.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm not convinced that the Anglicans are more active, at least as a whole. It's only a certain kind of Anglican who even knows what the Office is.
It's a different story here in Italy; a lot of parishes offer it. However, one does get the impression that it's more from force of habit. Don Alcide has recently been trying to get the congregation to listen to each other - it generally sounds more like a collection of half-hearted muttered individual celebrations, which rather misses the point I (and he, presumably) feel.
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Yorkmum said...
I can only speak from personal experience, but here in our parish in York there is morning prayer or evening prayer said in the church before the daily mass (or communion service in absence of priest). Also at my mum's parish down in Kent they similarly say some of the daily office in the church.
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