The Liturgy of the Hours: Demystifying the Prayer of the Church

The Liturgy of the Hours: Embrace Your Inner Catholic Nerd
The Liturgy of the Hours (also called the Divine Office, Daily Office, the Hours, Breviary) is probably the nerdiest Catholic thing I do, and I’m going to be honest with you—it is confusing, can be complicated and is not user-friendly. There are guides and apps, that make participating in this “prayer of the Church” simpler, but if you really want to get your hands dirty (which I always recommend), you need to approach this prayer as if you’re learning a new skill or language.

The Divine Office: Unintended Mystery
It’s a bit of a shame that the Divine Office can be so cumbersome and intimidating, because it really is the perfect prayer for the domestic church. Everything is written down and laid out for you, and designed to follow the Liturgical seasons. You can recite as many or as few of the Hours as you want, and since you and I aren’t bound by a steadfast Rule of Life (although you should have one, or be working on building one) we can recite the Hours whenever our schedules allow. It is packed with Scripture, especially the Psalms, and its structure can really help you feel like your household is a domestic church as opposed to a group of disorganized humans racing from the next thing to the next thing.

Why though? Why the Liturgy of the Hours?
To be blunt, I’ve yet to find a really good, or maybe a well-articulated argument for the laity joining in this ancient form of prayer. That isn’t because there aren’t good reasons; there are, but the issue lies in the most-often repeated reason in favor—“It is the ancient prayer of the Church.” So what? What does that even mean? Isn’t the Mass “the ancient prayer of the Church?” Bear with me as I try to answer this question, because I’ve been looking for good answers for a while.

From King David to Now: Psalms as the Bedrock of Liturgical Worship and Prayer
Our religious and spiritual roots are Jewish and there are a lot of similarities or carry-overs from Judaism that many modern Western Catholics simply cannot recognize. Judaism is a deeply liturgical religion. With liturgy comes music and religious texts and prayers, and you’ll find no better combination of those things than in the Psalms of King David. In Mass, a Responsorial Psalm is heard following the first reading and that is essentially the context within which the Psalms live, and come to life—in worship, in liturgy. The oral recitation or chanting of Psalms was a feature of many early Christian monastic communities, and it’s simply logical that, with so many early Christians being Jewish converts, no other portion of Scripture had been so thoroughly committed to memory or grafted into a people’s spiritual heritage.

The LOTH (Liturgy of the Hours) is comprised mainly of Psalms, or excerpts of Psalms. I often think back to the first few centuries of the Church and imagine that, though they had limited exposure to the written Gospels and other works that would ultimately constitute the New Testament, our earliest Christian family relied on the Psalms to help continue and deepen their worship of God. I can imagine them in small groups, maybe teaching Gentile converts some of the most common Psalms, singing or chanting the poetry of David but with fresh, new eyes, and long before our liturgies took on any formal or broadly-accepted structure. It isn’t an overstatement to say the Psalms are the foundation of Christian prayer, both public and private, and constituted major portions of Scripture in the Early Church (the Psalms are the most-often quoted Scripture by New Testament authors).

Praying Like Priests: The Missal and Lectionary for Lay People
“OK,” you say, “I get it, the Psalms are important. But why do I need the formality and structure of the Divine Office? Can’t I just pray the Psalms like a devotional?” If you remember your sacraments, you’ll recall that we are made priests, prophets, and kings via baptism and confirmation. In the broad sense, priests conduct and lead worship, and Catholic priests specifically don’t just make up the prayers or words of the Mass on the fly, but rather use a Missal that contains everything we hear them say at every Mass. The “companion” to the Missal is the Lectionary, the book which contains all the readings from Scripture that are not Gospels. The LOTH is the laity’s Missal and Lectionary. Reciting the Liturgy of the Hours, especially with a breviary like the one-volume Christian Prayer, is exactly where our role as priests and heads of our domestic churches is meant to be fulfilled. And, you don’t even need to get dressed up to recite them—pray it at home or work or anywhere in between when you’ve got 10–15 minutes.

Alone Together: The Ecclesial Essence of the Divine Office
I am not what polite society deems a “people person.” I like people just fine, so long as they’re more or less far away from wherever I am, and remain there. I am an introvert whose idea of the perfect vacation is the library in Beauty and the Beast. I read The Life of Antony and think, “That guy had it figured out.” Volunteering for or being involved in community church events is more like penance for me, so it will not surprise you that I recite the Divine Office alone. Yet there are entire communities of professionally religious brothers and sisters, as well as groups of laity, who are also reciting the same prayers I am, and that makes this practice ecclesial in a unique way. Worship is communal—we profess belief in a Trinitarian God, so the Father is communal by nature. Church (especially for Catholics) isn’t an option or a nice addition to our walk with Jesus; it’s an essential and expected aspect of it. The Divine Office links its participants in a way that the Mass does not. While I’m reciting Morning Prayer in the water lab of the boiler room, a Carmelite nun in Spain or a Trappist monk in Portugal might be joining their spiritual voice with mine. When my home is quiet and I recite Night Prayer, there are mothers and fathers all over the world—people with the same worries and hopes and questions that I have—doing the same. There is truly no other prayer like the LOTH in the whole of Christianity.

Liturgical Dye: How the Hours Color Our Daily Thoughts, Prayers and Language
You may feel like asking, “What am I supposed to get out of this?”, and it’s a fair question because the Divine Office doesn’t have a reputation for being a spiritual weapon or powerful personal devotion; you don’t really hear people say, “Yes, the Divine Office delivered me from years of addiction, fixed my marriage, and returned my adult children to the faith.” If you imagine your life as white fabric that is dyed at the moments in your day or week where you make real contact with the Church and Her liturgical life, you (like most of us) likely have a predominantly white piece of fabric. For most Catholics, weekly Mass and some private Scripture reading is about it, and you pick up some more dye during the major liturgical seasons of Lent and Advent. If you commit daily to a single Hour of the Divine Office, now you’re really starting to see some change in the white fabric. This is soaking your life in Scripture and prayer in a way you cannot replicate on your own. You will start to think in the language of the Psalms; you’ll begin to make connections to a Psalm and something that happened to you during your day, or you’ll take an issue to the Lord in prayer and find David struggling with the same thing in the next Hour you pray. Over time, this ancient prayer changes how you think, feel, and pray. You’ll absorb the liturgical and spiritual rhythm of the Church; like an expat who slowly picks up a new accent, you’ll begin speaking in the language of the Church.

Transition Points: Sanctifying Time You Already Have
The Divine Office also offers a way to structure your day around something holy and liturgical. Instead of waking up to mindlessly scroll your phone or (my personal favorite) sit on the edge of the bed in the dark in existential quandary, sanctify this time by reciting Morning Prayer. Replace your lunch hour YouTube with the meditative Office of Readings. Recite parts of Evening Prayer as a family before or after dinner. Read Night Prayer to your cat before bed. So often we Catholic adults complain that we just don’t have the time for a Rosary or Adoration or one more devotional practice. The Church, as usual, has an answer—sanctify the time you already have. They may be called “the Hours,” but most of these prayers take 10 or 15 minutes, and you have a lot of freedom to adjust the practice. Praying the LOTH marks the transitions in my day that are happening anyway, but now I dye them in the colors of the language and prayer of Holy Mother Church. Sanctifying time in this way, in the midst of our modern lives, is perhaps the most essential part of your domestic priesthood. Indeed, to “sanctify” means to “set apart as holy,” which is certainly what we should be striving to accomplish as the Good Shepherd’s sheep. If you allow it, the Divine Office can be the foundation of this sanctification.

From Boiler Room to Living Room: My Daily Practice
During the work week, I say Morning Prayer in my office or lab at work, usually between 7 a.m.–9 a.m. If I have time and want to, I’ll do Mid-Morning Prayer a few hours later but before lunch. Evening Prayer is said when I get home, typically 4 p.m.–5 p.m., and is what marks my transition from “work” to “home.” I change out of my work clothes then say Evening Prayer in my bedroom. Night Prayer is my personal favorite Hour, and it’s the last “official” or structured prayer of my day. After my wife and I have done our Examen and any other praying, I say Night Prayer in the quiet, empty living room (though sometimes my wife sticks around for it because she likes Night Prayer, too). If I skip the Office of Readings (and I often do), my total daily time for the Divine Office is about 30 minutes, give or take.

Where to Start
First, the LOTH is like a lot of things in life—you may not “get it” right away, but maybe after a week or two or a month, you suddenly start to understand. You may not be able to articulate it, but you see the practice bearing fruit in your life, you start to look forward to starting your day with Morning Prayer or reciting Night Prayer as a family before bed. It very much is a “you just have to try it” sort of thing, so try to keep an open mind and have some grace, in general.

Shorter Christian Prayer – The entire text of the LOTH is comprised of multiple large volumes. Shorter Christian Prayer is pared down and offers the very basic, fundamental aspects of the practice. This will introduce you to the most commonly recited prayers and Psalms, as well as help you begin navigating the core of the Office, the Psalter. And, if you move on to a larger volume like Christian Prayer, having a copy of SCP to throw in a weekend bag or pull out in a waiting room is nice.

Christian Prayer – I sincerely wish there was an intermediate step between Shorter Christian Prayer and Christian Prayer, but to my knowledge there isn’t. Christian Prayer should be more than enough for most of us—it includes the Psalter from SCP but adds in prayers and readings for the liturgical seasons, a healthy selection of hymns (which you will no doubt sing much better than I), a section for saints, and options for the Office of Readings, as well as the “minor” Hours like Midmorning, Midafternoon, etc. I keep my copy in a Bible bag rather than a breviary case because I want room to keep things I use during the prayers, like holy water and a small bell. I use page tabs to mark certain sections, especially ones used often. I’ve included pictures so you can see my set-up.

St. Joseph Guide for Christian Prayer – This is a small, inexpensive pamphlet designed to work with Christian Prayer. It has the page numbers for each Hour of the day and is especially helpful when you get into times where there’s a lot of page-flipping (like Easter), or if you’re confused about where you should be. I keep my guide in the case I have for my copy of Christian Prayer. This is a must-have resource.

A Layman’s Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours – How the Prayer of the Church Can Change Your Life, by Fr. Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V. – In his characteristic style, Fr. Gallagher gives us a book that is part companion and part guide. I’m sure the idea of buying a book to teach you how to use a book is, at best, silly to you, but Fr. Gallagher is a truly devout and wise priest and we all should have one or two of his books on our shelves. His is my favorite modern resource for understanding the “why” of the LOTH, and he does a good job with the “how,” as well.

St. Augustine's Commentary on the Psalms- This 3 volume set is a solid addition to any Catholic bookshelf, especially if you really enjoy the Psalms or find them dense or confusing.  Next to the St. Joseph guide, I'd recommend this above every other resource.

Apps – There are a few apps you can use if you aren’t a book person or maybe forget your copy of Christian Prayer at home. I have the Divine Office app and iBreviary. They’re both good, but I happen to be a book person so I simply do not use them often. Nevertheless, they’re solid resources.

YouTube – There are enough good instructional videos for using both Shorter Christian Prayer and Christian Prayer that I won’t directly link any, but if you set aside 20–30 minutes you should have a decent idea of what’s going on. You’ll probably have to return to the video (I know I did), but allow yourself some grace to do it imperfectly.

Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary (optional) – I keep a copy of the Little Office of the BVM in a side-pocket of my breviary case. This is structured like Shorter Christian Prayer and is easy to use, especially if you’re already comfortable with the LOTH. I use it more frequently during the month of May or on Marian feast days, or while doing any one of the various forms of Marian Consecration. I’ll also occasionally use the Night Prayer in the Little Office instead of the one in Christian Prayer.

As a wise man once said, that’s all I got to say about that. I hope my perspective and experience with the LOTH helps you and gives you some assurance and assistance to begin this beautiful and fruitful prayer. I know this is a little lengthy, but my lack of brevity is the result of my long-suffered frustrations born of doing something I know is good, but not really knowing fundamentally why—I simply couldn’t hear “ancient prayer of the Church” one more time!