The Liturgy of the Hours: The sanctification of time

 

The reading from the handbook today really explains the role that prayer and mortification has to play in the life of a legionary. In the section on prayer, the handbook identifies three forms of prayer that are essential for the Christian life: communal prayer, private prayer and ceaseless prayer.

Communal prayer consists largely in worship. In the first place, the handbook is at pains to remind us that the largest ingredient in a Christian's communal prayer is liturgy, comprised of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. We should note that, although these things are linked together in the same category (that is, liturgy), they have very different functions in the communal Christian life. In fact, there is no way that one of them can replace the other. Even though the Mass has infinite worth and results in the perfect adoration of God and complete satisfaction for both the living and the dead, it does not accomplish the same task in the Christian spiritual life that the Liturgy of the Hours does. This is a very important reminder in a world in which, more often than not, the Liturgy of the Hours is a book we read by ourselves rather than a communal celebration. In some previous ages, the only people who prayed the Hours by themselves were hermits laboring in their cells alone, deep in the literal desert or in the many "deserts" built by the Carthusian and Camaldolese hermits across the continent of Europe and beyond. Nevertheless, with the rise of literacy in the Late Middle Ages and the invention of printing halfway through the Renaissance, Books of Hours became exceedingly popular among clergy and laity alike. Now, in what many social scholars are increasingly referring to as the "Post-Modern Era" we all find ourselves hermits by our very circumstances, increasingly isolated from one another by technologies that were supposed to connect us. For example, on my return from my recent conference in Chicago, in row 23, on the starboard side of the aircraft were three of us sitting abreast. During the long delays on the ground at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, I (sitting in the aisle seat) was reading a book, but, nevertheless, was in frequent conversation with the lady across the aisle. The two young men sitting next to me, on the other hand, were both fitted with noise-cancelling earphones, hunched over, gazing at the lighted screens of their smartphones, scrolling through God knows what, oblivious to everything happening around them. This kind of isolation could be legitimately remedied by the conscious embrace of liturgy, namely the Liturgy of the Hours prayed from the individual's solitary circumstances.

Yes, the collection of services known as the Liturgy of the Hours has a different function than the Mass, and they cannot do without one another. The purpose of the Liturgy of the Hours is the sanctification of time. The Mass, on the other hand, being a service that is not bound to any particular time, but whose central action (the Mystery itself) happens outside of time and transcends time. Only the cycle of services in the Liturgy of the Hours can make time holy, consecrated to God, because every one of those services is attached to some certain, discrete period of time. Each of these services creates communion with God in that specific time and place.

Further, the Liturgy of the Hours is incredibly old. Three of the hours were initiated. under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, by the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These Hours are: The Morning Prayer (called in Hebrew Shacharit), the Evening Prayer (called in Hebrew Ma'ariv) and a Prayer at Noon (called in Hebrew Mincha), the prayer accompanying the daily sacrifice. The rest of the Hours were added in the First Temple period during the reigns of Kings David and Solomon. King David himself bears witness to the develop of this tradition when he says in the 118th Psalm, "seven times in the day have I praised You... At midnight I arose to give glory unto You."

The Second Vatican Council with its attempts to renew liturgical life in the Western Church states rather forcefully that the obligation to sanctify time cannot be reserved only to monks and other forms of religious, priests, etc. It is the responsibility of every Christian to consecrate time and experience to God. This is the very mechanism by which the cosmos itself is becomes holy.

I suggest to you all that you pray some of the Hours, and I have the following tips that I think will make the practice easier and more fruitful:

1) Start small. Introduce one or two of the Hours. Focus on quality over quantity.

2) Use a book, not your phone. The phone is not designed for concentration. In fact, it's designed for precisely the opposite. It's designed for distraction, because distraction, not concentration, makes advertising more effective. Using a book is per se more rational, less emotional, and thus, is more conducive to connection to Heaven, while the phone (for obvious reasons) connects us to this world. (It is, after all, a phone.)

3) Always offer each of the services for a specific intention. While it is true that it is Church's prayer, and it is offered for all the intentions of the Church, that certainly does not prevent you from assigning a specific intention that gives personal meaning to that particular time and place.

4) Consider lighting candles, burning incense and making the prescribed bows for the communal celebration even if you are alone (which you almost certainly will be). These ceremonies have the effect of sacralizing the atmosphere in which the Hour or Hours are being prayed, which, in turn, will lead to greater concentration and attachment to God during the time of prayer.