Always and Everywhere to Give Thanks
An encouraging sign among students at Boston College (and I hope elsewhere) is their discovery of the Liturgy of the Hours. Here is how Gregory Collins, OSB, in his Meeting Christ in His Mysteries speaks of this celebration:
What then are we doing when we pray the Liturgy of the Hours at regular intervals throughout the day? … The ultimate goal of this form of prayer is the continuous awareness that one’s life is rooted and grounded in Christ and sustained by the Holy Spirit. It aims to make the whole of life, with all its ups and downs, highs and lows, and ordinary quotidian rhythms, into a continuous song of praise, a thanksgiving to and glorification of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for the wonderful gift of creation — and the still more wonderful gift of recreation through the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord. It is an opening of the heart so that God can impress on it the rhythm of the paschal mystery.
One of the most interesting things I found when I began here in the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras is the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours. At the Catholic Radio station they began the 6 am Mass with praying the psalms of Lauds/Morning Prayer. In the parish where I’m helping the pastor is promoting the Liturgy of the Hours for the many pastoral workers, most of whom have very little formal education. I’ve found the Liturgy of the Hours a great companion throughout the years – and it’s always good when I hear that more people are finding this treasure.
For those of us who have a computer as their constant companion, there are free online resources, for example http://www.universalis.com/ . This way, we don’t have anything to figure out: just choose the time of day and see the corresponding prayers. It’s just one click away! (But note that they have their own, less than perfect psalm wordings, for copyright reasons.)
These days, when taking a break from work often means, not chatting with colleagues, but surfing the web and reading the news, it offers an alternative: take a break, grab some coffee, read a prayer! (In fact, that happens to be my Lent project for this year.)
On the downside it is quite distracting. The news or random internet surfing just enter and leave our consciousness without leaving a trace, but a prayer may linger, and then how do we get our full focus back to work? This “always and everywhere to give you thanks” attitude is fine in theory, but I don’t know how practical it is in real life.
On the upside, for those of us who wince when they hear the new missal, it is a great alternative to weekday Mass (which I used to attend on occasion, but not any more). Another advantage is that no priest is required. With the diminishing number of priests, shifting from the Mass to other liturgies may be good planning.
What does it mean, that the BC students are “discovering” the Liturgy of the Hours? Are they learning how to manipulate the bewildering array of bookmarks and navigate a breviary? That seems impossible.
Claire asks:
“What does it mean, that the BC students are “discovering” the Liturgy of the Hours? Are they learning how to manipulate the bewildering array of bookmarks and navigate a breviary? That seems impossible.”
“With God nothing is impossible.” Besides, they’re bright :-)
I don’t want to enter into further discussion of the new translation of the Missal. There are certainly awkward phrasings. But the substance of the Lenten prayers makes for solid meditation. So the collect for today’s Mass:
“Guard your Church, we pray, o Lord, in your unceasing mercy,
and since without you mortal humanity is sure to fall,
may we be kept by your constant helps from all harm
and directed to all that brings salvation
through Christ our Lord.”
To which: a heartfelt “Amen.”
Hi, Claire, I agree with your comment about navigating the breviary. It organization principle follows that of the other liturgical books, but istm that this is more helpful for clergy than for the person in the pews who may not otherwise open one of those books.
I also agree with you that websites such as Universalis solve that problem but somewhat imperfectly; and I also agree that copyright reasons are a big obstacle here. The English texts themselves are a pastiche of a number of different sources. E.g. the psalms, the canticles and the readings are all from different translations whose rights are held by different organizations. (And if I’m not mistaken, the antiphons to the psalms are from a different translation than the psalms themselves). The bishops’ conferences don’t directly control all these sources, but I believe they could corral the different owners to cooperate and make the texts available, at no charge, in a consecutive format such as is available at http://www.ebreviary.com
I’ve never understood the practice/obligation of saying the Divine Office (or one of the many little offices).
As a child, I would see the parish priests, in their cassocks, breviaries in hand, walking back and forth across the playground, saying the office. Sister explained that they had to get it all in every day under pain of sin.
No one ever explained how the lengthy prayers do not violate Jesus’ specific directive: “And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”
I feel the same way about the Jesus Prayer, the rosary, and any repetitive recitation. Why not just talk to God as a child talks to her parents? Does God prefer ancient laments to the plain language of living people?
Fr. Imbelli, I take it from your post that a group of undergraduates is now meeting regularly to pray the Hours? That is interesting and exciting.
Regarding the quote by Gregory Collins OSB that Fr. Imbelli provided: I have to say that the Trinity and Jesus are not always explicitly evident in the texts of Morning and Evening Prayer, which are weighted more toward the Hebrew Scriptures than the mass is. It can be a challenge sometimes to find Jesus in them. It sometimes requires reading the texts in certain ways.
JP,
Yes, it is exciting. There are also grad students doing so. To pray with young voices is a joy. And as Gregory Collins insists: the Liturgy of the Hours is not a clerical preserve.
As for your point regarding the explicit presence of Jesus and the Trinity in the Liturgy of the Hours:
Of course, the “Glory to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” brings the psalms to a Trinitarian fulfillment;
But you raise a point that I have often lamented: the loss of the wonderful Christological and Trinitarian hymns of the Latin breviary.They are also sensitively attuned to the rhythms of the day.
You may be familiar with the book “Exsultemus: Rejoicing with God in the Hymns of the Roman Breviary,” edited and translated by Martin O’Keefe, S.J. It has all the hymns with a translation by Father O’Keefe. The translation is free and flowery, but if one can catch a good bit of the (often difficult) Latin, one can use the translation to figure out the rest.
I suspect that one of the liturgists who read the blog may be able to point us toward other translations. At least I hope so, because the Latin hymns are a treasure we should not lose.
Another good website for the Office http://divineoffice.org/
Here is a nice website for hymns: http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni.html And I join Fr. Imbelli in recommending Exultemus, as well as the Mundelein Psalter.
Gerelyn,
I also question the “vain repetitions” that you speak of. I would except the Jesus Prayer, however, since its purpose (I think) is to reach an inner silence helping to fend off the zillion little distractions our minds like to play with. See, for instance, Martin Laird, “Into the Silent Land” (Oxford U. Press). He’s at Villanova, but from his writing style, I would imagine he’s a Brit.
And there are certainly people who draw much nourishment from “vain repetitions,” though I don’t seem to be one of them. My shortcoming, no doubt.
Good site Kathy! I added a link to it on the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breviary in the section on post-Vatican II Catholic breviaries (such minor edits to wikipedia take about 2 minutes). Correct?
Gerelyn–
It’s unfortunate that Sister explained it to you that way. Used as directed, I imagine it meant much more than she realized to those who availed themselves of the gift.
I think one of the mysteries of the rosary is how its rhythm and cadences lead inexorably to some form of meditation. I defy anyone to recite the rosary without it leading to “the plain language of living people.”
Claire and Jim, thanks for the links.
Hi, Mark:
(Sister belongs to an order from which the Divine Office had been removed and to which it was restored. It has continued without interruption at her monastery since 1892. There is no reason to question her understanding of the breviary.)
About the rosary? St. Therese, a Doctor of the Church, said “. . . the recitation of the rosary is more difficult for me than the wearing of an instrument of penance…. I force myself in vain to meditate on the mysteries of the rosary; I don’t succeed in fixing my mind on them….”
Hi, Nicholas C.
(When I think of the Jesus prayer, I think of Franny and Zooey.)
I don’t think it’s a shortcoming on your part to agree with Jesus.
Looks right, Claire.
Just by the way, I heard a nice homily on not-judging the other day, and it was illustrated with an Ipad. The priest said that he reads his breviary from the Ipad, and that just as people might have thought he was being frivolous in church when he wasn’t, people sometimes judge each other without really understanding. I don’t know why I’m mentioning this except it was my first Ipad breviary homily.
Also just by the way, I have an essay on Latin hymn translation in the January 2012 number of Usus Antiquior.
Kathy,
Thank you for the very helpful link to the Latin hymns. Is your article online for non-subscribers?
Gerelyn, one place where I like repetition is in the Taize hymns. Don’t you like them?
Gerelyn–
I stand corrected: It looks like you are in good company in your difficulty praying the rosary. It does appear that, regardless, St. Therese saw good in it:
“I think that the Queen of Heaven being my Mother, she must see my good will and be content with it.”
Hi, Claire:
I’m not familiar with Taize hymns. I saw a Rick Steves show about it, but that’s about it.
I guess my taste in hymns hasn’t altered in fifty years. When the Latin mass was dumped, I lost interest in Church music. There were English hymns I liked, but they didn’t make the transition: Gelineau psalms; hymns from the Pius X Hymnal like Be Thou My Vision and Peace, It Is I; Fr. Lord’s songs like An Army of Youth.
http://www.hymnlyrics.org/requests/an_army_of_youth.php
I can remember one time when the rosary was useful: staying by someone’s deathbed. Silence is heavy and talk is difficult, especially for many hours. We wish to pray but don’t know how to: then we can say the rosary. I find it mind-numbing, but under those circumstances, mind-numbing is good. Everyone can join in, even the ones who have not set foot inside a church for years. Even the dying person, if still half-conscious, can also participate.
Otherwise, well, if people like saying the rosary, good for them (Unagidon had a series of long posts explaining how it was transformative for him.) And good for us that we don’t have to do it if we don’t like it.
Hi, Mark:
I didn’t say I have “difficulty praying the rosary”. I don’t pray the rosary, so there’s no difficulty. I don’t multiply words as the heathen do.
(I gave away my collection of rosaries a couple of years ago. I kept only the very best ones. Including two I bought at the Carmel at Lisieux.)
Claire, thanks for the reminder. I updated my final directives recently, but forgot to include the Prayers for the Dying I want said as I shuffle off this mortal coil.
Fr. Imbelli, you are very kind to ask. The article is offered for subscribers-only right now, though, so I’d better not share it so publicly without their permission. It might not be cricket, as they say.
With a little practice the St. Paul Press’s “Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours” can be navigated with a minimum of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. My copy only has 6 ribbons.
In 1995 the Chicago-based LTP published “Psalms for Morning and Evening Prayer” which is a quick and easy way to at least identify appropriate readings for morning, mid-day and evening prayer.
Collins Liturgical Press USA, in 1987 (easier to use than the 1983 ed), published “A Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer (2 ribbons only!) that is quite easy to navigate and condensed for the busy schedule that most people have.
Joseph Arackal, VC, a Syro-Malabar priest, published “Praying in Inclusive Language: Morning and Evening Prayer; The Four Week Psalter” (Patmos Press, 1992) that is easy to use. It was reissued in 1993 by the Ligurgical Press. His attempts at inclusive language are a bit stilted, but were a valiant attempt to “go where no man has ever gone before.” It is still available for purchase online for about $13. For a sample of his translation of Ps 23, go to: http://bibles.wikidot.com/sample-arackal.
He also produced a book entitled Twenty-Two Gathering Prayers: Praying in Inclusive Language (1992 Sheed and Ward).
Lastly, I highly recommend “Psalter for the Christian People: An Inclusive-Language Revision of the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer” (1979 Pueblo Books).
Kathy, maybe they’ve updated the site since you last looked, but I get the impression that your article can be purchased by anyone for $39.00.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/usu/2012/00000003/00000001/art00005
Thank you, Gerelyn, that is correct.
For some reason I’m reminded of Merton’s couplet: “Poems are naught but warmed-up breeze/ Dollars are made by Trappist cheese.”
Cheeses for Jesus.
Kathy, thanks for that link to divineoffice.org – that is AWESOME!
Jim, I couldn’t believe it. I was doing a vespers program and after trying universalis’ translation had resigned myself to typing the thing for the rest of Lent. And then I did the google, and voila.
Why not just talk to God as a child talks to her parents? Does God prefer ancient laments to the plain language of living people?
Since no answer has come up yet, here’s a first stab (purely hypothetical):
- Lack of inspiration, lack of material. Seldom does a child talk to her parents while being in listening mode. When they talk at length, which is rare, they’re mostly focused on themselves. Real exchanges between child and parent are usually brief, in my experience. As for myself, if I had to exclusively make up my own words to pray, I would run out of words very quickly and start repeating myself in the dreariest manner.
- Praying with others. Even if I am praying alone, the knowledge that my prayer has been said before me by many others makes me part of a whole. It’s a form of communion, in a way. It’s the reason why I have a certain fondness for occasional Latin in spite of everything.
- Forming my beliefs. Over time, what I say when I pray insidiously influences what I believe. If I always make up my own prayers, I will always be highlighting one or another aspect of our relationship to God, and eventually my image of him will change accordingly.
(and here I am biting my tongue to refrain from adding a remark about the new missal.)
- For the psalms specifically: beauty. They are not just a prayer, but they are also beautiful, and that helps me pray.
Thank you, Claire. Exactly! From someone who has been praying the breviary for fifty years. I can recall the days when one needed six ribbons and three holy cards. Octaves spilled into octaves, and Second Vespers of a Double of the First Class bumped into First Vespers of a feast of the same rank. And nine readings at Matins most days, very long (second nocturn) readings on the feast of Christ the King and St. John of the Cross. All pretty daunting for an eighteen-year old kid from Bethesda, but now I don’t have to worry about keeping the pitch on the sustaining note. (The Italian breviary gives the hymns from the Liturgia Horarum both in Latin and Italian.)
(I join you in biting my tongue. The wound doesn’t heal.)
When we pray the Liturgy of the Hours (or any formal prayer), we pray in communion with the entirety of the Church — both horizontally and vertically, those present here on earth and the faithful in history now in heaven and purgatory — One People of God, and not as a billion individuals, all separate and apart from the others, each doing their own thing.
John Page,
if an eighteen year old could manage that, perhaps B.C. students are not really doing the impossible with only five ribbons and one holy card.
It sounds like I should get hold of the Italian breviary.Is that what you use?
As for praying the psalms, in addition to Claire’s fine reflections, one might add: they join us to the prayer of the Lord … even to the hour of his death.
Thanks, Claire, for the lovely answers to my questions.
Several years ago I heard that a group of students at the University of Illinois Newman Center were praying the liturgy of the hours in common.
Fr Collins meditation prompts the thought that WE are not sanctifying the time as much as recognizing through praise the sacred in which we find ourselves.
My favorite version of the Latin rite office is the Irish – UK. The intercessions seem to have a depth that suits the spirit of intercession. Many of the old Latin hymns for the hours are available in nice translation in the back, if you have an extra ribbon, or post-it note in 21st century usage.
Post-its were invented by a man who worked for 3M and sang in a church choir and wanted to keep his bookmarks from falling out of his hymnal.
These students – do they chant the hours? If so, what tones to they use? Inquiring minds want to know.
[...] is the original post: dotCommonweal » Blog Archive » Always and Everywhere to Give … ← Lent Quotes: Andrew Murray – “Prayer Needs Fasting for Its Full [...]
On a visit of the Newman Center at Champaign-Urbana I saw a stack of office books and was told of the gathering for morning and evening prayer — so I don’t know the specifics.
The Dominican friars at the Studium in DC have used simple and beautiful psalm tones over the years. Their tones might use one note as the recitative and then two notes for the last two syllables of the line; the second line of the couplet would have a similar cadence. One could chant the morning newspaper.
At Ecole Normale Superieure the Catholic students meet every morning at 8am for Lauds. It started in the 1950s, I think, and has continued without interruption since then. The numbers are tiny, but there are always one or two students who know how to chant, and it is a simple matter for the others to follow.
“Post-its were invented by a man who worked for 3M and sang in a church choir and wanted to keep his bookmarks from falling out of his hymnal.”
You mean there’s another use for them? :-)
The http://divineoffice.org/ link on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breviary has been removed! (A user called Hu12 removed it today.) What could be wrong with the divineoffice website, that would not also be wrong with the plethora of other websites linked from that page?
I don’t understand what was questionable about the link to divineoffice.org. Why would someone do that?