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Introductory Topics |
Liturgy of the Hours: Introduction Catholicism is fundamentally a religion of the community. Our roots are from Judaism,also a fundamentally communal religion. Our central history is as much about the acts of an individual named Jesus as it is about the group of apostles that he gathered around himself. Even our God is a triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), incomprehensible as a single person. It is with this in mind that we approach the Liturgy of the Hours. Liturgy means a public gathering in prayer. And the prayers in the Liturgy of the Hours are, in their purest form, prayers to be entered into with a community. Their even tempo can be experienced in the passing of prayer from one half of the group to the other and back again. Their ancient pacing is ensured by their grounding in our faith's oldest religious poetry and songs, the Psalms. Their comforting quiet separates on section from another. Their steady progression marks out the day from dawn through the night. The Liturgy of the Hours has its origin in the Jewish synagogue worship, dating back as far as 586 B.C., when the destruction of the Jewish temple made the daily sacrificial offering difficult, and the centrality of the Psalms was established. In the early Christian Church, the Didache, or the Teaching of the 12 Apostles, began to define the plea to "pray always" by recommending that Christians pray the Lord's Prayer 3 times a day. Soon it become common for Christian to pray upon rising, in the early evening at the agape meal (or love feast...a Christian meal framed by the love of those present), and upon retiring. A couple centuries later, a great teacher of the Church, Tertullian, clarified the form a little more by imploring Christians to pray at the 3rd hour, when beginning the day; at the 6th hour, when Christ was nailed to the cross; and at the 9th hour, when Christ died. In the 4th century, the ruler of the Roman world, Constantine, converted to Christianity and suddenly it become a public religion, no longer practiced in secret for fear of retribution. And with that came renewed public observance of these prayers. Gradually, communities of religious people gathered in monasteries and began to take on this Liturgy of the Hours, or Breviary, as their central prayer form. By the 12th century, the Breviary became almost the sole domain of religious monks, and gradually priests and nuns. It remained this way until the 20th century when the Church realized that the laity, those people like us who are not ordained ministers, are the central praying community of the Church. And a renewed appeal came out to make the Liturgy of the Hours a prayer of the laity. In the early 1960s, a gathering of all the leadership of the Catholic Church met in Rome for several years, in a conference called Vatican II, and began to define a new mission for the Church of our era. Fundamental to that mission was the integral role of the laity in making the Church a true body of believers, a true symbol of the Body of Christ. It is with this in mind that we should approach the Liturgy of the Hours. To see the Liturgy of the Hours for today, click here. For more instructions on how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, click here. |