Liturgy of the Hours
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- This article refers to the Liturgy of the Hours as a specific manifestation of public prayer in the Roman Catholic Church. For its application in other communions, see canonical hours.
The Liturgy of the Hours (Latin: Liturgia Horarum) is the name given in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church to the official prayer whereby the hours of the day are consecrated to God. A similar prayer service has formed part of the Church's public worship from the earliest times, and Christians of both Eastern and Western tradition (including Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans) celebrate such services under various names. In Greek the corresponding services are found in the Ὡρολόγιον (Horologion), meaning Book of Hours. The Liturgy of the Hours of the Latin Rite was formerly called the Divine Office (the Duty for God), the Breviary, "Diurnal and Nocturnal Office", "Ecclesiastical Office", Cursus ecclesiasticus, or simply cursus.[1]
The hours at which the Liturgy of the Hours is celebrated are known as the Canonical hours.
The Psalter, or Book of Psalms, is by tradition the heart of the Liturgy of the Hours.
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[edit] Origins
The early Christians continued the Jewish practice of reciting prayers at certain hours of the day or night. In the Psalms we find expressions like "in the morning I offer you my prayer"; "At midnight I will rise and thank you" ; "Evening, morning and at noon I will cry and lament"; "Seven times a day I praise you". The Apostles observed the Jewish custom of praying at the third, sixth and ninth hour and at midnight (Acts 10:3, 9; 16:25; etc.). The Christian prayer of that time consisted of almost the same elements as the Jewish: recital or chanting of psalms, reading of the Old Testament, to which were soon added readings of the Gospels, Acts, and epistles, and canticles such as the Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Other elements were added later in the course of the centuries.
[edit] Canonical hours
- Further information: Canonical Hours
By the end of the fifth century, the Liturgy of the Hours was composed of a Vigil or Night Service and seven day offices, of which Prime and Compline seem to be the last to appear, since the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions VIII, iv, 34 does not mention them in the exhortation: "Offer up your prayers in the morning, at the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, the evening, and at cock-crowing".[2]
These eight hours were known by the following names:
- Matins (during the night), sometimes referred to as Vigils or Nocturns; it is now called the Office of Readings.
- Lauds or Dawn Prayer (at Dawn)
- Prime or Early Morning Prayer (First Hour = 6 a.m.)
- Terce or Mid-Morning Prayer (Third Hour = 9 a.m.)
- Sext or Midday Prayer (Sixth Hour = 12 noon)
- None or Mid-Afternoon Prayer (Ninth Hour = 3 p.m.)
- Vespers or Evening Prayer ("at the lighting of the lamps")
- Compline or Night Prayer (before retiring)
Prime was suppressed by the Second Vatican Council, reducing the number of canonical hours to the Biblical seven.
Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 480 – 543) is credited with having given this organization to the Liturgy of the Hours. However, his scheme was taken from that described by John Cassian, in his two major spiritual works, the Institutes and the Conferences, in which he described the monastic practices of the Desert Fathers of Egypt.
An Invitatory precedes the canonical hours of the day beginning with "Lord, open my lips. And we shall praise your name", and continuing with an antiphon and the Invitatory Psalm, usually Psalm 94/95 .
All psalms and canticles are accompanied by antiphons.
Unless the Invitatory is used, each Hour begins with "O God, come to our aid. O Lord, make haste to help us", followed by a hymn. Each Hour concludes with a prayer followed by a short versicle and response.
Matins or the Hour of Readings is the longest hour. Before Pope Pius X's reform, it involved the recitation of 18 psalms on Sundays and 12 on ferial days. Pope Pius X reduced this to 9 psalms or portions of psalms, still arranged in three "nocturns", each set of three psalms followed by a short reading. Pope Paul VI's reform reduced the number of psalms or portions of psalms to three, and the readings to two, but lengthened these. On certain days the Te Deum is sung or recited before the concluding prayer
After Pius X's reform, Lauds was reduced to four psalms or portions of psalms and an Old Testament canticle, putting an end to the custom of adding the last three psalms of the Psalter (148-150) at the end of Lauds every day. The number of psalms or portions of psalms is now reduced to two, together with one Old Testament canticle chosen from a wider range than before. After these there is a short reading and response and the singing or recitation of the Benedictus. Vespers has a very similar structure, differing in that Pius X assigned to it five psalms (now reduced to 2 psalms and a New Testament canticle) and the Magnificat took the place of the Benedictus. On some days in Pius X's arrangement, but now always, there follow Preces or intercessions. In the present arrangement, the Lord's Prayer is also recited before the concluding prayer.
Terce, Sext and None have an identical structure, each with three psalms or portions of psalms. These are followed by a short reading from Scripture, once referred to as a "little chapter" (capitulum) , and by a versicle and response. The Lesser Litany (Kyrie and the Lord's Prayer of Pius X's arrangement have now been omitted.
Prime and Compline also were of similar structure, though different from Terce, Sext and None.
[edit] Books used
In the monasteries and also in the cathedrals, which were served by monks or canons, celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours became more elaborate requiring not only a Psalter for the psalms, a lectionary for the Scripture readings, other books for hagiographical readings, a collectary for the orations, and also books, such as the antiphonary and the responsoriary, for the various chants. These were usually of large size, to enable several monks to chant together from the same book. Smaller books called breviaries (a word that etymologically refers to a compendium or abridgment) were developed to indicate the format of the daily office and assist in identifying the texts to be chosen. These developed into books that gave in abbreviated form (because they omitted the chants) and in small lettering the whole of the texts and that could be carried when travelling. Pope Innocent III made them official in the Roman Curia, and the itinerant Franciscan friars adopted the Breviarium Curiae and soon spread its use throughout Europe. By the 14th century, these breviaries contained the entire text of the canonical hours. The invention of printing made it possible to produce them in great numbers.
In its final session, the Council of Trent entrusted to the Pope the revision of the breviary.[3] On 9 July 1568 Pope Pius V promulgated an edition, known as the Roman Breviary, with his Apostolic Constitution Quod a nobis, imposing it in the same way in which he imposed his Roman Missal two years later and using language very similar to that in the bull Quo primum with which he promulgated the Missal, regarding, for instance, the perpetual force of its provisions, the obligation to use the promulgated text in all places, and the total prohibition of adding or omitting anything, declaring in fact: "No one whosoever is permitted to alter this letter or heedlessly to venture to go contrary to this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult declaration, will decree and prohibition. Should anyone, however, presume to commit such an act, he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul."[4] It is obvious that he did not thereby intend to bind his successors. Pope Clement VIII made changes that he made obligatory on 10 May 1602, 34 years after Pius V's revision. Urban VIII made further changes, including "a profound alteration in the character of some of the hymns. Although some of them without doubt gained in literary style, nevertheless, to the regret of many, they also lost something of their old charm of simplicity and fervour."[5] For the profound revision of the book by Pope Pius X see Reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X.
Finally, a new revision was made by Pope Paul VI with his Apostolic Constitution Laudis Canticum of 1 November 1970.[6]
Many of the complicated rubrics (or instructions) that had governed recitation of the Liturgy were clarified, and the actual method of praying the office was made simpler. Prime had already been abolished by the Second Vatican Council. Of the three intermediate Hours of Terce, Sext and None, only one was to be of strict obligation. Recitation of the psalms (excluding two imprecatory Psalms and some verses of others) and a much increased number of canticles was spread over four weeks instead of one.
Two typical editions of the revised text of the Liturgy of the Hours have been issued. The second one, of 2000, uses the Nova Vulgata Latin Bible for the readings, psalms and canticles rather than the Clementina; it has changed some of the readings; and it provided for the Benedictus and Magnificat on Sundays three antiphons that reflect the three-year cycle of Gospel readings. Pope Urban VIII's lamented alterations of the hymns are undone. Numbering is added to the Scripture readings and the psalms are given both the Septuagint numbering and (in parentheses) that of the Masoretic text. And new texts, taken from the Missale Romanum, have been added in the appendix for solemn blessings and the penitential acts.
This second typical edition has not yet been produced in English. The earlier edition has appeared in two English translations, one under the title "Liturgy of the Hours", the other as "The Divine Office'".
[edit] Obligation of recitation
Priests and deacons aspiring to the priesthood are obliged to celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours daily according to the approved liturgical books that apply to them; permanent deacons are to do so to the extent laid down by the Episcopal Conference; members of institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life are bound according to the norm of their constitutions.[7]
The constitutions of some institutes of consecrated life, in particular Benedictine monks and nuns, but also others, oblige them to follow an arrangement of the Psalter whereby all the Psalms are recited in the course of a single week, partly through an extension of the Office of Readings, and by maintaining the Hour of Prime.
[edit] References
- ^ Divine Office in Catholic Encyclopedia
- ^ Constitutions of the Holy Apostles
- ^ Chapter XXI
- ^ In Defense of the Pauline Mass
- ^ Breviary in Catholic Encyclopedia. The article also spoke of "blemishes which disfigure this book."
- ^ Laudis Canticum
- ^ canon 1174 §1 of the Code of Canon Law
[edit] See also
| Traditional Liturgical Hours of the Catholic Church | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matins | Lauds | Prime | Terce | Sext | None | Vespers | Compline |
[edit] External links
- Universalis - psalms, prayers and readings for the Office of Readings (Matins), Morning Prayer (Lauds), Evening Prayer (Vespers), Night Prayer (Compline), and Mass. Texts for today and the week ahead. Unofficial translation except for (in many countries) Mass.
- St. Thomas More House of Prayer
- General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours
- Liturgy of the Hours / Divine Office / Breviary
- Breviarium Romanum - includes some of the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin.
- Catechesis on the psalms of Lauds and Catechesis on the psalms of Vespers (including the Benedictus, Magnificat and other canticles) given by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI during their Wednesday audiences from 2001 - 2006.
