The Divine Office ‘is an excellent preparation for the celebration of the Eucharist itself’
By Father Randy Stice
Jesus prayed throughout His public ministry, from His baptism to His anguished cry to the Father on the cross. He frequently exhorted His disciples to pray, to seek, and to ask, and He taught them the Lord’s Prayer.
The Acts of the Apostles frequently describes the common prayer of the first Christians. Following the biblical example, the early Church assigned specific times for common prayer, especially in the morning and evening. This custom of community prayer gradually developed into a structured order of prayer throughout the day. This is the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, the official liturgical prayer of the Church “which Christ himself together with His body addresses to the Father.” 1
The Liturgy of the Hours consists of a daily cycle of five offices: the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer. Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are the most important offices. “In keeping with the ancient tradition of the universal Church, Morning and Evening Prayer form a double hinge of the daily Office and are therefore considered the principal Hours and celebrated as such.” 2 Morning Prayer recalls Christ’s resurrection, “the true light enlightening all mankind,” 3 and is intended to sanctify the morning. Evening Prayer is structured so that “we may give thanks for what has been given us, or what we have done well, during the day.” 4 Both hinge hours consist of a hymn, psalms, canticles (poetic passages from the Old and New Testaments), a biblical reading, a Gospel canticle (Zechariah’s in the morning and the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Magnificat in the evening), intercessions, the Our Father, and a concluding prayer.
Between the two hinge hours is Daytime Prayer, for which there are three options: midmorning, midday, and midafternoon. This follows an ancient tradition of Christians praying at various times of day, even taking short breaks from work, “in order to imitate the apostolic Church.” 5 Acts describes the disciples praying at the third hour (e.g., 1:14 and 4:24), Peter praying at the sixth hour (10:9), Peter and John going to pray in the temple at the ninth hour (3:1), and Paul and Silas praising God about midnight (16:25). Daytime Prayer is a shorter office consisting of a hymn, psalms, a short reading from Sacred Scripture, a brief responsory, and a concluding prayer.
The Office of Readings includes a hymn, psalms, often a single longer psalm, and offers a semi-continuous reading of a biblical book and a reading from a saint or spiritual writer. Night Prayer is the final prayer of the day and follows a one-week cycle of psalms, a short reading, the canticle of Simeon, a concluding prayer, and an antiphon in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
At the heart of the Divine Office are the psalms. Every office begins with a verse from Psalm 70, “God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me.” The psalms are arranged in a four-week cycle so that “very few psalms are omitted while some, traditionally more important, occur more frequently than others,” 6 such as Psalms 45, 51, 110, 113, 116, 146 and 147. The psalms assigned to Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer are appropriate to those times of day.
The Liturgy of the Hours is published in four volumes that follow the Church year: volume one is for Advent and Christmas, volume two for Lent and Easter, and volumes three and four cover the 34 weeks of Ordinary Time. Each volume includes the saints whose celebrations fall during that part of the calendar. For each saint there is at least a brief biography, a reading by or about the saint, and the prayer for the saint. The Liturgy of the Hours is available on a number of Catholic apps as well monthly subscription publications.
There is a close link between the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist. The Divine Office “is an excellent preparation for the celebration of the Eucharist itself, for it inspires and deepens in a fitting way the dispositions necessary for the fruitful celebration of the Eucharist: faith, hope, love, devotion, and the spirit of self-denial.” 7 In addition, the Liturgy of the Hours “extends to the different hours of the day” the prayers and fruits of the Eucharist—“the praise and thanksgiving, the commemoration of the mysteries of salvation, the petitions and the foretaste of heavenly glory.” 8
“The Liturgy of the Hours, as the public prayer of the Church,” wrote Pope Benedict XVI, “sets forth the Christian ideal of the sanctification of the entire day.” 9 When we pray it, we “are united to Christ our high priest, by the prayer of the psalms, meditation on the Word of God, and canticles and blessings, in order to be joined with His unceasing and universal prayer that gives glory to the Father and implores the gift of the Holy Spirit on the whole world. 10
1 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 1174
2 General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH), 37
3 GILH, 38
4 GILH, 39
5 GILH, 74
6 GILH, 126
7 GILH, 12
8 GILH, 12
9 Verbum Domini, 62
10 CCC, 1196
Father Randy Stice is director of the diocesan Office of Worship and Liturgy. He can be reached at frrandy@dioknox.org.