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Course 3 · Lesson 2.2

The Divine Office in the West and the hours in the East

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 3 outline

Module 1: The Idea of a Rule

  1. What a rule of life is, and what it is for
  2. Pachomius and the first written rule
  3. Basil of Caesarea and his Rules
  4. Benedict: the Rule as a school of the Lord’s service
  5. Adapting a monastic rule for ordinary life

Module 2: The Hours and the Psalms

  1. Origins of fixed-hour prayer in Jewish and early Christian practice
  2. The Divine Office in the West and the hours in the East
  3. How to pray the Psalms: lament, praise, trust, wisdom and imprecation
  4. Building a simple office for one person

Module 3: Scripture and the Prayer of the Heart

  1. Lectio divina: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation
  2. Meditative reading compared with study and with Ignatian imaginative prayer
  3. The Jesus Prayer: its words, its history and its Eastern setting
  4. Practicing the prayer of the heart, with its cautions

Module 4: Fasting, Giving, Rest and the Year

  1. Fasting in Scripture and tradition, and its safe limits
  2. Almsgiving and care for the poor
  3. Sabbath rest and the Lord’s Day: how traditions differ
  4. The church year: Advent to Pentecost and the ordinary weeks

Module 5: Conscience, Confession and Worship Alone

  1. Examination of conscience: methods old and new
  2. Confession in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions
  3. Repentance, confession to God and to a trusted person when no minister is available
  4. What worship alone can include: prayer, Scripture, song, the hours
  5. What the traditions say requires a church or ordained minister

Module 6: Seasons and Ordinary Duties

  1. Silence as a discipline and its dangers
  2. Planning a day, a weekend and a longer retreat
  3. Work as part of the rule: ora et labora
  4. Hospitality, family and neighbor

Module 7: Dryness, Perseverance and Review

  1. Dryness and the dark night: what the tradition teaches
  2. Acedia: Evagrius, Cassian and the noonday demon
  3. Doubt and perseverance
  4. Accountability for a rule of life
  5. Reviewing and revising a rule at thirty days, ninety days and one year

All courses

Program / Course 3: The Rule of Life / Lesson 2.2

What you will learn

  • Name the hours of the Western Divine Office and describe how the Benedictine pattern shaped it.
  • Describe the daily cycle of the Orthodox church and its books.
  • Explain how Anglican and Lutheran traditions reduced the hours to morning and evening prayer.
  • Identify which hours a beginner might use first.

The big idea

The Divine Office, also called the Liturgy of the Hours, is the church’s set of daily prayers, built mainly from the Psalms and readings. In the West it grew from Benedict’s monastic pattern, and the Catholic Church today prays it in a revised form. In the East the Orthodox Church keeps its own daily cycle, beginning at sunset. Anglicans and Lutherans kept reduced forms after the Reformation. The traditions differ in detail but agree that the day should be marked by shared, scriptural prayer.

Key terms

Divine Office
The Latin name for the church’s daily prayer. Office comes from the Latin for duty or service.
Liturgy of the Hours
The modern Catholic name for the Divine Office, used since the revision after the Second Vatican Council.
Lauds and Vespers
The Western morning and evening hours. Lauds means praises. Vespers means evening.
Compline
The Western night prayer, said before sleep. The name comes from a Latin word for completion.
Horologion
The Orthodox book of the hours, containing the fixed prayers of the daily cycle.
Psalter
The book of Psalms arranged for use in worship, often over a week or a month.

Background

The early church’s hours, described in the previous lesson, grew into two streams: a brief public office in city churches, and a long office in monasteries. By the sixth century Benedict had set out a monastic pattern of eight daily services, which spread across the West as his Rule did. Over the centuries the Office became long and mainly the work of clergy and religious. After the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965, the Catholic Church revised it and encouraged lay people to pray it.

In the East the cycle developed along its own lines, shaped by monasteries such as those in Palestine and Constantinople. It uses its own books and, in the Greek and Slavic traditions, a different arrangement of the Psalms. Sunset marks the start of the liturgical day, following Jewish reckoning (Genesis 1:5). Orthodox lay people rarely pray the full cycle, but they use it as the frame of church worship and take parts of it into their home prayer.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Western hours

The traditional Western hours were Matins (or Vigils), Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. Terce, Sext and None recall the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day. Prime, the first hour, was dropped in the post-Vatican II revision, and Matins was recast as the Office of Readings, which may be said at any time of the day. The revised Liturgy of the Hours also arranges the Psalter over four weeks and not one.

Lauds and Vespers are the two chief hours. The Catholic Church calls them the hinges of the daily office. A beginner who wishes to start would usually begin with one of them. Each contains Psalms, a short Scripture reading, intercessions and a canticle from the Gospels: the Song of Zechariah at Lauds, the Magnificat of Mary at Vespers.

Step 2: The Eastern cycle

The Orthodox daily cycle includes Vespers at sunset, Compline, the Midnight Office, Orthros (the Eastern morning service) and the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth hours. The Psalter is divided into twenty sections called kathismata, which are read through weekly, and during Great Lent twice a week. The fixed prayers are collected in the Horologion, and the changing texts in the Menaion and other books.

Few Orthodox lay people can attend all these services. Parish churches usually serve Vespers on Saturday evening and Orthros and the Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning. For daily prayer, lay Orthodox use a prayer book containing morning and evening prayers, and they often say the hours in abbreviated form.

Step 3: Anglican and Lutheran forms

At the Reformation the eight hours were reduced. Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, compiled the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, combining the old hours into two services: Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. They contain Psalms, readings from both Testaments, canticles, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and collects. They were meant for the whole people.

Lutheran churches kept Matins and Vespers as public services and offered household prayers in the Small Catechism. Reformed churches mostly dropped fixed offices, though many families kept morning and evening prayer at home. Other Protestants, such as Baptists, have no set office but often encourage a daily quiet time.

Step 4: Using the traditions as a beginner

A beginner has three choices. One is to use an established book of the person’s own tradition, which has the benefit of being the church’s own prayer and the cost of some learning. A second is to use a simple pattern, such as a psalm, a short reading and the Lord’s Prayer at morning and evening. A third is to start with one hour only and see how it goes.

A beginner does not need to master a Latin or Greek vocabulary. The point is regular scriptural prayer. When a person prays the hours, even in an abbreviated form, the prayer joins a larger pattern kept by millions of others in different forms.

  1. Which hour, morning or evening, would be easier to keep in my life now?
  2. Do I prefer a printed book to guide my prayer, or a looser pattern?
  3. What might it mean to pray the same Psalms as millions of other Christians on the same day?
  4. Is my tradition’s form of daily prayer too long, too short or too hard to find?
  5. How would I explain the hours to a friend who has never heard of them?
  6. What would I keep and what would I leave out if I could only pray one hour?

Examples

Evening prayer in outline

A typical Western Vespers: an opening verse, a hymn, two or three psalms, a short reading, the Magnificat, intercessions for the day, the Lord’s Prayer and a closing prayer. It takes about fifteen minutes. (A general outline.)

A household of the Eastern tradition

An Orthodox family says morning prayers from the prayer book before leaving and evening prayers at night. On Saturday evening they attend Vespers at the parish. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

The Catholic view

The Liturgy of the Hours is described by the Church as the public prayer of the Church, offered by Christ in his body. Clergy and religious are bound to pray it, and lay people are urged to join. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the hours as extending the Eucharistic celebration through the day.

The Orthodox view

Orthodox teaching presents the cycle as the prayer of the whole church, with the Divine Liturgy at its center. Christians are asked to sanctify time, and the services of the hours do this through the Psalms and hymns. Orthodox teachers stress that the services are best learned in a parish and with guidance.

The Anglican and Lutheran view

These traditions teach that daily prayer belongs to the whole people and not just to clergy or monks. Morning and Evening Prayer in Anglicanism and Matins and Vespers in Lutheranism were designed so that lay people could pray the Scripture in their own language.

The Reformed and free-church view

These traditions often prefer freedom in daily prayer and emphasize the sufficiency of Scripture over set forms. Many Reformed and Baptist Christians nevertheless value the Psalms and daily reading, and some have recently revived forms of daily prayer.

Why it matters

Learning the main forms of the church’s daily prayer means that a beginner need not invent one. Whichever tradition a person belongs to or admires, there is a tested pattern to learn from. The comparison also shows that a morning and an evening hour are the common core of all the traditions.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Divine Office is only for priests and monks.

Correction: It began as the prayer of the whole church. Clergy and religious are bound to pray it in Catholic law, but lay people are encouraged to join. Orthodox and Anglican lay people have long used parts of it.

Misunderstanding: The Orthodox hours are the same as the Western ones.

Correction: They share roots, but the cycle, the books and the arrangement of the Psalms differ. The Orthodox day begins at sunset, and the East has the Horologion and kathismata.

Misunderstanding: Protestants dropped daily prayer.

Correction: Some did drop fixed hours, but Anglicans and Lutherans kept Morning and Evening Prayer or Matins and Vespers, and many Protestants keep daily household prayer in other forms.

Knowledge check

What is the Divine Office?

The Divine Office, also called the Liturgy of the Hours, is the set of daily prayers of the church, made up mainly of Psalms and readings, prayed at fixed times. In the West the hours include Lauds and Vespers as chief hours. The Office extends the worship of the church through the day.

What are Lauds and Vespers?

They are the Western morning and evening hours. Lauds means praises and is said at dawn. Vespers is said in the evening. Each includes psalms, a short reading, a canticle and prayers of intercession. They are regarded as the two chief hours of the day.

How does the Orthodox cycle differ from the Western?

The Orthodox cycle includes Vespers at sunset, Compline, the Midnight Office, Orthros and the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth hours. The day begins at sunset. The Psalter is divided into twenty kathismata, and the prayers are collected in the Horologion. The arrangement differs from the Western hours.

What did Cranmer do with the hours?

In the first Book of Common Prayer of 1549, he combined the older hours into two services, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, and made them available to all the people in English. The pattern influenced Anglican and other Protestant daily prayer.

Think it through

  1. If you could pray with a group at a set time each day, would you? What might hinder you?
  2. What would be lost if you prayed only in your own words and never from a set form?
  3. What would be lost if you prayed only from set forms?

Independent assignment

Comparing two hours

In your notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Find an evening prayer from a book or text of your own tradition, or of another tradition you wish to learn about. Copy its outline: opening, psalms, reading, canticle, prayers and ending. Then describe one part you would keep, one you would shorten and one you would add. Do not post it.

Further study