Praying the Hours

For the last couple of months I have begun to pray the "Hours," which means that I have been engaging in fixed-hour prayer. The psalmist writes, "Seven times a day do I praise you" in Psalm 119:164 and this led to praying at fixed times seven times a day in Judaism. Early Christians continued this practice and by the fifth century with Benedictine monasticism, the "daily offices" were largely in place. St Benedict said, "To pray is to work, to work is to pray." "In so doing," according to Phyllis Tickle, the the compiler of The Divine Hours, "he gave form to another of the great, informing concepts of Christian spirituality--the inseparability of spiritual life from physical life. He also formalized the concept of 'divine work'" (x).

Praying the daily offices does a couple of things for me. First, it helps give rhythm to my day. the Morning Office is done sometime between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., the Midday Office is done sometime between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., Vespers is done between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Compline is done before bed. It takes 5-7 minutes, includes a lot of short readings from the Psalms, and some wonderful prayers. many of the prayers are taken from the Book of Common Prayer, the center of worship for the Anglican church.

The other thing that it accomplishes for me is to remind me of God. One of the goals of my spiritual life is to be more mindful of God during the day. This helps me to do that.