Please excuse me if this is a dumb question. I just got a 4 volume set of the Divine Office. I just flipped through to) Oct. 3rd to take a look at the prayers and there was no Oct. 3rd. It seems there are certain days missing. What does this mean? Am I supposed to repeat the prayers of the day before?
Today is the memorial to the Blessed Virgin Mary . . .maybe you are looking in the wrong place . Double check it on Spirit Daily, scroll down to liturgy of the hours. I also have the single volume of Divine Office, and also have the Divine Office app that I purchased on my iPad. It's a bit confusing but you will get it eventually. Kathy, OCDS
Congratulations on your new prayer experience with the Divine Office!! You will need to give yourself a little time to learn how to go about it but hopefully you will soon realize that it is an incredibly wonderful form of prayer. To begin with, the Divine Office follows its own calendar, which is the Church's Liturgical Year, even though it connects with the Civil calendar on a "side ways" so to speak. So the basics for praying the Liturgy of the Hours with the WHOLE CHURCH -all priests and most religious- is that the Church's calendar goes by special "times" or seasons: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Ordinary Time (which is the rest of the year that is not one of the above). The center of the Divine Office prayer is the book of psalms, which is called "the Salter", and has the 150 psalms divided in 4 weeks: 1st week, 2nd week, 3rd week and 4th week of the Salter. The week begins on the evening before Sunday and ends on Saturday afternoon. Saturday October 3 doesn't have any special saint to celebrate, thus you won't get a "Proper Office (of a Saint)" for today, but you have the "Ordinary Office" for the Saturday of the 26th week. If you had received your Books yesterday, you would have had the Proper Office for October 2nd, which is the "Memorial" of the Guardian Angels. Or October 1, which we celebrated the Memorial of St. Therese of Lisieux. So now is Saturday evening -Pacific Time here- and it's time to pray the first Hour of the Sunday Office, which always starts on the Eve of the day. And the Hour that you pray is called I Vespers (first Vespers). Vespers is the prayer of the evening and Sundays have two evening prayers, I and II Vespers prayed on Saturday and Sunday respectively. You will search in "The Four-Week Psalter" for Week III (Sunday, first Vespers). You will search in the "Proper of Seasons" for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time. And you are ready to go. I would suggest that you give yourself time to read the explanations that the books have, but a good way to jump in and know where you are is that you check the Divine Office - Liturgy of the Hours Website where you hear the prayer, and also you have all the texts written down in the page. Depending on your country and version of the book it might differ from that Webpage in little things, like the hymns at the beginning of the Hour (which can be changed for variety). But all the rest will pretty close in any country. Hope this will help you to start. If you have more questions we can see things as you learn little by little all the basics. The first Volume has a wonderful and lengthy explanation of everything you need to know. It is the volume with the Advent and Christmas Time. Again CONGRATULATIONS as you start this wonderful experience -just take it easy
Thank you for the detailed response! It is making more sense now. Do you know if it makes a difference if it is an older set? It is dated from 1975. I imagine it wouldn't change much, but who knows?
I'm assuming that you have the USA Divine Office. It is from 1975. There are no new editions, there are only reprints with small updates -like new saints that have been canonized or incorporated into the Proper for the USA. There are big print and normal print editions, but they are the same as the "old set" -if you stumble upon one. The differences are between different countries since the respective Conferences of Catholic Bishops may have a different translation approved. And the Hymns or Intercessions may also be different. But this is practically anecdotal. Also there are differences in what are specific feasts and patrons for different countries, dioceses, cities, religious families, etc. etc. etc. Each country has their own "Proper" where they can celebrate some saint in particular with solemnity that is not a celebration of the universal Church. So you have a very wide spectrum of possibilities with the Divine Office. The structure and most of it is made by the celebrations that pertain to the Universal Church. Then comes the regional, local, or (religious) "family" Church. Thus it is necessary to have an "order" or Ordo that indicates what is obligatory to celebrate in a given day, or what is optional -meaning you can include a Proper or a particular Devotion. Every celebration is categorized, which means that you know what takes precedence when you are going to pray the Office for one particular day. The categories are: Solemnity Seasonal Sunday Ordinary Time Sunday Feast Memorial Optional Memorial For instance, today, October 4, is an Ordinary Sunday, and the whole Catholic Church prays the Office of Sunday, EXCEPT: since it is also St. Francis of Assisi Day, those countries/dioceses/cities/churches/religious communities that have St. Francis as their Principal Patron will -most certainly- celebrate his Day as SOLEMNITY. So ONLY in those cases they will not pray the Office of the Sunday today but that of St. Francis because it takes PRECEDENCE. In the Universal Church St. Francis is a Memorial -low category- so this year we skip the proper of St. Francis in the Office given its rightful precedence to the weekly celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Every country, Diocese, religious community etc. have their own Proper Calendar approved by the Congregation for Liturgy in the Vatican, which thus becomes official for them. It's not that you do whatever you want anytime. So because there are so very many possibilities, you need to learn first what is the basic outline of the Office, and of each one of the Hours (Office of Readings or former Matins; Morning Prayer or Lauds, Midday Prayer or Terce, Sext or None, Evening Prayer or Vespers, and Night Prayer or Compline). After that you will easily learn what can be changed and when. The "ordinary" basic Office is pretty well set and explained in the section "Ordinary" of any of your volumes. It gives you the sequence of the prayer and the pages where to find everything. Hope this will help instead of confuse. Blessings on your prayerful efforts!
Thank you very much WCWTS for taking the time to write such detailed info. Just so you know it won't go to waste, I have copied and pasted it on a document and will be referring to it. Yes I have an edition approved for use in the USA and some other places. Once I get started I am going to dedicate my first prayers in it to you as thanksgiving for all the help.
I am a 3rd Order Carmelite and do Lauds and Vespers daily, and find it very handy to use divineoffice.org website. It leads you right through so basically anyone can do it without having to find different pages in their prayer book. I do love my prayer book though and love using it.
You can also do it on Universalis for kindle ,Carmel. I am so jealous, Carmel. where on Earth do you find the time? Wow! Many times I have wanted to do this but life is so busy. Often I do not even have time for the forum. Sometimes I have been tempted to do the Little Office of Our Lady, but it is too much. http://www.universalis.com/n-kindlecom-start.htm
When I was in the monastery I used to do five or six hours a day in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes I look back on this and kinda weep. But its horses for courses, we can all of us can only do what we can...I find talking to fellow Catholics on the forum very,very prayerful but... But I do love the Divine Office especially song...
g M I only take 10-15 minutes to say the office, as I'm alone. Sometimes for the Hymn I will play the song on my harp or piano instead of singing it. Also I try to make it to mass each morning and then skip the morning liturgy, using the liturgy at mass instead. I never miss a day's rosary, and never miss my quiet prayer, but I do admit with working full time and tons of daily chores to do if I miss a prayer it will be the liturgy.
I am also a Secular Carmelite, Third Order. I love the prayerful life. Sometimes I say the Rosary while driving and have a finger Rosary, it's much better than listening to the radio, and there is very little traffic on these winding country roads. I use Universalis, Divine Office.org, and my book depending on my day. It's really not hard to work it all in . . . You would be amazed at how often the readings leap off the page with the times we are in.
I find I love best of all just sitting in Church , busy doing nothing so to speak. As they say, I stare at Him and He stares at me right back. There are times if I am going to be there quite a long time I do a bit of reading, maybe the life of a saint, scripture, the Imitation of Christ. I like to be physically doing something too when I am praying, like walking , I find if I am in the one place I tend to doze off. Not that falling sleep is the worst thing in the world , but it is better to stay awake. But I think prayer changes down the years. Also everyone is different. I would say the one great thing that chnaged my type of prayer is that I pray all the time. So whereas in the past I could say, I pray so many rosaries , I spend so many hous in front of the Blessed Sacrament , it is no longer like that. In a real way you can no longer add up prayer time becuase life itself has become the prayer. In a strange kind of way I find I am no longer religious or pious. It is hard to put into words.
I love what St Augustine said, 'Love and do what you will'. Like all very wise things it takes a little thinking about. For myself I have found that progress in religion has meant , in a sense to loose all religion. Strange but true.
It only takes about half an hour to pray and it is so filled with Light. God always makes the time when we desire to pray. Todays psalms and readings were so beautiful!
Thank for putting that into words, as I too basically am now always praying. I talk to Jesus while doing chores, at work, ask for help ALOT, and it seems that the formal prayers are harder to do. I promised Mary about the Rosary each day, so that is not for me, but for her intentions, and of course with the quiet prayer I'm required to do it's such a joy, but I do find that I have a "date" with Jesus for that after supper each evening, and He seems to prompt me if I forget or am busy with something at that time. But yes it seems to have definitely evolved over the years, and really my joy and strength just comes in each minute of the day as I walk with God.
St Phillip Neri when he went into the Dark Night of the Soul mentions that he seemed to have a horror of all things religious. It is a little like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. In someways the way I sied to be many years ago was a lot easier, I had a bunch of Novenas and pray books, so many hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament, travelling from Church to Church a millions Devotions. I suppose if any one had looked at me by satellite they would have thought I was the most pious, reilgious person in the Universe. I think if someone were to look at me now they could suppose I was a complete atheist. This transition was not easy. It felt like going backwards instead of forwards. This was quite scarey. I think at the start unconsciously we feel like we own God, that we control God that we have Him in our hands. But the end we find we have a bucking bronco. I love what one lady sadi, 'God is not a pussy cat, we cannot hold Him in our lap'
It is when we are in that "dark night of the soul" that we need to persevere even more in prayer - even when we don't feel like praying. God loves our desire to pray even if our prayers seem so dry as to feel like we are not praying, I will continue to try to "hold Him in my lap" even if He wants to get down. I will not let go!
