Prayer

Liturgy of the Hours

This prayer is the voice of a bride speaking to her bridegroom, it is the very prayer that Christ himself, together with his Body, addressed to the Father.
–domini Verbum Domini 62

Hour (Old) Hour (New) Time
Vigils/Matins Office of Readings 12 a.m.
Lauds Morning Prayer 6 a.m.
Prime - 7 a.m.
Terce Midmorning Prayer 9 a.m.
Sext Midday Prayer 12 p.m.
None Midafternoon Prayer 3 p.m.
Vespers (Evensong) Evening Prayer 6 p.m.
Compline Night Prayer 9 p.m.

Resources

Alternative Versions

Notes

Volume I

  • Vol. I, pg. 831 Evening Prayer of Monday of the Second Week of Advent: "When you took on flesh, Lord Jesus, you made a marriage of mankind with God."
  • Vol. I, pg. 902 Evening Prayer of Friday of the Second Week of Advent: "We must endure many trials before entering the God's kingdom", or "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" (Acts-14, RSVCE)
  • Vol. I, pg. 1286: Friendship of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen: "We seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit...Our single object and ambition was virtue." ^47e634

Volume II

  • Vol. II, pg. 63: prayer for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday:

    Lord,
    may everything we do
    begin with your inspiration,
    continue with your help,
    and reach perfection under your guidance.
    We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
    who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
    God, for ever and ever.
    Amen.

  • Vol. II, pg. 1794: from the The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena: "You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are."

Volume III

  • Vol. III, pg. 1573: from the catechetical instructions by St. John Vianney: "The Christian's treasure is not on earth but in heaven. Our thoughts, then, ought to be directed to where our treasure is.1 This is the glorious duty of man: to pray and to love. If you pray and love, that is where a man's happiness lies. Prayer is nothing else but union with God...We had become unworthy to pray, but God in his goodness allowed us to speak with him. Our prayers are incense that gives him the greatest pleasure. My little children, your hearts are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Through prayer we receive a foretaste of heaven and something of paradise comes down upon us. Prayer never leaves us without sweetness. It is honey that flows into the soul and makes all things sweet.2 When we pray properly, sorrows disappear like snow before the sun."

Volume IV

  • Vol. IV, pg. 960: "We give thanks to God whose power is revealed in nature, and whose providence is revealed in history."

Created: 2021-08-18-Wed
Updated: 2023-03-03-Fri

  1. cf. Mt-06: "For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." ↩

  2. cf. St. Bernard of Clairvaux: "Jesus to me is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song in the heart." (Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs, vol. I, sermon 15, no. 6, quoted in Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire, 136) ↩