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.
–Verbum Domini 62

Prayer is a battle. We pray as we love, because we live as we pray.
–CCC 2725

Hour (Old) Time (Old) Hour (New) Time (New)
Vigils/Matins 12 a.m. Office of Readings Anytime
Lauds 6 a.m. Morning Prayer ~6-11 a.m.
Prime 7 a.m. - -
Terce 9 a.m. Midmorning Prayer 9 a.m.
Sext 12 p.m. Midday Prayer ~12 p.m.
None 3 p.m. Midafternoon Prayer ~3 p.m.
Vespers (Evensong) 6 p.m. Evening Prayer ~4-11 p.m.
Compline 9 p.m. Night Prayer Before Bed

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Notes

Volume I

  • Apostolic Constitution
    • "The Liturgy of the Hours was seen as a kind of necessary complement to the fullness of divine worship that is contained in the eucharistic sacrifice, by means of which that worship might overflow to reach all the hours of daily life." (11)
    • "The result was that the Council treated the liturgy as a whole, and the Hours in particular, with such thoroughness and skill, such spirituality and power, that there is scarcely a parallel to it in the entire history of the Church." (13)
    • "It is supremely to be hoped that the Liturgy of the Hours may pervade and penetrate the whole of Christian prayer, giving it life, direction and expression and effectively nourishing the spiritual life of the people of God." (16)
    • "To manifest this quality of our prayer more clearly, 'the warm and living love for holy Scripture' which is the atmosphere of the Liturgy of the Hours must come to life in all of us, so that Scripture may indeed become the chief source of all Christian payer." (17, cf. SC 24)
    • "Mental Prayer should draw unlimited nourishment from readings, psalms, and the other parts of the Liturgy of the Hours." (18)
    • "The Hours are recommended to all Christ's faithful members, including those who are not bound by law to their recitation." (18)
  • General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours
  • Vol. I, pg. 405 (2024-12-25-Wed Office of Readings for Christmas, from a Sermon by St. Leo the Great): "Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God's own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God's kingdom. Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ."
  • Vol. I, pg. 831 (2022-12-05-Mon 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 (2022-12-09-Fri 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 (2022-03-14-Mon): 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 (2023-03-01-Wed 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. 180 (2025-03-20-Thu), pg. 307 (2024-03-20-Wed): intentions for Morning Prayer for Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent:

    Help us to receive good things from your bounty with a deep sense of gratitude, and to accept with patience the evil that comes to us.
    Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments, but above all in the ordinary events of daily life.
    May we abstain from what we do not really need, and help our brothers and sisters in distress.
    May we bear the wounds of your Son, for through his body he gave us life.

  • Vol. II, pg. 791 (2025-05-15-Thu): Why is Good Friday "good"? Because: "in restoring human nature you have given us a greater dignity than we had in the beginning."

  • Vol. II, pg. 1335 (2025-01-28-Tue): from a conference by St. Thomas Aquinas: "If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or whe none suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid."
  • Vol. II, pg. 1794 (2022-05-05-Thu): 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 (2022-08-16-Tue): 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."
  • Vol. III, pg. 812 (2023-08-17-Thu): "May the fire of your word consume our sins and its brightness illumine our hearts."

Volume IV

  • Vol. IV, pg. 409 (2024-10-19-Sat: Office of Readings for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, from a letter to Proba by St. Augustine): "Why he should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realize that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it) but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us. His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it. That is why we are told: Enlarge your desires, do not bear the yoke with unbelievers." ^a7495d
  • Vol. IV, pg. 879 (2023-08-14-Mon): "Let your faithful ones seek and taste the things that are above, and let them direct their work and their leisure to your glory."
  • Vol. IV, pg. 960 (2022-10-14-Fri): "We give thanks to God whose power is revealed in nature, and whose providence is revealed in history."
  • Vol. IV, pg. 1073 (2023-08-21-Mon Saturday Morning Prayer Week III): "May the fire of your word consume our sins and its brightness illumine our hearts."
  • Vol. IV, pg. 1448 (2024-09-30-Mon: Office of Readings for St. Jerome, from the prologue of the commentary on Isaiah): "I interpret as I should, following the command of Christ: Search the Scriptures, and Seek and you shall find. Christ will not say to me what he said to the Jews: You erred, not knowing the Scriptures and now knowing the power of God. For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ...No one should think that I mean to explain the entire subject matter of this great book of Scripture in one brief sermon, since it contains all the mysteries of the Lord."
  • Vol. IV, pg. 1161 (2023-09-04-Mon intercessions for Wednesday Morning Prayer Week IV): "Give us strength in temptation, endurance in trial, and gratitude in prosperity."
  • Vol. IV pg. 1148 (2024-08-20-Tue), Col-03: "Let the word of Christ, rich as it is, dwell in you."

Created: 2021-08-18-Wed
Updated: 2025-05-15-Thu

  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) ↩