Your Office Is Calling: Learning The Do

[marigold]

So... How do you do the DO? Anyone want to share what, how and when they pray the Divine Office?

[Egeria]

I once - many years ago - found it difficult finding my way around the LOTH. But that is simplicity itself compared to the Byzantine Office, which somebody once said requires about 27 different books to pray properly! I have to confess that there are times when I miss the sober simplicity of the West!

 

Seriously though - although this may be more a matter for an intra-Orthodox discussion - I think that the question of how and when is a challenging one for Orthodox, especially for those of us not in huge monasteries. I keep hearing people say that it's not doable if you're not in a monastery and even that smaller monasteries cannot cope with the whole Office and have to cut bits here and there. And, related to this, that some substitute the Jesus prayer or the Psalter for the Office. Although I value both of those, I find it sad the unwieldyness of the Office should be a reason for abandoning it and would prefer to find some sort of middle way - of finding a form of the Office that is manageable but still respects something of its structure and richness.

 

[Egeria]

PS Lovely photos, Marigold. Is that the HTM edition?

[brandelynmarie]

I once - many years ago - found it difficult finding my way around the LOTH. But that is simplicity itself compared to the Byzantine Office, which somebody once said requires about 27 different books to pray properly! I have to confess that there are times when I miss the sober simplicity of the West!

Seriously though - although this may be more a matter for an intra-Orthodox discussion - I think that the question of how and when is a challenging one for Orthodox, especially for those of us not in huge monasteries. I keep hearing people say that it's not doable if you're not in a monastery and even that smaller monasteries cannot cope with the whole Office and have to cut bits here and there. And, related to this, that some substitute the Jesus prayer or the Psalter for the Office. Although I value both of those, I find it sad the unwieldyness of the Office should be a reason for abandoning it and would prefer to find some sort of middle way - of finding a form of the Office that is manageable but still respects something of its structure and richness.

Intra-Orthodox discussion welcomed here too. :)

[brandelynmarie]

I'm reading & learning ;). And let's just say I'm still on Chapter One...How To Open Your Book :hehe:

[marigold]

I once - many years ago - found it difficult finding my way around the LOTH. But that is simplicity itself compared to the Byzantine Office, which somebody once said requires about 27 different books to pray properly! I have to confess that there are times when I miss the sober simplicity of the West!

 

Seriously though - although this may be more a matter for an intra-Orthodox discussion - I think that the question of how and when is a challenging one for Orthodox, especially for those of us not in huge monasteries. I keep hearing people say that it's not doable if you're not in a monastery and even that smaller monasteries cannot cope with the whole Office and have to cut bits here and there. And, related to this, that some substitute the Jesus prayer or the Psalter for the Office. Although I value both of those, I find it sad the unwieldyness of the Office should be a reason for abandoning it and would prefer to find some sort of middle way - of finding a form of the Office that is manageable but still respects something of its structure and richness.

 

 

PS Lovely photos, Marigold. Is that the HTM edition?

 

Yes it is. A friend bought it for his doctoral studies and then kindly donated it towards the new monastery. I am its caretaker at the moment! From the expense and sheer size of it, its clearly meant to be a lifetime investment, and to be used liturgically. And it is excellent; it has pretty much everything you need for all services, except certain variables that you would find in the menaion (book of 'propers' or variables such as Scripture readings, extra verses or long hymns). I don't think there's 27 books (!) but certainly you might find yourself using four or five - it can be unwieldy, but it is not suuuuuper difficult, and it does flow according to internal rhythms which become clear when you do it day in and day out. That is, I think, a vital point - Orthodox services presume a life of prayer in the Church, and intimate familiarity with the liturgy, which means learning by doing, one of the very cornerstones of the Orthodox faith. To try and assemble it on paper, it looks like the worst of my failed high school maths exams. Before I started praying from this Great Horologion regularly, I flicked through it and almost gave up at the first reading of some of the red rubrics. But praying a service takes place, not in theory, but on a particular day and date, in a particular season, and following the appointed directions then become much easier and even a pleasure as they reveal depths one didn't know about.

[puellapaschalis]

Orthodox services presume a life of prayer in the Church, and intimate familiarity with the liturgy, which means learning by doing, one of the very cornerstones of the Orthodox faith. To try and assemble it on paper, it looks like the worst of my failed high school maths exams. Before I started praying from this Great Horologion regularly, I flicked through it and almost gave up at the first reading of some of the red rubrics. But praying a service takes place, not in theory, but on a particular day and date, in a particular season, and following the appointed directions then become much easier and even a pleasure as they reveal depths one didn't know about.

 

I've been thinking about this and I think your words I bolded are so very important. I learnt the office from a clergyman, by praying it with others in my parish, and by visiting a monastery nearby (where I wasn't taking part as such, but certainly drinking it all in).

 

Not to say that it's impossible otherwise, but I really believe the best and surest way to learn the office would also be by doing it, in a group of people, and preferably next to someone who can point to the page you need to be on if (when) you get lost :)
 

[marigold]

Yes, and I think it is even the only way worth doing. Since the entire point of the cycle of services is the instruction of the faithful and the glory of God, to look at it from the outside and try to understand it is not only overwhelming and difficult (since, as I said above, the services will not seem to make sense just with all the rubrics down on paper) but even... pointless? Unless one is studying the historical development of the services, or comparing Catholic-Orthodox practices as we've been doing here...? Maybe I'm being too extreme here, but it has all become so much clearer to me as I've moved from hearing the services in church, to learning my way around them and praying them alone.

 

By the way, I'm still interested to find out what people here do pray, and how they go about it...

[Egeria]

Marigold, I totally agree with you about learning by doing. I'm sometimes reminded of how I once - many years ago now - came across a copy of the Festal Menaion and got all interested in it, but actually found it as boring as anything when I started reading it! And the reason, of course, apart from the fact that I probably wasn't ready for it, is that the services are not meant to be studied, but to be prayed. I've been reminded of that recently when I have sometimes felt overwhelmed by the hymnography for the Great Feasts.

 

But what I said above was not based on trying to understand the services from outside, but rather of praying them - in both the West and the East, and inside and outside of monasteries (and a parish). And it is also based on what I have heard some some Orthodox clergy and monastics saying - for example, about how the balance has been lost between psalmody and hymnography. These things resonated with me precisely because they reflected my own experience coming into the Orthodox Church (which, admittedly, was probably not typical). 

 

I certainly don't want to discourage people from praying the Hours. But I do get concerned when (and this is based on my experience in concrete situations) they are seen as a big service that people put on occasionally for a special occasion rather than as a regular cycle of prayer. I'm more inclined to encourage people to pray a few psalms a day, than to think they need to find all sorts of elaborate books. I'm not knocking the latter - and I have some and use some - but it's a matter of integration and balance and what is achievable in specific situations. 

 

And, in that context, I do think that something like the Roman LOTH is much more manageable for many people. 

 

In that regard - and touching on your what and how question - I have found your former community's literature helpful. I use it, although I also tend to supplement them with Psalms. But I've found that it is manageable for almost anyone to pray at least part of and that people who I have suggested it to have responded really positively to it.

 

Edited August 31, 2014 by Ash Wednesday
Requested to edit for privacy reasons, edited to make references more vague. Any questions just PM me.

[puellapaschalis]

I do think that the LOTH is a good entryway into learning 'office', but I wish the reformers hadn't been so brutal. The Little Office of the BVM is I think an excellent way to learn, but retains the traditional pattern of how each office works.

 

Edit: e.g. http://office.ageofmary.com/

 

Edited August 30, 2014 by puellapaschalis

[Egeria]

Oh, and on the twenty seven books, I can't remember where it was, but I think the reference was from Metropolitan Kallistos - said in a rather tongue in cheek way. But if you consider that there are twelve volumes of the Menaion, plus the Festal Menaion, plus the Triodion, plus the Pentecostarion, plus the Octoechos, plus the Horologion and I'm not sure what else... well, it does rather add up. 

 

 

[DJMitch]

I used to say the Divine Office every day - at one time I was considering a vocation to the priesthood; but I have hardly said it at all in recent times.  I am wondering whether it might be good to incorporate at least part of it into my spiritual life as a more regular thing, though - or at least to have some Scripture-based prayer in my life more regularly.

[brandelynmarie]

I do think that the LOTH is a good entryway into learning 'office', but I wish the reformers hadn't been so brutal. The Little Office of the BVM is I think an excellent way to learn, but retains the traditional pattern of how each office works.

 

Edit: e.g. http://office.ageofmary.com/

 

I actually have the Little Office! But I admit I keep starting & stopping it & it's been awhile since I've picked it up. 

I used to say the Divine Office every day - at one time I was considering a vocation to the priesthood; but I have hardly said it at all in recent times.  I am wondering whether it might be good to incorporate at least part of it into my spiritual life as a more regular thing, though - or at least to have some Scripture-based prayer in my life more regularly.

 

 

Magnificat is wonderful for Mass readings & morning & evening prayer. I am trying to do more, but it is good if one has a busy schedule. :blush:

[Starets]

I have used the 4-volume LOTH, the office books used by Solesmes and by Conception Abbey. the Solesmes books take a lot of getting used to

[BarbTherese]

I use Daily Prayer from The Divine Office.  I don't get stressed out, or try not to rather, if a few days go by without being able to get to it - then I unite my days with those in contemplative monastic life who are praying on our behalf anyway.  In the Mystical Body, it is the duty  of those in monastic life to be our 'powerhouse of prayer' and those who are praying on our behalf when daily life just gets so messy and mucked up as it can especially today when life can get so rushed and stressed.  :)

I was speaking with our parish priest some months ago and asked if he still had to pray the whole Divine Office every day and he replied in the affirmative.  Truly I don't know with all their duties nowadays and our shortage of priests why this duty still prevails on them - and why we do not incorporate the Doctrine of The Mystical Body more actively and practically into our daily life.  If we did, I think it would enrich and bring home to us in new ways that we are indeed the One Mystical Body of Christ on earth and members in the interests of each other.  All acting in the interests of all with common good in mind.

Edited August 31, 2014 by BarbaraTherese