Divine Office

[salterrae]

So I've been praying the Divine Office for about a year now. I got my four-volume set Christmas '06.

Obviously, at first I was completely lost, but luckily the Carmelite Sisters at my school came to the rescue. One of the Sisters gave me a copy (a large stack) of the guides that their community sends them. It has the pages for the antiphons, psalms, readings, prayers, etc. for Lauds, Vespers, and Compline for every single day of the year. The same Sister gave me another copy of this guide for this year.

This is definitely a great help. I've gotten used to the structure of each hour. But, here's the problem: I don't know where to turn to (Proper of Seasons, Psalter, Proper of Saints, or Commons) on any given day, especially when it's a Sunday/ Solemnity/ Feast/ Memorial.

I tried to make myself a chart using the little booklet titled "Outline of Each Hour and the Format of the Various Offices" that came with my set, but I got really confused.

Can anyone help? Will I ever stop needing these guides?

(Besides: As much as I love the Carmelite Sisters, there guides are obviously biased towards Carmelite feasts. And somedays, as their guide proves, they don't use their Divine Office books, but what they call the "Manual of Prayers," so I get especially lost on those days.)

I hope I am clear on where I'm confused.

[b]Since I cannot reply, I will just edit:[/b]

On Feb 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord. Do I just go straight through without having to turn to other sections of the Office for Lauds and Vespers?
What about for, let's say, today's Memorial of St. Anthony. Do I just go to the page (in Commons) written in red ("[color="#FF0000"]For the common of holy men: religious,[/color] 1858.")? Because it only "comes with" a "Second Reading," "Responsory," and "Prayer."

Edited January 18, 2008 by salterrae

[Laudate_Dominum]

You may want to get a copy of this puppy: [url="http://www.catholicbookpublishing.com/(A(drASlLydxwEkAAAANmE1ZjA2N2UtZmMxNS00ZmLTg5YmUtZGI2NWU2NGY2ZGY4Akl9Yi01x_FiymKjo22drFBN41))/ShowProduct.aspx?ProductID=310&DepartmentID=11&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1"]Saint Joseph Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours[/url]

It pretty much tells you where to turn for each day of the year. This ought to help you get a feel for how it works. There is also a lot of introductory material in each of the volumes that explain how it all works.

If you know what the day is on the liturgical calendar you can determine what should be prayed. If you don't have a calendar you can always hit up a website such as this: [url="http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/inspiration.htm"]http://www.ewtn.com/Devotionals/inspiration.htm[/url]

I assume you know that the four-week psalter in the center of each volume is the common core of the office. Generally you will look up the propers for today and if you haven't prayed in a while or are just starting and don't know which week in the psalter you should use the page which begins the propers for the Sunday that starts the current week will say which week in the psalter is current. Most often you will refer to the proper of seasons which is that part of each volume that makes up the bulk of the text that comes before the four-week psalter. This is what I would typically do when I prayed the Liturgy of the Hours anyway. For example, if I were to pick up the office today, not having prayed it in a while, I would not know automatically which week in the psalter to use so I would turn back to the propers for this past Sunday which will have something like "Psalter Week III" in red type at the beginning of the text. The progression through the weeks of the psalter is linear so once you find your place you will not need to worry about it so long as you don't go too long without praying it. On each Sunday the psalter will progress such that week one will switch to week two, three, four and then back to one.

In each volume, just before the four-week psalter, is the ordinary which is a short section that contains some texts that are generally the same each day for each of the hours and provides the outline of how each hour is prayed. Here you will find a lot of text in red that explains some of the details.

After the four-week psalter you will find the proper of saints which goes by dates such as April 4th, et cetera, as opposed to "fourth week in ordinary time" and all that. If today is a feast for a particular saint you will find some material (readings, antiphons, etc) here but this proper will also indicate where to find the rest of the prayers for the day. For example, if today was the memorial of Saint Clare (which it isn't; just an example), the proper of saints page for that date would indicate in red type that the office is to come from the common of virgins and will even be so kind as to give the exact page number for this common. The commons are in each volume after the proper of saints and generally the way it will work is that you will pray the psalms from this common but will switch back to the proper of saints for some of the content such as the antiphons, readings, responsory and closing prayer. The red text in each proper for the day will tell you exactly where the various elements of the hour come from and in time you will get the feel for it and just intuitively flip around. It is the same with fixed feasts but some big feasts will be found in the proper of seasons.
Finally, you may wonder what to do in the case that there appear to be multiple possibilities for a certain day. The answer is generally that feasts and such are ranked and that with the higher rank is the default. I believe there is a section in the introductory material to each volume that gives the ranking of feasts.

I hope this post is not just more confusing. If I can find my liturgy of the hours volume for this time I would like to post a step by step example.

[Theoketos]

The best way to pray the Liturgy of the hours is to sing it in a community. It is also the best to learn it. Find a monastery near you.