The Liturgy of the Hours

The Liturgy of the Hours, also called the Divine Office or Breviary, is the official daily prayer of the Church, made of psalms, Scripture readings, hymns and intercessions arranged for set times of day. It continues the Jewish custom of fixed hours of prayer: “Seven times a day I have given praise to thee” (Psalm 118[119]:164, Douay-Rheims); the apostles went to the Temple “at the ninth hour of prayer” (Acts 3:1).

Monks shaped it most: the Rule of St. Benedict (c. 530) organized the whole Psalter over a week. In 1568 Pius V issued a standard Roman Breviary after the Council of Trent. After the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI promulgated the revised Liturgy of the Hours in 1970, spreading the Psalms over four weeks and urging lay people to take part.

The main hours are the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer (Lauds), Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer (Vespers) and Night Prayer (Compline). Priests and deacons promise to pray it; lay people are warmly invited to.

1. Get the texts: a printed breviary (such as Christian Prayer, a one-volume edition) or an approved app. The current official English texts are copyrighted, so we do not reproduce them here.
2. Pick one hour to start with, such as Morning or Evening Prayer.
3. Each hour opens with the verse “O God, come to my assistance,” then a hymn, psalms with antiphons, a short reading, a response, a Gospel canticle (Morning: the Benedictus; Evening: the Magnificat), intercessions, the Our Father and a closing prayer.
4. Ribbons in a breviary mark the day’s psalms and the season; the calendar at the front tells you which week of the four-week Psalter you are in.

The Catechism calls it “the public prayer of the Church” by which the whole day is made holy, and encourages the laity to pray it, especially Vespers on Sundays and feasts (CCC 1174–1178). Unlike private devotions, it is liturgy, the Church’s own prayer.