The origins of the Divine Office, the Opus Dei, or "Work of God," are in the early Church. No exact date, however can be assigned to the inauguration of the official 'Prayer of the Church,' the Divine Office, as we've come to know it. Many scholars hold that the origins of the Christian Office are within the Jewish liturgical tradition, due to the fact that the Book of Psalms is the bulk of the structure for both Jewish and Christian public prayer (outside of the Mass). Jews and Christians prayed psalms and other Scripture texts especially in the morning and evening, and continue to do so. The connection between Jewish and Christian traditions seems clear, as Christ's first followers were Jewish and comfortable no doubt with existing forms of public prayer.

Along with possible Jewish roots, another important source of the Divine Office is the New Testament injunction to "pray without ceasing," found in Saint Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians, a document that even pre-dates the written Gospels. First Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 17 seems to have encouraged early Christians to gather regularly for prayer, following the example of the Apostles and "Mary the mother of Jesus" as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:14). These gatherings of early Christians would have been in the morning and evening, but likely too at midmorning, midday, mid-afternoon; that is, the third, sixth and ninth hours, with the "zero hour" of each day being understood as approximately 6:00 am. Hence, Terce, Sext and None, as they eventually came to be known, corresponded to the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, that is, three, six and nine hours after 6:00 am.

Prime, the first hour, was a later innovation in the West, beginning close to the time of Saint Benedict (480-547) in the sixth century. Because of its late beginning it is not universally accepted as an authentic part of the Divine Office, so is considered a disputed office. Prime was known to John Cassian, however, in the Egyptian desert at an earlier date (Inst. 3.4). Cassian claims the monks in Bethlehem invented Prime to keep monks from returning to bed between Lauds and Terce! That sounds reasonable enough!

For the early Christians, morning and evening prayers were the principal or major hours, as in the Jewish tradition. These two gatherings were the longer hours, meaning they were composed of more psalms and other sacred texts. The "little hours" of Terce, Sext and None were and are just that: shorter prayer times with fewer psalms and other texts.

Besides the morning and evening prayers, with minor or "little hours" in between, the early Christian liturgy also had an all-night Vigil service before the great feasts of the Church calendar, such as Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. The long Vigil was typically followed by the celebration of the Holy Eucharist at dawn, and then time allotted for a meal and rest. This structure is carefully maintained by many Orthodox monasteries today.

The Vigil for great feasts in some Orthodox monasteries today begins the night before, around 8:30 P.M., and only ends next morning around 7:00 A.M. with the conclusion of Mass! The only break might be for the main group of cantors, perhaps 7 or 8 monks, to go out for some coffee around midnight, during which time a soloist continues with the chanting. This sort of structure I experienced in the flourishing monasteries on Mount Athos in Greece in 1979, during a forty-day stay. I was in my 20s then, and the all-night Vigil was most enjoyable. I might feel less enthusiastic about the idea now! But I'm sure the monks there carry on the custom with vigor.

In any case, we have the early Christian witnesses of people like the pilgrim Egeria to the Holy Land around 380 A.D., coming perhaps from Spain, partaking in the all-night Christian Vigil in Jerusalem. The Jewish custom of the new day beginning at sundown is seen in this practice, which we still maintain in our Catholic tradition on Saturday nights--at First Vespers--as well as on the evening before Solemnities. In the Jewish tradition the new day always begins at nightfall. For us, it is only on Solemnities and Sundays. This is certainly a way to mark off the great feasts with practices different from those observed on regular or ferial days.

Some scholars of Church liturgy connect the origins of the night Vigil to the Book of Exodus account of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt at nighttime. The resurrection of Christ also occurred in the night. The modern practice of early morning Vigil, which Saint Benedict expected his monks to maintain, finds its origin as well in "waiting for the risen Lord" to come to us at dawn, as did the women disciples of our Lord who went to the tomb at daybreak. The idea of waiting is linked to being always ready to open the door of the heart, of one's time and all one has, should Jesus return even at midnight or before sunrise. To wait in the dark, keeping vigil, is a very ancient monastic custom, still preserved by stricter Orders and some individual monasteries such as Christ in the Desert.

As already stated, the Book of Psalms has always been the chief text used in whatever Christian Office is celebrated. Many of the psalms are chosen specifically to reflect the time of day of the Office--nighttime, morning, midday, etc. Other psalms would have a difficult time fitting into any particular time of day, but worthy material--as divinely inspired texts--for general use in the Divine Office. Some psalms in fact quite naturally develop a relationship with a particular feast or solemnity. Think of Psalm 2, for example, in relation to the birth of our Lord: "The Lord said to me: 'You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day.'" Or Psalm 71 for the same feast: "O God, give your judgment to the king, to a king's son your justice...The kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring him gifts." This especially calls to mind our Lord's Epiphany.

These and other appropriate psalms understandably are assigned for the Office during the Christmas season. Psalm 44 has a particular Marian sound and is assigned to feasts of our Lady. "Listen, O daughter, give ear to my words: forget your own people and your father's house."

The Christian community has always tried to look at the psalms in the light of the Risen Christ, and to find the deepest meaning of the psalms in Christ's saving deeds. In the earliest practice of celebrating the Divine Office, the laity, in congregations that we now call parishes, were the main participants. They would gather with their clergy--priests or deacons--and in unison or with soloists sing some or all of the Offices. They also made use of sacred images, candles, bells and incense to enhance the celebrations. Gestures of bowing, prostrating in prayer, crossing oneself, etc., were also part of the liturgy.

We know that monastic communities were established in various places by the fourth century, particularly in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. With the existence of these communities, regular times of common prayer came into being, especially in the morning and evening. We now call these times Lauds and Vespers. Since the monastic life was structured around the call to "pray without ceasing," early on the "little hours" or "minor hours" also came into being. But perhaps the most characteristic monastic Office was and is Vigils, the pre-dawn assembly, longer than other Offices and perhaps richest in content. It was kept not only on great feasts, but every day, causing the monks to do something most ordinary Christians would not be inclined to do: rise well before dawn and gather in church for prayer. The time was to be spent in prayerful watching, in vocal and silent prayer and psalmody, as well as the proclamation of and listening to God's inspired Word and hearing commentaries on it by Fathers of the Church.

The celebration of the Office in the early monastic communities included solo cantors, who read or chanted while the rest of the assembly listened and then responded with simple refrains. We might ask why that was so. Perhaps it was due to the simple reality of a lack of books and inadequate lighting in the prayer place. This form of praying the hours might seem to us today to have been a more passive, if not boring, kind of celebration than what we associate with the Office today, with everyone able to join in for the bulk of it.

Approaching the Office in a contemplative spirit, the monks of old might have felt it was completely fitting that most of them listen rather than actively contribute with vocal participation. In those days there was no preoccupation with "active participation," a hallmark of post-Vatican II worship, but emphasis was more on truly listening to God's Word in silence, pondering it in the heart, and making simple response by a few words only. It is still a valid approach to celebrating the Office.

At Christ in the Desert we experience this more passive approach to the Opus Dei at Vigils on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when the church remains dark, except for the Tenebrae stand of thirteen candles. The psalms of the Office are chanted by soloists at the Lectern, where there is a small light. Scripture and Patristic texts are read from the same Lectern. After each psalm or reading a candle is extinguished on the Tenebrae stand. At the end of Vigils only one candle remains lit, under a large woven image of our Lord. At that moment we kneel for silent prayer, followed by the chanting, on our knees, of the "Christus factus est pro nobis obediens usque ad mortum," (Christ became for us obedient unto death, etc., from Saint Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 2).

Admittedly, those in ancient times or today who are not actually doing the soloist chanting or reading could tend to fall asleep, instead of actually contemplatively listening and praying in the dark. Most likely, no one would ever know. But hopefully the majority are listening and praying with the soloist cantors.

In any case, the early monastic Office, however it was carried out, had a definite form. In other words, the monks knew what to expect when they went to pray in common. One of the norms or expectations of the long Office of Vigils, for example, was the praying of twelve psalms. There was a story that Saint Pachomius (+345 A.D.)--often called the "Father of Cenobitic Monasticism"--received the vision of an angel who warned Pachomius not to go beyond twelve psalms at Vigils. Later on Saint Benedict held to this norm, though in fact some of the longer psalms he divided, thus making two psalms out of what is technically just one psalm.

Here it should be said that much was made in the ancient world of symbolic numbers and quantities. Twelve was two times six, a perfect number. Four, the quantity of psalms at Vespers, was a special number, as was three, the number of psalms at the Little Hours. The biblical "seven times a day I praise you," seven being a number of perfection, was also incorporated into the mentality of legislators of the monastic Office, such as Saint Benedict.

The recitation or chanting of the entire Book of Psalms, often called "the Psalter," within a week or every day, was also an early monastic custom. Many monks before Saint Benedict settled on the weekly praying of the Psalter, as is clear in Benedict's outline, though several of the psalms were to be repeated daily, namely, Psalms 3 and 94 at Vigils, Psalms 66 and 50 at Lauds, 4, 90, 133 at Compline. Also psalms would be repeated several days per week at some of the little hours, once the chanting of the longest psalm, 118, was completed early in the week. Saint Benedict refers to desert monks praying the entire psalter within a given day. For his monks, however, the recitation extended over an entire week, with repetition of some psalms every day, such as Psalms 3, 94, 66, 50, 148, 149, 150, as well as 4, 90 and 133, the traditional Compline psalms.

We have to acknowledge that there is no set number of psalms or prayer times that is automatically pleasing to God. What is essential, though, is that the Office be carried out reverently and regularly. Heartfelt prayer is the goal, that God may be worshiped and the participants be led to the Maker of all. As such, each Office should be characterized by reverence and care. We believe the all-Holy God is present always and everywhere, but especially so when we gather in his name. "Where two or three in My name are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them," our Lord Himself said (Mt 18:20).

Reverence and a spirit of sincere devotion, then, should characterize those who have assembled to pray in common. Perhaps the approach needs to be something else when praying in private. Common prayer, though, has its particular form. This should not include fussiness and tension over ceremonies, nor should breezy casualness be the norm. Common worship in the presence of the Creator should be done with care and devotion, which includes a certain formality, uniformity and concern for detail. We know many in our day are drawn to liturgy that is done with dignity, where a sense of mystery prevails, and the transcendent God is not reduced to a "good buddy" or an equal. We are and always will be God's creatures and so this relationship should be reflected in the way we approach the Triune God in our public worship.

Saint Benedict devised a fairly strict pattern of psalm distribution, which was already a tradition before him, and a break from another tradition, which favored what has been called a "running psalter," that is, simply praying the psalms in their numerical order, one after another. Benedict's tradition was to assign specific psalms to specific hours of the day or night. Both traditions were used in early monastic Offices, but the Benedictine one became more widely accepted as time went on, and that is still so today. Other Christian Churches, such as present-day Coptic Christians of Egypt, continue to favor the tradition of the running psalter. In either case, once again, the strictest interpretation of using the Psalter was to complete all 150 psalms in a week.

The history of monasticism saw other practices, many of them going to the extremes, such praying the psalter in a day or the Laus Perennis, that is, choirs chanting the Office non-stop, as in the Middle Ages, but generally the virtue of discretio won the day. Until Vatican II the entire psalter was usually prayed by monks in the course of a week. Today there is a variety from one week to four-week distribution of the psalter, all of them approved by Rome for use by laity and religious.

Every community, however large or small, that prays the Divine Office should be aware of being a praying Church, which represents the Universal Church. For those in more contemplative and monastic communities the Opus Dei is a special charism, that is, gift of the Holy Spirit. It could be said that the Holy Spirit bestows the gift or charism of prayer, or a ministry of prayer, to the individual members and to the contemplative community as a whole. The monastic community is one that has received the call to "pray without ceasing." This does not mean a perpetual presence in church, but rather a call to "pray always," in whatever occupation is being undertaken. The prayer is for the Church and the good of all, outwardly directed, for "the growth of the Body of Christ," as Saint Paul calls it in Ephesians 4:15. This does not discount the charism of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which some contemplative communities are devoted to. Many parishes today also maintain this venerable custom.

By a "ministry of prayer," the praying Church, the monastic choir, continues the work of salvation, through Christ being present in Word and in Sacrament, when the Eucharist is celebrated. The two modes of public liturgical prayer--the Divine Office and the Mass--are great testimonies to Christ-in-our-midst. Christ is present in the assembly that gathers and proclaims God's Word and it also receives Christ truly present in the bread and wine, his Body and Blood, at the Eucharist.

The monastic choir is also a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, who bestows the particular charism or ministry of prayer. The praying community should be attentive to the action of the Holy Spirit, who inspires a deeper longing for the living God. This is compared in the psalms to a "deer that yearns for living streams." We do this when we are attentive to God's living Word and his desire to bring us to good actions and words. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in the assembly of monks or whenever "two or three are gathered" in Christ's name.

Christ is present in our liturgical prayer, uniting himself with the praying community in a relationship of Master and disciple, Head and member, Bridegroom and bride, Creator and creature. The members of the praying community--the monastic choir--are in communion with their Head, Christ, and participate in Christ's saving work. The ritual celebrations of the Divine Office are a strong means of entering into a dialogue of praise and contemplation of the God who saves us.

The Opus Dei thus becomes a powerful part of every day and thus should not be neglected for other matters, however urgent. So many monastic communities today have dropped Vigils, for example, because of the demands of the apostolate or other works or even the priority of getting more rest, are preferred to the Work of God. Those who have the leisure, so to speak, to spend more time with God, should diligently carry out the full round of Offices in the monastic tradition.

The Liturgy of the Hours is not the same as the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but the two are intimately connected in the one saving work of Christ, who comes to us in many forms. When we partake of the Office or the Mass we are invited to "taste and see how good the Lord is," who loved us and gave himself up for us, which we recall at every Mass and Office when we participate through Word and Sacrament in a sacrifice of praise. We bring the gifts of self and all we have, including bread and wine, to the Lord's altar, so that God may consecrate us and our gifts, and accomplish the two-fold purpose of all liturgical action: the sanctification of souls and the glorification of God.

In 1970 Pope Paul VI wrote some challenging and encouraging words in his Apostolic Constitution Laudis canticum, 8:

• "May divine praise resound more and more splendid and beautiful in the Church of our time; may this praise unite itself to the praise which the saints and angels make sound in the celestial dwellings and, increasing its perfection in the days of this earthly exile, may it approximate more and more that full praise which is eternally rendered 'to him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb'" (cf. Rev 5:13).

In the contemplative monastic tradition of the West, pride of place has always been given to the celebration of the Divine Office. Along with the daily Eucharist, the Opus Dei nourishes and forms the individuals and the community as a whole. "Let nothing be preferred to the work of God," Saint Benedict wrote in his Rule (RB 43.3, "Those Who Arrive Late at the Work of God"). This reflects the constant conviction of the Church that the Divine Office is to be among the primary responsibilities of the Church (see: General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours).

All Christians are called to pray and common prayer is an important part of a life of prayer, to which all believers are invited. Vatican II tried to re-introduce the laity to this important Prayer of the Church, the Divine Office, and in some parishes it met with success. In many others, though, the Divine Office remains an unknown reality and it is rarely or never prayed. Praying communities such as Christ in the Desert can hopefully encourage others not committed to monastic or religious life to at least consider incorporating some of the Divine Office into their daily lives. We certainly meet in our monasteries today many who are zealous to be people of prayer and often they simply need to be directed to the riches contained in the Liturgy of the Hours.

When a community gathers to pray the Divine Office, it represents the entire Church at prayer. It is not to be seen as a sort of pooling of private prayers, but truly the Church praying as a body, in the name of all and for all, thus being again the Church at prayer. The assembled community is a sign of communion among themselves in Christ the Lord who prays with them, and in the Holy Spirit who has called the community into being and bestowed upon it the charism (that is, gift of the Holy Spirit) of prayer and who "intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26).

The structure of the Opus Dei is intended to promote a conversation between God and his people (General Instructions on the Liturgy of the Hours), which includes both listening and responding, silence and words, Sacred Scripture and poetic texts reflecting Scripture themes, such as in the hymns. In more recent times silence has come to be valued as an important element in the Divine Office, most often after each psalm or reading. Such silence helps all to absorb the word that has been chanted or heard, so that it may take root and grow in attentive hearts. On the other hand, the silence must not be so long as to bore or cause distraction in the choir, such as one or all falling fast asleep! A balance is needed and will inevitably vary from community to community and between individuals within the community.

The Work of God is one of several means of prayer in the monastic day. It holds pride of place, of course, along with the daily Eucharist. The daily horarium (schedule) revolves around the times we gather for the Office and Mass. As we are expected to pray in solitude as well as in common, the Opus Dei should inspire our solitary prayer and vice versa. The prayer in solitude will probably have much less structure and ritual, but it is nonetheless a very important part of our life of prayer. We may begin each day with the praise of God in common with others, but eventually we continue in private, under the inspiration of divine grace, the dialogue with God begun earlier.

The Opus Dei is spread over the day in order to consecrate the entire day to God. The old custom of waiting till the end of the day for the praying of all the Offices or praying them all at the beginning of the day, clearly defeats the notion of sanctifying the entire day by consciously stopping other activities to gather for prayer in the Oratory or the monk's private cell. We are to go back continually to the source of our energy and life--God himself--to draw further strength and inspiration to going about doing good, as our Lord himself is described as having done.

Three Liturgical Cycles: Daily, Weekly, Yearly

The celebration of our salvation in Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church is carried out according to daily, weekly and yearly cycles. Both the Eucharist and the Divine Office reflect this structure and are celebrated accordingly. The mystery of Christ's Resurrection is the center of all three cycles, and so is ever-present to those who participate in the Liturgy of the Hours or the Holy Eucharist.

Each day the Opus Dei begins with waiting for the Risen Christ (Vigils), welcoming him at dawn (Lauds), and throughout the day (Little Hours and Vespers), and finally placing ourselves under God's protection at day's end and the end of our life (Compline). In addition there are specific feast days of Christ, his Mother, the angels and saints, set before us in order to ponder God's mighty deeds through the ages. We recount throughout each day and the entire Liturgical Year the great things Christ has done and the heroic response of his followers as martyrs, confessors, doctors, holy men and women. The Mass of the day likewise reflects these realities in order to seek the intercession of the saints as well as the edification and sanctification of God's people.

The weekly cycle of the liturgy begins by recounting Christ's resurrection, recalled on the first day of the week, Sunday. Of course in the Easter season this is the special focus, but really every Sunday is an opportunity to contemplate the Risen Lord. "The Lord's Day" is to be unlike the other days of the week, with longer Offices, the singing of the Gloria at Mass (except in Advent and Lent) and the reciting or singing of the Nicene Creed every Sunday and Solemnity, and normally a different daily schedule with little or no work. The other days of the week are to be centered around Sunday.

The Liturgical Year is our annual, year-long contemplation and celebration of the redemption of the human race in Jesus Christ. Rooted in the Paschal Season, we pass from Advent, to Christmas, to Ordinary Time and Lent, then Easter, the high point of the Liturgical Year, then Ordinary Time again until the cycle begins anew at Advent. Throughout the Liturgical Year various feasts and solemnities occur, drawing our attention to one aspect or another of the mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ, be it our Lord's Nativity, his Baptism or Ascension, or his Blessed Mother's Immaculate Conception, Birthday, Assumption, etc. Solemnities of the Apostles and particular patron saints are also included in the Liturgical Calendar each year. All of this is a way to recount with joy and deepen our awareness of God's unbounded goodness to the human race.

In a letter (xxii, 37) from the year 384, Saint Jerome wrote the following:

"The Apostle indeed admonishes us to pray without ceasing (¹Thes 5:17), and with the Saints their very sleep should be a prayer. Nevertheless, we must set aside stated hours for the duty of praying. Then, should any occupation keep us away from it, the hour itself will remind us of that duty. As such prayer times everyone knows of the third, sixth and ninth hours, the morning and the evening hours. Nor should you ever take nourishment without beginning to do so with a prayer. Likewise, you should not leave the table without discharging your duty of thanks to the Creator. In the night, too, one should rise from his couch two or three times and therewith recall what he has learned by heart from the Scriptures [during the daytime]. On leaving his abode he should arm himself with prayer. Also, he should say a prayer upon his return before he seats himself again. After that only is the life entitled to its nourishment and the body to its rest. Before every action, at the beginning of every undertaking, let the hand make the sign of the cross."

Saint Jerome is speaking here for the early church and for monasticism in general. The two ideas emphasized are that one should strive to pray all times as well as adhere to a regular structure of prayer at appointed times. He numbers in all six common prayer periods: Morning, Evening, Nighttime, as well as prayer at the Third, Sixth and Ninth hours (Terce, Sext, None). 'Zero hour' for our ancestors in the faith was considered to be at approximately 6:00 am, presumably coinciding with the arrival of the new day.

In the Rule of Saint Benedict, written in the early 500s, we hear of eight prayer periods: Matins or Vigils, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. Since the time of Saint Benedict's Rule, there generally has been understood to be eight canonical hours in the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. We presume, though, that Saint Benedict took over the number from an existing tradition familiar to him. Perhaps centers of Church life and monasticism already existing in Rome, Milan, Naples and Lerins in Gaul (modern-day France) influenced him in taking on the same number of prayer periods.

In Saint Benedict's plan of distributing the 150 Psalms over a one-week period, the eight canonical hours afforded the basic structure on which to assign the psalms. Besides the psalms, of course, other Scripture texts, commentaries on them as well as hymns, antiphons and verses--not necessarily direct Scripture quotations--comprised and still comprise the Liturgy of the Hours of the Church.

Sometimes at Christ in the Desert we are asked why we don't use the four-volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours published for use by Catholics and used by many religious as well. We have to explain to the questioners that the four-volume set is actually an "abbreviation" of the fuller, complete monastic office that traditionally distributes the 150 psalms over one week, with repetitions of some each and every day (Psalms 3, 94, 66, 50, 148-150, 4, 90, 133).

The published Roman version distributes the psalms, and leaving out sections of some psalms, over a four-week cycle. Consequently the offices during the course of the day are sometimes significantly shorter. As autonomous Religious Orders (we Benedictines are actually a Confederation of Congregations) in the Church we are allowed to do the fuller Office and hopefully one day we can have a better-printed and bound version once the revisions are complete. It took the Church many centuries to finalize the Antiphonale Monasticum in use until Vatican II by most Benedictines for the Divine Office, so I presume it will still be some years until we can print a complete set of books for use at the Monastery or by friends, using a one-week schema or distribution of the psalter, basically as found in the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Let us now consider each of the traditional Canonical Hours of the Divine Office, in the order that they are normally prayed, beginning with Vigils.

First, the Night Office, sometimes called Matins or Vigils. At Christ in the Desert we always call it Vigils. The term "matutini," from which the word Matins comes, really means morning, so is more technically applied to the Office as the sun is rising, though the term Lauds is mostly commonly used for the Office at daybreak. Perhaps the term "Matins" is better left unused because of potential confusion. In any case the Office at night, before dawn, is a very ancient monastic prayer time, probably going back to Apostolic times, with the goal of breaking up the night and sanctifying those hours, at least in private, and eventually in common, especially in monastic communities.

In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 16 verse 25, we find the following: "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." Early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria (+215 A.D.), Tertullian of Carthage (+220 A.D.) and Hippolytus of Rome (+238 A.D.) all make mention of the nighttime prayers. Hippolytus refers to two times of prayer for Christians, at midnight and at first rooster-crow, around 3:00 am. The earliest nighttime offices would most likely have been prayed in the home, but eventually held in the church building, which seems to have been the case by 400 A.D..

The earliest Christian monks were likewise aware of the custom of nighttime prayers and carried out the duty very day. The monks of Saint Pachomius' (died in 346 A.D.) monastery initially seem to have performed the prayers of night in private, but gradually, and certainly by the time of Saint Basil (died in 379 A.D.), prayers at night were a community exercise. That was Saint Benedict's understanding of Vigils or Night Prayer as well. This custom has carried on to the present in the stricter observance monasteries of various Orders. After Vatican II, the night office came to be called "The Office of Readings," and could be prayed at any time of the day. The concession seems appropriate for aging or very active communities that cannot easily rise in the night for the traditional time of pre-dawn Vigil. How "good and pleasant it is," though, if a community can actually pray the full Vigil at the more classical hour, well before Dawn.

The content of the night vigil for monks has always consisted mostly of psalms, some lessons from Scripture or the Patristic tradition and Collects, but the whole idea of an Office of Readings is a bit foreign to the ancient monastic ritual, that traditionally places more emphasis on the psalmody, usually 12 in number, as well a set or Nocturn of Old Testament canticles of a psalm-like structure, on Sundays and Solemnities. That is not to diminish the importance of the other Scripture readings or the Patristic commentaries assigned to the Office, nor the amount of time they would take up in the Vigil, but still the prominent place in the service should be given to the psalms and canticles in a monastic office that follows a more classic structure.

Perhaps more fittingly the Office at night should be called the "Office of Psalmody," but better still, the "Office of Vigils," implying as the word does, watching for the dawn. So important is the place of the psalms at this and all the offices that Saint Benedict's Rule says that if the brethren accidentally wake up late, which he highly frowns upon, the lessons and responses would be dropped, but not the psalms (Chapter 11.12-13, "How Vigils Should be Done on Sundays"). "But if they should--God forbid! (quod absit)--happen to rise late, then some of the readings or responses should be shortened. All precautions should be taken that this does not happen." Part of the point of this is that Lauds should begin at daybreak. But if the brethren carry on with the usual length of the Vigil Office when they over-sleep, they cannot begin the morning prayer--Lauds--at daybreak.

Many Coptic monks today as of old may chant or recite the entire Psalter in a day! "We lukewarm monks," as St Benedict wryly refers to his followers, should be able to accomplish that in a week.

The idea of praying at night either in private or in public pre-dates monasticism in the Church, but the early monks took up the custom with fervor. The Night Vigil came to be considered a very characteristic monastic practice, not to be neglected, or placed at some other hour of the day. The only exception, as previously noted, and still the custom on Mount Athos in Greece, for example, the stronghold of Greek Orthodox monasticism, is to begin great feasts with a Night Vigil starting at sundown the evening before and extending it all through the night until the next morning's break of day, usually celebrating the Eucharist at the end of the all-night Vigil, as it is called. On Mount Athos the monks ordinarily begin this vigil around 8:00 P.M, and conclude around 7 or 8 A.M the next morning.

The Office prayed at sunrise, called "Matutini," (from the word for morning time) has always been a part of the monastic tradition. Today we call this office Lauds, meaning praise, to be associated especially with the repetition each day of Psalms 148, 149, 150 at the end of the psalmody, before the short lesson, response, hymn and canticle of the Gospel, the Benedictus are prayed. According to John Cassian, this Office of praising Christ as the new light appears on the horizon, was being prayed around the year 360 in Bethlehem, the place of our Lord's birth. Like private prayer and nighttime vigils, the idea of a morning office probably extends back much earlier in the Church, but a precise date cannot be assigned to its origin.

Early Christian monks adopted the custom of meeting at daybreak, as well as in the predawn, and associated the office at dawn especially with our Lord's resurrection from the dead. The psalms most often associated with Lauds include Psalm 66 ("Let your face shed its light upon us"); Psalm 50 ("Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness") and the just mentioned Psalms 148-150. In the office according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, these five psalms are repeated each day at Lauds.

Other psalms too are linked with Lauds, for example Psalms 5, 35, 42, 56, 62, 63, 64, 87, 89, 117, 142, (Greek Septuagint numbering), all of them with some reference to daybreak, a new day, a new beginning. Each day at Lauds an Old Testament Canticle, also in a poetic, psalm-like structure is used before the Laudate Psalms (that is, Psalms 148, 149, 150).

Like Vespers, the Office of Lauds has a Gospel canticle, the Benedictus, the "Canticle of Zechariah," from Saint Luke's Gospel, prayed while standing, as is customary for a text from the Gospels. Similarly, the Magnificat, the "Canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary," is sung each day at Vespers. These two daily offices--Lauds and Vespers--are often called the pivotal ones of the day, the hinges on which the day turns, and so they are not to be omitted, even if for some reason Vigils or some other Office cannot be prayed on a particular day because of extraordinary circumstances. Like the Sunday Mass obligation, illness is an extraordinary circumstance and obligation is lifted.

Among the laity or active religious, the Offices of Lauds and Vespers are the most commonly celebrated offices, as a remembrance and celebration of God's creation at the beginning of a new day in the light of the Risen Christ, as the Sun rises in the east, and at the end of the day, as the Sun is setting in the west. The two offices are complementary. Most active congregations limit themselves to Lauds and Vespers offices, often with the addition of one of the little hours--usually at midday perhaps--and perhaps Compline as well.

The Pater Noster, the Our Father, holds a special place toward the end of Lauds, as it does with Vespers. In the Rule of Saint Benedict it is the Abbot alone who chants the Our Father at Lauds and Vespers, with the brethren coming in at the end, "but deliver us from evil." We might ask why would the superior be expected to sing the Our Father alone. A sermon by Saint Augustine (serm. 49.8) may be the explanation. In that sermon Saint Augustine notes that some people omit the part for forgiveness in the "Our Father," thinking they are not obligated to it. If the superior recites it, as in the Benedictine custom, then all hear the admonition and are obliged to live in the spirit of interpersonal forgiveness. Perhaps this is where Saint Benedict got the idea, via the Rule of the Master, which pre-dates the Rule of Saint Benedict, but contains a lot of the same material in an expanded form.

In another place (in Jo. 26.22) Saint Augustine says that the recitation of the words "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," even forgives lesser sins and prepares the heart to receive the Eucharist. By having the monks recite the last part of the Pater Noster, Saint Benedict seems to imply that the community is entering into a solemn pact or covenant to know and observe all the petitions of the Our Father, especially that of mutual forgiveness, since in community that can be one of the most difficult yet necessary of tasks. In any case, it is the superior who traditionally chants the Our Father at Lauds and Vespers in the Benedictine Office, though many monasteries no longer follow the practice.

This is the "First Hour," roughly at 7:00 A.M. (Zero Hour being approximately 6:00 A.M.). John Cassian mentions that this first hour was instituted to prevent the monks of Bethlehem from returning to bed between the end of Lauds and the hour of Terce. Prime is historically the most recent of the Little Hours, since Terce, Sext and None all seem to be of an earlier origin. We know that Prime was being prayed in the West at Lerins (modern France) by the end of the fifth century. The first mention of it is in a document by Saint Caesarius of Arles (+543 A. D.) in his Rule for Nuns, chapter 64. It seems to have taken a while for the Office of Prime to receive general acceptance in the West. By the time of Saint Benedict in the early 500s it does seem to have been an accepted office.

The little hour of Prime was officially dropped or suppressed in the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, but communities and individuals are still free to pray it, as do some of the Benedictine monasteries of the Solesmes Congregation, as well as the Abbey of Pluscarden in Scotland, part of the Subiaco Congregation, of which Christ in the Desert is a member. We pray the hymn of the Office of Prime at the beginning of our work meeting each morning, alternating it one day in Latin, the next day in English.

Terce, Sext and None correspond to the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, and thus follow the zero hour of Lauds which begins at approximately 6:00 am. Terce is Latin for third; Sext means sixth and None means ninth. In the primitive Church there is evidence that the apostles and early Christians prayed at these times, either in private or in common. The Acts of the Apostles and the post-scriptural document, the Didache of around 100 AD, also Saint Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus of Rome and Tertullian of Carthage make mention of these prayer times. In the Old Testament, such as Daniel 6:10, we also find mention of such practice. There it is said that Daniel got "down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise Him," though some commentators would say this might be reflecting the Jewish custom of prayer at morning, noon and evening, rather than midmorning, midday and mid-afternoon.

In any case, the custom of Little Hours grew up in the monastic and larger Church in the course of the centuries and still is followed in stricter monasteries and hermitages. Saint Basil the Great mentions that these little hours are of a monastic origin and, but for the monks of Saint Pachomius prior to Basil, these offices were still prayed in private. It seems there was no universal practice of the communal recitation of these hours until the Middle Ages. These hours continue to be prayed by many religious communities to this day.

Vespers, whose name literally means shadows, is the traditional evening prayer of the Catholic Church. Its celebration was and is to take place when evening comes and lamps are lit, though Saint Benedict implies it should be done before any lamps are needed. The origins of this Office pre-date monasticism itself and are linked to the evening sacrifice of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem at sunset. Like the prayer in common at sunrise, a protracted evening prayer was likely part of the liturgical life of the earliest monastic communities.

The structure of the two main prayer times of Lauds and Vespers has always been similar: psalmody, a lesson, response, hymn, New Testament canticle of Zechariah (at Lauds) or of Mary (at Vespers), a litany of intercessions, the Our Father, the Kyrie Eleison, and the concluding prayer. The placement of the hymn at the beginning of each and every office was an innovation of modern times that alters the tradition of a subtle variety within the ancient structure of the Divine Office. At the Little Hours the hymn begins the Office, but in the offices of Lauds, Vespers and Compline, Saint Benedict describes the hymn as coming in the middle of the office, after the chanting of the psalms, lesson and short response. At Vigils, the hymn is quite near the beginning, after Psalms 3 and 94. These minor variations gave each office a distinctive flavor, subtle though it be. Some monasteries have maintained the position of the hymn according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. Some monasteries, such as Christ in the Desert about twenty-five years ago, have restored the hymn to its placement in the Office according to what is found in the Rule of Saint Benedict.

The closing Office of the day, held after sunset, when night begins, seems to be of monastic origin, though eventually it became part of the Roman Office as well. Compline is mentioned by Saint Basil the Great, who died in 379 A.D. and also by Saint John Chrysostom, who died in 407 A.D.. Traditionally the same three psalms were prayed each night: 4, 90 and 133. Hence, the psalms could be prayed by heart, often in the dark. These three psalms contain clear references to the night, going to rest, dwelling in the shelter of the Most High, protection of the angels, etc., and so are perfect for the end of the day.

Probably the first symbolic feature of the Divine Office is the number seven. "Seven times a day I have given you praise," Scripture says (Psalm 118:64). Probably the original idea of the psalmist was to use a perfect number--seven--to focus direct attention on earnest, persevering, unceasing prayer, as opposed to seven specific prayer periods as such in the Jewish tradition. Yet the early Christian monks took the number more literally and John Cassian points out the monks of Bethlehem as meeting together for prayer seven times in the course of the day. But even then the deeper purpose of adhering to the scriptural number of seven was to help the Christian monks focus on the famous injunction already mentioned, to "pray without ceasing" (¹Thes 5:17). The purpose of each and every prayer time was the praise of the Creator, invisible God yet ever-present, the actual abba of the koinobion, that is, the Father of the holy community.

Having established an objective number of seven offices, early monks were concerned about which prayers should be held at which hours. They came to some general conclusions from the life of our Lord and the Apostles about the prayer periods to be held in the monasteries. Various important monastic legislators recorded the findings regarding the Divine Office and its mystical relationship to Scripture.

Saint Basil the Great (+379 A. D.), for example, says in the Longer Rules (37, 3-4) that the morning office of Lauds is a reminder to us to dedicate the day's first ideas of the mind and the first emotions of the heart to God. He says further that we should not occupy ourselves with other cares until we have oriented all our thoughts toward God, as it is written, "I remembered my God...I pondered and my spirit fainted," (Psalm 76:3).

Nor should we begin our manual labor, says Saint Basil, until we have done as the psalmist says: "It is you whom I invoke, O Lord. In the morning you hear me; in the morning I offer you my prayer, watching and waiting" (Psalm 5:3b). Also, at midmorning the brethren should gather to pray, recounting the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:15). At Noon the brethren pray as well, after the example of the saints, who say in the psalms, "evening, morning and at noon I will cry and lament" (Psalm 54:18).

Saint Basil would also have his monks pray Psalm 90 at this hour, with its reference to the "scourge that lays waste at noon" (v.6), the "noonday devil," or most commonly in ancient literature called accedia. Saint Benedict and subsequent liturgical tradition place Psalm 90 at Compline.

In the middle of the afternoon, says Saint Basil, the monks should pray as the Apostles did (Acts 3:1) "at the ninth hour," that is, around three in the afternoon. As day draws to a close, the brethren should give God thanks for all the good they may have done, admitting what they have failed to do, and confess any failings of thought, word or deed. Finally, at Compline, the last prayer of the day in common, monks should pray for "a peaceful night and a happy death." And furthermore, in imitation of Paul and Silas (Acts 16:25), monks should rise at night, recounting the words of Psalm 118:64: "At midnight I will rise and thank you."

Saint Basil goes on to say that those who wish to live for the honor and glory of God must not neglect these periods of prayer during the day and night. The fixed hours are a help to facilitate attention on God, hopefully always, but at least at specific hours throughout the day, and finding refreshment for one's soul.

Another important monastic legislator, John Cassian (+ca. 433 A. D.), has different symbolism for Sext, None and Vespers. He draws attentions to our Lord's crucifixion at Noon, which he says we should recall when praying at that hour. Also at the Sixth Hour Saint Peter received the vision that all nations were being called to salvation (Acts 10:9ff). At the Ninth Hour Christ descended into the netherworld to free those in Hades or Sheol, and broke open its gates and called forth the waiting ancestors, from Adam and Eve to John the Baptist, awaiting redemption by Christ. Cornelius the Centurion too received his call at the Ninth Hour, according to Acts 10:1-3. As these hours were consecrated by sacred events, says Cassian, the hours should also be kept by monks. As for the evening hour, the example of the Old Testament Mosaic law should be our model: "Let my prayer arise before you like incense, the raising of my hands like an evening oblation" (Psalm 140:2). The Last Supper also comes to mind for Cassian, the supreme evening sacrifice, as well as Christ lifting up of his hands on the cross on Good Friday, for the salvation of the whole world.

Cassian also cites psalm and other scripture texts to bolster the ideas of prayer at morning, midday, noon, mid-afternoon, nightfall and night. Cassian was especially in favor of the eremitical (Hermit) life, since it could more easily be a ceaseless prayer. He said the hermit's prayer, even when he works, "is the more perfect; for what is done without interruption is better than that which is performed only at intervals; and a voluntary gift is more pleasing than those that are offered under the constraint of a Rule" (Institutes 3.2).

Another important monastic legislator from around the time of Saint Benedict (+547 A. D.) is Saint Caesarius of Arles, first a monk at the important monastery of Lerins, then a Bishop of Arles and writer of a rule for nuns at Arles, where his sister, Caesaria, was abbess. Saint Caesarius died about 543. In his rule for nuns he refers to the hymns of the various hours as giving expression to the symbolic meaning of the various hours. We'll look at that aspect of the Office shortly.

The little hour of Sext, says Saint Caesarius, recalls the visitors to Abraham (Gen 18) at midday. The monks looked upon the three visitors as symbolic of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, which the Arians denied. The heresy of the Arians was also known to Saint Benedict, whose insistence on the regular use of the doxology, Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto (Glory Be to the Father , and the Son, and the Holy Spirit), clearly placed his monks in the non-Arian camp. The Arians denied the equality of Christ with the other Persons of the Trinity.

The poetic hymns of the Divine Office are attributed to various ancient authors, most of them saints of the Church: Ambrose (+397 A. D.), Pope Gregory the Great (+604 A. D.), Nicetas of Reesiana (+c. 415 A. D.), Prudentius (+413 A. D.), Venantius Fortunatus (+c. 600 A. D.), Paulinus of Aquileia and Paul the Deacon (+799 A. D.) from the eight century, Rabanas Maurus (+856 A. D.), Elpis, a woman author of the eighth century, as well as Thomas Aquinas (+1264 A. D.), Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (+1621 A. D.), Juan de la Concepcion from the seventeenth century, and a number of anonymous or unknown authors of the early Christian centuries, as well as from modern times, all of whom wrote in Latin.

The hymns are not scripture texts, but use scripture as their launching pad, so to speak, in order to weave thoughts that inspire us to reflect on God's goodness to humankind, revealed in both sacred scripture and tradition. Hence, the hymns are not divinely inspired like the scriptures, but nonetheless they have always had an important place in the Divine Office of the Catholic Church.

Those who use the ancient hymns of the traditional monastic office either in Latin or in vernacular translation, can experience, for example, the work of God creating all things, sung about at Vespers in Ordinary Time. The Lord's resurrection and the cycle of night associated with sin and the light of day with redemption in Christ, "the Sun of Righteousness," are also made manifest in the hymns. They help us to enter more fully into the season we are celebrating in the Liturgical Year, be it Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, or Paschaltide and to focus our attention on Christ's redemptive work on behalf of the human race.

It is a great loss to replace these rich and venerable hymn texts assigned to the Opus Dei with mediocre modern compositions of lesser value and depth. I believe an ideal monastic office would do all it can to include the ancient hymns handed down over the centuries, and to use them either in their original Latin or in faithful translations.

An argument might also be made for retaining the traditional Gregorian chant melodies as well, which change throughout the year according to the liturgical season, thus calling to mind immediately what time of year or day it is by the tunes being sung at the Divine Office.

The 150 Psalms of the Old Testament are the principal element of the entire Opus Dei, however short or long it may be. Other Scripture texts are used at the Offices as well, such as canticles, verses and responses, as well as in the readings or lessons themselves, which are longer at Vigils and shorter at the other hours. The main bulk of the office, however, remains the psalms. How should we approach them? The most common monastic approach is to use the psalms as our prayers directed to Christ, though the notion of Christ praying them to his heavenly Father can also be an approach.

In the first-mentioned approach--the psalms as our prayers directed to Christ--the "I" of the psalms is the monk himself. Some examples will illustrate this. "I lie down to rest and I sleep. I wake for the Lord upholds me" of Psalm 3 is easily applied to us who have been resting and now rising in prayer. This psalm is traditionally used at the beginning of Vigils each day. "The Lord is my Shepherd there is nothing I shall want," of Psalm 22 is another example of our prayer to Christ. "I am a worm and no man," of Psalm 21 is also a fitting expression of our fallen nature, which depends on Christ's redeeming work.

The voice of the monk speaking to Christ is but one of many ways to approach the psalmody of the choir, but again one of the most traditionally monastic forms. In this context, when we find the words 'God' and 'Lord' we can be thinking of Christ our Lord, who holds first place in our life. Saint Cyprian of Carthage put it thus: "Prefer absolutely nothing to Christ, for he has preferred nothing to us" (domin. Orat. 15).

In praying the psalms day in and day out, it is Christ to whom we have recourse, upon whom we depend for life and light. We turn to Christ as God, Lord, Shepherd, Physican, King, Teacher, Rock, Bulwark, Hiding-Place. That in no way excludes our devotion and adoration of the Father and the Holy Spirit, nor discounts their equality with Christ. But it is to the Person of Christ that we fittingly turn in our life of prayer and at other moments in the office, whereas at the Our Father, we turn our gaze especially to God the Father. The Holy Spirit is traditionally invoked at Terce, in the hymn, at every doxology (Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) and of course in a special way the Holy Spirit is invoked and worshiped on the Solemnity of Pentecost. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit has to be remembered as moving among the praying community in all its liturgical activities.

But for the monk it is to Christ that we especially pray and give thanks and turn to for help. Prayer directly to Christ was the most frequent form of the early monastic spirituality, and is still valid for our time. The psalms are the voice of the human heart longing to be with God, the cries of distress and joy, of hope and yearning. Ultimately it is only God who can fulfill the longings of the human heart. "It is God who awakes and God who slakes our thirst" as Baron Von Hugel so wisely put it. It is Christ who most directly slakes that thirst, especially in the Sacrament of the Altar, Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ for the life of the world. And even there a psalm verse readily comes to mind: "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord" (Psalm 33:9). Gustate et videte quoniam suavis est Dominus.

We can also legitimately approach the psalms as the prayers of Christ to the Father, and thus join our voices with Christ in praying to the Father. But once again, praying the words of the psalms as our prayers to Christ is probably the most typical form used by monks through the centuries.

Theoretically for the entire Church, but certainly for religious who pray the Divine Office in public or in private, there is an intimate link between the Divine Office and the Holy Eucharist. I say theoretically for the entire Church, for you know as well as I that perhaps for the majority of the Catholic faithful the Liturgy of the Hours has little or no place in their piety and prayer life. This is a lamentable reality, but is certainly different for us who consecrate a good part of every day to chanting the Divine Office in chapel or cell. The Liturgy of the Hours forms a part of Catholic liturgy as a whole. At the heart and center of the Church's liturgy, of course, is the Eucharistic liturgy, the Mass.

An important element of Catholic liturgy is the Divine Office, which is ever-reflecting the liturgical season being celebrated in the Mass: the cycle of Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, etc., as well as the day of the week, the memorials, feasts and solemnities of our Lord, the Blessed Mother and the angels and saints all of which are experienced in the Divine Office as well as the Mass. The two--the Divine Office and the Eucharist--are meant to exist in harmony, thus mutually enriching the spiritual life of those who participate in both, such as us monks.

There are elements or characteristics in both the Mass and Divine Office that are common to both. There are also elements proper to either the Mass or the Liturgy of the Hours, distinguishing one from the other. Let us consider various elements now.

Praise is a fundamental duty of a Christian toward God. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola put it: "Man was created to praise, venerate and serve the Lord his God, and in this way to save his soul." We might ask, though, what is praise? Like most realities and attitudes--life, death, love, and the like--praise is difficult to define precisely. But we can say it is essentially the unlimited appreciation of God, expressed in words, song, silence and gestures. Praise acknowledges that there is Another above and beyond us, to whom we owe our very existence. Praise is our total admiration and love for the Creator of heaven and earth. Our basic attitude in both the Liturgy of the Eucharist (Mass) or the Divine Office is the praise of God. I think we all know what that means, though it is difficult to define it. In any case, the vocal praise, so characteristic of Catholic worship, is a visible sign of praising God day and night, year in and year out.

Thanksgiving is another important element in Catholic liturgy. While praise considers God in himself, thanksgiving considers God in relation to us. We thank our God for all that he has done for us, for all that we are, all that we have. This means much more than material things, of course, and is primarily concerned with the spiritual life we have in God. God pours out life and grace upon us, even without our asking for it. Thanksgiving is a response to the infinite love of God. Thanksgiving is our acknowledgement of an infinite debt that we owe to God yet can never completely repay. "How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?" the psalmist so eloquently asks in Psalm 115. Thanksgiving is a vital part of Christian worship and always will be.

Of course the word Eucharist essentially means "thanksgiving." The Mass is the supreme sacrifice of thanksgiving, unceasingly expressed in words, silence and gestures. At the Eucharist we receive the Body and Blood of the Lord, who poured himself out for us and in turn calls us to give our lives for him and one another.

The Liturgy of the Hours, the Divine Office of the Catholic Church, is also a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. Since it consists primarily of the Book of Psalms, which is in essence a collection of poetic hymns of thanksgiving and praise, the office is another act of rendering the Divine Majesty our never-ending obligation of praise and thanksgiving. Harmony clearly exists in these elements of the Eucharist and the Divine Office. The Liturgy of the Hours is both a genuine preparation for Mass and a fitting continuation of the Mass.

The same zeal we show for the Mass should also be expressed for the Liturgy of the Hours. Both are times of encounter with Christ in our midst. "Where two or three in my name are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them," as the Lord himself has promised.

Our devotion for the Mass should inspire in us a devotion to the Divine Office. The two form the heart and soul of the monastic life. The Vatican II document Perfectae Caritatis, the "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," says "the main task of monks is to render the Divine Majesty a service at once simple and noble within the monastic confines" (#9). This is done by contemplatives, of course, in "devoting themselves entirely to worship in a life that is hidden" (Ibid). "Hidden with Christ in God," as Saint Paul describes it in Colossians 3.3.

The decree also states that all religious, and certainly consecrated monks and nuns "should enact the sacred liturgy, especially the most holy mystery of the Eucharist, with hearts and voices attuned to the Church; here is a most copious [that is, abundant] source of nourishment for the spiritual life" (#6).

It might be good now to quote other words of this document, Perfectae Caritatis, concerning the contemplative vocation in the Church:

Members of those communities which are totally dedicated to contemplation give themselves to God alone in solitude and silence through constant prayer and ready penance. No matter how urgent may be the needs of the active apostolate, such communities will always have a distinguished part to play in Christ's Mystical Body, where "all members have not the same function" (Rom 12:4). For they offer to God a choice sacrifice of praise. They brighten God's people with the richest splendors of sanctity. By their example they motivate this people; by imparting a hidden, apostolic fruitfulness, they make this people grow. Thus they are the glory of the Church and an overflowing fountain of heavenly grace (#7).

Could there be a better statement of official Church support for contemplative monastic life? I think it significant that this statement came during the Pontificate of Pope Paul VI who seems very much to have understood and appreciated the monastic vocation and to have been perhaps the most sympathetic toward it among recent popes.

While the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours may also be prayed in private or in solitude, they are not prayers of the individual faithful, as such, nor of people who just "happen to have come together" when the hours are prayed in common. At its origin the word liturgy means a sacred work carried out on behalf of all the people of God, the laos, that is literally, the laity. That's not to exclude us religious, but to say we are part of the entire Body of Christ.

Sometimes liturgy is translated as "the work of the people." The prayers we use in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist are of the Christian community, approved and handed down through the ages and the tradition of the Catholic Church. We can speak of liturgy, then, when people are acting in the name of the Church, because the Church recognizes this community or individuals as belonging to the larger Body of Christ. So the hermit praying in solitude is doing it in the name of the entire Church, for the good of the whole Church, of which the hermit is a part.

Whenever the liturgy is celebrated, be it the Mass or the Divine Office, be it on the parish or religious community level, or in the solitude of the hermit's cell, each local community causes the universal Church to be present. How easy it is to forget this fact when we gather with others or are in solitude to pray. We may think of no other group than our own, yet the Church militant, triumphant and suffering, is indeed present with us.

We should also emphasize that Christ is always present in his Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. This is especially true in the sacrifice of the Mass and the Eucharistic species consumed by the priest and the faithful at each Mass. Christ is also present in Sacred Scripture, proclaimed at Mass and at the Liturgy of the Hours, both of which make wide use of scriptural texts. And as the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy put it: "Christ is present when the Church prays and sings, for he promised 'Where two or three are gathered together for my sake, there am I in the midst of them'" (Mt 18:20) (Constitution on Liturgy, #7).

Every valid liturgical celebration of the Church, then, is an action of Christ, as a sacred gathering, be it the Eucharist or other Sacraments or the Divine Office. Christ is truly present, but in different ways. In the Eucharist species Christ is adored, which is not the case for the other forms of Christ's presence. That is, we do not adore either the Word of God or the priest who celebrates the Mass. Christ present in his Word and in the assembly who worship is understood as dynamic and transitory. Once the celebration ends and people and priest disperse, Christ is no longer present as he is in the Eucharistic species, even after the Mass. Hence our custom of reserving the Blessed Sacrament for adoration and distribution to the sick. Christ remains in the host, even when we are not in the church building.

The celebration of the Divine Office, as an act of the whole Church, even when prayed in solitude, enjoys Christ's presence in those gathered. The Liturgy of the Hours, like the Mass and other liturgical celebrations of the Church, are sacred acts of the whole Church and of Christ present in the Church. The Eucharist and the Divine Office belong to the whole Church, to all those who by reason of their baptism share in the life of Christ.

Christ, therefore, is truly present when the Divine Office is celebrated, especially so in the psalms and other scripture texts. We take it for granted--in the sense that we in fact believe--that Christ is present in the Eucharist, but sometimes we need reminding that Christ is also present in the Liturgy of the Hours.

The General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours recognizes that religious, by their public profession of vows and dedication to prayer, have a "special mandate" (defined as "official command or obligation") regarding the Divine Office (#17). Our spiritual life consecrates us to seeking God day and night, and an effective way to do that is in the commitment to pray the Liturgy of the Hours each day.

Since both the mind and the voice are called into play, or better put, "called into prayer," every time we gather for Mass or the Divine Office, we should consider the mind and voice now.

Saint Benedict in his Rule speaks of Mens concordet voci, "let the mind or spirit be in harmony with the voice." Presumably Saint Benedict got this notion from earlier Patristic sources, such as Saint Cyprian of Carthage (+258 A. D.) who wrote: "God does not hearken to the voice, but to the heart" (De or.dom. 4). And Saint Augustine (+430 A. D.) who said: "What the voice pronounces should linger on in the heart" (Praec 2,3). In modern times someone put: "If the heart doesn't pray, the tongue only plays."

The point seems to be seeking a positive interior disposition in our prayer, fighting against mere "piety of the lips," or "lip service," which allows God as far as the threshold of the mouth--since it is God's word we pronounce--but not into the dwelling of the heart. In the work of prayer the most important dimension is really the interior, since anyone, even a parrot, can recite the words, but only a human can express with love the words being spoken.

Now who among us can say that every time we gather for prayer in common or in solitude that we truly "cry with joy," as Psalm 94 has it, or that we are going to "dance for the Lord" as another psalm puts it? Perhaps we are feeling half asleep, totally distracted, or in a disagreeable mood. What then? Should we simply not pray until we are fully awake, focused on what we're doing or in a good mood? We know that would be impossible in our way of life, with its specific demands of time and place.

What parent would only tend its child when that parent was feeling up to it or truly loving and self-giving? So for us, with the task of "raising our prayer to God," like a parent raising a child, we go about doing the work in season and out, both when we feel up to it and when we really don't feel like it.

Maybe more accurately we would say on some or many days: "I am exhausted with my groaning; every night I drench my pillow with tears; I bedew my bed with weeping. My eye wastes away with grief" (Ps 6:7-8). We have to admit it is probably very hard or impossible even to achieve perfect harmony between the mind and the voice. Part of the challenge is that the sentiments we find in the psalms are so extreme and follow one another so rapidly, even within the same psalm. The danger is to lose interest in the sacred texts, think of it all as a mere formality and withdraw our full participation and interest. We must fight this tendency, of course, and continue to strive to pray the psalms with heart and mind lifted up to God.

We all struggle each day to bring our attention, feeble as we may feel it to be, to the Divine Office. We believe that we will find nourishment there, even if we are never fully ready for God's action within us. Indeed, we are slowly formed and informed by a willing participation in the Office each and every day. The Liturgy of the Hours becomes an education, literally a "calling forth," of our energy, sentiments, and love, in the service of God and neighbor.

We must come to every liturgical celebration with a living faith. I am part of the mystery of the whole Church, overflowing with praise and thanksgiving to God. Though a less than perfect member, sinful and broken, I am called to holiness in the mystery of the Church redeemed in the Blood of Christ. And the same Christ, who promised to send the Holy Spirit to assist us in our weakness, is with us when we pray.

Whatever is being proclaimed in the psalm, I am praying also: be it lamentation or rejoicing, for example. These are not necessarily the deepest sentiments of my individual self at this particular moment, but are sentiments of the praying Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The people of God, all baptized Christians, long to see God's face, and are yearning for the courts of our God (Ps 83:3).

As a "work of the Church", the Liturgy of the Hours should be considered as inspired and unified by the Holy Spirit, who prays in us. The example and command of our Lord and the apostles to "pray always" is expressed concretely in the gathered assembly that prays the Divine Office. It should not be considered a mere legal formality, or a "burden that must be fulfilled" to "be a good religious." Rather, the Office is a fount from which we get daily nourishment and refreshment for our spiritual journey, from the God who calls us.

Thus the Liturgy of the Hours is not an optional activity for religious, but a vital occupation. It is indeed an obligation that we undertake willingly, trusting that God will manifest himself to us through the Church and in Christ Jesus, who first called us to this way of life. We believe our Lord will not abandon us even if we are unfaithful or frail. So we go forward and pray the Liturgy of the Hours each and every day, in good times and bad, rain or shine.

As praying communities who publicly carry out the praying of the Office, we represent the entire Church at prayer, building up the whole mystical Body of Christ by offering a sacrifice of praise to our God. The Liturgy of the Hours should build up our personal prayer as well, helping to renew within us an awareness of God throughout the day, ever present, yet easily overlooked in our lives, even in the cloister, where we are "concerned with many things," like Martha of Bethany, to keep the life going and financially solvent. At the Office we turn to God, look to Christ, place our hope in him, really the whole of our life in him.

The scriptural, patristic and poetic texts are meant to increase our faith, hope and love. The problems we face as individuals, community or Church, are all brought to the Lord in prayer whenever we wish, and certainly when we gather as one to praise our Maker.

It is the word of God we ponder in the Office, to which we must respond by words and deeds in accord with the Lord's commands. "Dialogue with the Savior" is one phrase used to describe the Liturgy of the Hours, and I think it's a fitting description. That is certainly our hope in praying the Office each day: to dialogue with the Savior.

Of course it is not only that, because we pray for all God's people as well, those who are near and those far away. We pray for the intentions of others, for their well being, health of mind and body, knowing that it is God who can work wonders in their lives, that ts is God who also accepts prayers on behalf of others. The selfless prayer of the contemplative thus has a universal and apostolic value, for it is directed for the good of all, living and dead. We are intercessors for the entire world, and need not leave home to do so! We can always think of Saint Therese of Lisieux, a cloistered Carmelite nun, yet proclaimed the patroness of foreign missions. This speaks clearly of the Church's understanding of the efficacious nature of prayer.

True theology and authentic spirituality in our Roman Catholic tradition are linked to the liturgical prayer of the Church. In fact, our liturgical prayer--the Holy Eucharist and Divine Office--expresses our theology and spirituality and our liturgical prayer nourishes Catholic theology and spirituality. Theology and spirituality that is not ultimately expressed in prayer and worship is devoid of meaning, and can easily become heresy or superstition.

For example, a Catholic who only prays the rosary and makes the Stations of the Cross and refuses to attend Mass or receive the sacraments of the Church because of unhappiness over the changes after Vatican II is not expressing a correct understanding of Catholic theology and spirituality. That person cannot be said to be in communion with the Catholic Church. He or she may have faith, hope and love, but lacks the unity of mind and heart with the wider Church.

Since the primary focus of these articles is the Opus Dei of the monastic tradition, I will concentrate on that aspect of our liturgy in discussing a theology of the Work of God, the Divine Office.

The kerigma, that is the proclamation of the New Testament, is clearly the teaching that Jesus Christ died for us sinners and rose from the dead for our salvation, that we might die to sin and be born anew in Christ and live in holiness. Any theology about Christian liturgical prayer has to keep this New Testament kerigma in mind, because the liturgy we celebrate is a means of participating in the good news of salvation, for whenever two or three are gathered in Christ's name, there he is--the Risen and Saving Lord--in the midst of that assembly. And in the process Christ bestows grace and mercy to those who are ready to receive it.

The worship of God we celebrate at the times of the Divine Office is one of the many ways we meet the living God each day. We should always thank God for the abundant opportunities we have to share in his life and should rejoice that we have the vocation to gather throughout the day "to render to the Divine Majesty a service at once both simple and noble, within the monastic confines," namely the Divine Office, as Perfectae Caritatis of Vatican II points out (#9).

In our liturgical gatherings we do not seek to make a contact with the divinity like the pagans did, cringing and crouching so as not to arouse the wrath of an angry god (with a small "g"). Rather, we are lovingly invited to "taste and see the goodness of the Lord," the one true God (with a capital "g"), whenever and wherever God makes himself known. One of these ways is the liturgical assembly we call the Opus Dei.

Other ways we Catholics meet God include the daily Mass and sacraments of the Church, our personal prayer, devotions such as the rosary or Way of the Cross, litanies, etc., as well as the meeting of God in the wonders of creation around us. Think of Saint Antony of the Desert saying his surroundings were a clear revelation of God's grandeur and love and described nature as an open book about God. Our brothers in community and those who come to our door are also bearers of God's life for our souls, and hence Saint Benedict could say that all guests are to be received as Christ, who himself said, "I was hungry and you fed me, a stranger and you welcomed me," etc. Saint John of the Cross said that ultimately we will be judged on our love. Saint Paul put it this way: "There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love"(1 Cor. 13:13).

What I am trying to emphasize here is that the Divine Office is one of many ways to participate in the life of grace being offered us by God. That life began at our baptism and extends unto life everlasting.

Another fundamental idea of the New Testament proclamation is that everything in sacred history, every event, object, place of meeting and worship of God, finds its fulfillment and is summed up in the person of Christ, God made Man. The Temple and the altar of Jerusalem, with their rituals and sacrifices, are not substituted for a new set of rites and temples after Christ, but are fulfilled and made new in the one perfect sacrifice of Christ on the altar of the cross. "I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill, the law," said our Lord (Matt. 5:17) in the Sermon on the Mount.

True worship of the Father in heaven is perfectly expressed in the suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord. The Church in its liturgy--both the Mass and the Divine Office--calls to mind and makes present the saving events of Christ's life, especially in the celebration of the Mass, which recounts fully the Paschal Mystery. In the Eucharist Jesus Christ offers himself to the Father for our salvation and we receive the body and blood of Christ as our spiritual food. This act has continued throughout the centuries and will continue to the end of time.

In the Opus Dei too we meet the risen Christ in God's word proclaimed and heard there and by the action of the Holy Spirit praying within us. Throughout the liturgical year we constantly commemorate the life-giving events of our Lord, and thereby are deepened in our knowledge and love of God. Christ's sacrifice of himself, "a perfect offering," as the Mass calls it, helps us to die to self and live in Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life.

The liturgy we celebrate each day--both the Opus Dei and the Holy Eucharist--has the same end as the Gospel, namely, to present the message of salvation to a waiting world. We do this especially through anamnesis, that is, recalling, remembering, "doing this in remembrance," as Jesus put it at the Last Supper. We are not simply recounting the historical past as might a guide at an American Civil War museum or battle site, but we celebrate a reality that is present for our lives now, in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and with us forever.

We celebrate in the Church's liturgy the fact that Christ walked on earth, died on a cross, and rose from the tomb for our redemption. We likewise celebrate that we have died to sin and have risen to a new life in Christ in the hope of a final consummation in heaven. We have "put on Christ" as Saint Paul says (Gal 3:21), by our baptism, and Christ lives in us (see Gal 20:20), prays in us and leads us to our heavenly homeland.

The liturgy is one of the ways in which the Church as a whole responds to God's mighty deed for us, by our rendering thanks, adoration, petition and praise--the four principal types of prayer, all of them contained within the structure of the Church's Opus Dei. It is all summed up best, perhaps, in our often-repeated doxology, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit," which accompanies all of our canonical hours in the course of the day. This is a fitting reply to God's action in our lives and world--to render praise, doxa, for God's eternal action of salvation in Jesus Christ.

With this in mind, the liturgy we celebrate in the Divine Office is so much more than an individual expression of faith and devotion. The liturgy--Mass and Office--is principally an action of God, in Christ, the Head of the Body, the Church. The liturgy is the work of Christ and of his people, intimately united in the bonds of love and peace. Christ is the 'principle celebrant' of every liturgy, be it the Eucharist or the Opus Dei.

If this were not the case, Christian prayer and praise would be devoid of meaning. In the midst of our liturgy, though, Christ is actively and eternally present and at work, by the action of the Holy Spirit. The Body of Christ, the Church, is being built up day by day, as a new temple, pleasing and acceptable to God.

The liturgy helps us recount the mighty deeds of God in Christ Jesus, but also to experience those saving deeds by God's bestowing grace on those who celebrate the liturgy of the Church in the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Divine Office. The liturgy is meant to be an encounter with God, not of the past, but of the present, who has ever been at work in human lives.

All of this should have effect on our spirituality, because the liturgy is the expression and implementation of the Church's spirituality. We know there are many valid spiritualities or spiritual traditions in our Catholic Church, such as Benedictine, Carmelite, Dominican, Jesuit, Salesian, to name a few. But each of them is valid, for lack of a better word, only when they are rooted in the public worship of God in the one Church, centered in Jesus Christ. So if I were to adopt or invent a spirituality that would leave out the resurrection of Christ, for example, it would not be a valid Catholic spirituality.

The end of every spiritual life, of all healthy spiritualities in the Church, is for individuals and communities to be clothed in Christ, or as Saint Paul puts it, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). The life in Christ is built up, nourished and renewed in the liturgy of the Church. In the Church's rites and chants, Christ is present and praying with and in us, by the action of the Holy Spirit.

Since the mystery of Christ is the center of all Christian life, it is also this mystery which the Church renews in her members when they--when we--celebrate in our public worship, that is primarily, in the Opus Dei and the Eucharist. The principal aim of all liturgy is to reproduce in our lives what the Church proclaims in her public and common worship, that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. This is another word for Christian holiness.

"Spiritual life" is a term used to indicate one's relationship with God. Liturgy is the common expression of the relationship of the entire mystical body with God. In such "liturgical spirituality," as the Catholic tradition often calls it, the public worship of the Church and the spiritual life of the individual become one. Indeed they become a genuine reflection of the root definition of liturgy, "the work of the people."

As already mentioned, at the time of our Lord, prayer was often attached to determined hours and places in daily life. In the New Testament, then, we find not only the precept "to pray," but also a doctrine about the way to pray and a theology of prayer, especially when we consider the example and teaching of Jesus and his apostles, as well as the numerous fragments of Christological hymns that found their way into the writings of Saint Paul and other New Testament texts, as for example the famous, "Christ Jesus humbled himself, even to accepting death, death upon a cross," of Philippians 2: 6-11 (see also Colossians 1:15-20, for example).

Pondering the entire New Testament, as we are encouraged to do in our Lectio Divina and participation in the Church's liturgy, we find a theology of prayer. The New Testament witnesses understood and spoke of various elements that contributed to what developed into the Church's Liturgy of the Hours, the Opus Dei. Let us look at six of these elements now.

First, the prayer of anamnesis. We have the English word amnesia, to forget. An-amnesia is to not forget, to recount, to call to mind, to remember something. In the present context, what is recounted or remembered are the saving deeds of Jesus Christ, for the life of the world. "Do this in remembrance of me," Jesus said (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:25-26).

This is a clear anamnesis form, a call to respond with praise and thanksgiving for all God's mighty deeds. This becomes the thrust of all Christian prayer, that is, to have in mind the Gospel message and to repeat the Lord's deeds over and again, even daily, for our Christian life revolves around the ongoing recounting of all that God has done to save us. This is anamnesis.

The second prayer element to consider is that of unceasing prayer, to pray without ceasing, which has become a New Testament command, found in various passages, such as:

Lk 18:1, "Jesus told them a parable about the need to prayer continually."

Ep 6:18, "In all your prayer and entreaty keep praying in the Spirit on every possible occasion."

Col 4:2, "Be persevering in your prayers and be thankful as you stay awake to pray."

¹Thes 5:17, "Pray constantly."

A third element essential to Christian prayer is the prayer of vigilance. This is exemplified for us in Jesus' teaching, "stay awake and pray" (Mt 26:41), and in the words of our Lord, "pray at all times" (Lk 21:36) and "be persevering in your prayers," from Saint Paul (Col 4:2). Luke 6:12 tells us, "Jesus spent the whole night in prayer to God." Our Lord's example of a life devoted to frequent prayer is really the model for all who wish to have a "life of prayer."

Prayer at fixed hours is a fourth element of vital Christian prayer. The Hebrew practice of praying at precise hours or times--morning and evening for example--became an important tradition the early followers of Christ and their descendents adhered to. In later cathedral and monastic contexts, the pivotal hours of common prayer were Lauds in the morning and Vespers in the evening, which continue to the present in the Church. Expanding the notion of prayers at fixed hours of the day, the idea of "seven times a day I praise you," as found in Psalm 118:164, was easily incorporated into the Church's Liturgy of the Hours, providing for major hours and minors hours each day.

Prayer of psalmody is a fifth element or form of Christian prayer. Hebrew common prayer is largely taken from the Book of Psalms, and so too Christian prayer. The four Gospels and the letters of the New Testament are filled with references to the psalms, so we know this book held pride of place for the early Christians. They interpreted the psalms most often in a Christological sense, as either spoken by Jesus, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 21) uttered from the cross, or spoken to Christ, as for example in Psalm 90:12, "God's angels shall bear you upon their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone" (see Matthew 4:5).

The Book of Psalms is another heritage from our Hebrew ancestors, who knew how to pray and praise the God of Israel. The 150 psalms have always been the principal texts for the Catholic Church's Liturgy of the Hours, and as essentially songs of praise, they give to the Opus Dei a character of praise as well as of thanksgiving, intercession and adoration.

God as light, the sixth form of Christian prayer, derives from an image of God and salvation connected to the sun and light. Both pre-Jewish and Jewish antiquity recognized the powerful image of the sun and daylight. Pagans worshiped the sun, whereas Jews and later on Christians, saw the sun and light as good images for describing God and his mighty deeds. In the New Testament literature, especially the Gospel accounts and the letters of John, as well as the Church's post-Apostolic literature, that is the patristic tradition, as well as the Church's liturgy, we find "God is light," and "Christ is light," apt terms for expressing realities about the Holy Trinity, source of all being and life.

These notions have been readily incorporated into the Church's worship at Mass and at the Liturgy of the Hours. Think of the Easter Vigil when the Paschal candle is lit and the chant rings out: "Christ our Light." Or at the canonical hour of Vigils when we begin in the dark waiting for the dawning of the new day, or at Lauds when we praise our God who is "the rising sun" or the "dawn from on high" who "will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death" (Luke 1:78). Clearly we are to see in light a fitting image of the gift of salvation from God.

At Vespers each day we gather as the sun is setting, and raise our voices in praise "like an evening sacrifice," to the God who has been our light up to that moment. We often use incense at Vespers as well, to symbolize our prayers ascending as the day is coming to a close. Finally, at Compline, prayed as darkness sets in or it is already dark, we pray for God to guide and guard us as we retire for the night: "Let your holy angels here and keep us in peace," we pray at Compline. The little hours of Terce, Sext and None reflect the ever-changing placement of the sun, which we associate with the saving deeds of Christ: his betrayal, his crucifixion, his death on the cross, associated with mid-morning, midday and mid-afternoon.

The just-described six approaches, elements or forms of prayer that Christians have incorporated into the Opus Dei, all contribute powerfully to the public celebration of our life in Christ. Our Christian existence, our spiritual lives, are built up and sustained by our public worship of God. The Church and each of her members, who comprise the Mystical Body of Christ on earth, are linked to the eternal priestly prayer of Christ her Head. The Church is a true participant in the saving work of Christ.

If our true identity as baptized people, as Church, is to be the Body of Christ, and if Christ, eternally present in his Church, is an eternal hymn of praise before God's throne in heaven, then our vocation consists in entering into Christ's saving work and living that same life of praise that Christ lives. This is the vocation of the "praying Church," to be united to Christ, the Head of the Body.

When considering the Opus Dei it is good to remember that the entire day is the basic structure upon which is built the theology and spirituality of the Divine Office. It is not an individual hour but the entire day, which is the basis of the Liturgy of the Hours. Within the structure of the day we recognize the various hours; namely, pre-dawn, dawn, mid-morning, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset, night. Each of these periods or hours is associated with a specific office: Vigils, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline. The day is not a simple adding up of the hours, but the hours are a division or part of the larger entity, the day, dedicated to God. And of course this gets extended to days becoming weeks, and weeks becoming the Liturgical Year.

Day and night, light and darkness compose what might be called a symphony of sanctified time, for it is all given over to God when consecrated in the various liturgical hours of each day. Of course the Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of our daily praise, and completely complements and fills out, so to speak, the offices we gather to pray each day outside the Eucharist.

In the history of the Divine Office, initially the morning and evening praise of God, along with the Holy Eucharist, were the principal means by which the Church celebrated as community her liturgy of remembering (anamnesis), expressed in praise and thanksgiving, in unceasing prayer. The morning and evening times probably initially had no mystical significance, but they were the beginning and the end of the day, so naturally were seen as symbolic moments, associated with beginning and end, birth and death, in the lives of Christians, to help add quality to their day. Later, the hours of morning and evening were seen as sacramentals, of the mystery of Christ, or perhaps better put, time was sanctified by gathering at these two pivotal moments--morning and nightfall--in the lives of believers.

The rhythm of day and night, light and darkness is perceived by the Christian as a structure worthy of being sanctified, made holy, since it is given over to God. Time is even "transfigured" by the ritual action of the praying community, in the course of the day, week and liturgical season being celebrated. Hence, it is only fitting to pray Lauds closer to daybreak than at noon, and having Vespers at nightfall rather than at mid-afternoon.

In the liturgical mystery we celebrate all of creation becomes part of God's saving work, what Saint Paul refers to as all things being "gathered up in Christ" (Eph 1:10). For a Christian, everything, including the times of morning and evening, day and night, the sun rising and setting, can be a means of communion with God. "The heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands. Day unto day takes up the story and night unto night makes known the message," as Psalm 18:2-3 puts it.

As already stated, a fundamental symbol in the liturgy of the Church is light, both from the sun and from fire. We find this too in Old Testament ritual, and certainly earlier as well, in pre-biblical cultures. Christians easily applied the notion of light to the Lord, Jesus Christ, as light of the world, who offers light "to those who sit in darkness" (Luke 1:79). That is to say, Christ bestows the gift of salvation, which can be called "the light that never fades," or "the unending day."

Light is a constant theme, as earlier pointed out, in the New Testament, particularly the Johannine writings. The Gospel of John, the Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation all take up the theme of light. Early Christian worshipers turned to the east for prayer, and many still do, to face in the direction from whence comes the sun. This practice attests to the importance of seeing Christ as our origin and as the "sun of righteousness, with healing in his wings," as the Prophet Malachi proclaims. Our risen Lord is the light of the world, and Christian scriptures and Tradition bears witness to this.

The Benedictus, the canticle of Zachariah that we chant each morning at Lauds, states that those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death will be visited by the sun which rises on high, giving light and guiding our feet into the way of peace (see Luke 1:78-79).

At Vespers, when the sun is setting or already set, the hour of lighting lamps, Christians are to think of the lamp and its light--most often for us with the use of candles--as symbols of Christ, light of the world and of the heavenly city where there is no darkness but only light. Candles are carried on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, with the same symbolism: Christ is our light who leads our way.

The vocation of the monk is to be a living prayer, a perpetual 'pray-er,' whose praise of God goes on inside and outside the church, and whose day is marked by continually returning to church or cell to pray to God. This breaking up of the day by returning at fixed hours to church and the choral office is meant to promote a continual communion with the living God. Sometimes this approach to prayer drives the newcomers to distraction, asking us, "Why are you wasting so much time going to and coming from choir?" Of course they are missing the point and eventually get the picture of the process or move on to another way of life!

The monastic liturgy, comprised of both the Opus Dei and the Holy Eucharist, is fundamentally a contemplative praise of God, where monks recount in word and song the great and saving deeds of God for the human race in Jesus Christ. By this daily and repeated calling to mind, monks are striving to "glorify God in all things," as Saint Benedict puts it in his Holy Rule. This glorification of God is possible only because we are sanctified, that is 'made holy,' by God's grace. We are able to glorify God because he has first reached us in our depths and called us by name.

Before we can do anything, God is acting on our behalf, in our lives. God calls us but leaves us free to respond or not. God's action and our response are both essential for a living and dynamic life in Christ. The Opus Dei we celebrate each day is intended to be a vital part of our life as consecrated men in the Church. The Mass is the source and summit of spiritual riches for our vocation, but the Opus Dei is not to be neglected, especially by contemplatives. We form a vital praying community, and more than celebrating 'in the name' of the Church, we pray as the 'Church in action,' which clings to Christ's words: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there is I in the midst of them." The praying community, however large or small it may be, becomes a manifestation, an epiphany, of the mystery of the Risen Christ in our midst.

The Opus Dei is supposed to be the "source of spirituality and nourishment for personal prayer," according to Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (SC 90). When praying the Divine Office is linked to genuine personal prayer, then there is a clear relationship between the Opus Dei and the rest of one's life of prayer, which is what our life is supposed to be all about. The entire life of a consecrated man or woman, every hour of every day, is capable of being a liturgy, by which is offered to God a sacrifice of love. The Opus Dei becomes an important part of this offering, especially since it occupies a sizeable part of our waking hours.

The Divine Office and all our acts of prayer are meant to be a dialogue with the Savior. God speaks to his people in Word and silence, in sacrament and signs, and we speak to God with words and silence, gestures and receptive hearts. In this we grow in the likeness of God in whose image we are created. God's grace is extended to us, enabling us to grow in holiness or union with him, the goal of our life.

The Liturgy of the Hours is meant to be a daily encouragement for our Christian and monastic life. We may not always feel up to it or enthused about being present in choir--that should never surprise or alarm us--but gradually and deep down we should desire to persevere in our life of prayer, though not surprised at our weakness or laziness, and willing to strive for active participation in the Opus Dei, hence not seeking excuses to absent oneself from the common or solitary praying of the offices.

God's plan of salvation for us as individuals and community, as Church at large, is revealed to us in the concrete circumstances of our life in Christ, which includes daily participation in the common or private praying of the Opus Dei and the community Holy Mass. We consecrate ourselves to this work by the vows we make. At prayer in common or in private we are invited to experience the real and active presence of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bestowing grace on us who are God's creatures, loved into being. We are invited as well to "taste and see the goodness of the Lord," as the psalmist puts it.

When we speak of a liturgical spirituality, the Mass and Opus Dei are vital of such a spirituality. Other devotions--the rosary, the Stations of the Cross, etc.--may also be prayed, but can never replace or supersede the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. Our Catholic liturgical practices always immerse us in the Tradition of the Church, and thereby we remain in communion with the Catholic Church, the Holy Father, and the religious Order to which we belong. We cannot re-invent the religious life according to our fancy, but must submit to the time-honored practice of the Church and her charism of consecrated life.

Christ is the center of our prayer: calling it into being, present when we pray, as the mediator of the new covenant, and the goal of our efforts. We live in the mystery of Christ in our midst--Emmanuel--who is calling us to be open to divine mercy and grace.

The Liturgy of the Hours is meant to be a contemplative prayer. Carried out in the beauty of the oratory, surrounded by sacred images, candles, incense and bells, accompanied by sacred music, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, we are transported from the earthly realm to a spiritual one, which as our Eastern Christian brethren call it 'heaven on earth.' This is especially so of the Holy Eucharist, but also of the Opus Dei. We are called to open our eyes to God's presence in the liturgy we celebrate, to contemplate and rejoice that our God is so near. The liturgy is meant to open our hearts gradually and fully to all that God has in store 'for those who love him.'

The rituals and formulas we observe in our liturgical celebrations are much more than 'following rubrics' or 'fulfilling an obligation.' Rather, the private or communal worship of the Church, which includes the Opus Dei, is given to the Church by God as a powerful means of intimate communion with the God who made us, to contemplate the mystery of salvation in Jesus Christ and to speak to the invisible but ever-present Lord. This loving encounter with God is especially expressed by our praise and thanksgiving.

The object of such contemplation is always the Holy Trinity, ever active in the Church and in her members, forming the Body of Christ on earth, the Church militant, united with the Church triumphant in heaven and the Church suffering in Purgatory.

The daily celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours makes the praying community a source of communion, and specifically, ecclesial or Church, unity. As the celebration of the Divine Office is intimately connected to the mystery of salvation in Christ and in praying the Office we are daily reminded of God's saving deeds in sending his Son into the world (1Jn 4:9), we are naturally drawn in our Opus Dei to seek unity among believers and even between Churches. Our praying the Divine Office, then, is an important means of promoting Church unity.

Praying of the Divine Office in common or in solitude makes us part of the
"praying Church," ecclesia orans, spread throughout the world. Just as the Apostles and the Blessed Mary were constant in their common prayers after our Lord's Ascension (Acts 4:32), now we also, praying together and firm in the faith, carry on the apostolic tradition that has been handed down over the centuries, until the Lord comes again in glory.

At the root of the communal praying of the Office, but also praying the Office in private, we are mindful of the value of the praying Church, which is a koinonia, that is, a holy community, which belongs to Christ and has Christ as its head. Two texts from the bishop-martyr, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who died in 107 A.D., sum up well the "spirituality of communion" of the early Church, and a model for us today.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

"In the symphony of your concord and love, the praises of Jesus Christ are sung. [You should] form a choir, so that, joining the symphony by your concord, and by your unity taking your key note from God, you may with one voice through Jesus Christ sing a song to the Father. Thus he will both listen to you and by reason of your good life recognize in you the melodies of his Son. It profits you, therefore, to continue in your flawless unity, that you may at all times have a share in God" Ad Eph. IV. (to the Ephesians).

And in another place:

"In common let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love, in joy, that is without blame, which is Jesus Christ--for there is nothing better than he. Gather yourselves together, all of you, as unto one shrine, even God, as unto one altar, even One Jesus Christ, who proceeds from One Father, and is in One and returned to One" Ad Magn. VII. (to the Magnesians).

Along the same lines, the 20th century document, "Directory for the Celebration of the Work of God and Directive Norms for the Celebration of the Monastic Liturgy of the Hours," prepared by Benedictines, speaks of the threefold dimension of the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours. In Number 21 (page 40, "Triple Dimension of Celebration") we find these words:

"To be authentic, the celebration of the Work of God (Opus Dei) requires that three dimensions should always be found in the liturgical assembly, namely an ecclesial dimension (a community bounded by time and space in which the mystery of the Church is actualized); a community dimension (all are one body yet each has his or her own place and function); a personal dimension (encounter with God does not happen to a nameless crowd, but to beloved and fully conscious human persons).

There is no doubt that the personal dimension is fundamental and a condition for the existence of the others; if this is absent, then the other two disappear.

The celebration of the Work of God is effectively personal:

1. In the underlying conditions for its existence, the presence of each member of the praying community ought to signify their mutual acceptance in intimate unity of mind and heart (Matt 18:19; Acts 1:14; 2:46). The only prayer that truly glorifies God is that which expresses unity of soul through unity of voices (Rom 15:1-7).
2. In its real nature, in so far as each person freely joins himself to the common prayer, taking an active and conscious part in it, so that "our minds may be in harmony with our voices" (Rule of Saint Benedict, chapter 19:7, 'The Discipline of Psalmody')."

An authentic "spirituality of the Opus Dei" needs to be Christocentric and Paschal. Christocentric, because the Liturgy of the Hours is the prayer of Christ; and Paschal, because it is the Risen Christ present in the praying assembly.

It is God's word, the inspired scriptures, which we hear and proclaim in the Divine Office, drawn from the psalms, canticles and lessons, which form the core of the Office. Only the hymns, patristic readings and orations at the end of the Offices are non-biblical. But even those take their inspiration from biblical themes and passages. The "sacrifice of praise," as the psalmist calls it (Psalm 115) we offer at the Office is a prolongation and in union with the eternal hymn of the Word, Christ, being offered to the Father.

The "Constitution on the Liturgy" (Sacrosanctum Concilium) of the Second Vatican Council puts it this way:

"In the earthly liturgy, by way of foretaste, we share in that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, and in which Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle (cf. Apoc 21:2; Col 3:1, Heb 8:2)" (#8).

• We should always feel a yearning to be united with Christ in our sacred assemblies, either at Mass or the Opus Dei, so that the words of our mouth become prayer and action that is carried out with, in and for Christ, the Head of the Church. Our prayer and the prayer of the Risen Christ--who prays in us--are meant to be one breath directed to our heavenly Father, in the Holy Spirit.

• In our Catholic liturgy--be it the Mass or the celebration of the Opus Dei--Christ is the great protagonist, that is, the principal performer or leading person of our celebrations. This is a consistent and traditional idea of liturgical theology and spirituality: it is centered in Christ, "sitting at the right hand of God" for all eternity. We can also say, with Sacrosantum Concilium of Vatican II that "every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others" (#7). The supreme end of all our liturgical assemblies is a meeting with Christ and the uniting of all that we are with our Redeemer.

• As already said, the Liturgy of the Hours is the prayer of Christ, because Christ is present and praying in the assembly gathered in his name. Consequently the assembly is the Praying Church, even when just a few gather or when we pray in solitude. Christ and the Church are inseparable, as our head is firmly attached to our body. By our baptism we are members of the Body of Christ, traditionally called the Church Militant, and hence when we gather to pray, or when praying in solitude, we do it in the name of and for the larger community and Church, all of part of the 'Church at prayer.'

• Called to prayer by Christ and the tradition of the Church, the Catholic faithful, of whom we are part, show to the nations a Church celebrating the mystery of redemption in Christ. In the Church's celebrations of sacraments and corporate worship, as in the Opus Dei, Christ exercises his eternal priesthood, the work of redeeming the human race. Christ also renders perfect adoration of the Father as the sufficient means needed for our reconciliation with God, and as the one by whom we give fitting worship to our heavenly Father (cf. SC #5).

• The relation between a specific community praying and the universal Church is bound up in the priestly work of Christ. Each belongs to the other--the praying community and the universal Church--because Christ is present in both. By their prayer the specific community and the universal Church build up the Body of Christ. The praying community, and each member in particular, needs to adopt a sense of the wider Church at prayer and be committed to continual witness to Christ in our midst at all times, but especially when we pray.

• There cannot be a praying Church, though, where no Church exists. In other words we need to be fully "in the Church" to be part of the praying Church. The ecclesial (Church) spirituality of the Liturgy of the Hours consists precisely in having constantly in prayer an ecclesial or Church focus. The Church is composed of "people at prayer," of whom we are part, asking that God be present and answer the cry of his people.

The Liturgy of the Hours is essentially a prayer of praise, where Christ, the heart of our celebration, upholds and nourishes the praying community. We adore the one who is giving us life. Like Holy Mass, the Opus Dei should be a eucharistic (thanksgiving) activity. That is, a giving of thanks and a praise of the Lord for the all the wonders he has worked as we contemplate the mystery of redemption in Christ throughout the liturgical year. Church documents about the Office speak about the sacrifice of praise rendered by the faithful to the Lord in the Divine Office. This sacrifice of praise will continue in the Church until Christ comes in glory.

The Holy Eucharist is without doubt the central focus of all giving thanks in the Church by her members. But the praise characteristic of the Divine Office is also an essential part of the Church's rendering praise to her Creator. As the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours states (#12): "To the different hours of the day the liturgy of the hours extends the praise and thanksgiving, the memorial of the mysteries of salvation, the petitions and the foretaste of heavenly glory that are present in the eucharistic mystery, 'the center and high point of the whole life of the Christian community.' (Decree on Bishops', #30).'"

The document goes on to say that the Opus Dei is "an excellent preparation for the celebration of the Eucharist itself, for it inspires and deepens in a fitting way the dispositions necessary for the fruitful celebration of the Eucharist: faith, hope, love, devotion, and the spirit of self-denial" (Ibid).

Thanksgiving is a fundamental attitude and action of all Christians, a synthesis we might say of our belief. Our faith, hope and love are put into practice whenever and wherever we render thanks to God.

Any spirituality of praise, deriving from the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours, has to include the idea of "eternal praise" (laus perenis). At certain times in the history of the Church and of religious Orders, this meant having some people in church day and night singing God's praises. It was a vocal "perpetual adoration," but this practice has not endured in the tradition of the Church, whereas silent, "perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament" has remained.

The praise of the Church, which includes the Liturgy of the Hours, is an anticipation of the praise of God in eternity, beyond the confines of time and space. The eternal praise of God is the joyful occupation of the heavenly assembly, often called the celestial or heavenly choir, already present in God's angels and saints, and at the end of time, for all who share God's kingdom.

Since the Opus Dei we pray on earth is an anticipation of the eternal praises in heaven, we might call our praying of the Hours a "school," wherein we are learning to praise God for all eternity. The 'school of psalmody' of the praying Church enlightens, instructs and sustains those who participate in choral office, singing on earth like the choirs in heaven, before the throne of God.

In the New Testament it is clear that true Christian worship, while having exterior forms, is fundamentally interior, and is made up of a life of self-sacrifice and love. Saint Paul exhorts us to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (cf Col 1:24). The one sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God is, of course, that of Jesus Christ, redeemer of the human race. But his offering also needs to be completed, as described by Saint Paul to the Colossians (1:24).

Christ's sacrifice needs to be completed, not because the salvific work and offering of Christ are somehow "imperfect." Rather, Christ's oblation of himself, offered in the Holy Spirit, remains incomplete--in the sense of "in need of fulfillment"--until all people freely enter into the one offering of Christ, making their lives an acceptable offering to God. Our religion is not a quietistic one, where we simply wait until God acts in us and we do nothing until then. No, we are expected to be "up and doing," that is, active participants in God's life of grace in our souls.

Because Christ has formed us into his body, our offering is intimately united to his, transformed into something "pleasing and acceptable to God," as described in Eucharistic Prayer Number One, the "Roman Canon." It is especially at the Eucharist that we offer to God a sacrifice of praise, where in the Holy Spirit, Christ renews his offering sacramentally at each Mass celebrated. But at the Divine Office too, as a "spiritual sacrifice" or a "sacrifice of praise," we make an acceptable offering to God.

The Opus Dei is clearly structured to render praise to God. The Lord is not asking for the sacrifice of animals as at the time of the Temple in Jerusalem, but asks the sacrifice of lives that are broken for God, and made whole through the power of God at work in willing hearts.