The New Year

As we prepare to leave one calendar year behind and enter another, the Church always celebrates the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God. It is also usually a time to reflect on the year that has passed and the new one that is about to begin. For me, a lot of things have happened in 2011, but the deaconate formation process has not only defined my year and changed, I would say, the very spiritual complexion of our home, it has changed forever the way that I view the Church's role in my daily life. The interesting thing about that statement is that when I began the formation process, I really had no idea of the transformative impact that it would have on not only my life, but our home, and the way that I have noticed that I am perceived by others-that is something that Deacon Jim Prosak, my mentor, told me that I would see happen more and more as the time passed.

I am finding also that I have an increased desire to pray more of the Divine Office whenever my schedule permits it. I regret that I cannot honestly say that I am praying at least five of the seven hours-the five which are required of priests-every day, but I now try to pray five of the prayers of the office every day. The "Big Five" are the Office of Readings (Matins), Morning Prayer (Lauds), Daytime Prayer Current (Sext), Evening Prayer (Vespers), and Night Prayer (Compline). The other two hours are Terce, called Midmorning Prayer in our modern tongue, and None, or Midafternoon Prayer.

The names of the three Daytime Hours tell us precisely when they are supposed to be prayed, Terce, or the third hour of the morning watch-9:00AM. Sext, the sixth hour-Noon. None, the ninth hour, also the hour Our Lord expired on the Cross-3:00pm. Our lives don't fit nearly as neatly into those little boxes in modern times-even some monastic communities do not pray the Hours on the strict timing that had become the Church's custom over the years (some, like the Cistercians, still do keep the Hours largely at the traditional times). As a result, the Church wants us now to pray Morning Prayer in the morning, Daytime Prayer during the breaks in our day, Evening Prayer in the evening, and Night Prayer at night before bed. The Office of Readings can be prayed at any time during the day that we can find the time, and the Office of Readings may begin the liturgical day and come before Morning Prayer if someone is so inclined. I often either like to combine the Office of Readings with Morning Prayer or with the Daytime Hour, depending on my schedule on a particular day.  If I am up after midnight, I will sometimes pray the Office of Readings by itself.

If, by the Lord's grace, I make it to ordination, I, along with my Brother Aspirants will  pledge to pray Morning and Evening Prayer every day. My position as a Benedictine Oblate already requires of me to pray Night Prayer. Yet, I have felt called recently to pray the Office of Readings and Daytime Prayer in addition to the Hours I had been praying. I find myself offering up each psalm or canticle or reading for some intention I might otherwise have forgotten in my human weakness. For a Brother Aspirant or wife who needs my prayers, for a friend who is ill, for those I know who need help that I cannot give beyond my prayers, for my vocation and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in discernment, and the same for my fellow Aspirants, for my mentor, and spiritual director...name that need. The more time that I have found to pray, the more prayer intentions and needs I seem to be able to remember.

If I could stress anything to people throughout the Diocese, it is that they can and should be proud of the exceptional class of men who are in formation for the deaconate. I pray each day for these, my brothers, and I often think myself to be the least worthy of all to be among their number. This is the vigil of the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, and I have resolved to commit my own vocation and the entire formation class to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Mary Immaculate, Mother of God and perfect Christian, you treasured the word of God, in faith you pondered it in your heart and acted on it in charity and service.

We know that as children of God and believing Christians, God's love is given to us, "...the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us."  Your heart as symbol of your love for God, for us, and for all creation, reminds us that "as long as we love one another God will Live in us And His Love will be complete in us." 

As we all move into the New Year, I would simply ask that readers remember not only me, but all of the Aspirants for the Deaconate in the Diocese of Knoxville and in the Hily Catholic Church throughout the world in your prayers.

Nativity Thoughts

Christmas Eve usually puts me in an interesting predicament because I can't keep a secret from Nicole. She already knows what she is getting for Christmas, largely because I can't ever go to the store without her to begin with. She got exactly what she asked for (some horseshoeing tools in order to shoe her own horses rather than hire a farrier to do it, which is a major expense that we can't really afford). Nicole loves horses, which is normally a very expensive hobby, and one that I certainly wouldn't be able to finance, except that we've been blessed in this way by the right people seeming to cross our path who share Nicole's love for these beautiful animals. One horse was free, the other was cheap (as in very inexpensive). What is even more remarkable is that these "giveaway" horses both come from good bloodlines, and those people who really know horses can tell this. Nicole found a place to board her horses-the home of a very nice lady whose lone horse needs companionship in the pasture (horses are herd animals). Hence, board also costs us very little compared to what people normally pay. Because of all these things, I feel blessed that Nicole is able to own, ride, and take care of two fine horses at so little cost to us-largely because the Lord blessed us (and specifically her) with meeting the right people who shared her passion for things equine and could help her keep a foot in the horse world.

How all of that relates to Christmas is that Nicole's Christmas requests in recent years  almost always relate to horses and horse-related things. It is impossible for me to hide a Christmas present from her-she almost always knows what she is getting, and this year is no exception-she asked for shoeing tools and she will get them. Me, on the other hand-I have no idea what I am getting, and she has the secret well-hidden-something she seems able to do with great success every year. I have gotten to a place in my life where I rarely ask for much in the way of gifts at Christmastime, because I am thankful for the things that I have, and there always seems to be so little that I actually need, and I thank the Lord for that.

It is entirely too easy-and I know that many people say this every year so that it becomes almost cliche-to become caught up in the material aspects of this time of the year. Indeed, we know that our society has become so obsessed with both the material and the commercial aspects of what we have come to call the "holiday season" that people bring out the Christmas decorations and the carols and the associated bon vivant at Thanksgiving weekend and sometimes before. There is no preparation of heart and mind for Christmas, so that when Christmas does come, people have a meal, open presents, and then quickly in their minds move on to other things the next day. When I wished a Merry Christmas to a friend of mind last year on December 27th, he wondered why..."Christmas is over," he said. It is not over at that time, of course, it has just begun.

We still have traces-albeit ever smaller ones-of what Christmas is really about within our culture, but Americans have lost (and many never had) the idea that Christmas is a season, and not a single day that we get excited about for a month (this comes from the Puritan heritage within this country-we do not have a true tradition of Christmas as Americans, it wasn't even an official holiday until the 1880's). That season does not end on December 25th, it begins on the 25th, and actually begins tonight at vigils for Christmas. Many people do not prepare themselves for Christmas by truly celebrating and living Advent before we get to the point of tonight. We need Advent because of what exactly it is we are preparing to celebrate and commemorate. We need time to reconcile in our minds how what we commemorate reconciles-or is radically opposed to-our materialistic culture of today.

We have our romantic notions of nativity scenes and singing Away In A Manger and Silent Night, but do we know of that which we sing? We are celebrating that God was made incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that He was made man, and that He came to us born in a cave used to house dirty farm animals and was laid in a feeding trough used for cattle, and donkeys, and other animals. He came into this world with nothing...nothing. Not as a child of privilege or wealth or power, but as a child born poor amid a backdrop that would make the modern conditions of the poor in our own country look like a vacation in the Hamptons. God chose to manifest himself to the human race as a child born in some of the lowliest possible means that humanity could afford. He came, in his own words (Luke 4:18-21):

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 

That reality-that Christ came to proclaim liberty to captives, preach the gospel to the poor, and give sight to the blind-both literally and, most importantly, spiritually, is what we celebrate at Christmas, and it is the real reason Christmas is-and should be-such a big deal. It's a whole lot more important than a man in a red suit saying "ho-ho-ho."

A tale of two lives

This past week has been a week of high-profile deaths. John Patrick Cardinal Foley, who was the former chief of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and who had a passion for communicating the Gospel to others, died December 11th, and his Mass of Christian Burial was this past week. Most of us knew Cardinal Foley as the "Voice of Christmas" who provided the English language commentary and translation of the Midnight Mass from St. Peter's Basilica every year (he did the same for the Easter Mass from St. Peter's Square) on television to a global audience. For many people, their annual encounter with the Eucharistic Lord on their local NBC station on Christmas Eve was the only time they saw Jesus (and we do mean they saw Jesus in seeing his Body and Blood under the appearance of bread and wine) on television or anywhere else. Cardinal Foley sometimes gently reminded people that the Lord was truly present.

                                      Cardinal John Patrick Foley

For many of the world-wide audience who would listen to Cardinal Foley's voice, he was the only exposure they ever had to the Catholic faith. Doubtless for some, he was their first exposure to it, and although I certainly did not know or think of it at the time, he was probably my first exposure to Catholicism and to what a Mass looked and sounded like. He spent his life finding ways to spread the Gospel of Christ through modern media and social communications. Many souls were surely reached for the Church and for Christ through his tireless ministry in the media.

Someone else passed away this past week who often used the media for very different ends than did Cardinal Foley. Christopher Hitchens was a man of immense intellectual gifts and was a great writer, commentator, and orator. I very often disagreed with Hitchens, but I had a great admiration for his intelligence and wit, and would read, watch, and listen to him often just to get a dose of it. Hitchens had one major problem, however: He hated God, Christ, Christianity, and the Church. He certainly spent an inordinate amount of time attempting (without much success) to defame Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

                                         Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens' brother Peter is a Christian and a social conservative, as well as a gifted award-winning journalist and writer (he literally became the Christian counterweight to Christopher whether he intended to or not). Christopher Hitchens' official position was that God did not exist, but his speeches, media appearances, and writings belied another reality in his head: That he knew God existed, and was just mad at God. When talking about issues of the Divine, his tone often moved from the satirical to the very angry.Indeed, when I think of the kind of atheism marked by anger at God described by Cardinal Kasper in our assigned reading for next month, The God of Jesus Christ, I can't help but think of Christopher Hitchens. He has crossed my mind several times while reading The God of Jesus Christ.

I have met few so-called atheists who, after my encounters with them, did not leave me feeling as though they actually DO believe in God/Higher Power/Divine Presence, but they refuse to admit this because the reality is that they are angry at God-usually for a multiplicity of things that can be chalked up as a direct or an indirect result of human fault, sinfulness, or frailty. (i.e. "Why would a loving God allow so much death in the world/war/destruction/my relative(s) or friend(s) to live or die in such a horrible way/name that social problem").

Christopher Hitchens was a master of this tired old argument. Indeed, he was one of the best at it that I know of, primarily due to his humor and wit. However, Hitchens left me on several occasions after listening to him with the distinct impression that his resistance to God was based less on an internalized conviction that God did not exist, and more on an internalized anger with the Almighty, usually stemming from the fact that the world didn't work the way he thought it ought to and this was all God's fault.

An example of this was his debate over religion with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair last year, in which Christopher Hitchens referred to the laws and dictates of God as a "kind of Divine North Korea" because God lays down the consequences of disobedience. The reality is that Hitchens seemed to live a life of rebellion. He did not want to obey God, so he appears to have literally "looked God in the face" as it were, and in his rebellious spirit he said "I do not want obey you, and I do not respect you, so I am going to say that you do not exist, and I am going to preach that to the world."

Even so, the very reason that I hope, nay, pray, that Christopher Hitchens somehow found faith in the last moments of his life is that for all of his vitriole and hatred for the things and the people of God, he was a man of so many gifts. I trust in and believe that the mercy of God is unfathomable and boundless, and extends even to those who have spent their whole lives denying Him, if they, even in but an instant, acknowledge Him and accept His Divine Mercy.

Judging Christopher Hitchens' soul is not my place, but that responsibility belongs to God. This isn't to say that no atheist exists with an internalized belief of conscience that says there is no God-I've met at least one for whom I believe that was actually the case. For those people, they are in for quite a surprise one day. For those like Hitchens, who appear to choose to deny God out of anger or spite or rebellion-I think they know, somewhere within themselves, that they will give answer for all of those years of rebellious denial of Truth.

Christopher Hitchens' life is a reminder to all of us of the words of the first verse of the 12th Chapter of Ecclesiastes:

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them."

What a difference in lives. One of these men spent his life using the modern media to spread the Gospel, while the other very often used those same media to try and undermine it.

I pray for them both, and while we can reasonably deduce that Cardinal Foley died in the peace of Christ that he spread to so many others, I pray that somehow Christopher Hitchens was able to recognize that peace and find it as well.

Called by name

Two of the most important people in our deaconate formation process in the Diocese of Knoxville (and I would imagine in any diocese) other than our wives and the Director of Deacons are our deacon mentor and our spiritual director. We had some say in who our spiritual director would be (mine is Deacon Patrick Murphy-Racey, who I hope and pray to meet with as soon as he is able. His blog is one of those listed on this site), but our mentors were chosen for us. This past Sunday, I met with my mentor, Deacon Jim Prosak of Holy Trinity Parish in Jefferson City, for the first time.

I know you'll understand that it is in the best interest of myself (and most probably in the interest both of Deacon Jim and the formation process itself) that I keep the lion's share of what Deacon Jim and I discuss between the two of us. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't share the one thing that Deacon Prosak told me that stuck with me, and which I have thought on rather extensively since Sunday.

We talked extensively about the formation process, and some of the intricacies involved, from the academics to the general differences between his formation process-he was in the previous class-and the current one. The idea that this call to the service of the Church which I and the other men in formation are experiencing is a matter of discernment is something that we discussed at length. Deacon Jim said that he was not absolutely sure and certain that the Lord was calling him to the deaconate until he was on the required 5-day canonical retreat that we all must take shortly before we are ordained. "I was fully prepared to come back from that retreat and not be ordained," he told me. He said he wasn't sure at that point whether what he was experiencing was the call of the Holy Spirit or whether it was "what Jim wanted to do."

Deacon Jim shared that it was while on retreat during a time of private prayer and meditation on the scriptures that the Holy Spirit made it very clear that he had been "called by name" to the deaconate and the Sacrament of Holy Orders, and that he had come that far because it was truly God's will for his life. Deacon Prosak returned from the retreat as a man who was ready to assume both the blessings and the burdens of a deeper ministry in the Church.

As I shared with Deacon Jim, I have already had plenty of experience as part of this discernment process wrestling with the question of whether this is a matter of the Holy Spirit moving me toward ministry or whether it is just me tooting my own horn. I've certainly had plenty of times where I have thought "these other guys are much holier than me-surely I don't belong here with them." I've even had what I consider to be attacks of Satan, who has spun his wicked powers of persuasion a time or two in an attempt to try and convince me that I am too crippled and weak to perform the tasks which will be required of me should I be ordained. However, every time I get discouraged, I also get an immediate nudge from the Holy Spirit telling me "I have put you here for a reason, and you need to quit worrying about your limitations or about your worthiness and start worrying about what I am asking you to do." These interventions of the Holy Spirit very often come in the form of a single question: "Have I failed you yet?" He never has before, and I doubt He is going to start now.

Even now, not knowing what lies at the end of this road, I feel that the Lord is calling me out by name. My prayer is that I continue throughout the formation process to follow His voice, and lean not on my own understanding.

The new Roman Missal and the Divine Office

Since the universal Church has plunged into the new translation of the Roman Missal on the first Sunday of Advent, several questions have arisen about the place of some of the prayers of the Roman Missal in the Liturgy of the Hours, since there are certain prayers that the English translation of the Liturgy of the Hours and the English Translation of the Missale Romanum have traditionally held in common. Some of the concluding prayers on certain days of the week are traditionally the same prayers used at Mass that day-especially on the feast days of particular saints. The most obvious example of a prayer held in common is the use of the Confiteor or the Kyrie during the Penitential Act at Compline (Night Prayer). The English translation approved for use in the Liturgy of the Hours has not changed as of yet, and it dates to 1974 and first came into common use in the Anglosphere in 1975. The translation used in the English-speaking world is nearly universal, with the Grail translation of the psalms and canticles being used in every version in every English-speaking country.

The only difference between the editions issued for the United States and Canada and those issued for the rest of the world is that the U.S. and Canadian editions of the Office use the New American Bible as the translation for Scripture readings, while editions issued for the U.K., Ireland, and Commonwealth countries use the Jerusalem Bible and a few other English translations, including the Revised Standard Version, for Scripture readings. However, many web sources such as Divine Office, which intend to be faithful to the approved English translation of the Liturgy of the Hours are using the old versions of the Confeteor and Kyrie responses. Should they?

Although he is a layman, Jimmy Akin has done a fair amount of research into this issue for his podcast in order to answer a listener's question about the use of the new Mass translation outside of the Mass-especially where the Liturgy of the Hours is concerned. I've provided the link above in-text so that readers to this blog can have a listen at what Jimmy has been able to find out, but it would appear that we can begin to use the responses and prayers from the new Roman Missal where they are appropriate to the Liturgy of the Hours (i.e. Mass prayers, Kyrie, and Confeteor, etc.), including in group settings ("And with your spirit.") Indeed, we were using "and with your spirit" during the Office for formation last weekend. The changes in the Missal have given rise to the larger question: Will the English translation of the Liturgy of the Hours also be changing?

It seems to be the consensus of the folks who follow such things that the English translation of the Hours will eventually be changing, and that many of us who are currently in formation for the deaconate or the priesthood (and who will thus be bound by ecclesiastical promise to pray the Office every day for the rest of our earthly life) will live to see whatever changes may be implemented impact our daily prayer life-certainly the changes to the Missale Romanum already have done just that. However, it ought to be remembered that the Latin revision to the Missale Romanum was approved in 2000, and we are seeing its implementation in our own tongue nearly 12 years after the approval of the initial text. To my personal knowledge, an official revision to the Latin text of the Liturgy of the Hours has yet to be approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

The text of the Divine Office which we currently use will continue to be the version that we use for the foreseeable future then, even as we embrace minor changes to it that are related to the changes we are experiencing in the Mass.

Curses in the psalter

After this past weekend's deaconate formation class on the Psalms, I have reflected further in thought about the truncating of the psalmody in the Liturgy of the Hours as it relates to the so-called "cursing psalms." It should be remembered that while most clergy pray the Divine Office privately, we know that the Office has always been meant for community prayer-and not just in religious houses or monastic communities, but especially in church with an assembly of the faithful. In our own age, that would mean that the recitation of the psalms ought to be open to the public for the sake of worship. The Liturgy of the Hours is not a Eucharistic celebration, so the praying of the Office in church would be open to non-Catholics in a special way, since non-Catholics cannot participate fully in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Because the celebration of the Office in church is and ought to be very public, it might take some special explaining to our non-Catholic friends if they heard chants at Vespers like:

"May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them..... Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation. May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous." (69:23-24, 27-28)

"May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children. May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation." (109:9-13)

"Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. (139:21-22)

To the unknowing or, worse yet, the totally unchurched, that kind of Scripture passage doesn't sound anything think like "love your neighbor as you love yourself." These Psalms are a part of the psalter, however, and are a part of the inspired Word of God. Hence, as a matter of personal opinion, I tend to agree with those who say that we should reintroduce them into the Breviary-they were to be found there, after all, when the Church (especially and specifically the clergy) was praying the Office chiefly in Latin. In the name of accuracy and totality, it might be good to look at putting them back into our cycle of prayer.

Sister Timothea is right, however, when she says that there is no way we could do that without proper catechesis among the laity with regard to what the "cursing psalms" are really all about. God does not want us to kill the innocent infants of our enemies, or wish that those who wish us personal ills or harms would not be saved. Instead, the very harsh and strong biblical language of these psalms is meant for those who have totally rejected all possibility of God's grace and have completely embraced the work of Satan (examples: Hitler, Nazis at Death Camps, Stalin, etc.). Few people in the world would choose to so openly reject the basic goodness that God made them with (Genesis 1:27-31), but there are those few who do. When they do, they open themselves up to evils like the Holocaust or the Stalinist Purges. Unfortunately, there are such people in the world, and they are-by their own choice-wicked. The evils they have done to the human family are visited upon innocent people. It is precisely to remind us of the frailty of the human condition that we have the cursing psalms.

Before we look at putting these psalms back into the Church's public psalter, however, we need first to have more of the laity ready to pray the Office to begin with before any discussion of catechesis on the "cursing psalms" could take place.

The gift of the psalms

Not a few of my fellow Aspirants were left in wonderment after this past weekend's session of our deaconate formation classes. Sister Mary Timothea Elliott, RSM came not just to give us instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, but to teach us about the psalms themselves. Firstly, I was left mesmerized, then I found myself thumbing through psalms and corresponding scriptures during Sister's talks. I was getting so much out of them that I couldn't wait from one break to the next to hear more. When it was finally over, there were several of us who said that we wished we could have at least another day of this, and we didn't want it to end.

                             Sister Mary Timothea Elliott, RSM                                                     

We've already had a great Old Testament Scripture scholar in Father Ragan Shriver give our Introduction to Scripture course. Father Bede Aboh, who gave our Philosophy lectures last month, told me that "you will love Sister Timothea, you won't want it to end." Father Bede was right...

It didn't take us long to figure out that Sister is not only well-educated (she is so well-versed in Hebrew and in the Biblical languages that Father Ragan-himself very learned in Hebrew-recommends her as a source of good material and information), but she is an educator and has been a very good one for years. She captivated a room full of grown men, and taught us so much about the psalms that none of us wanted it to end-we wanted more.

As I pointed out in my entry Thursday, I have always loved the Liturgy of the Hours ever since I was first introduced to it as a college student. Entering formation for the deaconate has truly deepened this love, and I resolved to pray the Office more faithfully, and less out of a mere sense of rote duty-in other words, I resolved to truly pray without ceasing in a way that I have never prayed before. Most importantly, I resolved to make my prayers, as best as I could understand to do so, conform to God's will and to the prayers of the whole Church rather than to my own personal desires.

It might very well be that Sister Timothea didn't realize what a gift she gave me when we read some of the psalms in the Scriptures. Of course, we pray the psalms as part of the Divine Office every day, but in some cases, certain psalmody are excluded from the Liturgy-all or part of the so-called Imprecatory Psalms, or Cursing Psalms. These portions of the psalter can be problematic when introducing the Office to laity who aren't well-catechized, and so for this reason the Church made the decision to remove them from the Liturgy. As Sister Timothea pointed out, however, just because these psalms aren't in the current edition of the Liturgy of the Hours does not mean that there may not be some appropriate reason to pray them privately. However, one can understand why we would not want to have public recitation of words like:

How blessed will be the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. (Psalm 137:9)

Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the grave.
(Psalm 55:15)

Obviously, Christ is clear that we should not do such things to our enemies. However, those few people who knowingly embrace the lowest form of evil and reject all good with complete knowledge (Sister used the example of Nazis engaged in biological experiments and mass murder of Jews, Gypsies, and disabled people), praying psalms like this might be a way of petitioning God to put an end to such atrocities and those who commit them-indeed, one person who prayed this way would themselves become a great mystic.The idea of praying the psalms uniquely and individually seems as though it would be a source of deep spiritual richness and enhancement of prayer life.

Sister also took us through a lesson in how to use the Ordo of the Liturgy of the Hours and helped us learn to place our ribbons and use our liturgy books in a way that is proper.

I had the pleasure of sitting for breakfast with Sister Timothea yesterday morning. During the course of her lectures, she managed to confirm my personal bias toward the Revised Standard Version, and she told us collectively that she preferred to use it when teaching. However, when I asked her about using the RSV in the RCIA process (as I agree that it is a better version for teaching), she said the New American Bible would still be a better starter in RCIA-she pointed out that the NAB is far closer to what the catechumens and candidates will be hearing at Mass.


I'll have much more to say about this month's formation in the days ahead-it was a very spiritually rich and deeply fulfilling experience.

God, come to my assistance...

As part of the promises that every deacon makes to his bishop, he promises that he will pray at least two of the Hours of the Divine Office (the major Hours which have come in modern times to be called Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, specifically) every day for the rest of his life. This is one of the things that deacons do have in common with priests and with religious the world over-they are required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day. We're being started early on that daily routine, and this month our deaconate formation weekend will be designed to teach us everything that we need to know about the Liturgy of the Hours in order to make the Hours a vibrant part of our spiritual and prayer life. The class will be taught by Sister Mary Timothea Elliott, RSM.

The Divine Office is not new to me, because I've been praying it in some form for years. Nicole and I are Benedictine Oblates, so we are already under a promise to pray the Office (three times a day, not just twice!). You might think "wow, David, you are way ahead of the game, you know how to do this." Well...sort of. If there is one thing that the formation experience is teaching me it is that the things about our Faith that I thought I really knew well, I don't know nearly as much as I thought I did, but I am eager to learn. Other things about the faith that I didn't think I was very educated about, I am learning that I probably knew a little more than I thought about those things. Deaconate formation has completely reawakened the passion for the Office that I had when I was first introduced to Benedictine spirituality. I have definitely learned that I didn't know nearly as much about the Liturgy of the Hours as I thought I knew.

Those of you who may have had any part of your faith formation in the Benedictine tradition may have been introduced to the Divine Office in the short form, and in my case I was given one week's worth of the Office along with some additional hymns and canticles in a little three-wing binder called the Benedictine Oblate Companion. Every few months Oblates of St. Meinrad Archabbey are sent things to put in that little three-ring binder. It is all good spiritual information that fits well with the Benedictine way of doing things and specifically with ongoing Oblate formation at St. Meinrad. When presented with the Office, Oblates are presented with a one-week cycle. I discovered the other three weeks via what in those days was a fairly new spiritual tool called the internet. I found a website called Universalis which had a translation of every office every day, as it is supposed to be prayed for every day of the year, and you could choose your calendar based on what country you lived in. "Wow," I thought, "this is great. Now I can pray essentially the same prayers as everyone else does in the monastery."

Years later I discovered a site called Divine Office, which not only gave me the written prayers to pray, but included a podcast of people praying the Liturgy of the Hours in a worshipful way in which I could join in. I love this, and I use it every day now. Divine Office begins each day by giving you these volume numbers and page numbers, and last month I finally learned what that was all about.

Four volumes of psalmody, canticles, antiphons, hymns, and ordinary instructions for how to pray the Office. This is the Breviary, folks, all of it...

All of us Aspirants had to purchase a set of the entire Office, and we had to do this because Deacon Tim Elliott, are Deacon Director, wants us all learning from the same source, so the shorter volumes that have only those prayers of the Office which we would be required to pray aren't quite acceptable enough. A brand new set of the Hours is not cheap, and I know of at least one fellow Aspirant who now has two sets (he already had one). Mind you, I'm not complaining about possessing the entire Liturgy of the Hours-I've learned more about the Office since I've gotten my hands on these books than I ever knew before. Along with the book we had to read for this month, The School of Prayer, I've already learned a few things in advance of our class this month about the Liturgy of the Hours.

One is that the Church doesn't call it the Liturgy of the Hours for nothing. Praying the Office is a liturgical act and it is a form of liturgy, just as the Mass is a liturgy. The Liturgy of the Hours is a different kind of liturgy than the Mass, and it serves a different purpose than the Mass, but it is a kind of liturgy. The Liturgy of the Hours also is not meant as the sole province of priests and religious, or of the uber-holy. The Divine Office is meant for everyone, and anyone can pray the Divine Office, alone or in a group. Priests, deacons, and religious are under an obligation to pray the Office because everyone should be praying it, so those whose lives are devoted to prayer had better be praying the Liturgy of the Hours. That brings me to the other major thing that I have learned over the last month...

People familiar with the Divine Office have long known that it is best prayed in a group. Most of us who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, though, end up praying it alone. Nicole prays with me as her schedule allows, but usually two of the three Hours that I normally pray in a day are prayed alone. Yet, in the first four centuries of the Church's life, the Liturgy of the Hours was regularly prayed by Christians in community, patterned after the Old Testament hours of prayer. Peter appears to have been praying the Hours in Acts 10:9:

And on the next day, whilst they were going on their journey, and drawing nigh to the city, Peter went up to the higher parts of the house to pray, about the sixth hour [None].

Some of our parishes in the United States are praying at least part of the Divine Office every week, even if it is just one Hour. Most aren't doing that, and it may be from the lack of someone to lead the group. Many of us in formation have wondered why we need to buy a four volume set of the Office when it is freely available on the internet. The obvious answer came up ("you may be away from your computer') but I wonder if there is another motive. Like the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours contains  red-letter instructions on how to lead a group in this important daily prayer.

We may need all four volumes in case any of us should need to lead a congregation of people in the Prayer of the Church