Originally published at The Catholic Thing
During this season of Lent, we make it a point of discipline and charity to pray, fast, and give alms. It has long been my practice to make a special effort during this season to pray, with more consistency than I manage during the rest of the year, the Liturgy of the Hours.
For anyone looking to structure his day around prayer – rather than being content to fit prayer within the allowances of a busy day – the Divine Office is particularly beneficial. To pray this prayer is to join the countless priests and religious (and a growing number of lay men and women) for whom the praying of the Divine Office sets the rhythm of daily life throughout the year. It is a privileged way of praying, as St. Paul exhorted, unceasingly.
The Second Vatican Council touched on this point in Sacrosanctum Concilium: “[W]hen this wonderful song of praise [the Divine Office] is rightly performed. . .then it is truly the voice of the bride addressed to her bridegroom; It is the very prayer which Christ Himself, together with His body, addresses to the Father.”
At the heart of the Office are the Psalms, which have been the
