OFFICE OF READINGS/EVENING PRAYER

Come join in the Divine Office (or the Liturgy of the Hours) at St Paul’s on Monday evenings.

The laity were encouraged by the Second Vatican Council to join in this ancient form of prayer of the Church. We will pray the combined hours of the Office of Readings and Evening Prayer each Monday evening commencing at 5:15pm.

In the context of the Liturgy of the Hours, an “hour” refers to one of the times of prayer. There are essentially five hours every day: the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer (Lauds), Midday Prayer (with three iterations: cloistered religious tend to pray all three every day, while priests in active life can choose to pray just one), Evening Prayer (Vespers), and Night Prayer (Compline). 

The heart of the Liturgy of the Hours is the prayer of the psalms. The Psalms are a collection of 150 poems that the Jews have prayed for millennia. We look to King David as one of the principal authors of the psalms, which could rightly look at it as a songbook. They reflect many different attitudes of the person who reaches out to God. They can express fear, joy, anger, or discouragement.

When we pray the Liturgy of the Hours in community, we go back and forth between two “choirs.” This term reflects the tradition in monasteries to sit in the choir portion of the church and go back and forth while reciting – or, more commonly, while singing – the psalms.

We pray the psalms in a paused manner, giving ourselves time for reflection. We can almost imagine ourselves as two lungs of the Church, breathing in and out, repeating the words of praise that have been echoed down through the centuries.