Order your lives in charity, upon the model of that charity which Christ showed to us, when he gave himself up on our behalf, a sacrifice breathing out fragrance as he offered it to God. (Eph 5:1-2)
Give thanks continually to God, who is our Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 5:20)
‘In the sight of angels I will sing praise to you (Ps 138:1). Let us rise in chanting that our hearts and voices harmonise.’
(Rule of St Benedict: Ch 19)
As the examples of quotations given above indicate, we are implored by scripture and the Fathers of the Church to aim for high standards in our prayer, standards that at first sight are impossible. In fact without God’s grace they are impossible, but with God’s grace our imperfect efforts can be perfected for our good and the good of those around us.
These standards ask for both quantity and quality. We seek to pray continuously and with the whole person, that is, using the body and soul. We also have the aspiration that our prayer is perfect, pure in motive and action. If we could achieve these ideals, every action and thought (not just those we associate with prayer) would be in accordance with God’s will and are at once gifts to God, (sacrifices for God ‘breathing out fragrance’) and perfectly ordered to the model of charity, that is love of God and mankind. To the degree that we match these standards there will be perfect harmony with the objective standard of God’s will. This harmony will become apparent to all others that conform to God’s will, so we will be in harmony with each other, with all of creation and with the angels in heaven. This is the supernatural path to inner peace, peace with our neighbour and living in harmony with creation.
The heart is the human centre of gravity, our very core that incorporates body and soul. It is the place that represents the whole person, the vector sum of all our actions and thoughts. If our hearts are to be in harmony with the prayers of the angels in heaven, we need to consider not just our thoughts and voices, but our actions, our bodies. The heart is also the place that, anatomically (considering both physical and spiritual human anatomy), is closest to God in the sense of being most directly in contact with Him. So, if we seek the ideal stated, and harmonise our hearts with the heavenly hosts, we will also be more sensitive to inspiration. To the degree that we cooperate with grace this will help us make all our life decisions and help us to move towards our vocation in life.
We seek wherever possible to make our prayer liturgical and even if not part of formal liturgy, to imbue it with a liturgical principle. The liturgy is the formal prayer of the Church. This has the Mass at the centre, but includes also (right from the first days of the Church) what we call today the Liturgy of the Hours, or the Divine Office. This is daily prayer based around the recitation of the psalms. Key hours of the day are sanctified through this rhythmical return to God in prayer. Those with a religious vocation are bound to pray the full Divine Office daily on behalf of the Church. Lay people, whose vocation is different, are not bound to pray the Office, but are encouraged to pray as an act of loving worship to God the Father (all liturgy is the worship of the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit). If we think of the Church as the mystical body of Christ, then we can view the liturgy as the prayer and worship given to us by Christ to allow us to come to the Father through the Son, in the Spirit. What better way, then, to fulfil these ideals than to make use of the prayer given to us by Christ himself for that purpose?
Freed of the constraints of time and space, the angels and saints in heaven are in a perpetual state of prayer and worship. It’s what those in heaven do once and for always. Christians on earth, on the other hand, occupy time and space and so it is an ideal we can only aspire towards. We can pray regularly, but we must attend also to the everyday needs of life. If these other activities are ‘ordered in charity’ they might be considered a gift for God and so prayerful too. When this is so our participation in them can help us to achieve the ideal of praying continuously. We need grace to do this. The sacramental life and the liturgy, the formal prayer of the Church, are gifts that are offered to help us to obtain this grace.
Praying continuously
Here are some ways of praying continuously:
- Praying seven times a day (and once at night): In the Christian tradition, there have always been significant numbers, for example, twelve, seven, and three. The Jews, Greeks, and Romans divided the hours between sunrise and sunset into twelve “hours”, and the tradition among the Jews was to punctuate the day with prayer at regular intervals of three or seven. Evening and morning, and at noon I will speak and declare: and he shall hear my voice. (Psalm 54:17) Seven times a day I have given praise to thee, for the judgments of thy justice. (Psalm 119:164) The importance of the number seven in the Christian tradition is second only to the number three. It goes back to the seven days of creation. It is the number of the liturgy since the ‘Hebrew for seven, sheva, has a verb form. Shava is the verb for swearing oath. Its meaning is to ‘seven’ oneself. When human beings swear in this way, they follow the precedent set by God at the dawn of Creation.’1 Seven is the number of God’s covenantal oath and the book of the Apocalypse is the consummation of the covenant. It is full of the symbolism of seven (churches, spirits, torches, lampstands etc). As Scot Hahn says: ‘The overwhelming message is that the Son of Man has definitively renewed the covenant. He has sevened himself by the liturgical offering of his body, once for all.’2 Sevenfold repetition is traditionally seen as one way of effecting a continuous activity or perfecting an action: ‘The word of the Lord is pure, like silver that is tested in the crucible, the stains of the earth gone, seven times refined’ (Ps 12:6). St Benedict thought it important to pray seven times a day and wrote: “we will cleave to this sacred number [seven] if we perform the duties of our service at the time of Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline; because it was of these day hours that he hath said: ‘Seven times a day I have given praise to Thee.’” (Ch 16). And as St Augustine said: ‘I will praise you seven times a day’[Ps 118:164] means exactly the same as ‘his praise is always on my lips’3 [Ps 33:2]Christian monks used to follow the rule of praying verbally or chanting together seven times a day as a means of refreshing their interior recollection in a life entirely given to divine service so helping to order the motives of the rest of their work to charity. Any liturgical activity provides, in addition, an overflowing of grace which helps us to order these activities.‘We should not express our prayer merely in syllables, but the power of prayer should be expressed in the moral attitude of our soul and in the virtuous actions that extend throughout our life…This is how you pray continually – not by offering prayer in words, but by joining yourself to God through your whole way of life, so that your life becomes one continuous and uninterrupted prayer’ (St Basil the Great in a homily on the martyr Julitta).Just like monks, we cannot hope even to come close to the ideal articulated by St Basil without grace. In following the pattern of the worship of the Church, we align ourselves to the liturgy in heaven and to a source of grace. We imbue our lives with an ordering principle that harmonises us not only with the angels in heaven, but also with the whole of creation. It gives a divine orientation that stays with us after our prayer of syllables is over. This is how the liturgy and the sacraments, and our lives outside the church building are integrated. It is grace that binds the two together.
- Simplifying the Hours: In the ideal, even lay people would recite the full Office each day. And in accordance with this, part of what we aim to do here is to set out a way of chanting the Office that would be in fulfilment of the ideals stated at the beginning. However, we realise this is not a realistic proposition for many Christians living “in the world” rather than in the monastery. So we seek also, to offer a way for those who wish to, to simplify the Office. In seeking to do this, others have opted to omit some of the hours and use perhaps the Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer, which reduces the Hours to three. We suggest another approach that allows for the retention of the sevenfold division of the Hours. When the full Hour cannot be recited, we suggest that another, shorter prayer of grouping prayers is substituted for the Hour, so that the sevenfold pattern of prayer is retained.
- Possible substitutions for Hours: Substitutions might be, for example, a decade of the Rosary; the Angelus at morning, noon and night; even just an Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be. I have been saying seven Jesus prayers and the litany (kyrie plus Pater).
Praying with the whole person
‘Humility, Gravity and Reverence’ (Chapters 19, 47, Rule of Saint Benedict). – How we sing or recite the Office so that the whole body and soul participate? In order to participate fully in the Office, we seek to use all the faculties of the mind, all the senses, and the body. So we consider the following:
- Chanting, the use of voice.
- Posture while reciting or chanting the Office and other hours, and during Mass. Why is posture important? The nature of man, a profound unity of body and soul, means that just as thoughts can direct the body, so the bodily attitude can affect our thoughts and feelings. Our aim is to harmonise our hearts with the angels in prayer. It is important then that we aim for the ideal of both body and soul participating in prayer. If we think of the heart as not only directing, but also reflecting the sum of attitudes of body and mind, then body position does affect our hearts. In the ideal every aspect of human nature is directed towards God, our actions and our motives. In reality, our motives are likely to be mixed. So even if we don’t feel like praying or feel very peaceful, we can adopt reverential posture and that will tend to lead our heart in the right direction. It may feel empty, but it is still worth doing. We suggest the following: we stand and sit as is normal for the Office – we stand through introit and hymn until the psalms are recited, when we sit, and we stand again for the gospel canticle until the close or if there is no gospel canticle we stand for the closing prayer ; we bow in honour of the Trinity for the last verse of each hymn and the glory be; we bow our heads at mention of the name Jesus.
- Where is an appropriate place? – the icon corner at home, the church, but failing this, anywhere. The icon corner, a tradition still in Eastern Christianity, is a focus for prayer in the home. As well as directing vision during prayer, it also serves the purpose as a stationary point to which one orients oneself for prayer at home. So that the orientation becomes an additional action of prayer. Although we call this an ‘icon corner’ the imagery needn’t be limited to the Byzantine/Slav iconographic prototype. It is good to use any imagery from Catholic traditions, including statues that promote prayer.
- Praying with visual imagery. Use the pictures and statutes in church. This can be as simple as have a single icon, or become of more sophisticated combination of images (core imagery, rotating images for different seasons and feast days). There could be a drape over the corner ‘altar’ that corresponds to the seasonal colour as seen in the priest’s vestments. The ideal core imagery, in accordance with tradition, is to have a crucifixion in the centre, which portrays the suffering Christ; an image of Our Lady on the left; and an additional image of Our Lord on the right.
- Incorporating the sense of smell – use of incense. Incense can be used, for example during the gospel canticles. If incense is used it should be used selectively in accordance with the hierarchy of the liturgy that points to the Mass as it highpoint. So that for example, all should point to Sunday Mass. In community, if incense is used at Vespers, Lauds and Compline (when gospel canticles are sung), then they should be also at Sunday Mass.
- The Eucharist – incorporating taste and touch. We do not take communion during the Liturgy of the Hours, but the liturgy as a whole is seen as an unfolding of a single event that incorporates both the Hours and Mass. It relies on the presence of the Mass on earth for its impact.
- Taking on the priestly role within the family – the use of male cantors and, in the family, the special role of the father as visible leader in prayer and advocate to God it will help to reinforce the family structure. It will establish the father as the head of the family in a good way and increase vocations to the priesthood, inspired by the example of seeing father acting as a non-sacramental ‘priest’ on their behalf. This is a tradition that is biblical at its source, as Scott Hahn points out: ‘[In] the Book of Genesis, liturgy was the province of the Patriarchs themselves. In each household, priesthood belonged to the father, who passed the office to his son, ideally the firstborn, by pronouncing a blessing over him. In every household, fathers served as mediators between God and their families’4 Also, just as at Mass we pray for the head of state, family members might pray for the head of the family.We can extend the familial principle to all institutions and communities to which we belong. If the Divine Office is said communally in institutions then that priestly role can be visible too. Wherever possible the cantor or leader of the Office should be male as a fulfilment of a quasi-priestly role.
[note]Additional notes on manner of singing the Office at Thomas More College:
- Drawing on the Benedictine tradition we will incorporate aspects of the Rule not specified in the Office according the Roman Rite: thrice fold repetition of the introit; always closing each with Hour with the litany (kyrie plus Pater); we aim to chant the Pater out loud three times a day (in our case at Lauds, Mass and Vespers), but silently on other occasions (Chapter 9, Chapter 13, Chapter 18, Rule of St Benedict)
- As we are a busy educational institution, we take on certain aspects of the Dominican style of delivery, the order devoted to study (as well as preaching): we sing the Office at a fast pace (though not so fast as to be undignified); we try to come together at certain hours, eg Vespers, but at the others try to ensure that some members of the community are saying them on behalf the community. This can be in rota.
- Language differences: we are using a combination of languages. In Latin, the emphasis tends to be on the vowels, while in English on the consonants. If one were to describe the effect, Latin floats, while English punches. There is a tendency for those who are very used to plainchant in Latin, to sing English in a Latin way, which gives it a weak and sentimental feel. We should be aware of the different styles of delivery as we chant in the two languages. We do not extend the emphasised syllables in the English in the same way as one would in the Latin but tend, marginally, towards the staccato.[/note]
How we can adopt a liturgical attitude outside the Office prayer?
- Fasting and abstinence (and Feasting!). We aim to order even the sustenance of our bodies according to a liturgical rhythm. So, for example, we could follow the traditional pattern of the Church year and as well as observing the obligatory fast days, abstain from meat on Wednesdays, Fridays and during Lent. The spiritual lessons learnt through this sacrifice are of charity. We should not neglect Feast days either. We could perhaps allow ourselves treats on Sundays and Solemnities! A Feast is a lesson in gratitude for God’s generosity in giving us so many good things in life (not just what we eat).
- Eating together – encouraging families and institutions to sit down and eat together can create a special sense of fellowship. Think of how much effort went into making the dining hall of the Oxford colleges pleasant places to eat together. The Last Supper was the Mass and so dining has a liturgical dimension.
- Good works: we should aim at all times to develop an attitude of charity. People should look for ways of building acts of charity into the routine of life. Many, those with families will be unable to avoid regular demands on their charity. Those who have the time (those without families particularly) might benefit from a weekly commitment of service within the community (for people unconnected with us who and from whom we can expect nothing in return eg St Vincent de Paul, the Samaritans). If we practise loving action routinely, even if at times it feels mechanical and lacking in compassion, we will be transformed so that we will become more loving and will be again more disposed to order rest of our lives to loving action. It is not that sentiment is unimportant. We want genuinely to feel that love, as well as taking the loving action. It’s just that sometimes the action has to lead us to the sentiment. (We can’t depend on it happening the other way around.) It is an iterative process. We give it a go and aim for progress, however poor our starting efforts might be. Through consciously putting aside time for good works, we develop the habit of ordering our actions according to charity. The more that our lives are lived in accordance with the principle of self-giving, love, the closer we are to that ideal of continual prayer.
[Additional notes: The psalmist and St Benedict also advocate rising ‘at midnight to confess to You’ – we should suggest how this can be achieved practically too. We can’t expect people to set the alarm clock and rise at midnight! (I have some ideas – I say a very short set of prayers just as my head hits the pillow, after my Night Prayer. If I get up during the night to answer a call of nature, I try to remember to say some prayers then too!)
- Scott Hahn: Letter and Spirit, p60, pub DLT [↩]
- Ibid, p154 [↩]
- St Augustine: On Christian Teaching, II, XXVII, 55-56, Tr Green pub OUP, 1997, p62 [↩]
- Scott Hahn, Letter and Spirit, pub DLT, p28 [↩]
