The Worth Revisiting post below (first published two years ago on the blog Principium et Finis) is the ninth in a series on the Liturgy of the Hours as a devotion for lay people (click for parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight) To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.
It is fitting, in a way, that this post on Daytime prayer comes last in the series, because Daytime Prayer (actually the three separate hours of Midmorning Prayer, Terce, Midday Prayer, Sext, and Midafternoon Prayer, None) is the most overlooked part of the Divine Office. Without it, however, we do not enjoy the fullest experience of the daily Liturgy.
Daytime prayer has traditionally contained three separate prayer hours, whose names come from the old Roman mode of designating time by counting the hours after dawn: Terce at the third hour (tertius is “third” in Latin), approximately 9:00 A.M., Sext at Noon, the sixth hour (in Latin sextus), and None from the Latin nonus, ninth, at that hour of the day (around 3:00 p.m.). These hours are less prominent than the others in the overall scheme of the Liturgy, and so are considerably shorter. Each contains only three relatively short psalm readings (with their antiphons), a brief scripture reading (no more than one or two verses) and a closing prayer.
Daily Life is busy; New York's Little Italy c. 1900 |
And that is a great part of the value of these prayer hours. It is possible to pray all the other hours before work in the morning and after we are finished in the evening, leaving the greater part of our day, the part that most occupies us mentally and physically, untouched by our sacred project of “sanctifying time”. The very fact of interrupting the normal flow of things, even briefly, to turn our thoughts to God, and to pray with the sacred scriptures, draws together our fuller prayers in the morning and the evening to cover the whole day.
We also find an emphasis in the psalms and prayers of Daytime Prayer that helps us to put whatever we do throughout the day into an “eternal” perspective. We see many images of work, harvest, and, at None, the home life to which we are about to return. Many of the psalms also emphasize God’s grace, mercy, and involvement in our lives. For instance, the Complementary Psalmody for Midday Prayer includes Psalm 125, which begins:
Those who put their trust in the Lord
Are like Mount Zion, that cannot be shaken,
That stands forever. . .
The concluding prayer often directs our attention to the divine perspective on that particular part of our working day. At the end of Terce on Monday of Week I, for instance, we are directed toward our labors to come:
God our Father,
work is your gift to us,
a call to reach new heights
by using our talents for the good of all.
Guide us as we work and teach us to live
in the spirit that has made us your sons and daughters,
in the love that has made us brothers and sisters.
Then at Sext, when we are in the midst of our labors:
Father,
Yours is the harvest
and Yours is the vineyard:
You assign the task
and pay a wage that is just.
help us to meet this day’s responsibilities,
and let nothing separate us from your love.
Finally, None’s conclusion connects our mid-afternoon prayer to the prayer we see see Peter and the Apostles offering (see Acts 3:1) at the same time of day:
Lord,
You call us to worship You
At the hour when the apostles went to pray in the temple . . .
As the last prayer on Monday connects the hour of the day with that hour in Salvation History, so the prayers for Friday of Week I give us an almost hourly recapitulation of the events of Good Friday. The pray for Midmorning begins:
Lord Jesus Christ,
at this hour you led out
to die on the cross
for the salvation of the world . . .
Then at Midday Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ,
At noon, when darkness covered all the earth,
You mounted the wood of the cross . . .
And finally, the prayer at Midafternoon begins:
Lord Jesus Christ,
You brought the repentant thief
From the suffering of the cross
To the joy of your kingdom . . .
No discussion of Daytime prayer would be complete for me if I didn’t mention two of my favorite psalms, 127 and 128, which we find in Midafternoon Complementary Psalmody. Both point to the home to which we are about to return. On a deeper level they help us look at the work day that is nearing completion in the context of God’s abundance and mercy, and remind us that He rewards those who rely upon Him. Psalm 127 begins with an image of a house under construction to represent our need for God’s help: “If the Lord does not build the house/In vain do its builders labor”; the last half of the psalm depicts God’s abundant blessings, as represented by our children:
Truly sons are a gift from the Lord,
A blessing, the fruit of the womb.
Indeed the sons of youth
Are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.
The Wife a Fruitful Vine: "A Hearty Welcome", Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema |
Psalm 128, the final Psalm of Daytime Prayer, beautifully encapsulates the whole day of work by pointing to its end, in which we see the whole chain of love and abundance. Here, our “yes” to God’s love for us finds fruitfulness in our work under His care, reflected in the fruitfulness of our wife, who is compared to a flourishing vine. That abundance is in turn passed on to our children and to our children’s children. I can think of no better closing for this essay than to reproduce Psalm 128 in full:
O blessed are those who fear the Lord
and walk in his ways!
By the labor of your hands you shall eat.
You will be happy and prosper;
the wife like a fruitful vine
in the heart of your house;
Your children like shoots of the olive,
around the your table.
Indeed thus shall be blessed
the man who fears the Lord.
May the Lord bless you from Zion
all the days of your life!
May you see your children's children
in a happy Jerusalem!
On Israel, peace!
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