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THE DIVINE OFFICE
You have heard the expression “Soccer Moms”. The days of many mothers tick by as they cart their little ones to the next activity. For anyone growing up on a farm, the day is measured by what chores needed to be done: get the hay down for the cows, milk the cows, pick up the eggs, cultivate a field, and on and on till the sun sets. For other people time is kept by what program is on TV. Everyone has something around which their inner clock of their lives turns.
St. Benedict did not invent this prayer. In fact, even in his day, 480-546, it was an ancient prayer. It grew out of the prayer of the Jewish Temple and synagogue. The Acts of the Apostles (AA6:6-15,7:55-8:3) mention how those first followers of Jesus tried to attend the regular “hours” of prayer in the synagogue but both Jew and Christian knew that they did not share the same faith and the Christians had to move on to find other places to worship the Lord.
Many of those first Christians had grown up in the Jewish faith and they took the same Psalms and Scriptures they had prayed as Jews and realized that the Old Testament prefigured Christ. Jesus had told the Apostles, “All that is written of Me in the Psalms and prophets”. He had walked along with the sorrowful disciples toward Emmaus that first Easter evening and explained to them how the ancient Scriptures had been fulfilled in Jesus and all they had seen him go through. (LK24:44f)
The first 300 years of Christianity were not easy.
Anyone who has visited
Some men and women went out to the deserted places to live a more radical life outside the established ways of society, centering their whole existence on Christ. They lived alone as hermits and every conceivable way in groups living chaste, poor and simple. It is here among these men and women that the “Hours” of the Divine Office develop so that the whole day would be pierced by the psalms and scripture adoring the Lord, praying to Him and petitioning him in the name of all. Blessed Columba Marmion, a Benedictine Abbot, who lived in the last century referred to those who pray the Divine Office as “Ambassadors before the throne of God.”
St. James boldly and correctly states, “I will show you my faith by my works.” (JM 2:14f) In the Rule, St. Benedict concretely shows us his faith by conferring 1/6 of the Rule on this irreducible element Benedictine life. The Hours of the Divine Office are the skeleton on the day. It is the structure that all else hangs on and without it, the life would cease to be.
An hour of the Divine Office does not mean 60 minutes. It means a period of the Prayer of the Church. On the day of our Final Vows, the Bishop hands us the book of the Divine Office, “Receive this book, and see that you put nothing before the work of God. Sing his praise night and day and glorify him in the holy Church.” And so, we have the duty and the great gift to share everyday in this celebration of the Mystery of Christ. We gather with the Church in the Name of Christ and carry out our share in His royal priesthood: praising, thanking, adoring and mediating. In Him, we embrace the world and all its needs as we stand and begin each Hour. This is our ministry, our mission in the Church.
And so the day here at Our Lady Queen follows the rhythm of the Hours of
the Divine Office. We meet together seven times, beside the
Mass, quiet prayer and lectio, to enter into this sublime Prayer of Christ
This means that about every couple of clock hours the community gathers to pray. The Church speaks of “sanctifying” the day. It is our privilege and contribution to the world, the role we play in the Mystical Body of Christ to pray throughout the day.
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In a Benedictine monastery the day revolves around the
Divine Office.
and
His Church.