Canonical hours

During the Babylonian captivity, when the Temple was no longer in use, synagogues carried on the practice, and the services (at fixed hours of the day) of Torah readings, psalms, and hymns began to evolve.

The miraculous healing of the crippled beggar described in Acts of the Apostles 3:1, took place as Peter and John went to the Temple for the three o'clock hour of prayer.

By AD 60, we find the Didache recommending that disciples pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day; this practice found its way into the canonical hours as well.

The word "Vigils", at first applied to the Night Office, comes from a Latin source, namely the Vigiliae or nocturnal watches or guards of the soldiers.

Probably in the fourth century, in order to break the monotony of this long night prayer the custom of dividing it into three parts or Nocturns was introduced.

[19] Around the year 484, the Greek-Cappadocian monk Sabbas the Sanctified began the process of recording the liturgical practices around Jerusalem, while the cathedral and parish rites in the Patriarchate of Constantinople evolved in an entirely different manner.

The Franciscans sought a one-volume breviary for their friars to use during travels, so the order adopted the Breviarium Curiae, but substituting the Gallican Psalter for the Roman.

Also, as the rite evolved in sundry places, different customs arose; an essay on some of these has been written by Archbishop Basil Krivoshein and is posted on the web.

The sundry Canonical Hours are, in practice, grouped together into aggregates[56] so that there are three major times of prayer a day: Evening, Morning and Midday.

The present arrangement provides for seven hulali at each ferial night service, ten on Sundays, three on "Memorials", and the whole Psalter on Feasts of the Lord.

Today, even in monasteries, the services are grouped together: Vespers and Compline are said together; Matins and Prime are said together; and the Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours are said together; resulting in three times of prayer each day.

Themes of the service are: thanksgiving to God for the blessing of sleep and asking that the remainder of the night pass in peace and tranquility, and that the next day be spent in purity and righteousness.

At present the following services are conducted in churches daily for the majority of the year: During Great Lent, all of the services are offered on weekdays (except Saturday and Sunday) according to the following schedule: The book which contains the hymns which constitute the substance of the musical system of Armenian liturgical chant is the Sharagnots (see Armenian Octoechos), a collection of hymns known as Sharakan.

As a result, a rural Lutheran parish church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries might pray Saturday Vespers, Sunday Matins, and Sunday Vespers in the vernacular, while the nearby cathedral and city churches could be found praying the eight canonical hours in Latin with polyphony and Gregorian chant on a daily basis throughout the year.

Despite the disdain of these movements for the Daily Office, a Latin choir hymnal was published in Nuremberg as late as 1724, and weekday observations of Matins and Vespers continued in many German Lutheran parishes until the end of the 18th century.

[60] A renewal in the Daily Office took place in the nineteenth century as a part of the confessional revival among Lutherans, particularly as a result of the work of such figures as Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe.

In 1978, the Lutheran Book of Worship was published, containing newly revised forms of the Daily Office influenced by liturgical reforms in vogue following the Second Vatican Council, with an order of Evening Prayer that includes a "Service of Light".

In Germany, the Diakonie Neuendettelsau religious institute uses a breviary unique to the order, and the Evangelisch-Lutherische Gebetsbruderschaft uses its Breviarium Lipsiensae: Tagzeitengebete.

Among English-speaking Lutherans in the United States, the twentieth century saw a proliferation in breviaries and prayer books alongside renewed interest in praying the canonical hours.

Among the volumes presently in use is a translation of the Breviarum Lipsiensae: Tagzeitengebete, entitled The Brotherhood Prayer Book, which provides for eight canonical hours and includes a psalter, responsories, and antiphons set to Gregorian chant.

Until comparatively recently Mattins and Evensong were the principal Sunday services in most Anglican churches, sung to settings by composers both ancient and modern.

For this purpose, he followed some German Lutheran liturgies in eliminating the lesser hours and conflating the medieval offices of Matins and Lauds, while incorporating the canticles associated with each: the Benedictus and Te Deum.

Similarly, Evening Prayer, also derived from German Lutheran liturgies, incorporated both the Magnificat from Vespers and the Nunc Dimittis from Compline.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. also provides an "Order of Worship for the Evening" as a prelude to Evensong with blessings for the lighting of candles and the singing of the ancient Greek lamp-lighting hymn, the Phos Hilaron.

Various Anglican adaptations of pre-Vatican II Roman office-books have appeared over the years, among the best known being Canon W. Douglas' translation of the 'Monastic Diurnal' into the idiom of the 'Book of Common Prayer'.

Historically, Anglican clergy have vested in cassock, surplice, and tippet for Morning and Evening Prayer, while bishops wear the rochet and chimere.

In some monastic communities and Anglo-Catholic parishes, the officiant wears a surplice or an alb with stole and cope when Evensong is celebrated solemnly.

The canons of the Church of England and some other Anglican provinces require clergy to read Morning and Evening Prayer daily, either in public worship or privately.

John Fletcher Hurst, stated that Oxford Methodism "with its almost monastic rigors, its living by rule, its canonical hours of prayer, is a fair and noble phase of the many-sided life of the Church of England".

According to the Liturgy of the Liberal Catholic Church, the Scriptures used are generally limited to the readings of the day, and the complete psalter is not incorporated unless at the discretion of the priest presiding, if as a public service, or of the devotee in private use.