Liturgy of the Hours

The chant or recitation of the Divine Office therefore forms the basis of prayer within the consecrated life, with some of the monastic or mendicant orders producing their own permutations of the Liturgy of the Hours and older Roman Breviary.

[11] Within the Latin Church, the lay faithful "are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually", though there is no obligation for them to do so.

[12] The present official form of the entire Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Rite is that contained in the four-volume Latin-language publication Liturgia Horarum, the first edition of which appeared in 1971.

For Catholics in primarily Commonwealth nations, the three-volume Divine Office, which uses a range of different English Bibles for the readings from Scripture, was published in 1974.

The four-volume Liturgy of the Hours, with Scripture readings from the New American Bible, appeared in 1975 with approval from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

[14] The General Instruction of the Liturgy of Hours in the Roman Rite states: "The public and communal prayer of the people of God is rightly considered among the first duties of the Church.

The decision to include Gentiles among the community of believers, arose from a vision Peter had while praying at noontime, (Acts 10:9–49) the "sixth hour".

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

Pliny the Younger (63 – c. 113), mentions not only fixed times of prayer by believers, but also specific services – other than the Eucharist – assigned to those times: "they met on a stated day before it was light, and addressed a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity, … after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble, to eat in common a harmless meal.

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

[25] On 9 July 1568, Pope Pius V, the successor to Pius IV who closed the Council of Trent, promulgated an edition, known as the Roman Breviary, with his Apostolic Constitution Quod a nobis, imposing it in the same way in which, two years later, he imposed his Roman Missal and using language very similar to that in the bull Quo primum with which he promulgated the Missal, regarding, for instance, the perpetual force of its provisions, the obligation to use the promulgated text in all places, and the total prohibition of adding or omitting anything, declaring in fact: "No one whosoever is permitted to alter this letter or heedlessly to venture to go contrary to this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult declaration, will decree and prohibition.

[33] St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, along with the four churches under its jurisdiction, retained its own unique liturgies, psalms, and Latin translations into the 19th century.

This Liturgy of the Hours (Liturgia Horarum in Latin) is published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana in four volumes, arranged according to the liturgical seasons of the church year.

The liturgical books for the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin are those of the editio typica altera (second typical edition) promulgated in 1985 and re-issued by the Vatican Publishing House – Libreria Editrice Vaticana – in 2000 and 2003.

The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum in 2007 authorized every Latin Church cleric to use this edition to fulfill his canonical obligation to pray the Divine Office.

The Divine Office was produced by a commission set up by the Episcopal Conferences of Australia, England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

Some of the canticles taken from the Revised Standard Version were amended slightly to conform the English text to the Vulgate in The Divine Office.

While developed primarily from the Anglican tradition, the Divine Worship: Daily Office is considered to be a specific use of the Liturgy of the Hours.

[42] The eight are known by the following names, which do not reflect the times of day at which in the second millennium they have traditionally been recited, as shown by the use of the word "noon", derived from Latin (hora) nona,[43][44] to mean midday, not 3 in the afternoon: This arrangement of the Divine Office is described by Benedict.

However, it is found in John Cassian's Twelve books on the institutes of the coenobia and the remedies for the eight principal faults, which describe the monastic practices of the Desert Fathers of Egypt.

Both follow a similar format: The daytime hours follow a simpler format, like a very compact form of the Office of Readings: Compline has the character of preparing the soul for its passage to eternal life: In addition to the distribution of almost the whole Psalter over a four-week cycle, the church also provides appropriate hymns, readings, psalms, canticles and antiphons, for use in marking specific celebrations in the Roman Calendar, which sets out the order for the liturgical year.

Unless the invitatory is used, each hour begins with the versicle "O God, come to our aid: O Lord, make haste to help us" (Ps 69/70 v.2) The "Glory be to the Father" follows.

Before the reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X, Matins involved the recitation of 18 psalms on Sundays and 12 on ferial days.

On Sundays outside of Lent, during the octaves of Easter and Christmas, on solemnities and feasts, the Te Deum is sung after the second reading with its responsory.

Smaller books called breviaries (a word that etymologically refers to a compendium or abridgment) were developed to indicate the format of the daily office and assist in identifying the texts to be chosen.

These developed into books that gave in abbreviated form (because they omitted the chants) and in small lettering the whole of the texts, and so could be carried when travelling.

[56] Many of the complicated rubrics (or instructions) that governed recitation of the Liturgy were clarified, and the actual method of praying the office was made simpler.

These omissions, lamented by Joseph Briody,[58] are attributed in the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours of 1971 to "certain psychological difficulties, even though the imprecatory psalms themselves may be found quoted in the New Testament, e.g. Rev 6:10, and in no way are intended to be used as curses".

[62] While the 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum states that communities belonging to institutes of religious life and societies of apostolic life require authorization only by their major superiors to use the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal for their conventual or community Mass frequently, habitually or permanently;[63] it makes no such statement regarding use of the 1962 Roman Breviary, which could be allowed by their constitutions.

The constitutions of some institutes of consecrated life, in particular many congregations of Benedictine monks and nuns but also others, oblige them to follow an arrangement of the Psalter whereby all the psalms are recited in the course of a single week, partly through an extension of the Office of Readings, and by maintaining the Hour of Prime.