Fixed-Hour Prayer

Dorothy Bass writes in Receiving the Day:

The Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of Saint Benedict, which has structured the prayers of communities of women and men around the world for nearly fifteen hundred years, consists of up to eight sessions of psalmody during each twenty-four-hour period. The rhythms of Benedictine life embody a steadfast attention to the “sanctification of time,” not just for the sake of the monastics but for the sake of the world.

Benedict believed that both physical labor and prayer were in God’s hands. They were both God’s work. He is renowned for saying, “Orare est laborare, laborare est orare” (To pray is to work, to work is to pray). Benedictines today continue to punctuate their work with prayer rhythms begun over 1,600 years ago.

The prayer times are

• night prayer—Vigils
• waking-up prayers—Lauds
• prayers for beginning work—Prime
• giving-thanks prayers in mid-morning—Terce
• noon-day prayer of commitment—Sext
• mid-afternoon prayer—None
• evening prayer of stillness—Vespers
• going-to-sleep prayer of trust—Compline

Few of us can look at this list and not be overwhelmed. But this is not where beginners to fixed-hour prayer start. We begin where we are. We may already have one fixed time of prayer in the morning. So we simply add one more time—perhaps in the middle of work—as a reminder that time is a gift made for work and relationship, relationship with God and others. As we regularly honor this one intentional moment with God, we begin to realize how the world and its demands control us, leaving us frantic and overwhelmed. And stopping to pray, even if we have to set the timer, cultivates an awareness of the unseen reality of God’s presence in all time and things. Annie Dillard says that fixed times of prayer shape our days: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing. A schedule defends us from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.”

Prayers offered at fixed hours can be spontaneous or liturgical. We can pray Scripture, the Divine Office, memorized prayers or simply pour out our hearts to God.

Reflection Questions

1. What times of the day do you like to pray?

   What is important to you about that particular time or times?

2. How do you remind yourself throughout the day that there is more to life than work, tasks and transactions?
3. If you have children do you have specific times that you pray with them?

   What do you want these fixed times of prayer to do in their lives?

4. How do you feel about memorized prayers or using the prayers of others?
5. What makes a prayer authentic?

Spiritual Exercises

1. In addition to your normal time of prayer, establish one new time of prayer during the day. Set a timer or your computer to remind you to stop for one to fifteen minutes to pray. • After one week, consider what this has been like for you.
2. If you would like to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, try using The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle. These three volumes are guides to prayer for the entire year.
3. Choose one time in the day to stop for five minutes and pray with a friend. Use a liturgy or pray spontaneously.
4. When you wake in the middle of the night, don’t fight with yourself about why you are awake. Enter into Vigils. Lean deeply into God and simply pray for the things that come to mind. Don’t hurry. Attend to God as David did “in the watches of the night.”

Resources on Fixed-Hour Prayer

The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle

The Music of Silence by David Steindl-Rast and Sharon Lebell

Network for Grateful Living www.gratefulness.org

Receiving the Day by Dorothy C. Bass

“Every traumatic rejection untouched by the vital kind of forgiveness the cross has won for us, whether at a conscious or unconscious level, will be acted out in some negative fashion.” —Leanne Payne

Inner-Healing Prayer