JESUS LEARNED TO PRAY in the traditional Hebrew way. In the morning he prayed the Shema: “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4) as well as a series of blessings known as the Tephilla. In the afternoon the Tephilla was prayed again. Evening prayer was identical to morning prayer but included private petitions… Jesus and the Jews of his day prayed at set hours of the day. It was a devout Jew’s habit to go to the temple at the sixth and ninth hour (noon and three o’clock). After Jesus’ death, his disciples continued to pray at fixed hours (Acts 3:1; 10:3, 9, 30). This custom of praying at set intervals quickly become part of the early church’s rhythm of prayer. The Didache, an easy manual of Christian practices, encourage believers to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times daily (Didache 8.3).
Given this history, it is quite understandable how the early church fathers would develop patterns for praying Scripture at fixed out that integrated rhythms of prayer and work. Since all time belongs to God, why not punctuate the entire cycle of day and night with regular times for prayer, which could potentially shape both laity and clergy…. Some of these prayers rhythms have been practiced without interruption since the third of fourth century.
Dorothy Bass writes in Receiving the Day:
The liturgy of the Hours of the Order of Saint Benedict, which has strutted prayers of women and men around the world for nearly fifteen hundred years, consists of up to eight sessions of psalmody during each twenty-hour-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 best laborer, laborer best 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. This who pray the hours not only pray though the Bible every year, but they pray through the Psalm each month.
The prayer times are:
- night prayer: Vigils
- waking up prayer: Lauds
- prayers for beginning work: Prime
- giving-thanks prayers in mid-morning: Terce
- noonday 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 (praying the divine office, praying the hours) start. We begin where we are. We may already have one fixed time of prayer…. So we simply add one more time – perhaps in the middle of work -a s a reminder that time is a gift made more work and relationship, relationship with God and others. As we regular honor this one intentional moment with God, we begin to realize how the world and its demands control us, leaving us frantic and overwhelmed…. Annie Dillard says that fixed times of prayer shape our days: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend out 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.”
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES:
- In addition to your normal time of prayer, establish one new time of prayer during the day. Set a timer on your computer to remind you to stop for one to fifteen minutes to pray. After one week, consider what it has been like for you.
- Choose one time in the day to stop for five minutes and pray with a friend.
- What you want in the middle of the night, don’t fight with yourself about why you are awake. Instead, 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.”