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The "Liturgy of the Hours" is the official public prayer of the Church. Anyone can pray it, but ordained men and religious men and women under vows have committed themselves to pray "the hours" faithfully each day. The basic idea (one which I personally find very powerful in my own spirtiual life) is that the various times of the day are sanctified, i.e. made holy, through prayer. The "hinge" (or main) hours are morning prayer and evening prayer. There are are also three daytime hours (midmorning, midday, and midafternoon, of which a deacon, priest, or religious is only obligated to pray one), night prayer (usually said before retiring), and the Office of Readings, which was originally the ofice monks would awaken to pray in the middle of the night, but now can be prayed at any time of the day.
The entire Liturgy of the Hours (also called the breviery or the Divine Office) centers around the praying of the psalms. The Rosary, in fact, with its 150 Hail Marys (at least before John Paul II's introdction of the Luminous Mysteries!), developed in imitation of the monks' recitation of the 150 paslms in the course praying the Office through the week. The liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council expanded the period over which the entire paslter (Book of Psalms) was to be read from one week to four. |