Expand praying the Liturgy of the Hours with adoration

Clergy, religious, laity and parishes are encouraged to pray the Liturgy of the Hours during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.

The Catholic Church, particularly through the Second Vatican Council, explicitly encouraged and called for the laity to pray the Divine Office (now known as the Liturgy of the Hours) in parishes, either with priests or among themselves, to sanctify their days with God’s praise and deepen their connection to Christ. This call aims to integrate the “Work of God” into the daily lives of all the faithful, not just clergy, by establishing communal prayer routines in parishes. 

Key Points of the Church’s Call:

  • Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) Paragraph 100: This foundational document of Vatican II clearly states, “…the laity too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with priests, among themselves, or even individually”.
  • Sanctification of Time: The Divine Office is designed to make the entire course of the day and night holy, connecting all of life’s circumstances to Christ.
  • Communal & Private Prayer: The encouragement extends to communal prayer in parishes, fostering a habit of prayer that can also be continued individually.
  • Pastoral Responsibility: Pastors of souls are urged to see that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common on Sundays and feasts.

How it Works in Parishes:

  • Public Celebration: Parishes may hold public celebrations of specific hours, such as Morning Prayer (Lauds) or Evening Prayer (Vespers), where the laity can participate.
  • Building a Routine: Parish-based prayer helps establish a routine, making it easier for the faithful to adopt the practice personally.
    Connecting to the Mass: Praying the Office can complement the Mass, making the faithful more aware of the Church’s daily prayer life. 

Historical & Devotional Encouragement:

  • Saints’ Examples: Saints like Francis de Sales advised laity to participate in the Divine Office, citing its benefits for devotion.
  • Biblical Roots: The practice itself has deep biblical roots, with references to the Apostles praying at specific hours of the day. 

Examples of parishes:

Consider helping souls by praying the Liturgy of the Hours during adoration or at other times

If you don’t already do so, you may want to consider joining clergy, religious and laity throughout the universal Church who recite the Prayer of the Church (also known as the Divine Office, Liturgy of the Hours, or Brievary).

This can be prayed before the Blessed Sacrament or at home.  In a Letter to Families, Pope St. John Paul II explained, “The Fathers of the Church, in the Christian tradition, have spoken of the family as a ‘domestic church,’ a ‘little church.’”

“I recommend that, wherever possible, parishes and religious communities promote this prayer [the Liturgy of the Hours] with the participation of the lay faithful.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini 62)

“Before a man is ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons and enters the clerical state, he makes promises ‘to celebrate faithfully the Liturgy of the Hours with and for the People of God and indeed for the whole world’ (Ordination of a Deacon, 228). This promise, of course, does not go away if a man is ordained to the Sacred Order of Priests.” What is the clergy’s obligation to pray the Liturgy of the Hours? – Adoremus

The Prayer of the Church in the book(s), which laity can pray one or more of, includes the:

Office of Readings

“The office of readings seeks to provide God’s people, and in particular those consecrated to God in a special way, with a wider selection of passages from sacred Scripture for meditation, together with the finest excerpts from spiritual writers. Even though the cycle of scriptural readings at daily Mass is now richer, the treasures of revelation and tradition to be found in the office of readings will also contribute greatly to the spiritual life” (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours [GILH], no. 55).

Morning Prayer (Lauds)

“As is clear from many of the elements that make it up, morning prayer is intended and arranged to sanctify the morning. St. Basil the Great gives an excellent description of this character in these words: It is said in the morning in order that the first stirrings of our mind and will may be consecrated to God and that we may take nothing in hand until we have been gladdened by the thought of God, as it is written: ‘I was mindful of God and was glad’ (Ps 77:4 [Jerome’s translation from Hebrew]), or set our bodies to any task before we do what has been said: ‘I will pray to you, Lord, you will hear my voice in the morning; I will stand before you in the morning and gaze on you’ (Ps 5:4-5).

“Celebrated as it is as the light of a new day is dawning, this hour also recalls the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the true light enlightening all people (see Jn 1:9) and ‘the sun of justice’ (Mal 4:2), ‘rising from on high’ (Lk 1:78). Hence, we can well understand the advice of St. Cyprian: ‘There should be prayer in the morning so that the resurrection of the Lord may thus be celebrated’ (GILH, no. 38).

Daytime Prayer – can be prayed at Midmorning, Midday,  Midafternoon

“Following a very ancient tradition, Christians have made a practice of praying out of private devotion at various times of the day, even in the course of their work, in imitation of the Church in apostolic times. In different ways with the passage of time this tradition has taken the form of a liturgical celebration.

“Liturgical custom in both East and West has retained midmorning, midday, and midafternoon prayer, mainly because these hours were linked to a commemoration of the events of the Lord’s passion and of the first preaching of the Gospel” (GILH, no. 74-75).

Evening Prayer (Vespers)

“When evening approaches and the day is already far spent, evening prayer is celebrated in order that ‘we may give thanks for what has been given us, or what we have done well, during the day.’ We also recall the redemption through the prayer we send up ‘like incense in the Lord’s sight,’ and in which ‘the raising up of our hands’ becomes ‘an evening sacrifice’ (see Ps 141:2). This sacrifice ‘may also be interpreted more spiritually as the true evening sacrifice that our Savior the Lord entrusted to the apostles at supper on the evening when he instituted the sacred mysteries of the Church or of the evening sacrifice of the next day, the sacrifice, that is, which, raising his hands, he offered to the Father at the end of the ages for the salvation of the whole world.’ Again, in order to fix our hope on the light that knows no setting, ‘we pray and make petition for the light to come down on us anew; we implore the coming of Christ who will bring the grace of eternal light.’ Finally, at this hour we join with the Churches of the East in calling upon the ‘joy-giving light of that holy glory, born of the immortal, heavenly Father, the holy and blessed Jesus Christ; now that we have come to the setting of the sun and have seen the evening star, we sing in praise of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…’ (GILH, no. 39).

Night Prayer (Compline)

“’Night prayer is the last prayer of the day, said before retiring, even if that is after midnight’ (GILH, no. 84). The Psalms that are chosen for Night Prayer are full of confidence in the Lord.”

The excerpts above are taken from the USCCB website

Per USCCB, The Liturgy of the Hours is a meditative dialogue on the mystery of Christ, using scripture and prayer. Adoremus provides the following explanation: exposition begins the period of prayer; adoration names the time during which those present pray, either individually or collectively; benediction concludes the period of adoration with the blessing (the meaning of benediction) of the Blessed Sacrament.

You can purchase the four-volume set which has everything or just the one volume Christian Prayerbook, which does not contain the Office of the Readings, mid-morning, and mid-afternoon prayers.