Part 2, Chapter 15
There are 24 hours in a day and throughout the day someone in the Church throughout the world is praying the Liturgy of Hours, also called the Office. In our modern times the Liturgy of Hours is split into 5 parts, during the life of St. Francis De Sales it would have been different. Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer make up the Liturgy of Hours. Priests and Religious make a promise to pray this, still all are rightly urged to enter into praying this prayer. After the Mass it is the second highest form of prayer. It is encouraged to be prayed in a communal setting. “There is always more profit and more consolation in the public Offices of the Church than in private acts of devotion, God having willed to give the preference to communion in prayer over all individual action” (Introduction to the Devout Life, 57). Either way it is a beautiful thought to think that right now someplace in the world someone is praying one of the hours and that this Liturgy is continually be prayed for the world and for the Church.
Now none of the hours take an hour to be prayed, they take at most 15 minutes usually, longer in communal settings. The Office is made up of praying with the psalms, reading scripture, interceding, and reading holy writings of the Church. They are meant to help those who pray the hours to have their hearts continually thinking of the Lord throughout the day. It is a helpful pause to recollect ourselves with the Lord during the day.
There are apps, websites and paper back versions available for praying the Liturgy of Hours. The simplest way these days is to have an app or to use the websites. The one that I use at times is the Ibreviary app. I prefer the old technology of the paperback version and yet all of them work. If we are going to learn using the paperback version, it will take time to get used to how it works. If one wants to start praying the Liturgy of Hours, I suggest praying with one of the hours (Morning Prayer) for 3 months before adding another one. This helps us to get used to doing it and it doesn’t overwhelm us. To start doing all of them at once would cause us to most likely not do it very long and give up on it. The same could be true of many of the beautiful suggestions that St. Francis De Sales makes in this book Introduction to the Devout Life. There are many things that are suggested, but none of them should be added all at once, it would be overwhelming, we would not handle it well. Take and pray and ask the Lord what we should be doing.