What Is the Liturgy of the Hours?
Each day at St. Mary Monastery begins with bells ringing, calling the Sisters to Lauds (morning prayer). The Sisters file into the chapel to break their overnight silence with song and prayer. This Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office or the Work of God (Opus Dei), is the daily prayer of the Church, marking the hours of each day and sanctifying the day with prayer.
With Scripture and the Psalms, the Benedictines praise God for the light of day, our true light who is Christ, and for Resurrection. For the Sisters of St. Benedict, this communal prayer happens three times daily, in the morning, at noon, and in the evening. This forms the framework of their day and the heart of their life together.
“I get this wonderful feeling of unity with the community at prayer,” says Sr. Susan Hutchens, Prioress. “To look out and see our 90-year old Sisters praying with one voice with the younger members really moves me. It is the thing that unites us all in our search for God. I remember a monk once saying that praying the Office is like winding the clock every day. It’s the daily-ness that I love about it.”
The Liturgy of the Hours comes from the Scripture to pray without ceasing. The number and times of prayer have been modified over the millennia – but the principal Hours are Lauds (morning prayer), a brief Noon-day Prayer, and Vespers (evening prayer). As Lauds symbolizes the Resurrection, at morning light it “brings us out of darkness into a new day of salvation,” Sr. Susan says. “We have been redeemed because Christ has risen. Lauds also is an act of dedication of the day, with its labors and accomplishments, to the Lord. At Vespers, we thank God for the blessings of the day, and ask for forgiveness for our sins.”
The Psalms form the basic content of the Liturgy of the Hours. “Jesus himself prayed the Psalms,” Sr. Susan says. “Jesus prays them within us as we pray them to Him. They express every human emotion, need, longing and feeling. As we pray to and with Jesus, we nourish and develop the prayer of the heart which prays without ceasing and enters contemplation.”
The bells ring again, several hours later, to summon the Sisters to Noon-day prayer before lunch. Regardless of their daily tasks, the Sisters obey St. Benedict’s command to lay down whatever they have in hand to proceed to the chapel. Noon-day prayer is short but is as nourishing of the heart and spirit as the lunch that follows is to the body. After the Sisters eat together, they return to the ministries nourished and refreshed.
The Vespers bells ring at the end of the workday, calling the Sisters together, one last time, for evening prayer. (On Sundays, they also say Compline, or Night Prayer.)
Vespers end with a quiet but resonant tap on the gong near the organ. The Sisters will walk together to the dining room for dinner, perhaps to be followed by a walk along the lake, or reading in the community room. Peace, the ultimate blessing of a life of prayer, fills this sacred place as the evening hours deepen into the night.