During the last several years I have been developing a blog designed to help anyone to discern the place of the Hours in their lives by using a common set of virtual resources just 15 minutes a day. (Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer each take about 15 minutes.) The website emphasizes quality of prayer over quantity, better to do just one Hour or even a part of an Hour than to hurriedly do both. Virtual resources on computers and phones enable us to integrate the Hours with our lives. The subtitle is praying the Hours anytime anywhere with anyone I use the site when I am doing my morning and evening physical exercises or walking outside in warmer months.
In November I received an email from the Commonweal website indicating that a person associated with John Carroll wanted to join our CLC. So, I began working on a post to reopen our CLC that would emphasize its grassroots character, i.e. that anyone with a Commonweal subscription can easily start one in their home, parish, local library etc. because the other participants have five free articles per month. I want to get away from notion of a CLC as just for Commonweal subscribers.
Our bishop issued his Pastoral Letter, A Flourishing Apostolic Church on December 17t. We found it on the internet on December 29th, Betty's birthday. I was amazed to find that it is the perfect framework for everything that I am doing and everything that I am asking the local CLC to do, i.e. to form CLCs and try out the Hours in their lives.
From a Media Interview
“It’s simply a letter about how we can draw closer to Christ, and there is no controversy in that,” Bishop Malesic said. “Let’s just pray 15 minutes a day; join a small group; invite your Catholic neighbors and friends together to have a cup of coffee and talk about ‘Why are you Catholic?’; ‘How can you become a disciple of Jesus?’
I think these are the basic things.”
From the Bishop's Letter
"I invite every Catholic in the Diocese of Cleveland to read this pastoral letter in its entirety, as I have written it with each of you in mind. Make notes and underline your copy of the letter; Consider reading it more than just once. then, meet with some other Catholics who have read this letter and discuss it in a small group. Over the next year I would like this letter to be at the forefront of conversations around the diocese. "
My Post to the Cleveland CLC Blog
Essentially the post contains excerpts from the Bishop's Letter with boxes that provide my commentary and the implications of the letter for CLC members. It is essentially my invitation to them to begin an e-mail or phone conversation with me and others (both members and nonmembers) about the letter.
In my cover e-mail to them I am inviting them during Lent to spend 15 minutes a day first in studying the letter and my post and then conversing with others about it especially by e-mail. When they have finished that, I am inviting them to try my website for fifteen minutes a day and share their experiences with me especially by e-mail.
Essentially, I am recreating the CLC as an e-mail community. If I get sufficient e-mail data from them on the letter and on the Hours website, I will post that on the CLC which everyone then can use to promote the CLC.
My Commentary on the Process
The bishop is asking people to do some very concrete things:
1. Pray 15 minutes a day in whatever manner they think best
2. Join or form their own spiritual support group.
3. Begin to articulate their personal spiritual journey.
4. Concretely know their mission in the world.
However, he has NOT wrapped these up into a program run from the diocesan office with pastors as branch managers. No, he has gone directly to the People of God in their daily lives and asked them to do these things. If they do, this will be a grassroots spiritual movement.
I am sure that neither the bishop nor any of his collaborators have the foggiest notion that I and my website are here. But the Spirit may have been present in the four years that led the Bishop to his letter, and in my years in doing the website.
The website merely asks people to discern the place of the Hours in their lives now that we have the virtual ability to do that with a few clicks. It treats the Hours as the rich store house of hymns, psalms and readings that it is. For the readings the website has links to the readings from daily Mass was maybe used as alternatives to the short readings in Office. All this may be shared with anyone (family, friends, coworkers.) All this may be done anytime, anywhere with anyone.
The website merely asks people to discern the place of the Hours in their lives now that we have the virtual ability to do that with a few clicks. It treats the Hours as the rich store house of hymns, psalms and readings that it is. For the readings the website has links to the readings from daily Mass was maybe used as alternatives to the short readings in Office. All this may be shared with anyone (family, friends, coworkers.) All this may be done anytime, anywhere with anyone.
The Hours done in this fashion have the potential to become both the most progressive forward looking as well as the most traditional revolution in church practice. Through the history of Catholicism the Hours have accompanied and driven some of the most profound changes in spirituality. The monastic Hours in the desert were very different from the cathedral Hours in the cities. The Benedictine welded them together in the choral offices of the Middle Ages. The mendicants invented the breviary to provide flexibility; the Jesuits abolished choir for even more flexibility. Aren't the virtual Hours in the hands of laity the ultimate in flexibility? All the liturgical experts admit that the liturgical reform of the Office has been a disaster as regards the laity. Maybe the Holy Spirit was just waiting for technology to make the virtual Hours possible?
The websites that I use as links were all founded as shoestrings by laity. I see my site as a small brief catalyst in this movement. Perhaps just enough to get CLC members and people in the parishes here in Cleveland to try out the Hours. Just enough that the diocese recognizes and promotes the Hours as one of the ways for laity to pray fifteen minutes a day. And perhaps enough people over the next three years will do that and our auxiliary bishop will promote the Hours by the laity when he becomes chair of the bishops' liturgy committee beginning next November. Change in the Church usually begins the in the peripheries. Paul's mission to the Gentiles was more important than the Church in Jerusalem. People in the peripheries aways have more to gain that those in church establishments.
I don't exactly see how Commonweal Local Communities dovetails with encouraging people to pray the Hours on their own. Isn't the whole point of a CLC to discuss topics of interest sparked by the magazine, to encourage identity as a "Commonweal Catholic"?
ReplyDeleteI used to follow the outline for individual and family prayer in the BCP that is based on the Hours and can be said up to four times per day. I'm in a different rhythm now because of isolation.
Raber and I usually do Lent and Advent prayers before supper together during those seasons. I guess I could see if he wants to do a daily prayer as a regular thing, but frankly we're better off if we don't talk about religious things too much.
If you read my CLC post, you will find
DeleteAccording to its website, “Commonweal fosters rigorous and reflective discussions about faith, public affairs, and the arts, centered on belief in the common good.” Commonweal Local Communities (CLCs) “gather in their local communities for critical conversation on the issues that matter most. Each community determines their goals, set-up, meeting times, and the readings best suited for them."
Discussing the bishop's pastoral letter including its proposal that people pray fifteen minutes a day could be a something that matters most. The keys are "rigorous, reflective and critical conversations."
I think to have a critical conversation of my website, including people who both use the website and those who don't is very appropriate. It would be another thing to promote use of a website or a form of prayer by members of the group as a condition for membership in a CLC.
In the first year of our CLC, Betty and another member proposed that we pray Vespers before our meeting. I told them I thought that was inappropriate even if it were optional. I did not think that we should be forming a potential "elite" group that meets before the meeting.
My apologies. I think maybe I am just not tuned into your spiritual wavelength on CLCs or the Hours to say anything useful here.
DeleteI understand Jean. CLCs and the Hours are where my life is going. From now on I will be posting mainly things from the websites that I am developing. That is where my time and talent lie. For seven years now I have produced posts and comments solely for this site. Rather than leaving it completely, I will be sharing some of my new life with this group.
DeleteI wish you well with your local group.
DeleteI’m glad that you aren't leaving completely Jack. One reason I like this site is because every one has a somewhat individual and different spiritual path, which I think is God ‘s doing. A path for everyone. I like learning what others here find spiritually nourishing. And what they don’t.
DeleteOne way to encourage the Hours might be thru RCIA and catechism for kids. Our RCIA group never prayed before or at the end of our sessions, never observed saints' feast days, was never given a compilation of common Catholic prayers--creeds, Our Father, Glory Be, Hail Mary, etc. Certainly nobody ever talked about the Hours.
ReplyDeleteOne of the Church Ladies brought her mother's rosary in to show us and told us we could find instructions for saying it on the tract rack. The idea was that we SHOULD be praying, but there wasn't much discussion about how or why.
The Boy received a little rosary in his First Communion swag bag from the Church Ladies, and he had to memorize the Apostle's Creed, Hail Mary, and Our Father.
Actually the DivineOffice.org website which is one of the links that I used on my site, grew out of an RCIA program. They wanted to introduce the Hours to the participants of the program. They liked the Hours so much that they began doing Hours for themselves. It just gathered steam from there.
DeleteThe Sing the Hours website began as the initiative of one person who wanted to chant the Hours himself. He did not find sufficient material on YouTube so he combined his production skills with his vocal skills to produce a very successful website.
I am simply giving people options. If you like a recited office by a small household size community; they alternate verses, etc. Chose the Divine Office site. It has the full text of the office. If you are a small group, you could turn off the audio and just pray the Hours.
Some people or groups might prefer the Sing the Hours site which is mostly sung by one cantor. Sometimes he dubs his own voice to create a group sound. Sometimes it is easy to sing with him, sometimes not.
I think the Hours should be a part of every RCIA, first Communion and Confirmation formation program. It has not been because praying the breviary is extremely complex. Now that there are websites it is very easy.
My husband prays the Hours. As a deacon he has a canonical requirement to pray the morning and evening ones. But he prays all of them, even the Office of Readings, or Vigils (but he doesn't get up in the middle of the night for it). I'm more hit and miss, but I pray the short version of morning prayer in the Magnificat publication. But other than that I'm more drawn to contemplative prayer. I did buy a copy of the Revised Grail Psalms . I was afraid they would revise them too much, since I was more used to the previous version. But it seems like they didn't change that much, which is good.
ReplyDelete