Yesterday I looked at Catholic TV on the internet to see if they were going to broadcast +Wilton Gregory's installation Mass (they did) and was delighted to find they are doing Morning Prayer (at 9 am) and Evening Prayer (at 9 pm) from the Divine Office.
I was even more delighted to find that it is archived Daily Archive of Divine Office. Only the current day is there. I do not know exactly when they are archived. Evening prayer appears sometime in the afternoon. I don't know if morning prayer appears before 9am.
What is even more interesting it is done by Auxiliary Bishop Bob Reed who is also head of Catholic TV. Here is Rocco's write up on his ordination.
While I am disappointed that this is not done with a group, I am elated that a bishop is taking on this very neglected part of the liturgy.
What a wonderful thing for many of our elderly who have little to do but watch TV. In our parish we have some shut-in's who pray for the parish. I suspect many people would be pleased each day to pray Morning and Evening Prayer with a bishop.
The Divine Office is the prayer of the Church, and what more fitting icon than a bishop.
Thanks, Jack! Nice resources.
ReplyDeleteJack, many thanks. I admit that, until I saw your post, I had never heard of Catholic TV before. I poked around a little on the website and see it's a property of the Boston Archdiocese.
ReplyDeleteA few minutes ago, I went ahead and clicked on the link you provided, and located the evening prayer for today. I'm bound by church law to pray Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. As it was evening when I clicked, and I hadn't done my Evening Prayer yet, I thought I may as well give it a test drive by trying to pray along. It's not bad at all. I agree with you that it would be considerably better if it was recorded as group prayer rather than individual prayer. But, I guess, if I pray aloud with the bishop, we're a group of two (at least virtually). And as the text scrolls along the screen, it's very easy to pray along. So I consider that I've fulfilled my obligation - mostly.
I say "mostly" because I do have a caveat, and I'm afraid it's rather a significant one (at least, it's significant when this is an obligatory part of one's daily life): the archive I viewed, and prayed along with, used the Ordinary Time texts. Some readers may not be aware that Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer follow a four-week cycle - one goes through the cycle for four weeks, then starts over again. What was in the archive for this evening was all the texts for Wednesday for Week 1 of Ordinary Time, and those were the correct texts for that day. The problem is that we're not in Ordinary Time - we're in Easter Season. Evening Prayer (and Morning Prayer) substitute a number of season-specific texts during the high seasons, for elements such as the antiphons, the reading, the responsory and the intercession.
These seasonal substitutions (and beyond that, there is an entire additional set of substitutions for saints' days, although fortunately today is not a saint's day on the universal calendar) make it really complicated to piece together the Liturgy of the Hours. It requires some training, and the use of multiple ribbons when one prays from an actual book. I'm sure that's one of the chief reasons that the Liturgy of the Hours have never quite caught on with the praying public.
So to make sure I did the right texts this evening, I used a Liturgy of the Hours app on my phone, which is called DivineOffice, to follow along with Bishop Reed's televised archive. The app presented the same texts as Catholic TV did, except that the app used the correct seasonal antiphons et al.
It would be wonderful if Catholic TV could broadcast the fully correct/accurate texts each day. But my guess is that it would be cost-prohibitive. I'm supposing that Catholic TV has four weeks' worth of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer "in the can", which it cycles through every four weeks. To do what I'm asking for, it would need to record a new liturgy, virtually every day of the year, in the morning and the evening - and relatively few of those would be reusable from one year to the next. It would be a big work and funds commitment.
At any rate, my fussing here, while important to me, isn't that important for a person who doesn't have a legal obligation to pray the hours. There are many versions of Liturgy of the Hours out there; this one uses the authentic/official Catholic texts, and there is nothing wrong with praying an Ordinary Time set of prayers during Easter Season, if the alternative is praying nothing at all. I definitely encourage people to check it out.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteThis program has only recently started. I suspect they did Ordinary Time to see what type of audience they would get so that they can evaluate whether or not they should make the large investment that would be necessary.
DivineOffice.org which was a volunteer effort out in Utah was able to do all this. Unfortunately they ran into copyright problems and now are a closed off site, essentially behind the equivalent of a paywall. So it will be interesting to see if the Archdiocese of Boston is able to carry this off.
Jim, the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours allows a lot more flexibility than people usually think:
ReplyDelete242. When clerics or religious who are obliged under any title to pray the divine office join in an office celebrated in common according to a calendar or rite different from their own, they fulfill their obligation in respect to the part of the office at which they are present.
243. In private celebration, the calendar of the place or the person's own calendar may be followed, except on proper solemnities and on proper feasts. [5]
Option to Choose an Office
244. On weekdays when an optional memorial is permitted, for a good reason the office of a saint listed on that day in the Roman Martyrology, or in an approved appendix to it, may be celebrated in the same way as other memorials (see nos. 234-239).
245. For a public cause or out of devotion, except on solemnities, the Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, the octave of Easter, and 2 November, a votive office may be celebrated, in whole or in part: for example, on the occasion of a pilgrimage, a local feast, or the external solemnity of a saint.
Option to Choose Texts
246. In certain particular cases there is an option to choose texts different from those given for the day, provided there is no distortion of the general arrangement of each hour and the rules that follow are respected.
247. In the office for Sundays, solemnities, feasts of the Lord listed in the General Calendar, the weekdays of Lent and Holy Week, the days within the octaves of Easter and Christmas, and the weekdays from 17 to 24 December inclusive, it is never permissible to change the formularies that are proper or adapted to the celebration, such as antiphons, hymns, readings, responsories, prayers, and very often also the psalms.
In place of the Sunday psalms of the current week, there is an option to substitute the Sunday psalms of a different week, and, in the case of an office celebrated with a congregation, even other psalms especially chosen to lead the people step by step to an understanding of the psalms.
Thanks Jack, I will check out the Catholic tv version. I have been using the Universalis free site. My husband recently downloaded the purchased version, which he likes much better, because it has the Grail Psalms. And it includes the psalm prayers, which are apparently optional, but we like them. I am planning to also download the purchased version, since it is only about $13 and is a one time only charge. I have found the free version psalms a bit clunky (guess you get what you pay for!) The print prayer book is around $40, for the single volume, which requires a lot of ribbon flipping. The four volume of course costs more, with less ribbon flipping. I'm pretty sure most people who are obligated to pray the Liturgy of the Hours are going to go with Universalis or other electronic version, because it is so inexpensive and user friendly.
ReplyDeleteOne of our deacon friends has a long commute for his job and uses an app on his phone for an audio version of the complete Liturgy of the Hours.
I have heard that there is an updated version of the Grail Psalms in the works. Mention of which gets a pained eye roll from deacons and priests, because one likes what one is used to, and newer isn't always better.
DeleteFor the long winding history of the Grail Psalms see here
DeleteOne wonders whether to laugh or weep!
The Universalis site has a place where you can hear the Psalms and they are the Grail Psalms. It is designated for the handicapped but nothing prevents one from using it for free. You don't have to register
Go to the About Today page, clear to the bottom where it says Free Audio for the Blind and click on appropriate link
Jack, the link just asks if I want to download the revised Grail Psalms. However I did a little googling and saw what you mean about the long winding history. Somehow I'm not surprised, given the sometimes contentiousness of translation wars. I have to admit I would find the gender-neutral version they were trying to fly at one point very distracting.
DeleteI didn't know Universalis offered the Grail translation; I thought they had their own translation. I haven't looked at the site in years for that reason.
DeleteThe bishops should publish the Liturgy of the Hours texts on their website and make them freely available. The problem may be that they are not in control of the copyrights of all the texts that comprise the Hours; they are a pastiche of intellectual property controlled by The Grail, ICEL, ELLC, and CCD (the last of which the bishops do control, at least indirectly). If I'm not mistaken, the bishops are working on a new translation of the Liturgy of the Hours; perhaps they will then own the copyrights on all of it, and can then make it available to everyone.
I tried the DivineOffice.org site when it was new and am still grandfathered in while the door is closed as they scramble for their rights and permissions.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that none of the legal rights to any parts of the (ital) Divine (unital) Office are held by God. Different persons are making money off every one of them.
Personally, I got little out of doing the Divine Office alone. I am not required to. I suspect I'd find it more personally useful if I could do it in community, as in a religious order, and I wonder if it might be a good idea for Catholic retirement/assisted living homes. I do use DivineOffice.org for the Office of Readings on days when the readings are likely to be off the beaten track. Mostly I get what I need from the hyper-redacted version -- the Office for Dummies -- in Give Us This Day.
The reform of the Divine Office at Vatican II was a failure; they simply were concerned about the priests and spreading the psalms over 4 weeks rather than one.
DeleteThey really needed to give us Offices for Dummies. In the early church the Office for Cathedrals was very different than that for Monks.
My answer has always been take the parts of the tradition that are most useful (that is exactly what Benedict did in his rule)
and of course that is what Give Us This Day, Magnificat and others have done.
This is why Catholicism drives me insane, all this niggling over "correctness" and "authenticity."
ReplyDeleteI will take Jim's sensible advice to heart--"there is nothing wrong with praying an Ordinary Time set of prayers during Easter Season, if the alternative is praying nothing at all"--and go back to Compline in the BCP.