Daily Office Explanatory Notes

After this brief introduction, there follows a calendar on which you find today’s date and will then you will see whether it is a saints day and find the page numbers on the Morning and Evening prayer book.

I should explain that any saints that are particular to your diocese (unless it is Arundel and Brighton) will not be included here, any days that are particular to our church or the A&B diocese are displayed in blue text. There will also be shown the alternative to be used outside of the diocese of A&B.

I occasionally spot errors on this page and if you spot any please let me know at jezpreece@hotmail.com

There are different Morning and Evening Prayer books in circulation, but the page numbers given here are for the 1976 version called "Morning and Evening Prayer", which also includes Night Prayer. If you are using the book entitled "Daily Prayer", which also includes Prayer during the day, then obviously the page numbers will be different, and this will be of limited use to you. However, this guide will at least inform you as to the saint’s days and which week we are on.

Finally, you may have the little "Morning and Evening Prayer Book – A Shorter From". Although designed to be simpler, these do not include the relevant texts for saint’s days and do not have the full text for the proper of seasons etc. This book also does not contain Night Prayer. This is not catered for here, and many feel that this version misses out on the rich variety of texts that the full version offers, and does not enable you to follow the liturgical calendar properly. If you can, it is worth upgrading to the full Morning and Evening Prayer book.

The daily office is the Liturgical Prayer of the church, and is also know as the Liturgy of the Hours. This is set out in the full 3-volume breviary. Vatican II identified Morning and Evening Payer as the two key hinge offices on which the Liturgy of the Hours hangs. The council really wanted to encourage as many laity as possible to share in Morning, Evening or at least Night Prayer.

While many people who say Morning and Evening Prayer enjoy participating in the church’s liturgy in such a very profound way, most will agree that it is not easy at first to find your way around the book. Some days are particularly complex, and this is particularly true of the seasons (Advent Christmas, Lent and Eastertide). Most people, who have said the office for a while, feel that they "get the hang of it", although we all still get caught out from time to time.

There is a huge benefit from praying the daily office, or at least Morning, Evening and Night Prayer. Once we become used to saying it regularly, it is a discipline that strengthens our prayer life even, (and especially), on the occasions that we don’t feel like it. It then becomes a springboard for the rest of our prayer life. It offers structure on which to furnish the remainder of our spiritual life, and it makes us live the liturgical calendar. Even if we do not understand it all at first, it is a beautiful thing to grow into. This guide is simply my idea of what I would have liked when I started saying the office.

We can always think for a moment just how many other Roman Catholics are praying the same office throughout the whole world and in numerous languages. It is even more universal than that, since there are even a few people (mostly clergy) from other denominations who also use our Morning and Evening Prayer.

Pope Benedict XVI delivered "Sacramentum Caritatis" on the Eucharist on 22^nd February 2007. In it, the importance of the daily office is reinforced.

In Paragraph 45, the pope emphasises the importance of the Daily Office in terms of the scriptural content as well as being part of the prayer of the church. Quoting St Jerome "ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ", the passage goes on, "To this end, the faithful should be helped to appreciate the riches of Sacred Scripture found in the lectionary through pastoral initiatives, liturgies of the word and reading in the context of prayer (lectio divina). Efforts should also be made to encourage those forms of prayer confirmed by tradition, such as the Liturgy of the Hours, especially Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer, and vigil celebrations. By praying the Psalms, the Scripture readings and the readings drawn from the great tradition which are included in the Divine Office, we can come to a deeper experience of the Christ-event and the economy of salvation, which in turn can enrich our understanding and participation in the celebration of the Eucharist."

Morning and Evening Prayer is based on a 4-week Psalter. In Ordinary time, the whole of the office is found in one place, in the Psalter, with only the saints and special days as the exception. However, at Advent there is a hymn selected for the season to replace the one given in the Psalter, and the Psalter is used only until the point of the scripture reading. The remainder of the office is taken from the proper of seasons in the front of the book.

Overall, Christmastide sees some of the most complex patterns, particularly during the Christmas Octave, when there are Morning Prayer of Saints feasts and Evening Prayer of the Christmas Octave, each from opposite ends of the book.

All of the mechanics and the structure of Morning, Evening and Night Prayer are explained in detail in the introduction in the books. This is well worth reading. What happens on a saint’s day or other special day depends on the importance of the day. Although complex, this is something that you get a feel for with practice. Basically there are:

Memoria days which if "optional" you can just ignore, (unless it is a saint with whom you have a particular affinity). The pages for these options will be displayed in red. So remember that you are free to ignore red text. Sometimes there is more than one optional memorial on a single day. Here you can choose only one of the memorias (or none). Optional memorias are set out here, along with the way to commemorate them. (see 1 next paragraph).

Memorias that are not optional are celebrated in some form. There are different ways in which we can celebrate a Memoria. 1. As a "commemoration", where we substitute the concluding prayer with the one appointed in the proper of saints for the day, and the Benedictus and Magnificat antiphon if one is given in the Proper of Saints. 2. We can choose to use all of the whole office for a memoria day from the relevant common offices. 3. We can use the office proper as in 2 but use the psalms and antiphons of the occurring weekday. At OLQH we tend to commemorate Memoria days (option 1), so that is how it has been set out in this document. This is the way that the pages are set out in this guide, since I was requested to keep things as simple as possible. On Sundays Memorias are ignored.

Feasts are more important than memorias, and on feast days we suppress the Psalter. Some of the office is set out in the proper of saints (General calendar) and the rest is in what we call the common offices, so for example if there is a the feast of a saint who was a pastor, then the proper of saints will have probably the Benedictus and Magnificent antiphons and the concluding prayer, and you are referred for the rest of the office to the common of pastors. Feasts are also ignored if their date falls on a Sunday. (Exceptions to this rule "Feasts of Our Lord" for example if the feast of the Transfiguration on August 6^th fell on a Sunday– but this doesn’t happen this year).

Solemnities are major days and have Evening Prayer I and II, just like we have Saturday Evening first office and Mass of the following Sunday. In ordinary time solemnities take precedence over Sundays.

Don’t worry if this all seems confusing, that is why the pages have been set out in the rest of this document! It will make more sense with practice.

The Proper of Saints is set out as a calendar, January to December, in the Morning and Evening Prayer book. However there are a few things to watch out for:

The parish newsletter is really helpful here, as is the diocesan yearbook. However any page numbers given in the diocesan yearbook are for the large three-volume whole office breviary.

Night prayer is really simple and is based on a one week cycle (not 4 weeks). It changes very little throughout the year, so it is often a good starting point as you try to get into saying the office.

Night prayer begins with

"Oh God come to our aid

Oh Lord, make haste to help us

Glory be…"

It is customary to then make an act of contrition

A hymn is then said; there is a selection to choose from P680 - P684, or you can really choose any.

Then the office for the day is said (Sunday I on Saturday Night) P689 – P708

(On solemnities then Sunday I and II is used as with a Sunday)

Finally it is usual to end with an anthem to the Virgin Mary, these are on P685 - P688

On the rare occasions where there is anything different, it will be pointed out in the week-by-week listings, and prefixed with a * in this guide.