Liturgy of the Hours 
Articles specific to the Liturgy of the Hours
Psalm 8: How Great Is Your Name through all the earth
1. “Man …, at the heart of this enterprise, is revealed to us as gigantic. He seems to be divine, not in himself, but in his beginning and his end. Honour, therefore, to man, honour to his dignity, to his spirit, to his life”. With these words, in July 1969, Paul VI entrusted to the American… Read More ›
Psalm 3: “Arise, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God!”
Today we are resuming the Audiences in St Peter’s Square and the “school of prayer” which we attend together during these Wednesday Catecheses. I would like to begin by meditating on several Psalms, which, as I said last June, constitute the “prayer book” par excellence. The first Psalm I shall consider is a Psalm of lamentation… Read More ›
Psalm 5: In the morning you hear me
1. “In the morning you hear me; in the morning I offer you my prayer watching and waiting” (v. 4). These words make Psalm 5 a morning prayer, well suited for use at Lauds, the believer’s prayer at the start of the day. Tension and anxiety over the dangers and bitterness which the believer has to… Read More ›
Psalm 149: Song of Praise
1. “Let the faithful exult in glory, let them rise joyfully from their couches”. The order which you have just heard in Psalm 149, points to a dawn which is breaking and finds the faithful ready to chant their morning praise. With a suggestive phrase, their song of praise is defined as “a new song” (v…. Read More ›
Psalm 110(109): “Sit on my right: your foes I will put beneath your feet”
1. Continuing an ancient tradition, Psalm 110[109] which has just been proclaimed constitutes the primary component of Sunday Vespers. It is proposed in all four of the weeks into which the Liturgy of the Hours is divided. Its brevity is further accentuated by the exclusion in Christian liturgical usage of verse 6, which contains a curse. This… Read More ›
Psalm 119(118):145-152: Praise God for His Gift of Law
1. What the liturgy of Lauds for Saturday of the first week offers us is a single strophe of Ps 118[119], (the verses 145-152), in the monumental prayer of 22 strophes or stanzas, that correspond to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Each strophe begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the… Read More ›
Magnificat: “My soul glorifies the Lord”
The Commentaries on Psalm 119(118) are interrupted this first week of May as we honor Mary during her month. The following Commentary was offered by Pope Benedict XVI as part of the Commentaries on the Liturgy of the Hours on February 16, 2006. 1. We have now arrived at the final destination of the long… Read More ›
Psalm 119(118): v. 145-152: let Christ be light of day
1. In our already long journey through the Psalms that the Liturgy of Lauds presents, we come to one strophe – to be precise, the 19th – of the longest prayer of the Psalter, Psalm 118[119]. It is a part of an immense alphabetical hymn. In a play on style, the Psalmist divides his work into 22… Read More ›
Psalm 119(118):v 145-152: Your word is a lamp for my steps …
1. At this General Audience, after the interval I spent in the Valle d’Aosta, let us now continue on our journey through the Psalms proposed by the Liturgy of Vespers. Today we come to the 14th of the 22 strophes that make up Psalm 119[118], a grandiose hymn to the Law of God and an expression… Read More ›
Psalm 119(118): Solemn canticle on the Torah of the Lord
In previous Catecheses we have meditated on several Psalms that are examples of typical forms of prayer: lamentation, trust and praise. In today’s Catechesis I would like to reflect on Psalm 119, according to the Hebrew tradition, Psalm 118 according to the Greco-Latin one. It is a very special Psalm, unique of its kind. This… Read More ›