Tag: Liturgy of the Hours
New Liturgy Schedule for 2018-19
Dear Belmont Abbey Community, In past years, we have moved our Conventual Mass to the late afternoon on weekdays during the school semester. We will be making a change this year. During the summer, we reinstituted for the first time in over forty years the common celebration of Compline, the final hour of the day… Read More ›
5 Reasons to Pray the Divine Office Daily
If I were to ask someone, “what is the public prayer of the Church,” I would typically get the answer of the Rosary. While the Rosary is a great devotion, the Church names a different prayer the “public prayer of the church:” “The divine office, because it is the public prayer of the Church, is… Read More ›
Psalm 110(109) God himself enthrones the king of glory
Today I would like to end my catechesis on the prayer of the Book of Psalms by meditating on one of the most famous of the “royal Psalms”, a Psalm that Jesus himself cited and that the New Testament authors referred to extensively and interpreted as referring to the Messiah, to Christ. It is Psalm… Read More ›
Psalm 51(50): Against you alone have I sinned
1. We have just heard the Miserere, one of the most famous prayers of the Psalter, the most intense and commonly used penitential psalm, the hymn of sin and pardon, a profound meditation on guilt and grace. The Liturgy of the Hours makes us pray it at Lauds every Friday. For centuries the prayer has risen to heaven… Read More ›
Prayers of Intercession
Oblates of Belmont Abbey are free to use the Office of their choosing to fulfill the obligation for prayer. Each form of the Office has its own set of intercessions. A common set of intercessions are offered to the Oblates as another option. Why another set of intercessions? Several reasons but the most important one… Read More ›
Discover your deep self, in Christ
. . .it is precisely because it is public in the classical or “political” sense of the word, that the liturgy enables us to discover and to express the deepest meaning of Christian personalism. We must first emerge from the private realm, the “household” which is the realm of necessity and the proper domain of… 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 ›
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 Commentaries to Resume
Dear Friends, Many of you enjoyed the Commentaries on the Psalms by Blessed John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI posted here on the site. While they are all available on the Vatican web site they are difficult to research and to find, which, in my thinking, is a great loss. As a help to the… Read More ›