Jan 2, 2013
The days before Christmas found people rushing to buy “perfect” gifts. A variety of advertisements and news reports displayed store shelves that sought to satisfy with overflowing abundance. Many shoppers even tried to complete the task by clicking from the comfort of a home computer. Flushed with determination, and maybe the best of intentions, perhaps you found that the quest for a perfect gift transformed into a necessity to impress this Christmas season, and you may have entertained the thought that to give from the heart meant spending beyond your financial means.
A perfect gift, however, isn’t a good or service purchased in a store or online. It is one, rather, which always brings harmony to the most discordant voice, warms the coldest heart, and shines light into the darkest soul. It is prayer.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of prayer as “the life of the new heart” which “ought to animate us at every moment” (2697). The Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH, also called the Divine Office) can help us establish important rhythms of prayer in our daily lives. When practiced fully and faithfully, the LOTH becomes a gift that can make all the difference in our lives, and one we can even re-gift to others.
Priests, deacons and consecrated religious pray the Divine Office daily as one of their primary duties. But, like all prayer, the hymns, psalms, readings from Sacred Scripture, and intercessions contained in the LOTH are a call open to all to “participate according to their own place in the Church” and “the circumstances of their lives” (CCC, 1175). The LOTH is never an exclusive club but an inclusive invitation for all faithful to celebrate together in common prayer.