Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
        and to the Holy Spirit:

As it was in the beginning, is now,
        and will be for ever Amen.

An Introduction To The Hours

Praying at specified times during the day, known as praying the hours, is a practice that pre-dates Christianity. In the Jewish faith, from which Christianity developed, these prayers were primarily drawn from psalms and other scripture. Psalm 119:164 states “Seven times a day do I praise you.”

By the first century, fixed-hour prayers had taken shape as a Christian custom, consisting of psalms, canticles, prayers and readings. Evening prayer was introduced by a blessing of light known as lucernarium. It took centuries for these combinations of texts to expand and develop into a formalized office of the Catholic Church known as opus dei or work of God, thus Divine Office.

To further complicate the history of the hours, systems of praying the hours developed in two forums, the church and monasteries. By the Middle Ages, literate laity had a breviary, the “Book of Hours” or “Primer.” These books were meticulously made by hand and illuminated by scribes and artists of the day.

The services known as the hours documented in Rome during or about the 6th century and later adopted in England and elsewhere, included the following:

While these offices were primarily common prayer, Terce, Sext and None were known as “the little hours” more often observed as private prayer. Compline was known as “the dear hours.”

During the Reformation Thomas Cranmer significantly altered The Divine Office with the development of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Non-scriptural legends that had entered into the Divine Office along the way were eliminated, and, of course, the prayers were restored to the language of the people. The elaborate schedule of services was trimmed to Mattins (a combination of Mattins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext and None) and Evensong (a combination of Vespers and Compline).

The Episcopal Church gave to The Divine Office the title of The Daily Office and restored Noonday Prayer and Compline to the American Prayer Book in 1979. Today the American Hours consist of Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline.

The character and purpose of the Divine Office has been the subject of much study over the years. According to Phyllis Tickle in The Divine Hours, Prayers For Autumn and Wintertime, the purpose of praying the Hours is none other than to make an offering to God. The fact that praying the Hours strengthens us is a desirable by-product, but not the purpose. One of the most beautifully comprehensive descriptions of the Hours was written by Percy Deamer in Everyman's History of the Prayer Book:

"For the Divine Service is an invaluable part of the Christian life, a great safeguard against distorted ideas and weak-minded devotions, a great instrument of sobriety, peace, intelligence, and depth in religion. It is a service of quiet and thoughtful worship, of meditation, of learning, remembering, and reflection. There is much rest in it, much time to ponder, and pray, and to relax in God from the strain of mundane life, spreading our souls out in the sunshine of heaven, drinking in the atmosphere of ancient holy deeds and thoughts, strengthening our inner life by the fellowship of the Common Prayer, and lifting up tranquil hearts in piety and thankfulness to the God of our fathers."

Join the artists of Illustrating The Hours who, no doubt spread out their souls in the sunshine of heaven as they responded to this call.

Jan Neal
Curator

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