The renewed Liturgy of the Hours offers five daily times of prayer: Morning Prayer, to be said as the day begins; Daytime Prayer, to be said in late morning, midday, or midafternoon; Evening Prayer, to be said in the evening; Night Prayer, to be said just before retiring; and the Office of Readings, a longer and more meditative prayer to be said at any convenient time during the day. Morning and Evening Prayer, depending on how they are prayed— alone or in a group, with or without singing, and so forth— may take ten to fifteen minutes. Daytime Prayer is shorter and Night Prayer shorter still. The Office of Readings may take twenty minutes, or more if one has time for further reflection on the readings.

The two “hinge” (principal) hours, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, follow essentially the same pattern. After an invocation of God’s help and a brief prayer of praise, the hour begins with a hymn. As a hymn, ideally this is sung, though in individual prayer it is often recited. Two psalms and a biblical canticle follow, each introduced and concluded by an antiphon. A short passage from Scripture is next read, together with a prayer of response to its message. A Gospel canticle— Zechariah’s Benedictus in the morning and Mary’s Magnificat in the evening— with its antiphon is then prayed. The hour concludes with intercessions for various needs, the Our Father, and a final prayer.

Daytime Prayer consists of a hymn, three psalms, a short scriptural reading, and a final prayer. Night Prayer follows a similar pattern, shortened, however, to one psalm and with prayers appropriate to the day’s end. The Office of Readings begins with a hymn and three psalms that prepare for two longer readings, one from the Bible and the other from a Church Father, a saint, or another classic spiritual writer. These readings offer daily nourishment for reflection and meditation.

The Liturgy of the Hours harmonizes with the Mass of the day. If, for example, the Mass is for the Second Sunday of Advent, then Morning Prayer, the Office of Readings, and the other hours will focus on the theme of Advent: preparing for the coming

Ignatius expects— and experience confirms— that all who love and seek the Lord will undergo times of spiritual desolation: times when they do not sense God’s closeness and when they feel discouraged, without energy for prayer or service to others. Such desolation, he tells us, is a common tactic of our spiritual enemy. God in his love permits this, Ignatius says, because we grow through resisting such desolation. If we learn, therefore, to be aware of this discouraging tactic of the enemy, to understand it, and to reject it, we are set free to love and serve the Lord. The goal of Ignatius’s rules is to foster such freedom.

5 In his sixth rule, Ignatius counsels the person in desolation to “insist more upon prayer and meditation.” 6 In the discouragement of desolation, we feel a disinclination to pray. Not only, Ignatius says, should we resist the temptation to abandon prayer, but we must “insist” upon prayer and meditation even more in times of desolation. Gradually, I discovered that the Liturgy of the Hours helped me do this.

THE INSTRUCTION TOLD ME that the Liturgy of the Hours is primarily a prayer of praise. As mentioned, this was new for me. I had seldom thought of praising God and did not understand why this was so important, even the central focus of the Hours. Praise, I thought, was a form of prayer privileged by some and associated with expressive gestures and gospel music. Charismatics praised God. Praise and worship music praised God. In Hispanic ministry, I had encountered warm and compelling prayers of praise. I respected and liked such prayer; but it was not my habitual form of prayer. As I reflected, I realized that I had always centered my prayer of the Hours on two things: meditation on the content of the psalms and readings and petition for various needs. I had never thought of the Liturgy of the Hours as a prayer of praise.

Now I saw that praise situates us in our truth as creatures before our Creator and as those redeemed before our Redeemer. I never doubted that I was God’s creature and that Christ had redeemed me. My awareness of this, however, would often fade in the busyness of the day. I could easily lose sight of God and of who I am before him.