The Poor Man's IPad or Android

I've been hearing from friends and readers about the joys of praying the Divine Office with a mobile device. But I wasn't counting on experiencing this anytime soon. My cell phone is a tracfone, and I can't justify getting a "real" cell phone with a monthly plan, web access, etc. I really don't need it. As for an IPad or one of its cheaper Android cousins--I figured  I should make do with the netbook computer I bought two years ago.

Then I researched for an article on  the future of book publishing, speaking to many people in the business who spoke with a mixture of excitement and terror over the ebook revolution. By the time I'd filed the piece with my editor, I was consumed with curiosity and anxious to have a taste of the mobile/digital/e-reading culture. And Mother's Day was fast approaching.

Enter my new Kindle, at the bargain basement price of $114.  I was thrilled to learn that not only does a Kindle put  Jane Austen, GKChesterton, the Bible and the Summa in my purse, but it also has web browsing capability.   So the convenience of a  mobile breviary is mine as well.

I can use DivineOffice.org, which is nice,



Or ibreviary.com, which seems even beter formatted to the Kindle screen, and more readily converted to larger print size than DivineOffice.org

I had no idea Kindle could be so versatile. I know it hasn't got all the bells, whistles, and fancy apps of the other devices, but for a middle aged lady who carries a tracfone, this is the essence of cool.  And now I have no excuse for missing daytime prayer because I'm out doing errands.

Do, Re, Meme!

I've been tagged in a Meme, something which has not happened before, by the ever entergetic and vivacious Celeste Behe of A Perpetual Jubilee  A meme is a sort of blogging chain letter. Celeste asks me to list 3 favorite scripture verses, along, I gather, with short explanations of why I like them. It will be hard to limit myself to only 3. To avoid an agonizing  process of elimination to come up with the top 3--sort of an American Idol for Bible verses--I think I'll just do my favorite 3 from this week's Divine Office. That will narrow down the field, and I won't have to think so hard. Here goes:

1. Psalm 119 vs14 "I rejoice to do your will as though all riches were mine." This beautiful verse expresses a total and joyous embrace of whatever God sends us. I'm certainly not there yet, and every time I see this verse (in Daytime prayer of the psalter, week 1) I am reminded of an ideal to which we are all called.

2.Psalm 63: vs 2 "O God, You are my God, for You I long; for you my soul is thirsting."  Again, I can only wish to achieve a state where I am constantly longing for God and ever doing my part to make that union a reality. But when I do experience that sense of incompleteness and exile, this is the verse, in fact, 63 is the psalm, that springs to my mind.I look forward to praying this psalm in the liturgy every time Sunday morning, week I rolls around.

3.Revelation 21: 5  'Behold, I make all things new.'  A perfect thought for this Easter season. Full of hope and, well, newness, freshness, and a joyous relief that all the bad things that have ever happened to me, to those I love, to the whole world, will one day pass away.  I think that Mel Gibson will earn some time off from purgatory not only for making The Passion of the Christ, but in particular for putting these words on the lips of Jesus when he meets his mother on the via dolorosa. That startling contrast of what seems like profound defeat paired with words of renewal and victory--there's so much material for meditation in just that one scene. This verse  was in the Office of Readings earlier this week, since the Easter season gives us selections from Revelation almost every day.


Okay, that part of the meme is done. Next, I have to tag 3 more people, who have to:
1. do the meme
2. link to my blog when they explain to their readers what's going on, and
3. tag 3 other bloggers with a link to your blog.

Here's my 3 people:
Susie Lloyd of Susie Lloyd Unedited
Melanie Betinelli of Wine Dark Sea
John Janaro of Never Give Up

And if anyone else want to do this, either in comments or on their own blog, feel free. I don't think this meme business is some sort of exclusive club. 

Handy How-To Guide for Breviary

All my past How-To  posts are now together on the Getting Started page. Just click the tab above. If you have friends who are interested in starting to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, let them know this page is here.

If the information in Getting Started seems incomplete to you, let me know what is missing, and I'll put it there.

At home or in exile?

Ten days without a post! I think that's a first since this blog started. And that is very much  related to today's topic.

It's the nicest part of spring around here, and whenever the sun comes out between rainstorms, so do I. Everthing here in the country looks, sounds, and even smells beautiful. The scents in particular keep me from indoor duties. I'd like to abandon my normal routine for a day or two, sit under a tree and live the life of Ferdinand the bull, who "liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers."

So today during  Morning Prayer I was pulled up short by the canticle from the book of Tobit. In the land of my exile I will praise Him, said the good, steadfast old Tobit. I recalled how consoling this line always makes  me feel when I am preoccupied with any kind of suffering or trouble. Knowing that this world of woe is not our true home, but only a training ground, makes one willing to go on, with praise for the Father who leads us.

But this week at least, the world doesn't seem to be the land of my exile at all. I feel right at home amidst all this natural beauty.  Then in contrast, I realized how  the poor people in Missouri and other tornado-devastated areas, now homeless and without possessions, are feeling very much like refugees, exiled from a world that was once comfortable and secure. Will any of them be able to hang on to their faith, and be able to praise him in the new and strange land of exile they inhabit?   Pray that they will.

But God wasn't through with me on this topic. The reading from daytime prayer (midafternoon) was Colossions 3:1, set your heart on what  pertains to higher realms where Christ is seated at God's right hand.  Hmm...Am I enjoying spring too much, and feeling too at home in this world? I think next time I'm out strolling (probably about an hour from now), I'll make a point of reminding myself that the exquisite pleasures of high spring are only the faintest hints of heavenly bliss. Those scents and birdsongs are the briefest of messages from another world.  Free samples that should make me want to do whatever it takes to purchase them in unending quantity.

Ten days without a post! I think that's a first since this blog started. And that is very much  related to today's topic.

It's the nicest part of spring around here, and whenever the sun comes out between rainstorms, so do I. Everthing here in the country looks, sounds, and even smells beautiful. The scents in particular keep me from indoor duties. I'd like to abandon my normal routine for a day or two, sit under a tree and live the life of Ferdinand the bull, who "liked to sit just quietly and smell the flowers."

So today during  Morning Prayer I was pulled up short by the canticle from the book of Tobit. In the land of my exile I will praise Him, said the good, steadfast old Tobit. I recalled how consoling this line always makes  me feel when I am reoccupied with any kind of suffering or trouble. Knowing that this world of woe is not our true home, but only a training ground, makes one willing to go on, with praise for the Father who leads us.

But this week at least, the world doesn't seem to be the land of my exile at all. I feel right at home amidst all this natural beauty.  Then in contrast, I though how very much the poor people in Missouri and other tornado-devastated areas, now homeless and without possessions, are feeling very much like refugees, exiled from a world that was once comfortable and secure. Will any of them be able to hang on to their faith, and be able to praise him in the new and strange land of exile they inhabit?   Pray that they will.

But God wasn't through with me on this topic. The reading from daytime prayer (midafternoon) was Colossions 3:1, set your heart on what  pertains to higher realms where Christ is seated at God's right hand.  Hmm...Am I enjoying spring too much, and feeling too at home in this world? I think next time I'm out strolling (probably about an hour from now), I'll make a point of reminding myself that the exquisite pleasures of high spring are only the faintest hints of heavenly bliss. Those scents and birdsongs are the briefest of messages from another world.  Free samples that should make me want to do whatever it takes to purchase them in unending quantity.

Praying two prayers at the same time

This morning, I began my usual Morning prayer from the Litugy of the Hours, making the sign of the cross while saying the opening verse: "O God Come to my assistance/Lord, make haste to help me.”

Later on into the prayer, I again made the sign of the cross while praying “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, he has come to his people and set them free...” in the canticle of Zechariah. I did this once more at the conclusion, while saying, “May the Lord bless us, protect us from every evil, and bring us to everlasting life.”

It struck me—what an interesting thing it is to make the sign of the cross while saying other words than the usual invocation of the Trinity. I was expressing two different prayer-thoughts at once, by using two different language formats: spoken English and sacred sign language. Put another way, my mind prayed one thing (“God come to my assistance”) while my body prayed another (invoking the blessed Trinity.)

Come to think of it, there are many ways we pray with our bodies, whether or not our minds and lips are praying at the same time. The simple act of kneeling down is itself a prayer—an act of humility before God. Likewise genuflecting, kissing a crucifix or other holy object, taking holy water, folding or raising one's hands in prayer. All these gestures, and many others, are themselves acts of prayer, even before a single word crosses our lips or even our minds.

A protestant teacher of mine once expressed befuddlement with her experience attending mass: “all the up-rising, down-sitting, kneel here, bow there—I just couldn't keep up with it. It was like an exercise class.” Wish I could go back in time to high school, and explain to her, “Yes, that's the whole idea. We pray with our bodies, minds, and souls."

It's just another aspect of the Church being so very Sacramental. Things--including our arms, hands, legs--are vehicles through which God receives our praise and sends His grace.

Be a Rock of Refuge for Me

The psalms refer to God as a Rock a lot. My Google search of "rock, psalm" turned up a list of 24 different  uses of this image. The Divine Office gives us this image at least daily, since the Invitatory Psalm (95) tells us to "shout with joy to the rock who saves us." 

Let's look at what these images are telling us. 

When the psalmist describes God as a rock,  he must have a really big rock in mind. He usually couples the word "rock" with "fortress" , "stronghold", or "refuge".  A high rocky fortress would be nearly impregnable to enemies.  So God's protection gives us both a place of safety where we can hide ourselves when weary, and a vantage point from which we may confidently attack the enemy.

That much is obvious.

Then there's the other Hebrew image of God as Rock-the rock that gave them water in the dessert. Psalms 78, 105, and 114 all reference this miracle. And St. Paul references the tradition, not explicitly stated in Exodus, that the miraculous, water-giving rock followed the chosen people in the dessert.  He goes a step further, by saying "the rock who followed them was Christ." (1st Corinthians 10:4)

So our own meditations when reading about water from the rock will include Christ as the source of living water (salvation, grace, baptism).

Then there's Psalm 81, where the voice of God longs to feed his people with finest wheat and "honey from the rock".  Convert from Judaism Roy Schoemann says that this verse describes God's wish to give his people the fullness of grace that comes with accepting Christ and His Church. And, obviously, it is an image of the Eucharist.

So much to think about when your daily prayer turns up a psalm that mentions a Rock. And here's one more, just to add a dash of typology to tickle your Catholic sensibilities: St. Peter, the rock on which Jesus built His church. 

Stuff like this can make it hard to finish Morning or Evening Prayer. You just want to stay with one insight and leave the rest for another time. Which is okay, actually. If the Holy Spirit is giving you a gift, just take the time to play with it. We laity are not obliged to finish each day's morning of evening prayer. If we allow a crying baby or a phone call to prevent us from finishing, why not allow the prayer itself to do the same thing?

What has a Cute Chipmunk got to do with the Divine Office?

Not much, unless you count the verse from the Canticle of Daniel (Morning Prayer of Sunday Weeks I and III) where it says, All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord.  But it will give you a hint of what  I've been doing  the past week: walking in the woods and fields taking pictures of the glories of springtime.   Hence, not a lot of blogging. But I will be decorating future posts with the results of these spring rambles.

Today's Office of Readings has a sermon by St. Augustine that is not about small animals, but rather on the theme of Sing a New Song to the Lord. St. Augustine must have been a great music enthusiast.  I look forward to hearing his voice in heaven. He is the originator of the phrase he who sings prays twice, a phrase that most Catholics, who do not like singing at mass, are tired of having thrown at them.

Me, I totally get Augustine. I love singing in Church, provoking one of two responses: children  turn around and stare at me, and nice old ladies come up to me after mass and say "you have a lovely voice." In either case, it's rather sad, because if even half of the congregation had been singing, no one would have especially noticed me. We would have all been blending together. I do understand that some of the contemporary hymns are either too difficult or too stupid to sing. But if only  people would sing the old ones, which are easy and doctrinal. Oh well.

Luckily, Augustine's sermon is about more than literal singing. So there is hope  for the rest of you. He says sing with your voices, your hearts, your lips and your lives. See? Our lives should the song. And not in the movie musical sense, thank heaven. Augustine continues, ...you ask me how to sing his praises...you wish to know what praises to sing. The answer is His praise is in the assembly of the saints; it is in the singers themselves...live good lives, and you yourselves will be his praise.

So fear not, all ye Catholics who can't sing. You don't  have to sing (literally) in order to sing (spiritually)  a new song to the Lord. Your daily holiness is a heavenly melody.

But couldn't you just once try belting out "Alleluia the Strife of O'er" or "Holy God We praise Thy Name"?  You might get to like it.