First there was Holy Week. Then there was Easter. We do these things in a Big Way in the Sockey household, not just with spiritual activity, but with family customs, so the mother of the house was not available for a lot of blogging. Then there was my daughter's wedding on Easter Friday. It was great, it was beautiful, but I'm still in recovery mode.
Also,on Sunday I became eligible for the younger end of senior citizen discounts, if you know what I mean. And besides being entitled to an extra 10% off at Goodwill, it also excuses me from moving a tad slower than formerly, right?
I'm trying to catch up on comments and questions on the last month's posts that need responses. If you don't get one today, please send any questions again, because that will mean I've somehow not seen it.
During the last few days surrounding the wedding I wasn't able to maintain my schedule of praying five liturgical hours a day. I don't fret when these situations come up--it's a mother's vocation to attend to family first, and I have a hard time quickly adapting my schedule to sudden, huge, temporary changes. But I do want to remain at least somewhat attached to the daily liturgical cycle especially now, during the Easter season. So I dip into the breviary as often as I can, and just read little bits of it as a devotional. If nothing else, it's worthwhile just to read the antiphons for the psalms and the gospel canticle, and the concluding prayer. They speak of all the things that spring from the Redemption: baptism, forgiveness of sin, the Eucharist, the Church, and above all, joy, glory, praise!
Then, if I have a chunk of six or seven whole minutes to myself, I'll also try to read the readings from the Office of Readings. These shortcuts leave liturgical prayer behind, but give me a rich, if brief devotional prayer.
Then, when life returns to normal and prayer gets back on schedule, I don't feel that I've totally missed out.
Do you ever do this sort of thing? What is your favorite "bare bones" method of staying attached to the Liturgy of the Hours during hectic times? Or do you have any other questions about the Liturgy of the Hours? I'm back in the saddle, so fire away!
Also,on Sunday I became eligible for the younger end of senior citizen discounts, if you know what I mean. And besides being entitled to an extra 10% off at Goodwill, it also excuses me from moving a tad slower than formerly, right?
I'm trying to catch up on comments and questions on the last month's posts that need responses. If you don't get one today, please send any questions again, because that will mean I've somehow not seen it.
During the last few days surrounding the wedding I wasn't able to maintain my schedule of praying five liturgical hours a day. I don't fret when these situations come up--it's a mother's vocation to attend to family first, and I have a hard time quickly adapting my schedule to sudden, huge, temporary changes. But I do want to remain at least somewhat attached to the daily liturgical cycle especially now, during the Easter season. So I dip into the breviary as often as I can, and just read little bits of it as a devotional. If nothing else, it's worthwhile just to read the antiphons for the psalms and the gospel canticle, and the concluding prayer. They speak of all the things that spring from the Redemption: baptism, forgiveness of sin, the Eucharist, the Church, and above all, joy, glory, praise!
Then, if I have a chunk of six or seven whole minutes to myself, I'll also try to read the readings from the Office of Readings. These shortcuts leave liturgical prayer behind, but give me a rich, if brief devotional prayer.
Then, when life returns to normal and prayer gets back on schedule, I don't feel that I've totally missed out.
Do you ever do this sort of thing? What is your favorite "bare bones" method of staying attached to the Liturgy of the Hours during hectic times? Or do you have any other questions about the Liturgy of the Hours? I'm back in the saddle, so fire away!
...is sort of a patron for those of us who not only pray the Liturgy of the Hours but find it to be the primary focus of our spirituality. She is a capuchin nun of the renaissance era who lived in northern Spain. When Blessed Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1982, he referred to her as the "mystic of the breviary", because she was so immersed in the psalms, scriptures, and readings from the Fathers. I'm looking hard for more of her writings on the Divine Office, but so far have only found this single quote and have no way of knowing how accurate a translation from the Basque/Catalan language it might be. But it does convey the ideal of praying liturgically with the universal Church until that prayer--the prayer of Jesus to His Father--becomes our own personal prayer as well: