Pray the Divine Office to Begin and End Each Day

This day is a gift from God. Every day is a gift. Let us dedicate today to the Lord. Let us take care to wrap each day with the Divine Office. Give special care to the edges of the day. Fold and mark the edges of each day, its mornings and evenings, with these prayers.

Every time we pray the Divine Office, our voices join with every voice rising up to our God. We find ourselves praying together with the saints. We pray with those who are, who have been, and who are to come. The rhythms of this prayer wrap and weave their way through our days. The major offices, Lauds and Vespers, define the edges and boundaries of our days.

As we rise, we find ourselves proclaiming that today we will walk with Jesus. We proclaim that we will walk with the Word of God, that is Jesus, into every unknown moment to come. Each morning, we let every holy verse flow from us, through us, and over us. We offer our voices and verses back to God. We invite our Lord to open our lips, so that we might proclaim God’s praise.

From the faith we have, we offer what we cannot know to the Lord. As we pray, we invite God to be with us before any of today’s moments come to pass. We set aside our first moments, breaths, and words to embody the reality that Jesus is the Lord of our lives. Beyond ideas and aspirations, we choose to dedicate ourselves daily to live, breathe, and move with Jesus, who gives us life, grace, and love. Let us place first the One who knew us, rejoiced over us, and longed for us before our first breath.

Every dawn that my lungs have breath, I choose to give it to the Lord. Every evening, I choose to praise God for what has passed. We find ourselves to be full of life and breath. It is gratitude and gratefulness that invite us back to the Divine Office. As we pray over the day, we give attention to those whose time has come. We pray for those who have died this day. This part of Vespers invites our hearts to remember and express gratitude for the breath we have.

Let us move ever closer to a life of unceasing prayer. For all the ways we can pray with and to our God, let us return again to the Divine Office. Let these prayers of the Church become one of the defining rhythms of our lives. Let our hearts recite the psalms and canticles as we move from office to office.

Allow the day to fade into the darkness of sleep with Compline. We will close the chapter that is today and give ourselves to prayerful expectation for the day to come. Lord, keep your hand on our lives and keep watch over us as we sleep. For we will either rise tomorrow to praise you, or grant us a perfect end as we find ourselves in your presence for eternity.

There is no requirement for the edition or version you use to pray the Divine Office. When we are together for community events, we will pray from the Urban Monastic Breviary.

• Reflect on a recent time when the words of the Divine Office resonated with a reality in your life. Consider sharing this to encourage others.
• Pray Compline each night this week before you go to sleep.
• Reflect on ways to structure and plan your days to make it easier to pray Lauds and Vespers.
• Mediate on how regularly praying the Divine Office sets the tone for your heart and prayers throughout the day.
• Celebrate each time you pray an office, that you embodied your desire to pray these prayers.
• Choose a psalm, canticle, or part of an office to memorize.
• Reflect on how regularly praying the Divine Office has changed your understanding of God.
• Spend time within the rich tradition of singing the Divine Office.
• Contemplate how the Divine Office has transformed your understanding of Jesus.
• Where are groups or people that live near you who could pray the Divine Office together?
• Ask God to show you how keeping the Offices has affected your experience of God’s presence.
• Grieve the ways life and distraction rob us from being present when we pray the Divine Office.
• How does the Divine Office interact with the other ways that you pray throughout your day?