Introduction: Theology about the Liturgy of the Hours
Paul VI wrote the Apostolic Constitution “Laudis canticum” (LC) on the occasion of the promulgation of the new Divine Office which was reformed by mandate of Vatican II. He dated it November 1, 1970. In it the Pope outlined the intention of the new Liturgy of the Hours (LH) of the Church. He desired that this should be become part of the prayer of the local Churches, as a necessary compliment to the eucharistic sacrifice, so that the centrality of this sacrament would extend to all the hours of the day. In this way the prayer of the Christian community encounters its reason for being, and its horizon should be fixed as follows: “It is truly desirable that the Liturgy of the Hours should profoundly penetrate, animate and orient all Christian prayer; that it should enter into the expression of Christian prayer and feed, with efficiency, the spiritual life of the people of God” (cf. LC). The pope gave this moment of praise a dimension which goes beyond the frontiers of the Church, turning it into the “prayer for the whole of the human family, the family of Christ” (cf. LC). Christ, the Head of the Church, is also the head of and the perfect model of humanity. All humanity has been touched by the redemption brought about by Christ on the cross. In this prayer the Church sets itself to continue this action of Christ, an action which is born from the depths of His living experience and of His Heart. “This prayer receives its unity from the Heart of Christ. Our Redeemer requires, in effect, that the life which began in the human body with His prayers and His sacrifice, should continue during the centuries in His mystical body, which is the Church, (Pius XII, Mediator Dei); consequently it follows that the prayer of the Church is 'the prayer which Christ, united with His body, offers to the Father' (SC 84). It is necessary then that while we celebrate the Office we recognize our own voices in Christ and, at the same time, we recognize His voice in ours” (St. Augustine, Commentary on the Psalms, 85:1)” (cf. LC).
The main objective of the LH is to extend the memory of Jesus Christ throughout the entire day. Paul VI presents it beautifully in these words: “That the story of salvation should be commemorated without interruption and that its continuation should be expressed effectively in the life of men” (cf. LC). But, from whence does the LH draw its nourishment? It cannot be other than a place from which God manifests Himself effectively through His Word: “That sweet and living knowledge of the Holy Scripture (SC 24) which is the living breath of the Liturgy of the Hours, so that the Holy Scripture may become the principal source of all Christian prayer” (cf. LC). And with clear and precise words the pope declared that the LH should directly effect every Christian in his totality, cooperating in a perfect integration of faith and life, of the individual and community: “It must reject any opposition between the prayer of the Church and personal prayer” (cf. LC). “The entire life of the faithful, during each of the hours of the day and of the night, constitutes, as it were, a 'liturgy', by means of which they offer themselves in the service of love to God and to mankind, adhering to the action of Christ who, with His life among us and the offering of Himself, has sanctified the life of all humanity” (cf. LC).
Little by little the people are becoming more conscious of the fact that the LH is prayer. Repetition by rote and the following of dictate have been superseded partially and must be banished since this kind of thinking is a stumbling block to the manner in which we approach this treasure which the Church has been giving us throughout time. The official prayer of the Church has gone from being an obligation and a formal imposition, to being defined as “a dialogue between God and man”.1 It is a dialogue based on the very thing the Three Divine Persons give to each other continually in an eternal act of Love. From where is it possible to trace the roots of the LH? It would not be rash to say that one of the roots, which was of great value, started developing the moment God established a covenant between Himself and His people. The dialogue between God and man was established in the covenant: God gives Himself to man, man gives himself to God. God joins with man and enters into a relationship of worship with him, one in which He gives and He receives. From this were to be born the Psalms, the very spine of the whole of the LH. Life and truth are expressed in them.2
The event of the Incarnation granted a new rhythm, a new tone, a new color to this God-man relationship. God made Himself man, He made Himself as close to man as possible. Christ introduced a canticle of praise into this world. We were incorporated into this internal trinitarian dialogue. In the prayer of Jesus while He was living with us His divine being and His human being, His 'being the son' of God and His brotherhood with men, all become palpable. This is a Christ who prays and who makes Himself a mentor of prayer by teaching us the Our Father. Jesus, with His way of being, with His life, taught us to pray: to pray with a pure, clear, sincere intention; to pray so that the mind and the heart unite with the mouth; to pray with trust in the Father. The most important thing is the up-to-datedness of the content of the prayer, not its form. One word sums it all up: Abba, Father! This is the relationship of the Son who is speaking with His Father, He pleads with Him, He loves Him, He thanks Him, He asks for advice: “Thus in the heart of Christ the praise of God finds expression in human words of adoration, propitiation and intercession; the head of renewed humanity and mediator of God prays to the Father in the name of and for the good of all mankind.” (OGLH 3).
The General Instruction uses a language which is very familiar to us Dehonians; it should touch us in the most sensitive part of the spirituality we have inherited from our elders. This is what it says in number 4 of the OGLH: “The Son of God himself 'who is one with his Father' (Cf. John 10:30), who entering the world said, 'Here I am! I am coming, O God, to obey your will' (Hebrews 10:9; Cf. John 6:38), deigned to show us how he prayed”. Jesus gave us a new form of prayer. He transmitted it to us and asked that we should continue to use it, to live it, to penetrate it ever more deeply. “He instructed us on the necessity of prayer, and told us to be humble, watchful, persevering and confident in the goodness of the Father, pure in intention and worthy of God” (OGLH 5).
And what is the connecting link with Christ? We, the community of believers, living stones of the temple, which is the Church, were invested through baptism with a true priesthood, one which enables us to give our worship to God: “The whole body of the Church shares in the priesthood of Christ. The baptized... are consecrated into the spiritual house and a holy priesthood. They become capable of taking part in the worship of the New Testament... thanks to... the gift and merits of Christ” (OGLH 7).
The intervention of the three persons of the Trinity is clear in prayer. The Holy Spirit has great importance here because it is responsible for giving quality to the prayer of the Church, it makes it possible and guarantees it: “'This Spirit comes to help us in our weakness' and 'expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words'... As the Spirit of the Son, he breathes into us the spirit of adopted sons, and makes us cry out, “Abba, Father!”'... There can be no Christian prayer without the action of the Holy Spirit. He unites the whole Church and leads us through the Son to the Father” (OGLH 8). For these reasons, OGLH can accomplish that which it achieves by giving “a special dignity” to the prayer of the entire Church, one which raises it above individual prayer, without claiming to nullify it; in this way it underlines the fact that our individual faith follows a common route. “Community prayer, however, has a special dignity since Christ himself said 'Where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them' (Mt 18:20)” (OGLH 9). All this is based on the certainty that “by praying the Liturgy of the Hours, Christ is present when his community comes together, when the word of God is proclaimed and 'when the Church prays and sings'“(OGLH 13).
There are four main elements of the LH which are favored by the dialogue established between God and man through Christ: the Psalms,3 the Hymns,4 the Word of God5 and the Prayers.6
These elements are aids, channels, instruments.7 We must have knowledge of these elements and we must desire that they become both the dialogue of personal prayer and the dialogue of Community-Church prayer. The set forms are not prayer in themselves, they are a method of prayer. Each time a person prays he brings his own intensity with him; in this way that which resounds on his lips also has an echo in his heart. The mystery which is celebrated in the liturgy, demands that we participate in such a way that we go beyond the simple and external ritual. We must supersede everything so that we may reach the point of contemplation that leads us to the awareness that we love God and God loves us and allows us to feel His warmth. The LH can and must help us to comprehend an experience of God. This experience must be of the God of Jesus, not of any other person nor of any other abstraction. We must profoundly perceive what we are celebrating; we must assimilate it and live it in silence, adoration and contemplation.
The LH is the school and the nourishment of our faith. It is essential to understand that even though the things we do are important, what God does through us is much more important. We do not pray alone. We are not the protagonists. It is Christ who, in our today, merges with us from the depths of His glorious existence. He prays to the Father: He praises Him, entreats Him, sings to Him. And we, moved by His Spirit, unite with Him and offer Him our voice and our song. This very day, here, He is with us. Christ is the soloist in all of our community prayer. It is necessary to let Him take over our prayer: Christ Jesus, the true Priest and Offerer of prayers: it is He who speaks, prays and sings in us and through us. This is a good way to look at spirituality. The LH is not a work which we perform alone, fundamentally; it is part of the fulfillment of Christ and His Spirit, and it is to this that we unite ourselves.
What other aspects can we indicate? One aspect is that the LH makes us understand and live our life as an experience of salvation, as an experience of a God who saves us in our here and now. Another aspect regards praise. To praise another person, let us say to praise God, means to recognize that person's merits and values. When we praise God it implies that we “know God”, that we have the capacity to admire Him and to appreciate the “mirabilia Dei” (the wonders of God in prior history and in the present); it implies the fundamental capacity of remembering that we are continually submerged in the love of God and in His saving action. It is to this, before all else, that our praise responds.
Liturgy of the Hours in Fr. Dehon
Thus we come to the core of our reflection. When speaking of prayer, Fr. Dehon said: “Prayer is our life, our soul must pray without ceasing... Our place of repose in prayer is the Heart of Jesus, His mysteries of love and immolation” (Sp. Dir., V, 1).
Man is a being which needs to be open: to himself, to all other men, to nature and to God. And if he is not open he cannot be himself. The words of Fr. Dehon can be influential in man's necessary opening to transcendency, to the Other, to God. The religious priest and brother of the Heart of Jesus is a corpse if he does not pray. The interior force, the soul, the joy of living, the reason for getting up every day, must be include the meeting with the Lord in prayer as a privileged, intimate, preparatory, animating, cleansing, strengthening moment in order to meet Him yet further in those other sacramental realities where God makes Himself present in a spirit of generosity; in a spirit of being merciful, challenging, commanding... The rhythm of our life must be like the rhythm of the Heart of Jesus: that mysterious presence, strength of submission and struggle, icon of the Word of love made flesh and then given in order to break down the wall of our lack of communication with He who made us.
The Liturgy of the Hours is a privileged place of prayer performed in communion with the Church; it is a school of life, a new, eternal and divine source of Dehonian spirituality. In this context let us make a selection of texts belonging to our religious family; ones which help us to discern, to glimpse, to invent or develop new paths within the Liturgy of the Hours, with the intention of making our own all the abundance of riches which this liturgy offers us. What we present here does not claim to be a brief tract of the Liturgy of the Hours in a Dehonian version, but it places lights along the path which helps us to join our own spirituality in harmony and fecundity. It may be a way of accomplishing our obligation to the Holy Spirit, of offering thanks and of trying to contribute to producing this gift, this charism which has been granted to the venerable servant of God, Leo John Dehon. And, at the same time, it may help us to love, know and receive the true illumination of our path: the Word of God.8
Before going on, why must the Dehonian religious pray? The religious have a special responsibility to be faithful to prayer. The moment in which the community celebrates the LH is one of the most expressive of the life they have consecrated to God. The first reason is its important character in the ecclesial community. A religious community is like a Church in miniature: fraternal, missionary, full of hope, freed and freeing, and, at the same time, a praying community. This is felt even more intensely and significantly when the community prays with the LH, even though during the day and within the spirituality of a religious there are other means of praying, both individually and in community. One cannot understand a community of people consecrated to God unless they are a community of prayer: a community which is open to God and His word, dedicated to charity, to the praise of God and to prayers of intercession for the whole world. Only in this way can they be that leaven within the Church and for the whole world. Leaven, in that they collaborate with their own life and strength to the building of the Church. The LH brings us benefits for our spirituality:
* It educates us in the primacy of God. The LH stops us from centering on ourselves and centers (and centers us) on God. It unites us to Christ.
* It helps us to live time as the history of salvation. It gives the whole day a tone of concelebration of time, of living our entire existence as the history of dialogue with God.
* The LH is the spiritual motor of the whole of our mission. It celebrates both the direction which is summarized in the word “Father”, vertical, and that which is portrayed with the word “brother”, horizontal.
* The LH is a source of gladness and spirituality. A daily experience of meeting with God and of community praise cannot fail to inspire joy and give breath to Christian life.9
The Spiritual Directory
The reparatory vocation can be seen in all of the Dehonian writings.10 It could not fail to be present in what he left us with his writing concerning the Divine Office. Fr. Dehon understood the recitation of the Divine Office (which at that time was reserved to the Priests of the Congregation) as compensation, as a vehicle of spiritual reparation. Reciting the Office was a form of reparation to that Heart which had loved the world so much. And, as he did in everything he proposed to his religious, he set this aim on the highest level: in the purity of love and of faith, in the perfection of its performance, and in the perspective of holiness and of meeting with the Lord. Let us read what he himself wrote in the Directory:
“But it should not be forgotten that everything that is to be offered and consecrated as compensation and reparation... all this, as far as possible, must be perfect and pure... At the hour appointed for this office of the guard of honor... every other employment must cease, and everything is to be done in this holy function with extreme solicitude. The entire time appointed for the service of the King should be used. One should not permit himself to be distracted by anything or anyone, neither of the house, nor from outside” (Sp. Dir., V, 3).
As we continue to read we see how Fr. Dehon stands out in this writing for his Christian humanity, for his common sense, for his clear view of who and how God is, of what the scale of values is which must rule the activities of the religious; setting man, the sacrament of Christ, at the summit of this scale, keeping in mind that “The glory of God is that by which man lives”.
“... this does not mean that an occasion could not arise in which true charity toward our neighbor or the glory of God would even demand an interruption or delay. In such a case one should act with the freedom of the children of God. God is not a cruel and unjust master, but a Father full of love and mercy” (Sp. Dir., V, 3).
However, with the same severity and clarity, he speaks of something which he knows very well: our condition and our real behavior in daily life.
“Every trifle... suffices to keep away, to dispense one's self from this holy duty, or it is performed with gestures or conduct that betrays culpable indifference, inattention, indolence, and a lack of true and lively faith. It is for these outrages committed against the Divine Heart of Jesus that the Priests of the Sacred Heart should make reparation. This intention should be renewed each time with a living faith, true zeal, and pure love” (Sp. Dir., V, 3).
He warns, he prepares, and above all he encourages us in the fight which each one of us must maintain in order to achieve the Benedictine ideal. “Let us consider then how we ought to behave in the presence of God and His angels and let us stand to sing the Psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices”.11 We are one whole, body and soul, soul and body; one without the other is nothing, and a prayer without heart, without attention to one's feelings, without conscience, without love, without participation, without good will is, perhaps, nothing.12 Living and true faith, true zeal and pure love are the instruments which the Founder gives us to formulate our prayer. He gives us the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, a sense of being in harmony with our spirituality, our charism and our good as religious and as a religious community which is open to meeting the Risen Lord, living and present in the Word, in the Eucharist, in history, in the poor, etc.
With regard to the manner of the celebration Fr. Dehon is the child of the Church of his time. Let us quote the indication which he makes concerning the common recitation of the Breviary. Let us see how the Founder sets out the Divine Office.
“The Divine Office should be said in choir, at least in part - Vespers and Compline - in the houses of the Institute. ... It is fitting that the recitation of the Breviary should be divided into three parts: the Little Hours in the morning, Vespers and Compline after dinner, Matins for the next day after 4:00 p.m.” (Sp. Dir., V, 3).
These instructions are far from those which Vatican II was later to provide. However, they have narrative value and are indicative of the fundamental Dehonian heritage and of the praxis of the Church.
Vatican II wanted to recover the “truth of the hours”, that is to say, they were to be recited in the morning-afternoon-night, each at its proper time; to achieve, in this way, the sanctification and the offering of all our time to God, in order to make His presence felt in our lives.
The Thesaurus Precum
Another gem which we find in this treasury is precisely the prayer included in the “Thesaurus Precum” to be said before starting the divine office. In this we find profound theological themes indicated. The escatological dimension accentuated in its ecclesiastical dimension shows us the union between the invisible Church and the visible Church. this forms the mystical body of Christ which, in conjunction with His head, Jesus Himself, offers its praise to God, together with its commitment and oblation. Escatology, ecclesiology, Eucharist, oblation, incarnation, trinitarian spirituality, and spirituality of the Heart of Jesus, as well as an awareness of the dialogue in the prayer in which both God and man speak and give themselves to each other, pulse throughout the words of this prayer:
“My God, I offer you this Divine Office, together with the adoration and the praises of the Angels and the Saints of Heaven, with that of all the priests of your Church and all the other consecrated souls. I present you, eternal Father, this praise which is sanctified in the Heart of Jesus and united to His most holy prayer, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. May every letter and every word of this prayer be an act of pure love, adoration, thanksgiving, satisfaction, trust and obedience to your most Holy will. However wretched I may be, may this prayer be for me a spiritual communion, an act of humility and of perfect abnegation; and for You Sacrosanct Trinity, a sacrifice of praise and honor. Amen” (Th. Pr., pp. 74-75).
The prayer (“oblation” says the Thesaurus), in the abbreviated form which was used before the recital of the Little Hours and Vespers, keeps the essence of the spirit of the Liturgy of the Hours (the prayer of the entire Church, mystical Body of Christ, united to its Head in praise of the Father) along with the essence of Dehonian charism and spirituality (love and reparation):
Eternal Father, through the Heart of your Son Jesus and in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I humbly offer you this Divine Office as a sign of love and in the spirit of reparation.
We can’t pass an other thing without read this text:
“Pray in the name of the Church, pray with Jesus for all that He loves, in this a beautiful mission!” (NHV V, 132-133).
“On December 21, 1867, Leo was ordained subdeacon. At the beginning of that year he bought the breviary 'in order to learn to pray well', as he said in a letter to his parents (January 7, 1867)”.13
This biographical note makes us see the heartfelt esteem which Fr. Dehon felt for this form of prayer: certainly canonical, legal and obligatory, but of unparalleled spiritual richness. Let us now move ahead and dip into new waters, coming from the same source, but renewed and adapted to new times: Our Rule of life.
The Liturgy of the Hours and our Rule of Life (1982)
The personal, concrete, untransferable, intimate experience of meeting with the risen Christ is the basis on which one can speak of Christian living or being. The process of adhesion to Christ follows this meeting. It is an adhesion which, if the encounter with the Lord has reached a sufficient abundance, will extend its effects in all circumstances and during the whole of life:
* in a journey of growing intimacy and union, in a living and filial relationship with God - singular and trinitarian;
* in a journey of serving love, of oblative love, of consecration to one's neighbor, of immolation, of total commitment to the life of one's brethren - sacrament of Christ - especially those in greatest need;
* within the community of the Church.
The Dehonian religious finds this journey explained in his Rule of Life, Constitution 5:
“This union with Christ, which sprang from the depths of his heart, had to be actualized in his whole life, above all in his apostolate. This apostolate was characterized by the greatest care for people, particularly the most deprived, and by concern about actively remedying the pastoral inadequacies of the Church of his time” (Cst. 5).
Constitution 28 takes us a step further. Whoever has felt the touch of God desires along with it that which Psalm 62 sings about on Sundays and feast days, desires the wound of love, which Saint John of the Cross and the Canticle of Canticles were to speak of. He begins the search for signs, for tokens, of the presence which seems less and less out of reach. Love disturbs, love activates, love searches for the fullness of commitment, of giving, of not being I but of being we, of not being I but of being Christ who lives in me (Cf. Gal 2:20).
“Eager for the Lord's intimacy, we search for the signs of His presence in the lives of people, where His saving love is active”(Cst. 28).
Following the spirit of Fr. Dehon, the symbolic and existential concentration of all this spirituality and form of life is to be found in the sacrificial commemoration of the Eucharist. As our Constitutions tell us:
“This union was expressed and centered in the eucharistic sacrifice, to such an extent that his whole life became 'one never-ending Mass' (Cf. Couronnes d'amour, III, p. 199)” (Cst. 5).
In LG 11 the Council reminds us that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life”. PO 5 underlines the centrality of this sacrament since it “contains all the spiritual good of the Church, that is to say, Christ Himself, our Easter”. The plan for Christianizing which Fr. Dehon proposed to his religious contains in itself all of the spiritual heritage which he left us, especially in the act of oblation and eucharistic adoration, along with their unquestionable connection with the celebration of the Eucharist.
The catechism of the Catholic Church, when speaking of the Eucharist, quotes this sentence of St. Ireneus: “Our way of thinking harmonizes with the Eucharist, and in its turn the Eucharist confirms our way of thinking” (CEC n. 1327). In this context we must consider our affection for, our study of, our deep penetration into the Liturgy of the Hours, above all in the recitation of the Psalms: Christ is present in them and He invites us to unite ourselves with Him in praise of His Father. He teaches us what the Father is, and feeds us on His Word for our journey of service, of commitment, of immolation; a journey which is full of dark nights, of exaltations, of blessings, and of insensitivities and feelings of being abandoned.
Cst. 31 illustrates this connection between Eucharist, prayer and service:
“This mission, for Father Dehon in a spirit of love and oblation, entailed eucharistic adoration, as an authentic service of the Church (Cf. NQ March 1, 1893), and ministry to the lowly and the humble, the workers and the poor (Cf. Souvenirs XV), to proclaim to them the unfathomable riches of Christ (Cf. Eph 3:8)...
“In all this his constant concern was that the human community, sanctified in the Holy Spirit, became an offering pleasing to God (Cf. Rom 15:16)” (Cst. 31).
The continual attitude (and activity) of nourishing ourselves on the Word, of praying with it, of knowing it, living it, interpreting it, listening to it, untangling it in order to weave it into our personal life, will make us capable of being prophetic proclaimers of this Word of Love. It will permit us to be prophets of love and, in this new “diminutive incarnation” (memorial and paradigm of commitment, love and oblation) of the Word, to continue, in the same Spirit of Christ, the work of reconciliation (and reparation of an order of reality disfigured by palpable sin) which God started from the moment in which He left a possibility of hope for a mankind which had been expelled from the paradise of communion with God. As our Cst. 7 says:
“Father Dehon expected his religious to be prophets of love and servants of reconciliation of people and the world in Christ (Cf. 23 Cor 5:18). Thus involved with Him to remedy sin and the lack of love in the Church and in the world, they shall render 'the worship of love and of reparation that His Heart desires' through their whole life, their prayers, works, sufferings and joys (Cf. NQ XXV, 5)” (Cst. 7).
And Cst. 25, with all its concentration of escatological hope says:
“Our love, thus animating all what we are, what we do and suffer in serving the Gospel, heals humanity through our participation in the work of reconciliation, gathers humanity together in the Body of Christ, and consecrates it for the glory and joy of God” (Cst. 25).
It has been said that in the Book of Psalms one can find all the experience of faith and hope of the People of Israel. What the other books of the Old Testament tell us the book of Psalms presents as prayer. Christ used the Psalms to pray. And the content of His prayer to the Father was the Kingdom, His mission, His hope, His feelings, His objective. The Church interpreted the content of the proclamation: from the Kingdom which Christ preached one passes to preach for the preacher of the Kingdom, that is, Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus Christ is the Kingdom. The motto of our Congregation “Adveniat Regnum tuum” is re-dimensioned in this perspective and helps us to contemplate, in our periods of prayer, the need to reach out to our being “other Christs”, proclaimers and “precursors” of the Kingdom. Let us see Constitutions 11 and 17:
“Christ prayed for the coming of the Kingdom, which is already active in His presence among us” (Cst. 11).
“Faithful to hearing the Word and sharing the Bread, we are invited to discover more and more the person of Christ and the mystery of His Heart, and to proclaim His love which surpasses all understanding” (Cst. 17).
The challenge expressed by St. Augustine in his “Alter Christus” embraces at least two fundamental dimensions in the life of the religious.
On the one hand there is the individual dimension: that which we see expressed clearly in Constitution 42, when it deals with the vow of consecrated celibacy:
“When faithfully kept, often at the price of demanding effort (Cf. Matt 5:29), particularly through union with Christ in the sacraments, and through personal asceticism, this commitment frees our heart; it opens us to the inspiration of the Spirit and to the encounter of our neighbor in fraternal charity” (Cst. 42).
The other dimension is that of the community. Christ is the supporting column of the life in common, the supporting column of the human and spiritual life of each and every religious. And if Christ is the supporting column, the firm Rock on which the edifice is raised, if He is the Architect, the final result cannot be other than the very witness of Christ resurrected and glorified. The community united in prayer, in praise, at specific hours of the day, finds here the privileged place for the attainment of its objective: the proclamation of the Lord. This is what Constitution 67 says:
“In this, too, the community strives to witness to Christ, in whom it is brought together. At the same time it can lend valuable assistance toward the full development of each of its members” (Cst. 67).
Constitution 79 expresses this more positively, starting from the reality and experience of years of community life and in the following of Christ:
“Without the spirit of prayer, personal prayer breaks down; without community prayer, the community of faith weakens” (Cst. 79).
And, what instruments does the Rule of Life propose to us in order to live and go deeper into this spirit of personal and community prayer?
“Each community shall take care to decide on the times and forms of its common prayer, which expresses the spirit of our religious life and enables us to participate in the prayer of the Church, particularly through the liturgy of Lauds and of Vespers” (Cst. 79).
The Directory of the Spanish Province also gives us indications to accomplish what the Rule inspires in us:
“Lauds are directed to sanctifying the morning, and in them we unite in the act of oblation particular to our Institute - which is also recited daily - so that we may commit ourselves with all our abilities to the accomplishment of the will of God. In the evening the community unites for Vespers or Compline” (DP 2).
We must not forget that prayer is not only an intellectual-sentimental recreation, a way of feeling good or righteous; it is, as we said at the beginning, a vital dialogue which opens us to the mission of an unequivocal and unambiguous way of living, perceived and guaranteed by the authority of the Church.
“We recognize that the faithfulness of each member and of our communities, and the fruitfulness of our apostolate, depend upon our devotion to prayer” (Cst. 76).
“By welcoming the Spirit who prays in us and comes to help us in our weakness (Cf. Rom 8:26 ff) we want to praise and adore in His Son the Father, who each day accomplishes His work of salvation among us, and entrusts to us the ministry of reconciliation (Cf. 2 Cor 5:18)... Helping us to progress in 'knowledge' of Jesus, prayer strengthens the bond of our common life, and continually opens it up to its mission” (Cst. 78).
And, more clearly:
“Through our celebration, united with the whole Church in the 'memorial' of and presence to its Lord, we welcome Him who brings us to live together, who consecrates us to God, and unceasingly throws us back into the streets of the world in the service of the Gospel” (Cst. 82).
Conclusion
God spoke and speaks through His Word. God speaks and calls us from the vicissitudes of the world and of our daily occupations. God is faithful, God is truth, God is love, God is commitment, God chooses, guides and sends out. As we shall see continually in the last Constitution which we are going to quote, our fidelity, our truth, our love, our option, our commitment, depend in great part on the lucidity with which we are attentive to our spiritual advancement, to our union in love with Our Lord. Welcoming, profiting from, living from the heart of the Psalms, the prayer of the Church, the place where God has wished to leave us all the means for our sanctification and our salvation, will be a privileged way of being faithful to our vocation, to our spirituality, to our mission, to our Founder and to Our God and Lord.
“Assured of God's unfailing faithfulness, rooted in the love of Christ, we know that the choice of religious life, to stay vital, requires faithful encounter with the Lord in prayer, continuing conversion to the Gospel, availability of heart and attitude to welcome This Day of God” (Cst. 144).
NOTES
1. Ordo Generalis Liturgiae Horarum (General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours) OGLH 33.
2. Cf. FLORES, J.J. Orar en comunidad: la Liturgia de las Horas (Praying in Community: the Liturgy of the Hours), in Phase 197 (1993), pp. 397-404.
3. These are the most important of elements: they manifest life itself, with all its vitality and all its humanity. The Psalms link our current situation with the history of the chosen people and enable its conversion into a story of individual and community salvation. There is no human situation which is not reflected in the Psalms: protest, supplication, praise, life, action, grief, joy... The psalmist expresses a mankind of all epochs. It is essential, right from the start, to let oneself be infused with the specific sentiments of each of the Psalms, to penetrate them and to take them into one's inner being.
4. Their function is to start the liturgical celebration of the Hours and to create the right environment for dialogue. Nature, people, and times are all part of the scenario of the God/man dialogue.
5. The Word is always a vehicle of dialogue with God. It asks to be listened to, to be watched over, to be deeply considered. In this way it extends its proclamation to the whole assembly and tightens the links between personal prayer and community prayer.
6. From dialogue we move to supplication. Prayer inserts God's plan of salvation into the life of each one of us, in that it asks God to be present and operative. Thus, in the celebration, the mystery acquires reality.
7. Cf. ALTISENT A. Orar con paz, con amor, con verdad (Praying With Peach, Love and Truth) in La alabanza de las Horas: Espiritualidad y pastoral (The Praise of the Hours, Spirituality and Ministry), Edited by ALDAZABAL, J., (CPL, Barcelona, 1996) pp. 157-161. Also ALDAZABAL, J., Espiritualidad (Spirituality) Ibid. pp 202-210. Also ABAD IBAÑEZ, J.A. - GARRIDO BOÑANO, M. Iniciación a la liturgia de la Iglesia (Initiation to the Liturgy of the Church), (Palabra, Madrid 1997) pp. 895-910.
8. The writings of Fr. Dehon and the text of our Rule of Life don’t include a systematic and specific doctrine about the “Liturgy of the Hours”. We like to propose a new reading of this part of the Liturgy in the light of our spirituality.
9. Cf. ALDAZABAL, J., Los religiosos (The Religious), in Op. cit., Edited by ALDAZABAL, J., pp. 15-19, and Los ministros ordenados (Ordained Ministers) in Op. Cit., pp. 15-19.
10. We can read this documents: Conference “Nazareth - La Prière - Le Bréviaire” (AD inv. 39,47, B 6/647); Conference Le Saint Office (AD inv. 40.33, B 6/7.33); the psalmic prayers title Pour aider à bien dire le bréviaire (1919); Le Bréviaire in NHV, V, 132-133; Dans les psaumes in “Études sur le Sacré-Coeur” (Osp V, 433-436); L’année avec le Sacré-Coeur (1909), where we find 122 citations of Psalms; Circular Letter about the Offices of the Priests of Sacred Heart (25 December 1891).
11. The Rule of Saint Benedict, chap. XIX, “The Discipline of Psalmody”.
12. In this sense read CAF I, 72.
13. MANZONI, G., León Dehon y su mensaje (Leo Dehon and His Message), El Reino, Torrejón de Ardoz, 1995, p. 149.