Liturgy of the Hours

From Chapter Nine “Jewish Nazirites, Catholic Monastics” in The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity

The early Christian monks and nuns based their daily cycle of prayer on a Jewish custom that they found in the Hebrew Scriptures:

• Daniel got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God (Dan 6:10).
• Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he will hear my voice (Ps 55:17).
• Seven times a day I praise thee for thy righteous ordinances (Ps 119:164).

The first two passages above describe a three-fold pattern of daily prayer. The third passage indicates a sevenfold cycle of daily prayer. The custom of punctuating the day with prayer likely derived from the Jewish awareness that the priests in Jerusalem offered a morning and an evening sacrifice. Pious Jews would join their prayers to these two daily offerings, whether or not they were present in Jerusalem (1 Chr 16:40, 2 Chr 2:4). Since the early Church was mostly Jewish, it also embraced this pattern of daily prayer. It seems that dedicated Jews followed the most rigorous pattern of prayer—the sevenfold round of daily prayer described in Psalm 119:163: “Seven times a day I praise thee.” This sevenfold pattern was built on three-hour intervals:

1. first hour (6:00 am)
2. third hour (9:00 am—linked to the morning sacrifice in Jerusalem)
3. sixth hour (12:00 pm)
4. ninth hour (3:00 pm)
5. twelfth hour (6:00 pm or sunset—linked to the evening sacrifice in Jerusalem)
6. fifteenth hour (9:00 pm)
7. midnight (12:00 am)

We learn from the New Testament that the twelve apostles also observed this sevenfold Jewish pattern of prayer:
Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour (Acts 3:1).
Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour (Acts 10:9).

And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was keeping the ninth hour of prayer in my house (Acts 10:30).
This meticulous pattern of prayer was not always kept by the lay faithful of the Church, but it was kept alive within monastic communities. Saint Benedict, the father of Western monasticism, cited the Old Covenant model of sevenfold prayer as the basis for the liturgical life of his monks:

“Seven times in the day,” says the Prophet, “I have rendered praise to thee” (Ps. 119:164). Now that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us if we perform the Offices of our service at the time of the Matins, of Prime, of Terce, of Sext, of None, of Vespers and of Compline, since it was of these day Hours that he said, “Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to thee.”

The Benedictine model endorsed the Jewish tradition of prayer and set the pattern for the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours that every Catholic priest and monastic recites daily. Saint Benedict retained the Jewish intervals of prayer, but the times of prayer received Latin names corresponding to the pertinent hour of the day with an eighth time of prayer added in the early morning:

1. Lauds & Prime – sunrise (6:00 am)
2. Terce – third hour (9:00 am)
3. Sext – sixth hour (12:00 pm)
4. None – ninth hour (3:00 pm)
5. Vespers – twelfth hour (6:00 pm)
6. Compline – fifteenth hour (9:00 pm)
7. Matins – midnight (12:00 am)

Since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, many lay Catholics have begun to observe the ancient Jewish custom of daily prayer, if not seven times a day, at least a few times a day by reciting the prayers arranged on the sevenfold pattern in the Liturgy of the Hours. These Catholics have the Jewish tradition to thank for our rich cycle of daily prayer.

Learn more about the book: The Crucified Rabbi by Taylor Marshall