Prayer during the Day

Prayer during the Day consists of:

• Opening Versicles;
• a Hymn;
• three Psalms, preceded by Antiphons, and followed by a doxology and Anitphon;
• a short scripture reading;
• a responsory; and
• Concluding prayer and Closing Versciles (as per Office of Readings above).

The material is usually drawn from the Psalter.

A problem arises because the Office of Prayer during the Day represents three traditional Offices (i.e. terce, sext, and none), and can still provide the material for all three. If you only wish to pray one Hour during the day, then it is simply a matter of following the directions for the reading and prayer according to whether it is AM, noon, or PM.

However, if you wish to pray the three Hours of terce, sext and none, it is slightly more complicated. Your Office book will hopefully have a section entitled "Complementary Psalmody". To explain this in a nutshell, one Hour will take its Psalmody from the regular 4-week Psalmody, whereas the other two will come from the complementary Psalmody. Personally, I do not pray more than one Office during the day, so I cannot really advise or comment further; even for the clergy, only one is mandated⁽¹⁾.

A note on conjoining Offices

The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours does provide for the joining together of the various Offices with each other or Mass. Some combinations are prohibited (e.g. Office of Readings with Mass, except for on Christmas Eve), whereas others are explicitly described.

I personally do not like conjoining Offices because it means I have not been faithful to the tradition of veritas temporis (correspondence of the Hour to the time of the day⁽²⁾). However, from a practical point of view, I recognise that -- particularly for the laity -- this is necessarily in the hectic lives we live, if one does want to pray particular Hours of the Office, e.g.:-

• unless I "anticipate" the Office of Readings, by praying it the night before (after Evening Prayer, but before Night Prayer), I am forced to pray it and Morning Prayer together; and
• often, I have not had a chance to pray Prayer during the Day actually during my working day, so I often join it with Evening Prayer.

Practically, this generally means omitting the final prayers of the first hour, and omitting the opening versicles and hymn of the next. However, for a full explanation, please do check GILOH §§ 93-99. Methods are also given for adding further scriptural readings to Evening Prayer I to form, for example, a vigil prior to a Solemnity/major Feast.

⁽¹⁾ c.f. GILOH §77, CDW Dubia no 2330/00/L
⁽²⁾ c.f. GILOH §7