Living The Hours

Prayer and Life

Living the Hours invokes a life lived in terms of ‘hours’. The ‘hours’ are the set times in the monastic day that mark moments of prayer—what is known as the ‘daily office’.

For a Christian in everyday life, there is a ‘daily office’ for their use in some church prayer-books; marking moments at the opening and closing of the normal working day; community liturgies, often adding to the opening and closing of the day with further prayer markers like midday and night prayers; and a growing number who adapt both into a set of hours that support a particular circumstance and household ethos.

The monastic office fits into a conception of the entire day in terms of distinct periods of activity of prayer, work and reflection; a monk’s or nun’s life is lived in a pattern defined by the pattern of worship of the community in which he or she lives. For a monk or nun, the day and the year are liturgical cycles; every day and year a re-enactment of events of the life of Christ, against the backdrop of the regular cycle of the seasons. The regular balance of work and prayer throughout the day provides a strict limit on manual work (those monks whose work cannot fit this pattern are indeed sometimes given respite from the office). Prayer and reflection, filling other hours of the day, is also seen as ‘work’. The balance or work, prayer and reflection in everyday living has been formed by a continuously lived monastic life by Christian communities across seventeen centuries: by Buddhist, Hindu and other religious traditions for much longer.

It goes without saying that for many Christians in everyday life, trying to live according to the cycle of the monastic liturgy would be a challenge. Yet the structures of the monastic life; of formation, profession, discipleship, rule, and a structured prayer-life, recur in many expressions and experiments of Christian living outside of what it means to be a monk or nun.